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Crucified with Christ

/ pastorpete51 / Leave a comment

Once near the end of his life Samuel Clemens was so sick that the newspaper reported that he had died. When Mr Clemens awoke to read story he quipped “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated!”

Paul shares a similarly astonishing report with his friends at church. He was in fact dead! But hold the presses because in fact he was still living! But wait there’s more! It isn’t me alive..it is Jesus in me that lives!

Strange and wonderful as that may seem it can be equally true for any of us. The moment we 100% trust our daily life to Christ we die…but wait because He lives by faith in us the news is we are still alive and will be for all eternity!

Great Expectations

/ pastorpete51 / 4 Comments

Sometimes the line between rights and expectations gets a little blurry. There is now plenty of debate about the right to bear arms. The two warring factions on this subject haven’t even waited for the funerals to finish before they are at each others throats. What is at the heart of the flame and fury is a battle over the right to bear arms. It may not be a right but it is a reasonable expectation to believe going to church, a shopping mall or a concert should not be risky choices. You go with your family to church expecting to return, but for 25 innocent people last Sunday that didn’t happen.

There is no solution able to create a perfect society but Jesus is quite clear about His expectations for His children. We are to love even when it is dangerous to do so. We are to give even when nothing is given to us in return. We are to believe fearlessly even when the world tells us we have no right to do so. We do all these in faith because God has a right to our lives and we have the great expectation that He will freely forgive our sins and welcome us home to heaven!

But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Matthew 5:44-45

Lost in the Translation

/ pastorpete51 / Leave a comment

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
2 Corinthians 5:20

Not long ago Governor Nikki Haley was appointed as the United States ambassador to the U. N. She has the task of carrying the message of our president and our nation to the world.

When Nikki Haley speaks she is translated into the languages of the other ambassadors from all over the planet. In Paul’s day the ambassador would have been required to speak both the language of his king as well as that of the people to whom he or she was sent.

Try now imagining the job God has appointed us to as Christians. We are to not only proclaim but also to translate His message to others. Having worked as a translator myself I thought to leave a few tips on getting His message across.

1) Let the message flow! Simply speaking another language doesn’t entirely equip us to translate. It is too easy to get caught up in focusing on getting every detail perfect. The problem os while we wrestle with nuances the speaker doesn’t stop. We need to just close out our own thoughts and every distraction and flow in the meaning of the heart of the speaker. That is how God wants us to share the heart of the gospel message. We don’t need to understand perfectly every detail. By the time we know it all we’ll be in heaven. Our task is to do the best we can right where we are. Let His message flow and the details well miss will not keep people from understanding. We carry his perfect message in very imperfect jars made of clay!

2) Don’t change the message! There are times when I am not comfortable with what the person for whom I am translating is saying. In the same way we can’t change or leave out the parts of God’s word with which we struggle ourselves. He has called us to carry all of His message to all kinds of people and trust Him with the results.

3) Never stop learning! Just because I can adequately translate despite my imperfect understanding of my second language doesn’t mean I don’t try to improve. I will never know Portuguese like a native but my understanding is far better today than it was a few years ago. We as God’s ambassadors must always be striving to know the language of heaven better. We are called as representatives of the God of the universe to reach our world for Christ. The stakes are eternal. The rewards are immense. How can we do less than our absolute best to be ambassadors that know the language of heaven but we speak it in ways that reaches souls desperately in need of a Savior!