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In 1409, the archbishop of Prague became openly antagonistic toward Hus. A year later the archbishop excommunicated him, but Huss continued to preach. By 1412 things had gotten so dangerous for him that at the advice of the king he withdrew from Prague to southern Bohemia, but his popularity grew as he continued preaching in the fields, forests. Two years later, the Council of Constance began and with a guarantee of safe conduct there and back he was convinced to appear, but almost immediately after he arrived he was arrested and sent to prison. Several attempts were made to get Huss to recant, but he refused them all. Finally on July 6, 1415, he was placed on a high stool in the middle of the church and sentenced to death. The chronicler of the events wrote that they placed a hood over his head, with pictures of the devil on it and the word "heretic" then they committed his soul to hell.

The next day Hus was chained to the stake. Wood and hay were piled up to his chin. He was given one last chance to recant but he responded, "I shall die with joy today in the faith of the gospel which I have preached." Then they lit the flames and he died singing and praying.

Right before he went to the council he wrote the following: "What fear shall part us from God, or what death? What shall we lose if for His sake we forfeit wealth, friends, the world's honors and our poor life? It is better to die well than to live badly. We dare not sin to avoid the punishment of death. To end the present life in grace is to be banished from misery. Truth is the last conqueror. He who is slain wins, for no peril hurts him if no sin has dominion over him."

By God’s grace we may never face the same challenge that Huss confronted, to lay down his life for the sake of the gospel, but that does not mean we will avoid every kind of suffering. Christians are meant to have the same vocation as their king. We are called to be cross-bearers.

1 Peter 4:1-6 says, “Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do-- living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you. But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to men in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.
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So I thought if it wasn't the sprinkler head, maybe it was the pipe that lead to the sprinkler so I dug out more of the area and I found a small crack in the pipe where water was coming out and preventing the sprinkler head from working correctly so I thought I better fix that. I went to my tool bench and got my saw and cut out the part that was broken, and it was then that I realized that I didn’t have any new pipe to replace it, so I got into my car and drove to Sanger Nursery again and I bought a piece of replacement pipe and drove back to the hole in my yard.

I measured the piece I took out of the ground and cut the new piece to replace it but as I matched it up the pipe I prepared to the gap in my sprinklers I realized that I didn’t have the couplings that you need at each end to put it back together. So I got back into my car and drove to Sanger Nursery for the third time and bought two of the couplings, one for each end and went back to the hole in my yard.

Now when you add the couplings to each end of my replacement pipe it makes the pipe longer, so I had to measure it again and cut my replacement pipe again, which at this point is really a small thing, but I was getting pretty frustrated because I thought that I was going to be done with this whole job in about ten minutes, and it had turned into a nightmare. Anyway, I finished I matched it up to the part that was missing and it looked great. All I needed now was to glue the couplings in... so I went back to Sanger Nursery for the fourth time!!!

I eventually got my pipe put back together and the sprinkler head back on and the hole filled in but what should have taken me a few minutes took all morning, and it reminded me of the quote by the great inventor and entrepreneur, Henry Ford. He said “Before everything else, getting ready is the secret to success.”
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Or you might think about it this way. I am sure you have seen those ads on TV for exercise video’s or equipment. You can get the Bow-Flex, or the Ab Lounge, or the kickboxing videos, or any number of them during their paid programming each night. In every case the people selling the product has a beautifully sculpted body with 3-4% body fat, and chiseled abs, (kinda like me - LOL). What they are trying to communicate by doing that is to say, “What you see is what you will get. You will look like this if you use this equipment or do my exercises.” Of course it rarely works out that way. But what Peter is saying is that Jesus is our example that points us to where we are going. He is showing us what we will get if we follow Jesus. He has wounds on his hands and his feet and his side, even in his resurrected body. It is written in his very body what we can expect and what he is calling us to because he has left us this example to suffer unjustly even as he has suffered unjustly.
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Romans 12:17-21 – Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

1 Peter 3:9 – Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.

Luke 6:27-28 – But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

Romans 12:14 – Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.
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Yet, history is strewn with examples of broken and flawed servants. Consider Abraham, Isaac and Jacob or King David. All men deeply flawed and yet God intends for us to consider them and to see the beauty of the Lord through the imperfections of their lives. He does that for two reasons. First because their flaws help us to realize that we are very much like them and if God could use someone as flawed as Isaac, there is hope that he can use me as well. Second because it takes the inspiration of someone like us who has done something significant to help us break out of the humdrum of our lives and to do venture beyond the ordinary.

