Undeniable Testimony

"But the chief priests plotted to put Lazarus to death also, because on account of him many of the Jews went away and believed in Jesus."

-- John 12:10-11

This is such a fitting picture of Satan's approach in battling the believers in Christ.

The plan was to put to death the man Jesus had just raised from the dead.

How circular is that logic? To kill that which has already died and been brought back to life. Did the chief priests really believe that would work? What would it prove? How would you quiet the many witnesses to the event?

But this is the enemy's approach in our lives today -- to devalue our testimony.

Having given our hearts to Jesus Christ, we have literally been presented with new life -- eternal life.

The world will attack our past -- that which has already died -- in an effort to divert our attention from the fact that we are unpreventably alive through His blood.

The world will attack our present flesh -- that which is continuously decaying -- in an effort to divert our attention from the fact that our future is permanently sealed in His presence.

The world will attack our faith -- that which has given us new birth -- in an effort to divert us from the fact that on our account many would come to Jesus, seeking eternity.

The enemy would love nothing more than to hide your testimony. At its most basic, that's what the pharisees were trying to do with Lazarus.

It is a futile effort, though, because our testimony -- the idea that we were lost, but now we are found -- is undeniable.

People have witnessed it and seen the change in your heart. They can see life where there wasn't any before.

We can't forget what our testimony is for -- to proclaim Jesus as Messiah and Savior to the world.

Whatever attack or trial you are under, keep at the forefront of your mind that God will use even this for His glory. And through that, you -- and anyone who happens to be watching -- will be blessed.

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"And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death." Revelation 12:11

The death of the One for the life of the many

"And one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said the them, 'You know nothing at all, nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should perish."

-- John 11:49-50

There's probably no way Caiaphas could have known that in privately originating the plot to kill Jesus, he was uttering an outline of what would become the doctrine of our salvation.

Even John goes on to say in the next verses that "this he (Caiaphas) did not say on his own authority; but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for that nation only, but also that He would gather together in one the children of God who were scattered abroad. (John 11:51-52)."

The episode that brought this unintentionally (at least in Caiaphas' mind) prophetic statement on was Jesus bringing Lazarus back from the dead after four days in the tomb.

It's an incident that struck Caiaphas and the chief priests deeply.

One teacher points out that as Jesus was dying on the cross, the chief priests mocked him, saying "He saved others; Himself He cannot save. (Matthew 27:42)."

And once again, intended as an insult, they unintentionally gave exposition into the nature of the sacrifice.

They saw the crucifixion as an ultimate end to a perceived enemy. They couldn't understand that it was God's ultimate beginning to victory over mankind's true enemy -- sin.

If Jesus had indeed saved Himself, all others would have been lost. All that would have been proven was Christ's power over death for Himself.

But He gave His life as an offering for the sin of the world -- Sin that never was, and never would be, His own.

When that righteous blood spilled, it was poured out on the world -- on us -- to cleanse us of our sin, if we would only repent of it.

If this was to be the purpose of His death, He indeed could not save Himself. Not that it wasn't in His power to do so. Rather, to save Himself would have been to wander outside the will of the Father and to lose the very world He'd come to save.

Repeatedly through the book of Acts, Jesus Christ's resurrection is qualified by the phrase "whom God raised from the dead."

Having given Himself completely unto death, Jesus was raised by His Father in heaven. And through that, we are saved.

"He saved others, Himself He cannot save."

True indeed.

Just as Caiaphas and the high priests were violently opposed to Jesus and were still used for His Glory, consider the people in your lives that just seem to live in opposition to God.

Not only can God use them to speak of His Grace and Salvation, but He can save anyone, because of the sacrifice He has given.

It's always a good question to ask, where these private exchanges between the teachers of the law occur in the gospels, how they came to light in scripture?

Whether it be the Apostle Paul, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea or some pharisee scripture doesn't record, these sections come from someone who started out opposed to God and ended up under His Mighty Hand of Forgiveness.

Then again, any Christian's story follows the same arc.

