12/31/10 - M&E Entry - John 7:37

John 7:37 - Jesus is the only satisfying source to quench the thirst of my soul. Whatever I thirst for, Jesus satisfies. Not that He is always what I thirst for, for in my foolish self-centered ways I sometimes thirst for hollow tasteless drink. But even then, when I come to Him with such silly desires, He satisfies the core covered by what I thought I wanted. He knows me better than I know myself, and meets needs of which I am either blind to, in denial about, or both. Ah, the wholesome peace of the Holy Spirit found in the serenity of accepting the offered gift of satisfying drink. Mmmm, mmmmm, good!

12/30/10 - M&E Entry - Ecclesiastes 7:8

Ecclesiastes 7:8 - Good the end of a word from its beginning, Good a patient spirit from a proud spirit. I will wait patiently for the end, for what I know is the last word belongs to my Jesus, and not to me (although it's not like I don't try to get it often enough). At least, I will try to wait patiently for the end. I'm not very good at that. I get bored rather quickly. And I secretly want to run with Big Dogs now rather than wait to run with the Lion of Judah now. So the key is to not pursue my secret desires, but wait for the  One giving me better desires in my heart.

12/29/10 - M&E Entry - 1 Samuel 7:12

1 Samuel 7:12 - Up to here has Yahweh helped us. This may look like an end (the cup may appear empty), but that does not mean that is all there is. Cups can be refilled (and often are), people can be re-used, and God can continue the story of my life. Yes, this far I see His hand, but I take courage from that for the next chapter and New Year. Happy New Year!

12/28/10 - M&E Entry - Galatians 2:20

Galatians 2:20 - Death by crucifixion is supposedly slow and torturous. This is a good description of my "death to self" which I only experience as a slow painful suffocation of my self-centered focus. But I still walk through my days in that blind trust that Jesus loves me and has my back. He confirms it over and over, over noise of my wheezing dying selfishness. He does not wait for me to die totally before He brings me life. His grace is active in me even before I can "earn" it by dying; which is why it is called "grace", I believe.

12/27/10 - M&E Entry - Job 8:11

Job 8:11 - The fragility of those who forget God is often grounded in a swamp. I can get mired in the things of this world and live the fragile life of swamp grass, or take the higher more established life of the river-rooted tree of Psalm 1. Let the river flow past, get what nutrient there may be from it, but not allow myself to be rooted in anything but the deep richness of my Lord and Savior Jesus. Not very Cajun of me. But I belong in the snowy mountains anyway.

12/26/10 - M&E Entry

It seems my devotion book is simply stuck on Jesus as both Lord AND Savior this season. He goes on and on about it, day after day, looking at from all sorts of angles... Isn't that cool? I marvel at it. I confront it in worship and prayer. I grieve over it when I realize how cheaply I sell it for momentary pleasure that never is; even that I would sell it at all! I am overwhelmed when I am received back by my Prodigal Father. So, bring on the angles. They will never be exhausted. Nor will I tire looking at my Lord AND Savior.

12/25/10 - Christmas Observation

As I survey the debris of Christmas morning the blessings of family and our Maker come flooding in. The presents are very nice, but their value really lay in how they connected us to family half a country distant. God has truly blessed us. We may be separated by distances too great to bridge in one day, and yet we aren't.

12/24/10 - M&E Entry - 2 Corinthians 8:9

2 Cor 8:9 - Jesus defined grace when He humiliated himself to glorify me. Can such actions by the Creator and Master of the Universe fail to complete His task? So why do I find it so hard to trust that He has my back, or that the events around me out of my control are never out of His? Again I return to the manger and seek illumination from the Light of the World.

12/23/10- M&E Entry - Luke 14:10

Luke 14:10 - To take the lowest place at the table is to follow the path of Jesus. And just as His path led to lots of strife and pain, and eventually to a cross, so my choosing the lower place my bring me pain initially. But just the end of His earthly story was overwhelming victory over death, so in time is the result of choosing to follow Him in that choice. Too often I want my "payoff" sooner rather than later, and opt for the quick, easy, and cheap return on my investment. Perhaps this morning, my time is better spent in the stable worshipping at a manger than praying for one more blessing for myself. May God in Jesus bless you in my place.

