That damned catholic

I spend a lot of time defending Catholicism. I feel that the secular forces that wish to destroy Christianity realize that the Catholic Church is the big-kid-on-the-block, and that if they can manage to break it's sizable influence, that the smaller less significant denominations would quickly succumb as well. So while I am critical of the Catholics, I recognize that the Vatican’s influence is one of the few remaining forces pushing back against secularism’s anti-Christian tsunami. Yet I was talking to a Pentecostal pastor, a high profile one that was a district head (a bishop of sorts) overlooking many churches, and he saw nothing wrong with Catholicism. His ignorance was astounding. It makes me wonder what seminaries are teaching now? This is disconcerting to me, because catholic doctrine is in stark contrast to biblical truth: they teach different things. What this pastor was saying, wasn’t that he didn’t understand Catholicism, it was that he didn’t seem to understand the New Covenant or God. I think I can trace where Protestantism's new found open-armed policy of accepting conflicting theological viewpoints came from.

When I was younger, I remember the Church sounding a warning of the New Age bogeyman (religious relativism). As I aged, I watched this “New Age movement” infiltrate society. Many Christians thought it simply burnt out and disappeared, but it didn’t. As a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough, this fringe boggart adapted and expanded and assumed new monikers: moral relativism and cultural relativism. These further progressed into post modernism.

What happens when large segments of society adopt this spiritual poison? Well, the members of your Church are made up of that society, and their children are steeped in this satanic philosophy. It infects these kids, which as they age backwards infects the Church from within.

And what is it called when the New Age movement infects the Church? Ecumenism.

The fruit of this progressive anti-God movement was the stupification of the Church. Ecumenism is not possible if Christians are educated and Biblically literate. But the embracement of moral relativism has lead to a quenching of the Spirit’s guiding voice, as the Church stumbles over itself to appease Satan and spite God; embracing lifestyles that God has told us He hates. Yes, hates. The Churches new Golden Rule is “to be nice”. And nice apparently includes accepting and loving that which is detestable to God.

So I will redefine ecumenism as theological relativism (or denominational relativism). And this takes us back to our confused Pentecostal pastor and his mistaken views on the Catholic Church.

I did mention there are things I admire about the Catholic Church. One such thing is their stead fast adherence to Catholic doctrine. Ecumenism doesn’t affect them. It is affecting the Protestant churches. The Catholics have taken more care and due diligence in maintaining their aberrant religiosity than the Protestants have at maintaining Biblical truth. But this article is not to sieve Catholicism to find specks of gold, it is to look at all the filthy dirt that those specks are buried in. Today we will look at the elephant in the middle of the living room, the pachyderm the Pentecostal couldn’t see.

Face Flipper - Old age makes your body turn upside down!! Featuring Chevy Chase

Another celebrity example of how, with age, our head goes from top heavy to bottom heavy.

Face Flipper - Old age makes your body turn upside down!! Featuring Val Kilmer

Behold the power of gravity. As a man's muscular chest of youth falls into his large belly of middle age, so the head's top heavy appearance likewise succumbs to newton's law (and the enigmatic doughnut force) and shifts it's high center to a new low. (I've personally felt an attraction to doughnuts myself).

Val Kilmer: before and after.

Spiritual Prioritization - Learning from Mary

He was in his early 70’s and his body was almost done. He had congestive heart failure and a crippling neurological disease. He was feeling a bit down.

A mixture of frustration and phlegm tainted his words.

“You spend all of your life learning how to do something, and being able to afford to do something, and then you can’t do it anymore”.

He was a skilled trumpeter and an avid outdoor’s man. Yet he could no longer control his fingers to play any music. And he could barely walk let alone hike the outdoors.

Life is made up of windows of time. A window of a couple decades is all you have, to enjoy the skills it took decades to develop. And it takes many decades to accrue the wealth to do the things you want. But age quickly detracts from your ability to live life as you once did as a young man. That which was once taken for granted quickly extends beyond our ability to grasp.

Much of life’s enduring endeavors are meaningless and of little lasting value. It took him 20 years to get the tools and know-how to rebuild a car engine. “All that time spent, and for what”? He wondered, as he sat on a recliner.

Plum lining the plumber – Non Christians that think they’re saved.

 “Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’ (Mat 7:21-23 NLT)

 I meet a guy named Ken. I ask Ken what he does for a living? Ken tells me he’s a plumber. “Oh, a construction trade, those are good jobs”. But Ken informs me he isn’t working right now. I ask where he worked previously? Ken tells me he hasn’t worked previously. Now I’m confused so I ask if he’s a journeyman? I usually reserve the title of `plumber’ for journeymen, and not for apprentices. I figure this is what he meant and that he’s a plumber in training. Ken tells me he isn’t a journeyman. From this I infer he is an apprentice. I ask what year of the apprenticeship he’s in? Ken tells me he hasn’t been to trade school. Again I’m confused. I ask if he’s a starter (meaning he was just hired by a company and is working off some hours before going to school)? Ken tells me he isn’t a starter and hasn’t been in contact with a plumbing company.

