Will the real Patrick please stand up...

Wow... this is late! I started this post on Saturday before St. Pats, but didn't finish it till now.  Better late than never I suppose.

When we think of St. Patrick's Day what instantly hits the average person?  Parades?  Green beer?  The Chicago river dyed green?  Leprechauns, pots of gold and four leaf clovers?  All of these have nothing whatsoever to do with Patrick.

The real Patrick is hard to track down because of the legends that surround him, but what follows is one of the likely truths.

In the late 300's AD in Scotland, Maewyn Succat, the son of Roman officials was captured by Irish pirates and taken back with them and sold into slavery. For six years Maewyn served a man by shepherding his sheep out in the wilderness.  It was there that Maewyn developed a relationship with the God of his father, Jesus Christ.  In the countless hours spent alone in the wilderness tending the flock of his master, he prayed for release.  At the end of six years, Maewyn had a vision from God telling him to journey over 200 miles to the coast where he would find a ship to return him to his home.  Maewyn followed the heavenly instructions and indeed there was the ship that took him home.

After arriving again in Scotland, Maewyn became a priest, some think he even went to Rome for education.  After he completed his training, again he received a vision.  He heard the voices of the Irish begging for him to return and help them.  Maewyn changed his name to Patrick and he and a group of priests journeyed to Ireland again.

Ireland at this time was totally controlled by the Druids, an order steeped in the occult, even practicing human sacrifices.  When Patrick arrived, he went strait to the King and presented his case.  After several years of working, the King of Ireland became a convert to Christianity and within the century, the druids were gone.

The fruit of Patrick's ministry to his former masters directly resulted the saving of western culture during the many hardships that would come later, like the fall of Rome, the rise of pagan hordes who destroyed much of Europe, but Ireland was largely spared.

So, next year when you start to think of little leprechauns, remember that behind the fun, lies a real man who selflessly gave of himself and returned with a message of hope to the people who had mistreated him.

Just a thought...

Right off the bat I would like to state that as a Christian, I believe that homosexuality is wrong.  I feel that scripture makes it plain that God finds it to be an abomination and a perversion of the beautiful image of the relationship that He has with His bride the Church.  That being said, God also views all other sexual sins (adultery, premarital sex incest, bestiality, rape, pedophilia, prostitution, pornography and masturbation, etc, etc, etc) as perversions.  They are equally wrong in His eyes.

Now in the words of Samuel L. Jackson in Jurassic Park: "Hold on to your butts."  I may get a lot of flak for saying what I am about to say, but I believe that as American citizens, under the law of the U.S. Constitution, people who practice a homosexual lifestyle should be allowed to be married to the person that they love.  Let the chaos ensue!

Sexuality is a moral issue, and to make it a political one I believe would be a mistake.  Let God handle the moral issues, because He will in the end; and let politicians sort out political concerns.

Lastly, a word to my fellow believers.  I have been seeing a lot of hateful speech directed at homosexual people.  STOP!!!  They are no worse than you were before Christ saved you...  God is not partial, all are equally sinners before God and equally damned.  So stop hating people made in God's own image!  Pray for them, love them, let God convict of sin.  Show them the love of God because in Jesus' own words, by our love they will know us!

"You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written: “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’” So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God. Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister. I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean. If your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy someone for whom Christ died. Therefore do not let what you know is good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, 18 because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval.- Romans 14:10-18" 

  I use the above symbol to both say that I do in a legal (Constitutional) aspect support the movement for homosexual marriage, but more importantly, to state emphatically that I believe that all are indeed equal!  All are equally worthy of the judgement of a holy righteous God, and all equally able to receive His free gift.  God is not partial to any man, woman, or child!  Come to the cross today!!

The oracles of God

Why don't we cherish the Bible anymore?

