Whatever

Tim recently sent me the outline of Jeremiah (if you call a month ago recently). I’ve been a bit slow getting these outlines up and viewable. But this one’s here, and it’s a good one. I think the blue double edged table is kind of pretty myself. However, the meat of the page is not in the design (cool as it may be) but in the words themselves.

So, when you’re ready to learn a bit about the book of Jeremiah, check out this outline.

Click here to read the outline of Jeremiah.

This Psalm boosts my spirits. Why? Because I have a tendency to worry, to wonder why by bosses speak down to me, to obsess about potential illnesses . . . the list goes on forever.

This Psalm starts by reminding us that when we have troubles, our first line of defense should be God. I tend to yell, bang on things, exercise, sleep - anything to alleviate my frustrations - anything, that is, but go to God. Why? Stupidity, I guess. As my pastor put it this last Sunday, God should always be our first line of defense.

¹ Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
² I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord . . .
Psalm 16:1 (ESV)

The Psalm ends with the same type of reminder, with a little different twist. Not only should God be our first line of defense, but in Him we will discover eternal life.

¹¹You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Psalm 16:11

If we trust God and know Him, He will show us the path of life. David knew this, and Scripture affirms it. God will reveal Himself to us if we seek Him.

²¹Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.

Having a consistent refuge and access to eternal life seems like a no-brainer to me. Choose life.

I thought, “I’m feeling motivated. Why not post another outline?” So, I got out my trusty text editor (PSPad, for those of you not in the know), and coded this baby up. This is an outline of Isaiah. I’ve had it sitting in a folder called “truthsaves” in Thunderbird for at least three weeks, so it should have been done by now. But hey, guess what? It is done now so I’ll quit blabbering so you can read it.

Click here to read the outline of Isaiah.

I’ve just posted another outline . . . finally. Sorry I’ve been avoiding the blog scene for a while. Things have been ultra busy at work, and I simply haven’t been on the computer much. But today, I made it home a bit earlier than normal, so I decided to post an outline that’s been sitting on my computer for a while. It’s an outline for the Old Testament book of Song of Solomon.

Click here to check out the outline.

Who is God? It’s a question many have asked, and a question many have tried to answer. If you ask 100 people, you’ll get 100 different answers. The best person to tell you about God is God Himself, just like the best person to tell me about you is - you guessed it - you. Does God tell us about Himself? You bet. In His Word.

Tim paints a beautiful word picture of who God is, according to the Scriptures.

Read the article here.

Many years ago I wrote an article about baptism.

I’ve received countless emails inquiring why I’d write such an article. Am I trying to mislead people? Am I trying to avoid being baptized myself? Am I making excuses for family members or friends who haven’t been baptized? Why write such a divisive article?

Hopefully this simple answer will suffice. Some time ago, someone tried convincing me that achieving salvation meant following strict procedures and rules. First I had to read these verses, then pray this, then do that, then this, then that, and so on. If I rejected the prescription, then I lacked genuine faith. If I didn’t accept the routine, then God didn’t accept me.

One of the steps in the recipe involved baptism by immersion. Without it, I’d never make it to heaven. The emphasis always lay in the procedures, not on the relationship.

My problem with the above is that I don’t find it in the Bible. I find strong evidence to the contrary. Jesus broke the rules. He established relationships. He baptized none. Paul baptized few. The thief on the cross went to be in Paradise with Jesus without baptism. Jesus told the rich young ruler in Luke 18 to “follow Me.” He wanted the man to forsake all and to be with Him. He told Martha in John 11 that “everyone who believes in Me will never die.” He asked her if she believed that. Do you believe it? I do. Nowhere does the Bible say, “Be baptized and you will be saved.” The closest you’ll find to that is Mark 16:16.

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. (ESV)

What does this verse say? It says that anyone who does not believe will be condemned. And that’s what I affirm.

Does this mean baptism should be avoided? Not at all. Jesus began His ministry by being baptized (Matthew 3); He ended His ministry by commanding his disciples to go into all the world and baptize (Matthew 28:19). Peter tells us in Acts to be baptized. In the New Testament, when people came to a saving faith in Jesus Christ, baptism followed. This pattern should be a model for us. I’d worry if someone opposed baptism.

Please read this article knowing that I have been baptized. I am convinced God wants all believers to be baptized. But that does not negate the point of the article; belief in the Jesus of the Bible opens heaven’s doors for us; baptism doesn’t.

