A Wounded Me

A Wounded Me

 

Dear Champions,

The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the Scripture is Luke 22:42-44  "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."  An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.

There's no better way to intimacy with God than to have something horrible happen in your life that makes you really doubt God's love and go to Him anyway and say, "By God's grace, Thy will be done."  When it's hard, pray anyway.  When it's hard, obey anyway.  Keep saying, "Thy will be done," and it'll push you into an intimacy that you never had because you'll have to get to know Him as the good shepherd.  If you've been wounded and you say, "Lord, I want you to heal me," but it doesn't look like you are getting healed, then there is only one way through it.  You must say, "Evidently God you want a wounded me in this world to do certain things and be a certain person and get certain things done that I couldn't get done unless I was wounded. 

If in the history of the world, God has done His saving work through defeat, suffering, pain and confusing, inexplicable tragic and difficult situations, wouldn't it make sense that sometimes He'll work in your life like that? 

Matthew 11:28-30 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Marriage

Marriage

 

Dear Champions,

The short excerpt is by Matt Birk, center for the Baltimore Ravens.  It was written to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune recently in response to some other opinions shared by a couple of NFL players.  The Scripture is Matthew 19:4-6 Haven't you read," Jesus replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'?  So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."

Children have a right to a mom and a dad, and I realize that this doesn't always happen. Through the work my wife and I do at pregnancy resource centers and underprivileged schools, we have witnessed firsthand the many heroic efforts of single mothers and fathers -- many of whom work very hard to provide what's best for their kids. But recognizing the efforts of these parents and the resiliency of some (not all, unfortunately) of these kids, does not then give society the right to dismiss the potential long-term effects on a child of not knowing or being loved by his or her mother or father. Each plays a vital role in the raising of a child.

 

Same-sex unions may not affect my marriage specifically, but it will affect my children -- the next generation. Ideas have consequences, and laws shape culture. Marriage redefinition will affect the broader well-being of children and the welfare of society. As a Christian and a citizen, I am compelled to care about both.

 

I am speaking out on this issue because it is far too important to remain silent. People who are simply acknowledging the basic reality of marriage between one man and one woman are being labeled as "bigots" and "homophobic." Aren't we past that as a society?  Don't we all have family members and friends whom we love who have same-sex attraction? Attempting to silence those who may disagree with you is always un-American, but especially when it is through name-calling, it has no place in respectful conversation.

 

A defense of marriage is not meant as an offense to any person or group. All people should be afforded their inalienable American freedoms. There is no opposition between providing basic human rights to everyone and preserving marriage as the sacred union of one man and one woman.

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

 

P.S.  To read the entire article go to http://www.focusonlinecommunities.com/blogs/Finding_Home/2012/10/03/this-nfl-player-said-what?refcd=136901

I Don't Love You That Much

I Don't Love You That Much

 

Dear Champions,

 

The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the Scripture is in the excerpt.

 

The definition of marriage is cleaving.  You don't know how to go about deciding whether to be married or who to be married to unless you know what marriage is.  Jesus says in Luke 14:28, "Before a man goes and builds a tower, he first counts the cost. Before a king goes off to war, he counts the cost."  You can't even make a decision about being married unless you understand something about what the Bible says that marriage is.  The definition of marriage is a covenant.  It's a public promise.  It's a permanent and exclusive legal commitment to share your entire life with someone else.  Unless you have someone who is willing to give you a promise like that, and that same person you are willing to give a promise to, you mustn't give yourself to that person.  If you don't have a promise like that and you aren't willing to give a promise like that, you don't really love that person enough to be married to them. 

 

The modern way of talking about love is totally different.  It's a completely subjective meaning.  When people say, "Why don't we live together?  Why do we need to be married?  I love you.  Why do I need a piece of paper to show you that love?"  If you define love as feeling, that's right.  That's not what the Bible ever means when it means love.  Biblically, if somebody says, "I love you, but I don't want to marry you."  What they mean is, "I don't love you that much."  There's no way around that.  A person who says, "I love you, and I want to marry you," loves you more than the person who says, "I love you, but I don't want to marry you."  Why?  Because love by definition biblically is a commitment.  It's the ability to make an exclusive and a permanent commitment.  That's what love is.  That's what you most want, and you know that.  When somebody says, "I don't need a piece of paper to show that I love you," yes you do!  If you love a person the way the Bible says that two people are supposed to love one another in order to share their lives together, it means that you have no problem making a legal permanent exclusive commitment to them.

