As Observant as a Child

[i]

Mark 8:18 

The Passion Translation (TPT)

¹⁸ You have good eyes, yet you still don’t see, and you have good ears, yet you still don’t hear, neither do you remember.

There was a family walking towards me on the Barker Dam Trail. The little four or five year old had been looking up at the great rock to his left.

“Daddy, why do they have goats on these rocks?” He queried in typical kids full voice.

“Maybe they keep them for food for the workers in the park.” His father plodded on, watching only where he was placing his feet on the sandy and stony trail.

Instantly there flashed through my mind the fact that kids are far more observant than we adults. I glanced up to the top of the great rock to my right. My heart thrilled at the rare sight of seven beautiful desert big horn sheep in a shady nook in the rock. They were studiously ignoring us. I looked back at the family retreating up the trail. Fleetingly, I felt like calling after the family and sharing with them what they were missing. I didn’t. Someone once quipped, “Ignorance is bliss.” All they had seen were lots of gigantic boulders and sand, and their kid had seen “goats.”

I stepped off the trail and sat down on a large rock and watched these magnificent animals for twenty minutes or more. There were a couple pine trees in the nook and a little green grass that some of them were munching on. Their grayish hides rippled over powerful muscles that enable them to nimbly leap up or down twenty feet if they wished to. Instead they stood there eating or chewing their cud. Big horn sheep are a rare sight in Joshua Tree National Park and I am thrilled every time I have the good luck to see them. It’s only about once in twenty visits or so that I see these magnificent animals that survive the harsh desert we were in.

Dozens of people walked by in both directions on the trail in front of me. To some of them I would say, “Did you see the big horn sheep?” and point in their direction. Many of them shared the thrill I felt, but the majority would glance up and keep trudging. I have no idea why they took the time to come out into this harsh desert.

How often, Lord, do I toil down the road of life oblivious to the great beauty You place all around me?

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[i] https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Mammals/Bighorn-Sheep/Desert

You Will Trample Snakes

[i]

[ii]

Psalm 91:13 

Good News Translation (GNT)

¹³ You will trample down lions and snakes,
    fierce lions and poisonous snakes.

On a pleasant Saturday afternoon in the late 1970s I took the family walking on the slopes of Helderberg Mountain. We were on a logging road with a tall bank on one side and a steep downhill slope on the other. I was curious about what was on the bank, so I ran and jumped and hooked both hands on the top. Then I pulled myself up until my head came up level with the top.

There, staring me straight in the face no more than six inches from my nose was the face of a puff adder. It was looking me straight in the eye, and its tongue was frantically flicking in and out. This puff adder was fully grown, maybe three feet long and as big around as my wrist. Its bright yellow color showed it had recently shed its old skin. Puff adders can strike from any position without coiling first and have the reputation that a person or animal, once bitten, dies very quickly.

Deciding instantaneously that I had seen enough, I pushed myself back away from the bank and dropped onto the logging trail below. Although they strike extremely rapidly, they are otherwise somewhat slow and methodical. So we walked away from the spot and enjoyed the rest of our outing.

That evening we invited a bunch of science and math students to our home where we made popcorn and homemade ice cream with a hand cranked White Mountain freezer. This was a favorite Saturday night entertainment, and many students came and brought their current romantic interests. While we were talking and playing games, I mentioned my close encounter to the group. Some of them got very excited. One of them used to catch puff adders and turn them in to a place where they were milked for venom to make anti-venom serum.

The next afternoon about four or five students came to our house and then hiked up to where I had found the puff adder. One of them carried a forked stick, and another brought a hessian sack to put the snake into. We climbed the bank at a different place and then crept up on the snake. It was still lying in the same spot soaking up the sunshine. One of the boys pinned the snake down behind its head with the forked stick. Then another brought the sack up. I took one side of the sack opening while he held the other, and we brought it up to the head of the snake.

Being more careless than I should have been, I allowed my hand to get close enough to the snake’s head so that it struck at my hand even though it was still pinned down by the forked stick. I felt the edge of its mouth strike the end of my thumb. Fortunately my thumb was not quite close enough for a fang to pierce my skin. Needless to say, my thumb did not remain there for a second attack. The students and I quickly got the snake into the sack, and we hiked back home.