Read the article here.

Walk blamelessly, or perfectly, or with uprightness. Now, I can walk with uprightness, but I’ll tell you right now that I can’t walk blamelessly. I guarantee by the end of the day (53 minutes from right now) there will be something you’ll be able to blame me for.

Is God saying that only those who are perfect will able to go to heaven? Read what Psalm 115, verses 1 and 2 say:

¹ A Psalm of David. O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill?

² He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart . . .

When I read that, I shook my head. I looked up the original word for “blameless,” and found out that typically, when used in the Psalms, it’s translated “perfect.” Elsewhere in the Bible, the most common translation is “without blemish.” Give me a break. Like I can do that.

When I come across verses like this, it’s easy for me to try to find a way out. The word “perfect” can’t really mean “perfect.” It must mean “mostly perfect” or “able to avoid really serious sins” like adultery or murder. We can avoid those things, right?

But I think we do the Word of God a disservice when we discount what it says. It says that those who are blameless, or perfect, will dwell with God.

I can always go back to the verse in the New Testament . . . you know, the one that says it’s harder for a rich man to enter heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Right after that it says that things that are impossible with man are possible with God. So, with the help of the Spirit, perhaps I can be perfect! Hmmmm. I doubt it.

It’s not that I lack faith, but I know myself. I am not perfect. I will never be perfect. I’m human. I’m fallible. I have flaws. I get angry. I have pride. I’m over-competitive.

So what now? Have I just concluded that I’m headed for hell? I don’t think so. As I read this Psalm I don’t read that anyone who’s not perfect is condemned to hell. It’s not in the text. What I do read is that a person who achieves perfection will be able to dwell with God.

I suspect God wrote this to remind us to strive to be perfect. God expects us to read His Word, to listen to Him, and to become more like Him. We need to love our neighbors and hate evil.

The problem with all this is that none of us are perfect, or ever will be. We all sin. But God doesn’t say we can’t live with Him if we aren’t perfect. Yes, He wants us to be blameless. He wanted Israel to be blameless. Were they? Far from it. Yet He relented from destroying them. And He will continue to forgive us if we continue to return to Him.

So, I have hope.

And I also have Jesus, so I have life.

¹² Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

OK, the name leaves a bit to be desired, but this RSS reader fits the bill for me. I tried RSSOwl (and you can read about it here) but it started spewing out weird error messages and wouldn’t load. I’m not into programs that don’t work, so I got rid of it.

FeedDemon works well. It integrates nicely with Newsgator, which simply means you can check your feeds from any browser, anywhere, as well as on your desktop. You simply have to sign up for a free account with Newsgator. But I don’t use that feature; I’m satisfied with the program on its own.

Why do I like it better than the open source RSSOwl? Well, for starters, it always works. I like programs that always work. It’s fairly easy to figure out. The online help or the tutorial could be more detailed, but it’s hard to complain when I’m not paying.

It sports multiple newspaper “styles,” so you can decide how you want your news displayed. Do you want to see a title? An excerpt? The entire article? It’s customizable; you can have feeds checked every five minutes or once per hour. It even has a “panic button” so you can mark all posts read instantly (if you simply have too much to go through).

Tabbed browsing, decent online help, simplicity, low-cost (free), different display options, Newsgator synchronization . . . what more could you ask for?

Get it here.

Collecting things. What does the Bible say about it? Well, I’m not sure, to be honest, but I do it. I really enjoy collecting pocket knives. I recently completed a list of all the Case Select series knives manufactured since 1998, when Case first introduced the Select line.

Check out the list here.

Anyway, I think, to answer my first question, that Scripture warns against anything disrupting a healthy relationship with God.

²⁵ Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them,

²⁶ “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

²⁷ Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
Luke 14:25-27

If we love anything more than God, even our own families, we hurt our relationship with Him. The rich young ruler went away sad because he loved his money more than he wanted to follow God.

So, can we collect things? I think so. Like I said, I collect pocket knives. And I created a really cool list for all the Case Select knives produced from 1998 until now . . . did I already say that?

But when collecting, or money, or family issues, or ebay, or T.V., or friendships, or food (like Chocolate Peanut Butter Umpqua) or anything at all - gets in the way of following Jesus Christ - we need to let it go.

¹ Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

² looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1-2