Heart X-ray

Posted on February 16, 2011 by pastorchad

Have you ever know some­one who won’t go to the doc­tor, not because of they are afraid of what they might learn, but because they already have a sense that some­thing is wrong — they just don’t want it con­firmed. From time to time we all need a spir­i­tual x-ray. Both for stay­ing in good spir­i­tual health and for diag­nos­ing spir­i­tual dis­ease. When we come to God he already knows our spir­i­tual, emo­tional, men­tal, and phys­i­cal con­di­tion. He is the Great Physi­cian, but as patients we must be will­ing to sub­mit to his search­ing, cut­ting, clean­ing, plan for recov­ery, and guides for healthy liv­ing. Though it may be uncom­fort­able, if we hum­ble our­selves, he is both will­ing and able to work in our lives (see Peter’s dis­cus­sion with Jesus, John 13:6–10). Here are a few more scrip­tures for your con­sid­er­a­tion: Psalm 139, Jere­miah 17:10, Romans 8:26–27, & 2 Tim­o­thy 3:14–16.

Posted in Pastor's Notes | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

peace treaty

Posted on February 8, 2011 by pastorchad

Egypt­ian Pres­i­dent Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Min­is­ter Men­achem Begin in Wash­ing­ton D.C., 1979

A peace treaty between two coun­tries is a big deal! The Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty (1979) came not long after Israel had twice been under attack from Egypt (1967 & 1973). The treaty helped the Egypt­ian pres­i­dent to win the Nobel Peace Prize. With the news com­ing out of Egypt recently and the pos­si­bil­ity of a com­pletely new Egypt­ian Gov­ern­ment, there has been con­cern about what would hap­pen to the treaty also know as the “Camp David Accords.” Will Egypt main­tain and renew its treaty with Israel in the years to come?

Recent demon­stra­tions in Egypt.

We have a peace treaty with God through the work of Jesus Christ. The Bible uses the word “covenant” to describe our treaty with God and says that the work of Jesus Christ is “once and for all”. In other words, there is no peace­ful rela­tion­ship with God except through the work, the accom­plish­ment, the role, and the medi­a­tion of his Son. There never has been and never will be a bet­ter agree­ment. The terms are clear: faith/trust in the work of Jesus and a life com­mit­ted to fol­low­ing him. It is impor­tant for us to main­tain and renew our covenant rela­tion­ship with Him.

We recently heard a mes­sage at PaIntChurch about the impor­tance of renew­ing our faith and com­mit­ment to fol­low Jesus in every sea­son of life. We looked at some prin­ci­ples from the Old Tes­ta­ment (Joshua 24:14–15) when Joshua set out to renew God’s covenant with the peo­ple of Israel. Here are few extra thoughts and scrip­tures con­cern­ing “renew­ing your faith” that might encour­age you this week:

1. Being a “fol­lower of Jesus Christ” is both a deci­sion and a process. We decide to trust in him for our sal­va­tion and with our lives and then we con­tinue in that deci­sion daily, weekly, monthly… for a life­time. Philip­pi­ans 2:12–13, Luke 9:23, 1 Corinthi­ans 9:24–27, Colos­sians 1:21–23, Hebrews 10:19–25

2. While we looked at Israel’s covenant renewal with God (Joshua 24) as an exam­ple of how we should be sure to con­sis­tently renew and main­tain our faith, it is impor­tant to note that our rela­tion­ship with Jesus is an alto­gether new rela­tion­ship agree­ment with God. Com­mu­nion is a con­sis­tant reminder (to help us renew) of the new covenant with God we have in Jesus Christ and an encour­age­ment to us to exam­ine our hearts and rela­tion­ship with Him. 1 Corinthi­ans 11:23–26, Hebrews 8:6–13

Posted in Pastor's Notes | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

My Favorite Prayer

Posted on January 17, 2011 by pastorchad

One of my favorite prayers to pray is “Lord please help me with…” and you could fill in the blank with hun­dreds of con­cerns over the years. And even though I pray those words often, it is not a prayer that lacks sin­cer­ity. It is short reminder that I am com­pletely depen­dent on God for his pro­vi­sions of abil­ity, wis­dom, and resources. It also rec­og­nizes that I am actively involved in the sit­u­a­tion and that God chooses to use me for his glory.

