Plans

I wonder how many people in the world that have been classified as "evil" really knew it. I mean, I wonder how many times people who ended up doing bad really believed that they were doing what was right. These kinds of folks have been around for thousands of years:

Psalm 64 Hear me, O God, as I voice my complaint; protect my life from the threat of the enemy. 2 Hide me from the conspiracy of the wicked, from that noisy crowd of evildoers. 3 They sharpen their tongues like swords and aim their words like deadly arrows. 4 They shoot from ambush at the innocent man; they shoot at him suddenly, without fear. 5 They encourage each other in evil plans, they talk about hiding their snares; they say, “Who will see them?” 6 They plot injustice and say, “We have devised a perfect plan!” Surely the mind and heart of man are cunning. 7 But God will shoot them with arrows; suddenly they will be struck down. 8 He will turn their own tongues against them and bring them to ruin; all who see them will shake their heads in scorn. 9 All mankind will fear; they will proclaim the works of God and ponder what he has done. 10 Let the righteous rejoice in the LORD and take refuge in him; let all the upright in heart praise him!

Seems to me that the best way to combat this kind of potential error is to teach people what is "right" and "good." Easier said than done, of course, especially when people are naturally resistant to any mention of absolute truth of what is right or wrong. But, when the ultimate objective is simply, "git 'er done," our plans finally degrade into schemes, and it's not long before we find ourselves across the valley facing God as an opponent. The appropriate response in that context is, "uh-oh..."

Of course, it's also easy to look at "those people" and "their plans" and say that they're godless. But, I'm betting that most people don't realize that they're actually opposed to God's purpose. So, it's absolutely essential that we align our hearts and minds with His. Otherwise, "uh-oh..."

1 Corinthians 2:16 “For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. Do we? Do I? Do you? You sure?

Church: Why Bother?

Bother is one of those concepts that we have almost successfully eliminated in our generation. If I am inconvenienced, there is a good chance I won't participate in whatever it is that might inconvenience me. We now have a culture and society where we really and truly don't have to do anything we don't feel like doing. This has never happened before in human history, but it's having an immediate impact on church:

So, should we go to church because we HAVE to? Out of obligation? No, we should go to church because it's worth it. That assumes, of course that church is worth it. Is it to you? Me? Why? According to the Apostle Paul (Colossians 1:24-29), church was and is the Body of Christ, and he gave his life to it. Not some polished gothic cathedral with stained glass windows, but the assembly of broken followers of Christ.

Is church worth it? Yes. The local church is the hope of the world. Is it easy? No. It'll cost you your life. Luke 9:23 Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

It'll also give it to you for the first time.

Faith

Faith is taking God at His Word, and then doing what he says.  Got it.  Faith.  Yep.  No problem.

Unless, of course, it has to do with my daily practical life, and then most of us still feel as though we are prisoners of our past and victims of the system.  "Sigh...oh well...one day Jesus will rescue me from this mess and take me to heaven where everything will be chipper, no one will tell me what do to, and I can finally be free from the mess I've made of me and I'll be...happy."

Then there's God weighing in on that mentality through the Apostle Paul (who knew a thing or two about a tough past).  1Corinthians 6:9-11 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

I think the two most precious words in the whole passage are "were. But..."  There is no denying that all of us have stuff in our past that has left scar and residue.  But we have been washed.  That means that we are no longer to live accordingly.  But we still do, because down deep, we really doubt that we have really been changed or washed, because we don't really FEEL all that different.  In fact, many mornings we wake up and feel like the poster-children for "total depravity."

So that's where faith comes in.  It's taking God at His Word and doing what He says to do.  HE says we've been washed, cleansed, justified, sanctified, and even glorified (Rom. 8:30)!  So do we believe it?  The quickest way to know what we believe is by what we do.  Are we living lives of freedom and purpose and joy?  Or are we "just forgiven...?"

No, let faith be active and visible in our "real" daily & practical lives.  God says so, and it's why Jesus came.  May it not be for nothing in each of our lives.

A.W. Tozer & Pragmatism

The guy certainly doesn't need MY help to distribute his ideas; but I am always grateful for HIS insights.  Compact brilliance.  Hey, like our children's minister!  Anyway, A.W. Tozer writes on the epidemic of pragmatism, and I couldn't help but equate it with our current study of Colossians and the Supremacy of Christ, the "Proteuou Christou."  Here's what Tozer says:

The nervous compulsion to get things done is found everywhere among us. We are affected by a kind of religious tic, a deep inner necessity to accomplish something that can be seen and photographed and evaluated in terms of size, numbers, speed and distance. We travel a prodigious number of miles, talk to unbelievably large crowds, publish an astonishing amount of religious literature, collect huge sums of money, build vast numbers of churches and amass staggering debts for our children to pay. Christian leaders compete with each other in the field of impressive statistics, and in so doing often acquire peptic ulcers, have nervous breaks or die of heart attacks while still relatively young.

Right here is where the pragmatic philosophy comes into its own. It asks no embarrassing questions about the wisdom of what we are doing or even about the morality of it. it accepts our chosen ends as right and good and casts about for efficient means and ways to get them accomplished. When it discovers something that works it soon finds a text to justify it, "consecrates" it to the Lord and plunges ahead. Next a magazine article is written about it, then a book, and finally the inventor is granted an honorary degree. After that any question about the scripturalness of things or even the moral validity of them is completely swept away. You cannot argue with success. The method works; ergo, it must be good.

The weakness of all this is its tragic shortsightedness. It never takes the long view of religious activity, indeed it dare not do so, but goes cheerfully on believing that because it works it is both good and true. It is satisfied with present success and shakes off any suggestion that its works may go up in smoke in the day of Christ.

As one fairly familiar with the contemporary religious scene, I say without hesitation that a part, a very large part, of the activities carried on today in evangelical circles are not only influenced by pragmatism but almost completely controlled by it. Religious methodology is geared to it; it appears large in our youth meetings; magazines and books constantly glorify it; conventions are dominated by it; and the whole religious atmosphere is alive with it.

What shall we do to break its power over us? The answer is simple. We must acknowledge the right of Jesus Christ to control the activities of His church. The New Testament contains full instructions, not only about what we are to believe but what we are to do and how we are to go about doing it. Any deviation from those instructions is a denial of the Lordship of Christ. I say the answer is simple, but it is not easy for it requires that we obey God rather than man, and that always brings down the wrath of the religious majority. It is not a question of knowing what to do; we can easily learn that from the Scriptures. It is a question of whether or not we have the courage to do it.

I think he's onto something, and I think sometimes we're just ON something...

Loss & Resolve

Wow.  3.5 months since I last wrote.  You can hardly call that blogging.  Dryness does that.  Not much of a journal if there aren't any entries.

It's kind of like Elijah in 1 Kings 17 after the brook has dried up because there has been no rain in the land.  For quite some time, he watched and waited for a bad situation to become impossible.  And it did.  Once the brook has dried up, you can pretty much stop worrying about when you're going to be thirsty, because that time is now.  Once the brook has dried up, you can go ahead and register the loss, and choose to either deal with it & move forward... or lay down and be parched until such time as you die.

No thanks.

There's no point in pretending that there's no loss.  There is, and it hurts.  Younger generations have a different verb (it has to to with inhaling sharply), but we'll leave it at "hurts" for now.  Loss is no good because it means a portion of "me" is now gone missing; potentially for good.  So you have to ask yourself:  What am I REALLY made of?

In 2 Samuel 12, King David is seen praying and fasting for the life of the baby that he & Bathsheba conceived under all sorts of illegitimate circumstances.  By the way, when you run "Bathsheba" through spell checker, the first suggestion is "bathtub." Coincidence? I think not...  I digress...  Anyway, the baby (as you probably know) dies.  After that, David deals with the loss, and moves forward with resolve.  2 Samuel 12:20 Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the LORD and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate.

That takes chutzpah.  There is loss; there is resolve.  But not without faith.  How strong is yours?  Mine?  What's it REALLY in?  If you don't yet know, a time will come when you will.