THE IMPLICATIONS OF PARTNERSHIP ~ 3/28/09

We talked last time about the amazing promise that the work God has begun in us (Salvation), He will complete. Today, I want to talk more about the supernatural bi-product of salvation that is a growing “partnership in the gospel.” It’s the natural thing for saved people to grow into. It’s the normal thing. But what is it?

First of all, it’s a 3-WAY PARTNERSHIP:

Step #1 ~ God partners with us (Salvation & all that follows)

Step #2 ~ We partner with our leaders (and with God, by extension)

Step #3 ~ We partner with each other (and with God, by extension)

In Step#1 God pursues us and we open the door of our hearts to Him at salvation, and the ‘partnership in the gospel’ is initiated.  The role of Christ in this part of the partnership is ‘to bring to completion the work He began in you.’ Your role is to have confidence that He will do it, to believe God’s promise. In the sermon several weeks ago I repeated multiple versions of the ‘believe it’ encouragement.  I should have ended with this one – “He’s given His Word.” The primary role of the believer in the ‘partnership of the gospel’ is to believe. 

Today we’ll be talking about the second step, and a little later we’ll get to what it means to partner with each other. Granted, these don’t always stay rigidly in order, with clear boundary lines – it’s a fluid partnership, and although it always starts with salvation, God’s partnering with us carries through each of the subsequent steps, indeed, making them even possible. But for the sake of discussion let’s go on to Step #2, which has more to do with us as individuals, identifying with the vision and mission of those who lead us, and then taking steps to ‘get on board.’  Christ is, of course, our primary leader, our primary ‘example,’ but so are the leaders He raised up then (the disciples) and now (pastors, elders, etc.).  There are commands Jesus gave to these leaders that He expected them to carry out, and that He expects you and I to come along side with as well.  Most of us are familiar with the ‘big command,’ more commonly recognized as ‘The Great Commission:’

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."  Matt. 28:18-20

But what does partnering with our leaders look like in order to complete this grand goal? Skipping ahead to v.7, Paul says that there are two main evidences of having entered into this partnership: ‘It is right for me to think so highly of you,’ says Paul, ‘and to believe about you what I know God is doing in me, “for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.”  The evidences of having entered into this ‘partnership of the gospel’ to complete the Great Commision?

1) A sharing in suffering

2) A sharing in the defense and confirmation of the gospel

Let’s look at these evidences.

1) A sharing in suffering

The primary role of the believer in the ‘partnership of the gospel’ is to believe. But Paul later adds this- “For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have” (1:29,30). Why is a healthy ‘partnership in the gospel’ with our leaders evidenced by suffering? Because it shows we are living how they live and teaching what they teach. It (suffering) is the necessary ‘proof’ of a consistent message.

Jesus said –

19”If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than his master.'^[a] If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.” John 15:19-21

Jesus generated instant enemies wherever He went and suffered because He claimed exclusive authority and Truth as given by His Father, whom people did not know (‘…because they do not know the one who sent me’). Because Jesus suffered for who He was, Paul expected to suffer as well for following in His steps. And that’s what happened to Paul, why he’s in prison in our passage -- and by aligning themselves with Paul through financial and moral support (in addition to belief), the Philippians are knowingly aligning themselves also with Christ, and inviting that same kind of suffering upon themselves.  Are you experiencing this ‘proof of a consistent message’ in your life? Do you experience ‘persecution’ because you’re a Christian, either explicitly or implicitly? How or to whom have you aligned yourself, and what do you expect the results of this to be? We’ll deal more with the importance and ‘the power of suffering’ in a coming letter.  For now though, let’s go on to evidence #2, because the two are closely related, even inseparable.

2) A sharing in the defense and confirmation of the gospel

‘Partnering in the gospel’ with our leaders will necessarily mean we believe the gospel that they believe (salvation) and that we align ourselves with them in suffering for the gospel, whether ‘through financial and moral support’ or other experiences, but as we began hinting at just a moment ago, it also means that we are expressing the life and message of Christ in words.  Perhaps the best cross-reference verse for the one we’re looking at here is 1 Peter 3: 14-16:

14”But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed, and do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled, 15but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; 16and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame.”

