Haritha

Be Ready

Christians have argued for centuries about when and how Christ is going to return to the earth and usher in the end of time—a scenario a number of books in the Bible have predicted.

“This generation is going to see the climax of history as predicted by the prophets,” said a man named Hal Lindsey, the most famous end-times author of the twentieth century.

Lindsey’s 1970 book, The Late Great Planet Earth, has sold 30 million copies and helped put the fear of God into many readers who wondered if they were ready for Christ’s return.

Over the years, end-times authors have developed an amazing number of schemes for trying to figure out what complex passages in the Old Testament Book of Daniel and the New Testament Book of Revelation mean.

For Lindsey, the Armageddon clock began ticking in 1948 with the creation of the state of Israel. He originally predicted that the second coming of Christ would occur no later than 1988.

Lindsey wasn’t the first person to pick a specific date for the Second Coming.

Over the years, detailed predictions have come from the Shakers, Alexander Campbell and the Disciples of Christ, William Miller and the Seventh-day Adventists, Calvary Chapel founder Chuck Smith, television evangelist Jack Van Impe, and author Edgar C. Whisenant, who wrote a book entitled 88 Reasons the Rapture Will Be in 88.

And many Christians thought the Y2K computer glitch would usher in the end of the world.

USA Today reported that “as many as 100” end-times books and novels would be published in the year leading up to January 1, 2000.

Somehow we’re still here, and all the end-times authors are busily revising their dates.

But if anything, interest in the end times has only grown. The bestselling Left Behind novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins have done more than their share to inspire a whole new wave of apocalyptic speculation.

The novels show the chaos and confusion that could result after Christians have been “raptured” (or taken from the earth) and sinners try to survive in a world now dominated by the Antichrist.

(Some Christian thinkers have criticized the books’ interpretation of theology, but that hasn’t slowed their massive popularity.

According to Tyndale House, which publishes the series, the Left Behind novels and related books have sold some 50 million copies.)

But many of the well-meaning Christians who have focused so much time and attention on the Second Coming seem to have missed one important point. Christ himself told us that we should concentrate not on the day and the hour of his return but on the state of our souls.

Keeping watch means living our lives in such a way that if Christ returned today, he would find us pleasing in his sight.

If I knew I would face Jesus before the sun went down, I think I might start by confessing my sins to God, my family, my co-workers, and my next-door neighbors, seeking their forgiveness for past wrongs.

I would make some phone calls to loved ones to express my concern for them and share the message of Christ’s love.

If time allows, I might even examine my checkbook to make sure I have fulfilled financial commitments made earlier to churches and charities.

It means doing everything we can with the time, energy, and resources we have to extend the kingdom of God—both through sharing the gospel of Christ with others and working to see our culture embrace godly values of justice and righteousness.

And it means being faithful to Christ on a moment-by-moment basis, regardless of whether Christ comes back the next minute or long after we have died.

Father, help me avoid end-times paranoia and instead develop full-time preparedness for your return.

The Greatest Commandment

Jesus doesn’t call people to a social or political movement, or even to a life of religion or ethical living. More than anything, he calls us to love God—a call that the laws of Moses first stated.

Repeatedly throughout his earthly ministry, Jesus called this the greatest commandment.

Centuries later, Protestant theologians restated this simple call to love God. “What is the chief end of man?” asked the 1646 Westminster Confession of Faith. “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.”

Throughout Christian history, many disciples of Jesus have described the immense love of God.

Perhaps none did so as eloquently as Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), a Cistercian monk who was both an intellectual and a mystic and whose French monastery had a worldwide influence.

Bernard’s most famous work is On Loving God, which contains the following words of wisdom: You want me to tell you why God is to be loved and how much.

I answer the reason for loving God is God Himself; and the measure of love due to Him is immeasurable love. Is this plain?

We are to love God for Himself, because of a twofold reason; nothing is more reasonable, nothing more profitable.

When one asks, Why should I love God? he may mean, What is lovely in God? or What shall I gain by loving God? In either case, the same sufficient cause of love exists, namely, God Himself.

Bernard argued that God is entitled to our wholehearted affection:

For although God would be loved without respect of reward, He will not leave love unrewarded. True charity cannot be left destitute, even though she is unselfish and seeketh not her own (1 Corinthians 13:5).

Love is an affection of the soul, not a contract: it cannot rise from a mere agreement, nor is it so to be gained. It is spontaneous in its origin and impulse; true love is its own satisfaction.

It has its reward, but that reward is the object beloved. For whatever you seem to love, if it is on account of something else, what you do really love is that something else, not the apparent object of desire.

God could have created robots that would “love” him on com¬mand, but he didn’t. He gave us hearts and free will to do as we please. Still, as Bernard told us so eloquently, love is our only appropriate response to God.

I love you, Father. Help my love for you to grow.

We Are on Dry Ground

Perhaps many young moviegoers today have missed Cecil B. De- -Mille’s 1956 cinematic depiction of the parting of the Red Sea as the Israelites fled from Pharaoh’s army.

Were they to see The Ten Commandments in one of its numerous television reruns, they might wonder how this movie received an Academy Award for Best Special Effects.

Charlton Heston as an aging Moses holds an outstretched arm over the parting water as the sea rolls up into two huge waves on either side of the Israelites.

While the superimposed images of the tumultuous waters don’t generate the Wow! response viewers experience in so many movies today, they do convey that a miracle was taking place.

I saw The Ten Commandments several times, and I always marveled at the parting waters and never once took notice of the dry ground Exodus 14:22 mentions.

Why does the Bible even give us this information?

I think we, like the Israelites, often forget that God has placed us on a firm foundation.

The Israelites were God’s chosen people. He was in the course of taking them out of Egypt and into the promised land, but they started complaining as soon as they saw Pharaoh’s army pursuing them.

How soon they seemed to forget the terrible slavery they had suffered under the hand of Pharaoh.

Despite their grumbling, God took the Israelites safely to the other side of the Red Sea and destroyed Pharaoh’s army by causing the waves to collapse on them. The Israelites had traveled on dry ground.

Imagine thousands of people, animals, carts, and wagons struggling through the muck had God not supernaturally dried up the seabed. Their progress would have been slow and perhaps altogether impossible.

I think the reminder for us in this verse is that God’s power holds us firmly on the dry ground of his love, no matter what is happening in our lives. We may feel threatened by the waves of life.

We may not feel as if we are secure, but we are. Our spiritual feet may feel mired in the slush of uncomfortable circumstances, but God’s presence in our lives keeps us going.

Just as the Israelites were God’s people, we who believe in His Son are his people. Sometimes his power is evident in our lives in spectacular ways as the parting of the Red Sea was in Exodus.

At other times, we experience God’s power in almost unnoticeable ways, such as the ground being dry when the Israelites crossed it.

God’s most dramatic rescue in my own life unfolded in the years immediately following my first husband’s death. I was thirty-four years old with two daughters, ages seven and ten.

My husband and I went to high school together, and I couldn’t remember what it felt like to live without him.

Many of my friends remarked that they fully expected to see me carried into my home on a stretcher when returning from the scene of the hot-air balloon accident that claimed his life.

Instead, the evidence of God’s grace and provision was amazing. I experienced a confidence that God would “part the waters” for us and was able to focus on our future in ways that can only be explained as miraculous.

I went from being a homemaker who relied heavily on my husband to being the sole adult in our household. Like Moses, I stepped into the water and God dried up the muddy ground.

Whether we notice it or not, the power is there. Whether we feel it or not, we are on dry ground.

Father, thank you that we rest on the firm foundation of our relationship with Jesus Christ.

God’s Purifying Stream

Shame on you!”

These three simple words still ring in my ears decades after they were shouted my way.

I don’t remember the innocent adolescent behavior that led to my being scolded.

But I know I’ll never forget how I felt when one of the more rigorous older members of my church pointed her gloved finger at me and humiliated me in front of what seemed like the entire congregation.

These words of harsh judgment inflicted painful wounds. Worse yet, my pain caused me to make the following fateful pledge: I will never again tell anyone about any of my faults or failures!

From that point on, I began being less honest when I hurt someone, broke something, or fell short of a goal. I kept everything to myself and put all my energy into covering up.

Unfortunately, covering up my problems only added to my feelings of failure, inadequacy, and guilt.

It came as a great relief to read, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

At first glance, the whole process seems simple: we confess; God forgives, and everyone lives happily ever after.

But real life isn’t so clear-cut. Why does the promised freedom of forgiveness often seem elusive?

Why does guilt continue to haunt and taunt us? Why do we confess the same sins again and again only to remain entrapped by them?

Perhaps we have misunderstood what John meant about confession. Real confession is more than a hurried recitation of our flaws and failures.

It is work. It hurts. It demands self-examination. It transforms a trite utterance into a sorrowful awareness of the many ways our sinful behavior grieves the Holy Spirit.

Growing up, I felt closer to my mother than my father. Mom was firm and she taught me that my actions had consequences, but she always balanced punishment with love for me as a person.

Dad was a different story. Any wrongdoing on my part seemed to ignite his already short fuse, leading to a barrage of anger and un¬kind words that caused me to shrink in shame and fear.

God isn’t like my father. When I expose my sins to God, my confession opens up the door to his forgiveness and cleansing.

Instead of hiding my woundedness, I offer it up to him who brings the healing balm of forgiveness and purification. It is this forgiving power that can change us from within.

Father, thank you for the grace and forgiveness that motivate me to share my sins and failures with you instead of hiding them deep in my soul.

Opening the Book of Nature

In the last few decades of the twentieth century, people around the globe began to realize that humanity was hurting the earth. Some of these people joined the environmental movement, which sought to slow the pollution of the world’s air and water.

But respect for the earth is an ancient concept that dates back to the dawn of human history. That’s because Christians and Jews believe that a loving Creator God formed the cosmos.

And as Paul indicated in the Romans passage, we can see characteristics of the Creator in all that he made.

No one saw this connection between Creator and creation more than a humble thirteenth-century saint named Francis of Assisi.

Francis saw God’s fingerprints all over the world, and he believed that even the animals were designed to praise the Creator in their own powerful way: “Every creature in heaven and on earth and in the depths of the sea should give God praise and glory and honor and blessing.”

The Italian holy man was named the patron saint of the environmental movement.

One day, Francis and some of his brothers were out walking when they came across a large tree full of doves, crows, and other birds.

As one of his biographers reported, “Francis left his companions in the road and ran eagerly to the birds” and “humbly begged them to listen to the word of God.”

The biographer even recorded a portion of Francis’s brief sermon to his winged friends: “My brothers, birds, you should praise your Creator very much and always love him; he gave you feathers to clothe you, wings so that you can fly, and whatever else was necessary for you.”

Today, the image of Francis caring for birds appears in paintings, sculptures, and thousands of backyard bird feeders.

And every fall, on the Sunday closest to Francis’s October 4 feast day, churches around the world host a “blessing of the animals” ceremony.

These churches turn into temporary zoos as members bring their birds, dogs, cats, and even horses to receive a blessing in the name of the saint who cared so deeply for creation.

In the centuries since Francis, poets and other writers have written about our spiritual connection to the world God made. “Nature has some perfections to show that she is the image of God,” said seventeenth-century French thinker Blaise Pascal.

And Elizabeth Fry an eighteenth-century English Quaker, wrote these words after attending a worship service: “After the meeting, my heart felt really light and as I walked home by starlight, I looked through nature up to nature’s God.”

Father, what a glorious world you have created. Help me to be more aware of your fingerprints throughout all of creation.

A Love Renewed

I GOT the call at 3:00 A.M. My daughter was taking her one-year-old son, Justin, to the emergency room. His raging fever had turned to hysteria, and he was screaming uncontrollably.

As I raced to the hospital, my drowsy mind filled with fearful thoughts of dreaded childhood diseases.

I had regularly confronted such fears while raising my own children, and now I did so again with the first of my grandchildren. My love and concern for this little guy were so intense that I couldn’t imagine my feelings could be any stronger.

I finally pulled into the hospital parking lot and dashed inside. There stood my daughter, Justin draped over her shoulder like a worn-out rag doll.

He saw me and reached out for me. I lifted him onto my own shoulder. The smell of fever and heat from his little body brought tears to my eyes.

Antibiotics soothed Justin’s infected ears and restored calm to a frazzled family, but as I drove back home, I thought about the pain involved in loving anyone deeply.

I would gladly suffer for Justin, but would I allow him to suffer for anyone else? Never! My love for him is so great that I could never allow this.

As the streetlights sped by my window in the morning darkness, the words of John 3:16 came to mind: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son. . . .”

These are the words children learn in their earliest Sunday school lessons. These are the words sin-sick sinners hear at Billy Graham’s crusades.

These are the words I myself have turned to for comfort so many times.

Millions of Christians can recite these words from memory, but has such familiarity bred indifference? Have we grown complacent about God’s revolutionary good news?

“For God so loved the world” is more than six words in a book. It’s an earthquake shaking our foundations. It’s a reminder that God loves us more than I love my grandson.

Such love is incomprehensible. It’s like a fish trying to grasp the concept of water.

But if we are willing to take an occasional break from life’s incessant busyness, words grown dull with familiarity can become living truths once again.

For me, it was an early morning drive to the hospital that renewed my spiritual passion. For you, perhaps something less dismaying can shed new light on old truths.

Thank you, God, for loving this world and everyone in it, including me. I don’t always understand such love, but helps me to experience it in my life.

