tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59342183154646745872023-12-26T01:40:29.010-08:00The Scrupe BlogThis blog has MOVED to <a href="https:thescupreblog.wordpress.com">https://thescrupeblog.wordpress.com,</a> where we more easily continue to offer email subscriptions. See you there!Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.comBlogger157125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-21564446564995600062021-07-15T18:28:00.002-07:002021-07-15T18:28:56.521-07:00I apologize. But please subscribe to this blog AGAIN at https://thescrupeblog.wordpress.com<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV81ue_jN6FtGPoMypchjA23XvFLW9qhrX5HBK2yjkS6san_S5v55ac9WA3sG3teYvIXfmJeCZU3LBJrRodiq3y3Wsz5T-uyr_rnluwxKeKZv4AB9ZZwQsaRJUgOV9hIzUx7ShUiSLxm8/s400/1389900.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="396" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV81ue_jN6FtGPoMypchjA23XvFLW9qhrX5HBK2yjkS6san_S5v55ac9WA3sG3teYvIXfmJeCZU3LBJrRodiq3y3Wsz5T-uyr_rnluwxKeKZv4AB9ZZwQsaRJUgOV9hIzUx7ShUiSLxm8/s320/1389900.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> This SHOULD reach email subscribers since it seems that Feedburner has postponed its elimination of that service until August.<br /><br />The task of migrating my subscribers to the new site is proving impossible. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to sign up again to subscribe to The Scrupe Blog at the new site, <a href="https://thescrupeblog.wordpress.com">https://thescrupeblog.wordpress.com</a>.<br /><br />I apologize for this, but the technical stuff involved in the transfer is just beyond what I can do at this point.<br /><br />Thanks.<p></p>Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-54000706324501456072021-06-28T08:51:00.000-07:002021-06-28T08:51:01.706-07:00This blog is moving to thescrupeblog.wordpress.com on July 1<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ26T5uSRoKmcWGxJR9AyHiLoa5iuzFjPqpXyCPRkYlvILz_kEOuMkH1PVJ_sfslKtpIVp54RD5FxjqBPFLxoQ4wVKnoAKrEkk8HjNpP3-Dzo3fSldRjhKryakxZEk4ulwJfu23kcW-jQ/s741/clipart2702227.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="741" data-original-width="561" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ26T5uSRoKmcWGxJR9AyHiLoa5iuzFjPqpXyCPRkYlvILz_kEOuMkH1PVJ_sfslKtpIVp54RD5FxjqBPFLxoQ4wVKnoAKrEkk8HjNpP3-Dzo3fSldRjhKryakxZEk4ulwJfu23kcW-jQ/s320/clipart2702227.png" /></a></div><br />Since Google has decided to complicate matters by getting rid of the email subscription option through Feedburner, and since I'm more interested in providing content than messing with HTML and web stuff, I've decided that my best option is to move this blog to WordPress. As of July 1, the address of this blog will be <a href="http://thescrupeblog.wordpress.com">thescrupeblog.wordpress.com</a>.<br /><br />Basically, since most of the subscribers subscribe by email, this seems the best way to continue making that option available. I've downloaded the subscribers, and I <i>think</i> I'll be able to import the list to WordPress. But there's a learning curve over there. You may have to resubscribe there, but I'm doing all I can to make that unnecessary.<br /><br />I have to confess to having neglected this blog. I'll try to post more often in the future. But as of July 1, posts here will no longer be sent by email, so you might want to check periodically at <a href="http://thescrupeblog.wordpress">thescrupeblog.wordpress</a>.com to see how things are going.<br /><br />Sharing the Gospel here at the blog and in<a href="https://groups.google.com/g/the-scrupe-group"> The Scrupe Group </a>itself is an unspeakable privilege. My thanks to all of you who have been with me on the journey so far. See you in the Group and at <a href="http://thescrupeblog.wordpress.com">thescrupeblog.wordpress.com</a>.<br /><br />In the meantime, remember: <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%206%3A37&version=ESV">Jesus promises never to turn away anyone who comes to Him.</a> If you want forgiveness, you have it simply by trusting that promise.<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+8%3A31-39&version=ESV"> Nothing anyone who wants His forgiveness and salvation can say or think or do can separate us from Him</a>.<br /><br />You can't trust your thoughts or your feelings, or your emotions. <i>But you can always trust that Jesus will be faithful and that what He offers is never out of the reach of anyone who wants it.<br /></i><br /><br /><p></p>Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-53454415068675686692021-05-07T09:18:00.002-07:002021-05-07T09:18:47.809-07:00Just to make this simple...<p> No, there aren't any loopholes.<br /><br />It's just that simple.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj8DAgtnUVxZ21EylrAkqHiWpLvDBi1gbfo7swdO3T6iWDudIjhNxkQuluuTyuSkhKt5_xx4-L3s0j5gjmOQk-WROCOAd6p0oXBijDv-LxRiaRMSjYdLJr0ELlKL4VUk10A0pGGCDjDEU/s825/173553797_3945117152220723_8807530804445758617_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="825" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj8DAgtnUVxZ21EylrAkqHiWpLvDBi1gbfo7swdO3T6iWDudIjhNxkQuluuTyuSkhKt5_xx4-L3s0j5gjmOQk-WROCOAd6p0oXBijDv-LxRiaRMSjYdLJr0ELlKL4VUk10A0pGGCDjDEU/w400-h261/173553797_3945117152220723_8807530804445758617_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-40763230040066308812021-05-03T13:16:00.001-07:002021-05-03T13:16:37.885-07:00A question worth considering when plagued by doubts about one's salvation.<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy6hNw9g6LvSJbxtPtcBYaxzcdbGRV1w6rhtavPVPm_UM1kjozutaZgha1zZ6jVxc1yxcBuiyEuX8jVM1NbOaqRWRTmDeCmZQxGHqJ17ggFhLLV-6R2Gkq0iy7vK_EeD3dKhNUg0yc4tg/s1111/transparent-demon-16.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1111" data-original-width="1044" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy6hNw9g6LvSJbxtPtcBYaxzcdbGRV1w6rhtavPVPm_UM1kjozutaZgha1zZ6jVxc1yxcBuiyEuX8jVM1NbOaqRWRTmDeCmZQxGHqJ17ggFhLLV-6R2Gkq0iy7vK_EeD3dKhNUg0yc4tg/s320/transparent-demon-16.png" /></a></div><br />Whose agenda is served and whose methodology is based on getting you to doubt your own salvation?<br /><br />HINT: His name literally means "The Accuser."<br /><br /><p></p>Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-88895198287646958952021-04-15T19:58:00.002-07:002021-04-15T19:58:23.363-07:00This blog is moving<p> I</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKMG7Jd75wjUAqOhZXmpfMj1UAlOlovbabF5GkL5As_ml-NiXUI7opPBoGNLZ5uzpGxH52W346KFsLDXsLTJR-qzjvOlvg0QSXpPLHbng49hm_3Z2LFgiyVqh3NoeCnp4KfLd0lcjwYaA/s300/85528.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKMG7Jd75wjUAqOhZXmpfMj1UAlOlovbabF5GkL5As_ml-NiXUI7opPBoGNLZ5uzpGxH52W346KFsLDXsLTJR-qzjvOlvg0QSXpPLHbng49hm_3Z2LFgiyVqh3NoeCnp4KfLd0lcjwYaA/s0/85528.jpg" /></a></div><br />n view of Feedburner's decision no longer to offer the option of email options, this blog will be moving to WordPress in the near future. The site here at Blogspot will remain up as an archive and also direct readers to the new site.<br /><br />Further information will be coming shortly.<p></p>Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-46482423249890011732021-04-04T14:30:00.007-07:002021-04-04T15:27:02.721-07:00Guess what.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid7at5cRK-DAOTi-brezR9BiXt9Im6-Mcv4XJPLQAHU9872E_oIU7fGP2yadOuGlN5rUGwfRMZWxmUfC3CHkQLzLyrcQRst2sakQKa2cO0_fFqOyipA0mW6Xh8RetUmwwc-DUbwEsa6OI/s2048/ic-xc-nika.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid7at5cRK-DAOTi-brezR9BiXt9Im6-Mcv4XJPLQAHU9872E_oIU7fGP2yadOuGlN5rUGwfRMZWxmUfC3CHkQLzLyrcQRst2sakQKa2cO0_fFqOyipA0mW6Xh8RetUmwwc-DUbwEsa6OI/s320/ic-xc-nika.png" /></a></div><br />You know that fear that torments you? That obsession you can't get rid of? That guilt- actual or, just as likely for scrupers, imaginary- that gnaws at you in the night?<br /><br />It was part of what Jesus took to the cross with Him. He engaged there in life-and-death combat.<br /><br />Christ is risen. He <i>won. And that means that it lost. </i><br /><br /><i>He won.</i><br /><br /><i>You won.</i><br /><br /><i>And no struggle, no sin, no guilt-real or imagined- can ever separate you from Him if you simply hang on to Easter.</i><br /><br />He is hanging onto you- and He won't let you go.<br /><br />I've handled this dialog from both sides of the altar rail. I did it again this morning from the pew.<br /><b><br /> Congregation: </b><i>Almighty God, Merciful Father, I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess to you all the sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended you and justly deserved Your temporal and eternal punishment. But I am heartily sorry for them and sincerely repent of them, and I pray You of Your boundless mercy to be gracious and merciful to me, a poor, sinful being.
</i><br /><b><br /> Pastor: </b><i>Upon this your confession, I, a called and ordained servant of the Word, announce to you the grace of God, and in the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all of your sins, in the Name of the Father, and of + the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
<br /></i><br />Jesus said in so many words that those His Church has called to speak such words speak them with His authority. Those are powerful words the pastor speaks. Never in my life have I spoken words that brought me such joy or heard words that brought me such comfort. And they require nothing but an acknowledgment that one is a sinner, that one has a need that only God's mercy can fill.<br /><br />No details are needed. There is nothing left for you to do. There are no hoops to be jumped through. There is no paperwork, no final details, no last little bit that <i>you</i> have to do. Just the One Who said, "Let there be..." and brought the universe into being in the mere saying. <br /><i><br />And He says that you are forgiven</i>.
Who are you to argue with Him? And why in the world would you want to? Jesus conquered your sin, your guilt, and your fears when He rose from the grave. He says in your baptism that you are His. He says through His Gospel that everyone who brings their guilt to Him is forgiven, that everyone who brings their inadequacy to Him is made whole, and that everyone who brings their fear to Him is in His faithful care. <br /><br />And there's not a darned thing your sin, your broken brain, your OCD, death, or even Satan himself can do about it.<br /><i><br />Christ is risen! Alleluia! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!</i><br />
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></div><p></p>Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-8821309930283263242020-10-31T21:11:00.005-07:002021-03-09T22:46:39.453-08:00It doesn't depend on you. It depends on whether God tells the truth.<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcAbsoVnlI7h4KPkffB3HRCxp4AdPwx_Nq-rrCPNSzjy3kiq7tK2kG1z1HHrkEsF2P9hTWCGvVuQNfcgR_mjS7jRJ3LO5qVAhhO7vcMKpCb4BsI5WMJM7e2IItubMfbQYdPOYybbXhTLo/s599/pngegg.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="599" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcAbsoVnlI7h4KPkffB3HRCxp4AdPwx_Nq-rrCPNSzjy3kiq7tK2kG1z1HHrkEsF2P9hTWCGvVuQNfcgR_mjS7jRJ3LO5qVAhhO7vcMKpCb4BsI5WMJM7e2IItubMfbQYdPOYybbXhTLo/s320/pngegg.png" /></a></div>October 31 is Reformation Day, the anniversary of Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses to the Castle Church's door in Wittenburg.<br /><br />Luther was one of the many great Christians of history who suffered from scrupulosity. The answer he found- the answer Christians all over the world celebrate today- was that "the just shall live by faith;" that the Son of God became a human being to bear on His scourged back the burden of all our sins, all our guilt, and all our worries, and to reach out with nail-pierced hands to remove every obstacle that separates us from God.<br /><br />He or she who does nothing more than hang on to that reality and not let go even when every other support and comfort fails cannot ever be lost, no matter how far they have strayed or how great their guilt, and can never finally die.<br /><br />"Cast all your anxiety on him," the apostle tells us in 1 Peter 5:7, "because he cares for you." He says in Matthew 11:28, "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Repeatedly, and with no room for exceptions, Jesus tells us that every single person to trusts His promise to bear his or her sins will stand before the Throne on Judgment Day guiltless in the eyes of God. "Everyone the Father gives me will come to me," he says in John 6:37, "and the one who comes to me I will never cast out." <br /><p>"Indeed, it is by grace you have been saved, through faith," writes Paul in Ephesians 2, "—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared in advance so that we would walk in them." Even our lack of good deeds disappears when we let Jesus have it. He gives us his good deeds in return; in fact, he does them in us and through us.<br /><br />"Justification by grace through faith" is not salvation merely by knowledge of historical events. As Dr. Ian Osborn puts it, it's transferring responsibility for your sins and all the shortcomings of which you are afraid to Jesus in the confidence that he has already borne them on your behalf, and that they were crucified with him, and that he keeps his promises. And when Luther stopped trying to achieve the impossible and be good enough for God and simply laid hold on Christ's promise to bear his burdens and his sins and to take responsibility for them onto himself, he was free. He punned that on that day Luther became <i>Eleutharios</i>- Greek for "the Free Man."<br /><br />No matter what anybody tells you, it's not a one-time deal, and it isn't easy. It means re-claiming what Jesus promises you in your baptism every day you live and starting all over again to live a life of discipleship based not on fear but on love, not because you have to but because you get to. It's to give up trying to change your behavior one fault at a time and instead let God change your heart.</p><p>But day by day, as we give our sins to Jesus and receive the gift of His righteousness anew, Christ is formed within us. The Old Man dies; the New Man rises from the dead. And as long as we live by Christ's righteousness rather than by our own, and let him take responsibility for our sins and our worries...<br /><br />But wait! We don't do that, do we? We hang on to our sins and worry that we're not sorry enough or don't believe enough or in the right way. We are plunged again into despair by our failure. So we flee once again to the cross. What Jesus offers there doesn't even depend on the quality or degree of our faith. It only depends on the truthfulness of Christ's promise to receive and forgive and restore and heal everyone- without exception- who comes to him.<br /><br />But our failure no longer matters. Christ has succeeded on our behalf, and despite our weak and sputtering and actually rather pathetic and partial clinging to him, we are forgiven and restored completely. Even the smallest and weakest faith receives everything Christ has to give.<br /><br />Find the freedom Luther found. Lay your sins on Jesus and live before God by his righteousness. Don't rely on somehow coming up with righteousness of your own. You can't do it, and you don't need to. Jesus has already done it for you. <br /><br />Is that too good to be true? Well, if it's not true, God is a liar. He repeats ir all through the New Testament.</p><p>Nobody- and that includes you- who trusts that is true can ever be lost. The seas will evaporate, the mountains crumble, and the stars fall from heaven before that happens.</p><br /><br /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-CAKFR_4DDI" width="560"></iframe>Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-52873504006864442292020-10-21T19:43:00.005-07:002020-10-22T14:34:03.123-07:00Scrupe Group moving update<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihuUmvBOFZX9yjdw3AxWAbSUkdZHN2beGYwGe0NPqiypY0nfVM_AjSi2swj4KFP9Qopnt8s2EMR4xNPPc_CifXxyCAG1Xfuj2aIgMI4Le8I7T0gINFzY3ekwRAu_jCFg54p7xnnIZg3Xo/s1204/Moving+Clip+Art+23299.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="871" data-original-width="1204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihuUmvBOFZX9yjdw3AxWAbSUkdZHN2beGYwGe0NPqiypY0nfVM_AjSi2swj4KFP9Qopnt8s2EMR4xNPPc_CifXxyCAG1Xfuj2aIgMI4Le8I7T0gINFzY3ekwRAu_jCFg54p7xnnIZg3Xo/s320/Moving+Clip+Art+23299.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>As of December 15 and the closing of Yahoo Groups, the Scrupe Group will be moving to Google Groups.<br /><br />A Google account will be necessary to join, although it won't be necessary to use Gmail. If you would like to join, click on the picture at the top of the right-hand column on the page to let me know and I'll send you an invitation or add you manually.<br /><br />The move is quite a hassle, but I'm confident that things are going to work out and we'll be able to continue operation for this email support group for scrupulosity and religious OCD sufferers without any interruption.<br /><br />We'd be glad to have you join us!<p></p>Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-63752199371629560872020-10-13T00:36:00.004-07:002020-10-18T15:42:51.744-07:00The Scrupe Group has to move!<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsWPqbBKbfe96bBhCP5iSWmDy1pz2lt5RSD0T1zvN2Ct0-qwfeN1jhE0QzeY-NgBPRWSSlAz7YCrGGV_wDq_6zDDhatZ9ZDuu6GshOexVXfxUxX4w4NwPnF5kRF1fUprVvRRR8u2rvI8o/s320/353109.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsWPqbBKbfe96bBhCP5iSWmDy1pz2lt5RSD0T1zvN2Ct0-qwfeN1jhE0QzeY-NgBPRWSSlAz7YCrGGV_wDq_6zDDhatZ9ZDuu6GshOexVXfxUxX4w4NwPnF5kRF1fUprVvRRR8u2rvI8o/s0/353109.png" /></a></div>I just got word that Yahoo Groups is closing down completely on December 15!<br /><b><i><br />The Scrupe Group will continue operation</i></b>, but we will have to move. We've been at Yahoo for twenty years. Before that, we were at Delphi Forums and had our own message board for a while. We're still in the process of polling group members and deciding what to do next, where we'll be located, and even what form we'll take. Google Groups and Facebook Groups are two options; going back to Delphi or setting up a forum or listserv on another service are also possible alternatives.<br /><br />This blog will remain here for now. Once again, I want to emphasize that the Group <i><b>will </b></i>continue- somewhere. I'll post updates on this blog as things progress.<br /><br />I utterly despise the prospect of losing members and becoming hard for old friends to find, but there's nothing we can do about that but pray and make the best decisions we can. Your prayers, too, are solicited. God will get us through this. And God willing, we<i><b> will </b></i>continue to strive to bring the Gospel to Christians and others plagued with OCD and other forms of scrupulosity.<br /><br />Properly distinguishing between Law and Gospel remains the key to applying God's Word to our lives and understanding His will and character. He will not let us down at this time of transition.<p></p>Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-49021922325599956242020-10-09T13:07:00.005-07:002020-10-24T15:26:23.727-07:00Being shuved in the right direction<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLEvtKcXhG_bfOZ4bXQeh2JXSBKMYeFvFAvXCu39JWDw29hCFNJNeeDKG6DUT9tGAprSbhcQ6n8DOj__4qUWz0g7SIhMJ6_SgK0Ox8tNAamOjYbAV7ktkUT1dUz-vDJQcJ5VF6sPcQjRU/s1024/204091.gif" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1023" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLEvtKcXhG_bfOZ4bXQeh2JXSBKMYeFvFAvXCu39JWDw29hCFNJNeeDKG6DUT9tGAprSbhcQ6n8DOj__4qUWz0g7SIhMJ6_SgK0Ox8tNAamOjYbAV7ktkUT1dUz-vDJQcJ5VF6sPcQjRU/s320/204091.gif" /></a></div>One of our members came across a webpage that encouraged people to worry about their motivation in repenting and suggested that only <i>contrition</i> (sorrow over having offended God motivated by love of Him) and not <i>attrition </i>(regret motivated by fear of punishment) is "good enough." <div><br /></div><div><i>Ach!</i> Where do I begin?! </div><div><br /></div><div> For one thing, that position makes a disastrously false assumption about the role of repentance that completely destroys the Gospel. Unfortunately, I suspect that it's one which most American and Canadian and British and ANZAC Christians share: the notion that we somehow <i>merit</i> God's forgiveness by repenting (and of course, by doing it "<i>right!</i>"). Somehow, it never seems to dawn on people that to see it that way makes repentance a good work that justifies us! </div><div><br /></div><div> Below is a video of a talk on repentance by Pastor John Drosendahl at a youth conference. I've posted it before; you might or might not have seen it. He does such an excellent job of explaining the role of repentance, and what it is, and how it happens, that I thought I'd share it again.
As Pastor Drosendahl explains, the Hebrew word for repentance- <i>shuve</i>- means simply either "turn" or "return." The Greek word- <i>metanoia</i>- means "to change one's mind." To <i>repent</i> is to turn from sin and return to God. It is to change one's mind about sin. Or actually- since Scripture is absolutely clear that repentance and faith are gifts, worked within hearts which otherwise would want nothing to do with God by the Holy Spirit- it would probably, as Pastor Drosendahl explains, be better to say that rather than repenting we <i>are repented.</i> As <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ephesians+2%3A10&version=EHV">Ephesians 2:10 </a>tells us, even our good works are gifts of God's grace, things He does in us.
We are turned. Our minds are changed. <br /><br />But it's not repentance that saves us, except in the sense that part of repentance is faith- <i>another gift</i>. The <i>turning</i> is not what saves us. <i>What saves us is the One to Whom we are turned</i>.
