Jesus is the glue that holds us together

The following is an email that I got from a friend of a friend of a.... It is so cool. If the original writers finds this blog and wants to take credit, please do.

-----------------------

This is a pretty neat story and an interesting thing that few of us know. It's brief, so please read on.
A couple of days ago I was running (I use that term very loosely) on my treadmill, watching a DVD sermon by Louie Giglio...and I was BLOWN AWAY! I want to share what I learned....but I fear not being able to convey it as well as I want. I will share anyway.

He (Louie) was talking about how inconceivably BIG our God is...how He spoke the universe into being...how He breathes stars out of His mouth that are huge raging balls of fire...etc. etc. Then He went on to speak of how this star-breathing, universe creating God ALSO knitted our human bodies together with amazing detail and wonder. At this point I am LOVING it (fascinating from a medical standpoint, you know.) .....and I was remembering how I was constantly amazed during medical school as I learned more and more about God's handiwork. I remember so many times thinking...."How can ANYONE deny that a Creator did all of this???"

Louie went on to talk about how we can trust that the God who created all this, also has the power to hold it all together when things seem to be falling apart...how our loving Creator is also our sustainer.

And then I lost my breath.
And it wasn't because I was running my treadmill, either!!!
It was because he started talking about laminin.
I knew about laminin. Here is how wikipedia describes them :"Laminins are a family of proteins that are an integral part of the structural scaffolding of basement membranes in almost every animal tissue." You see....laminins are what hold us together....LITERALLY. They are cell adhesion molecules. They are what holds one cell of our bodies to the next cell. Without them, we would literally fall apart. And I knew all this already. But what I didn't know is what laminin LOOKED LIKE.

But now I do.
And I have thought about it a thousand times since (already)....
Here is what the structure of laminin looks like...AND THIS IS NOT a "Christian portrayal" of it....if you look up laminin in any scientific/medical piece of literature, this is what you will see...

Now tell me that our God is not the coolest!!!
Amazing.
The glue that holds us together....ALL of us....is in the shape of the cross.
Immediately Colossians 1:15-17 comes to mind.

"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
For by him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth , visible and invisible,
whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities;
all things were created by him and for him.
He is before all things,
and in him all things HOLD TOGETHER. "
Colossians 1:15-17

Call me crazy. I just think that is very, very, very cool.
Thousands of years before the world knew anything about laminin, Paul penned those words. And now we see that from a very LITERAL standpoint, we are held together...one cell to another....by the cross.

You would never in a quadrillion years convince me that is anything other than the mark of a Creator who knew EXACTLY what laminin "glue" would look like long before Adam even breathed his first breath!!

We praise YOU, Lord!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What is truth?

John 18:37-38
³⁷ Pilate therefore said to Him, “Are You a king then?”
Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”
³⁸ Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?” And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and said to them, “I find no fault in Him at all.

"What is truth?" Why Jesus is truth. Jesus "came to bear witness to the truth" and is in fact truth. In John 14:6 Jesus says "I am the way, the truth, and the life."

This is the beginning of a series on the Armor of God that we are called to put on in Ephesian 6:11-17. If fact my wife and I will doing a The Whole Armor of God series on our public access show for about the next 7 weeks. You can watch it on our newly created Channy's Cafe youtube channel.

The first item in the Armor of God is the belt of truth. I have often thought of the belt of truth as guarding our selves with the truth of God. Recently I thought, "what is a belt in the context of armor?" I realized this is like a utility belt, and wouldn't you know it, that is exactly how the WEB version translates it.

Eph 6:14 Stand therefore, having the utility belt of truth buckled around your waist,

We need a belt like this to go out into the world, to take all of the tools that Jesus has given us. And because it is from Jesus it is truth.

Jesus, please forgive all my sins and be my Lord, amen.

Pray the Bible

In April, I completed a goal of praying through the Bible in a month. It was awesome. There are so many things to pray about, contemplate, discover and to be encouraged by. I would encourage everyone to challenge yourself to do this. Almost everyone has heard about a "Read the Bible in a Year". But you really can do this in a month.

First thing to notice I didn't "read" the Bible, I "prayed" it. While I did flip through every page, I didn't read each word. I was basically speed reading. I was looking at the major headings and picking up on key phrases and words and concepts of the stories. Also, I have read through the Bible before so much of it was familiar. At the same time I was focusing on trying to pray about something that caught my attention. For instance, when I read about Abraham and Sarah and the birth of Issac, I prayed for faith in God's promises for me and to experience some laughter at times. When I read the 10 commandments I prayed to keep them. When I read about Saul disobeying God, I repented about my disobedience and to get on the right path again. Sometimes my prayers would not be so directly connected with the text, but a keyword would trigger a thought about something to pray for.

This experience really opens your spirit up to have the mind of Christ and think about completing the mission He has given to all of us - to go to all the world and share the Gospel.

Jesus please forgive all my sins and be my Lord. Amen.