Do you like Maple Syrup?

    I love maple syrup.  I put it on pancakes, waffles, french toast and even scrambled eggs!  Maple syrup comes to you exclusively from the New England area of the US where maple trees are in abundant supply.    These trees not only supply us with a sweet treat for our breakfast meals, they also supply us with a beautiful array of colors this time of year that millions of people flock to every year to get a glimpse of.

    Ever wonder how New England became a bastion of maple trees?   If you thought it was some by-product of some ice-age phenomenon you'd be wrong!   No, the reason the New England area is covered in maple trees is all do to deforestation.   When New England was still owned by Great Britain, New England was covered with pine trees (and in many parts it still is) that Britain wanted for its ship-building.   Trees were cut down in large swaths for this purpose.   Later, dairy farming became big business as well and more trees were cut down to make room that as well.  When dairy farming stopped being profitable, many of these farms were abandoned and Mother Nature took over and filled in the empty regions with trees that were still left over.   That tree was the tasty maple tree.

    The mistake that many environmental purists make today is thinking that areas that are deforested never grow anything back in its place.   We think that the land will become a barren desert or wasteland.  It turns out, however,  nature is remarkably resilient and adapts.  Nature abhors a vacuum.  It fills in with something else.  Sometimes something even better than before but was not given a chance because of the abundance of another inhabitant. 

    So next time you are sitting in your favorite breakfast restaurant and enjoying a stack of pancakes dripping with maple syrup, be thankful for the lumber and farming industries that deforested the New England Area in the 1700 and 1800's.   It wouldn't have happened without them!

 

God jumps right into our messiness

      I love the show "Dirty Jobs" with Mike Rowe.   Mike takes on some of the most disgusting jobs there are in our country.   He has done everything from pig farming, sheep neutering, sewer cleaning, to worm farming. There seems to be no job too dirty for him to try at least once.  Often he will don a plastic hazmat suit and look at what he is about to encounter and say, "Well I guess I just have to jump right in!".  

   The Christmas story is in reality at story filled with dirt, filth and the outcasts of society.  We have cleaned it up over years and in the process have lost much of the message God is communicating to us.  

   First we have the angel appearing to Mary in the small town of Nazareth.  A town in northern Israel with a bad reputation. We know this because later when the disciple Philip is called to meet Jesus of Nazareth he comments “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”   A dirty little town with a bad reputation.  

    Next we have a Virgin who is pregnant.  Not even Joseph believes her until he is visited by an angel as well. A scandalous e relationship.  In todays world it wouldn’t even be noticed but in their day it was on par with Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.  We have Joseph who needs to go to Bethlehem where his birth record is kept to pay a Roman tax.  Under normal conditions only Joseph would go and Mary , who is 9 months pregnant, would stay home with family to take care of her. Instead, we have both of them traveling to Bethlehem together.  Message: Mary is disowned by her family and she’s Joseph’s business now.  Upon arriving in Bethlehem the rejection continues as none of Joseph’s extended family has no spare room for either of them. Apparently the word about Mary has spread to there as well. 

    Second, we have the shepherds watching over their flocks by night.  It sounds so quaint doesn’t it?  It’s not.  Shepherding was not a glamorous job and it paid very little. These were the most likely the homeless of their world just trying to get by and survive.  Because of their constant handling of livestock they would be “ceremonial unclean” and unable to go to the Temple in Jerusalem.  Poor , outcasts and ignored by everyone.  Yet it’s these outcasts God makes his first Gospel declaration to.  

    Next you have the scene at the manger. In Israel there are very few trees , but lots of rocks and caves.  The barn we view in our mind is most likely a cave and the manger is not made of wood ,but instead is carved out of rock.  The scene of the shepherds visiting the manger with Jesus wrapped in swaddling cloths has more meaning than what meets the eye. To understand this you needs to understand Bethlehem’s connection to king David and their connection to the Temple. 

Bethlehem was the town of King David’s birth and growing up. Having this very important leader gave Bethlehem a unique position.  They became the main supplier of sacrificial lambs to the temple of Jerusalem.  These sacrifices were for the atoning of their sins.  But no ordinary lamb would do.  It had to be without blemish and so it had to be examined by the priests.  But touching a newborn lamb would make the priest unclean.  To deal with this the priests supplied the shepherds with “swaddling cloth”.   They would wrap the lamp in this cloth and place it in a manger for the priests to come in and do their examination.  

Do you see the connection now?  Here we have the shepherds present and Jesus wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. The message is unmistakable from God: “This is my chosen lamb without blemish to be the sacrifice for all the worlds sins”. 

   Finally we have Jesus wrapped head to toe with dirty cloth used to swaddle newborn lambs , making him ceremonially unclean as well.  

    So often when we start a new job or new endeavor we want a grace period. A time to get warmed up to the new environment or new people.   We want to "ease our way into it".    Most of the time we want this so if we find out it's not really our thing to do or not.  If it's not, then we can just exit without having been inconvenienced too much and go back to what we were doing before.   But not Jesus.   He doesn't ease his way with a nice birth and a nice middle-class upbringing and later expose himself to the more lurid parts of our world to see if it "fits him".   Instead, like Mike Rowe in “Dirty Jobs” “, Jesus jumps in with both feet to take on our filth and our separation from God.  He’s associated with scandalous people, the unclean, the unwanted and the unnoticed.  
   
      He does this to show you how much he loves you and how much he wants to help you.  He wants your filth. He wants it all.  Only then can he take it away as Gods own “sacrificial lamb” 

There's nothing you can do

  Okay! This blog is going to be very different from all the others I have done before.

   First of all, I need YOU to participate in this blog and not just read it.

   Here are my instructions:  (better if you can have someone READ them to you if you can)

1. Lie down in a quiet place (or sit if you can't lie down)
2. Close your eyes
3. Take 3 or 4 deep breathes 
4. Imagine you are soooo weak that you can't speak, move or even open your eyes.  The energy in your body is sapped.  
5. Now imagine you are on your death bed.  You are minutes away from taking your LAST    breath.  There is NOTHING you can do right now to earn your righteousness.  Nothing you can say or do.  You will be meeting God very soon.  All you can do is rely on your faith in his word that he has done it all for you.

Now open your eyes.   How did that make you feel?

The Bible says, "The Righteous shall LIVE by FAITH".    Yet for most of our lives we live our lives out feeling like we need to do something to earn that salvation.  However, on your death bed, when it all comes down to it, you have nothing to offer God and must rely on faith that he has done it all.

The same person who is reading this post now is the same person a few minutes ago was imagining themselves on their death-bed.  God accepts that same person, who could only breath a few minutes ago, who is now fully alive and awake.  There is nothing different between the two people they are one and the same.   God accepts you just as you are right now... not just on your death-bed.    He loves you right now!

Live your life by faith!
 

Nobody likes to see something good come to an end

    I remember taking a class on Roman history at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana.  This class was so popular it had to be taught in the largest auditorium the school had on campus (known as the Pantheon because it was built to look like the Roman Pantheon).  Professor John Scanlon taught the course and he walked us through 1000 years of Roman history in just one semester.  I was enthralled with how much Rome was like the modern United States in its art, science, engineering, military might and politics.  I eagerly awaited each class and took detailed notes.