Another evidence that God has partnered with you and that you are partnering with your leaders to complete the great commission is your deliberate attempts to mature in your knowledge and understanding of who God is and what His purposes are for His creation.  When people ask you tough questions about what you believe, do you have an answer? It’s normal to not know how to respond to questions when you are a new believer.  But that should not stay the case forever. Could you verbally share your testimony of how God saved you?  Are you prepared to be a witness (= ‘witnessing’) before a courtroom of your peers as to what you experience God doing in your life? Can you verbalize the gospel message (1 Cor.15:1-4) to them, i.e. what God wants to do in their lives?

My basketball coach in high school used to always tell us that ‘the better our defense, the better our offense.’ A good defense produces a good offense. The more skilled we became at shutting down the attack strategies of our opponents, the more opportunities we were given to maintain or increase our lead when it was our turn to be on offense. In many cases, our ability to defend and clearly explain what we believe is itself one of the strongest confirmations of our faith. Can you share what you believe? 

If you'd like to be able to answer all these questions in a positive way, if you've struggled your way through the challenges in this post, don't give up in despair -- God will help you.  Just start by going to Him with these tough truths, tell Him you want to go deeper -- and then remind Him that He has promised to be the one to complete this work in you! After all, it's ultimately always His partnering with you that really matters.

Surrounded By Grace,

Josh

'ROBIN HOOD' GOD ~ 3/25/09

A very good friend of mine, who is now a missionary in Mongolia, recently told this story on his blog, Journolia: A journal of life in Mongolia. :

Reverse Offering

Some of you may have heard of the radical concept of reverse offering with regard to passing the plate in church.  The idea being that if you have an offering, you put it in.  If you don't have food, you take something out.  I thought it was a really original and perhaps useful idea when I heard it several years ago.  One church we were in even tried a more controlled approach of this innovation. I did not know that the idea was at that time already in use in Mongolia.  On top of many hills here are piles of rocks that are considered holy, or at least a representative of the spirit of that area.  So Mongolians have for years added something to the pile, and walked around it three times.  If they don't have a cloth, bottle, food, then a rock or even money will suffice.

Yesterday my neighbor, who is believes in Jesus, stopped by for a visit.  I was asking him some questions about Mongolian religion.  He said he and his family have never followed many of these customs.  Said his dad used to have no qualms about helping himself to visible cash that other people places up there. Said that he himself has never been afraid to pick up bills worth up to 5$ that other people had recently offered to that spirit, mountain, or whatever.  

So maybe this helps me answer the question about what I should have done when my dog starts eating the food someone standing right there has just offered to the shrine. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I read this story and just laughed, because it reminded me immediately of another story from my office that I've been meaning to blog about for a while. Originally, I was going to name this post "THE DAY I ALMOST KILLED DUSTY." 

Here's why. 

There's a borderline creepy guy here who lives out of his van but always dresses very 'proper' (he kind of looks like Mr. Rogers, which... just adds to the creepiness) and has really, really white teeth.  I mean distractingly white. Anyway, this fellow has a photographic memory and can quote great swaths of Scripture without flinching.  The only problem is that he repeatedly quotes it 95% right and then purposely switches words, usually without people noticing, especially if they're new Christians.  It's a dangerous combination.

This guy (let's just call him 'Mr. Heretic') used to always come into my office to try and... well, I don't know what he was trying to do. Convert me... to... Arianism?? But whatever it was, I used to drop what I was doing and give him my full attention, several times trying to just get to know him, occasionally debating with him (in Christian love), once for almost 2 hours. Then I saw the light: he wasn't interested in anything I had to say. In fact, I had already said everything that I could to him, tried to get to know him, but still, he didn't want to talk about that stuff. I finally asked him to stop wasting his time and mine (I know it sounds harsh but... he was not there to hear from me, nor did he come in an honest search for truth... he came to teach, period). So he stopped coming. For a while. 

