day no. 15,716: the doctrine of the antithesis

"One of the very first things that was revealed to us after the crash of our first parents is the doctrine of the antithesis. This is the doctrine that throughout human history, there will be constant, total war between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. War is declared in the third chapter of the Bible, the central victory is accomplished when the Lord Jesus crushed the head of the serpent at the cross, and the rest of history consists of believers in Jesus being sent out into the world in order to manhandle all the snakes they can find." -- Douglas Wilson, Rules for Reformers

God has placed enmity into our world. He has declared war. Total... war. So much so, that anyone who would dare declare, "Peace" prior to Christ's return must do so from behind enemy lines.

"God's will is that Christ's Kingdom should be encompassed with many enemies, His design being to keep us in a state of constant warfare." -- John Calvin

There is a war and you are either fighting the seed of the serpent or submitting to it. If you are not actively taking it to Team Serpent than you are being acted upon by it. The serpent squad never submits to a cease fire. They may call for one, but that is itself only another act of war. It is a lure for the cowards and cuckolds to safely engage in commerce under the guise of peace. There will be no peace until Jesus returns. Until then, it is either fight the darkness or join it. To live in the light is to chase away the darkness.

Galatians 5:17

For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other.

The serpent squad often suggests, but never submits to a cease fire. The only people not shooting are those already fallen in battle.

day no. 15,715: to provide is to anticipate

"The word 'provide' comes from two Latin words, meaning 'to see beforehand.' You can give the provision because you saw it coming." -- Douglas Wilson, Rules for Reformers

Provision is made in the present by preparing in the past for a prediction in the future. It isn't hard to see that children will get hungry or need bigger clothes as they grow as a result of eating that food; and all of that takes money which requires a stream of income or revenue in order to provide today's bread and tomorrow's clothing.

Men are called to be providers and they do this primarily by anticipating the needs of their loved ones and working hard now in order to secure the ability to meet those needs when they present themselves later. Provision is performed in the present but it begins in the past by looking ahead and all of it is drenched in sweat and labor and proactive pursuit of loving another as you love yourself. Provision is in short an expression of initiative: looking ahead when you don't have to in order to avoid looking back with regrets you wish you didn't now have.  Provision is getting to work now when no one is forcing you to. Provision is thus, by nature, a masculine must.

Because God has designed the world in a particular, predictable order, most needs are easy enough to anticipate. There is a season to plant and a season to harvest and neither should catch the sower or reaper much off guard. Spring showers should not require your shocked face. Planting can be prepared during the winter just as harvest can be prepared in the summer. The fact that food will be required tomorrow as it was today is not a surprise and should not catch anyone off guard.

Being a provider merely means submitting to the world the way that God has made it and working hard today in order to have what you will need tomorrow. Good providers begin with the end in mind and proactively apply themselves today in order to meet tomorrow's needs.

day no. 15,714: incongruent

"He who believes what he knows, shall soon know more clearly what he believes." — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

"Crede ut intellegas" (believe so that you may understand") — St. Augustine of Hippo

Knowledge and belief are related. If you know things in which you do not believe, you only know the half of it. If you believe in things you do not know, you don't know what you believe. But if you believe in what you know, you know better what you believe.

James 1:22

Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

day no. 15,713: the great commission as part of the second greatest commandment

Matthew 22:36-39
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

The greatest commandment is to love God with everything we have and the second is to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Before we are called to love others, we are first called to love God. Part of loving Him involves and includes loving others, but there is a reason it is second. It is necessarily second in that it must follow the first in every sense of the word. It cannot precede the first in order or importance and it must follow the first in submission and succession.

"The Great Commission falls under the second greatest commandment. It is not the first." - Jim Wilson, Weapons and Tactics: A Handbook on Personal Evangelism

The Great Commission is part of loving your neighbor. It is very important, but it is secondary. Those who make it their top priority shipwreck their faith and set a bad example to those they hope to convert.

day no. 15,712: 8 out of every 24 and 1 out of every 7

"God planned for normal fatigue when He put the lights out on earth every night. He also set one day aside out of every seven for additional rest." -- Jim Wilson, Weapon and Tactics: A Handbook on Personal Evangelism

Rest is so important to God that He hard-wired it into the regular rhythm of our lives: our days are punctuated by laying ourselves down to rest and our weeks are predicated upon an entire day of rest. We rest seven to eight hours a day and one full day out of seven.

Rest is a rhythm given to us by God to teach us how much we need Him, how much we rely on Him, and how quickly we deplete whatever resources we have. We cannot hoard strength. We must use it daily and be refreshed nightly. We must spend it weekly and recover it on the Sabbath. We were meant to be spent and we were meant to seek rest.

Rest is not doing nothing, it is doing something. It is not simply passive, it is active. Rest is not something you reluctantly do once everything else is done. It is something you do on purpose in order to prepare to do other things.

Rest is intentional care that prepares us for our day's and week's worth of good works that God has prepared for us beforehand to do in Christ. We are His workmanship, created to work by a Worker who gives us the night to recharge and the Sabbath to refresh.

So, get some rest; and get to work!

day no. 15,711: man among men

Joshua 14:10-14
"And now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive, just as he said, these forty-five years since the time that the Lord spoke this word to Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness. And now, behold, I am this day eighty-five years old. I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming. So now give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day how the Anakim were there, with great fortified cities. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as the Lord said.” Then Joshua blessed him, and he gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for an inheritance. Therefore Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this day, because he wholly followed the Lord, the God of Israel.

Caleb the son of Jephunneh was a man among men. He was strong and he used his strength to pursue God and to fell giants. He was as strong at 85 as he was at 40 and employed it for going out to war and for going to and fro back at home. He used his strength to serve his people and his God and in all boldness inquired, "Give me this hill!" He asked his commander in chief for permission, but made the request already possessing all the faith required to accomplish the task. He wanted to fell large men in large cities surrounded by even larger walls because the God he served was large. God was big to Caleb, so Caleb applied himself to big things. And he was blessed by his commander in chief in heaven above and on earth beside.

Caleb, son of Jephunneh, man of God, man among men. May God raise up more like him in our generation and may giants fall as God's glory falls on us as we lift up praise to His Name.

day no. 15,710: dry wells, swamps, and flowing rivers

While listening to Douglas Wilson's Crash Course in Basic Christianity, he commented on sanctification from the following verses:

Philippians 2:12-13
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

If we try to work out what God has not worked in, we are a DRY WELL. We cannot produce what we don't have and any increased effort to draw water from that dry well will only increase our frustration.

If we do not work out what God has worked in, we are a SWAMP. We have water in abundance, but it isn't going anywhere. It is standing water without an outlet, getting stale, and growing stagnant like manna kept overnight.

If we work out what God has worked in, we are a FLOWING RIVER. We have water flowing into us and through us and beyond us. We have living water within and living water without. It is pouring in and pouring out. The water is moving and active and lively. It continues to enter because its source is never exhausted and it has somewhere to go because its receiver is eager to share it so that everything which leaves is something that was put there originally by Someone else.

John 7:38-39
"Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive.