Holding on to Reason

My Time Living in an RV

This is a personal column I wrote shortly after moving back to Scottsbluff in January of 2022. I recently found it in my files. It’s a reminder of a time in my life when I learned how to better rely on God for all of my needs.

One of the most beautiful things to witness in this life is watching God work amongst our mistakes and failures, somehow bringing about His good and positive purpose.

Around two and a half years ago I experienced the biggest failure of my life–my marriage exploded. My now ex-husband had been keeping a life altering secret from me and it blew up in both of our faces. As the police took him away, I watched the life I had been building come crashing down around me.

I started having panic attacks. I no longer trusted my own judgment or intuition. After all, if I could overlook something so big in someone so close to me, how could I really think I knew anything about anyone? I began fearing that every new person I met may have terrible, dangerous secrets.

I had been working three jobs but I could no longer keep up with the world around me. I had no idea what to do with my life anymore, or if I even wanted to try doing anything. I had once been known as easygoing and hard to shake but now I felt like I was made of sharp edges—every little set back or criticism smashed against my new automatic instinct to “bite-back”. All I knew was I needed to start fresh somewhere new where I could have the time to relax and process everything.

So, on May 10th, 2020, I moved into an RV with my mom and my two giant dogs, and we left.

I didn’t realize it then, but God wasn’t taking me to a new life, He was simply giving me time away in order to heal and to strengthen my relationship with Him before I came back.

We lived in the RV for about two years. My mom took jobs as a traveling nurse and I worked as a freelance writer. I got to write a bunch of podcast episodes about fairy tales for a show called “Tales'' on Spotify. And I was able to continue writing blogs for Hope Radio’s website, kcmifm.com.

We saw some amazing things like the beaches of South Padre Island in Texas; the lush greenery surrounding the back country roads of the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee; and Lookout Mountain (where we could see seven states from one spot) in Georgia. We also had once in a lifetime experiences like attending a concert at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville; walking through the Van Gogh Experience Exhibit in Milwaukee; and taking a trip to Disney World in Orlando with my friend and her four kids.

But the best thing about this part of our lives was we were free to be sent wherever God wanted us to go, whenever He wanted us to go. This meant we had to live by faith every step of the way. We waited for Him to open and close doors to direct our paths. He made it clear He was by our side the entire time.

We started out in San Antonio, Texas, because my sister was having her first baby, my niece, Nicole. We stuck around in Brownsville, Texas, to be close to them for the first six months of Nicole’s life. Then a quick trip to Chicago allowed us to attend the funeral of my uncle, Jeremy, and give support to his wife and kids. Next, we made our way to Knoxville, Tennessee, just in time to hold my step-grandfather’s hand as he passed away, and to keep my grandmother company for a few months afterwards. A bit of time was spent back here in Scottsbluff, when my uncle, Mark, passed away. I was also able to return to Scottsbluff two other times to be a bridesmaid in a couple different weddings. We had one family Christmas at South Padre Island and another in Washington DC. And finally, we went further north to Whitewater, Wisconsin to help a friend and her kids as her marriage went through a rough spot.

Now, my sister is preparing to give birth to her second child and this marks the end of our RV journeys. My mom will be moving in with my sister and brother-in-law to help with their kids, and I have decided to settle back in to life in Western Nebraska.

Sometimes when people go through major trauma they let it negatively affect the rest of their lives. I didn’t want that to be my story. I knew I needed to find a way to learn from my experience so I could heal and grow as a person.

Romans 8:28 (NIV) says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

With God’s help there is always a way to glean some good from the negative. I used my free time on this journey to pray for God’s guidance and wisdom. I analyzed and worked through my emotions. I listened to sermons, I studied the Bible, and I did book studies over video chat with my friends from home: Myndi Doremus, Emily Hernandez, and Emily Havens. Little by little, God healed my wounds.

My time in the RV was a time of healing granted and guided by God and it was invaluable.

This series of blog posts titled, “Holding on to Reason”, is named after Amanda’s favorite C.S. Lewis quote: “Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”

Click here for more things written by Amanda Hovseth.

Exploring Sabbath Rest

I was recently challenged by a friend to consider the benefits of deciding to set aside a Sabbath rest day for myself once every week. And the idea has got my mind whirring.

My friend proposes that having a day where I force myself to rest will help my mental health and physical health and will help eliminate the constant feeling of drowning in “to-do’s”. On the one hand, the idea of having a day where I’m required to do nothing but rest and enjoy life, sounds amazing. But, on the other hand, the idea that I’ll feel less rushed by setting aside time to not work on my “to-do’s”, sounds counterintuitive.

In order to sort out my thoughts on this, I think it’s important to first get informed; so, let’s take a deeper look at the Sabbath.

Why did God create the Sabbath in the first place?

The Sabbath is an example of, and a remembrance of what God did after He created our existence.

Genesis 2:2–3 (ESV) says, “And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.”

It can be logically deduced that if it is good for God to rest, then it is good for us–His creation which was created in His image–to rest as well.

Then we see later on in the Bible that God put resting on the 7th day into His Laws for the Israelites.

Exodus 20:8–11 (ESV) says, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

Deuteronomy 5:12-15 (ESV) says, “‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.’”

We also see in Isaiah that when people follow the Law about the Sabbath, they are blessed by doing so.

Isaiah 56:2 (NIV) says, “Blessed is the man who does this, and the son of man who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil.”

Crossway.org says, “The Sabbath is a covenant sign that represents a lifestyle of devotion to the Lord, for it requires the practical reorganization of every week around him (Ex. 31:12–17; Ezek. 20:18–20). True observance of the Sabbath entails not just refraining from work but also refraining from doing any evil.”

So, resting on the Sabbath gives us time to reflect on our decisions and that allows us more time to train our minds away from choosing evil. And of course, a life lived away from evil will be a blessed one.

When Jesus walked the earth He enlightened us even more about the Sabbath and its intention.

A couple of His major confrontations with the Jewish religious leaders were about the Sabbath.

The events in Mark 2:23-28, took place on the Sabbath. Jesus and His disciples were walking through a grainfield and the disciples began picking heads of grain and eating them because they were hungry. Of course, the Pharisees confronted them about this. Here was Jesus’ reply:

Mark 2:27-28 (NIV): “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

Then in Mark 3:1-6 Jesus heals a man’s shriveled hand on the Sabbath and this angers the Pharisees so much that they begin to plot to kill Jesus. But, before Jesus had healed the man’s hand he had asked them the following:

Mark 3:5 (NIV): “Jesus asked them, ‘Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?’ But they remained silent.”

GotQuestions.org says, “The Sabbath was intended to help people, not burden them. In contrast with the grueling daily work as slaves in Egypt, the Israelites were commanded to take a full day of rest each week under the Mosaic Law. Pharisaical law had morphed the Sabbath into a burden, adding restrictions beyond what God’s law said…The Sabbath was not intended to burden people but to ease their burden. For someone to forbid acts of mercy and goodness on God’s day of rest is contrary to all that is right.”

Jesus stated that the Sabbath was made for the people and not the people for the Sabbath. His focus was on the heart behind the Law, not the letter of the Law. The Pharisees were focusing on the Letter of the Law and they were so worried about breaking the Sabbath that they even went so far as to add on extra regulations to the Law in the hopes that it would keep them far away from breaking the actual Law; but, with time, they started to treat the extra regulations as actual Law. And Jesus said all of that was wrong–their entire perspective as to the purpose of the Sabbath had been skewed and they weren’t using it as it was intended to be used.

But, is the Sabbath meant only to give us rest and to help us avoid evil? Or is there more to it?

Romans 14:5–6 says, “One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.”

This section in Romans could obviously be applied to views about the Sabbath. According to Paul, “the week” think some days are more important than others; while “the strong” think every day is the same; and both views are permissible. Each person must follow his own conscience. What is remarkable is that the Sabbath is no longer a binding commitment for Paul but a matter of one’s personal conviction. Unlike the other nine commandments in Ex. 20:1–17, the Sabbath commandment seems to have been part of the “ceremonial laws” of the Mosaic covenant, like the dietary laws and the laws about sacrifices, all of which are no longer binding on new covenant believers (Gal. 4:10; Col. 2:16–17). However, it is still wise to take regular times of rest from work, and regular times of worship are commanded for Christians (Heb. 10:24–25; Acts 20:7).

Whether one observes a special day, or eats all foods, or abstains from some foods, the important thing is to honor the Lord and to give thanks to God.

We see from other things in the Bible that a primary theme which God is trying to teach us throughout the Bible is that He wants us to learn to be dependent on Him. For example, there is the year of Jubilee–where they are required to rely on God’s provision for an entire year. And when God sent manna to the Israelites and told them to only gather enough for one single day at a time. God was trying to teach them to have faith that He will provide.

“God was trying to teach them to have faith that He will provide.”

If we work our tails off 24/7 then we are prone to start believing that our hard work is the only thing which gets us through life. But that is a narrow perspective. No matter how much we work and provide for ourselves, there will always be things we need for survival which are out of our reach and can only be provided by God– like the air we breathe and the rain which waters our plants and brings us fresh water. Working all of the time doesn’t get rid of our dependance on God, it only skews our perception of reality and erases our ability to realize we are dependent on Him. Taking a Sabbath rest, forces us–and allows us–the opportunity to reflect on everything God does for us. It is a time set aside to rest in faith that God is good, that He loves us, and that He will provide.

