Strange Man in a Strange Land

Do I Know You?

2011-10-21T21:15:00.001-07:00

Text- Matthew 7:15-23
(A brief note – much of the idea for this sermon came from M Robert
Mulholland Jr's book Invitation to a Journey: A Roadmap for Spiritual
Formation.)

Rene Descartes famously said, "I think, therefore I am." Popeye said, "I
yam whats I yam, and that's all thats I yam." In reply to Moses'
question of who should he tell the Israelites who sent him, God replied
"I am has sent you." Descartes acknowledged his existence, Popeye his
status, and God His identity. All used the verb of being – is. In the
Latin, Descartes' famous statement is "Cogito, ergo sum." One word, a
verb, makes the statement of existence due to act of thinking. Popeye
the sailor-man uses the verb to say that what he does is who he is, and
that's all he'll be. God however, uses the verb to be, as His name. "I
AM has sent you." In that statement God expresses who He is, what He is,
and that He is, without question. There is no doubt as to the nature of
the being addressing Moses. God is certain of who He is, and who Moses
is. Over that time they develop such a relationship that Moses alone can
meet with God on behalf of God's chosen people.
Identity is a huge thing throughout the Bible, and it is just as big
today. Throughout scripture we see all the lists of genealogy – so and
so the son of such and such; this person was king of this kingdom; that
person was of this peoples. People are always looking to find out who
they are, and they seek it in so many different ways – I'm a republican,
I'm a democrat, I'm a teenager, I'm banker, I'm a mom and the ever
popular, "I'm still trying to find myself." What is it that provides our
identity? It is what we do, who we listen to, who we follow? How do we
know who we are? Christ gives us an answer in scripture, so let's look
there and to Him for direction.

Watch out for false prophets. They come to you
in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious
wolves. By your fruit you will recognize them. Do
people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from
thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit
but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear
bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. (Matt 7:15-19)

We know what an apple tree is. We know it's an apple tree because it
produces apples. Trees are great for explaining the source of identity
because there is no changing with trees. There is only one reason an
apple tree produces apples – because that's what it is. It does what it
does because that's what it is. Identity comes not from what something
does; it is the opposite - Whatever something does comes from what it
is. That's why Christ said "Thus, by their fruit you will recognize
them." (Matt 7:20) Now, Christ was not talking about apple trees, but
about false prophets, but the saying still applies because it's true. We
know what all sorts of things are because of what they produce. We
identify living things by what they do and how they look.
Because we know certain characteristics that have been decided on and
are now named such. Ants are ants because they are small insects that
have a certain shape and size. Lions are lions because they're mammals
that are cats that fit a certain description that has been agreed by us
to be called Lions. Apple trees are called apple trees because God,
through Adam determined that they would be call apples, and so
everything that matches the description is called an apple. Something
interesting to note about all these things – do any of them have control
over what they are? Can a lion say it is no longer a lion? Can an ant
change its identity to be anything other than an ant? Can an apple tree
exercise control over itself and produce oranges or pears? The answer to
these questions is no. The control over the identity of flora and fauna
is not found in themselves, the control is totally external.
We might call things works of art, but do we know what they are
identified individually as? Do we know what the purpose behind each of
these things was? Not unless we talk to object's creator. How many
parents have had a child come home from school with an art project and
asked "What is that?" I once brought home a piece of woodwork from
school and my parents looked at and said "Nice whale…what's it for?" I
proudly informed them that it was key rack – they still use it as such
today. But they didn't know what it was for until I told them. They had
to seek the knowledge of the purpose from the one who made it. Then they
could know its identity – a key rack. With things that are created, when
they don't produce things readily or consistently, we often have to ask
what the thing is so that we can know what it does. Not only that, but
they also, like plants and animals exercise no control over what they are.
We are in that same situation. We have been created – we look to
scripture for confirmation of that. Each of us is made special, and
uniquely by the creator of all. In Jeremiah God refers to himself as the
potter. In John, Christ calls the Father the Gardener. In Psalms, David
praises God who "knit him in his mother's womb." We are that piece of
artwork or pottery that someone looks at and says "What is it?" I look
in the mirror sometimes and ask myself "What is it?" And there is only
one place to go for that answer – the maker.
I think that this might be the point that Christ was getting to in the
second portion of the scripture we're looking at. First He tells us that
we will know false teachers by their fruit. But we don't know what kind
of fruit we are to produce, unless we seek the Gardner. He knows us – He
knows us because He made us, and because of that He knows us even better
than we know ourselves. He knows what fruit we are to produce as well.
We can do all sort of good things because when God created man, He did
make mankind good. However, in the fall poison entered into the root of
mankind and now bad fruit comes forth from us so easily. To get back to
the good fruit – the true fruit, we have to go back to the Maker, the
Gardener for healing.
For us, healing comes through relationship. We have to get to know the
Creator – the Maker or Gardener. We can do all sorts of things that are
good – that's what the people who come to the Lord saying, "Lord, Lord,
did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and
in your name perform many miracles?" All of these things are well and
good, but Jesus replies, "I never knew you. Away from me, you
evildoers." All this good done, and yet Christ says, away from me? Again
it points to the fact that we must know Him to be able to do His
father's will for us. We have to be healed by knowing him, and in the
process He, who knows us already, knows us more.
The hard part about the relationship and healing and growth, is that
most of it is not in our control. That is something we like – control.
We like to have the power that is associated with control, but we have
no idea how to truly handle it. Only one does, and that is the One that
Created all for His Glory and enjoyment. Unless we enter into
relationship with him, and do what little we can to grow and nurture
that relationship, we don't know His will – we don't know who we are,
and in turn, He cannot know us. God, who is all powerful, ever present,
and knows everything, cannot know us – be in relationship with us –
unless we ask Him, and relinquish ourselves to His control.
So it comes to this point. Does He know you? Remember, our identity –
who we are is the fountain from which all we do flows. So many today
have it all mixed up. They create their identity from their acts, naming
themselves based on their actions. That is backwards. Our doing comes
because of our being and there is only one way to know what your being
is, and that is to be in relationship and know the one who made your
being, who crafted your identity. If you wish to know who you are, come
into relationship with the one who knows your name, and who knew it
before your grandparents came to be. If you have entered into
relationship with him already, recognize that your process of healing
will come only by allowing Him to work, will you let him? Do not be the
one who comes to the gates of Heaven and is asked by Christ, "Do I know
you?"

Blessings,

The Law of Opposites

2010-08-08T19:25:00.000-07:00

Ephesians 4:17-32

Preparing for this so many different things went through my mind as to how it should be presented. These verses have so much to unpack, so much to chew on, you want to sit down and think about it for a long time – longer than I have, and I promise I will try not to have the fire alarm go off this time. As we look at this passage I want you to think of a tree. The trunk is the Word of God – which since Christ calls himself the True Vine is very fitting and true, for Christ is the Word of God. From that trunk springs five branches – Fact, Principle, and Implication are the first three branches, we’ll talk about the other two a little later. First, however, are the facts.

What are the facts? The facts here are the words that Paul has written to the Ephesians, and indirectly, to us now. Paul has had, up until this point, spoken mainly about the desire he had for the Ephesians to be unified. In the beginning of this chapter Paul speaks of the unity of the Spirit, then uses the word one 7 times, and then follows it up with describing God as the Father of all, which implies a thought of unity through who is over everything. Now that he has spoken so long about the fact that he desires the Christians to be unified, he now proceeds to tell them the facts of how to achieve this. To do this he reminds them of where they were. “You must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.” Think about the advice that Screwtape gave to his nephew about how to prevent his patient from growing deeper with the “enemy.” The letter that I read earlier said “I gather the middle aged married couple that called at his office are just the sort of people we want him to know – rich, smart, superficially intelligent and brightly skeptical about everything in the world. . . a dash of purely fashionable . . .” I’m sure you can think of people like that – people you know who don’t believe, maybe even some that do profess to be Christians. This is the sort of ignorance and hardening of the heart that Paul talks about. This hardening does not come all at once, usually. It comes from a continuance in a lifestyle saying they’ve lost all sensitivity, and so because of this they must go further and further in to get their “fix.” This all is the description of where the Ephesians came from. I know too that it is good description of life as I’ve seen it, and I’m sure it rings true for many of you as well.

But the facts continue. Paul then says after this “You, however, did not come to know Christ that way.” He reminds of them of the difference that happens when we confront Christ. Paul should very much know about this difference because he was confronted personally by Christ. Paul now begins to explain the facts of what they should now do. Look through these next several verses, and if you care too, underline with me the facts Paul gives for their actions to come. “Put off the old self;” “Be made new in the attitude of your minds . . . put on the new self;” “Put off falsehood . . . speak truthfully” “Do not let the sun go down . . . do not give the devil a foothold;” “Must steal no longer, but must work . . .” “Do not let unwholesome talk . . . only what is helpful.” Do not grieve the Holy Spirit;” “Get rid of . . . Be kind and compassionate . . .” All these actions are facts of life and they mean something.

What do they mean though? In the scientific method we are taught to create a hypothesis which consists of an “If . . . then” statement. You then test that statement to come up with a conclusion. After one or two tests a hypothesis that is confirmed by a conclusion is often called a theory, which can become a scientific law if it is proved duplicated several times in unrelated tests. Look at Paul’s construction in his words here – we have an “if…then” statement, but Paul by his confrontation with Christ can then skip the testing of the hypothetical and goes straight to the conclusion and he then makes all those statements that form a principle – a standard, in effect a law. My uncle Bill calls it the “Law of Opposites.” Now, he might have heard it somewhere else, but that’s where I heard it from, so I give him the credit for it.

My uncle illustrated the law by telling a story of a little boy who he was taking home one day after activities. The young boy was sitting in the van and said, “Major, I have a problem.” My uncle listened as the boy told his story. “I think I like to steal. I haven’t come a couple of weeks because I got caught stealing a little while ago from a store. A while ago it just started small, a candy bar here or there – nothing big. Then they caught me taking that and told my mom. Then, I found it was easier to take money out of her purse, so I started doing that and not getting caught. I know I’m not supposed to do it, but I don’t know how to stop. What can I do?” My uncle thought a minute and then said, “Well, how about this – every time you think you want to steal, do something to help someone else. Stealing is a very selfish thing, so replace it with something unselfish. If you feel you want to steal from your mother’s purse, go help her with the dishes, or do another chore for her.” The boy agreed that seemed like a good idea. The idea, the principle was to replace something with its opposite – hence the name “Law of Opposites.”

This is exactly what Paul says in his facts to the Ephesians, and to us. Again, look at what he has written by inspiration of the Spirit. For everything he says is bad, he has replaced it with the opposite – look at verse 28. It’s exactly the advice my uncle gave the little boy. When you replace something it must be replaced with something new, or something reconditioned. Paul tells us to put off the old self and replace it with the new. But the new is simply the old made new by a reconditioning of the old attitude.

Looking at principles leads usually leads to recognition of something. When we look further into the scientific laws we see that they have an impact on what happens in our world today – we see that every time we take a step, throw a ball or drive a car. This law of opposites is just as impactful. We now climb further into the tree – we’ve seen the facts, hopefully we memorize them. We see there is a principle – an unchanging truth that sheds light on life. Now what? When insects see light they know something is coming, they either run from it, or run to it. They know that something will happen because of the light – there is an implication, usually it means the bug is going to get squashed or zapped. For us, when we see and understand the principles found in a scripture, we too must see there are implications for us. Paul tells us the implication is that if we do not try to live by this there is the chance we will not have the unity he knows that God has called us to, and as such will not set an example the will draw those who do not believe to the Father.

When we began, I spoke of the five branches of the tree. We’ve looked at the first three:

· The facts, which are the verses in the scripture, and I can give you a whole host of reasons to believe why scripture is fact, and why this portion of scripture is so important.

·
The principle, which is the Law of Opposites. I can tell you that the law does work – a couple weeks after that my uncle talked to the boy, he came back and told my uncle that he hadn’t stolen anything for a while, and that every time he had felt the urge to steal he had helped his mom. His mom was very happy with him, and he said that he had felt the urges to steal become less.

·
The implication is that if we do not live by this principle we risk missing out on the unity that is modeled to us by God, and that is desired by Him for us. Also the when those who do not believe do not see us living by this, they will wonder why they should, since we are no different than they.

Here are the last two branches of that tree – obedience and change. What will you with the principle and the implication – does it mean anything to you? The young boy showed us what it meant to realize the impact of the principle and what it could do for his life. He chose to obey and began to change. He actively worked to put off the old self and put on the new by replacing the old habits with new ones. He regained the sensitivity he had lost by indulging in impurity, by indulging in service. By obeying in his actions, he changed his attitude and his impulses. What now will you do?

Blessings,

A Father’s Love

2010-06-22T19:32:00.001-07:00

Scripture reading: 1 Corinthians 13

In a devotional I have there is a story about a man named
John Griffith. This man had great dreams of being a traveler, but the
great depression of the '20s and early '30s sort of killed it. However,
he began to dream again, for he had a young son who he now dreamed of
working side by side in fellowship and friendship. One day when Greg was
8, John took him to work on the drawbridge John was responsible for.
Greg was amazed at all the huge machinery in action as the bridge went
up and down during the morning. At noon, John and his son had a picnic
lunch on an observation deck just over the mighty river the bridge crossed.

While they ate Greg listened as his father told story after story of
exotic places and amazing sites he had seen on the trains that passed
by. In the middle of a story a loud whistle announced that a train was
rapidly approaching, and the bridge was still raised. John told his son
to stay put while he rushed along the myriad of catwalks and ladders to
reach the control booth and lower the bridge. Just about to push the
button to lower the bridge John notices motion where there shouldn't be
and realizes his son has fallen off the catwalk and has his leg stuck in
one of the massive gears. He quickly conjures a plan to save his son and
lower the bridge in time, but another blast from the whistle brings him
back to the crushing reality that he cannot do both. Looking away as he
smashes the button down in anger, he sobs as the screams of his son are
drowned out but the grinding wheels and cogs and then the rush of the
passing train. He lifts his head and see the people in the train
serenely passing by, unaware of the anguish he is suffering. He shouts,
"Do you know what this trip really cost? It cost my son! I gave up my
son so you could live. Do you know that? Do you even care?" But there is
no notice of him. Did this man love his son? Was there Love in that action?

Or consider Hosea, he grew up around some big little names
like Jonah and Amos, he heard eyewitnesses of Elijah and Elisha, and he
heard the word of the Lord. This is how Eugene Peterson puts it in his
paraphrase, The Message:

The first time God spoke to Hosea he said:

"Find a whore and marry her.
Make this whore the mother of your children.
And here's why: This whole country
has become a whorehouse, unfaithful to me, God." (Hosea 1:2)

Would that make you feel loved? God told Hosea to marry someone who
didn't have love, and show love to her. What's more, when Hosea had
children by his wife Gomer, God told him to name the children Jezreel,
Lo-Ruhamah and Lo-Ammi. The names had special meanings. The first one
was to signify that God was going to take his revenge on a man who
killed people he wasn't supposed to and that God was more or less done
with the kingdom of Israel in the north. The second child, a daughter,
had a name meaning "No more mercy" or no compassion. The third meant not
my people. Are you feeling any more love in all this?

I say there is Love in all that God said through the story of John
Griffith and in what God demonstrated through Hosea. In the story of
John we see a picture of God the Father and Jesus the son, the big
difference here is that God and Jesus were deliberate in their sacrifice
– John's story simply brings the emotional price home to our hearts.
However, in Hosea there is a greater picture when you read through the
whole of the book. God make Hosea an example in the flesh, of how He
loves us in reality. I believe that in 1^st Corinthians 13 God more
clearly spells out what His love means, and the importance it has to our
lives. For in these 13 verses penned by Paul to the church in Corinth,
we see a portrait of Love that gives meaningfulness, definition and
lasting vision. As we look into this, please keep in mind that God is
Love, and we can interchange His name everywhere we see the word love,
for that is who our Father is.

The first three verses speak to the meaningfulness that Love gives to
everything it touches. "If I speak…but have not love, I am a sounding
brass or cymbal clanging." How often have we heard someone teach us, but
they sound empty? Doesn't it seem that, if you go up to talk to them
later, it was something they didn't really care about, or the people
they were teaching didn't really seem to matter to them? Words spoken
without love are either hurtful or empty. Just like the untimed crash of
a cymbal in music or the banging on the piano by someone who doesn't
know how to play, it lacks life. I think Paul uses this first image of
life without Love to show how worthless life is without Love or God.
Almost anyone can hear the difference when a soloist performs something
they cherish – there is such a marked difference between a performer
that is in love with the music and the one who simply plays or sings the
notes as written. We all feel the warmth when a speaker has a passion –
a genuine passion, derived from their Love of God. Usually it creates a
deep imprint in our hearts and minds, but not because of the words that
are said, but because of the force of Love behind them. We also see Paul
talking about our understanding, and faith, as well as our giving. "If I
have…but have not Love, I am nothing" and "If I give all… but have not
love I gain nothing." The value and worth of anything said, possessed or
given away is ultimately determined by the Love with which we do it.

From verses 4 to 7 Paul changes methods. He has used metaphors to
provide a portrait of the importance of love in our actions and words.
Now, he changes to defining Love. Here again we can switch each instance
of the word love with the name of God, for God is Love. Webster's
dictionary's entry for definition is as follows:

*1* *:* an act of determining; /specifically/ *:* the formal
proclamation of a Roman Catholic dogma

*2 a* *:* a statement expressing the essential nature of something *b*
*:* a statement of the meaning of a word or word group or a sign or
symbol <dictionary definition/s/> *c* *:* a product of defining

Now I only put the first two lines in here because they're
the most important. Paul uses that second part to express the essential
nature of Love. Webster's also has entries for Love as both a noun and a
verb, but Paul's series of "Love is" has much more depth to it. Paul
doesn't just define love as a word, but as a lifestyle, as a choice of
how to view ones' self as well. God, through Paul, does what some
philosophers said cannot be done – He defines himself as an individual,
and in the process of doing so provides us with a defined identity as
well. He tells us who we are because He has called us his sons and
daughters and then told us who He is. While I am not yet a father, I
know that when I become one I want to teach and train my children to be
like me in the good ways. I am not perfect, none of us are, but God who
is perfect, and who we can call Abba wants to do the same with us –
teach us to be like him. Many of us know a lot of people, and some of us
have more people who know us than we know, and usually they know us as
"so and so's kid." I know there are some people here that knew me not a
Matt, but as "Wes and Eva's boy." In some ways that is my identity now –
but I strive more so to be known as a son of God than anything else. The
way we are taught who we are however, comes through learning boundaries,
for when we know our boundaries we know where we really are. In knowing
where we are we become more comfortable with who we are, and it is the
Love of God that allows us to do this.

Paul starts the last verses in this chapter with a bold
statement. "Love never Fails." And while that is included in the
definition of Love, it segues into the fact that Love provides us with a
vision that is unparalleled in all of creation. Love, because it is
embodied in the person of God who is eternal, is eternal and lasting in
and of itself. When we have love we have access to a vision that
perceives, not in the short term, but in the long term. As Paul says
wisdom, prophecy, knowledge, and tounges will all eventually fade away,
but Love remains. When we look through Love we see not the temporary,
but the eternal. God, who always looks through love saw the same thing
in the kingdom of Israel even as He told Hosea to call his children Lo
(meaning not) Ruhamah (mercy) and Ammi (my people). For just a few short
verses later he renames them without the Lo, calling them Ruhamah and
Ammi – mercy and my people. Love looks and see the possibilities of what
is to come. Love also sees clearly too. "Now we see in a mirror dimly
but then…" Whenever we look without Love we see only the poor reflection
of reality. Even the best magnifying mirror does not always give us a
perfect view of ourselves. Paul might have even said "Now we see in a
picture dimly." Pictures, though made to mimic what our eyes see, do not
catch all that our eyes see, and to add to that, our eyes can't see
everything that is there. Now, does this mean that with Love we will be
able to see the infrared or ultraviolet light? No! Nor does it mean that
we will see the spirit world either. But with Love we can often see
things we miss on first glance. It means that we can see clearly and
discern what God has for us in our relationships both as families by
marriage and birth, and as our family the body of Christ.

Still you might ask, like Tina Turner did, "What's Love got
to do with it?" Love has everything to do with it. That is why Paul
finishes the chapter with these words "And now these three remain:
faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." (1 Cor 13:13)
Love is the base, the foundation for everything else. In the Fruit of
the Spirit, Paul lists Love first. Christ says the greatest commandment,
"Love the Lord your God…" the second is like it, "Love your neighbor…"
Without Love our lives our empty, without meaning, and blind. But with
Love, we have life! Christ said "I have come that they may have life,
and have it to the full." We have the possibility of that life only
because of the sacrifice the Christ made – out of Love. That is why what
He did impacts the whole of history – Love. That is the love we are
called to have – as Fathers, as families, and as brothers and sisters in
the family of God. God's love gives life, amazing life. But it always
comes at a cost – our own life. But if our life is without Love, is it
worth anything? Yes, it is, but according to scientists, that might only
be about $8 or so. Life with Love is invaluable – it's worth is beyond
measure. If you want that worth, that identity, that vision that allows
you to see what more there is to Life, why don't you ask Love Himself to
take and fill your emptiness now? If you have already asked Him to fill
you – ask Him for more! The Father's love is deep and always available
for free refills.

A Simple Question, A Simple Answer.

2010-01-18T22:59:00.001-08:00

Right now I find myself at a crossroads of life. I'm nearing 30, was
just let go from a workplace where I had poured quite a bit of myself
over nearly 5 years, and have a wife of almost one year who's not
feeling as well as she'd like. I will readily admit I am no perfect man,
and have definitely done things that are sinful, and have done my fair
share rebelling against God. All this that is happening right now does
make me question somethings, and at the same time solidifies my beliefs.

When someone loses their job, or get sick (or in my case have something
similar to both happen at nearly the same time) people always ask, "How
are you?" or some variation thereof. In times past I would say "had
better days, had worse" or "six of one, half-dozen of another" or "I'm
climbing" or something along those lines. It indicates a truth about how
I'm feeling at the time - definitely not where I want to be. This time
has been different. Even though I have the added stress of being in a
completely new situation (the last time I was unemployed I was also
single and not living on my own) with added responsibilities, I have no
problem whatsoever of saying, "I'm fine." And I mean it too.

I mean, I've never been in something like this - never in a position
where things were more than slightly dependent on benefits at work (heck
last time I lost my job I didn't even have benefits). Never in a
position where my living situation was at stake, or having to consider
getting unemployment (I detest all things government mostly, with the
exception of the military and law enforcement). But through all of this
I have a peace that hasn't been there before. I know, without a shadow
of a doubt that my wife and I will be fine. I have no clue how that will
look, or when it will happen, but I know we'll be fine.

It's strange how a simple question can impact you like that. I can't
control most of the things that will make things "fine" but I know they
will be. And more to the point, if fine means that I don't have an
apartment or a computer, or a good reputation (credit history and the
like - I plan on keeping a good legal record) Erin and I will be just
fine. I guess right now that's the meaning for me of "Take every thought
captive" - if He's taking care of the sparrows and the flowers and
trees, how much more is He going to take care of Erin and Me?

Blessings.

Vision of Grace

2009-11-01T18:22:00.001-08:00

Text: Galatians 6:1-18

I'm not sure if I mentioned when I gave my testimony here some time ago
about my faults. I may have, but I don't remember. Let me remind you of
one of the most important parts of my testimony – I am not perfect. I
know – big surprise, but it is true. During my college years I was
blessed to be involved with Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, which is
a wonderful ministry to young people. As I went through my years at
Norwich, struggling to grow deeper in my walk with Christ, I had a huge
stumble, this just before I was a senior and was supposed to be taking a
leading role in the fellowship on campus. During this difficult time in
my life while I was caught in a sin, I had three men who understood the
vision of grace.

Just before this conclusion Paul has announced to the Galatians that
they have freedom, and that they need to be careful in how they live it,
gently instructing them on how to know if they're living in the freedom
by what fruit they will produce. Now he's telling them about the
practical applications of this freedom, and reminding them to be mindful
of who they are ultimately responsible to. Just like any teacher, Paul
tells them, in essence, to keep watch – to pay attention to how they do
things. Paul is telling them to see through eyes of grace.

When I was reading this scripture I noticed that several times where
Paul says to watch, or test, to not be deceived, and about making
impressions. All of these things require vision of some form. Warren
Wiersbe, in Nelson's Quick Reference, breaks these "articles of vision"
into four different sections:

· See others humbly

· See yourself honestly

· See your leaders appreciatively

· See the Cross clearly

Let's look at these means of checking ourselves in how we are picking
the fruit of the spirit, enjoying its freedom and helping others to
continue to grow in it as well.

As we started today, I reminded you that I'm not perfect. I made a huge
mistake and was caught in sin. Three men, two older than me, and one my
age, were at that time I would say more spiritual than myself. Rev Wick
had often counseled me through the four years I was at Norwich out of
this very passage. "Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are
spiritual should restore him gently." I didn't quite grasp the fullness
of how that worked until after Ralph and Ryan put that into practice
with me. While doing some research for the message I found out that the
word for restore used in this passage was the Greek word "katartizete"^1
which is a form of katartizo^2 meaning to put back in joint or to mend.
When setting a joint or broken bone a doctor must be very careful and
gentle, for the slightest movement causes great pain and puts great
danger in that if not done right the bone will not heal properly. The
doctor also must be careful that in the process of healing the broken
bone, he or she does not hurt themselves. And in just that fashion my
friends helped to restore me.

What Paul is cautioning through this section is that we must see and
respond to others humbly. In several different commentaries, I noted how
each reflected that how we respond to the slips and falls of others
gives us a gauge to measure our own walk with Christ. Augustine wrote
"There is no surer test of the spiritual person than his treatment of
another's sin. Note how he takes care to deliver the sinner rather than
triumph over him, to help him rather than punish him and, so far as lies
in his capacity, to support him."^3

Of course there is more to it than just that. We all know that Proverbs
16:18 it says "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit
before stumbling." We might not know that's where it's found, or we more
commonly recognize it as "Pride goes before the fall," but the message
is the same, and Paul applies it here as well – he counsels "But watch
yourself, or you also may be tempted." We need to help each other –
that's what we do as Christian brothers and sisters, for no one person
can truly carry their burden alone, especially as this is how we express
the command of Christ to love one another, as he loved us. Yet in doing
all this, we must remain humble and test ourselves against and with
God's standards, and not against anyone else. If we do not look and see
others, and ourselves with the humbleness of grace, we set ourselves up
to be tempted by the worst sin of all, pride.

This principle of seeing others humbly goes hand in hand with Wiersbe's
second breakout – seeing ourselves honestly. While we are so busy
judging ourselves by how we see others doing, we deceive ourselves as to
where we really are. I see this so often in myself as I look at how my
peers are doing. Some of the people I graduated from high school and
college have great paying jobs, or seem to have some power or influence
or great responsibility. I look at myself and what do I see? I see me,
just another person with great dreams but nothing to show for them. Paul
says this is nothing but self-decit, we need to test ourselves against
God's standard for us. Now, that can be a scary thing, especially since
we all know for the most part, we fall short of that standard. Yet Paul
gives us hope because God gives us grace in that He himself is helping
us to reach His goal for us, if we let him. In that way, when we see
ourselves honestly, we can take pride even in what we see, because we
know that God loves us even as we are now, and it is He who will make us
to His standard – if we let him.

"Anyone who receives instruction from the word must share all good
things with his instructor." It seems like Paul is completely changing
subjects here, but he's not. Matthew Henry, in his commentary says that
this part is about "Christians [being] exhorted to be free and liberal
in maintaining their ministers."^4 This is what Wiersbe is talking about
when he says to "see our leaders appreciatively." While we are all a
priesthood of believers, and as such are all in one form or another
ministers, there are those who are set apart to be teachers. Henry
states, I think with some humor that "if all were teachers, there would
be none to be taught." And this is true, as we grew up in school we had
those who instructed us about how to read and do our times tables. Some
explained why or how things worked. So it is in the family of believers.
We have mentors and those who help and bless us with understanding and
wisdom, and we in turn, as good students should do the same for them
that taught us. Nothing makes one feel quite as good as when we see
someone we're teaching get that "ah-ha" moment, or share with us how
something we helped them learn helped them in some way.

Jesus counsels us that we will know the false teachers from the good
ones by the fruit they bear - the fruit they bear is based on what
they've sown. So often we see teachers that claim to be good sowing
seeds that are flesh and sinful in nature, and so often we see the
disastrous results of these teachings. But when we encourage those who
teach in accordance with the Spirit and the truth He is, something
different happens. You see lives transformed into things of beauty. We
see a crop from that one seed of grain, which is one hundred fold, which
continues the cycle. That, I believe, is part of the reaping of eternal
life that Paul talks about in verses 8 and 9.

Verse 10 reminds us that while we of course, have a responsibility to
those outside of the family of believers – for without a doubt the
desire is to bring them into the family – we need to pay attention and
help those who are in the family just as much. I believe we would all be
hard pressed to say that we don't know someone who serves in some way
that is or has had a difficult time. When those in ministry have rough
times – and they come in so many ways, we must help in any way we can,
for if we don't the ministry suffers, and the possibility arises that
those who need it the most might not get what is needed.

Through all of his reminders of seeing things through grace Paul caps it
off with the reminder to keep our eyes and focus on that which provided
the grace in the first place. We must see the cross clearly. Paul, who
said he bore on his body the marks of Jesus knew what it meant to keep
the Cross at the center of His vision. Please, keep in mind Paul isn't
talking about the "stigmata" that some mystics say are the five wounds
of Christ. Paul is reminding his readers about the scars on his back
from numerous beatings and attempts on his life. If you need a refresher
on that, read through the book of Acts, starting at about the 8^th
chapter. Even Paul's own conversion story brings about an image of what
is important to see.

We see Paul, then known as Saul, on the road to Damascus, blinded by a
bright light; encountering Christ – possibly not for the first time in
person, for Paul was at least a young man by the time Christ had begun
preaching and teaching. Who knows, maybe Paul had been a distant witness
to Calvary, and so had seen Christ on the cross with his own eyes. In
that bright light a voice comes and asks "Why are you persecuting me?"
This is Saul we're talking about –a man who sought to kill those who
preached the cross of Christ, he knew full well what was at stake in
this. He lost his sight until he realized that the only thing worth
looking at was Christ and what he did for us.

Paul says "those who want to make a good impression outwardly are trying
to compel you to be circumcised. The only reason [for that] is to avoid
being persecuted for the cross of Christ." He goes on to say that those
who are circumcised don't even follow the law themselves. It goes back
to the whole concept we looked at earlier about seeing others humbly and
seeing yourself honestly. This group wanted to boast in the flesh, but
when we compare ourselves to the standard of God, we find it lacking and
nothing to write home about, except to say what utter failures we are.
But here again, Paul reminds us our hope, "May I never boast except in
the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been
crucified to me, and I to the world." The hope we have is that our
standard is not set any lower, but we are made higher solely in the
grace of God through the cross. It's not about circumcision or
un-circumcision – it's about the new creation that is made through the
blood of Christ on the cross.

We will always here about those who call us to follow the law (now I'm
talking about the Law of Moses here, not our civil laws). The whole
concept of legalism is dead – the law, as Paul writes in Romans was
written that sin might increase, so that in turn grace might increase as
well. It does not give us the right of ability to sin, but it does allow
us to be restored. Christ also said that not a jot or stroke of the law
would pass away until the new age. I firmly believe that because we
become new creations in Christ we are now judged by a different, but
even higher standard than the Law of Moses. "My command is this: Love
each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that
he lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:12-13)

Christ himself modeled the manner of living the freedom we have in him.
He saw others humbly – look at how he restored Peter after being
disowned three times. He saw himself honestly – "For even the Son of Man
did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a
ransom for many." (Mark 10:45) He saw his leaders appreciatively – he
always gave honor to his father, for though He was one with his father,
he shared everything he learned and received with the Father. And He
never once wavered from the sight of the cross, which was his mission.

What will we take from this? Only that by grace we are saved and are
given a freedom of life, but that we must maintain the fruit of that
freedom by viewing others and ourselves with that same grace which we
received. If you haven't yet experienced that grace, come be made new by
the cross of Christ. We all are sinners and have been restored – have
been put back in joint – by grace. Is there a part of you that needs
that restoration? Someone will surely come alongside you and share with
you of the grace they have received, so that in time you too can pass
that grace on to another. Have you been falling prey to the sin of
pride, judging yourself to be good simply by looking at the weakness of
another? Remember your ruler – and your measuring standard – is not your
fellow man, but the Creator himself. Please, do not hesitate to submit
to look through his lens at yourself. More often than not you will be
surprised at how He sees you and what he wants you to see about
yourself. You must be willing, however, to submit, for even in His work
with you he will follow in His own counsel. Will you submit to how he
asks you to sow your resources, that you might have sown things looking
toward eternity?

Let us never forget to always keep the cross in the center of our view,
for it reminds us of the three other sets of vision we must keep, and
the way in which we can and must keep them. He who chose the cross not
only spoke to teach, but lived as an example. Let us always be reminded
to see the cross clearly, so that we do not lose sight of our model and
of our ultimate goal.

Blessings

(P.S. My references are in the comment...)

Fruit of Freedom

2009-10-27T20:35:00.001-07:00

Text: Galatians 5:13, 16-23

Freedom is not free. According to Wikipedia, this is a phrase used in
America to express gratitude to men and women in the Armed Forces who
give of themselves to give us the freedom we enjoy. We as Christians
know this all the more because the freedom Paul says we are called to
have comes from the death – and resurrection – of Christ. However,
knowing where freedom comes from, and the cost it entails, some would
ask why be free? If freedom is really about giving up something why
would you do it? What is the reward of freedom? When we look at the
bible, with the freedom we receive, we are called to bring others to it
– to be salt and light and to spread it around. In the midst of that
however, we face the challenges both of confusion and pain. The
confusion of not understanding what freedom means, which comes from
jealousy sometimes, makes it difficult to stay and enjoy your freedom
because people bug you about it. Pain simply seeks to take it from you
forcefully.

Freedom, which Paul (and don't forget Christ) says calls us to use in
service, not in indulgence, does have its rewards. Sure all the evil
stuff seems fun – I mean, look at the people who are living in it not
seeing anything outside their lives. I see shows like "Secret life of a
teenager" which wrestles with some difficult topics facing the youth of
today. In "Secret Life" a young girl gets pregnant in high school, and
we see all the convoluted webs of what happens when people fail to
follow the simple, common sense things of not having sex before
marriage, or not gossiping. While the moral of avoid these things is
more or less broadcast throughout and after the show, only more recently
has it begun to make a point I believe. Most recently in the show, the
young mother is finding out how much freedom she has lost since the baby
was born. Her free act of indulgence brings about another free life that
must be cared for. Here we see the clear point that indulging in the
acts listed by Paul in verses 19 through 21 have a high cost – they take
away the freedom we are called to. They take freedom away by removing it
from us physically – incarceration and incapacitation being the chief
means of that; or by forcing us to care for another. What Paul says is
simple, "You are called to be free." That sounds great, who doesn't want
to be free? He adds to this "…do not use your freedom to indulge the
sinful nature…"The Amplified bible says it this way "only [do not let
your] freedom be an incentive to your flesh /and/ an opportunity /or/
excuse [for selfishness]. . ." Most of us think of freedom as a form of
autonomy – I can do what I want how I want when I want. This freedom,
even as Paul says, is rooted deep in selfishness – the pronoun I was
just used 4 times in that statement.

But we see the fruits of this in every day life, and amplified in pop
culture and shows like the one I mentioned before. But what fruit is
produced by this freedom? We see divorce rates skyrocketing, children
facing greater exposure to harmful drugs, promiscuous lifestyles and the
resulting broken lives. Doing some looking on the internet, I came upon
familyfirstaid.org which had a wealth of statistics. The one I found
most interesting dealt with suicide – it's the 11^th leading cause of
death in the US. Looking at the WHO statistics, the US has the 32^nd
highest suicide rate amongst men. If autonomy is freeing, and we are so
free, shouldn't we be less likely to lose hope? One of the leading
causes of suicide is depression, often characterized as a loss of hope.
Hearing how great all of the things the world says is "freeing" wouldn't
you think that there would be great hope? I mean, doesn't having 'sexual
freedom' or the freedom to drink as you please or imbibe mind altering
drugs mean you shouldn't have a care in the world? The search for
freedom and power through witchcraft, or even just replacing any thought
of something above us that can empower us, right? Shouldn't plain out
declaring "God is dead" give us the hope of a freedom that wipes out all
traces of despair from our lives?

All of those things I just mentioned are the sinful indulgences that
Paul warns us against squandering our freedom on. But where is the hope
of freedom – the promise of the liberty we're called to? Paul says
"rather serve one another in love." or "but through love you should
serve one another." (Amplified) Christ said the same thing. "For even
the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his
life as a ransom for many." (Mk 10:45) Service however does not sound
like freedom, does it? Most of the time especially in the Church – all
denominations – service is viewed as a requirement. I was talking with
one of my best friends about how things were going for him, and we began
to converse about his Mormon neighbor. He mentioned how the Mormon faith
is very centered on works. And works is a good thing – don't get me
wrong. But what the issue my friend's neighbor isn't the works – it's
the motivation for the works. She couldn't grasp the idea of doing the
works because of being free. For many the whole concept of being good
not out of fear but out of gratitude. That is why Paul urges us not to
indulge, but to serve in love. By choosing to serve, we exercise our
freedom and thereby reap the rewards of our freedom.

Joseph Girzone wrote a wonderful novel in the early '80s titled /Joshua:
A Parable for Today/. In it he tells the story of a man who shakes up a
small town simply by serving. Now, a reader of the books knows quite
plainly that Joshua is a characterization of Christ himself, but the
people don't know this. In it we see a man serving out of love and we
see the fruit of the freedom he knows and enjoys to the core of his
being. This are the fruit – Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness,
Goodness, Faithfulness and Self-Control. All of the fruit of the Spirit
– these are our fruit of freedom. The build upon one another – if you
start lacking in one of them, you will begin to lack in the others and
see a diminishing of the freedom of grace. This is why Paul, who says we
are called to freedom, so strongly says, "So I say, live by the Spirit.
. ." The Spirit is freedom, he, the third part of the godhead is the
embodiment of freedom. God the father is from whom we receive freedom,
God the son is by whom we receive the freedom and God the spirit is
through whom we live it. And when we live that spirit of freedom in
service we begin to grow that fruit of freedom.

The fruit grows in a specific way, because it must. Just like the grape
must come from the vine which came from the seed, so also our fruit
grows from a seed. The seed is Love. Love of God, and a recognition that
He loved us first. Oh how He loved us first! He loved us so much He made
us, gave us the choice to love Him, was so hurt when we chose not to
that He gave Himself that we could join Him again. If that is not love,
what is? How can you not love him back? How does the old chorus go? "Oh
how I love Jesus, because He first loved me." Love is the seed, and the
soil from which all the other fruit grows. And when we get absorbed into
that Love, and it overtakes us is that not when things start to sprout
and go? When you love the Lord as the greatest commandment says "with
all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and
with all your mind" that imparts a sense of Joy. Joy springs from that
all consuming love of God because that love runs so deep the enjoyment
of all situations, of all happenings makes happiness seem absurd and
superficial. That old Sunday school chorus had he order backwards. We
need to have Love like an ocean before we can have Joy like a fountain.
The water that flows from that fountain of Joy is pulled straight from
the ocean of Love. And when that love is so limitless like the ocean, a
fountain of joy will overflow and create a river – a river of peace.
Peace is best defined, I believe, as the ability to sleep amongst the
greatest storm. Jesus did it – he epitomized peace when he slept as the
boat crossed the Sea of Galilee. Peace is born out of joy because joy
permits us to be ok with any situation – and that's what peace is. The
other important thing to note about these first three fruit is that they
originate from God himself. We cannot and must not take credit for
creating these first three fruit of freedom, and therefore we must not
take credit for the other six, for they are formed from the base of
these three – Love, Joy and Peace.

The next three make sense to follow, and they all have the unique tie
that they are all exhibited traits toward others. They come out of the
overflow of love, joy and peace because we are so full we must share
them. Peace shown to another person is also called patience. Patience,
that "capacity to tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without becoming
angry or upset" is always a kindness to the ones we show it to. Those
who are kind to others are always referred to as being good, or showing
goodness to others. What is also interesting to note, is that these
three fruit are also the same three fruit that God shows us when we are
away from Him. Three of God's greatest traits are his abundant patience,
his unfailing kindness, and his goodness to all generations. How fitting
that we should see modeled to us the same fruit of freedom by the one
who gives it to us.

The final group of three – faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control
are certainly not the least. While they, like all the others, are
exhibited to people outside of ourselves, it would be wise to note how
they also impact us, and bring the circle complete. If a farmer does not
take some of the seed from the mature fruit, how can he make more? In
the same way if we do not exhibit the faithfulness that comes from the
first six fruit how can we stay connected to that ocean of Love? That
faithful farmer who takes the seed from the maturing plant is gentle
with it. Some scrapes and scratches are necessary so the seed can
germinate, and branches and leaves must be pruned from time to time, but
always it is done gently to promote a new growth and a fulfillment of
that faithfulness. This is all also done with great self-control, and we
need that self-control to maintain that faithfulness and gentleness.
Thus the growth of the full fruit is complete. The soil and seed
producing the vine, which is held up support system which produces the
grape, which is seen and enjoyed by others – hopefully to grow into
another vine.

Paul finishes the list of the fruit of the spirit – the fruit of freedom
by saying, "Against such things there is no law." Why is there no law
against them? It is because man cannot put a law on that which God
gives. I find it fitting that a month after we have celebrated our
freedom in this country we should look at the results of the true
freedom we talked about then. We saw that true liberty comes from the
Son of God, who can set us free. We listened to a plea to do what we
must – share that freedom with others as the salt and light of the
earth. We were reminded that there are those who are jealous when they
see our freedom and wish to enslave us in confusion about true freedom.
Last week we learned about one of the keys of how to live in freedom –
praising at all times. And now we see where it all leads to, the Fruit
of Freedom.

Do you now posses this fruit, even if in part? Or is it something that
you find you lack? Who here today knows what it is like to be enveloped
in God's love to overflowing, and the joy and peace it brings with it?
Would you want to have that same feeling, to know freedom and the fruit
that it brings? We know only one way to become free to begin with and
that is through Christ. Come now, if you don't know him, why settle for
the false freedom of sinful indulgence? Come, taste and see that the
Lord is good, the fruit of His vine, none can match. If you know him and
want to express and grow more in your freedom, remember what Paul calls
us to do, "through love, serve one another." Come, dedicate yourself
again to service, be willing to serve in whatever way possible. The
altar is open, as it always is.

Child Rearing

2009-06-26T00:15:00.001-07:00

I should be the last person to write anything about child rearing.
Seriously. I'm almost 28, only been married for 4 months, and we're not
thinking of having kids for at least 2 years. I was an only child and I
would need a truly exorbitant amount of money to step foot inside a
child or development psychology class, primarily because I despise
psychology. Be that as it may, I find myself unable to sleep right now,
due to thought of raising children running through my head. The only way
to put them to sleep is to get them outside and make myself tired. Words
of wisdom huh?

In any case, my thoughts have been triggered, strange as it may seem by
some recent events that have happened. I found out today that Michael
Jackson (a father of three children somehow) died. On Monday night I
watched Jon and Kate plus 8, as I'm sure many others did. Jon and Kate
brought most of these thoughts to the surface just about 20 minutes ago,
and Michael Jackson popped into my head as I started writing, so I don't
know if I'll talk about him much in this - maybe another time. Just
forget I mentioned Jackson, he's a whole nother post.

Those who aren't aware, Jon and Kate are separating. In this last
episode that I watched with my wife, I noticed some key things, and I
wonder if Jon or Kate ever thought of them. One of the first things I
noticed that both Jon and Kate referred to their (plural possessive)
brood of eight children as "my children." Some might not make much of
this, but I think it could be indicative of an underlying issue that
might have caused much of the strife and could have been easily
avoidable. (Please note, I do not write this as a judgment on Jon or
Kate, or them as a couple, merely an observation.) It was something that
I picked up over the course of the last several episodes that I had
watched, which were leading up to the whole split that happened. This
was something new that only started happening during the middle or so of
last year.

Prior to the middle of last season, I think that Jon and Kate would
refer to the kids as "our kids" which is a correct recognition of
ownership (as owning of children goes). It takes both parents to be
there to make the children in the first place, whether or not a
fertility doctor is in the mix. Though a parent might jokingly say to
the other "Did you know what /your/ son did today" or something along
those lines, the child still belongs firmly in the grasp of both
parents. I believe that the ever increasing use of the singular
possessive in their interview is a telling symptom of a growing
selfishness. I could be wrong, but that's what I observed.

In any marriage, and especially once children become involved (I'm only
imagining this, I don't have first hand experience of having children in
my marriage yet) selfishness is a somewhat necessary evil. In order to
best serve the other members of the family, you do need to look after
yourself to some degree. Parents especially need to be, at times,
selfish of their time together, and slightly less their time apart.
Solitary self-time is an important thing, but how important is it. How
important are your children that you must sacrifice everything for them?
If you give everything you have to them, what do they have for
themselves to grow up? A wise couple once said, "Children are temporary,
marriage is permanent." I like that saying - I know I was temporary in
my parents marriage (I'm still their son and talk to them regularly, but
I'm not in the house anymore except to visit).

As you're raising your children, one must be careful and mindful of how
you want them to grow and mature. The best way to make sure they grow up
the way you'd like them to is to model what you want to see in them as
they mature. If you're wanting wise, considerate, open, self-less
(correctly) and upstanding children, that's how you must live your lives
in front of them. A reason does exist why two parent households that
stay together rightly have children that more often than not do right
and well themselves. They do that because they see god things emulated
by their parents and they want to do the same.

What is the best for your child? What does that really mean? For each it
is different, but children still learn it the same way - they follow the
old maxim "Monkey see, Monkey do" Mom and Dad, they are watching you, so
if your goal is to do what's best for your kids, and to see them have
happy, healthy and long lasting relationships and marriages - why not
set the example? It's not easy, but it's still good.

Blessings,

Frustrating Futility

2008-11-05T23:19:00.001-08:00

History is incredible. Watching history being made is inspiring. Knowing
history was made because people don't know their history is infuriating,
slightly. (I was trying to keep the trend going). Don't get me wrong, I
think it's wonderful that we've elected a man of African descent to the
highest office in the most powerful country in the world. That's great,
it's a monumental occasion. But the person everyone says would have
loved this, I think would be turning in his grave. He didn't want people
judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

I wonder if we really understand the whole issue of race and what it
means in this country? One side would have you think the other is
racist, and vice versa. However when we look at the facts of history,
while one side was not necessarily active in fighting the injustice of
slavery, there were those in certain persuasions that were actively
trying to maintain a status quo that was most definitely not positive
for those under the oppression of slavery. I marvel that this tradition
has been kept, and even managed to place those they oppress the worst at
their head. Truly there is a God since this has happened. All of us have
a bias toward things we are familiar with - we are all certainly more
comfortable with the things we know. Is that racism? No, it is simply a
normal form of the flawed human nature, but those who strive to be more
bold about overcoming that natural fear of the unknown are made to
believe that it is. True racism is a violent and more grossly negative
attitude not when you do not know what you are dealing with, but when
you /do/ know what you're dealing with.

Members of the Klu Klux Klan, and the White supremacist movements are
racists. They know full well who they are dealing with - human beings of
different color skin and different beliefs as them. What is unknown
about these groups? Nothing - they're human beings just the same. They
often times know more about the groups of people they oppose the the
people themselves. Why? because for some evil reason they can see no
good. While I will be the first to tell you that the heart of man is
deceitful above all things, and than man at his unsaved core is evil,
still good can be found, just as with Darth Vader. While man is evil, he
was created by good, and good cannot create evil, evil is chosen. In all
of us there is some form of hope, however that hope and the means of
achieving it are often twisted. Logic, as wonderful as it can be, is
still flawed when used by a flawed machine.

Still, we have watched incredible things these last few years. Hope is
still alive and while I might find myself raising my voice to the
unresponsive radio or T.V. I know that the ultimate good - God is still
in control, and that His promise - "In all things, God works together
for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His
purpose" is still true. And while I might point out with logic that the
government based on socialism is doomed to failure every time, I can see
with logic that we must care for our fellow man. Change is the only
constant and the pendulum will swing until the final day. I say Amen -
so be it - and pray that God will help my stubborn unbelief, and calm my
frustrations, that I would continue to hold to my un-futile hope.

Blessings,

Now...an interesting theme

2008-06-30T23:34:00.001-07:00

I find myself traveling along an interesting track. In my last few
devotions at night I hear a recurring theme - Now. Chambers is
incredibly insightful about the Word of God. It is never a future tense.
Even in translating the new testament there is always an issue with many
of the verbs - they're often in the present future tense. Do it now, We
are now, We will be now...I don't quite get it.

Ok...brain's back on track now. Have you ever watched any of the Star
Wars movies? I love how much there is to pick from them. In episode one
- the first of the second batch of three, Obi One and Qui Gon Jin are
waiting in a room for some leaders. Obi one says he has a bad feeling,
but that it's elusive - in the future. His mentor says, don't worry too
much about the future, be mindful of the living, present force - the
here and now. Think about the future, but never at the expense of the
here and now. What great advice! Jesus gives us the same advice - "Don't
worry about tomorrow. . . each day has enough troubles of its own."
(Matt 6:34) Ever mindful of the future, but never at the expense of the
present - worry about the Now.

So what more? Now is more than just an adjective describing time, it's a
command - Now. When we're called to do something - and often I'm the
most notorious for this - do we ever do it now? No, we push it off very
frequently. I'm often a proud partaker of the Procrastinator's oath
"Never put off today that which you can put off tomorrow!" I never
really worry about whether or not something will get done - I only know
that it will be done, eventually. In some cases this is ok, but in most
others it is not. Times do come where we are overwhelmed by the "Now's"
that everyone throws at us. I'm bombarded with it daily at work, and I'm
sure that most others will find the same. It's then when we must
prioritize. But what ranks higher than another thing? How are we to
determine what is to come first? Do we work things from easy to hard, or
the other way around? Do we go from the most profitable to the least?
The answer is yes, we do.How often do I leave work with things still on
my mind that I didn't get finished that day, and compound it with the
notion that I won't get it done the day after? More than I'd like to
count. And this is only work, my daily 9 to 6 job that isn't the most
important in the world.

When we accept the Lord, we are called to a 24 hour job where Now is
literally that - Now. It is a verb, a noun, and an adjective. It is an
action, a time, and describing when all must be done. And before all
that can happen, now I must be a peace with all around me, as best as I
am able - forgiving when I am wronged and no remorse is shown by the
other party. Being accepting of either praise or persecution regardless
of circumstance or justness. Now will I do that which I am called for,
and Now I will focus solely on the one who did all Now, in one moment
hanging suspended outside of time. A single minute that is always in the
present - in the Now, with me wherever I go constantly reminding me of
the both the cost of where I'm going, and the fact I could never pay it
in my own means.

Now is the time that Christ made amends with all who wished him ill, and
said Forgive. Yet, even though it is a fact recorded in history because
the tomb is still empty it is not only in the past but is a real and
present act now, and will be until the end of the age, when it is needed
no longer, because the Now will be Then. And when the Now is Then, we
will be with Him the rest of eternity.

But it still starts with what happens Now. . .

Songs of Victory

2008-04-06T18:12:00.000-07:00

Songs of Victory

Psalm 37:1-11; John 21

In May of 1942, Admiral Chester Nimitz received information of two new
developments in Japanese Naval movement. The first was that a group of
ships were moving toward Alaska, presumably to invade some of the
Aleutian Islands and establish a base of operations near the U.S. The
second was that there was a location of interest that might be receiving
some special attention by the Imperial Japanese Navy. It was only
recently that the Japanese radio code had been broken, and he could be
sure what it was they were talking about – often they weren't even
completely sure of the translations – so the commander of U.S. forces in
the Pacific couldn't be sure, but he trusted his instincts. He trusted
the information and advice of those around him and he made a confident
decision in that trust. Because of that trust, America won a crucial
battle and probably turned the tide of the war. Trust brings Victory.

Trust Brings Victory.
A lack of trust causes a loss of that victory. We see that when Peter
denies Christ three times. If you've seen Mel Gibson's stirring
portrayal of the Passion, you see loss of trust in Peter's eyes. Because
he loses his trust in the very one he called "The Christ, the Son of the
Living God" he lost his security and his growth. Those are two of the
three things that come from Victory – Security and Growth. Let's look at
what David calls us to do in the opening verses of Psalm 37:

Do not fret because of evil men
Or be envious of those who do wrong;
For like the grass the will soon wither
Like the green plants the will soon die away.

It's to reassure us. It's a command – "Do not fret." This is coming from
David, a man who experienced just cause to fret – he ran for nearly 2 or
3 years to protect his life from the king of Israel. A man on the run
writes the words, do no fret. Why is that? He never lost his trust in
God, and he never lost his Victory. Like many of the Psalms David wrote,
we see the trust that he has in God even in his darkest hours. We see
the same in Christ in His darkest hours He trusts in God and He finds
his Restoration to renew his strength, His Security, to withstand all
that is thrown at Him, and the ability to Grow others.
We now see the third result of Victory – Restoration. Here we find that
which David knew and wrote songs about – Trust which brings Victory, and
that allows for Security, Restoration, and Growth.

Victory brings Security:

Trust in the Lord and do good;
Dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

Dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Security – safe pasture. What
does Security mean to us? Is it knowing that we'll be able to pay the
bills, or that we'll be able to go and enjoy a favorite pastime? To the
disciples we don't really know what security meant to them, but as we
see what they did after they lost their trust and their victory – we see
how the disciples on the road to Emmaus responded to Christ when he
asked them what had happened. We also see it in that how Peter simply
says "I'm going to go fishing." Even though he has already seen Christ
resurrected and eating with him. Heard and watched as Thomas touched
Christ and exclaimed "My Lord and my God." Peter still doesn't feel that
Victory that Thomas and some of the others do – granted six others go
with Peter when he goes fishing,
Fishing was what he knew before Christ called him, it was his blanket.
If anyone has seen Shrek, you might remember the scene where Shrek and
Donkey are crossing the molten lava on the rickety rope bridge. They get
half way across the bridge and are doing fine, then Donkey missteps and
breaks one of the slats. He looks down and sees the lava and starts
freaking out. He loses his trust and he loses his victory. That lost he
looks for the security he knows "Move out the way Shrek." He's halfway
through it, but he wants to go back. Why? "Because I know that half's
safe!" Donkey goes back to what he knows. So do we, so did Peter. We can
only think of the things we knew were safe before we started on the
journey. So where is the trust? Donkey is eventually coerced across the
bridge. Peter hears a voice "Have you caught anything? Oh… throw your
net on the /other/ side of the boat." Why does he do this? He trusts.
And what happens? The nets get so full that all the disciples that are
there cannot lift the nets. Peter trusts again and gets his security
back. But don't just take my word for it. Look it up in John 21, and
then see what other security Peter finds.
We take what Peter found for himself and apply it our lives now. What is
our security – the things we knew before Christ? For me, it's learning
things; it's being able to try to get my head around the whole of an
issue before I make a move. But does that show the trust that I should
have in God? No, and I could not begin to tell how many time I have lost
my victory and security because of a lack of trust. As I look to where
my life is going now, I see that the only way I can maintain any
semblance of peace – security is a synonym in this case – is if I trust
that the Lord knows what's best. I do that, I simply trust in Him, and
in that time I have peace and am ok with taking that step out in faith –
and in Victory.

Victory brings Restoration:

Commit your way to the Lord;
Trust in Him and He will do this:
He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn
The justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

Once the victory is won, the cleanup after the battle is never easy. But
cleaning up only occurs after the fighting subsides. Looking to recent
events, we see that we could only start rebuilding the southeast after
the fury of Katrina and Rita has passed. Even in our local area after
last year's floods in the Vernonia region, nothing could get done until
the rains had stopped. Granted, a battle against nature is almost purely
one-sided, and it is out of our control to change nature, but the
picture is still there. Only after Victory is gained can that which was
broken before be restored. One of the best examples I find of this in
scripture is in John 21. Continuing in our story with Peter, we find
that he has trusted in the Lord again has regained his security – so
much so that he again leaves his nets to others and jumps out to swim to
the shore and meet the Lord. The others finally make it back to shore
and find a small breakfast of their fish cooking. At this time Jesus
does something with Peter. He asks three questions. Christ could only
ask these questions, however, if the person he was asking them was
ready. You see, I think that ever since Peter saw Christ look at him
when he had finished denying Christ, there was a battle raging in the
mind and soul of Peter. But now Christ has seen Peter several times, and
just witnessed Peter placing his trust in Him without any proof as to
why he should. Christ knows the battle in Peter has subsided and that
Peter now has Victory. But for that victory to be complete, Peter must
be restored, rebuilt.
Now Victory is complete, you rebuild and renew anything that had been
destroyed. Peter is now ready to be rebuilt. "Peter, do you love me?"
Three times Christ asks Peter this question. Most theologians believe
this corresponds with the three denials of Christ Peter made. This all
makes sense – things must be rebuilt either the same way or better, and
who but the master architect to rebuild the one of whom he said "You are
called Simon, but now I call you Cephas, Peter, which means Rock because
on this foundation will I build my church, and it's gates not even Hell
can assail." Peter is renewed – restored to his former position. In the
same way, as we claim the Victory we have in Christ by trusting, that is
leaning or relying on, or to be confident, in Him, we find ourselves
being renewed.
Trusting in the Lord is to delight in the Lord. Look at verse 4 in the
Psalm. "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires
of your heart." What are your hearts desires right now? We've already
talked about one general desire of the human heart – security and
whatever that means to you. Here's another general desire of the human
heart – don't we all feel that there's something not exactly the way
it's supposed to be? Now I'm not talking about our hearts as one of my
former mentors used to refer to as our "bloody thumper." I'm speaking
about our spiritual hearts. Most of us who are not in denial anymore
realize that there are some broken things rattling around in there, I
know that I have. I have broken communications, broken understanding of
myself and of others. But as I trust in God I see, as Christ saw in the
garden, that the war is over and I see the Victory and my heart begins
to change. I have my hope in the fact the God has won, /and/ that He
sees me in a different way than I see myself once I have placed my trust
in Him. My heart becomes restored to the place, the way it was before
the fall, where I have communion and relationship with God. I am
restored to what I was before the war came. However, there is something
better still, as David suggests in the Psalm, I – we - becomes even
better than before.

Victory brings Growth:

Whenever we see Security and Restoration together, we invariably also
see Growth occur. After 9/11, our thoughts of security were gone. We did
not know what was safe to do. Because people weren't sure what was going
on, the country's collective idea of safety and security was difficult
to find. As a result of that we saw many things that had been growing
grind to a halt or even go backwards. Our economy which had just started
to rebound was slammed back into the basement and took another year and
a half to climb back out. But once we felt safe, about year or so after,
what happened? Growth in all sectors of the economy – we saw the job
market grow so much so that in the middle of last year, the unemployment
rate was under 5% which is lower than it had ever been. As people felt
safe, they restored their old habits. As New York felt safe, they forged
on to restore the great Twin Towers. But they didn't just restore the
twin towers as they were before – they grew them. Frequently, when we
are restoring something, we take extra time to grow it into something
better.
When Christ restored Peter on the shore of the sea of Tiberius, He also
began the growing process to make Peter something more than he had been
before. As we look back through the gospels, we see Peter as act first
think later guy. Not that this is a bad thing, in faith we see many
great heroes of scripture acting before they think of the practical
solution to something. But as with many others, Peter often acted not
out of the Spirit's leading, but out of what he thought was good common
sense. When Christ called Peter three times to feed his lambs and sheep,
Christ put into him a reminder of who it was that Peter was to give to
the flock and how. This opens up Peter for the growth we see in Acts.
Peter grew so much once he understood where his security was, and had
been restored, all through the Victory gained by Trusting in Christ. And
how much can we grow as we do the same? I have learned that as I
continue to place more trust in God, understanding more of whom I am now
that I am His – and more so trusting that what He has said about me is
true. The more I trust that I am a child of God, a co heir with Christ
the more I grow in the knowledge that I am saved, I am changed, and a
new creation of God. As I grow in this I can grow closer in my
relationship with God, I grow stronger in my Victory, realize my
security, enjoy my restoration, and grow even more.

I desire Security, Restoration and Growth:

So where does this leave us now? "Trust in the Lord. . . Delight in the
Lord. . . Commit your way to the Lord. . ." That is what we must do.
Trust in the Lord, and why shouldn't we? After all He created everything
and knows everything about you. We look back at the life of David the
writer of Psalm 37. Whether fleeing for his life or facing a large man
or beast, he trusted God and received the victory every time. What are
you facing now? What losses are you experiencing? What hurts, what
destruction has the brokenness of this world put before you that call
out for rebuilding? Is there some fear that you have; some uneasiness
about where you are right now?
I know that as I sat at my desk writing this message out I was
overwhelmed by the responsibility of speaking God's word to His people.
But I trust that He will have His way. The words that have come from me
today, I am secure in the belief that they were the words that He gave
me – He allowed me to use. I have not always been ready or able to speak
in this manner, but because I put my trust in the Lord, He restored me
to a better relationship with Him that I might help others learn the
same. The last portion of our passage today was this:
A little while, and the wicked will be no more;
though you look for them, they will not be found.
But the meek will inherit the land
and enjoy great peace.
Do you want a part in this Victory? It is not complicated to take part
in it – it's not rocket science. But it is the most difficult, simple
thing you can ever do. Trust in the Lord. Believe what He has said and
is saying today is True. Giving that trust requires all of who we are,
it must be complete trust. But the rewards of that Trust – Gaining the
ultimate Victory, how can you say no to that?

Giving our best

2008-03-17T09:02:00.000-07:00

In the last week I've had two instances where there was talk about giving the best. The first talk was at work. Each year around October the employees take a survey to see how our managers are doing. It's called the Q12 because there are 12 major questions that comprise the survey - each dealing with a specific aspect of life in the workplace. Then, around this time of the year, once all the results are in and upper management's talked to lower management, the location management talks to the staff. At that meeting, the management asks the staff to think of some areas the whole location would like to work on as a team - this is good as it should build unit cohesion and morale. Usually, that's the case.

Then there are the times when half of the staff is not yet in their mid 20's and hasn't really learned what work in the real world is all about. Half of them are still worried about fashion and what Vogue, Cosmo and whatever Access Hollywood says is the latest thing to do or wear. One or two of the younger ones might be hitting that wall that causes a slight bit of maturity, but then they pick themselves up and go on with the approved mediocrity. I do think that it's a said commentary when a work group feels that not everyone is committed to the same idea of what excellent service is. Not feeling that your coworker has the same commitment level to the job as you do is not healthy for morale. Nor is it good for customer service - especially when your job is nothing but customer service, not to mention dealing with the customer's (usually) most prized commodity of cash. In the service industry, the high up muckity mucks set a certain standard that is called a base line. That is the lowest, median expected level that should be reached by all members of the company. That is how manager are able to give performance reviews - by measuring the employee's record to the standard. You are either above or below. But the customers never see the mid line, they don't know what the corporate has set the standard at - their standard is always higher.

You would think after receiving consistent feedback that the service is not only below that which the customer expects (you can almost never fully meet the customer's expectations, they're usually set about 2 steps higher than the norm) but what the company has set at a minimum, that the employees (the ones with the ground level responsibility for meeting said standards) would learn. Not with our current up and coming generations - that would be to say the younger half of my own (of which I'm toward the later years simply because of age, not because of maturity) and subsequent ones. No, they can't be given constructive criticism and be expected to grow from it. They expect you to take them by the hand and lead them gently and in a coddling manner to the next step, always praising them whether they did it right or royally biffed it. And we wonder why so few of the youth of our days lack any semblance of commitment and self sacrifice. They expect to be praised even when they're not doing the right thing! Is that giving our best?

The next foray into the concept of giving the best we have came this Sunday at my church. The pastor was preaching, fittingly on Palm Sunday, about songs of praise. Here we see a image painted of that mid morning near Jerusalem, as Christ sits upon the colt, gently riding into town. As He nears His disciples and the unready crowds recognize who He is - the King returning to His kingdom! They start to shout and praise, loud cries of "Hosanna! Hosanna!" ring out and talks of the "one who comes in the name of the Lord" are belted from the deep voices of men lining the way, casting down palm branches and even their own cloaks before the humble man sitting on a unbroken donkey. Knowledge of who the man is, and all that He has done spreads like wildfire and reaches the ears of the religious rulers, who come to Him quickly and demand that He silence His followers. To this He simply replies "If they become silent, then even the very rocks will cry out!" What a simple statement. As if to say, if we do not give our all, our best, then the rocks will cry out in our place. What a shame to be bested by an inanimate object?

In the Psalms, we are exhorted many times to "Sing to the Lord" and "Praise the Lord, O my soul" and "Shout to the Lord." In Psalms 150 we are given the command to "Praise the Lord" and several methods with which to accomplish this command. But in Psalm 15, we are also cautioned to "Play skillfully before the Lord." We are cautioned to bring our best - our all - to Him in praise and adoration. Could we do any less? To bring anything less than the absolute best of who we are and what we have is an insult. Do you give your team members on a sports team any less that that? What of your family? What do those things mean to you - what are they worth to you? Is there any reason to bring less than the cream of the crop, the unblemished animal, the best of what you have to offer?

In teaching a beginner brass class at my church, I had my students write down what they thought it meant to them to bring their best. Having been a musician for nearly 20 years myself, I have an idea of what that means to me. I play music for one reason only, to give glory to the one who gave me the ability to make music in the first place. But in order for my performance of that to be worth anything, I must give my all - bring the absolute best I can. Not to play skillfully before a large audience of men, but to play soul-fully before the audience of one.

Does everyone have the ability to make music? No. But we all play our own song in our own way, and so I have but one question to ask, both for me and for you. Do you seek to play with your everything the best you can before the audience of One?

Blessings,

What is it?

2007-12-30T18:13:00.000-08:00

Started March of 2007...

Every so often, as we walk around the streets of a medium to large city, or we exit some big venue, we hear the strains of a voice saying “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for your salvation is at hand.” That or something like it rings familiar in our minds – or at least in mine. How frequently do we hear the scoffers, the opposition – shush and shut-uppers? The people who groan in response to the call, “Do you not know, have you not heard? There is a way for you to be forgiven and have eternal life!” “Turn away from your life of sin – of immorality and know Christ, God's Son who died for you.” <>

I have a huge problem with this. And so do most of the people that hear it. From the few times that I’ve seen it happen in these recent years (say the last 15 or so, since that's all that I can readily remember) not much comes of it. You might get some one here and there – usually someone who might have originally been brought up in the church, sometimes a catholic or from some other rather liturgical denomination. Other than the one or two mostly all you hear are rebuttals. Not that this is different, mind you. The radicals who preached the fiery corner sermons in the mid to late 1800’s and early 1900’s got much of the same – but it was a different reason. <>

Here's what I think it is. We now live in a different time. Catherine, William, Evangeline and other pioneers of the Salvation Army, D.L. Moody and any other number of passionate, spiritually articulate apostles of the Faith spoke to a people who knew their sin. The people of that time knew what sin was. They had a keen understanding of it – they recognized it in themselves, much like the Pharisees did when they tore their robes at the sight of the curtain separating the Most Holy Place being shredded in two from top to bottom. They were acutely aware that what they were doing was wrong, but did not desire to stop doing it. They didn't want to stop it for the plain fact that they either felt they couldn't or just didn't want to. <>

The question still remains, however, why did so many of them turn? Because when confronted with it and provided with understanding about the Truth of the fact that they could indeed stop, and could indeed find something more fulfilling, they found answer to the questions burning inside them. Did all stop? No. One even threw a brick at the head of Samuel Logan Brengle to get him to stop – but praise God for that brick and the little book that came of it. (By the way, that's pretty much what Samuel Logan Brengle said.) <>

So, what is so different about today? People are still slumming, slutting, drinking, debauching, and in short sinning all around. Nothing's changed – except the attitudes. We have changed from a culture (and this is world wide mind you) that had a moral center to one where morals (deciding whether what Hitler did was right or wrong) are now will-o-the-wisp. Whichever way the wind blows, however you feel today. That is what determines right and wrong for that day. In short, people don’t know what sin is.

Now, I realize I'm not the first person to say this. I’ve probably read it nearly a dozen times myself. But one more voice saying that can't hurt. They don’t honestly know. And quite frankly, they don’t want to know either. “How dare you tell me what is right and wrong? What right do you have?” From every direction we hear this. And from every direction we will continue to hear these same retorts. They cannot, for the life of them, figure it out. Morality, that dreaded thing, has been bred out of them over the last 3 generations. Now, as a historian I will tell you that it started much further back than just 3 generations, and in some sense it is part of a cycle that has been ongoing for the last 6,000 years or so. Sometimes the cycle moves a bit faster than other times (look at the book of Judges – and if you're really a history nut you might even try to find some of the extra biblical sources that do collaborate the stories told in that book) right now, we're in, I believe, the strongest part of the cycle.

<><>It can only start to get better though. It might take a little while to do so, but it can only get better. People are coming close to their “rock bottom” and will, at some point in time, realize their blatant emptiness. Once they realize their emptiness where will they turn – to someone who once told them “I told you so?” No, they'll turn to someone who showed them acceptance of who they were, but let them know that they didn't agree. Someone who hasn't been perfect all their life and knows what it means to struggle with something – who knows the emptiness which was been felt by others.

When they find someone they can connect with then they begin to open up, and start to share where they're at in their life. The person they've connected with can relate to that, and share how they found the way out. That is what Christ did. He came to our world, put on our clothes, spoke our language, lived our life, and showed us the way to something better. He spoke the truth, which hurt sometimes, but He always showed love – there were just times when the love wasn't returned.

<>Will you show the same love, and put your imperfect self out there, and reach out to those that need to be filled?

Clashing Trains...

2007-08-23T00:03:00.001-07:00

Tonight I found out some things that ended up crashing in my brain like a nice big train wreck. That’s never good in my mind, because there’s a lot up there, and so many different things – especially things that tie to a couple of different hot buttons for me is never a good thing.

Right now as I write this I am both rather perturbed, and greatly saddened. I was told why several friends of mine have been absent from fellowship recently and was moved close to tears because of what’s happened. Also this evening, while having my nightly talk with my girlfriend, I became rather upset at the lack of leadership she’s experiencing at her current place of employment, and the stress that she’s feeling because of it. To top it all off, while doing devotions, some other things tripped off in my brain and heart and just heaped on to the trains rushing toward collision in the rail yard of my grey matter.

