I had the privilege of meeting with Rod Conner of To Every Tribe Ministries on Tuesday.
God has given them a potential opportunity to serve deaf Christians in Mexico! Please pray that this opportunity would become reality. The impact could be huge!
Archive for March, 2010
A mission to pray for and watch
Posted in News on March 17, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Jesus takes away every evil thing by his own power
Posted in Sermons on March 16, 2010| Leave a Comment »
What are we like? We are entirely covered in our own sin, like a body covered with the sores of leprosy.
Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity,
offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly!
They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel,
they are utterly estranged.
Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel?
The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it,
but bruises and sores and raw wounds; they are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil. Isaiah 1:4-6
What is Jesus like? He takes away every sin making us entirely clean by his own power, like he healed a man covered from head to toe with leprosy.
While he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy. And when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately the leprosy left him. Luke 5:12-13
Thank you to Pastor Mark Driscoll who helped me see this when he preached on Luke 5 in February. I’m only half-way through that sermon and looking forward to the rest!
What’s on your whiteboard?
Posted in Uncategorized on March 15, 2010| 1 Comment »
In the middle of the list of things to do or remember on our whiteboard, I saw this:
I’m grateful for these reminders!
Our experiences do not define God
Posted in commentary on March 13, 2010| Leave a Comment »
On Friday morning I heard this interview with Rabbi Harold Kushner on NPR, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Rabbi Kushner wrote that book after his oldest child died.
What struck me was how many times he made references to ‘I think’ or ‘I conclude’ about God. He made exactly zero positive references, in that interview, to anything other than his own experience and intellect. He was completely untethered to anything except his own conclusions. And that is a horrible way to come to any conclusion about God.
In fact, we are warned against doing so:
The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it? Jeremiah 17:9
NPR ended the segment with this quote:
“My sense is God and I came to an accommodation with each other a couple of decades ago, where he’s gotten used to the things that I’m not capable of and I’ve come to terms with things he’s not capable of,” Kushner says. “And we care very much about each other.”
God does not talk about himself as being incapable. In fact, God asserts exactly the opposite. So Rabbi Kushner is either saying God is a liar or that God is delusional about his own abilities. So how can he say that he cares about this God? Why would he say that?
Unless, of course, we create a god in our own image. And that isn’t just sad, it is an offense against the first and greatest commandment: You shall have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:3
Losing a son is horribly difficult; I do not fault Rabbi Kushner for struggling. And after our Paul was born, I know what conclusions my sinful heart lead me to believe and articulate to others. I wrongly concluded that God was powerful, but not kind.
Today, I’m ashamed to remember the words I used to speak about God. I am grateful that God did not leave me in that state – he intentionally and powerfully drew me to himself and gave me an anchor in his word. So Rabbi Kushner is wrong today and I used to be wrong that God’s kindness and power are in conflict. They are, in fact, perfectly and infinitely applied as only God can do, for God’s glory and for our good.
When untethered to the Bible, we wage war on children
Posted in Uncategorized on March 12, 2010| 3 Comments »
If you have not yet read Dr. Mohler’s blog from yesterday, The Scandal of Gendercide – War on Baby Girls, I recommend it.
What is amazing is that he is commenting on an article, War on Baby Girls: Gendercide, in The Economist, a secular publication that believes “in free trade and free markets. . .”
Here is some of what The Economist reported:
It is no exaggeration to call this gendercide. Women are missing in their millions—aborted, killed, neglected to death. In 1990 an Indian economist, Amartya Sen, put the number at 100m (one hundred million); the toll is higher now. The crumb of comfort is that countries can mitigate the hurt, and that one, South Korea, has shown the worst can be avoided. Others need to learn from it if they are to stop the carnage.
Why is this happening?
In fact the destruction of baby girls is a product of three forces: the ancient preference for sons; a modern desire for smaller families; and ultrasound scanning and other technologies that identify the sex of a fetus.
Why write about it on this blog? Because those three forces, only slightly altered, could just as easily have been written about the destruction of children with disabilities. Is there any material difference between the three forces described above and these three that result in amazing rates of abortion of disabled babies in our country?
- The ancient preference for a ‘normal’ child
- A modern desire for family members that don’t inconvenience us too much, or who experience too much suffering
- Ultrasound scanning and other technologies that identify a disability in the fetus.
When we become untethered from the Bible, which describes the eternal, foundational, unchanging character and attributes of God and his view of his creation, human beings lose their God-granted value and dignity. Babies become expendable, whether we are talking about girls in China or children with disabilities in America.
The Economist argues that girls in these countries can be saved through economic and educational interventions. I didn’t find a similar argument being made for children with disabilities.
I would recommend a different solution for both: Exodus 20:13 “You shall not murder.”
Breathtaking reality of Jesus and Job
Posted in commentary, Scripture on March 11, 2010| 6 Comments »
I am using the One-Year Tract Bible Reading Plan to help me read through the Bible this year.
