Build anything.

With the sun outside in the Spring, we see the limitless possibilities in life. On an overcast day like today let’s endeavor create something meaningful. I will be playing with Lego blocks with my son this morning. We’ll be building memories.

 

Are we erasing hell from our consciences?

Hell is the English word for hades (Greek), broadly the place of the underworld. The recent inaccurate end-of-the-world predictions aside — which, while misguided on specifics and delivery, are actually helpful on this one point: getting the message out there — God’s judgment is real. For all of us.

If God is good and just and since He promises to reconcile all things because of His great love, then there will be judgment. Lots of it. Complete justice.
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True and Better.

Tim Keller speaking on Jesus [mp3; thanks to Peter Artemenko for creating the kinetic type illustration]:

Jesus is the true and better Adam who passed the test in the garden — His garden, a much tougher garden — and whose obedience is imputed to us.

Jesus is the true and better Abel who, though innocently slain, has blood now that cries out, not for our condemnation, but for acquittal.

Jesus is the true and better Abraham who answered the call of God to leave all the comfortable and familiar and go out into the void not knowing wither he went to create a new people of God.

Jesus is the true and better Isaac who was not just offered up by his father on the mount but was truly sacrificed for us. And when God said to Abraham, “Now I know you love Me because you did not withhold your son, your only son whom you love from Me,” now we can look at God taking his son up the mountain and sacrificing him and say, “Now we know that You love us because you did not withhold your son, your only son, whom you love from us.”

Jesus is the true and better Jacob who wrestled and took the blow of justice we deserved, so we, like Jacob, only receive the wounds of grace to wake us up and discipline us.

Jesus is the true and better Joseph who, at the right hand of the king, forgives those who betrayed and sold him and uses his new power to save them.

Jesus is the true and better Moses who stands in the gap between the people and the Lord and who mediates a New Covenant.

Jesus is the true and better Rock of Moses who, struck with the rod of God’s justice, now gives us water in the desert.

Jesus is the true and better Job, the truly innocent sufferer, who then intercedes for and saves his stupid friends.

Jesus is the true and better David whose victory becomes his people’s victory, though they never lifted a stone to accomplish it themselves.

Jesus is the true and better Esther who didn’t just risk losing an earthly palace but lost the ultimate and heavenly one, who didn’t just risk his life, but gave his life to save his people. Who didn’t just say, “If I perish, I perish,” He said, “When I perish, I’ll perish for them, to save My people.”

Jesus is the true and better Jonah who was cast out into the storm so that we could be brought in.

Jesus is the real Rock of Moses, the real Passover Lamb, innocent, perfect, helpless, slain so the angel of death will pass over us. He’s the true temple, the true prophet, the true priest, the true king, the true sacrifice, the true lamb, the true light, the true bread.

The Bible’s really not about you—it’s about Him.

 

So beautiful it hardly seems real.

Video of the Milky Way galaxy in a timelapse which grasps only a fraction of its vast beauty:

The One God created all this. He spoke it into being. How great and beautiful this Creator must be!

Just as Nehemiah described as he prayed:

You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you.
—Nehemiah 9:6

 

April 5th: Go Barefoot.

Why?

Because millions in the world go without the basics of life: water, medical access, even shoes. On April 5th join thousands of others who will show their support for those without shoes. (Don’t do it because Demi Moore is doing it, or any of the other ‘celebrities’ highlighted in the video below. We don’t celebrate them; we celebrate the courage of the mom who carries her infant daughter miles and miles daily through the mid-day heat to get quasi-safe drinking water and back the other direction for a ration of food — every step barefoot and with debilitating pain. Go without shoes for one day because there are hundreds of thousands of amazing kids who have no choice today.)

TOMS One Day Without Shoes 2011: April 5th

 

Alive Again and Forevermore.

For we who trust Jesus as Savior, we are awakened to the reality that every day we need Him. Not just on that final day, to take us to heaven. He came to rescue us from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of God’s beloved Son (Colossians 2:13-14). And he keeps on rescuing us. We have been saved, we are being saved, and we shall be saved completely in the end.

In theology these experiences are summarized as justification, sanctification, and glorification. We have been saved from the penalty of sin, justified with God through Jesus’ perfect live, sacrificial death, and victorious resurrection. We are being saved from the power of sin in our daily lives, being set apart (sanctified) by God for wholeness to join in His mission in the renewal of all things. We will one day be completely rescued from the presence of sin, no longer able to bow down to idols for Christ will be all-consuming, even being the light of all eternity. These experiences overall in a convergence of grace words cannot adequately describe!

There are deeper nuances to this thrilling doctrines, for we will never stop learning of the greatness of God’s kindness towards us in Jesus (Ephesians 2:7). (If embracing these truths bores you, consider if you are alive to God. We will dwell on them for all eternity.)

Today we have a great gift to sing of these amazing truths. A musician friend reminded me that when we sing good theology we “feel a thought.” Words alone or musical sound alone cannot produce this experience. The collision of the two takes us deeper into the truth; opportunity to embrace it through and through. We who were dead in darkness have now seen a great light; He’s made us alive again. Let’s continually sing about it.

Alive Again
(by Matt Maher)

You called and You shouted
Broke through my deafness

Now I’m breathing in and breathing out
I’m alive again

You called and You shouted
Broke through my deafness

Now I’m breathing in and breathing out
I’m alive again

You shattered my darkness
Washed away my blindness

Now I’m breathing in and breathing out
I’m alive again
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Awake my Soul, I will hold on Hope.

Sundays shall be a day when our souls are renewed to see the world as we’re meant to see it, recognizing the darkness around and especially within us, and the Light who dispels the darkness and cannot be extinguished (John 1:1-5).

I leave you with two songs by Mumford & Sons that can become for us prayers for a renewed day and world. Let’s start with where we place our Hope, and preparing to meet our Maker. Today let’s “plant [our] hope with good seeds” and not “cover [ourselves] with thistle and weeds.”
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