Changing Hearts and Minds

I receive frequent emails from Baptist Student Ministries (BSM) about the work going on at college campuses across our state.  This is a key time of year as BSM's gear up for a new year and new students.  I wanted to share this story from one of those emails with you this week.

 

Throughout this year, the Texas Southern BSM has seen God impact multiple lives.  One of the most memorable stories, Jamie Russell, BSM director says, was that of a young lady named Fatima.

"Fatima was very honest and admitted that even though her family had always attended church she was not a Christian. During one of our twenty minute check-ins, as we read through Acts 9, Fatima abruptly interrupted our reading. She excitedly proclaimed, “He did that, God did that for Paul?” I simply answered, “Yes, He did.” She began to weep profusely and exclaimed, “He can do that for me!” Her entire countenance changed as we continued the passage. At the end of our twenty minute check-in she said she was so excited because she finally understood that God truly has the power to change hearts. Fatima’s humble realization of the hope that Christ Jesus gives us through salvation was overwhelming."

As I read through 2 Corinthians, I see where God continued to change Paul's heart according to the situation he was facing in the church.  God was not done with changing Paul's heart in Acts 9.  Heart change seems to be the norm for the Christian life.  Is it the norm for your life?  For this week?  We will look at that Sunday and see how God wants to keep changing our hearts and our minds.

For the journey...

Tim

Know Peace in this World

In the past week I have seen several deeply committed people, sharing Christ's love, fulfilling His call to be on mission go through suffering.  A missionary couple on their way to speak at our church were kept from leaving their country because of a false report on an auto accident.  They had no choice but to pay fines and fees they should not have had to so they could leave their country.

Another committed couple involved in missions is having to come home because their unborn child has a major heart defect that will require several surgeries and care that can only be had here in the states.  My daughter's apartment was smoke damaged from a neighbor's apartment fire while she was completing her summer mission assignment.  Her problems are not near the magnitude of the couple and their child but it all brought home the truth - just because you are serving God, it does not mean you get a free pass on personal problems.  Serving God does not mean you earn some special protection or you are entitled to special life of convenience.  It sometimes means you face a unique set of problems on top of your service. 

In all these cases though, I have begun to see the hand of God provide peace in the problems.  With these extraordinary trials there seems to be an extraordinary presence.  Something is at work in all these people to help them deal with what is before them.

Jesus never promised that if we served him we would earn an exemption from the trials of this life.  When we face them and grumble about the unfairness of them while we serve him, we seem to have bought into a promise he never made.  In fact, Jesus promised us that there would be problems in serving him.  But he also promised us that in those places we could know his peace. 

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world.  John 16:33

I can tell when I am off base when I question my misfortune because I am "good" enough to serve him.  I can tell when I am on the right track when I experience his peace in my problems.  So where do you find yourself today?  Pondering the purpose of your problems or experiencing his peace?

For the journey...

Tim

Family Reunion

I recently attended a family reunion that was the first of it's kind.  Maybe it is best not to call it a RE-union if it is the first one, but that is really what it felt like.  There were over 3,000 people there -  cowboys and Koreans, Filipinos and Haitian Creoles, Hispanics and Arabic speakers,  African Americans and about "any kind" of Americans you can imagine.  There were 64 different languages spoken in all.  What kind of family am I talking about?  Well, its not the Williams family but the Texas Baptist family - at the first every "Family Gathering" of all the different Baptist families in Texas.  We met in San Antonio and worshipped and prayed together.  It was a really great time.

One high point for me was hearing Pastor Earl Grant, an African American pastor from San Antonio preach on 1 Peter 2:9-10. "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation a people belonging to God..."  Though the whole message was good, one line of the sermon stood out to me, "You do not have value on your own, but you have great value because you are owned."  I like that.  I like belonging to that kind of family and being owned by God.  I hope you do too because that is a glimpse of the family of God - that is a taste of the greatness of His love by which He 'so loves' the whole world.

For the journey...

Tim

Paint Hate

Today the front page of our local newspaper had a picture and an article on how the local Islamic Center had been vandalized.  Someone had spray painted "H8" on the wall of the center.  Things like that are never pleasant to deal with.  I know, someone has spray painted our church building too but not with those two symbols and not during a special season.  Attention was drawn to the fact that it is Ramadan (July 9 - August 7) the most holy time of year for Muslims.  It makes the vandalism more significant.

Vandalism is never right nor is it ever productive.  Prayer, however, can be.  In light of what has happened let me give you a special challenge as a way to deal the tensions of our day.  Would you join me in praying for Muslims for the rest of Ramadan.  We have done this in other formats before but let me ask you to join me by simply going to www.30-days.net and using the prayer guide there.  If you have a problem making that connection, if you will contact me directly, by email at timwilliams@nbcvictoria.org I will be glad to get you a guide.