    Then on the last week of class he covered their eventual demise.  The long, slow decay of the once mighty empire.  He showed us how the Goths and Visigoths were able to cut Rome of from its water supply and that Rome surrendered without a fight. He covered how Rome had spent its wealth to hire mercenaries to do their fighting for them because they could not get enough of their own people to defend the empire. 

    I remember leaving the class that day feeling angry.   The dark ages were to come and the world would lose 1000 years of advancement.  Imagine us going to moon in 969 AD instead of 1969 AD.   Imagine where we would be now in technology. 

     But God had a better plan....

     From what I see today, our "advancement" does not always serve God's plan.  We don't become better but instead become worse.   Maybe God's plan was to slow our human-advancement down so his Gospel could "advance" throughout the world.   I am not saying this is the only reason, but it could be a reason for God allowing Rome to fall as it did and when it did. 

     But whatever the "reason",  God does it all out of love and we have to trust him.   I am sure there were many back in Rome that were dismayed as Rome had just become a Christian Empire with the conversion of Constantine to Christianity just 50 years earlier.   I am sure they were scratching their heads as well.  They probably thought the whole goal of God was to conquer the Roman Empire with the Gospel and then issue in some new age of a Christian Empire to advance the Gospel.    But their misguided hope was soon to be dashed to the ground.

   That is not how God works.   He doesn't need the Roman Empire to advance his Truth.  He also doesn't need the United States to advance it either.   God works through the hearts and minds of his children and not by politics or military/economic might.   Yes, God does make use of these things to save man from himself and give order to the world, but they are not end-all we want them to be.  They are tools he uses for his purpose.   Like this laptop I am using right now to write this blog.   It serves my purpose to get my word out for others to read, but eventually this laptop will be sitting at the bottom of a landfill someday as it will wear out and no longer be useful for anyone.   So also, the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany ... and so on will no longer serve God's purpose and will be scrapped just like Rome was in 415AD.

   As believers in Jesus Christ we know our hope is not diminished when this happens.  God is still in control.   Evil may seem to be "winning the day" much like it seemed to the people of Rome when their water supply was cut off by the Goths.  God wins in the end.   Our victory is already certain because Jesus is raised from the dead. 

Delivered

*****************************************************

             Your wire transfer of funds has been delivered

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     I remember getting a similar message from our bank that final payment on our house has finally gone through and the transfer was completed. We had decided to pay off the remaining amount early and went to the bank to fill out the paperwork.   We ordered a wire-transfer of the needed amount and waited for the funds to transfer and the mortgage company to give us the deed to our house.  The house was now 100% ours and we owed nothing more to the bank

Done. Finished. Completed.

We can relax knowing there is nothing more to do.

Jesus cried out in a loud voice on the cross “IT IS FINISHED!!”   I am sure many people around the cross were perplexed as to what Jesus was declaring.  To them, he was the one that was "finished", but he was declaring the work God the Father had given him was 100% complete.   Jesus resurrection from the grave was receipt that God accepted the payment.

The transfer of righteousness for sins is complete. There is nothing more for us to do. God has done it all.   You are FREE!

They have Moses and the Prophets. Let them listen to them

       When I was in high school I was really into reading about the Shroud of Turin.  The Shroud is thought to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ.   I read a lot about the cloth and all of the amazing facts about it that were hard to explain.   I read about it's amazing photographic-negative image that was a PERFECT negative (hard to do even by pros today).   I read about the studies done on it and how everything matched up for it to be the actual burial cloth of Jesus.

       When the Shroud of Turin was carbon-dated and the date came to be from the 13th century, my heart sank.  I wanted science to re-enforce my faith.  I wanted so badly to have something that I could point to and say, "See this??  Look at this!!!"   Then later I saw a news-piece that showed a woman from Iowa challenged the finding by showing the scientists that they had drawn their sample form a part of the cloth that was repaired in the 13th century after a fire burned part of it.  The chief scientist was amazed that a woman from Iowa was right when she pointed out that the cloth had been repaired using a method of "inter-weaving" a new piece of cloth into the old in such a way the naked eye could not tell , but a seasoned weaver would see that the weave changed directions where the new and old meet.   This inter-weaving also explained the big date difference in dates the carbon-dating method found in the samples no one earlier could explain.   Now they knew it was because the samples closer to the old cloth had more old cloth woven into it and it accounted for the large discrepancy in the dates.    Now all that had to be done was to get a new sample from the cloth again.  But this is impossible now.   When the scientists were brought in to examine and test the Shroud of Turin they showed the church that the cloth was slowly deteriorating from UV light.  To slow this process down the church treated the cloth with a chemical that now makes it impossible to do carbon-dating. 

    I find all of this to be too coincidental to just be "fate".    It's too coincidental that:

1. The cloth would be in a fire and burned in the 13th century but mostly saved intact and only a small part of it needed to be repaired.    
2. The scientists would just happen to take their sample from the wrong section that had been repaired by a fire (of all the areas they could have taken, they took it from the worst part).  
3. They can't take any samples because their research showed the deterioration of the cloth causing the church to take actions that would prevent any future dating.   

     Coincidence? 

     I don't think so. 

     I think God has shut the door on yet another "scientific-faith-proof" we so desperately want.  We are like the "rich man" in the story of "The rich man and Lazarus" who pleads with God to send Lazarus back to his brothers to warn them and Abraham says, "They have Moses and the Prophets to warn them. Let them listen to them".  We want more proof than just God's word.  We want science to back us up.   We want something physical to point to that says, "You faith is real!"    But God will not give that to us.   We have more than Moses and the Prophets.   He has given us his Son and put his Spirit into our hearts.   That is all we need and no more.

Faith needs an alternative

      When I was younger, I used to hold to the Apparent-Age-Theory that when God created the Universe it had a pre-designed-age built into it that would make it appear to be older than it is.   I don't hold to this idea anymore because I see it goes against God's nature to not lie or deceive.   The Apparent-Age-Theory says God created the universe to "look old" but that is like me taking a new piece of furniture, denting it, scratching it, putting on old varnish and selling it as being an "antique" when it really isn't at all.  It's forgery.  Same would be for the Apparent-Age-Theory only on a much grander scale.

      Could God create the universe in 6 days? Yes.   Absolutely!   But God, knowing we would later create telescopes to probe the depths of space, would know we would look out and see the farthest stars are only 10,000 light-years away!   He knew we would find ways to tell the age of rocks and see that they are only 10,000 years old or less.  He knew we would dig the earth in our efforts to find fossils of ancient creatures only to find nothing older than 10,000 years.  Everything would point to a very very young universe and that there would be no other answer to HOW we got here than for us to BELIEVE there is a God.    There would be no alternative for him ponder or choose.   We would HAVE to be believe.

