Category: Uncategorized

Posted in encouragement, Uncategorized

About that face…

Posted on by elizabethprata

face

But if the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was, how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory? (2 Corinthians 3:7)

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6)

There is another kind of face:

Therefore the showers have been withheld, and the spring rain has not come; yet you have the forehead of a whore; you refuse to be ashamed. (Jeremiah 3:3).

and thou hadst a whore’s forehead; was impudent and unconcerned, repented not of sin, or blushed for it, though such judgments were upon them; ~Gill’s Exposition

We gain a bit of context here about the Jeremiah verse, from Ligonier devotional-

This analogy lies behind today’s passage wherein Jeremiah accuses the old covenant community of having “the forehead of a whore” and refusing “to be ashamed” (3:1–3). A harlot can only “work” consistently if she suppresses the shameful feelings that attend her deeds. She must lose all sense of embarrassment and be unable to blush. Israel has a harlot’s forehead, she no longer turns red with shame over her wickedness (6:15). ~Ligonier

So there’s two kinds of faces. The one that glows as it basks in the light and glory of Jesus, and the face that turns away to seek sin, and is so taken by it that it refuses to blush.

John Owen wrote about Indwelling Sin in the Believer, and here in chapter 8 in modernized language he discusses the deceitfulness of sin,

It is always carried on by degrees, little by little, so that the whole design and aim is not revealed at once. … Now, this effect of the deceit of sin is worked upon the mind. The mind or understanding, as we have shown, is the guiding, the conducting faculty of the soul. It goes before — in discerning, judging, and determining — to make the way of moral actions fair and smooth to the will and the affections.

For our faces to glow, as it were, our face must be looking at Jesus, our mind consumed with Him, stirring our affections, convicting us of sin, transforming it to His mind.

When we look away, the deceitfulness of sin will draw us away as James 1:14 KJV says

But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.

You see the order of things. The temptation comes after he is drawn away. We are drawn away when we look away.

The solution: don’t look away.

Be vigorous in prayer life, stay reading the Word, assemble with the saints regularly, fellowship with believers to whom one can be transparent and accountable, and frequently enough so they will know you.

You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face, LORD, do I seek.” (Psalm 27:8)

Posted in discernment, Uncategorized

Chris Pratt’s MTV Awards speech: A False Gospel and an un-Christian life

Posted on by elizabethprata

CNN called him “The ultimate good guy“. CBS called it a “Powerful speech.” The National Review called it “Spreading the Gospel“. FaithWire called it “A bold faith message“.

What is it? It is Jurassic Park actor Chris Pratt’s acceptance speech at the MTV Movie & TV awards held on June 18. Pratt was honored with the MTV Generation Award. “The MTV Generation Award is the successor to the MTV Lifetime Achievement Award, though it is more serious than its predecessor. The recipient of the award is celebrated for great achievement in movies”, according to Wikipedia.

Wow. Those are some great accolades. I’m always eager for the Gospel to be shared, spread widely, and for people to come to know Jesus. I searched Google so I could hear this tremendous speech for myself! I listened, and I transcribed it. Here is the speech.

He opened with thank yous. Then said,

I speak to the next generation, I accept the responsibility as your elder. Listen up. This is what I call 9 rules of Chris Pratt, Generation Award Winner.

1. Breathe. If you don’t, you’ll suffocate.

2. You have a soul. Be careful with it.

3. Don’t be a turd. If you’re strong, be a protector, and if you’re smart, be a humble influencer. Strength and intelligence can be weapons so do not wield them against the weak. That makes you a bully. Be bigger than that.

4. When giving a dog medicine, put the medicine in a little piece of hamburger and they won’t even know they’re eating medicine.

5. It doesn’t matter what it is, earn it. Reach out to someone in pain, be of service. It feels good and it’s good for your soul.

6. God is real. God loves you. God wants the best for you. Believe that. I do.
(He should have led with this one).

7. If you have to poop at a party, but you’re embarrassed because you’re going to stink up the bathroom, just do what I do. Lock the door, sit down, get all of the pee out first. And then, once all the pee is done, poop, flush, boom! You minimize the amount of time that the poop’s touching the air. Because if you poop first, it takes you longer to pee and then you’re peeing on top of it, stirring up the poop particles, create a cloud, goes out, then everyone at the party will know that you pooped. Just trust me, it’s science.

8. Learn to pray. It’s easy. It’s so good for your soul

9. And finally, number 9, Nobody is perfect. People will tell you that you are perfect just the way that you are, you are not! You are imperfect. You always will be, but there is a powerful force that designed you that way, and if you are willing to accept that, you will have grace. And grace is a gift. Like the freedom that we enjoy in this country, that grace was paid for with somebody else’s blood.
Do not forget that. Don’t take that for granted. God bless you please get home safely

——————————————
Let’s go through this speech point by point. Mr Pratt’s rules are in bold, my responses are below each point.

1. Breathe. If you don’t you’ll suffocate.

Um, ok

2. You have a soul. Be careful with it.

Is our soul ours to do with as we will? Mr Pratt made it seem like our soul is ours and not God’s to do with as He pleases. And, what is the state of that soul? What happens to the soul after death? Pratt never said.

Ezekiel 18:4 says, Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die.

A cross-reference to the Ezekiel verse is this from Romans 6:23. Tragically, Mr Pratt only had to say it for his speech to inch closer to the biblical side:

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

3. Don’t be a turd. If you’re strong, be a protector, and if you’re smart, be a humble influencer. Strength and intelligence can be weapons so do not wield them against the weak. That makes you a bully. Be bigger than that.

Christians need to be mindful of how we speak. Proverbs devotes a third of its sayings to right speech. The New Testament is full of commands about how we are to be set apart from the world and not to speak like the world. He has the microphone and the ear of thousands. He doesn’t need to use the world’s speech to make his point. He could have simply said ‘jerk’. The other part is good advice.

4. When giving a dog medicine, put the medicine in a little piece of hamburger and they won’t even know they’re eating medicine.

Non sequitur but OK.

5. It doesn’t matter what it is, earn it. Reach out to someone in pain, be of service. It feels good and it’s good for your soul.

Philanthropy for its own sake absent honoring Jesus and giving Him glory is all wind and vanity. The entire book of Ecclesiastes rebuts this statement, and Paul in Romans 2:6-10, and James 2:18. The good works that believers do are good for the soul (not every soul generically as Mr Pratt said) because they are evidence of the saving grace of Jesus, and are an obedient and worshipful response to that grace.

6. God is real. God loves you. God wants the best for you. Believe that. I do.

It’s still a twisted version of who God is. And number 6, between the dog and the turd and the poop? We should not be such cultural doormats that we’re relieved when someone mentions anything about God. God wants the best for me? Did He want the best for Stephen, the first martyr? Is that our definition of ‘the best’? What is that ‘best’? And what do I have to do to get it? Pratt never said.

 Sadly, Pratt’s is the commonly heard, shallow no-Gospel, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” chestnut. All this does is affirm people in their sin. The Gospel is both Law & Grace, Wrath and Forgiveness, Sin & Righteousness- and the blood of Christ and His resurrection. Half a Gospel is no Gospel. And what Mr Pratt preached is no Gospel. If he was really serious about God, and Jesus (whose name he never mentioned) you LEAD with it.

7. If you have to poop at a party, but you’re embarrassed because you’re going to stink up the bathroom, just do what I do. Lock the door, sit down, get all of the pee out first. And then, once all the pee is done, poop, flush, boom! You minimize the amount of time that the poop’s touching the air. Because if you poop first, it takes you longer to pee and then you’re peeing on top of it, stirring up the poop particles, create a cloud, goes out, then everyone at the party will know that you pooped. Just trust me, it’s science.

This entire section fails James 1, Ephesians 4:29, Colossians 4:6 and most of Proverbs. It demonstrates Matthew 15:11, “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”

8. Learn to pray. It’s easy. It’s so good for your soul.

It is NOT easy to pray. It is hard. It is an act of spiritual war to put your hands together and ignore satan’s efforts to stop you! Did you notice he never said who to pray to? And did you notice he said why we should pray? Because it is good for us. The truth is, one reason to pray is because it exalts God (Matthew 6:9), it is a way to serve God (Luke 2:36-38), and it obeys His command (Philippians 4:6-7). Also, we pray because it is good for others’ souls. (among other reasons).

9. And finally, number 9, Nobody is perfect. People will tell you that you are perfect just the way that you are, you are not! You are imperfect. You always will be, but there is a powerful force that designed you that way, and if you are willing to accept that, you will have grace. And grace is a gift. Like the freedom that we enjoy in this country, that grace was paid for with somebody else’s blood.

Do not forget that. Don’t take that for granted. God bless you, please get home safely.

This last is the ANTI-gospel. He is telling people they are imperfect and need to accept that. If they do, a powerful force will deliver grace to them. This is the opposite of the Gospel.

It is our realization that we’re sinners in need of a savior to us who will deliver grace if we hate our sin and repent of it! Otherwise, accepting who we are as we are will send us to hell! That’s why it is the ANTI-gospel.

Nothing was said of sin. Our life and every breath is a treasonous act against God because we live, breathe and think only of sin, continually (Genesis 6:5). Further, why do I need grace if this powerful force already loves me and wants the best for me?

Any message urging us to accept our imperfections, grab the good life God has waiting for us, and some unnamed powerful force will give us an undefined grace is not a Gospel message.

And whose blood? Military blood like on D-Day? Jesus is now referred to as just “Somebody”?

As much as we want the Gospel to be believed by one and all, as much as we mourn for lost souls, we cannot accept any message which is not THE message.

Now, here is information on why Chris Pratt is not a Christian role model. I apologize if some of these are unsavory and gross.  Mr Pratt should never be mentioned as someone to emulate.

