Monday Morning Music Ministry

6-26-23

This is the Age of Grievance.

People these days are eager to assert claims about the hurts they suffer, the wrongs committed against them, the compensations they are owed. In this land of plenty. During this period of prosperity, despite blips on the economic graphs. “I know my rights!!!” yell protesters in street riots – even when most them do not know or understand the status of laws and statutes. “Rights” versus “wrongs” they might commit themselves.

People these days are not happy unless they complain. And, too often, about bogus complanints.

In this litigious society, lawyers stand ready to monetize the wrongs you think you have suffered, or have been convinced that you have suffered. Rather than moral palliatives, the “solutions” always translate to money, not explanations or apologies or corrections. Actual, direct damages cease to be legitimate justifications for picking others’ pockets.

The Slavery Reparations movement that first flourished in the Radical ‘60s has blossomed again in our day. Formulas for how much money contemporary Black people should be paid by White people – all non-Blacks, essentially – are calculated. Brazenly, the enormous sums are “due” to brothers and sisters who were not slaves (obviously) but also to those whose ancestors did not live in slave-era America. Or cannot substantiate their bloodlines. Or do not “suffer” any related effects. Proponents in California, with pens poised over other citizens’ checkbooks, dismiss these points as irrelevancies.

Similarly, the “Holocaust,” past which fewer and fewer people are alive, has partly become a Reparations movement. Dr Norman Finkelstein, whose parents survived Nazi concentration camps, has written a book, The Holocaust Industry, in which he documents his claims that “a repellent gang of plutocrats, hoodlums, and hucksters” routinely engage in virtual blackmail-by-PR campaigns. He documents the flow of money to “lawyers and institutional actors” instead of putative survivors. Yet TV commercials depict starving Jews today, even supposedly in Israel itself, pleading for money.

So forth and so on. It seems like every group on the landscape is aggrieved; every mendicant may choose a reason to whine — like “Pin the tail on the guilty,” down to virtual blindfolds. It begins with “hurt feelings” of invented groups and genders; and ends with threats of arrest if you do not surrender yourself to the Compassion Police. And it ends with transforming your value system, if you let them; and ponying up money. The paradigm is common these days. Every aggrieved person and every assembled group climbs aboard the bandwagon.

Almost every person and group, that is. It is still safe in America and the post-Christian West, to be prejudiced against Christians.

With increasing rapidity, followers of Jesus are proscribed, ridiculed, sanctioned, silenced, and discriminated against. By governmental laws and regulations and court decisions, Christians are becoming second-class citizens. In popular media they can be criticized as, say, Jews or Muslims or homosexuals cannot be. In government schools and on state media, many perverted ideas once regarded as taboos are endorsed, even encouraged – while Christian ideas, traditions, expressions, even innocent decorations are forbidden.

So forth and so on. Yet – unlike every other group of whiners across the spectrum – Christians are not seeking Reparations. Grievances are not new; for two thousand years Christians have been persecuted. The blood of martyrs has soaked many a soil; and still today there is prejudice and abuse of believers, all around the world. Have Christians committed sins too, through history? Yes, against some groups filing grievances today. But are Christians demanding Reparations for old grievances?

The answer, generally, is no; and the reason, specifically, is this: For all the promises of peace and the assurances of Heaven… the Lord Jesus Christ told His followers – us – that persecution will come. We are to expect resistance, opposition, and tribulation in this world. We should not be surprised by hatred. The world hated Him first, after all.

We have been told that believers might be “trouble” in their households. Friends and family might actually despise us. The Jesus you see in paintings, standing amidst the lilies? That same Jesus told us He comes with a sword. He told us about the things we must be prepared to put aside – to sacrifice, but also to endure – if we follow Him.

Jesus died on the cross to fulfill His mission, taking upon Himself the sin-punishments we deserve. But He did not free us from the rejections and persecutions He experienced. In fact He not only predicted such treatment… He virtually promised it. It will come. If it doesn’t… perhaps we are not doing our job as Christians.

Who will save us? Surely not the government: we are seeing that. The churches? No: remember that it was religious people who demanded that Jesus be crucified; the religious Establishment. Remember that.

The Christian’s “Reparation” will not come in this world, in our lifetimes. It cannot. We should be suspicious if it is offered. Our Reparation – our rewards – can be earned now (and only by His Grace, not our works) but realized only in Glory.

