THE UNSEEN I

      What does love look like? Or hatred? Or greed? Or lust?

      What do personal values look like? Or opinions? Or prejudices?

      What does the mind look like? Not the brain, but the mind​?

      The answers would seem obvious; all those characteristics make themselves plainly known by the words and actions of those who bear them. But that doesn’t answer the question.

      What do these things actually look like, not their evidences, but the characteristics themselves? Despite their power to effect good or evil, they are invisible.

      By naturalistic standards, since they can’t be seen or quantified directly, they aren’t real, but are simply fiction, poetic elements, or fables. Of course, we won’t find many skeptics rabid enough to honestly deny those things’ existence, because they apparently have nothing to do with the “supernatural,” the spirit world, or the divine. Substitute the word “god” for the word “love,” though, and the skeptics’ countenances will fall, and begin transforming to various shades of red, while their confident words become blustering slogans, formulaic excuses and unanswerable, hypothetical questions.

      In simple fact, despite their protests to the contrary, atheists have less reason for believing in God’s non-existence than theists have for believing that God exists. Both positions are a belief, either positive or negative.

BE-LIEF’, noun
A persuasion of the truth, or an assent of mind to the truth of a declaration, proposition, or alledged fact, on the ground of evidence, distinct from personal knowledge.

      So my question is, “What’s all the fuss about?” Religion isn’t the sole purview of belief. Making it so just demonstrates a failure in objectivity, an irrational position based on fear that one might, just possibly, be wrong.

A Prophesy For Us

Daily Manna for today is Jeremiah 17:5-8

Thus says the LORD,
“Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind
And makes flesh his strength,
And whose heart turns away from the LORD.
'For he will be like a bush in the desert
And will not see when prosperity comes,
But will live in stony wastes in the wilderness,
A land of salt without inhabitant.
'Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD
And whose trust is the LORD.
'For he will be like a tree planted by the water,
That extends its roots by a stream
And will not fear when the heat comes;
But its leaves will be green,
And it will not be anxious in a year of drought
Nor cease to yield fruit.”

      Though my flesh is certainly not my strength, I still tend to trust in mankind. I must guard my heart from turning away from the Self-Existent God.

      Not recognizing prosperity is a common characteristic, and the church evidences that when we fail to recognize who we are as co-heirs with Christ, the King of kings. A bush in the desert is stunted, and living in this world without the richness of Christ is like living in a stony waste, a land of salt without inhabitant.

      To Jeremiah, salt was money, as it was in demand for preserving meat without today’s refrigeration. A land of salt without inhabitant would indeed be a waste, as not even salt-gatherers would be there. Jeremiah is picturing a man barely holding onto life under a lean-to, perched atop what amounts to a field of gold without even realizing it.

      The man who trusts in YHWH and whose trust is YHWH holds two distinct aspects of trust: First, his trust, in the sense of his substance, is invested in YHWH. Thus, the investor anticipates receiving the dividends God has promised for such an investment, as listed in the balance of this passage. Second, his trust is YHWH, personally. So completely has he placed his trust in God that his trust has taken on the Eternal One’s very identity, inseparable from the man’s hopes, dreams and aspirations.

      What the prophet began with a curse turned into the promise of a glorious blessing for those of us who heed his warning. But that’s what prophets do.

Our Daily Bread: Well Prepared

Christ-followers already know how true today's Our Daily Bread is, but it never hurts to be reminded. If you've already read it, check out "My Take On It," below.

Well Prepared

September 4, 2012 — by Cindy Hess Kasper

Read: Ephesians 6:10-20

You also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. —Matthew 24:44

Bible in a Year:
Ezekiel 1-3

The idea of always being prepared makes me think of the man who lived next door to us when I was growing up. When Mr. Nienhuis came home, he never failed to back his car into the garage. That seemed unusual to me until my mother explained that Nels was a volunteer fireman. If he got a call, he had to be ready to race to the fire station. He backed in so he could leave quickly when he had to report for duty.

To be well prepared is important in so much of life. “If I had 8 hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend 6 sharpening my axe,” said Abraham Lincoln. We prepare for a career by studying. We buy insurance in case of a car accident or a house fire. We even prepare for the end of life by making a will to provide for loved ones.

