Opus 2024-303: Israel’s Place

I struggle with the idea that Israel is some special group chosen by God.  I can’t deny that the Bible seems to say that.  They are special.  I think we tend to misinterpret and misunderstand that specialness.  I look at verses like this,

Romans 11:26 (KJV) And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:

And all I can do is scratch my head and ask, “What?”  My first reaction is a disconnect between centuries of rebellion and rejection of God that I see going on in the Jews and the fact that all will be saved.  I think the key is in the second part of that verse and a better and modern translation of that.

Romans 11:26 (NASB95) and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, “THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB.”

Notice the difference.  What does it mean remove ungodliness from Jacob?  I think there are clues like one of the places and I came across one in my reading recently.

Isaiah 1:9 (KJV) Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.

The context at the beginning of Isaiah has God dealing with disobedient people by bringing in other nations to destroy them.  In the middle of the destruction, there is the promise that there will be some left over.  Here it uses that word remnant.  What is hard for us to understand in our gentle, modern attitudes is the destruction that God is willing to wield when it comes to the disobedient.

It is a hard teaching, yet it is consistent through scripture.  Yes, God will bring Israel back as a nation.  But before He brings them back, He will purge them.  That means that the only ones being brought back will be those who have responded to the leadership of the Holy Spirit, and embraced the Messiah and the God of Israel.  I make that a double yardstick because Jesus is necessary and most Jews today have no idea who Yahweh is.  

It goes against my turn-the-other-cheek mentality, but God will not be mocked and His holiness will not be polluted.  Israel will be restored but it will be a much reduced Israel.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-302: Magnets for Persecution

As I contemplate what the Bible says about persecution, I keep wondering how that works together with the hand Providence for testing us and the promises of God about being protected.  It’s another one of those conflicting ideas that need to be worked out.  We delve into them by reading scripture, by thinking and by listening to the Holy Spirit.

One of the people in the Bible talks about persecution as the apostle Paul.

2 Corinthians 11:25 (KJV) Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;

If you follow his narrative in the book of Acts, you find these some of these events disclosed, others we don’t know where they fit in.  The point is Paul went through serious persecution.

Then I think of one of the other great figures in Bible history, Moses.  Moses went through a lot of things that we would considered difficult, but there is no evidence that I can think of where he was outright persecuted.  He lived in the desert for much of his life.  That was just a normal way of life in those days.  He was denied the promised land.  But nowhere can I think of any out and out persecution.

Why the difference?  Is it significant?  In fact, I have a hard time coming up with any other Bible personality, other than possibly the prophets who went through any persecution for spiritual reasons.

The thought occurred to me that Paul was persecuted because he went looking for it.  Think about it.  Paul was definitely a Type A personality.  Before he was converted, he was out hunting down Christians.  He went to the Sanhedrin to get permission to jail them. Then if you follow his life as he went out as a missionary, he was very very aggressive and confrontational.

Paul could not even get along with Barnabas, who is known as the Son of Reconciliation.  They had a falling out over John Mark whom Paul also didn’t get along with.  We don’t see these kind of complex in Barnabas, who also went as a missionary.  Timothy, who served as a pastor seem to have been free from persecution.

Moses on the other hand did everything he could to keep from becoming the leader of Israel.  He suggested Aaron.  He came up with all kinds of excuses.  He was generally not a Type A personality, and was only serving in leadership, because God forced the issue.

Both men were used of God.

This is not intended as a final statement about persecution, just an observation.  There are other words such as affliction and tribulation which speak to us also.  It is an indication though that being sent off to the gulag may not be a done deal.  The really good news is that even if we are sent up the river, He will be with us.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-301: Hear Ye. Hear Ye.

One of the characteristics of getting older is that your hearing has a tendency to go downhill.  It may not be in everyone, but I have a suspicion that it is.  We compensate.  We live with it.  For most of us it is not the end of the world, just a minor difficulty.

My wife is convinced that I am losing my hearing and that I need to be tested with the idea that I get hearing aids.  I know that I don’t hear as well as I used to.  That has been a process going on for years.  I know that my left ear is worse than my right ear.  I also know that hearing aids generally don’t work very well in noisy environments, such as modern restaurants and TV lounges.  My question would be what is the point of having my hearing tested when I am not interested in getting a hearing aid?

An example of the tension took place this weekend.  We were meeting another couple for lunch at a noisy restaurant.  As we waited, my wife said something, and I heard everything very well, except for the last word.  She was sitting on the side of my bad ear, so I accepted the fact that I had missed it.  No problem for me at least.  I asked her to repeat it.  She did.  But I noticed that both times her voice declined in volume as the as the sentence proceeded, so that by the time she got to the end, she was speaking in the voice that you used when you don’t want the NSA to overhear your conversation.  I asked her about that specific word, and she went ballistic about my hearing and how I needed to have my hearing tested.  OK.  I dropped the question assuming that I really didn’t need to know what the word was since she didn’t want to say it clearly.

We were there for an hour and a half, having pleasant conversation across the table and surrounded by the same noisy restaurant.  I did not have any more trouble the entire meal hearing or understanding what was said.  Which brings up a question in my mind.  Do I need a hearing aid?  Or does she need speech therapy?  I am willing to accept the jury is out.  I know that I don’t hear as well as I should.  But I also know that like most people I have a hard time hearing someone two rooms away, around several corners, while the water is running and the microwave is working right next to me.

I have no intention of having my hearing checked, until I have a very difficult time understanding someone speaking clearly directly in front of me in a conversation where we are both not worried about the NSA listening.

Hubris?  Arrogance?  Insensitivity?  No, just reality.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-300: Setting the Example

We have a verse in the Bible that points that Jesus went through all the experiences that we might go through.

(Heb 2:18 KJV)  For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.

I know it doesn’t specifically say that, but the inference is there.

One of the reasons why the incarnation is so important is that we know Jesus went through life as a human being and that He knows what it is to be a human being.

This morning I had another insight.  I’m not sure it’s world shaking, but I enjoyed it.  I thought, as I was sitting out in the dark communing with the Lord, about how He tended to look for ways to get away also.  We know there are the verses that talk about Him going away by Himself to pray.  I think He might’ve looked at those verses in Proverbs that talked about it being better to live on the roof than with a cranky woman.  I don’t know that He had a cranky woman in His life, but he certainly had some obtuse disciples and crowds pushing in on Him all the time.

I think Jesus looked for chances to get away where He could just sit in the quiet and listen for the voice of His father.  He could have done it on a mountaintop.  He could have done it on the house top.  Perhaps there was a front porch that He had that He enjoyed like I have.  He might have done it on the boat if you could get the disciples to be quiet.  Somehow, somewhere, I think He found ways to be alone with the Father.

I am encouraged by that common experience that we have.  What a joy to have Savior who walked the Earth.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-299: Rabbinical Latin

Sunday the sermon was from Nehemiah 8.  In the chapter it had reference to the Levites and a group of specifically named individuals, who help the people understand the law that was being read to them.  It does not explain that clearly in the text, you could pass over it easily.  What is going on is they are reading the law in Hebrew and the multitude no longer understood Hebrew.  So they had people translating for them to explain what it meant.

Hebrew at this point, and also at the time of Jesus, had a similar position to Latin in the Middle Ages.  It was the language of scholars.  It was the language of law.  It was what the educated communicated with.  The common people did not generally understand it.  Up until the 20th century the Catholic Church held services mainly in Latin.  Part of your training as a new Catholic was to learn what those Latin chants meant.

In the days of Nehemiah, and also in the days of Jesus, there was no physical translation of the word of God into the every day language of the people.  It remained available in the language of the scholars, but they kept it that way.  When they would read from the Hebrew, they would have a translator there to say, “This is what it means”.  This made it very easy to censor what people knew about what God was saying.

They had interpretations, which I believe were called the Targums.  Originally these were not written down.  A traveling Rabbi would bring an interpreter with him.  Why not write them down?  I go back to my suspicion of the desire for power in the leadership.  You keep people ignorant, and you keep them in your control.  You can always tell them, “Because God said so”.  That is easy when they can’t read what God actually said.

I find myself wondering if this isn’t also part of the strategy of the modern translations.  The goal is to confuse not communicate.  Instead of a word for word translation they offer what they call “dynamic equivalence” or some other catchy phrase.  What it comes down to is a paraphrase.  I think you can call some of these translations with the philosophy of dynamic equivalence as a type of Targum.

I wonder and speculate if people who push the King James only version are in the same camp.  I’m sure that some feel that it is a good translation.  I would agree with him.  And 1611 it was an outstanding version.  It met the need to communicate God’s word accurately.  I don’t feel that’s true today.  I’m fairly well educated and I have a hard time understanding the KJV, not because the ideas are difficult, but because the language is archaic.  I sometimes wonder if the people who endorse and push the KJV aren’t a bit happy with the fact that people don’t understand it.  That puts them in a position to explain it.  That puts them in the driver seat.

