Moral Dimension

First, we must make a connection between God’s character and His relation to the moral law

Is the moral law a moral law just because God has decreed it such and therefore it is arbitray, or is the moral law ultimate, superintending even over Him?

In other words, is the moral law something whimsically uttered by God or something abstract that exists apart from Him?

Does He operate by raw power and make choices that are then deemed good only because He says they are so, or is He Himself under the law, having to obey it even against His own wishes?

Counter question:

Is the moral law by which each one of us chooses to live a law that we have arbitrarily chosen by which to exercise our power, or does it exist over and above us?

If we have arbitrarily chosen it, then we have no right to condemn the moral law by which anyone else operates, including God.

On the other hand, if the moral law stands over and above us, then how do we determine where it comes from?



The moral law that calls for the sanctity of every individual life is given to us by God.

We must understand that a human being cannot be the measure of all things, or else we would be forced to ask, which person will be the ultimate measure?

History and experience tell us in blood and tears that we cannot trust our character.

But with God,

The law is neither arbitrary, nor over Him; it is rooted in His character, which is perfect and unchanging.

He alone eternally and perfectly exists.

Philosophical Dimension

“But we do not see a moral law in existence; therefore, there cannot be a moral lawgiver.”

This statement comes out of the mouths of those who think there is no God because there is no tangible expression of moral law.

However, that implies that a moral law would be recognizable to us if we saw it.

Also, the assumption is made that we have the capacity to decide whether or not a moral law exists.

How have we acquired that capacity in a purely naturalistic universe?

The truth is:

• We cannot deny a moral frame of reference without invoking a moral absolute 
• If we grant the currency of evil, then God is not expendable

Now let's look at the moral dimension itself.

Confidence in God’s Character

   The skeptic’s question has to be answered: 

                       "Would you create a world with pain, and if you did, could you at the same time still be called good?"

 
Two inferences can be drawn:
1.How can there be an all-loving, all-powerful God when evil is so evident and uncontained?
2.Even if God exists, how can He be called good while allowing death and destruction to happen, when we ourselves would be considered wicked if we did the same thing?

 

Let's see the perspective that C.S. Lewis gives in his book, “The Problem of Pain.”
"If God were good, He would make His creatures perfectly happy, and if He were almighty He would be able to do what he wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power, or both."
With a characteristic conciseness and clarity Lewis sets the stage for the entire book in the first paragraph of Chapter 2 - "The possibility of solving [the problem] depends on showing that the terms 'good' and 'almighty', and perhaps also the term 'happy', are equivocal: for it must be admitted from the outset that if the popular meanings attached to these words are the best, or the only possible, meaning, then the argument is unanswerable".

Lets keep another day for a look at a philosophical dimension of this discussion as it begins to shape the character of God.

A Collapsed Worship Equals a Weary Life

Is it not true that a barrenness of spiritual life brings more barrenness?  When vain repetitions become habit, we repeat all the more? That we look for the novelty in worship and that just tempts us to give way to more novelty?




“Faith Doesn’t Have Any Excuses”

And the Lord said unto Noah: "Where is the ark which I have commanded thee to build?"

And Noah said unto the Lord: "Verily, I have had three carpenters off ill. The gopher-wood supplier hath let me down -- yea, even though the gopher-wood hath been on order for nigh upon 12 months. What can I do, O Lord?"

And God said unto Noah: "I want that ark finished even after seven days and seven nights."

And Noah said: "It will be so."

And it was not so. And the Lord said unto Noah: "What seemeth to be the trouble this time?"

And Noah said unto the lord: "Mine subcontractor hath gone bankrupt. The pitch which Thou commandest me to put on the outside and on the inside of the ark hath not arrived. The plumber hath gone on strike. Shem, my son who helpeth me on the ark side of the business, hath formed a pop group with his brothers Ham and Japheth. Lord, I am undone."

And the Lord grew angry and said, "And what about the animals, the male and female of every sort that I ordered to come unto thee to keep their seed alive upon the face of the earth?"

And Noah said: "They have been delivered unto the wrong address but should arriveth on Friday."

And the Lord said: "How about the unicorns, and the fowls of the air by sevens?"

And Noah wrung his hands and wept, saying: "Lord, unicorns are a discontinued line; thou canst not get them for love nor money. And fowls of the air are sold only in half-dozens. Lord, Lord, Thou knowest how it is."

And the Lord in His wisdom said, "Noah, my son, I knowest. Why else dost thou think I have caused a flood to descend upon the earth?"

 I think that God wanted His people to understand what worship was meant to be and to do. Archbishop William Temple said this -

Worship is the submission of all of our nature to God.

It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness, nourishment of mind by His truth, purifying of imagination by His beauty, opening of the heart to His love, and submission of will to His purpose.

And all this gathered up in adoration is the greatest of human expressions of which we are capable.

Worship binds all of life together and gives it a single focus of:
     –Conscience
     –Mind
     –Imagination
     –Heart
     –Will
•Worship responds to guilt, for with reverence we come to God for forgiveness
•Worship goes beyond pleasure, pleasure has it weariness
•Worship guides our feelings, they need to be bounded and informed by truth
•Worship needs to know who God is, we need to come to Him as Holy Father
•Worship counters the sense of loneliness, for it binds all our passions

Remember Eric Liddell in "Chariots of Fire?"  Before he went as a missionary to China, he ran in the 1924 Olympics and won gold.  When asked why he practices so much, he said, “God has made me for a purpose, for China. But He has also made me fast, and when I run I feel His pleasure.”

Worship is coextensive with life. Here the sacred and the secular meet and our cry meets the cry of God.

The Sixth Element in Worship

"Another thing you do: You flood the LORD’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer looks with favour on your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands.

You ask, “Why?” It is because the LORD is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.
Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit. And what does the one God seek? Godly offspring. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth."


The sixth element in worship is - it is impossible to worship God without obedience.

God asked the people to look at the broken promises between husbands and wives. God brought the tragedy of a nation that had lost its relationship with God right down to the marital vows.

Take a look at the old English usage for when the marriage vow was made: “With my body I thee worship”

So we have broken marriage vows, disobedient lifestyle that destroyed the sanctity of the home and worship became hypocritical. If our word to God is not honoured, what motivation is there to honour our word to our spouses and then that is passed down to our children – trapped in a situation of broken promises. The book of James defines true religion as, “Let your ‘Yes’ be yes, and your ‘No,” no” in other words, honour your word.

God’s purpose boils down to this: redemption, right standinng with God, worship which is the same trend we see in Israel’s history:
•First He redeemed them
•Then He gave them the Law to point them to righteousness
•Finally, He gave them the instructions for worship

The Fifth Element in Worship

“For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, and from his mouth men should seek instruction – because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty."

It is impossible to worship God without instruction in the truth.

Worship is not for the glory of men and women; it is for the glory of God.

Teaching is the seed sown within the heart and mind from which the fruit is produced in life that can then be brought as a sacrifice to God.

The Fourth Element in Worship

“Oh that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you.’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and I will accept no offering from your hands.’”

The fourth element is - It is impossible to worship God with a wrong motive 

So much had become a show. Everything seems to point to how impressive one’s religious performance and duties appear. But deep inside, our heart is far, far away from God.

Any time we find a blend of power and ceremony with the need for inward purity, there is a great risk that the latter will suffer.

The monotony of repetition and the seduction of power are two extremely potent forces to contend with. That is what makes the whole concept of staying fresh in one’s study and efforts so necessary. Each new day places a new opportunity before us to be refreshed and to learn, to reinforce and to renew.

Figuratively speaking, the heart is the seat of the soul,  by that I mean our inclinations, our passions, our desires, our sincerity are true intimations in matters of the spirit and God is saying that the comings and goings are very obvious, but the heart is far away - therefore worship is not really happening.

The Third Element of Worship

“But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?”

 

“By saying that the Lord’s table is contemptible. When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?’ says the Lord Almighty”

The third element – it is impossible to worship without sacrifice
 
By sacrifice, we mean the best
   –Do we give Him the best of our time?
   –Do we give Him the best of our energies?
   –Do we give Him the best of our thinking?
   –Do we give Him the best of our wealth?
   –Do we give Him the best of our dreams and plans?

http://youtu.be/2t4pAE4dWR8

The Second Element

“A son honours his father, and a slave his master. If I am a father, where is the honour due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?” says the LORD Almighty."

“It is you priests who show contempt for my name.”

Not only have they lost sight of His love, but hey also lost that all-important attitude of reverence.

The second element – we cannot worship Him with out reverence

The First Element

Looking at how has God cried for His people, what elemenst can we glean that will give us meaning worship, for example this conversation found in Malachi - “’I have loved you,’ says the Lord. But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’” - we see a pattern of dialogue begin to take shape - I say this, but you say, How?  I make specific changes, I make specific changes, and you deny them.

Imagine, after one thousand years of history with God they have the audacity to ask.

Don't you feel sorry in a way for Hosea?  He was used by God to show His love to a people who abused it terribly.

Hosea had three children -
–Jezreel – meaning “judgement” as in a day of reckoning
–Lo-ruhamuh – meaning “no more mercy” – as in God saying that time has run out
–Lo-Ammi – meaning “not my people” – as in ‘I disown you’

Hosea's wife, Gomer, deserted him and had to sell herself into prostitution - God told Hosea to take her back as a real life analogy of His love for His people.

So as Hosea is walking down the street the gossip begins - "How can a holy man like you be married to an adulterous woman like that?”

Hosea gets involved - “I have been waiting for you to ask. And I will be glad to tell you how easy it is to love a woman like that if you will first explain to me how a holy God can love an adulterous nation like us?”

How could a people have missed that kind of love, which loved the unlovely, one that loved the undeserving, indeed, the disgusting?

There is a boy in the neighbourhood… whom I have defended in some of his troubles with the law. He used to stop in often on Saturday mornings to shave and wash up, after having spent the week on the streets. He has been addicted for a long time. His father threw him out three years ago . . . He has contrived so many stories to induce clergy and social workers to give him money to support his habit that he is no longer believed when he asks for help . . . He is dirty, ignorant, arrogant, dishonest, unemployable, broken, unreliable, ugly, rejected, alone. And he knows it. He knows that at last he has nothing to commend himself to another human being. He has nothing to offer. There is nothing about him that permits the love of another person for him. He is unlovable. Yet it is exactly in his own confession that he does not deserve the love of another that he represents all the rest of us. For none of us is different from him in this regard. We are all unlovable. More than that, the action of this boy’s life points beyond itself, it points to the gospel, to God who loves us though we hate Him, who loves us though we do not please Him, who loves us not for our sake but for His own sake, who loves us freely, who accepts us through we have nothing acceptable to offer Him. Hidden in the obnoxious existence of this boy is the scandalous secret of the Word of God.
~William Stringfellow, My People is the Enemy: An Autobiographical Polemic, 97-98

The point worth remembering…
–God’s rejected love, so flagrantly abused, was given the parallel of a woman who left her husband to wallow and revel in a life of prostitution, yet remained love by Him

 

Remember what the prophet Isaiah shared about God's thoughts – “what more could I have done for you that I have not already done?” If God could ask that centuries before the cross, what does that say about our modern world? For the raw expression of love was carried all the way to the cross.

God can use the same word to describe His feelings and do so in a meaningful way while at the same time exceed our context of that word. For example, when I say I love somebody and that person refuses to love me, I hurt – because I lost something. When God says He loves us and we refuse to love Him, He hurts too – because we have lost something We make ourselves less then we were meant to be.

So, the first element of meaningful worship – one cannot worship without love. Not emotional, emotion – not emotionalism, emotions.

A Voice Decrying the Wilderness

In the days of the Tabernacle, where it went and where it stayed was where God's invitation came – “there I will meet with you.” This was my OT professor's favorite expression - God chose the place, time etc. There was no magic found in a location - God invited conversation anywhere and anytime.

In the book of Malachi, God is mentioned in fifty-three of the fifty-five verses.  Compare that to Esther where God's name is never mentioned.  However, in Esther God is everywhere and in Malachi, He does not show up.

Here is the answer given to every human cry, for here, the cry of God's heart is given to us. Do you want to make the most revolutionary changes ever to take place in your thinking – take the book of Malachi to heart

A Modern Day Dilemma

In worship, our cries meet up with the cry of God’s heart for His people - it's who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That's the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before Him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship Him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.

A.W.Tozer made a statement that worship is "the missing jewel of the evangelical churches." Such an evaluation concerning worship is not simply negative; it seeks repentance and reformation in the ways where we have gone astray. Chuck Swindoll wrote a great article on Tozer's statement as he addressed the Associated Gospel Churches - check it out and enjoy...

http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/insight-for-living/read/articles/discovering-the-missing-jewel-of-the-church-10670.html

 

How do we develop deep roots capable of weathering every storm?

We need to remember that Love is not the root but only the branches.  The root is worship. 
Without it, the busyness of life and the distractions of our minds will take down the strongest of us no matter how sturdy we look on the outside.

