Deep Well Discipleship

PRESS ON Confession time, and this ones pretty obvious, my writing is sporadic at best.  I started blogging about my cancer last fall and when I started chemo I didn't feel like writing about it much less thinking about it.  I can honestly say that chemo is not only the most horrific thing I have experienced but it is the assuredly, at least at this time, the worst.  Throughout the process of treatment and feeling sick I found myself angry many times.  I cried out to God "Why me"?  I asked God why His intent was to kill me.  I was hurt, devastated, and lonely but God heard my cries and simply said "Why not you?"  I was shocked and stunned at this thought but I soon found my way into Philippians 4:11-14, that infamously misused passage of scripture.  It was there God spoke deeply into my pain and reminded me of His glory. Paul writes "...for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.  I know how to be brought low, and I...

Hospitals, mis-diagnoses, and the yo-yo effect On Tuesday April 22nd I found myself in the ER at Covenant Hospital in Lubbock Texas.  I was turning highlighter yellow and I felt less than chipper.  By midnight I was in my room on IV fluids only and already starting to do what I do best... worry!  Everybody has to be good at something and I do very well when it comes to overthinking things and worrying about what might be.  The GI doc on call came in to visit late that night and discussed the different tests they would perform the next day and what was going to occur.  I was still under the impression it was just my gall bladder...  Boy, what did I know.  I wasn't even worried about the right things. The next day a procedure known as an ERCP was performed to see what was going on with my gall bladder.  That was followed up with an MRI.  Let me pause here to say this.  I am slightly claustrophobic and I sinned when they took me to thi...

STAND FIRM We began a study on 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 yesterday with the first part of the verse in focus, “be watchful”.  Today we move on to the next 5 words of the text, which are “stand firm in the faith.”  What does it mean to stand firm?  When I served in the military stand firm meant holding your ground against enemy attack.  When you were standing firm in the face of danger.  The text here is very much the same.  The greek word steko ( steko) literally means to stand firm in faith, to be constant, to persevere, to remain steadfast, to continue in a state, to be persistent . Paul gives a good antithesis to standing firm in 1 Corinthians 6:18 when he tells the church in Corinth to “Flee immorality” to literally continue to fun from it, and keep running from it.  As much as the word flee means to run as hard and fast as we can away from something steko, stand firm, means to be immovable.  Within the text of 1 Corinthians 16 Pau...