My sin – oh, the bliss of this glorious thought! –
My sin, not in part but the whole
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more!
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, o my soul!

Thus is Reparation paid. In full.

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It Is Well With My Soul

2-8-21

Grace is an essential component of life, of a well-ordered, just, and joyful life. It is not only a promise or goal. Its alternative is a life of bitterness, defeat, unhappiness, unforgiveness.

Grace is being forgiven, as we forgive those who… you know, that thing, to paraphrase Joseph Biden. No less Biblical are the commands and admonitions to correct and assist brothers and sisters, especially those who lead people astray.

We should not be judges, a saying goes, but we are authorized to be fruit inspectors – that is, recognize when the results of actions are being manifested. And not.

It is by grace we are saved. Not by works, that anyone should boast about their own power to save themselves. Our faith (another paraphrase that I pray is Biblical) is God’s fruit-inspection of our hearts, redemption that He follows with salvation.

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. – Galatians 6:7

Friends: We need to remind ourselves, especially in these perilous days, to remain humble; to avoid self-righteousness; to discern good intentions; to love and forgive.

… to love God and the Truth. To discern between error and evil. To forgive our enemies. But to stand against God’s enemies.

We avoid self-delusion and being judgmental by that standard: God’s Word vs our wills. This was St Paul’s meaning – his warning – about God being mocked. Mocking God? Should God care about such a thing? Yes. God is a jealous God, often displayed and often disclosed in those exact in the Bible. He is Holy, and has provided a means of forgiveness and redemption. But mocking God is, rather, intentional rebellion.

Some have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof: from such people turn away. – II Timothy 3:5

These matters have consequences. When a man who was inaugurated as president of the United States makes a show of being a good Catholic, who the press follows to his masses, and calls him religiously observant – and who yet abolishes the prohibitions against encouraging abortions; who orders the funding foreign agencies and governments so to practice abortions; whom acts to allow states to proceed with late-term abortions… these things demand more than people of faith to cluck among themselves about apparent contradictions. Or hypocrisy. Or murder. Or mocking God.

For the government to allow these things is offensive enough. To compel people of conscience to support such things by taxpayer dollars is a grievous sin. Planted seeds bear fruit… and the government is forcing us to plant seeds we despise; we shall be judged too for the consequences.

We might “oppose” these sins, but we are being forced to commit them. Unless we resist and set our hearts aright, and redeem the culture. One issue at a time. God does not ask success, but He does require obedience.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. – 1 John 1:9

Are these personal challenges? Very. Must we confront our friends and neighbors? Yes. Are these political battles? Sometimes. But God equips us in all cases. We must choose sides! We can sometimes deceive ourselves, but we cannot deceive God. He will not be mocked.

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In 1634 Gregorio Allegri was inspired by Psalm 51 to write Miserere mei, Deus – “Have mercy on me, O God.” As we gird ourselves to do battle for the Lord, we cannot do anything at all without first seeking His grace and mercy. The prayer of Miserere:

Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great mercy.

According unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies remove my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquities, and cleanse me from my sin.

I knowingly confess my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against Thee only have I sinned, and done evil before Thee: that they may be justified in Thy sayings, and might they overcome when I am judged. …

Create in me a clean heart, O God: and renew a righteous spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Thy presence: and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. I will teach those who are unjust Thy ways: and sinners shall be converted unto Thee. …

Sacrifices of God are broken spirits: dejected and contrite hearts, O God, Thou wilt not despise.

Let us humbly – but boldly; not a contradiction – remind ourselves to fight not for ourselves only but our family, our nation, our heritage… and for Him. Let not our God be mocked.

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Music Vid: “Miserere Mei, Deus” (For readers with hand-held devices, click or copy and paste: )
https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=H3v9unphfi0

Click: Miserere Mei, Deus

2-1-21

When you “accept” Jesus – and His invitation; when You believe He is the Son of God; that He died to take the punishment for your sins upon Himself; that God raised Him from the dead –

What brought you to that moment?

Were you guilty beforehand? Regretful? Remorseful? Curious? Troubled? Desperate? Lonely? Confused? Hungry? Unforgiving? Weary?

At that moment, God never says –

“It’s about time!”

“It took you too long!”

“OK, it’s a good start.”

“Let’s see if you are serious…”

“You have too much baggage.”

“I can’t overlook some of your sins.”

“Here are things you must now do…”

“You’re too late!”

