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You know, one of the things that I have witnessed over the last few months is God’s wondrous deeds. Back in August, I was diagnosed with stage-4 pancreatic cancer. That wasn’t something I had expected—it never occurred to me that I might have cancer. When I think back on that conversation with my doctor, I don’t recall feeling any fear or shock. I just listened and said ok. The next couple of weeks were kind of a blur, maybe because the physical pain I was coping with outweighed the reality that I was really sick. I have a cancer that kills a lot of people. It might kill me too, I don’t know. But what I do know is my great God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, has been orchestrating everything in my life and the lives of our family. Absolutely everything, revealing Himself to Rick and me, to our kids. And it’s my privilege to honor God by giving Him the praise He is due for it is His wondrous deeds we are experiencing… The day of my diagnosis, my entire family was at our house. This hasn’t happened in several years. That very day, it did. So, we cried together. We prayed together. We cried some more. We tried to absorb this news. By God’s hand, Rick and I received immediate love and support. God’s wondrous deed. Our daughter and son-in-law came to visit us for 2 weeks while they were home from their missionary work in Niger…and then it became impossible for them to go back because of a military coup. Niger’s borders were closed. No flights in, no flights out. They needed a place to live…they stayed with us. My daughter is a nurse…my son-in-law is a doctor. Three days after they arrived at our house, I found out I had cancer…through the action of rebels in a distant land, I had my own healthcare team living with me. God’s wondrous deed. Rick’s retirement from Jones and my diagnosis happened almost simultaneously. I can’t begin to tell you how important and supportive it has been to have Rick at my side practically every moment of the day. God’s wondrous deed. So many volunteers helping at Feed Your Soul…you can’t believe how many people have been coming through those doors to help…new teams that want to help pack meals next year…new bakers who are making cookies…a couple kids who decided to come help every week. God’s wondrous deed. We are recipients of the power of God in His answering of prayers. He’s healing me through medical treatments and through the persistent, faithful prayers being offered up for me all around the world. I’m humbled. I don’t know a lot of people who have had pancreatic cancer, but I feel extraordinarily blessed to feel absolutely normal nearly all the time. God’s wondrous deed. There’s more to tell, but you see the miracles, don’t you? So often in the biblical history of Israel, we can read about how God worked wondrous deeds. God parting the Red Sea comes to mind. The Lord physically parted a body of water and created a dry pathway through that body of water so that the Israelites could flee through this body of water on dry ground and escape from the Egyptians. Read about it in Exodus 14. That is but a single example. But even more wondrous is that this Lord, this kind and merciful God, is present in lives of believers. The Holy Spirit lives within the hearts of believers, guiding and leading us. You can experience the wonder of the Lord yourself if you’ll receive His gift of life. If you need prayer or a Bible, let me know.

One of the things I’ve sometimes thought about with having cancer is how thankful I am that I don’t know my future. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to live with the knowledge that I would one day have cancer. That would have scared me—and made me wonder when…when…when. When will the cancer start? Thank the Lord only He knows the future. This is good for us. However, for Jesus, it was the exact opposite. Unlike you and I who don’t even know what the next minute will bring, let alone tomorrow or next week, Jesus lived His life on earth knowing exactly how His life would go. He would suffer rejection, be constantly misunderstood, and ultimately, be killed by people who hated Him…and not just dying but hanging on a cross, naked and abandoned and alone. One of the things that is so clear from studying John 13-16 for the last several weeks is that Jesus taught obedience to God the Father. But He not only taught that—He lived it. No matter how difficult God’s plan was, Jesus obeyed. You know, it’s easy to focus on the miracles that Jesus did—He did a lot of them. He healed so many people of so many different ailments and diseases. But you know, He never owned His own home…today, we would say Jesus was homeless. He didn’t have any belongings other than the clothes on His back. And He was hated. It wasn’t just that many disliked Him—people literally tried to kill Him again and again. The religious leaders were constantly trying to trick Jesus so they could arrest Him and kill Him. Jesus was a wanted man. Did you realize that? On top of this (as if that’s not enough), Jesus did all these great works but very few people actually heard what He taught. Very few people understood Jesus. Very few truly believed He was the Son of God—even though He told them again and again, and proved it with His miracles over and over. That had to get pretty tiresome for Jesus, don’t you think? Yet He put up with it all. Why? Because He loved God. And because loving God was His