A Whole New World

It happened on one of those zip-a-dee-doo-dah days. Now that’s the kind of day when you can’t open your mouth without a song jumping right out of it. That’s exactly what I was doing most of the way to Orlando, Florida for the trip of a lifetime; I was singing every Disney song I knew. One of my favorite things about this trip was that I was with my choir, so some of them were singing too.

At the beginning of this school year I was informed that our choir would be taking a spring break trip to Walt Disney World in Florida, and every moment after that was spent anxiously awaiting said expedition. So on Friday, March 7, I sat in the choir room attempting to convince myself of the reality all around me. It seemed much more like a dream (and there may have been some dreaming; it was very late by the time the bus arrived). This feeling continued for the length of the ride to Dallas and as we boarded our plane.

After copious amounts of sleeping, waiting, singing, and traveling, we arrived at Disney’s Animal Kingdom around noon on Saturday. At this point most of us were visibly exhausted, but nobody seemed to care. We all went to Expedition Everest first, and then broke off into smaller groups. We explored every inch of the park, taking thousands of pictures and making thousands of memories. I ate at a cleverly named, dinosaur themed restaurant with the other members of my group that day, which was fantastic. But the greatest feature of Animal Kingdom was without a doubt the Tree of Life. No pictures or words can accurately describe seeing the baobab live and in person. I could tell it wasn’t a real tree, but it was so intricate and beautiful and full of life that it didn’t matter. It was the pinnacle of the park.

The following morning, we rose fairly early in order to prepare for the Magic Kingdom. It was Sunday morning, and I am proud to say that it did not go unrecognized amongst our group. One of our seniors led a devotional that morning. She did an outstanding job and it fit perfectly into the trip. She shared the end of 1 Thessalonians 5 and encouraged us to be thankful in all circumstances, as in 1 Thessalonians 5:18. I love being a part of a group that is about the word of God and doing what it says, and I’m so glad it was shown that being at Disney World doesn’t exempt you from that.

After breakfast and our devotional, we were off to the Magic Kingdom, which may have been my favorite park. My small group started in Main Street, U.S.A. and made a circle around the park the first half of the day. Space Mountain was a crowd favorite, so we rode it several times. Around 5 my group decided they wanted to go shopping, but thankfully several members of a different group came to my rescue. I made another circle around the park with them before the parade, which was phenomenal. Finally we made our way back to Main Street for the show at the castle, which was by far the best event at the park. A beautiful arrangement of Disney clips and moments were displayed on the castle to the soundtrack of Disney through the years. It was stunningly beautiful, and I know there were tears in my group. Following that was a fireworks show narrated by Jiminy Cricket about wishes and dreams coming true, and it was so fitting because the beauty of the scene was a dream come true.

 

Monday morning we departed for Epcot. Throughout the day I met several characters such as Elsa, Anna, Belle, Mary Poppins, Mickey, Minnie, Goofy… The list goes on. Among the favorite rides were Mission Space (though it’s not for those with claustrophobia or motion sickness) and Soarin’. My group wandered around the park until the time came for our Disney Sings workshop, which was undoubtedly my favorite part of the entire trip, during which we learned two songs from the Lion King, made some fairly bizarre sound effects, and learned some choreography, which I also learned is not my strongest point. It was amazing to be a part of such a talented group. Following the workshop we went back out to the park and made another loop before the Illuminations show. We made the mistake of sitting right next to a speaker, and hearing is not my forte (no pun intended), but the show was still outstanding, a combination of fireworks, lasers, and music to stir the emotions and illuminate the night, both literally and metaphorically.

 

Tuesday was spent at Universal Studios, and it was magical, not merely because I spent a large portion of my day at Hogwarts. That is where I started, and I must say I enjoyed my few hours drinking butterbeer, riding dragons, and exploring the castle. Eventually we left Hogsmeade and made a loop all around the park, riding various rides that looked interesting and snacking on the widest variety of food possible from kebabs to dippin’ dots. I spent the latter part of the day watching as the group rode a roller coaster that looked a little too intense for me, and then we ate at the Hard Rock Café. The park was fairly large, and by the end of the night I felt as though I had really walked the universe.

