Recently, my wife and I were on a Washington State Ferry, and as I was getting a bag of popcorn, two ladies in front of me were buying a glass of wine. I was shocked to hear the price, and asked, “What was the cost of the small plastic cup of wine you bought?” They answered, “$7”. I replied, “$7!”
Later I thought, “Wow! I am sure glad I do not drink anymore. Look at all the money I save!”
I guess people can drink if they want to and spend their money how they want; it is all relative isn’t it?
But, what does $7 pay for? I can buy Dad Jespersen his favorite Thai or Chinese dinner for only $7 or a beautiful bouquet of flowers for Margaret.
As far as ministry is concerned, ACTION will have a camp in Malawi, Africa, for 1000 children in October. The camp is two days and the cost is only $3 per child! This small amount includes meals, materials, facilities, the gospel and compassionate care – all for only $3 or two children for less than $7!
So, I guess if some people want to sip a little wine, fine, but wouldn’t it be great to send two orphans to camp for two days instead, especially if they might hear the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ?
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Are You into Fads?
A special study in Copenhagen found that there are no more vitamins or minerals in organic foods than in non-organic foods. They are no healthier than foods that are grown with insecticides, yet they cost at least 30% more!
It was reported in Seattle, Washington, that the water straight from the faucet is better and more pure than bottled water. Yet, you still see people buying bottled water, which in some places is more expensive than gas.
We also have fads in the church and in Christian missions, don’t we? A new method for evangelism; the key way to reach Hindus or Muslims; six laws for spiritual success; three ways of guaranteeing church growth – dress sloppy to reach the youth, louder music, and other faddish secrets.
These fads seem to run their course in several months or a couple of years, and then there is something else new.
The problem with these fads in the church is that people almost sell their body and soul to new fads – a certain method, book and style – to the point that relationships are broken. There are splits in churches and organizations, and many of God’s people become discouraged.
Instead of following a fad, let’s follow Christ and the teachings that He has left for us in His Word regarding our relationship with Him and obedience to His commands for life and ministry.
Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commands” (John 14:15). The Apostle John in his epistle said, “His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3b).
So dear friend, let’s trust, obey and live!
It was reported in Seattle, Washington, that the water straight from the faucet is better and more pure than bottled water. Yet, you still see people buying bottled water, which in some places is more expensive than gas.
We also have fads in the church and in Christian missions, don’t we? A new method for evangelism; the key way to reach Hindus or Muslims; six laws for spiritual success; three ways of guaranteeing church growth – dress sloppy to reach the youth, louder music, and other faddish secrets.
These fads seem to run their course in several months or a couple of years, and then there is something else new.
The problem with these fads in the church is that people almost sell their body and soul to new fads – a certain method, book and style – to the point that relationships are broken. There are splits in churches and organizations, and many of God’s people become discouraged.
Instead of following a fad, let’s follow Christ and the teachings that He has left for us in His Word regarding our relationship with Him and obedience to His commands for life and ministry.
Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commands” (John 14:15). The Apostle John in his epistle said, “His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3b).
So dear friend, let’s trust, obey and live!
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
You are My Hero
My nephew (in-law) from the Philippines said to my father-
in-law, Walter Jespersen (when he was 97 years of age), “Lolo (Filipino word for grandfather), you are my hero. I want to be like you.” He then began to ask him many questions.
One question he asked was, “Lolo, what is the secret of finishing well?” Dad humbly said, “Well, there are several things. One is not being afraid to take risks for and to trust God. Another is to continue to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ. Make sure you spend time in the Word of God and prayer, in ministry to others and live in obedience to the Lord Jesus.”
Lolo Jespersen is one of my heroes too, along with L.E. Maxwell, Charles Spurgeon, Hudson Taylor, John Sung, Evangelista Sisdora, and a host of others both past and present, who have lived and are living faithful lives for the Savior.
Let us all aim to finish and die well, and to be faithful today in living to the glory of God.
One question he asked was, “Lolo, what is the secret of finishing well?” Dad humbly said, “Well, there are several things. One is not being afraid to take risks for and to trust God. Another is to continue to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ. Make sure you spend time in the Word of God and prayer, in ministry to others and live in obedience to the Lord Jesus.”
Lolo Jespersen is one of my heroes too, along with L.E. Maxwell, Charles Spurgeon, Hudson Taylor, John Sung, Evangelista Sisdora, and a host of others both past and present, who have lived and are living faithful lives for the Savior.
Let us all aim to finish and die well, and to be faithful today in living to the glory of God.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Let's Cut to the Chase
How can one explain issues simply and in a short sentence or two that we common people can understand? How can we as followers of Christ warn others of false teachings without being critical and hard?
