You have wearied the LORD with your words. “How have we wearied him?” you ask. You have wearied him by saying that all who do evil are good in the LORD’s sight, and he is pleased with them. You have wearied him by asking, “Where is the God of justice?” —Malachi 2:17 (NLT)
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When it Fails
And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings. —Luke 16:9
When it fails. Not if it fails. It will fail. The question is not if, but when. The question is not how you can avoid it, but how you can be ready for it. We tend to forget this. We think we can insulate ourselves from penury by building up a savings account, a retirement account, or perhaps some investments. But pelf does not eliminate penury, and we become more destitute even as we become more pecunious. James speaks to the lot of the destitute rich:
Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you.Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten.Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. —James 5:1-3 (ESV)
That last sentence from James is reminiscent of the words of Christ Himself:
Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. —Matthew 6:19-21 (ESV)
This is a well-known and oft-quoted passage, but it is often taken to say that which it does not. Too often, this passage is used to preach that if you lay up treasure in heaven, then it is perfectly ok to also lay up treasure on earth as well, as long as your treasure isn’t solely on earth. However, that’s not what Christ said. I’m afraid He couldn’t have been more clear: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth.” Writing to Timothy, Paul makes it quite clear what the limits of our ambitions for the ephemeral things of this world ought to be:
But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. —1 Timothy 6:6-10 (ESV)
He goes on to explain how one can lay up true and lasting treasure:
They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share,thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. —1 Timothy 6:18-19 (ESV)
And that brings us back around, full circle, to the words of Christ in Luke 16:
One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. —Luke 16:10-13 (ESV)
Do you hate money? Do you despise it? Or is money the master you love, and God the master you hate?
Wisdom
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. —James 1:5 (ESV)
I’m not sure what I would do without this verse. Lately, it seems every prayer I pray, whether aloud or silently, begins with the words “God, I need wisdom.” Wisdom to navigate relationships. Wisdom to handle situations at work. Wisdom to give wise counsel to those who ask it of me. Wisdom in what I write here.
The more I am asked to give counsel, the more aware I am of my need for God’s wisdom. I do not want God to say to me, like He said to a much better and wiser man, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” Sometimes it makes me wish that I could refuse requests for counsel, yet I cannot.
And so I claim the promise.
I ask God for wisdom, and trust that He will give it generously.
Before I pick up the phone: “God, give me wisdom.” Before I write: “God, give me wisdom.” On my way to work: “God, give me wisdom.” When asked for counsel: “God, give me wisdom.”
Do you need wisdom today?
Then ask God, and He will give it to you generously and without reproach.
Someday Never Comes
The other night I was at a Bible study made up of less than a dozen 20-somethings. It was a good study, we actually got into the Word and had some good discussion about it. This same group (under different leadership) used to be simply a one-sided regurgitation of churchy cliches from the leader, mixed with copious quantities of “I feel this” and “I feel that.”
But what I found most interesting was comments made as we finished our supper, prior to beginning the actual study. One girl mentioned that the majority of us had graduated from Christian colleges without getting married, and posited that fact was prima facie evidence that those colleges had failed us. Another disagreed, stating that she felt the best age to get married was 35.
I wanted to start reciting Herrick:
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old time is still a-flying : And this same flower that smiles to-day To-morrow will be dying. The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, The higher he’s a-getting, The sooner will his race be run, And nearer he’s to setting. That age is best which is the first, When youth and blood are warmer ; But being spent, the worse, and worst Times still succeed the former. Then be not coy, but use your time, And while ye may go marry : For having lost but once your prime You may for ever tarry.
The girls in this group are all right at or past their expiration dates. In fact, one of the girls in this group I recently talked to about pursuing marriage, but only because I heard so much other positive information about her from an old friend and several people at church that it outweighed the fact that she was already at the extreme high end of the acceptable age scale. When she told me “While my dream has always been to be a wife and mom, my focus is elsewhere right now.” I was sad for her. Not being interested in me is one thing, but putting off your dream when you are already at the end of the time when it is within reach is downright sad.
I continue to hope, for her sake, that she was lying to me and really just found me unattractive.
In this week’s sermon, the pastor shared how he and his wife lost their dream of children because, although they married in their early twenties, they chose to wait five years to become financially stable prior to having children, and by that time his wife had lost her fertility. Some of the girls from the Bible study were there–I can only hope they recognized that it was not a story of an unusual circumstance, but rather a reflection of the biological reality that on average, a woman who does not have a child before the age of 25 will have lost 90% of her fertility by age 30.
When someone tells me that they want to do something “someday,” I am sad for them. Like Creedence, I know that “someday” never comes.
I don’t know how to help those who say they want to be mothers but put it off past the time God appointed in human biology. But they next time a girl asks me my favorite poem, I may just start “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may…”
A Film Worth Watching
Click the “watch on Vimeo” button. It’s an hour and forty minutes long, but worth it.
A Moment of Honesty From Obama
“That’s not a choice we want Americans to make.”
It’s seems straight from Chapter 3 of Brave New World.
(If you haven’t read it lately, you should.)
Understand that strong, coherent families are the greatest threat to a totalitarian government.
A well-ordered, well-disciplined family tells more in behalf of Christianity than all the sermons that can be preached.
It shows that God’s model works.
Thing is, even Obama knows that God’s model works.
That’s why he’s so intent on attacking it.
A strong family has little need for the government.
A weak family has great need for the government.
Obama wants weak or non-existent families.
So do most ‘conservative” politicians.
So do most voters.
This is why they pushed women’s suffrage.
This is why they pushed no-fault divorce.
This is why they have pushed for every form of sexual deviancy, from promiscuity to homosexuality.
This is why they constantly cry about a “wage gap.”
Because they don’t want you to follow God’s model.
Because they’d rather you stayed miserable and seeking satiation.
Because they value “the economy” more than your soul.
But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine: that the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience. The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded. —Titus 2:1-6 (KVJ)
Numbers 30
Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes of the people of Israel, saying, “This is what the Lord has commanded. If a man vows a vow to the Lord, or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth. “If a woman vows a vow to the Lord and binds herself by a pledge, while within her father’s house in her youth, and her father hears of her vow and of her pledge by which she has bound herself and says nothing to her, then all her vows shall stand, and every pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand. But if her father opposes her on the day that he hears of it, no vow of hers, no pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand. And the Lord will forgive her, because her father opposed her.
“If she marries a husband, while under her vows or any thoughtless utterance of her lips by which she has bound herself, and her husband hears of it and says nothing to her on the day that he hears, then her vows shall stand, and her pledges by which she has bound herself shall stand. But if, on the day that her husband comes to hear of it, he opposes her, then he makes void her vow that was on her, and the thoughtless utterance of her lips by which she bound herself. And the Lord will forgive her. (But any vow of a widow or of a divorced woman, anything by which she has bound herself, shall stand against her.) And if she vowed in her husband’s house or bound herself by a pledge with an oath, and her husband heard of it and said nothing to her and did not oppose her, then all her vows shall stand, and every pledge by which she bound herself shall stand. But if her husband makes them null and void on the day that he hears them, then whatever proceeds out of her lips concerning her vows or concerning her pledge of herself shall not stand. Her husband has made them void, and the Lord will forgive her. Any vow and any binding oath to afflict herself, her husband may establish, or her husband may make void. But if her husband says nothing to her from day to day, then he establishes all her vows or all her pledges that are upon her. He has established them, because he said nothing to her on the day that he heard of them. But if he makes them null and void after he has heard of them, then he shall bear her iniquity.”
These are the statutes that the Lord commanded Moses about a man and his wife and about a father and his daughter while she is in her youth within her father’s house.
(ESV)
Alone?
