iPandora

As of a few days ago, Grace and I’ve been married 9 months. And our son is due to emerge into the world in 3 more months.

Marriage has settled down a little, perhaps. I feel safe and comfortable around my wife and maybe take her a little for granted, too. I’m less and less capable of imagining myself in a single state and marriage, such as my wife and I enjoy, is my default position, as it were.

As the seasons change and weather brightens, the days lengthen and warm, and the sun climbs higher in the sky, there is less of a ’stuck’ feeling in being cooped up in the apartment together and more of an “I prefer being with her” choice.

Not to say I didn’t enjoy cuddling with my wife and enjoying her closeness and proximity during the winter, but there is something about no longer being compelled by the elements that makes marriage even better to me.

And she’s growing. Our son and his accompanying entrails and apparatus are definitely showing in Grace and we both enjoy feeling him move about. Or, I enjoy it all the time, and sometimes she doesn’t. Like when he pushes on the inside of her ribs, or when she’s trying to sit still in church. Our son really becomes active in church, it seems.

In 3 months he’s scheduled to make his grand debut, and I’m facing fatherhood.

The pregnancy website told me today I’m experiencing hormonal swings right now: testosterone levels are falling and estrogen levels are rising. So the lipstick and nail polish I’m wearing are completely understandable. It’s the high heels I can’t seem to explain away.

In a darwinian perspective, this is my body working against my darwinian male desires for independence to create a nurturing ability in me.

In a Christian perspective, I’m amazed that God made these natural systems that work just so changing the very attitudes through the chemical balance of the male to bring about a more nurturing attitude.

But all that to say: Summer is coming, life is good and getting better, I can’t wait to meet my son (I finished painting his room and we’ve nearly got all the furniture we need for him), and I (still) love my wife.

I’m truly blessed beyond all measure and thank God for His amazing work in my life heretofore.

Now for the future.

Going through Piper’s “Don’t Waste Your Life” series in Sunday School, yesterday we discussed his admonition that we ought to “gladly make others glad”.

First, our gladness equates to the fullness of our joy, our satisfaction with our life in Christ.

The others gladness can only occur when they recognize their sin, accept Christs forgiveness and redemptive work on the Cross, and begin and work out their own relationship with God.

One of the cardinal points of this teaching is that we, despite our responsibility to make others glad, are wholly and completely unable to make others glad. We are tools, we are the conduit used by God to bring about gladness in others.

But don’t think ours is a passive place, as our work for God is not passive in the slightest sense but active and our will and energy aligned with God’s work is necessary. As I love working for those I love, I ought to give all to the God who ransomed me.

And so, with our energy, and with our responsibility, and with our inability, we confront the admonition: “…always ready to give an answer for the hope that lies within us.”

And we ask, practically speaking: If I were to go to the door of a stranger across town with two people from Church, and (just thinking averages and chances) told them about Christs work on the cross. Would it matter? Would it make a difference in their life?

It may, it may not.

If however, you were “in the world but not of it” in the sense that you made relationships with unsaved people and allowed them to see into your life as you saw into theirs, and then told God: I’m ready for whatever trials You bring my way, only help me be strong and consistant in my love and trust in You, and let my patience and heartiness borne of Your strength in my life radiate and illuminate even in the depths of the trials You’ve allowed and shine such that my friends and neighbors who do not yet know the amazing power of Your might be unable to understand the peace within me. And give me the answer then as they see Your hope in me.

We are not saving people to heaven necessarily, but to a relationship with God.

To get someone to embrace heaven for any reason (to see loved ones, to escape hell, to live forever in bliss) besides the wonderful relationship we Christians experience with the Father of all, is to create a weak and cheap faith.

It’s like marrying for sex: sure it’s a cool thing that’s really fun, but the real reason to marry is because you can’t live without this best of friends who is so different from you and yet completes you in so many ways. Marrying for sex is one thing, but marrying for love and enjoying sex with that person you love is so far and above the former that it does not even bear comparing.