There are legal requirements to become a plumber. It is a regulated trade and a very skilled trade. You need to attend a trade school to acquire those skills and you need to pass a governmental certification exam when you finish school. I ask Ken why he’s calling himself a plumber? Ken tells me he’s done some personal plumbing at his house. He then elaborates to say he’s unplugged his toilet with a plunger and once cleaned the trap from under his sink.

Ken doesn't know what a plumber is

Honing in on holiness - How an unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife (1Cor 7:14)

Who you hang with will sharpen or dullen you.

For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. (1Cor 7:14 NIV)

So how does this work? How is it that an unbelieving man can be sanctified through a Christian woman? The bi-product of sanctification is to sin less. It is to become increasingly Christ-like in one’s deeds and actions. It is holy living. So now presume we have a very carnal man, which loves over-drinking, is a brawler, and loves to steal things. These are sinful activities. Yet, by living with this Godly woman, the very nature of her presence will have a positive influence on him. Her light will bother his darkness. He might even occasionally go to Church. And he will moderate his wicked conduct to appease her sensitivities. If he is going to over-drink, but remembers it upsets her (and that she will cry) he will be more inclined to avoid inebriation (or have the shame to at least hide it). If he is tempestuous and wants to punch some bloke’s nose, she might encourage him to walk away and be the better man. Her influence will calm his evil inclinations. Her love will calm his hate. If he is going to steal something from a store, he will be discouraged by remembering that his wife will think less of him if he did. Her influence has a braking effect on his evil tendencies and inevitably draws him into a holier lifestyle (against his nature). The believer sanctifies the unbeliever. This is not to say that the unbeliever’s heart moves closer to God, but that their conduct is swayed by the believer’s influence. (Side note: please remember, we are not to marry unbelievers. This verse in question speaks of a conversion within an existing marriage).

The grey chest hair - an eternal reminder

The other day as I was shaving, I noticed I had a single wiley grey hair on my chest that shone like a beacon amongst its darker brethren. The song, “one of these things is not like the other” played for a moment in the back of my head, until I noticed the tune and smote it violently. These children songs from my kid's DVDs will haunt me till the end of my days

Yet this hair deviled into the germane. Despite a fleeting thought to fetch a black giffy marker to color it, I could not help but see that that hair represented time.Or more specifically, an approaching end to my time.

“Our days on earth are like grass; like wildflowers, we bloom and die.The wind blows, and we are gone— as though we had never been here”. (Psalm 103: 15-16 NLT)

This Scripture when plucked out of the Bible and portrayed individually doesn't give us the most cheerful disposition. Yet that is how it gives us such a profound perspective: on how we should be living in the here-and-now. Our first phase of existence is fleeting, but in the following verse we see a foreshadowing of our second phase. We see an introduction of eternal life, and this is what gives us hope.

“But the love of the LORD remains forever with those who fear him”. (v17)

We only have a small allotted amount of time here on this big blue sphere. And that grey hair proclaimed that over half of my time was up. And I could not help but wonder, “What have I accomplished for my LORD”? He has given me talents and abilities. He has entrusted me with resources and friends. He has touched me with health and situated me in a first world nation. He has blest me in so many ways. I was once darkness but was born again into light. He plucked me up out of the mud, and cleaned me up, and loved me at a great expense to Himself. I know my purpose in creation is to glorify Him: To please Him. Yet so much of my time is spent on myself:  Which eternally, is spent on nothing.

Travel the Highway of Holiness: A call to Holy living

A highway will be there, a roadway, And it will be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean will not travel on it, But it will be for him who walks that way, And fools will not wander on it. (Isaiah 35:8 NASB) 

Is belief in Jesus all it takes to have eternal life?

 NO.

You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror. (James 2:19 NLT) 

Demons know who Jesus is. They believe in Him. But they do not serve Him.

Lamentation of a God nerd

I’m a God nerd.  I like talking about God and I enjoy the company of people that like talking about God. Some people will talk sports, others about popular culture, and still others video games. But my mind is consumed with Scripture. If you are to accept that God is there, how could you not want to know everything about Him that is humanly possible? Wouldn’t you want to know what He told us about Himself? When your eyes see something that wondrous, that beautiful, they seldom wish to look away. That is the perspective of a God nerd.

