I've Got a New Look!!

Has everyone seen my new look? Thanks to Rachel at Bubbly Nature Creations, my blog is now the most adorable on the block! Check out her site for lots of cute ideas and please consider her the next time you need a refreshing new look for your blog. She's also got some great free craft tutorials and recipes posted there, as well as some tips on taking your own professional-looking photos on a budget!

Thanks, Rachel, for taking the time to make my blog so cute...I love it!

Am I Complete?

Colossians 2: 8-10: "Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power."

How many times do we go looking for someone or something to "complete" us? If we are single, we say we need a spouse to complete us. If we are married, we say we need children to complete us. After that, we start saying things like, "If only I...was not so overweight, would gain a little weight, didn't have this debt, had a cleaner home, owned my own place", etc.

We have this sense that we, in and of ourselves, are not enough. We know that we are lacking, so we go on a quest to lose the weight or adopt the newest organizational system or find the perfect spouse. So why, when we do finally accomplish these things, do we still feel the empty spot? Why do we immediately recognize the next big thing that needs to happen for us to feel complete?

The problem is that while we know that we are lacking--that we, in and of ourselves, are not enough--we are going in the wrong direction to find that fulfillment. Verse 9 says "in Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead"--the Three In One--the Trinity...and we are complete in Him. We have been cheated and lied to--and we have bought right in.

The Bible gives us a caution--that we wouldn't be cheated or deceived by the traditions of men or principalities of the world. Have we made the world's deceptions our truths? Has media and magazine covers become our gospel?

The funny thing about God is that He knows our hearts. He knows and understands that empty place where we feel the need for completion. What's more, He knows exactly what we need to fill it. We can find all we need in Him.

Even in Christ, completion won't come by forgiving our brother or cleaning up our act. Yes, those things are important and that time will come, but it can't come until Christ has our hearts. Completion and fullness in God must first take place in our hearts as we surrender everything to Him and ask Him to teach us and to work on us in His timing. Once this surrender to Christ is complete and we are being filled by Him, we will begin to emulate Him. People will begin to see Christ in us as we forgive our brother and get our act together one step at a time through Christ.

My challenge for myself and my readers today is to not accept the lies and traditions of the world. Instead, invite Christ to fill you with his truth and power and find completion in Him.

The Shroud of Turin: How Can We Be Sure?

I've always been a sucker for a great conspiracy theory. I think one of the most interesting legends of our time is The Shroud of Turin. According to www.shroud.com, "Modern science has completed hundreds of thousands of hours of detailed study and intense research on the shroud. It is, in fact, the most studied artifact in human history."

Many people over many hundreds of years have put faith in this burial cloth, believing it not only to be an authentic and miraculous transference of the image of a crucified man, but believing that man to be Jesus Christ.

Those who have studied it are divided as to the age of the cloth, the medium used to create the image (was it painted? miraculously transposed?), and the identity of the person pictured.

The Catholic church has taken a big leap of faith in allowing the Holy Face Medal to be depicted after the image of the man on the shroud. While they apparently don't take a solid position on the authenticity of the shroud, they've gone ahead and "approved of the image in association with the Roman Catholic devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus". I think they're making a pretty big assumption here. Not only have they made a graven image of a man that they're not so sure is really God (see Exodus 20:4: "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth."), but they're ignoring what the New Testament has to say about the details surrounding Jesus' burial cloths.

Each of the gospels describes Jesus as having been buried in a linen cloth however, John gets very specific as he describes the Jewish custom of wrapping the body. John describes two cloths: a linen wrapping for the body and a separate cloth for the face:

"So Peter and the other disciple went forth, and they were going to the tomb. The two were running together; and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter and came to the tomb first; and stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there; but he did not go in. And so Simon Peter also came, following him, and entered the tomb; and he saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the face-cloth which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself" John 20:4-7.

This attention to detail shows us that the answers to the "mystery" of the Shroud of Turin have been in the Word all along. The Shroud is one piece of cloth showing a crucified man from head to toe. The Bible clearly shows us that this can not be the image of Christ as he was wrapped in more than one wrapping and his head was wrapped separately from the rest of the body.

What bothers me about all of this is not so much that there are still people out there debating the Shroud's "authenticity", but that this is the first time I've taken the time to open up my Bible and investigate the veracity of the myth for myself. The answers really are all there---if I'd take the time to find them!