1. “The Shack.” This is a very popular novel by William Young. People have even compared this with John Bunyan’s classic “Pilgrim’s Progress.” The difference is that “The Shack” talks of theology and God without mentioning Scripture. It reads very well but is false in how it portrays God, the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit, salvation, and forgiveness. “Pilgrim’s Progress,” however, is filled with the Word of God and actually portrays salvation by faith alone through Jesus Christ, and forgiveness in and through Him.
2. “The Emergent Church Movement.” This is not as popular or large a movement as some think as a very small percentage of evangelical churches throughout North America are Emergent churches. The falsehood of the movement is that it does not hold to the inerrancy and authority of the Word of God and has done away with the Gospel of salvation in Christ and in Him alone.
3. “Open theism.” This is simply a word used for the teaching that God is not sovereign and all knowing. The Bible however teaches otherwise.
All three of these do away with God’s Word and teach falsehood. So, why do we want to read “The Shack”? Why do we want to participate in any way in the Emergent church? Open theism does away with an all-powerful God. So, stay out of the shack, and let’s move toward glory, not in prideful unbelief but in humble trust in our sovereign God, who is the Truth!
1. “The Shack.” This is a very popular novel by William Young. People have even compared this with John Bunyan’s classic “Pilgrim’s Progress.” The difference is that “The Shack” talks of theology and God without mentioning Scripture. It reads very well but is false in how it portrays God, the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit, salvation, and forgiveness. “Pilgrim’s Progress,” however, is filled with the Word of God and actually portrays salvation by faith alone through Jesus Christ, and forgiveness in and through Him.
2. “The Emergent Church Movement.” This is not as popular or large a movement as some think as a very small percentage of evangelical churches throughout North America are Emergent churches. The falsehood of the movement is that it does not hold to the inerrancy and authority of the Word of God and has done away with the Gospel of salvation in Christ and in Him alone.
3. “Open theism.” This is simply a word used for the teaching that God is not sovereign and all knowing. The Bible however teaches otherwise.
All three of these do away with God’s Word and teach falsehood. So, why do we want to read “The Shack”? Why do we want to participate in any way in the Emergent church? Open theism does away with an all-powerful God. So, stay out of the shack, and let’s move toward glory, not in prideful unbelief but in humble trust in our sovereign God, who is the Truth!
Friday, September 5, 2008
Wintley Phipps
Recently we watched Amazing Grace with Wintley Phipps on YouTube with a few friends. It is absolutely amazing! I encourage you to watch this as it is only 9 minutes.
[Web site: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=gmail&q=whitley%20phipps]
Wintley Phipps is Afro-American and has one of the most moving and beautiful baritone voices today.
He says his music teacher in Alabama said that most of the Negro Spirituals can be played on just the black keys of the piano, called in musicology pentatonic scale.
I especially like what Phipps said, “Whether we are black or white, we have been brought together through God’s amazing grace!” Glory!
Phipps relates the history of the great song, Amazing Grace and then sings it. My, o, my! You have never heard anything like it!
[Web site: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=gmail&q=whitley%20phipps]
Wintley Phipps is Afro-American and has one of the most moving and beautiful baritone voices today.
He says his music teacher in Alabama said that most of the Negro Spirituals can be played on just the black keys of the piano, called in musicology pentatonic scale.
I especially like what Phipps said, “Whether we are black or white, we have been brought together through God’s amazing grace!” Glory!
Phipps relates the history of the great song, Amazing Grace and then sings it. My, o, my! You have never heard anything like it!
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Christian Leader, Do You Fire Graciously, or as the World?
A friend of ours was laid off from a large Christian
organization. He was one of the top men in the ministry but was given no notice
or warning at all.
He was followed to
his car by one of the executives at the end of the day’s work. The executive
simply informed him that the ministry was going in a new direction and his
services were no longer needed. He was not allowed to go back to his office as
they would box up and send his items to his home by courier!
Another acquaintance
was at the airport when he received a telephone call from one of the vice
presidents of the ministry, located in several major cities throughout the
United States. The phone call from the main office was to inform him that he
was terminated, effective immediately. This was quite a shock as he had just
received a wonderful commendation from the president and had excellent reviews
of the effectiveness of his ministry for Christ.
My wife and I were
counting up similar stories of friends and acquaintances. Even the
organizations of the world do not treat their people this way.
What is so amazing about the stories above is that in each
of these ministries, their leaders teach Christian management seminars
throughout the world and write books on Christian leadership principles.
So, as Christian
leaders, pastors, etc, what can we learn from this in our everyday lives,
ministry and activities? When we are faced with the need to “let people go,” we
should follow the principles of the Word of God, “…as those who have been
chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness,
humility, gentleness and patience” (Colossians 3:10-12).
