Christianity

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my mom dislocated her artifical hip.

She will be transfered tonight to a specialty hospital and the hip will be replaced tomorrow. She is mid-recovery after a difficult back surgery, so time spent way from physical therapy will be a big setback.

My lead teacher, Becky is in the ICU with H1N1 complications.

She is immuno-compromised after cancer treatments (she is partway through a round of chemo - not for cancer but for rheumetoid arthritis) and the complication that she is dealing with is her asthma symtoms.

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This morning we were in the church service (which almost always is started with prayer).  This morning Jeremiah (the worship leader) just jumped right into the music (and he is the best "pray-er" I have heard at this church).

He was leading the music at the right speed, but after the intro when he started singing it was at twice the speed we should have been singing.

After the first line, he stopped..."Somebody up here needs to calm down and I think it's me.  Let's stop right now and pray."  And he did.

After that...it was wonderful.  It's not the teaching or the leadership that keeps me going to this church...it's Jeremiah.

"All Creatures of Our God and King"

All creatures of our God and King,
lift up your voices, let us sing:
Alleluia, alleluia!
Thou burning sun with golden beams,
thou silver moon that gently gleams,
Refrain:
O praise him, O praise him,
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

Thou rushing wind that art so strong,
ye clouds that sail in heaven along,
O praise him, Alleluia!
Thou rising morn, in praise rejoice, ye lights of evening, find a voice, (R)


And thou, most kind and gentle death,
waiting to hush our latest breath,
O praise him, Alleluia!
Thou leadest home the child of God,
and Christ our Lord the way hath trod: (R)

Let all things their Creator bless,
and worship him in humbleness,
O praise him, Alleluia!
Praise, praise the Father, praise the Son,
and praise the Spirit, Three in One: (R)

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The Parables of Jesus: Entering, Growing, Living, and Finishing in God's Kingdom by Terry Johnson

If you ask, "Why did Jesus teach in parables?" most people will answer:  "to make it easier to understand."

When the disciples asked Jesus why He taught in parables, He answered, "

This is why I speak to them in parables:
"Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing, they do not hear or understand.

In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
" 'You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
For this people's heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.'

But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it. (Matt 13:13-17 ESV)

According to Jesus, He used parables not to make it easier to understand, but to make it more difficult to understand!

Why?  Johnson puts forward the thought that parables were perfect for Jesus' "purposes in election".

He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. (v.11)

I think the verse that follows contradicts the imposition of the doctrine of election into this passage, though.

Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. (v.12)

I think this verse says that (even if there is no doctrine of election and we all start out with the same ability), those who have even a little bit of understanding will be given more...and those who refuse to listen to the Word will have even what they started with taken away.

But the point remains that Jesus used parables to illuminate the truth to some...and to veil it to others.

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Charity of the week:

C-snip.

We'll be making a trip here over Christmas break (the vet wants to wait until Toby's skin as really cleared up before we have him "fixed".  For an extra $10 I have have him micro-chipped and registered.

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This sounds like a good series that I may save up for.

(tag: Christianity, books)

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Interesting thought:  "If you consent to it, it's not a crime."

(tag: politics)

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Should Christians Say That Their Aim Is to Convert Others to Faith in Christ?

(tag: Christianity, salvation)

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One way to fund the new "health care" bill - tax life saving and life enhancing equipment.

Speaking as a person who uses a C-pap, and with a parent with multiple joint replacements...yippee.

AND

Shutting Off the Miracle Drug Spigot

(tag: politics, health care)

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For those who claim the Gospel of John was written by a group of people - ummm...yes.

(tag: Christianity, Scripture)

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Brain Cramps for God: Free...and a Slave

(tag: Christianity, doctrine)

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Borrowed Light:  Bare Minimum Required

(tag: Christianity, salvation)

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Resurgence:  What is Scripture?

(tag: Christianity, Scripture)

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Denny Burk: Pro-life Conversion at Planned Parenthood (what a difference a picture makes)

(tag: abortion)

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Of First Importance:  (I like this quote:)

“Spiritual experience that does not arise from God’s word is not Christian experience. . . . Not all that passes for Christian experience is genuine. An authentic experience of the Spirit is an experience in response to the gospel.  Through the Spirit the truth touches our hearts, and that truth moves our emotions and effects our wills.”

-  Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, Total Church (Wheaton, Ill.; Crossway Books, 2008), 31.

(tag: Christianity, Scripture)

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Zero Net-carb Bagels - might be worth a try

(tag: food, low-carb)

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White Horse Inn - The Virgin Mary and ECT, a Response from Michael Horton

(tag: Christianity, Evangelicals and Catholics Together)

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Another good quote:

"Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle that fits them all." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

(tag: Christianity)
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- I like

(tags: Christianity, Reformed, Solas, clothing)

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Why Evangelicals Turn to the Church Fathers

(tag: Christianity, church fathers)

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I just read the letter to the church as Ephesus again.

...For he himself is our peace...

Christ is our peace, if we look anywhere else, we won't find it.

...He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near....

Christ is our peace and He came to preach peace and He sends us to preach peace. Not peace with the world, but peace with the Father, because it is only through the Son that we can reach the Father.

