The Oil in our Lamp

"In your righteousness, deliver me and rescue me; incline your ear to me, and save me! Be to me a rock and refuge, to which I may continually come; you have given the command to save me, for you are my rock and fortress." ( Psalm 71:2-3 )  

We hear often that we are living in the last days, and there does seem to be an air of urgency in the atmosphere that the end is quickly approaching. I'm wondering though, since no one knows when Jesus will return, he said himself included, if the weightiness we are sensing isn't so much the end of time, but the end of us. Because the Scripture tells us over and over that our life here on earth is quickly coming to an end, like a vapor, a mist, and a fading flower. 

"So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom." ( Psalm 90:12 ) 

"Be ready," we are warned in Jesus's parable of the five virgins who had no oil in their lamps when the time came to go out and meet the Bridegroom. ( Matthew 25:1-13 ) 

How can we be ready like the five wise virgins who were prepared with oil in their lamps?

The message of Scripture is short and direct: "Repent and believe." These words are spoken by the Old Testament prophets; they are proclaimed from the wilderness by John the Baptist. Jesus taught them to those who had ears to ear and eyes to see. Paul, Peter, John, Jude, the writers of the New Testament, all proclaim the Good News of the Gospel. 

What hinders people then from salvation? 

One thing: those with ears to hear and eyes to see know their need. 

The Pharisees grumbled often that Jesus ate and associated with tax collectors and sinners. 

( Jesus ) told them, "It is not those who are well who need a doctor, but those who are sick. I didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners." Mark 2:17 CSB

In the "Upon Waking" devotional day 32 it asks the question, "Do you know what the difference was between the sinners sitting at the table and the sinners pointing their fingers at the table? It's that God had come to save both but only one side knew they needed him." 

Today in our church culture sadly many will not mention "buzz words" like sin, repent, resurrection, and the blood of Jesus so they can be "seeker friendly." How are we being "friendly" when we don't love others enough to tell them the truth?

Repentance shows us our need - we understand that we have not just behaved badly, but we have sinned against a holy God. People are struggling, and rightfully so, with the sin inside of themselves, seeking for help, and the Church must be "seeker friendly" in explaining that Jesus came and lived the perfect life we should have lived, but couldn't, and died the death we should of died for our sins. 

Now when we come to him - and we only come when we understand that we need him and can't save ourselves with our own good works and righteousness - we are clothed in his righteousness. His righteous life is imputed to us. Praise God. 

But we have to know we need him - that's the catch. If we think we are doing okay on our own, in our own righteousness, like the Pharisees and religious leaders of Jesus's day, then we will never come to him. 

He came to save both groups - the righteous and the unrighteous. The younger and the older brother. The Pharisee and the tax collector. The virgins with oil and the virgins without. 

But we must repent and believe.

We have to know we need him. 

💜

There was a farmer who had a dog. And Aslan was his name Oh. ( : 

Come to the Water

"Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the water; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come buy wine and milk without money and without price." Isaiah 55:1

When I began studying theology roughly five years ago now, I had this great awakening in what would probably be referred to as the basics of theology, Bible 101: The entirety of Scripture is about Jesus and not me. 

I know, simple, but oh so profound, isn't it? 

Jesus is David fighting evil and death, not me. I'm no match for giants. Jesus is the fourth man in the fiery furnace with the three Hebrew men, saving them from the flames when they faithfully and boldly refuse to worship any god but the one true God. Jesus is Esther interceding for his people, willing to perish for them. 

One of my favorite places to find Jesus is in the story of Daniel and the Lion's Den, the injustice of an innocent man, the sealed stone, the reluctant ruler not quite sure about the execution he's pressured into pronouncing, the early morning surprise after the stone was rolled away. Daniel wasn't sinless, and he wasn't Jesus. But he was a "type and shadow" of the redemption to come through Jesus. The life of Joseph has perhaps the most ties to Jesus; searching for them all is like hunting for a treasure chest, or the Pearl of great price. 

Yes, I'm in the biblical narrative, of course, because his story becomes my story. I'm the sinner who, in Christ, becomes the sinner saved by grace, the sinner saint who will one day be made perfect when Jesus returns to earth. That's me. Praise God. 

All of the Scriptures, not just the prophesies, point us to Jesus. We learn from them. They offend us and  transform us as we meditate on the Word and apply it, but Jesus is the biblical center of gravity. He's the superhero. Not us. 

"And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he ( Jesus ) interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself." Luke 24:27 

"All" the Prophets and in "all" the Scriptures, Jesus told the two travelers on the road to the village named Emmaus after his resurrection, are about him. 

"You search the Scriptures because you think in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life." John 35:39  

"They bear witness about me," the prophesies are about Jesus ( not America, Trump or Biden ), the stories, the parables, the wisdom literature, all of it, Jesus told the Pharisees the truth and those gathered around him. 

 "..so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth: it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it." Isaiah 55:11 

This verse from Isaiah 55 is a favorite one of the prosperity and word-faith movement preachers. I heard it "declared and decreed" for years and twisted it myself, wringing out my own interpretation. We were taught to stand on this promise for health and wealth, to achieve our life goals, increase our income, buy our dream house, build a successful business, and find favor and blessing waiting around every corner. Our best life now. 

The Bible is so much better than this. 

Then one day I heard the verse preached in context, within the entire chapter, within the biblical narrative, in all of its power and glory, and the verse actually did change my life for the better and forever. 

Why?

Because it's about Jesus. 

This Scripture is not teaching us how to make the Bible or God "work for us." 

Friend, Jesus has already preached in his Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 that God feeds his little, feathery sparrows and knows each one of them individually, that he clothes the lilies of the field more splendidly than Solomon in his royal robes. 

Jesus says that we are much more valuable to God than his birds and flowers, so why would we need to eisegesis Scripture in this way, imparting our meaning into the text? Pray by all means for every need, and if God is withholding something from us, hasn't the Gospel convinced you of the unfathomable love of God towards us already? And don't you trust his wisdom and fatherly response with that? So let the text interpret itself. 

What is Isaiah 55 actually teaching? 

Answer: The most beautiful truth is all of human history. 

Take a listen: 

"Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters..... Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?" 

This is speaking of our spiritual need, and all we must do is come to be filled. The world will never be enough. 

"Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." 

This is an offer of salvation - come to God. We must repent and believe "for he will abundantly pardon."

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD."

Our thought are usually curved in on ourselves. 

"For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out of my mouth;"

God sent his word to the earth. The word came down like rain and snow and watered the earth, the word brings forth life where it is planted. 

"it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it." 

God sent the word for his purpose, not ours. 

"For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands."

This is the beautiful, breath-taking language of redemption and restoration! 

"Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the LORD, and everlasting sign that shall not be cut off." 

Praise God - this is a reversal of Eden and the curse we encountered because of sin. Thorns and thistles are no more! This is a salvation chapter! 

So what is the word doing when God sends it down to the earth? Constructing our dream house? No silly, the Word is saving us!!  The Word isn't going to return to God empty - what will the Word take back to God? 

Us!! 

We already have more favor and blessing with God than we can ever wrap our minds around! 

So yes, we are in the story of God as well. We are the rescued children. 

Isn't that beautiful? Aren't you so thankful that you are in Christ's arms being carried back to our Father? 

It sheds a different light on how we should be reading and interpreting the Scriptures. And out of his grace and our gratitude, that's how we live our lives. 

Come to the water. 

