day no. 16,536: the best heirloom

Psalm 16:5-6

The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.

The best gift our ancestors ever prepared for our generation was keeping the covenant within their own. The love of the Lord is the best heirloom. He keeps households in tact and marks off the times and places of their habitations for His glory and their good. Those born under the covenant call themselves blessed and thank God for the privileges provided to them by it.

day no. 16,535: take heart. give courage. get to work.

1 Thessalonians 5:11

Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up, just as you also are doing.

Take heart.

Give courage.

Get to work.

In faith, inspire courageous boldness in one another and get to building.

Edify.

Construct.

Build up.

Work by His Spirit and according to His blueprints.

2 Thessalonians 3:13

But ye, brethren, be not weary in well doing.

And whatever you do, don't give up.

day no. 16,534: engaging, not assuaging

The church should be engaging culture, not assuaging it. That is to say, it should be dictating to the world the commands of its King instead of listening to the world’s demands. The church needs to learn what others already know: you never negotiate with terrorists. 

Matthew 28:18-20

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

The church does not need to be more responsive to the world; it needs to take more initiative toward it. We are the teachers, not the students. We shouldn't be taking notes from the world on how to win their respect. We should be delivering summons to the world demanding that they stand down and pay their respects to Christ before it's too late.

James 4:4

Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

enmity

The world hates us and we should fight back by loving it. We do not love the world by loving what it loves. A father who withholds discipline hates his child and a church that withholds correction hates the world. If the church is to love the world, it must begin by instructing it, not earning degrees from it. The approval of God in Christ should be taught instead of the approval of the world being sought.

day no. 16,533: packed full and overflowing

Proverbs 24:3-4

Through wisdom is an house builded;

And by understanding it is established:

And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled

With all precious and pleasant riches.

A wise house is a full house. It is jam packed. Its calendars, rooms, lives, and hearts and are full. Everywhere the wise go and whatever they do, they find God filling it up to overflowing, more grace than can be gathered up.

John 1:16

And of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.

The good life of grace by faith in Christ alone is grace-packed the way that summer movies are action-packed.

day no. 16,532: apostolic parenting

Paul provides a preview of Christian parenting and it’s results in his letter to the saints at Thessalonica. As converts to the Christian faith, they did not have Christian parents so the apostle had to play both roles. They were the first generation of believers, but were given an example in the Apostle Paul of how to raise the next generation to believe.

1 Thessalonians 2:7

But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children.

Children need to be nourished and cherished. They need someone to gently be with and for them. They must be nursed on pure, spiritual milk so that they might grow up to consume spiritual meat. They need their meat cut up for them in the meantime and the love of a mother gladly assumes that responsibility.

1 Thessalonians 2:11-12

As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children, That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory.

Fathers provide the means that provide the nourishment. They bring home the goods that mothers turn into good meals. But fathers do not merely play support to the mother's role. They lead in breathing courage into their children. They rally the troops and given the charge that inspires young hearts to rise up and follow. Fathers set and enforce the standards. They provide consistent discipline through their constant vigilance.

1 Thessalonians 2:13

For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.

The goal is not merely that the child would honor and respect their father and mother, but that they would honor and respect their Father in heaven by honoring and respecting the earthly father and mother that God gave to them. The goal isn't merely to follow the standard, but to love it. The aim is not simply conformity in conduct, but purity in belief.

1 Thessalonians 4:8

He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit.

As a result, if a child rejects the counsel of his or her Christian parents, the child is not just rejecting his or her parents, but is found to be rejecting God. Parents are ambassadors for Jesus deployed by the Father. Parents are like private missionaries sent on behalf of the King to His tiniest subjects.

1 Thessalonians 4:1

Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.

Parents, like Christ, are easily pleased and impossible to satisfy. A father delights over his toddler's first mumbled words, but would be hard pressed to be content with the inarticulate ramblings of his teenager. A mother might rejoice over her daughter's first attempts at steps, but would not be satisfied if she walked that way down the aisle. Because God loves us, He cannot be content with out immaturity; but because He loves us, He is always cheering for us right where we are.

1 Thessalonians 4:10

And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more.

The result of Christian parenting is Christian children. And just as the Father calls us ever onward and upward, to Narnia and the North, so a parent never stops wanting what's best for their child. They never cease hoping for more and more.

In summary, all Christians are children of God. Those to whom God gives children should expect Christian parenting to do for their children what God has already done for them. We see this played out in the Apostle Paul's parenting of the Thessalonians and trust that it was paid forward in their parenting of the children God gave them.

1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

Study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you; that ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing.

By covenant, we keep those within and gain some from without and in due time conquer the world for Christ and kingdom, King and Christendom.

day no. 16,531: Christian work

"The only Christian work is good work well done. Let the Church see to it that the workers are Christian people and do their work well, as to God: then all the work will be Christian work, whether it is church embroidery, or sewage farming." — Dorothy Sayers, Why Work

Christian work is defined by the direct object and the adverb.

It is Christian to hate. In fact, hate is a good work that Christians are required to engage in. Christians are commanded to hate evil. That is a good work prepared beforehand that we should walk in it.

It is Christian to love. It is required. Unless, of course, it is the love of money. That is forbidden. A Christian cannot love lucre for that is the root of all kinds of other evils. So, the direct object defines if the nature of the verb as Christian.

It can be Christian to hate and Christian to love depending on what you hate or love. You cannot hate God or love wickedness. That is not Christian. But you cannot NOT love God or hate sin. That is required and Christianity 101.

It is Christian to give cheerily, forgive immediately, obey thoroughly, plan faithfully, wait hopefully, etc... God does not merely command the what, but the how. He says what to do (verb) and to what to do it (direct object), but He also instructs for whom it should be done (indirect object) and how it should be done (adverb). In other words, God is involved in all the words. God controls all the parts of speech. God is in the grammar. He directs the subject to act in a particular way to a particular end for particular people.

God commands to our weakness and for the benefit of others. That means He tells us to do things we were not going to do without being told. He tells us a way of doing them we weren't going to employ. It also means our neighbor really needs us to do these things in His way for them. Others are ministered to through our obedience to Christ's verbs and adverbs.

There is a Christian way (adverb) to do any lawful work. Christian work is not simply work that only Christians can do (evangelism, ministry, preaching, etc...), but all good work done with a Christ-like spirit. Of course, we must engage in the uniquely Christian vocations of evangelism and Christian education, etc... but we must not neglect to drive to work in a Christian way and pay our bills like ones who worship the Lord.

day no. 16,530: lost in translation

"A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things." — Herman Melville

You can win a spelling bee and fail a philosophy final. It is easy to assume that an ability to pronounce large words translates into an understanding of large concepts, but it doesn't. A parrot can be taught to say, "Amen," but cannot be trusted to make intercession. A clever child might say, "red light," but should not, therefore, be permitted to drive. Just because the kid can count to ten doesn't mean you should let them do your taxes.

"If you say, 'The social utility of the indeterminate sentence is recognized by all criminologists as a part of our sociological evolution towards a more humane and scientific view of punishment,' you can go on talking like that for hours with hardly a movement of the gray matter inside your skull. But if you begin, 'I wish Jones to go to gaol and Brown to say when Jones shall come out,' you will discover, with a thrill of horror, that you are obliged to think. The long words are not the hard words, it is the short words that are hard. There is much more metaphysical subtlety in the word 'damn' than in the word 'degeneration.'" — G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Large words sometimes require the least amount of intellect. They may take a bit of skill to pronounce, but it does not require any sentience to pronounce them as law. Legalese may the jargon of the jurisdiction, but it doesn't require any sense of justice to repeat it.