From ACNAtoo March 27, 2026 On March 23, 2026, the ACNA announced that it has retained Lathrop GPM to conduct an independent procedural review of the Title IV disciplinary process of Bishop Stewart Ruch. The update includes a brief scope for the investigation, but the ACNA declines to provide the engagement letter or commit to publicly sharing the subsequent findings.    This development comes after months of dedicated advocacy by the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina’s (ADOSC) Standing Committee, as well as Anglicans for Truth, Renewal, and Accountability . On February 20, 2026 , the ADOSC Standing Committee reminded the Executive Committee of the ACNA’s promise to promptly initiate the investigation, noting that “any third-party investigation will only deepen concern unless its engagement letter, scope, and full findings are made publicly available. Anything less will only reinforce the very confusion and scandal the court identified as damaging to the ACNA.” The ADOSC Standing Committee included substantial concerns about Bp. Ruch’s Title IV process in their February 20 letter. These concerns were not addressed. On February 26, 2026 , the Executive Committee instead proposed a private, in-person meeting: “We desire to send to you, three of members and the Dean of the Province, also our Chancellor, to meet with three members of your choosing, and yourselves.” ADOSC’s Standing Committee declined, stating in their diocesan communication : “Our response to this request is that we are willing to meet but only with our whole Standing Committee and with no promise of confidentiality since our singular purpose is shining light into the process of justice in the Province.” The ADOSC Standing Committee’s decision to publish the correspondence related to the Ruch investigation underscores the Province’s lack of transparency in this process.   ACNAtoo has long identified Lathrop as an inappropriate investigation firm. On February 21, 2021, before ACNAtoo was even formed, Joanna Rudenborg communicated to Bp. Ruch and other UMD leaders that Lathrop was an unacceptable firm to conduct a survivor-safe investigation. Their page on Organizational Misconduct tells me, right off the bat, that they have an in-house conflict of interest that makes them untenable…Through a series of stories about how they successfully defended the technical legal distance between admitted perpetrators and the organizations that enabled them to some degree, they are signaling to you, “the client,” that they will do an investigation in such a way that should you run into legal problems in the course of it, they can help you defend yourself on that front, against the victims. The conflict of interest involved in them being “independent” investigators and also defense attorneys couldn’t be more stark. Eve Ahrens, one of the original ACNAtoo members, assessed Lathrop (although not by name) in an article about independent investigations from 2024 : “One red flag Ahrens noticed: a firm that advertised objective sexual misconduct investigations on the same page it touted eight cases in which it had gotten employers, schools, and churches off the hook for liability.” Lathrop GPM is known in church abuse circles for unprofessional investigations. The firm was hired by the International House of Prayer Kansas City (IHOPKC) to investigate IHOPKC founder Mike Bickle’s sexual abuse . Boz Tchividjian, who represented several of Bickle’s victims, objected to Lathrop in a 2023 statemen t: “Why would reported victims of sexual abuse and misconduct sit down with an attorney from a firm that represents churches in sexual abuse matters and then boasts about its successes?” Tchividjian’s concerns were well-founded; the seven-page Lathrop report was inadequate and inflicted unnecessary trauma on Bickle’s survivors. The deficiencies in the Lathrop report are particularly evident when contrasted with the sixty-eight-page Firefly independent investigation report , which identified at least seventeen individuals sexually abused by Mike Bickle.   In another concerning case highlighted on Lathrop’s “ Organizational Misconduct ” page, Lathrop boasts about the following success to its potential clients: Obtained a complete dismissal of a private high school and an affiliated diocese in an action involving a volunteer coach who sexually assaulted a member of the girls’ softball team. A prompt and thorough investigation by our team allowed the client to assess its liability risks and whether its policies had been followed. The trial court granted motions arguing there was no duty to protect the plaintiff from sexual assaults that were unrelated to any school activity and occurred on private property. In this case, the  sexual predator was convicted in criminal court. Lathrop subsequently engaged in vicious legal maneuvering against the survivor while representing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento in a civil suit. Lathrop intimidated the sexual assault survivor with $7,300 in legal fees after she was forced to withdraw her civil case on a technicality. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) noted that Lathrop has “long used ‘scorched earth’ tactics against victims .” Survivors and concerned ACNA members have every reason to question the integrity of an investigation conducted by a firm that is notorious for protecting institutions and crushing abuse survivors. A December 2025 petition organized by Anglicans for Truth, Renewal, and Accountability includes several crucial requests for the investigation into the Ruch matter, none of which have been granted:  We ask that the assessment be conducted by an organization or individual that possesses significant expertise as an investigative and compliance firm (rather than a law firm), a public record of prioritizing truth and care for victims over institutional protection, and significant experience conducting trauma-informed assessments and investigations in religious spaces.  We ask that the scope of the investigation and the contract with the investigating party be made public with a three-week period for comment and revision prior to being finalized. We ask that the Provincial Office and the College of Bishops publicly commit to full cooperation with the investigating party, trusting the words of our Lord that “the truth will set you free.” We ask that the Provincial Office and College of Bishops commit to releasing the final report of the investigating party publicly and promptly regardless of the findings or outcome. We ask that the final report be unredacted except as needed to protect victims. The ACNA’s unilateral decision to retain Lathrop, despite this long-documented history, demonstrates its inability to conduct due diligence and its disinterest in listening to its members.  END

Commentary By David W. Virtue, DD www.virtueonline.org March 26, 2026 She came; she was enthroned — but she did not conquer. Sixteen of the forty-two orthodox primates were absent from the enthronement of Dame Sarah Mullally as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury, a ceremony attended by some 2,000 gathered in Canterbury Cathedral. Their absence sent a defiant message: the fabric of the Anglican Communion is irretrievably torn. Just as the veil of the Temple was rent from top to bottom at the moment of Christ’s death, the communion’s unity has been sundered — and there are few who believe it can be repaired.   The symbolism surrounding the service was not lost on orthodox observers. The Dean of the Cathedral, the Very Rev. David Monteith, who lives openly in a same-sex relationship, presided over a ceremony whose very setting stands in violation of Lambeth Resolution 1:10. Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams also declined to attend, citing his wish to avoid the appearance of a “lingering presence from the past” — though his tenure, marked by the inconclusive Windsor Report and unresolved tensions over Resolution 1:10, hardly left the communion on stable ground. Former Archbishop George Carey, 90, whose sympathies lie firmly with the theologically orthodox Global South, was likewise absent; the recent death of his son Andrew may have been a contributing factor. Dean Monteith described the occasion as a “truly global gathering” — a characterization that rang hollow to many. The absent primates represent approximately 80 percent of the estimated 100 million Anglicans who hold evangelical convictions in matters of faith and morals. That figure is growing: roughly one million Anglicans are added to the global church each year, almost none of them in the declining West. The Absent Primates Twelve primates — leaders of GAFCON and the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans (GSFA) — formally declined to attend. They were the primates of Alexandria, Chile, Congo, the Indian Ocean, Kenya, Myanmar, Nigeria, Rwanda, South East Asia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Uganda. Together, their provinces represent the majority of the world’s practicing Anglicans. Those who stayed away were: •  The Most Rev. Dr. Samy Fawzy Shehata, Archbishop and Primate of Alexandria •  The Most Rev. Enrique Lago Zugadi, Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Chile •  The Most Rev. Dr. Georges Titre Ande, Primate of the Anglican Church of the Congo •  The Most Rev. Gilbert Rateloson Rakotondravelo, Archbishop and Primate of the Indian Ocean •  The Most Rev. Jackson Ole Sapit, Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Kenya •  The Most Rev. Stephen Than Myint Oo, Archbishop of the Church of the Province of Myanmar •  The Most Rev. Henry Chukwudum Ndukuba, Primate of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) •  The Most Rev. Dr. Laurent Mbanda, Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Rwanda •  The Most Rev. Dr. Titus Chung, Archbishop and Primate of the Church of the Province of South East Asia •  The Most Rev. Ezekiel Kondo Kumir Kuku, Archbishop and Primate of Sudan •  The Most Rev. Justin Badi Arama, Archbishop of the Episcopal Church of South Sudan •  The Most Rev. Samuel Stephen Kaziimba Mugalu, Primate of the Church of Uganda In geographic terms, the Middle East, South America, much of Asia, and a large portion of sub-Saharan Africa were unrepresented. The Province of Nigeria alone surpasses the combined regular worshipper numbers of the Episcopal Church (TEC), the Anglican Church of Canada, the Church of England, the Church in Wales, and the Scottish Episcopal Church. Nigeria recently added fifteen new dioceses — a fact that speaks for itself. Of the forty-two provinces in the Anglican Communion, twenty-four sent their primates. Pakistan and Burundi sent representatives, and Jerusalem, Melanesia, and the Acting Primate of Papua New Guinea offered apologies, citing travel difficulties arising from the conflict in the Gulf. The Ceremony At the service’s opening, Dean Monteith welcomed the congregation to what he called a “truly global gathering.” He later installed Mullally in the Chair of St. Augustine, praying that she might “by God’s grace be an instrument of communion and fellowship in Christ within the Anglican Communion.” Mullally was surrounded at the altar by women during her enthronement, and the service offered explicit acknowledgment of female scholars, musicians, and writers throughout the Church’s history. The Archbishop of Wales, Cherry Vann — herself the first openly lesbian archbishop in the Church of England’s history — offered a message of congratulations that highlighted this dimension of the occasion. To a casual onlooker, the ceremony may have appeared both historic and unifying. To those who have followed the Anglican Communion’s internal conflicts over four decades, like this reporter, it carried a hollow ring. Those keeping watch on the procession noted the conspicuous absence of sixteen provincial leaders. The Deeper Rupture For nearly two decades, the GSFA has called on the Anglican Communion to submit to Scripture and to discipline those provinces — including the Church of England — it believes have “departed from the historic faith passed down from the Apostles.” These provinces will no longer recognize the Archbishop of Canterbury as “first among equals” in global Anglican leadership. Last month in Abuja, Nigeria, GAFCON went further, announcing “a shift of the stewardship of the Anglican Communion from the Canterbury Instruments to the Global Anglican Communion.” Leadership will now be vested in the newly formed Global Anglican Council, which GAFCON intends to be a confessional body anchored in biblical authority rather than institutional affiliation. The Abuja Affirmation reflected on the implications of the October 2025 Martyrs’ Day Statement and called for a thoroughgoing reordering of the Communion on doctrinal grounds. This trajectory traces back to the 2008 Global Anglican Future Conference in Jerusalem, from which emerged the Jerusalem Declaration — a fourteen-point confessional statement articulating an orthodox Anglican identity rooted in Scripture, the historic creeds, and traditional Christian ethics. It was born from frustration with what many saw as theological drift in the Western provinces. None of this backstory was acknowledged at Canterbury. It is now clear that the majority of the world’s Anglicans have turned their backs on Canterbury. A de facto schism exists; a de jure schism would require the full GSFA to formally break communion, and there are no immediate signs that step is imminent. But the direction of travel is unmistakable. The Anglican Communion will stagger on — like a horse past its prime, hoping that if it crosses the finish line, there will be enough applause left to run again.

Dame Sarah Mullally | Church of England YouTube By Mike Judge EVANGELICAL TIMES 25 Mar 2026 Earlier today, Sarah Mullally was officially installed as the first-ever female Archbishop of Canterbury. As a non-Anglican Christian, I always find the ceremonies and rituals of the Church of England strange and alien — all those flowing robes and pointy hats. But this ceremony, in particular, had yet more to make me roll my eyes and shake my head. Dame Mullally’s installation as Archbishop of Canterbury will no doubt be hailed in many quarters as a historic triumph — a long-awaited step in a more “inclusive” and “relevant” direction. Yet for those who take Scripture seriously, it marks not a milestone of faithfulness, but another sobering chapter in the Church of England’s steady drift from biblical authority. We are told this moment should be celebrated because it is unprecedented. That much is true. But novelty has never been a biblical qualification for leadership. The true church of Christ does not belong to the age, nor is it tasked with keeping pace with cultural trends. It belongs to the one who died for its sake. And its ordering is given in His Word — not negotiated in response to social pressure. In a desperate bid to appear “relevant,” the installation ceremony itself became a display of carefully curated inclusivity. There were prayers in Urdu, a hymn in the South African language of Xhosa, and even a Bible reading delivered by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster. As if to underscore this ecumenical trajectory, the new Archbishop wore the pastoral ring presented to Michael Ramsey by Pope Paul VI in 1966 — a symbolic gesture that speaks volumes about the direction of travel. One is left to ask: at what point does the pursuit of visible unity come at the cost of doctrinal clarity? This blending of traditions and signals of rapprochement with Rome may be applauded in some circles, but it raises serious concerns for those who hold to the hard-won truths of the Reformation. Unity, in Scripture, is grounded in truth — not in shared ceremonies or symbolic gestures that obscure enduring theological differences. Equally troubling were Dame Sarah’s remarks ahead of the service. Encouraging women to “follow your dreams,” she emphasised the importance of representation and personal aspiration. “It’s entirely possible for you to follow your dreams and what you want to do,” she said. Yet such language sits uneasily with the heart of the Christian message. The call of Christ is not to self-fulfilment, but to self-denial. The question is not whether we can achieve our ambitions, but whether we are willing to submit to His will. Discipleship is not about realising our dreams, but about obedience — even when it runs counter to them. In her inaugural sermon, the new Archbishop addressed the deeply serious issue of abuse within the Church of England, acknowledging past failures and calling for greater care for victims. These are necessary words, and no faithful Christian would dispute the importance of justice, repentance, and protection for the vulnerable. Yet the moment was overshadowed by the reality that concerns about safeguarding within the Church of England remain unresolved. The interruption of the service by a heckler — however unwelcome that maybe — served as a stark reminder that institutional statements alone cannot restore trust. The resignation of her predecessor, Justin Welby, over his handling of abuse allegations cast a long shadow over this transition. That shadow has not been dispelled by rhetoric alone. The Church of England must demonstrate, not merely declare, its commitment to truth and accountability. Taken together, these elements paint a picture that is difficult to ignore. A ceremony shaped by cultural inclusivity, an embrace of ecumenical symbolism, a message centred on personal aspiration, and ongoing questions about integrity — all point to a Church increasingly shaped by the spirit of the age rather than the authority of Scripture. Our world desperately needs to hear the never-chasing truths of the gospel which are relevant to people's deepest needs. A generation of young people are asking deep existential questions: Why do I exist? What's the meaning of my life? Is there any truth out there? Is there a great plan for humanity? Where is history itself heading? Yet rather than addressing those questions, the Church of England hierarchy is chasing a woke form of 'relevance'. And in doing so, the Church of England has become totally irrelevant to those who are seeking the truth. END

COMMENTARY   By David W. Virtue, DD www.virtueonline.org                                                                                                               March 25, 2026   Sarah Mullally and Justin Welby, the current and former Archbishops of Canterbury, share a telling common ground: both began their journeys as evangelicals, only to become something else entirely — corporate managers, glorified administrators, theological compromisers, and champions of inclusion over conviction. In Welby’s case, add to that a penchant for performative self-flagellation on the world stage. Welby came from a privileged but deeply broken and dysfunctional family. Mullally, by contrast, came from a working-class background — but a happy one. Welby’s spiritual biography is well documented. His conversion to Christ came during his university years — a transformative encounter that he described as pivotal, and that seemed to set the course of his faith and his commitment to Christianity. Dame Sarah Mullally’s conversion came at age 16, in a vividly evangelical context, and similarly shaped her values and her early years of leadership. Both conversions took place during a period of genuine evangelical vitality in the Church of England. Preachers like John Stott, Dick Lucas, and Michael Green were proclaiming the gospel with force and clarity. Martyn Lloyd-Jones — outside the CofE but inescapably part of that world — stood as a rock of Reformed conviction. Christian Unions were full. Evangelical missions thrived. Britain was exporting its brightest and best across the globe. Stott disciples such as Ted Schroder and John Yates built large, flourishing churches in the United States. It remains as true today as it was then: the best Anglican preachers and theologians tend to be English-born and -trained. They command the language with uncommon facility. They can articulate the gospel as few others can. Their preaching and teaching carry weight across the Anglican Communion — they are listened to, and they deserve to be. John Stott preached his last sermon at 86. He never lost his evangelical luster, never traded the clarity of the gospel for institutional comfort. But another generation followed, and it brought scandal in its wake. John Smyth, Jonathan Fletcher, and Mike Pilavachi — all identified as evangelical leaders — used their influence to abuse young men for their own perverted ends. The damage to evangelicalism’s reputation within the CofE was severe. Into this wounded landscape stepped Justin Welby. A vulnerable man from a broken family, he rose swiftly: Bishop of Durham, then Archbishop of Canterbury, succeeding Rowan Williams as the 105th holder of that ancient see. Evangelicals believed they had one of their own at the helm. They were wrong. Somewhere in the corridors of Lambeth Palace, Welby lost it. His catastrophic safeguarding failure over John Smyth was either the tip of the iceberg or the final straw — perhaps both. He prostrated himself before a shrine in India. He staked his legacy on Living in Love and Faith (LLF), believing it would produce a peaceful settlement over same-sex unions. It did not. He publicly declared that he had been “thick” not to recognize the “huge blessing” of faithful same-sex relationships, and he openly rejected the Church’s historic teaching that sexual intimacy belongs exclusively within male-female marriage. He resigned in disgrace. Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics alike felt betrayed. His departure was, on balance, a relief. As it turned out, the LLF process satisfied no one. Welby disappeared, retreating into irrelevance — yesterday’s news. Enter Dame Sarah Mullally , heir apparent to Lambeth Palace. Sarah came to faith in an unmistakably evangelical setting and carried that faith through her nursing training and the early years of her professional life. St John’s Woking, where she found Christ, was a thriving evangelical congregation — running regular guest services, bringing in evangelists, sending teams out on mission to other parishes. The young Sarah Bowser was formed in an atmosphere of intense evangelistic fervor. (She is, incidentally, officially dyslexic.) She owned that heritage for herself, not least by serving as President of the Christian Union at the Polytechnic of the South Bank, where she studied nursing. But over time, Mullally came to believe that what mattered was not the Great Commission but the art of consultation and team-working. The “go along to get along” philosophy — that cozy Anglican virtue of social harmony and institutional conformity — gradually displaced the urgency of the gospel. Recently, she compared Lent with Ramadan and offered congratulations to the Muslim community on its observance. But the two are not comparable, let alone compatible. It is rather like comparing a chicken and a Boeing 787: both have wings, but no one is flying to London on the back of a chicken. Is it any wonder that the Global South has lost confidence in a Canterbury-led Communion and moved to distance itself by forming the Global Anglican Communion the brainchild of GAFCON. Or that deep Anglican theological minds like Michael Nazir-Ali and Gavin Ashenden have found their way to Rome? One struggles to imagine Thomas Cranmer approving of the Dean of Canterbury Cathedral living openly in a same-sex relationship — without fleeing the building in expectation of divine judgment. Several reasons account for why the evangelical mantle slipped from these two leaders (though notably not from George Carey, who has maintained his evangelical convictions): •             A failure to hold Scripture as authoritative on all matters of faith and practice. •             A belief that God had changed his mind about sexual ethics. •             An unwillingness to stand against the prevailing culture. •             Allowing the state to dictate to the Church what it must believe about social morality. •             A near-total capitulation to secular norms, overriding biblical teaching. Today, the Church of England lies in disarray. £100 million has been pledged to “Slavery Reparations,” diverting funds from struggling parishes to an ideologically driven national project. The parishes — where ministry actually happens — are chronically underfunded, leading to priest shortages, church closures, and forced mergers. One churchman described the imbalance as “shocking.” Central bureaucracy continues to expand even as local budgets contract. Evangelism and discipleship have dropped off the agenda, largely because no one in leadership knows how to evangelize their own neighbors. The pews grow emptier; those who remain grow older. How can you impart a gospel you no longer carry in your bones? Being a “broad church” has come to mean latitudinarianism in doctrine and practice: an embrace of “diversity,” a perpetual search for middle ground between High Church Anglo-Catholics and Low Church Evangelicals, and the elevation of personal conscience over revealed truth. It is, in short, a recipe for institutional decay. One thinks of Yeats: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” John on Patmos wrote this of the Church of Laodicea: “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm — neither hot nor cold — I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked…” (Revelation 3:14–22). It is not that evangelicalism has failed — it cannot fail. It is the leaders who have failed evangelicalism. The Church of England is now rampantly progressive in its theology. It has become, in every meaningful sense, Laodicean. It awaits the judgment of God. END

By Ted Schroder What do you do when you live day in and day out with the realization that your identity is in question, and your value is diminished by, what you consider, a great injustice? Your soul is embittered as you look at others around you who seem to have it much easier than you. There are some close to you who seem to enjoy reminding you of your inadequacy as a person. You are bitter because you have suffered abuse, you have been treated poorly, by people close to you. They may have been spouses who ill-treated you, or alcoholic parents, or mean siblings, or employers who exploited your faithful service. As a result you are sometimes confused about life, about God, about purpose, about your sexuality. You wonder whether you are a freak, or whether you have done something wrong for which you are being punished. You long to be normal, and to be able to accept yourself as you are, but you feel incomplete, and trapped.   If you do not identify with such a person, you may know someone who does. Such a person was Hannah, the wife of Elkanah, whose story is told in 1 Samuel 1 and 2. Her husband loved her very much, but she was barren, unable to bear him any children. We are told that "the LORD had closed her womb." Because of her childlessness, Elkanah had taken a second wife, Peninnah who bore him children. Peninnah was mean to Hannah. "She kept provoking her to irritate her until Hannah wept and would not eat." What form this provocation took we do not know, but it must, at least, have been name-calling about her inadequacy as a woman, constant provocation about her failure to conceive, and her uselessness to her husband. In other words, she was being constantly put down, bullied, made the butt of jokes by a cruel woman with whom she had to share a house and a husband. This went on, we are told, year after year.   What would you feel like and do if you had been in her place? Hannah probably withdrew emotionally, and socially, and nursed her wounds. Nothing could console her, not even her husband expressing his concern: "Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don't you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don't I mean more to you than ten sons." But not all such reassurance in the world could compensate for her pain.   In this condition Hannah prayed to the Lord. "In bitterness of soul Hannah wept much and prayed to the Lord. And she made a vow, saying, 'O Lord Almighty, if you will only look upon your servant's misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life.'"   We are told that she prayed in her heart, silently. She was accused by Eli the priest of being drunk, but defended herself by saying, "I am a woman who is deeply troubled, I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief."   Here is guidance for you. Whenever you are deeply troubled, you can pour out your soul to the Lord. Genuine prayer is borne out of great anguish and grief. In such times in our lives we are filled to overflowing with our suffering. Let it overflow. Let your soul be poured out to the Lord. It will not be wasted. The psalmist says of God, "You have noted my lamentation; put my tears in your bottle; are they not recorded in your book?" (Ps.56:8) God treasures our tears, and keeps them stored up. He knows what troubles us.   What is in your soul that needs pouring out? What is troubling you that needs to be expressed? Note that Hannah did not blame either Peninnah or the Lord for her troubles. She does not turn her back upon the Lord who had closed her womb. Instead she exercised her faith in prayer, believing in the sovereignty and care of God.   In the process of pouring out her soul she made a vow that she would dedicate her son to the service of the Lord. In a sense, this is what we are doing in infant dedication or baptism. We give back to the Lord what he has given to us. Children are a gift from the Lord. They are not ours by right. It is an act of faith that recognizes this by giving them back in service to the Giver.   What vows can we make to the Lord when we are deeply troubled? Can we give ourselves and all that we are and have to Christ to be used in his service? Is what we pray for so important to us that we are willing to dedicate ourselves wholly to God. There is a prayer that I use which expresses this kind of vow.   Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to you, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly yours, utterly dedicated to you, and then use us, we pray, as you will, and always to your glory and the good of your people; through Jesus Christ our Lord.   It may be a test of how important and urgent our prayer is to see whether we are willing to make that kind of vow, and follow through on it. Hannah could easily have made the vow and then reneged on it when her son was born, but she didn't. After Samuel was weaned he was given to Eli to be raised in the house of the Lord. Hannah said to Eli, "As surely as you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the LORD. I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the LORD. For his whole life he will be given over to the LORD."   She was given a son, her reproach was taken away, and one of the great prophets of Israel was given to the service of the LORD. Her great anguish and grief led to the prayer of faith, which led in its turn to the life of the great and famous leader of Israel, the prophet Samuel. She had no idea when she prayed that she would be granted, not only to become a mother, but the mother of one of the leaders of her nation. We don't know, when we are deeply troubled, and pour out our souls before the Lord, what God can do with our requests, our desires, and our vows.   James reminds us that "you do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with the wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures." (James 4:2,3)   Our troubles should lead us to pray, not complain. Our motives should lead us to make our vows that our lives, and all that we pray for, will be dedicated to the service of the Lord. What we get, is to be spent, not on our pleasures, but in the service of the Lord and his kingdom.   When Hannah fulfills her vow she prays again: "My heart rejoices in the LORD." Centuries later the virgin Mary would sing parts of the song of Hannah in response to the message of the angel bringing her news of the Holy Spirit's conception of Jesus. Hannah's song is a means of expressing her gratitude and praise to the Giver of life.   "The psalm of praise which Hannah sings, reveals her understanding of divine things in an age when men had small understanding of their God. It recognizes the power of God and the certainty of ultimate justice. It expresses faith in God's power to keep, and joy at answered prayer. It vibrates with gratitude." (E.M.Blaiklock, Today's Handbook of Bible Characters, p.125)   Just as her bitterness of soul led her to pray, so also her overflowing gratitude poured out in this prayer of thanksgiving. Gratitude leads, not to complacency, and self-satisfaction, but to praise and thanksgiving. Henry Ward Beecher wrote, "A humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow." Marcus Tullius Cicero wrote, "A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all other virtues." John Henry Jowett said, "Every virtue divorced from thankfulness is maimed and limps along the spiritual road." William Shakespeare prayed, "O Lord that lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness."   Ten men prayed that Jesus would take pity on them and heal them of their leprosy. As they went to show themselves to the priest, they were cleansed. One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at the feet of Jesus and thanked him - and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, "Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" (Luke 17:17,18)   The prayer of thanksgiving is the response to answered prayer. Praise is essential in Christian experience. We are made to praise and thank God who gives us so much. We are made to return thanks and to rejoice in God's goodness. Hannah praises God for his holiness. He alone is pure and righteous. He alone does what is right. He alone rescues his people. He is like a rock - dependable and strong - from which waters of blessing flow. Hannah praises God who provides for his people, who protects those who are his, and who knows our troubles. The more we know about God, the more we want to praise him.   Tim Chester writes, "Does the story of Hannah teach us that God will provide children to childless women who earnestly pray to him? Does it suggest that if we make a vow to God he will be more likely to answer our prayers? The answer to these questions is no. Hannah's story is told not because it is typical but because it is untypical. There were no doubt many childless women in Israel who prayed to God and remained childless. Hannah's prayer is not granted because her prayer was more devout, or her anguish more acute, or her vow more sincere. Her prayer was answered because of God's grace. Eli says to Hannah, 'Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.' (1:17) The answer to her prayer lies in the gift of God. Hannah herself replies, 'May your servant find favor in your eyes.' (18) The word favor or grace in Hebrew is hen, and so this is a play on Hannah's name. Hannah's name is a reminder that God acts in his grace, and through her in the life of the nation. Hannah's story is told because it is part of a bigger story - the story of the provision of a Saviour." (The Message of Prayer, p.131)   God takes a troubled, childless woman, and through her prayers he advances his purposes of salvation. He takes someone who was reviled and ridiculed, and gives her joy. It is when we pray that God can use us. Prayer changes us and the world. God gives you the freedom to ask, so that you will receive what you, and the world, need, most of all.   The Rev. Schroder is pastor of Amelia Island Plantation Chapel in Florida

By Ted Schroder In 701 BC Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. He invested Jerusalem with the mightiest army in the region. Thousands upon thousands of blood-thirsty troops surrounded the city in the attempt to starve it into submission. Archeological texts describe how he besieged 'Hezekiah the Jew. I shut him up like a caged bird within his royal capital, Jerusalem. I put watch-posts closely round the city and turned back to his fate anyone who came out of the city gate'.   He sent messengers with a letter to King Hezekiah saying: "Do not let the god you depend on deceive you when he says, 'Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.' Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, destroying them completely. And will you be delivered? Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my forefathers deliver them - the gods of Gozan, Haran, Rezeph and the people of Eden who were in Tel Assar?" (Isaiah 37:10-12)   Hezekiah took the letter into the temple of the LORD and spread it out before the LORD. He prayed: "O LORD almighty, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Give ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see; listen to all the words Sennacherib has sent to insult the living God." (Isaiah 37:16,17)   Hezekiah and his people are threatened by an enemy who denies the power of their God to save them by comparing him with the gods of other nations that likewise failed to deliver them. Perhaps one of the greatest attacks on the prayer of faith comes from the culture that surrounds us. The secular opinion-makers send us messages that our god is one among many who similarly lack power. What is the point of prayer if our god is simply a localized deity, a myth that we and our forefathers have preserved to give us comfort?   Christians today can be like King Hezekiah - shut up in a cage besieged by skeptics who reduce Christianity to one among many faiths. They say that in this pluralistic world one faith is as good as another, or no good at all. They question the value of praying to God who is only the product of our national culture, when there is no guarantee that he can deliver? They argue that each person has his own beliefs; that all religions are relative; that certainty about faith is impossible; and that no one has an exclusive claim to truth. Therefore they maintain that Christians should not try to change the beliefs of others or impose their beliefs on others. Some teach that all our knowledge is constructed by us to explain our world. In fact, they claim that our language is a cage in which we are forever locked that functions to describe reality as we experience it.   "There is no true meaning, whether for life, religion, morality or even a text, since the way that a text is interpreted will depend upon the culture within which it is read. There are no absolutes, no rocks of certainty on which one can stand firm outside the constant sea of change. We are embedded in these tossing and raging waters and reality is merely our own perspective. The search for certainty or for any rock to cling to is folly. What is needed is to stop closing the mind and to be open to new, and possibly threatening possibilities, to be able to live on a sea of uncertainty with no fixed marks and where nothing abides or endures." (Peter Vardy, What is Truth? pp.100,101)   The only thing that mattered to Sennacherib is the power to dominate others. In a world in which there is no absolute truth, no one, true God to whom to pray, who can deliver, the only value is power. Friedrich Nietzsche criticized Christianity for sapping the energy of the Roman Empire by making people weak. He glorified the super-man, who had the will to power. The Church, he maintained left people as "a caricature of man, like an abortion: he had become a 'sinner', he was caged up, he had been imprisoned behind a host of appalling notions, full of hate for the instincts of life, full of suspicion in regard to all that is still strong and happy." (Twilight of the Idols)   The culture in which we live proclaims that power is the means to success, that power establishes what is true, and that nothing is sacred. How do you pray for deliverance when you are caged up in this world of change and uncertainty? Who can you depend upon?   Hezekiah calls upon God to hear, see and listen to the words of Sennacherib which insult the living God. If you believe in Almighty God, and that God alone is over all the kingdoms of the earth, and that God made heaven and earth, then you are asserting your belief in an absolute truth. No matter that the enemy has laid waste other peoples and beliefs. No matter that their gods have been thrown into the fire and destroyed. No matter that religion has been discredited, for so many religions have been fashioned by human hands. Hezekiah calls upon God Almighty, his God, to deliver him and his people, "so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O LORD, are God." (Isaiah 37:20)   This confidence in the power of God is echoed in the prayer of the early Christians. They acknowledged that the enemy had conspired against Jesus the anointed one. "They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus." (Acts 4:27-30)   The believer has confidence in the power of Almighty God to save them despite the threats of the enemy. The rulers of the nations may rage and the peoples plot in vain (Psalm 2:1,2) but we can be confident in the efficacy of our prayers.   But how do we know that our God is the only God, and that Jesus Christ is the only Lord and Savior? How do we know that the power of our God and Lord can prevail against all those who would devalue our beliefs by saying that we are but one belief among many choices?   St. Paul discussed the claims of other gods in 1 Corinthians 8:4-7. "There is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many 'gods' and many 'lords'), 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. But not everyone knows this."   In other words, there are many claims to divinity in the world, yet for us there is only one claim that is persuasive and compelling: that there is only one God the Father, the author of existence, and for whom we exist. He called us and the universe into being. We exist for him. That is basic to our belief. Included in this basic belief is that there is only one Lord, Jesus Christ, who brought us into existence, and through whom we share in the life of God. He brought us life in all its fullness, eternal life. It is through him that the universe came into being. But not everyone knows this! That is why there is pluralism and uncertainty and confusion about what is true. That is why people find it difficult to pray. They are not confident that there is one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came, and through whom we live.   The boldness of the prayers of Hezekiah and the early Christians depends upon the confidence they have on the God and Lord they are praying to. The LORD replied to the prayer of Hezekiah by saying, "I will defend this city and save it, for my sake and for the sake of David my servant." (Isaiah 37:35) He answers prayer so that all may know that he alone is God, and that his servant is the anointed one. Hezekiah prayed that God would respond to Sennacherib's insults. Our motivation in prayer can arise out of our concern for the reputation of God. We pray that people will turn from insulting God and devaluing Christ, to believing and following him.   What are your grounds for confidence in Christ? Mine are threefold: my personal need, my personal experience, and my personal desire. The Christian is confident in Christ because of his conviction of personal sin and experience of salvation in Jesus. The Christian is confident in Christ because of his experience of conversion by grace through faith in Jesus. The Christian is confident because of his experience of consecration to the life of the Spirit of Jesus in the world.   How was Hezekiah's prayer answered? A plague struck the camp of the Assyrians, Sennacherib broke camp and withdrew. His sons eventually assassinated him.   Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen: Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow laid withered and strown.   For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed: And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still.   And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!   — George Gordon, Lord Byron, The Destruction of Sennacherib   Prayer for Christians is only possible if you have confidence in God the Father, and the lordship of Christ. How confident in God are you? What do you do when people insult God? Pray for them. What do you do when people deny the power of Christ to deliver from evil, to change behavior for good, to save people from destruction, to give meaning and hope to life? Pray for them. What do you do when people insinuate that the gospel of Christ is merely one option among many, and no more valid or valuable than any other? Pray for them. Place your entire confidence in Christ so that you can pray with boldness.

By Ted Schroder It is 539 B.C., during the first year of the reign of Darius in Babylon, the fabulous capital city that was built astride the Euphrates River, where a four-horse chariot could turn around on top of the high wall of a hundred gates. Babylon boasted the famous Hanging Gardens, one of the seven wonders of the world, as well as a staged temple-tower 295 feet high, and according to Herodotus, several colossal gold statues weighing many tons.   Daniel, with other members of the royal family and the nobility of Judah, was carried into exile by King Nebuchadnezzar, in 605 B.C., had risen to leading government posts on the basis of his intelligence and wisdom. In 586 B.C. Jerusalem was finally destroyed by the Babylonians, and Jeremiah had departed to Egypt with the remnant of the surviving leadership. His prophecies had been written down and somehow Daniel obtained a copy. Daniel must have been about 75 years old when he read these words from Jeremiah 29:10-14.   "This is what the LORD says: 'When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,' declares the LORD, 'and I will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,' declares the LORD, 'and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.'"   Reading that passage of Scripture caused Daniel to turn to the Lord God with fasting, dressed in sackcloth and ashes, and prayed an extraordinary prayer that is recorded for us in Daniel 9:4-19. His prayer is in response to learning the promises of God, his plans to prosper his people, to give them a hope and a future, and to restore them to their homeland. It is a prayer of confession and repentance on behalf of all his people, for their rebellion against God, for their not listening to the servants of the God, the prophets, for being unfaithful to God. They are covered with shame for their sin against God which has brought upon them their calamity. Despite all that had happened to Israel "we have not sought the favor of the LORD our God by turning from our sins and giving attention to your truth." (Daniel 9:13)   Daniel humbles himself before the Lord. He looks back over his long life, all the privileges he has enjoyed in the king's service, all the activities of state he has participated in, the power players who have come and gone, all the ceremonies and celebrations he has witnessed, and he realizes how little it matters unless he has learned that God is sovereign over all, that it is his plans that will eventually prevail, his word that will be fulfilled, that empires rise and fall, but it is the LORD who alone can be merciful and forgiving.   It is the characteristic of wisdom to be able to learn from the past. Daniel learned that his people had made bad choices over the generations and had to suffer the consequences. He wanted to break that pattern through acknowledgement of their failings, and a total disclosure of the nature of their addiction to autonomy: of wanting to lead their own lives without reference to God. "The LORD did not hesitate to bring the disaster upon us, for the LORD our God is righteous in everything he does, yet we have not obeyed him." (Daniel 9:14)   There is no indication that Daniel himself rebelled against the lordship of God in his life. He appears to have been a very godly man who endured much testing, yet remained faithful. He was thrown into the lion's den because he refused to give up his practice of praying to the Lord three times a day. Yet, in looking back over his life, and the history of his people, he learned that he was part of the problem, that he could not escape blame, and that he could not pass the buck to a previous generation for the disaster that had befallen them.   Daniel's prayer of confession and repentance on behalf of his people teaches us that, whether we like it or not, we are all sinners. Yet, despite our rebellion against him, God wants nothing but the best for us. He is merciful and forgiving. He has come to us in Jesus, and suffered and died for us on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. He has plans to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us a hope and a future. But we must be prepared to seek him with our whole heart if we are to find the fulfillment he desires for us: the restoration and the resurrection to new life that is his gift in Jesus Christ.   Daniel learned from the past and responded according to what he discovered. As you look back upon your life, what have you learned about yourself?   Some people, like Israel of old, can go through life oblivious to what God has planned for them. They never seek him with their whole heart. They never find his plans to prosper them, to give them a hope and a future. God is not intimately involved in their lives. If you were to read their personal autobiographies it would be a succession of one activity after another, one trip after another, one story about friends or family after another, one diversion after another, but absolutely no reflection on what it all means, of what their life is meant to be about, or what God may be wanting to do in their lives.   A person can go through one disaster after another, one illness after another, one broken relationship after another, one job disappointment after another, and never reflect on why they make bad decisions, why they never seek the guidance of God in their lives, why they don't humble themselves before the Lord. Daniel prayed: "all this disaster has come upon us, yet we have not sought the favor of the Lord our God by turning from our sins and giving attention to your truth."   What is the truth we need to give attention to? It is the truth about the presence and the purpose of God in all of life which we are meant to seek. There is a form of practical atheism or agnosticism which, while giving lip service to a belief in God, denies that God has any daily relevance to one's life. An agnostic is a person who is neutral on the question of God's existence. The agnostic claims that God may exist but that it is impossible to truly know him, or for him to make a difference in your life. Therefore you should go about your life keeping busy, and filling up the hours to avoid thinking about what life is meant to be about.   Luke Timothy Johnson, Robert Woodruff Professor of New Testament at Candler School of Theology, Emory University, has written, "Agnosticism is a contemptuous uninterest in the truth of the world. Because the question of God's existence affects the perception of absolutely everything else that exists and the way we deal with all that exists, agnosticism seems to the believer to be a form of atheism by default that pretends to be a refined and gentlemanly restraint on a difficult and unsolvable question." (The Creed, p.68)   What would Daniel, the wise advisor to kings have to say to the contemporary agnostic who is indifferent to God's truth? The book that bears his name in the Bible emphasizes the absolute sovereignty of the Lord, and that the fortunes of kings and the affairs of human beings are subject to God's decrees, and that he is able to accomplish his will despite the most determined opposition of the mightiest potentates on earth. He begins his prayer by this acknowledgement: "O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps covenant of love with all who love him and obey his commands, we have sinned and done wrong." (Daniel 9:4)   Daniel would say with St. James: "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up." (James 4:6,10) Jesus said, "Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." (Matthew 23:12)   Humility is the opposite of the reckless, arrogant indifference to God which characterizes the agnostic, who makes such friends with the world that he becomes an enemy of God. Humility is the acknowledgement that we need to learn from the past, that we need to face our failings; that we need to reflect upon what God is doing in our lives. It is seeking God with our whole heart. When we do that we will be given the grace we need, and God will lift us up to a new life.   Daniel prays with passion: "We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hear and act! For your sake, O my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your Name." (Daniel 9:18,19)   When was the last time you prayed with passion? When was the last time prayer was that important? What resulted from it? While he was still speaking and praying, confessing his sin and the sin of his people Israel, and making his request, the angel Gabriel came to Daniel and said, "I have now come to give you insight and understanding. As soon as you began to pray, an answer was given, which I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed." (Daniel 9:22,23)   When we humble ourselves before the Lord in honest acknowledgement of what he has taught us about our past, we will receive insight and understanding. God promises that when we call upon him, and come and pray to him, he will listen to us. When we seek him with all our heart, we will find him. When we find the Lord Jesus, we will find ourselves, our true self, our authentic self, and God's plan for us, which will give us a hope and a future.   Whatever the result of our prayers, we will find that prayer and reflection on God's Word will give us insight and understanding. We need to be encouraged that when we come to the Lord, and begin to pray, an answer is given. We may not know it, we may not be told by an angel immediately, but at the appropriate time, we will know it. In the mean time we must know that God esteems us, he loves us, he hears us and he will act.   Jesus said, "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." (Matthew 7:7,8)