Wednesday morning we went to Hollywood Studios. We rode the Tower of Terror and The Rock’n Roller Coaster. Thankfully my friend thought to bring some headphones, because we rode it three times and it was certainly the loudest experience. We ate at Pizza Planet, where I enjoyed the Toy Story references to infinity and beyond. Then we walked around the park one more time before regrouping and heading to the airport. The ride home was long and mostly unexciting, but you could practically feel the Disney World atmosphere still around us as we sang our Disney songs and talked about our favorite parts of the trip. We arrived at home with mixed emotions of relief to be back and longing to go again.

This was truly the trip of a lifetime, and it was the best adventure I’ve yet to go on. I am so thankful to have gotten to go, especially with this particular group. It truly would not have been the same if I had gone with anyone else, so to those of you out there who had a part in that, thank you so much for the pictures, the stories, the memories, and for joining me on this adventure to a whole new world. I had the time of my life, and dreams really did come true. I hope the same is true for you.

A Reason for Hope

From Phil Robertson to Pope Francis to an average day in high school, confrontation is a very controversial issue. So what is an appropriate response for a Christian to the controversial trends of the modern world? For example, how do you respond to the unit in biology that directly states that God does not exist? What is your reaction to pressing moral issues such as abortion, homosexuality, drug abuse, and everything else? Where is the line?

In the words of C. S. Lewis, "Jesus Christ did not say, 'Go into all the world and tell the world that it is quite right.'" As Christians in the world today, it is our job according to the great commission to go therefore and make disciples of all nations. But in order to do that, we need to understand where the lines are. Some people say that the majority of Christians are intolerant and unloving. This reputation comes from those who choose to say that in every aspect, "I am right and you are wrong." And they do so more often than not in a rather harsh way. As Christians we are not supposed to be tolerant, in the postmodern sense*, because tolerance is the least loving thing we could possibly do.

Imagine this: You are a doctor. A patient comes to see you and it is evident that he is deathly sick. You have the cure for his sickness, but you don't want him to be upset, so you choose not to even tell him he is sick. What is the consequence of this choice? The patient dies. That choice makes no sense. In the same way, seeing that someone you know is in desperate need of a savior (because we all are) and choosing to ignore that for the sake of not hurting feelings and staying good friends, you're missing the point of loving your neighbor.

So now say you're in the same scenario, but this time you realize your patient needs to know he is sick, so you tell him he is sick. That's all. There is no hope in that. You can make a sign with Romans 3:23 on it, and people will know they are sinners. But odds are they probably already knew that, and telling them so probably only offends them. If someone openly claims they don't believe in God, you can say they're wrong and that they will end up in Hell, but the only thing that might convince them of is that they want nothing to do with you or your faith, because saying something like that is malicious and hateful.

In this doctor scenario, the only right thing to do is to tell the patient he is sick, and to offer him the only cure. The same is true of making disciples. You are not accomplishing anything by convincing someone he or she is wrong unless you include the message of hope that is the gospel of Jesus Christ. You have to convey that, "Yes, you are a sinner. I am a sinner. Neither of us is worse than the other, and we are both so bad that Jesus had to die for each of our sins. So that's what he did. Our sins are paid for, Jesus has defeated sin and the grave, and by grace we have been saved!" You can't just give a part of the message. The message of the fall is desperate and dark, but the gospel gives us a reason for hope.

