The Five Minute Sparks

Shiny Brass, First Dates, and people like Jake

2008-09-27T09:09:00.000-07:00

If men thrive off of feeling necessary, then maybe the problem with men is that they, collectively, have work themselves out of a job.

The roads are already paved, computers already work, somebody already figured out how to toast bread. Medicine already comes in bottles, water already comes from the faucet, and someone already figured out how to make carriages move without a horse. What else is there to do? What can I do?

Well... I can cook, clean, do laundry, change diapers, sit here, stand there, write this, and I can do what I'm told. I can learn what you tell me to learn, then stack and arrange the elements until something works like its supposed to. I can be perfectly appropriate, socially acceptable, and I can even look happy on command. I can sleep and think that I am awake, and I can be awake and think as though I were asleep.

I am bored.

I remember when I got my first 22 caliber rifle. This may sound silly, but it completely changed my perspective. Something about the shiny brass of those cartriges communicated to me that I had a new right of passage: I could excersive a privilege reserved for adults - and one that involved great responsibility. I could walk down the riverbank, past fishermen and other shooters, and people respected me, but didn't fear me. I was like them.

As a 17 year old, I was not so regarded so highly as to be allowed to be out by myself at certain times. I was living with parents, and was therefore naturally forced to live up to a lifetime of childish impressions that I had left upon them. When I was out in remote places walking with my rifle though, nobody knew me. I could walk out there without fear of snakes, of the wild dogs and coyotes, and I could have power and choose not to use it.

Choice... Maybe that's what this is all really about. Maybe boredom is not the shortage of engaging activity, but of choices to be made. The more choices that are made for me, the more I feel like that 17 year old living back at home.

I went on this one date one time - and I mean "one date" literally: it was a first and only date (she decided she didn't have "feelings" for me), but it still did me some good. Just going on the date, again, changed my perspective.

Her name was Kelly, she was very pretty, and was smarter than me. She didn't really know me, and I didn't really know her. We had just met at a mall in Dallas about a year before and had some coffee, and seemed to enjoy each other's company. When we met the first time, I was wearing a stupid shirt with a big picture of a cow, appropriately labled "Cow." Kelly liked that, and things went well from there.

The important part of the actual date is that this idea sunk in for me - that Kelly didn't owe me anything at all, and I didn't owe her anything. She was driving down to spend time with me because she wanted to, and there were no demands placed upon me. This intelligent, pretty girl wanted to drive an hour just to come see me, because she thought I was worth her time... wow. Why? Well, I don't know... but just like being handed that rifle by the old guy across the counter at WalMart - I was being entrusted with somebody else's interests, and that felt good.

It made me happy to have the fresh start on that date. Like the fishermen at the river bank where I shot cans, Kelly didn't have any developed conception of me, and I didn't have to live in a response to any particular past on that date. It was new territory, pure, and I was a real person there.

Otherwise, in other places, I felt that I was mostly the collection of my past experiences and childishness, and I assume that my parent's felt the same. Neither the fishermen nor my date knew that though, and it was liberating.

I bought Kelly some dinner and coffee, and we went for a walk near my dad's house. Shortly after that, she told me that she liked me but didn't have any feelings for me... whatever. I wrote a mean song about her and sang it to me friend Jeff, then moved on. She showed me what men feel like though when they feel free to feel whatever they want to. That helped.

Finally, there's this friend of mine - Jake, who has a way of reminding me what being a truly liberated man feels like.

Jake is a software developer, jumps out of planes, drinks beer, smokes cigars, doesn't eat healthy, and he went something like 2 years without a bed just because he didn't feel like buying one. That is awesome... I don't share all of those habits, but I appreciate the imagery they create.

Jake came down to visit a few months ago and we got to catch up. It had been about two years or so. What is memorable about time with Jake is how there is never any drama with him. Men don't like drama: Adding drama to time with a man is like adding water to wine, like having to ask to use the bathroom, or paying taxes on your income. It depletes the quality of an otherwise pure and honest experience.

Some of the things Jake and I have done together have been really miserable - a grueling river camping trip, freezing in the desert overnight sleeping next to a railway, then spending the day scouring for shade in the sun... Jake fell over a fire pit once in the dark when we were camping, and got this horrific gash in his leg. We went flying once and our plane's instruments and lights went out at night over a remote part of Texas... We had to land in a dark cockpit with everything broken and no radio, on a runway that looked like it was made by girl scouts. Strange thing is though, I don't have any negative memories of time with Jake, because Jake doesn't like drama, and social time without drama makes me feel like a real man.