     This question started me on a journey to learn why I personally don't.  We look at the scriptures as a good book, a beautiful piece of literature, but it truly is so much more.  It is the very words of God.  I suppose that it is ingrained within the heart of man to long to know what God says.
      In ancient times, people would travel many days journey to a temple of a god that claimed to share his words with people.  These oracles would hear your request and then after waiting for up to several weeks would hear the response from the "gods" which was actually the ramblings of a priestess who was kept drugged constantly and the person who received the message would go away deceived, in awe that his god would share his words with him. They built massive, intricate temples that took hundreds of men many many years, in some cases more than one hundred, to build in which they housed these oracles.  They spent countless fortunes to purchase these oracles and to make sacrifices to satisfy whichever god had supplied it.  People did whatever they had to do to obtain these words from their god.
     Among the Hebrew people, the scriptures were always treated with love and respect, keeping the Torah scrolls locked away in a closet to protect it, spending countless hours copying it by hand, counting every word to be sure not one was missed.  When read, the scriptures were reverenced and people loved to hear them.  When king Josiah finds the book of the law within the Temple in II Kings 22 and 23, the people stand and listen to him read the whole thing for hours and hours, not only without complaint, but overcome with emotion because of their sin against God.
     During the Reformation, once the Bible began being translated into the common tongue from Latin, people risked their lives to attain it, because to the Catholic mind, the Bible was too sacred to be written in the language of the people.  The men who translated it risked, and very often faced and endured death because of their work.  Once translations became accepted, they became priceless treasures, worth a kings ransom.  Churches would have a beautifully decorated alter Bible chained in place so it could not be stolen.  The invention of the printing press made purchasing a Bible possible for everyone.
     During the 1950's till almost 1990 and even today in places like China, the presence of Communism made the printing, possession, and reading of Bibles illegal in many Eastern European nations.  Many men risked their lives in defiance of the government, men like Brother Andrew who has been smuggling Bibles behind closed doors since the 50's.  These people who receive these Bibles were and are ecstatic and overcome to think that they are holding God's word.
Today, when a Bible is translated into a new language, the people there rejoice and many cry when they hold their first Bible.
     But in America today, we find a people who take the Word of God for granted.  I am one of them.  I can't even tell you how many Bibles I own, and I barely read it.  I treat it as any other book, not the precious treasure that it is.  God has given to us, His people, and because the sacrifices of so many others, He has made it available to billions of people across the globe.  We let them gather dust on our shelves or on our coffee tables like they were some kind of picture book, and we either A, never read them to see what God has told us, or B, we read it because it is the "Christian" thing to do and we do not allow it to change us.
     We need to realize that what we hold in our hands is not just a beautifully written manuscript that was penned thousands of years ago with no relation to our lives today, but a living book.  A book given to us by God Himself.  God's very words written down for us, that give direction, that give solace, that point the way to God.  A book in which God Himself reveals to us His character and person.  We hold the very words, the very oracles of the one true God, and they are complete and perfect.  Why do we not treat them with the reverence and love that we should.  We should be willing to pay any price to enjoy them, we should not let anything get in the way of studying them and learning all that they have to say about life.

     Come with me, let us together, cherish and honor the Word of God as we ought.  Let us love it, read it, study it, protect and defend it, and share it with the world around us.

The Colonel

This is a poem that I wrote two years ago, about the Civil War.  It is about an colonel of a Union regiment, not specified as to who it is, it could be anyone.  I dedicated it to the 650,000 Americans on both sides who gave their lives to give our nation a new birth of freedom. 

The Colonel

As one the men kneel down to pray
To commit their souls unto the Lord,
Then they stand and dress the line
The Colonel draws his shining sword.

Then he speaks with booming voice,
“Shoulder arms my bully boys,”
Now forth they step with drum and fife
A crisp and clear, martial noise.

The boys in blue with teeth clenched shut
Come on and on toward the fight
Now the shot tears through the line,
O’er the roar the Colonel shouts, “Right boys, dress right!”

As men rush to plug the holes, more gaps appear,
 Finally emerging from those trees of death,
The Rebel line, vast to their eyes
Were ordered now to take their breath.

The Rebel men with muskets raised
Squeeze trigger, drop hammer, release the ball
That with its sudden, near sweet embrace,
Escorts many brothers to Heaven’s Hall.

“Halt my boys and ready arms,”
The Colonel shouts, his sword upraised,
As men fall to the left, to right
Bullets like bees buzzing o’erhead, he stands unfazed.

On order’s shout with crack and flame
Johnny falls and others moan,
For invitation sent: blue to grey
To stand before the Great White Throne.

The Rebs burst forth like Satan’s horde,
With bayonets fixed, the blue boys stand
Ready to meet them like cliff meets wave,
Many young boys fall to the Butcher’s Hand.

While Colonel’s sword is flashing
Blue wall beats back grey wave,
Flashing sword did from nerveless fingers fall,
The brave Colonel must now journey to the grave.

The men gathering ‘round their fallen hero
Knew into His house the Almighty he must allow,
One bullet passed through his thigh,
One pierced his valiant heart, one his noble brow.

The fury of battle now hours passed,
The men bear on weary shoulders his body torn,
And bury him under tree of elm,
For they must move away ere the morn.

The years have passed, cold and weary,
These boys in blue, though fewer still
Gather ‘round the statue gleaming,
At day’s last light, upon the hill.

As one the men kneel down to pray
To commit this soul unto the Lord,
And then they stand and dress the line
In memory of his shining sword.

A breathe of fresh air

This is an old post pulled from my Facebook notes.

A breath.  Such a simple thing that we take for granted every day, but when we really think about it has such significance.  Without it, there is no life.  It is the first thing we do when we live, and the last thing we do when we die.  The average human in a lifetime will take approximately 672,769,000 breaths!  Yet every one of these is more precious than gold.  In Genesis, the first book of the Bible, God shows us the significance of breath in His creation of Adam the first man. “then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature”(Genesis 2:7 ESV).  At first our first ancestor Adam, and later his wife Eve, used this amazing gift of breath to praise God for His awesome works and fellowship with Him daily, but one day they chose to break God’s rule, and ever since that fateful day, man has used this gift of breath, not to bless God, but to curse Him.  We curse Him by placing things, it doesn’t matter what, above the One who made them in our hearts.  And doing that allows all the other sins to come about.  We steal because we place the value of the item above the command that God gave us to not steal.  We lie because we value the opinions of others more than the law of God.  We kill because we care more about what we want than the breath that God gave that person.  God requires perfection out of the people He created, but man cannot do this, we can’t achieve it because we love ourselves more than God; and so every human that has ever lived from Adam to you and I, is under the judgment of God: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”(Romans 3:23 ESV).  God has also within the law He gave us, placed the penalty for breaking it—death.  “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23a ESV).  Not only a physical death, but there will come a spiritual one as well.  “But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8 ESV).  God must judge.  Yes, He loves us perfectly, but He also is perfectly just and that justice demands that innocent blood be shed to pay for sin.  However, not a single human on earth could ever even qualify to be that sacrifice even if one could be convinced of the necessity of shedding his blood for all.  So we are left without hope.  Until we finish the rest of Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23 ESV).  God came into this world, not as the conquering king that He is, but as a poor carpenter’s son, not to the royal palace, but to a humble cave.  Not to comfortable cradle followed by a life of luxury, but to straw-filled manger and a life of drudgery, disrespect, pain, and hard work.  He as God was entirely perfect, fulfilling the law of God His Father.  He walked everywhere preaching and teaching and healing those who were sick and believed that He could save them, proving that He was God.  But instead of welcoming Him and believing in Him, they hated and betrayed Him.  Jesus was arrested on false charges, taken to a phony trial—a mockery of justice—and condemned Him to death.  The mob hung Him on the cross, but they did not kill Him, His Father did.  “Yet, it was the Lord's will to crush him with suffering” (Isaiah 53:10 GW).  The death of the Son, Jesus, brought a smile to His Father’s face, because Jesus had become the very embodiment of our sin.  “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24 ESV).  Jesus when He was on the cross was the most disgusting, defiled, awful man that ever lived.  All the sins ever committed in the vast story of humanity: past, present, and future were laid upon the account of Jesus and, with the same breath that He used to create life in us, He gave it up to redeem us.  Listen friend, When Jesus died on that tree, He did it for you.  You are a sinner, plain and simple.  You have lied, cheated, stolen.  You have lusted, hated, coveted.  You have used the breath that God graciously gave you to curse His holy and matchless name.  You have and so have I.  You are under the death penalty of a perfect God.  But God did not leave you without hope, He gave you His Son.  Will you today take the free gift of life and freedom offered to you by God?  All He requires in exchange is your life.  Surrender to God!  Turn your back on your old life.  Leave behind the filth of sin.  Allow God to cleanse you and make you pure so that you can stand before God; and give Him everything that you have and are.  Give to Him your time, your energy, your money, because they were never actually yours!  You have nothing apart from Him.  Give God your breath back, you owe Him!

I am just a beggar

The only way for us to be reconciled to God is for us to become humble, see ourselves as God sees us, and to throw ourselves at the feet of our King and beg His mercy.  Yes God loves us, He loves us fiercely, but that love does not negate His absolute holiness, and His judgement of wrongdoing.  He must not allow sinners to live, this doesn't make him a mean ogre though, but a kind, loving God, who because He made mankind, He knows what is absolutely best for him (Psalm 33:13-16, Psalm 94:7-11, Psalm 139:17-18, Jeremiah 17:9-10).  He knows what brings death and what brings life, and He told us do these and you will live and we chose to go our own way.  We chose death, and because we sinned, God must fulfill His promise and bring death.  But because He loves us, He chose to die for us, to take all of our blame and sin upon His own shoulders and to die our death.  "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh..." I Peter 3:18a   
⁴ Surely he has borne our griefs
    and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
    smitten by God, and afflicted.
⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions;
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
    and with his wounds we are healed.
⁶ All we like sheep have gone astray;
    we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53:4-6
God, the King of the majesty on high, died for us.  He offers salvation to all, only one thing gets in the way- our pride.  Our only hope is to see that the life around us is not all that there is, and that all that we have is a gift from God, we cannot make our hearts beat, our lungs take air, our brain to think.  These are all gifts from God, undeservedly given to man.  We must realize that we are utterly beggars before Him and repent of our sins, and call on Him for salvation.  Thrice came out with a song with this theme and it is appropriately called Beggars.
 All you great men of power, you who boast of your feats
Politicians and entrepreneurs
Can you safe guard your breath in the night while you sleep
Keep your heart beating steady or sure?
As you lie in your bed does the thought haunt your head
That you're really rather small?
If there's one thing I know in this life, we are beggars all

All you champions of science and rulers of men
Can you summon the sun from it's sleep?
Does the earth seek your council on how fast to spin?
Can you shut up the gates of the deep?
Don't you know that all things hang as if on a string over darkness, poised to fall?
If there's one thing I know in this life, we are beggars all

All you big shots who swagger and stride with conceit
Did you devise how your frame would be formed?
If you'd be raised in a palace or left out on the streets?
Or Choose the place or the hour you'd be born?
Tell me what can you claim not a thing, not your name
Tell me if you can recall just one thing, not a gift, in this life

Can you hear what's been said, can you see now that everything's grace after all
If there's one thing I know in this life, we are beggars all

Beggars by Thrice

What is man?

Those who know me, know that poetry isn't my strong suit.  I have written two good poems in all my life, and the second one was last night.  I am preaching at my church this Sunday night out of Psalm 8 and so I have been studying this passage quite a bit.
O Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
²     Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
    to still the enemy and the avenger.

³ When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
⁴ what is man that you are mindful of him,
    and the son of man that you care for him?

⁵ Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
    and crowned him with glory and honor.
⁶ You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
    you have put all things under his feet,
⁷ all sheep and oxen,
    and also the beasts of the field,
⁸ the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
    whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

⁹ O Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

This Psalm has  really impacted my life and so last night I couldn't sleep so I wrote a poem about it.

What Is Man?

What is man when I see your power?

My God whose breath brought forth the earth?

Your hands that formed each mountain peak,

Why, oh God, did you plan my birth?

What is man when I see your care?

My God whose breath gave man his soul?

Your hands that shape a man from clay,

Why, oh God, did you make my mold?

What is man when I see your mercy?

My God whose breath should take my life?

Your hands that should destroy us all,

Why, oh God, did you withhold the knife?

What is man when I see your cross?

My God whose breath you gave for me?

Your hands that for my sins do bleed,

Why, oh God, did you die on that tree?

What is man when I see your grace?

My God whose breath calls me a son?

Your hands that clothe me with your robes,

Why, oh God, did you cry out, “‘tis done!”?

What is man?