12/22/10 - M&E Entry - Isaiah 41:10

Isaiah 41:10 - Why can I consider the unimaginable qualities of my God exerted on my behalf? Why would Isaiah? Did we both look at our life events and see the same set of finger prints? The power which was used to fashion the Universe is used on my behalf. That is what it means when I claim God loves me and He has my back. So why the remaining fear? I think it is the limits of my imagination tethering my faith too near this earth. Excuse me, I have some fences to rip out. I'll be back later.

12/21/10 - M&E Entry - 2 Samuel 23:5

2 Samuel 23:5 should be read and understood in the King James before others. It preserves a better sense of David's sense of the condition of his family and therefore the grace of God. A moon's glory obscure by clouds yet providing rare sights of a blood-red lunar eclipse. Gems hidden among jagged worthless rocks. Kinda God's MO to use the foolish things to frustrate the wise! Long live us fools!  

12/20/10 - M&E Entry - Jeremiah 31:3

Jeremiah 31:3 - God speaks to those in exile, but the objective person is singular, the prophet. He relates his experience with his God, Yahweh, using it to encourage those without hope. How can I use my relationship with my God to encourage those in exile this season?

12/19/10 - Viewing Christmas Lights in Yards in FW

The lights were beautiful. They must have cost literally thousands to buy and put up. They decorate the "buckle of the Bible-belt" and yet there is not a manger scene among them. We saw lots of pretty displays, but nothing regarding the One we celebrate. Like having a birthday party but not inviting the one born that day. It seems so odd. Should it? Or is it me?

12/18/10 - M&E Entry - Joel 2:13

Charles Spurgeon, Mornings and Evenings, December 18

Joel 2:13 - Repentance of my sin and returning to my devotion to Jesus enables me to again enjoy my loving Lord.  He is always ready to relent of His correction of me, but only once it has achieved its intended goal of a restored relationship with me.  It's so surreal to think of myself as worth all that trouble.  Well, He seems to think I am.

12/17/10 - M&E Entry - Jeremiah 2:2

From December 17, 2010 - "meanderings" stemming from that morning's devotion from Mornings & Evenings by Charles Spurgeon.

Jeremiah 2:2 - The Lord remembers me.  That is a beautiful truth, but also as sobering one.  He remembers the devotion of my youth.  But, as long as I refuse to repent, He also sees my rebellion.  It is as I confess my sin that I experience forgiveness and purification from sin.  It is a peace-bringing truth that I can always come home from my wanderings to a Father ready and desiring to receive me, seeing me from afar, running to embrace me.  Why would I wander in the first place?

12/16/10 - Benefits of my job that didn't make it into the description

My first entry on December 16, 2010 was a short thank you for one of the things I loved about my job in Fort Worth.

One of the best things about work is lunch.  I am allowed to make cappuccino, a sandwich, and still have time to walk around downtown.  It's not considered a benefit I suppose, but it's still one  I enjoy.

Wrestling with Scripture

This is my last post to this blog.  From here until February 2, I will repeat the entries I posted to Facebook when I began on December 16, 2010.  They’re short, have a picture, and start out using Mornings and Evenings by Charles Spurgeon.  From here I will be moving into two blogs.  My second entry yesterday has links and short descriptions of each, and they will be both centered on my own specific dealings with a Scripture passage or book.  That this last entry from Chambers is about struggling with the truths of my Master is very fitting.

The charge from Chambers is to wrestle with a passage or truth of God so that I express it in some way that is mine, or makes sense to me.  This is precisely what both blogs will be about, just from different focuses.  I want to wrestle again with Scripture on a personal level.  If this develops into a Bible study, great; if it only affects my own relationship with my Master and no one else, so be it; or if others gain from it and my Master uses it to bless others, most excellent.  What I have to accept is that after it is written, I begin to lose ownership of it.  What others think of it or how my Master uses it won’t really be up to me.  It’s weird.

But I am, will continue to be, responsible for what I write.  As Chambers points out, I must struggle until I am able to somehow express what my Master shows me through a Scripture, whether familiar or not.  For instance, I want to begin by pushing deep into the Gospel of John, and so much of what I delve into will be familiar.  What I’m looking for in this process is a fresh view of my Master’s face; His Personality, or perhaps His Character.  I want to explore past tradition and blind assumption to a real Person preserved and described in these words.  I want to discover Him, not some common accepted version of Him.

