A Thanksgiving For His Steadfast Love - Psalm 107:43

Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things; let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord. - Psalm 107:43

    When seeking a loan for a house or property, the bank’s agent will list all the collateral value that we have. He will not, however, draw up a list of things we don’t have. Our strengths coming into the loan officer will depend upon the things we have rather than on the things we don’t have. When considering our lives, we should take the same tact. Rather than count all the things we lack or desire we need to count those things of value that we do have. The things we have been blessed with!
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” - James 1:17.
    It is only natural for people to downplay, forget, or ignore all the blessings they have received from God. We tend to take it all for granted. Every blessing, even the people we hold dear, are often simply assumed to be in our lives by virtue of decisions we have made or simple blind luck. Seldom do we wake daily and thank God for His providence in our lives. We live our lives planning and expecting things to just go our way. It’s part of the stain upon our humanity. A more sober view of the blessings we have in this life is required of us all, for so soon, for so quickly the blessings can be gone. “. . . for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.” - 1 Timothy 6:7.
    Today, we celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving when we quickly assess ‘what we have’ and just as quickly seem to forget it all tomorrow. We rationalize that we simply cannot walk around every day, giving thanks for the good things in our lives. “We would never get anything done if that was the case,” we say, boldly rationalizing our ingratitude. The truth is that we seldom inventory the blessings in our lives. We are too often obsessed with the things we don’t have and are constantly coveting and striving to achieve more when we should all be numbering the ways God has blessed our lives. We should be “. . .  giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . .” - Ephesians 5:20.
    We, each and every one of us, have been blessed beyond our greatest imagination. The most mundane inventory of our lives reveals just a peek at the blessings God has bestowed upon us. We would sooner develop writer’s cramp before we completed the task. No computer could ever hold all the blessings we have received from above. There is no number! And yet most of us stumble through this life in the fog of want and the mists of desire.
    Today, as we celebrate Thanksgiving let us gather with our loved ones and offer our prayers of thankfulness to the God who has showered us with all manner of blessing. He has done so out of His ceaseless love for us. It is His love for us that has provided for our daily needs. It is His love for us that has granted us our children, whom we take such joy in. It is His boundless love for us that gives us our very breath. It is His steadfast love that gives us our reason for being.
“Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!” - Psalm 107:1
    Today, let us all give thanks to God for every family member and friend. Happy Thanksgiving!

The Only Election That Matters - Psalm 118:8-9

It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes. - Psalm 118:8-9

    The Presidential election is over. By the hand of God, the current President will get another term in office or we will have a new President on January 20th, 2021, no matter what the contesting party believes. One side won; the other lost. With partisan politics, being what they are in the 21st Century, both the inflammatory rhetoric and acts of violence will continue now no matter who is in power. And it all stems from this idea that one man can change the course of the culture and the world, that one man can be a savior - in a sense. Knowing from our national experience that this is a belief we should have jettisoned years ago, we still insist on believing this mythology. “Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish.” - Psalm 146:3-4.
     I admit that I firmly supported the agenda of the current President. I wasn’t voting for a moral icon or figure of faith; I was voting for a man to do the difficult job of representing a nation, of becoming President of the United States. I believed that despite his many personal flaws, he was the best possible man for the job and I would still support him today were the outcome to favor him. So what is my recourse now if he doesn’t prevail? Well, I could lay down in the street and pitch a screaming and crying fit like others have in past elections or I could flatly refuse to admit that the new President is also now my President. I could do that but to what end? As a Confessional Presbyterian, I know that nothing transpires anywhere in the universe without God’s ordination. God is present at every Presidential Inauguration. Whoever is President is now in office because it is God’s decree that he should be, in spite of mine or anyone else’s wishes. “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.” - Proverbs 19:21.
    So, instead of having a conniption fit over the election’s results, I will do what I have learned to do over the years despite the disappointments I have experienced - I will pray.
“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” - 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18.
     I must rejoice in every day, both good and bad. I must pray without ceasing because it is God’s will that I pray. I must give thanks in all circumstances because God has seen fit to bless me with favor at times or subject me to tribulation at times because this is His will! I must remember the words of Job, a man whom God considered blameless and upright. “Then his wife said to him, ‘Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.’ But he said to her, ‘You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?’”- Job 2:9-10.
    Prayer is one of the constants that God wants to see in our lives. When things go wrong, He condescends to us and listens to our prayers. Instead of us counting on our elected officials to straighten the course of a crooked and fallen world, we must set a place for the Lord at our table. His very proximity in our lives fills the void left by our spurious faith in man. “Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually!” - 1 Chronicles 16:11. No man can do what the Lord does. Once we understand that, all we need to do is our part - vote, and the will of God will be done! Afterward, we must accept His decisions. Then, there is only one thing left for us to do. “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.” - Romans 12:12. This is the will of God for man.
    In the end, I will acknowledge whoever is inaugurated President on January 20th, 2021. After all, there is only one election that matters and that is our election as God’s children. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love . . .” - Ephesians 1:3-4.

The Blessing Of Answered Prayer - Matthew 15:2

But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” - Matthew 15:25

    In the fifteenth chapter of Matthew we are introduced to the “Canaanite woman.” In Mark, chapter seven, she is referred to as the “Syrophoenician woman.” She approached Jesus, pleading with Him to cure her daughter who was oppressed by a demon. Christ initially refused to take up the woman’s case which led to this exchange. “And he answered, ‘It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.’ She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.’” - Matthew 15:26-27. What followed is perhaps one of Christ’s greatest and most notable responses to the exhibition of true faith -   “Then Jesus answered her, ‘O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.” - Matthew 15:28.
    This particular instance is a true example of how God responds to unquestionable faith as shown by our devout and impassioned prayers. This woman’s supplication to Jesus illustrates what the Apostle James means when he says - “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” - James 5:16(b).
    The woman, despite the fact that she was a Gentile, placed her undying faith in Jesus. She knelt before Him and presented her supplication to Him. What is more important is the sheer audacity of her faith. Even after Jesus (and His apostles) tried to dissuade her from continuing her request, she boldly pressed forth her insistence that Christ deliver her daughter from demonic oppression. Jesus saw it as undefiled faith even though she was neither a Jew nor a disciple.
    Prayer, by its very nature, demands that we engage in it wholeheartedly and without reservation. We cannot approach God with our lifeless and lethargic supplications. We must come to Him with an attitude of repentance and acceptance of Jesus as LORD and Savior, not merely savior alone. Scripture tells us - “We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.” - John 9:31. Here the Bible is speaking of ‘unrepentant sinners,’ those who pray in one moment then rub a magic lamp in the next.
    We are given precise instructions if we are to have our prayers heard. “. . . if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” - 2 Chronicles 7:14. There is no confusion or ambiguity here: God will respond to those who seek Him in faith.
    Holy Scripture is straightforward as to the prerequisites for answered prayer and we are to be patient, waiting for God in His time to answer our requests. Certainly, we may be in a hurry. Our situations may demand a prompt response but God moves in His own time and no man can hurry the hand of the Lord. “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” - Psalm 27:14.
    We must remember that there are clearly defined requirements for prayer to be considered by God. Praying to ‘the universe’ or some Wiccan abomination will not result in answered prayers. Praying in some cultic ritual will not bring a satisfactory answer. We must pray to the one Triune God of the Bible if we are to hold onto hope for answers to our prayers and follow the course of acceptable prayer. “When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.” - Psalm 34:17.
    Finally, the Apostle Paul reminds us to be persistent, as persistent as the Canaanite woman who would not be turned away from her one quest, from her one plea, from her one prayer. ‘Lord, help me!’ Let us always “ . . .  pray without ceasing . . .” - 1 Thessalonians 5:17.

In God’s Own Time - Psalm 104:5

He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved. - Psalm 104:5

    Disallowing for man’s fertile imagination and cinematic license, the very notion that our planet is vulnerable to destruction from a large asteroid or comet is the stuff of myths, pure science ‘fiction.’ One simply has to question, if the earth is truly as old as science declares it is, why do we not look like the moon? Keep in mind that the distance between the earth and the moon is a mere 238,900 miles, a ‘stone’s throw’ in cosmic terms. How could all of those impacts have left their marks on the moon, turning it into a barren dust ball in space and, somehow miraculously missed the earth? The answer, as most scientists explain, is a cluster of suppositions and theories, none of which can be confirmed.
    According to the latest numbers, the earth is approximately 4.543 billion years old. And so is the moon. “And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars.” - Genesis 1:16.
    Science insists, to the point of ridiculing Christian ‘young-earth creationism,’ that both the earth and the moon are of equal age. Yet, if the scientists are correct, the moon is pockmarked and scarred far beyond what it must have looked like in it’s cosmic infancy. In the meantime, for over four-billion years (according to man’s finite wisdom) the earth has gradually become vibrant and full of life, with barely a nick in its foundation. According to science, life not only manifested itself on earth but evolved into other life forms all the while the moon was being battered and cratered by celestial bodies which miraculously always seemed to ‘miss the earth,’ All this, despite its proximity to the moon. “But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.” - Job 12:7-10.
    So what has kept the earth alive in its orbit around the sun for over four billion years? The simplest and most accurate answer is - the providence of God. To deny it is not only heretical but blasphemous as well. What on earth do we have that God has not provided for us? Even science tells us that the earth enjoys a ‘unique’ set of cosmic circumstances that allowed life to manifest itself after a period of time had elapsed. In fact, our most brilliant scientists have yet to discover even one other planet that has the same (or similar) life producing and life-sustaining conditions. To what do we owe this unique set of circumstances? “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” - Romans 11:36.
    A careful reading of Holy Scripture reveals to us that in the end days we will, in fact, experience cosmic destruction at a level unheard of in the annals of mankind’s science. Rest assured that when the cataclysm of the heavens takes place, God is surely coming. “And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” - Luke 21:25-27. Such cosmic destruction will not mean the earth is destined to be struck and moved off its foundations. It will mean the coming of the Lord.
    Many will scoff and laugh at the truths revealed to us in Holy Scripture but God’s holy word is truth, regardless of man’s insolent and arrogant temerity in his own science. The faithful need not fear man’s faulty equations or thinking. Man is man but God is God. “And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” - Colossians 1:17. Regardless of the science, the earth was created and maintained by God’s hand and will remain firm on its foundation until God, not mankind, decides the end time has come.

No Dice - 1 Corinthians 10:21

You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. - 1 Corinthians 10:21

    The human foible of being ‘double-minded’ has left an indelible scar on mankind’s most noble efforts. Countless are the wrecks of good intention because of hesitancy at the last moment. Hedging ourselves by investing our time and energy in two different directions has never worked to bring about a Godly result and the Bible tells us to commit ourselves to the Lord. “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” - James 4:8
    Perhaps it is best to start our understanding of what God requires of us by going back to the source, ‘ad fontes.’ The First Commandment spells out our duty to God in simple measure - “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.” - Deuteronomy 5:6-7. Very simply, we must not allow, seek, or accept anything but the one holy triune God of Scripture as the sovereign Lord of all creation. We must not roll the dice, read the cards, or throw our fates at anything but the will of our Lord. Our unadulterated allegiance must be to God and God alone. “Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.” - Proverbs 16:3. It doesn’t matter how generous or noble our human effort might be; if it is not wrought by the will of God, it is the work of demons. “But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” - Romans 14:23.
    By way of example, there is a scene from the 1999 film, “The Mummy” where Benny, a traitorous scoundrel, is approached by the monster and immediately starts pulling up talisman after talisman from a necklace he wears. Symbol after symbol he holds for a moment as he prays according to that particular belief, first Christian, then, Buddhist, then Hebrew, seeking one and only thing: to save himself. Ultimately, near the end of the film, Benny succumbs to his terrifying fate because he was a double-minded truly godless individual. There is a profound lesson in the character’s uncommitted position, one we should all heed. “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” - James 1:6-8.
    History, if anything, has proven time and time again that mankind is constantly seeking to gain an advantage over the forces of nature and himself by whatever means necessary. Man, in his natural state, gives allegiance only to that which he believes will serve him and his purposes; a testament to our self-serving hearts, well attested to in Genesis 3. “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” - Genesis 3:6.
    Holy Scripture tells us that God will not suffer our pride and hardness of heart forever. His patience is limited and rubbing the filth of our fickle hearts in His face will not long stand His divine judgment. We have all been commanded to - “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” - James 4:8.
    God will always be quick to forgive us if we come to Him in genuine humility and repentance, recognizing Him alone as Lord and Savior. And that fact needs no flip of the card or roll of the dice. It is our guarantee. It is our heavenly assurance.    

Boasting In Christ Alone - 2 Corinthians 10:17

 “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends. - 2 Corinthians 10:17-18

    It is all too often that we hear the bluster of one who is intent upon persuading both himself and us of his devotion to his faith. How ‘good’ a person he or she is. How many confessions? How often he worships? How often he reads his Bible? His position in the church as Bible school teacher. It often sounds as though he is trying to convince the world of his sanctity. It seems to be all about what he or she has done. It’s all about what they perceive to be their ‘Christian ranking’. What they and we often forget is that we have a Christian duty to act in a Christian manner; it is part and parcel of our having been justified. “For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” - 1 Corinthians 9:16. We aren’t Christians because we do these things. We do these things because we are Christians! It’s part of our sanctification process. Like a school student, we are not to be exalted because we passed our tests; it is our duty as students to pass our tests.
    The Apostle, James put his finger upon the critical issue: the truly Godly do not boast in their Christian behavior. Only the legalists among us will perpetrate such a sinful attitude. All our boasting in ourselves amounts to nothing more than sin. “As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” - James 4:16.
    How insincere would we be if we were given something of inestimable value by our parents and we bragged to our friends how we obtained it for ourselves? What an outright lie it would be to tell others how hard we worked for what we have received by grace alone? How dare we brag about a possession as though we had earned it when, in fact, we did no such thing?
    Perhaps we forget at times that we are saved by God’s grace because while we were still living in our sin, He chose us. Understanding this, our salvation comes to us as a gift of our faith. “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.” - Ephesians 2:8-9.
    The only reason we could boast about the things we have done would be if our salvation was earned by our good works. We cannot earn them. Nor can our carnal works add anything to the justification we receive through the death of Christ Jesus. It is through Christ and Christ alone that we are saved from eternity in hell. To say otherwise cheapens Jesus’ death on the cross. To say otherwise suggests that in some way we contribute to our salvation, as though Christ’s death was insufficient
    We are saved only by the goodness of God through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ. We can only boast of this and never of ourselves. “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.” - Titus 3:4-6.
    As we live our lives in Christ let us always remember the ultimate sacrifice Jesus made to save us from our sinful ways and respond in obedience to Him and the word of God. That is the Good News of the Gospel: Jesus did it all for us so that we can not boast in ourselves. We could never earn our place in Paradise. Jesus earned it for us so let us boast in Him and in Him alone.

A Sad State, Indeed - Deuteronomy 6:7

You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. - Deuteronomy 6:7

    Recently, The State of Theology 2020 was published and I must sadly say, theology is not in a very good state. Starting with the response of U.S. adults to the very first statement - Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God. - 52% agree vs. 36% disagree. You read it right. The majority of adults questioned, responded that yes, Christ was a great teacher but He was not ‘God.’ Based on this statement response alone, is it any wonder that our children have no solid grounding if the Christian faith today?
    So whose fault is it that our children have no truthful concept of God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, or anything applying to the Christian faith? Some are quick to cast the dereliction upon society and modern culture in general as Christianity is scoffed at in the public forum. True. Others blame the school system since daily prayer and religious teaching has been removed from the curriculum. True. Peer pressure is also pointed to as a reason for the nations (and the world’s) godlessness. Also true. But while these scapegoats truly do play a large part in our children’s failure to know and love God, they are not the primary cause of theological ignorance today. No, the truth is even far more insidious.
    The leading reason our children are ignorant of faith today is the same reason they may not show courtesy or common table manners - we parents have failed to teach them! “For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe. Command and teach these things.” - 1 Timothy 4:10-11. It is up to us parents to teach and guide our children in the Christian faith. If we fail to set the example, how can we blame the culture? We are even warned of the penalty for leaving our children without faith in God. “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” - Matthew 18:5-6.
    But what of our parents? Can’t the blame be placed upon them because they didn’t teach us? Our parents will be judged for their sins and their sins alone; we will be judged for ours. Truth be told,  as human beings, all of us have some inclination of God and His providence. It is we who have chosen to ignore the truth of His holy word. It is we who refuse to honor the Lord’s Day as a family by attending services to glorify Him. It is we who leave our children to their own devices to dabble in the occult, to worship false idols, to entertain themselves rather than learn of God. Why? Perhaps the most common reason is that we view devout saving faith as an obstruction to worldly success. I mean, let’s face it: we all want our children to be successful in life, don’t we? And since the world is enmity with God, why would we want our children to face the uphill battle of succeeding in such a world while professing ardent faith in God? The reason is because this worldly life is not all there is. There is life after this corrupt and vile world.
    “I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.” - Psalm 78:2-4. Rather than pointing the finger of blame at our parents or their parents, we must today, at this very moment, take responsibility to teach our children well; to take them to church with us; to ensure that our children know that we have not been put in this world by ‘accident.’ It is up to us to set the examples our children grow to live by and share in turn with their children.
    Neither we nor our children should be so ignorant of Christ that we see Him as merely a teacher. Jesus Christ is God, the second person of the Holy Trinity.