The Mercy Of Our Great God And King

TORNADO at Union University

Please pray for the students and the families of the students who attend Union University. Also pray for the people over this region who have also lost posessions but more importantly for those who have lost family and friends.

Lord please comfort those who have experienced loss. May their faces turn to you and seek you as a result of this horrible event. Father, we thank You for your mercy. We thank You for not allowing that tornado to do more damage than what it did.

It is clear to us Father that the injuries and fatalities could have been far greater. And we recognize that it is by your hand that more sorrow did not occur. Your are the All Powerful One. You are the One in control of the waves and the wind. It is by Your very command that the wind lies down and the seas instantly grow calm. Lord, we dont know know exactly why You didn't command this storm to dissipate in an instant. We do know and acknowledge that You and You alone are the King and Maker of the universe and that You and You alone are the Sovereign One, knowing that we deserve far worse than what a storm can bring. Lord may our hearts be crushed for those who gone through these storms who do not know you; people who have not hope. May our hearts cry out as one, begging for the lives who are without hope to have Hope, that Hope being You Lord.

Those of us who do have this Hope, thank You for that. We thank You that we can rest in knowing that no matter what happens You are working all things towards Your ultimate goal; that goal being Your glory; a glory that gives us happiness in You.

Lord, allow those who are now without hope, those who have lost posessions, friends and loved ones know,that as bad as things are now, things could have been much worse. May they see that it is by Your common grace that things were not worse, so that that Your saving grace may be known. Give them joy in realizing that they have been spared and that they now have time to repent.

And dear Lord, of our brothers and sisters who have gone through this, again, those who do have hope, may they also see your common grace so that they may cry out to you for strength and in thanksgiving, giving You glory and honor.

Amen

A people group has vanished

A woman and a tribe's world pass into the beyond

KURT ULLRICH

Special to the Star-Telegram

A most uncommon woman with the most common of names died recently, and her death produced a faint sound: a sound like glass breaking, a sound that reverberated through time and space. Not a crash, exactly - more like the sound you sometimes hear when sitting in a restaurant and someone in the kitchen drops a piece of glassware. Diners look at one another with a sort of smiling pity, that middle place where one side of a lip turns up and the jaw juts out slightly. It's a look that says we understand because we've all dropped something breakable, only this time it's someone else's problem.
Marie Smith Jones died Jan. 21 at the good age of 89, the last full-blooded member of Alaska's Eyak Indians. For almost everything on earth there will come a last day, a last remnant, a final goodbye, but Jones' death brought an entire culture to an end. Jones was not only the last full-blooded member of the tribe - she was also the last person who spoke its language.
The Eyak began as a prehistoric tribe, breaking off from a larger tribe as long ago as 1,500 years before the birth of Christ. Never a large group, some believe the Eyak never numbered more than a thousand. As recently as the early 1800s, they commanded quite a bit of territory around Prince William Sound, but by the time Jones was born in 1918, only five Eyak families remained, all in a small town called Cordova.

As a young girl, Jones saw the final disintegration of the Eyak culture, brought on by disease, alcoholism and educators who forbade children to speak Eyak. In other words, the modern world did them in.
One of her daughters explained that she'd never learned her mother's language because in the mid-20th century, students were expected to speak only English. A long time ago, I learned of such nonsense from my mother, born of German parents who taught her not a word of their language, to protect her at school. Some call this assimilation.
The language of the Eyak is the first of 20 languages native to Alaska to disappear. Jones' sister also spoke Eyak, but she died in the early 1990s, leaving her sister as the last of her kind, like an endangered species no longer in a position to carry on the line.
It ended with her, an old lady picking salmonberries on a nearby mountain, speaking a lost language out loud to herself, doing her best to keep the memory of it. It's the kind of thing many of us do when working out a language other than our own. We try the words out loud, pushing them past our twisted tongues into the air.
In 1993, the Smithsonian Institution returned the bones of an Eyak Indian to Cordova, bones that had been at the institution since the 1930s. Jones played an integral part in the repatriation ceremony.
On the day of the burial, she told an Anchorage Daily News reporter that the low-hanging clouds and gray sky were absolutely perfect for the ceremony, as orthodox Eyaks believed that on such days God often lowered clouds so the ancestors could return and be near the living without frightening them.
Marie Smith Jones. Try it again: Marie Smith Jones.
Nope, doesn't work. The weight of her passing doesn't feel right sitting on a name like that - Cleopatra, maybe, or Nefertari. Marie Smith Jones is a mere mortal's name, and in the end that's all she was: mortal, just like the rest of us. But in her case, the dying flesh was a vessel holding a world soon lost.
And the sound of shattering glass you heard on Jan. 21? Just the sound of an old Alaskan woman dying in her sleep, dreaming of the past, knowing the future.
I hope that on the day of her burial in Alaska, the sky was gray and the clouds low, as there were probably many on both sides of that great divide between the living and the dead who wanted to be near.
The next time I hear glass breaking in a restaurant, I'll try not to think the loss is someone else's problem.
Kurt Ullrich is a free-lance writer who lives near Maquoketa, Iowa. Jones

