Who’s in the Basket June 19, 2023
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Saul of Tarsus was the first great persecutor of the church. In a blaze of glory, he met the resurrected Jesus while on his way to Damascus to attack the church there. Then, instead of attacking the Church Paul started preaching fearlessly about this Jesus who rose from the grave. The Jews sought to kill Paul because he was preaching Jesus as the Messiah who bore our sins on the cross, died in our place, and rose from the dead to bring us life. As the enraged Jews looked everywhere in Damascus for Paul, he was lowered in a basket from the walls to make his escape. When we share the Gospel with even just one person, and they receive the message and are born again we never know who might’ve just climbed in the basket.
Long long ago and far far away back in the dream time before Facebook, Amazon, and streaming, my wife and I felt the call to hold church services on the campus of a state university. Everyone told us that would be impossible what with the judiciously manufactured liberal imposed mythical Constitutional separation of church and state doctrine. I questioned God, “Are you sure?” My wife and I questioned each other, “Are you sure?” Though we tried to resist as much as we could the calling wouldn’t leave us alone.
I traipsed from office to office asking one bureaucrat after another for permission to hold church services in a public building on the campus of a state university. Discouragement stalked me as I scuttled from “No,” to “No,” to “No way!” In the natural I was skeptical when I started and after a month or two of pushing that big rock up that steep hill all I could do was encourage myself in the Lord to keep plodding on. All we had was prayer. Happily, that was all we needed.
I finally located the right bureaucrat. He was the one in charge of renting space to outside groups. After a diligent search and several misdirected wrong turns, I located his office buried deep beneath a massive pile of bricks and steel. Then I learned he was never in his office. Whenever I showed up his secretary would tell me, ‘He just left,” “He’s off for the day,” or “You just missed him.” I tried coming at every hour of the day on every day of the week. After a month or so it got to be a running joke between me and the secretary. I’d pop in and she’d laugh, “He just left,” or one of her other variations of “You’re wasting your time.”
Then one day I walked in and there was the invisible bureaucrat standing in the middle of the room. Before the Secretary could laugh or say anything I blurted out, “I want to rent a room to hold church services.”
To my surprise he said, “No problem.” Then as he vanished into his inner sanctum he tossed, “Becky draw up a contract for the second-floor meeting room in the Student Union at the regular rate.” Within a week we were singing praises to God and preaching the Gospel on the campus of that state university. Everyone said it couldn’t be done. We didn’t think it was possible. But God did it.
For the next six months every Sunday we carried our keyboard, guitar, and a box of Bibles into the upper room. Every Wednesday, as part of our rental agreement, we had an informational booth in the Student Union inviting people to the service.
The response was underwhelming but as church planters and domestic missionaries we were used to empty seats. We had some students who came. We had a few who came more than once. And we had one who came faithfully time after time. This one student eventually confessed Jesus as his personal Lord and confessed that God had raised Jesus from the dead. He stepped from the darkness into the light, from death into life and now more than twenty-five years later he’s still praising God and trying his best to share the life, the light, and the joy he found with others.
As a couple of believers who’ve devoted most of our lives to preaching the Gospel, if this one born again believer is the totality of all we’ve done and all we will do before the curtain comes down … that’s more than enough. Thank you, Father, for allowing us to see the fruit from Your vine.
As slim as the attendance was, we praised God every day for the opportunity and gave him glory for opening a door everyone thought could not be opened. Then they shut us down. They cancelled our contract and slammed the door shut.
I went to see the long elusive bureaucrat to find out why. He told me a delegation of local pastors came to the school to complain because we were holding services on campus and they weren’t. The religious spirit did its best to stop the Spirit. But we know He opens doors, and no one can shut what He’s opened until the appointed time. The anointing moved on and we knew God had accomplished what he’d sent us there to do. Someone had climbed into the basket.
This reminds me of another time God called me to do something. He called me to stand in front of an abortion mill. I am the ever-remorseful father of four aborted babies. Forgiven but ashamed of what I did, but not too ashamed to confess my sin publicly if there’s even the slightest chance doing so might save a life and save someone else from living with the pain and emptiness I feel. For about six months several days a week I stood a lonely vigil in all types of weather with a handmade sign reading, “I repent for aborting my children” on one side and “God Forgave me” on the other.
People would drive by and honk. Some would give me the thumbs up. Others would use another digit to send a different message. The police came and told me I had to leave. But I was on public property, and I refused. The people from the abortion mill tried several tactics to chase me away. Some people on their way in to end the lives of their children stopped to berate me and call me everything except a child of God.
No matter what the weather, no matter how vile the abuse I stayed there because I felt God called me to bear witness, so I stood my ground. Then one day a couple stopped by on their way into the abortion mill and read me the riot act. They told me what a terrible person I was. They told me it was their choice. They yelled and gestured as loudly as anyone ever did. Then about a half hour later they came back and in tears told me God had convicted them and they’d changed their mind. They were going to keep their baby.
Immediately I felt released from that call. Someone had climbed into the basket.
You might not know who’s in the basket. You may never know. All we need to know is that when God says stand there and hold the rope, we need to do our part and leave the results up to Him because it’s not about who we are and what we do. It’s all about who He is and what He’s done.
This is an excerpt from the book Hope by Dr. Robert Owens. This and all his books are available from Amazon in paperback or kindle at Amazon.
This is an excerpt from the book New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens June 17, 2023
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Being lazy and doing shoddy work is as worthless as graffiti on a work of art.
This is an excerpt from the book New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens. This and all his books are available from Amazon in paperback or kindle at Amazon
I Took a Right Turn Season Two Episode Four June 16, 2023
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I Took a Right Turn Season Two Episode Four
In this episode Robert + Rosalie share from I Peter 2:18-25, the fourth chapter of America’s Trojan War, and another home-grown song – Come On People.
This is an excerpt from the book New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens June 16, 2023
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Meaningless words flow like a river after a rain, words of wisdom erupt like a geyser in the desert.
This is an excerpt from the book New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens. This and all his books are available from Amazon in paperback or kindle at Amazon
This is an excerpt from the book New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens. June 15, 2023
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A careless word to us can be a life changing future re-arranging explosion that never heals in the life of someone else.
This is an excerpt from the book New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens. This and all his books are available from Amazon in paperback or kindle at Amazon
This is an excerpt from the book New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens June 14, 2023
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It’s evil to blame the innocent for the crimes of the guilty.
This is an excerpt from the book New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens. This and all his books are available from Amazon in paperback or kindle at Amazon
This is an excerpt from the book New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens June 13, 2023
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No one has ever seen God, but we can see Jesus, He is God made man, God in the flesh.
This is an excerpt from the book New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens. This and all his books are available from Amazon in paperback or kindle at Amazon
Who Are We? June 12, 2023
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Who can ever know us better than we know ourselves? Obviously, the answer is no one. Yet most people spend much of their life in frustrating attempts to figure it out. We’re like a man who looks into a mirror and as soon as he walks away forgets what he looks like.
I have that experience in an outward way daily as my inner man who feels like he’s in his mid-thirties remembers that outwardly I appear for some reason to be in my late sixties.
I’ve heard people say that life can be confusing because it doesn’t come with an instruction manual. I always feel bad for these people because they haven’t discovered there is a set of instructions for being a human being on the planet Earth. It’s called the Bible and it’s a really good book.
If we ever conclude that this one book was in fact inspired by God in a literal sense, that its words are a God breathed revelation written and preserved through thousands of years just so that we can learn the meaning of life, the universe, and everything and no, it isn’t 42. It can change our life. At least I know it did for me.
You see, I’m one of those radicals who believe to the deepest depths of my soul the Bible is God’s Word for humanity. I have a simple belief … God said it … I believe it … that’s it.
This life changing revelation teaches us God created a perfect world. Man was given the keys to the kingdom and made God’s overseer. We turned away from God and gave the keys to the Devil. God is a just God. He wanted us to have dominion over his creation but we gave it away so He couldn’t just take it from the one we’d given it to and give it back to us.
Imagine our Daddy bought us a brand-new car. He wanted us to have the car. He wanted us to enjoy the car. He gave us the keys and the title. It’s our car. Then we give the car to someone else. That isn’t who Daddy wanted to have the car, but we gave it this other person. We gave them the keys and signed the title over to them. Now it’s their car. It was a legal transaction so it wouldn’t be fair or just if Daddy just took the car from that other person and gave it back to us.
It’s the same way with God’s creation. By turning our backs on God and following the devil we turned the whole thing over to our enemy and we became his slaves. That’s what original sin is all about. We inherit the sin nature from our father Adam then each of us adds to the burden of sin on our own. The sin from the first to the last has to be paid for if God is to return the title deed to creation back to humanity. And the only way for that to happen was for someone to carry all that sin through a perfect life, pay the penalty for sin, which is physical and spiritual death, descend into hell, and take the keys back from the devil. No human could ever do it because none of us has ever or could ever live a sinless life.
God had to do it himself. He became flesh. He lived a sinless life. His death on the cross was a physical and spiritual sacrificial substitution for all of us. He went down into hell. He took the keys away from the devil. He rose from the dead. He ascended into heaven. And now as the new Adam of a new human race He declares any who believe in Him to be His children which means we can stand in the presence of God without any feelings of guilt or shame. We are completely forgiven and made sinless because we are united with Jesus through faith. When God looks at us He sees Jesus. He gives us back the keys.
That’s it in a nutshell.
Who are we? We are who He says we are. We’re His children. We’re living stones built up into a spiritual temple where He himself dwells. He says if we confess Jesus as Lord, acknowledge Him as the boss of our life and believe God raised Him from the dead we will be saved. He doesn’t say we might be saved. He doesn’t say we could be saved. He says we WILL be saved. Believe it. Receive it. Live it. Walk out of this vale of tears and into the light of the Son of His love.
So who are we? You can be anyone you want to be. As for me and my house we will follow the Lord … we will be who He says we are … His children.
This is an excerpt from the book Hope by Dr. Robert Owens. This and all his books are available from Amazon in paperback or kindle at Amazon.
This is an excerpt from the book New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens June 11, 2023
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If we want to build a skyscraper we need to start with a foundation.
This is an excerpt from the book New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens. This and all his books are available from Amazon in paperback or kindle at Amazon
This is an excerpt from the book New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens June 9, 2023
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We should guard our words, even an off-hand statement that we may not remember making can change someone’s life.
This is an excerpt from the book New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens. This and all his books are available from Amazon in paperback or kindle at Amazon
Dr. Robert Owens Chronicles the History of the Future 