Pastors Mark Driscoll and James MacDonald recently visited Haiti to encourage and support the Church there. I would encourage you to watch this and see what is happening there and to encourage people to generously give to support the work of God in Haiti.

Maybe soon, I will see God and Jesus. At least that is what I was told. Eternal life does NOT depend on works. If it did, we will all be in hell. Christ paid for EVERY sin, so how can I or you be judged BY GOD for a sin when the penalty was ALREADY paid. People judge but that does not matter. I was reading the Bible and The Integrity of God beginning yesterday, because soon I will see them.

These are the last recorded words of George Sodini, a 48 year old man who was the perpetrator on a very violent shootup in a Pittsburgh suburb Tuesday evening. These words were written Monday evening. I don’t ordinarily write about “news” and events that are well-covered by media outlets. But this was home territory for me. Even more, this man’s plight – lonely isolation and rejection by everyone he knew, except for very superficial contact – and the extreme violence that he committed in response, demands some consideration. Disciples of Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, ought to be like their Master, they ought to be acquainted with grief.

George was lonely. Incredibly so. He was not, as far as we know, a person with mental disorders or any typical predictors of socially destructive behavior. He had a steady job, had been promoted, made pretty good money, had two parents in the home when he was growing up, and nothing particularly different about his experience than anyone else…except the social world which rejected him. What Sodini did was wrong. Yes, he is responsible. But he was a man who fell victim, not just to the demons of the spiritual world, but also to the demons of loneliness and rejection that are assailing so many in our world today.

It’s brokenness. It’s the consequences of sin. It’s the ploy of Satan. This last paragraph in his journal contains a lot of true statements, but George did not have the whole story. He did not learn about repentance. He did not learn about turning his rebel heart over to the sovereign lordship of Jesus. The point is this: Satan’s work does not extend only to hiding the truth. It can also be with telling only part of the truth. And if you doubt Satan had anything to do with this…In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (2 Cor. 4:4).

These words should both sadden us and drive us to the cross. We need mercy. We need courage. We need to speak up. We need to love people. We need to be a part of the healing that God has for these broken people – the brokenness that was part of our own lives before Jesus saved us. We need to do something. So let’s get going.

“I know what I call you in Bemba” Vincent said, “Umuntu! It means you’re like me!” Those were words that were told me on a recent trip I made to Ndola, Zambia to assist in the building of a school. In writing The Hole in Our Gospel, Stearns notes that the Gospel we preach has often left out the command to seek justice for the poor and oppressed, to love our neighbor. Stearns is right that we, who have received the mercy of God in infinite abundance, have so often failed to show and share that mercy with our fellow men around the world, who lay dying. So Stearns issues a prophetic, God-honoring call to action…but misses a beat.

His vision is somewhat dampened, I think, by the sense that it is Christians who will put all wrong to right in the world. We are the agents of redemption, but this redemption will be realized and consummated by Christ. I would heartily recommend reading The Hole in Our Gospel to anyone, only exhorting them to trust in the sovereign work of God and not depend upon their own actions, but the Holy Spirit’s effective power.

A number of people are feeling ill to one degree or another. One of us has chills, a running fever of 104 F and is sweating a great deal. Others are wrestling with ill feeling in their stomachs – probably a our bodies attempt to adjust to the food and other things. But we do what we can – we pray, take medicine as necessary, and have faith in the God Who called us here.

That same faith is producing marvelous results. Even as the school building progresses, relationships and seeds of faith are forming in the lives of the people we are working with. They see, I think, many people who care for them, will work hard beside them, and have fun with them. We may not have the privilege of seeing the fruit of all this, but it is a privilege to be part of the work. This is ministry and no matter the challenges and conflicts, I am utterly in love with it.

Blogs are ablaze with cries of freedom. Status messages on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and half a million other networking sites ring with liberty. Everyone’s celebrating and commemorating this day…and why not, right? From the perspective of most Americans, it’s well-nigh sinful not to. After all, millions of men and women have sacrificed their lives, have they not?

I don’t make it my practice to use sites that I link to as [Re]Con, but this post from Stephen Altrogge at The Blazing Center is well-worth your time to read. As disciples of Christ, we have an obligation to submit to our Master and humbly ask Him to teach us how we should find contentment in our circumstances.

For more great material on contentment, please check out this sermon entitled “The Quest for Contentment” preached by Dave Harvey at Providence Church in Pittsburgh.

What you are about to read is a “vision” of sorts I had one spring day in 2007 as I was praying in the woods. My prayer is that it would give you a sense of the feeling that was experienced by the touch of the Master, and the depth of our guilt. -DK

I opened my eyes once more. Sand-colored stones and dirt were all I could see. Sweat dribbled down from my forehead to my nose and dripped to the ground. The sun was moving upward toward its high place in the sky. Already the heat was unbearable but that did not matter. I took another step. I had to. The heavy weight on my shoulder demanded it. I breathed heavily.

But it wasn’t my breathing I heard. No, what resounded in my ears was shouting. Mocking cries. Tzelav oto! Tzelav! Tzelav Yeshua! Foreign, halting tongues shouted too: Hinnei! Melekh haYehudim! Hinnei! One foreigner with confidence announced above the hubbub: Yeshua hazeh; Melekh haYehudim! And on it went. How I wished that I were deaf! To not hear the torments of this mob would be a blessing of the Holy One, Blessed be He. It…

The weight shifted. The burden increased. Flesh came against my side. Time slowed. I was released from my thoughts and could only know him who was against my side. Shuddering in the wind, this man leaned against me, increasing the burden of the cross. Yes, that’s what I was carrying: a cross. They had forced me to carry this curse, this shame, for a prisoner they had refused to treat properly.

This prisoner…no, this was wrong. He was the innocent one. It was these soldiers, this crowd, the voice with authority who should be carrying a cross to their deaths right now. It was I who should do the same. Every ounce of my being wanted to repudiate this cross. I didn’t want this man to die. I wanted to help him, though. Yet, as I helped him, I knew that every step I helped him make was another step closer to his death – I was as responsible for his death as this mob who cried out for it.

Tears joined the sweat. How could this go on? We began to ascend the hill. I had to focus more intentionally on my steps to make sure I didn’t fall. If I fell, it would be more pain…more suffering for the man. Oh that I could see the man on the other side of the crossbeam!  I looked down at my feet and watched as sweat and tears fell to the ground. But then there was something else: blood. Blood fell from beside me, from the man I was leading to death. It fell upon my feet. A voice cried out in my heart: “You are clean.” I would have fallen but for the call of that authoritative voice: Repha! I could stand still. Sali, Adoni, sali. Then all vision faded.

Hebrew: Tzelav oto! Tzelav! Tzelav Yeshua! Crucify him! Crucify! Crucify Jesus!
Hinnei! Melekh haYehudim! Hinnei! Behold! The king of the Jews! Behold!
Yeshua hazeh; melekh haYehudim! This is Jesus; the king of the Jews!
Sali, Adoni, sali. Forgive me, my lord, forgive me.

Steven Curtis Chapman and Family on GMA 08/06/08

Steven Curtis Chapman and family appeared on the Good Morning America show (ABC) on August 6, 2008, as well as Larry King Live (CNN) on August 7, 2008 to discuss the loss of their daughter, Maria Sue, and the famiy’s struggles since that tragic event in May. In spite of their loss, or mayhap because of it, the Chapman family has and continues to move forward with a faith in Jesus Christ that is worthy of imitation. Please continue to pray for the Chapmans, but also learn from their example of glorifying God in times of grief, and preaching the Gospel all the more, relying on God for strength and grace to get by.