Closer To Heaven
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Members also distributed food, toiletries and magazines to residents in the nation’s capital.
Read more at the source: In Jamaica, Adventists and police officers march for peace in violence-ridden communities
Article posted on en.intercer.net from Adventist.org News Feed.
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I remember the first time I saw her. It was 49 years ago, and we were in the college cafeteria just after semester break. She was a new face on campus and being not “socially attached” to anyone at the time, I immediately began to plot how best to impress her and get a date.
I determined this venture was worth spending some of my hard-earned cash on; so, throwing caution to the wind, I purchased two tickets to a Victor Borge concert at Constitution Hall. Since the concert was sold out, I was offered provisional seats on the stage itself just inches from the maestro. The cost was exorbitant, but this only served to convince me that this would surely make the hoped-for-impression.
It must have done the trick. That young lady and I are still dating each other. We’ve also been married for 47 years.
Dating is exhilarating. Everyday is new and exciting; feet walk on clouds, hearts skip beats, life looks beautiful through those rose-tinted glasses. Is that normal? Absolutely! Is it wrong? I hope not. Dating is, in fact, part of our Great Physician’s plan. He fully intended that His children grow up, mature, and seek companionship. “It is not good that the man should be alone,” He told Adam in Genesis 2:18, KJV.
We’re attracted to other people by many things. It could be as whimsical as a smile, or as basic as a feeling of security. But the final selection process—the process that ends with a nervous “I do” uttered before witnesses—must be carried out using issues far deeper than looks and feelings.
Dating is a time for discovering which is the right person for you. It’s a time to get to know what makes us tick; what we like and don’t like; how we spend money; what we believe in; what our habits are.
Dating is a grand experiment, and that may be as far as some couples want to go. But the man and woman who desire to deepen their relationship must make a commitment. They become more and more exclusive until, finally, they pledge to love, honor, and cherish “until death do us part.”
There is Someone who loves you very much. This person has had His eye on you ever since you were born, and He wants to be first in your life. I wonder if we are as fair with Him as we are with one another. In short, are you committed to God, or are you just “dating” Him?
Are you window shopping—looking here and there for someone who will bring you the most benefits? If God promised to make you rich, beautiful, or famous, would you attend church more often?
Is God your blind date—the stranger you hardly know yet who you expect to meet all your specifications? Is He on your heart’s short list only when you can’t find anyone else?
Are you trying to double-date with God? Instead of making Him first in your life, do you expect Him to share time with your career or many social engagements?
Maybe you think you can “go Dutch” with your Creator—He takes care of His obligations, you take care of yours. That way, you won’t be “beholding” to Him for anything.
Perhaps you consider yourself “going steady” with God, but not willing to move up to the next level—being totally committed to Him “until death do us part.”
The ultimate cad in the dating scene is the two-timer—one who pretends to be committed to you while maintaining developing friendships on the side. Have you ever said Yes to God, then returned to your old way of life?
The Bible says that our Great Physician is a “jealous” God (Exodus 34:14). That means He has chosen you, and He doesn’t want anything or anybody to take you away. Like any serious suitor, He longs to spend time with you because He has invested everything He owns in your relationship. He has paid every bill, including your ticket to heaven. No, He’s not trying to impress you or make Himself look good. He’s simply saying, “I have loved you with an everlasting love;I have drawn you with loving-kindness (Jeremiah 31:3).
How could anyone resist a love like that?
Read more at the source: Window Shopping
Article excerpt posted on en.intercer.net from Spiritual applications.
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I have a rather unromantic confession to make: The best day of my life was not my wedding day. In fact, it has nothing directly to do with my wife or marriage. It’s not a magic moment, a party, or any celebratory moment either. The best thing that ever happened to me was losing it all on a normal day five years ago.
You see, the best day of my life was the day that I lost a job. It was a well-paying, high-profile job. It meant that I was somebody. It was the center of my identity, the source of my pride and the pedestal upon which I proudly stood. And on that wonderful day, I lost it all. Over the course of the next year, working random jobs of mowing grass and at a youth detention center, I continued the losing process: financial standing, pride, and even the will to live at one point.
One year to the day of losing that job, I was going nowhere but in debt, was completely depressed and felt there was no hope for me. The proverbial “rock bottom” was my forwarding address and I was there for about a month of absolute hell on earth. Relationships had gone sour. I was alone and lonely. I felt no love, no hope and no destiny for someone who had made a living telling people about the meaning of life and their eternal purpose in God. Now that same God was a distant entity unconcerned with my present disaster of a life.
But I was not alone in feeling alone. Apparently, it’s a common place for those God has chosen to live, at least for awhile. At the famous last supper with Jesus and his disciples, Peter speaks up wanting to be the greatest in the kingdom and so willing to declare his devotion to his Rabbi. And Jesus responds with a stunning line: “Satan has asked to sift you like wheat” and that Peter would end up denying Jesus that very night.
And it happened, just as Jesus said. Peter denied he even knew his leader and friend and he ended up feeling shame. Such shame that he wept, lamenting over what had happened. One minute, things were great and he was willing to do anything and the next, he was broken over his own spiritual condition.
