A Net in Time

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Book Study

Dare to Be Different

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We live in a post-modern world. Sometimes it’s hard to define what that is, so I thought I’d go looking for a clear definition. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica Postmodernism, also spelled post-modernism, in Western philosophy, a late 20th-century movement characterized by broad skepticism, subjectivism, or relativism; a general suspicion of reason; and an acute sensitivity to the role of ideology in asserting and maintaining political and economic power.

As Christians, how do we live out our faith in this post-modern world? How do we live out moral, faith-based lives when surrounded by political-correctness, skepticism and suspicion? How do we follow this adage in 1 Corinthians 9:22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. Yet follow the example of Jesus who was “holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners”.  How do we engage in Christian living in a post-modern world?

How do we stay true to the absolute moral standards that God calls us to?  It’s not an easy thing, especially when people twist our actions, or fellow believers get side-tracked, or when we aren’t sure of our own way. How do we hold true to God’s will and word?

How to stay true:

Dare to be different. It takes courage to choose to stay the course.  Courage is needed to live by a standard that others will not hold to. Christian men choosing to living out godly headship, sacrificing themselves for their wives and families.  Christian women choosing a simpler life, striving to raise up families, caring for them full well, able to submit to their husbands.  Show by their godly lives the example of Christ to the world. Showing lives of obedience, lives that please him full well.

Dealing with our Past: Trusting God

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Do you ever struggle with remembering God remembers our sins no more?   I know that I do.  I remember some of the horrible things I’ve done, sometimes I wonder why that is. Why do I keep remembering those things?   Why do they keep me wondering if God really forgives me?   OR worse… makes me wonder about my faith and if it can be real.   WHY, why do we do this?

Dealing with our Past: Trusting God

Mr. Hamilton suggests that it’s a matter of trust.  

Do we truly believe that God forgets our sin, that he removes our transgressions from us?   That he indeed washes us whiter than snow, cleaning us all up!  It’s an amazingly sweet, and simple, and basic truth.  

9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

See…it’s right there.  God tells us that we are, as believers, washed, sanctified and justified.   Do we believe it?   It’s a hard one to grasp… I KNOW THIS.  I fight myself everyday to remember WHOSE I am and why I should trust that he has my back.

Being reassured that Jesus intercedes for me with God. Asking God to be mindful of me, protecting me from the evil one.  Who do you think puts those thoughts in my head that I’m not good enough, or that God doesn’t really forgive sin, or that I somehow need to find a way to make up for the wrongs I did.   It isn’t God.  

So the question comes… can I trust God’s spoken word?   Can I believe what he tells me over and over and over again?   He loves me, he forgives me, his Son paid the penalty for MY sin, for YOUR sin… it’s covered, we’re washed, sanctified AND justified.

Satan has no hold on me, or you or anyone who believes in the Lord.   Not one single hold.

Believe it.  Oh… reader, if you love the Lord, believe it.   Jesus is our high priest and intercessor.  He died and rose again so that our pasts: our sins, our failures, and our dirtiness can’t be held against us. 

I liked this quote: “Satan will always want you to ‘look in’ to yourself; God wants you always to ‘look out and up’ to Christ.”  (p111, the faith shaped life)

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Let’s look up to Christ.  Let us see him more and ourselves less. We so need to remember whose we are. 

Our Heart’s Longing

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I had to think about this chapter for a while.   Pondering how to talk about the thoughts it inspired in my heart and mind.  This chapter started talking about how people always seek for happiness, but perhaps what people are doing is not really seeking for happiness but for something deeper.   Eventually we headed over to Romans 1 were we can read: 

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Our Heart's Longing

The thought is this.  God put a spark of knowing him within all of us.   BUT we fight that knowing to the point that some of us suppress that truth.   We deny it, calling it something else, like “I’ll be happy when I have a family”, “I’ll be happy with the right job”, “I’ll be happy when _____________”.  Some of the ideas we come up with may seem more lofty than others, but in the end all we are doing, if we aren’t pursuing God, is denying that spark that has been put within us. 

And God… God takes us seriously.  If we continually pawn him off, exchanging him for other things, he’ll let us do that.  Which results in people searching and searching, wanting to fill that emptiness within.   All the emptiness, and God gives them over to their empty searches. 

What do we do with that as believers?

That’s the question isn’t it?  If as believers we know that God has made it possible for us to know him, that everyone can recognize him for who he is by looking at creation, and looking deep within themselves, what does it mean for us?   