Okay, but how exactly do you rest? How do I know what is restful?  

Eryn Lynum, author of “The Nature of Rest: What the Bible and Creation Teach Us about Sabbath Living”, has some great advice on this matter. While being interviewed by Focus on the Family, she said, “What rest does is it opens up this space for truth to root down in our souls. When we are: go go go hustle hustle we don't have time to truly process what the Lord is doing inside of us…When we rest, our minds operate to their fullest potential as God meant them to. When we rest, we grow in truth because His truth goes forth and does not return void. Like Isaiah 55 says, God’s word brings forth life in our souls. And we grow in love because we are able to have these new connections with our family.”

She goes on to advise that even if you can’t find a whole day to set aside on the regular, try to find a block of four hours a week and start there. But, if you’re anything like me, your next question is…how? How do I rest? What do I do and what don’t I do? Eryn has some great advice for that as well.

She said, “Write two lists. First, write a list of everything that’s heavy, everything during your week that is stressful. That might be text messages, notifications, emails…write a list of those things that are heavy and that’s what you want to step away from during that time of rest. And then write a second list of those things that fill you up, things that delight you. It’s those things you think of during the week and say, ‘Oh, I’d really like to do that,’ but you don’t make time for it. It might be creating, painting, music, walking outside, gardening–people ask me, isn’t gardening work? Do on Sabbath what delights your soul. Maybe throughout the week you work with a computer, and you might want to go outside and do some creating. Do what delights your soul. Make a list of those things and start enjoying them.”

Honestly, after this research, it’d be kind of weird for me to be resistant to taking a Sabbath rest, because all of this sounds great.

Do I want to have time to bask in hobbies that make me feel happy and accomplished? Yes.

Do I want to have time to let God’s truth sink deep roots into my soul? Yes.

Do I want to have time to meditate on all of the ways God has provided for me and build my faith in the fact that He will continue to do so? Yes.

I’m pretty sure this means you can “sign me up” for Sabbath rest.

This series of blog posts titled, “Holding on to Reason”, is named after Amanda’s favorite C.S. Lewis quote: “Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”

Click here for more things written by Amanda Hovseth.

Be Careful What You Wish...Pray? For - Will God Twist My Words to Harm Me?

Click here to listen to an audio recording of this article.

We all know the saying, “Be careful what you wish for.” And we all know some version of this tragic tale: a downtrodden character comes across a genie in a bottle and is granted three wishes. It seems like a dream come true, all of their problems can now be solved–as long as they word their wishes carefully. Genies are bitter captives and, if they can find leeway in the wording of the wish, they will twist dreams into nightmares.

A humorous example of this is the longstanding joke where a man wishes for “a million bucks” and instead of receiving a million dollars, he ends up with a million male deer. A more devastating example is a young woman who wishes “to be attractive to men”, so the genie turns her into a freshly fried sizzling slice of bacon.

“I was scared of asking God for what I wanted because I was worried I would ask him wrong.”

While these stories can be used to impart valuable lessons, they can also have some unintended negative side effects.

For me, I subconsciously grew the tendency to treat praying to God like I was requesting a wish from a genie. I was scared of asking God for what I wanted because I was worried I would ask him wrong and he would "bamboozle" me. 

That's when I noticed I wasn't thinking of God in terms of how the Bible described Him. Here are a few verses which describe God and the relationship He desires with us:



Matthew 7:7-11 (ESV) says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

Romans 8:28 (NIV) says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Romans 8:31-39 (NLT) says, “What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us. Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? (As the Scriptures say, ‘For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.’) No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We don't have to be careful with God. He isn't out to “get us” or trick us like genies or monkey paws or any other mythical "wish granters". God loves us and the Bible makes it clear that all He wants is for us to come to Him in honesty and sincerity so He can have a true and meaningful relationship with us, like a loving parent with His child.

To ease our minds even more, God promises that even if we don’t know how to pray, or what to pray for, or we mess up our prayers, the Holy Spirit will help us and speak for us. So, even if God wanted to take advantage of a linguistic misstep (which He doesn’t), He would never get the chance because the Holy Spirit wouldn’t let us make such a tragic mistake.

Romans 8:26-27(NIV) says, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”

Prayer is an amazing privilege, gifted to us through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Since Jesus got rid of the sin barrier between us and God, we can now approach God’s throne with the confidence of one of His children whom He loves.

As Timothy Keller said, “The only person who dares wake up a King at 3am to ask for a glass of water, is a child. We have that kind of access to God.”

“The only person who dares wake up a King at 3am to ask for a glass of water, is a child. We have that kind of access to God.”
— Timothy Keller

God doesn’t want us to be afraid to talk openly to Him. He may not always answer our prayers in the way we hoped or envisioned, but that’s only because He is all-knowing. He has proven His love for us over and over again, so we can trust that His answers to our prayers won’t be spiteful or vindictive. God isn’t a “wish granter”, He listens to our requests and then responds in whichever way is best for us, even if it isn’t what we asked for or thought was best for ourselves.

This series of blog posts titled, “Holding on to Reason”, is named after Amanda’s favorite C.S. Lewis quote: “Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”

Click here for more things written by Amanda Hovseth.

A Buffet Table of Beliefs

People like to treat religion like a buffet table. They place all the belief systems out there and then go through picking and choosing the bits they want to be true.

But religious beliefs aren’t supposed to be like that. We don't get to choose reality. We have no control over it. We are finite beings with zero power to influence much of anything in our world, let alone reality as a whole. Instead of thinking we get to decide what reality is, we are meant to search and study the world around us to discover what is true. We don’t get to simply choose what we want to be true.

“We don’t get to choose reality...Let’s be honest with ourselves, we can’t even keep our own hearts beating. The audacity required to think our opinions should mean anything is insane.”
— Amanda Hovseth

Most people I know decide what they believe on an emotional whim. They like to pretend they are knowledgeable on the subject because they prayed a few times, or listened to a bit of a sermon, or visited eastern countries and like to meditate. They are only comfortable with touching the surface level things which make them feel good and happy. They aren't willing to actually put the work in to sort through the lies and discover the truth. That kind of work is too uncomfortable and the truth about reality isn’t always pretty, and it doesn’t always make us feel good. So, people would rather just close their eyes and continue pretending to be gods of their own lives. But, really, let's be honest with ourselves, we can't even keep our own hearts beating. The audacity required to think our opinions should mean anything is insane.

God speaks in Job 36:4 and says, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, then, if you know so much.”

https://tr.ee/pxgCnk

Don't slack on seeking out the answers to these big important questions:

  • Why are we here?

  • Where did we come from?'

  • Is God real?

  • What does God want from me?

Do the research. Believe me or not, I've spent most of my life doing this research and I've barely scratched the surface of the information God has provided us with.

While I could spend the rest of my life studying and still have way more to learn, the work I’ve done isn’t useless. Because of the evidence for God and the Bible which I’ve already learned about, my faith isn't wobbly. My faith can’t be changed by every little setback in life; it is grounded in fact and supported by evidence. Just as my favorite quote–which is by C.S. Lewis–says, “Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”

And, because of this, when life gets hard—instead of getting angry with God and turning on Him—I turn to Him for help through those struggles. Without fail, He always steps in to help and to comfort me. And these personal interactions He’s had with me have only strengthened my faith even further. I don’t ever want to try facing life without God by my side.

God is calling out to you. He has provided the evidence needed for you to get to know Him. 

Romans 1:20 (ESV) says,“For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”

Don't let our culture's habits of surface research and gut reaction decisions hold you back from answering life’s big questions and from discovering reality. When we discover reality, we can then know better how to properly exist within it.

Some people refer to the search for reality as the Metaphysical Search. You can click on these photos to link to more information specifically on Metaphysics —->

Furthermore, if you really think about it, an all-powerful creator wouldn’t need to care about His creation at all. There would be nothing we could do about it if God decided to just get rid of us all.

And yet, God does care about us. He wants a relationship with us and because of that He was willing to go so far as to choose to give us free-will, because free-will gives us the capability of choosing to have that relationship with Him, and relationships which are chosen freely by both parties are the ones which are truly great. God gave us free-will even though He knew we would choose to abandon Him and try to go our own way. He also knew that the result of us having free-will would be that Jesus would have to sacrifice Himself on the cross in order to make a relationship possible between Him and us.

1 John 4:10 (NIV) says, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

The reality of God’s love for us is mind-blowing, and it is precisely this proven love of God for us that has caused me to dedicate my life to Him. Not only because He loves me, but because He clearly loves everyone I care about even more than I ever could. It can be terrifying watching someone you care about face struggles which are out of your control, or having to let them go off into the world without you. Knowing I can trust God to be with them and that He loves them is the only thing that eases my mind.

To sum things up, not only is there loads of scientific, mathematical, and historical evidence out there supporting God’s existence, He has also reached into my life personally to prove Himself. He didn't have to do any of that, but He did, and I am eternally grateful to Him for it. I never want to try existing without Him by my side and I don’t ever plan to.

