Daily Butter 7/30: Mr FixItALL

My little addition to Our Daily Bread (7/30/11):

    For God was pleased [to have] all His fullness dwell in Him,

    and through Him to reconcile everything to Himself

    by making peace through the blood of His cross —

    whether things on earth or things in heaven.

    (Colossians 1:19-20 HCSB)

Since God first set the clock in motion, or at least since mankind bought into the lie that God’s rules were intended to hold us back, all creation has been in a decline. The “natural” order is that things become less organized, less functional and less orderly with the passage of time. While I have known in my heart that I needed Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and triumph through His resurrection to re-order my life and soul to fellowship with Him, this passage tells me that EVERYTHING is in this same state of reliance on Christ for reconciliation.

Thinking about the reconciliation and restoring the perfect fellowship of Eden got me thinking of something. One of those big theological terms that is thrown around is “justification.” When I was young they used to give it the Sunday School explanation that to “justify” makes it “just as if I didn’t sin.” While not wrong in a young understanding, I tend to think of it a bit differently now. I may be off base with the difference in the way the term is used in theology, but the word “justification” is used in every word processing and desktop publishing program. As I type this text, the editor I am using offers me four options for the “justification” of the text: align left, center, align right, or justify – all of which refer to how the text aligns with the rest of the text. Of course “left” or “right” would align the beginning or end of each line a straight edge along the left or right side and “center” would place the middle of each line lined up right down the middle of the page. “Justified” text would be fixed so that each line aligns to both the left and right edges. This has become my understanding of the process of justification in my life: As the lines of my life story are being written, I yield control to Him to make sure whatever needs done to make my life line up to the image of Him – whether removing text that ought not be there or adding and expanding so that I may align to the “fullness” of Him.

That reminds me of a pin my father would wear on his lapel with just the letters “P B P G I N F W M Y.” (I believe he got it at what he called a "Gothard Seminar" - what is now Institute in Basic Life Principles.) When asked, he would simply explain it meant “Please be patient. God is not finished with me yet.”  I, too, have a lot of growing to do (and certainly some pruning to do also) before matching that standard. Praise the Lord that He’s STILL working on me.

Andy Jentes

Daily Butter 7/29: Simplify

My little Addition to Our Daily Bread (7/29/11):

    He has told you men what is good
    and what it is the LORD requires of you:
    Only to act justly,
    to love faithfulness,
    and to walk humbly with your God.
    (Micah 6:8 HCSB)

So much of religious activity is prescribed: what when and how am I supposed to do this that or the other thing. The Old Testament is filled with prescriptive rules as to how Jewish society was supposed to work and what righteousness looks like being lived out. While I don't think Micah was writing this to rob from the importance of the festivals and sacrifices God had ordained for that time, I think just as when Christ answered the challenge as to the greatest command (Matthew 22:35-40) these words were meant to remind God's people not to be burdened and stressed out over the little things but to let the main thing be the main thing: it's about Him and not about us.

Andy J

Daily Butter7/28: For Whom?

My little addition to Our Daily Bread (7/28/11):

“Whenever you fast, don't be sad-faced like the hypocrites. For they make their faces unattractive so their fasting is obvious to people. I assure you: They've got their reward!” (Matthew 6:16 HCSB)

Marvin Williams was absolutely correct in what he wrote in today’s ODB. Fasting is a call of God to set aside something to focus on Him and grow in our relationship to him. That is a personal matter and to make it a social event negates this personal purpose. When the aim of the fast is to grow in Him, the reward is that greater fellowship with Him. When the aim is “look at me,” your reward is those who look at you.

Andy Jentes

Daily Butter 7/27: But Dad!

My little addition to Our Daily Bread (7/27/2011):

 

Keep the LORD's commands and statutes I am giving you today, for your own good. (Deuteronomy 10:13 HCSB)

 

Now that my son David is getting to be a big boy and sits at the booster seat at the kitchen table, he’s found a new way to play: pushing on the edge of the table makes the whole chair lean back like a rocking chair. We aren’t trying to take away his fun, but as much as Sharon and I will tell him no, it isn’t until the back of the chair hit the floor that he understands the gravity of the rule. There is a reason why Mommy and Daddy said “no.” I am sure he is my son, because for as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to know the reason for the rule and really struggle with the “because that’s the rule” answers. Though my son hasn’t gotten there, I figure the endless barrage of “Why?” is coming. As His children, the rules are “for our own good.”  God’s reason for the rules is sometimes well beyond what we can understand and just like my son may have to trust Sharon and I in the “because I said so” while he is young, we may have to accept them. Thankfully we have an approachable Heavenly Father who can handle the onslaught of misunderstanding questions with ultimate loving patience. Just as Chris Rice sang in his song “Big Enough”:

 

I hope You don’t mind me askin’ the questions

But I figure You’re big enough.”

 

Of course, David like the rest of us doesn’t take “no” for the final answer. He’s smart and I’m sure he’s thinking “It only falls and hurts when I lean back too far, so as long as Mom and Dad aren’t looking I can still have fun. I wonder how far I can go before…” … “Okay that was too far at lunch so let’s see if I can find out how far now that it’s dinnertime. Are they looking?”

