Mere Mortals?

This week, I got to hold and pray over a baby born that day.  As I held him, some of the things I had been reading over for this Sunday's message came to my mind.  This baby, born this morning in March will live forever.  What a wonderful, powerful thing God has given us the privilege to be a part of - bringing life into this world. To know that each person born will live forever in eternity, to know that each person bears the image of God and to know that each person is loved by God enough that He sent His only son does not always hit me daily but it did at that moment.

C. S. Lewis wrote that we have never met a mere mortal.  That when the sun and moon and stars are gone and the mountain and seas have disappeared, you and I will still be alive somewhere in eternity.  I read this week that the sun will burn at least for another 4 billion years.  Two and a half billion years from now the sun will expand so much that it will burn up all of life on earth.  You and I will not be alive on this earth by then, but you don't have to worry.  You have an eternal home made possible through faith in Jesus.

Jesus came to make a way for us to spend eternity with him, but apart from his saving power, we have an eternity before us but not with him.  Eternity apart from Jesus, just the thought of that is hell.  Jesus taught that hell is even more than what we think but so is eternity with him.  “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” 1 Corinthians 2:9 

The church at Corinth had a problem with us being physically raised to live in eternity. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 15 to get their attention.  God got my attention this week when I held a baby.  Let's pray he gets our attention this week as he holds us by his love.

for the journey...

Tim

Beach Reach

There have been a lot of ugly stories about college students recently - the racist frat chant at OU, the nude pictures from Penn State, the problem frat at U of H.  The list could go on, the sad thing is that it will go on.  College students will make some bad decisions. What about some good news about college students on spring break on South Padre Island?  Yes, that is possible.  A student on spring break on the beach can make a good decision - a life changing decision.

My friend, Brenda Sanders, who has continued to work in student work all these years let me know about this story.  I am including a link below and it is well worth the read.  A word of explanation:  Beach Reach is a ministry of Baptist Student Ministries to students on spring break at South Padre. 

Our former and future Student Intern at Northside Dante Williams has been a part of that work. This story comes from that work.  While our mission trip team was experiencing God at work in the colonia at Penitas, a few miles away God was also working on the heart of a college student on the beach.  Read and be reminded of the lengths God will go to reach someone.

http://txb.life/article/beach-reach-god-would-have-to-grant-me-faith


By the way Beach Reach is a three week effort on South Padre.  Here are the results of week 2:
- 56 new believers, 6,444 gospel conversations, 32 recommitted their lives to Christ
- 3,484 Spring Breakers were prayed with and 12,986 Spring Breakers were given safe, free rides
- 12 Students were baptized

That is good news.

for the journey...

Tim

This Home's Story

I love living in a town that has a lot of old restored homes with great stories.  Driving through "old Victoria," seeing some of the painstaking work that has gone on and hearing about some of those stories is a part of life here.  There is something all those home stories have in common - they all go back to the original owner and builder.  Whether that is an interesting person or a largely forgotten person, every home has a builder and every home has a story.

This past week on our mission trip, we started building a home.  It will not qualify for something in "old Victoria."  We did not get as far on it as we would have liked because of the rain but we started a home and we started a story.  I wonder what that story will be fifty years from now?  No doubt the story will go back to builders and the owners.  But what else will it tell?

It is not a fancy home or one that inspires to beauty.  It is a simple home in a poor colonia not far from the border but it has more than pier and beam foundations, it is a home built on love.  The love people have because God has changed their lives and has given them an opportunity to pass that love on in very real ways.

The story of the home on 4 Mile Road in Penitas, Texas is also the story of a home being filled with love.  I did not have to be around the family (Pablo and Lily's) long for me to tell that love was making a difference.  I went from watching their children's behavior at the build site to seeing the behavior of a rowdy bunch of kids at the church at which we worked.  It was a stark contrast.  Pablo and Lily's kids know that they are loved, they are beginning to learn how to show it and share it.  The other kids from the colonia largely showed that the do not know that kind of life changing love.  I hope we were able to give them a taste.  Lily and Pablo's family have a feast by comparison.

In some ways we have established a small beach head for a family to grow in love in a place where is seems to be in short supply.  We can pray that it overflows into their colonia, their neighborhood, because it is a desperate need there.  Thank God that with Him, there is always enough for every home to have a story about His love.

for the journey...

Tim

A Place to Call Home

Right now our church is involved in a mission trip where the main project is to build a home for a family that has qualified through a special program.  The family has met a whole list of criteria for this project and they are also a family that has faced and is facing some special needs.  The mobile home they are living in, is going to be taken back by the owner when he moves back to the Rio Grande Valley from out of state.  The family also has had a child who has survived cancer and they are caring for an elderly father who is ill and blind.

Those are certainly some compelling reasons to help this family but why go all the way to the Rio Grande Valley with all of its troubles and why go to all this expense for one family?  We could stay closer to home and meet many smaller needs and touch more people.

As I have been reading through this year's Bible reading experience (or SOAP challenge) on the key characters of the Bible, I have seen more clearly than ever something of God's plan for addressing the whole world's need.  He started by working with one family - through Abraham.  Then God called him to go to place far away and there God would provide a place, a promised land and, in essence, a home.

With all the vast needs of mankind, God started with one family and in one particular place, a troubled place at that.  From human terms that does not seem very efficient nor would it seem to be very effective.  But fast forward through the centuries and we see what God did through that one family in that one place.  It was not a perfect family.  That home, that promised land, was not in a nice safe, quiet region.  Yet God brought blessing after blessing to that family and through that family in that volatile place.

Eventually he brought his son into the world through that family and in that troubled place.  His son lived his whole life there and there he died - for the whole world.  He was raised from the dead there and the Bible says, when he returns, it will be in a special way to that place.

That family that God started with has a story.  That place where God did such a work of grace in a troubled land has a story too.  In some ways that is what we are also participating in, giving a single family who follows God a place to allow God to work through them in an area that has seen - and will see - many trials.  And in all of that, we are praying that God will continue there in our day and in the days to come the ancient work of redemption he started long ago in one family in one particularly troubled place.

Even in that family and even in that place God created a place he called home.  May he do the same in our day and through our work with one family in one place.

for the journey...

Tim