"The Birthing Narrative"

"Jesus answered him, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.'" ( John 3:3 ) 

I decided while I was continuing some barn housekeeping this past week and preparing to tag and band the new lambs from this spring's fruitful birthing season that I'd listen to Jen Wilken's Bible study in Exodus. I had ordered it earlier in the month from Lifeway and hadn't made time for it yet. I felt a bit guilty and disobedient though as I had not read the Bible passage or completed the homework section in the workbook beforehand as directed. I admonished myself and made a mental note to do it that evening as I started the audio. 

The Passover and Exodus from Egypt, when God delivered Israel out of slavery and onto the Promise Land, is in many ways the central story of the Old Testament. 

In asking the basic questions about the Exodus text, we learned that authorship is attributed to Moses. Since I knew Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that was no surprise. What did surprise me; however, what I hadn't ever stopped to think about before was 'where' Moses started the story of the Exodus. 

It is God's story, but Moses, most everyone seems to know, possibly in part to all of the movies about his life, Moses is the central human figure in the Exodus narrative: The burning bush, demanding Pharaoh to let God's people go, the ten plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, the difficult wilderness years, Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments.  

Moses is epic; he's bigger than life it seems.  

But Moses doesn't start his story at what we would consider to be the climatic or epic parts. No, he starts his story with a couple of Hebrew mid-wives. Their names are Shiphrah and Puah. 

Before God raised Moses up to deliverer Israel out of the land of Egypt, mid-wives were already delivering God's children. Literally. 

We learn that the Israelites were still living in Egypt from the time of Joseph. ( Remember him? With his amazing, technicolor dreamcoat? ) Due to extraordinary circumstances Jospeh had become second to Pharaoh in the land of Egypt; he then moved his family to Egypt to care for them when a severe famine struck Canaan. That's how the Israelites ended up in Egypt in the first place. 

Years have past now, and the new Pharaoh won't let the Hebrew people go. 

This Pharaoh doesn't know Joseph and frankly thinks the Israelites are multiplying too quickly and could become too mighty for the Egyptians to handle. He's afraid they will rise up, join with Egypt's enemies, fight against them, and escape, so Pharaoh makes their lives bitter with hard labor as slaves. 

Now there must have been more than two mid-wives within the Israelite people because we are told throughout the account that the Hebrews are multiplying and growing strong. They are a fruitful people. Jen tells us that Shiphrah and Puah were most likely head of the guild, representing all of the mid-wives. Pharaoh calls them to appear before him, commanding the mid-wives to kill the baby boys when they are born, but let the girl babies live. 

Why kill the boys? Why not the girl babies? Because Pharaoh is thinking that the boys are the strong ones, the warriors, the girls can be useful to the Egyptians in "domestic" areas and are of no threat to him, or so he thought. 

The mid-wives of course don't do it; they defy Pharaoh's order. Even when summonsed a second time to Pharaoh so he can find out why they did not obey the order and kill the boys, Shiphrah and Puah lie to his face telling him the Hebrew women are so vigorous that they give birth before the mid-wives can get to them. 

They risk their lives to save lives. 

Then there is Jochebed, Moses's mother, who hides him for the first three months of his life and then constructs a floating basinet and places him in the Nile. ( She uses the same waterproof material that Noah used when building the ark. ) His older sister, who is more than likely Miriam, watches from a distance to see what will become of her baby brother. I can't imagine the pain in either of their hearts. 

As Pharaoh's daughter comes to the Nile to bathe, she discovers the baby boy floating in the Nile. She takes pity on him as she hears him crying and decides in that moment to adopt him as her own child. The young sister watching the fate of her infant brother keeps her head and acts quickly saying that she knows of a "mom" who could nurse the child for her. Pharaoh's daughter encourages Miriam to take the baby to the nurse mom, and she will even pay for his care. 

The story tells us that Moses's own mother did in deed nurse him, and when he had grown older he was returned to Pharaoh's daughter in the palace. She named him "Moses" because she said, "I drew him out of the water."  

You have to laugh at that part of the story. It's like God is saying to Pharaoh, "You think women aren't a threat to you? How about this? I'm sending a deliverer to my people who will deliver them out of your evil hand, and I'm going to use your very own daughter to raise him up, in your very own household, right under your wicked nose."  

The Hebrew women and the mid-wives were Israel's first deliverers. In fact, God was so pleased with the mid-wives, the text tells us that he gave them families of their own. 

Jen pointed out in the study that the Bible gives us such a beautiful picture of female bravery in the lives of these women. I love that she refers to this story as the "birthing narrative." 

And the "birthing narrative" reveals that Moses knew and respected this truth. We are swept away by this knowledge as he finishes the Genesis account and opens up the story of the Exodus, not with a conquering battle scene or him braving the likes of Pharaoh, but with the heroic behavior of the Hebrew mid-wives, his mother, his sister, his Egyptian step-mother, and the daughters of Israel. 

Breathtaking, isn't it? 

I had to stop rummaging around inside of the barn to process what Jen was saying. Tears streamed down my face. This is why expository Bible study is so satisfying, and why I need to make a better effort to do my homework. 

In the digging of the fertile soil of the Word of God beneath the surface and the slow turning and turning of that richness, the Scriptures begin to uncover wounds deep within the human heart and at the same time administer healing. It's the power of the biblical narrative. It unearths and heals the hidden pains we didn't even know were underneath the polished appearance.  

The Scriptures reveal God's heart and his character, and only in finding him first, understanding who he is do I understand who I am and all he created me to be. 

My grandson Jonah, he's four and likes to do every job in the world by himself without help, and whenever he gets in this work mode, my son Josh, his daddy, will say, "Jonah, team work makes the dream work." 

And I think of this cooperative language in not just the Exodus narrative, but in the entire story of God with his creating and ordering of his people, his men and his women, in his purposes, his redemption and his deliverance to one day birth forth out of another precious womb, his Deliverer. 

"For we know that the whole of creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now." ( Romans 8:22 ) 

We all know that there is something seriously wrong with this world. We groan inwardly along with all of creation as if we are all in labor anticipating the day when everything will not only be put right, but made better than before. That desire lies deep within the human soul. 

And the life death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the answer to that longing; no other religion has a leader with an empty tomb who promises to come again, making all things new.  ( Revelation 21:5 ) 

But you have to know you need him. "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." ( James 4:6 )) And I see this also in the lives of these brave women who trusted God in the midst of such atrocities. 

You have to acknowledge the brokenness and sin and that you can't save yourself with all of your righteous deeds. It will never be enough. But God's grace is more than enough in the perfect life and death and resurrection of his Son. In salvation, all of this is imputed to us, and we become part of God's family and his fellow workers in his kingdom.  ( 1 Corinthians 3:9-16, 15:1-4 ) 

"...because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." ( Romans 10:9 ) 

You will be delivered! 

You will be born again! 

( John 3:1-21 ) 

💜

( Exodus 1-2:1-10 ESV / CSB ) 

"God of Deliverance" A Study of Exodus 1-18, Jen Wilken 

The Willing Servant

"Behold, my servant shall act wisely, he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted." ( Isaiah 52:13 )

Yesterday as I engaged in a bit of barn housekeeping, enjoying the welcoming spring weather, I found myself humming and singing the words I could remember to a perennial Easter hymn from the reformed church of my childhood. Pieces of soiled bedding and manure flung out from the dirt floor and met the open fresh morning air, gently sweeping my happy hens along in the melodious labor and breeze. 

But it's one week prior, and we must endure the cross before we can celebrate the crown. 

