Dimples

Thank you, God, for the delicious dimples you put on my son.

Why "Christian Stewardship" Trends Are Unbiblical

     And the seed which fell among the thorns, these are the ones who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked  with worries and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to maturity.

Luke 8:14

     Many, many declared Christians are being choked into fruitlessness and immaturity of faith by worldliness.  What I find more disturbing is church leadership promoting love of the world rather than love for God and the pure truth of the Word.  One area that I have recently observed this is the deceiving argument for "stewardship".

Do not be anxious for your life. ...Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. ...But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you.

Matthew 6:25, 26, 33

 

  
Various Christian voices encourage me to wisely steward

• the gift of health by removing white flour, sugar and high fructose corn syrup from my family's diet, serve whole-grain breads with organic fruits &; vegetables, and if we must eat meat, make sure it's grass-fed beef, for goodness sake!

or

• the financial gifts God has given by living debt-free, keeping to a budget, paying cash-only, and tithing 10% (because "God rewards a cheerful giver"), 

or

• our earthly home by recycling, saving energy, conserving water, and avoiding pesticides,

or

• the gift of my life, time and energy by good choices, simple living, and balanced activities.  I should declutter, live smaller, get back to basics, smell the roses.

     These things are definitely not bad in and of themselves.  If simply given as good advice to follow for a long and healthy life, there's not much wrong with them.  But when we make it a God-ordained responsibility, we say that to do these things should form a large part of a life devoted to pleasing God.  I believe that these various areas of so-called stewardship are contrary to faith, contrary to true righteousness for the following reasons:

     1.  They address earthly concerns using earthly wisdom, thus setting our minds on "things on earth" rather than "things above".   

     If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.    

Colossians 3:1-2  

     If we are focusing our energy and attention on how to live well, eat right, and manage money wisely, our attention is directed almost entirely to earthly concerns.  Unless God is clearly revealing His concern that we live in a certain way and, therefore, we do so out of direct obedience to Him, I believe all our "stewardship" is an abominable stench to God.  It's us, working on us, to benefit us, saying it's for Him.

     2.  They are an assault on faithful dependence. 

      If we continually seek Godly wisdom from above, He will lead us in what He desires for us for that time.  Sometimes (often), God's wisdom doesn't match human wisdom.  We have to be willing to do and be what seems foolish, weak, or despised in order to be found in Him.

     For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble;  but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong. 

1Corinthians 1:26-27

     God often directed the prophets to live in a way that we would call unhealthy.  Would we be willing to follow Him there?  Would Abraham have been willing to leave everything familiar and secure for an unknown land if he'd have been following stewardship principles?  Jesus Himself didn't exactly steward His finances well, infuriating Judas. 

      We are supposed to walk by the Spirit, not by Nourishing Traditions or Dave Ramsey.

3.  They are self-serving, insulating us from hardship.

     Do not look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.  Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 

Philippians 2:4-7

     Throughout Scripture we are taught to lay ourselves down, to present ourselves as living sacrifices.  I can't see how this message gels with the message of stewardship at all.  Paul tells us to count ourselves as dead to this life.  How are we supposed to be dead and concerned with this life at the same time?  

      I think stewardship speaks to our desire for safety and security.  "If you do x, y, and z, you will have a healthy, secure, and happy life ...unto the glory of God, of course."  But Jesus taught in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5, Luke 6) that we are blessed if we are poor, grieving, hungry & thirsty, hated, ostracized.  He told us that it's bad ("woe to you...") if we are rich ("for you are receiving your comfort in full"), well-fed, laughing.  We are supposed to lose the world, not gain it.

     Whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.  More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ."

Philippians 3:7-8

4.  They dilute our witness.
     I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me...

Romans 15:18

     We are to be known as those transformed by the life of Christ, those who love Him and speak of Him at all times.   Rather, I find other Christians to be known for being debt-free or eating mostly vegetarian.  Is the world coming to us to hear about the wonders of God's redemption or how to use essential oils?  At the end of our life, will we be represented as radically loving God or really smart with money?

