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 - Endorsed - Indifferent - Contested
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| The Nashville Statement
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Name:Daniel
Home: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
About Me: I used to believe that evolution was reasonable, that homosexuality was genetic, and that people became Christians because they couldn't deal with the 'reality' that this life was all there was. I used to believe, that if there was a heaven - I could get there by being good - and I used to think I was more or less a good person. I was wrong on all counts. One day I finally had my eyes opened and I saw that I was not going to go to heaven, but that I was certainly going to suffer the wrath of God for all my sin. I saw myself as a treasonous rebel at heart - I hated God for creating me just to send me to Hell - and I was wretched beyond my own comprehension. Into this spiritual vacuum Jesus Christ came and he opened my understanding - delivering me from God's wrath into God's grace. I was "saved" as an adult, and now my life is hid in Christ. I am by no means sinless, but by God's grace I am a repenting believer - a born again Christian.
My complete profile...
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Daniel's posts are almost always pastoral and God centered. I appreciate and am challenged by them frequently. He has a great sense of humor as well.
- Marc Heinrich
His posts are either funny or challenging. He is very friendly and nice.
- Rose Cole
[He has] good posts, both the serious like this one, and the humorous like yesterday. [He is] the reason that I have restrained myself from making Canadian jokes in my posts.
- C-Train
This post contains nothing that is of any use to me. What were you thinking? Anyway, it's probably the best I've read all day.
- David Kjos
Daniel, nicely done and much more original than Frank the Turk.
- Jonathan Moorhead
There are some people who are smart, deep, or funny. There are not very many people that are all 3. Daniel is one of those people. His opinion, insight and humor have kept me coming back to his blog since I first visited earlier this year.
- Carla Rolfe
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| One of the great things about... |
...praying for others, is that it forces you to be honest with God; assuming your prayers can stray into the "right thing to say, but not said with your heart" category.
I know from reading scripture what my prayers should look like. When I pray, I suppose I subconsciously make sure my prayers are to the best of my ability, proper; that is even if and when my heart isn't exactly contrite the words of my prayers are. Which is pretty sad, since God isn't fooled by lucid and orthodox articulations if the heart that is forming these words isn't tied to them.
So it is that often when I am in prayer, and I say "often" to my own shame, I have had to stop in the middle of saying the right thing, and ask myself whether I actually mean what I am so eloquently saying, or trying to say.
I may learn a thing or two about myself from "Christian living". I may gain insight into the human condition through reading scripture, but I tell you, I learn more about my own sinful condition through prayer than through any other means. Assuming my experience is not a statistical anomaly, but is an experience common to all who spend time each day in prayer, then I can say with some conviction that those who consider intercessory prayer a daily duty and not a "monthly maybe" are probably going to have a far more real assessment of both who they are before God, and who they are in Christ.
You see it is one thing it have the head knowledge that one is accepted by God in the Beloved (Christ), and quite another to come daily before the throne, in the mire of our own imperfect lives, and be forced upon learning some new and horrible truth about the depth of our own depravity, that we are not heard on high because our perfections, but that even in our imperfections we have God's ear "in Christ. The former is the doctrine, the latter is the living it out.
I like to muse about those who spend all their time perfecting a theology they never get around to really living out. Which is not to denigrate the need for study, or the pursuit of a right theology; for without such things one suffers loss; but rather to say that some are inclined to pursue the one for it's own sake, rather than for the sake of living it. You know people like that - they have an opinion on everything theological - and usually it is an extreme opinion, but they lack grace and love and life in expressing it.
Which is not meant as a polemic against such things, rather I mention it because I thought about it while I happened to be typing this out. The link being that the same sort of disconnect is there - an adherence to religion, whether institutionalized, or self-made; that doesn't translate into actual obedient living.
I preached this Sunday on the difference between Saturation and Motivation. I said that scripture teaches us to be saturated with many things - to be in prayer always, to give thanks always, to rejoice always, etc., and that some immature Christians take such commands and after building for themselves a model of what healthy Christianity should look like, they err in imagining such things are intended to motivate them to Christian living.