David Brainerd, Augustine, Jonathan Edwards, William Carey, Saint Francis, Luther, John Bunyan, George Muller, and many others were men whose faith made them tower above their peers but who were also filled with cracks through which the light of God shines. They were men like you and me who excelled by the grace of God, and the stories of their broken and flawed but blessed lives will strengthen your desire to see God glorified through you.
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But honestly some people do that with their lives. They make external changes thinking that will help but really all they are doing is cover over the barbarian with perfume. What God is calling us to do is to deal with the matters of our heart. To grow in our understanding and appreciation of what Christ has done, and to demonstrate our trust in him by making those truth the foundation for how we live. That’s what it means to be a saint.]]> http://sangerchurch.net/pblog/index.php?entry=entry080325-165915
You can think about it this way. If you were a POW in Vietnam, chained to a wall, the only way you could escape is if someone was able to burst through enemy lines, and shoot their way into your camp, and come all the way to your cell, break your chains and then protect you under fire all the way back to safety. In order to do that Jesus became flesh and blood, to know our sorrows, to suffer our punishment, to die and to break the bonds of the curse of death that we were under. If he had not been raised from the dead then he would not be able to impart that life to us.

You see it is not just that Jesus laid down his life for you, or that he can now sympathize with you because he became a man. It wouldn’t help if you were a prisoner and your rescuer was shot by machine gun fire right as he enters your cell and falls at your feet. Sure he would have died for you but that wouldn’t help you at all. It wouldn’t help if he were captured and put in a cell with you. Sure, he could sympathize with you but he couldn’t save you. The salvation that Jesus brings to us is dependent on Easter morning. It requires the resurrection. Jesus had to leave the camp of death and take his people with him into life.
]]> http://sangerchurch.net/pblog/index.php?entry=entry080215-085559 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." (Hebrews 13:5)

How often have I quoted the last part of verse 5 without taking it in context. I remember sharing the four spiritual laws with students on the college campus and reciting the end of verse 5 to assure them of their standing. And it is true, they are secure in Christ, but we have a tendency to grab onto that without connecting it to what comes before it. You see the author of Hebrews purposefully mentions finances before he says God will never leave us. Why, what’s he trying to say? What is the connection? He is saying – don’t love money because Christ will never leave you?

The point is that money cares nothing for you. It will come and go without any concern for you at all. If you don’t believe me check your 401k. Money will leave you and forsake you, but Christ is better. He will not leave you. He will not forsake you. So hold onto him instead of money and you will never be disappointed.
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Some people get turned off when Paul says things like this because there are some who stretch it to utterly ridiculous proportions. He does not mean that every situation is joyful. But some folks misunderstand that and say things like “I was driving along and I got in an accident and I broke my arm and I was bleeding everywhere and I was waiting for the ambulance but I was praising Jesus the whole time.” Don’t twist Paul's words and make it mean nonsense.

When he says to pray without ceasing he doesn’t mean that you are always supposed to be in prayer, but he is thinking in terms of in the normal run of your daily life. That all day you are resorting to prayer. He doesn’t say in verse 18 that you give thanks FOR all things, but that you give thanks IN every circumstance. It is not that Paul is saying that every circumstance is wonderful.

In other words, joy and prayer and thankfulness are supposed to be the tone of our lives. They may not be there at every moment, but they are supposed to be the trademarks of those who have Christ as their own, but it is not a denial of reality.

In Decision magazine Amy Chapman tells about a time she was at a woman’s conference with 500 women. Most of the women had already left and she was gathering up her things when she noticed a person sitting at the back of the auditorium with her shoulders drooping and her head hung low, so she went over to see what was the matter and the woman began to tell her story.

She was the mother of three. Her oldest son, who suffered from muscular dystrophy, had been confined to a wheelchair for most of his 17 years. Her other two children had a variety of learning and emotional challenges. With her head still bent, she whispered, "I'm married to a mean, hateful man who makes my life miserable. He won't help me even to hold our son when he goes to the bathroom. I buried my father this week, and at the funeral I learned that my father had disinherited me from his estate because he hated my husband.

She went on, “I came this weekend with one prayer. I asked God to kill my husband. I prayed, 'Lord, I need a way out! I feel like a bird in a cage. But when I prayed that prayer, it was as if God spoke to me and said, “Even a bird in a cage sings.” Then with tears running down her face she turned to Amy and asked, "What am I supposed to do with that? How do I live with that answer?"

Feeling utterly impotent, Amy replied, "If God says, 'sing,' you need to find your song."

In the same way in the midst of our circumstances we need to find our song. That is the kind of people we should be. How can we realistically do that? Especially in light of the difficulties we all experience,how is something like that really possible?

