theologer

"The salvation of the righteous is from the LORD; he is their stronghold in the time of trouble." - Psalm 37:39

Well I made it. And while this verse may be more about evil-dooers vs. those who trust in the Lord, I still think it applies.

I wanted to rejoice for a minute that the Lord pulled me through the 2nd most miserable trip of my life (One time I flew consecutively from Tirana Albania, to Vienna, to Beijing, to Los Angeles, to Denver... with a 7 hour layover in Vienna, 12 hour layover in Beijing and 10 hour layover in Los Angeles... I wanted to die, and blame this for my unreasonable dislike of flying).

My precious daughter flew wonderfully well and screamed only for a few minutes in the whole 40+ hour extravaganza. I did everything I could to look to the Lord, but credit your prayers and the Lord's grace.

I made it, I was calm, I wasn't miserable, I didn't want to die. And best of all I was reminded of my calling and the heart the Lord has given me for these people.

I'll be around, but need to get back to my kid and wife. Just wanted to say a big thank you for the prayers, and a big praise God for His grace. He is our stronghold, He is our salvation.

"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer." - Psalm 19:14

Simply because so often,
they are not.

"Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name!  
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits,"
-Psalm 103:1-2

I think I've written on blessing the Lord before (it's sad I can't remember or find it through a search) but if it's something you don't do, consider getting in the habit. Awkward as it may be at first.

But bless the Lord.. with your whole soul! After all, when was the last time that you thanked He "who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases"?- v3

Or the one "who redeems your life from the pit" - verse 4... These are not little things. These are matters of not just pain, suffering, right and wrong. It's not even just about life and death, but about eternal damnation or eternal joy, a black and white that we might never be able to comprehend.

That's the God we worship.
Bless Him!

If the angels bless Him(v20) and His ministers (v21) then so ought your soul. "For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him"(v11). The heavens are FAR above the earth.

And let me tell you, when it says "as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us," that is NO little deal.

I've been to Western Europe, and they're a little like us. I've been the Middle East, and I started to think they were pretty weird. But then I saw the Far East, and let me tell you, the East is a LONG ways from the West. There is nothing about the East that is ANYTHING like the West.

Our God removed our sins that far from us. So next time before a meal instead of "Good food, good meat, good God lets eat," try a "God we bless you for your steadfast love, for your provision for this meal, for your great love for us, for dying on the cross for us. Bless you God!"

"Let us lie down in our shame, and let our dishonor cover us. For we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day, and we have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God." - Jeremiah 3:25

I wrote the other day about shame and guilt and I've been thinking about it since. In the shame based culture where I've been spending my time these days, we've had to really re-think the way we do evangelism. Now there are experts who know these things but I found it fascinating.

The thing is, in America we would read this verse and then think, "we have sinned." That is, we have done something wrong that needs to be made right. We will even share the gospel with people as "you have sinned, and the only person who can make things right is God Himself, you do want to be forgiven don't you? What you did was wrong!"

But in a shame based culture they would read this verse completely differently and think, "Oh my gosh, we sinned AGAINST the Lord! We have shamed God!" And then to apply it in evangelism a whole new approach must be taken, as this person would not care if what they had done was wrong, turning to Jesus would bring shame to their family. Therefore the approach of "You have shamed God, your creator, the only way you can bring back the honor he deserves is to turn to Him and He will choose to forget how you have wronged Him. What you did was shameful!"

Then people wake up, "Oh my gosh," they say, "I shamed God!" And then this becomes the vehicle by which they turn to the Lord.

Anyhow, I just found this fascinating. We read sin and think wrongdoing. They read sin and think dishonor.

"Seek the LORD and his strength;
seek his presence continually!" - Psalm 105:4

It took me nearly twenty years to learn that this is the essence of the Christian life. I heard it over and over again but I almost never saw it lived out. In retrospect I think my father and few other people successfully modeled trying to seek the Lord, but we're all just so bad at it.

My ESV Bible titles this Psalm "Tell of all his wonderful works," which is a good summary of what it says. I appreciate the Psalm because David pretty systematically praises the Lord and sings of the freedom the Lord has given him and his ancestors.

As a father I lay my hand on my daughter's head everyday and I beg the Lord that she would know Him and that she would know the joy which comes from seeking Him. I was so old before I learned life was not about me. I was so old before I learned I alone could never find satisfaction, hope, and love. I was always sooooo close (or so I thought) because I could find fleeting things. But I never experienced true joy, and the freedom that comes from it, until I learned to seek the Lord's strength and dwell in His presence.

Childhood was hard because I didn't understand this. I hope it's more obvious to my kids. I hope I can model a life saved by grace and not always make it seem like I'm the one who will really bring myself salvation. I want to model seeking the Lord's strength instead of my own, and seeking Him instead of the things of this world.

I should also mention, in Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret at one point someone asks Hudson Taylor if it's hard to constantly remember that he dwells in the Lord. His answer was something along the lines of "If you stay the night at a friends house, and forget that you're staying there, does that mean you're no longer in the house?"

We can forget we're in the presence of the Lord, but we're still there.

"Then Job answered the LORD and said: 'Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further.'" - Job 40:3-5

Remember that song, "I fought the law and the law won"? Imagine fighting God. I enjoy this verse for several reasons, Job arguing with the Lord seems extremely reasonable in our world of right and wrong. Job was wronged, it seems reasonable he would be angry with the Lord.

I love how the Lord silences Job. Job complains, complains, complains, and we're all right there with him... agreeing with all he's saying, and then at the beginning of this chapter the Lord has responded,

"And the LORD said to Job: 'Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it.'" - verses 1&2

The Lord is basically saying this to us, not just Job, because we're basically siding with Job throughout this whole book. But the Lord wins.

No matter how much we contend with the Lord over right and wrong in this world, (as there sure seems to be an awful lot of it), over our lots in life, and over our good times and bad, the Lord has the right to respond, "Who are you to argue with the almighty?"

How can we in our wisdom (only infinite in it's limitations), even pretend to question the creator?

Job is challenging the big kid in the school yard, the kid let him present his point, and then pointed out that he can crush him to the ground if he doesn't shut up. "I'll shut up, I'll shut up," he responds.

"I lay my hand on my mouth, I have spoken once . . . but I will proceed no further."

Awesome. When is the last time the Lord reminded you of just how small you are? Just how insignificant your opinions? And when was the last time you thanked Him for dying for you anyway?

"Blessed be the Lord who has given rest to his people Israel, according to all that he promised. Not one word has failed of all his good promise, which he spoke by Moses his servant." - 1 Kings 8:56

This hit home tonight. I'm tired. I had three doctors appointments today, with a chiropractor, dentist, and then optometrist. Then I came home and spent about 5 hours on my Hebrew class. Not to mention my little girl was having a rough day and pretty much didn't sleep today, just stirred and wined and couldn't relax. - The Lord gave rest to Israel.

I'm glad I serve a God that's not a God of works but a God of grace who even made provision from the beginning of the world for rest. Then He fulfilled his promises.

I worship a God who has promised an awful lot, and made provision for rest. Someday, I will look back and say, "Blessed be the Lord, who gave me rest, according to all he promised. He fulfilled all he promised to his children."

Cool.

"Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." - Hebrews 4:16

I realized today how much I live my life without this grace. I know about grace. I believe in grace. But I live like I am the creator of my own salvation. I live like I alone can bail myself out of my sin.

But the Lord offers mercy; grace in my time of need. Instead I look to my own strength to solve my problems, and determine to "do better next time." I awake and think these things would go away if my quiet times were longer. If only I focused more on the scripture.

I've forgotten Hudson Taylor's reminders of constant abiding in the Lord. I don't have to work at it to be a citizen of the Kingdom, loved and looked out for by the King. I am a citizen, and now nothing I can do will change that.

I do have the opportunity to fight for the King (see this morning's post about being a violent man). And I should see it as a privilege in the same way I would love to play for the Denver Broncos. Except I'm already on this team. Fighting for this side. And I just keep running to the corner, thinking the Lord wont let me on the starting team unless I kiss up. But he's counted me worthy.

