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God’s Providence in a Ford Aerostar

on Jun 25, 2012 in Family Life

In 2007, my family and I returned from a long trek in Central Asia. With lots of uncertainty, we left & gave away our Dodge Caravan to some friends there. We trusted God to provide for us stateside. We came to our temporary apartment from the airport in Evansville and there on the dining room table was the title to a Ford Aerostar! Crossroads and Evansville Auto Mission had provided us with a van! We could see God’s obvious hand in moving us to trust Him and give away our van in Asia. Today, 5 years later, I returned the van to the Auto Mission. It served us well most of the time, brought an element of adventure to every drive (even just driving to church on Sunday!) and kept us from a car payment for the past 5 years. Thanks to the Lord & His people for this chapter of the Sullivan’s transportation. I’m not sure we’ll miss it, but I’m thankful for...

Malachi and Broken Donations

on Feb 5, 2011 in Bible Study

Malachi 1:8 For when you offer blind animals as a sacrifice, is that not wrong? And when you offer the lame and sick, is that not wrong as well? Indeed, try offering them to your governor! Will he be pleased with you or show you favor?” asks the Lord who rules over all. Whenever I read this I thought it was talking about how the governor would reject a sacrifice that was lame or blind, but the NET Bible note explains that the phrase “offering” is more like choices on a menu at a sit-down feast. Would you offer a respected house guest some nasty meat for dinner? Of course not! That is what God is asking through Malachi. This fits right in line with what John says in 1 John 4:20 1John 4:20 If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. If you aren’t going to treat God...

Ezra 8:35 – Abundance and God's Restored People

on Jan 13, 2011 in Bible Study

Ezra 8:35 At that time those who had come from captivity, the returned exiles, offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel, twelve bulls for all Israel, ninety-six rams, seventy-seven lambs, and as a sin offering twelve male goats. All this was a burnt offering to the Lord. It’s pretty awesome to note that they really only had to offer the 12 goats as a sin offering. The additional 12 bulls, 96 rams, and 77 lambs were just fellowship/thank offerings. At some point of true worship-life, you cease to keep track of what you have to give God and you just start giving Him all that you want. Somebody kept track of it, of course, because we have a count, but all that would have been required of them by the law were the 12 goats. I hate it that “you can’t outgive God” has become a sort of religious extortion by prosperity preachers. What these people had was joy and...

We Think We're All or Nothing, but We're Really Just Selfish

on Dec 29, 2009 in Bible Study

John 13.6-9 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” 8 Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” 9 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” I can relate to Peter here. I will either deny Jesus’ help, with an attitude of “I can figure this out/ do this myself.” or with the opposite “DO EVERYTHING!” Sometimes it’s a little too easy to not submit to God and just tell Him what we think needs to be done, as if the point is really getting our feet washed. The great thing I see here from Jesus is that He corrects Peter but then continues with the plan anyway. He doesn’t say, “Since you didn’t listen, you...

The Risk of Generosity and Con-(wo)Men

on Sep 25, 2008 in Bible Study, Urbia

It’s been quite a week in our neighborhood. Tuesday night we had about 50 Jr. High kids come down and help out on our street. They picked up tons of sticks and bundled them all up and raked a lot of grass and leaves into bags. It was good to walk down the street and see them all working so hard, and then talk to my neighbors some that had come out to see what was going on. Last night we had a prayer night and some friends from church and our whole family went to two nearby schools and prayed for the surrounding neighborhoods. I was especially glad to take the kids along so they could participate and witness what we’re doing. Tonight seemed normal enough. We called it our “night off” since we didn’t have any events planned. I was out in the back yard getting the grill going when one of my neighbors came out to his back yard and we both met in the alley and started talking. He...