The Bible tells us we must prepare ourselves spiritually as well. We do that by putting on spiritual armor to protect ourselves from spiritual attack (Ephesians 6:10-20); by preparing our minds for holy living (1 Peter 1:13); by making sure we’re always prepared to answer questions about the reason for the hope we possess (1 Peter 3:15); and by ensuring that we are ready for the promised return of Jesus (Matthew 24:44).

How well prepared are you for what lies ahead? Unsure? Ask the Lord for His help and guidance.

When I awake at early morn
To meet the coming day,
I want to be prepared to take
Whatever comes my way. —Simmons

Spiritual victory comes only to those who are prepared for battle.

My Take On It

      I confess through most of my life I've prepared for life's assaults, except for the spiritual kind. I've attended worship and Bible studies with a passivity that almost dared God to penetrate it with His conviction. Then I wondered why God wasn't advancing me toward Christ-likeness.

      What does preparation for spiritual battle look like? It looks like spending time in God's word, both reading it and waiting for Him to open it to you through meditation and careful study. It looks like positive soul-searching, where we quit making excuses, and allow our best Friend to reveal the chinks in our armor, and then proactively, through prayer and hard work, fix them.

      The Bible passages that Cindy Hess Kasper provided in her devotional above are a wonderful place to start. I've linked those four Bible passages to include the complete chapters referenced, to make studying the context easier. As you read and study, pray through God's word in gratitude and supplication. Then, expect a blessing.

On "Relationships"

I placed the word Relationships in quotation marks because the word is so loaded with implications. Fundamentally, a relationship is nothing more than the interaction between two things, be they living beings, parts of a structural system, or organs within an organism.

      Men and women, or even friends of the same sex, tend to form expectations regarding one another. One such expectation is a belief that one party belongs to the other. People, however, must not try to “possess” one another. Only God has the right to possess people, as He created us for that very purpose. So when we become possessive we usurp God’s authority by trying to own what can only belong to Him.

      That is equally true for our accruing material possessions. While we don't usually think of relationships with things, if they influence our lives, there is a relationship in play. Whether as substitutes for God and His ample provision, which is idolatry, or hoarding them as a rainy-day provision, which is miserly, excess accumulations here on earth seem to bely our hope for eternity.

      To follow Christ effectively, we must constantly examine the character of our relationships with people, and things.

Insight From Hymn 43

I couldn't see Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, as a church’s preacher; his stage persona is just too sinister for that. Yet, a number of his songs focus critically on the church.

     Hymn 43, though it overstates the church’s corruption, eloquently presents a tragic truth that, while easily observed from the outside, God can only remedy from the inside:

If Jesus saves, well, He'd better save Himself  

from the gory glory seekers who use His name in death.

     Though the first line feels offensive, it likely just states writer Anderson’s offense taken from his observations of Christendom’s shenanigans that deny God’s power by asserting their own hunger and thirst for influence. “If Jesus saves,” draws its reference from Mark 9:24, where the father of a demon possessed boy who kept throwing himself into the fire, humbly asked Jesus to heal his son. “He’d better save Himself,” refers to the mocking Jesus endured throughout his seeming eternity on the cross. In the sense that “Himself” refers to God’s church, Hebrews 6:4-6 reveals the often neglected truth regarding apostasy.
     The second line paints a truly sinister picture of a shocking parallel between nominal Christian religion and Satanic religion. “Gory glory seekers,” are those Sunday Christians whose smiles and glad-handing mock true piety, which word, by the way, once described godly character, but is now used in mocking God’s church.
     No doubt, all Christians would take exception to accusations that they, "use His name in death." I know I do. Yet, in the sense that Bible-thumping Christians routinely use Christianese in our usually vain attempts at sharing God's good news with outsiders, we must heed Anderson's harsh words, repent, and use His name in life! People listen to the stories of how accepting Jesus loving work on the cross changed our lives, and how loving Him in return affects our every thought, word and deed.
     In view of outsiders’ scathing observations such as this Jethro Tull song, are we unjustly accused? Yes, but not by as much as we’d love to believe about ourselves.

Bugged

First, I don’t like ‘em … bugs, that is. Or anyone or anything that causes me to feel bugged.

