Prayer

C.S. Lewis pointed out that prayer seems to be "hard-wired" into human beings.  It's totally in character for Him Who created us that He'd make us innately pray-ers, so fiercely does He desire our intimacy with Himself.

Lewis also pointed out that all who pray report the same experience.  Buddhists, Sufis, and Hindus as well as Christians say that prayer gives them a sense of "peace" or "transcendence."  Like those who embark on a voyage...whether tourists, sailors, pirates or merchants...the experience is the same for all who sail; land falling from sight below the horizon, the vessel's pitch, and the smell of salt-air.

"Departures are all alike," Lewis wrote, "It is the landfall that crowns the voyage."  In this, he wrote, Christian prayer is unique.

It seems too that Christian prayer is unique in that it is "traveling hopefully"...with expectation.

Jesus told us to have that expectation when He said "...whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive..." (Matthew 21:22).

Christian readers surely noticed that I omitted Jesus' qualifying words: "...if you have faith."

In Jesus' context, it seems "faith" means (as it always must) believing what Jesus says, and doing it...expect that our Father will honor prayer in Jesus' name.

Giving Thanks

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

What C.S. Lewis called “the bloodthirsty Psalms” have always puzzled me.  How could David call on God

to destroy his enemies, and take delight in their annihilation?

The times in which we live help me understand.  Those for whom David prayed destruction were first of all
GOD’s enemies, haters of all good.   Every desire of their hearts was continually evil; their daily attacks on
righteousness offended the Righteous One, and grieved everyone who loves Righteousness.

The best parallel may be Nazi Germany.  Every righteous German was surely grieved to live under the rule of

lies and murder . . . and anguished that many German “Christians” were deceived to approve, and even join in,

the deeds of those liars and murderers.

Germans who loved righteousness must have fervently cried out to God each day, as David did, to be saved
from the oppression of evil-doers, and PASSIONATELY prayed God to destroy them, and all their works.

God did.

In this time of giving thanks, we thank God that He will glorify His Name in our day.  We thank Him that He

decrees the destruction of the evil-doers who oppress and grieve His righteous ones, and decrees that HE
will save His people from their rule.

“Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good,

 For His lovingkindness is everlasting.

 Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,

 Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the adversary.”

                                                                     --  Psalms 107:1,2

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Patrick Hawthorne's "Has the Separation Begun ?"

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Sometimes it takes me a loooooong time to see simple things.  Sometimes I even need some help.

Patrick Hawthorne, a blogger in Shreveport whom I sometimes read, helped me with this one in his post "Has the Separation Begun ?" (https://servinggrace.com/2017/10/13/has-the-separation-begun/)

Even so, I had to read it twice to get it: once last year when he posted it, and then this week, when God again (after He'd given me  a year's more instruction) highlighted it again.

Patrick's scripture was Ephesians 5:27: “…that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.”

Actually, I should say Patrick's mom helped me, as she helped him, to an understanding.  When he was discussing that scripture with her, she (paraphrased) asked him, “Did you know that the spots and blemishes of the Church are people?" and directed him to II Peter 2:12-13:

“But these, like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption, and will receive the wages of unrighteousness, as those who count it pleasure to carouse in the daytime. They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you..."

When the Church is presented to Jesus as His Bride, she will have no spots or wrinkles: the corrupt and deceived people who had attached themselves to the Church will have been removed.

I can't think of any scriptures that more clearly point to the "dividing" of the Church that God's had me meditating on.  The spots and blemishes are people currently in the Church, who will be removed from the Church.  The people of the Church will be divided: some will stay, and some will go.

In his graciousness, I doubt God will drive out those who leave, anymore than He condemns people to hell.  As C.S. Lewis wrote in The Great Divorce, "There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.' All that are in Hell, choose it."

I have to think the "spots and blemishes" God removes from the Church will similarly choose it for themselves.  I have to think the evil-speaking, corrupt, carousers and deceivers, the unrighteous who presently infest the Church will...by God's will, and with His affirmation...willfully separate themselves from the Church.

