William Wendell's Page
Greetings everyone! For the second year Pat and I are going to be warriors for St. Jude's Warrior dash.
While Pat and I will be battling the distance and obstacles the real warriors are the kids that St. Jude helps! These are amazing brave children of God that have been put in a difficult situation. If you feel called to it, please donate to by clicking the link below to help support me in this great cause!
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Three in One?
John 14:15-21:15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be[c] in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
In this post I will deal with three different aspects of this reveled mystery (get it? Three aspects one post, a Trinitarian blog post about a Trinitarian God! Yeah, I'm about as subtle as a sledge hammer.). I will first deal with the philosophical aspect then the theological aspect and conclude with the practical aspect.
First, the philosophical aspect of the Trinity.
Before even diving into the Trinity in general I think it is important to acknowledge the fact of God's incomprehensibility. Put differently we will never be able to completely comprehend God. Anyone who puts very much thought into the concept of God will have to admit this. We are finite, time and space bound, creatures. God is not bound by space and time and is, therefore, beyond our full comprehension. Some of my contemporaries have taken this truth and made the incorrect assumption that God is therefore unknowable. Therefore, they reason, all expressions of God are equally valid.This is, at it's core, faulty reasoning. I am beyond the comprehension of my puppies. Does that mean that they cannot 'know' me. Of course not! I have made myself knowable to them. By training them, loving them, and feeding them I have enabled them to know me as their master. In the same way, God loves us enough to reveal Himself to us even though He knows we are unable to fully understand Him. I, for one, think it is an excellent complement God has paid us by revealing Himself to us so much so that we can know Him but not fully comprehend Him. In other words, I like the fact that God, in His very essence, reminds us that He is God and we are not.
So, does this get us off the hook for trying to understand the Trinity to the best of our ability? Because you can tell this is not the end of the blog you have probably already guessed that the answer is no. The technical term for the objection normally raised over this doctrine is that it breaks the law of noncontradiction. This is a classical philosophical law which states that two contradictory things cannot be true. For example I cannot be both married and a bachelor, the terms are mutually exclusive. People use this law every time they cross a busy street. As Ravi Zacharias famously said, "Even in India we look both ways before we cross the street. It is not me and the bus it is me or the bus." The critique against the Christian doctrine of God is that we are stating that is one and three at the same time. If something is one it cannot also be three and visa versa.
This critique would be devastating if Christians were claiming that God is three AND one but we don't we are claiming that God is three IN one. This may seem like a mere semantical difference at first but the difference between "and" and "in" is the difference between heresy and orthodoxy. As Christians we claim that God is one in essence and three in persons. To say that has multiple essences is called Tri-theism and to claim that God is only one distinct person is called Modalism. Put differently, when it comes to God's essence He is always one, never three. Likewise in God's personhood He is always there, never one.
For example it was not the Father or the Spirit that was crucified God the Son was crucified for our sins. In terms of essence the Spirit is not 'lesser' than the Son and Father but co-eternal with them. One way the one essence nature of the Trinity plays out is that all three members of the Trinity always act together for one purpose. For example, the Father, sends the Son to reconcile the world back to Himself through the power of the Spirit. This is not the only aspect of God's oneness. If it were we would slip intro modalism.
Is this just theological jargon designed to talk around the question? Absolutely not, I am simply attempting to frame the discussion properly. In terms of philosophical comprehension I think the best we can do is use analogies. Now, before diving into my favorite analogy I have a disclaimer. No analogy is perfect! I think this one is very helpful in our comprehension, but I am sure, if taken too far, it would commit some form of heresy. As I said before God is beyond our comprehension.
Having said that, this analogy comes from Augustine and I find it helpful. We have one mind in three parts, memory, desire, and will. We do not have three minds and our memory, desires, and will are all distinct. Also, these three aspects of our mind never act alone but as one essence. For example, imagine a child who accidentally puts his or her hand on a hot stove. It the heat would hurt them. The next time the child approaches a hot stove his or her memory will remind the desire of the pain. The desire does not like pain so it tells the will not to touch the burner. So the child pulls his or her hand away instinctively. In the same way just as the Son prays to the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit. One God three persons in communication and relationship.
The second aspect is the theological aspect of the Trinity.
I have often told people that the Trinity solves more problems than it causes. If God is not triune there seems to be at least two other options. There are multiple gods or God is a modatic or singular entity. There are theological problems with both of these.
If God is not one than He can be divided. In other words, in some ways, capricious gods like those of ancient Greece or Rome. These 'gods' are really not God in the since that the Christian means anyway. What I mean by this is that the Roman and Greek gods are exactly what we would expect if humans made up gods. They are exactly what we would expect because they are merely powerful humans. There power is great but limited. They can be tricked, so they are not omniscient, they are only in one place so they are not omnipresent, and they defeated by other gods so they are not omnipotent.
The other alternative is a more modatic or unitarian understanding of God. This is the concept that Muslims hold to. The difficulty with this understanding of God is that, before creation, God was not loving because there was no one to be loving toward. Put differently God created us so that He could be loving, so that he could be sovereign, or because he was lonely. I am sure there are other explanations of why a non-triune God would create the universe but it is not the same reason our Trinitarian God has.
A Trinitarian understanding of God gives another reason for creation, and meaning for life. The Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit has always been in loving relationship within Himself, even before the creation. In other words, in Christian theology we have a love preceding creation understanding. The reason God created the universe is not because He was lonely, or needed someone to be sovereign over. Instead, the nature of true love reached out to a beloved outside of itself. This is why husbands and wife, instinctively, desire to have children. The loving relationship between them literally reaches out to a beloved outside of themselves. This is probably the most dramatic example of the image of God within us.
Beyond creation, the Trinitarian God is loving community in essence that invites us in. Thus in 14 Jesus was inviting us into relationship with the ground of all that is real when saying that He "will not leave us as orphans," (18). Our heavenly Father sends His Son on a mission to reconcile a broken and hurting world back to Himself and we have the privilege of becoming apart of this mission and relationship by the power of the Holy Spirit!
In Genesis God creates us in His image (see Genesis 1:17). The implications of this go far beyond this post but the one I want to focus on is what does it mean to be made in the image of a God that is Trinity. The Trinity shows us that God is loving relationship, in His very essence. In the same way, we are beings designed for loving relationship. That is why we cannot be Lone Ranger Christians! Our spiritual lives are not meant to be lived out in an individualistic way but in the midst of community. This community is called the church.
Another practical implication of the Trinity is the nature of mission and ministry. We, as Christians, are not on our own mission empowered by our own strength and this mission is not dictated to us by the world. Instead we are continuing Christ's mission the He was sent on from the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit for the sake of the world!
This means that our opinions are irrelevant when it comes to how to run the ministry we have been given. Instead, it is Christ's mission and the way we live it out needs to be consistent with His Lordship. Likewise the many loyalties and wants of the world tearing at us are irrelevant to how we ought to do ministry. Instead, what is critical are the needs of the world as they are given to us by the Father. Finally, our efforts are not mere human efforts but they are empowered by the Holy Spirit. Dr. Steve Semands says that ministry:
The other alternative is a more modatic or unitarian understanding of God. This is the concept that Muslims hold to. The difficulty with this understanding of God is that, before creation, God was not loving because there was no one to be loving toward. Put differently God created us so that He could be loving, so that he could be sovereign, or because he was lonely. I am sure there are other explanations of why a non-triune God would create the universe but it is not the same reason our Trinitarian God has.
A Trinitarian understanding of God gives another reason for creation, and meaning for life. The Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit has always been in loving relationship within Himself, even before the creation. In other words, in Christian theology we have a love preceding creation understanding. The reason God created the universe is not because He was lonely, or needed someone to be sovereign over. Instead, the nature of true love reached out to a beloved outside of itself. This is why husbands and wife, instinctively, desire to have children. The loving relationship between them literally reaches out to a beloved outside of themselves. This is probably the most dramatic example of the image of God within us.
