Why Christmas is on December 25

Biblical Archaeology Review has a good scholarly discussion of why Christmas is celebrated on December 25. And it is evidently NOT because it was superimposed on a pagan holiday:

The most loudly touted theory about the origins of the Christmas date(s) is that it was borrowed from pagan celebrations. The Romans had their mid-winter Saturnalia festival in late December; barbarian peoples of northern and western Europe kept holidays at similar times. To top it off, in 274 C.E., the Roman emperor Aurelian established a feast of the birth of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun), on December 25. Christmas, the argument goes, is really a spin-off from these pagan solar festivals. According to this theory, early Christians deliberately chose these dates to encourage the spread of Christmas and Christianity throughout the Roman world: If Christmas looked like a pagan holiday, more pagans would be open to both the holiday and the God whose birth it celebrated.
Despite its popularity today, this theory of Christmas’s origins has its problems. It is not found in any ancient Christian writings, for one thing. Christian authors of the time do note a connection between the solstice and Jesus’ birth: The church father Ambrose (c. 339–397), for example, described Christ as the true sun, who outshone the fallen gods of the old order. But early Christian writers never hint at any recent calendrical engineering; they clearly don’t think the date was chosen by the church. Rather they see the coincidence as a providential sign, as natural proof that God had selected Jesus over the false pagan gods.
It’s not until the 12th century that we find the first suggestion that Jesus’ birth celebration was deliberately set at the time of pagan feasts. A marginal note on a manuscript of the writings of the Syriac biblical commentator Dionysius bar-Salibi states that in ancient times the Christmas holiday was actually shifted from January 6 to December 25 so that it fell on the same date as the pagan Sol Invictus holiday.5 In the 18th and 19th centuries, Bible scholars spurred on by the new study of comparative religions latched on to this idea.6 They claimed that because the early Christians didn’t know when Jesus was born, they simply assimilated the pagan solstice festival for their own purposes, claiming it as the time of the Messiah’s birth and celebrating it accordingly. . . .
There are problems with this popular theory, however, as many scholars recognize. Most significantly, the first mention of a date for Christmas (c. 200) and the earliest celebrations that we know about (c. 250–300) come in a period when Christians were not borrowing heavily from pagan traditions of such an obvious character. . . . In the first few centuries C.E., the persecuted Christian minority was greatly concerned with distancing itself from the larger, public pagan religious observances, such as sacrifices, games and holidays. This was still true as late as the violent persecutions of the Christians conducted by the Roman emperor Diocletian between 303 and 312 C.E. . . . .
There is another way to account for the origins of Christmas on December 25: Strange as it may seem, the key to dating Jesus’ birth may lie in the dating of Jesus’ death at Passover. This view was first suggested to the modern world by French scholar Louis Duchesne in the early 20th century and fully developed by American Thomas Talley in more recent years.8 But they were certainly not the first to note a connection between the traditional date of Jesus’ death and his birth.
Around 200 C.E. Tertullian of Carthage reported the calculation that the 14th of Nisan (the day of the crucifixion according to the Gospel of John) in the year Jesus diedc was equivalent to March 25 in the Roman (solar) calendar.9 March 25 is, of course, nine months before December 25; it was later recognized as the Feast of the Annunciation—the commemoration of Jesus’ conception.10 Thus, Jesus was believed to have been conceived and crucified on the same day of the year. Exactly nine months later, Jesus was born, on December 25.d
This idea appears in an anonymous Christian treatise titled On Solstices and Equinoxes, which appears to come from fourth-century North Africa. The treatise states: “Therefore our Lord was conceived on the eighth of the kalends of April in the month of March [March 25], which is the day of the passion of the Lord and of his conception. For on that day he was conceived on the same he suffered.” Based on this, the treatise dates Jesus’ birth to the winter solstice.
The article goes on to document other ancient sources that associate the day of Jesus’s conception with the day of His death, going back to rabbinic Jewish texts that make similar connections.
________________________________________

Article printed from Cranach: The Blog of Veith: http://www.geneveith.com
URL to article: http://www.geneveith.com/why-christmas-is-on-december-25-2/_4074/
[1] Biblical Archaeology Review: http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/christmas.asp#location1

The faith of the saints - which closes its eyes to see eternal light.

As we give thanks to our Lord for all the saints in Christ, one might well wonder how they remained and endured as the saints the Lord has made and kept them to be.  Such wonder is born of a faith that looks to much to the things seen.  Such saints are those who lived by faith in what the Lord said and still says to them.  To live this faith is to live beyond what is seen and experienced.  Such faith lives and abides in the living Word of God - i.e. Jesus Christ.  This is not a simple or easy faith, it “is the experience of faith, the faith that does not see, that does not understand, such faith as Luther attributes to the dying Abraham: ‘He closed his eyes and withdrew into the darkness of faith.  There he found eternal light’”  (Herman Sasse – We Confess Anthology [Jesus Christ – Theology of the Cross] p. 54.)

- pmwl

... my works are a stink in the nostrils of God

Apart from Him, my works are a stink in the nostrils of God.
Apart from Him, I am so deeply damned that I cannot even conceive the depth of my damnation.
There is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved.
The world hates it when we preach this.
It will hate us as it hated the One whom we preach.
And the world is not kidding.
It will not give us a pass, but will execrate and reject us as those who disturb civil tranquility and turn the world upside down.
There is nothing quaint or tolerable about the preaching of the church about sin and grace.
There just isn't. This causes the cross of persecution to be laid upon our shoulders.
So be it.
We preach the cross of Christ so that we are empowered to bear our cross when it comes.
Now and to the ages of ages. Amen.

- not sure where this came from, but I pray the Lord may grant me such wisdom in all the throws of life. 

pmwl

A Prayer for the Treasure in a clay jar

Gracious God, heavenly Father,
You have chosen to place Your eternal treasure – Jesus Christ,
Within me, a clay jar, a broken and most weak clay jar.
While I cannot comprehend such choosing and placement,
I do gratefully pray that this blessed Treasure of Jesus Christ,
Whether He be spilt through cracks and weaknesses of my life and living,
Or He be poured forth by work of Your Spirit in my various vocations,
Grant that this Treasure may enrich the lives of all upon whom He is spilt or poured,
With a closer walk with You in faith.
Let this heaven sent Treasure be spilt upon this feeble prayer that it may be pleasing in Your sight.
Amen.

- pmwl

Are you crying for the truth and proper instruction ....?

