Sign The Blank Page

We’re getting into the very heart of Jesus in the Gospel According to Luke. It’s all about what it means to follow Christ.

I remember hearing a speaker one time (actually over 25 years ago now) say that what we typically tend to do is something like this -  We imagine a list of things that we are willing to do for Christ; (what I am prepared to do that I think will be enough to impress Him!) and then we kind of present it to Him as the expression of our devotion. The speaker (I can’t remember his name) encouraged us to picture Jesus’ response to our great gesture in a scenario that goes something like this …. we present Jesus with our list, signed at the bottom by our own hand just to make it totally official and binding, accompanied by all kinds of self congratulatory emotions… And what does Jesus do? He hands us back a blank piece of paper and says, “Just sign the bottom, then I will fill in all the details.”

In other words, when Jesus calls us to turn our backs on the ways of the world, to deny ourselves and take up our cross daily and follow Him, He is asking us to sign a blank piece of paper. It’s true. How often do we hold back on committing ourselves fully to Christ for fear of what He might ask us to do? The truth is that we don’t know what He might ask us to do. But that’s the whole point. He wants us to be willing to do whatever, wherever, whenever.

This means that we must trust Him implicitly of course. To really follow Christ, we must let go of everything and everyone, even our own lives. It’s a lot like signing a blank page.

Luke 9:23,24

We’ve dedicated 34 weeks (Sept 8 to Apr 20) to read, preach and discuss the Gospel According to Luke. My text last Sunday included this infamous statement by Jesus –

“Then he said to them all: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.’”    Luke 9:23,24

How many times have I read those words. Yet they continue to challenge me to the core of my being every single time I read them. It’s like a mountain that you continue to run into but can never climb over. It’s just there, calling you ever upward. Has there been anything that anyone else has ever said that is anything like it? Not even close. Because He didn’t just say it. He said it, then He went and died. There is nothing in any faith anywhere at any time that is anything like this. Not even remotely close. They are ominous words that outweigh all others. They are counter intuitive. And they are immeasurable in their significance.

It occurred to me this week that this single statement made by Jesus serves as the foundation for the entire body of New Testament teaching on Christian living. It is the watershed from which flows all that it means to live FOR God; the very definition of ‘Christian service’; to deny oneself, to die as it were to oneself, and to sacrifice for Christ, only to realize that there is no such thing as a sacrifice for Christ. Because when we die is when we begin to live.  

10 Signs That You Might Just Be The Problem

10.  “There really is no problem and why is everyone making such a big deal about this anyway!?”

 9.  You must be right because any other conclusion would mean that someone else would come out ahead.

 8.  Your life would just be so much easier if everyone else would just get with the program.

 7.  You’ve already figured out who really is to blame for the mess you’ve gotten yourself into.

 6.  It is amazing how people just don’t seem to understand what is really going on here.

 5.  You must be right because otherwise you would have to admit you are wrong.

 4.  You must be right because you’re almost always right.

 3.  People just don’t understand how hard your life is. If they knew how hard your life was, they’d feel sorry for you and stop expecting you to be pleasant.  

 2.  You are the way you are and people just need to accept you for who you are, and learn to appreciate you for how you are, and stop expecting you to change and become a kind of person that others can get along with.

 1.  “What the heck is wrong with everyone around here anyway!!!???”

The Doing Of It

You may have heard the story about the two young boys sitting in a church service one Sunday. One boy was a regular part of the church family but the other boy was his visiting friend to whom church was a whole new experience. At the end, the pastor finished up his sermon and the new boy turns to his friend and says, “Is that it?”. And the other boy responds, “Nope, now we have to go do it.”

I love this story because it focuses the attention where it needs to be. Because most things in life are way easier said than done. But if we don’t actually get to the doing part, then we are not experiencing the truth in reality in our lives.And how often is our big problem our unwillingness to see things through?

But it’s tough isn’t it. Last winter and spring, we spent about 4 months re-envisioning the way we do church. ‘The Church Reboot’ which was a 7 week interactive series/work shop was a very meaningful time for us. We gained a renewed sense of vision for us as a church. And then we spent another two months fleshing out what God had shown us as the way to move forward. The tag line for the initial series was ‘reestablishing the priorities of our lives together around the passion of Jesus’. Very critical stuff. But this is most certainly one of those things that’s way easier said than it is done.

This week, at our Prayer Summit on Tuesday evening, Doug took us back to that weighty statement and challenged us to take note of just how big a challenge it really is. We have set this out as something important for us to do together. And yet, it will only happen to the degree that each of us as individuals are willing to make those necessary changes in our personal lives.

