\u201cWithout 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.\u201d (Hebrews 11:6)<\/p>\n
\u201cNow faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.\u201d (Hebrews 11:1)<\/p>\n
The writer of Hebrews seems like the excellent, \u2018tough as nails\u2019 coach, who knows what is needed to be victorious and is not afraid to state things as they are. This coach operates out of a wealth of knowledge and experience, but is completely motivated by love for each player.<\/p>\n
Though Jesus clearly depicted God as a loving Father, He also taught that our Father is no joke. What He says, He means; what He promises, He fulfills. He is full of grace and mercy, but His Word is true\u2026 \u2018He will never change.\u2019<\/p>\n
For the next few weeks, I\u2019d like to share some stories from this past summer. If you know me at all, you\u2019ll know how imperfect I am. Paul wrote: \u2018Work out your salvation with fear and trembling,\u2019 which does not mean we earn our salvation. \u201cFor it is by grace you have been saved \u2014 through faith \u2014 and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.\u201d (Ephesians 2:8) Through His Son, God has accomplished every good thing. When we receive Christ as Savior and Lord, God aims to mold us into the image of His Son. He wants us to hear the Good Shepherd\u2019s voice and to learn to live by faith. He gives us His Spirit to be our Guide, Comforter, and Helper. Jesus lives in us and says: \u2018Now, live in Me.\u2019<\/p>\n
You may recall that my daughter Karlyn and I went to Spain in July 2021 at the invitation of Dave and Cindy Bintz, who have served as camp directors at L\u2019Arcada Sports Camp in the small town of Banyoles, a couple hours from Barcelona. I was asked to share Jesus with the American coaches who had come to serve and the Spanish Christians who used their vacation time to be counselors. These counselors were between 18 and 28 years old, and most of them met Christ as teenagers at that same camp.<\/p>\n
Less than 1% of the citizens of Spain claim any relationship with Jesus. Parents send their kids to L’Arcada because their children love sports and because they are immersed in English for a full week. Regarding Christianity, the parents basically give these instruction to their children: \u2018Be polite, but we don\u2019t want you to get involved in religion.\u2019 The misdeeds of those throughout history who wrongly represented God still cause untold damage and leave a whole nation in darkness.<\/p>\n
I was full of energy our entire trip, as we rose early and worked full speed until about midnight most days of the week. The day before we returned home, Karlyn and I traipsed through the lively city of Barcelona. We walked more than ten miles and visited most of the places we wanted to see. Karlyn was amazed at her old Dad.<\/p>\n
Though we both picked up COVID on our trip and Karlyn\u2019s phone was stolen on our hike through Barcelona, we were thankful to establish rich friendships, and I was able to encourage many in Christ. Before we departed, our new friends prayed for us and asked us to return.<\/p>\n
About a month after the school year began, I had to start a new chemotherapy to fight multiple myeloma, the blood cancer I\u2019ve dealt with since the year 2000. Soon my body started weakening and the doctors gave me some time off to recover. The chemo was effective and the cancer numbers dropped. My biggest problem became the impossibility of my bone marrow to produce blood cells. My pattern became visiting Emory twice a week to receive platelets and blood. One afternoon in January, while receiving an infusion, I felt God speak to my heart: \u2018Dana, I want you to return to Spain this summer.\u2019 Here began the faith journey of 2022\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cDo not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what you have been promised. For in just a little while: \u2018He who is coming will come and will not delay. But My righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him.\u2019\u201d (Hebrews 10:35-38)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cWithout 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.\u201d (Hebrews 11:6) \u201cNow faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.\u201d (Hebrews 11:1) The writer of Hebrews seems […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3812"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3815,"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3812\/revisions\/3815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}