Not So Random Thoughts
Not so Random Thoughts, a ministry of Brian Bailey at ThreshingFloorMinistry.com. Please see our books from Brian: Ruth A Guide for Life’s Troubled Times, A Great Cloud of Witnesses Series ** Series 1 A Great Cloud, ** Series 2 Why Narnia Matters, and Sacred Treasurers; Broken Clay Grace in the Extreme.
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'″Government is asking us to render unto Caesar what properly belongs to God and we can’t do that.'″ Archbishop Charles Chaput
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“We can only give thanks for all things when we trust that God is in all things. In fact, we can trust that God is in all things, even the mean and difficult circumstances.” JOSEPH, A LIFE OF PROVIDENCE, INJUSTICE AND FORGIVENESS
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One of the dangers of focusing so much on our particular besetting sin or sins (Anger, lust, envy, greed etc.) is that we can slide into the mindset that we merely need to conquer THAT sin. Once that sin is ‘controlled’ we are on our way spiritually. This is a mistaken notion. Sin is a Kraken with multiple arms to entangle and wrap around us. Sin is our very nature in need of redemption and rebirth. It is not one or a few behaviors that need to be modified or eradicated, our very nature needs to be changed.
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The Paula Dean controversy is instructive for the conservative Christian community. Paula Dean is being excoriated due to the admission, among some other actions, of using a racial slur. My purpose is not to defend her actions (but lets be honest, racial slurs are not the purview of any one race, it is just that there is hypocrisy here in this brouhaha ) but that Christians who speak on on current issues and advocate a position that is at variance with political correctness can ultimately expect the same treatment or worse. The early Christians faced this problem over the issue of Caesar worship; they could not in good conscience burn incense to a statue of the current Caesar and call him ‘Lord’. Today the statue of Caesar is replaced with an altar of politically accepted positions and speech. We will be increasingly subject to intolerance and animus for our positions and we should not be surprised. Let me be very clear in this: I do not believe Paula Dean’s problems are in any way faith-related. To the extent that Christians take stands openly and unashamedly for their faith we will face a culture that is increasingly and vociferously intolerant and hostile. In Jesus’ parable of the sower he spoke of seeds falling on ground, growing up quickly but unable to withstand the blistering heat of suffering or persecution. We pray Lord that we would be the seeds that put down deep roots and produced fruit for the Kingdom.
“Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:11,12 RSV)
“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. But all this they will do to you on my account, because they do not know him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me hates my Father also. (John 15:18-23 RSV)
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On this Friday we call ‘Good’ by this time Jesus is already crucified. What did Jesus see while he was nailed there dying? He saw his mother, John and a few others of his family and friends. There were the other two men on crosses, perhaps he could see them; we know he could hear them. The Pharisees and their ilk were there as well, enjoying their triumph, mocking him with contempt and cruelty. Of course there were a few soldiers, those who had actually performed the dirty work of the Jewish leaders, the mob and Pilate. Was the man who helped carry his cross still there? Perhaps Jesus could see people coming and going on a nearby road, hardly paying him any attention at all. Crucifixion was a common and grisly sight seen far, far too many times in Israel.
He could not see his Father; a separation, a barrier of the totality of man’s sin laid in-between Jesus and Yahweh God.
Could he see us? Could Jesus see those of us down through the ages that have, through his grace and mercy, clung to that cross? Could he see all the sins that are our shame, washed away by his blood, washed clean, washed white? Could he see? “…looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2) Yes, he could see beyond the suffering and he willingly suffered and died, for us. He did so that we would never be separated from the Father again. He has satisfied God’s rightful wrath against sin.
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We do know that Joseph successfully resisted the immoral advances of Potiphar’s wife, For Joseph’s part, God’s law even though not yet fully detailed in legal code by Moses, was paramount as opposed to situational ethics or even tacitly approved societal behaviors. Egyptian women were not known for being faithful or chaste. In maintaining a moral law Joseph knew that there were inherent temporal risks. He knew that his master’s wife could find many other ways to abuse him other than imprisonment as he continued to resist her advances. With his excellent character Joseph was willing to face, in the light of eternity, adverse temporal consequences to keep the moral law of God. It was for eternal truth and eternally correct consequence that he took an adverse temporal stand. Taking temporal unpopular stands, maintaining eternal standards in a temporal world is our lot as Christians. Joseph did not compromise with evil, with sin, and he suffered.
As any society increasingly cast God aside the more Christians stand faithful to eternal truth we are seen as obstructionist at least and criminal enemies of the state at worst. Given the moral decline, more like a headlong rush, in the Western culture we will encounter Joseph-like experiences where we choose obedience to God as opposed to capitulation to a culture devoid of God-consciousness.
Salvation from sin for us is free. Discipleship however entails taking up our cross, denying ourselves in following Christ plain and simple. Following Christ most simply means that we do not follow ourselves. If I am to be a disciple, my heart can only house one throne-chair and one altar. Jesus will only inhabit the throne-chair and my place is on the altar, if I am to be a disciple. Discipleship, for us, is not free; it has great cost.