CHRIS PRATT’S VERSION OF CHRISTIANITY

1. Conversion

It all began with Pratt waiting outside for his friends inside a grocery store…

And a guy named Henry came up and recognised something in me that needed to be saved. “Jesus told me to talk to you…” At that moment I was like, I think I have to go with this guy. He took me to church. [The guy at the grocery store] was like, “I stopped because Jesus told me to stop and talk to you. He said to tell you you’re destined for great things.” Pratt said, “I gave my soul to Jesus within, like, two days. Over the next few days I surprised my friends by declaring that I was going to change my life.’ …

That is not how we are saved. It doesn’t begin with extra-biblical revelation from some random guy, promising a good life. One does not become saved by declaring that under our power we will change our lives. This was not the Gospel. But it is his conversion story in every page I looked at.

Searching for “Christ Pratt” +”sin” yields literally zero results. Google asked me if I really meant to say “Chris Pratt son”. No search yields on the word repent either. I cannot find that Chris Pratt ever uttered those all-important words.

This conversion story is the typical one I found online

2. Divorce

Chris Pratt recently divorced his wife. He cited difficulties in juggling his movie career and children. She wanted more kids. He didn’t. So they split. This is not a biblical reason. Divorce is serious. (Matthew 19:1-12).

Putting your career over children to the point that you depart from your wife is sinful and a biblical failure.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, (Ephesians 5:25)

As a matter of fact, his ex-wife Anna left her first husband for Chris, and the two lived together before they married. So Pratt is a fornicator, his marriage to Anna made her an adulteress, and he is an adulterer.

But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. (Matthew 5:32)

3. Lifestyle

Chris Pratt has a potty mouth. Here is a link to an article recounting an interview with Pratt, but do NOT click on it, there are so many awful words. Because it is an interview with Pratt, the swear words are his own. Even this link to an interview in the staid Wisconsin Gazette is full of f-words. Prior to the transcription part of the speech above, Pratt uttered some unsavory language on television. Pratt speaks coarsely, vulgarly, profanely, and constantly.

From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. (James 3:10)

it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person. (Matthew 15:11).

Other lifestyle issues:

–Pratt reads porn. Shares porn with women.
–Boasts to people about his sexual encounters.
–Drinks a lot, pantomimes in public drinking from breasts.
(source for above)
–Isn’t a member of any church that has been reported, but has attended Hillsong Church in LA, which is not a church because it is a prosperity gospel/word of faith church.

In this screen shot below, which I smudged, shows Pratt giving the finger. The 2-minute clip reveals Pratt using three strong swear words, and ending with the finger. It is from 2015.

pratt

Men of the faith (and us all) are supposed to be separate from the world, not look like the world, not speak like the world, not want what the world wants. From these evidences, and the fact that Pratt says he was converted at age 19 and is now 39 yet still persists in sin and sinning, means he is not a Christian (role model).

While we hope that Chris finds the true Gospel and lives it, really, please do not promote him in Christian circles in any way.

But you, O man of God, flee from these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. (1 Timothy 6:11)

pratt dinos2

Posted in discernment, Uncategorized

Bad fruit is bad

Posted on by elizabethprata

Yesterday I wrote about the wind, meaning, the Spirit, blowing where it will. I wrote of how we can’t see the wind at the time but we can see its effects. One of the effects of the wind’s (Spirit’s) effect is fruit. The changed heart will be producing good fruit. A bad heart produces only bad fruit. The unsaved who profess but do not possess Christ will produce bad fruit at some point. False teachers will produce bad fruit also.

Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits. (Matthew 7:15-20 NASB)

Please notice the certainty in the lesson. Jesus said ‘You WILL know them’. Not that it will be uncertain, or foggy, or maybe, or perhaps. But you WILL.

Not all fruit is produced quickly. Different fruit trees bear fruit at different lengths of time. After planting, fig trees bear figs after 1-2 years. Apple trees take 3-5 years to produce fruit. Pear trees take about 4-6 years. The point is, not all false teachers will quickly show their true nature, but at some point, no matter how long it takes, they will produce the bad fruit Jesus spoke of. And then you will know them.

They wear sheep’s clothing. This means that outwardly false teachers will appear on the surface to be like the true sheep. Barnes’ Notes explains here,

Who come in sheep’s clothing – The sheep is an emblem of innocence, sincerity, and harmlessness. To come in sheep’s clothing is to assume the appearance of sanctity and innocence, when the heart is evil.

Ravening wolves – Rapacious; voraciously devouring; hungry even to rage. Applied to the false teachers, it means that they assumed the appearance of holiness in order that they might the more readily get the property of the people. They were full of extortion and excess. See Matthew 23:25.

I remember watching an art interpretation show some years back. I like Renaissance art and this episode featured Caravaggio and his famous painting of the Bacchus. I have seen the actual painting in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Here it is.

Caravaggio_-_Bacco_adolescente_-_Google_Art_Project

I wish I could go back and really appreciate the art now that my spiritual eyes have been opened. I remember standing in front of it at the Uffizi for a short moment, and saying to myself, “Pretty! I like fruit.” And then moving on. Outwardly the painting looked good.

Let’s not move on. Let’s look at this scene for a moment.

