There is a persecuted church...and it isn't here in the United States.

Cerulean Sanctum has this today.

Please remember the persecuted church in your prayers.

I'd rather do just about anything else around the house rather than write my papers.

1) make a salad using Aristotle's "Four Causes"
2) research paper on "something or someone" during the Romantic Period.

#1 is due tomorrow
#2 is due Thursday.

I took the day off so that I could "work" on surfing around, procrastinating just a little bit longer. (Oh, and I enrolled in summer classes)

I thought I'd share some of the favorite posts I ran across this last week.

This is a "must read" if you are a believer looking to see Jesus.

Michael Spencer - well, just read.

Here's a little bit of what I'm hoping for: organization.

Signs of spring in the "frozen north".

These two gems come from the World of Sven

American Exchange Student: So in the medieval catholic system, supposing you did actually earn enough merit to get to heaven, what would you do when you arrived there?
Me: Well Aquinas taught that you could either go straight to heaven, or gamble your merit points and maybe win a speedboat.
AES: Really?
Me: Uh-huh.
AES: Woah. I never knew that.

It's a shame theologians don't write like this anymore:

I've been pondering forgiveness and restoration (because of the possibility of running into a person that I'd rather not deal with.)

I'm a follower of Jay E. Adams and "From Forgiven to Forgiving" is a book that I turn to often. I not sure that I fully agree:

I agree that (in theory) Adams is right. But it can be difficult to implement - especially in - especially in a business or online world, or in a church community where church discipline is not practiced. I've also got a couple of thoughts that Adams does not (if I remember) fully address.

There is a difference between "holding a grudge" and "withholding forgiveness".

Holding a grudge is about your own emotions and refusing to move on. Bitterness and anger are "red flags" that you are holding a grudge. Grudges have nothing to do with "relationship" or "forgiveness". It's about the human desire to hold something over another person - for the sake of spite.

In the face of a repentant offender, to hold a grudge is a serious sin (and one of the sins that should make us doubt our salvation.)

Holding a grudge is easy and very human.

Withholding forgiveness is something different. Withholding forgiveness is about forgiveness and restoration. If you don't have glorifying God through forgiveness and restoration as the goal, you're not withholding forgiveness, you're holding a grudge.

The Bible says, "...and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors."

This is where many people disagree with Adams, believing rather that we are to forgiven whether or not the offender has indicated any repentance or willingness to not repeat the offense.) Adams makes a case that God is our example in forgiveness. As God forgives us, we forgive others.

In our repentance, we have the ability to bring others to repentance. When we are reconciled to God, we can bring others to reconciliation with God (us).

How do we become reconciled to God?

I'm also very torn myself. Being reformed, when are my sins forgiven? When is the slate wiped clean? Is it when I use the words "I'm sorry"? Or was it before the foundations of the earth were laid, when God chose me in Christ? And how do I model that?

If I have a particular sin that I struggle with "being sorry for", does God forgive that sin? If I want God to forgive all of my sins, whether or not I can be truly sorry, does God expect me to forgive the offenses of others, whether or not they are truly sorry?

(This is where I have an addition to Adams.) I believe there is also a place for withholding restoration (but perhaps not full restoration) if the safety, peace or welfare of a person or group is at risk. I'm not thinking one-time offenses or "little things" - the multitudes of offenses that love should cover. I'm thinking about either repeated "big" offenses (behavior that doesn't appear to indicate "repentance") or offenses that have such a high probability of offense that full restoration simply does not keep the safety and peace of others in mind. In cases like these, accountability (hand in hand with a commitment by the offender) is vital.

Withholding forgiveness is a set of behaviors aimed at causing the offender to know in their heart that they have hurt others and to cause them to "be truly sorry" and to make a commitment to turn from that behavior.

Withholding forgiveness is aimed always at reconciliation.

Withholding forgiveness always excludes bitterness. (You might also exclude anger, if you can. There is a place for righteous anger, but when confronting an offense in hopes of reconciliation, many times anger is best left behind.)

I believe that you can take this to the secular, although there cannot be full resoration to a "fellowship" that was never there. At best, you can reconcile to the status that you had before the offense.

This is Biblical. There are specific steps.

- you confront the person privately (I believe that if the offense was committed against a group of people or as part of a conversation, this can vary. If you immediately - within the same conversation - state the offense, this is perhaps the best way to take care of it immediately. Most reasonable people will see that they have offended and "take it back". End of story.)

- if the person does not listen - take two or three witnesses. (this is way harder on line.) With this small group of people, there are (hopefully) objective witnesses that will hear both sides, examine what was said and encourage both sides to reconciliation.

- if they still do not listen, take it to the group (or in a secular setting, to the group that both parties are a member of)

- if they still do not listen, forgiveness and restoration cannot (or should not) take place.

None of this is aimed at "punishing" the offender or perpetually holding them at arm's length. It is aimed at bringing the offender back into the relationship that you had before the offense - or perhaps a deeper relationship.