To accomplish this expression of how my Master impacts me through a passage, I first must wrestle with the passage.  My method typically starts with translation, exploring options that expand the meaning in common translations, so I have a wider understanding of what the author was inspired to write.  I ask questions like, “why that word?” or “what else can that mean?” or “what does it mean that he didn’t use this word?” or often, some combination of all three questions.  After that, I look at the compiled information, and I seek my Master’s perspective in prayer.  Only then am I really able to sift what I have found.  In fact, often I have to go back and compile all over again. 

The real key here is my submission to what has been written rather than working the other way around.  I have to wrestle with the angel at the river to gain the blessing of understanding my Master.  In the process I may very well be wounded for life.  I don’t see anything to be gained by working with Scripture apart from also working and submitting myself to the One who inspired it.  An aspect I am particularly excited about is working with the Hebrew Scriptures in this process.  Since my goal is to know Jesus more, I hope to get closer to the explanation of Himself He gave on the road to Emmaus.  That will take a lot of work, and a lot of prayer, and a constant submission to my Master.  Well, here I go.

Seeing my Master’s Face through The Lens of Scripture

Scriptural Laws for Christians

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, December 15

The Future of This Blog

After tomorrow, this blog goes on "autopilot" and i move on to two others.  Posts will continue for almost two months, to February 2.  The entries will be the ones missing from this blog that were entered on Facebook.  My practice of blogging started on December 16, 2010, but i didn't start using this blog as a medium until February 3 (the posts on Facebook were getting long and i had complaints).

One difference is that the posts had pictures.  Often i took them that morning and sometimes they had something to do with the entry, but not always.  They are definitely shorter entries.

I have started two other blogs, one on a Christian view of legal texts, and another for Bible study focusing on knowing Jesus through Scripture.  The first one is to prove something i have said a lot, but never really tested.  The other is because I need it.  I won't post to both everyday, and I may not post to either of them any given day.  I will still post any entries to Facebook though.

The chapter of my meanderings is closing and I am moving on to projects that I hope will drive me even more into the presence of my Master.  On that journey i will share sporadically rather than daily.  Many of you may enjoy the reprieve.  I'll leave this blog up for several months, and then probably archive it.

Blessings upon you!

Matt

Trading Peace for Panic, and then Back Again

One of the things that drew me to the church I attend is that the experience of the formation of this congregation is a lot like the process I went through with my family coming out here.  So, there is a similar attitude and perspective.  I look back and see the steps (although I sometimes forget the order they came), and I’m reminded that I was brought here.  All along the way, I have been amazed at how my Master met all the needs I was concerned about, and sometimes worried about.  At times I tried to make something happen and it just refused to materialize.  I had to wait for my Master to connect the dots.

I remember the difference in feelings when I tried to accomplish something, and when my Master had to make it happen.  When I worked at it, I was stressed.  When I quit trying to make it happen, there was peace, and my Master met the need.  This happened over and over.  What is still amazing to me is that I continue to try to make things happen.  After such a dramatic lesson, I would think it would be obvious that what I can do doesn’t amount to enough to warrant the stress it causes.  I guess it’s learning to differentiate between obedience and busyness; that is really my problem.  I still want to do something, which springs from a core problem.

I know that feeling, that feeling of wanting to accomplish something.  It usually comes when I start to believe that everyone around me is better than me; has better skills, knows more, whatever.  Instead of replying with an obvious, “well, duh” I try to demonstrate my own knowledge and skills.  To quote my daughter, “FAIL!”  It is not about me!  It is not about “them” and me, “them” compared to me, or even “them”!  What is so difficult about that lesson?  Well, I am.  The capital “I” continues to live, breathe, and have too much influence.  My focus needs to be on my Master.

In this season, focus on my Master should be easy.  This is the season celebrating the coming of the Prince of Peace.  In church tradition, both the Advent of the divine Child, and the return of the Lord of heavens armies are both celebrated.  This and Easter are my favorite holidays.  I have decorated my yard with that as my focus.  My house has more manger scenes than any other decoration (my daughter collects them).  This should be a time of intense focus on Jesus.  Yet, here I feel most inadequate, and I don’t know why.  The year is closing?  The future is rushing at me?  Perhaps cold short days are affecting me?  I don’t really know why.

It’s true for lots of people, testified by the increase in suicides and so on.  But why it would be true for me is not easily accessible to me.  Such peace I cannot comprehend is available to me in this season, and I sulk in self-pity and fear.  That’s crazy; especially since I know it’s crazy!  Hello!  I am here because I was brought.  I am where my Master clearly wants me.  I must let my fear of others fall away, let the drone of other voices fade into a hum, and embrace the warmth of my Master’s presence.  And then I must do it again, and again, and again.  And then I’ll do it some more.

