Who Is Jesus?

And Jesus said unto them, “But who do you say that I am?”

They replied,

• “You are he who heals our ambiguities and overcomes the split of angst and existential estrangement; you are he who speaks of the theonomous viewpoint of the analogia entis, the analogy of our being and the ground of all possibilities.
• You are the impossible possibility who brings to us, your children of light and children of darkness, the overwhelming roughness in the midst of our fraught condition of estrangement and brokenness, in the contiguity and existential anxieties of our ontological relationships.
• You are my Oppressed One, my soul’s shalom, the One who was, who is and who shall be, who has never left us alone in the struggle, the event of liberation in the lives of the oppressed struggling for freedom, and whose blackness is both literal and symbolic.”

And Jesus replied, “Huh?”

Born in France on July 10, 1509, he turns 500 this year, so people around the world are pausing to pay him some respect. Calvin was a brilliant young man who intended to be a Catholic priest but entered law instead. After encountering the writings of Protestant Reformers such as Martin Luther, Calvin had a conversion experience. “God subdued and brought my heart to docility,” he said.

Breaking away from Catholicism, he left France and settled in Switzerland as an exile. In 1536, Calvin published one of the greatest theological works ever written, The Institutes of the Christian Religion. This major systematic theology, which begins with God the Creator and ends with reflections on civil government, stands as one of the most important expressions of Reformation thought.

Not bad work for a 27-year-old.

Calvin’s writings impressed the people of Geneva, Switzerland, so he was invited to move there and help with the Reform movement. Calvin’s workload in Geneva was staggering: He pastored a church and preached daily in it, wrote commentaries on almost every book in the Bible, authored dozens of Christian pamphlets, trained and sent out missionaries, and influenced the schools and the civil government.

No wonder Calvin suffered from chronic migraine headaches!

Calvin had God centered theology which could be summed up this way:

It’s not about you. It’s not about us.
It’s not about him. It’s not about her.
It’s not about your boss. And it’s not about loss.
It’s not about work. It’s not about play.
It’s not about money. It’s not about the economy.
It’s not about your parents. It’s not about your kids.
It’s not about your wife. It’s not about your husband.
It’s not about your friends. It’s not about your enemies.
It’s all about God. That’s right. It’s all about God.

And that’s good news for all of us.

In Winnie the Pooh, Pooh and Piglet take an evening walk. For a long time they walk in silence. Silence like only best friends can share.

Finally Piglet breaks the silence and asks, “When you wake up in the morning, Pooh, what’s the first thing you say to yourself?”

“What’s for breakfast?” answers Pooh and then asks. “And what do you say, Piglet?”

Piglet says, “I say, I wonder what exciting thing is going to happen today?”

When we walk with the Lord, that is the kind of attitude we should have!  Where is God going to show up today?  Joy, trial, blessing, burden, big or small, dark or beaming – where will I meet the adventure fo faith?

What do you say when you wake up in the morning?

When we concluded the Gray Line Bus Tour of New Orleans, our guide, Mike Jones said, “If any of your friends give you a free ticket to New Orleans for July or August ask them, ‘What did I do wrong?’  I go to Wisconsin in August to see my nephew Tim.”

Kathy says, “We are from Wisconsin!”

“Did you ever hear of the SAGBRAW bike ride?” Mike asks.

“Why sure. I rode on it two years with my son, Eric.” I grinned widely.

“Did you ever hear of the ‘Bead Man?’” he asked excitedly.

“Yes!” I redounded, “He was always handing out beads when you passed him.”

“That was me!” Mike exclaimed enthusiastically.

There outside the bus as we left each other I ponderer how small a world it is.  A bus driver/tour guide from New Orleans riding among 1200 bicyclists was a rider I passed who handed out beads to my friends on the ride through the Northeastern roads of rural Wisconsin.  Small world.

I wonder how many people we will meet in heaven who will have touched our lives and we did not know it.   God has his own beads that he places on the string of our days.  One never knows when, why, or how – but God does.  Some of my beads and yours are the same color and the same point on your string and mine. Sometimes we don’t understand why a certain bead is where it is but God does.