There is simply no biblical basis for the notion that one's<i> motive</i> for turning from sin to Christ is an issue. <i>What matters is that we are turned to Him.</i>
<br /><br /> Don't fall into the trap of worrying about how sorry you are, or whether you're sorry for the right reason. <i>What matters is the One to Whom you turn.</i> You are not saved by the good work of turning, or of changing your mind. You are saved by Jesus- <i><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ephesians+2%3A8-9&version=EHV">by grace alone, through the gift of faith alone.</a></i></div><div><br /></div><div> Here's Pastor Drosendahl's talk:<br /><br /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bOmIAotSVJE" width="560"></iframe><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-9131084681544594792020-06-12T01:53:00.009-07:002020-12-02T04:22:07.395-08:00On being a blue seahorse<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I'm really into history. My dad- also a history buff- got me a series of biographies and books on history written for kids when I was still in grade school, and I was hooked. John Paul Jones, the Battle of Gettysburg, Queen Elizabeth I, George Washington Carver, the Battle of Britain, Ben Franklin, Ethan Allen, Toussaint Louverture, Osceola, and other historical events and figures were all my childhood companions.<br />
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I attended fifth through eighth grades at a Lutheran parochial school where two grades shared a classroom and a teacher. Half the time, our grade was being taught; half the time, it was the other grade's turn, and we were supposed to be studying. My life could have been so much easier and my grades so much better if I'd spent that time doing my homework. But instead, I spent it reading ahead in my American and Church History textbooks, for pleasure.<br />
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Flags and coats of arms play a major role in history, and also in fiction. I'm a major fan of George R.R. Martin's <i>A Song of Ice and Fire</i>, <i>(aka Game of Thrones</i> in its TV version) and the <i>Dune </i>series of science fiction books, set in a Galactic Empire far in the future. Just as is the case for nations today and in actual European history for families and nations alike, each of the Great Houses of Westeros in <i>ASOIAF</i> and of the <i>Landsraad </i>in the <i>Dune</i> universe<i> </i>had heraldic coats of arms and sigils and emblems to represent them. House Stark had the wolf; House Lannister, the lion; House Targaryan, the dragon; House Baratheon, the stag; House Atreides, the hawk; House Corino, another lion; and House Harkonen, the griffin. Individuals often had sigils, too-personal emblems used to symbolize themselves by identifying them with characteristics of an animal or object and often placed on their belongings as a mark of ownership. In<i> ASOF,</i> Littlefinger has the mockingbird; in history, Richard III had the white boar, and Queen Katherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII, for some reason had the pomegranate as her sigil.<br />
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Sometimes, in moments of idle fantasy, I've thought about what I would use as a sigil if I were one of them. I suppose that I could use a "canting" (punning) sigil, like a bobcat or drops of water. But what if I decided to go deeper, and chose a sigil that described more than my name? I've thought of ravens, talkative birds that are easily distracted by shiny objects. Unfortunately, though, they also symbolize wisdom, so I can't very well use a raven! Pegasus, the winged horse, is a heraldic symbol for poetic inspiration (I dabble in poetry), an active mind (<i>overactive</i>, in my case), and even for a messenger of God. As a kid, I even thought of the planet Saturn, which held a special fascination for me for some reason and spoke to my love of astronomy and science fiction as my "sigil. "But I think I've found a more fitting one than any of them.<br />
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In heraldry, blue is the color of truth, and also of loyalty and faith. And there's a creature whose habits speak to what I've learned about dealing with the troubles and trials and worries of life which are often more than we can handle and can be overwhelming. One of my greatest faults is my tendency to worry- and, well, we all know what the "O" in "OCD" stands for, and it isn't "oranges!"<br />
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Seahorses are strange critters. Well, so am I.<br />
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They're the only species I know of in which it's the <i>father</i> who gives birth! At an early point in gestation, the mother transfers the babies to the father's belly. He's the one who carries them around as they develop. He's the one with the big belly. I have a big belly myself. I can identify.<br />
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Seahorses aren't very good swimmers. They have tiny fins, and they do the best they can with them. But to a great extent, they're at the mercy of the ocean currents and pretty much go where events take them. We human beings like to flatter ourselves about being in control and about getting where we want to go by the force of will. Well, sometimes willpower helps. We all admire strong-willed people and people who accomplish great things against great odds by determination and effort. But as reluctant as we are to admit it, we have far less control over our lives than we'd like, and certainly, less than we'd like to admit even to ourselves. We're all born with talents and abilities (and weaknesses and disabilities) over which we have no control and concerning which we don't get a vote. <br />
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As Christians, of course, we believe that while the bad things aren't God's idea and that He's not particularly happy about them, He permits them and even uses them for His purposes in assigning us our vocations and bringing us to where He wants us to be. After all, we're here to serve the purposes He intended our lives to serve from all eternity. He does us the honor of using our sufferings the way He used His own, even if we don't always see how: to heal that world. He gives the world the people we become because of our sufferings as well as because of our gifts and talents just as He gave the world Himself and the healing that flows to it from His wounds. <br />
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Our weaknesses as much as our strengths define us and guide us along certain paths rather than others. The sorrows and losses in life do the same, just as the joys and successes do. We believe that even an ill wind that blows us in a direction we'd rather not go, a contrary current which carries us away from the goal we'd like to reach, is finally under His control, and in the end can only carry us where He intended from the beginning that we should end up.<br />
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But that makes life a difficult path to walk. It's hard to deal with the fact that the direction of our lives in general and even the events of a single day are far less under <i>our own </i>control than we wish, and often go where we don't want them to. Despite our faith that somehow the currents of life's ocean serve God's purposes even when they flow in what seem to be ugly directions He, no less than we, would prefer ideally hat they<i> not</i> go, we're still at their mercy. <br />
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And sometimes it's not just hostile, perverse currents. Some storms and hurricanes and tsunamis come. The entire framework of our lives can collapse in an instant. A parent can be killed by a drunk driver. We can be the victim of a violent crime. A spouse or even a child can be diagnosed with terminal cancer. A pandemic from the other side of the world can suddenly strike and turn the lives of all humanity upside down. A single incident in a remote country can plunge the world into war. Or a financial disaster hits the nation, as the worst in our history suddenly hit during my parents' lifetimes. Or as now probably the second and third-worst financial crises in our history have hit only about a decade- with a pandemic on top of them! <br /><br /><i>Why?</i> Where is God in all of this? Why doesn't He <i>do something? </i>Well, He does! He does <i>everything, </i>in fact. And He comes to our rescue exactly in the place where we need Him: <i>in the midst of our very suffering.</i><br />
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Martin Luther is supposed to have once been confronted by a parishioner who demanded to know why God permits evil, and especially why He permits the innocent to suffer. Supposedly Luther replied, that he didn't know, but that he knew where to find Someone Who did: <i>hanging on a cross.</i><br />
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That doesn't give us the <i>why.</i> But the way these things work tells us a great deal about God, We can take comfort in what God tells us about Himself, and from what God's nature and our experience with Him tell us. But He doesn't answer our questions. If only He <i>did!</i> If only we knew! But when our lives are thrown into chaos by typhoons of tragedy, what we do know helps us no more than the strength we try to summon up within ourselves, only to find that the hurricane is stronger than we are. At such times, the book of the Bible which seems to speak to our lives most loudly may no longer be John or Romans, but Job.<br />
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Honest, God-fearing Job wanted to know <i>why</i> his life had suddenly had been torn apart. It would be OK, he said, if he only knew <i>why. </i>Instead of telling him why, at the end of the story, God gives a four chapter-long tongue-lashing for his presumption in <i>even asking the question</i>, and forgetting that it's for Job to answer to God, and not the other way around. <br /><br />Job repents. <br />
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But God's most devastating rebuke is reserved for Job's friends, who had presumed to try to answer Job's question themselves! The Lord tells Job's friends to ask Job to pray that they might be forgiven. Job might have overstepped his bounds in thinking that God owed him an explanation. But at least he had known what one could call "the way of the seahorse." A seahorse- a <i>blue</i> one- might have been Job's sigil, if he'd had one.<br />
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Seahorses are soft, vulnerable creatures for whom a lifestyle of being carried to and fro by currents and sometimes dashed against rocks and coral can be dangerous. That's why God has given them a hard skeleton on the<i> outside</i> of their bodies, to protect them from all the collisions and bruising and buffeting.<br />
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But He's also given them something more. Seahorses, of course, have no hands. <i>But they do have strong, very flexible prehensile tails.</i> When a storm or hurricane comes and the ocean currents become too rough for the seahorse to handle he doesn't waste any time. He finds the nearest outgrowth of coral or conveniently-shaped rock or the thick stalk of a sturdy sea plant, wraps his tail tightly around it, and<i> holds on for dear life.</i><br />
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He simply hangs on and rides out the storm. I don't imagine it's a pleasant experience. But when the storm passes and the ocean becomes calm again, many larger, tougher sea critters and far more accomplished swimmers are dead. But more often than not, <i>the seahorse survives.</i><br />
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I think he was quoting someone else- I've done a Google search without success for the original source- but my seminary advisor and mentor, the late Dr. Ralph Quere, was fond of defining faith as "grasping the hand that has grasped us." Unlike the seahorse, we don't choose our Refuge; He tells us that in so many words: "You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you." That's why the color of a heraldic seahorse mustn't be white or silver for peace or sincerity, and certainly not for innocence or holiness. That would be to miss the whole point. Our safety is in no property or power of our own any more than the safety of the seahorse depends on his ability as a swimmer or the power of his will. No, it needs to be <i>blue</i>, for the faith by which we, who have been grasped by the hand of Jesus, hold on to Him and to the goodness and love of God for dear life, especially when the storms come. <br />
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God provides even our faith, of course. But the seahorse also needs to be blue because blue is the color of <i>the truth.</i> We grasp the Rock of Ages because It has first grasped us- but also because it is <i>real. </i>Our safety is in the<i> Rock</i>, and not in ourselves. And it would be just as real and just as sturdy even if we <i>didn't </i>hang onto it. It just wouldn't do us any good that it is so real and so strong and so sturdy. It is, as the theologians say, <i>extra nos</i>- "outside of ourselves." We often forget that.<br />
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When I was a child, every year one of the TV networks would broadcast the musical <i>Peter Pan</i> starring Mary Martin. There's a scene in which Peter's fairy friend, Tinkerbelle, saves his life by drinking poison intended for him. As she lays dying, she tells Peter that she thinks she could get well if children only believed in fairies. So every year, Mary Martin would, as the expression goes, "break the fourth wall." She'd turn to the camera and beg all the children in the audience to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6IKaLF4Fqc">save Tink's life by believing in fairies just as hard as they could and clapping their hands so that Tink could hear them.</a><br />
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Every year, every child in America would clap and believe in fairies just as hard as he or she could. And every year, Tinkerbelle would get better. Mary Martin would turn to the camera, tears of gratitude in her eyes, and thank all the children in the audience for saving Tink, and then "he" and Tinkerbelle would go off to save Wendy and the Lost Boys from Captain Hook and the pirates.<br />