The Cry of God for His People

“In the beginning, God”

There is no other rational starting point for life than God and God’s original intent was to walk and to talk with His own creation.

He was passionate about it too.  Remember Michaelangelo's painting - you notice God reaching out to Adam and you see how outstretched God’s arm is. Every muscle on His face is contorted, and His hand is reaching as far as possible to make contact.

By contrast, Adam lackadaisically lets a limp hand dangle with apathy in an attitude that seems to say, “if it meets it meets.”

As generations came and went, God sought one in the midst of all creation, one who would understand His heart and be willing to be clasped in His hand --

•Adam
•Abraham – friend of God
•Enslavement in Egypt–God heard their cry
•Build a tabernacle
•Four generations later – David
•Build a temple

Funny thing happened –
When David began to prepare for building the temple and when the temple was built – notice a change in attitude?

From being owned by God – it was as if they now owned Him. From journeying with Him – they now had to journey to Him. As God became immovably housed, spirituality became localized, and life became disconnected from worship.

Everything that distorted worship began right there.

•Book of the Law was lost
•Sacrificial system became corrupted
•Priests lost the nobility of their calling
•People lost God when His glory departed
•Tent and alter were replaced by a power-seeking ecclesiastical authority

 God had desired to be tabernacled in each individual worshiper before they gathered for worship with one another. Stephen’s sermon, that he paid for with his life, says it all, "the Most High does not dwell in houses made with hands.” Bodies were to be the temple of God.

Malachi was a passionate plea to take a hard look at how worship had lost its worth and God’s longing for His people had been thwarted, and a weariness had set in.

John in Revelation saw no temple in the eternal city - God was not “house-bound” any longer!

 

Worship is more than Love

Ever think that worship is an antedote for loneliness?

Here are three things about worship that I think counter the ache of loneliness.

1.  Recognize worship as the legitimate sense of mystery and the rightful expression of awe.  If we reflect on our own pursuits, for example, in the area of academia,  because of our desire to know - we can look at ourselves and rather than see God's hand with us, with think we accomplished everything on our own. The heart of worship suggests that even our very own life is a gift.

2. This kind of Appreciative love goes beyond itself and gives to others. If it were not for Appreciative love for God, one could never love his or her enemy or even love for another’s sake. Because of our love for God we endure all things. And from the love with which He enriches us flows a love that is not our own .It comes from a deposit He makes in our hearts from which we draw.

3.Appreciative love binds the worshipping life into a single focus, touching upon every sense of life itself. Worship brings the coalescence of essence. For instance, musicians are "persons" first before they are musicians and a life that seeks fulfillment in its expertise before it finds fulfillment in its being is bound to feel fragmented.

The songwriter beautifully blends these truths, base on the forty-second Psalm -

As the deer panteth for the water,
So my soul longeth after Thee,
You alone are my heart’s desire
And I long to worship Thee.
You alone are my strength and shield
To you alone may my spirit yield;
You alone are my heart’s desire,
and I long to worship Thee

 http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=JE12CFNU

The Return to our Roots

Several years ago, a couple read of a little boy in Romania who was born without arms, not even an appendage on both shoulders. When he was about one year old they visited the orphanage where he was being cared for because his parents were unable to, and their hearts went out to him. Most of the caregivers in that orphanage would have no more than minimal contact with him because they feared the “evil eye” represented by his deformity and the bad luck they believed he would bring them.

Through discussion and contacts, this couple asked if they could adopt this little one. The boy’s mother, as well as many others, questioned the motives of anyone who would take him into their lives and spend themselves in this way, caring for one in such need of nurture and assistance. She asked, “Are you taking him to America so you can use him for experiments? I have heard that they do that in America.” Mike and Sharon assured her that this was not their intent at all. They just wanted to give him a home and a chance at life.

“But why would you want a baby like mine?” the mother asked. Sharon had had the foresight to bring a Romanian Bible with her, and opening it to Psalm 139, she gave it to the Romanian mother to read for herself:

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
When I was made in the secret place. . . .(Psalm 139:13–15)

As the mother read from God’s Word, tears started to stream down her face. Finally she looked at Sharon and said, “If this is what you believe about my son, you can have him as yours.”

What a great testimony - the bottom line is that our beings long for God. Only in Him is the soul hunger of loneliness met – not just in love but in worship.

A Surprising Gap

In the forward of his book, The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis senses that there is an uneven balance between love and pleasure.

He notices that Need-pleasure foreshadows and points us to Need-love, however, Appreciation-pleasure does not foreshadow Gift-love in the same way.

Nothing he could do would make it fit - the gap was to large to bridge.

So Lewis introduces a fifth concept – Appreciation love.

This breaks everything open and now we can answer why there is a love that is deeper than our normal use of the word.

Appreciation-love: this is when the heart and mind respond with a love that goes beyond pleasure.

•Appreciative love undergirds, influences and informs Need-love and Gift-love
•Appreciative love endures because it is rooted in the very source of our being, not merely in our behaving
•Appreciative love springs out of gratitude and takes into full cognizance the mystery of my being before the one who is the cause of my being and who Himself can never, not be
•Appreciative love, as it relates to our response to God, is a love that loves out of gratitude to Him; it is a love that bends the heart and will in worship

This is the cornerstone of the answer to loneliness

There is a reason that both the conversation with the woman at the well and the interaction with the woman with the alabaster jar of ointment end on the theme of worship

–Both women had loved and lost
–Both knew the deception of love
–Both had lived through Need-love and Gift-love
–Both knew the limitations of pleasure

The Pleasures that Attract

We have looked at Need-love and Gift-love as two of the four kinds of love C.S. Lewis introduced us to and now the next two loves have to do with two kinds of pleasure.  Let's see if there is a connection between our pleasures and our love. 

The first pleasure is Need-pleasure. This is contentment we get from some of life's simplest treats - a refreshing glass of water, a comfortable chair or a cup of coffee.

As a person who has travelled quite extensively, its value is priceless when I am kilometers away from my familiar sights and sounds and I miss the delights that I enjoy so much from home.

