No Need to Fear God's Judgment

 

There's an episode of Calvin & Hobbes that sent me on a search for a spiritual tract from the 1970's...and that ended up helping me appreciate the grace of Jesus.

But first, Calvin explains to his mom how it is that he finished his homework so quickly:

But then, with the specter of accountability looming, fear explodes:

That look of fear and desperation on Calvin's face is what reminded me of a series of cartoon-based tracts from "back in the day" produced by Chick Publications. They were almost all meant to literally scare the "hell" out of people. (I searched "scary tracts" and chick.com was the third item on the results page.)

I was specifically reminded of this panel from a tract titled This Was Your Life which pictures a guy dropping dead and then, before the judgment seat of God, a movie was shown of everything he ever did.

Truth is...for those who confess Jesus as Lord, there is no need to fear the cat being let out of the bag during the final day of judgment. And here's why you can be sure of that"

Micah 7:19 (NIV): "You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea."

Psalm 103:12 (NIV): "As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us."

Advice from the Fifties that Still Hits the Mark

 

I have no idea how old the "Church Etiquette" advice I found in this old newspaper clipping is, but, other than a reference to a worship order "book" being used, the advice and reasoning still stand firm.

1. COME  -  Never miss church unless it is absolutely necessary. George Washington's pastor said of him, "No company ever kept him from church."

2. COME EARLY  -  Rushing into church the last minute is not conducive to true worship.

3. COME WITH YOUR WHOLE FAMILY  -  The church service is not a convention that a family should merely send a delegate.

4. TAKE A PLACE TOWARD THE FRONT OF CHURCH  -  Leave the rear seats for those who may come late and for backsliders and mothers with children.

5. BE DEVOUT  -  The church is not a theater or place of amusement. You come to worship God, not to whisper, lounge, or sleep. God's house deserves our very utmost reverence.

6. HELP STRANGERS TO FIND AND FOLLOW THE SERVICE  -  If they have no book, share yours with them. Sing! Join in the worship! Don't just sit!

7. ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT STRANGERS ARE THE GUESTS OF THE CHURCH MEMBERS  -  Treat them with the same courtesy as you would if they should visit your home.

8. GIVE A GOOD OFFERING TO GOD  -  God loveth a cheerful giver. Freely ye have received.

9. NEVER RUSH FOR THE DOOR after the benediction as though the church were on fire. Speak and be spoken to. Be congenial.

10. NEVER STAY AWAY FROM CHURCH BECAUSE THE CHURCH IS NOT PERFECT  -  How lonesome you would feel in a perfect church.

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Truth is...This list was apparently constructed with the assumption that the purpose of a Sunday morning worship service is not to benefit or entertain those who attend but to honor God and expand his kingdom.

And that's a good thing.

Is OMG AOK?

 

Perhaps the most-heard exclamation of surprise, fear, pain, joy, wonder, and/or sarcastic disbelief is the three-word phrase, "Oh my god."

Those of you who just bristled at even reading those words to yourself probably base your discomfort and disapproval on Exodus 20:7, commonly called the Third Commandment and expressed in the King James Version as "Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain."

The thing is...God's name is not "God".

In our English-language translations of the Bible, when the word "Lord" or "God" is printed in all capital letters, it stands in for God the Father's actual, literal name, expressed in English letters as YHWH and commonly pronounced Yahweh or Jehovah.

So the Third Commandment is actually, "Thou shalt not take the name of Yahweh thy God in vain." Or as The Message paraphrase puts it, "No using the name of Yahweh, your God, in curses or silly banter."

"God" is a title, not a name. It would be like saying, "Oh my President," or "Manager! That hurts!"

Sounds a little silly, doesn't it?

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Truth is...I'm not saying I'm okay with the silly banter of "OMG" and all the other uses of the word "god" that most folks consider to be swearing. Just because it doesn't break the 3rd commandment doesn't make it acceptable. It certainly doesn't express an abundance of respect for Yahweh, who holds that title in a deeper, more meaningful sense than any other entity, real or imagined.

"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen."

(Ephesians 4:29 NIV)

Let's Get Together in Awe of Jesus: "O Come, Let Us Adore Him" Prosified

 

"O Come, Let Us Adore Him" began life as the chorus of "O Come, All Ye Faithful:" The same phrase sung three times with three words, "Christ the Lord," tagged at the end.

At some point, three more phrases were written and the four-stanza version was able to escape Christmastime and be used throughout the year.

Even the lengthened version is straightforward and simple, and yet, the concepts sung about grow in meaning as a person invests time contemplating their connotations.

O come, let us adore him
This is an urgent plea, like a child tugging on its parent's sleeve: "Come on. Come ON!" According to Luke 2:15, it's almost a quote from the shepherds watching their flocks by night: “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

It's also a call to collaboration and community. "Let US adore him!" What started with a choir of angels is going to continue with human voices.

We'll praise His name forever
This communal worship is no flash mob. Our expected eternity will be filled with praising the name of Jesus.

We'll give Him all the glory
It's not uncommon to hear people say things like, "When I get to heaven, I can't wait to ask Peter a few things," or "Can you imagine the concerts in heaven with [insert the names of your favorite musical artists here]?" As if Jesus is just one of many celebrities we hope to meet.

I don't think so. All of our attention and worship and focus will appropriately be given to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

For He alone is worthy
There is none other who deserves to be adored without reservation and praised with utter abandon.

