Month: August 2010

Blogging Sabbatical

/ W. Keith Brenton / 8 Comments

After a 25-year absence, my carpal tunnel syndrome has returned with a vengeance – and this time in both arms.

So I’m cutting way back on my tweeting, facebooking and blogging.

I can just about get through a normal day’s work at the keyboard without hitting my pain tolerance limit, and that means limiting my extracurricular keyboarding and even my detail-intensive model railroading.

I’m also in a holding pattern for a couple of weeks while some blood tests and an EEG are analyzed after a bit of an episode several weeks ago in which my left arm/hand and left foot/calf started to swell, turn blue, experience intense pain, and then just as suddenly returned to normal a few minutes later. I was a bit disoriented – not thinking at my best – and instead of going to a doctor, napped it off.

I’m hoping it was a one-time thing, and nothing serious.

And that I can get back to my social nit-witting soon.

Speaking for God

/ W. Keith Brenton / 8 Comments

“We speak where the Bible speaks, and are silent where the Bible is silent.” ~ unofficial motto of (most) churches of Christ.

“Lord, fill my mouth with worthwhile stuff – and nudge me when I’ve said enough!” ~ prayer of the probably mythical old preacher

“If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God.” ~ 1 Peter 4:11a

Isn’t this one of the heaviest burdens carried by those who truly desire to speak for the Lord? Whether preaching, teaching, writing a blog, or just conversing about matters religious with a friend?

How do we know when we’ve stopped speaking for Him and started rattling off our own perceptions about what He’s said?

Isn’t it pretty important to stick to what He’s said?

And after all, aren’t there plenty of powerful speakers with advanced degrees in biblical studies who don’t agree on what He’s said?

I wonder from time to time if this doubt isn’t one of the most powerful tools Satan has in shutting us up about the Savior. I wonder if it’s one of the un-discussed root causes for preacher burnout and parishoner abandonment of evangelism.

I wonder if we’ve made the gospel more complex than it is.

Would you like to know what gives me hope when I try to write or speak on the Lord’s behalf – however imperfectly, humbly, and haltingly?

“Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus be cursed,’ and no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.” ~ 1 Corinthians 12:3

“Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: ‘Rulers and elders of the people!'” ~ Acts 4:8

” … for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” ~ Matthew 10:20

The Spirit of our Father speaks through us. We just leave it to Him. It happened just as Jesus described it to His followers. And Paul writes to Corinth that it still works that way. It’s a simple message (“Jesus is Lord!”), delivered in a simple manner, through simple people like you and me. No advanced degrees required; just the Holy Spirit speaking through us.

And all we need do is ask for His help.

“If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” ~ Luke 11:13

You can even ask for that help to be given to others:

“I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.” ~ Ephesians 1:17

“For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” ~ Colossians 1:9

I have resolved to take a new approach when disagreeing with others about scripture, or when trying to argue toward a common understanding of God’s message, or whenever I feel compelled to speak for God. I’ve resolved to pray for the Holy Spirit’s discernment for all parties involved, including (especially!) myself.

I can be as opinionated and pig-headed and closed-minded as anyone else I know. I need to be more open-minded … no; not so much that my brains fall out, but so much that His Spirit can fall upon me. I need to make room for God’s understanding, even if it pushes my understanding out through my nose and ears.

So I’m asking you to pray the same thing for me.

Glimpses

/ W. Keith Brenton / 2 Comments

That’s all we get from scripture of the heavenly realms of eternity.

Snapshots. Out-of-focus. Overexposed. Short on detail, usually.

An inspired yet nameless poet puts words to indescribable chaos, creation and glory while penning the opening chapters of Genesis, but aside from His Spirit hovering over the void, God later walks in the cool of the garden. It’s paradise that He’s created. But it’s not heaven. When a choice for self and now and evil is made, man and paradise must go separate ways.

The unknown writer of Job 1-2 describes a heaven where Satan still has to check in with God. Though people talk about “God showing up” in their church these days, it ain’t nothin’ like what Job experiences in those final chapters.

A few spare words of prophecy in Isaiah 30:27-33 and 31:8 spell doom for Assyria in what seems to be a fiery, cacophonous, cataclysmic battle. In heavenly realms, perhaps it is. But the reality on earth is much more quiet: In one night, one angel obliterates 185,000 Assyrian troops (Isaiah 37:36; 2 Kings 19:35).

In Daniel 10, the prophet learns why his prayers haven’t been answered for three weeks. There’s a battle going on that has detained the heavenly messenger to the prophet, and it’s not immediately clear where it’s taking place – but if a divine prince named Michael had not intervened, the delay might have been longer.

The whole account of battle in heaven and on earth, of judgment and the descent of the heavenly Jerusalem in the Revelation to John is filled with imagery that defies any artist to master.

But all we get are glimpses. – And a deep conviction of one fact that no one can deny:

Things are very different there.

There’s a conflict in the divine realm that has a very definite ending, an ending predetermined since the beginning of eternity (if there is such a thing): Evil is destroyed. Good is forever enshrined. God is eternally enthroned.

And people who choose to be good; to be like God – those who do right and wash their robes (Revelation 22:10-15) – have a dwelling with Him there, and continue to serve there as His servants (22:3-5), reigning with Him forever and ever.

All they need do is hear, and thirst, and wish, and take the free water of life (22:17).

Paradise is restored.

But some may object that hearing, thirsting, wishing and taking the water of life is no real plan of salvation in this world. It isn’t the right set of steps we must take. Not literally. Maybe metaphorically, in those heavenly realms.

I have to wonder if we’re missing a great truth by ignoring the metaphor, though, if that’s all it is. I have to wonder if we’re missing even more by thinking of it only as a metaphor and not a heavenly reality. I have to think that the original listeners to the gospel of great hope shared in the Revelation were thinking of the prophecies they grew up hearing and the stories they heard later; stories of Jesus hinting that He fulfilled those prophecies.

Prophecies and stories like the lamb and the lion (Isaiah 11:6, 53:7; 65:25; John 1:29-36; Revelation 5:5-13 – where a kingly Lion of Judah is announced, but a sacrificial Lamb appears).

Prophecies and stories of a holy city (Nehemiah 11:1; Isaiah 52:1; Matthew 4:5; Revelation 21).

Prophecies and stories about living water (Jeremiah 2:13, 7:13; Zechariah 14:8; John 4:10-11, 7:38; and Revelation 7:17).

Prophecies and stories of a tree of life (Genesis 2:9-3:24; Psalm 1:1-3; Proverbs 11:30; Revelation 2:7; 21:2-10 and 22:19).

And of a choice that must be made, between the prince of the world that cannot last, and the Prince of the Realm that cannot end. Did you notice? Jesus stands astride them both, bridging the gap between, man-who-is-God and God-who-is-man. Yet only one realm has a future.

Glimpses. Foreshadowings. Hints and peeks and promises … that things are very different there.

More real than the tangible reality we know here. More permanent than the temporal instant we experience now. More vast than space. More lasting than time.

Glimpses are all we can get. Choices are all we can make.

From start to finish, the people God created must choose: Tree of shortcut, or tree of life. Now, or forever. Thirst, or water. Darkness, or light. Self, or Him. Good, or evil.

What we do reflects what we have chosen by faith in His grace. So we are judged by the Lord (Revelation 22:12, 14), the only One capable of judging us by virtue of His all-encompassing, eternal nature (13).

However, time is short:

Then he told me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, because the time is near. Let him who does wrong continue to do wrong; let him who is vile continue to be vile; let him who does right continue to do right; and let him who is holy continue to be holy.” ~ Revelation 22:10-11

And the choice is upon us all.

Other Fellowships’ Phrases

/ W. Keith Brenton / 10 Comments

We avoid them like the plague, don’t we?

Which makes me wonder if there are Restoration Movement Christians who have been baptized by immersion, but have never really asked Jesus into their hearts … because that was some other fellowship’s phrase.

Of course, it’s also Paul’s phrase (Ephesians 3:17), and what Jesus encourages us to do (Luke 11:13).

And I wonder if there are Christians who have asked Jesus into their hearts, but have never been immersed into His life – as well as His death, burial and resurrection in baptism.

Those are phrases of Paul, too (Romans 6:1-6).

I wonder, also, if there are those who are saved, but have never heard a heavenly calling to a holy life; to God’s purpose (2 Timothy 1:9; Ephesians 4:1; Hebrews 3:1; 2 Peter 1:10) – because those phrases just aren’t in their vocabulary.

I have to wonder if there are followers of Christ who wouldn’t know what to do if a word from the Lord came to them (Jeremiah 37:17; 1 Samuel 15:10), or felt a burden God had laid on them (Ecclesiastes 3:10; Matthew 11:30), or were moved to participate in a sinner’s prayer (James 5:15-16) – for the reason that these phrases just aren’t written in their book.

Or they are written there, but they haven’t seen them for what they are.

I wonder if the proprietary phrases indicate our willingness to see and follow only part of God’s entire purpose for us; if they betray our unwillingness to see and be blessed by a whole gospel and a full fellowship. I wonder if these shibboleths serve to separate us, keep us apart, prevent the blessing of unity in the Spirit and the bond of peace between Christians who each adhere to his/her own distinct doctrines and subcultures and groups and sects and cliques and lingo and phrases.

Most of all, I wonder if I’m one of them.