blogging-by-zane

Hey I'm Back

Tue, 03 May 2011 15:07:03 +0100

Those of you who live in Iowa, I must say, we are truly blessed to experience long Springs and Falls. I have currently been finishing up another semester of school from Grace University and even though it is finals week, I find myself with some extra time on my hands to catch up my blogging. The past many Sundays, I have been preaching through the amazing book of Hebrews. The one with an unknown author, but the message of Hebrews is astounding with helping to understand who Jesus truly is. That He is our Anchor, our Strong Hold, the Reason we can enter into God's presence at any moment of any day. God's presence, think about that for a moment, God's presence, the presence of the living God, the one who created all things and is among all things. Wow!! Praise God with ever Glorifying Praise!

Now since I have been preaching in Hebrews, last Sunday we studied Hebrews Ch. 11, what I like to call the Faith Chapter, because it has all the faith heroes of the Old Testament and explains how these "ancients were commended." BUT, the most powerful verse of this entire chapter and the verse that should make you say, "Whoa" is verse 6. "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him" (NIV Version). WHOA!!! what a statement made by the author. How much more must we seek God with everything we have. "Those who earnestly seek Him" will be rewarded? Sign Me Up. The Gospel is so simple, and we must not make it overly confusing. Belief in God begins with Faith, which is hearing His Word and Obeying what it says, and then we Earnestly Seek God with everything. Our lives, our finances, our family, our jobs, and our recreation. Earnestly Seek God, which will lead to Rewards (that we don't know what they are, but they will be better than your best Christmas, because its GOD), But it must all start with FAITH.

"Faith is confidence that God is who he says he is and will do all that He promised to do." Jason Morones

May the Lord Reward you Richly and Abundantly as you have Faith in Him and Earnestly Seek Him,

Pastor Zane Raber

Long Absence

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 15:50:58 +0100

Hello everyone who reads this,

You were probably wondering if I vanished or something, since it has been since July when I last wrote a blog. FYI, I am doing fine. I have had a lot of wonderful things happen in my life since July. For instance, in September my son was born. There has been no greater feeling than knowing that I am a dad. The vulnerability of a child just astounds me. How could God create us in a way that we become the most helpless child on the face of the earth. Any other animal in the world have babies that can take care of themselves for the most part. But Human beings cannot survive the first few days out of the womb. When coming on the Christmas season, how much more reality is shown when we know that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to this earth as a baby. The weakest of the weak, the lowest of the low, and subject to the hands of Joseph and Mary. Jesus Christ, our savior for this world, came to the earth as a BABY!! Fully God, Fully Man, and for the soul purpose to die on the cross for the sins of all man kind.

When I look at my son, I don't know how God did it. God gave up his one and only son to the fallenness of this dark world in order to create a way that mankind could freely come to Him and have a personally relationship with Him. Remember the sacrifice that God made for us and my prayer for each one of you is that you will remember that sacrifice and see how vital it is to give your life as a sacrifice and Follow Jesus Christ for the rest of your days. For Jesus is the ONLY way to eternal life in heaven.

Merry Christmas and Don't Forget the Reason For The Season.

July 4th!!!

Sun, 04 Jul 2010 03:32:40 +0100

Today we shared in a wonderful celebration with our community called the Earlham Freedom Fest. This has been a tradition for the past several years with festivities, meals, and many other ways to gather together and celebrate the freedom we have living in America. It is truly a blessing to live in a land that still allows freedom of life and religion, however, as I have discovered for myself, there is no greater freedom then that of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Galatians 5:1, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." My question is, what yoke of slavery is Paul talking about here? Paul is addressing the new believers that they don't have to change who they are to become followers of Jesus Christ. I say to you, you don't have to change yourself for the approval of someone else. God has created each one of us for a specific and special purpose, Jeremiah 29:11, but we must first seek Him (God) to understand what that purpose is. So if we have been created to do a work for God, why do we want to change ourselves so a certain crowd, or people group, or significant other will like us. That is placing slavery over our very hearts. We as human beings can find freedom, but only in the saving grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! God created us to be free, but it is through the sin in the garden that has caused us this great divide between us and God, so God sent His Son, Jesus, to bind us back together in freedom and unity.

