Monday Musings

 Jesus seemed to be aware that he was the Christ at 12 years old. He realized that he had to be about his Father's business. He wasn't talking about his stepfather Joseph. Somehow, though Christ lived in eternity as God's son and as a part of the trinity, he came into this world as a man and he had to live and ultimately die as a man to pay the price for man's sins.

When the risen Christ talked to the men on the road and showed them in the scriptures the things concerning himself they said their hearts were burning. The Bible is a book about Christ. It has history, it has poetry, it has wisdom. But first and foremost it is a book about Christ and the Cross. Your heart needs to burn sometimes when you hear divinely inspired preaching.

Every question that we have concerning God and truth is answered in Christ. Christ is the Word made flesh.

We do not have to understand in order to believe. A child can understand. Anyone can believe. Faith is simply taking God at His word.

Jesus promised to never leave us or forsake us and to go with us to the end of the age. This gives me great hope.

A World of Debased Minded People

"So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." Genesis 1:27

"And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things that are not fitting." Romans 1:28

I have been wondering about life under the influence of Chat GPT. One thing no one is talking about is how easily society has been drawn into the world of generative AI and how quickly we have embraced this brave new world.

This is a society that has given up on God and so it seems that God has given up on them. The madness and anarchy of the modern world is evidence of a world filled with debased minds.

We hate God to the point that we seek to destroy His image and likeness in people. We try to turn boys into girls. We encourage girls to be masculine. We have rejected normal marriage for same sex unions. We have pornified the act of married lovemaking. All of this and more that we do to discredit God and to devalue His image and likeness in humanity.

A debased mind is a mind that thinks up robosex and the idea that cheating your way through university is okay. A debased mind sees more than two genders, and thinks God's idea is stupid. A debased mind is a mind that calls light, darkness, and calls darkness, light. It calls good, evil, and it calls evil, good.

I think it is significant that the first word of the Gospel that was preached in the first century is Repent! God's great love sent Christ to the cross. But God is angry with sinners every day because of the lives lived in mockery of God.

"Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent." Acts 17:30

The Blessing of Sleep

 "It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; for so He gives His beloved sleep." Psalm 127:2

There is a lot of valuable truth in Psalm 127. But that may be for another time. Today I want to focus on the final statement in our text. God loves us and He gives us sleep at night. Pastor Greg once preached an entire sermon on sleep and I was surprised at the response from the Prescott church.

With heart failure like I have, sleep was something that I had trouble with. I could not lay down in bed, I was driven to try to sleep sitting up. I often did not drop off to sleep before 3am. My doctor prescribed sleep aid medicine that barely helped. But now, with my heart failure being treated, sleep has returned.

I am grateful to God every morning for a good nights sleep.

God Provided

 A short while ago I received a windfall of unexpected money. I had no pressing needs at the time so I simply left it in the bank. Then recently my vehicle needed some work done on it. It turns out that the windfall of money that I had received was enough to cover the cost of repairing my vehicle. God provided before I knew that I had a need.

Thank God for His provision in my life!

On My Own

 My cardiologists want me to take heart failure seriously. They want me to follow their guidelines for diet and lifestyle that will be of great benefit to me. They only see me for a few minutes every 6 months. I doubt that I cross their minds in the mean time.

Pastors of big churches want us to take our salvation seriously. They want us to do what needs to be done to ensure that we make Heaven our home. They want us to walk by faith and not by sight. We see them behind their own pulpit occasionally and we visit with them in person almost never.

Jesus, after He rose from the dead, said see you boys later. I did my job, now you do you job. Oh, by the way, I will send the Holy Spirit to help you. You cannot see Him but He is there. Trust me.

It seems on the one hand we are surrounded by experts who know what is best for us, but who are not around in person to tell us what to do and how to do it. We are mostly left to live life on our own, only to be reminded from time to time what we are supposed to be doing.

It seems that I am on my own when it comes to life and how to live.

Truth is True. End of Story.

 I inadvertently got into a discussion on social media about gender. Did you know that well educated people honestly believe that there are more than two genders, male and female? And that if you hold to the creation story you are ignorant and stupid? To me there is no room for discussion or debate. And if this is what our youth are being taught in universities, maybe we would do them a favor by not encouraging them to continue their education.

I told the person that their beliefs put them in conflict with God who created people with only two genders. They believe by faith in what they have been taught, We believe what we have been taught from the Bible.

To think that someone with a masters or doctorate degree would believe in something as silly as this, that there are more than two genders of humans, tells me that a degree does not mean that you are smart, it just means you are good at school and you have mastered the education system. 

"because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools." Romans 1:21-22

Worldlings are ungrateful, unthankful, and unwise.

15 Minutes Every 3 Months?

You see a doctor for 15 minutes every 3 months. This qualifies them as experts in your medical care. What would happen if we used that same metric in other areas of life?

What if you only went to church for one service every 3 months? What if you only went to one service during conference per year? What if your pastor only preached for 15 minutes every three months? Would he still be your pastor?

What if your spouse only came home once every 3 months? What if you only spent 15 minutes every 3 months with your kids? Would you still have a family?

How about going to your boss and telling them that you will only be in for work for 15 minutes every 3 months.  Let your kids only go to school for 15 minutes every 3 months and see how much they learn. 

Relationships take an investment of time to work. Expertise takes time to acquire. Faith only grows when we spend time in church. Ministry is not a part time job. We only have three services a week. Surely you can make it to more than one.

What if you only prayed for 15 minutes every 3 months. Do you think that Christ will know you when you enter the pearly gates?

The Weight of Authority

 It is easy to do something if you have the weight of authority baking you up. That weight comes from someone who is wiser than you and who is more powerful in some ways than you are.

There is a difference praying for the sick because you are kind hearted and healing the sick because you have God's authority backing you up. Every sick person appreciates those who lift them up in prayer. Those who are now healed rejoice in what the Lord has done for them.

For a while I have not felt like doing much. Not because I am lazy. Because, it turns out, I am sick. So when my cardiologist gave me some practical instructions on what to do and what not to do it is easy to obey since I have the authority of the Heart and Lung Institute standing behind me.

One more thought. Healing old folks is a risky business. No one lives in this life forever. Our bodies do wear out in time. The older we get the harder it is to think about divine healing. Even our medical professionals do not try to fix us completely. They try to help us navigate life as it is.