AllanStanglin.com
“Do not put your trust in princes,
in mortal men, who cannot save.
When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
on that very day their plans come to nothing.
Blessed is the one whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord our God,
the Maker of Heaven and Earth, the sea, and everything in them –
the Lord, who remains faithful forever.”
~Psalm 146
Good looking crew at last night’s annual Harvest Party at GCR. We trunk or treated with almost 3,000 Midlanders on our church campus – candy, games, bouncers, costumes, music. We met a ton of people and had a blast doing it. I couldn’t be more thrilled or feel more blessed to be working with this great group of ministers.
“I AM the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will never die.” ~John 11:25-26
There’s a scene about a third of the way through the Temple of Doom movie in which Indiana Jones and his little sidekick, Short Round, are trapped in a room inside an evil castle. Short Round accidentally trips a lever and the walls start closing in. The four walls are coming in and the ceiling is coming down and long, pointed, metal spikes are coming up out of the floor and down from the ceiling. Indy and his little buddy are going to be crushed to death! The walls are coming closer and Indiana Jones is freaking out. He’s yelling at Kate Capshaw on the other side of the wall: Pull that lever! Stick your hand in there and pull that lever! But there are bugs and snakes in the wall and she just can’t do it. The spikes are coming down and the desperation builds and they zoom the camera in tight on Indiana Jones’ face. One spike comes up against his face. Another spike comes down and presses his hat against his temple. And he looks directly into the camera and says, “We. Are. Going. To. Die.”
No, you’re not. We know you’re not. Indiana Jones will never die.
He’s lowered into a pit of boiling lava, he’s walking on the outside of an airplane at 30,000 feet, he’s captured by Nazis, he’s strapped to a rotting suspension bridge a mile above a canyon floor, he’s brainwashed by murderous witch doctors – but he never dies. He keeps rescuing the children and saving the village and restoring the sacred stones and he always gets the girl and he never loses his hat.
Indiana Jones can live that way, recklessly doing what few will dare to do, because he knows he’ll never die. Why? Because he has an arrangement with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. They’ve already determined that Indiana Jones will never die.
“Our Savior Jesus Christ has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality.” ~ 2 Timothy 1:10
Jesus Christ is the Lord of Life, the eternal author of life, the giver of all life. He came that we may have life and have it to the full. In his death and resurrection, a new age has dawned for those of us who believe. Death has nothing on you. Neither does sin. We are living right now in the new era of his resurrection. God’s Holy Spirit lives inside us. That exact same Spirit who brought Lazarus out of the grave and rolled the stone away on that third day and sat on it – that same Spirit lives inside you!
You’ve got the resurrection inside you! You’re dangerous! You’re invincible! You can’t be stopped!
And the call is still on. It’s still on.
So we don’t cower, we don’t hesitate, we don’t slow down or back off or ever walk away. Our attitude is: You can kill me, but you can’t hurt me! We know how the story ends and that impacts how we play our part.
“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection!” ~ Philippians 3:10
So we love unconditionally and we forgive unflinchingly. We heal the sick and we feed the poor and we stand with the marginalized and the oppressed. We give and we serve uncompromisingly. We protect and provide for the widow, the orphan, and the stranger in the gate. We fight racism no matter the cost. We tear down walls no matter the opposition. And we deny ourselves and take up our crosses and unashamedly follow the one who laid down his life for the whole world!
No matter what chaos and confusion is out there, no matter what uncertainty surrounds you, sin and death do not have the final word. They do not have the final say. Our risen and reigning Lord Jesus is the author of life and he always writes the last line. And it’s good to have an arrangement with the writer.
Peace,
Allan
The Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ has come and it is coming and this is what it looks like and feels like. That no matter the chaos and confusion out there, no matter the uncertainty that surrounds us, sin and death do not have the final word. Our risen and reigning Lord Jesus is the author of eternal life right now, today, tomorrow, and forever! He always writes the last line. The final chapter always belongs to him. He says, “I AM the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will never die!”
So we thank God. And our lives are a continuous hallelujah to his eternal glory and praise.
“Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word and my servant will be healed.” ~Matthew 8:8
The commander in the Roman army is probably stationed at a garrison just east of Capernaum. He has total control over the one hundred men in his company. He tells them when to come and go. They don’t sneeze without his permission. Not only that, he controls all the Jews in the land the Roman Empire is occupying. With just a word, this commander can order any Tom, Dick, or Larry to carry his backpack or dig a ditch. Or carry the cross of a condemned criminal.
This centurion understands power. And he says to Jesus, “Just say the word.”
Lord, just as easily as I tell Private Ted to clean his shield or mop the floor or drop and give me twenty – that easy! – you just say the word and my servant will be healed. I know that whatever you say, it happens. You just say the word and the forces that have paralyzed my servant will let him go.
“‘Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.’ And his servant was healed at that very hour.” ~Matthew 8:13
You and I can know in our hearts that there’s no catch with Jesus. There’s no trick. There’s no limit to the goodness of Christ’s intentions or his power to carry them out. It’s not like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown the moment he finally commits – never! You can trust God in Christ to fix everything that’s broken in your life and to make right everything that’s gone wrong.
Look at the power of Jesus. He heals this paralyzed servant from a distance. He doesn’t have to touch him, he doesn’t even have to see him. From way downtown! Bang! And it’s so matter of fact. He gave the word. And the servant was healed. Well, yeah.
Jesus, I believe. Just say the word.
The reality in Jesus Christ as the Son of God is that he is almighty, he is powerful, and he alone has both the authority and the power to heal and forgive, to reconcile and protect, to save. He alone also has the great desire. And the boundless love. He willingly went to the cross to make that ultimate reality true for anything and everything that might be broken in your life today.
Jesus, just say the word.
And he did.
In the garden. “Not my will, Father, but yours be done.”
From the cross. “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
“It is finished.”
Now, there’s a word.
Peace,
Allan
My long-standing policy is that if I cannot say something bad about the Dallas Cowboys, I won’t say anything at all. But it’s impossible to ignore how well the team is playing during this five-game winning streak. Goodness gracious. I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t address the current state of the Cowboys.
There’s no one in the NFL who throws the ball better on the run than Dak. The receivers are not just Cooper and Lamb; Schultz is open on every play and Cedric Wilson is making at least one crazy, critical, circus catch to keep a drive alive every week. Elliot and Pollard are running extremely well behind a surging offensive line. Trevon Diggs is a monster, single-handedly shutting down half the field. And the whole defense is playing with a passion and a confidence they haven’t shown in years.
The Cowboys have won more games than the rest of the NFC East combined and have a three-game lead in the league’s weakest division. And, right now today, I don’t know who’s going to beat them. This is seriously looking like a 13-3 year.
Or is it? Where is the dark cloud behind all these stars and rainbows? How and when will reality come crashing down on this team?
Here are a few things that give me hope this will blow up in Jerry’s plastic face. One, this team continues to make terrible mistakes. They made enough Sunday in Foxboro to lose a couple of games. Twelve penalties for over a hundred yards. They converted only three of thirteen third downs. Yet they made just enough big plays to eke out the overtime win. You can’t do that consistently against good teams. That kind of thing catches up to you as the season progresses and the games become more important.
Two, Mike McCarthy is still this team’s head coach. I guess he’s going to go for it on 4th and one from midfield on the first drive of every single game – that backfired into a Patriots’ touchdown Sunday. He forgot to call the timeout near the end of the game that would have forced a New England punt and given Dallas a chance to win the game in regulation. He’s not smart. The percentages and the time-tested odds mean more in the NFL than they do in any other sport. The math – for pity’s sake! – means more in the NFL than it does even in baseball. And McCarthy routinely forgets about or willfully goes against it. That won’t fly for long.
Three, this is the bye week. This is the time most teams get healthy and work hard on preparing for the rest of the season. For the Cowboys, this is the time when they hear about how well they’re doing and reject the hard work for a vacation in Cabo or a bender in Houston. Somebody’s going to get arrested this week.
Lastly, Jerry Wayne Jones is still the owner. The football gods will not allow his team to win a divisional playoff game. The Cowboys went 13-3 in 2016 and 2007 and lost in the divisional round. They went 12-4 in 2014 and lost in the divisional round. The powers-that-be are right now devising the most excruciating and gut-punch way for the Cowboys to get humiliated in January. Again.
Let ’em win seven or eight more games. It just makes January that much more delicious.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thomas Earl Petty was born on this day in 1950. Here’s the original video for “The Waiting” from 1981.
© 2026 The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑
Recent Comments