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description=And it shall come to pass afterward That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your old men shall dream dreams, Your young men shall see visions. And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.;

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Text of the page (random words):
hat the further i got from the church and the closer i got to the edges of the property the thicker the moss had become before long my mind was examining the symbolic nature of what i was doing and thinking about the lesson that this should have been teaching in many ways i think that we in the church fail to clean up ourselves like we clean up the property or perhaps more appropriately not enough of us do this work like not enough of us show up on saturday to do the work of maintaining and cleaning the grounds we all know someone who stands outside and offers a criticism of the church in order to justify their separation from it sometimes this excuse is rooted in a hubris that places them squarely at the center of creation and is a dim echoey place where the throne room of their heart is a place where they try hard to occupy a space never meant for them suffering a loneliness that few can recognize let alone address just as frequently it is someone who unflinchingly comments about the hypocrisy they believe they see rooted in an incomplete understanding of the jesus we serve and what he stands for and some are correct in this diagnosis without understanding the planks obscuring their own vision or how much they don t know i get to start this part with a confession of my own i don t spend nearly enough time doing the maintenance on my own spirit just like i need to spend time scraping at decay that grows at the edges of the parking lot and driveway i need to do the same spending time reading and studying the bible and then considering what i read and applying it to how i think and what i do it can be difficult in a world of distractions and competing priorities to make this part of a regular routine let alone a daily one and without doing it we don t think enough about the nature of sin or how much we still commit it the word can t work the changes in us that it was meant to or at least not to the degree that it can or should and as a result the grace that saves us and the one who died to give it both become cheap in our lives as we fail to see the decay we ourselves carry even as we see the decay surrounding us so clearly we cannot and should not ever lose sight of the fact that we all sin sometimes the sin is obvious and open to those who surround us some sins are hidden and no less pernicious but require humility and self examination to see before we can ever think about changing them and it is far too easy to acknowledge the obvious sins of others first these become the hypocrisies that excuse others from even making the attempt to come to christ even if they fail to understand that it is grace that saves because sin is inevitable and sometimes even if they understand the inevitability of sin they don t differentiate between the reflection that examines it and the repentance for it and the fact that this is different from living in an unbroken state of it without the growth and change that come from recognition repentance and a sincere attempt to change the latter fosters humility and appreciation for grace the former becomes a justification to do what is right in that person s own eyes and to find a fault in the faith which doesn t exist and because we don t spend enough time in the word we are not able to exercise the discernment spoken of in jude or to find the right answer to such criticisms now if you ll excuse me the rhythm of the rain is calling me to do some spiritual scraping posted by blackiswhite imperial consigliere march 15 2015 categories christianity society things that don t change what the book says tags calling christianity conviction discernment grace repentance salvation sin understanding leave a comment a fine balance i ve written before on other blogs about my annoyance with politicians who occasionally abandon their otherwise ubiquitous disdain for religion specifically christianity for infrequent attempts to cite it as a reason for foisting their leftist views upon the rest of us whether it was obama talking about a partnership with god in a phone call with rabbis stumping for obamacare al gore mangling scripture in a clumsy attempt to shill indulgences for his church of gaia carbon credits or chief lizzie warren quoting scripture to justify government strengthening and expanding reliance on government in the name of love and compassion of course there seems to be a stunning lack of self awareness from the smartest people in the room who can barely conceal their resentment for something they have been largely unable to successfully co opt i found myself pondering this last sunday as my mind chewed on it rather than the sermon collective salvation has been a term that has been like sand in my shorts from the first minute i heard it primarily because i think it is a perfect illustration of everything they get wrong about christianity my conversations with those who show the most enthusiasm about the concept have done nothing to convince me otherwise salvation is an individual concept a walk through the concordance of any bible should make this plain to anyone with an attention span longer than that of a gnat one of the clearest points of scripture on this is found in psalm 27 1 the lord is my light and my salvation whom shall i fear i can understand that this is a difficult point for non christians to fully grasp they hear about a savior that gave his life to save the world and it would be very easy to view it in the frame that the peddlers of collective salvation want to confine it to but the fact is that while it was a gift that was freely given the greatest gift ever given it must be accepted for it to be fulfilled and that acceptance is an individual decision this is distinguishable from what politicians are trying to sell when they speak of collective salvation for three important reasons first because what christ gave belonged to him and him alone he didn t collect it from others with the force of the state available to compel what wasn t freely given to him so he could give it to others contrast this with the collective salvation promised by those who freely utter the term secondly he didn t make any distinction about who could receive his gift or how much of it a particular person could have salvation wasn t for those most favored in god s eyes indeed one of the great tragedies is that god s chosen people to this day with some exceptions largely reject the notion that christ was the savior at all he himself noted that he brought it for all the world income wasn t a factor he dined with zacchaeus a wealthy tax collector he cured the blind and lepers he brought his news to a harlot he died in the company of thieves the collective salvation promised by politicians does the opposite it decides that some people should have more of government s help than others but this decision is based on the idea that some people are incapable of succeeding on their own and then structures its help in a way to make sure that the recipients come to think the same way he brought his salvation because he could see that everyone had the same need for what he had and because he loved everyone equally politicians will certainly make sure to bring the help they promise but they don t want to spend any more time than they have to with those they help third the choice to make this gift belonged to him when politicians bring collective salvation they cast their benevolence as a moral imperative regardless of the lack of accountability for how it is expended or an expectation that the recipients will make any effort to change themselves or their behavior as the benefactors of this collective salvation our participation and assent to this squandering of resources to create dependence is presumed and our character is questioned and ruthlessly besmirched if we deign to question this benevolence practiced in our name that would be insulting but bearable if that were the extent of it however these servants then claim the mitre as well as the sceptre and will adopt their most studious pose as they read a scripture verse or two and pretend that these selective readings exist in a vacuum without any understanding of context support what we know better than to meekly accept it isn t the ignorance that is insulting it s the lecture on it that is tough to take the trends since the everson decision and its repugnant misreading of jefferson s wall of separation between church and state hasn t just warped the anti theist s views on the roles of religion and government i ve come to understand that it has warped those views of many religious people as well the anti theists believe that religion has no role in government the religious believe that it should play a much greater role the more i read the private papers of the founders and the bible itself the more i come to the conclusion that religion needs to be part of the lives of the individuals in government there is a difference between the state as church and church members participating in the governance of the state just as there is a difference between individually accepting and acknowledging the savior and corporate worship and service of that same savior with others those who are working out their own salvation with fear and trembling will not be obsessed with forcing others to change the minutia of their lives to conform with their own ideas of what is nice but they will consider their actions through a prism of right and wrong and the effect they will have on society i don t believe that this nuance is beyond the understanding of those who wish to employ collective salvation i believe that acting in accordance with understanding would interfere with their agenda and their own power posted by blackiswhite imperial consigliere january 1 2015 categories christianity society things that don t change tags christianity discernment nuance relevance salvation understanding leave a comment what can you say once again i find myself struggling for words it can be a challenge for anyone to know what if anything to say at a difficult time it gets harder when you are absent and you cannot put any actions to work with the words but when you make your living with words the frustration gets even worse because of my profession i have had more experience with death than many in truth the only people who see it more are those in emergency services law enforcement medicine clergy and undertaking it doesn t get easier but some come to sting more than others i ve had clients who have lived a long life and are ready or even welcome it i ve had clients who have had so much more they wanted to accomplish and rally against the finality of what was coming and i have known clients who have lost loved ones especially children who hadn t yet actually begun living as most would understand or define it it is a horrible thing for a parent to outlive a child because whether we like to admit it or not children represent all our best hopes for the future as parents we protect them we guide them and we hope some times against hope that they can learn enough from our mistakes so as to not have to learn our hard won lessons with the same difficulty and pain that we did but we want them to live we want them to know and savor every little experience that makes life as wonderful as it is we want them to know the joy of bowling a strike of hitting a home run of winning the race we want them to know the unexpected win of putting on a jacket and finding 20 in the pocket of being asked out on a date by that person they didn t think had noticed them of that feeling of freedom that comes with your first set of car keys or that feeling of absolute and unfiltered devotion that comes the first time you look into your child s eyes and when our children predecease us many of these moments are lost and whether that parent is a christian or not they feel death s sting acutely at that time i witnessed this myself when my father passed away i saw the haunted and lost look in my grandfather s eyes and i know he was never the same the only comfort that we as observers and neighbors to such tragedies can take is when this grief is visited on believers that they have knowledge and the hope that lets them understand that it isn t the end i ve talked with those who felt that their grief and loss represented a weak faith and it is those who i have reminded that we serve a god who became flesh and knew this pain with us as he demonstrated as he stood at the grave of his friend lazarus and cried with his family everyone who believes comes to have moments in the life of christ that touch their hearts and that make him real to each individual for me both moments are ones of tears first when he stands at the grave of lazarus weeping with those who knew him and loved him this has always indicated to me that he understands that for those who know what only he knew at that moment that death is not the end that those left behind will grieve for the loss in their own lives of the ones who have gone on the second moment for me is when jesus is making a triumphant entrance to jerusalem to throngs of people cheering for him believing him to be a savior but not having any understanding of what that truly meant i can only imagine the pain of knowing that you are about to do something that many people cheering today will never understand or how awful it would be to know that the veil would never be lifted from the eyes of so many because they would never want to sincerely know what it was he was going to do or why he was going to do it in both cases it brings home the humanity of a savior who seeks a personal relationship with each of us and yet even when death comes to families of believers and to people i know and call friends i struggle i wrestle with the idea that i could ever say anything that can resonate through such pain i question the notion that i could say anything that could possibly sound sincere and not trite or cliched and that could offer genuine comfort when hands and actions are far removed what do you say to someone who is so wounded and in pain that they can t realize how much they are being carried and as i struggled with this in church today once again i had that moment of serendipity when the spirit was there to provide what it was i was seeking in the form of the scriptures we were discussing today and the topic we were discussing 2 corinthians 4 1 18 the light of christ s gospel 4 therefore since we have this ministry as we have received mercy we do not lose heart 2 but we have renounced the hidden things of shame not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of god deceitfully but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man s conscience in the sight of god 3 but even if our gospel is veiled it is veiled to those who are perishing 4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded who do not believe lest the light of the gospel of the glory of christ who is the image of god should shine on them 5 for ...