The Apostles Creed -- And in Jesus Christ His Only Son, our Lord

For our 2013 Hymn of the Month we will be exploring the Apostles Creed.
With each post we'll look at one of the statements in the creed,
consider its significance, and share an appropriate hymn.

I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth:
And in Jesus Christ His only Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hades; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God, the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the quick ad the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

What we believe is fundamental to who we are. We live out of our beliefs; they influence our thoughts, our attitudes, and our actions. The paragraph about Jesus in the Apostles Creed is a collection of many things we believe about Him as His followers, but they all flow from the paragraph's first statement, And in Jesus Christ His only Son, our Lord.

Because Jesus Christ is the Son of God, He is fully divine. It is His divinity that makes it possible for Him to forgive our sins and be made right before God the Father. God requires righteousness and humans, on our own, are incapable of righteousness. But God's divine Son stands between us and God,  having paid the price for us, and secures our righteousness (Isaiah 53:6, John 3:16).

The statements to follow affirm the humanity of Christ.  We see the birth, suffering, death, and resurrection of a man, the man Christ Jesus, who identifies with our sufferings. He became one of us -- fully human -- that He might show us the Father and lead us to Him. But this was only possible because He is also fully divine.

In Jesus' day, the citizens of the Roman Empire called Caesar Lord. So when the early believers began to call Jesus Lord, they were saying that He was above Caesar. In fact, they believed that there is only one Lord, and the title belongs to God alone. This is a cornerstone of the Christian faith: Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live (1 Corinthians 8:6).

As Lord, Jesus has a kingdom and citizens of His kingdom need to know the ways of being within that Kingdom. The teachings of Christ, the parables, the healings, His interactions with people, are all revealed to us in the gospels, which give us insight into what it means to live in Jesus' kingdom, under His lordship. And as we study the book of Acts and read the epistles we see how the early church worked out kingdom life. Through the scripture we learn how to live today under the lordship of Jesus.

Jesus Christ His only Son, our Lord. Such a simple statement but packed with powerful truth. This we believe.

With special thanks to Pastor Sam Schaar for his input. To see earlier posts on the Apostles Creed, click here and here.

Just in Time

Are you anxious about how you will pay your bills? where you are going to live? whether or not you will get the job you've applied for? when you will ever be through the ordeal that is consuming you?

Be encouraged. God is at work, and will care for you. But it will be in his time. Although he may seem slow, his timing is right. He will not fail you. He may not answer in the way or the time you want or expect, but he is trustworthy. Trust in him, and in his timing.

I am the Lord; in its time I will do this swiftly.

Isaiah 60:22b

But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son...

Galatians 4:4

The Nozomi Project

Two years ago today, March 11, 2011, Japan was rocked by the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the Tohoku region and affected the entire country. At 2:46 this afternoon the nation observed a moment of silence in memory of this disaster.

Rebuilding has been slow and, according to Voice of America, 300,000 are still in temporary housing. Hope is in short supply.

Yet my friend Roberta Stephens, a missionary for over 30 years in Japan, reports that hope abounds through efforts such as the Nozomi Project. At a recent women's conference she attended she "heard amazing story after story of how God is working. Lots of missionaries have been moving up to NE Japan, and a lot of small cottage industries have begun. One of them employing young women in their 20s and early 30s (most projects involve 50-80 year-olds) has a fantastic jewelry business that has started making necklaces from shards of glass and pottery washed up... We heard some stories of how these women are slowing coming to Christ."

In Japanese, nozomi is the word for hope, and that is what The Nozomi Project is offering these young women, many who lost loved ones during the tsunami. As they teach the women to craft unique jewelry from the broken pieces that resulted in the tsunami, they are helping them bring beauty out of the ashes of their own lives through the sustainable income, community, dignity and hope that results.

Thank you, Roberta, for alerting me to this wonderful project. I have spent quite a bit of time looking over their website and feeling grateful for the chance to share it with others. I encourage you to check it out and, as you do, lift these women and the millions of others who are still feeling the effects of the tsumani. You might even find a piece of jewelry or two that you'd like to purchase.

Kalaloch Trip, Part 2

We didn't know if we'd have decent weather last week while we were at Kalaloch Lodge or if we'd be spending most of our time in the cabin, enjoying the beach from the window. After a storm night on Sunday we woke to sunshine on Monday. So after breakfast we headed out to see some of the other nearby sights.