Oh God, make Yourself known among the other Alaskan tribes; make Yourself known quickly. Send workers to these areas so that on the day of Your return, their knees may bend in honor Your great Name.

Lord we recognize that if they do not bend their knees here on earth, their knees will be shattered when You come back, being forced into a submissive bow.

For Your great Names sake, send workers to these peoples before they vanish off the face of this Earth.

Are We Telling People To Go To Hell?

I am currently reading "the unchurched next door" by Thom S. Rainer, dean at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

At the end of chapter 2 he tells a story about a lady named Deanna who had recently accepted Christ and signed up for a Bible study in her neighborhood. When she arrived she was surprised to see people that she knew there, and began asking them if they were Christians. They all responded that they were.

Deanna became very upset with these so called Christians because they had never shared Jesus with her. She told them that they might as well have told me to go to hell, because that's what their silence said.

Are we telling people to go to hell?

I can say that I love to proclaim the name of Christ and that I do so often. However, sadly, I have to admit that it appears that I too am telling my neighbors to go to hell. I have not told a single one about Christ . . . In fact, I have only talked to our neighbors who live directly across the street.

John Piper encourages us to spend our lives working to make Christ known and to live as if He is our Treasure. He challenges us to show that Christ is our Treasure by the way we spend our time. So how do we spend our time at home? In front ot the television? In front of the computer?

If Christ is our Treasure we should live like it and share our Treasure with all.

Denny Burk, C.J. Mahaney, and Joel Osteen

Denny,

I love your blog. You normally have some really great posts. However after reading the previous post, and seeing you bask in the glory of another national championship almost cost you a reader. You see, I was afraid that you might be a heretic (Hook em' Horns!)...That is, until I just read todays post, and saw that you are a Cowboys fan. Of course that led me to the following question...

Since you only hold to half of the sports gospel, (the whole sports gospel being University of Texas and the Dallas Cowboys), does that put you in the same camp as Joel Osteen who only preaches half of the Gospel?

hmm...Now I have to decide if Mahaney is a heretic or not...

So...C.J. Que Paso?

Calvinism

See --> I HATE CALVINISM!!!!

Build Your Own Bible

Check out THIS great idea from Southern Seminary student, Todd Young.

He takes you through a step by step, illustrated process that shows how you can build your own Bible that contains blank pages for study notes.

What to do when sitting with a Calvinist

If you are not able to read the print on the image above, I have copied the 7 steps that one needs to take when exposed to a Calvinist (below).

1 Do not engage a Calvinist in a conversation, no matter how nice he or she may appear.
2 Ignore the Calvinist, and read a book or magazine.
3 If the Calvinist persists, pretend to be a Muslim and pray. Remember, Calvinists are worse than Muslims.
4 If pretending to be Muslim doesn’t work, feign SARS, or Ebola.
5 If there are multiple Calvinists on the plane, bottles of Calvinix will drop from ceiling panels above your seat.
6 Upon arrival at your final destination freely exit the plane leaving all of your personal items behind.
7 Exit the plane via the emergency shute, helping other passengers in need. Flee immediately to your nearest bookstore and read anything by Dave Hunt.

