Guinness World Records has confirmed that Samantha Ramsdell is the record holder for the world’s largest mouth gape for a female. Hers measures two and a half inches; when measured across, it reaches more than four inches.

Ramsdell has 1.7 million TikTok followers and has used her mouth frequently in videos. She has stuffed three donuts in her mouth and fit in a large order of fries, for instance. She says her mouth used to be “something that really I was so insecure about, something that I wanted to keep so small.” Now she says that it’s “one of the biggest, best things about me.” 

Samantha adds: “It’s your superpower. It’s the thing that makes you unique and special. Everyone should be celebrating what makes them different.” 

Three ways we know everything we know 

Samantha is right: we each have a “superpower.” We are each uniquely made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) with gifts, abilities, experiences, and opportunities that are uniquely ours. 

If we are to be Jesus’ witnesses (Acts 1:8) by making disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19), it stands to reason that we should discover the way we can best fulfill his commission. 

For example, philosophers tell us that we learn all we know in one of three ways: the intuitive, the pragmatic, and the rational. We do math rationally; we start our cars pragmatically (unless we are automotive engineers, in which case we probably start them rationally); we like people intuitively. 

We all do all three, but one tends to dominate our personality. For example, I am “wired” by God to be rational to such an extent that I have very limited intuitive capacities and sometimes do not consider the practical consequences of my rational ideas. 

Three consequences follow. 

One: We should know our weaknesses and trust those who are gifted in ways we are not. 

My wife is highly intuitive, with discernment as one of her spiritual gifts. Rev. Jeff Byrd, my ministry partner for more than three decades, is a former engineer and business consultant and is highly pragmatic. On my good days, I consult them before making any major decisions, knowing that they will see things I will not and can predict consequences that I likely will not see. 

Whom do you know who is gifted and created in ways you are not? With whom are you partnering as you partner with the Lord? 

Two: We should focus our energies on strategies that play to our strengths. 

Paul was a former Pharisee and student of Gamaliel. As a result, he typically began his missionary work in a town or city by engaging with the local synagogue where his personal history lent credibility to his work. William Wilberforce, a man whose family was well known to British aristocracy and governing authorities, was called by God to serve as a member of the government and use that position to help eradicate slavery. 

God’s call usually aligns with our capacities. Knowing where your gifts, abilities, and experiences align is often a good way to identify your kingdom assignment. 

C. S. Lewis told a congregation of Oxford University students and scholars, “A man’s upbringing, his talents, his circumstances, are usually a tolerable index of his vocation. If our parents have sent us to Oxford, if our country allows us to remain there, this is prima facie evidence that the life which we, at any rate, can best lead to the glory of God at present is the learned life.” 

What is your “Oxford”? 

Three: We must always trust God more than ourselves. 

Even C. S. Lewis, for all his brilliance, did not possess the capacity to convict a single person of a single sin or save a single soul. Humans cannot do the work of the Spirit. Only the Father can recreate us as his children through faith in his Son (John 1:12). 

While he chooses to call, equip, and use us in his kingdom enterprises, we must always remember that our work is a means to his end. We must begin every day by submitting that day to his Spirit’s leading and empowering (Ephesians 5:18). We must “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) that he would work in us and through us to make fallen people into his “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). 

As we work, God works. As we do our best in his strength for his glory, he uses us in ways we will not fully understand on this side of eternity. 

“I am a walking testimony” 

American hurdler Kendra “Keni” Harrison won a silver medal for Team USA in the 100-meter hurdles Monday. Her achievement was the result of years of training, hard work, and sacrifice. 

Nonetheless, in an interview following the event, Harrison proclaimed that “all the glory goes to God just to have this opportunity.” When she broke the world record in 2016, she stated, “I am a walking testimony of how incredible God truly is.” Her Twitter biography features the phrase, “I love Jesus.” 

As we work, God works. 

How will you partner with him today? 

Denison Forum

Australian officials would like us to rebrand shark attacks as “negative encounters.” The swimmer who was bitten by a great white shark at a beach near San Francisco last month may not agree.

Officials in Texas are assuring the public that the Dallas resident who has the first-ever case of monkeybox in our state is “not a reason for alarm.” The infected patient in isolation at a Dallas hospital may not agree.