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The Book of Jonah tells us that when Jonah rebelled against God’s clear command to go preach repentance to Nineveh that “…God appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah” and place him in solitary confinement for three days. Perhaps our greatest earthly fear is the idea of being swallowed by a creature. Doubtless Jonah was absolutely terrified and knew it was all over. What Jonah thought was his life’s end was only an interlude before achieving his great mission in life once he was willing to obey God. What appeared to be a final judgment was a severe, yet merciful, discipline. This particular discipline and affliction was carefully chosen for Jonah with all the wisdom at the disposal of He who created all visible and invisible. Think about that point for a moment: the fish was appointed; it was a sovereign, divine selection of God for Jonah’s ultimate good. This brings up the point that often what is for our ultimate good is not for our immediate happiness. We all will get swallowed by one of life’s fishes; each ‘fish’ carefully selected by our Father who gives what is best for us, in the light of eternity. God either will take us out of the fish in this life or in our transition into the next. The fish was an instrument of sanctification; it was to foster obedience. You, the reader may be in a fish for reasons that have nothing to do with you disobeying; but it is for sanctification, to make you more like Jesus.
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Joseph certainly did not choose two more years in prison. “…the forms of suffering we experience are not ‘electives’.“ Suffering is appointed for God’s own purposes.
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If we examine the life of the patriarch Job, we see the example made clearly of the man who suffered at the hands of what would commonly be called nature or natural forces as well as the evil of man. Thieves stole his flocks, killed his servants and a strong wind tore down a house and killed his children. We notice that these events fell like the blows of a hammer, one, two, three, four in one day. In the space of time of less than 5 minutes Job was told all these things by surviving servants.
Now we know because of what we see at the beginning of Chapter 1 (in the book of Job) that these events, still ultimately under the authority and permission of God, were orchestrated by the Evil One. The critical point is that Satan was allowed to afflict Job so far and no further. On the face of it we see that Job is something of a cosmic wager, a bet between Satan and God. That of course raises a whole host of questions. Frankly it is easy for us to feel, dare I say, demeaned by such an event.
We can respond one of two ways to these events. We can respond, frankly, in anger. We can question the actions and motives of God; we can also step in front of a speeding train. Neither is a good course of action. Job certainly at the onset of all of these events could have cursed God and died, as his wife would later urge him to do. However, Job responded both in ritual mourning and worship. So our initial response can also be that of Job: we can honor God when the events of our lives seem dishonorable. We can trust, in the face of what we humanly call terrible events, that God is both fully sovereign, that He is good yet honestly acknowledge that He is also in so many cases inscrutable. In fact, that God is sovereign and good and inscrutable, ultimately is the only answer that is given to Job in chapters 38-42. God did not explain himself to Job; He did not allow Job to call him into account for events under His sovereign control. God did not permit Job to have the luxury of thinking that God was accountable to Job.
God is not an elected official that we can question His motives. Conversely it is no dishonor to God when we are confused about events or do not understand and if we struggle with our faith. There is a world of difference between telling God that we don’t understand what is going on verses accusing Him of treating us undeservedly or unfairly.
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A great lesson from the life of Joseph the patriarch is that for the believer God is still good, even in the dark. God is still and always for His children.
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Pensive, Doubting, Fearful Heart (Part 4)
Though afflicted, tempest tossed
Comfortless awhile thou art
Do not think thou can be lost
Thou art graven on my heart
All thy wastes I will repair
Thou shalt be rebuilt anew
And in thee it shall appear
What the God of love can do.
The true, full hope of all is the God who makes all things new.” If any man be in Christ he is a new creature old things are passed away behold all things are become new, “( 2 Corinthians 5:17 KJV). He takes what we are to make us as we were meant to be.
We long for a fresh start, a renewal, to turn a new leaf, to reboot our lives because we know we get off course. We see what we are and we contrast it to where we might like to be. The love of God can work wonderful changes. All of Scripture shows how God can change that which is base into that which is precious. Rebuilding and renewal is not easy or painless; rebuilding, re-creation is spiritual surgery. Spiritual surgery is the cutting with a scalpel on our souls yet the surgeon cuts carefully. He wields the scalpel with our ultimate (not short-term) good in mind. “All thy wastes I will repair,” no truer words were ever spoken into a life that of John Newton. The same waste repairing love is available today. Our hearts may feel hopeless, fearful or as the hymn reads pensive and doubting. What is hopeless to us is nothing to God. Our greatest dilemma is His easiest child’s play. “Look! The hand of Yahweh is not too short to save, and his ear is not too dull to hear.” (Isaiah 59:1 Lexham English Bible).
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Pensive, Doubting, Fearful Heart (Part 3)
We easily push back against strong spiritual food and thought. We shrink away from those things, those truths that are hard because we naturally drift towards easiness and comfortableness. There may be times of relative ease and relaxation and these are mercies of God that interrupt the times of testing and growth. This tends to puncture the balloon that is our self-centeredness, but after all, this is our Father’s world, not ours. We may be the crown of His creation but the crown is an instrument of His glory and we wisely dispense self-worship to worship the head that figuratively wears us as His crown. We are still the created tasked to worship the creator; not the other way around.
