New Missions and America's Struggle with God

New Missions... One of our beloved church brothers reminded me after a recent Bible study time in Acts 16-18, that the Christian life can be one of new and evolving missions. God is not stagnant and His people are not to be either. Most of us consider the apostle Paul to be a pastor and theologian (he did write about half of the New Testament), forgetting that he spent most of his adult live and ministry on the move - in his second missionary journey alone, from Antioch to Athens to Macedonia, where he planted the chuches at Phillipi and Thessalonica, and from there doing 18 months of church planting, teaching and discipling in Corinth before moving on to Ephesus for that mission in Acts 19.

What's the point for us in all this? As you reflect on God's sovereign and providential moving in our lives- changing circumstances like job layoffs, transfers, bad health reports and past-due payments, begin to seek out God as to the "what" in your life- what's He doing? What's He up to? Listen to God through His Word, people and circumstances and His call on your life like Paul, like Abraham or Moses, to bigger and better things, and, don't be too concerned or preoccupied with the how (that's His domain) and the when or necessarily the why.

After you read about the 'Hall of Faith' in Heb. 11 and all they went through by faith, moving into the fact- yes, the fact that God uses tests of faith to chasten, even discipline, scourge and purify us (Heb. 12:3-11), verse 11 of Heb. 12 gives us encouragement and another promise to hang our hats on. "For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it."

This is what I'm choosing to do today- don't fear change and movements in your call...see the hand of God in it and follow, knowing the payoff at the end can't be beat.

America's Struggle with God.... How weird a year was 2008?
Here's how weird according to Satirist Dave Barry:

• O.J. actually got convicted of something.
• Gasoline hit $4 a gallon -- and those were the good times.
• Finally, and most weirdly, for the first time in history, the voters elected a president who -- despite the skeptics who said such a thing would never happen in the United States -- was neither a Bush NOR a Clinton.

Speaking of which, more wacky news comes from atheist gadfly and wackadoo Michael Newdow, who has filed a fedeal lawsuit claiming that President-Elect Barack Obama should not be able to recite the phrase, "so help me God" when he takes the oath of office on Jan. 20. This comes from the same nut job who tried to have the pledge of allegiance removed from public schools because of its mention of God. Even for non-Christians, one might think that Obama is a religious man who has spoken often and eloquently about the Lord and and it would seem reasonable that he would want to ask for divine guidance on this, the most momentous day of his life—at such a critical time for our country and the world right?

What's more interesting about all this is to me that while the culture war between militant atheism and theism is heating up, and many Americans would like to defend the right to declare God's name, relatively few of them are willing to declare and understand what God is saying and their need for God to "help them"- through rescure of His coming wrath by way of His Son.