daily java

Daily Java:

In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. … So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son. (John 1:1-2, 14).

Before he came to this earth, Jesus was the infinite Word of God

The infinite Word of God became a finite human being to show us two things. God wanted us to know he knew what it was like to be human and to give that perfect sacrifice so that we can know what it is like to be divine. In Jesus, God was human, with us. In Jesus, we are divine., with God.

Without that incarnation, we could easily say that the infinite God, Lord of heaven and earth and all powerful and omniscient, did not know how hard a life his creations had.

And that was to a large point true. Yes, he was all-powerful. But his view of us and his relationship with us was one of distance, not closeness, one of sympathy but no empathy.

When Jesus became manifest in the flesh, all of a sudden, the Lord of the Universe who was living in many ways vicariously in Jesus, knew what it was like to be a helpless baby, totally dependent on his mother and father.

As Jesus grew up, he found out the effect of raging hormones. He felt hunger, he experienced real thirst. He found out what it was like to hurt his foot on a rock.

These are all little things, all part of the human experience. They are all things we take for granted. But not God. He only knew them second-hand.

Jesus gave him first hand knowledge.

But Jesus also gave us first hand knowledge of God. What would God be like if he were human. There was Jesus. How would God react to things? Look how Jesus reacted.

Could God really live his whole life and never once do something wrong? That is, if he were really human? The answer was yes.

But it took the power of God living in the humanity of Jesus to do so. Jesus was that perfect fusion of God and man that we could be, but never are able to be.

With Jesus, we know that God knows what it is like to be like us. But with Jesus, we know what it is like to be like God. Jesus brought God to us and brings us to God.

He is like that transformer on a high wire high voltage line. God is the high voltage that if we touch it, we die. He is too holy. But Jesus was the transformer. He was God so he could touch God; but he was also God in the flesh, so he could touch us.

And through him, we could touch God.

That is the point of Christmas: the entry into this world of the Son of God in human form.

He just wanted to know us better, so we could know him better.

1001 posts

To tell you the truth - and I really do not know why I wouldn't, having 1000 posts kind of set me back. That is a lot of writing.

But I am back, for those who are reading.

God bless you.

my one thousandth post

But, my child, let me give you some further advice: Be careful, for writing books is endless, and much study wears you out. (Ecclesiastes 12:12)

This is my 1000th blog post. I have been posting on this blog since January 28th of last year. I have written over 500,000 words since then.

The funny things is I am not real sure anyone even reads this blog. I write and have gone through a lot in the past two years, but the forum has given me a chance to – pour out my heart, I guess you could say.

I think I may take a short hiatus from it. We are moving tomorrow to an apartment and I may be a bit busy anyway.

A thousand posts. When I started I never dreamed I had that many words in me. But I did. And here they all are. Some were angry, some were sad, some were happy, some were just there. Some had an agenda, some didn’t and were just for fun.

But all were from my heart and, at least most of them were with the aid of coffee.

And with the aid of the Spirit of the Lord, who guides me in all I do. I praise his name.

daily java

Daily Java:

I hate those with divided loyalties, but I love your instructions. (Psalm 119:113)

In the movie the Outlaw Josie Wales, there was a ferry operator that had to remain neutral between the two sides of  the Civil War. He made mention of the fact that he had to be able to sing Dixie and battle Hymn both with equal fervor. It just depended upon who was around him at the time: Rebels or Yankees.

People live their lives like that all the time. They try so hard to keep God in the center, yet also surround themselves with things that are against him. Their loyalties are divided.

In the Old Testament, the children of Israel, the chosen people of God, were like that. They worshipped God, but they also hedged their best by worshipping other gods too. They even made the Lord the head god, made him special and gave him preeminence over all the others.

But the Lord said that he was the only God. There were to be no others with him. With God, it was all or nothing.

Divided loyalties hurt. There is no room for compromise in service to God because he demands your all. He doesn’t want most, or your most important. He wants all.

Because of the divided loyalties, the Israelites were destroyed as a people.

We will be too, unless we give him our all.

daily java

Daily Java:

As for me, I look to the Lord for help. I wait confidently for God to save me, and my God will certainly hear me. (Micah 7:7)

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of Hope. Hope is a centerpiece of our lives and without it, our lives become meaningless. The hope that God sent us was manifested in that little baby born on Christmas.

He is hope.

Someone once said that it is not the number of bad things that happen to you that make you depressed, but the lack of good things to counterbalance it.

That lack of good things brings a lack of hope. And one who has a lack of hope has nothing to look forward to.

That is, of course, why you work your entire life, hoping and saving for retirement. When that hope is taken away, or shattered in some way, it makes your life less.