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"But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring about as it is this day, to save many people alive." Genesis 50:20

"Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain." John 12:24

The Compass

"All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, But the LORD weighs the spirits."

-- Proverbs 16:2

If you think long enough, and hard enough, you can justify just about anything you do. To yourself. Most of the time it doesn't take that much thought at all.

Left to ourselves, it's a pretty easy sell -- this idea that at the end of the day we're pretty good people.

Our fleshly nature desires affirmation and approval -- the idea that our decisions are right and those that don't agree just don't understand the situation the way we do.

One of the biggest wake-up calls after I got married a little less than five years ago was learning how frequently I'm wrong.

It seems, once you're closely-quartered with someone on whom your decisions have a profound and direct impact, and whose decisions profoundly and directly impact you, you start to get an idea of where you, your most reasonable logic and your moral imperative stand in the grand scheme of things.

It's at that point that you either have to submit your differences to the Lord and seek His direction, or choose to continue on in your "rightness" and see how well that works out. (Remember, in taking those vows, you promise to lay your life down for that person. If it is ever going to work, you've really got to do it and it really does mean dying to yourself -- but that's another entry for another day, one about finding a greater whole than you ever could have imagined on your own. I digress.).

Call it a blessed humbling.

That's why God saw fit to give us His law. It was, a) to show us the rules of living rightly as defined by the only one ever found to be righteous and, b) to show us how incapable we are of upholding it.

Until we're shown the wide-ranging breadth of the demands of His law, we can't even begin to fathom the depth of the mercy and grace we've been given in bridging the gap between man and God.

In Isaiah 55:8-9, it says "'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,' says the LORD. 'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts."

It is a freeing thought, knowing that for all of the things I can't grasp about God, it doesn't much matter, because He -- in every sense of the phrase -- is so much bigger than I can imagine. His power is bigger, His wisdom is bigger, His holiness is bigger, His righteousness is bigger, and His love is bigger.

So who am I to determine the purity of my own ways?

That's the miraculous thing about this love relationship God has given us with Jesus Christ. My ways are purified once I've been reconciled to Him through the repentance of my sin.

It is God who searches hearts and discerns motives. But it is also God that makes His heart and His will known to man.

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"Understand, you senseless among the people; And you fools, when will you be wise? He who planted the ear, shall He not hear? He who formed the eye, shall He not see? He who instructs nations, shall He not correct, He who teaches man knowledge? The LORD know the thoughts of man, That they are futile. Blessed is the man whom You instruct, O Lord, And teach out of Your law, That You may give him rest from the days of adversity, Until a pit is dug for the wicked." -- Psalm 94:8-13

Psalm 121

"The LORD shall preserve your soul from all evil; He shall preserve your soul. The LORD Shall preserve your going out and your coming in From this time forth and even forevermore."

--Psalm 121:7-8

Just some encouragement for today. Wherever you are, wherever you are going, God is with you, keeping you. Preserving you. Whatever happens, you are kept and preserved by the hand of the Creator. He will sustain you through your darkest days and carry you to places of His brightest Glory.

It's snowing where I am today. I thought this song was appropriate. Consider today the nature of Him who saves us. His peace resembles His coming:

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"I lift my eyes to the hills -- From whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth." -- Psalm 121:1-2

Are you satisfied?

"The backslider in heart will be filled with his own ways, But a good man will be satisfied from above."

-- Proverbs 14:14

You've heard it said that the grass is always greener on the other side.

A wise friend of mine said it better that the grass is always greener where you water it.

In every sense, the latter is true.

The thought is amplified when you consider what scripture has to say about water and hold it up against today's verse.

"Jesus answered and said to her 'If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.'" --

John 4: 10.

"He who believes in Me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." -- John 7:38.

"For I will pour water on him who is thirsty, And floods on the dry ground; I will pour My Spirit on your descendants, And My blessing on your offspring; They will spring up among the grass Like willows by the watercourses." -- Isaiah 44:3-4

Water, throughout scripture, is used to describe or demonstrate God's Word, blessing, peace, depth, satisfaction, cleansing, purity and even deliverance.