     That, of course, would make our jobs as God's children/disciples a lot easier wouldn't it!  We would have science on our side.  We could just point to hundreds of articles showing how there is no other answer and that God is very real and the Bible is 100% correct.   Maybe that is what we want, but no matter how we look at it today we will always be at odds with the "alternative".

    Why would God do it this way?

     Because he wants us to seek him out in FAITH.... NOT FACTS!

     As Paul says, "The righteous shall live by FAITH!"

     Paul talks about how God in his wisdom has nullified the wisdom of the wise. He has essentially made it futile for them to know him through their own thinking.   Yet we keep trying to prove the scientists wrong even though God already has sent them away empty. 

     Going back to idea of if God had made the universe in 6 days, 10,000 years ago, we could then conclude that the wise and learned would actually have a leg-up on the rest of humanity in their search for God.  Their knowledge would make them more able to find God. The could proudly write long dissertations on how certain they are that God exists and how anyone who looks at the data could not think any other way.   But God doesn't want the proud.  He wants the meek.  He wants the simple and the needy.  Jesus says, "Unless you enter the Kingdom of God like that of a little child you shall never enter it!"

     In order to "nullify the wisdom of the wise", there has to be an alternative for them to believe in.  Of course no matter how well drawn up this "alternative" is,  it will always run into a wall with a sign that reads "Where did it all start?".   For example, the Big Bang was thought to be "the start", but then people asked "Where did the singularity come from?" and so they scientists have developed String-Theory to explain the singularity, but then the question becomes, "Where did the multi-dimensional strings come from?"  and so on....  Science cannot think itself to God and it cannot (if it's truly honest)  think itself away from God either.  In the end, it's never "I CAN'T BELIEVE!" , it's always "I WON'T BELIEVE!".   It always comes back to faith.

    As Christians, we often wish there wasn't an alternative. God calls us to trust him and know his love for us.  We want to be liked by the world and our faith always puts us at odds.  But that is how it has to be.   Jesus said that we cannot be friends with God and friends with the world.  If they called Jesus, "The Lord of the Flies" (Beelzebub) how much more will they call us. 

   We are called to be loving and faithful as Christ was towards us.    We cannot think our way to God and so we should not be scared of science or it's findings.  The "alternative" is a false path and has no hope in the end.   Jesus said, "When the Son of Man returns, will he find FAITH on the earth?"   The answer to that question seems to be baked into the question.  The answer is : NO.  All of these "findings" serve God's design to bring this about.   As we become more and more "intelligent" we will become less and less "faithful".   Man will become the "god of his own making", in essence his own ideal view of what he thinks God should be.

    This is not to say Christians should not be in the science fields or that we should ignore science.  We just need to stop looking for science to back up our faith or to be in place of our faith.  God doesn't need to be "proved" and neither do we need it either. 

The ONE thing evolution cannot explain....

     I have seen many proposals from Christians who try to take on the Theory of Evolution.  Most of these proposals play the game I call "Stump the Evolutionist" in which very complex systems we see are shown to the Evolutionist and then dared to find a way to show how such a complex system could possibly come about.   Whether it's the Bombardier Beetle, or Blood Clotting or the Process of Vision the end result to the person who believes in Evolution is the same.  All they do is re-iterate in the voice of Carl Sagan, "Billions and billions of years!"  and off they go shaking their heads.

    The problem as I see it is not playing "Stump the Evolutionist" in the first place.   Or at least not playing by their rules.  If I want to prove the Law of Thermodynamics wrong, I don't come up with some complex Rude Goldberg machine, instead I find something that violates the laws of thermodynamics.  What is needed is not some highly complex system, but instead a system or species that exists that BREAKS the rules of Evolution and yet.... for some reason.... is still here.  Such a system does exists and it's all around us.

    First you have to understand the basic rules of Evolution.  They are pretty simple rules.

1. Live as LONG as possible (i.e. don't get eaten)
2. Make as MANY copies of yourself as possible  (have lots of sex)
3. Do all of this using the LEAST amount of energy (if you can escape a predator with camouflage then hide)

     So what exists all around for billions of years and yet for some reason violates these laws?   The answer is simple:  the difference in the sexes and their desire for sex.

      Throughout our world, wherever there are male and female of a species, the male side wants to have sex and it wants it all the time.  Whereas the female, on the other hand, does not want sex all the time and actually forces the male to perform sometimes trivial tasks before mating.  These tasks, might be singing, dancing, gift-giving and fighting.  All of these violate rules 2 & 3 of Evolution and yet are still here.   It doesn't make sense that after billions of years of playing this game, no species has figured out the best and easiest way to win the game is to produce a species where both the male AND the female want to have sex all the time.    If a species did, they would out produce any competitor species that is limiting its reproduction to a few days a year and only after some energy wasting processes has been accomplished.

      Now some evolutionists, would say that the system of female sex limitations would possibly create a stronger mate or stronger children.   But most species (and I would even throw in humans) are not future driven in their picking of mates.  They are not looking at a mate and thinking about their great-great-grand-children and how strong they will be.  Evolution does not have the LONG view of life but only the here and now.   So you can't use the argument that the difference of the species comes from that.


      The difference in males and females is what we call in engineering a "negative feedback loop" (NFL).  Most people who don't have a science background would think that positive feedback loops (PFL) are good and NFL's are bad, but actually it's the other way around.   PFL's explode and run out of control eventually.  Take for example the famous Tacoma Bridge Collapse back in the 1950's.   Tacoma Washington had built a bridge that was a small version of the Golden Gate Bridge.   Because of it's smaller size it was more susceptible to lift from wind.   The cross section of the bridge mirrored that of a planes wing and experienced lift from air-pressure difference. This lift was then countered by the tension of the road and it would swing back down.  This caused a "feedback loop" which resonated and the lifting and falling became more and more pronounced until the bridge collapsed altogether.

      Male and Females relationship needs are a NFL.   Men want physical love and Women want emotional love.   I am not saying Men don't love emotional love (sharing, caring, talking etc) it's just not as big of a kick to us.  On a scale of 1 to 10, its' about a 5 or 6 but sex is a 10 all the time.  Women on the other hand, give emotional love a 10 and sex more of a 5 or 6.   This means that when men give emotional love, the immediate feedback to them is not all that great so there is not immediate "Wow! Let's do this again!".   It's only when the woman returns it with sex that he gets his big payday.  The same is for the woman.  She doesn't get a big WOW out of sex (not to the same level as the man) but when it's returned with lots of sharing of feelings, thoughts, expressions of love she gets her real payback.   Of course, neither is going to be willing to DOUBLE their efforts to get more in return, because what they have to give they are not really good at doing or get a real immediate satisfaction from doing. 

    That is the Negative Feedback Loop in action.

     What is interesting is that the Rules of Evolution would never produce this NFL on it's own.    Left to itself, it would only produce the PFL because that answers all the rules with best possible outcome. This is what we should get in our world, yet we see none of that.

    Why is that?

     Genesis gives us the clue, "And God made them male and female".   It is an engineered system and not a randomly evolved system.  Natural system move towards PFL's and engineered systems know to stay clear of these and move towards NFL's.   Only an all-knowing God would know to create such a wonderful and self-balancing and self-regulating system.

Dear Intel.... I forgive you

    With Labor Day fast approaching I felt it was a good time for me to finally write this blog.  Labor Day is the day we set aside to show appreciation for the workers in our country and all they do to make our world work.   Appreciation is nice to have, but so often it is not shown the other 364 days of the year by our company heads.  Too often they love the work we do for them.... they just wish it didn't cost them so darn much.... and they find ways to stop that from happening. 

    As Christians we are taught to "Forgive others as God has forgiven you".   That is all good when you are sitting across a table from someone you have a relationship with and they pour their soul out to you that they have wronged you and want your forgiveness.   It's a whole different thing when you get a check in the mail from a law firm saying your company settled out of court (along with Apple and Google) to a tune of $415 million because they got caught creating a "No Hire List" to prevent workers from moving from one company to another and driving up wages (this was done from 2005 to 2010).   The money is nice, but where are the tears?  Where is the "We are soooo sorry!"?   Where is the "We did something wrong!" (by the way, part of the agreement was that they did NOT have to admit to any wrong-doing).    

    To describe my feelings when I got that letter I can only say it would be like coming home and finding your wife in bed with your best friend and then finding out it's been going on for 5 years (no, my wife has never cheated on me and loves me to death... but that is the only comparison I could come up with).   By 2015, I had worked for Intel for 25 years.   It was a dream come true to work for them.  I proudly wore Intel Inside T-shirts and loved to tell people I worked for Intel.  I worked long hours at Intel and put in many 50 to 60-hour work weeks.   It was so great it didn't even feel like work most of the time.  During the Microprocessor War years with AMD I would urge friends and family to buy Intel over AMD and loved sharing our latest product release information.  I was one of Intel's best cheerleaders.  The check from the law firm was a gut-check and not a pay-check. 

     Fast forward to today and here I am writing about what some would call "ancient history" or "water under the bridge".  But I keep finding myself drawn back to this like a dog to its vomit.  After much soul searching and discussion I realized the answer was in a past blog I wrote to my daughter about graduating from college.   The blog was titled, "Swinging from the monkey bars".   In the blog, tell her that moving through life is like swinging on the playground monkey-bars.  The trick to making it across is to not lose your momentum and to "let go" of the bar you are holding onto as soon as you "grab hold" of the next bar.  My advice to her was simple: Reach, Grab and Let Go!   I told her that if you don't let go, you will lose your forward momentum and you will be "stuck between two bars".    As I read that advice, it occurred to me that I was the one that was "stuck" and not her. I needed to "let go" of the past with Intel with forgiveness. Yes, I am wiser now to the world and will never be 100% the same again, but I need to move forward and let go of the bitterness. 

     Maybe someday I will wear the Intel T-shirts again......after I put some distance between me and the "2015 bar".   For now, I am at peace with myself.  I love my co-workers, my projects and my work.   I enjoy the challenges that are given me to work on every day.  I hope that maybe this letter will serve as a guide to others who find themselves in a similar predicament as me.   I hope that maybe it will serve as a guide to other CEOs or VPs who need to be reminded of the relationship they have with their employees who work for them and to not take them for granted.  Maybe upon reading this they will have a new appreciation for their workers who invest not only their time and energy into them but also their passion and emotions.   Maybe they will see that money can't buy that kind of allegiance or fix all wounds. 

Strength through Weakness.

   Most Christians are aware of Paul's "thorn in the flesh sent by Satan to torment me" and that even though Paul prayed fervently 3 times to have it taken away, Jesus responds,

 "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness"

   We don't know what the "thorn" was because Paul doesn't give us any insight into it.  I think the reason for this is because it doesn't really matter what it is.   It's meant for you and me to be a sort of "fill in the blank" or "insert your problem here" type of issue.  This prevents us from tossing off our problems as either "nothing compared to Paul's" or just the opposite and assuming ours is so much worse than his.

    We love to hear of stories of people being healed or overcoming an affliction like alcohol or drug addiction.   It empowers us to feel we can overcome as well.   But that is not what we as Christians are supposed to be all about.  It's not about our strength but God's strength.   Paul says is was sent to keep him from becoming conceited because of God's revelation given to him.   It was a blessing God was giving him and not a curse.  It was the only way to keep Paul humble and remind him that he is only flesh.   How many Christian leaders do we see today that are all puffed up.  Paul could have easily become just like them and the thorn was there to pop his little ego-balloon. 

    What is interesting to me is Jesus words on "grace".  Grace is loving someone who doesn't deserve that love.  Grace is unconditional love.   How does that play into Paul's thorn?   I think everyone hates thorns.  I have a lemon tree in my backyard.   I learned quickly that lemon trees have very large and sharp thorns ( I did not know that before ).   Even after you have moved away from the thorn you can still feel it's pain of where it has stabbed you.   Pain brings out the worst in us, especially when that pain is constant and never ending.   I have a friend with neuropathy of the feet.   His feet will suddenly feel like he is being stabbed with a bunch of knives and he will utter the most foul words you have ever heard (unless there are women in the room).  I too, can be a monster when I am in pain for a lengthy period of time and I have to ask forgiveness a lot of my wife.  It is here we are reminded that we are sinners at the core.   It is here that we must rely on God's grace.   It is here that God's power is shown in our lives and not our own power. 

    I am reminded of the movie "Cinderella Man" where the main character, James Braddock , falls on hard times as a boxer in the Great Depression.   He loses his license to box and must work as a loading dock hand to feed his family.   He breaks his right hand during a car accident and is forced to use his left hand to lift the heavy bags off the ships.   Later he gets a chance to box again and even though he hasn't fought or trained in over a year he knocks the other boxer out.   His manager asks him about how he was able to improve his left hook so much and he says "I broke my right hand and had to rely on my left down at the docks!".    His injured right hand was a blessing because it strengthened his left.  Often that is how it is with us and God.   God can't work on us relying on him until he has taken away the part of us we have relied on for so long.    He perfects himself in us by making us less reliant on ourselves and more reliant on him. 

    I have learned what that means more and more as I get older.   When I was young I was so self-reliant.   I could do it all myself.   I could always rely on my intellect to get me through life.  Whether it as school, work, church or even home I could always figure things out.   When I hit 45 something suddenly changed inside me.   I went through a terrible time of what I can only describe as intense brain-fog.  It was the most scary time of life I had ever gone through.   I felt as if God had abandoned me.  He hadn't.   He just took away the part of me I counted on to get me through jams.  I later found out I was Low-Testosterone and I had the brain of a 90 year-old man.  Even after addressing the low-T I was never really ever the same again.    I cried "Why Lord??  Why now??".   I still don't have that answer yet.   I am like Paul, hearing God's "My grace is sufficient" message. It's not easy but I know that God loves me and his grace is all that matters.

