JOLLYBLOGGER

Every Christian Delights in Even the Smallest Point of Doctrine

Well, both Dan Phillips and my wife have told me I need to blog more.  It's understandable when someone like Dan Phillips would say you need to blog more, but with all of that old talk we used to have of "blog widows" its unusual when the wifey says you should blog.  So, anyway, if it's Dan and my wife that can only be a sign from God that I need to blog more.

Assuming I get back on track on this blogging thing I'll try to pick up on my last post with some more thoughts about healing and the like.  For now I'll give you a quick update on my health and share something I read today which I think is important.

As to my health, it's good.  There's no real change in the long term prognosis, but I am doing well and responding well to the chemo.  The tumors are still shrinking so that's a good sign.  Basically, the doc says that they want me to stay on this regimen of chemo as long as it is working.  I am handling this regimen of chemo better than last year's.  I did have a couple of episodes of stomach trouble a month or so ago but for the most part fatigue is my biggest problem, so I sleep a lot.  I will definitely win sloth of the year award and the door on its hinges award.  But the good news is that, as long as I get my sleep I'm able to function pretty well for several hours a day. 

Some people will ask me from time to time if I am in good spirits and the answer to that is that I am in great spirits.  I've already walked this earth about 15 years longer than Jesus did, so I've been in the bonus round for quite some time now.  I am surrounded by a loving and fun family, a terrific church family and my temporal needs are being met.  To be sure I have some sober and somber moments but as a Christian I lack for nothing and whether I live or die I am pursued and live in the realm of goodness and mercy every day of my life.

So, 'nuff bout me.  I'm reading Walther's Law and Gospel, and I came across these good words today:

A person may pretend to be a Christian though in reality he is not.  As long as he in this condition he is quite content with his knowledge of the mere outlines of Christian doctrine.  Everything beyond that, he says, is for pastors and theologians.  To understand as clearly as possible everything that God has revealed - all of that is irrelevant for non-Christians.  However, the moment someone becomes a Christian, there arises in him a keen desire for the doctrine of Christ.  If they have not yet been converted, at the moment of their conversion even the most uncultured peasants are suddenly awakened and begin to reflect on God and heaven, salvation and damnation, etc..  They start to wonder about the deepest problems of human life.

Just take the Jews who flocked to Christ - or the apostles.  All those people heard Christ with great joy and were astonished because He preached with authority - in contrast to the scribes.  But the majority of those hearers never advanced beyond a certain feeling of delight and admiration.  The apostles too, were uneducated people, but they acted differently.  They did not stop where the rest stopped but posed all kinds of questions to Christ.  After hearing one of His parables, they said, "Explain to us the parable" (Matthew 13:36).  The conduct of the Bereans who searched the Scriptures daily (Acts 17:11) was similar.  It is, therefore, quite true what the Apology says: "Men of good conscience are crying for the truth and proper instruction from the Word of God.  Even death is not as bitter to them as when they find themselves in doubt regarding this matter or that.  Accordingly, they must seek where they can find instruction" (Muller, p.191.)

Striving to obtain truth and divine assurance is a necessary requirement even of an ordinary Christian.  However, with a theologian this is even more so the case.  A theologian who does not have the greatest interest in Christian doctrines would be unthinkable.  Even someone with only a budding faith in his heart regards even the smallest point as of great importance.  To such a one every doctrine is as precious as gold, silver, or gems.  God grant that this may be true for you too!

The Truth is Uglier Than We Think, God is More Beautiful Than we Realize

I've finally found something I feel strongly enough about to write on.

Denise Spencer wrote a post a couple of days ago about Michael Spencer's last days and the upshot of it was that his last days were ugly and painful.  His last days were not the peaceful beatific kinds of days we often hear about of Christians who pass into heaven peacefully with visions of angels and loved ones.  In fact, nearly from the time he was diagnosed till his passing he never had a good day.

Denise begins her story with excerpts from several death stories she had collected where people had a kind of beatific death and how she is so tired of them because she and Michael had nothing of the kind.  Here's a summary:

Where were the visions? The angels? The heavenly music soundtrack? Michael fought a hard fight and he died a hard death. And that was that.

She shares her hopes that Michael would have had a respite and her subsequent anger at God over the whole thing.  It's hard to read, and yet essential to read.

I left a comment over that was started growing into one of those blog comments that is longer than the post, so I cut it a bit short and decided I would come and finish it up over here.

Denise's story opened the floodgates on many thoughts and emotions I have had over the last year and a half, thoughts that may be appropriate to share now.  If you read the "death stories" that Denise has collected, then read Michael's story and then read some of the comments on that post from palliative care nurses you will see that these stories of the blessed death that we like to float in Christian circles are a tiny minority. 

Indeed I have seen and heard of a few myself.  My stepfather's death was relatively peaceful and I and my family were with him at the time.  He had been sedated and in the middle of the night started a breathing pattern that my mom recognized as the death rattles and she called us all in.  His death rattles were relatively short and he seemed to pass away peacefully.  I recently heard of a friend who died who was sedated, woke up and said "he's here" and then went to sleep and passed very quickly.

On the other hand I can remember traveling from Florida to West Virginia to be with my grandfather.  We were too late, he had passed away minutes before we arrived.  But when I saw his body passed away it was in a twisted and contorted shape and had an expression of obvious pain.  It seemed clear to me that he did not die quietly and peacefully.

I am well behind Michael in my own battle, but the stories Denise shared have a lot in common with the stories I hear, on another level.  I find that very few Christians are able to accept that we live in a fallen world.  Thus, we tell the beatific stories, whether they be stories of blessed deaths or miraculous healings and speak of them as if they are the norm to which every Christian can aspire and should expect.

The truth is much uglier than that.  Most deaths are ugly.  Very few of even the most faithful Christians are healed.  In his book I Told Me So, Greg Ten Elshoff writes

Terminal cancer wards are full of patients who believe things we all know to be radically improbable.  They believe that they will be one of the very, very few who fight back and win-or that they’ll be the recipient of a miracle healing in response to the prayers of friends and family.  It’s not just that they believe that they could get better-that God could perform a miracle on their behalf.  In this they’re surely correct.  No.  They believe they will get better-that God will perform a miracle on their behalf.  Nearly all of them are wrong.  And anyone familiar with the statistics is well situated to see that they are.  But-and this is the most salient part for our discussion-nobody corrects them.  In fact, they are encouraged to persist in these highly improbable beliefs.

I have been uniquely blessed in that I have only had a small minority of counselors who fit the mold of Job's counselors.  Most of the people who surround me ask how I'm doing, tell me they are praying for me, stay quiet and listen and engage in normal conversation with me as if I were a normal human being. 

But one Job's counselor has a multiplied effect.  These are the ones who come with something to say.  Most are loaded with advice on some new horrific diet I should eat or some obscure alternative theory.  Then there are the spritual Jobians.  My first spiritual Jobian had a story of a weird undiagnosed disease that he thought was AIDS, but when he finally got right with God in the midst of this the diagnosis came in that it was nothing significant and he moved on.  His message to me was that if I would get right with God I would be healed.

All of this kind of stuff mirrors what Denise was trying to convey.  She didn't put it this way, but Christians know the glory story but they don't know the cross story.  The glory story is that the Christian path is one of glory, observable, overcoming, obviously seen glories as the Christian triumphs over all his enemies.  Thus, the Christian has ears to hear the stories of miraculous healings and beatific deaths because those are glory stories. These people live in a world where we can practice a mechanistic kind of magic with God.  For the health freaks, if I would just I would just imbibe a magic potion concocted by nutritional wizards then like magic I would be healed.  In the spiritual version, a performance of certain rituals of self-exam followed by the prescribed repentance and obedience would free me from my physical ailments.  In any case, whereas doctors are reticent to describe what brought on the cancer simply because the factors that can contribute to any given cancer are innumerable, the glory-story folks know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I brought this cancer on myself and it is up to me to reform myself physically or get right with God.  In each case, suffering is not something a Christian should have to endure and God's only role in it His deliverance of us from it, if we will meet the conditions.

The cross story says that suffering is the path of the Christian.  If you are a Christian, more than likely you will not go gently into that good night, and I am not using that phrase in its original context.  In the original context Dylan Thomas urges us to rage and fight against death until the last moment.  What I am saying is that if you are Christian your death and maybe even the years leading to it, may not be gentle. 

That is the ugly truth I want to write about and I will try to write some more about in coming days is that we still live in a fallen world.  We should no more expect an easy life and death than did the apostles who often died gruesome deaths, nor should we expect greater ease than the many Christians throughout most of history who have met Christ face to face at the end of starvation, disease, or persecution.

The ugly truth is that the fall still applies and the fall means that the Christian path is a cross bearing path - if you are a Christian expect that life will be harder than you initially imagined it would

The beautiful reality is that the fall cannot obscure God.  God is near and dear to the broken hearted.  Often in the midst of great pain one senses the presence of God - I know I have. It's not something that can be seen or articulated and in fact those who watch you suffer would probably conclude that God is not there.  But the theology of the cross teaches that God hides Himself in suffering, He does not display Himself.  I think that's one of the big differences between glory story people and cross people.  The glory-storyists want God to display Himself - obviously, to the sight, publicly, in spectacular ways.  The cross people believe that God is a God who is quiet, hidden away, is masked in His creation, but is especially made known in suffering.

I'll write a bit more on this in the days to come.  I would like to address some of the ways we Christians are less than helpful when we latch on to alternative healing techniques, charismatic healing techniques, falsely optimistic patterns of hope and the like.  The truth is that these are distractions, not only for the suffering, but for the rest of us too.

The thing that distinguishes the suffering Christian is that Christ is with Him - nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.

Tribute to Michael Spencer

Those of you who follow evangelical blogs probably know that one of the most famous evangelical bloggers out there was Michael Spencer, the Internet Monk.  It's been about two months since Michael died from a short battle with cancer.  I had wanted to do a tribute post for him shortly after he died but never did as I haven't been blogging much.  But today I have a few moments and thought I would offer a few thoughts.

It may be that it is better this way.  The sad fact is that life goes on and people and events are quickly forgotten.  Michael will not be forgotten any time soon by his family and friends and those who loved his writings, but many others will go on, and I thought I would do my part just to remind folks of why he is worth remembering and maybe even introducing some to his writings who may never have read them.

Ironically, I said in the first paragraph that Michael was a well-known evangelical blogger.  I am not sure he would like that title as he described himself as a post-evangelical, but the fact is that he became well known to evangelicals, largely for tweaking their noses, and to post-evangelicals and others who were disaffected with evangelicals for being their spokesman.

I would be disingenuous if I did not confess up front that there is a fair amount of stuff that Michael was about that I disagreed with.  I'm not very turned on by the whole "post-evangelical" thing, I abhorred his views on Scripture and frankly disagreed with many things he wrote.  When he found himself in one of his famous arguments with Phil Johnson and the Pyros I almost always would agree with Phil and the gang.  I also found him to be a bit of conundrum.  He seemed to appreciate the reformed tradition where I myself have laid down roots, yet he was very critical of many of the modern children of the reformation, all the while seeming to love and be loved by Mike Horton and the modern reformation guys.

Yet for all of this, Michael "got" the gospel like few I have read or met.  He understood grace.  For every disagreement and annoyance he more than multiplied grace in giving the gospel to his friends, foes and gneral readers.

I first met Michael online way back in the dark ages when the internet was full of these static things called "web pages."  This was back in days before blogs and the social media explosion.  Michael had a website called the Internet Monk where he would post various writings.  This evolved into the Boars Head Tavern and Internet Monk.  I don't remember the dates but it had to be in the early 2000's or maybe even late 90's when I came across some articles Michael had written on evangelism under the title "Wretched Urgency," which is republished here.