Pastor Tim Keller used to tell this story in his sermons to help his listeners better understand the significance of what Jesus had done in wrapping himself up in human flesh and experience. He read from an article written by an African-American woman who wrestled with the Christian faith and the existence of God while she was a journalism major in college. Her mother had been beaten to death by her boyfriend, and as one can only imagine, she had suffered greatly as she remembered seeing the bloody hand prints on the wall. 

When she actually heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the first time it moved her to tears and belief because of the power of the sacrifice. She said that she was overcome by the reality that Jesus knew what it was like to be beaten to death by someone who should have loved him. 

The reality that Jesus would leave glory and his Father to lower himself into our world, into our suffering and egregious sin boggles the brain. 

I think of a person who works on sewer systems. That's got to be the dirtiest job imaginable. The workers put on this special suit that protects their skin from coming into contact with the sludge and scum in a septic tank or city sewage drain, and then they lower themselves into the cesspool. 

Like those workman, Jesus lowered himself into our painful, filthy world, but unlike them, he didn't first put on any special gear to protect himself. No, he put on human flesh like all of us so he could feel everything we feel and then some. He allowed himself to feel rejection, suspicion, and mocking. He allowed himself to feel the impact of not only every angry insult, but every brutal fist. He allowed himself to be beat so severely that he wasn't recognizable as a human and cut to pieces by someone who should have loved him, his own creation. 

"As many were astonished at you - his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind - " ( Isaiah 52:14 ) 

Every part of Jesus's interrogation, trial, and sentencing was unjust. No justice was given to him, so we could be justified. Jesus was humiliated, shamed, and counted among the criminals, so we could be counted among the saints in light. Jesus became filthy with our sin, so we could be washed clean. God rejected and forsook his Son, so he would not have to reject and forsake us. God showed no mercy to Jesus, so he could show mercy to us. He abandoned Jesus so he could adopt us as his children. 

Unbelievable, and yet it's true. Jesus took our place on the cross. 

And not because God made him do it. 

The reason that evocative analogy of the train switch-tender and his little son playing in the gear area or on the railway tracks, it's got several versions, but the reason it doesn't work is because the son is unaware that his father is about to sacrifice his life for a train full of people. 

( There is the original 1884 tale, however; where the son obediently lies down on the track and his prompt obedience saves his life. )

The first story doesn't work because Jesus didn't die by accident, and he wasn't strong-armed into the cross by his Father. There was no so called "cosmic child abuse" involved in his death. Jesus volunteered. And this changes everything. 

In the Garden of Gethsemane, God began to give Jesus a taste of what was to come. 

"And he said to his disciples, 'Sit here while I pray.' And he took with him Peter and James and John and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, 'My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.'" ( Mark 14:32-34 ) 

"And he said, 'Abba Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me, Yet, not what I will, but what you will.'" ( verse 36 ) 

"And being in agony he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground." ( Luke 22:44 ) 

Jesus didn't sweat drops of blood because of the crucifixion, as horrific as Roman crucifixion was in that day, God began to reveal to Jesus the cup. He would drink the cup of God's wrath for the sins of the world. He would be crucified for us; he would make for us penal substitutionary atonement. 

"The Lamb of God," John the Baptist proclaimed, "Who takes away the sin of the world." ( John 1:29 ) 

Do you ever wonder why a lamb? Why was it a lamb sacrificed at the Passover in Egypt, and its blood wiped over the doorposts? Why not a pig or maybe a calf or a chicken? Why did God tell the Israelites to take a lamb and sacrifice it?  

God's children are compared to sheep in the Bible, and Jesus, the Son of God, not giving up his Godhood to become fully flesh, became one of us. All I can say it that I raise sheep and there are not many things in this world as precious and vulnerable and innocent as a soft, baby lamb.  Hurting one seems unthinkable. 

Nails did not hold Jesus to the cross, love did.  

Jesus could have called down a legion of angels to rescue him from his death, but he went knowing full well the cost he was about to pay for our lives with his own blood. After living a perfect life in our imperfect, broken world and freely subjecting himself to our filth and betrayal, Jesus willingly climbed the hill and lay down on the cross. The Lamb of God stayed on the cross for us. But Praise God, he did not stay in the tomb. 

Sunday's coming. 

Because the cross makes a way for the crown. 

💜

"....the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world." ( Revelation 13:8b CSB ) 

 Bible verses from ESV unless otherwise indicated 

A 'Reason' For Hope

"All the days of my hard service I will wait for my renewal to come. You will call and I will answer you; you will long for the creature your hands have made." ( Job 14:15 ) 

This is one of my "life verses" - it's actually my "go-to" when I'm scared or sad, when I need to fall asleep, when my heart needs a good preaching to. These words have sustaining power. Yeah, a golden promise, seriously, right there smack in the middle of Job.  

Humans are born needing a strong identity, purpose, meaning, satisfaction, morality, a way to deal with suffering, and hope. 

The human heart longs for hope. 

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end." ( Ecclesiastes 3:11 ) 

Aye yes, the divine hiddenness, but many precious truths God has nestled in our hearts, in plain view. 

Remember what I said in my last blog was the secular answer to the longing for hope? That's right. 

"Just try not to think about it too much." 

In other words: "Since we are accidents and are here arbitrarily, since there is no purpose for our existence or meaning, you need to come up with your own identity. Of course this won't be strong enough to sustain a napkin, but it's all we've got. Live with it. Morality just mysteriously appeared, love is an illusion our brains need to survive, and as for that hope you have in your heart, you know the one for love to be real and to live for all eternity with that love, well, just try not to think about it too much." 

Pretend I'm Google or whatever search engine you use.

Did you find this answer helpful? Yes or No.  

Longing means to yearn for in love. So guess what? In all of our constant yearning to live forever with someone who will love us to our "dirty" core, God satisfies that ache in the resurrection of his Son, our hope is fulfilled in him. He is saying to us, "I'm yearning for you too." 

"for the creature my hands have made." 

Please think about this today: 

Not only does the truth of God's longing for us and preparing a resurrection for our bodies, where he will call our name and we will rise to live with him for all eternity, give us hope, but it gives our lives meaning, purpose, satisfaction, a place to root the moral code inside of us, and a way to deal with the suffering we face. 

In the Old Testament in the middle of the greatest of human suffering, God reveals through that pain the beauty and hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as Job cries out that he knows his Redeemer lives and at last will stand upon the earth. Job is saying in essence, "Your love is so intense; you won't let me stay dead." "Every verse whispers his name." Even in Job. (1) ( Job 19:25 ) 

Regardless of what secularism is suggesting, they certainly aren't backing up their claims with anything of substance for the neediness that haunts the human soul. Because Christianity does, it is a reasonable faith. It is a livable faith. 

It is a faith we can live with! 

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ answers all of our needs, and the greatest hope of the human heart is fulfilled to overflowing. Longing for eternity with our Creator was God's idea. He put the hope in our hearts in the first place. He's the hunger and the feast. 

One day when he calls, we will rise, all of us in Christ, the creatures he longs for. 

We can live in light of this sustaining truth today and everyday until that glorious moment. 

"Did you find this answer helpful?" 

" A thousand times, Yes!"

💜

( 1 ) The Jesus Storybook Bible; Every Verse Whispers His Name by Sally Lloyd-Jones 

Bible verses from ESV 

Battle of the Narratives

"The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion." Proverbs 28:1 

I have this "book club" thing with my man children where they designate a novel for us to read and then we discuss it together once we're finished, usually at the next family gathering since we all live miles apart. 