Last year I collected a bunch of information about the evidence I have mentioned here and put it all together on a page on this website. There is stuff to read, listen to, and watch which begin to answer the big questions about our reality and Christianity. Some of the questions include: What is the Bible? Why believe God exists? Does the Bible align with history and archeology? Why believe the Bible over other religions? Did Jesus rise from the dead? And so much more. The stuff there barely scratches the surface of the evidence God has provided us, but it's a good place to start. Here’s a link to the website: kcmifm.com/bibleinfo.

This series of blog posts titled, “Holding on to Reason”, is named after Amanda’s favorite C.S. Lewis quote: “Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”

Click here for more things written by Amanda Hovseth.



Why did God make women who were raped marry the men who raped them?

It can be tough to read some parts of the Bible, especially parts which make it seem like God doesn’t understand justice or doesn’t care about us or our suffering.

However, if we are to believe that the Bible is the Word of God, then it is important we truly understand what it says, even if it is hard to face. And, from my experience, when these intimidating sections of the Bible are faced head on, and are studied within their proper historical, Scriptural, and cultural context, they turn out to be the opposite of what I had feared them to be.

Let’s take a look at one of these difficult topics which is in Deuteronomy 22:28-29 (NIV):

“If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.”

It seems to me that women who have been raped wouldn’t want to marry their rapist. In fact, in many cases having to even be in the same room as their rapist would be a nightmare. So, why would God require them to marry their rapist?

To understand this, we need to understand what a woman who had been raped in 1400 BC (when Deuteronomy was written by Moses) would have been facing in the culture she was living in. 

In their culture if a woman was raped they most likely would never get to get married because marriage was considered a transaction and, according to the men of the time, a woman who wasn’t a virgin had lost her value. Women also needed men to provide for them financially and to keep them safe. So, if a woman was raped and the man who raped her didn’t marry her, then she would most likely be destined to live under her father’s roof for the rest of his life and then a brother’s. If she ended up with neither option she would end up homeless. This is why the consequence for the rapist was to pay her father’s household and to marry her. It is the equivalent of financial restitution in our culture. The man was forced to provide for the woman’s needs for the rest of her life.

“God took rape as seriously as He took murder.”
— Amanda Hovseth

But, to fully understand this situation, we need to understand this law within the context of other laws which the Israelites would have had in mind while adding this law to the mix. Let’s start by looking right before these verses where we will see God’s opinion on rape. He took it as seriously as murder.

Deuteronomy 22:25-27 (NIV) says:

“But if out in the country a man happens to meet a young woman pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die. Do nothing to the woman; she has committed no sin deserving death. This case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor, for the man found the young woman out in the country, and though the betrothed woman screamed, there was no one to rescue her.”

This part of the law shows us that God views rape as a sin worthy of execution. And the only difference between the situation in these verses and the one in the next, is the fact that this woman was already betrothed to be married and had someone to provide for her, while the other wasn’t betrothed and may not have anyone to provide for her. The rapist’s life is spared in the second situation solely because the woman’s life depended on him providing for her.

As the Christian Research Institute says:

“If the woman was not engaged, the rapist was spared for the sake of the woman’s security. Having lost her virginity, she would have been deemed undesirable for marriage—and in the culture of the day, a woman without a father or husband to provide for her faced a life of abject poverty, destitution, and social ostracism. As such, the rapist was compelled to provide for the rape victim for as long as he lived. Thus, far from barbaric, the law was a cultural means of protection and provision.”

Furthermore, this law would have been understood in addition to the law in Exodus which they had already been given by God through Moses years earlier. 

Exodus 22:16-17 (NIV) says:

“If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride-price, and she shall be his wife. If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he must still pay the bride-price for virgins.”

So, the Israelites would have understood that the woman didn’t have to marry the man who raped her. The man was legally required to marry the woman, but the woman wasn’t legally required to marry him, she had that as an option, but she could take a different path. If she had a father and he could provide for her, or if there was the potential for a different husband, then her father could refuse to have her marry the man who raped her. And the rapist still had to pay the bride price in order to make restitution and to provide for the woman’s future. So, even if her father wasn’t wealthy she could potentially stay in his household instead of getting married, but still be provided for financially.

However, if the woman had no other options for her future, no father, and no other potential husbands, then in most cases, the only way she could survive was to become the wife of the man who raped her, forcing him to provide and care for her for the rest of their lives.

“The law was not designed to force the rape victim into an unbearable marriage, but to secure her future and that of her children.”
— The Christian Research Institute

With all of this in mind it is clear that God’s heart when it comes to these laws was with the women. His desire was to make sure the women who had been wronged wouldn’t end up dying destitute and homeless because of what had been done to them. This means that even though it wasn’t God’s desire for women to have to live completely dependent on men who had hurt them, He understood that, realistically, this was what the women in 1400 BC were facing. So, God wrote His laws accordingly, to make sure the women were provided for the best they could be within their society’s culture and that the men took responsibility for their actions.

Yes, it’s clearly not ideal. Through the context of the Bible, we see that God makes it clear that the ideal would be the sinless world He intended, but humans “muddied the waters”. And, instead of giving up on us–like God as an all-powerful being could have easily done–God decided to walk with us through the mess we create, trying to guide us to best possible outcomes amongst the mess, and then He even redeemed us through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross so that someday we can live the painless ideal reality which He desires for us.

“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” - Revelation 21:4 (KJV)

This series of blog posts titled, “Holding on to Reason”, is named after Amanda’s favorite C.S. Lewis quote: “Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”

Click here for more things written by Amanda Hovseth.

What will Heaven be Like?

I’ve been contemplating Heaven and what it will be like.

“Heaven” by John Pitre

This week I’ve got two pairs of friends in town–two married couples and their kids. Each of these friends have been some of the closest friends I’ve ever had. There have been times in my life that each of them were privy to every single thing going on in my life and vice versa. And each of these friendships were built on the foundation of our love of Christ.

There are various reasons why there is distance between us at this point in our lives and the primary one is literal distance. They all live elsewhere now. And, while we’ve kept in touch, it’s still not the same as sharing our literal physical lives together–going to the same church, getting together for holidays, etc. Nevertheless the places they hold in my heart are still the same places of high esteem, honor, and love; and, I’m pretty sure the same is true of me in theirs. 

Last night we were all sitting around a kitchen table, one we used to sit around years ago, back when our adult lives were just beginning. Their kids were running around playing together, and all I could think was…this…this is it. This is what Heaven will be like.

Then I realized…not quite…there are still so many people missing. People who have passed away already. Friends who aren’t really friends anymore, separated by disagreement or the steady fading of connections through time. Family who just physically weren’t there at the moment. 

I began to imagine what it would be like to have everyone I love and have loved and will love together. To hear the ruckus of multiple enthusiastic conversations, the layers of laughter, the reminiscing of our memories together. To see all of their joyful smiles, to watch their silly gestures as they tell stories. To know they are all safe and with me right now and forever more. That is Heaven. That is what Heaven will be like.

I long for that day, when I will be reunited with my brothers and sisters in Christ, together in paradise. 

As C.S. Lewis said in his book “The Weight of Glory, “Apparently, then, our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be both glory and honour beyond all our merits and also the healing of that old ache.”

That is what we have to look forward to, what we will gain if we’ve accepted Christ’s sacrifice as our own, and what others who are still planning on earning their own way into Heaven, have to lose. That is why it is so vitally important that we tell our loved ones about God’s love for them and about Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross (John 3:16-18).

Click these options for more information about how to get to Heaven: 

I desperately pray for the salvation of everyone I care about who hasn’t yet accepted Christ as their Savior. 

Please remember to tell everyone you can about Jesus. I promise to do my best to reach the circle of people around me, the one’s God brings into my life. Please join me in reaching the ones He brings into yours. Together we can build a wonderful family.

As C.S. Lewis described at the end of “The Chronicles of Narnia” in the book, “The Last Battle”, “...and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

Brothers and Sisters in Christ, we have glorious joy to look forward to.

This series of blog posts titled, “Holding on to Reason”, is named after Amanda’s favorite C.S. Lewis quote: “Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”

Click here for more things written or transcribed by Amanda Hovseth.

Election Day: Feeling Alone When Loved Ones Vote Differently Than You

Click here to listen to the audio version of this blog post.

As I write this it is Election Day and I am struggling to maintain my angst and frustration. 

Leading up to this day I have interviewed a few people on the radio who have talked about how there are said to be millions of Christians who don’t bother to vote. This fact drives me crazy. I will never understand that choice and the fact that fellow believers are making it gives me the unmistakable feeling of being out on the front lines and glancing around me only to find out I am here alone.

Now, am I really out here alone? No. 

Am I even really on the frontlines? Not really, not compared to so many others. I’m just voting, it’s not even like I’m running for office. 

Have there been times I haven’t voted? Yes, once, because I wasn’t physically able to get back to my hometown to vote. But, when people live right down the street from their polling place and they don’t have to fight their way through some sort of militia to get there, I don’t understand how they can avoid doing something so easy. Especially because there have been and are people who have fought and died for the right to vote. They’ve sacrificed to make it easy for us, and some people are just like…, “Nah, no thanks.”

I’m not delusional, I know that one vote in a sea of millions can seem futile. But that’s how so many things in life work which are still worth doing. One step may seem futile, but without a bunch of single steps we wouldn’t be able to walk anywhere. One hour of work may seem like barely a drop in the bucket towards paying your bills, but without every single ‘one hour’ you’d have nothing at the end of the month. You can’t create a ‘bunch’ without a bunch of ‘ones’.

I also know that many people are skeptical about our votes being fairly counted. I too am skeptical about that. But, if they aren’t, then me voting doesn’t hurt anything and at least I tried. However, if they are counted fairly and I didn’t vote, then I messed up. So, the better gamble is to do what is in my power and vote.

Alas, I know people won’t be able to read this in time for me to try to convince them to vote in this election, so that is not why I am writing this.

“I am writing this for anyone who feels like their soul is being crushed by the people they expected to help them fight these battles but who have instead decided to turn a blind eye to them.”
— Amanda Hovseth

Instead, I am writing this for anyone out there who is struggling with the same thing I am at the moment. Anyone who knows people they care about who for some reason couldn’t be bothered to care enough to go cast a simple vote against the horrors which keep us up at night. Anyone who has that same churning in their stomach that they’ve come to associate with the desperation for people to just understand the importance of some things in this world. Anyone who feels like their soul is being crushed by the people they expected to help them fight these battles but who have instead decided to turn a blind eye to them.

What if that person causing this distress is your friend, your sibling, your parent, or even your spouse? Maybe you can’t help but think, “I don’t think I’d have married them if I knew they wouldn’t care about these things that are vitally important to our way of life.” Or, “I’d rather skip family get-togethers than have to pretend like I’m not bothered by my siblings’ indifference.”

To you, my fellow ball of distress, I say the same thing God so aptly made sure I heard this morning on the radio during the Focus on the Family Minute: 

“You didn’t marry the wrong person, you’re looking in the wrong place. You’re trying to find life from a person, from a job, from an amount of money, it’s never going to satisfy you. You have to look vertical, that’s the whole point. Look to God instead of your spouse to find fulfillment.”

God is still there, look to him instead of your spouse, your parent, your sibling, your friend.

At least for me, a huge part of that twisting in my gut is the fear of being alone in an important fight. The fear of feeling like I am screaming into a void and no one is there to hear or to care. The fear of looking to my left and right and finding out I am all alone…but I shouldn’t be looking left or right, I should be looking vertical. I should be looking to God, because God is always there.

Slowly, as I am reminded of that truth, the churning in my gut always begins to settle. The angst against people I love begins to fade. And the fear which was threatening to engulf me, disappears.

As God reminds us in Psalm 46:10 (NIV), “Be still, and know that I am God.”

Everyone is on their own journey, facing their own struggles, and growing at their own pace. Let’s give the people we love–and even those we only kind of like a little–the benefit of the doubt.

Yes, talk to them about the important things, about how you feel about their indifference, about how you wish you had their support, but do it from a place of love, not fear or anger. After all, it’s not them who will guide the course of history, that task is God’s alone.

I’m going to sign off for now, but I want to leave you with this: when I’m feeling really angsty about world events I take a moment to read Job 38 to be reminded of just how awe inspiring and powerful God is, and it puts my mind back in its safe little place under God’s “wing”.

Here’s just a little snippet of it to get you started:

Job 38:4 (NLT), “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, then, if you know so much.”

This series of blog posts titled, “Holding on to Reason”, is named after Amanda’s favorite C.S. Lewis quote: “Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”

Click here for more things written or transcribed by Amanda Hovseth.

Does God Exist? (a list and short summary of the most common arguments for God's Existence)

This is just a simple brush through of the most commonly used arguments for God’s existence. The descriptions here are as basic and simple as I could make them and each of these areguements are way deeper and more complex than appears here.

Every human mind is different. We each understand certain things better than other things. The purpose of this list is for you to see which one sparks interest in your mind. You can use this list as a diving board as you delve deeper into the studies surrounding whichever thought process appeals the most to you.

The Cosmological Argument

Something must have caused everything else.

Everything that happens has a cause and that thing has a cause and that thing has a cause—>does this go on forever?

It’s not possible for this to go on forever. At some point there needs to be a first cause of everything else, there needs to be an unmoved mover, an uncaused causer, an unchanged changer. 

William Blake ”The Ancient of Days”

This uncaused, causer needs to be:

  • Eternal because if it ever stops or starts existing that’s change and it can’t do that.

  • Outside the universe because everything inside the universe is caused. 

  • All-powerful because if it can’t be moved but it can move everything else then it is all-powerful. 

This is what we would call God.


Another way to explain this idea goes as follows:

In Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy, act and potency are terms that describe the relationship between being and change:

Everything is a mixture of “act” (meaning what it is) and potency (meaning what it could be).

Act: What a thing is in the present moment.

Potency: What a thing could potentially be.

For example, an oak tree's act is its color, density, branches, and it has the potential (potency) to become a table, firewood, or a child's toy.

So if you eat an apple you are actualizing its potency to be eaten, but you also are a mixture of act and potency. For example you have the potential to be strong but you’re not, every time something changes you it’s actualizing a potency in you.

Anytime a change happens you have one thing actualizing another, but if you follow all the actualizing events back in time, you either have to go back for eternity, never stopping, or you will have to eventually come across an unactualized actualizer. That’s what we call God. 

  • God is a being that is pure Act, meaning He already is everything He could be. So, He has to be eternal because if He is not then He has the potential to not exist, but there is no potential in God, so He has to have always existed. 

  • Also, if God is already everything He could be then no one can do anything to Him because that would cause Him to change, so He has to be all-powerful, making it impossible for anyone to do anything to Him.

The Moral Argument

This argument claims that God's transcendent character is the source of morals.

People often disagree on what is right and what is wrong (i.e. abortion, cannibalism, the death penalty, etc.). Everyone thinks they have the moral high ground. But, for the moral high ground to even exist—in order for there to be an answer to these disagreements—an ultimate right and a wrong—there has to be something outside of us all—something above us, greater than us—some sort of higher power determining what is right and wrong (a moral lawgiver determining objective morality).

This higher power is God.

  1. Good and Bad (objective morality) are real. When people are honest with themselves, at the core of our being we know there is a right and a wrong (otherwise it’s might makes right, or survival of the fittest and we would have no right to tell anyone they are wrong for anything they do).

  2. For right and wrong to exist, a higher power declaring what they are has to exist.

  3. That higher power is what people consider to be God. So, therefore, God is real.

Teleological

Stuff in the universe seems to have a purpose so that means the universe must have had a designer.

  • If  you found a machine lying around you would assume that someone designed the machine.

  • The universe works like a machine so somebody must have designed the universe.

  • Things in nature, like the human cell or the ecosystem of the world, are very complex and they work like a machine.

  • Darwinian evolution can claim to try to explain why that is, but there are other things it definitely can’t explain like the four constants of the universe:

  • Gravitational Constant

  • Electron Charge

  • Strong Nuclear Force

  • Weak Nuclear Force

These are perfectly fine-tuned–if there were even the slightest bit of difference the universe would immediately collapse in on itself. The way evolution works is these all would have had to build to perfection with time and random mutations. But, the reality is if any of these universal constants existed alone or at a slightly different state than they are, nothing would exist at all. They had to come into existence fully formed and functional in just the right way at just the right time.

This is the argument of “Irreducible Complexity” which states that things cannot exist at a less complex state.

Evolution requires things to have existed at a less complex state. So, evolution cannot be true and things had to be created complete in all their complexity. This argument works on smaller scales as well with things like animals, the human eye, or even human cells.

Transcendental

Without God nothing can make sense at all. God's unchanging nature is the foundation for the laws of logic, which are necessary for deductive reasoning.

There are a lot of things we assume but can’t prove scientifically, some of these things are necessary conditions for knowledge and experience.

For example, there are basic assumptions we need to make to do science:

  • Logic works

  • There’s consistency in the natural world

  • Truth exists

We can’t prove these things scientifically and yet we need them to be true to do any science.

These things all make sense if we presuppose a worldview where God exists, because we can say these things are set up by God.

If God doesn’t exist then we have no justification for the things we assume, it would be impossible to prove anything because universal laws cannot be justified or accounted for in an atheistic world, and everything just collapses.

Ontological

God exists because of the way He is. If you can imagine the ideal of something, it must exist.

God is defined as “that of which nothing greater can be conceived”. That means God must be:

  • All-powerful–because it’s greater than having limited power

  • All-knowing–because it’s greater than having limited knowledge

  • All-good–because it’s greater than being flawed

  • Exist–because existing is greater than not existing 

Let’s take a look at how this is described by princeton.edu:

(1) Suppose that God exists in the understanding alone (people understand that the concept of an all-powerful God exists but they don’t believe He actually exists).

(2) Given our definition, this means that a being than which none greater can be conceived exists in the understanding alone.

(3) But this being can be conceived to exist in reality. That is, we can conceive of a circumstance in which theism is true, even if we do not believe that it actually obtains.

(4) But it is greater for a thing to exist in reality than for it to exist in the understanding alone.

(5) Hence we seem forced to conclude that a being than which none greater can be conceived can be conceived to be greater than it is.

(6) But that is absurd.

(7) So (1) must be false. God must exist in reality as well as in the understanding.

This reading of the argument is amply confirmed by the final paragraph:

Therefore, if that than which nothing greater can be conceived exists in the understanding alone, the very being than which nothing greater can be conceived is one than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Hence there is no doubt that there exists a being than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality.

