"Depressing"

In class tonight, we listened to a lecture on the state of the U.S. economy by Paul Krueger, given about a month ago. He described the different factors that contributed to the economic crisis that we are in today, and how depressing the economic situation was. As I was listening to the lecture (about halfway through), I realized that rather than hearing about the failure of the economy having a negative effect on my mood, my morale was improving!

Now almost completely distracted from the lecture, I wondered why my mood would improve while listening to the news of bad things happening to our country's economic system....and I figured out why:

Repeatedly over the last month or so, I have been able to see how extremely important it is for God's church to be a living, righteous, pure, and holy witness of Him -- and that that means that each member of the body MUST live their lives holily, justly, and unblameably before God and men. Holiness is NOT optional. Unfortunately, I have had to see this through encountering, confronting, and being confronted by people who claim to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, but who urgently insist that sin and iniquity are to be the normal life-principle of Christ's people. Not merely an isolated few people, but fellow students, leaders in the church, and friends.

In addition, I am faced with the situation where the pastor of the church that I attend insists on putting the church in the place of partaking in the use of pagan symbols as part of their celebration of our Lord Jesus Christ -- and I am absolutely terrified at the prospect of standing before the entire congregation and decrying the christmas tree as a morally indefensible practice for worshippers of the One True God to use, and then demanding that it be removed from the building.

My realization was that the problems posed by the failure of our economy are petty and insignificant in comparison to the problems facing the body of Christ. How can I be worried about the things of this world, when those who name the name of Christ are not departing from iniquity, but are instead departing to iniquity?

I Will Stand Up

And the LORD spoke unto Moses in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho, saying,

"Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan; Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images and quite pluck down all their high places: And ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein: for I have given you the land to possess it.

And ye shall divide the land by lot for an inheritance among your families: and to the more ye shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer ye shall give the less inheritance: every man's inheritance shall be in the place where his lot falleth; according to the tribes of your fathers ye shall inherit.

But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell. Moreover it shall come to pass, that I shall do unto you, as I thought to do unto them."

-Numbers 33:50-56
_________________________________

Like the Children of Israel, we were once wandering in the wilderness of Sin, but we are come to the land of promise -- let us therefore enter in with boldness and drive out EVERY inhabitant...leave none, lest they be pricks in our eyes and thorns in our sides; lest God do to us what He thinks to do to those who fill up their sins alway, in their forsaking His commands.

I will stand up and declare unto you all, as Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh did, that we ought to "go up at once and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it." I will tell you how the land - the life promised to us "is an exceeding good land. If the LORD delight in us [and He does, hallelujah!], then He will bring us into this land and give it us, a land which floweth with milk and honey. Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not."

Will you go with me to possess the land in righteousness, or will you turn back and say "it is too hard for us, the nature of the people is too strong for us"? Will you drive every inhabitant out and live in the good land of rest, or will you go in only half-heartedly and leave them to torment you and be your downfall?

Low Expectations

Recently, there has been a movement gaining ground in the church regarding the low expectations for teenagers (the major proponents being the Alex and Brett Harris, through their ministry, The Rebelution) and how those low expectations lead to low achievement levels; as far as that goes, I believe it is altogether true. I would say, however, that it is not merely that adults have low expectations of teenagers, but that it is farther-reaching than that...people have low expectations all around - even adults are not expected to stand up and say "Yes, by the grace of God, I can and will live like God wants me to live, shunning sin, and actively obeying His will!" Instead, we have an "Oh woe is me, I'm a miserable wretched sinner, and I'll never live up to God's will for me!" kind of Christianity. This attitude is insipid childishness, and ought to be laid aside along with all the other weights and the sin so that we can run our race in righteousness and true holiness.

Reminds me of the Newsboys song "I'm Not Ashamed"

"What are we sneakin' around for -- who're we tryin' to please?
Shruggin' off sin, apologizin' like we're spreadin' some kind of disease
I'M SAYIN' NO WAY...NO WAY..."

The life of groveling as a miserable (yet saved) sinner is easy, because sin does not have to be given up - merely confessed...and those who are thus wallowing in the mire will try their hardest to drag down any who would truly take the Saviour's hand and stand out of such a vile existence - which makes it even harder for us who desire righteous, godly living to stand, since everyone around us is doing their best to make us fall back. We must therefore do as Paul instructs Timothy, and be as warriors,taking the whole armour of God and remaining untangled with the affairs of this life, in order that we may fight the good fight and receive the prize that awaits those who endure to the end.

