An Arminian summer wedding...?

There was a wedding I attended this weekend. Two friends of mine were getting married. Two of the sweetest, Christian people I know - they compliment each other so well. He is kind and mild-tempered and she is caring and even-keeled. The best part is they both love the Lord completely. And it was a lovely ceremony (as far as summer weddings go). Green was the theme color and the flowers were simple and bright Gerbera daisies.

While the ceremony was Biblical, it was surprisingly rather man-centered. The pastor officiating spent the majority of the time focusing his talk around the couple. So they, the couple, were the center of the marriage they were about to enter into, they were the producing effects of lighting fires in the hearts of others.

I just sat there, on edge, waiting, praying that it would come, where God would be given the full glory of this union - that He would be commended to the couple to run to first and only - that it would be acknowledged that there is no comfort in anything apart from enjoying Him - and that maybe the tone would be set for their new life together to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of the people they will come into contact through the course of their covenant marriage. But it never came.

It made me think that, if God has predestined me for marriage, I want my wedding ceremony to be simply dripping with the doctrines of grace. I want the Gospel boldly proclaimed in my wedding that God would be exalted and magnified by the ceremony...and likewise glorified in the marriage.

I was predestined, before the foundations of the world, to wear this shirt to church last night.

Incessant

Nice word. Perfect, in fact.

Here's a definition: What we are experiencing in the amount of media/entertainment bombardment on a daily basis.

How did I find this nifty little word? Well, I was coming back to work after lunch and rode up one of our elevators with another lady (she doesn't work in our building and had never before been in one of our elevators). It is the exact word she used upon realizing that we have mini televisions in our elevators. Yes...we do. They relay breaking news headlines, stock updates, advertisements, celebrity factoids, random facts, etc. ...Because none of us can handle standing in silence - subject to the wanderings of our own thoughts - for two minutes.

I know there have been many others who have gone before me and written on this common subject, so I shall not add too much more to the pot, for fear of sounding redundant and at a much lesser level than my peers.

But...incessant....
How right you are Elevator Lady.

God-ordained genocide?

An interesting question and one we had to answer in essay form for class, among a few other questions.

The History of God's People in the Bible was the terribly creative title of my paper. We had to answer questions about the role and/or significance of the Creation, Ten Commandments, Tabernacle, and sacrificial system. Why God had the Israelites "utterly destroy" the Canaanites, and if it was morally right (morally right? What kind of a question is that?!). And the events that transpired in the Northern kingdom of Israel and the Southern kingdom of Judah.

Particularly enjoyable to write on was when the Israelites destroyed the Canaanites, because I knew my class, in its entirety, disagreed with me (my classmates insisted this God-ordered destruction was unfair - "against our principles"). I was thankful for a study my small group leader, Jon, had done on this just a little while back that had me already thinking about this. Basically what I got from the study we did for small group, and what I expounded on in my paper, was this:

• It was the wickedness of the nations (not the righteousness of the people of Israel) that it was necessary.
• God was keeping promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
• Complete destruction was required in order to keep Israel from being corrupted by the nations' wickedness.
• Unchecked depravity is the cruelest form of retribution - sin left to itself always destroys.
• God revealed Himself - His character - by showing punishment to wicked nations, showing absolute intolerence of sin. We have a God we can know - we have a holy God.
• It also served to put fear into the hearts of the Israelites to keep them from following like patterns.
• Using this, God pointed them back to Himself, which was their ultimate good.
• And God using Israel for the punishment and destruction of wickedness in the nations, showed the only source of salvation is a sufficient Savior. And through Israel, comes final salvation.

Holiness: check!

I am a "list girl."

No doubt about it. I love lists! I make lists for pretty much anything I can. I wasn't always this hard-core about list-making (though I'm pretty sure the tendency was just lying dormant inside of me). Growing up, my dad would insist my sisters and I (and mom too!) make lists. If any of us forgot something, say, when we went camping, it was always: "Well, did you make a list?" If I had made a list, I probably wouldn't have forgotten anything.

I grew up loving to write (since the time I was 9, I had at least two novels started - though I never finished any...). But I kept journals full of lists of names I loved and could use in my next novel. I had pages full of girls' names, boys' names, and last names. I've made lists of places I'd love to travel and then in a parallel column in sub-lists, the reasons why I wanted to travel to that particular place. I also love to make lists to check things off the list. When cleaning my room, I sometimes make a list of what I need to get done, and I find such satisfaction scratching something off the list. When in highschool, I got into the habit of making a list of checkpoints for finishing my homework. Now at work, I find I stay on task best when there is a comprehensive list of things I need to get done, even though the first five jobs I put down are ones I do every morning upon arriving at work. I just like to see what I've accomplished (so even if I have already done the job, I write it on the list simply to check it off).