He just says –

“Welcome home!”

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Click: Softly And Tenderly

11-16-20

Today’s message is a guest essay by Bridgette Ehly, a journalist and author of the science-fiction thriller, Smiling Ghosts.

How has the Body of Christ – the church, representing God on this side of Heaven – in our day come to lose the moral high ground in so many realms? To relativists,
secularists, and liberals who talk about kindness, but routinely have supported the violent murder of babies in the womb, erosion of God-given rights, and destructive social policies? It was, after all, righteous Christians who normalized the concept of universal human dignity, the idea that all lives, all people, are precious.

How did we drop the ball? I think it has to do with action vs complacency, and the
spread of what we may call Communist Christianity. Communist in the context of
enforced uniformity, a godless suppression of individual initiative, a denial of the need to obey and please God.

I once read that in His three-year ministry, Jesus Christ traveled over 3000 miles. He was constantly on the move on foot or by sea, and went from town to town revealing God’s loving nature. He healed the sick and showed humankind how to love our neighbors as God commands us.

Jesus was a man of action. And the Holy Spirit literally flows through the Father and the Son and through us as Christ-followers. God is a God of action – as we see from the opening of a rose, the change of the seasons, cycles of birth and death, and the stories of a hundred billion lives.

When Jesus talks about faith, it always is associated with action.

Whoever does the will of God is brother and sister and mother to me. (Mark 4:35)

Why do you call me, Lord, Lord, and not put into practice what I teach you? (Luke 6:46)

Are we failing to answer Christ’s call to action? We are the Body of Christ in this world… but sitting idle as our culture and traditions die; are we a body whose legs no longer work? Instead of walking upright, do we now drag our useless limbs behind us? What is the verdict to those charges?

Lack of action on the part of the Church is rooted in what I call Communist Christianity, the descriptive notion that all believers are literally the same.

But if this were true, why does God refer to some people as righteous? If we are all equal, why even have the word righteous? There would be only “saved” and “condemned.” Salvation is instantaneous, but sanctification is a process. Really, what would be the point of living if we do not strive to improve ourselves and become more perfect children of God? St. Paul tells us to “walk as children of Light (for the fruit of the Light consists of all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.”

By faith alone through grace we are saved, but what is faith? Is it a thing, a magical trinket in a box that guarantees a Christian entrance to heaven regardless of whether he loves his fellow man or strives to do what Jesus tells us to do? Or do works follow from faith – is faith a manifestation of God in the physical world, a series of actions that turn a belief into a living force for good; that is, God’s will be done on Earth?

Jesus ties faith and action so closely and consistently that we must act, cherishing them as one impulse.

In the Seventh chapter of Luke we read, Then turning towards the woman, He said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has bathed My feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave Me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing My feet. You did not anoint My head with oil, but she has anointed My feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” And He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

The woman’s actions and her faith are interchangeable. Jesus says her sins are forgiven because she showed great love, and then says that her faith saved her. We are forgiven in proportion to our love, and love is expressed in a million different ways, the hands and feet of God alive on this earth!

I believe evil people have taught us to think of faith as a “thing” for two reasons. One is to cause fights about theology among Christians and thereby weaken the Church by fracturing our unity. The other motive is to destroy the powerful force of “love in action.” Communist Christianity tells us that a simple prayer, a 10-second pledge to the Will of God, is all that is required from us in this life.

Communist Christianity corrodes the Church just as Communism destroys economies
and societies by crushing a people’s desire to achieve excellence. People who are saved and believe they need to do nothing more, or can do nothing more, to improve their standing before God lack the motivation to please the Father. Jesus told us to visit the sick and spread His Word, but Communist Christianity says it isn’t mandatory, so why do it? (Besides, the government “releases” us from that moral impulse.)

The moment in time that we commit our lives to Christ is the beginning, not the
completion, of our spiritual journey. Certainly, many Christians do answer Jesus’ call to visit the sick and those in prison, but many, many people drop a 20 into the collection plate and call it a week. God forbid!

Faith is God’s love in action. Now more than ever, we need to live our faith by speaking up for Christian beliefs at city council meetings; by volunteering with kids so that they have a Christian influence in their lives; by showing the poor that the helping hand in their neighborhoods is a Christian hand.

We all need to get involved, even a couple of hours a week, not to earn salvation but to exercise faith! We can’t improve the world together, or preserve what is precious about our society, if we don’t act.