Last week dur­ing our Sun­day night ser­vice we heard a ser­mon on the the help that God pro­vides to us. Our guest speaker, Sven Bengts­son, reminded us from sev­eral key pas­sages that God is our most impor­tant source of help. Here are a few more scrip­tures to remind you of the Lord’s help this week:

Psalm 46, Mark 9:24, Romans 8:26

Posted in Pastor's Notes | Leave a comment

Don’t Take Out Santa!

Posted on December 20, 2010 by pastorchad

We just want to wish every­one a Merry Christ­mas from Panama Inter­na­tional Church. For those who are trav­el­ing abroad and those who are stay­ing in Panama we hope that your hol­i­day sea­son is full of God’s joy, fam­ily, giv­ing, and smiles. Pas­tor Chad.

don’t let trav­el­ing take the joy out of Christmas

Posted in Pastor's Notes | Leave a comment

Part 2

Posted on November 26, 2010 by pastorchad

The best movie expe­ri­ence of my life was see­ing Lord of the Rings: The Fel­low­ship of the Ring for the first time in the the­ater. For over 3 hours we did not move but sat cap­ti­vated by the scenery, adven­ture, and char­ac­ters of the movie. I remem­ber leav­ing the the­ater say­ing “that was amaz­ing, when does part 2 come out?” Imme­di­ately I wanted to know what hap­pened next.

I won­der if Theophilus felt the same way after read­ing the first part of Luke’s story of the work of Jesus Christ (the book of Luke in the Bible). Luke ends the story of the earthy life and min­istry of Jesus with Jesus giv­ing the dis­ci­ples some instruc­tions for the gospel and a promise of spe­cial power from God. But what hap­pens next? I’m not sure how long he would have to wait but even­tu­ally Theophilus would get part 2 writ­ten by his friend Luke. The book of Acts in the Bible picks up exactly where part 1 leaves off, Jesus telling his dis­ci­ples to “wait for the gift that my Father promised.” Even though Jesus is leav­ing them in phys­i­cal form we see the story of the early church begin­ning and the min­istry of Jesus con­tin­u­ing through his send­ing of the Holy Spirit. Take a moment this week to fol­low Luke’s story line:

Luke 1:1–4, Luke 4:14, Luke 11:11–13, Luke 24:45–49, Acts 1:1–8, Acts 2:1–4

Posted in Pastor's Notes | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Blood Brothers

Posted on November 10, 2010 by pastorchad

Maybe you’ve heard the phrases, “the blood runs thick,” or “blood is thicker than water,” or “they are fam­ily, flesh and blood.” Blood is a pow­er­ful sym­bol of both life and rela­tion­ships. When I was a child I remem­ber other young chil­dren talk­ing about how best friends could become “blood broth­ers”. Each friend would prick their fin­ger with a nee­dle to draw out a drop of blood. Then the friends would touch their fin­gers together mix­ing the blood and becom­ing blood brothers.

Before Jesus died, when he was eat­ing with his dis­ci­ples, he took a cup of wine and said, “this cup is the new covenant in my blood.” Through the shed­ding of Jesus’ blood, God pow­er­fully brings us into rela­tion­ship with him­self as a part of his fam­ily. Last week at Panama Inter­na­tional Church we looked at the story of King David and Mephi­bosheth (2 Samuel 9) and we dis­cussed what it means to be in covenant rela­tion­ship with God. Here are some scrip­tures to keep you thinking:

Gen­e­sis 15:1–18 (God makes a blood covenant with Abra­ham who is later com­mended for his faith and obe­di­ence), Mark 3:31–35, Hebrews 2:10–18, 1 Peter 5:8–11 (with the thought of restora­tion, that King David restored Mephi­bosheth), & Hebrews 8:6–13.

