Stories Instead of Scripture

         In this day and age we have innumerable resources for information. Between the preponderance of books and documentaries and the giant (though often questionable) library that is the internet today's Christian has really no excuse to be uninformed. Unfortunately it comes as no surprise that much of the material that exists today is at best, suspect if not outright misleading or false. It occurred to me today that there is another form of misleading material that we may not think of right away, media that takes the place of someone's legitimate interest in God.

         There are two books I've seen recently that fit this category and that I'll use as examples, but first a disclaimer. I freely admit that I have not read these books through, mostly I've spent some time leafing through them. That being the case, it's entirely possible that I've missed some redeeming value they may have, but my point isn't really dependent on the books in their entirety.

         The first book bothers me first off because it's complete lack of logic...”A Story of God and All of Us,” by Roma Downey and Mark Burnett.

          This a novelization of the Bible...based not on the Bible itself, but on the miniseries “The Bible.” Now regardless of your opinion on the series itself (meh), this book makes no sense as we HAVE the story of the miniseries....the BIBLE! This simple obvious fact bothers me more than anything. I can only see two possible purposes for it, to make as much money as humanly possible from people's interest in the Bible, and to provide a source of “information” that is not actually the Word of God. Now as in most things I don't suggest that the second reason was one considered by it's authors, publishers, distributors etc. However we all know humans aren't the only forces working in this world. It appears as if the book's authors had the audacity to try and make the Bible more...interesting, I guess? The parts I read were filled with poor paraphrasing and nearly no grasp as to the actual point of God's Word. I remember reading about Jesus' interview with Pilot. In this section the authors wrote what Pilot was thinking, and even had him restraining himself from smacking this insolent prisoner, ie. Jesus. We don't know what anyone from the past was thinking and the Bible doesn't give any indication that Pilot smacked Him or wanted to. This of course is my second problem with this book, the authors did what everyone likes to do with history in general and the Bible specifically, they added information they could not possibly know and presented it as part of the actual account. Ultimately the only source we should look to is the Bible, these other books really only serve as a net to catch people and stop them on their way to God's Word. Think of it this way, some people can easily be steered away from every caring about God. Others however, may have a strong albeit earthly interest. The devil doesn't need to outright block everyone when he can simply provide other sources of “information” that seem like the same story but are ultimately different and do not lead to a saving knowledge of God. It would be far better for everyone who bought this book to simply get a copy of the Bible itself (statistically they probably already own one) and read not only “exciting” stories, but all of God's words to us.

          The other book I'll mention here is “Killing Jesus – The Unknown Conspiracy Behind the World's Most Famous Execution,” by Stephen Mansfield. This book contains the two hallmarks of quickly done, “for profit” books namely a large typeface and double-spaced pages. The book itself is probably half as long as it appears and also uses the familiar “dramatization” of Biblical events. This book isn't so much a deterrent from scripture as it is a parasite on scripture minded people. We don't need a book exposing the conspiracy that killed Christ because the Bible already lays out what happened! The religious elite of the time were ticked off because Jesus was undermining their authority, and since “official” Judaism of the time had long since parted ways with God's intentions for them, they failed to recognize their own Messiah. As far as I can tell this book is nothing more than another attempt to capitalize on the popular idea of religious mysteries and secrets. Ultimately I must say again that people would be far better served reading the actual Bible.

         God didn't give us a hundred different kinds of revelation. He didn't breathe out films or music vidoes. He didn't weave number based secret codes into His scriptures. The God of the Bible is not a god that makes us wonder and worry and dig and sneak and think ourselves better because we found the “truth.” God gave us His word that we might know Him! We need not think that He's keeping things from us, or that His Word is insufficient. As Paul said in his letters to Timothy, “All scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching...” (2 Timothy 3:16), and of course there's Revelation 22:18-19, “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.”

