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Reason #2 - I'm not going back

OK - maybe not the whole thing. Taken one piece at a time.

A self-challenge. It just hit me today how comforting it is to believe that God has me. No matter what, who, how, where, when. God HAS ME.

I was listening to Matt Chandler. No matter what things come my way, if God's not in control, what good is suffering? If God cannot make this work out for good, why suffer?

Even if we cannot comprehend what good "this" could be...God does know, He has us in His hands.

Also reading Acts 9. Saul was minding his own business (of persecuting Jesus) when he was knocked on his butt. Not exactly consensual.

Later in the chapter, Peter raised Dorcas from the dead. Was she exercising her "free will"?

I need to touch base with the fundamentals. This challenge will be a cool start.

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Yeah, "right to work" and "abortion" have a parallel.

Having a conversation with a liberal about "right to work" - I said it would be good to be able to choose whether to join a labor union. He said, "You do have a choice - you can choose not to work at a company that has a union."

?

Let's pop abortion in there.

😉

Liberal: "It would be good, even necessary, to have a choice."
Conservative: "You do have a choice. You can choose to not have sex, you can choose to use birth control and if you find yourself pregnant you can choose to raise the child or put him or her up for adoption.

See how they would reject that?

Liberal: choice for me...but not for thee....

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Did Moses Write the Pentateuch?

A list of Scriptures that name Moses as the author from True Paradigm

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Bringing Marriage Back to Earth

by Brian Tallman, Ligonier Ministries

Common critiques of contemporary marriage in the West often include the recognition that marriage has become too sentimentalized. In light of Calvin’s comments, I wonder if the church isn’t guilty of making marriage too spiritual.

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50 Things the Holy Spirit Does

What follows are 50 things the Holy Spirit does according to the New Testament. If you find this list helpful, share it on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Via Adrian Warnock

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Why aren't we calling it the "royal fetus"? by Denny Burk

What is the difference between this “royal baby” and the unborn child in the womb of a mother in the waiting room of an abortion clinic? There’s no intrinsic difference in terms of their humanity. The only difference is that one is wanted and the other is not. Thus, the one gets the status of “baby” and the other is euphemized as a fetus, blastocyst, or blob of cells.

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Microwave Suffering by Mike Leake (Borrowed Light)

It seems to me that some believers—myself included—think that suffering is like the second type of microwave meal. When we are put into the furnace of suffering for a season we assume that we will come through the other end chiseled and no longer in need of suffering. It confuses us when the Master has to toss us around and then put us back into the kiln.

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We owe as much to God the Holy Spirit as we do to God the Son - Charles Spurgeon Quote, via "of First Importance:

Let us ever remember that Christ on the cross is of no value to us, apart from the Holy Spirit in us.

In vain that blood is flowing, unless the finger of the Spirit applies the blood to our conscience; in vain is that garment of righteousness wrought out, unless the Holy Spirit wraps it around us and arrays us in its costly folds.

The river of the water of life cannot quench our thirst, till the Spirit presents the goblet and lifts it to our lips.

All the things which are in the paradise of God could never be blissful to us, so long as we are dead souls — and dead we are, until that heavenly wind comes and breathes upon us, that we may live.

We do not hesitate to say that we owe as much to God the Holy Spirit as we do to God the Son.

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I'm reading "A More Profound Alleluia" and it's worth the read. I have a hard copy somewhere, but bought the Kindle version, plus another to loan out.

This particular volume highlights arguably the most important connections that need to be made for worship to be well grounded - namely, the connections between our liturgical actions and our understanding of the God we worship. After all, as D. A. Carson has observed, "worship" is a transitive verb.'

What is important is not that we worship, but rather that we worship God. For all our talk about "grounding worship in theology,"most Christians (and even Christian leaders) actually spend very little energy working at it. By and large, most of us accept ideas about God, salvation, and the church that are in the cultural air we breathe, and we worship in ways that make us most comfortable.

The distinction between THAT we worship and WHO we worship reminded me of the words of Calvin - the human heart is an idol factory.

What/who do we worship? It's not a matter of whether or not we worship, it's whether we have God as the object of our worship.

How does our worship point to God? I know that our contemporary services don't leave room for "liturgy" - although we certainly have an "order of worship." I had been attending a Lutheran Church and I fell into the liturgy. Every single Sunday, I got the body and blood of Christ, every single Sunday, I said the Lord's Prayer with fellow believers all over the world. Every single Sunday I recited the "Apostles' Creed" with spiritual siblings all over the planet.

There is a solemnity - profundity - in these things that I miss. I love this new church, but I miss the profundity.

The phrase from the quote - "we worship in ways that make us most comfortable,"

we have now been trained to see "7-11" as the norm. Fluff, focus on self. Band "solos." The rape of hymns. I don't know how to get back to where this church was 6 months ago when I first went there. I don't know if I can, or should. I'm tired of feeling like I've been led to a church to be the sand in their eye and I don't want to do that or be that here!

