"Why do they get to be over there and I don't?" I asked. "Because I'm your mother and not theirs," my mother said as I yearned to be near the action. Ham radios require towers to broadcast and pick up radio signals, which are powerful enough to stretch across the globe. On this particular day my grandpa, a tireless ham radio enthusiast, was putting a radio tower out back of the house. It was a whole family effort, as witnessed by the home video that survives to this day. All the ladies stood around and worried, while the men attempted to erect the roughly 40 foot tower. There were some tense moments where the videographer lost focus on his job to run for cover, as evidenced by shots of the ground rushing past. But in the end, none of the close calls amounted to any damage and the tower was anchored in place. Over the next few years, it would serve to keep him in contact with us in the tribe and other radio enthusiasts across the world. Many hours were spent huddled around the radio, listening to crackling voice on the other end and broadcasting our news across the airwaves to anyone who might happen to listen to our conversation. Often, radio contact was the only thing that made my mother run. Various call signs would crackle through the speakers, until we heard the all too familiar, "PP8ZTR PP8ZTR, this is KB7ORF."
For almost 20 years the tower stood in it's place on the end of the garage. When my grandparents moved to a different house, they left it up. My parents moved into the house and inherited the conversation piece with it. "That's quite the tower you got there," many passers-by have undoubtedly commented. Some even offered to purchase it, but when presented with the prospect of taking it down their interest became dampened. Then one day as we were pondering the best method to take it down safely, we took a couple pieces off of it and then became fully involved in the job. It was eerily similar to the event I described in the home video, except everyone is older now, and my mother didn't have the same jurisdiction over me. All the women were worried and all the men took up their posts on different parts of the process. A couple of hours later the tower was lying, dismantled next to the garage, it's saga of pointlessly standing high above the house was over.
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Every time I turn on the Discovery channel or read a magazine article, I'm bombarded with liberal anti-biblical propaganda. Maybe I shouldn't expect the media, which is predominantly run by liberal non-believers, to uphold biblical truth. Unfortunately, many Christian churches, colleges, and publications don't do a lot better. I recently got to meet a creation science speaker named Russ Miller, who also spoke at Candlelight yesterday. It is incredible to hear his stories of the people who are angry at him or refuse to let him speak at their gathering. He is not welcome to speak at most churches, in fact. So you might ask: what could he possibly be talking about that would make people so upset? He simply exposes evolution for what it is and holds to a literal biblical creation. At first, it may seem like a petty issue to be upset about, but evolution aims to destroy the foundations of Christianity. In order for evolution to be true, there would have to be millions of years of death and suffering before the fall of man, which doesn't agree with God's pronouncement that everything He had created was good. Besides that, evolution has been referred to as 'science' for the last 60 or so years. It is not measurable nor repeatable, which puts it outside the realm of science and into the category of a belief about origins. Creation is also a belief about origins. Both are ways to interpret the evidence, one starting with the assumption that God created everything and the other presupposing that there is no God. Unfortunately, many people claim Christianity, but want to make it fit with what secular 'science' is saying. They won't just trust the Bible for what it says about God creating creatures as they are in 6 literal 24 hour days. As a result, they try to force evolution and millions of years into the Bible, where it does not belong. Without millions of years evolution simply isn't possible. That's actually a strange statement, because the chances of it happening even over millions of years is practically 0. So why is this presented unashamedly as fact in our public schools and media? We need to inform people, especially children, about the fallacies of evolution and how to think through the issue of origins biblically. Don't compromise with the lies that is falsely called science!
Most people will admit they aren't perfect. Some will even admit they are sinners. But most people will not admit that they are helpless sinners, desperately in need of God's grace. I have been thinking about this lately, because I find myself forgetting the extent of the grace of God shown to me. So often the subtle subconscious thought creeps in, telling me that I have some right, some sort of worth, that there is some reason that God should show me grace. When I am confronted with the philosophical question, "Why did God create the world?", it is easy to rationalize that God was bored or felt lonely. But God does not need our company at all, because He is Triune and eternally self existent, having no needs. He also knew that Satan and mankind would turn against Him, but He created them anyway. So the question is: why? And why didn't He just destroy Adam and Eve immediately, not allowing them to reproduce and start the human race? And even more intriguingly: why did He choose to redeem people? Maybe part of the comes in focus in Ephesians 2.
After describing the lost state of all of us before salvation, Paul tops it off by saying that we were "by nature children of wrath". We like to think that of course God had to save mankind, whom He created. No, He didn't. God is obligated to save no one. Not you, not me, not the man down the street, the tribal man in the jungle, nor the small child. It is only by God's grace that He saves anybody, and the way He chose to do it seems foolish to us. Just believe. What!? I so desperately want to DO something, but God wants no room for me to take any credit. There should be no question that salvation comes through Him alone. Does God love people? The Bible says that He does, but this love is not a result of the objects being loveable. It is a love derived from within God Himself, without reference to the worthiness (or lack thereof) of the objects of His love. The thing that really gets me is in verse 7. After declaring God's demonstration of His love by making us alive through Christ, Paul makes an interesting statement. God's purpose in this was... "that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." You see, if there were no fallen world, there would be no need for God to show this part of His character. God's mercy and grace can only be seen in the presence of failure. This is something the angels have not experienced, and maybe that is why it is something they want to look into (1 Peter 1:12). But the one thing we know is that for eternity we will be displayed as ones who were redeemed. We were composed of rotten stuff, but were remade. We are like trophies of God's grace. The more we realize the greatness of our former separation from God and the depth of His love and mercy in giving us new life, the more we want to see others become recipients of this same grace. There may be other Christians we can't stand, but they are fellow recipients. There may be unbelievers that we don't feel deserve to be saved. That is true...but neither did we. This love of Christ should motivate us to share the truth with the lost. And remember, we truly are trophies of His overwhelming grace. If you were to teach a class about missions, what kind of things would you cover? This is a question I have been pondering recently, since I have been recruited to help teach such a class during the summer. The details are still being worked out, but we are trying to decide what subjects I should talk about and how much time I should devote to each. Some subjects, like worldviews and foundational Bible teaching, can be rather useful for anyone sharing their faith with a neighbor or co-worker. Subjects like phonetics and TPR (the language learning method I mentioned in a previous post) would be applicable for someone who wants to go on the yearly missions trip Candlelight Christian Fellowship takes to Mexico. Still other subjects, like grammar or missionary technology or writing an alphabet for an unwritten language (which I haven't studied yet), would be most applicable only to those in cross-cultural ministry long term, but I may include snippets of interesting items about those to give exposure to the people who may sense God challenging them to such service in the future.
I wonder what would happen if every member of the local church felt his purpose in life was to know God and to make Him known. What if each person saw his place in God's economy as primary and his career as secondary? What if we each acknowledged God in our daily lives to the extent that we allowed His indwelling Spirit to make us a witness to those around us? What if we had such a heart for the lost that we were willing to give up the comforts of mediocrity in order to reach them with the truth? I definitely don't always live up to these things, but they are something I aspire to. But this is only possible as we rely on Christ living through us. |
AuthorWe are normal people who believe that God would have us serve Him in Brazil. We are saddened by the existence of people who do not have access to the gospel due to their location and language. We want to live among such a people group and plant a church among them, shepherding the believers as they grow to maturity. Archives
November 2019
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