 

Oh that I could develop the faith to outgrow that myself.

 

Andy Jentes

 

Trust and obey, for there’s no other way

To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

 

 

 

Daily Butter 7/26: Sing out loud

My little addition to Our Daily Bread (7/26/11):

 

   He put a new song in my mouth,
    a hymn of praise to our God.
    Many will see and fear,
    and put their trust in the LORD.

    (Psalm 40:3 HCSB)

 

I miss being able to be part of a church choir. I love opportunities to belt out praise and unfortunately doing that as part of the congregation can get us some strange looks and we feel bad you might be “disturbing others” – reminding me of a brother in my first church choir (who has since been promoted to sing in harmony with the angel choir) who would put his finger in his ear nearest me when learning our parts if I sat beside him in practice. Maybe it is just me, but I wonder why the psalmist wrote of this great new song of praise He has given, but continues that “Many will see and fear” rather than “hear and fear” (or in my case fear to hear). Though I think it is really more related to Friday’s ODB about our best testimony is the evidence displayed in what He has done and is doing in us. I should not be afraid to sing out praise (even a “joyful noise” rather than happy harmony), in light of what He has, is and will do in and through me.

 

I think of my blessed Redeemer,

I think of Him all the day long:

I sing, for I cannot be silent;

His love is the theme of my song.

 

Redeemed, redeemed,

Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb;

Redeemed, and so happy in Jesus,

His child and forever I am.

 

While I know we live and work in a culture that has us afraid of the consequences of standing up for our rights to be able to speak of our faith openly and proudly (even loudly), but the United States was founded by predominantly religious people who made sure we had those rights. Often we are taught the scriptures instructing us to live upright, peaceful and “quiet” lives in respectful submission to authorities (such as in 1 Timothy 2 and Titus 3) forgetting that those were instructions written to specific churches in radically different governmental systems that were not reliant on the voice to the people as the USA is designed to be. It is a sad thing that we are losing the power to change things because we have allowed it to become a lost art to be bold in ones convictions.

 

Andy Jentes

 

Daily Butter 7/25: Feeling Stuffed

My little addition to Our Daily Bread (7/25/11):

All that my eyes desired I did not refuse them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart was pleased because of all my labor and this was my reward for all my labor. Thus I considered all my activities which my hands had done and the labor which I had exerted, and behold all was vanity and striving after wind and there was no profit under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 2:10-11 NASB)

Millennia have passed since the man who never had to say no to anything he wanted and was blessed with wisdom to truly understand things penned these words. Yet I still fear American culture is so far from understanding the futility of getting more stuff that many still buy into the motto from bumper stickers at the end of the twentieth century proclaiming that “He who dies with the most toys WINS.” But many are blinded or at least choosing not to recognize that there is anything more to life and existence beyond what our five senses can experience. If this is all that there is, I suppose that is the best hope they have.

Dialoging with a coworker about American heritage and political perspectives while I was thinking through this passage also fueled my thoughts tonight. Just as Joe Stowell wrote in today’s ODB that the desire for pleasure is not wrong as it is part of who we are as His creation, I have to agree with Solomon that we should receive pleasure as reward for labor. My colleague reminded me that though people are spreading this false guilt that Americans are just fat cats with entitlement issues and such, this nation built its prosperity on the back of our hard-working ancestors for generations that we should enjoy those fruits. While some may have entitlement issues from not understanding this heritage from generation upon generation building a better life for their children, the vast majority of us are still doing exactly what those forefathers did and  trying to leave our children in a better situation than we had.

Yet this, too, is vanity if we don’t understand that, as Rick Warren began his bestseller The Purpose Driven Life, “It’s not about you.” It is about Him, who we are in Him, who He is in us, and what He longs to do through us.

Andy Jentes

Daily Butter 7/24: Body Work

My little addition to Our Daily Bread (7/24/11):

 

Based on the gift they have received, everyone should use it to serve others, as good managers of the varied grace of God. (1 Peter 4:10 HCSB)

 

It doesn’t take a college degree to understand the people are designed to be social beings -- from the beginning we were made in the image of the Triune God who is in His very nature communal, and He found the only thing that was not good in his creation was that “It is not good for the man to be alone.” (Genesis 2:18) Anne Cetas reminded us in today’s ODB entitled “Stay Close”: “Although Jesus is our best friend, we also need relationships with fellow believers to help us survive in this life.”

 

I know since my jobs at times make me unable to attend worship or Bible study for a week of sometimes several weeks that my spirit needs that interaction. From that experience, I’ll take the reminder of Anne Cetas one step further: our spiritual life depends upon it. “Now as we have many parts in one body, and all the parts do not have the same function, in the same way we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another.” (Romans 12:4-5 HCSB emphasis mine) Both Paul and Peter wrote to the churches so that they would recognize their need for one another and understand they were each equipped specifically to meet the needs of the others in His Church.

 

While I understand that ones individual walk is a sacred relationship between only him/her and God, we must not let our American bent toward rugged individualism let us think we must make it on our own. We NEED each other. If we are His body, we cannot stay close to Him unless we are also staying close to one another.

 

Andy Jentes