The "Look Inside My Heart" blog is written by Rev. Howard S. Russell, CHM President and CEO
Do you believe that Christ rose from the dead? Really?
April 2012
There are those who deny that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
There are those who scoff and belittle the belief that Jesus is the Son of God.
But why should the 21st century be any different than the first century? Even in the final verses of the Gospel of Matthew, after Christ’s resurrection, it says, “Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw Him they worshiped Him, but some doubted.”
The note in my Bible says that “but some doubted” probably refers to onlookers, not disciples. Today is no different than that day in Galilee.
That people laugh, scoff, ridicule and doubt should not surprise us. Jesus knew that would be the case. When the Lord said, “For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few,” should we believe He was joking?
Christianity is full of joy. But it also is deadly serious. We will be challenged. Brothers and sisters in Christ around the world daily are in danger of hatred, persecution and even death. Furthermore, our decisions, actions and the way we treat others have eternal consequences. Please consider that word: eternal. It’s easy to say. Just three syllables. But when you really stop and consider what it means…
I have a friend who, while sitting on a beach with his wife, reached down and picked up a handful of sand. As he considered how many grains of sand he held, he began to apply a value of time to each grain. It was apparent that even if each grain was assigned a single year there were probably hundreds of millions of years represented in this single scoop.
He looked up and down the beach. He then thought of the deserts he’d driven across and flown above and everywhere else on earth sand can be found. Even if you applied a value of a million, billion, trillion or a hundred trillion years to each individual, tiny grain of sand on planet Earth, it still wouldn’t be a fraction of infinity.
When we talk about things being eternal, that’s how we need to think and what we should consider as we contemplate the happiness of heaven and the hideousness of hell.
I’ve never been to the Holy Land. I hope someday to go. Not long ago my family and I had the opportunity to visit a place in Orlando called the Holy Land Experience. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. In any case, within the park there is a re-creation of the famous Garden Tomb in Jerusalem.
As best as I can tell from the photos I’ve seen of the Garden Tomb, the Holy Land Experience’s version is a fairly faithful representation. Of course it wasn’t real; it was just a facsimile of an actual tomb some scholars suggest was Christ’s burial place. Others hold firm that the tomb is located at its traditional site within Jerusalem.In any case, being there moved me to the brink of tears due to what it represents.
I imagined myself in Jerusalem on that world-changing day, seeing the stone rolled away and the doorway open through which the disciples saw that the tomb was empty.
Empty because He had risen.
Empty because He is risen.
And He is always with those who believe in Him, even to the end of the age.
He is risen! He is risen indeed!
Have you "liked" CHM yet? If not, please keep reading
March 2012
Social media. The question isn’t whether Christian Healthcare Ministries should use social media, but how fast and in what way to best spread the word about our Bible-based health cost sharing ministry.
What we hope you’ll do for social media starters is “like” us on Facebook. Just go to Facebook and click “Like” at the top of the page.
It’s so easy that even I could figure it out, with a little coaching from my 18-year-old son.
If you’re not a Facebook member, access the Facebook website, follow a few simple steps to join, and you too can be Facebooking with family, friends and acquaintances you haven’t seen or heard from in years.
You also can use Facebook to send to others information about CHM. In fact, a great way is to share the CHM video (found on the CHM home page or YouTube) of the interview former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee conducted on his Fox News Channel show with me and CHM members Jason and Tori Benham of Concord, N.C.
Use it to reach out to others to participate in our Bring-a-Friend program, which earns you free months of participation for bringing new members into the ministry. You can share the video with all your Facebook friends at the same time.
If you haven’t “liked” us on Facebook or even become a Facebook member, please do it now. Yes, if you don’t mind, right now. No reason to put it off until later. You can come back to this article after you’ve “liked” us. Just fire up your computer and you’ll be finished in no time.
Thank you. We truly appreciate it.
Every generation brings with it a new way to communicate. This generation’s technology has expanded that reality exponentially.
For most of human history horses or ships were the principal means of transporting messages and news between people, communities and countries.
The telegraph was a revolutionary invention. The telephone was almost an otherworldly development. Then came radio, television, communication satellites, cellular telephones—and the internet.
Today what one person thinks on one side of the world is instantly transmitted to people he or she knows around the globe. And to people they don’t know.
We want to get out the truth (with the speed of modern communications) of how CHM members demonstrate Christian love for each other by carrying each other’s health care cost burdens.
Sometimes social media language sounds a bit like elementary school-age boys and girls sending each other notes asking, “I like you, do you like me?”
Trust me, everyone at CHM likes you. In fact, we love you as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. By serving you we have the opportunity to glorify God and serve His people.
Thank you for “liking” us.
