Decisions and Contentment - or 8:28'ed to Tears

Hop in, buckle up, hold on tight, be ready for a long ride today.
 
I am a big fan of Dr. Charles Stanley. I regularly read the In Touch Ministries daily devotional and it usually seems like a great thing to me. Today, their devotional is about "Decisions That Lead to Contentment." And, atypically, I take exception on this devotional.

Oh, there's nothing really wrong with it. It is a short treatise about Romans 8:28-39, quoted, in part, here from the NASB:

²⁸ And we know that ^[a]God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. ²⁹ For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; ³⁰ and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

and quoted here from The Message:

26-30That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun. 

If you have been to church more than a few times, you have probably heard at least one sermon echoing 8:28. It's easy and all to common to pump out a homily about how bad things are really good using this text.

But one thing I have learned over the years is never underestimate the power of Romans when you tackle it. 8:28 is no hole in the line to go rushing through blindly, it is not a magic salve that soothes any pain, and it has certainly, over the years, been the focus of much weak, incomplete, or just plain inappropriate theology. In fact, sometimes the "standard, Sunday School" treatment is just plain wrong.

I have a close spiritual friend who had two babies predecease her. Absolutely 8:28 tells us that God causes their worldly deaths to work "together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."

Someone tell me now how this helps my friend feel better, please!

We are talking about a year of sustained, deep pain and grief, and it is NOT over yet!!
The Sunday School approach, presented in the In Touch devotional, tells you to "choose to accept this as though it's coming from You. No matter what I see, I'm choosing to look to You, Lord." 
Poppycock!! 
I say that because "Oh, bull....! [bullroar, of course:-)]" is not overtly Christian in nature. 


Consider, very simply, the implications of:

called according to His purpose...conformed to the image of His Son...called...justified; and...glorified.

We are called to be glorified and justified. We are called to live a life of glory and justification. We are sanctified. We are saved. We are resurrected. We are immortalized. We are the sons and daughters of God.

If I have a hangnail, then 8:28 me about putting up with it because God wants me not to use that finger for something bad. When I put up with my devastating cluster headaches, God is pimping me through the thorn in my side, probably because of my impatience, definitely because I need to center myself on His purpose, positively because I need to continue seeking justification, sanctification and redemption. When my friend's babies die, when my wife has a coworker whose 2 year old grandson falls out of a 3rd story window to his death, when random teenagers fall victim to bullying in the extreme, when a nutcase goes wacko at an army base and plays spin the Beretta - don't EVEN try to tell me to rejoice because these are all good things. That is theological poppycock, like I said. And, don't EVEN try to reinforce me that all of these things are working together for His purpose, because I already know that. If, for a minute, you make the ridiculous mistake of telling me it's because I have sinned and need to be punished, don't even bother continuing to talk to me and be glad I was not packing a Beretta - not that I would hurt you, but I would scare the bejabbers out of you to catch your attention and then yell and lecture you into blithering submission about your weak theological interpretations.

We are called to be glorified. It ain't easy on the way, boys and girls. God never said it would be easy, He just said we would never be alone. Grieve, cry, mourn my dear friends when you must - I am there with you, and always, too, is God.
 
 
 

Breaking Routine

Ouch!
That is exactly what I said when it happened. I closed the dog door, turned around, and was attacked by a kitchen chair. I never go barefoot. Until Wednesday night when I was carrying my slippers instead of wearing them.

Don't break routine. You don't know what else you might be breaking!

The Xrays were negative. Madi and I think it was dislocated and she relocated it and straightened it when she taped it for me. I had vicodin at home already. It is hurting less all of the time.

Have a great weekend, folks.

Trimming Twitter

Yes, I tweet. No, it is not an addiction for me as it is for some. However, I realized this morning that much of the junk I was reading I had originally "follow"ed because it sounded neat at the time and now it was pretty much a sea of drivel with a few, a very few, nuggets of wisdom included.

So, I "unfollow"ed some of my tweets. I didn't "block" anyone, but I unfollowed several people. I probably get unfollowed too, and for much the same reasons I used today. Too many tweets, too many times the same thing, obviously very reactionary and stuck on one point, and bitter comments about some of the people and movements they most radically oppose.

Those feelings are okay to have; but, expressing them all of the time to everybody else would not win any favor with Dale Carnegie; for sure you are not winning friends and influencing people with a lot of the tweets that I see.

Then there were a couple of the generically generated fact tweets. If they repeat the same facts over and over, and they tweet 18 times a day spouting only marginally interesting, if that, information, then it's out of my window for sure.

So, I am trimming down my input, and I hope to be appropriately pruning my output over the next several days.

Sharing Burdens

Practical Ways to Bear Burdens

 Directly copied from today's In Touch devotional
Comments to follow

Read | 1 Thessalonians 5:14
There are hurting people everywhere, but at times we just don't know what to say or do to ease their pain. Here are six practical ways to bear someone else's burden.

