God Forgives!
The Good News

Brief Thoughts
Thoughts on God and Man

Stories for Children (and Adults!)
Little Cheese and Little Mouse
The Silver Dragon

Poetry
A Heavenly Problem
Bright Morning Star
Divine Calling
Driven!
I Need A Prophet
Laboring With God
Lightening, Thunder, and Rain
Lord of This Sabbath
Morbid No More
Reality
Rejection
Seed Life
Spiritual Ecstasy
The Book I Avoid
There Is No King Like God
To Be and To Be Becoming
Treasure to Him

Prayers and Meditations
A Return to Workday Bliss
Children: Arrows of Love
Depressed
For Spirual Sustenance
Influence
Last on My List
Prayer of a Little Man
The Book I Avoid
Who God Is

Short Writings
38 Truths to Scripture Joy
Are They in Heaven?
First, Explain the Gospel
Leaving "Me" Behind
Seeing the Invisible
True Christianity
What Happens in Vegas...

Reformed Q & A
Why Listen To Christians?
I'm Happy. Why Bother Me?
Can You Prove God Exists?
What is Calvinism?
Is God Nature?
A New Creation? Really?
How Loved Are Christians?
I Can't Find My Work Passion!

Quotes from the Great Jonathan Edwards
On Justification

Misc.
Some Wisdom from Family

I was just reading through the book of Esther and came to the part where Esther had convinced King Ahasuerus not to kill all the Jews in all of his 127 provinces. When I read that I was relieved, thinking, "Oh good, they are going to call it all off, the Jews will live and rejoice." They did live, but the command was then given that instead the Jews should kill all who hated them in the 127 provinces. The Bible presents this as a good and glorious turn of events, but my pleasure in this Biblical story was temporarily aborted. I had forgotten some of the humbling (for sinners like us) yet glorious truths of the Bible. Fully acknowledging and accepting these truths is a prerequisite to understanding and loving the whole Bible. Parts of the Bible won't make sense or bring joy unless we accept these things.

I very much hope that none of this sours your opinion of me. I'm just trying to help us all. But, to quote Esther, "If I perish, I perish."

So, to understand and love the whole Bible we must...

1. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that God has eternally planned (or as the King, "decreed") everything that has or will ever come to pass in all of creation. He has never and will never "make up" new plans as history goes along. An infinite mind, with infinite wisdom, motivated out of infinite love, does not get it wrong "the first time." "For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you." (1 Peter 1: 20)
   
   
2. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that while we see in Scripture that God sometimes changes His mind, even the change of mind was planned from all eternity. In history and in Scripture God sometimes addresses situations from the simple perspective of what a situation deserves, pertaining to justice. In these cases He has planned to view things narrowly, from a holiness versus sin perspective, because that is what God is: "holy, holy, holy." In His astonishing holiness He fully intends to punish. There is nothing deceptive about it. But God is more than holy. He is Love. He is Holy Love. And so in His great plan He plans for and allows the interplay of His holiness and love, His justice and grace. God is, after all, all about displaying Who He is. But in viewing things from the narrow perspective He does not thereby cease to have an infinite mind. Everything- even His own threats- takes place in the broad perspective of His sovereign, eternal, and completely unchangeable plan. As mentioned, He does not make things up as He goes along.
   
   
3. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that the Old Testament people were saved by believing in the promise of the One to come. They were not saved by sacrifices, but the sacrifices themselves were to be understood as pointing to the Sacrifice of the Lamb to come.
   
   
4. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that the Jewish nation of the Old Testament (the Old Covenant) was never saved eternally as a whole nation. They were saved and favored as a nation in regard to earthly and temporary things, but no individual Jew will be in Heaven who did not believe in the coming "pierced for our transgressions" King. Likewise, no Jew today is saved except by believing as Christians must believe. There are not two people of God. "For He is not a Jew who is one outwardly... He is a Jew who is one inwardly..." (Romans 2: 28, 29)
   
   
5. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that while God is absolutely sovereign, absolutely in control of all things in all creation, we as humans are also fully responsible for our choices. We choose or "will" evil in our hearts. God wills what is good in allowing us- in His absolute control- to will evil. He has the power and the right to work (sometimes by allowing) all things for His glory and the good of the church. We, on the other hand, never allow sin in our own hearts out of a desire for His glory and the good of the church. God is God, and we are not.
   
   
6. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that God created man and woman equal in glory and dignity with each other, yet with different roles.
   
   
7. Fully acknowledge in our hearts our own sinfulness and that of all of humanity. Our own sinfulness is greater than we can conceive.
   
   
8. Fully acknowledge in our hearts the horrible nature and consequences of sin.
   
   
9. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that sin is so horrible that we can't save ourselves. Christ had to pay the penalty for our sin, and die in our place on the cross, so that we could receive forgiveness.
   
   
10. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that sin is so horrible that there are no works, no performances, we can do to get God to accept us into Heaven. Jesus said He is the only Way to the Father, and that all we need to do is believe in Him as the God-man Who was crucified for our sins, and is now risen, and we will be saved.
    
    
11. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that believing in Christ is not a work or performance we do, but a gift from God that He enables us- by His Holy Spirit- to exercise.
    
    
12. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that while there are various kinds of belief in Christ, only the belief that has love for Christ at the heart of it is true belief. No mere intellectual belief connects us with Christ. There is a loving feeling in the heart and pleasure in God when we are truly believing in Christ.
    
    
13. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that this loving rest- belief- in Christ shows itself in a life turned toward Christ and obedience to Him in every area of life, although far from perfectly.
    
    
14. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that just as Christ gives us salvation as a gift, He also gives us Spiritual gifts (note the parable of the talents) that we are to use and for which He will reward us. We don't earn the rewards. It is God rewarding- in us- His own works which He used us to perform.
    
    
15. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that in Heaven there will only be love and that every Christian will be as filled with love as they can possibly handle at the time. There could not possible be any jealousy of those who in heaven receive more rewards. Those who barely escape from the fire (1 Cor. 3) will be so filled with love that they will rejoice that others have received their just (gracious) rewards. Those who produced one hundred fold will be so humble that they will rejoice in the blessed company of those who were less faithful in this life. Each will receive his or her place, but all will be one perfectly happy, God-drenched, society.
    
    
16. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that for unbelievers to still be alive at this moment comes from the pure mercy of God, only.
    
    
17. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that apart from Christ we each deserve to be suffering in Hell at this very moment.
    
    
18. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that Hell is nothing short of everlasting conscious torment.
    
    
19. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that to die is simply fair, it is simply just, for we have all sinned against God.
    
    
20. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that this applies as much to children and infants as it does to scoundrels, for the essence of sin is a lack of perfect love for God, a love which is enabled by the Spirit of God. Infants too have inherited Original Sin.
    
    
21. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that God is able to save even the pre-born, as John the Baptist rejoiced in his mother's womb at the presence of the pre-born Jesus.
    
    
22. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that God is so infinitely Great and Worthy that it takes only one moment in time without love for God to justify our everlasting punishment in Hell, apart from Christ.
    
    
23. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that God's aim has always been and will always be to glorify Himself. He did not decree creation, the fall, redemption, and the eternal consummation out of loneliness, but as an overflow of His infinite joy in Himself. As Jonathan Edwards noted, a fountain pours forth because of its hyper-fullness, not because of its deficiency.
    
    
24. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that this Self-love is good in God, because He alone is infinitely worthy to be loved. He would sin against Himself if He did not infinitely love Himself. We were created to join Him in this love of Himself.
    
    
25. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that the love He has for Himself does not preclude the fact that He loves each Christian individually with a love that we could not possibly comprehend, and that He will spend eternity showering us with His goodness, grace, kindness, and innumerable and inconceivable blessings (See Ephesians 2: 7). He glorifies His own grace, goodness, and joy in giving these things to us, and at the same time it is with a love for each child more genuine than the very best earthly father could give his children.
    
    
26. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that God is so infinitely Great and Worthy that He did the right thing to decree the Fall of mankind and the demons, so that He might have the context to glorify Himself by displaying all the attributes of His perfection, including His glorious power in wrath, (see Romans chapter 9:17 and 22). He would have sinned against His own infinite worth had he not decreed the Fall and everlasting punishment of angels and men, for He would have failed to plan the display of His holiness and majesty, in its fullness.
    
    
27. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that God is so infinitely Great and Worthy that He has the right to choose some people for wrath, and others for grace, without asking His creatures beforehand or seeing who would be "worthy". None were ever worthy. Before either had done anything good or evil, it says in Romans 9, "Jacob I have loved," and "Esau I have hated."
    