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Lasting Value

Lasting Value

 Dear Champions,

The short excerpt is by Mark Biller, and the Scripture is Psalm 90:12 Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

I love the story of Alfred Nobel, as related by Randy Alcorn in his book, The Treasure Principle:  Nobel dropped the newspaper and put his head in his hands. It was 1888.  Nobel was a Swedish chemist who made his fortune inventing and producing dynamite. His brother Ludvig had died in France. But now Alfred's grief was compounded by dismay. He'd just read an obituary in a French newspaper -not his brother's obituary, but his! An editor had confused the brothers.  The headline read, "The Merchant of Death Is Dead." Alfred Nobel's obituary described a man who had gotten rich by helping people kill one another.

 

Shaken by this appraisal of his life, Nobel resolved to use his wealth to change his legacy. When he died eight years later, he left more than $9 million to fund awards for people whose work benefited humanity. The awards became known as the Nobel Prizes. Alfred Nobel had a rare opportunity – to look at the assessment of his life at its end and still have the chance to change it. Before his life was over, Nobel made sure he had invested his wealth in something of lasting value.

 

Each of us chooses, either purposefully or passively, how we invest our time and treasure. The wise man invests his life carefully, using the temporary currencies of this life to gain riches that will last forever. As a poet once wrote, "Only one life, twill soon be past; only what's done for Christ will last."

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Independence and Interdependence

Independence and Interdependence

 

Dear Champions,

 

The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the Scripture is in the excerpt.

 

For men, the gift of independence has a tendency to become autonomy and tyranny.  The female gift of interdependence always has a tendency to become dependent.  In Genesis 3:17-18 after Adam and Eve rebel against God, God says to Adam, "You will sweat and work in the dust of the ground and thorns and thistles will come up."  He says to Eve in Genesis 3:16, "You will have pain in childbearing and your desire will be for your husband, but he will rule over you." 

 

When God curses humanity, He curses different aspects.  When He curses Adam, He curses his work.  He says, "Your need and desire to have an impact on the world, to be independent and to achieve is going to become an idol.  It's going to become too important to you, and you will always be frustrated because it will never give you what you want."  And He turns to the wife, and He curses her relationships.  He says, "You will want your husband desperately, but your husband will rule over you."

 

The teaching is that the wife's interdependence gift under the influence of sin will trip her up.  She will become a dependent person and will want to be taken care of.  The husband whose independent gift is now under the influence of sin, instead of being an independent person, he will be a tyrant and will rule over and master her.  When masculinity and femininity go bad, the independence becomes tyranny in men, and the interdependence becomes dependence in women.

 

The Bible teaches under the influence of sin that men will tend to oppress women, and women will tend to make it easy for them.  The fact is that men and women in marriage are supposed to learn to submit to one another, and the husband is supposed to have a loving authority.  The husband's independence becomes tyranny unless the wife pulls him back.  A man is not to be a tyrant but to be independent, and she needs to pull him back.  In the same way the wife will have a tendency to move toward dependence unless the husband in his strength pulls her back.  There needs to be a completion. 

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

 

Your Glory-Part 2

Your Glory-Part 2

 

Dear Champions,

 

The short excerpt is by Tim Keller (the first paragraph) and Andy Stanley (the second and third paragraph), and the Scripture is Jeremiah 9:23-24 This is what the Lord says: "Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the Lord.

How do you decide whether a watch is a good or a bad watch?  You have to know what it was designed for.  For example, it's terrible at hammering nails – so don't try.  But if it's terrible at hammering nails, that's okay because it's very good at telling me the time.  Therefore, until I know what it is built and designed for, it is impossible to even talk about whether it's a good or a bad watch."

 

Your glory is not a big enough prize to devote your life to.  Begin factoring into your decisions and your life what would be most honoring to God?  You owe it to yourself to ask the question because it is the purpose for which you have been made, and you know this intuitively.  You're going to live for somebody's glory, and God has invited you to live for His.  Ask what would be most honoring to Him.  

 

When you cross the line and start living for God's glory and not your own, something inside of you is going to light up.  There's going to be a freedom that you've never experienced before, and you will step into the purpose for which you were made-to be a reflection of your Creator's glory.  

 

Man's chief in is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Your Glory-Part 1

Your Glory-Part 1

 

Dear Champions,

 

The short excerpt is by Tim Andy Stanley, and the scripture is Psalm 19:1-4 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.  Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them.  Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.

 

You were created to reflect the image and the glory of God.  Your glory is really too small for you to give your life to and live for.  Everybody lives for somebody's glory.   Probably in your life no one has ever challenged you to decide whose glory that you're going to live for, so consequently guess whose glory you live for?

 

Living for your glory is too small a thing.  I don't care what you do and how much money you make and how cute your wife is and how cool your stuff is and how smart your kids are.  To become absorbed with you're glory makes you small. Ultimately it makes you insignificant because you weren't created for your glory.   You can never amass enough glory to fill you up, and when you become a glory hog you become less content, more unhappy, and more undesirable to be with.  You were made for something more, and you have been invited to something much bigger, grander and more glorious.

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining