This past semester we have spoken on evangelism and we have been going over the Gospel of Luke during our Monday bible study with the intention of understanding it so that we can teach it instead of just consuming it for ourselves.

In Luke 11 Jesus is casting out a demon that was mute and he was accused of being from the Devil.

“By Beelzebub, the prince of demons, he is driving out demons.”  -Luke 11:15

     So a guy has been unable to speak for who knows how long and Jesus comes by and casts out the demon that was torturing him.  How crazy must that be for the mute guy?  How great must that be for his family and friends and people around him?  Most people are excited, but some in the crowd don’t seem like they can be pleased by anything Jesus does.

     Whispered words start moving through the crowd telling people that this guy who seems impressive actually isn’t that great.  In fact, he isn’t only not impressive but he is dangerous because his power comes from Satan.

He is working for the bad guy!

Jesus, however, knows where His power comes from and He knows what is being discreetly discussed among the dissidents.

Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall.  If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand? I say this because you claim that I drive out demons by Beelzebub.  Now if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your followers drive them out? So then, they will be your judges.  But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you.      -Luke 11:17-20

He goes on to talk about how if a strong man is protecting his house, the only way to overpower him is to be stronger than he is.

and then V23

He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters.

People have some grudge against Jesus for healing and say His power is from Satan.  Jesus tells them that Satan wouldn’t give power to drive out himself but that He drives them out by the finger of God.  The next story is talking about a man in a strong hold that can only be overtaken by someone who is stronger.

Jesus here is talking about Himself being stronger than Satan!  He can drive out Satan’s demons because He is more powerful.  Jesus is making a claim that He has the power of God!

He then makes this comment that if you aren’t with Him, you are against Him.

Jesus just made the case that He has the power of God, that He is on the side of God, and that He is overpowering Satan.  So the people who are speaking against Him are on whose side?

THEY ARE NOW ON THE SIDE OF THE DEVIL!

Jesus has made some huge statements here about His power and what He is doing and the people against Him.

So what can we learn from this to share with those around us?

This story is a claim of divinity of Jesus.  He has the power to overthrow he who has a strong hold (Satan) and take his possessions (us) and give him as He sees fit and the people who want to fight Him want to stay true to Beelzebub.

I think this was a pretty good day reading chapter 11.

Your Thoughts?

-Zack

What do you do when the student group has $3 in their school account and $150 in expenses needing to be paid, plus a couple hundred dollars needed for the planned end of the year party?  You spend some time in prayer!

If you don’t know, the student group Impact Christian Fellowship at UAlbany has a budget given to us from the school.  Our special speakers and much of what we do can be paid for out of this budget.  So earlier this week on Monday, we were trying to plan for our end of the year party at 6 Mile Water Works, a park down the road from the campus.  We figured that we would have around $150 available to buy food and supplies.  We went to the Student Association and spoke to an assistant-comptroller to figure out what remained in our account and we were told that we didn’t have enough to cover current receipts!  On top of that, $150 room charge hadn’t gone through yet!  They assured us over and over that we had $3 left.  We set up a time to go over the budget with them later that day at 4pm and we left.

“They assured us over and over that we had only $3 left”

I went back to the office and started asking people for prayer about this that something would be found to be in error so we won’t end up OWING the school money.  Our troubles were posted on Facebook, texted to friends and calls were made asking for prayer.  We went back at 4pm and were again told that we only had $3.  We were given the print out showing us that fact.  We took it back to the office to look over it and something didn’t look right.  We went back to the comptroller and asked about what looked like a contradiction.  Our budget was looked over by the Comptroller himself this time and he said that our account still had $3,355 in it!

“Our budget was looked over by the Comptroller himself this time and he said that our account still had $3,355 in it! “

WOW!

We then found out that many of our bills have not been paid but after they are all accounted for, we still had over $500 to be spent!

What’s a $150 room charge now?  Nothing!

Eboard picnic/planning meeting this weekend?  Expenses covered!

