Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light - Matthew 11: 28 - 30

Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth - Psalm 46:10

So if we're not supposed to strive and carry burdens on our own what are we supposed to do?

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. - Hebrews 12:1-3

Unreasonable faith

"Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, so that you will be tested, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life." - Revelation 2:10

How should we answer the most important questions in life? And how should we choose our path?

If you think about it, no matter how intelligent you are there will always be someone smarter than you.

So to answer the most important questions in life if the answers can be intellectually discerned then we just need to find the smartest person on earth and ask her or him.

I believe God gave us a brain for a reason and we are supposed to use it to reason with ourselves and with other believers but not to reason someone into faith in Christ or to allow ourselves to be reasoned out of our faith in Christ. There are lots of things to be reasonable about but there are times when we are to be unreasonable.

And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. 

I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away - 1 Corinthians 2:1-6

Even a serpent was able to reason Eve out of following God's commandments:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” 

The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’”  

The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die!" - Genesis 3:1-4

Doubt is powerful and it can cause our minds to waver but having faith in Christ and in His Word is a powerful shield. In this area its more important to be faithful until death than to be reasonable.

Caffè Americano

¹ 

Who has believed our message?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

² For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,
And like a root out of parched ground;
He has no stately form or majesty
That we should look upon Him,
Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.

³ He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

⁴ Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.

⁵ But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.

- Isaiah 53:1-5

My four year old daughter asked me today to make her a coffee. "But don't put any of that bad stuff that you put in it last time"

That "bad stuff" that I put in it was coffee. She wanted milk and french vanilla creamer and I put the smallest bit of coffee in it and it really bothered her.

Anyways today I made her a "coffee" that was just milk with french vanilla creamer.

I think Christianity in North America is a bit like this. Some people want to be Christians without any trouble, trials or tribulation. Trouble in this world would be hard enough on its own, it would be extremely disheartening if you expected it to be all sugary.

One of my sisters once said to me, "I think God is more concerned with our character than our happiness". Things might make more sense looking at our lives in this world through that lens.  

Thankfully Christ has overcome the world.

Weeds

Luke 13:6-9 NASB

And He  began  telling this parable: "A man had a fig tree which had been planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and did not find any.  And he said to the vineyard-keeper, 'Behold, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding any. Cut it down! Why does it even use up the ground?'  And he answered and said to him, 'Let it alone, sir, for this year too, until I dig around it and put in fertilizer;  and if it bears fruit next year, fine; but if not, cut it down.'"

For two years after our house was built we didn't have a lawn. The house ended up costing more than was expected and so we had to save up to complete the work. Last fall we finally planted the lawn.

We fertilized the lawn in the spring and I expected it to take off but it didn't. Instead it barely grew and began to take on this unhealthy looking yellow colour. This became even more obvious when my neighbour fertilized his lawn and there was this stark difference in the colour of our lawns. Added to this problem was we have a small strip of unfinished lawn at the back of our yard near the back fence that is full of weeds. The weeds were spreading out of that area into my sparse, unhealthy, stunted lawn.

Now I know we're supposed to pray for great things like healing for a friend, for God's will in our lives and for the peace of Jeruraslem but sometimes I catch myself praying for trivial things like for God to remove the weeds from my lawn. I'm not talking about dandelions and clover I'm talking about horsetail and thistles and weeds I've never seen before.

The way God answered my prayer was to tell me that the weeds are growing because there is room for them, there's room for them because my lawn isn't growing, my lawn isn't growing because it's not healthy, its unhealthy because its starving.

This made me think about my spiritual life and the question that my pastor asked in a sermon.

"Are you stunted or are you growing?"

This was a really good message for me right now because I was feeling a bit stunted and if I think about the root cause it was that I wasn't reading God's word enough. I was spending too much time doing other things. I'll give you a picture that I shared in Kid's church some years ago. We set up a glass of water in the sink and I let a few drops of food colouring fall into the glass.

Can you imagine what that would look like?

If you want to get that colouring out of the water without dumping the glass of water I am only aware of one way. I was hoping to find a drop of some chemical that would instantly change it clear again but as far as google is aware that chemical doesn't exist.

We put the glass under the faucet and ran clean water into the glass. It takes a lot longer than you might think to change that water to clear again.

The question I have is if I account for the hours in my day and the days in my week how much time do I spend putting things in my heart that are not helpful and how much time do I spend reading God's Word and in prayer?

Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good, pleasing and perfect will - Romans 12:2

Guard your heart for it is a wellspring of life.

Veritas

How important is it that we debate some doctrines?

I understand that there are certain essential doctrines such as the Deity of Christ and that the bible is the inspired word of God but what about, for instance, pre-destination and free will?

In my experience a lot of people are willing to vigorously debate these two topics and I wonder if it's fruitful?

I heard about a young girl who goes to a Christian school and one of her teachers was so focused on proving one side or the other of the pre-destination / free will debate that now this young girl has questioned her faith and says she no longer believes. I realize there are a lot more contributing factors to consider but it raises the question.

To what end?

I don't think it's possible to find two Christians who believe exactly the same way about every single topic so that means either we are all wrong about something or we are all wrong about something except for one single Christian who is right about everything. I'm sure we'd all like to believe we are that one perfectly correct individual but I've come to grips with the fact that its not me.

I'm content to know the One who is the Truth and that His Word is Truth.

And that He was crucified for me so that one day I will know just as I am known.

The idea formally known as "love"

Do you know that there is no english word for the idea of love?

Now that might seem like a strange thing to say because I just used an english word there but if I was to use that word in a sentence you would have no idea what I was talking about without reading the context.

For example you might say you love your best friend or your wife or husband or your mobile phone. As an aside, if you do love your mobile phone I would prefer you don't use the word "love" instead say "luv" or simply use a little heart icon that way everyone will know what you are talking about and that you are thirteen years old.

Anyways, that's not the idea I'm talking about, I'm talking about unconditional love. Do you think you love anyone unconditionally? If you said "yes" without much thought I submit you have no idea what I'm talking about.

If the object of your love wronged you, hated you, dreadfully mistreated you and selfishly used you and still you held out your love receiving nothing in return that's what I'm talking about. That's how God loves us.

God doesn't love us more when we feel like we're good or obedient. He doesn't love us less when we've messed up. He loves us exactly the same.

Unconditionally.

In fact "God demonstrates His love for us in this, while we were still sinners Christ died for us". If God has poured out His love in our hearts like that what should we do with it?

Midnight

An elder in our congregation spoke recently on the parable of the ten virgins. I am familiar with the parable so I thought it would be nothing new but he highlighted something I have never noticed before.

I've always noticed the difference between the wise and foolish virgins but I missed what was the same.

Can you guess?

They were all asleep.

Matthew 25:1-13 NIV
"At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.  Five of them were foolish and five were wise.

The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them.  The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps.  The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

At midnight the cry rang out: 'Here's the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!'  Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps.  The foolish ones said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.'  'No,' they replied, 'there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.'  But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.

Later the others also came. 'Lord, Lord,' they said, 'open the door for us!'  But he replied, 'Truly I tell you, I don't know you.'  Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour."

In this time and place, could it be that we are asleep? If so, it doesn't sound like a bad thing as long as we're ready.

What are the jars of oil?... What is the lamp?...  How is it filled?... And what is trimmed away?...