I love this song by Mercy Me! I feel homesick many times. I'm created to live on a perfect planet without any pain, sorrow or death.
I miss people I knew who are already with God. And I'm not looking forward to losing more dear friends and family members in the years to come.
Listen to this song and remember that you are also created for so much more than we have here!
God bless!
Torben
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Do you ever feel homesick?
Sunday, May 20, 2007
The top 10 blessings of living in God's Grace!
Hey!
In Rostov-on-Don we were studying Romans, which - as always - was wonderful!
We didn't have time to study the whole book in depth, but we did look at Romans 1-8 using the inductive study method, where we allow the Bible to speak for itself, instead of forcing our theology down on the Bible texts (maybe I should write another blog about the inductive method some other time?).
In chapter 7 Paul shows how life is for anybody who tries to live up to God's law in their own strength ("the things I don't want to do, I end up doing. And what I want to do, I don't do!). In chapter 8 Paul explodes in joy and shouts out all the wonderful blessings that are available, if you live in God's grace and walk in the power of his Holy Spirit. And that is for all, no matter if you have Jewish, Gentile or any other background!
Here are the Top 10 blessings when you live in God's grace according to Romans chapter 8 - enjoy!:
1. Peace (8:1) - no matter the circumstances, you can experience and live in God's peace
2. Life (8:6) - there is life and joy when you abide in God and trust his promises and principles
3. Wonderful relationship to God as our Father (8:15-16) - The Holy God of the Universe is our Father! Wow!!
4. Access to God's riches (8:17a) - what Christ has is yours, you are co-heir with Jesus Christ to all heaven's riches!
5. Privilege of suffering for Christ (8:17b-18) - might sound like a weird blessing, but many Christians can testify to a fantastic intimacy and a fantastic growth in their relationship with God during suffering for Christ!
6. Power of the Holy Spirit (8:26) - The Holy Spirit lives in you. He helps you, he guides you and he constantly intercedes for you!
7. Assurance that God loves us (8:28) - God loves you just the way you are!
8. Promise that we'll get all we need (8:31-32) - God, your Father, takes care of you and will give you all you need!
9. Victory over all evil (8:37) - God if for us! Who can be against us?
10.Assurance of remaining in God's love (8:38-39) - God will never let you go! He'll always love you!
Praise God!
Torben - here is a picture of the DTS class in Rostov
In Rostov-on-Don we were studying Romans, which - as always - was wonderful!
We didn't have time to study the whole book in depth, but we did look at Romans 1-8 using the inductive study method, where we allow the Bible to speak for itself, instead of forcing our theology down on the Bible texts (maybe I should write another blog about the inductive method some other time?).
In chapter 7 Paul shows how life is for anybody who tries to live up to God's law in their own strength ("the things I don't want to do, I end up doing. And what I want to do, I don't do!). In chapter 8 Paul explodes in joy and shouts out all the wonderful blessings that are available, if you live in God's grace and walk in the power of his Holy Spirit. And that is for all, no matter if you have Jewish, Gentile or any other background!
Here are the Top 10 blessings when you live in God's grace according to Romans chapter 8 - enjoy!:
1. Peace (8:1) - no matter the circumstances, you can experience and live in God's peace
2. Life (8:6) - there is life and joy when you abide in God and trust his promises and principles
3. Wonderful relationship to God as our Father (8:15-16) - The Holy God of the Universe is our Father! Wow!!
4. Access to God's riches (8:17a) - what Christ has is yours, you are co-heir with Jesus Christ to all heaven's riches!
5. Privilege of suffering for Christ (8:17b-18) - might sound like a weird blessing, but many Christians can testify to a fantastic intimacy and a fantastic growth in their relationship with God during suffering for Christ!
6. Power of the Holy Spirit (8:26) - The Holy Spirit lives in you. He helps you, he guides you and he constantly intercedes for you!
7. Assurance that God loves us (8:28) - God loves you just the way you are!
8. Promise that we'll get all we need (8:31-32) - God, your Father, takes care of you and will give you all you need!
9. Victory over all evil (8:37) - God if for us! Who can be against us?
10.Assurance of remaining in God's love (8:38-39) - God will never let you go! He'll always love you!
Praise God!
Torben - here is a picture of the DTS class in Rostov
Why is it so hard to say : "I don't know!"?
I just came back to the baking oven formerly known as Kiev (it's superhot these days...) after a great week of teaching in a Youth With A Mission (YWAM) Discipleship Training School (DTS) in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. Eight students from Russia, Azerbaijan, Canada and the United States along with staff and myself were talking about Discipleship this week. The students had many good questions, so a lot of the teaching time was spend talking about a number of their questions.
