All the things I forgot to say

We’ve just finished a series of sermons on the book of 2 Timothy. Actually, we spent time in Ephesians, then 1 Timothy and now 2 Timothy. All 3 letters to the church in Ephesus.

We’ve joined Paul in the call to praise God for every spiritual blessing that is ours in Christ. We have adoption into the family of God the Father (thank you!). We have redemption from our transgressions through the sacrifice of Jesus the Son (thank you!). We have be told the mysteries of what God is doing the universe, that God is putting the pieces broken world back together in Jesus, and He is starting with the church (thank you!). He has given us to share in the inheritance that rightly belongs to Jesus, the big brother (thank you!). And He has given us the Spirit Himself as a guarantee of all that He promised (thank you!).

We have heard the charge to manage God’s household where we live. To uphold the pillar of these truths in our community, God has entrusted us with this task.

And now we have ended with the reminder that our call to carry out this trust depends absolutely upon God being trustworthy. He has been faithful with our pasts and will be faithful with our futures. He will make sure that our lives achieve more than we’ve ever dreamed, even if it is harder than we’ve ever imagined…because He is glorified by saving sinners. It makes Him look good. He has trusted you to walk a path that makes Him look good, not by living a praiseworthy life, but by your life of honest repentance that brings Him praise as the Savior of sinners.

Do you get it? He means it, church. He has left the good news (every spiritual blessing) and the good work (putting the broken pieces back together by bringing other sinners to a place of gracious freedom through salvation in Jesus) to us. You and I have to do it, because we trust Him. If He gave it to us, it must be for our good. It must actually make the world a better place. Do you trust Him? Then it is time to take another step, even a small one towards Christian maturity, towards actually accomplishing the task in our community.

Now, here is what I never really got to on Sunday…some practical wisdom (not divine command) for living it out here in community with us as SMCC.

Let corporate worship more consistently shape you and your relationship with others. If you never or irregularly worship with the people of God, you are not even believing Him, let alone doing your part to hand on the truth to others. This is a baby step, but a great place to start, you will quickly feel the rhythms of worship changing your heart and life.

Start getting together with others to talk about the Word that God has entrusted to us. Go to a Home Group, open your Bible and open your mouth. Make statements, ask questions. Grow with other. Maybe grab just one other person and use the guides for talking about the Bible that we make available. If most of the church is gathering this way weekly and you are not, they will be growing without you. Is this the step that will help you and help fulfill our mission right now.

Start serving somewhere. In the church or out of the church. Honestly, serving our kids is the easiest way to make a direct connection with the trust God had given us. But it could be anywhere: lead a Home Group, mentor another person in the life of faith, serve on a local committee for the school, library or Santa margarita beautiful. Just start doing something toward God’s end, because you love Him and your neighbors. Dream a little, risk a little, just do something. Don’t wait another day.

One more thing. Tell me what step you plan on taking. Let me walk with you and pray for you. I’m your Pastor. I’d love to help. Besides my job before God and you is to make sure you do it. I guess I’m saying that I will be checking up on you. That’s what I forgot to tell you.

We Preach the Bible so that we will be changed

Thinking out yesterday’s sermon a little more…God has given us His people and His Word to fully equip us for carrying out the trust He has placed in us. We, the people, preach the Bible, and the Bible only because of what is the Bible is and does…through it God makes us whole again.

Holy Scripture…[is] the one divinely given Word by which God intends to rule the Christian community and in which he presently confronts the church with a norm higher than her own conscience.¹

As the children of God, we believe the words He has spoken in propositional form; we obey the words He has given as commands and we participate in the words that come as poetry and as story. The implication of possessing God’s very words written form is that we know what to believe about our God and how to continue in relationship to Him because He has communicated and continues to communicate through the Spirit’s illumination of those very same words.

Because the Bible is Scripture, inspired revelation by God in written form, we preach the Bible. God has breathed out these words and promises to illuminate them in the believing heart, mind and soul. My role is to explain and to clarify within my community. If we preach anything other than the Bible (even for 40 days) we rob God’s people of their great treasure and fed them instead cheap filler that may lead to rapid and unnatural growth, which we all know is just another way to describe cancer.

The divine Word transforms the human soul. We can speak only a few words about the process before we must bow the knee to the mysterious work of God’s Spirit in the believing heart. So Paul writes in the passage we preached yesterday:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.²

Scripture delivers these four profits in the believing life. It teaches what was not known. The Bible provides true, but not exhaustive, knowledge about God and God’s ways in the world. Biblical knowledge comes in a variety of forms that range from story to poetry to propositional statement. It corrects where doctrine is held that is unworthy of God. We call such false doctrine, “heresy.” As the means by which God exercises His authority, the Bible rebukes bad behavior and positively trains the willing heart to act righteously in wisdom based upon what has been taught.

The Scriptures demonstrate by their existence and their record that words³ are affective (as well as effective), they influence in a formative direction. Eugene Peterson puts it this way:

The Christian Scriptures are the primary text for Christian spirituality…We don’t form our personal spiritual lives out of a random assemblage of favorite texts in combination with individual circumstances; we are formed by the Holy Spirit in accordance with the text of Holy Scripture.⁴

While some will want to make a clear distinction between approaching the Scriptures for information as opposed to transformation, I don’t see this as a possibility. M. Robert Mulholland:

God asks to be loved with all our minds and all our hearts. The informational aspect relates to primarily (though not exclusively) to our minds. It must be balanced with the formational aspect, which relates primarily (though not exclusively) to our hearts.⁵

We are whole human persons. We cannot read with one part of being and not another. Walt Russell comments on Mulholland’s example of reading for transformation:

The spiritual concerns and goals expressed by these examples are clearly admirable…Such practices remove any sense of shared understanding or meaning that other readers could have with the same text…It is a mistake to pit informational reading against reading for spiritual formation.⁶

Russel’s book is going to help us through the summer at SMCC.

Back to the point. True transformation will always take place as a result of the Spirit of God illuminating a true knowledge of the Word of God, which is information. We preach the inspired information for spiritual transformation. As to how the Word transforms, it is a work of the Spirit of God to bring about according to His own sovereignty.

The old writers of the Westminster Confession codified this truth some 500 years ago.

We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture. And the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is, to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it does abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God: yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.