It means truly that if we seek for him we will find him.  There’s no doubt about it is there?  For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 

If we are believers, there is no excuse for us not to know the Lord God.  To be able to find him and learn of him and everything because we have not only the creation to reveal God to us, but we have his written word!  Actual information, actual words from his Son to help us understand what we see around us.   It’s HUGE if you stop and think about it. 

I urge you (and when I say you I also mean me)… follow your heart’s longing.  Follow it.  Feed the spark that is within.  Be amazed at God in the creation around us. 

Encouragers in Faith

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Ian Hamilton entitled this chapter “What Faith Aspires To” and I wondered what that would be about. Then I read about Barnabas and how he was known as the “Son of Encouragement” so I HAD to call this post the Encouragers in Faith.   Have you ever met one?  It’s a great thing you know… to find someone who will truly encourage you in your faith journey. 

Encouragers in Faith

Mr. Hamilton goes on to say that Son and Daughters of Encouragement aren’t seen in churches as often as they should be, giving three reasons for that.

  1. Our innate selfishness.  We are so programmed to look to ourselves and our own needs that we fail to look to the needs of others.  Encouragers though, take to heart the injunction “look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others”.  
  2. The Speck. You know…it’s how we look for the faults and flaws in others while not seeing our own.  We are so busy seeing those flaws that we fail to see how we can work to build each other up. Sometimes the a rebuke is needful, but it better to have a rebuke from a friend, than from one who only looks for faults. 
  3. Our pride.  No other way to put it, our pride gets in the way of our humility and therefore our humanity.  We forget the weaknesses of others.  Encouragers remember that we are but weak vessels and deal with us in compassion.  Just as Jesus in his high-priestly ministry deals with us. 

What to do?

The question then is this, how do we become strong encouragers?

We do this by encouraging a Christ-like spirit, and humble attitude.  Remembering that we are no better than those around us and sometimes we may struggle even more in areas than others do.  We have our struggles, we have our giftings, just like EVERYONE else.  We so desperately need to remember this.  That desperation… to exemplify Christ should be what drives us to write a note of encouragement, to encourage the new singer in church, to pray a moment with a needful one, to inquire after the health of an injured or sick one, or to ask how things are going with a new job, new schooling, new adventure in the life of another.  Take a moment… think beyond yourself and see how you can show Christ to others.

Want to follow along? Check out The Faith Shaped Life

I Yelled At God

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Tonight I yelled at God…it’s not a good thing to yell at God but I yelled.

I was angry because someone disrespected my need to have my student home at a good time.  They thought they should take them out for a party after an event and I needed to wait in the cold for them to finally show up.  I was SO angry but had just had someone run it through my head again (earlier that day) that what comes out of a person in times of stress is indicative of what is in their heart.  If what comes out is anger and not love, then Christ isn’t living in you.  You are being ruled by the flesh.

So I yelled at God.  Saying I’m angry and if you want me to be someone different you need to change me.  I hate this.  I hate this anger the lives inside of me and slips out when I would rather it didn’t.   I hollered at him so loud, and I know he heard me.  He heard me and let my hubby text me and so we talked.  (well texted talked) and my heart quieted again.  I caught a grip, and realized something… that anger… kept me awake on the trip there and for MOST of the trip back and then I started nodding and shaking my head to stay awake.  (good thing I was only five minutes from home eh?)

You see I can and do fall asleep at the wheel.  When I’m tired I must not be on the road.

yelled at god

Hubby reminded me that it’s okay to get angry, but anger becomes sin when you hold onto it. I don’t hang on to it.  It’s quick and sudden like a fire and then it dissipates.  If I was wrong, I apologize and work it through, but it never stays. 

But when it flairs you know what happens?

I start to doubt myself, my faith, my heart.   It makes me question how I can have this anger when every where I go in Christian circles I’m told over and over… what’s in the heart comes out on the tongue or in the actions.  If you aren’t showing love then you don’t have Christ within.  So how to I manage those two things?   How do I see my faith is real when my actions so often, in times of stress or concern or feeling ignored…. don’t result in love or patience or anything like that being shown?   How can I yell at the one who died so my sin doesn’t have to rule my body?

Therein lies the struggle doesn’t it?   Between the here and the what should be.  God is always in control.  My hubby didn’t NEED to text me when he did…but he did. That was a needful God moment, to give me a moment to stop, breathe, think my actions through.  To use adrenaline for the purpose God created it for…awakeful, alertness to keeps one surviving. 

And so through God’s orchestration, I see his grace reaching out to me.

