day no. 17,270: thick blame sauce and thin love soup

"Faults are always thick where love is thin." — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Short accounts and long fuses are a sign that something sinister is beneath the surface. They are the pimples of the soul. Where that kind of gross is coming to the surface, a worse gross is growing in the darkened corners of the inner life. The only solution is to grow in love and that only way to grow in love is to stop focusing on what irritates you about others and to remember how irritable you can be and how loved you are by others even when you are. If you can consider how much grace it takes to put up with you, you will find the grace to put up with your annoyances with others. If you won't eat your food without a layer of thick blame sauce and a side of thin love soup, you are going to starve your soul to death. But if you realize how thin your excuses are and how thick your head is, you will begin to appreciate others. You will be forgiven and you will look to forgive others.

Luke 7:47

Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.

The one who knows that they have been forgiven much and are owed very little with go to great lengths to overlook the offenses of others and to pay the cost to love others well even when they do not deserve it... as a matter of fact, especially when they don't.

Luke 6:35

He is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.

day no. 17,269: going for the glory

“Sin is not seeking after glory, but rather falling short of it.” — Douglas Wilson, All the Condemnation

It is not a sin to strive for glory, it is a sin to fall short of the glory of God. 

Romans 3:23

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

So, you can sin by striving for a lesser glory, whether you reach it or not. If you fall short of that glory, it is not necessarily an additional sin, but it could be. If you shoot at the wrong target, you will not hit the right one, but you still might miss the wrong one.

You can sin by striving for a different glory.

You can sin by obtaining a lesser glory.

You can sin by falling short of the glory of God.

So, if you are aiming at the glory of God, the problem is not the direction you are trying to go, but the fact that you cannot get there. It is not that you are shooting at the wrong target, it is that you cannot hit the right target.

But Christ hit the target, dead center. He lived the righteous life we ought to have lived. He never missed the mark and always hit the target. Through Him the world is going to be baptized by His success. His glory is going to fill everything. The glory He obtained is going to be shared with the world until nothing no longer comes up short.

Habakkuk 2:14

For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.

So go for the glory. 

In Christ, our aims are made straight and true.

1 Corinthians 10:31

Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.

day no. 17,268: the united apostates of america

“[Modern man] says, 'Neither in religion nor morality, my friend, lie the hopes of the race, but in education.' This, clearly expressed, means, 'We cannot decide what is good, but let us give it to our children.'" ― G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

Modernity combines the modesty of open-mindedness with the hubris of heathenism. It wants everyone to disagree on the ultimate things and everyone to agree to avoid disagreeable subjects. In short, it wants a neutral space and it claims that secularism is the only thing that can provide that sanctuary. But neutrality is impossible and secularism cannot build anything. Antithesis is woven into the warp and woof of the world by God Himself (Gen. 3:15) and the United Apostates of America is living off of its inheritance from Christendom after it asked for it in advance and walked out of the house of God. But that capital will not last forever. It is being spent, not invested. It is being squandered away, not stored up. And so we are becoming increasingly morally and spiritually bankrupt and soon enough the depression is going to hit.

The prodigal sons of the republic are one step away from envying pig slop and some have already developed a taste for waste.

Luke 15:11-14

And he said, A certain man had two sons: and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.

America is like the prodigal son. She was born into a good home built upon Christian principles. And when she grew too big for her britches, she was given her portion of the fortune on demand. But the fortune was the Father's doing. She left the protection of her Father's house and began squandering her inheritance making friends with the world. But the riches, with no source now to replenish them, began to dwindle and the bank account evaporated.

This is our current cultural moment. All of our freedoms were inherited from the house in which America grew up, yet she has despised its foundation and abandoned them, wasting its riches on entertaining worldly friends. So America is poor and a famine of righteousness has begun to descend upon the land. America has not yet reached the point of want, however. She knows something is wrong and she can feel that she is broke, but hasn't hit rock bottom yet. She still refuses to turn her eyes back to her home. She still insists somehow that her upbringing is the reason she is going broke. So, rather than seeking to humbly return, she is conspiring with the world to make an assault on her former home to find more riches.

May America, like the prodigal son, find herself feeding the swine and wishing for something more, something that it used to possess, something that, Lord willing, could again be hers if she merely repented and returned in a spirit of submission.

And may the other America, the older sibling, back on the ranch, dutifully doing what has been required and enjoying the blessing of the Father's house, not resent the younger if and when she returns in humility -- for the riches she squandered, while lost opportunities, do not diminish the Father's ability to produce more.

day no. 17,267: an idiot's paradise

Then the idiot who praises,

with enthusiastic tone

All centuries but this, 

and every country but his own;

— Gilbert and Sullivan's "I've Got a Little List"

The idiot would be happy to live in any place but here at any other time. He lauds cultures of peoples he does not know and the times and places of lands he has never visited. But that is for fools. God has made each man for his own time.

Acts 17:26

God made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place.

God has called us to honor our fathers and mothers and the lands from which they came and He has called us to bless our sons and daughters by making it easy for them to honor us.

“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

The idiot ignores his present duties not only when he ignores his ancestors, but also when he obsesses over them. In the first instance, hes refuses to honor his fathers and mothers and in the second instance, he refuses to be where God has determined him to be. In his arrogance, he thinks there is another time or place that would have been better for him. He will not bloom where He has been planted.

"Men cannot give a meaning to history that they themselves lack, nor can they honor a past which indicts them for their present failures." — R.J. Rushdoony, The Biblical Philosophy of History

The idiot forsakes the present while praising the past. It is not that the past is not praiseworthy, but that he demonstrates his ignorance of their virtue by refusing to do what they did. They did not live in the past, they lived in their present and they did noble things worthy of being remembered and lauded. They did not sit around despising their circumstances. They got to work and did something worth remembering. The idiot remembers only the good that they did, but he forgets that they blessed him, their descendant, by honoring their own ancestors in working hard in their own time.

The present is always an idiot's paradise, not because there is anything particularly wrong about the present, but because the idiot thinks he can enjoy today by forsaking the past and ignoring the future.

day no. 17,266: stupid is as stupid doesn't

"This kind of thinking is not just stupid, it is wickedly stupid. It is a sin to be this stupid. You can’t be this stupid without it being at least partly your fault." — Douglas Wilson, Marriage, Miscegenation & More

Stupid is not being ignorant, stupid is knowing better and choosing poorly.

Proverbs 12:1 (ESV)

Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, 

but he who hates reproof is stupid.

The stupid person is not the one who has no idea what to do, it is the person who is told what to do, but refuses to listen. 

“Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.” — C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew (The Chronicles of Narnia, #6)

In other words, there is culpability for stupidity. You are not at fault for what you do not know per se even if you may be responsible for not knowing it. Ignorance is not an excuse, but it is a different problem than arrogance. Stupidity is arrogance. It is thinking you know better or at least refusing to think well of the wisdom of others.

Stupid is as stupid doesn't. Stupid doesn't do what it was told to do. Ignorance doesn't know what to do, arrogance refuses to do what it knows. Being stupid is being arrogant.

day no. 17,265: good doctrine and good, hard work

"What is the apostolic tradition? Work hard. Show up on time. Don’t call in sick when you aren’t. Don’t be a malingerer. In short, the apostolic tradition is not esoteric at all. Change your oil every three thousand miles. Rotate your tires.” — Douglas Wilson, Mines of Difficulty

There are few things more practical than orthodoxy. Orthopraxy is secondary to orthodoxy necessarily and in that order. Good works must follow good doctrine. They must come second as a matter of priority, but they must come after as a matter of sincerity. True faith produces real works. And what could be more practical than getting up in the morning and getting to work?

2 Thessalonians 3:6-8

Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us. For yourselves know how ye ought to follow us: for we behaved not ourselves disorderly among you; Neither did we eat any man's bread for nought; but wrought with labour and travail night and day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you:

The apostles brought the word of truth and reasoned with people regarding proper doctrine, but they did this while the behaved themselves well and conducted themselves as proper me who knew how to be value adders. They lived in such a way as to carry their own load so as to complement their message. They qualified themselves as men believed a doctrine of Christ carrying our yoke by being men who were able to help others with theirs.

day no. 17,264: church discipline is good medicine

“A church that does not practice church discipline is a church with an immune system collapse.” — Douglas Wilson, Mines of Difficulty

Sin is a given. You must budget for it. The way it ought to be dealt with it Biblically and quickly so that accounts are kept short and up to date. 

Romans 13:8

Owe no man any thing, but to love one another:

for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.

Keeping the law by loving one another is the best way to stay healthy. No one should owe anyone anything except to love one another. That means no apologies should be outstanding and no forgiveness should be withheld. 

Proverbs 3:27

Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, 

when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.

Everyone is giving and receiving what they owe one another. This will keep the sniffles away.

Church discipline is good medicine. If you get sick, it's not the end of the world if you address it. If you tolerate viruses, you could die. If you eliminate them, you can live to fight another day.

Song of Solomon 2:15

Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.

Good fences make good neighbors. Do your best to keep the foxes out of the garden. If they get in, chase them out. Little things can ruin everything. Do not sleep on small sins. Set up good guard rails and keep the good well protected inside and the bad well defended against.

A fruitful vineyard is an attractive target for sly foxes, so the better the fruit, the more attacks you can expect, but the better the defense, the safer the garden. Do as Adam ought to have done and protect the garden. Do not allow snakes to slither about and do not force your people to face them alone or allow them to think that they aren't as dangerous as they really are.