So I need to go on now and do some laundry and feed the kid... Maybe its not all that bad though. I have a right of passage to go into the wilderness undefined, my wife loves me and spends time with me because she wants to, and I am blessed with a few good friends like Jake. God has been kind to me, and I must admit that life really is ok.

Belief is not a Religion

2008-06-14T11:06:00.000-07:00

After Watchman Nee began to gain popularity for his unique ability to lead and organize cell groups (he started over 300), he was asked if he would be willing to establish a central organization to perpetuate his influence and ministry.

He said no.

Then, when questioned about his answer, he answered "Belief is not a religion."

His influence became referred to as the "Little Flock" movement, because he fiercly resisted being denominationalized or organizationally defined. The "church" he fostered was many independent congregations that met in homes.

In 1928, Nee set out to write his one-and-only, self-authored book (the rest are third-party notes on his sermons), and by the 1940's, he distanced himself from writing altogether. Again, he was asked to explain himself (as a man who had read more than 3000 books). He answered:

"Not that what I wrote was wrong, but that it was too rational and systematic: The danger of systematizing divine facts is that a man can understand without the help of the Holy Spirit. It is only the immature Christians who demand always to have intellectually satisfying conclusions."

God And

2008-04-20T00:22:00.001-07:00

In the natural order of things, people are effect-driven.

I typically do things because there is an effect that I want for myself, and I can achieve the effect by some particular action. This could be thought of as the "engineering model," and it is the backbone of all high-level human activity. We are continuously "engineering" our experiences.

In the natural way of thinking, to do something without some target effect would mean to do it arbitrarily, which is equated with foolishness, or worse.

If I were to drive for four hours, and I did not particularly want to drive, nor did I have to drive, nor was I going anywhere in particular, that would be considered foolishness, or maybe some indication of illness.

So then, in the natural way of things, I seek the effect of things but never really seek things themselves.

This must change with God. I must not seek "God and..." some effect, but must be content in seeking God Himself - the true thing.

This may seem at first to be about reverence - about "showing" that our interest is God, and not just what He can do for us. While this is a noble mindset to have, this is not the point of the argument (nor do I think it is very useful anyway): The restraint here is for our own good:

If I seek God in prayer because I know that praying will produce a certain effect in me - say, peace, or the social comfort of having interacted with God, then I will pray until I have the effect, and will likely not continue much further. The "engineering" compulsion will evaluate the usefulness of further prayer, and will find nothing concrete, because I have no "want" to wait upon. At best, I might "want" to feel more loving, and less selfish, and that becomes my reason to continue. It is still about the effect.

If I worship God in the hope of achieving the pleasant effect of sensing His presence, or of being pleasantly distracted, or of a thousand other good things, I will likewise restrict both myself and God to a relationship which is pre-defined according to what I am really seeking, which is not actually Him.

However, where I seek God Himself, I will find that I am free from "the engineer." In having no pre-defined reason to come to God except to seek Him, I am free from this ironic state: where, because I have found God in experience, I am now content to end my pursuit and experience Him no further (until I want to). The better way is that when I have found God in experience, I perpetually wish to experience Him further. This ideal could never be "want" driven, but is sensible only to relational desire - where love for God Himself takes place of that more mechanical compulsion to find some effect from Him.

When we seek God, as opposed to "God and...," we are truly free to know the love of God, and our hearts are truly ready for the relationship of love that is always pressing at the seams of our natural order, waiting to ensue.

We could say that the natural way is to be effect-driven, but the love of God will make us affection-driven.

Our agenda with God is what holds off our relationship with Him, because it defines our use of Him. If our "use of Him" is He Himself, then our pursuit of God is bound only by His idea of the relationship, which is far more impressive than what we would come up with on our own.

It is in our best interest, and is the only way unto love, that we abandon "satisfaction." We must not be satisfied, or else we will stop short of God's desire for us. And I do not mean "God's desire for us" in the sense of "things that He would like to do for us," or of the like: I mean His possessive desire for "us, ourselves," that yearns that we would desire Him, Himself. When we stop wanting God, Himself, the relationship can grow no more.

We must seek God for the shear wild adventure of being near to His heart. We must seek God to have the pleasure of His love and blessings, but without finding any one object of pleasure at which we are willing to walk away without another.