This is a decent illustration for what we need to do, but it isn't the best. Ephesians 2 does not tell us that we are deathly sick in sin; rather, it tells us that we are dead in sin. That is not something you or I can cure, and it's not something any of us can choose to fix. It's only in Christ that we are alive, and that is a point that needs to be made. I couldn't save myself, and I can't save anyone else. If people are dead in sin, only God can save them. All we can do is follow God's commandment and share the gospel. God will has rescued us, and will rescue in his perfect timing in accordance with his perfect plan.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. --Ephesians 2:1-7


* Tolerance in the classical sense means that all ideas and values may be expressed; tolerance in the postmodern sense is that all these are equally valid and must be celebrated by all.

Before the Throne of God Above

Before you read the rest of this post, take a moment to finish this sentence on paper or in your head:

"The God I believe in would never..."

Think about that for a moment. The omniscient, omnipotent, sovereign God of the universe would never... do what? Our God is in the heavens; He does all that he pleases. What can we say he would never do? Yet many people have an answer to that question, and it often comes in the form of another question:

"How can a loving, merciful God send people to Hell?"

When people ask themselves this question, they are leaving out several important attributes of God and some important background information that answers itself.

The first thing we need to understand is that God is holy, and we are not. Holiness is perfect, spotless righteousness. If God came into contact with sin, He would no longer be holy. Since every single person is a sinner, we must therefore be eternally separated from the holy God. The physical place where God is not found is Hell. People don't choose whether or not they are going to Hell, but rather we all have no choice aside from Hell due to our unholiness.

Okay, so God is holy. But He is still loving, so how can He send people to Hell?

A second important attribute of God is that he is just. People often confuse 'just' with 'fair.' We must realize that they are not the same thing. Fairness means everyone gets the same thing. Justice means everyone gets what they deserve. In this case they would originally result in the same thing: everyone would go to Hell. In fact, everyone is born headed straight there. However, we must remember the attribute we are more comfortable with: God is merciful. While justice means everyone gets what they deserve, mercy means everyone gets more than what they deserve. Therefore God sent His son Jesus, who lived a righteous life and took on all of our sin, and died on the cross as punishment for them. The illustration my youth pastor used today was that we are all in a river to Hell. God is not sending to Hell, but we are making our own way there. This is not merely due to rejecting the gospel. We are making our own way to Hell because of all of our sins, that sin included. But God, being rich in mercy, rescues us by pulling us out of the river of our sins.

If we were comparing this to a court of law, we would see it in this way: God is the judge. He looks at us and says, "You are guilty, and you deserve death, but I forgive you." That explanation makes sense. But that's really not the best explanation of what happens when those in Christ are judged. A better illustration would be God the judge looking at us and saying, "You are NOT guilty." It has to be this way because if we were guilty, it wouldn't matter if we were forgiven. We would still not be holy and therefore would still be unable to stand in the presence of God. The only way to stand in the presence of God is to be holy; to have no guilt. And only through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ can we say that our sins are dead, and we are hidden in Christ's life, and therefore not guilty.

The best way I have heard it worded is in the song, Before the Throne of God Above:

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea:
A great High Priest, whose name is Love,
Who ever lives and pleads for me.

My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart;
I know that while in heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair,
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look, and see Him there
Who made an end to all my sin.

Because the sinless Savior died,
My sinful soul is counted free;
For God the just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me
To look on Him and pardon me

Behold Him there, the Risen Lamb
My perfect, spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I am,
The King of glory and of grace!

One with Himself I cannot die
My soul is purchased by His blood
My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ, my Savior and my God
With Christ, my Savior and my God

We will never be able to fathom the depth Christ's love for us. How can we even try to understand God's grace? We could never count the vast amount of sin in our own individual lives. Yet Jesus paid for all of it, and we have been given the gift of salvation. One day we will inhabit the New Heaven and the New Earth and our creator, the one, true, holy God will dwell among us. That is not something that ought to be taken for granted.

The final attribute of God that is important to answering this question is that God is sovereign. He is in complete control, and He does whatever pleases Him. We struggle to understand this sometimes, and I think we probably always will. We simply need to understand that God does whatever he wants to do, and he doesn't have to explain it to us. The illustration in Romans 9:20 puts it into perspective nicely. God is the potter and we are the clay, and we have no right or reason to ask God why He does something. We should always remember Romans 8:28. No matter what the situation is, God is working it together for our good on the eternal scale because we love Him, even if we cannot see it.

So we should not be asking ourselves how a loving, merciful God could send people to Hell. We should be in awestruck wonder that the holy, just, sovereign God rescued us from Hell. And we should more importantly be sharing it with others and glorify God in everything we do because He has rescued us.

"For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ." -1 Thessalonians 5:9

Sanctity of Human Life Sunday

Today, January 19, 2014, is the day this year that the Southern Baptist Convention recognizes as Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. This day is recognized on the third Sunday in January every year.

So what is the meaning of this day? Why do we need to take a day to recognize the sanctity of human life? The cause is, perhaps, the vast destruction of human life that is taking place today and every day everywhere in the world. What, are we having a purge? A genocide?  Well, in a way we are. Twenty-two percent of all pregnancies (excluding miscarriages) end in abortion. Those numbers don't seem so harmful, do they? 22 out of a hundred isn't so bad.

 Keep in mind that the most recent data shows that the approximate population of the U.S. is 313.9 million people. If we killed 22 percent of the population of America, around 69,058,000 people would die. That's a pretty large number of people. Of that number, the question becomes, "How many of those people can we afford to lose?" The answer? Zero. Say one of those people was the president of the United States. That would be a huge loss for our country. Odds are that some of them would be celebrities of sorts, musicians, artists, athletes, political leaders. That still leaves a lot of people left that only and handful of people knew. And yet, they were here. They were on this earth. And one cannot say that anyone is ever placed here without a purpose for his or her life.

Genesis 1:27 says that God created man in his own image. That means everyone. Everyone is created in the image of our Creator. We are all given a name, a body, a personality. A soul. And our creator knows us all better than we know ourselves. Have we really become convinced that that doesn't include people who aren't born yet? We hear a heartbeat. We give these people an age, even from one week. Loving parents begin to choose names and clothes. People plan their lives around these new, young people months before they are born. It's a part of life: new life.

The argument has been made that maybe this new life was unintended. Say you had a three year old child, and you were raising him or her on your own, and you just didn't plan on having this child. Does that justify murdering the child? By no means! Why should that change just because that child is only three weeks old? Just because you haven't seen the child, that doesn't make him or her any less a child.

Another argument made is that the mother can't provide for a child properly, or that it impedes the future of one or both of the parents. There are an estimated 3,000 adoption agencies in the United States, where couples who desperately want a child but for various reasons can't have one go to adopt a child. Where do you think these agencies get these children? Young parents with bright futures who have the courage put their children up for adoption, knowing that this is best for the child, the parents, and the couple who are prepared to raise the child, caring for and providing for him or her. The argument that abortion is the best solution is invalid for this very reason. Abortion kills one baby, but that is not the only life affected. There are physical, and always emotional consequences for the mother. Abortion is not the best solution for anyone involved.

Abortion is murder, and murder is a sin. If I am speaking to someone who has experienced this personally, you ought to know that fact. However, there's a whole lot more to it. Much the same way as a newborn baby, ill-equipped to care for ourselves, in Christ we are adopted as sons and daughters of God. Ephesians 1:3-10 tells us this much. Ephesians 1:7-10 tells us that it has been God's will to unite all things in Him in the fullness of time from the beginning. He does this through redemption and through forgiveness. Jesus died for every one of everyone's sins. That includes abortion. In Christ you are forgiven and adopted as a child of God.

If you haven't gone through this, understand the impossibility of understanding. It is not our place to ultimately judge anyone. Are we not all sinners? The importance of this day and all that it encompasses is that abortion is wrong. But the fact that abortion is so widespread doesn't change the fact that all sin is widespread, and it especially does not change the truth or the power of the gospel.

Today, we raise awareness of the consequences of abortion. Every day, we raise awareness of the consequences of sin. As we witness the war that Satan is waging against us, especially in this way, the mass destruction of human life, I pray that we would understand the power of the gospel, of Jesus. I pray that we would understand the infinite love of our Father, and most of all, I pray that we would see the sanctity of human life. Because every person has a purpose here and is created in the image of God. Therefore, every life is valuable beyond measure.

"In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth." -Ephesians 1:7-10

The Other Emancipation Proclamation: The Gospel

"It's a free country."

That's what people often say when told to do or not to do something. It is a way of saying that one refuses to comply with rules or expectations. America is a free country, so people don't tell other people how to live their lives and everyone is okay. But is that what freedom really is?

Many people would define freedom as living under absolutely no authority. People believe freedom is the right to do whatever we want with no consequences and no dissent. If one is truly free than there are no rules and expectations that have to be met; we can run wild and do as we please whenever and wherever we feel like we want to.
 
In 1863 with the establishment of the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves in the south were declared free. By no means did that mean they had the right to do whatever they wanted to do without justification or consequence. The opposite was true in reality. For a century after that, people of African-American descent were considered less than what they were- people, that is to say.

This is, in many ways, an accurate analogy to freedom as it stands today. To me, freedom is exactly the opposite of having no authority. Freedom is the act of submitting to God’s authority. Much like the slaves in the 1860s, freedom is being released from slavery. In Christ we are free from sin, death, and hell. We are free from God’s wrath, which is what we deserve. We are free to live in such a way that glorifies the only one who truly deserves the glory: our one, true, living God. Before we have Christ in our lives, sin owns us. We are under the control of sin, and that is how we live. We don’t know any better because we are in darkness, and we do not know light. Through God’s grace Jesus came into the world and not only gave us light, but taught us how to be lights and to walk in the light.

In the Civil War era, slaves very rarely knew how to read. If you put a sign in front of them that said, "You are free," they wouldn't know what to do or how to respond. Sometimes Christianity works the same way. We know we are free from sin, but we don't know what the next step is. One solution I can think of is to thank the one who freed us. Our job when we are freed is to glorify God in everything we do. If the only thing we ever received from God was salvation, we have to understand that what we have been given is more than we deserve.That alone should always be enough to tell us what the freedom we have been given should be used for.

The answer is not in being free to do whatever suits us in the flesh. When one understands the depth of the love of the Father, what they want most is to please Him. Because sin is still a part of the world we live in, sometimes our "want to" seems broken. It is hard to admit the fact that we don't always do the best job of honoring God, but we need to understand that we have been forgiven and we are free. Though on this earth we will never be perfect, we become more like Christ as our faith in him grows, and we are always free from the power of sin even though we aren't always free from the presence of sin. Through this process we become more and more free from the presence of sin until the day of glorification when we will stand before God in Christ's righteousness alone. That is true freedom, and it comes not when we rebel against authority, but when we submit to the authority of God.

"Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God." -1 Peter 2:16

Everyday Resolutions

Happy New Year! Did you make any New Year's resolutions?

The question people frequently find themselves being asked has a wide range of answers. For some, the answer is, "No, I didn't want to disappoint myself." More often, however, most everyone has at least one thing every January 1st that they would like to change about themselves. One might hope to lose a certain amount of weight or earn a certain amount of money, or acquire some other item of monetary or sentimental value. Perhaps one would like to make a certain amount of friends or go to a certain event, or do something that they could only do once in a lifetime.

Whoever you are, you more than likely have something you don't like about yourself, and you want to fix it. So you write it down on January 1st, and depending on how much you really want it, work at it until you cross it off your list. Or perhaps you made a list, but you just never got around to actually doing it. That is often the case. So why do we do this? Well, most people explain it by saying that it's a new year, and thus it is a new start: a clean slate, if you will. "We've revolved around the sun one more time than we had 365 days ago. Time to start over!"

What's the point? If you have to reset yourself every 365 days, it seems to me that all the days before that didn't count for anything. If you changed for the better in 2013, why would you want to regress so you could 'start over' in 2014. Why not just work with what you have? And if that's the case, why do you have to wait 365 days between?

For those of us who are believers, we have to understand that salvation isn't a one-and-done thing. When we're born again, it's just like that. We're like infants and we need to grow. That's what sanctification is. It's the constant process of becoming more like Christ. One keyword there is 'constant.' You don't wake up one day sanctified. You don't die sanctified. It's a process that you go through every moment from the instant you receive the Holy Spirit. That's the way our 'resolutions' should be. You should wake up every day and ask God to change you today, and to make you more like Jesus.

It's great to write your goals down. I have my own New Year's resolutions, and I would encourage you to have at least one, because no one here is perfect. For that very reason, we should not be content to stay the way we are. God is I Am. He never changes; He is eternal and constant. We are not I Am. We are constantly changing in our lives, and we should make it our goal to strive for sanctification. Don't settle for complacency at any point in your life.

You should also keep in mind that you're not ever going to be able to 'fix' yourself. But the Holy Spirit is constantly at work in your life, and as you grow in your faith you should, and will see change in your life. So every day should be a resolution. Remember to do everything you do for the glory of God, and every day you should keep pressing on toward the goal.

Once more, happy New Year!



^"Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." -Philippians 3:7-14

Perfect Gifts

I stood before my choir family just days ago giving them a last-minute Thanksgiving speech. With the extra time we had, I asked them as a group to share some things they were thankful for. They went down the line, some pausing to think, others answering immediately. Nice things were said about faith, family, food, friends, and football. Anything you can think of, these kids mentioned. The last person spoke and I was about to close things out when a voice from the back said, "What about you?"

It hadn't occurred to me that I might need to say something. I hadn't given it a lot of thought. In the few seconds I had to think, I found myself suddenly overcome with emotion.

"There's just so much," I finally said. Several people nodded their heads in approval. I went on to name just a few things that I was incredibly thankful for, but there was so much I didn't say. I thought back to the beginning of the month, when I first made my Thanksgiving proposition. I issued a challenge to several of my friends, that from November 1st to Thanksgiving day to write down one thing each day they were thankful for. I accepted the challenge myself, and I must say it helped me tremendously.

Today was technically the last day of the challenge. I woke up this morning and began searching through my Bible, as I often do, hoping to find a good message for today. I came across the passage I used to start the challenge, with the key verse being 1 Thessalonians 5:18. It gave me the inspiration to issue a new challenge, directed at everyone.

I'm not saying you have to keep a formal list, although that's what I'll be doing and it might be fun. You could post it on your various social network accounts. I did that as well, and I thought it was pretty cool to see less that dishonors God on Twitter and more that brings glory to Him. However you would prefer to keep track, even just in your head, is fine. It doesn't have to be a daily thing, but it can be if you want to do it that way. All that matters is that whenever you think of something to be thankful for, be thankful for it.

 It has become evident to me in the past 28 days that the things we should thank God for are endless. There shouldn't be a deadline on your thankfulness, and we shouldn't have to set aside a day for it. Every day is a gift from God, so why not thank Him for it? James 1:17 is one of my favorite verses, and it says that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. If we focus a little bit more on that, we'll have a better perspective in general and we will be better living out our purpose, which is to glorify God.

If you do accept the challenge, pass it on. The goal is to bring honor to God in all that we do. He has given us so many great ways of doing that. Start thanking Him for it. And as you stuff yourself with stuffing and gobble down some turkey, keep in mind what the purpose of Thanksgiving really is, and don't forget to give thanks.

Have a blessed Thanksgiving!

"Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." --1 Thessalonians 5:18