Jesus’ life was a series of actions that led to the greatest act of love, His death on the cross. Our Savior said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

Jesus’ giving His life freely remains the ultimate expression of faith in God, a standard for us and His revealed plan for our salvation.

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(For readers with hand-held devices, click or copy & paste:
https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=itgTjU5toz0

Click: Hands and Feet

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Click here for information about Bridgette’s new novel

6-3-19

You have heard the question a hundred times in your life, asked by anguished parents or victims, from wise-guy atheists to anti-religious bigots.

Maybe you have asked it yourself at times.

The quick answer is that mankind has chosen sin and rebellion – distilled as evil. Whether you believe in the literal account of the Garden, and Adam and Eve; or people’s individual free will and exercise of liberty in our daily lives, every human being commits evil. To a greater or lesser extent? Surely, but… we permit evil in the world, because we all exercise it.

The deeper – but just as profound – response is that God is not the culprit. He is the answer, but not the source. None of us is God, so we should stop drawing up a to-do list for Him, or scribble out a better Job Description.

If He gives His children free will; and we, His children, choose to transgress… that is why there is sin, and evil, in the world.

You think He should create a place where sin and evil do not exist? He has created such a place: Heaven. In the meantime we live on earth, and our job descriptions include serving God by serving our fellow men and women. By avoiding sin and evil, sharing God’s love, and telling of forgiveness in Christ.

Perhaps you are impatient, or virtually so, waiting for Heaven. Do you realize that we are slightly above the angels? Angels cannot experience redemption, or forgiveness, or the glories of a born-again life. No angel can know what it means to sing “Amazing Grace.”

There is a more logical question – more pertinent, more pressing – than How can God permit evil in the world?

I suggest to you that asking this question frames the spiritual challenge in the clearest terms:

How can My children, with all things I do permit and gift them with – the sacrificial death of My Son; forgiveness; fellowship divine; My promise of eternal paradise – how is that My children still sin and rebel and reject Me every day?

Questions, questions. But that is one question to which we all have the answer.

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Click: Amazing Grace

6-23-14

A lot of Christians think about Heaven in the same way that agnostics sort of hope about the afterlife, and even as assorted Hottentots of the world’s pagan cults think about appeasing the gods. That is, that good deeds might earn the way to eternal life.

Just act nice, nothing more? Jesus didn’t believe it, and told us so. I have gotten to think about numbers – the numbers of times the Bible tells us that our hearts matter more to God than our deeds. The number of times Jesus and the apostles affirmed it. The number of good deeds we’d have to do to persuade God that unbelief doesn’t matter.

Numbers.

A big number, 2000. Two thousand years since Paul wrote: “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). Charities, nice; but they do not equal Heaven. If so, Jesus could have saved Himself some major grief. Or 500. Five hundred years since Christians rediscovered Ephesians 2:8,9 – “For by grace you have been saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”

Two thousand years, five hundred years, are a lot years to neglect when thinking about the Bible’s truths. Here are other numbers for Christians to think about. Forget good deeds like charities. Think about sins. We all sin. Yours might be small ones, but let’s count some.

Do you sin once a day? Think an impure thought, or hold onto an unforgiveness? Maybe a white lie? Share a little gossip? Don’t pray when you know you should? Fail to whisper a Christian blessing when someone needs it? Anything you don’t confess?

Let’s say you do any one of these things just once a day – which would make you a virtual saint among all the rest of us, but, anyway… that one sin a day makes for 365 a year. Over 10 years, that’s 3,650. If you have, say, 30 more years to live, that’s more than 10,000 sins.

On the other hand, if you commit these sins, even “little” sins, once an hour during your waking hours – still not an absurd standard – that’s a total of 160,00 sins. For 30 years. Let’s count starting at, say, age 12, and go until the statistical life expectancy of an American female, 82. That would add up to more than 400,000 sins. Careful: transgress a couple times an hour, and you’ll wind up a millionaire… in the sinner’s lottery.

Viewed in that statistical perspective, you’d need a lot of good deeds, a pile of charity receipts, to face eternity fearlessly, right? Well the good news – the Good News – is, we don’t have to pile up numbers of this OR that on scales of justice. Not about this. Confess with your mouth, believe in your heart.

But let’s not put the math books away yet. It is human nature to think we must do good deeds… and don’t get me, or the scriptures, wrong: We SHOULD. And we DO. When Jesus lives in our hearts, we want to do good, we cannot hold back from taking joy in good deeds. Charity becomes our response, not our “meal ticket”!

Final numbers-crunching, for those who want to: on the general basis of the mathematics above:

In your waking hours, each day, you have approximately 250 opportunities to do those good deeds – kind thoughts, helping hands, reassuring words. That’s if you show charity only every five minutes. That’s 1,750 times a week.

Expand those “good deeds” plus the time-frame: if you raise your children aright, if you pray with a hurting soul, if you seek God when He wants to talk to your spirit – added to the others, at the same pace, would approach 100,000 chances to do “good deeds” every year.

You see it coming, math wizards: Live a normal lifespan, have the love of Jesus in your heart, do good deeds because obedient and joyful Christians are good-deed-doers… and your are in the neighborhood of 7-million acts of love. The root meaning of “charity,” they’ll tell you in other classrooms, is “love.”

So, you do the arithmetic. Count the acts of charity, planning for the payoff. Or lose count of the acts of love, knowing you’re already “home,” knowing “all these things shall be added unto you.” We don’t love because we have to. That’s not love! When we act charitably from the overflow of our hearts, God’s showers of blessing will follow.

Numbers. Did you ever count the number of raindrops in a Spring shower? Not too easy, not too practical, not possible! Yet God’s response to our acts of love will be “showers of blessing” – oh, for the showers we plead!

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Speaking of numbers, and “showers of blessing,” here is a choir from churches in Chennai (formerly Madras), Tamil Nadu, India, singing an old favorite, and reassuring, hymn.

Click: Showers of Blessing

12-16-13

The title of this essay is a double negative of sorts, but a decent aphorism. Its truth would be measured in doses of wisdom and experience and maybe a few bruises and scars: life. It is from the gaggle of family advice we tell children: “This hurts me more than it does you,” and “Some day this will all make sense.”

Like many life-lessons – and all aphorisms – we can harvest wisdom from turning the sayings around, maybe even discovering greater truths. At least fresher truths, which become attractive portals. I have often thought about the locutions of such life principles. Not catchy phrases, but succinct truths.

For instance, anent friendship, how often do we realize – how often do we, in fact, cherish – that we cannot know true friendship until we become a friend. Maybe, more so, until we NEED a friend.

Similarly, we cannot fully know forgiveness until we receive forgiveness… but the biblical principle is that we must forgive in order to be forgiven. To be conscious of the need to be forgiven, and to savor the feeling of truly being forgiven.

Again, the next step, for our meditation, is that we cannot know the joy of salvation without having sinned. A common saying in churches these days is, “To get a blessing, be a blessing.” These sayings are true, but we have to be careful to see them as principles, not “Christian karma.” There is nothing wrong with being mechanistic if it is spiritual – remember, after all, the Latin phrase “Deus ex machina,” which, classroom drama lessons aside, means “the way God works.”

The irony in that truth about salvation should make us stop and think, and respect, this life we lead under God’s grace. Is it good that we sin? Of course not. Is it God’s will? God forbid. But He has provided pathways for us, and answers to life’s problems. “Where sin abounds, there grace abounds more” (Romans 5:20).

Let us remind ourselves of partially obscured principles of the kingdom that we see through a glass darkly. We are more special than the angels, and among the reasons is the fact that angels can never know the joy of salvation. They are never able to sing “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” The bonds of sin seem different to us, less oppressive, when we consider this.

We can gnash our teeth when we feel like victims of life’s circumstances. But how sweet when we hold to that thread of hope, maintaining by God’s grace a glimmer of faith, and deliverance comes. To venture back to concise aphorisms, we cannot know answers unless we cry out with questions. There is no progress until you actually take that pesky first step.

I wrote above that we might never know real friendship until we need a friend. Self-evident? Not always. And we need to recognize that God sometimes works through circumstances (my source: um, the entire Bible, and the lives of uncountable believers through history). He also works through unlikely channels – that is called Grace. And He works through sometimes unlikely persons – they are called Friends.

“God works in mysterious ways”? His ways are not all that mysterious. We just don’t see them clearly enough, or often enough.

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The trio Selah provides a musical illustration to these thoughts, melding two time-honored hymns of the church… as only they can.

Click: Be Still My Soul/ Jesus Loves Me