Changing Worlds

But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. -- Hebrews 11:16

Making the world a better place sounds like a good idea.  I think, sometimes, those who reject God and criticize believers -- especially the followers of Christ, are disappointed, perhaps even frustrated that we have not, through the power of God, gotten rid of evil and corruption. 

Utopian plans and schemes are towers of Babel.  The foundations may start out well enough, but before the builders reach the heavens, there is conflict for their goals and their visions are no longer one.  The utopias – even the Christian ones, will invariably come up short. 

There is a saying that some people are so “heavenly minded” they are no earthly good.  C.S. Lewis, though, somewhere in his writings, suggested that it was really those most oriented toward heaven who ended up doing the most good on Earth.  If heaven is our goal, we get Earth thrown in.  When we seek only the good the world has to offer, we get neither. 

Living in the kingdom, living the kingdom life, transforms the world around us.  Anyone can see it on a smaller scale if they fall in love or have a child or grandchild.  The presence, even the thought, of a loved one lifts the soul and spirit, makes the darkest day brighter.  The world becomes a slightly better place because there is someone we love.  The kingdom of heaven, with its law of love, does the same thing on a grander scale. 

The kingdom of heaven is within you, Jesus said.  Love cannot be imposed by external forces.  I may comply with the laws of an earthly kingdom but I cannot be made to love, and without love, there is no transformation.  It is possible to manipulate people with fear, hate, lies and deception.  They will go along with the plan, to some extent, for a while.  It all ends, as we saw in the last century, with bloodshed, millions dying by violence and starvation – all for the “greater good” and the glorious utopian dreams of the well-intentioned. 

But they reply, The blood-letting was done by mad men.  Indeed, it is the mad who rise to rule where God is locked out, and men become mad when they have the power of life and death. 

Love or death is the only choice reality offers.  Experience the metamorphosis of love.  Enter the kingdom of love and let the God of love rule in your heart.  The world will change.   

With the Morning

For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime.  Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.  -- Psalms 30:5

Jesus spoke of the mother who forgets the pain of giving birth in the joy of receiving her child.  The writer of Hebrews speaks of, “… looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). 

If we go back to the book of Nehemiah, we read of those who returned to Jerusalem from their long exile.  When they were instructed in the law, their eyes were opened to how they had fallen short of the Lord’s requirements, and they were grieved.  They began to weep (Nehemiah 8:9-10).

Sorrow isn’t a pleasant, but godly sorrow is healthy.  One of the dangers of continuing certain habits and being continuously exposed to even depictions of wickedness and lawlessness is that we tend to become desensitized.  This is sometimes thought of as “hardening” when, a lot of times, it is more simply ignoring.  The Spirit of God must break the shell of indifference and resignation more often than actual hardened evil.  The result, though, in either case, is that our hearts are grieved by the presence of that which is displeasing to God. 

At some point, however, we must set aside the anguish and the pain and begin to experience the joy of the Lord.  We are forgiven.   To stay too long in sorrow is to risk developing self-pity:    And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law.  Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Whether our grief comes from conviction or from suffering and loss and the daily trials of life, the Lord does not want us to be overwhelmed or overburdened by it.  We may weep through the night for we are, after all, creatures of flesh, and we see not well in the dark.  The dawn arrives to break through our darkness.  Hope can again be seen. 

Though there I times I have trouble believing it, morning always comes. 

Threading the Needle

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. -- Philippians 1:21

The words Paul uses are related to money and profit.  It you have sufficient capital you can live on the interest.  The greatest riches imaginable are ours in Christ.  Here is capital to provide a more than sufficient living, an abundant living.  

It also works if we turn it around and recognize that while we live in this world, it is we who belong to Christ as His servants over whom He rules but also for whom He obligates Himself to provide and for whom He cares.

The second part of the Apostle’s thought is perhaps even more compelling.  The carnally minded have invested everything in this world and this life.  Death, to the worldling, may be seen as an implacable enemy to be held off and frustrated as long as possible.  It means the loss of all that is familiar, comfortable, and hopeful. 

As Christians the truth is that we not only lose nothing when our time here ends, we gain because we are no longer receiving merely our stipend or our living but our full inheritance of and in Christ.  You can think about someone who has set up a trust for his heirs.  Their access is limited until they are of a specified age, perhaps 18 or 25, after which they have full access.  They gain by passing that milestone.   

On the one hand the carnal mind considers the trials, pains, losses, and sufferings of life against the darkness of death and recoils.  After all, as the Preacher said, a living dog is better than a dead lion (Ecclesiastes 9:4), and to cling to the known, however desperate and grim, is better than the black leap into oblivion.  On the other hand, life without hope can become an unbearable burden and the prospect of any kind of surcease is embraced.  Thus the natural man must sail carefully between Scylla and Charybdis. 

