“Home is not where you live, but where they understand you”

Christian Morganstern

Home. Home is a beautiful word. I am overjoyed to be home.

I have been home for a while, but I needed time to recover from my vacation. My family traveled to Oregon for a professional conference. We then traveled like madmen from Oregon to Iowa in just over two days. We then spent all day everyday with friends and family. We had a nice time, but we were looking forward to a slower, quieter drive back to Oregon before flying home again. We were planning to travel in 10 days what was traveled in two the week before.

On the next to last day in Iowa, I received news that a dear friend was in the hospital and that she would likely die. After speaking with her husband, I decided to rush back home. We rushed back to Oregon and flew home. We were able to get our tickets changed and rush to her bedside.

The outlook was grim. She and her husband have three wonderful children – all under the age of thirteen. I spent a lot of time with her husband and both sets of grandparents. My family took the kids to some kid places and gave the adults time to talk and make tough decisions.

In the end, this dear lady passed from this life into the presence of her father in heaven.

This is part of the reason I took some time before writing here again. I have been emotionally wrung out. My grief serves to remind me of the heavy load carried by her husband and children. After travel and then a season of grief, I have returned home and taken time to rest.

As I was preparing for this entry, I came across the quote above. This is so true. I am from a little town far removed from what many may consider civilization. The world I traveled was definitely not home. I did not understand that world and it did not understand me.

People try to live life so fast. The pace of a small town is relaxed and slow. People are surrounded by people and yet so lonely. The people in a small town notice and have time for one another. When a lady dies a family can suffer alone. In a small town, everyone grieves and everyone wants to speak words of comfort and lend a hand.

I do not understand how some people choose to live. I am so happy to be back where things make sense and people care about one another. I am overjoyed to be home.

If possible, I will begin posting upon my return to Alaska.  Otherwise, I will re-start my blog posting Sunday July 13.

First, the airline is changing its checked bag policy in the middle of our trip.  As we fly out, we can each have two checked bags.  On our way home, we can only have one per person. 

From there, things seem to only get more stressful

We do not have a car reserved yet. I had thought we had reserved the car in February.  My wife told me she had not made the reservations yet.  The prices we could have paid in February have gone up.  She had good reasons as the people we are traveling with never got back to her with necessary information.  So, we will see what happens.

We are not packed yet.  The kids are packed.  I am mostly packed.  My wife is not.  Her mother asked her to make several quilts for some upcoming weddings.  She is stressed and I can see why.  Putting a quilt together is hard work.  One could just slap a basic quilt together, but she takes pride in her work. 

The house is still a mess and we have house sitters for part of our absence.  I want everything nice for our sitters, as does my wife.  But with all the other stresses, housework cannot be our first priority. 

So, I feel stressed out about our travel and it has not even started yet.

The challenge is to refrain from being irritable.  The kids are taking it all in stride, but the adults are feeling the pressure.  At times like this, I am glad a Christian marriage is between one man, one woman, and the Most High God.

My prayer is that I keep my irritation in check and not focused at my family.  I really want to have a lot of fun, but that would be difficult if we start our trip with an argument.

So, I pray that our trip is fun and relaxing and full of warmth.

Every thing that a man leans upon but God, will be a dart that will certainly pierce his heart through and through. He who leans only upon Christ, lives the highest, choicest, safest, and sweetest life.

                                                                              – Thomas Brooks

I find it so easy to turn away from God and depend upon other things.  I lean upon myself and try to exert independence.  I rely upon my abilities and plans.  I rely upon my resources. 

I forget that all of these are gifts from God and can never replace the Giver.  How I must grieve the Father’s heart when I glorify the gift he gave and neglect the Giver. 

Remember that God alone deserves glory and praise.  God alone can provide the grace and mercy we need to truly live.  God alone gives us eternal life – eternal both in quantity and in quality.

