Three Reasons I Like the Kony 2012 Campaign

March 23, 2012 in Discipleship with 0 Comments

I ignored the trending Kony 2012 video for weeks. I had heard of Invisible Children, I was vaguely aware of the LRA, but I don’t have any time or money to give, so I moved on.

And then the controversy started.

After reading a lot of the controversy, and comparing it with IC’s financial statements and responses, I liked the campaign even more. For three main reasons:

1. This is a very worthy campaign.

Let’s remember what we’re really talking about: 30,000 to 100,000 child soldiers and sex slaves over the years. We’re talking about a man on the ICC’s most wanted list. We’re talking about a man who would like nothing more than for the whole campaign to get bogged down in slander and financial reviews and controversy.

This isn’t about Jason Russell. This is about Joseph Kony.

I know that Kony is on the run. I know that his army has dwindled to a few hundred. (Although if someone in the U.S. or Europe had a child army of two hundred kidnapped children, no one would use the term “only.”) And don’t even talk to me about a “white man’s burden” because it makes you look dumb.

A group of young people met injustice and tragedy head-on, and they’re doing big things to fight it.

2. Invisible Children has a good strategy.

I’ve seen their financial statements, and I’m not impressed with the argument that some people don’t like how their expenses break down.  Continue Reading…

The Omnipresence of God

March 22, 2012 in Torrey with 0 Comments

I decided to read through What the Bible Teaches, by R.A. Torrey again. It’s a great book – you can download a free PDF here - so we’re doing a little Bible study every Thursday. Subscribe over there to make sure you don’t miss anything, but come back and add your voice in the Comments! >>>

The first chapters of this book deal with the basic nature of God, and it can seem so fundamental if we just read it like homework. Every time I crack this thing again, I consider skipping the first part, because, ya, I know that God is all-powerful and all-knowing and all over.

But I’m always glad that I don’t skip over it. There’s nothing boring about the fundamental nature of God. He’s so amazing.

John is hosting the conversation today, on the omnipresence of God. Here’s a snippet:

Thus the dilemma for the human mind: How can someone so vast be so personal and intimate with humankind? How can He be everywhere, and yet localized in the person of Jesus Christ, walking the earth two thousand years ago, or sitting on a throne in Heaven in eternity, amidst a Heavenly throng? 

Take a few minutes to read the short chapter, and hit up the Comments here to engage your over-stimulated brain with the idea that God is that big.

The Eternity of God

March 15, 2012 in Torrey with 2 Comments

I decided to read through What the Bible Teaches, by R.A. Torrey again. It’s a great book – you can download a free PDF here - so we’re doing a little Bible study every Thursday. Subscribe over there to make sure you don’t miss anything, but come back and add your voice in the Comments! >>>

This may sound funny to say, but I think the eternal nature of God is one of my favorite things about Him. It is at once inexpressibly comforting, and quietly terrifying.

(I just deleted the word “terrifying” a dozen times and replaced it with more accurate, literally understood terms like “humbling” and “awe-inspiring,” but none of them quite capture the expanse of the sensation, so I’m letting terrifying stand regardless of how you may judge my theology by it.)

Torrey’s only states three propositions in this short chapter:

  1. God is eternal.
  2. God is unchangeable.
  3. God is self-existent.

The fact that God is unchanging should be a believer’s greatest comfort in any situation or any season.

People like to say that there’s nothing that God cannot do, but I don’t think it’s true. God cannot be unjust. He cannot be unmerciful. He cannot refuse the worst person who turns to Jesus for salvation and forgiveness. He cannot refuse to forgive me when I turn back to him again and again. He is.

I don’t think any human mind can really grasp eternity, or the concept of self-existence, and that’s what terrifies me.

When I was little, before I knew Him, I used to sometimes imagine myself rocketing through space. Beyond Pluto, out of the Milky Way, past the known universes … what would be there? More darkness? More stars? More of the same? Or something new? Every adventure ended in a white-out because even a child’s untempered imagination can’t hold eternity.

Now, I like to sit and think of God the same way. I usually start in fascination, and end up in humility and the fear of the Lord. Who is this God I worship? Who is this God that sees me? Speaks to me? Requests my intercession? Who is this God that I so flippantly complain to when my tiny little finances become too tiny for my minuscule little life? And who is this God that He hears, and cares, and acts?

Sit for just five minutes and consider the eternity of God. Then, let us know what you learned.

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