The adventure of Christianity takes place with a Person, and God forbid we should want anything less.

The Christ-Life

2008-04-20T00:12:00.000-07:00

I wrote this recently to address non-believers on a different website. Thought I'd share it here.

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What is the essence of Christianity?

In short, it is the exchanged life. It is the life where what I am naturally is set in order to give way to the life of God that is in Christ. It is where the natural life is exchanged for the Christ-life, and this is accomplished through the mechanism that Christians refer to as faith.

The Christian life is not one of merely holding a particular set of ideals, or of doctrines, nor can it be summarized in what might be called the Christian "practice." These things in themselves are not "faith."

The Christian life is one of true regeneration, where what I am by natural order is placed subject to what God has purposed me to be by unnatural order - that is, through the interjection of the Christ-life in place of what I am without God. The comparison between the two is often thought of as that of darkness to light.

The transforming, regenerating faith that is responsible for this exchange centers upon a more concrete reality, which is transforming, regenerating love. The revealed love of God inspires faith, and always precedes faith in this sense. Human love, then returned to God, sets in motion the purifying love-relationship that creates faith continuously in a more permanent, life-changing sense. Thus, saving faith is entirely the construct of God's saving love, revealed to any willing human heart.

World Without End

2008-04-19T07:48:00.000-07:00

This is another song by Reese Roper. It has been one of my favorites for a long time.

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World Without End

For all the deepest thoughts compiled, philosophy to laws of physics, no one has ever heard or seen a more beautiful event than this love that saved us.

The very spark that burns the stars drew near to me today. The God of everything that is whispered in my ear that His love in boundless.

In the soundless awe and wonder
Words fall short to hope again
How beautiful, how vast Your love is
New forever, world without end.

Day of Pigs

2008-04-05T13:14:00.000-07:00

These are the lyrics to a song that I like by Reese Roper.

A theme of his music is how modern Christians abuse the privilege of assembly.

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Day of Pigs

Saturday
I could feet the crowd's dismay
They've acquired quite a fire
to burn the profane on a funeral pyre

Voices shrill
cutting silence like they mean to kill
Some pep rally where we scream His name
like God was loosing in a football game

I don't want to waste His name this time
I will never cast Him to the swine
(Grasping at some feeling you once knew
is nothing sacred ever safe with you?)

Silver tongues
all the spirit of an iron lung
Selling highs as if we needed one
Flash the lights so not be outdone

Counterfeit
wanting joy so much we take a hit
like a tapeworm deep in hunger digs
Waste the sacred just to feed these pigs

If this is real, then you must find it
between the space of grace and grim
It's nothing you can manufacture
your walls cannot contain Him

Church and Stuff

2008-04-05T11:46:00.000-07:00

So, I promised that I would bring about some new beginnings here by writing "stuff" rather than attempting to stage a theological revolution. I am here now, with my forth empty coffee cup of the morning, to deliver on that promise.

There is no gentle way to ease into the conversation that I want to have right now, so I'll just jump right in:

I think most "churches" these days are really "institutes of Christian sociology." They serve to appropriately socialize those who wish to think of themselves as Christians into the stero Christian bubble. Beyond that, they just circulate a lot of money, mostly upon the conveyance of religious obligation.

The "church" I have experienced for the past six or seven years (with the exception of the ministry of Bob Shaw) is the capitalist-sociological reflection of the gospel but is not the institution of the gospel itself.

I never hear preachers actually preach the gospel any more, or even really talk about the gospel, except in "aside" obligatory comments like "because Jesus died for our sins..." as to explain something else.

I usually feel that I am being spoken to, from the pulpit, as though I am a foreigner to anything spiritual and could not possibly "handle" the actual gospel message, or anything like it. It is as though, presumably, I need to be spoon-fed the rhetoric of distant religious notions, and such as according to the familiar pattern of "ordinary ideas." This manifests as sermons that are preached through clumbsy analogies and vauge emotional imagery, to be metabolized in the imagination rather than what the Bible refers to as the heart (the seat of conviction).

In the same, I never hear preachers actually talk about God Himself anymore either. I hear a lot of talk about "God, the idea," or "God, the founder of this theology." I hear people talk about God Himself so scarcely now that I wonder if anyone will even know what I mean by this...

