day no. 16,305: counting curses and forgetting blessings

Malachi 2:2

If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the LORD of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings

It is always easier and more intuitive to count your curses and to forget your blessings. Because works righteousness is so embedded into us, we immediately recognize when we've been short-changed and often overlook when we've received more than we owed. We not only count our curses, but we count on them. We count on them being an adequate disinfectant for all of our accumulated sins. It is easier to justify yourself by your mistreatment than by your merit. It is easier to find examples of being burdened than it is of being blessed. We can count our blessings, if we try real hard. But even then, we prefer to do it only once a year and mostly for things which we are at that very moment taking for granted.

"When it comes to life, the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude." -- G.K. Chesterton

When you refuse to count your blessings as blessings, you turn them into curses. You call deep heaven down upon yourself. You take mercy and make it miserable. When we make a regular habit of forgetting our blessings and the One from whom all blessings flow along with them, we are converting our present blessings into burdens. We are making disgruntled disciples of divine favors. We catechize our comforts to become cancers. We make a mess of the blessings we have and backfill the well of fresh mercies.

"Every high civilization decays by forgetting obvious things." -- G.K. Chesterton

When we look down on what we've received from above, there's nowhere left to look. We cut ourselves off from the source of life and spoil the life we've already bottled up. Like bread from heaven, it can go bad when abused. 

Count your blessings, not your curses. Remember your blessings and forgive those who've cursed you. They only know the half of it after all. 

day no. 16,304: the weakest weakness of the weak and the strongest strength of the strong

Romans 15:1-3a

We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself

The strong owe the weak their strength. They are obligated to demonstrate their strength by putting up weakness. After all, if they can't, who can? If the strong are unable to lift heavy weights, how else is left? Weakness is weighty and the weak cannot get out from under it. They cannot put up with themselves, let alone bear up under the burdens of others. They cannot live for others because they are caught up in living for themselves. They are stuck staring at their own pleasure. That is what makes them weak. They can't look away. They look only to their own interests and not to the interests of others. They do all things out of selfish ambition and vain conceit. They proudly refuse to consider others.

Strength is being able to look to the needs of others. So, if you are strong, you are obligated to look to others. If you refuse to use your strength in this way, you are only demonstrating that you are too weak to do so. In other words, your perceived strength is a confirmation of your weakness.

One of the worst failings of the weak is that they imagine they are the strong ones. They read verses like this and imagine themselves as the strong martyrs who faithfully bear the burdens of those below them. Their weakness is imagined strength. They cannot see the weakness of their own position. They are too weak to resist the temptation to see themselves as strong.

So, if you are strong, show it by serving those who do not deserve it. Anyone can serve someone who deserves it. Anyone can pay what they owe without feeling guilty about it. But only the strong can pay what they do not owe and obligate themselves to those who refuse to recognize their efforts. The weak cannot be expected to recognize great effort. They are not strong enough to pay respect. They are too cheap to give credit where it is due. The strong are sturdy enough to be overlooked and to bear the lack of appreciation they receive in turn for all their efforts. 

The weak cannot stand being unappreciated. They rage against the perceived ingratitude of their peers. The strong stand unappreciated and yet grateful to God for the strength they receive from Him to do so. The strong know their weakness and surrender it to God. The weak know only their imagined strength and suffer for it.

The weakest weakness of the weak is that they imagine that they are strong.

The strongest strength of the strong is that they know that they are weak.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses…For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses... For when I am weak, then I am strong.

The greatest failure of the failing is not seeing their failure.

The greatest victory of the victorious is is seeing their failure.

day no. 16,303: stand up, stay the plague

Psalm 106:30

Then Phinehas stood up and intervened,

and the plague was stayed

Stand up, stay the plague.

Phinehas had eyes in his head. He saw what was going on and he knew what needed to be done. He may not have been the only one who saw it, but he was the only one who acted upon it.

Numbers 25:7-13

When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose and left the congregation and took a spear in his hand and went after the man of Israel into the chamber and pierced both of them, the man of Israel and the woman through her belly. Thus the plague on the people of Israel was stopped. Nevertheless, those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand. And the Lord said to Moses, “Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the people of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I did not consume the people of Israel in my jealousy. Therefore say, ‘Behold, I give to him my covenant of peace, and it shall be to him and to his descendants after him the covenant of a perpetual priesthood, because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the people of Israel.’”

Because of Phinehas, the plague was stayed, but not before twenty-four thousand had perished.

We are in the midst of our own plague. It is not the one being advertised, but the one the marketing campaign is revealing. It is hidden in plain sight and for those, like Phinehas, with eyes in their heads, the next step is obvious: stand up. There is a contagion of misinformation masquerading as fact checking. There is a plague of ill logic parading as polemics. There is an outbreak of break downs being applauded as building up.There is an end game calling itself a reset. 

Pathology is being promoted as progressive and sickness is being sold as strength. 

The plague we see is a playgue. It is all for show. It is theater. The true plague is the desire to write that script. The true plague is buying tickets to that show.

The real plague is the desire to stay down.

So…

Stand up. 

Stay the plague.

We cannot stay the plague by staying down.

Standing up is the only antidote for staying down.

*originally drafted during the upheavals of 2021

day no. 16,302: out of Egypt one way or another

"God's saints left Egypt in different ways. Joseph came a slave and died a prince. Moses grew up as a prince and left with all the slaves. Joseph left after he died, when his bones were moved. Moses left before he died." — Douglas Wilson, Empires of Dirt

Joseph and Moses were both rightly related to the State even though they related to it very differently. Joseph served a State that had enslaved him and Moses left a State that had adopted him. God brought Joseph to Egypt and was with him while he was there. God led Moses out of Egypt and was with him in his exodus. Joseph acquired Egyptian gold and nobility while Moses abandoned the riches and titles of Egypt. Both Joseph and Moses were men of God and both lived in Egypt, but neither were buried there. Joseph's bones were brought back home and Moses was buried only God knows where in the wilderness. Joseph's affluence provided for other's poverty while Moses' poverty provided others with affluence. Joseph put on Egyptian clothes and Moses took his off. God promoted Joseph to an official place of power and God employed Moses to show off His power. God used Joseph's influence to save Israel and God used Moses' witness to save Israel. Two men, one God, two approaches, one State, one outcome.

May God grant us wisdom to overthrow Pharaohs as well, whether by winning them over or by winning against them in battle. May God deliver us as well, whether by blessings or by curses. May God always free Israel from Egypt. Amen.

day no. 16,301: no to all of it

"Herein lies the central point that Christians across this great nation must get deep down in their bones: You will have Christ as Lord of all, or you will have Pharaoh's tyranny. In the main, our problem is that we want Pharaoh's melons, leeks, and onions, but we do not want his chains. Pharaoh's offer, however, is a package deal. And we must say no to all of it." — Jared Longshore

When we beg to be bought, we make ourselves slaves. When we implore the State to adopt us, we make ourselves its wards. If you make the State your father, you can't be shocked to find that it wants to hold the remote. If you ask the State to set your table, you can't complain when it picks the menu.

"The conflict has always been and will be until the end, Christianity or Paganism; the idols or the living God." —  Abraham Kuyper

Secularism cannot hold itself together. There is no neutral force out there that can keep someone else's hands off of your body or out of your pockets. There is only Christ or Chaos. And you cannot merely keep the chaos at bay by throwing a little bit of Christ at it one day a week.

If Christ is not Lord of all, He is not Lord at all. He also puts forth a package deal: Lord and Savior. You cannot parcel out what you prefer and discard the rest. You either have all of Christ or you have none of Him. You either embrace all of Christ for all of life or you can expect strange men in your women’s restrooms. That’s an entirely different kind of package deal and one we all should be eager to avoid.

day no. 16,300: assigned places and purview

"The Church is the ministry of Grace and Peace. The Civil Government is the ministry of Justice. The Family is the ministry of Health, Education, Welfare." -- Douglas Wilson

God has directly established three forms of government or ministry: the family, the church, and the civil government. Each is a type of government that He has assigned certain respective responsibilities and jurisdictions of authority. These spheres may speak to each other, but may not annex from the other what God has given uniquely to it. For example, the Church should not carry the sword nor the State administer the Lord's Supper. The Family should not take the place of the preacher nor the Church the place of capital punisher.

The primary focus of each ministry is that which God has given to it directly. It cannot delegate these to any of the others. It cannot confiscate any of the other's.

Each sphere lives in a world where it must consider and do commerce with the other spheres and God has given clear instruction on the adverbs that should accompany said interactions: gently, kindly, patiently, honestly, etc... And in addition to that, He has also reminded us to mind thine own beeswax. (Romans 14:4, 12–13),

day no. 16,299: go tell that fox!

Luke 13:31–32

At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” And he said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.'"

Let us enroll for a moment in Jesus' School of Defying Tyrants and learn a lesson or two:

Herod had plans for Jesus. The Pharisees here inform him of them. Herod wants Jesus dead. But Jesus has plans of his own. He has a list of things He wants to do and He intends to get to all of them. Jesus doesn't sit on His agenda. He proclaims it and pursues it boldly. He isn't shy about saying what He's wanting to do and He isn't lazy about working hard to make it happen. Jesus doesn't merely respond to the Pharisees who deliver the message, but to Herod who sent it.

The Pharisees, however, have plans as well, the least of which includes getting Jesus to shut up. So they used what they believed to be a trump card: outside authority and internal self-preservation. They appeal to an outside authority and bring it up in order to bully Jesus with the threat of someone who isn't there, but will be shortly if He doesn't comply. They also appeal to basic self-preservation in assuming that the threat of death would motivate Jesus to comply. 

Jesus check mates them on both accounts. He is not only NOT phased by the appeal to outside authority, He doubles down and says, "Yes, make sure and give him a message from Me," and then proceeds to call Herod a derogatory term in front of the Pharisees (thus defusing that bomb) and telling them to repeat the words back to Herod (thus throwing a grenade of His own).

Additionally, He throws back the threat of death at them as well in foreshadowing His own death and resurrection. In other words, if death is the best they can do, they may want to find better firepower because He isn't afraid of death. He came to die... and overcome death. The One they are talking to was born to die and has His sights set on killing death on a Roman cross.

Jesus said, in a sense, "Tell that tyrant, 'I'm just getting started.'"

Let us learn these lessons well and faithfully follow His example.