A New Creation

A New Creation

 

Dear Champions,

 

Louis Zamperini was a USA Olympic medalist before getting shot down and becoming a prisoner of war in Japan.  He was unbelievably abused, beaten, starved and humiliated daily.  The worst tormenter of all was Mutsuhiro Watanabe nicknamed "The Bird."

 

When the war ended Zamperini became an alcoholic, and his marriage was nearly over.  The Bird visited his dreams nightly and continued to torment him.   He lived daily to go back to Japan to get revenge on the Bird.  Very begrudgingly, he attended a Billy Graham crusade and gave his life to Jesus.

 

The short excerpt is by Laura Hillenbrand from the book, Unbroken.   The movie didn't tell this part of the story.   The scripture is 2 Corinthians 5:17   Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

 

"This is it," said Billy Graham.  "God has spoken to you.  You come on."  Cynthia (Zamperini's wife) kept her eyes on Louie all the way home.  When they entered the apartment, Louie went straight to his cache of liquor.  It was the time of night when the need usually took hold of him, but for the first time in years, Louie had no desire to drink.  He carried the bottles to the kitchen sink, opened them, and poured their contents into the drain.  Then he hurried through the apartment, gathering packs of cigarettes, a secret stash of girlie magazines, everything that was part of his ruined years.  He heaved it all down the trash chute.

 

In the morning, he woke feeling cleansed.  For the first time in five years, the Bird hadn't come into his dreams.  The Bird would never come again.

 

Louie dug out the Bible that had been issued to him by the air corps and mailed home to his mother when he was believed dead.  He walked to Barnsdall Park, where he and Cynthia had gone in better days, and where Cynthia had gone, alone, when he'd been on his benders.  He found a spot under a tree, sat down, and began reading.

 

Resting in the shade and the stillness, Louie felt profound peace.  When he thought of his history, what resonated with him now was not all that he had suffered but the divine love that he believed had intervened to save him.  He was not the worthless, broken, forsaken man that the Bird had striven to make of him.  In a single, silent moment, his rage, his fear, his humiliation and helplessness, had fallen away.  That morning, he believed, he was a new creation.

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

 

In His Grip

In His Grip

Dear Champions,

The short excerpt is by Joe Novenson and the scripture is John 10:27-28  My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.

Sunday, August 16, 1987, Northwest Airlines Flight 225 crashed outside of Detroit.  One hundred fifty-five people and all of the crew were dead.  The crash was incredible, absolutely decimating the plane.  There was one survivor; a four-year-old girl named Cecilia.  When the airplane investigators found her they thought that it was a fluke-that she was probably a resident.  Maybe the plane landed on her house, and maybe she was in a car nearby.  They checked the registrar, and her name was on the plane.  She was still in the seat-belt, and you would think that should have clued them in.  She was alive, but how?  After she came to and they could interview her, this is her story.  

Her mother, as the plane was falling, disconnected her own seat-belt, got on to the seat with her daughter, jammed both her knees on either side of her four year old daughter's legs, grabbed the back of the chair, and held on.  So when the plane crashed, behind her she had seat and in front of her she had mother.  All of the impact of the crash was assumed by chair and by Mom.  She lived!  Did she live because she was good, tried hard and held on tight? No!  It was because someone grabbed her and held her.  

This is what Jesus did for us.  He took the punishment for us on the cross so that we don't have to take the punishment.  He holds us in the palm of His hands, and no one will snatch us away from Him.

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Treated Like You Lived Like Jesus

Treated Like You Lived Like Jesus

 

Dear Champions,

Colossians 1:15  He (Jesus Christ) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

 

The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ is the first born of all creation, the first born from the dead, and the only begotten Son of the Father.  Jesus Christ lived through all eternity in a state of first-born blessing, but He left that first born blessing and comes to Earth and dies on a cross. 

 

The way of salvation by your own effort where you dress up before God saying, "I'm really a pretty good person.  I sin here and there, but honestly I'm pretty good."  It'll never work to dress up for God and hope that God will somehow bless you. 

 

The way of the gospel is that Jesus Christ dressed up as you and me and got the curse that we deserved so that when you believe in Him, God now accepts you as if you had done everything that Jesus had done.  After all, Jesus Christ had just been treated as if He had done everything that you had done.  When you believe in Him you are treated as if you get the first-born blessing.  In Hebrews 12:22-23 it says the city of God, the new Jerusalem-it's a vision of heaven, is the church of the first-born.  What kind of family in it has nothing but first born?  How can you have 10 kids and every one of them be first born?  It's absolutely impossible. 

 

What that is telling us is that the love that you experience from the Father when you stand in the works and righteousness of Jesus Christ  makes you feel like you are the only one in the world.  He says, "There is no one like you."