I think the help we need to do it is in that little phrase “in Christ Jesus.” In other words, by God's design we receive strength and life and vitality and grace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ and because we are in God the Father and in the Lord Christ Jesus and we have the grace and power to do these things which seem impossible.
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One Saturday afternoon, I decided I was a big boy and could use the bathroom without anyone's help. So I climbed the stairs, closed and locked the door behind me, and for the next few minutes felt very self-sufficient.

Then it was time to leave. I couldn't unlock the door. I tried with every ounce of my three-year-old strength, but I couldn't do it. I panicked. I felt again like a very little boy as the thought went through my head, "I might spend the rest of my life in this bathroom."

My parents—and likely the neighbors—heard my desperate scream.
"Are you okay?" Mother shouted through the door she couldn't open from the outside. "Did you fall? Have you hit your head?"
"I can't unlock the door!" I yelled. "Get me out of here!"

I wasn't aware of it right then, but Dad raced down the stairs, ran to the garage to find the ladder, hauled it off the hooks, and leaned it against the side of the house just beneath the bedroom window. With adult strength, he pried it open, then climbed into my prison, walked past me, and with that same strength, turned the lock and opened the door. "Thanks, Dad," I said—and ran out to play.

That's how I thought the Christian life was supposed to work. When I get stuck in a tight place, I should do all I can to free myself. When I can't, I should pray. Then God shows up. He hears my cry—"Get me out of here! I want to play!"—and unlocks the door to what I desire.

Sometimes he does. But now, no longer three years old and approaching sixty, I'm realizing the Christian life doesn't work that way. And I wonder, are any of us content with God? Do we even like him when he doesn't open the door we most want opened—when a marriage doesn't heal, when rebellious kids still rebel, when friends betray, when financial reverses threaten our comfortable way of life, when the prospect of terrorism looms, when health worsens despite much prayer, when loneliness intensifies and depression deepens…?

God has climbed through the small window into my dark room. But he doesn't walk by me to turn the lock that I couldn't budge. Instead, he sits down on the bathroom floor and says, "Come sit with me!" He seems to think that climbing into the room to be with me matters more than letting me out to play.

I don't always see it that way. "Get me out of here!" I scream. "If you love me, unlock the door!"

Dear friend, the choice is ours. Either we can keep asking him to give us what we think will make us happy—to escape our dark room and run to the playground of blessings—or we can accept his invitation to sit with him, for now, perhaps in darkness, and to seize the opportunity to know him better...
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Who hasn't been in a situation like that, where your heart is in pieces, and your life is falling down around you and you just wish it would all end, but it doesn't. Instead it goes on into another day, and another day, and the exhaustion and anguish tears deeper until we feel like we have bled out all of our energy, and there is no earthly hope left. The persistent refrain of sorrow is like that of Poe's Raven, "Nevermore." The blow falls, and we look upon the ruins of our lives and we sob, over the "day that's dead will never come back." That's where David was.

And that's when he decided that maybe the God who seemed to have forsaken him would help him even yet. Certainly, he felt, there ought to be one in a world like ours who could help when all human help had failed. So in his troubles, this man whose physical tortures were almost forgotten in the presence of his tortures of soul, gave himself to prayer. He threw himself, in his weakness, into the Everlasting Arms, and then he reveals to us the truth that God did not fail him. That God turned the mourning into dancing and like a tender nurse he has taken away his sackcloth and put on him garments of joy.

How different our outlook would be on our circumstances if we only believed that weeping is temporary, and that joy comes in the morning. ]]> http://sangerchurch.net/pblog/index.php?entry=entry071016-135352
Abraham knew that 100 year old men and women do not have babies. He knew it. He was dried up and so was Sarah, and yet he had received this promise from God that his children (real and spiritual) would be so numerous that it would take many nations to contain them. And against all hope he hoped. He believed what seemed unbelievable because he knew that God had the power to do what he promised. There were certainly moments of doubt but doubt is not the same things as unbelief. As he contemplated the promise of God the more he became persuaded in his power to do what he said.

Paul is not just interested In Abraham though. He uses Abraham as the consummate example of someone who trusted God for what seemed impossible. It is as if Paul is saying, tell me what is more impossible – for God to give this 99 year old woman a child or for him to forgive the sinner? By the way, Jesus asked the same question of a crippled man in Luke 5. His friends lowered him down a hole in the roof and Jesus said, "Your sins are forgiven." When the Pharisees protested that only God could forgive sins, Jesus answered, "Which is easier: to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up and walk'?" And the man walked away. The point of course is that to do a miracle is harder of course, and if God had the power to make a crippled man walk and a barren woman conceive isn't he also powerful enough to say that your sins are forgiven.