It is human nature to downplay threats we cannot control. For example, we say of those who die that they “departed” or “passed on.” But euphemisms cannot change the reality they describe.

As of this morning, 188 people have died in massive flooding in Europe. The death toll in the Surfside, Florida, condominium collapse stands at ninety-seven. At least sixty-five people underwent decontamination on Saturday following a chemical leak at a Six Flags water park near Houston.

Three people were wounded in a shooting outside the Washington Nationals baseball stadium that caused the game to be suspended. At least two people were killed and several others were wounded by shootings at three locations in Tucson, Arizona, yesterday afternoon. And the global death toll from the coronavirus pandemic stands at 4,089,175 at this writing.

American Christians are under unprecedented pressure by our secularized culture to compromise biblical truth and morality. But the inescapable realities of death and eternity beyond the grave demonstrate conclusively that every person we know needs to know what we know about death.

Martin Luther said, “Every man must do two things alone: he must do his own believing and his own dying.” Let’s see how the first helps us with the second.

Why nonbelievers fear death

It’s human nature to fear the unknown. The dread we feel that keeps us from venturing into a cave where a predator is waiting is a God-given response that may save our lives.

Even when our lives are not at risk, we understandably fear what we cannot predict. From going to a new school to beginning a new job or moving to a new city, we are naturally apprehensive of the future.

Death, of course, is the greatest unknown. Nonbelievers do not believe anyone has ever come back from the other side, so they have no empirical way to know what happens when we die. Do we simply cease to exist? Are we reincarnated? Do we spend eternity in heaven? In hell?

However, our post-Christian society has devised a solution. Postmodernism has taught us that our reality is the reality. Truth is “our truth.” Therefore, if we don’t believe there is an afterlife, we don’t need to be concerned with an afterlife. The man who declared to me “I don’t believe in hell” was convinced that his opinion settled the matter.

“I consider eternity as another possibility”

This is illogical in the extreme, of course. Denying that cancer exists doesn’t keep me from getting cancer.

Even more, this is a satanic deception. Our enemy wants nothing more than to delude us into thinking we don’t need what Jesus came to give. We are unlikely to repent of our sins and seek forgiveness if we don’t think we need to repent of our sins or seek forgiveness. We would not turn to Christ as our Lord if we do not need a Lord. If we can be our own god (Genesis 3:5), we’ll try to be our own god.

The poet Mary Oliver wrote: “When death comes / like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, / I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: / what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?” As a result, she continues, “I look upon time as no more than an idea, / and I consider eternity as another possibility.”

She concludes: “When it’s over, I want to say all my life / I was a bride married to amazement. / I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. / When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder / if I have made of my life something particular and real. / I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened / or full of argument. / I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”

Nor do I. Nor do you, I suspect. But her plan for being “married to amazement” and “taking the world into my arms” is to “consider eternity as another possibility.” If we see eternity as only a “possibility,” we will assuredly not be ready when we experience it as a reality.

Are you a practical universalist?

I hope you do not share nonbelievers’ agnosticism or atheism with regard to death and eternity. If you are not certain that you have made Jesus your Savior and Lord, please turn to him today. (For answers to frequent questions about Jesus and a way to trust him for salvation, please see my website article, “Why Jesus?”)

As we have seen, one of Satan’s great deceptions is convincing lost people that they are not lost. A second deception is convincing Christians that lost people are not truly lost.

Based on the clear teaching of Scripture (cf. John 14:6; Acts 4:12; John 3:18; Revelation 20:15), we may agree theologically that lost people need Jesus. But if we are not taking the risk to share Christ with them, our actions betray our supposed convictions.

In this case, we are practical universalists. We are not so certain that our lost neighbors, friends, and family members need Jesus to avoid hell and go to heaven that we are willing to share God’s love with them.

Here we face one more satanic deception: that sharing the gospel is “imposing” our beliefs on others. Postmodern secularists have convinced many Christians that tolerance is the highest value, that telling people they risk eternity separated from God in hell is intolerant and bigoted.

In fact, it is just the opposite. Sharing God’s love in Christ offers others the greatest gift they could ever receive. It is giving people the only key that opens the door to heaven. It is sharing the cure for spiritual cancer with people who are dying of the disease whether they know it or not.

We will say more tomorrow about what happens to Christians when we die. For now, would you ask God to help you help someone you know be ready to die today?

Denison Forum