Posted in Pastor's Notes | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Jesus hating on his own family?

Posted on October 29, 2010 by pastorchad

Our very own Chris­t­ian Lama preached a mes­sage last week that high­lighted the impor­tance that Jesus placed on the fam­ily of God. We learned that fol­low­ers of Jesus Christ are mem­bers of God’s own fam­ily becom­ing adopted sons and daugh­ters of God and broth­ers and sis­ters to Jesus. We also learned that God wants his fam­ily to con­tinue grow­ing as a way to bring glory to him­self so it is impor­tant for us to build the church, serve God’s plan, and make dis­ci­ples of Jesus Christ.

In light of last week’s mes­sage there is an inter­est­ing pas­sage in the Bible that can be the source of some con­fu­sion. On sev­eral occa­sions Jesus talked about the cost of fol­low­ing him and in Luke 14:26 he said, “If any­one comes to me and does not hate is father and mother, his wife and chil­dren, his broth­ers and sis­ters — yes, even his own life — he can not be my dis­ci­ple.” Jesus cer­tainly doesn’t want us to hate those who are clos­est to us when in other places us he com­mands us to love and to honor our father and mother. Rather, Jesus is using a Jew­ish mode of expres­sion that draw a severe con­trast, in this case com­par­ing the love we have for him with the love we have for our fam­i­lies and our­selves (where the word “hate” means to “love less”). To be a true fol­lower of Jesus Christ our love and com­mit­ment to him must be greater than any other love or com­mit­ment in our lives! Matthew under­stands this when he writes his ver­sion of Jesus words in Matthew 10:37.

Matthew 15:1–10, Matthew 19:16–30, Luke 9:57–62, Eph­esians 6:1–3, Gala­tians 3:26–4:7

Posted in Pastor's Notes | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

DNA

Posted on October 20, 2010 by pastorchad

It really is a fas­ci­nat­ing process to watch your chil­dren develop. Amber and I will often dis­cuss the behav­iors of our chil­dren and who they resem­ble. Some­times we even notice spe­cific inher­ited sim­i­lar­i­ties to their grand­par­ents. Judah has a very strong sense of smell like Amber but often crosses his legs and holds his arms like me. The DNA of both my wife and I are at work in him and yet he is his very own indi­vid­ual. Unfor­tu­nately for Judah, he seems to have inher­ited my allergies.

The Bible teaches that humans are made in the “image of God”. So in a very real way God’s per­son­al­ity and char­ac­ter is built into our lives. Our abil­ity to love, cre­ate, show both mercy and jus­tice, and have rela­tion­ships all reflect the image of God in us. Unfor­tu­nately, as you know, almost every day we see the oppo­site of God’s good­ness in mankind and even in our­selves. There is another “strand of DNA” at work in us — sin — that part of our nature that pulls us in the oppo­site direc­tion from the char­ac­ter of God. How sin comes into our very nature is a com­plex issue, but on thing is cer­tain, the results of sin are dev­as­tat­ing. The good news is that God gave us a new DNA map — his own son, Jesus Christ. Last week in our ser­vice we dis­cussed how sin is a fail­ure in our being to reflect the glory of God. But we con­cluded with the good news that through trust in Jesus, God begins to rebuild our spir­i­tual DNA. Here are some more Bible verses to keep you thinking:

Gen­e­sis 1:27, Colos­sians 1:15–20, Hebrews 1:1–3, Romans 7:21–25

Posted in Pastor's Notes | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The search for the Atocha.

Posted on October 7, 2010 by pastorchad

In 1622, leav­ing the port of Havana, Cuba, the Atocha was the largest of a fleet of Span­ish gal­lions headed for Spain with a mas­sive ship­ment of gold. With the threat of hur­ri­cane weather half the fleet turned back try­ing to avoid the storm to the west of the Florida Keys in the Gulf of Mex­ico. Unfor­tu­nately they ran right into the hur­ri­cane and all the ships were lost includ­ing the lives of 500 men. The Atocha car­ried the largest cargo of gold and sil­ver was lost to the sea.