    
28. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that being chosen by God gives one rights and privileges that are not fair... but are grace: undeserved and unearned. Again, fairness would be for them to eternally suffer in Hell.
    
    
29. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that being chosen by God is not reversible, that if true love for the Trinity is in our hearts, we will certainly inherit eternal life. Our pride would like to think we earn part of our salvation, if not all of it, but we must be humbled by the fact that Christ earned every ounce of salvation for the elect people of God.
    
    
30. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that if we are His children then there is nothing we can do to make Him love us more than He already does, and there is nothing we can do to make Him love us less than He already does.
    
    
31. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that our duty in this life is to get right with God through Jesus Christ: to love Him, believe Him, and obey Him.
    
    
32. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that getting right with God is not something we can do. We must plead with God for a new heart- He alone can grant it. As Luther said, "We are all beggars."
    
    
33. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that being chosen by God gives one rights to judge with Christ, in God's time, the whole world of unrepentant men and angels.
    
    
34. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that this right is sometimes manifested, especially in the Old Testament, by God commanding His people to kill and destroy those who are not the covenant people, including their children. Note the book of Esther in the introduction above.
    
    
35. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that while God gives a sort of general mercy to all while they live, those who were chosen for eternal wrath are fundamentally hated by God. It could not be otherwise if Hell is what He has predestined them to. (Again, see Romans 9.)
    
    
36. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that Jesus died on the cross for the chosen people only, not for those God hates and has predestined to Hell.
    
    
37. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that God is in Himself the very Holiness from which His commandments, threats, and promises derive, and that in being the Creator He has rights to do things that we may not do. He may kill (Cosmic Capital Punishment) when and how He pleases (Psalm 7:11-13), for all have sinned against Him. He may bless as He pleases, for He is God. God, by virtue of being God- literally infinite in all perfections- may do whatsoever He pleases, and He does so.
    
    
38. Fully acknowledge in our hearts that in this life we are commanded to love all, because all are God's creatures, because we do not know before the Day of Judgement who are the elect and who are the reprobate, and because we were, "by nature no better than the rest."

The above is not meant to be a full theology, but a summary of things which I believe trip up most Christians today. I have not included things like Scripture's teaching on the Trinity, the Person and two natures of Christ, or the Christian relationship to government and society. Rather, I wanted to challenge us, or in many cases simply remind us, with a presentation of truths which directly challenge our pride. If we do not come- or come again- to joyfully receive these things into our hearts there will be many parts of the Bible which make us wince, cause us confusion, weaken our faith, and be far from sweet to our souls.

May God bless you as you read and meditate on His Word.

Hiking along a rocky trail, I notice a narrow pathway, veering off to the side, easily missed. My curiosity awakens. There is wonder in that wood. It is overhung by old branches. I peer between the trunks of the first trees, and it seems that God alone knows this path intimately, every leaf, every turn of the trickling rivulet. The little path turns off to the right.

This was not part of my journey. It was not part of my plan. But I do have time for an adventure. Should I enter? It seems impossible not to- I am drawn in by the pure magic of the unknown.

As I step in my mind is blank of expectations, yet full of anticipation. I know already that this is not a waste of time, that somehow this is the way I am to go. It is an unusual but strangely beautiful path, utterly unlike the worn path I had been wandering down before. Here there is a sweet aroma of various plants and flowers. I can feel and even taste the moisture as I breath in through the nose. Here is life primordial, life itself. Rich green moss summons me to remove my boots. I must pad barefoot with the Creation now. Stepping onto the moss, I find it cool and soft. Like sponges they give up their water and it runs up over my toes. What is this place but... home? How wonderful that I feel this way, yet I have never been here before!

I step over a large root and rest my hand on the rough bark of a sturdy oak. It feels eternal. It is immovable and alive and beautiful, like Him Who made it. Sitting with my back against its trunk, I study the ground beneath me. I lift my eyes and see a large healthy slug oozing happily across a wet leaf. It is my friend. I have to smile at this experience. I consider myself as well suited to this place as the creatures who live here, and more happy in that I am able to contemplate it. I am glad I took this way.

A distant bird sings a song, high and cheerful, yet with an authority as from another world. It preaches to me in sweet tones. In the sweetness, in its grace, my heart perceives an even higher Glory. SOMEONE is actually preaching to me the kindest song I ever heard. In my heart I hear lyrics: "Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb, 'I, the LORD, am the maker of all things...'" And then I hear the Son of God in this great refrain: "I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

What do we do when reading the Bible is about as exciting as folding laundry? How should we think and feel when God Almighty's book of Infinite Love seems as stale as the end piece of an old loaf of bread? Isn't Jesus the Bread of Life? Why does God's Word feel almost like death at times?

Usually when we are experiencing Scripture in this way it is not long before we close the ancient tome with a helpless, guilty conscience, and involve ourselves in pleasures or duties that we have more control over. We can keep flipping through the T.V. channels until we find something entertaining. Or working on anything gives us at least a slight sense of accomplishment. But reading Scripture when our hearts are dull to it? It's like a young boy being made by mom to follow her around in the department store for hours. She sifts, and looks, and doesn't buy, until finally she leads him outside, and he feels the sunshine, and knows he's going home to have real fun.

We want to experience the sunshine of God's Word. We want it to be real fun. But when our hearts are dull, the choice is either to quit reading at the slightest excuse or to force ourselves to read.

Forcing ourselves to continue reading is the right way to go. We must not knock once and then go running off, concluding no one is home. If we are going to sin in our lack of delight in God's Word (and that is a sin) then we might as well sin while seeking not to sin- we must keep reading! But not only that, we should ask God to fan the inextinguishable flame of His Spirit within us. Ask! Seek! Knock! Knock louder! "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." (Matthew 7:7) Is there still no answer? KNOCK LOUDER! Break your knuckles if need be: "God! Come visit my heart! Come! Come! Come! Come make me feel Your Spirit's blessedness as I peer into Your Word!"

Still no answer? Maybe it has been quite some time since we have actually met Him. Maybe we have never met Him. Those who have can remember the times of "joy inexpressible and full of glory," (1 Peter 1:8). Either way though, saved or unsaved, Jesus is the Door (John 10:9) to knock on. Expect Him to answer!

The longer it has been since we have met with Him in the heavenlies the longer we may have to knock. Remember that our relationship with Him is the great relationship over all our other relationships, and just like it is with a friend we haven't seen in a while, we can't always just pick up where we left off. It is strange to be with a friend who seems like a stranger. Face to face time is needed. Conversation is needed- even if it feels cold and formal and forced at first. Among things we can touch, the Bible is God's Face. Get face to Face with Him. Put yourself before His Word and ask- "Open my eyes, that I may behold wonderful things from Your law." (Psalm 119:18)

If our relationship with this old Friend is worth more than all other relationships combined, then let's fight to feel His Face. Let's kiss the Bible. Hug it. Read it. It is our Lord's Word to us. Jesus shed His blood so that we might hold this book in our hands and talk to Him, and hear His powerful voice.

If face to Face time, day after day, still does not bring our hearts to melt sweetly at the reading of His Word, it is time to fight. Are we ready to fight? Are we ready to prove to God and to ourselves that He is the Supreme relationship in our lives? That He is far more valuable to us (deep down inside us, somewhere?) than all the things our five senses can detect? Then it's time to get mad at ourselves, sorry for our waywardness, and determined to find delight in God again. Instead of just God-less joy in the gifts He gives, remember that He still urges you on: "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep [over your neglect of God]; let your [superficial] laughter be turned to [genuine] mourning and your [fleeting] joy to [selfless] gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you." (James 4:8-10)

We know that God's Spirit is like the wind (John 3:8), and that even for believers He blows in a way that is unpredictable. Sometimes a gust of Heaven's Wind will suddenly fill us when we aren't even looking for Him.(He likes to surprise us!) We also know that we can't experience Him unless, ultimately, He acts first. But that does not mean we just walk in the cold, and wait for a change in the weather. Let's get active, go inside, and put logs in the fireplace. Let's show God and ourselves that we are tired of the cold. Let's search our hearts as we force ourselves to read the Bible. And let's not be surprised at how dull we still are: we are sinners, and there is more inside us that is opposed to the Word of God than we dare admit to ourselves! But we should admit it, and admit it openly to God. And let us meditate: "What part of my heart am I holding back from You God? What part of my life- what duty or entertainment or ambition- is more important to me right now than fellowship with You? I do want my heart to be warm God, but only if it can be with You and because of You."