The common thread? Every one of those things, in their truest forms, comes directly and only from the hand of God.

So if the grass is greener where we water it, then are we truly watering our lives?

If our "water" is from God, then our lives resemble that green field of grass we so desire -- vibrant, fresh, strong, firmly-rooted, free ... alive.

But if not from God, our "water" really isn't water at all. Our lives wilt, particularly under heat or duress. What was fresh become old, stale and crunchy. Frankly, without real water, we die.

Today's verse isn't claiming we're satisfied from above because we're good. It's more that in when we seek satisfaction through our own ways, we literally have become back-slidden --we've let something else try to provide the "water' that only God can.

When that's the case, we'll always ultimately be left unsatisfied with our lives.

When God is in His rightful place as the first priority in our hearts, it seems that satisfaction just falls naturally into place.

So I ask you today, are you satisfied with life? Or are you left feeling consistently frustrated, like there should be more to this job, this marriage, your health, this house, this car, or this (whatever it takes to fill in the blank here.)?

I'd suggest there is there is a simple, but extremely convicting solution to your dissatisfaction.

It all starts with where you find your water today.

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"And the Spirit and the bride say, 'Come!' And let him who hears say, 'Come!' And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely." -- Revelation 22:17

Fighting

"And now I say to you, keep away from these men and let them alone; for if this plan or this work is of men, it will come to nothing; but if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it -- lest you even be found to fight against God."

-- Acts 5:38-39

I try to imagine the frustration the teachers of the law felt during the time of the early church.

Here was this Man making the "blasphemous" claim that He was the Son of God. He performed miraculous signs, raised the dead and really tended to get in your face whenever it came to the traditions you based your belief system on. You brought Him to trial and you had Him executed. That should have been the end of the story.

It should have been. Strike the head and the body dies, right?

But what if, just maybe, this Jesus was who He said He was? Worse, what if He is who He says He is.

No, no. He's dead. You watched it happen. You watched those nails being pounded into his hands. You heard the that righteous cry as He expended His last breath. Forgive me? Because I don't know what I'm doing?

It's taken months to shake the shiver of that moment off your spine. That was not a desperate Man you hung on that cross. That was a Man of Purpose. He knew exactly what He was doing. But He died. You saw it.

Still, three days, three nights and that tomb was empty. There's no disputing that. And these people just won't keep quiet about having seen Him. Forty days, they say. He was among them for 40 days, showing the wounds you gave Him. Impossible.

But still, that's a lot of a people telling the same story. Impossible.

And now, here are these two, Peter and John. Healing, speaking with boldness and authority, striking chords deep within the hearts of man.

You thought you dealt with this already, but now there are two more? Neither one will take the credit for themselves. They keep pointing our people back to this Jesus.

So you forbid them from saying that Name. If you can't strike the Man from the record, surely you can withhold His name.

But that only grew the following.

More healings, even Peter's mere shadow falling on those he passed seemed to have power. The numbers continued to grow. People were starting to look at you, wondering what your real relevance was anymore.

Enough. This could not stand. You grab all 12 of those apostles and throw them behind bars.

If you can't kill the movement, surely you can contain it.

But it seemed even the sealed hole and armed guards couldn't keep them. Why does this seem so familiar?

The next morning, there they are, in our temple, teaching that Name. Impossible.

So you haul them back in. "Explain yourselves," you demand. "Why do you insist on saying that Name. Why are you intent on pinning that Man's blood to me?"

"We ought to obey God, rather than men," they say. "The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. Him God exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins."

That gets you going. Kill them. Rid the earth of them. You've done it before, what's a couple more? What's a hundred more, a thousand more if it means bringing balance back to the council?

But what's this? Your teacher, Gamaliel, has something to say. Seems he's seen enough. He sends those "apostles" out of the room. He wants to speak just to us.

He references other uprisings, how they play themselves out in time. How giving them opposition only strengthens their resolve.