It causes me to think that the Ray Comfort method of evangelism, while it has it’s place in our sound-bite culture, isn’t the most effective method and may be more likely to create weak faith and charlatans of Christianity who at the first or second onset of adversity promised, will fall away and show “they were not of us”.

What makes us so special?

Rather than embarking on a long dialogue, as is my norm, I want to instead throw some things out on the table for you to think about.

First . . . do we really readthe Bible, or do we just preview it through our Americanized mindset? In American culture, my actions are treated as my own, and the consequences are solely mine. However, read the Bible. Truly read it. The story of Achan clearly demonstrates that not only is a person responsible for their crime, but their wife, children, and grandchildren are to suffer for the sin and their possessions are to be destroy. Do I condone this? No, with fulfilment of the law, God brought grace. But guess what? God hasn’t changed, we are still responsible for the sins of those we are connected to (accountability) are our sins still effect those we are around (responsibility), to a much larger extent than our American minds want to accept.

Second . . . what makes us so special (American Christians)? We walk around acting like being an American Christian is a benefit to God. Somehow, we have a general mindset (not when we think about it, but when we just normally act) that God is in debt to us since we are American Christians and he owes us providence and goodwill. I got news . . . I am of no more value to God than a Chinese Christian who is of no more value to God than a Chinese heathen. We act like God owes it to us to keep our country “safe” and prosperous, but God owes us no such thing.

Third . . . are we (American Christians) the ones who decided who is a Christian nation and who gets God’s blessings? Somehow, we feel like we have a direct line to God and can dictate to Him who he should bless (us) and how the world should be run (through our prosperity). However, here is a though . . . maybe God is using, and blessing the Chinese. Here is an even harder thought, maybe God is using the Chinese to reshape the world for the next stage of human development. That is a hard pill to take, but guess what . . . we (as Christians) should rejoice in that because it is the next good  step in God’s good plan.

In closing, maybe we should get over ourselves, read what God really says (not what fits our mindset), and take joy in world event (and prepare for joyous persecution) because God has ordained it for his glory.

Christianity has been recently buzzing with with what some people call a “prosperity” gospel. Over simplified, this gospel refers to a leader (preacher) calling on his people to becomes saved and everything will be taken care of (to the extreme, become saved and you will become rich). In Christendom, certain preachers have been labeled as “prosperity preachers.” People like Joel Osteen and Rick Warren have been assigned this label and ridiculed in areas of Christendom for their messages and actions. However, is this ridicule really due them?

I wish to make my argument in defense of many preachers (and specifically these two) through three different avenues. I want show you that these preachers preach a relevant gospel, not a traditional gospel. They use Christ as the backbone of their gospel, and their efforts are supported by scripture.

Many people easily despise the like of Joel Osteen and Rick Warren but have not listened to their message and heard they were “liberal” from someone else. Recently, I actually sat down and watched a Joel Osteen sermon. Guess what he was talking about? Self-Esteem. What topic could be more relevant to today’s needs? Honestly, there are so many people who struggle day to day with the ins and outs of insecurity and self esteem and here was a preacher giving them God’s perspective on the subject. Sure, this isn’t a traditional topic like the beatitudes, or Hell’s hot flames . . . but it is what people today need to hear. However, because people like Rick Warren and Joel Osteen are not preaching a line by line gospel, they are often ridiculed and despised by the traditional establishment. However, they aren’t teaching the words of the gospel (line-by-line), but the heart of the the gospel.

Not only is their teaching more relevant, their actions are more relevant. I remember Rick Warren sitting down with Barack Obama before the general election to promote AIDS awareness. At first I was taken back by this. What in the world is a Christian pastor doing associating with a secular agenda (that is originally linked to a sinful lifestyle)? However, I was soon convicted that, this is what we are supposed to be doing. As Christians we should be promoting AIDS awareness, we should be looking for the cure, we should be concerned because God LOVES the people with AIDS. Who better in Christendom is there to promote AIDS? Charlie Hunt (the head of the Southern Baptist Convention)? No one knows of him and he is stuck in an old establishment that is trying to splice syllables of scripture but can’t tell the laity its relevance to every day life. There is no one better than Rick Warren. His name is out there. He is respected even on the West Coast (a very hard thing to do). All that these preachers are doing in exemplifying the true gospel of Christ. A gospel that meets people where they are and addresses their direct needs in basic, simple, and easy to identify with ways.

However, there is still the argument that many people throw out the Joel Osteen doesn’t hardly use the scriptures in his messages. Once again, I am compelled to ask, how you ever watched him? A Christian survey service recently compared the average references to scripture in a “standard message” from a “normal” pastor to Joel Osteen. It was found that the normal message will contain between 7-15 references to scripture while Joel Osteen regularly references the scriptures between 25-35 times a message. Sure, it might not be an exact quotation, but is the Bible about the words, or about the heart behind the words? In fact, I recently sat down with my mentor and counted the number of times Joel Osteen references scripture. We were only watching for about 20 minutes and had counted well over 20 references. Joel Osteen and Rick Warren look the the scriptures for a message, not a recitation, and this is what they present. They give preach a gospel that speaks through the heart of the text to the current needs of our society.

However, there is still a further defence of these prosperity gospel preachers. I wish to direct your attention to Philippians. Specifically Philippians 1:15-18

“It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. The latter do so in love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, no sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.?

Did you hear that? The important notes are here “The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely . . . But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from falses motices or true, Christ is preached.” What is that? It doesn’t matter how it is presented, it just matters that the gospel is preached. This is the true defense of the prosperity gospel. God is being taught and his name is being lifted up.

Sure, I have my issues with some churches and some Christians actions, but, as Paul said, “What does it matter? Christ is preached” and that is all we are called to do, however that looks

(A)s we revel in this gush of happy feelings it is important to recognize that not all change is good. It is important to recognize that we need to pin our hopes on solid ideas or our hopes will be quite hopeless.

On that depressing note I beg your pardon for having the audacity to hope that we can peer through his lovely rhetoric to see the ideas beneath as they truly are, warts and all. At the same time we must sincerely hope for his great success.

Monte Solberg in the Edmonton Sun, January 19th, 2009.

In the Bible we’re told that all authority is in God, and those that exist on earth, do so at His ordination and continue at His pleasure (Romans 13). Therefore I pray that Obama will find God’s blessing leading him on throughout his life and especially and particularly while he is President of the United States of America. Who am I to withstand God and withold my prayers from a man who will bear one of the greatest burdens known to man at this present time?

I make that statement unqualified. Barack Obama needs the prayers of each and every Christian.

But what do we pray for?

From a Christian perspective, we see the goals and aspirations, ideas and philosophies Obama espouses are diametrically opposed to God’s ideals and lofty standards. Obama has stated his unequivocal support for many of the most heinous forms of abortion/infanticide.

As an American, I see many of his goals will be to the detriment of this great nation and it’s Constitution. Obama supports and plans to implement some of the most sweeping tax hikes across the board in a long time. His social policies are in favor of taking away individual liberty, removing the Christian ideal of individual and community responsibility.

His philosophies are neither new nor are his proposals novel. They are tired and failed relics of a century lost to the dust of history. FDRoosevelt-style government interventionism which prolonged and deepened the Great (Government-caused) Depression. Soveit-style big government nannyism with the grasp of government-controlled means of production expanding.

How can we then pray for this man who will lead our nation?

In our own lives, when our parents, friends, spiritual leaders and mentors pray for our benefit and blessing, God is in no way constrained to bless our faults and sins. God’s blessing is always administered with the goal of bringing Him glory through us. In the life of Christian, his blessing may often go against our own goals and cause grief and pain as it tears us away from those things which are not pleasing to Him.

