The Looming Destruction from a Loving God

I hear all about Christ's "unconditional love" (which is very conditional) and then I gratefully get this message from Isaiah:

Isaiah 13:6-7 

6 ¶ Howl ye; for the day of the Lord is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.

7 Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man’s heart shall melt: 

 Again, and I say this often, our response will be to "howl" and "faint" and "heart shall melt". Not a pleasant experience at all.  This is how many will respond.

Christ is coming to destroy the wicked and cleanse his world.

Do you want to have a better experience at his coming?  You need to invest more of yourself into winning God's favor, which is done through obedience to his commandments. It sounds demanding (and it is) but we will be more Godly people with the effort.

God's Profound Attitude toward Marriage

I think society has a very shallow view of marriage in general, thinking of it solely as a economic situation that can be seen as something akin to a semi-durable room/bedmate. Some people put on and take off marriages just a readily as they change clothes with expanding wardrobes.

Marriage is often viewed just a prerequisite that some women impose on men as a condition of getting sex. Such a woman is just "being difficult".

However, God views marriage in a far deeper way, creating the circumstances within which He propagates in us his condition of Godhood.

Moses 6:9

9 In the image of his own body, male and female, created he them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created and became living souls in the land upon the footstool of God. 

God (the status and role) is a productive man&woman couple, just as this scripture portrays the first man and woman joined into one and "called their name Adam". Just as a heavenly couple is called "God", so the mortal man and woman is called Adam.  Perhaps this is an lingering tradition that a woman takes her husband's surname upon marriage and become "one flesh".

For the Lord, marriage is a covenant and a cleaving bond that creates the Godly condition of a man and woman sealed together. Done well, such a couple has the potential to become "God" themselves.

God-seekers Writing By Inspiration for their Children

Writing sits as the first and basic tool of transmitting (diffusing?) God's knowledge among his children.   

Moses 6:5

5 And a book of remembrance was kept, in the which was recorded, in the language of Adam, for it was given unto as many as called upon God to write by the spirit of inspiration;

I like the phrase at the end - as one follows God, one is to write their experiences with God and the things you wrote would influenced by the spirit of inspiration. So, here I am, writing what I see and working to engage the Lord's inspiration.

Moses 6:6

6 And by them their children were taught to read and write, having a language which was pure and undefiled.

So we write write under inspiration to teach our children to do the same.  And what is all of this about having a "pure and undefiled" language? Is that to better capture the inspiration that one gets and then transmits?

In Adam's day, "religion" was family-based, rather than somewhat congregational as today.  I prefer the older form, but kids don't stay close to home these days, so it is trickier, though modern communication lets us be "virtually" together (I guess).

From God, to the parents, to the children.   

 

If You Hope to Better the World, Better Yourself

I have great respect for Harry Browne, who many you probably have never heard of. Here is a wonderful article about him and some of his ideas from the Misses Institute.

It has gotten fashionable for young people to try and change the world (again) for the better.  Of course, every generation has attempted this and a few (like the youth of the late 60s) were so narcissistic about it that we still see the mess they created. Our present crop looks poised to make the latest effort even more flamboyant and destructive.

Harry revoiced the answer to this in the 1970s.  This is a concept that actually features in the Bible, so it has the cache of being tried a few times before.  If you want to make the world a better place, be a better person!

Isn't it simple?  If the world is crashing down (it always is) and everything good is coming to an end (yet again), the best thing you can do to make a positive change is make yourself into the change you want to see.  That should take your whole life and then some, so you should never get too weird about changing anyone or anything else - you have plenty of work on your hands already!

I know - everyone else is the problem and if you can just pass the right legislation or shame the right people, everyone will fall into line and your life will work better.  I didn't mistype that - most of the screaming and violence is all about making life work better for the people who are screaming and breaking things (usually at the expense of the very people they swear they are helping)!  It has nothing to do with anyone else (in a positive way), no matter how loudly they say that it does.  This is a manifestation of the concept that all of a person's problems are someone else's fault. My kids tried this stunt (typically when they were young) and I will give you the answer that I gave them:  So What?

No matter how or by whom you think your life fell apart, no one can really fix that at this point except you. The first part of any solution is (of course) to stop blaming other people or circumstances and just get busy improving things.  You will usually get a lot of help from nice people unless you choose to drive most of them away by getting indignant and angry about things. (I have lots of personal knowledge about this.)

Do you think the world needs improvement?  Improve yourself and you will develop more influence to change others, mostly by inspiring them to make similar improvements to themselves.  So, quit complaining and get to work on the one thing you can influence today:  yourself.

Praise The Lord, Plus More

My Christian cousins, enamored of looking good in mixed company, praise the Lord in concerts and Megachurches (do I repeat myself?), but might not subscribe fully to Isaiah's injunction --

Isaiah 12:4

4 And in that day shall ye say, Praise the Lord, call upon his name, declare his doings among the people, make mention that his name is exalted.

Don't get me wrong. By and large, Lord-praising Christians are fine neighbors as long as they modulate the volume on the praise stations. They can typically be reasoned with in whatever disputes may come up, although not always in a Christ-like way.  No one is perfect obviously, but some make a better effort than others.

Isaiah doesn't just prescribe praise acclamation, but also:

• calling upon his name (prayer, I'm thinking), 
• sharing Christ's doings with others (telling parables and Jesus-doings that you hopefully know?), and 
• mentioning that the Lord is higher than we are (which requires us not to judge or poo-poo God's actions as if we have a superior morality).

Jesus is indeed great and praising him is justified. Let's all take the further step of acknowledging that He is better than we are and that we are becoming his disciples, not just enjoying Christianized rock shows. 

Parents, Consider Schooling Options for the Sake of your Children

There has been yet another school shooting and the media is hard at work to blame guns for this violence. Again, as I have said previously, one solution for these sorts of tragedies is a family decision to keep children away from systemically dangerous "targets" like schools.

Lisa and I made a choice early in our marriage to school our children ourselves as much as we could contrive. Part of our reason to live in the frontiers of New Mexico is the strong homeschooling tradition here and the "hands-off" approach the state government is forced to have about a parent's educational choices for their own children. We were able to take advantage of wonderfully "alternative" schooling opportunities, such as The Learning Center at House Schools, that we were able to find close by. We made conscious choices about the lives of our children and I feel these have paid off enormously.

Please, alongside the mass call for turning schools and communities into gun-free, prison-like "police states", consider the far more personal and responsible choices that each parent can make to better ensure a long and fruitful life for their children. Parents are supposed to put forth their best effort to rear their children into adults that can succeed, even in the dangerous world in which we live. I hope *you* put your children ahead of ideological agendas and don't ignorantly just hand the most crucial part of your child's life (and potentially the end of their lives) over to questionable institutions like public schools. For your child's sake, explore the different educational alternatives available to your family!

Say you are a sinner and get destroyed

I have never been a fan of people of any tradition crowing about the fact that they are sinners. It is like Jesus saving a person shows how wonderful he is by his redemption of totally awful people. The worse a person is, the better Christ looks.

My and your life is not about making Christ look good. It is about our opportunity to become better people and Jesus facilitating that by letting us repent (change) and straighten up before we face our final judgement. 

Isaiah 13:9

Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.

I like Isaiah  because he doesn't sugar-coat anything. Christ will not be the huggy teddy-bear in "the day of the Lord", using words like "wrath" and "fierce anger" to describe how he will operate. I note the "destroy the sinners" summary. I don't want to be in that situation and I figure most others don't either. 

Here is what I say to those that shout "I am a sinner" - STOP SINNING.