Mark's Views, Perhaps — from behind my eyeballs
Do you know what they are?
First, though, the background, in the form of two trimmed screen grabs from WorldMagBlog’s Pray for Your Enemy discussion.
😯 The portions of Comment #12 pertaining to me were amazing to read!
🙄 And dangerously ego-inflating as well. 🙁
But then comes the reality check in Comment #18 (after my “cover” has been blown at the end of Comment #17). Read it all
When the law says, “Do not kill,” is it presenting a negative or a positive?
Come now, that isn’t such a difficult question, is it? I mean, you see that not there, right? So that makes it a negative law.
Maybe; maybe not.
Interestingly, I’ve never heard anyone complaining about that law, “Oh, there you go being negative again. You just like to tell people what they can’t or shouldn’t do. Why can’t you be more positive? All this negativity is bad. Lighten up!” No, people don’t respond to “Do not kill” that way.
Do you know why not?
Because they realize that if that law keeps a potential killer from killing them, that law is extremely positive. In other words, they see a positive personal benefit in a “negative” law.
Now think of some other “negative” Biblical commands. For example:
You won’t have to think for long before seeing that these are extremely positive despite sounding negative. Don’t allow anyone to mislead you!
(originally written in mid-2001 and posted here: Liberty, Not License)
Well, not my mail, but something that came in my mail.
Is there anything lacking in that focus?
(Or maybe the more pertinent questions is, is there anything lacking in my life focus?)
How do they operate in the red like that?
(Or maybe the more pertinent question is, how do I operate in the red?)
And, no, I won’t reveal the name of the organization whose newsletter I scanned for the above images (which you may feel free to click for a larger version).
I look forward to your explanations….
Here’s something I read this morning in the print edition of the Our Daily Bread devotional:
God remembers us wherever we are. Our concerns are His concerns. Our pain is His pain. Commit your challenges and difficulties to Him. He is the all-seeing God who remembers us as a mother remembers her children, and He waits to meet our needs. — C. P. Hia
But before reading that, I read Genesis 8 and posted my own short devotional over at Panting Hart (where I used to try to write a daily devotional).
We’re almost a week past Father’s Day in the USA.
My heart aches for the children whose dads treat them unjustly. I have observed that far too often, even in Christian homes. Shame!
So here are two tips for dads:
Nurture your children; don’t provoke them.
Don’t exasperate your children or they’ll lose heart.
Do any of the following flaws (or sins) describe how my children experience (or just perceive) me?
If you think your child is too young to catch on to these things, don’t kid yourself!
And even if your child hasn’t caught on yet, your Heavenly Father has! And He will make you pay for being unjust to your children, especially the little ones.
Oh, those two tips with which I started?
They’re actually commands…from God:
“And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).
“Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged” (Colossians 3:21).
Fathers, how we treat our children influences their perception of the Heavenly Father. Check this out:
“Like as a father…his children, so the LORD…” (Psalm 103:13).
OK, dads, I offer a question to help guide you in your day-to-day interaction with your children: