tempting to edit

I just did a spring check-up here on abrokencup. Some links were dead, and have been removed, and other videos have been put in their place. Unfortunately, there are new and dumb restrictions that mean that you have to click twice on the different videos so as to watch them on youtube.com, but hey at least it works, and you can listen to the songs.

It was tempting for me to edit several of my blog entries as I read through them. I ran into stuff that I don’t know if I believe any more. Or at least I don’t feel like I believe it anymore. Some of what I’ve written sounds idealistic and naive as I sit here and read it on this fine Saturday morning. I am tempted to edit stuff, but I’ve chosen not to. It’s like my journal. I don’t want to edit it, I want to allow it to be what it was when I wrote it. Who knows if it’ll be encouraging for someone. Who knows if I’ll find it encouraging and true myself some other day. I need encouragements myself these days. I look and search, but I don’t find any. Sometimes we’re in valleys that are so dark and deep that they take a long time to get out of. That’s how mine feels these months. I am not easily satisfied with peoples’ wisdom and answer. It doesn’t help. I need to hear from God. I need encouragement. Somehow. Someday. Somewhere. I hold on for the ride, because I know that God is good and interested and invested in me despite what my feelings suggest these days.

I just read a very good article on Christianity Today that talks about some of the purposes of these valleys.

Happy Easter! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! May he experientially show you and me who he really is!

Blessings, Torben

It is finished

It’s Easter. It’s Good Friday today. Or Long Friday as it’s called in Danish. It’s a day of sorrow. Jesus dying on the cross on the hill outside of Jerusalem in Israel. Many people today have decided that today is irrelevant. What Jesus did is irrelevant they tell you. They are fine on their own. They don’t need anybody dying on the cross for them. Many people ignore the man hanging on the cross. They just don’t care. Others oppose him and laugh at him. Other people have made up their own religions trying to get around the fact that the man hanging on the cross more than 2000 years ago was and is the very Son of God. There simply is no hope without him.

Jesus, I choose to thank you for what you did for me. I thank you for the perfect sacrifice. I thank you for your love for me. I thank you for the cry that shattered the rocks, tore the curtain and opened up graves, where you yelled out: “IT IS FINISHED!”. It is finished. It’s a done deal. Nothing separates man from God anymore. Only ourselves and our choice to ignore him can separate us from God today and for all eternity. All that’s required to be with God today and forever more is to put your faith in Jesus Christ and admit that you need him to save you from yourself and your own attempts of making life work where you end up sinning against God’s will for your life.

It is finished. No more important words have ever been spoken. It is finished is what Jesus will always say to any of his children when they come and want to discuss their sins and faults with him. It is finished, there is nothing to talk about from Jesus’ perspective. It’s done. I can’t come up with a sin, think a thought or have a feeling that isn’t covered by those words. Nothing can separate me from Jesus ever again. Because it is finished!

Jesus, I thank you that it is finished. I thank you that nothing I do, say, think or feel or don’t do, say, think or feel will ever separate me from you. I thank you that you live inside of me. I thank you that you love, accept and like me just the way I am – not the way I could be or feel like I should be.

Jesus, I celebrate you! You are my only hope! And I’m so thankful for the life I’ve found in you. I wouldn’t trade it for anything!

Happy Easter!

Blessings, Torben

Finished!

Happy Good Friday! Or “long Friday” as it’s called in Scandinavia. And a long Friday it was for Jesus many years ago. But also good. The outcome was good. The outcome of Christ being obedient to the point of dying on the cross for sins he had not committed is the greatest miracle of all times. It changed everything. We gained access to the holy and perfect God. And in Christ when you accept his perfect sacrifice for you, see previous blog entry, you and I are perfect, holy and pure.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Thank you, Jesus! Thanks for the Wonderful Cross. Thank you that you going to that cross changed everything and changed me. Help me to never forget your cross and what you did for me and the freedom you bought for me there!                                                                                                                                                                               

“O the wonderful cross, o the wonderful cross bids me come and die and find that I may truly live. O the wonderful cross, o the wonderful cross all who gather here by grace draw near and bless your name”                                                                                                                                                                                     

IT IS FINISHED!! (John 19:30)                                                                                                                                                                  

Happy Easter!

Torben                                                                                                                                                                                           

….It’s Easter, and I’ll just throw in another youtubevideo with a wonderful Easter song! Here is Newsong’s Arise My Love:

In

I’ve been re-reading Philip Yancey’s book on prayer called “Prayer (does it make any difference?)” these last days, and that in itself has been good for me. I enjoy reading a book that talks honestly about prayer. A book that doesn’t pretend that prayer is easy or always fun or satisfying. A book that talks about both the valleys and the mountain tops in (my) prayer life. As always it’s refreshing how real Philip Yancey is when he tackles a question of faith. I sure wish there were more authors like him..!

Anyway, this is not about telling you, dear reader, how great an author Mr. Yancey is, but it’s about a little comment  he makes in the Prayer-book. He has been looking through the New Testament and observes that we find the two little words “in Christ” 164 times in the New Testament. 164 times is a lot and it seems fair to conclude that we’re looking at one of the main themes, if not the main theme of the New Testament.

When I accept Christ as my Lord and Savior I become a part of  Christ’s family and Christ moves into me and a wonderful exchange happens: he gets my life with the good, the bad and the ugly and I get his life with all the righteousness, love and life that I don’t have in my old self. I am now IN CHRIST and all he has is mine and he is capable of doing everything through me that I struggle so much to do in myself. 
It’s a wonder, it’s a mystery, and it’s the truth. I am in Christ. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me“, Paul tells us in Galatians 2:20. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. I am in Christ just the way I am. I am perfect in Christ. Nothing I’ll ever do, say or think can keep me away from who I am in Christ. I am in him, and the journey of discipleship is about God revealing to me what this mystery means. I can’t fathom it, explain it and often times I don’t believe it, but it remains the truth. I have been crucified with Christ. I am dead. I now live in Christ. I am in him and he is in me. A mysterious union took place. I have been blessed enough for God to unpack little bits of what this mystery means to me in my life, and I long to see more. 

But this is the (hidden) message of Easter. Easter isn’t “just” about forgiveness of sin and Jesus taking the penalty that I deserved. Easter is about life, even though that in itself is obviously fantastic beyond words! Easter is also about the exchange between Christ and me. Easter is about me sharing in everything Christ is and has. Easter is about Christ’s resurrection power living in me now (Ephesians 1: 19-20). Christ is alive in his people, in his children, in his broken cups. Let’s celebrate that Christ is in  you and me. Let’s ponder the miracle of the Cross. Let’s ask God to reveal the mystery of the Cross. Let’s stay at the Christ and hear Christ pronounce not only forgiveness of sins to us, but also the possibility of resurrection, of life, of hope, of peace, of joy, of power because he himself, the crucified and risen Lord of Lords chooses to live in fragile, weak and failing human beings such as me. 

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

Torben – Happy Easter! 🙂