By Ted Schroder It is traditional that on the first Sunday of Lent the story of Jesus's temptation in the wilderness by the devil is read from one of the Gospels. We all have our conceptions of what happened in those temptations. Each of us brings to the account our own beliefs and prejudices. I want to explore with you what is meant by being tempted by the devil. Some theologians maintain that we do not have to believe in a world of angels and devils anymore. The devil has been caricatured as a cartoon figure with horns and cloven hooves. It is easy to dismiss the reality of the devil by lampooning those who are obsessed by the demonic, and see the devil under every bed. Heresy is a truth taken to the extreme. Just because some people give belief in the devil a bad name doesn't mean that we should dismiss it out of hand. What do we mean by being tempted by the devil?   Michael Green in his classic work, I Believe in Satan's Downfall, says that the Scriptures seriously warn us of a malign power of evil standing behind the pressures of a worldly culture without and a sinful human nature within the Christian. This does not mean that we can excuse responsibility for bad human behavior by blaming it on the devil. The world, the flesh and the devil, as three separate sources of evil, have formed a crucial part of Christian teaching from the very beginning. Belief in the devil is very much part of the lifeblood of the Christian tradition. It is also very much part of non-Christian religions.   The existence of the devil is tied to the problem of evil. What is the source of evil? Is it enough to say that all evil is the result of the free will of humans, or the fall of creation from original innocence and perfection? Without the existence of evil forces and personalities we would have to attribute evil directly to God. But James says, "When tempted, no one should say, 'God is tempting me.' For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death." (James 1:13-15) Someone is doing the enticing, the tempting, to sin.   Jesus believed in the reality of the devil or Satan. He has more to say about the devil than anyone else in the Bible. The devil is the one who tempted him so skillfully and fiercely, and who kept coming back at him with devious suggestions all through his ministry (Luke 4:1-13). It is the devil who snatches away the message of the good news from those who listen to it half-heartedly, or who sows weeds in the field of God's wheat (Mk.4:15; Matt.13:39). "Deliver us from the evil one" is thought to be the original petition he taught his disciples to pray (Matt.6:13). As the premonition of the cross grew upon Jesus on the last night of his life, his mind turned again to the devil. "The ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me - I do as the Father has commanded. Rise let's go and meet him!" (John 14:31).   Now some claim that Jesus did not really mean to be taken literally. They say that he couched his teaching in poetic form. But Jesus saw the whole of his ministry as a conflict with the devil. He saw his death as the supreme battle with the evil one. If the devil is merely a metaphor for evil, is the teaching of Jesus about God the Father also merely a metaphor for goodness?   Others suggest that Jesus was so much a child of his age that he took over uncritically all its presuppositions, in particular this belief in a personal devil. But one thing you can say with any consistency is that Jesus did not take over uncritically the views of his day. He challenged the traditions of his contemporaries and the presuppositions of the time. That is what got him into trouble with the religious authorities.   Jesus emphasized the reality of the demonic in his healing ministry. At all points in his life and ministry the conflict with the devil is of cardinal importance. If Jesus was mistaken on these vital matters, why should we believe him on other matters? Perhaps his other teachings are equally culturally conditioned?   But what do we mean by saying that Satan is a personal devil? What most people mean by that is to claim that the devil is an organizing intellect, a single focus and fount of evil inspiration. But it is doubtful if we can call him 'personal' in any other sense. Scripture depicts him as a spirit; as a fallen angel; as a ruler of this world; but not as 'personal' in any meaningful sense. Unlike Jesus, the devil has not become incarnate, though many people have so sold their souls to him that they have become living embodiments of his beastliness. The devil has never been one of us. He has not shared our human condition. The devil stands as the personification of God and man's spiritual adversary, utterly devoid of compassion, of caring, of all the qualities that make us personal. He is the personification of the implacable evil against which we are called to contend. We are to think of him as an intelligence, a power of concentrated and hateful wickedness.   Does it matter whether or not we believe in the devil? If we reject the whole idea of the devil and the supernatural, we are reduced to explaining evil in terms of genetic disposition and environmental influences, and proposing that the only remedy is education and appealing to the goodness of human nature. Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones remarks: "It is to me almost beyond understanding that anybody who looks at the modern world and reads a newspaper can still go on believing such theories. Indeed, if they never even read a newspaper how can anybody who has ever known an educated, cultured, reasonable man, who nevertheless fails drastically in his own personal life, possibly believe such things? How can they believe that wisdom and knowledge and learning, and the ability to reason and to use logic, is the solution to the problem, when what is to be seen daily in the lives of men and women prove the exact opposite? It is amazing!" (The Christian Warfare, p.47)   It is consistent for the atheist, who rejects God and the whole spiritual realm, to reject belief in the devil. What is totally inconsistent is to accept one part of the spiritual realm, God, and to reject the other. The existence of the devil is a necessary part of consistent theism. Can you continue to accept the idea of God revealing himself to us about the devil, while rejecting what he claims to say about the devil? Can you listen to Jesus Christ while rejecting the devil he speaks about? What satisfactory account can you give to the chaos in the world if there is not a destructive force of evil at work? How can you make any sense of atonement for sin on the Cross if there is no devil?   C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, had this to say. "One of the things that surprised me when I first read the New Testament seriously was that it talked so much about a Dark Power in the universe - a mighty evil spirit who was held to be the Power behind death and disease, and sin. The difference [from Dualism] is that Christianity thinks that this Dark Power was created by God, and was good when he was created, and went wrong. Christianity agrees with Dualism that this universe is at war. But it does not think this is a war between independent powers. It thinks it is a civil war, a rebellion, and that we are living in a part of the universe occupied by the rebel.   "Enemy-occupied territory - that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. When you go to church you are really listening in to the secret wireless from our friends: that is why the enemy is so anxious to prevent us from going. He does it by playing on our conceit and laziness and intellectual snobbery. Christians, then, believe that an evil power has made himself for the present the Prince of this World." (p.47)   If this is true then what the devil was doing in the wilderness was testing the strength of the rightful king. He flung at him one temptation after another. In each case Jesus answered with a word from Scripture: "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone.'" "It is written: 'Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.'" "It says: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" The only way we can win against the devil is in the same power of Christ, our captain in the fight, using the same weapons: the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God, and prayer. That is why our lives need to be soaked in the Scriptures daily, and conditioned by prayer, so that we are impervious to the temptations of the devil.   "When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time." (Luke 4:13) This was but the first of many skirmishes in the battle Jesus faced in his life. The devil seeks his opportunity when we least expect him. He lulls us into complacency. He would love for us not to believe that he exists. Evil in general is so much less threatening than evil in particular.   Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones again, "The modern world, and especially the history of the present century, can only be understood in terms of the unusual activity of the devil. In a world of collapsing institutions, moral chaos, and increasing violence, never was it more important to trace the hand of 'the prince of the power of the air.' If we cannot discern the chief cause of our ills, how can we hope to cure them?" (ibid. p.6)   Jesus shows us that the most powerful preparation for meeting temptation successfully is a life without sin. We cannot mirror that quality, but we can start each day cleansed by the Cross, with our conscience right with God.   Jesus shows us that temptation can best be met in the power of the Holy Spirit. Only a greater power than ours can overcome the devil.   Jesus shows us that trust and obedience are the twin pillars of a successful operation against the devil. Jesus never failed in his trust in the Father, and never swerved from obedience to him.   Jesus shows us that unselfishness is decisive in warfare with the devil. Satan could not understand one whose ambition was not for himself but for Another. In a life where self-seeking, self-assertion, self-pity are predominant characteristics you cannot expect victory over the Tempter. He has too large a landing ground.   Jesus shows us that the use of Scripture in temptation is a powerful weapon. The devil is not afraid of us. He is afraid of all that speaks of God. The scriptures do just that.   Jesus shows us that we have no need to be afraid of the devil. Jesus went into battle with confidence of victory as long as he remained trusting, obedient and dependent on the Spirit. We can go in the same fearlessness. We need only fear the devil when we cease to fully oppose him. At heart he is a coward. At a firm rebuttal backed by the word of God, he flees. But he is always dogged, and soon there will be a new attack.   Jesus shows us that we have to be decisive with the devil. No playing with the temptation. No parleying with the Tempter (that was where Eve made her mistake). Jesus' contact with him was reduced to the minimum. He did not ask him to go. He told him to go. There is an aggressiveness about Jesus' response to temptation which has a lot to teach us. It was the aggression of love in the face of hate and destruction.   (Most of this sermon was taken from "I Believe in Satan's Downfall" by Michael Green, 1981)   The Rev. Ted Schroder is an Episcopal priest. He is pastor of Amelia Island Plantation Chapel.

