John 1:39-42a

Here we see a very important fact. As it was written from of old, “It is not good for man to be alone.” (Genesis 2:18). Further, as the Psalmist writes, “what is so good or so pleasant as for brothers to dwell together in unity.” (Psalm 132:1 LXX). Even in the Book of Hebrews, we read about the importance of not forsaking the assembling together as so many have. Thus Andrew, having spent the day abiding with the Messiah quickly rushes to tell his brother, Simon.

And notice with what zeal he proclaims this to his brother, Simon. With no fear of rejection, although one would assume that such a proclamation would in fact evoke such. With no fear of mockery, nary a shred of doubt. He neither states, “I think that we have found,” nor “we have found a man who claims,” but instead, “we have found Him, you must come.” And notice also that it neither states that he spent the evening debating or persuading him, arguing pettily over minor nuances or details, but that with that same assurance of faith, he brings Simon to Jesus; to allow Jesus Himself to convince him of who He is.

I think of our approach in this generation. I think of the countless hours we spend arguing and debating these small matters. But consider, our goal is not to coerce, but merely to offer. A man starving for food need not be convinced to partake of a meal offered to him, neither need a man hungering for God need be convinced to come to Him when the means by which to do so is offered. Our goal should never be to convince an unbeliever to cast down their beliefs and pick up their cross. Phillip Yancey once said that “No one ever converted to Christianity because they lost the argument.” And that is very wise advice that we seem to have forsaken. No, our goal is not to “win the argument,” but rather it should be to display the love and peace and contentment in our hearts that Jesus offers us; and to offer those very traits to all those who see us. Our goal should be to live a life that makes people question how we are able to live in such peace and contentment in this world, and then to answer the question that they will inevitably ask as to the reason and the source of our hope. Not to convince them that Jesus is that reason, but to explain that He is that reason and then bring them to Him so that they can see for themselves.

And when we bring people into our Church, we must be mindful of what we are bringing them into. Scripture describes it as a “sacred assembly of the saints,” being “surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.” So many of our church services are akin to lecture halls and theology classes. When someone comes into our Church for the first time, are they being brought into a situation where they must sit and listen to someone preaching words of human wisdom and interpretation for an hour, or are they being overwhelmed by the presence and glory of entering into worship with the heavenly hosts, joining the choirs of angels singing and praising His all-holy and honorable and majestic name. When we invite someone to come to our Church, they should leave having experienced something beyond comprehension; not reeling from words of human wisdom being spoken at length for the better part of an hour. Consider what you leave a Sunday service talking about; now consider that is the focal point of the service. Is it the sermon; is it the interpretation of whatever words of whatever verse that you are overwhelmed with; or is it the overwhelming feeling of having entered the presence of God and worshiped Him with the angels and the “cloud of witnesses.” Notice that Andrew doesn’t take Simon to John the Baptist to explain who Jesus is; he takes him to Jesus Himself. Because anything that John could say would pale in comparison to being in the presence of Jesus.

My brothers and sisters, so often we become so prideful. So often we consider our clever arguments and debates, our words of the wisdom of the age, to be more potent than the presence of Jesus. We consider our “new and innovative” ideas to be more impressive than the sheer power of the Gospel itself. We consider that we are better able to lead people to Jesus than Jesus Himself is. St Paul himself writes that “I did not come to you with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified…my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom.” (1 Corinthians 2:1-2,4). When we presume to use our own clever words and arguments to lead others to salvation, in reality, we are leading them to ourselves. We are feeding our own pride rather than truly seeking the salvation of their souls. We must instead, as Andrew did, lead others to Christ and allow His power to save them. And that not through persuasive arguments and debates, but rather simply through displaying His love through our own love and leading them when they hunger for that peace and contentment. How are we able to live through the perils of this world at true peace; because we know the love and peace, the contentment of Jesus. Through exemplifying this life, we display that peace and love to the world, and they will either seek it, or hate us for having found it. Those who seek it, we should lead to the source of it, those who despise it, we should continue to love them, never arguing with them, but heeding Paul’s admonishment to, “have nothing to do with stupid senseless controversies, knowing that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to everyone, able to teach, and patient when wronged.” (2 Timothy 2:23-24).

May we, my brothers and sisters, always remember this. May we never argue with those who do not believe, but rather live a life that makes others look to us and long for the grace, for the peace, for the love which we have received through our Lord Jesus. May we who bare His name live lives worthy of baring the name of He who was praying for the forgiveness of the very men who were driving nails through His hands to crucify Him, and may we do the same. May our lives be characterized by mercy, love, grace, compassion, peace, contentment, regardless of our circumstances; and may those traits alone help us bring many to hunger for Christ. And when they have hungered for Him, may we bring them to Him, not merely to words of human wisdom.

May the peace of the Lord be with you all, my beloved family.

John 1:38

Herein we see a very important challenge to our own faith, as through this question which our Beloved Lord poses to the disciples. The disciples, having at his behest departed from John, turn instead to follow Christ. And, the apostle tells us, whence Jesus sees this, He asks them a simple question. “What do you seek?” Wherefore is it that He who knows the very depths of our souls and hearts, He Who was from the beginning and shall always be, He who weaved together all things, would ask this of them? Would He not already know the answer. Of course He would, thus we must understand that it was not for His own sake that He poses this question to the disciples, but rather, for theirs. And, ultimately, for ours. See, Jesus didn’t ask this question to fill His own ignorance, for He has none, but rather so that the disciples could truly search the depths of their own souls to determine what they truly were seeking after. And, so often, we must do the same. We must ask ourselves this question so that we can truly become familiar with the answer.

See, there is this recurring theme all throughout Jesus’ earthly ministry. In the Gospel of St Luke, we read the words of Jesus, “If anyone comes after Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brother and sister, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26-27). In St Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus proclaims, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers? Whoever does the will of My Father in Heaven is My mother and brother and sister.” (Matthew 12:48,50). It’s not that we are to hate anyone, but rather that we must be willing to sacrifice whatever it costs to be His disciple, and in order to truly do that, we must understand what we are actually seeking after first. All throughout His ministry, He beckons us to “count the cost” of being His disciple. He compares it to building a tower. And, He teaches us, that no one would begin to build a tower unless they had first counted the cost of doing so, otherwise it might go unfinished and they would thus be mocked. Or of a king, going to war, who would first sit down and take counsel before he goes to war. In both of these situations, the first step of determining the cost of something is figuring out the goal. The king going to war would determine what he was seeking after before he decided to go to war, and then weigh the cost of doing so with the potential gain. Thus, for us to be able to determine if it is truly worth it for us to become His disciple, we must determine what we are seeking.

In the West, our modern theology has taught us that mere intellectual assent is all that is necessary to find salvation in the Lord. It has become so popular for the very reason that it is so easy. And, regretfully, this theology has gained so much popularity that it has crept into even the most conservative of our churches. And yet, when we look into Scripture, what do we truly see? James tells us that even the very demons believe, and tremble (James 2:19). We’ve been taught that if you merely proclaim that Jesus is Lord, then you will be saved. And yet, Paul, quoting from Isaiah, tells us that “every knee shall bow and every tongue confess.” (Romans 14:11, quoting Isaiah 45:23). Meditate on this for a moment; Jesus warns us that “small and narrow is the way which will lead to life” (Matthew 7:14). We need to consider whether our faith is on that small and narrow way, or if it’s on the easy and broad path; remembering that even demons believe and every knee will bow.

Which brings us to this. If even the demons believe and tremble at the name of Jesus, then merely believing in Jesus can not be enough. If every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, then merely proclaiming Jesus as Lord is not enough. Paul tells us that we are saved by grace through faith for good works, and James tells us that faith without works is dead. Jesus Himself tells us that “His mother and brother and sister are those who hear the word of God and does it.” He tells us “if you love Me, keep My commandments.” (John 14:15). In fact, in chapter 14 of John’s Gospel, Jesus tells us three times that to love Him is to obey Him.

So, in doing so, we must look at something. Jesus tells us that the two most important commandments are, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and might,” (Deuteronomy 6:5; Mark 12:30) and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:18; Mark 12:31). So, looking back at what we have already noted, when we place family, security, money, vanity, etc. before the Lord, we are not abiding in those commandments, which He has warned us we will obey if we love Him. There is an easy path, the path of demons, who believe that Jesus is God, but there is the narrow path as well. There is this path guided by the Lord who proclaims, “You shall be holy, for the Lord your God is holy.” (Leviticus 19:2, 20:26; 1 Peter 1:16). And this holiness is possible, however it requires much willingness on our part. As Peter tells us, “whoever suffers in the flesh has ceased from sin.” (1 Peter 4:1). We must be willing to accept that there are many sacrifices that we can and must make, there are many things that we must be willing to do, to strive for this holiness that we are called to.

To be a Christian is to stand apart, to be mocked and shunned. It is to not be accepted by the world, as Jesus warns us, “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you.” (John 15:19-20). No, to be a Christian means to have the world turn against you, to stand against all that they represent, not with signs or protests, but with your very life. It requires selflessness, it requires helping others and loving everyone, even those whom you disagree with. It requires to be willing to accept that those we love may very well turn away from us, hurt us. It requires that we be willing to sacrifice jobs and cars, families and homes, hobbies and habits; anything that stands between us and the Lord.

And the question that we must truly ask ourselves is this, what are we seeking? If it’s comfort, if it’s a nice group of friends, if it’s riches and vainglory; then when the persecution comes, it will all crash. If you are seeking a relationship with another and found your faith on that, what happens if that relationship ends? If you are seeking riches, and you come to faith and get a new job, what happens when you get fired from that job? No, we must not seek those things, but recognize that to come after Jesus, to be His disciple, means that we are truly seeking One thing, Jesus. The comforts of the world will come and go; friends and family will come and go; but the love of Jesus will never cease. The more we seek Him, the more we find that when we have Him, and the more we find that we have Him, the more we learn that we have everything that we need.

What is it that we are truly seeking?

May the peace of the Lord be with you, my beloved family.

John 1:29-34 Pt. 3

The apostle concludes John’s witness of this second day by the revelation of Christ as by the Holy Spirit. “I saw the Spirit descending from Heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him.” Notice, importantly, that it does not say the Jesus received the Holy Spirit, as we do when we are received into the faith. Rather, it’s more like this image of a dove returning to it’s nest. It’s this image of a dove returning to the place from whence it has always been. That it remained upon Him was a sign that Christ has always and will always be as One with the Holy Spirit. Christ and the Holy Spirit as one essence for all eternity unto the ages of ages. The vision that John sees reveals the truth that the Holy Spirit has and will always rest with Jesus, God the Son.

John continues to explain this to the multitude. “I did not know Him,” he reiterates, again casting aside doubt and suspicion of conspiracy. “I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me…” This powerful revelation stands in stark contrast to the time. We must remember that, aside from the announcement of the coming Messiah, the Lord had not sent a prophet to proclaim His word in nearly 400 years. No, He had been silent, having departed the land and leaving the people to their own ways, which Paul reveals to us in the Book of Romans to be a form of His judgment. Here, the glory of the Lord had departed the land and the faith had become this cold, logically based, legal-centric set of rules, laws and commands. In the absence of God’s presence, the Scribes and Pharisees had formulated this cold dead doctrinicity based on the Law and the Prophets and bound everyone to it in absentia of the miraculous presence of the Lord. The commands of the Lord had been relegated to a loveless, powerless, checklist to be completed; and the priests had taken it upon themselves to judge who was and wasn’t worthy of entrance into the Kingdom, something that no man who truly followed the Lord could ever presume to know.

What’s more is that, we must remember, in the absence of the Lord, many had presumed to speak in His name, on His behalf; however, usually to their own ends. They had begun to prophesy in His name to sate their own avarice, further their own political agendas, garner larger groups at their events, increase the tithing that they were able to take from the people. The temples had become the home of money-changers and places for people to sell their wares. Consider, in modern times, this would be like the teacher of a Church using the name of God to sell books and merchandise, or having a currency exchange at an international Church. Jesus warns us about these very people when He admonishes us to “beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” (Matthew 7:15). Beware of those who speak in His name, but inwardly are attempting to feed this ravenous, insatiable appetite for the things of the world. He goes on to explain, “Many will say to Me, ‘Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name’…and I will declare to them, ‘Depart from Me, I never knew you.” (Matthew 7:22-23). See, there were many who spoke falsely in His name, for whatever carnal reasons; greed, politics, vainglory, whatever human desire and motivation led them to do so. And John stood out so strongly for this very reason. There was no gain for him. There was no money to be made, no political statement which he sought to make. There was no selfish, rational reason for him to say the things that he said; thus they didn’t know how to react. Even when he had the opportunity, before the multitude, to claim the glory for himself, he refused.

See, we can learn a lot about someone based on what their motivations are. Had John been charging an admittance fee, selling his teaching, seeking profit for what he was doing; then we could easily understand that he was feeding his greed. If he had claimed the glory to himself when afforded the opportunity, then we could understand it to be motivated by vainglory. I think of the multitude of teachers in our day and age who have released “best-sellers,” who release books whose image is of them on the cover, whose name is in larger font than the name of Jesus. I think of those teachers and can’t help but question their true motivation. Considering Paul’s admonishment about those who “imagine godliness as a means to great gain,” and warns against listening to those teachers, it grieves me to consider the chance that those very teachers are the same way. It makes it hard to trust the motives of a theologian who has millions of dollars by expositing the Scripture that states that man should never “lay up treasure for himself on earth,” and that “the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil.”

That is the position that the Pharisees were in here. They were the main people that everyone looked to for any and all things spiritual. And here stood a true prophet, a true man of God, to whom God had offered revelation. And, for that reason, they wished that they could just silence this man. They would have preferred to silence him, that they could continue to claim that the only way to God was through them, not this man who was speaking the true words of God. It would have been preferable to them to state that the gift of prophecy had ceased, ending with Malachi, and that only the Law and the Prophets (the Old Testament) were the final authority, and that through their personal interpretation; that there was nothing more to be said. It would have been so much easier for them had they been able to convince everyone that there would be no more revelation, no more prophecy, no more anything. That the supernatural had ceased and everyone had to learn their cold doctrine and live their faith vicariously through the priests, the Pharisees, the Scribes; and through the stories from the Scriptures rather than experiencing these miraculous things for themselves.