When I have practiced this - it works.

It is not easy and it is not about me.

Yesterday I came into work and my watch was sitting on my desk.

That wouldn't have been odd at all (I leave it places) but I had thrown it away the afternoon before. After I broke it (it's one of those bracelet kinds that springs open).

I found out the story - the custodian had seen the watch in the wastebasket and thought he could fix it. So he took it and figured it out and fixed it for me - and then put it on my desk.

This is a man that I rarely see anybody interact with, but he will see things that need fixing and just take care of it without being asked. It doesn't seem to matter to him if it's school stuff, or employee stuff or student stuff. Whether or not it's his job, he'll take care of the little, annoying things that I would just throw away.

This kind of thoughtfulness is such an encouragement.

It's an old photo, from when it was very new. It means a lot to me. My daughter and I took a Greek class together (so the letters are Greek). My son designed it for me.

But the deeper meaning is what it is. What I am.

There is a "thing" going on about labels.

This tattoo - it says "Christ". And it's all about Christ on the cross. There is no room there for me, for my works, for anything that I can say or do to earn what Christ has done to me and for me.

People ask about it. I point them to Christ on the cross.

There are others that identify with Christ on the cross. We (generally) call ourselves "Christians". There are other terms. "Bond-servant of Christ" is one of my favorites - we are either a slave to sin or a slave to Christ and I have been bought with the precious Blood of the Lamb.

One of the reasons (that I've read over the last few days) to use the term "Christian" is that it identifies us with the body of Christ (the church). That (to me, anyway) smacks of a couple of the folks I work with that says something to the effect of "of course I'm saved, I was baptised in the Catholic church". If somebody asks me what makes me a Christian, it's not because I'm part of the church. I'm part of the church because I belong to Christ.

Belonging to the body means more than identifying with the church. Yes, the bride is beautiful, but it's not because of the people in it - it's because the people in it are covered by the Blood.

Back to the tattoo. My class swims two or three times a week, so a variety of folks see it. Somebody asked me if I'm a Christian. My answer is not a simple "yes". My answer is more than that.

I don't point the people that ask about my tattoo at the church. I point them to Christ on the Cross.

Belonging to a church doesn't save you.
Having a tattoo doesn't save you.
Wearing a cross around your neck doesn't save you.
Claiming the label "Christian" doesn't save you.

It takes so much more. It takes Christ on the Cross.

This was a sentence that was mispoken by the pastor this morning as he snitched a grape from a visual object lesson. I'm sure he meant to say, "These grapes have seeds in them."

That very little slip of the tongue has such very big possibilities!

There are a few different ways of looking at it.

You could say, "Those pesky seeds just get in the way of everything." Or (as Pastor Dave said), "I hope I don't choke on all those seeds." (He was talking about real seeds, though) This is a way of taking the fruit that God gives you in life and hoping you don't choke on the little bits of trouble that come along with life.

Next, you could say, "Ok, there's a few seeds, but look at all the nice fruit around them." This is a good attitude - looking around the touble in life in order to focus on the good that God has sent.

But there's a third way.

What happens if a fruit doesn't have seeds? (At least in the days before "seedless" fruit), the species would die out in a fairly short time. It's the seeds that continue life.

It's the same with trouble in life. A life without trouble may be pleasant, but it doesn't bring much growth.

We can look at troubles in this life in these three ways.
We can complain that the troubles interfere with life
We can look around the troubles and see only the good in life

Or we can embrace the troubles (this does not mean look for trouble). We can accept and embrace "growth opportunities" that God gives us in the middle of the trouble. We can let ourselves grow and prosper spiritually.

We will have troubles in life. It is how we react to them that will tell the world the kind of "Christ-follower" we are.

A dear friend that I trust believes that it's not time for us to leave our church just yet. So that's where we're going this morning.

I have a mid-term on Tuesday, as well as a small paper due.

The paper: Using Aristotle's "Four Causes", write about the process of making a salad.

The mid-term covers the philosophies (not biographies):
Confucious
Buddha
Plato
Socrates
Aristotle
Thomas Aquinas

Other than that, it's a pretty slow week.

Oh...and watch old seasons of 24

It's a "sensory issue". Folks out there who know about this "thing" in my head might know what I'm talking about.

I have times (last night) when I feel like I want to crawl out of my skin. The skin on my feet especially is overly-sensitive. I feel every little wrinkle in my sheets and I end up having to remake my bed from the mattress up (three times).

This is not helpful for a good night's sleep.

Right now, all over the place, I'm seeing many
places were problems pop up when discernment
takes a "backseat" (to "love", to "relationships",
to "socializing").

Biblically - there is a difference between those
who follow a false religion and those who follow
a "heretical offshoot" (my term) of real Christianity.
Biblically, they are treated differently. The lost
are lost. The warnings to false teachers are very
bold and very firm and very dire.