Jul 23, 2021 | Culture, Gratitude
That will depend on what our eyes and brain have been programmed to see, whether it is by the secular culture in which we daily swim, or God’s word. If it is the former, we’ll see a pretty butterfly, beautiful colors that amaze us, and that’s it. If it is the latter, we’ll see God! If it is the culture, the beauty will point to nothing beyond the beauty. If it is God’s word it will point to God! How could it not? If this butterfly doesn’t reveal God, what does it reveal? Chance? How does one explain where such exquisite and intricate beauty comes from? If there is no God, then the only explanation can be chance. How persuasive is that? Not very. When you understand that God is the consummate eternal all powerful creative artist, everything in nature compels you to worship so great a being that could create everything, including this very butterfly. We need to commit the words of Paul in Romans 1 to memory, and teach them to our children, and share them with everyone we encounter:
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
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Jul 4, 2021 | Gratitude
I’m currently reading a book that gave me ideas for two blog posts on two successive pages, which means the author gave me some pretty amazing insights. Before I get to my thoughts . . . For those who know me they will be aware of my annoying habit of always telling them to . . . . Read More! My kids have born the brunt of that abuse most of their lives, but friends and other loved ones get it too. One reason, among many, that everyone should read more, is that human beings are made in God’s image, and as such they are revelations of his being. The thoughts of other people who grapple with reality can help us better understand the nature of things as God created them to work. There is much deep wisdom outside of the Bible that helps us better understand God’s special revelation in the Bible. I would go so far as to say that those who read and study outside of the Bible can better understand what’s in it than those who only read the Bible. So if you really want to grow more in wisdom, understanding, prudence, insight, discernment, judgment, etc. (which are all basically different facets of wisdom), you will read more (books)! What this means practically is that the puzzle pieces of life will fit a whole lot better when you make extra-biblical reading a consistent habit of your life. Enough lecturing, and now on to those thoughts. (more…)
Nov 27, 2020 | Gratitude
Maybe it’s because I’m officially old and cry at Hallmark cards, but it seems over the last number of years that God’s truth is able to elicit in me tears that I don’t remember in the younger me. I’m sure this has nothing to do with age per se, but with a growing realization that comes with growing in the knowledge of his benefits. These words of John Calvin in the first chapter of his Institutes captures well the nature of this divine-human relationship:
I call “piety” that reverence joined with love of God which the knowledge of his benefits induces. For until men recognize that they owe everything to God, that they are nourished by his fatherly care, that his is the Author of their every good, that they should seek nothing beyond him—they will never yield him willing service. Nay, unless they establish their complete happiness in him, they will never give themselves truly and sincerely to him.
Bingo! There are many profound truths here that would take many posts to unpack, but here is the gist: God is for us, not against us. (more…)
Nov 22, 2020 | Gratitude
I was listening/watching the Steve Deace show a couple weeks back, and the host, a Christian, said he needs to repent for not being thankful enough. Bingo! I was instantly convicted. I wrote a chapter in my book about gratitude, and how important being thankful is, continually, in the life of a Christian. I’ve taught that to my children as they’ve grown up, but it’s so much easier said than done. Life lived in a fallen world enduring the gravitational pull of sin is hard. In one of the great understatements in all of history, Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble . . .” Ya think! But he finished his sentence with, “but take heart; I have overcome the world.” I love the world for trouble in Greek, thlipsis-θλῖψις, in a sadomasochistic kind of way: properly, pressure (what constricts or rubs together), used of a narrow place that “hems someone in”; tribulation, especially internal pressure that causes someone to feel confined (restricted, “without options”). That is life in a fallen world! (more…)
Jul 29, 2020 | Gratitude
That SGT Peppers taught the band to play? Nah. It was 60 years ago today that I was born! I don’t mention that to bring attention to myself or my birthday, which as my family will tell you, I am loathe to do (the birthday part), but to muse on the strangeness of the passage of time. The older I get, the stranger it becomes. Time itself is a conundrum. We all know what it is, until we’re asked to explain it. For a portion of our lives we take it for granted, and don’t think much of it at all, other than to complain that certain things take waaaaaaay too long. Then something happens along the way, for me after I hit mile-marker 40. Time which never changes its actual pace, seemed to speed up. I remember attending a seminar in my 30s where the speaker said something about five years, and that for the youngsters in the audience that may seem like a long time. I remember thinking, five years is a long time. Oh, but it’s not, at all, as you oldsters know. And speaking of oldsters, isn’t it funny how everyone complains about getting old, but nobody wants to die? (more…)
Jun 14, 2020 | Gratitude
Thorns and thistles . . . . Most biblically literate Christians will immediately get this reference found in the third chapter of Genesis where we find the account of the fall, and mankind’s descent into the abyss of sin and death. Yahweh told Adam in chapter two that he was free to eat of any tree in the garden, but of one tree he must not eat, “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” If he does (the text says “when”) he “will surely die.” The consequences of Adam and Eve’s decision introduced hell on earth, and as history has shown us, it’s not a pretty picture. God in judgement explains the fallout of this disastrous decision:
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”
(more…)
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