God is so amazingly mysterious.   How many “bead stories” have you experienced on the your journey?

The devil — also known as Satan, Lucifer and Beelzebub — has become the primary antagonist in almost every major religion. He is seen as the rebel, a serpent and a fallen angel who tempts mortals into committing sin, and preys upon their despair. But does Satan really exist?

Watch “The Nightline Face-Off: Does Satan Exist?” March 26 on ABCNews.com and on “Nightline” at 11:35 p.m. ET.

(ABC News Photo Illustration/ Getty)

That question will be debated Friday, March 20, when “Nightline” tackles the controversial and sensitive issue in the third installment of the “Face-Off” series.  Read More Here…

Chuck Swindoll writes, “surprises come in many forms and guises: some good, some borderline amazing, some awful, some tragic, some hilarious. But there’s one thing we can usually say — surprises aren’t boring.” Surprises are woven through the very fabric of all our lives. They await each one of us at unexpected and unpredictable junctures.

I like the story about a professor who sat at his desk one evening working on the next day’s lectures. His housekeeper had laid that days mail and papers at his desk and he began to shuffle through them discarding most to the wastebasket. He then noticed a magazine, which was not even addressed to him but delivered to his office by mistake. It fell open to an article titled “The Needs of the Congo Mission”.

Casually he began to read when he was suddenly consumed by these words: “The need is great here. We have no one to work the northern province of Gabon in the central Congo. And it is my prayer as I write this article that God will lay His hand on one – one on whom, already, the Master’s eyes have been cast – that he or she shall be called to this place to help us.” Professor Albert Schweitzer closed the magazine and wrote in his diary: “My search is over.” He gave himself to the Congo.

That little article, hidden in a periodical intended for someone else, was placed by accident in Schweitzer’s mailbox. By chance he noticed the title. It leaped out at him. Chance? Nope. It was one of God’s surprises.

When and how has God surprised you?

Colossians 1: 18

Have you ever seen the castle at Disneyland or Disney World?   I have been to both places and the castle is a pretty thing. 

There are two words for castle in the German language: Schloss and Burg.  The Disney castle is a Schloss, which means palace.  It has features of such a beautiful fairy-tale palace. But a Burg, which means “fortress” is very different.  A fortress is a solid, strong structure that can protect people from invading armies. I would Point out that Psalm 46 describes God as a Burg — “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble … the God of Jacob is our refuge [or fortress]” (vv. 1, 7).

Do you remember the first line of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God?”  Martin Luther based this hymn on Psalm 46.  What are some of the ways that God acts like a fortress for us, and offers us protection?  God is a Mighty Burg, not a Pretty Palace, and because of this “we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake” (v. 2).

I encourage you to think of God the Mighty Fortress surrounding you with protection and peace, every single day.

There is a plain, old shoemaker’s awl that is on prominent display in the French Academy of Science.

What makes this awl so special? It was the awl that fell one day from the shoemaker’s table and put out the eye of his nine-year-old son. Soon, the child became blind in both eyes and was forced to attend school for the blind. At this school, the child learned to read by handling large, carved, wooden blocks.

When the shoemaker’s son grew up, he thought of a new way for the blind to read. It involved punching dots on paper, and Louis Braille devised this new method by using the same awl that had blinded him to create a whole new reading system for the blind.

There will be a falling awl in each one of our lives. The choice is ours how it will affect us. In Sprinkle’s words, “When it strikes, some of us ask, ‘Why did God allow this to happen?’ Others ask, ‘How will God use it?’”

When you are born God says, “Someday you will learn to wear three different glasses.  Some learn sooner or later than others.”

The first set of glasses is called “Hindsight.”  You look back and try to understand what happened and where God was in the picture – or where God was not.

When you see more clearly you have put on the second set called “Insight.”  Now you understand more fully.  And when you say, “That is how God works and life works so I need to do things differently,”  then you have begun to wear the third set called, “Foresight.” You look ahead because you looked back and looked within.

Now you can travel through life and see more clearly.