I mean the way that people would talk about God if they actually knew Him - if He were the person who owned their truest affections, and by the knowledge of His love, commanded their waking thought each day. The one of whom they might say with the bride of Solomon, "I am my Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine."

That is the God that I really want to hear about at church. My soul is sick from discussions of God, by Christians, who speak of Him as though He were a "black-box" character upon whom we experiment to please. I know they do not mean to be irreverent, but they miss the real point of any of true form of Christianity.

I had a dream a few months ago that I was being interviewed for a ministry position at my church. In the dream, I was asked by the pastoral staff, "So, Daniel, what is it that you feel you can offer to this ministry?"

I replied with the words of A.W. Tozer:

"It is not mere words that nourish the soul, but God Himself; and unless and until the hearers come into the intimate experience of God Himself, they are none the better for having heard the truth."

In the dream, I was hired, and put in charge of a kindergarden class.

The Blog Revival

2008-03-31T11:07:00.001-07:00

Once again, I have gone quite awhile without writing anything on this blog.

This time, my friend William helped me understand that the reason is the "scale" at which I am addressing people.

I can't keep up with the epic tone of things around here, because I am such an ordinary guy.

So, in the good words of Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, "From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever." I mean that I'm giving up on the extraordinary revolution, and I'm just going to relax some.

I'm just going to write stuff now, and I hope you all like it.

Some thoughts on Consecration

2008-03-01T12:15:00.000-08:00

I am beginning to see that it is the authority of Christ which is entirely responsible for the consecration of the Christian.

What I mean here is that they are one in the same: Consecration is not a human responsibility, because it is not a human possibility - you cannot consecrate yourself, because your personal devotion and decision-ability pertain to a nature which God cannot accept. God must consecrate you, and He does so by bringing you under the authority of Christ. God can only accept the nature of Christ, and so He can only accept your consecration when Christ performs it, which implies the action of His authority in place of your own, and thus, His nature.

So how does this work? How does it become meaningful to us?

I think it is imperative to see at the onset that consecration, like atonement, has its completeness in the work of God in Christ, and is not something that can or should be accomplished now in us as individuals. Our consecration is only our entering into God's consecration of us, in Christ. We can not contribute to it in a fundamental sense, as though to alter what it is, how it works, or who's decisions it involves; but we can make God's consecration of all mankind in Christ effective to us individually by faith, and by faith (and only so) we may experience the benefit of it.

And so what is the benefit of consecration?

Consecration is when I see that I am God's possession (and it is the authority of Christ that makes His possession of me certain; thus, it is not dependent on any working of my own). The good of it is this: That only as I get a sense of God's possession of me can I have a lasting sense of His presence with me.

I may very well believe that God is with me, and I may try very hard, through belief, to substantiate a sense of that presence. Going about it this way though will only produce despair, because there is no lasting effect when I try to work out the purposes of God through the resources of my natural man - that is, through my effort rather than deferring to the effort of God in Christ. I may have a natural hour where I sense God's presence, and the comfort and wisdom of it, but then with an incidence of my temper, or careless thoughts, or indifference, it is gone, and I find myself wandering around again looking for what is seemingly a scarce and anomalous experience.

This is not what the Lord has for us. His working in Christ was not to affect us such that we might be "better" sinners, or sinners of a more effective sort in His purposes, or that we might have a higher incidence of ideal moments as otherwise people of a useless quality. You would not wash and iron clothing that were going to throw away, and in the same sense, God has made no provision for the participation of the natural man in the newness of life that He has ordained in Christ. The natural is not brought into the new, but was discarded by the cross through Jesus' working as "the last Adam" (I Cor. 15:45). There is a higher way of approaching every good thing that God has for us, including the continual experience of His presence: Our way unto every good thing of God is to see more thoroughly what He has already accomplished in Christ, and then to rest in the fact of it, accepting it to be true of ourselves because God has made it so.

In the words of Watchman Nee:

"We work where we have not seen the work of Christ."

So then, our consecration is a historical fact, just as is our atonement, forgiveness, and deliverance from the principle of sin. As with these other things, consecration will have only have its good effect on us if we come into it through knowing it, reckoning it to be so, and then presenting ourselves to God according to it. That is the divine order for experiencing grace, and it always refers to His past working in Christ, and not to His present working in us. His present working in us is to make true of us what is already true in Christ.

New Direction for This Blog

2008-03-01T11:04:00.000-08:00

If you are a regular visitor to this blog, you may have noticed that about half of the postings have disappeared.