If you can believe that God can do that, if you believe I can make you whole, and I can repair your broken heart, and I can give you wisdom, and I can provide what you need, and I can care for your wayward children, and I can watch over your spouse, and I can build your business, -- It is as God is saying, "If I can do the thing that is a big deal to you, why do you doubt that I can do that thing that is a big deal to me? Don't you see that I can take care of that too?" He is not just the God of the promise, he is also the God of the impossible. He makes sinners righteous. Thank you Jesus...]]> http://sangerchurch.net/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070914-135352
But it also gave me time to connect with my boys in ways we don't usually get to. We had breakfast together. I know it sounds like a simple thing, but I really enjoyed it. I had to work with the boys to train them to do some things that they don;t normally do too, like put their folded clothes away. Mom does that since she is home all the time, but without her they needed to pitch in. They did an ok job. Joseph put everything - socks, t-shirts, pants, everything - in one drawer until it was busting out. Timothy put Daneen's socks in my dresser and hung his pants up by slipping the hanger through the button hole. At least he was creative and resourceful.

In the end I had greater appreciation for the little things that are just done everyday, and a greater awareness of what single parents go through everyday. Two things that I think are worth being aware of...]]> http://sangerchurch.net/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070815-135352
All of his cursing and swearing and slander reminded me of Ecclesiastes 7:21 "Do not pay attention to every word people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you." Why was he told not to listen to his servant cursing? It was because he had also said things in the past that were inadvisable about others, and yet they were not held against him. I can not stop people's tongues from saying whatever they will, but I can refuse to take them to heart. After all haven't I said countless things in moments of passion that were hurtful and contemptible? In the words of Tacitus, "My friend may be the lord of his tongue but I am the master of my ears." Lord please help me to have deaf ears and to treat his passionate railings as if they had never been uttered, and to hold him up to you in prayer as a friend, even if I am not counted as a friend in return. Didn't you do that to me when I was your enemy (Luke 23:34, Rom 5:8)?
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How many good hard working and faithful Christian parents have stood in the sandals of Manoah and his wife? In spite of their heartfelt efforts to educate and discipline and a lifetime of prayers they have seen their son or daughter turn away from the Lord. It is impossible to deny the feelings of devastation, and yet do not ignore verse 4. "His parents did not know that this was from the LORD"

Our disappointments tend to dominate our perspective, but one of the things that this text says to us is that those things may be merely a cover for the secret will of God. Though Samson was following just his instincts, and his parents were right to be upset. What the text points out is that neither Samson's foolishness nor his stubbornness could prevent God from accomplishing his designs. Sometimes God uses the sinfulness and stupidity of his servants as camouflage for bringing his secret will to pass.
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I recently read this in Leadership Journal and it resonated with me. Unless I am real, and expose my own depravity how will others see me grasping at the hope of Christ to be able to do it themselves? If I wear a superficial mask that says I have it all together, that I am superior, and refuse to admit that I am an insecure, frightened, needy person am I not living out a denial of the gospel. I am so happy that Paul did not number himself among the "super apostles" but instead embraced his weaknesses "For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Cor 12:10).

I can relate to that as well. I am much more inclined to my weaknesses, much more inclined to sin, much more inclined to pride and covetousness and lust and envy and gossip and idolatry than I would like to admit, and yet it is only by admitting and embracing those weaknesses and dragging them to the cross that they are met by the power of Christ.
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I am so overwhelmed by the clutter in my life right now. There seems to be so many things pulling me in all kinds of different directions - work, home, shop, fun. At home life has been a lot of work for such a long time I am pretty worn out. Change takes so long. At the office things are hard right now with a number of personal conflicts and misunderstandings. They will all work out in the end, but the process of understanding others and examining myself is emotionally exhausting. At times I would rather push papers and crunch numbers. Then there are the weighty situations that are the normal part of life like a friend getting diagnosed with terminal cancer, another's grand child being born with a complex of birth defects, another's father died, and yet another is having heart trouble. It is a good thing the gospel is for broken and weak people because I have never understood as well as I do today how needy I am.

As we hung the ceiling fan a friend and I talked about how we will all probably eventually end up in a nursing home. He was worried about being a drain on those he loves, and not the feelings he would have if he were lying in a bed, but reflecting back on it, I think that being forgotten is more painful than being hurt. Perhaps it is just that I am better equipped to deal with aggression than I am apathy and indifference. Alone, abandoned, discarded, deserted, cast off, lonely, isolated… those are frightening words to me. Perhaps that is why the words of Christ that he would never leave me or forsake me seem more precious … especially when I feel alone…
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