    On a final note, I think Jesus points to his grace to show Paul that our situation, our pain, our suffering is not a measure of how much God loves us.  We must trust that he loves us just as much when we are in the worst of pain than when everything is going great.   We often have this sort God-math we use without knowing it.    We think

    MY_SITUATION =  Function( GOD's LOVE );

or

GOD's LOVE = Function ( MY SITUATION )

   We fall into the false premise that if you are doing great then you are being BLESSED and if you are doing horrible then you are being CHASTISED (or DISCIPLINED) for some wrong.   I must admit I have often had this wrong view of God too.   We see fellow Christians running around trying to "figure out" what they had done wrong to deserve this.  They often think "If I can just figure out what God is trying to teach me then God will take all this away because I learned my lesson".   I have felt that way too, but it's wrong.  WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!   Our suffering may just be a consequence of living in a sin-filled world.   There might not be any "lesson" at the end at all other than we are mortal

    What we can all take away from our suffering is this: God's love doesn't change.  When Job was going through all his misery God was not there sitting by waiting for Job to "get it".    He loved Job through it all.    God's grace was unchanging and Paul had to accept that this problem was not going to go away and that God loved him.   He loves you too.

Losers can be winners too

   In sports, there can only be one winner.   In Super Bowl 51, the first ever overtime Super Bowl game was played.   Before the referee flipped the coin to decide who got the ball first, he told both teams that overtime would be played until there was a winner.  No ties are allowed in the Super Bowl.   There has to be winner and there has to be a loser.

    We read in Romans 8:28 :

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

  Too many who read these words, read into the word "good" as meaning "rosy outcome" or "good ending" but is not always the case.  Take for example of the Super Bowl I mentioned earlier.  How can God work for the good of players who may be on different teams where one will go home "happy" and the other "depressed". 

   The answer is in the 3 words "who love him". 

   When we love God, we love what he loves.  We love what he gives to us and also what he gives to others.   We are pleased because God is pleased.   Maybe our "purpose" is to LOSE so someone else can WIN.   Jesus gives us the best example of this.   He loves the Father and loves us so much that for us to WIN he had to LOSE.  He suffered hell so we could receive heaven.  If God is pleased that someone else wins then I can be pleased that God is pleased.

   In God's world the losers are really the winners.   Their loss is someone else's gain.

Lord,
      Please help me to love what you love and to want what you want.  If my loss is someone else's gain and you desire it to be so, then let me be happy with whatever comes.  In Jesus' name!

Amen

We are not trash!

   I recently saw the movie  "Toy Story 4" and was amazed at how well the story writers put together this movie.  It was an amazing movie I would even be willing to pay money to see again!  In the movie I caught hold of a message that I believe God had woven into the story line for us to see.

   In the movie, a new toy is created by the name of Forky.  The little girl, Bonnie, goes off to Kindergarten and while there she creates a little fork-person out of some items from the trash (Woody had collected them and put them on her table while she wasn't looking).   She takes a Popsicle stick, a Spork, some eyes, some gum and a pipe-cleaner and creates Forky.  She then writes her name his feet which were made of of Popsicle sticks.   Later on, when she is going home Woody is in the backpack with Forky and is shocked when Forky comes alive and starts talking.  This is the beginning of Woody's trials in the movie as Forky does not see himself as a toy, but instead sees himself only as trash and tries to throw himself into any trashcan he sees.   One night, while they are on a road trip in an RV,  Forky throws himself out the back window and Woody has to go after him because he means everything to Bonnie.   He tracks down Forky who is stuck in the dirt on the side of the road.  He pulls him out and begins a long trek back to the RV park.   During their hike, Woody spends time trying to convince Forky he is NOT TRASH but a TOY.  The turning point happens when Woody tells of his own prior owner Andy who loved him and wrote his name on him.  At that moment, Forky gets it!  He no longer sees himself as TRASH but a TREASURE and wants to get back to Bonnie.

    How much is our life in Christ like that of Woody and/or Forky.  How many times do we have people in our lives like Forky who don't see themselves as anything more than trash and throw themselves into the world's trashcan of drugs, alcohol, porn, hate, self-hatred, bad-relationships, crappy-jobs with no future, self-destruction and so much more.  We tell them that they are so much more than that to God.   God has written his name on them and he has written our names into the palms of his hands.


God writes in Isaiah 49:16:

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast    and have no compassion on the child she has borne? 

   I will not forget you!  

 See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands"

    It is not really until we open up and tell our story to them that they get it.  Like Forky coming to an understanding of who he is when Woody tells his story of Andy and how it impacted his life and changed him so also we connect to others with the Gospel when we share with them how God's love  impacted us.  We are transformed in Baptism to being God's children and are marked forever as his own and nothing can change that!

   Finally, it is worth nothing that our attitude towards others should be the same as Woody's who recklessly loves Forky and throws himself out of the window to go after him because Forky means so much to Bonnie.  We too must recklessly love others and reach out to them because they mean so much to God also.  Because God loves them, we love them too.   Because God searches for them (Bonnie in the movie panics every time she cannot find Forky), we search for them too.

John  writes in 1 John 4:19:

    We love because he first loved us!

Size does NOT matter!

    The phrase "Size does not matter!" appears often in many different areas of conversation.  Some of which we will not go into for this article.   It is a human condition to compare ourselves to others.  We do it on Facebook, we do it the car, at work, at the gym.  Heck we even do it at church too!

    Jesus addressed this issue when he was at a dinner party of a noted Teacher of the Law.  While he was there a woman of bad reputation (probably the prostitute he saved from stoning) came in and washed Jesus' feet with her tears, dried them with her hair and poured expensive perfume on them.   The host took offense to it and thought that if Jesus' was a true prophet he would know this woman was unworthy of being in his presence.   Jesus tells him this parable

    "There were 2 men who owed the King money.  One owed him 5 denari (a weeks wage) and another 500 denari (2 years wages).  Both of them did not have the ability to pay him back and so the King had mercy on them and cancelled their debt.   Who of the two men do you think loved the King more?".   The host replied, "I guess the man who had the larger debt!".

    I am a numbers person.  I love numbers.  When I read this parable I can't help but visualize the two debts sitting on a table.   One stack of 5 verses 100 stacks of 5 (arranged in a 10x10 square none the less!).   The problem is when we do this we miss the most important part of the parable.   Jesus said, "Both of them did not have the ability to pay him back".   Both were flat broke without a penny to their name.  In this parable Jesus illustrates that some people are "less sinful than others".   There are "good people" out there.  We often get confronted with that by unbelievers who love to point to very good and well-meaning people out there.   In the credit-card-of-life some people live very responsible lives for the most part.   They don't run up huge debts and live very reasonable lives.   While others run off to Vegas and go on a betting streak!   But in the end, BOTH have no means to pay it off.

     All too often we try to impress on non-believers that their debt to God is this HUGE mountain of debt and we are a bit put off when they seem to shrug their shoulders and say, "I don't think I am a bad person!  I am not as bad as Hitler!".   They see themselves as the person with the 5 denari debt and it not being that big of a deal.  The real issue is not the size of the debt but the total lack of income to pay for the debt no matter how small it is.  For some, they think they can "work the debt off" with their good works.   The problem with this idea is that there is no "over time credit" in God's economy.

