Last night was our last Core Team meeting before we launch our weekly Bible study, Loma Linda Word Search, with Gary Inrig teaching. Gary and Elizabeth Inrig joined us to pray for God’s direction and blessing and provision, and they also led us in a study of Titus 2. (Richard has taken us through the pastoral epistles of 1 Timothy and now Titus as we’ve been planning this outreach.)
The evening was significant for all of us; we have been meeting together as a team for six months as we’ve not only planned this outreach but also submitted ourselves to God and to His Word in preparation for launching this ministry into a dark area where the true gospel is not taught. Several of us remarked throughout the evening, “I can’t believe we’re actually going to start—I can’t believe this is our last regular Core meeting!”
These months of planning have been months of impacting change and unexpected set-backs, but this reality does not surprise us. God is opening a way for His word to be taught in a city where there is no evangelical church. We can expect opposition, as Peter said in 1 Peter 4:12-19. The biggest hurdle we’ve encountered is that the Loma Linda Civic Center rescinded its rental agreement for our use of the community room until June, 2014. After reserving the room and accepting a deposit for every available Thursday for the next 10 months, they emailed a letter saying they could not grant the room to us for a long-term, regular reservation. After our scheduled nights in September, the room would not be available to us.
Interestingly, this letter came two days after a group of us went to Loma Linda and distributed cards advertising the study. The timing and their reversal of the agreement seem to suggest that they do not want a non-Adventist study in their town.
This situation, however, left us with a problem: we had a teacher, we had a team, but we did not have a venue. Last week God provided for us—at least for a while. The owner of Selah, a local Christian bookstore, offered us the use of a room near his store—a room which he owns, which is finished, and which can accommodate at least as many people as the community room in Loma Linda. This room is in Redlands instead of Loma Linda, and it is, to be sure, very near Loma Linda, but the address is our only concern. Nevertheless, we are praising God for providing a wonderful venue whenever we need it, and we continue to pray that God will provide the building He knows we need. We trust that this is His provision for us at this time and that He knows better than we do how to bring God’s word to the people in a city that is committed to a different gospel.
This morning as Richard and I walked in the hills across from our neighborhood, a remarkable, brilliant rainbow curved over Redlands and Loma Linda. No rain was falling, and the sun was shining between billows of clouds that hinted at thunderstorms. We both thought about God setting the rainbow in the sky after the flood as a promise to Noah and to all mankind that He would never destroy the earth with water again.
I pondered that God chose to make the sign of His promise something that is fixed and sure and based on the principles of physics that He designed. As I looked at that rainbow that grew increasingly brilliant, I thought about the fact that all of God’s promises are sure in Christ. There is nothing He has said that He will not do, no provision or care or protection or justice that He will not deliver. Because the Son of Man took our sin to the cross and broke the curse of death, we can be certain, even when things look murky, that He is sovereign, and His Word will not return to Him empty, but it will accomplish and succeed in what He purposes for it to do (Is. 55:11). The Lord Jesus is our evidence that God’s word is utterly sure.
We trust Him.
For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee (2 Cor. 1:20-22).
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://blog.lifeassuranceministries.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/ColleenTinker08.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Colleen Tinker, the editor of Proclamation! magazine, and her husband Richard left Adventism in 1998 with their two sons, Roy and Nathanael, who were in grades six and ten. They have co-led the Former Adventist Fellowship Bible study at Trinity Church in Redlands, California, since 1999. Colleen, a graduate of Walla Walla University, is a former high school English teacher and also the former managing editor of Adventist Today magazine. She is also a small-group discussion leader for Trinity Women’s ministries. Colleen became the stepmother of Roy and Nathanael in 1989, and in 2008 she adopted them. Romans 8:15-17 has assumed new depth and significance for her and Richard since she and her sons chose to claim each other legally and permanently. She and Richard share their office with Rocky the sheltie, and they love having a new granddaughter.[/author_info] [/author]
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