My awesome Father-in-Law, John, emailed this to me. It was pretty powerful so I thought I'd share. Also, it was cool to see a site like Splicd that allows you to make clips so easily with You Tube vids. Perfect for us youth ministry dudes!
Dear Study Group,
There are many things that you and I are thankful for because we belong to Christ. But one blessing I just seem to take for granted is atonement.
Many of us are even hard pressed to give definition to the word. It barely appears outside the Pentateuch(1st 5 books of the Bible). Yet atonement just might be the most important blessing we are given in this world.
Please watch this powerful 2 minute video clip from ER to experience a demonstration of our human need for atonement.
Watch THIS clip from E.R. (you'll have to click back to this post for the rest of this commentary).
Only through God in Christ can we know that we are forgiven. Like the dying doctor, how devastating it would be not to know that there is a God -- and that He will accept us! No other religion gives that assurance. And, the chaplain's postmodern/new age remedy was even worse: "It's up to each person to decide."
The dying doctor needed real answers now: Is there a God? What's going to happen to me when I die? How do I know I'm forgiven for killing an innocent man? He needed a real chaplain with real answers.
I never thought of myself before as a chaplain, but after that video I can't help but think of myself as one now. "Chaplains to the world" (or as Paul called us "ambassadors") -- you and I have been commissioned. All the chaplain had to know, believe and communicate was two verses from the Bible (2 Corinthians 5:19-20) and there would have been a happy ending for all instead of screams of -- "Get out! Get out! Get out!"
God was in Christ reconciling every one of us to Himself -- not counting our sins against us. We as Christians are Christ's ambassadors (chaplains) commissioned to tell those who don't know Him how they can be reconciled to God.
It is so true! No worldview accounts for the way things are around us like Biblical Christianity does. Our Heavenly Father's Love expands far beyond our understanding and nothing we do will ever be beyond His Grace! In Him there is the forgiveness of sins! In Jesus Christ, there IS atonement!
The challenge is: NOT keeping that to myself!
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