I found a piece of napkin in my Bible. I must have been at a luncheon or something in order to have a napkin.
God works by contraries so that a man feels himself los tin the very moment when he is on the verge of being saved. When God is almost ready to justify a man, He damns him. Whom he would make alive, He must first kill...Man must first cry out that there is no health in him...when a man believes himself to be utterly lost, light breaks. Peace comes in the Word of God through faith.
Death has been called "the new obscenity", the nasty thing that no polite person nowadays will talk about in public. But death, even when unmentionable, remains inescapable. The one sure fact of life is that one day, with or without warning, quietly or painfully, it is going to stop. How will I, then, cope with death when my turn comes? (J.I.Packer, "Growing in Christ")
John Preston said, "I shall change my place, but I shall not change my company."
I was just re-reading a couple of articles...
Barack Obama said during his presidential campaign that Reinhold Niebuhr was one of his favorite philosophers.
I've been reading "Mere Christianity"
Niebuhr said, "we use evil to prevent a greater evil"
and
“There are historic situations in which refusal to defend the inheritance of a civilization, however imperfect, against tyranny and aggression may result in consequences even worse than war”
Lewis said, "There is no evil without good"
some would say that "evil" is the opposite of "good"
Lewis says that evil is not the opposite of good, but rather it's the perversion of good.
There can be no evil without good.
Unless we have the ideal to compare an action to, there is no concept of what it means to violate God's Law.
is having food to eat "evil"? No, it's a good thing, but to have it because you stole it is a perversion of the good thing (having)
Unless you have a concept of what "truth" is, the term "lie" has no meaning.
Rest is a good thing...perverting rest into slothfulness is not.
Wine is a blessing, drunkeness perverts that blessing into something that is not good.
there is a concept of "just war". Some buy into it, others don't.
When Niebuhr said, "we use evil to prevent a greater evil", he was referring to war. If war is always "evil", then protecting a nation against attackers is using evil to prevent greater evil.
Questions:
If evil is not the opposite of good, but rather the perversion of good, what is the good that war is the perversion of?
If war is used to protect and prevent evil, is it "just war" evil?
"Our Father"
Community here on earth. The same Father who is Father to me is the Father to a believer on the other side of the planet.
"our"...unity.
My blood brother has the same physical father as I do. We (Dave and I) are very different, but our dad is the same dad. He treats us differently, because we are different people...but he is the same.
Right now, I'm angry and frustrated with Dave...but he's still my brother and I love him. Don't like him much, but I love him.
We have the same father.
"Father"
the One who gives us life. Who nurtures us, feeds us. the only one who will be there always.
Everybody else will leave, only God is the constant. Trust no one but God.
"Abba" - Father...a term of intimacy, kinship and surety.
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. (Romans 8:14-17, NRSV; cf. Gal. 4:5-6)
A sermon was preached yesterday based on the premise that God knows what we need before we ask...before we even know that we need it. (this, I totally agree with)...
and the instruction: instead of "me, me, me"...for one week, we are not to ask God for anything, but rather we should wait and trust because He already knows what we need.
I'm holding on because I am in constant supplication for strength and help. And I'm supposed to not ask God for anything? Not even help?
Excuse the language: bullshit.
James 1:5
If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.
Luke 11:3
Give us each day our daily bread.
Jesus instructed us, ask. that's good enough for me.
I suppose what got me into trouble was that I said so...in front of my family...and it was my brother-in-law that preached the sermon...
The audio book is on my iPod and I've been listening to it on my travels. I know I have a paper copy somewhere, but I can't put my hands on it right now.
There was something that resonated with me.
Repentance is not "oops, sorry". Lewis said something to the effect that repentance is a turning - an "unlearning" of the bad behavior that has been learned.
(there is a difference between "sin" and "sins" that I may get into later)
But in order to repent, you have to have a part of "good" inside you that wants to unlearn the behavior. That part of you is already good - already turned.
Only a good man can repent. Only a bad man needs to.
Only a perfect man can repent perfectly - and the perfect man doesn't need to.
The bad man must repent and cannot.
Lewis was not Reformed by any stretch of the imagination, but what I can apply here is "regeneration". We are all affected by "total depravity" - every part of us is touched by Adam's sin. We are sinners who sin and we all are in need of repentance.
Through the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, we are enabled to repent, however imperfectly. It is only through the act of the Holy Spirit who calls that we are able to turn to him.
Perfect repentance? Only God is perfect and only Immanuel, God With Us, is our perfection.
I am a bad person. There are things that I don't know how to repent of! I can only trust Christ to cover that sin.,
What enchants thee into such folly as to remain in a pit when thou mayest sit on a throne? LIve not in the lowlands of bondage now that mountain liberty is conferred upon thee. Rest no longer satistfied with thy dwarfish attainments but press forward to things more sublime and heavenly. Aspire to a higher, a nobler, a fuller life - Upward to heaven!