Beyond creation, the Trinitarian God is loving community in essence that invites us in. Thus in 14 Jesus was inviting us into relationship with the ground of all that is real when saying that He "will not leave us as orphans," (18). Our heavenly Father sends His Son on a mission to reconcile a broken and hurting world back to Himself and we have the privilege of becoming apart of this mission and relationship by the power of the Holy Spirit!
The final aspect is the practical aspect of the Trinity.
Now we have finally arrived at the 'so what' portion of the blog. Why do we bother with this doctrine if it causes us to go into so much explanation and confusion? The first answer is because it is how God has reveals Himself to us in scripture and is therefore true. However, there is a practical aspect to this doctrine. An aspect that makes this doctrine not only one that we must hold on to with our heads but also with our hearts!
In Genesis God creates us in His image (see Genesis 1:17). The implications of this go far beyond this post but the one I want to focus on is what does it mean to be made in the image of a God that is Trinity. The Trinity shows us that God is loving relationship, in His very essence. In the same way, we are beings designed for loving relationship. That is why we cannot be Lone Ranger Christians! Our spiritual lives are not meant to be lived out in an individualistic way but in the midst of community. This community is called the church.
Another practical implication of the Trinity is the nature of mission and ministry. We, as Christians, are not on our own mission empowered by our own strength and this mission is not dictated to us by the world. Instead we are continuing Christ's mission the He was sent on from the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit for the sake of the world!
This means that our opinions are irrelevant when it comes to how to run the ministry we have been given. Instead, it is Christ's mission and the way we live it out needs to be consistent with His Lordship. Likewise the many loyalties and wants of the world tearing at us are irrelevant to how we ought to do ministry. Instead, what is critical are the needs of the world as they are given to us by the Father. Finally, our efforts are not mere human efforts but they are empowered by the Holy Spirit. Dr. Steve Semands says that ministry:
demands more than our best, more than anything we have to offer. To participate in the ongoing ministry of Jesus, to do what the Father is doing, we must be filled with the Holy Spirit.Much more, of course could be said. However I will close this post with a Trinitarian question. How can we allow the Holy Spirit to empower and change us in order that we might engage in Christ's mission from the Father so that we might help to bring a hurting and lost world back to its loving Creator?
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Who is He?
In this age of religious pluralism it has become rather un-politically correct to claim yourself to be a 'Jesus Only' Christian (as if there are other kinds). Instead, it seems to have become popular to proclaim Jesus as a 'great moral teacher' of some kind. To this C.S. Lewis has famously responded by stating:
"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God."[5]This has been called the Lewis's 'trilemma,' referring to a forced option between believing the Jesus was either Lord (who He claimed to be), Liar (He knew He was not God but lied about it), or a Lunatic (was not God but sincerely believed it).
This trilemma has fell onto some hard times but I am willing to argue the core of what Lewis was getting at rings true.
One criticism is that Lewis assumes the historicity of the New Testament. This claim essentially says that Lewis left out a third option. The option that Jesus' divinity could have been an invention of the early church and inserted into His biographies (the four gospels). The problems with this criticism are many.
First, if Jesus' claims of divinity were an invention of the early church we would expect some kind of organic growth of the belief. Put differently, if Jesus' divinity was a legend propagated by the early church we would expect the first writings about Him to be modest claims about His being a good moral teacher and later writings push His divinity. The truth is, however, that the earliest documents we have do not portray Jesus as a great moral teacher but as the Risen Son of God (see Galatians 1). Second, the first time we have any evidence of anyone claiming that Jesus was not divine is through Arianism around 300AD. This is well after the last New Testament document was written.
Second, we have absolutely no evidence of any other Jewish messianic group making their messiah into a legendary figure. As much as we want to put Jesus into our box He won't do it! Jesus was a first century Jewish carpenter not a Germanic or Anglo Saxon king like King Arthur.
