Or…we could make some real changes. We could actually reprioritize our life. We could turn off the TV and eat a meal with our family. We could say NO to some of the demands on our schedule and tend to our relationship with God. I so pray that you do.

As a pastor, I watch a lot of people in their spiritual journey. Can I make a few suggestions on what you might find helpful in your relationship with Christ”

1. Find some other Christians and make it a priority in your life. Maybe it’s a local church, or a neighborhood Bible Study, or a group of parents who get together to pray. Make sure that they believe and follow the Bible, and that they sincerely love God. Then take a chance and open up to them. One of the most dangerous things in faith is when we try to go it alone. Find a friend and a faith community that can support you in that journey. If you’ve never been baptized, talk to them about what that might mean for your life.

2. Learn and grow. Immerse yourself in the things of God. Read the Bible. Go to a local Christian bookstore and ask them to recommend a book for you to read. Talk to other Christians about the faith questions or struggles you might have. If you still have questions and struggles dealing with Layla and her death, I’d encourage you to sign up for my blog. In coming weeks I’ll be dealing with more questions and comments that I hear from you. I pray you’ll find them helpful. Later on, I’ll address a wide variety of faith topics that I hope will be an encouragement.

3. Pray. Just talk with God. Tell him good morning when you wake up. Share your joys and burdens with him when you go to bed. Pound on his chest when you’re angry or don’t understand (He’s big, he can take it.) Learn what it means to be in a relationship with him.

Thank you for taking the time to read all this. From the bottom of my heart I pray that you have found it helpful. Just like you, God drew me into the Layla story in a way that I can’t explain. My church, LifeBridge, in Cypress TX is a brand new mission church that is just getting started. 6 months ago I had never even met the Marsh family. Then, we decided to sponsor a benefit for Layla Grace to help with the medical expenses her family faced. Ryan and I hit it off, we had breakfast at Denny’s a couple times, and before I knew it I was right in the middle of all this. Turns out God had a plan – a plan to share his love with you through sweet little Layla Grace. Thank you for trusting me with this time.

Pastor Michael Meissner
LifeBridge Church, Cypress TX
www.lifebridgecypress.org

Part 1 – “Layla’s Faith Legacy” | Part 2 – “Are You Ready?”

Post from: Lifebridge Church Blog

Where Do I Go From Here? (3 of 3 in series)

Others have wondered out loud why they are so powerfully wrapped up in a girl they have never even met. Total strangers have literally wept through the night because of Layla. Why are we so drawn to her? Lots of children die, and each one is tragic. Usually though, we hear the story, get sad for a moment, then move on. Layla has been different. What is it about her story that made so many of us stop and pay attention?

The best I can come up with is GOD. God wants to accomplish something through her life and her death, and so he has been at work to assemble this virtual gathering of people to do whatever it is that he is going to do.

Some of that no doubt has to do with neuroblastoma. Some of it may be to strengthen our families and cause us to reprioritize our lives. But I think there is an even higher purpose that God has in mind.

God wants to make sure that you are ready to die.

It sounds kind of harsh to put it that bluntly, but it is a reality that every single person needs to deal with. Am I ready to die? Am I ready to stand before the God who made me and hear the verdict on where I will spend the rest of eternity? We may not face that moment for another 50 years, but Layla’s death at the age of 2 reminds us that we’re not guaranteed 50 years. We’re not guaranteed tomorrow. Layla’s greatest contribution to this world may be that she causes you to honestly ask that question “Am I ready?” Without Layla, how many of us would have just continued on with our busy lives, never paying any attention to these deeper questions? And I wonder, because of Layla, how many people will stop to truly wrestle through that ultimate question of our life. Am I ready?

Lots of people will answer something like this: “I think I’m ready. I try to be a good person, I’m faithful to my family. I work hard and do my best.” That’s all commendable, but sadly it is not enough. God’s standard for entering into heaven is perfection, and every single one of us comes up short. Even sweet little Layla came up short.

How sad if that’s where the story ended. But it isn’t. What we could never do on our own, God did for us by sending his only son down into the world to live that perfect life that we can’t live, and then to die on the cross in our place. His death pays for our sins, while we in turn are given his perfection. Those who believe in Christ, no matter how bad their background or what they have done, are declared innocent, forgiven, and perfect in the eyes of God.

I realize that I am writing to a very diverse crowd of people, and the only thing you know about me is that I’m some guy that happens to be Layla’s pastor. I’m not sure why God chose me to deliver this message, but he did. Here’s what I believe God wants you to know:
God loves you. He loves you. More than you might ever know. Even though you get so busy that he’s often put on the shelf, he still loves you. Despite the stuff from your past that still haunts you, he loves you. And even though your world is often all screwed up and your family life isn’t what it is supposed to be, he loves you with the most crazy and intense love that you could ever imagine. He loves you so much that he was willing to die in order to save you. You’ve cried tears of sadness because Layla’s body died…but heaven is rejoicing because through Christ she is alive forever. Infinitely more tragic is that person who lives a long full and prosperous life here on earth…but who is dead spiritually.