Westminster Confession of Faith⁷

Ultimately, the Word transforms because the Spirit works with it. The child of God is transformed as the Spirit of God uses the Word of God through the mouths of the people of God, which we call preaching or proclamation.

More later on how preaching the Word is a communal act…that’s next Sunday’s sermon.

1 Carl Henry, “The Authority and Inspiration of the Bible” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 1. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan), 1979, 10.

2 2 Timothy 3:16-17, English Standard Version.

3 “Words” meaning the conveying of thought via either the movement of air over the vocal cords or the movement of the hand and pen over the paper.

4 Eugene Peterson, Eat this Book: a conversation in the art of spiritual reading, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), 15.

5 M. Robert Mulholland Jr., Shaped by the Word: The Power of Scripture in Spiritual Formation, (Nashville, TN: Upper Room Books, 2000), 63.

6 Walt Russell, Playing with Fire: How the Bible Ignites Change in your Soul, (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2000), 40-41.

7 Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 1, article 5.

WENDELL BERRY’S 17 RULES FOR COMMUNITIES…

Reblogged from Leading from the Middle:

What do you think of Berry’s rules? How would you alter them as a Christian?

Always ask of any proposed change or innovation: what will this do to our community? How will this affect our common wealth?

Always include nature – the land, the water, the air, the native creatures – within the membership of the community.

Always ask how local needs might be supplied from local sources, including the mutual help of neighbors.

Read more… 327 more words

The lack of poetry today is a conspiracy against biblical literacy!

Reblogged from Leading from the Middle:

Ok, this is sarcasm. But I do believe that we will know God through the Bible so much more and find so much more joy in Jesus if we learned to appreciate poetry. To that end…some poems I love…

How To Be a Poet by Wendell Berry

(to remind myself)

Make a place to sit down. Sit down. Be quiet. You must depend upon affection, reading, knowledge, 

Read more… 103 more words

Not if you haven't read the Bible...

Reblogged from Leading from the Middle:

Great piece on the BBC this last week on how it is impossible to teach classic literature to a biblically illiterate society.

Listen here. 

This is so right. E.D. Hirsch made the same argument in “Cultural Literacy.” An American without adequate knowledge of the Bible Stories will be unable to understand common references in most Western classic literature. 

Multiply that 100 fold if you are trying to read the New Testament without adequate knowledge of the Old…or read The Shack based on your own inherent moral and theological knowledge instead of a knowledge of what the Bible actually says.

Read more… 90 more words

Created to enjoy God's Glory

Reblogged from Leading from the Middle:

God in seeking his glory seeks the good of his creatures, because the emanation of his glory . . . implies the . . . happiness of his creatures. And in communicating his fullness for them, he does it for himself, because their good, which he seeks, is so much in union and communion with himself. God is their good. Their excellency and happiness is nothing but the emanation and expression of God’s glory.

Read more… 123 more words

Good words. Full of hope and gratitude.

Day 6: Church

I and church have not gotten along very well. Yes, I am a Pastor. But as a paid church member or a regular member I always seem to come out on the short end of things. At first I determined that the problem was the people, so I began a personal revolution to demand that people change. I insisted that those who lived in my circles {or those unfortunate enough to run into me} knew when they were hypocrites or when their self-centered American lifestyles were destroying the planet and inflicting unjust suffering on the third-world slaves who sewed their Wal-Mart clothes so they could save 47 cents. The revolution failed, all that happened was that no one wanted to be around me. I realized that people are just people, inside or outside the church.

The problem, it seemed, was with the institution of the church, organized religion {Which is kind of a funny phrase. What is the alternative? Disorganized religion? Usually that means I want to make up my own way}. So I began a personal revolution to create a level playing field within the church. I spoke to church leaders as if they were buddies. “Hey, Jack, how’s it going?” I wrote articles for the church newsletter to rally all to the side of equality. No leaders! We all are servants under Jesus. That failed too when I learned enough to know I was wrong and the church really does need leaders. There is such a thing as Biblical leadership. Some men do abuse their power and run the church like their own little fiefdom and treat themselves like the king, but the problem is with the man, not the church. I’m glad that I me have met and sat under men who did not abuse their power but used it for others. I’ve long since gotten off the band wagon that works to create a new form of church that reflects twenty and thirty something spoiled brat mentalities. Far too many new style churches are little more than glorified youth groups. Well its time to grow up!

When I realized that the only common factor in each situation was me, I began a personal revolution…that one is still in progress. I hope that everyone will join me in this fight. If we all took responsibility for our own growth and our own involvement in the church, it would be a much better experience for everyone and it would more honestly reflect the kind of mature and loving {though flawed} community that Jesus had in mind.

Here’s where I’m at. This is just the way it is. It’s never going to be perfect – people, intuition or {especially} me. But if we all come together honestly seeking to walk with Jesus I can deal with a lot of sloppiness. {That is not to say that I have no theological and traditional convictions, I most certainly do, strong and detailed}.

Right now, this is my work and my heart still comes alive when I gather together with Jesus’ people to worship Him. That’s what Mark and I will talk about today.

So, I sit here, ready, early, with a stack of books that are themselves good friends. I walked right in {Rob’s chair was empty, I think Thursday is his day off}. Sarah poured my tea while I claimed my table with the book-friends. Weather today? Didn’t notice. Coffee of the day? Who cares?

Mark orders a Mate´ Late´ {Yerba Mate´, if you’re not familiar with it, is the national drink of Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina. It’s a member of the Holly family and served like a tea. The say it has great nutritional benefits and rejuvenating effects without the caffeine of coffee.} that means he’s doing well and feeling relaxed, a good day to dig into these ideas. I’m so excited that my mouth is moving as soon as his feet stopped.

Robert: Do you go to church?

Mark: Here and there, now and then.

{Setting his cup down. Yerba is traditionally served in a hollowed gourd and drank through a bombilla. The experience definitely lacks something out of a mug}

Robert: Do you worship God?

Mark: Of course. Are you implying that they are connected?

{Setting himself down}

Robert: Yes and no. I’ve been working some of these things out for years. Can I tell you where I’m at? {He nods graciously, grinning at my atypical animation}. Thanks. Stop me at any time.

First, the seed thought that’s feeding my wrestling about the church is the same insistence that all the knowledge, the information, that we have given from God ought to be doing something in our hearts. We’ve been talking about the past few weeks. We know God, Mark. So we ought to have something developing in our hearts about church and worship. A proper knowing develops a heart that desires to worship God. It is impossible for one who knows God, not to worship Him.

Mark: And you are suggesting that worship takes place at church?

Robert: Yes I am, but you’re ahead of me. Can I get there in a bit?

Mark: Sure, where do we begin then?

Robert: Let’s begin with what worship is. I’m arguing for a bigger definition than is prevalent today. The standard meaning of worship in Evangelical churches is music or singing. We have the time of “worship,” then the time of the “sermon.” That is far too small. I brought a dictionary, listen to this:

1. The reverent love and devotion accorded a deity, an idol, or a sacred object.
2. The ceremonies, prayers, or other religious forms by which this love is expressed.

American Heritage Dictionary

{Mark chuckled at my stack of books. This is the first time I actually brought books with me, I quote all the time. By now he knows me enough to realize that my library is an extension of my brain. It is an honest thing for me to bring them because they are a part of me – and I think that everyone should be reading all the time. Besides, I was thinking about church from outside of one for the first time in my believing life, so I had a lot to sort through}.

Mark: It is emotional and it is ceremonial. The ceremonial is where you get the church part.

Robert: We’ll get there. Let me show you how I came to tie the two together, because I haven’t always.

Worship is emotional; it is an affair of the heart. It is emotion, yet it must not be the working up of emotions.

As a Pastor I have, er had, the most difficult time on the week following a powerful church experience. {Mark gave me a minute. There’s a certain shame that comes with losing your identity, your idols.}.  I remember an Easter service in which we intertwined the movements of the life of Christ through sermon with responsive worship through song. We began with a few moments of sermon highlighting the humility of Christ in becoming a man. Then we say in gratitude of that humiliation. I was so moved by the Spirit of God in the service that I and others were tempted to rearrange our regular services to that format. But I did not change is because I want God to bring the emotions from who He is and not from what we do. There is the struggle. Worship is an affair of the heart towards God because He is worthy of being loved.

Mark: So thinking of God makes me emotional?

Robert: Do you have a girlfriend?

Mark: I wish.

Robert: A little sister, a niece, anyone like that?

Mark: I have a niece, she is so beautiful. I love the way she hugs me around my legs whenever I see her.

The other day, I was with my brother’s family and Annie came running up to me yelling, “Unkie Mark, Unkie Mark.” When I looked down at her she smiled and gave me a thumbs up, then ran away.

Robert: You adore her.

Mark: Yea, I really do.

Robert: This is what I’m talking about.

The old English Book of Common Prayer asks all worshipers this question:

Q. What is adoration?

A. Adoration is the lifting up of the heart and mind to God, asking nothing but to enjoy God’s presence.

You adore Annie because of who she is. We adore God because of who He is.

God doesn’t need our worship. The church I worship with meets in a rented hall, not very fancy. If God needed worship, I don’t think He would choose that place, listening to our music and my preaching. I think God would listen to the Boston Philharmonic and maybe He’d want to hear John Piper preach. John Piper’s preaching makes Jesus look good.

Mark: I can do that without going to church.

Robert: You can. In one sense church worship is the just coming together of people who have a common affair of the heart. We help each other develop a desire to worship God in response to who He is.

Mark: You mean, that is what it’s supposed to do.

Robert: That is what it does, to some degree. We cannot help but being drawn to adore God if the Bible is preached, if we take communion, if people are baptized. Now if those things don’t happen, I don’t know why you would even call that place church.

Mark: Okay, I see our thoughts are overlapping here. I worship God in my own heart and when you and I do it together, that’s churching. My life is pretty busy. It is difficult to find time in the day to even think of God. Taking an hour or two out of Sunday strictly to worship with others sounds impossible.

Robert: When we do get busy, the gathering for worship is the first thing to go. But if we have a heart of worship I think we’ll be pushed by the sheer force of the thought of God to worship. It’s as if we have no choice, we cannot help but adore God and seeing you adore God does something wonderful for me.

Mark, I said I’ve been thinking about this for a while, can I share with you the stories of three people in the Bible who had this desire.

Mark: Sure.

Robert: In Acts chapter 16 the Apostle Paul and his friend Silas are in prison for freeing a demon possessed girl from her torment. What a crime! Luke writes that, at midnight Paul and Silas were singing Hymns in prison. What are they doing singing in prison? What were they doing singing at midnight? What hymns were they? Were the at least singing the old somber songs? If it was me there that day, it might read, “At Midnight Robert was crying in a ball in the corner.” They had hearts that were drawn by a powerful force to worship God.

One more example.

The Apostle John was on Patmos, the prison island on a Sunday morning. We read in Revelation 1:9-10 I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet,

{We read out of my preaching Bible. I just got it. Right before I stopped preaching. For years I used this green covered Bible with paisleys on it – it was given to me. I finally spent the money on a good black leather Bible that actually stays open on the lectern when I’m teaching}.

He was in a state of worship, on the day of worship even without a place of worship or a people of worship. He was enticed by the God of worship.

My letter might read, “I Robert, on the Lord’s day was in the a state of depression because I was alone and suffering unjustly.” I am not where John was, but that is where I want to be.

Mark: People inspire me. But don’t these support my case, Robert. Both examples you gave were people alone, not in church when they were worshipping. I think I would pick a more inspiring place, but…

Robert: But this was not usually for either of them. And both of these Apostle’s insisted upon corporate worship as well.

Worshipping in community is the clearest way to develop a habit of worshipping God everywhere and anywhere.

Mark: I can see that, tell me how that might work.

Robert: I am speaking of that gathering God demands you to attend when the community you belong to comes together for the purpose of adoring God

Mark: God demands?

Robert: Absolutely. Since I have it with me, let me read to you from the Book of Common Prayer again:

Q.What is the duty of all Christians?

A. The duty of all Christians is to follow Christ; to come together week by week for corporate worship; and to work, pray, and give for the spread of the kingdom of God.

Q.What is corporate worship?

A. In corporate worship, we unite ourselves with others to acknowledge the holiness of God, to hear God’s Word, to offer prayer, and to celebrate the sacraments.

God demands that his community takes time to stop and remember how wonderful he is.

Mark: Duty and adoring don’t go together for me.

Robert: I have no problem with a duty of faith. It is fine with me if you attend the Sunday Morning worship because you have to. If your motive is simply, God demanded my worship, so I will come. I’m okay with that motivation, provided it doesn’t stay that way. It is like immaturity. You can come out of duty for a period of time, but you must grow out of that.

Mark: Corporate worship is my duty, but it ought also to be my delight? Let me talk this out. I benefit personally as I come with others to worship God. Is that where we are going?

Robert: Right, right, right. Sorry for jumping in, but this is exactly what I’ve been trying to get to. Look at all that we gain out of church, even if its sloppy. I am changed by hearing the Word preached. I am changed by the fellowship as we talk together. I am changed by the prayers that we offer together and for each other. I am changed by the rituals that we practice in taking communion and reading the Creeds. I am changed by the singing of Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual songs. I am changed by the oaths that we take to God and each other that we will go out with God and do our best to live by faith.

Corporate worship as duty and delight is both fruit of a life that loves God and also food for the rest of life.

Mark: My church attendance says something of my delight in God.

Robert: How can we not be thrilled when we know God? How can we not be enthusiastic about coming together to talk of God and share with God’s people?

Mark: And if God is as wonderful as we are saying that He is, why do we look so miserable and disinterested at church?

Robert: That’s a crime. That has to be because many people are still dangerous in their knowledge of God. They don’t know enough to be moved to worship.

Not all will behave the same way. Some folks could never think of dancing in worship and some wouldn’t think of sitting still. The form is irrelevant, unless it violates some Biblical principle.

{Which some forms certainly do and some good forms can be used selfishly. If I am singing with all my heart about the grace of God with my hands raised and eyes closed while the person sitting next to me is crying from their pain, then I am missing the Spirit of God in the moment.}

Worship from the heart will be God centered, it will minister to the needs of others, it will be sincere and based on truth and reverence, it will be from delight and with enthusiasm.

Mark: Why do I have to stop with Sunday? Can I worship at home as well?

Robert: You can do both. Family worship has been a big part of Christian living over the centuries.

All the hippie parents raised us with the idea that they should try to keep us free of religion so that we could make our own decisions when we were grown. By the time we were grown God was not a thought and when He entered our lives we had to sit down with the kindergarteners. People raised in a Christian home at least had something to work with when it came time to decide for themselves.

The Christian home is a great place for catechism. Or else we might be growing up as little heretics. We need much more than teaching only. We want to grow to be worshippers.

Mark: I believe I worship God with all of my life.

Robert: How do you mean?

Mark: This may be overly simplistic, but I figure that if I trust that Jesus’ death makes me right with God, then I worship all the time as I trust in Him alone. The beginning of everything Christian is the cross, isn’t it?

When I trust in Christ’s cross and them step out of the house to go to work, isn’t that worship? Haven’t I honored Jesus’ sacrifice the way it was intended to be honored. Aren’t I acting on what is true? If I trust in Christ, is Sunday church better than doing the dishes?

Robert: I…I don’t think I needed to say this to you today. You get it so well. It took me years to come to that understanding, you had it when you got here.

My point is to combine the two together. Corporate worship with the gathered church prepares you for daily life and worship in your daily life in necessary for authentic public worship.

Mark: So you’re not downplaying the value of my worshipping God alone.

Robert: Not at all. But I am insisting on going to church as well. One won’t do without the other.

Mark: I don’t like going. I don’t like how old it feels. I don’t like the way people dress. I don’t like the power play that the preacher has, declaring the Word for us all to obey.

Robert: First, if it is the Word of God that is being preached, then you have to obey it no matter who declares it. You are obeying God, not the preacher.

But I am saying that I don’t care if you like they way church is done or not. It is your responsibility to do want God has commanded. You are a man; you have to stop making excuses. Learn for yourself, develop your own character and you’ll find that you gain respect because who you are. This is Paul’s suggestion to his disciple Timothy because people looked down on his age:

Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.

Mark: Have any suggestions for how to do this? I haven’t been part of a church since I was a kid.

Robert: Honestly, I’ve just started to think through this. I’ve been asking myself. How would I want someone to come to my church?What kind of person would gain my respect?  And now, how will I get back into one?

I think becoming part of a church would take about a year. You got two categories of things to work on. First, just keep working on yourself – keep learning, keep growing, keep motivated because it will all pay off in the long run. Second, step in like this. Find a church that actually opens the Bible on Sunday morning. I don’t mean they put a verse up on the screen or tell you a nice story. That preachers’ story is not the God inspired Word of God that the Spirit will use to change your life. You’ve got to start here and look past whether the preacher is old or young, in a tie or in jeans. Then patiently get involved. You are not there to revolutionize the place. Humbly attend regularly. Go to study groups, prayer meetings, help clean, help in the parking lot. Whatever service you can offer while the church learns to know who you are. Settle down; make friends with the intention of keeping them for life. Then, Mark, at some point, maybe a year from now, ask for an opportunity to take on more responsibility.

Mark: A year is a long time.

Robert: Yes it is. Mark?

Mark: Yea?

Robert: I know I’m a little blunt. I’m sorry if it’s too heavy.

Mark: Nah, it helps me think, and it forces me out of my narrow little bubble. But becoming something different takes so much.

Robert: Yes it does. I’ll walk with you if you walk with me.

Mark: Well, I’m going to walk out right now, but I’ll be back tomorrow? You?

Robert: Whenever you want, my friend. Though I don’t really know what tomorrow will bring for me. But I hope church and I will do better next time. I hope I am growing and will be more ready for that gift of God in my life.

{So, church isn’t the issue. I stopped looking for the perfect church a long time ago. Unfortunately, myself, Mark, and far too many others have had traumatic experiences at the hands of churches. But churches are just people, Jesus is the only Savior and He only saves sinners. That has lead postmodern church leaders to seek to recreate church in a form that does not remind us of our abusers, that feels good, with a style that connects with who I am. I think we should be careful that we do not recreated God’s community in the image of spoiled children and wounded people. The church must be healthy to care for the sick. If you are sick, if you are lost, if you are hurting, run to a church right now. Find solace and hope and salvation with God’s people. If you have fled church because of how bad it has been for you – you change first. Then return as one from exile who took the time to train and grow and become strong. This is religion that God, our Father considers true. I’ll see you on Sunday.}

Left, Right and Christ: A Pastor’s Review

Left, Right and Christ: Evangelical Faith in Politics

Lisa Harper and D.C. Innes 

272 pages from Russell Media (October 6, 2011).