So, I want to take this opportunity to ask you, personally, how are you doing with that? Have you made significant changes in your own priorities so that they are more in line with the passion of Jesus? What does that look like for you? Or are you still defaulting to the way you have lived in the past, going through the motions, scrambling to handle a truck load of expectations because you think it’s easier than sorting through them? Have you made changes? Or are you unwilling to do the hard thing and say ‘no’ to someone? Who is that someone you can’t say ‘no’ to? Is it someone else or is it you? Or is it Jesus?

All There

“He’s not all there.”  It’s a common, colloquial expression we use; a derogatory way of suggesting that

someone is lacking in their mental capacities.

But moving away from the derogatory, Jim Elliot encourages us with these words:

“Wherever you are, be all there.”  Jim Elliot

A lot of people like this saying, but ‘wherever you are, be all there’ is not just a call to live in the moment or even an encouragement to enjoy life for all it’s worth.   

The fuller version of the quote is, “Wherever you are, be all there. Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God.”

The expression ‘to the hilt’ is an old one. It’s an idiom which comes to us from the days when swords were commonly used. The ‘hilt’ of the sword is that defining line between the blade and the handle and to plunge a sword into its target all the way was right ‘to the hilt’. And so it means ‘all in’ (Our FBC Family Camp theme 2013 … Love the Lord your God with ALL your heart, ALL your soul, ALL your mind and ALL your strength”)

To ‘be all there’ is to ‘be all in’. It is to fully engage yourself in what you perceive to be the will of God for your life at any particular time. As human beings we have the tendency to live our lives in a rather reserved manner. It’s like we don’t want to be spent. We don’t want to run out. But when you think about it, the grace of Christ is a limitless supply. And if we are living by the sufficiency of Christ then we cannot exhaust His spiritual resources. Sure, we only have so much time or physical energy or money ourselves. But when it comes to God’s love and mercy there is just no possible way we can expend it all. “His mercies are new every morning” and “His love endures forever”. Think about it.

Outside In

At FBC, we begin a new ministry year with a new theme. (By the way, did you know that the Jewish calendar year begins with what we know as September?) Our theme for 2013/2014 is ‘Outside In’. All of us have had some experience with being on the outside; of being an ‘outsider’, excluded somehow in some way. It’s not a good feeling at all; being shut out, devalued, held back, separated from, cut off.

The radical good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is meant to bring us from the outside in; in from a life without God, into a relationship with Him and into His great family. The culture in Jesus’ day had a hard time with that. The tendency we have as people to think of ourselves as some elite group, or exclusive club, was very strong then as it is now. Outright hatred and violence are obvious forms but cliquishness and apathy are of the same spirit. Then along comes Jesus and right from the start He’s inviting the outsiders in! … Gentiles … Samaritans … women… children… tax collectors… lepers… people different from the rest of us … sinners of all types…. It got him into a lot of trouble. Some would say it’s what got Him killed. And they are right, because no matter how you look at it, the grace of Jesus cost Him His life.

The free grace of Jesus extended at His own expense to each and every single person on this planet is the most utterly compelling thing on earth. It is this aspect of the gospel which defines it and catapults it above any other religious idea known to man. We call it amazing grace and it is all of that and more.

This theme is prominent in the Gospel According to Luke and this ministry year, beginning September 8th, we will be going through the book of Luke each Sunday morning and in our community groups as well. It will take us 34 sessions and if you check your calendar you will see that, counting the Good Friday service, we will be finishing up the final chapter (24), which is the resurrection account, on Easter Sunday morning. It’s going to be a great journey together. This will be the longest book study that we’ve ever done together and there is quite a lot of excitement being generated about it. We are also encouraging individuals to be reading devotionally in the book of Luke this year so that we will all be immersed in the Word of God together, and making the very most of it, engaging on the personal level and on the group level, as well as hearing the same passages preached each Sunday morning.

Luke gives us an ‘orderly account’ of the ‘eye witness testimonies’ which he ‘carefully investigated’ even ‘from the beginning’ (see Luke 1:1-4) of the life and teachings of Jesus leading up to and including His death and resurrection. Luke’s clear intention, as stated by his own hand, is to report actual historical facts and events. And, of course, the events he reports on are the very realities that lie at the heart of salvation history - the gospel of Jesus Christ – by which God is calling us from the outside in.

Personally, I am pretty hyped about the potential this has for God to do amazing things for us and through us. As we see Jesus reaching out and lost sinners coming in, God will use His word to create and strengthen a mindset of outreach in our hearts and a lifestyle of living it out in our communities. 

Dreamer

Today marked the 50th anniversary of ‘The March on Washington’. The original march drew about 250,000

people fighting equal rights (and jobs) for blacks in America. Today, about 1/10 that number showed up in the rain in the US capital to commemorate what is understood to be the turning point in the American civil rights movement. It was once again a very full day ending with a speech by President Barack Obama at the Lincoln Memorial.

