day no. 17,340: in season and out of season

“Never allow a feeling which was stirred in you in the high hour to evaporate. Don’t put your mental feet on the mantelpiece and say — “What a marvellous state of mind to be in!” Act immediately, do something, if only because you would rather not do it.” — Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest 

When we feel spiritual we don't want to do things, we want to enjoy feeling spiritual, but when we don't feel spiritual, we don't want to do things because we feel like it would be disingenuous. 

As a result, we rarely do the things God requires.

When we feel like we are on the mountaintop with Jesus, we want to enjoy being there, not going back down into the demon-possessed valley to do things. 

When we feel like we are in the demon-possessed valley, we don't want to do things because we don't feel like it.

2 Timothy 4:2

Be instant in season, out of season.

What this all amounts to is that we are going to have to obey God when we don't feel like it. We must be instant in season and out of season. We must obey when we're feeling it and when we're not. When we feel like obeying God, we need to take that energy and apply it to the next thing God has for us to do. When we don't feel like obeying God, we need to power through and obey Him anyways.

Our feelings cannot be the basis for our obedience or we will never obey.

day no. 17,339: but i repeat myself

Matthew 6:7

When ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

Repetition is not mala in se, but it can be, as Jesus points out. 

In fact, repetition is inescapable. 

So, the question then is not between vain repetition and sincere novelty, it is between vain repetition and sincere repetition. Something will be repeated. Liturgy is inescapable. The point Jesus is making is not that we must avoid repeating things, but we must avoid vainly repeating things and that we also must avoid repeating vain things. In other words, do not mindlessly adhere to orthodoxy and be careful to avoid being indoctrinated in heresy. Because repetition is given, you will either be repeating God's commands from the heart or you will be repeating them heartlessly or you will be repeating the world's pattern from the heart or by default. 

Faith has never been an accident. It requires intention and sincerity. Liturgy does not have to be hurdle to sincerity. It can be, but it isn't inevitable. In fact, sincere belief is the result of liturgy. Without repetition, you are left to novelty which is not, by definition, orthodox.

"Liturgies train our loves by aiming them toward a certain telos." — James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love

No one falls in love. Affection is not the end result of inattention. You do not "fall for" anything you haven't been preparing to embrace. You don't spend your entire life feeding an affection for virtue and then fall head over heels for vice. You do not mull over an affinity for sports cars and then fall in love with a minivan. You don't love by accident. You can fall in lust, but not in love.

How we organize our days and how we regularize our delights determines our affections. It trains our hearts in a particular direction. You do not backslide into affection. You fall, in that sense, for what you have been hoping to trip into.

"The reason culture trains our heart is that, in a sense, it is a type of liturgy." — Raymond Simmons, The Confessional County

Culture is a kind of repetition. It is a smell that always accompanies a moment, a flavor that pairs with a routine. Culture is a liturgy of livelihood. It trains our affections in a certain direction. It provides the grammar of delight and the logic of loveliness. It provides the scripts and sets the expectations. 

"You can't not love." — James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love

Love is inescapable. Liturgy is inescapable. Repetition is inescapable, .Culture is inescapable. You will love something. You will organize your days around something. Your will train your affections towards something. You will do something over and over.

"Christian culture is putting God's ethics into public action." — Raymond Simmons, The Confessional County

Christendom is Christ's commands incarnate. It is not merely private sentiment. Jesus is not only the Lord of the few inches between your ears, He is Lord and Savior of every inch inside of you and the world around you in which you live, move, and have your being.

Christendom is Christian civilization organized around a Christian calendar, fueled by a Christian culture, and built on a Christian foundation.

1 Corinthians 3:10-11

But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

day no. 17,338: necessary and ugly

“All government is an ugly necessity.” — G.K. Chesterton, The Meaning of Merry England, A Short History of England

Because of sin government is necessary and because of sin government is ugly. Without government, the world would be even uglier than it is, but government does do its own part to add to the ugly.

Romans 13:1-2

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.

It is good that powers exist. Image bearers were made to live in covenantal realities. People are molecular, not atomistic. We were made to live in relation to others, beginning first with parents and siblings, and then extending to church, neighbors, cities, counties, states, and nations. We organize ourselves into representative associations like marriage, churches, HOAs, school districts, and counties. These associations require covenants. Covenants require representatives. These things are not in themselves ugly realities, these are the beauty of God's design.

But because of sin, the reasons for these associations is often related to sin, e.g. law enforcement. And what Chesterton is pointing out is that the law enforcers are themselves lawbreakers. Those in charge of punishing sin are themselves sinners.

day no. 17,337: desperate is dangerous

Proverbs 27:7

The full soul loatheth an honeycomb;

but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.

Desperate is dangerous.

Desperate people are in danger of devouring poison.