I have no qualms saying that there are times when I hate who I am. I rather dislike the sense of duty, honesty, fair-play, goodness, and passion for excellence in everything that comes from those things. They are all rather hard to balance out with my lack of self control, pride, strength of will, and those frequent thoughts that I know all the answers (which, I do honestly realize I don’t, as much as I’d like to). That strong desire to make everything right and perfect is rather annoying when put in the light of all those other traits that I’ve been given and developed. I stand amazed at the gifts that I’m given, and realize, that because of them (and I’m not bragging by the way, I really wish I didn’t have what I think I have) there is a lot expected of me – and that just makes people dislike me more because they seem to get this impression that I think I’m better then anyone else. It’s exactly the opposite, I know what I have and am rather confident about it, but I really don’t think all that much of myself.

When you find out that a young man has succumbed to a temptation which you have fought against so hard yourself, your heart breaks. Mine did just tonight because of some news that I heard. What makes it even harder for me is that I think in my own mind I should have caught some of the signs beforehand, and warned him. In a sense, however, I think I did. He was present when I told my story. The story of how I broke a woman’s heart – one I thought I was to marry, and was pretty much on the way to that – because I didn’t act like the man I am called to be. When I cheated on my girlfriend of some years ago, not only did I rip her heart up, but I did some hefty damage to my own. To my knowledge she has healed fairly well, as she was married a year this past 12^th of August. I on the other hand, am still dealing with the damage I dealt myself. Some 5 years after the dastardly act I committed, it still haunts me, no matter how oft I cry “get thee behind me, Satan, you have no power here.” Five years later I still hesitate, because I dread becoming the half man I was. My heart breaks for my friends because I know in part the pain they’re feeling. I pray for them and their families for there is much healing to be done.

And I pray for the young woman too. I don’t know what caused the whole thing to happen, and I do not seek to rationalize the actions taken. But to be seemingly without remorse in a situation like this causes me even greater pain, because this young lady was fully exposed to the message of the Love of God, and the full benefits given to those who follow His word and the boundaries therein. I empathize with the anger and the distaste, and the possible hatred, that would come from the family of the one hurt most by the actions of the two – I felt exactly the same anger at myself for the actions I took, and I know the same feelings were harbored toward me so long ago – in fact I’m pretty sure there are still some that might feel them today. But I feel called to pray neither for the condemnation, nor for the wrath of God to be felt by either person. I feel called to pray for healing and a repentant heart for both. All are in my prayers – Lord, please touch them if they are willing for your touch, and chase after them, that they might fully know Your awesome love.

However, as I said that was not the only train chugging on its little track tonight. I found that my current girlfriend’s job is not a good place of employment for anyone. Now, I try my best to be unbiased, and I realize that is hard because one that I care for is the primary source of the information that I get. Without knowing all the sides of the story, I realize that I will tend to lean toward her side yet there is something rather amiss. Now, please mind that I am a fix-it person. I don’t like things that are broken, and I especially get incensed when the best is not being accomplished for someone else. But my biggest pet peeve in the corporate/business world are people that don’t understand the seemingly little known law of putting in good gets you better.

This is what I mean. When you treat someone in a way commensurate with the exampled behavior, you will tend to get the expected return. If you have an employee that is performing below par, doing good will either do one of two things. It will either make the employee realize they’re not in the right position, or it will motivate them to change slightly. Yelling at someone rarely (except in the usual case of the military) gets someone to really change. If you motivate people positively they either get the fire or they don’t. The ones that don’t have probably made a conscious decision within themselves to be sub-par permanently and there is no going back. You let them go and focus on the ones that are seeing the benefit and striving to succeed. On the flip side, if someone is doing well, producing results above expectations and generally seeking to truly do what’s in the best interest of all involved, yet you don’t give them recognition or reward the work accordingly, you tend to lose not only the will of the person to continue, but tend to see negative results cascading as a result.

Now, I will admit some larger companies might not see net effects take place immediately, but I’m quite certain they will see and experience them, and then wish they had done “good” in the first place. However by that time, the chances of repairing the relationship with the person who was a performer – not just the fast-food order taking, unthinking, attitude packed teen punching the buttons without a smile – will not take a second thought at saying and emphatic “No, not on your life in a thousand years.” to them. For the most part I find that it is poor management skills produced by sub-standard training based on the “me” school of thought – the management pyramid means the folks on the bottom support me, the manager. Sure companies based on that leadership model succeed – because arrogance, avarice and ambition fuel the little people to want to get on the top so they can make someone else feel the pain they felt. But the remaining question is how much did they really lose out on in all that they gained?

I believe Christ was right when He said, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26) Sure you can get a lot when you push down on others, but what is it worth it to you? You’ve probably pushed out everyone that you could share and enjoy your success with. It truly is poor leadership when you only think of the money bottom-line. Your “people” bottom-line is so much more important, and it fuels the money. I honestly wish I could give my girlfriend’s bosses a piece of my mind – but it’s her battle, and she’s told me that. I want to fix it, make it right and fight for what is best for her, but in this one I can’t. And that frustrates me to no end.

I have more running around in my head right now, but for the most part I’ve vented as I need to. If I can’t sleep, maybe I’ll write some more and put it up for you to read my rants. This is a really good way for me to process some of the things in my mind. It really does help me to materialize what’s going on in the grey matter in this way. Hopefully it’s semi-lucid, and maybe someone who reads it will be touched and have their life change because of it. Overall, however, I must be very thankful to the Lord, because He’s help me keep my calm, and given me the strength to do this. Otherwise I’d still be going at something…don’t know what it is though.<>

<>Blessings, and stay strong in the faith if you’re in it, and if you’re not, find out how freeing it really is.

Last Words - Part 2

2007-08-22T01:42:00.000-07:00

The first post I wrote on last words wasn't the only post I had tumbling around in my brain when I wrote it. When I was talking with my friends about the last words I thought of something else that followed along with all that was happening. I alluded to it a bit in my last post about last words - about the Jews that were around him. They knew exactly what has happening, they know what he's saying but not hearing anything that He's saying to them.

What's semi ironic about it all, is that Christ even told them that's what would happen. As He was telling his disciples and those who were listening a parable about a farmer sowing seeds, people weren't fully grasping what He was telling them. Even his disciples, to an extent, were missing the point. The difference was, they asked Him what he meant. He told them, and He said to them that they were blessed with the knowledge. He quoted a scripture - again, something that many of the religious leaders in his day would be very familiar with:

"Though seeing, they do not see;
      though hearing, they do not hear or understand.
14 In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
   " 'You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
      you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
15 For this people's heart has become calloused;
      they hardly hear with their ears,
      and they have closed their eyes.
   Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
      hear with their ears,
      understand with their hearts
   and turn, and I would heal them.'" (Matthew 13:13b-15)

He lays it all out. He says that as much as He tells them, they're really not going to listen. How often do we do that ourselves? I know that I'm guilty of it with my parents, close friends - even my girlfriend at times (probably more than I should). Does this make it right? By no means. Every time I don't listen fully, I don't hear and pay full attention I miss out on something. I often feel myself to be like the Pharisees of Christ's day - given a gift and abusing it in some way. I don't try to, but I j ust do - and believe me, it's not that I want to.

How about you? When you read this, do you understand what Christ is saying to you? Are you just nodding your head, and agreeing just to get him to be quiet? Or are you like the disciples, catching wisps of the greatness He's providing and saying, "Lord, explain this to me more, I want to make sure I understand."?

Our last words are important, they are the things by which we are remembered and known for. More so than our words are our actions. Christ's actions and words never deviated from the course, He never wavered. Will we hear His words, and pray that we would see with our eyes, hear with our ears, understand with our hearts and turn to Him, that He would heal us? I pray that I will, and that I might help others to hear by my own words and actions.

Blessings,

Ok...so sue me.

2007-06-14T08:13:00.001-07:00

Originally, I was going to finish the second part of the
last words post, but I need to delay that for a little bit. You see, there's
something that's recently come up in my life. I don't want to bore you with all
the details, but as with most guys my age, I'm going to guess you can figure it
out.

I've come to the conclusion that being in your mid twenties
is one of the best worst times of your life. You're in that exciting time when
everything about where you're at is new. You get a new job, new place to live
sometimes, new experiences after the roller coaster of college – new
responsibilities in many cases. Many twenty-something's are also in the midst
of one of the newest things of all – relationships. I can't tell you how many
weddings I've missed in the last 5 years. All of that romance missed and that
causes me to pause. I mean, why is it that I'm single? Why can't I strike it
lucky and find a wonderful, beautiful woman to settle down with? Love (that is,
Eros love or a form thereof) sucks both ways. Let me elaborate on that a bit
more.

About 2 years ago, I wrote a post about love. The gist of it
was sometimes love means you let go – either of the one you love or of yourself
and all you hold dear for the one you love. Why is it that letting go of
something you enjoy, or desire, is so hard? Why wouldn't it be hard? When you
desire or long for something a bond is forged, no matter how superficial it
might be, that connects that person or thing in a deep manner to your identity.
Right now to me, having let go of something that I held to for sometime (in
retrospect, there was never any reason to hold on to it, in fact I tried to let
it go for many of the past 10+ years) has caused some issues for me. In fact,
since I've let go of this one habit I have found myself slightly
confused/indecisive in several areas of my life.

So, with that happening inside my mind, I find myself
interested (that's what it started out as) in a young woman. What's more, I
find that she's very interested in me. Now this is a surprise to me. I really
have to wrap my head, and heart, around this idea. You see, I feel very much
like a Gomer (if you read my other blog that will give you an idea of where I
am in my walk with God). To me, someone expressing that much interest in me, is
extremely difficult to grasp and scares me. My mind is going, "is she really
interested in me, or is it just a drive on her part to not have anymore first
dates?" I can't quite get my mind, and heart, to fully believe she feels that
way. And because this scares me, it creates uncertainty in my mind – which then
makes things hard for her.

My brain, and heart, wants to try and scare/test her. And
that gives me a chance to sort through my own feelings. And so as I took a
period to do this, I think of all that she's said to me, and how I felt when I
was with her, and when I wasn't with her. Now, I am a guy and so when we were
apart, or not talking to each other during our day, I will admit not every
waking moment was spent thinking about her. To some that might seem callous –
but that's just the way I am. However the other day, as I was reflecting about
where I was at, I came upon Proverbs 31. That passage of scripture talks about
a Noble Wife. That got me thinking about what I was looking for in a spouse.

A noble wife is to be cherished and desired…and I think I
might have found a woman that would fit that bill. Now if I can just finish
sorting out my disbelief.

"Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief."

Blessings.

____________________________________________________________________________________
Yahoo! oneSearch: Finally, mobile search
that gives answers, not web links.

http://mobile.yahoo.com/mobileweb/onesearch?refer=1ONXIC

On last words...

2007-06-02T11:15:00.000-07:00

One of the questions I always find fascinating is that of, “What do you want your last words to be?” Along those lines, the thought of what you want to appear as your epitaph. In fact one of the frequent items at parties for fun is the “famous last words” – those phrases uttered at seemingly the most inopportune moment that gain lasting infamy. Some last words are more memorable than others, and others are said purely in jest, for instance “I’ll be right back.”

Then there are the last words that are more significant, the ones that are meant to last and possibly give directions or something of that nature. This kind of last words are often given on the deathbed, or before someone goes off to do something that will be of lasting impact that they might not return from. One of the “last words” that I remember is at the end of the movie Zorro, when the old Zorro is about to die, and he gives his daughter's hand to the new Zorro, giving them his blessing to be wed. Honestly, I really don’t know why I put that in there – it’s just something that sticks out in my mind – but it’s really not where I wanted to go. However you get the point I hope. Last words are very important. They have lasting meaning and are meant to have great impact. One man throughout history had many words that, while not his last, had lasting impact.

“About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani.’ Which means, ‘My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?’

Those are the last words that Christ is recorded as saying in the gospels of Matthew and Mark. In Luke and John he says, “It is finished.” Looking at what could be the chronology of the events, the words in Luke and John probably came just after the words in Matthew and Mark. Christ knew the power of the spoken word, especially the Word of God. Christ quoted it often in his speaking and he knew exactly what He wanted to say. In Biblical times, what was said as a man was dying was of great importance. It was at this time that a father would give the blessing to his firstborn, as was the case with Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. David and Solomon did the same thing. If the words of these men had such far reaching importance, how much more are the final words of the Son of God, giver of all life?

“Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani.” My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So often we might ask a question along those lines. “Why God?” Where are you, God?” During those hard times in our lives, when things we don’t fully understand are happening even those who might dispute the existence of God, we find ourselves crying out to the Creator of all things. I know of an old saying, “There are no foxhole atheists.” Now if we as mere humans, unknowing of what is to come do such a thing, what does it mean if the one through which all things were created, knowing exactly what was going on, cries out in this fashion? How much deeper is his query to His father, God of the Angel Armies?

Jesus was Jewish, and grew up in all the traditions of Mosaic law. He knew all that was required of him to be called a man, which means Jesus had most, if not all, of the Torah and Tenach (the Hebrew Bible) memorized. When he spoke those words, they were a cry of anguish, and as prayer, He must have known that he was speaking from the first line the 22^nd Psalm. Any of those who were also Jewish, and in earshot of him would have known this as well. But what did they assume he was doing? “He’s calling to Elijah.” What does this mean? As I’ve said before, Christ knew the importance of words – and He knew exactly what was happening to Him.

The whole of Psalm 22, I believe is a description of what Christ went through – both physically in our world, and spiritually in the realm we cannot see. He knew exactly what was going to happen, in fact what was happening – in both planes at the same time. That is the incredible position that Christ was in as equally human and equally divine.

He can see the pain and sorrow in his family and disciples that were there – close and in the distance. The look on those faces possibly mirroring the emotions and expression of the angels in heaven and his father. The anguish the Father must have experienced as he withdrew his presence from his son. Breaking the connection they had shared from before the beginning of time – a connection so deep and strong it must have been the hardest thing the God of the angel armies had to do.

Looking to the other side, he sees the mocking of Pharisees and other religious “leaders” and even that of the thief to one side of him, also on a cross. Taking their barbs of insult and unbelief, their unwillingness to listen and move outside of their comfort zones. The inability to come out of themselves and relinquish control to someone better suited to it. All of that must have mimicked the looks of delight and evil joy in the seeming defeat of the hosts of heaven by the prince of darkness and all his minions. All those demons, given dominion of their own realms by the Devil – a former angel who had been thrown out of heaven because of his desire to be as God – now given the chance to gloat and humiliate the giver of Life. All the bulls and demi-gods who want the place of the King of Kings now have the chance to taunt and torment the very one who took part in their creation as angels.

In all of this, Christ is fully aware, and painfully acknowledges his acceptance of the sin he will carry for us, that the penalty would be paid. Only one who was human could pay the price of human sin – human death. And only one who was divine could take on the penalty for all present and future humans. All of this is who Christ was – it was not his sole purpose on Earth but his main purpose. To accomplish this He required all his senses, human and supernatural. Following to the end of Psalm 22, He knew that in enduring all of that He would not be left to rot in the grave, He would rise triumphantly and not only break the power of sin, but also that of death.

Read Psalm 22, and picture yourself there, on that hill known as the place of the skull, some 1,980 years ago. Look into the face of one of the men on the three crosses and see the mixed, deeply felt, emotions of love and anguish in the eyes that man. Read Psalm 22 and know that it could be an accurate description of all that He is seeing with his human and spiritual eyes, and know that He took all of that for you, because He wants to know you personally.

<>
Blessings.

Another post from 35,000 ft -slightly delayd

2007-02-20T04:39:00.000-08:00

About an hour away from Portland I find my mind wandering all over the place. I’ve just taken a break from reading Monster, a novel written by Frank Peretti about a year or so ago. I’ve been meaning to purchase it for sometime, but just recently did. I really don’t want to get too much into the whole story, but needless to say it involves some of the heavily debated topic of evolution. Now, I do understand that Peretti does put some of his characters to the extreme of both sides of the spectrum in some ways, but an old friend and mentor of mine always said, “We are really ourselves when we’re at our worst.” NO I might be misconstruing this comment, but I think that it does include us when we are at our most extreme. When we take the view we think is right and we wish to defend it at all costs, that is us at our worst. That is when the primal urges that dwell in the deepest part of our being come to the surface. I believe a real world example of this in the present would be the senseless destruction of human life by those believing that it is the best way to foist their beliefs on others.

(While there are many tangents that I know that I could go on, I will try to keep those thoughts on track, and save the others for another time, possibly in the near future.)

Getting back to the Peretti novel, I found a quote in the middle of the novel that struck me. Now, I can’t quote it word for word, just because I read it about 250 pages or so ago, but it was something along the lines of “People will believe what they want, and even when all the facts are telling them different, they will overlook them to believe what they want.” Now, you might read this and say one of two things. “Your out of your mind, how could someone look at the facts and still not believe.” Or you could say, “You could have a point there, but I’d never do that, I’m too objective to do that.” And both of those statements are completely false. I can prove it because I know that as objective and logical as I try to be in analyzing something, I will admit that there is a good chance I will or have overlooked some facts that don’t fit into my worldview in order to maintain an uncorrupted belief in my worldview and belief system. So as I write this, I write not as a hypocrite, but as one who knows about it because there’s a good chance that I’ve done it myself, and now that I’ve recognized it, I will try to avoid it as best as is possible.

That being said, what is the big deal about this? Why would I write about it?

***February 20, 2007, 3:26 am***

Ok…almost two months since I’m completing this, but finally some things congealed in my cognitive areas, and I felt them best to complete this post.

Why would I write about this whole thing? Well think about the whole theory of evolution. It is, for the most part, taught as the definitive manner by which human beings appeared on the earth, as a long cycle of accidental trial and error, occurring over millions and billions of years. Why is it taught as fact? Because it fits into a secular, and human centric worldview that allows mankind to rationalize anything it wants to as being ok. And honestly I can understand it. It allows us to get away with doing things that in the depths of our being – those frequently ignored places that cry out to our anesthetized consciences – we know are not right. I know because I’ve done it, and rationalized things myself. The “if it feels good, it must be ok” syndrome really is a byproduct of this worldview. Here’s the sort of facts and evidence that they might overlook in order to maintain a façade that nature is truly impartial, and therefore we have no higher authority to be held accountable by.