Some readers will give me an “Amen” and go on their way. Others may write a fiery response challenging what I just said. But, thanks to Layla, there will be some whose hearts are finally tuned in to what God is saying to them. If you are one of those, I’d encourage you to pray this prayer with me:

God, I don’t know why you love me, but you do. Despite all my flaws, despite my past, despite my sins, you love me. And I so want to love you back, and to follow you with the rest of my life. I want to live for a deeper purpose. I want to know the God who made me. I want to be free from the weight and burden of sin. Thank you for sending your only Son, Jesus, down into the world to take all that was wrong and make it right. I thank you that he would suffer and die for me. And I thank you that he didn’t stay dead, but that he rose again. Please, God, I need that to be true – for Layla, for my family, for me. Lord, I’ve been so focused on the things of this world. Help me to see the life that is to come. I love you Lord, and want to live for you from this day on. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Part 3 – Where do I go from here?

Post from: Lifebridge Church Blog

Are You Ready? (2 of 3 in series)

Layla Grace Marsh grabbed the attention of the world in her two short years of life. Because of her, many of us hold our children a little bit longer and a little bit tighter each night. Because of her, we’ve re-evaluated our priorities to focus on the things that truly matter. Because of her, we have been forever changed. The “ripple effect” of this little girl has been nothing short of amazing.

For a LOT of people, the life and story of Layla Grace has brought about a profound spiritual stirring as well. People who never pray, are praying. Others have told about how something happened in their past that caused them to put God on a shelf years ago, and because of Layla they have found the courage to bring God back into the picture as they work through whatever it is they need to work through. Still others admit they have never thought much about God and faith, but seeing how faith has made such a difference in how Ryan and Shanna handled this whole situation, they have been compelled to look into who this God might be. Maybe you are one of those.

As Layla’s pastor, I believe that God has given me the responsibility of helping to frame the spiritual conversation that is taking place because of Layla. There are a LOT of questions, a LOT of hurts, and a LOT of good that is coming from all this, and God has his hand all over this entire thing. If you are reading this, I believe that part of God’s plan includes you, and I would encourage you to take the time and effort to pursue the faith implications of why God drew you into the life and story of this precious girl. I’m humbly honored to at least get the conversation started.

Let me begin with a simple overview of the Christian faith that gives us the hope that Layla is in heaven with God. At the heart of our faith is a belief that there is a God behind this world and our lives. We were a very intentional creation of an artistic, awesome and loving God. Every breathtaking sunrise, every intricate detail of our mysterious universe, every miracle of a new baby being born – all these things testify to a powerful and wonderful God who has a purpose and a reason for our existence. Part of his design included little Layla Grace.

Everything that God made was beautiful and good, but it didn’t stay that way. One of the things that God built into the fiber of our existence as people was the ability to choose right and wrong. Satan (the devil) was at work since the beginning to get people to disobey God and destroy the beauty of all that God created. When people first sinned against God, all the beauty that God had created turned instantly ugly. Thorns and thistles began to grow, sinful attitudes and desires took over, our relationship with God was ripped apart…and sickness and death entered into the world. And God wept.

God, though, wasn’t done with us. The Bible outlines the story of God’s plan to save the world from this mess that we had brought upon ourselves. The Bible is basically a love story of God pursuing us in order to bring us back into relationship with him. It’s the story of how Jesus (who is God), left the perfection of heaven to come down into our sin-racked world. He lived here among us, suffered alongside us, and ultimately gave up his perfect life to pay for the sins of the entire world. It was basically an eternal exchange made by God and given to all those who believe in Jesus – all of our sins were placed on Jesus who suffered the consequences of sin, and the perfection and purity of Jesus’ sinless life is given to us. Through faith in Jesus we stand before our God forgiven, perfect and pure…the way God intended us to be.

We believe that this message is more than just “another religion” to throw into the mix of all the different religious ideas and thoughts that are out there. It is THE very plan of the God who made us. It’s his plan for making things right again. It’s his way of showing his wonderful crazy love for us. You may have heard these words many times before, but can I ask you to read the words of John 3:16 with brand new eyes: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life.” That gift from God is for you.

Layla’s faith and hope were built on Jesus Christ. She was only two, so there wasn’t a great deal of intellectual understanding to her faith. She wasn’t old enough to “make a decision for Jesus Christ” or profess a belief in him. But she did know her heavenly Father’s voice, and God most certainly knew her. While there is an intellectual side to faith for those of us who are able to understand, faith is first and foremost a matter of the soul. In one place in the Bible, Jesus even picked up a little child (the Greek word literally means “infant”) and told the adults standing there that unless they had faith like that little child, they wouldn’t enter into heaven. Having faith in Jesus means trusting him with your life, here and eternally. Probably more than anyone else I know, Layla knew what it meant to put her life in somebody else’s hands. Isn’t that what faith is – “God I can’t save myself, so I’m trusting you to do it for me”? I have absolute confidence that Layla had this type of relationship with God. Her time here was short, but while she was here she heard the message of Jesus and his love for her. God showed his love for her through Ryan and Shanna who prayed for her and held her endlessly. And, just a few weeks before she died, Layla was baptized. All of these are the “things of God.” God does his work through these things, and we take our confidence in the fact that we have a good and gracious God who desires to save. If God loved Layla enough to send Jesus to die on the cross for her, and she was around the very things that God has given to save us, I have every confidence that our sweet Layla…His sweet Layla…is at home with Jesus – dancing with the angels.