I haven't written anything on here for awhile, and I realized this week that this is because the blog has lost the purity to me that it had early on, taking away much of the invitation to continue writing.

I am not really a "blogger" type, in my own thinking. My family, my work, and my personal devotions are all that I really consider being at the core of my life, and I am anything but an extrovert. Anyone who has known me for awhile will remember that this was not always the case, but it is now. Marriage, having a son, and having a real career has changed me. It is difficult for my friends to even get me on the phone for 10 minutes most weeks, and this is not so much that I am incredibly busy as it is that I am certain about where I belong and who I need to be available to.

This blog became important to me because I saw it as an opportunity to synthesize conversations that I would not ordinarily be able to have, especially regarding the intricacies of what God has done in Christ, which I am fascinated with from both a scientific and humanitarian point of view.

I have somewhat misused the privilege of this forum though, not as though it were offensive to anyone else, but in that doing so took away the better use of it from me: I want to write about God, and in such a way that appreciates the idealistic nature of writing - that I can exclude all the ordinary thoughts that occur to me while considering the extraordinary; that I can get away with thinking through things that you would easily see I am not qualified to speak about, if you knew how ordinary and unacceptable I can be.

This blog is a place where I can explore the very best, even if unnatural, thoughts that interest me, and I do not want to fill it with common emotionalism or careless expression anymore.

I am purposing now to use this forum only to expound upon the study of the gospel of Christ:

I believe that to continue on in studying the gospel beyond its initial inception is useful in that doing so will persuade us, progressively, to stop working for what we already have.

In the good words of Watchman Nee, "We work because we have not seen the work of Christ."

So I will now devote the use of this blog to bringing people onto the proper side of that equation - to see the work of Christ more fully, that we may cease to work ourselves and may find more thorough rest and peace in the grace of God.

In Christ

2008-02-11T10:20:00.000-08:00

With every day, I enter further into the discovery that my life is in Christ, and is not bound up in my personal history as I have often supposed. I have found the substitution that I have needed for my personal history, and with it, I have been able to take hold of joy in place of anything that I might be sorry for - namely, sins, whether my own or someone else's, and the ignorance in which sin thrives.

The history of my life, and I suppose that of any human life, is largely a collection of my sins, mistakes, and careless wandering in ignorance. God is showing me that he is able to dismiss the whole of it in one act - in introducing me daily to the truth that I am in Christ, abolishing the merit of my personal experiences altogether. Because I am in Christ, and my identity is in Him, I am wholly able to go on in life, from any point, looking only to Jesus, and I need not carry the weight of any other experience with me. I am discovering that my life is in Christ, and this is true because I am in Christ; and I am in Christ because that is where God has placed me:

"It is by Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God — that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption." (I Corinthians 1:30)

I was in Adam, and now I am in Christ: but I do not mean that I was in Adam a few years ago, and now I have somehow gotten into Christ - That is not how it works. I mean that the sum total of humanity was once alone in Adam, at some point in history, and I was bound up in that experience so much that it has had effect on my behavior, thoughts, nature, and character here in this life - the life in the form of Adam. Now, the same total of humanity has been summarized in Christ by the cross, and I am also bound up in that experience, which is having an effect on me through faith.

So the glory of God in my life is not to put me into Christ, for I am there. This was accomplished, and cannot be accomplished again in any way: I was included in Christ when Jesus' blood was shed for sins, which was for God, and this can never be re-established or expanded as though to be applied to me more exclusively, individually. When Jesus pleased God on the cross, He pleased God regarding me, and there is no second act of atonement. Faith applies the cross to me, and with it, salvation; but the truth of my being in Christ is of God. It cannot be undone, nor accomplished any more thoroughly.

The glory of God in my life is to diminish the effect of Adam, while that nature is able to have any effect at all. This includes getting me to where I do not try to integrate who I have become in Adam with who I am becoming in Christ; and this demands that I dismiss the whole of my personal history from being a point of reference in seeking God, or in thinking about myself in relating to God.

I need not live accountable to any other historical fact except that God has placed me in Christ, and the present fact that I am in Him. If I am in Christ, then my life is also in Him; if my life is in Him, I need not find it elsewhere: not in what I have done, nor in what I have become in Adam.

Adam is a total loss, and I need not think of myself as being a loss with him, because God has accounted for me elsewhere - in Christ. I am learning to see myself in Christ where God has placed me, and to let every other idea about myself go unattended to until it fades to nothing.

