day no. 16,923: carefully, but Christfully

“Life without war is impossible either in nature or in grace. The basis of physical, mental, moral, and spiritual life is antagonism. This is the open fact of life.” — Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest 

Enmity is inescapable.

Life is the word we use to describe the state of conflict between forces that keep you alive and those that try to kill you.  Surrender, in this case, is death. A ceasefire is to be deceased.

Galatians 5:17

For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other:

So, keep fighting the good fight of faith and strive toward the upward calling of Christ while resisting the downward pull of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Genesis 3:15

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

God has called you to fight the seed of the serpent. He has enlisted you to march with the seed of Eve.

Romans 5:7

The carnal mind is enmity against God.

So, don't be surprised when the seed of the serpent strikes back.

Tread carefully, but tread Christfully.

Romans 16:20

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

The Church Militant marches on.

day no. 16,922: love must be served with a side of hate

"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him." — G.K. Chesterton

We should be more about what we're about than against what we're against.

We must be against some things and we must be glad we're against them, but not before we're grateful for what we're for. To be for something is to be against whatever would come against it. The love should be substantive and the hate derivative. Love must drive and hate must ride shotgun.

Revelation 2:2-6

I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.  Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate.

It is good to be against the Nicolaitanes. They must be opposed. But it is not enough to merely be against heresy, one must be for pure doctrine. Heresy hunting is a natural side effect of holding to the one, true religion, but it is a poor top priority. It can only be done rightly if done secondly.

"You cannot love a thing without wanting to fight for it. You cannot fight without something to fight for. To love a thing without wishing to fight for it is not love at all; it is lust." — G.K. Chesterton

Hate is a healthy et cetera, but a horrible main course. Love must be served with a side dish of hate, but it must be second in priority and proportion.

Psalm 97:10

Ye that love the Lord, hate evil.

If you love something, you will hate something else. It is part of the absorbed price of doing business. In our case, if you love the Lord, you must hate evil. You cannot call on Christ to save you without calling your sins insufferable.

Proverbs 8:36

He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul:

all they that hate me love death.

Again, if you love, you will hate. Here the inverse is highlighted. Those who hate God, love death. Their rejection of life drives them to delight of death.  Not only so, but they even flip the script by beginning with their hate. They love hating God and so they hate loving life. He is the Author and Creator and so they worship chaos and destruction. When you begin with hate, you loves are corrupted.

As observed above, if you begin with hate for heresy, you will not end up with a perfect love of pure doctrine. How much more so then when you begin with hating goodness do you end up with a twisted worship of wickedness.

Love and hate are inescapable and one cannot serve two masters, You will either love the one and hate the other or hate the one and love the other (Mt. 6:24).

day no. 16,921: patriarchy is not the problem... it is the solution

“It is painful, being a man, to have to assert the privilege, or the burden, which Christianity lays upon my own sex. I am crushingly aware how inadequate most of us are, in our actual and historical individualities, to fill the place prepared for us. But it is an old saying in the army that you salute the uniform not the wearer. Only one wearing the masculine uniform can (provisionally, and till the Parousia) represent the Lord to the Church: for we are all, corporately and individually, feminine to Him. We men may often make very bad priests. That is because we are insufficiently masculine. It is no cure to call in those who are not masculine at all. A given man may make a very bad husband; you cannot mend matters by trying to reverse the roles. He may make a bad male partner in a dance. The cure for that is that men should more diligently attend dancing classes; not that the ballroom should henceforward ignore distinctions of sex and treat all dancers as neuter. That would, of course, be eminently sensible, civilized, and enlightened, but, once more, ‘not near so much like a Ball.’” — C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock

The problem with men is not that they are too manly, but that they are such poor representatives of the Man, Christ Jesus. Toxic masculinity, if such a thing exists, is not the result of an excess of manliness, but rather a deficiency. It is a disease that presents where testosterone is too low not too high. That is to say, Western Civilization does not need to go on a testosterone diet, but to begin taking testosterone supplements. The regiment needs a regimen of masculinity prescribed, not extra training in sensitivity and DEI. The problem with the patriarchy of the past is not that it elevated fathers, but that the fathers were not adequately Father-like. The mess of masculinity is how effeminate it is, not how macho it is — how etiolated it is, not how saturated it is.

Men do not need lessons in femininity, they need to take masculinity more seriously.

Patriarchy is not the problem; it is the solution.

Masculinity is not toxic in excess, but in absence.

It is only scary in its scarcity.

It’s not that men should never apologize, but that they should stop apologizing for being men.

day no. 16,920: making a mess

Genesis 1:31

And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

The creation of the world was not the downgrade of the cosmos. Creating matter didn’t ruin the perfect immaterial ether anymore than Jesus was ruined by becoming fully man. Making something doesn't always make a mess of something else.

John 1:1, 14

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…  and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The stuff did not ruin the spiritual. The material did not tarnish the meta. Grace and truth are not worse for having been embodied. They are not pure as concepts, but compromised as actions. They are pristine in the packaging and devalued by being played with. Love is not worse for being displayed. Holiness is no less high for bending down low.

2 Corinthians 5:21

For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

Jesus became a man in a crib. This was not a sin.

He became sin on a cross. This saved us from ours.

day no. 16,919: authoritarian provision

Exodus 16:8

And Moses said, "This shall be, when the LORD shall give you in the evening flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to the full."

Good authors, like good fathers, don't forget to feed their children

Just think how many stories neglect the fact that its characters need to eat. The story may be compelling and the pages may turn quickly, but consider how many characters in how many stories would starve to death if they were real. How many pages have they gone without anything to eat or drink? Because they are creatures, they can be made to endure chapters of story grip without any nourishment or sleep needed to keep going. But that is because they are less than living and their authors are less than Almighty.

How many stories get caught up in the details of a battle, but forget the nourishment of the warriors? How many worlds and weapons have been provided without mention of water? How many authors forget to provide life, breath, and everything else?

Not God.

He goes to great lengths to remind us that He doesn't forget to feed His people. They may not have always liked the menu, but they didn't have to worry about the dinner bell. Our Author does not get caught up in other details only to get distracted from our basic needs.

God provides. He gives us what we need: which is a story and some bread. He gives us sleep and tense situations, He gives us climates and climaxes. We have everything we need. 

Psalm 84:11

No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.

Praise God for being a good Author and looking not only to His own interests, but also to the interests of His characters.

day no. 16,918: you sunk my censorship

“We do not need a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press.” — G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

In order to have censorship, you must have a censor. Without someone or something determining what is allowed and what is not, you cannot have censorship. The same can be said for blasphemy laws. What standard determines what cannot be said? In a sense, censorship and blasphemy laws are inescapable. Someone or something will draw the line somewhere. Things that try to go beyond that line will be hindered or altogether made to halt. The only question is what is that line and says who? There will be a standard and someone will determine it.

For too long, the media have sought to be the standard. The storytellers imagined they were authors and instead of relaying the news, they determined the narrative. Instead of reporting what happened, they tried to write what should happen. They stopped being objective by objecting to the reality they did not prefer.

"Journalism and conjuring will always be incompatible... The two trades rest on opposite principles. The whole point of being a conjurer is that you won't explain a thing that has happened; the whole point of being a journalist is that you do explain a thing that hasn't happened." — G.K. Chesterton, Magic: A Fantastic Comedy

Magicians keep the real thing secret and give you a show. Journalists give you a show by keeping everything else quiet. Magicians invent new tricks. Journalists invent the news.

day no. 16,917: peace and quiet

"I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so that my children can live in peace." — Thomas Paine

Peace is better than war, but only if it is a good peace.

"While a good peace is better than a good war, even a good war is better than a bad peace. These far-flung comparisons are nowhere so common as in the Gospels.” — G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

We must fight the good fight for the good peace. Peace without warfare is bad peace. It is compromise. It is capitulation. It is sin. Christ has called us to crush snakes and this cannot be accomplished by securing a signed affidavit from the snakes promising that they will not strike anymore.

Trouble must come if goodness has any grit. If goodness does not stand up for good things, it is not longer good... and the trouble still comes.

1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

And that ye 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.

We should want nothing more than to, as Augustine said, "Love God and do as we please." We should want this for ourselves and go to great lengths and personal discomforts to secure more of it for our posterity. We should pray for our magistrates to be less interested in everyone else's business and to be more interested in keeping the peace by keeping justice fair and swift.

1 Timothy 2:1-2

I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

Peace and quiet cannot be secured without self control from our magistrates. May God give us the faith to fight the good fight in our generation that our posterity may fight new and better battles further up and further in as Christendom conquers the world.