- Why is a critical (as in critical thinking) reading of this book essential?

• People are not reading this book as a work of fiction.  As I encounter more people who have read the book, I hear more gushing over how they understand god (lower case on purpose) better than they ever have!
• Most heresies begin with the nature of who God is.  If “The Shack” teaches a different god than the God of Scripture, and if the god/goddess of the book is the god/goddess that people are believing in and trusting – they are trusting a false god.
• As humans, we build for ourselves the god that we think we need – which is not necessarily the God that our Holy Father has chosen to reveal Himself as in His Inspired Word.
• As we build the god that we think we need – the god that we want, we humanize that which cannot be brought down to our human level.

So here are the questions to keep in mind as I read “The Shack”:

• How does the god/goddess of the book differ from the God that reveals Himself in Scripture?
• What are the positives that can be learned from the book and can they be easily separated from the false teachings?
• How will I discuss what can be learned with people who are enthusiastic about “The Shack”, with grace while teaching what is wrong with the book – how can I help others understand the difference?
• How will this book enrich my walk with God – whether as a positive teaching of forgiveness, or as a negative awareness of the danger of false teaching?

My (sometimes) weekly collection of interesting links, along with a few sprinkled thoughts…

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Lesbian students sue a Christian school for expelling them for breaking the rules.

We know that persecution is on the way…the more we cling to orthodoxy, to historical values and truths…the closer it gets.

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WTF?

Think that the use of WTF? is offensive?  So is the murder of unborn children.

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“Stimulas Proposal Facts”

Remember…change is good…

hope…change…hope…change…pork…pork…pork…

(From the Heritage Foundation:  If Government Spending solved recessions, we would never have recessions.)

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nuff said.

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President Obama’s pick for Treasury Secretary?  Owes the IRS.

hope…change…hope…change…

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No…it’s not what it looks like…

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How long did it take?

It’s not as if it surprises me.

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A quote by an early women’s movement leader:

“We have made a fetish of the Bible long enough. The time has come to read it as we do all other books, accepting the good and rejecting the evil it teaches.” –Elisabeth Cady Stanton

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more later (on lunes)

On a lot of things, there is a more liberal and a more conservative viewpoint.

On most of these things, I tend to the more conservative side.

Here is what I have learned:

• If a person on the more liberal side criticizes a person or group on the more conservative side…good!  We need to be aware of the faults of the “other” side.
• If a person on the more liberal side criticizes a person or group on the liberal side…well, by and large it just doesn’t happen.  “We need to stick together against the conservatives or we will lose the ground that we have gained”
• If a person on the more conservative side criticizes a person or group on the more conservative side, that’s just the way that it should be.  “After all, you should know the faults of your own side and now, you’re “getting it.”

The fourth leaning?

If a conservative criticizes a person or group on the more liberal side – even if it is just recognizing extremes…

OH MY FREAKING GOODNESS!!!  It is as if the world is beginning to implode!

The message?

Criticize conservatives.  Conservatives, look to your own faults.

Leave the liberals alone, or there will be consequences.

You will be accused of hatred, you will be accused of divisiveness, you will be called ignorant, you will be told to “get a life”.  You will be called a dinosaur, a bigot or worse.

The moral…liberals are sensitive beings who do not wish to be examined and who do not wish to examine themselves.

liberals are also in the business of examining conservatives and insist that conservatives examine themselves.

Careful…your double standard is showing.

One of my co-workers said that he voted for Barack Obama because he (the co-worker) believed that Obama would govern more centrist than what he campaigned.

“So…you’re saying that you voted for the man because you believed that his campaign promises were lies?”

Within minutes of our new president taking the oath of office, the White House web page had been changed.  A few of the “changes” on his agenda could directly target Christians and Christian organizations.

• It could become illegal for a Christian hospital to deny abortions for any reason.
• It could become illegal for a Christian adoption agency to adopt only to heterosexual married couples.

“Changes” directly contradict the Constitution’s mandate of “state’s rights”.

FOCA would effectively make ALL abortion issues federal issues and would effectively (and purposefully) overturn laws made at a state level.

FOCA would not only take away state’s rights to make laws that do not concern things in the Constitution, they also take away the citizen’s rights to vote on proposals concerning abortion at the state level.