"Keep away from these men and let them alone," he says. "For if this plan or this work is of men, it will come to nothing; but if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it -- lest you even be found to fight against God."

You nod. Everyone nods. No one wants to fight against God. But this Jesus is not of God. We've already declared our sentence on that. No going back on that now.

You send the apostles away with a severe beating. That doesn't stop them. They only teach and preach all the more.

What is it that drives these men?

More time passes. The miracles continue. The number expands.

You kill more of these "Christians." You set out to destroy them. The "jailbreak" slips into a distant hint of a memory as you fight the good fight.

Then one day, as you journey with your companions to round-up these believers from Damascus, a bright light pierces you to your very soul.

You hear a voice. You've heard it before. But now He speaks directly to you.

"Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?"

In that single moment your teacher's words come flooding back.

You have been fighting against God.

No more. Not any more.

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A word of caution about the above tale. You may not come down on the side you think you do. I know I didn't.

A friend pointed out the other day that we, the church, tend to treat non-believers like the enemy. This happens because we miss who the real enemy is in all this -- Satan. Sin.

Do we reach out like Jesus reached out? To everyone? Do we teach and witness like the apostles did? Without reservation -- even to the point of physical harm and death?

A lot of times I have believed I've been on God's side in an issue, fighting vehemently for it (if even in my own thoughts) only to realize later that I was actually fighting against Him -- hindering the message to those He wants to reach.

I've come to realize in such situations that I'm no different than a pharisee -- fighting against what God is trying to do instead of first seeking His will and then obeying.

When you find yourself fighting for the faith, take a good step back and consider who it is you are actually fighting. If your object is to defeat a person or a group, consider how it is God would instead reach out to that person.

Remember, at the end of the day, the battle belongs to the Lord.

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"This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief." -- 1 Timothy 1:15

The Conditioned Response

"You have sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth. Yet I do not receive testimony from man, but I say these things that you may be saved. He was the burning and shining lamp, and you were willing for a time to rejoice in his light."

-- John 5:33-35

It's subtle, the way faith is presented by the world today.

Have you really thought about it? Everyone has widely different beliefs and through this growing movement of "all-inclusiveness" we have come to regard belief -- faith -- as a matter of personal preference.

What I'm trying to say is that we've watered down the meaning of the word "believe."

I can say, "I believe in Jesus."

But today, I might as well be saying "I believe the Red Sox will win the World Series this season," or "I believe pizza is the best food on the planet."

You could make an argument for both of those things, sure, but the condition of the words "I believe" today is such that it purposefully leaves the door open for other arguments. I may believe this, but you may believe something else.

I've found lately, to my shame, that I talk in these sort of "I believes" when it comes to sharing my faith in God.

I fear that in this society where "Everyone has a right to believe what they want," I, along with a good portion of the modern church, have fallen into a state of near apology when it comes to sharing and witnessing.

The things I say to non-believers often tend to begin with, "Well, I believe ..."

And then Jesus says, "Yet I do not receive testimony from man, but I say these things that you may be saved."

He's talking of John the Baptist, speaking of one who would bear witness to the truth -- that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah.

In belief, there is proclamation of interpretation and there is acknowledgment of truth.

God requires from us the latter. He does not need the former.

Think of it this way:

Belief as proclamation of interpretation is very similar to saying, "I believe skydiving is dangerous."

Belief as acknowledgment of the truth is like saying, "I believe in the law of gravity."

In the first case, there is reasonable evidence to suggest its truthfulness. A vast majority of people would probably agree. But the presentation leaves the door open for argument.

In the second, there is no arguing the existence of gravity. Present whatever arguments you'd like -- at the end of the day, we all know what's going to happen when I drop a rock off a cliff.

That's why being born again is such a remarkable process. All God asks, in return for eternal forgiveness and never-ending life with Him, is a two-fold confession: He asks for the acknowledgment of ourselves as sinners and the acknowledgment of His Son as the Risen King.

We can interpret and reason the two all day long, but until it is acknowledged unquestionably as true, it means nothing in our lives.

You have to know it like you know the effects of gravity. And we have to present it to others the same way.

