"By this all men will know that you are my disciples ..."

An earthquake matching the power of several nuclear bombs struck the island nation of Haiti about 5:00 PM, Tuesday, January 12th. According to the U.S. Geological Survey report, the quake was centered about 10 Miles southwest of Port-au-Prince and reached a magnitude of 7.0.

The Red Cross has estimated that about 3 million people, amounting to one-third of Haiti’s entire population, have been affected by the quake. Although it is too early to tell, some officials feel that 50,000 to 100,000 people have lost their lives. Haiti is the most impoverished nation of the Western Hemisphere and this quake has dealt them a tremendous blow.

Those are the hard details to date that you will see on various news outlets. However, the final and most important detail of all is … that every one of those people affected by this catastrophe are individually and unqualifiedly loved by Jesus Christ!

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son ..."

The people of the world (the world includes Haiti) are our brothers and sisters and we have been commissioned, by our God, to love them as He loves us. John explains it very well in 1 John 4:9-11:

This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about — not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they've done to our relationship with God. My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. (from THE MESSAGE)

Our first task of love is to drop to our knees and pray for these people. Not just pray, my friends, but PRAY! Pray without ceasing. "The hospitals cannot handle all these victims," said Louis-Gerard Gilles, a doctor and former senator. "Haiti needs to pray. We all need to pray together."

Secondly, we must do what we physically can to help these people. Officials who are close to the situation recommend that the greatest thing you can do is to send cash to your favorite relief agency. Nearly every one of them have gotten on the band wagon and have well developed programs to deal with disaster.

Jesus said it … "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

Let's all show ourselves as disciples and love our brothers and sisters in Haiti.

Larry Abele - Editorial Team

In the Fullness of Time ...

January 2010 … a new year … another chance … a fresh start … a time to reflect … a time to resolve. We are constantly measuring and labeling blocks of time. We make plans involving time ... resolving to do this and to do that.

But, how could we not be interested in time. We are created in the image of the Great Timekeeper … our God! He tells us in His word that time is important.

He laid out for us His entire creative process measured in days (Genesis 1:1 – 2:3). He could have done it instantly … why didn’t He? Because He wanted to teach us His normal way of working … through a process.

He eloquently and poetically tells us in Ecclesiastes 3 that "there is a time for everything", again, part of a process.

He tells us in Revelation 21 that a new heaven and a new earth are coming. God is in the process of making all things new.

But the ultimate loving process of God for us is laid out in Galatians 4:4-7:

But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father." So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.

God has a plan for all of us involving redemption, restoration, reconciliation and adoption. In God’s time, his plan will be accomplished.

He will be back at precisely the right time. And what should our job be in all of this? Our resolution for 2010? Be ready. Accept what your God has done for you. Believe! Christians are born anew in an instant and through a lifetime process, God makes them new.

Remember, God has a plan for you … it will all work out … "in the fullness of time".

Larry Abele – Editorial Team