day no. 15,790: an acquired taste

Jeremiah 5:30-31

An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule at their direction; my people love to have it so, but what will you do when the end comes?

A prophet is meant to speak on behalf of another so when the prophet speaks falsely, he not only lies, but he defames the one for whom he claims to speak. A priest is meant to mediate on behalf of another so when a priest does what he wants, he not only misleads, but he fails to connect the supplicant to anyone other than his own wishes. 

This is tragic in its own right, but the appalling and horrible thing is that people prefer it this way. They would rather be lied to and misled than know the truth and have to face God. As bad as false prophets and lame priests are, even worse are the parishioners who would not have it any other way.

Lies and misleading are acquired tastes. And some, in fact, have such a taste for them as to despise a banquet table truth. When sat at a feast of verity, fidelity, and authority, they no longer have any hunger or thirst for either.

day no. 15,789: anything you can do, God can do better

Jeremiah 2:12-13
Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the LORD, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Sin is substitution.

Man sets aside his God and crafts for himself another one. That is why when you break the first commandment, you always break the second and no one breaks the second without first having broken the first. Man substitutes himself for God in creating a world to his liking, but because man cannot shake off the compulsion to worship, he also creates a substitute to worship.

Salvation is substitution.

God sent His Son in the form of a man as a substitute. Jesus took our place in living the life we owed God and in dying the death that our sins had earned. Jesus rose from the grave in our place so that we might also rise to newness of life. This is called penal substitutionary atonement. A penalty (for sin) was placed on someone else (substitution) in order to pay what was owed (atonement). 

Man plunged the world into sin and error through substitution.

God restored the world to righteousness through substitution.

day no. 15,788: if you want to get up, you got to get down

Jeremiah 1:19
They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, declares the LORD, to deliver you.

God provides four assurances:

(1) They will fight against you
(2) They will not prevail against you
(3) God will be with you

(4) God will deliver you 

God's people should expect resistance. The enemies of God will not go quietly into that good light.

We should expect push back, but we shouldn't expect to be pushed entirely back. The kingdom of God is like leaven working its way through the lump – slowly, but surely.  The Kingdom is not like the ascent of a rocket ship, straight up; but like that of a mountain, with frequent descents on the way to the summit. 

God is with you. While the enemy is against you, He is not. Remember that. Do not be defined by who you are against, but by Who you are with and let your enemies be those who oppose who you are first for.

God will deliver you: from your enemies, from their efforts, from your failures, from your fears.

Rest assured, all of this will take place. The will of God is inescapable. It is not a question of IF?, but WHEN? and HOW? Yet God's command is not for us to know or decipher the how's and when's (Dt. 29:29), but to fight the good fight of believing His promises where we are. His will is indomitable and for those who love Him, that is their only comfort in death and life.

day no. 15,787: the case for name calling

"And the evening and the morning were the first day." - Genesis 1:5

"The evening was 'darkness' and the morning was 'light,' and yet the two together are called by the name that is given to the light alone! This is somewhat remarkable, but it has an exact analogy in spiritual experience. In every believer there is darkness and light, and yet he is not to be named a sinner because there is sin in him, but he is to be named a saint because he possesses some degree of holiness. This will be a most comforting thought to those who are mourning their infirmities, and who ask, 'Can I be a child of God while there is so much darkness in me?' Yes; for you, like the day, take not your name from the evening, but from the morning; and you are spoken of in the word of God as if you were even now perfectly holy as you will be soon. You are called the child of light, though there is darkness in you still. You are named after what is the predominating quality in the sight of God, which will one day be the only principle remaining. Observe that the evening comes first. Naturally we are darkness first in order of time, and the gloom is often first in our mournful apprehension, driving us to cry out in deep humiliation, 'God be merciful to me, a sinner.' The place of the morning is second, it dawns when grace overcomes nature. It is a blessed aphorism of John Bunyan, 'That which is last, lasts forever.' That which is first, yields in due season to the last; but nothing comes after the last. So that though you are naturally darkness, when once you become light in the Lord, there is no evening to follow; 'thy sun shall no more go down.' The first day in this life is an evening and a morning; but the second day, when we shall be with God, forever, shall be a day with no evening, but one, sacred, high, eternal noon." -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

The field may be mixed with wheat and weeds, but it is still called a "wheat field". This is the case when the wild patch of land is first transformed from weeds to seeds. It continues to be the case when the resilient weeds seem to be the dominant note of the garden. At no point is it a weed field once it has been claimed and called a "wheat field" by its owner. The owner will go to great lengths to ensure the field becomes what He already calls it: bountiful, fruitful, and wheat -- every inch of every acre. Until then, may the wheat field be comforted even when seeing weeds here and there, for your Master has plans to eradicate those and in the meantime continues to call you, "wheat." 

"Simul justus et peccator." --- Martin Luther (at the same time justified and a sinner)

All saints are sinners, but they are called by the name "saint."

All days include a night, but are collectively called "days."

day no. 15,786: hitting a triple

“We are fond of talking about 'liberty'; but the way we end up actually talking of it is an attempt to avoid discussing what is 'good.' We are fond of talking about 'progress'; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. We are fond of talking about 'education'; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. The modern man says, 'Let us leave all these arbitrary standards and embrace unadulterated liberty.' This is, logically rendered, 'Let us not decide what is good, but let it be considered good not to decide it.' He says, 'Away with your old moral standard; I am for progress.' This, logically stated, means, 'Let us not settle what is good; but let us settle whether we are getting more of it.'  He says, 'Neither in religion nor morality, my friend, lie the hopes of the race, but in education.' This, clearly expressed, means, 'We cannot decide what is good, but let us give it to our children.'" ― G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

The ignored presupposition and malady behind the modern mind is the failure to ask, "by what standard?"

Liberty is asserted without asking, "free from what?
Progress is assumed without asking, "progressing toward what?"
Education is embraced without asking, "knowing what?"

We want to be free; but without knowing from or for what, we find ourselves enslaved. Feelings promise freedom, but make for cruel, unrelenting taskmasters in the end. We want to advance; but without knowing from or to what, we find ourselves on repeat. Aiming all our creative energies at solving problems instead of acknowledging trade-offs leads to inventing the old problems all over again. We want to be intelligent; but without knowing up from down, we find ourselves ignorant. Abandoning objectivity is imagined to open up the picture, but in reality, deleting the frame abandons the picture. Without borders and boundaries, it is impossible to know where the picture begins or ends. Without definition, it ceases to be.

Yet liberty, progress, and education are inescapable. The world can redefine them, but they cannot graduate beyond them. It is compelled to justify itself as right, free, advanced, and educated; but without objective mechanisms it is left merely to redefine the terms in order to achieve them -- as though renaming first base "third" made hitting a triple easier.

day no. 15,785: discipline is freedom

"Discipline yourself and others won't need to." -- John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership

There will be discipline. It is inescapable. The question is whether you will take responsibility to do it yourself or if you will force someone else to do it for you. 

Proverbs 25:28
He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.

If you refuse to discipline yourself and reject the discipline that is imposed upon you by those who love you, you will be disciplined by the consequences of trying to live without discipline.  A city without walls is vulnerable. It is disciplined by the consequences of refusing to construct and/or man it's walls. If you want to be free from vulnerability, you cannot be free of walls. If you want the freedom of security, you need to erect walls of discipline and have means to defend and watch over them.

Song of Solomon 2:15
Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom

A fenced garden is free from foxes, an unfenced one is free for the taking.

The fenced garden has a defense, the unfenced one is left defenseless.

Titus 2:1-6

But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled.

Self-control is sound doctrine. Those who have it, teach it. Those who need it must be taught it.  Those who will not accept or exercise it  are not free to call themselves Christian.

"Discipline equals freedom." -- Jocko Wilink

day no. 15,784: no snooze button for the belly

Richard Weaver rightly observed, "Thoughts and ideas have consequences." If the understanding is off, the activities that follow will be off. Behaviors flow out of beliefs. Our theology comes out our fingertips. If our understanding is bent, our undertakings will be too.

“We only progress in sound living as we progress in sound understanding... No man indulges an error of judgment, without sooner or later tolerating an error in practice.” — Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

An imperfection in the cornerstone has implications for the rest of the building. Thinking precedes doing and nothing can be thought without infecting what is done. In other words, whatever is done is a product of something previously thought or in many cases, a failure to think. For unthinking minds are carried along by unthinking bodies and if the mind won't do the heavy lifting of thinking, the body will continue on with its habit of doing. While the mind can resist the urge to meditate, the body cannot abandon its urge to scratch and consume. A man's mind may hit the snooze button, but his belly cannot.

Philippians 3:19

Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.