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
400,000 Child Slaves in Haiti
from A Crime So Monstrous
1. “…slaves are everywhere. Assuming that this is your first trip to Haiti, you won’t be able to identify them. But to a lower-middle-class Haitian, their status is ‘written in blood.’ Some are as young as three or four years old. But they’ll always be the small ones, even if they’re older. The average fifteen-year-old child slave is 1.5 inches shorter and 40 pounds lighter than the average free fifteen-year-old. They may have burns from cooking for their overseer’s family over an open fire; or scars from beatings, sometimes in public, with the martinet, electrical cables, or wood switches. They wear faded, outsized castoffs, and walk barefoot, in sandals or, if they are lucky, oversized shoes.…you may see their tiny necks and delicate skulls straining as they tote five-gallon buckets of water on their heads while navigating broken glass and shattered roads… These are the restavéks, the ‘stay-withs,’ as they are euphemistically known in Creole. Forced, unpaid, they work from before dawn until deep night. The violence in their lives is unyielding.” (pages 5-6)
2. “Nationwide the number of restavéks ballooned from 109,000 in 1992 to 300,000, or one in ten Haitian children, in 1998, to 400,000 in 2002.” (page 7)
3. “Out of every 1,000 urban children, 112 will die before ages five; in the countryside, the figure is 149. By comparison, in the neighboring Dominican Republic, it’s 35; in war-torn Congo, 108.”
(page 8)
4. “More than 80 percent of Haiti’s schools are private, and urban high schools cost $385 per year; this sum is beyond the annual income of the typical Haitian, and particularly out of reach for rural parents, most of whose income goes toward food. The average Haitian boy receives 2 years of schooling; the average girl, 1.3. In the countryside, where only a handful of schools exist, most children never attend school at all.” (page 8)
5. “And conjured literary irony cannot compare to the cruel irony of Haiti’s history. The French colony of Saint-Domingue was once ‘the pearl of the Antilles,’ the richest colony in the hemisphere, with a GDP greater than that of the United States. Today, Haiti is the poorest nation in the Americas. Haitian blacks, who then comprised over 90 percent of the colony’s population, forged the region’s second free republic by staging, in 1971, the modern world’s first, and only, successful slave revolt. Now Haiti has more slaves than any nation outside of Asia, and more than toiled on the entire island of Hispaniola (including Haiti and the Dominican Republic) when the revolution began.” (page 12)
A Crime so Monstrous (Face-To-Face With Modern-Day Slavery)
By E. Benjamin Skinner
Free Press (www.freepress.net)
1. “…slaves are everywhere. Assuming that this is your first trip to Haiti, you won’t be able to identify them. But to a lower-middle-class Haitian, their status is ‘written in blood.’ Some are as young as three or four years old. But they’ll always be the small ones, even if they’re older. The average fifteen-year-old child slave is 1.5 inches shorter and 40 pounds lighter than the average free fifteen-year-old. They may have burns from cooking for their overseer’s family over an open fire; or scars from beatings, sometimes in public, with the martinet, electrical cables, or wood switches. They wear faded, outsized castoffs, and walk barefoot, in sandals or, if they are lucky, oversized shoes.…you may see their tiny necks and delicate skulls straining as they tote five-gallon buckets of water on their heads while navigating broken glass and shattered roads… These are the restavéks, the ‘stay-withs,’ as they are euphemistically known in Creole. Forced, unpaid, they work from before dawn until deep night. The violence in their lives is unyielding.” (pages 5-6)
2. “Nationwide the number of restavéks ballooned from 109,000 in 1992 to 300,000, or one in ten Haitian children, in 1998, to 400,000 in 2002.” (page 7)
3. “Out of every 1,000 urban children, 112 will die before ages five; in the countryside, the figure is 149. By comparison, in the neighboring Dominican Republic, it’s 35; in war-torn Congo, 108.”
(page 8)
4. “More than 80 percent of Haiti’s schools are private, and urban high schools cost $385 per year; this sum is beyond the annual income of the typical Haitian, and particularly out of reach for rural parents, most of whose income goes toward food. The average Haitian boy receives 2 years of schooling; the average girl, 1.3. In the countryside, where only a handful of schools exist, most children never attend school at all.” (page 8)
5. “And conjured literary irony cannot compare to the cruel irony of Haiti’s history. The French colony of Saint-Domingue was once ‘the pearl of the Antilles,’ the richest colony in the hemisphere, with a GDP greater than that of the United States. Today, Haiti is the poorest nation in the Americas. Haitian blacks, who then comprised over 90 percent of the colony’s population, forged the region’s second free republic by staging, in 1971, the modern world’s first, and only, successful slave revolt. Now Haiti has more slaves than any nation outside of Asia, and more than toiled on the entire island of Hispaniola (including Haiti and the Dominican Republic) when the revolution began.” (page 12)
A Crime so Monstrous (Face-To-Face With Modern-Day Slavery)
By E. Benjamin Skinner
Free Press (www.freepress.net)
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