If we are to take for a fact that evolution – as espoused by Darwin’s Origin of Species – is the method by which man came to be as he is today, we must go back beyond the first amoeba. The fact that the correct amino acids happen to combine together in just the right way, in order for the spark of unintelligent (that is life forms with more that one cell) life to come to pass the environment had to be in just the right order, accidentally, for those amino acids to form.

Side note: Now, there are a lot of different things about the start of “life,” or even what the exact definition of life is. For the purpose of this particular writing, I’m only going to look at those forms of early life that might have “evolved” into humans. Seeing as humans are some, ninety percent (give or take a few) water I’m going to use for an example those amoeba that formed in water. I know that a plethora of other “life-forms” exist within the bacterial world, but funny enough, we haven’t seen any bacteria “evolve” into anything other than bacteria over the last billion or so years. . .

Going back to the water in which the first proteins combined in. That water had to randomly come to be. This also means that the different atoms that create the elements that water consists of had to just happen to be in the right form at just the right moment. Let’s think about this. Water, everyone knows, consists of an Oxygen atom and two Hydrogen atoms. What make up these atoms? Hydrogen (which, by the way has two or three different forms, I can’t remember at this hour) is formed, normally, out of one proton and one electron. Oxygen, slightly more complex (also having another form or two) is made of eight protons, eight neutrons and eight electrons (in its most abundant form). If you want to break it down even further you wish, protons having two up quarks and one down and neutrons having two down quarks and one up. Those also can be broken down, but I don’t really see the need to. The question is this – how likely is it that subatomic particles that make up the quarks that make up the protons and neutrons that make up the atoms of Oxygen (which is diatomic, two atoms together) and Hydrogen that make up one molecule of water just happen to accidentally be at just the right place at just the right time to form those protons?

I mean seriously – think about this. I wasn’t able to find out what the size of a quark was, but a proton (which has three quarks, like a neutron) has a diameter of .8 x 10-15 meters and a mass of 1.672 621 71(29) × 10−27 kg. That is not big – I mean we can’t even see these things with the unaided eye – heck not even with electron microscopes with tips that are one atom wide. What are the likely chances that out of the big bang (which is the most widely accepted theory, based on observable evidence – see the Wikipedia article) those small particles would just happen to come together in exactly the right way? Not to mention all the potential things that could have gone wrong in the big bang itself (again, see the Wikipedia article).

So I’ll leave at this for now, since it is 4:30 in the morning, and I have read (and to some degree understood and retained) way to much information about particle physics and cosmology and cellular biology concerning prokaryotes and eukaryotes, for a human being to sanely do and still get sleep. Honestly though. Ask yourself about that. I know there’s some whiz mathematician that’s probably done some probability study on the chances of those particular things happening randomly so you can probably seek them out should you want to. Even if you don’t look that up, does it cause some question in your mind about how random it really was? If it wasn’t random, how’d it happen?

Blessings, and good night (or really, good morning)

(PS: Hyperlinked words will take you to Wikipedia articles)

Self-Portrait in. . . Fire?

2007-01-23T21:08:00.000-08:00

No..this isn't about what the man shouts at a firing squad, or what an officer says on the battle line. Nor is it about the case settled by the Supreme Court about yelling that word in a crowded space. It's about Fire. That thing you put in a fireplace, or you'll have burning at a campfire. What follows might have been conceived by someonelse before me, but I will attest that I have never heard it before I penned these words the saturday night before Martin Luther King, Jr. day - 1/13/2007.

I think it's really cool how God has given us so many representations of himself. So many images of Himself - his power, love, grace, mercy - everything that is God, the creator of heaven and earth. No wonder Paul wrote in Romans 1 that we are without excuse because God's qualities are proclaimed throughout nature, or the Psalmist penned Psalm 19 "The Heavens declare the glory of God. . ." I am particularly taken by His self-portrait through water, but that's not what caught my eye this evening. I think God put a little bit of pyro in me, and the fact that He's painted another self-portrait in Fire is just another amazing thing He's done. A lot of people have talked about God, and His spirit as a purifying, or refining fire. He's also been referred to as a consuming fire. Watching a fire, like a house fire or a forest fire, you can get the picture of a consuming fire no problem, but watching a fire in a fireplace or fire pit..that's something else. It's a consuming, growing, and sustaining fire.

I was looking at one of these fires tonight, while we were having a time of prayer at our young adult retreat, and someone put a new log on the fire we had going, and I started to watch it as I was praying about a lot different things. The log was new fuel to the fire that had been going for a few hours got brighter and higher as it began to consume the new log. As it did this, I saw the whole fire - the new log being consumed, the logs that had been consumed and were no longer giving fuel, and the embers, still hot and glowing.

In all this I see God. God is fire, and when He is introdruced to something, or rather when someone is introduced to Him the outside things are easily burned away. Like fire begins on the outside of a log, the bark and debris, are quickly burned and taken away and you see that bright flame from the easily combustible material. After that initial burst of flame, often times, it seems like the wood will do no more but serve as a support for everything else going on in the fire. Often times, that is the case, and nothing does happen with those logs. Then there are times when there's a crack in the wood, the fire makes its way into inside of the log - the deeper part where there is much more fuel to be burned. Sometimes, someone comes along and stirs up the fire, breaking the logs that aren't being burned as fuel to be opened up to let the fire into where the unconsumed part is. Sometimes you just need to break the log to get it going again.

When that wood is finally consumed, and is burning within because of the heat, it's an ember - softly, slowly continuing to burn. It doesn't need to flare up, but there are times when it will. Sometimes it's caused by air blowing on it, or fuel coming in contact with it. What the most important thing the ember does is carry within it it the searing heat and combustion of the fire. When that red hot ember touches some wood, it ignites the wood to spread the fire further, and to keep it burning. Eventually turning that wood into an ember again.

I pray that someday I will be an ember, fully consumed and spreading the Fire.

Hmm....Off topic...

2006-10-16T00:51:00.000-07:00

Saw this on yahoo comics, the place I go to help maintain my sanity at times, and found this:

Thanks to Yahoo Comics and Over The Hedge for this.

The Instigator of Diversity and Personality (or Are You Settling for just the Hor's Douvers?)

2006-09-25T20:44:00.000-07:00

****September 9, 2006****
As another month or two goes by, I find my mind inspired to again place its thoughts in written form. If I wander, please bare with me - I've only had about 5 hours of sleep as I begin this.

About a week ago, I found myself in one of those "Christian" chat rooms on Yahoo. I was a little tired and bored, so I thought I might find some stimulating conversation that would give me some mental gymnastics to do before going to bed - sometimes that helps to calm me down and go to sleep, sometimes it doesn't. While I'm in there I notice a conversation going on between a "Christian" and a person who follows the beliefs of Wicca. Now, before I carry on with the main idea of this post, I want to take a small aside to point something out.

If you've ever gone into the chat rooms on yahoo, or anywhere else for that matter, have you ever noticed that quite frequently you find people in the room that really don't match what the particular topic of the room might be? I mention this particularly in the case of "Christian" chat rooms. Often I find in there people who are not carrying on any conversation that would follow along a "Christian" point of view, and also people who say they are not Christian at all. People that go in there I find interesting. You will frequently find Muslims going in and asking if anyone wants to know about Islam, or Atheists or even Satanists coming and becoming rather offensive and combative as they attempt to debunk the Truths of Christianity. However it is the Wiccans and other spiritualist people that enter the rooms that I find the most interesting.

For the most part they are rather congenial people, and easy to get along with. They are well spoken and polite (usually) in any discourse that might arise. However I wonder why they come in. They claim to accept all beliefs as valid but say that I cannot have mine because I say that mine is right - a definitive. Often, though they come in not to discuss beliefs at all, but to "see if there are kind Christians" or to "find kindred spirits." I have noticed that many times you will see two or three Wiccans enter a room at one time, and begin to have some sort of discourse amongst themselves, or begin to talk about mundane things that end up drawing one of the "Christians" into the conversation. At this point they begin to subtlety introduce things about their beliefs that they know a Christian will disagree with. At that point, usually one party or the other will begin to argue and the whole conversation degenerates into a simulated shouting match. The end result being the the Christian thinks that the Wicca (or any non-believer for that matter) is either just playing around and in general unintelligent, and the nonbeliever thinks the Christian is a jerk, or worse.

But here's how I see it. I mean, Wiccans and many other non-believers think that we, as Christians, are a bunch of bigoted, intolerant, and non diverse people. They believe that we all think the same thing and that we're a bunch of non thinking automatons. If you look at some of the religious christians, and some of the past of christianity, say from around the middle of the Roman Empire through the Crusades and the Inquisitions and the past the Renaissance and into some of the Twentieth century they're right. When you consider that the groups like Aryan nation and the Ku Klux Klan all claim the Bible as being the basis for their claim that the only race worth anything is the white race, I agree with them. Here's where the Devil has done some incredible things. The master of lies has done what he does best - take a couple of morsels of truth and twisted and deformed it into a lie. Using man's own fallen nature, Satan gives each person a piece of truth that sort of tastes good, depending on the person's life experiences, and feeds it to them telling them that it's the real meal deal when they're missing out on an incredible banquet.

****September 16, 2006****

I realize that I took a week break in writing this post, but life got busy, and I lost my place. To continue on what I was saying I happened to run into a great example of what I was just talking about. This weekend I was fortunate to win a cruise from work, so myself and a friend from church drove up to Seattle to board the ship. When we got there we found all sort of wonderful food. One whole deck of the ship is nothing but a long buffet. Outside, by the pool (which is on the same deck) is a place that did hot dogs and hamburgers. We found out about this deck from another friend of mine from work who had arrived on the ship earlier and had explored and found the deck. He showed us the grill place, and when I got in line he said, "Don't just stop there, go all the way back there's more back there." Now, I like bratwurst, and the grill place had it, but I also like many other foods, so we took his advice and continued back finding the buffet with wonderful roast beef, braised veal, desserts, fruits, drinks and all other sorts of food. It was wonderful and my friend and I ate our fill there, then when a little farther aft and found a pizza place too. It was incredible. But that's not where the story ends. As my friend was still eating I went and explored some more and found some other friends from work (several of us from my district won places on the cruise) who were enjoying the hamburgers and hot dogs - they thought the grill place was all there was. When I told them of the riches of the whole buffet still to come they were rather disappointed that they hadn't gone farther, and that no one had told them about the buffet, and rushed off to take their fill.

This is how I feel many non believers are living their lives. They're just eating at the grill place, or worse still just munching on hor's douvers that are sitting around (like the cruise ship has stewards walking around with Bahama Mama's and other cocktails and munches late at night). They're getting food that can fill them a little, but it really isn't the best or even fully filling. Sometimes, those little snacks just make you want more to eat, and then you don't have room for what you're really waiting for.

****September 23, 2006****

I know, extra long time in writing this one - but I'm hoping that good things come from letting the dough proof - that takes time. Anyway, to finish up the thought of missing out, I find it interesting that on Saturday, at Church of Rock the youth pastor at my church brought this exact same thing up. She talked about the all familiar God shaped hole. We all search for so many thing to fill this void and emptiness we have in our lives. We all are searching for that one thing that just seems to tie everything together, bring closure to the loose ends, to set us at peace with the events that come up in our lives. Those are the hor's douvers in the world - Sex, Drugs, and Money. It seems that everything that we use to fill that void falls into those three categories - I would even be so bold as to say that Sex and Drugs are just one category (maybe I'll explain that in another post down the line). But even through all those, the sex addict needs more to fill him or herself, and only seems to loose another piece of themselves each time whether they deny it or not. The drug addict gets the high, and then needs more of the drug because of the tolerance the body builds up to their poison of choice, only to find each crash harder than the last. Finally, you have the money-grubber, always finding a way to get just one more dollar, only to find that in the process they've usually lost everyone and everything they really care about, and so they keep going for more. Each "thing" gets you somewhere, and then pushes you off the cliff into a void that leads no-where fast and has some impressive consequences. The sex addict contracts a disease that kills them or puts in danger the ones they "love" or really do love. The druggie overdoses or kills themself in a momentary lapse of judgment. The money-grubber finds that amidst all their possessions they have nothing and turn to self murder or the other two "fillers" and ends up the same way. Looking at that, do I really want to find my diversity, my fulfillment in those?

Enough about the hor's douvers - Let's talk about what's worth having. That seven course meal that gives you that feeling that you could just sit there and enjoy the view because you are well and truly stuffed and the only thing that could be better is a nice cup of tea to enjoy the beautiful sunset or a clear night sky. When we turn not to sex drugs or money to fill that emptiness inside us (we all have it - look inside yourself and you'll see it - that quiet craving that you've squelched because you're not quite sure what it's saying and you're afraid to listen to it) but to the Creator of our souls how much fuller does life become? I mean, you look out at the different cultures, languages, skin tones, animals, plants, and the awesome vistas that populate our planet it's astounding. But if that's all you're seeing, take off the blinders! All those wonderful things that fill your eyesight - as beautiful as it all is it comes from something even more beautiful. I am certain that when Beethoven composed his symphonies they were each a labor of love - of a passion to express and share the deep music within him so that others could enjoy it alongside him. And when Michaelangelo painted and sculpted with such attention to detail that came from a desire within him to bring forth a thing of beauty to be marveled at not just by himself but by countless others. Some would say that to praise the music or paintings - mere created things - because without them the person who made them would be nothing. These people are pure fools - I'm sorry to use such a strong term but it's the kindest I can think of. The music is wonderful and the sculptures and paintings sights to behold, but the praise is due to the one who composed the melody and put paint to canvas. Without these people - intelligent beings - the invisible and inaudible would go unseen and unheard.

So it is the same with God. He alone is the full meal deal, that fills us with awe and wonder because we are His painting and his symphony. And just like the painting or symphony you never get the artist's or composer's full intention save the artist Himself interprets or conducts the piece Himself. And so that seven course meal that fills us is God, through His Son Jesus Christ - the author, the composer, the artist of our lives. He alone fills us so much that even when rains come and dampen the brightest blue sky, or worse yet the raving winds blown down everything we know into dust, still we can look around and say, "I am still content for this is but a movement in the symphony." He, and He alone can take the smudge smeared on the canvas by a prankster and work it into a masterpiece greater that the Mona Lisa or the great ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. God, and only God is that one thing that when we feel that need to get more of Him, we build up no tolerance to His incredible, situation surpassing joy. "Through Him, all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made." If this is so, only through the Trinity - God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (or Ghost) can we come to an understanding of what Diversity and Personality are. For He, the God-Man Infinite Creator and Inspiration of Life started the whole thing - the True Instigator, and the grand buffet.

No Subject

2006-07-16T00:12:00.000-07:00

Another few months go by and it becomes time to post again. Again, not because I feel any requirement to post, but because I feel it's time to. I've had a lot of things going through my head the last month and a half or so, and just haven't brought myself to sit down and divulge any of the slightly in no way completely unrelated connected random thoughts that cruise the neural pathways that make of the 3 or so pounds of pinkish-gray matter contained within my cranial cavity. Yes I know that was a long complex and probably very grammatically incorrect sentence just previous, but welcome to my mind. :-)

In any case - to carry on. One of my coworkers stumbled upon my blog a couple of months ago and said to me that as the coworker read through my various posts, they were saying to themselves, "Yes, that's him. . . Wait, that's not his writing, is it?" And so on back and forth. This posed to me a slight dilemma. I try to be consistent and constant throughout my life - both written, thought, perceived, actual and acted out, private and personal. It seems then, that I have failed miserably at this endeavor. Well, this is true, and I would gladly admit it - though I would not give out any details of how exactly this comes to be, but those that know me will fully understand the details. It is very hard to put down everything that goes on in my mind, and the becomes extremely frustrating to me. I often wish that I could have a sort of machine that could route all the different trains of the thought that traverse the mental railways of the aforementioned 3+lbs of pinkish-gray matter, and assist them to arrive at a destination of either written or aural form. This form could then be later reviewed so as to help me know what the heck is going on inside me. So if any of you reading this are inventors - a task has now been set before you, snap to it. The other problem I face in distilling these thoughts on to a form legible and readable even is making them concise. Another friend reading my blog has often commented that they seem like mini essays, not that a short essay is bad, but who wants to read those on a blog?

So another question is posed to those of you who read my blog - do I ramble too much, as I seem to be doing right now? Well, it's about time to head in to practice, as soon as the other members of the band show up. Just waiting for the two guitarists, two vocalists, the bassist and drummer. It seems that the usual late suspects - myself, and the other of the keyboard players are here, and early it would seem! Not certain when they'll get here, though practice was supposed to start at 9, and it's now 9:13 as I write.

****12:05am****

So I got done with practice, and I'm a little upset because I didn't get done when I thought we would so I could get into a different place to get online, but that's moot. I'm on now. I do have a few different things I'd like to write about, would just like some input if people prefer long posts or short ones. Just leave me a comment.

Blessings,

Sitting at a Basketball Game

2006-05-11T22:57:00.000-07:00

Ok, so this really has nothing to do with sitting at a basketball game, I'm just writing this while I'm sitting at the game. Guys from my church, and some of their friends are playing in a tournament put on by another church. Really, there were a few things that I was going to write about, but I think I'll just limit it to one - I've been told that these can sometimes look like short essays - which is good because it means that I can still write a little. Anyway - to the thoughts that I was really going to write about...

