Never Happen

The purpose of God in bringing about salvation through His perfect Son was not to be stopped.  The Righteous Branch has sprung up, the Christ has finished His work and now sits upon the throne!

Jeremiah 33:14-15,19-21:

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David,The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: “Thus says theLord: If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night will not come at their appointed time, then also my covenant with David my servant may be broken..."

...and that will never happen.

Under His Own Tree

Postings here at the vertiCALL have been few and far between lately, as I've been spending my small spurts of spare time editing a short story for Kindle. I wrote the story years ago, but recently blew the dust off of it and decided that it would be my first foray into the Kindle market even though I had already started compiling material for another project.  Under His Own Tree only required direct transcribing into the proper format and some editing, so it was almost a turnkey project and helped familiarize me with the world of electronic self-publishing.

Under His Own Tree is about two men, one young, one old, who meet in a cemetery and form a quick and deep bond over the course of only a few months.  The story is rich in imagery and, hopefully, delivers a handful of deep truths about life and death, time and relationships, in its 4000 or so words.

The book is available here, and if you decide to make the purchase, I'd so much appreciate a review from you on Amazon.  Also, if you don't know already, you needn't own a Kindle to buy and read Kindle books.  The Kindle App is available for free on nearly all smart phones and tablets, including Apple products.

Are You The Stone Or The Blade?

Proverbs describes the dynamics of a healthy relationship with a very manly metaphor:  "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." (27:17)  It seems to me that the idea here is that the sharpening is mutual.  You can't always be the blade, and you shouldn't always be the whetstone.  That topic deserves further thought and meditation, but today I have a story to tell.

I have a friend who sharpens me and he doesn't even know it.  His name is Blake and we went to school together in the way back time.  Blake was born with William's Syndrome, a fascinating and rare neurodevelopmental disorder, a fact that caused other kids to tease him in our younger years.  He's a talented singer, and plays a right-handed guitar upside down and left-handed.  He lives with his parents in Florida and he works at his church as their handyman, eager and willing to do whatever he can to help out.  

A couple of weeks ago Blake flew back to Kansas to visit his grandma, and we had the chance to hang out one afternoon.  And so it happened that as we were sitting outside at Sonic chomping burgers and chili-cheese tots, Blake was telling me how good life is and about his friends in Florida, and how he loves his job, and then he outs with this statement:  "I try to make sure somebody else is having a nice day besides me."

I try to make sure somebody else is having a nice day besides me.

Never in my life have I uttered such a statement.  I was at once humbled and encouraged.  I realized in that moment what a rat I am and how beautiful the simplicity of selflessness can be.  With conviction came challenge.  Let me tell you, Blake sharpened me that day, and I believe that's the inevitable result when we live and love as Christ did.

Joy Comes With The Mourning

Mourning the death of a believer can be such a strange thing.

When I was in college, I landed a job in the campus post office.  It was a pretty sweet gig.  I got to miss chapel (seemed pretty sweet at the time), I made enough money to buy the latest Steven Curtis Chapman cdsI became friends with all the faculty and staff, and I had an amazing boss.  Her name was Jackie Long.  She was short, round, and had a smile as big as a southern Missouri sunrise.

Jackie's funeral is today, June 11th.   Cancer took Jackie quite rapidly these past few weeks, and my wife and I drove to Springfield, Missouri to see her one last time.

In the hospital room where she laid sleeping and unresponsive, I held her hand and simply looked at her face while my mind flooded with memories like: the sound of her voice, the ring of the bell at the front desk of the post office, the smell of mail bags, and the taste of Jackie's chili.

I've cried more than once over the last several days when thinking about her, and of course when you weep because you've lost someone, you realize that you're weeping for yourself, not for them.  Still, I always try to work out exactly why I'm crying at times like these, because all of my memories of Jackie are good ones. So why the tears? 

I'm pretty sure I cry because death is still such an enemy - the final one, Paul says.

I know I cry for her husband, who will miss her terribly.

Probably also the tears flow from a sense of honor, as a tribute, because in Jackie's case, she has finished her work on earth, she has done it well, and this guy right here was granted the privilege of being a product of her efforts.  I can point to certain stones that make up the structure of my life and say, "that one there was set in place by Jackie Long, and that one, and that one."

What truly endears my heart to her is how much she loved this bumbling college kid who worked for her in the campus post office. She cared for me and the handful of other students that worked there like a mother. She scolded us if we needed it, she had us over for supper, she called me "son", and she loved my firstborn child and my wife. Her home was always open to me, even when I'd visit years later and need a place to spend the night. "There's the fridge, have whatever you need!"
And so as I looked at her laying in the hospital bed, I thought, that is a person who loved me unconditionally.

She genuinely was my mom away from home.   And although I use that term, she doesn't occupy the real estate in my heart that my own mother does, but she was among the few human beings that have had profound influence on my life.  Her secret to success wasn't because she read a stack of John Maxwell books, but simply because she was a sweet, sweet woman who loved Jesus and knew for sure how good He is.  Thinking about all these things, there definitely is joy in the mourning.

Not Just Forgiveness...

If we spent the majority of our time thinking on one great Scriptural truth over against all others, it should be the doctrine of justification and imputed righteousness.  The most mind-blowing act revealed in Scripture is that of the Great Exchange described in 2 Corinthians 5:21.

"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

You can begin by watching the video at the crucial moment by clicking here, or watch it The power of the Gospel goes far beyond our sins simply being forgiven (as if that weren't enough!). Almighty God goes to the full extent and applies to believers something that they did not, nor could they ever, possess in and of themselves: righteousness.


R.C. Sproul delivers this point with passion and clarity in the video below.  You can join the conversation as R.C. begins to drive the point home by clicking here, or listen to the talk in its entirety:

Emotional Responses

My eyes open wider when I smell coffee brewing.  My mouth actually waters when I smell cinnamon rolls.  I think of my parents' house every time I catch a whiff of a burning charcoal grill. These are trained responses that my senses have, and I enjoy them, along with a thousand other food-related stimuli.  They serve me quite well.

Our emotions also provide constant stimuli. But the thing is, if we trust our emotions like we do the smell of mom's home cooking, we might be tempted to follow whatever pleasing thing comes along.  Similarly, we may plunge into despair when something as simple as a headache or indigestion is causing us psychosomatic stress.  However, if we're trained to trust in Truth before anything else will not be so easily swayed. 

Now don't hear what I'm not saying; emotions are a fascinating and wonderful gift from God.  Emotions are the reason we love the symphony and sunsets and sad love stories.  The down side is that emotions aren't a very good gauge of truth.

So, while I'm not promoting stoicism, I do worry (there's an emotion right there!) about a few things.  For example, I worry that we love the warm fuzzies when the band strikes up in church and we mistake the fuzzies for the presence of God.  I worry that we love the jokes the pastor tells and mistake that for good preaching.  I worry that eventually all we'll really want are warm fuzzies and funny jokes and will have no time for anything else.

Maybe there's a fine line here, and maybe there isn't.  Ideally, our hearts will be moved - no, shaken! - by Truth couched in beautiful music and our souls will be nourished, challenged and changed by the Gospel preached in a winsome manner.   Personally, I want more than anything for any music that I play and any message I preach to be grounded, anchored and rooted in Truth so I don't step into that dangerous territory where leaders look for an emotional response as a sign of success.

Christianity + Suburban Living = Suburbianity

I can understand and accept that Christians and their practice of Christianity will be flavored by the culture in which they live.  This is natural and basically harmless.  There is a serious problem, however, when a sinister syncretism takes place that allows the ethos of a culture to infiltrate and corrupt the pure practice of Christian community and teaching as described and outlined in Scripture.  In the "West" this infiltration and corruption seems to be most prevalent.  Byron Forrest Yawn describes this effect and the resulting monster he has dubbed "suburbianity":

Suburbianity is the general conviction among professing evangelicals that the primary aim of Christ’s death was to provide us with a fulfilled life. We came to this perspective by persistently reading the mindset and aspirations of the suburbs into the biblical story. It relentlessly seeps into our Christianity. It comes through in nearly all forms of Christian media, including songs, books, movies, and sermons. God has big plans for you. You are important. You should not be discontented, There’s more out there for you. This is the suburban gospel. By it we’ve saved countless sinners from a poor self-image but not much else.

Yowza.

The Danger of Reading Your Own Journals

I have a hefty armful of journals that I've scrawled in over the years.  They're not very tidy from a chronological standpoint, because, for example, I have two or three that I'm writing in currently.  Which one I choose to write in depends on two things, typically: A) Subject matter, or B) whichever one is closest.

I have journals from college, journals from my early married years, journals specifically for overseas trips, journals just for my motorcycle adventures, journals for Scripture.  It's a mess, really. 

Before I get to the reason for my writing today, I want to point out that I don't use journals because I'm organized and I don't use them because I'm spiritual and I don't use them because I live an "intentional life".  I write in my journals so I don't forget things.  It's the same reason I take photographs.  I've found that I can remember a lot of experiences I've had over the years just using my gray matter, but when I look at a picture or re-read a journal entry about an experience, I RE-LIVE the experience.  Much, much better.  It's that invigorating reminder that makes my journal entries so important.

So, last night I paused while reading the novel I currently have my nose in, sat my coffee down, reached over to my bookshelf and yanked out my most recent journal.  I flipped to the front of it, to the well-aged entries, to see what I might find.

Now, the danger of reading your own journals is that you're likely to get shaken, slapped or stirred.  The handful of pages I flipped through last night contained forgotten moments of wonder and awe and glory - my wife was there, my sons, my friends.  There were reminders of God's faithfulness and kept promises.  There were prayers for the future and testimonies of truth made in times of strong faith that gave me confidence as I read them.  I was moved, and frankly, I felt a little bit silly that my heart feels so weak at times in spite of all the good that has come my way by the hand of God.

In the end, I've renewed my commitment to keep writing, if for no other reason than that someday, someone (maybe my kids!) will read those journals after I'm gone and find the story of a relentless God making His life known in the life of an ordinary man.

So...Is This Mid-Life?

Have I really been trying to do this by myself all along?  That is today's question.

I'm 42, and for years I've felt pretty good about who I am.  I've never felt perfect, but I've always had some measure of confidence in my strengths, feeling like they outweighed my weaknesses for the most part.  Drawing from this confidence, I could boldly claim that I was trusting God day by day for this, that or the other thing. I was living by faith as long as I felt I had a handle on things. (Insert smirks and chuckles here)

However, la vie est dure. 

There are at least 47 things in my life right now that are bigger than I am.  Things I used to think I had the strength for.  But I'm tapped out.  Now understand, I tend to be a bit introspective and melancholy anyway, but this is more than the effect of too much navel gazing.  Some things in life are just really hard, and they're harder when they're linked to your own insufficiencies:  People I've disappointed, work I've left undone, opportunities I've let pass me by.

Other trials are just par for the course called Life. Without getting specific, I'll just lump all of these under the heading "things that didn't turn out like you thought they would."  Make your own list of sand traps and water hazards.

Prayer has been difficult of late as I've wrestled with these problems that sort of remind me of cave trolls: big, scary, relentless. Oh, and ugly.

My prayer this morning went something like this as my heart welled up with tears:  "Lord, I've got nothin'.  Nothing to bring to the table.  And You're still OK with this?  You sure You still want to use me?  If so, then I'm in.  But I have nothing to offer."

And then for some reason I felt better, and not because the situation changed, but because my viewpoint changed.  Life isn't hard because I've failed, life is just hard.  And what business do I have trusting in myself anyway?

Casting all our anxiety and care on God because He cares for us assumes that we will have anxiety and care! (1 Peter 5:7) Keeping our minds stayed on Him so we can have perfect peace assumes that there is chaos all around. (Isaiah 26:3)  That's what those promises are for - for now, when I really need them. Or you, or whomever.

What I'm slowly, stubbornly, becoming aware of is that I had to get to this point. I had to get here to (hopefully) learn that Jesus really is my sufficiency.

Oh, joy, that seeks me through the pain

I cannot close my heart to thee

I trace the rainbow through the rain

And feel the promise is not in vain

That morn shall tearless be!



Why I'm Thankful For Warts

Several weeks ago, one of my sons (we'll call him Jonathan...because that's his name) had some warts removed by our family physician.  No biggie.  However, during the preliminary exam before the procedure our doctor found that Jonathan's heart rate was really, REALLY fast.  Not I'm-a-bit-nervous-because-I'm-at-the-doctor-fast, but unusually, alarmingly fast.  Of course the doctor checked and double-checked but the results were the same.  Being the fine physician that he is, our local G.P. referred Jonathan to a cardiologist to investigate further.

A couple visits to the specialist later, and Jonathan was wearing a Holter monitor for 24 hours to get a good read on what his heart was actually doing. After revisiting the pediatric cardiologist for an ECG and more analysis, we learned that Jonathan was suffering from a condition called ectopic atrial tachycardia.