Thank you, Lord, for being ready to rescue me even when I’m being careless with a death dealing snake!

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[i] https://www.pinterest.cl/pin/353251164519422743/?lp=true

[ii] http://itsnature.org/ground/reptiles-land/puff-adder/

Created for Good Works

[i]

Ephesians 2:10 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

¹⁰ For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

Earlier in January I went uptown to a stamp show. With all of my cancer fight and what that has entailed, I hadn’t been to one for well over a year. One of the dealers whom I count as a personal friend told me he has been seeing blood in his urine. He is, of course, running scared. He pointed out that we are both well into our seventies and both born under Aquarius—not that I attach any meaning to Zodiacal signs.

His father was a conservative Christian pastor, and my friend had attended a conservative Christian university where he took a theology major. But the years have jaded some of his Christian zeal. His Christian world view, however, still affects his life. I encouraged him to get some immediate medical attention. Between dozens of interruptions by visitors to his booth, we also spent some very meaningful time reviewing the marvelous hope we have in Christ Jesus.

A couple days ago there was another stamp show uptown. I told my wife that I felt I needed to go to this one, too, in order to see my dealer friend. He was there, and I spent several more hours at his booth. He, his wife, and I were able to chat some more. Things had not gotten any better. In fact not only was there still blood in his urine, his wife mentioned that his bowels had also been totally shut down for over a month now.

He had looked gaunt last time and appeared even more so this time. At least he now had several appointments this week for various medical checkups, lab work, x-rays, and other tests. I have fears that things may not go well with him, but at least he seems to have a blessed hope in Christ and his future. I pray for his well being and wisdom on his part and the medical people who help him.

The very next day I had an appointment with a doctor whom I have known for many years. I sat in the waiting room and in an examination room for over two hours. When the doctor came into my room, he closed the door behind him. He sat down and told how a mutual friend of 50 plus years is now on life-support in intensive care. He told me further that he had been chosen as the chair of his church’s finance committee. The experience has been a real eye-opener to him as to how church policies are actually implemented—or simply ignored.

I told him about our experience when my wife and I first went to Africa as full time employees of the church as missionaries. Over the first two years we were shocked at what happened, how policies were ignored, how lies were told, etc. It became a real crisis in our Christian experience: After all, we were working for an organization that we considered to be God’s organization on earth most closely connected with our hope of salvation. After discussing and praying about it, we decided that we were still working for Jesus Christ but were being paid by a human organization. Furthermore, we chose not to fault our Savior for this weak, imperfect, and at times corrupt big business—the church.

Lord Jesus, we thank You for the privilege of working for You for our entire career. We pray not only for our own salvation but also for those devoted, but often confused, humans who do things in Your name and for Your sake.

#Stamps, #Stampshows, #stampdealers, #prostatecancer, #IE, #SoCal, #California, Christiancrisis, #corruptchurch, #Savior, #salvation, #hope, #Doctor, #WaitingRoom, #Africa, #ChristLove

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[i] https://www.tsdastamps.com/

What if there were no Bible?

[i]

1 Corinthians 1:4-5

Good News Translation (GNT)

⁴ I always give thanks to my God for you because of the grace he has given you through Christ Jesus. ⁵ For in union with Christ you have become rich in all things, including all speech and all knowledge.

Looking back over the history of the human race as generally outlined in the Bible from Adam to me, I often ponder what it must have been like to be a follower of the LORD. Apparently Adam and Eve got to talk to God face to face. However this did not last very long.

When our earliest ancestors sinned, God met with them personally, perhaps for the last time. This time He[ii] showed them how to kill and skin an animal. Then He showed them how to sew clothes from the animal’s skin to cover their nakedness. I assume He also showed them how to offer a sacrifice on an altar using the same animal. Apparently it was only much later that people started eating animals with God’s blessing.

