OnFire #211 Voices of Faith

OnFire Encouragement Letter
OnFire #211 Voices of Faith

Happy New Year!!!

We enjoyed Christmas very much. We didn’t go anywhere since we are usually wiped by the time Christmas arrives. That, plus Christmas was on Friday, making it hard to be back for Sunday. Taka, our Japanese student, seemed to enjoy Christmas. It was interesting for us to hear of the differences between cultures. We hope that he understands something about our faith in Jesus.

What did we do over the holiday? We worshipped, talked with relatives, ate, slept, watched old episodes of CHIPS, and ate some more. As I write, Jan and the boys are painting upstairs. Jan started this project a while ago and thought it would be good for them to help. They are doing a good job under Jan’s instruction. For part of a day, Ian and I went hunting and he finally got to fire the 12-guage shotgun. Fun stuff!

Finally, I have a new Introduction to Romans on my website. Check it out, along with other intros and an article on Basic Bible Reading Tips. http://onfireletter.com/page15.html

Blessings for your new year.
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Jan and I were engaged while I was in seminary. One day while we were hanging out in the student lounge, a classmate commented that her husband would soon be home from his 28-day shift at sea with the Coast Guard.

"28 days at sea. 28 days home. Yup, it’ll take me half of that to make him fit to live with."

There was something about the way that she said it that depressed us. We were happily engaged and she made marriage sound as if it was a bother and a big disappointment. Was this what we were getting into?

We called up a set of friends who, while married a dozen years, were so obviously in love with each other that it made us feel good to be around them. "We’re feeling kind of depressed. Can we come over?" They were great for us to be around.

This memory came to mind this week as I recalled the Nephilim in Numbers 13:33 (see also OnFire #47). Having returned from spying out the promised land, the 12 tribe leaders gave their reports. All agreed the land was good and they even had a cluster of grapes so large it took two men to carry as proof.

The problem was that they saw descendants of Anak there. Anak himself was a descendant of another group of legendary people, the Nephilim. We don’t know a lot about them, but they were large and fierce. 10 of the spies spread a report that they could not go into the land because of the Nephilim.

Two of the spies, however, saw things differently. Joshua and Caleb knew that God would provide the victory and so they saw no reason to fear the Nephilim.

As I pondered these things this week, some new insights jumped out from Numbers 13 & 14.
First, we can’t go and stay. We often want things both ways. We want to change, but we want to stay the same. We want the new without changing the old. I call this "Wishing for the Divine 649." We have a national lottery in Canada called 649, which often runs into the tens of millions of dollars. Wouldn’t it be great to have a pile of money dumped into our laps without having to work, scrimp, or save? Change without change. The truth, however, is that sooner or later we have to face the "Nephilim" in our lives if we want to change.

Next, if we do not go, we stay. This is not as obvious as it sounds because we think that our good intentions let us hover between going and staying. "Someday I’ll get around to it." We think that if we say it this way, we are not deciding to stay, but we’re just fooling ourselves. If we don’t decide to go, we stay. If we want change to happen, we need to change. This means, of course, facing the Nephilim in our lives.

We need to find voices of faith and encouragement. Joshua and Caleb correctly believed God would give the victory. "If the LORD is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. Only do not rebel against the LORD." (Numbers 14:8-9*) Unfortunately, the people did not listen and eventually died without going into the promised land.

Our problem is similar to the one in Joshua’s day. There were more who believed the Nephilim could not be defeated than those who believed God is bigger than our problems. We need to seek out the Joshua and Calebs so that we will be encouraged to trust God more.

As we stand just inside the borders of this new year land, may we encourage and strengthen each other so that our faith becomes stronger everyday. I hope this helps. Be on fire.

Troy

OnFire is a weekly letter on authentic faith and character written by Troy Dennis. Troy is the Pastor of Family Ministries at Highfield Baptist Church, Moncton NB Canada. This letter published Jan 4, 2010. Scripture references taken from the New International Version. To subscribe or reply, email onfireletter@gmail.com. Archives are located at www.onfireletter.com Blog located at http://onfireletter.blogspot.com/