The Blog

"The wages of sin is death," That's a phrase most of us in the Church are familiar. Most of us probably heard it when salvation was being explained to us to make us see that we deserve to die for our sins. I was reading Romans 6:23 (the verse where this phrase comes from) and check it out.

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

That is so crazy-cool to me. You see, we hear so much that the wages of sin is death because it's a part of our logical reasoning to believing in salvation, but we leave off the most incredible part of that verse! Wages are earned, we deserve the penalty for our sins, but God gave us a gift, eternal life. How did He give it to us? Through Jesus!

Chores are something none of us enjoy doing. In Master’s Commission, we each have our own chore that we do and then there are several chores that we all do together. Whether or not we want to do them, they have to be done. Every day or every week, depending on the chore; they have to be done.

I was able to go home for a week over Christmas break this year, and, while I was there, we got like 3 feet of snow and it was blizzarding almost the whole week and we ended up having to dig our driveway out almost every day. I was very grateful for my dad’s snow plow, let me tell you. Anyway, Wednesday night is youth night at my church and, even though it was just a couple days before Christmas, the youth leaders were still planning to have service. I was all excited about going and being able to see all the youth for the first time in 3 months. Youth group ended up being cancelled, however, due to the terrible weather. I was so disappointed that I couldn’t go, and so, to get myself out of the funk I was in, I decided I was going to spend some time with Jesus, which I did and it was wonderful and I got out of my bad mood, but later on, after a 3-movie marathon, I was laying in bed just thinking about how good felt to not have to worry about my quiet time because I’d done it earlier...gotten it out of the way...and God really convicted me. He asked me, “Is that what I am to you? A chore?”

So many times we get caught up in the, “We have to do this, we have to do that. We have to worship God and we have to read our Bibles and we have to pray and we have to spend time with God,” that God becomes a chore to us rather than a privilege. He becomes something we dread rather than Someone we long to be with.

If you think about it, here in America, we’re so blessed. The government doesn’t persecute us for our faith and there are laws in place to keep others from doing so. In other nations around the world, where Christians have to remain hidden to keep themselves alive, they consider it a privilege to worship God. They’re willing to sacrifice their lives for something we consider a chore. Maybe it’s time for us to remember what a privilege it actually is to be a follower of Christ.

-Kaitlin Pederson

Last Saturday, January 9, 2010, Crossfire Masters Commission had the opportunity to go to Corvallis, Oregon, and do some volunteer work for Home Life Inc. Home Life is an assisted living home for people with mental and/or mobile disabilities. Originally when we went up there the plan was for us to fill some potholes in the driveway, because the jostling was uncomfortable for the residents going in and out of the house. However, when we showed up they didn't have the stuff for the job ready. But, they did have painting supplies ready so we hopped on that instead.

While we were there we masked and painted the first coat on a hallway, the kitchen, a bathroom and, the living room. The residents were really excited to have a fresh look to their home, especially Mike (who's name caused a lot of confusion at times, what with him and the Mike on our team). Here are a few pictures from while we were there and you can see more on our Facebook at www.facebook.com/crossfiremc .

This Flashback blog was posted by staff member Casey Craigie on July 2, 2008, in the middle of his first season of our church's fireworks fundraiser...

So staying up all night alone and sleeping during the day while everyone else works gets pretty interesting, and by that I mean really boring. But on the plus side it gives you a lot of time to think about stuff without people shooting their mouths off and interrupting your flow of thought. During this thinking/boredom I looked at my watch to see what time it was and it happened to be 3:33. I went, "Oh, neat," in my mind and then did a mental double take and began to think about why I thought that.

You see there is nothing really special about 3:33 except it looks cooler than most other times of day, and I thought of other times that seem to stand out to people, that they tend to point out to others. First there are the times that show all the same digits, such as 3:33. Then there's the times where the digits appear to count up, 12:34, 1:23, and 4:56 are all examples of this. Finally there are the times when the digits appear to count down, 5:43, 3:21, and so on (2:10 doesn't stand out as much because it ends with a zero). There are thirteen of these eye catching times which occur a grand total twenty six times each day.

After I was done thinking through that I busted out the pen and paper (and phone) for some hard-core math! Did you know that 1% of a day is 14 minutes and 24 seconds, or that 1 second is 0.0166... minutes. How about that 1 minute it 0.0166... hours, but 1 second is 0.000277... hours. But of course you cannot forget that an hour is 0.05166... days.

Continuing with this line of thought about time, suppose that the average person lives to be eighty years old, and suppose that same person sleeps an average of eight hours a day their entire life. Remembering that there are 365.25 days in a year (gotta remember those leap years), this means that the average person sleeps for 26 and two-thirds years in their lifetime. That leaves 53 and one-third years of productive life.

Now suppose that same person gets a job; nine to five, half hour commute, two weeks paid vacation, that they have for forty years before retiring. That comes to fourteen and a half years of work meaning that they spend 41 years and two months either working or sleeping. We're now down to 38 years and ten months left for whatever the individual chooses and we haven't even accounted for school and eating and other such rather avoidable experiences!I guess what I'm trying to point out is that life is short, shorter than we often think, shorter than we act like it is.

Last I heard the average 20 year old male plays something like two hours of video games a day. If this is a continuing pattern then the average male will have wasted 5 years of his life, from twenty to eighty, on video games, not to mention the astronomically high number of hours the average person spends watching TV or movies! I'm not saying that any of these activities are bad, in fact I'm quite fond of all three. What I am trying to say is this life is too precious and too short to waste any of it. Don't be a chicken, do what you know you should and live life for all it can be.

More than just live life for all it can be, but live for all that Jesus has for you. Our time here is short, how are you stewarding the time God gave you?

During my Christmas break, while I was at home, I had a week where I was at home with my family and my friends, my home church, my old stomping grounds. I thought, “Oh I got this.” And I as I was praying and asking God to give me a word for girls in Fresh fire, for a Bible Study. God spoke to me big time, and he asked me how desperate I was for him. As I pushed the question to the side, trying to think of other topics and such, the question would not go away. So I looked up the definition of desperate and one was “having an urgent need or desire.” I started to pray and think about it. How desperate was I truly for God? As I came up with answers I realized I was not desperate for God at all. I asked myself, do I have an urgent need or desire to draw closer to God? And at the moment my answer was no. Sad I know, but that was the honest truth I was not desperate for God to move in my life, I did not have an urgent need for Him to change me and transform my life, I thought I had it all going on.

Although that was only a couple weeks ago, I forgot about it. It came back up this week and as I was thinking about all of that I remembered that last month I was reading “the love book” Songs of Songs and a part in the scripture, chapter 3 talks about when the young women had lost her love. She woke up in the middle of the night and he was gone, she became frantic. She got up and she searched the city in the middle of the night, looking for him. Asking the watchmen, if they had seen her love. They had not seen him, but she kept looking until she found him, and when she found him…she hugged him and embraced him until they got home.

At that moment I got SO convicted! Just comparing the young women to myself, imagine if I were to search for God like that? Would I go into the city searching for God frantically until I found him? Would I even notice He was not there, or would I be immune to God not being in my heart that I did not even notice when he left. I felt so guilty because time after time, when I cannot find my phone or ipod I’m searching the house up and down, looking in the car once, twice, three times to find it. I don’t give up until I find it. But when it comes to finding God, if I cannot “feel” him in the first 5 minutes of my prayer time, I give up and say oh God is not there, he isn’t listening.

So I ask, how desperate are you for God to do something in your life? Are you franticly looking and searching for God, or do you even notice that He is not a part of your life? And when you find Him, are you going to hold on, or just let Him go again? This made me realize that I am NOTHING without God. NOTHING. No matter how many friends I may have, or how long I can pray…if I am not in urgent need or despair for God to do something inside of me every single day, I will become content in my walk with God. That is just something I am not ok with.

So I am striving to be desperate for him, to be vulnerable to God. In search for him, everyday! Desperate to draw near Him. I encourage you to search your heart and see how you would react in the situation of loosing God? How desperate would you be to find the love of your life…GOD?

-Ariel Siufua

"God will judge us not according to how much we endured, but how much we could love." - Richard Wurmbrand

This quote doesn't seem too spectacular at first glance. It's a pretty standard sounding quote about having the love of Christ. At least it seems that way, that is, until take a closer look at the man who penned those words.

Richard Wurmbrand came to know Christ in 1938, along with his wife Sabina. They then joined a mission to Jews in Bucharest, Romania, and Richard became ordained as a pastor. During World War II, Richard and Sabina saw an opportunity for evangelism among the occupying German forces. They preached in the bomb shelters and rescued Jewish children out of the ghettos. Richard and Sabina were repeatedly arrested and beaten and, at least once, nearly executed.

In 1945 Romanian Communists seized power and a million "invited" Russian troops poured into the country. Pastor Wurmbrand ministered to his oppressed countrymen and engaged in bold evangelism to the Russian soldiers.

That same year, Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand attended the Congress of Cults organized by the Romanian Communist government. Many religious leaders came forward to praise Communism and to swear loyalty to the new regime. Sabina said, "Richard, stand up and wash away this shame from the face of Christ." Richard warned, "If I do so, you’ll lose your husband."

"I don't wish to have a coward as a husband," she replied. Thus Richard declared to the 4,000 delegates, whose speeches were broadcast to the whole nation, that their duty is to glorify God and Christ alone.

Between 1945 and 1947, Richard distributed 1 million Gospels to Russian troops, often disguising the books as Communist propaganda. Richard also smuggled Gospels into Russia. On December 30, 1947, the People's Republic of Romania was proclaimed.

On February 29, 1948, the secret police arrested Richard while on his way to church and took him to their headquarters. He was locked in a solitary cell and labeled 'Prisoner Number 1.'

A Christian doctor masquerading as a Communist Party member discovered Richard alive in prison. In a general amnesty, Richard was released in 1956 after serving eight-and-a-half years in prison. He was warned never to preach again. While in prison, he went through horrific tortures at the hands of the brutal secret police. Despite the treatments and the warnings he received from his persecutors, Richard resumed his work with the "underground" churches after his release.

He was re-arrested in 1959 through the conspiracy of an associate, and sentenced to 25 years. He was accused of preaching ideas contrary to Communist doctrine. Due to increased political pressure from Western countries, Richard was granted another amnesty and released in 1964.

In December 1965, the Norwegian Mission to the Jews and the Hebrew Christian Alliance paid $10,000 in ransom to the Communist government to allow the Wurmbrand family to leave Romania. Reluctant to leave his homeland, Richard was convinced by other underground church leaders to leave and become a "voice" to the world for the underground church. Richard, Sabina, and their son Mihai left Romania for Norway and then traveled on to England.

In the text surrounding this quote, "God will judge us not according to how much we endured, but how much we could love," Richard Wurmbrand is talking about his feelings towards his captors. This quote is literally him saying that it doesn't matter all that he suffered, it doesn't matter how much he endured, it doesn't matter all the pain that they put him through. What matters is that Christ died so that ALL men may come to repentence, what matters is that "God so loved" and so should we, even those who persecute us.

(The History of Richard Wurmbrand's life was taken from The Voice of the Martyrs' web site, to read more about Rev. Wurmbrand's life and ministry, or to learn more about the Persecuted Church today and what you can do to help just visit www.persecution.com)