JFK’s diary and the “disciplined pursuit of less”

2 Corinthians 4:16-18
“We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

A diary kept by a young John F. Kennedy while he was a journalist after World War II has sold at auction for $718,750. The diary was mostly typed but includes twelve handwritten pages. In it, the twenty-eight-year-old Kennedy reflects on the devastation he saw in Berlin and questions the potential of the fledgling United Nations.

No one knew fifteen years later he would be president of the United States.

Following his service in World War II, for which he received the Navy and Marine Corp Medal for leadership and courage, Kennedy considered becoming a writer or teacher. After his older brother’s tragic death, however, his father convinced him to run for Congress. His victory in 1946 led to two terms in the Senate and his election in 1960 as the youngest president in our nation’s history. His unwavering focus on his goal explains his political success and his enduring legacy.

Greg McKeown’s bestseller, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, notes: “Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.” He notes, “If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.”

McKeown encourages us to refuse the frustration of doing everything that is popular now, choosing instead to do the right thing for the right reason at the right time. He notes that a Non-essentialist thinks almost everything is essential, while an Essentialist thinks almost everything is nonessential. To this end, he cites Socrates’ warning, “Beware the barrenness of a busy life.”

Are you struggling with such barrenness today?

God measures our temporal activities by their eternal results.

Adapted from Dr. Jim Denison | April 27, 2017

The Eagles and the Cedar
This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself will take a shoot from the very top of a cedar and plant it; I will break off a tender sprig from its topmost shoots and plant it on a high and lofty mountain. On the mountain heights of Israel I will plant it; it will produce branches and bear fruit and become a splendid cedar. Birds of every kind will nest in it; they will find shelter in the shade of its branches. All the trees of the field will know that I the LORD bring down the tall tree and make the low tree grow tall. I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. I the LORD have spoken, and I will do it.
Ezekiel 17:22-24

As in today’s world, at the time of the great prophets of the Bible the political situation was complex and often bewildering. The tiny nation of Israel, forced to make its way amidst the great powers of this world, was constantly beset by the temptation to make alliances with those powers, hoping in that way to defend themselves by pitting one against the other. The prophets, for their part, emphasized trust in God, the true Lord of history. It is easy to understand that for the “realists”, such an attitude was not even worth taking seriously.

But where is true realism found? Here, the prophet Ezekiel criticizes the attempt of the leaders of his people to find salvation by this game of alliances. He describes Babylon and Egypt as two great eagles fighting over a cedar, then a grapevine, which at the end is reduced to nothing. For Ezekiel it is obvious that all attempts to find a way out by making deals with the powerful of this world is doomed to failure from the start.

In the midst of this confusion, a different hope arises. Unexpectedly, God himself will take things in hand. God will take a small remnant of the nation (“a tender sprig”) and bring it back to its homeland, where it will take root. This tiny twig will turn into a magnificent tree, with the result that all the birds in the sky come to nest in its branches. In this way people will realize that God, and God alone, holds in his hands the keys to human history, that he is able to do wonders starting from almost nothing, whereas human power and greatness are often nothing but empty appearance.

This allegory of Ezekiel’s contains in a nutshell the divine logic that will manifest itself fully at the coming of Christ. And Jesus will use similar examples to explain the coming of God’s Reign in his person (see Mark 4:30-32).

Can I think of examples where God brings to nothing that plans of the powerful of this world?

What consequences would this conviction have for my way of living and acting?

How’s your memory?

As I get older I seem to forget more and more; people’s names, where I leave things, why I came into this room, to return phone calls and many other important, semi-important and totally unimportant things. My wife accuses me of suffering from a form of dementia she calls “Partzheimer’s.” Her point is I seem to remember what is important to me and forget what I choose to forget. That, you must remember, is her point of view.

I saw a story about a woman who lives in suburban Los Angeles. She is an administrator of a religious school and she can remember vividly every day of her life since she was 14 years old. She is able to remember many details of her life prior to age 14; however she has total recall of every event in her life since that time. She has been examined by many different experts including a group of neuroscientists. They used diaries she had from age 10 to 34. They examined her on 1,460 randomly selected days from her diaries. The article said that within seconds she could give them specific events, the order they occurred and any other details the examiner asked.

The article went on to say, “But that wasn’t all. You could give her a date, and within seconds she’d tell you what day of the week it was; not only what she did but other key events of the day,” the examiner said. Aug. 16, 1977? A Tuesday, Elvis died. May 18, 1980? A Sunday, Mount St. Helens erupted. She also quickly could come up with the day and date of noted events: the start of the Gulf War, Rodney King’s beating, Princess Diana’s death (Aug. 30 or 31, 1997, depending on France or U.S. time, she told the examiner).

I have several thoughts about this article. Some things we need to remember; some we need to forget, some we wish we could forget and many things we wish we could remember. But this lady has absolutely no choice. She remembers everything. It seems to me her picture could be placed in the dictionary next to the word “dichotomy” or “dilemma.”

I thought of the truth expressed in Isaiah 38:17, “Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish. In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put all my sins behind your back.” God never forgets anything yet for us He puts our sins behind His back. They are literally out of His sight. We all know the saying, “out of sight; out of mind.” I am so glad my sins are out of God’s mind because of what His Son did for me on the cross.

The other thought I had connected with this story relates to Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable– if anything is excellent or praiseworthy– think about such things.” The apostle Paul tells his readers they need to develop a selective thought pattern. If we dwell on the negative in our past and in our lives, we become negative. If we dwell on the positive, we will become positive. I know far too many people who focus on everything they do not have and never consider what they do have.

So, how is your memory?

Be sure to consider the lifestyle you have been given which people in other parts of the world have never experienced.

13 killed in Texas church bus crash

A bus carrying 14 senior adults from First Baptist Church of New Braunfels collided with a pickup. Thirteen bus passengers were killed. One passenger was hospitalized in critical condition; the pickup driver was hospitalized in stable condition.

The senior adults were returning from a three-day retreat at a Baptist encampment.

So far the authorities have not determined the cause of the crash. No matter who or what caused the crash, the passengers were not at fault. Yet all but one were killed.

Tragedies like this bring us to the most difficult challenge Christians face theologically. We believe that God is all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful. No other religion affirms these tenets about a personal God as fully as we do.

Since God is omniscient and not bound by time, He knew the crash would happen before it did (Psalm 139:4; 1 John 3:20). Since He is love (1 John 4:8), He would seemingly not want such a tragedy to come to His children. Since He is omnipotent (Matthew 19:26), He could have prevented the crash from occurring. The Lord who stilled the storms and raised the dead could have stopped a bus and a pickup truck from colliding.

Yet He did not.

Today there are families grieving the sudden loss of their parents and grandparents. A pastor is trying to help his congregation come to terms with a tragedy their church will obviously never forget. The rest of us will watch with sorrow for those who are suffering.

Many wonder why the God these senior adults worshiped didn’t prevent their deaths. So do I.

I often note God redeems all He forgives. I’m confident our Father will redeem for greater good even this terrible tragedy (Romans 8:18). But future hope doesn’t explain present suffering. We grieve, and we should. We ask hard questions, and we should.

But here’s what we should not do.

We need not wonder if the Christians who died yesterday share our grief or our questions. We need not wonder if God was able to redeem their suffering. One moment after they died, they stepped into heaven. When they took their last breath here, they took their first breath there. They moved instantly from our fallen world into God’s perfect paradise. Now they are more alive than we are in a world where “death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

In the face of tragedy, we have two options.

We can decide that God is not who He says He is. We can let our questions keep us from experiencing His transforming love and sustaining grace. We can trust our doubts more than we trust our Creator.

Or we can decide to have faith in our Father even when we don’t understand Him. The harder it is to trust God, the more we need to trust God.

Which option do you choose today?

Dr. Jim Denison | March 30, 2017

Your Word on Me and in Me
Deuteronomy 11:18-21
Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the LORD swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.

Word is one of the most essential terms in the Hebrew faith. God creates by His word: “By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth”. “For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.” (Psalm 33:6, 9)

When God speaks, He does something new; God offers life and His new life is brought by two “messengers”: word and breath, davar and in Hebrew. His words bring life because they give structure to the world and keep it from collapsing into itself.

God’s word is like the constants of modern physics working together in such a way the different forces (nuclear, gravitational, etc.) do not cancel one another out, but work together in equilibrium indispensable to life. The words of the Lord are law, they are right (Psalm 19), they are necessary to make the world a place fit to live.

Keeping God’s words means linking ourselves to His creative will. It means rediscovering the “wondrous deeds” (Psalm 136) God has accomplished in the past to bring His people out of slavery. For Israel getting ready to enter the Land, the book of Deuteronomy re-creates the experience of crossing the desert and exhorts the nation to humility and vigilance. “Remember from where you have come” seems to be one of the watchwords of that book: you are what you are only because God has made it possible. In the same vein, Paul will say later: “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).

Keeping God’s word means remembering our life has been made possible by a gift. We must never forget this generosity, and this is the reason why it should be written on one’s forehead, arm, heart, soul, and door.

Jewish believers are surrounded, enclosed by the words of their Creator: their minds (forehead), their strength (arm), their thoughts (heart), their personality (soul), their intimacy (doors) are all covered by the memory of the gift of life.

Paul says nothing differently when he exhorts the disciples of Jesus in similar fashion: “Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:14). Jesus is the Word coming into the world (John 1). In the New Testament, the Word enters believers so God may dwell within them: “If you keep my commands (my words), you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love” (John 15:10).

Remembering what we have received: how is this call expressed in the Book of Deuteronomy, expressed in your life as well?

By what specific ways can you express the importance of God and God’s Word in the space where you live?

