"Bootstrap Faith"

Inaccurate theology may often be destructive theology. If there are degrees of such destruction, this video presents a deeply sad, but popular notion of the worst kind. http://www.godvine.com/Serena-s-Only-Wish-This-Christmas-is-to-be-Healed-123.html  Whether it is a scam video or not, we have an articulate young lady in an extremely sad and touching situation.

She is "spot on" when she trusts that God will always be with her, is very capable and able to heal her, and that one day God will heal her. However, someone has sadly instructed her that God's good actions are determined by the size and accuracy of her faith. If this girl's illness does not subside or if she passes from the effects of it, she believes, and others have told her, that her suffering and perhaps her death would be caused by immature faith or an inability to trust.

People use Matthew 17:20 to convince others that they are afflicted because their faith is too small; God is attentive and ready to burst on the scene like a divine Superman the instant someone's faith rises to the proper level.  Our Creator's action is not conditioned merely upon our faith. Jesus was identifying the human condition of unbelief which will only be relieved at God's own volition, timing, and purposes. Our systemic maladies will not be removed by one's "mustering" of belief and making demands. When all is said and done, our faith with God's timing will, in fact be large enough that whatever we ask or wish will be accomplished and all healing will be achieved.

Another verse on which this spiritual abuse rests is James 4. Note that with the promise of provision practicing   piety produces intentional submission to God's mind. Those who are wise and thoroughly faithful suffer maladies of this fallen sphere. Ease of life and absence of want do not, necessarily, telegraph perfect faith. Let us remind one another of God's faithfulness even as we encounter the antithesis of material and physical well-being.

Bah! Holidays

Do you not believe that holiday greetings are more appropriate than Christmas greetings? You are afraid to admit it because there are people who consider this season to be purely Christian. As a result, there may be more emotional, social, and physical safety in announcing your conversion to some terrorist organization than to say, "Happy Holidays".

As a Christian, however, take a good look at this holiday. Even in our churches there is little celebration over the birth of Jesus, the incarnation of God. Oh there is lots of pageantry, singing, and talk of the true meaning and the "reason for the season". However, it appears that we have no tolerance for those who lead us from the manger and into the eternal significance of the event of Christ's birth.

Keeping Christ in Christmas is more than including the name of  "Christ". It is said that the "X" was a means of protecting early Christians and thereby making reference to Christ but not mentioning him. It was, by necessity, a stealth church. Perhaps we should keep the "X" in Christmas, so that believers may observe the celebration without the baggage.

In reality there is no need, necessarily, to change any outward celebration. We would be fooling ourselves to think that heart change other than by God the Holy Spirit would do the trick.

Biblical Hermeneutic and the Keebler Elves

While studying Drane's "Introduction to The Old Testament" and wrestling with the concept that the Bible is faulty in its historical and scientific representation but accurate in its theological implications, a Keebler commercial appeared on TV. It was a Holy Spirit moment.

The scenario was a girl looking at the last cookie. She wanted it for herself. Her little sister arrived and conveyed, in her cute, little-sister sort of way, that she wanted the same cookie. The older sister contemplated the situation and kindly gave the last cookie, on which she had legitimate claim, to her little sister.

As she turned away from the empty cookie package there was a rustle of moving plastic. Turning back, "Glory to god (whichever invisible being you choose to call god) in the Highest!" The cookie she had given away had been replaced, implying that the Keebler Elves had done their deed.

We could include the Keebler commercial in our scriptural canon. Instead of scrolls, we could have "You Tube" clips. The commercial is an, inaccurate, unreliable, unscientific, cultural tale teaching a godly teaching. "Not only is it good to put others first, but if you do, your god (whatever it may be) will provide for your own desires (I Keebler 1:1)." My heart is aflutter.

Thanks to Keeblers, I understand God better. Now I realize that scripture may be a collection of folklore and remain reliable as a source of theology.

Two Names, Two Natures

Clair, the name I go by, is my middle name and comes from my father's father. Elmer is my first name and comes from my mother's father. Usually such family names are given to the oldest of the family; I received them as a child in the middle. Much of my early life I spent wondering how I ended up with what I considered, at times, to be a curse; I grew up in the era of "Elmer Fudd" and "Clarabelle the Clown". My wife says that I must have given my mother a horrible time at birth.

However, truth be told, I have learned to appreciate the heritage. I am not only comfortable with my name, but am thankful for it. I have a granddaughter, Claire; not many grandfathers are able to boast such a blessing.

