Hayleigh Faith

Last night I picked up Aunt Gretchen from the airport in Boston.  She will be helping Rachel out at our home through November 1.  So, Gretchen is in the house!  Let the fun begin J  I got to see the kids, sleep one night in our bed , and gather some things to stay with Hayleigh until she is ready to go home.  I drove back to Boston this morning. 

Someone at our home printed this picture of little Isaiah which I put on Hayleigh’s  monitor as seen below.  Whenever she wakes up, she sees baby Isaiah .  We hope this motivates her to get better quicker.

I also posted the picture above her bed.  It was taken 2 days before she started getting sick and shows our girl full of life.  That’s what I want people to think of when they see her and take care of her. 

She continues her slow but steady progress toward health.  She is almost completely off nitric oxide.  Ventilator pressure settings continue to be weaned and the medical team has started weaning her off morphine and methadone (which have to be weaned slowly….and must be done before she can get the tube out of her throat).  Finally, after two days of very little drainage from the chest tube she had that taken out today. 

Steady progress is good progress.  I have faith she will be back to that girl in the picture soon! 

Our friend Sophie Blanc from Australia posted a few comments on faith that got me thinking.  She wrote:

·                Everyone has faith in something. The question is, where is your faith pointed?

·                Faith makes the invisible visible, the impossible possible.

·                Faith is about taking God at his word and believing him, much like trusting a friend who says something and you have confidence that they will keep their word because you know that it is their character to do so.

·                Faith doesn't come from seeing miracles (lovely as they are), it comes from reading God's word and getting a revelation in your heart that this is the truth.

·                Believing comes before seeing (emphasis mine).

That last point is deep, profound, and true. 

I would add that faith is something of the heart, not the head.  For most of my adult life, I had ‘head’ knowledge of Jesus.  I could tell you logically why He is exactly who the Bible says He is (one of those points I outlined here during our mission trip…or just read to the bottom of this note as I copied it down there).  

I read books like The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel, More Than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell, Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, and The Reason for God by Timothy Keller.  I could intellectually counter atheist arguments using logic and reason, and I put on an exceptionally good mask making people think I was a ‘good Christian.’  

But it wasn’t until about 2 years ago that Jesus made the 12 inch journey from my head to my heart.  It has made all the difference in the world in my life. 

If you read my post from a couple of days ago titled “Hayleigh’s Story” you might be wondering “How can a guy who had a daughter miraculously saved NOT believe in his heart the truth of Jesus Christ???”

And the answers would be

1.   I’m pretty hard headed

2.  I chose to listen to ‘the world’ when it came to Jesus

Instead of seeking out authentic Christians to get my questions and doubts answered, I listened to what the media had to say or educators or movies or scientists or even atheists. 

Can I just suggest to anyone trying to learn more about who Jesus REALLY is, connect in community with people who have been touched by his saving grace.  Then open the Bible to the New Testament and READ! 

My friend Chuck Mavrogeorge recently wrote the following to my Thursday night men’s group….

“New York Times Bestselling Author John Eldredge wrote a book in 2011 titled BEAUTIFUL Outlaw.  In this book the author makes a strong case that we must see - we must experience - we must learn of the personality of Jesus before we can truly appreciate Him and imitate His life. 

                Because when we lose his personality, we lose Jesus.

                It's a little ironic that in a sophisticated visual age like ours we still cling to a two-dimensional Jesus.  Such is the power of the religious fog.

                The chorus of voices when it comes to the personality of Jesus is unanimous.  Everyone talks about His "great acts of humility, faith, and compassion."  What about His great acts of playfulness, or cunning?  What about His brilliance, His wit, His irreverence, the scandalous freedom with which Jesus lives, His exasperation and impatience?  Not to mention His humanity…

               

                Good grief - your hamster seems to have a more fully developed personality than most portraits of Jesus.  Furthermore, the loss of personality confounds our imitation of Christ.  What happens is, our particular brand of church seizes upon one or two of His virtues as the essence of Christ for us to follow. 

                Justice.  Mercy.  Righteousness.  Whatever.  You cannot live a life on one quality any more than you can speak intelligently using one word.  

Meanwhile, we continue to sound on about the love and compassion of Jesus, like the village idiot banging one note on a piano.  After a while the world turns away.

                

Can you blame them?  Alas - if only Jesus' followers shared His personality.  That one shift alone would correct so many of the ridiculous and horrifying things that pass for popular Christianity.

                What is missing in our Gospel reading - and in our attempts to "read" what Jesus is saying and doing in our own lives right now, this week - is His personality, undraped by religion.  Let's see if we can find it.

                    (John Eldredge, BEAUTIFUL Outlaw - Chapter 2, pages 16,17)

Knowing Jesus - the Real Jesus.  We are instructed to "Be imitators of God" (Ephesians 5:1).  The apostle Paul writes "Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ." (1 Corinthians 11:1)  I suppose if our vision is clouded - or we only perceive half of the Person (Jesus)  - our imitation will likely be as cheap as imitation leather."

In closing, below is a cartoon from 30 years ago that impacted my friend Chuck in no small way.  He writes "Not to sound too dramatic - I mean, let's face it, it's funny (at least to me), it's witty, it's simple - but it also conveys some deep truths that should be considered.

In light of knowing Jesus and being imitators of Him, I think it is appropriate.  And even if you miss the "deeper truths" the first time around, at least you may get a little chuckle - and we all know that 'A merry heart does good, like medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones.' (Proverbs 17:22)."

I will admit that I had to look at this a couple of times before it sunk in, but now that it did.... 

I. LOVE. IT.  

As mentioned earlier in this note, the one line of reasoning that kept me tethered to Jesus when atheism or at least agnosticism was calling loudly is copied below.  

Feel free to share this note with others.  

Not A Pigeon,

Andrew

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Greece:The Truth and Last Days in Greece

Before writing about our last days in Greece, I wanted to document a wonderful discussion our family had last night during our Bible study.  It was a discussion on what I think is the strongest 'proof' that Jesus Christ is exactly who the Bible says He is, the resurrected Son of God.

As a young married man with a weak faith, this argument was the one that really kept me in the faith when all kinds of doubts from academia, science, and 'the world' plagued me constantly.

And what was this 'proof'?  The proof is in the actions of the disciples and early believers who knew Jesus directly.  Here are largely a bunch of uneducated, selfish, cowards.  They were fishermen, tax collectors, unremarkable people to all but God.  They asked 'who will sit at the right hand' (selfish), pushed kids away from Jesus, and fell asleep when their friend Jesus needed them the most.  When Jesus needed them most, they fled, they denied Him, they forgot everything he said and did & let fear drive their actions.  Only John stood at the cross.  The others hid to save themselves.  So how did these men who were completely demoralized at the loss of their leader...a leader who was killed in the most humiliating way known at the time...how did they suddenly and dramatically turn the world upside down and lay the foundation for Christianity to spread to every corner of the earth?

There is only one logical answer...they saw the risen Christ as did many of the early converts to Christianity.  No other answer makes any sense.  If people didn't witness the risen Christ....if the Holy Spirit didn't come down and convict thousands of people....if miraculous healing powers weren't granted to these men as they spoke on Jesus' behalf....how in the world would Christianity ever take hold?

Everyone knew Jesus was crucified.  Everyone knew he died and wasn't the one who was going to throw the Romans out of the Promised Land.  So, if those were the known facts during those early days, how in the world did people start to believe so much in Jesus as the Messiah that they essentially tore their families apart (leaving their traditional faith meant alienating themselves from their entire social construct) and many went to their deaths proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah.  How would that happen based on a crucified failure???

The answer is these people witnessed the risen Christ and thus nothing else mattered to them.  Their previous life didn't matter.  Their family relationships in comparison didn't matter.  Torture from Romans demanding an oath to Caesar as God didn't matter.  They knew the truth and willingly gave their lives rather than denying that truth.

Which brings me to another point on these disciples.  I have heard non-believers say things like the Bible is a bunch of fairy tales....that these disciples really didn't exit.  That is obviously a silly argument as Christianity didn't grow out of nothingness.  There was intentionality and work done by each of these men to plant the seed for what eventually grew into Christianity.  Why else were Christians being thrown to the lions in Rome in the decades immediatelyfollowing the crucifixion   This is a fact from history, not from the Bible.  Christianity was spreading at that time from real men, not 'made up' fairy tales written hundreds of years after the fact.

I have heard non-believers say the disciples just did what they did for personal gain and fame...yet if you look at what they did after Jesus was resurrected, you see quite clearly they lived hard lives.  They left their families.  They scattered across the world from Africa to India, Europe and even Britain being persecuted, thrown in jail, whipped and ultimately killed for what they did and what they proclaimed.  Hardly a 'lap of luxury / personal gain' kind of life!

I've heard non-believers say that the disciples were a cult and under Jesus' hypnosis and thus acted the way they acted because they were still in a cult.  No cult in the history of the world sustains itself once the leader is dead....especially not for decades as that is how long most of these men lived.

But most importantly, these men KNEW the truth.  If they did all they did scattered across the world promoting a lie....then why would all but John die VIOLENT deaths proclaiming Jesus Christ is the resurrected Son of God?  NO ONE DIES FOR A LIE!  These men knew the truth.  They knew Jesus personally.  They knew what happened in those days around the crucifixion.

Some say "well, plenty of people over the years die for their beliefs or for their faith....look at Muslim terrorists" and I say categorically these disciples did not die for their beliefs or for their faith.  They were EYEWITNESSES and that is a very big difference.  For them, there was no belief or faith....there was truth or lie.  No one dies for a lie.

The only thing that makes sense as to why they would live the rest of their lives the way that they lived them and ultimately die violent deaths proclaiming Jesus as Lord is that THEY WITNESSED THE RESURRECTED SON OF GOD.  There is no other logical explanation for how they behaved or what happened as a result of their actions.  They were proclaiming the truth. Stand firm on it!

I did some research a while ago and found this list of early leaders of Christianity and how they died. 

Christian Persecution: A list of Early Martyrs Who Were Witnesses to the Life of Jesus
Here is an account of early Christian persecution, as compiled from numerous sources outside the Bible, the most-famous of which is Foxes’ Christian Martyrs of the World:

Around 34 A.D., one year after the crucifixion of Jesus, Stephen was thrown out of Jerusalem and stoned to death.

Approximately 2,000 Christians suffered martyrdom in Jerusalem during this period.

About 10 years later, James, the son of Zebedee and the elder brother of John, was killed when Herod Agrippa arrived as governor of Judea. Agrippa detested the Christian sect of Jews, and many early disciples were martyred under his rule, including Timon and Parmenas.

Around 54 A.D., Philip, a disciple from Bethsaida, in Galilee, suffered martyrdom at Heliopolis, in Phrygia. He was scourged, thrown into prison, and afterwards crucified.

About six years later, Matthew, the tax-collector from Nazareth who wrote his gospel in Hebrew, was preaching in Ethiopia when he suffered martyrdom by the sword. 

James, the brother of Jesus, administered the early church in Jerusalem and was the author of an Epistle by his name. At age 94, he was beat and stoned, and finally had his brains bashed out with a fuller's club. 

Matthias was the apostle who filled the vacant place of Judas. He was stoned at Jerusalem and then beheaded. 

Andrew was the brother of Peter who preached the gospel throughout Asia. On his arrival at Edessa, he was arrested and crucified on a cross, the two ends of which were fixed transversely in the ground (this is where we get the term, St. Andrew's Cross). 

Mark was converted to Christianity by Peter, and then transcribed Peter’s account of Jesus in his Gospel. Mark was dragged to pieces by the people of Alexandria in front of Serapis, their pagan idol.

It appears Peter was condemned to death and crucified at Rome. Jerome holds that Peter was crucified upside down, at his own request, because he said he was unworthy to be crucified in the same manner as his Lord. 

Paul suffered in the first persecution under Nero. Paul’s faith was so dramatic in the face of martyrdom, that the authorities removed him to a private place for execution by the sword.

In about 72 A.D., Jude, the brother of James who was commonly called Thaddeus, was crucified at Edessa. 

Bartholomew preached in several countries and translated the Gospel of Matthew into the language of India. He was cruelly beaten and then crucified by idolaters there. 

Thomas, called Didymus, preached the Gospel in Parthia and India, where exciting the rage of the pagan priests, he was martyred by being thrust through with a spear. 

Luke was the author of the Gospel under his name. He traveled with Paul through various countries and is supposed to have been hanged on an olive tree by idolatrous priests in Greece. 

Barnabas, of Cyprus, was killed without many known facts in about 73 A.D. 

Simon, surnamed Zelotes, preached the Gospel in Mauritania, Africa, and even in Britain, where he was crucified in about 74 A.D. 

John, the "beloved disciple," was the brother of James. From Ephesus he was ordered to Rome, where it is affirmed he was cast into a cauldron of boiling oil. He escaped by miracle, without injury. Domitian afterwards banished him to the Isle of Patmos, where he wrote the Book of Revelation. He was the only apostle who escaped a violent death.

I saw the 'light bulb' go on by the end of this discussion with each of the girls, and it was one of those great 'Dad' moments.  I pray all the time that my kids are able to 'get it' much faster than their mom and dad 'got it.'  I know that ultimately faith is a personal revelation between Jesus and each individual.  I pray constantly that each of our children makes that choice for themselves early in life and thus orients their lives around the teachings of Jesus versus the teachings of 'the world'

That explanation went a bit longer than I had planned, but I felt it was important to write.  There are many other reasons I now believe Jesus is exactly who the Bible says He is, but the explanation above is the reason that was essentially my lifeline when doubts threatened to overwhelm me.  It kept me engaged enough to learn, research and experience enough to make a real, repentant commitment of my life to Jesus.  I thank God for those martyrs and what they did so many years ago.  Amen.