Thanksgiving

 Sometimes we define our lives by the things that are coming up.  It hits the end of October and the beginning of November and I tend to start thinking about Thanksgiving.  Each year I am reminded of how sad it is that we need a reminder to be thankful.  We (Christians) of all people should be thankful because our God commands it.  We are to give thanks in everything.  We are to give thanks for our blessings.  We are to give thanks even when facing hardship.  We are to be a thankful and grateful people.  And so I thought I would just share some of the things for which I am thankful to God.

I am thankful for my family.

I am thankful for my home.  My blankets.  My bed.  My pillows.  

I am thankful for the grace of God extended to sinners. 

I am thankful for the patience of my God, my wife, my parents, my children, my church, my deacons.  

I am thankful for the people I get to serve my Savior alongside.

I am thankful for those who take the time to tell me how the Word of God has impacted them.

I am thankful for those who serve and have served my children in various ministries as they are growing up.

I am thankful for my wife and her tireless work to train our children.

I am thankful for my in-laws and their willingness to accept me into their family.  

I am thankful for the Word of God and that it never fails.  

I am thankful for the chance to proclaim the Word of God each Sunday.

I wonder. . . what are you thankful for today?

The Goodness of God

 "God is so good.  God is so good.  God is so good, He's so good to me."  These are the words of a song from a decade or two or three ago.  They are a statement of fact.  Have you ever considered how the absence of absolute truth has impacted your life?  Allow me to demonstrate what I mean.  Is the fact that God is good absolute?  I think that most of us who believe in Christ Jesus and understand the Scriptures would say that God is good all the time.  And yet our experience of this objective reality tends to emphasize the subjective rather than the objective.  We do not always feel as though God is good because our circumstances sometimes are hard and painful and we have a harder time saying that God is good in the midst of the pain.  

So which is the foundation for our belief?  The objective reality or the subjective experience of life?  Far too often we emphasize the latter and we ignore the objective reality.  Instead we ought to look to God and His Word to define our objective reality and conform our feelings to that which is true instead of conforming our beliefs to that which we feel.  

Definitions

 I read an article recently that quoted a sermon from Andy Stanley in which he essentially said that Jesus did not draw lines but inclusive circles and that it was his goal to do the same as a church.  Now about the specifics of the argument that he was making I will for the purposes of this blog remain silent.  However I want to point out something with regards to this type of thinking that is flat out wrong.  

The thinking goes, Jesus was all welcoming - he did not cause trouble and he welcomed everybody.  He did not draw lines, he drew circles.  The problem with this thinking is at least two-fold:

1. It begins with the subject and not objective truth.  It is as if Jesus is drawing large circles around an individual to include them in the kingdom of God.  "I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me."  This is not a circle that begins with me and is large enough to include many.  It is a circle that has a center.  That center is the object by which the circle is defined.  A circle with no center is not a circle.  

2. It forgets that a circle has a radius.  Not only must the center be defined, but there is a distance at which the circle ends.  This radius starts from the center and radiates out so that each part of the circle is clearly defined.  You are in the circle or outside the circle based on the radius.  Therefore the objective center is not only critical, but the distance allowed between the center that defines the circle and being far enough outside the radius that you are no longer in the circle.  

So if we think in terms of circles, I think we are still ok - so long as we define our circles properly.  There is a certain freedom we have to be in different places, but if we have a different center or we are outside of what the radius is, we are no longer a part of the circle.  A circle, like many other illustrations, sounds good and all inclusive, but in order to be all inclusive we either have to make the radius so large that it is essentially meaningless or we have to abdicate the center.  I am willing to do neither.  Therefore I will gladly say that the offer of the gospel is for everyone.  But to belong to the circle of those who are children of God by the Bible is quite clear about both the center and the radius.