day no. 16,481: accommodating your words only makes you their accomplice

“Do not give fair names to foul sins; call them what you will, they will smell no sweeter.” — Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening 

That isn't to say we add to the bad by using worse words than necessary, but it ALSO doesn't mean adding to the bad by using weaker words than necessary.

Downplaying devilry only dilates it. 

Accommodating your words to their wickedness only makes you their accomplice. 

Do not give fair words to foul works.

Do not say, "an affair," say, "adultery."

Do not say, "confused," say, "perverted."

Do not say, "fib," say, "lie."

Do not say, "preferences," say, "sins."

Do not say, "redistribution," say, "plunder."

Do not say, "healthcare," say, "abortion."

Do not say, "social justice," say, "antisocial injustice.”

Do not say, "diversity," say, "debauchery.”

Do not say, "ze/zem," say, "he/him," or "she/her,"

Do not say, “gender reassignment,” say, “mutilate.”

Do not say, "Two-spirit," say, "possessed,"

Do not say, "Inclusion," say, "coercion."

Isaiah 5:20-21

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!

Do not say, “Uncle,” to them; say, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do," to God.

day no. 16,480: even the snakes will bow

Philippians 2:10-11

That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Every knee ever created will bow before Christ. Every tongue ever made will mouth the words, "Jesus Christ is Lord!" And this has ALWAYS been the plan.

Isaiah 45:23

I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.

The glory of God the Father is made manifest in seeing creation confess His Son. What Isaiah recorded, Paul applied. Jesus Christ is Yahweh, God incarnate, come in flesh without being of the flesh in order to save all flesh to the glory of God.

All creatures will confess Christ. No one and nothing is excluded, even Satan. In the end, even snakes will be given knees if only that they might bow them before Jesus. And in the meantime, He is giving His body, the Church, the joy of helping His enemies to find their knees.

 

Romans 16:20

The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.

day no. 16,479: Atticus is FIFTEEN!

Happy 15th birthday, Atticus!

Today you turn 15 years old, 23 years tall, and 2 years mustachioed. You are growing in wisdom, in stature, and favor with God and with others. You are a strapping young lad.

You love guns and know everything about them. You love war and the history of battles. You love tanks. You love building guns and tanks out of Legos. You love patrolling the backyard and playing out battle tactics. You love airsoft guns and dueling with friends. You've been shot in the lip and lived to talk about it. All that to say, you love the story God has written you into, especially the battle scenes.

You are a hard worker. You mow lawns in the hot sun and rake leaves in the cool autumn breeze. You carry rocks and wash dishes. You buckle babies into their seats and carry in the groceries. 

You are growing up. You like a good cigar and a good scotch. You like hot sauce and second helpings. You like a good Ocktoberfest and a good book. You enjoy listening to the men talk and still have fun with the kids running around after service. 

You are a good brother to your siblings. You love them and look out for them. You don't throttle the little smash brothers too much, but you do rattle them enough to remind them that you're bigger and to give them practice taking on giants.

You are a good friend. You are generous and kind to your friends and look for ways to serve them and bring joy to their lives. You like most people and make an effort to get along where and when you can.

You are a good son. You love your mother and me and look for ways to honor us. You apologize when you speak out of line and you ask us for advice and counsel when you're trying to make decisions.

You are a good artist. I love your Skeeter Wars series and all the doodles and drawings you do. I am excited to see your Kill the Dragon comic when it is completed as well as all the other ideas you have in the hopper for future comic book ideas. 

You like my Postmillitant account and enjoy reviewing the days posts and correspondence. You like seeing how the sausage is made in preparing the slides or spicing them up with soundtracks or visual effects.

You are responsible, fun, strong, honest, hard-working, serious, and reliable. In short, you are very Atticus. Many of the little boys at church look up to you. I am glad they get to have you as a role model and have heard from other dads that they hope their sons grow up to be like you.

Happy 15th birthday, Atticus.

I love being your dad. I am very proud of you. I thank God for you and am excited to have a front row seat to see all that He will do through you and for you in these formative years in our home before you leave to build your own.

I love you,

Dad.

day no. 16,478: bastards are spoiled; children are discplined

“As Scripture points out, it is bastards who are spoiled: the legitimate sons, who are to carry on the family tradition, are punished.” — C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

To be loved is to be corrected. To be left alone is to be abandoned. The sign of a legitimate child is the presence of discipline and instruction. These are administered out of love and in order to spare the child from needing discipline and instruction as an adult. Those who spare the rod, spoil the child, but do not save him from discipline, they only delay it by delegating it to future enforcers in the forms of bosses who must fire them, spouses who must leave them, children who resent them, and magistrates who must apprehend or worse yet, execute them for their lack of discipline.

“One can imagine a sentient picture, after being rubbed and scraped and re-commenced for the tenth time, wishing that it were only a thumb-nail sketch whose making was over in a minute. in the same way, it is natural for us to wish that God had designed for us a less glorious and less arduous destiny; but then we are wishing not for more love but for less.” — C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

When we push back against discipline and instruction, we demonstrate our proclivity for puny affections. We are begging for less love, not more. Yet we may frame our request in such a way as to define more love as more license, but a loving parent never gives the child what he wants, he gives him what is best for him according to another standard. The child's desires are not submitted to as the standard of health and well-being.

“We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven — a senile benevolence who, as they say, 'liked to see young people enjoying themselves' and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, 'a good time was had by all.'" — C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Love looks beyond short-term affairs to long-term affluence. The prosperity of the whole person before God and man is taken into account, not merely meeting the passion of the person at present. For even a moment's pleasure may be tomorrow's painful memory.

"I am not sure that this is quite how I feel even about human love. I do not think I should value much the love of a friend who cared only for my happiness and did not object to my becoming dishonest." — C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Love is a transitive verb and requires an object on which to transfer its affections. That is to say, love is not good on its own. In fact, depending on the object, it can actually be quite bad. To love dishonesty is evil. To love malice is maniacal. Empathy insists that love is loving whatever anyone else loves, but true love must refuse love on those terms. True love cannot endorse what harms the beloved. True love cannot support the sheep's infatuation with wolves. It cannot love the sheep and love that sheep's twisted love of being devoured.

"I am speaking throughout of the good man who takes all these pains with the dog, and gives all these pains to the dog, only because it is an animal high in the scale because it is so nearly lovable that it is worth his while to make it fully lovable. He does not house-train the earwig or give baths to centipedes. We may wish, indeed, that we were of so little account to God that He left us alone to follow our natural impulses — that He would give over trying to train us into something so unlike our natural selves: but once again, we are asking not for more Love, but for less." — C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

We wish at times that God would just leave us alone and at other times that He would intervene and interfere and change us to His liking on the spot. We can need the surgery and not want it. We can fear the surgery and still seek it. God does not refine and sanctify us because He likes putting us through pain, but because He loves us enough to endure our protests to the pains He goes through to sanctify us.

Hebrews 12:5-11

And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby

Discipline is not the sign of abuse, but of delight. Abuse is being left to yourself. Love is being corrected by Someone who knows better.

day no. 16,477: look to where Christ is and to where Christ looked

"We may no longer stay: go, waken Eve;

Her also I with gentle dreams have calmed

Portending good, and all her spirits composed

To meek submission: thou, at season fit,

Let her with thee partake what thou hast heard;

Chiefly what may concern her faith to know,

The great deliverance by her seed to come

(For by the Woman's seed) on all mankind:

That ye may live, which will be many days,

Both in one faith unanimous, though sad,

With cause, for evils past; yet much more cheered

With meditation on the happy end."

-- John Milton, Paradise Lost

The sorrow of the Fall is only eclipsed by the promise of the Savior. Nothing is more tragic than the fall of man and nothing is more dynamic than his deliverance. Let not our meditations fall short. May godly salve always be applied to godly grief. May Gospel hope never be abandoned by sinful sorrow. In Him, we have reason to bemoan our sin, but even greater reason to boast of our Savior.

Let us in one faith unanimous see the vicious tragedy of our sin and the victorious comedy of the Christ who for the happiness set before Him was harangued by heathen before being hung on a tree by them.

Let us look to where Christ is and let us look to where Christ looked, that is, to the joy set before us.

day no. 16,476: God sanctifies the dirt

John 17:15-16

I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

God sanctifies the dirt.

From the beginning, He spoke the dirt into existence and then He breathed His spirit into some of it in order to make Adam into a living soul.  He set the bush ablaze before Moses in order to hallow the ground underneath his bare feet.

Christ is not chloroform.

He does not deaden us to the pains of this world; He awakens us to the joys of the next.

Jesus is not Novocain.

He does not numb our natural nerve endings; He sharpens our supernatural beginnings.

Under the feet of Christ, all ground has been hallowed.

day no. 16,475: work is iconic, not ironic

"A couple years ago Mike Rowe pointed out this tendency in modern fashion in a Facebook post about a particular line of distresses jeans called Barracuda Straight Leg Jeans, arguing that they, 'Foster the illusion of work. The illusion of effort. Or perhaps, for those who actually buy them, the illusion of sanity… The Barracuda Straight Leg Jeans aren't pants. They're not even fashion. They're a costume for wealthy people who see work as ironic not iconic.' Even though Mike Rowe didn’t quite put it this way, what he was trying to say is that our culture has become as gay as pre-ripped jeans." — Toby Sumpter

Work is iconic, not ironic.

Work isn't a symbol of sustainability sold for profit. It is the meaningful dignity of making. Few things are less sustainable than incentivizing sterility. What could be gayer than designer genes?

Work is hard.

Work is good.

Good, hard work is where it's at. It does not a tip for lip service. It is brass tacks and kickin' ass. It is good ol' fashioned dirt under your fingernails. It is too busy being productive to waste your time trying to look productive. What could be lamer than soiling your pants on purpose? What could be tamer than fake blood stains?