Tried With Fire

The full glory of His person as Son of God and Son of man shall be manifested when He shall be beheld upon the throne of God. He who once appeared as the sacrificed and slaughtered Lamb shall reign with supreme authority—the blessed and only potentate, king of kings and Lord of lords! It is the throne of God and of the Lamb. The power thus conferred upon Him, the Lamb, not only possesses by right and title, but He exercises it in deed and in truth. “All power,” said our risen Redeemer, “is given unto Me in heaven and in earth.” He rules now with unlimited sway and the scepter of His kingdom is a right scepter. As Joseph was exalted in Egypt and Pharaoh said, “See, I have set you over all the land and the people cried before him and bowed the knee; and he made him ruler over all the land of Egypt,” even so we read of Jesus, “God also has highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and that every tongue should confe...

There was a time when the book of Revelation was my least favorite book of the Bible. I thought its main message was to foretell all the horrible things that would happen before Jesus comes back, and those horrors would be my fate unless I achieved a certain level of spirituality whereby God would deem me mature enough to escape them. Cold comfort, indeed! At least, Revelation was at the end of the Bible so I could avoid reading it as long as possible. But what a terrible state to be in. I had no assurance as to my salvation. God and His gospel seemed weak and ineffectual, and I was afraid to read part of the Bible. But I couldn't be more wrong. The gospel isn't the power of God to just get me in the door and then the rest is up to me. What Christ has accomplished covers the beginning, middle, and end of my Christian life. I am not living in a dualistic Star-Wars-like universe where good and evil battle one another on a level playing field. Who in his right mind would cont...

“They shall see His face.” The word, “see” sounds in my ears with a clear, full, melodious note. I think we see but little here. This indeed, is not the world of sight—“we walk by faith, not by sight.” Around us all is mist and cloud; what we do see, we see only as if men were trees walking. If ever we get a glimpse of the spirit-world, it is like yonder momentary lightning flash in the darkness of the tempest which opens for an instant the gates of heaven, and in the twinkling of an eye they are closed again. And then the darkness is denser than before, as if it were enough for us poor mortals to know that there is a brightness denied to us as yet.  The saints see the face of Jesus in heaven because they are purified from sin. The pure in heart are blessed, they shall see God, and none others. It is because of our impurity which still remains, that we cannot as yet see His face, but their eyes are touched with eye salve, and therefore they see... But up yonder they no...

When I read Hidden Figures , it was eye-opening in more ways than one. In addition to the story of the three main characters, I received a brief lesson in civil rights history. During World War II, Virginia was in the bottom 25% of teacher's salaries. Black teachers earned half that amount. 1  Even though Supreme Court ruled in 1936 against racial discrimination in graduate admissions, the Commonwealth still found a way to maintain segregation. A voucher program was created to subsidize graduate tuition for black students in any state  but  Virginia. This program was in place until 1950. 2  These facts were asides within the larger narrative, but they still shocked me. As a child of immigrants, I know the value and power of education. It enabled my family to make a fresh start in a foreign land that is now our home. I've never been denied access to education because of my ethnicity or gender. But I've been sheltered in that regard. There are places in the wo...

Cranford is one my favorite novels. It's a charming work set in a small town in England in the 19th century and contains all the ingredients an Anglophile like me could possibly want. But in addition, the author, Elizabeth Gaskell , paints an accurate picture of the class system that was entrenched in society. Perhaps that is why I love her character Captain Brown because he defied those conventions. He had to make do on a very limited income but was unashamed and kind to all people regardless of their class. He helped a poor woman carry her meal from the communal bakehouse to her home and did not apologize for this act, even though the Cranford gentry thought he committed a grave social faux pas. Given the influence of the past, I can't help but wonder if we inherited some of those same classist ideas. We ape our betters by trying to keep up with the Joneses. We pretend we live in a world where everyone is middle class and no one we know (especially not us!) is living from p...

"Even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you. I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you."—Isaiah 46:4. The doctrine of the text I hold to be , the constancy of God's love, its perpetuity, and its unchangeable nature. God declares that he is not simply the God of the young saint; that he is not simply the God of the middle-aged saint: but that he is the God of the saints in all their ages from the cradle to the tomb. "Even to old age I am he;" or, as Lowth beautifully and more properly translates it: "Even to old age I am the same, and even to hoary hairs will I carry you." The doctrine, then is twofold: that God himself is the same , whatever may be our age; and that God's dealings towards us , both in providence and in grace, his carryings and his deliverings, are alike unchanged ... They testify that the God of their youth is the God of their later years. They own that Christ "ha...

"Having the maximum amount of minimalism is the key to being a good minimalist."

There's always been a level of syncretism in this nation where Christianity and patriotism become so intertwined that America begins to don the mantle as God's chosen people. Maybe it's just me, but it seems to be on the rise again. Thus I found this quote from George Marsden very interesting: 1 America's religious heritage also contributed to a sort of deification of the national enterprise. In recent years, this tendency, first seen during the American Revolution, has been tagged "civil religion." Civil religion is the attributing of sacred character to the nation itself. Throughout history rulers had claimed divine sanction either by saying they themselves were divine (as Roman emperors did) or that they were chosen by the God or gods of the nation... But now America had a problem. How could they claim religious sanction for their nation? Thomas Paine, for instance, was a notorious infidel. After the Revolution he authored scathing attacks on Christian...

I had several hours last Friday morning with nothing to do but read. What a treat! So I started reading  Religion and American Culture by George Marsden, which was languishing in my to-be-read stack. The main reason I read history is to try to understand why we think the way we do today, and this book did not disappoint. The following quote is from chapter 3 - Protestant and Progressive America: 1860-1917 : The standard view, still taught in both college economic texts and in popular literature after the Civil War, was built upon the premise that God created the world with a system of rewards and punishments. People who worked were rewarded, while lazy or profligate people suffered from poverty. The right to own private property was considered a sacred right, since it was essential to the operation of the reward system. It was important also not to interfere with the natural mechanism, as in strikes or government interference. Charity was an important duty toward the truly ...

“I cried unto God...You led Your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.” Psalm 77:1-20 Here is the question, Will the Lord cast off forever? He may put His child aside for a moment, but can He quite forget? Can He quite leave? Can He ever cast off those that are His own beloved? Will He be favorable no more? He has said, “For a small moment have I forsaken you,” but will He make that small moment into forever? I know He turns a deaf ear to His people for a moment— but will He never hear prayer again? Has He not said that He is a God that hears prayer? Is His mercy clean gone forever? Oh, it is a grand thing when a man says—“Can it be that God has left off being merciful? Is not His very name, ‘Love’?” That is His very nature. He delights in mercy—can it be true that God has left off His mercy? It cannot be! Is His mercy clean gone forever? Does His promise fail forevermore? Another question—Can it be that God won’t keep His Word? Will His promise be broken? I know ...

pg. 49 "Any experience of vulnerability without authority is painful, but the deepest and most intractable examples of suffering are communal and multigenerational. ... even if you are personally materially well-off, if your community is mired in suffering - if your parents, people and nation have known little for generations but enforced helplessness due to tragedy and injustice - then you are not free from the oppressive reality of suffering. And this kind of suffering is far deeper, and far less tractable than the suffering all of us experience a individuals - because simply escaping it as an individual does nothing to change the fundamental systems of vulnerability without authority. " Strong and Weak, Andy Crouch, InterVarsity Press, 2016, pp. 60-61. (italics mine)