So it was in Jesus' earthly ministry: He had to deal with people who were "spots and blemishes" among those "who had believed Him" (John 8:31-59).  There was no angry command that they "Get out!!," and no need for the whip He had used earlier on the money-changers in the Temple.  He simply revealed what was in their own hearts, for that was what made them "spots and blemishes."

Jesus said their hearts showed satan was their father: that their love of lies and murder was proof they were satan's own  (v. 44).  By the end of the conversation, they had angrily rejected Him, rained insults on Him, and were ready to kill Him...which was exactly what He'd said was in their hearts.

Ideally, those who who are the "spots and blemishes" on the Church today would similarly find themselves uncomfortable (at the very the least) among people who follow Jesus because they love Him and want to hear His words.  When He says that satan is "the father of lies" and "the murderer," and that those who are satan's children show it by their love satan's ways, how could they not realize He sees, and is revealing, their hearts ?  Doesn't Jesus' word, like His sight, still pierce to men's hearts ?

But the "spots and blemishes" among us feel entirely comfortable in today's political "Church."  Why should they leave ? Their love for lies and murder (which Jesus defines in Matthew 5:21-2 as angry contempt for others) are acceptable among many: are indeed laudable marks of loyalty to the liars and murderers whom the political "Church" follows.

The people whom Jesus recognized as "spots and blemishes" will be cleansed from the Church of which He is the Head.  I can only expect...and hope...that a "Church" like today's in America, so completely turned from Christ that it embraces the ways of the enemy, is due a very great cleansing.

I hope any readers who have been carried by their politics into satan's anti-Church will examine their hearts, and turn back to the Church God is preparing His Son, holy, and without blemish.

"He who testifies to these things says, 'Yes, I am coming quickly.'  Amen. Come, Lord Jesus."
(Revelation 22:20.) 

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

God Showed Up

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

My pastor Joshua Johnson recently preached a sermon that deeply resonated with me, and still does, proclaiming that "God showed up"-- which scripture records time after time, and which my pastor knew from experience God still does.  (The YouTube of that sermon, which I highly recommend, is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHCUjZurp2I.)

My reading the following week included a Canadian pastor's blog, where he talked about the prayer in Isaiah 63:15-64:12.  Isaiah 64:1-2 especially caught my attention, since it too talked about God showing up:

"Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down,
That the mountains might quake at Your presence—
As fire kindles the brushwood, as fire causes water to boil—
To make Your name known to Your adversaries,
That the nations may tremble at Your presence !"

There are many reasons we do NOT want God to show up.  Most importantly, because His Presence is tremendously frightening.  That "rending the heavens" thing would scare most of us out of our boots.  That's undoubtedly why His first words, and the first words of His messengers, are nearly always, "Be not afraid !"

 Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel captured very well the feeling we cannot but experience in God's Presence: "God is not nice.  God is not an uncle.  God is an earthquake.”  A character in C. S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe similarly describes Aslan: "Who said anything about safe?  'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”

We have reason to be fearful. This King before us is good.  And in our gut, we all know we are not.  However cleverly we rationalize to ourselves that we are "a good person," we know all the great wrongs and hurts we've done.  We also know in our gut-theology that the Law's sentence for our crimes is death.  So it's a terrifying thing to stand before the Lawmaker, Who is also the only Judge of men's hearts.  We know...and know that He knows better than anyone else could...that we deserve death.

If He lets us live, it's only because His mercy is as perfect as His justice.  But the self-delusion we have always called "my life"...pride in my own way, my own righteousness, my own sufficiency, my own "cleanness"...is left in ashes by the Holiness of His Presence.  We would all say what Isaiah said when God "showed up" while he was quietly worshipping in the Temple:

“Woe is me, for I am ruined!
Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I live among a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”     (Isaiah 6:5)

At the same time, we want more than anything else for God to "show up."  We want blessing; and our gut-knowledge is that there is no blessing...no peace, no joy, no provision, no protection...outside His Presence.  If only He could be persuaded to mail His presents to us, like a kindly uncle...instead of inconveniently bringing them in Person.

But that's the way He does it.  Our terrifying, blessing, King, chooses to come Himself: and no one can second-guess the King's decisions.