Layla has taught us so much about life and love, and how to cherish every day knowing that it could be your last. Many people have been forever changed and have shared that they will live differently from now on. Lots of lives have been changed forever here on earth, but I believe that God wants to do something even more important. He doesn’t simply want to make you a better person here on earth. He wants to make sure that you are ready for eternity. If there’s one thing that Layla has taught us, it’s to live each day knowing that there may not be a tomorrow. And so, if you haven’t already worked through the most important question of your life, today is the day. Are you ready?

Part 2 – “Are You Ready?” | Part 3 – “Where Do I Go From Here?”

Post from: Lifebridge Church Blog

Layla’s Faith Legacy (1 of 3 in series)

He took the blade. It was bright silver. He loved the way it glistened. It felt good in his hand. He cut deep into her chest again and again. He showed no emotion, no recognition of her humanity. She lay motionless, her life gone. He made no attempt to cover the body. Later that night over a beer he openly talked to a stranger in the bar about what he had done. The stranger felt ill.

What does the paragraph mean? If the words refer to a serial killer boasting about his latest savage triumph, the sentences are pretty ghastly, and the man in the bar should call the police. On the other hand, if the words refer to a forensic pathologist who talks about his autopsy of a particularly interesting corpse, there is no criminality (though there may be a lack of professionalism in talking like this to a stranger). How you interpret the quoted lines depends entirely on the context.

That is the problem we face today when we talk about “Jesus.” For some, “Jesus” is no more than profanity. For others, he is a moralist who makes you feel bad if you start having fun. Or he is the founder of a world religion like other founders of world religions—Muhammad, for example. Or he is “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild” who loves to turn the other cheek and who is never, ever, angry. Or he is the Jehovah’s Witness Jesus, a pretty impressive second-string god, but certainly not to be identified with the one, true God. Or he is an empty cipher with virtually no content at all. All of these different hearing groups constitute contexts in which what we say about Jesus will be understood (or misunderstood).

Where a church enjoys good, biblically faithful ministry, Scripture itself will gradually and decisively correct these contexts that are so far out of line with what the Bible says. But suppose you are just beginning to share your faith with someone who lives in one of these hearing contexts—what then? Where do you start?

The apostle Paul faced these challenges in the first century. When he was preaching in a synagogue (for instance, in Pisidian Antioch, Acts 13), he was dealing with people who believed there is one God, that this God is creator of everything in heaven and earth, that he is sovereign and holy, that the problem with human beings is their rejection of their Maker, that salvation must first and foremost reconcile us to this God, that history is teleological (that is, that it is heading to a telos, an end, a climax), that there is a final judgment to be faced, that there will be a new heaven and a new earth, that God alone prescribes how people are saved, and so forth. Paul did not have to establish any of these points: He and his hearers held them in common. In such contexts, Paul focused most of his attention on who the promised Messiah must be: He must be not only the long-awaited Davidic king, but he must suffer and die, and rise again. That was the most disputed point between unconverted synagogue attendees and Christians.

But when Paul finds himself preaching to pagans in Athens (Acts 17:16-31), not one of the propositions I’ve listed above is shared by Paul and his hearers. As a result, he takes time to establish all these points, and a few others, before introducing Jesus. Otherwise the Jesus he wants to proclaim will be misunderstood, because Jesus will be placed by Paul’s hearers in the wrong context.

Learning to evangelize men and women who know nothing about the Bible and who are bringing their own “baggage” or “context” with them does not require a super intellect or a Ph.D. in biblical theology. What it requires is learning to get across a lot of things that we Christians simply presuppose.

There are quite a lot of ways of doing this. One of them is to focus on a variety of biblical texts drawn from across the entire Bible and work through them with people. One might begin with Genesis 1-2: “The God who makes everything.” Genesis 3 becomes “The God who does not wipe out rebels.” We keep working through the Old Testament and eventually arrive at the New, coming to topics like “The God who becomes a human being” (John 1:1-18). The wonderful atonement passage in Romans 3 covers “The God who declares the guilty just.” Gradually the Bible becomes a coherent book. It establishes its own framework; it is the context in which alone Jesus, the real Jesus, makes sense.

This is what we’ll aim to do at Bethlehem’s North Campus on back-to-back Friday nights and Saturday mornings, February 20-21 and 27-28. The seminar is called “The God Who Is There: Naming God in a Pluralistic World.”

Clearly this series will not attract those who are unwilling to learn. But it may teach the gospel to friends who know little or nothing about the Bible and who are willing to think their way through the Bible, even if only in a preliminary way. It may establish baby Christians in the fundamentals of the faith, of what the Bible says, of how to read it. And it may teach a few mature believers how to share truths they presuppose with a new generation of lost men and women who know nothing at all about our beloved Master.

I hope you’ll join us.

© Desiring God

Post from: Lifebridge Church Blog

The God Who Is There