Frederick Buechner – The Longing for Home

What was there about that house that made it home in a way that all the other houses of my childhood never even came close to being? The permanence of it was part of the answer—the sense I had that whereas the other houses came and went, this one was there always and would go on being there for as far into the future as I could imagine, with Ellen bringing my grandmother her glass of buttermilk on a silver tray just at eleven every morning, and my grandfather going off to his downtown office and returning in time for a cocktail before dinner with the evening paper under his arm and maybe something he'd bought at the bakery on the way home, and the Saturday night suppers when the cook was out and the menu, in honor of the New England half of my grandmother's background, was always mahogany-colored beans baked with salt pork and molasses, steamed Boston brown bread with raisins in it, and strong black coffee boiled in a pot with an eggshell to settle the grounds and sweetened with lumps of sugar and cream heavy enough to whip.

http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook50536.htm 

This is a classic expression of Need-pleasure – each enjoyment of it goes into the memory bank to be drawn upon when the opportunity comes to enjoy it as some other appropriate moment.

The second pleasure is Appreciation-pleasure. This is the pleasure that comes suddenly but leaves us enthralled in its wake – the brief flash of pleasure leaves us with both a longing and a lasting memory. Like
driving along a highway when, unexpectedly, around a bend in the road a field full of poppies comes into view.

Need-love, Gift-love; Need-pleasure, Appreciation-pleasure

• By needing and giving love, finding pleasure and appreciating pleasure, can we find the answer to loneliness?

• Is there a completeness in these four components?

• or is something still missing?

The Gift of Love

A little while ago I introduced the first of Four Loves by C.S. Lewis which was Need-love and today is the second love which is Gift-love.

The flip side of Need-love is Gift-love. This kind of love pours itself out in generosity, love, kindness, mercy, grace, and myriad other acts or thoughts of giving.

There is an ancient story that comes out of Buddhism that tells of a woman who wanted to know how she could rid herself of her miseries and her bereavements.

She was told by the sage to go from door to door and when she found a home where there were no worries, to ask there for a morsel of grain

She returned a long while later saying that she had not found a single home that fit that description

In fact, she had become so involved in hearing of the heartaches of others that she had forgotten her own. The moral of the story – in giving you forget your own need

Now, life is far more complicated than to be summarily epitomized as a journey to alleviate hurt, but I think you get the point.

A Mystery by Design

Author Lewis Thomas – Medusa and the Snail

"The mere existence of that cell should be one of the greatest astonishments of the earth. People ought to be walking around all day, all through their waking hours, calling to each other in endless wonderment, talking of nothing except that cell.“

"If anyone does succeed in explaining it, within my lifetime," he wrote, "I will charter a skywriting airplane, maybe a whole fleet of them, and send them aloft to write one great exclamation point after another, around the whole sky, until all my money runs out."

http://news.stanford.edu/pr/91/911120Arc1048.html

There are two factors in our existence – one of essence, the other of coalescence:
   – There is a unique wholeness that is indivisible
   – In each personality there is a convergence of components that cannot be separated – giving each one his    or her personhood

F.W. Boreham in the The Sword of Solomon states that:
   – A person is not a quantity.
   – Each person is an entity

"There is a sense in which two and two are four,
The plane of ledgers and cashbooks – on which these propositions are approximately sound,
But if you rise from that plane to a loftier one,
You will find at once that they are untenable …
it is obviously untrue that half-a-baby and half-a-baby make a baby,
Let the sword do its deadly work…
The two halves of a baby make no baby at all,
"On this higher plane of human sentiment and experience, the laws of mathematics collapse completely"

------------------------------------

When a man distributes his wealth among his children, he gives to each a part
But when a woman distributes her love among her children, she gives it all to each …
No man who has once fallen in love will ever be persuaded that one and one are only two,
He looks at her, and feels that one plus one would be a million …

No happy couple into the sweet shelter of whose home a little child has come will ever be convinced that two and one are only three,
Life has been enriched a thousandfold by the addition of that one little life to theirs,
And I am certain that no pair from whose clinging and protecting arms their treasure has been snatched will find comfort in the assurance that one from three leaves two. . ."

"In the great crises of life one’s faith in figures breaks down hopelessly."

So going back to Maslow - why do we move to the behavioural stage, entranced by all its data, and leave the volume of our origin unread?
   – Do we not wish to claim dependence on anyone, deluding ourselves into believing that we are self-made?
   – Held in the bind of our longing for love we have lost sight of the wonder of our essence behind the existence

Every now and then you will read of a dramatic expression of this need.
Next time read carefully between the lines – you will notice that it is not merely any love that is needed but a particular love.
That particular love is built into our unique personality and the unique wholeness with which we are born

Story from Covenant House – New York City:

Although Kathy came to us years ago, her story remains a stark reminder of the complex and heart-breaking reasons kids continue to come to our doors. Here is her story...

Kathy came through our door dressed in dirty rags and clutching a small paint can to her chest. Whatever she did, wherever she went, the paint can never left her hands. She took the can with her to the cafeteria that first morning, and to bed with her at night.

Kathy even took the paint can into the bathroom, leaving it just outside the curtain as she showered. Getting dressed, the precious object rested between her feet.

"This can belongs to me."
That’s what she told the counselors at Covenant House whenever they asked her about it. When Kathy was sad or angry or hurt – which happened a lot – she took her paint can to a quiet dorm room on the third floor. Many times Kathy would rock gently back and forth, the can in her arms. Sometimes she talked to the paint can in low whispers.

Troubled kids often carry stuffed animals, photos, and all sorts of keepsakes, but no one had ever seen a child cherish a paint can.

Troubled kids often carry stuffed animals, photos, and all sorts of keepsakes, but no one had ever seen a child cherish a paint can.

One day, a concerned staff member approached Kathy, hoping to finally solve the mystery: “Kathy, that’s a really nice can. What’s in it?” For a long time, Kathy didn’t answer. She rocked back and forth, her hair swinging around her shoulders.

Then she looked over at the counselor with tears in her eyes and said:

“It’s my mother. It’s my mother’s ashes.
I went and got them from the funeral home. See, it even has her name on it.” Kathy pointed to a little red label which listed the only memories Kathy had of her mother: name, date of birth, date of death.

Then Kathy held the can close, and hugged it. “I never really knew my mother. I mean, she threw me in the garbage two days after I was born.”

My mother told me she loved me

Kathy’s story was checked. The year Kathy was born the New York newspapers ran a story saying that police had found a little infant girl in a dumpster two days after Kathy was born.

“I ended up living in a lot of foster homes, mad at my mother,” Kathy said. “But then, I decided I was going to try to find her. I got lucky – someone knew where she was living. I went to her house but she wasn’t there,” Kathy said.

“My mother was in the hospital. She had AIDS. I went to the hospital… I got to meet her the day before she died. My mother told me she loved me,” Kathy said crying. “She told me she loved me.”