One thing struck me: why is it apparently so hard for pastors, Bible teachers, Christian leaders, etc. to say: "I just don't know".....Might sound like a weird thing to be thinking about, but it struck me how often these people (including myself from time to time sadly) end up answering questions that God himself has decided not to give definitive answers to as of right now!
Especially regarding the topic of healing it was clear that the students had heard many well-meaning people answer a lot of questions with a certainty found nowhere in the Bible. Students had heard that all Christians will be healed from all sicknesses if they just had enough faith. That's simply not true! It's a - pardon my French - ridiculous statement. Look at the many, many Christians who are not healed in this lifetime. Look at the apostle Paul who had a "thorn in his flesh" and asked God to take it away. God chose not to take it away (and to this day we don't know what the problem was, despite many people claiming that they know...!), but God chose not to and taught Paul the important lesson: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2.Corinthians 12:9).
We just don't know why God chooses to heal some and not others. It's true that there is some link between faith and healing in the Bible, but exactly how it works is still a mystery. There is NOT a Scripture saying that if you have this and that amount of faith, and the wind is blowing from that direction and you say exactly this prayer you will for sure be healed...it doesn't exist!
We have to admit that God is God and we're not. There are many things we don't know fully. Let's not be afraid to admit that. And let's not try to explain things that God, in his infinite wisdom, has chosen not to explain! Many well-meaning Christians feel that they have to be like Job's friends, who thought that they knew exactly who God was and who thought they could explain why so many bad things were happening to Job ("Obviously you must have sinned!!"). The Bible shows us that it wasn't anything Job had done that made God curse him. And when God breaks through in the final chapters of Job, he doesn't explain "why good things happen to good people" - and quite frankly I don't think God needs our help in defending himself!
God bless!
Torben - who is glad that God has revealed the answers to many of life's questions to us, and who, with Paul, is looking forward to the day where we'll know fully - "Now we see but a poor reflection in a mirror (the mirrors back then were made out of polished metal and gave a pretty bad image of how people looked), then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known" (1. Corinthians 13:12)
One thing struck me: why is it apparently so hard for pastors, Bible teachers, Christian leaders, etc. to say: "I just don't know".....Might sound like a weird thing to be thinking about, but it struck me how often these people (including myself from time to time sadly) end up answering questions that God himself has decided not to give definitive answers to as of right now!
Especially regarding the topic of healing it was clear that the students had heard many well-meaning people answer a lot of questions with a certainty found nowhere in the Bible. Students had heard that all Christians will be healed from all sicknesses if they just had enough faith. That's simply not true! It's a - pardon my French - ridiculous statement. Look at the many, many Christians who are not healed in this lifetime. Look at the apostle Paul who had a "thorn in his flesh" and asked God to take it away. God chose not to take it away (and to this day we don't know what the problem was, despite many people claiming that they know...!), but God chose not to and taught Paul the important lesson: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2.Corinthians 12:9).
We just don't know why God chooses to heal some and not others. It's true that there is some link between faith and healing in the Bible, but exactly how it works is still a mystery. There is NOT a Scripture saying that if you have this and that amount of faith, and the wind is blowing from that direction and you say exactly this prayer you will for sure be healed...it doesn't exist!
We have to admit that God is God and we're not. There are many things we don't know fully. Let's not be afraid to admit that. And let's not try to explain things that God, in his infinite wisdom, has chosen not to explain! Many well-meaning Christians feel that they have to be like Job's friends, who thought that they knew exactly who God was and who thought they could explain why so many bad things were happening to Job ("Obviously you must have sinned!!"). The Bible shows us that it wasn't anything Job had done that made God curse him. And when God breaks through in the final chapters of Job, he doesn't explain "why good things happen to good people" - and quite frankly I don't think God needs our help in defending himself!
God bless!
Torben - who is glad that God has revealed the answers to many of life's questions to us, and who, with Paul, is looking forward to the day where we'll know fully - "Now we see but a poor reflection in a mirror (the mirrors back then were made out of polished metal and gave a pretty bad image of how people looked), then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known" (1. Corinthians 13:12)
Thursday, May 10, 2007
We are the Champions!!
I know that you, dear international readers, have been very concerned about the well-being of my favorite football club, F.C.København (www.fck.dk), but now I'm happy to tell you that tonight they have won the Danish football championship for the fifth time in seven years!
They defeated their archrivals, Brøndby, at Brøndby's own stadium and sealed the championship four games before the end of the tournament!!
