Tag: Bible

Rest Reflections

Silva

Wow is it hard to take a Sabbath when your work day is the Christian Sabbath. The risks though to avoiding or neglecting it make me nervous. These last posts have generated heat and (maybe) some light. But they take a toll on all. You combine heart-ed discussion with the myriad other demands and rest seems far away. How do you find your way to rest? Not the TV (trust me; the Bourne Supremacy is good for many things but rest?)

God was kind to me this day and I “stumbled” upon another man taking a Sabbath and decided to read what he wrote.

Psalm 92:1 A Psalm, a Song for the Sabbath day. It is good to give thanks to the LORD And to sing praises to Your name, O Most High;

2 To declare Your lovingkindness in the morning And Your faithfulness by night,

3 With the ten-stringed lute and with the harp, With resounding music upon the lyre.

4 For You, O LORD, have made me glad by what You have done, I will sing for joy at the works of Your hands.

5 How great are Your works, O LORD! Your thoughts are very deep.

6 A senseless man has no knowledge, Nor does a stupid man understand this:

7 That when the wicked sprouted up like grass And all who did iniquity flourished, It was only that they might be destroyed forevermore. 8 But You, O LORD, are on high forever.

9 For, behold, Your enemies, O LORD, For, behold, Your enemies will perish; All who do iniquity will be scattered.

10 But You have exalted my horn like that of the wild ox; I have been anointed with fresh oil.

11 And my eye has looked exultantly upon my foes, My ears hear of the evildoers who rise up against me.

12 The righteous man will flourish like the palm tree, He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon.

13 Planted in the house of the LORD, They will flourish in the courts of our God.

14 They will still yield fruit in old age; They shall be full of sap and very green,

15 To declare that the LORD is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.

Some Sabbath reflections.

It is good to give thanks to the Lord, the most High God. My problem is often that when I am caught having eyes of flesh rather than faith, I don’t know for what to thank Him. To recognize, however, that He is full of lovingkindness in the morning and faithfulness at night gives me volumes to declare.  Seriously, do I have NOTHING for which to thank Him?  That’s crazy (I wish I knew a word stronger than crazy).

His works are like Him, they are good. Here’s where stumbling is easy – is it all good, O Lord? Sleepless markets that go lower than we’ve seen before – good? Iraq arming with nuclear weapons – good? Slippery political candidates of all kinds – good? A house that just won’t sell – good? Your thoughts are very deep.

To misunderstand His works makes me like a stupid man, a fool. I’m caught and rightly labeled.

To long for the green grass of ease or comfort or security more than all else, makes me an enemy of God. This is what happens to me when I fail to give thanks. And I fail to give thanks when I don’t rest.  Weariness makes thankfulness next to impossible, right? When I believe that God should act as I have or how I think He should and He does not, I become His enemy. I fail to see and I fail to thank. How can it be that having been washed in the blood of Jesus Christ I can be His enemy? Never finally His enemy, but like a right fullback on the soccer field who won’t listen to the captain’s instructions, I buck His agenda. How stupid (I need to be benched).

Holding fast to God in all times puts me in the path of His blessing: anointing, victory, righteousness. I get to see and know His progress in kingdom expansion. I get to be exalted with His chosen ones. I will watch the downfall of wicked and the expiration of those who hate Him; those who hate me.  I’ve seen these things and they surpass low oil prices, lemme tell you.

For those who will cling to Him, who will give thanks to Him, they will be men and women of mission. Who doesn’t want to “flourish”?! I’ve spoken to many who want to “make a difference” in life with their lives.  No doubt.  Who flourishes?  The righteous.  Not the influential or the powerful (unless they are righteous).  That’s a level playing field that no one but God can create.  So I need Christ to make me righteous and then I need to work to produce it (James 1:20). I want to bear fruit in all ages, want to be engaged at all times – active as a blooming tree in the Garden of God. This will cost me, though. I have to stay planted in His garden and I’ve never really thought of that. How often do I uproot myself in my thinking? Do I pursue other agendas for other reasons?

What are your Sabbath reflections?

Wait to Smooch – #1

Silva

I thought that I’d handle my 11 reasons why not to kiss before marriage in reverse order just to give the appearance of creativity…actually, I think this is one of the strongest reasons so I will start here.

11. You will likely be committing spiritual adultery – loving someone more than Christ; if you loved Christ, you’d treat people like sisters and brothers and not spouses

Keep in mind what I’m trying to do here.  Twice now by good friends I’ve been warned against “binding the conscience” with this viewpoint.  Well taken.  I wholeheartedly believe in Christian liberty and have NO desire to cross a line into either license or legalism (I am very thankful for the challenge!).  So, I understand “bind the conscience” (principle taken from passages like Romans 14) forcing people to live by restrictions that are not stipulated in the Bible.  As if to develop some kind of unbiblical, restrictive code that people must live by.  If my dear Christian family mean something other than that, then that’s fine – that’s where I am, however.

If I can demonstrate that PDA (pre-marital displays of affection captured by K-I-S-S-I-N-G) is regulated in the Bible, then I am not engaging in conscience-binding.  If I succeed then I am simply teaching what the Bible says regarding PDA (even though PDA isn’t a biblical phrase).  I hope to demonstrate that PDA is not a matter of conscience but a regulated activity created for and practiced within the confines of marriage alone.

Why this viewpoint?  To safeguard us from the culture-creep?  Maybe.  Because of my own history.  Possibly.  Because of the wreckage that I’ve seen PDA do in marriages?  Could be.  Mainly, because I believe male-female relations are so complex and significant that these things are spoken of by God.  The stakes are very high.

How high is the subject of my first reason. James 4:1-5 is where I draw this from.

1 What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4 You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us”?

There were fights and quarrels in the church according to this passage because there were heart-wars breaking out and spilling onto each other.  What was the subject of those wars?  Desires.  These desires (pleasures, NASB; passions, ESV) can be good or bad.  Bad desires are clearly bad.  Good desires (security, companionship, svelt-ness (!)) become sinful when they are inordinately wanted.  A look at the verbs indicate great strength: lust, envy, asking with wrong motives; these are strong.

There is a process to all of this.  Desires don’t just break out into full scale battle.

Fact 1.  We are married to Christ (v.5) and He is jealous for us

Fact 2.  We have built in human desires.

Fact 3.  At times, we crave apprehending these things more than we want Him or wait for Him to provide.

Fact 4.  We forsake Him and commit adultery against Him (v.4), become His enemy and become friends with the world; we leave our marriage bed with Him and hop into the sack with what we’re seeking

Fact 5.  We pursue these now-sinful, adulterous passions in and through each other mostly (v.2) and other things, secondarily

Fact 6.  Our jealous Husband, Jesus Christ pursues us and frustrates our pursuit of our own pleasures in and through each other (v.4) and other things

Fact 7.  Rather than accept His rebuke, we are frustrated / angry and quarrels and fights break out (v.1)  among us – “If you would just give me what I’m asking for….”

This is the logic of sin.  It starts with the fact that we are married to Christ and being married to Him means seeking from Him our desires (Psalm 37:4; relevant context in that Psalm – check it out).  It is our marriage to Christ that is at stake in our lives.  Sin does many things and means many things but it FIRST is adultery against our Husband.

James states this process slightly differently in 1:13-15.

14 But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. 15 Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.

Here we read of our own desires (same word as 4:1) that lure and entice us and lead to sin.  The overall picture is that we have desires / passions / pleasures that are constantly at work within us.  They bait and entice us and if we follow, we sin.  In chapter 4, James tells us that if we don’t manage those we will commit adultery against Him which will lead to violence against each other.

The marriage metaphor is striking given our discussion, no?  It is a legitimate question, “can you kiss and tell Christ?”  Can you walk hand-in-hand with two lovers?  I ask the people who come to me for help and who have committed PDA, “why did you do it?”  “What were you seeking that couldn’t be found in Christ?”  The answers always lead to a desire (sometimes legitimate) that they couldn’t wait to get in marriage or didn’t even try to seek from Christ (see Psalm 34:8).

PDA does not exist in isolation – it is fruit of desires (not just sexual desires but also inordinately sought legitimate desires: closeness, companionship, excitement, loneliness, isolation…).  I maintain that PDA is fruit of desires that God has given us that we would quench, a) in Him while single, and b) in our spouse when married.  Can one give reasons for PDA that maintain fidelity to Christ?  Why should PDA be done?

There you have it.  Reason #1 to Wait to Smooch.

Coronations and Considerations

Silva

I wonder how many have been watching the Democratic National Convention in Denver.  It started on the 25th and tonight will likely draw the most watchers yet (Obama is going to do his thing).  During these conventions and campaigns people start to raise expectations that bad things are about to start stopping and good things will start starting.  With new candidacies / regimes comes good things (that’s the theory).  Of course, a little digging will reveal that’s more a biennial hope than a present reality (Pew Research 1st 100 Days of Democratic Congress).

But, still, the impulse is not bad: no one likes days of affliction.  And we’re all looking for the ways to make things better.  I’ve been considering my own “affliction” and the search for change and lately been resting in how one helps me to see through to that change.

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. (12)

Return O Lord!  How long?  Have pity on your servants! (13)

Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. (14)

Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil. (15)

Let your work be shown to your servants and your glorious power to their children. (16)

Psalm 90:12-16

Look here.  Anyone who’s lived through a regime change or two knows that things don’t change with the banging of gavels in hallowed white power halls.  It doesn’t stop us from hoping things would change, but ultimately they only slight shift.  In these Bible verses, we see a different picture.

What the folks who are so attentive to political campaigns, conventions and coronations need is to see those things through a grid informed by those verses.  It is not as if we should no longer care about the political process – now, by all means, care.  It is just that caring means thinking rightly about them…

First, start with verse 15.  Our days are difficult and full of affliction.  The verse is honest even if we’re not.  Admit it: anger, frustrations, disappointment, pain, suffering, fear, and uncertainty are what we’re swimming in.  Ignoring it only makes us look stupid.  And, in that stupidity we tend to attribute those to things we cannot understand (which is untrue).  In fact, our difficulty the writer attributes to God.  Look again.  The Bible never impugns God for this (a story for another post) but simply here attributes these things to God and His plan.  But, God doesn’t act without a reason.

So, secondly, why all of this affliction and difficulty?  Look at verse 12: we’re proud.  In that verse, the author asks God to “teach us to number our days” which is another way of saying, “teach us to think rightly and humbly about our lives.”  Without it, we are fools.  With it, we get a “heart of wisdom.”  We are afflicted because we are proud not because a Republican is President, Democrats control the Congress or Roe vs. Wade is the law.  Here is where convention watchers go astray.

You – eyes glued to MSNBC – are proud and BH Obama can’t do a thing about that.

You and I need perspective on our lives.  We are, in fact, significant yet small.  It gets tough for us when we think we’re just significant.  That was the problem the Psalm was written to address because we ARE significant but we are ALSO small.

What’s the pathway out of affliction?  It is the one to humility.  That road is paved with the work and power of God and it doesn’t go through Denver or Minneapolis.  So, thirdly, verse 16 asks God to imprint His work in our minds and His power in the minds of our children.  The author believes if we are cozy with the work of God in the Bible (and our lives), we are likely to be more prone to consider ourselves rightly.  In so doing, God will figure prominently and we will not.  That will please Him and He will restrain affliction upon us.

One thing more, though.  Verse 14 shows us that even as God is pleased with our self-awareness of smallness, He is just as pleased to satisfy us with His steadfast love which leads to great joy.  Smallness like this and joy go together.

Watch the conventions, but once they end, turn the channel to consider the majestic work of God and there is where you’ll find answers to your questions.