Matthew 5:14-16
“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

As no darkness can be seen by anyone surrounded by light; so no trivialities can capture the attention of anyone who has his eyes on Christ.

The man who keeps his eyes upon the head and origin of the whole universe has them on virtue in all its perfection; he has them on truth, on justice, on immortality and on everything else that is good, for Christ is goodness itself.

By contrast, the fool gropes in darkness. No one who puts his lamp under a bed instead of on a lamp-stand will receive any light from it.

Gregory of Nyssa (AD 335-395)

Where is your lamp?

Act, Understand, Cooperate
Acts 15:7-9
After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.

Luke spent a long time preparing us for this chapter. From chapter 10 on, Peter, Barnabas, Paul and others have been keeping company with pagans and announcing the Good News to them.

The reader has learned in many different ways this behavior, so alarming to the other Jews, is in fact nothing but obedience to God. God is the One who is acting; God has set these men on this road and has stirred faith in non-Jews.

Questions arose from the Jews: how does this fit together with the history of our people, with our “religion”? But in the end, all these objections had little weight before Peter’s single question: “Who was I to keep God from acting?”

When they gathered in Jerusalem, it was not to decide what God had the right to do. That is not what we/they are asked to do. Our role is to discern how God is acting and to accept His action and plan.

What is revealed in Acts is God wants to enter into a relationship with all human beings. Salvation must reach the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). The reader discovers in Christ there exists a potential for all humanity to know God.

Do we think we know in advance all Christ is capable of taking on?

Do we know in advance what it means for the Gospel to be preached to every creature?

The answer of Acts is clearly “NO.” The disciples were led to take steps, like Peter’s visit to Cornelius in chapter 10, the importance and meaning of which they only realized much later.

God leads, opens up new ways, holds together what we have thought was incompatible, and it is only later an awareness of what took place is given.

Have you ever had an experience which opened you to God before you could explain the meaning of what you had experienced?

What does this require on the part of God’s co-workers?

Adapted from the Taize web-site

THE MIDDLE C OF LIFE
Hebrews 13:8
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

As we have seen so vividly in the events recorded throughout the world recently times and leaders change, Jesus Christ does not. Christ is the same all the time. He served faithfully yesterday; He serves faithfully today and He will remain faithful forever.

When Lloyd Douglas, author of The Robe and other novels, attended college, he lived in a boardinghouse. A retired, wheelchair-bound music professor resided on the first floor. Each morning Douglas would stick his head in the door of the teacher’s apartment and ask the same question, “Well, what’s the good news?” The old man would pick up his tuning fork; tap it on the side of the wheelchair, and say, “That’s middle C! It was middle C yesterday; it will be middle C tomorrow; it will be middle C a thousand years from now. The tenor upstairs sings flat. The piano across the hall is out of tune, but, my friend, that is middle C.”

Haven’t you had enough inconsistency and fluctuation in your life? Relationships change. Health changes. The weather changes. But the Lord God who rules the earth day by day and night by night is the same Jehovah who ruled the earth last night is the same Jehovah who rules it today.

He has the same convictions, same plans and same goals. He consistently displays the same love and is consistently in the same mood. He never changes. You can no more alter God than a pebble can alter the rhythm of an ocean. God is our middle C.

You and I need middle C.

We trust in Someone Who is unchanging.

He is our rock of stability in unstable times.

Aren’t you glad we don’t need to be blown about by the winds of circumstances?

Praise God! We never need to be “under the circumstances.”

Illustration from “A still point in a turning world.” (Max Lucado, Traveling Light.)

Danger in the Sphere of Influence
Leviticus 7:1-8:36; John 7:45-52

Leadership is like a bright spotlight; when the heat intensifies, it’s difficult to conceal the areas where we fail. But that’s where true character is revealed.

The Pharisees didn’t fare well with the pressure of authority. We can see why Jesus had such compassion for the masses by observing the Pharisees’ behavior in John 7. After Jesus claimed to be the source of life and ratcheted up the conflict, the Pharisees became angry. Sensing their authority was slipping, they judged Jesus before they had a chance to give Him a hearing. They intimidated Nicodemus, harshly rebuked the captains, and cursed the people: “this crowd who does not know the law is accursed!” (John 7:49).

Those who hold positions of authority have great influence. This is why bad authority can be so detrimental: “Not many should become teachers, my brother, because you know that we will receive a greater judgment” (Jas 3:1).

But influence isn’t relegated to leaders, supervisors, or pastors. Anyone who has a measure of influence over others should carefully consider how they use that trust.

When we have earthly teachers who let us down, we can turn to God, our heavenly teacher.

For those who were under the heavy hand of the Pharisees, the words of Jesus’ must have been as refreshing and soothing as the water He spoke of: “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me, and let him drink, the one who believes in me” (John 7:37-38).

How are you using your authority to lead others to Christ?

How can you seek out forgiveness from those you may have harmed?

REBECCA VAN NOORD in Connect the Testaments: A One-Year Daily Devotional with Bible Reading Plan. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.