By Ted Schroder Jesus said, "This is how you should pray: 'Our Father'." (Matthew 6:9) Our very familiarity with the Lord's Prayer, and Christianity, dulls our awareness of the unique relationship that Jesus made possible. To say "Our Father" is to claim membership in a family that has the right to call God, the Lord of heaven and earth, our Father. We do not do so on the basis of our creation. There is a general sense in which everyone created can call themselves children of God. But this was not what Jesus meant when he told us to pray to his heavenly Father in this way. This was something new in the world. We can approach God as our Father because of something supernatural that Jesus came to make possible.   Jesus came into the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him as the Messiah. He came to his own special people, but they rejected him. "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God." (John 1:12,13)   The New Testament sees God as the Father of all humanity, but it does not think of all men and women as sons and daughters of God. God's attitude to all people is that of a Father. All are his children in the sense that he made them, and that he provides for them. But men and women are his sons and daughters in the full sense only as they respond to what he does for them in Christ.   When they receive into their lives the Word who became flesh as Jesus the Christ, they are born into the heavenly family. It is only in this way that they are really God's children. The way to become a child of God, and to be able to call God as our Father, is to believe in the name of Jesus, i.e. to trust in the person of the Word made flesh. It is to believe in him as revealing God as Father, and to put our trust in a personal relationship with that God. It is trusting him as a person.   Men and women who respond to Christ in faith are given the 'right to become children of God'. This right is not automatically conferred with human existence. It does not come with natural descent - human biology, or genealogy - but it is born of God. It is given by grace - an undeserved gift. It speaks to us of the privilege of adoption, and being born again by the Spirit of God. Paul declares this when he writes: "you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father.' The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs - heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ." (Romans 8:15-17)   This crying out to God as 'our Father' was something new. It would not have been expressed in Judaism. It is the cry of a child calling for his father. When we cry 'our Father' the Holy Spirit witnesses to our spirit that we are truly God's children. Martin Luther comments: "This is but a little word, and yet notwithstanding it comprehendeth all things. The mouth speaketh, but the affection of the heart speaketh after this manner. Although I be oppressed with anguish and terror on every side, and seem to be forsaken and utterly cast away from thy presence, yet am I thy child, and thou art my Father for Christ's sake: I am beloved because of the Beloved. Wherefore this little word, Father, conceived effectually in the heart, passeth all the eloquence of Demosthenes, Cicero, and of the most eloquent rhetoricians that ever were in the world." (Commentary on Galatians, on 4:6)   Jesus makes it possible: by his work of salvation, by the work of his Spirit in our hearts, and by bringing us to faith through his death and resurrection; to give us access to God as our Father. When he said, 'no one comes to the Father except through me,' (John 14:6) 'no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him,' (Matthew 11:27) he is revealing that our only way to become children of God, and to know God as our Father is through his revelation, and work of salvation. We know God as our Father because Jesus made us co-heirs with him in the kingdom.   This unique way of looking at God enables us to pray to God in a personal, familial way. God is not an 'it'. God is not just an amorphous spirit, or cosmic force. God is not merely the Supreme Being, or Higher Power. God is our loving Father, who cares for us. As parents we experience our feelings of protective paternity and maternity because we are made in the image of God.   Jesus argued from our human concern to take care of our own children how much more God wants to take care of us. "If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him." (Matthew 7:11)   He also compared that concern with God's care for the sparrow. "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. Even the very hairs of your head are numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows." (Matthew 10:29-31) We matter to God. He knows everything about us, even down to the smallest detail - the hairs on our head - and cares for us as our Father. No thing is too insignificant to bring to him.   While all this is true, there are many people today who are troubled by the designation of God as our Father. They object to God being perceived in masculine terms, at the expense of the feminine. This traditional teaching has been used to support masculine authoritarian structures in church and society that has oppressed women and denigrated their contributions, and gifts of ministry, and leadership. Some want to remove all gender-specific language about God and refer to God in gender-neutral terms of roles such as Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. But that would depersonalize our understanding of God. All of us have gender. No person is an 'it'.   Some theologians suggest that we use the traditional terms in an inclusive way to include the feminine. That means that when we call God 'Father' we do not think in terms of masculinity but in terms of parenthood as a whole (mother and father). We believe that our understanding of God must include both genders since "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." (Genesis 1:27) There are passages of Scripture that speak of God in terms of the feminine. (Matthew 23:37; Isaiah 46:3,4; 49:14,15) God loves his creatures from the womb, watches over them as infants, nurtures them in their youth, and mourns for them in their journeys. God does not have a body so he cannot be either male or female in the ways we are.   While being sensitive to the weight of feminist arguments I am opposed to altering the forms of prayer and hymns we use in public worship to cater to these concerns. I think we should continue to pray as Jesus taught us and use the language that Jesus used. The Anglican New Zealand Prayer Book published in 1989 contains this substitution for "Our Father" in its modern version of the Lord's Prayer:   Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-Giver, Source of all that is and that shall be, Father and Mother of us all, Loving God, in whom is heaven.   It attempts to be inclusive of the native Maori understanding of God as well as the feminist perspective. While these words do not contradict the biblical view of God I think that it is a mistake to change historic texts when the entire community is gathered in public worship, to suit one's own personal needs. However there is no reason why they may not be used in one's personal devotions if it helps one to relate to God.   While some Christians have suffered from a distorted view of fatherhood in their own experience, many others have been blessed by their fathers, and have been a blessing in their own fatherhood. Our conception of God is not, as Freud argued, simply a projection from our human experience of fatherhood, or derived from patriarchal systems in society. Our Christian understanding of God comes from the way the people of God experienced God as recorded in the Bible. It comes from the way Jesus related to God as his Father. It comes from the way the Holy Spirit moved in the lives of the apostles and saints of the New Testament and church down through the ages. We do not call God Father because of our male parent. We come to understand all fathering because of the way God is Father: "For this reason [the way God has acted in the world through Christ] I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name." (Ephesians 3:14)   There is no one name which captures the entire character of God. God is the name above all names. We relate to God as citizens of his kingdom, as servant to master, as bride to bridegroom, as guilty sinner to the pure and holy one. Yet Jesus introduces us to God as our Father. Therefore we come to him in prayer as children, for it is only as children that we can enter the kingdom of heaven.   I am a father, and a grandfather. There are no words to express how much I love my children and grandchildren, how much I care for them, how much I want to protect them and provide for them. If that is true for me, a mere mortal, how much more must my heavenly Father love me.   I am also a child of my parents, and a member of my family. I am a child of God, and a member of the family of Christ. I belong to the body of Christ. I have spiritual brothers and sisters to look out for, and who care for me.   When I pray "Our Father" I am approaching God, not as a stranger, but as his child, with his other children, as part of his family. I am not alone. I have an identity. I am valued and loved. I can come to God with confidence because I have been adopted into this family by the blood of Christ, I have been made an heir of God and co-heirs with Christ, and the Holy Spirit bears witness with my spirit that I am God's child.   Jesus said, "'Let the little children come to me, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.' And he took the children in his arms, put his hands upon them and blessed them." (Mark 10:14-16)   When you pray, "Our Father," you are entering the kingdom of heaven as a child, and you will be blessed.   A Prayer: "Father in heaven, when the thought of you wakes in our hearts, let it not wake like a frightened bird that flies about in dismay, but like a child waking from its sleep with a heavenly smile." (Soren Kierkegaard)

By Ted Schroder When Jesus instructed the disciples to pray to "Our Father in heaven", (Matthew 6:9) he was introducing a new way of approaching God. We are to speak to God as little children to a parent who loves and cares for us, and who, at the same time, is to be respected and honored, and not taken for granted, because of who he is and where he dwells.   The Lord's Prayer begins with a revelation of the nature of God: God's personal parenthood expressed as Father, with all that membership in his family as sons and daughters implies; and God's dwelling place in heaven, as other than earth. Intimacy and infinity are combined in this introductory address to God.   C.S. Lewis wrote, "I fully agree that the relationship between God and a man is more private and intimate than any possible relation between two fellow creatures. Yes, but at the same time there is, in another way, a greater distance between the participants. ... We ought to be - sometimes I hope one is - simultaneously aware of closest proximity and infinite distance." (Letters to Malcolm Chiefly on Prayer, p.23) That distance is as small or great as the distance of earth from heaven, and our attitude to it determines how we feel about our communication with God.   What do you believe about heaven: its existence, its location, and its characteristics? Colleen McDannell & Bernhard Lang have written a review of the beliefs over the centuries in Heaven: A History. They survey a variety of approaches including the Swedenborgians and the Mormons, who, it seems, have a more elaborate idea about heaven than the average Christian.   The views of heaven over the centuries seem to reflect the culture and arts of the time. We tend to project onto heaven our own longings. Many are fantastic and something with which we would find it hard to identify, so that heaven can appear to be a merely a figment of our imagination rather than an eternal reality. Belief in heaven accompanies our belief in God. What we believe about God, transfers to what we believe about heaven. Since we need to believe in God to make sense of this world, we need also to believe in heaven.   Miguel de Unamuno, the philosopher, wrote, "We must needs believe in the other life, in the eternal life beyond the grave, and in an individual and personal life, in a life in which each one of us may feel his consciousness, and feel that it is united, without being confounded, with all other consciousnesses in the Supreme Consciousness, in God; we must needs believe in that other life in order that we may live this life, and endure it, and give it meaning and finality." (The Tragic Sense of Life, p.258)   Prayer connects us with that other life in the present and so assists us in giving our lives meaning. Scripture warns us to be careful in our attempt to draw near to God. He is as close as our breath and yet as distant as infinity. "God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few." (Ecclesiastes 5:2) Therefore we approach our heavenly Father with awe, and not with a disrespectful familiarity.   We remember that he is on a different level of reality than us. "Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work impartially, live out your lives as strangers here in reverent fear." (1 Peter 1:17) Heaven is a mysterious place to us. It is in another dimension. Some call it another plane rather than another place. Science fiction owes a great deal to the biblical teaching about heaven.   