ResponsiveReiding

I go to prepare a place

January 3rd, 2015

John 14:1–3 (ESV) “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. ² In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

A place He is preparing

That I might dwell with Him

Crafted by Divinity

All light – no corner dim

And all this time in Heaven

God’s genius, love and craft

Impossibly imagined

His hand brings all to pass

What one deserves such wonders?

NOT ONE – ’tis all of grace

That we the sons of Adam

May look upon His face

To revel in His beauty

‘Tis Heaven’s glad employ

Unending treasure plundered

In unending waves of joy

No pain, no sorrow enter

No tears – but those in praise

No mourning, death or darkness

No grief in all this place

Abundance, glory, beauty

All wonder, awe and love

Sweetness, grace and blessing

In Christ’s own home above

The fullness of the Spirit

The Father’s smiling face

The Son in risen glory

The felt Triune embrace

No sin, no sin, no sin there

No sin without, within

Redemption’s plan full wrought out

In Christ, all summed in Him

And there with Him forever

In sweet, familial bliss

We’ll bless the Lamb who bought us

Whose love has fashioned this
T’was the First Christmas – A Christmas Poem

December 18th, 2014

A Maiden, humble, lowly

A city, not her own

Caught in pangs of birth

And save but one, there all alone

No comforts, just a stable

In Judea’s countryside

T’was the first Christmas

And God was to arrive

Just Joseph, filled with questions

With Mary, his betrothed

No one there to help

He walks this strange mysterious road

A son he’ll soon name Jesus

As the angel bid him so

T’was the first Christmas

But this he could not know

The Baby, in the manger

Three wise men bearing gifts

Shepherds tending flocks

Make hills look white with snowy drifts

Angels singing heralds

Of the newborn Christ and King

T’was the first Christmas

Of which all men would sing

But the gift was never opened

By thankful, finger tips

Instead, in time, was ripped and torn

By cruel, mocking whips

Instead of scarlet ribbon

Nicely tied and neatly bowed

T’was laced with blood from out

His wounded side had flowed

The Gift of life was purchased

With His death on Calvary

And although t’was freely given

It cost the Savior everything

An old rugged cross

Was the first of Christmas trees

Where the royal gift was given

Eternal life for you and me.
A Prayer of Thanksgiving for this Thanksgiving Day

November 27th, 2014

An Act of Thanks – By Bishop Lancelot Andrewes

(Note: Andrewes was the man most responsible for the music of the English we have in the King James Bible. This is from his private devotions)

O Lord, I am less than all Thy mercies,
and all Thy truth, which Thou hast shewed unto
Thy servant;
and what can I say more unto Thee?
for Thou, Lord God, knowest Thy servant.
What is Thy servant, Lord God, and what is my
house,
that Thou shouldest look on such a dead dog as
I am?
that Thou hast loved me hitherto?
what shall I render unto the Lord for all the benefits that He hath done unto me?
what thanks can we render unto God
for all the joy wherewith we joy before Him?
Thou Who hast deigned, O Lord, in this holy day
and at this hour,
to raise my mind to Thy praise,
and to offer Thee the glory due unto Thee,
Receive, O Lord, this spiritual sacrifice from my soul,
and receiving it to Thee unto Thy spiritual Altar,
be pleased in its stead to send me the grace of
Thy Most Holy Spirit.
Visit me in Thy goodness;
forgive me every sin, as well voluntary as
involuntary.
Deliver me from eternal punishment:
yea, and from all the miseries of this world.
Change my thoughts into piety;
sanctify my spirit, soul and body;
and give me grace to worship and to please Thee
in piety and holiness of life,
even until the very end of my days.
To Him, That is able to do exceeding abundantly
above all that we ask or think,
according to the power that worketh in us,
To Him be glory in the Church in Christ,
throughout all ages, world without end.
My soul shall be satisfied as it were with marrow and
fatness;
and my mouth shall praise Thee with joyful lips.
Sweet wisdom from Ussher on Sanctification

November 25th, 2014

The good Bishop was always mindful to draw a direct connection between justification and sanctification. According to him, in one sense we are sanctified in justification – set apart for God in our being made new, and in another sense the reality of that new status has yet to be fully worked out in us in experience, but inevitablyMUST be if we are genuinely justified. This latter form of sanctification (he argued) was worked out as we grew in our yielding up to Christ’s Spirit within us.

