The wrong side of life

Proverbs 17:9 New International Version (NIV)

⁹ Whoever would foster love covers over an offense,
  but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.

God has told us to love one another and when we do the offenses we have committed are healed. However, if we fail to love we repeat the same mistake and separate ourselves from friends.

Flash of Genius is inspired by the true story of Dr. Robert Kearns (Greg Kinnear). After creating the intermittent windshield wiper, Kearns pitches his idea to General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. All three companies turn him down, only to steal his idea and add them to all their automobiles. Dr. Kearns decides to take on the Ford Motor Company in a legal battle that no one believes he can win.

At this point in the film, Dr. Kearns has not yet invented his famous windshield wiper. He is currently working as a mechanical engineering professor at Wayne State University. As the scene begins, Dr. Kearns is writing the word "ethics" on a chalkboard. His students enter the classroom. He turns, and says, "Morning, everybody! I want to welcome you all to the first day of the quarter for Applied Electrical Engineering. My name is Dr. Robert Kearns, and I'd like to start by talking to you about ethics."

"I can't think of a job or a career where the understanding of ethics is more important than engineering," Dr. Kearns continues. "Who designed the artificial aortic heart valve? An engineer did that. Who designed the gas chambers at Auschwitz? An engineer did that, too. One man was responsible for helping save tens of thousands of lives. Another man helped kill millions."

"Now, I don't know what any of you are going to end up doing in your lives," Dr. Kearns says, "but I can guarantee you that there will come a day when you have a decision to make. And it won't be as easy as deciding between a heart valve and a gas chamber."

Flash of Genius (Universal Pictures, 2008), directed by Marc Abraham;

We so easily step into the wrong side of life when we should be on the right path to loving others.

Listening to advice

Proverbs 19:20-21 (NIV)

20 Listen to advice and accept discipline,

    and at the end you will be counted among the wise.

21 Many are the plans in a person’s heart,

    but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.

We all may think we know what is best. We may even argue with friends or spouse, the there is always the change we could be wrong. We are to listen to advice and when we know it to be trues we are to accept it as discipline. Then our own words will become wisdom for others. Remember it never hurts to listen to advice for the person giving it may always have seen the wisdom in their words.

Some years ago, Tim Keller had a relative who never would wear a seat belt. Every time he talked to him, he would get in the car, but wouldn't wear his seat belt. We all nagged him to no avail. Then one day he got in the car and put his seat belt on right away. We said, "What happened to you?" He said, "A couple weeks ago, I went to see a friend of mine in the hospital. He was in a car crash, and he went through the windshield. He had like 200 stitches in his face. For some strange reason, ever since then, I've been having no problem buckling up."

I asked him, "Well, did you get new information? What changed you? Did you not know that people go through the windshield?" Of course I knew the answer to those questions: What happened was that an abstract proposition became connected to an actual sensory experience that is something he saw. As Jonathan Edwards used to basically say over and over again, it's only when you attach to some truth—that's when real life change occurs. Something has to become real to your heart. Then you will be changed.

God the Father

1 Peter 1:3 (NIV)

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

Peter reminds us that we have been adopted into the family of God and that we have been given a new birth of resurrection. It is being a part of this family that God is our father, just as God is the father of Christ.

In his book Delighting in the Trinity, Michael Reeves compares two ways to look at God. First, there is the common view that God is the Supreme Ruler of the Universe. Reeves contends that if God is The Ruler and the problem is that I have broken the rules, the only salvation he can offer is to forgive me and treat me as if I had kept the rules. Then he gives the following analogy:

But if that is how God is (if he is primarily the Ruler), my relationship with him can be little better than my relationship with any traffic cop. Let me put it like this: if, as never happens, some fine cop were to catch me speeding and so breaking the rules, I would be punished; if, as never happens, he failed to spot me or I managed to shake him off after an exciting car chase, I would be relieved. But in neither case would I love him. And even if, like God, he chose to let me off the hook for my law-breaking, I still would not love him. I might feel grateful, and that gratitude might be deep, but that is not at all the same thing as love. And so it is with the divine policeman: if salvation simply means him letting me off and counting me as a law-abiding citizen, then gratitude (not love) is all I have. In other words, I can never really love the God who is essentially just The Ruler. And that, ironically, means I can never keep the greatest command: to love the Lord my God.

But then Reeves offers another way, the biblical way, to think about God—consider Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and the beauty of the Triune God. Reeves write again:

It is a lane that ends happily in a very different place, with a very different sort of God. How? Well, just the fact that Jesus is "the Son" really says it all. Being a Son means he has a Father. The God he reveals is, first and foremost, a Father. "I am the way and the truth and the life," he says. "No one comes to the Father except through me" (Jn 14:6). That is who God has revealed himself to be: not first and foremost Creator or Ruler, but Father.

[Michael Reeves, Delighting in the Trinity (IVP Academic, 2012), pages 20-21]

Hebrews 10:30-31 (NIV)

Hebrews 10:30-31 (NIV)

³⁰ For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”^] and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” ³¹ It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

 

The terrors of the Lord are known both by revelation and reason. Vindictive justice is a glorious, though terrible attribute of God; it belongs to him, and he will use and execute it upon the heads of such sinners as despise his grace; he will avenge himself, and his Son, and Spirit, and covenant, upon apostates. And how dreadful then will their case be!

 

When you are in God’s hands you are at His mercy and His grace and His love.

 

 

 

Author and speaker Brennan Manning has an amazing story about how he got the name "Brennan." While growing up, his best friend was Ray. The two of them did everything together: bought a car together as teenagers, double-dated together, went to school together and so forth. They even enlisted in the Army together, went to boot camp together and fought on the frontlines together. One night while sitting in a foxhole, Brennan was reminiscing about the old days in Brooklyn while Ray listened and ate a chocolate bar. Suddenly a live grenade came into the foxhole. Ray looked at Brennan, smiled, dropped his chocolate bar and threw himself on the live grenade. It exploded, killing Ray, but Brennan's life was spared.

 

When Brennan became a priest he was instructed to take on the name of a saint. He thought of his friend, Ray Brennan. So he took on the name "Brennan." Years later he went to visit Ray's mother in Brooklyn. They sat up late one night having tea when Brennan asked her, "Do you think Ray loved me?" Mrs. Brennan got up off the couch, shook her finger in front of Brennan's face and shouted, "What more could he have done for you?" Brennan said that at that moment he experienced an epiphany. He imagined himself standing before the cross of Jesus wondering, Does God really love me? And Jesus' mother Mary pointing to her son, saying, "What more could he have done for you?"

Surrender to God

Psalm 42:8 NIV

By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life.

Things are bad, but they shall not always be so. Though affairs are now in an evil plight, they may not always be so. After the storm there will come a calm, and the prospect of this supported him when deep called unto deep.

In his book Soul Searching, Christian Smith summarized perceptions about God that are prevalent in the church and in contemporary culture. He said that most young evangelicals believed in what could best be described as "moral, therapeutic deism" (we could also call this viewpoint "the Santa Claus god").

Moral implies that God wants us to be nice. He rewards the good and withholds from the naughty.

Therapeutic means that God just wants us to be happy.

Deism means that God is distant and not involved in our daily lives. God may get involved occasionally, but on the whole, God functions like an idea not a personal being actively present in our world.

According to Smith, this is the version of God that's prevalent in our culture and in our churches. Often without realizing it, every culture quietly molds and shapes our views of God. But we can't grow in our relationship with God when we insist on relating to God as we think he should be. It's the same way in our human relationships: if I demand that you just meet my needs and conform to my assumptions about you, you will probably feel cheapened and manipulated.

That's why our surrender to God-as-he-is, as revealed in the Bible, is so important. Otherwise, we will have a god of our own imaginations—and, embarrassingly, our American god is an obese, jolly toymaker who works one day a year.

Have you surrendered to God or are you talking on life’s battles yourself?

Give thanks to The Lord

Psalm 107:1 (NIV)

1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.

The psalmist informs us to give thanks to The Lord for the many good things He has given us.

A growing body of research has tied an attitude of gratitude with a number of positive emotional and physical health benefits. A November 2010 article in The Wall Street Journal summarized the research:

Adults who frequently feel grateful have more energy, more optimism, more social connections and more happiness than those who do not, according to studies conducted over the past decade. They're also less likely to be depressed, envious, greedy, or alcoholics. They earn more money, sleep more soundly, exercise more regularly, and have greater resistance to viral infections.

Now, researchers are finding that gratitude brings similar benefits in children and adolescents. [Studies also show that] kids who feel and act grateful tend to be less materialistic, get better grades, set higher goals, complain of fewer headaches and stomach aches, and feel more satisfied with their friends, families, and schools than those who don't.

The researchers concluded, "A lot of these findings are things we learned in kindergarten or our grandmothers told us, but now we have scientific evidence to prove them …. The key is not to leave it on the Thanksgiving table."

[Melinda Beck, "Thank You. No, Thank You," The Wall Street Journal (11-23-10)]

The Bible instructs us to give thanks to The Lord and to rejoice and be happy. For God’s love endures and remains with us forever, so why should we share our thanksgiving with others.

Give thanks to The Lord

Psalm 107:1 (NIV)

1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.

The psalmist informs us to give thanks to The Lord for the many good things He has given us.

A growing body of research has tied an attitude of gratitude with a number of positive emotional and physical health benefits. A November 2010 article in The Wall Street Journal summarized the research:

Adults who frequently feel grateful have more energy, more optimism, more social connections and more happiness than those who do not, according to studies conducted over the past decade. They're also less likely to be depressed, envious, greedy, or alcoholics. They earn more money, sleep more soundly, exercise more regularly, and have greater resistance to viral infections.

Now, researchers are finding that gratitude brings similar benefits in children and adolescents. [Studies also show that] kids who feel and act grateful tend to be less materialistic, get better grades, set higher goals, complain of fewer headaches and stomach aches, and feel more satisfied with their friends, families, and schools than those who don't.

The researchers concluded, "A lot of these findings are things we learned in kindergarten or our grandmothers told us, but now we have scientific evidence to prove them …. The key is not to leave it on the Thanksgiving table."

[Melinda Beck, "Thank You. No, Thank You," The Wall Street Journal (11-23-10)]

The Bible instructs us to give thanks to The Lord and to rejoice and be happy. For God’s love endures and remains with us forever, so why should we share our thanksgiving with others.