I have realized the reason the airplane floor gave way under my seat was because an in-coming missile blew it open. The thing about that missile is the plane's pilot had to give permission for it to hit right there.

I know God allowed Satan to afflict me with cancer. Nothing happens to His children that doesn't pass through His permission. The comforting thing is that I also know He prayed for me before this happened and continues to pray me through. In Luke 22:31-34, Jesus told Peter that he would deny Jesus. It is what Jesus told Peter in verses 31 and 32 that really spoke to me. He said Satan had asked to sift Peter like wheat but that Jesus had prayed for Peter already. Hebrews 7:25 came to mind as I read in Luke. It says that the purpose of Jesus' resurrected life is to pray continually for us.

So, no matter what I go through, Jesus already knew it was coming, allowed it, has prayed for me, and will pray me through.

Because of the chemotherapy, I imagine my tumor is screaming like the Wicked Witch of the West as she died, "I'm shrinking, I'm shrinking!" And of course, we know Who is really making it shrink.

Sunday's lesson out of chapter 5 was very hard to teach. Church discipline is a serious subject that isn't all warm and fuzzy. I want to be sure that you know how very much I love you all and our church. It is such a blessing to be part of this local group of Christians.

Thank you for all your prayers. I will keep teaching as long as my strength holds up. I want to be able to take space here to share what God is doing in my life through my affliction with cancer. I guess I should start at the beginning.

I was flying pretty high before the diagnosis. I loved my life and could honestly say I enjoyed everything about it. I knew it was a gift from God and thanked Him for allowing it to be like that. Of course it hadn't always been that way, but it was at the time. My days started with prayer and Bible study, then writing, then working my Premier business. Yes, I was out every single evening of the week doing something, but it was all what I loved. The airplane was almost on autopilot.

I knew I was flying with others and that some of them would jump out of the plane occassionally. Now I don't like the idea of parashooting out of a flying airplane at all. It scares me spitless. I never wanted to do it and really thought that if I ever was forced to jump I might have a heart attack on the way down. So while flying through my life and knowing some of my co-passengers would have to jump, I pretended I never would.

The day I was diagnosed with cancer, the floor under my airplane seat gave way and I was air-dropped into a foreign country. My parachute opened and I landed without too much injury, but I couldn't speak the language, didn't know where the major landmarks were, and had about three road maps that all looked different. The "You Are Here" arrow was even missing.

To top it all off, when I finally learned enough of the language and got a single road map, I realized I had to jump off a cliff to get anywhere at all.

The foreign country is a place called Cancer and the cliff jump was into chemotherapy. I'm there now, I guess in mid-air of the jump. The parachute for this jump has had a few holes to patch, but it's holding up. I'm aiming for the target of tumor shrink. Please pray that God will guide me to that landing spot.

The coolest part of this whole thing is what God is teaching me along the way. I'm not sleeping much at night and that's when He is showing me what I was too busy to learn in the day. I hope to share that part with you here over the coming weeks.

Read chapter 3, verses 5-23 for this week.

Paul opens chapter 2 by telling once more how he didn't speak with flowery, eloquent words for a reason. That style just didn't square with the message of the cross. That message is of humiliation and obedience. It is also about more than justification, or being made right with God.

In verse 6 he says that mature believers can be taught the mystery of God. Back in verse 1 he called it God's testimony. We often think of people having a "testimony" but not God. What would His testimony be? His secret. His mystery--that is,that Jesus came for everyone, not just Jews, and that He came to give us as believers the Holy Spirit.

What is the Holy Spirit? The mind of Christ. The mystery is that we can receive the mind of Christ at the point of our justification to help us in the process of sanctification. Real spiritual maturity involves allowing the Holy Spirit to teach us the things of God. That's how Paul learned them and we should learn the same way.

This is where the Corinthian church had stumbled. In chapter 3:1-4 Paul tells them that he can't speak to them as mature, spiritual Christians, because they've misunderstood the message of sanctification through the Spirit. In fact, they may have rejected it outright. They were still worldly. They harbored sin in their lives and that halted the freedom of the Holy Spirit to work in them. This, Paul asserts in verse 4, is the real reason for their disagreements and arguments over leadership.

Let's do a little self-evaluation here. Do we fuss and argue with other Christians? Do we live our lives just like "those who are perishing" around us? Is there envy and strife among us? Do we claim loyalty to certain leaders to the exclusion of others? Do we criticize the leadership in our own church?

If so, there can be only one reason. Spiritual immaturity brought on by hampering the work of the Holy Spirit. In a word: sin.

Let's get rid of our pride and selfishness and allow the Holy Spirit to fill us up so completely that He pushes out all the garbage in our lives. Let's repent and ask Him to take control. Then, when we are truly obedient, watch Him work. It will be fabulous!

Read 1 Corinthians 2:1-16 this week.

The people in the church at Corinth were all wrapped up in themselves. How much they knew, and which leaders had taught them what they knew, were important to them. They got so focused on themselves that they forgot, or at least thought less about, the message of the cross. Paul tells them in 1:1-17 to stop arguing over who is the best leader or the best speaker. Then in 1:18-31 he tells them why. The focus shouldn't be on the messenger and his fancy words or eloquence, but on the message. Paul explains the message simply in verse 18. It is all and only about the cross.

Sunday I was completely broken during the praise service over the message of the cross. Every song we sang was about what Jesus did for us and our commitment to follow Him no matter the cost. My emotions poured over as I sat convicted and then moved to commit my whole life--every part--to the message of the cross. Then when I started the Bible study time, I cried all over again. My own life and all the things I think are so important faded into the background and Jesus lifted up was all I saw. Jesus literally lifted up on the cross. At that point, that despised, cursed, point, He was glorified and exalted. The depth God went to for my rescue from the penalty of sin is beyond my understanding. But one day it will bring me into the glorious presence of God.

Verse 18 also tells us there are only two kinds of people. Those who are perishing and those who are being saved. Both are in the present tense. Those who are perishing are literally in a current state of decay that will lead to their destruction. Those who are being saved have been justified once by Jesus' death on the cross and are in the process of sanctification--being set apart for exclusive use by God--and will one day not be destroyed, but glorified.

I'm in that second group and I really hope you are too. If you have any doubt, please contact me or leave a comment and I'll respond.

Of course, the intellectuals of that day had, and those of this day have, trouble understanding how the message of the cross is true greatness. They would say that money, fame, and power equal greatness. But the cross tells us that self-renunciation and full obedience to God are the marks of greatness.

Introduction to 1 Corinthians

This coming Sunday we will find out who wrote the book, when it was written and why. We will also cover the first 17 verses of chapter one. These verses set up the themes written about in the book.