Wed, Apr 25th - 6:58PM

Toleration Be Damned

  I live a simple, some would say stark, life.  You see, I have no television programming on my TV.  My wife and I regularly get video movies from the library and watch them.  The problem with borrowing movies that way is with the age of the movies and the quality of them - we have some kind of competition to see who selected the worst movie during any week, and since our library mostly stocks donated movies, there is no shortage of bad ones.  The winner of the competition is the one who found all good, quality movies - it's a real challenge!

  Of course, we really do thrive in election years, as we never have any commercials.  In fact, we are spoiled by not having any commercials between election years!  Tough, I know, but someone's gotta do it.

  What triggered this blog was the movie I saw last night, "Songcatcher".  Probably been out for decades, but I caught up with it last night.  This was a very well-filmed, beautifully staged movie.  The characters were actually believable and the North Carolina mountain setting was gorgeous - the only drawback was the lesbians who had a big part in the movie.  I wasn't really expecting to find their lifestyle the catalyst in an early 1900's, North Carolinian mountain setting, but it was.

   Maybe it's because I have such a diminished entertainment selection, but I can't begin to recount all the movies I've run into that routinely feature men kissing men and women kissing women.  Some would say I'm intolerant, or a product of my mid-west in the 50's upbringing, but I just know this kind of activity is NOT normal.  But I do suppose there's a lot of money available to say it is.

  Any issue in question should be subjected to what God thinks of it first.  When we tolerate something - and know already it's something He classifies as an abomination, our toleration is SIN. 

  Who honestly expects Almighty God to change his mind about something He's already judged an abomination?  I'll just bet He's waiting for us to take His Word seriously - and change our minds.  With this in mind, I remember something Adrian Rogers used to say, "How you deal with Jesus today has everything to do with how He'll deal with you tomorrow."  It would seem we have all been systematically trained to avoid responsibility, along with being tolerant.  I think Jesus is actually incredibly tolerant (maybe 'longsuffering' is better) of us, while being very intolerant of sin in any form.  And He's not about to change either.

   What really pushed my buttons about the movie was the obvious Gay Agenda that seemed to serve as the only motivation for it's production.  Try this sometime, take a segment of a movie and subtract it, then ask yourself if you still have any kind of cogent plot left.  When I subtracted the lesbian sub-plot, I was left with a vague, incohesive mess that would have been better presented as a mere photo documentary of the mountains and music of North Carolina.  What little plot that was left really didn't make a point, solve a problem or resolve much of anything. 

   To sum up: all the tolerant characters were heroes and all the intolerant characters were ignorant, backwoods louts.  Throw into that mix a loud, Bible thumping John Brown look-alike who was obviously ignorant of God and the Bible, and you have the preacher, who thankfully only had a small part.  What a surprise.  And that's the same old Agenda...more ad nauseum.  

   And I hope I won't be too lonely when I voice my take on this, which is:  No matter how you wrap the garbage, it's still garbage.  And no matter what anyone thinks or teaches, what God calls garbage, is garbage indeed.

  Make no mistake - we are admonished to hate what God hates.  His Son didn't die so we could be "tolerant" of revealed sin.

John

Wed, Apr 18th - 5:49PM

The Truth Will Set You Free - Won't It?

  The older I get (happening way too fast!) the more I realize that the important things in life are not complicated.  They are not shrouded in mystery and only discoverable by genius.  In fact, the important things in life are almost too easy for our natural arrogant bent - and to be valid at all, they all focus on Jesus, not us.  Somehow, some way, it all comes down to Him.  I know this must be an unalterable fact because if it doesn't come down to Him, it comes down to us, and hence, can't meet the definition of "important". 

  Funny how the human race has always venerated intelligence from within.  Well, maybe not funny.  We dearly love to include ourselves in any select group with special knowledge or information.  We also like to advertise this superior intellect by hiding behind various industry dialects only understood by the privileged few.  Isn't it interesting how a few cliches and special names can brand an individual above the crowd?  Stockbrokers, lawyers, police officers, real estate tycoons, etc., etc., - all seem to share an affinity to special "insider" verbiage.  This makes them feel important by giving them an insider vocabulary.