Yesterday, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan put things in perspective when he made this statement to the Associated Press: “Tomorrow, just like 50 years ago, an African-American man will stand on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and speak about civil rights and justice. But afterward, he won't visit the White House. He'll go home to the White House.”

There has been some amazing progress made. That’s for sure.

The highlight 50 years ago today ended up being Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s  now famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. One of the amazing things about that which a lot of people don’t realize is that there were actually 21 speakers that day, along with a number of ‘entertainers’ including Mahalia Jackson, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, and Peter, Paul and Mary. King took the very last spot of the day because no one else wanted it. Think about that! It had been a long day and a hot day and people were tired. King was slotted to speak for 4 minutes. His speech was written for him by Clarence Jones, a speech writer and attorney.

King stayed with the text in front of him for the first several minutes. I watched the speech again today and you can tell when he leaves his notes. One source I consulted said that it was at the point where Mahalia Jackson yelled out, “Tell 'em about the dream, Martin!” Apparently he had spoken about ‘the dream’ a few months earlier, but there was no mention of it in the text that lay before him that day. But he shoved the notes aside and from that point on we have what has become one of the most famous oratories in American history.

There is a great deal that can be said about the words spoken that day by Martin Luther King. Most people seem to want to ignore the Scriptural references in his sermon and his references to God. He was after all a Baptist preacher. Different parts of his message seem to resonate with different people. For me, one of the lines that I have always appreciated since the first time I heard it was this one:

“I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

I guess the reason that statement catches my attention is his reference to character. Martin Luther King Jr. was a freedom fighter, but he would never align himself with the ludicrous notion being preached as ‘tolerance’ in our day. That’s for sure.  

Operation Auca

Jim Elliot

Jim Elliot (Philip James Elliot) was part of a team of 5 missionaries who banded together for what they called ‘Operation Auca’; an attempt to reach the Waodoni (Auca) Indians of Ecuador with the message of the gospel. In 1956, all 5 men were savagely murdered by the very men they were attempting to reach with the love of Christ.  

Life Magazine published a ten-page article on their mission and death. The media coverage and subsequent interest in the martyrdom of these men served to challenge and motivate a great number of young people of that generation with the cause of Christian missions and the willingness to take up the cross.  
      
If you are not familiar with their story, or with the amazing events which followed, you owe it to yourself to do a little reading. If you are a reader, here are a couple of books written by Jim Elliot’s widow that tell their story. Whether you are a reader or not, I’m including a link at the end of this post to a video that you’re sure to appreciate.

A couple of book options:

‘Through Gates of Splendor’ by Elizabeth Elliot

‘Shadow of the Almighty: The Life and Testament of Jim Elliot’ by Elizabeth Elliot

Jim himself did a lot of journaling. Here are a few quotes of his to wet your appetite for further reading:

“Let not our longing slay the appetite of our living.”

“God always gives his best to those who leave the choice with him.”

“Lord, give me firmness without hardness, steadfastness without dogmatism, love without weakness.”

“Oh, the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing God on earth!”

“Lord, make my way prosperous not that I achieve high station, but that my life be an exhibit to the value of knowing God.”

“Father, make of me a crisis man. Bring those I contact to decision. Let me not be a milepost on a single road; make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me.”

“We are so utterly ordinary, so commonplace, while we profess to know a Power the Twentieth Century does not reckon with. But we are ‘harmless’, and therefore unharmed. We are spiritual pacifists, non-militants, conscientious objectors in this battle-to-the-death with principalities and powers in high places. Meekness must be had for contact with men, but brass, outspoken boldness is required to take part in the comradeship of the Cross. We are ‘sideliners’ - coaching and criticizing the real wrestlers while content to sit by and leave the enemies of God unchallenged. The world cannot hate us, we are too much like its own. Oh that God would make us dangerous!”

“I couldn’t have asked for more than God in deliberate grace has surprised me with!”

“I pray for you, that all your misgivings will be melted to thanksgivings. Remember that the shadow a thing casts often far exceeds the size of the thing itself (especially if the light be low on the horizon) and though some future fear may strut brave darkness as you approach, the thing itself will be but a speck when seen from beyond. Oh that He would restore us often with that 'aspect from beyond,' to see a thing as He sees it, to remember that He dealeth with us as with sons.”

“When it comes time to die, make sure that all you have to do is die.”

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

A few years back, Christian singer/song writer Steven Curtis Chapman explored the story of these missionaries and ended up writing some songs and integrating the story along with pictures and videos into a concert. Here is a link to a video that is an abbreviated version of that concert that would be a few minutes of your time well spent. You won’t regret it.