Lord I desire grace, to recognize your grace, to live your grace, to accept your grace, to rejoice in your grace.

"From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force." - Matthew 11:12

Or, the kingdom of heaven forcefully advancing and forceful men take hold of it.

This is such a great verse just because it's so strange. But the more I read it, the clearer to me it becomes that I am called to be a violent man taking hold the kingdom of heaven.

If this really is THE battle for the kingdom, through powers and such that we cannot see, then how passive of a role am I playing? Every time I come across this verse I'm reminded just how weak my prayer life is, and how forceful it should be. I want to be a violent man, a forceful man, I want the Lord's enemies to be freaked out when I enter into battle with them.

To be so, I have to be a forceful man. A violent man. What does a violent man for the Lord look like? I suppose a person who gives, to churches, to missionaries, and then prays his head off for them to succeed. Prays for people, cities, countries, and the world to be saved. Prays for men and women and to turn to the Lord and for the powers of darkness to fail.

I want to pray like that. Nothing less than the world, and salvation for all of it. If we really believe this stuff why aren't we in the battle? Why aren't we practicing fighting? Why aren't we growing stronger and stronger from battle after battle?

Wake us up to our wimpyness. Lord make us violent fighters taking hold of your kingdom by force.

"If Edom says, “We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins,” the LORD of hosts says, “They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called ‘[the axis of evil],’ and ‘the people with whom the LORD is angry forever.’”" - Malachi 1:4

If you take into account the modern land area this is a pretty fascinating verse, and I'm not one to read many passages literally. I'm not saying this one even should be. But was President Bush just fulfilling prophecy when he named it "The Axis of Evil"?

Granted they say Edom was in modern day Jordan which is not part of the Axis of Evil, but if the Edomites spread out and filled that area, it sure would make an interesting argument.

Here the words actually used are 'the wicket country' (in the ESV), but wow at the similarity.

Thoughts anyone?

"Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions.  You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you." - Malachi 3:8-9

I think I may have blogged about this perhaps a year or two ago, but in continuation of yesterday I'm remembering learning about tithing in a Sunday school at church. The man who was teaching was quite compelling, and a successful businessman. As I recall he was taking his team of salesmen to Las Vegas to celebrate a particularly profitable quarter.

Then after he was almost done sharing about tithing and the value for it, he mentioned, "I think it's a really good idea to tithe 10%, I don't tithe 10%, but I'd like to. 10% is a goal my wife and I have."

I was mortified, why was this the person chosen to teaching on giving if he wasn't giving? Are you stealing from God? "Will man rob God?"

"Bring the full tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need." - 3:10

And in all our stupidity we presume to rob the Lord when He promises to open up heaven and pour down blessing. "Put me to the test," He says, and see if He won't fulfill His promise to give back.

Choosing not give generously is a financially and personally stupid choice.

Put the Lord to the test, and allow Him to give back. Watch as heaven rains down blessing.

"Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods.  But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?" - Galatians 4:8-9

Today I was contemplating my annoyingly constant struggle to stay in a close relationship with the Lord. I used to take pride in the fact that I had a quiet time everyday almost without fail. People have a hard time reading their Bible everyday, and I didn't, and I thought that made me pretty cool.

Maybe it did, but probably not. Now I focus more energy on trying to make those times valuable at all. All too often I see my quiet time as something to get through so I can get online and blog or something. Tisk tisk. And I've blogged on this a thousand times, and will probably continue to do so.

But today it occurred to me. Having a relationship with the Most High God and not spending meaningful time with Him is like...

Having breakfast with Frodo Baggin's everyday and not talking to him or asking him about his life.

It's like being friends with Bill Gates and him wanting to give you money but you refuse.

It's like having the basketball skills of Michael Jordan and choosing only to dribble around your backyard and never get on the court.

It's like knowing your creator who wants to spend time with you and being too incompetent to care.

(Insert your own analogy here).