I am willing to submit that this is done unconsciously.  Our pastor is a good man and wants to communicate truth.  He has great confidence in the King James.  I’m pretty sure that’s because he was raised with it.  When I was following along in my NASB I missed a lot of the little things that were happening.  I assumed that he was reading what it said.  In the pursuit of understanding his sermons, I got myself a good KJV with study helps and continued to follow along.  I began to notice something; he would often paraphrase and re-translate certain passages.  When he came to words that were archaic, as he read he would substitute a modern world.  He was providing a Targum as he went along.  Every once in a while, he would point out that he was changing it, but generally he did it on the fly without thinking.  If you’re going to update the translation, as you read, it would seem to me entirely logical that you simply go to modern translation.

I wonder if this is another area where the idea of “the fullness of time” comes into play.  We are looking at a time between when the Romans used Latin and the Muslims used Arabic.  This was the time when anything translated that wanted to communicate would’ve been written in Greek. Was that part of God’s plan and timing?

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-298: Dark Thoughts: Dogs

Far off in the darkness I hear dogs barking.  It’s not just enthusiastic.  It almost seems like there is a real threat that the dogs are warning about or trying to drive away.

Do wild canines bark?  I know they can growl.  I know that coyotes will howl at the moon.  There are those that yip and make all kinds of noises.  But do any of them actually genuinely bark?

Is the bark a mark of being domesticated? A bark can be a joyful greeting. It can also be a warning to back off.  It can be an alert to those that the dog is protecting.  A bark has as many meanings, as there are situations.

Domestication can make physical differences.  I remember reading about a type of fox that can be tamed over several generations and it produces physical differences.  

I am seeing that people can be domesticated.  I don’t know if woke produces a change in the DNA but it certainly reduces the ability to think rationally.

Be a wolf.  Let the Progressives be the lap dogs.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-297: Narcissistic Eschatology

I understand that there is a whole body of research and theory called eschatology.  In the Christian world, it is a study of the end times, and what God was revealed to us through prophecy about those final days.  I intellectually accept that it is a legitimate area of study.  And I use the term intellectually loosely there.  Please don’t associate that with the latest Eschatology Guru that you have been been listening to.

The biggest problem that I have with the study of the end times is that it is based on prophecy that is deliberately given to us to be cloudy and confusing.  To be honest, I don’t really think that God wants us to know what’s going to happen at the end.  Double down on that difficulty with the problem of sin.  Because people are so self-centered they do in eschatology what they doing in so many other areas of life, they make it about them.

Whatever scheme or chart you come up with in eschatology generally tends to be focused on you and how clever you are.  It’s about how the world is going to end around you.  As a general rule Gurus of Eschatology tend to ignore other Gurus who have their own system.  They act like they are the only show in town.

It isn’t about you.  It certainly isn’t about me.  

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-296: Clickbait: Correcting History

When I started up my session today on my computer Firefox had some helpful suggestions on what I might want to read.  My eye skimed across the eye candy and this time it was held by a picture of Henry VIII of England.  The blurb underneath had the breathtaking notice that history has Henry all wrong and hinted expose about his wives.  That in itself is a reason to ignore what was being said but when I noticed that the source was the BBC, I almost laughed myself silly.

The Woke Gurus are working overtime to rewrite history in their own image.  I would trust the BBC’s version of history about as much as I would trust CNN on the news.  If you believe them then you are probably the kind of person who would send you children to check out the white van with the sign “Free Candy” on the side.

I guess you might give them a bronze star for trying.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-295: Headlines: The Left Eats Its Own

I noticed that the Mayor of New York, Eric Adams, has been indicted.  The list of accusations include different aspect of bribery and money laundering.  Two thoughts,

Keep in mind that those of us who believe in the rule of law still believe that a man is innocent until proven guilty.  Even though I have no reason to think that Adams is on the side of the angels, who ever heard of a Democrat angel, he still deserves the benefits of the Bill of Rights.  At least they are accusing him of real crimes instead of fake crimes like they threw at Trump.

Second, I wonder what he did wrong that turned the weaponized justice department against him.  Did he come out as reasonable on one of their schemas?  Did he threaten to take a stand against the country controlling cabal?  Surely he must have gone against the deep state somewhere.

Even if he is guilty of the accusations they seem mild compared to what the rest of the elite seem to be getting away with.  It is certainly small potatoes to what the Bidens have done.  It could just be that the left needs to eat its own and he is on the bottom of the food chain.  While they reel him in they might not have time for you.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-294: Innocence or Inheritance

I’ve been reading the 16th chapter of the book of Numbers which deals with the rebellion of Korah.  As God deals with the rebels, He ends up punishing entire families.  There’s a very graphic picture of the women and children gathered in front of the tents and the ground opening up and swallowing all of them.  That seems a bit cruel to us today.

This brings to mind the way in which the Canaanites were condemned as families.  It wasn’t just the fathers or the warriors, it was every living thing.

Why is it, that we see entire families being labeled as evil and being destroyed?  It would seem that perhaps what God is saying is that the evil of the parents, specifically, the fathers, has already been passed on to the children, and they are polluted past redemption.  I know that in modern times the sociologists have said that the key element, and how children come out is the father.  We know that fatherless homes as a result of divorce or abandonment are tragic.

At the same time, widows and orphans are given a special place in the heart of God.

Is it possible that the children of evil parents cannot be redeemed?  As a general rule I have trouble with that.  I believe anyone can respond to the call of God.  At the same time I can see that there are some families where the children are so indoctrinated in hatred that they will never listen to anything we say or recognize anything we do.

The challenge is knowing which is which.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-293: Texting

I wonder if there is a ministry in texting.  A man in our church has gone in for triple bypass surgery.  Understandably his wife is a bit nervous and she is texting everyone who has a phone.  I am in the loop and I am thinking that every little ping helps to distract her and allow her to relax.

I for one get judgmental when I see people who seem to live on their phone.  Maybe they need to be judged.  Maybe I do.  Maybe they are supplying a vital human link to someone in need.  It is a better way to look at it as long as they don’t walk out in front of a bus.

I wonder if there is a spiritual gift of texting.  Asking for a friend.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-292: And You Never Knew

It comes to me that many of you I have been worshiping God over the years and not even been aware of it.  Of course, it wasn’t real worship because you weren’t aware of it, but you were still expressing eternal values that you need to know about.

What am I talking about?  I’m talking about the popular music that has been running through your head today.  Now I can’t speak for anything in the past 20 years because I haven’t been paying attention, but I think of words that used to go through my mind as a kid, and then I memorize just by repetition, and I would sing along with the radio.  Now those words come to me with a whole new meaning.

Let me give you an example.  Think of the little bit of music phrase that runs through my head, “How sweet it is to be loved by you”.  I don’t remember any other words.  I don’t know if there were any other words.  No, I know that is not exactly something you would find in your hymnal.  Then again, maybe you would.  I know that when those words go through my mind now I find myself singing to Almighty God, “how sweet it is to be loved by you.”

Another example:  Some comedian was talking about a song by the Carpenters, and I got to thinking about what they were saying.  You know the song, it will come to you as I say the words,

“Such a feelings coming over me.
There is wonder in most everything I see.”

Are you with me yet?  Follow that thought along, but think of it as a conversation between someone who has come to know Jesus and who is walking with the living God and the Holy Spirit is lifting him out of the depths of materialism into the scope of eternity.  Glory.

Or I think of a song written by John Denver.  This is actually my first experience with this, but I didn’t know it at the time.  I remember sitting at the breakfast table getting ready to go to school or possibly off with my dad to work and hearing a song come across the radio and it started out this way,

I walk in the rain by your side.
I’ll clean to the warmth of your tiny hand

When I first heard it, I thought it was a gospel song.  I was struck by the beauty of the melody.  I thought it portrayed a conversation between me and Jesus.  It was glorious.  It was only years later, when I was trying to find it so I could play it on my guitar that I realized it was a popular love song.  I still enjoy the song in both modes.

Praise for God is all around us.  The ultimate ingredient necessary for it to be praise is what is coming from the heart and what is wanting to be expressed.  Have you ever talked to the grass as you mow it and thanked it for being there.  Have you ever listened to the trees to see if they’re going to shout, “Glory to God”?  Have you ever thanked the person driving in front of you for making you slow down so you can enjoy the world around you.

Get into an attitude of praise. Sources are everywhere.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-291: Clickbait: Blindsided

When I saw the headline on the video, I managed to get past it.  It had something to do with Trump stopping a rally in North Carolina and the way it was worded made me think that there was some big crisis.  I thought I made it safely past the temptation to watch.  I was wrong.

My wife blind-sided me.

I was in the middle of fixing breakfast and she called me because she had something she had to share.  When I realized it was something on the TV that she was watching and it had to do with the Trump rally in North Carolina I was somewhat interested, because I had ignored it before.  She didn’t call me in, however, to hear what he was saying.  She called me in to show me what I think the Clickbait was talking about, he was showing off his grandchildren.

I am aware that under the gruff exterior Trump has a warm heart, especially for his children and grandchildren. This was nothing new to me, but it was rather heartwarming.  He had his granddaughter say “Make America Great Again”.  He had his grandson ask people to vote for grandpa.  It was Trump at his best.  It was the Trump who has repeatedly down through his life done things for little people.  He’s been more than willing to share his wealth with those less fortunate than him.  He’s a very generous man.  It’s just show that side of him which the media doesn’t like the show.

I’m guessing that this aspect of the North Carolina rally will not be shown on CNN.  I could be wrong.  I’ve been wrong before.  But I’ve not been wrong near as often as CNN.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-290: Un-Color Blind

This morning the sunrise was spectacular.  As I was looking at the promise of the rising sun, I thought of my son-in-law, who is somewhat color blind.  Actually, I’m somewhat color blind.   He is the real deal.  And I thought about how the glory I was seeing would to him probably just be shades of gray.

I don’t think I could ever explain it to him, but I may someday point out the great expectations he has in eternity.  I’ll tell him about how what look like shades of gray will someday be perceived as dark gray gradually morphing through the different colors into a radiant pink.  I don’t think he can tell the difference now.  Someday he will.  I estimate he may spend 1000 years just enjoying sunrises.

The thought occurred to me that we are probably surrounded by things that should bring shouts of glory and we don’t even see them.  I can’t tell you what they are, because I can’t see them.  I know they are there.  I know that someday I will see them in their fullness.  I have a suspicion that God will reveal them to me little bits at a time, to make eternal life even more enjoyable.

Life should be full of anticipation and not dread.  We should have our eyes looking for how God is going to work things out rather than being concerned about what our godless political leaders are trying to pull.  Lock your doors.  Check around you when you go out of the building into the parking lot.  Look behind you.  Stay out of dark alleys.  And in the process rejoice in the awareness that the hand of providence is all around you.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-289: Election 2024: Options

We have an election coming up.  It is said that elections matter.  That was a statement by someone who believed in the rule of law.  It might be good for us to pause and consider how blessed we are in what we face and how typical it is in human history.

Take the best case scenario.  Most of history has been lived out in the context of kings and nobility.  When the king died most did not have an election to see who would be the next king.  Some tribes voted on the next leader but it often was just a formality.  As a subject you had nothing to say in the matter.  All you could do, besides praying, was hope for the best.

Take the worst case scenario.  There was no clear succession.  There was no meeting of the tribal elders to make the decision.  Many times in history it was a time of total chaos.  Every strong man would gather his followers, look for anyone who would join him and the survivor became the next leader.  If you were a peasant then you better hope you were out of town that day.

Let us hope for a peaceful transition that actually reflects the theory that we live in a federal republic that is governed by law.  The alternatives are not pretty and us peasants may have no town left to get out of.

Meanwhile, pray hard, speak up and check your preps.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-288: The Temptation

It would be so much easier to just sit down, lean back and take a nap.  That may not seem like a big problem, but it is not quite 8 o’clock in the morning and taking a nap really is not the way to start your day.

As I get older, I find myself getting weaker.  I have less energy.  I have more of a tendency to take naps, which, in itself is not a problem, but it can become a problem if I let it.  I can let taking a nap substitute for doing something that I should be doing or even just something I could be doing.  It is a real temptation.  At times I give in.  Overall, though, I need to keep moving.

Sometimes I ask myself, “Why do I need to keep moving?”

The answer comes back to my belief that God is in charge of the universe as well as my personal life.  I believe when God is ready, I will pass on to the next phase of life called eternity.  I believe that, as long as He leaves me here, He has some kind of reason for it.  I may not understand it.  I may not see it in this life.  But He has a reason.

So my job is to not take a nap because I don’t think that’s His reason, but to get up.  Get off my duff.  Get moving.  That may mean what it means right now, go walk.  It might mean what it’ll mean in the middle of the day.  Read a book.  It might mean write an essay.  It might mean make a phone call.  There are so many ways in which we are to interact with our lives.

The temptation is to take a nap. Don’t give in.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-287: Time Out

I just finished writing a devotional on the last verse of the 41st Psalm.  David talked about God being “everlasting to everlasting.”

(Psa 41:13 KJV)  Blessed be the LORD God of Israel from everlasting, and to everlasting. Amen, and Amen.

One of the statements I’ve made, and I believe others made, is that God exists outside of time.  He can control time in ways that we can’t.  He understands time in ways that we don’t.  He is the creator, so that makes sense.n As I was thinking about the concept of everlasting, I compared it to infinity.  I have mentioned the concept in mathematics were two times infinity is still infinity.  For that matter infinity times infinity is still infinity.  The thought occurred to me that it may be similar to zero in that sense, but that’s a topic for another day.

It might help us to understand the concept of eternity and time by realizing that it extends forever in both directions.  Going backwards it would extend beyond the singularity that the Big Bang Theory postulates.  In a sense that means that we ourselves are outside of time and are not moving through time, because the future and the past are equal distance, always.  If they are equidistance then what are you measuring as time “passes”?

The basic point that Psalms is making is that God is above and beyond anything we consider reality.  In spite of that He still reaches out to us.  Incredible.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-286: Plow and Crown: American Uniqueness

I was thinking of how in the current political atmosphere what most of us want is primarily for the elites to leave us alone.  We want the government to stop trying to tell us how to live our lives.  Don’t you want the corporations to stop trying to control us?  We went the liberty to make our own mistakes based on our own decisions.

It then occurred to me that, at least, in American terms, wanting to be left alone was the basis of the American revolution.  The British government had their representatives here, but their main power source was across the ocean.  They were simply trying to rule us and run us.  We rejected that, and we basically said “Leave us alone.”  They refused, that led to war.

That took my thinking to the Civil War.  In our Civil War, it was again a case of “leave us alone.”  The South wanted to do things their way.  They did not want a faraway government of the North to tell them what to do.  Therefore, they tried to separate.  They did not try to rule the North, control of the North, or tell the North what to do.  It was simply a matter of “leave me alone.”

When I look at revolutions and civil wars in other countries, I don’t see the same pattern.  In both situations, I see a group reaching to be in control, trying to be the ones telling the others what to do.  What usually happens is the other side would want that too if they had the power.  So in our American Revolution and Civil War, it was a matter of Americans saying leave me alone.  Typical pattern for the world is a group saying, do what I say.

The worrisome aspect of that is the same sentiments are on the loose today.  We have the elites.  They have manipulated the economy to squeeze out the middle class.  They have learned all the ways to cheat in elections and, at least in this area, their creativity knows no bounds.  They have perverted the courts by bribery, threats or just appointing mind washed sycophants.  

Pray for a peaceful resolution that does not make us into the effigy of 1984.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-285: Parenting Skills

I was thinking about Providence, and how God wants us to trust him, yet, at the same time having received the gift of free will, we are expected to act responsibly.  At a time when we are concerned about the future of the country, what direction things will go, what kind of disasters or tragedies do we have to plan for, we wonder how much we should just kick back and trust and how much to go out and do our own thing.

This came to me this morning in the dark on my porch.  I know the parameters of the porch.  I know where the edges are.  At the same time I take my flashlight and I walk up to the edge with the beam targeting that spot and I don’t go any further.  Then I shine the light around the yard just to check and make sure that there are no skunks sneaking up on me.  The thought came to me as I was doing this that with my decline in hearing ability, someone could probably walk up to me on a bunch of crunchy leaves and I wouldn’t hear it.  Does that mean I stop checking?  No.  It means I continue to check in a positive way.

It’s kind of like a father who is trying to raise his son to be responsible.  There comes a point where you have to let the child fail or he will never learn to stand on his own.  And keep in mind that God wants us to be able to stand on our own as creatures made in His image.  He doesn’t want a bunch of clinging vines, hanging all over Him and saying, “Help me.  Help me.”  Of course that’s my read.  Results may vary, as the saying goes.

I don’t know if you’ve had the experience of teaching your child to ride a bicycle.  Training wheels are fine.  Pushing along with your feet like you’re on the scooter will get you there eventually.  Dragging your feet to stop will do the job if you have enough time.  But eventually you need to teach the child to balance, to use the paddles, and how the brake works.  Of course that’s only what do you need to do if you want a mature adult to emerge from your nurturing.

Too many parents today want to be their child’s buddy.  They want to be their security blanket.  They want to be the source of all things nice in their lives.  They don’t want to be mothers and fathers.  God is not our buddy.  He expects us to do our part.  If that offends your concept of grace and Providence, then you’re welcome to remain dependent.  I will take my dependence in the areas where God wants it to be.

So let me repeat.  Lock your doors.  Shut your windows.  Look both ways before you cross the street.  Test your coffee before you gulp.  Fill your gas tank when it gets half empty.  Have supplies for several weeks at least on your shelves.

And trust in God.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-284: Varieties of Providence

We have frequent statements about how God will care for us, and provide for us.  If we were simple minded, and couldn’t remember other passages of scripture, we might think that that means that everything will be a fairy tale that ends with, “...and they all lived happily ever after.”  It doesn’t seem to work that way because we see many times where people don’t go marching off into the sunset, singing songs, and counting their money.  Instead, they have enough to go on and enough to get by as a promise that God will provide.

Consider Cain and Abel.  Cain killed Abel.  God sent him away into exile, but he called out to God saying that people would kill him and yet God promised to put a mark on him that would keep people from doing that.  Not a happy ending, but God‘s hand was still on him.

When Sarah told Abraham to have a child through her maid everything was cheerful.  She didn’t have much to say about it being a slave.  When she got pregnant and had a baby, everything changed.  Sarah turned against her and made her life miserable.  She fled into the desert with your boy.  She had given up and was preparing to die.  God intervened, provided water and sent her on her way with a blessing.  Again, I don’t think she drove off in an air-conditioned RV.  I don’t think she suddenly had flocks of sheep and camels.  Life was not easy, but she went with the hand of God upon her.

As humans, we try to develop patterns to give herself a sense of security.  We develop charts and graphs.  We list things in the hierarchy.  We use percentages and statistics.  That may work very well when we’re talking about a wheat harvest or what kind of car we want to buy, but it doesn’t work very well when we talk about God.

Think of God as a whack-a-mole.  Every time you think you have him in the box He pops out another place.  When you think you have it figured out, He throws you a curve ball.  When you think He’s going for the long bomb, He goes up the middle.  We can think of a million illustrations.  God will not be locked into our systems.  It may help, but we need to keep in mind that they are inadequate.  God in one sense is beyond us.  Actually He is beyond us in every sense.  Accept that.  Be glad.  You would not want me in charge of your security.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-283: Attention Span

Do you remember when people began to realize that children’s attention span has been conditioned and molded by the television?  A segment between commercials was about 10 minutes.  And children were good for 10 minutes but after that their minds started wandering.  Of course it was much shorter time for some but let’s go with that general concept.

I think we may be in a time that is revising that attention span and driving it downward.  At least this is the case for me.  The current crop of YouTube videos are doing everything they can to get me to turn them off and move on.  I’m already reluctant to open any thing that goes more than 15 minutes.  If the person speaking hasn’t given me something worth listening to after two or three minutes I tend to back out and find something else to do with my life.

I recently tapped on what seemed like an interesting topic, from a person I’ve never heard of before, filled with hopes of learning something.  By the time we got halfway through and he went to his commercial presentation for his sponsor, I still wasn’t any closer to finding out anything about his topic than when we started.  Needless to say, I stopped it and went on looking for other amusing pastimes.

That takes me down to about 5 to 7 minutes. Is it just me or is this a cultural happening?

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-282: Environments of Worship

What is there about sitting outside on a dark morning that makes worship more meaningful.  I know I can worship in my chair in my room.  I can worship in my car driving.  I can worship in many environments, and yet, somehow, being outside in the presence of creation, makes it more powerful.

God wants to communicate with us.  That communication requires the work of the Holy Spirit, because we are not capable of reaching God ourselves.  Fortunately, the Holy Spirit works overtime trying to communicate with us and open us up to what God has to say.  In spite of that reality, it helps to make us more receptive and certain environments tend to make us more open to God’s voice.  When I am out looking at the sunrise, or shall we say waiting for the sunrise, I place myself in a location where I am more receptive to what’s going on around me.  I am more aware.  It may be a crutch, but it is a beautiful and needed crutch.

The same might be true of worshiping in a church building.  It can be a barn-like structure.  So many modern churches are nothing but warehouses.  It can be an ancient Gothic cathedral. In both places it is possible to worship, and if you are attuned to it, you are more receptive to what God has to say because your senses are stimulated in that direction.

Seek out environments where you can worship.  It might be different for you than it is for me.  It might be different today from tomorrow.  It might even be different moment by moment.  One of the things you can rest assured of is that the Holy Spirit is waiting to meet with you, God wants to speak to you, and God wants to hear from you.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-281: Memorial Haircuts

I hate getting haircuts.  It goes back to my childhood.  Isn’t it fun all the things we can blame on our parents and our childhood.  My father used to take his four boys to the barber college.  The good barbers were up front by the windows.  The beginners were in the back, working in the shadows.  We would sit on the bench and there would come to voice calling, “Next”.  If the voice came from the front, Father would get up and go.  If it came from the back, he would send whoever was at the front of the line.  That gave him five shots at a good barber.  I have never recovered from that.

In an attempt to make getting a haircut something more palatable, I am thinking of dedicating each haircut to a specific person in memory.  Of course, the person wouldn’t necessarily have to be dead, but may have just gone through a crisis.  For instance, one of the men in our church recently had open heart surgery.  My next haircut I could dedicate to him and name of the “name redacted” Memorial Haircut.  I’m sure he would be honored.

People would be standing in line to be the next one to be remembered.  If I ran out of living victims, I could go back to the past and bring up relatives, historical figures, even people that I despise.  That group would be reserved for the bad haircuts.  I could get a big medallion to wear with a slot to insert their name or a hat with a place to attach the picture of the person being honored.  This could really go somewhere.

That reminds me, I need a haircut.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-280: Dark Thoughts: Is God a Chicken? Part 2 of 2

If you are a cynic that starts from the position of rejecting God and the Bible, you say a camel going through a needle’s eye is stupid.  Who could believe such garbage?  If you are a scholar with multiple PhD’s, you would come up with some very clever explanation, such as I have heard several times.  The geniuses of the ivory towers try to tell you that there was a small door in the big gates of the city, and at night when the gates were closed, no one was allowed in unless they came through the small door.  The store was so small that a camel could only get through if you totally unloaded him and pushing and pulling, and shoving, forced him through the opening. this small door was called the eye of the needle, according to the intellectuals.

When you interpret scripture, you can come from different angles.  You can rely on your own genius to come up with incredibly creative possibilities.  You can deny everything and continue down the road to hell.  Or you can read the context and come up with a relatively simple explanation.  This is a process that can be applied to just about any part of scripture.  Of course, results may vary.  And of course it may not work.  If it doesn’t work, consider that you are thinking about eternal things coming from the mind of God and you are not really expected to understand everything.  You are expected to try and understand and be open to growing.  You are not necessarily going to figure everything out.  That is the nature of prophecy.  Expecting to figure everything out is also an ingredient in arrogance and hubris.

I believe that usually people of goodwill, and who are not too smart for their own good, can figure things out that they read in the Bible.  It doesn’t take a genius to recognize figures of speech and literary devices.  You see them every day.  You recognized him immediately.  Take the camel illustration for instance.  Most intelligent people realize that is not possible.  They don’t go looking for miraculous explanations.  They don’t scream “liar.  They say, “Oh, that must be a figure of speech”, if they went to high school and paid attention, they would even recognize it as hyperbole.  There are many places in the Bible were simply not trying to be too clever, will give you a reasonable explanation.

It is up to you to apply these principles from a heart that wants to know what God is saying in a mind that is open to learning.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-279: Dark Thoughts: Is God a Chicken?, Part 1 of 2

One of the ways in which I begin my day is to contemplate what God is like.  That can morph into spiritual hallucinations.  You can touch on the futility of the physical aspects.  It could be intellectual.  Ultimately I come to the place where I accept the clear, concise, accurate description of God is beyond my comprehension.

Think of the different ways in which you would have to put the details together to get a literal description of God.  One of my favorites is that He is a big chicken.  Notice this,

(Psa 91:4 KJV)  He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

Feathers?  Wings?  I would say no one in their right mind would ever genuinely consider God to be a chicken, but then I think of some of the people I’ve met, and discussed things with, and have to back away from that statement.

What this puts me in mind of is interpreting scripture.  We often come across things in the Bible that are either difficult to understand, or, to be honest, impossible for us to understand.  And that speaks of prophecy.  I’ve just finished reading Isaiah.  There are long passages of vague references to unknown places and people that I will never be able to figure out.  That is either because I can’t or I’m just too lazy.  Or it’s on my bucket list and I probably won’t get to it before I die.

But let’s take some thing where we understand every word, and can even get a picture of it in our minds, but we need to try and understand what the Bible is saying.  Take, for instance, the reference to a camel going through the eye of a needle.

(Mat 19:24 KJV)  And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

Now you can approach this from several different ways.  A person of normal intelligence and goodwill would look at that, read the context, and understand that Jesus is using hyperbole to make a point.  It would be obvious that a camel cannot go through the eye of a needle.  The response of the disciples makes it sound like a literal statement and makes them seem a bit slow.  Jesus then goes on and explains that, yes, it is indeed impossible, but God can do anything.

You can get all that from reading but that is not good enough for some people.

To be continued...

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-278: Twisted

I discovered there is a conspiracy going on in the bread business.  You are aware, if you know which side of the bread the butter goes on, of the twist ties that are sometimes on a loaf of bread. I’m sure you’ve noticed, or you should have, that sometimes the twist goes to the right, and sometimes it goes to the left.  For those of us who wear glasses, it is often a challenge to look at it and figure out which way we turn to open it.

I think it’s a conspiracy, a conspiracy to make us old people feel inadequate.  Perhaps we could mount a class action suit.  Perhaps we could boycott the bread industry.  Perhaps we could just shut up and get on with life.  We might ask our grandchildren to open the bread for us the first time and then we can close it the way we like.  There are many solutions.

I hope the problems your face today or no bigger than this.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-277: Dark Thoughts: The Image

What does God see in human beings?  What is there about us that garners His attention?  Even asking the question seems to be heading down the path marked heresy..

I was wondering if out of the millions of people who love and serve Yahweh there were any that ever had a thought original and creative enough to somehow affected the being of God.  I’m not even sure what kind of word to use here to describe it, but something that is expressed in a different way, a new way or is totally creative.  And then you add the billions that live in rebellion and reject Him.  He is aware of their thoughts as well.  In all of that mass of humanity are their creative moments that speaks to the inner person of God?

We know that God is complete.  We know that He doesn’t need anything.  We know that He doesn’t have to do anything.  There’s a term in theology, aseity which refers to the concept that God is self contained and not dependent on anything.  And yet when He made us in His image, I’m wondering if that did not also give us the ability to be totally creative, to come up with things that are genuinely new.

Real creativity is a rare thing even in human circles.  Much of what we call creative is just making a small variation on something that another person thought up . Occasionally, though, someone actually comes up with something totally new and outside the box.  It could be something as simple as the wheel or as complex as the theory of relativity.  I’m wondering out of the trillions of thoughts every day by those created in God’s image, is there an occasional glimmer of something new that catches God’s attention?

There must be some reason He created us and keeps us around.  It certainly isn’t for our looks, our singing voices, obedience, or a myriad of other things.  But here we are, and here He is.

Someday I will get an answer.  Probably in eternity.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-276: The Muse Strikes

We were kibitzing at church and having a good time, throwing back-and-forth all the things that good friends can throw back-and-forth.  They were tongue-in-cheek telling me that I couldn’t be old enough to remember some thing that they remembered.  And I came up with one of those statements that looking back was kind of clever,

I am not as young as I look, or as old as I feel.

It will never make it into a book a famous quotations, but I think it was pretty good off the cuff.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-275: Christian Clichés: Prayer Requests

I am questioning the power of prayer today.  Yesterday we received word that the granddaughter of one of our people died of cancer.  She had been fighting a long time.  We have been praying for her a long time.  There have been some good moments and times of hope.  There was a growing sense of sorrow.  First the doctors said there was nothing else they could do.  Then she went on hospice.  We all held our breath during the last trip of the grandparents to see her while she was still coherent.

During the entire time we were paying praying with fervor.  From our point of you, our prayers were not answered.  Obviously, God said, “No”.  We don’t like that or at least I know I don’t like that.

I am trying to find answers.  While my mind wanders it comes to that verse that talks about God sending Jesus in what He called the “fullness of time”.  There were many factors that came together to say that was the moment Jesus would come.  We speculate on those factors, but we will never know if we got them all or if the ones we do have our correct.  Only God knows that.  The point is it was the focus of time.

I don’t know that I find comfort in it, but I find understanding in the fact that they are possibly many different reasons why this young woman, mother of three, happily married, had to die at this point.  I don’t like it, but I accept it.

As usual, my mind went on another tangent, you know “squirrel”.  I was asking myself why did God give His law to Moses instead of presenting it at the very beginning.  He had the kind of communication with Adam where he could have passed it along with that point.  He could  have established what the standards were then.  At that point everyone would be under the law and have a chance to understand it instead of wandering in the moral wilderness of personal opinion.  But He didn’t.  He waited until the “fullness of time” came for the law.

In so many ways God brings things into our lives when it is our personal, “Fullness of time”.  We can’t know when that is.  We might have a clue, but we can’t know.

Have you ever watched a great cook working in the kitchen?  Many of them don’t have any idea where they left the measuring spoon or measuring cup.  They do almost everything by feel.  When you ask them for a recipe, they will talk about a pinch of this and a dash of that.  They know exactly what they mean even though it’s not always the same thing.  They know how much cayenne to put in the chili by feel not by some silly idea like measuring.  They follow some inner law, some inner standard.  And they usually come out right.  I would say always come out right but I’m not there all the time.  By the same token, I can come up with a recipe and measure everything out precisely and no matter what I do, it just comes short of working.

So trust the chef.  He knows the rules.  He wrote the laws of physics.  He created the stars and the gaps in between them.  He made you and me.  He knows what will work for us in regard to eternity, and He sees through the quick fix.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-274: Baking Bread

Recently at church we were discussing the providence of God.  One of the people came up with a rough paraphrase of this verse,

Psalm 37:25 (KJV) I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.

His paraphrase made it seem like we had a promise from God that we would never lack bread.  We contrasted that with other scripture that seemed to indicate that we would be persecuted and all that involved.  We did not resolve the seeming contradiction.

There is an important consideration that was missed by not actually looking up the text being quoted and studying it.  If you read it over it is not God making a promise.  It is David the king saying that he had not seen any such thing.

First consider the life of David and what you know about it.  When he says he has never seen the righteous forsaken that does not mean they were never persecuted.  Think about how many times Saul tried to kill David.  Remember him hiding in the cave.  Think of his son rebelling and driving him out of Jerusalem.  He was persecuted but he was not forsaken.  That would be consistent with the teaching of the New Testament.  

(2Co 4:9 KJV)  Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;

As for begging for bread.  If you have time look at chapters 20 and 21 of I Samuel.  David was on the run from Saul and stopped at the tabernacle.  He and his men were hungry.  He asked, or begged, for bread.  After telling a few lies and pressing his luck he was given the shewbread.  Not only would I call this begging but I would point out that the bread was consecrated and he was not supposed to eat it.  

The first issue I have an answer for, the second, not yet.  Maybe you do.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-273: Sweat vs Effort

As I sat listening to a CD of a very talented lady playing hymns and choruses, I am reveling in the way in which she is conveying her love of God.  When I hear this kind of thing, I sometimes wonder if I could’ve ever achieved that, if I had just been more focused and disciplined.  I assume I will never know because I am not focused or disciplined.

Is the glory that she is conveying the result of talent, or gifts or is it the results of discipline and sweat?  In reality, I’m sure it’s both.  We all know people that have a lot of talent but they don’t put in the effort to develop that talent.  I think of one young man, who was incredibly talented on the piano, and could play by ear just about anything he heard, but was limited by the fact that he never practiced and or disciplined himself to learn the really hard things.

On the other hand, I have heard people who have played guitar or piano, or some other instrument who do a yeoman’s job at conveying what the music says.  They serve.  They bless others.  They never achieve the heights of talent that some people have just by nature.

What joys do we miss simply because we are not willing to push ourselves and discipline ourselves in a certain area?  It could be music as I’ve been relating.  It could be in sports.  It could be in mechanical ability.  It could be in writing books.  What lessons have we missed simply because we don’t have focus and discipline?

One of my hopes is that in eternity we will not only have the time but we will have the opportunity to give it another go.  I hope the removal from the sinful world will also give us the discipline and focus.  I want to be able to sit down at a piano and bless the angels.

I won’t force you to listen.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-272: Questions Welcomed

I just got through writing about God and feelings, specifically his feelings.  I wondered if I had crossed over into heresy.  That brought to mind another thought.  I think God enjoys our asking difficult questions.

Some people are afraid to ask questions.  Some people quake at the idea of having a contrary opinion.  It’s not that way with God.  He is very secure in who He is, and created us to be curious and creative ourselves, a reflection of Him.

I think God really enjoys when we ask genuine, sincere questions.  They don’t even need to be well thought out.  It could be just shooting from the hip, or off the shelf, or off the top of our head.  I think God loves it, that we are free to interact with Him.

If I am wrong you might want to invest in a lightening rod.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-271: Feelings Source

I’m wondering if one of the roles that we have in creation is to supply a pool of emotions for Almighty God.  I’m not sure where or if I’m crossing into heresy here, but I wonder if one of the reasons God wants us around is because He feels because of us.

I was thinking about God being filled with sorrow, and I thought well, maybe God doesn’t feel sorrow, but He does feel wrath.  We know that.  Then I got to thinking about how it seems to me that God feels sympathy for us, empathy, sorrow, rejection, and so forth.  The only target He would have for these feelings is humanity.

Creation itself is inanimate; it is not responsible for what it does.  It does not have free will.  It cannot respond.  It cannot feel.  Nebulas don’t repent and ask for forgiveness.  When a star goes supernova it does not feel remorse.  Black holes don’t feel pain.  Human beings do all of those things.  In some way that I don’t really want to approach, God is enriched by interacting with us.

