Cremation and Hope

"Cremation, almost unknown in the Western world a hundred years ago, is now the preference, actual or assumed, of the great majority.  It both reflects and causes subtle but far-reaching shifts in attitudes to death and to whatever hope lies beyond." - N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope, p4.

We have lost our hope in the resurrection of the body, of the resurrection of creation, and of the collapse of the gulf between heaven and earth.  And this affects how we live in the here and now.

Ash Wednesday, 2015

I am not a partaker of Lent.  Wilson sums up how I feel about Lent well - here

But, if I were to make a case for Lent, I would stand strongly with Sumpter - here

I love the church.  I am grateful for these pastors and for the CREC.  And I am thankful for the ongoing work of reformation.  More of it!!

Death and Resurrection....and my death

Wilson writes, "...without the new birth you cannot have the church...The new birth has a predicate, and that predicate is death - death to sin, death to self, death to striving ambition, and death to lordly pride." - AC, p78.

One rabbit trail meditation I have had on these ideas is the difficulty of shepherding those who are dying, literally dying, and their loved ones as they watch these brothers and sisters die.  We all deal with the "why does this have to happen" as the body withers away often with much pain, always with much grief.

Jesus said that if we wanted to follow Him we had to take up our crosses, we had to die daily, we had to mortify the flesh, and follow Him.  And so, as disciples, we seek to do so each day.  But so much of what we do each day is practicing for the real game; the day we actually die.  In that day, no matter how well we have fought the flesh, our pride, the devil, the world, we will find that we will really, really win the battle.  But in order to win that battle, we will have to die.  

And in that victorious death we will find ourselves following Christ, our bodies to the grave for now waiting to follow Him in the resurrection, and our spirits up and into His presence.  It will be for us a day of victory and of rest.

Paul:  "for me to live is Christ; and to die is gain."

Diane - RIP

An update from a friend on the passing of his wife - I post it without full names.  The point is to witness the glorious faith of both wife and husband.  They both have taught me so much even as I witnessed her suffering and passing from afar.

"Last night at 12:01am Diane followed Aslan home.  An hour earlier we concluded another day of singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs and remembering how she faithfully completed the good works God had ordained for her to do.  Our children and grandchildren have been in and out continually, many sleeping at Hope’s home.

Minutes earlier she was coughing and I reminded her again that though we wanted her to remain with us, we released her from her labors to enjoy life’s next chapter in the presence of her Lord and King.  Shortly after, I went to administer her nightly dose of pain meds and realized her spirit had departed.

Since our last update she’d not eaten or consumed fluids. Our job was to keep her clean and comfortable.  I had to accept the willing help of Jessica and Shana for this task.  Until then, Diane, a private person, only wanted me to serve her in that fashion along with the nurses.  In a prior post I referred to the cancer as “grotesque.”  They thought it an odd description, but now would say it was an understatement. 

I’m not trying to be “crude”, but understanding what Diane fought with such grace and peace raised an already high estimation of mom to a new level.  During the past six months, she only thought of others.  She knew the cancer was inoperable and systematically wrote exhortations to each grandchild, planned her memorial, distributed gifts and even came to our Passover Feast and Easter Sabbath Service.  She did it all without a complaint, hint of self pity or reservation.

God’s grace has shone through her radiant face, kind words and thoughtful deeds.  Each of us are in awe and pray that our Father would allow us to honor her but bearing our crosses with the same humble faith that she exhibited. 

God continues to amaze us with blessings, too numerous to list, from people who Diane has touched directly and indirectly throughout the years.  This “update” is primarily an announcement of her home going.  I will try to recap the past six months in future posts as time allows."

Gospel Indicative and Then Gospel Imperative

"Indeed, the theology of the New Testament can be summarized by the following sequence:
1.  Indicative - "Christ died for our sins" (1 Cor 15:3)
2.  Imperative - "Repent, and believe in the gospel" (Mark 1:15)
3.  Indicative - "we...died to sin" (Rom 6:2)
4.  Imperative - "Reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin" (Rom 6:11)
...The indicatives and the imperatives of the gospel do indeed lie in each other; they are interwoven and intertwined" - Carrick, IP, p23.

