I start out with my 10 "great truths." If I sound angry, I'm not really; I've just grown weary of political correctness. Actually...the "great truths" are not all so great and my ideas of truth sometimes are not. Yet, maybe they tell something about me:
10. The NCAA basketball bracket committee doesn't do a terrible job considering prejudices, their own and those thrown at them by everyone elso. At least they are far more fair than the media.
9. Any reasonably intelligent person is more fair than the media.
8. The BCS sports system for college football is really just BS.
7. Liberals lie and act as if they're conservative in order to get elected.
6. Conservatives, once elected, act too much like liberals.
5. As a practical matter, the lives of too many presumed-Christian professing Evangelicals as taught by their proud prancing prattling preachers are indistinquishable from lives of politicians, pimps and prostitutes. This is from me, a Protestant! The situation is plenty pathetic.
4. The problem of #5 is that the prince of the air, i.e., the devil, has displayed his power in persuasively presenting the proposition that our obeying Biblical precepts of righteousness, as new creations in Christ, is being "legalistic."
3. I am not the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby, but I can pray the child will hear real Truth before being snared by the "cheap grace" prattle of the prancing preachers.
2. Atheists are not really more intellectual than the average Bible believing Christian, but they pretend they are; too many people don't know the difference or have been led to believe that this is just the way it is.
1. God is sovereign and didn't have to choose me to be one of His, but He did and I'm grateful.
10 comments:
Seems to me from your points about liberals and conservatives, that they are basically interchangeable: both campaign as one thing and govern as another, and those are the same in both cases.
You got it. There isn't often a lot difference once the people are elected. Compromise, compromise, no one seems to believe anything is worth standing up about.
YOur son, Gordon, wrote a great book. I know because I won a copy on his blog.
Your points are right on (except the sports ones of which I must plead total ignorance)
But, point 5 hits home. It is pretty bad when those who call themselves shepherds believe ministry is a path to weath and fame. It is getting out of hand. Our Savior had no where to lay His head. Many seem to forget that a life of following Christ is a life of self denial. (I am not advocating living in hovels...but the million dollar mansions are a bit much. Ever seen the salary of a mega church pastor? Top 10% of wage earners in the country!~)
Just feel like it should be said, for full "fleshing out" balance to #4 -- I did read a startlingly good, simple message by someone a few years back (I think maybe it was J. I. Packer), which pointed out that true, sound Gospel preaching will get you accused of preaching "cheap grace." This preacher/writer used Paul's experience of being accused of that as the basis for this assertion. The true Gospel really does make salvation sound too easy. People like to have hoops to jump through (see: Mormons... also, see Mormons for a perfect example of those who routinely level the "cheap grace" accusation); otherwise it's not comfortably "religious" enough for people.
I'm just pointing that out -- not that I take issue with #4, and not that you yourself are a legalist by any stretch or would advocate any truly legalistic stance (I kind of know you) -- but, like I said, just to balance it out a bit.
Hey, this blogging is fun. Thanks to all of you for writing.
lin: I'm almost as proud as Gordan may be when someone gives him a little praise for his book. And...you'll have to ask Gordan about his brother's Christian cartoon book. Both my sons are pretty solid, but watch out for their strange, off the wall, even weird senses of humor. Sometimes I think I taught them good things except...how to make big money. Of course, I never did figure that out either.
Now to include Mcdust in the "Cheap Grace" discussion, too: Yes, I stand by my #5. What I'm talking about, Mr. Mcdust, is totally ignoring the work of the Spirit in pushing, pulling us into sanctification. "If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation..." 2 Cor. 5:17 In James we find "Faith is active to produce good works." So, indeed, "works" because it's on the list of things to do today--because we want to act like a Christian is not what it's about. The very definition of Christianity, I propose, excludes the possibility of a good tree bearing bad fruit...as a consistent habit or as a lifestyle. And, clearly, sanctification is a process of growing more obedient, exhibiting more fruits of the Spirit. Through the years, "little things" like self-control seem easier and more rewarding. I still fail in many ways, but my failures bring on more "true repentance" more quickly.
There surely is a life where we see with the eyes of our hearts. My favorite theologian said something close to: The devil can make us think we are so unworthy we cannot have a relationship with God. Or the devil make tell us we are so good, so righteous, because we believe and have said the sinner's pray that we really don't need a relationship with God. I think maybe God alone is able to enlighten us as to the proper balance when we have submitted our lives to the God who gives us hope and strength through the tribulations. He is faithful.
Hey, good talking to all of you!
Yeah. Like I say, I'm not arguing with #4 (or #5), just adding a little barrier there, to the idea that the "free gift" of salvation is somehow not free. It really is (for us). Jesus paid the whole price.
Now, the good fruit in our lives that results from that salvation will surely be there -- albeit to varying degrees, depending on the new creation in question -- but sometimes we get into the business of judging people's salavation by looking at their lives and saying, "well, surely that guy isn't really saved."