But I wonder if Peter would say the same. I wonder if that was the greatest moment of his life. There’s something in the broken moments that remove all of the “self” and allow me to see life for what it really is. It was only after Peter realized he couldn’t follow Jesus in his own strength that he became a great leader testifying of the life that Christ lives through us.
The same can be said for Paul, the apostle formerly known as Saul. His blindness made him see. Struck down on the Damascus Road, Saul was on his way to persecute more Christians and God had another thing in mind. It was in his state of brokenness that God was able to show him the true way of life. It is the path through brokenness, the sifting of the soul, that enables us to truly live. It is death that leads to life. Our attempts at being something for God are for nothing if we have not travelled the road of the broken. It is the path that Jesus walked and He continually calls us to do the same.
Read more at the source: Soul Sifting
Article excerpt posted on en.intercer.net from Spiritual applications.
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You’re a lobbyist?
You’d almost have better luck putting “Top Used-Car Salesman” on your resumé. Politicians, especially those with an ambitious eye on a comfy white house in our nation’s capital, make sure we all know they’ve never been a lobbyist, never been influenced by a lobbyist, never even met a lobbyist. They cast their votes based on just the facts, ma’am, and not on golf junkets proffered by influence peddlers from Big Pharma or Freddie Mac bankers. Hey, for all they know, a quid pro quo is something you order at a seafood restaurant.
The surprising thing, then, is that the Bible proudly describes Jesus as being a lobbyist! If any man sin, John writes in his first epistle, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. The Living Bible paraphrase has a decidedly K Street flavor with this rendering: There is someone to plead for you before the Father. And whether we view our Savior as a lobbyist or a very effective defense attorney, the end result is the same: he offers to peddle his influence regarding a rather weighty decision . . . our eternal destiny!
Hebrews 4 adds to Christ’s curriculum vitae by lauding him as our high priest – and in Bible times the priest was an advocate on behalf of sinners seeking absolution. If we sign with him, we find a Friend who is not only sympathetic with our travails, but who empowers us to approach the throne of grace with confident boldness.
The biblical concept of propitiation – the turning away of God’s wrath – has maybe given frail Christians the idea that we do need a powerful lawyer to stand before the bar on our behalf. But this ignores the wonderful truth that Jesus Christ and his Father are united in their desire to redeem and restore us. The late John Stott comments in his standout book, The Contemporary Christian: “Whenever we have cast Jesus Christ in the role of a third party” – a lobbyist, if you will – “who intervened to rescue us from an angry God, we have been guilty of a travesty which stands condemned, since it is God who loved the world and God who took the initiative to send his Son to die for us.” Remember the wonderful hymn? “O Jesus, blest Redeemer, sent from the heart of God.”
Whenever we confess a sin, or imagine ourselves going into that great galactic courtroom, or even just whisper a prayer, we need to bear in mind that the things Jesus wants, God wants too! John unravels his own “lobbyist” metaphor by having Jesus say to his disciples in John 16: I don’t need to send God a basket of fruit on your behalf . . . because the Father himself loves you!
So instead of reading Scripture as saying, “We have an advocate with the Father,” let’s envision both their names on the same corporate letterhead. And now, “We have an advocate with the Father.”
Read more at the source: Jesus the Lobbyist
Article excerpt posted on en.intercer.net from Spiritual applications.
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If months had themes, July would go down in history for me as “love month.” For one, the text of our Bible study at church has been First John, which uses the word “love” more times than the hippie manifesto.
Secondly, I’ve been working on my seminar “Love in the Last Days” for a presentation next month. Last but not least, I had my family reunion.
Eleven people slept in my three-bedroom house. There were uncles puzzled into beds too short for them, mothers on pullouts, cousins strewn on the floor. Meals were equally freeform, whether tailgating at a New Jersey beach or having a Sunday morning waffle extravaganza on paper plates. The greatest challenge was organizing and directing the activities, which had to be spontaneously planned according to the weather. Although we hit the beaches, a couple restaurants and some tourist sites, the high point for me was probably playing Cranium with my nephews Shawn and Gavin. Isn’t it telling that the most memorable activities are often free?
As the relatives gradually departed, the house fell into a contrasting silence. That silence will swell to deafening when the girls go back to school. People are a terrible inconvenience, but life—and our house—is quite empty without them. The wise man said, “Where no oxen are, the crib is clean,” Proverbs 14:4. I’ll take oxen and dirt.
What’s my point? Simply that we are designed for connection. It’s as if people are born with one-sided Velcro on their hearts, capable of adhering to others. No! It’s more than that, because Velcro doesn’t hurt or hunger. It’s that we’re made in God’s image, and “God is love,” 1 John 4:18. If All-sufficiency can long for connection, then His creation all the more. Unfortunately, many human relationships fail, leaving this hunger unsatisfied. Our essential selfishness folds us inward like shriveled wineskins, reducing capacity and rendering relationships either non-existent or dysfunctional.
But there’s hope. The Scriptures reveal a God who can connect with the unconnected. Regardless of how wrong our human relationships have gone; regardless of the depths of our isolation or the death-grip of our human conflicts, we can at any point turn to Him and know that we are loved. I don’t know of another worldview that has this to offer.
Read more at the source: Love Month
Article excerpt posted on en.intercer.net from Spiritual applications.
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