This Year's Challenge: Going Deeper With Christ

Greetings Team,

Today was my six-month cancer check-up, and my doctor said all is well. No cancer could be seen. I go back in 4 months. Debbie, I, and our family are praising the Lord for the blessing of life. My good kidney is still recovering from the loss of the one removed and is a little mad, as the doctor described it. Therefore, my kidney has not quite adjusted. My continued recovery will require a very strict diet and weight loss, but I am willing.

Spiritually speaking, the last year has been a time when everything has been stripped away, and I have just enjoyed Jesus. All that is in this world has meant little to me, but the pain, tears, and soberness have deepened my relationship with the Master. To be honest, I would not trade the deep times with Jesus for anything.

This challenge has assisted me with a theme that I want for this year: The Deeper Life - Learning to be like Jesus.

Secularism has filled our nation for the last 50 years, but it is built on self, me and my rights, and is the opposite of what I am learning about Christ. Christ teaches that if you love Me, I will fill you to love others. Humility, not pride and self-promotion or me and my rights, is the theme of Jesus. As I have battled cancer, I have deepened in my belief that the humility of Christ is the only way to make it through this world. I have been taught about love, which exalts not itself, and is not easily offended. I have been taught about forgiveness, which is having a quick spirit of saying I am sorry. Yes, thank God for the deepening and thank Him for the cancer.

This fall, I promise to pour all I have into this next generation to teach them about Christ. Let us go deep together.

Love, from a humbled servant,

Pres