Footsteps

This is the video "Footsteps" by New Tribes Mission, featuring the Bible Translator Lisa Kappeler.  It's an amazing look into the lives of the people serving the Lord on the mission field.

My Hero

I was listening to the radio today and heard the song Hero by Abandon.  The song has a really neat chorus in it—

There he goes—a hero

A savior to the world
Here he stands with scars in his hands
With love he gave his life so we could be free
The savior of the world

The song really made me stop and think—it's truly about what trusting, believing, and living in God is all about—the Savior of the world, the One who stands watching us with love in His eyes as He is nailed to a tree.  This is the One who let men beat Him, women spit on Him, carried His own cross up the hill until He collapsed under the weight and pain.  He gave Himself to us to be killed, and He let us kill Him without mercy.  And then we watched Him die.
Acts 3:14-15 says exactly what I'm trying to get across here: "You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you.  You killed the author of life, but God raised Him from the dead." (emphasis added)

We, (you, me, everyone) in this crazy, broken, hurting, dead world we live in killed that Man.  And it wasn't just a man—it was the Lord, God, the One and Only, the Beginning and the End.  The Author of Life.  Our Creator.

He died, we live.  He rose, we'll rot.  How do we explain this?  Christ the Lord died, we killed him, but then He rose.  And here we are—alive in the body, moving, living, breathing, but when we die, we don't ascend into heaven, we get tossed into the ground.  As I read my Bible during school today I came across some other people who were wondering about this—why the Savior of the world died, and why we killed Him—and why He rose and we die.  The people of Acts were sort of concerned about the whole confusing thing, so Peter began explaining it to them.  They were "cut to the heart" and scared, unsure of how they would enter heaven if they were simply going to die.  They asked Peter and his friends,

"'Brothers, what shall we do?'

Peter replied, 'Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.  And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.'"  (Acts 2:37-38, emphasis added)

That's what the song makes me think off—here's this guy with blood running off his hands, his head, his feet, with bruises and cuts all over his body, and yet he endures it without complaint.  For us.  He wants us to understand that a true hero is one who loves above all else, who doesn't mind ridicule, who is willing to forgive.  He is the hero, the Savior of the world.

Christmas

Today is Christmas. I am sitting here in a warm house, with my grandparents, parents, sisters, and brothers standing around, joking and talking with one another.  My dad is cleaning pans from breakfast, and the boys are playing with battery-operated cars they found in their stockings.  The dog is successfully (for the most part) dodging the little missiles, one eye on the cars and the other shut as she tries to get in her mid-morning nap.  If you sat down and looked around, it would look like a peaceful day in the life of our family.  But if you got up and started talking among the children, you would find out more.  They are joyful in the celebration of Jesus, excited at the remembrance of His birth.  They know that this is more than a fun day off school with new toys to play with and grandparents to visit—it's one of the most important days of the year.  Christ the savior was born today—is there anything more that matters?  Is there any birth that was special enough to compete with the joy and love that came in that small package one Christmas day thousands of years ago?  Never!
Today is Christmas.  We celebrate with joy.  I pray that you and your family have a merry one, filled with new memories and the remembrance of old ones.

The Purging of Dross

Seemingly unaffected by her anguish, the dragon continued. “Now for another question.” As the sizzle and stench of her burning flesh permeated the room, he turned on his lasers and focused the beams on her eyes. “You say that you now know why you must be set aflame.” He paused for a moment as if to let his words add to her suffering. “Why?” “I … I …”She couldn’t speak. The flames climbed to her waist and slowly crawled up her back, onto her wings, and up to her chest. Heaving, gasping, panting, she tried to force out an answer, but the words wouldn’t come. Were they even in her mind? Did she really not know after all?
“Bonnie Silver!” Abaddon shouted.  His call echoed throughout the chamber, repeating again and again. “Why must you be set aflame?”
Even as he finished his question, her name continued to echo.  Bonnie Silver … Bonnie Silver.
She spat out her words, each one a torture. “My … my name … is Silver. All dross … is purged… and my body … is a living … illustration.”
“But you must have some dross remaining. Hidden lies in secret places?” His eyebeams brightened. “Envy? Lust? Or do you seriously want me to believe this notion that the dross is already gone? Is your mask one of pride after all?”
“No!” she screamed. “Not a mask. … God purged … my dross … long ago."

This quote from one of my favorite books, The Bones of Makaidos, by Bryan Davis.  The passage above illustrates to a great extent the life that we live in Christ if we are believers.  So often the devil comes back to me, whispering doubts about how I wasn't forgiven, how my sin still remains.

They are lies.

Once God forgives us, we become new people.  The dross we once were—impurities covering the silver of God's creations—gets burned away, killing the person we once were and giving us a new life.  Through the purging of our dross, we are left "blameless and pure, children of God without fault" (Philippians 2:15).  Not only is the sin washed away, but our lives take on a new direction.  Though the temptations of this life still pull us to the wayside on occasion, they cannot overcome us. 

This is why the passage is such a wonderful example of our lives as Christ-followers. Our old bodies died with His when He lay lifeless on the cross, and our new ones rose with Him three days later.  Jesus took all the wrath of our sin, the destructive seeds that we sowed, and killed it, along with the people who sowed the seeds.  Those people were you and me.  We were purged of the dross we once carried like burdens, dragging us down into mud of our own making.  And now it is no longer us who live, but Christ in us (Galatians 2:20).

And I rejoice in that fact, in that simple, childlike solution that paid so incredibly dearly.  With the words, "it is finished" (John 19:30), it was finished.  Death died.  Life sprang up from the dry ground, and filled our hearts with something new, something clean.  Jesus became our life, and death no longer has hold.  And with Bonnie Silver in that passage I can say, "It's not a mask.  God purged my dross long ago."