I have to confess that I have been a failed evangelist throughout my Christian life.  You name the evangelism program and I have done it and unfortunately I can't point to a single person who has followed Christ as a result of my witness within the confines of an evangelism program.  I know others have and so I don't offer my experience as normative, but my experience in evangelical churches has always been one where our guilt and urgency is the prime motivation to witness.  I always carried the burden that numerous people would end up in hell and it would be my fault because of a failure to witness or to properly witness.  Michael must have felt that and his article(s) on "wretched urgency" courageously exposed the flaws in this guilt orientation toward witness which drove his own and my former Southern Baptist denomination.  For me personally it was great to find a kindred spirit who longed to break free from the guilt orientation of evangelicalism into a free, grace driven form of witness.

Another of my favorite articles from Michael was one called "The Little Brothers of St. Archie Bunker," which can be summarized in this paragraph:

I've decided that Archie Bunker is the patron saint of Christians who can't stop making their point. Christians who love to argue. Christians who can't stand it that someone somewhere disagrees with them. Christians who are caught up in theological controversy like University of Kentucky basketball fans are caught up in defending their team. Christians who have to correct everyone the way obsessed Lord of the Rings fans must correct any deviation from the Holy Canons of Tolkien. Christians who can't rest easy if someone somewhere is not understanding, reading, or getting "it," whatever "it" happens to be.

The truth is that I was Archie Bunker.  I one time lost a ministry "job" because of my Archie Bunker-ness.  I went through a long period of life where I always had to say something.  I always had to make a point, I always had to correct people.  

There are times when we must speak, where there is clear sin or heresy in the life of a friend we ought to speak up.  And there are things worth blogging about.  But for the most part I think Michael is right - the world won't end if we fail to make a point or raise an objection in most situations.  He describes my own experience perfectly in these paragraphs:

A few years ago, I started to figure something out. There were people who didn't want to be around me. Not many, but some. Now it wasn't hard to engage in all the usual justifications and criticisms to deal with that, and I could easily blow it all off. It wasn't that I was being rejected, just avoided. At some point, through an offhand comment made by a much older friend, I realized something clearly. I was always making these people listen to my opinions, my arguments, and my insights about everything. They were uncomfortable. I thought it was all important and insightful. They wanted a pleasant lunch.

These were some of the people we'd had in our home for meals who had never reciprocated, and I was starting to suspect why.  I was too much. I came on too strong. My opinions. My insights. My own horn being played loudly and too long in your ear.

Could it be that that if your religion has turned you into a neurotic, others might not want to join it? They might turn out like you.

Those are good questions and Michael was one of the few who would dare to ask such things and this is an example of where his nose tweaking did some of it's best work.

In short Michael was a polemicist.  Sometimes I thought he missed the mark but more often than not he hit it and when he hit it he hit right where it needed to be hit.  He was one of the first and earliest to sound the alarm about the dangers that Joel Osteen is doing to the church.  He pointed out our captivity to the "Christian industrial complex" and culture war scams.  He kindly and graciously addressed some of the biggest problems within pentecostalism/charismaticism.  He was not afraid to say that many of the most popular evangelical emperors had no clothes.

But for all of that curmudgeonliness, Michael understood grace and the gospel.  He could clearly see the many replacements for the gospel that are prevalent.  

Michael's final post on the Internet Monk was a short one worth repeating in full here:

The ultimate apologetic is to a dying man.

That is what all those “Where is God?” statements in the Psalms are all about. They are, at least partially, invitations to Christians to speak up for the dying.

All the affirmations to God as creator and designer are fine, but it is as the God of the dying that the Christian has a testimony to give that absolutely no one else can give.

We need to remember that each day dying people are waiting for the word of death and RESURRECTION.

The are a lot of different kinds of Good News, but there is little good news in “My argument scored more points than you argument.” But the news that “Christ is risen!” really is Good News for one kind of person: The person who is dying.