The popularity of science fiction that describes parallel universes and the ability or danger of entering and leaving them, taps human aspiration to believe in another world. From Star Trek, with its ability to transport mortals into all sorts of environments, to Stargate, with its portals through which one can explore a variety of different time/space continuums, we have learned to imagine different dimensions from our own. The Bible posited this reality at the beginning of human history in the stories of the patriarchs and the prophets.   At Bethel, Jacob dreamt about a ladder or stairway which rested on the earth and reached to heaven. "The angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the LORD.... When Jacob awoke from his sleep he thought, 'Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.' He was afraid and said, 'How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.'" (Genesis 28:12-16) When God is present on earth, even when we are not aware of it, that place is the gate of heaven. God can come and go, and we call it heaven, for heaven is where God is. Jacob's response is fear or reverent awe.   Later in human history we read that, at the end of his life, God was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind. As he and Elisha were walking along and talking together, "Suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind." (2 Kings 2:11) The chariot and horses of fire symbolized strong protection as well as the forces of God's spiritual presence as Elijah was taken. It attempts to describe the indescribable departure of Elijah from earth and his entry into heaven. Elisha's reaction is worship and grief at the loss of his spiritual father.   When Jesus ascended to the Father he was taken up from before the very eyes of the apostles, and a cloud hid him from their sight. Two men dressed in white, reminiscent of the two angels at the empty tomb, address the apostles, who are looking into the sky: "This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven." (Acts 1:11) Again the imagery is consistent: Jesus was taken into another dimension, from which he will return. This dimension was identified as heaven.   Stephen confirmed this reality when he experienced a vision at his trial before he was martyred. Being full of the Holy Spirit he, "looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 'Look,' he said, 'I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.'" (Acts 7:55,56) The Holy Spirit enabled Stephen to see the other two members of the Holy Trinity in heaven to strengthen him for his suffering and death.   St. John is given another vision to share with the church that was being persecuted so that it too would be strengthened to persevere. "After this I looked and there before me was a door standing open in heaven.... At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it.... Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders... In the center around the throne, were four living creatures." (Revelation 4:1-8)   In the heavenly realms the Presence of God on the throne is central, indicated by much imagery from the Old Testament: jewels, the rainbow, thunder and lightning. The elders represent the people of God, and the creatures represent the world of nature. These representatives of creation fall down before God and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns, their accomplishments, before the throne and say: "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory, and honor, and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being." (Revelation 4:11)   In heaven there is worship, the acknowledgement of the worth of God, and our dependence on him. When we come to God in prayer, we begin with that awareness, with the awe and respect we have for our heavenly Father. Jesus makes it possible for us to come to the Father as little children, to enter the kingdom of heaven as children.   When we arrive we fall down before him and worship. Prayer begins with adoration, not with one request after another, like a shopping list in which we ask God to bless us and our loved ones. Worship requires reverence, respect, honor, and humility.   Worship does not come naturally to our self-centeredness. Prayer begins with God, not with us.   "People who do not worship live in a vast shopping mall where they go from shop to shop expending enormous sums of energy and making endless trips to meet first this need and then that appetite, this whim and that fancy. Life lurches from one partial satisfaction to another, interrupted by ditches of disappointment. Motion is fuelled by the successive illusions that purchasing this wardrobe, driving that car, eating this meal, drinking that beverage will center life and give it coherence." (Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder, p.60)   Worship helps a person to center his life on its source of being and consciousness, God the Father, creator of heaven and earth. We enter heaven by means of worship. Worship is the portal through which we open the door to heaven. Unless we are willing to fall down on our faces before him who sits on the throne and worship him who is eternal, we cannot experience the life of heaven.   Since we must physically die before we can enter heaven, we must also spiritually die to our pride and self-sufficiency in order to communicate with our Father in heaven. We have access to heaven through the death and resurrection of Jesus. He is our gate to heaven. Jesus said, "I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved." (John 10:9)   We can enter into the kingdom of heaven here on earth, not by taking a journey to the next dimension, not by taking a journey from this world through the cosmos, but by taking a journey of faith from a state of mind which is disrespectful to God, to that of humble, loyal, loving obedience to Christ.   Heaven can come to us when it begins in us. The beginning of heaven is not only at that hour when the eye grows dim, and the sound of voices becomes silent in death, but at that hour when God draws near and the eyes of the spiritual understanding are opened. We see how beautiful Christ is, and how hateful sin is. It is the hour when self-will is crucified, and God's will and grace is embraced. Then heaven has begun, and will continue.   It is pitiful to hear people talk lightly about heaven, whose lives on earth have no trace of the love, humility, purity and self-sacrifice of which heaven consists. They assume that they will join God in heaven. But they would be miserable there even if they could get there. They would be entirely out of their element, like a fish sent to live on the grass of a lovely lawn. Those who will join the people of God around the throne in heaven are they who have entered the kingdom of heaven on earth. They who are able to worship in the other life, are those who are doing it in this life. Recognizing our Father in heaven, requires acquainting ourselves with him right now.   The Rev. Schroder is pastor of the Plantation Island parish in Florida

By Ted Schroder | April 4, 2004 It is hard enough to be forsaken by those you love: a husband or wife, a parent or child, a partner or friend. But what would it be like to be forsaken by your alter ego, your second self, your inseparable companion, the other members of the Holy Trinity? Jesus experienced this in an infinite way on the Cross.   Taking upon himself the sin of the world that separated a man from God, that created a barrier, the dividing wall of hostility between heaven and hell, that formed the great chasm between the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world, Jesus fulfilled the role of the scapegoat who bore the disgrace of sinners. As he assumed this terrible burden for us Jesus cried out: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34)   This is known as the prayer of dereliction. Dereliction means being abandoned. It evokes the sense of a building that is uninhabited, long deserted by its former owners, fallen into disrepair. Jesus, the Son of God, experienced real abandonment by his Father. There is a tear in the heart of the Trinity that reflects the alienation in the universe between a holy God and a sinful human race.   It is a cry of despair. Jesus plumbs the depths of human sin and suffering and descends into the abyss that is often the experience of despairing and condemned souls. He asked the question that is asked by so many human beings when they are faced with punishment and suffering that overwhelms them in its seemingly senseless cruelty. Jesus suffered in every way that we do.   All the questions that we can ask of God, about hellfire and judgment, all the bitterness we can feel at the arbitrary and undeserved suffering in the world, are summed up in this prayer of Jesus. God descended from heaven to earth to experience the consequences of the total depravity of sin, death and the devil. He endured the sickness unto death, and the blackest of judgments. In that darkness he experienced extreme loneliness and called out for help. There is no verbal and audible reply. Jesus is called to bear his suffering, to endure it, without a reassuring word from God. God is perfect love, yet on the Cross God is torn apart.   The judgment of God is taken upon himself. The Son of God experienced the wages of sin, death, as being abandoned by God. It is a moment of utter darkness. For three hours there is darkness in the middle of the day as hell is experienced on earth in the person of Jesus. Light is extinguished. The light of the world does not shine forth. "With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, 'Surely this man was the Son of God!'" (Mark 15:39)   At the moment at which God seemed to be most absent, the presence of God was affirmed. The centurion saw the presence of God when that presence was questioned. He recognized that Jesus was the Son of God at the point of his death. Christianity teaches that God reveals himself to us primarily through the Cross of Christ. It is in the moment of abandonment that God identifies with the weak and the suffering. Edward Shillito wrote about the "Jesus of the scars": The other gods were strong, but thou wast weak; They rode, but thou didst stumble to a throne; But to our wounds only God's wounds can speak, And not a god has wounds, but thou alone.   The presence of God is to be found in weakness not in might. God hides himself from the powerful and the proud and reveals himself to those in pain and suffering. Elie Wiesel in his famous book Night, where he wrote about his experience of the evils of the Holocaust, expressed that he lost his faith in God when he observed the undeserved suffering of so many innocent children and their parents. Their deaths represented the death of his faith. God to him is dead. But in Jesus death reveals God. So many of our prayers are cries of dereliction. We ask Where are you, Lord? Why, Lord? Don't you care, Lord? Why are you letting this happen, Lord?   What have we done to deserve this, Lord? Why have you forsaken me, Lord? These cries are part of the story of Jesus. God identifies with us in our feelings of despair and abandonment. He takes our place on the cross and feels the full effects of our alienation from Himself. When we experience this alienation we echo the very words Jesus used on the cross. In his sense of forsakenness, Jesus revealed the presence of God. Jesus revealed the God of love, compassion and mercy.   When we experience abandonment by God we know that God has experienced this in himself before us. If Jesus could pray this prayer, and still be in the center of God's will, so can you and me. In his suffering Jesus unites us with a God who loves us enough to be willing to experience the ultimate in painful dislocation. John Stott, in The Cross of Christ, wrote: "I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as 'God on the cross'. In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?   I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged into God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of this. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it, we boldly stamp another mark, the cross which symbolizes divine suffering."   There is no suffering, no sin, that Jesus has not borne for us. There is no loneliness, no abandonment, no rejection, no condemnation, no alienation, no despair, that God in Christ has not endured for you and for me. The Cross gives the lie to those who would fault or blame God for the evils of human existence. Jesus endured it all so that we might have hope and peace.   If he has done so much for us why would we not want to do everything for him and his kingdom?   A Prayer: Lord Christ. By the nails through your hands and feet, give comfort to the suffering. By the crown of thorns upon your head, give hope to the despairing. By the spear that pierced your side, give courage to the heart-broken. By your being scorned and rejected of men, give love to the lonely. By your time of desolation, lift up all who are down. By your death on the cross, give us life which is eternal. O my Lord, lead me safe through all the tests, the darknesses, the pains. Help me hold fast the beginning of my confidence firm unto the end. My God, my God, stretch forth your wounded hands to strengthen mine. Never will you forsake me, never let me forsake you, my living, only God.