As we all celebrate this July 4th, remember that true freedom comes from our creator, God the Father, through the sacrifice, Jesus Christ, and through the counsel and guidance of the Holy Spirit.

May the Lord Bless you this season of celebrating our freedom.

Sorry for the Delay

Wed, 26 May 2010 16:55:08 +0100

So it has been a little since my last blog. For those of you reading this, I do apologize, but for my next thoughts I went to scripture. I was reading chapter 18 of John, since that will be our next topic in our bible study group in a couple of weeks, and was amazed at the non-argumentative Jesus. As we read this passage of scripture, we find Jesus extremely calm in the midst of soldiers in the garden, He is also calm in the midst of the Jewish leaders who are itching to kill, and He is still very calm and speaks truth to Pilate. Personally, I don't think I would be that calm in the midst of so much stress and trial, but that is why Jesus went through this for us. Because, as Paul says, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21).

We who feel we are weak and incapable to do God's work, we must remember the sacrifice that Jesus is. Jesus accepted his duty to go to the cross, he was not forced, but humbly and freely went to the cross. Jesus, knowing the significance of his actions, died, conquered death, and has been placed at the right hand of the father to judge the earth with perfect and clear judgement. Our response is to easily say Jesus "I believe you (Jesus) did all this for my life and that I will follow you through your teachings." Through this simple obedience of us giving our lives to Christ, this is our sacrifice, just like Jesus', to be accepted and guided by God the Father who created all things for Jesus' glory.

What say you!! Do you believe? If you believe, begin praying, reading scripture and wait on the Lord's guidance for your life. For His divine calling on our lives is based on His timing, which is never too late.

May the Lord Bless you as you seek Him.

Daylight Savings Putdown

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:08:49 +0100

Whoever is reading these posts likes daylight savings time. Ugghhh, is what I say. I have never understood the concept, besides giving one extra hour of daylight. Really, is that needed? I will say it is nice to have sunshine at 8:00 or later in the summer time in order to play some tennis, but really one hour, 60 minutes, 3600 seconds. Personally, I think it is a way to overwork ourselves and get less sleep and spend less time with our families. But that is my opinion and everybody has one. I say we get the best of both worlds, change our clocks by only 30 minutes and that will fix the problem. Then those that don't want there sleeping habits to change will never have to worry about waking up late, ever again. Or you all are thinking, just move to Arizona where they don't worry about time change.

Okay, so I have hit that a little long. The thing I have to remember is these little things that the government has put into place normally do no physical harm to me, except lack of sleep for a weekend, but that God works in all circumstances and still loves us whether we get up at different times or never change our sleeping habits. Is there a true Christian concept for making changes, even if it is our sleep? I find in the scriptures that there are different seasons of life and those seasons hold significance in our spiritual growth and development of our relationship with God. Because God is a personal God wanting to spend time training, lifting up and encouraging His creation through many different means.

But seasons of life, 2 Timothy 4:2, Paul is teaching his disciple Timothy about being prepared. It reads, "Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage - with great patience and careful instruction." For young Timothy what a word from Paul. I encourage you to not stop reading at the "correct, rebuke and encourage" part without reading how to "correct, rebuke and encourage" correctly. That is through "GREAT patience and careful instruction." We don't need to rush into rebuking somebody for a little mistake, but take great patience and correct, rebuke and encourage with careful instruction.

So during this time of change or new season with our biological time clocks all wacky, remember to be prepared in and out of season, our best and worst days, with a constant remembering of God's Word and the sacrifice of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Blessings and have a GREAT Day!!!!

Child Like Faith

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:19:24 +0100

Mark 10:13-16
Do you have a child like faith? What does that look like? How do we know? Take a child for instance, they are not skeptical of their parents or even when they are really young, they don't have any concept of who is holding them, especially when they are sleeping.

Having a child like faith is all about trust, submission, and obedience. When you have trust in God and in what he is doing in your life, where can you go wrong. He is the mighty God, the author and creator of this world and even more this universe with everything in it. God is amazing! He knows our every thought, our needs, our wants, our actions. Correct me if I am wrong, which I don't believe I am, but when a person is in tune with God's direction in their life, the little worries don't get to them, they are less stressed, and they can focus on the God who loves them and then spread that love to their family and friends. That is where faith and trust go hand-in-hand, when a person can trust God's action plan and then you believe God, which is faith. The belief in something unseen.