Covenant House can’t make up for all the loss in Kathy’s life… the love that should have been showered on this sweet child by her mother, long before their first meeting at the hospital. But by opening up to us about the contents in the can – and sharing her story – she is beginning to let our love in. With unconditional support and services designed to help her succeed, one day Kathy will put down the paint can and instead hold on tight to a new life filled with happiness.

 http://www.covenanthouse.org/homeless-youth/view/this_belongs_to_me

The Loves we need...

In the introduction of his book, The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis points our that there are four concepts that try to make a connection between love and pleasure and wonders what binds them and what separates them.

The first concept he introduces is Need-love

In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, he believes there is a process – from birth to maturity – physiological needs, safety needs, love needs, esteem needs and need for self-actualization.
However, the difference in our Christian worldview and Maslow lies in the foundation – understanding who we are results in dramatically different solutions for loneliness.

This recent video is a reflection of Maslow's hierarchy of needs - check out the comments on the site and its interesting to see the comments from the Islamic community.

A greater pursuit in life than love...

Two of the most moving stories in the New Testament will give us a clue that there is a greater pursuit in life than love.

1. The story of the Samaritan woman by the well is one who lived a life of quiet desperation.
     •Jesus’ disarmingly gentle triumph in getting her to admit that her   pathetic state of rejection was the chief of her woes
     •Looming behind her nervousness and her welter of religious questions was her greatest heartache – her loneliness

2. The second story took place in the home of a Pharisee named Simon.
     •Simon – no courtesies offered a guest were given to Jesus – no embrace, no water to wash his feet, no towel to dry them, no offer of refreshment.

Listen to the words of Luke 7:36-43:

When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. 

A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume.

As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”

“Tell me, teacher,” he said.

  “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”

“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

     •Woman – dared to come uninvited, gave to Jesus the best of her possessions, fell prostrate at His feet – washing them with her tears and drying them with her hair.

 
There are similar clues in both stories to the answer of the heart’s struggle of loneliness and the longing for the beyond – let's take a look at C.S. Lewis' concept of the four loves in order to put the human existence factor on the table first, before dealing with the beyond.

Cry of loneliness is felt by all...

This is a cry that is felt by all, though better suppressed by some. Our experience of loneliness is universal, and love alone is not the answer.  There is a “beyond” in all of us that love does not satisfy – as wonderful a privilege as love is.


 Author Denis de Rougemonts said, "Love ceases to be a demon only when it ceases to be a god."


In other words, love becomes a scourge when it is idolized as en end in itself.
Yet we still pursue it like a hunter and assume that “that thing called love” is our final trophy. Exalting it in our songs and talking of it in platitudes that it can never equal. As grand an experience as love is , it is not the final answer to loneliness.


We have seen four great gains over the past generation that we have welcomed with a promise and yet disappointment has accompanied each one.

1. Never before have we had such means to instantly transmit content or create desire.
• The incredible has actually happened when men have taken to letter writing because it is called e-mail

2. Age of technology has delivered a bill of goods for which the cost is exacted more in the loss of our peace of mind than in our bank accounts.
• Were intended to free up time for leisure, but less time is spent in building relationships while more                 time is invested in using those conveniences.



3. Medicine has brought us vastly improved means to preserve life, and yet we have lost the definition of life     itself.
• We talk about the right to die when we are mature and hurting without having been given the right to              live when we are fragile and needy.

4. Human sexuality has never been more studied, offered up, and pandered to in public.
• yet, we have never been more confused about what is right or, for that matter, even normal in such                 expressions.

Increased communication capacity, technological advances, progress in medicine and sexual liberation have, all in their own way, only made us a more captive and trivial culture. And still the cry of loneliness is heard from millions of hearts, and love alone is not the answer.

Why then do we suffer the condition of loneliness, and what is the answer?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5VycDIAzoo

The most deeply felt ache within the human heart

Novelist and writer Thomas Wolfe – God’s Lonely Man
"The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary people, is the central and inevitable feature of human existence. All this hideous doubt, despair and dark confusion of the soul a lonely man must know, for he is united to no image save that which he creates himself. He is bolstered by no other knowledge save that which he can gather for himself with the vision of his own eyes and brain. He is sustained and cheered and aided by no party. He is given comfort by no creed. He has no faith in him except his own, and often that faith deserts him, leaving him shaken and filled with impotence. Then it seems to him that his life has come to nothing. That he is ruined, lost, and broken, past redemption, and that morning, that bright and shining morning with its promise of new beginnings, will never come upon the earth again as it did once."

Writer D.H. Lawrence – Women in Love
"We want to delude ourselves that love is the root. It isn’t.
It is only the branches. The root is beyond love, a naked kind of isolation, an isolated me, that does NOT meet and mingle, and never can.’
‘And you mean you can’t love?’ she asked, in trepidation.
‘Yes, if you like. I have loved. But there is a beyond, where there is not love.’
She could not submit to this. She felt it swooning over her.
But she could not submit.
‘It is true, what I say; there is a beyond, in you, in me, which is further than love, beyond the scope, as stars are beyond the scope of vision'"

Have these two touched the throbbing nerve of reality, are they telling it as it really is or is this just literary license in the use of melodramatic and eccentric artists?

Last thoughts on pleasure...

Remember, that in our service to God, we bring God His greatest pleasure.

The goal to hear Him say, “well done, good and faithful servant” must govern the pleasure of our lives.


Psalm 147:11 – the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love

Application #3 for what we have learned about pleasure...

God is the source of all good pleasure – the closer one gets to legitimate pleasure, the closer one gets to the heart of God

C.S. Lewis – The Screwtape Letters

The senior devil has instructed the junior devil on how to trip up an individual who seems to be straddling the line between God and self.

“Keep him from going over to the Enemy” was the charge given to the young imp.

Some days later the junior devil returned to the senior devil and reported that he had lost the man over completely to the “Enemy’s” side. Meaning that the individual had made a decision to become a follower of Jesus

“How did that happen?” roared the senior devil, “Could you not have seduced him?”

“No” came the reply “because he did two things that took him away from us.

First, every day he took a walk, not for the exercise but for the pure pleasure of it. Second, he decided to read a good book, not so that he might quote it to someone else but rather, for the pure pleasure of it. Between the walk and the good book, he came within the Enemy’s reach”

Application #2 for what we have learned about pleasure...

Application #2: Pleasure is a means, not an end. Joy should be the greater end 

      –Joy is the fulfillment that comes from a relationship that breathes  contentment in being and is not dependant on just doing
      – Joy will dim or be broken if they are not nourished by and do not point to the greatest relationship of all – with God

That is why, when pleasure has gone, it either leaves behind honour or dishonour, joy or sorrow.