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Every child of my generation passed a major milestone in our growth to adulthood the year we realized that Tinkerbelle would get better whether we clapped and believed in fairies or not. But until then, it was a truly magical moment. I just discovered that even at 70, I still tear up when I watch that scene.<br />
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Entirely too many people think of faith and how it connects us to God like that. They think that our status as children of God and His love for us depends on our clapping our hands and believing in Jesus just as hard as we can. It's a subtle but very destructive form of works-righteousness. It really turns faith from trust in something outside of ourselves into a good work or emotion which we are called upon to manufacture, and thus really save ourselves.<br />
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In a crisis, that sort of "faith" inevitably fails us, and we are ripped away by the currents, our hearts and our hopes bashed upon the rocks and torn apart by the fury of the storm. Faith is not "believing as hard as we can" to make Jesus or our salvation real. It's not magic. And neither God nor His love for us nor Christ's death and resurrection nor our salvation are created or somehow save us<i> because</i> of our faith. They save us<i> through</i> our faith, just like the tail of a seahorse saves it by hanging on to dear life to something<i> other </i>and <i>outside of</i> itself.<br />
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The merits of Jesus and the love and mercy of God- the things we cling to in our own storms- don't save us because we somehow<i> make</i> them true. They are not elusive things that pop in and out of existence because we trust them. They are solid. They are rocks. They are colonies of coral They save us because they are real and strong and immovable in themselves. <i>They save us because they are true whether or not we clap, and whether or not we believe in fairies. <br /></i><br />The Lord's Supper can help us wrap our metaphorical "tails" around Jesus and hang on for dear life. We have a Communion hymn in my church that contains this verse:<blockquote>Yet is God here?<br />Oh, yes! By word and promise clear<br />In mouth and soul,<br />He makes us whole;<br />Christ truly present in this meal!<br />Oh, taste and see,<br />The Lord is real!</blockquote><br />And that is what makes God's faithfulness and love things we can count on. They can never be made unreal even by our unbelief, even if we were to refuse to cling to them and a result are swept away. In themselves they remain are as real and as strong and as immovable whether we believe them or not, and whether we cling to them or not. And we have an advantage over the seahorse:<i> the Rock we cling to provides the strength it takes to do the clinging when we don't have it ourselves. In fact, the Rock clings right back, and no storm or hurricane can tear anyone who clings to it from its grasp.</i><br />
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Coral can break. Rocks can be toppled. Even the strongest of aquatic plants can be uprooted. But God's love, God's faithfulness, God's truthfulness, and God's Son remain strong and immovable no matter what. That is why by clinging to them and hanging on for dear life, we are brought safely through even the worst storms the devil, the world, and even our own fallen natures can ever throw at us.<br />
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As Job put it, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job+13%3A15&version=ESV">"Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him."</a> When all is said and done, it's not about what we know or do. It's about hanging on for dear life to the One Who does know, and Who can do all things- and Whom we trust enough to say, "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."</div>
Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-54369259617238588852020-05-26T09:09:00.000-07:002020-05-26T09:17:36.422-07:00The only way to fail is to quit<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I've always loved football. In my junior year in high school, I decided to go out for the team.<br />
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I was like that character in <i>Necessary Roughness </i>who was an absolute klutz and who should have been dropped, but who the coach couldn't bring himself to cut because he wouldn't give up. I knew that I was never going to suit up for a game. But I kept coming to practices and going through the workouts anyway. It was tough, but there was a payoff: I had something to prove to myself. I might not ever play, but I was not going to quit.<br />
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One Saturday afternoon, as I stood there on the sidelines, something happened that I still often think about. Our offense had stalled at about the other team's twenty. With forth and long, the coach decided to do something you rarely do in high school football: kick a field goal.<br />
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The kick was blocked. The ball never crossed the line of scrimmage. The officials all gathered around, staring at it lying there on the ground, ignored by everybody else. Apparently, I was the only one on either team who knew that<i> a blocked place kick that never crossed the line of scrimmage was a free ball!</i> Anybody from either team could have picked it up and run with it!<br />
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If I had been on the field- klutz or not- that would have been my once chance to be a hero. My lack of ability wouldn't have mattered. Everybody on both teams was standing around looking at each other as if the ball were dead. Nobody noticed that the whistle had never blown! Ever since I've had fantasies of nonchalantly strolling over to the ball, picking it up, and quietly walking into the end zone. I can imagine the look in the eyes of my teammates, wondering what I thought I was doing. And then, the official walking behind me every step of the way shocking everybody on the field and in the stands by raising both of his arms over his head to signal a touchdown!<br />
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Alas, it was not to be. I was on the sidelines, not on the field. <i>Should I say something?</i> No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than I realized that the other team had ears, too. What if one of <i>them</i> heard me, picked up the ball, and ran with it, with everybody on our team standing around and assuming that the play was over? Finally, since nobody was making a move to pick the ball up, the officials shrugged and finally blew the ball dead. The moment passed. But ever since, I've replayed that moment in my head, imagining that I had been on the field and been able to be a hero.<br />
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I didn't even go out for the team my senior year. I had learned my lesson. As much as I loved football, I just wasn't any good at it. Besides, I had proved what I needed to prove to myself by not quitting.<br />
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I still love football. I play fantasy football every year and cheer for my Bears in the NFL. And like most football fans- even the old-timers like me- sometimes I imagine what it would be like to be out there on the field, dressed in navy blue, burnt orange and white, making like Walter Payton.<br />
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If you are a football fan, you've probably had the same silly thought. Of course, we couldn't handle the physical rigors of playing in the NFL. I doubt that most of us could handle being tackled even once. But what if the rules changed, just for you?<br />
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What if you had an invisible force field around you so that while you would get pummeled and shaken up when you were tackled, you would always be able to shake it off? <br />
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<i>And what if the whistle never blew?</i> What if, when you were tackled, the other team had to let you get up, give you a five-yard head start, <i>and keep running as if nothing had happened?</i> What if, as long as you kept getting up, <i>there was no way that the other team could prevent you from running the length of the field on every play?</i><br />
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That's sort of what being a Christian is like. People get roughed up quite a bit in life, and Christians most of all It can hurt. We're constantly trying to escape the clutches of "the Unholy Trinity-" the devil, the world, and our own fallen nature. People who suffer from scrupulosity even imagine that they've failed when they really haven't! Over and over, we come crashing down to the earth. We fail over and over again every day, far more often than we even know. We become discouraged. Sometimes we even want to give up.<br />
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But because Jesus has taken the punishment for our sins, there is none left for us. No matter how many times we fail, and how badly, the whistle doesn't blow. The play goes on. And they have to let you get up and keep running!<br />
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As St. Paul says in Romans 8, "There is... no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Yes, we fail. We fail over and over every day. But no failure is ever final because the penalty for our sin was nailed to the cross with Jesus. Of course, we regret our sins (although I never cease to be amazed at the number of Christians with scrupulosity who tell me in anguish that they<i> aren't</i> sorry for their sins, with tears running down their faces and absolutely no sense of the absurdity of the statement!). The very thought of letting Jesus down is painful to us. But as the apostle says in 2 Corinthians 7:10, there are two kinds of sorrow possible at such moments; "For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death."<br />
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We become discouraged, wallow in our misery, beat ourselves up, and despair of ever living a life that is pleasing to God. That is worldly grief, and it produces death.<br />
<br />
But we also have the option- always- to pick ourselves up, shake it off, and keep running. That's all we have to do; the whistle never blows. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, when you're tempted to sin, resist with all your might. But when, in your weakness, you fail- or, having scrupulosity,<i> imagine</i> that you've failed- shrug it off, tell yourself that it's of no importance, and keep running.<br />
<br />
As long as you do that, nothing in all creation can prevent you from reaching your goal, and your every sin will dissolve in the water of your baptism and the blood of your Savior.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://youtu.be/6Cz0GLuUC2U">It's like the hymn says:</a><br />
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Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-1380547188117304102020-05-13T03:43:00.000-07:002020-05-17T01:12:20.639-07:00So...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
You've given up trying to earn your salvation and obtain a righteousness of your own through good works. But God commands good works, doesn't He? So how does <i>that </i>work out?<br />
<br />
Like this.<br />
<br />
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Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-91881148569557760252020-05-09T20:23:00.003-07:002020-05-09T20:23:44.286-07:00This is the bottom line, people.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
You can't understand the Bible without understanding what the people in this video are talking about.<br />
<br />
You can't understand the Christian faith without understanding what the people in this video are talking about.<br />
<br />
You can't escape the quicksand of scrupulosity and religious OCD without understanding what the people in this video are talking about.<br />
<br />
Yeah, I know. It's a lot to get your head around. But the problem we face is that while we know all about the Law- we encounter it every day we live- the Gospel, as they say in the video- is strange to us. It's foreign to us. It's something we could never have imagined. It comes to us from outside of ourselves. It takes us by surprise.<br />
<br />
And the thing is...<i> it helps exactly because it is outside of us. </i>It takes us away from the futile job of trying to somehow<i> fix</i> ourselves. For the first time, it lets us be honest with ourselves and with God. And... SURPRISE! We find that by keeping our eyes off of ourselves, and on the One Who is outside of us, we are healed and made like Him.<br />
<br />
That's something that is never completed in this life. In fact, God, in His wisdom, hides our progress from us so that we don't fall back into the trap of looking into ourselves and trying to fix what's broken. Instead, the answer is always to keep our eyes not on the condition of our hearts, but on Him- <i>because it's then that He can fix us. </i>Only He can heal us. We cannot heal ourselves!<br />
<br />
Never in your life will you encounter anything as important for you to understand and to bear in mind than the distinction between Law and Gospel.<br />
<br />
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Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-48782207538509810882020-04-12T14:06:00.003-07:002020-05-07T16:38:26.432-07:00He is risen indeed!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
CHRIST IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED! ALLELUIA!<br />
<br />
That versicle and response are spoken all over the world on Easter morning. It conveys a truth so filled with wonder and joy and peace that it can't be fully expressed in human words. Yet in every Christian church, a sermon- and sometimes more than one sermon- is preached in an attempt to convey at least a crumb of their significance.
<br />
<br />
This hymn by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Gerhardt">Paul Gerhard</a> does a truly remarkable job of bringing home all that Easter means. As <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB7gPIIQT7Y">Pastor Hans Fiene points out</a> in one of his satirical YouTube videos in which Clint Eastwood contrasts its richness and meaningfulness with the superficial sentimentality of a great percentage of contemporary Christian lyrics (be sure you watch to the end; the best past comes<i> after</i> the credits), it's <i>substantially </i>is what sets it apart from most hymns, and especially the ones that are so popular in some circles.
<br />
<br />
As <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians+3%3A16&version=ESV">Colossians 3:16</a> does indeed make clear, we don't sing hymns primarily to express our emotions, much less to evoke them. We sing them to proclaim Christ- to each other, and also to ourselves. God certainly doesn't need our praises, but since we can't help praising Him, we might as well mention what we're praising Him <i>for, </i>and in the process be drawn closer to Him!<br />
<br />
Anyway, enough of my rant. Here's what we're praising God for on Easter.<br />
<br />
Here is a jab- far short of being adequate as all human words must be, but a better job than nearly all the others- at putting into words what Easter means. You may or may not like the music, which I personally find glorious. But the music isn't what hymns finally are about.<br />
<br />
Listen to the <i>words. </i>The words are the Gospel, and nothing less.<br />
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Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-74849837561972837462020-04-11T23:10:00.002-07:002020-05-07T15:48:45.211-07:00"Be not afraid!" A sermon for Easter Morning<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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"BE NOT AFRAID!"<br />
<i>And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. -Mark 16:8 ESV</i><br />
<br />
<br />
What a strange text we have this morning! Here the Marys and Salome had gone to the tomb, mourning for a dead Lord, and expecting to complete the sad task of embalming Him. Instead, they found the stone at the tomb’s entrance rolled away, and an angel sitting next to it, telling them that He was alive!<br />
<br />
“Go!” the angel said. “Tell His disciples. Tell Peter. He is not here. He is risen!” So did they go and do as they had been told? Nope. They didn't tell anybody. It's not that they were overcome with joy that Jesus wasn’t dead anymore. Our text tells us that it was because they were afraid.<br />
<br />
Understandable! We all know about fear. We live in a universe over which we have far less control than we'd like to think. Have you ever looked through a telescope? Astronomy is one of my hobbies, and I go stargazing as often as I can. Before you've looked out at the Big Empty much, it hits you like a truck that it's pretty big, and you're pretty small, and there's not much that you can do about what happens out there!<br />
<br />
An asteroid could blindside us at any moment, and kill us all. A nearby star could go nova, and flood us with lethal radiation. In the southern summer sky, in the teapot of Sagittarius, is the center of our galaxy, where there lives a big, hungry black hole. I once heard a lecture by Stephen Hawking in which he said that he was fairly confident that someday we'd all be going to go down that particular drain if we didn't blow ourselves up first.<br />
<br />
None of us is promised the next five minutes. A heart attack or stroke could kill any of us before I finish the next sentence. If I finish the next sentence!<br />
<br />
Climate change. Serial killers. Maniacs at the head of governments that have nuclear weapons. Terrorists. Outbreaks of disease. Sheer, seemingly random chance. We live in a world in which the roof could cave in on us, either literally or figuratively, at any moment. Yes, we can certainly identify with those women. All of us know what it's like to be afraid!<br />
<br />
And then, there was that angel business. Most of us usually think of angels as fluttery, effeminate critters like the ones we see on Christmas cards. People who read the Bible much usually don't make that mistake. Over and over in the Bible, the first thing an angel has to do when he appears to someone is to tell him or her not to be afraid!<br />
<br />
But I don't think even the angel was what had scared those women. I think they were probably more afraid of what the angel told them. He had said that Jesus- Whom they had loved so deeply and had known so well; Whom they had seen scourged within an inch of His life and then watched die an agonizing death on the cross, Whom they had buried with their own hands- was alive again! That they had Him back!<br />
<br />
It was simply too good to be true. The news was too joyful to be believed. Any of us who have ever lost a loved one can understand all too well why they would be terrified to believe the angel. If they believed the angel, and what he told them wasn't true, it would be like losing Him a second time.<br />
<br />
We gather here this Easter morning to celebrate the most joyful of all possible news. Christ has risen- and because He has risen, all of those things of which we might, with good cause, be afraid can no longer truly hurt us. If Christ has conquered even death, then surely He can handle a stray asteroid and thwart the plans of evil men and keep tabs on the workings of our inner plumbing. If Christ has conquered death, then surely He can handle whatever tomorrow might bring. If Christ has conquered death, then He has conquered sin, as well- and atoned for all the ugly things of which our consciences are afraid, including the ones we dare not admit to otherwise. If Christ has conquered death, then the loved ones we have buried who have died in Him are not lost to us forever after all, any more than Jesus was lost to the Marys or Salome.<br />
<br />
If Christ has conquered death, then we don’t even have to be afraid to die.<br />
<br />
It’s all a great deal to take in, isn’t it? We are here this morning because we profess faith in the news the angel told the Marys and Salome. But when we leave this building, we will once again find ourselves living in a world of uncertainty and threatening possibilities that are beyond our control. We will still miss the loved ones with whom we have celebrated previous Easters. We will still face a future full of dangers and threats, many beyond our control.<br />
<br />
It's not just that we don't know what tomorrow may hold. We do not know what we may have to face before nightfall! We do not even know whether we will be alive to see this day end. And what if it isn’t true? Do we dare to believe the words the angel brought to the women at the Empty Tomb? We haven’t seen the angel. We haven’t seen the Empty Tomb. Dare we take the risk? Isn’t the news we’re here this morning because we have heard just a little too good to be true? No. Isn’t it a lot too good to be true?<br />
<br />
Yes, the fear of those women is very understandable. It finds an echo in our fear. More and more people these days are so afraid that they decide that believing the angel is a risk they dare not take.<br />
<br />
Yet the voice of the angel rings down through the centuries, and one thing must be admitted: for some reason, after two thousand years people still gather one Sunday morning a year to hear those words themselves one more time. Endorsed by the testimony of God’s Holy Spirit, they echo all around the world this morning, not least in our hearts. They sound like a trumpet blast in defiance of every doubt and every fear, and say to each of us this morning what the angel said to the Marys and Salome on that Sunday morning long ago: “Do not be afraid! He is risen!”<br />
<br />
Saint Paul hit the nail on the head when he said that if Christ is not raised, our faith is in vain. If Christ is not raised, then those who believe the angel’s message are of all people the most miserable. If Christ is not raised, then we are building our lives and all our hopes upon a lie- and that is the cruelest thing of all. Make no mistake: we run a risk in believing the angel, the very same risk the Marys and Salome ran.<br />
<br />
The night before last we gathered, some of us, in this very church to hear a story whose ring of truth is unmistakable. We heard how the only Human Being in history Who deserved none of the cruelties this world can inflict nevertheless became their victim. The cross rings true for all of us because we can see it and feel it. We, too, know about the cruelty and unfairness of this world we live in. We, too, have suffered, and suffer still. The cross rings true because each of us also bears his or her cross, and must someday die just as Jesus died.<br />
<br />
The cross is a reality none of us can deny, as much as we might like to. In our moments of doubt and despair, we’re tempted to believe that it has the final word- that guilt and suffering and death and disappointment are finally all there is. We can choose to believe that, and not believe the angel. More and more people are making that choice these days. We can believe that those we have loved and lost to death are lost to us forever. We can believe that the sorrow and suffering of this sick and sorry world are all there is. We can believe that the greatest acts of heroism and self-sacrifice, the music of Bach and Mozart, the words of Lincoln and Shakespeare, and the paintings of Michelangelo and Van Gogh are all finally meaningless, no more than the buzzing of a fly, the ravings of a madman or the stain on our jacket when we accidentally brush against a freshly painted wall. We can believe that our entire existence is nothing but a very bad joke, whose punchline is the grave.<br />
<br />
We can believe that.<br />
<br />
Or we can believe the angel. And if the angel is right, then we never have to be afraid again.<br />
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May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto eternal life. Amen.</div>
Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-55582861360867093292020-04-10T15:25:00.001-07:002020-04-22T20:43:51.688-07:00For you<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>Isaiah 53 English Standard Version (ESV)</b><br />
<br />
Who has believed what he has heard from us?<br />
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?<br />
<br />
For he grew up before him like a young plant,<br />
and like a root out of dry ground;<br />
<br />
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,<br />
and no beauty that we should desire him.<br />
<br />
He was despised and rejected by men,<br />
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;<br />
and as one from whom men hide their faces<br />
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.<br />
<br />
Surely he has borne our griefs<br />
and carried our sorrows;<br />
yet we esteemed him stricken,<br />
smitten by God, and afflicted.<br />
<br />
But he was pierced for our transgressions;<br />
he was crushed for our iniquities;<br />
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,<br />
and with his wounds we are healed.<br />
<br />
All we like sheep have gone astray;<br />
we have turned—every one—to his own way;<br />
and the Lord has laid on him<br />
the iniquity of us all.<br />
<br />
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,<br />
yet he opened not his mouth;<br />
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,<br />
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,<br />
so he opened not his mouth.<br />
<br />
By oppression and judgment he was taken away;<br />
and as for his generation, who considered<br />
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,<br />
stricken for the transgression of my people?<br />
<br />
And they made his grave with the wicked<br />
and with a rich man in his death,<br />
although he had done no violence,<br />
and there was no deceit in his mouth.<br />
<br />
Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;<br />
he has put him to grief;<br />
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,<br />
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;<br />
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.<br />
<br />
Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;<br />
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,<br />
make many to be accounted righteous,<br />
and he shall bear their iniquities.<br />
<br />
Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,<br />
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,<br />
because he poured out his soul to death<br />
and was numbered with the transgressors;<br />
yet he bore the sin of many,<br />
and makes intercession for the transgressors.</div>
Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-85659690533007074942020-04-05T17:15:00.001-07:002021-03-21T11:49:03.372-07:00"A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief."<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Today is Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week. The most decisive week in human history begins on a high note. Jesus, at the peak of his popularity, fulfills an ancient prophecy by entering Jerusalem on a donkey.<br />
<br />
It was a humble entrance, to be sure. But soon it turned into a triumphal procession. The people of the Holy City were well-acquainted with the miracle-working Carpenter from Nazareth, and the word "Messiah" had been bandied about quite a bit. Everyone was aware of Jesus's royal ancestry, and surely defeating the Roman Empire would be child's play for Someone Whom the elements themselves and even death itself could not withstand. The population of Jerusalem was well-acquainted with the story of the Maccabees, the high priestly family who had led a rebellion that had ousted a haughty pagan conqueror centuries before. They thought history was about to repeat itself.<br />
<br />
<i>"Hosanna!,"</i> they cried. "Save-<i>now!</i>" And soon, from a Roman point of view, the cry grew even more ominous: "<i>Hosanna, Son of David!</i>" To all intents and purposes, they were calling out "God save the King!" They waved palm branches and strewed His path with them along with their own outer garments, a sign of submission and allegiance.<br />
<br />
Fast forward to Thursday night. That same Jesus, knowing what was about to happen, had gone with his inner circle of disciples to a lonely garden to pray. The disciples, at a distance, had fallen asleep. With all due respect to the hymn-writers and poets who tell us how Jesus faced the supreme crisis of His earthly life with dignity and calm, unwavering serenity, the Gospels tell a far different story. In an agony of anxiety and very human fear it was He, now, who cried out, in effect, "Hosanna," pleading with His Father to "Save-<i>now!"; </i> that if there be any other way- any divine "Plan B," as it were- He be spared the terrible things to come.<br />
<br />
We're tempted to turn our face from Jesus at that moment in embarrassment. We would not want to be contemplated reacting that way. If ever there was a private moment, this was it, and we instinctively want to give Him His privacy. There was, after all, a reason why his disciples were waiting for him "at a distance."<br />
<br />
But more than that, this is just not the way we want to think of our Lord and Savior. In <i>A Mighty Fortress</i> and a hundred other hymns, we sing of Him in the same way the people of Jerusalem had thought of Him on Palm Sunday- as a mighty and invincible Warrior, the general who leads us in victorious battle against our enemies. We don't like to think of Him kneeling there, saturated in perspiration, doubtless tears in His eyes, begging the Father to save Him from that which, as He would shortly say, was the entire purpose of His having even been born.<br />
<br />
We shouldn't. We should kneel there with Him in His fear and anxiety, but while at the same time remembering just Who He is. We should kneel there with Him in <i>our own </i>fear and anxiety- yes, and in our own shame, and our own guilt- and seeing Him, realize that <i>He is also kneeling there with us and sharing ours.</i><br />
<br />
He is as fully human as we. He got sick. He injured Himself. He knew all about rejection and the pain it brings. He came, after all, to suffer what we suffer, and to share it with us. Nobody ever knew heartbreak like Jesus. And despite being without sin Himself, in a matter of hours, He would take the thing of which we are most ashamed, along with all our other shame, off our shoulders and put them on His own.<br />
<br />
He came, not to be served, but to serve. He did not come to have crowds cry "Hosanna!' and strew his pathway with palm branches and their own clothing. He came to share our anxiety and our fear and our weakness and most of all our shame.<br />
<br />
No, don't look away, thinking to spare Him embarrassment. We might be tempted. As the prophet Isaiah wrote,<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
(H)e had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not (Isaiah 53: 2b-3).</blockquote>
<br />
But look at Him. Look at Him<i> now</i>, and in the hours to come, <i>in the very way He came among us so that we might look at Him: </i>sharing out fear, weeping our tears, bearing our sorrows, dying our death, and taking every bit of shame from us and placing it upon Himself.<br />
<br />
"Behold the Man!," as Pilate will say in a few days. And when life is too frightening and uncertain, and our pain seems unbearable, and our consciences torment us, and God seems not only far away but to be attacking us like an enemy we cannot withstand, come back to Gethsemene and see His utter terror. and the loneliness and hurt of friends who betray Him and flee from Him at the very moment He most needs their comfort and support. Go to Golgatha and see Him a naked, bleeding carcass hanging from a cross, surrounded by jeering enemies, and know that it is our shame that He bears.<br />
<br />
We are living through a particularly frightening and uncertain time this Holy Week. The SARS-CoV-2 virus is loose in the world, and the disease known as COVID-19 has us huddling at home, staying physically distant from other people. Many of us have lost our incomes, and in addition to the fear and anxiety, the pandemic is forcing us to live with we also face the uncertainty of a looming financial crisis whose severity and length are far from clear. For most of us, we have the companionship of our families or at least the human company the Internet and social media provide us with, as poor a substitute for real-life friendships and face-to-face contact as these may be. Internet and texting, as well as old-fashioned telephone calls, can still bring us into contact with one another with no risk of being infected by the virus or infecting others.<br />
<br />
But it's easy to feel alone. It's hard not to feel anxious and afraid. Sometimes tears come to our eyes, and whenever we have too much time on our hands our minds work overtime to bring old sins to our memory and our faults to the forefront of our consciousness. Death lies heavily in the air, and nothing can cause us to contemplate the things of which we are ashamed like the combination of uncertainty and the prospect of possible death.<br />
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So now is the time to see Jesus at His low point, because He came so that we might take comfort in them at our own low points. Are we afraid? Jesus, too, has known fear- and that makes it possible for Him to make our very fear a place where He can meet us, and share it, and help us through it. He has known anxiety, so our anxiety, too, can be a kind of "sacrament" that allows us to find Him precisely in His.<br />
<br />
Do we fear death? Jesus feared it, too- and <i>died</i> it. Even at the hour of death, we find Jesus waiting for us, having arrived before we did, so that by contemplating His death we may know how very far from being alone we are in our own.<br />
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And when one of the more ridiculous aspects of scrupulosity assails us, and we are tempted to the inherently prideful thought that we are a Special Case, a Super Sinner who is so bad that the promises of God in Christ don't apply to us and the warranty on our baptism has expired, or that despite the pains Jesus takes to make His promises so categorical that no reasonable doubt can exist that there is not a single human individual Whom Jesus will not welcome and embrace and forgive and heal if they are only willing, it is in the suffering and all-too-human Savior that we find modeled the humility and the realism to get over ourselves and understand that we are not special exceptions to the Gospel after all.<br />
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Make no mistake. Jesus is still the Victor, the Conqueror, the One Who treads Satan under His feet and brings to nothing everything we dread. He is the One to Whom we cry, "Hosanna- save, <i>now</i>!" But sometimes- and especially in times like these, we need to see Him consumed with anxiety, wracked with pain, bearing the shame we deserve and walking the path of sorrow and suffering and above all humility to Calvary. <br />
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Easter will come in its own due time. But maybe before we're ready to celebrate Easter, we need to be saturated in the realization that Christ the Victor is also Christ the Victim and let it firmly soak through our thick skulls and pride-encrusted hearts that the whole point of His going through the trouble of being incarnate of the Virgin Mary and living a human life and going through the pain and sorrow and hardship that comes along with all of that, and finally of His passion is precisely that we can't win our way to Him, and so He comes to us precisely in our fear and our weakness and, yes, our guilt and shame- and that it is in them that He chooses to meet us because it is there that we need Him.<br />
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Not in warm fuzzies or emotional highs. In the valleys. In our suffering. In our anxiety. In our guilt and our shame, and in our death. Do not despise times like these. Do not take your eyes from the Christ of Gethsemene and of Golgotha, even though there is nothing that seems attractive or winsome about dwelling on those things.<br />
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It is there that He meets us, and it is there that He sanctifies the places in our lives where we need Him the most by sharing them with us.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://getdrawings.com/palm-sunday-drawing">Palm Sunday Drawing</a>
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Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-24778288862155762202020-03-29T13:59:00.003-07:002020-10-01T02:34:35.820-07:00Executing a corpse<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In the historic One Year Lectionary, this Fifth Sunday of Lent gets its name,<i> Judica,</i> from the Psalm for the day, Psalm 42. There we find the words, in Latin, <i>" Judica me, Deus" </i>— "Judge me, O God."<br />
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All of us sinners fear judgment, whether or not we're willing to admit that we even <i>are</i> sinners. It's something built into our very nature. <br />
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Paul tells us in Romans that <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+2%3A12-15&version=ESV">the Law of God is written on the human heart.</a> It became blurred and unclear in our hearts through the Fall. But as one of my college theology teachers put it, "Everybody is afraid of lightning." There is something deep down inside us that knows that we are accountable, and realizes that there will be consequences for not measuring up. Lutheran theologians call this "the First Use of the Law." It's active even in the lives of unbelievers, restraining them from living lives of total recklessness and carelessness toward their neighbor and even toward a God in Whom they may not believe.<br />
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This, like everything God does, is good. But it's warped by sin. Sometimes sin takes the form of ignoring conscience and doing things we know are wrong, or even denying that they are wrong. That causes the Law as written in our hearts to further fade and take even believers further and further from God.<br />
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But the consequences of sin are not only what happens as a result of what we, as individuals, do or don't do. Sin infects the entire human race- and, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+8%3A19-23&version=ESV">as Paul also observes in Romans,</a> contaminates and warps all of creation. Sin- not any particular person's sin, and certainly not that of the victim, but the sin that infects the entire creation- is the reason for sickness and death. It's the reason why children get cancer and die. It's the reason why even believers are vulnerable to tragedy and suffering. It's the reason why tornados destroy cities. It's the reason for the COVID epidemic.<br />
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And it's the reason for OCD. It's also the reason why the natural and wholesome sense of accountability built into the human heart becomes distorted in we who suffer from it and becomes a pathological fear that ruins not only our relationship with God but lays waste to our lives.<br />
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We live, many of us, in continual and disproportionate fear of judgment. We know, intellectually, that we have a Savior in Jesus Who has atoned for our sins. But we cower in fear anyway, not from a lack of faith but because of a short-circuit in our brains.<br />
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We fear judgment- a judgment the Bible solemnly warns us again and again inevitably overtakes sin. And we know our sins all too well. In fact, we make sins up out of totally innocent things that God does not forbid because of that same short-circuit in our brains.<br />
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"For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ," Paul warns us, "so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil" (2 Corinthians 5:10 ESV). People often say, "Only God can judge me." That should terrify them! None of us can stand in the face of what we are due for our sins. We who suffer from scrupulosity know that all too well! God doesn't "grade on the curve." He won't judge us based on whether our lives have been better or worse than average. A single sin is enough to condemn us. Before anyone is ready to hear the Gospel, they must understand that.<br />
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That knowledge is terrifying. It crushes us. Good! It's supposed to! And it's not merely bad news for you and me. It's bad news- the worst news- for the entire, fallen human race. As Paul says in Romans 3:23, "(F)or all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."<br />
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<i>But it's not the last word.</i><br />
<br />
When the baptized appear before the judgment seat of God, we will not stand there alone. Beside us will stand Jesus. We will have, indeed, been summoned before the judgment seat of God to receive what we have coming to us. But the late Arthur Carl Piepkorn points out that the word "justification" has an interesting history in the English language, which some argue also is echoed in Paul.<br />
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Piepkorn observes that ancient texts from England speak of the person who has been "justified with the sword." In other words, the body of an executed criminal, minus the head! Guilty as he may have been, there is nothing more the Law can do to him. Justice has been satisfied. Case closed!<br />
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And so it is with us, God does not- <i>can not</i>- simply ignore our sin. He is holy. But His justice has been satisfied. The sentence has been carried out- <i>on Jesus.</i><br />
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He finds us guilty because we are. <i>But there is nothing the Law can do to us. </i>He has imputed our sins to Himself. God administered the sentence we deserved <i>by proxy on Himself. </i>We can no more be condemned for our sin than a beheaded corpse can be put to death!<br />
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Day after day, we reclaim our baptism when we repent and believe His promise of forgiveness. Our Old Self is put to death and buried with Christ. Our New Self rises with Him. But unfortunately, our fallen nature is, as someone has said, "a good swimmer!" The process has to be repeated over and over and over as we daily claim the promise of baptism.<br />
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My father's family comes from Northern Ireland, and I'm rather fond of the Ulster Cycle, the oldest surviving piece of literature in the English language. It tells of the legendary Golden Age of Ulaid (Ulster) under King Conchobar mac Nessa, which supposedly coincided with the life of Christ. It's largely concerned with the exploits of Ireland's greatest warrior and hero, Cuchulain, and the other members of Conchobar's famous order of warrior knights, the Red Branch.<br />
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But my personal favorite among the heroes of the Red Branch isn't Cuchulain. It's Lóegaire the Victorious, who is something of a comic figure. Lóegaire is the third mightiest warrior in Ulster. In fact, he's the third-best at almost <i>everything.</i> He was the Irish Rodney Dangerfield; he "couldn't get no respect." He excelled at everything he attempted, but there were always two others who were better than he was. No matter what he did, he came in a distant third and didn't even get the diminished glory of being the runner-up.<br />
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Even his death was both heroic and at the same time comic. The enemies of Ulster were attacking! Lóegaire was taking a nap. But awakened by the commotion and realizing what was happening, he grabbed his sword and rushed out to join the fight.<br />
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But Lóegaire was a very tall man as well as a very strong one, and so fierce was his charge out the door that he ran smack-dab into the door's beam and killed himself! But he was so full of fight that he kept on going, killing two hundred enemy soldiers before he realized that he was dead.<br />
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And before God's judgment seat, our Old Self- crucified and buried with Christ and daily put to death and buried all over again, will finally realize that<i> he</i> is dead. He will plague us no more. Jesus will interrupt the proceedings to say, "Father, this is a part of My body, the Church. This is one of My members. The sentence has already been carried out on <i>Me.</i> On ALL of Me!"<br />
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"You're right, My Son," the Father will say. "Next case!"<br />
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"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus," Paul tells us in Romans 8:1. The sentence for everything of which we are guilty has been carried out on Jesus- and that means on us, His members. We don't have to worry about being punished by God because there is no punishment left. Jesus has borne it in our place. God's justice has been satisfied, our Old Self is dead and buried with Christ- and even though we deserve death, you can't execute a corpse.<br />
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That doesn't mean that we won't continue to experience not only the normal and healthy sense of accountability everyone but psychopaths have, but unfortunately also those feelings of random and often inappropriate guilt that often come from that liar, OCD. But it does mean that there is no reason to listen to them. We can dismiss those feelings because God's justice has been satisfied. Judgment has been rendered, the sentence has been passed, and the sentence has already been carried out.<br />
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There is nothing more for us to be afraid of.<br />
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Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-25717022966376655392020-03-26T10:52:00.000-07:002020-04-29T20:48:38.176-07:00Is your Jesus a Shepherd, or a slave driver?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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There's no getting around the fact that scrupulosity involves issues of our trust for God. Those who are not well-informed sometimes see this as a spiritual failing. Of course, it's not; OCD is biologically based and made worse by the way we've been conditioned to react to things by our experiences, including the false alarms our limbic system set off we experience as OCD spikes. Scrupulosity can interfere profoundly with our spiritual lives, but it's important to remember that it's primarily a medical issue. The medical side of things always needs to be addressed.<br />