1. Be there. At times the best "method" of helping is simply to be present. During our darkest hours, we don't need someone who tries in vain to fix everything; we just need a friend.
2. Listen. Don't attempt to give answers or tell people what to do next. Injured souls frequently want simply a listening ear so they can express what's on their mind.
3. Share. Never parade yourself as someone who has all the answers. Instead, allow your own pain and failures to help others.
4. Pray. There is power in speaking people's names before the Lord. When they hear someone talk to Jesus on their behalf, healing often starts taking place.
5. Give. Sometimes helping others involves more than a handshake or warm hug. Maybe they need something financial or material. One of the best measures of sincerity is how much we're willing to give to others.
6. Substitute.You may know an individual who bears the burden of caring for someone else. If you step in and take his or her place for a while, you are emulating your Savior--He, too, was a substitute.

Because we were unable to do it ourselves, Jesus bore all of our sin and sorrow, even unto death. As a result, we can live happily and eternally in communion with our Father. If Christ did that for us, how can we ever say, "I'm too busy to bear someone else's burden"?

Copyright 2012 In Touch Ministries, Inc. All rights reserved. www.intouch.org. In Touch grants permission to print for personal use only.

Burdens of others

I sense, lately, a sentiment and a movement that there are a lot of us who would like to reach out and help someone but that we do not really know how. The need and the reticence may both have roots in the materialism of society today. To quote from "The Jerk", "I can live without the money. I just like all the stuff." There is a great tendency to think that stuff is what it's all about where realistically it's thoughts and emotions that are most burdensome. That is why the 6 steps

Be there

Listen

Share

Pray

Give

Substitute

make so much sense. Jesus's guidance is pretty straightforward  about these things: if your neighbor needs it and you have it, give it to your neighbor.

That is true brotherly love.

Unfortunately, a lot of people over the years fall into the trap of "letting Joe do it." If the attitude is "I'm too busy, take care of it for me" prevails, then it is a quick transition to having the government take over, and we end up with robbing from Peter to pay Paul. Smacking loudly of socialism, because it is, we eventually reach the point that there is not enough of somebody else's money to steal and spread around. Big difference when that "somebody else" is allowed and driven to share his gifts with others.

Be that somebody else. Take stock in what you, yourself have. Determine what you are going to do to help your neighbors bear their burdens. Then do it. 

Timing is the Father's Business

Our pastors have been talking about Acts lately, and more specifically addressing the reality of the Resurrection. 

So I dutifully dug out my Bible (typed in biblegateway?) as suggested and read the opening of Dr. Luke's book in two translations - my favored The Message and the latest adopted translation for the LCMS, the English Standard Version.

The Message, Acts 1:1-11

ESV, Acts 1:1-11

The ESV phrase is: “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.” The Message expresses this phrase as: "You don't get to know the time. Timing is the Father's business".

Timing is the Father's business. That was a really neat awareness for the day. It really is His business in different contexts: it's up to Him, not you; it's what He does, His job; timing is something that keeps Him busy, timing does not just happen; ... keep thinking about it for a while.

We who have chosen to be disciples, as the followers of Christ called themselves (or followers of the Way - but NEVER calling themselves Christians, a derogatory term)  try to relate His word to how we choose to live our lives. In so doing we feel like we are following the Way. So, we always jump on Romans 8:26-28 to explain unexplainable, and most of the time bad, stuff: in The Message then the ESV

•   "Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good."
• 26 "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose."

And now I remember the old song, "Who Knows Where or When?" "called according to his purpose" cf. worked into something good. Different, but the same. 


He assures us things will get better. He also assures us that timing is strictly His business. We are well to remember that.

Choosing to Believe?

Infrequently, I disagree with Charles Stanley. When I do, it is undoubtedly the contrast between the Baptist perspective, in which I was raised, and the Lutheran perspective to which I have come over the years. Today's In Touch devotional was an excellent example.

Choosing to Believe

Read | John 3:1-21

Faith isn't something we can lay claim to because we were born to believing parents or have citizenship in a Christian country. Nor can we attain it by attending or even teaching Sunday school, though I've often heard such incorrect assertions. Instead, the following should be true of genuine believers.

A clear understanding of the gospel is essential for a person to believe and receive the good news of Jesus Christ. His death on the cross was the only sacrifice required to remove our sins. God offers His grace as a gift to anyone who will receive it.

A definite decision at a particular point in time serves as a sort of landmark of the heart and mind. People do not just slip into Christianity; faith in Jesus must be chosen. Believers are those who have made a deliberate decision to trust the Lord and follow in His ways.

A blessed assurance follows the clear-cut decision so that believers can be certain of their salvation. God wants confident, assured children (1 John 5:13).

A visible symbol of what happens when someone receives the Savior--namely, baptism--illustrates dying to one's old ways and rising to new life in Christ Jesus. Believers are to take this step as a public way of identifying with Him (Matt. 28:19).

A man or woman of faith chooses to surrender to Christ, embraces the Word of God, and lives fully for the Lord. True believers no longer muddle through the practices of religion out of habit, but instead worship and rejoice in a vibrant personal relationship with the Lord.