Last year it was Steinbeck's East of Eden which was thoroughly engaging because of all of the spiritual questions tracing back to creation, original sin, and the human will. I love digging into that stuff. We've read Flannery O'Connor's "Wise Blood," Ray Bradbury's "Something Wicked This Way Comes," and on deck is Chesterton's "Orthodoxy." 

Dear Parents, read to your kids daily and take them to the library often; in an economy full of inflation, it is an activity that is still free, but yields precious dividends. However, don't be surprised if they grow up to be smarter than you. Just go with it. 

Both man children along with my nephew Joey who is a well-read English major and always thick in the literary discussions on my front porch, say Fyodor Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" is the greatest novel of all time. And believe me it's a hill they're all willing to die on. 

I have to admit that in the last five years, I've heard many teachers, professors, and podcasters say the same thing; however, after a couple of false starts with the massive Russian novel and the consideration of my learning curve, I was granted permission to work my way into The Brothers K. by beginning first with Crime and Punishment. 

I'm half way into the book and already I'm seeing an apologetic argument for the biblical narrative. It's intriguing to me how much of life reflects God's story and speaks into ours when we have eyes to see and ears to hear although I'm sure Dostoevsky planned it this way. But again, why? 

I'm not sure how the novel ends so there's no spoiler alert here. If you've read it you know that the reader is plunged into the mind of a convoluted killer, the protagonist Raskolnikov, an impoverished law school student who thinks himself something of a superman above the law. Even before he goes through with the murder of a cantankerous pawnbroker, he's overcome by a fever and all kinds of fits and creepy dreams just in the devising stage; the madness, which continues in intensity after the crime, is more of a spiritual variety than medical. 

I'm seeing that the "punishment" in "Crime and Punishment" is not the kind carried out so much by a criminal justice system, but the sentence handed down by one's own conscience and self-deceptions. So I have to stop and ask: Where does all of this guilt, shame, and remorse come from?  Can naturalism produce such things? 

I've established in past blogs that no one can make an airtight argument for whether God exists or not; neither set of beliefs can be proven empirically. So it begs the question: "Can I believe in something that I can't prove?" 

"Yes."

"How so?" 

We can look at the biblical narrative,  namely "Christianity" and naturalism or what is usually referred to as "secularism" and compare them. ( You may do this with any religion or set of beliefs. Since I'm arguing for Christianity, I'll stick with it. Historically, especially since Darwinism came on the scene, these two faiths are the most debated and pitted against each other. ) 

Yes, secularism is a "faith." Because you can't prove that matter just spontaneously occurred without contingency, and that God doesn't exist, this belief must be taken on faith. You have faith that God doesn't exist and the material world is all there is. 

You are not subtracting God out of the equation and so left with no belief, but instead, you're just swapping one belief for another. ( Charles Taylor is a secular philosopher and takes an honest approach to this issue in his book "A Secular Age" if you are curious and want to learn more. ) 

So even though we don't have an airtight argument on either side, we can compare faiths by asking ourselves a series of questions: First, I can ask if my human experience fits my faith. In other words, is my faith livable? Can I live out my faith? 

Humans are born with certain needs. We need a strong identity, one that can support the weight of our selfhood, not dependent on our merits, achievements, and goodness. We need meaning and a way to deal with suffering. We need satisfaction, purpose, and hope. 

Inside of our hearts we know that we have a sense of morality and justice, and when we go against it, as if secularism is true, saying that there's no right or wrong, so I can make up my own truths, like the murderer Raskoinkov in Crime and Punishment, the results are disastrous because ideas do have consequences. 

We know the world is not as it should be, and that for all our social programs, education, and government systems, utopia has never come and never will. Not here. Inside we know this. 

We see glimpses of goodness, of what the world could be, of what we could be, and we know it must be transcendent. We long for all of creation to be set right. We experience it whenever we watch a movie or read a novel in a "happy ending itch" that longs to be scratched.  

Why would evolution, a process where the strong eats the weak, that randomly moves along without rhyme or reason or intelligent motive, cause us to eventually love each other and experience guilt, shame, and remorse when we didn't? If there's no transcendent being that has set a moral order into creation and I can simply decide what is right or wrong for myself, why do I feel this guilt when I don't obey the moral code?  I'm not baking my conclusion into the premise; this is simply what evolution states. 

And if you listen carefully to the secular argument, you'll find often times that atheists borrow from the Christian faith to explain things in their faith, especially our sense of morality and justice. That's not playing by the rules, is it? If you have to borrow from another set of beliefs to explain your own set of beliefs, well, your faith isn't very consistent or sustainable. It's not livable. It's not going to hold you up. 

The biblical narrative offers answers that fit these needs and can be lived out. 

While it's a huge stretch to believe that evolutionary processes could cause love to develop after cannibalism and then guilt and shame when we don't love or worse, the Christian narrative explains not only where this guilt and shame originates in the doctrine of original sin, but gives us a way to be rid of it in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. 

These are clues. Don't ignore them. 

They are also fair questions, I believe, and ones that help us to sort through and make sense of the existential fear that thrusts us into the depths of despair when we allow ourselves to think that we have no purpose and that nothing we do here matters, or there is no right or wrong, or the love I feel for my family and friends and my precious grandchildren is just an illusion my brain creates to help me survive.

I'm sorry, but everything inside of me screams against this nonsense, and I believe it does in you as well. Why? Why do you think our heart pushes back against this argumentation? Our rebellion against naturalism is another clue we mustn't ignore. 

I have read accounts where atheists, including Thomas Nagel, a well-known philosopher and professor at New York University, instruct their readers struggling with this despair to "just not think about it." This doesn't match the story inside of me that clawed in the darkness to break out into the light. In fact C.S. Lewis said that if we are experiencing this kind of despair, we're not thinking enough. 

I fear if we keep ignoring the yearnings and clues inside of us, either quelling the pain or refusing to investigate the philosophical evidence for Christianity as well as the physical, we will suppress the truth for so long and so hard, in the final analysis, we will convince ourselves the false narrative is the truthful one. What happens if we never have the intellectual integrity to look at the data and listen? 

Self-deception. 

One reality is that some of us simply don't want it to be true. 

If there's a God, that implies that I'm not the one in the driver's seat, the one who gets to call the shots. At least have the integrity to admit this. That makes more sense than believing evolution which now more than a century after Darwin hasn't unfolded the evidence that Darwin himself said should be uncovered in time to prove the theory. It hasn't. 

However many universities unlike back in the day are no longer requiring science majors to take ethics or philosophy classes, so the students are never forced to examine the big questions of life like meaning, purpose or morality. Naturalism is taught from the get-go, and that is a conclusion baked into the premise like a casserole. 

If you're a Christian, I encourage you to embrace the apologetic aspects of our faith as well. It can strengthen our faith, equip us to better defend it, and reveal delightful surprises along the journey. 

All of us have to investigate the clues and decide for ourselves. 

Listen to the story inside of you - does secularism or the biblical narrative better fit what your heart knows is true? That you were created for something more; you were created for something this world can not supply. You were created by and for God, to live with him forever. 

Listen. 

💜

 

The Right Heart

"I was constantly challenged by Christian women and men who thought deeply about the faith and about life. It was at church and among my Christian friends that I first discovered faith, not as a set of ideas to believe but as a true story of the whole universe, a tale of love, loss, promise, and costly rescue, in which we all play a role."  ( Christopher Watkin, Biblical Critical Theory )

"...who thought deeply about the faith and about life." 

Centuries before the socials and the immortal news feed, French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal said that all men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone. 