For my Master loved His human creatures so much that He wrapped His Son in humanity and entered our history as a baby.  He did this so that any of His human creatures who believe in Him will not be wiped from creation, but live eternally in His presence.  This is the truth wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.  And just as there was no room in the Inn two millennia ago, there so often is no room in human hearts today.  With such truth in my mind, I feel it enter my heart, and I tremble.  Why then would I let anything distract me from such beauty?  Not today.  Today, this minute, hopefully this hour, is my Master’s.

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, December 14

Interceding on Behalf of my Neighbors

Intercessory prayer is not something I do enough of.  I would consider this area one where I fall down.  It is also one of those areas where I can most get out of myself and into the perspective of my Master.  Considering the sorts of things He is teaching me lately, it would seem like it would take more of a central position in my life with my Master.  Unfortunately, I seem more consumed by other things.  For instance, this blog has taken up my morning devotion time.  In a way it has become that morning devotion time.  And as of Friday, I will not be making more entries (they will run on automatic until February 2).

Intercessory prayer is also something I feel impressed to do from my Master’s Spirit.  I have people just “pop” into my mind while praying, and they need to be brought before my Master.  Sometimes He brings them to me; sometimes thoughts of them need to be brought to Him in captivity.  What Chambers says to pray for is along the lines of the redemption of the person.  A lot of the time, though, my prayer and who is brought to my mind are people I know have a relationship with my Master.  Along my street there are examples of people I have no idea about.  They could be saved already, but I know so few of them.

Intercession is a priestly role, so I suppose it really is more on behalf of those who have no relationship with my Master.  When I have the opportunity so close around me then I avoid a clear and present responsibility.  As I think about it, I have had contact with several of the families around me already.  I have had enough contact to pray for them (even if I can’t remember their names).  Perhaps that’s what I should be doing now instead of typing…

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, December 13

Joining with my Fellow Believers as Jesus Is Joined to the Father?

I never ever pretend to understand the Trinitarian nature of my Master.  There’s really no point because it would take even my daughter a few well-placed questions to reveal that I really don’t understand.  I can’t.  In fact, at the risk of being considered a heretic, I have said before that I believe it’s possible that I might find my Master to have more than three Persons when I arrive in Heaven.  But I can say with complete confidence that He has revealed Himself in Scripture, both Hebrew and Christian, as being Three in One.  That much I do know.  How it’s possible or how to explain it, not a chance.

So, when I get to Jesus’ prayer in John 17, I may be unsettled with its references to being one just as Jesus and the Father are One, but I just chalk it up to one more thing I don’t understand about the Trinity.  But I really want to understand this because I suspect it’s really important.  For instance, in verse 22, which Chambers uses this morning, Jesus prays, “And I have given the glory which You gave Me to them, so that they might be one just as We are One;”  Now, the problem I have here is me being one with anyone in the same way as Jesus and the Father are One.  It sounds like one characteristic of the Trinity I can share with another believer.

I think I have an answer, but I will not pretend to have the answer.  The clue I rely on here is the Person missing from this prayer, but present in the previous 3 chapters, the Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit.  I suspect that any possibility for “oneness” is tied completely to the presence of the Spirit of my Master living in me, and in the other person I become one with.  I suspect this to be true from things Paul has said in some letters of his:  having one Spirit, keep the unity of the Spirit, and so on.  I infer from this chapter the key to divine Oneness is the Third Person, the Holy Spirit.  The term Jesus uses is “glory”, hence my problem.

The odd thing, or difficult thing, for me is considering me as having this potential which my Master actually displays.  While I believe that there is an image of my Master imprinted on me as a human being, I find it difficult to wrap my mind around being one with another person as part of that image-stamp.  I just find thinking of the Trinitarian nature of my Master as being something accessible to people like me really weird or somehow sacrilegious.  It feels like I make this unimaginable indescribable nature of my Master more common or mundane.  It just feels wrong.  But from the Gospel of John, it seems it’s right, weird as it might feel.

