Connecting Points

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Today’s Topic:  Unending Peace

Today’s Text:  Isaiah 9:7 Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his Kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

Warning! I am NOT trying to start a political debate this morning, but would like to make one observation based on the last 50 years of my life: the bigger government gets the more problems we have. Big government means either big tax burden or big debt. Big government means less personal liberty. High taxes, huge national debt, and less personal freedom will result in political unrest that brings social injustice and violence.

However, that does not have to be the case. There are two factors that determine if big government succeeds or not – justice and righteousness. Not legislative justice or legal righteousness imposed upon the citizens, but rather moral justice and ethical righteousness emanating from the heart of those in leadership and manifested in every political action they take. Unfortunately, no such leader exists today, and never will until Jesus Christ returns to reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

When Jesus comes back to re-establish the Kingdom promised to King David of Israel, we will have a political leader who is also spiritually perfect. He will rule with perfect justice because He is perfectly righteous.

But prior to His return, Satan himself will try to accomplish that kind of reign. He will attempt to duplicate what Jesus is about to do. He will fake a resurrection. He will indwell a human, whom He will set up as the political king of the world and then demand that the world worship him as God. Everything He does is a counterfeit of the Truth. And the world will follow him – right to destruction.

But to us a Child is born. To us a Son is given. The government of the world is promised to Him, and it will be big government. Jesus can pull it off. No one else ever could or ever will. Every political leader is ultimately bound to the injustice or unrighteousness of his own heart or the hearts of those with whom he serves and leads. But Jesus needs no approval from anyone else. He needs no compromises to accomplish his agenda. He accepts no back-stroking and never participates in back-stabbing. He is righteous to the core, and is just to everyone.

As a result, His government will have no limits, and will always – that’s right, always – be at peace. There will be no political adversaries. There will be no kingdoms to conquer or that will attempt to conquer His. There will be no social unrest. There will be no wars, no crime, no taxes, no need for a social security trust fund, and no corruption. No earmarks on legislation, because there will be no need for laws to be passed. Jesus will propose and enforce every law, and every citizen will accept those laws because they will be written into the very fabric of their heart as they surrender to the reign of One they can completely trust.

WOW! What a contrast to today. But rather than try to change today, we should be praying for the return of Jesus and working to bring as many people into His kingdom as possible. Many who are alive today will never see such a kingdom. They will pass into a Christ-less eternity because they reject the King today. We have a huge mission. It is not to change our government. Our mission is to introduce people to the One and Only King so they can live eternally under His reign.

Let’s get to work.

Pastor John

Connecting Points

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Today’s Topic: What’s In A Name?

Today’s Text: Isaiah 9:6 …and He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

According to a story in the publication Christian Reader, a little church in the country had a problem with the reading of the liturgy one Sunday. The person who put together the church bulletin every week frequently used technology to make the work easier. She would take computer shortcuts when possible using the “global search” feature. One week, technology backfired when she commanded the computer to change the name of the Scripture reader from “Will” to “Murray.” The reader’s name came out fine, but the “global search” did its job a little too thoroughly: in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy will be done in earth” became “Thy Murray be done in earth”!

There is a lesson in that mistake that is deeper than the obvious ones about proofreading and not taking shortcuts.  Can my name be associated with the will of God? When people say my name, do they think of Jesus Christ? When people observe my behavior do they see the grace and holiness of God? Does my name really mean anything?

So far, in just three short prophecies in the book of Isaiah, the coming Messiah has been given specific five names and one intimated name. He will be called Immanuel, or God with us. He will be the great light that shines in the darkness. He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. The names of the Messiah mean something.

• Immanuel – God Himself, with no degree of diminished Deity, becomes completely human to relate to us and redeem us.
• The Light of the World – showing people the way out of the darkness of sin and into the eternal glory of the Father
• Wonderful Counselor – Jesus is an extraordinary consultant. That’s what it literally means. No matter what is going on in our lives, Jesus not only knows it, but He understands it because He pre-approved it for our good and for His glory. He will help us to understand and accept it as a gift of His love if we will seek His wisdom and not live according to our own understanding. (See Proverbs 3:5-6).
• Mighty God – He is able to manage and/or conquer anything in our lives. Years ago a dear older woman in our church who is now with the Lord gave me a little sign to put on my desk. It said, There is no problem so great that God cannot handle it. Jesus personally brings the eternal power of God to us.
• Everlasting Father – With no beginning and no end, Jesus comes to us as the complete and personal revelation of Jehovah. He is the great I Am. And as Father, he created us, then re-created us in His own image when we were saved, and now provides us with protection and provision. He alone is worthy of our love and respect as Abba, Father, our spiritual Daddy!
• Prince of Peace – He is Lord! He is the supreme ruler of all eternity, and the product of His reign is peace. Even though for a time now the world does not accept Him as Sovereign, and we must live in the realm of the enemy, in our hearts we have set Christ apart as Lord and know the indescribable and unfathomable peace of God. We have been placed into an eternal relationship of peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord, so that we now know the peace of God in our hearts.

May God use this very brief outline of these names of our Blessed Redeemer Jesus Christ to challenge you to think deeper about His Names and what they represent to us. May it also stimulate us to think deeply about what our name means to others, and whether or not we are trying to make a name for ourselves or living up to the new name we have been given in Christ Jesus.

Pastor John

Pastor John

Connecting Points

Thursday, December 09, 2010

Today’s Topic:  To Us

Today’s Text:  Isaiah 9:6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given,

To us. To us. Twice stated as the direct objects of the verbs. To us a child is born. To us a son is given. To us!

I am fascinated by the word “us”. What a significant word. I am not sure I can adequately express the thrill I feel when I use the word to describe my relationship with God. Maybe this story will help. I found this old story in a magazine years ago and it spoke profoundly to me today. It is from the memoirs of Margery Tallcott.

When our son Pete was six, it was a Depression year and the bare essentials were all we could afford. We felt we were richer than most people, though, in things of the mind and imagination and spirit. That was a comfort of sorts to us, but nothing a six-year-old could understand.

With Christmas a week off, we told Pete that there could not be any store-bought presents this year—for any of us. “But I’ll tell you what we can do,” said his father with an inspiration born of heartbreak. “We can make pictures of the presents we’d like to give each other.”

For the next few days each of us worked secretly, with smirks and giggles. Somehow we did scrape together enough to buy a small tree. But we had pitifully few decorations to trim it with. Yet, on Christmas morning, never was a tree heaped with such riches! The gifts were only pictures of gifts, to be sure, cut out or drawn and colored and painted, nailed and hammered and pasted and sewed. But they were presents, luxurious beyond our dreams: A slinky black limousine and a red motor boat for Daddy. A diamond bracelet and a fur coat for me. Pete’s presents were the most expensive toys cut from advertisements. Our best present to him was a picture of a fabulous camping tent, complete with Indian designs, painted, of course, by Daddy, and magnificent pictures of a swimming pool, with funny remarks by me. Daddy’s best present to me was a watercolor he had painted of our dream house, white with green shutters and forsythia bushes on the lawn.

Naturally we didn’t expect any “best present” from Pete. But with squeals of delight, he gave us a crayon drawing of flashy colors and the most modernistic technique. But it was unmistakably the picture of three people laughing—a man, a woman, and a little boy. They had their arms around one another and were, in a sense, one person. Under the picture he had printed just one word: US. For many years we have looked back at that day as the richest, most satisfying Christmas we have ever had.

US! God sent Jesus to make “US” possible. How hopeless we were when the “us” only included you and me and a few friends. But God sent Jesus to “us” so we could join His “US”. We have received the greatest gift we could ever get when we accept God’s gift of Jesus who personally places us into the eternal “US”.

To us a child is born. To us a son is given. We needed it. We admitted it. We repented of our sin. We were forgiven for our sin. We received God’s Gift, and now – just think of the wonder of this – now we are included in God’s glorious “US”. He accepts us. He honors us. He changes us. He lives in us. We are God’s “US”!

Pastor John

Connecting Points

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Today’s Topic:  The Light Is On

Today’s Text:  Isaiah 9:2 The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.

Ted Koppel, in a speech to the International Radio and Television Society, said this:

What is largely missing in American life today is a sense of context, of saying or doing anything that is intended or even expected to live beyond the moment. There is no culture in the world that is so obsessed as ours with immediacy. In our journalism, the trivial displaces the momentous because we tend to measure the importance of events by how recently they happened. We have become so obsessed with facts that we have lost all touch with truth.

Guilty. In varying degrees we all are. We have succumbed to the Satanic deception that there is no bigger picture. We cannot see that we are playing bit parts in an eternal plan of an Almighty God. Instead, we see only the drama of our current situation. We would be greatly blessed to resolve that.

The prophecies concerning Jesus in the Bible proclaim the bigger picture. Today’s prophecy of the coming Messiah must be read and understood in the context of the cultural era in which it was given by God. Let’s carefully read the context. It starts in the previous chapter where Isaiah is declaring his trust in the God of the bigger picture.

I will wait for the LORD, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob.  I will put my trust in him. Here am I, and the children the LORD has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from the LORD Almighty, who dwells on Mount Zion. When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness.

What a picture of the consequences waiting for people that live for the immediate. Maybe it’s already happened where you live. Distress. Anger. Despair. Hopelessness. The pursuit of the immediate with no faith in the truth of a bigger picture leaves us wondering and wandering.

But read on as chapter nine begins.

Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the Gentiles, by the way of the sea, along the Jordan—The people walking in darkness  have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.

I love that word nevertheless. It proclaims hope. True hope. What do I mean by that? Well, true hope does not depend upon my activity. Real hope does not consider the failure of my past but the grace of my God. It is incredible to see in this passage that there are no requirements placed upon people for the earning of their freedom. The burden of self-fulfillment and self-accomplishment is removed by God’s free gift. The darkness of despair in the shadow of death is dispelled by the Light of the Lord’s love in Jesus.

When mankind was incapable of change, at just the right time in history (Galatians 4:4), God sent to us a gift we did not deserve and could never afford. His love for us conquered our rebellion against Him when Jesus came to save us from the sin that had overwhelmed us.

That’s incredible! I have found the Light! Now I can see the bigger picture, and it has brought me peace.

Pastor John

Connecting Points

Monday, December 06, 2010

Today’s Topic:  He’s Here

Today’s Text:  Isaiah 7:14  Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

For the next few weeks, I want to do something a little different in the book of Isaiah. Instead of proceeding through it verse by verse, let’s go through it prophecy by prophecy, looking at the treasures that are there in regards to the coming Messiah. This will be a special time of preparation for our celebration of His birth.

The first prophecy given to the people by the prophet Isaiah is found in chapter seven verse fourteen. It says,

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

One of the fascinating things about Messianic prophecies is that many of them are in the context of the current circumstances of that day’s culture. If the people had spiritual perception, they could understand the prophecy in light of God’s eternal purpose. But if they were spiritually dull, living according to the mind of the flesh, they would see only the immediate application. In this way, God protected the integrity of the prophet in the eyes of the people, for his words were always able to be proven true, either short-term, or, as we now see from the other side, long-term.

The immediate context of today’s prophecy about Jesus has the Lord God trying to convince Ahaz, the king of Judah, to trust Him with the outcome of a war. (If you want to read a further explanation of this with a personal application go to (https://lifelinkdevo.wordpress.com/2010/07/08/whos-really-in-control/) God offers Ahaz the chance to ask for a sign that proves how God is in control. Ahaz refuses, so the Lord, through Isaiah, says that He will give Ahaz a sign anyway.  In that current cultural context, the prophecy would be fulfilled through the prophet Isaiah, who would marry a young woman (see chapter 8) and they would have a son. But according to Matthew 1:23, the angel that appeared to Joseph to announce that Mary would have a baby states that this would be the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy.

There are several connecting points I want to share, and then I would love to read your comments of what this means to you.

• When we read Scripture, we will benefit from always looking for references to Jesus. The Bible is the inerrant written revelation of God to us, but it always points to the living revelation of Jesus Christ. Hebrews 1 states, In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The written Word always leads us to the Living Word.
• Isaiah married a young woman and they had a child according to natural procreation. Joseph was engaged to be married to a virgin who was found to be with Child by the Holy Spirit of God. The virgin birth of Jesus is absolutely essential to believe because it eliminates the nature of sin from the humanity of Jesus, therefore making Him the sinless sacrifice for our sin.
• His name will be Immanuel, which means, God with us. While being born into human existence, Jesus maintained His eternal deity. I cannot comprehend this mystery, but I praise God for the faith to believe what Jesus said – I and the Father are one. I praise God for the testimony of the Apostle John who wrote under the divine influence of the Holy Spirit of God and said, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

For me this is the perfect way to start this season. The truth that Jesus, the eternal Son of God, came to earth to be one of us so He could save me, is overwhelming. I am grieved in my heart by the words of the atheist’s billboard I saw in the paper which says, You know it’s a myth. This is the season for reason. How sad. How pathetic. To deny the historical record is one thing, but to deny the spiritual truth is devastating. It has eternal consequences.

Jesus is the Reason for the season. True reason can come to no other conclusion. God came down from glory and dwelt with us to redeem us from our sin. I praise God He has redeemed me!

Pastor John

Connecting Points

Friday, December 03, 2010

Today’s Topic:  False Security

Today’s Text:  Isaiah 28:16  So this is what the Sovereign LORD says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be dismayed.

In Isaiah 28 the people of Israel are being addressed by the Lord through the prophet about their pursuit of worldly living at the expense of spiritual things. They have become so intent on living according to the desires of the flesh that they even believe they are able to hold their fate in their own hands by making a deal with death. (Isaiah 28:15) In response, God tells them that their covenant with death is based on a lie, and that there is only one source of truth. God tells them about the Precious Cornerstone who we know to be Jesus.

I want to give you two stories today and let them illustrate the lessons we can learn from this historical example. May the Holy Spirit make His unique application to your understanding.

In the book Lessons from a Father to His Son (Nelson, 1998), Missouri senator John Ashcroft writes: [My father told me], “John, I’d like you to fly this plane for a while.” I was eight years old at the time, blue-jeaned and T-shirted and wide-eyed at the world. My father was an amateur pilot. I looked around me at the spartan interior, which was nothing at all like the multitudinous controls, gauges, and computerized equipment in planes today. The control stick looked like a broom handle and came up between my legs.

“What should I do?” I shouted back to my father, who was seated behind me.

“Just grab the stick and push it straight forward.”

“Okay.” I took hold of that stick and did as I was told. Immediately the plane went into a straight bombing-raid dive toward a farm on the outskirts of Springfield! My stomach came up to my throat and I lost all sense of time or place as fear gripped my insides. I let go of that control stick in a millisecond, and Dad pulled the plane back up.

He had a good chuckle, and I had a good lesson: actions have consequences. I learned in a particularly vivid—in fact, terrifying—way that my decisions and actions could imperil my future.

There are no deals to be made with death. Every action has a consequence.

Then there is this story from Chuck Swindoll:

On Sunday, believers arrived at a house church in the Soviet Union in small groups throughout the day so not to arouse the suspicion of KGB informers. They began by singing a hymn quietly. Suddenly, in walked two soldiers with loaded weapons at the ready. One shouted, “If you wish to renounce your commitment to Jesus Christ, leave now!”

Two or three quickly left, then another. After a few more seconds, two more.

“This is your last chance. Either turn against your faith in Christ,” he ordered, “or stay and suffer the consequences.”

Two more slipped out into the night. No one else moved. Parents with children trembling beside them looked down reassuringly, fully expecting to be gunned down or imprisoned.

The other soldier closed the door, looked back at those who stood against the wall and said, “Keep your hands up—but this time in praise to our Lord Jesus Christ. We, too, are Christians. We were sent to another house church several weeks ago to arrest a group of believers.”

The other soldier interrupted, “But, instead, we were converted! We have learned by experience, however, that unless people are willing to die for their faith, they cannot be fully trusted.”

How you respond in the face of persecution reveals whether or not you are standing on the Rock, for the one who is will NEVER be dismayed. Jesus is the only source of true security.

Pastor John

Connecting Points

Thursday, December 02, 2010

Today’s Topic:  Are We Listening?

Today’s Text:  Isaiah 28:9-10  “Who is it he is trying to teach? To whom is he explaining his message? To children weaned from their milk, to those just taken from the breast? For it is: Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule; a little here, a little there.”

Robert Kupferschmid, 81, had no flying experience. In an emergency, however, he learned quickly how to land a plane.

Kupferschmid and his 52-year-old pilot friend, Wesley Sickle, were flying from Indianapolis to Muncie, Indiana, in June 1998. During the flight, the pilot slumped over the controls. He was dead. The Cessna 172 single-engine plane began to nosedive and Kupferschmid grabbed the controls. He got on the radio and pleaded for help.

Nearby were two pilots who heard the call. Mount Comfort was the closest airport, and the two pilots gave Kupferschmid a steady stream of instructions, climbing, steering, and the scariest part, landing. The two experienced pilots circled the runway three times before this somewhat frantic and totally inexperienced pilot was ready to attempt the landing.

Emergency vehicles were called out for what seemed like an approaching disaster. Witnesses said the plane’s nose nudged the center line and bounced a few times before the tail hit the ground. The Cessna ended up in a patch of soggy grass next to the runway. Amazingly, Kupferschmid was not injured.

This pilot listened and followed those instructions as if his life depended on it—because it did. In contrast, the people of Israel in Isaiah’s day didn’t listen to God’s instructions delivered by the prophet. Instead they mocked him. They were headed for a crash.

Isaiah has been trying to warn his people about the consequences of their sinful choices. He has been reminding them of God’s standards of holiness and righteousness. He has delivered to them exactly what God wanted said so they would have a chance to repent and recover. But instead of listening, they make fun of him, and of course by doing so they are making fun of God as well. They wanted to hear nothing except words that affirmed their current choices. They were so blinded by their sin that they had lost sight of its consequences.

If I had been Isaiah, I would have lost it about now. There is not much in life more annoying, frustrating, or disrespectful than a person who not only ignores but then mocks good advice. I can understand it a little in small children, but not in adults. Yet every day I am confronted with people in trouble seeking advice, but they have predetermined what advice they want to hear. If the advice doesn’t allow them to continue living according to their current choices, then they reject it.

The Bible told us it would be this way.  It warns us that in the last days before the return of Jesus, people would flock by the thousands into churches where they hear soft and sensitive messages that please their itching ears. They would rave about the relationship they can have with Jesus that they have been told by faithless pastors can co-exist with relationship with the world. People in our day are rejecting the truth of the Gospel and the response of love to a loving God that expresses itself in obedience to God’s holy standards. They just want to be stroked and made to feel good about where they are and what they are doing.

Then, to make themselves feel even better about what they think they know, they make fun of those of us who continue to stand on the truth of Scripture. They accuse us of treating them like children. They think that their way of thinking is the mature way. They think that our pursuit of holiness is nothing more than a list of rules rather than a response of love for the One who died for us. They mock the truth and all who stand for it.

Let us not become like them. Let us be very careful to listen when God and God’s people speak. When someone who loves you offers helpful and sometimes life-saving advice to you, listen to them. Otherwise your life might just end in a plane wreck.

Pastor John

Connecting Points

Monday, November 29, 2010

Today’s Topic:  Who Gets the Attention?

Today’s Text:  Isaiah 28:5  In that day the LORD Almighty will be a glorious crown, a beautiful wreath for the remnant of his people.

Thanksgiving is over and the tryptophan has worn off. The deer hunt is done and the meat is already in the freezer. Black Friday is history and today is Cyber Monday. For me, things look a little more settled right now and a routine has returned. I am happy about that.

One of the things I love about this season is the decorations for Christmas. So many people have taken advantage of the beautiful weather we have had and put up there outdoor lights early and abundantly. As I look at the lights I wonder what the people who put them up believe. What specific decoration is the center of their display? What particular theme are they trying to present. Many times it’s very obvious.

The most frequent theme of Christmas displays is Santa Claus and his reindeer. He’s on the roof of some houses. He’s in the front yard at other homes. Now I’m all in favor of some fun, and I’m not being judgmental, but I must say in all honesty that those displays define the people that live there. I don’t know to what degree it is true, but the materialism of the world has captured their hearts at some level. To them, Christmas is about the giving and receiving of gifts, and God only knows how much His Gift is really appreciated or even understood.

As I was driving around the other night near my daughter’s house in Sun Prairie, I was noticing all the lights at a couple of homes up ahead. As I got closer, I slowed down to observe a spectacular display that looked like a cooperative effort of two neighbors. I did not see a Santa Claus. I did not see any reindeer. There were no elves. There were, however, thousands of lights brilliantly illuminating the surroundings. They were strung from every tree and fence post. They surrounded the windows of the house and outlined the roofline. And in the most prominent position of the adjoining properties, right near the road, were a manger, a star, and a cross.

The theme of their display was not subtle. The beliefs that they held were not private. The attention was not on gifts, but THE GIFT of God in Jesus Christ. Their hope was not in presents, but in THE PRESENT.

In today’s Scripture reading in Isaiah 28, the first of six woes are proclaimed upon the nation of Israel. The first one involves all the attention that is given to man’s accomplishments and man’s desires. The materialism of the people was extravagant. But God was proclaiming an end to such beliefs and values. The wreath of Ephraim’s pride would be destroyed, and the Wreath of God would replace it. God not only demands but is worthy of all glory.

So when you hang your Christmas wreath this year, make sure all the attention of your decorating is on Jesus. Make a statement to your neighbors that Jesus is Lord, and He is THE GIFT that deserves our full attention.

Pastor John

Connecting Points

Monday, November 22, 2010

Today’s Topic:  Love God More Than Self

Today’s Text:  Isaiah 27:9-11  By this, then, will Jacob’s guilt be atoned for, and this will be the full fruitage of the removal of his sin: When he makes all the altar stones to be like chalk stones crushed to pieces, no Asherah poles or incense altars will be left standing. The fortified city stands desolate, an abandoned settlement, forsaken like the desert; there the calves graze, there they lie down; they strip its branches bare. When its twigs are dry, they are broken off and women come and make fires with them. For this is a people without understanding; so their Maker has no compassion on them, and their Creator shows them no favor.

I do not believe that I love God enough. Maybe I never can, but there is one thing that I must use as the litmus test of love – do I love God more than I love myself?

I want to tell you a story of a young woman from Germany. Her name is Rica. She came to America in August as a one-semester exchange student at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire. Sometime during her first two months here, she was befriended by a student leader from a campus ministry called Navigators. They became friends, and he invited her to church. She accepted the invitation, came, and came again the next week.

The sermon in church that second Sunday she attended was called “You Can Start Over.” During the final song of worship, she turned to her friend and said that she was ready to accept Jesus as her Savior. That afternoon, after lunch, she prayed to receive God’s gift of grace, the forgiveness of sins, made possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The following two weeks were very hard for her. Her live-in boyfriend back in Germany became very angry at her decision. He began rejecting her. We met to talk about it, and shared with her the truth that living for Jesus will bring alienation from the world, and cause division between us and the people we once lived to please. She cried. I cried. But she understood, and gave her heart more deeply to the one who had died for her.

Yesterday during worship, she, along with 5 others, was baptized by immersion in obedience to the command of Jesus and was publicly identified as a follower of Christ. As I stood beside her preparing to immerse her under the water, she closed her eyes and tilted her head toward heaven. I have never seen such an expression of peace. The Spirit of God has captured her heart, and she is in love with Jesus. As I quoted the verse I always quote at a baptism – “You are buried with Him in the likeness of His death…” – she completely relaxed and released herself to my control. Then, as I brought her up out of the water – “You are raised to newness of life” – she opened her eyes, still looking to heaven, and broke out in the biggest smile possible as the joy of her salvation flooded her soul.

As a part of her exchange student program, she was scheduled to take an 11-day trip starting this week to visit historic sites in America. Two weeks ago, after receiving Christ into her life, she canceled that trip. Why? So she could stay in Eau Claire and be more deeply disciple by her new family of God so she is better prepared to go back to Germany and share the Gospel. She loves God more than she loves herself.

The prophet Isaiah said that the atonement for Israel’s sin would only be complete when sin was fully removed. When Jesus atoned for our sins on the cross, He paid the full price to have them completely removed from our lives. There is only one reason that sin still pops up in our lives and is an option to be considered – we love ourselves more than we love God.

Rica is willing to give up everything because she loves God more than herself. God forced the nation of Israel to give up their sin. He took away everything from their religious lives that stood opposed to Him – the altars to false Gods and the Asherah poles, which were the sexual monuments to the goddess of fertility named Ahserah. He took away their cities and fancy homes. He took away their basic necessities. He did this because He wanted them to become people of understanding. As they were, loving self more than God, they were living according to their own understanding, loving their own way. God broke them down so they had to depend on Him and Him alone. In that way they would learn to love Him more than self.

My dear friends, I cannot tell you how significant this message is for all of us today. Please do not pass it over lightly. We have become self-centered and self-dependant. We have chosen our own way instead of God’s way. We have chosen to justify all of our connections with the world and all of our pursuits of the world’s pleasures with the rationale of personal rights and benefits, when in reality we are simply loving ourselves more than God.

It is time for repentance.

It is time for revival.

It is time for sacrifice…like the one Jesus made for us, who loved us more than He loved His position and power in heaven.

It is time to love God with ALL OUR HEART, ALL OUR SOUL, ALL OUR STRENGTH, AND ALL OUR MIND!

Pastor John