There's nothing you can do

  Okay! This blog is going to be very different from all the others I have done before.

   First of all, I need YOU to participate in this blog and not just read it.

   Here are my instructions:  (better if you can have someone READ them to you if you can)

1. Lie down in a quiet place (or sit if you can't lie down)
2. Close your eyes
3. Take 3 or 4 deep breathes 
4. Imagine you are soooo weak that you can't speak, move or even open your eyes.  The energy in your body is sapped.  
5. Now imagine you are on your death bed.  You are minutes away from taking your LAST    breath.  There is NOTHING you can do right now to earn your righteousness.  Nothing you can say or do.  You will be meeting God very soon.  All you can do is rely on your faith in his word that he has done it all for you.

Now open your eyes.   How did that make you feel?

The Bible says, "The Righteous shall LIVE by FAITH".    Yet for most of our lives we live our lives out feeling like we need to do something to earn that salvation.  However, on your death bed, when it all comes down to it, you have nothing to offer God and must rely on faith that he has done it all.

The same person who is reading this post now is the same person a few minutes ago was imagining themselves on their death-bed.  God accepts that same person, who could only breath a few minutes ago, who is now fully alive and awake.  There is nothing different between the two people they are one and the same.   God accepts you just as you are right now... not just on your death-bed.    He loves you right now!

Live your life by faith!
 

Nobody likes to see something good come to an end

    I remember taking a class on Roman history at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana.  This class was so popular it had to be taught in the largest auditorium the school had on campus (known as the Pantheon because it was built to look like the Roman Pantheon).  Professor John Scanlon taught the course and he walked us through 1000 years of Roman history in just one semester.  I was enthralled with how much Rome was like the modern United States in its art, science, engineering, military might and politics.  I eagerly awaited each class and took detailed notes.

    Then on the last week of class he covered their eventual demise.  The long, slow decay of the once mighty empire.  He showed us how the Goths and Visigoths were able to cut Rome of from its water supply and that Rome surrendered without a fight. He covered how Rome had spent its wealth to hire mercenaries to do their fighting for them because they could not get enough of their own people to defend the empire. 

    I remember leaving the class that day feeling angry.   The dark ages were to come and the world would lose 1000 years of advancement.  Imagine us going to moon in 969 AD instead of 1969 AD.   Imagine where we would be now in technology. 

     But God had a better plan....

     From what I see today, our "advancement" does not always serve God's plan.  We don't become better but instead become worse.   Maybe God's plan was to slow our human-advancement down so his Gospel could "advance" throughout the world.   I am not saying this is the only reason, but it could be a reason for God allowing Rome to fall as it did and when it did. 

     But whatever the "reason",  God does it all out of love and we have to trust him.   I am sure there were many back in Rome that were dismayed as Rome had just become a Christian Empire with the conversion of Constantine to Christianity just 50 years earlier.   I am sure they were scratching their heads as well.  They probably thought the whole goal of God was to conquer the Roman Empire with the Gospel and then issue in some new age of a Christian Empire to advance the Gospel.    But their misguided hope was soon to be dashed to the ground.

   That is not how God works.   He doesn't need the Roman Empire to advance his Truth.  He also doesn't need the United States to advance it either.   God works through the hearts and minds of his children and not by politics or military/economic might.   Yes, God does make use of these things to save man from himself and give order to the world, but they are not end-all we want them to be.  They are tools he uses for his purpose.   Like this laptop I am using right now to write this blog.   It serves my purpose to get my word out for others to read, but eventually this laptop will be sitting at the bottom of a landfill someday as it will wear out and no longer be useful for anyone.   So also, the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany ... and so on will no longer serve God's purpose and will be scrapped just like Rome was in 415AD.

   As believers in Jesus Christ we know our hope is not diminished when this happens.  God is still in control.   Evil may seem to be "winning the day" much like it seemed to the people of Rome when their water supply was cut off by the Goths.  God wins in the end.   Our victory is already certain because Jesus is raised from the dead. 

Delivered

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             Your wire transfer of funds has been delivered

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     I remember getting a similar message from our bank that final payment on our house has finally gone through and the transfer was completed. We had decided to pay off the remaining amount early and went to the bank to fill out the paperwork.   We ordered a wire-transfer of the needed amount and waited for the funds to transfer and the mortgage company to give us the deed to our house.  The house was now 100% ours and we owed nothing more to the bank

Done. Finished. Completed.

We can relax knowing there is nothing more to do.

Jesus cried out in a loud voice on the cross “IT IS FINISHED!!”   I am sure many people around the cross were perplexed as to what Jesus was declaring.  To them, he was the one that was "finished", but he was declaring the work God the Father had given him was 100% complete.   Jesus resurrection from the grave was receipt that God accepted the payment.

The transfer of righteousness for sins is complete. There is nothing more for us to do. God has done it all.   You are FREE!

They have Moses and the Prophets. Let them listen to them

       When I was in high school I was really into reading about the Shroud of Turin.  The Shroud is thought to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ.   I read a lot about the cloth and all of the amazing facts about it that were hard to explain.   I read about it's amazing photographic-negative image that was a PERFECT negative (hard to do even by pros today).   I read about the studies done on it and how everything matched up for it to be the actual burial cloth of Jesus.

       When the Shroud of Turin was carbon-dated and the date came to be from the 13th century, my heart sank.  I wanted science to re-enforce my faith.  I wanted so badly to have something that I could point to and say, "See this??  Look at this!!!"   Then later I saw a news-piece that showed a woman from Iowa challenged the finding by showing the scientists that they had drawn their sample form a part of the cloth that was repaired in the 13th century after a fire burned part of it.  The chief scientist was amazed that a woman from Iowa was right when she pointed out that the cloth had been repaired using a method of "inter-weaving" a new piece of cloth into the old in such a way the naked eye could not tell , but a seasoned weaver would see that the weave changed directions where the new and old meet.   This inter-weaving also explained the big date difference in dates the carbon-dating method found in the samples no one earlier could explain.   Now they knew it was because the samples closer to the old cloth had more old cloth woven into it and it accounted for the large discrepancy in the dates.    Now all that had to be done was to get a new sample from the cloth again.  But this is impossible now.   When the scientists were brought in to examine and test the Shroud of Turin they showed the church that the cloth was slowly deteriorating from UV light.  To slow this process down the church treated the cloth with a chemical that now makes it impossible to do carbon-dating. 

    I find all of this to be too coincidental to just be "fate".    It's too coincidental that:

1. The cloth would be in a fire and burned in the 13th century but mostly saved intact and only a small part of it needed to be repaired.    
2. The scientists would just happen to take their sample from the wrong section that had been repaired by a fire (of all the areas they could have taken, they took it from the worst part).  
3. They can't take any samples because their research showed the deterioration of the cloth causing the church to take actions that would prevent any future dating.   

     Coincidence? 

     I don't think so. 

     I think God has shut the door on yet another "scientific-faith-proof" we so desperately want.  We are like the "rich man" in the story of "The rich man and Lazarus" who pleads with God to send Lazarus back to his brothers to warn them and Abraham says, "They have Moses and the Prophets to warn them. Let them listen to them".  We want more proof than just God's word.  We want science to back us up.   We want something physical to point to that says, "You faith is real!"    But God will not give that to us.   We have more than Moses and the Prophets.   He has given us his Son and put his Spirit into our hearts.   That is all we need and no more.