Mind/Consciousness

This isn’t exactly an argument for God but it is an argument for the human soul because it says you need something immaterial to explain consciousness. 

Consciousness cannot be explained by the natural world.

The atheist explanation of consciousness is that our brain is a very advanced biological machine, but unlike our minds, machines can be reduced to their parts. Our brain can be reduced to its brain cells but that’s not the same as our experiences of consciousness. For example: you could find the part of our brain that sees the color yellow but that’s not the same as the experience of seeing yellowness. 

You cannot study consciousness scientifically because one can only observe one’s own consciousness.  For example there is no way to know if we all see the same colors.

A single atom is not conscious. Two atoms are not conscious. A bunch of atoms are not conscious. So even if you have a complex system, it’s still just a complex arrangement of atoms which aren't conscious.

So where does consciousness come from? It has to be supernatural.

Personal Experience

I’ve seen God do something so I believe He exists.

  • Supernatural Experiences

  • Answered Prayers

  • “Coincidences”

These types of arguments are good for convincing oneself, but not good for convincing other people. There are exceptions to this, however. For example: if someone really trusts you as a friend/mentor/parent, then your opinion and experiences may actually mean more to them than anything else. But, even if you open the door to their relationship with God by using your personal experiences, you shouldn’t leave them with only that. They will need to start building their own personal foundation of knowledge about why they believe in God as well in order for them to continue standing strong in the future.

Don’t underestimate the importance of this in your own life. Keeping track of the ways you know God has helped you in your life gives you a solid foundation to fall back on when life gets hard.

Pascal’s Wager

(more of a thought experiment than an argument)

This is the idea that if you’re going to “gamble” on your eternity, choosing to believe in God is the better/safer bet.

  • If you’re an atheist and atheism turns out to be correct, then you don’t really gain or lose anything.

  • If you’re an atheist and atheism turns out to be wrong, then you may lose everything for all eternity.

  • If you believe in God and it turns out atheism is correct, then you still don’t gain or lose anything.

  • If you believe in God and God is real, then you could gain everything for all eternity. 

So, between these two possibilities, which one do you want to bet on?

The worst case scenario for a theist is that nothing happens to them in the end, while the worst case scenario for the atheist is that they suffer punishment for all eternity. Meanwhile, the best case scenario for the theist is that they exist in paradise for all eternity, while the best case scenario for the atheist is that nothing happens to them.

Believing in God gives you a much better chance at getting the best outcome while avoiding the worst outcome, so it is better for you to believe in God.

Math

There’s an infinite reality higher than our physical universe which determined how our physical universe functions and math is one of those set functions.

(This is a combination of the Intelligent Design argument, the Irreducible Complexity argument, and the “supernatural things we can’t explain naturally” argument.)

There’s basic math which isn’t all that special.

For example the number 5 corresponds to five kittens and five times two correspond to two groups of five kittens.

Then there’s advanced math and the more you get into advanced math the more it starts to get disconnected from our physical world. And, yet, it still works.

For example: there’s real numbers which correspond to real things, but there are also imaginary numbers that are just as mathematically real but don’t correspond to the real world. But they still exist mathematically even though they don’t exist in the real world.

Let’s look at two specific equations which are argued to be proof of God’s existence:

1) Euler’s Identity:

5 Most Important Numbers in Mathematics:

  • 1 (basis for all real numbers)

  • 0 (necessary for doing algebra)

  • i (basis for all imaginary numbers)

  • e (important for doing exponential functions)

  • Pie (necessary for doing math with circles)

All these numbers are seemingly unrelated to each other but they fit together in the equation named “Euler’s Identity”.

This equation was discovered by Euler–one of the greatest mathematicians in history–and he saw this as proof that math was created by God.

2) The Mandelbrot Set:

Set= a collection of elements with a common defined property.

  • In most sets, some numbers are included while others are excluded (i.e. an even numbers set, an odd numbers set, a negative numbers set).

  • In some sets you can easily tell if a number belongs just by looking at it, other sets are more complicated than that, like the Mandelbrot Set.

The Mandelbrot Set also includes the “complex” and “imaginary” numbers.

The Mandelbrot Set is generated by a simple equation in the complex plane but it produces infinite detail. You can keep zooming in on the shape it creates and it'll keep showing more and more complexity even though no human designed this.

It is infinite and not found anywhere in our universe, so whatever created it needed to be infinite and not from our universe. 

Evidential

Giving Evidence of Supernatural Events

This method obviously includes all other methods, but I included it in order to cover a few more reasons to believe in God which haven’t been pointed out yet. (Note: this is not even close to an extensive list of the Evidential proofs for God’s existence, just a small taste)

Historical Example:

Roman Sleptsuk, The Resurrection

(Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Christ” Series; Gary Habermas “The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus”, etc.)

Archaeological Evidence:

Scientific Examples: 

Supernatural Evidence:

  • Demonic/Angelic Encounters

  • Near Death/Temporarily Dead Experiences

For even more information about why you should believe in God, visit our “Why Should I Accept What the Bible Has to Say?” page which answers the question “Why Should I Believe God Exists?” along with many other related questions.

(Just Click Here.)

Click here for a printable version of this to hand out.

This series of blog posts titled, “Holding on to Reason”, is named after Amanda’s favorite C.S. Lewis quote: “Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”

Click here for more things written by Amanda Hovseth.

How to Lead Someone to Christ (Part 4 of 4)

Transcribed from Sermons by Bruce Peterson at Grace Chapel in Scottsbluff, NE. The video of this sermon can be found by clicking this link.

For a printable list of the primary verses to use when sharing the Gospel via this method, click on this link.

Click here for “How to Lead Someone to Christ (Part 1).

Click here for “How to Lead Someone to Christ (Part 2).

Click here for “How to Lead Someone to Christ (Part 3).

Good morning Grace Chapel! We are on week four of “How to Lead Someone to Christ.”

This is a fun week. This week we get to tell them the results of believing in Jesus. There are so many passages you could go to to talk about the benefits of what happens when you believe. The list is…like 25 things happen instantly the second you believe, the second you put your trust in Christ, the second you understand what God has accomplished through his Son for us.

We are not going to go through that whole list; I don't go through that whole list when someone first believes it would be overwhelming.

That's really the journey of our whole Christian life—to learn what happened at salvation and to learn to walk in it. That's learning to walk by faith, it's a journey. But there are some things that are really important right up front that they need to know.

As you think through passages in Ephesians…the whole book of Ephesians really, it says, “You know you've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ,” and then Paul begins to enumerate them.

Colossians is also full of them…really, all the books are, but we are going to stay in Romans for this week.

But, whatever your favorite ones are, the basic idea is that you are trying to get them to understand that salvation is not just something about the future, it's not about only going to Heaven and not going to Hell, it's not only about experiencing the promises of God and avoiding the wrath of God, it's about right now.

I think it’s Peter who says (correction: 1 John 3:2), “Behold now we are sons of God.”

We don't know what we're going to be like in the future. We know we're gonna be like Jesus when we see Him. We're gonna see him face to face. But, “Behold now we are sons of God.”

If I could say there's one struggle in the Christian life that all the New Testament authors are going to appropriate and try to give to their audiences—it’s: now, right now, your whole status has changed. You're now a Son of God. You're now on team Jesus. You're an ambassador. You now have a mission. The work of your salvation is done.

That's the big idea: the work of your salvation is done. Stop worrying about that and now only worry about growing. Only worry about the mission. Step into your faith. God's promises are real and they're true and they're dynamic and they’re essential for life and faith and growth.

Without faith it's impossible to please God. What is faith? It's believing the promises. It's taking God at his word and acting like it.

Faith is demonstrable. Do you have faith in a bridge? Then you'll walk over it. If you have faith in the promises of God, you will walk in them.

So, let's back up a little bit…When I try to lead someone to Christ there's four phases of the conversation, and I really want to engage every single phase of that conversation.

The first phase

Put the weight of Holiness right on them.

No one no one is declared righteous in God's sight by works of the law. No one can even pass the two big commandments:

Moses and The Ten Commandments - Artwork4Jesus

Commandment 1) Love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength.

There's no one no one who loves God with all their passions, with all their effort, with all their energy, with all their thoughts, with all their life, no one does it, nobody.

You can lay yourself out as the sacrificial lamb when you're having that conversation (pointing out how you, personally can’t do it) and the person across from you is probably not that much better than you. If you crush yourself in front of them they will feel crushed too. “We’re equals in this, we’re good people, but we don’t measure up to God.”

Commandment 2) Love your neighbors yourself.

Again, nobody loves their neighbors as themselves. When Jesus was asked who's your neighbor, He said every single person who is in need is your neighbor. We do not meet other people's needs the same way we meet our own. We just don't. We might help somebody a little, but we don't give them half of our stuff. We don't love our neighbors the same way we love ourselves, not if you consider your neighbor to be everyone who has need.

The Law crushes us. Put the weight of Holiness on their shoulders, that's the first phase of the conversation.

The second phase

Take the weight of Holiness and put it on Jesus.

Jesus does love people. He does meet their need. He's going to go to the cross. He's innocent and yet He's going to pay the price for everyone. He isn't just loving them as Himself, He's not splitting what He has, He's taking all of God's wrath on Himself and giving us all of God's righteousness. Jesus can bear the weight of Holiness and we cannot. That's why He is a great Savior.