number one priority, Jesus’s days were lived obeying God. There simply was no other way for Him to live. Because He loved God that much, it was only possible for Him to do what pleased God. So, Jesus obeyed God the Father no matter what it cost Him. And it cost Him everything…His life…a terrible death on a cross. But you see, Jesus whole purpose in coming to earth was to die on that cross. He knew that. But the knowledge that He would die on a cross for the sins of man didn’t stop Him from doing the work that God had for Him to do. The cross didn’t scare Him. So I think about cancer and how hard the journey has been so far. But the truth is that this is nothing compared to the suffering that Jesus suffered. And I don’t mean just the physical suffering of hanging on the cross. More importantly, Jesus suffered the penalty for my sin. If you put your faith in Jesus, then He paid the price for all your sin too as He hung there on the cross. The Bible says that He did this for the joy that was set before Him (Hebrews 12:2). How could there be joy hanging on the cross? Because Jesus knew that when it was all over, He would be the victor. By the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ would overcome death. So. These are the realities that I treasure: 1) that Jesus suffered much more than I and He knows my pain. He understands because He also suffered (Hebrews 4:15); and 2) He rose from the dead. Jesus is victorious over death! For all who believe in Him, there is life eternal in glorious heaven with Christ. That’s what Easter is all about: Jesus paid the penalty for sin and rose from the dead. If you put your faith in Jesus, you have life eternal, not just after you die but right now. I pray you choose life. If you need prayer or a Bible, let me know.

Did you know that one of the things Jesus commanded in the Sermon on the Mount is to be perfect—just like God is perfect (Matthew 5:48). I don’t know anyone who’s perfect—certainly I’m not perfect. So what was Jesus up to when He said that? Well, let’s talk about the Sermon on the Mount first. Jesus said some things that were simply outrageous. He said that if someone is angry—just angry!—with someone else, it was the same as committing murder. The same as murder? We all get angry—how can anyone keep such a command? Jesus said that if a man to lusted after a woman, he had already committed adultery. But you didn’t do anything yet, how could you have already sinned? Jesus said love your enemies, and even pray for them. Do you do this? If not, you’ve already failed in being perfect. See how impossible it was to keep the law that God required for entering heaven? It was impossible. And that was Jesus’s point. Just like today, people back then believed that it’s possible to work your way into heaven. What Jesus was showing them was the exceptionally high standard God had. Why so high? Because God is holy and perfect. He’s never sinned, not for all eternity. So while God made us in His image—meaning that in many ways we are like God. Notice I said like Him. We share similarities with God in some ways, but we fall far short of His perfection. So if the only way to heaven is being perfect, and you’ve already failed, what can you do? The only thing you can do is pray that God would have mercy on you. But God can’t show you mercy if you deny the one thing that can save you: the righteousness of Jesus. Here’s what that means. Before God the Father sent God the Son (Jesus) to earth, he was in heaven. When Jesus came to earth, becoming fully man and remaining fully God, He lived a righteous life. This means Jesus lived perfectly. No sin. Jesus perfectly fulfilled all that God commanded. Now, why did Jesus come to earth? To live a sinless life—a righteous life—one that covered the sins of all who believed in Him. You see, Jesus is the only one in the history of the world who was ever qualified to go straight to heaven on His own merit. Why could He do that? Because He lived the perfect life that no one else can live. This means everything to the sinner! It means that when I believe in Jesus as my Savior (rescuing me from my sin) and Lord (submitting to Him by learning about Him through studying the Word of God—it’s tough to submit and obey if you don’t know what’s expected). I feel like I keep writing the same message. And here’s why. I see many at Feed Your Soul who do the “best behavior” thing when you come. You don’t swear, you don’t say “Oh my God,” you don’t do a lot of things that you do when you’re not at the Methodist building picking up meals. You know, I don’t care about all your behavior that you do elsewhere. The Holy Spirit will take care of your sinful behavior if you believe in Jesus. What I care about is you and your eternal life. Jesus makes it possible for your sin to be covered—but the sin He’s concerned with is not your swearing. He’s concerned with your belief in Him. I don’t mean the facts of Him being born on Christmas, Him dying on Good Friday and rising from dead. Anyone can believe that. You only are covered by Jesus’s righteousness if you realize the sin of not believing in Him damns you to hell forever, that His righteousness can cover your sin, and that if you refuse Jesus’s righteousness, you are under judgment. And Jesus is the Judge. Think about all this. I love you all and want you to be in heaven. But you have to put your faith in Him and trust in Him. Jesus is the only way. If you need prayer or a Bible, let me know.