For more on the ridiculousness of the assertion that Jesus' divinity was an invention of the early church you can check out these four youtube clips:
Another criticism is that Jesus could have thought himself to be a guru. That when Jesus refers to himself as God He meant he was god (small g) along with everything else. Just as Jesus was not a king of Germanic, Viking, or Anglo Saxon descent neither was he Indian. This concept was completely foreign to the Judeo ethic in which Jesus lived. Do the critics really think that Jesus was crucified because He was proclaiming to be god along with everything else? If this was how Hebrews thought, it would have been no big deal.
It is clear from anyone who has read the Old and New Testaments that the writers believed God to be Holy. Meaning that God was wholly other, working through creation but completely above it. This is why John refers to Jesus as the 'Word' become flesh in John 1. This would have reminded the readers of that rich philosophical tradition of the Greeks. Fort them the 'Word' was the eternal uncreated principal or reason of the universe. The 'Word' was also thought to be the 'unmoved mover' that was before creation, began creation, and will be here when the creation is gone. That's why it was so startling when John says that 'the word began flesh and dwelt among us' (John 1:14).
There is much more to say about the criticisms however there is one thing the critics never seem to address. This is the fact that many have claimed to be God. None of them have been attached to a major religion. Buddha was probably an atheist Muhammad believed himself to be a prophet, and Confucius was not even a religious philosopher but an ethicist. Of those to claim deity, some have been raving lunatics that we now hospitalize some have been power hungry dictators that we now demonize but NOBODY has believed them to be God or even to be a god after their death.
However much people want to manipulate, mock, minimize and criticise Lewis' argument Jesus' question is still put to all of us:
Jesus asked His disciples “Who do people say I am?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”
But the question that Jesus really wants us to answer is "what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” (Mark 8:-27-30)
So who is He to you?
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Allan R. Bevere: The Trinity Is Not an Appendix to the Christian Do...
Allan R. Bevere: The Trinity Is Not an Appendix to the Christian Do...: This Sunday is Trinity Sunday, which is appropriately observed after Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit. It is important that we no...
Friday, May 3, 2013
William Wendell's Page
Greetings everyone! For the second year Pat and I are going to be warriors for St. Jude's Warrior dash.
While Pat and I will be battling the distance and obstacles the real warriors are the kids that St. Jude helps! These are amazing brave children of God that have been put in a difficult situation. If you feel called to it, please donate to by clicking the link below to help support me in this great cause!
William Wendell's Page
While Pat and I will be battling the distance and obstacles the real warriors are the kids that St. Jude helps! These are amazing brave children of God that have been put in a difficult situation. If you feel called to it, please donate to by clicking the link below to help support me in this great cause!
William Wendell's Page
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Together
Luke 10:1-3:
After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.
When someone uses the word 'evangelism' many images spring into people's mind. A person dressed like the third blues brother on a busy street corner. This blues brother seems to always have a bullhorn, and placard with Scriptures (usually misinterpreted) and flames painted on, screaming "THE END IS NEAR!!" Perhaps some think of Ernest Angley enthusiastically saying, 'Be heeeaaled!' (I do, after all, live in Akron Ohio).
Because of this, among other reasons, I think people push off organized religion and lean more toward a vague 'spirituality.' Allan Bevere has done an excellent post on how being "spiritual but not religious" seems to encourage a safe, discipleship-less, un-transformed sort of faith (http://www.allanbevere.com/2013/04/on-being-religious-but-not-spiritual.html). One thing that Allan said grabbed my attention:
This kind of vague spirituality does seem to breed a 'Lone Ranger' mentality. As one of my colleagues commented it is even worse than the Loan Ranger, at least he had he had Tonto and his horse Silver!
Scared away from 'organized religion' because of the negative images mentioned above combined with the allure of easy, private, consumer driven 'spirituality' many are nervous or even dead set against anything that even smells like evangelism.
After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.
