Tag Archives: Love

All Things Work Together for Good

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Romans 8:28 “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

A long time ago, the importance of this concept was impressed on me in a way that I still have trouble describing.

Imagine that you have done the most terrible things you can imagine. Maybe you killed everyone you love in a fit of rage. Maybe you systematically destroyed your life and your relationships, one by one, as slowly and painfully as one can imagine.

The Almighty God will not just “fix” what you’ve done. He won’t make it as if it never happened. Humanity will never go back to a state of innocence, as we were in Eden.

God does not provide a magical “undo” button. What He offers is so much better than that…

Before I carry through to what He does offer, let me make the point that what God considers good is almost entirely outside of our experience. We now live in a fallen world, where sin and death are intrinsic to everything we experience. The taint of this world is inescapable.

What we see as “good” may just be mediocre or acceptable or unremarkable. What God sees as good is thoroughly, unreservedly good. Good in a way that we will never be able to experience in this world except through Christ.

What God provides is SO good that it has no downside, no regrets attached, no hint of evil.

God is in the business of perfecting us, not repairing us.

Those things in our lives that are evil or wrong–the things about ourselves that we know are offensive to a holy God–aren’t just going to be taken away from us or reversed. Instead, God has promised to work them into something Good.

That means He will take the things that are wrong and evil that we do or have done to us and turn them into something more beautiful and better than what could have been without them. No matter how ugly it may be, He has promised to use it to make something that He sees as good.

I cannot imagine a more substantive or meaningful reason for hope than that.

Offend Me

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Matthew 10:34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

Too often in our society, offending someone is looked at as being comparable to doing them actual violence. People are willing to go out of their way (and even lie to themselves or others) to avoid offending.

Specifically, offending someone means confronting them with a situation or action they are not comfortable with that violates boundaries they have set up. In its proper place, being offended is a proper way of responding to an injury. Sadly, for a great many people, crossing those boundaries is doing them a favor, not an injury.

To be clear: I am not saying that offending people is good.

I’m saying that whether or not someone is offended has no positive or negative value of its own. It is not evil or wrong to offend someone. Nor is it good or right to offend someone.

Offense must be judged by the boundaries it breaks, not the fact of its occurrence.

Romans 9:33 ‘…as it is written, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”’

A great part of the purpose for which Christ was sent to us was to offend those who are disobedient to the word. Can we believe, even for a moment, that we will be any less offensive to those who do wrong than He was?

If we show forth Christ’s light to the world, we must expect some to be attracted and others to be offended, just as they were by Him.

The key is that what you do be done from a right heart, rather than a self-righteous one.

Do right. Let the chips fall where they may.

We are called to be salt and light. Both are required.

Modern Apocrypha

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Christian [kris-chuh n] noun
A person who believes in the teachings of Jesus Christ

We live in a lukewarm society. Taking an extreme view on life, the world or nearly anything is frowned upon in “western” society.

How do I measure this? Simple:

Is there anything that YOU would be willing to die for? …NOT hypothetically. Right now, this minute, if you were demanded to live or die to save SOMETHING or SOMEONE, could you? (No evasions. Be honest with yourself.)
I imagine most people give an answer here that involves some sort of selflessness. There is usually SOMEONE that we would be willing to die for, especially if we have a family.

The real question is this:

What would YOU be willing to live EVERY moment of EVERY day of the rest of your LIFE in service to and support of?

Are you being honest with yourself?

More than 90 percent of our society just opted out entirely. Somewhere around 90 percent of supposed CHRISTIANS either lied to themselves or admitted that they aren’t Christians.

I don’t blame them. That is a really radical commitment.

Christian [kris-chuh n] noun
A person who strives to give everything he has and everything he is on a continuing basis in the service of Christ to the glory of God.

What does it mean, really?

First, it means giving up everything that you own.
Next, you must give up everything you believe in.
Finally, surrender everything you value about yourself.
Do this in service of a person who you have never seen or touched.

In the minds of nearly all of society, you must truly be a lunatic, to do such a thing.

I certainly am.

Modern Apocrypha

From Wikipedia: All King James Bibles published before 1666 included the Apocrypha, though separately to denote them as not equal to Scripture proper, as noted by Jerome in the Vulgate, to which he gave the name, “The Apocrypha.”

Our society has forgotten what it means to follow the Christ. Individual Christians flounder along through the morass of modern churchianity. The bright lights of truth seekers are barely visible in the dim twilight of a post-Judeo-Christan society.

The darkness is coming.

All I can hope is to share with you the light that I have seen.

This is Modern Apocrypha.