If Christianity is not a dying word to dying men, it is not the message of the Bible that gives hope now.

What is your apologetic? Make it the full and complete announcement of the Life Giving news about Jesus.

This is why I feel such a kinship with Michael and a desire to make sure he is not forgotten.  I have the same disease that killed Michael.  His cancer was more widespread than mine and he succumbed to it sooner than I have, but I wake up each day knowing that I am a dying man and will probably be in heaven sooner than a lot of you.  But you are also dying, even if you don't realize it now, and you need this dying word of the gospel as surely as Michael and I need it.  I hope you can hear it.  And I hope you won't forget Michael.  Though dead, he still speaks.  Chaplain Mike and Jeff Dunn and maybe some others are continuing his work through the Internet Monk, adding their own voices to Michael's but also republishing some of Michael's best work, so I hope that you will avail yourself of it.

Jesus Manifesto by Sweet and Viola

A new book by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola has been published today called "The Jesus Manifesto ."  It is receiving thunderous acclaim from all corners of Christendom and I received the kindness of receiving a complimentary pre-pub copy of the book from the publishers, with the stipulation that I mention it on my blog here on the date it is published.  

So, many thanks to the good folks at Thomas Nelson for sending this to me and I invite you to follow either of the above links to see some of what the book is about and see some of the recommendations from leaders that many of you trust. 

As for me, I have read the first several chapters and each time I read a chapter it is hard to work up any enthusiasm for going back to read the next chapter.  It's not that they are saying anything I necessarily disagree with, in fact much of it is spot on.  But the book insinuates that these authors are telling us something new in telling us that the Christian life is all about Jesus. 

It reminds me of an incident from my childhood.  As I grew up there was a Burger King not far from my house that I could walk to and I went there often to get a cheeseburger, fries and a coke.  I loved cheeseburgers, I loved fries and I loved cokes.  But during the summer I would go visit my grandparents in West Virginia in a small town where there were no Burger Kings.  One summer my cravings for french fries overcame me and I begged my grandparents to take me somewhere to get some french fries.  Later that day the most amazing thing happened.  

I went into the kitchen where my grandmother was slicing up a bunch of potatoes and putting them in a frying pan and then she served them and lo and behold, they were french fries.  This excited me so much that when my parents came to pick me up later the first thing I did was run out the door and excitedly announce to my mom the following - "MOM! MOM! did you know you can make FRENCH FRIES out of POTATOES?   Mawmaw knows how to make french fries out of potatoes!"  My mom still howls over that one and trots the story out regularly at family gatherings. 

Frankly though, that's the feeling I get in reading this book - in announcing to the rest of us lukewarm folks that the Christian life is all about Jesus they remind me of myself announcing to my mom that you can make french fries out of potatoes. 

I don't doubt that we lose sight of Jesus, I know it's a regular practice of mine and I also like to tell my congregation that the gospel leaks, hence we must be reminding ourselves of the gospel all the time.  In that respect this book has some good stuff to say. I do think that the work of Tim Keller and Mike Horton on the topic of recovering Jesus and the gospel are far more substantive.  Also, J. Gresham Machen's book "Christianity and Liberalism" is still unsurpassed on the same subject.  

But these are just my reactions and I know I can be a bit cranky these days.  Many folks who are far better than me like the book so I'll defer to them, but I still don't see what all the fuss is about. 

A Post for My Good Buddy Dan Phillips

Some of you, maybe most of you know Dan Phillips of TeamPyro fame.  When Dan notices that I have been silent on the internet for awhile he gets worried about me.  He sent me a comment the other day on a post letting me know that he's worried about me since it has been awhile since I posted. 

So this one is to say thanks to Dan and to anyone else out there who worries about me.  I am in a good season right now.  I am under chemo so I am still pretty much down and out for 4-7 days during any two week cycle.  But this time, though the main downtime is still caused by fatigue, it doesn't seem quite as painful as it did with the last go around.  Also, I know that God is using the prayers of my church and my friends out there in cyber land to bring physical sustenance to me and I live every day with the sense that I am living "under the mercy" as someone has said. 