Thereafter God very seldom communicated directly with humans. We can list a few: Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses. People were expected to remember what they had learned about God’s will. Apparently when Moses came, he wrote down human history and God’s instructions. These were carefully stored inside the Ark of the Covenant. The average person never saw these words.

By the time Christ walked on the earth, it seems that most Jewish meeting houses had some or all of the earlier writings that later came to be parts of our Bible. These had been laboriously copied out by hand and so were extremely expensive. Still the average person on the street had probably never read or owned even a part of the Bible. They were still expected to order their lives by what they had heard read to them.

Is it any wonder that so many people never heard God’s word in their whole lives? Is it any wonder that so many religions sprang up all over the world? Finally, in the 15^th century, printing was invented, and the first book ever printed was indeed the Bible. Over the years printed versions of God’s word have become more and more available. In this millennium it has become very easy to get the Bible on your cell phone for free. So we have indeed become “rich” in God’s word. With this “wealth” has come the responsibility of learning what our Creator’s will is for us individually and experiencing the Grace of Christ directly.

Thank You, Lord, for giving us Your Word so abundantly. Grant us wisdom to read and profit from it.

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[i] https://teatimewithev.com/kaleidoscope/printed-bible-or-cell-phone-bible

[ii] I use the masculine pronoun for God advisedly because the vast majority of translations of Scripture that I own, as well as the Greek and Hebrew texts, use it. I do not believe God has reproductive organs like humans and animals do.

Overcoming Substance Abuse

[i]

 

Psalm 51:12

New English Translation (NET Bible)

¹² Let me again experience the joy of your deliverance!
Sustain me by giving me the desire to obey!

My wife, Sylvia, stopped and chatted briefly with a beggar at the freeway off-ramp. His sign read, “Save me from myself.” She sensed in him the sincere desire to rid himself from a life of substance abuse. She chatted with him a second time a day or two later. He committed to going with her to a Salvation Army place that gives alcoholics (and druggies) a place to live and eat while they are coming clean from their controlling substances.  She offered to take him and then came to me and asked me to go with her. I didn’t totally approve of what she had done, but I was certainly not going to let her be alone with him.

When we went to fetch him, he was not at the prearranged place. We finally contacted him at his girlfriend’s home. It became evident in the ensuing conversation that he was definitely for real in his decision to come clean. It also became evident that although he had claimed to have been off of alcohol for some period, his trip to his girlfriend’s place was to indulge his habit one more time.

On the drive to the Salvation Army hostel, he told of us his conversion to Jesus Christ a couple of years previously. He spoke in glowing terms of the euphoria that came over him when he accepted salvation. He expressed the hope that this euphoria would take hold of him again. From our conversation it became apparent to me that the young man was seeking the feeling of ecstasy more than victory over the substance.

I told him of my conversion to Christ and how my Christian experience had grown but without the same feelings as at the time of conversion. I did my best to encourage him to continue the spiritual fight by the help of the strength that Christ’s Spirit would provide him.

We sat through a careful questioning an officer of the Army gave him. It put more of the hard reality of the ongoing fight in his future than I had given him on the hour’s trip over. The officer pointed out that unless he had been clean for six weeks they wouldn’t take him into their program. He did provide an address of a family that was willing to take him in and let him live with them for the six weeks and warned him strongly that they couldn’t help him if he didn’t pass this period of probation.

Sylvia had gotten in touch with the young man’s mother. She was obviously at wit’s end. She was also very hopeful and thankful that Sylvia had taken an interest in her son. Things did go well for a period of time, but then, without the initial euphoria, he went back to his old ways of living.

The Psalmist’s desperate plea for God’s sustaining power is the absolutely critical part in our battle against the united forces of evil that are seeking to destroy us.

Our Almighty King, may Your sustaining power give us the overwhelming desire to keep obeying You!

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[i] https://blog.uniongospelmission.org/the-impact/panhandling

#California, #IE, #Alcohol, #Dependence, #MotherSon, #SalvationArmy, #CleanOfDrugs, #Psalms, #Conversion, #Habit, #Euphoria, #Ecstasy, #Overcome, #Panhandler

CYRUS THE GREAT

[i]

Isaiah 44:28; 45:4, 13 

King James Version (KJV)

²⁸ That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid…

⁴ For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me…

¹³ I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the Lord of hosts.