When someone uses the word 'evangelism' many images spring into people's mind. A person dressed like the third blues brother on a busy street corner. This blues brother seems to always have a bullhorn, and placard with Scriptures (usually misinterpreted) and flames painted on, screaming "THE END IS NEAR!!" Perhaps some think of Ernest Angley enthusiastically saying, 'Be heeeaaled!' (I do, after all, live in Akron Ohio).
Because of this, among other reasons, I think people push off organized religion and lean more toward a vague 'spirituality.' Allan Bevere has done an excellent post on how being "spiritual but not religious" seems to encourage a safe, discipleship-less, un-transformed sort of faith (http://www.allanbevere.com/2013/04/on-being-religious-but-not-spiritual.html). One thing that Allan said grabbed my attention:
Discipleship is not equivalent to some vague individualistic spirituality in which I judge myself to be basically OK as I am because God thinks I'm OK as I am.
This kind of vague spirituality does seem to breed a 'Lone Ranger' mentality. As one of my colleagues commented it is even worse than the Loan Ranger, at least he had he had Tonto and his horse Silver!
Scared away from 'organized religion' because of the negative images mentioned above combined with the allure of easy, private, consumer driven 'spirituality' many are nervous or even dead set against anything that even smells like evangelism.
All though I am unsure what evangelism exactly smells like, when it is mentioned it is not uncommon to hear things like, "I don't want to offend anyone" or "religion and faith issues are private matters." This may be true of a safe, vague, individualistic 'spirituality' but it is not true of the gospel of Jesus Christ! After all Jesus did say, "Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels," (Luke 9:26). Also, while I would never want to offend anyone unnecessarily, the Gospel is offensive! In the middle of our message is a crucifix of the only innocent human being on earth! We, as Christians, must strive to have the gospel be the ONLY offence.
Sometimes I worry, am I ashamed of the gospel? Do I deny the gospel by my silence? As one examines the people in the New Testament one discovers that not only were they unafraid to share the good news of Jesus Christ, you could not shut them up about it!
So is this a call to gather up our bullhorns, paint our placards, and get ready to 'evangelize' by fire? Not quite. Another thing conspicuously missing from the current church landscape is doing evangelism as a community. It is no mistake the Jesus did not send the 72 disciples out as loan rangers but in pairs. If we are inviting people into loving community, with God and His people, should we not do it through loving community? In other words why are we not sharing the good news TOGETHER!? After all we are, very often, being sent into places where we feel as if we are 'sheep among the wolves.'
George Hunter wrote an excellent took entitled "The Celtic Way of Evangelism." In this book Dr. Hunter contrasts the Celtic way of evangelism and the Roman model of evangelism. In the Roman model People were presented with the gospel asked to decide whether to commit or not and then the evangelized had fellowship with the church. In the Celtic model, by contrast, people were invited into fellowship with Christian communities, ministry happened through conversations, and living together, then people were asked if they wanted to make a commitment. As Dr. Hunter recognizes, The Celtic model reflects the adage that, for most people, "Christianity is more caught than taught."
The Celts formed Christian communities right next to pagan communities and invited them in from there. This was literally meeting people where they were at, much like Jesus coming down into human form to meet us where we are at. At the end of the book Dr. Hunter challenges the reader to think of ways we can position ourselves next to, or in the midst of, un-evangelized communities and invite them in for fellowship and discussion.
In what ways can we invite people into the body of Christ so that we might point toward the healing, transformative power of the gospel?
So is this a call to gather up our bullhorns, paint our placards, and get ready to 'evangelize' by fire? Not quite. Another thing conspicuously missing from the current church landscape is doing evangelism as a community. It is no mistake the Jesus did not send the 72 disciples out as loan rangers but in pairs. If we are inviting people into loving community, with God and His people, should we not do it through loving community? In other words why are we not sharing the good news TOGETHER!? After all we are, very often, being sent into places where we feel as if we are 'sheep among the wolves.'