Let me also ask you to be in prayer for Sunday, July 21 as we will host special friends who are Christian workers in a closed Muslim country.  They will be sharing there lives and work with us.  They have been with us before so many of you know who I am talking about.  For security reasons, I will not say more.  But I will say that for Christians, Ramadan should be a time for prayer not hate.

For the journey...

Tim

Freedom's Price

This story from The Patriot's Almanac reminds us of the price that many of our founding father's paid for our nation to win it's independence.

In October of 1781, General Cornwallis marched his British troops into Yorktown. The patriots to the south had wreaked havoc on his redcoat army, and he was hoping to rendezvous with the British Navy on Chesapeake Bay.

American and French troops, however, anticipating Cornwallis's plan, pounded them with cannon fire, while the French fleet cut off escape by sea. The British found themselves trapped.

Thomas Nelson, then governor of Virginia and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was fighting with the patriots firing the cannons in Yorktown. Gathering the men, he pointed to a beautiful brick home. "That is my home," he explained. "It is the best one in town. And, because of that, Lord Cornwallis has almost certainly set up the British headquarters inside."

And he told the American artillerymen to open fire on his own house.

They did. As the story goes, the very first cannonball shot at Mr. Nelson's house sailed right through the large dining room window and landed on the table where several British officers were eating.

On October 19, as the British troops surrendered, the Redcoat band played the song, "The World Turned Upside Down." The song was apt. The world's greatest super-power had just been defeated by an army that couldn't afford to put shoes on its soldiers' feet.

Sometimes to have a life of freedom in the future, we must let go of what we have and where we are in the present.  Jesus spoke of his kingdom being like a pearl of great price that a merchant went and sold all he had so he could possess.  That pearl was worth more than all he had and he could see it.  Sometimes the payoff to the sacrifice is not so clear.  We can learn a lesson from Thomas Nelson, to be free, we must be willing to pay the price.  We must let go of our present for the future God has for us. 

Enjoy Independence Day this week.

For the journey...

Tim

Source: Bill Bennett, The American Patriot's Almanac (Thomas Nelson, 2008), p. 408.

A Walk through West

Last week I got to see firsthand the damage done to the town of West, Texas by a massive explosion at the local fertilizer plant.  I was immediately struck by how tightly compacted the small town of West is and I was also struck by how far reaching the destruction was in that small of a place. 

Some homes and buildings were blown apart and burned.  Some homes, and particularly the local nursing home, looked as though a massive force had just pushed violently against the structures causing walls and roofs to buckle.  Scattered throughout other parts of the town were homes and buildings with a single hole in the wall or roof patched up with plywood or a tarp.  It also hit me that the deaths of 15 people in a town this size meant that almost every family was touched in some way.  That unseen pain in the loss of life is undoubtedly greater and deeper than any of the visual damage.

This week as I thought about what I had seen in West and what I had read in the book of Romans, some things came together.  The power of sin to wreck lives so destructively is clear in both West, Texas and the letter to the Romans.  Someone who was trying to make a living, made some bad choices about how powerful products were handled.  A fire sparked a devastating blow that buckled the lives of many.  Sin destroys our lives the same way.  It starts as small mistakes that we make in the course of everyday life. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" Romans 3:23.

Those mistakes may seem harmless for a long time, even years.  Then one day, those mistakes prove to be incredibly costly to us and to those around us.  People who are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time are hurt and wounded and death comes.  Death is always the unavoidable consequence of sin, "For the wages of sin is death..." Romans 6:23.

But I also saw firsthand how everywhere in that little town where destruction was present, there were also signs of redemption.  Texas Baptist Men volunteers were clearing the rubble and setting up to start the task of rebuilding.  Volunteers were sacrificing their time to clean up destruction that they had no part in, but they were choosing to have a part in the redemption and the rebuilding.  "But where sin increased, grace increased all the more so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans 5:20b-21.

So many were hurt by being at the wrong place at the wrong time.  I was blessed to be there at the time I was, to see the right thing happening in God's time.  Though the work of sin is always to bring death, the work of God is always to bring life - eternal life.  Let's take a walk through that this Sunday.

For the journey...

Tim

Vacation Bible School

I ran across this and wanted to let all of you read this so you know we are a part of a larger effort when we do VBS.  This is not the usual time for my blog post but this is very timely for us.  Please check this out and hit "Read More" when you get to that tab to see the best part of this post.

CALL TO PRAYER: Vacation Bible School

I am glad to be a part of something big.  Aren't you?

For the journey...
Tim