      Second, by and large, insecure feelings bug me. But people, places or things don’t actually cause me to feel insecure. Rather, my ignorance of, and uncertainty about key aspects of those people, places or things, produce that dreaded, bugged feeling.

      And third, feeling bugged gives me hives—YIKES!

The Good Ship Relation

      Groucho, on one of the original TV quiz shows, You Bet Your Life, used to announce, “Say the secret word and win a hundred dollars.” There’s a secret word today that may not pay a hundred dollars when uttered, but it gives lots of folks hives, and that bug-inflicting word is—wait for the drum-roll—Relationship.

      Why is that sensitizing word such a bugaboo? That’s hard to say—oops, are my pants on fire? Okay, it’s not hard to say: People get hurt through interpersonal relationship failures, and once burned, twice shy, to the degree that we almost universally use a euphemistic substitute: Friendship. So, truth be known, a friendship is a relationship, without all the negative connotations.

      Another issue with relationships raises the stakes against them even higher: That is, the implied element of control. Yes, many control-freaks roam the earth, seeking whom they may devour. And complicating that even further is what popular-psychology calls codependent behavior, or in this case, the need to control, and to be controlled. Think in terms of an artificial bond, akin to that of rare-earth magnets, which are almost impossible to separate without the necessary knowledge and tools.

      We card-carrying, popular-psychologists know a sure fire symptom of codependent relationships: When the controll-ee takes his or her emotional and physical lumps from the controll-er, and makes excuses for the abuser, refusing to end it, that is a codependent relationship. Remember the stuck-together rare-earth magnets? In the observer’s view(that’s me), it is a bad thing, ultimately unhealthy for all parties. I say “all” parties because the most vulnerable of all are the children, who know something stinks in Relationship Land, and without a full understanding, blame themselves.

      Of course, when the controll-ee takes a few lumps, but puts his-or-her foot down and defiantly declares, “Hit the road, Jack!” we’ve just observed an injured, but emotionally healthy, person’s response to a complete jerk, or jerkette, depending upon, (yada, yada, etcetera). By the magnetic analogy, this would be a rare-earth magnet stuck to a piece of stainless steel; It’s a strong bond, but without having another magnet's reversed polls to feed upon, it can be removed with relative ease.

Truth Zone

      While watching Bones, I noted Booth’s and Brennan’s use of a little investigative tool called, The Truth Zone, where they would agree to complete disclosure of all relevant information. Wow! Is that an idealistic, schmaltzy idea, or what?

      While that would be an awesome way of defusing that bugged feeling that I’ve temporarily lost track of due to my popular-psychological tirade, it’s largely wishful thinking. To establish such a space of honesty, we would first have to establish a space of trust.

      Trouble is, there’s no such thing as a unilateral truth, or trust, zone; I can think of no way to guarantee cooperation from all participants. Here is where the “F” word reigns supreme(that’s Fear, for those with a history in the mean world). Even with a referee’s involvement, we fear that all parties will not tell the truth, or even share their best-guess as to what that really is. Who wants to expose their vulnerability without such a guarantee?

      Don’t count me in! So, Bones guys, thanks for a great, but completely unrealistic, idea.

Bag’em and Tag’em?

      Ever more forensic procedurals oozing from my very pores. Now isn’t that a lovely image!

      What the Brennan and Booth characters do with forensic evidence, the real world does with personal observations … as in, interpersonal cues. Trouble is, that’s hardly an exact science. The evidence we gather is always contaminated with relational baggage, sometimes from early childhood. Certainly, such evidence would never make a case in a court of law, even though we amateur, relational forensic analysts typically assign to it rock-solid significance. And therein lies the bugaboo; by trying to protect ourselves with fear, without allowing ourselves the flexibility of listening to and trusting God’s still, small voice, we allow our world of relational hurt to hobble our emotional development. And that’s really bad thing.

      Everyone who gets bugged about sensitive people, place, and thing-issues will not necessarily sprout hives, but God will not condone the emotional handicap caused by fear and avoidance. That’s just not His style.

Hope’s Failure

Hope’s failure is its lingering death,
      more prolonged than that of old age.
Hope divine, thought to be eternal,
      rages toward its sudden, cold end,
While another, adorned with its death shroud,
      wheezes on, fatally immortal.