This season is, of course, the most appropriate possible time to talk of God "showing up" in Person.  This post bookends yesterday's "Why I Hate Christmas:" it might be subtitled "What's Real About Christmas."

So I say today, with all His saints, with all my heart,

Praise Him, all ye people, forever, and ever: for the King Himself deigns to show up here this day, every day, within His Own creation, in our human experience, in human form...in Person !

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Manson

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Charles Manson died the other day.

If we are honest with ourselves, about ourselves, we know we've done wrong with the life God gives us.  We know we've hurt others, even (especially) those who love us: and we fearfully know we've offended the One who gives, and most wishes, all blessing to us.  C.S. Lewis wrote that " [God] is our only possible ally, and we have made ourselves His enemies."

God alone is so intimately knowledgeable of each of us His enemies that He alone knows with certainty when we truly repent our evil...if we truly do  Only God's judgement of any man's life is just.

But even with our moral-squint that sees only "in a glass darkly," we can see what a man is.  We can see what a man does, and know on God's authority that it shows what is in a man's heart (Proverbs 23:7).  And even we can see if his life subsequently shows fruits of repentance (Matthew 3:8).

So it has to look to most of us like Charles Manson was a very evil man.  And without question, we all know there are very evil human beings.

But that's not my question.

The facts are that Charles Manson murdered no one.  That was not the evil he was convicted of by our human legal system, or sentenced to death for.  His guilt was that he inspired others to murder, and sent them to murder.

So what do we say of his followers, who did the evil he devised ?  We can say they were deceived by an evil man, because they were foolish enough to believe him.  We can say that they themselves chose evil, by choosing to do the will of an evil man.  We can say they joined in his evil, and satan's evil, by their willingness to believe that doing evil is a right and good thing.

What then do we say of those who follow and do the will of the deceiver now our president ? Are they guiltless who believe, against God's word, that unrighteousness and the spirit of violence and lies is good, and will "make America great again" ?

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Simplicity Quotation Found

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

For years I've quoted, mis-quoted and paraphrased a quotation that beautifully makes a point about wisdom.

It was one of those inspired quotes you hear or read once, and remember the idea forever...but can never quite find again.

I was sure I'd read it in C. S. Lewis, and watched for it every time I was re-reading something of his.  I searched the internet for it among his writings, unsuccessfully.

I found the quotation yesterday: not exactly as I'd remembered it, which was probably part of my problem in trying to find it.  A problem also that I'd looked the wrong place, since the version I found was attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.:
 

"I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my right arm for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.

"Attributed" to Holmes; since that formulation hadn't been found in his writings either.  Who actually authored that quote, or something like it, seems unknown.

But it's the idea I remember, and find so striking: that understanding is not merely "either/or," "simple" or "complex."

I've read far too many experts (usually academics) who are quite unable to convey any cogent understanding of their field to interested, intelligent laypeople.  For some reason, these experts are often chosen to write the textbooks.

Inability to convey understanding indeed seems the point in many experts' writings.  That having mastered its full knowledge, I know such light-years more the detailed complexity of things than any lesser mortal can ever possibly comprehend.  Inability to convey understanding is often the self-validating (as John Dryden called it) "priestcraft" of the learned expert.

That's possibly why I was certain the "lost" quotation was by C. S. Lewis.  I esteem him as one of those rare souls whose mastery of knowledge (in his academic field, and in Christian apologetics) gave him the simplicity "the other side of complexity."  Gave him understanding so thorough that it could be stated simply, in words accessible to all.

In that, Lewis follows Jesus.  My mentor in the faith, Derek Prince, once pointed out the striking fact that Jesus' recorded teachings use very few words of more than one syllable.  The One Whose knowledge comprehended all things, conveyed His wisdom in homely sayings about fish and seeds, coins, and sheep.

Simplicity cannot be esteemed for its own sake.  "The simplicity this side of complexity" is mere ignorance of reality.  Sometimes willful ignorance, such as that of politicians who campaign by (and just possibly, believe) mindless slogans...and afterwards complain that "nobody knew health-care could be so complicated."

"The simplicity on the other side of complexity," from knowledge rather than ignorance, is God's gift, and wisdom.  It was Jesus' gift, and His wisdom.

Praise Him !!