    To illustrate this imagine you work for a small company and you get paid $100K per year.   A sign at the door reads:

All employees must be at their desks at no later than 8AM and go home no sooner than 5PM with lunch from 12:00 to 1:00 , Monday-Friday.  

    One day you make a mistake that costs the owner $20K.   You go to the owner and say, "To work off the $20K I will be at work from 8-5 Monday thru Friday and only take 1 hour for lunch!".  The owner would point to the sign and say, "That won't pay it off!  That's what I require all my workers to do!"  He then tells you "Since you lost 20% of your salary I am going to require you to work 20% MORE!  You will work on Saturday from 8-5 with 1 hour for lunch for the entire next year!"

    But in God's world the sign doesn't read: "Be holy 40 hours a week!", instead it reads "Be holy!" (24/7).  There is no overtime in God's business.   There is no extra we can do.   It's what God already requires us to be, so when we give to the poor, that is what God expects of us anyway.   Even if we try to use our money or even our very bodies as "guilt offerings" we accomplish nothing because all our money and even our bodies is HIS!  He owns everything and using them to pay off the debt is like you trying to use the company credit card to pay off your debt.

    Instead, God asks us to trust him that he loves us and has take care of it all.   But to get there we must first admit we are flat broke and have nothing to offer of our own.  Like those 2 men in Jesus' parable who trust showing themselves in front of the King and telling him they are flat broke.   We must trust our loving and merciful Father who has already paid the full amount because he is the only one with the resources to cancel the debt.  Jesus declaration on the cross of "IT IS FINISHED!" is his stamping on our debt "PAID IN FULL". 

Don't use a hammer to drive a screw!

    Recently the Supreme Court threw out a court ruling by an Oregon court to force a Christian-owned bakery to pay $135,000 in fines for refusing to bake a wedding cake for gay couple.  Regardless of which side of the gay-marriage issue you stand on; the SCOTUS decision was the right one in my opinion and it will benefit all of us.  The problem stemmed from the Oregon state anti-discrimination law which forced all the people of Oregon to get in line on gay-marriage and ruled that one could be compelled by a government to turn away from their religious faith and to say whatever people want them to say.     The SCOTUS ruling dictates limits on such laws and that the government has no say in such matters.

    This is not just a win for religious freedom but also a for an individual's right to their freedom to speak, or in this case, NOT to speak.   All Americans won with this ruling and not just Christians.

     At the heart of the issue is people using the wrong tool to fix what they perceive as a problem.  Back in the 1960's we had a problem of segregation in the US.  This problem took 2 separate forms.  The first was in the separating of the schools into White-only and Blacks-only schools.   This was enforced by the local governments and the school boards that ran the schools.  It was a government initiated problem and therefore it needed a government-initiated solution to end the problem because government problems are typically immune to free-market responses like boycotts etc.   The famous case of Brown-vs-the-Board-of-Education was brought before SCOTUS which decided that "WE THE PEOPLE" cannot be read as "WE THE WHITE PEOPLE" and "WE THE BLACK PEOPLE" and therefore governments cannot provide segregated services even if they can be assured to be "equal".     This is a case of a hammer driving a nail.  

     At the same time in the 1960's there was segregation occurring at the private institution level.  One of the most prominent was the separation of blacks and whites on public buses.   MLK saw the problem and found the right answer to the problem.  He did not run off to the courts to force the bus companies to end their segregation.   Instead MLK lead one of the most successful boycotts of the bus system to force these companies to end their appalling programs.  It did not take long for the bus companies to realize their dependence on the black community and it hit them where it hurt them the most:  their pocket books!  A free-market-solution solved a free-market problem.  This was an outstanding case of a "screwdriver driving in a screw".  MLK used the right tool for the right problem and all Americans benefited from his wisdom.

 
      Now come 50 years later and we have lost our abilities to distinguish nails from screws anymore.  Today, too many on the left, view everything as a nail and see only a hammer (the government) as the solution to be used.  The case of the Oregon baker's vs the Oregon state government is a perfect example of a hammer being used to drive a screw.  You may not agree with their decision to not bake a case for a gay-wedding but forcing someone to do something their conscience is not right either.   Do we really want a country where people lay in fear for what they believe?   Do we really want a country of people who "turn off their conscience" and do what the government dictates?   A conscience is a terrible thing to waste in my opinion.  I would rather have a country full of people acting on their conscience and analyzing their morals and ethos rather than a country full of mindless, morally bankrupt and soulless beings.

     I believe the real solution would have been for the gay-community and it's protractors to launch a boycott of the bakery.   If enough people stop buying from them then they will go out of business unless those who support their beliefs back them up monetarily.  There was no reason to use the "hammer" in this situation as there was no governmental influence forcing the gay-couple to purchase from this bakery.

    Maybe now, we can get back to using hammer-for-nails and screwdrivers-for-screws and create a more fair, reasonable and moral country again.














 

The dead are better off than the living

In Ecclesiastes 4:1-3 Solomon says,

    I saw the tears of the oppressed and they have no comforter;  power was on the side of their oppressors and they have no comforter. 

    And I declared that the dead who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive. 

    Better than both is the one who has never been born, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun.

     I don't know if it's just a product of getting older, but I often feel akin to what Solomon writes in these verses.  How often do we see news-stories of people who are taken advantage of by those in power.  It may be city council person who doesn't want a certain person to speak at a town-hall and has that person physically removed from the premises by "security guards".  It may be a person whose house has been "condemned" by a county who wants to sell their land to a business or owner of a shopping center because they would get more tax money from those uses of the land than from the homeowner.   It could be a high school principal who fires a teacher because they "go off script" and teach what the 1st or 2nd Amendments are really about or maybe a YouTube channel we tune into that has been taken down because some people down like what they say.

    These stories punch us in the gut and we throw up our hands and say "How can this be happening in America?!! How can these people abuse their power and destroy people's lives so carelessly and callously?"   

    Oppression is a subject we all can relate to on some level in our lives.   We have all felt it's effects.  Maybe it was a teacher who didn't like us and made our lives hell.   Maybe it was a boss who played favorites to others who didn't have families to care for.   Whatever the cause, we have all been on the receiving end of oppression.   It's painful and it can feel like you have no options but to leave and try somewhere else.

   Solomon goes on to say that the dead are better off than those living through oppression.

   I had a good friend of mine, Tim, who I had known since the 3rd grade.  Tim and I were fast friends.   He was the first kid to reach out to me when I moved to the new town.  We did everything together.  We graduated high school together and were at each others weddings.   I remember getting the phone call from my brother telling me the news that Tim had just been diagnosed with terminal leukemia and would not live more than 48 hours.   He left behind a wife and 3 kids in the blink of an eye.    At first I was sad for Tim because he was going to miss out on seeing his kids grow up and have kids of their own.  But lately I have felt more like Solomon and in many ways I feel jealous of Tim because he doesn't have to see this country he loved (he served in the Navy) fall apart and politicians abuse their power to destroy those they don't like or agree with. 