This is a pastoral review. That means I am not writing it for a literary journal or for the book cover, but for a real people, my people, who live in a political world. That means that that I don’t particularly care about the ideology of either writer. I am strictly undeclared, I have to be in the place where I live and I actually like it that way. As I read I looking for three things from these two Christians writing on politics to my people:

1. I am looking for their use of the  Bible. Is the Bible their starting point or their justification for what they hold by party affiliation? Do they use the Bible accurately and fairly? Do they use the Bible rhetorically as literature or principally as a book of rules and abstract truths?

2. I am looking for humanity, both theirs and everyone else’s. Are they writing as real people to real people? Are they defending people or ideas? Are they using stories of people anecdotally or in truth?

3. I am looking for consistency of the above and logical consistency as well. Do they appeal to the Bible in the same way throughout? Are they willing to stick to an idea and leave parts blank if they need to? These things matter and it will show if their priority is to Christ, as revealed in the Bible or somewhere else.

First of all, it is amazingly refreshing to have two authors, who disagree, actually converse. There is no name calling, no belittling, there is just good old fashioned argument. To which I give a hearty, “Amen!” and extend my gratefulness to both Lisa Harper and David Innes, neither of whom I know, but both of whom I would love to share a cup of coffee. Thank you both, for your hard work, for your love for people and for the honesty with which you share your stories.

For those who have not read it…the meat of this book addresses topics with each author taking the first pass in turn.

Foundations

That is, what principles provide the political a prior for the conversation to follow. To their credit, both appeal to the the God of the Bible, both were very good and very well written.

I found Lisa Harper’s theological foundations to be excellent. She began at the beginning, as God does, but so few of the rest of us do. When we begin at the beginning we begin with God and not with ourselves. If we begin with God, then we enter as subjects, image bears, characters in a story in which God is main character. We live, move and play politics in His world. He picture of human flourishing (p. 50) is the exact inspiration that we need for all of our political action. She did, however, seem to miss a very important point in her application of these ideas, that of the Covenant context for the 10 commandments (p. 53-54). These are not just good ideas to promote justice, they are gracious instructions for God’s covenant people. That difficult showed up in her disjointed jump from theocratic Israel to the American nation (p. 54). I say, keep going and take that pathway right through the New Covenant where the people of God continue in the ways of justice, now defined by grace rather than Law.

D.C. Innes, in classic conservative fashion, presents a series of biblical truths in principled summary. He particularly focuses on two classic New Testaments passages on the nature and role of government, from 1 Peter and Romans 13 (p. 58-59). Two responsibilities of government result from this study: to punish evil and to praise good. The trouble comes when he declares an authoritative limitation. Government does these two things and nothing more than that (p. 62) Unfortunately, the biblical passages do not make this limitation a point and do not allow that emphasis. Pastorally speaking, I would like to have seen him focus on the the good that could come from the two and demanding that government faithfully meet that calling.

The two combine to make a great chapter on capitalism. Together they praise what is good and critique what is evil. From my pastoral place they were able to do the job of government (Innes) in this chapter. One line, this time from Lisa Harper, “In God’s economy…we value people more than money” (p. 86)

Conversations

On healthcare

It seems that all agree that the lack of medical care for real people is a problem. Harper jumps from the problem to government as a solution without saying much of why (it happens somewhere around p. 94). Innes advocates local decision making, which I would expect to make Harper proud, and concludes powerfully, “A state run system does not love you,” (p. 105). It seems the old saying is true, Christians believe in universal healthcare, they just don’t all believe the government is the best one to provide it. My pastoral desire, having to spend far too much time in hospitals, is to see health decisions being made by professionals who know their patients.

On abortion

The authors were successful at revealing the complexity of legislation in regards to a practice like abortion. Harper serves us very well in discussion the relationship of poverty to abortion rates. The two were able to be respectful in the conversation and to stay away from red herrings like “choice,” in order to talk about life. Well done to both. With that said, I found one section violating all 3 of my pastoral criteria. On page 121 Harper states that “any religious definition of the beginning of life cannot be the criteria used to decide at what point gestation becomes ‘life.” The trouble is readily apparent when one has been arguing from religious definitions of justice, liberty and human flourishing for the entire book. It was difficult not to let this color the remainder of the book. The entire hope of this book is that religious, biblical definitions can make a better political, public world. I would think future editions would require addressing this inconsistency and ask her to explain in greater detail.

On same sex marriage

I found this chapter interesting. Perhaps fear hindered a more thorough biblical examination of the issues. There was actually very little scripture referenced at all. However, they were able to discuss without the judgmental, intolerant references to “hate” and “homophobia.” They discussed people and we must be grateful for that.

On immigration

Harper’s personal discussions in opening this chapter were welcome and masterfully written. Her biblical imagery of caring for the alien is often forgotten in an Evangelical world. She did fail to mention the word “illegal,” which is what Innes focus was primarily about. Innes also becomes very personal, with his own immigration story, as it should be as a Canadian born US citizen. Yet, in his conclusion, he focuses on the policy and backs away from the real immigrants. I will be passing out this chapter to my people.

On war and terrorism

I think most will have a hard time following Innes to his conclusion that love of neighbor requires a tough-minded foreign policy (p. 184). Harper, like Innes in this chapter, applies Scripture selective at first, but then re-appropriates that beautiful redemptive picture she began the book with. Both call, though only Harper uses the words, for a better discernment that leads towards repentance at all times and only action when necessary (p. 188).

On the environment

Harpers opening teleology really comes home here (p. 1987). She beautifully ties people to place, as it should be (p. 198), but moves too quickly into the negatives of guilt and fear (p. 205). She again leaps from people and place to legislation. The lack is certainly mine, by this point in the book she has prove herself to be marvelously capable. Innes finally makes clear a teleology for both people and world (p. 208-210). He wisely points out the pagan tendencies of the environmental movements, promising another gospel and relying on guilt and fear (p. 211). Though he never quite gets to be point of addressing our personal (or corporate) wasteful practices that are causing much of today’s environmental ills. This is what I want my people to think about, both limiting their “footprint” while at the same time increasing their handprint in beneficial ways.

My Pastoral Conclusion?

Buy this book. It is a great layman’s conversation on the necessary political conduct that flows from an Evangelical faith in Jesus as the Savior of the world. We must be involved because real politics is about people. Not just people over there, but your neighbors whom you are commanded to love.

