daily java

Daily Java:

When he said these things, the people were again divided in their opinions about him. Some said, “He’s demon possessed and out of his mind. Why listen to a man like that?” Others said, “This doesn’t sound like a man possessed by a demon! Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?” (John 10:19-21)

Reactions to Jesus were mixed. It is the same today. Some thought he was a great teacher and obviously from God. Others thought he was crazy. The same Jesus, the same messages, heard by different people with different perspectives.

It is the same today. Some hear Jesus and hear something fresh and new, words flowing from God. Others hear restrictions, negatives, things they are not allowed to do. Some hear freedom, others hear a mean old God telling them they cannot have fun.

But how is it that two people can hear the same thing and make such radically different conclusions?

People hear Jesus, as they do everything else, through the filters of their own desires, what they themselves want. They also hear him  according to a preset filter, one that says, No matter what he says I will not like it.

My son would decide in advance whether or not he liked a certain food. Then he would pick up a bite of whatever it might have been, look at it, shake his head, then eat it. Afterwards, he would shake his head again. He had decided he wasn’t going to like it and didn’t. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. The food was doomed from the beginning.

When people hear Jesus, they usually go to hear what they want to hear. If he agrees with them or they can twist what he has to say to fit their ends, he is good. Otherwise, he is bad and they want to have nothing to do with him. In fact, some of his most vocal users are those who do not like him most of the time.

They will use him when they can, pluck verses out of context, or sometimes just assign a certain motive to him regardless of whether or not he would ever say such a thing.

It used to bother me how people could read what Jesus said, or when they heard him speak, could either twist him or completely disregard him.

But they can. And I try my best to keep faithful to him and what he says and Listen to him (Mark 8:7).

daily java

Daily Java:

No longer will you need the sun to shine by day,
      nor the moon to give its light by night,
   for the Lord your God will be your everlasting light,
      and your God will be your glory.
 Your sun will never set;
      your moon will not go down.
   For the Lord will be your everlasting light.
      Your days of mourning will come to an end. (Isaiah 60:19-20)

There is a perspective the Christian has that the world cannot understand, and it both frightens and makes the people without that perspective mad,

That perspective is the presence of God in your life.

It is like trying to imagine what it would be like not married to Ella. We have been married now for over forty years. I love her, but even more, she is a constant in my life. I really cannot imagine a life without her.

The same with God. I gave my life to him December 13, 1959 at the Freeport Church of Christ in Freeport, TX, when I was ten years old. I will be 62 years old in a couple of weeks. That is 52 years I have spent with my Lord.

Some of those years have been bad where I was trying to be an idiot. But most of them I have felt his presence strongly. Actually, even when I was being an idiot, I still felt his presence drawing me back. But he has been there in my life for a long time.

And I think about what it will be like in heaven where there is no pain or problems. I see it as being literally like it is figuratively here on earth. He will be the sun and the moon. His glory will be ever present, an everlasting light.

He is that way now. I can no more imagine a life without him than I can imagine a life without breath. He has been a part of me for so long that there is no real way he could not be a part of me.

He is my sun and my moon, my everlasting light that guides my way. And even though things happen to me that are bad, even thought there is sorrow and pain, there is no reason to mourn. He gives me joy and peace that I could not have without him.

Even though friends may leave and even though the church itself may turn from me and hurt me, I will still love him. He is my constant and perfect companion.

He is my God and I will ever serve him, now and through eternity.

daily java

Daily Java:

Who among you fears the Lord
      and obeys his servant?
If you are walking in darkness,
      without a ray of light,
   trust in the Lord
      and rely on your God.
But watch out, you who live in your own light
      and warm yourselves by your own fires.
This is the reward you will receive from me:
      You will soon fall down in great torment. (Isaiah 50:10-11)

The old 60’s expression, “If it feels good do it.” Doing things on the power of your own wisdom and your own thought.

There was a song in the 70’s which had the line, “How can it be wrong, when it feels so right.” It was a very popular song. In essence, it says, if I think it is good, it is good.

Living life by your own light. Isaiah said here in this passage that living by your own light, warming by your own fires -–all leads to destruction.

Jeremiah 17:9-10 says The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? But I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve.
When we try to apply our own ideas to how life should be lived, we are using a flawed measure. We are too close to the situation and cannot see all of the ramifications. Only God can see the whole picture. Only he can provide an objective measure.

His word, as the Psalmist said, is a lamp to our feet and a light to our paths. Any time we try to live by our own ideas, we fall.

Our light, our fires seem so substantial. But the funny thing is, the older you get, the more those things you thought were so great, so powerful, turn out to be so small.

What is of massive importance to you are 25 is not at 65, or even many times at 35.

Life changes and the perspectives around it change. But God doesn’t. And his guidance is always going to be good. He will always lead you right.

i have always been a person who sees the other side

If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall. (1 Corinthians 10:12)

He who doubts from what he sees
Will ne’er believe do what you please.
William Blake

There are those who no matter what you do, no matter how much the evidence or weight in favor of what you say, will never believe you.

And simply because you have proof, or facts or anything else really doesn’t mean anything.

They have made up their minds. At sometime in the past, they have decided that they are going to believe a certain way and that is that.

My father-in-law was such a person. It didn’t matter what the weight of evidence in your favor, he would not believe what he didn’t want to believe.

And oddly enough, my son is too. If he doesn’t already think it, he will not. His kind of music is all that matters, his kind of everything is all that matters to him.

It is strange that the attitude of believing only what you want passed over my wife and landed on my son. Now he is nothing at all like my father-in-law. Other than the fact that both are named Sam, they have nothing except that odd attitude in common. My father-in-law only liked one kind of music, as does my son – but they are worlds apart. My father-in-law listened only to country, my son only listens to heavy metal.

And the list can go on ad nauseum.

You meet people like that in religion, too. They believe what they believe and almost revel in their ignorance or single-mindedness.

I have always been a person who sees the other side, who tries to understand all the sides of an issue or point. It made me unwelcome in the denomination I spend 44 years in. that denomination had only one viewpoint: theirs. All else were not “honest.”

In fact, they would make the comment when dealing certain Bible verses that “honest scholars” would see things the way they wanted. If you didn’t, you had some unholy agenda.

I never saw that and sooner or later had to leave. The fact that I didn’t buy into the corporate doctrine made me, after a while, unwelcome.

I remember a man who came to me after church one Sunday and told me that when I came, he was impressed with me. But here lately, he wasn’t. I was not preaching things the way he wanted them preached so therefore I was wrong.

It is an odd quality. Even though something is so clearly in front of you, and even though there are so many in agreement, they do not believe it, so therefore it is not real. It is a denial in the face of facts to the contrary. They see, yet they doubt and they will never agree with you. It is not in their power, I guess, not in their make-up to change their minds.

And anyone who goes through life without changing his or her mind at least once is a fool.

Politics are (is?) full of people like this. Right now we have a president who has not done anything that worked, yet he keeps on doing the same things again and again. And he will until he is put out of office next year.

These are the people who see pictures of aborted unborn children and yet refuse to believe that they are killing real live people. They are the people who cannot see that giving people money does not make them free, but instead enslaves them. They are the people who think that a bigger government and more government control is the answer to everything.

Even though these things do not work, they still believe them.

I don’t think I have any such oddities in my make-up, but of course, I don’t know that I would know it.

But I do believe that anyone who thinks they are fine are foolish. Anyone who thinks they have all the answers are weird.

The older I get, the more I realize that I do not have all the answers. In fact, I have only begun to figure out the questions. That sounds goofy but it is true.

What is good in life? What matters? What does God want of us? What is important?

When you figure those out, you begin to understand that you need real answers, not just simple presuppositions.

I do hate liver, though, and no one can make me like it.