In 1970 a trea­sure hunter named Mel Fisher, moved from Cal­i­for­nia to the Florida Keys to begin his search for the Atocha and its trea­sure. Fisher had opened the first dive shop in the state of Cal­i­for­nia and his wife Dolores was one of the first women to learn how to dive.  She set a women’s record for stay­ing under­wa­ter for 50 hours straight. Mel Fisher searched thou­sands of ocean miles with a small team of researchers and divers for 4 years — only to find out that they had been look­ing in the wrong direc­tion. In 1975, his old­est son, daughter-in-law, and a team mem­ber all trag­i­cally lost there lives when their boat cap­sized while trea­sure hunt­ing. Mel’s strug­gle to find the Atocha would con­tinue for 10 more long years. Despite the dif­fi­culty he would greet the poten­tial of each day with his motto, “todays the day.”

Finally in 1985, he dis­cov­ered what became known as “the Atocha Moth­er­lode,” includ­ing 40 tons of gold and sil­ver; 114,000 Span­ish sil­ver coins, Colom­bian emer­alds, gold and sil­ver arti­facts, and 1000 sil­ver bars. An esti­mated $450,000,000.00 find and only half of what the Atocha was car­ry­ing. Mel’s com­pany, Salvors, Inc., has con­tin­ued to search for trea­sure and is still in oper­a­tion today. The Mel Fisher Mar­itime Her­itage Museum con­tains a huge col­lec­tion of arti­facts and is open for vis­i­tors in Key West, Florida.

I stum­bled across this story as I was read­ing for last week’s ser­mon, “the Great­est Trea­sure,” (see Matthew 13:44–46). When I think of a trea­sure hunter like Mel Fisher I am amazed at both his patience and per­sis­tence. I am sure it was not only the pos­si­bil­ity of great riches that attracted him to his search, but it must have been the search itself — the idea of dis­cov­ery, the poten­tial of each day, the mys­tery of the unknown — that kept him looking.

When we find Jesus Christ and the King­dom of God as our great­est trea­sure, we not only com­plete our most impor­tant search, we enter into a life long jour­ney of seek­ing God. The writer of the book of Eph­esians, the Apos­tle Paul, uses sev­eral phrases that remind us of both the dis­cov­ery and con­tin­ued adven­ture we have in fol­low­ing Jesus Christ. Take a moment to think about the fol­low­ing phrases as you read through the scrip­tures listed below: “riches of God’s grace… the mys­tery of his will… when times have reached their ful­fill­ment… in the com­ing ages… incom­pa­ra­ble riches… mys­tery made known…”

Eph­esians 1:7–10, Eph­esians 2:4–7, Eph­esians 3:2–6, Philip­pi­ans 4:19

Posted in Pastor's Notes | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Quick Hello.

Posted on September 30, 2010 by pastorchad

Just wanted to apol­o­gize that there is no new blog/devotional for this week. I’ve been super busy with meet­ings, ser­mon writ­ing, dis­ci­ple­ship cell groups, and prep­ping for guest speak­ing at a lead­er­ship retreat this  week­end (for the Chris­t­ian Surfers of Panama). If you are new to the web­site I usu­ally try to blog with some added thoughts and scrip­tures from the Sun­day mes­sage either the week before or after the mes­sage. We also post announce­ments about upcom­ing church events. With the tabs above you can find out more about the church and feel free to com­ment below with thoughts or ques­tions from Sunday’s mes­sage or the blog. Even­tu­ally the site will also serve as a hub for our min­istry teams which are cur­rently in the devel­op­ment process. Finally, if you’d like updates deliv­ered to your email you can use the “sub­scribe” but­ton to the right. Bless­ings, Pas­tor Chad.

Posted in News, Pastor's Notes | Leave a comment