Holy Living

2008-01-19T12:16:00.001-08:00

In writing and speaking about God, I often focus mostly on the reality of grace, and of forgiveness, provision, mercy, etc. - the benevolence of God. I tend to focus on how God's actions and thoughts toward Christians are more in response to Jesus than they are in response to us as individuals - that God's end of His relationship with us individually looks mostly to His approval of Jesus, and then embraces us individually because of Jesus; because we are united with Jesus in His personal holiness and newness of life.

I sometimes get a bit of chiding from other believers though because I have so little to say (seemingly) about good behavior, and the importance of good behavior in Christian practice. Some believers seem to get the impression that I have no doctrine of holiness that requires holiness to be accomplished here and now.

So in response to these people, I would like to offer some of my thoughts on the issue of Christian behavior, and a Christian's moral obligation to be holy; for certainly, we are obligated to be holy.

First, I will say that I have little confidence in anyone's ability to better themself out of shear willpower. I think that the ideas of "self-control" and "self-discipline" need to be abandoned as independent principles, as though they could be fostered and cultivated from within ourselves. I do not mean to suggest that the principles of self-control and self-discipline are bad or unattainable: I am rather suggesting that both principles are in every way dependent principles, and cannot thrive by mere good intentions. I think that when either principle is evident in our lives, it is such because of the correctness of other, more formidable factors of influence.

The Apostle James writes: "Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin..." (James 1:14)

We sin because we are "drawn away," and we are drawn away from the inside out - by our own personal desires. So we cannot blame sin on someone else, not even the devil - we own the desires, and we are responsible for regulating them, and we are responsible when they become enflamed and out of control. Sin is the byproduct of failing to regulate desire, and the sinful state of desire comes to us, usually, by impulsive suggestion. When we act upon those impulsive suggestions, and do not give place to good conscience, we sin against God. So, it is the regulation of desire that I consider at the center of holy living:

I think that people are much like plants: We are very much constructs of our environment, and we live, somewhat unintentionally, as an expression of our environment. I think this is true both acutely, and on the larger scale. We soak up the resources around us, the energy around us, the nourishment most near to us, and then we try very much to follow the course of our own specific nature within that collective circumstance. Like plants, our success is dependent upon the virtue of the resources that we draw from.

I think that Christians should be greatly concerned with their surroundings and with the environment that they create for themselves, for it is out of the environment that personal desires are either entertained or neglected, swaying the course of both impulse and behavior.

We can all agree for the most part on what the goal is - it is holiness: blamelessness, a commendable spirit before God, commendable speech and behavior. It is harmlessness, tact, good reservation, and perfect love toward others. It is favoring mercy, regarding self-sacrifice as better than indulgence, and having moderation with all things that might distract us from the good focus of prayer. It is moderating pleasure with duty, and preferring instruction and understanding to self-expression. It is the purposeful evaluation of others as being greater priority than ourselves, inducing compassion that supersedes personal want. It is prayerful reflection in place of compulsive, nervous activity, and is faith in place of complaining.

In seeking this, I personally think that what makes or breaks us is what we are living in immediate response to: relationships, ethical ideals, the use of appetites, the contrast between rest and productivity, conversations, noise and peace, exposure to beliefs, and so on.

Regarding the more traditional discussion of what is "good" or "bad," I do not think that what goes into the body is very important as long as it does not impede worship and prayerful focus. However, if something is blatantly destructive to the body, I do not think that is wise before God. What people do for amusement, I think, generally needs to follow the same rule - does it impede worship or enflame personal desires in a dangerous or distracting manner?

I would warn Christian's against any careless habit of being entertained; television, music, and aimless social events included, as all these can readily appeal to the indulgence of personal appetites in place of good reservation and a sober mind.

I also suggest that single men have nothing exclusive with women until they have already reasoned in prayer that they will seek a wife.

"Beauty is fading and the heart deceitful, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised." -(Prov. 31:30)

I think that single women should also be mindful of how easily the giving of their attention to men or behaving seductively can distract an otherwise Godly man, and women should keep themselves with modesty in every public environment, understanding what influence they may bring to the situation if they are careless.

So in conclusion, I think that if Christians wage their fight for holiness on the grounds of controlling desire, and not in trying to resist enflamed desire when it already has momentum, victory is generally easy. If you put "enflamed desire" and "distraction from prayerful focus" as your clearly identifiable foes, you will usually know right from wrong and will behave in such a way that will please God and promote your relationship with Him.