Snoddy closes chapter 4 titled in Ussher’s words: ‘An Imperfect Kinde of Perfection’ – subtitled by Snoddy ‘The Sanctified Life and Its Reward’, with an interesting anecdote.

Ussher was to pass away in 1656. A year prior an acquaintance of his who seemed particularly helped by Ussher’s sermons on this topic asked the Bishop to write something to him on it with further clarity. Ussher promised to do so but never did. However, before he passed, the fellow interested was able to visit with Usser and inquire in person. The honesty and experiential reality with which Ussher replied is profoundly important. It is so first because so many of us fail to recognize how little progress we’ve really made in our growth in Christ, how how much more we must cast ourselves upon His grace and His grace alone in Christ Jesus.

Explaining his failure to write, Ussher spoke to his friend thus: “I did begin to write, but when I came to doe soe, of sanctification, of the new creature, that God formed by his Spirit in every soule which he doth in truth regenerate; I found soe little of it wrought in my self, that I could but (as parrats) speake by rote; and without knowledge of what I expressed, which I durst not presume to doe, and soe proceeded noe further…I tell you, we doe not well understand what sanctification and the new creature is, it is noe less than for a man to be wrought to an entire resignation of his will to the will of God, and to live in offering up his soule continually in the flames of love, as whole burnt offerings to Christ, and how little are those which profess Christianity experimentally acquainted with this worke in their soules.”

To which I must add: Yea Lord, that is me.
Interstellar: A Brief Review – WITH SPOILERS!

November 25th, 2014

Summary without the spoilers: Interstellar’s message is, that the indefinable reality of human love is so powerful, it can transcend time, space and all other dimensions, so that mankind can be its own savior.

Now if you do not want to read about the details of the plot – stop here. Whether or not my summary statement above makes the movie more or less attractive is up to you.

WARNNG: SPOILER ALERT. BIG SECRETS REVEALED BELOW.

I love Science Fiction. Blend that with an apocalyptic storyline (the two are usually together tho not always) and I’m ready to make tracks to the theater. Hence writer/director Christopher Nolan’s (The Dark Knight; The Dark Knight Rises; Batman Begins; Inception) Interstellar had me from the get go.

The apocalyptic problem – earth is suffering from an irreversible blight on vegetation which is about to wipe out its last remaining crop – corn. The whole planet is turning into a giant dust bowl.

The Sci-Fi solution – find a new habitable world (Plan A). And if there is no way to get back and move the remaining population there – start a new human colony with a whole batch of frozen embryos (Plan B).

A series of previous explorers had already been sent out years before searching for habitable worlds. NASA (now working undercover since the Government feared reprisals from the populace if it were discovered they were spending money on space exploration instead of solving the blight problem) is ready to send out its Plan A/B ship to one of the worlds which they’ve received promising data back from. They have 3 which are particularly promising.

Matthew McConnaughey is the former crack pilot turned farmer who obviously is the best one suited for the job. His getting into the mission is a bit convoluted and in some ways poorly written. The dialog makes giant leaps.

Anne Hathaway is the scientist daughter of McConnaughey’s former professor, Michael Caine, who is head of the entire operation. She’s mission ready.

Jessica Chastain will eventually be McConnaughy’s grown daughter, also a scientist by then, who as a little girl cannot understand her father’s leaving her to go on this mission.

As it turns out, Plan A was a sham all along, known only to Michael Caine (whose brainchild the mission was) and Matt Damon, who they find in stasis on one of the reportedly habitable worlds – which is nothing but a giant ice ball.

