Mark's Views, Perhaps — from behind my eyeballs
It is very sobering indeed to consider that if I do not forgive a person who is mean to me and then sincerely apologizes seven times a day—and if this is my usual spiritually sloppy and self-satisfied habit—then it would be better for me if a millstone were hung around my neck and I were cast into the sea.
Do read the rest of Andrée Seu’s piece over at World magazine: New thoughts on not offending.
Sometimes the wait seems…
…so long.
…and fruitless.
…and pointless.
…and well-deserved.
So I keep on waiting.
What else am I to do?
He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters.
He brought me up . . . out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. —You hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world. We all had our conversation in times past in the lusts our flesh.
Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer. From the end the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed. —Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice. For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me. —We went through fire and through water: thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.
When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.
—PSA. 18:16. —Psa. 40:2. -Eph. 2:1,3.Psa. 61:1,2. -Jon. 2:2,3. -Psa. 66:12.Isa. 43:2.
Source: Daily Light on the Daily Path
Which do you see as the greater threat to Jesus Christ’s Church: Islam or secularism?
Which do you fear more?
Evangelicals, according to survey research conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, view secularism as a greater threat to Christianity than Islam. It seems, on the surface, like a great question for the cultural curmudgeon, at least from this relatively uncultured curmudgeon’s point of view. Will Christianity rot from the inside, or instead be overrun by the heathen hordes?
[…]
Or maybe what respondents meant, the 71 percent of them who chose “secularism” as the major threat to Christianity, is that what they fear most is a falling away, a slow boiling of the frog. Maybe it’s the gradual relaxation of standards that frightens them, the willingness of more and more self-professed Christians to pick and choose which doctrines they believe, if they care to countenance doctrines at all.
Wouldn’t it be something if the reason for this creeping secularism, if it exists, is the very notion of secularism itself?
[…]
In other words, maybe the greatest threat to Christianity is not that people abandon it for other things, but rather our own tendency—or mine, at least—to imagine that it has a limited domain, that there are the things of Christ and then there is all the rest of it. It’s not that a man goes to pornographic sites, it’s that he forgets every woman he sees is crafted in the image and likeness of God. It’s not that a woman goes cold in the marriage bed, it’s that she believes a Christian union is only a spiritual one. It’s not that our children go to where Christ is not, it’s that they imagine there is such a place.
How often I have imagined myself going to a “Christless corner,” some place in real life where God isn’t.
Such foolishness to attempt so impossible a task!
Let’s banish from our heads and from our living the dangerous notion that life has separate Christian and secular dimensions.
May God’s people be revived to such a degree that every dimension of our experience and environment becomes a living reality of acknowledging God in all our ways.
Well, please read Tony Woodlief’s full article over at World magazine: Christless corners.
We humans have a disposition to hide behind the failings and shortcomings of another.
That is, we try to.
It really is a dumb effort.
But we’re still prone to try it.
Somehow, we seem to think another’s flaw provides us with the flawless excuse.
Another’s gossip and evil surmisings are too narrow to hide my vengeful thoughts or fight-fire-with-fire speech.
Someone’s hypocrisy is too narrow to hide my apostasy.
Another’s wrong is too narrow to hide my unforgiveness. In fact, my own hurt at another’s misdeed is too narrow to hide my unforgiving spirit. Read it all
In my circles, branding someone a “self-professing” anything generally doesn’t rise to the level of a compliment.
I find that odd.
I profess to be a Christian.
Does that make me a self-professing Christian?
I believe so.
You got a problem with that?
Maybe you think I’m suspect as a Christian because I profess to be one?
Really, though, it’s weird to read or hear one self-professing Christian use self-professing to speak of another self-professing Christian.
I just read another instance of that in Issue 100 of the newsletter from Faith builders. In an otherwise excellent article (The Anabaptist Advantage Among Muslims) by self-professing Christian TDW, this:
Then in 2001 the self-professing “born-again” President George Bush called for another round of violence against the Muslims when he said…
OK.
Like I said, TDW’s article is excellent. I hope to secure permission to republish it on one or more of my sites. I truly do expect them to grant me permission, even though I plan to chide them for the above reference to the President.
After all, how can I possibly believe that my self-profession is more accurate than anyone else’s?
And, still, I use self-professing on others, though less and less intentionally so.
And when I do, it’s less easy to overlook the importance — the urgent necessity — of making sure that my own self-profession is under-girded and made believable by the evidence blooming fragrantly from my own life.
PS: I understand that we adjective-ize someone with self-professing when we have reason to question the sincerity and depth of his commitment to Christ. But still…
…The physicians who crafted the program apparently don’t share the church’s professed evangelical beliefs, espousing instead various forms of Eastern mysticism and the tenets of a Christian cult, Swedenborgism.
Vowing to lose 90 pounds, Warren said he placed himself under the care of Drs. Mehmet Oz, Daniel Amen and Mark Hyman last fall and worked with each to develop “The Daniel Plan.”
Oz, host of the Emmy-winning “Dr. Oz Show” and professor of surgery at Columbia University, says he is inspired by Emanuel Swedenborg, an 18th century cult founder who taught that all religions lead to God and denied orthodox Christian beliefs such at the atonement of Christ for sin, the trinity and the deity of the Holy Spirit.
Best-selling author Amen, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California at Irvine, teaches Eastern religious meditation and the New Age energy-based practice of Reiki.
Hyman, a four-time New York Times best-selling author, promotes mystical meditation based on Buddhist principles.
More of the story: Rick Warren Hosts Cult Celebrity Doctors
Earlier this morning, I read and commented a bit on Psalm 121. Then I came across this:
The bottom line is simple to state but far more complex to practice and effectively put in place. Evil must be confronted. To confront evil, it must first be identified and branded as such. And as a Christian, I must not confront evil with evil. And there is where the rubber meets the road, there is where the struggle becomes real, there is where, if I can add a bottom line to the bottom line, I need help.
And so I commit this year to be constantly seeking that help. Sadly, because I know myself, I’ll need help in adhering to that commitment but I know from whence that help originates.
Source: What will the New Year bring?
How must a Christian confront evil?
Part of the answer: with good and with blessing.
What’s more of the answer?
Now what I wrote earlier this morning: My Help.