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Psa 127:1-5 ESV
(1)  A Song of Ascents. Of Solomon. Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.
(2)  It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.
(3)  Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward.
(4)  Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth.
(5)  Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

We have been blessed again.  Early last Sunday morning at 12:35am, Miriam Grace Jensen came to live with us.  She was 8lbs, and just over 20′.

Mother and baby are fine, just recovering.

I took the week off from work and have spent most of it at home while we celebrated the birth of our new daughter.

Miriam means :”out of the sea”

The meaning of “Grace” is pretty self-evident.

We intend her name to mean “out of the sea of God’s grace”

Thanks to our loving Father for giving us a healthy daughter and sparing us any complications.  Please pray with us that He will enable us to raise her to some day come to know Him personally, so we can share eternity together.

Humbled by His blessings,

Craig

Headed there when I finish this post, in fact.

We had just built our house when she was born.  My first home.

I grew up moving all of the time.  There isn’t one place I think of as “home” growing up. We lived in 9 houses that I remember in the 19 years before I moved out on my own, and one was a camper trailer that sat in several different locations.  I’m not complaining, just the facts.

I remember sitting on the steps in the living room about a month before Tobey was born and crying, because I was so afraid that God would take this house away from us because I wanted it so bad.  I was so excited and scared to finally have a place to call home.  I wanted so badly for my children to be able to think of home, and not feel transplanted. . .

Heather’s dad built our house.  I remember as I was sitting there on the steps that day, I thought of these verses:

Mat 7:9-11 KJV
(9)  Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
(10)  Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?
(11)  If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

I remember realizing that God is my Father, and if Heather’s earthly father delighted in building her a house, my Heavenly Father also delights in me having a home.  It should never be more important than He is, but He wants me to understand the idea of “home”

That place I sat 9 years ago is about 3 feet from where I am sitting today.  He has allowed us to have so many memories here.  Three of our children have never known another home.

This song became very special to me during that time.

Tobey’s birthday always takes me back to that time. . .

Every child has a special place in my life, and brings different life lessons to mind.

I love you Tobey,

Craig

3 or 4 months ago Jim’s wife was having trouble breathing.  They struggled through the course of a month or so of repeated Dr visits in an effort to find out what was wrong.  Probably an infection, so they gave her antibiotics.  That didn’t work, so it must be asthma, try these treatments. . . Still having problems?  More testing . . .

About 6 weeks ago, the crushing news came, lung cancer.  Extremely aggressive in nature.

Jim took leave from work and stayed home with her to provide full-time care and spend their last fleeting moments together.

Two weeks ago today she won her final battle.

Jim came back to work yesterday, and I saw him, but today we finally had the time to talk.

I asked how I could help.  He said that unless I have lost a wife of 41 years to cancer, I probably couldn’t help.  Most people don’t understand.  I said I was willing to listen.  He talked for 10 minutes, and I listened.

As she breathed her last, he turned on some music on his iPod, music he had not had the chance to listen to yet.  He had it on random, and had no idea what was coming next.  As she passed, this song was on.

Lyrics:
My heart is giving up
All my plans are broken
Your face is all I see
Though my world is falling
As I watch you head into the sun
I never thought it was my one
Chance to say goodbye
I never want to say goodbye

Life is sweeter, sweeter
On the other side, on the other side
I will see you, see you
On the other side, on the other side
I’ll find the stars to light me through
I’ll find a way to get to you
Life is sweeter on the other side of here

So far from where you are
But I feel you with me
You’re in the place where I belong
Where my life is waiting
As I watch the rising of the sun
I pray that I could have just one
Chance to say goodnight
I never want to say goodbye

Life is sweeter, sweeter
On the other side, on the other side
I will see you, see you
On the other side, on the other side
I’ll find the stars to light me through
I’ll find a way to get to you
Life is sweeter on the other side of here

Everyday I get a little bit closer
To reaching you
But I can’t wait, till I’m with you forever
Everyday I get a little bit closer
To reaching you
But I can’t wait till I hold you forever

Life is sweeter, sweeter
On the other side, on the other side
I will see you, see you
On the other side, on the other side
I’ll find the stars to light me through
I’ll find a way to get to you
Life is sweeter on the other side of here
On the other side of here

He played it for me on his phone, and we cried together.