When I am alert and up and running I am trying to give my attention to matters at home and church.  That's the main reason I haven't been blogging.  I still do read a fair number of blogs but don't feel the compulsion to post that I used to, as I often sense there are too many voices out there anyway, I don't need to add my own to the cacophony.  Still, every now and then I get an urge to write something so maybe I'll follow through on some of those urges soon. 

I did just finish reading James Davison Hunter's book To Change the World and he offers some helpful words on the nature of incarnational ministry and culture shaping.  There is nothing earth shattering about what I am about to write, but it makes sense - in the incarnation Jesus was fully present to the people amongst whom He lived.  Incarnational ministry will have a distinctly local flavor. This is one of my great regrets over the past years of blogging - that I let a desire to make a name for myself in cyberspace lead me to seek a presence there to the neglect of my presence locally, to my family and church.  I again offer my apologies to family and church for this. I'm not a total Luddite on this and I do see the value of writing on a blog, but I do think Hunter is write and offers some good words to those of us who love blogs.  We only have so many hours in a week, if Jesus' incarnation is any model for our interaction with the world then our interaction with the world will have a distinct local flavor where we are fully present and we will want to use the hours we have to the greatest effect locally.  So that explains a bit of where I have been - when I have some energy these days I try to spend that energy locally. 

And in addition to that, my reading mojo is really in gear these days.  I have always read a good deal but am reading and profiting more than ever from reading and I just find that I get greater joy out of reading and learning from the insights of others than I do from sharing my own thoughts. 

Still, I would be remiss and terribly ungrateful if I did not acknowledge the real friendships I have made in cyberspace and I do want to again thank all of you who pray for me.  Your prayers on my behalf are a true ministry of mercy and like I said, as time allows I do hope to spend some time back on the blog. 

And again, thanks to Dan - I'm doing good and thanks for worrying about me. 

The Good News of Justification

Hi everyone - here I am popping in with one of my infrequent blog posts.  This is a quote from Hywel Jones that is too good and too life giving not to share.  To fail to share this would be to deprive all of you of a great statement of the greatness of the gospel.

Only a fraction of the present body of confessing Christians are solidly appropriating the justifying work of Christ in their lives. Many have so light an apprehension of God's holiness and of the extent and guilt for their sin that consciously they see little need for justification, although below the surface they are deeply guilt ridden and insecure.

Many others have a theoretical commitment to this doctrine, but in their day to day existence they rely on their sanctification for justification drawing their assurance of acceptance with God from their sincerity, their past experience of conversion, their recent religious performance or the relative infrequency of their conscious, willful disobedience.

Few know enough to start each day with a thoroughgoing stand on Luther's platform; you are accepted, looking outward in faith and claiming the wholly alien righteousness of Christ as the only ground for acceptance, relaxing in the quality of trust which will produce increasing sanctification as faith is active in love and gratitude.

Happy Easter and Check out iMonk

No, I haven't forgotten how to read a calendar.  I just remembered that we worship on the first day of the week because Christ was resurrected on the first day of the week.  Every Sunday is an Easter Sunday in some sense.  So, may you celebrate the resurrection with God's people with great joy tomorrow.

Also, I keep thinking I'll do a tribute to Michael Spencer some time but I never seem to get around to doing it for the same reason I don't get around to blogging much anymore.  What energy I do have I have to put into time with the family, preparing sermons and doing as much pastoral work as I can before I need another nap. I'm not against blogging, and in my heart I haven't really abandoned the blog though it seems like it - blogging just has to take a perpetual back seat these days. 

But now worries, there are plenty of tributes to Michael out there so mine won't be missed if I don't get around to it.  For those of you who don't know the iMonk's writings, Chaplain Mike is minding his blog and is reposting some of Michael's best stuff.  So let me invite you to go over to the Internet Monk and get to know his writings if you never did and get reacquainted if you did know him.