The last few times I've been to large gatherings- you know retreats and different "mountain top" places, it seems like I've been getting the same sort of message. I'm not really sure of what to make of it, but here's some of what I've been thinking and feeling about it. This year - 2006, has been called by the Salvation Army (that's my church) the year for youth. So there's been a lot of focus on youth (not like there isn't a lot of focus on youth anyway, but it's even bigger this year). Along with that, the last two years themes for youth related events has been Revolution. I know I've written before about what a revolution is, and what it means to be a revolutionary, but now there's been even more in terms of what it means to be a revolutionary. This year the themes for youth gatherings has been "All or Nothing" and that's within the context of a Revolution.

All or nothing seems like it's a very easy, cut and dried thing to do. Either you're in or you're out, you are or you are not. As Yoda once said "Do or do not, there is no try." So I've been thinking what does it mean for me to be "All or Nothing?" Well, one of the things that has been swimming around in the semi fertile pile of mush that is my brian (or for that matter what serves as my thought center) is to follow the instructions of Christ to the rich young ruler (not that I'm rich or a ruler) to sell all I have, give it to the poor, and follow Him. Along those lines I'm wondering if I shouldn't just sell everything I have, and start everything over again. Get a new apartment, get a new bed, and a completely new wardrobe - I mean everything. I've also thought about moving and changing where I am. But even if I did all that whatever it is that's keeping me down is just going to follow me.

Along those lines, I've also thought about doing a mission trip. Going out to some place where I can't do some of the things that I do that get me into trouble (not that there isn't much that doesn't get me into trouble). It would also really force me to do some of the things that I don't do now that I need to do. (Wow, I'm really starting to sound like Paul right now). In any case I find that I have a lot to work on, and not really being to do anything about those things I need to work on at all. So that all takes me back to Romans 6, 7, and 8. Well, I take that back - there are things that I can do, the real question becomes am I really to do what is necessary? I just find it really hard to do some of those things. So am I really willing to go all or nothing?

A few weekends ago, we had our youth councils (that is a gathering for teens aged 12-18) and again, the theme was All or Nothing. One of the guests that was there came from Hawaii for a year long mission/incarnational ministry school "Revolution Hawaii." That really got me thinking about really going for something like that. One of the comments that he continually got was "That's sounds really cool, but a whole year? That's a long time." People are always willing to do something that sounds really cool, it just always seems that there's a butt in the way. I'd love to do it myself. I have a lot of things that I would love to do...but I've got some things that keep me back. One of the biggest issues I face right now is debt. But I continue to digress...

*****May 11th, 10:39pm PDT*****

So I never did finish writing the post when I started it, on Sunday the 7th, which was my Dad's birthday. And to be honest, I've lost that train of thought again...it pops in and out of my head. However, there are still things that I think about when it comes to all or nothing - and there are really times when I wonder about myself. I always come back to to statements. If something is not 100% the Truth, than it is not the Truth - which is something that I've talked about before.

The other is this, "If everyone is doing it, does it make it right?" Followed by the reply, Who says it's wrong?" Well, being as I'm really tired, and I can't think to much right now, I'll just leave you with this thought - Which is the better standard to live by: To do something because it's the right thing to do, or to do something because no one has said it's the wrong thing?

Blessings,

Mindless Mutterings

2006-04-12T00:28:00.000-07:00

A lot of you who have visited the blog as of late might have noticed on one of the sidebars "Strange Man's prescription for happiness." I really do believe that it works. Reading the comics daily does make life a little happier. Now granted, joy and happiness are two different things - closely related, but completely different things, but there is nothing wrong with happiness. Comics are a great way to stay happy - or at least to laugh, if you get the joke, which, I guess if you don't get the joke....I digress.

I've been reading comics for a long time, pretty much since I could read, which is nigh on 20 years now (yes I know I'm not all that old, and I've just really dated myself, but cut me some slack, will ya?) and I remember a lot of them. I've seen different strips throughout my schooling, some were related to what we were learning, some were just there to break up the monotony (and I think the teacher used them to wake students like me up in the middle of class too). It also was a weekly ritual for me to read the comics every Sunday. I had to be the first one to read them when we got back from church. Peanuts - the classical Charles Schultz comic strip with Charlie Brown was always the first one. Followed closely by Beattle Bailey, Garfield, Hagar the Horrible, Family Circus, Hi and Lois, and a few others. The last one I always read though, until it was no longer published in the papers, was Calvin and Hobbes. I loved that strip. I could have grown up as Calvin, though I never had a stuffed tiger that came to life, even in my imagination - I guess that was why it stuck out so much at me.

In the comics, whether they're the good oldies, or some of the newer ones, we find ourselves, and situations we've faced mirrored, along with some great humor and insight. I think one of the other reasons Calvin and Hobbes was one of my favorites was because I identified with Calvin so much. We were both only children, with parents that both worked. We both bordered on ADD, and had very active imaginations. And we both had a fifth grade teacher that was a monster, who misunderstood us, and didn't give us hardly a challenge intellectually (I just got detention a lot because I didn't do my homework - I still had better in class grades than a lot of my peers, if it weren't for the stinking homework...)

I also learned a lot about my parents from comics, and understood why my parents are the greatest in the world. They love me for who I am, let me make mistakes, teach me from them, and most of all they support me. They were also not afraid to discipline me. I think they learned a lot of that from their parents, and For Better For Worse. My dad also loved Calvin and Hobbes, and I'll never forget this one line he used as I got older and understood more things. Whenever I would start to balk and get stubborn about not doing something he'd always break out with this quip, "Son, between the time you were born, and the time you'll graduate from college, your mother and I will have spent close to $500,000 on you. Do you want that to be a grant, or a loan?" From an early age, I had a keen understanding that loans were bad things...

Now, years later, I still love reading comics. I don't do it in the paper anymore, mostly because the rest of most newspapers is depressing TP that I wouldn't want to use as such, but also because it's not convenient to me. I mostly read the comics online, and I've found some new favorites as comics have progressed. But without getting into to many specifics, let me tell you really, why reading the comics is the best medicine for staying happy, healthy, and uncovering some of the joy in life.

The biggest reason, is they make you laugh. Granted, not everyone likes every comic strip, and some of the funnies aren't really even funny, they're sort of...cynical and depressing, like a lot of the news that gets blabbed around (that would be serious strips like Boondocks, which is included in a whole different topic). But just about everyone can find a strip or two that makes them laugh. Laughter is often touted as the best medicine (see Reader's Digest) and really it is good for you. You get exercise, you relieve stress, you raise your dopamine levels (that's the brain's natural happy chemical, similar to giving Rats cheese for getting through the maze), and just generally seem to take some of the hardness of living in today's hard world. Laughing calms your nerves, and soothes your temper. Who doesn't like to laugh? I'm having a hard time thinking of someone...if you do, let me know.

Another reason is that the comics help you to appreciate some of the more random, pointless, and just plain inane things of life. I really think that to enjoy life, you have to see those little things, that are so seemingly insignificant, and enjoy those exact things. That's what life is made of - little things. I mean, when you boil us down to the nitty-gritty, you get atomic particles, which are made of sub atomic particles that no one knows what those are made of - and that's getting pretty small. But it's also those other small things, like a squirrel randomly running around, or that really stupid mistake that you just made thinking I was typing something else that I wasn't really typing, but you thought you read. Or the random things - stupid humor. It's looking at those little things, and seeing the humor in them that can keep you smiling all day long, even when you've been on your feet for 9 hours, your head hurts, and you've been spat on but just about every customer you have. It's looking at a day like that, and then coming home to read a comic about a bunch of animals sitting on a hillside, watching all those people in suburbia in a late night rainstorm as a flash of lightning..well I'll let you read it here.

Have a good night, and read the comics....they're good for what ails ya.

Blessings,

Not Needed, Wanted

2006-03-20T20:58:00.000-08:00

And another month goes by without a post, but hey - I don't have to if I don't want to right?

Like I've said before, I really have to be struck by something for me to be really motivated to post something. Well, after thinking about three or four things, I've been motivated again. So now the thinking cap goes on and the fingers set to nimbly punching buttons on a keyboard, not really knowing what will end up appearing. Ha...Ha...ha...

Now I finally start to get to the topic that I made the title from in the first place. It's something that I have to get over myself - I am not Needed. Quite simply, in many ways I am just an ancillary collection of particles that wonders around this even bigger collection of particles doing whatever it is that those collection of particles that are clustered in an area we call the brain decide is worth doing (not counting breathing, or the beating of my heart, though sometimes I wonder why that happens too, but I digress). I wake up around 7:30, almost 8 o'clock in the morning, shower, shave and dress for work Monday through Saturday, usually rushing to make sure that I'm not late. In this process, I usually don't have much time to think about what it is I wear, except that it's clean, doesn't smell (those of you who don't know me, I'm almost the quintessential young, heterosexual bachelor) and comes close to matching. All this after going to bed around 12am, and sleeping in a mattress that could be a model for a calm, rolling ocean. Great way to start the day. I'm usually in such a rush that I forget some important things.

The first thing I forget to do is eat. Now, most health gurus will tell you that you need to east something in the morning for breakfast. It does a couple of slightly important things for the body. First, it breaks the fast that you've had for the almost 8 hours you've been asleep (if you're getting the recommended 8 hours), and so takes your body out of a conserving process (what exactly it's called I don't know, but if you don't eat a lot, your body takes what you do eat and turns it into fat, and that's bad). Second, it gets your metabolism going and helps your body to start powering up and getting ready for the day. So really, it's a necessary thing. I mean, it gets you going so that you can be healthy, productive and in a good mood (barring stupid drivers early in the morning). I figure that, this breakfast thing being necessary, it might be advisable to partake in it. For some reason though, I don't seem to eat it.

The second thing I forget to do is read my instruction manual for life. I happen to forget to spend time with my father, and I'm not talking about my Dad who lives in New York. I'm talking about my father in heaven, the one who made me. And really, that's more important than breakfast. I mean, breakfast gets your body going, but you really need to get the rest of you going too. There's more to a person than just the body. I mean when you talk to people you know that more to them exists than just what you see. That's the part that you really need to worry about I would think. I mean, it's your mind and soul that make up the full human, and really that part, the spirit (some call it the soul, I use the two interchangablely) that determines what our outlook on life is. That outlook is also determined by how we think other view us. We really do need to feed both the body and soul in the morning to be really awake in the morning, and keeps you going for the rest of the day.

C.S. Lewis talks a little about this in his book The Four Loves. He makes a distinction between "need" loves and "gift" loves. And one of the things that really got me as I was reading this book was when he talked about affection, and how it is one of those loves that is easy to have. It's also a love that we need to get in return, like friendship. We need to get it as much as we need to give it. However good affection is, it can still become a bad thing. When we begin to need it, like an addiction, so much that we'll do anything for it, than it becomes evil, like a demon. Well, I know how that feels because I like to be needed, and I seem to need a lot of contact with other people - conversation and things like that. I don't think that I'm quite at the stage where it's an addiction, but sometimes I think I'm close to that. Anyway, to get to the real issue, God has found a way to help us with that issue, and that way does involve feeding our spirit on a daily basis.

You see, when I look at God's word I've found something that gets repeated throughout the Old and New Testament - we did not choose Him, He chose us. He chose Abraham, He chose the Israelites, He chose the disciples, and He chose us. I mean think about who God is. This is the God that created the universe. He made time, space and all the is within it. He doesn't really need anyone to do anything - He even doesn't need other beings because He is a complete relationship within Himself - Father, Son, and Spirit all co-equal and sharing in everything, perfect friendship. He doesn't need you or me to do anything at all. Billy Graham could preach until he was blue in the face, and God could speak simply and softly into the heart of one lost soul, and be more effective. I mean really, does the God who made all things and more importantly knows all things, really need a bunch of bumbling, hypocritical, judgmental, mean, arrogant, holier-than-thou people to try and gather to himself a family who will appreciate His love and his incomparable majesty and wonder? Probably not. Like I said, a simple, soft whisper from the Spirit is more effective than a thousand sermons from D.L. Moody, Billy Graham, and William Booth combined.

But He chose us. That means something incredible. He doesn't need us, He WANTS us. I mean, He, the creator of the universe, wants a piece of His creation to work with Him, and be with Him, to know His love, and love Him back. He wants us. How much more incredible is that? As much as feeling needed is good, how much better does it feel to be wanted. To be desired. To be yearned for. TO be such the object of affection that you know that person will give everything up to remove any obstacle that blocks you from them.

That's what's so awesome. I'm not needed. I'm wanted.

Blessings

About the Truth

2006-02-08T23:34:00.000-08:00

So...after a long hiatus, I type again...the strange typer, not often prone to posting.....

A few things have got me thinking lately, mostly about the Truth. I use a capital T when I write Truth because I firmly believe that there is, and can be, only one Truth. Everything else is but smoke and mirrors, half truths, dim pieces of the truth, or 99.9% truth with just one, teency, weency little bit of untruth in it (Like the snake's "You will be as God", but that's another story). But in short, anything that is not the Truth is not worth shaking your finger at, yet we seem to have to do that on a daily basis.

Most of this comes in the form of philosophy. Don't get me wrong, philosophy can be cool. Something of the concepts are really intriguing and are worth looking at and puzzling over. Some are just plain cockamamey BS that is just some old farts way of confusing everyone else into thinking that he's a smart man because he can come up with some "enlightened" point of view. I had a coworker the other day try to point one of those guys out to me. (Disclaimer: Philosophy in modern times, and in the eastern cultures tends to lack concrete logic because they're a bunch of pansies and hate to make decisions. So if you get turned around, it's ok - that's what they want to happen.)

It's lunch time, and somehow or another a new coworker of mine and I get into a semi-philosophical discussion. It's not really worth calling it a debate because you can't really do that with some of these modern philosophy students - they can't deal in facts because everything is relative (and for some reason they don't understand that Einstien's general theory of relativity only applies to physics, and not to logic or philosophy) and so you can't debate with them, because that requires facts and logic. He asks me this question to try and illustrate the whole concept of relativity within philosophy and personal beliefs, and that there cannot be, in essence concrete right or wrong, or any sort of absolutes. This was the question -

"If a river is constantly moving, do you ever step into the same river twice? Or do you even ever step into the river?"

Now, honestly, this is probably the closest thing to a time wasting rhetorical question that I've ever heard, but like I've said before that's the entire point of it. To get you thinking so much that it hurts and nothing makes sense at all. At that point you are free to say that down is really up, and that left is really right and that the sky really is green (ok maybe not that the sky is green, although some people who are colorblind can say that, I think, but I digress). In any case you either get into the circular logic that it leads to, or you just dismiss it a pure, mindless confusing drivel. When taken to its logical conclusion, this line of reasoning gets you wondering, that because the individual atoms in a wall or desk move, regardless of how slow the movement is (and we're talking really slow) "Is the wall I look at when I'm lying in bed really the same wall, or is it even really there?" That might just give me cause to try and walk straight through a wall.

However this is where facts and reality - not some lofty, ivory tower, mystical line of reasoning - must take over. I know from experience that a wall is really there - I can still sort of feel the knuckle on my right hand where I punched holes in two different sheet-rock walls when I was living in Trumbull, CT. Or when I hit my head on a cannon when I was two years old. They're real objects, and they do leave marks (I still have a scar from that cannon, maybe that's why I don't like West Point...) What's even funnier is that these same people that espouse this line of thinking are the exact same people that will turn to science to try and prove that they're right because science "disproves" the evidence of a creator. Now what strange is that science, the very thing they turn to, seeking to get a pass because it disproves something is, is based on something that is in direct contradiction to what they believe. Science deals in absolutes -whether theories or not - because science seeks to get a right answer, and disprove a wrong one.

So I replied to my coworker (by the way, I work at bank as a teller) with another question. "Are there no absolutes?" Which, as most logic and philosophy students would quickly say is a paradoxial statement. In saying there are no absolutes, you are making an absolute statement, which promptly contridicts itself, making it illogical. To this he promptly replies, "You can't make that statement because I don't deal in absolutes." Or something to that effect. Saying that each person might have their own "absolutes" and that each person's right and wrong was ok for that person. Commenting that even what Hitler did was, ok, because "It was what Hitler thought was right." Now I know that a lot of you who are reading this now are wondering how someone could say that. Very easily - they've bought into the smoke and mirrors truth that there is no truth but your own, and they like it because it lets them do whatever they want with impunity - though it can make for a very confuzzeld world, bordering on anarchy...

The other thing was this recent spat with some muslims about some cartoons that a Danis newspaper printed back in September of 2005. Now I have looked at the political cartoons, which are different artists interpretation of the great figure of Isalm, Mohammed. Now, according to Islamic law, (and I'm not talking about Sharia law) You cannot make an image of the prophet mohammed, although in many early writings and artifacts from the Arabic region of the world, the birthplace of Islam there are many picutres that do depict the prophet, with the face covered by a vail. These early documents are just part of the large contradiction that is Islam. But that's not why I mention this.

Other than attempting to rationalize away the Truth by saying there is no truth, people get away from it by deny access to any other points of view. Islam is probably one of the most extreme forms of this attempt to hide the Truth. I believe that often times, when something is either just off the Truth, or is just some truth covered lies, the method of avoiding the Truth is to cut off those who follow it from any chance to question or hear other points of view from their own. It's just too dangerous because if a lie does that, or something that's just missing one or two key elements of the Truth does that, it knows that it will be exposed as anything but the Truth, and will therefore loose its adherents.

I've also found that liberals do the same thing - they call anyone that disagrees with them intolerant, but mostly Christians (and that includes nominal christians and real christians). When the strange thing is most real Christians are more tolerant than liberals. This is how this is true - Christians will let you believe what you want, but we'll say that we think you're wrong, and this is why you shouldn't believe it. Many Liberals will just say "How dare you think differently than me? Don't you know I know better than you?" The hypocrisy is just stunning (not that Christians can't be hypocrites too, it's just that a lot of the time, we'll admit it.)

Anyway, those are some of my thoughts about Truth. I hope you could follow along, I do try to make it readable.

"Then you shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free. "
"So if the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed."
John 8:32, 36

Blessings...

It's that time of year again...

2005-11-26T11:40:00.000-08:00

Before your go reading my post, read the article linked below. It's by a good friend of mine from college, and says a lot of what I agree with.