I once heard the statement that resonated with me while I was studying this. The statement was “there are no new tragedies, just old tragedies happening to new people.” When I think about the position the priests were in and their response to what was happening, and consider our generation, I see such a parallel. See, I have dear brothers and sisters in all denominations, in all doctrinal systems; Orthodox, Catholic (Byzantine and Roman), various denominations of Protestant. And I constantly hear many who claim that God will not reveal Himself to anyone except through the Scripture. I constantly hear that it is truly impossible for anyone of us to experience God except vicariously through the reading of the Holy Scripture. I constantly hear that revelation has ceased, that the supernatural gifts of healing, of tongues, of prophecy, have ceased. It’s almost as though our generation of believers no longer believes; that they believe in name and word, but not in deed. They mentally ascent to a belief in God, but they don’t have true faith in His name, in His power. It’s this reductionist approach to Christianity that has relegated it to a list of formulae and rules; in much the same way as the faith of the Pharisees and the Scribes had done before the coming of the Forerunner. It’s a generation of believers who have disbelieved in the very things of the faith that require faith, and the result is living vicariously through the lives of the saints. The result is a mythological system of things that we can never experience in our own lives, and therefore the feeling that, because of our placement on the timeline, we sort of “missed” the miracle. We have created, in our generation, a Church that has all but atrophied, and then we wonder why our generation has little power to effect change, why so many of our young ones are leaving the Church. We have reduced our faith to reading about the lives of these great people who lived 6000 to 2000 years before us and whose lives we can only attempt to, in our own power, imitate; although we’ve removed the supernatural aspects of those lives that made them worthy of reading. Ultimately, we’ve removed the power of God from our faith. We tend to view Jesus’ influence over our lives solely based on what will happen to us once we fall asleep in the Lord, all the while “quenching the Spirit’s” ability to do anything in our lives currently.

When we stand in the face of this dead philosophy, which has permeated our culture, may we look to the life of John the Baptist. May we allow our relationship with the Lord and our faith to actually have power in our lives. May our worship be such that we actually join in with the angelic choir and when we speak of our faith, may we truly witness with John, stating, “I have seen and testify that this is the Son of God.” May we stop quenching the Spirit, and instead embrace Him and all the promises that He has promised us, not only in the life to come, but also in this life. Christ is risen from the dead, and He rises daily, not just once two thousand years ago. May Christ arise in our lives daily, and may we rise with Him, embracing His greatness and His holiness in all of our lives.

May the peace of the Lord be with you, my beloved family.

(Published originally by “the Catalogue of good deeds”)

“Son, do not be so fooled by the spirit of conceit that you confess your sins as though they were someone else’s. Lay bare your wound to the healer. Only through shame can you be freed from shame. Tell him, and do not be ashamed, ‘This is my wound, Father; this is my injury. It happened because of my negligence and not from any other cause. No one is to blame for this, no man, spirit, or body, or anything else. It is all through my negligence.’

We ought to not be surprised if the attacks of the demons continue to come even after confession. In any case, it is better to be battling with our thoughts than our self-esteem.

It is when we are brought low that the demons quickly pounce…our enemies hope to wound us when we are committing sin.”

-St John Climacus – “The Ladder of Divine Ascent”

This entire passage of knowledge is concerning the importance of confession in our lives. St John discloses the importance of confessing our sins in the first person, of taking responsibility for our sins. It is important that we feel the shame of our sins, because only through feeling that shame can we be freed from it, and we can never feel that shame when we approach confession distant from it, as though we are confessing someone else’s sins. I often hear people who shun the concept of “confessing to another human, my sin is between me and God.” And, while that is true, the thought of the shame of confessing sins before a person is usually enough to be a deterrant, whereas the thought of shame of committing that sin before God wasn’t. When I hear someone say “My sins are between me and God,” what I actually hear is “I don’t want to be embarrassed by confessing those sins in front of another person.” Biblically, James admonishes us to “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” (James 5:16). And yet, so many refuse to accept this clear teaching of Scripture, as well as the great tool that we have been given for our own growth in holiness.

St John goes on to say that we ought to not be surprised if the demons continue to come after us even after confession. And yet, consider the alternatives presented here. We can face those demons who are attacking us with the affirmation of a confessor who has reminded us that Jesus has forgiven us our shortcomings, thus battling with our thoughts; or we can face those demons alone, as a soldier separated from the remaining forces left to fight a war alone. Those demons will attack us when we are most vulnerable, when we are struggling with the guilt of repented, but unconfessed sin. They will attack us with the shame of whatever sin we have committed. They will attack us with whatever means we make available to them through our inaction. Would it not be better to endure this attack with the knowledge of our confessor fortifying our knowledge that all of us fall into sin and Jesus, the healer, forgives us our shortcomings that we have repented of? Is it better to disarm the enemy as thoroughly as possible, through the tools and Sacraments which the Church has given us through the grace of our Lord Jesus?

John concludes this by stating that it is when we are brought lowest that the demons will pounce. It is when we have fallen into despondency and despair that they will challenge us most strongly, attempting to lead us astray. It is when we have fallen into one sin that the demons will attempt to lead us into others. When we are guilt ridden and unsure of our forgiveness, it is then that they will attack us the most strongly, attempting to cause us to fall completely. This is why, so often, one sin rapidly grows into multiple. Gluttony grows to drunkenness grows to sexual immorality. Covetousness grows to avarice grows to pride. And, when we neglect confession, those sins remain within us, as a black hole, drawing us urther and further away from the ways of the Lord. Though we are forgiven, we begin to doubt that through this constant onslaught of the enemy. Voices that begin as “why not, no one is around,” grow to “one more won’t hurt, you’ve already started” and end with “well, it’s too late now, you can’t be forgiven for that.” It’s this constant cycle, once we allow the devil a foothold, he will continue to climb. And it is only through facing those sins, through confessing them before the Lord, through heartfelt tears of repentance, that we can knock loose those footholds and be freed from the power of our sin. The only sin which is unforgivable is the sin which is not repented of, and for that sin even the prayers of a saint will not be heard.

May the peace of the Lord be with you, my beloved family.

John 1:29-32 Pt. 2

And then he states that not the waters held any power of healing, nor John’s own power; but rather that he baptized with water so that Christ would be revealed to the nation of Israel. So, for what reason did John use baptism to draw the people? That they could see and learn the difference between the baptism of man and the baptism of Jesus, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So often we see baptism in absentia of the Holy Spirit, with some churches not even evoking His name during their baptism. So often, even in Scripture, we see those who are baptized into the baptism of John the Baptist. In the Book of Acts alone, we see two such examples. We learn of the Church in Samaria, about whom it is written, “the apostles heard that Samaria had received the word of God, (so) they sent Peter and John…who prayed that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For as yet, He had not fallen upon any of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 8:14-17). And again, when Paul visits Apollos, the disciples ask him, “‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’ So they said, ‘we had not so much as heard that there was a Holy Spirit’…when Paul laid hands on them they received the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues and prophesied.” (Acts 9:2,7). See, it’s this idea, confirmed by Scripture, that mere baptism alone does not confer the Holy Spirit. So often we see people who are baptized and immediately consider their baptism sealed by the Holy Spirit, and this idea that the laying on of hands to receive the Spirit is foreign to us in the West. And yet, when we look in Scripture, it is plainly announced to be truth. It is this idea that John states when he says, “I baptize with water, but He with the Holy Spirit,” and twice affirmed in the Book of Acts alone.