    Power is a corrosive force in nature.  It's like salt water which will destroy the strongest of metals given enough exposure and enough time.   Power seeks more power.   Finding people who can withstand it's siren's call is a daunting task.  When King George heard that the famous General Washington, who had defeated his once proud army and navy, had returned to work as a farmer and had not allowed himself to be anointed "king"  he said,

"He must be the greatest man to have ever lived, for it takes great power to say 'no' to power". 

     George Washington showed us how to handle power appropriately by walking away from it.     Sadly, today we have no George Washington's in America anymore.   Instead, we have many lining up for the job as President who see it as a way to control its citizens rather than to give freedom to them.   They want to wield power to put people in line with their views by punishing those who don't.   We are a nation slowly disintegrating by the abuse of power and oppression. 

     May God have mercy on America.

Safe, Legal and ..... RARE?

    Today when people talk about abortion, they often say "We want abortion to be safe, legal and rare".  The comedian, Louis CK, first brought this to my attention in one of his stand-up routines.   He said, 

"Why on earth, if it's safe and legal would you want it to be RARE?  I mean, come on!  If it's safe and legal it should be all over the place?". 

   What Louis CK is point out is that the only reason to make something "rare"  is because at the heart of the activity is something that is inherently wrong and a drain on society in some way.   If there is nothing wrong with it, then it should be common place.  

    Before Roe-v-Wade, abortion could be obtained from some physicians willing to perform it.  These doctors were not armed with coat-hangers as many would want you to think.   They were not sitting in some back alley next to a trash dumpster doing the deed.   They could be found for a price, but that price could be high because of its illegality.   After Roe-v-Wade there was an explosion of abortion providers and it has been an epidemic ever since.   It was already safe, it just wasn't legal yet.   

   So, what would it take for abortion to become rare?

   Today we have all the tools imaginable to prevent pregnancy.   We have multiple types of "pills", we have a plethora of condoms to choose from, many different IUDs and foams to reduce the risks.  So it's not that we don't have the means.  What we lack is the responsibility to use them. 

   So what drives a person to take responsibility?

   What drives a person to NOT do one thing and replace that with another thing is always Cost/Value.  A person becomes responsible when they simply recognize the cost involved.  This is what drives the person to become a responsible human being.   My daughter, for example, totaled 3 cars in 3 months’ time of receiving her driver's license.  Two of the cars were ours and the third was the other driver that ran into her when she thought it was her turn to take a left-hand-turn, when in fact it was not.  That night she stopped driving and would not drive for another 3 years.   That night she became a responsible human being because she saw she was not ready to be an automobile driver.  Because she valued her life, our cars, and the lives of other people on the road she stopped driving.  That was the RESPONSIBLE thing to do and it was that VALUE that drove her decision.    

    Value drives responsibility.   Low value yields low responsibility.  High value yields high responsibility.   Any person who as a child ever received a present from Santa will tell you they often took little care of those items as compared to things they had to save their own money for and purchase for themselves.  Think of it like balance scale.  One one side of the scale is YOU and YOUR NEEDS and on the other side is the COST to you (and others).   In the case of my daughter, her need to prove she can drive was outweighed by the cost to her of hurting other people and damaging our cars.  

    In the past, two things influenced young men and women to take their reproduction responsibly: Social-Pressure (value of your reputation) and Risk of Pregnancy (value of the child).   Social-Pressure has been effectively removed from the table in our society.   Hollywood has done a very effective job over the last several decades to turn the tables on social-pressure by making it almost a sin to not have sex before marriage.  For example, just look at how people like Tim Tebow (a self-professed virgin) are treated by the media.  This leaves us with the risk-of-pregnancy one as really the only factor to influence an unmarried persons choices to become responsible.   This leaves us only with the risk of pregnancy as the only real influential force on people to make better choices in regards to their sex lives.

   But therein lies the problem.  Abortion can only be made legal if the baby is treated as "thing" inside the mother’s womb.(Louis CK also pointed that out in his routine as well).  Instead of being treated as a human being, it must be treated as a cluster of cells reminiscent of a cancer growth that has no feeling and  ZERO value.  The null value of the pre-born yields zero driving force for men and woman to take their sexuality seriously and to take the precautions necessary to prevent pregnancy.  As long as this is the case, there will be many unwanted pregnancies.  This is why it's mutually exclusive ( you can't have them both at the same time).  To reduce the abortions, we must RAISE the value of the unborn from a cancerous-growth to a fully-viable-valuable-human-being with intrinsic value.  But doing so requires abortion to be viewed as murder of an unborn child and therefore cannot be made legal. 

 Abortion can only be illegal-and-rare or legal-and-rampant.   

Sometimes you have to get knocked off your horse!

   Luke records in Acts 9:3-4,

As he (Saul)  neared Damascus, on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.  He fell off his horse and onto the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?"

   Saul was on his "mission" to destroy the church and head them off at Damascus by bringing all those who belonged to "The Way" back to Jerusalem to be tried and put in prison to die (note that Rome had taken away Israel's right to capital punishment, but leaving a person in a dungeon to die was often used as a way around this limitation).  Many believers I am sure were praying for Saul to be stopped on his travels.   We know that Christians in Damascus were fully aware of Saul's mission and exploits.   Saul thought he was doing God's will.  He saw this branch of Judaism to be a false teaching that needed to be snuffed out by all means necessary.

    Yet God comes and knocks Saul off of his horse and confronts Saul with his actions.   Jesus doesn't say, "Why are you persecuting my followers?"   Instead, he says "Why are you persecuting me?"   So Saul was not guilty of just harming God's people, but harming God himself.  This is not a place anyone wants to find themselves.

   How many of us need to be knocked off of our horses?    We are hell bent on what we see as "our mission" only to find we are working against God himself.   In my own life, I have seen times where God had to knock me down to get my attention.  Too often, when things got tough I retreated to my work as an engineer.  At my work I got accolades for my work.  To many, I was a super-star and was looked up to by others around me.   Several years ago, all that ended.   Things were tough again but this time I could not fall back on my work.  I went through a tough time and I saw my energy level drop dramatically on the treadmill in the gym (used to run 9 mph ... now could barely go 6 mph).  I experienced what I can only describe as "intense brain fog".   I couldn't think.  I couldn't remember how to do things.   It was a terrifying feeling for me as an engineer.   I thought I was experiencing early Alzheimer's (but I was only 44 at the time) and 5 years later I would find out that I had severe-low-Testosterone brought on by stress.   It was during this time, I had to rely more on God than on myself.   I could not run away from my troubles but I had to confront them.   God was stopping me and saying,

"John! John!  Why don't you come to me?"  

    Paul (formerly Saul) looked back at this time as being the best thing that ever happened to him.  But while he was going through it, the experience was not enjoyable.  We read that Saul was made blind after meeting Jesus and he had to be led by the hand to a home in Damascus.    Luke records that he neither ate nor drank anything for 4 days.  He saw his life as being over.  Yet in his anguish Jesus was there and had already planned for Saul's help to come to him.   A disciple of Jesus by the name of Ananias was sent to restore Saul's sight and bring him the good news of Jesus!  He ate something and was baptized.  The murderer of Christians was now it's most ardent advocate and soon it's biggest missionary.