Today is Wednesday. I’m struggling with some discouragement. And that’s just not like me. I changed to a new chemo this week because the other one wasn’t working any longer. Oddly enough, that’s not what’s getting me down. I’m not sure, but I think this discouragement is not knowing what this new chemo is going to be like, wondering if it’ll work, having some new side effects, and just not feeling like myself. But, I refuse to stay in a place of darkness. That’s what discouragement is…a place of darkness. So, how do I do that? Here’s how: I open my Bible. The Word of God is my source of renewed strength. The prophet, Isaiah, said to the people of Israel that those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength (Isaiah 40:31). I must keep my focus on the right thing—the truth that is God. He is truth and the God of hope (Romans 15:13). The Lord tells us to set our minds on the things that are above, not on things that are on earth (Colossians 3:2). He tells us to take every thought captive to obey Jesus (2 Corinthians 10:5). What do those verses mean? First, waiting on the Lord and receiving strength: I must be patient in my difficulties, praying that I draw upon strength that the Holy Spirit has already provided to me as a. believer. I am never alone, I am never without the Lord’s strength through the power of the Holy Spirit. Second, God is hope. I must never lose sight of the truth that God the Father sent His Son to die for sinners. Because I have put my faith in Jesus Christ, believing that He died and rose from the dead, I know that even after I die physically, I will also live just as my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ is now alive. That is real hope—far beyond any hope we may have in ourselves, our friends, or doctors and medicine. I’m not saying don’t see doctors—I’m saying ultimately, hope is in the Lord. After all, He’s the source of humanity’s intelligence and He works through man’s creativity. Third…set my mind on heavenly things. To “set your mind” on something is to be intentional. It’s something done on purpose. I must decide to know God. This is done by opening my Bible to learn about God’s character and all that He has done. To learn about Jesus and all that He has done for me. You know, it’s impossible to set your mind on what’s above if you never open a Bible and if you aren’t a believer in Christ. Without faith and belief in Christ, Scripture is meaningless and you’re stuck focusing on useless, worldly things. Finally, the last verse: controlling my thoughts. I can’t let me mind run crazy, but I’m to keep my thoughts under control. Controlled by who? I must surrender my mind to the control of the Holy Spirit. We don’t like to think this way. But, it’s like this: the Holy Spirit lives within me—when I surrender my life to Christ and the Holy Spirit comes to me, my mind is given over to the control of the Spirit so that I’m able to obey the commands of Christ. So in my discouragement, I turn to God and His Word. It is where I find truth, strength, peace, comfort and encouragement. If you need prayer or a Bible, let me know. winding up in hell. Put your faith in Jesus. Today. Today is the day. If you need prayer or a Bible, let me know.

Nearly every week, as I think about what to write, I stop at Matthew 7:21—23. Jesus has been teaching the people about what it means to believe in Him…what the kingdom of God is like…how one should live as a true child of God. As Jesus gets to the end of all this teaching, He warns the people. He says: don’t deceive yourself that you’re saved because of what you do. In other words, don’t think you get to heaven because of “nice or good things” you do. What’s remarkable is, in this short story, Jesus describes people who claim to have done some really good and amazing things—teaching in His name, casting out demons, and doing miracles. All that sounds incredibly good, doesn’t it? And yet, Jesus says He will say to these people, “I never knew you, depart from Me.” Yikes! Those are terrifying words—because to depart from Jesus is to be cast into hell. If Jesus doesn’t know you, hell is where you’re going. Scary stuff, right? So, in this parable, why would things that sound good to us be meaningless to Jesus? Why would doing things like that not get you into heaven? Well, it seems there are two reasons. 1) Since Jesus is saying these people won’t enter the kingdom of heaven, these people have no real faith. Jesus knows the hearts of men (John 2:25). He’s not deceived by anything a person says or does. He knows if your faith is real or not. ”No creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13). So, let’s think about this—who teaches in Jesus’s name yet would be barred from heaven? False teachers!!! Do you think that everyone who preaches and teaches from a pulpit and uses the name of Jesus is authentic? Of course not! Satan is the great deceiver and he uses false teachers to deceive others with lies. Now, listen to me. There are plenty of false teachers out there. Take Joyce Meyers and Joel Osteen as examples. They teach this “name it and claim it” religion. Totally false teaching. Did you know that false teaching was a big problem in New Testament times? Every single book in the New Testament except Philemon warns about false teachers. False teaching was a huge problem then and it’s a huge problem today. False teachers have no place in heaven, and are deceiving themselves that they are saved. But they hurt more than just themselves…they destroy those who