Tag Archives: the world

May 18, 2012

Home Again – Not Enough Showers to Get Off All the Dirt

By Pooka

Three months seemed more like six or more. But it ended. Gotta say it was far more than I expected, and quite different from the last time I got underway with a ship. I’ve never been to sea with so many people on such a big vessel. Frankly, I don’t think I could’ve predicted the different dynamics. And they were certainly different. I spent most of the time doing everything but the usual things in my job description. Which should illuminate how the whole thing works. The job description is more like a guideline from Pirates of the Caribbean.

Something broke – in me, not the ship – on this trip. I’m still unable to pin down just what goes on. Maybe it’s an early mid-life thingy or just the entirely new environment after several years of being on land. At least those might contribute.

The barrage of humanity – close, heavy, overwhelming and incessant was quick to become a problem. My last experience on a ship did not include the perspective I have of life, the universe and everything that I have now. And I took much of the sailorese, tradition and general dirt of people rather hard. It is difficult like nothing else I can think of to maintain peace and patience in the midst of the world when the world is condensed into a couple of thousand people living in a giant shoe-box on the sea.

To really explain all this out is more than I can put into a single post. That is why several of the previous entries are more poetic attempts to capture some of what I was feeling at the time.

Suffice to say, it was a shock nearly every day to hear the crassness, the dark thoughts and misery of regular people again after so long. I’ve been sheltered for a long time. I don’t like it, but I got the point rather late that there really is a real world and I’m part of it. I got my sailorese – the cussin’ and foulness back fairly quickly and then spent the duration fighting against it.

I lost a lot of faith, in a way, but I gained some insight into the mechanics of The Faith as well. There is something to be said about ivory tower Christianity, but in all, the isolation from Real World may be more of a loss. Though I find it distasteful or distressing (depending on the particulars), I think it’s better to be “in the mix” rather than in a monastery. We forget the complexity of depravity and corruption (our own!)  when we stay in our houses, our little support circles and home-schools. Apart doesn’t mean out-of, though every time I’ve been in there, I’ve wanted to run. A few times should have seen me running but I didn’t, and I hate that.

I also learned that to compare me to those great trials in the Scriptures (or anywhere else), in light of this common world is a difficult and often not-so-profitable exercise. Yes, my difficulties may well pale in comparison to those of the greats – David and Joseph, Paul and Christ – but I am not them – just a shadow of their massive weights on our lives. They set a standard for righteousness and suffering all at once, but I think we forget that they are (especially Jesus) more than we are. They are first things, the Formers and the Designers – hand-picked by God Almighty for essential elements of His plan of redemption and we are not co-actors on that level. We are recipients of their gifts of suffering, goodness, faith and all that entails.

Though I take up my cross daily, in emulation of Christ, I do not take up His Cross. That one I cannot take up; only He could. So I am not safely comparable to Him in my own trials. I am small and weak (made manifestly obvious during the last three months), and need Him for my support. I cannot endure what the greats endured for I am not in that select crew. I am not downplaying the Christian position; rather I am thinking that we over-rate our individual status in suffering and trials in some way that makes us equal to the task.

And we’re not. At least I’m not.

To accept this (provided I’m thinking rightly) may be a key to a right standing before the benevolent Father and His interceding Son. Broken and needy is far greater than safely cushioned in a fall. Fall far enough, fast enough and no amount of pious cushion can save. The impact reveals the lie.

Crying out to the Father-Son-Spirit for help sometimes ends up best when I don’t feel safe. Pleading for my life may end best with that uncertainty that comes from a desolate echo in my heart, reminding me that there’s still more to bear, more to fear, more trudging and sweating and groaning.

Remind me, o Spirit,
of my smallness, my weak estate.
for I depend, every second
on thy provision to make
my breath upon my lips
my gaze upon God’s grace
my feet fast on the earth
my trust truly trusting
And not upon my own work
Which fails as it stands.

The claim is that religion is a crutch. That may be fairly accurate from time to time.
Sometime the claim falls sorely short. The Faith is sometimes a gurney.
With an IV, straps, blankets and a half-dozen people trucking along with gauze, pain-killers, sutures and other bloody tools making slow headway in just keeping the patient alive during the trip.

6 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in The Faith

April 1, 2012

Today Tis Not Enough

By Pooka

I cannot see
How you find joy in me
With my ceaseless perils
And hiding and dying

I cannot lift me
I cannot reach your security
There is no path
To the seas of glass

Though I weep
Tears in this deep
Deep soul and cry to you
Today tis not enough

Nor any day
These days
And no enemy
Oppresses me

No enemy here
Upon which my eye may rest
Simply endless fear
And ponderous darkness

You might think
Satisfaction finds
Itself in looking back
To days more fine

That I might take heart
In all that you are
Father, Giver, Son
And all that you have done

But it rests not in me
I cannot see
My mind swallows me
In cloud and perilous black

I have read your psalms and the sweet refrains mind me of summer-land. Though I return to the shadows, trembling afresh at the weight upon me, I have read your psalms. I have believed and you have marked this humble thing of a man. I remain, crying out to you, and you have answered. The Lord has answered my cries and he has dealt mercifully with me. I only await the burden of his lovingkindness. One day there shall be no more tears.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Nightfall, Paper Screams, poetry, The Faith

March 12, 2012

Of Lust and Lethargy

By Pooka

This place, it is dark and soiled.
Its uncured leather bands,
Tied to bind my hands
Grind onto me the miasma,
The sweat of clouded minds
And it burdens all my toil.

I hate them
They hurt me
They lead me astray
There is no dawn
My Hope seems far away
I’ve been fenced from the table

I find me the fool
I cannot labor for I guard
My fallow fields under a foul star
Of lust and lethargy
Alone surrounded and
Covering my ears from the cruel

The hope I’d found
I found so sweet
It disappeared
With the horizon
That life I feared
Came back as the hope faded

The cruel words, the thrusts
The putrescence that surges to me
Pulls out my tongue, Drags at me,
And forces me to wag
A bitter stream of cursed nightmares
Things I left, I left back there

“Guard your steps as you go to the house of God and draw near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools; for they do not know they are doing evil. Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in heaven and you are on the earth; therefore let your words be few. For the dream comes through much effort and the voice of a fool through many words.

When you make a vow to God, do not be late in paying it; for He takes no delight in fools. Pay what you vow! It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. Do not let your speech cause you to sin and do not say in the presence of the messenger of God that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry on account of your voice and destroy the work of your hands? For in many dreams and in many words there is emptiness. Rather, fear God. – Ecclesiastes 5:1-7

I’ve learned a few things in just a few weeks. My strength is not my own, and my faith is not mine either. I always pride myself in my own self. I look at my accomplishments, the confidence and hopefulness stemming from a wash of dreamy perfection that is my own creation. It’s always been that way, and the good, warm, sweet things that surround me lead me to greater heights of security, loving my sordid sort of wisdom-collecting and word-weaving. My own increase has been my increase, a snake consuming its tail.

Removal from the fold has illumined this and brought back old nightmares that I’ve foolishly believed gone. And the Lord of Creation may well laugh at my foolishness, for I see once again that it is Him I have forgotten in my facile little attempts at piety, my falsetto holiness. O that my mind would consume this truth, that I would realize with some permanence that I am not the sum of my salvation. I run through the back of my head constantly that my feet are dirty, they are of clay and I tread the carpets of God’s House with these foul things. But it’s not real. Not real enough.

Until today, when the sunshine failed to lift my spirits and the sea suddenly hasn’t enough water to wash me clean. Then, then I am reminded that the cleansing flood is not my pursuit but His. Not my sweat and tears but His. Not my blood, which runs foul of its own streams but His, which is life, pure and purging, lifting my death from me, my lameness from my feet and my dumbness from my mouth. Before I could speak only evil. And still I can only spew the vitriol of those around me, lest I remember, by God’s grace, that I am His. I am among His people who He has made for Himself.

It is dark here, dark and infectious. I feel the teeming, groping shadows at my periphery and I almost, almost feel like rejoining them. But no. In the words of a little angel wiser than me, “but no.”

2 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Nightfall, Paper Screams, poetry, The Faith

January 17, 2012

Baptism Last Call

By Pooka

Cover for Item ReviewedContinuing from Sunday’s Baptism Retread, I want to demonstrate this from my own past and that of my kids. My oldest, was “baptized” into a pagan family. She was born to witches and dedicated in accordance with her family’s beliefs. No choice there.

Now we were more honest than Christians at the time as well. We, as parents, determined to raise our daughter with freedom to choose her beliefs by not explicitly indoctrinating her into witchcraft’s creeds or practices. Credo-baptist Christians do not do this with their own – they create a half-way dilemma for their kids in which the dedication and upbringing are Christian, but do not provide for inclusion in the covenant family of God. Essentially, this creates pagans being accepted into the family and church. Does the term Christian-in-name-only come to mind?

The world has the concept of baptism down perfectly. Children born outside the church, to non-Christian families are “baptized” into the religion of their fathers by full acceptance as just what they are; no “of age” requirements or professions of faith required at any point in order to become part of the family or culture or nation.

Once again, it seems most natural to me to think that the position of “believer’s baptism” as the only acceptable view of baptism is backward and unfaithful to the Scripture and God’s revealed system.

For additional reference:

I find that the arguments against paedobaptism are similar to the arguments against paedocommunion. I think that the analyses of PC are fitting where they do not similarly suit PB. Analyses of PB included in these references point toward validating the baptism of infants and young children. So far, it appears that PC isn’t for minor children because of the complexity, obligation and depth of the Lord’s Supper as opposed to baptism.

OPC paedocommunion – a great layout of the scriptural and historical grounds concerning paedocommunion.

PCA paedocommunion – a collection of position papers and statements on the issue.

3 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in The Faith

January 15, 2012

Baptism Retread

By Pooka

http://www.newlifelamesa.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/hero-baptism.jpg

I have a few more thoughts on infant baptism. Stuff I didn’t mention here in three big arguments for covenant baptism.

Primarily, I’d like to discuss this in a way that demonstrates how God’s system permeates even our “godless” society and traditions. Children are remarkably claimed by everything into which they are born, except for One Big Thing which mystifies me to no end. A year ago I was unsettled and unwilling to commit to the idea of infant, or covenant, baptism. It was foreign to me, and didn’t make much sense. I was more than willing to at least explore the idea, being more than aware that my Christian education was lacking in most areas, especially in the Reformed ideas of covenants and sacraments. So I read. And read and read. And then I wrote. And wrote.

Denial of infant baptism actually breaks a pattern that has been running for millenia. I’ll keep it really brief. Children have had no choice in things like birth-parents, family name, Christian name, nationality, race, religion or what’s-for-dinner for as long as children have been around. Why in the world do we come up with the idea that they are not members of the church? The church is not a business that only “hires” people of legal working age. The church has never been a club that “cards” prospective patrons to see if they’re old enough to enter. The church has ever been considered an outpost, a consulate or embassy of God’s kingdom in the world. Therefore, I think it should make sense to baptize infants with the understanding that essentially is corroborated by practices of historical and modern custom and legal matters. Here are some references.

Birth abroad … Citizenship … Family Law Basics

Now, to quell the suspicion that I’m using the World to interpret the Bible in a Christian issue that needs to be resolved, I must refer back to my previous posts and the Word in general to make the claim that there’s no argument here. The Scriptures assume, just as they assume covenants in general, that children born to believing parents (or covenant families) are considered participants in the covenants. Isaac did not have to wait to be the covenant child until Genesis 24. Jacob and Esau did not have to wait until they were “of age” to begin the battle of who would be the continuation of the Promise. The firstborn children of Israel had no say in their survival on the day of the passover when the Lord’s angel came into Egypt and started the holocaust.

In every case of children I can think of, none had to prove themselves or hit a certain age before they were anointed or circumcised or sprinkled. Children were partakers of the covenants of God as soon as they entered into the world. The fact that there was this mysterious baptism thing in the New Testament really doesn’t come to bear on the children:

  1. They didn’t need to be included in the revision of being called out: They inherited whatever was going to happen, regardless, because they were children.
  2. Baptism was simply a modal shift from circumcision, not an entirely new practice that completely wiped out all past meaning and practices from the times of the Patriarchs. In fact, Baptism wasn’t even an entirely new idea in the first place. What people apparently are all worked up over was nothing more than the most obvious and poignant means of “setting apart” or “cutting off” seen in circumcision. Baptism, sprinkling, anointing and other means of marking the one who belonged to the covenant all made it into the omnibus version of applying God’s promises in word and touch – baptism.
  3. They weren’t the main actors! Those in the New Testament were primarily conversant adults because they were required to interact with Jesus and His apostles on the level at which the Scriptures speak. And those adults were automatically responsible for those children.
  4. Jesus gave it to them, without mention of their age or eligibility: Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” (Matthew 19:14)

Finally, we who are believers in the doctrine of election, of God’s sovereignty, all should be convinced that it is God’s work and choice that we have become His children and that we were not really given the option to turn to Him for our salvation. He dragged us, kicking and screaming, from our place at the brink of hell into His courts where we may enjoy Him forever. What more could help us to understand that His children are as much in our place as we are? More so, for we were afar off, but our children, born into our Christian families and churches are not so far off, are they?

I hope that helps.

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January 1, 2012

Idols Of Marriage

By Pooka

There are a great many similarities between Christ and the church, our relationship to the Father and our relationship in marriage. It’s been said consistently that marriage is a shadow that greatly symbolizes Christ’s relationship to His bride, the Church. Ephesians 5 pretty much lays this out for us:

“Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for herto make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”

I’d like to trace this out a little bit differently. As Christians, our sinful nature separates us from our Lord in our own lives over and over again. It must be understood, and remembered, that it is our God who steps into our lives and interacts with us, brings us into communion and community with Him and our fellow saints. All our good actions, thoughts and words are results of His intervention in our lives, specifically through His Spirit who dwells within us.

Outside of Christ, all good is vanity, merely a superficial sugar coating on what is ultimately twisted and evil, so appearances deceive. We must not base our lives and qualities on that which the World puts on display as right or righteous. So I’m talking most to Christians here, from what I believe should be the proper Christian perspective.