This is where it gets complicated.

Though the Bible is full of lists (Exodus 20:1-17, Matthew 5:2-12, Romans 5:3-5, Galatians 5:22-23, Colossians 3:12-17), righteousness and holy living is not simply obtained by checking items or goals off the "list." My tendency when I read 1 Peter 1:15-16 (“but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”) is to get out the ol' legal pad and start a list of "Holy how-to." Or when I listen to Pastor John's "How to fight for joy" message, I get excited because it's in list form. I think, "Great! I just have to write down that list and I'll have joy."

Unfortunately (or not so unfortunately), lists are not what God requires of us - of me. Living in the time of the New Covenant, He doesn't put lists in the Bible as the way for us to commune with Him. If it were this way, I could get satisfaction in myself as I achieved the next task and checked it off the list. I'd have ample reason to boast. "Yup! I just got down goodness; on to faithfulness now!" In Isaiah 66:2, the LORD says He created the heavens and the earth, but He will look to the one who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at His word.

Also, in Mark 10:13-16, when Jesus brings the little kids to himself and blesses them. Does that passage seem funny to anybody? Why would the disciples be so put out with kids, particularly if nowadays, politicians like to use children somewhere in all their ad campaigns? I think it's because of the image our culture holds of them these days. They're innocent, trusting. But back in Jesus' time, they didn't have that image. They were kids, weren't worth too much until they were older. They didn't have anything to offer. And yet, Jesus didn't see it as a waste of time to hold and bless the children - even saying that to those such as children does the kingdom of God belong! Those with child-like faith. Those with nothing to offer.

So if lists are not what God requires of me to have full joy in Him and to be satisfied in Him, what exactly?

I must be broken of myself and go to Him with a humble and contrite spirit with nothing to offer from myself, desperate for Him to work in me that which is pleasing to Him. And it is only by the work of the Holy Spirit that I could be broken in my sinful state. So there is nothing that I can produce to bring me closer to God. Only, only, only because of the work Jesus did on the cross, and God sending His Spirit do I have any hope of righteousness.

But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Galatians 6:14

Directionally-challenged

The other day, I was planning on meeting up with my hockey team to play a little Ultimate Frisbee at Long Lake Park in the New Brighton area. I had been there once before - and thus I thought I could find it again. I got off on Silver Lake Road and immediately knew something was amiss...I didn't really recognize the surrounding area. I knew it was the wrong exit, but I didn't turn around. I kept driving. For some reason, I kept thinking that road might just get me to where I was hoping to end up; it might eventually lead me to the right place. Well, it didn't. It wasn't the right road. I had to turn around, get back on 394, return to 35W, and find the right exit (94). (Yeah, I was way off.)

But it made me think of people these days who try to get to heaven, or to God, by any way but Jesus. They want to pick their own way, sure that eventually it will lead them to where they hope to end up.

To those who insist on pursuing their end via "Silver Lake Road" (or a weak, false god; or self-righteousness; or Buddism/Hinduism/etc; or an experiential, free-spirited, free-flowing, fluffy, tolerant of evil, pop-culture-created, but not defined religion): John 14:6. Does it get any more self-explanitory than that? "Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'"

Unless you know Jesus as your Savior and trust in Him alone, you'll be way off...

Arrrrrrg!

After having lunch at Chipotle, I walked over to Northwestern bookstore to see what I could spend my remaining store credit on. I think I found something. It's sure to be deep, theologically speaking, and it's sure to contain, as Pastor John puts it, "mind-boggling, category-shattering truths."

Or not.

Nestled among much lesser titles and one shelf down and a little to the left from the literary magnum opus, The Purpose Driven Life, sat the book Swashbuckling Faith: Exploring for Treasure with Pirates of the Caribbean. It joins the ranks of "Finding God" in: Narnia, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings. I didn't know Hollywood was so adamant about portraying the Gospel in their new releases! That's reassuring to know...that "even a pirate movie, looked at through new lenses, can point the way to tangible riches of Biblical truth." (Wesemann, 2006)

Edit: Wow, just saw this post on Adam's (A Calvinist's) blog......EXACTLY!

To Him be glory forever. Amen.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:1-2