Would you?

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From the AP:

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Assailants triggered a coordinated series of explosions outside five churches in Baghdad and Mosul during Sunday evening services, killing 11 people and wounding more than 50 in the first major assault on Iraq’s Christian minority since the 15-month-old insurgency began.

{snip}

The unprecedented attacks against Iraq’s 750,000-member Christian minority seemed to confirm community members’ fears they might be targeted as suspected collaborators with American forces amid a rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism.

{snip}

The wave of explosions – at least four of them car bombings – began after 6 p.m. as parishioners gathered inside their neighborhood churches for services. The blasts shattered stained-glass windows and sent churchgoers running into the streets, screaming and clutching their bleeding heads.

Source: Blasts Hit Churches Across Iraq; 11 Dead – August 1, 2004

If you knew your church would be targeted by anti-Christian fanatics, would you still attend services?

What does it mean when the Bible says, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain,” if it does not mean this very example, being destroyed by those who hate God even as you bow the knee to Him?

These 11 Iraqis surrendered their lives simply because they assembled together to worship Christ. Would you?

A Flawed Love Letter?

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There’s an odd new move in some of today’s cutting-edge churches. It is a move to recover the love relationship we are intended to have with Jesus— an admirable and holy desire. However, this strange new company of Jesus lovers has a peculiar view of the one they love, a view so at odds with the truth that it calls into question the very nature of love itself.

There is no doubt that Jesus is the Lover of our souls. His is a boundless love, deeper than space itself. Into this love relationship He calls us like a young hero beckoning his future bride. His love for the Church is so unfathomable that it transcends the pleasure of our sexual unions, a pale copy of the joy that is to come when we who call Him our Lover are joined to Him for all time and sit down beside Him at our marriage supper.

What kind of love letter would such a lover write to his beloved? Would it misspeak his true intentions? Would it contain exaggerations of his accomplishments? Would it leave out the truth and leave in lies? What lover would speak to his beloved this way?

Certainly not Jesus.

And yet these same folks who are calling us to simply love Jesus more and let Him love us in return are saying that His love letters to us, The Holy Scriptures, are flawed, filled with errors, mistaken and incomplete. No inerrancy in Jesus’ love letters to us is possible. Only fools, not lovers, believe the Bible to be inerrant. To believe the words of Jesus are perfect is to love them more than Him.

Readers, you will hear more and more in days to come about returning to a pure love of Jesus, but with a cloaked caveat that the Scriptures cannot be wholly trusted. Wariness and wisdom are called for. As the wrong kind of yeast ruins what is intended to be a fine wine, so the introduction of doubt into the veracity of the Scriptures will sour many a soul.

No one should ever doubt the Lord; His love for us is transcendent. How then can we think of Him as speaking to us anything but the perfect and immutable words of His eternal, loving heart?

Psalm 119:7-11 ESV

The law of the LORD is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the testimony of the LORD is sure,
making wise the simple;

the precepts of the LORD are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the LORD is pure,
enlightening the eyes;

the fear of the LORD is clean,
enduring forever;
the rules of the LORD are true,
and righteous altogether.

More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb.

Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.

An Encouraging Word

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We all need a dose of encouragement. The world weighs heavy on many. Today, all I have to say is this:

God loves you with an everlasting love that no trial, no pain, no despair can overcome. The weight we feel is life, and while we cannot always avoid the pitfalls of life, we have a sure hope, a God who meets us in our time of need:

7 In my distress I called upon the Lord;
to my God I called.
From his temple he heard my voice,
and my cry came to his ears.

8 Then the earth reeled and rocked;
the foundations of the heavens trembled
and quaked, because he was angry.
9 Smoke went up from his nostrils,
and devouring fire from his mouth;
glowing coals flamed forth from him.
10 He bowed the heavens and came down;
thick darkness was under his feet.
11 He rode on a cherub and flew;
he was seen on the wings of the wind.
12 He made darkness around him his canopy,
thick clouds, a gathering of water.
13 Out of the brightness before him
coals of fire flamed forth.
14 The Lord thundered from heaven,
and the Most High uttered his voice.
15 And he sent out arrows and scattered them;
lightning, and routed them.
16 Then the channels of the sea were seen;
the foundations of the world were laid bare,
at the rebuke of the Lord,
at the blast of the breath of his nostrils.

17 He sent from on high, he took me;
he drew me out of many waters.
18 He rescued me from my strong enemy,
from those who hated me,
for they were too mighty for me.
19 They confronted me in the day of my calamity,
but the Lord was my support.
20 He brought me out into a broad place;
he rescued me, because he delighted in me.

21 The Lord dealt with me according to my righteousness;
according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me.
22 For I have kept the ways of the Lord
and have not wickedly departed from my God.
23 For all his rules were before me,
and from his statutes I did not turn aside.
24 I was blameless before him,
and I kept myself from guilt.
25 And the Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness,
according to my cleanness in his sight.

26 With the merciful you show yourself merciful;
with the blameless man you show yourself blameless;
27 with the purified you deal purely,
and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous.
28 You save a humble people,
but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them down.
29 For you are my lamp, O Lord,
and my God lightens my darkness.
30 For by you I can run against a troop,
and by my God I can leap over a wall.
31 This God—his way is perfect;
the word of the Lord proves true;
he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.

32 For who is God, but the Lord?
And who is a rock, except our God?
33 This God is my strong refuge
and has made my way blameless.
34 He made my feet like the feet of a deer
and set me secure on the heights.
35 He trains my hands for war,
so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
36 You have given me the shield of your salvation,
and your gentleness made me great.
— 2 Samuel 22:7-36 ESV

He rescues us because He delights in us. His gentleness has made us great. From His temple He hears our cries and He shakes heaven and earth to come to our aid.

This is the God we serve, the Lord we love, who loves us immeasurably and without ceasing.

If you feel low, or are buffeted by trials, remember who our God is. He will reward you for your faithfulness.

A prayer:

Lord, we thank you, praise, and bless you for your faithfulness. Your promise is that you will meet all our needs according to your riches in glory in Christ Jesus. No good thing do you withhold from those whose walk is blameless.

We come to you today as your children seeking your great mercy. Father, be our deliverance today, be our salvation in our time of need, even as you have promised to from the beginning of all time. All good comes from you, every blessing is yours, infinite and rich.

You know we are like dust and that we cannot save ourselves. Unless you build the house, we labor in vain. Shake heaven and earth to stoop low to our defense, Lord, that we may know your mercy and rejoice in your gentleness toward us. Come make our enemies flee and turn our trials to gold, not for us alone, but for your namesake.

This we pray in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

May the Lord richly bless you today!