He thanked me and told me I had helped after all.

Please pray for my friend.  His wife is now with her eternal groom.  We each thanked God for the opportunity we have as husbands to have a bride for a short time, and then present her to the eternal Lover of her soul.

Please pray for Jim, that God will be close to him in ways we cannot.

Monday would have been her birthday.  He is going to spread her ashes on that day.  Pray for him especially then. . .

Craig

Psa 116:15-19 ESV
(15) Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.
(16) O LORD, I am your servant; I am your servant, the son of your maidservant. You have loosed my bonds.
(17) I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the LORD.
(18) I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people,
(19) in the courts of the house of the LORD, in your midst, O Jerusalem. Praise the LORD!

Not like the “bathtub” in the story books, is it?

Craig

It’s “Father’s Day”

We who are fathers have been given a priceless and weighty task. We represent God the Father to our families. Now I am not saying literally that we are to stand if His place. But what I am saying is that we have been given the charge to reflect God to our families. Whenever someone speaks of “God the Father” to one of our children, the first face they will see is ours, then they will think of God, too. The first emotions they will remember will relate to us. When someone speaks of the forgiveness of “The Father”, will our children relate? Or will they find that concept to be an oxymoron? When they hear of our Heavenly Father always being there, will they remember the Dad who wasn’t ever there? When they hear of our Heavenly Father’s justice, will they remember our integrity? Or will that be another hard one to contemplate?

Now I realize that Father’s Day is different in every home. For some it is awkward. For some it is just plain sad. For others it is joyful. I’m not trying to dredge up all of the bad from your past, as a child or a Father. Simply challenging you to look forward and re-commit to be the Father God wants you to be. Let’s pray for one another that God will turn our hearts to our children and that we will be good examples of who He is for them to see.

Whatever we do, let’s not take it lightly. I don’t know about you, but I’m at my worst when I have that “I deserve a break today, and you are all lucky to have me around” attitude.

Not a demand, just a challenge.

Craig

It is my belief that the “Great Commission” has been largely misunderstood.  If you asked most church goers to sum up the Great Commission in as few words as possible, I believe most would only need two letters.  “Go”

I, on the other hand, would need to use two words.  “Make disciples”

I am not a Greek scholar, but it is my understanding that at the core of Matt 28:19-20 is the instruction to make disciples.  The instruction could be stated, “As you are going, as you are teaching, as you are baptizing, make disciples.”

So I believe that the essence of what we have been told isn’t as much go, teach, baptize, but make disciples.  Of whom?  Of Christ.  This is for every believer.

It seems to me that we make at least a couple of mistakes.  First, we think of evangelism and discipleship as two separate things, when in fact evangelism is part of the discipleship process.  Both the beginning of one’s discipleship, and an activity we participate in as we continue our discipleship.  Person A evangelized person B.  This was the first step of person B’s discipleship, but it was a continuing part of person A’s discipleship as well, since person A was following Christ’s example by inviting another to “follow Me”. (Me is capitalized for a reason, we will get back to that)  Then person B is brought along to the place where they are also issuing invitations to follow, so they continue to participate in evangelizing others.

This is different from the typical “evangelize, then disciple” model I have watched in process repeatedly.

The second mistake that we make is that we don’t capitalize the “Me” in our invitation.  You see, the true invitation is an invitation to follow Christ, not me.  So it is a quote – “Follow Me”   These are Jesus’ words, not mine.  I am not inviting others to follow Craig.  I am inviting others to follow Christ.  We will follow together.  1 John 1 is a prime example of this invitation.

1Jn 1:1-4 ESV
(1)  That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life–
(2)  the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us–
(3)  that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
(4)  And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

Notice, John introduces a fellowship triangle here.   In essence: “We want fellowship with you.  Our fellowship is with Christ. We tell you what we have seen and heard so that you can have fellowship with the Father and with Christ.  This makes our (both yours and mine) joy complete.”  So John was following Christ in restoring people to fellowship with the Father, by relating his own experience.  This is the same thing that we do.

