>What is your weapon of choice?

>Submitted by Robin Schmidt

I watched a friend's eight month old baby for a few hours last week.

Before I agreed to keep Austin I had made a list of things I was eager to do. I had just bought a carpet cleaner and wanted to clean the carpet on the back porch. While that was drying I hoped to plant four pots of decorative grasses in my front yard garden. And, of course, I had to make dinner for my family.

When Austin arrived I had to make a choice: enlist my daughter's help and try to accomplish some of my list or...just watch Austin.

I chose to watch. He crawled around my living room, and I removed clumps of cat/dog hair from his path. I took one toy out of his bag and we explored one toy together. We hung out on the floor, giggling and playing until he went to sleep. It was very relaxing, very peaceful. But if you look at my evening, I didn't do anything. I just watched Austin. I didn't really accomplish anything. Did I waste my time?

After all, there is a battle going on, a spiritual battle, and I need to participate. I need to take action. I must make a choice: What will I do to participate?

In the garden of Gethsemane Peter saw guards coming to arrest Jesus and he took action. For his weapon he chose a sword. But Jesus said, No.

No? No, don't take action? Don't participate?

Oh yes, we are meant to participate. Do you remember what Jesus did ask Peter and the other disciples to do?

"Sit here...keep watch with me." But they fell asleep.

"So, you could not keep watch with me for one hour? Keep watching and praying..." But they fell asleep. Jesus finished his agonizing time of prayer and went to face his arrest and death.

There was a battle going on. Peter and the disciples were invited to participate, to take action, to take up their weapons and fight, on their knees. Peter didn't see the big battle, the unseen. And as Doug pointed out Sunday Jesus had more than 12 legions - thousands - of angels, he didn't need Peter's sword.

My weapon of choice has been a "to do" list.

Jesus could have been talking to me when he said, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things..." But Lord, there is so much that has to be done.

Mary was listening to the Lord's word, seated at his feet. "Mary has chosen what is better." But Lord, what did she accomplish?

Sometimes going to battle looks like kneeling beside the bed instead of tackling a "to do" list, or wielding a sword, or...

What is your weapon of choice?

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>More Brain Twisters from Romans

>by Ron Schwedland

In my last Graceworks article we examined some of the difficult multi-syllable words found in Romans. I'm not sure I really want to tackle explaining the other tough words in Romans, like remnant, election, predestination, called, etc. These are some of the most controversial words in the Bible. But, here goes!

Even though the original Christians were Jews, as they began to share the Good News, it came as a great disappointment to them to find that the Jews as a whole did not embrace Christ as the Messiah. As time went on the disciples found more and more believers in the Gentile camp. They began to ask about God's faithfulness, since he had promised to Abraham that his people would be as numerous as the sand on the sea. However, in Romans 9:6, Paul says: It is not as though God's word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham's children.

This is a shocker! So, the promises of God had never been made to all the physical descendants of Abraham, only to the children of the promise, a remnant of the people of Israel. The word "remnant" refers to the biblical reality that not all people in Israel were among God's covenant people. Actually "Israel" in context refers to the remnant of people who remained faithful in their covenant relationship with God throughout the history of the Old Testament. The remnant is a great theme throughout the Bible. Joseph mentioned in Genesis 45:7: But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. Isaiah declares in 2Kings 19:30-31: Once more a remnant of the house of Judah will take root below and bear fruit above. For out of Jerusalem will come a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. In Micah 7:18: Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. Paul knew as well as anyone that the nation of Israel as a whole was apostate (apart from God) and only a few Jews gave any indication of living in a covenant relationship with God as His true people.

This leads directly into the subject of election. As used in the Bible, the term "election" refers to the sovereign outworking of God's power, purpose, and plan according to His righteous and holy will. It is election to salvation, however, that has been most disputed among Christians through the ages. There is a mystery to our salvation. Paul clearly teaches that election is predestined, according to God's sovereign purpose and divine foreknowledge. But in Romans 10:9, 13 he also teaches that: if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved...for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Do you see some tension developing? To remove any doubt about God's foreknowledge; when Isaac's wife Rebekah was pregnant with twins Jacob and Esau, (before they had done anything good or bad) in order that God's purpose in election might stand- not by works but by him who calls - she was told, The older will serve the younger. Also in Malachi 1:2-3 God said: Jacob have I loved, but Esau I hated. As descendants of Adam both boys were born in sin so were subject to God's wrath. Left to themselves they would have had no interest in God or God's blessings, but for reasons unknown to us God elected to change Jacob's heart but left Esau to his natural bent. It also seems that when God elects he has a purpose in mind for the person to be His instrument in the world. This is true of Jacob as he went on to become named Israel, and through him all God's Messianic promises were chronicled.

It seems that God's primary purpose in election is not about us at all, His ultimate purpose is to make His glory known. To put it another way, salvation is not about us, it's about God. In saving some, God makes known His mercy and compassion. In not saving all He makes known His sovereignty.

Remember back in Genesis when God elected Abraham, and called him out of the pagan nation of Ur? God said to Abraham in Genesis 12: I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. Well, those of us who took Doug's Wednesday night class last spring learned that the word "nation" is better translated "peoples" or "people groups." It's from the Hebrew word "goyim" which carries the idea of "anyone except Israel." In other words, even those who hated the Jews were part of God's plan for salvation. Is it no wonder that God sent Paul into the world to share the Good News with Gentiles. God's heart is that no one would miss out on His great plan of redemption for eternity. One could say that if you are even reading this article it is because God has stirred up an interest in your heart about eternal things, and He is gently calling on you to be among the redeemed. Furthermore, you also could say that God wants you to pray for all those who don't know Him.

Is it fair that the Jews who pursued righteousness by the law should not attain it and the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness should obtain it? What about us today, if some respond in faith to God's call on their lives, then are people who do not believe still responsible for their lives of sin? Should we excuse them for their sin of unbelief as not their fault? Paul is clear in Romans that God never condemns innocent people. No matter what we may or may not understand about the process of election, we can know that if people are judged by God, it must be for their own sin. God has given us a measure of free will, but to what extent is a mystery. We are not God's hand puppets, neither are we left all alone to our own devices. This seems like an irreconcilable truth, for if God elects to salvation, then we cannot be responsible for rejecting the offer but if we are responsible, then salvation must be by works and not by God's grace. Tension again! However, there are not irreconcilable. Predestination and personal responsibility are two mutually supportive truths that need always to be held together, as Paul clearly does in Romans 9 & 10. Actually, predestination should be seen as the solution to our responsibility. We are born in sin because of Adam, as we mature, we are given responsibility and usually reject God, then by the Grace of God are drawn to accept God's gift of eternal life by yielding our will to His.

Luther rejoiced in the doctrine of predestination, which he believed is so clearly taught by Paul and, in fact, in the whole of the Scriptures--but he quickly stopped short of trying to explain why God works this way. He simply said it is a mystery that God has not revealed. If people are troubled by the doctrine of predestination and worried about whether or not they are saved, they should look at the wounds of the crucified Christ. There they will see what they need to know, what God has revealed--that God loves sinners enough to die for them--and they will be comforted.

So we see that Israel's unbelief and failure to see that God's son, the long awaited Messiah, right in their midst, is not to be blamed on God. Even the teachers of the law who should have known, were blinded in their unrighteousness by their pride and arrogance. You will note that Jesus showed greater contempt for these Pharisees who should have received the long awaited Messiah with open arms, than he did for any other people he met.

In the book of Romans, righteousness is used interchangeably with salvation, or to be more precise justification, which is the Greek equivalent of righteousness. Why do the Gentiles who were not seeking righteousness, find it, and the Jews who were seeking righteousness not find it? It seems the Gentiles had always been running from God, looking for their higher power in all the wrong places; worshiping man-made concepts or idols. Those people found salvation because they believed in Jesus as their Savior. Is it fair? Only God knows, but we can know it is entirely due to the fact that God in His grace sought them.

Whenever we think of election, we tend to focus on the negative; that God does not elect all. The Bible, however, focuses on the positive, calling this the day of God's grace. The demonstration of God's justice in judging sinners is an important part of what God is doing in human history, but it is not the whole thing. God is also making known the riches of His glory in saving some. Why should you not be among them?

To show that God is just, think about it, if all God wanted to do was send people to hell, He would not have needed to tell us these things or anything else. There would have been no need for a Bible, no need for preachers to preach it or messengers to explain and teach it, no need for a Savior to be held forth as the heart of the Bible's message. God would not have needed to do anything. In fact, we know men are quite capable of rushing off to hell all by ourselves. But God has not done that. He has provided a Savior. He has given us a Bible. He has sent messengers and their message, like that of all true prophets of God, is "Repent, turn from your wicked ways, and believe in Jesus Christ." God is calling you to turn from your sin now and receive the grace that we don't deserve, but is a free gift for those who will receive it.