Now things were getting serious, and being the man of faith that I am, I began to wonder out loud to God "just what exactly is going on here and why?"

The doctors made the decision to start Jonathan on beta blockers (drugs typically used to abate a rapid heartbeat).  There was some improvement from the drugs, but not nearly what was needed.  His former 150-180 bpm heart rate was still in the 130-150 bpm range all day, every day.

Here is the urgency in all of this:  if the problem isn't fixed, damage to the cardiac muscle is certain, and that is NOT good.  Ultimately you have a failed heart.

The next step, then, for Jonathan was a procedure called cardiac ablation therapy.  I'll keep this post brief and let you read about it on your own, but after a pretty fascinating 2-3 hour procedure under general anesthetic, my son's heart was beating in a normal range again.  In the days since the procedure, he's been sleeping better, is more talkative, more energetic, and has even been laughing more.  We had no idea what the tachycardia had stolen from him.  The prognosis: Jonathan's heart is fixed, and should be good for the rest of his life.

So, at the end of it all, I am super thankful for those warts.  News of my son having a serious heart issue prompted me to send some frustrated and despairing questions in God's direction, but He was patient with me.  I know that not every story ends happily, but in this case, I can see now that God used warts to take care of Jonathan's heart before things got a lot worse.  And I'm reminded that He is good.

Nothing Was Missing

There is so much of the salvific in the life Davidic.

1 Samuel 30 recounts the story of David and his army being turned down for service in Philstia's war against Israel and their return home to Ziklag to find it burned to the ground.  The Amalekites had snuck in when the men were out and had torched the buildings and taken away the women, children and livestock.  Can you imagine the alarm in the hearts of the men as they saw the smoke from their hilltop home clouding the horizon?

This was such a severe blow to David's men that their extreme loyalty to him suddenly turned to thoughts of stoning.  David's response was not that of most men in such a powerful position, who would have reacted even more vigorously than the detractors and demanded their lives for such treacherous attitudes.  Instead, David "strengthened himself in the LORD his God."

Having received encouragement and direction from Jehovah to pursue the Amalekites, David acted boldly and not only won back his family and possessions (and those of his men) but brought more back in the form of plunder than they had had before.

"David recovered all that the Amalekites had taken...nothing was missing...David brought back all."

Read that again and think of the Savior.

And now a question:  have you experienced enough of life yet to know the horror of your city "burned with fire" and your wife and sons and daughters taken captive?  Have you wept until you had no more strength to weep? 

Take heart. This Savior of ours has recovered all that the enemy has taken.  Do we experience loss? Yes.  Is there redemption? Over and above.

In the company of the Shepherd-Warrior-King Jesus Christ my interests are safe and secure.

Quit Looking At The Waves

In Matthew's recounting of the story of Jesus walking on the water to reach his disciples who were struggling in the midst of a storm, Peter starts off quite well.  When the men at last recognized Jesus, "hair-trigger" Peter asked the Lord to invite him for a walk on the water, and the Lord did so.  It must have been a bit tricky even getting out of the boat, which would have been rocking to and fro, but when he did, he found himself supported by some supernatural surface tension, like a mosquito in a bucket of water.  If you think about it, he may have felt more sturdy standing on the water than he did in the boat.  Surely he was still aware of the wind and waves - he hadn't forgotten those - but for a moment the force of his attention was on Jesus.  As he made his way toward Jesus, all was well...until he started looking around. When he took a good look at the wind and waves, in a sense switching his faith from Christ to them, he started to sink.  D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones brings the point home in Spiritual Depression:

The first thing we learn here is that we ourselves sometimes produce our own doubts.  None can dispute but that that was the trouble with Peter at this point.  He produced his own doubts by looking at the waves.  He led himself into difficulties which need not have arisen...Peter by looking at the waves himself produced the doubts.  Let us be very careful here.  We often lead ourselves into depression, we lead ourselves in doubts by dabbling with certain things which should be avoided.

  Whatever situation we find ourselves in, we must take care that we don't give our windy, wavy circumstances and pressures too much attention.  Of course they're overwhelming, but putting our faith in them is always, and only, a downer.  Let's keep our focus on the sure and certain person of Jesus Christ, and His hand that is always ready to reach out and pull us up.

Irritability

Ouch.  I don't get visibly, overtly angry at people as a rule, but I can sure be irritable in my spirit.  And that's just no good.  It usually shows up when I'm tired or stressed or hurt.  Phil Ryken here explains that irritability can actual be a form of hatred.

What's Your Nickname?

Got a nickname?  Mine is Blainemonster.  Picked it up back in Bible college from a good friend named Jonathan who is now a pastor, as I am.  In fact, it was Jonathan that not only bestowed the title "Blainemonster" on me, but also the name of "Brettmonster" on our mutual buddy Brett.  Brett is now a missionary, but when we see each other, the "monster" always comes out. 

I'm not really sure why Jonathan dubbed the two of us monsters - it might have been because of the way we worked so hard at putting a new roof on the church we were renovating during that long, hot summer in Shreveport back in 1989.  Whatever the reason, it's a funny nickname for us both, because neither one of us has the disposition to merit such a title as "monster."  Honestly, we're both fairly reserved, and you might even say gentle.  But I'll take "monster" over "bunny" if I have to have an appendage on my name...

For my part, anyway, the moniker stuck and has become my name wherever I happen to be on the internet or Instagram or email or whatever.  Works for me.  But let's talk about somebody else's nickname.

Think for a minute about a fellow named Blindbartimaeus.  You know the story from Mark 10 and the happy result:

 “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road. Verse 52

Since Jesus healed him, calling him "blind" doesn't fit who he is anymore than "monster" fits who I am. 

Nevertheless, we know this story as the story of "Blind Bartimaeus."

There are other people in the Bible we could bestow with nicknames - once-appropriate but now out-of-date appellations due to an encounter with the grace and mercy of God:

Saul the Jesus Hater.
Matthew the Greedy Tax Collector.
David the Adulterous Conniving Murderer.
Magdalene Mary the Prostitute.

And what about this person right here: (your name) the (sin).

Isn't it nice that with a new identity comes a new name?

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

Revelation 2:17 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.

Humility: The Pause That Refreshes

Way back in January I took two of my sons to see Phil Keaggy in concert at a local church.  I love it when Phil comes to town because he always holds a free "guitar clinic" which sounds enough like an invitation to actually play your guitar in front of Phil that most folks are scared away and the event is very sparsely attended.  This serves to make the gathering very intimate and the following meet and greet personal and unhurried.

At the close of the afternoon's "clinic" I shook Phil's four-fingered hand (I always forget what a little guy he is) and gave him a copy of The World Tilting Gospel by Dan Phillips. 

Dan had actually found out that I'd be seeing Keaggy and since he himself is a long time fan (longer than me!), he asked me if I'd give a copy of TWTG to Phil.  Of course I had to, since Dan offered to reimburse me for the book at the next T4G conference! (wink wink, nudge nudge).  At any rate, Phil received the book graciously, I thanked him for being such a blessing, and then I headed to Texas Roadhouse with my boys to eat some beef and await the evening's concert. (For a whole bunch of concert photos, jump over to here)

We returned to the venue in plenty of time to be, for all intents and purposes, at the front of the line, and we snagged excellent seats with a good view of Phil's hands (Remember to always, always, sit on the left side of an auditorium if the guitar player is right handed, or vice versa).
 

The Keagster played what I think is a fairly typical set, including "Salvation Army Band", "True Believers", "Shades of Green", "Love Broke Through" and "Here Comes the Sun". I was grinning from the first note.  There was plenty of improvisation and prodigious use of the JamMan and much talk of Jesus.  It was all quite wonderful. 

For his final song, before the encore, Phil played "Let Everything Else Go."  There are so many things about this song that are beautiful, and I rarely can get past "Oh I can't wait to see You, Jesus, face to face" without some tears.   On this night (and maybe he does this regularly) Phil modified the lyrics to the chorus the last time through.  The words are:

Oh, I can't wait to see you, Jesus, face to face
Nothing in this world can take Your place
All the pride of man laid low and all his works of gold
Nothing can compare with what You are
Let everything else go

Phil changed that middle line to: "All the pride of man laid low, especially my own"

That, to me, was priceless - and refreshing.  Phil Keaggy can't go a single day without someone singing his praises.  And imagine touring and meeting countless people who congratulate, praise and honor you.  I would self-destruct.  Phil Keaggy is outwardly a lovely, gracious, humble, Christ honoring man, and I believe he is on the inside as well.  But what man among us doesn't struggle with pride?  And here is a guy, 45 years into an amazing career, still praying while he's singing, "Lord, take my pride.  It's ugly.  Nothing can compare to what You are."

