5/17/13

From Gary... Absolute, perfect perfection


I am unsure as to WHEN my granddaughter Elizabeth took this picture, but I am very sure it is one of the most beautiful pictures I HAVE EVER SEEN.  I might actually go so far as to say that it is PERFECT!!!!  I absolutely LOVE the colors, the contrast balanced against the correct shading levels.  It is so good, I can almost SMELL its wonderful fragrance.  

This reminds me of the poet John Keats, who wrote:

A Thing Of Beauty Is A Joy Forever


"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast
That, whether there be shine or gloom o'ercast,
They always must be with us, or we die.

Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own valleys: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimmed and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end!
And now at once, adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed."

Now, I have written about 30 or more poems in my life, but never could attain to the majestic poetic masterpiece that Keats achieves.  His idyllic perfection is like Elizabeth's picture; it is worthy of as much praise as I can conceive- and more!!!  The Law of God is like that--- UTTER PERFECTION IN ABSOLUTE PERFECT BEAUTY!!!  Yet, being the frail human beings we are, we fall short of the perfection of its intention.  Take a few moments and consider the following passages of Scripture...

James, Chapter 2
  10 For whoever keeps the whole law, and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. 

John, Chapter 7

1 After these things, Jesus was walking in Galilee, for he wouldn’t walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him.  2 Now the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths, was at hand.  3 His brothers therefore said to him, “Depart from here, and go into Judea, that your disciples also may see your works which you do.  4 For no one does anything in secret, and himself seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, reveal yourself to the world.”  5 For even his brothers didn’t believe in him. 

  6  Jesus therefore said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready.   7  The world can’t hate you, but it hates me, because I testify about it, that its works are evil.   8  You go up to the feast. I am not yet going up to this feast, because my time is not yet fulfilled.” 

  9  Having said these things to them, he stayed in Galilee.  10 But when his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly, but as it were in secret.  11 The Jews therefore sought him at the feast, and said, “Where is he?”  12 There was much murmuring among the multitudes concerning him. Some said, “He is a good man.” Others said, “Not so, but he leads the multitude astray.”  13 Yet no one spoke openly of him for fear of the Jews.  14 But when it was now the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and taught.  15 The Jews therefore marveled, saying, “How does this man know letters, having never been educated?” 

  16  Jesus therefore answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.   17  If anyone desires to do his will, he will know about the teaching, whether it is from God, or if I am speaking from myself.   18  He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory, but he who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and no unrighteousness is in him.   19  Didn’t Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keeps the law? Why do you seek to kill me?” 


Acts, Chapter 7

51  “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit! As your fathers did, so you do. 52 Which of the prophets didn’t your fathers persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, of whom you have now become betrayers and murderers.  53 You received the law as it was ordained by angels, and didn’t keep it!” 

  54  Now when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth.  55 But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, 56 and said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” 

  57  But they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and rushed at him with one accord.  58 They threw him out of the city, and stoned him. The witnesses placed their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.  59 They stoned Stephen as he called out, saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!”  60 He kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, “Lord, don’t hold this sin against them!” When he had said this, he fell asleep. 


Romans, Chapter 2
17  Indeed you bear the name of a Jew, and rest on the law, and glory in God,  18 and know his will, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law,  19 and are confident that you yourself are a guide of the blind, a light to those who are in darkness,  20 a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of babies, having in the law the form of knowledge and of the truth.  21 You therefore who teach another, don’t you teach yourself? You who preach that a man shouldn’t steal, do you steal?  22 You who say a man shouldn’t commit adultery. Do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23 You who glory in the law, through your disobedience of the law do you dishonor God?  24 For “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” just as it is written.  25 For circumcision indeed profits, if you are a doer of the law, but if you are a transgressor of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.  26 If therefore the uncircumcised keep the ordinances of the law, won’t his uncircumcision be accounted as circumcision?  27 Won’t the uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfills the law, judge you, who with the letter and circumcision are a transgressor of the law?  28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh;  29 but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit not in the letter; whose praise is not from men, but from God. 