follow them. How? Like this: followers of false teachers are also self-deceived and on their way to hell. 2) The people Jesus describes in this parable are caught up in works…their focus is on all these great things they’ve done. They believe that these good works earn them brownie points with God. Their “faith” isn’t really faith in Jesus but faith in what they do. People who believe this say this: “I’m going to heaven because I’m a good person.” What’s more, they believe that the more good stuff they do, the better off they are in God’s eyes. Jesus makes it stunningly clear that this is wrong thinking. Be reminded: He said, “I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” He calls these people workers of lawlessness. That means workers of sin…sinners who have not repented and put their faith in Jesus. They are people operating from a wrong understanding of God. You see, God desires a repentant heart. He desires a heart that loves Him, not a heart that’s focused on going through the motions of doing good or acting religious. What’s scary about this parable is that for these people that Jesus is describing, it’s too late. They’re dead (there is no purgatory but that’s a different lesson). Like every person that has ever lived, they had their chance to truly believe in Jesus, to put their faith in Him. But they didn’t. They only put on a show of believing while in truth, they belonged to Satan. And now, though they spoke of Jesus, they never knew Him. Though they did good things, they did it for all the wrong reasons. They didn’t do anything out of love for God but out of self-interest. So, they deceived themselves. Don’t be caught in that same trap of self-deception. Don’t be among those foolish ones expecting heaven, but winding up in hell. Put your faith in Jesus. Today. Today is the day. If you need prayer or a Bible, let me know.

This coming Sunday, I’m getting baptized. This might surprise you, so let me explain. Jesus rescued me from an eternity in hell about 7 years ago. He saved me! A miracle, praise the Lord! I should have gotten baptized 7 years ago, but I didn’t and I have no real reason. It’s been on my mind quite a bit the last couple of years. So now, finally, I’m getting baptized. My parents did their best to raise me to be a Christian. And that began with being baptized as a baby. I grew up going to church and Sunday school. I even taught Sunday school and Bible school. And I have to tell you, I thought I was a Christian. In reality, I wasn’t. How do I know? Because I was the center of my world. Everything was about me. I certainly didn’t love God and didn’t give a thought to loving others more than myself. I had no interest in the Bible. I really only did church stuff because church wasn’t optional in my family. All that church stuff came to an abrupt end when I went to college. I didn’t set foot inside a church—it was awesome sleeping in on Sunday mornings! Once I graduated, my guilty conscience made me go once in a blue moon. I’d go to church at Christmas and Easter but that was it. When I moved to Fort, and Rick and I got married, church seemed like the right thing to do. So we went. We found friends, and church became part of our social life. I still didn’t crack open a Bible. I never prayed except when I had some sort of emergency. I never thought about God except on Sunday mornings. I certainly didn’t think about Jesus or the Holy Spirit. That all changed when Jesus graciously worked His miracle of salvation in my heart. You know, there are two distinct parts to my life. Part 1 was a total waste—it was my life before Christ. Part 2 is my life now, in Christ. I know that I’ve been saved because Part 2 of my life is completely different—and, let me tell you, it’s not me making myself different. God is. Jesus is. The Holy Spirit is. It’s the power of the Trinity living in me that is transforming my heart, my interests, my priorities, my life—and I’m being transformed more and more every day. So, I’ve been saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus. Which is one of the reasons why I’m getting baptized. You see, by being baptized, I’m making a public declaration of my faith in Jesus. The other reason I’m getting baptized is because I want to be obedient to Jesus. He told His disciples to baptize new believers in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). So, being baptized is being obedient to what Jesus said to do. Before being baptized, I had to go to a class on baptism at my church. Someone asked if baptism is required to be saved. The answer is “No.” Think of the thief on the cross. The man was nailed to a cross, dying. Jesus didn’t say, “Sorry about your bad luck—you can’t be with Me in heaven unless you first get baptized.” Of course not. Jesus promised that thief he would be with Him in Paradise (Luke 23:43). Someone else asked if being baptized means you go to heaven—in other words, does baptism guarantee you heaven? The answer is “No” (my “baptism” as a baby did absolutely nothing except give me a wet head). Why not? Because the Bible teaches us that every person is spiritually dead in their sins (Ephesians 2:1.) You remain dead in your sins unless you are made alive in Christ by God (Ephesians 2:4). Now if you’re dead, it’s impossible to do anything for yourself, right? If, by the grace of God you are saved and are alive in Christ, then you get baptized to let the world know you’re a follower of Christ and are obedient to His teaching. If you have questions about baptism, let me know.

