Sunday, May 07, 2006


He's back... Posted by Picasa

Mild Mannered Reporters

Can you feel it? June 30 is coming! Are you pumped? Wait… you do know what happens on June 30, right? The new Superman movie is coming out! I’m pretty sure it’s going to rock all of our faces off! You know, as far back as I can remember, I have loved superheroes… in fact, I bet that’s true of most guys. Jerry Seinfeld said that one huge key to understanding men is just to realize that most of the time we are trying to be superheroes… and that when men think about superheroes, these are not stories; these are options. Really, that’s kind of true of people throughout humanity. Comic books were not the start of superheroes. They have been around since the dawn of time. The Greeks talked bout the Titans and Hercules and every culture has tales of heroes of great strength, power and ability.

So why is this? Why do we love to create, listen to and tell tales of these extraordinary people? I think the reason is that we all want to be more than we are… I know this is true for me; I have always wanted to be a person that’s off the charts. As a kid I would climb trees or stand on really high things and just talk myself into being able to fly. The reason is that I didn’t want to be just regular old ‘me’ anymore. I know it’s nerdy to want to be a superhero, but this desire to be something more than ordinary is not. In fact, I think this is a desire that God has put into every human heart. One thing that I am starting to understand more and more as I walk with Christ is that the Gospel fulfills this desire… Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not that if you believe in Jesus you become bulletproof or have heat vision or anything like that… but an incredible change does take place.

When a person believes that Christ died for them, the Bible says that a lot of cool things happen… they are born all over again and born from above. That person is completely cleansed from all unrighteousness and seated in the heavenly places with Christ. When you believe in Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside your heart as a down payment guaranteeing God’s promise. You get a whole new heart, new affections and a new power. It actually says in Ephesians 1 that the same power that God used to raise Jesus from the dead is coursing through your veins if you are in Christ! Whoa! If you know Jesus, you really are extraordinary! You are brand new, and actually have new strength, real power and amazing abilities. In fact, when the believers in Corinth weren’t really living up to their new selves, Paul confronted them by saying, “Are you not acting like mere men?” -1 Corinthians 1:3

Now, it’s not that you can all of a sudden leap over buildings in a single bound, (who says ‘bound’ anyway?) but now you have the ability to please God with your life, whereas people who don’t know Jesus absolutely cannot. You can now face trials and suffering full of joy and trust. You can go through frustrating and difficult situations with mean and hurtful people and actually not complain! You can face devastation and tragedy with a heart absolutely full of peace! And the great this is this: that doesn’t even scratch the surface of the things you can do if you know Him! If you are in Christ and He is in you, you are extraordinary and there’s no one quite like you… Check out this beautiful verse in Deuteronomy 33… “Blessed are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD?”

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