     In everything commending ourselves as servants of God, in much endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in hunger, in purity, in knowledge, in patience, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in genuine love, in the Word of truth, in the power of God; by the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left, by glory and dishonor, by evil report and good report; regarded as deceivers and yet true; as unknown yet well-known, as dying yet behold, we live; as punished yet not put to death, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing all things.

2Corinthians 6:4-10

Trust Him

God's Extraordinary Provision for HeartCry - Paul Washer from HeartCry Missionary Society on Vimeo.

Bee & Boo

 

When my Bee was about 3 years old, she became quite serious about her desire for a baby sister.  I told her she needed to pray about it, tell God how much she'd like a baby sister, and trust that He would do what was best.  Apparently she needed a baby sister.  God gave her our little Boo as a slightly belated-birthday present.  These two peas-in-a-pod are exactly 4 years and 6 days apart.  

As my dear friend keeps reminding me, God delights in every detail of our lives.  Oh to be like children who delight to be delighted in.

Bug's New Room

Our growing girl received a room of her own for her 13th birthday present.  She's in heaven!

At her newly-built-by-Daddy desk

A little more of the room...

This dresser belonged to her Grampa's parents.  What a gift!!

Bug & Boo on her big, puffy new bed.  She looooovvves it!  So does little sister Boo!

 Bug says hi to her best friends, J & A, and "I wish you were here!!"

In Everything Give Thanks

(copied excerpt from Daily Strength for Daily Needs)

Thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee.  

-- Deuteronomy 26:11

Rejoice evermore.  In everything give thanks.  

--1 Thessalonians 5:16, 18

Grave on thy heart each past 'red-letter day'!

Forget not all the sunshine of the way
By which the Lord hath led thee; answered prayers,

And joys unasked, strange blessings, lifted cares,

Grand promise-echoes!  Thus thy life shall be

One record of His love and faithfulness to thee.

--F.R. Havergal

Gratitude consists in a watchful, minute attention to the particulars of our state, and to the multitude of God's gifts, taken one by one.  It fills us with a consciousness that God loves and cares for us, even to the least event and smallest need of life.  It is a blessed thought, that from our childhood God has been laying His fatherly hands upon us, and always in benediction; that even the strokes of His Hands are blessings, and among the chiefest we have ever received.  When this feeling is awakened, the heart beats with a pulse of thankfulness.  Every gift has its return of praise.  It awakens an unceasing daily converse with our Father, --He speaking to us by the descent of blessings, we to Him by the ascent of thanksgiving.  And all our whole life is thereby drawn under the light of His countenance, and is filled with a gladness, serenity, and peace which only thankful hearts can know.

--H.E. Manning

"even the strokes of His Hands are blessings" Truly ....Thank you, Father, my Lord & God, for Your many blessings, for Your rod & your staff, for "working in me to will and to act according to Your purpose."

Why Is the Age of the Earth an Important Issue? Part 2

To continue last week's post with answer from The New Answers Book 1 from Answers in Genesis...

6.  Jesus was a young earth creationist.  Jesus consistently treated the miracle accounts of the Old Testament as straightforward, truthful, historical accounts (e.g. creation of Adam, Noah and the Flood, Lot and his wife in Sodom, Moses and the manna, and Jonah in the fish).  He continually affirmed the authority of Scripture over men's ideas and traditions (Matthew 15:1-9).  In Mark 10:6 we have the clearest (but not the only) statement showing that Jesus was a young-earth creationist.  He teaches that Adam and Eve were made at the "beginning of creation," not billions of years after the beginning, as would be the case if the universe were really billions of years old.  So, if Jesus was a young-earth creationist, then how can His faithful followers have any other view?

7.  Belief in millions of years undermines the Bible's teaching on death and on the character of God.  Genesis 1 says six times that God called the creation "good," and when He finished creation on Day 6, He called everything "very good."  Man and animals and birds were originally vegetarian (Gen. 1:29-30, plants are not "living creatures," as people and animals are, according to Scripture). But Adam and Eve sinned, resulting in the judgment of God on the whole creation.  Instantly Adam and Eve died spiritually, and after God's curse they began to die physically.  The serpent and Eve were changed physically and the ground itself was cursed (Genesis 3:14-19).  The whole creation now groans in bondage to corruption, waiting for the final redemption of Christians (Romans 8:19-25) when we will see the restoration of all things (Acts 3:21; Colossians 1:20) to a state similar to the pre-Fall world, when there will be no more carnivorous behavior (Isaiah 11:6-9) and no disease, suffering, or death (Revelation 21:3-5) because there will be no more Curse (Revelation 22:3).  To accept millions of years of animal death before the creation and Fall of man contradicts and destroys the Bible's teaching on death and the full redemptive work of Christ.  It also makes God into a bumbling, cruel creator who uses (or can't prevent) disease, natural disasters, and extinctions to mar His creative work, without any moral cause, but still calls it all "very good."

8. The idea of millions of years did not come from the scientific facts.  This idea of long ages was developed by deistic and atheistic geologists in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.  These men used anti-biblical philosophical and religious assumptions to interpret the geological observations in a way that plainly contradicted the biblical account of creation, the Flood, and the age of the earth.  Most church leaders and scholars quickly compromised using the gap theory, day-age view, local flood view, etc. to try to fit "deep time" into the Bible.  But they did not understand the geological arguments and they did not defend their views by careful Bible study.  The "deep time" idea flows out of naturalistic assumptions, not scientific observations.


9.  Radiometric dating methods do not prove millions of years.  Radiometric dating was not developed until the early twentieth century, by which time virtually the whole world had already accepted the millions of years (idea).  For many years creation scientists have cited numerous examples in the published scientific literature of these dating methods clearly giving erroneous dates (e.g., a date of millions of years for lava flows that occurred in the past few hundred years or even decades).  In recent years creationists in the RATE project have done experimental, theoretical, and field research to uncover more such evidence (e.g., diamonds and coal, which the evolutionists say are millions of years old, were dated by carbon-14 to be only thousands of years old) and to show that decay rates were orders of magnitude faster in the past, which shrinks the millions of years to thousands of years, confirming the Bible.


Conclusion
     These are just some of the reasons why we believe that the Bible is giving us the true history of the world.  God's Word must be the final authority on all matters about which it speaks--not just the moral and spiritual matters, but also its teachings that bear on history, archaeology, and science.
     What is at stake here is the authority of Scripture, the character of God, the doctrine of death, and the very foundation of the gospel.  If the early chapters of Genesis are not true literal history, then faith in the rest of the Bible is undermined, including its teaching about salvation and morality. 


I think that pretty much lays out exactly why the first chapters in the Bible (and our belief in them) are significant.  What I don't understand is why people who call themselves believers put more faith in scientists than in God's Word.

Life-long Longing

We sang this during this morning's family worship time, and it once again brought tears to my eyes. Can you imagine ...forever worshiping our great King?!

Family Game

Gramma with Bee & Boo

Last night we had my m-i-l over for supper, and invited her to stay afterward for a game of Mexican Rummy. First hand: 2 sets; Bug(13) was out before I could even pick up my cards! Second hand: 1 set, 1 run. Continued...

3rd: 2 runs

4th: 3 sets

5th: 2 sets, 1 run -- Son(9) gloated that he was dealt a perfect hand and would be down so quick it would make our heads spin. Didn't quite happen. Couldn't get the "one card" he needed, so most were down before he went out.

6th: 2 runs, 1 set

7th: 3 runs, all different suits, must lay all cards down, no discard -- Gramma (m-i-l) won!!

Shocking thought -- do you realize how few American households were likely to be enjoying a multi-generational family game last night??  What a loss.  Such a simple joy!

Thank You for Your Incredible Creation