Party next week?  Plenty of food money!

God is Good!

-Zack

     The Spring semester is almost over!  We have finished up our weekly Wednesday fellowship meetings and with summer right around the corner, we will be transitioning into our weekly Wednesday bible study for the summer session students!

There is more transition than just the season.  We now have a new executive board!  I am excited for the people who have stepped up to the leadership roles.  Peter Huynh, who was our VP, will be stepping into the role of President.  Benson Alexander, who was our secretary, will be our Vice President.  New to the Eboard next year will be Kevin Luo as our treasurer and Shelly Zhou as our secretary.

On Saturday, our current eboard along with our new additions will be joining together for a picnic and planning meeting to work through the first few months of the next school year.  Please be in prayer for us as we gather and seek how we can be a part of what God is doing on this campus.  We will be planning activities to bond our new students and help us grow as a ministry to this campus of 17,000+ students!

Hikes

Pizza Parties

Special Speakers

Howe Caverns

Corning Tower Observation Deck

USS Slater

Apple Picking

Movies

Bowling

Dinners

Retreats

Hope For The Future

Trash Takedowns

and the list goes on!

This past year has been good and I look forward to the possibilities of what God can and will do next semester!

-Zack 

 Man oh man!  Today we started our Spring bible study where we are going to be going over the Gospel of Luke.  We started out be describing what college is like for us.  For me, college was a great time of learning.  I learn how much there is to know and how little of it I know.  I learned how to apply what I was taught.  I learned how to teach it to others too.  I learned how to communicate better find out answers to questions that I have.  In all of this learning, I also learned a lot of stuff in my major and I graduated with a degree in Atmospheric Science.  Outside of that I learned so much about God and who I was created to be.

We then moved on to how do you describe Jesus?  We all took turns talking about Jesus and different qualities and ways to speak of him.  We then went on read Luke 1:

Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us,  just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.  Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus,  so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. (Luke 1:1-4)

Luke here is saying that what he is doing is writing down an accurate account of Jesus so that Theophilus will can know that what he has been taught is true.  Luke is simply describing Jesus to Theophilus.

At the end of our bible study Dexter, a graduating senior, told us he had a hard time describing Jesus because of this video he saw.  We then punched it into a smart phone and watched the 3 minute video.  It was amazing!  I present it to you now!

Something that can be describe like that is truly indescribable!

A number of years ago I was looking to buy a good size wooden cross, maybe a foot tall or so, to have around the house.  I wanted it to be something that would sit on my dresser or some other table around the house.  I wanted it to be visible and ‘in the way’ so it wouldn’t just become a part of the wall but something that I saw often.  I went to many places looking for one including multiple Christian stores and every other place I could think.  Of course they had crosses, but they are always the metal fancy crosses and I didn’t want that so I decided to make my own.  Easy enough.  Get some wood, mark it up, and cut it to the size that I am want, boom, cross.  For the past 6-7 years I have kept this around and it has spent time on my computer desk, in my living room and sometimes hung on the wall.  Recently my cross has been part of an assortment of things on my dresser.  If you look at the picture, there are a bunch of things that I like on there and it says quite a bit about me.  There are some bullets for my SKS Russian Assault Rifle, my hat from when I worked in New Orleans, a cool floating pen that I picked up from a NASA base, notes from my wife Melanie, hiking magazines that were given to me, and a number of other things.  Underneath all of this is the cross.

This struck me as a metaphor of something we can easily fall into.  When you first turn to Christ it is the biggest thing in your life and years later it still is!  What in life could surpass this massive change?  I don’t think anything could, but unless I work to keep life focused on Christ, I may unknowingly block out Jesus.  Looking at these things on my dresser, nothing is bad in itself and nothing by itself is large enough to block out the cross but when everything is piled together and my thoughts and attention are divided among many things, I may lose focus on the cross and it may end up being obscured by a pile of interests and activities. 