Why am I like this? Help me out... what do I do so I can stop having to work so hard at spending time with the Lord? Will I ever consistently want to meet with him? I go through months, years, where I LOVE spending time with him, but it always waxes and wanes. Why? He's my creator.

"Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ" - Colossians 3:23-24

How about "as for the Lord and not for yourself?" Although as I'm thinking that I'm also realizing the thing I have in mind is something I suppose is for men... as well as for me. Basically my life is like this... I begin to write. I love to write. I write because I want to write and because I want to develop my writing voice. I want to become a better writer. So I start to write. I find I can write things that I hope are pleasing to the Lord, things that edify me and teach me as I try to teach...

I love to write so I keep writing. Pretty soon people are reading what I write. Not tons of people, but nonetheless there are people out there (about 40/day) that read what I write. Suddenly I get a big head. Ohmygosh! People like reading what I write? People like reading what I write! And then all of sudden its not about pleasing God or even doing what I love to do, its about writing for people. Or rather, I write because people read.

This isn't necessarily inherently sinful. It just creeps into my every corner. I create a forum because I think I can benefit from it, I think it can glorify the Lord. Then I start to think about how much more traffic I'm going to get because the forum is attached to my blog.

Lame.

I want to do things as for the Lord. It's just so hard to keep my priorities straight. I want to get my inheritance from Him! Not ya'll (no offense). I want to serve the Lord Christ.

Finally, I want to mention that I think the Lord seems to have an unusual amount of grace for this sort of thing. He seems to allow us to do some things for the wrong reasons as longs as their the right things, and then later brings us around. I'm glad he's gracious.

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." - Jeremiah 29:11

"A man's steps are from the LORD; how then can man understand his way?" - Proverbs 20:24

The Lord knows our plans, and he plans our future for good, not evil so that we can have hope, he guides our steps, how can we understand where we're going?

I like the combination of these verses as well as Psalm 37:23 (one of my favorite verses) just for their reminder of the Lord's providence in our lives. I specifically like this proverb because it shows just how clueless we are to many of God's plans. We bumble around with our own plans and going what we think is one specific direction, but how can we understand where we're going? We don't know what's coming and the Lord does.

I wake up this morning and I have a very good idea of what's ahead of me today, I go to school because I have an idea of what I'm supposed to be doing in 10 years. But the truth is I have no understanding of what is ahead. My steps are from the Lord. This is in no way saddening to me but rather, extremely comforting.

"Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." - Hebrews 13:1-2

Its a wonder to me why the Lord would send His angels to be entertained by man. But that said, its even more a wonder to me this would be used as a reason to show brotherly love to all. Imagine everyone you're friendly to and hoping maybe they're an angel and somehow blessing an angel is a better thing to do than blessing man.

Either way, I think it more likely that occasionally there have been angels entertaining us, or helping us along. I remember one time as a child traveling through a remote part of Austria we were very very lost and on foot and very tired. No one around spoke English and my father's German wasn't quite good enough to ask for directions. There was no one for several miles as we walked and then randomly on some steps to a very old building was a man sitting outside reading "Jurassic Park."

Not only was it a surprise he was reading an English book but even more so he knew the obscure place we were heading and was more than helpful in getting us there. As we walked away I remember my mother commenting that she'd thought that man was an angel. I was young and I remember being impressed an angel could look so warm and welcoming.

Whether he was or not, he showed us brotherly love, and I hope someday someone might be wondering the same thing about me and some help I'm able to offer.

I also wonder if the Lord and His army of angels has some affinity for Michael Crichton.

Okay I just wanted to update my thoughts on this whole wife becoming Roman Catholic deal. I posted briefly here.

And want to say after further reading it was much less one-sided than I originally read. My new view of what went down is available in the forums.

"And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him." - Hebrews 11:6

I love that he rewards those who seek Him. I cant always pull it together, but I always hope He has grace for those who are earnestly seeking. I want to seek God. To seek Him more than comfort, wisdom, even knowledge, fame, peace, health. All things I've worshipped.

Help me Father, to seek you.