YIHAAAAAAA!!!! One of the pictures show the two biggest stars of the team, the Dane Jesper Grønkjær and the Swedish striker, and the man behind the only goal in tonight's match, Marcus Allbäck celebrate in champagne:-) The other one is of the goalkeeper Jesper Christiansen - who happens to be my wife Jeannette's hero:-)
F.C.København!!!!!!!!!!
Torben ;-)
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
The Power of Forgiveness
I wrote about it earlier on this blog in the blog-entry "Why Christians don't burn down Mecca" (it is, if I may say so myself, worth reading if you haven't already read it...:-)) that the big difference between Christianity and Christians and people from all other religions and life philosophies is grace and forgiveness. That's what makes us unique.
If you don't have the Spirit of God in you, if you don't know Jesus as your personal Savior, if you haven't been moved from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.....then true forgiveness (where you don't hold a grudge!) is next to impossible. Why would you forgive anybody?
And even if you forgive somebody who asks you for forgiveness, you wouldn't seriously consider forgiving somebody who is not sorry and who doesn't ask for forgiveness at all...!
But that's Christian forgiveness. Moedeled by Jesus Christ as he was hanging on the cross dying: "Father forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing". None of the people who crucified him were repentent. None of them were asking for forgiveness. But Christ forgave them anyway. Paul talks about this attitude in Romans 5:7-8: "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But Christ demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us"
This is not normal. This shakes the world. This changes hearts. It did 2000 years ago, and it still does today. And it changes people when we show the same forgiveness that Christ models for us.
People want revenge when somebody has hurt their family. It's only reasonable. People rejoice when a mass murderer's life ended. A mother talks about how relieved she is that her son's murderer now has a death sentence on his plate. She looks forward to the day where he'll be executed. But it won't bring freedom. It won't bring peace. Never.
The excellent movie The Interpreter (with Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn) talks in a scene about how the African tribe, the Ku, have a ritual when somebody has been killed. The murderer is bound and thrown in the river, and the family members can either choose to let him drown and get their justice (but no peace in their hearts), or choose to swim out and save the murderer and through that gain freedom through saving a life.
Another movie that portrays the power of forgiveness in powerful ways is the movie To End All Wars with Kiefer Sutherland. Buy it and watch it, you won't regret it!!
Anyway...the reason I'm writing this long blog on forgiveness is two current events that once again show how powerful a testimony true, Christian forgiveness is. On April 15 the Palestinian Bible Society in the Gaza-strip was, for the second time in the last two years, hit by a bomb that blew up a lot of their building. The leader, Labib Madanat, said to the press: "We have so much love for the people who live in Gaza". No hatred. Just love.
Even more recently there was the situation in Turkey where three missionaries (a German and two Turkish) who worked for a Christian publishing house were brutally murdered by Islamic fanatics. Their wives and children were left behind and the Turkish media sought out the widows to hear their comments about the murders. They wives response was incredible: forgiveness!
Forgiveness changes the world. Hopefully there were many Turks watching the news that evening who saw true forgiveness. Saw love. Saw hope. There is no such thing as forgiveness in neither the Islamic world, nor the secular, Western world (I recently watched the movie "An Unfinished Life" with Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman and Jennifer Lopez that the producers claim is about forgiveness. The truth is that nobody in the movie confesses anything or talks about past hurts. Forgiveness Hollywood style is "You get over it. And time heals all wounds" which has nothing to do with the truth!)
God forgave me, so I'm called to forgive others. It's not easy. But it's the only way. May I, once again, recommend Philip Yancey's masterpiece "What's So Amazing About Grace" where Yancey tackles all the hard questions concerning grace and forgiveness.
I often struggle to forgive and give grace for little offenses against me. So I read "What's So Amazing About Grace" at least once a year, and I ask God to change my cold heart and give me a heart of forgiveness like some of the Kus, the Bible Publisher, the widows of some other Bible publishers, and countless others who change the world for good, one act of forgiveness at a time.
God bless you!
Torben - another wonderful book/movie about the power of forgiveness is Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables"
If you don't have the Spirit of God in you, if you don't know Jesus as your personal Savior, if you haven't been moved from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.....then true forgiveness (where you don't hold a grudge!) is next to impossible. Why would you forgive anybody?
And even if you forgive somebody who asks you for forgiveness, you wouldn't seriously consider forgiving somebody who is not sorry and who doesn't ask for forgiveness at all...!
But that's Christian forgiveness. Moedeled by Jesus Christ as he was hanging on the cross dying: "Father forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing". None of the people who crucified him were repentent. None of them were asking for forgiveness. But Christ forgave them anyway. Paul talks about this attitude in Romans 5:7-8: "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But Christ demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us"
This is not normal. This shakes the world. This changes hearts. It did 2000 years ago, and it still does today. And it changes people when we show the same forgiveness that Christ models for us.