Video: For The Sake of The Call 

The Parable of the Woodpecker

I often talk about my fascination with analogies and the way that spiritual truths are illustrated in the physical realm all around us. To me, it is all part of how creation wonderfully points us to the Creator.

                                  

I used to think that woodpeckers killed trees; that they drilled holes in the trees causing them to die. It is not an unreasonable observation. You see a woodpecker pecking holes in a tree and the next thing you know the tree is dead! It seems kind of obvious. Certainly punching a tree full of holes is going to kill it! People have been convicted in a court of law with less evidence!

But there is more to the situation than meets the eye. Woodpeckers feed on bugs. If a woodpecker is drilling a hole in a tree, it is because there are bugs in there. That is to say that the tree is already dying.

Now, seeing a woodpecker the other day caused me to think about this in terms of our lives, when we mistake the symptoms for the disease. We watch for woodpeckers, blaming them for our problems and trying to chase them off, when in reality they are only symptomatic of a much deeper problem; one much more difficult to see, and yes, deadly. The woodpeckers represent things that are more circumstantial while the bugs represent our heart issues. We make a grave error when we remain willfully ignorant of what’s going on inside our hearts choosing instead to blame externals. Psychologists call it denial. The Bible talks about it as a refusal to be honest before God and to confess and repent of our sin; to acknowledge it, to own it, and to turn from it. We will never be healthy, never be able to move forward, until we face head-on the real cause of our problem - the sin in our hearts.

“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”  1John 1:8

But here is the best part:

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”   1John 1:9

Notice any woodpeckers lately? It may be that God sent them to get your attention, to encourage you to deal with the real problem.  

Inside Egypt

Ramez Atallah is the general director of the Bible Society of Egypt and has a masters of divinity degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in the USA. Writing for the Gospel Coalition today, he highlights some of the things that happened last week that we didn’t hear or see on the news, and he expresses his frustration with the media and why they aren’t reporting the real story.

It’s yet another example of media bias but it’s hard to understand why the media would slant this the way they are. 

Check out Ramez's article here and see what you think - 'An Insider's Perspective On Egypt Today'

Gospel Hermeneutic

Last Sunday morning I spoke on ‘Applying the Law to our Lives’ and I sought to introduce the church family to what I referred to as the ‘gospel hermeneutic’. I thought I’d follow up with that a little today here.

Although the word hermeneutic can put some people off, because it isn’t a word we commonly use or hear in the run of the mill conversations we have, it is simply the more technical term used to identify the important field of study of the principles of good interpretation.

And as I said, more than once on Sunday morning, this is SO important because correct application depends utterly on correct understanding (interpretation). So if we are going to apply the Bible to our lives (read ‘obey’) then the importance of a right understanding of it cannot be overstated.

The most difficult problem in this field in practical terms is applying the Old Testament (Jewish) Scriptures to our lives today as Christians. The OT makes up ¾ of our Bibles so this is a huge issue and it is fraught with dangerous perils. History records some of the horror stories of misapplication resulting from bad interpretation.

There are a number of important hermeneutical principles that we need to be aware of and putting into practice. I spoke about the literal grammatical approach. I also mentioned the importance of the principle of context. But the main point that I wanted to make was the principle that I called the ‘gospel hermeneutic’. (People also refer to this as ‘the hermeneutic of Christ’ or the ‘Christ centered hermeneutic’ and there may well be other terms used to identify the same thing.)

So here’s an attempt today to put it in simple terms that anyone can understand:

This approach to biblical interpretation depends on the other principles of interpretation I mentioned but it understands the Bible as one story and THE story; the grand meta-narrative of life. As stories have plots, so the Bible has one main plot. And although it has many ‘sub-plots’,  all of these ‘sub-plots’ need to be understood in the light of the main plot which is the gospel – the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the salvation of the world.

This is why I said Sunday morning that when we as New Testament Christians read the Old Testament (and we do need to be doing that … not just reading it, but ‘delighting ourselves in the Law of the Lord’) and seek to apply it to our lives, we cannot apply it directly. Rather we read it in the light of Jesus coming and dying for our sin and rising again. And we apply it to our lives as those who have been given new life in Christ and are completely under His authority. The gospel effects everything. Some things it changes. Some things it reinforces. Some things it does away with. In this sense, the gospel is the key to interpreting the entire Bible.

(You can check out our website if you want to hear the audio of the sermon. It’s not my intent to reproduce all of the content here. It’s www.sharethejourney.ca and look for the ‘listen online’ tab)

I did throw in a few comments for parents at the end specifically and received a message from Joel and Angela about this resource that looks amazingly good that I wanted to make you aware of.

‘The Jesus Story Book Bible’ by Sally Lloyd-Jones

Angela says:

“Just wanted to pass along a resource for parents of young kids that encourages the line of thinking you were discussing this morning. This little Bible points each OT story to Jesus. It is really wonderful. We love it.”