Make Jesus big, big, big!

The third phase

How how do I get it?

Jesus Walking on Water- ReverentReflections

By faith. We have to believe.

We have to understand what God is accomplishing on the cross. We have to understand our need and how Jesus saves us and then we have to appropriate it to ourselves.

We have to make a decision: do I want to trust it? Do I want to put my eggs in Jesus's basket? Do I want to put my hope in the anchor that God provides? If God tells me He provided a sacrifice for me, do I want to believe it?

Faith, faith, faith, that is the third one.

The Fourth Phase

We want to help them move forward.

Salvation isn’t just “check the box, I'm going to Heaven, phew”. At the cross every single thing changes:

New Creation in Christ - PropheticVessel

  • Who we are

  • Our relationship with God

  • The purpose of our life

  • How we view suffering and trials

  • How we see other people, etc.

Paul says, “God's love compels me. I no longer look at people the way the world sees people, I see them as a mission.”

Everything about our life is supposed to change. We're now citizens of Heaven and we're no longer citizens of this Earth. We're supposed to live as aliens and strangers and we are now intimately related to God.

So, I want to explain some of this stuff to them. Let's jump into some texts and we'll walk right through it. They're amazing. They're all out of Romans, because you could overwhelm someone at this point and that's not the goal.

Let’s start with Romans 5:1-5 and walk them through it.

Romans 5:1-5 (NIV)

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

You want to point out that these verses are written in past tense. You have been justified through faith when you believe.

What does it mean to say you “believed it”? If this makes sense to you and you have chosen to put your trust in the work of Jesus.

Then the results are spoken of in past tense.

You have been justified. Justified means to be declared innocent. It means to have no books, no guilt, nothing, no debt to God.

Therefore, since we have been (past tense) justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

Always With You- WorshipInk

He's at peace with me now; no longer an agent of wrath; no longer against me; no longer punishing me. I can't get on His wrong side. I have been past tense declared innocent.

People who are innocent before God have ‘present tense’ peace. I have peace with God through Jesus. Jesus accomplished continuing peace. Peace today, peace tomorrow, peace a month from now, peace a hundred years from now, peace ten thousand years from now. That peace doesn't start when I die and go to Heaven, that peace starts at the moment of belief.

The unbeliever sees God as wrathful and judgmental and out to get them and out to punish them for their failures and sins. For a believer that is no longer true; we have peace with God through Jesus Christ.

All we do is have faith; all we do is believe. In the text, those are the two things we do, God does all the rest of the work.

through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.

We stand.

Our standing—our state—before God is grace.

What is grace? Everything Jesus accomplished for me on the cross; all the promises of God from the cross: that I am in Him, that I am safe, that I am forgiven, that I am a Son of God.

I now stand in all of these promises.

Remember when we were in point number three? Ephesians chapter 2: saved by faith.

Ephesians 2:1-9 (NIV)

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.

Everyone starts as an object of wrath; we started in wrath. Romans 3 said:

Romans 3:9-20 (NIV)

What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. As it is written:

“There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

“Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.”

“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”

“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”

“Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.”

“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.

Thomas Blackshear FORGIVEN

No one is justified before God, all have sinned, all have walked away, all have become worthless.

But, we now stand in grace. Our standing is now totally in Christ. I am in Christ. When God sees me He sees the finished work of the cross. When He sees me He sees His son dressed in Jesus' clothes. That's outrageous!

How did all of that come true? Faith, faith, faith. It just says it again and again. That's the beauty of these verses in Romans 5, they reinforce the previous points all the way through.

Look how verses 3, 4, and 5 go on:

And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.

Paul is saying here that our entire perspective on life can now change.

“Suffering is not promised to go away for a believer. We’re going to suffer just the same as the world. We’re in a world of sin. We are the light in that world but we’re, nonetheless, still in this world that that we brought sin into.”
— Bruce Peterson

An unbeliever doesn't see…and God doesn't use suffering in an unbeliever's life the same way. With suffering in an unbeliever's life, they're suffering in the world.

A Light in The Dark - Tummymountain

Suffering is not promised to go away for a believer. We're going to suffer just the same as the world. We're in a world of sin. We are the light in that world but we're, nonetheless, still in this world that we brought sin into. We are the light and hope drawing people out but we're in the world with them so of course we're going to suffer. That goes away in Heaven, but for now we're going to suffer.

But, notice that in our suffering we now have a totally different perspective. Because God is no longer an enemy, now He's a friend. He's no longer treating me with wrath, He's now treating me with grace. The sufferings I go through are now trials or opportunities for me to lean into the promises of God.

I can lean into God’s promises and go through the struggles and I can still find that God is my friend, that God is with me. Through the suffering I'm finding areas in my life where I'm not trusting God and I can lean in to God—who is the Good Shepherd—who also suffered for me, who understands suffering, who understands the cruelty and the injustices of this world.

I can remember that the God who loves me is with me and He is wanting me to be light in the midst of the struggle so that I can give hope to other people in the midst of their struggle. In the end all of it gets made well, all of it gets redone, all of it gets rewarded on my behalf.

All of life's struggles get changed because I've now entered into a relationship with God. The spiritual has been made visible to me and I am able to be used in a totally different way and view my life in a totally different way than before I knew God.

And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

I have changed; I have shifted. What is this grace in which I now stand? I now stand in the love of God.

Paul's going to lean into this in Romans chapter 8 when he says, “Who can separate us from the love of God?”

I now stand in the love of God. I am now a child of God and his relationship with me is that of a child which he is raising up. My sin is not counted against me any longer but that doesn't mean I am mature.

I like to use this illustration: When a human baby gets born they are fully human but they are not mature in any sense. In zero sense are they mature but they are fully human. They're not going to become more human later in life, but they are going to mature. They're going to be able to walk as a successful human being. That's exactly how the Bible talks about us, about maturity.

Jesus is going to talk about salvation with the euphemism of being born again. You start as an infant and the goal is to put on the full armor; to put on Christ; to put on the Word.

I'm supposed to learn to use the weapons of righteousness that I've been given. God is now going to work in my life maturing me and as I mature in Christ I will put off sin and I will put on righteousness because I will mature in my spiritual growth.

How does that all work? Through the Holy Spirit who is given to us like Ephesians 1 says.

Ephesians 1:13-14 (NIV)

And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

When you believed you were marked in him with the promised Holy Spirit who is a seal guaranteeing your inheritance until that day comes. We now have God living in our chest. I have I've been justified. I have peace with God. I stand in Grace. I walk in the love of God and I have God in my chest.

That's what happened and; therefore, I can have a totally new perspective on my life; on my struggles; on how I relate to people in life; and on the worries of this life. All have radically shifted because of Christ.

It's an amazing passage and you can literally take the entire afternoon talking to someone about all those truths, but the goal isn't to bring them to full knowledge on these subjects, the goal is to get them inspired. For them to go, “Oh wow I should look into this stuff.”

You're not teaching them a theology class, that would last forever. That's what church is for. This conversation is to inspire them to learn more about this because it's not just salvation, it's something even more awesome.

All right, let's jump to Romans 8:1-4. Paul has accomplished a lot of work through Romans, but, again, we can't teach everything, so we're just trying to show them that everything has changed at the moment of Salvation.

Romans 8:1-4 (NIV)

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Archangel Gabriel Recording in the Book of Life -Michael Rucker

“Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” No condemnation. Not now, not later, not when we die, not at the Great White Throne Judgment.

We will have a name in The Book of Life; we will not have books, they've been taken away. Like Colossians 2 said, everything written down that stood against us got nailed to the cross. It got taken away. Jesus triumphed over it. I now stand in peace. I now stand in Grace. I've been declared justified. I'm innocent before God who took my wrath away.

Where did the Wrath go? Jesus took it. It was nailed to Him on the cross. Jesus took our sin.

Paul sums that up in 2 Corinthians five:

2 Corinthians 5:21

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

But here in Romans he's kind of going a little slower.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.

We get the spirit who gives life.

What's the law of the Spirit? This is the promised Holy Spirit this is life in Christ Jesus.

What's the law of sin and death? The Ten Commandments: love the Lord your God with all your heart soul, mind, and strength; love your neighbors as yourself; have no other gods before me; tell no lies; have no lust.

The law crushes you.

For what the law was powerless to do…

What do we need? Holiness. The Law, though it itself is holy—it’s a demonstration of holiness—it didn't have the power to make me holy.

Why? Because I don't have the willpower to obey it and neither do you.

For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh,

The flesh is me. I can’t follow the Law. I can't do it. I can't and neither can you.

The Law was powerless to  make us holy; to give us a way back to God. And because we couldn't do it, God did it by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful men to be a sin offering.

The Law couldn't get me back to God; make me holy; make me acceptable; get me access to Heaven; get my get my books taken away. The Law couldn't do it. The law is actually a record of how I break the Law. That's what the books which record our actions are. The books can't help me; the Law can't help me. But God wants to give us help.

For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.

So what the Law couldn't do, God accomplished by sending Jesus.

What is the Law? What I should do. How I should be holy. My holiness, or the expectations of my holiness. That's what the Law is.

Jesus is my holiness. I get credit for Him. That's why it's Grace. We don't stand in performance or effort, we stand in grace. It’s what God accomplished for me by sending Jesus.