Made In God’s Image

Our world is full of dozens of high-tech gadgets that are supposed to simplify our hectic lives.

It’s clear that cars are faster than chariots, and that microwave ovens cook more quickly than traditional ovens.

But have you ever tried to debug your computer when it goes haywire? Or have you ever tried to program your videocassette recorder to tape one of your favorite TV programs while you’re out of the house?

If you’re like me, you’ve had more than your share of frustrating moments with machines and appliances that don’t respond to foot stomping, grumbling, or frantic searches through owners’ manuals full of indecipherable mumbo jumbo.

One way to understand the purpose of the Bible is to see it as a divinely inspired owner’s manual for the operation and maintenance of human life. And while parts of the Bible are complex and hard to understand, passages like this one in Genesis are both straightforward and powerful.

Though the passage contains only thirty-two words, it delivers three important lessons: First, God is not a me but an us.

Our God is a union consisting of three persons: heavenly Father, Holy Spirit, and only begotten Son. For centuries theologians have called this concept the Trinity or the Godhead.

Second, when God created humanity he made us in his own image. As the first two chapters of Genesis show, God created everything that exists, and nothing exists that he did not create.

He gave all of these things his loving attention, but when it came to creating humanity, the Bible tells us that this was a special occasion. When God created us, he gave birth to something truly unique.

So what does it mean when the Bible says God created us in his image? For one thing, it means that humans are creative.

Some of us use our God-given creativity to make music, design Web pages, write love poems, or arrange flowers for others to see. Though some may forget it, this ability to create comes directly from God.

Third, God created humans in two distinct types: male and female. Although men and women are different, they are alike in many essential ways. In addition, God loves both sexes equally. There’s no gender superiority in creation.

Owner’s manuals may not help us understand how to work our VCRs, but God’s owner’s manual will help us understand who we are and how God intends us to live.

God, life often seems hectic and complex, and technology seems to make things even crazier. But I thank you for creating men and women as you did and for caring about us as much as you do.

Vanishing Fears

I can’t do this,” I whispered to the pastor leading the teams of people going out to share the gospel.

“Of course, you can,” he said in a matter-of-fact way.

He doesn’t get it, I thought. He doesn’t understand that I am really afraid to knock on the doors of perfect strangers and ask them about God.

I had been in a witnessing program at my church for several months and had overcome my initial fear of calling on church visitors.

These people were predisposed to talk about spiritual things. They had attended a worship service and signed a visitor’s card.

But now we were to go out and knock on doors in apartment buildings near the church and ask the residents to answer some questions about their belief in God.

“It isn’t you doing this anyway,” the pastor said to me. “You know it is the power of God in you.”

It sure didn’t feel like the power of God was anywhere near me as

I headed out the door with two visiting pastors. They were attending a training program at our church to see how laypeople could learn to share effectively their faith and lead others to Christ.

I didn’t reveal my misgivings to them but offered up a fervent, silent prayer for the courage I really couldn’t feel.

I agreed with Paul in Romans 1:16 when he said that he was not ashamed of the gospel.

I could also affirm that the gospel has the power to bring salvation to those who believe it. But it seemed impossible that I could express God’s power in any meaningful way.

No one answered our knocking at the first few doors, but then a middle-aged woman invited us in. She told us that she had attended church all of her life, so I was certain that we would have nothing new to share.

As I started to talk with her about her understanding of who Jesus is and what he did, my fear began to disappear. She was interested and eager to talk about a new faith that wasn’t based on her good deeds in order to please God.

An hour or so later she prayed and invited Jesus into her life. All of us—the woman, the two pastors, and I—were excited to be present when the power of the gospel transformed the thinking of this dear lady.

On another occasion, I was part of a group of Christians who went out on the beaches of Ft. Lauderdale to talk to college kids from all over the United States who had descended on South Florida for spring break.

I began talking with one young man who listened to me for a few minutes and then said, “You couldn’t possibly understand why I hate God.”

“Try me,” I responded.

He went on to tell me that his fiancee was killed the previous Christmas when a motorist drove up on a curb and ran over her.

It was amazing to me as I listened to him to think that, of all the people on the beach, God had led me to this young man.

I went on to tell him how my own husband had been killed just ten days before Christmas two years before.

He was very interested in how I could love God in spite of what happened. When we parted ways, he said he was willing to think more about God and pray that God would change him.

I witnessed so many encounters similar to these over the years where people’s hearts and minds were changed.

It was especially obvious to me that the power came from God and not any persuasive words from me. When God is at work, information one has learned in a classroom becomes infused with supernatural meaning. And anyone can be God’s tool of salvation!