I would only add that the movement from indicative to imperative is only accomplished by grace through faith.  We are not responding to the good news except God is at work in us to will and to do according to His good pleasure (Phil 2:12b-13).

Calvin on Faith and Confidence

Faith produces confidence, which again, in its turn, produces boldness. There are three stages in our progress. First, we believe the promises of God; next, by relying on them, we obtain that confidence, which is accompanied by holiness and peace of mind; and, last of all, comes boldness, which enables us to banish fear, and to come with firmness and steadiness into the presence of God.
To separate faith from confidence would be an attempt to take away heat and light from the sun. I acknowledge, indeed, that, in proportion to the measure of faith, confidence is small in some and greater in others; but faith will never be found unaccompanied by these effects or fruits. A trembling, hesitating, doubting conscience, will always be a sure evidence of unbelief; but a firm, steady faith, will prove to be invincible against the gates of hell. To trust in Christ as Mediator, and to entertain a firm conviction of our heavenly Father’s love, — to venture boldly to promise to ourselves eternal life, and not to tremble at death or hell, — is, to use a common phrase, a holy presumption. (Commentary on Ephesians 3:12) 

They Have Little Because They Ask Little

"Might it not rather be feared that many believers in this generation pray too little?  Is it not the actual amount of time that many Christians give to prayer, in the aggregate, very small?  I am afraid these questions cannot be answered satisfactorily.  I am afraid the private devotions of many are most painfully scanty and limited; just enough to prove they are alive and no more.  They really seem to want little from God.  They seem to have little to confess, little to ask for, and little to thank him for.  Alas, this is altogether wrong.  Nothing is more common than to hear believers complaining that they do not get on.  They tell us that they do not grow in grace as they could desire.  Is it not rather to be suspected that many have quite as much grace as they ask for?  Is it not the true account of many, that they have little, because they ask little?" - Ryle, A Call to Prayer

Diligent Private Prayer

"And I assert confidently that the principal means by which most believers have become great in the church of Christ is the habit of diligent private prayer." - Ryle, A Call to Prayer

Food Weirdness

Hebrews 13:9 (NKJV)

⁹ Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines. For it is good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods which have not profited those who have been occupied with them.

Sometimes you just run across verses you think you've never read before.  In my NT readings this morning I ran across this verse and thought about all the weird diet fads that people are into these days.  Nothing wrong with a diet or eating "right" (whatever that means).  But here is the answer for what makes the heart healthy:  Grace.  Foods do not profit those who have been occupied with them.

Occupied, in the Greek, is parapateo, and means "to regulate one's life" or "to conduct oneself."  That's it.  Don't regulate your life or conduct yourself with foods.  Regulate your life and conduct yourself, busy yourself, with grace.

One of the Reasons We are Busy is that We are Supposed to Be

DeYoung finishes his little book with some wonderful balance about busyness - 

"The reason we are busy is because we are supposed to be busy...One of the reasons we struggle so mightily with busyness is because we do not expect to struggle...We simply don't think of our busyness as even a possible part of our cross to bear.  But what if mothering small children isn't supposed to be easy?  What if pastoring a congregation is supposed to be challenging?  What if being a friend, or just being a Christian, is supposed to mean a lot of time-consuming, burden-bearing, gloriously busy, and wildly inefficient work?..." - Crazy Busy, DeYoung, pp101, 103.

