A mature government abandons its starting blocks.
Too few candles
No confession, no redemption
Why there is no perfect union
Month: June 2020
Ships going to and fro between graceless nowheres
Every day there is convincing evidence that the faith of Christ has been shaped to imitate the Israelite experience.
The essential grace ID card
John 1:17
For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
It is true that God’s people have similar experiences to the Exodus, the encampment at Sinai, and the entry into Canaan, but there is neither wilderness wandering, death in the desert, nor wholesale desertion of the covenant in the experience of the great salvation. The saints are on high with Christ.
Seedsowing realities
Matthew 13:23
And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.”
No longer nefarious
The reasoning one uses to say that the Saviour of the world saves people and loses them earns the label corrupt and deceitful. It is a popular and widespread conclusion that the wolfish use to create fear, paint a picture of themselves as conscientious cooperators with God, and make confidence in God’s ability to finish what he started a waste of time.
Race and religion: the muddy waters of the age
If you think grace is limited to success and victories over unemployment and sickness then perhaps you have not seen any signs of Israelite treachery spanning thousands of years and the typical chosen land and people propaganda.
Where are God’s lovers
The truth is no longer hiding in a secret room. When it comes to doing God’s will it is not humans who carry the torch. The death angel seems to have penetrated the great walls of corporate and civic greatness as well as the pews of evangelical ignorance. Spoiled brats and silent watchdogs are the heritage of a nation that thought it could set up lamb-like powers (kind and gracious) and speak like a dragon (slanderous and destructive) and not pay the price. Loving a country more than one’s life is ridiculously stupid and the things we do not allow – those forbidden attitudes and behaviours – are no sign of love.
Blinded by white clouds
Revelation of John 13:11-14
11) Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb and he spoke as a dragon. 12) He exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence. And he makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed. 13) He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men. 14) And he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which it was given him to perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life.
This beast that is like both dragon and lamb is not fairy tale secret apocalyptic. This is an end-of-days nation that will rip to shreds every precious framework for human success and longevity, all the while publishing its love for God and country, and its admiration of despots, and bigots.
People who love God in this age should not think they can get away with dissing the people for whom Christ died. The love that Christian faith exhibits will shred the barriers of race and culture. We can make the same mistake of passing on the other side – too holy to be seen with – like the priest and Levite (Luke 10:30-37) sinners, the sick, the wounded and outsiders. Man, “Go and do likewise” is a rebuke in very gentle language that still needs to be heeded.
Love misplaced again
Despite the many pleas by the apostles to love in sincerity and without pretence we still find ourselves chained to a “chosen people” status as if the treasures of heaven that can bring purity to people. I suppose that the presence of that love in our earthen vessel that sends us to the lost, sick and dying is too surprising (new!) to be real. In reality, one has to ignore the fact that a holy and spotless Lamb did really hang out with humans, each one lost and sinful).
Money traps the saint
That saying about money “answering to everything” is deadly accurate but also equally ineffective. Its accuracy comes from the writer’s use of a participle to describe the preparation as pretty much the status quo. The idolatry is all too evident. They get laughter from food (bread), joy from wine, and they fall back on the “fix-all” silver.
Ecclesiastes 10:19
Men prepare a meal for enjoyment, and wine makes life merry, and money is the answer to everything.
It is not surprising that in New Testament times and our times the people who claim to be most ardent followers of truth are lovers of money and themselves. Even a popular thing like the Law becomes an idol, a mere distraction from God himself. If we do not draw a firm line between Creator and creature, between Saviour and the perishing, we show ourselves to be spiritual adulterers. God is not an object like the law, temple, Bible, the church, prophecy or the priesthood. He alone is able to save. Our love needs to be more than lipservice and include caring sincerely about people who are different from us. Love that is optimally defined as obedience to the law simply does not cut it and is highly suspect as a tool of the devil.
Life is Fun, But Not a Joke 