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Archive for July, 2014

Rejoice Again

Posted in General, God Thoughts, Sustaining, tagged , on July 26, 2014| 1 Comment »

“I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me.” (Phillipians 2:18) and “Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you.” (Phillipians 3:1) Okay, Paul, I hear you but what is the big deal here? You said it twice, pleading, commanding, and “safeguard”, really?

When I looked at the context of the two verses I realized why he is so adamant. “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.Do all things without grumbling or disputing;  so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world,  holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain. But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you.” (2:12-17) and “Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision;  for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh” (3:2-3). Paul is alerting the believers to get serious and rejoice. You take part in God’s work to sanctify you and here are some major hindrances to progress: voicing a bad attitude, contrary generation, trials, false teachers, legalists, and the flesh. Rejoicing is a safeguard because the listed hindrances to sanctification are beaten back by the rejoicing in the things of God based on an act of faith. Bad attitudes and the flesh, and every person contrary to the truth cannot defeat the act of worship of rejoicing. Begin to rejoice even if you don’t feel like it; even if you are struggling to see it; even if the circumstances say otherwise. Your faith will expand, others will be drawn in, and God will be glorified.

“Feasting on the riches of His grace, resting ‘neath His shelt’ring wing; always looking on His smiling face- that is why I shout and sing!” goes the old hymn. Dwell on Him; trust in Him; cling to Him; rejoice in Him.

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Olfaction Reaction

Posted in General, God Thoughts, Outdoors, Random thoughts, Remembering, tagged , , , , on July 8, 2014| 3 Comments »

The ability to remember and associate smells is one of the most powerful forms of memory, enhancing a sense of time and place and visual cues. The Olfactory Glands are located in the sinuses very close to a part of the brain that processes and retrieves memories and emotions, the amygdala. Scientists have isolated a thousand different enzymes that bond to odiferous chemicals in the  identification of smells in humans.

 I’m originally from East Tennessee where the clay is nearly as orange as this print and hard enough so that you are not be able to stick a mattock into it more than 2 to 3 inches no matter how hard you hit it. There is abundant clay where I live now but it is most usually infused with muscovite mica (the silvery sheet mineral that you can see through) which makes it much easier to dig in.  My number three son and I are building a deck for a colleague of mine. Where the deck is located there is no mica in the clay (odd) so it digs like East Tennessee clay.  On the way home the other day I inadvertently put my hand on to my face and smelled the clay/dry grass mixture on my fingers. Memories began to flood in from so many times and places that I couldn’t ruminate before the next set of life experiences were upon me. Being dirty is repulsive to many but when it reminds me of things I have enjoyed doing it becomes a perfume. I immediately thought of helping friends and strangers put up hay on a hot or balmy June  or September day. I thought of setting fence posts for a horse training ring and the one hole where the Sassafras root filled our noses. Or the many fences I have built or repaired over lawn and woods when the scent of clay on the posthole diggers is matched with leather warming up on the wooden handles.  I thought of collecting spiders for research and digging in the back yard where I grew up to make a hide-out with my brother. I remember tilling in the garden in The Horseshoe and caving in a number of East Tennessee sinkholes or repairing pipes or foundations for many evenings and nights until a dropped into bed. All of these thoughts flooded my mind in less than a minute. Odors can be very subtle and yet bring back some of the most vivid memories. I was surprised by the sudden onset and pleased by the thoughts of life lived to the fullest.

When I was a youth, I once prayed that the Lord would let me experience life to the fullest. They say you should be careful what you pray for but I believe you should be bold in what you pray for when your heart is right. God is wise and kind enough to sort out how He should answer. God has abundantly answered that prayer, but of course, not in ways I would have ever expected or wanted. With the many good and significantly pleasant memories are the hard and mundane and heartbreaking ones. You can’t really experience all of life without difficulty. I’ve never been afraid to work hard, so many of my good memories are high energy, even difficult experiences, that only later mellow into good memories. I am thankful to God for allowing me to experience so many varied activities and interactions with people over the years. He is good to me far beyond the necessities of physical and spiritual life. I have truly enjoyed life and want to share my love of the outdoors and science and beauty and solid thinking with others. Though read by few, that is the reason I write this blog, to point to the One who creates, saves and sustains so abundantly.

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Potential and Orientation

Posted in General, God Thoughts, Random thoughts, Sustaining, tagged , , , , on July 6, 2014| Leave a Comment »

During the sermon this morning the pastor referenced two metaphors used by John MacArthur concerning unity in the church. Never quite willing to let a good analogy go unanalyzed and extended I began musing.

According to his reporting of MacArthur, we frequently see unity as a bag of marbles. Marbles (people in the church) are held in (unity) by a bag (programs). If the bag wears thin or tears the church loses all its marbles via the loss of the external binding force of the bag.   It occurred to me that the congregants scatter because they have potential energy (sin nature) that gives them momentum (movement) away from one another once the constraining force of the bag is reduced. The reason this occurred to me is that I have seen dead churches that still have a semblance of unity even when there are no programs to hold them together simply because there is also no life or movement in the church. Dead objects don’t move (or stop their present straight line motion (tradition)) unless acted upon.

MacArthur thought that a better analogy for unity was that of a magnet (God) acting as a central attractive force upon iron filings (the people). But the science teacher in me rebuffed that there are no mono-poles. For every north pole there is a south pole, always. So what we are being attracted to as our north pole-God- causes us to be oriented away from what is then our south pole-the world, the flesh, and the devil. Iron filings alone will be attracted to either pole but once magnetized by an attraction to one pole will orient with their “backs” to the other pole since they become mini-magnets with north and south poles. We still have sin natures which pull us the wrong way, but we now have a new pole oriented toward God and others in our church, unless we pull away.

What attracts you? What are you being oriented toward? What have you turned your back on or is this outside force deciding for you? Orient yourself toward God by His grace along with a body of believers (iron filings) and you will turn your back on evil. Try to stay neutral and you will be pulled in by the next passing attraction.

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Always Free?

Posted in Cultural commentary, General, God Thoughts, Grace, Poem, Remembering, tagged , , , , on July 4, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Worked, played, napped, read, ran, and just now I sat on this cool, exceptionally clear summer night listening to the distant fireworks of my small town. How could freedom not come to mind, but I’m concerned. As the rockets burst 10 blocks away my thoughts went to how freedom is abused and misused:

Always free to do what is right

In dungeon dark or Main Street bright

Don’t take license and act the fool

For righteousness use God’s gracious tool

Or else He’ll take it from us all

And great will be this nation’s fall

Which once so brightly shone for good

Frequently for justice it once stood

Not without fault or blemish there

But most citizens gave a care

Whereas now we say right is wrong

Parade evil in our law and song

Oh, once free land turn back to God

Give freedom more than a yearly nod

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Overflows from the Heart

"But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart…" Matthew 15:18

CreatorWorship

Pointing to the One who made, saved, and sustains