Some people are so terrified of roller coasters they don't even want to watch others ride them. Then, some are so brave and death-defying they release their grip on restraints locking them in and fling their arms skyward as the coaster crests the peak and accelerates through weightlessness down the steep track.
Actually, the brave are only acknowledging the truth that their death grip on the restraint wasn't going to hold them securely in the coaster through all the twists, turns, accelerations, and stomach heaving drops anyway. It's the shoulder harness and lap restraints holding them in. The strength of their grip on the restraint adds absolutely nothing - but a false sense of doing something and a diversion from enjoying the ride.
For years I was what I call a white-knuckled Christian holding fast to the hem of Christ's robe with all my strength. I wanted to be a faithful Christian, but, at the time, I thought it was by my will and my strength that I exercised faith over my mind's uncertainties. And it took a great deal of my attention and focus to hold fast.
I had a totally unscriptural (worldly) idea of faith as something your heart willed and forced on your mind to cover over doubts.
I knew there was a God - no question whatsoever about that - but it still seemed I had to hold on with all my strength. Then God brought Ravi Zacharias and his books into my life. I saw the Christian life of the mind and that there were reasons to believe what I believed. The faith I previously saw as an act of will became more an act of reasonable response to the evidence. My heart and mind were no longer schizophrenic but united into a whole being.
Just as God brought this into my life, it also dawned on me that it never was my strength holding God but His strength holding me fast - "and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand." Jn 10:28
Realizing and acting on the truth is a very brave thing to do whether it's letting go on the roller coaster or letting go of God and letting (trusting, faith) His strength hold you.
Showing posts with label relationship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label relationship. Show all posts
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Feed Me!
Our stomach growls and aches when it's hungry ... and we generally give it the attention it demands. But what about our soul?
Our soul doesn't growl, but it does ache for true spiritual food. True spiritual food - God's Word; the fellowship of praise between us and the Father facilitated by the Holy Spirit; the fellowship of suffering; corporate and private worship; that abba, daddy, relationship; the magnificent wonder of revelation - brings a wholeness and fulfillment found nowhere else this side of heaven.
Yet, paradoxically, for all the "high" of soul food, we are "prone to wander, prone to leave the God we love." Prone to let the empty allurements and enticements of the flesh draw us to the worldly for satisfaction by that which never can. Like a child testing its independence, we wander away from our Father until the soulish ache-pangs of depression, despair, and disillusionment cause us to cry out as Paul, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?" (Rom 7:24)
I must confess: I'm a professional wanderer (as I suspect many of us are). But how do we stop the unending replays of our role as prodigal son?
The solution to every problem starts with the first step of acknowledging the problem is us. God already knows. We need to come into agreement with God.
We ask God to help us where we are weak.
Then we intentionally set out to routinely feed our soul with what it craves.
"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." (Mat 4:4)
"And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, 'Take, eat; this is my body.'" (Mat 26:26)
"O taste and see that the LORD is good." (Psa 34:8)
Feed your soul.
Our soul doesn't growl, but it does ache for true spiritual food. True spiritual food - God's Word; the fellowship of praise between us and the Father facilitated by the Holy Spirit; the fellowship of suffering; corporate and private worship; that abba, daddy, relationship; the magnificent wonder of revelation - brings a wholeness and fulfillment found nowhere else this side of heaven.
Yet, paradoxically, for all the "high" of soul food, we are "prone to wander, prone to leave the God we love." Prone to let the empty allurements and enticements of the flesh draw us to the worldly for satisfaction by that which never can. Like a child testing its independence, we wander away from our Father until the soulish ache-pangs of depression, despair, and disillusionment cause us to cry out as Paul, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?" (Rom 7:24)
I must confess: I'm a professional wanderer (as I suspect many of us are). But how do we stop the unending replays of our role as prodigal son?
The solution to every problem starts with the first step of acknowledging the problem is us. God already knows. We need to come into agreement with God.
We ask God to help us where we are weak.
Then we intentionally set out to routinely feed our soul with what it craves.
"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." (Mat 4:4)
"And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, 'Take, eat; this is my body.'" (Mat 26:26)
"O taste and see that the LORD is good." (Psa 34:8)
Feed your soul.
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Future Topics
Here are some of the topics coming in the future. Of necessity this will be brief, and I know that may leave room for misunderstanding. Consider that if what I say makes you angry - you may want to just wait till later when I develop the topic. Then, you can unload with both barrels! Still, I welcome feedback on these topics. Your feedback will influence which one I write on next. There is no significance to the order of things in this list - they are just products of a disorderly brain.
My testimony. I wasn't born a Christian even if I was born in America and had Christian parents and grandparents. Thank God there is a God because only He could have gotten through my thick skull at the age of 22. Mine is one of those brick wall experiences.
Treating symptoms, not the disease. Every now and then some social problem rises up and gets Christians motivated to action. After the beast is slain, we go back to our comfortable pews content in what we have accomplished for the kingdom. In fact, we have done little or nothing for the kingdom at all. We just put a little ointment on the rash and totally ignored the underlying disease. The rash is guaranteed to come back.