For March 9, there was this stunning, breathtaking reality right next to each other in the readings from Luke 23 and Job 38:
Luke 23:44 It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, 45 while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.
Job 38: Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:
2 “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
3 Dress for action like a man;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.
4 “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.”
We are as nothing before God. How did we ever conceive of the idea that we could question God or his motives or his authority? We were not there when he created all things, and we didn’t (and don’t) have the power to do what God can do.
But Jesus was there.
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
The Father gave us Jesus. He who knew no sin became sin so that his righteousness could be given to us. And that Jesus, knowing what he would experience in obedience to the Father, shouted at the most critical moment of all, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” Jesus knew he could trust his Father.
This is overwhelming.
We cannot compare to God on any level. ‘I do not do the good I want’ (Romans 7:19), while God “has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever” (2 Corinthians 9:9).
And this God with that power to create out of nothing who grants us a savior we don’t deserve and a righteousness we could never, ever earn – this is the God we are ready to judge because he creates some who will live with a disability?
The One who has infinite knowledge, wisdom, power, authority, righteousness, holiness and justice should somehow subordinate himself to us because our puny, finite, limited sense of fairness says that God should only behave a certain way regarding disability?
We think we have that right to judge this God? Based exactly on what?
More books!
Posted in Book Commentary on March 10, 2010| 4 Comments »
Three books on God and disease, disability, or suffering have arrived in the past two days. I am thrilled!
Sue Hume, who writes Hope for Special Moms, highly recommended Brokenness: How God Redeems Pain and Suffering, by Lon Solomon. Pastor Solomon is the senior pastor for McLean Bible Church, which has one of the most dynamic and comprehensive disability ministry programs in the United States.
Jeff McNair, writer of the blog disabled Christianity and a professor of special education at California Baptist University, recently published five years of his blog in his book, The Church and Disability.
And the one I am probably most excited to receive is a compilation of 25 readings on the problem of pain, which was recommended by Justin Taylor. Justin recently interviewed the editor of this compilation, Nancy Guthrie, on the book, Be Still My Soul: Embracing God’s Purpose & Provision in Suffering.
I hope to read and comment on each in the coming weeks.
“Complicated? Sure. But true nonetheless.”
Posted in Uncategorized on March 9, 2010| Leave a Comment »
A word on disability and God’s sovereignty from Jim Elliff at Christian Communicators Worldwide: What does luck have to do with it?
Here’s a sample, on God’s sovereignty in the midst of suffering:
I know that it might seem insensitive to say that God is in control. But this is what the Bible teaches, like it or not. When we analyze national tragedy we sometimes recoil from the notion that God could be in control of His world. We seek to protect God from such an accusation. But the Scriptures don’t do this.
That’s exactly right! The Scriptures are unapologetic about God’s sovereignty over his creation.
I don’t know Jim, but Steve Burchett, who works with him, is a parent like many of us. Steve has a beautiful child with disabilities. So, Jim isn’t just writing a good piece using Joni Eareckson Tada’s life as an example. He’s also observing it up close in the life of his friend and colleague.
And that just makes this piece all the better.
There are deeper core beliefs?
Posted in commentary on March 8, 2010| Leave a Comment »
As promised, here is how the article from yesterday concludes:
It is the challenge of all those who value religion in its many forms, to see that there are deeper core beliefs which supersede exclusionary and oppressive dogma, and which, in fact, form the nucleic bedrock of all faiths. These are the ideals of inclusion and acceptance, the glorification of divine creation in its many forms and a striving for the betterment of humanity.
These ideals are all wrongly placed as ‘bedrock’ and entirely neglect that God sets the standard for what is right and just. Jesus alone makes us acceptable to God, not through anything we have done or could ever hope to do:
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. 1 John 2:1-6
There are no deeper core beliefs possible than trusting in, hoping for and treasuring Jesus. There is no ‘betterment of humanity’ apart from Jesus. He is that rock and that foundation. So we should reject any arguments that seek to elevate human potential or rationality above God’s articulation of himself and his God-centeredness.
Unfortunately, I tend to get self-righteous and satisfied in these moments – “I see things the writer of this article cannot see” – rather than broken-hearted for the writer. God reminded me, again, through my Bible reading this week that I should remember I have had nothing to do with the gift that has been given to me, and that I should be in prayer for and evangelizing the lost around me:
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:3-6
There are so many perishing around us. And so many of them are involved in our disabled children’s lives. Lord, help them to see!
All conference audio and video for The Works of God: God’s Good Design in Disability are now available at Desiring God!
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An update from Matt Chandler
Posted in commentary on March 18, 2010| 1 Comment »
Pastor Matt Chander continues his fight against cancer, with a future hope of eternal joy!
“Wanted to root myself in the truth.” Powerful example of continuing to read in the word, even passages we might consider familiar.
I loved his preaching before he became ill with the cancer. God has given him even more credibility as he now lives suffering and the sovereignty of God.
Thank you to Justin Taylor for pointing me to it.
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