Through yelling and conversation I realized again… My God reigns.  He’s fully in control and aware of all that occurs.  He handles hurt and pain and anger and he changes and moves and makes things better. His control.  His reign.  Always. Remember it.

 

Remembering his-story

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All this week I’ve been cleaning and tidying what I call the book room.  It’s where the predominance of our books are kept, it is now also my husbands office.  It’s taken a lot of work to get it to be serviceable but it’s pretty good right now.  🙂  Anyways, that’s not the point of this post eh?   As I was cleaning and rearranging books I kept running into biographies of people.  I was reminded of my lad’s current reading project.  He’s reading through the stories of peope who have gone on before. Folks of faith like Amy Carmichael, Gladys (oh her last name is escaping me), and William Carey.   He is enjoying these books so I was glad to find a few more he’ll be able to dig into.   (as long as I remember where I put them!). 

statue, antique. Text: remembering his-story

Today’s devotional from the Faith-Shaped Life has Mr. Hamilton reminding us of God’s call upon us to remember our history.  To remember the things that God has done.   We need to be about remembering his-story.

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We need to remember those who have gone on before, faithful men and women who have given up their lives in order to stay true to God and his word.

Mr. Hamilton raises the question, but what do those deaths, those martyrdoms have to do with us today?   We live in a society where we aren’t going to be killed for our faith.  The question arises though… what does our faith call us to give up? When Christian bakers lose their livelihoods because they hold to the gospel, when businesses are threatened because of their faith stance, and so forth.  Do we go with the post-modern times we live in, or … do we remember those who have gone on before and stand true to the word of God?  THIS is where remembering our history and how God upholds his people matters.   It helps us also to stand firm.

This ability to stand firm is what helps turn the hearts of non-believers to the Lord. When they see our faith in action, it helps them to think through what they are doing, and just maybe, to turn to the Lord.   Weak-willed Christians won’t do that.  Faith-filled ones will.

Action Point

Take time to know your history, study the lives of missionaries, learn the stories of faith from your own family, tell and retell the stories of when you have seen God at work.  The cause of the gospel is not forwarded by the faint of heart.  It is forwarded by those who know they serve of God of action.  See that action, be aware of it throughout the passage of time, and keep spreading it forward.

Let us then “be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labour is not in vain.”   I Corthinthians 15:58

Highest Privilege

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That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— 2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— 3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 1 John 1:1-3 ESV

See those words in verse 3 eh?   Life was made manifest to us so that we might have fellowship with God.   This is our highest privilege.  Jesus came to make this a possibility for us.

our highest privilege

So the question is this…. do we act like it?

Seriously now… I know when I am faced up to this, I often don’t really act like spending time with God is my highest priority.  For instance, take the blog.  My desire is to spend time learning of God a minimum of four days a week and share that time with you as part of an accountability to myself AND you.   But this week.. Twice.  Seriously..how is THAT showing that spending time with God is my highest priority?

I find myself so busy lately… cleaning the yard, helping a lad learn how to caulk a window, teaching two boys how to clean out an eavestrough, cleaning a rabbitry, making meals and …. (you know the list can go on and on).  I manage to have devotions with the boys at supper time but why does the physical press so hard when the spiritual should come first?

I honestly don’t know the answer.  Do you?   

AH… but I read further into this chapter by Ian Hamilton.  He pointed out this important fact.  Too often we see our relationship only from OUR point of view.  We see only our failures (like me above eh?) and we don’t actually look at our relationship with God from HIS point of view.  Failing to see God’s unfailing love.

It’s an interesting thing I’ve seen in my own life.  When I see/feel my husbands strong love for me… I find myself wanting to do anything I can to make his life better or easier or to just show him how much I love him back.  Thinking about this for a minute I stop and think about how marriage is supposed to show (in part) God’s relationship with the church.   If feeling my hubby’s love for me causes me to respond in love to him, how so would feeling/understanding/knowing the depth of God’s love for me change my priorities in life?   

Would seeing our relationship from HIS point of view, help alter my commitment levels?  Or actions?  Oh, that I might, that we might, fully understand God’s undying, never ending love for us. God holds a DEAR love for us his people.  Understanding and seeing and feeling that love changes us inexplicably.

Let us stop being so self-centred in our relationship with God and see more clearly HIS relationship with us.  A dearly loved child, that Christ came to earth to reconnect with his Father, sacrificing himself on our behalf, giving up everything for us.  Remember… God loves us in a never ending, deep manner. 

Oh… be changed by it! 🙂