Choose Life

Choose Life

Dear Champions,

The Scripture is from Deuteronomy 30:19-20 This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him.

Pam knows about the pain of considering abortion.  More than 22 years ago, she and her husband, Bob, were serving as missionaries to the Philippines and praying for a fifth child. Pam contracted amoebic dysentery, an infection of the intestine caused by a parasite found in a contaminated food or drink. She entered into a coma and was treated with strong antibiotics before they discovered she was pregnant. Doctors urged her to abort the baby for her own safety and told her that the medicines had caused irreversible damage to her baby.
 
She refused the abortion and cited her Christian faith as the reason for her hope that her son would be born without the devastating disabilities physicians predicted.  Pam ultimately spent the last two months of her pregnancy in bed and, eventually, gave birth to a health baby boy August 14, 1987.
 
Pam s youngest son preaches in prisons, makes hospital visits, and serves with his father s ministry in the Philippines.  He also plays football, and his name is Tim Tebow.

Look for their 30 second commercial during the upcoming Super Bowl, and have a great week!-David Vining

Meant for Something Beyond This World

Meant for Something Beyond This World

 
Dear Champions,
 
The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the Scripture is Isaiah 55:2 and Philippians 3:20  Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?  Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. . . Our citizenship is in heaven. 
 
In every single one of us there is a raging, unquenchable, and all consuming thirst that leads us to decide that nothing is good enough and nothing will satisfy us.  We all have an infinite capacity for boredom and irritability with anything, even the best things.  The thirst moves and progresses faster if you are successful.  The more successful that you are, the faster that you come to realize that you have a bottomless pit inside of you.  There is a black hole and an infinite vacuum in you and in me, and it does not matter what we put in there.  At first it is great, or she is great, or he is great.  Then, after awhile, I find fault, and I want to pull away. 
 
I have a large folder filled with quotes from successful and famous people, who after they got to the top, said, I do not know what happened, but I wanted to kill myself.  Boris Becker, for example, the tennis great, looking back on his life said that when he was at the height of his power and the height of his achievement and fame, he wanted to kill himself -- but why?  Because when he got all those things, he still felt empty.  He said, I had won Wimbledon twice; once I was the youngest player to ever do so.  I was rich.  I had all the material possessions I needed.  I guess it is like the old song about movies and pop stars who want to commit suicide.  They have everything, and yet they are so unhappy.  It is true.  I had nothing on the inside.
 
Like I said, it goes faster if you are successful, but we are all on our way.  Unless there is a cure, unless there is a medicine, unless there is a treatment, unless there is some kind of intervention, we are all on our way to being unhappy with anything and with everything.  Nothing will ever be good enough. If there is nothing in this world that ever satisfies me, then it must mean that I am made for something beyond this world. 
 
Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Jesus is the Something Else

Jesus is the Something Else

Dear Champions,

The short excerpt is by Heather Brown Holleman in the first paragraph and is by Larry Crab in the second paragraph.

Rick Hove, said, Do we pursue Jesus as a means to something more beautiful? In other words, many times I see my relationship with Jesus as the way to find health, happiness, or prosperity. But really, Jesus Himself is the thing I want. He is not a means to something else. He is the Something Else.

We approach Jesus the way a child approaches a weary Santa Claus in the mall, who for the hundredth time asks, What do you want for Christmas? I wager no child has ever pressed close to Santa s chest, looked up into his eyes, and said, You! I want only you. No child believes having Santa join him for dinner could bring more joy than watching Santa stack presents beneath the tree. Do we want the blessing of a better life more than we desire to draw near to Jesus?

May our hearts become like Psalm 27: 4 One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining