There Are Thorns

 I have a routine for my mornings, my disciplined approach to keeping myself saturated in Scripture I would say, my wife and some others who know me well would likely joke that my personality is just far enough across the OCD line to demand it.  After serving my wife and myself coffee and allergy/decongestants it goes something like this: I pray asking God to open His word to me and begin reading in Psalms, the day of the month (for example today is the 22nd of December) determines my stepping off point.  I read the first Psalm, then read the chapter in Proverbs for that calendar day, then a chapter from the other Wisdom books (Job, Ecclesiastes, Song), then return to read the 2nd of the days Psalms by adding thirty to the first number (today's second Psalm is 52) - I then have a track that takes me through the Torah/Pentateuch, the History books, the Prophets, the Gospels/Acts, and the Epistles/Revelation alternating through the days five Psalms by adding 30 each time (22, 52, 82, 112, 142 would be today's five Psalms).  That puts me into at least 13 chapters a day if I stay on task.  Some days I do, and some days I begin chasing tie ins OT to NT, following rabbit trails that the Holy Spirit illuminates, some days I'm so overwhelmed by something I read that I begin praying for a situation I have on my heart realizing how that Scripture speaks directly to a life situation someone in my sphere of influence is facing.  I guess that confirms I haven't really crossed the OCD border given numerous alternative outcomes.  Regardless, it provides a much wider perspective on the whole Gospel message as I see it reiterated again and again from beginning to end and am able to clearly see that the mental divide most Christians have of OT/NT doesn't really apply as stringently as they would like to think.

That's the stage setting for this morning's blog.  As I sat down for my morning devotional readings I started in the first of today's five Psalms, 22.  I didn't make it through my regular track afterward though.  Instead I found myself in the Gospels reading Matthew 27, Mark 15, Luke 23, and John 19.  Here's the verses from Psalm 22 that put me there:

1 My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?
6 But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised by the people.
7 All those who see Me ridicule Me; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
8 "He trusted in the LORD, let Him rescue Him; let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him!"

16 For dogs have surrounded Me; the congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me.  They pierced my hands and My feet;
17 I can count all My bones.  They look and stare at Me.
18 They divide My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots.

All prophetic words written hundreds of years before their literal fulfillment in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah who would save His people, not just Israel, but the nations of humanity who would come to knowledge of Him and call on the one true God to save them, for faith in that God is accounted to us as righteousness and we are taught that there is no other name on earth, given among men whereby we must be saved.  So we find that not only our calendar, but all history truly revolves around the name of Jesus, born to a virgin, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.

But beyond those words so literally fulfilled as you read the four Gospel accounts of the crucifixion, are the words of comfort and encouragement recorded in Psalm 22, also quite literally fulfilled for some forty days after the painful verses above.  These verses make my walk worth walking (emphases mine):

21b ...You have answered Me.
22 I will declare Your name to My brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will praise You.
23 You who fear the LORD, praise Him!  All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him, and fear Him, all you offspring of Israel!
24 For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; nor has He hidden His face from Him; but when He cried to Him, He heard.

You see, it wasn't a cake walk for which Jesus was born.  It was the Via Dolorosa (Latin for "the way of grief") for which the baby whose birth we celebrate in just a few short days came.  And yet for the pain set before Him, He endured the Cross, despising its shame, so that He could make a way out of no way, so that you and I could be restored to right relationship, indeed fellowship with God.  The King of the universe set aside His celestial coronet to have a cruel crown of mocking thorns crested painfully on his brow.  So that those words could be fulfilled:  YOU HAVE ANSWERED ME... HE HAS NOT DESPISED THE AFFLICTION OF THE AFFLICTED... WHEN HE CRIED TO HIM, HE HEARD. 

And yet to those looking on and even for Jesus (who knew the full plan) in the midst of the actual pain of the event, it seemed as if God had forsaken Him...

Beloved friends, just as it didn't look like what everyone thought it ought to look like the day Jesus was crucified, so there will be thorns and trials and pains and catastrophes in your life brought about many times by the thoughtless cruelties dealt like so many cards from the hands of our fellow sinful humanity.  I write this after the tragedy of Newtown Connecticut, Sandy Hook Elementary knowing that dozens of lives will find little to celebrate not only this Christmas, but from here on out as the overwhelming senselessness and void left in their life wells up with irrepressible grief beyond what most of us can imagine -- and yet we have this promise made sure that when we cry, He hears.  He redeems the most horrible things dealt out by the hands of sinful humanity, rarely though is it the way we think it ought to look - and therefore many have had their love grow cold and they willfully look away from the One they blame.  They miss the Sunday resurrection and all that it means because for them the event was laid to rest on Friday and they think they have moved on bearing one more disappointment in a string of disappointments that has come to reflect their dreary trudge through life.  It's just not right they scream, and then resign their hearts to the continued weariness of disappointment.

So about two thousand years ago, with all the attendant joy that accompanies such events - God in the flesh cried out after cresting the birth canal of a simple girl who had surrendered her heart and her life to a God whom she had not yet seen.  For about 33 confusing, hard, joyful, rewarding years afterward she saw Him most every day.  She remembered and pondered those first confusing days and angelic messengers; and the subsequent birth pain and joy combined; and early childhood events and anticipated a joyous resolution to her nation's struggles -- only to have it seemingly end in infinite shame and confusion.  And just when resignation had cleared a comfortable seat in the hearts of His closest followers and the disappointed heart of His confused mother she once again witnessed His rebirth as He burst forth from the grave clothes and walked again among them showing them the fulfillment of numerous promises recorded in places like Psalm 22.  Perhaps in the end Mary finally understood that God does indeed hear us when we cry because nothing is working out the way we planned, things are just not right, and yet with Him things are more than right.

He hears us when we cry, and as He redeemed Christ from the grave, He will redeem you - IF you will hear Him cry, from the manger, from the hills overlooking your broken circumstances, from the bedside of your broken moments.  He is Immanuel, God with us, and we celebrate His living to face the thorns alongside us.

8:11

I go through periods on my Facebook stream where I don't make many personal inspirational posts, I may repost a thing or two in scrolling through my news feed, but it seems some days I just am not on.  The truth of the matter is I get into sometimes private message conversations, or spend significant amounts of my limited time in entering conversations on other posts, so if I'm not posting personally, I'm probably working something elsewhere so to speak.  I've actually received private messages asking if everything is all right when I haven't posted for a few days, which is encouraging on several levels.

I'm going to do something today I haven't done before, because I think there is great value in both showing an example of where I disappear to and for those of you who care, how I think and where I've arrived in my years walking after Jesus.  I'm going to cut and paste the substance of a conversation I entered into over Facebook.  I will withhold the names of both the hostess and the single commentator I was responding to as their identities aren't the subject, nor am I attempting to cast dispersion on the individual with which I disagree.  The subject through the whole winding thread is Truth.  And I ask as Andy Andrews asked in his book "How Do You Kill 11 Million People":

If it is correct that "you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free," then is it possible that if you don't know the truth, its absence can place you in bondage?

Let me set the stage by saying the original post was an anti-Obama post with a captioned picture challenging the tactic of those who say anyone who doesn't support Obama or his appointments to key positions within his administration is racist.  I will present the comment that sparked my initial involvement and proceed from there without editing or elaborating.  I need to explain one final thing before we begin, why I was enticed to enter the conversation.

Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil
Ecclesiastes 8:11

Opponent:  No matter what you say or how much you beat that dead horse, he is our President and deserves respect !!!!

Me:  respectable people deserve respect, lawless people deserve punishment for the good of society as a whole.

Opponent:  Really, exactly what crime did he commit ?

Me:   Here are a few crimes: 1.) Under the UCMJ as CIC he is blatantly guilty of article 92 gross dereliction of duty leading directly to the death of US citizens and soldiers due to foreseeable circumstances under which he failed to provide adequate defense of sovereign US soil in Benghazi, Cairo, and 19 other embassies throughout the Muslim dominated regions where we have missions. 2.) Obstruction of justice in the matter of his instructions to AG Holder to not defend DOMA when it reached the Supreme Court for challenge - this was his first blatant Constitutional violation to my knowledge. 3.) Obstruction of justice and collaboration with intent to defraud with regards to Fast and Furious - again a matter that lead to the foreseeable death of US citizens and caused harm and insurrection within another country. 4.) Recess appointments of Cabinet positions without Congressional approval, WHILE CONGRESS WAS IN SESSION - willful disregard for the system of checks and balances established within the Constitution - and then refused to remove them from their posts when he was called on the matter by Congress who stated they did not approve of the candidate as being qualified in one instance. 5.) there are at least 8 other blatant violations of the Constitution by his direct approval very thoroughly documented by others with more time and space than a post on FB. If you are truly interested they are easy to find, as well as a copy of the Constitution from your local bookstore wherein you could compare the list to the documentation and test their veracity. The problem is our whole electorate has become lawless, pretty much an accurate reflection of their constituencies, most of us want what we want right now and will do whatever we have to to get it - damn the consequences to anyone else. Traditionally we have been a nation founded under a rule of law, with a healthy fear of God as ultimately keeping us accountable to a power greater than ourselves. With every little compromise from rock solid principles however we find ourselves to have usurped God's role and placed ourselves on the throne. So now we live in a nation with 545 small 'g' gods all working against each other to the detriment of all, leading all their citizenry to follow example in their little bailiwicks

Opponent:  Any time that I have bothered to check claims of those opposed to President Obama, I found them to be either distortions or falsehoods. The lies and distortions that Obama-haters keep going is reprehensible. Hey maybe the strategy is, if you tell a big enough lie frequently enough,some people will believe it. Enough already !!

Me:   It's all right miss Terrie, if we can't agree on a foundational rule of law against which to objectively compare his actions, then we can't even have common ground to stand on for this discussion, we're talking at and around each other. You see hate and disrespect toward a man, whereas informed conservative thinkers are calling his score card based on rules by which our president and electorate refuse to abide. I realized as I was working and thinking about this whole thing yesterday that the only way you could possibly not know what the real basis of the charges against the man are is if you don't want to know. And that's really the root of the problem with our country from the top down, we're in love with a dream of how we think things OUGHT to be, rather than objectively evaluating how things actually ARE. Those of us who have a love of the truth keep our feet on the ground and work to see our dreams fulfilled by putting our hard work and time proven disciplined efforts toward building and maintaining the foundation that provides an environment wherein those dreams can come to fruition. I'll share a current real life example with you: I have a neighbor whose 19yo son has openly been dealing drugs for almost two years and was arrested two nights ago, in possession, selling near a school, resulting in a fruitful search and seizure of additional quantities from his house across the street from my home. After the police left, two of us neighbors stood with the father and discussed what had happened - and the man stood there in understandable tears and told us what a good boy he was and how he was raised well and was respectful... so on and so forth, my other neighbor just called him on it and said "...your son and all his friends throw garbage out on all our lawns, even after being confronted, they have abused you as the parent multiple times - THAT'S NOT RESPECTFUL... you all had to know what the boy was doing and the dangers he was putting himself and us in and we've all talked about these issues before..." You see, the father never stepped back and objectively evaluated the actions of his son - he stayed in love with a dream that had no foundational work under it to build his son's future as they pictured it being. And that friends and observers is almost a perfect microcosm example of the biggest problems with our whole country right now, the sheer number of people in denial and refusing to abide by knowable objective truths by which to evaluate good and evil.

Hostess:  encore!!

Me:  Here's my encore. One last piece that comes directly out of this and brings it closer to home for all of us, and I'm going to step off from the real life example I shared to make my point which can be extrapolated back out to cover our governance gripes. This father is an alcoholic, he has made a life choice centered around a legally obtained drug which temporarily allows him to escape his real life worries and stresses and numb whatever real pain he refuses to address in a more constructive manner. The Bible tells us this is a love of pleasure rather than a love of truth. The father drank up the profits from a successful independent business, stopped maintaining his company assets which were the means by which he provided generously for his family, and has successfully perpetrated a claim of disability which allows him to subsist on meager income. Mom is now the primary breadwinner and stressed to the limit with the example of her husband and the actions of her only son. Having spoken with her repeatedly I know she is now working to personally clean up her side of the street and get her head screwed on straight moving forward. We have known this family for over 7 years now, and at least one of the unspoken lessons this boy has learned through his dad's choice is that he doesn't have to face reality either - he can do as he pleases regardless of the consequences to those around him. So why work diligently when you can score big? If he can just distribute enough he'll have the Escalade or Mercedes some of his rich kid friends park around my house all the time. To hell with the vandalism that has occurred to neighbors and parents cars/property, to hell with the tears and pleas of his mom and dad... to hell with the multiple conflicts and hassles the boy has already had with the neighbors and police. In the child's mind he says none of us understand what he's going for... I know because he's told me that to my face... while in most of our minds we don't understand why he can't see he's plunging headlong toward death, institutions, or insanity. And to bring the long example around full circle, the father thinks he raised his son well and taught him to be respectful. How can the father possibly think this? Because he refuses to look in the mirror. He can't see that he laid the foundation for his son to disobey and refuse to abide by proven moral standards and ethics that would ensure a future and a hope of real success that others can admire for something other than "bling". And the way that example extrapolates out is this: everything we do matters, it affects all of us in sometimes unforeseen ways. When our legislators and civic leaders do not make solid choices that are truly good they are choosing the delusion of temporary convenience just like the father chooses the bottle. Let me throw one other example in so we can more easily see the effects of an unspoken message that has wreaked untold havoc on our society: Playboy magazine. Yes there are others, but Playboy started the avalanche in this manner: it taught men and women that people are disposable and they exist solely for our pleasure. When the man gets the magazine in the mailbox, even if Miss June isn't quite to every nuance of his liking it's alright, because Miss July is on the way. So he puts Miss June on the shelf and picks up Miss July or goes back temporarily to Miss May while he waits. The corollary to the woman regarding this is that if her man isn't toeing the line in the manner she sees fit, she'll just take her "goods" elsewhere to someone who will appreciate them/her. So we take our Playboy and Playgirl magazine habits into our relationships with human beings. When we're done with them we throw them away. We can easily see cause and effect of almost any course of action if we will objectively look back at examples that show us clearly what a course of action will result in. It's not just dry history, or complex sociology, or political theory - it's our lives that are being either secured for liberty or shackled to servitude and it starts in my home, and in yours. If I will not lead a self disciplined, self governed life, submitting to knowable, objective, proven truth that leads to a healthy and constructive future then how can I expect my government to do the same. Those of us who are the maddest about what's happening around us have already learned this lesson even if we never put words to it as I have today. We aren't mad because we're racist or we didn't get what we want, we aren't being subjective and egocentric - we're being objective and we're mad because we objectively know that in the end there's nothing in it for any of us other than death, institutions, or insanity shackled to servitude because we had a great party today. Now if my focus is on God and His objectively proven standards of morality, with an expectation of blessing or punishment inherent in my relationship and my submission to a loving liberty providing owner of the universe, everything falls into place as it should. If my focus is anywhere else, or has placed man on a throne reserved only for the Creator, then I'll reap accordingly. So we find great wisdom in making sure we keep the kids or anything else from playing on the throne, and this requires self examination and vigilance on our part. The rewards are worth it. There is always hope and healing available for individuals and nations, but only as we name things rightly and expose them to the light of truth and move on in a different direction. Does that hope remove the scars and inherent consequences of past mistakes - NO, but it does provide a healthier future wherein we can share our experiences and snatch others out of the flames that are eagerly awaiting their destruction. The Truth matters more than we can imagine in every one of these supposedly political arguments, and there is no disrespect to a man to call him into the truth and hold him accountable. I would argue that to refuse to tell people the truth would be the ultimate disrespect.
 

 

Dirty Words

Profanity, vulgarity, cuss words, filthy language.  We all have our moments when even if the words aren't dirty four to twelve letter epithets, our velvet tone and vocabulary covers the vilest of cruel hatreds.  I have no intention of talking about civility or clean language today.  I do however find myself trapped in a chapter of Jeremiah that speaks directly to our present situation in regards to governance choices for our nation, and it necessitates talking about the third Commandment:

You shall not take the name of the LORD you God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. (Exodus 20:7 ESV)

Taking the Lord's name in vain.  The truest essence of this violation is captured in Jeremiah 34.  I'm not typing out that whole chapter here, if you've read this far you care enough about the topic to get your own Bible out and read it for yourself.  I'll be brief as possible here and share with you how this chapter captured me and became the object of my meditations for the past 24-48 hours.  It seemed pretty mundane, Jeremiah's been saying all along in a dozen different ways: Israel (Judah in particular) is going to Babylon,  for some core reasons you can read for yourself.  The truth is this 22 verse chapter captured me at the end of verse 21.  I'm working through the ESV translation this time through the Bible, so everything today will be referenced from that translation (all emphases mine).

Here is what captured me, the last phrase of verse 21:

...into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon which has withdrawn from you.

WHAT?! - wait a minute here, the word of the LORD came in the front end of the chapter saying the city was getting burned down and the king was going into exile - but now Babylon's forces have withdrawn?  And then more direct words from the LORD in verse 22:

Behold, I will command, declares the LORD, and will bring them back to this city.  And they will fight against it and take it and burn it with fire.  I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without inhabitant.

So they had a fighting chance, Babylon had withdrawn, might have been on the run with the right military tactics.  How did that change between the front end of the chapter and the last verses?  The answer lies in verses 8 - 10:

...King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to make a proclamation of liberty to them, that everyone should set free his Hebrew slaves, male and female, so that no one should enslave a Jew, his brother.  And they obeyed, all the officials and all the people who had entered into the covenant that everyone would set free his slave, male or female, so that they would not be enslaved again.  They obeyed and set them free.

Just that quick, at least as the reading of the words go, Judah had three fortified cities successfully fighting for their life and putting the Babylonians back on their heels.  Babylon had withdrawn.  All because of that dirty word OBEDIENCE.  So why verse 22?  Well those answers and the tie in to the 3rd Commandment, we read in verses 13-16, God's direct words to them, and I believe inspirationally/applicationally to us today in some key ways:

...I myself made a covenant with your fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, saying, at the end of seven years each of you must set free the fellow Hebrew who has been sold to you and has served you six years; you must set him free from your service. [see Leviticus 25:35-46]  But your fathers did not listen to me or incline their ears to me.  You recently repented and did what was right in my eyes by proclaiming liberty, each to his neighbor, and you made a covenant before me in the house that is called by my name, but then you turned around and profaned my name when each of you took back his male and female slaves, whom you had set free according to their desire, and you brought them into subjection to be your slaves.

They went back on their word when they had a glimpse of relief.  So we find the truest essence of taking the name of the LORD in vain, and Jeremiah records how the  consequence in the second phrase of the 3rd Commandment unfolds starting in verse 17:

Therefore, thus says the LORD:  You have not obeyed me by proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother and to his neighbor, behold, I proclaim to you liberty to the sword, to pestilence, and to famine...

The LORD brought Babylon back with a vengeance.  Confirming once again Psalm 24:1 "The earth is the LORD's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein."

So where is my hair-brained tie in to today's governance situations as applied to the United States of America?  How is it I think as Paul wrote in 1Corinthians10:11 that "these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction..."  It's just this, that even in the midst - or because - of great turmoil, God opens our eyes and ears to see and understand how far we've departed from Right paths.  But we, like Judah in Jeremiah 34, face a dire consequence should we go back on the lessons we've painfully learned these last 6-8 years.

He delivers the afflicted by their affliction and opens their ears by adversity.  He also allured you out of distress into a broad place where there was no cramping and what was set on your table was full of fatness. Job 36:15-16

Many of us have had some "come to Jesus" moments over the last few years through various dire circumstances.  We've individually faced God or turned away, many of us praying earnestly for Truth to shine forth and hearts to be opened and set free to see the reality of the situations.  My fear is that we will get one glimpse of relief from what we've been facing with our lawless president and electorate and fail to persevere in right actions and behaviors and self governance.  We will have repeated Judah's action in profaning the name of the LORD. 

Choose wisely beloved, not just tomorrow, but every day, and stay the course of vigilant obedience to those things you know to be right.  Repent when you know you have done wrong and turn to the LORD for mercy and redemption, we have the promises that the "blood of Jesus cleanses us from all unrighteousness" if we will but call on His name - and to as many as call on His name and receive Him, who believe in His name, He gives the right to become children of God.  We are facing a host of issues today, all of them linked directly to the issues of loving God and loving each other.  Extrapolate them yourself and see if I'm not right... because if I am then the only solution is that dirty word OBEDIENCE.

Led Zeppelin probably didn't mean it this way, but there are two paths you can go by, and for now there's still time to change the road you're on.  In every facet of your life you will find that ultimately all roads lead back to a narrow gate leading to a path of life for those who will enter it and persevere.  Otherwise you are left to the liberty of destruction.

Be blessed my friends.

Sleeping In and Waking Up

You know you have an active family life as a married couple when it's a blessing to sleep in until 07:30.  We had that blessing this morning.  I found myself chuckling while I poured our coffee, remembering wistfully those pre-children days when the kids didn't jump in the bed at 06:00 or the dog didn't reach up on the bedside and put her 5lb paw on your arm to remind you she needs outside time - LIKE RIGHT NOW DADDY! - as her 2lb tail thumps the wall.  I chuckled a little more realizing I rarely worked hard enough Monday through Friday to justify sleeping 'til 10 or 11 on a Saturday back then compared to now.  Maybe those days were given us to store up rest for these years, funny how God works that out in the grander scheme of things.  Reminds me of Sam Elliott saying in the movie Road House something like "I'll get all the sleep I need when I'm dead sweetheart..."

Lately I've found myself with too much to blog about and too little time.  I've also found myself wrestling with the deep Spiritual realization that we need positive words of affirmation, encouragement, exhortation that leaves us positively motivated.  I am, at times, good at those things as I catch that vision and pour out Spiritual teachings that people message me and say really opened their eyes and encouraged them to see something from a different perspective or that they didn't realize Scripture actually spoke to that issue.  Lately I've felt tired facing topics that need to be heard but won't be.  I've felt frustration at my inability to frame the words around the issue I so clearly see.  I can't speak to some of those things without righteous anger, and that is something few will receive constructively.  Above all I've felt no release from the Lord to speak or write publicly more than a snippet in a Facebook post lately, and that above all governs my blog posts.

This morning I sat with my coffee and opened my Bible to Psalms and stopped to look at a highlighted verse, the tail end of a highlighted verse broken by page break actually.  "Seek Your servant, for I do not forget Your commandments"  The last phrase of Psalm 119.  The tail end of a highlight I made of verses 175 and 176:

Let my soul live, and it shall praise You; and let your judgments help me.  I have gone astray like a lost sheep; Seek Your servant, for I do not forget Your commandments.

What an image which Jesus elaborates in the NT Gospels of the Shepherd seeking one lost sheep.  Wow, the God of the Universes seeking for one... boggles the mind that those of us who have been down this road a few decades have seen example after example of just that.  Some Churches roll in that stream all the time while outsiders stand and raise objections and questions and shoot arrows of critique while they sit around and do nothing with no one but themselves and their saved friends.  We often argue about the miracles of God because we have no miracles in our own life, or at least we refuse to acknowledge them as such.

This morning as I looked down from that highlighted verse I wondered what the 'broom tree' is in Psalm 120 and my heart landed on Psalm 121:

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help? (KJV)
My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. (NIV)
He will not allow your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD is your keeper; The LORD is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
The LORD shall preserve your soul.
The LORD shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore.

As I read that a second time and again a third I felt that release and urge to post what has been the underlying theme in all the things I wanted to say about all the topics I've refrained from addressing.

Let me note an important Pauline tangent here before I proceed further, we are grafted into the vine of Israel, we are the 'new Israel' as believers in Christ if you will... so it is important for us to understand the mystery I phrase as "as it goes with Israel so it goes with us."  I can't elaborate beyond that right now, but it's an important thing that needs to be tucked in your brain somewhere back there friends.  You'll find that root both encouraging and enlightening as it blooms.

One of my friends recently commented on a Facebook post I snagged of a Billy Graham quote, and it's stuck with me for weeks now.  She said "I don't think you are getting through to people".  She may be right, and then again, God only knows.  Many of us never admit to another how profoundly a word they spoke was used to change us, because we are bound in shame that we had to be changed in the first place.  Either way I hold to the command of God to speak when I am spoken to and share what I'm given to share.  Ezekiel recorded those instructions this way:

Moreover He said to me: "Son of man, receive into your heart all My words that I speak to you, and hear with your ears.  And go, get to the captives, to the children of your people, and speak to them and tell them, "Thus says the Lord GOD," whether they hear or refuse. 

Ezekiel 3:10-11

I know I'm not alone in hearing those words and instructions, and the truth is I'm nothing special.  Many close friends think I am and have told me so - and that encourages me, but I hold that all the glory belongs to God alone.  I hold that more of us should be heeding those same guidances by the Holy Spirit and realizing that God is the same yesterday today and forever and seeks to use those who will surrender themselves to His revealed will.  You are meant to reach people with His love that I will never meet.  It is Him working through me that makes me of any substance whatsoever.  I have eternal worth and significance only because it is His breath of life moving in me, animating my soul and all that we consider life.  That is where dignity of life and humanity comes from, and that is why it is possible and imperative to 'love the sinner and hate the sin'.  Anything we might label self-esteem must be rooted in God alone as our Creator, because if it isn't then we've placed self on a throne meant only for God.  I show forth His glory only as I allow His Holy Spirit to dwell in me and move through me.  He pours out His love through us and wherever we flow in His Spirit trees grow rooted in that water that provides nurture and sustenance for the feeding and healing of the nations.  Another image shared at the end of the book bearing Ezekiel's name, 47:9-12.

I digress.

Here's the theme shared so well in Psalm 121:  My help comes from the LORD, maker of heaven and earth.

He chooses to allow us to participate in His workings in this world.  We look unto God alone to provide our every need.  One traditional doxology or sung declaration that recently surged overwhelmingly into my mind was

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be
World without end, amen, amen.

I was distracted at the men's BSF study on Genesis chapter 1 as I heard that phrase play over in my mind with the anchoring swell of a pipe organ behind a singing congregation of anonymous voices lifted in confident affirmation of those words after reading verses 29-30 and realizing that Scripture teaches God is the same yesterday, today, and forever as stated in Hebrews 13:8 and in more subtly pointed verses in the OT writings or the direct prophetic word of Malachi:

For I am the LORD, I do not change; therefore you are not consumed O sons of Jacob
Malachi 3:6

Therefore you are not consumed...  Why do bad things happen to good people?  Free will of bad people.  Why do good things happen to bad people?  Free will of good people, and beyond that God keeping His promises not to destroy all humanity again, but to allow them the opportunity to do so themselves.  Genesis 9:8-17 kind of sums it up.  God wants all of us to "Taste and see that the LORD is good" as it is written in Psalm 34:8.  For some of us that will lead to temporary relief in rough life situations, for others eternal Salvation in Christ Jesus.

We stand in an increasingly turbulent time throughout the world.  We stand on the edge of a precipice in our own country, with many who refuse to understand the foundations they have strategically undermined and encouraged others to destroy.  None of this is the least bit surprising to those who've studied Scripture beyond their Salvation.  Jesus is recorded in the synoptic Gospels in Mt 24, Mk 13, and Lk 21 as giving lengthy discourses about the end times events we will witness and be sustained through.  John chapters 14-17 are the best companion to those three synoptic chapters.  Though there are "don't worry's" in those three Gospel chapters John's three chapters read almost constantly like "don't worry, don't be troubled"  There is much more recorded elsewhere, but in all of those Scriptures we're encouraged to persevere, to keep our focus on God and trust Him to see us through.

God states He exists.  The Bible spends no time defending God's existence, it states it and proceeds as if that is THE foundational Truth to all that follows.  We spend far too much time having to recover and revisit the elementary principles of God to proceed far in our walk.  Roughly 4,100 years after Gen 1:1 the writer of Hebrews wrote 6:1 lamenting the progress and encouraging a young congregation to get on with it.

God states He exists.
God creates order out of chaos.
God gives us everything we need.

As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be.

He is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore.

He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and the hills they graze upon.  The whole earth and all the people in it are His.  (Ps 50:10; Ps 24:1)  We are but stewards of the manifold blessings of God.  He has given all the riches of God into your hands as a believer in Christ, so why is there suffering in this world and those who blatantly do without.  Why indeed.  Order cannot be seen without the background of chaos highlighting it's glory... where will you establish order as His instrument?  

This raises questions with which we all need to wrestle.  When you are finished wrestling you will find which answer you are meant to be a part of, you won't be the answer to every one of the questions, but you will at the very least be the instrument in at least part of one answer.  Some of you rest assured that you are already fully immersed in being that answer.  We all walk somewhere along the continuum.  Wrestle away my friends, my 'honey do' list awaits.

I guess in wrapping up my theme for this one I would say that I wish you all the blessings that a Sabbath rest was meant to provide, and to wake to newness of life that energizes your week as you go forward.

May the Lord bless your going out and coming in from this time and forevermore.  Thanks for stopping by...


If you want a few minutes of blessing while these questions settle into your soul I recommend this song which actually contains the opening line of Psalm 121.

Casting Crowns - Praise You in This Storm

Always Remember

As we enter this day let us pause with somber remembrance to pray not so much for those lost, but for those left behind.  Those for whom this day will be ever fresh because there is void where once loved ones dwelt.  Time may ease the pain, but healing wounds is work that may not take place for some on this side of eternity.  It may indeed turn out that the final healing touch will be available only when a person kneels before their sovereign Lord Jesus and blatantly reach out to grasp the hem of His robe.  Not only for the wounds made on this day in our nation, but for many life altering experiences that beloved creations of God have suffered throughout the world.  Hatreds and hurts, perpetrated by the free will of those who blatantly surrendered to the destructive, deceptive voices of the princes of the air and the father of lies wooing their souls unto perdition.  The Apostle Paul was inspired to give us instruction, to encapsulate in one place warnings and advice that had been rendered throughout the warnings of the Prophet Isaiah:

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.  Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.  For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.  Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.  Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.  And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints...  Ephesians 6:10-18

Though we suffer at the hands of humans hurting humans, let us look beyond and realize that the ultimate battle is fought for Truth and the freedom from spiritual oppression that is only available in Christ Jesus, the revealed Messiah promised from the beginning of our present Creation.  Let us realize in truth, that it is the free will choices of humanity that cause our pains and travails, and that those free will choices of poor stewardship are informed, influenced, manipulated by principalities, and powers in the spiritual realm.  So while we stand in the physical realm and lay down our temporal lives to fight against the evils of this age, the real battle must be fought on our knees before the throne of God first.  It is Jesus, our victorious commander, the very author and finisher of our faith, emptying out the armory of heaven to equip us for very real battle beloved.

It is this above all that draws the hatred of Islam for the United States of America.  Our very foundations were based in the wholly and holy informed tenets of the only true God revealed in nature, in the factual history of a living redemptive relationship with His chosen nation Israel, in the incarnation of the Holy Messiah Jesus Christ, and recorded and propagated through His written word, the Holy Bible.  Have no doubts beloved, the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John 15:18 are fulfilled in the tragic events of 9-11-01

If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you

Regardless of what witness or character our nation shows forth in regard to Christianity today, our foundation was based wholly on righteous principle found only in the redemptive character of God as He is revealed to all humanity.  We still stand as the single brightest beacon of liberty in the world.  Our experiment in self governance has produced more nationally attributive good works than any other nation in history.  We have been a resource or light throughout the nations, even when our motivations weren't wholly motivated by righteousness.  This comes from the root truths of who Jesus revealed the Almighty Father God to be when He stated in the Gospel of John:

I am the way, the truth, and the life... if you had known Me, you would have known My Father also, and from now on you know Him and have seen Him. (14:6-7)

and earlier than that when He stated before an angry crowd of Jewish religious leaders:

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.  I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. (10:10)

and earlier than that when He stated:

If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.  And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (8:31-32)

This beloved is the essence of, the source of true liberty - and that is why even in our fallen, debauched, hypocritical state of affairs we are still hated to this day.  We are still coasting on the inertia created by the blessings endowed by the Holiness of our foundation in the eternally righteous God of creation.  We are still experiencing the blessings to the thousand generations of those who love the Lord.

Beloved, walk in Truth, walk in the Light, surrender to the author and founder of abundant life, rebuke the enemy and declare your freedom from his wiles by the righteous blood of Jesus shed on the Cross of Calvary for your sake.  Then take your stand washed in His blood, restored to fellowship with God and those of His children who have taken up the authority granted when they became his sons and daughters.  Gird yourself in Truth, put on the whole armor of God and stand.

Always remember.  Always combat the forces of darkness.  Always recognize the fruit of the tree and call the root for what it is.  Do not be deceived, this life is a constant battle, only as it is fought in His clothing of righteousness can we experience victory.  I believe it was pastor Tony Evans who reminded me recently "we do not fight FOR victory, we fight FROM victory already won for us by the resurrection of Christ."

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.  1Peter5:8

Do not be deceived, do not be confused,

Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment. (John 7:24)

Do not be afraid,

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. (2Timothy1:7)

Jesus left His peace with us, to spread to the uttermost ends of the earth, let's go.  Walk in Truth, show forth Love, do not be deceived, and always remember, for many will never forget this day while we walk this side of eternity.  Others rejoice... having called good evil and evil good.

The Cost of a Penny

I've said it before and I'll say it many more times: there are always negative corollaries to every positive maxim or proverb.  I think of it as the yin-yang symbol of Taoism [dow-ism], a positive and negative in moving balance, whether that's proper interpretation by the pan Chinese religions who have adopted that symbol I won't debate - it's just what I think of when I realize I am seeing a negative outcome to an almost wholly positively quoted proverb.

The example I frame this around today is Proverbs 22:6:

Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.

I find things stirring in my soul lately with the publicly told tragedies of Aurora fresh in my heart, the angry diatribes of intolerance redefined regarding the same sex marriage debate Chic-Fil-A drug itself into, and the witness of promising young people refusing to fit into molds of adult responsibility.  I have little to say regarding the first two topics, my two cents is less than relevant or necessary and like two actual pennies the price of weighing in on them will cost me more than they are worth to make.  Maybe in touching on the third I will inadvertently speak to the first two, maybe not.  There are elements of personal responsibility woven through all three so maybe that is what precipitated the tie ins.

Young people today, funny I include myself in that category at 40 years old... just a passing observation from someone who more often feels they are a cantankerous old fart.  Maybe the 'cantankerous old fart' title speaks more to my relearned values than my actual age.  I find I have looked into the old ways and reestablished foundations that were moved by others.  I certainly find it easy to digress like an old man whittling around a small chunk of wood to reveal the creation within.  Chronological adults in today's worldwide culture often metaphorically buck and kick and scream and balk at being molded into anything resembling conformity, inspiring a strong desire to paddle them repeatedly in public humiliation.  Part of me is quieting down now rather than risk said paddling, but the old fart in me is nodding in agreement, the black pentecostal in me is working up a "preach it brother!" and clearing my throat for a hearty amen or three.

Chronological Adults, I believe is where I meant to pick this up rather than Young People.

We live in broken times with abandoned children not taken under any wings, and though there are heartbreaking poverty situations of orphanage and war torn country examples I could advocate for, bring to a readers attention, I speak to my own culture in the United States today.  The witness of an affluent society, made affluent not by greed and other nefariously evil machinations but by traditional values of hard work and Judeo-Christian work ethic underpinned by a religious realization traditionally called "The Fear of God."  A healthy fear in knowing we would be held accountable by a power greater than ourselves, and in this country that was originally defined as the revealed God of the Bible whether we like it or not.  The truth that most of what resembles progress or success today is actually fueled by greed and nefariously evil machinations is just a sad fact.  That fact, however, no more changes the original roots of our God given blessings than calling good evil or evil good - and we are certainly not clever in thinking so by rewriting history.

I live daily working through my own past and pin pointing where my own character defects tend to come from, and as I search myself and root out the underlying sinful weeds that crop up or deform the attempts at healthy growth in my own life, I can't help but reach conclusions about the lives of people around me.  Today I will be forced to face the negative corollary of Proverbs 22:6 in that we all work with chronological adults who will expect they can do whatever they want, because their daddy did when he walked out on their pregnant mother, or their mother did when she walked out on their daddy.  Or my alcoholic parent wasn't a good example so who are you to judge me?  I was raped... I was molested... I was beaten... I lived a life essentially abandoned by all parents and hope...  We live in a broken world where the scenarios are numerous and few of them pretty.  The 99% lash out and demand retribution from the 1% they suppose to have withheld their bounty.  The conservatives rake the liberals, the liberals vilify the conservatives,  while few of us objectively acknowledge anything like rational thought in public discourse of any type.  We fail a fair examination of the content of character because we've redefined what character looks like.  It looks like whatever I say it looks like, so screw you buddy!  To a kid Love looks like giving them all the candy they want, and then it's still your fault when their abscessed teeth explode and the funeral home has to make an extra wide casket to bury the fat creature killed by infection being driven into their brain - by loving parents - what?  Hello? 

It doesn't take long for the logic to get convoluted and irrational.  The foundations have been destroyed.  Excuses and blame and striving for hope in man or princes rather than the only source of goodness.

Psalm 118:8-9, 6
It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.
It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes.
The LORD is on my side; I will not fear, what can man do to me?

There are inherent consequences to our every choice.  Even in situations where divorce is pursued as the absolute last desired outcome, damage is done.  I would never advocate someone staying in an abusive, adulterous relationship, but gravity isn't suspended by extenuating circumstances.  Only love binds the wounds created by the bottom falling out.  Our hearts don't respond to extenuating circumstances and rational justifications.  Our heart says: I am insecure and unwanted and wickedly defective because they didn't care enough to provide me a loving foundation.  If my parents are the bedrock foundation of what it means to be loved and secure and brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, what unspoken messages were heard and learned in that child's life.  People are disposable.  There are no rules to follow except maybe "whatever feels good - do it."  Sex - grab it where you can.  Work - just enough to keep the lights on or at least feed your funnest habit.  Blame - if it gets the attention off you.  Personal responsibility?  What?  Is that Spanish?  Greek?  What language could that phrase come from and what could it possibly mean?  Survive because you have to... life strives and clings in the most unlikely locations.  I found tiny fish in a long standing mud puddle around a foundation pillar the other day - they're doomed but they were there.  If I ever learn how to insert pictures in my blogs I will prove it to you.  How like those fish are we?  Striving to live in a puddle where our doom is a foregone certainty.  Maybe I should strap myself to the temporary brace for the canopy until their life cycle is complete.

Other situations occur to me, like the formally married couple who divorced long ago in fact.  Abusive behavior or addiction housed within the shell of an otherwise 'normal' ideal home.  Shame and humiliation perpetrated within the blighted landscape of a dysfunctional family who has no ultimate desire to see the best outcomes in others or their children.  Adults who wrongly expect that going through the traditional motions of their society will somehow 'fix' their personal issues and bring them into something resembling a straight line.  They have essentially made a conscious decision to use others for their benefit, expecting it all to shake out in the end.  Beloved it doesn't work that way, it never has, it never will.

So we are daily faced with a dilemma as to how we react, what do we do, how do we live?  And we each come up with our own solutions and pick and choose what works for us today.  Put ourselves at the center or on the throne - because that's what we learned - right?  "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it."  Regardless how tragic or relatively kind our childhood was we learn our lessons well.  And we see the fruit surrounding us daily.  We get glimpses of kindness, and beauty and awe inspiring life experiences along the way to be sure, but far too often our daily walk is tainted with at least the gnats that follow rotten fruit.  Sometimes we seem to be bathed in the putrid refuse whether we would or not.  Thank God for being able to wash in the water of the Word and walk into the next day unstained.

The good news in all this is that sin can be dealt with, unspoken messages can be identified and rebuked as falsehood.  Chronological adults can become spiritually responsible adults.  The childhood ripped from them by others can be patiently released and partially experienced in cultivating a joyful adulthood with right foundations.  Amends for our wrongs can be made - and if they can't be made directly to those we hurt, we can still live those amends to others who will benefit though they know not why.  The fruit of the tree can be made good.  The root can be cut loose from the poisonous nature of our past and relocated and grafted in to a righteous vine which provides soul enriching nourishment.  We can produce good fruit for food and leaves for healing the hurts of those around us.  But that is a personal decision and a reoriented lifestyle choice few of us ever make.  And so we live with the exorbitant cost of making a penny when God wants us to experience the boundless riches of heaven.

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."
C.S. Lewis -- Mere Christianity

No realistic hope of better things to come can be drawn from the ways of the modern world.  What follows?  Is there nothing good to hope for at all?  There is, but we must seek this good hope outside the socio-politico-economic process.  And this, by the grace of God, we may do.  J.I. Packer -- Never Beyond Hope

There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, "All right, then, have it your way."   C.S. Lewis

The Feed Trough is Open

None of us want to be "judged", we'd rather be praised or appreciated which I guess are really just positive judgments rather than condemnations.  It is incredibly hard to hold back caustic words though when you see someone doing something that just appears asinine or ignorantly/apathetically stupid.  We've all been there, and if you haven't been yet today then it's only because you haven't watched the news or scrolled far enough down your FB screen yet to see the digital delivery of stupid stuff that drives you nuts.

I read this morning in Proverbs 27:7 "A satisfied soul loathes the honeycomb, but to a hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet." (NKJV)

I've had a surface understanding of that verse and a few others nearly identical to it.  This morning I really got it on a much deeper more practical level, see if this makes more sense:

When someone is hungry (an analogy for missing something in their life) they will eat ANYTHING to fill the void.

Thus the stupid stuff that drives us nuts, puts us in a rage of righteous anger, or breaks our hearts.  It runs rampant around all of us.  Here are a couple examples one from my life and one from a friend watching the news last night - if these don't fit please feel free to fill in the blank with your own examples like your promiscuous friend or your belligerent relative or __________. 

My friend recovered from cancer who after months of treatment and detoxification is given a clean bill of health and immediately returns to smoking and daily alcohol consumption and is dehydrating, truly desiccating himself (he's at least 60lbs under weight and dropping daily) in front of my eyes because life without alcohol is impossible to face.  I want the friend under the mess, and will never have him.  I love him from a distance though he once thought I couldn't stand him - truthfully, he still doesn't understand my refusal to accept alcoholic abuse from him but my steadfast admiration for his knowledge and experience.  I like him, I just do.  Watching him die all over again after being delivered from the hand of death drives me nuts, knowing he won't change his personal behavior breaks my heart.

Last night on the local news in a town I don't live in, two men broke in to an 82 year old woman's home, brutalized and raped her precipitating a heart attack where she ended up in the hospital - what kind of crazy crap is that?  If it didn't put my friend into a state of righteous anger I would have been concerned for my friend's sanity and relationship with Jesus, as it is she was more concerned that she no longer has a desire to pray for those people's Salvation.  Sadly maybe, I reached that point long ago.  Some people only benefit this world by leaving it in my opinion.  Two thieves on the crosses to either side of Jesus, one had an honest view of his predicament and asked for God's mercy and received the assurance of paradise that day, the other made a different assessment of his situation, mocked Jesus, blaming his unfair lot in life on others and met his father the devil later that day.  It will always be this way.

While it is yet day however we must work, we must be in this world but not of it.  We must be the ones who provide food for the hungry soul or all they will ever eat is bitterness.  Stop saying you don't have enough, it couldn't be you, Jesus left an example in feeding thousands with table scraps and meager provisions finding baskets full of leftovers afterward.  Jesus makes every bit of the difference.  You can do this, people do do this everyday in myriad small ways and a plethora of huge ways.  Beloved we are the royal priesthood God has always intended, it is not for a priest, a minister, a professional Christian to do the work God put in front of YOU.  You can't even begin to estimate what unconditional love might do for the crazy maker in your life.

Let's Go!  Feed those around you with the good stuff, because if you don't they will eat anything they can stuff in their mouth.

Good Stuff Happens to Bad People

"A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out."  Isaiah 42:3a (NIV)

People say "you cant fix stupid" - but if by stupid you mean ignorant that can be fixed with knowledge or facts.  Apathy on the other hand, which is what I think of when people say "stupid", can only be fixed by the person suffering the ailment.  The most dangerous form of "Stupid" though is the highly educated apathete.  I know I just made that word up, but it should be a word in my humble opinion.  It may be, in actual etymology and Latin roots that it is a legitimate construction... regardless you heard it here first.  Apathete: person characterized or motivated by an uncaring lifestyle, they cross the entire spectrum of this life without distinction in nationality, station, class, gender or race.

The funny because it's true joke about the difference between ignorance and apathy gives its own answer:  What's the difference between IGNORANCE and APATHY?  "I don't know" and "I don't care".

You can't help anyone who doesn't care and they are highly unlikely to help themselves or anyone else while they blunder around like proverbial bulls in a china shop.  Methinks apathy is actually the greatest problem facing humanity today - a total lack of care about anyone other than yourself.  Apathy causes even the most knowledgeable people in the world to be - well, stupid.  Apathetes are hurtful with their knowledge and facts, drawing no practical applications while purporting to do just that.  Their logic works something like this: "If you do A - B is the result.  Since we are seeing B then we must not be doing A."  Although that has root appearance of Truth, the callous fruit of indifference and the haughty spirit it engenders declares to me that it is essentially Salvation by works theology which inadvertently denies both the cosmic effects of sin and the cosmic effects of redemption through Jesus Christ.  In the practical world of politics that line of logic can be even more convoluted and the worldwide consequences more devious.  With no foundation in righteousness logic is likely to have even little net positive benefit to humanity.  Is it any wonder that the relatively few pieces of sound logic from centuries of philosophers happen to stringently adhere to Biblical Truth?  But I digress into a discussion not to be had this day.

If I had to point to one item as the starting point for this blog today it would be the article linked to a friends Facebook page regarding Christians being their own worst enemies.

Here's the link:   http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/24/opinion/granderson-christians/index.html

My personal take is the article is well framed, and well presented as far as it goes.  I don't think it needed to go farther, it really did what it set out to do in every way.  I particularly appreciated the linked articles within the column itself accurately supporting his positions. Good article and thanks to my Facebook and personal friend Mackie now known as Maxx for bringing it to my attention.  The reader commentary following was enlightening as well, in a mostly sad way.  Only two of the commentators out of the 50 I took the time to read (4600+ were just too many), accurately expressed a balanced view of Christian response and lamented the unfortunate examples of public misrepresentation.  I hope that little amount of salt will be enough to season what someone takes from the discussion, and just enough to make them curious enough to seek the Living Water.

If we have genuine care and love for one another, we're much less likely to ever break a piece of pottery while we experience the china shop that is God's Creation through Jesus Christ.  If we say that Jesus is our example we must spend a greater time meditating on the description of the Messiah recorded by the Old Testament Prophet Isaiah in 42:3 reiterated in the quotation of the New Testament Gospel of Matthew in 12:20.  Jesus 'healed them all' in Mt 12:15, do we, do I?  Or do I spend more time applying Scripture and drawing parallels and extrapolating reasons for unfolding world events because it's easier to sit in my man cave with my bookshelves full of Bibles and commentaries and books than getting my hands and feet dirty in the real world, where real, muscular, Biblical love would actually change someone's experience of this china shop.  For me it is not either/or - it is both/and.  I have very Biblically, Spiritually informed and well founded opinions on a host of issues.  But I agree with some points made by Joyce Meyers in her book Love Revolution:

 I have learned that some people are hurting too badly to hear the good news that God loves them; they must experience it and one of the best ways for that to happen is for us to meet their practical needs, in addition to telling them they are loved.

We must beware thinking words are enough.  Jesus certainly preached the good news, but He also went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed (see Acts 10:38).  Talking is not expensive, nor does it require much effort, but real love is costly.  It cost God His only Son, and allowing real love to flow through us will also cost us.

People don't care how much I know until they know how much I care.  Simply explained regarding my personal walk:

For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.  For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.  But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Romans 5:6-8 (NKJV)

I love because Christ first loved me, and that means following His example in keeping love as a verb and unconditional.  It does not mean I will like every one.  It does not mean I agree with you on every point.  It does not mean I nod my head or shrug my shoulders when you are deceived and espousing a lie that leads to death or destruction on micro or macro scale (Eph 4:14-15 says we don't just go with popular teaching we speak the Truth in love so everyone can grow up into Christ).  True love snatches people from the flames or pushes them out from in front of a bus about to run them over (Jude 23).  It does not mean I tolerate unacceptable behavior or abuse, I'm not meant to be your door mat (Isaiah 51:23 tells me only afflicting tormentors want to walk all over me).  It does not mean I keep my mouth shut when an argument is set up against the Love and Truth of God (2Cor 10:4-5).  And just because you say I'm paranoid doesn't mean 'they' aren't out to get me.  There is a real Hell.  There is a real Heaven.  Heaven isn't for people afraid of going to Hell, it's a prepared place for a prepared people who love God and accept Him according to His terms as He has presented Himself.  We want people to accept us for who we are, but we have a different expectation or standard we falsely try to apply to God.  We want God as we want Him/her/it to be.  My understanding of the Bible is that's idolatry, but I digress from my topic of apathy.

If someone has come to repentance and placed their faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, then you will know the difference, you will see the difference in their life.  They won't just abide by the inhibitions of Galatians 5:19-21, they'll produce the fruits of 5:22-23.   Without the love of God in us, working through us by the cleansing of Jesus' blood on the cross and the guidance of the Holy Spirit who is the promised deposit of our security until the day of redemption - all we can be is apathetic because all we can care about is ourselves.  We may make a life of social activism that has the outward appearance of caring and righteousness, but if the root of the tree isn't Jesus, it's a dead idol we have carved out and nailed down and we parade it around and point to it as proof when all along it was simply a tree we decorated. 

The theological conclusions and public declarations of those who think God is doing anything other than weeping at the tragedies in your life and throughout this present Creation, are puffed up knowledge making them look good rather than Christ Jesus.  They are knowledgeable apathy.  They may even present 100% Truth, but if they have not Love they are worthless.  Bad stuff happens to good people, good stuff happens to bad people.  God makes his rain to fall on the evil and the good.  There are inherent consequences and personal responsibilities to our every action.  Your every action has effects outside yourself whether you like it or not, whether you can easily draw a causative line of logic or not.  The effects of sin are real and cosmic, not just personal.  Earthquakes, hurricanes, famines, mass murders, may all indeed have their roots from the tree of sin, but LOVE doesn't take the time to analyze them, draw unwarranted parallels and conclusions, and wrap it up in a definitive and concise theology - it grabs the towel and washes the feet of the those invited to supper.  Love reaches out and touches the leper, and righteousness becomes contagious.

A Rose By Any Other Name

I want you to try and just read these Scriptural quotes straight through, tune out the references and citations if you can. Their contexts only add to the depth of the power behind them, though some are initially addressed directly to the actual events of another time and place. They were written for our admonition upon whom the end of the ages has come. They inform a Scriptural perspective on what I want to talk about in this post and are worthy of meditation in and of themselves as they stand singly, and as they are grouped here today as a whole.

"What sorrow for those who say that evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter. What sorrow for those who are wise in their own eyes and think themselves so clever." Isaiah 5:20-21 (NLT)

 "The wicked conceive evil; they are pregnant with trouble and give birth to lies."  Psalm 7:14 (NLT)

"As a well keeps its water fresh, so she keeps fresh her evil; violence and destruction are heard within her; sickness and wounds are ever before me."  Jeremiah 6:7 (ESV)

"Were they ashamed when they committed abomination?  [Are they ashamed of their disgusting actions?]  No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush. {They can no longer feel humiliation}  Therefore they shall fall among those who fall [they will lie among the slaughtered]; at the time that I punish them, they shall be overthrown {when I punish them, they will collapse}, says the LORD."  Jeremiah 6:15 (ESV) [NLT] {HCSB}

"But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified.  And their voices prevailed.  So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted... he delivered Jesus over to their will."  Luke 23:23-25 (ESV)

"...And my people love to have it so..." Jeremiah 5:31 (NKJV)

Has the Normalizing of Pedophilia Begun?

The above link is the genesis of this specific blog today.  You may want to read it before you continue.

I also thought of subtitling this one "Independent Businessman (Part 2)"

Pedophilia. The succinct latinized name for sexual abuse of children. Sexual abuse sounds coarse, abrasive, raw - but pedophilia is clinical, soft, deceptive. Abortion. How about that one? Legalized murder sounds rude, judgmental, argumentative.  I'll lose virtual friends over this blog and the Facebook post  about this link on my page last night where I stated

Pedophilia is clinical and deceptive - let's call it what it is: sexual abuse of children. It's like calling abortion a choice or an ethical debate - it's neither - it's legalized murder and it is one of the greatest evils of our age. The effects of these misnamed sins are life long and catastrophic and healing only begins when they are rightly named in the victim's life. 

Well Shakespeare asked quite lyrically in Romeo and Juliet: "What's in a name?..." My position is that we should call it as it is in reality, let's not disguise the matters in this case.  With the strategically intentional dumbing down of our society, of which we are all victim to some degree, we need to be greatly attentive to making sure that what we say is actually what is heard today.  Pedophilia and abortion ring alarms in my ears, but not everyone hears those clanging warnings.  The word abortion to some engenders good feelings of progress and women's rights and respect.  My adopted mother certainly demanded I recognize it that way.  Hardly - the reality is all the opposites. This is not something on which we can agree to disagree.  The Truth is never dependent upon your belief in, or agreement with, it to be true.  We are not talking the life of the mother versus the life of the child, incest, or rape in 99.9% of the cases where abortion is practiced, we're talking convenience and multi-tiered irresponsibility code worded "CHOICE."  I'm truly pro-choice in my beliefs, PRO-CHOICE BEFORE CONCEPTION.  If God chooses to knit a child together in it's mother's womb He has a reason, the CHOICE has been made by a higher authority than you or I.  Word games, unintentional or not, will not behoove us in this matter.  It has always been so that there are many word games played in our culture, and cultures throughout the world.  Another of my favorite peeves is "lifestyle choice".  Attach that forcefully vague phrase to something and it's suddenly acceptable, WRONG.  Sin is sin is sin.  No one thing weighs heavier in the scale than another beloved, hard as that is to truly understand.  We think there are grades and shades and scales ranking our least favorites higher on the chart than others.  There are differences in effect of sin, akin to the differences between a pop-it, firecracker, a charge of TNT, a carefully shaped/carved wad of C4, a cluster munition, and a nuclear bomb.  All of these are explosives.  That's as clear as I can make it.  The Bible teaches explicitly that our refusal to acknowledge and repent of our sin separates us from the love of God.  A pop-it is enough beloved.  You don't need to be guilty of dropping a nuke.

My friend Lee Clements got it right with the first part of his comment on that post last night:

I think it's an indication of the selfishness evident in our current culture--by saying "it's not their fault, they're born that way" we simultaneously excuse the behavior and ignore the victims.

We have bought into the philodoxical lie [philosophy is love of truth, philodoxy - love of opinion] that we live in a world where black and white aren't appropriate, we need shades of grey - which makes the pornographic eroticism of the current popular book "Fifty Shades of Grey" that much more ironic.  I'm quite certain the British author Erika Leonard writing as E.L. James knew full well the ironies she was capitalizing on in creating that title for her juggernaut [here's a word game for you, look up juggernaut in the dictionary and see if every single definition doesn't apply philosophically] trilogy; and as well with the not at all subtle choice of the main character's name Christian Grey.  Rarely does an author accidentally stumble on something, and if they do, they finesse it for full effect and praise their god or God accordingly.

Childhood sexual abuse is a nuclear bomb beloved, it is wildfire unleashed, it is indiscriminate in the the devastation it wreaks - and it is not contained or targeted in who is affected.  Ground Zero will spill forth radiation for the remaining decades of that person's life and even those on the farthest fringes of the initial event will suffer at least the repercussions of the shock waves produced.  Abortion is not far different.  If you think I jest or exaggerate feel free to message me, we'll sit down at length and discuss the topic.  Take off a Friday and plan to stay with me over the weekend because we'll just be getting into it when you have to leave Sunday evening.   It's that serious.  I'm 40 years old.  I've been at sorting this topic out for at least 33 years, and helping others out of the black holes of abuse for a touch over 22 years.  The lies are that insidious, the misconceptions that complicated, it's just plain bad stuff any way you want to analogize it.  Therapists who write books take helicopter rides over the landscape of childhood sexual abuse, because driving through the wilderness takes volumes.  Authors have to separate recovery tomes for women and men, because the roots of this evil bring forth different trees of devastation.  We share a whole common ground of issues in some ways, but Men are from Mars Women from Venus.

Sin takes myriad paths once it enters the gate beloved, make no mistake, do not delude yourself with soft words and lies.  Promiscuity, transgender issues, homosexuality, dissociative disorders, ADHD, multiple personality disorders and blatant demonic possessions, alcohol and drug abuse to falsely escape the pain, violence perpetrated against people who had absolutely nothing to do with the abuse, robbery, suicide, incarceration, insanity... the untreated, unhealed outcomes are never good, and never precisely predictable.  Sin is never pretty, nor are the secondary results victims exemplify throughout their lives.  Oh the Bible calls this fruit by the way, fruit of a bad tree.  The unredeemed heart of humanity will always produce these if left untended - the victims of abuse are much more likely to exhibit all of them in abundance.  This kind of tree is good for nothing, but to be cut down and burned in the fire.  The repentant, redeemed heart, has another list which can take years to cultivate and produce in any abundance, but always begins showing at least little buds soon after Jesus is accepted and the Holy Spirit seals you: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control; against such things there is no law." Galatians 5:22-23 (ESV).  The somewhat good news in this issue is also something that corrects a misconception that victims becomes perpetrators.  Here's one of the things I posted last night:

The few untreated, unhealed individuals who do survive rarely become perpetrators themselves, they often are some of the angriest or most volatile individuals and die of bitterness exacerbated issues. There are an extremely high percentage of survivors who become homosexual or transgendered as a result, and live otherwise 'normal' lives with semi-successful integration in their culture. With extremely rare exception, however, almost every perpetrator was a victim themselves. Men and women who have both survived and recovered make up less than 5% of the total victims by generous estimates. There is so much stigma and shame and false assumption out regarding the issue of childhood sexual abuse that percentages and numbers are strongly educated estimates rather than concrete certainties. Survival is only the first step in a long road for childhood sexual abuse victims, rape victims, abuse victims, or those who choose abortion or have it forced upon them. Survival is the first step, recovery is another journey altogether... few actually make it down that healing path. Without Jesus I most certainly would not have made it, that is a concrete fact. I am one, and I am not alone.

Childhood sexual abuse is not a joking matter popularly accepted by promotion in such songs as Van Zant's "I Know My History" where he winkingly invites us to accept this kind of thing with the catchy lyrics "I was cuttin' the grass when she asked me in - learned everything I needed to know when I was sixteen (know what I mean?)";  or the melodic 50's and 60's songs about forbidden young love, or________ fill in the blank.  Belief check: are your beliefs more informed by the Bible or traditional and popular music?  Think about that another time friends.  The truth of the matter is that a sixteen year old boy was willingly abused in that Van Zant song.  Because the lady had an itch she wanted scratched and she used him knowing his ego and hormones would override any sense the boy had.  Pop-it, firecracker, half stick of TNT?  I don't know but it was definitely an explosive event, and it is far more common than we think.  I have friends who were their mother's sexual partners because their alcoholic fathers were out drinking and whoring while mom was left at home neglected... I've just about ruined that whole Van Zant album for myself writing this blog.  $16.99 I'll never get back.  Sin is priceless.  Sin is like a drop of oil that seems insignificant at first drip, but ends with an indelible, creeping ring stain all out of proportion to the initial event.

This paragraph isn't nice, it's pretty raw actually.  Sometimes the truth comes out that way before you get to the redemption parts.  Proceed with that warning or go away now.  To have a homosexual news anchor plead for understanding and even admit sympathy for a serial pedophile is beyond words - it is beyond insulting - it is re-traumatizing for childhood sexual abuse victims.  And I'm not even addressing his open homosexuality and the hurtful, harmful, self inflicted wrongness of that whole issue which has been forcefully shoved down our public throat in almost justified retaliation for our hypocritical inability to love the human caught in sin.  I have homosexual acquaintances and a few who call me friend.  I don't treat them inhumanly but they don't think I agree with what they're doing to themselves or that I'll ever promote or advocate their 'lifestyle choice'.  I sat here numb for three hours after I read that article last night.  I mean vaguely tingling over my whole body, numb.  It's one of the milder manifestations of PTSD resulting from my own childhood sexual abuse.  I actually cried for a few minutes, a healing, cathartic thing not possible for me in years gone by.  I thought about faces of victims I've known over the last two decades and what their reactions would be.  Sympathize with perpetrators?, hardly - they need to be killed and cremated and their ashes flushed into the sewer where human waste belongs.  Even if they are repentant.  They aren't worth a patch of ground or another moment's oxygen.  Extensive re-trials and incarcerations - why?  For the cost of a bullet we victims would be happy to help society out by greatly reducing the monetary costs of everything following the conviction.  If they sincerely repent they'll get to be with their Lord that much sooner, if they don't, they'll get to be with their father the devil post haste - but to allow them to live while the innocent victim and their family have to live with the fall out is unconscionable.  The thief on the cross next to Jesus repented and we'll talk with him in Heaven, but he still died justly for his crimes against humanity.  Therapists who have worked in this area for decades estimate that most of us victims don't live past our mid twenties, our coroners and police reports read causes of death that don't say "pedophile victim" BUT THEY SHOULD.  Why should the perpetrator get three hots and a cot while we struggle to piece together a life that falls apart at every turn?  We have to read books and pay for therapists out of our own pocket and attend self help groups with non-judgmental people who have been victims themselves - all while life goes on without stopping.  Keep yourself together and buttoned up properly in public life, act like nothing's wrong.  Read Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence book and figure how to make something out of your PTSD having life since you're obviously incapable of living up to your potential...  On and on the confusing self talk and 'helpful' suggestions go.  And don't bring it up in Church during Sunday School prayer time either, well meaning ignorance will twist it to be your fault somehow and the victim leaves the fold chased by the devil himself rejoicing that another one of God's children is isolated from the Body and will have their healing path confused and the results delayed by shame, anger, and bitterness.  And your Sunday School class decides you've backslidden and need extra prayers but they never call or visit and find out why they are the ones who need to apologize.  There's something to be said for not going to the hardware store for a loaf of bread, but there's also a strong word in something I read by Reinhard Bonnke:

Churches are not clubs for the perfect.  They are clinics for the sick, the wounded and the maimed, where those a bit stronger help those who are still weak.  The forgiven forgive.  The healed heal.  The comforted comfort others.  Our role is not to kick people when they are down.  They are the devil's victims and rather than scorn we should pour on them the oil of understanding and bring recovery and joy.

 I've wept with people over the devastating affects - I have zero sympathy.  I've puked reading stories of survivors who carried this evil into their tragic adult lives and experience re-abuse in their attempts to obtain healing.  I rinsed my mouth, brushed my teeth and forced myself to return and face the truth they live with daily.  I believe God was onto something when he said to cut the sin out of the body, remove the evil from among you, let the nations see and fear.  There's a time and place for everything beloved, coddling criminals the way we do is dragging us all down.  What about forgiveness, healing, love?  Yeah what about that for the victims?  What about reasonable defense from future crimes, not reliving the trauma every time we see someone's face, not living in fear that someone will find us and repeat their depredation [there's another word game for you]?  Why does the criminal get our sympathies and monies while the victims are given a pat on the back and encouraged to move on with their life?  Victim's copays aren't waved at the therapist's office, (if they can find a therapist in the field at all, and if they can afford it).  We (rightly) say they need to make sure they are investing in their recovery and valuing the therapist's time accordingly.  We're reteaching them respect and boundaries.  So what is it the perpetrator learns by the converse actions?  Just askin'.  The same God who is steadfast and healing and the very personification of everlasting love also teaches our hands to make war and guides us to fight for what is right and reflective of His nature.  What about the fear of God being instilled in humanity?  That's the purpose and end result of capital punishment and He is not going to do for us what He created us capable of doing for ourselves.  If you disagree with me on this I want you to go back and read the Bible where the most revered Israelite king David has his story told.  If it helps you make more sense out of it get the Chronological Study Bible which attempts to put the passages in event order.  Objectively read it.  Start in 1st Samuel after he's out on his own dodging Saul's pursuit.  David was ruthless and surrounded by unsavory characters and yet he was God's anointed, and received the accolade of being 'a man after God's own heart.'  Read where he killed entire villages of people from oldest to youngest so that not a single survivor remained, why?  Because God had told the Israelites to purge the evil inhabitants of their Promised Land, to remove the evil from among them so that they would not be ensnared again.  Israel failed during the initial years and they routinely suffered accordingly.  David picked up some of their slack and helped everybody out.  A man after God's own heart indeed.  If you read my very first post on this blog I alluded to there being a sermon in the phrase 'people taken captive', there's a huge chunk of it, David always killed man woman and child, and yet his enemies took the occupants of Ziklag captive so that they could utlimately be rescued.  There's some additional exegetical reasoning for David's ruthlessness but it's all an irrelevant tangent to this post.

My main goal here today is to warn that as the article link suggests 'normalization' and sympathy will infiltrate our main stream culture like sewage overflowing a treatment facility tank.  We accept abortion today, we accept homosexuality, we accept every religion except Christianity, we accept lying and cheating politicians who rob us blind, we have little understanding of how to speak the Truth in love as we are commanded to do because we haven't faced the skeletons in our own closets thoroughly enough to exorcise the demons.  We no longer believe that spiritual warfare is real, that it is indeed the everyday normal Christian life we are called to.  We no longer acknowledge that we are the recipients of the Abrahamic Covenant and that we too are blessed to be a blessing.  We live in a pluralistic society where acceptance of everything is preached and the refusal to tolerate or even just separate our personal lifestyle from evil is called 'prejudice' 'bigotry' 'hate speech' 'hate crimes' etc., ad nauseum.  The most intolerant religion of our day is tolerance.  I can love you unconditionally, but if I tolerate everything you do I'm in for a world of hurt.  If I fail to be the watchman on the wall and warn you that your sin is leading to your physical and spiritual death and maybe even our parting ways as friends- I will be held accountable by a higher authority than friends and acquaintances. 

Beloved God is not mocked.  He's seemingly turned His cheek for now, but have no doubt about it He is the righteous judge and He is the standard by which we must measure ourselves.  You aren't getting into Heaven because you're better than Hitler, or your adulterous greedy neighbor, or ________ fill in the blank.  God does not judge on the curve.  Thank God that Jesus Christ died as our atoning sacrifice and rose again proving our redemption was possible if we would but believe and call on His name.  Repentance involves calling things by their right name however, and if we can't rightly name our sins we can't rightly repent.  If we say we have no sin, well then we have no hope of Salvation either, because God is not mocked.  We will have made our choice as certainly as the person who repented in tears.  The one who was forgiven much will love much, the one who had no sin in their eyes will have no love in their life at all.

I've said my piece for today.  I hope me willingly and openly talking about these things will bring peace.  I wish I could have woven humorous anecdotes into this one but it would have just been insulting to every one of us who have walked this path.  I can usually even dig up morbid humor just to ease the tension, but not today.  This is the gym where Superman really get's his superhuman strength and it's just no fun pushing the weight.

Be blessed.