God above is perfect, we are not!!!  Truthfully, we all at one time or another, do things we know we should not do.  The first few Scripture passages bring this out and more.  Even if we only break ONE commandment, we are guilty of all!!!  The Jews tried and tried to keep the LAW- and failed.  They did not understand that true obedience to God is a heart-matter; one of attitude, not just performance. That is the difference between keeping rules like small children or being an adult who looks for the intent behind the rules.  Even when we do the latter, we still fall short occasionally  and that is where Jesus comes in.  He gives us grace (undeserved mercy) when we fail and that is the absolute perfect solution to the problem of imperfection.  Absolute, perfect perfection!!! 

From Jim McGuiggan... Chaos and the Cross


Chaos and the Cross

New Testament writers never smooth off the ragged edges of the cross. They give us insights into its meaning but it always remains jagged and offensive. That's part of its power as it subverts our smooth talk and tame analysis of the world.
Accustomed to hearing the truth that in some way the cross of Christ atones for the sins of the world, that in some way the life of the world is gained through the cross--because we're used to hearing that truth and because it's such unfathomable good news, we've forgotten what they meant when they spoke of "the cross".
Because it has made sense of so much, we're no longer shaken by its bizarre nature. Because we're often awed and silent at the thought of it, we lose touch with the bedlam and screaming and public nature of it. Because of the love we've come to recognize in it it's difficult to keep in mind the utter savagery and mindless, lunatic cruelty of it.
We see in it the holy obedience of Christ offered to the eternal Father but when we're told "there they crucified him," we're apt to miss the fact that Jesus Christ was shrewdly lynched by a self-serving governor and a religious hierarchy who knew how to use the mob.
The cross of Christ always retains a jaggedness, an aspect of pointlessness, something that shouldn't have happened but did. If only Pilate hadn't folded, if people hadn't lied, if the religious hierarchy hadn't been afraid, if the populace had risen up to oppose it, etc., etc. It wouldn't have happened.
Sin is something that never should have happened. There was no eternal necessity that it should. If this is true and the cross (whatever else it does it) atones for sin, then there's a sense in which the crucifixion of Christ is a contingent event. No sin--no need for the cross to atone for it.
Whatever is to be learned from Auschwitz or Treblinka, what happened at these places can't and shouldn't be "smoothed out". They mustn't be reduced to "the things we learn" from them. They are events which beggar description and defy full explanation. The Christian senses that same thing about the hill outside Jerusalem where One who represented both the holy Father and a teeming humanity was murdered. Golgotha is the inner meaning (and more) of what was spelled out in obscenely large, bold-faced print in the death-camps.
Surely the Nazi death camps with their fathomless depths of depravity and their tormented millions tower over the little hill outside Jerusalem. Without faith in Christ that way of thinking makes sense to me. But if the one who died on that central cross was who Christians think he was and if what he was doing there had galactic ramifications maybe Dachau and the Archiapeligo gulags were taken up in that event at Golgotha. Maybe the Golgotha event gives a meaning and depth to the horrors of all that evil and hurt that even the poor tortured people couldn't know; a meaning more stupendous than even the agony-filled survivors of such places know.
And in turn, such places of horror give us insight into the meaning and necessity of the crucifixion of God's own Son. If even Christians are led to wonder, "Why was such a sacrifice necessary if the world is to be forgiven and gain life?" maybe Haiti under Papa Doc and Cambodia under Pol Pot tell us why.
Maybe Golgotha enables us to look at Auschwitz with even more horrified wonder. True these places and what happened there drive us even at this late date to speechlessness, but Golgotha would not make less of them, it would want to make more of them. It would say all that any poor wretched and forever-scarred soul would groan out, and then it would say even more. "Yes, it was that. All that. Nothing less than that. But it was more. It was a moment when the world was given a mirror and it saw itself. It was a moment when the monster that is in humanity sprang into view and showed itself for what it is. It was a time when what God in Jesus Christ said the world had to be redeemed from was demonstrated. Auschwitz was not the denial of God it was the most awful vindication of God's claim and God's deed and God's self-sacrifice outside Jerusalem.

©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.

Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.