I wasn't just worried about being a good steward of my time, although that was part of it. Mainly I was concerned about the many young/ new believers that go to our church.  I didn't want this guy around them. So one day, after a long absence, Mr. Heretic walks into my office and interrupts a meeting I'm having with an older gentleman from our church.  The 'older gentleman' (enter 'Dusty,' much less creepy, despite the picture) still thinks he's 29, but has enough vinegar in him to be 20 years older than the 66 that he is.  Anyway, Dusty is already irritated that our meeting has been interrupted.  And I can see him growing increasingly ticked at Mr. Heretic for coming in and teaching us about how Jesus was not God, so he abruptly counter-interrupts Mr. Heretic in mid-sentence and says --

- PAUSE -

Dusty and I were having a logistical meeting about raising money to buy presents for the kids that were going to come to the Church Christmas party to be held at my house. 

- UN-PAUSE -

...Dusty (See picture) interrupts Mr. Heretic and says, "Hey, I bet you'd like to come to the Church Christmas party at the pastor's house!" 

(It is precisely at this point that I want to kill Dusty.) 

Mr. Heretic replies with obvious glee, "Why sure, that would be just grand!" 

Dusty doesn't miss a beat. "Then would you kindly consider donating to our fund to buy presents for the kids as have all the others who are coming?" As he says this he unblinkingly holds out a tin donation can.

Shocked and cornered, Mr. Heretic coughed up some wrinkled bills.  Then he excused himself quickly and left.  He never came to the party. In fact... I haven't seen him since.

I did not kill Dusty. 

I love it when God requisitions money from the enemies of the cross in order to take care of His people. Love it. Thank you "Robin-Hood God.' And please Lord, open the eyes of Mr. Heretic.

Surrounded By Grace,

Josh

REJOICING IN THE PROMISE ~ 3/21/09

Two Sundays ago I preached on Philippians chapter 1, but only got as far as verse 6. My goal, over the next few weeks in my letters to you as well as on my blog, is to continue working our way through the rest of chapter 1. That way, I'll be all set to speak to you again out of Philippians chapter 2 by the time Easter rolls around.  So here we go!

Review: Philippians is a book/ letter that radiates with a sense of joy.  In every story recounted by Paul, in every circumstance and in every possible outcome, a clear call to rejoice in spite of circumstances or even because of them pervades the apostles words, so that we too, whether affected by pretense or truth, blessing or suffering, life or death, are made able with Paul to “rejoice in the LORD, always!” Over the next few weeks and letters, my hope is to show you why, how and in what ways we can “rejoice always.” 

I mentioned in my sermon that the source of Paul’s joy whenever he ‘remembers’ the church in Philippi is first and foremost their “…partnership in the gospel from the first day until now” (1:5), and that this ‘partnership’ began with Salvation. We looked back to the account of that ‘first day’ in Philippi from the book of Acts, and noted the make-up of that humble beginning:

~ A foreign woman who is (or almost is) a Jewish proselyte

~ A demon-possessed, fortune-telling slave girl

~ A suicidal Roman prison guard!

Our conclusion #1: You can rejoice in the fact that it doesn’t matter what you’re like when God saves you – upstanding citizen or felon, God has to start over with both in the same place – by raising you from the dead! When you were saved you were “born again!” It’s a new you! “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone and the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17).

Then we talked about the wonderfully encouraging v.6, reminding us that what God starts (Salvation -“from the first day”), He always finishes – and what does that finished work of salvation look like? It looks like Jesus! We discussed that the finished product of salvation is a person “conformed to the image of Christ” so that each one of us can echo Paul’s claim in verse 20, saying in total confidence, “Christ is (already, and will be fully) glorified in my body.” Almighty God has made a promise (in fact, many promises) to you if you are saved.  The promise in this passage is that “He who began a good work in you will complete it.” Not because of how good you are, or how respectable your family is, or because of how well you treat your wife and kids.  No.  It’s because of Jesus. 

And His promise to you is not weakened or devalued or diluted because you come to Him as a crummy person with a rotten past and a tainted history full of embarrassing sins. No! His promise to complete what He began in you remains unchanged by our behaviors because it’s not based on our behaviors – it’s based on Jesus. Just like you weren’t saved because of any goodness in you, so you are not sanctified (made holy) by your own goodness.  It’s all, always, based on the grace of God in Christ. “For the grace of God that brings salvation (the grace that saves us) has appeared to all men.  It teaches us to say ‘no’ to ungodliness and worldy passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age (the grace that sanctifies us)” (Titus 2:11,12). The grace that saves us is the same grace that makes us holy.