"But he said, 'Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!'" - Luke 11:28

One of my brothers in law is here staying with us for the weekend. He'll be heading home today but he's an interesting guy to talk with as he's in the last semester of his seminary education. He's also lived overseas for a couple of years doing ministry and will likely go back.

I was talking with Him this morning about some of the blogs I read and how many people I read who are educated in the original languages or carry seriously interpretive Bibles to church on Sunday mornings and scrutinize everything the pastors say. I don't mean this in a bad way, being educated and not taking everything your pastor says at face value is not a bad thing. My comment was how I wasn't sure I would want to preach to these people feeling like they would pick apart my every argument.

His response was something along the lines of how it doesn't matter if you can preach to those people or not. There are people out there who are much more interested in the academia than they are in being able to preach and relate Christ. You need to worry yourself with the latter.

I thought this an interesting argument. The field in which I work is filled with several seminary educated people but our discussions are never about theology or scripture or these things at all. Rather we're always discussing what so and so needs to hear before they'll likely turn to the Lord, or about broken relationships, or disfunction in our churches and how we address such issues.

Then I get on a plane and I go to seminary in the summer for a few weeks at a time and I'm surrounded by people who care much more about a specific interpretation of one verse, or how great of professors they've had etc...

The field is just a different world than the academic campus. I guess I'm glad I get the best of both worlds. I just want to make sure I'm hearing the word of the Lord and spending my time keeping it rather than scrutinizing it. Seeking the Lord and loving Him and following His commands needs to have precedence in my life over my head knowledge. Both are important, but the Love and obedience need to come first.

"Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming." Matthew 24:42

How do we take this to heart? I spoke maybe two weeks ago about the difficulty of living like the return of the Christ is imminent. But today I want to talk a bit about what we might be doing when the Lord comes.

Before I was married I tried to quietly hope the Lord wouldn't return before I had a chance to see what sex was like. I know, thats crude, but its true. Now that I have a child I actually sit and wonder about her growing up before the Lord returns. Part of me doesn't want to live like the Lord could return at any time because that seems like something only the wackos believe. The other part of me fears my not being able to see my child grow up. Or more frequently I think about this verse:

"And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days!" - Verse 19 of the same chapter.

What if my wife is still nursing our infant? What sort of horrible thing will I have brought on my wife and child if I raise them during the tribulation? My eschatology here is vague which may be part of my fear, I tend to lead towards a-millennialism but these verses seem pretty clear it will be terrible for everyone.

The other thing I think about is what if, on the day the Christ returns, I'm in the middle of a good game of rugby? Or what if he returns just before the Broncos win the superbowl? Can I cope with that sort of thing? These things seriously bother me. How can I be awake? Do I want to be awake? Ideally I will be bored to tears and the Lord will return and it will be a sort of "saved by the bell" situation.

Am I alone in such musings?

"And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all." - Luke 6:19

At the risk of sounding repetitive I'm going to talk again about just how awesome our savior is. I know I've been touching on this a lot lately, and I think it might be because I'm trying to beat it into my own head. I'm surprised at how I'll look back at some of the blog entries I wrote a year ago and think "that was a really good lesson, I wish I had learned it by now."

The truth is, our savior Jesus is more awesome, more beautiful, bigger, stronger, and far more loving and powerful than we will ever comprehend. This doesn't mean I wont try... This morning this verse struck me. Power was emanating from His body. People pressed in just to touch Him.

Remember King Midas? Everything he touched turned to gold. That would be a cool power until you wanted to hold your child (or even a TV remote). Shel Silverstein wrote a poem about a guy who everything he touched turned to strawberry jello (or something like that).

Imagine if everything you touched was made right? Imagine knowing that person and walking around with him? People would definitely press in and touch him. I've been seeing a chiropractor for back pain for about a month, I'd kill to be able to touch the Lord and see instant healing.

My point here is God is awesome. Everyone He touched -- and more -- everyone who touched Him, was instantly healed. I want to know, walk with, commune with, and love, this powerful God. I'm so happy I serve an all powerful God "for power came out from him," and not some lame person with emotional problems (or whatever other problems we often project on our Lord).