Hey Friends…
We have a problem. It can be solved, but only if we recognize how deep it is. If we keep seeing it as “normal,” we won’t want Jesus to fix it. We won’t even recognize that he could. Instead, we’ll only look for Jesus to fix a few shallower aspects of our lives. While a shallow healing is certainly enjoyable, most of us are oblivious to the far greater life we could experience if Jesus healed our deeper issue. What to know what it is? More importantly, do you want it to be healed? Let’s talk in Deeper Thoughts below… But first… four important events, and two video links: · THIS SUNDAY: We are watching the forecast suggesting 1-3 inches of snow may arrive during church. We will keep monitoring and will email you Saturday evening with our plans for Sunday service and youth group. · Let’s PRAY!! THIS Saturday, January 18, sometime between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m., come pray with us at the church to seek God for our future, with a worship night at 6:00 p.m. Click here to let us know what time to expect you—or if you’re out of town, when might pray from afar! · Join our Mt. Hope History Team for a half-day brainstorming session, Saturday, January 25, 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., lunch included. Click here to email Sherri for details and to RSVP! · Ladies: Join us for our annual “Vision Board” event Saturday, February 1, 1:30 – 3:30 p.m. Click here for more info! · Did you miss our facility expansion update last Sunday? No worries: click here to see our current plans for expanding Mt. Hope, learn about our next steps, and discover how you can participate. Please be patient with some poor audio coverage of folks’ great questions; it gets fixed a few minutes in. · And don’t forget our “Daily Six” video series, six-minute videos every weekday to read along with me as I study through the Gospel of Mark. Click here to jump in this week and catch up! OK…that’s it today for you email skimmers and those who prefer shallow living. BUT… Some Deeper Thoughts… When I was 19 years old, I had major reconstructive jaw surgery. It was incredibly invasive. And painful. Not to ruin your appetite, but the short story is they had to cut my upper jaw completely out, set it on the table, pull some bone from my hip, stuff it up in my face to make new cheekbones, and then tie the jaw back into a new position with large titanium screws. My upper jaw had never grown to its normal adult position; the doctors didn’t want me living with a severe underbite and an even uglier face than I have now. Staring down the barrel of this obviously wretched procedure, I prayed hard. My ask was simple. “Jesus, miraculously prevent any pain. Please.” My surgeon assured me Jesus wouldn’t answer (oh, I tried to tell him all about the Lord) and that I should be prepared for a very rough summer. I prayed. Miraculously, God obliged. But only partly. He left just a touch of pain unhealed to simply make His point. I can imagine that wry little grin on His face as He told the archangel to “hold my holy water and watch this…” My agenda was no pain. God’s agenda was more precise. And far more bold. I didn’t know I needed what He had in mind. But when He delivered, it changed my life. As I laid in Reston Hospital for three days of recovery, my face swelled to the size (and color) of Charlie Brown’s “The Great Pumpkin.” My college buddies stopped by to see how I was doing, but when they walked in my room, they immediately turned around and left. They thought they had the wrong patient as I was totally unrecognizable. My hip was screaming in pain from the bone graft (oops… did I forget to ask God to prevent that specific pain?). But my face and jaw were completely painless. That, the surgeon later conceded, was indeed a miracle. (No, he didn’t get saved.) But more miraculously, those three days in the hospital became the most meaningful intimacy with Jesus I have ever experienced in my life--before or since. With unmistakable clarity, Jesus Christ was distinctly present with me in that room. Wave upon wave of a mighty baptism of the Holy Spirit cascaded through my spirit for three days straight. The Word of God flooded my mind. I experienced irrational levels of joy even as I lay with eyes closed, gritting teeth over the searing bone graft pain. A spirit of perfect love I had never known washed over my emotions and my soul. My heart pivoted to an irreversible devotion to the Lord and a surrender to His lifetime authority over me. It has driven me ever since. The bold faith you see in me every Sunday comes, in part, from that precious, pain-filled, glorious hospital visit in the summer of 1989. Why am I telling you all this? Because I think we often (maybe usually?) ask for the wrong miracle. So did the paralytic’s buddies in Mark 2:1-12. They understandably wanted a healing from their friend’s life of physical pain. But Jesus would rather perform the miracle of Levi’s spiritual healing in Mark 2:13-17. “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven’” (Mark 2:5). When Jesus met the crooked mobster Levi he said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). I told you earlier we have a problem. Jesus wants to heal it. But the problem is not first and foremost the physical or emotional discomfort we would prefer he take away. Our problem starts with a shallow, intellectual-based faith that sees its goal as getting from Jesus pragmatic solutions to our temporary physical and emotional needs. We choose to intellectually agree with the doctrines of the Bible so we can get God’s help with our immediate pains and struggles. But Jesus would prefer to forge inside us an everlasting, abiding, and all-consuming intimacy with God. To do this, he needs to heal our sinful hearts, not our ailing bodies. This Sunday let’s look into the life of that paralytic, the spiritually foul Levi, and his motley crew of unsavory scoundrels. Let’s see the supernatural things Jesus did with them. And let’s consider if we are asking for the right miracle in our lives. One more reminder: Let me personally help you spend 12 minutes to abundance with Jesus every day from now until Easter. It is intrinsically tied to the very thing we’ve just finished discussing—forging an irreversible intimacy with Jesus. Let me do it with you. Click here for our “Daily Six” video series and come along with me, Monday through Friday, as I read the Gospel of Mark and pray for God’s revelation in it. Just six minutes together, then you talk with God alone for six minutes more. And if you’d like to receive daily email reminders, click here to receive a link to The Daily Six each morning—or you can just find the videos on our YouTube channel every day. Let’s ask Jesus for what we really need… There's a profound miracle waiting for us if we’ll recognize we really need it. Much love… See you Sunday!! Chris Eads Mt. Hope Pastor Friend
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