Dreams and Promises

It occurred to me today that our dreams our a thing we must strive, even fight for. The odd thing is that although we usually hear about fighting against the world or our circumstances, we rarely hear about fighting against ourselves for our dreams. Sometimes it's our own deficiencies that hold us back. If we are to fulfill that which we desire we must fight tooth and nail against our own laziness, fears, and worries. Not that this is easy. In fact I think it may just be the most difficult part of the battle. We can put labels on enemies, we can cast ourselves the hero in some cosmic war against our situation or our economic shortcomings, but realizing that we ourselves are to blame often comes rather late.

Personally I don't think this is a permanent problem. I think we can muscle through even our own shortcomings. As Christian I believe this to be even more true. We are empowered by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to be changed, to be more than what we were. We know that God will finish the work He begins in us. Furthermore we know that God desires our good, whether that be freedom from recurring sins or the perfecting of our fallen natures. I see in myself a propensity for selfishness, laziness, and pride and I see in the scriptures God's promise to remove those faults. Ultimately their shadows will remain until I see His face in paradise, but I can trust Him to loosen the hold they have on me.

Every day I see more and more the need to seek His face. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God … and all these things shall be added unto you...” God knows how to give good gifts to his children, we need only ask and ask rightly.

The Shadows Around and In Us

As an American citizen, I'm thankful that we are blessed with the right to our faith.  We can (for the moment anyway) believe what we want and do not have to face much in the way of real persecution.  What we do have however, is a nearly overwhelming amount of temptation.  The culture we live in has so left the teachings of God that I think many young Christians -and some not so young ones- don't even recognize all of the tempting forces around us.  We could all do a lot of good by being more strict and more set in our ways, seeking every day to more closely mirror the Word of God.  God will bless us and guide our path in this endeavor, He wants what is good for us, including freedom from sin.

Temptation

I hear it still.

The voice inside.

That crooked sound

That whispers lies.

With every time

That I obey.

It grows in strength

Deepens decay.

It sounds like me

Same words, same feel.

But it can't be me!

It isn't real!

Lord, drown it out!

Cast it aside!

This lying voice

I hear inside.

I seek Your peace

I need Your Grace.

Help me to seek

Your glorious face.

In You I know

Lie truth and light.

Such perfect love and sacrifice.

Though shadows whisper lies to me,

I know in You, I am truly free.

by. me

Another Poem Post.

        Found this going through some of my old poetry files, I rather like it, and I wonder why I didn't post it before?  I hate to trumpet my own work but sometimes what I write hits me especially...maybe it's God using my own words to remind me of something I've forgotten, anyway, here it is.

Wanting What You Want

I want to be a quiet man,

Whose life does not cause shame,

Whose name is blessed,

When at it's best,

Is lost in Jesus name.

I want to be a holy man,

Far separate from the earth.

No longer stained nor feeling strain,

Freed by a second birth.

I want to be a righteous man,

Though it's often hard to be,

Each day corrected,

Not yet perfected,

God's love transforming me.

I fall upon my hands and knees,

My Lord, Oh God, I cry.

Why did you come?

How can you care?

Why did you have to die?

How can Your great forgiveness stretch,

Across the earth to me?

How can my sins be placed upon,

Your Son upon the tree?

I know my strength is not enough,

I've failed enough to see.

Your hand is what will hold me up,

Your strength supporting me.

I have to trust Your promises,

My own heart will deceive.

Until I die or join the sky,

Your Word I will believe.

Jonathan E. Schaefer

12/24/11

        Not sure what exactly I'm writing now. I feel, thoughts; inside my mind, wrestling around and jostling for...something. I'm struggling. My mind accepts and believes that I want to walk the true path, my soul concurs and grieves me terribly when I vary from that direction. Yet, still I often find myself far from the road. Why is that? How can I totally believe in something, and then act against it? How far fallen is this flesh that it seeks what it knows is a lie? My word, it is astonishing just how great and terrible the fall of man is... This rebellious nature we have, God haters and doers of iniquity, is as powerful as it is blind. Not the blind of a child born incorrectly, or the blind of man who experienced trauma, but the blind of one who put out his own eyes. It becomes increasingly obvious to me how much we need the Spirit's power in our lives. We really do have absolutely no chance of overcoming our own nature on our own, to say nothing of external temptation. How many times must I say I'm sorry, how many time must I repent before the end comes? Oh Lord, how could you ever forgive such a man as I?

        I think of Heaven. I think of peace. Finally, peace! To sit under a tree or to walk the streets of that grand city to be and not feel fear, or worry, or temptation, or doubt. To feel my cynicism vanish and my skepticism wash away. To know that tomorrow will be just as wonderful as today, and ten thousand besides! To walk in the very presence of my Lord and see Him smile... To know that I will never bring another tear to His eyes, that I'll never break my promises again... Oh my God, how can I last until that day? Grant me strength to endure to the end, to fight against the passions and desires that war every day against my soul. To stand in this world of falling, to run where the world would tell me rest. I will trust in You.

“And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, 'behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.' Then He who sat on the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new.' And He said to me, 'Write, for these words are true and faithful.' And He said to me, 'It is done! I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts.'”

Revelation 21:3-6

He's There.

This may not be a terribly earthshaking thought, but God is really good. I don't really know how long I've been saved, it might have been on that September day when I was just a child and my older brother told me about Jesus, it might have been sometime since then as I moved through more mature experiences and teachings. I don't really know, and I honestly don't really care. I think many of us Christians get too hung up on 'when' specifically we get saved, sometimes it's not that easy to pin down. All I really know, is that I AM saved. I have been pulled by the Spirit, bought by the Son, and adopted by the Father. I don't trust my emotions, why would I? They tell me constantly that God couldn't possibly have saved me. “You wouldn't be sinning if you were saved.” The annoying little voices tell me. “Your thoughts would be purer,” or “Your deeds would be more righteous,” they say. Sometimes it's a struggle but in the end it all comes down to the promises of God.

“For the Scripture says, “whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Romans 10:11-13)

There are many others, but essentially the idea is that you could not save yourself, you cannot “un-save” yourself, which makes sense. God knows all of history already, every detail. Why would He bother “saving” you, knowing you would only bork it up 5 years later? He knew when you asked for forgiveness when you were ten that you would steal a pack of gum when you were twelve or that you'd give in to temptation with your boyfriend/girlfriend when you were nineteen. Once we are saved, we ask for forgiveness, not because we need to fear that He won't forgive us, but because we are repenting of the sin we know to be wrong. We are recognizing that our sin is a betrayal, not just to the ones we may harm on earth but to the God who died for us and set us free. When God forgives us He forgive everything we will ever do, the sacrifice is more than sufficient for the cause. By the way, before anyone says anything, this obviously this doesn't give us license to sin, Paul covered this in his letter to the Romans.

Anyway, back to my initial point, God is good. We have all sinned and by some miracle of grace we find ourselves freed from the just punishment of those crimes. Yet God doesn't stop there, oh no! We have access to a peace that passes all understanding, a peace amidst trial and frustration that literally MAKES NO EARTHLY SENSE. I say earthly sense because it makes a great deal of spiritual sense. Ultimately we have God on our side, and the promise of eternal peace and communion with Him for eternity...what was I worried about again? My job? My money? Any of a number of things that happen on this dirty little ball during the 100 years, at most, that I'm alive? The problem is very much akin to listening to a badly mixed song. Imagine this: as the song plays, if you listen carefully there's a beautiful cello part in the background, softly and smoothly carrying you to heights of beauty. Unfortunately the sound technician thought some other instrument, lets say a... clarinet for example, should have it's volume cranked up really high. So try as you may that friggin clarinet keeps taking all your attention, drowning out the gorgeous cello. (I don't hate clarinets btw, just an illustration.) In our daily lives we have all these “problems” and “issues” that drown out the simple yet wonderful truth that God is quite literally standing right next to you with His arm around your shoulder, and that you'll one day join Him for an eternity of joy.

I still don't understand a lot of things, why God chose those He chose, how exactly the inspiration of the scriptures worked, and many others, but it's good to remind myself that God is there. That He cares for His children and will carry us through our hardships. Take some time today and thank Him for being there for/with you. God Bless.

On Goodness and Forgiveness

The problem with thinking that man does not need God to be good is this:  Without a god of some kind, there IS no such thing as good, at least not objectively.  You see without something completely apart from us and above us to say what exactly good and bad are, it comes down to our own opinions.  Since no one human being has any more merit than any other, good/bad, right/wrong become merely a subjective position based on personal feeling.  It's perfectly fine to say "we just need to be good to each other," but technically someone can do that by killing you and your whole family as long as they think that IS a good thing.  Who's to say what this esoteric concept of "good" really means?  You might say 'but that example is clearly bad!"  Why?  "Well," you might reply, "It just IS.  Everyone knows that."  And I agree, but only in thinking from God does that make any sense.  If that natural inherent knowledge of 'right and wrong' were not written into our being by a Creator, then that innate feeling of right/wrong is just instinct which really doesn't make it good or bad, it's just a random feeling that 'evolved' and does not need to be listened to.  And since the argument can be made that different people groups 'evolved' different concepts of 'right/wrong' then again we're left with individual perspective which holds no objective merit, no way to justifiably impose or expect others to follow what we believe.  Even the pragmatic approach of saying that society holds together better by following excepted standards of right or wrong  or that it's inherently better not to kill someone because life is better than death don't really work.  You have to ask, is life better than death?  If so, why?  If everything is random, than death and life are just two random occurrences that if given enough time will simply repeat, right?  In another way of putting it, some people might think that death is in fact better than life.  Who's to say they're wrong?  How would you prove that without using your own perspectives and opinions-which again-hold no real objective value?  Now ultimately I'm not saying that only "Christian" or "Religious" people can do 'good' things.  Obviously all kinds of people and groups exist who do humanitarian work, etc., without being based on any particular theology.  The problem is that without an objective law giver, there can be no objective law.  You're 'good' can be seen as bad, and someone else's 'bad' can be seen as 'good'. but neither can be said to be universally 'True'.

In the Bible, we see that since the fall of man in Genesis, humanity is inherently sinful, naturally haters of God and righteousness.  We can see this plainly, no one has to teach children to lie an act selfishly.  In fact we must teach them proper behavior.   These children grow and learn how to act but that doesn't MAKE them good, it only shows them how to ACT good.  Imagine someone handling a clean white cloth.  From that cloth you can make a beautiful piece of clothing, but if you're hands are covered in mud you cannot possibly make something perfectly clean.  The Bible again says: "But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away." (Isaiah 64:6)  Basically that we try and do 'good' things, but since we are naturally sinful, even our good things are disgusting to God.  We're simply not capable of doing anything truly right.  Not only that, but we can each attest to the things we've consciously done that we know weren't right.  So we're stuck on two counts: from birth we're defective, and we choose in our lives to do wrong.  Also add to that the BIG problem, sin cannot be paid for apart from blood.  It's simply too strong a stain to be rubbed out with anything less than life, we read: "In fact, we can say that according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified by sprinkling with blood. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins."(Hebrews 9:22)  But here's the good bit, God made a way for us to change, to remove the mud from our hands so to speak.  Again the Bible tells us: "Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation."(Romans 5:5-11)  Christ came to earth, the perfect combination, wholly man and wholly God, and gave His life; He died so we may live.  I'm sure we've all heard the familiar verse John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.  That whosoever believes in Him, shall not perish but have everlasting life."  God, being the only one who could die and come back, died so we wouldn't have to.  His death covers the legal requirement for forgiveness.  He who had no sin, gave His life.  Since He had no sin He faced no condemnation.  Now He can take our names and write them to His account.  We're not yet free from the reality of sin, but we are free from the penalty, the price has been paid!  That essentially is the message of the Gospel and really the Bible as a whole.  That God loved us, chose to love us, and did not abandon us to the fate we deserved by our nature and our choices.  God has made a way of escape!  The question is, will you take it?