What are you doing with your time? I thought about this some this week because I’ve had a cold and was stuck laying on the couch, sleeping, watching TV. I usually read, but I didn’t even do that because I didn’t have the energy or ambition to pick up a book. It made me think about how wasteful we can be of our time—our days. God doesn’t give us unlimited days. Cancer certainly makes me think about that more often. Days lost to illness become more precious. Did you know the Bible tells us to make the best use of the time we have(Colossians 4:5)? It’s easy to think that life just rolls on. That’s exactly what Peter, one of the apostles, wrote to warn people about…he warned in his letter not to take time for granted (2 Peter 3:4—8). He included two examples in his warning not to waste time. The first example was Creation. Out of the blue, God created the world and everything in it. It was not business as usual when God created the world. It was the beginning of earthly life. Think about that…quite an event. The second example Peter wrote about was the Great Flood. The beautiful Creation that God had made had become so corrupt that God allowed the entire world to be drowned. Everyone perished except for Noah and his family. What’s important to remember about that Great Flood is that God didn’t allow that to happen without warning the people. Through Noah’s preaching, God warned people of the coming judgment for their corruption for 120 years (Genesis 6:3). That’s a long time. Peter was repeating that warning…don’t waste time but come to faith and repentance. It’s easy to believe that life will continue as usual indefinitely. It’s easy to depend on having tomorrow come, right? We plan. We make commitments. We set up appointments. We do all those things. This is not wrong, but our time is in God’s hands. Moses prayed that God would teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom (Psalm 90:12). What does that mean? It means consider the use of your time. It means don’t depend on yourself but on the wisdom of God…what is His wisdom? The Bible. God tells us about Himself in His Word so that we may know Him, trust Him, and love Him. The greatest way that God tells us about Himself is through His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24). Only in Jesus Christ will you find true wisdom, wisdom that leads to life, now and forever. So what’s the message? Turn to Jesus now. Don’t waste more time on silly, wasteful, corrupting things. Turn to Christ. Eternal value—that’s what I hope I’m spending my time on….things that are of eternal value. What about you? If you need prayer or a Bible, let me know.

You  know, I didn’t always believe in Jesus in a saving way. In my “pre-believing” days, I would sometimes worry about whether or not I was saved. When I had these thoughts, I’d pray that Jesus would come into my heart. And then I’d go on living life as usual. No change. Time would go by. I’d get worried again. And I’d do the same thing. Over and over I’d pray, but nothing ever changed. And I just kept worrying. There was  a man in the Bible who also worried that he wasn’t saved (Luke 18: 18–23). The man was so worried that when Jesus came to town, he tracked Jesus down. The man asked Jesus what he needed to do to inherit eternal life. That was exactly my question for so many years! What did I have to do?? Now, it seems this man was super-religious because when he told Jesus about himself, he said he had kept all God’s commandments since he was a boy. You’d think if he’s done good all his life and done all the “right things” his whole life, he’d be in good shape, right? That’s how a lot of people think. They get trapped in the lie that being a good person, doing good things is what God is after—people think this is the way to heaven. But this guy who talked to Jesus knew better—he knew being good wasn’t enough. He was truly worried. Something was missing. Jesus cut right through all the man’s appearance of goodness and told him what it would take: Jesus required that the man be willing give up anything and everything for Him. And then Jesus tested the man—He tested his willingness to give up everything for Him. How? Well, since Jesus knows what is in a person’s heart, He knew that the man’s money meant everything to him. It wasn’t just important to him, it was his life. The guy loved his money. If we are honest, we’re all in the same boat with this man—we all love our money. Why? Because money means security and comfort. Jesus told the man to do a crazy thing: go and sell all that he had and give it to the poor, and Jesus promised the man he’d have treasure in heaven (Luke 18:22).  