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Honesty can be a terrible thing.

When we stop and spend some quality time trying to understand ourselves. What we find most of the time is dishonesty.  Not that we go around telling lies, making false promises, little innuendoes, and even go to the point of malicious slander.  But what are our popular examples? In the world of politics it is easier to brand someone a “racist”, than to make a intellectual study of their views and try to understand the underlying motives of the person. In our efforts to be relevant, we search social media for anything that would support the politically correct idea of modernism, and post and repost those thoughts, instead of putting your own ideas.  Advertisers subtlety ply the airwaves with the “greatest and latest”, and have to be followed by a litany of side effects, usefulness, disclaimers and other explanations of the claims.

I ordered a part for my old truck and they charged me immediately, their site says shipping in 2 or 3 days.  No part after a week.  Working through the phone tree and leaving 5 messages, I finally received a response that they would be shipping today.  Promises not kept.

Taxpayers evade their legal obligations. Religionists are hypocritical. Where is the honesty?

There are exceptions in every category I have mentioned, but dishonesty is so common in our modern society that all of us are tempted to practice it. I read the other day about self-checkout systems at stores and the commentator stated, “if you don’t cheat, you are crazy, the loss is so small they would not miss a few things.”  We can well rationalize our conscience, but that is simply dishonesty with ourselves.  It is well possible to get to a point at which our dishonesty overwhelms our better nature. The acts of dishonesty can be simple and easy to forget.  Never-the-less, when we are honest with ourselves that falseness cannot be ignored. 

Honesty with ourselves requires the examination of the why of our lives; the motives of life. We must get to a point where our desire to be honest outweighs any act. 

Honesty with ourselves requires the examination of our motives in all things. Honesty with self, will lead to honesty with others, for all men know that the conscious misleading of others has in its nature dishonesty with one’s self. We all know that every lie leaves us with something to confess or to rationalize. Your decision.

Just thinking. ?

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Tear down that wall!

I wanted to post this picture to remind myself and anyone in my Blog-sphere, there is so much misconception of the relationship between the Government of the United States and religion. The founding fathers saw the excesses placed in government when the government was inextricably joined to a point there was no difference. Religion was the state and the state was religion. The issue was not the good of the church, it was the possibility of religion being able to control of the state.
You may well think I am splitting hairs here, but in reality, there is a vast difference between religion and the church. The words in our constitution say little about church; it refers to religion. They are not the same.
The church is a body of believers, caring, loving, freedom loving and wanting the best for the country in which it finds itself. Religion is more about standards, rules, boundaries.
Our beloved United States Constitution speaks of Freedom of Religion and NOT Freedom from church. There is a big difference.

If there is any hope for our country, there can not be a WALL between the two. They work together. This picture is trying to say they can’t. Our Country worked as a cooperative community until we reached a point that the church was seen as an enemy not an ally. Church must be the moral compass which points the pathway. The state may well choose another but whichever path they choose the compass still points the way. We don’t need a wall that separates separates we need a compass that always points upwards.

Ramblings

NO!

Living in the fall years of my life, the most feared word in my world is “NO”.  No, means I shouldn’t, or can’t, or must not do something or have something.  One of the first words we all learn as very small children is the word “NO”. And now that dreaded negative faces me every day.  Whether by respect of others or knowing full well that I will often ignore the admonition of “NO”, there are few that would tell me to my face “NO”.  What has happened is that here in my now and whatever is left of this finite number of years is most of the “NO” in my life has become self-imposed. With all honesty it is easy to say “NO” to my self urge to go run a marathon. “NO” is easy to someone with who understands the changes to lifestyle that comes from making a few more cycles around the sun. 

I have learned that going to COSTCO and buying 2,000 rolls of toilet paper may not be a good thing because the last 2,000 rolls are still taking all the storage space in the laundry room already.  When the pre-pubescent counter person at the local fast food restaurant says, “Would you like to supersize that?”, I have learned to say “NO”.  How did I learn to say “NO” to my self?

I have learned to say that word because I have figured out for every “YES” which I do say, inherently I have to say “NO” to something else.  I have learned with every decision I make, another decision is made for me.  If I say “NO” to two pounds of French fries covered with another pound of chili all covered again with grated sharp cheddar cheese, I am saying “YES” to being able to sleep tonight.

I am studying Haggai in the Old Testament.  The goal of all the city of Jerusalem was to rebuild a temple which had be destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar 70 year before.  The new King Cyrus the Persian sent the craftsmen and builders to rebuild the temple.  They had reset the foundations and then stopped.  They decided their own homes were more important.  I saying yes to their own needs they were saying “NO” to their religious and principal duties.  It was Haggai the prophet that had to remind them they had their “YES”, “NO”, priorities messed up.

What was going on in Haggai was the “NO” were getting in the way of their “YES”.  So I am going to be more careful in self imposed “NOs” with the hope of being about to say “YES” more often.

Culture, Personal, Politics, Ramblings

Fertile soil of life

Chesterfield wrote that “without a good moral soil, art and reason will never flourish.” As I look around me, whether in politics, art, music, reason, discourse, conversation and culture, it is all about self. The culture today is one of no central moral soil.  We have no real moral compass that allows art and reason to find a home.  Without an environment of living for more than self, there will be no great art, no great discourse, no great progress, no great furtherance of life.

I just don’t see this infertile soil of morality today nurturing the best things, the progressive things, the living things that makes life worth the living.  Trying to live in a culture where what ever is good enough, is nothing more than a life of just getting on.  It is a life of pure pragmatism.  It is a life without hope. It is a life of what ever works.  There is little trying to make things better.  It is a pragmatism which settles for the moment and never for the possibility of future.  It is a place where majority ideas and thought patterns become the new norm. Further, this new norm changes from day to day.

Our culture just follows along, just staying a step ahead of the slowest.  Never excelling, never having a thought of our own. The mantra says, “What ever works for you must be good enough for me.”

I read some parts of social media.  The idea for a place to share your thoughts and ideas is a great concept.  But it has become a place of redundant re-post after re-post.  No new ideas, no sharing of who we really are.  All shares are of things or ideas of others that agree with you; fully expecting by taking the effort to post something at all is making the assumption that someone might be persuaded to think like you.  There is no critical thinking, no trying to learn of the person behind the pretty head shot picture.  There is no effort to learn more or to understand.  It is all being more impressive and thought provoking by posting someone the common drivel of some one else. There is no discourse for understanding. “If you don’t agree with them, that must be your problem. 

Meaning, purpose, commonality, adventuring spirit, an ever pushing ahead is simply not tolerated. And heaven forbid if I disagree with your post.  “Don’t do that, it offends me.” If you are going to post an idea of someone else you need to be able to defend that position, not to sit in the corner yelling, “I don’t love you anymore mommy.”

All that remains for our unthinking pragmatism is a comfortable existence of being OK.  No excellence, no reason, no meaning, no purpose, no excitement, no zest, no reaching out, no life but the status quo.  In the end, in doing only what works for you in the moment, will result in the discovery that it simply does not work for you.  Your life becomes a habitual malaise. Contrary thought is condemned.  Finding the reason for action becomes just too much work.  Purpose becomes, “just getting along.”  Life is nothing more than “safe spaces” and political correctness. It is a place where everyone gets a trophy.  It is an environment where equal rights become a demand for equal results.  There is no place for excellence.

It is only in finding more than self, more than the status quo, more than just getting along, more than pragmatism, more than being politically correct, more than being the perfect mediocre.  It is only within the eternal does the temporal find its relevance.  There is nothing without that eternal compass, that fertile soil seeded with the eternal which gives life more meaning.  IT is not things, or posts or the number of likes.

It is an eternal environment, not a temporal temporary that brings life.  It is only in the eternal that you ever really live.  Why?  Because it pushes us onward, one step at a time, toward the better way.

Bible, Bible Study, Life, Worship

Echo of Joy

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Zephaniah 3:14-17
Shout for joy, O daughter of Zion!
Shout in triumph, O Israel!
Rejoice and exult with all your heart,
O daughter of Jerusalem!
The Lord has taken away His judgments against you,
He has cleared away your enemies.
The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst;
You will fear disaster no more.
In that day it will be said to Jerusalem:
“Do not be afraid, O Zion;
Do not let your hands fall limp.
“The Lord your God is in your midst,
A victorious warrior.
He will exult over you with joy,
He will be quiet in His love,
He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.

In our terrible times politically, and internationally we are given a sense of God is still in control. There is a gladness in these words. They are a part of a men’s study I am doing and sometimes it is difficult to find joy in the Minor Prophets. There is the overthrow of the Northern Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians, the spreading of the 10 tribes to take away their identity, the fall of Nineveh, a prophet being swallowed by a fish, and a whole lot of gloom, despair, and excessive misery. But here in the last phrases of Zephaniah is hope and joy.
Here we join in with God dancing and singing. The very words seem to dance with Joy. The phrases seem to be written in a staccato, rapid-fire manner; almost as if the prophet was laughing while he was writing.
It is singing which it truly catching. The God of the Universe is in our present. God has a voice and HE calls us to join in. SHOUT to the rooftops, God is here. For with every beat of your heart comes a sound of God’s love and joy for you. The notes of our praise fill HIS heart with Joy. The notes of HIS joy fills our hearts. We are glad because HE is glad. We sing for joy, and HE shouts the joy with us with singing because we do. JOY is an ongoing echo between man and God.
SHOUT, go ahead where ever you are, whatever you are doing, stop and shout for Joy and cause that joy to fill God. And then listen carefully and you will hear the echo from God.

Motivation, Prayer, Worship

A Prayer of Connection.

My LORD and my God.

By my very existence I know that I am an image-bearer of you the Most High God.  Listen to me as I call upon your name in the full expectation of our like-minded Spirits were created to connect. 

I praise you because of your calling, I belong here.  I belong here on this earth. I belong here at my Kings table.  I belong here at the feet of Jesus.  I belong here within this community of like-minded believers. I belong here not because I deserve it but because you desire me to be here.

Sweet Jesus, you deserve to be loved, you deserve our reverence, you deserve all my praise. I will not allow anything, nor my situation, not my lack of faith, not my feelings of unworthiness keep me from your presence. I do not my rejectors and nor my naysayers keep me from worshiping. I don’t buy into their lies.

In your presence, I am strangely warmed, I am blessed, I am encouraged, of your concern of my plight.

There is no other place I would rather be.  I am yours.

Please don’t give up on me. Don’t stop drawing me to this place of belonging. I trust you God to lead me wherever it may be.  I give you the lead in all my ways. My hope is only in you.  Reveal to me your will, your path, and your road to blessings. Because you are here my Jesus, I call upon your name to bless our lives.

Culture, Personal, Politics

God on a shelf

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I am not a “gloom, despair, excessive misery” type of person.  Most of the time I strive to seek out the light at the end of the tunnel. But I am discouraged by our nation.  It seems that God seems without substance.  God has become almost unimportant.  God has become an afterthought.  God has become so inconsequential that He has become a supplement, something that you take at night to help you sleep. To me, God in America has become a necessary item to place on a shelf to be called upon when things get so bad that He is pulled of the shelf and shaken up like a holy talisman. If we take a poll, which we seem to think is the only way to figure out what we really believe, God may well still believe in God’s existence. But as one philosopher said, “we may nonetheless consider him less interesting than television, his commands less authoritative than their appetites for affluence and influence, his judgments no more awe-inspiring than the evening news, and his truth less compelling than the advertiser’s sweet fog of flattery and lies.”

I don’t know where the line is, but it is there.  When does our apathy, poll driven, and politically correct country cross the line to where God has had enough?  In my studies this week on the Minor Prophets, I read, “A jealous and avenging God is the Lord; The Lord is avenging and wrathful. The Lord take vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for his enemies.  The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.” Nahum 1:2,3.

Bible, Bible Study, Culture, Politics, Worship

Micah’s question

It was his favorite spot.

High above his hometown of Moresheth.  Though it was quite a hike up the mountain, it was his place of worship, his place of prayer, his place of solitude, his place of getting above it all and just be still and know that the LORD was God.

It was high enough to see afar off the edge of the Mediterranean sea.  The blue was metered by the distance and late fog that rolled in about this time each evening. The sun was about to dip into the sea.  It was a special time between Micah and the God of Judah.  It was a moment of pure religion and worship.

In an attitude of prayer. He watched the sun just touch the sea.  Light was slowly dimming, to Micah it was a parable of his life.  The colors around him became less and less. Twilight was his hour of meditation.  A time of quiet before God.

Below was the plain of GAD the ancient home of the past enemy of Philisita the home of Goliath. In the quiet of that moment his mind went further up the mountain to its crest.  There was the cave that David had hidden in from Saul.  On the other side was Bethlehem. And even further was Jerusalem.  Jotham had replaced Uzziah and he was even worse leader, filled with sin and idolatry.

Micah had witnessed the wrath of God when Judah’s sister nation fell to Assyria. Some of the Israelites made it out.  With nothing more than what was on their backs they had move back to Judah.  It was a boarder crisis. And with them came their worship of Idols, wickedness and a bent toward the depravity of their hometowns.

Looking again to the setting sun.  The very edge was now touching the horizon.  Dipping its edge into the water grave of the sea.  Sun suddenly was clouded by a fog, intercepting its rays. Darkness came quickly like a great judgement.  The day, the light, the warmth suddenly vanished. With the quickened darkness came a sadness, a loneliness and a pent up anger.

How long will your mercy meter your justice?  When will your wrath become stronger than your love?

Looking at our own world I too ask.  Looking at our nation in turmoil where no one wants to help the regular person. YES LORD, HOW LONG WILL YOUR MERCY METER YOUR JUSTICE? WHEN WILL YOUR WRATH BECOME STRONGER THAN YOUR LOVE?

Based upon the first chapter of the minor prophet Micah.

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HOPE doesn’t save

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I have been overwhelmed by an effort to understand or at least get some insight into the Minor Prophets of the Old Testament.  It is amazing the weaving of the web of Hebrew life.  I would think the people should all be walking around with neck braces due to the number of times the nation of Judah jerked up and down in a constant cycle of repentance, worship, apathy, excuses, sin and historical calamity.

The answer for the period from the division of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms to the final restoration and the rebuilding of the temple was the rise of Prophet after Prophet.  I watch the life of the people, the chosen people, the people elect, the people called to be set apart, fall again and again and again. I hear the voices of anguish and disappointment in the prophets words.  They were the only hope for the promised ones. 

It was not the hope of traditional worship, ceremonies, sacrifices, great walls, and beautiful temples.  They were not saved by their hope.  Hope goes away when an onslaught of calamity takes the best and leaves nothing.  Hope may well be instructive and may suffice for a moment or two. Never-the-less,  the decadence of the nation, the rejection of righteousness, the growth of priestly formalism, caused hope to simply die a cruel and wimpy death.

“I can’t stand your religious meetings.
    I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions.
I want nothing to do with your religion projects,
    your pretentious slogans and goals.
I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes,
    your public relations and image making.

I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music.
    When was the last time you sang to me?
Do you know what I want?
    I want justice—oceans of it.
I want fairness—rivers of it.
    That’s what I want. That’s all I want.

That was AMOS 5:21-25 The message.

What do you think?

Ministry, Preaching

Preaching

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It is tough to be the mouthpiece of God.  The task of preaching is nothing to be taken lightly or with little deliberation. It requires the very soul to be transformed to the expected mold of people like Moses, Jacob, David, Isaiah, John, Paul, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Moody, Graham. It is the most difficult thing to do. 

It is difficult to be an artist.  To paint a portrait with the skill and practice of years of experience.  To touch the canvas in such a way that the person being painted will live.  To create a picture which seems to breath and speak.  But how much more is it to take human words and paint the face of Jesus that will draw mankind to the love of the Savior?

It is difficult to master the art of music. To take the world of tone, harmony, and melodies which set the soul to tingle.  To take eight notes and express them so well that the hearer is filled with the same emotions as the singer.  But how much more is to take the world eternal and translate it into finite human speech, so that human hearts on which it spreads its parade of all history to a point the create a celestial sympathetic vibration.

It is a great thing to take a great piece of marble and expose the form of David like Michelangelo. He made that statue live and all that gaze upon it are amazed.  King David in perfect form and stature displayed for all to see the art of the sculptor’s hand.  How much more to take temporary words spoke but once and create a powerful yet meek Jesus that would please the King of Kings.

The lawyer has a very difficult job to do, but it is not the most.  It is hard to apply the complicated and sometimes illogical laws of man to specific situations to ensure justice.  How much more is the job of a preacher to take the words of the Lawgiver and apply it to all without prejudice or favoritism.  The preacher must proclaim the Just Law of God.

Oh, how about a doctor.  That is a tough job. To know the thousands of possibilities for a cure, to learn pharmaceuticals role in healing, To understand the many inter-related functions of the body.  Without skill and knowledge, the doctor is nothing.  But to preach to a mind sick in sin, to soothe a fevered brow who is filled with guilt and regret, that is something greater than all the aspirin in the world. To be able to soothe a conscience crying out in pain requires something more.

I am a preacher but I take no pride in it.  It is all God, it is “thus says the LORD.”

The Study of God and Life