If we were to look carefully at which pleasures bring joy and which pleasures diminish it,

We would discover that every genuine and enduring pleasure is tied somehow into a relationship that also has a moral commitment

"The Lost Chord" is a song composed by Arthur Sullivan in 1877 --

Seated one day at the organ,
I was weary and ill at ease,
And my fingers wandered idly
Over the noisy keys.

I know not what I was playing,
Or what I was dreaming then;
But I struck one chord of music,
Like the sound of a great Amen.

It flooded the crimson twilight,
Like the close of an angel's psalm,
And it lay on my fevered spirit
With a touch of infinite calm.

It quieted pain and sorrow,
Like love overcoming strife;
It seemed the harmonious echo
From our discordant life.

It linked all perplexèd meanings
Into one perfect peace,
And trembled away into silence
As if it were loth to cease.

I have sought, but I seek it vainly,
That one lost chord divine,
Which came from the soul of the organ,
And entered into mine.

It may be that death's bright angel
Will speak in that chord again,
It may be that only in Heav'n
I shall hear that grand Amen.
G. K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy - Joy in knowing Christ
He points out that for the Christian, joy is central and sorrow is peripheral. This is because life’s fundamental questions are answered and only the peripheral ones are not. But for the one who does not know Christ,
sorrow is central and joy peripheral because peripheral questions may be answered but the fundamental ones are not.

Application #1 for what we have learned about pleasure...

Application #1: All pleasure must be bought at a price
 – for true pleasure the price is paid before it is enjoyed. For false pleasure the price is paid after it is enjoyed.

Turning aside from immediate gratification is one of the most difficult things to do. This is where the battle is often won or lost.

Laura Schlesinger: “It’s not an addiction problem you have, it’s a character problem.” This was Dr. Laura's response to a male caller who claimed he had an addiction to a certain lifestyle – Laura bluntly restated his problem --

Thoughts on judging others as to what pleasure is...

We all come from different backgrounds, privileges and responsibilities.

For one a beautiful symphony may be a balm for the heart’s wounds.
For another an energetic sporting event may provide respite.
For a third, a conversation on a great theme may put iron into the blood.

Whatever it may be, so long as it meets the test of God’s purpose for your life, is not enjoyed at the expense of another, and provides the opportunity to lead a life that is balanced, we shall find that God Himself will meet us and is sufficient pleasure for all our heart’s longings.

Balance the amount of pleasure

Continuing on the conversation started by F.W. Boreham, and having reviewed legitimate pleasure in the last blog, let's note his third point which is understanding that even legitimate pleasure needs to be balanced.


Definition: Any pleasure, however good, if not kept in balance, will distort reality or destroy appetite

We have heard it said that variety is the spice of life.
It is not so much the spice of life as much as it is life itself.

Only they who know how to reach out to that variety can truly enjoy the riches of a God of abundance.

 Maybe, for most of us, we can't even get to this stage because we have learned to balance between work and pleasure.  Take a look at this article for some help --
http://www.ehow.com/how_2054721_balance-work-pleasure.html

Illicit Pleasure

Continuing on the conversation started by F.W. Boreham, and having reviewed legitimate pleasure in the last blog, let's note his second point which is illlicit pleasure.

Definition:  Any pleasure that jeopardizes the sacred right of another is an illicit pleasure

 As just one example, Drs. Minirth and Meier explain the high rate of depression among high performers and the web of self-centred choices that lie beneath the surface --

Out of all the various personality types in our culture, there is one type that is more likely than any other to get depressed at some time in life. That type is the "nice guy"--the person who is self-sacrificing, overly conscientious, over-dutiful, hard-working, and frequently quite religious. Psychiatrists call this type the obsessive-compulsive personality.

Most lay persons call him a perfectionist, or a "workaholic", or even a dedicated servant.... Many find this quite surprising.... But those who have made a study of the depth of unconscious human dynamics realize that is really quite fair. ...Those dedicated servants who get depressed have as many struggles with personal selfishness as the parasite on welfare, he is out in society serving humanity at a work pace of eighty to a hundred hours a week, he is selfishly ignoring his wife and children. ...In his own eyes, and in the eyes of society, he is the epitome of human dedication... while his wife suffers from loneliness...and his sons...eventually commit suicide. ...He becomes angry when his wife and children place demands on him.

He can't understand how they could have the nerve to call such an unselfish, dedicated servant a selfish husband and father. ...In reality, his wife and children are correct, and they are suffering severely because of this subtle selfishness. This is precisely the reason why so many of the children of pastors, missionaries, and doctors turn out to be rebellious.

Legitimate Pleasure

In my last blog, I noted a quote from F.W. Boreham.  In that quote, he gave us three principles to follow in determining or helping us determine the healthy from the unhealthy.

Today, the wisdom we seek involves legitimate pleasure.

Our definition will be:
Any pleasure that refreshes you without diminishing you, distracting you, or side-tracking you from the ultimate goal is a legitimate pleasure

First requirement would be to establish the purpose of life itself. Second requirement would be to establish a philosophy of life. Now we have points of reference for all choices – distinguishing between fulfillment and disappointment, fun and destructiveness.

Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard: He learned to define life backward and live it forward – the destiny he sought became the dictator of the direction to choose.  That is no different then to how I create a project management flowchart for my business.

Susanna Wesley, who had nineteen children which included John and Charles Wesley had this definition.

“Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, takes off your relish for spiritual things, whatever increases the authority of the body over the mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may seem in itself." 

Our message is simple: The places to which we go, the friendships we embrace, the language we use, the shows we watch, the books we read, the thoughts we entertain – all must be aligned with the purpose to which we are called by God.

 

Framing the Problem

In our cry for freedom in pleasure, we can't go much further unless we set up some boundaries of our discussions.

F.W. Boreham, writing a half-century ago, accurately portrays the torment of being caught between the legalistic and the lawless indulgences.

"Laughter, merriment and fun, were quite evidently intended to occupy a large place in this world. Yet on no subject under the sun has the Church displayed more embarrassment and confusion.

One might almost suppose that here we have discovered an important phase of human experience on which Christianity is criminally reticent; a terra incognita which no intrepid prophet had explored; a silent sea upon whose waters no ecclesiastical adventurer had ever burst; a dark and eerie country upon which no sun had ever shone.

Dr. Jowett tells us of the devout old Scotsman who, on Saturday night, locked up the piano and unlocked the organ, reversing the process last thing on the Sabbath evening. The piano is the sinner; the organ the saint! Dr. Parker used to wax merry at the man who regarded bagatelle as a gift from heaven, whilst billiards he deemed to be a stepping-stone to perdition.