For some folks, sin is considered a synonym for fun and exciting.  This is evidenced by Las Vegas’ moniker of Sin City.  How utterly grievous this must be to the Most High.  The hideousness of sin is declared beautiful.  The abject evil of sin is called fun.  The deadliness of sin is regarded as the good life.  Sin receives the praise and honor and glory that rightfully belongs to God.  The creature has denied to Creator only to embrace the very antithesis of his love and race and mercy and holiness and justice and righteousness.

For other folks, sin is a term used by the religiously misled (or even deranged) for the purpose of enforcing a flawed world view.  The idea is that by calling something sin, one person injures another by denying their inner being and predilections.  To call something sin is therefore heinous, small minded, and bigoted.  In this system the only sin is calling corruption and ungodliness according to the way God sees it and revealed it to us.

Today, I was told that in spiritual care, or even clinical care, identifying sin is only harmful.  To identify this sin which is ugly, evil, and poisonous to the mind and soul is the true sin (according to this model).  Therefore, the person in need should never be told of God’s righteous standards.

Now, I understand that sin can be preached in a harmful way.  If we focus on God’s wrath to the exclusion of the love and grace and mercy he extends to the sinner, then we are teaching a caricature of God’s truth.  But how can we effectively teach about love, grace, mercy, and salvation without explaining sin – both its nature and its pervasive hold on a fallen mankind.

So, I challenge believers to evaluate the way they present the Gospel truth to the world around us.  We must love as God loves.  We must extend mercy and grace as we explain his mercy and grace.  But we cannot remain silent about sin when he sent his son to die as an atonement for that sin.

We need to remember that God measures the seriousness of sin by the blood of his son, Jesus Christ.  If we have trusted in that blood to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, if we have been delivered from death into everlasting life – then we must speak of sin as often as God does in his word.

This is another fine music video with a discussion and performance by Wintley Phipps.  Phipps is the gentleman in last weeks music video.  I hope this blesses you and I would recommend a personal study of the author of the hymn, Horatio Spafford.

Oh, what men dare do!  What men may do!  What men daily do, not knowing what they do!                                                  – 4.1.17 & 18

So says Count Claudio in William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing.”

I read this much beloved play this week.  I must confess a love of Shakespeare.  I had never thought to love Shakespeare as my first encounters in high school English class were not to my liking.  I believe this was more from the ignorance of youth than any lack in my teachers or the Bard.

While I love Shakespeare, “Much Ado” is my favorite.  “Hamlet” and “Midsummer” are regarded nearly as well.  While spending some days visiting my friends Benedick and Beatrice, Don Pedro and Leonato, and my good friend Dogberry (Claudio and Hero as well, I suppose), I heard these words afresh.

The quote triggered a memory of Paul of Tarsus speaking with such emotion

18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.

22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:

23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

                                                                               Romans 7:18-25 KJV

I struggle with what I do and what I dare to do.  Unfortunately, as a Christian I do know what I daily do.  The unregenerate, the unsaved has no knowledge of life but that of sin.  The regenerate, the child of God knows all too well the rebellion that we daily live.

I do not wish to shirk my personal responsibility, but still wish to press a point.  That point is that we rarely here the word sin anymore.  All is disease.  All is dysfunction.  All is someone else’s fault. 

But this is not true. 

Sin is a hideous, ugly, and destructive thing.  Yet, we harbor sin in the home of our heart.  We allow this death to work within us.  How can we defile the temple of the Holy Spirit with such filth?

With Paul, we must turn our face to Jesus Christ our Lord.  He alone saves us.  He alone makes us right before the heavenly Father.  God alone can give us the grace and mercy we need to daily fight a battle against our flesh.  God alone can succor us when we need rest.  God alone can heal us when we fall to our depravity.  God alone can forgive.

So, when our sin rears up within us, let us turn our face toward the light of the Son.  Let that holy light dispel the darkness within us.  Let us turn to the Father who can conform us into the image of the Son.

That laud comes by way of a Puritan quote I found on a blog called Barry Dean 4 Christ.  The actual quote can be found on his Puritan Quotes page.