Why am I boring down on this issue of creation, the creature and the crown? We are fallen and alienated from God; unless Christ saves us to worship the triune God we worship the god of ourselves. Eternity rides on the shoulders of whichever God we worship. A deep Jesus, deep theology and a deep life keeps us in our proper place.
We are examining the work of John Newton that reformed libertine slave-trader magnificently saved, to see a powerful hymn rich in Godly wisdom, culled from God’s own word. We don’t have a deep life and thought with God unless we are willing to look carefully at scripture as well as examine the strong words of those who have gone before us in this faith. The arrogance of our age is that, in comparison to people of an earlier time, our problems and struggles are unique so they have little to teach us. Obviously our world does move in an increasingly faster pace, there is no dispute there but the basic brokenness of who we are is not different. We are still broken sinners with hard lives. John Newton wrote this hymn to broken sinners living hard lives two centuries ago so the words still speak deep Bible truth into our lives. We are wise if we listen and learn.
This is the first verse of Pensive, Doubting Fearful Heart:
Pensive, doubting, fearful heart
Hear what Christ the Savior says
Every word should joy impart
Change thy mourning into praise
Yes, He speaks and speaks to thee
May He help thee to believe
Then thou presently will see
Thou has little cause to grieve
The first words, the title of the hymn speak wonderful, gracious and kind truth to us. “What?!” you say. What can possibly be uplifting about a heart that is pensive, a heart that doubts or is in fear? “Hear what Christ the Savior says…” Oh don’t you see what is right in your face? These are words of comfort! Put another way: when you are fearful, when you doubt and feel pensive Jesus will speak to you and into your life at those times. Please allow me to pull an example of how Jesus handled a contemporary with weak, struggling faith.
One person who struggled was John the Baptist. Yes it is true, John had a dark night of the soul even knowing all that he experienced and saw. We find in Matthew 11 :1-14 that John is in prison for speaking the truth about the evil actions of Herod the tetrarch. As John has languished he engages in a very normal human exercise of ‘did I put my ladder against the wrong wall?’ Who can blame him? The Baptist knows he is living on borrowed time.
“Are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another?” This is the question for Jesus as John contemplates the end of this life. Jesus responds with a mild rebuke a reminder of Messianic scripture John knows full well yet he also gives warm praise and affirmation for John. All of this to encourage John to trust what he has seen and what he knows is right. Jesus does not cut John off but shows love in this terrible time of suffering for John. He allows him to be a human sinner, to be broken, to have questions and to doubt. Jesus does not leave John in this place of doubt and confusion but rather graciously meets John there at the place of fear and doubt. Christ does this for us today. I know, He has met me in dark hours.
Jesus spoke of faith, mustard seed sized, because He knows our limitations. He knows we are a spiritual work in progress. Isaiah, the prophet, saw a Messiah who would not break the bruised reed or extinguish the sputtering wick. He is a shepherd who knows sheep were made for a shepherd to care for them in the grand scheme of things. Does he want you to stay perpetually in and wallow in a state of doubt and fear? No. No Jesus wants to grow us further, to a place where we trust Him more and more still.
Pensive, doubting, fearful heart. Jesus would bring us to a place of joy, of trust and peace and this is a lifetime journey. In this road we will have both strong and weak moments and our Savior knows that. Whatever the moment, be we weak or strong Jesus is there with us. He is our shield and strong deliverer.
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Pensive, Doubting, Fearful Heart (Part 2)
Though afflicted, tempest tossed
Comfortless awhile thou art
Do not think thou can be lost
Thou art graven on my heart
All thy wastes I will repair
Thou shalt be rebuilt anew
And in thee it shall appear
What the God of love can do.
So often, events overtake the writer as we do our writing. As I scribe today, terrible events in Africa bring us painfully back to 9/11 as the hateful hand of radical Islam strikes to kill again. In Luke 24 we see the narrative of the Emmaus road trip on Easter Sunday. “Do you not know about the events going on these days?” asked the disappointed and emotionally crushed disciples when Jesus queries them on their discussion. Yes, God knows of the events; what takes us by surprise does not take God by surprise. In one regard, the Islamist have scored a victory in our land; they have pulled away the illusions of insulation from suffering and fears that cloud the rest of the globe. We feel today, eleven years and two days after 9.11.01 at risk and in danger; the threat is not removed. “Though afflicted, tempest tossed…” we read in the hymn. Tempest tossed we are, by rumors of war, by economic uncertainty, by elections, by whatever creates your personal maelstrom.
The greatest danger to us all is not Islam, nor is it the economy, the election, illness; it is not these at all. The greatest danger is ignoring the fact that if we are not graven on the heart of Christ we are dead in our sins. The old saying “beauty is skin deep but ugly goes to the bone” has some sense of the idea. If we survive these issues of terrorism, economic need and the election but have not Christ (Or perhaps better put, if He does not have us) All is useless.
Our only true and lasting hope is to be graven on His heart. If we are truly His, then, through His grace we can be strong in our finite weakness. These calamities that shake us to the core as the crucifixion shook to two Emmaus travelers do so because our eyes cannot pierce the vale of tomorrow. As we grow in faith and knowledge He will supply our strength that allows trust and rest in Him in dire circumstances. No one said it would be easy for growth is often painful and stressful. Part of this process is bound up in what Jesus did as he walked with Cleopas and the other traveler: He opened the scriptures to them. Jesus has the eternal words of Life.