As Husband and Wife, there are idols which replace our proper relationship to each other. They may seem right, or even be essentially indistinguishable from our marital relationship. But as we have our perpetual idol factories going on all our days, separating us from our Lord’s good will and commands, those same sorts of idols do double duty to divorce us from our marriages. I perceive most of these because they are little shadows and great chasms in my own family, but some are based on what I’ve observed outside as well.

What they are, specifically, I would think becomes obvious, as soon as we think of our barriers to proper marital relationships as idol-like things. Obsession with work (in order to provide, of course), obsession with the kids (replacing that of husband or wife), preservation of the house or living status or any number of other material things. All sorts of little and big things we may believe are part of our familial duties become more important to us than the family itself. Even the devotion of a husband to his wife can be compromised by just the secret little place of spite that is hidden away but resides in every thing he does for her. Hypocritical commitment is not commitment at all, but is a living, breathing divorce that endures over time, seeping bitterness and alienation into what is God’s greatest (and first) establishment of human interrelation.

We create idols for our marriage just for the same reasons that we do so in place of God. Because we only want to trust what we control, what we can manipulate. Or worse, what we think we can understand and develop. Yes, she isn’t easy to figure out or he isn’t easy to live with. No, she isn’t what you originally bargained for (bargained? What? I think that’s pretty shoddy, considering all good things come from the Lord and He is the one who designed her and presented her to you in the first place). No, he isn’t obsessed with you like he was in the beginning.None of these things holds water to what God designed in marriage and none of the substitutes make up in any way.

Here is the answer. It’s probably disappointing to read, but it’s all I’ve been able to figure out in 15 years of marriage. Christ. The directions we have for our relationship to Christ are our directions for doing right by our spouse. I mean that literally: If we are to love our wives as Christ loved the church and we are to submit to our husbands as the church submits to Christ, then lets do that first. Look for devotion to Him and devotion to spouse should follow suit.

The church, being the Bride, should as a whole be alert to this equation and seek to build it in the marriages that comprise her membership. Members of the Body of Christ should be able to come to their church for support and leadership in marriage trials. But all of this depends on the whole being devoted to Christ, His Word and sacraments. Without the elements of the Faith, ain’t nonna this going to go much farther. All else that has developed in and outside the Christian religion is but works without belief and trust in the Savior. Counseling, tips, guidebooks, philosophy, 12-steps, all of these are works. The sacrifice, devotion, empathy, sympathy, emotion and everything else that comprise the sweetness of marriage are only real if they develop out of a commitment to the Lord and because we believe and love Him first. He makes it work, not us. The mystery, of course is that God makes the trials and efforts we endure and enact build our relationships. Ponder that, but depend on Him.

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December 6, 2011

My Liturgy Is My Litany Is My Liberty

By Pooka

This is another long one. If it’s too much, here’s one possible executive summary: We can’t think covenantally (read correctly) because of sin: We’ve made our covenant with ourselves and the rest of life in Christ is the removal of that lasting, bonded, covenant to self.

One of our great afflictions in this generation is the near extinction of a mindset that is vital to relationships and our correct view of just about everything. We’re missing the concept of commitment. The shadow of this problem has been growing for a long time, in many parts of our western culture for certain.

I’ve read and listened to thousands of words about how world wars have caused such devastation, being the ultimate manifestations of evil in the 20th century. The result that seems to be a common thread in WWI, II, and all the big, destructive conflicts surrounding them is that people have lost their sense of anything being worth it. Sometimes I’ve heard “where is God?” in response to the cataclysms but I think that more, there’s been a doubt that arises from this question that is more deadly. “Why should I commit to the God who isn’t there?”

Also, the increase in ease of life, communication, mobility have all sugar-coated this almost instant liberty from commitment by making us freer to choose (ironically). We can easily vacillate between what we want to do, what we can do and what we should do. We have no need to put down roots and abide somewhere, in something or on something, since picking up and trucking off are as simple as gassing up the infernal combustion machine and throwing a box of clothes in the trunk. We can now delete what we’ve said, obliterate the meaning of what we decide not to delete with an update, or even put meaningful, ambiguous half-speech before the masses that can be read any of a dozen ways none of which commit us to anything.

I’ll list some of the things I see as contributors: Cars, the Web and social media, phones, freeways and airways, free or near-free publishing. All of these are just pieces in the big Lego set of “freedom” that gives us choice. It can go back to the Framers in our American history, who laid the groundwork for protection of our liberties, but strangely enough opened the floodgates just enough that we could begin to define our liberties by greater leaps and bounds every day. Now we see public protests for any reason under the sun, laymen making commentary on anything and everything of which they know less than nothing (yers truly included) and completely unqualified candidates for positions that once required not just qualifications but the wherewithal to commit to the demands of the positions. I speak in generalities because it’s all over – I’m not criticizing just One or promoting an agenda.