According to the setting presented in Isaiah 1:1, Isaiah wrote this book between 739 and 681 BCE. History records that Cyrus[ii] lived between 598 and 530 BCE. Taken at face value, this prediction of Isaiah preceded the reign of Cyrus by well over 100 years. Christians have traditionally assigned omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence to God. As such God can read history not only in what has already occurred but equally in what is yet to come.

Many biblical scholars worry that if a supreme being has perfect foreknowledge, then that knowledge removes the possibility of created beings having free will. If these creatures do not have free will, then they are not responsible for their own sins, so Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is unnecessary. Some of these scholars date “Deutero-Isaiah,” chapters 40 to 55 of Isaiah, to a prophet who lived in Babylon during the captivity of the Jews and already knew of Cyrus. They claim his/her writings are published as part of the prophecies of Isaiah. This raises the very real concern about what we mean by all scripture being inspired by God. Is God relying on a misrepresentation to get the prophetic message to the world?

My physicist friends insist on another way to look at creation and the Creator. We must assume that in the beginning God created our entire universe, which includes both space and time. In this case God is outside of both time and space. This means that God is not restricted to the inexorable march of time. God can view time as completely and clearly as He can physical space. This concept of creation gets us around whether or not there is a Deutero-Isaiah. What does this do to the problem raised about human free will?

As I see it, in either case we still have divine foreknowledge. What I do not see is that foreknowledge automatically includes God’s fore-ordaining human actions. It does include acknowledging that God’s intellect and knowledge are infinitely greater than humans can know or understand.

Lord, I thank You that although Your thoughts are infinitely higher than mine, You still take a personal interest in me and my life.

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[i] https://iranterritory.wordpress.com/2015/10/29/happy-cyrus-day-the-king-of-persia/

[ii] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cyrus-the-Great

Weapons to Fight in the Light

[i]

Romans 13:12

Good News Translation (GNT)

¹² The night is nearly over, day is almost here. Let us stop doing the things that belong to the dark, and let us take up weapons for fighting in the light.

When I was probably about 8 years old we had a student at Helderberg College who taught our Sabbath School class. He was very persuasive and very knowledgeable. He also had an unshakeable faith in Jesus Christ and His soon return. He looked at current world events—around 1950—and assumed that all the prophecies about Christ’s return had already been fulfilled. He stated that he guaranteed categorically that Christ would return within 5 years at the very most. It made a huge impression on me, or I certainly wouldn’t remember it all these years later.

I got much of his expressed certainty, but I do remember wondering whether it would really happen. The thought of Christ’s coming struck fear into my life rather than wondrous hope. Christ’s coming meant He would judge me, and I knew that my life and thoughts would reveal that I wasn’t ready. What it did mean to be ready? In my young life it meant that I would no longer be sinning—something that still hasn’t happened. I did not understand what the grace of Christ means to every Christian. It is this grace that makes me ready in spite of my sinful nature.

Unfortunately my teacher hadn’t put this verse into either his or my thoughts about getting ready. “Let us take up the weapons for fighting in the light.” A weapon of great consequence is the “Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God” (Ephesians 6:17 KJV). Now close to 70 years later, it appears that we have a new tool in this Sword. Devout men and women of God are demanding that we provide Scripture to each people group in their own heart language. Furthermore they are anxious, willing, and able to step in and provide the manpower to produce these translations. Truly this is a modern outpouring of the Holy Spirit to provide the most powerful weapons “for fighting in the light!” With these weapons against him, Satan is hard pressed like never before. He is redoubling his fiendish efforts to defeat Christ and us. But we have the infinite power on our side, and we can indeed overcome by Christ’s amazing grace.

Thank You, Lord, for giving us this new and most potent weapon against the enemy of all human kind in our day.

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[i] https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2016/march/wycliffe-associates-leaves-wga-bible-translation-son-of-god.html