An Apology on Behalf of the Church

That said, now to the post. It's that "Holiday Season" again. You know, I've never been to big a fan of the whole "Holiday Season" as we term it today. It's just too much. All the rushing around and buying things that really, in the long scheme of things, we don't need. I mean, sure I get my parents calanders every year, and those are helpful to them, and sometimes I'm able to get other things, but still, all in all it's spending a lot of money that most of us don't really have, and it's on things that are ancillary. And why do we do it? Tradition. Commericalism. Just because.

I spoke with my mom eariler today, and told her that I'd gotten her a present already (I'm usually a big time procrastinator, buying all the gifts on or around the 24th of December) and she said, don't worry about it. That coming out and seeing me was a present enough. That and me having a clean apartment for her birthday (which is on the 29th of November, and the whole clean thing, those of you who know me will understand). And that, along with Tommy's article, got me thinking - which is usually a dangerous thing.

***March 13th, 2006***

So I just found this post today, and realized I never finished it. So what was I thinking about? Now I don't really remember, but the article that Tommy wrote is still really worth reading, and I wish I had posted it sooner.

Short Note

2005-10-11T20:34:00.000-07:00

Hey, to those of you who read my blog...I'm sorry I don't post all that
often. I only post when I get a real strong urge to, and have access to
the internet to do it. Sorry if I don't post more often. But the more
people that ask me to post, the more motivation it gives me.

Blessings,

Dryness

2005-09-24T14:35:00.000-07:00

Ok...so sue me that I don't post often. :P

Anyway, I've been thinking, which I do a lot (go figure) and I think
I've been going through a dry time. It's not that I haven't had anything
to write, I just haven't written. But I've been struggling with
something, and even though I've been getting a lot of head knowledge,
I'm certain that this issue that I struggle with affects how things
connect with my heart. I mean, sure I know a lot about different things,
even about the Bible and God and my faith. I'm very capable of listening
to someone, and then counseling them or even giving advice...even though
I know giving advice isn't a good thing. But for some reason, for me, no
matter how much I know, I just can't always seem to do.

I talk a lot...sometimes it doesn't seem like I'm listening, but I do
listen. I need to listen - having contact with people is something that
I need, and it's hard when I don't have it. I've got people that I
listen to online - friends that I'm amazed how much they've confided in
me, and how much they trust me, though we've never met in person. Yet
there are people that I know face to face that I barely know anything
about. Part of it I think is that when I'm face to face, it's much
harder for me to be silent, because if there's a silence, I long to fill
it with something. Being in quiet is very hard for me. But I think that
adds to the dryness I feel.

Descartes said "Cogito, ergo sum" which means "I am thinking, therefore
I exist." Or more commonly, "I think, therefore I am." In today's
society, this has been brought to a point that it means that there is
nothing greater than man, and that by our sheer force of thought alone,
we continue to exist and improve our existence. I have found, that
personally, I cannot improve my existence by mere thought, and I
certainly did not become a functioning member of society by pure thought
- I'm neither an empath, or a telepath, nor do I posses the power of
telekinesis. It is solely by the grace of God that I exist, and by his
power alone am I here.

And because it's by His power alone, I must seek to know Him more and to
connect to His power to continue to exist. How do we do that? "Be still,
and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10.

Blessings.

Vacation

2005-07-30T04:02:00.000-07:00

So, I know I haven't posted on here since May - I'm really bad at writing stuff sometimes. And it doesn't help that you're questioned as to whether or not you're being real as you write this stuff (Liz, I know you'll understand that). But anyway. I've been doing some thinking, and have recently been inspired, and so I might post something while I'm not at home. Right now as I'm typing this I'm at about 30,000ft in an MD-80 on my way to DFW airport, with a final destination of Maine by way of JFK. I'm on Vacation!!! And how wonderful it is. The coolest thing about this vacation is that I've just turned 24 (my birthday was the 27th) and it's my very fist vacation on my own.

I know it sounds weird, but this is my first vacation. I'm not staying with mom and dad, and having them shuttle me around. I am totally in control of what I do during my week in Maine. I have my own set of wheels for the week, and have no one answer to but myself and my wallet for the next 8 days. This sort of freedom is unusual to me, and I don't know how I'll handle it. I might just stay inside thinking of things to do, and not do any of them - much of what I do right now when I get home from work. I've got a lot of ideas, but none of the discipline to act on them. One of those ideas is writing a book. I was inspired by listening to a sermon by Ravi Zacharias (who I listen to every Sunday morning). The concept of the book is to analyze what the relationship is between the length, influence and general legacy of civilizations/empires throughout the ages and their belief system - that is the system of religion and general culture. My thought is that the stronger a belief system in God, or at least a group of gods (not to say that polytheism is right) and a culture that supports and accepts such a belief system leads to a longer lasting civilization/empire. On a side note to that concept, it would be interesting to see how Judeo-Christian cultures and civilizations fared against eastern, pantheistic, and non theistic cultures and civilizations.

That's enough for now. I've probably bored most of you who are reading this, and got others who know me very well saying "there he goes again with his intellectual babbling that just covers up something else." Well, it's what I'm thinking about and interested in. On another note, I'm reading through a book Invitation to a Journey: A Guide to Spiritual Formation (author's name to come at a later time) and I might put some of my thoughts on what I'm reading on here.

Blessings,

Something on Love

2005-05-16T21:20:00.000-07:00

I was just talking with a friend of mine, and we got on the subject of love. They said that they loved a person with all their heart. I asked if they could let that person go. My friend said, "I don't know what I'd do without him." So I said that it might not be love. I said look at how God showed his love for us. He gave up that which is most important - himself, through Christ - and still allows us to walk away from him, without forcing himself upon us. That to me is love - because He still loves and cares about us. Wants us to know he loves us, and is willing to take us back, that's incredible. I can think of a few things in scriptures about this.

The first is in Romans, and is sort of like what I said to my friend. "But God demonstrates his love for us in this - while we were still sinners Christ died for us." In Romans 5 Paul says a few things like this, talking about how regardless of our status and relationship with God, he still was willing to give himself so that he could be in relationship with us - so that we could experience His love. I know that none of this is probably new to most people who read this. But if you haven't accepted Christ as Saviour think about it. Think about it, while we were enemies of God, He sent himself, as Christ, to die so that we could enter into relationship with him. He pursues us - all of us know that there is something out there that we lack and we see different examples of it daily - but he doesn't not force us. It is our choice - just look at the two thieves that were crucified beside Christ on that wonderfully sorrowful day. One chose to ask for forgiveness - he realized he deserved what he was receiving, but that Christ did not. Christ accepted him. But Christ didn't try to "convert" the other thief who had just seen his fellow thief ask to enter heaven. What would that be in scripture? I think to show us that it is our choice, but to make the point that he will not force us.

The second example of this love is in Hosea. The prophet that God picked out a wife for to give an example to the whole of Israel. Read what the word of God says:
"When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, "Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the LORD." So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim. . ." Hosea 1:2-3a

God had him marry a whore, a prostitute. Would any of you guys who are single do that? Marry a woman you know is adulterous, or ladies? How about you? But God did this to give an example. You see, Gomer wasn't always adulterous - at least that's how I read it. My understanding of it is that her heart was, but it was only after she had married Hosea and bore him two sons and a daughter that she became a prostitute. After she had become a prostitute, Hosea was told by the Lord to go and redeem her. So he bought her for 6 ounces of silver and about 10 bushels of barley and brought her out of that life. I could be reading it wrong though, but wouldn't that be even better? That means that God takes us however we are!

Whether were a good person (in earthly terms) or not, He still takes us. I think that the story of Hosea and Gomer is just an incredible illustration of that verse in Romans 5 - only the price for redeeming the whole of mankind - that is, placing the ability to be redeemed - was that of Christ's life.

That is love. Now I know that you might say, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the love between a man and a woman. But I believe that it does. God is the lover of our soul, how can it be that this expression of love is not meant to be an example for us in the relationships with have with others? Just think of Paul's exhortation to married men: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." Ephesians 5:25

Think about it.

Blessings,

Stir up the Chocolate!!! (Part 1 of my reflections on Youth Councils)

2005-04-26T20:48:00.000-07:00

So the weekend's over. All of the wonderful experiences and encouragement are semi left behind at the camp, the remembrances solely remaining in your mind. Now what? You keep climbing. You go back to work or school and you keep climbing. I liked the illustration the special guest TJ Foltz used in the saturday night meeting. You've gotta stir up the chocolate of the Spirit that has begun to settle down in the bottom of the milk glass. Although I think that sometimes the Spirit, like chocolate, starts settling the moment it's poured into the person. I think that is why Paul tells us to Pray without Ceasing, because prayer is the only way to continually try to live in the Spirit, stir it up, and keep it flowing out.

At lunch on Sunday, just before everyone left, we were all given three books. Thirty day devotional books. God is Near, Christ in Me, and The Spirit Moves. TJ asked us all to make a commitment on Saturday night, that we would stir the Spirit in us by spending just 5 minutes in the word of God and 5 minutes in prayer, every day for the next 30 (or 31) days. So I started it today during my lunch break. I figured I'd start with the God is Near to keep with my commitment. I really liked the first devotional in that book.

It asked you to go out and stand by a busy road and watch people and cars. I just happen to have finished eating my lunch in a mall food court, which is a nice place to go, and I happen to like to people watch. So thinking back, I try and imagine the stories and the destinations of some of the people I saw, and one just stuck out at me. It was a young (or at least she appeared that way) mother with a toddler - probably not older than two on the walkway over the ice rink in the Lloyd Center. She kept trying to get him in his stroller, but he was just content to waddle around the bannister and plop down on the ground. It seemed like he was content to stay and just have fun while she needed him to go somewhere. Maybe home, maybe the portrait place just a few steps away on that level. It was interesting to watch and it made me think back to the weekend. . . but I'll talk about that in another post.

Revolution

2005-04-22T08:56:00.000-07:00

Well everyone, I know I post on this semi-sporadically, but I just thought I'd warn you that I won't be around for the week end, so don't expect anything from me till at least maybe Sunday night or so. I'm going away to a youth retreat that I'm so stoked about. This is going to be an awesome youth councils. It's all about Revolution...or as they word it on the poster for it (I can't write letters backwords here, but I'll bold them or something) Revolution. The theme verse for the weekend is a great one, Romans 12:1-2. "Therefore brothers, in light of God's mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve God's will, his good, pleasing and perfect will." What an awesome and tough verse. But it's a great one for teens in this day and age.

It's so hard to realize that we are in a war zone sometimes. That we are in enemy held territory and that we are conducting a guerrila campaign to take this from him, and bring others into the great kingdom that's coming soon. But unlike the resistance fighters in World War 2 in German occupied Europe, we don't have to worry about getting caught by the enemy, so we don't have to do our best to blend in and stay hidden and do our acts of sabotaging his work in the night. We need to been seen as defying the enemy, we need to be seen as different. We have to understand that the war was fought on a hill that's known as the place of the skull, and was one in an empty grave. Now we're just doing the mop up work and clearing out the remnants of resistance.

I'll have more to say after the weekend, but just keep this in mind - let's not be content with the status quo,we want and need nothing short of revolution now to break free from the patterns of this world.

Blessings,

Connecting in Worship

2005-04-18T22:11:00.000-07:00

I'm still sort of thinking about connecting the dots in Faith and so these thoughts are some more ramblings out of my mind. This weekend, the friday night worship team (Under Construction or the Church of Rock, whichever it is) is going to be doing all of the worship music for our church's youth rally/retreat. So we're going to be leading something like 150 people in worship for two days - about 5 meetings or so. And what's really cool is that our team leader, Cherie, is really keen about us thinking, and praying about what it means to lead worship. So this got me thinking (even though it doesn't take much to do that), so bear with me while I stream some of my consciousness out there.

In order to lead worship, you have to know what worship is to you. So what is worship? Worship is not just about some emotionally charged, hand waving, balling your eyes out, falling on the floor time with songs that just repeat the same words over and over. It's not just about finding God that way, it not about connecting to him in that way. Worship, in general, is living your life like Romans 12:1 says, "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God–this is your spiritual act of worship." The Message paraphrase is good, it goes into a little more depth about what offering your body means saying, "Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking around life - and place it before God as an offering." Worship involves your entire life, public and private. But that's like, the macro definition of worship in my point of view.

Worship, as most people view it, is that time during a church service, that people stand and sing about God, what He's done, what He's doing, what He's going to do, and just telling Him how great He is. That's corporate worship, when the body of Christ, the church - believers - get together and fellowship reminding each other of His greatness, and using music to connect to God on a level that is really beyond understanding. In corporate worship, music is a tool that allows God to connect to your spirit at a level that is far beyond the mere spoken word. For some reason, I believe, music is a force that is a direct link (for lack of better words) that bypasses the thinking part of your brain - the rational, cognitive part of you; it bypasses the senses - the feeling part of you; and cuts straight to the part the God desires the most, the deep seated heart of you, and I'm not talking about your bloody thumper (as Rev distinguishes it) I'm talking about the seat of your soul. That part of you that is what David and the other Psalmists call, "my inmost being." And this connection, I believe can happen regardless of the participation you put into it - your participation and willingness to connect only determines how you understand the connection.

When we do fully, truly, and deeply desire that connection with God, he meets us where we are. He meets us where we are, and puts something in us that defies all other things - especially emotions. I'm not a big fan of emotions because they're so fickle, and when we seek after the emotions solely, we miss out on something much deeper, we miss out on Joy. It is in that deep connection that the Lord allows that tap of joy overflowing to be opened in us, as a wellspring of life. Part of me thinks this is the reason that 21 times throughout the Psalms the command to Shout or Sing for Joy is given. In singing and shouting for Joy, not only are we rejoicing for what He has already done, but we are asking for more Joy in order to make it through the next day.

It is my firm belief that Joy and Peace are so greatly entwined that with the one comes the other, and why the fruit of the Spirit is listed as Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Gentleness, Faithfulness and self-control. These things each required the other to be borne in our lives. It is when we Love God truly and deeply that we seek fully after Him, and make that connection, which allows Him to open the spigot of Joy in our lives. Once that tap is opened, regardless of how we feel, the Joy turns into Peace which is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of calm within the the storm. And in the calm of Peace, the Patience of knowing that all this is merely temporary adds to the quiet in our hearts. With that Patient quiet, it is very easy to be Kind and Good, and Gentle, for there is no need to rush, hurry or worry, three things of which cause us all to be unkind, and harsh. Faithfulness and Self Control become easy after that, because they flow from kind, gentle and good hearts, for they that are faithful and controlled are good and true..

How is all this related to connecting the dots? Well, it is only as we believe ("Now Faith is being certain of what we hope for and sure of what we do not see." Hebrews 11:1) that we are lead to worship, and desire to seek and ask for that connection, regardless of what it brings. And as we connect to God, He begins to connect the dots of our lives, and we can begin to see the really cool picture of what He has planned - and that really gives us a reason to praise Him.

Blessings

Continuing with Moses

2005-04-06T22:35:00.000-07:00

Now, I know it's already Wednesday, but I haven't had much chance to write some stuff recently. Anyway, on to what I was thinking. Friday night was Church of Rock, and we started talking about Moses - connecting the dots in faith, and just following the lead of God (take that either way). Sunday night, we have a united praise meeting, and the Commissioner (he's the leader of the Salvation Army in the Western Territory, for more information on that, go here www.salvationarmy.org.) What portion of scripture does he take the text for his sermon from? Exodus, where Moses meets God at the burning bush, and God says, "Go free my people," and Moses says, "I'm the wrong guy, and they won't believe me." So God tells Moses to throw his shepherd's staff (rod) on the ground. Moses obeys, and the staff becomes a snake, and scares the bejeebers out of Moses. God then tells him to pick up, or as it says in the King James Version "Grab hold of it by the tail." (I think that's how it's said - look it up for yourself though.) So he does, and it becomes a staff again.

Long and short of it, the Commissioner was just getting at the fact that Moses was given a rod of authority, which was his Link to God. So long as he held it, and connected the dots in God's way, powerful things happened - from the Nile turning to blood, to plagues springing from the ground and falling from the sky, to the Red Sea parting, and water coming from a rock. He wanted us to consider what it was that we held on to, so that we could connect with God, and show his power. I think the biggest insight I got, was that it works when we listen to God, and we have our hearts set on following him.

Interesting how completely unconnected meetings have very similar themes. Through it all - whether it be looking at and living life one dot at a time in faith, or grasping hold of the Rod given us by God, and following him, there is this root - All the promises of God are sure, if only you believe.

Blessings.

Connecting the Dots

2005-04-02T19:46:00.000-08:00

So I'm at Church of Rock last night and we've been talking about Faith for the past year. Lorrie, the youth director at our church has been doing a really good series out of Hebrews 11 - you know the Hall of Faith. Anyway, last night we've finally gotten to Moses. That murdering, stuttering, prideful, disobediant, not really Charelton Heston guy that eventually led the Israelites out of Egypt, but he's still "really cool" to quote Lorrie, which is true. Last night we just looked at the first part of his life, which is in Exodus, the first 2 chapters. And the biggest thing that I got out of it was this illustration she had about what faith is like.

She talked about it like a connect the dots puzzle. Not one of the simple ones for kids, where it's a little shaded in, and you can sort of make it out before you even start, but one of the really intricate ones, that you don't know what it is until you're almost done. You just go on following the numbers, drawing the lines as best you can from point to point, but never quite knowing how you fit in. God knows what the whole picture is, but you don't know where you are in it. Prince of Egypt, that great animated movie, had a similar spin on it, from the song Through Heaven's Eyes where Jethro, the high priest of Midian tells Moses that as one small thread in the tapestry of life, you don't know where you are in the big picture, but you're there, and when you follow the right path, it makes the whole thing beautiful.

I'm just rambling now, so I'll stop..maybe you'll get something out of this.

Blessings.