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Truth is...God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11 NIV)

Price Per Gallon

 

[Disclaimer: The financial figures that follow were current approximations at the time of writing. Their exact accuracy isn't the point.]

During my two-shifts-a-week at a local convenience store, I hear a lot of people talk about the price of gasoline. It's been hovering one side or the other of $3 a gallon lately and people are always telling me whether the price has gone up or gone down.

I don't have the heart to tell them I don't really care and could you just pay for it without whining.

Not having any way of knowing whether I should think $3 per gallon is a good price or a bad price, I did a little research to find out how much per gallon some other liquids cost:

Milk: $3.79

Coffee Mate: $5.54

Evian Spring Water: $6.40

Soy Sauce: $15.33

Red Bull: $30

Tabasco Sauce: $94.46

But what about liquids that DO something?

Penicillin: $301

Insulin: $9,411

Chanel No. 5 Perfume: $25,600

Thailand Cobra Venom: $152,000

Scorpian Venom: Almost $39 Million

Truth is...The significance of all these things absolutely disappears in comparison to the one liquid that has affected more good in the lives of more people over the course of more time than any other thing.

Jesus: "This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many."

1 John 1:7 "The blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin."

Fear of Friendlessness

 

Do you ever stop in your tracks and wonder if you have any friends who would take a bullet for you?

There's a word for that; at least according to The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig:

nachlophobia (from the Greek for "loosely held together" and "fear". Pronounced nok-luh-foh-bee-uh.)  -  n. the fear that your deepest connections with people are ultimately pretty shallow, that although your relationships feel congenial in the moment, an audit of your life would reveal a smattering of low-interest holdings and uninvested windfall profits, which will indicate you were never really at risk of joy, sacrifice, or loss.

For those of you familiar with the story of a paralyzed man's friends tearing a hole in a roof and letting the man down through it so Jesus could heal him, have you ever stopped and evaluated your personal relationships to the point of knowing what four friends of yours would go to the trouble of carrying you on a mat and damaging someone's personal property so you would have the possibility of being healed?

Forget about taking a bullet for you. Do you have any mat-carriers in your life?

Would YOU be willing to carry someone else on THEIR mat?

If you are susceptible to nachlophobia, it is the final phrase of the definition that might instill the most fear: "You were never really at risk of joy, sacrifice, or loss."

It takes a real investment in each other's lives for a friendship to be important enough to bring joy that is deeper than mere happiness and elicit a mutual sacrifice that is far beyond the inconvenience of a small favor.

Of course, that level of investment also runs the risk of causing pain when the relationship is lost.

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This train of thought takes me to some things I've been saying about "church membership" since April.

There is a difference between attending church and being part of the church, and if a person can easily say, "I'm gonna start going to this other church" without grieving the loss of fellowship with the church they're leaving, I wonder if they're a member or just an attender.

Truth is...risking pain and making sacrifices is abundantly worth the payout of joy that comes from having deep and abiding friends.

You Never Know Who God Is Gonna Use

 

It's interesting when a peripheral character becomes a pivotal part of the story.

According to The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson, Abraham Lincoln made a detour on his train trip from Illinois to the White House. He had been elected President and was moving his family to the nation's capital, but there was an actor...well-respected for his tragic roles...performing in a production of The Apostate at a theater in Albany, and Lincoln wanted to see the show.

That event would have been hardly memorable except that the actor's name was John Wilkes Booth, who would assassinate President Lincoln 50 months later.

The Law & Order "cha-chung" that sounded in my head when I read that is similar to the ominous feeling in any reenactment of the gospel story whenever Judas Iscariot is introduced. But when Judas became one of the twelve, he was just another guy wanting to learn from Jesus. There was nothing about him that immediately said "This guy's going to be a traitor."

In the same way, but in a positive light, there are people...and animals, even...scattered throughout Scripture who are simply living their lives but end up being important parts of God's plan.

Rich Mullins has a song that talks about that. (Oh...THERE'S a big surprise.)

Now Balaam, he had a donkey

Who was gentle and true and kind

And the donkey saw an angel with a sword

So he slipped old Balaam past him

And when he done it three times

Well, Balaam got so mad he beat the donkey

And so the Lord

Well, he gave the donkey language

And the donkey plainly brayed,

"Well, there's an angel about to strike you from the path"

Then old Balaam's eyes were opened

And he realized he'd been saved

By his donkey from the angel of God's wrath

And a princess pulled a baby out of the water

He was hidden in the rushes

Sleeping in a basket made of reeds

And you never know who God is gonna use

A princess or a baby

Or maybe even you or me

Now Esther, she was a beauty

Who was pleasing to a man

And the man that she was pleasing was a king

But her people's lives were threatened

By some wicked men's plans

Nobody knew just how the lord was gonna intervene

Well, Mordecai her uncle, he was honest but he was smart

And he knew that Esther's beauty was a gift

He said, "Maybe you could cook some supper

Maybe you could change a king's heart

Who knows but what you come into the world

For such a time as this"

And a princess pulled a baby out of the water . . .

There was Miriam a-dancing

And there was Jubal with a harp

There was poor blind Samson

Even Pontius Pilate played a part

And a princess pulled a baby out of the water

He was hidden in the rushes

Sleeping in a basket made of reeds

And you never know who God is gonna use

A princess or a baby

Or maybe even you or me

c.1991 BMG Songs,Inc. (ASCAP)

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Truth is...You just may think you're a minor character in God's story; that there's nothing outstanding about you that would say, "This person's going to make a difference."

Well...

You just may be wrong.