In last week’s Christian Carnival, I found the link to Parableman, Jeremy Pierce’s piece on his evaluation of John Piper’s Christian Hedonism. It is an interesting read, and one that I am still working through myself.

As I think through Piper’s ideas on Christian Hedonism, I am reminded by a verse that I remember getting quite excited over as a young Christian. I remember at the time that I really desired several things, especially for my own life. I came across a verse in Psalm 37:4 which I believed with all my heart was my assurance that if I only delighted myself in the Lord, I will then certainly have everything I desired, for the verse plainly reads:

Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

I shared with one of my mentors about this verse and declared that I was claiming this verse as a promise from God. So, I told my mentor, I will delight in the Lord and seek after Him so that I will get the desires of my heart.

I remember my mentor not feeling overly excited about this. He cautioned that the “heart” needed to be qualified. I remember feeling a little disappointed that my mentor was not excited for me. For afer all, here was a young fella who was committed to “delighting in the Lord.” So, how wrong could that be? Wouldn’t that be a worthwhile goal? Even if it was selfishly motivated?

Read the rest of this entry »

This morning I had breakfast with a friend, Robert, from church. It was supposed to be a business meeting of sorts. I had gotten to know Robert a little better from about the time I started looking for a new job when I was laid off recently. He had been quite encouraging and tried to hook me up with his associates who he thought might be interested in me. Although his referrals did not work out at the time, we got to know each other. When he found out a little more about my background, experience and professional expertise, he thought I might be interested to explore some opportunities with a new product he was developing. What was supposed to be a business meeting became a time of spiritual renewal for both of us.

After the meeting, I wrote him an email which said in part:

I am in awe at how God brings together broken people to create a beautiful mosaic of lives in the process of being transformed and healed. When I first met you at the men’s gathering so many months ago, I thought you didn’t like me and in a distorted sense of self-defense, I entertained judgmental thoughts about you. When I was again introduced to you via Ken, again negative thoughts crossed my mind – albeit briefly – (that you probably thought I was a loser or someone who did not have “it� whatever that is!). Each time, I intentionally let God’s Spirit minister in me and his koinoina love to overwhelm me and bind brotherly hearts together. So, I came to the meeting this morning with a half-expectant heart and although not thinking it to be anymore than a “business-like� meeting, I was overwhelmed by the love of Christ in you.

I experienced the peace of God through our interaction so much that my spirit has been lifted up! Thank you for sharing your heart, your insights and your wisdom. I appreciate your prayers. You have encouraged me and I can see God at work in your life and also see him working in mine through you. We ought to do this again!

Read the rest of this entry »

A little while back, I was reflecting on the difference between careers and occupations, a post that was spurred by an email from a friend of mine. I have actually been thinking about this issue quite a bit.

Recently, while reading Faith at Work Blog discussing what defines a person, I was once again reminded about these ideas.

I think sometimes we confuse our sense of who we are with what we do. And, we also conflate what we do for a living with the things we do as a person. In the post I refered to above, Mike McLoughlin was speaking more about the kinds of that you do as a corporation that defines the type of corporation it is. Just because one says that a corporation is a kingdom corporation, says McLoughlin, doesn’t make it such.

I used to work for such a company. Regular readers (all five of you!) of this blog will remember my struggles with that company, and especially with my former boss. We used to talk about “customer-centric” philosophies and we often talk about business ethics at work, but the boss practices what some of my friends call “NATO policies” which stands for “No Action; Talk Only”). It all makes for cynicism and deep duplicity at work for all of us.

I suppose this can be applied to the individual level as well. Merely applying a particular label on yourself would not really do the trick. It is by your fruit that you shall be known, as the Lord says in the Gospels.

What has this got to do with the difference between careers and occupation? I think these ideas are all intricately tied up to not only the confusion we place on our view of careers as opposed to occupation and calling, but also how we view ourselves. In my earlier post, I explored the idea that when we focus on our careers, we are tempted to forget that there is a difference between our occupation, our calling and our careers.

Read the rest of this entry »

Being Father’s Day here in the USA today, probably quite a few sermons in church services were based on the story from Luke chapter 15. Usually titled The Parable of the Prodigal Son, this is more a story about the Father than about either of the sons. (But see here and here for a couple of interesting takes about some lessons learned about the Older Brother in this oft-repeated story about the Younger Brother). A while back, while processing my own personal lessons from the outward rebellions of both my daughters, I mentioned some lessons I learned about the heart of the Prodigal Father.

Today, as I sat in church and listened to the Father’s Day sermon at church based on this parable, I reflected on more lessons about the Father, and what that teaches about God and how we dads need to model ourselves after Him.

Specifically, I was touched by the promptness of the Father’s response to the son’s request for his inheritance. Instead of being offended, the Father acted as the son wished. The Father loved his son. It was tough love. Usually when I think of “tough love” in a parent-child relationship context, I think of discipline and the toughness to be endured by the younger of the two parties. But, in this case,

Read the rest of this entry »

This week’s Christian Carnival, Carnival #… (pause, pause, making sense of the L’s and X’s) 74 is up here at Daddypundit’s blog.

My submission this week is a post, which started out as a comment at SmartChristian’s blog, reflecting on the common view that the story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10 teaches that there is a spiritual priority for quiet reflection and listening over active works of service. I cast doubt on this pervasive view and offer an alternative.

The Carnival opens with an interesting announcement from Adrian Warnock about the new initiative that he is spearheading to consolidate the efforts of Christian bloggers of all stripe and sizes. This new Blogdom of God enterprise ranks blogs based on popularity as defined by links from other Christian bloggers.

Responding to several of bloggers‘ complaints of Apple Company’s Steven Jobs’ recent commencement speech (also highlighted by Michelle Malkin)where he apparently glorified work, human effort, postmodernism’s anti-dogmatism and Eastern mysticism’s acquiescence with death, Mike McLoughlin of Faith at Work blog pronounced:

A person’s story, no matter how devoid of faith it may appear, is actually a story of God at work. There is no part of creation where Christ is not present and at work. (Colossians 1:15-20). Each human being is created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27) and has the potential to glorify God in their life (Isaiah 43:5-8). God even uses fallen human beings to care for his created order. I respectfully submit that this is exactly what He has done with Steve Jobs.

McLoughlin argues refreshingly that God’s grace and mercy are not limited to a favored group of people. It is temptingly deceptive to think God only uses the elect for His purposes and that God is only glorified by the lives of people who subscribe to a particular set of beliefs. Even if someone espouses belief systems that may be contrary to our liking, or to our denominational preferences, or even, to our understanding of biblical principles, yet this person’s life may and can actually be used by God to bless many.

Read the rest of this entry »

I am a little jealous. Kind of. Just a little. Real Life Preacher went the whole course of medication for his depression and now seems to be squarely on the road to his recovery. He chronicled his story in four parts: Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, and Part 4 here. It’s a great read, ending in a nice resolution that makes you heave a sigh of relief for the Preacher.

My own story is a little more checkered. I found that I had been depressed almost my entire life, even though apparently, I didn’t know it, and apparently I was such a good actor that most people around me didn’t know either. However, my family knew something was wrong with me. There were those mood swings. Scratch that. Make that extreme mood swings. So, it came as no surprise, at least to my wife, that I was diagnosed as “borderline bipolar” (as I said before, whatever that means).

Interestingly, unlike RLP, I was prescribed the meds “with the slight risk of sexual side effects”

Read the rest of this entry »

You scored as Emergent/Postmodern. You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don’t think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this. Emergent/Postmodern 71% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 68% Neo orthodox 64% Reformed Evangelical 54% Roman Catholic 50% Classical Liberal 43% Charismatic/Pentecostal 39% Modern Liberal 32% Fundamentalist 25%

What's your theological worldview?
created with QuizFarm.com

A little while back, I commented on SmartChristian’s post on “Is What We “Believe” More Important Than What We “Do”” based on a post by Phil Johnson, long time editor of John MacArthur who posts on what we should learn from the story of Martha and Mary of Bethany.

He quotes MacArthur from his upcoming book:

Human instinct seems to tell us that what we do is more important than what we believe. But that is a false instinct, the product of our fallen self-righteousness. It is a totally wrong way of thinking—sinfully wrong. We must never think more highly of our works for Christ than we do of His works on our behalf.

Here is what I wrote in the comments:

The “orthodoxy” of fundamentalism and evangelicalism from the Martha & Mary story in Luke has been that it is better to be a Mary who sits at the foot of Jesus to learn of Him than to be a Martha who is more interested in serving.

No where in that passage does it say that we have got to sit rather than serve, or it is more important to “believe” than to “do.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Read this heart-warming, inspirational story in the LA Times today. It is a story about a couple of “lost boys from the Sudan” who is about to re-unite with the mother they thought has died long ago. They have since found that she is still alive, and have learned to smile again.

Their book will be released Monday.

I found Rodney Olsen of The Journey vexing thanatological (haha, always wanted to make that into a sentence!) today. Well, he was responding to a post from Annie Rambles, and projected to what might happen to his body after his death. Does he want a memorial service? How does he want his loved ones to remember him? Does he want to be buried? Or does he prefer to be cremated instead? Actually he does, and he would like his ashes to be scattered.

Apparently one of his commenters suggested that cremation is a pagan practice, and that the only Christian practice is burial. Hmmmm… that made me wonder… I have heard years ago that some people who did not believe in the resurrection insist on being cremated and having their ashes scattered so that it minimizes the possibility that the body could be resurrected!! Hah! As if!!

On another score, we also read that the Jewish custom in New Testament times was to place bodies embalmed with fragrant spices in caves. I am not sure when the custom of burying bodies started, or even if the practice is particularly “Christian”. Further I am not sure when placing bodies in caskets started. I wonder if all this really matter!

Read the rest of this entry »

Julie Ann Fidler’s long awaited book is out! . If you haven’t already heard, she is finally a published author. Her book is about her experiences in marriage, and by all accounts, it is a highly personal account, filled with insights, humor and lessons that will benefit anyone. Go and give her some love.