God’s blessing is not purposed for our good from our own perspective necessarily. It is instead always purposed for our own good from His perspective, and when we have been heading against His will, His blessing goes against our own will.

So it should be in our prayers for Barack Obama. He will need our prayers for the salvation and redemption of his eternal soul. He will need our prayers for God’s grace in his life, God’s wisdom in his decisions, God’s forceful and purifying love in every aspect of his life.

As politics cannot neither redeem man nor save him from himself, so the politician can no more give us our real needs than he can bring water from a rock for his own thirst.

Barack Obama, especially, will need our fervent prayers on his behalf because the real true change necessary to bring about his true alignment with God’s will and ways will require such a deep and tearing change in himself, his history, his understanding, his very soul. Such change, freeing his eternal soul and physical body from the ideas and philosophies which so enslave him right now, will be drastic and uprooting for him.

At the same time as I pray for Barack, his presidency, his salvation, and our Nation, I will, in the interest of fulfilling my obligation to God, to Barack as a fellow human, and to America, do my utmost to thwart any of the ideas or proposals which he may propose that threaten real progress and growth.

Both prayer and protection are my duty and they do not conflict.

On a recent Michael Medved show a caller, identifying himself as a moderately liberal high school political science teacher, stated that the conservative force he fears most in America is from the Christian conservatives who allow their theology to inform their politics.

To him, so long as your politics do not inform your theology and your theology is kept far away from your politics, you’re ok. They may agree, but only incidentally.

There’s a problem with that: humans cannot, by nature, exist in a dichotomous state.

In fact, to demand such a personal internal segregation of ones internal beliefs and external actions is to request something dangerous and displays a profound ignorance of human nature and need.

First, everyone has a theology. Commonly called our “beliefs”. It is our understanding, findings, or opinions regarding the nature (or lack thereof) of God. An athiest has a theology as surely as a Christian, they are just convinced there is not a god.

One’s beliefs regarding God informs one’s ideas on life, purpose, meaning, history, and the future. This is indisputable and is not a value judgment, merely a statement of fact.

One’s understanding of life, it’s purposes and meanings, history and the future, definitely informs one’s political persuasions. I vote with a goal and purpose. I don’t roll dice (often) and I don’t sell my vote. Though both those actions would allow us to infer your understanding of life and likely, your theology.

I am a whole human, with will and purpose. I try not to say one thing and act another. Yet even should I engage in such hypocrisy, accidentally or purposefully, there is a consistancy to the failure. My hypocritical life would have a goal and purpose: likely a hope for self-aggrandizement or gain for some deeply and closely held belief.

Watching Chariots of Fire last night with my wife, we came upon the scene where Eric Liddell has found out the heats for his race is on Sunday and is now meeting with the crown prince and the Olympic committee. Young Lord Lindsey has offered his own, longer, race to Eric as a solution and as the meeting is dispersing the Duke of Sutherland and Lord Birkenhead discuss what has just occurred:

Duke of Sutherland: A sticky moment, George.
Lord Birkenhead: Thank God for Lindsay. I thought the lad had us beaten.
Duke of Sutherland: He did have us beaten, and thank God he did.
Lord Birkenhead: I don’t quite follow you.
Duke of Sutherland: The “lad”, as you call him, is a true man of principles and a true athlete. His speed is a mere extension of his life, its force. We sought to sever his running from himself.
Lord Birkenhead: For his country’s sake, yes.
Duke of Sutherland: No sake is worth that, least of all a guilty national pride.

The Duke of Sutherland has the correct diagnosis of the issue: we can no more separate one part of a man’s soul from his other parts than we can parts of his body and expect them both to continue living.

I am a Christian. I am convinced of God’s existence and His divine will. I try to live my life in the salvation offered by the death of Jesus, God’s only begotten son and according to His laws.

I hold these beliefs in faith, not a hope in wishful thinking. Faith is not a firmly held belief in unprovable or illogical ideas, it is the belief in things proven and yet unseen.

My faith informs my life. I try to live my life according to the law of God. And not just those parts lived in private. I fail miserably more often than I succeed, but what is life without a contest, without a goal?

If I were to deny the influence of my theology on any part of my life, I would be trying to live as though I were two seperate people within the same physical body: It just doesn’t work.

And so, to you political science teacher, I hope that you will always live your entire life according to the dictates of your conscience and that your theology informs your choices. I pray that your theology will grow and you will find and find faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and countless millions since them. And yet, even if you do not, I still pray that you will be a complete person with one goal and purpose.

When I die, I don’t want the words “he was a good man” said at my funeral. Not that nor any derivation thereof.

In some of the deeper quandaries I’ve been dealing with lately, a seems to recur: “I don’t want to regret this decision”.

I thought this was a reasonable and good goal in the decision, and indeed it is in this particular decision. But is it even a possible option?

Can I make a decision with consequences as deep as this and even hope I won’t have regrets?

The decision will require a significant change in not just my life, but that of my family. A different future for my children.

Even if I make the right decision, won’t there be times when I look back and regret even just a little?

When I wrote Warm Weather I may not have explicitly said so, but I do miss many parts of my old home and old way of life. It can be reasonably said that I have some slight regrets over leaving my old life. But strong enough that I wish to return? No. Not at all.

So what of life? Is it wise to live life trying to have no regrets as we look back at it?

First there is the opinion: That is such an unreasonable and unattainable goal it’s worthless to even try for it.

To which a response is: Why does God put before us the goal of being Christ-like, an even more unreasonable and unattainable prize?

And the response to that: To prove to us our own inability to get anywhere near His goal and therefore our need to follow him.

Due to the faultiness in our nature, our propensity to sin, we will face failure and accompanying regret, and we will make decisions and wish to make them over again and regret.

It is pointless, in the sense of Ecclesiasties, to attempt to live our lives without regret.

But does that make it wrong to try?

If failing is to be an assured result of trying, we should consider what it is we are trying. Is failure worth the effort?

I think the better goal is to try to live life to the glory of God.

When our focus is on bringing glory to God, we are freed from the navel-gazing, the deep and continuous “real-time” introspection and second-guessing which would rob us of the freedom to act on God’s prompting and in His moment.

When we are trying to prevent any regrets we either get tied down with the weight of ultimate decision for so many otherwise small considerations and spend each moment second-guessing our current actions.

There are two specific benefits to living, not to mitigate regret, but to maximize God’s glory.

God’s glory is a long term goal, longer than our life, or our childrens lives.

It has been said we ought to plant trees for our childrens’ children. We ought to live our lives so that there is a legacy, but not for our own glory or honor. We’ll be dead and not benefitting from any laud our legacy brings. We ought to plant those trees of legacy for God’s glory in our successive generations.

God’s glory is a goal outside ourselves.

In health class we took a test which purported to determine our “locus of control”. Where we thought control of our life originated.

I have an almost completely internal locus of control. I believe I am responsible for my life, essentially. I am to blame for troubles in my life and responsible for making those decisions which will lead to success.

For me, the goal of God’s glory is essential to keeping me focused on the really important things in life, everything besides me.

For someone with an external locus of control, someone who is more likely to believe they are a victim or at least a pawn in life, having God as the goal keeps them focused on something which gives them worth and value, and strength and determination.

For those more balanced in their control perspective, they’ve got it all figured out and so they’re cool.

Just kidding. They get to benefit from both the benefits of this perspective.

Will my decisions bring God the greater glory? Will I still be able to bring God glory after I make this decision?

God will bring glory to Himself regardless of our choices, the important thing is whether I choose to bring Him glory, or whether He must bring glory to Himself inspite of us.