People want revenge when somebody has hurt their family. It's only reasonable. People rejoice when a mass murderer's life ended. A mother talks about how relieved she is that her son's murderer now has a death sentence on his plate. She looks forward to the day where he'll be executed. But it won't bring freedom. It won't bring peace. Never.
The excellent movie The Interpreter (with Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn) talks in a scene about how the African tribe, the Ku, have a ritual when somebody has been killed. The murderer is bound and thrown in the river, and the family members can either choose to let him drown and get their justice (but no peace in their hearts), or choose to swim out and save the murderer and through that gain freedom through saving a life.
Another movie that portrays the power of forgiveness in powerful ways is the movie To End All Wars with Kiefer Sutherland. Buy it and watch it, you won't regret it!!
Anyway...the reason I'm writing this long blog on forgiveness is two current events that once again show how powerful a testimony true, Christian forgiveness is. On April 15 the Palestinian Bible Society in the Gaza-strip was, for the second time in the last two years, hit by a bomb that blew up a lot of their building. The leader, Labib Madanat, said to the press: "We have so much love for the people who live in Gaza". No hatred. Just love.
Even more recently there was the situation in Turkey where three missionaries (a German and two Turkish) who worked for a Christian publishing house were brutally murdered by Islamic fanatics. Their wives and children were left behind and the Turkish media sought out the widows to hear their comments about the murders. They wives response was incredible: forgiveness!
Forgiveness changes the world. Hopefully there were many Turks watching the news that evening who saw true forgiveness. Saw love. Saw hope. There is no such thing as forgiveness in neither the Islamic world, nor the secular, Western world (I recently watched the movie "An Unfinished Life" with Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman and Jennifer Lopez that the producers claim is about forgiveness. The truth is that nobody in the movie confesses anything or talks about past hurts. Forgiveness Hollywood style is "You get over it. And time heals all wounds" which has nothing to do with the truth!)
God forgave me, so I'm called to forgive others. It's not easy. But it's the only way. May I, once again, recommend Philip Yancey's masterpiece "What's So Amazing About Grace" where Yancey tackles all the hard questions concerning grace and forgiveness.
I often struggle to forgive and give grace for little offenses against me. So I read "What's So Amazing About Grace" at least once a year, and I ask God to change my cold heart and give me a heart of forgiveness like some of the Kus, the Bible Publisher, the widows of some other Bible publishers, and countless others who change the world for good, one act of forgiveness at a time.
God bless you!
Torben - another wonderful book/movie about the power of forgiveness is Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables"
Cry out to Jesus - Third Day
An absolutely wonderful song talking about the true hope we have in Jesus Christ no matter how hard our circumstances might seem. He is the hope for all of us, yesterday, today and forever!
Cry out to Jesus
Idiotkovic...
I've recently switched cell phone operator and now I have LIFE. That's wonderful since I have free calls to everybody else with a LIFE number, but apparently the whole idea of free calls inspires certain people to do somewhat stupid things.
Four nights ago my wife Jeannette got a call from somebody who knew no English. He called a few times, laughed a lot with his drinking buddies and hung up again.
Later the same evening the same guy called me (my number is only one digit different from Jeannette's). He said "My name is Vova" which is a quote from a Ukrainian tv-commercial, but that was the only English he knew. He called again and again and again. After a few calls I started yelling at him and told him to stop calling me. That didn't help. Then I decided to use a sense of humor and I started singing songs to him in Danish, English, plus a little German and French when he called. That kind of had the opposite effect. He started calling even more frequently, and after 15 calls that evening, I put him in my contact list as IDIOTKOVIC and stopped picking up the phone.
He has called a few times every day since. I wonder when my phone will ring and I'll see "Idiotkovic calling" on the display again? In fact I kind of miss him...he hasn't called me today yet...:-)
Torben
Four nights ago my wife Jeannette got a call from somebody who knew no English. He called a few times, laughed a lot with his drinking buddies and hung up again.
Later the same evening the same guy called me (my number is only one digit different from Jeannette's). He said "My name is Vova" which is a quote from a Ukrainian tv-commercial, but that was the only English he knew. He called again and again and again. After a few calls I started yelling at him and told him to stop calling me. That didn't help. Then I decided to use a sense of humor and I started singing songs to him in Danish, English, plus a little German and French when he called. That kind of had the opposite effect. He started calling even more frequently, and after 15 calls that evening, I put him in my contact list as IDIOTKOVIC and stopped picking up the phone.
He has called a few times every day since. I wonder when my phone will ring and I'll see "Idiotkovic calling" on the display again? In fact I kind of miss him...he hasn't called me today yet...:-)
Torben
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