A person may pretend to be a Christian while in reality he is not.
As long as he is in this condition, he is quite content with his knowledge of the mere outlines of the Christian doctrines…
However, the moment a person becomes a Christian, there arises in him a keen desire for the doctrine of Christ.
Even the most uncultured peasant who is still unconverted is suddenly roused in the moment of his conversion and begins to reflect on God and heaven, salvation and damnation, etc.
He becomes occupied with the highest problems of human life.
An instance of this kind is afforded by those Jews who flocked to Christ and also by the apostles. Those multitudes heard Christ with great joy and were astonished because He preached with authority and not as did the scribes.
But the majority of these hearers never advanced beyond a certain feeling of delight and admiration.
The apostles, too, were uneducated people, but they acted differently.
They did not stop where the rest stopped, but propounded all manner of questions to Christ…
It is, therefore, quite true what the Apology to the Augsburg Confession says: “Men of good conscience are crying for the truth and proper instruction from the Word of God” … (Mueller, p. 191; Triglot Concordia, p. 290).

—C. F. W. Walther

Treasury of Daily Prayer (Kindle Locations 24221-24226). Concordia Publishing House. Kindle Edition.

bad sermons ...

 This is a repost from a blog: http://letitstet.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/bad-sermons/

It is written by a lay person who is fed up with preachers trying to be something other than the Lord called them to be in the hopes that they'll get done what they Lord called them to do.  Enjoy!

There have been a lot of bad sermons in the world.
Sermons about the Packers’ score, unicorns, global warming, lands of make-believe, funny stories that really aren’t funny at all, and a lot of other topics that leave parishioners willing Jesus to come back before the sermon is over just to make the insanity stop.I’m not a pastor. I don’t know how hard it is to write ten minutes of theological genius each Sunday. I don’t know the sheep in the pew and what they need to hear.
But here is what I do know: pastors have, at best, one hour for church and ten minutes to pack all the Gospely goodness they can into a sermon.
They have ten minutes to cut those of us listening down with Law, apply the sweet salve of the Gospel, and to give us Jesus . . . again and again and again.
This other stuff is all superfluous. It’s filler. It’s what one of my favorite professors said:
This fill-in-the-blank bit is the in thing. (1) It is too late. We all know about it already. (2) It is a Gospel substitute. (3) The world is perishing.
And as if that isn’t reason enough, and although I may not be a pastor, I do know that taking up five minutes of those precious ten describing the latest YouTube video (which I already saw, thanks), recounting the newest movie (which I wouldn’t be caught dead seeing), telling us your kids’ soccer score (which I don’t care about), or attempting to create a bad analogy (which falls apart horribly moments later) is unnecessary and unhelpful.
And let’s be honest: it’s also a waste of time. If I want to watch YouTube videos, I’ll stay home in my office. If I want to see a movie, I’ll go to the theater. If I want to watch a soccer game, I’ll go to one. If I want to hear bad analogies, I’ll argue with someone.
But if it’s Jesus I need, and it is, I’ll go to church. And I’m counting on the pastor there to deliver the goods, the goods that the Internet, the theater, sports, and the world can’t.
I’m not a pastor. I don’t know anything about sermons.
But I am a Lutheran, and I do know this: It ain’t rocket science, and it’s not an atomic secret.
So spare me the Packers’ score, unicorns, global warming, lands of make-believe, and funny stories that really aren’t funny at all, and give me the one thing needful: Just give me Jesus.

... man putting himself at the center of everything.

In his book Worldviews: A Christian Response to Religious Pluralism, Anthony J. Steinbronn writes,

“According to Stott (Between Two Worlds), the missionary task is -

‘faithfully to translate the Word of God into modern language and thought-categories, and to make it present in our day.  However, if we are to build bridges into the real world, and seek to relate the Word of God to the major themes of life and the major issues of the day, then we have to take seriously both the biblical text and the contemporary scene … Only then shall we discern the connections between them and be able to speak the divine Word to the human situation with any degree of sensitivity and accuracy.’

At the heart of this bridge-building activity is a threefold commitment by those who are serious about making disciples of all nations: (1) studying God’s Word; (2) studying one’s target culture; and (3) discerning and constructing missiological bridges that communicate the apostolic message into the hearts and minds of the hearer because “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).”  (Kindle Locations 154-163).

In the study of our culture, Steinbronn identifies what I believe to be the foundation upon all that drives and authorizes much of our culture.  I fear that it is the same thing that is behind and drives the exodus from the true church for the non-denominational churches and gives rise to those who confess to being “spiritual” but not “religious”. 
What is it? HUMANISM!   Steinbronn goes on:

“What Is Humanism? There are three basic humanistic principles that provide the core assumptions of humanism:

NATURALISM – the rejection of the supernaturalist worldview that understands God as the ultimate source of all existence and value.
ANTHROPOCENTRISM - Reuben Abel traces the origin of modern anthropocentric thought to an assertion by Protagoras that man is the measure of all things. (See Reuben Abel, Man is the Measure, New York: Free Press, 1997.)
SCIENTISM – the view that science is the measure of what exists and of what does not exist. Since the Enlightenment period, the Christian truth-claims have had diminishing effectiveness for many people, partly because they have seemed inconsistent with the understanding of the world in modern science.

• Humanism is a system whereby man, beginning absolutely by himself, tries rationally to build out of himself, having only man as his integration point, to find all knowledge, meaning, and value.
• It is ‘the effort of modern man to find the meaning of his life in his own purposes or in his own communities and historical causes.’  Glover, Biblical Origins of Modern Secular Culture, 109.
• In a thoroughly anthropocentric world, there is no room left for God.
• The world spirit of our age, observed Francis Schaeffer, is autonomous man setting himself up as God in defiance of the knowledge and moral and spiritual truth that God has given.
• Humanism is freedom from “any restraint, and especially from God’s truth and moral absolutes.” Schaeffer, Great Evangelical Disaster, 315.
• Humanism, in its most fundamental expression, is man putting himself at the center of everything.

Worldviews: A Christian Response to Religious Pluralism
Anthony J. Steinbronn, (2007-01-01).
Concordia Publishing House. Kindle Edition. (Kindle Locations 439-444).

As much as we need to understand this humanism, it is critical that we understand it to be the most pure, raw and unleashed form of the old man born of original sin in the drivers seat.  As such it is all part of the first illusion Satan cast for Adam and Eve - that they could be like God.  
Truly there is nothing new under the sun. 
May the Lord grant us the wisdom of His Word and Spirit to articulate His Law so as to put the old man to death so that we might speak His Gospel by which He might resurrect a new life in all. 