What a tragedy it is for someone to write this. It is an even greater tragedy to the face of Calvinism. The person who published this obviously has come up against, as I call them "crooked nosed" Calvinists; Calvinists who are mostly intrested in being right with little regard to the person that they are approaching. This is a tragedy. Yes, these types of Calvinists are full of Truth however, I have to wonder where the love is.

2 John states in chapter 1, "Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father's Son, will be with us in truth and love." Grace, mercy and peace will follow us where ever we go because, these are reflections of the attributes that He posesses. They are not self derived attributes.

If the attributes that we display to our Arminian brothers are akin to what it appears have been displayed to the brother who wrote the above, it needs to make us, who claim the Doctrines of Grace, wonder if we reflect ourselves or if we reflect the one who graciously condescended to stoop and capture our hearts.

We need to remember that our hearts have been arrested. We are now slaves to Christ. We are His. Thus, we should look like Him. If we aren't, we need to examine ourselves more closely.

Intrestingly, I came across the following video of Ray Comfort who is a Calvinist. He is witnessing to a young lady (of all places) on an airplane. What providence!!! ;) hehehe This man displays Truth and love. He is a man who desperately loves God and desperately desires to see all men come to Christ. He exemplifies the heart of a true Calvinist.

Vida Eterna

"The sad part is that illegals often come here wanting to provide for their families back home—but the reality is that their absence often deteriorates the family more than if they’d never left.”

For some reason I was not able to link to the article "One Question" at The WeB Magazine Of the Presbyterian Church in America, so I copied and pasted it below.


One Question

ByFaith asked four pastors and missionaries, all of them with years of experience with Hispanic immigrants this question: How should the fact that illegal immigrants have knowing broken the law affect our attitudes toward them. One pastor in Florida told us: “I don’t ask the immigrants we help whether they are here legally or not. It’s incumbent upon us to love our neighbors and to help meet their needs.

But I take a different stance about those south of the border. Those who want to come here illegally shouldn’t do it. But we can’t close our doors to those who are already here. We’re still called upon to love mercy and act justly toward them.

The sad part is that illegals often come here wanting to provide for their families back home—but the reality is that their absence often deteriorates the family more than if they’d never left.”

Here are three other replies.

Question: How should the fact that immigrants knowingly broke the law affect our attitudes toward them?

In many cases, we don’t know why people are breaking the law (whether it’s for a family member in need, for example). So my attitude should be to try to understand why they’ve come to the U.S., what their needs are, and their reality here.

But I disagree with those who put water bottles in the desert for illegals crossing the border. I think it’s better to discourage that behavior.

An illegal Mexican immigrant visited the church I pastored in Houston and asked for advice on what he should do. We talked and prayed about it, and it didn’t seem to me that he had a good reason to be here. I counseled him, “For your own good and for the good of your family, I think you should go back.” And he did.

Another illegal couple had become Christians after they moved to the U.S. They were concerned about the lies they had told, and I counseled them to tell the truth to the authorities. They had the mindset that they would be at peace either way: whether they were deported back to Mexico and would help plant a church there, or whether they would stay in our church community in Houston. The authorities let them stay, and that man is a deacon in the church today. It’s a great story of Christians having a big view of God.

Alex Villasana, a Mexican national (both he and his wife have green cards, their two children are U.S. citizens) is planting a PCA church in Norcross, Ga.


Question: How should the fact that immigrants knowingly broke the law affect our attitudes toward them?

We must show hospitality to the alien among us. The state and the kingdom of God do not have the same interests, so we shouldn’t get caught up in the tenor of national politics on this issue.

Violating immigration law is not the same thing as committing murder, though some have equated the two. Our missionaries overseas violate immigration laws all the time. So the question to me is, why do we treat illegal immigrants differently than we treat congregants who speed in traffic or lie on their taxes?

We’re trying to enfold our Hispanic community members into our church. Instead of establishing another church, we’re trying to welcome them into our existing family. It’s hard, but it’s what the gospel is all about.

Travis Hutchinson is pastor of Highlands Presbyterian Church in LaFayette, Ga. The church offers blended services (English and Spanish together) in an increasingly Hispanic community.

Question: How should the fact that immigrants knowingly broke the law affect our attitudes toward them?

Christians are not thinking gospel-centered when it comes to this issue. They reveal a confusion of sword with cross, and the state with the gospel.