Personally, I remain undeclared, though I found myself resonating with both at different times. I continue to hope for some wisdom that discerns the best of both for the good of the people I pastor and the neighbors I live with. I hope my gratitude is clear. I want more from these two, not less. I write as their student in most things politic, not their tutor. I am offering a bridge to make it more real to people who actually sit in the pews of Evangelical churches and walk around main street more often that they do Capitol Hill.

So, to Mrs. Harper and Mr. Innes. Thank you, I am better for your efforts. The people I pastor will be better off because of your influence on me in these pages. Please keep writing and talking. Please always be careful to recommend Jesus more than your party. Please preach a gospel based on the finished work of Jesus on the cross, not on family values or social justice. Please do the most possible good for the greatest number of people because God loves. Please help us learn to do good to the people in front of us and not, by politics, take the responsibility out of our hands either by saying, “It really isn’t a big deal,” or by saying, “the government will do it.” The love of Christ compels us and we need you to help us find the way.

Day 5: Overwhelmed Confidence

I feel slow today. Its February but could be any fall or spring day. Clear blue sky, sharp mountains, a perfect 60 degrees. It took me a while to get inside this morning, Rob stopped me to talk. He was reading Steinbeck’s East of Eden and was wondering if I was familiar with it. {He and I often talk about books, we both spend way too much time reading}.

For some reason the porcelain teapots near the door catch my eye. I wonder of anyone ever buys one? The roaster is not in use today. Burlap bags of green coffee beans stand five feet high around the big red and silver machine.

I feel like a fish in chasing a hook. Every bright and shiny object lures me one direction, then another. Oh, a book. Oh, a teapot, a coffee roaster…

I feel like I don’t like my life.

I feel like I rather be anywhere but here and anyone but me.

I feel like I don’t know what to feel, or to think or to do. I need a cup of tea.

I’ve been there for nearly ten minutes and I just noticed Mark back there in what has become “our” table. He seems to be in a good mood, like he’s been watching my wanderings and is amused.

A new girl helps me at the counter, nice smile, but she doesn’t know me. She serves my tea in a Styrofoam cup – this is not my day. {Everyone knows that tea much be drank from a porcelain cup, that just the way it is. Serve it strong and even it out with milk till it’s a nice apartment carpet beige in color. That’s not how it came. I’m not happy about this.}

I don’t have any idea where Mark and I will be going today. I’ve not prepared for anything and after last week’s rant I’m surprised he’s back. I felt like a fool for days about how obnoxious I was, way over the top, though it was fun at the time. He laughed too. Add that to the fact that the rest of my life feels kind of big right now and I have no confidence in who I am or what I have to say.

Robert: Hey Mark. Sorry. I’m a little distracted this morning.

Mark: Yea you are! I’ve been watching you. You alright?

Robert: {Isn’t a Pastor supposed to be okay} NO, {my mouth answered bluntly before my mind caught up} I’m a mess actually. My life is just too big for me, it doesn’t make any sense and I don’t really know how I got here.

Mark: You are way too busy to keep up with it all. Don’t you get up before the sun? You’re married, you have two kids. That’s a crazy life right there. Church shoves its way in there on Wednesday night and Sunday morning, it’s gotta feel more like a burden than a blessing. I mean really, what does church do for you? How does it help you make it day to day? Would these people really be there for you when it matters? Are they there now?

Robert: I feel like I’m coming apart. I don’t think I’ll be much use today. But I’ll talk if you lead. I mean, you ask the questions, you direct me, I’ll just talk. Please don’t expect me to be too sharp, alright, but you’ll get the real me, that’s for sure.

(I know I’m off track when someone asks, “How’s life?” and I answer, “busy.” For most people, business is a sign of importance. At a point in the past, some segments of the Christian Church considered such busyness a sin. I don’t think I would go that far. But, when I am so busy that I’m overwhelmed. Something is wrong.)

Mark: Well then I think I’ll take advantage of you. I wanna know what you do now? What do you rely on? What the difference between me and you when life sucks? And don’t say “Jesus,” that so campy. Lay it out for me. What, specifically, do you think about, pray about, take hope in? How do you regain it here? Man, you look like you’re coming apart.

{If Mark had not proven to be an honest friend, I think I would have walked out right there. But he’d been straight with me. And he was right. If my faith in God didn’t hold me up right here I should walk out on it, not him}.

Mark: What you do is intellectually heavy too. I feel overwhelmed when I’m intellectually lost. I can’t tell you how I felt when I turned on the TV and saw Peter Jennings walking right over the top of Christianity. I took a big step back and questioned myself, my knowledge of the faith. I even think I questioned God a little.

(Peter Jennings, the late ABC news anchor had just aired one of those “secret things you never knew about Christianity” programs that come on every year just before Easter. In any other country that would be considered religious discrimination to trash a faith at its holiest time of year. Not here, and not about Jesus.)

Robert: I know that I have forced that feeling on you by suggesting that you do not know what you should as a Christian. I am sorry about that…and I’m not sorry at the same time. I am sorry that it’s hard, but thrilled that you are still at it.

Do you every feel overwhelmed emotionally? I feel it worse after good things have happened, I just let down and have trouble getting up again. The Apostle Paul felt this same thing. He encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus. He encountered Jesus in a way that you and I never will and his life was changed forever. Then what did he do? He went on to Damascus and sat depressed for three days.

I once left a youth pastor position that I held in Southern California. It was a kind and peaceful parting. I knew that it was time for me to move on. However, just before I left I took some very nasty shots from a group of people that I had cared about and whom I thought cared about me. I spent the next two months curled up on my bed in the dark. “O, God, what do I do?”

Mark: You’re thinking about leaving the church here aren’t you?

Robert: I don’t know. Yea, I’m thinking about it, but not by choice really. It’s pretty clear that my time here is over. My family needs to move on, I need to move on and I think that the church needs me to move on. But the people who have been my friends aren’t handling it well that I have troubles too. It seems that now that I am no longer of service, I’m not worthy of their time anymore.

(It is hard for a Pastor to leave a church. His identity, family and future are all tied up in that one job. But there are times when the realization comes: the same grace that a Pastor is called to extend to the sinful congregation daily does not always apply to me and my family. The expectations of a Pastor are far beyond anything human and at the same time, people are far too ready to believe the worst. Unfortunately, friends will often start talking about they think we did, said or felt long before finding out it if was true. The feeling of disappointment just pushes them to find someone to talk to about it. Unfortunately, that little talk can destroy a Pastor’s reputation and effectiveness for years to come.

