Hope for Life Blog

Forty days after being raised from the dead, Jesus Christ was taken to heaven. At that time, his followers were told, “This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:11) Christians have been waiting for His return ever since.

Some people think they have figured out exactly when that will be. You may have seen the billboards along the side of the road. I don’t question the sincerity of the people who put those signs up, but I’m convinced they’re wrong.

Years ago, a man of God felt the need to comfort some of his friends. People around them were talking about the timing of the end of the world, and he wanted to reassure them that the rumors they were hearing were not true. This man, named Paul, wrote: “Now, brothers, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” (1 Thessalonians 5:1-2)

Paul had just written to these believers about Jesus’ return, but he didn’t want them worrying about when that would be. He didn’t want them trying to calculate dates nor decipher times. So he tells them: It will be like a thief in the night.

There will be no billboards along the highway. There will be no Mayan calendars announcing the end of the world. Just as thieves arrive unexpectedly, Jesus will return without warning.

For early Christians, the idea that their Lord was coming back was an exciting one. They wanted to be prepared when He came. In that same letter, Paul said, “So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled.” (1 Thessalonians 5:6) If we’re awake, we won’t be surprised by a thief in the night.

We should be watching. There should be an expectant edge to our lives, as we wait for the day when our hopes are realized. We don’t know if that will be today or a thousand years from now. But we know that it will be a wonderful time for those longing to see Jesus. As Paul wrote to his friend Timothy: “Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day — and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”

Jesus is coming back. We don’t know when. But we know it will be a great day.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved to read. One of my greatest joys during the summer was our biweekly trip to the library. I would carefully seek out the seven books I was allowed to check out, knowing that these would have to last me for the next two weeks. I rarely get to indulge myself as I did back then, but I still enjoy sitting down with a good book.

In the western world, there is a book that has come to be known as THE Good Book. It’s the Bible, the bestselling book of all time. It’s often quoted and even more frequently referred to, yet many people have little idea of what is really inside its pages.

The Bible is actually a collection of books, dozens of books that discuss everything from family relations to the end of the world. What’s more, a number of the books in the Bible are actually compilations, the grouping together of other writings. For example, what we know as the Book of Psalms is made up of five books, and each of those books is an anthology of poems. We could even say that Psalms is a compilation of compilations!

One thing that I appreciate about the Bible is the diversity of material contained within its pages. Many people assume that it’s all “Thou shalts” and “Thou shalt nots,” but that’s not true at all. There are rules and regulations, that’s true, but there is also history, humor, wise sayings and personal messages. If you read carefully, you can find every human emotion represented, from despair to exultation, from fear to confident peace. To the surprise of many, there is even some romantic verse included.

When men sit down to write about religion, the result can often be dry and detached from reality. When God provided us with religious writing, He filled it with multiple genres that present the best and worst of humankind. He used drama and word play. He spoke of everyday life and questions of eternity. He showed us man’s failures and man’s successes. Above all, He revealed Himself to us.

I don’t get to make those summer trips to the library. But I do get to spend time in God’s library, the Book of Books which is the Bible. I hope that you take time to do the same.

If you’re new to studying the Bible, I’d suggest you start by studying the life of Jesus. Try the “Discovering Jesus” course on this website. Or you can do the “Life Made New” course if you feel that you are already familiar with the basic stories of the Bible.

My head gets sunburned. It didn’t used to, but now I have to be careful when I go out. If I’m in the sun for more than a few minutes without some sort of hat, I’ll probably spend the next few days with an itchy scalp. For some reason, my head burns more easily than it used to.

I’d like to blame it on the ozone layer or global warming or something of the sort, but I know the truth: with every passing year, I’ve got less hair on the top of my head.

My body is wearing out. There are other signs of this, like my need for reading glasses, and more things seem to show up all the time.

I have what the Bible calls a “perishable body.” It will eventually deteriorate. And, as the Bible promises, someday I will get an “imperishable body,” one that won’t ever wear out. It’s the way that God originally wanted things to be, but mankind chose to disobey God, and the consequence of that rebellion was death, the decaying of our bodies.

Did you know that the world around us had the same thing happen to it? Where creation was once in a state of perfection, man’s sin affected that as well. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome: “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” (Romans 8:20-21)

That word “decay” is the same word Paul uses to talk about what happens to our bodies. Just as my body is not the perfect body I will one day have, so our creation is in a state of imperfection. Not because God made it that way, but because our sin affects the world around us.

Today we see earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis and floods. One day, all of that will be gone. Creation will be set free from its “futility,” from its imperfection.

On that day, we Christians will also be set free. We will be given bodies that will never grow old nor wear out. We’ll live in a world that won’t experience the disasters we see today.

And my head won’t get sunburned any more!

(photo by Henk L, from www.sxc.hu)

What do you think of when you hear the word “church”? Do you think of a grand cathedral with awe-inspiring architecture? Do you picture a quaint white country structure with a bell in the steeple?

Or does “church” for you mean something that a group of Christians do when they get together? Phrases like “Church is at ten” or “We had church under a tree” come to mind. For some of us, that’s what we think of when we say “church.”

Maybe you tend to hear “church” with a capital C, imagining a large bureaucratic organization with a central headquarters and representatives in countries around the world.

Or do you think about a group of people? The Bible never uses the word “church” to refer to a building or an activity; it’s always talking about a gathering of Christians. “The church in Ephesus.” (Revelation 2:1) The church that meets in your home. (Philemon 2) Those are the sorts of phrases we read in the Bible.

Whereas “church” is something of a contrived word for us, it wasn’t that way in Bible times. It was a common word to refer to a gathering. In the New Testament book of Acts, we find the same word being used to describe a gathering of citizens in Ephesus. The Greek word for church, ekklesia, merely means assembly. It comes from two words meaning “called” and “out,” with the thought of people called out for a purpose.

So, in its truest sense, “church” merely refers to a group of people. That’s why the Bible often adds a descriptive, like “church of God” (Acts 20:28), “churches of Christ” (Romans 16:16), or “church of the firstborn” (Hebrews 12:23). These phrases aren’t used as names; they are merely descriptions of who the assembly belongs to.

In the end, the church is the group of people that belong to God. Other meanings may cloud our understanding, but we need to see that that’s what the church is. That’s why we can’t talk about loving God and not loving the church, or being a Christian but not being a member of the church. Those things make no sense. God called his people to be together, to be a part of something larger than themselves: the church.

If you’re not part of a gathering of Christians, I’d like to help you find a place to belong. Contact me at tarcher@heraldoftruth.org or click on “Contact Us” in the top menu and mark that you’d like help finding a church when you fill out the form.

Have you heard that July 2011 will have 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays and that this pattern only occurs once every 823 years? Has anyone ever told you that the Great Wall of China is the only manmade object visible from space? Does the phrase “we only use 10 percent of our brain” ring a bell?

What these things have in common, of course, is that none of them is true. July 2011 will have 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays, but so will July 2016. I’m not great at math, but I’m fairly confident that’s not 823 years.

The Great Wall of China is long, but not particularly wide (as far as manmade structures go). It is approximately the same color as the land that surrounds it. Continually improving technology allows such things to be seen from space, but there are many other structures that men have built which are more easily observed.

And the myth about 10 percent of our brain? No one really knows how that belief began, but it’s been repeated so often that most people accept it as true. Neurosurgeons are not among them, which explains why they carefully plan each incision they will make when performing brain surgery.

Just because “everybody knows” something, that something isn’t necessarily true. Common sense isn’t as common as we might like to think. Stories are created, repeated and exaggerated. After a while it’s hard to distinguish between rumors, myths, outright lies, and the truth.

It was Jesus who said, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32) The problem is, we don’t always know where to find that liberating truth. Fortunately, Jesus also gave us the answer to that. While praying for his disciples one night, he asked that God: “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” (John 17:17)

The truth is found in God’s Word, the Bible. While that e-mail Grandma forwarded to you may or may not be true, we know that God’s Word is truth. Your best friend’s Facebook status will sometimes lead you astray, but the words of the Bible will lead you to freedom.

Read the Bible. Study God’s Word. Know the truth.

And use your whole brain, even if it’s on a Sunday in July in the shadow of the Great Wall.

Most of us have been straightening up around the house at some time and stumbled upon something that we weren’t expecting. Maybe it’s something that we thought was lost or a memento that we’d forgotten about. But few of us have found a 500-year-old mural.

According to the BBC, that’s exactly what happened to Rhodri and Angie Powell of Milverton, England. While renovating their home, they uncovered a 20-foot-high painting of King Henry VIII which was created about 1530. Michael Liversidge, of Bristol University, called the discovery “stunningly exciting and of national importance.” He went on to say that the painting would have been done as an expression of loyalty to the king.

I can’t help but wonder how the mural came to be hidden. Was it a political act by someone who disagreed with the King’s policies? Or was it merely a choice by a later owner with different tastes in wall decor? What would motivate you to cover up such a work of art?

The Bible says that each of us was made in the image of God. That’s a masterpiece beyond compare, yet I find that too many of us spend our lives trying to cover up that image. Rather than seeking to perfect our reflection of God’s image, we look to other patterns, other models for our lives.

With each passing day, I become more convinced that the best thing any of us can do is to work at recovering that lost image within. By seeking God and doing our best to live the way He shows us, we can recover that masterpiece that has gotten buried under layers of lesser things. We can become exactly who we were made to be.

We were made as a tribute to our King. We’re supposed to look like Him. By coming to know Him and doing our best to imitate Him, we can make our lives into something “stunningly exciting.”

“That’s right, woodchuck-chuckers – it’s… Groundhog Day!” You may or may not recognize that line from the Bill Murray movie “Groundhog Day.” And if you don’t live in the United States, you may not even know that February 2 is Groundhog Day, the day when the superstitious look to a small mammal to determine how soon spring will arrive.

In the movie, Phil Connors (Bill Murray) is trapped in a 24-hour time period that seems to repeat itself endlessly. Nothing he does allows him to move forward with his life.

Once Connors realizes what is going on, he gives himself over to pleasure: gratuitous sex, crime, and selfishly trying to woo Andie MacDowell’s character. Eventually he learns that all of this leaves him empty inside, and Murray begins to find ways to better himself and serve others. This being Hollywood, Connors eventually ends up with the girl, and they set off to live happily ever after, beyond Groundhog Day.

Phil Connors’ quest reminds me of one we find in the Bible, in the book of Ecclesiastes. This writer, a king, tells of some of the things in which he sought fulfillment:

• a quest for knowledge
• dedication to pleasure
• possessions
• commitment to work
• rivalry with others
• political power
• unrivaled riches
• children
• long life
• food and drink

In the end, he admits that none of these brought lasting pleasure. It was all, in his words, “a chasing after the wind.” He only found one thing that could give him the sense of meaning that he sought:

“The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13)

Some of us feel like Phil Connors, trapped in an endless routine. All of our attempts to find purpose and meaning in life leave us right back where we started. In the end, most of us learn what he learned on Groundhog Day: happiness begins with looking outside ourselves.

But I want you to know that your journey isn’t complete until you learn what the writer of Ecclesiastes learned, all those centuries ago: only by basing our lives on God and His teachings can we be truly fulfilled.

So this Groundhog Day, don’t let your life continue to be a series of meaningless days. Look to God, and let Him fill your life with a sense of purpose.

Several years ago I started swimming at the YMCA because I was out of shape. A few weeks later, I stopped swimming at the YMCA. For the same reason.

As I churned my way from one side of the pool to the other, I was keenly aware of the other swimmers. As I reached the edge of the pool, I would latch onto the side, fighting to catch my breath. They reached the edge, performed picture-perfect flip turns and continued their swim. Lap after lap. My workouts were painful to perform and even more painful to watch. The others seemed to glide through the water with no effort, their trained bodies moving gracefully from one end to the other. In other words, I was embarrassed. To be honest, none of them cared what I was doing. But I was shamed into retreating to the safety of the treadmills and recumbent bicycles. “Once I get into shape,” I told myself, “I’ll return to the pool.”

Many of us feel like that when we go to church or when we think about going to church. Everyone else seems to be so perfect while we’re painfully aware of our inadequacies. Some don’t even want to think about God for the same reason. We want to somehow get our lives together, and then we’ll go to Him. If you’ve felt that way, you need to realize that church is a place where people go to straighten out their lives. At the time of Jesus, many said, “Become worthy, then come to God.” Jesus’ message was just the opposite: “Come to God, and He will make you worthy.” God is in the business of fixing broken lives. Jesus said, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” He’s looking for the people that need help spiritually, not the people whose lives are already perfect.

If you don’t feel “good enough” to swim in God’s pool, let me invite you to get back in the water. God wants to help me get into shape spiritually, and He wants to do the same for you.

I like the story of Gideon in the Old Testament of the Bible. Gideon was an Israelite who lived in a time when a foreign power, the Midianites, were constantly invading Israel. These raiders would wait until the crops were ready to harvest, then they would descend upon the land and steal everything the Israelites had worked for months to grow. It was a terrible time for the God’s people.

God used Gideon to free His people, using a small band of men armed with pitchers and torches. It’s a fascinating story that can be read in chapters 6 and 7 of the book of Judges.

There’s one aspect of the story that sometimes gets overlooked. Gideon was a coward. Time and again, we see him acting out of fear. When we first meet Gideon, he’s down in a hole, hiding from the Midianites. God tells Gideon to tear down an idol that has been erected in his village. Gideon does so… at night, because he’s afraid.

The next day the villagers come to Gideon’s house, and Gideon hides in the house while his father convinces the crowd not to harm his son.

Later in the story, when Gideon has already raised an army and has received numerous signs and messages from God, God tells him to go eavesdrop at one of the tents of the Midianites “if you are afraid.” Gideon went. Because he was still afraid.

I’m not pointing this out to attack Gideon. I’m doing this to show that God can use all of us, even the cowards among us. God shaped Gideon into the very leader his people needed.

The remarkable part of all this comes in the very first words God had for Gideon. We can read them in Judges 6: “When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, “The LORD is with you, mighty warrior.” (Judges 6:12)

Mighty warrior? Really? Remember, these words were spoken to a man standing in a hole, hiding. A man who would do his acts of heroism under cover of darkness, because he was afraid. A man who needed Daddy to protect him from the townspeople and needed a word of reassurance every step along the way.

I like that. It tells me that God sees us not as we are, but as we can be. He can look at me, with my uncertainties and fears, and say, “I’m with you, mighty warrior.” More than that, He can look at me, with all my faults and failures, and say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” He can cleanse me from sin and forget that I ever sinned in the first place.

The story of Gideon is an encouraging one for people like me, people who aren’t perfect but are willing to let God make them perfect. Maybe it’s a good story for you, as well.

Lords a-leaping don’t come cheap. Neither do pipers piping. And five golden rings cost a lot more than they did last year.

That’s what PNC Wealth Management found in their 27th annual analysis of the cost of the gifts from the “Twelve Days of Christmas” song. In fact, the cost of regaling one’s true love from Christmas to Epiphany rose 9.2% in 2010, mainly due to the rise in the price of gold and the increase in labor costs.

Even if they aren’t looking for partridges in pear trees, people turn out in droves this time of year, seeking to find the perfect present for friends and family. Merchants are eager to help them, offering specials and giveaways designed to tempt even Ebenezer Scrooge into spending more than he should.

The truth is, we like giving gifts. As the Bible says, it’s more blessed to give than to receive. We like being able to give people something that will make them happy.

I think we are that way because our God is that way. When we do things that are like our God, we feel better about ourselves. God is the original giver. As our Creator, God has given us every good thing.

Yet His greatest gift goes unappreciated far too often. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

God so loved that He gave. His love motivated Him to give a gift. Not just any gift, but the gift of His Son. His only Son. God sent His only Son to die so that the whole world would have a chance at living. God gave His Son so that others would receive the most precious gift of all: eternal life. As the apostle Paul said, “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15)

In this season of giving and receiving, let’s stop and give thanks for the greatest gift of all. Let’s stop and give thanks to the greatest Giver of all.