Notice Jesus didn’t say to sell some of his belongings—He told the man to sell all that he had. The man heard this and became very sad. Why? Because as much as he wanted eternal life, he wanted to hang on to his belongings more. His stuff was more important to him than eternal life. So, he got to keep his stuff, but now he’s spending eternity in hell, unsaved. Dumb choice. In my pre-believing days, when I would pray that little prayer again and again, there was no change in me because, like the rich man, I was unwilling to give up anything and everything for Jesus. I wanted the security of knowing I was saved without actually giving my life to Jesus. I didn’t acknowledge I was sinful. I didn’t repent of sin. I wanted what Jesus was offering but at that point in my life, the cost of following Jesus was too great. How blessed I am that Jesus didn’t give up on me!…because He could’ve. He could've lost patience with me and given me over to sin permanently (Romans 1:28–32). That can happen. Jesus loves sinners too much to let them believe the lie that being good is the way to eternal life. He tells them the truth: He requires complete surrender to Him and His will. It’s the way to eternal life. That’s what He made clear to the rich man. He made that clear to me…give Him my life. And the blessings He gives in return are all the riches of heaven…the confident hope in life eternal, the security of His love that is beyond explanation, peace with God, joy in all circumstances, and so much more. Who better to have in charge of my life than the Lord Jesus?? If you need prayer or a Bible, let me know.

Since finding out I have cancer, I’ve been really blessed. I haven’t had a whole bunch of problems—very little pain, few chemo side effects chemo. I am so thankful! Yet because I usually feel really good, I  actually forget that this is a life-and-death battle I’m in. So I had a bit of a reminder of that last night—I was in a lot of pain. It depressed me. It scared Rick. As we sat down to our morning study, the Lord blessed us with just the right text: a message of peace, spoken by Jesus: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you” (John 14:27). You know, one of the things that’s remarkable to me about these words is where Jesus when He spoke them (we would not look at this as a time to be talking about peace!). Jesus is with His disciples on the Thursday night before His death. Now, listen to this: Jesus knows exactly what’s about to happen. So He prepares His disciples. He tells them He’s going away. In a few hours, He’ll be arrested…people will tell lies about Him to get Him wrongly convicted…Roman soldiers will beat Him mercilessly…there will be a phony trial…the people will scream for His death. And they’ll get what they want…He will die. He will carry His own cross to the place where He’ll be nailed to it and hang there until He’s dead. He KNOWS all of this, in advance, before it happens. Even more, Jesus knows that these 11 guys He’s with—His disciples, His closest friends!—will abandon Him. Looking around at the men He’s been with for the last 3 years, you’d think that Jesus, knowing that death is literally less than 24 hours away, AND that these guys are going to desert Him—you’d think Jesus would get up and run for His life. At the very least, you’d expect Him to be sick with worry, anxiety, anger, even rage. But no. That’s not what we see in the perfect Son of God at all. We see perfect calm, perfect peace. Jesus stays right there with the disciples. He comforts them. He promises them that even though He’s going away for now, He’ll return. He promises them heaven. He promises them the Holy Spirit who will be with them and in them forever. And He promises them peace. His peace. His kind of peace. Not peace like the world talks about peace…we think of peace as no fighting, no conflict, no stress, no worry. Jesus is not talking about that. He’s talking about peace that is grounded in trusting Him. Trusting God. Trusting the Holy Spirit. It’s faith in Jesus and His promises. It’s a “perfect security, perfect peace” kind of peace. I trust Jesus’s promises. Jesus has done and will do all that He said He would. He did die on the cross and pay the penalty for my sin. He did rise from the dead! He’s a living Savior! He is preparing a place for me. I’m not an orphan! Heaven is a promise to be believed! Trusting Jesus’s promises is what faith is all about. And that is the source of true peace: Jesus. His peace is a supernatural calm that’s deep and abiding and comes only from Him. His peace comforts me in the middle of hardship. You can’t manufacture that kind of calm and comfort. It’s grounded in trusting Jesus, believing in Him with no reservations. No unbelief. Total, complete trust. I’d like to say Rick and i never experience fear on this cancer journey. But we seek the Lord’s forgiveness when we waver and fear…and we cling to the truth of God’s Word to guide us in His ways. Jesus’s words of peace to His disciples strengthened us this morning, praise Him. If you need this kind of peace, let me know. I would love to talk with you and pray with you.

Do you think that all of the Bible is true? Last week we read about Jonah. The Bible says that Jonah was in the belly of a big fish for 3 days and then the fish spit him out—alive—on the beach. That seems pretty hard to believe. Here’s a second hard-to-believe story: Noah and the flood. Here’s what the Bible says. People had become so evil that God was sorry He made man (Genesis 6:6). So, God decided to wipe man out. Start all over. Clean slate. Only one man in the entire world found favor with God: Noah. God had Noah build an ark. Noah’s family and all the animals got in the ark and then the great flood happened. God “blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground” (Genesis 7:23). Only Noah and those with him in the ark survived. Sounds like a fairytale, doesn’t it? What about the story of God creating the world? God created everything in six days. Everything. Does this sound too far-fetched to be true? These are just a few examples of events in the Bible that many people don’t believe actually happened. Did a man really survive in the belly of a fish for 3 days? Was the whole world really flooded? Did Noah and all those animals actually live on an ark for over a year and survive? And what about Creation? Let’s see what Jesus had to say. First, let’s look at Jonah. Here’s the scenario: the Jewish leaders asked Jesus to do a miracle. Jesus refused. Instead, Jesus said that the only miracle they would get would be like that of Jonah the prophet. Wow, Jesus spoke about Jonah! Jesus told the leaders that just as Jonah was in the belly of the great fish for 3 days and 3 nights, so would Jesus Himself be in the heart of the earth for 3 days and nights (Matthew 12:40). What about Noah—did Jesus talk about Noah? Well, just before His death, Jesus spent time teaching His disciples. One of the things He taught about was what would happen in the end times. Jesus told His disciples how people acted in the days of Noah—they ate and drank without any concern even though Noah kept warning them again and again that disaster was coming. Jesus talked about Noah and the flood, saying “the flood came and swept them all away” (Matthew 24:39). Would Jesus, who never sinned therefore never spoke a lie, talk about what happened to Noah if Noah never existed and the flood never happened? Finally, what about Creation? Did Jesus ever make mention of God creating the world? Yep. Here’s the situation. As usual, the Jewish leaders were testing Jesus and they asked Him a question about divorce. Jesus responded by asking those leaders if they had not read that God created humans from the beginning, and made them male and female (Matthew 19:4). Now if God did not create Creation, why would Jesus talk about God creating humans? It's remarkable to me that I randomly chose these examples, without realizing that Jesus specifically spoke about each one of them!! What seems most important in this lesson is Jesus’s own incredible, hard-to-believe truth…that He was born of a virgin, that He lived a sinless life, that He performed all kinds of miracles, that He took God’s wrath on Himself for believers’ sin, and that He rose from the dead. Most people will say they believe in Jesus. But in what Jesus? The Jesus of God’s Word, who spoke only truth including talking about Jonah and Noah and Creation? He’s the only Jesus that’s real. You know, God doesn’t consult with us about what we will find believable or not. God works according to His will. He works wondrous deeds and performs mighty miracles. He operates on His timeline. It is His prerogative to use a fish or a flood or a man or any other part of His creation for His purpose. God sent Jesus. We can believe in Him or not. I pray you will believe. If you need prayer or a Bible, let me know.

