The Age To Come

A Friday thought for you:

“You must not lose confidence in God because you lost confidence in your pastor. If our confidence in God had to depend on our confidence in any human person, we would be on shifting sand” – Francis Shaeffer

This is what the LORD says:
“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who depends on flesh for his strength
and whose heart turns away from the LORD.” – Jeremiah 17:5

It’s worth reflecting in whom or what our confidence ultimately lies. Like the Bible says – where your treasure is, there will be your heart also.

May our hearts be found in the one and only true place of safety.

Just a little thought to add to the last post. We all pray “give us this day our daily bread” as part of the Lords prayer. I’ve prayed this many times and accepted it ‘as-is’.

However, Proverbs 30:7-9 can help us expand on this a little and perhaps understand just exactly what it was Jesus was trying to impart to us by those words:

7 “Two things I ask of you, O LORD;
do not refuse me before I die:

9 Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, ‘Who is the LORD ?’
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God.

So, you are, by praying “give me this day my daily bread”, actually praying “give me just what I need today Lord, neither too much nor too little”. Think on the manna from heaven – there was only enough for the day. All the needs were provided, just for the day. In that way trust from man to his Creator was built, and the human desire to hoard out of fear was abrogated.

In the best spirit of plagarism, I wanted to muse a little on something Susan posted recently.

It semes to me that forgiveness is key in a Christians life. Indeed, God Himself says to ‘forgive, and you will be forgiven’ (Luke 6 v37b). Why this big thing on forgiveness? Well, Susan says it very well. The fact of the matter is that failing to forgive kills you. Kills you with anger, bitterness, joylessness, anger and hate.

We’ve all felt anger and injustice – such is natural and good. It shows we are alive, that we are not an island, that we can be hurt by others. Be angry! But – don’t let the sun go down on your anger. For when we gnaw on our anger in the dark, it turns to bitterness and hate. It is possible we can make our targets’ life a misery as a result. The truth is though, we make our own life ten times worse. The end result of unforgiveness – well, it can be seen in the world around us.

Forgiveness is indeed a hard thing for us to do, bound as we often are to the strictures of justice; gracious forgiveness seems scandalously alien.

I think this is what Jesus was saying when he said “those who have been forgiven much, love much; those who have been forgiven little, love little”. I confess I puzzled over that one for a while until I understood that it is not until we understand in our heart just how much we have been forgiven that we have the power to love scandalously, and forgive scandalously.

One could in fact say that forgiveness is the only sane option in an insane world. Look on it as enlightened self-preservation if you like!

Of course, it is easier to say than do, and for certain forgiving is an iterative process, like peeling the skin of an onion. We may have to revisit again and again, as part hurts we thought were dealt with, resurface. Indeed, it is a trap to think “I have forgiven, right that’s it, dealt with, put behind me”, because it gives the accuser fertile territory to accuse you of being a hypocrite and a failure when you find it is not quite as ‘dealt with’ as you first thought.

It’s probably best to understand that forgiveness is sometimes a process, or perhaps better as an attitude, rather than something that can always be done once and dealt with. It’s also best to understand it as a hard, narrow way. It’s difficult to relinquish the claim for justice in forgiveness. It is costly.

It is also the Way of the Cross.

Have a gander at this.

You know the country is going crazy when we attempt to legislate based on subjective emotion. Perhaps I feel this decision is inappropriate and hurtful? Does that mean I get to sue the BC Human Rights Tribunal? Consistency would say that I could.

Of course, I know how far that would get, because my feelings are not the ‘right’ feelings, nor am I part of a protected group.

It seems that when you lose any objective standard of truth, this is the sort of thing that results. We share something in this with fascism and communism; the subordination of objective truth to subjective feeling, truth being ‘whatever the party says it is’.

Sow to the wind, reap the whirlwind.