- pmwl

Cheap Grace vs. Saving Grace

WHAT IS CHEAP GRACE?
"Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like a cheapjack's wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut-rate prices. Grace is represented as the Church's inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost! And the essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing. Since the cost was infinite, the possibilities of using and spending it are infinite.
What would grace be, if it were not cheap?
. . . In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. . .
Cheap grace means the justification of sin [i.e. making the sin alright] without the justification of the sinner [making the person right].
Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before.
p. 42

. . . Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance [a turning away of heart, mind and living from the sin], (it is) baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession.
Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate."
p. 43-44

WHAT IS SAVING (COSTLY) GRACE

"Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake of one will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.
Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.
Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ.
It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.
It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner.
Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.
Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. . .
. . . Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: "my yoke is easy and my burden light."
p. 45

Dietrich Bonhoeffer,

The Cost of Discipleship (Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.,

WHEN I, LIKE ELIJAH, WANT TO FLEE FROM MY CALLING

Excerpts from Matthew Henry's Commentary on First Kings 19:9-14

The visit God paid to [Elijah] there and the enquiry he made concerning him: The word of the Lord came to him. We cannot go any where to be out of the reach of God's eye, his arm, and his word. Whither can I flee from thy Spirit? Ps. 139:7, &c. God will take care of his out-casts; and those who, for his sake, are driven out from among men, he will find, and own, and gather with everlasting loving-kindnesses. John saw the visions of the Almighty when he was in banishment in the isle of Patmos, Rev. 1:9.
The question God puts to the prophet it, What doest thou here, Elijah? 5:9, and again 5:13. This is a reproof:

1. For his fleeing hither. "What brings thee so far from home? Dost thou flee from Jezebel? Couldst thou not depend upon almighty power for thy protection?" Lay the emphasis upon the pronoun thou. "What thou! So great a man, so great a prophet, so famed for resolution—dost thou flee thy country, forsake thy colors thus?" This cowardice would have been more excusable in another, and not so bad an example. Should such a man as I flee? Neh. 6:11. Howl, fir-trees, if the cedars be thus shaken. 
2. For his fixing here. "What doest thou here, in this cave? Is this a place for a prophet of the Lord to lodge in? Is this a time for such men to retreat, when the public has such need of them?" In the retirement to which God sent Elijah (ch. 17.) he was a blessing to a poor widow at Sarepta, but here he had no opportunity of doing good. Note, It concerns us often to enquire whether we be in our place and in the way of our duty. "Am I where I should be, whither God calls me, where my business lies, and where I may be useful?"

The account [Elijah] gives of himself, in answer to the question put to him (v. 10), and repeated, in answer to the same question, v. 14.

1. He excuses his retreat, and desires it may not be imputed to his want of zeal for reformation, but to his despair of success. For God knew, and his own conscience witnessed for him, that as long as there was any hope of doing good he had been very jealous for the Lord God of Hosts; but now that he had laboured in vain, and all his endeavors were to no purpose, he thought it was time to give up the cause, and mourn for what he could not mend. Abi in cellam, et dic, Miserere mei—"Away to thy cell, and cry, Have compassion on me."
2. He complains of the people, their obstinacy in sin, and the height of impiety to which they had arrived: "The children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, and that is the reason I have forsaken them; who can stay among them, to see every thing that is sacred ruined and run down?" This the apostle calls his making intercession against Israel, Rom. 11:2, 3. He had often been, of choice, their advocate, but now he is necessitated to be their accuser, before God. Thus John 5:45, There is one that accuseth you, even Moses, whom you trust. Those are truly miserable that have the testimony and prayers of God's prophets against them. He charges them with having forsaken God's covenant; though they retained circumcision, that sign and seal of it, yet they had quitted his worship and service, which was the intention of it. Those who neglect God's ordinances, and let fall their communion with him, do really forsake his covenant, and break their league with him.

At last he perceived a still small voice, in which the Lord was, that is, by which he spoke to him, and not out of the wind, or the earthquake, or the fire. Those struck an awe upon him, awakened his attention, and inspired humility and reverence; but God chose to make known his mind to him in whispers soft, not in those dreadful sounds. When he perceived this,

1. He wrapped his face in his mantle, as one afraid to look upon the glory of God, and apprehensive that it would dazzle his eyes and overcome him. The angels cover their faces before God in token of reverence, Isa. 6:2. Elijah hid his face in token of shame for having been such a coward as to flee from his duty when he had such a God of power to stand by him in it. The wind, and earthquake, and fire, did not make him cover his face, but the still voice did. Gracious souls are more affected by the tender mercies of the Lord than by his terrors.
2. He stood at the entrance of the cave, ready to hear what God had to say to him. This method of God's manifesting himself here at Mount Horeb seems to refer to the discoveries God formerly made of himself at this place to Moses.

• [1.] Then there was a tempest, an earthquake, and fire (Heb. 12:18); but, when God would show Moses his glory, he proclaimed his goodness; and so here: He was, the Word was, in the still small voice.
• [2.] Then the law was thus given to Israel, with the appearances of terror first and then with a voice of words; and Elijah being now called to revive that law, especially the first two commandments of it, is here taught how to manage it; he must not only awaken and terrify the people with amazing signs, like the earthquake and fire, but he must endeavour, with a still small voice, to convince and persuade them, and not forsake them when he should be addressing them. Faith comes by hearing the word of God; miracles do but make way for it.
• [3.] Then God spoke to his people with terror; but in the gospel of Christ, which was to be introduced by the spirit and power of Elijah, he would speak by a still small voice, the dread of which should not make us afraid; see Heb. 12:18, &c.

 The comfortable information God gives him of the number of Israelites who retained their integrity, though he thought he was left alone (v. 18): I have left 7000 in Israel (besides Judea) who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Note:

1. In times of the greatest degeneracy and apostasy God has always had, and will have, a remnant faithful to him, some that keep their integrity and do not go down the stream. The apostle mentions this answer of God to Elijah (Rom. 11:4) and applies it to his own day, when the Jews generally rejected the gospel. Yet, says he, at this time also there is a remnant, v. 5.
2. It is God's work to preserve that remnant, and distinguish them from the rest, for without his grace they could not have distinguished themselves: I have left me; it is therefore said to be a remnant according to the election of grace.
3. It is but a little remnant, in comparison with the degenerate race; what are 7000 to the thousands of Israel? Yet, when those of every age come together, they will be found many more, 12,000 sealed out of each tribe, Rev. 7:4.
4. God's faithful ones are often his hidden ones (Ps. lxxxiii. 3), and the visible church is scarcely visible, the wheat lost in the chaff and the gold in the dross, till the sifting, refining, separating day comes.
5. The Lord knows those that are his, though we do not; he sees in secret.
6. There are more good people in the world than some wise and holy men think there are. Their jealousy of themselves, and for God, makes them think the corruption is universal; but God sees not as they do. When we come to heaven, as we shall miss a great many whom we thought to meet there, so we shall meet a great many whom we little thought to find there. God's love often proves larger than man's charity and more extensive.