By Ted Schroder | April 11, 2004 Jesus said, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." (John 10:10)   Easter is about Jesus overcoming the thief of death so that he might give us life to the fullest.   You would think that anyone who lived on Amelia Island or who visited here was experiencing life to the fullest. Most of you are enjoying the good life. You have most everything that anyone would want in the world: good homes, good families, good jobs, good incomes, good looks, good health. You've got the worldly goods. The rest of the world looking at us this morning would think that we have life to the fullest.   But what if there was something more than just a material description of the good life? What if there was a fuller life beyond material prosperity? What if you were missing out on something that you didn't even know about? What if God intended more than just a good life for you but intended a fuller life? Wouldn't you want to experience it? Of course you would, and so would I.   We often settle for less because we don't know that there's anything better. We often settle just for this earthly life because we think that there is nothing else. I was born and raised in New Zealand. When Europeans first came to New Zealand, the native Maori people were cannibals. Apart from birds, the only meat they ate was human. It took Captain Cook letting loose some pigs into the country in 1769 to help them to see that there was a better diet. It took missionaries preaching the Gospel of Christ to change their minds about the sacredness of the human body. I have a framed portion of Ezekiel 37:1-14 in my office that was printed in the Maori language in 1840 to persuade the Maoris against practicing cannibalism: "Son of man, can these bones live?" The Spirit entered the bones and made them live again. There is something better than earthly extinction that God has in store for us. He wants us to experience the resurrection of the body to eternal life.   I believe that God brought you here today to Amelia Island on Easter Sunday so that he could let you in on a secret. There is something better. There is much more than the good, material life. You were made for more than just the good, material life - looking good, feeling good, having the goods. God wants you to have life to the fullest forever. Beneath the image of the good life there are things nobody likes to talk about. There are thieves.   The thief of materialism, (living for this world only), comes to steal and kill and destroy. No matter how hard you try to satisfy yourself that the life you live is worthwhile through constant activities, never-ending shopping, daily maintenance of your bodies and your possessions, preoccupation with career, business and the news, or finding escape through leisure, entertainment or travel, the enjoyment is temporary, momentary, fleeting. The rush of happiness is succeeded by the need to repeat it until you feel that you are on a treadmill that requires more and more effort to maintain the illusion of happiness. We feel trapped by our circumstances. When tragedy strikes: accidents or sicknesses, we find that the material, good life does not provide us with the resources we need to cope and to have hope. The material, good life steals hope from us. The material good life kills contentment. The material good life destroys lasting fulfillment.   Sofia Coppola's recent movie, Lost In Translation, starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson, explores the banality, and the emptiness of modern, multicultural materialism. Everything is glitz, marketing a product, game shows, video arcades. The two main characters are bored, can't sleep, and long for intimacy and the warmth of genuine, authentic, personal relationships. Their marriages and families promise so much and yet fail to deliver when needed.   I've got good news for you today. There's an antidote to such a view of life. It's called having life to the fullest. The reason God brought you here today is so you can learn about having life to the fullest. St. Paul said that if you knew the resurrection love of Christ you would "be filled to the measure of the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:19) What does this life offer us?   1. Life with meaning and purpose.   The greatest tragedy in life is not death. It's to go through life without knowing your purpose. Americans have indicated their need for having purpose in their lives by making Rick Warren's book, The Purpose-Driven Life, a best seller. It has sold millions of copies. He and his readers recognize that the material good life is not enough. Looking good, feeling good, having the goods is not enough to make you happy. If that were true Amelia Island would be the happiest place in the world, but it's not. It takes more than money to have life with meaning and purpose. To have life to the fullest, you need meaning and purpose.   So we search for meaning in all kinds of different ways. There's nothing wrong with the things we fill our life with. It's just that they don't last, and they are often self-centered. We need something that gives us eternal meaning. Where do we get that? There's only one place - from the God that raises Jesus Christ from the dead and gives eternal life to those who come to him in faith.   God gave you life, and he wants to give you life in all its fullness. You didn't make yourself. Your life is completely dependent on God's will. In him we live and move and have our being. Until you understand that you were made by God to fulfill his purpose, life is not going to make sense. And until you understand what is God's will for your life, you can't have life in all its fullness.   St. Peter said this: "Because Jesus was raised from the dead [that's what Easter is all about] we've been given a brand new life. We have everything to live for including a future in heaven and that future starts now." (1 Peter 1:3,4)   This fullness of life is connected to what Jesus did at Easter. His overcoming the thief of death that steals, kills, and destroys, with a new life enables us, who follow him, to have life to the fullest.   This fullness of life is not just an addition to your old life, something you just tack on. It's a whole, new deal. It's brand new. God says to us at Easter, "I want to give you a chance to start over. I want to give you a chance to begin again. I want to give you a new kind of life - a full life."   Golfers love Mulligans. When they take their first shot off the tee, and it gets lost in a terrible slice or hook - your partner may give you a Mulligan - a free, second shot. They don't count the first one against you. God came in Jesus to give you a free, second shot at life. All the dumb things that you've done in the past and you regret, and wish that you had done or said differently: dumb decisions, dumb mistakes, sins, faults, failures, whatever you want to call them - God says, I will erase them through the Cross, and you can start over again. Why don't you begin a brand new life - why don't you have life to the fullest? I will take your guilt upon me, and wipe it out. Begin again. Start over.   How do you get this brand new life? God gives it to us as a gift of grace - undeserved yet freely given because he loves us and wants us to find our way to him and to what he wants us to become.   Living for yourself doesn't bring happiness to either you, or the people you live and work with. You weren't made by God to live for yourself. You were made to live for God. When you start following Christ, and living for him, you discover real happiness, real meaning, real significance, real purpose, real value to your life. When you live for Christ, you're plugged in to God. That gives you meaning, that gives you significance, that gives you purpose, that gives you wealth that lasts. Life to the fullest is priceless in value.   2. Life that is full of energy.   Jon Gordon of Jacksonville has written "Become an Energy Addict". It includes over 100 simple, powerful ways to increase your mental, physical, and emotional energy. He operates a website in which he recommends a variety of exercises to increase your energy, including prayers. It is a holistic approach to a healthy lifestyle. Recently he has been suggesting ways that will increase happiness, compassion, removal of worry and anger, and enhancement of trust. He provides diets that will fuel energy, and physical exercises that will renew energy. We know that a proper balance of good food, exercise, spiritual meditation and work will provide us with a positive mental attitude.   Physical fitness is part of the good life today. Fitness clubs are booming throughout the country. Millions either begin or end their working day at one of the gyms or in their own exercise room. Exercise affects the body and alters our attitude to life. But we need more than physical energy to live life to the fullest. We need energy for healthy relationships. We need power to love people, to forgive people, to trust people, to care for people. We need spiritual energy to handle cancer, and other diseases. We need energy to deal with business and family problems. We need divine energy to deal with aging. We can't run on our own batteries all the time.   The New Testament talks about God's "incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead." (Ephesians 1:19,20)   The power that raised Jesus from the dead is available to us. It is for us. The resurrection of Jesus demonstrated that the thief that steals, kills and destroys our life energy has been defeated, and we can have that incomparably great power if we believe. Incomparably means extraordinary, outstanding, surpassing - there is no comparison: "endless energy, boundless strength! All this energy issues from Christ: God raised him from the dead and set him on a throne in deep heaven, in charge of running the universe, everything from galaxies to governments, no name and no power exempt from his rule." (Ephesians 1:19-21 Peterson)   That power is available to you for all your life. It is the power of faith, hope and love. Each of us has a choice in life. We can go through the rest of our lives, living the good, material life, disconnected from this resurrection power, or we can live life to the fullest plugged into God's power. It's our choice. Whichever we choose we are still going to have problems, because life is a series of problems and challenges. This difference is that with the resurrection power of Christ in your life, you will have energy which you would not have on your own power. Christ gives you this power of faith, hope and love on a day to day basis as you connect with him.   What is your need this Easter? Are you tired and worn out? Are you on edge? Do you feel discouraged? Do you feel like giving up on your marriage, your job, your school, your health, your family, your goals, your dreams, and your ambitions? Don't give up? Look up to the risen Christ and say, "Lord, I need to start living for you and not just for me. I need your resurrection energy to do what you have put me on earth to do, to fulfill your purpose for my life. I need your gift of life to the fullest."   (Acknowledgments to Rick Warren for material from "Living the Better Life.")