That's a crazy gift. It's the gift of God.

And so he condemned sin in the flesh,

Jesus is flesh and He defeated sin on the cross.

in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us,

What are the righteous requirements of the Law? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbors as yourself. And 611 more laws. All of them.

in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us,

Wow, wow! Who's the “us”? Those who are in Christ Jesus.

There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

How do I get in Jesus? By faith, trust, promise, follow,—whatever word you want to use—born again, citizen of Heaven. I have “thrown my eggs into the basket of Jesus”. I have I have aligned myself with Christ.

And when I did that—the moment I believed—Paul says in Ephesians:

Ephesians 1:13-14 (NIV)

Divine Encounter, The Conversation Between Jesus and Nicodemus- EternalLightPrints

And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

The minute I believe these things become true of me. They didn’t happen when I believed, they happened on the cross, but they get credited to me when I believe by faith. I get credit for it.

Let's go further down in the Romans chapter:

Romans 8:15-17 (NIV)

The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

This passage is talking about our new relationship with God. We were by nature objects of wrath. By nature, who we are, our relationship to God, we're condemned. We have books that are bringing wrath. That's who we were before we got saved.

When we get saved there’s no more fear. Fear is gone.

1 John 4:18 (NIV)

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

Perfect love casts out fear because fear has to do with judgment. We do not live in fear now. The Spirit you receive does not make you slaves so that you live in fear again; it's not just a different kind of fear. This is release from fear.

Back to Romans:

rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.

Let's stop there for a second because it's really important to understand this word here : “adoption”.

In the West in 2023 people would rather be a natural born kid than an adopted child. Adoption is awesome. It’s powerful; it's meaningful. I'm not trying to minimize it at all. But there's an insecurity about adoption in our day, I assume. I'm not adopted so maybe I'm wrong. But I presume that there's some insecurity that comes with that. Some unknowing; some some instability.

In the Roman world it was different. They had a pretty low view of human life and not a lot of birth control. So if you had a kid and you didn't want that kid you would take that kid and put it out in the field.

The early church is actually known for rescuing those children and raising them themselves, which is a great testimony to us.

But, until the family deemed them wanted and human they had no rights and could be left out in the field for the for the animals. It was pretty tragic.

In that world they had a totally different idea of adoption.

Your natural born child you couldn't really prevent and you couldn't really decide between girl or boy; blue eyes or dark eyes; curly hair or straight hair; whatever. You didn't get to choose any of it. The kid just just came

Jesus with Child - PatriotToday

Adoption on the other hand has the parent’s full intent. It’s fully obvious that right up front, “I am choosing that child there to be mine. That one right there is mine now. I am choosing to adopt it.”

So once you adopted a child in this culture it was yours forever; you couldn't disown it later, you couldn't give it back.

Adoption was a statement of security. Your parent wanted you. They chose you out of the whole “nursery” full of kids. They chose you and they want you. It also brought legal security that a natural child didn't have.

On some level that makes sense because, “I'm choosing you, so I don't get to give you back.”

God wrote these verses with that culture as the primary audience. That's what it's like when we become His child. He is choosing us. He intentionally sent Jesus to save us. He knows us and He wants us saved, so He is putting Himself on the hook.

Jesus And The Lost Lamb - InkedInThyme

God is saying, “I have chosen you.” That's why there is no more fear.

What would the fear be over? I can get lost. I can get abandoned. My sin could kick me out. My sin could make God mad and I'd no longer be welcome. No, no, no, no. No more fear.

There's no more insecurity. Insecurity is gone, you are now secure.

And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”

This is a crazy story:

It says “Abba”. Nowhere in the Bible is God the Father called Abba. which is

It is just the common term like “Daddy”. It’s nowhere in the Bible except when Jesus was in the garden.

Moses - Burning Bush - AnimManStudios

If you go back to the Law when God reveals himself to Moses, God says they're supposed to speak the name of God to each other and Yahweh is His name.

But then in the Ten Commandments God says, “Don't use my name in vain.”

So, the Pharisees wanted to protect themselves and were wondering how they could know if they were using God's name in vain. So they just put a fence around that law by adding other laws that said to never use God’s name. It's just safer not to use the name of God.

Even today Jewish people won't even spell the name of God. They'll write “GD”.

Gethsemane - AuroraWallPrints

Jesus totally breaks that in the Garden of Gethsemane when He's at his weakest; when He is suffering the most; when He is bearing the most weight; when He is needing God's comfort the most; Jesus—in that intimate moment, when He is talking to his Abba, to his dad—He is referring to Him out loud as Abba.

“Dad, look at me here man, I need help. I need strength. I need I need you. I need, I need, I need the confidence of those promises to be brought to my mind. I’m going to be dying literally for the sin of the world.”

Jesus is leaning on Abba to help him, to get him through, to remember his promises.

Then Paul says because we are now in Jesus we get that kind of a relationship with God. God is now ‘Abba’ to us.

Pictures of Jesus Christ - UpliftYourFeed

So, it went from ‘Yahweh"‘ and don't use my name in vain to ‘Abba’—dad, dad, dad. The audacity it would take to be so trivial with our unholiness that we would refer to God as Dad.

But, I don't have unholiness. I sin still, I do. But it's on Jesus' account and that breaks my heart. I am immature. I need spiritual growth, but God loves me as a dad. He's in my life hoping that in the struggle of life and in the temptations of life that I don't get waylaid.

Because you believed, now your whole relationship with God is different. He is no longer your enemy. He's now a loving father who's going to help you mature.

Does that mean suffering is going away? Nope, you're still going to suffer. But He's going to walk with you through it. Like David said, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I'll fear no evil because you're with me… (Psalm 23:4)”

You’re relationship with God is totally different. God is no longer your enemy, He's your friend.

Look at this:

The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ…”

Who I am has changed. Who God is to me has changed.

I am no longer an outsider; I am now a family member. I'm no longer a beggar on the curb of Heaven hoping to find a crumb; I am now a co-heir with Christ I have rights. Jesus said, ‘Whoever believes in me has been given the right to be called The Son of God.”

Grace gave me these rights: Real sonship, real relationship, God is obligated to be on my side.

That's awesome! And if that's true, then what would be the consequences of that?

Here's where I'll shift to Romans 8, starting at verse 31.

Romans 8:31-39 (NIV)

“What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;

    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

For the first point, lets focus on the following:

“What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”

God couldn't give anything more than Jesus to save me. God gave it all. No father is just going to offer up a son he loves, his one and only son. God went to the very limit of giving when He gave us His Son to save us.

Now that I'm his child God is going to give us all things for godliness—not all things in the world. I'm not going to just become physically fit. I'm not going to become taller. I'm not going to become richer. Those things are not what we're talking about here. We're talking about way more substantial things than that, not the trivial things of life.

“ If you’re not bold enough to talk to your friends about God, lean into this promise. Just start talking and see if God doesn’t embolden you in that conversation. Just start, take Him at His Word, enter into these conversations with your friends.”
— Bruce Peterson

God is now in my life making me His son, making me into a person He can be proud of and He will give me everything I need for godliness in this life. He will give me everything I need for boldness. If you're not bold enough to talk to your friends about God, lean into this promise. Just start talking and see if God doesn't embolden you in that conversation. Just start, take Him at His Word, enter into these conversations with your friends.

God is never going to be against us. He's not against you; He isn't your enemy; He isn't out to get you. If you get sick it's not because He's punishing you for sin, that's not how it works. Your whole relationship has changed. He is not against you; He's for you.

The proof of this is that He gave you His Son and with that He's going to give you all things.

Here’s the second point:

Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.

Who could bring any charge against us when the Judge, Himself, has declared us innocent.

There's no books left, where would the charge even come from?

Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.

God is for us. God the Father loves us. We're now His son, His heir.

Who's the judge? He is. and he has justified us. More than that, Jesus, the one who caused my justification, is alive in Heaven and His role is to pray for me.

So God already loves me. I'm already His son. He is already on my side. And Jesus is constantly praying to Him about me.

I Am a Child of God — Howard Lyon

That’s pretty good, like a minute ago before this conversation you were an enemy of God deserving of wrath with books stacked up that had your death in mind. You are now innocent, book free, and team Jesus in the family of God. You are an heir of God with God, Himself, living in your chest and your whole life is now on a different trajectory.

This is pretty good stuff, right? That's pretty good. That enough to try to get the person you're talking to to lean into church.

Why go to church if you're already going to Heaven? Why be good if I'm already going to Heaven? Because you have this whole relationship with God which you can develop.

Imagine building a relationship with the God of the universe who wants to change this world through you; who wants to bring life to your circle of influence. You just got saved, yes, but you know lots of people whom you love who aren't saved. You can put this stuff on, you can learn it, and you too can go bring life to those people. You can partner with Jesus in this world.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;

    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Let's slow down. Paul is taking every possibility of being separated from God and putting it there.

Can the heavens, themselves, separate us from God? No. No powers, no demons, no angels.

What about the future? I don't know what's the future holds. The future is this mysterious Pandora's Box. What about the future? What if God changes His mind? What if I fail? What if disaster happens in my life and I panic? What if I begin to lose my mind? What if I get dementia, start cursing God? What if I get angry? What if I become an alcoholic a decade from now? What about the future? No. No, not even the future. Not the present. Not the Future.