 Commentary First Kings 19, Matthew Henry

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/henry/mhc2.iKi.xx.html

The RAsburry Patch: Refute Evolution - Rather Quickly

The RAsburry Patch: Refute Evolution - Rather Quickly: Short, sweet, and right to the point ... as well as right on target: From Check This Out! (a DVD or download featuring six warp-speed v...

A Prayer Amidst the Undulation of Joy and Sadness

Ever is a peril near me,

Ever have I grace to cheer me,

Ever in my woes I sigh,

Ever see I Jesus nigh.

Ever do my sins upbraid me,

Ever Jesus comes to aid me,

Ever woes around me throng,

Ever am I full of song.

Now I seated am in gladness,

Now I fall and lie in sadness,’ ..

Often weary and distrest,

Ever find in Jesus rest.

Thus is grief linked-to my gladness,

Sweet and bitter, joy and sadness

Fill the cup that I must drain

In this life of joy and pain.

But, 0 Jesus, ‘mid life’s sadness,

Grant that faith’s true joy and gladness,

Over sin and grief that quail,

Ever, ever may prevail. Amen.

Kingo: Aldrig er jeg unden Vaade

L 272 HCH 207 tr. C. Doving.

337.  Trinity 11 - Saturday

Book of Family Prayer - Laache. 

Why whining over our crosses tends to ring hallow!

Does anyone really know or comprehend the magnitude of Christ’s Cross and the suffering and sacrifice it brought to Him?  Consider:

• Countless images and pictures can be created depicting the outward appearance of Christ’s sufferings, but not one of the inward pain and bitterness or the invisible causes of them.
• How many people have replicas in all shapes and sizes of the accursed tree, but no replica of the Law that made it so?
• How many have painted, and more will yet paint the blessed Savior bearing His cross to Calvary, yet no one has painted the Christ bearing the sins of the whole world.
• The nails piercing our Lord's sacred flesh has been described with the utmost clarity, but who with equal clarity is able to describe the divine justice that pierced both His flesh and spirit.
• We may give the most accurate account of the spear piercing the Savior’s side, but who is able to give any such an account of the sorrow that pierced His soul.
• How well we may know and taste, yet today, the cup of sour vinegar wine our Savior tasted, but cannot have such knowing or tasting of the cup of God’s wrath which our Lord drank completely to its most bitter end.
• We may with great display and depiction, express the derision of the Jewish leader, but with what might we display and depict the desertion and abandonment of Almighty God forsaking His Son, so that He might never forsake us.

This does not diminish the suffering our crosses bring, but it does make some things quite clear:
Whatever the level of our suffering, it never exceeds our Lord’s suffering.
Whatever we may be suffering through, we are never without our Lord and His resurrection victory assuring us of where the cross always leads.

 

 - pmwl

 

ORIGINAL SIN'S DISPOSITION TOWARD SELF

While the first sin of Adam and Eve has been cast in many different ways as a rejection of God, it was also an act of rejection or hatred toward self.
To grasp this it is important to keep in mind that hatred is always understood as an emotional response toward self - but also as an ACT OF REJECTION.
In their sin, Adam and Eve hated/rejected not just God and His will, but they also hated/rejected themselves and their purpose as God had made them, in favor of an illusion of a "better" them, a better "self", a better “me”.
As a consequence of this Original Sin, each person is born pre-disposed to hate/reject not just God, but themselves and their purpose as God has created them, knit them together in their mother's womb. (Ps 139).
Each person is born hating/rejecting themselves in favor of some other self that is perceived to be better.

Each person is born hating/rejecting their God given purpose in favor of some other purpose that is believed to better reflect and express who they really are.

Inasmuch as each person is born spiritually dead under the power of sin -

• They cannot stop this hatred/rejection of self.
• While they may desperately search for a more favorable self and purpose, their search and discovery can never reach beyond the bounds of themselves and others like them. 
• This limitation enhances and escalates their hatred/rejection of everyone else.

Our sinful nature drives us 24/7 to try and deal with this hatred of self in order to save ourselves from it in primarily three ways:
First - we seek to overcome this hatred of self by appealing to others in the hopes that they will somehow pass favorable and affirming judgment on us, so that we might like, let alone love ourselves.  The evidence offered in our appeals is made via looks, abilities, and possessions, all of which are used in the hopes of influencing the jury of our peers to affirm us.
Second - we seek to save ourselves from this hatred by projecting it on others. This method of coping with our predisposition is perhaps the most often used, especially when the first method fails. When we cannot overcome the hatred of self by appeals to others, we ascend quickly to the judge’s seat. Nothing new needs to be learned here; it is the same hatred. Now it is turned away from us and toward others. Such outward hatred turned toward others is easily sanctified by pointing out all the ways they have rejected us and others by their failing and less than perfect words or behaviors toward us or others. In this means of saving ourselves from the hatred of self, we not only sanctify ourselves, we also comfort ourselves as victims of these hateful people from whom we must isolate ourselves in our private self-made sanctuary where we nurture our victimhood into near saintliness made of hatred.

Third - we seek to save ourselves from this hatred by using others and all things in this world to so intoxicate ourselves with sensual pleasure. The level of sensual pleasure will determine the level to which one is no longer conscious or aware of his or her hatred/rejection of self. Yet like any narcotic, the level of sensual pleasure will have to escalate so that the heart and mind are turned off by the ever increasing feelings/emotional gratification which are pitted against the hatred of self. "Let us eat and drink and be merry for tomorrow we die." (Is 22:13; 1Co 15:32).

While we are born with Original Sin's pre-disposition to hate/reject self, it is a weakness that our Lord uses in us toward His goal of our salvation. 