We get married as a hope for our future happiness and companionship. We have children as a hope for someone to love us and for the future of humanity. We do a lot as a hope for something yet to come.

The same with our relationship with God. We do not come to him only as a hope to not be punished, but as a hope for a future happiness.

Our hope is in him. And it is what keeps us going.

Hope keeps you going when times are hard, when it seems there are no real answers, when you life is in shambles. It is your hope in God.

And he will never let you down. We hope toward the end we have in him. We hope in his promises. As Psalm 33:20 says: We put our hope in the Lord. He is our help and our shield.

That hope doesn’t necessarily mean that he will never allow anything to happen. In the book of Hebrews, it says that even though bad things happened, they placed their hope in a better life after the resurrection. They knew this was not all there was.

Hebrews 11:1 says that Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. That is hope: confidence in what we do not see.

We do not see God. We do not see his grace. We do not see his end plan for us. We do not see him at all. Not really. Not with our eyes. Yet we believe.

That is hope, believing on what we do not see. Believing in retirement from a job you have worked for years, believing your money is in the bank, believing in your husband or wife: those are all hope.

And they may fail. But God never will. It is that hope in him that saves.

daily java

Daily Java:

But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness. (James 3:17-18)

Real wisdom is evident. And you can always tell the source of wisdom.

What the world calls wisdom is more of an arrogant survival or knowledge. It is the kind of thing that makes the speaker look good, that advances an agenda in some way. It is more talk than anything else and tends to be gibberish after you look at it for a few minutes.

Real wisdom heals. It brings peace. It accomplishes something. It doesn’t just sit there in pithy phrases and make the one who advances it sound good. Sometimes, it can even be against the speaker.

Real wisdom always advances peace, even if it doesn’t seem like it. It was after all, Jesus who said he came to bring difficulty. In Matthew 10:34, he said: Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! I came not to bring peace, but a sword.

It was the wisdom of God that brought Jesus to this earth (1 Corinthians 1). Yet the experience of Jesus is not always good. There is one third of the world today railing against him, killing people who believe in him.. there is no outward peace there. And there are those who say that the very bringing of Jesus into the culture is harmful and should be avoided at all costs.

Yet Jesus said anyway to go and preach the gospel to all creation, to everybody. The wisdom of God was to preach. To deny that is foolishness.

Real wisdom yields. It doesn’t set up little kingdoms based on men’s thoughts and charisma. It points to God. It is merciful and has good things coming from it.

Real wisdom is noticeable the moment it is seen. And because the world does not want to see God, it is rejected the moment it is seen and heard. The world does not want to see the wisdom of God because it points away from what it wants to do.

It brings us into his presence and into his love. And it causes good things to happen.

Real wisdom is beautiful.

daily java

Daily Java:

So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)

Dragged my over-stuffed body to the mall today to watch the crowds. It really was a great experience. Since my wife is handicapped, we park next to the door. So we got to walk to the front door quickly. Of course, then there is the whole mall to walk, but at least we didn’t have to go far to go to the car.

Of course, before the mall, we threw in Macy's, Marshall's and Pier One to boot. So we had walked a ways before we got to the mall itself.

The really interesting thing is that in several hours of walking around commercial establishments, all we bought was wrapping paper at Target for $2.50. Nothing else. Went through the entire mall and bought naught, nothing, nada, nix, nicht. We are the only people we know that can go to the mall and not buy a thing.

We treat it as sort of a museum to commercialism. We look and check out stuff, but rarely buy anything. Quite frankly, there is little we need, so going to the mall is more of a sight-seeing venture for us.

But, oh, the infinite variety of people that I got to see. It is amazing at God's human diversity.

Being Black Friday, there a  million people there. And they were of all ages and all races. And they were all God’s children, created in the image of God himself.

I sat outside Bath and Body Works (I hate that store) while waiting for Ella and our daughter Abby and just watched. Tall, short, well-off looking, poor-looking, thin fat, older, younger – they were all there. And they were fascinating to see.

There was one couple in which the man was a good foot shorter than the woman (you could tell the little boy was his), there were interracial couples, there were older couples and a few young couples. Some looked no more than mid teen, embarrassed to be holding hands but liking it so much.

Gangs of guys would come by, then a gathering of girls. The occasional single person would be seen, but for the most part, people were paired off.

And it was great. I loved it. It is one of the favorite things I do. And Black Friday was a gold mine.

daily java

Daily Java:

They sang, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and strength belong to our God forever and ever! Amen.” (Revelation 7:12)

Today is Thanksgiving Day. It is a day in which we typically get together and try our level best to eat each other under the table.

But, of course, and we all know this – as we sit belching – there is more to it than that.

The first Thanksgiving followed a brutal winter in the new world. More people died than lived among the colonists from England during that first winter. But at the end of the harvest, the settlers gave thanks. Different legends are around, but it seems they invited their Indian friends who had helped them learn to plant corn, a native North American dish.

Above all else, they were grateful. And their leadership led them in a number of Thanksgiving prayers. They were grateful that they had made it through that first winter and wanted the Lord to know it.

The point was not the food, the point was the thanks.

That is why the designation Turkey Day is so grating. It denigrates the whole point of Thanksgiving in the first place.

We give thanks. We thank God who is the Source of all that is good and holy.

And if we don’t, all we become are gluttons.

And I do thank my God. Above all, I thank him for my wife, Ella, who has been with me though so much. I love her and cannot imagine life without her.

I thank God for my children. I know they love me and I love them and their families.

I thank God for my church. Life as a pastor in the past few years has been tumultuous at best, but the church we attend right now has accepted us and loved us. I thank God for them.

I thank God that I live in America with our freedoms of belief and life in general.

And above all else, I thank God for his Son, Jesus, who gave me life and joy and peace.

If I did not eat another thing, I would still thank him.

Thank you, Lord.

daily java

Daily Java:

Rich people may think they are wise, but a poor person with discernment can see right through them. (Proverbs 28:11)

When I read this verse, it thought back to the other day. I was listening to a movie star blathering about something they knew nothing about. And the only reason they were talking was because they were a popular movie star and thought that gave them extra wisdom.

However, it was not hard to see that they knew absolutely nothing. They were good at what they did, which was pretending to be somebody else. But they knew nothing about their subject. And it soon became apparent to all but themselves.

Being good in your profession gives you a certain amount of credibility when dealing with your profession. But it doesn’t necessarily make you an expert anywhere else. And the problem comes when you are famous and someone asks your opinion on something. Suddenly you begin to feel that, since you are top of your field, you know a lot about everything else.

And you begin to feel that everyone wants to know. It is a good way to ruin a career. I have heard a lot of people complain that they went to hear someone sing and got blasted with a diatribe against something that they held dear.. the singer or the actor that has to mention how stupid he thinks Republicans are, or how dumb Christians are.

And they mention this at a  function that you have aid to go to. You have paid to hear yourself put down.

The problem is, the richer you are, the more you think you know. And, true, you have to know a lot of get rich. However, it doesn’t impart wisdom in all points like you think.

Rich people begin to think of themselves as self-sufficient. They have gotten what they need by their own ability or whatever. And sooner or later, they begin to see themselves as greater than everyone else, even greater than God.

And when that happens, they have lost all that was good. It doesn’t take riches or talent or anything else to see that persona s being foolish.

daily java

Daily Java:

What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure. (James 4:1-3)

The Occupy Wall Street thing is going on full swing. Several cities have been “occupied” and people have made known their dissatisfaction with the way things are going financially.

But it seems that the main point of all of these “occupations” has been: We want more and we do not want to have to work for it.

There is a basic desire in the hearts of all humanity to have more. We want better homes and better living conditions, a better car, nicer clothing, better food – everything we have, we would like to upgrade to something better.

This is a natural desire. And there is nothing wrong with it in and of itself.

It is when the greed comes in that it becomes wrong. It is when it begins to possess you – your possessions begin to own you – that it becomes bad.

Wealth and better stuff as such is not bad. it is the love of the stuff that is bad.

The apostle Paul said in 1 Timothy 6:10: For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.

It is not money, or for that matter stuff, that is the problem. It is the love of money, the love of stuff. You fight for it and grasp for it and devote your whole life to the acquisition of stuff and yet you still do not have enough.

James, in this passage, even says that you don’t have it because you do not ask for it, and when you ask for it, you are only asking out of greed.

I am not sure how that plays out in a life of people who are devoted to God and yet still do not have what they need. But in general, it is true.

Any time you spend your life trying to get things, you never have enough.

The end result of the Occupy Wall Street philosophy? 2 Timothy 3:2: For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. The problem is, the more you have the more you want. The more you are given, the more you want. The richer you become through greed, the richer you want to become.

Hebrews 13:5 says: Don’t love money; be satisfied with what you have. That is kind of hard, especially in our modern society where all the things you do not have are paraded daily on TV and billboards and in the stores. You are constantly reminded that your furniture is tired, your car is broken, your clothing is out of style, that you are dissatisfied.

And the fighting begins. Not over noble things like freedom, but over income distribution and thinly disguised greed.

Anything that comes from that will hurt you far more than bless you.

And have you noticed, that these kind of things always end with people looting and stealing. Nothing that ends this way can possibly be blessed by God.