Throughout the ages of church history and into our own day, many false narratives have infiltrated and even flourished within the Church. If we are to follow Jesus and serve in the Great Commission, it's crucial we get the Christian narrative right. As Dr. Alister McGrath reminded us in his work that Christianity has a deep narrative structure, articulating a grand story that connects together God, Jesus Christ, and believers. 

And we have a clue we are getting it right when we see the story change our own lives. How can we expect others to listen or care about the story when it isn't beautiful to us? 

"But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are are healed." ( Isaiah 53:5 ) 

This verse is the beating heart of the biblical narrative, God's redeeming response to the human dilemma and agonizing despair of being born destined to sin, covered in guilt and shame. 

For years I went to several churches that used this passage to make a case for physical healing, even building a false doctrine upon it. It was used as a platform to pronounce that it is always God's will to heal physically, and if you're not healed you don't have enough faith or are swimming in some egregious, besetting sin. 

This is a gross misinterpretation at the least. To ascribe physical and mental healing to these verses and use them to teach in this manner is to reduce the most precious doctrine of the Christian narrative - the atonement of Jesus Christ - to a superficial level. 

Of course Jesus healed all types of diseases in the Bible and still heals physically and mentally today; that's not the argument here. It's a very good and proper thing to pray for and desire our loved ones to be physically healed. Storm heaven for them, but this chapter in Isaiah is speaking about the deeper healing of our spirits that gives us peace with God. 

This peace has been erroneously taught as a security in our physical environment, but is in fact, the life-giving truth that because of the punishment Jesus took for us on the cross, we are now no longer regarded as God's enemies. We are no longer at war with God, but we now have peace with him through the finished work of Jesus Christ.  ( Romans 1-9 ) 

When we contextualize this verse, we see no where does Isaiah mention physical healing in this passage. The verses beforehand describe in stark detail the rejection Jesus faced for us, how he was despised by the people he created. And the verse that follows "and with his wounds we are healed" says:

"All we like sheep have gone astray; we turned - every one - to his own way, and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." ( verse 6 )  These verses deal with our sin, our transgressions and our iniquity; the things that keep us separated from a holy God and enjoying a relationship with our Creator. 

In Mark 2:5 when Jesus told the paralyzed man lying on the mat, "Son your sins are forgiven," before he healed his physical body, he was adjudicating to the lame man, his friends and all those gathered around that this is the deeper healing we need. Forgiveness of our sins. Without this healing, you can't enter the kingdom of heaven. 

It's not just the prosperity gospel or word of faith churches that replace the beauty of the atonement with physical healing; we are all bent toward this tendency because of our fallen nature. We must be intentional in driving the Gospel truth deeper into our hearts. 

When we come to the altar to worship together whether as a church, or in family devotions, or alone on our knees by our bed or in the great outdoors, are we coming for God himself or for what he can give us or do for us? 

Are we entering his gates with thanksgiving in our hearts and his courts with praise for all of the spiritual blessings he has bestowed upon us by his love, grace, and mercy in Jesus? Or are we first seeking signs, wonders, financial help, or physical healing instead of his righteousness and his kingdom?  

Are we coming and seeking for God to expose our hidden sins to us and the displeasing motives of our heart so we can receive forgiveness and help with our inner struggles in our sanctification process? Or are we so busy in the noise of our lives and our needs, we don't come quietly to first seek for him and self-reflect in the light of his glory? 

It's interesting that in his epistles we don't see the apostle Paul praying for physical healing or security, although we know he must have. He prayed for his thorn to be removed, and he raised a man from the dead that he fell out of a window. But for his church plants he prays for them things like to be filled with the knowledge of God's will, to have strength to comprehend together the love of Christ, for church unity, for a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God, to set their minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth....... 

We can never go wrong by opening our Bibles and praying straight out of the story, then meditating on the truths and preaching them to ourselves. 

We can never stop gazing at the Gospel like a multi-faceted diamond enamored by its beauty and studying each glorious part with blazing intentionality. When the mercy God has had on sinners like us becomes clearer, him redeeming us through the life and death and resurrection of his Son to be adopted as his dearly beloved children to live in a fully healed, resurrected body for all eternity, it changes us. 

The Gospel has transformed my prayers for physical and mental healing and really all needs. I've found that I pray better and clearer now for these things because I understand the narrative better. We will never reach the bottom of this over-flowing well, but may we never stop diving and searching. 

When we understand what Christ has done for us, it radically changes how we live our lives. It changes our worship. The beauty at the heart of the biblical narrative has the power to transform the lives around us, but we have to have the story straight in our own hearts first. 

💜

"He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." ( Colossians 1:13 - 14 ) 

                                                                                     

The Reason for Reason

"Come now, let us reason together says the Lord:..." Isaiah 1:18 

Don't you wonder why every story you read or movie you watch has this good verses evil tension play out within the storyline? Why is the greatest theme in much of literature and of so many songs the notion that love never dies? Where did numbers come from and why are they so useful? Where did your sense of fairness come from? Why do we long for the story to end happily ever after? Why do we sense that love will last forever? 

In my curious pursuit of Narrative Apologetics, I've become more and more acquainted with and enchanted by the Ontological argument for the existence of God. I don't understand why it is that many believers and even biblical scholars don't find the argument compelling and convincing and down right beautiful.  

Neither side in the God debate is going to give an airtight argument for the existence or nonexistence of God. Like a mystery novel detective, we have to be observant, ask good questions, and follow the clues, and some of those clues exist on the outside of us and some are hidden within. Once the evidence is gathered, analyzed, and presented, we all have to reach our own verdicts. 

Well-known Design Arguments discerning the universe and nature such as the Cosmological and Teleological Arguments, are based on observation and experience. These arguments are based on everything in the universe having a cause, being in motion, or being contingent, in other words, needing a "causer."  

On the flip side of the same coin, the Ontological Argument rests purely in reason and logic to make its case for God, which is why some dismiss it. However, one quote on a Christian website that I also found to be true in my own study of the Ontological Argument said of its wax and wane among theologians and intelligentsia: 

"the Ontological Argument has not completely faded and disappeared. In part, that’s because, the more closely one tries to define its terms, the more the biblical God emerges." ( Maybe that has something to do with why it is dismissed at times. ) 

Both of these arguments are important in our hunt for God.

Works of scholarship abound on the Ontological Argument to challenge I suspect even those with the philosophical chops to think them through to their happily ever abstract ending. Embarrassingly, I found myself rereading Kierkegaard's paragraphs several times before I could understand what exactly he was getting at; however, I believe turning the evidence we find over and over like rich garden soil is where the real struggle lies.  

At some point, we all have to be alone with our evidence. 

We all have to wrangle with the findings along with our observations and experiences, scribbling dilemmas in our journals and working them out like an algebra equation. For me personally the problem of evil with all of its implications, assumptions, questions, and private heartache caused the most pain and gut-wrenching honesty, and tears. But nothing has moved me closer to the presence of God and a deeper knowledge of him and his love. 

So finding out if God exists may require every brain cell we can muster and bend into deep contemplation: for it's the most important decision we will make in our lifetime. You might be saying, "I already believe in God, so I don't need to think about apologetics or worry about Kierkegaard's bright ideas. In fact, Rebecca, I think you're making the question entirely too difficult." Perhaps. But I would respectfully disagree. It's not just about believing he exists. If God exists, what kind of a God is he? There are clues everywhere. You don't need to even read any scholarly literature. 

Many of us have a superficial grasp of our God and historic Christianity. I believe through apologetics we can gain, develop, and appreciate more appropriately and stunningly the richness and strengths of our faith.   