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Pensive, Doubting, Fearful Heart (Part 1)
Please read the parable of the Sower with me found in Matthew 13:
Then he taught them many things by using stories. He said: A farmer went out to scatter seed in a field. While the farmer was scattering the seed, some of it fell along the road and was eaten by birds. Other seeds fell on thin, rocky ground and quickly started growing because the soil wasn’t very deep. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched and dried up, because they did not have enough roots. Some other seeds fell where thornbushes grew up and choked the plants. But a few seeds did fall on good ground where the plants produced a hundred or sixty or thirty times as much as was scattered. If you have ears, pay attention! (Matthew 13:3-9CEV)
Please look closely at verse 6 “But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched and dried up, because they did not have enough roots.” I also direct you to verses 20 and 21 “The seeds that fell on rocky ground are the people who gladly hear the message and accept it right away. But they don’t have deep roots, and they don’t last very long. As soon as life gets hard or the message gets them in trouble, they give up. (CEV)” Do you understand what Jesus is saying here? To be spiritually mature and reproductive you need deep roots in the spiritual soil. Shallow roots are deadly. An unfortunate aspect of our day is that people think in terms of sound-bites (thank you network news) and catchy phrases. Jesus is telling us we need to go beyond this shallowness to depth, to thinking. Today we often drink spiritual and intellectual milk when we need strong, solid food.
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. (Hebrews 5:12-14)
So the message is GROW UP! You don’t reach your full physical potential by eating Gerbers all of your life. If the parable of the sower has any lesson it is the following: we need deep roots to grow in faith. We need a deep Jesus, deep theology about Jesus and a deep life. A shallow Jesus, shallow theology about Jesus and a shallow life will not cut it when the heat of suffering and or persecution comes.
Strong food, we find it in the Bible and we find it in deep theological works that challenge us to move beyond triteness. Music is a venue for mature spiritual thought as well. For a post or two (maybe three) I wish to unpack some wisdom in the following hymn by John Newton. To state the obvious, hymns are not inspired scripture but meaningful hymns are based on inspired scripture.
Pensive, Doubting, Fearful Heart
John Newton
Pensive, doubting, fearful heart
Hear what Christ the Savior says
Every word should joy impart
Change thy mourning into praise
Yes, He speaks and speaks to thee
May He help thee to believe
Then thou presently will see
Thou has little cause to grieve
Fear thou not, nor be ashamed
All thy sorrows soon shall end
I, who heaven and earth have framed
Am thy Husband and thy Friend
I, the High and Holy One
Israel’s God, by all adored
As thy Savior will be known
Thy Redeemer and thy Lord
For a moment I withdrew
And thy heart was filled with pain
But my mercies I’ll renew
Thou shall soon rejoice again
Though I seem to hide my face
Very soon my wrath shall cease
‘Tis but for a moment’s space
Ending in eternal peace
Though afflicted, tempest tossed
Comfortless awhile thou art
Do not think thou can be lost
Thou art graven on my heart
All thy wastes I will repair
Thou shalt be rebuilt anew
And in thee it shall appear
What the God of love can do.
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As I thought and meditated on August 29, 2012 with it now 22 years since my son Charles passed away, there were a few thoughts I wanted to share with my family and friends; concepts and truths that God gave we in and after hard times. The glory in all of this belongs to the Yahweh-God.
First–We need the body of believers; STAY IN THEIR MIDST. Some will make foolish comments in an attempt to make sense of what is most often incomprehensible. Stay put for the wise others placed in your path. Second–You are not alone; there are others who have suffered in similar ways and understand greatly the pain in your heart and soul. Third–God will not abandon you. Even if your world crashes He is there. You may feel anything but that truth of His abiding presence. We see in the Old Testament book of Ruth that God often moves behind the scenes. Read Proverbs 3:5, 6; this passage is not trite but His inspired word. It is important to ask for trust when life is the darkest. We, in our simple humanity long for answers to these greatest issues. T he way that you trust may be different than me. As your work through stages of grief God can handle any anger you may have. Read the psalms; David could pitch a fit. God called David a man after his own heart.
Lastly, for the sake of your soul, please understand ambiguity is a part of this life. If you think God is going to always answer the WHY question you will be disappointed. God is both sovereign and often inscrutable. In personal terms this means that I have no divine understanding as to the WHY of Charles’s brief life. In these times where God and His workings are a mystery we must, WE MUST (yes, I am shouting at you) lean on what we know of His character. “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart and lean not unto thy own understanding…” It is as simple as what we said years ago in the lunchroom as a prayer: God is great, God is good let us thank Him for our food. There is truly deep theology in this. What will comfort us when the WHY is hidden is that we know based on the inspired Word…God is great, God is good. When God told Abram that He would destroy Sodom Abram asked an incredible, cheeky question, on the face of it. “Shall not the king of all the earth do right?” Yes, yes He is right and He does right. He will do right, in out lives.
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Truly effective Christ honoring evangelism is not found in presenting God as a dispenser of happiness and contentment for this life but in presenting the reality and penalty for our sin and the remedy found only in Jesus. There is a hell and damnation reality so easily glossed over in the church. People hate ‘hell-fire and damnation’ preaching but perhaps that is what our culture needs. In our day we have lost our sense of sin and sinfulness. We have lost sight of how offensive our rebellion truly is. God is love and He is also good. Love requires goodness, love requires justice and equity. “What’s the big deal?” you ask. The mantra of our age is “do not judge me; do not call my attitudes or behavior into account. I will do what I feel is right.” If we read the book of Judges (how appropriate) the word of God shows us the spiritual and societal chaos that this mind-set produces. Read the last few verses of Judges; does it sound familiar? Using our own judgment as to whether a course of action or an attitude is good, is sin, if we ignore God’s revealed will. A person who is not open to moral and spiritual correction has the same mindset of a person who refuses to go to a doctor or dentist for regular check-ups and/or not heed their medical and dental recommendations. Moral and spiritual correction spoken into our lives is a mark of loving mercy. The doctor or the dentist who tells you that your health is bad or placing you in mortal danger is not being cruel; they are doing their job. To tell a person that their soul is in danger is a loving compassionate action and our culture has it all wrong. Loving parents correct the actions and behavior of their children and do not let them run wild. “Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you. So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him.” (Deuteronomy 8:5, 6) It is spiritually fatal to ignore that sin has eternal consequences. Evangelism that ignores eternal peril is not loving; this idea seems so counter-church-culture today but it is true nonetheless.
Isaiah, when confronted with the reality of his sinful culpability before God was filled with despair. To be sure, a sense of sinfulness and guiltiness alone drives us to despair and further from God if we focus alone on guilt and sinfulness. The answer to that despair was forgiveness for sin and the cleansing of sin. The point of raising the issue of our sin ultimately is to drive us to the solution, the remedy. The remedy is to trust Christ for the payment of all of our sins and submit to His rule in all our attitudes and actions. In the constellation that is the Creator and all of His creation, the characteristic sun that all celestial bodies of creation, humankind and sin, history and grace, providence and redemption, all revolve around the sun which is the glorious, characteristic goodness and holiness of God. The fire of that sun of holiness would consume me in my sin. Mercifully, from that sun of holiness issues love and grace, redemption and forgiveness that, as with Isaiah, the fire touches my lips to take away my iniquity and purge my sin. As Isaiah, we must see our sin and understand that our sin is a wall between ourselves and God. Our lips are unclean. Once we recognize that we are alienated from God, that we are dead in our trespasses and sins, then our hearts can cry out for forgiveness and re-creation.
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Modern medicine can eradicate pain on a level never known before in our history. In the developed nations we do not endure the common pains of just a century ago. Yet it seems in the realm of the soul (our heart-emotions and mind) that the relief we have for the body is lacking. Oh we try to medicate through addictions and so forth but the pain is still there. Why is there no corollary soul relief to the physical pain relief? CS Lewis told us pain was a megaphone that we might hear God speak to us. We are dead in our trespasses and sin; we need God to intervene in our lives to bring us to repentance, birth from above and the empowering of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Are our earthly needs important? Yes, as He feeds the birds of the air He will provide. Our soul need is infinitely greater as we are eternal souls in this body-tent. Our pain opens a channel to God that our pleasure otherwise closes. posted TFM, F and Jesus Daily 8.3.12
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The great God, Yahweh, who created all that is, ex-nihilo, does not need our help for anything in His work. Yahweh is self-sufficient in all matters. Still, He chooses to bring us into the field as workers in His kingdom. To be sure, He can do it all by Himself with much less fuss but this does not suit His purpose for us. Like a parent teaching their child to wash dishes, their instruction is far slower than the parent simply cleaning the dishes themselves. It takes inspection and supervision on the part of the parent to insure they clean properly. But their instruction is a necessary exercise for learning adult tasks; cleaning in a small way moves the child closer to adulthood. Working in God’s vineyard moves us to spiritual maturity.
God’s kingdom work does not need my writing or any other writer’s work to drive the good news home. He does not need the Rector’s preaching. He does not need the congregants sharing their faith to reach this world with the Gospel. This gospel, or good news, is the message that God forgives sin for those who trust Christ and heals their brokenness. His desire is for our healing through Christ recreating himself in our lives, this happens in joy, trials and suffering, in the frustrations of our own sin and those of others in the church. We are like those small children learning to wash dishes: the use of our gifts and time for the kingdom of Yahweh is halting, unsure and certainly not spotless. In learning to wash the dishes, spiritually, we move to the mature character of Christ; we learn spiritually mature joy.
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“To suggest that the merciful, longsuffering, gracious and loving God of the Bible would invent a dreadful doctrine like Calvinism, which would have us believe it is an act of ‘grace’ to select only certain people for heaven and, by exclusion, others for hell, comes perilously close to blasphemy.” – Tim LaHaye .
Calvinism is not a doctrine but a construct for a series of doctrines. How can God be sovereign in the affairs of men (which LaHaye gives assent to since he believes Jesus will return AT A TIME SET BY THE FATHER) and yet non-sovereign in the hearts of men? If God be not sovereign how do we explain the entire Old Testament? In truth, the OT is the playground of God’s sovereignty. As we move into the New Testament we see God’s sovereign will, expressed in the Old, brought to culmination with the cross, the resurrection, the age of the church and the promise of the certain return of Christ to judge and recreate this broken world.
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“We must run with patience, or we shall never obtain. There may be many things we cannot understand, much that the flesh could perhaps wish otherwise, but let us endure unto the end, and all shall be made clear, and God’s arrangements shall be proved best. Think not to have your reward on earth, do not draw back because your good things are all yet to come. Today is the cross, but tomorrow is the crown. Today is the labor, but tomorrow is the wages. Today is the sowing, but tomorrow is the harvest. Today is the battle, but tomorrow is the rest. Today is the weeping, but tomorrow is the joy. And what is today compared to tomorrow? Today is but seventy years, but tomorrow is eternity. Be patient and hope unto the end.”
~ J.C. Ryle Tract: The Christian Race
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How little we know our father YAHWEH* because we are in constant motion. To truly know the God of Abraham, to truly unite with Him, to learn His ways and ultimate ‘true’ Truth is not achieved through busyness. To know, to unite, to learn requires stillness. “Be still and know that I am God (Yahweh)…”Ps 46:10
I use the name-Yahweh- the “I am who I am” of Moses. He is the first person of the trinity. He is the God of scripture. He is our creator and we are His creation.
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Anything we are willing to sacrifice our integrity for or anything we disobey God to do or have has become an idol we worship.
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There are pre-fab houses; there are no pre-fab mature believers. God produces the character of Jesus in us, one life at a time, in all the days of our lives, with His own hands.
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(Note, Please read the story of Gideon found inJudges 6,7) “….When the Lord reduces our resources from ‘32,000 to 300,’ it is not punishment. It is preparation for Him to be glorified through our lives as we acknowledge and trust His power.”
From OUR DAILY BREAD 3.8.12
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Speaking for myself, an increasing concern I have had for sometime is that our society is quickly moving to silence any speech that espouses a view out of the mainstream of the current culture through political correctness and laws to curb what is designated as hate speech. When we stiffle speech and debate we take very large steps towards totalitarianism. Popularity of a position on an issue does not make that position moral or right. A good example of a popular idea put into practice that was immoral was the imprisonment of the Japanese Americans during World War Two. Any people that define morality by popularity or government mandate run the risk of enslavement; if not the total society certainly portions of that society.
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When we study the doctrine of Providenceas it relates to the life of Joseph, the purpose is not to ‘make’ more Calvinists. Neither Calvinism nor Arminianism saves us. In any theological discussion we want to point people to the triune God, that they need the soul-saving grace of Jesus the Christ. We want to see them transformed by the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives as Jesus’ character is created in them. This is not to marginalize theology in the least. Good theology is the AAA map that shows us the character of God and His purposes and good theology brings us to Jesus. The critical question for us before all else is: are you born from above, not the precise manner in which you are born from above. In other words…who is your spiritual daddy? Jesus said we must be born from above. Until we have either come to faith or not, so very little else matters.
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A dividing line between orthodox Christianity and virtually all other religions is that those others do not adhere to the truth of Original Sin. The remedy for our brokenness is not in us and we cannot heal ourselves by goodness, knowledge or sacrifice. His grace is given as an act of realism; He knows our inability.
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For our faith to answer the needs of the world it needs not only to lift us up when we are enthralled in worship with others but also to lift us up when we are weary, when the day seems long.
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The calendar reads “Friday, January 13, 2012”. My life is in the hand of God, not a date on paper.
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It could be that our greatest evidence of faith in Jesus is following the injunction of 1 Thessalonians 5:18: “give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (ESV) “…in all circumstances,” that phrase can really snag us. It takes little faith to show gratitude to Jesus when the way is easy, but when the way is hard, that can be another matter entirely. It means being thankful when we see everything but goodness and mercy around us. Giving thanks in all circumstances is the practical living out of Romans 8:28. It is trusting God works all events for our good; it is walking by faith, not by sight. Our own strength to do this work of trust is not enough.
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Our deep need is to pray that we might love Jesus more than we love ourselves. This prayer is dangerous in a sense because it puts my self-love on notice. If I give my self-love the position it desires it will sit enthroned in my heart. In my heart there is an altar and a throne. My proper place is the altar as a living sacrifice. A believer’s maturity comes through sacrifice of self or self-effacement, not self-authentication. Christian maturity is not found in standing on our rights to self but in loosing our rights to self, giving them up to our heavenly Father. It is not about our nature but our nurture, or, perhaps better spoken, our re-nature. This re-nature and the cost to my self-nature, frightens my self-love. But there is no other option granted. Christ gave his life for us on the altar that was Calvary. In my heart are an altar and a throne. Jesus will only reside in my heart if he sits on the throne; my place in my heart is the altar.
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So many people that I know are experiencing truly hard times: lost jobs, health issues, cutbacks, more out-of-pocket expense for benefits and the list grows. It is easy to get angry and grow bitter, frustrated. I have struggled with these hard emotions. However, as believers we cannot stay in the place of anger and bitterness because we have a sovereign God who rules this world. He reigns in our lives and has a purpose in mind with all events he causes or permits. He has said he will never desert us, that all life events work for our spiritual good and that no calamity can separate us from His love. Sometimes, even to cling to these truths like a life-raft takes His strength in us. Why all this calamity upon us, upon me? I do know this: For my life the worldly props have been knocked out from underneath me and I am all the more dependent on my Father who gives bread not stones when we ask. I am being taught to trust and oh, at times, I do not like it one wit. It is hard to learn that our ultimate security is not in jobs, property, mutual funds or our 401k. No, security is not in these transitory things which can be lost in a moment but in the unseen, invisible that is eternal. When we focus on the eternal, “Give us this day our DAILY bread…” becomes all the more real. Our security is in God our Father.
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The heart of un-grace is the attempt to usurp God’s right to say what is holy and proper in our lives and in the lives of others. Un-grace quickly comes to the place where we use our own constructs and rules to make ourselves more holy than those around us. The core of this apple is pride. It is a self-deceptive pride that does not allow for an honest evaluation of our relationship to God.
The previous was a quote from my most recent book: Sacred Treasurers; Broken Clay – Grace in the Extreme.
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There is a hunger today in the church for developing a logical, comprehensible and cogent definition of a Christian/Godly World View. This is a good and needed enterprise as the American church in broad terms has been passionate about birthing new Christians but often woefully deficient in helping to grow or develop these babies into spiritual adulthood. Spiritual babies are like human babies in that as newborns they are not self-sufficient but incredibly dependent on nurture and parenting. Just as families set expectations for behavior for their young so a Christian World View is critical to set a philosophy for behavior for the Christian. Francis Shaeffer posed the idea in the title of a book: How Should We Then Live? Perhaps in its’ simplest terms a Christian World View is bound up in the idea: this is my Father’s world and He is my Father. My Father has the right of rule over me and the creation. Is this an oversimplification of the Christian World View? Maybe but the onus is placed on us to seek Him to find out what He wants us to do. A proper longing to recognize His right to authority will lead us to His word that we might learn both His character and His will. God has the right to set expectations.
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Can we say that the reason some people reject Christianity (or the straw man they have created and call Christianity) is that they start to read scripture with enthusiasm but run aground on its requirements? To give an example of the problem, Jesus tells us lustful longing is adultery and this snares us for we know that we are guilty. Anyone with any sense of honesty sees our inability even in this area alone to comply with the letter and intent of the Law. Throw hatred into the mix, or coveting and we have murder and stealing growing in our hearts. This idea that we can just obey what we read in the law of Moses and the law of Jesus is crazy. We can’t because we are simply not able to do so by ourselves. This is where, religion-wise, Christianity separates the men from the boys and the women from the girls: Jesus came to do for us what we simply could never do for ourselves. We could never obey the perfect Law from the git-go, indeed we start out in the hole because we are tainted with sin and broken. More to the point we are dead and cannot perfectly obey; we are born physically alive but spiritually dead and we MUST have that birth from above to make us fully human. So Jesus brings us spiritual birth from above and He places the Holy Spirit in us These two actions, of the birth from above and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, enable us so that we can walk in His footsteps, so that we can grow up.
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We should fear theocracy as it is dangerous and corrupting. Christians become oppressors when they rule; this is a historical fact. We want to show our power and therein lay the problem for us all: it becomes OUR power and authority. Power can corrupt us. Theocratic rule would fill the Church with tares; it did not work in Geneva or in the Colonies. For now, in these last days the rule of Christ rightfully must reside in our hearts and lives. The Nicene Creed tells us He will come again in glory to settle accounts.
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The only true peace we can know in this life, the peace most continuous here on earth, is in the daily presence with the Father. Separated from God, any peace in this life is circumstantial and fleeting at best. The Evil One would grasp us by the heel and drag us into the quicksand of fear and despair. But when we sit in our prayer closets with God He renews Heaven’s peace within us. Granted, in our humanness, peace seems to run through our fingers like water but He is always read to give us more.
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The heart and soul of grace is God reaching down from the height of His throne in Heaven to this rebellious planet to do those necessary acts which allow a relationship with us. Grace is found in His tender treatment that knows the limitations of our spiritual abilities as He Himself, came down here to interact with us. Perhaps a glimmer of understanding of grace is found in the writings of the prophet Isaiah when he said, “…a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.” (Isaiah 42:3) All of us are bruised and broken spiritually and the flame of our spirit seems to be a barely glowing ember, burning out. Grace brings healing and relights the fire of our souls.”