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Here's the "usual" morning.

Coffee maker is prepared the night before and on a timer. Cream is in the cup and in the fridge (plastic cup so the heat won't kill it)

My downstairs neighbors work 3rd shift and get home about 5 minutes before the alarm goes off (I can tell because the dogs get active) and that means I have a little bit of time to stretch and pray before I have to hit the floor. I've set the alarm to go off 30 minutes before I have to get ready for work (coffee,internet,pain time)

The alarm goes off and I swing my feet out of bed. My foot hits the floor and it starts. The place on my butt gets sore and my leg is tingly down to the knee. Before I get to the bedroom door, I'm tingly all the way down to my feet. By the time I get to the bathroom, the back of my leg feels like somebody's hitting me with a baseball bat.

Back in the kitchen: coffee in the creamer, neurantin (600 mg), ibuprofen (800 mg) and vicodine (5 mg) - at the worst of it, I was taking 5 Ibuprofen a day and 6 vicodine. I started with 300 mg. of the neurantin, working up to 6 pills (1800 mg a day, over three doses - five weeks to get there.) I have no clue if the neurantin is working, since progress comes after an injection, not after the dose increases. I'm experiencing some side effects, so I'm starting to ramp back down.

Back to the bedroom. By this time, my foot feels like it's in an industrial vise. I have a high bed, so I stand with my right (sore) leg up on the mattress (I call it the "flamingo stretch",) drinking my coffee and reading my iPad, giving the meds time to work before I get ready for work. Getting out of the shower, I sit on the edge of the tub to stretch and dress before I get my makeup on.

Last Monday, I had that cortisone shot into my piriformis muscle. They said 3-7 days before I really saw a difference. I've seen a little progress, but little enough so that I've made arrangements to get oral prednisone if I don't see wonderful progress before I have to drive up to Marquette to get Tom.

Today. No alarm 😉

I sat up and instead of asking for strength for the day, I thanked God for my healing or cure. I thanked Him for relief from the pain. And if He chose not to give me that relief, I thanked Him for whatever He might have me learn from this process.

My foot hit the floor. That "spot" was tight, but no pain.

Bedroom door...a little tingle...still no pain.

Bathroom door...still no pain, and just a little tingly.

Coffee with real milk (the cream I bought yesterday had clots in it) and...the neurantin (half dose) and nothing else.

I put on shoes around 1:00 and felt it when I pulled wrong...and ended up taking a vicodine at 2:00, no ibuprofen (I'm scheduled for another epidural injection on Tuesday, so no NSAIDS.)

that's it.

Whether it's the injections, the exercises, the diet, the pills...or the grace of God.

Something's working

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Here's the way it went: I crashed my bicycle in June. It hurt, there was a huge bruise and a little ache.

My handlebar swung around and dug into my left (outer) thigh (thus the huge bruise) and I landed on my right hip.

I was stiff and sore, but was able to move. A LOT. I spent a lot of time hiking over the summer, but getting out of bed (I was sleeping on a blow-up mattress for most of the summer) got harder.

Trips were causing the pain in my hip to get worse and I was feeling sciatic pain by the end of August. Sitting for long periods (trips) made the "issue" much worse with each trip. Taking my son to college was the beginning of the "bad ones" and a 7 hour trip took nearly 10 so I could get out and walk.

Right after that, though, I took a couple 6 hour rides from San Jose to Mount Shasta (and around) and I was stiff, but not in pain.

Then school started. A few things, all at once. Sitting more and moving less. Reintroduce bad eating habits. I went back to the chiropractor and I believe he made things worse.

Another trip to CA; another trip to Marquette. Each made my "back" worse.

Sciatic = back, right?

Maybe not.

Weeks of physical therapy didn't help.

Massive amounts of NSaids didn't help.

Tramadol didn't help

I got referred from the sports doctor to the spine doctor when I was told that if I kept taking the Nsaids I could bleed out and die. I said that I'd update my will...must give me something that will work! A prescription for Vicodine and another for Neurantin...and a plan for epidural cortisone injections into S1/L5 and L4&5

At my worst, I was taking 6 vicodine a day and taking 800 mg of Ibuprofen 4 times a day. With the Neurantin. The pain was minimal (once the pills got into my system) and I was pretty functional.

I'd been doing this for 6 weeks

After the epidual injections (the procedure was great; the nurse asked if I wanted to know when she was going to poke me, I said "no" and the next thing I knew I was waking up in recovery) - anyway, after that, I had no pain in my back, but the sciatica was nearly as bad. I did drop to 3 vicodine a day and upped the Neurantin (per the doctor) and backed off the ibuprofen.

I'd been doing this for 2 months.

I was at my physical therapist and we were talking about how the pain manifested (where, when, how) We were going through a series of stretches and she said..."oh...that's the piriformis"

Think - you have a rotator cuff in in your shoulder, you have one in your hip, also. The piriformis muscle is one of the muscles in the "hip rotator cuff"

If you know how it feels to have a shoulder injury, mine is in my butt - the muscle that makes you able to swing your foot back and forth.

So, the pain in my back was now a pain in my ass (butt, hip)

I have a folded towel on the side of my bathtub so I can sit while I dry and dress.

This Monday I had a cortisone injection into my piriformis. The technique is quite interesting and I only felt a couple of small stabs of pain...but more light pressure.

Today was day 3 after the injection. I was told to expect relief in 3 to 7 days. So far, the pain is just as constant, but not as heavy. The drugs knock it back easier. (By "constant" I mean that if I don't take the drugs, the pain is there. With meds, I had a VERY pain-free today.)

The idea is not so much that the injection will be a cure; but that it will give me enough relief time to do the stretchy physical therapy needed to cure myself.

Tomorrow, I'll describe my pain.

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[rating=5][relatedratings=null][rating=4]"If God is Good, Why Do We Hurt?"

Because I'm hurting this was not only a good book to read, it was a hard book to read. I don't like this paint and (even though the doctors believe it's an injury and not an ongoing thing) I'm ready to be done.

Let God show me quickly what He wants me to learn and just get it over with.

Then again...

Whenever we’re tempted to think God has messed up our nice world by interjecting evil and suffering into it, let’s remember that in fact we messed up God’s perfect world by interjecting evil and suffering. Then he suffered evil by our hands so that we could forever be delivered from evil and suffering and death. Rather than blaming or resenting God, we should be overwhelmed with gratitude that because of his work of grace on the cross, our suffering need not be eternal, but only temporary.

I am called to see this pain as a reminder how much He suffered for me.

And he will deliver you through your present suffering, though not always from it. In fact, the Bible assures believers, “It has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him” (Philippians 1:29). Jesus said, “In the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33, ESV). Suffering—whether from persecution, accidents, or illnesses—shouldn’t surprise us. God has promised it. And when it comes, people should lose their faith in false doctrine, not in God.

But even now, as you face suffering, God will give you joyful foretastes of living in his presence. That’s his promise as well, and also his instruction: “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:12–13).

If I take away nothing more than that from this book, it will be well read.

I read a couple of other books on suffering, this one has had more "meat" than the others...

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I'm not sure how to add a youtube video from my ipad, so...

here's the link

or

Anyway, I'm going through Advent devotionals, and I'm reminded (again) that we need Christmas, because we need the cross more.

My daily Bible reading was Acts 4. Verses 14 and 15

But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses

Bonhoeffer wrote:

We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God’s coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God’s coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us.

Sh'ma tells us to "hear, o Israel, that our God is One" -

Every member of the Trinity is involved in Advent - God the Father, sent God the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit to be born in a manger, in order so that He might die, so that we might live.

Our God is One
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “The Coming of Jesus in Our Midst”

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Reason #2 - I'm not going back.

Perseverance and assurance may go hand in hand, but they're not the same thing.

Perseverance and "once saved always saved" may sound like they're the same, but they're not.

Assurance is in the "now" - right now, you can be sure of your salvation.

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life - 1 John 5:13

"Assurance" means that right now, this very minute, you can know that you have eternal life. It may be, if you believe such things, that tomorrow or the next day...or sometime in the future...you may sin too much or do too little and lose it. You can be assured now...but tomorrow may be a different story. You have the choice, in the future, to walk away.

"Once saved, always saved" gives the impression that..well, just what it says. No matter what you do or believe, you have no choice. It's the "fire insurance" way of thinking. Even if you want to walk away...shoot...even if you DO walk away...you're stuck with your salvation. "Once saved, always saved" is about what you have.

"Perseverance of the saints" is very different. It's not our salvation that is preserved...it's God who makes us persevere. If we are in Christ, we don't WANT to walk away.

"6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" ` Philippians 1:6

We are now, and will be, assured of our salvation because we are preserved and sealed by the Holy Spirit.

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory ` Eph. 1:11-14

Conclusion - both "perseverance" and "once saved, always saved" comes with assurance, and even "I can lose it later" can have assurance in the present.

"OSAS" - you don't have a choice if you wanted it
"POTS" - even if you have the choice, you are sealed by the promise that you won't want the choice.

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I was at a work site the other day and picked up a leaflet with the title "(Way More Than) 100 Things Every Religious Liberal Should Know"

My first thought was: Why is this church trying to limit the audience? Okay, maybe I read more into that than I need to...but then, the next paragraph

(A list of terms and ideas that every religious liberal should know, to be religiously literate.)

So they iterated twice, that the list is for religious liberals (a discussion for another day)

I'm a long way from liberal, but I'm pretty religiously literate. There are nearly 200 terms on this list and I'm at least passingly familiar with many, if not most of them.

Since (every/this) New Year brings (another) commitment to blog on a regular basis, I'm uploading the list now, with the intent of exploring/blogging about them later

...continue reading →