There are wars and rumors of wars (Afghanistan, Iraq, N. Korea, Iran, etc.; in the last century it is estimated that 188 million died due to tyranny, genocide, war, & man-made deliberate famine), there are earthquakes, volcano's and tsunamis (in the last year there have been over 1 million registered quakes world-wide; 18 were major destructive, 120 were called destructive, 1,000 were called damaging). These are but the birth-pangs (Matt. 24:7 & 26:6). My! they seem to be increasing.
Yet the hour is coming when the Spirit will be poured out again in mercy for them who would look, listen, observe and repent. We are closer now than ever before, both in time and in theological perception to Christ's imminent return - He said He would return, remember? But here's the real burning question: what are you doing to be ready? What are you doing to see to it that others are ready? How deep is your passion for the lost? On which side of the ten virgins (Matt. 25:1f) might you be placed? Pray, then, this way, "Father you alone know the hour - make us ready, willing, and to be about your work - that we might hear 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!' (Matt 25:21)
Friday, January 29, 2010
Friday, December 18, 2009
Grief
I've seen a lot of people get buried the past three years. If I were to name them all this blog would be long and you'd get bored. I will be short! People die. My mom just died. Two dear friends from Jackson Mississippi just died. A woman who visited my church for over a year just died. People die! O what sorrow enters into my heart as I remember them, reflect on their faces, gestures, persons - and I miss them, deeply. Death comes calling always and will take something from all of us; friends, family and eventually all of us, unless Jesus comes back sooner rather than later. I grieve over such profound loss. It's OK to grieve! It is right to grieve and to grieve deeply, if necessary. But I've noticed something in my grieving. I do not grieve uncontrollably as though I have lost something valuable that can never be retrieved. All who die in Christ, you know, having placed their trust and faith in Him alone for their eternal life, I will see again. I will enjoy them far better than I ever enjoyed them here in the fallen world. We will embrace one another in perfection with the absence of sins beleaguering and wearying presence! For now, I grieve but not as the lost grieve; as those "who have no hope" but as one who awaits the great reunion of the vast congregation of God in heaven.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Today’s Help: 10/8/09
Real, true, honest faith in Jesus is more than capable to confront head-on the troubles, trials, confusions, anxieties, disappointments, and stresses of all worldly confrontations. Problem is most of us see the world through the real experiences of our everyday lives rather than through the blood-stained lenses of Jesus Christ and so we are often bewildered. So you say you are saved by the blood of Calvary's cross. Wonderful! But if you still view all things from only your perspective, then your salvation might only be a self-inflicted delusion. If you act Christian when only with Christians and differently with others then your profession may be suspect and you may be found only to play the part of an actor-a pretender. Examine yourself, reader, and see if there is reason sufficient to prove true conversion in your soul. Do not give rest to your soul until faith acts as the shield it is intended to be and love drives you to see this fallen world as it is through the blood-stained lenses of Jesus Christ.
"Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you--unless indeed you fail the test?" - 2 Cor 13:5-6
"But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; [22] abstain from every form of evil." - 1 Thess 5:20-22
Real, true, honest faith in Jesus is more than capable to confront head-on the troubles, trials, confusions, anxieties, disappointments, and stresses of all worldly confrontations. Problem is most of us see the world through the real experiences of our everyday lives rather than through the blood-stained lenses of Jesus Christ and so we are often bewildered. So you say you are saved by the blood of Calvary's cross. Wonderful! But if you still view all things from only your perspective, then your salvation might only be a self-inflicted delusion. If you act Christian when only with Christians and differently with others then your profession may be suspect and you may be found only to play the part of an actor-a pretender. Examine yourself, reader, and see if there is reason sufficient to prove true conversion in your soul. Do not give rest to your soul until faith acts as the shield it is intended to be and love drives you to see this fallen world as it is through the blood-stained lenses of Jesus Christ.
"Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you--unless indeed you fail the test?" - 2 Cor 13:5-6
"But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; [22] abstain from every form of evil." - 1 Thess 5:20-22
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Abraham Kuyper reflects upon the knowledge we have of ourselves as being in two parts. That which is mundane (knowable in the self) and that which comes by Divine Will or that which God reveals. There is a contrast we ought to think about, seems to me.
Them that seek only the mundane seek selfishly that which only ingratiates their own stubborn pride and selfish ends. This is what seems to drive the current economic trends on wall street and main street. But then there is something else. That which has driven some in days past to move toward something altogether above themselves. Kuyper labels that idealism.
This is what seems to missing in the American soul these days. It seems void of that which seeks the good of others and seems set rather to enrich-en the self. Politicians seem to be acting like its about "what's in it for me" and them alone. News media's seem to be acting like we gotta get the Pulitzer so how outrageous can we be - market share is everything - damn the truth; give me what sells! There are any number of groups not getting what they want and what they want has little to do with the good of the nations health. It seems that everyone wants their piece of the pie at any cost and if you have to pay them, well, pay up and shut up!
We have lost the pursuit of the ideal. We don't really care about truth anymore as an absolute and objective truth (not an original thought, eh?). We don't care about knowledge any more as an absolute and objective knowledge and we have cut the tether of our moral compass and are adrift in a sea of doubt, fear, anxieties, frustrations and confusions - morally, ethically, economically, psychologically, politically, and spiritually.
What's really sad, to me, is that the church has lost her witness and her reason for being a church. If a church holds to the truth-claims of the Bible as held by her history she is no longer relevant in our culture and now has no real voice in the marketplace of ideas. However, if she espouses homosexuality as relevant, or states there are many ways to heaven other than Jesus Christ alone, she is accepted and welcomed into the foray of frivolity and meaninglessness. No thanks! Give me some old fashioned idealism that is soaked in true truth and knowable knowledge. I think Kuyper get's it right.
He says, "When idealism is shown by individuals or peoples, that high aim is one of the strongest possible motives to seek after truth and knowledge. He who misses this idealistic sense may have a thirst for plain, materialistic knowledge, but the knowledge of the higher things in human life leaves him cold and indifferent. A money-fiend is an adept in the knowledge that promises gain; but what does such a gold-slave care for the higher knowledge of the nobler elements of our human life? As little as a deaf man cares for the wondrous creations of a Bach, or a blind man for the art of a Raphael or Rembrandt."
"As this is true of individuals, so it is also true of nations."
"When a people fail of this idealistic sense they degenerate into materialism and sensualism, and shut themselves off from all higher life. They make no advance and can not enrich other nations. They even deteriorate, and not infrequently in their own decline drag other nations down with them."
"In this, one age may differ from another in the same nation. In the sixteenth century the Netherlands stood especially high and was an inspiration to all Western Europe. In the eighteenth century, on the other hand, they degenerated, and have in no way blessed other nations."
We are tracking the same kind of decline here in America. We are tracking the same kind of decline in the church, too. O Lord, when will you awaken our slumber; When will you rise in our hearts again? Helllooo? Is any body out there?
Them that seek only the mundane seek selfishly that which only ingratiates their own stubborn pride and selfish ends. This is what seems to drive the current economic trends on wall street and main street. But then there is something else. That which has driven some in days past to move toward something altogether above themselves. Kuyper labels that idealism.
This is what seems to missing in the American soul these days. It seems void of that which seeks the good of others and seems set rather to enrich-en the self. Politicians seem to be acting like its about "what's in it for me" and them alone. News media's seem to be acting like we gotta get the Pulitzer so how outrageous can we be - market share is everything - damn the truth; give me what sells! There are any number of groups not getting what they want and what they want has little to do with the good of the nations health. It seems that everyone wants their piece of the pie at any cost and if you have to pay them, well, pay up and shut up!
We have lost the pursuit of the ideal. We don't really care about truth anymore as an absolute and objective truth (not an original thought, eh?). We don't care about knowledge any more as an absolute and objective knowledge and we have cut the tether of our moral compass and are adrift in a sea of doubt, fear, anxieties, frustrations and confusions - morally, ethically, economically, psychologically, politically, and spiritually.
What's really sad, to me, is that the church has lost her witness and her reason for being a church. If a church holds to the truth-claims of the Bible as held by her history she is no longer relevant in our culture and now has no real voice in the marketplace of ideas. However, if she espouses homosexuality as relevant, or states there are many ways to heaven other than Jesus Christ alone, she is accepted and welcomed into the foray of frivolity and meaninglessness. No thanks! Give me some old fashioned idealism that is soaked in true truth and knowable knowledge. I think Kuyper get's it right.
He says, "When idealism is shown by individuals or peoples, that high aim is one of the strongest possible motives to seek after truth and knowledge. He who misses this idealistic sense may have a thirst for plain, materialistic knowledge, but the knowledge of the higher things in human life leaves him cold and indifferent. A money-fiend is an adept in the knowledge that promises gain; but what does such a gold-slave care for the higher knowledge of the nobler elements of our human life? As little as a deaf man cares for the wondrous creations of a Bach, or a blind man for the art of a Raphael or Rembrandt."
"As this is true of individuals, so it is also true of nations."
"When a people fail of this idealistic sense they degenerate into materialism and sensualism, and shut themselves off from all higher life. They make no advance and can not enrich other nations. They even deteriorate, and not infrequently in their own decline drag other nations down with them."
"In this, one age may differ from another in the same nation. In the sixteenth century the Netherlands stood especially high and was an inspiration to all Western Europe. In the eighteenth century, on the other hand, they degenerated, and have in no way blessed other nations."
We are tracking the same kind of decline here in America. We are tracking the same kind of decline in the church, too. O Lord, when will you awaken our slumber; When will you rise in our hearts again? Helllooo? Is any body out there?
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
His Dying Words
April 1, 2009 Waskom, TX: The Seven Last Words of Christ
On Good Friday, April 10, 2009 at 6:00 PM Pastor Ed Bowman invites Christians to come and hear again the seven last words of Christ reflecting upon what Jesus said while suffering on that Roman gibbet for the sins of His people.
"Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends." Jesus said and then he did just that, voluntarily dying in the place of his friends in all ages who would dare trust in Him by faith alone.
The Apostle Paul noted in Romans 5:7-8 that "...one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." That demonstration of love is certainly understood in what Christ uttered while on the cross.
The Seven Last Words of Christ worship service will begin at First Presbyterian Church at 315 West Texas Avenue (US 80) at 6:00 PM. The public is invited. On that day some two-thousand years ago morning broke and a new day dawned - a day of incredible hope was here.
On Good Friday, April 10, 2009 at 6:00 PM Pastor Ed Bowman invites Christians to come and hear again the seven last words of Christ reflecting upon what Jesus said while suffering on that Roman gibbet for the sins of His people.
"Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends." Jesus said and then he did just that, voluntarily dying in the place of his friends in all ages who would dare trust in Him by faith alone.
The Apostle Paul noted in Romans 5:7-8 that "...one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." That demonstration of love is certainly understood in what Christ uttered while on the cross.
The Seven Last Words of Christ worship service will begin at First Presbyterian Church at 315 West Texas Avenue (US 80) at 6:00 PM. The public is invited. On that day some two-thousand years ago morning broke and a new day dawned - a day of incredible hope was here.
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