Very simply, it's the difference between saying something with your brain and saying something with your heart. In one instance, you're well convinced something is true. In the other, there is no doubt in your being that it is true.

I realize there is a broad difference between presenting the truth in love and hammering someone over the head with the Bible. But we can't use that as an excuse to stray away from the absolute validity of the truth presented within scripture. Present it in love, but present it exactly as it is.

I thought perhaps I was alone in what I've come to realize is a growing epidemic among the Christian church. I've since heard a teacher I respect immensely call it "The Great Soft Sell" -- presenting your beliefs in Christ and leaving it as an "option on the table" for whoever would listen.

But God is adamant through scripture that His Son is the only way. Ultimately, every individual must make a confession of their own accord -- whether or not they believe in Christ, the Son of the Living God. There's nothing "soft" about deciding either way. It's as hard and as real a decision as a soul will ever make.

God provided His word to make that decision as simple and as easy as possible. Through it, He gives us everything we need to know about Him. He gave the Holy Spirit to open eyes and hearts to the truthfulness and faithfulness of His word.

Consider what Jesus goes on to say in this same section of scripture:

"But I have a greater witness than John's; for the works which the Father has given Me to finish -- the very works that I do -- bear witness of Me, that the Father has sent Me. And the Father Himself, who sent Me, has testified of Me."

He laid it all out there, not in order to prove Himself to us, but to show Himself to us -- much like dropping that rock off that old cliff.

There's a song (read this blog for any amount of time and you'll quickly find out who my favorite musical artist is) that describes the progression of the meaning behind the great confession as a Christian grows in his walk with the Lord. It sums up better than I can the point of what I'm trying to say.

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"But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (That is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." -- Romans 10:8-10

Leaning

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths."

-- Proverbs 3:3-5

When you lean on something, you sacrifice your balance to that object. If the object is sturdy, you'll be just fine. If not, you end up flat on your back -- in my case, usually in front of a big crowd of people.

I wrote last week about the dangers of trusting in your own heart. The key in this verse today is that it says to trust in the Lord with all your heart and in all your ways acknowledge Him.

If you just trust Him with some or most of your heart and acknowledge Him with some or most of your ways, you're essentially just kind of leaning toward Him, not on Him.

What's the problem with that? I mean, people can generally see you pointing His direction and you theoretically have a safety net waiting, should you happen to fall that direction. Right?

The danger is that in those "some or most" moments, we're not actually leaning on anything. And if there is any solid truth to the world, to sin, it's that the last direction the enemy wants to push you is into the arms of the Loving Savior.

The attacks always comes from the reverse direction. When your balance is compromised, it takes only a light shove to topple you. And, in our physical nature, our tendency is to over-compensate into the direction of the attack. It can really be a tragic cycle.

But God gives us hope through His word. We hear of the wise man who builds his home upon the rock. When the storms come, the house does not fall. We also hear of the man who builds his house on sand, only to watch it fall under the crushing waves of the storm.

What often gets lost in the re-telling is that both men heard God's word, but only one followed it (see Matthew 7:24-26).

Place your trust in God today. Do the things He tells you to do. Lean on Him and you will not fall. Simple as that.

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"For who is God, except the LORD? And who is a rock, except our God?" -- Psalm 18:31

"You pushed me violently, that I might fall, But the LORD helped me. The LORD is my strength and my song, And He has become my salvation." -- Psalm 118: 13-14

He must increase

"He must increase, but I must decrease."

-- John 3:30

The gospels are, at their most basic, the fallen nature of man held up against the perfect nature of God. The comparison shows us both the enormous gap between the two and the supreme and inexplicable desire of the Superior to reconcile the inferior to Himself.

Repeatedly through the scriptures within the four gospel, Jesus Christ reveals Himself by word, deed and perfectly-fulfilled prophecy. And repeatedly, His revelations are answered with the absurdities of man’s religion -- most of which continue to play out today.

It would almost be humorous if it weren’t so real.

