A house of cards on a bed of sand...

“The dollar isn’t secured by anything,” Igor Panarin said in an interview transcribed by Russian newspaper Izvestia today. “The country’s foreign debt has grown like an avalanche; this is a pyramid, which has to collapse.” 

Igor Panarin

Professor at the diplomatic academy of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs

"These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock.

"But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don't work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards.  These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock."  

Jesus of Nazareth 

Matthew 7: 21 -25 [The Message] (paraphrase) 

God help me deny the impulse to allow the fluctuations in my culture's affluence to determine whether or not I can be thankful.  Blessings to you over the holiday weekend.

- S.

Waste Not, Want Not...

"You are move evil than you have ever feared, and more loved than you have ever hoped." 

- Mark Driscoll 

Death By Love

My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.

I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?

The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

(Romans 7: 20-25) The Message

Selah.

I'm amazed by Paul's honesty in this passage.  The man responsible for writing a large portion of the New Testament confesses to facing a crippling spiritual weakness he can't seem to overcome no matter how hard he tries.   Paul pulls back the curtain on his own frailty, revealing the universal battle between the light of God and the darkness of sin that exists within every follower of Jesus (myself included).   

Paul reminds us that our failures will not have the final word.  With love from the Father, grace from the Son, and strength from the Spirit, another outcome is possible.  God is the ultimate conservationist, taking the parts of our lives that look like garbage and recycling them into opportunities to distribute his grace and display his glory.  Through this miracle of transformation, we can fulfill life's highest calling: to receive mercy for our sins and to share mercy with others.  We can finally be free from the same tired old methods of being "Christian".

No more spiritually corrosive distractions used to numb the pain of our unconverted failures.  No more vague and formulaic prayers mumbled toward the ceiling that leave us feeling empty and alone.  No more force feeding ourselves endless strings of sermons in the hopes of achieving morality by osmosis.  No more... no more... no more... 

May God help us trust in His power to transform our absolute worst into something great.  May God lead us to receive the redemption found in Jesus Christ.  May be God be proven true, and every man a liar.

- S.  

The Unanswered "Why?"...

While reading through this week's prayer reflections [A Guide To Prayer For All God's People by Rueben P. Job & Norman Shawchuck] I ran across the words to a hymn that reminded me of a couple of things: 

1.) everyone will sufffer. 

2.) pain produces questions about life and God for which we will find no easy answers.   

I appreciate the author's honesty as he grapples with this reality.

When Our Confidence Is Shaken - Fred Pratt Green

When our confidence is shaken

In beliefs we thought secure,

When the spirit in its sickness

Seeks but cannot find a cure,

God is active in the tensions

Of a faith not yet mature.

Solar systems, void of meaning,

Freeze the spirit into stone;

Always our researchers lead us

To the ultimate unknown.

Faith must die, or come full circle

To its source in God alone.

In the discipline of praying,

When it's hardest to believe;

In the drudgery of caring,

When it's not enough to grieve;

Faith, maturing, learns acceptance

Of the insights we receive.

God is love, and thus redeems us

In the Christ we crucify; 

This is God's eternal answer

To the world's eternal "Why?"

May we in this faith maturing

Be content to live and die!

- S.