My mother's father, Elmer, was the only one, other than institutional entities, to call me by my first name. Actually it was a paraphrased version of my first name, "Little Elmer".

He never announced an affinity to the "Christ" of our family nor Christ's body, the Church. An alcoholic, sporadic in his love, shallow in his commitment, husband of six women, he portrayed a sort of narcissism that scripture, at least as popularly applied, rebukes. I wonder if he ever understood that God is attracted to those who have weaknesses such as his.

My father's father, on the other hand, was a kind of antithesis to Grandpa Elmer. Grandpa Emory Claire understood God's relationship to personal need and weaknesses. Because of that understanding he gave himself to ministry of the lay persuasion. As a young man he pastored two United Brethren Churches in Western Idaho, was instrumental in planting two other churches, and was involved in one of my own church plants.

When we lived with him I was a recent graduate of Bible school and waiting for a job. It was discouraging. Who wants to move his family to live with a retired grandpa? Grandpa knew I appreciated his "donation" to our development , yet he sensed my increased discouragement. To lift my spirits, he woke the household every morning singing, "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings of eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Teach me, Lord. Teach me, Lord, to wait."

Several years later, I had the privilege of being the audience for our two-year-old grandson, Eli, while he sang those same words at bedtime.

While Grandpa Emory Claire was semi-comatose on his death bed, unaware of his surroundings, he recited Chapter one of the Gospel of John. His eyes would open. His lips would recall, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." His eyes would close. His lips would cease moving. Again, his eyes would open and his lips would resume his recitation from where he had stopped.

It was his influence that provided adequate ministry to lead my mother into faith in Christ and, ultimately, provided her leadership in the spiritual development of my father, siblings, and me.

Although nobody's name truly defines them, mine provides an anecdotal introduction to my personal struggles with an inclination against godliness, but an affinity, provided by God the Holy Spirit, toward understanding God's grace toward me.

As a follower of Jesus, it is my life's purpose to grow in grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ and to be to others as God is to me. I have failed on many levels, but am growing into God's place for me in this life and am confident in Christ's place for me in the next.

"Pray Ye The Lord of the Harvest"

Just as God has prepared for even the most insignificant of creatures, we may be confident in His provision for us. The farmer who opens the ground of the field should do so with the understanding that it is not the harrow which has prepared the field, but it is God who prepares the field for the harrow.

After one realizes that God has prepared all of creation for his or her blessing, life breaks loose. God has placed us in the center of an eternal, continual plan. Because of God, our labor for heaven is productive and full of prospect. In fact, the term "Abundant Life" relates directly to that life with purpose.

When I speak of the blessing, clearly I mean the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Ultimately, God has chosen us to bless the world with the truth that the Kingdom has come, Jesus came to live, was buried, raised from the dead, lives today, and is coming again. We bless the world as we serve that gospel to others. As pure and simple as the declaration, the implications upon humankind

are innumerable. How fathomless is the meaning and force of that gospel. The harvest is the gathering of all who respond in faith to that blessing. It is a harvest which is Holy Spirit induced, Jesus bought, Word confirmed, and God glorified.

As our discussion grows from preparation for the blessing, we turn to the purpose of the blessing which is the harvest and beyond. It is a long jump over days, months, and seasons to what seems to be the end of labor. How poor a farmer would one be, however, if the harvest were truly the end. In reality one does not, ultimately, enjoy harvest without projecting beyond the harvest. So it is with Christ in the work of the harvest. His heart is beyond, not to further preparation as is the case with human mind, but to eternal enjoyment of what God has provided.

To pray the Lord of the harvest goes beyond asking God to participate. It means that we who labor, acknowledge that it is God's harvest and not our own. We wait for Him as we hand our blessing to the world. Consider this to be what distinguishes our labors from those of the world. When every worldly organization responds to human need as to feed the hungry, care for the orphans, employ the unemployed, or care for the elderly many do so with earthly ends in mind. Or they may do so with the idea that perhaps God will notice and reward them for their good works. Some, I have heard them say, are purposely "out performing" God in order to prove that human care originates in the human heart. The follower of Jesus labors as though God who performed the requirements of the Gospel owns the results of the labor. God is not an afterthought or his honor a by-product.

"It's Not the Harrow" Psalm 104:10-18

When it comes to God's creation and what it means to me as a follower of Jesus, many passages are available and more direct to the subject at hand. But above the other passages, this Psalm elevates God's purpose to create for the benefit of humankind. Some may find that fact hard to swallow, but look carefully and see that to redeem and glorify God's creation means that humans must be at the head of God's redemptive story.