So, let's do away with the dull and guilty. Let's do away with being merely "moral" (what a dry, unbiblical word!) towards the Word, getting it "over with". Let's knock hard, and then wait expectantly. Let's knock hard, and then search our hearts and lives before His Face. For in the Word is a holy pleasure worth looking for, waiting for, and praying for.

May God bless you in your pursuit.

Isn't life strange? It can be like a desert journey. We travel along and finally get to where we want to be, and when we get there we find it empty, gone, or much less than we had anticipated. The desert mirage disappeared as we came up to it! Now what do we do?

Desert madness sets in. We become disoriented by the boiling heat of worldly dreams lost. We begin to pray. We pray for water- "Just water! Please!" And in God's time, soul-water begins to flow in our hearts. It comes by repentant prayer.

Passionate prayer is how we connect to God, Who is the Fountain of Life. At the end of our false dream we find that while God is more invisible than the mirage we were pursuing He is totally tangible to our souls. No more illusions- the invisible God is what we seek! When we pray we come to feel His refreshing love on our hearts: His blessed Spirit. After our desert folly we drink from the Rock, Christ, from Whom flows the Water of Heaven. Though unseen, He is no mirage in the desert. He is the real oasis of Life, moist with green plants, a crystal pool of water, blessed forevermore.

What do you say that we let go of our next mirage before we get "there"? Not that we shouldn't set goals our have dreams, but we should give these to God so that we hold them lightly. God is our Goal. Besides, we don't know what God has for us tomorrow. "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in in business and profit.' Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live. And also do this or that.'" (James 4:13-15)

As for past or current disappointments, let's drop them at His feet. Whatever we expected our life to be- let it go and grab Him. Whoever we expected to be- let it go and lay hold of our heavenly Father! It was a mirage of happiness, good only to keep us going, but deathly disappointing when we arrived. The mirage was a false destination, an idol, a false god, so let us throw it into the sea of God's forgiveness.

Give Yourself to Him with all your heart, with fervent prayer. And ask that He might become your all, your Oasis on the way to your eternal home which Christ has gone ahead to prepare for you.

"When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I the LORD will answer them; I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water." (Isaiah 41:17-18)

"Rooted in grace for a lifetime of ministry." This is the stated goal Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis has for each of its' students. Having seen this phrase on a business card recently, I was nailed between the eyes: GRACE is the foundational and overarching answer to all my problems. I'm still learning the basics! I need to love others with the grace with which I have received from Christ and even from other people. In a sense, grace in Christ is the only thing I should be focused on.

It's not like grace is the only thing in the Bible (there is law, for example), or that it is the only perspective on the whole of the Bible, but what is important to regrasp is that I have only received the grace, not the law or its' condemnation. I can read the Bible for all that is in there, but in that true story, that history, I play the part of a recipient of grace, and so I should always "let it" feed me its' grace, even in reading about God's glorious judgment.

God has related to me and other Christians in a special way, absorbing on the cross- in Christ His beloved Son- all the law, with its wrath, leaving no other way to relate to me but gracious, overflowing, endless love! The law is now a guidepost for me, showing me what righteousness looks like, nothing more or less. The law cannot "get" me now- I've already been set free and escaped into Heaven! In Christ, I'm already seated above all condemnation, legalism, moralism, snobbery, and judgmentalism. It is finished in Him!

And so, what have I to express to others but grace? Grace, Grace, Grace. This is my aim and my joy. If there is anything lacking in other people, it deserves my wholehearted grace. The Lord knows that many have been very abundant to me in my innumerable sins and deficiencies. In their grace they have literally been little saviors to me, saints sent from God to love this child that He has loved despite his countless demerits.

God has rooted me in grace and I, in turn, want to make my life one of abundant grace, through ministry to others.

A half truth presented as a whole truth is a complete untruth.
"All you need to know about Jesus's death is that He died on a cross." (This leaves out most of the who, what, where, when, why, and how of the crucifixion.)

A half truth presented as a half truth is a whole truth.
"Part of what the Bible teaches about Jesus's death is that He died on a cross." (True.)

A whole truth presented as a half truth is a complete untruth.
"Jesus is the Way to Heaven, but there are other ways to Heaven as well." ("Jesus is the Way to Heaven" is the whole truth. But if He is presented as one of many ways to get to Heaven then the whole presentation is a complete untruth- even though it contains a whole truth.)

A whole truth presented as a whole truth is a whole truth.
"Jesus is the only Way to Heaven." (True.)