You know, sometimes as we are handing out meals and chatting, I’ll hear someone say, “Don’t talk like that—you’re in a church.” Now, I do appreciate this. I know it's motivated by a desire to be respectful. And, I understand that some people, when they come into a church, might be on their “best behavior” because of where they are. That’s not a bad thing. I appreciate all of that—not to mention it would be disrespectful to other people to be loud, belligerent, or crude. But does it really matter where you sin? Actually, no. It doesn’t matter one bit. Why? Because God is present everywhere always and because He knows all things. No matter where you are, where you go, or what you do, God sees and knows all. There was a prophet that learned this truth the hard way. His name was Jonah. Jonah was not your typical prophet. Unlike most of God’s other prophets who preached to His people in Israel, God called Jonah to go to Nineveh, a city in Assyria. The Assyrians were known for their ruthless treatment of enemies—they were absolutely brutal to people, and Jonah hated them. He didn’t think they deserved to hear about God—what if they heard and believed in God? Jonah knew what would happen…because God is so gracious and willing to forgive all who repent of sin, if by some chance these vicious people repented, they would be saved. God would be merciful even to them! Well forget that! Jonah wasn’t about to let that happen. So, instead of heading east to Nineveh as God had told him to do, Jonah went west. What did he think? That God wouldn’t know where he was? That God wouldn’t be able to find him? All-knowing, all-seeing God knew exactly where Jonah was. In fact, because God knows the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10), God knew beforehand that Jonah would react like this— God knew he’d run away. Now, God intended for Jonah to do His work in Nineveh so He caused a huge storm to overtake the ship that Jonah was on. The crew threw Jonah overboard—Jonah told them to do this—he knew the storm was God’s way of getting his attention. I’m sure Jonah expected he’d drown. But, “then the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah” (Jonah 1:17). God still knew exactly where Jonah was even though Jonah was somewhere in the depths of the Mediterranean Sea, and now, somehow still alive in the belly of a fish. Miraculously, God caused the fish to throw Jonah up on the shore. Off to Nineveh went Jonah. And the people listened and believed God. They repented and were saved. God never lost Jonah. He never loses you either. When He promised, “I will never leave you nor forsake you,” (Hebrews 13:5), He meant that there is no way He will ever, ever leave one of His followers…not ever. When you give your life to Jesus, you enter into a relationship that is based on a love that is so great that “neither life nor death, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation” can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:38—39). What a love! And yet, God’s given us free will. You can choose righteousness or sin…Satan or Jesus...life in Him or death in sin. Though He loves us more than we will ever understand and doesn’t want any to perish, we have the freedom to choose. I pray that you will choose the Lord.

Jesus often told parables when he taught. Parables are short stories to teach a point. So, one of Jesus’s stories was about a Pharisee and a tax collector (Luke 18:9—14). In this parable, Jesus’s point is how wrong people can be about whether they are right with God or not. Jesus never let anyone believe they were okay with God when they weren’t. He always pointed out their true condition. So in this story, there is an ultra-religious Pharisee and a hated tax collector. Both men are in the temple and both are doing the same thing: they are praying. Let’s see what they are praying about. The Pharisee. He’s busy comparing himself to others—people he considers wretched sinners. And boy, is he thankful to God he’s not at all like them! Man, they are awful! The Pharisee ticks off the ways he’s better than these sinners: he fasts twice a week, far more often than what the Scriptures command—Jews were only required to fast once per year. The Pharisee tithes all that he gets—which means he gives 10% of his income, even giving 10% of what he grows in his garden (Matthew 23:23)! Can you imagine meticulously counting out 10 % of your garden produce? By his actions, we see the Pharisee is confident 1) that he’s far superior to others, and 2) that he’s in good graces with God. How is that possible? Because the Pharisee believes that God’s only interested in rules—to be good with God, you just have to follow God’s rules. If God says fast once a year, and I fast twice a week, I’m in fantastic shape on the fasting front—right? That’s his line of thinking. The tax collector. This guy is the complete opposite of the Pharisee. He’s a miserable man. The first thing Jesus said about the tax collector in His story is that he was standing at a distance from the Pharisee. Why? Because this tax collector considered himself so sinful in comparison to the Pharisee that he kept his distance to avoid any possibility of “contaminating” the Pharisee’s purer self. And, instead of raising his eyes to heaven while he prayed, which was the normal way people prayed back then, this man lowered his sinful eyes in shame. And there’s more. This miserable man was actually beating his chest. Why? Because he was so grieved over his sin! He knew in his heart what his true condition was: he was a sinner. He was without hope and rescue from his hopeless, sin-filled life was in God’s hands. His only hope was that God would be merciful. The tax collector cried out for mercy. How does the story end? The Pharisee was wrongly confident in himself and his fastidious rule-following. God is not into rule-following for the sake of following rules. He desires a repentant and sincere heart that obeys Him out of love. The Pharisee obeyed out of duty. He thought doing all the “right” stuff made him righteous before God. It simply left him lost and without God. On the other hand, God saw into that tax collector’s heart…God knew he was truly repentant of his sins…God knew the man understood he was completely dependent on Him to save him…God knew this man wasn’t perfect and never would be…and God knew that the man treasured eternal life with Him more than anything. God was merciful. He saved that tax collector. What about you? What is your true condition? If you need a Bible or prayer, let me know.