From my newest book – Sacred Treasurers; Broken Clay – Grace in the Extreme
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“When life overwhelms us with darkness and we cannot see what you are doing, when events are incomprehensible, help us to remember Joseph, the patriarch. Enslaved and then a prisoner from ages seventeen to thirty, roughly half of his life to that point, Father, you held him in your hands. You have not told us to what degree he struggled with discouragement over what befell him. We know that life circumstances that would seem cruel in fact were necessary preparation for his greatest and most effective calling. We can only infer that, on the whole, Joseph trusted you; even perhaps on only his best days. Please encourage us in Joseph. As you were with him as a slave and in prison please be with us. When life caves in around about our heads please don’t leave us comfortless. As the old hymn proclaimed, ‘We need thee every hour!’ ” 1
1 Annie S Hawks, Robert Lowery, (1872), I Need Thee Every Hour, public domain
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In Christ we are new creations, born from above, being made into little Christ’s. He takes the twisted, the broken, those of us wrapped and tangled in ourselves and speaks, newness, healing and joy into our lives. Not all scars of this earth are erased nor are all illnesses of body and soul necessarily cured, but there is enough that we have life altering joy. Jesus asked for harvesters of souls and when the birth from above comes and the renewal begins we run to the fields to work out of joy. If there is no hunger in our hearts to run and skip as children to the mission field, which is merely a step in any direction, then are we truly made new or are we self-deceived? If we have no desire to share the gospel then we must ask ourselves if we have truly and effectively trusted in the gospel. One thing is certain beyond any question: the good news of Jesus, once God gives you ears to hear it, will not leave you as you were.
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“Who was the most faithful child of God in the Old Testament? Most likely, this most faithful God-lover was an unknown person (to us) during the 400 hundred year period of slavery and destitution after Joseph before Moses. This person believed God and trusted His character when the circumstances pointed to anything but a God of love possessing compassionate concern for His children.”
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The World has had a belly full of Christian talk. We must be and then we must act because Christ’s kingdom has come within our lives. Our calling is that of an ambassador for Jesus. Ambassadors look after the affairs of their birth-nation not their own personal ones. All too often the reverse has been true so much so that now our message is ignored. We have become a freak of spiritual nature: we talk like a duck but we look like and hop like a frog. Frog is as frog does and we can call ourselves a duck till the cows come home but to the world, we are a fraud…(Freudian slip, frog not fraud, I think not. We appear as frauds.)
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It seems that some people would be torn emotionally to tears over the contemplated euthanasia of a beloved pet but have little compunction over the abortion of an infant in the womb. But I suspect this is rare. Every woman I have known (and this is anecdotal, granted) who has had an abortion has suffered terribly over it. To those we must speak repentance and then grace, then peace into their lives. We know some decisions are irrevocable but God’s grace and mercy is deeper than the Mariana’s Trench in the Pacific Ocean. In the oceans of the Earth there is no deeper spot than the Trench and no one can find the bottom of God’s grace.
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Were God to take His grace and convert it to water this grace-water would cover the globe like the flood of Noah. It would touch every corner of this wounded planet. Our temptation is to dole grace out into our lives and often into the lives of others as if it were the rarest of elements on the periodic chart. But our God has so much more than this meager dribble we envision.
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Those who willingly play in pools of self righteousness do not carefully look at their reflection and see their own arrogance and pride before they jump in.
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Are the different denominations, the different points of theology and practice among Christians a point in the case against Christianity? No. The differences rather, make a clear declaration as to the sheer scope and breadth of God’s personality, creativity and interests. His purposes are larger than our denominational branding. It points not to any change in the truth of Scripture but to our myopic confusion born of our own innate brokenness. Different perspectives on the truth do not negate the existence of Absolute Truth that is non-negotiable. That there are issues we disagree on, only shows that we are still not home and there is much yet to learn. There has been and will continue to be honest differences over what God has revealed and we should not be threatened by that. We look through a mirror darkly as Paul told us.
Any morning you get up and walk outside into nature and see the cornucopia of creation you should not only marvel at the complexity of the creation but of the creator. What you see is the stunning array of variety evidenced in the topography of the planet, the plants and animals. Why not an incredible array of people and thought and perspectives? We like variety, is not our desire for variety nothing more than family similarity to God our father? We are like our Daddy. God didn’t want us all alike. Differences should take us by the hand to a place of humility.
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The dark night of the soul comes for us all…Our elder brother Jesus had dark nights too, in the wilderness, in the garden and on the cross. He understands the road we travel when we can see nothing, not the road we travel or the destination. We are told to trust God when afraid (Psalm 56:3) and even then we may have to borrow trust. Many who preceded us have borrowed trust when the road was too dark to see: we can look at Abraham for starters. Make him a nation? Why Abraham was what we would call older than dirt as was Sarah his wife. Joseph did not have a glimmer of understanding until he sat in Pharaoh’s court of God’s purposes that send him to Egypt in chains.
God is greater than our fear, our questions and our innate skepticism that laughs when Jesus tells us things that we simply cannot believe. Jairus and his wife laughed when Jesus told them the child would be healed and raised from the death; but Jesus’ grace covered the laughter of un-faith and worked a miracle. This should encourage us immensely.
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The dating website, beautifulpeople.com, announced it has purged 30,000 members as they do not meet its’ aesthetic standards for physical beauty. What cruelty and what shallow gracelessness. On trial for murdering her two-year old daughter, because the child would interfere with partying, is Casey Anthony here in Florida. The defendant is alleged to have entered ‘hot body’ contests while her child lay dead literally tossed out like garbage. It begs the question as to if Casey, certainly physically beautiful when she is alleged to have suffocated her child, would make the cut for application for this dating website.
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Our problem is that we think William Cowper’s hymn, There is a Fountain Filled with Blood, is meant for either person beside us on the pew but not for ourselves. We do not consider ourselves as vile as the thief on the cross beside Jesus.