Reading Paul

Some time ago, I subscribed to Paul Young's blog. Paul is the author of "The Shack". It had been quite since 2007 (you think I go a long time between posts?). Suddenly, early this month, he announced 30 days of blogs which he will write on the road. While he recounts his journeys over the last month, it is interesting to watch how God works through him and how the book he wrote has worked through others.

Good news came in the mail today!

I got a letter today from a company that wants to make a plaque for me. Why? Because I was awarded Patent Number 7697503 for a Dynamic Speed Dial List. Of course, Qwest actually owns the patent but I am the inventor.

In short, Qwest would provide a service that would track the phone calls placed or received at your home, organizing them into a web accessible speed dial list that could be used easily from your computer...

If you look, the Patent was actually submitted a little over 4 years ago and was rejected once. Fortunately for me, Qwest chose to pursue the application further.

And no, I don't think I want to spend the money on the plaque...

Degrees of Separation

Exodus 20:18-19

When the people heard the thunder and the loud blast of the ram’s horn, and when they saw the flashes of lightning and the smoke billowing from the mountain, they stood at a distance, trembling with fear.

And they said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen. But don’t let God speak directly to us, or we will die!”

Deuteronomy 5:23-27

“The Lord spoke these words to all of you assembled there at the foot of the mountain. He spoke with a loud voice from the heart of the fire, surrounded by clouds and deep darkness. This was all he said at that time, and he wrote his words on two stone tablets and gave them to me.

“But when you heard the voice from the heart of the darkness, while the mountain was blazing with fire, all your tribal leaders and elders came to me. They said, ‘Look, the Lord our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice from the heart of the fire. Today we have seen that God can speak to us humans, and yet we live! But now, why should we risk death again? If the Lord our God speaks to us again, we will certainly die and be consumed by this awesome fire. Can any living thing hear the voice of the living God from the heart of the fire as we did and yet survive? Go yourself and listen to what the Lord our God says. Then come and tell us everything he tells you, and we will listen and obey.’

Deuteronomy 18:15:17

Moses continued, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. For this is what you yourselves requested of the Lord your God when you were assembled at Mount Sinai. You said, ‘Don’t let us hear the voice of the Lord our God anymore or see this blazing fire, for we will die.’

Each of these passages describe the people of Israel discovering that God can speak and fellowship with humans. Out of fear, they ask Moses to intercede for them, one "degree of separation". They asked for rules rather than relationship.

Even though we have a new intercessor (Romans 8:26-27), I wonder if we don't often choose a human intercessor rather than relationship (spiritual leaders of all sort). Have we chosen to follow some man-made set of rules rather than to foster a relationship with the triune God.

Tim Hawkins

Tim Hawkins was on the Drew Marshall Show last weekend so I thought I'd share some of the songs I enjoyed...

Good Friday Thoughts

I appreciated Baxter Kruger's thoughts on Good Friday. He writes:

I just read an essay on Jesus “absorbing the wrath of God” on the cross. It almost made me throw up. With such ease and passion and not a little patronizing the writer split Jesus’ Father into two different persons, and then ripped the Father-Son relationship apart, apparently without even knowing it, or caring. What madness. I suppose the Holy Spirit just stood there dazed wondering whose side he was supposed to join. There is something sinister about the need to have the Father vent his rage upon his own Son. And even more so when one then tries to call such an act “glorious grace.” But punishment is not forgiveness, and murder is not grace, and Jesus did not suffer the wrath of his Father, and the Holy Spirit was not torn between two lovers.

“Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and will hand Him over to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify Him, and on the third day He will be raised up.” (MT 20:18-19)

It was the human race—not the Father—who condemned his Son. We cursed him. We poured our scorn, our wrath, our rage upon Jesus. We murdered him. And Jesus deliberately submitted himself to us and to our bizarre wrongheadedness. He bore our wrath. He suffered our enmity and died in the arms of our scorn. And he was not alone. His Father and the Holy Spirit were with him. And that is just the point. In the murder of Jesus the life of the Father, Son and Spirit found its way into our greatest sin—and overcame it. The cross is not about Jesus being forsaken by his Father; it is about the Father’s Son incarnate and the One anointed in the Holy Spirit submitting himself to the darkness of the human race, and thereby establishing a relationship with us as gross sinners. In the genius of the blessed Trinity our rejection and murder of Jesus were turned into the ultimate act of acceptance and embrace. In the murder of Jesus the blessed Trinity was “absorbing the wrath of the human race,” thereby forming oneness with us in our sin, and including us in Jesus’ relationship with his Father in the Holy Spirit. That is glorious grace, and forgiveness, and atonement, and real reconciliation, and love, and holiness, and right relationship, and mercy, and judgment.

Thank you Father, Son and Spirit for loving us beyond our wildest dreams.