God Uses Our Pain

God Uses Our Pain

 
Dear Champions,
 
The short excerpt is by Tony Evans, and it can be found in Joe Gibbs book Game Plan for Life, and the Scripture is found in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
 
Maybe a huge mistake taught you a lesson you might never have learned otherwise.  Though God never authorizes sin, and sin carries consequences, He still uses our failures to help fulfill His purpose for us.
 
It was Moses the murderer whom God used to lead Israel out of Egypt.  It was David the adulterer whom God used to write many of the psalms, and it was the same Peter who publicly denied Christ that God used to help found the early church.  The key is that these men repented of their sins, turned back to the Lord, and began to follow Him obediently.
 
God also uses those negative experiences that were not our fault.  Maybe a tragedy in your life has helped mold you into a compassionate counselor.  Maybe you grew up fatherless, or were discriminated against racially, or were treated unfairly on the job.  Those experiences, painful as they are, can shape you into a sensitive, caring person.
 
The story of Joseph is a classic illustration of how God can redeem the ugly events in our lives.  Joseph was rejected by his jealous brothers and left for dead in a pit; he was sold as a slave, unjustly accused of rape, and forgotten in prison.  But the Bible is clear that, each step of the way, the Lord was with Joseph.  God used all the negatives realities in his life to direct him to his destiny.  Joseph would become second in command in Egypt and be used by God not only to save the life of his family, but also to help fulfill God s purpose of founding a nation.
 
God knows how to take your good, your bad, and your ugly and use them for His purpose in your life.
 
Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

The Great Paradox

 The Great Paradox

Dear Champions,

The short excerpt is by Chuck Colson and is found in Joe Gibbs book Game Plan for Life.  Early in his career Colson was special counsel to President Richard Nixon, and he served prison time for obstruction of justice related to the Watergate scandal.  Colson founded Prison Fellowship Ministries after he was released from prison, and the Scripture is Luke 9:23-23 Then Jesus said to them all: If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.
     
Looking back, I can now see clearly the two great lessons from my life.  The first was the paradox I discovered in prison: If you really want to find your life, you have to lose it for Christ s sake.  After years of success and power, clawing my way to the top, I ended up empty and desperate.  But when I surrendered my life to Christ, I found it in prison, real peace, joy and purpose.

The second great lesson is also a paradox. God did not choose to use me when I was at the top.  He used me when I was broken at the bottom.  What I did not understand was that nothing is beyond the power of God.  In fact, God chose me precisely when I was weakest and most broken.  Why? Because then my own pride was out of the way and I could never glory in anything I did in the future. And I have not. God has used my life for His much greater purpose-to spread prison ministries around the world, far beyond anything I could ever dream of.  Indeed, he uses the weak and broken to shame the wise and mighty.

This former Marine captain and powerful White House aide thought he did not need God; the convict washing socks in a prison laundry knew how wrong he was.  The great paradox is that God will use your weakness, not your strength.

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Works or Grace?

Works or Grace?

 
Dear Champions,
 
The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the Scripture is Ephesians 2:8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- not by works, so that no one can boast.
 
The symptoms of sin are breaking the rules, but the essence of sin is taking a good thing and making it more important than God.  It is taking good things and making them ultimates and living for them and being defined by them.  That is the reason why in the Ten Commandments the first commandment, the primary commandment, is to have no other gods before me.  Everything else, all of the other, the cheating, the lying, the murdering, the stealing, and all of that awful stuff, it all flows out of the first one. 
 
No one is righteous, not even one; no one seeks for God (Romans 3:10).  There are bad people who mug you and cheat and hurt people, and they, of course, are not looking for God.  But here is what is scary about good and religious people.  Good and religious people think that they are looking for God, but they are not. They both are taking things and making them into idols; but some idols lead you to be obedient to the law of God, and some idols lead you to be disobedient to the law of God.  But no one is righteous, not even one; no one is seeking God!  Good people think they are seeking God, but they are seeking a god that they can control through their good works-a god who owes them.  Religious people say, I give God a record of righteousness, and then God owes me a blessing. But a Christian says, God through Jesus Christ has given me a perfect record of righteousness which I receive by faith, and now I live for him.
 
If you are a Christian, grace has come in and grabbed a hold of you and shown you that you can only be saved through the works of Jesus and not your own works.
 
Champions, have a great week!-David Vining
 

Joy in the Midst of Pain

Joy in the Midst of Pain

 
Dear Champions,
 
The short excerpt is from the heart of two moms that were gotten off of the CarePages.  The first is from Katie Dowlen.  Her son, Sam, received a spinal cord injury after his second day of his freshmen year at Tennessee Tech this past August 29th.  The second is by Cindy Landis who lost her precious 12 year old daughter Connor in her fight with cancer this past June of 2009. 
 
From Katie Dowlen:  One of the most precious parts of this whole deal has been the opportunity for us to reconnect with Sam in a way we could not possibly have done otherwise. Is that not just like God? One of those for the good parts that He talks about in Romans 8:28 (We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.).  Thank you so much for not growing weary in bringing Sam and our family to the feet of Jesus. We see Him everywhere. And in every step of this journey. I continue to pray for Sam s complete healing and recovery. As his mom, I am simply unable to pray for anything less. Yet while I pray for his body to return to what it was before August 29th, I pray his heart and his soul never will. Nor mine. We know that God never wastes pain. And that He uses everything to grow us up into who He has for us to be. Everything.

From Cindy Landis:  God has blessed us through our tragedy. Your love, support, and many acts of kindness have overwhelmed our broken hearts.  My heart has not only been broken though, it has been shattered....shattered into a million pieces that will take time to piece back together. And once it is back together, it will remain forever altered by the chips and cracks that could not be repaired. Perhaps, with time even the remaining rough edges of my mended heart will be smoothed away by the many of hugs and mountains of love poured over and into my wounded spirit. My heart will never be the same but God will enable this abiding heart to help others see the miracle of HIS amazing, unconditional love. The miracle that allows me to see the million and one twinkling stars in the sky and smile because I know Connor is among them....even through the darkness we are experiencing now.

We are sad and sometimes afraid. We are mad and sometimes very angry. Yet our God loves us. He loves us and He knows our pain…. pain that only comes from loving and losing a child. He cries with us. And He knows our despair. And we know it is through our despair by which we have come closer to Him. I have never felt pain so intense, yet I have never felt joy so immense. Pure, inexplicable joy in the midst of pain and grief that could only come from the loving arms of our Lord Jesus. The arms cannot remove the pain but they will give us peace and comfort. They will lift us and mold us into servants of HIS great love. In our pain we seek him more and by doing so we are held a little tighter and lifted a little higher. We thank our God for the pain that has brought us closer to Him.

Jesus said in John 16:33 . . . in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining