Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to you at an hour when you may be found; surely when the mighty waters rise, they will not overtake him. (Psalm 32:6).
I suppose it doesn't concern too many people in and out of the Church whether or not God will hear them. Either we deny his existence, minimize his importance, misunderstand his person, or lower the standards for believing we are ok with God.
Anyone is susceptible to this. David minimized the holiness of God in the covenant of marriage when he plotted to kill Uriah and take Bathsheba for himself.
But God did hear David. Why? Something happened in David's life that made the existence, value, and need for God something that did not disappear in his sin.
Verse 4 of Psalm 32 says: "For day and night YOUR hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as in the heat of summer." David is in great anguish, but his concept of God behind his predicament did not go away. This paved the way for his confession and restoration (vv. 5-7), and ultimately, his joy (v. 11).
This is the blessed problem. Those whom God appoints for salvation cannot get away from him. And from his faithfulness and supremacy. At first, it is terrifying to have a Heavy Hand on you, but when we look up and ask for directions, we actually find him as a hiding place (v. 7) and a teacher to keep us out of further mischief (v. 8-10).
It reminds me of an old cartoon "Tooter the Turtle." Tooter was always coming to the mythical Mr. Wizard to ask for experiences in the big world. But many dangers, toils and snares awaited Tooter in the form of bad influences and consequent physical dangers. At the end of the cartoon, the turtle would cry out to Mr. Wizard to save him from the predicament. And he came home, rescued from the problem.
The point is not that wizards mean anything good. The point is that we do not have to stray from God, and the fact that we do and can come back means he may be found!
But why push it?
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Thursday, November 15, 2012
The Man in the Iron Cage
Recently, I re-read a portion of The Pilgrim's Progress, my favorite book of all time. Particularly, where the Christian is in the house of the Interpreter, and happens upon the famous man in the iron cage.
I also read some of the Internet banter about this man, and the conclusions we may draw from his despondent condition. Some say he represents Bunyan himself, others say he represents an apostate who started out "fair and flourishing," but had gotten entangled in the world, and fell foul of it, likely committing heinous sins against the Spirit of grace. Now he rightly deems himself unforgivable, and can even tell you the verses that prove it.
Now while I believe Bunyan makes more sense than most people in the church today put together, I think we need to stay on the Bible, and with an honest method of interpretation.
Was Judas forgivable? Yes and no. Some of those who nailed Christ to the cross were, some of those who handed down the sentence were, and some of those who even pushed for his crucifixion certainly were. Peter told the crown in his sermon in Acts 2 "You have taken [him] and by wicked hands have crucified and slain [him]." And yet they received the One they pierced, and this was demonstrated by the power of the Spirit in the founding of the early church.
But what made Judas different? He hung around Christ and the disciples for a while, but his heart remained hard. He apparently never took to heart a word of Christ, and he followed his evil heart of unbelief, and sold the Lord out for thirty pieces of silver.
Regarding the forlorn man in the cage, Bunyan's question and Interpreter's answer were key. "Is there no hope for such a man as this," queried Christian. Interpreter's weighty remark was "Ask him."
What I can infer from this is borne out by what follows. As Christian dialogs with the man, this cage-dweller persistently focuses on himself. When Christian tells him of the merciful Christ, he wails in despair and only focuses on the scriptures that condemn him. There was no room in his heart for a merciful Christ, as his sin was center stage.
And so, the man fell victim to the flip side of pride--deeming himself too bad to be forgiven. Some fail to receive forgiveness because they believe they have not sinned, and others fail to be forgiven because of a more subtle, yet equally dangerous kind of pride--unbelief in the goodness of God in the face of one's own sin and stupidity.
You see, Bunyan's "asking the man" brought out the repeated confession of his despair of God, which was consistent with his other unbelief, that led to his soul-killing sins. Once in his descent he reached the inexorable reality of God, he fled like the wind.
At the end of this dialog, we are not indulged with a verdict on the man, but he only serves as an example to Bunyan's protagonist, eliciting a healthy fear of similar falling.
I also read some of the Internet banter about this man, and the conclusions we may draw from his despondent condition. Some say he represents Bunyan himself, others say he represents an apostate who started out "fair and flourishing," but had gotten entangled in the world, and fell foul of it, likely committing heinous sins against the Spirit of grace. Now he rightly deems himself unforgivable, and can even tell you the verses that prove it.