I was challenged to begin making disciples a while back.  I found that it was quite intimidating until I realized that I was not supposed to make a disciple of myself, but of Christ.  I don’t have to have it all together to make disciples of Him.  I just have to engage in provoking one another to love and good works.  The dynamics change when we realize this.  You see, we are disciples together of Christ.  This is different from: I disciple you, someone discipled me, he was a disciple of so and so, back to Calvin, or Luther, or Augustine, or Peter, or Paul, and then finally 30 levels back we have Christ.

This frees me from the need to defend my theological heritage.  All the heritage becomes ours to share as we (Calvin, Luther, Spurgeon, etc included) are disciples together.  Now we can look at all of the rich heritage we share as followers of Christ together, and glean from them all.  Some men were great men of prayer, others men of conviction, others bright theologians.  We should focus on following them as they followed Christ, but we can also learn from their mistakes.

Also, it frees me to be taught by the person I have entered into discipleship with.  I may be better at “rightly dividing the word”.  He may be better at showing hospitality.  We may both be schooled in child like faith by our own children, etc.  The older ones contribute the wisdom, the younger ones contribute fresh energy and excitement.  The strong support the weak.  So now we all follow Christ together, rather than “I’m the leader, you follow me”

This does not negate the authority structure Scripture points out, but we need to be careful not to add more structure than is there.  I believe that the added structure results in “pedestals” for people to fall off of.  And you know what?  James says we all stumble in many ways.  I’m pretty good at falling off of pedestals.  This fear kept me from being involved in discipleship until recently.  Now I am involved in following Christ together.  This has been a rich experience for me.

Finally, I think that our lack of understanding of the Great Commission has caused many of us to leave it to “the professionals” because we didn’t have it all together yet.  Then we sit in our false modesty and throw rocks at ‘the professionals” because after all, they must be claiming to have it all together if they are “professional”  but even I can see they aren’t doing it right.

Contrast this with the tone we see in the epistles of how we are servants together who are to bear one anothers burdens, how each is gifted for the building of the body up into maturity under the Head. . . I keep seeing this theme of what being a disciple looks like in shoe leather.

Just a side note: I think the instruction to wash each others’ feet is another living example of this same idea.  (we all help one another in cleaning the road dirt off – forgiveness in action)

Get my drift?

Any thoughts?

Craig

P.S.

So when we work together, there is harmony rather than discord.

Like this:

But I don’t want to just pass it by and fail to recognize why we as a nation celebrate this holiday.  So a special hat tip to those who are in uniform.  Unfortunately, the enemy doesn’t take Memorial Day off, either.

Thanks to all of you who served, are serving, and have lost someone in the line of duty.

We do remember you.

Craig

As I said Sunday, it would be really easy to poke fun at this, but I won’t.  Instead, let’s discuss this a little.

I am going to assume that Mr. Camping actually believes what he is saying.  I assume that because that is my personal assessment of the situation having watched a few clips.  I don’t know the man.

We have seen a glaring example of what it looks like when someone goes beyond Scripture, and what fools they can make of themselves.  I had someone I don’t believe is a Christian ask me point-blank today, “What’s wrong with you people?  Can’t this (blankety-blank) read?  I don’t even read the Bible, and I know of two places where the Bible says no one knows the day, not even Jesus!”  I replied that I wasn’t one of “those people”, and that I agree, the Bible says no one knows.  From there, I pointed out that if we read the rest of what Jesus said, it could be today.  I mused that it makes a person want to be ready, and that it is a good idea to know what Scripture actually says.  I said this man is standing on the world stage and looking foolish.  Someday we will all stand before God.  How will we look? (he changed the subject. . .)

My point is this:

An unbeliever was able to compare this theology with Scripture and see that it doesn’t add up.  What if my theology was on the nightly news tonight?  Would it hold up?  How about yours?  Have we convinced ourselves of things we want to believe because we have always heard it, or always thought it, and in so doing ignored the straight forward or plain understanding of  what the Scripture actually says?

It’s easy to point at others.  Have we examined ourselves?

Just sayin’ . . .

What do you think?

Craig

P.S.

Jesus started his answer to the Disciples about end times by saying:

Mat 24:4 ESV
(4) And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray.”

Almost as if this is the primary danger. . .