Let me exposit that for a bit. I mean that they find themselves naturally disobedient towards God, and imagine that this disobedience flows out of some corruption in their faith - a corruption that they have spent, and continue to spend, the lion's share of their energy fruitlessly trying to overcome. The idea is that if they can just over come this deadness in themselves, that new life will spring out - and that obedience will not only become easy, it will be suddenly something they truly and passionately are driven to do.
The problem, I stated in my preaching, is that they imagine that Christians only have to obey God when and if they are properly motivated. They rightly conclude that we are to worship God in spirit and in truth, that we are to be holy, submitted, etc. etc. but conclude that all this comes -after- God zaps us with "grace" - but by grace here, they think some sort of mind altering, and desire altering mystic changing of our being so that our sinful flesh, which has no desire to do God's will whatsoever, is suddenly and powerfully "gagged" or suppressed, leaving only that good desire which is from God, so that we effortlessly begin to obey God and everything is beautiful in the world.
The fact, I said, is that we are God's slaves.
The reason a slave obeys his master is because he is a slave. That's his motivation. Yes we are to be saturated by God, and that saturation will make the burden light - but we don't wait around for the burden to get light; that is, we don't try and psyche ourselves up with the "right" spiritual™ motivation, rather our motivation is that we are God's slaves, and slaves obey.
I know that sounds a little utilitarian, or perhaps even mercenary for some, but it is never the less true. Jesus came to earth, and lived the life of God's slave, having emptied Himself of everything else, setting His own eartly desires aside, He commended Himself to doing the will of the Father while on earth. Are we more free than our Lord and Savior? Did He come to serve, and not be served, so that we could not serve and be served? Where the Master is, there the servant is also.
The point is that rather than looking to our subjective feelings for the "juice" to obey for today, we should be looking to God and saying, just as in the parable, that even should our obedience as slaves become flawless we will only be unprofitable, having done what was expected of us.
A lot of Christians are struck dumb at the thought that God actually expects us to obey Him. We run around "wanting" to obey, but find that it is difficult, so we think there is something wrong with us, and instead of obeying God "because we are slaves" we try to obey God "because we feel like it" - and so embark on a fruitless quest to capture the magical "obedience feeling" that we tell ourselves we lack.
Listen: the lepers were healed as they obeyed. The pattern in scripture is that when you obey, God is merciful. Contrition moves the heart of God. The heart that says, "I will obey the moment you make it easy to do so" is not a contrite heart, it is a rebellious heart, and likely making excuses that, when examined closely, translate into it being God's fault that one isn't obeying. He didn't give me the power, or the strength, or what have you.
God does give power, and strength, but not to those who demand it and stand aloof until they receive it. Surrender your heart to God, obey Him for no other reason than because He is your Master and you are His slave. I mean, you do love God, so this isn't tyrannical, or mean, it is an expression of love on your part - an act of worship - so don't demand that God primes your pump further. He has chosen you, directed his mercy towards you while you were yet a sinner. Called you to Himself and given you faith to believed to the saving of your soul. Were that not enough, He Himself has put His own Spirit into you, as a guarantee until the day that you are redeemed in full. He is with you, and surrounding you on all sides with every opportunity, and has even opened a way in Christ for you to talk to Him directly - a throne that you can come to by grace; so that you have every reason to obey Him, love, gratitude, joy, peace, etc. But you are not called to obey God out of gratitude or love (you should be saturated by these things, not motivated by them), rather you obey because of who you are in Christ - God's slave.
One of the things I wish I had closed on, in that particular sermon, was the thought that every command that God gives; every act of obedience that God demands, is intended for our own joy. God commands us to live in such a way as to bring about our greatest joy. His commands are not self serving, but serve us and our joy. To disobey them is to turn away from life and joy, peace and grace and mercy. It is to invite suffering and sorrow into our existence; and to obey is to draw near to the Creator upon whom our lives depend, and for whom our lives exist. That yes we are slaves, and yes we should learn to obey God "because" we are slaves, looking to no other truth to motivate us unto obedience - but let us not imagine that we are slaves to some cosmic tyrant, but rather as children let us obey our Father for He loves us, and knows what will bring about our greatest joy - the very thing that His commandments are intended to foster.
