Academic Dean’s Blog

Great texts from the Holy Scriptures inspire us hold to the truth of our new identity in Christ. It is such a great encouragement and liberation to know that my life is in God because of Christ! Can’t stand not to share it with you, reminding myself as well.

You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

How can we who died to sin still live in it?—I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.—He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.—Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

We are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ.—“Just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us.”—Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.—“Because I live, you also will live.”

“To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.”

Col. 3:3; Rom. 6:2; Gal. 2:20; 2 Cor. 5:15; 2 Cor. 5:17; 1 John 5:20; John 17:21; 1 Cor. 12:27; John 14:19; Rev. 2:17

Source: Excerpted from Daily Light on the Daily Path ©2002 Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
Photo Credit: Bitzcelt

From my morning reading from Daily Light on the Daily Path. I found this greatly relevant for myself. Tomorrow I will be preaching in Hope Church, Kyiv on Mark 1:14-20, title of my message is You are Called to Live in God’s Kingdom. Verses of today’s reading shed light on what characterizes His Kingdom and Jesus as King of that Kingdom. Unexpectedly different from human expectations.

Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.

“Even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.”—“Whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.”

Jesus of Nazareth . . . went about doing good.—Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

The meekness and gentleness of Christ.—In humility count others more significant than yourselves.

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”—Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.—Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

1 Pet. 2:21; Mark 10:45; Mark 10:44; Acts 10:38; Gal. 6:2; 2 Cor. 10:1; Phil. 2:3; Luke 23:34; Eph. 4:32; 1 John 2:6; Heb. 12:2

Source: Excerpted from Daily Light on the Daily Path ©2002 Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Adding poetry to blogging as I reflect about life.

Location of this picnic on the picture is unknown to me. I have never been there and thus have no memories associated with it, but as I’m looking at the picture I recall these texts from Isaiah (I give credit to a Bible software for help with locating them, though).

Let the desert and its cities lift up their voice, the villages that Kedar inhabits; let the habitants of Sela sing for joy, let them shout from the top of the mountains. (Isaiah 42:11)

Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the LORD has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted. (Isaiah 49:13)

“For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. (Isaiah 55:12)

What is the source of our strength, hope and joy in the midst of sorrow, grief and pain? Gospel of Jesus. Name of Jesus. He himself. Jesus, I never knew.

This morning I read this devotional that reminded me of sweet waiting on God in midst of difficulties of life.

It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

“Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?”—I had said in my alarm, “I am cut off from your sight.” But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy when I cried to you for help.

“Will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily.”—Wait for the Lord, and he will deliver you.—Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!

“You will not need to fight in this battle. Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the Lord.”

Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.—See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains.

Lam. 3:26; Ps. 77:9; Ps. 32:22; Luke 18:7, 8; Prov. 20:22; Ps. 37:7; 2 Chron. 20:17; Gal. 6:9; Jas. 5:7

I think many if not every Christian got to learn this lesson of trusting patiently and waiting prayerfully and joyfully. Yes latter part of it “to wait joyfully” is somewhat difficult to master. Excellent encouragement can be received from other Christians who walk(ed) closely with the Lord. Yesterday I listened to John Piper’s reading part of Jonathan Edwards’s sermon on Romans 2:10. Levels of happiness in heaven? Well, listen to it yourself. Piper explains his reason of recording it: “The reason I recorded it is that I regard this section as the best thing I have ever read on the issue of varying degrees of reward and happiness and holiness in heaven. It is vintage Edwards. He has thought this through in an amazing way. It opens our eyes to the possibilities of heaven that we have never thought of before.”

Someone combined music and visuals together making another music video that shows director’s take of the song’s message. I found this video clip inspiring and I want to share this.

Lately I have been also thinking about my willingness to receive what God is sending my way. Of course, it is so much easier to receive ‘good things’ from him when everything is smooth and joyful then some difficult moments in life. For some those moments last longer than actual moments as we define them but may equal to months and years of waiting upon the Lord.

In my pondering about this issue of suffering and felicity I come to appreciate significance of knowing that what we face comes from the hand of Sovereign Lord God who created us and redeemed us in Christ, and who in Christ Jesus adopted us as his children to be co-hairs with his only-begotten Son Jesus.

Casting Crowns, Praise You In This Storm

I was sure by now
God you would have reached down
And wiped our tears away
Stepped in and saved the day
But once again, I say “Amen”, and it’s still raining Read the rest of this entry »

This morning in chapel we had Dr. Scott Miller (who teaches CP 202 Biblical Foundations for Christian Missions these two weeks) preaching on Luke 5:1-11. His sermon was titled Ministry Miracle. I want to share brief outline of his message because we did not do any recording or filming in the chapel today and I want to share the blessing further with others. Here it is.