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining  

Covered By His Wings

Covered By His Wings

The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the Scripture is Psalm 91:4.  He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

Let's just say that you are one of the cool kids, and you are in high school.  Here's a girl that is dorky, and nobody likes her.  Since she is isolated and alienated, you try to reach out and be a friend to her.  The next thing that you know the other cool girls are coming to you saying, "What are you doing with her?" 

What is happening is that some of that dorky-ness is rubbing off on you.  You aren't cool anymore if you hang out with her.  There is no way for you to diminish her isolation and alienation without you entering into it and some of it falling down on you.

After a fire in Yellowstone, forest rangers began their trek up the mountain to survey the damage.  One ranger found a bird that was literally petrified in ash perched on the ground at the base of a tree.  Somewhat sickened by this eerie sight the ranger knocked the bird over with a stick, and three tiny chicks scurried out from under their dead mother's wings.  When the blaze had arrived the mother had remained steadfast.  Instead of running she just stayed put because she had been willing to die so that those under the cover of her wings would live.

The only way  that you love a guilty, broken, messed up person to change them is that you have to do it substitutionarily.  On the cross Jesus took our penalty upon himself and got what we deserved.  Our sins and guilt and brokenness fell upon Him.  He took it himself so that we could be forgiven.

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Priorities

Priorities

 

Dear Champions,

 

The short excerpt is by Dennis Rainey, and the Scripture is Psalm 143:8,10 . . . Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life. Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.

 

The Encyclopedia Britannica gives a half page to the accomplishments of Charles Francis Adams, the son of President John Quincy Adams.  The younger Adams followed the political trail of his father and became a U.S. diplomat to Great Britain.  The encyclopedia makes no mention of Charles's family, but Charles's diary does.  One day's entry read:  "Went fishing with my son today-a day wasted."

 

Another diary, however, offers a different perspective:  "Went fishing with my father-the most wonderful day of my life."  The person who wrote those words was Charles's son, Brook.

 

Interesting, isn't it . . . how a little boy's perspective can be so different from his dad's?

 

Psalm 90:12  Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Saved By The Blood

Saved By The Blood

Dear Champions,

The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the Scripture is 1 Peter 3:18  For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.

 
Earnest Gordon was a prisoner of war in Thailand in a Japanese Prisoner of War Camp.  He wrote a book titled, Through the Valley of the Kiwi.  One day the POWs were out working, and at the end of the day a guard shouted that a shovel was missing.  He insisted that someone had stolen it.  Striding up and down before the men the guard ranted and raved while screaming in broken English that the guilty one needed to step forward to take his punishment.  No one moved.  The guard's rage reached new heights of violence.  "Then all die," he shrieked.  To show that he meant what he said he cocked his rifle, put it on his shoulder, and he aimed at the first man in the rank prepared to shoot and work his way down the line.  At that moment a soldier from the Argyle regiment stepped forward and said calmly, "I did it."
 
The guard unleashed all his whipped up hate.  He kicked the helpless prisoner and beat him with his fist.  Still the Argyle stood rigidly to attention though blood was streaming all down his face.  His calm silence seemed to goad the guard into greater rage.  He seized his raffle by the barrow and brought it down onto the skull of the prisoner who sank limply to the ground and never moved again.  Though it was perfectly clear he was dead the guard continued to beat him and stopped only when he was exhausted.  The men on the work detail picked up their comrades body and marched back to camp.  When the tools were counted again at the guardhouse, it turned out that no shovel was missing. 
 
The soldier was innocent.  He knew that if he didn't step forward all of these other people would have died, so he saved them by his blood. 

The meaning of history is that we have a God who offers His own blood to save us!  Jesus died on the cross for our sins!

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Relational Compatibility Is Key

Relational Compatibility Is Key

 

Dear Champions,

 

The short excerpt is from Andy Stanley, and the scripture is Song of Songs 2:7 - . . . Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.

 

The average divorce rate is about 50 percent.  The divorce rate among couples who live together before they get married is 50 to 80 percent higher than the national average.  The odds of you moving in together and then being happily married are small.  For couples that live together before they get married, the odds of someone in that relationship being unfaithful are twice to eight times as high as the national average.  

 

The longer that you can postpone the physical, the more that you can work on the relational part of the relationship.  When the physical goes up, the relational part goes down.  

 

Sexual compatibility is not the litmus test for relational compatibility.  It's the other way around.  You are sexually compatible with millions of people.  You are not relationally compatible with as many people as you are sexually compatible.  Sexual activity covers a multiple of relational deficiencies.  If you want a relationship that results in great sex, then you need to become a person that knows how to build a great relationship.  Great sex is connected to intimacy, and the most satisfying sexual relationships are within the context of relationships.  The people that are most satisfied with sex are married. 

 

If sex was just physical and not reproductional, then just go and have a good time.  Because sex is not just physical and is reproductional, then you have got to handle it with care.  It is fragile.  One hundred percent of the portrayals of sex is that it is just physical, and it is not.  You hurt yourself when you treat it as if it was only physical.    

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining