Independence Day

phil@heartlight.org (Phil Ware) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 02:00:00 -0500

How often do you celebrate it?

Les came back from World War II without one arm and missing several fingers on the other hand. He has carried the price tag of freedom in his own body ever since. He is like so many who are among us who purchased and preserved our freedom at great cost. It is a cost they can never forget because they bear on their bodies and their psyches the horrors of war. But Les came back. Tens of thousands of others never came back from World War II, or Korea, or Viet Nam or from the deserts of ... The old Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song speaks truth, even in protest of war:

Find the cost of freedom,
buried in the ground.
Mother earth will swallow you,
lay your body down.

As U.S. citizens celebrate this Independence Day, let's remember that cost that has been paid to purchase freedom - not just for a nation, but for all people! There was a war for all the human race in which freedom for all people was purchased. This freedom was purchased at great cost as well. The symbol of that cost is not a hillside of white crosses or the Tomb of the Unknown or a black wall of names. As precious as these symbols are to those who know them and the people they represent, they do not compare to the symbol of the Empty Tomb. This symbol transcends ethnic and national boundaries. The Empty Tomb is the symbol of the cost of true freedom for all people - the cost of Jesus leaving the security and power of heaven and becoming earthbound and mortal (Philippians 2:5-11). It is the symbol of the degradation of crucifixion before a jeering and mocking mob. It is the symbol of an agonizing death on a cross when he had the power to prevent it. It is also the symbol of three days in the ground - Jesus literally lay his body down. But the words to this tune are different. "Find the cost of freedom, no longer in the ground." You see, the Empty Tomb is the sign of ultimate freedom. It is the reminder that we no longer have to fear death. All of our mortal fears are conquered. As the apostle Paul says:

Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?
(1 Corinthians 15:54-55 NLT).

For the Christian, Independence Day doesn't come once a year. No, for Jesus' followers, Independence day comes every Sunday! The early Christians met on the first day of the week, the Lord's Day (Revelation 1:10), Sunday, to take of the Lord's Supper (Acts 20:7). This is their Independence Day. By the end of the first century, Sunday had become the Lord's Day. On this day they remembered the Lord's death and anticipated his return because freedom from death had been won. Independence Day is the day of the Empty Tomb! So as each Sunday approaches, let's remember the cost of our freedom and give thanks!

Since the children have flesh and blood, he (Jesus) too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death - that is the devil - and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death (Hebrews 2:14-15).

How has Jesus brought you independence? How would Sunday, and Communion, be different if we celebrated it in light of the resurrection and Jesus victory and not just remembering the crucifixion? Do you think there is something important about the early Christians taking the Lord's Supper on the first day of the week, the day of Jesus' resurrection, rather than taking it on the day of his crucifixion? I'd love to hear from you on my blog about this:
http://www.heartlight.org/thephilfiles

About the author: Phil Ware has authored 11 years of daily devotionals, including VerseoftheDay.com, read by 500,000 people a day. He works with churches in transition with Interim Ministry Partners and for the past 21+ years, he has been editor and president of HEARTLIGHT Magazine, author of VerseoftheDay.com, God's Holy Fire (on the Holy Spirit), and aYearwithJesus.com. Phil has also authored four books, daily devotionals on each of the four gospels.

The Difference That Ella Made

trshelly@lipscomb.edu (Rubel Shelly) — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 02:00:00 -0500

Can one little girl change the shopping experience?

How do people bring about needed change? My answer is often a cynical stepping back in frustration, I must confess. I'm only one person. I don't have any real power in this culture. Surely there are others who feel the same way. But not Ella Gunderson. She was aware of a problem that touched not only her life but also hundreds of thousands like her. She was not a powerful CEO or government official. Yet she did something that has helped initiate a change from which you and your family could benefit soon. By the way, she is only eleven. Ella has been troubled over the narrow range of clothing options for girls. All she seemed to see was racy teenage fare - low-riding jeans and tight, revealing tops. "You see girls doing a lot of tugging. They want to be covered, but they are not having the clothes cooperate," her mom says. "The girls want to look feminine and they want to look pretty, but the only look the stores offer is sexy." So a girl from Redmond, Washington, wrote this letter after a recent shopping trip: "Dear Nordstrom, I am an eleven-year-old girl who has tried shopping at your store for clothes (in particular jeans), but all of them ride way under my hips, and the next size up is too big and falls down. I see all of these girls who walk around with pants that show their belly buttons and underwear. Your clearks [sic] sugjest [sic] that there is only one look. If that is true, then girls are suppost [sic] to walk around half naked. I think that you should change that." Both the manager of the store where Ella had shopped and Executive Vice-President Phil Nordstrom wrote back. They agreed with her and promised to educate both purchasing managers and sales people on offering fashion options. Ella didn't scream. She didn't picket the stores. She didn't organize a boycott. She didn't just grumble as she walked away. She spoke from a principled conviction to people who were in position to make a change for the better. She says she is happy about what she did - and also confesses to being surprised. Your company has a suggestion box or web site. There is a supervisor or company president. Somebody is in charge. That person should not only receive information about product design and employee efficiency but also proposals about morale, ethical behavior, and workplace atmosphere. Before getting too cynical that things won't change in your workplace or community, church or family, turn your frustration not into rage but into a positive suggestion. The result just might make you happy - as well as surprise you.

The Lord's servants must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone. They must be able to teach effectively and be patient with difficult people. They should gently teach those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people's hearts, and they will believe the truth. (2 Timothy 2:24-25)

About the author: Rubel Shelly preached for decades and served as a professor of medical ethics, Bible, and philosophy at multiple universities. He was a former president of Rochester College and Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Lipscomb University. He was the author of more than 30 books and hundreds of inspirational articles. His commitment to a non-sectarian presentation of the gospel touched countless lives.

Who Thanks God for This?

sherrill@cox-internet.com (Bill Sherrill) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 02:00:00 -0500

How can you see so clearly when your eyes have no sight?

In our prayers, we commonly plead with God for strength of body and good health. We come often in times of trouble. What is much less common are prayers offered in gratitude for the fact that we, and our loved ones are, in fact, strong and well. For most of us, it is almost unbelievable that anyone should give thanks to the Lord for illness or handicaps. Yet there are many instances of individuals who have done just that. Men and women who feel that their special gift may well have depended upon the apparent disability they possess. The best most can hope for is to learn to accept and find peace with a handicap, but some, seeing a greater scope of God's grace, actually rejoice in the doors opened by the shift of emphasis. Fanny J. Crosby was certainly one of these. At the age of six months, Fanny was blinded by a poultice placed on her eyes. Rather than developing with a nature of gloom and anger she showed her bright and tender spirit early in her life. When she was only eight years old she wrote:

O what a happy soul am I!
   Although I cannot see,
I am resolved that in this world
   Contented I will be.

How many blessings I enjoy,
   That other people don't;
To weep and sigh because I'm blind,
   I cannot and I won't!

While she may not be remembered as one of America's greatest poets, she certainly is remembered as one of the truly special writers of Christian songs. Just to mention a few of the more than 8,000:

"Safe In The Arms Of Jesus"
"All The Way My Savior Leads Me"
"Jesus Is Tenderly Calling Thee Home"
"I Am Thine, O Lord"
"Jesus, Keep Me Near The Cross"

The spirit for finding the good in what others saw as a handicap was seen clearly as she spoke with a Scottish minister who had remarked, "I think it is a great pity that the Master, when He showered you with so many gifts, did not give you sight." She answered, "Do you not know that, if at birth I had been able to make one petition to my Creator, it would have been that I should be born blind." "Why?" ask the surprised minister. "Because, when I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior," was the unexpected reply. Fanny J. Crosby was not blind! She was blessed with more acute vision than most of us will ever possess.

[The LORD says] "I will bring the blind by a way they did not know; I will lead them in paths they have not known. I will make darkness light before them, And crooked places straight. These things I will do for them, And not forsake them" (Isaiah 42:16 NKJV).

About the author: Bill is a long time minister in Nacogdoches, Texas who loves world missions. His passion for ministry has led him all over the world. In addition to his work as a minister, he is also a licensed professional counselor. Bill's family is also involved in ministry and service to the world and community.

Perfect!?

p.d.odum@gmail.com (Patrick D. Odum) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 02:00:00 -0500

When perfect isn't perfect!

For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy (Hebrews 10:14 TNIV).

It's happened 20 times in history. But it should be 21. "It" is a perfect game in Major League Baseball. Since June 12, 1880, when Lee Richmond of the Worcester Ruby Legs retired all 27 Cleveland Blues batters without any of them reaching base (on a hit, walk, hit batsman, error, or for any other reason), only 19 other pitchers have managed the same feat. Those who have done so go down in history as someone special. The list reads like a pitching hall of fame: Cy Young, Addie Joss, Don Larsen, Jim Bunning, Sandy Koufax, Catfish Hunter, Len Barker, Kenny Rogers, David Wells, David Cone, Randy Johnson, Mark Buerhle, and Roy Halladay. There should be one more name on the list: Armando Galarraga. Galarraga, of the Detroit Tigers was perfect through 8 2/3 innings Wednesday night, June 2, against the Cleveland Indians. Twenty-six batters up, twenty-six down. The atmosphere in the stadium was electric, a buzz building as Cleveland's Jason Donald came to the plate. Donald slapped a sharp grounder into the hole between first and second base. It's an easy play, one professionals can execute in their sleep. While the first baseman fields the ball, the pitcher runs over to first and the first baseman tosses him the ball for an easy out. It happens several times in most games. It went exactly like it should have this time, too. Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera fielded the ball cleanly. Galarraga was in position. Donald is fast, so there wasn't a lot of time, but Galarraga beat him to the bag, ball in his glove, by at least a step. All the replays showed it. And first-base umpire Jim Joyce was right there, in perfect position to make the "out" call and touch off a celebration. "It was the biggest call of my career," Joyce would say shortly after the game. And he blew it. "I just cost that kid a perfect game," Joyce said, tearful in the umpires' locker room later. Joyce thought Donald beat the throw, that's all there is to it. He sees the same replays as everyone else now, and knows he missed the call. But when it happened, he seems to have truly thought that Donald beat the throw. Maybe it was the way he was standing, the angle at which he was looking at the play, but he says he was "convinced" that the baserunner was safe. As the boos built to a crescendo and everyone in a Detroit Tigers uniform got in his face, it became clear he was the only one in the stadium who thought so. And when he saw the replays, he knew. He knew what everyone else knew. He had so monumentally blown a call that he will probably be remembered for it as long as there is baseball. It's hard to be perfect. Ask Armando Galarraga. Ask Jim Joyce, if you need to. But I'm guessing you don't need to. You already know, don't you? You've worked hard, done everything right, and still failed, haven't you? The victim of a blown call or a bad break? And probably at least once or twice, you've blown something so monumentally that you really doubt anyone will ever forget it. It's hard to be perfect, even for a little while. And it's impossible for us to maintain for very long. And that's why it has to be God's work. In Christ God has made us perfect. That's the shocking use of tense in Hebrews 10:14: he has made us perfect. That's called the perfect tense, appropriately enough, because it signifies an action completed in the past that has ramifications for the present. And that's what the writer means. He's not saying that because of Jesus we can never make a mistake. He's saying that Jesus has made us complete. He has brought us to the place we needed to be. Everything that needs to be done to save us and redeem us is accomplished in him. But that's not all. We've been made perfect, but we are being made holy in Jesus. Again, it's God's work. He's the one who separates us out from the world so that we'll be fit for his purposes. And that's ongoing. That's where the places where we don't look too perfect are dealt with. In the process of making us holy, God confronts our selfishness and sin. He reminds us that we are his and that our purpose is nothing more or less than to be living temples from which his glory shines. You want a small measure of redemption in Armando Galarraga's blown perfect game? It comes in the way everyone has conducted themselves since. Galarraga walked backed to the mound with a pained smile, shaking his head, while his manager and teammates argued with Joyce. He quietly went back to work, and retired the next batter to win the game. Jim Joyce saw the replay, and then asked Tigers manager Jim Leyland for permission to talk to Galarraga. They hugged, Joyce cried and admitted he was wrong and told Galarraga how sorry he was. "You don't see an umpire after the game come out and say, 'Hey, let me tell you I'm sorry,'" Galarraga said. "He felt really bad. He didn't even shower." So Galaragga's probably had more pleasant hugs. That aside, though, he said he respected Joyce for admitting his mistake. Since they couldn't be perfect, Armando Galarraga and Jim Joyce did what we're all supposed to do when imperfection inevitably rears its head. They admitted their mistakes, and they apologized, and they forgave. And then they went back to work. They have chosen not to let imperfection define them. Your Lord has chosen to call us perfect, too. Not because we deserve it, but because the work he's doing in us can't be stopped. He's refused to let imperfection define who we are, and gave his life to prove it. Though he could have chosen to dwell on our sins, he chose instead to go to the wall to make us perfect and holy. So we should feel free to come before God as his children (Hebrews 10:21). And we should hold on to our hope, rising as it does from a faithful God (Hebrews 10:23). We should push each other to love better and do good more (Hebrews 10:24), and we should avoid deliberate, high-handed sin (Hebrews 10:26). In Christ, the issue is settled. The conflict is over. As long as we're in him, you and I are perfect, and nothing anyone can say or do, and not even our own failures, can change that. Anyone who would say otherwise is, well, off base.

About the author: Patrick Odum lives in Chicago, Illinois, with his wife, Laura and son, Joshua. He is one of the ministers at Northwest Church of Christ, and an avid Heartlight fan. He enjoys writing and maintains a website of his work called Faith Web where you can find all of his articles. Email Patrick

You Could Wish It Were So

trshelly@lipscomb.edu (Rubel Shelly) — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 02:00:00 -0500

Are you willing to invest in others to lead them to a better place?

Dr. Samuel Weinstein does what many health professionals do that goes above and beyond their duties. He makes trips into parts of the world that are very poor and where specialized medical care is often unavailable. In this case, the heart surgeon from New York was performing an operation in San Salvador. Weinstein, chief of pediatric cardio-thoracic surgery at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, had an eight-year-old patient on the surgical table. The team was already 12 hours into a complex procedure to repair his defective heart. The surgery had been going well, but the little boy was bleeding more than the doctors would have liked. Because the hospital did not have all the medicines Weinstein could have requested at his customary medical center, he inquired about more blood for him. At that point he was told that no more was available because of his rare blood type. The blood bank was depleted. Weinstein was told that his patient had B-negative blood - a type shared by only about two percent of the population. The surgeon informed his colleagues that his blood type was also B-negative. And he proceeded to interrupt surgery for about 20 minutes to donate a pint of his own blood. After a couple of bottles of water and a Pop-Tart, the 43-year-old surgeon went back and finished the operation. In a manner I suspect is typical of him, Weinstein declared there was no one on the surgical team who wouldn’t have done the same thing. The young patient, Francisco Calderon Anthony Fernandez of San Salvador, had his surgery on May 11, 2006. He came off his ventilator the very next day and had some lunch with Dr. Weinstein. He continued to recover nicely and has since gone home to be with his family. "His mother was very happy with me," reported Weinstein in an interview after his mercy trip with Heart Care International, "and she said to me, 'Does this mean that he’s going to grow up and become an American doctor?'" The story of the doctor who saved a boy's life with a gift not only of his skills but of his own blood as well will surely be told to the child repeatedly. One can only hope that the retelling of so wonderful a story will have a positive impact on him. He may not become a doctor, but he can be an unselfish human being. Take a few minutes to remind yourself of some of the kindnesses invested in your life. Teacher, Scout Master, parent, coach, mentor - all of us have people who were there at critical moments. Be sure to pass along the legacy.

Remember your leaders who first taught you the word of God. Think of all the good that has come from their lives, and trust the Lord as they do. (Hebrews 13:7 NLT Ed. 1)

The First to See the Sunrise

phil@heartlight.org (Phil Ware) — Mon, 28 Jun 2004 02:00:00 -0500

Why would anyone live in such a place of discomfort and danger?

I'm not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one. They are not part of this world any more than I am. Make them pure and holy by teaching them your words of truth. As you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world. (John 17:15-18)

There is a lighthouse at Cape Spear, Newfoundland. The craggy rocks of the shore greet the raging cold waters of the North Atlantic and shoot frothy spray 200 feet in the air at their meeting. A light wind is 50 mph. Shipwrecks along this shore have been many. Yet for over 150 years, the Cantwell family has kept the lighthouse to guide ships through these dangerous and turbulent waters. Amid the hardship, isolation, and cold, one thing has kept this family going all these years: each morning, as the light peeks over the eastern horizon, they are the first in North America to greet the sunrise and welcome a new day!^* This image, this place of danger and rescue, is a great way for us to see ourselves as God's people - we are God's outpost of grace in a dangerous world. When Jesus came to form the band of brothers and sisters to continue his work in the world, he called them to live in such a place. He didn't want them living lives hidden and protected from the storms of real life or the struggles of the real world. If they lived in such a safe and secluded place, how could they help others find their way to safe harbor? How could they offer rescue, guidance, and hope to those caught in the storms or lost in the fog of doubt? To be a Christ-follower is to be a person who shuns safety. After all, our hero was crucified as an enemy of both religion and the state. To be a Christ-follower means we live in the places of life's collisions and choose to stay there for the good of others. Our presence won't ensure that every ship makes it safely to harbor; some will not appreciate our light or want to make their home in God's harbor. Yet without our presence at the place the cold and dangerous waters meet the craggy reality of real life's rugged coastline, many more will be battered as they try to make their way through the storm to safe harbor. Why would we choose such a dangerous place to build our lives and find our identities? Ah, we know where heaven's hope is found! We know the grace that fills each day with meaning and purpose! We are the first to see God's sonrise and welcome heaven's new day! ^* The information on the lighthouse at Cape Spear was taken from the article "Keeper of the Light" by Bailey White in the Lands End catalogue a number of years ago.