  I'm very glad the Bible doesn't do this.  No matter how mentally challenged or unchallenged, the Bible knows who we really are inside all the worldly clutter, and speaks to everyone willing to hear.   So let's face it, all the credentials or lack of them apparently do not impress God.  He finds value in each of us regardless of our perceived worth.  Aren't we all really glad it's that simple?

  For most of my life I've been familiar with the saying, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free."  Somehow I thought that meant the more I knew, the more "free" I'd be.  My life has sadly been a testimony proving the opposite.  And then, the other day, the clouds in my mind parted just long enough for me to see the truth - and it was not knowledge, it was Him!  It was never about me - it was only and always about Him.  Now I get it.  Finally.

  So I proved out my mini-revelation by reading John 8: 32, 36 (You shall know the truth...) and John 14: 6 ("I am the way, the truth and the life").  And there it was - right under my nose all the time.  Jesus himself is God's truth, and the more I know Him, the more free I will be. 

  Having spent over 30 years learning something so awfully simple is really quite humbling.   It strikes me as Divine irony that knowing Him makes one humble.  It shouldn't be a surprise that it's 180 degrees backwards from how we think.  

  So when we are tempted to pursue ego inflation through increased knowledge and special vocabularies, maybe we should try picturing standing before Him for the first time.....and explaining to Him how our special intelligence and industry vocabularies makes us special. 

  I'm sure that standing before Him at all will preclude any ability to expound upon ourselves.  We will be too busy experiencing the reality of true worship, and maybe for the first time!

  Now that's worth waiting for!!

Tue, Apr 3rd - 9:30PM

Dance Cards Have Limited Value

  Today, while on the commute to work, I had one of those discussions with my wife that allowed me to think out loud.  She's a good listener.  So much so, that I'm often embarrassed by having talked too much when the one-sided "discussion" ends...

  I was discussing my ongoing spiritual concern for a person very close to me, and the fact that I know this person has been drifting away from God for several years.  I'm at a point with this person that makes it obvious I'm continually being fed what they think I want to hear, when in fact, what's really happening in that life is hidden behind the smoke screens of what used to be.  This is self-deluding terminology.  It's called lying.

  I know this is true because for over 10 years of my "walk", I assiduously drifted away from God myself, and I remember when I would hide the sordid facts of my lifestyle from those godly people I knew by using my "old credentials".  Those conversations were always very nerve racking for me.  I was playing a part onstage, and I always felt they would find me out, but I always told myself my smoke screen had concealed the real me, once again.  

  Thankfully, that was then, not now, and I am a 'new creation' and comfortable with it, but that's just the point - our old dance card, detailing all the times He danced with us and all our wonderful experiences with Him, has very limited value TODAY.  And some of that value is, unfortunately, to serve as a smoke screen.

  What is vitally important is the dance card we are filling up TODAY.  If I am to be honest with God and others, I have to be willing to open a new card every day, and then, I have to pay strict attention to who I dance with.  I can't dance with a little sin and have a clean card.  To be trite, that's like being a little pregnant.

  I hurt for this person so much.  I feel like I ought to say something, but I have nothing to say that won't, and hasn't in the past, raised the smoke screen immediately.  Walls go up with my first word, and the conversation is truly over.  My mouth has been shut.  Prayer is all I have left.  I would like to wave my arms in frustration and ask this person, "Why do you have to make the same mistakes I made"?  "Can't you just learn from mine"? 

  This is all so painful.  But then, I'm sure my life as a spiritual drifter was even more painful to my Lord.   My wife is sure this person will eventually (maybe years) return to God.  That's how it worked for both of us.  We had our Prodigal journeys, and we both returned with a healthy distaste for garbage.  And when we did, He was right there - He had been waiting for us all along.

  My prayer, is that this person I love will turn around before suffering too much damage.  I suspect most of God's children have at least one someone they love, who is caught up in similar circumstances. 

  And like our dance cards being good only for today, if 'today is the day of Salvation' has any meaning - our great Redeemer is still redeeming, and doing so - EVERY DAY.