Threaded discussions and predestination

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"Mantle - Jordan - Pelé - Favre", "team member", "threaded discussions", bull session, predestined, Sinatra

A common feature in online education is the “threaded discussion”, sometimes called a forum.  Typically threaded discussions begin with a particular topic or question posed by the professor.  In my courses each students makes an initial response to the topic/question, and then all the class jumps in with their secondary and tertiary responses.  Sometimes the discussion is comparable to a bull session with a lot of immediate or impulsive responses.  Other times, the discussion includes well thought out comments.  In any case, threaded discussions permit a good amount of interchange among the students, and the professor can add comments, questions, observations, challenges, encouragement, etc., as desired or needed.

Recently in one of my courses, the dozen or so students had discussion on “predestination.” Although what I hoped to see, but was not surprised to not see, was that someone would ask, “predestined to what?”  The class appeared to be assuming that predestination (being predestined) referred to ”being saved” in terms of the beginning of salvation (new birth, regeneration).  Consequently, the responses tended to deal with whether God had predestined who would (and in some cases, who wouldn’t) become a Christian, God’s child.

At a particular moment in the discussion, I wanted the students to consider predestination as referring to the destiny God has determined for His children, not referring to who would have that destiny.  The point is that we children of God are predestined to be like Jesus.

Consider the analogy of someone becoming a member of a sports team.  Upon becoming part of that team, the coach (or manager) tells them that as a team member their destiny is to be as good a player as was Pelé of Brazil, or Mantle of the Yankees, Favre of the Packers, or Jordan of the Bulls, etc. Joining the team included stepping into a previously existing destiny for the members of that team.   That is predestination.  Predestination was not the decision made by a coach as to who would “go out” for the team.  Predestination is the decision made by the coach as to what the person “going out” for the team would become if becoming a team member and remaining on the team.

This analogy points out that God doesn’t decide who will be and who will not be His children.  (He wants everyone to be His child.)  But, God has decided what His children will become.  That decision by God is on the level of being inescapable.  No one can say to God “I want to be your child, but I will be the kind of child that I want to be” or “I want to be your child, but ‘do it my way.’”

To those people, God will respond, “Sinatra doesn’t define what my children will be.   I define what my children will become.  They will become like Christ.”  People not wanting to be like Christ will not be God’s children.  People who want to be like Christ, will become God’s children (His way), and nothing on earth or anywhere else, can keep God from accomplishing his predestination for His children.  Now that, my friends, I call Good News.

(Do keep in mind that I have said nothing about the process God uses to carry out His predestination.  Suffice it to say that Mantle, Pelé, Jordan, and Favre did not become what they were by magic.)

What are your thoughts???

Christmas, and “Painting Grace” by Thomas Kinkade

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"found in the forest", "safe in His arms", Christmas, grace, light, love

The following, excerpted from “Painting Grace” is found in Thomas Kinkade’s Come Let Us Adore Him, a Christmas gift I received several years ago.  I trust it resonates with you as it has with me.

“On the canvas of my mind, I see the picture clearly. A little child, clothes torn and tattered, stands lost in the heart of a deep, dark forest.  As night descends, his fears arise, heart pounding as he turns to the right . . . to the left . . . and recognizes nothing.  Can see nothing.;  He knows he is as good as dead, for it is only a matter of moments before the night creatures overtake his fragile form.

“But look!  There is a light in the distance, and steadily it comes closer.  Suddenly the boy can see the enormous shape of a man, holding the lantern above his head.  “It is the King,” the boy says to himself.  “And He has come just for me.”

“And with that, the giant but gentle King bends down and scoops up the boy in His big, burly arms.  “Come with Me, My child,” the King says to the boy.  “I have prepared a wonderful place for you.  It is a word full of light and beautiful things – a world that grows in the grace of my love.  it is reserved just for you.  Come, let Me show you the light.”

“Imagine if you were that child – the joy of feeling His arms surround you with a safety and love like you’ve never know.  Buried in His chest there is warmth, peace, and hope.  It is the message of true love, and it is the portrait of Christmas.

“It astounds me that God sees me as that little boy, lost without hope in a dark and dying world.  Then out of the dismal night comes His light of hope – His own Son – who saves me from certain death, and places me in the kingdom of His love.  . . . .

“When I was a child, I saw Christmas only through the eyes of a child.  It was my joy to play with my toys and with my friends on the day when all the world seemed right.  As a parent, now, I get a glimpse of the joy our heavenly Father feels when He gives good gifts to His children.  Though sometimes children respond wrongly – like I always did when I got clothes instead of toys – the gifts from our Father are always for our good.  And His love is the reason I rejoice.