Child like faith also includes submission. As we are walking with the Lord and God tells us to do something, do you do it? Submission is trusting that God knows what is best for you. Submission is letting go of what you understand and listening to the Father's voice. Submission is a matter of freely giving up your rights to God, in order to allow Him to provide for your needs, because God truly knows you best.

Child like faith is obedient. At times a child chooses to know nothing but what their parents tell them. However, we can also see the rebellion of the child too. But naturally, the child chooses to submit and be obedient to the parent as long as they are not harmful to them. God will never be harmful toward us. It is our own decisions and choices that bring about the pain, not God. But, God does allow us to suffer the consequences in order to learn and grow in obedience to Him. I think we can all see the affects of a child who is not properly disciplined in their actions. They usually become very spoiled and brattish. Because God knows us so well, He knitted you in your mothers womb, says the Psalmist, He knows what you can handle and as you put your child like faith in Him, I guaranty He will never let you down.

So come to God like a child and allow yourself to be led and taken care of by the God who knows us better than anyone ever could.

Blessings,
Pastor Zane

Dates

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:14:54 +0100

Do you have specific dates that you remember? Of course, we all do. Birthdays, anniversaries, first dates, graduation, church dedications, baby dedications, and the list could go on and on. What about specific spiritual growth moments, or the first time you felt the spirit that was freely given to you from our Savior, or the first time you accepted Christ in your heart and asked for forgiveness of sins? Those are very powerful moments in our lives and they become set dates in our minds that we do not forget.

God certainly gave us amazing minds that allow us to recall and remember things in the past that are good, but there are also times of bad memories. What do we do about those? Lets look at Luke 23:39-43. If you recall, this is the part where Jesus is on the cross, between two criminals and the one begins to insult Jesus for not saving himself from the suffering of the cross. But ironically, the other criminal speaks out and rebukes the criminal and then asks the Lord to remember him when Jesus gets to his kingdom. At that moment, that criminal finally realized his wrong. He sees that Jesus being an innocent man and defends Jesus from the mocking of the other criminal.

I think this criminal had a lot going through his mind. As he hung there with Jesus, he was probably remembering all the things he had done, all the people he had wronged, all the lives that he had disturbed while on earth. But then he realized who this man was on the cross and realized that it wasn't just his last chance, but he finally put somebody else before himself and that person ended up being Jesus. And what did Jesus say? "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise."

This is not a passage that we should spend hours of debate on whether or not this man went to heaven. Because apparently he did, no questions asked. My point is, this criminal put Jesus first for once and it paid out for all eternity. I am also not saying that we should wait until our death bed to accept Christ in our lives. Believing in Christ is a heart decision and when you hear the message of Jesus, you either accept it or reject it. What we can take from this criminal is that when all else seems to fail in our lives, turn to Jesus. Jesus will always be there as you are faithful to pray and seek his will for your life.

And speaking of remembering dates, today is the one year anniversary of my calling to further education and to move north which eventually brought me to Earlham. I can attest that as I have placed my faith into an eternal God, he has always, not sometimes, always shown Himself faithful. So look to God in all circumstances and keep him first in your life.

Divine Wisdom

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:28:00 +0100

This past week has been a beautiful struggle. I say that because our family and friends have struggled much this past year. I spoke to a friend of mine and he happened to mention that the past year has been quite difficult with people in and out of the hospital or even the death of loved ones. Upon his statement, I had to agree and when my wife and I went home for the week last week, we both were hit by a reality of how much Satan is trying to tear our family apart. Whether it is the health of a family member or the relationships between families. It was good to see everyone at home, don't get me wrong, but we certainly felt home sick knowing what we were leaving behind. When these thoughts and feelings begin to arise, it seems to become tough to turn to our Lord and Saviour and trust Him with all circumstances, or is it.