     We may not be in the same place of Saul by persecuting believers, but we may be in a place where we are wrestling with God or causing him pain because of where we are headed in our lives.  Where in your life have you been going on your own?  Where do you need to be knocked down so God can get your attention?

Look in the mirror!!

    Almost never, when someone tells you to "Go look in the mirror!" does it mean good news for you.  Often it means you have some big blotch of dirt or food (or a booger) on your face that has been there for some time.  As you wipe whatever it is off, you ponder to yourself "How long has it been that way?" and "Why didn't anyone else tell me?"

   Mirrors are wonderful things.  That have been around for thousands of years as a way for us to see who we really are and what we look like to others around us.   Sometimes when we feel really horrible about ourselves we may even find ourselves looking intently into the mirror to stare into our own eyes to tell ourselves to fix what ails us.   In movies, main characters often stare at themselves intently trying to tell themselves to "get with it!" or to motivate themselves to take on some great task by urging them to have some backbone or hold it together as they face some great challenge ahead

  Today our country is deeply divided.  Some say we are more divided today than we were in the days of the Civil War and Slavery.   We all like to point the finger at a small group of people to hold the responsibility.  Maybe you blame Trump or Obama for the mess we are in.  Or maybe you blame more broadly the GOP or DNC as the culprits.  It doesn't matter really because the real person to blame is much closer than that probably.   That person may be, in fact, staring you directly back at you in the mirror.

   I feel that to really see the cause, everyone should take a good look in the mirror and say "I am the cause of our nations division!".  Ask yourself intently

• Have I posted or shared angry articles on Facebook?
• Have I issued snarky Tweets on Twitter?
• Have I gotten into comment wars on websites?
• Have I stopped talking to people I know because of their party affiliation? 
• Have I made jokes about the other sides ideas?

But it's not enough to just look at those questions and say "I have not done any of those!" but to also ask yourself

• Have I offered any kind comments in response to others Facebook articles?
• Have I offered positive Tweets on Twitter when I find agreement?
• Have I tried to be a peacemaker on website comment boards?
• Have I made amends with those I disagree with politically?
• Have I apologized for any rude jokes that others might have not found "funny"?

   Wars only last as long as there are people on BOTH sides willing to fight them.  So also, our country will only come together when BOTH sides stop fighting and antagonizing each other.  This is where it becomes very difficult.  The question is WHO will stop first?   We are shown countless videos of the other side calling US all kinds of names, fighting, hitting, spitting, hurling bricks and other objects at each other.   We want our side to win and by stopping what we would consider our defense of "our values" we view that as "losing".   But understand that even if your side eventually wins, you still lose.

 

The Greatest Act of Valor

   The other night I was channel surfing and was looking for something good on TV.  I came across a movie on TBS called "Act of Valor".  I had seen the movie in the theaters already several years ago and even though the movie was almost over I decided to watch it anyway.

    When I selected the movie, the scene I caught was the final scene where the Navy SEALS are driving into a Mexican stronghold. The terrorists were thought to be planning their entry into the US through a tunnel.  As the men fought there way through the buildings , a man drops a hand-grenade from above them.  The SEAL in the back of the group, a Lt Anglo, sees the grenade and realizes he is the only person to know it's there.  He yells "GRENADE!" and then proceeds to throw himself onto it and prevents the explosion from hurting anyone else.  Because of his selfless act of valor his men were able to continue their mission and prevent the terrorists from fulfilling their plans.

   The scene ends with sight of blood running out from under Lt Anglo's body onto the ground and him shutting his eyes in death.

   In similar fashion, Jesus saw the 'live-grenade' of God's wrath against sin and our love of sin.  We are like those other men who were oblivious to the presence of the explosive waiting to go off.  Jesus, like the soldier in the movie, didn't hesitate and threw himself on that wrath by willfully allowing evil men to condemn him to the cross in our place.   He took the full impact of that wrath on himself and once that wrath was expelled it no longer posed any danger to us who deserved it so much.

   Why did he do this?

    Jesus said,

"No greater LOVE can a man have than to lay down his life for his friends!"

    He loves you right now!
 
    Not after you respond to his love!
    Not after you reach a certain level of goodness! 
    Not after you  can wrap your mind around why or how!

    He simply wants us to receive his love and follow him.

     But unlike the soldier in the story, Jesus story doesn't end here.  We don't follow a dead person.  We follow Jesus who was raised from the grave as "proof" that God has accepted his payment for our sins.  He is with us today as we make our way through this life.  He is with us to help us to complete the mission the Father first sent him and now sends us as well.

Going to war with God

     Sometimes in war countries will use subterfuge and trickery to make it look like they have a larger army than they really do in order scare off would-be invaders.   Take for example in World War II when the Allies were planning the D day invasion.   They needed to keep Hitler guessing as to where they were going to invade from and so they needed to make it look like we were mounting an invasion in the northern part of England.   Because metal was already scarce, the military couldn’t afford to just put tanks and planes out in an open field and not use them.   So the employed the help of Hollywood.  They were able to create inflatable tanks, airplanes, trucks, jeeps, armored personnel carriers and much more that looked very real even when you were standing just a few hundred yards from it.  This fooled Hitlers spies  and reconnaissance planes and helped give us an edge on D day.

     In Luke 14:25-31 Jesus says,

Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said:26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. 27 And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
28 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?29 For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, 30 saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’ 

31 “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.

   Here Jesus uses the example of a king who is being invaded by another king who has twice as many soldiers as he does.   He reasons that if he doesn't think his smaller army can hold down the castle, that he should surrender and come to peace with the other king.    In most modern Bibles today, this story will come under the section of "The Cost of being a Disciple".   These titles were not in the original texts of the authors, but were put in by biblical scholars to help the reader understand what is being said.    While it is true Jesus is being brutally honest with the people around him that being his disciple might cost them their very lives,  I don't think Jesus' words here are directed at those who have decided to follow him.  Instead, I think his words are directed at those who have NOT decided to follow him or were on the fence.   Jesus is reasoning with the people and getting them to take a census of their lives much like the king in his story.    I think he’s giving them a rational look at the situation that they face.  In reality, mankind has joined Satan's war against God.   Jesus is showing them the reality of the situation and the other king (God) has a much larger army than you and it’s not even close.  You’re going to be going up against this king and you better take a good look at your situation and decide whether not you can do it or not.   God is coming with all of your sins in tow behind him to condemn you.  Now take a good look at your so-called good works that you’re so proud of and then match them up against the host of sins.  Do you have it in you to fight that fight?  Jesus presses for them to send an ambassador to negotiate the terms peace before it's too late! 

    But the good news that we have is that our king from the other side already knows that our military is just full of hot air that there’s nothing there.   They’re much like the inflatable trucks, planes and tanks the Allies used in WW2.   He knows our resources are completely decimated and we will lose.   So he sends his own envoy, Jesus Christ, to not just negotiate peace but to win our peace for us. God does not want to be at war with man he wants to be at peace.