Half the battle is realizing the problem, now I need to move forward and clean the clutter so I can refocus on the cross.

 The fall semester is coming to a close soon and it has been a good semester!  We wanted to focus on personal growth this semester.  We felt kind of like Paul in Romans 10:14-15 

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?  And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

We wanted to talk about growth but first we wanted to talk about the progression of a Christian from seeker to new believer to mature Christian.  After those three weeks, we spent five weeks looking at Titus 1 and the qualities of an overseer and we looked at these qualities as that of a mature Christian.  We took the five negative qualities and paired them with the good qualities as opposites.

An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient. Since an overseer manages God’s household, he must be blameless—(1)not overbearing, (2)not quick-tempered, (3)not given to drunkenness, (4)not violent, (5)not pursuing dishonest gain.  Rather, he must be (1)hospitable, (2)one who loves what is good, (3)who is self-controlled, (4)upright, (5)holy and disciplined.  He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.

 Grace and peace,

today we are going over Romans 4.

Here is a link to it on biblegateway.com

“Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation.“

Paul gives such a great contrast here in v4.  When we work, we are normally working because we expect to get some benefit from what we are doing.  At the end of a work week, an employer doesn’t expect to be thanked when they pay the worker, the worker earned their pay.  If the worker didn’t get paid, there’d be an up roar!

Does this same thing work with God?  If you follow the rules laid down in the Old Testament and the rules laid down in the New Testament, does that put God in your debt so that He owes you heaven?

“All of us have become like one who is unclean, 
   and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags”

(Isaiah 64:6a)

No, we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), even what we do and think is righteous turns out to be filthy rags…

So where is the hope?

Our hope lies in Christ.  It is not something we earn but through faith alone that we are reconciled and considered righteous before God.  Nothing we can do can earn it, nothing we can do can destroy it.  If we have faith in Jesus’ saving act of redemption on the cross, that in sharing in His death, we also share in His life, than nothing can separate us from God.

I read a little while ago a short explanation on this.  How does faith in Christ make us righteous?  The question people often have is “How”.  God speaks with authority.  If we look at Genesis 1, there was nothing and God spoke and what was spoken came to pass.  God said “let there be light” and light was there.

“Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.”

and there was…

“Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.”

and there was…

The point being, that somehow, what God says, happens.

Paul’s contrast with v4 is v5:

“However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.”

Here in Romans, God speaks to us and His word is authoritative.

 Grace and Peace,

today we are going over Romans 3.

Here is a link to it on bibleagateway.com

Over the past year or so, I have gotten in to reading much more.  Getting rid of our cable last September has helped and also reading about things I am interested makes a difference.  In the past, I’d read things because people would tell me it was good and that I should read it, but that topic interested them, not me.  Of course reading about what interests me is more enjoyable but it took years to realize that…  I was part of a group reading through Letters from a Skeptic and at one point Ed, the skeptic, said how things like the sermon on the mount from Matthew 5-7 make the Christian walk impossible.  How can you be expected to live up to something like that?  His son Greg, who is a theologian, responses affirming that truth.   We can’t live up to it, if being angry is murder and thinking is the same as acting, we are all doomed.  He says how the sermon on the mount is supposed to drive us to Jesus because we are in need of a Saviour.

In Romans 3, Paul is talking about how when we come to accept Jesus as Saviour, it isn’t by works we are saved, but by faith.  What stuck out to me was verse 20:

Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law;

rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

After reading Letters from a Skeptic this had different meaning to me.  Without spending time reading the bible, I would still think that murder was wrong, but I wouldn’t think that being angry with someone would be just as bad.  Apart from the bible, we compare ourselves to worldly standards and normally to people who are “worse” than we are.  According to those standards, we are good maybe even great people.

But what if we compare to a different person in the world, what if we compare ourselves to Jesus?  Do your good deeds still measure up to be a good person?  Probably not, but here is the good news, we are not saved by our acts and our deeds.  We are saved only through substitutionary atonement, through Christ’s death for our sins.