Of course, it’s sin. Full rounded freedom to do just what we want is just what we all want. And so, with no commitments, no reason to commit, we define our own fiction, a story that casts us in the center of everything. The very circles in which we run are self-licking ice cream cones that uplift the individual so that each of us in a group can say that the group is us and we uphold the group. We’ve committed to just one thing, ourselves, which is precisely what Adam did in the garden, wanting his own edification and significance. All other bets are off. We’re free to clean out our Facebook friend list at any time, delete our Tweets, rebuild the Lego set as many times as we’d like or drop off the grid just by unplugging the idiot box, starting the car and driving off to a new place. Maybe a season at The Burning Man will do me good.

So we have this intense difficulty looking at the Bible with a frame of mind that truly understands it. We can’t seem to understand the concept of commitment because we’ve been raised free from the mandate of commitment. Billboards claim “your way” or “define yourself” or “rethinking you” while banks, stores, services and forums all call for us to contribute our thoughts and preferences in detail that reaches all the way to the packaging on a jug of milk. And so with the Bible, green, military, woman’s, child’s, MacArthur’s, Reformation, survivor’s, Purpose Driven, College, (enough yet?). Since we are free to choose anything, we cannot come to the Word of God and understand that we cannot choose anything. Funny that by driving ourselves to the point that we can choose all, we’ve bound ourselves in our lives to a litany of choice. Our liturgy is to pause in reflection before any event or action and consider not whether it is profitable or required, but whether it is good for me or worth my while.

So is it truly a wonder that we cannot see the continuity of the Scriptures and God’s work of redemption? Is it surprising that the New Testament is all about me and the Old is all about them? Is it surprising that we’ve created circles of dedication to the Jewish Nation, Theonomic Society, Two Kingdoms, Altar Calls and Bob Jones U. or other cultural identification that we can “identify with” and will have meaningful productivity for ourselves? Distinctives should bring about suspicion in many cases. Are they distinctives that set the Word of God above party preferences, or do they facilitate personal identity and alignment to a movement or other personality? I’m not knocking loving neighbor here, I’m condemning loving self, for that is what these all-about perceptions are all about. Our “destiny” is about telling God what’s what, and joining with our neighbors in a Babel Project that brings us to the heavens or at least frees us from commitment to what we were made for.

Continuity, you say? What does that have to do with commitment? I ran off the track right?

I don’t think so. I see this every day. I have the freedom to choose whatever I want. I can choose to leave or stay, paint or draw or write or read or vegetate. I can do my work or not. I don’t have a sense of duty or higher calling. And I’ve taught my kids the same thing. I watch passively as the schools do the same thing. I think that, other than this work here on Lord and Hearth, the occasional gatherings of our folk from church in various venues and (ultimately) Sunday worship, the concept of commitment is virtually nonexistent in an epistemological way (meaning concretely, it’s more than just a cursory glance or “living” covenantally). My view of things, though growing toward an understanding of covenants, is anti-covenantal. I don’t think in terms of my marriage vows or enlistment contract. Nor do I keep in mind that my kids are my ministry-handed-down-by-God-Himself. I don’t think about how much my beloved brothers and sisters in Church are a truly covenant people. I forget, for days on end, the vows to Church and Congregation, and in suit forget to review these with my family.

But our Lord does not forget. He does not make commitments, covenants, optional – for Himself or for us. So at some point, there will be a reckoning. Fortunately for us, we who are in His church, the bride of His Son, that reckoning is weekly and we are brought to His promises and fed His promises and we hear them, touch and see them. Discipleship and discipline are tutors in covenants. The whole point is to learn that our God is a covenantal being who deals in things like guarantees, places, commitments, promises, tangibles, relationships – all those things that are concrete and inflexible. He does not quibble over current fads and movements. He uses even these to implement reiterations of His promises. And we do well to ponder these things. The ultimate Promise is that He did, in creation, set up our redemption from the very beginning and that every aspect of our redemption is founded on promises, covenants, which He alone maintains. Jesus Christ the actor, the Holy Spirit the Official Seal, God the Judge; survey the titles that are everywhere in Scripture, all promise us His faithfulness.

R. C. Sproul has spent years teaching about many things like the Holiness of God. One thing we should think about, regarding this subject is that God is the guarantee of Sproul’s work. Sproul has explained all about God’s holiness, but God is the one we must believe is going to be holy – it’s based on His Word, His clear declaration that Holy is what He is. So we have a guarantee of this. Where I can flip between personality traits, He will not. He has promised.

Reading the Word for the promises of God, for His faithfulness to make and provide for us a Savior, a satisfaction for our sin, a solution for our hopelessness, is bound to resolve many of the conflicts among us today. It is bound to “liberate” us with the freedom to seriously be committed to a beautiful goal that is depends on God’s promises rather than human frailty and fickleness.