Now while I believe Bunyan makes more sense than most people in the church today put together, I think we need to stay on the Bible, and with an honest method of interpretation.
Was Judas forgivable? Yes and no. Some of those who nailed Christ to the cross were, some of those who handed down the sentence were, and some of those who even pushed for his crucifixion certainly were. Peter told the crown in his sermon in Acts 2 "You have taken [him] and by wicked hands have crucified and slain [him]." And yet they received the One they pierced, and this was demonstrated by the power of the Spirit in the founding of the early church.
But what made Judas different? He hung around Christ and the disciples for a while, but his heart remained hard. He apparently never took to heart a word of Christ, and he followed his evil heart of unbelief, and sold the Lord out for thirty pieces of silver.
Regarding the forlorn man in the cage, Bunyan's question and Interpreter's answer were key. "Is there no hope for such a man as this," queried Christian. Interpreter's weighty remark was "Ask him."
What I can infer from this is borne out by what follows. As Christian dialogs with the man, this cage-dweller persistently focuses on himself. When Christian tells him of the merciful Christ, he wails in despair and only focuses on the scriptures that condemn him. There was no room in his heart for a merciful Christ, as his sin was center stage.
And so, the man fell victim to the flip side of pride--deeming himself too bad to be forgiven. Some fail to receive forgiveness because they believe they have not sinned, and others fail to be forgiven because of a more subtle, yet equally dangerous kind of pride--unbelief in the goodness of God in the face of one's own sin and stupidity.
You see, Bunyan's "asking the man" brought out the repeated confession of his despair of God, which was consistent with his other unbelief, that led to his soul-killing sins. Once in his descent he reached the inexorable reality of God, he fled like the wind.
At the end of this dialog, we are not indulged with a verdict on the man, but he only serves as an example to Bunyan's protagonist, eliciting a healthy fear of similar falling.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Passive Righteousness
This quote is from Martin Luther, from his Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, as quoted in Sonship (World Harvest Mission, 2002).
Speaking of "Passive Righteousness, he writes:
"It is called 'passive righteousness' because we do not have to labor for it...It is not righteousness that we work for, but righteousness we receive by faith. This passive righteousness is a mystery that someone who does not know Jesus cannot understand. In fact Christians do not completely understand it and rarely take advantage of it in their daily lives...when there is any fear or our conscience is bothered, it is a sign that our passive righteousness is out of sight and Christ is hidden.
The person who wanders away from 'passive righteousness' has no other choice but to live by works righteousness. If he does not depend on the work of Christ, he must depend on his own work. So we must teach and continually repeat the truth of this 'passive' or 'Christian' righteousness so that Christians continue to hold to in and never confuse it with "works" righteousness."
Speaking of "Passive Righteousness, he writes:
"It is called 'passive righteousness' because we do not have to labor for it...It is not righteousness that we work for, but righteousness we receive by faith. This passive righteousness is a mystery that someone who does not know Jesus cannot understand. In fact Christians do not completely understand it and rarely take advantage of it in their daily lives...when there is any fear or our conscience is bothered, it is a sign that our passive righteousness is out of sight and Christ is hidden.
The person who wanders away from 'passive righteousness' has no other choice but to live by works righteousness. If he does not depend on the work of Christ, he must depend on his own work. So we must teach and continually repeat the truth of this 'passive' or 'Christian' righteousness so that Christians continue to hold to in and never confuse it with "works" righteousness."
Lining up With God
One of the most liberating things I have discovered about the faith is that as long as what you want matches what God wants, he'd never hold out on you.
In this regard, answered prayer is as simple as being saturated in the Word of God so that what we ask is what he would gladly do. John 14 makes this clear.
"Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do what I have been doing...And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son." (vv. 12-13.
Tying all these facts together, God wants to do much through his Son in the world that he loves, but his disciples are the ones who will carry it out. Asking for resources to do it will be met with a resounding Yes!
As to healing from a dreaded disease, having enough money, getting free from trouble, well, we may ask for these things, but be prepared to wait. Some of them require time, and some require only the perfection of heaven to get answered.
In this regard, answered prayer is as simple as being saturated in the Word of God so that what we ask is what he would gladly do. John 14 makes this clear.
"Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do what I have been doing...And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son." (vv. 12-13.
Tying all these facts together, God wants to do much through his Son in the world that he loves, but his disciples are the ones who will carry it out. Asking for resources to do it will be met with a resounding Yes!
As to healing from a dreaded disease, having enough money, getting free from trouble, well, we may ask for these things, but be prepared to wait. Some of them require time, and some require only the perfection of heaven to get answered.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
General Thoughts Lately On The Faith
Where do I begin...
It is sometimes dangerous to take on philosophical questions without a degree or credentials pertaining to philosophy. But, I live on the edge, So here goes.
Christianity is counter-intuitive, not because God delights in being weird, but because our intuitions are corrupt, and his ways were right in the first place.
This accounts for why we keep straying from the faith. We slip back into "what seems right in our own eyes."
Even our attempts to rectify the situation are completely corrupted. We cannot simply retrain our senses to appraise what is best.
One of the problems atheists and skeptics run into is the whole issue of claiming to have insufficient evidence to believe the Bible or Christianity. But why do people believe the faith who study it far less? A skeptic can easily try to dismiss it by saying "the person in question is low in intelligence." Perhaps that is true. But countless people of great intelligence believe and trust the Word every day. Even as people of great social standing do, all the way down to the one who empties the dust bin.
The fault, then, lies not in insufficient evidence, but in not loving the truth. Anyone, even a mature Christian, is susceptible to fall in this area.
Failure to love the truth and appraise the ways of God are not remedied by human will-power. While it is true that our will must move, and cannot move our own will, the good new is that God, through the Spirit using the Word, gladly does the conforming,
This may seem all academic, but there is dogging problem that we need to be careful of. Maturity in doing the things of God should lead to knowing his will in what are considered "matters not particularly addressed." These include, but are not limited to: Whether to drink alcohol with a meal, how you choose to educate your children, how to vote, how to view the government, etc.
Those such as myself who seem to be tossed to and fro need to walk with Him and get busy in His things, while there is still a little daylight left to get it done.
It is sometimes dangerous to take on philosophical questions without a degree or credentials pertaining to philosophy. But, I live on the edge, So here goes.
Christianity is counter-intuitive, not because God delights in being weird, but because our intuitions are corrupt, and his ways were right in the first place.
This accounts for why we keep straying from the faith. We slip back into "what seems right in our own eyes."
Even our attempts to rectify the situation are completely corrupted. We cannot simply retrain our senses to appraise what is best.
One of the problems atheists and skeptics run into is the whole issue of claiming to have insufficient evidence to believe the Bible or Christianity. But why do people believe the faith who study it far less? A skeptic can easily try to dismiss it by saying "the person in question is low in intelligence." Perhaps that is true. But countless people of great intelligence believe and trust the Word every day. Even as people of great social standing do, all the way down to the one who empties the dust bin.
The fault, then, lies not in insufficient evidence, but in not loving the truth. Anyone, even a mature Christian, is susceptible to fall in this area.
Failure to love the truth and appraise the ways of God are not remedied by human will-power. While it is true that our will must move, and cannot move our own will, the good new is that God, through the Spirit using the Word, gladly does the conforming,
This may seem all academic, but there is dogging problem that we need to be careful of. Maturity in doing the things of God should lead to knowing his will in what are considered "matters not particularly addressed." These include, but are not limited to: Whether to drink alcohol with a meal, how you choose to educate your children, how to vote, how to view the government, etc.
Those such as myself who seem to be tossed to and fro need to walk with Him and get busy in His things, while there is still a little daylight left to get it done.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Confusion Is The New Religion
I have bitten the fruit of the tree, so to speak.
In my addiction to You Tube, something good came out of it, and I am ready to share it.
The world--even the Christian community--is confused beyond belief. The Middle East is a crazy powder keg, and nobody knows how to defuse it. Israel defenders--rightly so, I believe, love the idea of Israel, and speak tenderly to her (as in Isaiah 40). But many voices-even Christian ones--release crushing blows on this modern-day state with the ancient name. And the camp of Israel-haters seems to grow every day.
Just look at all the You Tube videos about religion. Many of them are ranting polemics served up by self-appointed heresy hunters who blacklist many other ministers. Now I believe there is a right and wrong theologically, but is absolutely necessary in these days to walk in a relationship with the Lord in order to stay sane--in orthodoxy AND orthopraxy.
It is at this point that the sheep and the goats start saying "sayonara" to each other. Jesus said " My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow Me." (John 10:27). Without a real relationship with a healing, loving, storm-calming Christ, we are doomed by our own fallenness to respond to ALL situations in the flesh. And if anyone thinks that's beyond the pale, remember that the great Joshua forgot to inquire of the Lord before the Gibeonites approached him with their trickery (Joshua 9).
So to keep it simple, here's what I believe about the current landscape of thought:
Satan has so clouded the truth with side issues, fleshly agendas, cold love, and dueling false prophets mixed among true ones, that the average Christian has difficulty sorting it all out, and is susceptible to every wind of doctrine, and loveless, faithless practice. Some depart for atheism or agnosticism. Even good men and women who walk with the Lord do not follow him all the way, and that adds to confusion. Mea Culpa.
In the mean time a spiritual war/rebellion is going on, and hardly anyone has the mindset to fight it.
The remedy? Difficult to state right now, but people like me and others have to start with the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 1:7).
In my addiction to You Tube, something good came out of it, and I am ready to share it.
The world--even the Christian community--is confused beyond belief. The Middle East is a crazy powder keg, and nobody knows how to defuse it. Israel defenders--rightly so, I believe, love the idea of Israel, and speak tenderly to her (as in Isaiah 40). But many voices-even Christian ones--release crushing blows on this modern-day state with the ancient name. And the camp of Israel-haters seems to grow every day.
Just look at all the You Tube videos about religion. Many of them are ranting polemics served up by self-appointed heresy hunters who blacklist many other ministers. Now I believe there is a right and wrong theologically, but is absolutely necessary in these days to walk in a relationship with the Lord in order to stay sane--in orthodoxy AND orthopraxy.
It is at this point that the sheep and the goats start saying "sayonara" to each other. Jesus said " My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow Me." (John 10:27). Without a real relationship with a healing, loving, storm-calming Christ, we are doomed by our own fallenness to respond to ALL situations in the flesh. And if anyone thinks that's beyond the pale, remember that the great Joshua forgot to inquire of the Lord before the Gibeonites approached him with their trickery (Joshua 9).
So to keep it simple, here's what I believe about the current landscape of thought:
Satan has so clouded the truth with side issues, fleshly agendas, cold love, and dueling false prophets mixed among true ones, that the average Christian has difficulty sorting it all out, and is susceptible to every wind of doctrine, and loveless, faithless practice. Some depart for atheism or agnosticism. Even good men and women who walk with the Lord do not follow him all the way, and that adds to confusion. Mea Culpa.
In the mean time a spiritual war/rebellion is going on, and hardly anyone has the mindset to fight it.
The remedy? Difficult to state right now, but people like me and others have to start with the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 1:7).
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Excursion Into Atheism Has Failed-first part
Obsessive-compulsive is a hard habit to break.
In addition to watching William Lane Craig and other Christian apologists, I recently became dubiously addicted to watching Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and other atheists on YouTube. Why? Just fleshly, I guess.
I was actually toying with the idea of what life would be like without any concept of God.
"Traitor! Defector!" I can just hear the cries now.
But I learned some things as I watched and noted everything with Asperger's-level ferocity.
1. Some atheists began as Christians who never went deep enough with God, in all his offices, and with a life-changing result.
2. Others were burned by people in the church, and in their anger, went to skeptical scholarship to confirm what they had already decided was a farce.
3. Atheists like to begin at the beginning with Genesis, and debunk each story in the Bible. But theoretically, they would hate on every page, through all 66 books. Don't they see the futility of it all? How could a mere man write all those "offensive stories" back to back? The paradox of it all seems like it should awaken faith, as the emotions tire of sore hatred, and the promise of the Seed of Abraham unfolds to comfort the soul.