Learning what is expected of us through the bible is good and we should strive to live as Christ because we are ambassadors of Jesus to this world.  But whether you rip your clothes and wear sack cloth and ashes when you repent isn’t what is important.  When we read all these rules that we don’t and can’t live up to, it should drive us to the cross and look up to Jesus and say ‘I struggle to do this.  Thank you for loving me even though I turn away from you.  Help me to follow your ways more.’

For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.

Romans 3:28

If you don’t know Christ as Saviour, it’s not too late.  God loves you and there is nothing you can do about it.  Find a community of Christians to join (a church), start reading God’s message to you (the bible), and pray.  Prayer is simply talking with God.  How else can you build a relationship without communication?

-Zack

What has stuck out to you?

How has reading this chapter today been different than the first time you read it?

If it’s your first time reading this, what has made you stop and think?

 Grace and peace,

today we are going over Romans 2.

Here is a link to it on biblegateway.com

“Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?“

-Romans 2:4 (New Living Translation)

Do you ever get mad at someone who is nothing but nice to you?

Do you find yourself yelling at someone who speaks softly?

Probably not for both questions.

It is natural to respond to someone in the same way they respond to you.  Here is a simple test.  When you pass by someone you know, wait for them to say something first.

Friend: Hi

(What is your response?)

You: Hi

What if your friend said something else?

Friend: Hello

(Do you think you’d say hi?)

You: Hello

It is common to respond in the same way that some acted towards you.

This equal reaction go away when we deal with God.

We are shown love, we go our own way.

We are shown forgiveness, we harbor bitterness towards people.

We are shown peace, we create strife.

When it comes to the Creator, we respond poorly.

Paul says this isn’t how it should be.  God’s kindness should lead us to repentance.  If Jesus was a person who walked around and came over to your house for dinner once and a while, would you treat Him like most people, or would you treat Him as God?

That might be the real problem, we don’t treat God as someone who is part of our lives.

I think my challenge and your challenge is to make Jesus a real part of our lives.  We don’t treat people the way we treat our Saviour, we don’t turn our back and continually do wrong against them but we do to Christ.

Make our loving, caring God a bigger part of your life and may His kindness be real to you and me and may it lead us to repentance.

-Zack

What is God teaching you through Romans 2?

 Grace and Peace,

today we are going over Romans 1.

Here is a link to it on biblegateway.com

About a year ago, I was reading Romans and 1:6 stuck with me:

“And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.“

What made this verse different, was that I read it as though Paul was saying this to me.

“And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.“

Who is the Gospel for? The Jews and the Gentiles and YOU!

The Gospel is for everyone!  There isn’t someone who is too bad, that has done too much wrong, that has sinned too much, the Gospel is for you!  Don’t believe me? Read Romans 1:6

“And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.“

We who know this good news, it is our jobs to share it with people.  To show them, no this isn’t just for the good people, this isn’t for other people, it’s for ALL people!  This truth is for you!

There is

Love,

Joy,

Peace,

Forgiveness,

Grace,

Contentment,

Fulfillment,

Friendship,

Guidance,

and Healing,

in a relationship with Christ.

Love, peace, forgiveness, grace, all of it can be poured into someone’s life if you are will to share it with them.

But are you willing to share?

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.“

This becomes a struggle for lots of people, including me.  This was something I never had experience with but things have changed.  I now look for opportunities to talk with people about Jesus and belief and it has been great.  I think the big worry comes from Christians being concerned that others will be mean or mad that the subject was brought up.  My experience is that people are often happy to talk about religion.  They listen to what I have to say, ask questions, respond to questions and at the end everything is still civil.  Even people who I would think would “be rude”, have reacted kindly to a witnessing and listened to what the person had to say and thanked them at the end!

We have the power of God in the message of the Gospel!

It’s for you and it’s for you to share with others!

Don’t be ashamed!