Church programs for Monday, Jan. 22 will resume their normal schedule at all locations this evening.
Leawood’s Sunday night in-person worship has been moved to 4 pm for Sunday, February 11.
12 So I’ll keep reminding you about these things, although you already know them and stand secure in the truth you have. 13 I think it’s right that I keep stirring up your memory, as long as I’m alive. 14 After all, our Lord Jesus Christ has shown me that I am about to depart from this life. 15 I’m eager for you always to remember these things after my death.
16 We didn’t repeat crafty myths when we told you about the powerful coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Quite the contrary, we witnessed his majesty with our own eyes. 17 He received honor and glory from God the Father when a voice came to him from the magnificent glory, saying, “This is my dearly loved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.” 18 We ourselves heard this voice from heaven while we were with him on the holy mountain.
In Peter’s day, as in ours, skeptics claimed that believers made up the stories about Jesus. Peter directly refuted that idea, vowing that no one had dreamed up the story of Jesus. He knew that because he’d seen it happen! Scholar C. H. Dodd wrote, “The Resurrection of Jesus is not a belief that grew up within the church; it is the belief around which the church itself grew up, and the ‘given’ upon which its faith was based.” *
Lord Jesus, the Bible writers didn’t write for profit or fame, but so that I could know what they had experienced of you. Give me persistence and perception as I read my Bible. Guide me to the life and power they found. Amen.
Lauren Cook is the Entry Points Program Director at Resurrection, a self-proclaimed foodie, a bookworm, and is always planning her next trip. She has the sweetest (and sassiest) daughter, Carolina Rae, a rockstar husband, Austin, and a cutie pup named Thunder. She loves connecting with others so let her know the best place you've ever eaten, best book you've ever read, or best place you've ever been!
I often find it interesting that many people think that if I work for the church, I must be the most solid in my faith, the greatest and most confident believer. And yet, I am so very human. I have questioned and doubted God at various points throughout my life. I have been challenged to believe in the radical story of Jesus. I have been uncertain.
As you are reading this post, I am adventuring through the Holy Land. I am writing this right before I am set to depart for this trip. As I write, my heart is full of a wild kind of hope in the life-changing work God is about to do in my heart as I experience the stories of the Bible firsthand. And since I always try to be honest with you all, I also have a hope that this trip will make me even more certain and unshakeable in my faith. But that is a bit of a wild hope, isn’t it?
While I know that this trip will open my eyes and my heart to things I’ve never before seen or experienced and breathe a new kind of life into my faith journey and study of the Word, I also know that the real heart work is done between me and God, no matter where I am in the world.
The Bible is hard. It’s packed with almost inconceivable wisdom, hope, knowledge, insight, perspective, and stories. Jesus is hard. He is all things we are and all things we can never be and all things we hope to be.
It’s okay if you find yourself uncertain at times, struggling to believe in the miraculous stories and doings of God and His Son. It’s okay if you don’t always have answers. It’s okay to ask a lot of questions. It’s okay to be human. Our human brains don’t have the capacity to fully understand all things because we aren’t God. But He gave us His Son to begin to teach us all these things, and He breathed life into all the others who lived and wrote the stories of the Bible to live across generations so that we all may know and come to believe.
Don’t let uncertainty stop you. Dive even deeper into the life-changing story of the Bible and get to know the people and the experiences they had as you read. Talk to God while you read, He is ready for your thoughts and your questions. Talk to others in your small group or at church. Be persistent and God will guide you. It won’t always be easy, but it will always be worth it.
Sending you joy (even from the Holy Land!),
Lauren
* C. H. Dodd, The Founder of Christianity. London: The MacMillan Company, 1970, p. 103.
** Wright, N. T., Early Christian Letters for Everyone (The New Testament for Everyone) (p. 106). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.