Come and See

See the cross?

He's not there. They took Jesus down after his death and put him in a tomb.

See the tomb?

He's not there either. The one that created life defeated death. He offered a new life to us. Eternal life.

Where we will see Jesus.


Look around. Do you see Jesus now? He's here in his creation.

He's in the visible signs of spring.

The young deer I saw off the side of the highway.
The grass turning green.
The cardinal in my front yard.
The lightning and thunder of spring storms.


He's in us.

The healed hearts and the healed bodies.
The forgiveness and grace extended to us when we don't deserve it.
The forgiveness and grace we extend to others (because on our own, we aren't that good).
The acts of kindness to others.
The words of affirmation to each other.

He walked out of the tomb and ascended to Heaven. He physically left. But he gave us his spirit. He's in us.

John 14:15-17
“If you love me, obey my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. 17 He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you."

Look at the cross. It's empty.
Look at the tomb. It's empty.

Look to Heaven, because he will return.

And yet again...

Two weekends in a row. Saturday night my son comes in with a story about a classmate that died Friday night. Fresh off the funeral of the 18 year old boy that died in a drunk driving accident last Friday night (early Saturday morning) was a boy that was a senior Nate's freshman year. He was on the baseball team at Heights. And he was one of those seniors that talked to freshman. Nate liked him, looked up to him. And he went to University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri to watch his cousin play today. But unfortunately, last night when he stopped at a convenience store he was robbed at gunpoint and as he tried to run away, they shot him three times in the chest. Nate says Aaron was a good kid. I DON'T CARE if he was a good kid or not. I can't hardly stand the thought of the grieving parents I know right now. I haven't even told you about Max, another of Nate's classmates that died in a car accident driving to college in August. Or Mitch, who died driving back to Wichita State in August. It is heart wrenching. I know accidents happen, and people die. And I know teenagers die. But it is unbearably sad.
I do want to say to Pastor Jason Thornton of True Life Church, WAY TO GO!!! That man stood on stage and gave the good news of the gospel at Austin's funeral service Friday. As I looked around at so many kids that Nate knows, I just bowed my head and prayed that they were listening and that the Holy Spirit would work in their lives. Took a minute to pray very selfishly and thank God that my kids were believers and that they were alive.
Hopefully you won't see any more posts about dead teenagers for a while.

The Future

I have been reading a book, and it's set in a carnival. It's about demons. It does include demons and the devil as being part of the Spiritual realm, and even references the Bible, although it is decidedly a secular book. I picked it up at the library, and while I won't recommend it, it has kept my interest and I'm going to finish it. The part on the fortune teller has really kept me in a grip. I know my future. No matter what this life holds, at the end of this life, I begin my real life with Jesus, and that is my future. I know my end, and I know the end of this world, because the Bible spells it out for us. Thinking about it in earthly terms though, would I want to know what the future holds? In some circumstances, it would be nice. Looking back on raising my kids, there were some things I should've done different. And a few financial decisions I shouldn't have made. I don't even want to think about dating mistakes. There are also things I'm glad I didn't know. The Bible very clearly states not to worry about tomorrow, it has enough worries of its own. If I knew the future, I'd be a mess. But God, in his all knowing wisdom has decided that we need to live one day at a time. Actually, a second by second, minute by minute approach is best for me. I need to stay firmly rooted and trust God in the here and now, because I may not have a tomorrow.
With Halloween approaching, we are surrounded with all kinds of Halloweeny type stuff. I have always let my kids trick or treat and dress up in costumes. But we celebrate "Halloween Light", all candy and cute costumes. We believe that evil exists, but not in the form of werewolves, vampires and ghosts. Along with that,
I don't believe in fortune tellers and psychics, I'm pretty sure that stuff comes from Satan and is witchcraft. And the Bible specifically calls witchraft a sin.
1 Samuel 15:2 "Rebellion is as sinful as witchcraft, and stubbornness as bad as worshiping idols." (Really not gonna touch on the sin of rebellion.) My future is set, I know my end, and all I can do in the near term is live my best life to honor Jesus, point the way to him to as many lost souls as I can, and look forward to that blessed appearing.

I'm heeled

Not a typo, just a bad pun. My heel is better. It took a while, lots of hours of alternate training, gained a few pounds, fortunately just a few, but I am able to run again. Ran a 10K on Saturday. I ran the same race last year, and this year's time was slower by a couple of minutes. But a friend from church was running her first 10K and she started out strong, and was ahead of Sheila and I until about 7K mark. When we caught up to her I didn't have the heart to run ahead and leave her, so I lost a few minutes of time. My race strategy is start off at a certain (slow) pace, regardless of how I feel, and then finish strong. I struggled with pain in both calves for the first 4K and then everything fell into the groove and I was good. We were on a pace to finish faster than we did last year, which was a good feeling. But since I never run for time, I run to finish, it's no big thing. I am now training for another 10K in May, a half marathon in June and a marathon in October, all right here in nice flat Wichita!

As I sat in Good Friday service I didn't verbally participate in the worship songs. Since I love music and I love to sing, this is out of character. We were singing "what can wash away our sins, what can make us whole again" and I just had this overwhelming feeling of sadness that I may never feel whole in this life. I have shared pieces of my struggles, and I know that God is working big in my life. We were going to celebrate communion, and whenever I see the communion plates at the front of the sanctuary I immediately begin examining myself. And I saw a few things that I didn't like. Along with that, I couldn't help but feel sadness for some people in my life, people that I love. This is where the concept of wholeness started working on me. Even as healthy, functioning people are we whole? I felt like something was missing. But move forward to Easter and I was reminded me that someday I will be whole. Jesus paid much to high a price for me, and because of this it is worth the constant scrutiny of my life to see what I I continue to need to change as I strive to live a Christ honoring life. I think the brokenness and need in my life keeps me humble before him.

Still!Much!Danger!

My favorite movie genre would be disaster movies. I have the boxed set of Airport movies, 1970, 1975, 1979, etc. My favorite movie of all time is the original Poseidon Adventure. The recent two remakes just aren’t as good. I also enjoyed Beyond the Poseidon Adventure. And give me a movie with an avalanche, volcano, typhoon, hurricane, earthquake or asteroid, and I’m in. Even the possibility that all life may be ended if something isn’t changed will keep me glued to a movie. This includes movies about killer animals, anacondas, killer bees and tarantulas, anything that could end our lives, Aliens, Jurassic Park, and even war movies. I am fascinated by movies and television series about World War II, because again, war is a disaster and could end our lives. They are hard to watch, because my grandpa was a foot soldier in WWII and saw actual war and lived through it. Picturing him in those rotten situations is not fun. But I watch it because I get to see a re-enactment and I know what my freedom cost people I love dearly.
I realize a lot of these things will never happen, (some couldn’t), but the premise that we are all going to die if someone doesn’t rescue us never fails to draw me in. Take the Poseidon Adventure. One man heroically takes control and says we have to go to the bottom of the ship (UP) to get out. A handful of people follow him and are saved. In Armageddon a group of misfit oil drillers become astronauts (I also love space movies, The Right Stuff, Apollo 13) and one man gets to sacrifice his life to save everyone on planet earth. Recently the movie The Day After Tomorrow came out, it was about a weather disturbance that caused another ice age. Everyone who listened and did what they were told lived. The ones who did things their own way died. And those who never got the message also died, without getting the opportunity to make any decision. Every disaster movie has at least one hero, many times more than one. What makes me love these movies is that things are so dark and dire, civilization is coming to an end. And at the last moment, someone saves the day.
In my list of favorite disaster movies, I would have to include The Passion of the Christ. Up to this point in history, there was disaster looming in a big way. In the movie, we don’t it. We briefly see the snake Jesus steps on at the beginning of the movie and the creepy guy. But the snake and the creepy guy are the worst disaster the world has ever faced, ever will face. It’s not the tidal wave, the volcano, the hurricane, the asteroid, or the storm, it is the deadliest of all these. The disaster that might ruin our life on earth, might even end it is nothing compared to the disaster of spending eternity in Hell instead of Heaven. In the Passion of the Christ we get to see our hero and we get to see his triumphant resurrection from the grave. I’m sure Jesus was not seen as a hero to anyone on earth who knew him the day he died. It was nightmarish for those who loved him. But imagine when they saw him alive a few days later. Now that is a hero. And when I read Revelation I can’t wait for the ultimate “war movie” when Jesus leads his army on earth. I really don’t think he will need an army, I think it’s for effect. I think he is the one man that could do it by himself, forget Rambo, Terminator and Chuck Norris.
Just like the movie The Day After Tomorrow, we all have a choice, to choose the salvation from our sin that is available because of Jesus death on the cross, or to do things our way, think we can earn it and be good enough on our own and face our eternity without Jesus. And just like The Day After Tomorrow, there were those who never got the message. They never knew of the storm, no one warned them to stay inside. I was reminded of this last week when a friend was telling me about sharing Jesus with a co-worker. Are we doing all we can to save our friends from disaster?

Heaven

I'm looking forward to Heaven for lots of reasons. Today the reason would be that I know I will be rested in Heaven.