      While that might seem dark and morose, understanding its “Hope divine,” depends upon Romans 8:24. Divine hope ends when we close our eyes upon this world, and open them to our Savior’s loving countenance. Then, our living hope will have outlived its function, and die with a “sudden, cold end.”

Romans 8:24b ESV Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?

      “Fatally immortal” hope is the oxymoron it seems. As it is essentially temporal, fleshly, its death shroud conceals the hopeless morass of unrequited love, a pathetic existence centered upon the erstwhile emotion of some mythical, brief interpersonal connection. It seems immortal because it refuses to die, continuing with the regularity of a toothache.

My Scribbling's Fruit

Writing takes me all over the Internet, so blame thou me that I get distracted? (Oops! Classical overload?)

      Yesterday I discovered John Donne, whose name my "education" touched upon. Churchman? Poet? Social critic? Church-critic? Yes, but such measly characterizations hardly scratch the surface of his life's achievements. As I haven't yet plumbed his works deeply enough to judge his character (Catch my tongue-in-cheek presumption?), I'll not include "Christian" in his life's portfolio.
      Am I wrong, or did well-educated, fourteenth and fifteenth century people seem to make so much more of their lives than our contemporaries? Though then, as now, making their fortunes preoccupied much of their effort.
      While I'm certainly not a Renascence Man, I kinda like this one. His prose and verse, in a way similar to those of the Scriptures, beckon me to discover what lies under his deeply metaphorical, pen-scratchings.
      So, I'll gratify you by giving my "pen" a rest, and intrigue you with, The Flea.

THE FLEA. by John Donne MARK but this flea, and mark in this, How little that which thou deniest me is ; It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be. Thou know'st that this cannot be said A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;     Yet this enjoys before it woo,     And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;     And this, alas ! is more than we would do. O stay, three lives in one flea spare, Where we almost, yea, more than married are. This flea is you and I, and this Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is. Though parents grudge, and you, we're met, And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.     Though use make you apt to kill me,     Let not to that self-murder added be,     And sacrilege, three sins in killing three. Cruel and sudden, hast thou since Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence? Wherein could this flea guilty be, Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee? Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now. 'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ; Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me, Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

Good With ... What

'Cept, I ain't good with math

Our Mission, Should We Choose To Accept It

We the church must not directly attack the world’s sin,
but offer redemption to the world’s sinners.

Directly attacking the world’s sin is worse than futile,
as it inoculates sinners against the gospel.

Instead, the church must clean its own house,
so it can shine as Christ’s unsullied example of holiness,
offering His loving redemption to the world’s sinners.

      Need a mission? We can produce a glitzy show, and reap megabucks in donations, by condemning the world’s sins from the public media stage, and maybe even throwing in a few spectacular, apparent healings now and again.
      There’s a huge mission here: Tens of thousands of Couch-Potato-Christians get to feel good by serving as card-carrying Faith Partners, and in return for their monthly pledges, eagerly anticipate the postal carrier’s delivery of those great, token gifts. There is an organization for these generous brethren: Super Unselfish Christian Knights and Ever Responsible Saints, or, S.U.C.K.E.R.S.
      While these Christian Media Personalities claim to advance Family Values and line churches’ aisles with repentant sinners, their main talent lies in lining their own pockets with the proceeds from selling Charismatic indulgences. But, while those obvious charlatans create quite a stir, by far the greater damage comes from rank-and-file Evangelicals who, with the best of motives, wag their bony, judgmental fingers at the world’s sinners, condemning them to hellfire and damnation for the sins they really can’t help doing. Simple fact: Sinners sin. They always have, they always will. And even their most repugnant, disgusting sins won’t embed them any deeper in perdition than the church members, whose sin is judging sinners.
      Sinners need conviction, not condemnation, before they can respond to Christ’s loving, gospel of grace. And only One Person can deliver that conviction deep into their sin-sick hearts. That Person is God’s Holy Spirit, doing His work in His time.

Father, in Jesus’ Name, convict us, Your church, of our judging, all our other fleshly works of sin, so that Your Spirit of Holiness will shine through us like a beacon over the world’s craggy rocks, directing sinners to Your eternally safe harbor. That is Your will, Father, and our mission.