Now granted, God’s promise may not change even though you choose to live in rebellion against Him after salvation, but you’d better believe that how you experience that promise will change! We believe the Bible teaches a person cannot ‘lose’his/her salvation.  We do believe a Christian can lose the experience of joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control.  A Christian can stop experiencing the ‘fruit of the spirit’ in their daily lives when they live in rebellion against God.  They remain ‘saved’ – but

they also remain miserable – until they return to God in repentance, saying to Him as did King David after his string of atrocious sins, “Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
 and uphold me with a willing spirit” (Ps. 51:11-12). I think in my sermon I brought up Jonah at this point. This cartoon says it best:

Once you are saved, God’s promises apply directly to you because you are united with Christ.  When you ‘accepted Jesus as your savior,’ what you said in effect to God is “I’m with Him.  I’m with Jesus.” God has voluntarily bound Himself to you through His promises because He voluntarily bound Himself to Jesus first – and now Jesus lives in you.  You have a union with Christ that is legally binding in the courts of heaven and mystically formed in the sovereignty of God. A.B. Simpson describes it this way:

“From one father (Adam) all the generations of earth have spring, inheriting his curse and transmitted nature and depravity, by virtue of their oneness with him in blood and birth. So Christ, the second Adam, has also His spiritual seed and offspring, and by virtue of their union with Him (through salvation) they share His high place of acceptance and sonship, and partake in all the benefits of His obedience and satisfaction to the claims of justice” (Simpson, A.B.)

Check out this video... 

('Imputed' = When a quality of one person is applied or credited to someone else.)

Even if you aren’t able to shake the way you’ve always looked at yourself, even if you can’t help but see yourself as a hopeless mess, even though you are ‘not yet’ as you ‘will be,’ still, God looks at you and sees Jesus. Because now, you’re with Him. And even more importantly, as a Christian, now you're in HIm and He's in you. Just as in OT times when God dealt with His people in anticipation of and in view of the person and “cross-work” of Christ, so now God deals with you in light of His Son Jesus and in anticipation of His completed work in you. GOOD NEWS! Continues Simpson,

“…The new creation and the spiritual regeneration of man in the image of God is beautifully foreshadowed in the story of Genesis… And again the words are repeated in substance, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness’ (Gen. 1:26)” (31 Simpson, A.B  Christ in the Bible Commentary, Vol.1).

Conclusion #2: You can rejoice in the promise that what God starts, He always finishes!

The next part of the chapter talks about a Christian’s “partnership in the gospel,” which is a supernatural bi-product of salvation and comes with some startling implications… but we’ll save that for the next letter! 

Surrounded By Grace,

Josh

"THE REST OF THE STORY" ~ 3/16/09

Here's a link to a short story I wrote for aLife, the denominational magazine of the Christian and Missionary Alliance.  But now for the cool part -- come back after reading the article for "the rest of the story" that very few people have heard...

"STRINGS ATTACHED"

article

The Rest...

Here's what has happened since.  The 'young man,' who from now on I'll refer to as "M,"began attending our church, The Outpost.  Not only that, but within months of this story, "M's" brother was attending, and then another brother.  But it gets better.

"M" soon asked if he could get involved on a volunteer basis.  "What did you have in mind?" I asked, forgetting to prod the runty hamster asleep on the wheel in my brain.  "M" looked like he wanted to perhaps biff me upside the head but, instead, only rolled his eyes. "Helping with worship of course!" he said cheerily. The lights went on in my head, startling the hamster so badly it tripped in mid gallop, which translated into a look of shocked surprise on my face.  Call me slow, but I never saw "M's" story turning out this way. "What a God," is all I kept thinking, "What a God." Yesterday (Sunday), "M" played guitar during worship for the second time at one of our services.  

On a personal note -- I find myself, once again, the proud owner of an acoustic guitar. A couple weeks ago, "M" came into my office with a mischevious look on his face, unzipped a case and produced another very fine-looking musical instrument.  "I got this at a pawn shop and fixed it up for you" he said with a grin, handing me the 'replacement' guitar. I couldn't believe it.  When I started to joke, wondering about how long it would be before God got rid of this one for me too, "M" turned serious.  "No way man," he said, pointing to the before unnoticed custom artwork adorning the front of the guitar.  I had thought it was part of the original design -- it's that good -- but it was his own work. "Wow... 'M'... I'll treasure it forever," I said, and I meant it. 

The crowning artistic touch on the replacement guitar is "M's" signature, bold and confident, so unlike the "M" I remember from that first day. Now whenever I strum, briefly reliving my guitar hero fantasies, I see that signature and muse that it might as well be God's, as if to signal "I was here," or "A work of grace, by God." But that's just silly -- because He's not done yet. Instead, I'm left to wait, along with everyone else, knowing that only from the vantage point of heaven will we really be able to look back and see 'the rest of the story.' And He will complete it.

Surrounded By Grace,

Josh

SNUGGLING FOOD & THE METRIC SYSTEM ~ 3/8/09

There are a great many things that mystify me.  And, tragically, they're not usually complicated things (to you). Here are a few of them.

1) How can 1:30 = 1.5?  I just don't get it.  I accept it on the word of the people who "get it" that this is true and on the 'up and up,' but it just doesn't seem right to me that different numbers can mean the same thing. I'm only on #1 and already my head's hurting.

2) On a related topic, I can't seem to grasp that if it's 10 am and 10 hours go by, it's not 10 pm.  What gives? I brought this deep mystery up to Esther recently and she said 

"You're stuck in the metric system."

"I need to switch to the system of "12's?" I asked --

"No," she said with a blank look on her face, "the system of time."

3) I'm the only one who pictures the months of the year as an "L?" Seriously, are all of you

 crazy? It makes perfect sense... somehow.  In all honesty, I have no idea how this happened but, inexplicably, when I picture a year in my head, it looks like this -------------------------------------->

Where did I go wrong?

4) What kind of food "snuggles?"  Actually, this has less to do with the many basic realities I find mind-numbing and more to do with the hilarity of kids. At dinner last night Esther told Nathan, who was wanting to go jump on the trampoline

"No, I want you to give your food a chance to settle."

Nathan hears: "...give your food a chance to snuggle," and proceeds to ask the very logical follow-up question that stumps us all for quite some time:

"What kind of food snuggles?"

All I've managed to come up with to this point is that possibly, just possibly, Angel Food Cake snuggles.  But I have no way to prove that.

Psychotic But For Grace,

Josh

NO GOOD PEOPLE ~ 3/4/09

"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone.” Mark 10:18

“There are no good people Nathan,’ I told my oldest son one night in a moment of rare inspiration – “only bad people who know God, and bad people who don’t.” As a parent reading bedtime stories to a young child, I’d grown increasingly uncomfortable with the conclusions my son was beginning to draw.  His world seemed so simple and the categories so few that I suppose it was almost inevitable that he would eventually began to classify all the characters in every story we read as either ‘good guys’ or ‘bad guys.’  And for a while, that worked.

But then something more alarming started happening.  Without warning, this classification system for his story characters morphed into a qualification system as well – for heaven.  “So those are the good guys?  So they go to heaven? And the bad guys don’t?”  At this point I became troubled by the possibility of inadvertently smothering his understanding of the central and ‘surrounding’ role grace plays in salvation, so I stammered out perhaps the best explanation of God’s unmerited favor I’ve ever managed: “There are no ‘good’ people Nathan – just bad people who know God and bad people who don’t.” In other words: it's not whether you're a 'good' or 'bad' person that determines what happens to you after this life.  It's whether or not you have a relationship with the only One who is good -- the God of the Bible.

‘Why do you care?’ you may wonder – ‘Why complicate such a trivial thing?’ Here’s why -- because if I raise my son to look at the world through the lens of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ people, I’m dooming him to forever struggle with either a Pharisee-like spiritual pride (we tend to automatically assume we’re the good guys), or a ‘Quixotic quest’(think Don Quixote) to nail down the post-modern world’s ever-shifting criteria for what qualifies a person as “good.” The other day I met a homeless woman who put a face to my point.  Her name was Barbara.

I think I love Barbara because she breaks the stereotypical mold most people fix in their minds-eye of what a ‘good guy’ looks like.  Let me be frank – Barbara did not look good.  In fact, she looked downright scary.  Had she been an illustrated character in one of my son’s stories, I’m pretty sure she would have, without question, merited the title of ‘bad’ on sight.  Poor hygiene, teeth falling out, and for all appearances utterly unsuccessful in life (at least according to the world’s standards). And yet, she has come to represent for me a real picture of the difficulty in distinguishing the ‘good people from the ‘bad people.’

Barb needed a ride to Redding.  I was reluctant, but felt a ‘Holy Spirit nudge’ since I was going down the mountain anyway and had 4 other car seats that suddenly seemed conspicuously empty.  Almost immediately I was startled by Barb’s depth and insight during our conversations.  I never would have guessed either to be possible based on how she looked.  She had frightful manners (and mannerisms), insisted on wearing a dual glove layer of protection for her hands and was adamant about covering my front passenger seat with a piece of cardboard before getting in.  But over the course of that hour I became convinced that Barbara knew Jesus.

At some point in our conversation Barb mentioned noticing a recent spike in church hostility towards transients. ‘Why do you think that is?’ I wondered aloud, and somewhat casually. To be honest, I expected a response loaded with entitlement. What I got instead was the spoken word of God.  ‘The love of many will grow cold (Matt. 24:12)’ she offered simply, and turned back to look out the car window at the scenery flashing by.  Bulls-eye. Was I one of the ‘many?’ Are you?  Is our real problem with grace an identity problem, an “us” vs. “them” problem?  Have those with the most need stopped coming to church because our skewed view of grace has re-directed our love to the lovely?

I once heard the story of a pastor who tried and tried to have the sanctuary piano moved to the other side of the stage, but every time he moved it, the congregation, the elder board, the choir and every last one of the ‘little blue-haired old ladies’ with clout would threaten a church split until & unless the piano returned to it’s position of sacred tradition.  The pastor eventually gave up.  Some years after taking work at another church, that pastor re-visited his old place of ministry and was stunned to see the piano on the other side of the room – and no one rioting!  After the service he approached his successor and asked, with no small amount of exasperation, how he had managed such a feat?  ‘Well,’ replied the new pastor, ‘I just moved the piano 1 inch every Sunday.  Three years later, it was on the other side of the room… and no one noticed.’

Has the same thing happened to our understanding of grace? Have we Christians become so accustomed to God’s favor and entitled to our blessings that we’ve convinced ourselves we actually deserve them? Have we sleepily adopted the position of Jean-Paul Sartre (famous non-Christian philosopher guy), pointing and willing our guilt away from ourselves so that “hell is other people,” so that badness is only “out there” while the 'good guys' take refuge inside the church walls? Oddly enough, ‘moving the piano of grace’ has often been the result of a sincere desire to defend Christianity from becoming too much ‘of the world.’ Nevertheless, by doing so in an attitude of superiority, we implicitly pit “good guys” against “bad guys” in our homes, in our churches, in our minds – and are succeeding in subtly indoctrinating each successive generation of Christian faithful against the grain of grace. 

Non-Christians are not “the bad guys.” You are not “the good guy.” There are no good people, but there are God’s people. Non-Christians are not primarily “wrong,” and you “right.” Their wrongness of thought and belief is a secondary symptom, it’s just a bi-product of a deeper, heart-rooted condition. First and foremost, they're lost, while you and I ‘live and move and have our being’ within the providential good favor of having been found. You are not superior to the non-Christians you see all around you (or other Christians for that matter)– you've simply received a gift… and the minute you try listing the reasons ‘why,’ you have again lost your grip on grace. The perpetual attitude of grace in the life of a child of God is simple.  It’s a mental loop, constantly reminding you that ‘There, but for the grace of God, go I.” Superiority is the sacrament of pride. Gratitude is the attitude of grace.

Surrounded By Grace,

Josh

MAN TRUCK ~ 3/3/09

I don't care how vain or wasteful you think this is.  I think it's one of the coolest things I've ever seen.  Not that I'm coveting it.  No. Just so we're straight, I'm perfectly content with my '86 Ford F-150 (stifled whimper).