Doubt and Faith

"I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"
  Mark 9:24 TNIV

I think it is healthy to be uncertain every now and then. Frederick Buechner wrote, "Every morning you should wake up in your bed and ask yourself: 'Can I believe it all again today?' ... At least five times out of 10, the answer should be 'No' because the 'No' is as important as the 'Yes,' maybe more so."

We should not be ashamed if we are drawn like magnets to the uncertainties and questions inherent in faith. Faith is not supposed to come naturally. Faith is the venture of human consideration and divine illumination. Only in a world where faith is difficult can faith exist.

This is taken from today's Relevant Magazine daily devotional written by Ed Gungor.  I liked the Buechner quote. -- drs

The Doom of Satan

I'm winding down on Stott's Through the Bible: Through the Year devotional.  I thought this one from last Saturday did a nice job of boiling a lot of theology down.

... now that the dragon, the two beasts, and the prostitute have all been destroyed, the time has come for the judgement of individuals before the great white throne. John writes, "The dead are judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books" (Revelation 20:12). Most emphatically he is not saying that sinners are justified by their good works. No, we sinners are justified by God's grace alone through faith in Christ crucified alone. At the same time we will be judged by our works, for judgement day will be a public occasion, and good works will be the only public and visible evidence that can be produced to attest the authenticity of our faith. "Faith without deeds is dead" (James 2:26). True believers have their names written in the Lamb's Book of Life (Rev. 13:8; 20:15).  p. 424

C.S. Lewis on Originality

I love how C.S. Lewis talks about the structure of the church being the place where we can truly become our own unique individual selves.  -- drs

No man who values originality will ever be original. But try to tell the truth as you see it, try to do any bit of work as well as it can be done for the work's sake, and what men call originality will come unsought.  Business of Heaven; August 23, p.215

Surely God saves different souls in different ways? To preach instantaneous conversion and eternal security as if they must be the experiences of all who are saved, seems to me very dangerous; the very way to drive some into presumption and others into despair. How very different were the callings of the disciples. I don't agree that if anyone were completely a new creature, you and I would necessarily recognize him as such. It takes holiness to detect holiness.
Business of Heaven; August 24, p. 216
 

Laziness

The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing: But the soul of the diligent shall be made fat. Proverbs 13:4 KJV

Laziness is a poison that will spread through all the faculties of the soul. It infects the will by making work undesirable. it blinds the understanding so that the best of resolutions has no effect. We put off doing anything about slothfulness.

On the other hand, simply being fast has little to commend it. Things must be done at the proper time, and in the best manner possible. Speedy carelessness is only an artful, refined laziness.

This disorder results from a failure to consider the value of something done at the right time and in the right way . God gradually withdraws his graces from those who neglect them.

God has granted you the morning, but he does not promise the evening. Spend each day as if it were your last.   ---- Lawrence Scupoli: The Siritual Combat

A personal response: I have never considered the fact that laziness is an indicator of the condition of a soul. Let me understand O God, the difference between being still in order to know you, and being still because I am not inclined to work.

Near to the Heart of God: August 23 

Diversity of the Spiritual Body

The sacrifice of the selfish privacy which is daily demanded of us is daily repaid a hundredfold in the true growth of personality which the life of the Body encourages. Those who are members of one another become as diverse as the hand and the ear. That is why the worldlings are so monotonously alike compared with the almost fantastic variety of the saints. Obedience is the road to freedom, humility the road to pleasure, unity the road to personality. -- C.S. Lewis
The Business of Heaven; August 20; p.212

Unbelief

Unbelief is as much of a choice as belief is. What makes it in many ways more appealing is that whereas to believe in something requires some measure of understanding and effort, not to believe doesn't require much of anything at all.
--Frederick Buechner   Listening to Your Life: August 19; p. 218

The Difference Between Law and Gospel

The law points to sin; the gospel remedies it.
The law condemns; the gospel redeems.
The law is a word of wrath; the gospel is a word of grace.
The law fills us with despair; the gospel comforts.
The law says, "Pay the debt!" The gospel says "Christ paid it."
The law says, "You are a sinner!" The gospel says, "Your sins are forgiven."
The law says, "Make amends!" The gospel says, "Christ has made amends for you."
The law says, "God is angry with you!" The gospel says, "God loves you."
-- Patrick Hamiltion: Treatise on the Law and the Gospel

Near to the Heart of God;  August 18

Lewis in the Purpose of the Secular Community

The secular community, since it exists for our natural good and not for our supernatural, has no higher end than to facilitate and safeguard the family, and friendship, and solitude. To be happy at home, said  Johnson, is the end of all human endeavour. As long as we are thinking only of natural values we must say that the sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal, or two friends talking over a pint of beer, or a man alone reading a book that interests him; and that all economics, politics, laws, armies, and institutions, save in so far as they prolong and multiply such scenes, are a mere ploughing the sand and sowing the ocean, a meaningless vanity and vexation of spirit.
The Business of Heaven: August 16, p. 208

The Origin of Evil

Yesterday's reading from Near to the Heart of God had some good things to say about the concept of evil.
All qualities that are in God are good. If they are in God they are infinitely perfect. It is absolutely impossible that they could have any evil defect.
Good things can be used in an evil way. There is only one explanation for the existence of evil, guilt, and deformity in the natural and moral world. These things have been separated from God.
Don't blame God for evil. It would make more sense to blame the sun for darkness! We have free will. We make choices between right and wrong. Every quality is equally good. It becomes an evil when we, of our own free will, separate it from God. The same thing can be both evil and good depending upon whether it is used by a devil or an angel. -- William Law: Mystical Writings

R.I.P. John Stott

I'm still processing the death of John Stott, one of my favorite theologians.  What an amazing guy and a true inspiration.  Sunday's section from Through the Bible: Through the Year P. 402 ends with the following.


Without love everything is nothing.

The Painter of Lite™

 I happened upon an old card from Square Halo books.  Upon exploring the site a bit I found this article about Thomas Kinkade and sentimentality by Gregory Wolfe.  I'm mainly quoting the end of the article but thought it was interesting. -- drs

The word sentimentality is now a term of opprobrium, but it is notoriously hard to define. Of course, that hasn’t prevented it from being the source of a few witty epigrams. The Zen scholar R. H. Blyth once noted: “We are being sentimental when we give to a thing more tenderness than God gives to it.” That’s good, but as usual Oscar Wilde hits closer to the mark: “a sentimentalist is one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it.”

There are times when criticizing sentimentality seems like overkill. But it would be wrong simply to dismiss the phenomenon— and the specific instance I’ve been discussing, religious kitsch—as nothing more than examples of harmless mediocrity. The great theologian, Cardinal Henri de Lubac, once wrote: “There is nothing more demanding than the taste for mediocrity. Beneath its ever moderate appearance there is nothing more intemperate; nothing surer in its instinct; nothing more pitiless in its refusals. It suffers no greatness, shows beauty no mercy.”

Perhaps, at its best, sentimentality strives for something approximating the theological virtues of hope and love. But in refusing to see the world as it is, sentimentality reduces hope to nostalgia. And in seeking to escape ambiguity and the consequences of the Fall, it denies the heart of love, which is compassion. Unless compassion means the act of suffering with the other in their otherness, it becomes meaningless. Well-intentioned as the purveyors and consumers of sentiment may be, they still want the luxury of an emotion without having to pay the price for it.