Category Archives: Uncategorized

Happy Thanksgiving from Colossians 3

Posted on by

Thanksgiving is not a day. It’s a frame of mind, an attitude of the heart. But a grateful attitude does not come naturally. Our human nature inclines more to grumbling and complaining (Colossians 3:13) than it does to being grateful. It takes work and discipline to truly be grateful (“Put on,” “Let,” “BE thankful” – Colossians 3:12, 15, 16), but short of a supernatural act of grace, even our hard work at being grateful is futile. Where does this grace that leads to thanksgiving come from?

  1. It comes from being supernaturally deposited by the grace of God into a community of faith where you can rub up against others who have been chosen by God (Colossians 3:12). Christianity is not a faith system for individuals to live out in isolation. Though we ARE individuals, we have been called in ONE BODY (Colossians 3:15). Our identity as Christians comes not from our individually living out the teachings of Jesus, but in our practice of gospel principles within the context of others who share the same call to salvation, holiness, and sanctification. The Christian life is a shared life animated by the Holy Spirit (Romans 8, Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12). So one of the first sources of grace that leads to Thanksgiving is the communion we share as fellow pilgrims on the journey.
  2. It comes from allowing the peace of Christ to be the decider or “the umpire” in the conflicts you experience with other believers and in the world in general. When Paul says in Colossians 3:15 that we are to LET the peace of Christ RULE in our hearts, he doesn’t mean “reign” or “take authority.” The Greek word he uses means “decide, discriminate, or judge.” Having just spoken of quarreling and our need to forgive one another (Colossians 3:12-13), he makes it clear that it is not our feelings, our emotions, or our rights that decide whether or not we will forgive, but rather “the peace of God,” and specifically the peace which Christ secured for us when he forgave us (Romans 5:1). So whether or not we are ever vindicated in the disputes and disagreements that are part and parcel of human nature; whether or not I feel like the other person sees things from my point of view, the grace to be grateful comes from HIS PEACE deciding and judging, not my futile efforts to get you to see things my way. “The peace of God which passes all understanding shall guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).
  3. It comes from letting the word of Christ take up residence in your heart so that your attitude is shaped by the gospel rather than by the context in which you find yourself at any given moment (Colossians 3:16). “The word OF Christ” has two possible meanings: 1) it could mean the words which Christ actually spoke, meaning his word as it is revealed and recorded in Scripture, or 2) it could mean the word ABOUT Christ. It certainly means both, even in this context, but given the context of the entire letter to the Colossians, the meaning leans more to the second idea. In the first chapter of this epistle Paul speaks to the Colossians of their hearing the word of truth – the gospel, and the spiritual results it has had in their lives since the day they heard it and knew the grace of God in truth (Colossians 1:3-6). So what Paul means when he says that we are to let the word of Chrtist dwell in us is that we are to let the gospel – the good news of what Jesus in his death and resurrection has done in making us new creatures in himself – be that which shapes the attitude of our hearts. The gospel is not just for the lost. The gospel is for saved sinners. The source of our spiritual life is this gospel that we first heard and now live, and we need the gospel to take up residence in our lives in such a way that it is not merely a truth we proclaim (though it is certainly that) but more importantly the very air we breathe and the life we live. And it is with this gospel that we “teach” one another and we “admonish” one another, a practice reflected in the very songs we sing – as we sing them from a heart of gratitude to the Lord.

Paul wraps it all up in Colossians 3:17. When God’s grace comes to me through the communion I share with fellow pilgrims on the journey, and through the peace He uses to decide the disputes I have with those fellow pilgrims, and through the gospel that not only saved me but is saving me by sanctifying me so that my relationships with fellow believers are characterized by the gospel and not my feelings, my attitude will be one of graciousness and gratefulness because I recognize that all I have and all that I am is a result of God’s grace in my life. In everything – whether in my words or in my actions – I will give thanks to God because of the grace to give thanks that has been given to me in the person of Jesus Christ.

It is the gospel that makes a happy Thanksgiving possible.

Are you in the audience or the congregation?

Posted on by

From the Richard John Neuhaus essay cited in the previous post comes this much needed clarification on the difference between an audience and a congregation and how developing one and not the other results in two very different kinds of churches:

The religion of solitude can be practiced in a five-thousand-seat auditorium of a megachurch. In their comfortable seats, each is a member of the audience, with membership consisting chiefly in showing up. An audience is very different from a congregation, never mind the communio with God through Christ for which we were created, and for which, if we rightly read our restless hearts, we long.

. . . . . . 

The Church is not merely a voluntary association of the spiritually like-minded catering to the indulgence of private sensibilities in one of Babylon’s many enclaves of choice. The Church is the Body of Christ through time proposing to the world the new creation inaugurated in his cross and resurrection and promised return.

Persecution: It’s Our Turn

Posted on by

Two important essays today encouraging the faithful to “prepare your minds for action” (1 Peter 1:13) in anticipation of the coming persecution of U. S. Christians:

Dr. Albert Mohler urges us to “take a careful look” at how homosexual activists are responding to the passage of Proposition 8 in California: “[T]he coercive effect is to punish anyone who will not recognize, endorse, or celebrate same-sex marriages.”

Dr. Richard John Neuhaus warns that “we are heading into a greatly intensified public clash of state power and religious freedom,” for which Christians are ill-prepared. His concluding graph is ominous:

Yes, the imminent Kulturkampf, if that is what is in the offing, will require legal talent, political strategizing, relentless persuasion, and all the other means compatible with our constitutional order. Most of all, however, it requires the courage born of faith that the Church really is the Body of Christ through time, a distinct and public community bearing public witness to public truths about the right ordering of life both public and personal. In Catholic history, the cry through the centuries is for libertas ecclesiae—the freedom of the Church to be the Church. For Catholics and others, that freedom now faces a time of severe testing. In the defense of that freedom there have been through the centuries martyrs beyond numbering. We do not know what will happen in the months and years ahead, except that now it may be our turn.

Keep Christmas – Literally

Posted on by

‘Tis the season for Christian advocacy groups to come out of the woodwork defending your right not to be offended by pagans who refuse to recognize Christmas by wishing you a Merry one. Liberty Counsel just released its “Naughty and Nice” list of retailers so you can be a discriminating Christian and only spend your money where the C-word is liberally used. Focus on the Family is also helping you out by posting its annual “Christmas-friendly” shopping guide.

Ironic, isn’t it, that from its inception the Christian faith has discouraged the very thing that our consumer-oriented Christmas has become: the accumulation of possessions. Yet in its present manifestation the Christian faith is most concerned that we not spend our wealth or accumulate more stuff without someone recognizing Jesus’ birth at some point in the process. Which is more blasphemous: a retailer who refuses to wish you a “Merry Christmas” or a Christian who insists that his spending spree be blessed by attaching the name of Christ to it?

If the Wal-Mart associate fails to wish you a “Merry Christmas,” or your local municipality refuses to display a creche on the front lawn of your city hall, consider yourself among the “persecuted church.” Christian advocacy groups like Focus on the Family, Liberty Counsel, and the American Family Association stand at the ready to defend your right as a Christian NOT to be persecuted, even though the Bible clearly indicates that those who live for Christ will suffer.

But does not hearing “Merry Christmas” after you swipe your Master Card really equate to being ripped away from your family, placed in a “reeducation camp,” and tortured until you recant your faith, a scenario repeated daily in places like Viet Nam and Cambodia? Could anyone here please point me to one example of any real persecution presently being inflicted upon any Christian or group of Christians in the United States?

How about some biblical perspective from Sinclair Ferguson from his book, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel Centered Life:

I took the hand of my toddler son (it was several decades ago now) as we made our way into the local shop on the small and remote Scottish island where earlier that year I had been installed as a minister.  It was Christmas week. The store was brightly decorated and a general air of excitement was abroad.

Without warning, the conversations of the customers were brought to a halt by a questioning voice from beside me. My son’s upraised index finger pointed at a large cardboard Santa Claus. “Daddy, who is that funny-looking man?” he asked.

Amazement spread across the faces of the jostling shoppers; accusing glances were directed at me. Such shame – the minister’s son did not even recognize Santa Claus! What likelihood, then, of hearing good news in his preaching at the festive season?

Such experiences can make us bewail how the Western world gives itself over annually to its Claus-mass or commerce-mass. We celebrate a reworked pagan Saturnalia of epic proportions, one in which the only connection with the incarnation is semantic. Santa is worshipped, not the Savior; pilgrims go to the stores with credit cards, not to the manger with gifts. It is the feast of indulgence, not of the incarnation.

In the words of that great theologian John Lennon, “So, this is Christmas…?”  If it is, you can keep it.

Guest Blogger: An Open Letter to President-Elect Barack Obama

Posted on by
by Bryce Edward Johnston
First of all, please allow me to add my congratulations to those of others on your election to the Presidency of the United States. Upon your inauguration, you will join just forty-three other men who have held this office in 216 years. It is not only a privilege and an honor, but an awesome and grave responsibility.
 You are becoming the President. You are not becoming our master, our ruler, our overseer, or our king. When you take office, I will be one of 300 million Americans who will become your employer.

In spite of, or possibly because of some of the information coming out in the media, I would like to make you aware of a few things I’m not sure you understand.

For starters, with only 53% of the vote, you do not have a mandate to inflict wholesale changes on the form of government we now enjoy. I would like you to know that I have not lived for over 56 years in a free and open society only to see those God-given freedoms taken away. I am not now, nor ever will be, a ward of the State; I am a free man.

I did not, nor will I work to produce wealth only to see you confiscate it in the name of “fairness” and “redistribution.”

I did not go through training classes and licensing to own a firearm only to see you send out minions to take it away from me.

I did not produce and raise three sons only to see them live as serfs under an Obama regime.

Finally, I did not serve six years in the United States Navy to protect this Nation and its Constitution only to see you assume office and trash everything we have stood for for over two centuries.

So, I want you to know, Mr. President-elect, that if you honor our Constitution in the Spirit and Letter in which it was written, including and especially the First and Second Amendments, I will be your staunchest supporter.

However, if, as I expect you will, you move to eliminate political speech with which you disagree, by re-instituting the Fairness Doctrine, or other measures that destroy conservative and Christian talk radio;
If you interfere with the basic right of law abiding citizens to keep and bear arms for the purposes of self defense as well as sport;
If you deploy a “domestic army” to spy on us, regulate us or otherwise interfere with our God-given rights;
Or, if you enact draconian tax laws that destroy the Engine of small business that creates the majority of jobs in America:
Then, you will have me and over 58 million, (I suspect more) Americans to answer to.

So, Godspeed, Mr. Obama in your endeavors as our 44th president.

I pray that after you place your hand on the Holy Bible, raise your right hand to God, and swear to “preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic” that you will do just that.
That you will not become one of those “domestic enemies” of our Constitution, and realize the gravity of the Office you have taken on.
Yes, the Constitution is flawed, but only inasmuch as it was written by Men. You would be hard pressed, though, to find more inspired and inspiring prose outside of Holy Scripture.

My prayer for you is that you will be humbled by the knowledge that you stand on the shoulders of giants,  who have kept this nation free and prosperous for over 232 years.

President-elect Obama, may you rely on God to light your path.

 
Sincerely,
 
Bryce Edward Johnston
Wyandotte, MI
( I blog at www.wordpress.com/brycom52. I also posted this letter at www.michaelsteinshow.com)