My Story in Scriptures

The Pixar hit movie "Up" began with an 8 minute montage of the story of a shy young boy who married his childhood sweetheart. But she died young without having any children. The movie then begins with him as a lonely grumpy unfriendly old man who had lost the love of his life. The montage was my favorite part of the entire movie, for it moved me more than the rest of the movie. I would have been quite satisfied if I had just watched the montage, which was itself well worth the price of admission.

As I begin 2022, this is my story not in a montage of pictures, but in the Scriptures that have shaped and formed my life for the last 40 years.

1. Emptiness (Gen 1:2): "The earth was formless and empty..."
2. God (Gen 2:17): "You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil..."
3. First (Mt 6:33): "But seek first his kingdom..."
4. Self-denial (Lk 9:23; Mk 8:34; Mt 16:24): "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves..." ["If anyone would come after me he must deny himself"].
5. Peace (Jn 14:27; Phil 4:7): "My peace I give you." "The peace of God that passes human understanding..."
6. Love (Jer 31:3): "I have loved you with an everlasting love."
7. Sovereignty (Rom 8:28): "And we know that in all things God works for the good..."
8. Harm (Gen 50:20): "You intended to harm me but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done..."
9. Fear (Prov 29:25): "Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe."
10. Control (Gen 3:5; Rom 1:21): "You will be like God." "They neither glorified him as God..."
11. Restoration (Ps 23:3): "He brings me back."
12. Being judged (1 Cor 4:3): "I care very little if I'm judged by you or by any human court..."
13. Cross/Gospel (1 Cor 1:23; 2:2): "We preach Christ crucified." "I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." A theology of the cross cf. a theology of glory.
14. Discipline (1 Cor 9:27): "I discipline my body and keep it under control" (ESV). "I beat my body and make it my slave..."
15. New (2 Cor 5:17,21): "New creation." "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us."
16. Thorn (2 Cor 12:7):  "...in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me."
17. Life (Ac 20:24,27): "I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me--the task of testifying to the good news [gospel] of God's grace."

Faith is the highest passion in a man

Pains and Contradictions (Jean-PIerre de Caussade)

Misery (Jean-Pierre de Caussade)

The First Hour of Every Day

Chiasm of Matthew 6:24

• A. No one can serve two masters. 
• B. Either you will hate the one 
• C. and love the other, 
• C'. or you will be devoted to the one 
• B'. and despise the other. 
  
• A'. You cannot serve both God and money.
  

Imperatives, Indicatives and Ironies in Exodus 1-2

Ironies

• The more Pharaoh tried to reduce the number of Israelites (Exo 1:9-11, 13-14), the more they increased in number (Exo 1:12, 7).

• Pharaoh wanted to drown the Hebrew males (Exo 1:22) but he and his army were drowned (Exo 14:28).

• Pharaoh feared the Hebrew men (Exo 1:16, 22) but it was women who thwarted him (Exo 1:15; 2:1,4,9-10).

• Pharaoh wanted to destroy Hebrew men, but he educated and raised 1 Hebrew man Moses in his own palace to deliver the Hebrew slaves.

• Jesus' birth. He was born in a manger, while Caesar ruled the entire Roman world (Lk 2:1,7). Yet Jesus is the King of kings and Lord of lords (1 Tim 6:15; Rev 17:14; 19:16).

• Jesus' death. "You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish" (Jn 11:50).

• "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God" (Mt 19:24).
  

IMPERATIVES and INDICATIVES [Imperatives (commands) = what you should do. Indicatives = what God has done.] [Christendom and evangelicalism often misunderstands them and so they confuse them and confuse the church.]

• You don't repent and obey (and believe) [imperative] to be saved, but because you are saved (by grace) [indicative] you repent and obey [and believe] (Mk 1:15).

• The imperatives are based on the indicatives and the order is not reversible.

• "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery [indicative]. You shall have no other gods before me [imperative]" (Exo 20:2-3; Dt 5:6-7).

• "For God so loved the world [indicative] that he gave his one and only Son [indicative], that whoever believes in him [imperative] shall not perish but have eternal life" (Jn 3:16).

• "The time has come," he said, "The kingdom of God has come near [indicative]. Repent and believe the good news [imperative]!" (Mk 1:15).

• "We love [imperative] because he first loved us [indicative]" (1 Jn 4:19).

• "...work out your salvation with fear and trembling [imperative], for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose [indicative]" (Phil 2:12-13).

• "...he saved us [indicative], not because of righteous things we had done [imperative], but because of his mercy [indicative]..." (Tit 3:5).