Under the Circumstances

2008-01-05T12:43:00.000-08:00

The desert has a way of quieting my soul like nothing else I have found.

Perhaps it is that the desert is too vast and lonely for anything but prayerful reflection: The nearly hostile emptiness, and the impressive resilience of it is exactly what I need to feel a renewed sense of invitation unto God once I have lost it elsewhere, in the routine of daily distractions. There is truly nothing out there that might lend itself to the soul of a man except God Himself.

It is ironic to me though, that I find any solace in the desert: I live in a society which is so intricately designed to sustain, comfort, and please me; yet it is in a place so contrary to life that I find myself up against the odd suggestion that I am nearing the best experience of it.

It makes no sense at all unless I have first acknowledged that God Himself is what I need, more than any other amenity or prospect. So it is that where I find myself feeling nearest to God, I feel I am where I need to be.

There is a problem with this though: I obviously cannot spend my life alone in the desert - or at least, this would not be a very meaningful Christian life. I have to exist, generally, in the hustle and bustle of society in order to be a reasonably happy and fulfilled person.

What I am finding to be true is that it is possible for me to have the best of both worlds:

The real joy of being alone with God is how easy it is, there, to live in response to Him. What we are in response to God is usually a great thing - it is everything else we respond to that makes us into monsters: traffic, bills, work stress, time schedules, routines, chores, and so on.

I think we generally "are what we are" in response to something else: We generally live "under the circumstances."

What I am finding to be true is that there is an alternative to this, which is living in response to God rather than in response to other people, circumstances, mere emotions, etc., as a regular practice.

The mechanism of isolation is sometimes helpful because it removes just about everything you might respond to other than God, but there is a real joy in discovering that isolation is not necessary for being able to respond to God all of the time.

We have this other asset - The Holy Spirit, who enables us, through a cultivated relationship, to live in response to God throughout our every daily experience.

I have been experimenting with this, and it works wonders:

For a week or so now, when something has been irritating me, or when stress is getting to me, when or I am just really not enjoying a conversation that I am in, I have made it a practice to think "I will respond to the Lord right now, and not to this circumstance."

Suddenly, I find myself completely able to behave appropriately, to be generally happy, and to be truly indifferent to negativity. I am not sure how this works except to say that by the mere suggestion that the Lord is with me, I find myself able to live in response to Him and not to what is around me.

I have heard another Christian explain this as "practicing the presence of Christ," which also emphasizes the promise of Jesus: "Behold I am with you always."

Our Righteousness

2007-12-28T10:54:00.000-08:00

My thoughts today come from Jeremiah 23:5-6:

"Behold, the days are coming," says the Lord, "That I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness: A King shall reign and prosper, and execute judgement and righteousness in the earth. In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell safely."

"Now this is His name by which He will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS."

It is well accepted that Jesus was and is a righteous person, but what is central to the Christian faith, and what is spoken of here, is that the righteousness of Christ also pertains to us.

This is true on the grounds of two intertwined principles: Jesus' authority, and His personal righteousness:

Jesus' authority, (and specifically, His authority as a man) gives Him the right to represent us before God, before the angels, before Satan, and anyone else who has anything to say about us. Paul refers to Jesus as "the last Adam," and as "the second Man," such that Jesus is the summary of all mankind; He is the end of one creation, and the beginning of another, within the common vessel of man. Jesus has both the right to summarize Adam and to represent Adam on the cross, and to be in Himself "the firstborn among many brethren" unto God by the resurrection.

This is a mysterious feat, but through its accomplishment, we are effectively brought before God as a new and holy creation in Christ.

There is much literature and exploration into how this principle of atonement and inclusion in Christ works - how the actions and person of Christ have effected our state before God and are able to effect us individually. I only want to establish here, though, that the principle does work, and that having the personal righteousness of Christ and the nature of Christ as your own is an experience to be entered into.

Where Adam has a weakening hold on the nature of the Christian, through the vehicle of the flesh, Jesus has an ever-increasing, eternal hold upon us through the work of the indwelling Holy Spirit; and it is the Spirit who does the work of cleansing us from Adam, progressively, through His own wisdom and ability. The Blood of Jesus is the constitution by which the Holy Spirit is able to live within us, to work out our salvation, assure us of our atonement, and to bring us into the reality of every other good hope.