And if you've been trying to find your true self, like Isaiah the Old Testament prophet, our only hope lies in finding God first. ( Isaiah 6 ) And I also know that once we establish a belief in God, many deep and dark inquiries extend the horizon. One blog at a time though. I know I shouldn't be quoting Scripture yet and giving my final analysis, but I can't seem to help myself. 

What we believe about God effects every chapter of our story. If God created me, then I should have more than just a passing knowledge of him. I love how Gavin Ortlund details the search for God in his book "Why God Makes Sense in a World that Doesn't:" (1) 

"It is, first, the most important and thrilling adventure of our lives. Nothing could be more urgent than whether he exists - and if so, what to do about it. For God is held to be the Supreme Good, who alone can fulfill the longings of the human soul. Therefore the stakes of finding him are literally infinite. The question of God is, secondly, the most fascinating puzzle you will ever think about. Whether or not he is real, certainly a more interesting idea has never been conceived. The concept God - the infinite Person, the ground of being, the precondition of reality - is the most staggering, enthralling idea ever to confront the human mind. The mere idea of God outweighs the physical universe in grandeur and importance. Finally the question of God is the most difficult and humbling question we will face." 

And that's another ontological question isn't it? Why do we even imagine a concept of God in the first place? Think about that. Where does it come from? Evolutionary processes? Some make a case for this. 

Interestingly in my research, I also found that when asked what they thought was the most compelling evidence for the existence of God and the hardest to counter in their debates, atheists, agnostics, and skeptics, alike, most all of them say that it is the Moral Argument, not the Design Argument that is hardest for them to combat. 

So I submit my evidence that the Ontological Argument is here to stay. 

Take music for instance. Charles Taylor, in his acclaimed (and thick!) work "A Secular Age," characterizes music in secular contexts as fundamentally mysterious because it conveys transcendence and yet is divorced from any transcendent referent. (1) Other secular people have written similar experiences of being profoundly moved by a piece of music and then feeling a loss because at the end there was no one to thank.  

Why did the skeptic think someone transcendent should be thanked for the music he heard, someone above nature and outside of human being? Surprisingly, many atheists take the argument on music for the existence of God more serious than other arguments. Why is that? I believe because everyone knows that music is powerful with the ability to lift us up, containing a transcendence of its own beauty stretching beyond this world, something supernatural. 

Sometime this weekend find a quiet place, pull up on your phone The Mozart G Minor Quintet or Hans Zimmer's "Chevaliers de Sangreal" or John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme," or your own personal favorite, insert your earbuds, close your eyes, and just listen. Really listen. 

Birds are a part of nature; we can observe birds. And they are so lovely and enjoyable to watch in their synchronized flight patterns, their busy, little work ethic, their diligence, and their fussiness displayed in constructing nursery nests for their eggs in the nooks of my barn. It's an activity I never grow tired of here at the farm. 

But what about their music?  

Researchers, including those who are both musicians and ornithologists, have discovered that the songs of birds are structured like that of human music in their change of tempo, pitch, and timbre, resembling human melodies. 

Birds, however; seem to understand who to thank for their music simply by delighting in and displaying the songs they were created to perform. Everyday in these delicately detailed, fine-feathered friends I see and hear the ontological bridging its way to the observable in musical notes and even symphonies, transcending the skeptical. 

At every turn our universe gives the impression of intelligence and beauty. Can't you see it? 

And don't forget that we live in the universe too, creatures longing for meaning and hope and purpose. Creatures who write music and stories of love and hope, longing for a happy ending, where good, at last, defeats evil forever. Humans are observable. We are also meaningful beings with meaningful thoughts; it doesn't seem plausible to me that we would be created by accident or by an indifferent, untouchable, or boring deity. It doesn't fit our storyline. It doesn't fit with what I can observe nor with what I know is going on inside of me. 

Could a random collection of molecules, emerging from nothing, heading nowhere, eating each other to survive, have turned from erratic blobs of monsters into affectionate, "civilized" beings now displaying love and creating art, because the blobs somehow realized developing a sense of morality and justice would be better survival techniques than the strong eating the weak? 

To me, you'd have to stretch the daylights out of that secular narrative to make it work let alone fit our world and be consistently livable. 

And anyway, how can you trust such a development of morality rooted in nothing but randomness? Or more importantly, why would you trust it? How could I trust my own thoughts for that matter, knowing they derived along a pathway that arbitrarily forked off from an already accidental main road and just kept going devoid of map and motive? 

What if the morality path we ventured down per chance instructed us it would be useful to eat our spouses like a black widow spider? Moral nature in the case of evolutionary biology is an illusion tricking our brains rather than a clue pointing us to the good verses evil drama we encounter in all of our stories and "the infinite Person and the ground of being." 

We all have to decide where we land in the argument for God. Even for those who get stuck and unsettled in the valley of indecision, the thought continually provokes the mind: Could a meaningless, indifferent deity or an accidental nothing produce such creatures as us? Creatures full of talent, purpose, justice, hope, and love? 

Be reasonable. 

Follow the clues. 

I visited this delightful book store recently in the quaint, little town of Monroe, GA 

 

The Stories That Surround Us

"There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories." Ursula K. Le Guin 

Last Sunday as usual I was hurrying to check on everyone and make sure all of the hungry mouths had a morning meal so I could get ready for church. At the sheep field before I could start the head count, I noticed a set of twin lambs born two days prior running around frantic without their mother. And she had proved a good, attentive mother. 

All sheep were accounted for except the mother ewe. That was strange. Even if a coyote managed to get through the fencing, the sly predator would have never made it past the watchful eyes of two Great Pyrenees, and still a coyote wouldn't have attacked a big sheep with such easy prey as vulnerable babies in the field. It didn't make sense. 

I scooped up the lambs as I proceeded to walk around basically in circles, wondering where in the world the mom could be. Then all of a sudden I heard a faint, muffled baa. "Oh Jesus, help us!" The voice came from under a heavy round bale of hay that had fallen over on its side. I couldn't even see any part of the mom at all; she was completely hidden. I shifted the lambs to one arm and grabbed my phone to call the Farmer. 

"Come now with the tractor a bale fell on a sheep; hurry!" 

When the Farmer arrived and lifted the bale with the hay spear, I handed him the lambs inside of the cab so I could help their mom. She was lying on her side, and I expected her to be as flat as a pancake. 

Amazingly she seemed okay. Sheep aren't known for being the brightest beast in the animal kingdom, but if a hay bale is tipping over, they usually have enough sense to get out of the way. I immediately saw her problem. 

She must have been eating deep inside of the hay because a piece of hemp bailing twine was wrapped around her ear tag so when she went to move, she couldn't. Poor thing. I untangled her and slid her out into the field. Her front leg was hurt, but the Farmer assured me it wasn't broken that she just needed to get the circulation going in it again. He was right. 

Sheep get unbelievably stressed at the least little thing, so I knew this scary ordeal had to have traumatized her to the core. I gave her a bucket of water, a pan of grain, her lambs, and some space. The Farmer and I stood there for a bit in the chilly air watching her from a distance, mesmerized, thanking God. It was one of those moments you cherish because you know it doesn't always go that way. 

Then we went to church. 

In "Narrative Apologetics; Sharing the Relevance, Joy, and Wonder of the Christian Faith," Oxford University professor Alister McGrath writes: 

"Humans are storytellers and story-dwellers. Some stories are received, some are discovered, and some are simply invented. C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia are fundamentally about discovering a story that makes sense of all other stories - and then embracing it, because of its power to give meaning and value to life. But which is the true story? Which are merely its shadows and echoes? And which are fabrications, tales spun to entrap and deceive?" 