Our first stop was Ruby Beach, just ten minutes north of Kalaloch. I guess you could say it's Washington State's version of Oregon's Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach, only more dramatic. The beach isn't large, but there is plenty to see. The family in the colorful jackets were enjoying themselves, climbing on the driftwood and looking for treasures on the beach. We asked the mom to take our picture. She got four great shots, so good, in fact, that I'm including two! As she was focusing on us she said, "There's a squall coming in behind you." She handed us back the camera and she and her family disappeared. By the time we got back to the parking lot we were experiencing pea-sized hail, and just a half-mile down the from the park the road was covered in hail!

We followed the signs to the Hoh Tribal Center and drove to the beach where we saw lots of driftwood and men seine fishing. And then we went to the Hoh Rain Forest, which receives 140-170 inches of rain per year (12-14 feet of rain!). "The Hoh is one of the finest remaining examples of temperate rainforest in the United States and is one of the  [Olympic National Park's] most popular destinations" (From the National Park Service's website).

We traveled home along Highway 101, the Olympic Peninsula Loop, through Forks, Port Angeles, Sequim and Port Townsend, passing through places like Sol Duc Hot Springs and La Push, filled with childhood memories, and along Lake Crescent, where my family spent our very best vacation of all. One day maybe we can go back and do more exploring, but probably not in February! (Whose idea was it to get married in February, anyway?)

I hope you enjoy the photos.

Beautiful Ruby Beach

Where the Hoh River meets the Pacific Ocean 

Entering the Hoh Rain Forest

Huge trees abound in the Rain Forest. 

Stick around the Rain Forest for long and you start
to grow moss!

Lake Crescent

Of course a trip like this demands a shot
of a tumbling waterfall along the highway

Run to Jesus

I read The Practice of the Presence of God when I was in my early 20s. It was written by Brother Lawrence, a seventeenth-century monk for whom the presence of God in his life was his goal and his joy.

It was Brother Lawrence's desire to live his entire life out of his love for God. He made it a habit to consciously bring his mind back to the Lord several times an hour, until his awareness of being in God's presence was second nature to him. This impressed me, and I began to incorporate this practice into my own life. I can't say I ever conquered it, but I was learning to be more conscious of living in the presence of Jesus, and it was very sweet.

Then life got in the way. Although I continued to grow in my walk with Christ, I did not keep the practice of calling myself back to the presence of Christ as I had in my younger days.

But over the past several years I have been reminded that I am always in the presence of God if I love Him and am walking with Him. And I have sensed Him calling me more and more into a place of recognizing His presence in every part of my life. One tool He is using to remind me is Sarah Young's book, Jesus Calling. Daily I am reminded to rest in Him, to trust Him, to recognize trials as opportunities to let Him work in my life. It is a precious experience to hear Him through the words of scripture and through this devotional book and to respond.

When we love the Lord and desire to walk with Him there are times we wander off -- we try to do things on our own, we are filled with worry, we seek our own glory and not His (and so many other things). I find it easy to think of myself as the rebellious child who is picked up by the scruff of the neck, kicking and screaming as she is delivered to her father, shaking his head as if to say, "Will you never learn?"

But that is not how it really is. We convince ourselves that we are bad, but to the Lord we are simply out of contact with Him. And it is His love for us that draws us back. We need not fear His judgment; if we are sincerely walking with Him, we can expect only love and grace from Him as we turn back.

And He will receive us as a child who, on a walk with her daddy, has gotten separated from him. She runs to him and hugs him and says, "Oh, Daddy, I didn't know where you were!" He takes her hand and says, "I've been here waiting for you. Shall we go on now?" And there is great love and joy in the reunion.

How Do Birds Find Their Way Home?

Listen to NPR's story -- Birds May Use "Sound Maps" to Navigate Huge Distances

This is amazing. Sound maps. It's especially interesting to this wife of a former pigeon racer!

The Tiny House Tour

Our little cabin at the beach was small, maybe 400 or 500 square feet. The living area and the bathroom were quite comfortable, but the cooking area was really tricky to get along in. Well, of course it was fine for a couple of days, but I don't think I could make it work for longer than that.

But the house in this video is less than 100 square feet! It's very efficient and seems to work well for him.

What about you? Could you manage in a place this small?