4. Virtually all atheists make the same mistake as they consider matters of religious faith, and often the Christian apologists follow them down the same hole: The mind is tool which is to be used to receive truth, but the affair does not end with the mind. Both atheists and Christians can put up some astute arguments for their positions, and there are many eminent scholars from both camps. But I have never heard a skeptic convinced by a debate. In this regard, the Enlightenment reaches further than many have anticipated. Debating on the plausibility of faith or lack thereof misses the point that God is a person, and therefore implies a relationship. Information about a relationship doesn't save you. Reconciliation to a Person does.
5. From my own personal experience, relational dysfunction has a way of warping the perceptions of the mere mortal parties. We tend to attribute negative motives and characteristics to persons we do not like, regardless of how much good information we hear about them. This determines more political elections than we care to admit. It is the same with the faithless. They really do not like God, and therefore they harp on all the things they they hear that they don't like--this accounts for the "through the Bible" tirade they carry out.
6. Faith is a pre-condition of the mind's operation, and consists in a positive posture toward the object of faith. The mind chooses in the direction of it's desire. In this way, it is the pre-existing condition of verbal affirmations of God and his truth. Therefore, my problem is a cold heart, and that is an emergency before the attending Physician of heaven.
Even after my confession to God for my faithlessness and the attending joy, I realize the battle may have only begun. There will be more assaults on faith in God via stress, disappointment, human flesh, Satan's activity, and last but not least, relationship problems on a human level. But the struggle did not succeed in pulling me away to a faithless position--and that is encouraging. It reminds me of the Eagles song: "Every time I try to walk away...something makes me turn around and stay."
I guess that means one of the things that has to happen in 2011 is a vital connection to the church local and catholic.
In addition to watching William Lane Craig and other Christian apologists, I recently became dubiously addicted to watching Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and other atheists on YouTube. Why? Just fleshly, I guess.
I was actually toying with the idea of what life would be like without any concept of God.
"Traitor! Defector!" I can just hear the cries now.
But I learned some things as I watched and noted everything with Asperger's-level ferocity.
1. Some atheists began as Christians who never went deep enough with God, in all his offices, and with a life-changing result.
2. Others were burned by people in the church, and in their anger, went to skeptical scholarship to confirm what they had already decided was a farce.
3. Atheists like to begin at the beginning with Genesis, and debunk each story in the Bible. But theoretically, they would hate on every page, through all 66 books. Don't they see the futility of it all? How could a mere man write all those "offensive stories" back to back? The paradox of it all seems like it should awaken faith, as the emotions tire of sore hatred, and the promise of the Seed of Abraham unfolds to comfort the soul.
4. Virtually all atheists make the same mistake as they consider matters of religious faith, and often the Christian apologists follow them down the same hole: The mind is tool which is to be used to receive truth, but the affair does not end with the mind. Both atheists and Christians can put up some astute arguments for their positions, and there are many eminent scholars from both camps. But I have never heard a skeptic convinced by a debate. In this regard, the Enlightenment reaches further than many have anticipated. Debating on the plausibility of faith or lack thereof misses the point that God is a person, and therefore implies a relationship. Information about a relationship doesn't save you. Reconciliation to a Person does.
5. From my own personal experience, relational dysfunction has a way of warping the perceptions of the mere mortal parties. We tend to attribute negative motives and characteristics to persons we do not like, regardless of how much good information we hear about them. This determines more political elections than we care to admit. It is the same with the faithless. They really do not like God, and therefore they harp on all the things they they hear that they don't like--this accounts for the "through the Bible" tirade they carry out.
6. Faith is a pre-condition of the mind's operation, and consists in a positive posture toward the object of faith. The mind chooses in the direction of it's desire. In this way, it is the pre-existing condition of verbal affirmations of God and his truth. Therefore, my problem is a cold heart, and that is an emergency before the attending Physician of heaven.
Even after my confession to God for my faithlessness and the attending joy, I realize the battle may have only begun. There will be more assaults on faith in God via stress, disappointment, human flesh, Satan's activity, and last but not least, relationship problems on a human level. But the struggle did not succeed in pulling me away to a faithless position--and that is encouraging. It reminds me of the Eagles song: "Every time I try to walk away...something makes me turn around and stay."
I guess that means one of the things that has to happen in 2011 is a vital connection to the church local and catholic.
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