Your Salvation Is Not Your Own and Not Your Responsibility

What God showed me as I was looking at the Word with my wife tonight. 

It's not whether or not you are able to keep your salvation; you see, it was never yours to keep in the first place. Let me say it this way: It is NOT your responsibility to keep your salvation - you didn't save you, the Lord did. There is a reason why it is called the salvation of the Lord. Your salvation belongs to the Lord, not you. So it's whether or not Jesus will keep His salvation and that answer is found in John 10:25-30. Paraphrased: "I love you too much to let you go, and by the way, My Father loves you too much to let you go, also! You are precious to Me and I will never, ever lose you... no matter what you or anyone else does."

The Formless Void Genesis 1:2

             See the sorry state that the world was in before the work of the Lord began – it was without form, there was no shape to it and it was empty, or void. Some speculate that this is the aftermath of the fall of the angels with Lucifer in some pre-Adamic race, and that this ancient civilization was God’s first go at creating a people that would follow Him. It is here that Lucifer fell and as judgment against him and all the angels that followed him a great and terrible flood wiped the earth clean of all life, burying the ancient civilization which also included the dinosaurs. This is one interpretation of the Time Gap Theory. I no longer hold to this view – to have death and decay filling the insides of the earth and the depths of the sea and for God to call His creation “very good” (Genesis 1:31) seems like a contradiction to the character and holiness of God.

            What does this verse hold for us, though, beyond all the theological speculation? 

            What can the world do in its formless and empty state to make anything of itself? Darkness was on the face of the deep and nothing was present with which the world could use to make itself anything other than what it was – formless void filled with darkness. No purpose existed within it, and left alone nothing would ever come of it. Are we not like the earth without form and void? We desire to make something of our lives and to shape ourselves into what we would want to be, but in the end, when the final examination comes about, we will be found empty handed and meaningless on our own. But, friend, the end of the verse offers such hope! Just as God moved upon the face of the waters preparing to do something mighty, something never before seen with the earth, so God waits to move in our lives to shape us and mold us into a great and wonderful masterpiece with light and purpose! And when He is finished with us, indeed He will look at us and say, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant, it is all very good!”

            Submit yourself to the work of the Master’s Hand, follow His will through the Word of God as He leads you through life and circumstances. Let Him bring light into your dark and empty life and fill it with purpose and joy! 

Loved by God Through Genesis 1:1

            So I want to take a completely different approach to my Bible reading this time around – I want to read not to get more knowledge and theology and understanding, though all of these things will certainly be a by product of reading through the Bible – rather I want to read to know God personally – that is to know Him in a personal relationship. With this in mind, I started reading through Chapter 1 of Genesis, and the first verse itself arrested me. Genesis 1:1 says: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, so I stopped at that single verse and asked God what it was that He wanted me to get from it. 

            Whole volumes have been written on this verse, debates have spun off this that have lasted for years, and there is no sign of the debates winding down and a consensus being reached. Answer’s In Genesis, a ministry by Ken Ham that defends the creation account of Scripture bases its ministry off this verse and has a world-wide impact! People with greater knowledge and more skill and tools at their disposal have taken this verse to depths that I have never dreamt of, and seen glorious truths that just bless everyone who reads or hears them – but what does God have for me in this verse? What is God saying to me as I read it? That was my question as I pondered Genesis 1:1 as my wife drove into town for our weekly grocery trip.

            God, at are you saying to me? What do you want me to get from this verse? The answer that came back to me was simply, “Matthew, I love you.” Love? What does this verse have to do with love? Shouldn’t I go to John 3:16 to learn of God’s love or Hebrews 13:5? 1 Peter 5: 6, 7? I should, rather be getting some glorious truth of God’s omnipotence from this verse, and marvel at the creative power of the Son (John 1:1-3, Colossians 1:16)! Why does it have to do with love? Then God showed me.

            He is Omniscient. He is Creator. His Son did gloriously create all the world and the whole universe. He does own us as Creator and we do owe our allegiance to Him (to make the grandest understatement of all time), but something else is here at the beginning of the epic that is sometimes affectionately termed God’s Love Letter To Us. JESUS created us – what is the significance of this? Jesus died for us. Ok, sure, what’s the big deal, Jesus created us and Jesus would died for us, what am I missing? Let me connect the dots in this way for you – Jesus created us even though Jesus would died for us. Jesus, omniscient God, Creator, loved us so much that even though He knew that sin would reign in the human race, He still chose to create us. Still chose to give us free will to choose to love Him. Still chose to become the lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world.

            “Matthew, I love you so much that even though your sin would cost me unspeakable pain and suffering, I still created the heavens and the earth so that you could be with me for all eternity, and so I could enjoy your relationship with Me.” So while I can’t give you a theological treatise on this verse and silence the critics and debaters, I hope that perhaps I can give you a sense of God’s love for you as He showed it to me yesterday on my way into town on what will be a different and perhaps the most remarkable journey through the Word of God than I have ever had before. Thank you, Jesus.

A Long Overdue Fanfare for Stay At Home Mommies - An Ode to my beautiful wife.

My views and opinions regarding the home and biblical manhood and womanhood were greatly shaped during a 5 year period during and after college while I served under a good mentor and teacher who was also my pastor at the time. Before that time I had no real conception of any distinction between men and women in regard to how to play house together – should the wife work outside the home, should she stay at home, should the husband stay at home while the wife works? What about when children come along – is daycare an option? What do you do about schooling? Home school, public school? There are good arguments for most of these questions on either side of the aisle, and one could spend a great deal of time debating back and forth, and indeed I think that there has been a great deal of debate on this. My intent in this post, however, is not to definitively and finally settle these arguments and convince society of the one right answer (my answer) – I’ll get to that in a later post. (A much later post.

I do, however, want to bring special attention to mothers who have a child at home, a toddler in particular, and even more so if there is an “s” at the end of toddler. See, I thought I got the short end of the stick, having to get up e v e r y morning, go to work, make a living for my single income family (by choice – sometimes by making painful choices, like working two jobs), while my wife got to stay at home and relax with the kids! I mean, MAN! Or… WOMAN! That is SO UNFAIR! And all we did was eat an APPLE and we get stuck going out into the field to slave away all day and coming home with thorns and thistles stuck in our backsides. And when we come home, there’s no dinner on the table, our wives aren’t wearing perfume and decked up for our arrival, our children aren’t singing our praises as we walk through the door, rose pedals – er uh (in a more manly voice) donuts aren't floating around in the air – I mean – WHAT DO THEY DO ALL DAY, ANYWAY?

Yeah, and then I stayed home from work last Monday to give my wife a needed break from the kids and let her get away for the day (and she got AWAY FOR THE DAY! VERY FAR AWAY!), and I mean I didn’t see her not just for hours at a time, but for just about the whole day! But hey, that’s cool, I get to stay home and relax with the kids, right? Let me preface this next statement with I have a HUGE S at the end of that word up there in the previous paragraph. WRONG!!!!!! I mean – we just got done with one little girl going through the terrible twos, and the next one just entered – and… I really don’t think the terrible twos ever end, and when teenage years hit, it’s just the terrible two MATURED – that’s all, so consider “2” training for the big two digits when they hit – not that I know from experience… yet. So, I stayed home to get some R&R and WOW! R&R at our home stands for Rambunctious and Rowdy – at least that’s in my two-year-old’s dictionary for two-year-olds. And it is NONSTOP R&R! No break, I mean, you settle one down and the next one is getting into something else – you put out the fire in the potted plant and then you gotta dig a donut out of the toilet – WITH YOUR BARE HANDS, the whole while with your kid laughing thinking it’s the greatest fun they’ve every had! And once they are on the couch smiling like the little devils they are eating their yogurt and quietly watching Blue’s Clues (which I’ve suffered an irreversible mental break of becoming a fan of Blue’s Clues since then – I mean, if you can hear the word Magenta and the first thing you think of is a purple dog… you’ve got issues, man – or you’ve got toddlers – pick your poison), the 3 month old starts crying like she got to the end of the rainbow and there’s no skittles!

I told my wife, “I’m here for you, babe, but I take break at 2:15, lunch at 4:00 and my last break at 7:30.” She missed the memo on every single one of those break times – and my girls did, too. So the next day I took a vacation and went back to work to get some R&R time. I told my wife that night, and I write this to tell her again, and all of you crazy awesome moms who stay at home with your kids (whatever their ages are) – you guys (er, gals) are amazing! I told her that I thought she was unbelievably amazing to be able to do what she does with the girls every single day with no break at 2:15, lunch, and then a 7:30 break (my schedule keeps me at work until 9:00) – and then not kill the meat salesman at the door when he shows up to sell the cow that died in his back yard the day before. She is amazing. You moms are amazing to be able to go through hell and back with your kids every day and tuck them in at night, kiss them, pray with them, and love them with all your heart. SURE you have bad days – man alive – I had a bad day, and that was just the first (and last… kidding) day for me, and sure you lose it sometimes, sure you yell and punch a few holes in the wall and tear fluffy’s head off and stuff it down the garbage disposal (the toy bear that the kids are relentlessly bickering over), and not every day is like that, I know, but to get to the end of every day, and then to have a husband (sometimes) come home and not get that you’ve just been in the thick of World War Toddlers all day and ask, “So what have YOU been doing all day, I slave away at work and no dinner when I get here?” (You might want to lock away the frying pans on such nights – cause I don’t think they’ll be for cooking.) you guys rock, you have my deepest respect, my wife has my highest admiration. How do I put it except to say… you’re amazing.

So – from a husband to his wife, and to all the women out there, kudos, MAJOR KUDOS (and I don’t even know what kudos means). Keep up the fight – without the frying pans – you are some of this world's greatest unsung heroes as you invest your lives – your hearts – every ounce of your being willingly and unwillingly into and for your kids. May your husbands receive the wake-up call that I did and find ways to be a helper to you and minister to your hearts as you faithfully minister to your little ones every day. There is no more difficult task, in my opinion, no more immediately thankless task (sometimes, other times there are beautiful exceptions – like when my daughter just comes up and kisses me for no reason and says, ‘Daddy I want you.’), than to do what you do every day without a lunch break. I wish I could be more inspirational and thoughtful and motivational with this post, but here it is. (Now to go lock away those frying pans before my wife finds the de-potted plant…)