Centered Life

There seems to be a lot of people setting themselves on “higher moral ground” withouth having to pay the price. Defined by Theodore Dalrymple as “False Apology Syndrome”, many apologize for the failure of others at no cost to themselves. There is a big difference between shame and guilt!

One of the key self-flagellating topics of the church today is apologizing for the countervailing actions of the crusades, history is ignored and only the failure of the Roman church leaders is applied in all cases, very poor view of reality. What do you think?

An old pioneer traveled westward across the great plains until he came to an abrupt halt at the edge of the Grand Canyon. He gawked at the sight before him: a vast chasm one mile down, eighteen miles across, and more than a hundred miles long!

He gasped, “Somethin musta happened here!”

A visitor to our world at Christmas time, seeing the lights, the decorations, the trees, the parades, the festivities, and the religious services, would also probably say, “Something must have happened here!”                   —unknown

Indeed, something did happen. God came to our world on the first Christmas.

Christmas gift suggestions:
To your enemy, forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.
To a friend, your heart.
To a customer, service.
To all, charity.
To every child, a good example.
To yourself, respect.                                  —  Oren Arnold

God grant you the light in Christmas, which is faith; the warmth of Christmas, which is love; the radiance of Christmas, which is purity; the righteousness of Christmas, which is justice; the belief in Christmas, which is truth; the all of Christmas, which is Christ.  — Wilda English

Prayer

• Prayer is a relational conversation with God expressing our heart in need and desire as we learn and line up with His will.
• Prayer is not:
  • Information that God does not have!
  • A formulae to get what you want.
  • A program to get God to meet your needs.

There is nothing more centered than a self-emptied life, and there is nothing more empty than a self-centered life.

I have a burden on my heart and a challenge for our generation. The burden is for our children and our children’s children and the challenge follows.

Every generation in the modern era has had a name. The “Builders” before the last world war, the “Boomers” from 1946 through 1964, the “Busters” from 1965 to 1983 and the “Bridges from 1984 to the new millennium. In the past decade we have tried to pin down the new postmodern generation with letters like the “X” and “Y” generations. The “X” generation to indicate that we don’t know or understand them and the “Y” generation for all those filled with unanswered questions and unknowable answers. Regardless how we attempt to label the generation that follows us or those that have preceded us, our real challenge is to serve our children and leave a legacy for them to live by and grow in.

As a father, grandfather, and a pastor, I am increasingly concerned for our children and their future. What will they grow up to become? What are we doing to prepare them for life? What kind of legacy are we leaving them? I believe that we need hope for the future and tools for today!

I am also aware of the rising level of frustration and the routine panic that fills many homes and threatens family life. The family is the foundation of our culture, it is the bedrock for building our future and the family is under greater stress today than ever before. Our families are threatened from every side with disintegration.

Now, I have not arrived nor do I have it all figured out, but in these past few decades I have learned many good and hard lessons. Experience is a hard teacher but we seem to remember these lessons the best. I have a challenge on my heart to instill hope for our future, for our children and our children’s children. Hope is the expectation of good. We have an opportunity to change the direction of our lives and our families. A change for good!

I am inviting as many people as I can to grow together with us in a new teaching series that I am preparing. I have confidence in our tomorrow and am preparing to instill hope for the future. For four Sunday mornings at 10:00am beginning September 20^th I will teach a life giving series for this purpose. We will begin with laying a foundation for life, then learn to grow a richness of life with the purpose of creating a culture of life in order to leave a legacy of life. This “Life giving” series will help us all to value and invest in our family and our community for a better tomorrow. Please plan to come grow with us!

In correlation to this Sunday morning series I will also begin a very practical class for parents and grandparents on Friday evening October 23^rd from 7-8pm. This one hour parenting class will last for 10 weeks and give you tools for understanding, shaping and raising your children, as the Scripture states, “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” Cornerstone Community Church will provide a nursery for your small children and activities for your elementary children so that you can get the most out of the class. We want to give you every opportunity to learn, grow and impact your family with practical and biblical tools that will bring life and peace.

So look and prepare for a brighter future, for our children and our children’s children! Please come join me on Sunday morning September 20^th and we will begin this journey together.

jc 

I really enjoyed the two speeches Tuesday evening. Senator John McCain’s concession was gracious, patriotic and truly generous. Senator Barak Obama’s acceptance speech was intentionally toned down from the rhetoric of the campaign and very unifying, generous and hopeful.

The tenor and content of both speeches were encouraging, peace making and hope building because the spirit of their messages were reflective of and inspired by the virtues embedded in our constitution and the Judeo-Christian values and virtues that empower it for life, prosperity and peace. The test of every leader, then, is to live up to the high bar of this foundational document and their subsequent speeches that find substance in its hopes and truths.

Thomas Jefferson once wrote that our leadership and citizenry are “an aristocracy of virtue and talent.” This aristocracy was to serve as the backbone of our society and make decent and free government possible. Our problem has proven to be a lack of such people in sufficient numbers to overturn a greedy and hedonistic culture. It is impossible to accomplish such a decent environment with only hopeful conversation.

The problem is this: when selfish people get what they want, there is a temporary peace in that their will has been satisfied. When the down-trodden gain a measure of justice, then a sense of peace and an expression of righteousness appears for a brief time. So our hope proves to be temporary.

History teaches us that all classic civilizations proved unable to produce self-sufficient people capable of serving as the foundation of good government for any sustainable period of time because the required character was not developed and the transformation of the individual was temporary.