In a comment on his recent article about the NFL, Cane Caldo wrote
I am convinced that the solution to the mismatch of emotions with experience is to change how we perceive the experience. In that light, my feelings of defeat are shown to be false…which matches with what the Bible tells me both about our victory in Christ and about the deceitfulness of my heart. Now, others’ confusion at my peculiar view of sports, art, and media is the source of my sense of victory. And it correlates with the Truth.
Like Cane, I am convinced. However, this is an area where I sometimes struggle to put the force of action behind my conviction. Too often I find myself listening to my deceitful heart and saying with Elijah “I alone am left.” In such times, I refer to Paul’s comments on Elijah’s struggle.
God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel?“Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.” But what is God’s reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace. —Romans 11:2-6 (ESV)
I have had many real life conversations lately where people have been drawn to me, ask me questions, because my Biblical perspective is so different than anything they have run into, even in the church. That’s success, and I know it. But it doesn’t always feel like success, and sometimes it takes real effort to beat down those feelings with the Truth of Scripture.
What feelings?
The feelings of aloneness. “I’m the only one left, boo-hoo-hoo.” Thank God for the record of Elijah struggling with the same thing, because it feels like a pretty childish sentiment to admit to.
Childish as it may seem, it has been a struggle for better men than I. And I know it is not just me. Are you feeling abandoned today? Like you are the only one left seeking to follow in the way of righteousness?
That feeling is a lie.
Elijah felt that way right before God led Him to Elisha, the disciple that was to not only continue his ministry but receive a double portion of his spirit. Elijah’s sense of abandonment was so great that he asked God to let him die. The Devil wanted to keep him from ever meeting and discipling Elisha.
Maybe the Devil is trying to limit your effectiveness through feelings of aloneness. If so, resist him, and he will flee.
Christ promised that He would be with us until the end of the world, and that’s the best company a man could ask for.
Garden Goes In
As much as I miss my northern home, there are certain benefits to my current location. One of those benefits is a year-round growing season. In an attempt to reduce my monthly food bill and free up more money for my retirement plan, I attacked the back lawn of my apartment building today. The ground is very hard and rocky, I will probably need to double the amount of compost I laid down, but it is a start. It’s been a little while since I swung a hoe–I’d gotten too far away from God’s word on food procurement. Tomatoes, carrots, beets, beans, and watermelon are all started and will be transferred to the garden upon sprouting.
Dried-Out Husks
I came across this old story in an out-of-print book on the evils of alcohol.
Are you still with me? I hope so.
Leaving aside many things, I want to draw two points from this.
Firstly, there is nothing new under the sun. At the top of page 155, Tom’s decision to visit the tavern is held up as a moral failing because his wife had other plans for the money. We are not told what these other plans were, but apparently they were more important than clothing his children, as that need was mentioned almost as an afterthought. “It was a moral failing for Tom to go to the tavern, because his wife wanted to use the money for something else (and also because his kids needed clothes, but that’s far less important…).”
Secondly, as I read the story, I could not but help feel that despite the author’s intent, it is not a story about drink at all. Rather, it is allegory of what I see all around me–a social condition that leaves far more walking husks of humanity than liquor. Every day I interact with young ladies females who determinedly give away bits of the kernel of themselves to whomever will take a bite. It is as if their overarching goal in life is to ensure that should they ever marry, naught but a husk remain for their future husbands. While Tom in the story realized that his drunkenness was robbing his wife, children, and himself, do those he is an allegory of recognize the robbery they are committing?
I fear not.
Yet it is not just women that I see destroying the kernel to leave only a shriveled husk. I see young men males frantically distributing the kernel of their masculinity wholesale to whatever female will give them in return an illicit morsel of her kernel. It’s as if their overarching goal is to reduce their masculinity to a paper-thin husk tossed by the wind and trampled underfoot. Do these recognize the robbery they are committing?
Again, I fear they do not.
There are many dried-out husks of humanity walking around out there. Husks of men and husks of women, frantically seeking fulfillment by making themselves emptier.
Don’t be a husk.
Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself; For emptiness will be his reward. Job 15:31 (NASB)