I read an Old Life article today, which dovetails in right here (Even though the author isn’t going where I’m going). It speaks to me of more than just pastoral commitment while at the same time makes me more than a little thankful that my pastor, our pastor, has a commitment to God’s Word and the ministry thereof which takes precedent for our benefit.

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November 29, 2011

I Don’t Exactly Surrender All

By Pooka

 

So this is another long one. It’s an exploration one of the most popular themes from my yesteryear, that which failed to sink Gospel teeth into me. It’s probably not perfectly formed, so I’m up for clarifying critique. On with the show.

The last two White Horse Inn episodes I’ve listened to, along with reading J.G. Machen have started me on another round of anti-navel-gazing ponderance. The questions posed in the gospel of pragmatism are whether our experience, or life story is the Gospel and whether making disciples can be a system similar to the process of a factory. Yep, back to the Finney Finish and Me-ism I go.

What should be amazingly easy, but we all seem to forget constantly, is that ever-present religion of Me-ism. It’s not just that we believe our personal testimony is the prime tool for bringing people to Christ, but that our very life is critical to everything in our Religion. I mean here that if I sin grievously, persistently, that my faith is in doubt. That I might not be saved. I also mean here that if I’m not living “as a Christian should”, that I have no witness to bear.

This is insane. If I sin grievously once or persistently over time, my faith could be in doubt. But that is missing the point. My salvation can not be in doubt, because God has promised me eternal life, salvation by Grace through faith, entirely being His gift. He has not promised me a cleaned-up, perfected life right now. If this was not the case, my baptism should’ve been a bit more dramatic in its results, I believe, and I should also be a very effective preacher, missionary or seminary prof by now. And a lot of other really awesome Bibley things. 

Salvation does not hinge on what I’m doing right now or late at night with my friends. It does not hinge on me falling off the wagon or getting on the wrong wagon. It hinges on me trusting in Jesus Christ. It hinges on me believing The Gospel and not, especially not, in the testimony of somebody else or the change in my life. And my believing the Gospel does not hinge on me! It hinges on God. Assurance is not me and is not subjective. It is God and His Word that assure me.

But we turn round again, at every turning, back to this doubt and sense of hopelessness that we are not saved, or that we have forsaken our right to the fellowship of the church. Garbage. Instead of us re- blanket training ourselves the Gospel has removed us from the sin blanket that makes us dependent on our own goodness to get in with God.

Getting all this Gospel-centeredness straightened out should lead to another amazing revelation. The Gospel is The Gospel. It’s not me and my long tale of conversion. The story I have put up in the About here at LAH is not the Gospel. Notice all the potential Me-ism in there. I put it up there not in hopes that somebody would come to faith by reading it but to show where I come from and where I’ve been, for relevance and sharing the joy of what’s happened. 

If I crash and burn tomorrow, falling into a pit of sinful misery at the bar in Thailand with two women, tequila, a doobie and a stolen car, my pretty story suddenly takes on  a new light. It begs the question, “What about now? All that awesome stuff really didn’t mean anything, did it?” And so my “witness” is shot. And in a majority of churches, I’d be suddenly out of grace, considered unsaved, reprobate, a false convert or maybe even just plain subject to losing my salvation. Garbage. In fact, based on what most Christian teaching implies, if I show up in church next Sunday after my vacation, reformed and confessing my sin, I’d better ask Christ into my life and forgive my sins, heck – even get baptized again, cause I wasn’t really saved last week. But that’s not it at all.

Now I hope and pray the Lord will forever protect me from such a demise. He’s definitely put in place a lot of safeguards that are very likely to limit the chances of me getting into such a situation. But that’s not it for the Gospel. The point here is that what I do is not critical to the Gospel. What Christ did is critical to the Gospel. It is the Gospel. And if I believe it, I’m saved. Not perfected. Romans 12:1-2 the whole New Testament is about believing the truth and then working it out, not hearing the truth and then meeting Joel Osteen.

Okay, so what can I look for, for indicators that I’m saved? If all the stuff above doesn’t clear any fog, maybe this might help a little: Here’s what changes, in varying degree and extent, for a Christian.

Before:  I loved to sin. I felt guilty because I knew I was doing wrong, sometimes, but mostly because of consequences. I constantly dug for reasons to legitimize my evil, self-centered desires and pursuits. I hated the idea of a judging God who set the rules and, regardless of my opinion, made them not-optional.

After: I hate being sinful. I hate that everything I do is tainted with Me-ism and weakness. I do as much wrong as I did before, only now it’s worse. Much of that obvious evil activity that characterized my life is now well hidden. Maybe some of it really is deleted from my programming, but most? Still here. I’m essentially the same dirty person. But I believe that God has promised me salvation. I believe that Christ did what is impossible for me and then paid the price for all that I have done (and will do). So I can rest in these things, thankful that everything I have that is good is provided, not by anything I’ve done, by God Himself.