Here is what one of the reviewers had to say:

“I was hesitant about this book when I first spotted it because it looked a little hokey, to be honest. But as I began to read through it I was thrilled at what I found. Lloyd-Jones masterfully weaves together the story of the Messiah, the "Rescuer", through the various stories of the Bible. It is just so beautifully written. I have a hard time reading it to my kids because I am so moved by it I get choked up! The heart of God for us, His children, is evident in every story. It is all about relationships and God's unfailing love for His people. Lloyd-Jones brings out some interesting historical contextual information in the stories. Because it is a story-book version of the bible, rather than a translation or paraphrase, she is able to use the original images of the biblical text while explaining the meaning right in the telling of the story. For example, in the creation story, the biblical account talks of God "hovering over the deep", in Llyod-Jone's version, she explains: "Like a mommy bird flutters her wings over her eggs to help her babies hatch, God hovered over the deep, silent darkness."
This is a beautiful, beautiful book - I am so glad that children have a chance to see the connections between the various Bible stories and hear the call of God throughout. Lloyd-Jones does a great job of explaining connections that most adults are probably unaware of, or haven't taken the time to consider. This is a child's book that will thrill and delight children, but will also teach and inspire the adults who read it to them too. I can't recommend it highly enough!

Already There

One of the biggest reasons, I believe, that unbelievers and skeptics stumble over faith is that the God they conceive of us believing in is just too small. The unbelieving mind passes judgment on God’s existence based on a frame of reference that is totally inadequate because it is completely limited by its own ability to conceive. To put it in other terms, we have a tendency to project our own limitations on God.

One example of this is the Bible’s teaching that God is eternal. So many of the difficulties brought forth by naysayers evaporate in the light of the understanding that God is not bound by time like we are. This is demonstrated in Scripture by how God consistently orchestrates events in a way that depends upon His complete knowledge of the future. And how does God have such a knowledge? Well, to put it in the terms of a popular Christian song, “He’s already there!”

When we begin to develop more of an appreciation for how incredibly great God is, faith is birthed in our hearts. This is why biblical faith is characterized by great humility. And it’s also why the enemies of God in Scripture are consistently described as prideful.

And it’s also why faith is associated with trust and with rest. Think about it. Think about the kind of assurance we have when we begin to understand just how great God is, not only in His ability, but in His amazing commitment to us.

When I'm lost in the mystery
To You my future is a memory
Cause You're already there
You're already there
Standing at the end of my life
Waiting on the other side
And You're already there
You're already there

‘Already There’ by Casting Crowns

Have a listen

The Verdict Is In

The verdict is in but a lot of people don’t like it. Right from the very beginning the media framed this whole thing. It’s yet one more example of the media making the news instead of reporting the news. I remember seeing the story when it first broke on television and I remember experiencing feelings of disgust and hatred (to be honest) for this sleaze-ball Zimmerman. I think back on this now having learned more of the facts and I realize that this is how they fed it to us. They should be the ones baring the brunt of the indignation because they are the ones who fueled the fires of prejudice.

They started right off the get-go by profiling those old photos of Trayvon Martin showing him as a young boy, maybe 12 or so, while he was actually 17 years old and well over six feet tall when the incident took place. And on it went from there.  

Yes, the US is a gun culture, and yes, George Zimmerman should have stayed in his car, and yes, he was apparently a wannabe. But he was a neighborhood watch captain and there had been 8 burglaries around his neighbourhood in the preceding 14 months. And while we don’t know if Trayvon Martin was engaging in anything illegal that night, he had been suspended from school for being in possession of a “‘burglary tool’ and a bag full of women’s jewelry.”

Then there is the eyewitness John Good. He testified to seeing the younger Martin on top of Zimmerman, pummeling away on him “ground and pound” style. After yelling out to Martin “cut it out” and “I’m calling 911”,  Good ran off to make that call but he testified that Martin was in physical command of the situation and was obviously winning the fight when he ran for the phone.  

Dr. Vincent DiMaio, a former chief medical examiner in Texas, testified in Zimmerman’s defense, saying that Zimmerman “…had at least six injuries after his clash with Martin – including two on the back of his head that appeared to indicate impacts with concrete – one on each temple, one on his forehead and one on his nose… Lacerations to Zimmerman’s head suggested the use of ‘severe force,’ he said, lending credence to his claim that Martin slammed Zimmerman’s head into a concrete walkway after knocking him to the ground with a punch that broke his nose.”

But everyone seemed to want to wade in with their own sentiment. For crying out loud, the President of the United States comes out and says … “If I had a son he would look like Trayvon”!!! Really! And that is relevant how?! I mean what is that?!!!