President Obama’s agenda is a two-prong offensive against

• state’s rights
• Christians following their consciences in matters of the gay agenda and the abortion agenda.

I will pray for our president’s safety and health.  I will pray that God guide his heart and change his attitude toward the most innocent and vulnerable of our citizens – the unborn.  I will pray that God sway his mind in a way that guides his toward the Living God.

I will not support him, which includes by necessity supporting his agenda.

I will “all work together” in much the same way that liberals “worked together” with President Bush.  They fought him every step of the way and were outspoken about where they disagreed.

So will I be.

Two pursuits, yet very similar.

Jerry Bridges wrote two books, “The Pursuit of Holiness” and “The Practice of Godliness”.

Holiness and Godliness are two callings of a Christian; similar, but Bridges makes a distinction.  In the book on holiness, he talks about putting off the old man, Godliness is about putting on the new man.

Neither one of these works unless you include a generous sprinking of the Gospel.  Unless we have a full understanding that we are called to be perfect, but the only perfection we can rely on is the perfection of Christ, we will run into deep anger and dispair at the failure of our efforts.  If we don’t understand that we cannot to it on our own, we run into deep pride.

And still, we are called to holiness, Godliness; we are called to be perfect, for the Lord our God is perfect.

What does it mean to be “holy”?  We turn away from that which is sin.  We love what is good and we hate what is evil.

What makes God angry also makes us angry.

In the call to holiness and Godliness, we strive (with the Spirit’s sanctification) to become more like Christ.

What made Christ angry?  Those religious people who took what was evil and called it “good”.

Immediately, Gene Robinson comes to mind.  Those religous people who look at abortion and call it a good, human right.

Those who look at women and call them inferior, denying them an education and a voice.  Men who abuse their wives and call it “leadership”.

You see, there are extremes on either side.  To examine the extreme on one side without examining the log on your own side…

“A Modest Proposal” at Christianity Today.

A couple of thoughts from the article…

egalitarians and complementarians can work together to oppose abortion on demand, an issue on which egalitarians stand together with complementarians against mainstream feminism

I don’t know what rock he’s been under…It took me about a minute to find the “Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice“.

• United Methodist Church (UMC website officially lists RCRC as an abortion resource.)
• The Episcopal Church (“General Convention resolutions have expressed unequivocal opposition to any legislation abridging a woman’s right to make an informed decision about the termination of pregnancy)
• Presbyterian Church (USA) (also lists RCRC as a ministry resource)
• United Church of Christ (A founding member of RCRC)

What do these churches also have in common?  They are also egalitarian.

There are no complementarian denominations that show up on the members list of the RCRC.

So the author of the article should have said “complementarians and some some/many egalitarians…”

And

…egalitarians and complementarians can agree that homosexual activity is not a God-ordained lifestyle that should be approved within the Christian community…

Again, the word “some” (some/many) should appear before “egalitarian”…

which brings me to the next link:

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“O god of our many understandings…”

Opening inaugural prayer by (gay)(egalitarian)(bishop of the Episcopal Church) Gene Robinson.

Somehow I doubt that Robinson would like to unite with complementarians in defense of life and traditional marriage

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Underwater:  possible “stonehenge” in Michigan?

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From Huffington Post: Was “Jack the Ripper a Woman?”

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The desecration of the American Flag

(HT:  Michele Malkin)

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It resonates in my brain; no, in my soul.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures…1 Corinthians 15:3

This is what I come back to over and over again.

And everything we think and do should relate to the “Sola” – Solus Christus

For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time, for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle—I am speaking the truth in Christ and not lying—a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. 1 Timothy 2:5-7

Our focus on Christ should not be on “Christ is the ultimate example”…NO!  Jesus Christ our Lord gave Himself a ransom for all.

He died so that we might live.

Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Hebrews 9:12-14

Nor did He come to earth to start us on the path to social justice.

Jesus Christ our Lord came to earth to die on the cross; to offer Himself as the once and for all sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin.

First, we bid a man to begin by examining himself, and this not in a superficial and perfunctory manner, but to cite his conscience before the tribunal of God, and when sufficiently convinced of his iniquity, to reflect on the strictness of the sentence pronounced on all sinners. Thus confounded and amazed at his misery, he is prostrated and humbled before God; and, casting away all self-confidence, groans as if given up to final perdition. Then we show that the only haven of safety is in the mercy of God, as manifested in Christ, in whom every part of our salvation is complete. As all mankind are, in the sight of God, lost sinners, we hold that Christ is their only righteousness, since, by His obedience, He has wiped off our transgressions; by His sacrifice, appeased the divine anger. (John Calvin)

If we call people to works, not godliness, we fail them.  If we don’t give them the gospel, we fail them.

If we do the good works created for us without the gospel, we are attempting to earn our salvation.  We fail ourselves.

On Complegalitarian, Don Johnson tells us how a complementarian can be a poor witness based on how they react when a woman teaches.  A complementarian is not to question, not to raise a fuss, they should either not attend if they know ahead of time or slip out quietly if caught by surprise.

How to turn this table?

If a woman is in a complementarian church and suddenly believes that she is to be in leadership over men, should teach authoritatively in the assembly – against the leadership of that church.

Should she stay and try to convince that church that she is right and they should put her in leadership, should she speak within that church against the leadership of that church and what they believe or should she leave quietly and go to a church who would put her in leadership?

I have asked that question before and an egalitarian answered that of course, she should stand her ground and fight the leadership.

“Bishop Gene Robinson”

Homosexual bishop, praying “not a Christian” prayer, at the inauguration of the most anti-life, pro-abortion candidate to ever run for president.

well…at least he’s an egalitarian.

The other thing I don’t know is whether or not my email will get to me just yet.

When you type “mzellen.com”, it takes you right to the new site.

What is left is administrative stuff.

There are now over 339 broken links (I thought they would resolve, but not yet)

Even though the web sends you to the right place the first time (no redirect), but the address in the address bar still only reads the IP address.

I got the boomwhackers

I got the rhythm sticks…

we’re ready to go.

1 Corinthians 15:3
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,

When I listen to a message I ask, “could this message have been given if the grave is not empty?”

There are a couple of terms I’ve been hearing

• restorative justice
• reconciliation
• transformed lives

We speak of these things in terms of what we do for/with others on this earth; if we leave out the “why”, we all lose.

• The Son of God died to restore us – THEREFORE, we seek restoration in a social context for others.
• Jesus shed His blood to justify us – THEREFORE, we seek justice for others.
• Christ died for our sins to reconcile us to the Father – THEREFORE, we seek reconciliation with others.

To leave this out – we are left with nothing more than a devotional that could be preached in a Mormon church, in a Buddhist temple, in an atheistic social center.

I’ve heard “Jesus transforms lives” – which is no Gospel at all.

I have a friend whose great-aunt married an abusive man.  They joined the Mormon church and he stopped beating her.  The Mormon church transforms lives.

September 11, 2001 showed us the power of 19 men in airplanes to transform lives (and not in a good way).

I want to hear a man of God proclaim the death, burial and resurrection of the Son of God for the remission of sin.

I don’t want to have to listen to a podcast in order to hear the Gospel.

At some point I’ll get “official” on Thursday 13 again…but for now…

13 “baby steps” – goals that I won’t meet, but that are good enough to try for

1. drink all my water
2. take my supplements half the time
3. exercise a little every day (almost)
4. remember moisturizer during the day
5. take a “beauty rest” (nap) twice a week
6. blog 30 posts each month
7. read my Bible every day
8. knit a little every day
9. read a little every day
10. eat 7 fruits and veggies every day
11. drink green tea every day
12. listen to music every day
13. enjoy life every day

As I am working on socks, these will fill the “shoes with toes” requirement for work, but still let me show off pretty socks.

I’m currently knitting my first ever sock.  I’ve knitted a lot, but never socks or mittens (double pointed needles).  My newest most favorite yarn shop showed me a new method that really works…but…

I started the thing many times (Tom doesn’t know how many times.)  I ripped it apart, wound the yarn back up and started again.

Each time I used the same pattern, the same needles, the same yarn.   I kept doing it and doing it and doing it and each time I discovered a little something that was giving me trouble.

Eventually, it clicked.  And I think I’m going to find socks quite rewarding.

It struck me that my walk with God is something like that.  I have the right tools.  He has given me what I need and He will continue to do so.