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>Tuesday

>You don't get anything for 3 days and then...BAM! 2 days of blogging just like that! The waiting of the blog is a lot like the waiting that we've been learning about in the...

People of Promise our theme for Tuesday!

The story of the people of promise begins oddly enough with Genesis 11 and the tower of Babel where humanity is so high on themselves that they've forgotten God. God scatters the people but in His unrelenting love plans to bless all the families of the earth. Once again we find God responding to our rebellion with steadfast love and acts of mercy. What a God!

So on Tuesday morning we listened, as if we were hearing the story for the first time, the story of Abram and Sarai. We noted the long wait of Abram and his wife as God promised a son, but month after month, nothing. We saw the challenge that Abram had in leaving his homeland at the age of 70. The tests of faith that he sometimes passed and sometimes failed. Tom Ghena had the insight of the morning when he said that "This story shows that sometimes when you're doing the right thing, it doesn't always make things better in your life right away." Sometimes, there's just waiting.

The next scene was passover, the leaving of Egypt. Here again, the theme of waiting pops up. God's people were enslaved for 400 years! And as Pharoah takes the male children and drowns them, the people of Israel cry for deliverance! God rescues Moses. But again, it's not until Moses is 80 years old, that the people of Israel are delivered from Pharoah's hand.
Waiting and waiting! As we heard the story of the plagues and the passover, we pictured the fear that Israelite families may have had about the death angel. In our mind's eye we saw the hope, the wonder and the expectation of the hebrew slaves as God was fighting against Pharoah through the plagues.

And the theme of separation emerged again. Abram left his land, Israel was to leave Egypt, and the beautiful image of the red sea escape is this: after Israel escaped through the path in the red sea, that path closed up.

The road to Egypt is closed. New life in a new land. Never to return to slavery. This is rescue. And this is how God intends for us to live our own rescue--Don't go back to your old life of slavery. You've been separated from it!

Ok, sorry. I just really like that picture.

And that was just the morning! Ok, now in the afternoon, while we were REALLY hungry, we had to go on a hike with our lunches. We were wandering, and we were hungry, just like the Israelites in the wilderness! And it was long, and a bit painful, but I really think we learned a lot about what God expects of his covenant people. One great lesson from the book of Exodus was that God rescued us to be a "Kingdom of priests." We broke that down and understood that a kingdom has a King, people that are subject to the King, and laws. And that priests mediate between God and others. So we are to be a people under God, who obey His laws and somehow show others what this God is like. It's our new identity. Our new role: royal priests. And this was God's plan way back under Moses' leadership and in the promise made to Abram. God's plan is unrelenting even in the face of our sin and rebellion. His plan is in motion.

After the wanderings we had a tabernacle experience which was very cool. It was a walk through of each station of the tabernacle. Perhaps some of the most significant stations/lessons were the following: 1) Again, God made a way for our sin to be taken care of...through the death of another, in this case-an animal. 2) We felt the separation of being outside of the gate of the tabernacle. On one hand there's a sense of guilt, here I am again offering a sacrifice for my sin. On the other hand there's gratitude that God has made a way for guilt to be gone! We experienced the guilt of our sin as we dipped our hands in red paint symbolizing the blood that needed to be spilled for our sin. We saw clean water turn red because of our sin. We saw white towels become stained because of our sin. Powerful images. We entered the holy of holies and noted the symbols of sin in the ark of the covenant: Aaron's staff that represented the time the Israelites grumbled against his priesthood. A jar of manna representing the grumbling about the food God provided in the desert. And the law representing Israel's failure to keep it. Yet, these sins are covered by the top of the ark, the mercy seat where God dwells between the cherubim. Our sins of rebellion are covered. God's love always comes into play after we sin. AMAZING!

A quick word about worship: Great singing and sharing. No teaching, just a time for students to respond to God and what they've learned through art (charcoal drawing, paints, poetry, etc) or they can pray or be a part of further study of the Scriptures. Also, they've got different prayer stations set up that have been so powerful for me. A wailing wall like in Jerusalem where you can write your intercession and tuck it into the wall.

Also, there's a cross with a number of prayer mats for reflection. A wall of promises from God's word for reflection and thanksgiving and huge areas for drawing and writing out your requests or thanksgiving.

I'm running late for Wednesday night worship now; I've got to run! Thanks for reading and praying!

Mike

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>Monday at Merge

>So sorry for not getting a word out to y'all sooner, but we have been busy.
Good busy.

Hey the last word I sent you guys was that we would be dealing with the theme of separation...have you felt separate from us? Yeah, that's my fault, not intentional at all. Just busy doing what I sense God has been wanting me to do. Now, I sense, it's time to blog!