Objections to this have burrowed into peoples' minds. Digesting those theses are difficult. Galileo proved that the human dwelling place was not the center of God's created universe. Paul told us that we are wretched and needy souls. Scripture records our depravity. Nonetheless, these passages stand clear that between our sicknesses and the glory of God is the story of God yet to culminate.

As a foundation for theological reasoning, I have, in the past, used the efficacious work of Christ, and the offices of Christ as the litmus test of doctrine. Whatever detracts from the person and work of Christ is blasphemy. Whatever elevates is truth. Without crossing the line between orthodoxy and heresy, one must ask the question, "What would glorify Jesus more than the universal redemption of all of creation?"

Although, I have set the seemingly logical question outside the boundary beyond orthodoxy, one must seriously admit that God, though working for all things to glorify himself, volitionally, has put mankind before himself. It is the nature of love which provides patience in the heart of God. "He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, and vegetation for the service of man. That he may bring forth food from the earth and makes glad the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread which strengthens man's heart."

Obvious to most is the fact that God, herein, is setting the foundation for gratitude, not the superiority of humans. With a lost heart, it does us well to remember the hand from which we receive our sustenance.

To that point, then, I speak. God has prepared the world for you. But do not think of that preparation in terms of your benefit alone. Think of that preparation for the benefit of the world through you. God has prepared the world for the blessing which we offer through Jesus for the benefit of others.

That means that when you go about your routine, people are present who are prepared for your offering of blessing. With passages like this and others, we consider a non-random array of events and possibilities. You, sitting where you are today, doing what you do, going where you go, walk on fields which God has prepared. You journey about on prepared fields.

Two years ago I was visiting a friend. We were at the kitchen table when he dismissed himself and brought to me a book, over 50 years old. He said, "Look what I found. This is the book where my dad recorded the life of his greenhouse." Every plant he had planted, what he had fed them, all the details, right up through the final production were in this book. His father was the proprietor of a large green-house operation in Illinois.

Our minds are convinced that every difference we make in life is of our own creation. In our heads are records of all our toil to make ourselves what we are today. What God desires for us to learn is that it is not our harrowing which prepared the soil for the world to be blessed by us. Rather, God has done all that for us. As we are to be grateful stewards, we are also to be alive to what work God has finished so that we might go about our business of blessing others.

God's story is being written. Our story is part of it. How does your life intersect? Where have you given up the work of blessing others with the gospel of Jesus? It's God, not the harrow.

Justice First

Our Sunday guest, Cecelia Castro, will present to our congregation the problem of human trafficking in Argentina. In preparation for that presentation, I recorded from my daily reading Jeremiah 4:1-2. In the New International Version the Lord describes justice as the manner in which God desires the return of the rebellious. I paraphrase by saying, "Return to me. Do so justly." It appears from that reading that if the heart is just and right, God will receive the rebel and repair relation with God's people.

The Living Translation reads as though a thorough return to God includes the attitude and act of justice toward others. It reads, " 'As surely as the Lord lives,’you could do so with truth, justice, and righteousness." Even reading the text carefully, it becomes difficult to discern which rendering is most reflective of the author's intent. Due to the fact that God's stated purpose for His people is to bless all the nations of the world, one could easily say both are true. I propose that we have a holy, double entendre here. When coming or returning to God, the rebellious must do so not only with a just and right heart, but a well-intentioned heart toward justice.

Now that raises the grace issue. At what point will God refuse a truly repentant heart who comes in Jesus' name with the conviction by the Holy Spirit without the previous action of outward works or deeds? The answer is, obviously, never. God will never refuse the truly repentant. However, the validity of one's response is shown by one's changed orientation. When one comes to God in all the emptiness one encounters, God moves to qualify that repentance with direction.

How does that relate to human trafficking? Although a fairly new concern in our Christian circles, human trafficking has been an integral part of human kind for millenia. It seems to me as though it is a by-product of all societies at any socio/economic level. The poor promote it in order to gain wealth; the wealthy promote it because they are able to afford anything they desire. The problem does not seem to me to be of barbarian societies any more than of so-called, cultured or modern societies. It bares open the depravity within the hearts of humankind. Both want and prosperity feed it.