Without this hate/rejection of self, there can never be a hunger, a thirst for another self, a new and better self.
Here is where the stewardship of the Law serves to turn us from self. Hence the call to “repent”, turn back to God. Sin pre-disposes us to turn from God and ourselves. God’s calling us to repentance, gives us direction and His power to turn to Him. The key in this call to repent is that without the Gospel, without the Word of Christ descending into our personal pits of hatred, so magnificently on display in passion and death of Christ, we can have neither a new or better self. For apart from Christ, all the other selves out there are neither new, nor better;- they are just like us - bound in sin and its self-hatred.
Baptism is our Lord’s personal entry into each of us where He unites this self-hatred to Himself as He received it on the Cross and unites His death in this hatred to us – putting us to death and resurrected us in Himself as a new person.
United to Christ - the self that is bound in sin and hatred is put to death by the power of His death.
United to Christ – we are created as a new self in Christ with the same purpose that Adam and Eve were created with – doing good to all as they had opportunity and ability according to the relationships God has created for them.
United to Christ – our new self in Christ with a predisposition to love/choose Christ and His will for us by believing in Christ and receiving Him through His Word and the sacrament of His Body and Blood.
United to Christ – our new self in Christ resides along side of our old self, in sin with his predispositions to hate self and others. Yet the new self/life we are given in Christ does not live by our ability to overcome the old self – but by faith in Christ whose love/choice of us in forgiveness is greater and will never be separated from us.

• By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 1 John 3:19-21 (ESV)
• Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword … For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:35, 38-39 (ESV)
• Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Heb 13:7-8 (ESV)

The quest to love self can only end in defeat. Yet it is a quest that many believers, like unbelievers, set out upon over and over.
How often we are told that before you can truly love someone,- you must first love yourself. Sounds reasonable, but it is a sanctified way of keeping ourselves the issue, not others. Notice that such a quest justifies devoting ourselves to saving ourselves from our own self-hatred.
The reality each of us suffers under is that we cannot turn back, let alone cope with original sin's predisposition to hate ourselves. Any and every attempt to love ourselves will crash and burn when we run into our own faults, failures and sin.
Many Christians are seduced into undertaking this same quest. They believe that because Christ has saved them and they are born again, they can somehow finally achieve the love of self. Such beliefs and arguments that arise in them are all based on the same god talk that Job's friends offered him. It all sounds “godly”, yet none of the talk is God's but rather our talk of what we imagine is godly. Those who pursue this quest will end up as Job ended with his friends – not comforted. For all their words to Job and all their tears and time with him, Job was never comforted by them. Job was not comforted until God spoke and what God spoke never answered any Job’s questions. God’s Word to Job simply reminded him that God was God, his God, and Job was not God, but God’s child. Note that God sternly rebuked Job's friends because in all their god talk - they never spoke of God what was right (Job 42:7-9).
Nowhere in Scripture does the Lord ever give us a command to love ourselves. He does give us a command according to the purpose we were first created with: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself (Mt 22:37-40). How is the love of self defined for the purpose of loving neighbor? Again, the Lord does not leave us to subjectively determine this. He simply says "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (Mt 7:12).
The only way to rightly love self is to rightly love/believe in Jesus Christ, whose own kind of love sought and redeemed us when there was no reason to in us.
To rightly love self is to love/to believe in Christ for to believe in Him is to reach by the Holy Spirit beyond yourself that you might receive Him and His redeeming mercies to yourself.
The goal of your life is not to love yourself; Jesus does that for you and for God the Father. Your goal is to believe in Him and from Him, through Him and in Him, be the you He redeemed you to be for sake of those around you.
God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Eph 2:4-10 (ESV)
Grasping the truth that we cannot rightly love ourselves because we are bound in hatred/rejection of ourselves is very freeing for the believer. We may not "feel" good about ourselves, but we can be "glad" that we are loved by someone (Jesus Christ) who is greater than our hearts. “By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.” 1 Jn 3:19-20.
In Christ we constantly the love of God that sets us free in forgiveness, from living to deal with our hatred and rejection of self, so that we might love/chose the good we are able to do for whoever has need of us.

- pmwl
Updated 2-22-2012

The Law demands wrath for everything. Christ grants mercy for everything.

The Law demands punishment for everything and everyone. But in Jesus Christ is forgiveness of sins for everything and everyone.
The Law demands wrath for everything. Christ grants mercy for everything.
With Christ all works are done, all punishment suffered, all righteousness fulfilled. Therefore he says: “Come, for all things are ready.”
No one has so such terrible and weighty sins that they could outweigh the blood of Christ to carry them away.
No one has so many sins that they could be worth more than the meritorious work of God’s Son.
No one is so corrupt that Jesus cannot cure him.
No one is so deeply fallen that Jesus cannot still and willingly raise him up.
But come to Him with everything that troubles your conscience, your soul. He takes it all away.
What does this mean but to be justified before God.
What does it mean to be justified?
ANSWER: If I believe, God receives me in grace, “accounts to me Christ’s righteousness, frees me from sin and its punishment, and regards me in Christ as if I never sinned.”

Edited - Nils Jakob Laache.
263. Trinity 2 – Thursday – Book of Family Prayer.

When creation is no longer God's creation ....

"Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" - God Job 38:2 

 

"When we adopt a human-centered approach [to the Scriptures, preaching/teaching/worship] that assimilates God to our own experience and happiness, the world is no longer God's creation; it too, like God, exists for our own personal well-being. Everything that exisits is there for us to consume for our happiness"
Michael Horton
- Christless Christianity p. 56

When the gospel doesn’t need to be denied, because it is beside the point.

It is becoming more and more obvious that many of the ears of today are listening for the spiritual but are unable and therefore unwilling to hear the Gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ. What they would call a spiritual quest is in truth an emotional quest – cast in spiritual terms. The contours of both their spiritual struggles and the solution to them are determined purely by subjective feelings and sensations of peace and wellness. Michael Horton writes in Christless Christianity: “Once you make your peace of mind rather than peace with God the main problem to be solved in your life, the gospel becomes radically redefined.” (p.39). Where the Gospel is redefined, so also must sin and sinfulness also be redefined.
What is forgotten in this quest for peace of mind or sense of wellness, is the very captivity of the mind to sin, which is hostile to God (Rom 8:7; Col 1:21). If I as a sinner cannot make peace with God, why am I so easily deceived into believing I can make peace with myself? At this point, self has become the almighty I must answer too rather than God the Almighty.
The deeper reality of this deception is that where I have made my own peace of mind or peace within the main issue and purpose of my life, there I have made my sinful self the god to whom I and all others must answer. Having made God in my own image, I must go in search of those preachers and pastors who will shepherd not me, but the things I have done, the things and people around me and what they do so that I may have peace of mind and a happy heart.
Horton describe the sad consequence of this quest.  “‘How can I, a sinner, be right with a holy God?” is simply off the radar … Once the self is enthroned as the source, judge, and goal of all of life, the gospel need not be denied, because it is beside the point.’”  (p.40)
How gloriously merciful our Lord is in that He makes us new creations born not of our wills, our works, or ourselves but born of God in Jesus Christ (John 1:12-13; 2 Cor 5:17). We are reborn in peace by and therefore with, Almighty God.
As we have been set free from making peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord, we are equally set free from making peace with ourselves. Inasmuch as the Lord Jesus Christ has made full and glorious peace for me with the true God through His passion, death and resurrection, He also gives me His peace in the midst of the hostility of my sinful self, because it has been crucified with Christ.
Our Lord does not call us to make peace with ourselves, but to simply “let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.” (Col. 3:15).

- pmwl

Barnum & Bailey Lutheran Church

May 12, 2011 by Pastor Riley's Blog

The Church Growth Movement and Lutheran Worship
Ernie V. Lassman
Concordia Theological Quarterly, vol.62, 1 (Jan. 1998).
Do we use worship to evangelize people or do we evangelize people so they can worship? Is worship primarily for believers or unbelievers? Is worship primarily for the “churched or the “unchurched? How one answers this question has significant implications. If worship is primarily for believers who already belong to the Church, then one would expect the worship form to reflect this. This would mean that language, concepts, symbols, and music would have an “insiders” feel. Such an approach would have an “alien” feel to an “outsider,” that is, one who is not yet a believer and a member of the Church, because it would result in a form that reflects knowledge of Jesus Christ and the Christian faith. The form/style would be in keeping with Paul’s exhortation to be mature and to put away childish things (1 Corinthians 13:ll; Ephesians 4:13; Hebrews 5:14). But if one uses worship to evangelize the non-Christian there could be a temptation to have a format that is lower in its expression of Christianity – the lowest common denominator, so to speak. For example, we hear these days of “seeker services.” For whom are such services designed? If they are designed for non-Christians, there can be no worship format at all since they cannot worship God without faith in Jesus Christ. This is carried out to its logical conclusion in Bill Hybels’ Willow Creek Community Church, which purposefully omits the cross from the building, striving instead to look like a concert hall or movie theater lobby. However, if most of the attendees are already professed Christians, what is the purpose of offering a “seeker service” to them? And if these services are held on Sunday morning, will not such services actually confuse what worship is for the “seeker” and for many members of the congregation?
In addition, the phrase “seeker services” has the sound of revivalism, which is foreign to the Scriptures and to the Lutheran Confessions. Revivalism was one aspect of American Lutheranism as promoted by Samuel Schmucker. Revivalism is a distinct American phenomenon shaped by the culture of the nineteenth century. Speaking of the negative consequences of revivalism Mark Noll says “the combination of revivalism and disestablishment meant that pragmatic concerns would prevail over principle. What the churches required were results – new adherents – or they would simply go out of business. Thus, the production of results had to override all other considerations.” And this is part of the problem for these same forces are loosed in the church growth movement. Thus, a part of our current crisis is “Americanization.”
If one shapes the worship format according to the lowest common denominator, one is not only restricted in the use of the best of Christian expression, but opens the door for secular ideas and concepts to shape the worship service apart from God and his Word. I have been at pastors’ conferences and heard Lutheran speakers say that the problem is our members who resist change because they do not want to grow. Church growth experts tell us we should be more concerned about meeting the needs of the unchurched person than meeting the needs of the very people who believe in Jesus Christ and support the Church with their faithful and regular involvement and monies. It is true that our democratic society is unfriendly to the idea of “outsiders” and “insiders,” yet this is inherent in Christianity. Jesus made the distinction between “outsiders” and “insiders” when He was telling parables. In Mark’s Gospel Jesus tells his disciples (the “insiders”): “The secret of the Kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables” (Mark 4:ll). And Paul refers to “outsiders” and “insiders” in at least four different texts: 1 Corinthians 5:12-13; Colossians 4:5; 1 Thessalonians 4:5; and 1 Timothy 3:7. The very name “Church,” ekklesia, means “those called out” and implies this outsider/insider tension, as does Paul’s familiar phrase “When you come together” (1 Corinthians 11:18).

http://thefirstpremise.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/barnum-bailey-lutheran-church/

Prostituted Worship????

"Whenever the method of worship becomes more important than the Person of worship, we have already prostituted our worship. There are entire congregations who worship praise and praise worship but who have not yet learned to praise and worship God in Jesus Christ."
Judson Cornwall
Worship As Jesus Taught It. Tulsa: Victory House Publishers. 1987. pg. 70.

he that craves for this thing and that thing, as a token for good at the hand of the Lord, stands in danger of perishing from want of faith.

"But [Thomas] said to them, 'Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.'”  John 20:25
Dear friends, if you began to seek signs, and if you were to see them, do you know what would happen? Why, you would want more; and when you had these, you would demand still more. Those who live by their feelings judge of the truth of God by their own condition. When they have happy feelings, then they believe; but if their spirits sink, if the weather happens to be a little damp, or if their constitution happens to be a little disordered, down go their spirits, and, straightway, down goes their faith.
He that lives by a faith which does not rest on feeling, but is built upon the Word of the Lord, will remain fixed and steadfast as the mount of God; but he that craves for this thing and that thing, as a token for good at the hand of the Lord, stands in danger of perishing from want of faith.
He shall not perish, if he has even a grain of living faith, for God will deliver him from the temptation; but the temptation is a very trying one to faith.
Crave, therefore, no sign. If you read a story of a person who saw a vision, or it you hear another declare that a voice spoke to him—believe those things, or not, as you like; but do not desire them for yourself.
These wonders may, or may not, be freaks of the imagination. I will not judge; but we must not rely upon them, for we are not to walk by sight, but by faith.

A Sermon  (No. 2061) C. H. SPURGEON

"Then [Jesus] said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.' Thomas answered him, 'My Lord and my God!' Jesus said to him, 'Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.'"   John 20:27-29

If I do not know the one in whom I place my trust ...

“No faith is grounded in the self and is thus an ‘absolute’faith;3 instead,
- there is only a faith that is grounded outside one’s own self,
- grounded outside the self,
- a faith grounded outside the center of one’s being,
- a faith that is in this sense is determined by its content.
It has its basis in the object: ‘Jesus Christ, my Lord,’ through whom, as his Son, God conveys himself as Father through the Holy Spirit and allows himself to be addressed.
Faith is in fact completely an act of trust, but it is a trust that is grounded and connected.
If I do not know the one in whom I place my trust and what I entrust to him, then faith relationship – no matter how sincerely and earnestly it may be – remains empty and aimless.
Luther’s explanation to the first commandment in the Large Catechism thus does not call attention primarily to the preparedness of the human heart, to observe one’s striving, as such, but from first to last it deals with that upon which I can place my trust …
One is reminded here of what Luther said in his interpretation of Jonah 1:5: the sailors’ prayer of faith, which showed that they all knew about God, ought not be any less intensive and upright than the faith of the Christian; but the sailors do not have a ‘certain God’ and thus they also have no certain faith.”

3 … Luther confesses that he would not choose to have free will, even if it were possible, since the certainty of salvation can be grounded only in God himself – not in the human subject.’

From “God’s Presence: The Holy Spirit” in Martin Luther’s Theology by Oswald Bayer
Eerdmans - English Translation 2008


Please know, I have bolded sections for emphasis.
- pmwl

 

Battle Hymn of the Reformation

- enjoy!!! - pmwl

While in the way of wickedness, it can never be seen as wickedness

Why is it that when caught up in some sin or powerful desire to sin, we are unable to see it for the sinfulness of what we are doing or desiring? 
SIN IS ALWAYS BLIND TO ITSELF AS SIN.
This excerpt helps answer this question.

"Untruth remains undiscovered because, as Paul says, truth is held down and suppressed in unrighteousness. Being in untruth conceals untruth. The same applies to evil. It is of the essence of wickedness that it cannot see itself. In this, it resembles stupidity. Stupidity cannot see itself because some unattainable intelligence is needed to see it, to confess knowledge of one’s own ignorance. That wickedness cannot see itself but must be opened by the Pneuma (Holy Spirit) to do so finds striking expression in its constant justification, exculpation, and validation of itself. In its own eyes it is not wickedness. A related fact is that the demonic power behind wickedness shares this fate of invisibility, or better, initiates it. It is a power in the background and not in the objectifiable foreground. People never see the devil even when he has them by the throat."

-Helmut Thielicke, The Evangelical Faith Vol. 3
reposted here from Robert Bennett post on facebook - Wednesday, April 6, 2011 at 11:03pm.


.

A method to ordering thoughts and desires in prayer based on the Litany

“Lord teach us to pray...” Luke 11:1

Prayer is the only thing the disciples ever asked the Lord to teach them.
I don’t know about you, but when I take time to pray, I find that my words and thoughts get somewhat jumbled and gummed up by all the conflicting thoughts, concerns and desires I have for them. Many times, my prayers became a time of frustration as I tried to maintain focus and get all my thoughts together.
As part of my Lenten Journey, I took President Matthew Harrison up on his challenge for us to pray the Litany each morning during Lent. What a blessing this has been, for it revealed to me the way of focused and blessed prayer.

I offer these draft examples of how the Litany has taught me to order my thoughts and desires in prayer for myself, others, the church, etc. In no way do I want you to give up the Litany, as I pray this to conclude my prayers.
 For MY SINS AND MY SINFULNESS -
...that I may be forgiven of my sins of thought, word and deed,
...that I may be cleansed of my guilt;
...that I may by the power of the Spirit amend my life;
...that the old man in me may be drowned and die;
...that that the power of sin be broken in me;
...and that my thinking, my speaking and my actions may be set free to honor and serve God and my neighbor:
    Lord have mercy upon me and graciously forgive me for the sake of Christ. Amen.

For MY FAMILY -
...that they may be protected from all evil;
...that they grow in the Word;
...that they may grow in their faith;
...that the Holy Spirit may sanctify them with His gifts;
...that they may be faithful to the Lord;
...and that each of them may share the love of Christ in all they say and do:
...Lord have mercy upon them and be gracious to them for the sake of Christ. Amen.

For MY CONGREGATION –
...that they may be blessed with a pure preaching and teaching of the Word,
...that they worship the true God in spirit and in truth,
...that they may hunger for and rightly receive the Sacrament of our Lord’s body and blood,
...that they may manifest their faith in the vocations of their lives,
...that they may rightly support the work of the church with their time, their abilities, and their monies,
...and that they may enjoy and share the blessings of being the baptized people of God:
...Lord have mercy upon them and be gracious to them for the sake of Christ. Amen.
 For _______________________________________
... that _______________________________________;
... that _______________________________________;
... that _______________________________________;
... that _______________________________________;
... Lord have mercy upon __________________ and be gracious to ___________________ for the sake of Christ. Amen.

I hope that this method of ordering and expressing your thoughts and desires in prayer may be of benefit to you.
This method has brought me real joy, peace and blessings in my time of prayer.

- pmwl

Anfechtung 4 ... everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleaned.

At this point, the parables of the gospel shed light on the problem. First, the one about the Samaritan [Luke 10:29–37] who placed the half-dead man on his beast, poured wine and oil into his wounds and asked the innkeeper to take care of him. He did not straightway cure him altogether. Similarly, we too are not entirely cured by baptism or repentance, but a beginning is made in us and the bandage of the first grace binds our wounds so that our healing may proceed from day to day until we are cured. For this reason, St. James says in James 1[:18], “God has given us birth through his word, out of his sheer gracious will, without our merit, that we should be a first fruit of his work or creatures.” This is as if to say, “So long as we live here on earth, believing in his word, we are a work that God has begun, but not yet completed; but after death we shall be perfect, a divine work without sin or fault.”
The second parable is written in Matt. 13[:33]. It tells of the leaven which the woman mixes in three measures of meal until it is thoroughly leavened. The new leaven is the faith and grace of the Spirit. It does not leaven the whole lump at once but gently, and gradually, we become like this new leaven and eventually, a bread of God. This life, therefore, is not godliness but the process of becoming godly, not health but getting well, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way. The process is not yet finished, but it is actively going on. This is not the goal but it is the right road. At present, everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleansed.
To bring the matter to a conclusion, the Lord’s Prayer alone is enough to show that all of us are still sinners, for all the saints must also pray, “Hallowed be thy name, thy will be done, thy kingdom come,” etc. Here they actually confess that they do not now adequately hallow God’s name; nevertheless they could not even offer this prayer if the Spirit had not already begun to hallow this name. Thus they confess that they do not yet fulfil the will of God and yet they could not pray this petition had they not already begun to fulfil it. For those who have not made a beginning care nothing about the name and will of God, pray for nothing, and show no interest. Nor can it be said that in these petitions the saints pray only over their past sins and not their present and remaining sins. For there is a special Petition in the Lord’s Prayer that deals with past sins which says, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” These other Petitions, however, obviously refer to the other sins which are now present. For this reason, they ask that in the future God’s name be honored, the divine will be obeyed, and the kingdom of God be attained. These are the prayers of men who are still partly in the kingdom of the devil, partly disobedient, and partly guilty of dishonoring the name of God.

Career of the Reformer II.
(Luther's Works 32), S. 32:24

... the noble contents of the Word, must divide souls from the world and bring them near to God.

IN PRAISE OF PREACHING
by Wilhelm Lohe

Among the means which the church uses to save souls, preaching stands first. It is the means by which those are called who stand afar off, and those who have been called are rendered steadfast in their calling and election.
In preaching, the church does not aim to support the holy Word by human art, but the chief matter is not to hinder its power and operation and not to impose upon the Word any kind or manner of operation which does not befit it.
The preacher proclaims salvation in Christ Jesus with the consciousness that not what he does, but the noble contents of the Word, must divide souls from the world and bring them near to God.
Of course the preacher believes and therefore speaks, and it is a detestable contradiction to preach and yet not to believe; but a true preacher will not try to recommend the truth by imparting his faith and experience; that would be only to recommend himself; rather does he seek to bring his people to say with the Samaritans: “Now we believe, not because of thy saying; for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.” [John 4:42]
An upright preacher does not purposely withdraw himself, nor does he purposely make himself prominent, but he comes with the Word and the Word comes with him; he is a simple, faithful witness of the Word, and the Word witnesses to him; he and his Word appear like one thing.
All his preaching is based upon holy peace. Even when he rebukes, and zeal for God’s house eats him up, it is not the wrath of the restless world, but the wrath of the unapproachable God of peace, that burns within him.
It is not he that speaks, but the Lord speaks in him and through him, and his execution of his office is worthy of the Lord.
The churchly preacher always may be known by his manliness and maturity.
In great confidence in the divine Word he therefore despises every sort of machinery. He has a method, the method of simplicity.
He does not seek to win friends for the Lord Jesus Christ by means of human eloquence, nor by exciting the feelings, nor by a meretricious excitement of the nerves.
His object is not a disturbed awakening, but the transformation of divine thoughts.
Just as vocation goes on to enlightenment, and all progress in the inner life is conditioned by the progress of knowledge; so he seeks before all else to make the holy thoughts of the divine Word rightly known and to bring them before the memory, contemplation, will and inmost being of his hearers.
He does not despise the feelings of men, but he awakens them by holding before them the heavenly light, or rather he sets up this light and is assured that with its ray warmth also will proceed from it.
His watchwords are not Awake and the like, but those words of Scripture which refer to the gradual, silent growth of the divine mustard-seed.
His insistence and compulsion are not the insistence and compulsion of human impatience, but a just patient waiting on the Word.
He gladly waits, knowing that precious fruits do not grow in a night.
And he waits upon all his sheep, for he knows that the Lord has his own hour, his own haste, but also his own delays.

Three Books Concerning the Church,
tr. By Edward T. Horn (Reading, Pa.: Pilger Publishing House, 1908), pp. 181 ff.

Anfechtung 3 "God in his mercy ordains their sufferings and difficulties for them..."

  Let us ask further whether, when everything goes wrong [in the believer’s life] with their life, their goods, their honor, their friends, or whatever they have, they still believe that their works are well-pleasing to God, and that God in his mercy ordains their sufferings and difficulties for them, whether they be small or great.
  The great thing in life is to have a sure confidence in God when, at least as far as we can see or understand, he shows himself in wrath, and to expect better at his hands than we now know.
  Here God is hidden, as the bride says in the Song of Songs [2:9], “Behold there he stands behind our wall, gazing in through the windows.”
  That means he stands hidden among the sufferings which would separate us from him like a wall, indeed, like a wall of a fortress.
  And yet he looks upon me and does not forsake me. He stands there and is ready to help in grace, and through the window of dim faith he permits himself to be seen. And Jeremiah says in Lamentations 3[:39–33], “He casts men aside, but that is not the intention of his heart.”
  These people know nothing at all of this kind of a faith, and they give themselves over to thinking that God has forsaken them and is their enemy. They even lay the blame on other men or on the devil, and have simply no confidence at all in God. For this reason, too, their suffering is always an offense to them and harmful. And yet they go on doing their good works, as they think, quite unaware of their serious unbelief.
  But they who in such suffering trust God and hold on to a good, firm confidence in him, who believe that he is well-pleased with them, see in their sufferings and afflictions nothing but pure and precious merits, the costliest treasures which no man can assess.
  For faith and confidence make precious before God all that which others think most shameful, so that it is written even of death in Psalm 116[:15], “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” And just as confidence and faith are better, higher, and stronger at this stage than in the first, so the sufferings which are borne in this kind of faith excel all works of faith. Therefore there is an immeasurable difference between such works and sufferings, and the sufferings are better.
  Beyond all this is the highest stage of faith, when God punishes the conscience not only with temporal sufferings but with death, hell, and sin, and at the same time refuses grace and mercy, as though he wanted to condemn and show his anger eternally. Few men experience this as David did when he complained in Psalm 6[:1], “O Lord, rebuke me not in thy anger.”
  To believe at such times that God is gracious and well-disposed toward us is the greatest work that may ever happen to and in a man, but of this the work-righteous and the doers of good works know nothing at all. For how would they know to expect God’s goodness and grace in these circumstances when they are not certain about the works they do and have doubts at the lowest stage of faith?

Martin Luther - The Christian in Society I.
(Luther's Works 44), S. 44:27

... it would be nice if a small group kind of magically happened in our living room

Saying you’re having a hard time “connecting” at church.
March 3, 2011


This church isn’t very friendly. Have you noticed that? We might need to change to a new church, because we’re having a really hard time connecting at this one. We’ve been coming here for six months, sitting in service, not talking to anyone, then immediately sprinting out of the building and going home. And no one has connected with us. Rude!
We haven’t met anyone in small group either. We didn’t sign up for one, but still, it would be nice if a small group kind of magically happened in our living room, on a night that was convenient for us and someone brought banana pudding. Not box banana pudding, but like the kind your grandmother used to make. Is that so much to ask for?
Probably, considering that this church doesn’t really seem to reach out to people who have spent six months attending Sunday morning service and not participating in any other activities.
No one even called us and asked why we weren’t at the fall festival. Sure, we’ve never given them our number, but google it. And then help us connect.
I thought this church was going to be different. I thought it wouldn’t be like the last three churches we attended. Remember those three? Always saying, “Please stay for lunch and learn about the church. Please let us know if you have any questions. Please come to our first time visitor’s luncheon.” So annoying.
What’s that you say? Where are we serving at the church? Serving is a great way to get connected and plug into a place that is ultimately a two way street of people loving and giving and growing together? Even something as simple as handing out bulletins can jump start new relationships with new people? Ugh, that sounds like a lot of work. Quit judging us.
And start connecting us.
We’re having a hard time connecting at this church.

- Jon Acuff

http://www.jonacuff.com/stuffchristianslike/2011/03/4551/