Jesus did not do any background checks, and He didn’t question the reason for anyone's sins or oppression, but instead ministered respectfully and gracefully to all. Therefore, the gospel of Jesus Christ embedded in our attitude is the only rule of conduct for ministering to sinners, even illegal immigrants. Are we servants of the gospel or enforcers of the state?

However, I believe that Christian illegals, if they can't get legal papers to stay, should go back to their countries out of their relationship to the lordship of Christ.

Al Guerra is a Cuban-born pastor to Hispanics in Chicago, who is getting his doctorate of ministry degree through Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando.

Let the Nations be Glad!

Check out --> MISSIONS ATLAS PROJECT

It Was Truly A Miracle

I went on a mission trip to Acuna, Mexico this past week and was able to see many people pray to receive Christ as their Savior. However, few evidenced true conversion. I am not saying that those who prayed to receive Christ who did not show outward signs of conversion were not regenerated. I am saying that few evidenced being born again like the lady in this picture.

I walked up to this lady and her mother to share the Gospel with them and shortly after, her husband joined us. Because I do not speak Spanish I had to have an interpreter. From the start, I could tell that the Holy Spirit was working on this lady shortly after I began sharing with her. You could see that she was deeply disturbed. I presented the Gospel as clearly as possible but she did not at that point want to cry out to her Creator to be saved.

By God's providence, another interpreter came up who was in the Catholic Theology class that I was in. I knew that he would be able to answer her questions more clearly than what I could. I gave him the reins and asked him to present the Gospel to her in her own language.

He was able to answer her questions much more clearly than I. Because of this, their conversation was very "smooth". He asked her if she understood everything that she had just been taught and she answered yes. He then asked her if she understood her position before God and she said that she did. Last he asked her if she felt that God was calling her and she said tearfully said YES.

He then led her in prayer to receive the greatest Gift of all.

This picture was taken as she was praying to receive Christ as her LORD and Savior. You can see a tear rolling down her cheek if you look closely.

May God bless her all of the days of her life.

Praise God for being the Giver of life! To Him be the glory forever and ever!

Bridge Builder

“Our greatest challenge is to recover our passion for the gospel in evangelism and missions and to renew our determination to defend the gospel in an age of postmodern confusion. I would hope to articulate a vision that would unite Southern Baptists and energize us together.”

-Al Mohler on being nominated as SBC president

Paul Washer-John Piper-Billy Graham

LORD, thank you for men like Paul Washer, John Piper and Billy Graham!
May you use them and their ministries to bring to life cold, dead, unregenerate, God hating hearts and make them Your own.
May, for the sake of Your great Name, You show people from all nations that You and You alone are the great One; the One who created us for Your glory.
May we take great delight in radiating Your greatness to the hearts of those who do not know you, boldly proclaiming Your saving power and Your great love for those who belong to You.
May Your Name be known so that hearts may cry out to You in complete submission honoring You for the great work that You have done on behalf of those who You have given faith to believe.
Amen

Missions Catalyst

Mission Catalyst Magazine is providing an index of the past year's headlines!!!

Subscribe HERE

Tanzanian Jedis

Andy Reid

Andy Reid, head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, and his wife are going through a parent’s nightmare. Both of their sons are addicted to drugs. Coach Reid spent six weeks at a rehab program with his oldest son in Florida and apparently received quite an education about drugs. Sadly, the core issue, like in most rehab programs was missed.
Associated Press writer Bob Lentz wrote, “Reid said he learned that , because of the chemical makeup of the brain, certain people are more susceptible to drug use and addiction than other. While there may be truth to this statement, it misses the fact that “through the disobedience of one man, many were made sinners”.
Coach Reid should have been taught about the condition of all men’s hearts; the radical depravity and utter lifelessness and lostness of our condition. He should have been taught that the reason his son is an addict is not because his son has a chemical imbalance but that his son is dead and unable to do good. Reid was quoted as stating “It’s and epidemic that has attacked America.” He needs to be told that it IS an epidemic, just not the type of epidemic he has been told that it is. He needs to be told that it is an epidemic that affects us at our very core; it is an epidemic that kills everyone that it touches and that there are NONE beyond its reach.
Reid states, “I was sitting there, in counseling, with good people. They are not bad people, it encompasses everybody.” Coach Reid has it wrong. He was not sitting with good people. He was sitting with people whose throats were open graves and the way of peace they do not know.