This quote reflects my intent to love her, even though I have failed to properly live out that intent from time to time.  The quote is from Thomas Hooker.

The man whose heart is endeared to the woman he loves…dreams of her in the night, hath her in his eye and apprehension when he awakes, museth on her as he sits at the table, walks with her when he travels… She lies in his bosom, and his heart trusts in her, which forceth all to confess that the stream of his affection, like a mighty current, runs with full tide and strength.

Thank you Lord for a good woman.  She is a dear blessing as my wife and an amazing mother.  Please let me live in appreciation of the marvelous person you made her to be.

Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.                                                                        - John Owen

As this is the inaugural posting of a weekly Puritan quote, I decided on a well known and well beloved quote from the pen of John Owen.  This quote is from Of the Mortification of Sinne in Believers published for the first time in 1656.

As I ponder this quote, I think that Owen might have added something more to this statement.  I understand that I am a poor scholar in comparison to this Puritan divine, but I stand by my thought.  The thought is that we are not only being killed by our sin, but that our sin also affects those around us.

There is no such thing as a victimless sin. 

First and foremost, sin offends God.  Secondly, we bear our sin.  Lastly, our sins are never committed in a vacuum.  Others are always affected.

My sin affects my relationship with God.  As such, my peace and contentment are at odds with my guilt and shame.  This state of mind affects all of my earthly relationships in addendum to my relationship with the Most High.

My challenge is that we begin to see sin as the repugnant evil that it truly is.  Furthermore, that we come to grips with the fact that sin destroys.  As we think on this, we must also take responsibility for how our sin affects others.

Let sin be called sin.  Let each man look to his relationship with God.  Let the same man be concerned for the relationships he has with others.

The quickest way to prevent heresy is to teach all truths, and the most certain way of refuting it is to expose them all.
                                                                                 – Blaise Pascal

Heresy is a dangerous word in today’s culture of tolerance.  Somehow and someway, all views are supposedly of equal validity.  How can this be?  This is especially troubling within Christianity.  As a Christian, I believe in the Bible and therefore in an absolute standard of right and wrong.

With this in mind, how much wrong must be in a concept before it is wholly wrong?  Or in other words, how much heresy can be tolerated?   Let us consider this very thing.

Before we begin, let me follow a basic convention.  I will give a basic definition of heresy for the purposes of this article.

Heresy is an erroneous or false opinion, repugnant unto and subverting the doctrine of faith revealed in the Word as necessary unto salvation; and obstinately maintained and perniciously adhered unto by a professed Christian.

                                                                               - Obadiah Sedgwick

This quote is taken from a longer work located at A Puritan’s Mind.  Both the article quoted and the vast array of articles located at this site make it a personal favorite.

So, I wonder, what should a Christian’s response to heresy be?  Should we assume a standard of tolerance to make the post modern movement proud?  Or would we better pursue righteousness by exposing and refuting such heresy.

I firmly believe the latter.  I vastly prefer polemics to straight apologetics when dealing with a self proclaimed Christian entrenched in heresy.  I keep apologetics in my tool box as reserved for interacting with the standard unregenerate folk I know and meet. 

So, what shall we do when we meet a person calling themselves a Christian (sometimes they avoid that term as if it was the black death), but denies certain fundamental truths.  Such as

• the deity of Christ
• the triune nature of the Most High
• salvation by grace through faith
• denial of the Word of God (entirely or proclaiming the Word as errant)

Shall we sit on our backsides and allow lies to breed and multiply and spread like cancer?  Or shall we engage the heresy and proclaim truth?

A common quote (and one that appears in many forms):

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

                                                                                    – Edmund Burke

Let us also say that “All that is necessary for heresy to triumph is for godly men to do nothing.”

My challenge is for godly men to step away from the sidelines and engage heresy.  This requires that these same godly men know the truth well – the Bible well, be much in prayer, and willing to engage. 

So men, read your Bible, bend your knee, and expose heresy.