Mission Faithwalk

  Trouble and anguish have come upon me,  Yet Your commandments are my delight. (Psalm 119:143)           If you know me, you know I don’t deal well with “Thou shalt.” Some people are more flexible, more cooperative. I can be flexible and cooperative, if you approach me the right way, and if you give me time to turn “Thou shalt” into “I shalt,” but if the pronoun says “thou” then you have an uphill battle against a fort with very thick walls. So when the composer says “Your commandments are my delight” my initial reaction is to choke on the words. “Not my will, but Thine be done”? “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, in my life (on Earth) as it is in heaven”? Those are challenging prayers.           In Soul-Keeper , John Ortberg writes about another book: The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone , by Dan Ariely. In it, Mr. Ariely concludes that we have two gene...

  If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” (Genesis 4:7)   But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is  still  called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of  sin . (Hebrews 13:3)           Yesterday’s reading in Soul Keeping was about sin and the soul. There wasn’t anything new in what I read. Here is Professor Willard’s diagram of the soul again for convenience.            Mr. Ortberg’s main point is something I’ve shared before: sin separates. This shouldn’t really surprise anyone. It’s even touched on in the Harry Potter books of all places! Harry is told that murder rips a soul apart. It’s easy to see how murder rips the soul of the victim apart because it destroys the body. But J.K. Rowling...

         “Hear then the parable of the sower.   When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road.   The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy;   yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away.   And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.   And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some a hundre...

  Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world . (I John 2:15-16) For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)           We’re not supposed to love the world. But God loved and loves the world. The word for world in the Greek is the same. The word for love is the same root: agape , but different tenses. I don’t think it changes the meaning significantly. The writer of the book of John and the writer of the first letter of John are the same, and the One who inspired both is the same. It makes you want to say, “Huh?”           The main difference is the subject. We aren...

       In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit  himself intercedes for us through wordless groans . (Romans 8:26)           How do you pray? Do you assume you know what’s best and issue virtual commands or beg? Do you ask for what you want and stick, “or according to your will” at the end? Do you use the “wordless groans” method? Do you pray Scripture, claiming promises?           I’m at a loss as to how to pray about politics, or about COVID-19. I have definite preferences about both but I am well-aware that God uses tough times to cause His Church to grow. He has a purpose for the virus, and a purpose for the election, who wins it, and who loses it. I don’t know what those are. So how do I pray? A few ideas come to mind.           First, the spir...

  Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong.   Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed.   Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow. (Isaiah 1:16-17)           God’s call to Israel through Isaiah. It doesn’t promise salvation, but it is God’s solution for that country going through difficult times. It speaks to the people, as individuals. The nation cannot be the “yourselves” that He is speaking to since He was speaking to one nation at the time. He’s speaking to individual people. The first step to solving their problems was for them to cleanse themselves of their sins. A few verses earlier, He said He would make them whiter than snow. There seem to be two sides to this equation, God’s side that makes them whiter than snow, and the individual’s side of washing and making themselves clean.        ...

       But if serving the  Lord  seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the  Lord .” (Joshua 15:24) For our struggle is  not   against   flesh  and blood, but  against  the rulers,  against  the authorities,  against  the powers of this dark world and  against  the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 6:12) Moses built an altar and called it The  Lord  is  my   Banner . (Exodus 17:15)               This morning, I put up my weather “red alert” sign for the first time. I tucked my plants in close to the trailer, locked the back-window cover into place and put the outdoor furniture...