During Jesus' time on earth, the disciples were constantly arguing who among them would be greatest. These debates would arise almost exclusively after Jesus would dispense a lesson on what His purpose actually was here -- to make Himself the lowest of all men, to the point of death on a cross, in order that we could commune with the most-high God.

The teachers of the law, the pharisees and sadducees, constantly called into question His ministry through the misguided filters of their skewed tradition rather than the clear lens of God's law. And their biggest disputes would arise after Jesus did something uncompromisingly miraculous.

Heal a crippled man's arm? Open a blind man's eyes? Well, He did those things on the sabbath, and you know what they say about working on the sabbath. Cast out a demon? Surely only a demon king could show such power. Whatever divine power was shown them, it seemed they always came up with a mortally flawed response in an attempt to explain it away.

And then we get this account of John the Baptist and his followers in John chapter 3.

Jesus and His disciples had returned to Judea and Jesus began baptizing there.

John's disciples see people flocking to this New Baptism and felt a sudden tinge of jealousy.

"He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified -- behold, He is baptizing and all are coming to Him!" they cried to John.

When you read it out of context, with the advantage of time passed, this is kind of a "Well, yeah," type of moment.

But John was able to see past the situation and quickly instruct his followers back onto the same page.

John had never given any miscommunication as to what his ministry was -- a preparation for the Messiah.

"You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, 'I am not the Christ,' but 'I have been sent before Him,' John said.

Now that Christ's ministry had arrived, it seemed even John's disciples wanted to hold on to what they had always done, rather than embrace the Author of the Faith. Now where else in the gospels do we see that?

John the Baptist didn't want his disciples to make the same mistakes at the teachers of the law and ultimately miss the advent of their Eternal King.

It is part of human nature to desire to be right, or to at least be on the right side of an issue. We want to believe we've attached ourselves to the best answers -- to have rightly interpreted a situation and to have everyone else see it likewise.

Think about how this affects our present-day circumstances. With so many different denominations and minor quirks and differences in our beliefs, do we allow such matters to cloud the real point of faith?

Do we get John's-follower-syndrome, where our ministry, if even momentarily, becomes more important than the ministry of Jesus'. So often, our beliefs and intentions increase at the expense of Jesus' nature decreasing.

Is Christ's love sacrificed at the expense of proving a doctrinal issue? I've heard it said that it is ultimately better to be loving than right.

The two (Jesus' ministry and our ministry) not only should become one but need to be one. There can't be any separation. It's an idea fielded throughout scripture on a variety of levels.

In the greater Christian church today, I have often seen the need to be right on an issue prevail over the most important issue, which is whether or not a soul casts their faith on Jesus Christ as Lord. We tend to want our church, our study, our ministry and our particular beliefs to be the most popular.

But the danger there is that little about Jesus Christ was, is, or ever will be popular.

The tendency is to forget that it was the large religious mobs -- those with the numbers fully believing they were on the right side of an issue -- that brought about the deaths of Paul, Peter, Stephen and so many others along the way. It was the mob that condemned Jesus Christ to death.

As John says here "He must increase, but I must decrease."

Serving Christ is not just about aligning your beliefs and purposes with Him, but allowing His nature -- His very being -- to prevail over your heart.

He does not seek the number of people that align with you -- He seeks the hearts that will serve Him.

At the end of the day, that's all that matters. Not who you studied under or what church you attended or how you interpreted minor scriptural issues.

What matters is whether or not you rightly represented Jesus Christ as Lord of All, King of Creation, Healer of the wounded, Forgiver of our trangressions and Savior to the lost.

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"He who comes from above is above all. And what He has seen and heard, that He testifies; and no one receives His testimony. He who has received His testimony has certified that God is true. For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God does not give the Spirit measure. The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand. He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." -- John 3:31-36

He has dealt bountifully with me

"Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; Yes, our God is merciful. The Lord preserves the simple; I was brought low and He saved me. Return to your rest, O my soul, For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you."

-- Psalms 116:5-6

I haven't had much time to write these last two days, but here is a cool video! Enjoy!