Anyway, these are just my thought this morning. My hope is that they are edifying.Labels: joy, prayer, slavery |
posted by Daniel @
8:29 AM
8 comment(s)
 
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| Walking With My Son |
I forgot to renew the insurance on my van last week. Guess when I noticed? That's right, on Sunday morning. We live about three and a half kilometers from church (that's about two miles), so it isn't a very long walk, unless you have four children under the age of twelve, and snow everywhere.
I had already decided to walk with my eldest to church, and leave the remainder at home, when our Pastor called and offered to give our family a ride. I was quite grateful for that, but also a little disappointed, as I was looking forward to the walk with my son.
After the service, I asked my son if he would prefer to walk back with me, and that was his preference. So we walked. The snow was (thankfully) melting, the sun was quite bright in a blue sky - it was like a spring day. In Manitoba, these sorts of days don't happen till May, but we enjoyed this meteorological hiccup nonetheless.
Along the way back home we talked about something I would like to share.
My son's Sunday school teacher, Peter, is one of the fellows in my congregation I most respect and admire. He loves the Lord, and lives the love with such consistency and grace, I am glad that he is teaching my son. Peter wanted to take the whole class out to a local restaurant as sort of a celebration together, but my son didn't want to go.
My son has a job that pays about $12 a month. On this meagre income, He saved up and bought himself a $140 PSP, bought our family perhaps $45 dollars in gifts this last Christmas - buys birthday presents for his siblings on their birthday - and gives generously to charities such as world vision, etc. Unlike my other children, who typically spend their money on candy as fast as they get it, my son regards such things as frivolous, and not the greatest use of a limited commodity.
So when Peter made the offer to take my son and his classmates out for lunch, my son was concerned that Peter would be spending his money on him frivolously, and honestly didn't want Peter to use that money on him in that way. I say this without even a hint of exaggeration - my son was near tears at the thought that dear Mr. Peter might suffer want later on by this generous act, and in my son's thinking, the most loving thing he could do would be to reduce the financial burden he imagined he was placing Peter under.
That's gotta be my fault. Seriously, I have gone to great pains to teach my son the value of a dollar, to explain stewardship, and impress upon him the notion that saving money is better than spending it frivolously.
So on our walk home I wanted to explain to him why it is wrong to refuse another persons act of charity.
I began by asking my son, where does his money come from. He explained that he worked around the house, and had responsibilities for which he was remunerated each week. When I pressed him however, he said that it was I who paid him. I then asked where I got the money from, and he replied, "from your job."
"But who provided this job for me?", I asked. God did. My son knows that.
"What about your teacher, where does his money come from?"
God.
"When I feed you, who is feeding you?"
God.
"If your teach feeds you... who is feeding you?"
...God?
Do you see it son? Do you understand that I am just one of many vessels the Lord is using to bless you? If you accept the Lord's blessing from my hand, but refuse it from the hand of another, are you being wise or foolish?
Foolish.
What about if we invite a family over for supper. Do they owe us supper after that? Should they feel guilty because they are eating "our" food? Has God provided for our family and not theirs also? If I have two loaves and my brother has none, does God really intend for me to have two loaves, or does he intend to minister to my brother through me?
When scripture describes the early church as having all things in common - it wasn't describing communal living, it was describing this attitude that recognizes every good gift as coming to us from the Father of lights - and not necessarily for our own benefit - but for the benefit of those with which we are brought into fellowship.
It was a fruitful discussion, and I think my son has a better understanding of who provides for him. One of the duties of any father, is to wean his children off seeing him as their provider, and recognizing who has really been their provider all along. I take great joy as my little ones begin to see what I have known already - that we truly are brothers and sisters in Christ. We have our roles and responsibilities - but God alone deserves the glory. Anytime we lose sight of that, we feed the notion that men are actually beholden to this world and the things in it for their life.Labels: family, joy, parenting |
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posted by Daniel @
2:26 PM
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| Thursday Thoughts |
One of the greatest joys I know is watching the sun come up.
Update: I preached on "why we obey" last Sunday, if anyone is interested. Link here. Labels: joy |
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posted by Daniel @
2:24 PM
7 comment(s)
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