I came across John 7:1-3 in my study this morning, as I am preparing for our bible study tonight, and something struck me as odd. Jesus was "purposefully staying away from Judea because the Jews wanted to kill him." Jesus afraid for his life? No, he was staying away because it was not his time yet. Jesus knew of the Jew's intentions, but He also knew of His Father's intentions and it was not time for the cross yet. This shows me that Jesus knows all things (omniscience) and when the time is right, that perfect timing, Jesus will come through and give us the words we need.

I believe Jesus is the ultimate comfort in our lives because He is Eternal, never ending and as we put our trust in Eternity we will never be let down. We find later in the chapter that Jesus goes to the Feast of Tabernacles and teaches on the most important day of the feast in the very place that the people who were trying to kill him were at. As we trust the Lord's timing, He will protect you from the death of sin. God has a plan for all of us and our place in that plan is to trust and obey what the Father has for our lives. As tough times hit, remember Jesus knows what you are going through and it will never be more than we can handle, because "in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" Romans 8:28. Remember, whether good or bad, God is in control as long as our love is genuine to Him, to Him who is the author and perfector of our faith and KNOWS all things with DIVINE WISDOM.

Time with the Family

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:58:39 +0100

Has anyone looked outside lately? I have to say, when Iowans say to look out for cold weather and lots of snow, they weren't joking!! This flatlander from Kansas isn't used to all this whiteness. The toughest thing for me to figure out is what do you do when it is just too nasty to get out? But maybe this is good for all of us.

I was talking to a dear elder in our church the other day and he told me, when he went to get their Christmas tree, that the tree salesmen talked about people wanting to have a closer family Christmas this year. Interesting, the time when people are losing jobs, our economy almost seems to be busting at the seems and we just don't know what will happen next. Even with all this uncertainty and misfortune, people are turning to what matters most, which is precisely what we should be doing.

As we draw near to one another through love, encouragement and seeking the Lord for answers to life's unknowns. This formula will ultimately draw us nearer to our heavenly father. As we draw near to our heavenly father and are obedient to His perfect will for our lives, that is the only possible way to earn the Lord's favor. It is not through works and good deeds, its from loving our God with everything we are and loving our neighbor as ourselves. There is no work in that.

So in this season of the Lord's favor with the celebration of the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, remember the reason for the season and that is the BIRTH OF JESUS! So be sure to celebrate the birth along with those you love and spend time with family.

Acceptance

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 22:20:28 +0100

Why is it that our human nature is destroyed when we are not accepted for one reason or another? The last few weeks and months have been quite the roller coaster for me. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God has called me to continue my education regardless of the way I think or feel about it. He just will not stop pushing me towards masters work. But some of the most nerve wrecking times are when you are waiting to be accepted. The stressful process of applying for your degree and leaving your future in the hands of people you don't even know, it stresses me out!

Upon applying for my degree, they require you to take a GRE test. This test, no offense to those who have a different view than I, is rediculous. It only grades you on mathmatics, vocab, and other skills that I skimmed through in order to graduate. The test had nothing over what I have dedicated my life towards for the past five years, which is the study and understanding of God's holy word. Needless to say, I performed horribly on this test. It was so bad that my score made me think I was not going to be ACCEPTED into my program. Come to find out, the school I am applying for doesn't really use the GRE as a determining factor. That was a close one!

The next hectic part of my process was to sit with highly skilled professors and allow them to dig and search my thoughts on why I want to be a part of there school. This turned out to be a very eye opening experience and made me begin to pray more for the direction that God has for me. I must say that when God places us into situations that are difficult and out of the ordinary for our ordinary lives, think of them as growing pains. When we were young we did not like them, but we also liked the fact that we were getting taller and older. Because when you are between the ages of 3-16 you want to be taller and stronger and do the things the big kids do. Well this process doesn't end when we grow up. God wants to constantly mold and shape your life, all we do is let him. Live life and even if it is difficult, our faith in God is what carries us through.

The good news is, I was accepted into the counseling program at Grace University this week. I am really excited even though I will have a wide range of papers and work added to my already busy life. But God is always good and He has a plan for each one of us and all we need to do is listen to what He wants for our lives. Because God will always accept us into His kingdom, we have to be willing to accept Him into our lives.