...I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God's grace given me through the working of his power.

Paul was a servant of the gospel...yes, and a slave to Christ. For him, his position of servant and slave was a position of strength, not weakness.

When Paul wrote this letter, he was in prison for preaching the gospel, and he kept right on preaching. He was no wimp. He was a strong leader and he was a devoted servant.

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength. (Phil 4:12,13)

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Today is the Jewish Day of Atonement and it brought to mind a post I wrote a while ago:

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When I think of "sacrifice" - the first sacrifice that comes to my mind is the sacrifice of my Saviour. The story of the scapegoat is such a beatiful "looking forward" to Christ. Too many times we read the New Testament through the eyes of the Old Testament; today I read the Old Testament with eyes fixed on Christ.

The Scapegoat by William Holman Hunt, 1854. Hunt had this framed in a picture with the quotations "Surely he hath borne our Griefs and carried our Sorrows; Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of GOD and afflicted." (Isaiah 53:4) and "And the Goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a Land not inhabited." (Leviticus 16:22)

Leviticus 16:7-22.

The only time this word "azazel" is used in the Bible is in reference to the "Day of Atonement"

Aaron was to take two goats and cast lots over them - one of the goats would be for the sacrifice, the other would be for "Azazel" (KJV translates "azazel" as scapegoat; the word has two roots ez [she-goat, goat, kid] and azal [to go away, evaporated, gone])

Before anything - Aaron was to sacrifice a bull as a sin offering for himself and to make atonement for himself and his household...

Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people and bring its blood inside the veil

Aaron was to do with the first goat as he had done with the bull - the blood of the sacrifice was to be sprinkled on the mercy seat.

And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness. The goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself

Many people have never read this story - we know the word "scapegoat" but don't really know how Biblical it is.

The people of Israel were sinners (aren't we all?). On their Day of Atonement, all of their sins were placed on the scapegoat and sent away.

How does this relate to us?

As Christians, our day of atonement came on the day Christ died on the cross. On our Day of Atonement, all of our sins were laid upon the Lamb of God.

Romans 3:25
God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.

Just as Aaron laid the sins of Israel on the scapegoat, so God laid on Christ the iniquity of us all (Isa 53:6) Christ his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24), just as the goat bore all of Israel's iniquity on itself.

The goat went out into the wilderness. The Hebrew word is midbar {mid-bawr'} and means (among other things) "uninhabited land" - a place where nobody was. Psalm 103:12 tells us that "as far as the east is from the west,so far does he remove our transgressions from us. That's a long way. Not only that, but our sins are gone out from us, Jeremiah tells us that (under the New Covenant) God will forgive our iniquity and remember our sin no more.

Our sin is GONE and God will remember it NO MORE!

The carnival theme is "the Beauty of Sacrifice" - how beautiful is "NO MORE"?

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From Spurgeon's "Morning and Evening"...good words

Justified by Christ

"Just, and the justifier of him which believeth."
--Romans 3:26
Being justified by faith, we have peace with God. Conscience accuses no
longer. Judgment now decides for the sinner instead of against him. Memory
looks back upon past sins, with deep sorrow for the sin, but yet with no
dread of any penalty to come; for Christ has paid the debt of His people
to the last jot and tittle, and received the divine receipt; and unless
God can be so unjust as to demand double payment for one debt, no soul for
whom Jesus died as a substitute can ever be cast into hell. It seems to be
one of the very principles of our enlightened nature to believe that God
is just; we feel that it must be so, and this gives us our terror at
first; but is it not marvellous that this very same belief that God is
just, becomes afterwards the pillar of our confidence and peace! If God be
just, I, a sinner, alone and without a substitute, must be punished; but
Jesus stands in my stead and is punished for me; and now, if God be just,
I, a sinner, standing in Christ, can never be punished. God must change
His nature before one soul, for whom Jesus was a substitute, can ever by
any possibility suffer the lash of the law.

Therefore, Jesus having taken the place of the believer--having rendered a
full equivalent to divine wrath for all that His people ought to have
suffered as the result of sin, the believer can shout with glorious
triumph, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" Not God,
for He hath justified; not Christ, for He hath died, "yea rather hath
risen again." My hope lives not because I am not a sinner, but because I
am a sinner for whom Christ died; my trust is not that I am holy, but that
being unholy, He is my righteousness. My faith rests not upon what I am,
or shall be, or feel, or know, but in what Christ is, in what He has done,
and in what He is now doing for me. On the lion of justice the fair maid
of hope rides like a queen.

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From the blog of Lydia Brownbeck:

A wise man told me, "Life is a testing ground, not a resting ground."

Life may not turn out the way we want it to...many times it may not turn out the way we expect it to.

We may lose that which we cherish, we may never get that which we want desperately.

Through it all, we are told to trust God...but trust in what?

Trusting that God will make it all turn out the way that we have it all planned is not trust.

Trusting that God is in control and will make it turn out according to His plan...that is trust.

God sees with eternity in mind...we can only see this life. HOW we trust God may end up nearly as important to our spiritual growth as THAT we trust God.