Father, thank you that you choose to use us as vessels through which your Holy Spirit works.

Innocence In God’s Garden

BRITISH novelist and essayist C. S. Lewis once described the problem of runaway sexual appetites in his uniquely witty style:

Now suppose you came to a country where you could fill a theater by simply bringing a covered plate onto the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let everyone see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food?

And would not anyone who had grown up in a different world think there was something equally queer about the state of the sex instinct among us?

When God created Adam and Eve, he lavished special care on human sexuality.

Sex was to be the means by which humans reproduced—just as in the animal kingdom. But with humans, whom God created uniquely in his own image, there was more to sex than breeding.

In the divine drama, God designed sex as a means for a man and a woman to experience deeper intimacy with each other than would be possible in any other way. That’s why Adam and Eve were naked but unashamed.

Shame came later. By C. S. Lewis’s day, sex had become popular in stage shows, magazines, and movies.

Today, sexually explicit material is available on video, DVD, and the Internet, where people need only a computer, a modem, and a phone line to view images that would have been illegal or not readily available only a decade or two ago.

Are we better today in our so-called sexually liberated age than earlier generations of men and women? Lewis wouldn’t think so. Though God gave us our appetites, we must control them.

Without control, we become enslaved by our appetites. People enslaved by food are guilty of the biblical sin of gluttony and reap the consequences of obesity and health problems.

Those who are enslaved by sex are guilty of lust and find themselves among a growing number of sex addicts.

Lewis said: There is a story about a schoolboy who was asked what he thought God was like. He replied that, as far as he could make out, God was “the sort of person who is always snooping round to see if anyone is enjoying himself and then trying to stop it.”2

That’s not it at all. God’s no heavenly killjoy. He wants us to know the innocence and intimacy Adam and Eve knew in the Garden of Eden. He desires for us to know what it means to be naked and unashamed.

Father, thank you for the gift of sex. Help me to use it wisely.

The Benefit Of Trials

Ron and Cathy, dear friends of my daughter and her husband, just welcomed their fourth child into their family Colton was born about four weeks early, but all seemed well. For a while, that is.

A few hours after he was born, the trial began. A nurse expressed concern that Colton might have Down’s syndrome and the doctor ordered tests to confirm or deny her suspicions.

For three days, differing opinions from doctors and nurses held Ron and Cathy in the sway of emotions between fear and hope.

When the results came in, their dread became reality. Their pre-cious new baby did have Down’s.

“Consider it pure joy” seems a cruel command in the face of such pain. What can it mean?

I don’t think that God expects us to feel joyful when difficulties occur. Our natural and automatic response to the pain of trials is to feel sad or shocked, fearful, confused, disappointed, or a combination of these emotions.

But after some time has passed and understanding of the challenges we face has sunk in, then we may be able to step back and view our situation from God’s perspective.

Pain is still present, and we still entreat God to intervene in ways that make life right again. But we are willing to reflect on what James meant when he began his letter with this command.

One of the most comforting truths about our relationship with God is that he is with us. We do not face our trials alone but walk with the Creator of the universe, who can supernaturally change our perspective. Awareness of his presence can begin to move us from fear to godly peace.

Once we are aware of his presence, we find our belief strengthened. We do not demand that our circumstances change, but we believe that God’s love will infuse our sadness.

God’s touch will soften the blow we have endured and move us from questioning Why? to asking How?

Little Colton is six months old now and each day brings new challenges mixed with hopeful progress. Ron and Cathy explain their feelings this way:

“When we were given Colton’s diagnosis, of course, we went through the gamut of negative emotions: anger, grief, sadness, depression, fear, resentment, disbelief, and helplessness.

We cried out to God. ‘Lord we love you, how can you do this to our son?’ We accused God of being mean and cruel.

“But through all of our tears, God was faithful to whisper to us in his still, small voice. ‘I did this that I might be glorified.’ His Holy Spirit soon redirected our grief into faith.

Faith that He was in control. Faith that He loved Colton even more than we did. Faith that He can and indeed would heal our son.”

I know that many tears still fall and many tough times lie ahead for this family, but I know also that their faith prevails.

They have had little time to adjust to the shock of this baby’s condition and have moved from panic to awareness of God’s goodness.

They are learning how God wants them to live instead of focusing on why this happened.

Friends and pastors visit, people offer prayers, and God’s Spirit weaves mysteriously within Ron and Cathy and the family of faith who surround them. And joy surfaces.

Father, we are so grateful that your Spirit invades our lives and touches our most painful emotions with your peace. Help us to be receptive to your transforming presence.