Behold by Amy Orr-Ewing

Take approximately 5 minutes to read yesterday's 'A Slice of Infinity' - below. Post comments to the blog for spiritual collaboration. Please email your prayer requests too.

John Chapter 6

Comments:
Friends, below is yesterday's Slice of Infinity in its entirety. Typically, I will try to take out some morsel for your reading, but I found this one too good to chop up. I have been discussing miracles with a few friends and this, very poignantly, grabbed my attention. I have often heard the question asked, and asked it myself, "is God still doing the miraculous" or "why don't we see miracles like what we read of happening in the early church"? I want to encourage you that if you want to see miracles, ask God to open your eyes to them. Ask Him for spiritual gifts. Don't quit asking Him. I have seen the miraculous first hand and I am happy to share with those who would like to hear more.

Also, Danny Meece, who is a fellow Cougar, will gladly share testimonies of healing and miracles if you ask Him. Danny is a precious man with no agenda or anything to earn in sharing what he has witnessed. Please do not hesitate to ask him to share with you.

Perhaps we could start a comment thread to this post, or start a new posting section on the blog, sharing our stories of the miraculous in our lives?

May this season of Advent remind us of our messiah-who takes away the sin of the world.

With admiration,
-Chad

Slice of Infinity:
Behold!

What are you looking at? Where are the anchors in your life? In these uncertain times, I imagine for many of us these questions are more than rhetorical or philosophical; they are truly heartfelt.

Recently I was struck by this announcement in John’s gospel: “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’” (John 1:29). John says, “Look, the Lamb of God.” My question to you is, what are you looking at? John emphatically directs our focus: “Look at Jesus.” In fact, he makes this declaration fifteen times in his gospel. This word is translated in the King James Version as Behold. Fifteen times he exhorts his readers to look at Jesus. Will you behold? This is astonishing. This is amazing. Look at Jesus.

My favorite hymnwriter is Charles Wesley and one of my favorite of his hymns is called, “Jesus! The Name High Over All.” In the final verse of his hymn, he sings,

Happy, if with my latest breath
I may but gasp His Name,
Preach Him to all and cry in death,
“Behold, behold the Lamb!”

Now an account of John’s death tells us that that is exactly what happened. As John lay dying, he uttered those words, “Behold the Lamb,” and then went to be with the Lord. John is telling us to look at Jesus--for our hope, for our provision, for our very lives.

In his gospel he invites us to behold Jesus through the lens of seven signs or miracles. That is, John deliberately chooses seven out of the many miracles that Jesus performed in order to give us a particular perspective of who this Jesus is. And the fourth miracle that he records is Jesus’s feeding of the five thousand. Jesus himself beholds the crowd--he looks attentively at their need--and he responds with compassion and provision. We encounter a dramatic miracle: Jesus multiplies fives loaves and two fish to feed five thousand people. Then John tells us, “When they had all had enough to eat, [Jesus] said to his disciples, ‘Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.’ So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten” (6:12-13). What a picture of amazing abundance: the Son of God demonstrating the abundance of God to a hungry people.

Perhaps as you look at our world today you wonder if God is still at work in such a way. I want to encourage you that He is, for in my work and ministry I have seen his provision. Having been involved in Bible smuggling in China, I was intrigued to learn of a man named Chris who had gone out from the UK to do the same. Every three seconds someone in China becomes a Christian, but there’s a real lack of the Word of God there. This is what happened to Chris: he and his team stood at the pickup point in China where they were to meet their contact, who would utter a password, and they would deliver their Bibles. They arrived with only minutes to spare, but the contact didn’t show up. Knowing they were being watched, the team started walking towards the edge of town as though leaving. Hot and tired, they stopped at a nearby park for a drink of water, rest, and prayer. It was hard to understand why after all the difficulties God had brought them through that something had gone so wrong. They had looked to Him for provision and direction, and yet their mission had seemingly failed.

Soon the team became aware of three very ragged and dirty men under a tree behind them. Chris felt the Lord leading him to go over with some water. When he offered it, one of the men suddenly spoke the password very clearly in English. The rest of the team hurried over in amazement and pieced together the men’s story from the little Chinese that they knew. Two years earlier, God had given a word to these Chinese men in one of their services that they should plan for this trip. He would lead them to this park, on this date, and have Bibles ready for them, which would be brought by white men from far away. Since they were all poor farmers, it had taken a long time for them to save the money for food and shoes for the trip. The men had walked for two and a half months, mostly at night to keep from being arrested. Coming from the far north of China near Mongolia, they had climbed a range of snowcapped mountains, traveled through the desert, and crossed several rivers without a compass or any knowledge of the country. All they could explain was that God had shown them where to go.

How did they know the password? How could they speak it in English when they knew no English? How did they survive the heat and the snow without protective clothing? It could only be God.

When the men saw the Bibles, they cried and praised the Lord for a long time. They had brought cloth bags with them to carry the Bibles home, and inside each one was a small watermelon that they had carried all those miles as a gift of appreciation. Even though they had been without food for several days, they didn’t eat a single watermelon. The team exchanged clothes with them and Chris explained what an honor it was to put on those dirty rags. The shoes were completely worn out, but the team chose to go barefoot and give up their own shoes, which fit the others perfectly. Apparently God had chosen each group member based in part on their shoe size. Many tears were shed as the team prayed for the Chinese and sent them back home with food and money for their journey.

Jesus is the God of abundance. He is the one within whom this provision, this abundance, is located. Look to him, behold him, and you will be amazed.

Amy Orr-Ewing is training director at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in the United Kingdom.

Author:

Amy Orr-Ewing

Living With a Foreign Worldview by Jill Carattini

Take approximately 5 minutes to read this shortened version of yesterday's 'A Slice of Infinity'. Post comments to the blog for spiritual collaboration. Please email your prayer requests too.

Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. Philippians 2:3-4 NLT

Slice of Infinity Snippets:
Many Christians now live in an environment where there are not only multiple faith communities around them, but faith communities spilling over into other faith communities, and worldviews embracing strands and fragments of other worldviews.

For Christians whose beliefs are rooted more in conviction than comfort, it is easy to feel that we must inherently be cultural naysayers, gypsies who wander through this world unattached and hopefully unaffected...At times it is admittedly overwhelming, and I am tempted to embrace the myth that faith is something for the private sectors of life. But then something like the Lord’s Supper, a reminder of my baptism, or a glimpse of the glory of God in the face of the church reminds me that God’s reign is here and now, real and present, radical and unafraid.

Like the apostle Paul within first century Rome, I do not believe that all is lost in the fog of a thousand religions. As Paul discovered among the people of Athens, our cultural context presents both risk and opportunity. We may live with a foreign worldview, but we do indeed live in this world. Part of proclaiming the reign of God among us involves learning to see this hope, learning to see that praying “God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven” means being that hope of opportunity... Our communion as sinners who know God’s power is, for the world, the real presence of God’s reign today. In the words of Lesslie Newbigin:

The church represents the presence of the reign of God in the life of the world, not in the triumphalist sense (as the “successful” cause) and not in the moralistic sense (as the “righteous” cause), but in the sense that it is the place where the mystery of the kingdom present in the dying and rising of Jesus is made present here and now so that all people, righteous and unrighteous, are enabled to taste and share the love of God before whom all are unrighteous and all are accepted as righteous.

The world in which we find ourselves is full of fog and fallacies, but so it is full of the unfailing love of God. In a world where countless ideologies vie for our allegiances, the biblical narrative invites us into an understanding of human history where we encounter the one whose authority is ultimate and presence is real. Our mission is thus to tell the old, old story, to live within this story and the kingdom it proclaims, and to invite others into the narrative that is continually moving us from the particular to the universal, from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. As Christians aware of God’s reign among us, we must not fear the historical accident that shaped the moods both in and around us, but we can live as visionaries of God's grace, harbingers of hope, and catalysts for transformation. For we testify to the radical work of the Cross in Jerusalem and in our hearts, and to the uniqueness of Jesus Christ who, unlike any other, exchanges guilt for grace, ashes for beauty, and sorrow for joy, yesterday, today, and forever.

Comments: Do not give in to selfishness when those around you do so with glee. We must be a vision of accountability if we are to help our neighbor desire to be accountable. And, our neighbor will not see our true heart for him if we are not in relationship with them. We must get people to FEEL that we care for them and to do this, we must truly care for them (this is the hard part for me). When you are building into someone's life, present your case from the standpoint of the minority (I think true Christians are in the minority) and do not think 'successfully' but rather think significantly over a long period of time.

Regardless of how you voted (or didn't vote) yesterday, it is now time to get behind President elect Obama. Pray for him and over him. God has allowed him to be the next leader of the United States. Let's pray that God has him in relationships that enjoin him to pursue the will of God for our country. Pray 'Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done'.

Faith Quote: Let's pray for the courage to sacrifice and be uncomfortable as we follow Christ and put love of God and neighbor first...Pat Castle, life-devotions.blogspot.com

The Kingdom and the Mustard Seed by Jill Carattini

Take approximately 5 minutes to read this shortened version of yesterday's 'A Slice of Infinity'. Post comments to the blog for spiritual collaboration. Please email your prayer requests too.

Then Jesus said, “What is the Kingdom of God like? How can I illustrate it? 19 It is like a tiny mustard seed that a man planted in a garden; it grows and becomes a tree, and the birds make nests in its branches. Luke 13:18-19 see also Mark 4:30-32, and Matthew 13:31-32

Slice of Infinity Snippets:
... we find truths and wonders worth gleaning as if from a great and fruitful tree. The parable of the mustard seed depicts the inconspicuous ministry of Jesus and the sometimes hidden signs of his significance as holding a potential far beyond metaphor or imagination, culture or history. The kingdom of God is not in the future only, nor is it only at hand in a history we cannot reach; it is here even now, reaching out with branches that bid us to come and dwell. As with all of Jesus's stories, which "leap out of their historical situation and confront us as if they had not yet spoken their final word,” I believe this parable will continue to surprise us if we will continue to inquire. The great reality of a great kingdom has been planted within the life and words of Jesus, always ready to break forth the fullness of meaning, gradually or suddenly, or sometimes both.

Comments: Here is an interesting verse to chew on today:

Remind the believers to submit to the government and its officers. They should be obedient, always ready to do what is good. They must not slander anyone and must avoid quarreling. Instead, they should be gentle and show true humility to everyone. Titus 3:1-2

In Service to the King of Kings,
Chad Livingston

In No Strange Land by Jill Carattini

Take approximately 5 minutes to read this shortened version of yesterday's 'A Slice of Infinity'. Post comments to the blog for spiritual collaboration. Please email your prayer requests too.

“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, that the mountains would quake at your presence!” (Isaiah 64:1).

A Slice of Infinity 'Snippets'
“[T]he failure of the elect and the called to see God’s vision, to hear God’s voice, and to rise above human goals of pride, striving, and independence adds a tragic dimension to the vision [of Isaiah]. To the bitter end a large proportion of the people cling to their version of the past as the only acceptable pattern for their present and their future. They demand that God conform to their concept of what his plans ought to be and thus preclude themselves from participation in God’s new creation.”

Both Thompson (see poem below) and Isaiah use the power of image and metaphor to bid us to look again and again, and learn to live as eyes of the kingdom. While it is true that God sometimes comes down and unmistakably transforms time and place, other times we fail to see the sacred in our midst simply because we do not want to see anything subtle. We pass over what God has extended, whether a sign of grace, a moment of transcendence, or a richer lifetime of seeing his presence. And we ironically miss the images of God all around us within a world that is made in God's image. As the unlikely poet laments:

Let's endeavor to add one person to our prayers this week.

The poem is titled “In No Strange Land” and was written by a man whose life oscillated between brilliant writer and homeless addict. Francis Thompson lived on the streets of England, slaking his opium addiction in London's Charing Cross and sleeping on the banks of the River Thames.

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-no-strange-land/