Monday---Separation. In the morning we heard with new ears, the story of human rebellion, Cain and Abel, and the flood. The beauty that we had pictured in our mind's eye of creation in its freedom and intimacy was now shattered. No longer do we see images of seed bearing trees and plants.
Now it's thorns and thistles. Laughter has been replaced with blaming.
Freedom with shame. We truly lost something wonderful in our rebellion.

When we hear these very familiar stories we're asked to ponder questions like, "What do you notice in this scene for the first time? What do you see in your mind when you think of this scene? What do you wonder about? What questions did it bring up?"

Some saw the pursuit of God asking, "Where are you?" Others wondered, "Why is the tree of knowledge and good and evil in the center of the garden?"
"Why was Eve by the tree?"

We heard the story of Cain and Abel and the flood. We re-enacted each of these scenes with some pretty funny drama. More importantly we began to see themes emerge. Themes like an act of sin followed by God's goodness and love. After Adam and Eve sinned, God gave them clothes. After Cain killed Abel, God provided protection for Cain. After the judgment of the flood, God provided a new start and a promise never to destroy the earth with a flood. Sin is always met with an act of kindness on God's part. And if I'm to be like God what does that mean for me when I see sin and brokenness in the people around me?

And this was just the morning! In the afternoon, we experienced and looked again at the stories of separation. We gathered by a tree and considered our own acts of rebellion. We took a bite of an apple and confessed our sins privately to God. We then traveled to a local high school and considered the separation and alienation sin brings into our relationships.
This was a time to ask forgiveness from anyone in the group that we have done wrong or have been ignoring. We also could ask for prayer to be loving in our more difficult relationships. There were some meaningful conversations and times of prayer. Finally the last experience Monday afternoon was a visit to a cemetary where we considered the separation of death caused by sin. This was huge for many of us. We considered the brevity of life and considered the fact that on these tombstones there's a dash between the birth date and date of death. How will we spend our dash?
What do we want our life to look like?

A great time of worship in the evening was followed by some good group sharing. I'll tell you about what worship looks like in Tuesday's blog.
Until then!

Mike

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>Merge Trip Day One - Sunday

>Mike Gorr, Tom Ghena, Susan Holland, Kendal Slack and fourteen students loaded the bus Sunday morning and headed for Chicago. Ron Schwedland was at the wheel. The attending students are: Sarah Brigham, Carissa Cangialosi, Dani Douglas, Sarah Gee, Alishia Gneco, Allison Schmidt, Stephanie Walker, Tommy Douglas, Garrett Fisk, David Gee, Connor Ghena, Graham Nash, Michael Schmidt and Ian Van Tassel. Following is Mike's account of day one...

Our adventure started at 5:30am. Prior to today I didn't know that there were two 5:30's in a 24 hour period! I like the one in the p.m. much better.

But the early departure meant that we could worship at Lawndale Community Church, a wonderful mixed African American/Anglo church in the inner city of Chicago. Great black gospel music and as the choir was getting ready to do their special number I prayed and said, "God it would be just like you for the choir to do a song that was special/personal to me." (I know sounds
kind of Mike-o-centric!) Instead, God did a lot better! The choir
performed Revelation 19--this is the very same song we performed at a youth Sunday 4 years ago! A song that virtually all of us present could connect to.
This was confirmation that God's eye is on us and He knows where we are, where we're going and He's preparing the way for us to get there.

We had deep dish pizza for lunch then headed to Wheaton's campus for Merge. Our first session was tonight (Sunday) on the creation story in Genesis 1 and 2. We are being coached to look at stories from the Bible afresh as if we have never heard them before. It's like getting rid of our old lenses and looking at them through a new lens. The results are a lively discussion with all of us adding insights to what we are learning about God and ourselves in God's story of creation.

Some of the insights include the uninhibited freedom that God created us to live in. Is there anything more free than running around naked and unashamed! We also noted the delight God takes in what He makes...also, the privilege and responsibility He has given to humans. We also enter into God's rhythms. God rests so we rest. God creates and we take part in that creating in being fruitful and multiplying. And the questions that are coming to our minds. All of us seem to be wrestling with the story. We're trying to let God's story unfold before us each day and to consider the implications of this wonderful creating God.

Tomorrow is the episode of separation...until then.

In God's hands,

Mike

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>Independence Day Sale

>by Robin Schmidt

Perhaps national holidays are best reserved for Art Van furniture sales and not introducing new Blogs? I base this observation on the underwhelming response to our first blog posting. The number of responses we received, well, look for yourself.

I take heart, really, that maybe you were all busy with real life and not screen life. Maybe you took this holiday time to enjoy family, the outdoors, personal interaction and you were not sitting in front of computer or television screens.

But the holiday is over now, and while I am a strong advocate for real life over screen life, we have a new blog here people and: Attention must be paid. (Linda Loman, Death of a Salesman)

With that in mind I offer you our second posting, which poses a question...

Sunday, July 15 ... fourteen Refuge students and five leaders will head to Chicago for Sonlife's Merge Conference. Merge, a conference that will present students with interactive episodes from God's story and challenge them to find their place in that story.

Some of the students have greeted this conference with the enthusiasm generally reserved for brussel sprouts or household chores. "Do I have to?" Do they have to? Do they have to what? Hear God's story? (Again.) Do they have to find a place in it? Isn't that our hearts' desire for our kids? That they would know God and live their lives as He designed them?

That would be my prayer. That is what I would ask of God.

What do you pray for your kids?

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>There Are No God Forsaken Places

>
By Doug Walker

The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. Mark 14:7

The scene was a dinner party, and Jesus was the guest of honor. Everyone was reclining at the table, sharing stories and enjoying one another's company. Then a woman, perhaps an uninvited guest, approaches Jesus, and without a word breaks an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume and pours it on his head. This strange and extravagant gesture brought strong condemnation from the others around the table: "Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year's wages and the money given to the poor." And they scolded her for her foolish act and poor money management skills.

Many of you are familiar with this story from Mark 14, and you might remember that the main point is the "beautiful thing" she did for Jesus, without concern for what it might cost. It's also the passage where Jesus points to her action as a preparation for his own burial - another foreshadowing of his atoning death. But it's the statement Jesus made in verse 7 (seen at the beginning of the article) that often leaves folks scratching their heads. If the poor will always be with us, does that mean that God has no intention of changing the plight of those in poverty?

Despite what seems like an ever-increasing population of the poor around the world, God is at work (and always has been), bringing forth outposts of his coming kingdom in the communities on earth. The problem is, unless they take the form of a huge relief shipment of food, or direct financial aid, we don't recognize these outposts as ministry to the poor. That's because our notion of helping the poor is one dimensional, limited to changing their economic condition. If we can put a roof over their heads, food in their mouth and a few dollars in their pocket, then they are no longer poor. While this type of relief certainly helps, it doesn't address the much larger issue of poverty.

Remember how John the Baptist was confused by the way Jesus conducted his mission? Jesus was expected to launch a campaign of God's justice against the echelons of wealth and power, but it didn't seem to be going in that direction, so John inquires whether he should be expecting someone else to come as Messiah. In Matthew 11, Jesus replied, "Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor." He was healing broken lives and communicating the freedom and forgiveness of the gospel to the poor. This mission to the poor is the same mission Jesus would later turn to the people of all nations - and the outcome is promised to be a triumph of God's justice in which the nations will have life and hope.

You see, ministry to the poor must be holistic - addressing physical needs, but also emotional and spiritual poverty as well. The outward face of poverty is easily recognized as the lack of basic resources - food, shelter, clothing - but there's so much more under the surface. Spiritual darkness, injustice, political corruption, social oppression, crime, addictions, and a myriad of other factors contribute to being poor. At the root of all this is sin, and the only remedy for sin is the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel of Christ is the only comprehensive approach that brings lasting, life altering change to the plight of the poor.

This biblical hope should inform and free us to be more active in the fight against poverty. We often turn our attention away from despair and suffering, finding it difficult to gaze very long at the magnitude of hurt in the world. But a closer inspection of what God is doing actually reveals there is not a "God Forsaken Place" on the earth. God sees and anguishes with every person who suffers, and is active in sending help and healing in Christ's name every day. It's not so much about analyzing needs and opportunities as much as it is anticipating the progress of the gospel, and seeing the hope that brings to the poor. Of course, it should also compel us to action - not because of the overwhelming need, but because everything we do to love and care for the poor spreads the glory of God throughout the earth.

One of the final statements in the bible is "behold, I am making all things new." That sums up what God has always been doing: making the entire world new. The gospel begins the re-creation by transforming people from the inside out. But the transformation doesn't stop until a sample of God's new kingdom is on display throughout communities and villages around the world. And that's where we come in - notice the second half of Jesus' quote from Mark 14. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. Poverty is everywhere, and if you possess the truth of the gospel in your heart, you can bring hope and help - anytime you want.

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