This is a crucial question Dr. McGrath asks because all of us live by the story we believe.  

Christian Smith points out in his book "Moral, Believing Animals," that there are eleven contemporary meta-narratives that he believes shape the thinking of Western people. ( I won't list them all just some of the most common.)  

The Progressive Socialism narrative. The Scientific Enlightenment narrative. The Capitalist Prosperity narrative. The Expressive Romantic narrative. The Chance and Purposelessness narrative. The Christian Meta-narrative.   

Dr. McGrath offers helpful guidance to his readers in deciding which stories about our world and ourselves we should choose and how to know whether it is truthful and reliable: 

"Which 'grand story' allows the best rendering of our complex universe? Which meta-narrative offers the most illumination of our shadowy world?"

Likewise in Lewis's Narnia we see the same perplexing dilemma faced by the Pevensie siblings as they listen to stories about the true origin of Narnia. They realize that they must make decisions about which persons and which stories are to be trusted. Will they believe the narrative of the White Witch or the one of the mysterious Aslan whose return is expected at any time? 

This is the work of Christian apologetics: To concentrate on the question of the trustworthiness of the Bible narrative, the Gospel of Jesus Christ and its power to illuminate and then change our lives. 

Later that day I leaned against a fence post in the sheep field and watched the mama ewe and her twins. They were stretched out together on a soft layer of flattened hay sleeping in the afternoon sunshine. Thankfully they rested content, none the worse for wear. 

I thought about how God seems to create stories to swirl and echo around us in our everyday lives. Stories that don't just encircle our ordinary routines, but actually draw us into his grand narrative. 

Stories, some happy, some sad, but both challenge the latest cultural narratives of our day or of ages gone by, stories that excite the imagination and give us a glimpse of some glorious, eternal future we long to embrace. 

Stories that whisper of One who will rescue and redeem us from sin and a wicked, deceiving enemy who relentlessly pursues us. A Shepherd, who is firmly, but also gently, sliding us out into his marvelous light, into the story that resonates with the cry of every human heart while dispelling existential despair. A story that ends, but really begins, when we are finally guided safely home to rest content in the arms of Jesus, having been removed from the entanglements and entrapments of this "shadowy world."   

But the question remains: Which story will you believe? 

The Stories Within Us

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen - not only because I see it, but because by it, I see everything else." C.S. Lewis  

The Farmer was up at daybreak last Monday morning to load a Hereford steer onto the livestock trailer so he could head to the beef processor before his work phone started ringing. The day before as I was filling up the water trough in the cow field, the steer moseyed over for a drink. While he lapped up the water with his huge tongue I thanked him for his sacrifice. In supplying our family with food his life possessed great worth, purpose, and meaning.  

"Thank you, Buddy. I'll see you on the other side." 

Animals give so much to mankind in the way of friendship, protection, nourishment, clothing, joy, and if we have ears to hear and eyes to see a reason for God. 

Sadly, they were subjected to their fallen state because of us. ( Romans 8:20-21 ) Some animals however, seem to hold a measure of compassion and forgiveness toward humans. Dogs, favorite cows and possibly a few cats. 

Last year I experienced two difficult losses. After a long, never long enough, productive life here at Healing Brook, leaving behind a legacy embodied in the shape of ten adorable litters of puppies and a stellar guarding record of the farm and his food bowl, my lovable Atlas died in July. 

When the end was near I was able to cradle that big old head in both hands and tell him no other dog will ever live up to him. Although his grandson Aslan is gaining much ground, Atlas was simply the best.

I was reminded of the Elizabeth Barrett Browning quote: "His ears were often the first thing to catch my tears." It wasn't the first time Atlas caught my tears, but it was the last. 

In November I found myself again cradling the big head of yet another favorite animal close to death. My cow Starlight. 

Starlight was the first baby moo born here, and she had given us many healthy calves since and much joy. But this time she was pregnant with twins, and the labor did not go well. We weren't able to save her or her young. Before the end, I had "my moment" with her. Before she slipped away into the grassy cow fields of heaven, her huge, furry head was soaked in my tears and snot. 

Since my spiritual awakening five years ago and the desire to pursue my faith with more of an academic passion, I've found that in chasing God with my mind and not only my heart has actually helped to make sense of the desires, both good and bad, residing in my heart. Sound biblical doctrine has slowly reordered the loves of my heart, helping to identify and banish the idols that lived there while at the same time driving the Gospel deeper into the empty crevices vacated by the inordinate loves.  

One new love is the study of Christian Apologetics. ( Defending the faith ) I never realized there were so many subsections in this field, nor did I realize until my sabbatical that my life long curiosity in stories and especially the same apparent story in all of us, is actually a thing: "Narrative Apologetics." 

No matter what apologetic course we choose, the longing for transcendence deep in the human soul points us to God even if many in our current culture need to be awakened first beneath the heavy blankets of doubt, unbelief, fear, and hopelessness. 

Someone prayed for me to wake up, so now, I pray for others. I want to encourage the uncovering of these existential questions and administer permission to breathe and feel them; denying they exist in our human experience doesn't make them disappear. The self-deception only adds to the angst and existential despair we feel whether we believe in the existence of God or not. Christians face doubts too. I see now that God allows this and even leads us this way at times. 

A healthy faith keeps studying and asking questions, plunging the depths to grasp more and more of God. 

Saying we arrived at our current destination by the strong eating the weak and now we must stop all of that cannibalism and start loving each other doesn't work for me. And I don't think it works for you either. I don't think it works for the 'new atheists' like Richard Dawkins even though they don't have the guts to admit it like the older atheists. Bertrand Russell, Aldous Huxley, and even Nietzsche at least had the integrity to admit that in subtracting God out of the equation of life we also subtract out our very basis for morality. 

But no matter what areas we embrace to appeal to our Christian faith, I can't help but wonder if God is shouting to us through nature and paradoxically through the allowance of suffering, questions, and divine hiddenness: "Here I am! Here I am!" Before we can hear his voice we have to have the courage and integrity to awaken to the questions inside of us and wiggle out of our comfortable sleeping bags. 

Why is there something and not nothing? Have you really ever thought about nothing? It's not black or empty or dark because black and empty and dark are something. Why is there beauty? Why do we feel a connection to others and to animals? Why are the same stories inside of all of us? Why these longings? 

Could these yearnings and glimpses of mystery and beauty be bread crumbs guiding us to something wonderful and warm and deliciously hopeful beyond this world? 

In an effort to shorten my blogs, I'm stopping here, but I'll take this up in my next post. 

Recently, I encountered another sad loss - my friend Bernie. Bernie passed away January 22nd at the age of 87. He read each of my blogs, and then waited to discuss them with me at church. His interest in my abstract wonderings meant a lot. And why is that? He asked many questions concerning the things I wrote ( one bluntly being, why are your blogs so long? lol ) while leaving me with many things to think about. So in memory of Bernie, I'm working on conciseness. I will miss his friendship and encouragement greatly. 

"Thank you, Buddy, I'll see you on the other side." 

Atlas the Great 

Holier Than Thou

During my social media sabbatical, I caught some of the news from the recent Republican primaries, the mudslinging between political parties as well as within political parties, and the concerns our nation is facing. At the same time, I was determined to shield myself from the anxiety that can begin to mount after being exposed to all of these issues, talking points, and opinions. 