The play we condemn; it is anathema, to us. The same play-or a vastly inferior one-screened on a film we delightedly admire.

One Christian follows the round of gaiety with the maddest of the merry; another wears a hair shirt, and starves himself into a skeleton.

One treats life as all a frolic; another as all a funeral.

We swerve from the Scylla of aestheticism to the Charybdis of asceticism.

We swing like a pendulum from the indulgence of the Epicurean to the severities of the Stoic, failing to recognize, with the author of Ecce Homo, that it is the glory of Christianity that, rejecting the absurdities of each, it combines the cardinal excellencies of both.

We allow without knowing why we allow we ban without knowing why we prohibit. We

Compound for sins we are inclined to By damning those we have no mind to.

We are at sea without chart or compass. Our theories of pleasure are in hopeless confusion. Is there no definite doctrine of amusement? Is there no philosophy of fun? There must be! And there is!"

The Bible addresses pleasure possibly far more than it does the issue of pain, because the truth is that ultimately meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain, but meaninglessness comes from being weary of pleasure.

Ecclesiastes 2: Pleasures Are Meaningless

1 I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.” But that also proved to be meaningless. 2 “Laughter,” I said, “is madness. And what does pleasure accomplish?” 3 I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was good for people to do under the heavens during the few days of their lives.

4 I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. 5 I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. 6 I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. 7 I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. 8 I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers, and a harem[a] as well—the delights of a man’s heart. 9 I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.

10 I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil.
11 Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.

I will leave you with one final frame from psychologists Frank Minirth and Paul Meier and a quote from their book Happiness is a Choice.

“Minirth and I are convinced that many people do choose happiness but still do not obtain it. The reason for this is that even though they choose to be happy, they seek for inner peace and joy in the wrong places. They seek for happiness in materialism and do not find it. They seek for joy in sexual prowess but end up with fleeting pleasures and bitter long-term disappointments. They seek inner fulfillment by obtaining positions of power in corporations, in government, or even in their own families, but they remain unfulfilled. I have had millionaire businessmen come to my office and tell me they have big houses, yachts, and condominiums in Colorado, nice children, secure corporate positions – and suicidal tendencies. They have everything this world has to offer except one thing – inner peace and joy. They come to my office as a last resort, begging me to help them conquer the urge to kill themselves.”

A Formidable Challenge

In the cry for freedom in pleasure, we come up against the obvious.






Malcolm Muggeridge did. He took the action of resigning as Rector at the University of Edinburgh and it was fuelled by a moral struggle – this one straw broke the camel’s back so to speak – the supplying of contraceptives to the student body (this was thirty years ago).

“So dear Edinburgh students, this may well be the last time I address you, and this is what I want to say – and I don’t really care whether it means anything to you or not, whether you think there is anything in it or not, I want you to believe that this row I have had with your elected officers has nothing to do with any puritanical attitudes on my part. 

I have no belief in abstinence for abstinence's own sake, no wish under any circumstances to check any fulfilment of our life and being. But I have to say to you this: that whatever life is or is not about, it is not to be expressed in terms of drug stupefaction and casual sexual relations, however we may venture into the unknown it is not I assure you on the plastic wings of Playboy magazine or psychedelic fancies."

Take a look at an insightful comparison made by Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death, where he compares the effects of George Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World.
http://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ourselves-to-Death.html

I know I do not have to belabour the point about a disconcerting truth that is being revealed survey after survey showing that in our private lives there is very little difference between those who claim to be followers of Christ and those who don’t. Preachers have reached into that pocket on more than one occasion.

Sigmund Freud : I have found little that is good about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all. That is something that you cannot say aloud, or perhaps even think.

I think Sigmund was having a bad day for this statement is somewhat harsh and overstated maybe, but not completely off the mark. We all, if we are honest, flounder for lack of clear direction and inner strength in a world of changing and multiplying options.

Back to more questions --
How can we find the delights that our hearts yearn for without victimizing ourselves in the process?
How can life be enjoyed with out profaning it in the process?

Here is what we know about pleasure --

• There is the pleasure of listening

• The pleasure of seeing

• The pleasure of taste and touch

• The pleasure of feeling and knowing

• The pleasure of being

Would this God who made such ecstasy in purity possible, deny us direction in pleasure?

How do we find genuine freedom to enjoy life's pleasures?

Why do we relentlessly seek God’s answers when in the midst of suffering, yet we never seem to pause with equal sincerity to ask Him for guidance or wisdom in pleasure and seem very uncertain about God’s presence in fun and pleasure?



We postmodernists blame God for all the bad and credit ourselves with all that is good.

Have we all bought into a belief that God is not interested in making life enjoyable?

Has the Christian faith somehow been moulded and reshaped to appear as a killer of pleasure or as a barrier to fun?

Have enjoyment and amusement now been handed over to “the world” so that the very idea of pleasure is seen as deadly to spirituality?

Can God give us a wide array of pleasures including the physical and the aesthetic that we may enjoy without feeling that it is a break from the routine for the Christian?

How do we learn to think constructively rather than to live pragmatically, making momentary decisions without guiding principles that will inform our choices?

What deep struggles and questions must engulf us as we are fed a steady diet of all that appeals to the eye and the imagination, with so little to nurture the conscience.

What damage could be done to us long before we have the maturity and inner strength to glean the good and to reject the lies.
 

subtle but enormous chasm...

In trying to find a solution for guilt, we have finally come to the realization that to get rid of this guilt requires more than we thought and find ourselves separated from forgiveness by a rather enormous chasm.

"Not all the perfumes of Arabia," said Lady Macbeth (Shakespeare) "can remove this spot." "This disease is beyond my cure," says the doctor.

I think that if we can only take the next step and say, "I am guilty of sin," then the answer comes suddenly -- "I have a Saviour for you."

He went to the cross to carry the penalty and pay the price. It was not cheap; it was God’s priceless gift of His Son to bear the guilt brought by the sin of the world.
There is a cost to forgiveness - this article outlines what the costs are for a husband who has been unfaithful to his wife, but could be equally true for an unfaithful wife as well - check out this amazing article that clearly spells out the cost http://newlife.com/the-cost-of-forgiveness/

Guilt is real and if left unattended it will be compounded by each self-serving effort of irreverence, pride, fear, dismissal of the moral, or the claim of innocence. With admission of sin, there is the start of genuine restoration, because guilt is first a vertical problem before it is a horizontal one.
God has been violated before we have.  That is why it is God’s prerogative to forgive first. Only the forgiven know what that feels like, to receive forgiveness, and that is why they then in turn are able to offer forgiveness to others when wronged.