Speaker: Dr. Scott Miller
Sermon Title: Ministry Miracle
Text: Luke 5:1-11

1 – Take the Word into the world
God did the very thing when Christ was born into the world.

2 – Try to do something radical that it will fail unless God is in it (vv. 4-5)
Not by my power, ability or giftedness but by His spirit.
Our failure is a step closer to God’s success.

3 – Build team of people (vv. 6-7)
Do not take all the joy, share the joy with others.

4 – You going to stay on your knees (v. 8 )
Prayer is primary activity of those who dream a big dream for God.

ESV Luke 5:1 On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, 2 and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 3 Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. 4 And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” 6 And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. 7 They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” 9 For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, 10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” 11 And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

Two influential aspects of today’s chapel: the message and prayer time at the end of it, when everyone in chapel knelt to pray sharing his and her own ministry dream with God. The chapel went overtime (with my permission and who can resist when the Spirit leads?) planting seeds that give eternal fruit in God’s timing.

This morning I turned on my computer to check my email and read on-line news. I check several news sources usually and this morning I started with Ukrainian news portal. My attention was immediately drawn to news about bridge collapse in Minneapolis, the feature story this morning. Reading Ukrainian report and then reading reports in English, including slide-shows at Yahoo News and lately today photos on Flickr I was impressed that the news at our time basically have no boundaries and that on-line media, including blogging communities provide this ecumenical realm of global information. No matter where on earth now, with right equipment people can connect to each other and be part of global community.

Bridges always fascinate me. They are examples of concentrated activity of human mind applied for the good of others. When I riding on the city bus or subway over one of Kyiv’s bridges I never ask myself a question of how reliable this bridge is. My mind usually busy with other things rather with matters of my personal safety, as I take it for granted. I do not question the vehicle or the bridge. I think people on the Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River have been like myself: busy or careless, preoccupied with local radio or favorite CD album or with a conversation over cell phone. Unexpectedly their trip ended there. Unexpectedly.

Our lives are fragile. Secured? We may think so thanks to our life-insurance plan. But we do not know what tomorrow will bring. As the Bible says: “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit” – yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” (James 4:13-14 ) Some may feel like disagreeing with these words but incidents like the one that happened yesterday provide unbeatable and sobering argument.

I think of people who drove over the bridge that moment. There might be those who drove their cars to another city with plans of successful business. There might be those who drove their cars going home with satisfaction of successful deal. But catastrophe was waiting on them on that bridge. No one is happy to face this disaster. Christians, who happened to drive their cars on this day over the bridge were prepared better because their lives secured with Giver of Life, who controls everything that happens to us. We may have no answer as to why this happed to those particular people but we may and should take a lesson from this.

1) Life is short. Often, it is shorter than we think. Forget it not.

2) Relaying on God daily is a better way to face unexpected and sometimes unavoidable tragedies like this one.

3) When tragedy happens – learn from it.

4) There are people in need, wounded and broken – help them.

I assume that local community of Christians will show genuine care for those who were faced with this tragedy and provide help to people in need. Participation in needs of others is a Christian duty conducted out of love, that present in our hearts by Holy Spirit.

Technorati Tags: Minneapolis, tragedy, bridge, lesson, life, death

There are five big ideas that Mark Mcdonnel, our residential faculty and Program Director, shared in one of our seminary’s chapels a long time ago.

1. Love God (Deut. 6:5; Matt. 22:36-38).

2. Love others (Matt. 22:39-40; Rom. 13:8-10).

3. Manage the Planet (Gen. 1:26-28; 2:15).

4. Grow (Matt. 5:48; Luke 2:52; 2 Pet. 3:18)

5. Make Disciples (Matt. 28:19-20).

I could name few items today but could not recall the complete list. I am glad I found this list again. Mark posted the list of these big ideas on his blog (mcdonnel.wordpress.com). Now when I feel I lost direction in life and need to refresh my memory I can go to this post or his blog and review the list. I am thankful for these simply yet foundational principles that give meaning and direction to one’s life.

It seems that when a whole ago I asked Mark why 5 big things and not 7, he replied that it’s probably because we have 5 fingers on one hand and it makes our children and us to learn easily and review them quickly.