We've heard it said that America was build on godly principals, on the Judeo-Christian tradition. It seems if we were really built on these good things that we would not be, how can I say it? At times, seemingly going down the toilet. There's much debate about just how accurate this knowledge is of our founding fathers being Christians and of the formation of America, only God can perceive a heart, but we can in fact find biblical truths embedded in our founding documents. ( 1 Kings 8:39 ) 

So why are we such a mess? Because all people, whether we realize it or not, are such a mess without the Gospel. 

"Hey, I thought you said that America was built on godly, biblical principals?" 

I did, and that's just it. Biblical rules and commandments never saved anyone. Without the underpinning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ beneath our morality, as our firm foundation in all of its truth, beauty, and grace, we become legalistic, rigid, and no better than the Pharisees as we attempt, consciously or unconsciously, to build a nation on a foundation of moralism. Constructing our own way to salvation or to a healthy nation through a list of rules and regulations sets us up for failure. 

Jesus said that unless our righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees we will never enter the kingdom of heaven,  ( Matthew 5:20 ) so we had better get a handle on what exactly that pharisaical righteousness is that Jesus is talking about in this text. 

Digging into the gospels, we see that the Pharisees, the religious leaders of Jesus's day, were all about keeping the law, even adding their own traditions to it while enforcing it upon the people. And yet throughout the four gospel accounts, Jesus calls the Pharisees a brood of vipers, hypocrites, white-washed tombs full of dead bones, fools, blind guides, children of hell, and serpents. 

I want to be clear: Legislating laws in America, or any nation we live in, based on biblical truths that promote human flourishing is something followers of Jesus should always take a stand for and work towards. I want to be clear on this because Scripture is clear on this. ( See Romans 13 ) 

"When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when a wicked man rules, the people groan." ( Proverbs 29:2 )  

How much groaning has echoed down through the ages? Or now? How many times did "righteous" rules and rulers result in wars fought in the name of religion, god, or "Christianity?" 

All government systems are flawed, some more than others, but even still we are called to work within these broken regimes to bring order out of chaos. Think about Daniel working inside the government of the Babylonian Empire.  

Some Christians are called to work inside of the government, and they need our prayers daily as satan has been infiltrating and corrupting government systems since the very beginning of time. If the enemy can control a government, imagine how many people he can get under his thumb. It's no surprise that government leaders are one of his main targets. Our brothers and sisters working within governments need our prayers as they navigate through the lion's den. Yes, Daniel again. 

I love my country, and I pray everyday for righteous leaders to rule and be elected. However, what I'm saying is that it is not enough to legislate and execute laws based on biblical rules because the rules alone will not save us - they can't. They do not possess the power to do what only the Gospel of Jesus Christ has the power to do. 

In light of the legalistic teaching of the Pharisees and their rejection of him, Jesus stressed awareness to the crowds that followed him of the danger in attempting to live by their own right standing. The Apostle Paul worked tirelessly to unravel this truth to his church plants in the Gentile communities, but mainly to the Jews living in those cities who were bent on obedience to the law producing salvation.   

"So, what is the Gospel?" I'm glad you asked. 

Romans 3:23 - 25: "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith." 

Please don't be intimidated by the terms justified, grace, redemption, and propitiation; once we understand the meanings, they will string together around us like a strand of precious pearls. Take time to process the above verses, meditate on them, research, study, self reflect, and dive deeply into the richness. These are some of the greatest words ever written. 

If the law could save us, Jesus's sacrificial atoning death would not have been needed. Jesus did not die, contrary to what some believe, to just show us how to love and forgive. No, Jesus died as "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." ( John 1:29 ) 

But we have to know that we are sinners desperately in need of the sacrifice he has given on our behalf and repent, meaning to turn from our sin and our own righteousness, which actually amounts to "unrighteousness" and "filthy rags."  ( Isaiah 64:6 ) 

Then we must believe; meaning we must trust Jesus and what he has done for us. God doesn't believe for us. We must believe. Once the Gospel truth takes hold in our hearts, we have not only the desire to obey, but the power to do so. The commandments are important, however; we obey now, not out of fear or obligation or self-righteousness, but because of the grace God has upon us. The transformation that took place in my heart and the continued growth is something that never fails to overwhelm me with joy, even in the midst of suffering. 

Is the good news of the Gospel overwhelming us and taking our breath away because it seems too good to be true? Are we sharing it with those around us or are we just trying to get them to behave? Jesus commanded his followers to spread the Gospel, not a list of dos and don'ts, to the ends of the earth.  

Never stop looking into the Gospel - we never get beyond it. It has no bottom. It's both the journey and the destination. 

Paul wrote to the Philippians that as much education and prestige as he may have gained from being a Pharisee he now counted all of that "righteousness" as a loss and as rubbish ( Greek word "skubalon" meaning animal excrement - in other words, manure or poop ) 

"in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith and the power of his resurrection... " ( 3:4-10 ) 

We see at least two other Pharisees in the Scriptures who got it besides Paul, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. Their story together is beautiful. 

During my sabbatical I also joyfully experienced being in the midst of brothers and sisters in Christ living out the Gospel in their every day lives and sharing the live-giving message with others. It's exciting to be a part of this work. 

I've come to realize that despite the problems we face here at home and abroad, as in all of church history, as he promised, Jesus continues to build his church. He builds through all types of cultural landscapes and social structures. The church, through the ages and presently, moves out into the world boldly, not intimidated in desperate times, but being a light, sharing our hope; church growth historically has been exponential in times of persecution. 

I've realized that the church is growing strong in the margins, in the fringes of society, in the nooks and crannies of this world. 

I see the church growing and flourishing in small churches, in big churches too, but especially within small Bible studies and life groups where people are hungry for the Gospel and gather at any expense to hear the Truth and fellowship with each other. 

I see the growth in believers working and volunteering in the mental health field who are heartbroken by the amount of disenchantment, despair, and loss of meaning found in people throughout our modern western culture. They tirelessly pour themselves out daily to bring hope and healing to these who suffer so intensely. 

The church is growing and maturing in individuals waking up early excited to feast on the Word before the events of the day take hold. It's growing in families gathering for times of devotion together and in humble parents falling on their knees begging God for mercy in a job like child rearing that is far above their pay grade. 

The church is growing in humble, grass roots ministries where believers care deeply about their lonely neighbors, coworkers, friends, and the waitress struggling to make ends meet for her children. 

It's growing in believers who aren't afraid to get their hands dirty in the lives of addicts and prostitutes and those incarcerated because they understand everyone is created in the image of God. They know we are all clothed in soiled garments until Jesus cleanses us in his blood, and they'll stop at nothing to share this Good News with everyone. 

Because they have been changed and healed by the Gospel story being driven deep into the recesses of their broken souls by the power of the Holy Spirit, the church is growing. You can not stop the Gospel. No government organization can stop the Gospel. Look at China. 

The Church is growing in people whose names we will never know on this earth. But God knows. 

We will never come to the end of the Gospel and the desire to gaze into its never-ending beauty and grace and holiness.

The Gospel awakens in us a continuing beauty and grace as well, growing stronger the more we look into its loveliness and power. We come and are accepted as we are; but praise God that Jesus doesn't leave us as we are! He saves us, keeps us, and grows us. 

Jesus is building his Church in much the same way he built his earthly ministry: Not in the way people were expecting. He is not building it on an endless, rigid list of rules and regulations; no, he is building it upon himself.  And that glorious structure will stand for all eternity. 💜