The Way of Happiness - Sabbath

Christianity promotes our happiness and flourishing both with God and with others.  

The human condition causes us to see the law as a burden as if God wants something from us.   God has no deficiency or need of anything from us.  In our natural state, we tend to perceive the Sabbath as if God is needy.  Quite the opposite, the Sabbath was made for man. Man is needy and needs the Sabbath for rest, friendship with others, relaxation, and fellowship with God.

The Sabbath asks us to believe that with God we can do more in six days than without God in seven.  When we live God's way we find that he will bless our work and we have gained a full extra day!

The law unexpectedly is often the opposite of what we naturally perceive.   We think in our natural state that God asks us to take the hard way.  The truth is the way of God is easy and light.   Sin is the hard path and God asks us to join in his happiness if we will believe. 

Try the way of God and have a day of rest.  Taste and you will see that God is good.

Faith

Faith is hard because it is so easy.  What are the steps we want to ask?   Have faith and believe.

No really?  What must be done?   Everything has already been done is the answer.

In many ways the difficulty of faith is we want life on our own terms.  We want to create the solutions, to solve the problems, and to be in charge.

Jesus comes and simply asks that we believe that he is in charge and already has solved the problems. 

Evil

A common idea in Christianity is the philosophical notation that evil is an absence of goodness or a perversion of goodness.   I suppose this idea is fine and I cannot see that it leads to anything in and of itself, but I also cannot see that it is true.

I believe that it is the sort of the idea that if we dismiss the teaching of God on the devil and demonic realm we feel tempted to believe.

It also leads the other way our definition of evil can tempt us to dismiss the demonic world.

Evil at its worst seeks to destroy.   I cannot see how we can say the devil is in any sense lacking in goodness or perverted in goodness in his attempt to destroy Job.

None of this is very key, but I do think that by refusing to allow evil to have a seperate class or category than good we fail to grasp the seriousness of the problems of the world.  

There must be some good end or aim in an action or perversion of good if evil is an absence of good.   It seems of use to allow evil to be its own entity rather than to grasp it is some sort of perversion of good.

It seems that along with the categorization of evil as a subset of good often comes the denial or spiritualization of demonic forces.  Such slippage of knowledge opens the door to all sorts of problems.

I have only met truly penetrating evil and work of the devil in places where people see the demonic world as some sort of allegory of scripture.  And here is the problem with the definition we cannot carry its implications through scripture without risk. 

This would suggest the definition is in fact wrong.  If we hold to the definition anyhow we must be careful to not allow man made definition to override clear scriptural teaching as has at times been done.

Death, Time, and Heaven

Recently my wife passed away.  When you lose everything, in a way your entire life as it was, it brings a certain new perspective to life.

All the things which used to matter often no longer seem of significance.  You realize how small many prior concerns really were.   

Until we have seen death so may things feel important.  Then we realize all which matters after having lost everything in a way. 

I suppose that the eternal perspective of scripture would say that we think in very small terms.  All of life has to be viewed in perspective of eternity with God.

Context and Love

All scripture speaks to us. God is speaking and when we open scripture we can expect God will have something to say. Sometimes we miss the point of what God is trying to say. Sometimes we are not sure what the point is of what God has to say.

God is always speaking. He is searching to save the lost and bring a message of the love of Jesus to those who listen.

Love is the ultimate Christian virtue. One of the easiest ways to spot the misuse of scripture to see when scripture is used without a lack of love.

The Devil tempted Jesus from scripture, but he did not love God or Jesus. That the Devil was tempting showed that he hated and the use of the text was not in accord with the will of God.

God comes in love to save us and bring us to himself.

Building Up

As people of the church we strive to build up others. Building others is the central focus of going to church. The church is a body and we care for others in the body of the church.

It is easy to focus on ourselves and forget that the church is for others and to up-build others. We build up others and others build up us.

Alone we are weak, but together we are strong. Working together the church can bring grace and healing to the world through the gospel of Jesus.

Faith is about Joy

Faith is about finding joy in God.

When we have joy in God our lives will spill forth into blessing the world. This is why Augustine says "Love God and do what you please."

We often ask "Where will we be of must use in serving God?" Often we can best answer this question by asking "Where are we most happy when serving God?"

Our joy in service is the most authentic validation and effective spreading tool of our witness. To serve Christ is to have joy.