Why did Caine and Damon keep it a secret? Because no one else could deal with the moral dilemma of realizing there was no hope for those still on earth. Flatly, these all needed to be abandoned so that humanity as a species could survive as the embryos who were to be reconstituted on the new planet. Actually, the entire scene on that frozen planet is oddly confusing and useless in my opinion.

All of the above considered, I do want to mention the spectacular array of special effects. The visuals in Interstellar are in some cases truly exciting. The water world waves in particular were very powerful and the perspective shots around Saturn were staggering.

Of course, the biggest problems in interstellar travel are time and distance. To get to another galaxy with possible habitable worlds means only one thing – going through a wormhole. A wormhole which has mysteriously appeared near Saturn. One which will require the crew to enter stasis and travel at speeds which will cause time to alter in their case, keeping them young. However, time will not be standing still on earth. When they reach the water world for instance, Hathaway notes each hour there will be approximately 7 years on earth. Kind of a twist on dog years.

The wormhole it seems was a created one. Created by a mysterious “They”. A “They” who also used gravity to transcend space and time to communicate with McConnaughy’s daughter when she was just a little girl, getting her to involve her Dad who then figured the coordinates to the secret NASA base where he was recruited to become the mission captain. I know. Just see the movie. It’ll make more (if not actual) sense there. But as with almost all time-travel scenarios, one cannot postulate cause and effect events without creating an endless time loop. So we go forward (or backward) in time to impact an event which will end up being the solution to a problem which has to be met only if someone goes forward or backward in time. Endless cause and effect. But I’ll leave that problem to the time travel aficionados.

It turns out, the “They” is actually us! Who knew? McConnaughy had promised his daughter he would return, and so he did – but somewhere locked in a new dimension. In this new dimension, he can use gravity to communicate with his little girl to get the coordinates she and he needed, back before the actual mission, to find the secret NASA base. And, to communicate with his grown daughter (since time is transcended in this dimension) that he is still there and she can get data on the wormhole by means of his manipulation of the second hand on a watch he gave her as a little girl. Whew!

By means of this data which he in his new dimension gathered along with his robot Tars (voiced pleasingly by Bill Irwin who sounds eerily like Alan Cumming playing Eli Gold) Jessica Chastain gets the secrets to wormholes and is the force behind getting space colonies launched saving the lives of many on earth.

By some means unexplained, McConnaughy returns to real time and space, still about the same age as he left, only to awake on the artificial “Cooper Colony” (named for his daughter) who is now the aged Ellen Burstyn. McConnaughy gets to see her as she is dying. He kept his promise to his little girl.

He then steals a space ship and heads out into the universe to find Anne Hathaway who is burying her former love – the commander of one of the original expeditions, on what was apparently a truly habitable planet.

And once again the – as I said above – message is: Tho human love is indefinable, it transcends space and time, and will someday prove to be the means whereby mankind can be its own savior from extinction. Lovely.

Sadly, Johnathan Lithgow, Topher Grace, Matt Damon and William Devane are basically wasted in this movie. Though Lithgow the least of the four.

As a side note, and I have but my faulty memory to go by here – I do not recall the word “god” ever used in the entire film, even as an expression (e.g. “Oh god!”). I would love to read the screen play to verify that. Perhaps someone else will watch the movie looking for that and let me know for certain. But in that sense, it is truly Godless. And plainly, there is an attempt to theorize (at least) that there is nothing at all supernatural in the universe period. Only altered states. Other dimensions. Facets of time and space not yet discovered or harnessed. All there is (as Carl Sagan was wont to say) is the universe itself.

Sad.
A sweet snippet from Snoddy’s “The Soteriology of James Ussher”

November 20th, 2014

Regarding our justification by faith alone. Ussher considers faith a ‘poor virtue’ and hence without merit.

“Only the ‘poor virtue’ of faith is instrumental in justification because it receives the gift of Christ: ‘faith indeed, as it is a virtue, is poor and mean, and comes far short of love: and therefore by the apostle, love is many degrees preferred before faith, because love fills the heart, and faith is but a bare hand, it lets all things fall, that it may fill itself with Christ’. God has chosen ‘the lowest and meanest…this poor beggar’s hand’ so that salvation might be by grace, with justification grounded on the merits of Christ. This, according to [Ussher’s] A Body of Divintie, is how faith acts as an instrument, and is ‘not considered as a vertue (sic) inherent in us, working by love’, so that the Christian can know the assurance of salvation that is not dependent upon human merit or inherent righteousness.”

Page 128
Sweet thoughts from Bishop Ussher

November 14th, 2014

From page 120 of Richard Snoddy’s “The Soteriology of James Ussher”.

“God is so pleased with the obedience of His Son that those who are united to Christ are deemed righteous, ‘as if we had fulfilled all His laws, and never broken them at any time, and as if we owed Him not a farthing.’ Ussher goes further still. Christ’s vicarious obedience in fulfilling the law obtains for believers a righteousness exceeding that of Adam’s pre-lapsarian state: ‘Christ did it for us: and the Father is better pleased with the thirty-three years’ hearty obedience of His Son, than if Adam, and all his posterity had been obedient throughout the whole course of the world: so acceptable was this obedience to God.’ ”

To which I will add: HALLELUJAH! What a Savior!
Moving from WHAT we believe, to WHY we believe.

November 11th, 2014

Al Mohler’s “Briefing” podcast today – I believe – is one of critical importance for the Church, and especially to Christian parents. You can listen to it HERE.

Responding to a recent declaration by Cosmologist (not to be confused with cosmetician) Lawrence Krauss that religion could be largely eradicated in a generation, Dr. Mohler reminds us of some very important realities.

Krauss’s assertion is based upon the idea of being sure that he and fellow atheists reach young people around the age of 13, when their critical thinking skills are really kicking in; to show them how silly religion and its effects are. Note that age, 13. The age at which many parents begin to deal with their children pushing back on some ideas. All too often this is seen only as rebellion. And while some rebellion may in fact be present, the larger picture is that this is when they are in fact making a very necessary shift from simply believing what their parents have taught them, to what they believe as their own convictions.

So the question becomes, are parents (and churches) equipped to give them the intellectual ammunition needed to deal with this new state of affairs? Can we as parents, can we as the Church formulate sound, time tested and well-reasoned responses to the challenges they face in terms of the validity of the Christian faith? Or do we simply drop propositional truth in their laps, and never meet their intellect where it needs to be met? Can we say why WE believe what we believe in a coherent fashion – in a way that can help them make the leap from what we taught them, to why we taught them what we taught them? If we do not make that effort, we make them prey to vicious and competing ideas.

Am I saying we can convince anyone into the Kingdom? No. I am saying that the first role of apologetics is not to convince unbelievers, but to address the attacks of an unbelieving world upon those whose hearts and minds are most vulnerable after having been raised within the Biblical belief system and worldview. To give them the wherewithal to stand, and not be swept away by the tide.

While Mohler’s podcast goes on to mention the incredible growth of Christianity in China, he also mentions the warning (tho not by chapter and verse) that the letters to the 7 seven Churches in the opening chapters of the book of Revelation do. Can the Christian religion be erased from the face of the earth? No. Christ’s promise to grow and keep His Church is absolute. But does that mean the candle or lamp of Christianity cannot be put out in some places? No. And at times, in judgment – He Himself may extinguish it. (Rev. 2:5)

If we raise our children in the Church and in the home on a Christianity based merely upon personal feeling or emotional attractiveness, we prepare them to be conquered. We must give them the stuff of sound minds, and solid, Biblical reasoning. We must draw from those who have gone before us and fought these same battles before us and “kept the faith” for us in our generation. We must help them “Therefore, [in] preparing [their] MINDS for action, [to be] sober-minded, [and] set[ing] [their] hope fully on the grace that will be brought to [us] at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 1:13 (ESV)
The Voting is Over – So what?

November 5th, 2014

So the voting is over, and most of the results are in.

And what will be the outcome?

If we are looking for salvation by politics, it is a humanistic pipe-dream. For any government, any governmental system, from monarchial tyranny to the most democratic, can only be as good as the moral constitution of the PEOPLE in it, not its documents.