Loss of Virtue. Harold's definition of virtue: man's reflection of God's holiness. Today's culture hates virtue. Culture should be a virtue pump -- particularly in our schools. Attempting to build virtue on any other foundation than God is building on shifting sands. The culture is the soil we scatter our seeds into. "But the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance." Luke 8:15.
Second things First. In Matthew 22:37-39, Jesus summarizes all the law and the prophets: "And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ "
Have you ever noticed how many people run right to the second commandment paying only lip service, if any attention at all, to the first? It's like trying to stretch a single into a double in baseball by running from home plate straight across the pitchers mound to second base. It doesn't work that way. We don't know how to love #2 until we know love #1.
Universal Truth exists and is knowable. Many will debate that there is only relative truth - true for you but not for me. If it's only true for you then why should I care one whit for it? Others deny any truth exists or that truth is knowable. My question for them - "Is that true?" They keep trying to show it's true there's no truth.
People live what they really believe, and they live as if truth exits. Do you care whether your doctor is lying or telling the truth? How about your accountant or banker?
Relationship, not religion. I'm not into religion. Religion is man trying to get to God. The God I know gave a lot to re-establish a lost relationship. He actually takes joy in His creation.
Not about Winning. It's about obedience and love. Many people are frustrated with the decline in our culture. They'll say something like, "But what can one person do?" People don't have the right motivation about engaging the culture. How could David think he could defeat Goliath? 1 Samuel 17:47 says, "... for the battle is the Lord's ..." Each can do what one person can do and count on God to do what God can do. That's part of the message of Jesus' feeding of the multitudes.
A Reasonable Faith. Everyone has faith. Faith is common. It takes faith to fly on an airliner - faith that a big hunk of metal will really fly and faith in the crew that they know how to safely fly the airplane. There is no absolute guarantee against crashing, but you weigh the odds and find that faith in flying is resonable. The best synonym for the Biblical idea of faith is trust. Some people put their trust in unreasonable things. Some peole have blind faith - often in spite of the evidence. True Bilical faith is a faith butressed with reason. It cannot be completely reasoned to, but sufficient evidence exists to point you in the right direction and carry you a long way. "Come let us reason together." Jesus explained things to his disciples.
OK. Enough for one reading. More topics to follow.
My testimony. I wasn't born a Christian even if I was born in America and had Christian parents and grandparents. Thank God there is a God because only He could have gotten through my thick skull at the age of 22. Mine is one of those brick wall experiences.
Treating symptoms, not the disease. Every now and then some social problem rises up and gets Christians motivated to action. After the beast is slain, we go back to our comfortable pews content in what we have accomplished for the kingdom. In fact, we have done little or nothing for the kingdom at all. We just put a little ointment on the rash and totally ignored the underlying disease. The rash is guaranteed to come back.
Loss of Virtue. Harold's definition of virtue: man's reflection of God's holiness. Today's culture hates virtue. Culture should be a virtue pump -- particularly in our schools. Attempting to build virtue on any other foundation than God is building on shifting sands. The culture is the soil we scatter our seeds into. "But the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance." Luke 8:15.
Second things First. In Matthew 22:37-39, Jesus summarizes all the law and the prophets: "And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ "
Have you ever noticed how many people run right to the second commandment paying only lip service, if any attention at all, to the first? It's like trying to stretch a single into a double in baseball by running from home plate straight across the pitchers mound to second base. It doesn't work that way. We don't know how to love #2 until we know love #1.
Universal Truth exists and is knowable. Many will debate that there is only relative truth - true for you but not for me. If it's only true for you then why should I care one whit for it? Others deny any truth exists or that truth is knowable. My question for them - "Is that true?" They keep trying to show it's true there's no truth.
People live what they really believe, and they live as if truth exits. Do you care whether your doctor is lying or telling the truth? How about your accountant or banker?
Relationship, not religion. I'm not into religion. Religion is man trying to get to God. The God I know gave a lot to re-establish a lost relationship. He actually takes joy in His creation.
Not about Winning. It's about obedience and love. Many people are frustrated with the decline in our culture. They'll say something like, "But what can one person do?" People don't have the right motivation about engaging the culture. How could David think he could defeat Goliath? 1 Samuel 17:47 says, "... for the battle is the Lord's ..." Each can do what one person can do and count on God to do what God can do. That's part of the message of Jesus' feeding of the multitudes.
A Reasonable Faith. Everyone has faith. Faith is common. It takes faith to fly on an airliner - faith that a big hunk of metal will really fly and faith in the crew that they know how to safely fly the airplane. There is no absolute guarantee against crashing, but you weigh the odds and find that faith in flying is resonable. The best synonym for the Biblical idea of faith is trust. Some people put their trust in unreasonable things. Some peole have blind faith - often in spite of the evidence. True Bilical faith is a faith butressed with reason. It cannot be completely reasoned to, but sufficient evidence exists to point you in the right direction and carry you a long way. "Come let us reason together." Jesus explained things to his disciples.
OK. Enough for one reading. More topics to follow.
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