This purely symbolic baptism that we in the West so frequently believe is this exact baptism of John the Baptist, it is the baptism of water, the baptism of man; it is a baptism that is a necessary first step, the Forerunner of salvation; but if it never goes beyond that first step, with no anointing of the Holy Spirit, then it is little more than a tradition of man which has only the power to effect whatever change we, in our carnal willpower, can achieve. It is little wonder that so many in the West, in our generation, disbelieve in the supernatural, the miraculous, power of the Holy Spirit. We never receive Him into our life; we disbelieve in the very means through which we are able to receive Him. Try to ask a Protestant pastor about the laying on of hands to receive the Holy Spirit and see the accusations of heresy that they would level against the idea, and yet, it is this very idea which we see affirmed in Scripture. In denying this Sacrament, they deny the very image that we see in Scripture. I’ve so often made the comment that, in our generation, in the West, the Holy Trinity is Father, Son, and Holy Bible; yet even that is made flawed by the fact that most of Western Christianity takes very little of Holy Scripture at face value. The very ones who will argue that creation was in six twenty-four hour days are the same ones who decree that there is no prayer of faith that will heal the sick, in direct contradiction to the teaching of James in the Holy Scripture. They are the same who will decree that the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit have completely ceased, and that salvation is a one time decision which need not yield any form of change in the life of the one making the decision. They teach faith alone in absentia of works, ignoring the Book of James who teaches the exact opposite, that faith without works is dead. In fact, they have gone so far as to proclaim that even the faith which they claim saves is a faith that we play no part in, as it is a faith which we are given and thus given no choice in the matter. It is the teaching that God alone chooses who He will and won’t save, giving us no part to play, ignoring the teachings of both Peter and Paul that God wills that no man should perish but that all will come to repentance. To claim that God wills that no man should perish and then teach that God chooses who He will save regardless of our decisions is to claim that He doesn’t have the power to save everyone that He chooses, rather than to say that He has given us the will to choose salvation.

We must be so careful not to fall victim to this. All of Scripture is inspired by God (2 Timothy 3:16), not just certain parts, and we must be careful of any individual who would twist something to mean that which it obviously doesn’t mean. There are many wise and great theologians from whom we can learn, however, we must never allow their words of wisdom and interpretation to supercede the words of God Himself. From Chrysostom to Basil to Augustine to Gregory of Nyssa, through Watson and Packer, Lewis and Moody, Macarthur and Chan; each of them has many words of wisdom that we should heed and allow the Lord to use as a tool to help us grow in our knowledge of God. However, we should be especially guarded when we hear the words, “what this means is…” because at that very moment, Scripture is no longer our authority, they themselves are. That’s why it’s ever so important that we keep the teachings that the Church has upheld for thousands of years, so that we can test the teachings of these men against the teachings of the Church and compare it to see if a particular teaching is a true interpretation or not. There is a reason that Spurgeon is quoted as saying, “a Bible-reading Christian will seldom fall into modern theology.” And the very reason for this is the loss of the history and tradition of the Church, which for 1500 years stood to guard against human corruption, and the removal of this doctrine left the gates unguarded against the wisdom of the age. Spurgeon himself recognized the danger of allowing modern concepts into the Church, and realized the dangers that come from allowing “modern theology” to enter into our faith. When we seek any answer hard enough in Scripture, using whatever means and interpretations we need, then we can find whatever answer we wish. It is through the traditions of the Church that the integrity of Scripture is maintained, because it is those various traditions which are uncorrupted by whatever current events are happening in the world. You need go no further than same sex marriage to see the effect of allowing modern theology and interpretation to enter into our own theology. Or think of the number of Southern churches who, in the earlier years of the West, used Scripture to justify racism and slavery.

When we look to Scripture, we see many things which are harder for us, in our carnal minds, in our wisdom of the age, to understand. The proper answer to this is never to find our own deeper meaning, pridefully thinking ourselves wiser than thousands of years of wise annointed men of God. Rather, we should see to obediently find the answer through reading Holy Scripture and looking to the traditions of the Church to see what is and isn’t of God. It isn’t the easiest way, and it is very adamantly opposed to our natural tendency towards independence; but very few could argue the point that I heard from Francis Chan. When you look at the Church in America and then read about the Church and the worship in the New Testament, the two don’t even closely resemble the same entity. And it is because we have lost the very teachings which have been handed down for centuries. Baptism, in the Scripture, is crucial to salvation. However, as we see, baptism in absentia of the anointing of the Holy Spirit, the laying on of hands, produces a cold, powerless morality and little else. We are baptized for the remission of our sins, and we acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. That which follows, however, according to Scripture, is the reception of the Holy Spirit, who is our Holy King, Heavenly Comforter, who will lead us in the way that we must go.

May the peace of the Lord be with you, my beloved family.

I wanted to write about something that has been revealed to me recently. It is a weakness, a personal struggle of mine that I am now wrestling with, since this revelation came to me.

I am very much a “creature of habit,” I tend to feel as though consistency is the best way to establish those habits which are beneficial. Thus, every morning, I awaken and come in to my study. As has become my custom, I grab something to drink, sit down and allow myself a few moments to awaken, and then begin to read through my Scripture readings for the day. I have a system that I was given by a Protestant pastor wherein you read ten chapters of Scripture and then begin your day. And I have been avowed to that system ever since it was presented to me.

Recently, however, it has been revealed to me that while I can sit down and dedicate an hour to reading the Holy Scripture each morning with no rebellion from my body, it is always a struggle for me to stand in prayer to our beloved Lord. I recognized that, while my nature doesn’t resist the reading of Scripture, even for an hour straight, it resists what turns to 20 minutes of prayer. It was something that until recently, I had never thought anything about. I had never even thought about my struggles with prayer, much less considered the possible causes for it.

I remember once hearing that the body naturally resists the things of the spirit. It is perfectly logical to consider that the carnal side of me would naturally resist the spiritual side, and thus create this battle within me. And that anything which “feels” natural may not necessarily be healthy, whereas those things which don’t “feel” natural tend to be healthier for spiritual growth. Consider fasting; the body naturally leads us against doing it. In fact, I have often found it harder to abstain from food when I know that it is in the name of fasting than I have ever found it when it wasn’t spiritual in nature. Many times when I am not fasting, I find myself hungering very little, whereas during a fast I often awaken to a voracious appetite that I must struggle to resist all throughout the day. It’s that carnal urge within me desiring to fight against the spiritual growth that accompanies the discipline of fasting.

So, in applying this principal to my normal, daily routine, I find something quite interesting. See, we naturally enjoy learning things; it’s in our nature to seek answers and understanding. Our human nature tends to not allow us to not know all of the answers to something. Entire web-based conglomerates are based on exploiting this aspect of our nature. And yet, it is completely in opposition to our carnal nature to seek to be in the presence of the Lord, to accept the unknowable, the incomprehensible; and especially to accept that it shall always in fact be unknowable and incomprehensible. It’s hard to allow ourselves to not know and not understand, and to be able to accept that fact. And that was what was revealed to me recently.

