Hard Baked Dirt Living

One of the last lessons we effectually learn, is that true godliness is a constant conflict in a believer’s heart–between sin and holiness.  Some sincere believers mistake a clearer view, and deeper sense of their depravity, for an actual increase of sin. The Christian seems sometimes to himself, to be growing worse, when actually it is only that he sees more clearly what in fact he really is!

In the early stages of our Christian life, we have usually but a slender acquaintance with the evil of our sinfulness, and the depravity of our heart. The mind is so much taken up with pardon and eternal life, that it is but imperfectly acquainted with those depths of deceit and wickedness, which lie hidden in itself.

At first we seem to feel as if the serpent were killed. But we soon find that he was only asleep–for by the warmth of some fiery temptation, he is revived and hisses at us again! Nothing astonishes an inexperienced believer more than the discoveries he is continually making of the evils of his heart. Corruptions which he never dreamt to be in him, are brought out by some new circumstances. It is like turning up the soil, which brings out worms and insects, which did not appear upon the surface.

Or to vary the illustration, his increasing knowledge of God’s holy nature, of the perfect law, and the example of Christ–is like opening the shutters, and letting light into a dark room, the filth of which, the inhabitant did not see until the sunbeams disclosed it to him.

John Angell James, “Christian Progress” 1853

The book of James hits us like a two by four every time we read it.  The call to right behavior is a good tool for self-examination before God.  Watch this video. There is no dialogue. It doesn’t need any.

“From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.” James 3:10

It’s been said that if you want to know where a man’s heart is, follow his wallet.  Check out a man’s spending habits and you’ll see what he values the most.

Jesus put it this way in the gospel of Matthew chapter six,  “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

As our recent financial chaos in this country can attest to - men love money.  In fact, it is the love of money that is the root of all kinds of evil according to Scripture and our Lord said that no can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

This is quite amusing when you think about it because to worship wealth is to bow down to the byproduct without recognizing the producer.  It is to pay homage to the grocery bag and banana while ignoring the one who made the fruit in the first place.

God is the source of all good things.  He is the source of all of our blessings and to miss the beauty of His glory for a mere created thing is most miserable indeed.  Why worship a penny when we have the King?

Giving in the church should be regular, proportionate, and sometimes sacrificial.  It should be done voluntarily and with great joy and seen as privilege and not a burden.  God does not want your minimum wage mentality where tithing becomes your focus and you quibble over percentages and net incomes.

We should learn to move on beyond that limited view of giving and see that our standard of giving has now become the self-giving example of Christ Himself who gave all so that others may profit.  The tithing of first fruits is merely a good base to work from but is by no means the end.

Listen to more details here when I recently preached on this often mistaught doctrine. I pray you are encouraged and challenged as I know I was by what God’s Word has to say on giving cheerfully.

It is during times like these that I wonder where we will end up by the end of the year or decade.  Our financial horizons are so pathetically entrenched in political pandering that John McCain actually looks like a conservative and Barack Obama is being heralded as some revival juggernaut while the reality is that he’s simply a liberal socialist re-presenting the same Ole anti-American nonsense that the Clinton’s tried to feed the nation before Bill was impeached.

We have homosexuals demanding equal treatment and the right to be married as if one’s sexual orientation should be their self-defining feature and marriage can mean anything else other than what God has intended.  Even mere biology attests to the fact and function of our sexual organs’ use and non-intended use and if anyone dare point out that a man’s anatomy is designed to work with a female’s body, then suddenly they are labeled intolerant and bigoted.  Strange days indeed.

Legislators can’t seem to decide if inutero-living is actually living at all or whether taxing Americans more will be a good or bad thing, as if the last century never even happened.  Babies in their mother’s womb are just that - babies in their mother’s womb; they have a seperate DNA, their own blood-type and their own heart beat. The only real debate we should be having is about how fast we should be shutting down these infanticidal murder factories and what to do with all the extra phone systems and reception room chairs that will become available from Planned Parenthood’s closure.

Madness abounds from the right and from the left as our standards are eroding in every possible arena.  The new standard in our culture seems to be that there is no standard as a post-modern feeding fetish seems to make the masses glad. Logic is an antiquated ideal that has worn out her usefulness and in her place is an emotive gelatin that neither provides vision or nutrition.

Strange and yet, predictable.  And so we stand on the fringe of uncertainty as our sight cannot tell us what the next day will bring, but then again, it never could and it never will.  These are the times when I am so glad that the One who does know tomorrow calls me Blessed.  These are the times when our glorious Savior and King shines the most brightly. These are the times when our faith is tested.

I am glad that we do not put our hope in chariots or politicians or economic markets. Instead, we put our hope in God above who never leaves us and who never forsakes us and who is orchestrating all the events of history so that His perfect work of redemption, justice, and mercy may be fulfilled as the consummated Kingdom gets closer and closer and closer.  And unlike some pop artist’s may sing, somebody did tell me there would be days like these… and for that I rejoice.  Come Lord quickly!