…nor any powers, neither height nor depth…

This is spiritual. Not the heavens and not the abyss. There is no dark force, there's no chaos force out there that can come in between the cross and you. The matter is settled, you have been declared innocent. Jesus has taken all your guilt—not just the guilt up to that moment—your whole life got paid for on the cross, all sin for all time with one sacrifice.

Just so you know, if this was one conversation where I was sharing the Gospel in two hours, I'd refer back to Hebrews 10:11-18 (NIV):

Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy…

One time for all time. One sacrifice and we have been made holy. That's this hear:

neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation…

Are you part of creation? You are. And even you cannot separate you from Go. You are now a legal heir with legal rights. You might go sideways. You might become the prodigal son.

The Prodigal Son 2- FrameItStudioCo

What then will the Father do? Cut you off? No. He will look to the horizon and He will work to call you back. You're now His son. He's now in your corner. You might be a wayward son, but He'll pull you back. You might be a strong son and He'll raise you up and use you to change the world.

neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

If you have believed this, then this is now true of you.

The way you pray, the way you see God, the the desires of your heart, the the way you see people, the way that God is in your corner, everything, your confidence in life, it has all changed.

Know that you are loved and accepted and on team Jesus. God is now committed to your maturity and He is going to work through the things in your life to cause you to know the promises and learn the promises and lean on the promises and to put on Christ. God and you are now together on one team.

Your name is in The Book of Life. Your place in Heaven is certain, that's true, but you get way more than that. Your entire relationship with God, starting now and for every day in your future, can be significantly different because you are now His child.

That's how I'll kind of end that. I usually give them a hug and often times I give them the Bible that I used to show them these verses with. I use a real handheld Bible and it's my Bible. I'm happy to buy new Bibles. So, oftentimes I just give them my Bible and I write a note to them in the front. Something like, “You got saved on this day (I put the date) and here's my Bible.” And I add whatever it takes to help them.

Do I do that every single time? No. Do I do it a lot? Yes, I do, and whatever helps to trigger them to believe these promises and to know that their relationship with God is secure.

With that, we have wrapped up Revelation 20:11-15 the Great White Throne Judgement and how I use that passage in leading people to Christ.

Thanks for coming to church today! I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you put it into practice. I hope you're able to lead many many people to Christ. Go in the boldness of Jesus as an ambassador for the light. Go change your world!

This series of blog posts titled, “Holding on to Reason”, is named after Amanda’s favorite C.S. Lewis quote: “Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”

Click here for more things written or transcribed by Amanda Hovseth.

Petitioning the Great Provider: How God answered two of my toughest prayers

Prayer is a pretty amazing thing. 

“He Shall Hear My Voice” by Michael Dudash

The fact that when Jesus died, the veil in the temple was torn, allowing us to enter the Holy of Holies and now we have full access to God is…well, if you think about it, it’s truly audacious of us to request things of our all powerful, all knowing creator. And yet, He wants us to come to Him… it’s incomprehensible really.. 

I am pretty sure I barely understand prayer, but I would like to share a couple things I’ve learned by telling you about one particular night when one of my most urgent prayers was answered and one of my most consistently prayed prayers was realized.

I didn’t say “answered” for that second prayer because it had been being answered for as long as I had been praying it, I just hadn’t liked the answer. But, that night, I realized at least one of the reasons why God had been answering me the way He was.

The night I’m going to tell you about was also one of the worst nights of my life.

by Jeremy Man

My most consistently prayed prayer was one of vanity. From as early as I can remember I struggled with self-image. I have never been small. Even when I was fit, I was still larger than society had me convinced I should be. I wanted to be tiny, to be a wisp of a thing, the kind of girl who could be lifted into the air and spun around by her boyfriend. Instead, I’ve always been built more like a brick wall. 

eating disorder – Sara Prentice

And, no, I didn’t just lay around praying and hoping God would transform my body, I worked hard for it. I honestly worked out almost every day for most of my life since I was in grade school and I’ve always eaten hardly anything. To the extent of ending up with a starvation focused eating disorder. But no matter how much I worked out or how little I ate, I never lost weight, I only ever seemed to gain it.

God could have easily let me lose weight. It wasn’t even like He would have had to give it to me as a gift, I had given up enough and worked hard enough to earn it. He could have even given me a body where I didn’t need to work so hard in the first place. But He didn’t. He kept answering my prayers where I requested a change in body type with a resounding, “No”. And I was consistently just like…but…why not?

You see, the thing is, Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” God knows what bodies we need for the lives we are going to lead and He will stick to His decisions–even when we are begging Him for something different than what we need–because He knows things we don’t know.

“Trapped- Domestic Violence” by Sherrie Thai

So, fast forward to the night of focus. I was 30 years old and married to my first husband, who as it turned out had a lot of hidden psychological issues, which made him dangerous to me and to everyone else in my life. I’m not going to go into detail about all the build up to this day, other than to say there was no doubt in my mind that we were on the road to him ending my life. We were living in the basement of my mom’s house, planning on buying the house from her. But this night sometime in early October–after a truly terrifying evening the day before–I was finally determined to tell my husband he had to find somewhere else to live and we needed to be separated for a bit while we figured out his mental health. 

We were in the garage because that was his space since he liked working on cars. He wasn’t taking what I was saying very well. But, fortunately, in this moment he had decided to try getting me to pity him instead of fear him. I wanted more than anything to find a way to get him to leave the house without things getting violent, because I was worried for my mom who was off in her room, and for my dogs. So, I was comforting him, trying not to escalate things. 

I vividly remember sitting on the cement floor with the head of a man, whom I believed would kill me if I took one wrong move, cradled in my lap as he cried and claimed he had nowhere to go. I was at a loss for what to do next. All I could do was pray.

“Dear God, I need your help. I know you hate divorce, but staying with him is no longer just dangerous to me, it's dangerous to everyone else I care about. I need him out of the house, but I want him to have somewhere safe to go. I don’t know how to make that happen. I need You to make it happen.”

And He did. 

I had believed keeping things from escalating was the way to go, but God knew something else needed to happen. 

We ended up moving to the living room and my mom came out of her room to check on me–because she knew what I was trying to do that night. But, my ex knew having her around would make it harder for him to manipulate me, so he burst into a blind rage and attacked her. 

Fortunately, when it comes to fight or flight, I’m a fighter. He only got one punch in before I was able to get between them. I wrestled with him and eventually got him down onto the couch. 

My mom panicked and hurried to call 911.

After I had gotten him down onto the couch I heard her on the phone telling the cops that he had me in a headlock and I corrected her, “No, I have him.”

But, I almost hadn’t had him. The difference between me being able to hold him down and him getting free, was fractional. 

Break Free Painting by Nicole Troup

I honestly can’t remember most of what happened while I was trying to subdue him. At one point he had even apparently pulled out a huge chunk of my hair, but I don’t really remember that happening. However, I do remember one moment vividly. When I was on top of him on the couch, he almost threw me off of him and I knew that if he did manage to do that, he would grab the nearest weapon and things would get so much worse. 

So, I buckled down and made sure the weight of my entire body was on top of him. And in that moment, it clicked, I needed every bit of strength I had, and every single pound of weight I had in order to keep him down. And I literally thought, “Thank God that none of my diets have worked.”

That’s when I realized that God had known that this moment was coming in my life and He knew what kind of body I would need to make it through. Being a tiny wisp of a thing whose boyfriend could twirl her in the air, would not have helped me in the life I, specifically, was going to live. 

Betsie ten Boom

Sure, maybe there’s an infinity of other ways that all could’ve played out. But God knew how things would play out. And, as Corrie Ten Boom’s sister Betsie said, ““There are no ‘ifs’ in God’s world. And no places that are safer than other places. The center of His will is our only safety – let us pray that we may always know it.”

The cops ended up arresting my ex husband that night.

That’s how God answered my more urgent prayer, one which I had prayed having no idea how it could possibly get answered. My ex was now no longer at my house and he was also taken somewhere where he would be kept safe. 

I know being arrested isn’t ideal, but in the mental state he was in, it was the safest option for him. It was also an outcome I would not have planned myself. I had wanted things to stay as calm as possible, but God had allowed things to escalate. My mom and I had only suffered minor physical injuries, but it was just enough for the cops to have reason to arrest him. God had known what needed to be done for the best possible outcome in that moment and He had threaded the needle, working out His will amongst the mess of our humanity and free will.

Image © Daniel Pape from GoodSalt.com

Sometimes God’s answer to our prayer is “no” and that may be infuriating to us, but we have to remember that He knows things we don’t know. And while we are most likely thinking from a limited worldly perspective, He is seeing things from an all-knowing eternal perspective.

Sometimes we make terrible life choices which get us into horrible situations. But, God is still there, lovingly waiting for us to bring the mess we made into the Holy of Holies and ask Him to fix it.

God is Love Painting by Ladislav Zaborsky

Like I said, I am not an expert on prayer. But, for some reason, God loves us enough to offer us His ear and His help; and there is no doubt in my mind that it is always in our best interest to take Him up on that offer.

This series of blog posts titled, “Holding on to Reason”, is named after Amanda’s favorite C.S. Lewis quote: “Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”

Click here for more things written or transcribed by Amanda Hovseth.