Rest in Peace Michael Spencer

I have been a bit away from the computer these last couple of days and only heard of Michael Spencer's graduation this afternoon.  Indeed, a fellow pastor who is aware of my own limited prospects encouraged me to think of my remaining days as preparation for graduation.  It is a time when the graduate leaves home to the next phase of their life.  For who are left behind, we feel the keen sense of loss in saying goodbye to them and are sometimes overwhelemed with sadness and sorrow.  The graduate himself or herself will feel great sadness at leaving but anticipation at where the are going.

I may share more thoughts in coming days but indeed Michael has graduated and now sees the one he loved the most, face to face.  I rejoice that he sees Jesus and is unimpeded with and freed from the terrible diseases of the fall that caused him such pain over these last months.

For now, and I hope that maybe Denise Spencer or one of the kids might see this post, I just want to state my sincere love for Michael and appreciation for his many challenges to me and all those who read him.  We tangled a few times over some issues but we tangled as colleagues in  a similar pursuit of Jesus.  All in all, Michael always succeeded in what he sought ought to do - to make much of Jesus.  I am very glad I was able interact with him about these matters on a number of occasions. I'm glad that Michael sees who those of us who are left can only see from a distance and write about.

And he paves the way for several of us who will, unless God intervenes in a different direction, join him very soon.  I hope that we who are soon to be with Michael in the presence of Jesus will finish our callings well.  And I do pray that Denise and the kids will see, hear and feel the immense love that so many of us had for your beloved and that you are well cared for in these days and feel the love that is pouring in from all over for your family. 

Some Good News

With all of the bad news floating around the blogosphere about people with cancer I am happy to report some good news that I got today.

Different cancers have different tumor markers that show up in the blood and one of the markers for colon cancer is called the CEA.  Those of you who are healthy have a cea of 0-3, sometimes heavy smokers may have have a CEA of 3-6, so anything above a 6 is a cause for concern.  It shows that tumors are active.

When I first started chemotherapy in January of '09, which was about a month after my colon resection, my CEA's were in the 50's.  By the end of my last course of treatment in July of '09 my CEA had gotten into the 30's.

And now, drumroll please, today I got my most recent CEA results - 6.4! 

I'm not out of the woods - CT scans will tell the most, but my nurse said this is definitely something worth being happy about.  This at least means that the cancer is being suppressed.

So, thanks be to God and thanks to all of you for all of your prayers and encouragement.

Update on Michael Spencer

Many of you probably know the name Michael Spencer, the Internet Monk.  Michael was recently diagnosed with cancer and today his wife Denise is reporting that his oncologist does not expect him to recover:

It is with a heavy heart that I bring my latest update on Michael. We have learned that his cancer is too advanced and too aggressive to expect any sort of remission. Our oncologist estimates that with continued treatment Michael most likely has somewhere between six months and a year to live. This is not really a surprise to us, though it is certainly horrible news. From the very beginning, both of us have suspected that this would prove to be an extremely bad situation. I don’t know why; perhaps God was preparing us for the worst all along by giving us that intuition.

She goes on to share about his faith during this time and God's blessings to him and the family.  Please join many of us in thanking God for Michael's ministry and praying for God's peace to be on him and his family.

Just last night I read the following words from the book "Grace Upon Grace" by John W. Kleinig, on p. 32.  These words were a balm for my soul and seem appropriate given Michael's situation.

God's gracious presence, the treasure of His glory and power, is hidden away out of sight inside us, like olive oil in a plain clay lamp.  We do not generate spiritual life and power but receive them from God as we expend them.  Paradoxically, His life, the life that we have in Christ, is most evident in our suffering, aging and dying.   Thus, "we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh" (2 Corinthians 4:11).  Glory in insignificance, life in death, strength in weakness, riches in poverty - all these mark our life in Christ.  Nothing is possessed, everything is borrowed from Him.

The life of Christ has indeed been evident in Michael - may it be also in all of us.