Sleep Deprived

"We regale each other with stories of great saints who got up at four or five o'clock in the morning to pray, forgetting that in the days before electricity most people went to bed soon after dark and woke up earlier in the morning.  Most of our heroes from bygone ages probably slept much more than we do.  Very few of us can survive, let alone thrive, on four or five hours a night.
By all accounts, we are sleeping less than ever before.  The average American gets two and a half fewer hours of sleep per night than a century ago.  According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 40 million Americans get fewer than six hours of sleep per night." - Crazy Busy, DeYoung, p95

A Strange Desire to Be Busy

"Peter Kreeft is right:  "We want to complexify our lives.  We don't have to, we want to.  We want to be harried and hassled and busy.  Unconsciously, we want the very things we complain about.  For if we had leisure, we would look at ourselves and listen to our hearts, and see the great gaping hole in our hearts and be terrified, because that hole is so big that nothing but God can fill it."" - quoted in Crazy Busy, DeYoung, p83

Your Kids When You Are Stressed

"...One key question asked the kids what one thing they would change about the way their parents' work was affecting them. The results were striking.  The kids rarely wished for more time with their parents, but, much to the parents' surprise, they wished their parents were less tired and less stressed...The biggest weakness, according to the kids, was anger management." - DeYoung, Crazy Busy, p70.

Parental Anxiety

"We live in a strange new world.  Kids are safer than ever before, but parental anxiety is skyrocketing...
Parenting has become more complicated than it needs to be.  It used to be, as far as I can tell, that Christian parents basically tried to feed their kids, clothe them, teach them about Jesus, and keep them away from explosives.  Now our kids have to sleep on their back (no, wait, their tummies; no, never mind, their backs), while listening to Baby Mozart and surrounded by scenes of Starry, Starry Night.  They have to be in piano lessons before they are five and can't leave the car seat until they're about five foot six." - DeYoung, Crazy Busy, pp65, 67

Staying on Mission

"If Jesus had to be deliberate with his priorities, so will we.  We will have to work hard to rest.  We will have to be dedicated to being disciplined.  We will have to make it our mission to stay on mission" - Crazy Busy, DeYoung, p57.

He then goes on - "The person who never sets priorities is the person who does not believe in his own finitude...Time may be our scarcest and most precious resource.  And we will begin to use it well only when we realize we do not have an infinite supply to use."

Jesus Was a Busy Man

"Many of us are so familiar with the Gospels that we fail to see the obvious:  Jesus was a very busy man" - Crazy Busy, DeYoung, p54.

I AM Will Be With You

"But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?"  He said, "But I will be with you."  (Ex. 3:11-12a)

Moses asks God who Moses is, before he asks God in verse 13 who God is.  God's answer to the first question is similar to his answer to the second.  The second answer...is..."I AM WHO I AM."  The first answer is..."I will be with you," or "I am with you."  We might think that "I will be with you" does not really answer Moses' question, "Who am I?"  Moses asks about himself, Moses; God replies by speaking of himself, God.  But of course, God more than answers Moses' question.  Who is Moses?  He is the man with whom God is.  God has covenanted to stand with Moses in his confrontation with Pharaoh.  So Moses is Yahweh's man; that's who he is." - Frame, ST, pp29-30

There Are More Needs than You Can Handle

"I think most Christians hear these urgent calls to do more (or feel them internally already) and learn to live with a low-level guilt that comes from not doing enough.  We know we can always pray more and give more and evangelize more, so we get used to living in a state of mild disappointment with ourselves...We have to be okay with other Christians doing certain good things better and more often than we do." - Crazy Busy, DeYoung, p47.

Part of this guilt comes from an over-individualistic spirit and lack of a commitment to the local church body.  We are members of a body incarnate that has multiple gifts and talents, time and opportunities.  The answer to what needs to be done is not an answer for the individual only, but for the church corporately and also for her members.

Hospital-ity and Busyness

"Good hospital-ity is making your home a hospital.  The idea is that friends and family and the wounded and weary people come to your home and leave helped and refreshed.  And yet, too often hospitality is a nerve-wracking experience for hosts and guests alike" - Crazy Busy, DeYoung, p41.

Sins that Accompany Busyness

Three more pithy statements from Crazy Busy, by Kevin DeYoung, Chapter 3 -

"...our understanding of busyness must start with the one sin that begets so many of our other sins:  pride" - p34.

"So much of our busyness comes down to meeting people's expectations" - p35.

"People often call it low self-esteem, but people-pleasing is actually a form of pride and narcissism" - p35.