The situation Mark and I were talking about was different. We had truly disappointed people. The sin was ours, hands down, no question. And that was too much for the church to handle. We had to leave everyone and everything that mattered to us. So, yes I was a wreck).

Mark: I’ve read that overwhelming circumstances are most frequent cause of depression. How are you handling yours?

Robert: Okay, understand that I am going to speak totally theoretically right now because this is what I should be doing right now.

We are not left to make it up on our own. That is why you and I began with gaining the proper knowledge. There is someplace to turn in times like this. We can turn to Jesus, whom we know through His revelation of Himself in the Bible and who walks with us day to day just as He did those who went before us. So I take confidence in my faith.

Mark: That makes sense. You cannot build only on the feeling of confidence, that is a lie. You don’t have a feeling of confidence right now. But you can build confidence from your conviction. You must have the assurance that something you are standing on is solid ground.

Robert: Knowing that my faith works in the real world supports the belief that I have from His words to me and my experience of Him.

Susan MacAuley talks to herself about these in her book, How to be Your Own Selfish Pig. She writes about a time when she was flying home from America to England after giving a lecture on the stability of belief. She had also just found out that her father, Francis Schaeffer, had cancer. The conversation in her head went something like this

You’ve never had to deal with death from your Christian faith. Can you handle it?

And she began to doubt. She, after years of convincing others to believe in their difficulties, began to doubt. I let it go for a few minutes and then I stopped and went, “Okay, why do I believe this again?” And reminded myself.

She reminded herself; so can I. Even though I am overwhelmed

Mark: What do you remember?

Robert: I see what you’re doing, thanks, but you kinda feel like a therapist.

I know who God is. I’m going back to the creeds. He is personal to me. I have a relationship with Him. He is compassionate. He is Almighty. He certainly has the power and the wisdom to do what I need to have done. God is not unaware of what is going on in my life perfectly.

Mark, this sounds cold doesn’t it?

Mark: Isn’t that what I was saying to you a few weeks ago. Sometimes words are not enough man. See, you live what I believe.

Robert: No, that’s not what I’m talking about. I know that words are not enough. I also know that God has chosen to use His words in the Bible to change me, my heart from the inside out, even if my circumstances don’t change.

I’m talking about how this is coming across to you. I guess you just told me how. You think I’m just reciting some information and holding on. I wish I could express to you how desperate I feel about my life. I want to rip my heart out and lay it on the table right here in front of you. You would see, Mark, that there are huge, life threatening wounds in it and that these truths of God are healing them little by little.

Mark: Well then, rub some more medicine on it. Talk it out some more. You take confidence in your faith because you who God is and…

Robert: I want also to remember that He knows everything and I do not. God is working in my hurt to bring something magnificent about.

Now, don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that I will get that job I want just because it’s hard now. I don’t know that, God alone has that information. I don’t know that my family can survive what we’ve been through, only God knows that part of things. What I do know is that He is good and He reveals Himself to me as God the Father Almighty, just as He did to Job and to Joseph and to Moses and to so many others. So I ask for help because I know who He is.

Mark: How hard is that just to have blind faith? I only know a little of what’s going on with you and it seems freakin’ huge if you ask me. I don’t mean to pile it on, but, is it healthy to just pretend like it’s not that bad?

Robert: Look at me, man. Am I pretending that it’s not that bad? I know that everything that I am, everything I’ve worked for and everything that I love in this world is on the chopping block right now. You have no idea how much I’ve lost already. Are you actually sitting across from me right now suggesting that I’m putting you on?!?!

Mark: No, no, no. I didn’t mean it to sound like that…

{I had already gotten up and walked away. I wasn’t leaving; I just had to cool off. Even if he didn’t mean it the way it sounded the knife still stuck deep andI was swimming in the emotional deep end.

That’s it Robert. Refill the tea, catch your breath.

The Grind isn’t that big. There are maybe five tables inside; everybody heard that last exchange, even the wine tasters over in the corner were looking at us. So much for a pastoral reputation.}

Robert: One thing I never do is pretend. I am who I am, even when I’m an ass.

Mark: I was just saying…

Robert: I got it; just go a little easier on me.

Blind faith is no good in my book; my faith is in God who I know something about, that’s what I’ve been saying.

This world does not stop belonging to God when I’m overwhelmed. He is the still the creator of heaven and earth and He still maintains them every moment of every day. Everything that exists maintains its existence because God holds it together. And everything that exists will achieve God’s end. God’s creation is working towards God’s end. It is not random chance.

If this is the case, then He is not overwhelmed, he is not out of control. I am His, my kids are His, and my future is His. I know that this is God’s world. So I ask for help.

Mark: You don’t know your future. That sounds so strange coming from you. I mean, it makes sense for me. I’ve made no plans and no efforts to get anywhere. But you, a year ago you had it all together: Master’s degree, respected, good job, family with two kids and a dog. Who are you now? That would be enough to depress me.

Robert: I am a creature.

Mark: Oookaay, that helps how? That’s kind of a low view of yourself isn’t it?

Robert: I am not the creator. I am not God, but I need him.

Creature does not mean that I’m a bottom feeder sucking scum with the catfish. We are all creatures. Significant creatures, the only kind of creature made in the image of God. Right? The animals were made from the same dirt that God used to form you and me, but we are the only ones filled with His holy breath.

Mark: I see, that has nothing to do with your job or reputation and not from whether or not you feel confident at the moment. Your value remains even when you’re a complete wreck.

Robert: You have to keep going. Since I am a Christian, I am not only a creature, I am a new creation. All my sin, all my guilt, all my failure has been paid for by Jesus’ death on the cross.

When I become concerned that all my failures and all my losses have nullified my value in the image of God, the death of Christ screams, “That is not true.”

Mark: Then why are you letting your circumstances dictate who you are?

Robert: When I lay on that bed for several months, I was losing. I had to get up and do what needed to be done. It was absolutely necessary that I regain a regular practice of the spiritual disciplines – prayer, Bible reading, giving and fasting – so that I could build my faith in Jesus Christ.