Perhaps I am just rambling to no effect, but I hope to God that I am not. I only desire to provoke my brothers and sisters in the Lord to follow after holiness, without which, not one of us shall see the Lord.

The Rudest

My brother-in-law was discussing his job at Costco, and he made the comment that the best day to shop there is on Sunday before 11:30, which is when the traditional church service gets out. That in itself was reasonable, but it was his next comment that was very interesting (and depressing)....he said that the church people who come through are "the rudest customer base of the week."

What kind of witness is it when those who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ have that kind of perception of the people who profess to have been changed by the power of the true and living God? The gospel of Christ is so powerful that Christians can do anything, including having the reputation in the eyes of the community as the rudest customers in town. God forbid!


"Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity." II Timothy 2:19
"Abstain from all appearance of evil." I Thessalonians 5:22

All There Is

When I look around
And I see the sights and sounds
The people in the pews
Seem to be so glad
But it seems so sad
How many hear the news?

So very well they know
Jesus really loves us so
Is that all there is?
Say only a prayer
Heaven, you’ll be there
What is there to miss?

Chorus:
God said be perfect, be holy too
Give you the power, show you what to do
To let Him work, that’s what he needs
So our every hour, we do his deeds

Bridge:
Didn’t Jesus say something about
Having faith in him and living it out?
To come and pray
To worship in song
On Sundays tides us over
But isn’t it really wrong
When God says “give it over”
To keep on going our own way
And say:
I can’t help it, my old me
Makes me sin so constantly

God said be perfect, be holy too
Give you the power, show you what to do
To let Him work, that’s what he needs
So our every hour, we do his deeds

This might be news to you
Are you sitting in the pew
In the same routine?
Here is the good news
His strength you can use
Your life can be clean

God said be perfect, be holy too
Give you the power, show you what to do
To let Him work, that’s what he needs
So our every hour, we do his deeds
_________________________

Matthew 5:48; Romans 6:1-2; I Peter 1:16

Unstoppable

As I was sitting at a table at school with some of my acquaintainces recently, one of them remarked that he was unstoppable. I, trying to maintain some level of maturity in the conversation, replied, "No you're not."

He rejoined by saying, "If it wasn't for law enforcement and physics, I would be unstoppable."

My reply was simply that "If it wasn't for law enforcement and physics, you wouldn't exist."

After that point, the conversation quickly degenerated into a discussion over whether or not it was possible to exist without physics -- relatively pointless, and irrelevant to the point that I am making here.

That evening in Bible study, we read in Hebrews chapter 7 that Jesus Christ is made our high priest "after the power of an endless life." Now, it seems like the concept of immortality lies at the heart of what it means to defy physics -- since the most rigorously tested law of physics is that of entropy (everything breaks down over time) -- if I cannot kill you, there is not much that I can do to stop you.

The other concept that we saw in the book of Hebrews was that "the sceptre of his kingdom is a sceptre of righteousness;" which, when compared to the passage in I Timothy chapter 1, that "the law is not made for a righteous man," shows how the law had no hold on Jesus. Because he had never sinned, there was no way that any law enforcement could possibly have any claim on him.

So, while the guy at my table was by no means unstoppable, the God I serve is exactly that -- unstoppable. And even better than the fact that God is unstoppable, is the fact that He has graciously allowed us the opportunity to become partakers of His unstoppable power and nature (II Peter 1:3-4).

An Hour a Day, That's All

Last monday, after practicing patient assessment as part of our explorer scout program, the advisor of my scout post thought that we evidently needed more practice in that area (we did). He told us that it would be great if we could have the sheet that outlined the process (steps to take, questions to ask, decisions to make, etc.) by the next meeting. This was kind of unexpected, but not that unreasonable, as we probably should know the steps to go through in order to figure out what is wrong with someone. It was his next comment that I took especial note of -- he said that if we spent an hour a day reading over it and practicing going through it, we would have it down perfectly.

As I was driving home from school a few days ago, I was pondering the "hour a day" suggestion and suddenly had a thought -- do I spend an hour a day studying and practicing my relationship with God? How long do I actually spend studying the Word of God? Bible study is certainly far more important than studying patient assessment procedures: if it is good to spend an hour a day studying for explorer scouts, how much more time ought we to spend studying and building our relationship with the God of the universe? I figured that I average about 1 1/2 to 2 hours per day in Bible study (not including church meeting and Sunday school).

How much time do you devote to building your relationship with God?