Technorati Tags: life, bible, idea, foundation, faculty, God, planet, desciples, love, growth, mcdonnel, seminary, chapel, lists

The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry… When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.  The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all. (Psalm 34:15, 17-19. ESV)

I am so glad I am not the One who runs the world. I am not God. Instead, I am his creation. My mission is to find out his will and submit myself to it. It may not be easy; in fact, it is never easy for me as for Adam’s descendant. But as for new creation in Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 5:17) I can enjoy being at the very center of God’s will. Living in time and space, watching for hours and days delighting in the particular moment of life may not seem possible. Pain, sorrow, sickness or another kind of tribulation or even dying may be serious reasons for feeling desperate. Yet the hope is out there. And the source of hope is not relies on us. I like how vividly Max Lucado in his book The Great House of God describes God’s attention to our needs and our prayers.

The phrase the friend of Lazarus used is worth noting. When he told Jesus of the illness he said, “Lord, the one you love is sick.” He doesn’t base his appeal on the imperfect love of the one in need, but on the perfect love of the Savior. He doesn’t say, “The one who loves you is sick.” He says, “The one you love is sick.” The power of the prayer, in other words, does not depend on the one who makes the prayer, but on the one who hears the prayer.

We can and must repeat the phrase in manifold ways. “The one you love is tired, sad, hungry, lonely, fearful, depressed.” The words of the prayer vary, but the response never changes. The Savior hears the prayer. He silences heaven, so he won’t miss a word. He hears the prayer. Remember the phrase from John’s gospel? “When Jesus heard this, he said, ‘This sickness will not end in death’ ” (John 11:4).

The Master heard the request. Jesus stopped whatever he was doing and took note of the man’s words. This anonymous courier was heard by God.

You and I live in a loud world. To get someone’s attention is no easy task. He must be willing to set everything aside to listen: turn down the radio, turn away from the monitor, turn the corner of the page and set down the book. When someone is willing to silence everything else so he can hear us clearly, it is a privilege. A rare privilege, indeed.

Lucado, M. The Great House of God : A Home for Your Heart. Dallas: Word Pub., 1997. Page 89.

Thus, may we stop taking this privilege of praying to God for granted. May we focus our attention on God’s truth. May we pray in our hearts while being in the crowd or in the meeting or even in class. May we pray with our mouth if we are along in a room, or driving our car, or walking through a park. Let’s stop relaying on ourselves, rather bring our own burden and another’s burden to the Maker of Universe who revealed himself in Jesus, the Jew from Nazareth. This Almighty Maker had shown he caring for us. May we be friends to someone else. Be friends to many Lazarus who are in need today. Let us, Christians, pray now to God who changes lives and circumstances. Our prayers and requests will bring God glory. Because his ears are open and his hands are ready to lead Lazarus out.

Technorati Tags: lucado, death, prayer, books, bible, meditation

I enjoy the writings of A. W. Tozer. His insights on failure and success are word of sober truth in today’s world of fast-grown results and lost souls. I think that integrity matters when we speak about success and failure. Does numbers matter much? Yes they do, but most important is to make sure that action is continuation of one’s integrity and foundational principles. Quality means matters more than quantity. You can produce big numbers hundreds of thousand items, but if the quality is low or fails you than you loose much more. It is just like with batteries for your Dell notebook, you spend your hundreds dollars or euros and use the laptop as you need or want but suddenly it brakes and it can not be undone. Frustration and loss of money, time, valuable data and company’s reputation. And what now? Lenovo recalls 205,000 ThinkPad batteries that is consequence and voluntary efforts of Lenovo company to save her reputation.

A. W. Tozer writes, “To God quality is vastly important and size matters little. When set in opposition to size, quality is everything and size nothing”. Quality matters not just in business but also in religion. Tozer continues:

Man’s moral fall has clouded his vision, confused his thinking and rendered him subject to delusion. One evidence of this is his all but incurable proneness to confuse values and put size before quality in his appraisal of things. The Christian faith reverses this order, but even Christians tend to judge things by the old Adamic rule. How big? How much? and How many? are the questions oftenest asked by religious persons when trying to evaluate Christian things….

The Church is dedicated to things that matter. Quality matters. Let’s not be led astray by the size of things.

(A. W. Tozer, Born After Midnight, 72-73,75.)

And He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God” (Luke 16:15), aren’t these words powerful? Don’t they bring us to our senses? I pray to be found faithful. I am humbling myself before God and I am not trying to point fingers at others, but looking at modern life and reading of these examples and pondering over God’s word I come to Lord in prayer for timely grace to be provided and received by me when I need her most.

“Have we completely forgotten this, Lord, that ‘quality is everything and size nothing’? Encourage all those pastors who are discouraged today because they don’t match up to the ’success’ of the big churches. Amen.” (Source: recurring mailing dated October 14th from http://lmi.gospelcom.net/)

I appreciate this prayer and joining it I say ‘Amen’.

Technorati Tags: tozer, success, failure, books, meditation, dell, business, lenovo, thinkpad,