From Mark Copeland... Disciples Ask Questions


                          "THE GOSPEL OF MARK"

                   Disciples Ask Questions (9:10-13)

INTRODUCTION

1. After being told not to reveal what occurred on the mount of
   transfiguration, Peter, James, and John had questions about what
   Jesus said... - Mk 9:10
   a. They weren't sure what rising from the dead meant
   b. Though believing in the future resurrection, they were perplexed
      by announcements of Jesus' own death and resurrection - cf. Mk 9:31-32

2. They then asked a question about what scribes taught concerning
   Elijah...
   a. Why Elijah must come first, that is, precede the Messiah - Mk 9:11
   b. Jesus confirms the scribes were correct, Elijah must come first
      - Mk 9:12; cf. Mal 4:5
   c. But that Elijah had already come, in the person of John the
      Baptist - Mk 9:13; cf. Mt 17:12-13

[Note that in the first case, the disciples had a question but did not
ask, thus remaining in ignorance (cf. Mk 9:31-32); in the second case,
they had a question, asked and received their answer.  Important to
discipleship is asking questions! To appreciate why, let's first
review...]

I. THE CONCEPT OF DISCIPLESHIP

   A. THE WORD "DISCIPLE"...
      1. The Greek word is mathetes - a learner, pupil - Thayer
      2. It denotes "one who follows another's teaching" - Vine's
         Expository Dictionary

   B. WHAT JESUS EXPECTS OF DISCIPLES...
      1. To learn from Him - Mt 11:28-30
      2. To be taught things He commanded - Mt 28:19-20

   C. WHAT THE APOSTLES EXPECT OF DISCIPLES...
      1. To grow in knowledge - 2Pe 3:18
      2. To increase in the knowledge of God and Christ - Col 1:10; Php 3:8

[A disciple of Christ, then, is to be life-long learner, growing in the
knowledge of God and those things which He taught Himself and through
His apostles.  Important to such learning is...]

II. THE ROLE OF QUESTIONS

   A. JESUS TAUGHT BY ASKING QUESTIONS...
      1. In regards to healing on the Sabbath - Mt 12:10-12
      2. In regards to His identity - Mt 16:13-15; 22:42-45
      3. In regards to divorce - Mk 10:3
      3. In regards to paying taxes - Lk 20:22-25
      4. In regards to having authority - Mt 21:24-25
      -- Asking questions can be a useful teaching tool

   B. DISCIPLES LEARNED BY ASKING QUESTIONS...
      1. They asked about His parables - Mk 4:10; 7:17
      2. They asked about Elijah - Mk 9:11
      3. They asked about their inability to cast out a demon - Mk 9:28
      4. They asked about His teaching on divorce - Mk 10:10
      5. They asked about the man born blind - Jn 9:2
      6. They asked about the destruction of Jerusalem - Mk 13:1-4
      -- Asking questions is a great way to learn

   C. WE SHOULD LEARN BY ASKING QUESTIONS...
      1. Do not hesitate to ask questions
         a. In Bible classes
         b. After the sermons
         c. At any time (in person, via email, by phone)
      2. Do not be afraid to ask questions
         a. Some fear they will appear ignorant
         b. Which is better:
            1) To appear ignorant temporarily?
            2) To remain ignorant permanently?
      3. Besides learning, asking questions is a great way:
         a. To make Bible classes more interesting
         b. To help teachers and preachers be more useful (they love
            questions!)
      4. I had a student who came to class prepared with questions
         a. He wrote them down prior to class on 3x5 index cards
         b. His questions encouraged others to ask their own questions
         c. It provided a great learning experience for all
      -- Never underestimate the importance of asking questions!

CONCLUSION

1. Remember, a disciple is a life-long learner...
   a. As disciples of Christ, we must always be learning
   b. Growing in knowledge, understanding, and wisdom

2. There is no better way to learn than to ask questions...
   a. Ask a brother, a sister, a teacher, a preacher
   b. Keep asking until you get a Biblical answer

And you certainly do not have to wait until you are a disciple of Jesus
to ask questions.  Consider the example of the Ethiopian eunuch:

   So the eunuch answered Philip and said, "I ask you, of whom does
   the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?" Then
   Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached
   Jesus to him. Now as they went down the road, they came to some
   water. And the eunuch said, "See, here is water. What hinders me
   from being baptized?" - Ac 8:34-36

He asked two questions:  one that began his learning about Jesus, the
other that led to his being saved by Jesus!  Are you willing to ask
questions in order to learn and be saved...?



Executable Outlines, Copyright © Mark A. Copeland, 2011

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