See, what I realized was that in the busy-ness of seeking to attain knowledge, I struggle daily to find the Truth. Truth is not an idea, or an interpretation, or some epiphany derived from formulating hermeneutic principles to dig deeply beneath the surface of writings, often finding things that even the authors didn’t know were there. No, Truth is a person, and to know the Truth is to know Him. And to truly know Him is to commune with Him. It is not to read what others say about Him, it is to actively seek to be in communion with Him, as Adam was in the garden before the fall. I heard a well known pastor, in one of his talks, refer to what it’s like to be content to listen to Moses. To hear or read what others have experienced. To stand at the bottom of the mountain and allow Moses to go and talk to God, and then come back and bring us what he was told, what he saw, what his experience with God was. To be content to go to a talk and hear someone else talk about their prayers, or their communion with Jesus. But, we seem to have forgotten that, with the New Covenant, we no longer have need of that intercession. We no longer have need of that intercessor, that one who speaks to the Lord and tells us about Him. We can no longer be content to listen to Moses speak, we must go up the mountain ourselves. We have been granted this ability to know Jesus firsthand, not to hear accounts of Him, not to read about what He did in other’s lives, but to truly experience Him ourselves.

And this is a gift which has been given to us. Through His Scripture, through His Church, through Prayer, through fasting, through meditation on His word. All of these gifts, all of these means to learn about Him and to know Him. See, I had been taught that “if you want to hear Jesus speak, read His word; and if you want to hear Him speak out loud, read His word aloud.” And so, for so long, I mistook knowledge for maturity. For so long I considered reading the Scriptures to be the sole way through which I could commune with Him. And how comfortable I am with doing that has recently been revealed to me. To be able to sit and read these eyewitness testimonies is amazing, but it in itself isn’t a relationship. If I buy a celebrity’s biography, then I can learn a lot about him, but I would never claim that I have a relationship with that person. If I read my wife’s diary but never speak to her, I have no relationship with her. Similarly, when I read Scripture but never enter into prayer, I can learn a lot about Jesus, but I can’t actually claim to have a relationship with Him. When I look into Scripture itself, I see all of these people who knew Him, who communed with Him, through the entire Book of Acts, we see people who never met Him in the flesh, but walked with Him through their faith. Pentecost didn’t happen because the disciples read the Scriptures, actually Jesus says the opposite. He warns the Pharisees, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may not have life.” (John 5:39-40). See, the Scriptures are imperative, as they teach us about Him, they answer questions, as Paul says, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,” (2 Timothy 3:16), but, as Jesus makes so plainly clear; they are imperative as a tool, not a replacement for actually coming to Him, to knowing Him, to walking with Him in faith. And we do ourselves a disservice when we think otherwise. I am by no means saying that we should forsake the Holy Scriptures, merely that studying them must never become a substitute for communing with God. We must be careful of mistaking knowledge about Jesus for actually knowing Jesus.

Do not misunderstand what I am saying here. It is of great importance that we know the words of Scripture. I believe completely in the inerrancy and perfection of the Holy Scripture. And there is a very important reason that it is so imperative that we know the Scripture. For, when we enter into prayer, we must be constantly vigilant to guard our hearts against the wickedness of the evil one. We must constantly, as John admonishes us, “test the spirits to see that they are of God.” (1 John 4:4), for as Paul warns, “even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.” (2 Corinthians 11:14), and the Psalmist warns us that “Unless the Lord guard the city, those who guard it stay awake in vain.” (Psalm 126:1). And it is through the knowledge of Scripture that we are able to do those things, to test the spirits to see that they are of God. See, we must seek always communion with the Lord, however, we must also be knowledgeable in the things of the Lord lest we be deceived. Take, as an example, a man who prays concerning leaving his wife for someone else. He hears a voice telling him that it is acceptable to do so; however, if he is learned in the Scripture then he knows that Jesus forbids divorce, and thus is able to stop himself from being misled. Thus, in his knowledge of the Lord, he is able to discern what is of the Lord versus what is of the enemy. Had he not that knowledge, then it would be easy for him to mistake that tempting voice as the voice of an “angel of light” and be lost. See, the Lord will never lead us into temptation (James 1:13), nor is there any wickedness in Him. We must know the will of the Lord and His ways lest we be easily led astray by the enemy, disguising himself as an angel of light. The Psalmist is warning us that unless the watchman arises, the Lord will not watch the city, our need to learn the ways of the Lord to guard ourselves against the enemy, to keep vigil over our souls and protect them, our call to action to learn the ways of the Lord and to live them out. However, he is also warning that unless we turn to the Lord constantly in prayer, then we can awaken whenever we wish, and full knowledge of everything will be of no avail if we are not walking with the Lord, if we are not in constant communion with Him. It’s this idea that we must constantly watch the doors of our own heart while never ceasing to call upon the Lord for help.

The antinomians believed that mere belief in God was enough, with no doctrine; the legalists believe that obedience to the Law and the Prophets was enough, with no relationship with God. Scripture warns us so frequently to “turn neither to the left nor to the right. We must know the words of Scripture for sound doctrine, but we must have a true relationship with Jesus, not merely a knowledge of Him. Obedience is easy if you truly know and love the object of your obedience. There’s an expression that I’ve heard all of my life that when we practice something completely, it becomes “second nature.” I’ve always used that expression, but when it comes to the Lordship of Jesus, it extends far greater; when we know and love Him, and commune with Him, obedience to Him doesn’t become a second nature, it becomes our very nature.

And while we must study Scripture, we must be mindful to never allow our study of God to replace our relationship with Him. It is so easy to fall into this trap of human comfort, this trap that will allow us to very comfortably sit and read ten, twenty, one hundred chapters of Scripture every day, allowing us to grow in knowledge; and yet prevents us from walking away from our theological equations and insatiable thirst for knowledge to take the time to establish a relationship with Him in prayer. When we approach the Holy Scripture in such a manner as to try to “break down” the words and commands of Scripture, we place our own wisdom and the wisdom of our age above the very words of God, and we must be ever so careful not to do that. As St Paithos the Athonite warns, “theology that is taught like science usually examines things historically and, consequently, things are understood externally. Since patristic abscesis and inner experience are absent, this kind of theology is full of uncertainty and questions.” We will never know all of the answers, and seeking to learn everything, those things which are mysteries will destroy our faith, either by sheer disbelief in that which we cannot understand, or by our formulating our own answers in the name of interpretation.

Rather, my beloved brethern, let us read the words of Holy Scripture, applying them as they are written, to our own lives, rather than interpreting them as a means of judging others, and allow the words of Scripture to help us understand those things which we hear in prayer. Let us understand what we truly do when we “interpret” the words of Scripture to mean something different than what they say, what we are truly doing is proclaiming our interpretation to be the authority rather than the words of God, we are placing our own logic above His words. Rather, may we understand that when Jesus states that it is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom, what He means is that it’s hard for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom. May we understand that when He says, “whatever you have done to the least of these you have done to Me,” what He means is that whatever we have done for the least of these, we have done to Him. May we see each person as an icon of Christ, being formed in His image, and thus worthy of the love and compassion that we would show Jesus. And let us not relate the words of Scripture to others, but to ourselves. When we read His saying about the rich man, we tend to think of the Bill Gates or Donald Trumps; let us consider instead that as we are driving home from our jobs to our home and our cooked meal, to the homeless beggar on the street, we are the rich man. May we consider “the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil” in terms of how we handle our own money. May we consider all of Jesus’ commands from the perspective of how He would handle the situations in our lives. When we are commanded to pray for our enemies, we must remember that His final words on the cross were in prayer for those who had placed Him there.

May we resist the fleshly urging to allow our own comfort to dictate our faith, and instead “discipline our bodies and bring them into submission.” (1 Corinthians 9:27). Remembering the spiritual disciplines, allow us to determine which of them we are struggling the most with and, through the power of the Holy Spirit, allow those to be the things that we focus most on. Are you comfortable reading Scripture? Pray. Are you comfortable praying? Read Scripture. Are you comfortable with both? Fast. Serve others. Feed the poor. Further, in considering the disciplines, we can never allow the focus of one to detract from the others, rather, like a painter must paint layer after layer, so too must we add discipline upon discipline. When we focus on prayer, we can not forsake Scripture reading, when we focus on reading, we can not leave forlorn service. The previous layers must remain, we merely add layer after layer on top of it. Much as the painter paints his background, and adds the mountains atop that layer, and the clouds atop that layer, until, at the last, the perfect image is before them. As Peter exhorts us, “add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness to godliness brotherly kindness, to brotherly kindness love.” (2 Peter 1:5-7). Notice, he never says to replace one with the other, but rather to constantly add onto the foundation that has already been lain. So must we be spiritually. If Christianity were meant to be comfortable for us, Jesus would never have admonished us to count the cost of following Him. Paul would never have compared it to all of these massive sporting events and competitions. If the Church were thought to be comfortable, it would never have survived the first century. All the lives of all the saints and martyrs bare witness to the fact that we must truly deny ourselves and pick up our crosses to follow Him. As G.K. Chesterton says, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.”

May the peace of the Lord be with you, my beloved family.

John 1:29-34 Part I

Having endured the interrogations of the Jews, the priests and the Levites for a full day; the apostle tells us that the next day, the Baptist sees Jesus coming to him. Consider not only the courage, but also the humility on display in John’s response to this. Surrounded by his earthly followers, those who have pledged their earthly allegiance to his teachings, John plainly proclaims to all of them, “here is the Man who is preferred to me. While I remain here, the faceless, bodiless voice crying out in the wilderness, this Man is He whose face you must seek, for His is the power that can save.”

In Isaiah, we read, “Although He was ill-treated, He opened not His mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a lamb is silent before His shearers, so He opens not His mouth.” (Isaiah 53:7-8). Here obviously this sacrificial lamb is an obvious reference to the Messiah. Thus, when John proclaims to all who are present, “Behold, here is the Lamb of God,” he is directly relating this passage, this prophecy of the coming One, to Jesus Himself. See, we have to remember that John, like so many teachers in our era, was greatly influential over the faith of those who had come to follow him. There are so many teachers, pastors, authors, theologians, whose teachings are accepted above others. And it would be so easy for those very teachers to corrupt that loyalty by teaching in accord with their own desires. Paul warns us against this very fact in his letter to Timothy. Paul admonishes Timothy that “the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up teachers for themselves; and they will turn ears away from the truth.” (2 Timothy 4:3-4). People oftentimes will hear what they want to hear, whether it be truth or not. And because of the greed of men, Paul teaches us that there will be those who “suppose that godliness is a means of gain,” (1 Timothy 6:5), thereby corrupting the teachings of the Church and of Christ in an effort to gain material, financial wealth. Seeking to feed their own avarice, it is so easy for one to become corrupted and use His name to suit their own desires. I think of the “best-selling authors” who constantly revise interpretations of Scripture in an effort to feed their insatiable hunger for financial wealth. As Paul teaches us, “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (1 Timothy 6:10) and Jesus teaches us that “you cannot serve God and money.” (Matthew 6:24). Thus, whenever I see or hear about a teacher who has amassed great wealth for himself in this world based on selling Biblical teaching, I often question what motive they have for the selling thereof, and exactly what teachings they believe when the very Scripture that they are teaching strongly admonishes us not to “lay up treasures for yourselves on earth, where moth and rust corrupts and thieves can break in and steal.” (Matthew 6:19). I question the sincerity and motivation of anyone who claims to believe that Scripture is the sole authority and that we should eradicate the traditions of the Church, and then makes millions selling books interpreting Scripture in different ways, establishing their own tradition. Especially in contrast to this very passage, where John, the Forerunner of Christ, loudly proclaims before all, “Here is the Man to whom you should listen. I have nothing to offer and am worthy of no praise or glory, it is He alone to whom you should give glory.”

And, not only before his followers did he make this proclamation. His followers’ presence display the humility with which John lived. But, the part that is often overlooked is the courage that it took for him to proclaim this the day after the Jews and the Levites had spent the entire day interrogating him. Remember, even once Jesus begins working miracles and signs, the Jews refused to accept that He was the Messiah. And they would still have been present here. See, this wasn’t in a safe Church building, or someone’s house, or some other safe haven surrounded only by a congregation that John proclaimed this. Consider the attention that this sort of spectacle would have created amongst the non-believers in the area. Consider the atheists and philosophers, the pagans, the random lookers-on who would have been drawn to this great of a spectacle. Consider the Jews who had heard that the priests and Levites were coming to question the Baptist. Consider the hecklers who would have been ubiquitous in this setting, mocking and jeering those who were seeking this baptism. And it was before all of these people as well that John proclaims this fulfillment of prophecy. Consider the risk that John was undertaking when he loudly proclaimed that this One Man was in fact the fulfillment of the prophecy of the Coming One.

See, this part bares such relevance to us today. It’s no wonder that this fact is so plainly overlooked in our generation. We tend to lack this virtue, and in the name of soothing the scars of our shattered pride, we ignore the sheer courage that John the Baptist models for us in this passage. The world has trained us to be so sensitive to others feelings, so tolerant to others beliefs, that it has trained us to place it’s feelings and emotions above the commands of our Lord. It has taught us that sensitivity is more important than truth and that the opinions of others is far more important than obedience to the word of God. We fear offending anyone because then they won’t like us, they may be upset with us. But John, with no such pride, is freed from this fear. Whether others like him or despise him matters not; his sole obedience, his sole allegiance, is to the Lord. He may have lost his friends, his followers, his very life; and none of those possibilities prevented him from speaking the truth. How often can we truly say the same? Jesus Himself warns us, “woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so did they about the false prophets who came before.” (Luke 6:26). See, Jesus recognized that if we are speaking the truth, many people will not want to hear it. Many will do everything that they can to silence us from speaking the truth. And so, especially when everyone likes us and we “fit right in,” are we truly living the Gospel?

See, I’m not saying that we should actively try to offend anyone. We should never go out of our way to cause strife and controversy. However, our lives should raise questions. Our lives should stand out, and when we are asked those questions, we should never fear the repercussions of our answers. There are many things in the world that stand opposed to the doctrines of God, and while we must adhere to those doctrines, we should never actively challenge the world with them. However, our lives should be such that they raise questions about things, and our answers must never be censored. Our lives should be holy, joyful, and peaceful; and those things tend to raise questions in a world where 1 in 6 people are on anti-depressants. And when we are asked about our lives, about our hope and joy, we must give full glory unto the Lord for being able to live in such a state. When people notice that we, during our lunch break, are abstaining from food, they will often ask why. And we must be prepared to answer that. We must be prepared to answer that in fasting, we are strengthening our control over our body rather than allowing the impulses of the flesh to control us. As Paul taught us, “I discipline my body and bring it into submission.” (1 Corinthians 9:27). And while I used fasting as an example, all of our lives should be filled with those visible signs that those around us would question. Those who know us and pay attention. We should never advertise our faith, or our obedience; but in abiding in it, there are those who will notice and question, and we must be prepared to give an answer.