There would be no bed to lie on had I not gotten a job to pay the rent. There had to be some life, if I let it overwhelm me, I would die. All these truths were present with me but they were only theoretical as long as remain inoperative. Getting organized and getting on with it was the aid that God used to move me into the future. That’s where I’m at again.

Mark: But you still have no idea what that future is. What hope do you have that it’s even worth holding on for. Why don’t you give up and go start another life?

Robert: Depression is hopeless. Loss is hopeless. But I am not hopeless. Never! There is never a hopeless situation in the believer’s life, no matter how bad things get. Hope is my birthright as God’s child. What I am becoming is something beautiful, something glorious, and something powerful.

It’s not always pretty. Was it pretty and nice for Joseph to be sold, to be a slave and to be imprisoned unjustly? No, it was not at all pretty, but God accomplished what He intended through the ugliness. It is not always pretty, but it is always effective. I have to believe that what God is bringing about is much more important than the things that are overwhelming me. I will be like Jesus someday; God is changing my heart and my character.

All these truths about who God is, about God’s world, about who we are and who are becoming, we know from the solid, absolute and objective ground of the revelation of the Holy Spirit in his trustworthy word.

Mark: Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.

Robert: I’ve never really outgrown that truth.

I am so weak! Remember Athanasius? Fifteen years, ten months in exile. I am ready to give up in just days. “God, you’ve failed me. I’m moving on.” I am trying to take confidence in my faith, but it is not easy for me.

Mark: These truths are supposed to be experienced, aren’t they? You can’t ignore the value of your experience. What confidence do you find in your experience with God?

Robert: Oh I take great comfort in my experience of God. Now, that would do no good without faith because experience is never enough itself. Experience is empty; there is no content to experience.

Mark: This is what I meant by personal.

Robert: Yes, I know. It’s subjective – It is meant to be. My knowledge must work out personally; it must work out in personal transformation in our lives.

Remember Jesus’ own criteria for judging the authenticity of a professing believer’s faith. What was it?

By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. John 13:35

True belief ought to work out in a subjective personal manner. It has to work out in Robert’s life, in Robert’s soul.

Mark: So you do take confidence in your experience. That experience, I mean, you’re obviously not finding any consolation in what’s happening to you right now.

Robert: Well, I know the testimony of the Holy Spirit. The ancients called it the testimonium Spiritus sancti internum I’m speaking of the way the Spirit assures us that what we believe is true and that we truly believe. I cannot explain it fully, but we are clearly taught in scripture that this experience is something true and something beautiful.

Mark: The Holy Spirit does something in you about the truth of the gospel?

Robert: Right. There are no real details in the Bible, but it’s clear that if you believe, it is because the Holy Spirit has confirmed it in you. I believe; that is my experience. “Yes,” He speaks to my heart in its brokenness, “the offer is for you, reach out for it. You can be forgiven. You can be made whole.”

First, I had an assurance from the Spirit of the truthfulness of the gospel, which is why I believed. Then I received a confirmation immediately of the guarantee of my redemption. I now have a promise that what God desires to do in me will be accomplished. I can count on that and the Spirit constantly reminds me – your salvation is guaranteed.

The only direct phrase concerning the testimony of the Holy Spirit is mentioned is found in Romans 8.

The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Rom. 8:16

In the passage the testimony is concerning the leading in our lives; after the Spirit rather than after our own natural tendencies.

Mark: You’re making it objective again.

Robert: Of course I am. Because there is an objective reminder to which the Spirit continues to point.

Mark: The Spirit points to the gospel in us and says, “That’s true.” He then points to our faith, the moment of decision and affirms, “That is guaranteed.” He points also to the change in our lives and says, “That means that you are a child of God.”

Robert: Who’s the preacher here?

At times overwhelming pressures choke it out, but I know it. I fight to believe God, even when I don’t feel like it. I pray in my stress. I can experience the peace that is intended to come with the testimony of the Spirit. It will not necessarily be peace that this particularly difficulty will work out, but that all will. God is more concerned with my being like Jesus than He is with all the other stuff, as big as it seems to me.

Mark: You know what helps me? How much my life has changed. I mean, I’m not the same person that I was even when we started talking. I’m different, I know it, I can feel it.

I’m more open God. I hated myself, I hated my wretched body. I ignored it, I mistreated, sometimes out of hatred for myself and sometimes because I thought it would bring me a better spiritual experience. Now, I know the reality of God in God’s world. I act differently toward myself than I did.

My belief is different as well. I believe in Jesus. He is my teacher.

Robert: You haven’t told me that. Do you consider yourself a Christian?

Mark: The word still causes me to twitch, but I trust that Jesus’ death is the payment for my sin and has opened up a whole new world for me in relationship to God, the Father Almighty.

Robert: If these are true, then chances are good that your behavior is different also. No one else could have made this change in you. Only God brings the combined change of belief and behavior that gives you confidence when the world seems too big.

If you have no change, then you have no place for confidence. Knowledge without character is still a little Christianity and it is still dangerous.

I need to take confidence in my faith and in my experience, Mark. My feelings may not necessarily change, but I can find the strength to keep going anyway.

Mark: Thanks for doing this. You could have been a complete jerk when I said I wanted to find out what you’re made out of.

Robert: I was a complete jerk.

{Mark smiled and looked at me. I was sure he was getting ready to tell me what for.}

Mark: No. Not completely. But you kinda freaked me out there for a minute. It is good for me to see you honestly deal with stuff. It makes me feel more human too.

Robert: It’s not wrong to be overwhelmed or scared or depressed. It’s not wrong to doubt because you do not understand. But how you respond to these things is what matters? Will you pretend like your ignorance is wisdom and denounce your faith in Jesus? Will you give in to easier measures for dealing with troubles and emotions rather than letting the refinement take its course and rob yourself of the benefit?

I keep reminding myself, “You cannot lose. Even if you die, you cannot lose”. I have to value what cannot be lost more than I value all the things that are temporary.

A little knowledge applied by a little thinking to my circumstances can rescue me from confusion and doubt, depression and worry.

Mark: That’s not easy.

Robert: It’s not quick or easy. Have you ever known troubles to be quick and easy? We are talking about developing character and that only comes with time and practice. You can read a book and get knowledge, my friend, but you cannot read a book and get character. You must work it out everyday. If we put these things into practice and we will become less dangerous.

Advent

Christ is coming. He has come, and He will come again. This is the message of Advent.

Advent: God With Us from The Village Church on Vimeo.