Being Poor Doesn't Necessarily Make You Thrifty

I've attended three funerals in the past month, each one for an octogenarian.  In every service, it was mentioned that the departed had endured the Great Depression as a child. The impact on these people had been obvious: they had become thrifty, or generous, or "tough".  For these folks, whom I knew, it was absolutely the truth.  Tough times had built character.

I'll betcha, though, that there were folks who went through the Depression that turned out bitter, mean and tight-fisted.

The point is that suffering doesn't always make us sweet any more than being poor makes us thrifty.

Making the leap to Christian application, believers should be careful about becoming bitter during times of trial.  If we don't receive trials in the proper way, or learn in the midst of them how good they can actually be, we run the risk of missing blessings and weakening our faith and becoming morbidly depressed!  Trials, as Jesus' brother James tells us, are to be counted as joy (weird, huh!), because of what they produce in us, and because by them we as believers are made complete (pardon another set of parentheses, but WOW!).

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. James 1:2-4


George Mattheson, who in spite of going blind when he was 20, insisted on following the Lord's call into ministry.  He suffered in a very unique way, no doubt, and later penned these words in his hymn "O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go":

"O Joy that seekest me through the pain,

I cannot close my heart to thee;

I trace the rainbow through the rain,

and feel the promise is not in vain..."

Everything Is Amazing, Or, An Unlikely Hero

One week ago this morning (February 13th), my 73 year old father suffered a heart attack.  Today, he is back at home with new cardiac plumbing thanks to a quadruple bypass performed last Friday.  That is amazing.  Open heart surgery is a big deal, but does anybody remember when it was a REALLY. BIG. DEAL?  Again, amazing.  So today I'm thankful for modern medicine and I'm thankful for a cardiologist who is a fellow believer and I'm thankful my dad is home.

Last week I realized something.  I realized that my dad is one of my heroes, but that wasn't always the case.  Thinking back to when I was a teenager, he certainly wasn't my hero.  I was my hero back then.   Ahh, the ignorance and arrogance of youth. 

Not everybody has a good dad.  Nobody has a perfect dad.  I have a good dad who isn't perfect. When I pause long enough to take a steady look at my dad's life and the years that I've been a part of it, I see plenty of failure.  No, let's call it: humanness.  My dad has truly always done the best he could by me,  and now that I realize what kind of stresses a grown man deals with, I'm starting to get it.

Dad is as hard working a man as there ever was.  He's got more energy than me or my older brother. 

Dad's faith has grown deep over the years, and it's so obvious that even a self-interested baby-of-the-family like me can notice it.

Dad cries when he talks about the Lord.

Dad sends out text messages like this the day after heart surgery (the part in yellow):

These are just a few of the reasons my dad is one of my heroes.  Knowing my own heart like I do, I'm honestly not sure I'll ever match him, but if the Lord wills, I've got plenty of years left to try.

His Love Endures Forever, From A 9 Year Old

And now, for a feel good story.

Last night I was leading 25 Jesus-loving teenagers in a brief devotion using Psalm 136.  This Psalm is a ready-made responsive reading, with each phrase followed by the statement "His love endures forever."

Going around the room, each student would read one line of the Psalm and then the whole group would respond with an energetic "His love endures forever!" and so on until the last verse.

After finishing this exercise, I simply emphasized the point that in back of everything, is the fact that His love endures forever.  Then, everyone was given a blank sheet of paper with the phrase "His love endures forever" printed on it several times.  I told the kids that this was their opportunity to write Psalm 136 version 2.0.  It wouldn't be Scripture, of course, but it would be their response to and interaction with the Word and an opportunity for them to realize that in the warp and woof of their lives, it is evident that God's love endures forever. 

As it happened, my 9 year old son was in the room with us and was listening in.  He grabbed a sheet and filled out his own list.  (As a preface for what's to come, this little boy of mine, our fifth son, has had numerous physical challenges from his in utero days to the present due to ARPKD and severe asthma.  He's been on the brink more than once.)

Here is my boy's Psalm 136 version 2.0:

Helped me when I was a baby

His love endures forever

gave me a church

His love endures forever

gave me a Family

His love endures forever

gave me Friends

His love endures forever

gave me a sun

His love endures forever

gave me his Son

His love endures forever

gave me a school

His love endures forever

That kid gets it.

Love That Will Not Let Me Go

Steve Camp is a composer, theologian, and a minister of God's truth.  The beauty of this song never fails to bolster my faltering faith with its strong scriptural message:

Love That Will Not Let Me Go

Certainties

Confession time.  I am a person given to cyclical episodes of depression and occasional anxiety.  And I don't mean having "the blues" or getting stressed about a busy schedule.  I mean the clinical, mostly inexplicable, sometimes terrifying, why-do-I-feel-this-way variety.  How I've treated these besetting mental maladies in the past and present might make good material for a future post, but for today, let it be sufficient to say that the best medicine I've found so far is a healthy dose of certainty.

I know, by God's grace, through His Word and the working of the Holy Spirit in my heart, that certain things are True.  I know:  that God loved me before the world began (Ephesians 1:4-5).  I know: that God saved me with purposeful intention (Ephesians 2:4-5) when I was a child.  I know: that God has proven Himself faithful (Psalm 77:10-12).  I know: that what God started, He will finish (Philippians 1:6).  I know: that one day these vagaries of my mind and body will be cured completely (1 Corinthians 15:53).

Those are the heavy duty nuts and bolts that hold my life together.

Welcome Home, Ralph

This is why you should never give up.

Ralph Mitchell taught Sunday school to elementary aged children and led Royal Rangers (A/G Boy Scouts) at our church for the past two and a half decades.  That was after he had been involved in ministry elsewhere, and after he started coming to our church, and after he was already retired.  Ralph was short, feisty, funny, and sincere.  He loved NASCAR and was retired from the Navy.  Ralph's body gave out and he left us to be with the Lord last week.  He was 80.

When all of us around here stopped and thought about all the kids Ralph had influenced over the past many years, it kind of blew us away.  He was the favorite teacher of so many children, including my own.  At the funeral, my senior in high school cried, and so did the 14 year old, the 13 year old and the 9 year old.  Oh, and me, the 42 year old.

Ralph was the guy who wouldn't give up in his service to the church.  People find a lot of reasons to teach Sunday school for just a quarter, or back out on a commitment to children's church, or beg off coming to the prayer meeting, or whatever.  It's nice to have guys (and gals) like Ralph around. 

Ralph's longevity in our local body gave him a far reaching influence.  No flash in the pan was he.  He probably wouldn't have won any awards for his methods, and he was not a perfect man, but he was faithful, and that counts for a lot.  It's hard telling how many little ones he told about Jesus over the years, but he was still doing it just a couple weeks before he died.  That's how I wanna do it.  Right up to the end.

Welcome home, Ralph.

Committed to Perseverance & Sanctification, or, You Can't Unmix Peanut Butter and Jelly

Ever pack a PBJ in your lunch?  Ever try to neatly separate the PB from the J several hours later when it's time to eat? Of course not; there's no point, and it's impossible.

I am utterly convinced by Scripture that those the Lord saves, He also keeps.  He has saved me and will keep me saved.  I won't write at length about that now, because I want instead to consider a piece of truth that travels hand in hand with perseverance:  sanctification.  These two are smashed together in a sweet and fortifying combination, just like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

And knowing that God is committed to my growth in holiness gets me almost as excited as knowing that He has me snugly in His grip, because frankly, right now I need to know that I'm moving toward holiness.   I feel heavy with self and I'm weary of battling my own heart and mind along with the onslaught of temptation that comes with any given day.  Just as in times of doubt and anxiety when I cast myself upon the promises of God regarding my preservation as His child, I can cling tightly to the declarations in Scripture that promise my growth in holiness.

In fact, many of the passages that affirm God's intent to preserve His elect also speak confidently of his intention to refine them as well:

He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful. 1 Corinthians 1:8-9

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. Romans 8:29-30


If God will preserve, He will also refine and sanctify.  This definitely blows away any silly notions people have about living any way they please, because, hey "once saved always saved!"  It also destroys the argument some folks have against the perseverance of the saints (or, more properly, the perseverance of God with the saints, ala J.I. Packer) who say that this doctrine encourages sinful license.  Of course, the Bible does seems to teach that some of the saints will appear in heaven virtually empty-handed, having wasted their lives on this earth being lazy and/or foolish (1 Cor 3:12-15) - a good rebuke to keep up the fight.

But, in regard to my struggle with sin and the flesh, I find so much comfort in crying out to God and boldly asking Him to conform me to the likeness of Christ, because He has promised He will do it and can bring me victory over sin.

Continuing On...

So it's a bit lazy to simply link to someone else's post, but it's sure easy when it comes to formatting.  Today I've linked to a post at the Contemporary Calvinist regarding John Piper's view on the continuation of spiritual gifts.  For those who care, I am a gentle continuationist (please note that is spelled differently than charismaniac).  By gentle, I mean that I'm not disposed to argue until I'm blue in the face about it, which might actually be mistaken for not caring that much.  But I do. 

Anywho. 

I've come to appreciate (what I deem to be) measured, well-thought-out, and balanced perspectives in favor of continuationism from a Reformed/Calvinistic viewpoint.  I think Piper (et al.) does a good job with it.

You can read all about it right here. And I hope you will.

Symptoms Of False Doctrine, J.C. Ryle

Just yesterday I cruised by something on Facebook that made me scrunch up my face and go "Hehrm?"  It was the announcement of a special guest at the church of someone I know.  After a perusal of this speaker's writings and teachings, I found myself seriously questioning what any of it had to do with Jesus Christ or the Gospel. I was uncomfortable and confused by the description of one of his books that would help me to "obtain God's Higher Wisdom " and teach me how to "engage Heaven's Host in a completely new dimension." .....  Now, maybe the choice of words was just a real disaster and it's actually completely orthodox and harmless.  I don't know, but it all kind of weirded me out.

I don't know enough about this fella to make a judgment about him or his ministry; one thing is for certain though: it's easier to discern right from wrong than it is to discern right from almost right. 

J.C. Ryle has given us some guidance when it comes to false doctrine:

Many things combine to make the present inroad of false doctrine peculiarly dangerous.
1. There is an undeniable zeal in some of the teachers of error: their “earnestness” makes many think they must be right.
2. There is a great appearance of learning and theological knowledge: many fancy that such clever and intellectual men must surely be safe guides.
3. There is a general tendency to free thought and free inquiry in these latter days: many like to prove their independence of judgment, by believing novelties.
4. There is a wide-spread desire to appear charitable and liberal-minded: many seem half ashamed of saying that anybody can be in the wrong.
5. There is a quantity of half-truth taught by the modern false teachers: they are incessantly using Scriptural terms and phrases in an unscriptural sense.
6. There is a morbid craving in the public mind for a more sensuous, ceremonial, sensational, showy worship: men are impatient of inward, invisible heart-work.
7. There is a silly readiness in every direction to believe everybody who talks cleverly, lovingly and earnestly, and a determination to forget that Satan often masquerades himself “as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14).
8. There is a wide-spread “gullibility” among professing Christians: every heretic who tells his story plausibly is sure to be believed, and everybody who doubts him is called a persecutor and a narrow-minded man.
All these things are peculiar symptoms of our times. I defy any observing person to deny them. They tend to make the assaults of false doctrine in our day peculiarly dangerous. They make it more than ever needful to cry aloud, “Do not be carried away!”

~ J.C. Ryle

A Lesson From Deep Survival

The words of James Stockdale, a fighter pilot shot down over Vietnam in 1965 who endured 7 1/2 years in prison camp, and how he survived:

"One should include a course of familiarization with pain...you have to practice hurting.  There is no question about it . . . you have to practice being hazed.  You have to learn to take a bunch of junk and accept it with a sense of humor." ~excerpted from Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales

What's that got to do with the Christian life?  Mmmm...maybe that perseverance is called for, maybe it's because we're swimming upstream, and because our path is frequently like walking barefoot on hot sand, and also because we're travelling somewhere contrary to the world's way and the branches along the path tend to smack us sharply in the face.  But we'll make it.  Our Savior has been down that path before, blazing the trail.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.  2 Corinthians 4:16-18

On The Joy of Reading

A few good quotes on the value of books.  What's in your stack this year?

"It is chiefly through books that we enjoy the intercourse with superior minds...in the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most previous thought, and pour their souls into ours." ~ William Ellery Channing.

"Generally speaking, men are influenced by books which clarify their own thought, which express their own notions well, or which suggest to them ideas which their minds are already predisposed to accept." ~ Carl Lotus Becker

"In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but how many can get through to you." ~ Mortimer Adler

"A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity, and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon, and by moonlight." ~ Robertson Davies.