What God has prepared for us in Christ is a relationship. It need not be preceded by or tended to with a great deal of labor as though it was not already able to be entered into - It is immediately viable for us, through what God has done in Christ, and it need only be approached by the practice of humble faith for us to experience the merit of it.

It would hardly be any comfort at all if God promised us many great things through Christ - His righteousness, His indwelling Spirit, His nature, etc., but there were some continual exercise down at the human level that was required to substantiate these things: This is not the case, because we have not been given a doctrine to be proven through our own working, but rather a relationship to be experienced through the merit of His working.

Namely, we relate to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior through the certainty of our atonement, and He relates to us as being our personal righteousness through the same agreement. He is the author of our atonement, this agreement between us - it is entirely His doing, and is our inherited right. We cannot contribute to its further accomplishment, nor make our right to it any more certain. We need only enter into it.

Every Christian experience that can be spoken of is directly, immediately consequence to this relationship of us being unto Jesus, and Jesus being unto us in this way.

There is no merit, no gift, no power, no wisdom that can contribute to what God has done in Christ. What we seek is done in Him and is not meant to be replicated in us in some ritualistic or personal manner; but rather, what is personal to Him, His righteousness, is to pertain to us through the means that He has established - that is, our atonement, which we agree upon through faith.

Jesus is our righteousness, and we need not struggle to find that righteousness in ourselves - we will not. His authority represents us before God, and we need not find that comfort elsewhere - we will not. Jesus is our certain experience, and is the final solution to God's desire for holy, justified, and well-cared-for people.

Needing Prayer

2007-12-26T22:27:00.000-08:00

My friend Matthew woke up in the middle of the night once and could not get back to sleep for anything: He was definitely tired, but his mind was restless and he could find no comfort in closing his eyes. After a significant amount of time, and building frustration, Matthew noticed that a glass of water sounded particularly good - so he walked down stairs and got one. As soon as he finished the glass of water, he felt peace come over his mind, he felt the relief of returning sleepiness, and was out like a baby almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. When he woke up in the morning, he was intrigued enough by the incident to tell me the story.

Here's what I find interesting: Matthew's mind was restless simply because he was thirsty. The problem is that he did not know that he was thirsty - he tried other things instead. I also find it interesting that his symptom was restlessness - that his body was in a state bad enough that it was no longer appropriate to sleep. Everything about rest had to stop, he had to be woken up, and the problem had to be addressed. His mind would take no comfort until some water had reached his belly.

I am thinking about this story tonight because I have had a recurring incident that is similar in some regards:

I sometimes find myself in a state of mind that I would describe as both restless and exhausted - I am burned out, I have "had enough," and I need some restful, refreshing time alone with God. If you would ask me, I would say "Yes, I need time alone with God!" but I do not know that I need it. I rather wander around aimlessly complaining about how I feel, and telling others that I have "had enough!" and that I am burned out.

What I have found is that I will usually be in this state for quite awhile - days, sometimes weeks, before I give any serious thought as to why I am so miserable. Much like my friend Matthew that night, I am tired, and I want to just roll over and find comfort - I don't want to be bothered about solving the problem of my problems. So being past having any emotional reserve, I do not think it reasonable that I should have to go offer up prayers, and the very thing that I need is what I find myself resisting.

Of course though, once I eventually get alone with God for a good span of time - thirty minutes or so, I find that peace returns to me in full, I find rest, and I am able to get back to being a generally happy and productive person.

I also usually think to myself "That was a lot easier and more enjoyable than I thought..." and I inwardly vow to myself that next time, I will just go pray at the onset of despair rather than at my last tolerance of it.

This is easier said than done though.

The Five Minute Sparks

2007-12-26T07:30:00.001-08:00

I have been getting some pressure from friends lately to start writing more - especially from my wife, Cassie, and from William Shaw ( http://shaw-time.blogspot.com/ ).

The trouble I usually have as a writer is not that I struggle for inspiration, but rather that I tend to think about things too concisely to draw out an engaging discussion; so when my friends and family have said "You should write a book," I say "It would be ten pages!" And when I have been asked to speak or preach at churches, I'm usually about done after five minutes...

So starting a blog seems appropriate for my style. My focus here will be uplifting Christian messages, drawn from my personal reflections and experiences.

They should all be worth about five minutes of your time.