“This Christmas season I hope you find the chance, amid the chaos and crazy schedules, to settle in for the night and shine the Savior’s message of light on your loved ones.  And in your home, and mine, God’s children will discover again the joy of Christmas, for the Light of the World has come.  And, He shines in you and me.”

MERRY CHRISTMAS . . . BLESSED CHRISTMAS . . . MARANATHA

 

 

Christmas and some lines from John Stuart Mill

Tags

"God and evil", "John Stuart Mill", cross, death, freedom, pointers

When reviewing some personal items earlier today, I again read several lines by John Stuart Mill (1806-1873).  In “The Contest in America” published in the Harper’s New Monthly Magazine of April 1862, Mill addressed some of the public thinking during the Civil War in the United Sates.  The article included Mill’s famous lines:  “. . .war, in a good cause, is not the greatest evil which a nation can suffer.  War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse.. . . A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”

You may wonder what Mill’s statement has to do with Christmas.  I suggest that Mill is pointing to the “why?” of Christmas.

Christmas celebrations over the past 2000 years have taken a multitude of forms and practices.  Certainly we are far removed from the first Christmas!!  Consequently, we do well to ponder why celebrate the birth of Jesus.  We harm ourselves if we fail to ask the deep question of why the Son of God took on flesh in the first place.  Mill points to the answer, even if what he said was in the context of the deadly War between the States in the 1860’s.

Jesus, the incarnated Son of God, came to earth to take part in a war.  It was the war between good (God) and evil (Satan).  It was a war “in a good cause”, that of freeing humanity from the bonds of moral evil and restoring humanity to God’s family.  This war ultimately cost the innocent Jesus his life, as he bore the “ugly” murder of crucifixion.

Jesus, born to die – it is ugly.  But, as Mill states, it would have been even more ugly if Jesus would have thought that nothing was worth His death!!!  Although not referring to Jesus when he wrote it, Mill’s point is appropriate.  If Jesus would have cared more for His personal safety than the spiritual freedom of His murderers and their sympathizers, He would have been a miserable creature “with no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”  But, Jesus was free.  He was noble.  He knew that something was worse than dying in the war for humans’ salvation – It would have been morally worse for Him to not die!!

This, my friends, is taking us deep into the Why of Christmas.  The original Christmas was the necessary first step to His victory over what is even worse than dying for the sins of others, that of not dying for the sins of others!!!

 

Christmas, a widow, and a 5 year old son

Tags

"joy in heaven; joy on earth", Christmas, gratefulness

I just read of a group of people who presented a new home to a military widow and her son, Sara and Landon Wood, in Houston TX.  It was given to them by “Operation Finally Home” during half-time of a football game yesterday.  They were able to get her to the game (Houston Texans versus the Carolina Panthers), the first Texan game she had seen, by asking her to receive a memorial for her husband Scott.  She was overwhelmed by the gift of the house, of course.

As I read it I choked up, and am still, as I write this.  I know that there could be a variety of mixed motives involved in how the gift was presented; I don’t want to be Pollyannaish.  But, I also know that the joy of a lady and her five year old son demonstrates that not everything is hellish in this world.   The folk involved in the project weren’t forced to build and give this house.  They did it, basically, out of the goodness of their hearts.  And, I actually feel the sensation in my throat as I note this down.  “I am happy for you, Sara and Landon, as you have been offered a new stage in your life together.”  By the way, although Landon knows his father will not return, he talks to Scott in heaven!!

There may be joy in heaven when a sinner is rejoined with God.  Here on earth, I know some joy when I witness, if only via a computer screen, some folk contributing to the wholeness of a widow.  In fact, isn’t that one of the basic expressions of generosity that we Christians are commanded to do??  Yes, of course, it is.

 

Christmas candles – what would the season be without them???

Tags

"6 billion people", "candles and stadium lights", "Christmas candles", "decorating the house for Christmas", "losing perspective", "when good is not best", analogies

Christmas candles!  Can you imagine a Christmas season without candles?

A week ago, along with the help of the two of my daughters that live nearby, we did the Christmas decorations here at my house.  Confession time — I admit that I cheat, not only by having their help, but also because I take about 15-20 pictures each year of how the decorations are laid out.  Why not?  If it is good enough for last year, it is also good enough for this year, at least as a start, right?

Well, I just counted the candles sitting in various places of the house – 32.  You read it correctly.  And, by the time Christmas festivities are a memory, most of them will have been lit.  Joyce loved candles and she got me to feel the same.

Candles are very practical, in some circumstances, of course.  Of course they have their limits, such as requiring an already existing fire to light them!!  In addition to that small downside, other things like flashlights, electric lights, car head lights, TV screens, street lights, cell phones, computer screens, are just several items that also provide light in our time.  But, candles have a something none of the just mentioned substitutes can claim – history!!

Candles are also great analogies.

The analogy in my mind at the moment is built off of the prime purpose of a candle – to provide light.   True, it is very dim compared to the spot light on the police car, or the stadium lights that allow 100,000 people to watch a night football game.  Nonetheless, if a candle isn’t giving light, its principal function is not being realized.  Oh yes, we can do other things with a candle than light it.  If you have enough of them, you could fill a box and use it as a weight.  You could use them as rollers if the object wasn’t so heavy it would smash the candles and come to a screeching halt.  You could trim off all the wax if you needed badly enough a piece of cord or string.  You could wax the bottom of some skis, or a zipper on a jacket.  You could use them for decoration because they have been so exquisitely and/or colorfully made.  You get the idea – a candle could be useful for some things even if those things were not the principal reason for the generic candle’s existence.

People, created by God, also have a prime purpose – to glorify God by being spiritually at one  with Him.  And, like candles, people can do other things than satisfy their prime purpose.  The list could go on forever, so I won’t even begin the list.  You could probably come up with ideas that wouldn’t even occur to me anyway.  With over six billion people currently on the planet, would we ever get to the end of the list?  Not likely.

But, what a tragedy if for all the profitable things people could, or can, do they would miss the prime purpose of being human – to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.  To not realize that purpose would be sort of like lighting a candle and covering it with a bushel basket.  Oh, someone already used that analogy.  What was his name?  Oh, yeah, I think his name was Jesus!!!.  And, He should know a thing or two about why humans exist.

So, this Christmas, don’t forget to learn from the candles, OK?

May their tribe increase!!!

Tags

"God is genderless", "granting the benefit of doubt", "mutuality is the path to . . . ", "trumping gender power plays", "Why the drive for power?"

God is genderless.  The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit have no gender.  Although the Father and the Son have labels that normally among humans connote gender, the labels do not denote any gender hierarchy.  Rather, they denote that the relationship in the Trinity is one of mutual love and shared responsibility.  In fact, the Incarnation included the Son setting aside certain “benefits” to accept a subordinate role for the purpose of human redemption.  But, the point is that before the incarnation, no such subordination existed.

And, even with the incarnation, that subordination became a model for both genders, not just one of them.  And so, we see that the Apostle Paul calls for mutual submission between the husband and the wife.  That is Godly, in the highest sense, and trumps any gender driven power play.

Why can’t Christians get this?  Why the drive for power, whether by the men or the women?  How can they not see that this drive is inevitably destructive, and that mutuality is part of the path to goodness, righteousness, healthy relationships and wholesome psyches?

In this train of thought, I was very encouraged just several days when a person commented, “Not all that long ago I absorbed the truth that a key to personal relationships is to grant the other person the benefit of doubt.  If two people love each other properly, they are acting on behalf of the other’s best interest.  Why should I allow myself to think the other one is not acting that way?  Why not give them the benefit of the doubt? “  Note what that does for gender relationships, be it in the family or in the church.

May that person’s tribe increase!!!

Spiritual schizophrenics or something else??

Tags

"a neutral decision maker", "an improving image of Jesus", "being fixed or repaired", "God having priorities", "spiritual schizophrenic"

It is a rare day indeed when I do not consciously thank the Lord for His active presence in my life.  It is also a rare day when I am not consciously aware of spiritual failure.  God’s work in my life is a high order value and I need to understand it as well as possible.

In seeking that understanding, I have come to perceive that God’s work in us, His children, is not to establish in us a second, independent, source of behavior.  Rather, it is to repair our damaged humanity.  Permit me to flesh that out a little.

God’s method is not to make us into spiritual schizophrenics, no more than Jesus Himself was a spiritual schizophrenic of humanity and deity.  Not being spiritually schizophrenic, Jesus did not have something that stood above his deity and humanity that was constantly deciding which “nature” would win out over the other.  There was not a “neutral” decision maker in Jesus indicating whether to obey His deity or His humanity.

Of course, Jesus did not have a humanity that needed to be repaired.  His humanity and deity were in synch.  But, we do have a humanity that needs major repair.

That is what the Holy Spirit is doing – repairing us, fixing us, renewing us, instructing us about righteousness, convicting us to the point where we repent and ask forgiveness, opening our eyes to spiritual realities we have not observed before, and making us sensitive to our environment on a level we have not experienced.  God’s repair job on us is not His eliminating our humanity and putting deity in its place.  He is changing our fallen humanity into an image of Jesus.

Understanding this permits us to be confident Christians.  We are able to do moral things we once could not do.  Although evil still exists in us, it will finally be destroyed when it no longer is useful to God.  Until then, God permits some evil because other needs must be fixed before the evil can be ultimately destroyed.  To destroy the evil before God’s designated time is to destroy it prematurely.

I would be happy to read your interaction with what you have just read.  I still have much to learn.  Thanks.