Money talks, but love sings
February 2012
Money talks, but it don’t sing and dance and it don’t nearly tell the whole story of why people join Christian Healthcare Ministries (with apologies to Neil Diamond for paraphrasing his lyrics and to grammarians everywhere.)
Members have many reasons for joining CHM. Low cost is certainly one of them. But there are three other reasons that are just as meaningful, and actually far more powerful:
• Love
• In
• Christ
Almost every day I receive letters, phone calls or e-mails from members sharing with me some joyful aspect of being a part of CHM. A lady says how much she appreciates our employees praying with her when she calls. An expectant mother and her husband are grateful their costs being shared by fellow Christians. A man with a serious illness says it brought tears to his eyes when he received a card of encouragement from a fellow Christian, a CHM member he’s never met. These events occur because of these three reasons:
• Love
• In
• Christ
We have love because we’re in Christ (John 14:20). We are in Christ, therefore, we love. Christ is love. Thus, we’re experiencing Love. In. Christ.
People seek information about CHM for many reasons. Finding low cost health care with a Christian foundation is one reason, certainly. Another is that they prefer a Bible-based method to health insurance (CHM is not insurance). They’re wondering how it works, why it works, if it works. The answers are:
1. It works very well.
2. Because of God.
3. Absolutely. Our more than 30-year history and hundreds of millions of dollars shared are evidence of our ministry’s commitment and God’s provision.
I am convinced that what CHM does is a reflection of the power of the Holy Spirit working through His followers. What happens here is not just an economic exercise; it is a manifestation of God’s kingdom.
It is the spirit of God working through His followers, His believers, His children.
Jesus told His disciples at the Last Supper that He was giving them a new commandment: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35).
What does this mean?
• Christ
• Is
• Love
As the 120 disciples waited in the Upper Room for the Holy Spirit to descend upon them, they surely didn’t know the full impact He would have on them or on the world.
As they went to the streets of Jerusalem they were empowered with boldness and they preached the gospel—and thousands were saved. The first recorded deed of that group of saved people is listed in Acts 2 and 4 at the end of each chapter. They shared among themselves so everyone’s needs were met. God moved their hearts.
Sharing. Meeting needs. Sound familiar?
So it is with the members of CHM. We are all believers. We come to join CHM for various reasons. After becoming members we look back we see how Christ has moved us.
Thank you for seeing the hand of God in what He is doing through you and Christian Healthcare Ministries.
“Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.” “Greater things will you do than what I am doing.” Why?
• Christ
• Is
• Love
Freedom of religion and the truly free
January 2012
In the 21st century it’s trendy to denigrate people of faith, particularly Christians and Christianity.
The secular media often cries out that any slight—real or imagined—toward non-Christian faiths is an example of intolerance and bigotry. However, Christians and Christianity are frequent and favorite targets of many of these same media types.
For example, “Saturday Night Live” recently had a segment satirizing football quarterback and avowed Christian Tim Tebow. The skit included a depiction of Christ. SNL will never, ever do something similar using the character of Mohammad. First, they wouldn’t want to be culturally insensitive toward Muslims. Secondly, they know Christians aren’t likely to threaten to kill them for depicting Christ.
Nothing today is any different than it was following the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. Christians then were criticized and persecuted, this we know, for the Bible tells us so.
However, the enemies of Christianity affirm the truth of Scripture. Some self-proclaimed open-minded and tolerant people hate Christianity for one reason: the words of the New Testament are convicting, and they don’t want to be convicted. Deep down, Christianity frightens them.
This fear inspires them to lash out at the truth and those who believe in it. It occurred in the first century. It’s occurring today. If you’re a Christian, this should actually make you feel good.
We are blessed in the United States with a Constitution that affirms our freedom and our right to worship as we please. Our Constitution and its Bill of Rights sometimes seem to be quaint afterthoughts to most Americans, who are far more fascinated by who’s been eliminated on “American Idol” or “Dancing With the Stars” than they are with the document that declares what government can’t do to us.
The First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom doesn’t dictate our responsibilities to the government; it protects us from government interference as we exercise our faith.
The Founding Fathers didn’t want a state religion. They wanted states where religion was free to be practiced according to individual beliefs.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
“The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this Truth—that God governs in the Affairs of Men…I also believe without his concurring Aid, we shall succeed in this political Building no better than the Builders of Babel.” Benjamin Franklin
“It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.” George Washington
“It is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.” John Adams
“Among the most inestimable of our blessings, also, is that... of liberty to worship our Creator in the way we think most agreeable to His will; a liberty deemed in other countries incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be its best support.” Thomas Jefferson
“Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed the conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?” Thomas Jefferson
Times change. The human condition does not. Expect to be condemned and possibly persecuted by those who demand tolerance for everyone they decide should be tolerated.
Thanks be to God, it’s Jesus who gives us true freedom, even in a free country.