The Baptist continues his proclamation. “He is the One who is preferred before me, for He was before me.” He is here stating that this very moment is the before. This is the very moment that the Messiah has come for, as was foretold all through the Law and the Prophets. This is the moment that He has come to take upon Himself the sins of the world. In the Old Testament, the sin offering was smeared with blood which represented the sins of the people. In being baptized in the same waters as the people, this is Jesus as the sacrifice, being submerged in the waters of the sins of the people, thereby taking upon Himself those very sins. The sins of whoever touches the waters of Holy Baptism are thereupon taken away from them and placed upon Him as the perfect sacrifice, the sin offering, the Lamb of God. In so being baptized, Jesus perfects the waters of Holy Baptism, that those who offer their lives to Him through it are thereby cleansed by His own baptism.

John continues stating that “I knew Him not.” This statement renders his testimony free from the suspicion of conspiracy and acquaintanceship. See, it would have been easy for the Jews to have stated that this Man was a friend of John’s and that the whole event had been pre-arranged, and yet, there could have been no pre-arrangements between two who had never met before, who had not known one another previously.

It’s so important that we pay careful attention to this entire event. There are so many important elements that are plainly there, we just must pay attention to each of them, not seeking to either add or subtract from the lessons of the Scripture, but merely paying careful attention to it. We see in this entire exchange the humility, the courage, required to lvie a life as a follower of Jesus. No fear of the world, of earthly loss; no pride in worldly matters or affairs. We see the importance of the sacrament of Baptism, the very picture of Jesus taking on the sins of the world through the living waters of Baptism. And mostly, we see the absolute necessity of having a faith strong enough that it permeates our life, which implies that we must know our faith well enough that it can be allowed to do so. We can not abide in the commands of the Lord if we don’t know them, but knowing them alone is not enough, we must know them well enough to abide in them and believe them strongly enough that we do. Remember the words of our beloved Lord, “Who is My mother, or my brothers…here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother.” (Mark 3:33-35).

May the peace of the Lord be with you, my beloved family.

“I hate and abhor unrighteousness, but I love Your law. I praise You seven times a day, for the judgments of Your righteousness.” (Psalm 118:163-164 LXX) sings the Psalmist, the great prophet of God, David.

No matter the quality of camera you have, neither the situation that you find yourself in to take a photograph of something, if you neglect to take the time to focus on each individual photo that you are taking, then the photographs will become increasingly distorted. Consider, you set up your camera and take aim at your subject, and the first such shot is perfectly clear. And then, if you refuse to pause between each to refocus your camera on your subject, then each one is progressively blurred until it is barely recognizable as being what you so plainly see before your eyes.

So too is it with our spiritual lives. See, we begin washed anew in the blood of the Covenant, and then we are constantly rejecting the thoughts and ideas of the world as it seeks to flood us with it’s influences. Consider the conviction that you feel towards a sermon when leaving service on a Sunday versus the same degree of conviction you feel by Friday night. When you first begin, you have the perfect vision of what you wish to happen in your life, but then throughout the week, you begin to lose that focus, and the image becomes slowly and bitterly distorted, until by Friday night you can barely even remember what it was that you were so convicted about on Sunday night.

This is why the prophet proclaims that he praises the Lord seven times a day, that he can keep his focus set right. “I hate and abhor unrighteousness,” he proclaims. Consider that this is David, the anointed king of the Lord, and in his reverie he proclaims that he despises unrighteousness, that “I love Your law.” He is seeking after the holiness of the Lord. To hate unrighteousness but love His law is to see to abide in His law. And the method that he proclaims that he uses to do that is to “praise You seven times a day.”

See, from the moment we awaken in the morning, we begin being assaulted by all of the temptations of the evil one. Movies, TV shows, advertising billboards, even walking to the store; everywhere in this world we see temptation. It can be the immodest passer-by, the irate customer, the person who cuts you off on the interstate and immediately slows down. All throughout our day, we are faced with the temptation to lose sight of the goal; of the holiness of the Lord. And, much like the photographer, we must take time during the day to refocus our mind, our heart, our head, on the Lord. Otherwise, we are far more likely to find ourselves slowly losing sight of that. See, we have in our minds the clear image of the goal, the clear image of what we want our lives to look like. And then, throughout the rush of the day, that image becomes distorted. Only when we take the time to refocus ourselves on that image are we able to withstand these temptations. It’s why the apostle admonishes us to “pray without ceasing.” The moment we cease to prayer, we open the gates up to allow these temptations to enter in to our lives.

My father confessor prescribed for me a thrice daily prayer rule. Once in the morning, that I might begin my day with my mind firmly focused on the things of the Lord, once in mid-afternoon, that I can pause and refocus on that same image, and once in the evening, that I would end my day focusing on those same goals, and to guard against the enemy using images in my mind and my dreams to tempt me into sin. And, what I have found is this, whence I, for whatever reason, neglect any of those times, I find myself much more likely to give into temptation, in whatever form it appears. Be it anger, despondency, whatever. I find that the moment I neglect to refocus on that initial image, I am often led astray, into other wanderings and failings.

I can speak only of my own experience, however, I find that when I neglect this period, stated all throughout Scripture, of refocusing on the things of the Lord, I constantly find myself drifting. Thus I personally do all that I can to refocus my mind on the things of the Lord, as the apostle admonishes us, “Set your mind on things above, not the things of the earth.” (Colossians 3:2). I read spiritual books (hence my frequent “excerpt from reading today” posts), I dedicate to reading Scripture, I study the history and traditions of the Church, I maintain the prescribed fasts, and, above all else, I pray. The spiritual disciplines that are taught us in the Holy Scripture. I maintain that thrice daily prayer rule, and all throughout the day maintain my focus through the use of the prayer that the publican prayed, the Jesus Prayer, “Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.”

This is by no means a legalistic, “I do this so you must too,” post. Each of us are among the sick, and each attending the hospital of the great Physician. I am merely sharing what wisdom I have attained that has been of great value to me, that perchance another may glean from it something that may be of aid to them. I can’t help, however, concerning these spiritual disciplines, but to remember the words of our beloved Lord to the apostles concerning the demon, “This kind does not go out, except by fasting and prayer.” (Matthew 17:21). To pray and to fast each help us to rid ourselves of ourselves, to “deny ourselves,” and to focus on the One who alone has the power to heal, and who alone is worthy of all worship and praise, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.

May the peace of the Lord be with you all, my beloved brothers and sisters. Christ is in our midst.

I read a treatise recently that I found very interesting. It was concerning the topic of secularism, and the working definition it gave of secularism is that secularism is “the rejection of worship.” I found it very interesting to consider this topic, particularly from that perspective.

Consider what we call secularism. For the longest time, I had always labored under the generally accepted definition of it. We tend to define it as “allowing the influence of the world” to shape our beliefs/morals. We consider secularism to be synonymous with atheism, and yet, when you think deeply on the topic, it’s not. Think of the “secularization of the culture” and even, God forbid, the secularization of the Church. When we open the doors to allow the world in, it is often times considered the wickedness of the world; churches affirming same sex marriage, churches turning a blind eye towards things like divorce, allowing thieves, liars, drunkards, manipulators, etc. into the Church.

Think for a moment, is secularism synonymous with atheism? How many times do you hear the statement, “I believe in God, I just don’t believe that I have to go to Church to love Him?” Or, has become commonplace in our generation, the ubiquitous, “I’m spiritual not religious.” Those very people are, while not atheist (in that they affirm God’s presence, perhaps even influence over our lives), however, they reject the notion of worship, they reject the decrees and doctrines of the Church. They are secular, however, non-atheistic. If you look closely, you see this outside influence, this non-Biblical influence, all throughout the Western Church.

See, I think about how often I hear sermons and lectures more focused on current events than anything else. And the problem with that is that it leads to a very eisogetical approach to our spiritual lives. Rather than beginning with the teachings of the Church and of Scripture, we begin with ourselves. And not even ourselves, but our culture. We approach Scripture with a predetermined mindset and then seek the Scripture references to support our already determined viewpoint. And then, we, using those references, create many new and varied doctrines based on that. Having removed the adherence to the thousands years old traditions of the Church, we begin anew each time someone find some “new revelation” or alternate perspective, and it usually seems rather similar to those stances which exist already outside the Church. If the people aren’t interested in a prayer group, we change the prayer group, rather than seeking to change the hearts of the people. Rather than conforming ourselves to the Church, we conform the Church to ourselves; if we find something about a Church we don’t like, we either change that doctrine, or find a different church to attend. And the problem with that is that when you begin with the current culture state as the foundation, then the foundation ceases to be Christ. When the evangelical world teaches pastors to ask people what type of Church that they would attend, what types of programs they would like to see the Church offer, then we make the people the foundation, the cornerstone, rather than Christ.

And this all begins with our worship. See, we, as humans, were created to worship. We were created to worship and to follow, and thus, when we see a church which chooses to place the preferences of the people over the writings of Scripture, then we do the same thing with the Church as a whole. When the focal point of a Sunday gathering is the pulpit, the man giving the sermon, then the focal point is no longer Christ. I think of the many churches that I’ve been to where what passes as worship is one man singing for 15 minutes, flanking another man lecturing for forty-five. And, ultimately, who receives the glory when that happens? So often I have heard people walking out of a service either praising or condemning the singer or the pastor, rather than just soaking in and truly living the message that was taught. And the entire time, there was no true worship. Consider the contemporary Christian songs that are thought to be “worship” songs in our generation. What is the subject of each of them? Now, compare that to what we see worship in the Scripture to be. Consider the heavenly temple that John saw in Revelation “…and behold, a throne set in heaven, and One sat on the throne…around the throne were twenty and four thrones, and on the thrones I saw twenty and four elders sitting, clothed in white robes; and they had crowns of gold on their heads…the angels do not rest day or night, saying: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come.’ And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him and cast their crowns before the throne, saying: ‘You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created.” (Revelation 4:2,4,8-11). Later, he instructs us “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people.” (Revelation 21:3). Now, compare this image of the heavenly temple with the regular service that we find in our generation. Is there any resemblance at all between what the angels were chanting in the heavenly Jerusalem and what we sing in our contemporary worship songs? Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, and since we believe that we are granted eternal life to reside in the kingdom of the Lord, should not our worship also mirror that? Shouldn’t our worship be this heavenly worship as we prepare to one day join in the angelic choirs singing those hymns and praises?

See, the world will be the world, and that includes our government and our public schools and everything else of that nature. I am by no means saying that the Church should fight against the secularization of our society, that is a fools battle. However, we, Christians, must fight against the secularization of our Church. We must fight to ensure that our worship is never lost, sacrificed on the altar of prideful knowledge. We must study our Scripture, even having classes to help edify and encourage, reprove and instruct one another that we all may be fully knowledgeable about the things of the Lord, however, our worship, our Sunday services, can never be reduced to that. Our Church service must be about our joining in with the heavenly choir, hymning and praising our beloved Lord. I have been to “worship services” which felt more like theology classes than worship, often reminding me of Jesus’ warning to the Pharisees, “You search the Scriptures, thinking that in them you will find eternal life; and these things are they which testify of Me.” (John 5:39). The whole purpose of studying the Scripture is to help us to grow in our knowledge of God, not to replace our relationship with Him. And while I may have left feeling emotionally convicted, it was a very empty conviction, because it conveyed no true change within me. It was the theological equivalent to a “self-help” speech, with much guile and convincing words, and all beginning with the current state of our culture and how sad it was that we have drifted so far from the course; rather than looking to the beginning of all things and determining the solution. GK Chesterton said that “The reformer is always right about what’s wrong. However, he’s often wrong about what’s right.” Rather than looking back to determine what’s wrong, which is usually obvious, we need to look back to determine when it went wrong, how and why, and restore, rather than reform. If the Schism in the Church over the last 500 years has taught us one thing, it’s that using our current method isn’t working. After 1000 years of one Church, then 500 more of two churches, in the last 500 years, we’ve divided into thousands (literally), all dividing over our acceptance of the world as a part of our Church. Better that we should look back to the methods that worked from the beginning, which were joining in the heavenly worship, rather than rejecting the faith further and further until only a select few hold the faith that we see in the New Testament Church. In Revelation 2 and 3, we see seven letters to seven churches, two of whom have accepted sin, one of whom lost their love for the Lord, one which was lukewarm, one which was completely dead; and two which were doing well. I fear that, if we’re honest, we’d say that the Church of America, as a whole, goes into one of those two categories. They either stray so far from the Scripture and discipline that they join with those who accepted sin, or they become so focused on doctrine, that they never take the time to actually love Jesus and enjoy relationship with Him. They reduce Scripture to scientific formulae, the Holy Spirit to strengthened conviction to quit using profanity, and reduce Jesus Himself to a hermeneutic. They replace worship of God with worship of knowledge and allow the wisdom of the age to guide us in our growth, whether it’s specifically rejecting it or affirming it. Being created for the purpose of worship; when we remove the worship from our faith, then we shift it to something else. We worship our celebrities, our favorite sports teams, our families, our jobs, our government. Consider this, what do we change our life to conform to? Do we work our prayer around our families, or our family time around our prayer? Do we shift our work schedule to make sure we can be at Church on Sunday to fellowship with our beloved brethern? Or do we only go on days that we happen to be off and wake up early? And even then, do we spend time actually enjoying fellowship with them, or do we leave as soon as the service is over so we can watch the football game? When we compare our worship to the apostles, to the saints, to 2000 years of Christian tradition; and then compare our worship to the world; which one does it more closely resemble?

Have we maintained the apostles decree that “you are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people set apart for His purpose,” or have we allowed secularization, the rejection of the worship of God, to infiltrate our church buildings, our homes, our hearts? We must be so guarded against this, my beloved brethern. As adopted children of the most high, our lives should not make sense in absentia of our faith, our lives, our goals, our priorities, should never be understood by someone who is not of the faith. If it does, then we should truly, deeply, evaluate ourselves to see that we are walking in the faith. As Jesus warns us, “woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so did they about the false prophets who came before you.” If our lives, our goals, our morals, make sense to those without faith, then we need to question whether we are living the faith, or whether we are living just like the world.

May the peace of the Lord be with you all, my beloved family.