http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php?month=03&day=25

A person who is a beautiful saint can be a hindrance in leading people to the Lord by presenting only what Christ has done for him, instead of presenting Jesus Christ Himself.

I friend of mine once relayed a story to me about a yearly award ceremony for grade school Christians at a church or an academy or something.  Every year they would give out a T.U.R.K.E.Y. award.  Each letter stood for something and the whole thing added up to “The Best Christian of the Year Award”.  My friend seemed to be haunted, years later, by the standard of this person’s achievement… especially the Y part, which stood for Yieldedness.  Perhaps someone could accept such an award as an early adolescent, and humbly agree that they are indeed a Thankfully Un-hateful Righteous Kind Enigmatic Yielded individual… but  I believe this kind of recognition gets much more difficult to swallow as life goes on.  Our behavior is not who we are.  We are people that need a savior in a billion distinct and unique ways.  If we pursue this relationship we are fortunate to see parts of our life and behavior redeemed over time.  Someday we might even achieve T.U.R.K.E.Y. status according to some church committee, but what do we care… we know God and we know the truth about ourselves.  Some men are better than others (in thought and deed), but the better ones seem to be preoccupied with better things than figuring out if they are better or worse than others.

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http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php?month=03&day=28

To put my view of His honor ahead of what He is plainly guiding me to do is never right, even though it may come from a real desire to prevent Him from being put to an open shame.

I think the American church, especially youth ministry from my recollection, has really sewn a culture of “Standing up for Christ” and “Defending the Faith” as the highest callings, next to soul winning… of course.  I have failed pretty miserably at both of these and in the process caused a bunch of awkward moments and faltered relationships.  God doesn’t need me to protect Him.  The Christian faith does not rise and fall on the backs of an angry mob of conservative republicans storming political issues with boycotts and idle threats of the silent majority finally getting fed up and voting.

Show me more… »

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http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php?month=03&day=26

I got to be honest, I didn’t really connect with this one all that much… what does that say about my “Personal Purity”… I don’t know for sure.

And some things that are acceptable for others will become unacceptable for us.

I did think that the end comments about how we relate to other people were interesting.  Basically you can’t look to other people for your standard of purity and you can’t rightly judge other peoples purity level based on your own standard.  I am not trying to weave some post modern pile of zero accountability… its a truth that we all know, but it becomes very difficult to live it out in the Christian culture of playing in the safe areas.  We have boundaries and boundaries keep us (and others) safe and keep us pure.  But some things that are dangerous for others are acceptable for me… so by some people’s standards I am living a reckless and dangerous life style.  Then the conversation digresses into a retarded discussion of social drinking and dancing… thank  you Cedarville!

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http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php?month=03&day=24

Over and over again, we try to be amateur providences in someone’s life. We are indeed amateurs, coming in and actually preventing God’s will and saying, “This person should not have to experience this difficulty.” Instead of being friends of the Bridegroom, our sympathy gets in the way.

What a difficult situation to be in.  Wanting to do good for others, but the only good that matters is the good that is often outside of our comprehension.  I don’t know how to help people.

I know this is kind of a tangent, at best, from the discussion but… I often times become annoyed with Christians, including myself, as we rejoice in our understanding of God’s masterful plan working out around us.  We see a few coincidences combine in order to solve someone’s issue or rescue someone from a problem.  We are quick to point out the happy ending and how God used us to make it all come about.  I think we should make a practice of avoiding this temptation to map out providence and understand our exact part in “helping” others, or at least keep it to ourselves when we think we have a revelation.  Do we really want to encourage others or do we just want to validate it to ourselves by hearing the words spoken, and if we get a smile from another Christian and an assuring Amen… then it is ratified into truth.  What do we know?

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http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php?month=03&day=22

It is the simple, dreary day, with its commonplace duties and people, that smothers the burning heart…

Yes, I know.

…unless we have learned the secret of abiding in Jesus.

