We Are Chosen

(read part 1) (read part 2)

In gym class, I was always relieved when chosen. (Particularly if not chosen last.)

In Guatemala, we give goodies to the kids who show up at our work sites. A doll, a cap, a granola bar, matchbox cars, candy. 

Once word gets out, the number of kids grows rapidly. Some of those kids are very timid. They lurk around the edges, waiting to see if they will be chosen to receive a gift. When we invite them to receive a gift, they smile.

Last week, two little girls, Madelyn and Astrid, from Guatemala chose Mary and me. Madelyn said she picked us because we “seemed kind, friendly, and nice.” She was probably looking at Mary.

The Bible tells us how God chooses people to be his people: “God, your God, chose you out of all the people on Earth for himself as a cherished, personal treasure.

God wasn’t attracted to you and didn’t choose you because you were big and important—the fact is, there was almost nothing to you. He did it out of sheer love, keeping the promise he made to your ancestors.” (Deuteronomy 7:6-8, MSG)

I’m glad to be chosen. Being chosen makes all the difference. Jesus said, “I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. You didn’t choose me. I chose you.”  (John 15:15-16, NLT)

We are chosen!

Kent Landhuis
Pastor of Teaching & Leadership

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God is Working Hard – Part 2

(read part 1)

In the spring, when my garden comes to life, my favorite plants are hostas. Hostas die off in the fall. All winter, the ground where they grew is bare and barren. 

No signs of life. And then, there they are, like magic, growing bigger and better than the year before. And I did nothing.

Listen to how Paul describes God’s good work in Romans 8: And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn[n] among many brothers and sisters. And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory. (vss. 28-30, NLT)

God is doing good work even when our lives seem barren. I had a mentor who once told me, “When it seems like God is working the least, God is working the most.”

God’s work is not always visible or in the ways we expect or easily understood. But we are the kind of people who believe that God is with us when we don’t see or feel His active involvement. God still does good work even when it is not obvious.

I’m so thankful that God never stops doing good work on my behalf – and on yours!

Kent Landhuis
Pastor of Teaching & Leadership

Did you enjoy this article? Did you laugh, cry or learn something new? Let Kent know.

God is Working Hard

Our small group recently studied Philippians 2. After much discussion, one of our group said, “Listen to this, it’s the New Living Translation: Dear friends, you always followed my instructions when I was with you. And now that I am away, it is even more important. Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.” (vss. 12-13)

The phrase “work hard to show the results of your salvation” grabbed our attention. It baffled us. We know that we do not work to earn salvation, so what is this hard work? 

And then, someone said, “Look at the next verse too – it says God is working hard. God gives us the desire to obey, and God gives us the power to obey. God is working hard so work hard. But what hard work is left for us to do?”

What’s left for us is obedience. We obey God with deep reverence and respect. We obey with the desire and power that God gives us! That sounds amazing! And so does this: I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. (Philippians 1:6)

READ PART 2 of this series

Kent Landhuis
Pastor of Teaching & Leadership

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Dust to Dust

Dust to Dust.

Dust shows up in the Bible 100 times. The first is in Genesis 2:7. “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

We were made from dust and to dust we will return. This is the central theme of Ash Wednesday. The entire season of Lent can be framed with this same phrase. We are frail, temporary, transient. Life is fleeting like a mist or a vapor. Dust to dust.

And of course – we are sin-full.

One of the preparations for Passover is to remove all yeast from the home. This command is found in Exodus 12:15. “For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel.”

To comply with this command, Jewish families thoroughly cleaned the entire home to remove all traces of bread, pastries, crackers, and anything containing yeast.

This process involves a deep clean of every nook and cranny in the house, including cupboards, appliances, counter tops, floors, and even furniture crevices.

In Jewish tradition, a feather is used to sweep up crumbs. The feather sweeps crumbs into a spoon.

The spoon scoops the crumbs into a paper bag.

The paper bag is thrown away – or burned.

Yeast in the Bible represents sin.

When I learned about the feather used to sweep crumbs of yeast, I thought about all the dust in my home. I wondered, would a feather help get in every nook and cranny. The feather might be particularly helpful in small crevices. Or with the window blinds.

A feather duster. Leave no sin behind.

Did you know that between 20-40% of the dust in our homes is skin? We leave little pieces of ourselves behind. Dust to dust.

The feather is also a symbolic tool representing the spiritual process of self-reflection. I hope you are self-reflecting right now – connecting the dots between yeast, dust, sin, and Jesus.

We grieve the sin in our lives. One way to show our grief is to sit in dust and ashes. This reminds us of our true condition. It is also a mark of repentance.

Of course, another central theme of Ash Wednesday – and the season of Lent – is that our real hope in our dusty lives is in Jesus. We can never account for every last crumb of sin – so Jesus took care of it for us.

In Jesus there is forgiveness. “Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.”  Acts 13:38.

Dust to dust. We still find hope. In Jesus.

May the Lord be with you,
Pastor Kent

Kent Landhuis
Pastor of Teaching & Leadership

Did you enjoy this article? Did you laugh, cry or learn something new? Let Kent know.

Hope and Blue Bracelets

As a parent of a child in the U of I children’s hospital, you are tagged with a blue bracelet as soon as your child is admitted.

This blue bracelet comes with some degree of privilege.  You’re able to roam the entire hospital, soaring through security check points with ease.  You never have to make sure your name is on a list somewhere to be let in.  You just sort of wave your bracelet at every security check point and you’re in.

Before I knew this, I stood in line to check-in until the security person said, “Oh, you’ve got a blue bracelet! You’re in!”

It also is a sign that you’ve got a child in the hospital.

Spotting another blue bracelet signifies a type of comradery as if to say, “I get it,” without any words at all. We’re all kind of going about the same routine–trips in the morning down the hall for coffee in the morning.  Trips to and from the various food courts to try and find a bite to eat.  And endless trips up and down the tall elevator to the various floors we’re all assigned.  And then just waiting with our children in their rooms in between nurse visits, latest updates, blood draws and scans.

I’ve discovered there are certain emotions that also surround the blue bracelet.  If you’re new bracelet-barer, your face can show a fear of the unknown, an unfamiliarity with new surroundings, and sometimes panicked tears.  I’ve seen a number of new patients arrive with mom and dads in tow, recently marked with their blue band. They don’t know its significance yet as their child is wheeled on a bed into their new room.

But after time has settled in, and you settle into a new routine of day and night here.  You’ll find us blue bands wandering around the hallways in our PJS, staring at the artwork on the walls, taking elevator trips up to the 12 floor to take in the best view of Kinnick Stadium. You chitchat with other parents around the coffee pot lounge about how long you’ve been there, what happened to get you there, and when you get to go home.  Once the initial crisis of what brought them here has passed, we enter this new phase  on a slow-moving continuum that swings between hope and despair.

U of I does their best – bright and cheery hallways, child-friendly nurses and staff, and daily kids’ activities, access to movies and X-boxes and bingo games, and even surprise visits from the Iowa Hawkeye basketball teams.  But there is an accompanying sadness everywhere.

“I lift my eyes up on the hills – from where does my help come?
My help comes from the LORD who made heaven and earth…”

We can do our best to manufacture hope from within, but there is no source of hope like the TRUE HOPE I find in knowing and being loved by God.  I’m doing my best to choose positivity, think happy thoughts, but the true source of HOPE from God is so different than any man-made technique we can try to apply.

I can’t change this scenario. I can’t change the strange journey that landed us here. And while I’m angry this infection got into my son and so drastically turned our family’s life upside-down overnight, it’s a trial He has called us to walk through as a family.   But, I can choose to trust His promises for us that He will never leave nor forsake us.  I trust that He is battling on our behalf and holds all things together in His hands.  I am thankful for promptings of the Holy Spirt, that when I start to feel despair, He reminds me of His promises and often puts a Scripture song on my heart.  I can’t manufacture hope, but I can “put on Christ” and experience the real thing.

“He will not let your foot be moved, He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is your Keeper. The LORD is your shield at your right hand.”

This isn’t the case everywhere in this hallway and among the blue-bracelet people.  In the dark, it becomes so apparent where there is a Hope in the Lord and where that light is missing.  Without seeing this contrast, it’s so easy to underestimate the true beauty of what we have in Christ! His hope, His peace, His joy — it is so diabolically different than the lies the world has to offer.

“The sun will not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
The LORD will keep you from all evil, He will keep your life.
The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in
from this time forth, and forevermore.” Psalm 121

We so appreciate the giant army of prayer warriors surrounding us! Thank you to everyone who has taken this journey with us.

Leah Carolan
Pastor of Worship & Media

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Where is the Hope

Chapter six in Ephesians explores spiritual warfare. Here we discover that the battle against evil is real. And very intense. Our battle is not against other people (flesh and blood) but against an enemy (spiritual forces of evil) that want to devour us.

Sometimes in this battle, it feels like the enemy is winning. Suffering and pain, discouragement and doubt, despair and hopelessness – the enemy can be unrelenting in his attack. Sometimes – in the face of so much evil – I feel like throwing in the towel. Do you ever feel that way?

Our hope for winning this battle is not in the kingdoms of this world but in another kingdom. I like the way Charles Colson said it. “Where is the hope? I meet millions who tell me that they feel demoralized by the decay around us. Where is the hope? The hope that each of us have is not in who governs us, or what laws are passed, or what great things that we do as a nation. Our hope is in the power of God working through the hearts of people, and that’s where our hope is in this country; that’s where our hope is in life.”

Colson said this years ago, but it is still true today. Centuries ago, Peter said, “Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming” (1 Peter 1:13). That is also still true today.

Peter wrote letters (1 & 2 Peter) to people living in exile in a hostile kingdom. He told them how to live in exile and not lose hope. Basically, Peter echoed an old Gospel song that said, “This world is not our home, we’re just passing through.”

We too are living in exile but while we are strangers living in a strange land we have hope. “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3).

Where is your hope? My hope is in Jesus!

Pastor Kent

Kent Landhuis
Pastor of Teaching & Leadership

Did you enjoy this article? Did you laugh, cry or learn something new? Let Kent know.