In the midst of a trial, a maelstrom of emotions, it is so difficult to see the next possibility. There have been many points in my life that I just didn't know what to do next. Sometimes - the object is just to get...
through...
this...
day.
But time passes and life goes on. Sometimes things are set right (or at least better), sometimes not. A grief, an illness, a disappointment. but somehow all these things work to the glory of God.
And all things work together for the good of those who love Christ. Keep the eye on that ball.
Morning and Evening...
okay, another one: Spurgeon quote of the day.
(trying to figure out how to make sure Tom leaves for college with an iPod touch)
As I knit, I've been knitting socks, I've been using a variety of patterns. After browsing patterns (mostly looking at pictures, I can sort out the patterns later) I noticed that they mostly follow the same basic structure.
Cast on 64 (56, 48, 32). Are all socks multiples of 8? The vast majority, yes. ok.
There are only two places that the sock "decreases" - the heel and the toe. I use the "magic loop" method of sock knitting, so I have the sock in two parts (the top of the foot and the bottom of the foot). You decrease 1 stitch at both ends of both these parts every other row.
For a while I worried about trying to remember if I had decreased the even rows or the odd rows and then I just decided that (if I had to) I would adjust the pattern so that I also decreased on the odd rows.
During the decrease times, I knit even (no increase, no decrease) on the even rows.
Once I established this habit, it became...well, a habit. I have a row counter, if it's an even row, I knit even.
One of the big political flaps of the week was the Letterman/Palin media scuffle.
Other than the "top ten" lists, I'm not a big Letterman fan. I appreciate the Palin family's protection (even if overly dramatic) of their child.
Matthew 18 may (or may not) apply - Letterman does not claim to be a brother in Christ. But we are to show the world how repentance and forgiveness works. If Palin had gone privately to Letterman first, perhaps there would have been a different ending? Right now, the sincerity of the apology is being debated; if the confrontation had been private and Letterman had said the same thing, there would be no debate.
Palin made political hay. While I understand her very public defense of her daughter and would most likely (at the very least have been tempted to) do the same, she still made hay.
Over the last couple of days, Sarah Palin had two roads. Her "acceptance" of the apology is just as insincere as the apology is made out to be. Her chiding had no place in the forgiveness by a Christian.
"Of course it's accepted on behalf of young women, like my daughters, who hope men who 'joke' about public displays of sexual exploitation of girls will soon evolve."
In an ideal world, it would have been
"Of course, on behalf of women everywhere, it's accepted."
Period. Just as "sorry...but..." apologies have a more appropriate ending, so do acceptances.
But that is what is it is.
Just as important:
Just as important is the response of Christians.
I've written before about how an apology is a cheap substitute for real repentance. and "I accept" is a cheap substitute for real forgiveness.
Real forgiveness means restoration and a promise to not hold the offense against the offender again. Ever.
An opportunity to show the Gospel has been passed up. If the Palins (including Willow) had agreed to be on Letterman's show and if Willow had held Letterman's hand and said,
"We all do things that are wrong and we all need forgiveness. I have been forgiven by God and I forgive you."
What would that have told the world?
But no...there is hay to be made.
On "The Two Kingdoms":
The first is the earthly kingdom (in which Calvin includes government, household management, all mechanical skills, and the liberal arts) exists and we exist in it.
The heavenly kingdom (the knowledge of God and of his will, and the rule by which we conform our lives to it) also exists and we exist in it.
It is the separation of these two kingdoms that allow me to be politically and socially active (and not constantly include "as a Christian"...or "as a Reformed Christian") and religiously active (and not constantly feel the need to inject politics into my faith).
I am active in both kingdoms and do not deny either.
When we look to politics for answers to our faith, we are running to the created world (this does not mean that Christians should not be politically active; this means that we should not look to the government to the solutions for our [general "our"; human beings] spiritual questions.
There are those who end up treating radical (or even not so radical) conservatism or liberalism as the "solution" to man's problems. If we only had more money for this program, if abortions were available for any reason, for anybody at any time....and free, if the government would get out of the way, if liberals would get out of the education system, yada, yada...everything would be wonderful!
Man's problem is sin and the solution is Christ.
If a young single high school student gets pregnant, has the kid, lets the government pay for her home, post-high-school education, food stamps, medical care, etc...and then gets pregnant again...and again turns to the government...
the answer to her problem is not to get more government spending. Her problem is her lifestyle and the answer is Christ.
These are the two kingdoms - earthly and heavenly. As Christians, we believe that we are in the world, but not of the world. As members of the earthly kingdom, we can (and should) work to make our physical environment a better place, but we strive for the heavenly kingdom.