However, we, Christians, ignore it. How might we be claiming to have found justice through Jesus while there is none for so many others? The world is no longer the "them" of our existence. For many reasons including transportation, communication, and globalization, it is no longer in someone else's "backyard". To come to God in justice and to claim a desire to return to God as a rebellious people, we must respond with justice toward current, worldly need. How else might we fulfill God's desire to bless through us entire nations around the world?

"Cross My Heart and Hope to Die"

I Kings 17:17-24

Opening ones mouth for Jesus is difficult to say the least. Considering, however, Christ's investment in our lives that seems to be hypocrisy. How is it that a person can claim to love and honor Christ, yet find it difficult to speak about him? On the other hand, all of us have been put off by ones who speak with over-confidence. Such overbearing individuals may as well have their ears cut off, eyes removed for their lack of sense of the "other". They speak what they wish regardless of who's listening. In final analysis, the ones who first listen are the preachers worth hearing.

The scripture before us presents a "mouthy" prophet with a heart for peoples' needs. There is the genuine article. When he, therefore, speaks we are attentive. The way he spoke to the lady for instance: her needs came first. When he heard of her dire circumstances, he acted. However, the miracle was not for the sake of healing; it was that the widow might trust the one about whom the prophet spoke.

The widow and the son both benefited by listening. Doubt over the prophet, whatever doubt there may have been, was but fleeting. Once the boy was raised, what else could have mattered?

But the lesson goes beyond the healing. The "pre-Jesus" world gets a taste of the True Prophet yet to come. Prefigured in the miracle-performing prophet, they saw Jesus.

As we look back in awe, we find an authenticated faith. As we look ahead in anticipation, we see a sound hope. God's healing ability is more of a passing fancy when viewed in light of God's eternal power.

When Punishment Feels Good (I Peter 3:13-22)

Memory Verse: I Peter 3:14-15 "But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated,but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you."

No, God does not command us to be masochists, ready to have pain and sorrow poured down on our heads. Like Dad's stories of walking to school in ten feet of snow and -40 degree weather, up hill both ways, with no shoes. "And we liked it!" he claimed. His lessons tell us that no matter what your situation which brings you down, his was worse. So buck up, keep moving, and quit complaining.

Although the title of this post indicates that there could possibly be joy from punishment, it's not the thrust of the passage.

What Peter presents to us is joy through punishment. There is a difference. For followers of Jesus, it is possible to be wonderfully happy when the world is dumping on us.

One source of pain in suffering is to suffer for the wrong cause. We know that Christians create all kinds of suffering. We gossip, we separate ourselves from the needs of others, and we do stuff that is wrong. We happily do such things. However, we are unprepared to endure the consequences. When we learn that someone responds defensively to our gossip, we feel the pain of separation which we did not feel when we were misspeaking. The pain feels unjust and unbearable. It is not until someone separates from us after we have separated from them, that we feel pain.

Prisoners who are justly imprisoned complain. They put their pain on the system which they violated. When the system does not allow their normal life, they blame the system for causing their pain. Unjust people cannot endure their just suffering.

Though the offenders confess and turn from their wicked ways, they move into understanding, though without physical freedom. That understanding turns to gratitude for the opportunity to pay for their offenses. But they know they deserve what they are receiving. Oh, that each of us may quickly acknowledge our offenses so that even through pain for what we deserve, we may be filled with glorious gratitude.

The other brand of suffering is suffering or punishment for doing right and good.

Talents or Spiritual Gifts

Giftedness and talent are not synonymous. We use the terms as though they are because our understanding is muddled. Talents may be innate, propensities at birth, developed, or both. God's relationship to our talents, therefore, may be the same as to our breathing. As such, talents are not specifically oriented toward God's use. They may be used in such a way, may, and will find their ultimate fulfillment in God's glory, but are not, specifically, given for that spiritual service in edifying the body of Christ or His Spirit.

Giftedness, on the other hand, is the means by which God specifically equips you and me for service in edifying the Church in order to fulfill the work of the Church through us. As opposed to talents, spiritual gifts may come and go; they may move to the forefront of God's work through us, or be replaced by other gifts and the former may be shifted to the background. God the Holy Spirit makes that determination according to godly volition.

It is not the nature of a gift to divide or to elevate itself above others. In fact the term "love" or "charity" in I Corinthians 13 may be replaced with the term "spiritual gift" in order to establish a great description of God's intended purpose behind giftedness. A spiritual gift bears the marks of the "fruits of the spirit".

Both talents and gifts, if abused, may be used to divide, emphasize the individual, puff a person up, and become a stumbling block to others.