Check out the words to this amazing hymn --http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/hymntogod.php

Surrender Guilt to God's Grace

This is one of six responses that we have built into our life systems to deal with our guilt.

The biblical story of David and Bathsheba, focusing on Nathan’s timely entrance, probably exemplifies this best. Think of the number of ways David could have dealt with his guilt:
     – Nathan could have been arrested and killed
     – could have blamed Bathsheba
     – could have claimed the divine right of kings
     – could have abrogated the seventh commandment

Instead, he fell on his face before God and cried out…

Do you remember Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker and their PTL ministry (PTL stands for "Praise The Lord" but the press said it stood for "Pass the Loot"). In 1986 PTL's income was $129 million and included Heritage USA – a 2300-acre religious theme park, a hotel and a shopping mall in North Carolina and its own TV station on 1200 channels.

Jim Bakker had an affair with the church secretary Jessica Hahn in 1980 and resigned in 1987 when it came to light that he had paid her about $265,000 in blackmail money over the affair.

After his resignation, it was discovered that the Bakkers had been taking large amounts of money from the ministry fund, including hundreds of thousands of dollars in salaries for Bakker and his wife, insurance, property and other fees. The IRS investigated and discovered that the couple had diverted $4.8 million for personal use.

Part of that sum came from fraudulent $1,000 partnerships, which secured each partner three days per year of free lodging at the hotel in Heritage USA. However Bakker took the money from so many partners that it was a promise that he was unable to keep. Indeed the fraud was on such a scale that it was estimated that about 1500 people a month were being defrauded of their free time-share.

Jim Bakker was indicted for fraud in 1988 and sentenced to 45 years in prison and fined $500,000.

When the scandal broke, Bakker's Christian friends quickly deserted him. He became an outcast in the Christian world. And when he was sentenced, his wife Tammy Faye left him and then divorced him.

Six months into his sentence, Bakker was surprised one afternoon when the prison warden called him into his office. Bakker had a visitor: Billy Graham. When Graham came in, Bakker asked him why he had come to visit – because he knew that any association with Bakker would tarnish Graham's reputation.

Graham replied that Bakker was his friend in good and in bad times – and now when things were bad, he would stand by his side. And Billy Graham was true to his word.

Bakker's sentence was eventually reduced, on appeal, to ten years and when he came out of prison on parole, he had nowhere to stay.

So the Grahams invited him to stay with them.

On the Sunday following Bakker's release, Ruth Graham took him to church with her.

Disregarding what people would think about her, she stood up in church and introduced Jim Bakker to the congregation as her friend Jim Bakker.

I think that this illustrates the idea of what happens when we surrender our guilt to God.  Sin scorches us most after we receive the grace of forgiveness, not before.  The forgiven one realizes the gravity of the sin more when they are genuinely repentant and have been forgiven.

Summarizing our six points:

1. When expelled by irreverence, guilt makes life in mutual harmony unliveable
2. When smothered by pride it makes one’s life unaccountable
3. When concealed by fear it makes the pain unbearable
4. When dismissed as cultural it makes morality untenable
5. When claiming absolute innocence before God it makes the claim unjustifiable 
6. When guilt surrenders to the grace of God, it makes the sin forgivable

In religion:

• Hindus pays his Karma through millions of reincarnations 
• Muslims intones hopefully, “Insh Allah” – if God wills – and even at death never knows any certainty of forgiveness

In Christianity – anyone who comes to the cross know with a certainty that the debt has been paid

Deny Guilt by Innocence

Basically this means that we do not feel any guilt because we have lived a life as best as is possible and so repentance is not a necessary concept within our framework.

I still remember the day and where I was walking with my uncle and we had our conversation on heaven and hell.  Uncle Jacob couldn't believe that famous people, and he named a few that lived a good life, would go to hell.  He himself, who looked after my grandmother for years, doing all the menial work that went along with that - he said do you believe I will go to hell even after all of that?

He was implying that there was no hell, and if he had to play harps all day in heaven, he would rather spend eternity in hell.

“British journalist and Christian Malcolm Muggeridge has stated (paraphrased) that the doctrine of the total depravity of man is the most empirically demonstrable doctrine in the bible, yet it is the one most universally denied. The basic idea is that when we look around, we see the sinfulness of mankind played out on every stage. In every newspaper, every news website, every television news program, we see the evidence of the sinfulness of mankind on display. Yet this doctrine is often denied, because we don't like to think of ourselves as 'bad people.' Some of these people would say that we are born 'basically good.' Others would see us as being 'good, with the choice to do good or evil.' These people note, rightly enough, that we don't do everything bad that we could do. Even some of the most evil people have some good qualities.”

It is true that Jesus did not come into this world to make bad people good. He came into this world to make dead people live.  Those who were dead to God were to be made alive to Him through the work of the Holy Spirit, 

        •What do we mean by good anyway?
        •Do we each have our own definition?
        •Do we deny everyone else the right to have their own definition of good?

I think that we all think we see the big picture.  We think we see everything there is to see.  However, bring a microscope to bear upon an object, and a world we didn't see suddenly startles the mind as it comes into view.  That's in effect how God sees the world - He sees everything.

A woman died and could not go to Heaven because she had been mean and cruel to everyone all her life. She went to Hell, and from there she prayed for mercy. Was there no way she could be admitted to Heaven?

The angel who guards the gates looked around and asked all the souls in Heaven, "Is there anyone here who has ever had a kind word or an act of generosity from this woman?" Only one stepped forth. He said that in life he had been a starving beggar, and one time this woman had given him an onion. The angel told him, “Bring me the onion.” It wasn’t much of an onion—small and shriveled—a pretty poor meal even for a beggar. Would it be enough of an act of kindness to raise the old woman out of Hell?

The angel took the onion and reached down with it into Hell. The old woman grasped it and the angel began to pull her up. The thin dry stalk seemed like it might snap at any minute, but as she held onto it, her feet were lifted from the ground. The other damned souls around her saw her beginning to rise Heavenward and they grabbed at her skirts and her feet, hoping to be pulled up with her. The onion stalk was so spindly. Would it hold?

The old woman looked down at the other damned souls clinging to her and yelled, “Let go! It’s my onion!” And with that, the onion broke.

•Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky (who also wrote Crime and Punishment)

Claiming complete innocence in the eyes of God is unjustifiable.