day no. 17,003: illegalism

“When you break the big laws, you do not get freedom; you do not even get anarchy. You get the small laws.” — G.K. Chesterton, Daily News, July 29, 1905

If you will not keep a few big laws, you will be hounded by a thousand smaller ones. If you will not receive moral legislation from the hand of God, you will be pestered by a million mandates from the pens of men. 

"If men will not be governed by the Ten Commandments, they shall be governed by the ten thousand commandments." — G.K. Chesterton

A government who finds one law too few will find two too many, and yet hundreds not enough (a la Matthew Henry). Those who reject God's laws do not get no laws, but never ending legislation. Lawlessness is not a lack of legislation, but a lack of self-control in governance. Let's call it illegalism.

We will either have life through ten commandments or death by a thousand cuts.

day no. 17,002: tippie toes tip over

“Satan will not win because he has abandoned God’s tool of dominion, biblical law.” — Gary North

Submission is the engine of dominion. 

You can begin building a tower to Heaven by defiance, but you cannot finish it that way.

Psalm 119:97-100

O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day. Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts.

Only submission can stand before God. 

Only humility can reach Heaven.

Tippie toes cannot touch it.

 “We become taller when we bow.” — G.K. Chesterton

You will never get a glimpse of glory until you have bent your knee in humility.

day no. 17,001: a good ending goes on forever

"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me." — C.S. Lewis

A good cigar never goes on long enough and a good story is one that you wish would never end. All good things this side of eternity, however, must come to an end. They are no better for denying this reality. When they try to live forever, they come to a most miserable end. Few things are sadder than a story that should have ended a few chapters ago. Resurrection rules the world. Only when the grain of wheat falls to the ground can it spring up to new life. And so it is that the best stories come to an end and so they live on forever. 

John 12:24

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

The best stories have satisfying resolutions, but make you wish the tension took longer to resolve. It only feels that way, however. You would not really want the best story to keep on going. In fact, if it did, you would likely not remember it as one of your favorite stories. A good cup of coffee is not one that never ends, but one that ends well. A good cigar is not one that never stops burning, but one that you burn your fingertips on.

Ecclesiastes 3:11

God has put eternity into man's heart.

Our insatiable desire for more can only be matched by God's desire to provide for us. Glorification will include good things that just keep going. Onward and upward will be the theme of eternity. God is infinite and His glory goes on forever. We will chase and enjoy all of it and all of Him forever without ever reaching His end or Him ever running out.

A good ending goes on forever.

day no. 17,000: we cannot outpace God's grace

“Regardless of how large, your vision is too small" — Thomas Chalmers

You cannot go bigger than God. You cannot ask for more than He can do and you cannot imagine something better than He has already planned to provide.

Ephesians 3:20-21

Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

He withholds no good thing from those who love Him. 

Matthew 6:33

Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

If you put God first, you eventually get everything else.

If you put anything else first, you end up getting nothing.

Keep the King, get the kingdom.

Horde His stuff, get evicted.

Psalm 84:11

For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.

There is nothing you need that you will not have.

Psalm 16:11

Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

All the promises of God are "yes," and, "amen," in Jesus, who is the everlasting pleasure of God who sits at His right hand.

2 Corinthians 1:20

For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God 

So, dream big and work hard; you cannot outpace God's grace. You cannot outrun God's goodness. His grace goes with you wherever your feet will trod.

Mathew 28:20

Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

day no. 16,999: stand fast and stay free

“Worship is the highest form of liberal arts” — C.R. Wiley

Liberal arts are designed to set men free. They are the tools of liberty for free men and women. In that sense, they are not, in the modern use of the term, liberal at all. They are conservative in that sense for they retain the old paths of liberty and piety.

2 Corinthians 3:17

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 

Worship is a narrow door to a wide open space. Learning about the Lord opens up the possibilities. Every decision cuts you off from something. That is what the word "decide" means. But choosing God cuts you off from sin, while choosing sin cuts you off from God and the never-ending pleasures sitting at His right hand.

John 10:9

I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

Outside of Christ, there is no freedom, but with Him is deliverance and pasture to play in.

"The more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild." — G.K. Chesterton

Good things are free to go wild provided they are protected and overseen by Christ.

“I wouldn’t have felt very safe with Bacchus and all his wild girls if we’d met them without Aslan.” — C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian

Freedom is fun and forever in the backyard of our Father, but it is fleeting and finite when falling from great heights. You are free to fall, but only for so long; but you are free to play in the path of God as long as you live, which in His house is forever.

Galatians 5:1

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

Do not submit to slavery. Worship of the one, true God is the highest form of education. That said, those who should know better don't always do what they know to be better. 

Don't be that guy. 

Stand fast.

Stay free.

day no. 16,998: there are no neutral truths

“Education is not a subject, and does not deal in subjects. It is instead a transfer of a way of life." — G.K. Chesterton

The culture and commands of Christ must be communicated to our children. This is the duty of every Christian father according to the Word of God (Eph. 6:4). A Christian education will include numbers, letters, and words, but it must have more than that if it is to be Christian. A pagan can turn pages in a book as well as a believer, but a Christian must turn everything contained on those pages to the Lord.

Romans 11:36

For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

Every fact will bend its knee to Jesus. There are no neutral truths. All truth is His truth. Whatever can be known is because it has been revealed. Whatever has been revealed ought to be relayed to the next generation. This is how a culture is built up and passed along. A culture cannot survive without being transmitted and it cannot be built ex nihilo. It needs materials to work with and it needs messengers to carry it.

Every facts stands because God stands behind it.

In other words, we must be subjects before we can appreciate subjects. We must practice submission in order to fully understand subtraction. A pagan can run calculations on the three points of a triangle, but he cannot see what it all points to. That is what must be passed along so that our understanding of triangles complements our worship of the triune God who holds them in place.

day no. 16,997: eucatastrophe

“The word 'eucatastrophe' was coined by J.R.R. Tolkien, and it refers to a deliverance when all was thought to be lost. There was no possible way . . . and then the unbelievable happened.” — Douglas Wilson, Psalm 126: Like Those Who Dream

Many authors have gotten themselves in over the heads and had to heave a figurative hail mary to save their story. In fact, this phenomenon is so common, someone came up with a name for it: deus ex machina (the machine of God). Authors are better are creating rocks and hard places than they are at creating ways out from between them. It is hard to deliver someone without discounting their difficulties. It is hard to do justice to the problem and the solution. But God is not an incompetent author. He does not design rocks bigger than He can move or harder places than He can handle. The story cannot get away from Him. He is omnipresent and omnipotent. There is nowhere the story can go that is outside His jurisdiction.

"The one perfectly divine thing, the one glimpse of God's paradise given on earth, is to fight a losing battle - and not lose it." — G.K. Chesterton

A eucatastrophe is not a bail out for a brain fart. God does not dishonor the tension He created by resolving it with a solution that comes all of a sudden, unexpectedly from off screen. The Savior was foreshadowed. His crucifixion was forecast. The eleventh hour was preset. Yet, its fulfillment was still a shock. The eucatastrophe of Christ was the surprise anyone could have seen coming. It was shocking without being unsatisfying. If it felt like it was from out of nowhere, it was our fault for not paying attention and rewatching the movie reveals just how obvious the surprise should have been and how good the resolution was. In fact, the incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Christ resolves all the tension without ruining any of the plot points. In other words, it fulfills them all without abolishing any of them.

“God loves cliffhangers, and the history of the church is the process of Him teaching us how to love cliffhangers too. God is teaching us to understand eucatastrophe, and to love what we have come to understand.” — Douglas Wilson, 7 Encouraging Words in Case 2016 Has Got You Down

Courage requires something to be on the line. Sacrifice requires the loss of something. The wheat really must fall to the ground and be trampled underfoot before it can take root in resurrection. If there is no real danger, there is no real courage. The hero must for the love of life, just like the martyrs of old, be willing to die. 

“Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave.” — G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

Many storytellers desire to revive their sacrificed heroes, but only God can raise the dead for real. Too many authors cheapen their heroes sacrifices by bailing them out with coupons, but Jesus was not saved from the Cross by a salvation from off screen, He was saved from the Cross by a resurrection from the grave three days later.

“The Christian faith lives in the light of eternity, and can afford to be patient.” — Christopher Dawson

We will see many good guys go down fighting before we see all the good men rising from the dead. But between now and then, we must keep fighting the good fight ourselves. Come what may until Christ comes again.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;

  The clouds ye so much dread

Are big with mercy, and shall break

  In blessings on your head.

— William Cowper, God Moves in a Mysterious Way

So, fear not the fray, my friends. Lean into the Lord and see His salvation even if you see some trouble. See His triumph in the travail and believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

The Lord can clear the darkest skies,

Can give us day for night;

Make drops of sacred sorrow rise

To rivers of delight.

Let those that sow in sadness wait

Till the fair harvest come,

They shall confess their sheaves are great,

And shout the blessings home.

Though seed lie buried long in dust,

It shan't deceive their hope;

The precious grain can ne'er be lost,

For grace insures the crop.

— Isaac Watts, Psalm 126