Sounds like heresy when we’re talking about the sovereign God.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-270: The Invisible Teleprompter

I watched the debate last night.  I didn’t really want to because my mind is made up and I know who the candidates are.  But as somebody said, “I watched it so you wouldn’t have to.”  Actually, I watched it because I wanted to be able to ignore the spin that everybody else wants to put on it.

If I were an alien from outer space, and we’re simply evaluating what I saw with no background, no knowledge and living in a bubble, I would give Harris the win.  But I do know the background.  I do have a memory.  I am reasonably intelligent.  That makes me a bit hesitant to give her advantage in reality.

What I noticed about both candidates is that neither one of them answered the questions.  Some of the questions were actually decent.  The problem was that there was no follow up and no holding the feet to the fire.  Take the simple question about whether people were better off than they were four years ago.  That is a hard question with an easy answer or an easy question with a hard answer.  For Harris it was a good question with no answer.  I believe she went off on her values again.  What?  How did she get there?

With that I am ready to suggest that, although there was no Teleprompter on the stage, Harris had one built in.  She obviously had prepared.  Her speeches were ready to go.  They was well rehearsed.  She had worked on her facial expressions, her eyes, her mouth, her smiles and gestures.  All of it was worked out very carefully ahead of time and memorized perfectly.  This is clear and should have been a problem, because none of her answers had anything to do with the questions she was asked, but the answers were free-flowing, eloquent and repeating the Democrat sound bites.

It is as she had a Teleprompter but we couldn’t see it.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-269: The hour of the 11th

We have a lot of dates that stand out in our minds.  In the positive sense we have birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, Easter, the day you got your first kiss.  Use your imagination.  Dates have a lot of positive meetings

They also have negative meetings.  December 7.  October 7.  And today we remember September 11.  It is good to pause, and remember in many ways.  If you knew someone who was killed or maimed on these dates, you might want to remember them either by making a phone call if they still survive or just offering up a prayer for their eternal condition.

We also want to be grateful that we have survived these dates so far.  But as we’re being grateful, we need to remember.  We need to call to mind what actually happened and filter out the spin the America haters and put on these things.  On September 11 it was hard to find anyone who was not shocked and concerned.  Actually that’s not an accurate statement.  Remember that in much of the world people were dancing in the streets and celebrating the attack on the great Satan.  Remember that in this country there were people joining that celebration.

My feeling is that these are the same people that were celebrating on October 7 when Hamas attacked Israel.  While much of the world is filled with horror at the attack on people attending a peace concert, the same people who danced in the streets on September 11 we’re at it again.  And of course the same people were calling for peace when Israel responded.

Don’t just remember what you think you remember.  Make sure you don’t except what you remember by the presentations at the media.  Check your facts.  Check your memory.  Check with your friends.  We are in danger of being overcome by the same people who deny the Jewish holocaust.  There are people who are not ashamed to show their face in public, who claim that it never happened.  Keep in mind that there are evil people around you; that there are people who lie around you.  There are people around you who are just waiting for the evil to come for you.

So remember.  While you are Remembering, don’t forget to be as prepared and alert as you possibly can.  December 7 was not the last time America and Americans were attacked.  September 11 is not the last time either.

May God encourage you and give blessings to your soul.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-268: On the Street: Bad Luck

We all know about black cats crossing our path.  I am wondering if a centipede crossing your path is also bad luck.

I was walking along, minding my own business, and suddenly I noticed this long stringy black thing hustling across the pavement in front of me.  I realized it was a centipede.  I had a momentary urge to stomp it, but I refrained.  I have this covenant with God‘s creation.  When crazy creatures are active and they’re being crazy in their world, I leave them alone.  You may question the food chain, but it exists.  Centipedes may just be eating mosquitoes. but I’ll leave them alone.

When they intrude in my part of the world, all bets are off.  That is when having big feet can pay off.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-267: Yes, You Can

As I was reading in Psalms, I came across a passage that seemed to imply the free will of man.

(Psa 36:9-10 KJV)  For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.  O continue thy lovingkindness unto them that know thee; and thy righteousness to the upright in heart.

For those of you who are concerned about salvation, coming through grace from God and not from our own works, you will find verse 9 encouraging.   It is very clear that David considers God as the source of his salvation and his “life”.

On the other hand, look at to whom He is extending that salvation.  Notice that it is people who know Him, people who have His righteousness in their hearts.  Now, if they need God’s “fountain of life” extended towards them, then there is still a lack.  But if God is extending it towards those who are already seeking it, free will is very important.

Nothing can water down the truth, that we cannot deserve our own salvation.  There is nothing that we can do within our power, except for trusting and obey, to make ourselves sin free.  Only Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross could offer up a sufficient price for our sin.  That concept is a done deal and is consistent through scripture.

But what I also see consistent through scripture, but widely denied by theologians of all camps, is this idea that there can be a desire for the things of God that comes from my heart, and not just from the gift of faith.  I believe that Psalms at least teaches that we can have a desire for the things of God on our own initiative.  What I am seeing is that some people are, by their own choice, inclined toward evil, and some people are inclined toward righteousness.

Feel free to disagree.  If you disagree, you have to somehow work out these two verses.  You also need to go back to the beginning of the Psalm where David goes into great detail about the planning that goes into the evil that surrounds us.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-266: Change of Perspective

I wonder if eternity will give us a totally different insight into the sacrifice that Jesus made by becoming a man.  In one sense that is a rhetorical question.  It is obvious that we will have deeper insight.  We will have greater knowledge.  We will have an expanded ability to understand.

My thinking though is that we will understand on a level where we can’t even begin to comprehend the level.  While that will be exciting on an intellectual and emotional level, it is even more desirable when you think about how that will allow us to love Him even more.

We have no comprehension of what eternity will be like.  I say that in an excited way.  We can comprehend our incomprehension, if you know what I mean.  If you don’t know what I mean, then you’re not begining to comprehend.  It will be glorious in a way that will bring new sensibilities and awareness.  We may see new colors and hear new sounds.  We may become aware of emotions that we never dreamed were possible.  Just the reality of being in the presence of the Almighty, and not being consumed in a flash of ash, is rather incredible.

I’m old enough to be ready.  I’m old enough to have seen most of the glory that this life can give.  I am quite ready to enjoy my grandchildren and my children for a good while.  I am ready to go out to dinner with family and friends, and to go to church and worship with my brothers and sisters there.  In other words, I’m not necessarily ready to go, but I am ready to go.  I wait for the coming years with anticipation.  My hope is that I will go quickly, possibly in my sleep, after a big family Christmas.  But then again, that’s probably just selfish on my part because it might leave everyone else feeling a little down.

But, I am ready. I hope you are too.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-265: Ear or Mouth?

It’s interesting that interacting with some people tends to stimulate your mind, wake you up, and make your productive.  Other people act like a fog of torpor which does nothing but deaden your senses.

How much of the reaction is the listener’s problem and how much should you lay on the speaker.

I know some people who will take an hour to answer a simple 30 second question and often still miss the point.  Often I can take one of those monologues and, if I wanted to take the time, compare it with what I have already heard several times.  If you had it typed out and could delete the duplications you might end up with a couple of incomplete sentences.  If you don’t know what I am talking about either you are one of those people, you never listen or you are incredibly blessed.

I also know that sometimes my mind wanders.  I go into the conversation with certain expectations and make sure that they are fulfilled.  

And it is possible that there are some people that you have a built-in antipathy towards.  It may be based on past experiences that need to be overcome.  It may be on a deeper level that defies understanding.  

Seek out people that challenge you.  Seek to be a person who challenges.  I find that with my questionable memory it helps to only talk about things that have happened since I last saw the other person.  That keeps me from being the one who is a walking looped recording.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-264: Election Prayer

Sunday it was announced that at church that November 3, instead of the regular Sunday school class we, would be having a prayer breakfast in regard to the coming election.  The plan is to start with something light to eat and then spend the rest of the time in various expressions of prayer and calling on God for his intervention.

I just thought I would write and share that with you and suggested perhaps you might take that idea to your church and suggest the same thing.  Maybe you are already planning it.  Although elections are important and we believe in the rule of law and the republican form of government, we believe even more in the God of the universe.  It was suggested that it might be a good idea not to wait for the 3rd to start praying.

National renewal depends upon spiritual revival. Join us.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-263: Election 2024: Tips

I am hearing repeated references to Trump’s proposal to exempt the tips of waiters and waitresses from the income tax.  I think that’s probably a decent idea, not because servers deserve a special break, but because anything that reduces the tax burden is a good thing.

However, his promise or his desire is stillborn, or will be stillborn, if we cannot elect people to Congress who will pass the legislation for his signature.  That is why the primaries were so important, but we are past that now.  We are now down to the general election.  It is not just important that we elect a president.  It is vitally important that we elect a Congress that also cares about the American people and the Republic.

That automatically rules out the Democrats.  I wouldn’t actually deny that there might be a worthy Democrat out there somewhere but the odds of finding him are very slim.  I will admit that the Republicans in many cases are not much better.  However, slightly better is more desirable than overwhelmingly worse.

So make sure that you vote down the tickets.  Try to find out who in your state is on the right side.  The hard ones will be the judges, county officials, and city councils.  We need a clean sweep.  Just selecting a man at the top, assuming we can overcome the cheating, will not do it.  We need change all the way down.

Since real Americans can’t vote often, make sure that you vote early.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-262: Noah Law

According to the apostle Paul, the purpose of the law was to show us what righteousness was, and what sin was.

(Rom 3:31 KJV)  Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.

(Rom 7:7 KJV)  What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

This is in the middle of a long discussion of the law.  I am simplifying so don’t take this to the bank as a proof text.

Now, hold that thought and go back to the time of Noah, in Genesis 6.  This is centuries before Moses was given the law.  Technically there was no law to break.  Ask yourself how was mankind being judged as evil if there was no law by which to measure?  How can people be judged by God if they don’t know what is the difference between right and wrong?

I think my conclusion would be that people and their inner man make a decision which direction they’re going to go.  You see this kind of thinking all through Psalms and Proverbs, two books I am currently spending more time reading than any other part of the Bible.  I realize they are written after God gave the law to Moses and before the sending of the Holy Spirit but I find verses like this,

(Pro 4:16 KJV)  For they sleep not, except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall.

This is more than original sin or the sinful nature.  This is a conscious decision to embrace evil and advance it.  This is bigger than the law.

When we talk about law there are two important statements that must be considered.  The first was the statement of Jesus when he said that he did not come to do away with the law, but to fulfill the law.

(Mat 5:17 KJV)  Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

The second, mentioned earlier, was when Paul told us that the law was there to show us the boundaries, but that we were not saved my following that law.

If you put these together, it makes you wonder if the concept of fulfilling the law means that the laws are now moving from being legalistic statutes to being moral principles.

Recently when I was on a road trip I drove through some mountainous terrain.  I was not on the Interstate so the pavement followed the contour of the ground along the path that the cows used to travel to get back to the barn.  The road was probably first paved when Model T’s were the common mode of transportation.  They were graded flat.  Some wise person who did little driving decided that the curve required a 35 MPH speed limit and put up a sign to enforce it.  At the time it made sense:  Marginal grading, slippery surfaces, poor suspension and new drivers could combine to deliver death and destruction.  It was the law and to disobey was a recipe for disaster.  

Move forward 100 years.  The road has been regraded.  The surface has been improved.  You car has the suspension for the Indy 500 and you have been practicing spin outs in your dad’s car for years.  The sign still says 35 MPH.  The hill is still the same.  The laws of physics have not changed.  Also, I guess the local cop could still give you a ticket for going 40.  That law needs to be fulfilled not destroyed.  The principle however still is as real as ever.

This concept of principle vs statute would not apply to clear moral laws such as theft and adultery.  They are fulfilled because the Holy Spirit has us acting that way.  Other laws such as the sacrificial system, diet and rules for gardening are in a different category.

Is there a danger here?  Obviously.  We tend to push as far as we think we can get away with.  I took the curves at 60 MPH and lived to tell about it.  The fulfillment comes from having the Holy Spirit give us guidance and living in obedience.  The example in Matthew is in the midst of the Sermon on the Mount.  Many people say that is an impossible expectation.  I would say they might want to put a little confidence in the Spirit and walk with Him.

Thoughts and speculations for working out what seems to be a conflict.  I don’t require you to agree but I would request that you put away your branding irons reserved for heretics.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-261: You Have to Be There

Honestly, I think that most of the world would consider me unbalanced and crazy.  We have a family in our church with a granddaughter on hospice at 30 years of age.  Her husband and three young children are watching her die.  I am praying for healing.  I am praying for restoration.  I’m ready for God to say, “No.”

I think the world can understand that in a sense, but what they can’t understand, is the sense of peace and hope that I have in the midst of this.  I feel this in a very real way, because I have a daughter and grandchildren that are close to that in age.  The thought of losing them tears me up inside.  And yet I know that in the face of that there is still a real peace and a real hope that is based in the promise of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Call me unbalanced.  Call me, I denier.  Call me anything you want.  The hope is still there.  I would prefer that the hope would turn into a providential miracle, but as Jesus said, in the garden, “...nevertheless, Thy will be done.”  If was good enough for Jesus facing a cross it’s good enough for me.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-260: Headlines: The Horn of Africa

One of the sites I check to hear what is happening in the world is called The Wire.  I subscribed on You Tube.  It gives a daily update that lasts from 2 to 8 minutes.  It often covers things that are downplayed by the other news sources.

This morning he touched on the rising tension between Ethiopia and Somalia.  It seems Egypt has sent troops to Somalia for “war games” and Ethiopia is reinforcing their border.  I’m hearing all kinds of reasons and rationales.  What I’m not hearing is the possible religious difference.

Somalia is Muslim.  Ethiopia, at least historically, has been Christian.  I realize that religion is not the only source of conflict in Africa but it seems like it might be one of the elements.

I did a quick scan of other news clickbait sites and could find no mention of the conflict.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-259: Barriers to Survival

When I look at the state of the country and wonder if we are going to live through all of this there are three things that I am concerned about.

The first is the utter determination of the elites to either win or destroy the country.  Actually, I think their purpose is to destroy the country and there is nothing they will not do to drag it down.  They consider winning the end of American excellence.  They hate western culture.  They hate Christianity.  They even hate people.  They hate liberty.  They will sit and cackle over the flames as they burn the culture down.

Second is the large number of people who seem totally ignorant of what’s going on.  They don’t see, they don’t hear, and they certainly won’t talk about it.  I really can’t understand how people don’t see the danger of declaring anything you disagree with as hate speech and making it a category to be persecuted.

The third group would be those who see, and understand, but don’t care about it.  They figure they will be above it.  They figure won’t touch them.  They don’t have any strong convictions that are at risk.  We have a growing group of self-centered, narcissistic individuals, who think that they are about all of this.  So why get excited?

Will there be enough of us who believe in the rule of law, genuine justice based on that law being equally applied and unchanging truth involving moral issues?  I will continue to look for places to speak up and make a difference.  Maybe if enough join in the republic will revive.

The time to get serious about prayer is now not when the storm troopers from the alphabet agencies show up at your door or your child comes home from college with pink hair and tattoos.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-258: Know Your Place

In the course of my wandering mind this morning my father’s death came back to me.  It was the first time that anyone had died that really shook me.  I had known people who committed suicide.  I had known people who died in Vietnam.  I had a friend who died of leukemia as he was preparing to be a missionary doctor.  We have friends who had lost a baby minutes before it was born.  I was not a stranger to death.

My father‘s death was somehow different.  I remember going down the street and noticing that the rest of the world was going on just as it always had.  I felt like stopping and screaming at people.  I wanted to ask them, “Don’t you know what just happened?”  I didn’t do that, but I wanted to for quite a while.  The center of my world, in a sense, that come apart, and I wondered why everybody else didn’t care.

The reason my wandering mind went there this morning was I was struggling with the concept of God relating to Israel as a nation as opposed to God relating to individuals in the plan of salvation.  As a nation, God could punish the entire body of people with dire consequences.  On the other hand our eternal salvation is one-on-one.  It is us and Jesus.  It is up to us where we spend forever.

This gives me insight into the God  I love and serve.  On the one hand, He is capable of keeping the entire universe going.  We have supernovas taking place.  Scientist think there are such things as black holes.  At the same time, this God is concerned about me and His Holy Spirit acts as a Comforter, a Helper, the Paraklete.  He is at the reaches of eternity, and at the same time He’s giving me individual attention in my heart.

And both go on at the same time.  What happens to me does not really matter to the Andromeda galaxy.  I could die tomorrow and it would not affect the red spot on Jupiter.  At the same time I am important to Him.  He will give me that individual attention that is not based on my narcissism, but upon His love.  The universe will go on, no matter what happens to me.  Life will continue no matter who wins the election and what the actual results are.  America may fall. Communism may triumph for a while.  But I am still a child of God and citizen of eternity.

Nothing can change that, even the big bang.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-257: Blessing the Hands

As I sat worshiping this morning, it came to me to put on a certain CD that had been made by the pianist at our church.  She made it maybe 20 years ago when she was at the height of her talent and expressing her gift.  It’s all piano music.  I’m told that she went through the entire disk of 20 some songs, and only had to redo one of them.  That was because the motorcycle went by and broke through the soundproofing.  It is a glorious worship experience.

That made me think of all the different people, known and unknown who contribute to my worship experience.  I think of the unknown hands that went into making my Bible, assembling, my iPod, picking and packing my coffee beans.  What about the chair that I sit in?  Those are the unknown hands.  Then there are the people who have gone into making the room I sit in.  I am sure I have said this before but it keeps coming back to me.  You can go on and on, and they will never know how grateful you are.

Above all there is the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit as He continues to remind me of the glory of God.  He reminds me of what it cost Jesus to become a man, walk the path, die on the cross, and come back to life.  What a glorious heritage we have.  What a solid foundation for coming into the presence of God.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-256: The Value of Focus

I just finished reading the Old Testament book of Isaiah.  What makes it worthy of note to me is that it was a focused read.  By “focused” I mean that I was really trying to pay attention as I read.  When I was a child and in a Bible reading contest I would “read” in a way that was really skimming or scanning.  Retention was not on the list of priorities.  I still find myself doing that with books that I want to finish quickly or if my mind wanders.  

It is a much more interesting experience when you are paying attention.

I remember from my college and seminary days that the scholars we today might call “woke” were talking about Deutro-Isaiah and even Trito-Isaiah.  They claimed that they had discovered something that the original Hebrew speakers had missed:  Isaiah was not written by Isaiah but by three different authors.  I would guess that there are other scholars out there who are extending the list to many more than three.  Keep in mind that scholars must publish and they get more publicity when they make startling discoveries.  Also keep in mind that their scholarship starts from the point of view that the Bible is the product of primitive, ignorant, superstitious, mud-hut dwellers who need modern, cultured, educated paragons to clarify what they said.  They also assume that they, as enlightened moderns, have a better idea of what God wanted to say than the Holy Spirit could produce.

I enjoyed the journey through Isaiah.  It helps when you pay attention.  I can see how someone who is a pagan in Christian clothing and needing his name on a book cover could come up with more than one author.  There is a different flavor to different parts of the book.  That is the nature of real authors.  They tend to write different when they have a headache than when they are at the cusp of health.  Picture accusing your Grandmother of not making the casserole because it tastes different than it did last week.  I guess these scholars are fortunate that God does not carry a cast iron skillet to apply to the side of their head.

Reading Isaiah reinforced some of my reservations about prophecy.  I remain convinced that much of prophecy was not meant for us to understand 2,000 years later.  I would even guess that Isaiah had the locals scratching their heads much of the time.  Layered in the sandwich of glorious word pictures and literary devices where some good lessons and some prophecy that is clearly applicable.  The amusing thing is that some of the things that would have been a mystery to them in ancient Israel have become clear to us today.

My plan is to now read through it again and maybe do a deeper dive.  That is my intent.  I hope it does not end up in the freezer with the leftovers from Grandma’s casserole.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-255: Bumpers and Plates: Makes You Wonder

Seen on a Jeep I was following, “Not all who wander are lost.”

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-254: The Canaanites Among Us

I was raised to turn the other cheek.  I was raised with the Biblical idea, found in the Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal.  I was raised to give people the benefit of the doubt.  I’m finding it harder and harder to adhere to that standard.

I’m beginning to think that the Canaanites have been resurrected.  If you look at the Old Testament, you see how God told Israel to at least drive out, and in many cases totally destroy the Canaanites, who lived in the promised land.  There was a reason for that.  It was because of the consummate evil that was part of their culture.  Not only was it part of their culture, but it summarized their culture.  In addition to all the aspects of general pagan practices, they were also very committed to the concept of child sacrifice.  And it wasn’t just child sacrifice as we would look at abortion.  It was taking a living baby and placing them in a heated cauldron to burn to death.

Today’s culture models one side of the divide that is rapidly approaching that point, if they have not already crossed the line.  It is impossible for those of us raised as Christians, or as Americans in a basically Christian culture, to grasp the evil that is going on around us.  At the base level it is out and out lying.  When is the last time you read a newspaper article about anything controversial that you felt you could believe?  When was the last time that you heard politicians speak the truth?  From general lying the lies move on to specifically undermine everything of value.

When we had just one or two in our midst we had special names for them.  We called them “psychopaths”. Or “sociopaths”.  Or we just considered them some kind of mental deviant that didn’t understand how to function in our culture.  We locked them up to make the rest of society safe.  Now they are main stream.  Now I’m afraid we call them Democrats.  If we want to be more inclusive, we call them Progressives.  In reality they are Canaanites.  They are evil.

Does that mean that every member of the Democratic Party is totally and irrevocably evil?  No, there are some that are so ignorant or so isolated that they don’t understand what’s going on.  I think of abortion.  I’ve seen the sonograms.  I’ve also seen the body parts.  I’ve watched two of my children to be born.  I know what is in the womb.  I taught human development in my science classes.  I showed students the copy of Life magazine, which had pictures of the developing babies and pointed out to them at the end that each and every one of those developing babies was the result of an abortion.  It is really hard not to be aware, but some people manage.

Is ignorance evil?  Not if you’re talking about what your wife wants for Christmas.  Not if you’re wondering whether you should order medium or medium well.  But if you are choosing presidential candidates, who are in favor of murdering babies, bringing back communistic pricing of groceries, wanting to disarm America, open borders, censorship and a myriad of other positions, then yes, you at least make it to the semifinals.

Pray that God intervenes so that the Canaanite solution is not necessary.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-253: Texas Vocabulary

I really don’t know if they say this anywhere else in the country, but I get this phrase from people when I go shopping.  Instead of saying “Have a nice day”, they say “Have a blessed day.”  I am determined to adopt that greeting.

As I sit here, thinking of my blessings and thanking God for all of the wonderful surroundings he has given me I sometimes get touched by a little bit of guilt.  You may have experienced this.  You look at how good you have it, and realize that it is so much better than most of the world, or most of history for that matter.  You feel guilty.

What have I done to deserve living in an air-conditioned house in Texas with a view across the valley and plenty of food in the refrigerator?  What have I done?  I will admit my wife and I made some good choices but so did many others.  How am I better or more deserving than someone living hand mouth in a Third World country?

The simple answer is nothing and I’m not.  I have not earned it.  I do not deserve it.  And that’s the glory of the blessing.  All of this wonder is because of the gifts of God.  I don’t need to second-guess Him.  I don’t need to be overcome with inadequacies.  What I need to do is thank Him and know that tomorrow is as much in His hand as today is.

I honestly believe in my heart that if things go south in our country, if the economy crashes, if the communist overlords take over and force us into camps, I will still be able to praise my God.  I honestly believe that even in that situation, I will be able to reach out to Him and He will meet me at the point that my reach stops.  It won’t be as comfortable as it is now.  I would not enjoy it as much as I do now.  But I will still bask in the presence of Almighty God.  The Holy Spirit will still be the Comforter.  I can still recite. “the Lord is my Shepherd.”

I hope it never happens.  I hope I never have to test it.  But I have the hope if it does.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-252: Precious Memories

Will our memory in eternity be perfect or selective?  If it is perfect, will all of the fog and distortion be removed so that we see everything with clarity?  That could be very painful, let alone embarrassing.  If it is selective, what is the criteria?

I believe that there are reservoirs within us.  Those reservoirs contain buried treasure, and to be honest, dead frogs.  There are many things that I will celebrate remembering.  There are many things that I don’t want to admit happened.

In this day and age as we get older and die later, dementia and mental problems become a real issue.  We look at loss of memory as a tragedy.  It can be if we forget who our grandchildren are.  It can be if we forget things that are treasures in our life.  At the same time we are probably able to forget some of our worst moments.  I don’t think I’m there yet, so I’m not sure how this works.  Some people may totally dispute this and say that they remember their failures with great clarity, and wonder if they were ever successful at anything.

As anything I ever say, having to do with eternity, I fall back on the belief that whatever God has for us is going to be so more glorious than what we have now that we won’t even recognize where we come from.  I picture harmony with 100 parts.  I picture delectable delights with no health issues.  I picture scintillating arguments with no anger and possibly no resolution.

There are times when I can hardly wait, but God says I have to.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-251: The Glory of Hard Times

One of the great things about hard times or what we face now, the unknown, is that it gives us the opportunity to decide which way our hearts are going to go.

Are we going to give into despair?  Are we going to surrender to the defeatist attitude?

Or, are we going to continue to glorify our God and look to eternity?

We get to decide.  God is not going to change.  We don’t know how He’s going to work things out but we can decide whether we are going to live in despair or hope.

The choice may not change anything in our surrounding world, but it will change the way in which we interact with our environment.  One of the great truths of life is our attitude towards what is around us affects how that surrounding deals with us.  It’s a mystery.  It doesn’t make sense.  It does make a difference.  I think of the old story about two shoe salesmen who went to the South Seas island where the locals all went barefoot.  The first salesman wired back, “This is a hopeless situation. No one here where is shoes.”  His replacement got all excited and sent word back, “Send more shoes.  No one here has any.”

An old story, but an even older reality in our lives.

Live in hope if you know Jesus.

homo unius libri