I don’t exactly surrender all, rather I believe and increase in beliefs about what is true and what follows is a deeper love for God and His ways. That causes a deeper hatred of my ways and the world’s ways. But what everything returns to is the Message. Christ lived for my righteousness, died for my sins rose again for my life.

Sheesh

All to Jesus I surrender;
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.

Refrain:
I surrender all,
I surrender all;
All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.

All to Jesus I surrender;
Humbly at His feet I bow,
Worldly pleasures all forsaken;
Take me, Jesus, take me now.

All to Jesus I surrender;
Make me, Savior, wholly Thine;
Let me feel the Holy Spirit,
Truly know that Thou art mine.

All to Jesus I surrender;
Lord, I give myself to Thee;
Fill me with Thy love and power;
Let Thy blessing fall on me.

All to Jesus I surrender;
Now I feel the sacred flame.
Oh, the joy of full salvation!
Glory, glory, to His Name!

Feeling? I can’t trust my feelings. Surrender? How can I give up this stuff of my own volition? Freely give? I think it’s better if He takes, so I’m gonna pray for that. Giving me to Christ? God gave me to Christ:

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. — John 6:37

Here’s what is good. I fight all day against my sin. At the end of the day I look back and usually I can dump out a decent bucket of sin onto the table for sorting and examining. Sometimes there’s a piece of sin that is not there, often one that is pretty familiar and usually in the mix. But not often. It seems that my evil just won’t diminish, in fact it seems to become more detailed heavy. And I can, by the grace of God, look at it and then at my Savior and know that I’m forgiven and that someday this mess is really going to be cleaned up. And then I look ahead to Sunday, always looking ahead to Sunday, and the reunion with the rest of my people who are just like me, gathered to worship the One we are not: The Saving God Who Keeps His Promises.

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November 27, 2011

Who’s The Moral Monster?

By Pooka

Machen claims there’s a better relationship to be had with the atheist than with liberal christians. Atheists hold that God is a moral monster, capricious and petty, even inconsistent between the Old and New Testament. Some liberal christians seem to have the idea that there are two different gods in the two Testaments, which puts them essentially in the same camp as the atheists. Well, except for the fact that atheists deny God outright and only render philosophical judgement of Christianity’s beliefs. Liberals deal viciously with the Christian religion at the same time as they pretend to uphold it. But they come to their pulpits with a demolished Gospel, misrepresented Christ and much more. Both they and the atheists get a lot in common when you pare it all down. Humanists, the lot of ‘em.

I think we should turn this all on its head, this conception of God. An honest look at Scripture must force a different God on the scene and therefore a different man than what men presume to understand.

Genesis 19 is a great place to start a case. We heard this chapter from the pulpit today, and it is a rich passage. It makes a very powerful claim that men, not God, are the moral monsters. Where He is consistent through all of Scripture (and History, believe it or not) we are the ones who are wandering around, blind and helpless. Men are without a moral compass and have been experimenting with the means of government, piety and morality for millenia without any great success to date.

Conversely, when God hates a thing, it is clear that He hates it. When God promises, He is faithful. When God requires, He does not lower the bar.

Consistency. The God of the New Testament, if anything, is even more intense than in the Old. He wipes out entire cities, countries, nations and even the whole world in the Old Testament. But in the New, He unleashes His full wrath on just one man. And not only that, the man who suffers is God’s Son, who deserves none of the punishment meted out. God is consistent in the small stuff too, taking care of Ananias and Sapphira, Herod through OT methods as well as blinding, muting, cursing, condemning and other things which certainly hail back a few centuries before the advent of Christ and Apostles.

Meanwhile, men are also consistent. In Genesis, we are vicious, intolerant toward right-thinking men, murderous to strangers and unfaithful to each other. In the New Testament, we’re unfaithful spouses, debauchers and drunks, hoarders, liars and unjust judges. We kill indiscriminately, free convicted criminals for innocent prisoners, wash the blood from our hands and pretend to be gods. We have no concept of sexual purity, legal propriety or familial honor in any place in history. We praise the corrupt man and seek to destroy the pure man.

Who is the moral monster? It’s us, not God. God knows His rules and abides by them. Not only that, but since they’re His rules, He expects us to abide by them too. I’ll call God consistent and faithful, how about you? An honest reader, whether Christian or not, should be able to see this in the Bible. Lamentably, it appears even our reason is ruined to the point where we cannot make sense of the most blatantly simple logic.

Thankfully, He is consistent and faithful. The real God is faithful enough that, knowing we are hopelessly bent and lacking any ability to break out of our condition, He promises help and then keeps His promise. Christ, the Son who suffered unjustly in our world, kept God’s requirements to the letter and then willingly assumed the position as the representative of all men of all times. God delighted to judge Christ as a sinner rather than us who deserve judgement, and Christ delighted to see that suffering. The delight is in looking at the results. The horror lifted our death sentence and freed us to cleave to Him, Jesus, and finally rest in hope of a day without missing God’s love, without missing His mark. We can see the tiny changes in a life that’s reborn because of Jesus. Believing this, we too will suffer and most of us will die, but we will, like Jesus, be brought back alive to reside with Him. God is consistent and keeps His promises. Someday, we who belong to God will no longer be moral monsters. We’ll be righteous sons and daughters, and God can already see us like that: for Him, we look like Jesus.

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November 21, 2011

People Are Designed Covenantally

By Pooka

The following quotes are definitions of covenant and come from a .PDF created by Grace Community Churc in PA.

Meredith Kline (1922‐2007)

…a berith (Hebrew word for covenant) is a legal kind of arrangement, a formal disposition of a binding nature. At the heart of a berith is an act of commitment and the customary oath‐form of this commitment reveals the religious nature of the transaction. The berith arrangement is no mere secular contract but rather belongs to the sacred sphere of divine witness and enforcement. The kind of legal disposition called berith consists then in a divinely sanctioned commitment. In the case of divine‐human covenants the divine sanctioning is entailed in God’s participation either as the one who himself makes the commitment or as the divine witness of the human commitment made in his name and presence.

J. Ligon Duncan

Now, berith in the Old Testament signifies a binding, mutual relationship with mutual obligations, a binding mutual relationship with attendant obligations.

Michael Horton

So what exactly is a covenant? Anticipating the definition in the next chapter, we can start by saying that from the most commonly used Hebrew word for this concept (bent), a covenant is a relationship of “oaths and bonds” and involves mutual, though not necessarily equal, commitments. As we will see shortly, some biblical covenants are unilaterally imposed commands and promises; others are entered into jointly. Some are conditional and others are unconditional. In other words, under the overarching concept of oaths and bonds we encounter a substantial variety of covenants in Scripture.

Something that I wonder at is how covenants are insanely far reaching. I think that this idea stems from God’s eternal perspective and, though we are “in time” where He is “outside time”, there is a reflection of our Lord’s span of attention. God steps in and does things that are temporal, of course, but we look at the first recorded covenant and see that it is one that comes before creation.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,

This is the classic predestination verse, right? It’s covenantal language. There’s a word study on this that I think is fitting: Ephesians 1:4 and that leads to another verse, 1st Corinthians 15:22 which talks about another covenantal impact (Adam’s federal headship).

When God declares or sets a covenant, it’s not a short-deal. It lasts. The first one He made with Adam is still killing us today. The second one, about the snake and the heel? Took us right to Christ.  The promise for Noah – still on: no water apocalypse. Moses? Law still here, though in Christ we’re freed from it. Redemption – always been in God’s agenda and as soon as it was served to us in Christ, became permanent backwards and forwards.

I’m just thinking about how we, as God’s creation, were first introduced to relationships by lasting relationships, or covenant agreements. And when we tried to sidestep or violate the covenants, retribution was swift and disastrous. But the covenants were there and in force, irrevocable and lasting.

Just because men were dispersed after the garden, Babel and then reset at the flood doesn’t seem to have eradicated the existence of God’s covenants. They, we might say, are in the blood. People are designed covenantally. The effects of the fall is that we become covenant breakers.

There is no point in history where we are found free of God’s promises, threats, commitments or agreements. What is happening, though, is that we’re getting worse about the whole thing. Our sin nature is denying God’s framework more and more fanatically which brings us to today where we’ve tried to delete the concepts entirely.

I don’t know how useful this line of thought really is. It doesn’t give me much to work with. Now, it’s helped me greatly in getting what I think is an improved understanding of our weekly Covenant Renewal, which is Sunday worship. It’s helped me understand baptism and the Lord’s Table better. It’s definitely built a bit more sense of responsibility and dedication to my family. But so far as “doing something” I’m not sure there actually is something to do. Perhaps this increased understanding is a thinking-changer rather than an imperative generator.

Maybe comprehending God’s covenant system is likened to the Gospel? The Gospel is a proclamation, not a to-do list. Understanding covenants is not the same as making covenants. I’m sure that, should I encounter another relationship commencement in my lifetime, I’ll look upon it differently, but I don’t think I’m going to be taking action in my local church to affect some system of covenant-making gunk. Besides, whatever I do, as a natural covenant-breaker, isn’t going to pan out much anyhow.

It looks like, just as God created our relationships, He also sustains them and there ain’t much we can do about either. All we’re doing, as I see it, is hitching along for the ride. Elbow grease is always in response to something God has done, not to get God to do something. And He supplies the motive power for the response, too, right?

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