For whatever reason, God seems to super-sanctify some, while leaving others to limp along in their sanctification pretty much failing at every turn. For some people, I think the only good fruit -- the only "evidence" of their salvation -- may simply be that they're ashamed, i.e. convicted by the Holy Spirit, of their failure to be as good as they know they should be, to have as much faith as they know they should have, etc. And that's a category of evidence that can only be truly known by the person experiencing the conviction.
I once asked a Mormon if a guy could be saved on an airplane spiralling down to the ground, 10 seconds from dying. Nope. You have to be baptized in the special ceremony, you have to do blah blah blah... Well, of course, I said he was wrong. And I was accused of believing in salvation that's too easy (cheap grace, if you will). And I guess I do. By the loving grace of God, salvation is too easy.
Dusty McDust, I agree with very much of what you say. I think we are told not to judge others and yet told we can judge them by their fruit.
I wouldn't try to sell you a green handkerchief that would give you instant joy and prosperity, as I understand it. Seriously and no joke (not that I made up at least. The preacher is a joke!), on Directv there is a clown that brings disrespect upon Christianity who peddles a green cloth. All that rambling has a point, I think. Your paragraph that perhaps all one person's fruit may be is to be convicted of their sin sounds like a good start. And if you refer to "humility" I would agree without question that humility is a great gift. It sounded to me as if a person is convicted, knows his/her sins, regrets, is repentant---and that's good. But I suggest that repentance is the message of John the Baptist. But "He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it." (I like to cite my sources, but this time I don't know where that verse is.)
I suggest that conviction and repentance is step one. Now, no one really takes step two--unless it is to have a big long talk with God. "Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord." (I know that one is in Zachariah and I probably have it out of context) It is a good verse to say that just as the Spirit leads, brings, compel us to Christ, that Spirit does not quit. He continues to work that we might be brought to completion.
What is the chief end of man? Or why did He create us? "To glorify God and enjoy Him forever." Westminister from my memory. The person stuck on his/her own sins is not what God intended--I'm sure. We are to give and glory and ENJOY our redemption. Is anyone so bad that God has to make a special rule for him? No way. I supposeto such a person I'd have to say, "Get alone and pray. Find that place into which you can escape and be with God one on one."
I agree in principle with all that. I agree that it's the ideal. What I'm saying is, the reality about Christians is that, since sanctification (as opposed to justification) is a case of human effort cooperating with God, they all do progress in their sanctifications in different ways and at different rates -- sometimes molasses slow -- and it could be that one of these molasses people, for reasons that only God knows, is saved at 21 and dies in a car wreck at 24, having not gotten significantly past step one.
The reality isn't that every Christian lives a long life of clean, steady, methodical progress up the sanctification ladder. Surely that would be the best situation, but there are good periods and backsliding periods, strong faith periods and weak faith periods.
The reality is that sanctification is a case of us just sort of failingly doing our best until we die. Once we die then we're finally truly perfected -- that work that was begun in us is finally, absolutely completed. I don't think anyone would argue that any Christian is actually perfected in this earthly life.
No one perfected in this life? You should have met my wife's mother.
Aaahhh, that was a bad joke. Of course you are correct. A new Christian, a weak brother, can have the misfortune of being around a person or persons pretending or even thinking they are holier than thou and first thing you know you don't want to be around any religion. Others drive on ahead despite the snow and ice and the slippery slopes. That weak brother thing sort of happened to me, I think. At least I know I was a weak brother and yet, try as I did, He wouldn't let me get too far away.
Yes, there is justification and sanctification. Not too long ago I decided they were two separate principles that...that should never be separated. Anyway, seems to me they have this in common: The Holy Spirit is in control of us in both instances. Even as we "work" to rid ourselves of "old friendly sins" (that are not nearly as bad as someone else's), the Spirit is teaching us by our failures and our victories. Peter's letters seem to be full of "rid yourself." Now that is darned legalistic, but we progress never to be perfect until the end. Uh, maybe that should be: after the end.
Again, I keep looking at James saying, "Faith is active to produce good works." And also, "Faith without works is dead." Yes, Dusty Mcdustyness, we are all different in our faith and relationship to God. God knows that. Yet He is alive, living with us, and even if we shut and lock Him away in a back room and if He is quiet and we think He has gone away and left us for good, He will break out eventually...because He will never lose us, not us adopted children that He loves so dearly.
The bottom line, I guess, is that God has His own reasons for dealing with each of His children the way He does.
The theif that was saved in his final moments of earthly life, on the cross next to Jesus, and the apostle Paul are both "enjoying God forever" now -- neither one of them higher on the Completed-and-Perfected scale than the other. Each got his righteousness level maxed out at the moment of his death.
That's one of the more fascinating aspects of the Christian experience to me.
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