Anyone who doesn’t think that the kind of prejudice and racism being alleged isn’t experienced every day by various groups has their head in the sand. But Zimmerman wasn’t charged with being prejudiced. He was charged with murder. Why should George Zimmerman, or any other individual for that matter, bare the wrath for all of the social injustice felt by the black population in America?  Zimmerman is Hispanic. What about the prejudice experienced by that group?

People should not have to be subjected to us drawing unwarranted conclusions about them based on their appearance. Neither should people have to live with the violation of having us break into their home to steal their personal belongings. That too is a justice issue.

So what about that? Can you relate to people’s frustration over the state of our legal/judicial systems? Last week, Police issued a warning to residents of Halifax that a violent offender had been released into their community. This is a relatively common occurrence, but the details of this case just seem to accentuate the huge problems in our own justice system.

Just take a look at the facts in this case as they have been reported:

Twenty seven year old Damien Christopher Clyke has just completed a four year sentence for armed robbery which he committed while wearing a ski mask.

He has past convictions for a number of other violent crimes, including assaults on three correctional officers while in custody.

He has more than forty convictions and his victims include family members, strangers and peace officers.

He has been professionally assessed as a high risk to re-offend in a violent manner.

The parole board documents indicate he is likely to commit an offence causing death or serious harm to another person after being released from prison and that “he continues to possess violent tendencies, has gained no insight into his offences and has expressed no motivation for change”. They also say that he suffers from a mental illness.

There is no shortage of blame to go around when it comes to the brokenness all around us. The system is most definitely broken. People are definitely broken. I am definitely broken because I am way too quick to judge when I see a story break on television. 

Good Timing

I don’t know how many of you are awake these days before five, but the robins are. Appropriately enough, they are the first birds up. If you do happen to be awake when they get up these days you will be greeted by their beautiful song. The other day, that amazing song at the break of dawn got me thinking about the old adage of how “the early bird gets the worm”. But then I thought about the wag’s response, “What about the early worm?”. And then how someone else quipped that, “It’s the second mouse that gets the cheese”.

All this got me thinking about the importance of timing. Although being early can sometimes be a virtue, a good sense of timing is also a strong point of wisdom. There are lots of examples. Music and sports are obvious ones but it doesn’t end there. Comedians will tell you that it’s the difference between a good laugh and a bomb.

This past week, most people would really question the timing (and not just the timing) of comments by the chairman of MMAR (Montreal Maine & Atlantic Railway) Edward Burkhardt. Burkhardt has quickly become the public face of the company being blamed for the death and devastation in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. And, although he seems to have made a myriad of mistakes, timing is definitely one of them.

1Chronicles speaks of the wisdom of a particular group of King David’s mighty men who were astute because they understood the times and knew how to act accordingly (1Chron 12:32). A person can do all the right things but if he does them at the wrong time, he will come across as a total buffoon, or even worse – heartless.  

This kind of ‘skill’ is part of a larger grouping of abilities. There is a rather new field of study into what is being called ‘emotional intelligence’ (EQ). They actually have workshops where they try and teach this stuff to people! But there is a strong debate as to just how ‘teachable’ these kinds of things are. For my part, I think they are probably learned at least in part, though I question whether they can be learned in an academic setting. I tend to believe that it’s more about paying attention, especially to the people around you, and that is learned more in the context of relationships; not so much cognitive, but more ‘intuitive’ resulting from more experiential kinds of learning. And it helps if you have the right opportunities to develop these types of sensitivities when you are very young. If you have the good fortune of having been born into a family (as I have) where your parents exhibited a strong sense of empathy and consideration of others, consider yourself blessed.

Another problem with seeking to ‘teach’ these types of things is that they are more a matter of character than they are of academic understanding. It’s one thing to be skilled at being acutely aware of what is going on in someone else's heart and life. It is quite another to actually care. Keep in mind that a good shyster can read people and can shed a tear at just the right time. So, like a lot of things, this becomes a matter of the heart. And as a matter of the heart it becomes a matter prayer. May God both soften and strengthen our hearts, please.

These Are The Days Of Elijah

Last week’s post, although it didn’t collect any posted comments, did elicit some reaction. I admit that it

A photo of the Jezreel Valley from Mount Carmel which I took when we were privileged to be there in 2008

sounded more than a little pessimistic. The world is not getting better. It is getting worse. And that in spite of all the popular rhetoric to the contrary. The far left has always insisted on crediting themselves for what they claim to be great progress for mankind. They continue to do so, but they chant their rhetoric with their fingers in their ears and their eyes closed to what is really going on in the world. This always hits a raw nerve with me because it is so incredibly hypocritical, which is doubly ironic when we consider that hypocrisy is one of the chief accusations they always level against the more conservative voices in our society.

Anyway, on a cheerier note, Jesus is still Lord and we know who wins. How do we keep from getting bummed out over all of the bad news we see happening around us? Sometimes it’s not easy because there is a lot going on. But, the news is not really all that new.

The OT account of Elijah and the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel is a favourite of many. It is a well known high-point of OT revelation occurring at a very low-point in Israel’s history. Elijah faces down the 450 false prophets and God shows Himself very much in control. But it’s what happens after that scene which I draw your attention to.

Wimpy king Ahab runs off and tells the wicked Queen Jezebel all about her prophets’ disgrace and  demise at the hands of Elijah and she responds by sending Elijah a very threatening message basically telling him that she would have him dead within 24 hours. Elijah’s response was to run for his life, literally. (1Kings 19:3) On the run, Elijah, after many days, eventually finds himself utterly exhausted and afraid, huddled in a cave as far away from Jezebel as he could get and feeling very, very alone. (CF 1Kings 19:10 “… I am the only one left…”) God keeps asking Elijah, “What are you doing here Elijah?”, to which Elijah keeps responding,  “Israel has rejected You … I am the only one left” (See 1Kings 19:14)

There in the cave God gently instructs Elijah, and among other things, His words include the following: “I reserve seven thousand in Israel – all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him.”

Things can seem pretty grim as we look out over our society and see some of the things we see taking place. But, often unseen, are the thousands (millions in our day) who hold fast to the Lord and His ways. We are not alone. Even better than that. Jesus said, “Behold, I am with you, even to the end of the age”, just like God was with Elijah. What we see is not everything that is. There is a whole lot more going on in our world than what makes the news. That’s for sure. In the words of a recent popular song by the Newsboys, “My God’s not dead, He’s surely alive. He’s living on the inside, roaring like a lion.” These are the days of Elijah.

Newsboys 'Like A Lion'

Who Cares?

Last week CTV News reported on an Ipsos poll which looked at the relationship between buying habits and the ethical manufacturing of clothing. They surveyed over 18,500 people in 16 countries, including Canada and the United States. They reported that, “the majority of shoppers are willing to pay a bit more for clothes to help improve conditions in Third World garment factories”. I guess you could say that this was the good news. The bad news is that, “more than 40 percent strongly or somewhat agreed that they don’t really care what kind of conditions employees have to work in and just want choice and low cost.”

Canada fared a bit better than the average but still, among Canadian respondents, 36 percent said “they don’t care about factory conditions or feel any responsibility about where clothing is made.”

What does this mean? Well, it’s pretty simple really. It means that more than one out of every three people you work with … play with … bump into each day JUST DON’T CARE.

Of course there are questions about whether extra money paid would actually get to where it needs to go. There is always that issue and I believe our skepticism on that point is well deserved. But still, to take the position that you just don’t care! How can that be?

To further the indictment, the poll was conducted over a two week period in May shortly after weeks of horrendous visual images coming out of Bangladesh as rescue workers raced frantically to try and find and save any survivors from an eight-story factory building that had collapsed, killing more than 1,000 factory workers, making it the “worst garment-industry related disaster in history”.

There are a lot of people that think that our world is becoming a better and better place to be. They see the social, political and judicial changes taking place around us as victories for mankind that signal our upward and onward movement to become what we should be; that man is evolving and society is becoming more and more enlightened and …

I just don’t see it.

Lack of Ethics

Nova Scotia MLA Trevor Zinck changed his plea this week to guilty; guilty of fraud that is. I can’t help wondering why he waited so long thus wasting even more of the tax payers money. But Trevor seems to have a different take on the situation anyway saying that he hoped to maintain his seat and feels that his accomplishments outweigh his mistakes.

Trevor is part of an elite group. Rob Ford, the embattled Toronto mayor has been in the news for his escapades almost every week for months. It was revealed this week that Federal Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has been charging charities as much as 20 grand a pop for speaking engagements. Last week, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair blew through several stop signs pursued by a police cruiser with lights flashing. When he finally stopped and was approached by the officer, Mulcair is reported to have said, “Don’t you know who I am?” and then warned the officer that he would be in a lot of trouble. Later Thom said it was all just a ‘misunderstanding’. And then this week as well, interim mayor of Montreal, Michael Applebaum, who was brought in to clean up the corruption in the city, was arrested and is facing 14 charges including fraud and conspiracy.

I caught a very interesting interview on Canada AM yesterday morning. Veteran Montreal Gazette Columnist Henry Aubin who has covered the political scene in Montreal since the 1970s, as both a reporter and a columnist, was being interviewed about Applebaum’s arrest. When asked by Canada AM host Beverly Thomson what he made of the whole thing in terms of what it says, Henry responded with these words:

“It says that Montreal is deeply corrupt. It’s a pervasive syndrome. It doesn’t apply only to Montreal. It applies to the province’s third largest city Laval … where 21 out of 22 city councilors were found to have taken illegal money. It speaks to a broad sense of a lack of ethics … I’m not sure what the cause is. Perhaps the decline of the church has something to do with it. People don’t go to church anymore. They don’t learn ethics. Very often they come from dysfunctional families. Their parents don’t teach them ethics. They get their values from television and other popular media, so the traditional teaching of values has dissipated.”

His comments surprised me. I wasn’t expecting them. It’s not very often (understatement) that you hear anyone in the media willing to recognize the real reason for the disintegration of public life. One can argue that there was plenty of corruption long before the decline of the church in Quebec, or anywhere else, and surely there was. This kind of corruption is part of human nature. But, it is significant when you find someone in the secular media who is willing to admit that the present secular humanist society which we have been busy creating has in fact no foundation upon which to base, nor any real means of sustaining, any real ethical system. Expect things to get worse but don’t expect a whole lot of people to admit the real reason for it.

“But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”       2Tim 3:1-4

The Wonder of Water

We’ve been getting a lot of rain these days in these parts, and I know that a lot of people find it somewhat

depressing. However, it has me thinking about the wonder of it all. You know, we really should be mindful not to complain about something that is so absolutely essential to our very lives and to all life on our planet.

This time of the year we can look at the grass, trees and shrubs and we can appreciate how water serves to create such an amazing beautiful land that we are blessed to live in. But it is much more than that, isn’t it. Planet earth consists of three times as much water as it does land mass, but only about 1% of that water is readily available for human consumption. The human body, likewise, is about 60% water. Our brains are 70% water and we need to replace at least 2 litres of water every day in order to live and stay healthy. Working in our bodies, water dissolves essential minerals as well as oxygen. It further transports and distributes nutrients throughout our bodies. And of course water also cleanses our bodies ‘flushing’ out the waste.

And it isn’t as if we have other options. Water is absolutely distinct and totally unique. No other substance has these same ‘life giving’ properties. Science reveals that the water molecule is comprised of two hydrogen atoms attached to an oxygen atom and these things aren’t just ‘thrown together’ in some kind of haphazard way. The oxygen atom within the water molecule has a negative electrical charge while the two hydrogen atoms are positive. Further to that, they are attached in the shape of a V at a 104° angle. This is no accident but is obviously a key part of God’s whole design for life on this planet.

“… of all the temperatures in the universe from the –270°C (–454°F) of outer space to the tens of millions of degrees inside the hottest stars, water is liquid in a very narrow range. At normal atmospheric pressure, water is only liquid from 0–100°C (32–212°F). It should not then be surprising that Earth is the only place in the universe known to have liquid water. And this depends on having the right kind of star—neither too bright nor too dim, and thus neither too big nor too small. And the planet must be at the right distance from it.”   Dr Jonathan D. Sarfati, Ph.D

So, don’t get depressed by the rain. Open your eyes to see it for what it is – life giving – a gift from God. So wonderful that the Bible adopts it as a prime metaphor for eternal life.

(See for example  Jn 4:13,14 ; John 7:37-39 ; Rev 22:17)

Would you like to read more of the wonders of water?   Article by Jonathan Sarfati

Oh Henry

Abortionist Henry Morgentaler died last Tuesday, May 28^th at the age of 90. It made for a big news story. He is hailed by many as a great Canadian hero. In 2008 he received the Order of Canada. Due in large part to his efforts, Canada has been without an abortion law for the past 25 years. We are one of only three nations in the world in that category. The other two countries are China and North Korea (quite the company we keep eh!).

Upon receiving his award in 2008, Morgentaler proclaimed how proud he was to have been given the “opportunity coming from a war-torn Europe to realize my potential and my dream - that is to create a better and more humane society.” What a sad irony those words contain. What Henry did to those little unborn babies was every bit as violent as the ravages of the war in Europe and there is nothing ‘humane’ about the violent taking of innocent human lives.

However, on the weekend just prior to Morgentaler’s death, another story broke, coming out, of all places, China. It was the story of the remarkable rescue of a new born baby from a 4 inch sewer pipe. The little one had apparently been ‘flushed’ by his mother upon her giving birth to him but, amazingly, his cries were heard, and that led to the dramatic rescue of the child, placenta still attached, by local firefighters. Since then strangers have flooded the hospital with gifts and even adoption offers for the baby.

So, here’s the thing. The abortion crusaders have always argued that being ‘wanted’ is what determines the value of a life. But if that were actually true then these firefighters wouldn’t be heroes at all. At best they would have only been wasting their time.