When we, as earlier national developments, were placed in great duress, then people were sufficiently under the threat and strain of real needs to be able to exalt the virtues that could make them strong. We continually look to these heroes for inspiration.

But, after a nation becomes strong, it has no sustaining principle that would allow the further development of virtue to maintain its society. Once the pressure is released, it is human nature to let up, relax and slide. We lack the tension adequate to maintain character in our citizens. Our political mantra against incumbents remains, “They went to Washington to bring change to Washington but Washington changed them.” Such access to power and excess is dangerous to the human soul. Unfortunately, then, no stable society can be long maintained if it is prosperous. Why? The decreased tension lowers the motivation for an increased pursuit of virtue. Vice is the easy and available road to those in a life of ease. Alexander Pope has so aptly stated:

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As to be hated need but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

 A transcendental principle and tension is lacking when everything appears to be going well. That overriding transcendental principle is the grace of God through the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom. Only the Kingdom of God and its disciplines learned in the following of Christ can provide this real and lasting change. As is ultimately seen in the fulfillment of His Kingdom, “the saints shall judge the earth.” (I Corinthians 6:2)

Until then, by His grace and as His disciple, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they will see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

This is the sustainable hope!

jc

Just a thought!

Why is their so much media and educratic ridicule applied to single issue voters? They are considered simplistic, narrow, ignorant, etc. But this accusation is only applied to those whose issues morally describe and apply ethical boundaries to the social arena. If the issues are health care or civil rights, terrorism or regulation, then it is considered legitimate. But if the issue is abortion or traditional family values, then prepare for the barrage.

Politics and the secular humanistic application of this word today are morphing even as we speak. A satirical definition of politics is very close to the truth, it is defined as “strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.” I rather appreciate the original use and spirit of the word defined by Webster in the 1928 version of his dictionary.

  The science of government; that part of ethics which consists in the regulation and government of a nation or state, for the preservation of its safety, peace and prosperity; comprehending the defense of its existence and rights against foreign control or conquest, the augmentation of its strength and resources, and the protection of its citizens in their rights, with the preservation and improvement of their morals. Politics, as a science or an art, is a subject of vast extent and importance.

The original purpose and responsibility of our politics should be the preservation and improvement of a nations morals. Unfortunately, the relative and contemporary morals being foisted upon the unsuspecting and embraced by the arrogant and self-serving are defined by their deductions of evolutionary ideas rather than on the ancient truths that provided them with such benefits and opportunities. These ideas can be boiled down to the survival of the fittest.  Therefore, the one with the biggest weapon, the largest mouth, or the highest poll numbers decides what is right or wrong, what is acceptable or unacceptable, what is moral or immoral.

This produces a startling and unfortunate reality. As Voltaire stated:

 ”Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

Following on the heels of Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871), Friedrich Nietzsche proclaimed that God was dead. Therefore if you kill God, then you can kill ethics, and this will eventually result in killing man!

So! The single most important issue to determine whether someone should be extended greater authority and influence would be their stance on life. If they are for life, all life, a culture of life, then, I would not be so concerned with giving them authority over mine or my family’s lives. If an individual can justify killing someone for their own personal reasons like an unexpected or untimely pregnancy, an elderly or disabled person’s abilitiy to rise to the acceptable quality of life, or their defined burden on their family or the medical provision of the state, then I definitely do not want them to be making choices about my life. Their thinking is akin to the mindset of Nazi Germany and their views are an illustration that while abortion and euthanasia are promoted as a right to choose, they pretty rapidly become an obligation to die.

Yes! This is a single issue worth establishing a litmus test with.

“I have set before you life and death, choose life!” Deuteronomy 30:19

jc

These past few months I’ve been buried in other pursuits but I have been thinking, reading and praying. As I have watched the presidential candidates pursue their party’s nomination for these many months a few things have become evident.

First, regardless of the success of the eventual nominees, our nation will be thrust into a number of major tests. Second, the conflicted reality of our degenerating value system will be exposed even more than we have experienced in the past generation. Third, the global threats to peace and the economy will be heightened by the reality and release of the enemies of our fragile stability as the rhetoric increases and the action decreases. Finally, the church will be faced with the reality of a blatant conflict of kingdoms. She will be driven to action or apathy, she will begin a new revolution of the heart or slide back into another dark age.

The icon of tolerance that has been erected and revered will be threatened by the hypocritical biases just under the surface. The ideal of multi-culturalism that is exalted as an expression of such tolerance will also be exposed as a ruse. The entrance of Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama into the race thrusts the reality of these expressions into the limelight. The selection of Mr. McCain as the Republican candidate reveals the internal conflicts of the other pole. 

I believe that the apparent monolith of the Democratic Party will be revealed as a pile of gravel being shoved from many directions and coalescing into an unruly sprawl and the so-called conservatism of the Republican Party will be revealed as a spineless body.

Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness! He has planted the only durable rumor of hope in a world of despair. I am not hopeless. But I have NO hope in this worlds systems. We should pursue His will and His purpose above all, praying, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Further up and further in!

jc 

Excerpt from today’s audio post:

Wisdom defined as that which is spoken into our lives. That counsel which determines the course of our lives. — The source of our wisdom determines the course of our lives.

 

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Excerpt from today’s audio post:

We are like trees if we are living a centered life — being an influential oak rather than a tumble weed.

 

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