A Crisis of Biblical Proportion

I used to have a sign in my locker at work that said, "Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine." It was a bit of irony since I worked in an emergency dispatch center. It never ceased to amaze me the effort people would invest in making bad decisions; so bad that a call to 9-1-1 would become inevitable. I have a few hundred examples I could use but one particular incident comes to mind.

It seems a homeowner decided that he didn't like the looks of the angled section of the stove pipe on his wood stove. Apparently it wasn't quite right and he didn't think it was safe so he removed the section he and went to the local hardware store to find a suitable replacement. Now most people would consider this laudable behavior and it would have been if there had not been a load of live coals and fresh logs in the wood stove. If you are like him and don't see a problem with this scenario, let me introduce you to what firefighters call the fire triangle. Heat + Fuel + Oxygen = Fire. Live coals= Heat. Logs = Fuel. Removed section of stove pipe = Source of Oxygen and thus we have Fire..... fire no longer contained in the wood stove but shooting out the hole where the stove pipe had been. Fire burning while no one was there to watch it and so it ran up the wall, spread through the ceiling and continued. Sadly, the man's house was fully engulfed in flames when he returned from getting supplies to make it safer.

Sometimes we Christians just don't think things all the way through to their logical conclusions. We make decisions based on partial information or worse yet, from positions of unsound doctrine or heresy. Our brains are so saturated with the slime and gobbledygook of the world we aren't being fed the truth (milk or meat) of the Word. We are certainly not taking every thought captive (2Cor 10:5) . How can we claim to be His when we are not willing to forsake our own way to follow Him? ( Isa 55:7)

If we are truly believers, we live to serve Him. If we are the elect of God, we have had an individual spiritual crisis of biblical proportion for which the only resolution is being united with Christ. We have passed from being dead in our sin and have entered into eternal life, being spared the torments and horrors of our well deserved judgments (Gal 2:20). Through Him we have redemption and forgiveness according to riches of his grace. (Eph 1:7) How is it that we professing believers, the elect of God, can justify being so ignorant of the things of Christ? Why is it things like discernment appear to escape us? How is it we can live our lives looking no different than those who do not know the forgiveness of their sins? How do we begin to justify the embellishments of our testimonies, as if being saved by grace through faith is not amazing enough? We lie, cheat, steal, and divorce in the same numbers as non-believers. If we dress, talk, live and act the same as those from whom we have been set apart, how will they ever believe God changes people? How can we believe God has changed us? How will they value and employ the precepts of the bible if we do not?

Titus 2:11-15
11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,
12 instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age,
13 looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus;
14 who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.
15 These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you.
(NAS)

Character Flaws, Sin and Remediation

I have been thinking about my last post in which I offered to talk about how having a job has shown or magnified my character flaws. Before I do though, I want to distinguish between character flaws and sin. My character flaws predispose me to sin in certain areas more readily than in others. Indulging in my character flaws is sinful. Entertaining the idea of indulging my character flaws is sinful. They are the weaknesses in me where my flesh makes itself known by screaming, "You know you want to!!" Too often I hear Christians lamenting that they "make mistakes" or are victims of their genetic make-up and intimate that they should, therefore, be excused from culpability for being prone to certain activities. Our cultural dependence on a medical model to define our behavior has given many what they see as a plausible excuse for sin. I don't see that caveat in the Word. For Christians, the Word is always our standard. It is the standard by which all will be j

Fear Down, Hope and Peace to Go!

Last night I had the honor and privilege to present some information to the women of my church. I cannot begin to tell you how much I love and appreciate them. The seminar I did was on fear. God is clever and He had me present the information to them because I needed it. It's not that I don't want to study things for my own benefit and growth, but whenever I do a topical study to teach it, I see how badly I needed it and how much more I have to repent of than I realized. Sometimes you don't know what you don't know. That's a topic I want to return to in another post. I want to talk about the ladies for a moment. They are an incredibly loving group of women. Women who seek God and are teachable. They have gone out of their way to include me and love on me, which speaks volumes of their characters because I am not all that lovable. I am not being self-deprecating here. I am a mix of endearing and maddening qualities like anyone else. What I am telling you is

Super Church a song for the Emergent-sy

In the early 70s I was in a youth choir at my church. Our youth pastor was a musician and his way of connecting with us as a group was through the choir and music. Somehow there was an affiliation between him and The Continental Singers, New Hope and Jeremiah People. He was worked with Moishe Rosen of Jews for Jesus too, I think. Are any of these names familiar to you? Though I remember the church fondly I was a profoundly lost and troubled young woman during my years there. That and time have muddled the memories quite a bit. Today I was digging through some old paperwork and one of the books to the musical we did. It's Getting Late For the Great Planet Earth, a folk rock oratorio by Cam Floria. Yes, that's right. Cam Floria put Hal Lindsey to music. There's a lot to laugh about and some to groan about but as I was looking through the songs and remembering, I found this little ditty and I only wish I could sing it for you. Just remember that this is circa 1972 and even th

rambling rosemarie

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