Contented people are in danger of being devoured by desperate people, if they're not careful.

Do not get too close to someone who needs closeness too much.

Do not confide in someone who needs to be needed too much.

Do not give attention to someone who needs attention too much.

Desperate people are a danger to themselves and others.

"For you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you." — St. Augustine

Restless hearts will give you no rest if you get mixed up with them. Until they find Christ, they are not safe. They are like a drowning victim who will take down anyone who tries to help them. Unless Jesus saves their lives, they will drown and they will drown anyone else who gets too close to them.

day no. 17,336: a longhouse headache

“If there must be a head, why the man? Well, firstly, is there any very serious wish that it should be the woman?” — C.S. Lewis

Men were made to be responsible. Many do not like that and try to abdicate, but that just leaves their responsibilities to fall on others's shoulders. But whose fault is that? Men's. Men can be irresponsible, but they cannot be aresponsible. They do not have the ability to avoid that weight. And everyone knows it.

“What is called ‘matriarchy’ is simply moral anarchy, in which the mother alone remains fixed because all the fathers are fugitive and irresponsible.” — G. K. Chesterton

Matriarchy is not women ruling, it is men ruling poorly. Men cannot NOT rule. They can only rule well or not so well. The feminists know this. They hate men for leading and then they hate men for failing to lead. They do this because they hate men, not because they hate authority or responsibility. They want to separate what God has joined together. They want to possess authority without having to take responsibility. They are at war with reality. They want to live according to a new dictionary, but they want men to live according to the old one. 

They want to blast a man for opening a door for a lady and they want him to pay child support he abandons her. They want him to pay for the abortion and they want him to pay for the wedding.

day no. 17,335: kingdom building and culture shaping

"I desire my children to be educated south of the Mason Dixon line and always to retain right of domicile in the Confederate States." — J. E. B. Stuart

When you know what you want, you know what you want for your children. When you love your land, you want your children to love it and to inherit it.

"Men who raise families that remain in fidelity to tradition will end up with descendants ruling the world.” — E.H. Looney

Covenantal continuity is the key to kingdom building and culture shaping.

“People who take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants.” — Thomas Babington Macaulay

Those who despise their parents will raise children who despise them. The first commandment with a promise is, "Honor your father and mother," and anyone who fails to do so, or goes as far as to despise their fathers and mothers, not only misses out on the promise to inherit the earth, but they incur upon themselves the curses of those who rail against their God-provided patriarchs.

Proverbs 30:17

The eye that mocketh at his father, 

and despiseth to obey his mother, 

the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, 

and the young eagles shall eat it.

Those who flip off their fathers and mock their mothers end up flipping off their futures. They are the kind of people who end up being left for dead and devoured by wild animals instead of honored by their loved ones in burial. No one risks their lives to retrieve their bodies as men did for Jonathan. No one risks their heads to get a cup of cold water as men did for David. Those who disobey their parents dishonor the Lord and end up dying to the regret of no one.

day no. 17,334: chesterton's last words

“The issue is now clear. It is between light and darkness, and everyone must choose his side.” — G. K. Chesterton

These are reportedly, depending on who you talk to, either some of the last words of G.K. Chesterton, or the very last words ever sad by him. Either way, the sentiment is one of parting words.

It calls to mind the same kind of wrap up music that Solomon uses at the end of Ecclesiastes.

Ecclesiastes 12:13

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.

There is light and there is darkness and they are mutually exclusive. You must choose one or the other. To refuse to make a choice is to choose the darkness. 

Acts 17:30

God commandeth all men every where to repent.

Everyone has been commanded by God to repent. To not repent is to repent of repentance. Everyone repents of something. They either repent of their repentlessness or they repent of the idea of having to something to repent of.

“‘Have you ever noticed,’ said Dimble, ‘that the universe, and every bit of the universe is always hardening and narrowing and coming to a point?’ His wife waited as those wait who know by long experience the mental processes of the person who is talking to them. ‘I mean this,’ said Dimble in answer to the question she had not asked. ‘If you dip into any college, or school, or parish, or family – anything you like – at a given point in its history, you always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow room and contrasts weren’t quite so sharp; and that there’s going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and choices are even more momentous. Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse: the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing. The whole thing is sorting itself out all the time, coming to a point, getting sharper and harder.’” — C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength

Neutrality is not impractical, it is impossible and that fact is becoming increasingly more obvious as God continues to bring everything under one head, the Lord Jesus Christ.

"As we reject the myth of neutrality, we must remember that we are not rejecting neutrality as a bad thing, but rather as an impossible thing." — Douglas Wilson, Excused Absence

It is Christ or chaos. There is no third way. There is Christ, the Light of the World, and there is the utter darkness. Choose wisely. Choose faithfully. But you will have to choose.