George Hunter wrote an excellent took entitled "The Celtic Way of Evangelism." In this book Dr. Hunter contrasts the Celtic way of evangelism and the Roman model of evangelism. In the Roman model People were presented with the gospel asked to decide whether to commit or not and then the evangelized had fellowship with the church. In the Celtic model, by contrast, people were invited into fellowship with Christian communities, ministry happened through conversations, and living together, then people were asked if they wanted to make a commitment. As Dr. Hunter recognizes, The Celtic model reflects the adage that, for most people, "Christianity is more caught than taught."
The Celts formed Christian communities right next to pagan communities and invited them in from there. This was literally meeting people where they were at, much like Jesus coming down into human form to meet us where we are at. At the end of the book Dr. Hunter challenges the reader to think of ways we can position ourselves next to, or in the midst of, un-evangelized communities and invite them in for fellowship and discussion.
So, instead of the standard 'don't ask don't tell' and confrontational forms of evangelism, I think we should take a hint from the Celts, and even more so, Jesus. We should tell people about the love of Jesus Christ, not as Loan Rangers with out Silver and Tonto, but together!
In what ways can we invite people into the body of Christ so that we might point toward the healing, transformative power of the gospel?
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
All things new
Revelation 21:3-5
Elie Wiesel wrote this:
“Then came the march past the victims. The two men were no longer alive. Their tongues were hanging out,swollen and bluish. But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing...And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes.And we were forced to look at him at close range. He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still red, his eyes not yet extinguished.Behind me, I heard the same man asking:"For God's sake, where is God?"And from within me, I heard a voice answer:"Where He is? This is where--hanging here from this gallows..." Any other answer would have been blasphemous.
In the video I posted above the mother of Krystle Campbell speaks to the press. In this video she makes the statement that none of it makes sense. She says that Krystle was a good person, hard worker, and everyone loved her.
Often, life does not seem to make sense. The innocent suffer and there seems to be no justice or end in sight. Not knowing what to do, many well meaning Christians, and even non Christians, break out old, tired and unhelpful platitudes. We have all heard them, "God just wanted another angel for His garden," or, "everything happens for a reason."
While it is true that there is a reason this awful tragedy happened and God does delight in reuniting with His sons and daughters, these do not quite scratch the itch. As the man in Wiesel's story said in the midst of the young boy suffering, "For God's sake, where is God?" Where is God in the middle of suffering? Does He just let us languish under the pain and absurdity of the universe we find ourselves in?
It is for this reason that many turn away from God. However, what would happen if, instead of turning away, we would turn toward how God deals with the suffering of the innocent. As followers of Christ we do not worship a God who is far off from our suffering. Quite the contrary, the writer of Hebrews reminds us that "we do not have a High Priest that is unable to empathize with us" (4:15).
On the cross, Jesus died for the sins we are guilty of, but He also died for all of the sins we are innocent victims of. In suffering on the cross, Jesus, the ultimately innocent one, suffers with us! Or as Wiesel says "Where He is? This is where--hanging here from this gallows..."
What is even better news, is that Christ does not just sympathise with our suffering, He transforms it. The Christian faith does not deny, ignore, or try to go around the issue of suffering. Instead, through the cross, we can conquer through it! In Christ's resurrection, death itself died. We, like Jesus, will still have to endure unfair suffering, the pain of that mother is real. Her hate of death is shared with God's hate of death. However, if we put our trust in Him, we can suffer with hope, we can mourn with hope, we can be a people of hope.
We can stand belligerently against the pain, suffering, and even death that touches our lives. We can stand against it because one day we will share in Christ's resurrection and ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
However, until that one fine day, we have an awesome privilege and responsibility. The privilege and responsibility of continuing Christ's ministry here on earth. Continuing it by hurting with those who hurt, and celebrating with those who are celebrating. All as a beautiful prelude to when Our Risen Lord returns and we can come into full relationship with Him as He will bring to completion what we have started in His name. Bring to completion the "making everything new!”
How can we 'make all things new' in our lives today?
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