Bacchus is a god of wine and ecstasy. Starting at the top, Bacchus’ cheeks. His cheeks are ruddy, but not a healthy ruddy like David, from being out in the air and working hard. (1 Samuel 16:12). No, Bacchus’ cheeks are red from dissipation, from drunkenness and licentiousness and debauchery and overindulgence. His eyes are glazed and drowsy.  He is half dressed, exposing skin, indicating sensuousness, but the mattress he is laying on is dirty. He is offering the viewer wine, a beverage that will make one take leave of senses. But his near nakedness is also indicating he is offering something more. His fingernails are dirty.

Now the fruit. Looking hard at the fruit, you notice that despite the lushness and the voluminous quantity, the fruit is overripe. It’s rotting. It’s bad. The apple has a worm. The pomegranate has burst open. The nectarine is rotten.

fruit

If you want an technical description of this bowl of disease, here it is

Exact in detail they include precise representations of disease symptoms, insect damage, and various abiotic defects. … The fruits include black, red, and white clusters of grapes; a bursting pomegranate; figs; a large green pear; three apples—one greenish and one red with a codling moth (Carpocapsa pomonella) entrance hole, a small, golden russet crab with two areas of rot, likely a form of Botrysphaeria; and a half-rotten quince. The basket contains two fig leaves both with a dorsal (abaxial) view and a grape leaf yellowing at the edge suggestive of potassium deficiency. The head of Bacchus is crowned with clusters of black and white grapes and senescing leaves, one of which is turning red, probably an indication of crown gall, induced by Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Source: Purdue Department of Landscape and Horticulture

Eww. The fruit of debauchery is rotten. The fruit is BAD. False teachers only offer bad fruit.

Do you want to eat the bad fruit? Bite into an apple with a moth worm inside? Consume sickly peaches dripping with its own rotted pus?

People often try to be charitable with false teachers. I understand wanting to be charitable, but there is a time and a place for charity. False teachers are evil. They are against Jesus. They are against you. They are against me.

Jesus said that there is good fruit and bad fruit. He didn’t say that there was fence fruit or sort of OK fruit or any fruit in the middle. The fruit teachers offer is either one or the other.

I learned my lesson with the art. Art takes a while to look at, examine, notice, and ponder. It’s the same with what teachers teach us. Good teachers and bad teachers offer us things. It takes time to look at, examine, notice, and ponder what they are offering. Once we discern the bad from the good, we are told to hold on to the good and leave off the bad.

but test everything; hold fast what is good. (1 Thessalonians 5:21).
Love must be sincere. Detest what is evil; cling to what is good. (Romans 12:9)

So there is no excuse for listening to someone generally and widely acknowledged to be a false teacher. A false teacher does not offer anything good. Their fruit is bad. You can’t follow them and expect them to produce one good fruit on the tree. Jesus said the tree is either all good or all bad.

Don’t eat of their fruit. Don’t quote them. Don’t buy their books. Don’t eat the meat and spit out the bones, which doesn’t even make sense because we are talking about fruit. When you are tempted to peek at a false teacher’s site/tweets/stream/Facebook/books, picture the debauched Bacchus with dirty fingernails on a dirty mattress offering you wormy rotted fruit.

Instead, we can imbibe of the sweet waters from the fountain of life and the pure bread from heaven.

How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
They feast on the abundance of your house,
and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
For with you is the fountain of life;
in your light do we see light.
Psalm 36:7-9

—————————————-

Further Reading

Ligonier: False Prophets and their Fruits

CARM: You will know them by their fruit

Posted in discernment, Uncategorized

The wind blows where it will

Posted on by elizabethprata

I was years and years upon the brink of hell—I mean in my own feeling. I was unhappy, I was desponding, I was despairing. I dreamed of hell. My life was full of sorrow and wretchedness, believing that I was lost. ~ Charles Spurgeon as a teenager

wind

Charles Spurgeon’s torments in wanting to be saved are well-known. Spurgeon knew he needed salvation because of his sins, but also knew he couldn’t decide to save himself. He needed the external specific call.

He didn’t just sit around and wait though. He read his Bible, he prayed, and he sought- resolving to visit every church in his district one at a time, repeatedly.

John Bunyan’s experience was similar. In his spiritual autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, he was tormented by his sin and knew he needed Jesus. He read his Bible, tried various things, until he realized conversion is all of God, election. He wrote,

With this scripture I could not tell what to do: for I evidently saw, unless that the great God, of His infinite grace and bounty, had voluntarily chosen me to be a vessel of mercy, though I should desire, and long, and labour until my heart did break, no good could come of it. Therefore this would stick with me, How can you tell that you are elected? And what if you should not? How then?

O Lord, thought I, what if I should not indeed? It may be you are not, said the Tempter; it may be so indeed, thought I. Why then, said Satan, you had as good leave off, and strive no farther; for if indeed, you should not be elected and chosen of God, there is no talk of your being saved; For it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth; but of God that showeth mercy.

By these things I was driven to my wits’ end,

But Bunyan didn’t leave off, and didn’t sit and wait for grace to drop into his lap as Spurgeon didn’t wait around for grace to fall into his lap. Though conversion is only from Jesus, the sinner can prepare, inquire, be active. Bunyan kept reading the scriptures, pleading, and praying.

At one point in his faith journey, Bunyan had been wracked with torment, and he laid down to rest and nap. He had a dream that he was trying to get thru a wall to go from the cold side of a great mountain into the sun on the other side. Eventually he found a passageway but it was exceedingly narrow. He got his head in, barely, and wriggled his body sideways, very narrow and could hardly get thru. He realized he had dreamed of the narrow gate. He wrote,

that none could enter into life, but those that were in downright earnest, and unless also they left that wicked world behind them; for here was only room for body and soul, but not for body and soul and sin.

But what now? Bunyan asked. What if one is not elected? And if one was elected, how would one know that salvation had come? Bunyan again-

Neither as yet could I attain to any comfortable persuasion that I had faith in Christ; but instead of having satisfaction here, I began to find my soul to be assaulted with fresh doubts about my future happiness, especially with such as these: Whether I was elected. But how if the day of grace should be past and gone? By these two temptations I was very much afflicted and disquieted, sometimes by one and sometimes by the other of them.

The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8)

We don’t know who will be saved or when. We can’t control the wind.

We can see its effects, though. Here is my favorite Paul Washer story. It’s 3 minutes and I think it will bless you. It seems to me to be a good example of the Wind moving in a soul. When one isn’t saved one can read the Bible and read it and read it, but it will not make sense because one cannot discern spiritual things, as the verse says-

But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. (1 Corinthians 2:14).

But when the wind moves in a man’s soul, it moves so we can see the effect! Suddenly the scales fall and the Bible’s verses have extreme meaning!

The wind blows where it will…but keep praying for salvation for your dear lost ones, and keep looking for fruit in those who say they have felt the Spirit move in them. Tomorrow, more on fruit.

 

Posted in Uncategorized, word of the week

Sunday Word of the Week: Immanence

Posted on by elizabethprata

Last week the word was Transcendence. God is apart from His creation, different from it. This week the word is Immanent or Immanence,

God’s immanence refers to His presence within His creation. (It is not to be confused with imminence, which refers to the timing of Jesus’ return to earth.) A belief in God’s immanence holds that God is present in all of creation, while remaining distinct from it. In other words, there is no place where God is not. His sovereign control extends everywhere simultaneously. Source GotQuestions

Immanence: God’s presence and activity within the creation and human history. Source: Biblical Doctrine, MacArthur/Mayhue, p 931

God is so majestic! Mysterious! How can He be both apart from His creation, and present within it?! At the same time? It shows who our God is. It’s why I chose these two words one after the other to demonstrate His essential otherness.

One other notion that is important to emphasize.

Pantheism and deism twist many people’s view of how God relates to His creation. Pantheists believe that everything is God or is a part of God, making Him equal with His creation and unable to act upon it. Deists hold that God is distinct from His creation but deny that He plays an active role in it. Contrary to these and other false views of God, the Bible says that God is both different from His creation and actively upholding it.

We must not stress His immanence at the expense of His transcendence, and vice versa.

That they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, (Acts 17:27).

Note: Modern pantheism is seen in William P. Young’s The Shack, Oprah Winfrey’s promotion of Eckart Tolle, and in Ann Voskamps’s book One Thousand Gifts as an offshoot of pantheism, panentheism. It is easy to twist both immanence and transcendence, either by direct twisting or omitting one in favor of the other. It is why it is important to learn these terms so we retain a balanced view of God.

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Sunday Word of the Week 1: Justification

Sunday Word of the Week 2: Transcendence

Posted in reading, Uncategorized

What’s on my nightstand- and why

Posted on by elizabethprata

My church family is a family of readers. That’s good. I am a reader too. That means we are also talkers about books. We love to interact mindfully and intentionally about spiritual things. Our elders model this and encourage it. Our Family Groups, Book Clubs, and get-togethers are rife with conversations that are sparked with questions like, “Can you share any insights from your latest Bible reading?” “What do you think of the Bible Reading Plan segment for today?” “What books are you reading?”

The penetrating questions perform two functions. One function is that we are a like-minded bunch who love to read! We unite around literacy. This is good because it means we also read the Bible. Secondly, it keeps us accountable. It keeps me accountable anyway. When I read, I need to comprehend, and then retain and then share.

I’ve noticed that though I love reading and I’ve been a reader all my life, lately I was reading less. I read fewer books and the time I spent reading them was growing shorter and shorter. I was comprehending less too, and retaining almost nothing. I realized that most of my reading was done on a laptop. And that was weird because I dislike reading on screen.

I soon realized the type of reading I was doing was the issue. With my limited time to read after work, I was reading tweets, GroupMe chats, Facebook shares, short blogs, and the like. Digital reading predisposes us to reading superficially and quickly. Bible reading demands the opposite. Uh-oh.

In his book 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You, author Tony Reinke exposed the issue. Several experiments had been done on reading and they were summarized in The New Yorker. (July 16, 2014). Turns out there is a difference in the way people read depending on if the text is on a screen or on a page.

On screen, people tended to browse and scan, to look for keywords, and to read in a less linear, more selective fashion. On the page, they tended to concentrate more on following the text. Skimming, [Ziming] Liu concluded, had become the new reading: the more we read online, the more likely we were to move quickly, without stopping to ponder any one thought.

Of Rakefet Ackerman and Morris Goldmsith’s experiment, published in the Journal of Psychology Applied it was discovered,

The screen, for one, seems to encourage more skimming behavior: when we scroll, we tend to read more quickly (and less deeply) than when we move sequentially from page to page. Online, the tendency is compounded as a way of coping with an overload of information. There are so many possible sources, so many pages, so many alternatives to any article or book or document that we read more quickly to compensate.

In addition, of Mary Dyson’s research, we read,

The online world, too, tends to exhaust our resources more quickly than the page. We become tired from the constant need to filter out hyperlinks and possible distractions. And our eyes themselves may grow fatigued from the constantly shifting screens, layouts, colors, and contrasts, an effect that holds for e-readers as well as computers.

Of Anne Mangen’s research,

The shift from print to digital reading may lead to more than changes in speed and physical processing. It may come at a cost to understanding, analyzing, and evaluating a text. Much of Mangen’s research focusses on how the format of reading material may affect not just eye movement or reading strategy but broader processing abilities.

Goodness! Reinke interviewed Trip Lee for the 12 Ways book, and Lee said the following. See if it resonates with you:

The more time I spend reading ten-second tweets and skimming random articles online, the more it affects my attention span, weakening the muscles I need to read scripture for long distances.

I certainly noticed a decline in my own analyzing, processing, and retention abilities. I needed to do something about this! I purposed to make a schedule of all the books I wanted to read this summer. I had a bunch laying around that were half read and others had been ‘on deck’ for over a year.

I’m blessed to have 9 weeks off from school during the summer, and my deep desire was to use the time well for Jesus. I also wanted to revive that atrophying reading muscle. So here’s what’s on my nightstand so to speak:

I am going through Exodus with Dr Abner Chou’s lectures, and Romans 1-8 with my church family on Tuesday nights. Also, I’m reading John MacArthur’s Romans commentary. Review: What can you say about the Bible! It’s great! A JMac Commentary? It’s great!

A few months ago, I  read Erik Lundgaard’s The Enemy Within, a summarized version of Puritan John Owen’s Indwelling Sin. I was irked that I remembered little of it. I decided to read it again, and pair it with Owen’s actual book Indwelling Sin (an abridged and slightly modernized version.)

I like this pairing. The topic is difficult, as it necessitates a deep look into one’s own heart to purposely uproot the sin there. Lundgaard’s version is sort of like a Cliff’s Notes which gets me ready to read the same chapters in Owen the next day. Owen’s Indwelling Sin in Believers is a monumental, wonderful, convicting book. I highly recommend it. I bought the Banner of Truth Puritan Paperbacks version.

Here is a resource for Owen. He wrote three towering books on the subject of sin, a trilogy if you will, Indwelling Sin as mentioned, Mortification of Sin, and Overcoming Sin and Temptation. This writer has created a “Monster Cheat Sheet for the Mortification of Sin in Believers” that you might find helpful if you decide to read that Owen book.

Grace Abounding in the Chief of Sinners is a book by Pilgrim’s Progress author John Bunyan, another Puritan. The version I’m reading has not been modernized and I love it. Owen’s language is dense with lengthy run-ons. Bunyan’s isn’t, hence is easier to read. Hugh Martin said of the book,

Grace Abounding is among the greatest stories of God’s dealings with the human soul– to be put on a shelf beside such treasures as Augustine’s Confessions, Law’s Serious Call, and Baxter’s Autobiography, and Wesley’s own account of his spiritual travail.

One great thing about reading the Puritans and older books is that the thread of sin, evil, guilt, despair, salvation, comfort, and assurance is the same no matter what century one lives in. Here is a resource on Bunyan’s works- 3 Lessons from the Life of John Bunyan.

Art and the Bible is a small book dealing with the topic of beauty. We should use the arts to the glory of God, author Francis Schaeffer wrote, and I agree. “Francis Schaeffer first examines the scriptural record of the use of various art forms, and then establishes a Christian perspective on art.” Recommended.

For secular books, I’m into Moby Dick, with cliff’s notes. Here is RC Sproul on Moby Dick in his essay The Unholy Pursuit of God in Moby Dick:

It seems that every time a writer picks up a pen or turns on his word processor to compose a literary work of fiction, deep in his bosom resides the hope that somehow he will create the Great American Novel. Too late. That feat has already been accomplished and is as far out of reach for new novelists as is Joe DiMaggio’s fifty-six-game hitting streak or Pete Rose’s record of cumulative career hits for a rookie baseball player. The Great American Novel was written more than a hundred and fifty years ago by Herman Melville. This novel, the one that has been unsurpassed by any other, is Moby Dick.

I agree. Moby Dick is THE Great American Novel. It’s towering, lyrical, breathtaking. It is also demanding, difficult, cumbersome. Is it worth it? YES. But again with this one, I needed notes. I use Read Moby: A Guide for First Time Readers. Why did Sproul believe this is one of the greatest hundred books, ever?

its greatness is found in its unparalleled theological symbolism.

Read Dr Sproul’s recommendation above for why we should read this book.

Some Writer! The Story of EB White by Melissa Sweet. This is a graphical book, one that includes ephemera, notes, and drawings. It’s a sweet and lovely book and I’m enjoying it tremendously.

PS if you like graphical books, Up The Down Staircase is another one that contains ephemera to tell the story.

“largely assembling her story through an accretion of found objects: bureaucratic circulars, homework assignments, wastebasket contents, doodles, and interoffice memos among teachers”

I am also reading a hilarious and wildly interesting book about the summer of 1927 in America by Bill Bryson aptly called One Summer 1927 America. He is such a good writer that the detailed sections on aviation (It was a Charles Lindbergh summer) and baseball (Babe Ruth summer) interesting, and I don’t gravitate to either subject but he makes them so fascinating I can’t put the book down. Recommended.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows. A friend sent me this book and it is soooo good. It is a story told through the exchange of letters. This, like Up the Down Staircase the Some Writer! are episolary novels.

Fun Fact: An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used. Recently, electronic “documents” such as recordings and radio, blogs, and e-mails have also come into use. The word epistolary is derived from Latin from the Greek word epistolē, meaning a letter (see epistle).

The Elusive Mrs Pollifax is on deck for August when school starts again.

I am noticing that when I push away from the laptop and just read, whatever book it is, I feel more relaxed. Moreover, my mind is slowly adapting to literature again, and my comprehension is lengthening. Slowly.

Watch out that digital reading might be changing your mind for the worse. Set aside a time to read without distraction some good theological books, leisure books, and of course the Bible. The Bible demands attention, study, and meditation. Our minds are being shaped away from that kind of reading and this impacts our Bible reading.

The thing I hated worst was that after I read the Bible, I’d remember some fun insight or nugget about it to share the next day at work. Of late, I’ve not done that, because I can’t really remember. I dearly want to proclaim His glories among the people with whom I work. Hence, my summer of reading recovery.

I will meditate on Your precepts And regard Your ways. I shall delight in Your statutes; I shall not forget Your word. (Psalm 119:15-16)

 

Posted in encouragement, Uncategorized

Magnet Fun and Irresistible Grace

Posted on by elizabethprata

First, the original intent of the video, to show science. Here is the original poster’s comment:

Nice slow-motion footage of smaller magnets engulfing larger magnets. The self-organization is beautiful to watch…

I love magnets. Don’t you love magnets? I remember in grade school, science lessons where they gave you magnets to experiment with. It was fun and absorbing.

As is this video is absorbing, mesmerizing, actually!

And now for the spiritual twist. As I was watching the little magnets be drawn to the Master Magnet, I was reminded of the verse from John 12:32,

“And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.”

Salvation is like that in the video. The little magnets were minding their own business, at enmity with God, apart from Him. And along comes Jesus, inexorably drawing the ones He has elected since before the foundation of the world, to draw unto His grace, His body, his faith.

“God’s grace is so powerful that it has the capacity to overcome our natural resistance to it.” RC Sproul

Think on that ladies. He sought us, easily overcame our formidable enmity, cleaned us with His righteousness, and is now interceding for us at the throne as we draw ever nearer to Him!

Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. (Hebrews 7:25).

There is nothing that will happen to us today that is stronger than that reality.

All that the Father giveth me will come to me. (John 6:37).

 

Posted in encouragement, Uncategorized

He did this … so He could do this

Posted on by elizabethprata

Satan tempted Jesus with hunger. (Matthew 4:3)

Satan tempted Jesus with suicide. (Matthew 4:6).

Satan tempted Jesus with power. (Matthew 4:9).

Satan tempted Jesus with life, to avoid the cross. (Matthew 16:23).

Jesus resisted it all, answered with the word of God. He remained sinless, never falling into any of satan’s wiles.

He went to the cross, taking all of God’s wrath, dying as a humiliated sacrifice, separated in darkness for hours, “Father why have you forsaken me?” and then He died.

He did this,

powers
Illustration by Chris Powers, fullofeyes.com

The Father resurrected Jesus. He took our wrath because God placed our sin onto Him…He gave us His righteousness, which we could never possess.. Double imputation. (2 Corinthians 5:21).

So He could do this:

robe
Robe of Righteousness, by Lars Justinen

Let us take a moment to praise, honor, and glorify our precious Savior.

Posted in discernment, Uncategorized

Mailbag: Do people who commit suicide go to hell?

Posted on by elizabethprata

rope

Today’s question was Do people who commit suicide go to hell?

The query came on the heels of fashion designer and celebrity Kate Spade’s suicide on June 5, 2018 and celebrity chef, television personality, and author Anthony Bourdain’s apparent suicide on June 8. It was a devastating week for those two families, their work families, and the watching world. Once again people questioned why, if someone has it all, depression still creeps and suicide becomes a solution. The Christian knows it is the vanity of vanities to pursue all of life’s offerings without Christ, it only ever adds up to emptiness. One should read Ecclesiastes for wisdom on emptiness in life without Christ.

But the non-Christian world still reels in shock when they look to the pinnacle of success, see their idols up there, only to see them cast it all away and tumble.

David Leavitt, a freelance writer for CBS, Yahoo, and the Examiner, tweeted,

If you’re religious, then you believe there’s a special place in hell or purgatory for people like Anthony Bourdain who take their own lives.

His is a common view if one has been raised Catholic. They teach that to take one’s own life (and anyone helping to take a life) is in mortal sin. A mortal sin means you’ve now lost your salvation forever. They base their teaching not on the Bible, but on principles that the Christian can identify with nonetheless. For example, to take one’s life is to assert lordship over it, when it is God who gives and takes life. It is God who counts your days and sets the boundary line for when you step into eternity. Suicide also lets down the people you are connected to, either family by blood or church family by Jesus’ blood. We are each given the gift of the Holy Spirit to operate with in the gifts the Spirit in us has dispensed, and to take one’s life leaves a hole in the family fabric where God has installed you. Even the Christian can understand that suicide is a heavy sin.

But can we go so far as the Catholic to say that a Christian who takes his own life for sure will go to hell? No. Again, no. If a person is indeed saved by faith, they can never lose their salvation. The Spirit indwelling us is the secure guarantee of that. (Ephesians 1:14, 2 Corinthians 1:22).

We are careful with terms here, the original tweet said the religious believe there is a special place in hell for the successful suicide. Muslims actually believe jihadi suicide in Allah’s name gets you INTO heaven, so, not ‘religious’, but if one is Catholic, then they do believe there’s a special place in hell or purgatory for people like suicides.

Christians know than any person would be in hell only because they rejected the Gospel. The people in hell are the people who died in sin and not in Christ. The only unforgivable sin is rejecting the offer of salvation by Jesus. It stands to reason, though, that any other sin is possible for a Christian to still commit.

Can a truly Christian person even contemplate suicide, let alone successfully throw their life away? Perhaps, or perhaps not. It is not for me to say. I do believe that it’s possible there are many Christians struggling with depression. Charles Spurgeon famously struggled with depression, though he never attempted suicide.

Suicide is detailed in the Bible. Many people did kill themselves. Judas, King Saul, King Saul’s armor bearer, and many others. They were all men and they were all apostasizing or non-believers. No truly saved person is documented in the Bible as attempting or carrying out suicide, not even King David in the throes of his deepest depression. Jonah in fact, though seemingly depressed and unhappy, pleaded for his life in the belly of the whale.

Observations;
All of the biblical examples of successful suicide are men.
All of the biblical examples are dubious characters and none are personally praised for their actions.
All were spiritually bankrupt or went through a period of spiritual collapse before their suicide.
Many of the biblical examples were in pain and/or afraid before suicide.
Scripture generally presents these examples of suicide as a fitting end to a wicked and unrepentant life (cf. Judg. 9:56; 1 Ki. 16:19). (Source)

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote an enduring and classic Christian book called Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Its Cure. He and preached on spiritual depression also, here. The entire series of 24 sermons on spiritual depression is here.

I think suicidal deaths could be the group referred to in 1 Corinthians 3:15,

If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

Here, Paul was teaching about the levels of rewards in heaven. Believers will appear before Christ to account for their lives, how they worked for His glory and in what level of obedience. Any person’s work that is not worthy will be burned up and works done in His name that glorify Him will be turned to gold and silver. (1 Corinthians 3:10-15).

In verse 15, there will be people who will have all their works burned up. Will some of those people lose their rewards because they ended their own life, effectively supplanting God for their own will be done, to the uttermost? Perhaps, because in throwing their own life away, they thus became God of their own days. It may be also that in so doing, they threw away all their works done in His name, their rewards, too. What else could engender a complete loss of rewards? Even the thief on the cross made three good stabs at bearing fruit; confessing his guilt, proclaiming Jesus as Christ, and rebuking the other thief for his blasphemies. It may well be that 1 Corinthians refers to some people who ended their life and thus, though salvation is eternal, they lost their reward in heaven.

David Murray with 7 Questions about Suicide and Christians, and many other good and helpful resources on that page.

The recent suicides are truly sad. It is written in the news reports that Bourdain was seeking help but had ignored his doctor’s advice. However, it is also reported that Kate Spade was doing everything right, heeding doctor advice, calling and checking in with her family. She still went through with it.

The ultimate tragedy and one that is unalterable, is that if a non-believer seeks suicide as a solution to their pain or despair, they wake up the next second in worse pain, unimaginable pain, and one that they can never escape. Not because they committed suicide, but because they had rejected Christ. Their hopelessness will go on and on.

In the Christian, depression is real, spiritual depression is real. One never knows what is going on in the mind of another. But we do have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:16). The best we can do is encourage each other, come along side to help and love. We are not alone, we are tied with a threefold cord of scarlet to the King of eternal life. Cling to that.