Is it really a secret?  Trying to answer this question I am suddenly brought back to my years of studying algebra and calculus.  There was always a system and formulated approach to solving any problem.  If you were careful you could work the system and end up with the correct answer even if you had no idea what you did.  But this was a dry and terribly boring process compared to the “click” moment when the formulas just made sense in your head and you could see it working out before you even performed any mathematical operations.  The numbers were just an after thought once you understood how it all flowed.

Think it through to its logical conclusion, and if the outcome is something that God would condemn, put a stop to it immediately.

Understanding this in a “click” moment as compared to working out the arithmatic of the logic to get to the conclusion is very different.  I usually operate under the assumption that the life problem and all of its related problems, decisions, and diffaculties are so hopelessly complex that the best we can do is one little math problem at a time.  I think this is true sometimes, but I believe we can also get a grasp on the problems on a more philosophical and ultimately spiritual level and be guided by emotions and intilect instead of just our intelect.

When God gives us a vision, we must transact business with Him at that point, no matter what the cost.

It doesn’t take long to second guess ourselves just a few moments after this experience, especially if you ask other people (especially Christians) for advice.

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http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php?month=03&day=21

“I have been crucified with Christ . . . .” He did not say, “I have made a determination to imitate Jesus Christ,” or, “I will really make an effort to follow Him”-but-”I have been identified with Him in His death.”

It’s not about striving, it’s about abiding.  This is that same paradox that seems to keep resurfacing in the last few entries.  Part of discipleship means that we consistently stop trying so hard at the particulars of our behavior and simply give up our lives to the desires of Christ that are prepared to come out of our unique personality and natural presence in this world.

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http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php?month=03&day=20

When you have a right-standing relationship with God, you have a life of freedom, liberty, and delight; you are God’s will.

Wow, this statement seems almost blasphemous.  Could we ever live with such a presumption? Probably not, but we could live like this if we don’t consider it.  If we are preoccupied with living out God’s will we are freed from worrying about it and at the same time it allows us to naturally, almost whimsically, live in His will.

It is evidence of a level of intimacy which confirms that you are nearing the final stage of your discipline in the life of faith.

My first instinct is to try to figure out if I am in this final stage, and then it mentions discipline and I know its not worth tallying up… I have a long way to go.  In between all of my worrying, anxiety, and nervous considering of God’s will, I do believe that I have localized moments of enjoying this type of friendship with God.

“Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart”

First things first, but still connected with your hearts desires.

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http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php?month=03&day=17

It means holding ourselves to the highest priority year in and year out; not making our first priority to win souls, or to establish churches, or to have revivals, but seeking only “to be well pleasing to Him.”

Yea, that’s it.  How liberating.  I spent a lot of time trying to convince myself (and others), that my (our) purpose was to “save” as many people as possible before we die.  I would be quick to follow up with saying, “Well, we don’t do the saving of people, God does… but we work with Him to help as much as we can”

In a certain sense I still believe this is true, but it has everything to do with how you define “working with Him”.  It seems to operate within the same paradox of losing your life in order to find it.  Once you realize that you have no power to convince anyone (including yourself) of the reality of God, your responsibilites become much humbler.  I don’t believe this mind set makes any particular evangelistic endevour out of bounds, but it does much to reshape how we approach ministry, missions, and “working” for God.  We are primarily responsible for our own relationship with God and out of that flows the possibility to introduce others into a similar experience.

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http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php?month=03&day=16

The deadliest attitude of the Pharisees that we exhibit today is not hypocrisy but that which comes from unconsciously living a lie.

What’s the difference?  Isn’t hypocrisy the same as unconsciously living a lie.  Consciously living a lie seems to be a bit more than mere hypocrisy.  Regardless, I get the point.

But if you will learn here and now to live under the scrutiny of Christ’s pure light, your final judgment will bring you only delight in seeing the work God has done in you.

It is interesting to me how this point of living in honest humility now is thrown towards the eternal judgement seat of Christ in order to give it its proper weight.  In my Christian upbringing I have heard much about the judgement seat of Christ.  And it seems that the interpreters of the scriptures take much discretion in deciding if there is a negative judgement for a Christians, a mix of praise and regret, or only a positive reward experience.  The latest round of interpretations seem to have decided that the judgement of Christ is only a positively rewarding expereince for Christians.  All of our mishaps, mistakes, missed opportunieties, transgressions, and otherwise sinful deeds or undeeds will not enter our conscience during the judgement experience.

I don’t know what the truth of the matter is, nor do I intend to pursue the scriptures in hopes of forcing them to reveal the answer.  Lately it seems to be much less relevant than it was at one time.  When I was a child I can remember seeing all of these heavenly activities carried out in my minds eye and consequently made many decisions not to sin or to do good out of an anxiety for future retribution if I were to choose otherwise.

Tolerating a wrong attitude toward another person causes you to follow the spirit of the devil, no matter how saintly you are. One carnal judgment of another person only serves the purposes of hell in you.

I suppose I find a greater motivation at present out of the statement above.  I have found this to be true, and I have expereineced its immediate judgement in my life, friendships, work, joy, and my ability to do anything that I know is good.

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http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php?month=03&day=15

At the beginning of our life with Jesus Christ, we were sure we knew all there was to know about following Him. It was a delight to forsake everything else and to throw ourselves before Him in a fearless statement of love. But now we are not quite so sure. Jesus is far ahead of us and is beginning to seem different and unfamiliar…

Ya, I feel like that. It all seemed so obvious when I was young.  Jesus is right and you follow Jesus’ example.  That’s when I was learning how to play nice at recess, not that I have that figured out as of yet.  But now it does seem that Jesus is keeping up a much quicker pace and every day when I wake up it seems like I just catch a glimpse of Him disappearing over the next hill or around the next bend.  Flannel graph historical Jesus seems to have disappeared and the new Jesus of my now life seems much more dangerous and peculiar.  Its harder to know if I am still on His side.  Which way did he go?

The danger is that we tend to look back on our times of obedience and on our past sacrifices to God in an effort to keep our enthusiasm for Him strong

Reminiscing is not as enjoyable as it used to be.  This is true for me on several levels, but I think mostly out of the fear that I am trying to live there still.  As part of my nightly ritual as I fall asleep, I seem to be tempted into pretending I am still in my high school glory days… remembering how good it was and how much good I did.  It’s all comfortably murky.  My life today is murky, but in a difficult, stressing, anxious way… I am trying to figure out what’s next and where everything is going and what ought I do about this and that.  The possible good is all wrapped up in these questions.  The possible obedience and following is all dependent on today’s and tomorrow’s choices.  Sometimes it does feel like a “darkness of dismay”.  There are also rays of hope though, but they still seem sharp and short lived compared the soft glow of the past.

Screwtape offers some advice on this as well… I will paraphrase for the moment.  The devil would have us either live in the cold fully determined past or the nonexistant vapor of the future.  The present, however, is that only piece of time that draws on our past and extends into the reality of the future and therefore touches eternity on all sides.

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http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php?month=03&day=14

(Remember what lust is— “I must have it now,” whether it is the lust of the flesh or the lust of the mind.)

I must know it now.  I must have it settled for me now.  I must know this before I do anything else.  I must understand why before I will do anything.  Lust is something that I have been given much prudent training on in regards to the development of my Christian character and the cleansing of my mind as it relates to women.  The advice is easy to take, the burned images in my mind bring me to an immediate guilty blush, and I know I would do well to pay attention to whatever the latest lust control technique happens to be.  But Oswald takes this to a much deeper and more elemental level of application. Barring nothing, in what ways do I live in a “I must have it now!” mind set.

Appreciation
Fulfillment
Comfort
Novelty
Customer satisfaction
Personal affinity
Inspiration
Purpose
Passion
Security
Freedom
Understanding
Importance
Responsibility
Respect
Leisure

I want it all, but juggling them all as personal rights quickly ends me in a conflicting paradox of everything at once.  I end up yielding to the mess of trying to make all these things happen for myself at the same time and in portions just beyond satisfaction.

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