The sad truth though, is that my type seems far and in between. Sure you can find Christians that like an odd conversation. But I find it hard to find people that really want to consistently dig in deeply (or even shallowly). God’s there, but they almost have Him compartmentalized off to the side. It’s like He’s in a cage and they let Him out once in a while to play with Him. Then they return Him into the cage and carry on with their life,

I don’t generally care to discuss how my work day was. I want to talk about those moments when God’s light broke through. I want to discuss insights from Scripture. And I love expounding my study for those that haven’t the desire or will to study.  I don’t mean to suggest that everyone should be a theologian. Or maybe I do. It’s just the way I’m hardwired and I don’t understand how God can’t be the central point by which every conversation orbits. This is likely a reflection of the body and its many different parts, each complimenting the other and doing a different thing. There is a degree by which we should all seek God out, but even in the OT everyone wasn’t a Levite. If David spent all his time studying Torah he wouldn’t have been able to run the Kingdom. Those that studied Torah informed him of God’s will so he could rule justly. I’m talking about the depth and breadth of study; everyone should grow in knowledge of God. If you’re not growing you’re standing still. And when you’re standing still it’s easier to walk backwards.

I noticed this theological loneliness decades ago. And the unfortunate consequence of it is you learn to blend in with those around you. It’s like in the movie “The Body Snatchers”, where a couple of humans had learnt that they could pass undetected in amongst the aliens by not expressing any emotion. You learn to never talk about God. And it seems to me that when you don’t talk about Him you start to forget about Him.

Couple remediation

Couples need to find an equilibrium, and they need to work out tensions. But in the midst of an escalating discussion, with passion growing, you may note that the elements of the discussion have been lost and both parties are speaking hurtful nonsense (fool-talking). Arguing for the sake of arguing, and this is a very destructive place to be. When anger has entered into the discussion and throttles it like the space shuttle challenger, it is going to explode. Wherever the disagreement may have begun, if you find it is moving into verbal jabs for the sake of harm, it is time to take a break. The devil works within the confines of your anger. He eggs you on to try and destroy for the sake of destruction. He particularly wants to break godly fellowship.

“Do not give the Devil a foothold” (Eph 4:27)

Break away from the inferno and allow yourself and your combatant a period of calm. It is in the quiet time away from the maddening heat that the Spirit will offer refreshing water again. But you must seek His water; Talk to the Father. Take a walk and pray, and the devil’s lies will start to unwind.  Even if you are the only one that does this, you will be in a better place to diffuse the bomb that still awaits you when you return. The devil destroys. God builds. And with the Spirits light your pride will diminish and that which angered you will seem so much smaller than it did previously.

The so called hypocrite

The so called hypocrite

Ad hominem

I am going to say several things here that fly in the face of main stream Christianity’s new found tentative character. What we’ll see is that it’s been hoodwinked. Thesis statement: The predominant charge of hypocrisy against Christians is a bludgeon to silence evangelism or moral correction. 

We live in a politically correct world. People are terrified of misspeaking and being called a homophobe or a racist or a misogynist. The label and culture was purposely created to silence you from speaking light into darkness. I am going to make a strong corollary from the political world that illustrates one in the spiritual. When a person doesn’t have an argument they resort to ad hominem attacks (personal name calling). It is a tactic used to silence those that think differently than you. This is a common stratagem of the political left. But what many Christians have failed to realize is that this is also used to silence spiritual correction/direction as well. I’d say that 99% of the time when someone calls a Christian a hypocrite it is an ad hominem attack. This article is not dealing with the other 1%. 

When someone calls you a hypocrite, what really shows that something is amiss is when the validity or falsity of the charge that prompted the name calling isn’t being discussed. From this, it can be seen to be a deflection away from the topic of their sinful activity or proclivity. In essence the name callers are saying:

 “Shut up because you’re a sinner too”.

You become who you hang out with

"Do not be deceived: `Bad company corrupts good morals.'" (1Cor15:33 NASV)

deceived = πλανάω = seduced. to wander away.
corrupts = φθείρω = withers or shrivels. to spoil (as in food)

the CEV puts it this way:

"Don't fool yourselves. Bad friends will destroy you".

Paul was an intellectual and can be seen here quoting a common phrase of the day from Menander (a Greek dramatist) who in turn had quoted it in one of Euripides' earlier plays. The Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary tells us the meaning from the play indicates communion with "those who deny the resurrection". The Church at Corinth had fallen back into a sinful state since Paul had left them. And Paul puts some emphasis on the company they keep for this slippage. Your morality is strongly influenced by the company you keep. Those who deny the resurrection are bad company for close friendships.

Daughters of Eve Meme

Friendship with unbelievers

Friendship with unbelievers

Psalm 1: devotional mullings.

"Where O death is your sting"? Remembering a man of God

Billy Graham wasn’t the only great man to pass away recently. My cousin Daryl died today. He was in his mid-40s but had the intellectual development of a grade 5 or 6er. He was born with excessive fluid pressure in his brain and had several operations to put a tube in his head to drain it. As a teenager he fell into a pool and drowned, but was revived. This incident further contributed to his diminished mental state. Yet what he lacked in IQ he made up for in joy and inner beauty.