The contrast is that, instead of a choice between the lesser of two evils, the Christian is “caught” between goods:  the joys of life in Christ on earth with all of its hope and adventure, and the perfection of glory, the fulfillment of all hope when we see the Lord face to face.  Passing through the door of death, at the Lord’s call, we leave all temptation, sorrow, grief and pain behind us.  We have duties and callings and purpose while we are here.  When those are done, like the faithful workman at day’s end, we receive our reward and our rest. 

All Other Ground Is Sinking Sand

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom:  preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.  For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. – 2 Timothy 4:1-4

Myth is used negatively where we usually use it positively.  In his Word Pictures, A.T. Robertson gives as examples:  "humanism," "bolshevism," "new thought" or any other fad that will give a new momentary thrill to their itching ears and morbid minds. Older translations often give the same word as “fables”.  It is, I think, the same word Paul uses in 1 Timothy 1:4, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations, which carries the connotations of narrative, story, fiction, [or] falsehood.  In other words, this is not a denunciation of the transcendent or true myth that cannot be conveyed in less poetic language. 

When the Apostle warns that “a time is coming”, we may tend to think of a degenerative process leading down to an end-time nadir of lawlessness and apostasy.  There have been, though, and will probably continue to be historical troughs in the cycle.  Peaks and valleys of revival and falling away occur for individuals, nations, and mankind as a whole.  If one looks at popular culture in America today, he might conclude that we are at or very near a low point.  That may be true, or it may get much worse.  I shudder to think this is not the bottom, but it is possible.  I would not wonder that human depravity could shock the devil.

I know there is or was a “reality” show about the Duggars who live south of the border down Arkansas way.  I guess they are Christian fundamentalists who have a whole bunch of kids.  It’s acceptable to ridicule and mock them, but questioning the wisdom of people like Elton John and his “husband” adopting a child is considered off-limits and may be called hate speech. 

I like Elton John.  Honky Chateau remains one of my favorite albums.  I even liked most of Yellowbrick Road, although he was starting to get a little redundant at that point.  I remember back in college, one of the guys in the dorm, probably much more liberal than I was, informing me that Elton was a homosexual.  Since, being a hillbilly, I have always been a cross between a freak and a redneck, I suppose my friend thought I would find this information disturbing.  I did not since it had nothing to do with my enjoyment of the music.  My view about male homosexuals back then was that they left more women for me. 

Nevertheless, the idea that traditional Christian values are being widely rejected in western civilization does not augur well for individual liberty.  These values have been the basis for our advances in prosperity, property rights, and opposition to tyrannical political systems.  Christianity perfectly balances the collective Body of Christ as God’s temple with the individual as the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit.  This is done not through rules and mandates and force but by love.  Yet the itching ears of an increasingly large percentage of the population are offended by the truth.  They prefer the futile fictions of anthropogenic global warming, homophobia, islamophobia, transphobia, centrally-planned economies, scientism, feminism, etc. to the liberating power of the gospel.   

If my trust were in man, I would be pessimistic.  If my only hope rested in the wisdom of our political leaders, in the progressive march of history, in societal evolution, I’d probably just give up.  But my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.  It probably won’t be easy, but it will be all right.

Call Me The Rambler

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. – Romans 5:3-5

One of the questions I keep asking myself is:  What did I do wrong?  It’s funny because if you had asked me before I looked it up, I would have sworn that guilt was one of the stages in the Kübler-Ross bereavement cycle.  It’s not.  The five stages are:  Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.  I don’t really feel guilt so much as I feel that I failed, and I suppose I am still in denial in a way. 

I’ve cleaned the house, the kitchen, the bathrooms, cleared out the refrigerator, and done several loads of laundry after the kids were here, but I still have my wife’s yard-work clothes hanging where she had them in the garage.  All of her hundreds of shoes are right where she put them.  The drawers are all the way she had them, and they will be for a long time. 

Rejoicing in suffering seems rather unrealistic right now.  There are certainly things I can focus on that are positive such as our daughter’s progress, but, overall, joy is not an option.  I can’t say that I’m suffering the last couple of days either.  It’s more like numbness.  The uncontrollable fits of sobbing have passed for now.  Unless I start talking too much. 

What I know I have to do is endure.  And I do have hope.  Of course, there is the hope, the certainty really, of Vickie being with Christ and knowing that I will see her again.  There’s a hope, too, that I’ll break out of this mental and spiritual dead-zone at some point.  I suppose I am afraid.  We were always in this together.  B.V. – Before Vickie – remember, I was dope-smoking, boozing dirt biker.  I’ve never been a Christian by myself.  That sounds stupid even as I write it because no one is ever a Christian by himself or herself.  The center of it is communion.  Not even God can commune with Himself, which is why He is the Trinity.

So Paul brings us to that point as well:  it’s because of the love of God – the greatest of these -- which will never pass away.  

Sorry for the stream-of-consciousness spillage today.  I'll try to do better manana.