Mrs. Reid said, “We raised these boys. We taught them to pray, taught them to ride their bike – you see this potential in him, and you’re just not going to give up.”

Lord God, our Father and Creator, I ask you to reveal to the Reid family your sufficiency and their insufficiency. May they see the true condition of their souls. May they see that it You and You alone who has “the potential”. May they see that it is You and You alone who can save this young man from the dreadful condition that he was born in. May you open the eyes of his parents so they can see and publicly proclaim Your greatness. And may coaches like Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy reach out to Coach Reid and his family.

Romans 1:16

"You can call yourself a fundamentalist and be as liberal as a German higher critic.
I want to tell you something. I listen to a lot of fundamentalist preaching, a lot of conservative preaching, a lot of reformed preaching, and a lot of just flat out Baptist evangelical preaching of men who would fight you to the core about how they believe the Bible and how they slap it around and say this is the Word of God. But when you listen to them preach the Gospel and give an invitation, you realize they are just as liberal as a man who studies higher criticism in Germany.
We have taken the powerfull all mighty Gospel of God, and reduced it down to nothing more than repeating a superstitious prayer. And that’s not Biblical. It’s not."
-Paul Washer

Listen to the sermon HERE

Masquerading Wolves

John Hagee

Hagee claims that Christ IS NOT the Messiah

Watch HERE

Funny Fatalism

AL Meredith

"Here is the message," Meredith said during an interview in his sparse office. "God is in control and He loves us. That is the rock-bottom truth."

Jolly Blogger

I was cruising the world of blogdom and happened upon the following post from David Wayne...

Ed Stetzer on the Reformed Tradition and Missionary/Missional Focus
I'm reading Ed Stetzer's Book "Planting Missional Churches" and he has a few thoughts on the reformed church and missional thinking on pp. 28-29:
This loss of missionary focus was evident in both Protestant belief systems and practice. Although the Reformation restored much fo primitive Christianity, it also lost much - particularly in areas of mission. The consequences of this loss of missional focus continue today. There has been substantial debate regarding the nature of the Reformation church: Was it a missionary church? Did it value missions? These are valid questions with regard to whether the Reformation church engaged in the task of missions. They are, unfortunately, the wrong questions. The Reformers were trapped within geographic Christendom while their Catholic counterparts were engaged in colonial expansion. Protestant "mission" became missions to Catholics. While Protestants focused on Catholics, Catholic missions flourished. So instead of asking, "Was the Reformation church a mission movement?" It's better to recognize that it was weak in its mission focus, and ask, "Why?" Pre-Reformation confessions referred to the church as "one holy apostolic church." Words like these aren't frequently found in the confessions of the Reformation. Instead the Reformation confessions reacted to the errors of "apostolic succession" (the idea that the popes and bishops held their power because of being appointed by subsequent bishops/popes back to Peter). By deemphasizing the "apostolic" nature of the church, the Reformers were trying to say that the church did not derive its legitimacy from succession of leaders. However, apostolic is more than a "position"; its a "posture." Although the word is often misunderstood, the root of the word apostle is "one sent . . . with a message." So we should be an apostolic church. When the Reformers (and later evangelicals) started to deemphasize the apostolic nature of the church, they inadvertently lessened the sending nature of that apostolic church. The church that "reofrmed" lost touch with the God who sends, and the mission of the church suffered. "Lost in this deletion was an emphasis on the church's 'being authoritatively sent' by God into the world to participate fully in God's mission." This loss of missional focus also led to a loss of missional thinking. Evangelicals continue to struggle with presenting the unchanging gospel in an ever-changing cultural setting. Churches must parallel, in some ways, their host cultures. This process is called "indigenization."
For the sake of reformed folks who think Ed is bashing the reformed tradition I want to mention that theologically he is very much in line with the reformed traditon and has worked closely with the PCA and other reformed denominations. So, he's not bashing, he's just assessing strengths and weaknesses from a historical perspective.

Click HERE to read the rest of his post.