I’ve read several articles thanks to links from bloggers and news pages which claim that the ‘first’ Thanksgiving was nothing but the orgies of Europeans occupying the homes and tilling the fields of the deceased tribes of Native Americans killed by disease brought by previous settlers.

I do not dispute the fact that lack of understanding regarding disease and its transmission and the dangers of introducing societies to new bacteria and germs without proper inoculation contributed to great sickness and death of the Native Americans. But do we judge history for what we know or for what they knew?

Are we to be judged for our lack of understanding about something which lead, through that ignorance, to some loss, or for the fact that we attempt to mitigate the loss and mend the ill where we encounter it?

But beyond that.

I’ve read the entirety of the journal of William Bradford, governor of the colony at Plymouth. In the evidence fields that is called a primary source. There are few sources indeed which would countermand his testimony and then only with a preponderence of testimony sharply contradictory to his own.

And yet even the stories I read in the enlightened media were stretches and extentions of certain facts to the exclusion of others and themselves did not contradict the crux of the history laid down by Bradford.

Yes, many of the Native Americans in the area of Plymouth were wiped out by disease just prior to the arrival of the Pilgrims. Yes, the Plymouth settlers used the fallow-lying fields and empty shelters of the deceased Native Americans to aid them in their survival. I think from our posh couches and deep cushions we are unable to relate to the deep fear of the complete unknown and the pain of true hunger experienced by those brave adventurers and we judge them be a standard we, even with our comforts and conveniences would not judge ourselves by given a situation not half so bad as they experienced.

What were they to do with the empty and waiting fields and shelters? Out of principle were they to dig fresh fields beside the fallow ones and out of misguided respect leave the tents of the Natives standing as empty monuments to a culture they had little to do directly with damaging?

I think not.

And moving to a different tack: In the face of the socialist pushes of our government, is it not telling that even with such paltry feed at a few kernels of corn and with the ethics of a strong religious faith, the early pilgrims, laboring undering a falsly hopeful system of common holdings and cooperative farming were falling prey to the exact same lethargy which would so cripple the vastly wealthy Russion communist experiment.

The reasons were there: doing right and acute starvation. The resources were there: a fertile land and skilled and willing workers. And yet, when they did not directly control the resources of production nor own the fruits of their own labors these men and women worked without will or vigor and many lives were lost.

If we cannot accept the facts of history when the controvert our own closely held presuppositions regarding the nature of the world, is there any hope for us to learn from the mistakes of our forebearers?

When the truth is not accepted, do we have a chance?

about our consumer economy?

How does a Christian live in a consumer economy?

Some good and sane friends of mine have professed their decision to support a third party candidate on the contention he is a closer match to their own beliefs.

It struck me in reading their comments that just as many in America are looking toward Barack Obama as a messianic figure of boundless ability, there are many conservatives looking to Washington with too much longing and desire.

McCain/Palin can no more be expected to be capable of delivering on many of their campaign promises than can Barack/(whoever he’s running with). Neither can any of the third-party candidates be trusted to perform most of their promises.

And it is our mindless braying for salvation from Washington DC that feeds these pols need to fill our hungry little mouths with meaningless lies.

Even many conservatives have fallen prey to the temptation to vote ourselves pieces of the pie. Our desired pieces are just not necessarily monetary.

Our true Savior, Jesus, is the only one deserving of the desire and hope pinned on our candidates. To put it anywhere else is to commit idolatry and to set ourselves up for the failure of our hopes and dreams.

When our hope is in the Lord, we are less likely to put a false or unhealthy amount of hope in humans. We are anchored to the only Rock which cannot be moved. The inherent property of the Rock that is Jesus is that it cannot be moved.

No matter the storms of time, that Rock ever has and ever shall hold firm.

With a steady Rock to stand on, I am free to take the long view.

I do not need to look for salvation from Washington DC because I know real help comes from above.