July 2010
“. . . not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9 ESV)
Mission begins and ends with God. It is he who calls, and it is he who brings to completion.
God is patient. This means that he delays judgment, for our sake.
God is love. This means that he will go to any lengths to save one person. Certainly he will not hesitate to uproot us out of our predictable, manageable lives if he can use us to bring home one lost pilgrim.
Does the thought of God interfering in our lives make us nervous? Of course it does. Yet there is also a sense of adventure. We are participating in something big!
Tonight I felt like a short walk in the cool evening air. As I left the front door of our apartment building I ran into ‘Aman,’ our Muslim neighbour, with his daughter on her tricycle. I asked him how his newborn son was doing. As we talked Aman’s mother showed up with the older son. What a friendly family this is. Now they want us to come over for a visit.
I’m not into conspiracy theories but I have a suspicion that God set up that meeting.
"God, have mercy on me, a sinner."(Luke 18:13, NIV)
British and European history fascinated me as a teen. Perhaps this was forced; my history teacher refused to teach us American or Canadian history. What was one Civil War compared to the many glorious and inglorious battles incessantly fought for hundreds of years on British or European soil? And, according to my teacher, nothing had ever happened in Canada.
So I didn't discover Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address until 2004. In its brevity and elegance,it reminds me of another address, seven words long. A tax-collector delivered this address on a battlefield of sorts and he spoke, like Lincoln would,from the heart:
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me. John 10: 27 (NIV)
What fascinates me about Jesus words in John 10:27 is this: He knows that sheep know their shepherd's voice. In fact, they listen to their shepherd's voice. Almost without fail. Sheep follow the voice they've listened to and know.
Have you signed up for Groupon? Groupon is an online coupon service whose founders know social media inside and out. They have used the web to marry deal-hungry, net-savvy customers with customer-ready, net-savvy retailers: restaurants, spas, salons, gyms . . . the list is endless.
Deals live up to Groupon's promise. (Groupon promises to deliver hundreds of customers to retailers. Retailers, in turn, offer Groupon deep discounts on products and services based on Groupon's promise of customers).
Today's deal is a $30 haircut, deep-moisturizing treatment and blow dry at Evoke, a chic salon in Toronto's Yonge/Eglinton district.This package would normally set you back $80 before tax. 237 subscribers bought their coupon for this deal - all before 10:30 a.m.
As a child I learned to recite the Lord’s Prayer. We said it in school every morning in my elementary classroom and in fact we were evaluated on our ability to write it down in grade 8 religious education class. We learned by rote "hallowed be Thy name" and Thy Kingdom come" from the familiar King James translation. Never were the meanings of those very familiar words explored and explained.
God’s kingdom is one of justice, rightness and hope.
God’s kingdom breaks into our world every time someone, instead of saying "I can’t," says, "With God’s help I will." God’s kingdom breaks into our world every time someone gives sacrificially to better the life of another.