Israel originally had no king, and fell apart because the individuals would not serve God as their individual responsibility. God gave them a king as they wished. And Israel declined, because the kings were as corrupt as the people they ruled over. Time and change brought a constitutional republic to our shores. But once again, such a republic is only as good as those who govern within it, and as they represent the hearts and minds of those who voted them into office. And if their hearts and minds are not influenced above all by the Word of God, energized by the Spirit of God, then as good as that republic looks on paper, it too will fall; whether sooner through decay, or as EVERY human government must and will eventually – to the scepter of Christ.

I pray the results of last night’s votes will have placed more truly godly men and women into power, than mere political ideologs.

Time will tell.

But the Church’s mandate remains the same no matter what party holds power – to proclaim the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to salvage souls from sin, not cultures from change.

I hope you voted.

But if you did not pray for your government at least for the amount of time it took you to drive to the poll, cast your vote and arrive back home – what great hope can you put in it? For kings and governments serve only at the pleasure of our God.

And who yet knows if yesterday’s outcome will prove to be a reprieve and blessing, or another just curse? For those do not depend upon party – but upon service to Christ.
Digging Deeper into Proverbs 20(d)

July 31st, 2014

“There is gold and abundance of costly stones, but the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel.” (Proverbs 20:15, ESV)

When I was in my 20’s and still living with my parents, our house was robbed in the middle of the night as we slept. By God’s grace, no one was harmed. We woke to find the kitchen ransacked, my Mother’s purse missing, frozen food from the refrigerator gone, and my overcoat. What other rooms they may have visited as we remained unaware in slumber only the thieves and the Lord know. Fingerprints revealed two intruders. In fact, those same two would rob us again and take far more – including much of my clothing. The way this impacts you emotionally is quite difficult to explain in full.

One thing in my own response to it surprised me quite a bit. In realizing my coat was gone – a nice coat at that, I really began to pine when I realized that what was in my coat pocket was missing with it – and that was a small, beautifully bound pocket Bible which our Church had given me upon my High School graduation.

I will freely admit that much of my sadness was sentimental. I was so grateful to have received this fine gift several years earlier. As a bit of a bibliophile, I was also sad that I had lost a very finely crafted Bible. The leather was supple, the paper fine and the entire construction elegant. And there was finally the fact that this was my daily Bible. I carried it almost everywhere and certainly every day to work. I had read it through a number of times. It was my friend. I used it more than my study Bible for it was my everyday reading Bible. It was more than a friend, it was an intimate companion. And it was gone.

The surprise to me was how much more emotional I was over having lost the Bible than my coat, the fact we had been so criminally violated or even what danger we might have been in. That Bible was what I wanted to recover if at all possible. And by God’s good grace, it was recovered along with my Mother’s emptied purse in a dumpster across town. The Bible had suffered tragically in the ordeal and was not fit to be used anymore, but I remember the relief I experienced when it was returned.

I learned a great lesson through that experience about how to value things which has been with me ever since. I do not know that I would have listed that Bible as so valuable without experiencing the way in which it was removed from me. And the issue of what I value and why has been one which visits my thoughts often to this very day.

And so I might ask you reader – what are the things you value, and why? And more importantly, have you set store by the wonder of the incalculable riches of the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ? There is enough silver. There is enough gold, but there can never be enough knowledge of the One “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Colossians 2:3, ESV)

This is wealth. This is riches of the rarest and most inestimable worth. Do not let the business of life, the distractions of the Word and the misdirections of the Enemy rob you of weighing them rightly. Of marveling at them regularly. Of musing over them, delighting in them and satisfying your soul that you are wealthier than if all the richest men of all the ages with their collective treasures laid them at your feet. For they will all perish. And only Christ in all of His glory will remain.

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Romans 11:33, ESV)

The lips of knowledge brought you the Gospel by which you received the forgiveness of sins eternal life, and the promise of ruling and reigning with Christ for ever and ever. You are obscenely rich in Him. Glory in it.