So, I’m left with some requirement to connect, if possible, the glory of my Master with His Spirit.  It doesn’t sound difficult on the surface, both being God, they would naturally have the same glory.  But I suppose part of my problem is that I don’t know that I really know how to define the Glory of God.  I would hazard to define it as something which brings praise and honor to God without demeaning His character or nature in any way.  So, I suppose that He could be His own glory in a sense, and therefore His Spirit would also be.  But that sounds overly simple, and I am not confident that’s what Jesus had in mind as He prayed.

Jesus says that the glory given to Him by the Father He gave to them (not the disciples, but the ones believing their testimony, so really, “us”) so that they might be one just as He and the Father are One.  How did Jesus give the disciples and those following them His glory?  The only connection supports my interpretation is that what has been given drives me to praise my Master.  That would be my connection to my Master and that would be the His Spirit.  So, in that sense at least, I believe I can connect the dots supporting this possible interpretation.  So when does this happen?  I believe the modern term we use is “church”.  Oddly and sadly, being one is not a descriptor I would normally use for church in general.  I suspect it depends on the church.

Even the church I’m currently a part of has issues.  The issues don’t seem anywhere near as bad as the issues in other churches I have been part of, but there are some.  But one thing that seems to be the case is that this church is one in worship.  It is just my sense of the experience, but it seems as if the congregation is one in praise to our Master at that point in time.  A lot of that has to do with our great song leader and our pastor, but I believe that even more it has to do with the freedom we give the Spirit of God in our worship.  It’s not forced, I don’t feel uncomfortable nor do I feel bored (I can’t imagine anyone being bored in our worship).

Today I will attempt to keep in my day the glory of my Master I experienced in worship yesterday.  I will seek to apply the wonderfully harsh scrubbing of my pastor to my day, hear again the beautiful and powerful songs we sang together, and keep the conscious awareness of my Master as I work the phones.  I will try to keep the unity of the Spirit of my Master experienced on Sunday throughout the week.  Even writing this, I miss being with them already.  That’s different.  I think I like it!

My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers, December 12

The Passage of Death to Life on Earth

When Jesus is in Caesarea Philippi, He asks the disciples who they believe Him to be, and Peter declares that Jesus is the Messiah.  Then, when Jesus tells them of His coming death and resurrection, Peter rebukes Jesus.  Jesus’ answer back to Peter we know for it is stronger than we expect, “Get behind me Satan!”  And juxtaposed with his recent declaration the rebuke of Peter is shocking, in fact, so shocking, another very familiar statement of Jesus is normally left out here and taken later on its own.

Jesus speaks of the cost of discipleship by telling them that, “if anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.”  Not only is Peter wrong about Jesus, but he is wrong about following this Messiah he has just confessed.  The statement is part of the left hook following the hard right to Peter’s chin.  Jesus is losing His life, and the disciples are to follow along after Him.  This is one of those statements of Jesus that take a lot of the fun out of being the famous “Twelve” of Jesus. 

It’s the same today for me.  Sure I like being thought of as a disciple of Jesus.  I’m not sure I like the whole “deny yourself and pick up your cross…” part so much.  I know that “my cross” is not so much stuff I don’t like, as much as it is not having stuff I do.  But it’s more than that.   A cross is a means of execution, not decoration.  To take up my cross is to embrace my own execution.  I think, like Chambers, that the application for me is more of a denial of my natural tendencies toward self-centered living.  But I’m not saying that it does not exclude actual execution.  Right now, execution for my belief isn’t so immanent…right now.

What is immanent is the living breathing self-centered Matt.  The Matt who is entitled to stuff, who believes that he has earned blessings, who behaves as if everyone should both understand and agree with him, this is the Matt who must die on his cross.  For those reasons, and a hundred others, the Matt-centered universe must self-destruct (it’s small, no one will really miss it).  What I really don’t like is the carrying-by-choice method involved.  I would rather be killed outright rather than drag this painful event out, and through my own participation too.  Death by cross is humiliating, so my “reputation” goes in the incinerator as well.  Such fun.

Paul did it, Peter finally did it (once he had the Holy Spirit), Stephen, and a bunch of them who endured prison, torture, and other oppression for their Master.  They did it in very obvious public ways.  I have to do it in more interior yet still public ways.   And I really mean I must.  I have to because I am following Jesus.  It’s just that I look more like the ever-distracted hound, rarely on the path, usually sniffing and marking trees to either side.  I sort of follow rather than heel as I should.  I must die to my entitlements, my claim to anything about or for myself.  I must become the set dressing on the stage of life, and let my Master emerge center.

Death to Matty! Viva la Christos!

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, December 11