Copyright 2012 In Touch Ministries, Inc. All rights reserved. www.intouch.org. In Touch grants permission to print for personal use only.

Here we go - my version!!
First, read Ephesians 2:8-9, like Martin Luther did.
Concentrate on these words: 

"Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. 

Baptists ask for a public affirmation of faith and an (optional) demonstration through baptism. In some cases, the baptism is not optional. Lutherans point to one baptism for salvation. Me, I am an engineer, very binary, very logical. When I finally quit over-analyzing all of this stuff, I realized it is EXACTLY as my Bible says:

1. God had the idea and did it to us; we don't play the major role. Questionably do we play a role at all. So, someone talking about when they were saved is not demonstrating that they are and probably does not realize that they were saved when God turned His back on His Son for that awful time at Calvary.
2. We do not make nor do we save ourselves. It is completely God doing it, a gift, freely given and, by us, MUST BE freely excepted - no strings, no conditions.
3. Thank you, Steven Curtis Chapman, for these words: I know there's a God who knows my name and a Son who died to take the blame; I believe Jesus is comin' back; promises are promises and Facts are Facts." 

All of this is dependent only on the individual knowledge of what is going on. In general works, not even specific is necessary. That is how and why salvation reaches even those who have not had the blessing of hearing or reading The Word, but have come to these realizations through their observation of the world and God's nature.


Then comes FAITH. Boy, do I have fun talking about faith. Faith happens regardless of, despite what we do or think. Once the Holy Spirit finds you, it's all over. Faith formation is His, not yours.


More on that later.

Christians and Gays - It's up to we the people. Or it still was the last time I read the Constitution.

Well, I'm in between a rock and a hard place. North Carolina amendment 1 is up for vote tomorrow. You either have to be for it or against it; I guess like Rush says, even if you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.

Here's my problem. And, I guess it's the problem with a lot of the LGBT hubbub we run into. It is SO, SO, SO binary.

I normally like binary. There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't. being an engineer I am, of course, in category 0. Not in this case though. Feelings, interpretations and explications are not binary. If they were, then there wouldn't be so many different denominations and so many people would not get so rich writing about how gays are wrong/right, gay marriage is wrong/right, love the sinner, love the sin, whatever!! Fill in the string with YOUR favorite aphorism.

Engineers do not have a binary version of the Bible. Yeah, some of the redneck SOBs (Sweet Old Boys, of course) preach infallibility of the "King James Bible." These same guys do not realize that there really isn't a true King James Bible, it is the Authorized Version (actually the Authorised Version) and that there are well over 200 blatant errors well documented throughout Christendom and respected by anyone who actually thinks.

Don't get me wrong. God's word is complete, inerrant and infallible as far as I am concerned. This is a logically defensible binary conclusion for me. Don't debate it off of this post - been through it so many times I am tired of writing about it. But, what the complete, inerrant and infallible Word tells me is really open to interpretation.

My rule 1: scripture interprets scripture. So when I pull out a verse that says if a man has sex with a donkey they should both be put to death I need to read a few verses before and after and cross-referencing from there to get a good idea of what I am talking about.

Rule, or observation, 2: My Bible does not have the terms gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual, queer, dyke, pimp (well, maybe indirectly) - you get the idea. When I read my Bible, I try really hard to decide what the words say to me and how they affect how I should live (thank you Chuck Colson - How Now Shall We Live?). How should you live? I haven't found that in my Bible yet, that is up to you to find.

Rule 3: Wuv, twue wuv, is what bwings us together. In history, when Buttercup was lined up with Humperdinck, it was in a church. It was not in a city hall. It was not in front of Congress or a court. It was a church and they were being treated by that church in accordance with that church's practices and doctrine. (Hate to use the word doctrine, opens up a can of worms. Only way to get rid of a can of worms is to get a bigger can). Marriage has always been a religious thing, up until sometime in the 1800s, and probably the late 1800s. The government, in its infinite wisdom and knowledge that they can tell us how to live better than we can tell ourselves, and, of course, finding a nice new way to make more money, started doing this marriage license and registration thing. Think of it. The first thing they did is start taxing married couples more than singles, right?

Rule 4: My church's belief and interpretation about homosexuality and marriage is NOT your church's (unless we go to the same church, and maybe not even then) and vice versa. As Steven Curtis Chapman said:
I believe there's a God who knows my name
And a son who died to take the blame
I believe Jesus is comin' back
Promises are promises and facts are facts

And then, as the EPA says, your mileage may vary as will your driving habits.

So, after all is said and done, I am not what is known as "gay embracing." Neither do I consider myself what is called homophobic, although a lot of people probably would.  For the record: my Bible tells me that homosexual behavior is a sin. My Bible also tells me that being fat is a sin. Finally my Bible tells me that sin is sin, pick one, any one, it's just as good/bad as any other. So, I'm fat. That's enough, I'm a sinner. Tell the government to shut up about obesity, please, while I tell them to shut up about gay marriage. It's not up to them. It's up to we the people. Or it still was the last time I read the Constitution.