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But the fact remains that while the Gospel tells us that Jesus has borne all the punishment our sins deserve or ever will deserve, we still fear punishment. More realistically, we read that God disciplines those He loves, which He does. So we distrust God. We live our lives in servile fear as if God were going to "get" us for a misstep rather than lovingly use the most beneficial and usually mildest possible way to bring our attention to a spiritual problem.<br />
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<a href="https://ocdandchristianity.com/">Dr. Ian Osborn,</a> a Christian psychiatrist and author on the subject of OCD who also suffers from it, says that the answer is finally turning responsibility for our sins and their consequences to God. By that, he doesn't mean that we should "sin the more that grace may abound," or not care about sin, but rather that we should seek to live our lives in such a way as to please God out of gratitude and love and let God clean up the mess afterward. Theologically, he's talking about the Third Use of the Law rather than the First: living under the Gospel, living by God's promised, faithful and trustworthy forgiveness, living under grace rather than living lives of fear and coerced obedience under the Law. The Gospel actually motivates obedience, along with peace, joy, and the other fruits of the Spirit; the Law, on the other hand, kills. It drives us to despair, depression- and obsession.<br />
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He and <a href="https://jeffreymschwartz.com/">Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz,</a> another Christian psychiatrist and expert on OCD, recommend identifying an episode of OCD and firmly defining it as such as the first step in dealing with it. One way of doing that is by bearing in mind Dr. Schwartz's maxim that "if it feels like OCD, it is." Healthy concern about pleasing God with our lives feels nothing like the fear-filled oppressiveness of an OCD spike. We can use that familiar, fearful feeling as a warning to ignore what follows, and instead to follow the advice of the Word of God and our consciences. After all, by definition, our problem is that our emotions lie to us and get us to believe things which are not true, and live as if they were.<br />
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And bringing sin to our attention is the Holy Spirit's job, not ours. He can be trusted to do it. There is no need for rumination and introspection, which can actually interfere with our hearing His voice. Every time we experience a spike, we need to identify it for what it is, and then confront the fact that we have a choice to make. Will we believe what we're told by a known liar, our broken limbic system, or the most truthful One of all? Will we believe OCD's message of fear and distrust or the Word's assurance that Jesus has already borne all the punishment our sins deserve on our behalf, and that there is none left for us? Will we believe scrupulosity's vision of an angry, vengeful God Who is "out to get us," or the Gospel's blessed assurance that in God we have a kind and loving Father whose discipline is gentle, always administered in the way most beneficial for us, and never more painful than it has to be? Will we live our lives in dread of that gentle, loving correction, and in the process experience the far greater pain of a distorted spiritual life filled with fear and distrust and misunderstanding and the distortion of God's Word, or in the much more pleasant knowledge that when God's correction comes, it will be as gentle as he can make it and always turn out to be something for which we can be grateful?<br />
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Yeah, I know. Letting go and trusting in God's love is easier said than done! Not only our broken brains but our fallen natures struggle against it. Yet the repeated recognition that OCD is telling us a lie and misrepresenting God, coupled with the conscious decision to disbelieve it and believe the word of the Gospel instead, is the only way to defeat scrupulosity. It takes time. It takes effort. But it involves infinitely less pain than simply believing the lies our brains and bodies tell us and living fearfully under the Law.<br />
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Martin Luther said that whatever we fear, love, and trust the most is really our god. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua+24%3A14-15&version=ESV"> Joshua 24:14-15</a> tells us that when the Israelites crossed over into the land of Canaan, the land God had promised them, Joshua offered them a choice. They could serve the Lord, or they could serve some other god. "Choose this day whom you will serve," he told them. "But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."<br />
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The alternatives weren't pretty. The gods of Canaan were savage, petty, and spiteful. To serve them was to enter fearful slavery. There was very little of grace about Baal. Moloch demanded that his worshippers throw their first-born babies into a fire. But our God is the One Who had brought Israel out of bondage in Egypt and into freedom. He's the One Who became a Baby to suffer himself everything we deserved so that we could receive everything only He deserved as a free gift.<br />
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I am very far from suggesting that people who suffer from scrupulosity lack faith! And yet, just as is the case with every temptation (and every Christian fails to resist temptations many times every day), an OCD spike confronts us with the same choice with which Joshua confronted the children of Israel: which god will we follow? Will it be the God of grace and love who cancels our sins, washing them away with his own blood and the water of our baptism or the vengeful, capricious Baal which scrupulosity tells us is our lord? Which one, really,<i> is</i> God?<br />
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Will we believe Jesus or the Moloch of OCD? We will not always make the right choice. Both our broken brains and our broken natures are working against us. But every time we choose to believe that Jesus is telling us the truth and behaving with courage and trust in His love and His grace rather than with rumination and servile fear, old neural pathways are extinguished just a bit, and new pathways of peace and love and hope replace them. And at last we, like the children of Israel, will be led out of bondage and into the peace and joy and freedom the real God wants for us.<br />
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Let's pray: <i>Lord Jesus, forgive us for believing the false god of OCD rather than you. Forgive us for believing the lies it tells us about you. Give us grace to courageously believe that the God we worship is Who He says He is, and to trust rather than fear the gentle nudge of your Shepherd's staff, so that we may live in the peace and joy which you bought for us with your love and escape the lies of the deceiver and his ally, OCD. Amen.</i></div>
Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-77816223510547209502020-03-25T07:17:00.002-07:002020-04-29T20:53:14.604-07:00How to be filled with Jesus<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Luther wrote that two miracles happened on the day the Church remembers today: the virgin conceived, and the virgin believed. Of the two, he wrote, the second was by far the greater.<br />
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Faith is not a good work we give to God in place of all the other stuff we don't do. Scripture tells us that we're born dead in trespasses and sin. Not only do dead people not do good works, but dead people don't believe, either. It's only through God's life-giving Spirit, given through His Word preached, poured, eaten and drunk, that belief can happen. In Mary's case, the Word was spoken by Gabriel, God's messenger, God's <i>angelos</i>. It was not merely a miracle that she conceived by the Holy Spirit. It was a miracle that she believed as the result of the working of that same Holy Spirit.<br />
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Nobody can say "Jesus is Lord" except by the Holy Spirit. Nobody can come to Jesus unless the Father draws him. Faith is as much of a miracle- no, more of a miracle- than the Virgin Birth! It's not something we offer God, but something which He bestows, cultivates, and preserves within us employing the Word preached, read, poured, eaten, and drunk. It's not a feeling. It's not an achievement. It's being grasped by God and grasping back by His power, not on our own.<br />
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Trying to do God's work for Him and manufacture faith is in itself unbelief. Faith is saying, "Be it as the Lord wills," just as Mary does. It's letting God be God. It's an emptiness waiting for God to fill it. It is, as Peter Marshall said, our "Declaration of Dependence."<br />
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There is a Buddhist koan about a man who went to a wise old hermit and asked to be taught. He hermit offered him tea. He poured it into the man's cup. But even when the cup was filled, he continued pouring. Soon, they both were sitting in a puddle of tea!<br />
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Finally, the man politely pointed out that his cup was full and the hermit need not continue to pour. "Ah," the hermit said. "And that is your first lesson.<br />
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"To be filled, one must first be empty."<br />
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Faith is the emptiness we rely on God to fill. Just as Mary's womb was filled by God's Spirit, so, too, our hearts must be as we daily take our emptiness to the Word so that we might be filled.<br /><br />Ever wonder why we don't wait for babies to grow up before we baptize them? Well, now you know. There is no room here for decisions or commitments or spiritual achievements on our part. There is an emptiness there to be filled. It's not for nothing that while Jesus never said that little children needed to become like adults to enter the Kingdom, He did say that the rest of us need to become like little children.<br />
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What Scripture means when it speaks of being "filled with the Spirit" isn't some super-duper spiritual condition achieved by jumping through spiritual hoops. Rather, it's the exact opposite of all striving and achieving. It's confessing our emptiness, and relying on God to fill it.<br />
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Let's pray what I believe to be the most perfect of prayers: <i>Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. Amen.</i></div>
Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-54216507750916725322020-03-24T06:57:00.002-07:002020-10-21T19:20:10.955-07:00Jesus, Not Us<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Whether the cause is OCD, or depression, or some other biological cause, or whether it's simply our own sin, we worry. We have trouble in our lives. We worry. We find it all too easy to see everything that could go wrong. We worry.<br />
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We forget that God is in control. And a good thing for us, too; we wouldn't do a very good job of running even our own lives, much less the universe.<br />
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But then, that's our biggest worry, isn't it? Our own inadequacy. Our own insufficiency. Our own failure. Our own weakness. Our own sin.<br />
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Hint: If you wonder whether you're good enough, or honest enough, or holy enough, or anything else enough, you aren't. You can't be. If that's your focus, you're living under the Law, and that leads only to sin and sorrow and failure and death. But in Christ. God offers us another way: turn our shortcomings, our worries, our sins, and our weaknesses over to Jesus. He will drown them in our baptism. Our old, sinful, worried self will be drowned there and buried, and our new self will rise with Him, clothed not in our own sufficiency, but in His.<br />
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We want to be in charge. We want to live our own lives. But we mess it up. Not sometimes. Not even usually. <i>Always. </i>All of us. All the time.<br />
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<i>Macht nichts</i>, as my grandmother used to say. Repent of your obsession with being good enough. You never will be this side of the grave. But Jesus is.<br />
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Repent of your desire to do it all yourself. You can't do <i>any</i> of it yourself.<i> None</i> of us can. But the good news is that Jesus has done it all, and gives it all to you. He takes your shortcomings, your worries, your sins, and your weaknesses, And in exchange, we receive His completeness, assurance, holiness, and sufficiency.<br />
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There's a word for getting out of the way and doing that. It's called "faith." Even that isn't something we can summon up on our own or manufacture through our own effort and striving. It's a gift He gives through His Spirit, who comes to us only in His Word- whether heard, read, poured, or eaten and drunk.<br />
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We get in the way when we try to do God's job for Him. And there's no need. In Christ, and in His Word and Sacraments, God does everything we cannot.<br />
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Let's pray: <i>Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. I ask this through Jesus, through Whom our sin-stained prayers are always heard as if they came from His own sinless lips. Amen.</i><br />
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Don't seek the way of striving and accomplishing. Seek the way of the cross. It's the only way to what you're looking for. <br />
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It's either about what you, or what He does. It can't be both. Hint: It's the second one!</div>
Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-12912935418195963472019-06-13T14:32:00.001-07:002019-06-13T15:44:47.384-07:00The Hammer of God by Bo Giertz, Part One<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDUJeYGh_8E">The Hammer of God</a></i> by the late Swedish Lutheran Bishop Bo Giertz is not only one of the greatest works of Christian fiction ever written, but my personal favorite. My seminary advisor, the late Dr. Ralph Quere, used to read this book over every year. He had those of us in his advisee group read it, too. And I make it a point to re-read it as often as I can.<br />
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There is no better way I've found to keep it straight in my own mind what the Gospel is, and what it is not, and where the greatest pitfalls for a preacher truly lie.<br />
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I urge you to read it for yourself. But <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB3YeQRa_L4">this video</a> is a summary of the first part. I think you'll see why it's so great and so helpful- especially for a person who suffers from scrupulosity.<br />
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Here you'll have it plainly laid out what God has given the Church to preach, and what the heart and core of the Christian faith truly is. Anything else is a counterfeit.<br /><br />This is a summary of the first of the three stories.<br />
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Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-64827961573626462592019-05-13T09:24:00.003-07:002020-10-01T21:18:44.851-07:00God, grace, and doggie treats<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It's been a while since I've shared a video from Pastor George Borghardt of Higher Things, the confessional Lutheran youth ministry that does such a fine job. But this one is special. It makes a point American Christians and Western Christians generally don't seem to get, and with which Christians who struggle with OCD have particular problems.<br />
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First, it's special because Pr. Borghardt does such a great job of explaining something that's important for us to understand, but incredibly hard to keep straight: that <i>the Gospel is outside of us</i>. It doesn't call on us to <i>do</i> anything! It doesn't call upon you to <i>act </i>in order to make God gracious to you. It's the objective fact that God is going to be your gracious heavenly Father <i>in spite</i> of you- <i>because of what Jesus has done. </i>The Gospel is <b>not </b>an offer. It is a proclamation! It's an announcement of something that is true before you even know about it. And while it is there for us to trust and rely on, even our trust and reliance on the truth of the Gospel is God's doing in us. We can always say "no" to God. But if we say "yes" to Him, that's God's doing, and His alone.<br />
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Oh, it produces a response, all right. But it <i>produces</i> that response. It does not call upon <i>us t</i>o produce it- and that's a huge difference!<br />
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You cannot make God more "for" you than He already is in Christ! No amount of trying, no amount of striving, no amount of achieving or believing or humbling yourself or jumping through any hoop whatsoever is the answer to fear or doubt or unbelief. The answer is that God already has you covered even though you don't deserve it and haven't earned it- and cannot deserve or earn it! That's what makes it the Gospel!<br />
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If you had to do something- anything- to <i>make</i> it true, it would be Law. But Gospel is always something that is true no matter how you respond to it. The Gospel is true even for unbelievers. That they refuse to benefit from it doesn't make it any the less true!<br />
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An unintended bonus in this video is the dog. Pastor Borghardt is trying to concentrate on saying what he has to say while his dog sits there trying to score some doggie treats. Every once in awhile Pastor Borghardt puts one on the desk for the dog to eat- <i>but doesn't notice that it's out of the dog's reach</i>. So the dog tries and strains and struggles- and usually fails. At the end of the video, he finally reaches one. But throughout the video, the dog is trying and trying and trying to get that treat! It's a good model of the way we see our relationship with God- as a struggling to achieve, to make something true that isn't true.<br />
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But grace is the opposite of that. Grace is something which by definition never has to be striven for or achieved. It's something that is true already- <i>not because of what we do but because of Who God is in Christ. </i><br />
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There are no "ifs" in the Gospel. The Gospel is always an "is." And faith is never something we do <i>in order for something to happen.</i> Good grief- the unnecessary pain that people go through because well-intentioned preachers and fellow Christians tell them the falsehood that they somehow have to make themselves worthy before God will (or even- blasphemy of blasphemies- <i>can!</i>) be gracious to them!<br />
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It's the news that God has us covered even in our sin and failure and unbelief- that even these, and even the obstacles we encounter in our lives, are not things it's up to us to overcome but rather <i>things which God Himself uses to get us to where He wants to be.</i> And the Gospel is never a set of instructions. Instead, it's Good News- not about what God will do if we do a certain thing, but of what God will do <i>no matter what we do or don't do.</i><br />
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The Gospel, as Luther reminds us, is always outside of us. That's why the most Christian of all prayers, and the most believing, is always, "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!"<br />
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Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934218315464674587.post-17128647472554464332018-09-19T07:22:00.000-07:002020-07-28T11:29:14.267-07:00Avoiding mindlessness about mindfulness<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Any Christian who has an interest in mental health issues, let alone struggled with them, is aware of the problems caused by ill-informed teachers. All too often well-intentioned pastors and others sound off on subjects they know very little about- and do a great deal of damage.<br />
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I've mentioned Neil Anderson and the damage his approach to OCD can do. He has no concept of the biological basis of OCD, and as a result of this ignorance, his books often make the situation of Christians who are afflicted by it worse rather than better. "Christian counseling" generally needs to be approached with discernment. Because a person is a Christian doesn't mean that he or she has the proper credentials, experience, background, or knowledge to be of help. And sadly, it often does mean that a would-be helper discounts ordinary, unexciting and mundane things like defective brain wiring in favor of more "interesting" or "spiritual" explanations.<br />
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Of course one also needs to be aware of the background and presuppositions of teachers and therapists who do have those credentials. The presuppositions of many psychologists and schools of psychology are incompatible with the Christian faith. That should not lead us to reject psychology as such. Rather it calls for discernment, and for an informed examination of those presuppositions in light of Scripture. It would be hard, for example, to think of anything as compatible with biblical Christianity as the methods and assumptions of cognitive psychology, which is based on the idea that our thoughts not only reveal but define everything about us and that bringing our thoughts into conformity with the truth and correcting distorted thinking are the keys to living a reasonably happy and effective life. That doesn't mean that every practitioner of cognitive psychology is spiritually sound. But if he or she is not, cognitive psychology is not the reason!<br />
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One tool which has received quite a bit of attention in our culture- and quite a bit of badly-informed push-back from Christians- is <i>mindfulness. </i>This is a practice, it's true, which originates in Buddhism, and Buddhism indeed sees the annihilation of desire and consciousness as (excuse the expression) <i>desirable</i>. Obviously, Christianity doesn't agree. Biblically, it isn't that we have desires at all, but that we have a corrupted heart from which <i>wrong</i> desires flow that is the problem. <br /><br />Dealing with mindfulness and meditation and similar practices, therefore, calls for caution and discernment. Those committed to New Age practices or to Buddhist philosophy are not safe navigators in such waters.<br />
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But mindfulness can be the exact <i>opposite</i> of the annihilating our consciousness! This is a paradox which many Christians miss. The idea is to clear the mind not of rationality but of the clutter which prevents us from giving full attention to the moment- and to filter out distractions and, yes, temptations which may confuse us. As it happens, Buddhism argues that when is washing dishes, for example, one should pay attention to the dishes, to the dishrag, to the water, to the temperature of the water, and not to whether one needs to pick up some milk at the store this afternoon or can wait until tomorrow, or whether we can afford that new car this year or had better wait until next year, or on the argument we had yesterday with our spouse.<br /><br />We worry. We fret. We obsess. But none of that achieves a thing- other than preventing us from devoting our complete attention to the task at hand. And if we cultivate the habit of doing one thing at a time, we will discover that far from being a realm of randomness and chaos, our minds will become ordered and disciplined and <i>on-task. </i>And as an extra bonus, <i>we won't be worrying, or fretting, or obsessing!</i><br />
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We always have all sorts of nonsense running through our minds at the same time and we are barely aware of most of it. Contrary to what HR offices seem to believe, psychology tells us that <i>nobody</i> multitasks very well. If a person does two or three things at once, he will do none of them as well as if he were concentrating on only one.<br />
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For some people- those with ADHD, for example, who for biological reasons have trouble not so much in paying attention as with not paying attention to<i> everything </i>(ADHD is nothing but the perfect illustration of what happens when we try to multitask!)- or those with OCD, who are tormented by obsessions which distract them from the matter at hand, learning to take football coach Bill Belichek's advice to "ignore the noise and do your job" is of obvious benefit. It's for that reason that many psychologists and therapists, including<i> Christian</i> psychologists and therapists, often recommend mindfulness to such people as a way of dealing with their particular problems.<br />
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Far from recommending the annihilation of consciousness, what these therapists are recommending is precisely<i> enhanced</i> consciousness. There is a paradox here which many Christian pastors and teachers fail to recognize: though mindfulness springs from a tradition which regards consciousness as something to be extinguished, <i>the first step in this process is limiting our consciousness to one thing at a time.</i> That means paying more complete and diligent attention to that one thing than would be possible if we simply did it absent-mindedly while preoccupied with half a dozen other things- or with a nagging obsession which torments us and robs our life of peace and joy.<br />
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It is well to be aware of the Buddhist origins of mindfulness and modern meditation. As I said earlier, one should be very careful as a result of how far one goes down that road and very selective about the teachers and guides one follows even as far as we do travel it. But concentrating on the moment and on the matter at hand and making a deliberate effort to keep one's mind clear of worries and distractions and random thoughts and especially obsessions is not to buy into Buddhism, and insofar as Scripture advises us in Ecclesiastes that whatever our hand finds to do, we should do it with our might, and in 2 Corinthians to "take every thought captive to obey Christ," it seems hard to argue that a Christian must willingly walk around in a haze with a dozen different thoughts of which she is half-aware distracting her from the moment's duty.<br />
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Strange that the passage from 2 Corinthians should be understood by so many Christians as advising that they obsess about things! If we're paying attention to the matter at hand and giving it our full attention without a running commentary going on in the background, only then can we give it our full attention. And if we do that, the other stuff will follow. We still won't do a perfect job of following Jesus, or really even a very good one- none of us ever do- but we will absolutely do a better job<i> in following Him in the particular thing He has put in front of us at the moment, and to which He wants us to direct our attention.</i><br />
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This is Law, rather than Gospel. It's something we<i> do.</i> But again, mindfulness can help us, in Paul's words, to use the Law "lawfully," When we fail to filter out the noise, it tells us that instead of fixating on the fact that we have failed and paying extra attention to trying to filter out the noise, we should just bring ourselves back to the matter of hand. <br /><br />This can teach us another valuable lesson. Biblically, repentance is not beating ourselves up for sinning. Odd, really, that we instinctively think of it that way- especially if we have OCD! Instead, it's about "turning" (to use the Hebrew word the Old Testament most often uses for repentance) or "changing our mind" (to use the Greek word the New Testament generally uses). It's nothing more or less than to try again! And when we're simply <i>trying again</i> when we fail, that is what the Bible means by repentance! Martin Luther once wrote of how realizing that turned the word "repent" from being a burden to him to being a joy, a gift! <br />
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The necessity of "turning" from sin and "changing our minds" is indeed Law. But the purpose of the Law is never to burden us and weigh us down. To absolutely crush us, yes. To cause us both to see what is wrong and to despair of "fixing" it ourselves, absolutely. But it does so for the sake of preparing the way for the Gospel- for God's "reset button," for the realization that we don't have to "fix it" <i>because God already has in Christ!</i> It's to enable us to <i>instantly</i> return to the business of doing His will has His child. When we are convicted of sin, the Holy Spirit is trying to turn us away from that sin to God's grace. Worrying and obsessing and beating ourselves up interferes with that process rather than promoting it. And it robs us of the very peace and joy that comes from being a forgiven child of God.<br />
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Repentance is simply "turning" from the Old Self to the New, from being the person who committed the sin to the person who is righteous in God's sight for Jesus's sake and who wants nothing more than to please Him. It's in that sense that mindfulness involves listening to what's going on between our ears "non-judgmentally." Or more properly, it means <i>being turned.</i> It means recognizing that when one sees sin there, it's sin that Christ has died for. There is no need to "fix" it because Jesus has already dealt with it. There is no need to make ourselves repent because repentance isn't something we make ourselves do. It's something the Holy Spirit does. It's what<i> happens </i>when a person who loves God realizes that he or she has sinned.<br />
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But that doesn't mean observing our thoughts <i>without discernment. </i>It simply means accurately perceiving the thought, without gloss or commentary- understanding that for Christ's sake God forgives whatever sin is involved, and moving on. It means regarding the thought and then acting <i>according to our values, </i>according to our faith<i>. </i><br />
<br />It isn't enough simply to say that this doesn't conflict with the Christian faith. It's hard to see how it doesn't mean living it more fully and completely and intentionally. A clear mind, an uncluttered mind, an accurately perceiving mind, and a mind at peace is a mind better able to stay centered on Christ and to stay focused on following Him in whatever He has given it to do at the moment. And a practice which helps us to cultivate such a state of mind is not something to be despised, however much caution may be in order about its possible misuse.</div>
Robert Elart Watershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18182251436190781481noreply@blogger.com8