Each time I get a little further.  Each time I discover something I didn’t “get” before. But each time I end up unraveling and beginning anew.

Each and every day, I end up with a greater understanding of my own sin, my failure, my need for a Saviour.

Each and every day, He provides what I need.

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.” (Lam 3:22-24)

“For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Romans 8:24-25 ESV)

Oh…my…goodness…

Time with my sisters-in-law is not good for the diet.  And winter is not good for the exercise plan.

So…baby steps.

This week I will:

follow Weight Watchers Flex Plan (that leaves me lots of room for treats)

Emphasis is on:

Supplements

I split my supplements into 4 groups, AM, Lunch, PM, and bedtime.  That gives me 28 groups of pills.  The habit of the week is to remember my supplements 25/28 times.

1) Church…

We finally settled on a church.  Well, the kids like it; I settled.

I will not become a “member”, but will become active in some of the ministries and studies.  There are issues, but this little church does seem to be the best thing going around here that is both acceptable to me and attractive to the kids.

2) College…

I took the fall off of college (and will take the winter off as well).  There’s time to decide what to do with the rest of my life.
Right now, it feels good to reconnect with “me”, not just barrel through classes.

3) Work…

I moved classrooms again.  Each time I move I dread it.  Each time I end up glad that I moved.  This time…the staff that I worked with last year tell me that I’m blessed that I got moved (I won’t go further that that).  One of the staff that I worked with last year is the choir director; since I’m not in that room, I’m free to explore music options.  I’m starting a bell choir (I’m sure you’ll read more)

4) Cycling…

I took up bike riding.  That feels good also.  I’m indoors for the winter, but I’m planning a few things for spring.

My philosophy for exercise is to do it the way my ancestors did;  they were in it for the long haul.  Before exercise was optional, people didn’t run marathons, they walked across the country.  Life was less a matter of “let’s go as fast as we can for as long as we can”.  It was a matter of “let’s go at a sustainable pace for as long as it takes to get there.”

It makes more sense in that paradigm to ride at 12 MPH for 65 miles than it does to ride at 18 MPH for 2 hours.

As long as my heart rate is at a workout level, I’d rather go a little slower and enjoy the ride.

My plans are to take a few “overnighters”.  Ride to my dad’s house on the other side of the state – take a spin along the lake shore.  Maybe get the gear that I need to go camping on a bike:

• a trunk rack,
• panniers,
• a handlebar bag,
• a front rack,

the rest is minor.

4) Cars…

The last major thing is a new vehicle.

We went to Chicago to celebrate with my sisters-in-law and on the way there the transmission on my car “died”.  We got there, but would not have gotten home.  I am related to a very special woman who made it possible for me to get a 2004 Honda Pilot with pretty low mileage and a lot of features that I like.

I really didn’t want a car payment, but life makes it necessary.  With a 6-cyclinder SUV, my chosen summer life-style is much more possible.  I can put the bike in the back, I can pull the camper up a hill…

As with the bike, there are a couple things that will be added.

• a trailer hitch is a must.  Stop by U-Haul.
• an auxiliary adapter for my iPod.  (this one is an “anytime” – the trailer hitch is the biggie)

5) Fitness (diet, yada…yada…yada…)

Today I reboot the whole diet thing.  You all know the routine…

I’m focusing on one habit each week (my weeks start on Friday).  This week will be supplements.  Next week, water.

6) Socks…

The last thing I’m going to mention is something that only a few people will “get”.  I think I figured out “the sock”.

I’m tackling knitting socks for the first time ever and I broke my personal record for the number of times I started the project over again.

I’m using the “magic loop” method and I think what’s making it harder for me to accomplish getting started is the fact that I’m left-handed so everything is backward.

But I think I’ve gotten it (until next time).

Tom is just hoping that he has two socks eventually.

[further note:  I’ve got way too many little blogs for record keeping.  Silly, but it works for me.  Little by little, as there’s something to post, I’ll post links.  Craft patterns (to keep track of what yarns and tools I use and where I buy stuff); diet logs (nobody here really wants to know what I had for breakfast); cycling information (just when DID I get those new tires and how long did it take me to ride to Sand Lake and back?)

Next post…2009 “goals and objectives” (we do not call them “resolutions”, since they are very flexible)