JOURNEYING FROM EASTER TOWARD PENTECOST

My sister-in-law Awana spent her entire adult life in Government Foreign Service. She lived between Arlington, VA and whatever Embassy she and Ralph were attached to at the time. They served multiple tours of duty in Taiwan. In those early years of raising her family, Awana visited often in the home of Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-shek and she and Madame Chiang became lifelong friend.

One day Madame Chiang related this favorite story that described how a certain very ordinary farmer became an extraordinary hero. This particular farmer lived on a high plateau, high above the valley below. One day, he peered out across the valley toward the shoreline and realized an earthquake was causing the ocean to pile up. It would soon create a tsunami.

The observant farmer realized that a tidal wave would wash in over the lowlanders and flood his neighbors far down in the valley below. They would all perish unless he could immediately call them to the hilltop where he was. Quickly, he lit a torch and touched his torch to his dry rice barn. Then he rang the fire gong.

Far down in the valley, the people looked high up the mountainside and saw the rising smoke. They hurriedly scrambled up the hillside to help their neighbor fight the fire. Before they could reach his burning barn, the waves roared in behind them and flooded the fields they had just left. Almost in unison, they all recognized that their friend had just burned all of his possessions to save their lives. He was a hero!

When nineteenth century hymn writer-preacher Phillips Brooks died, his oldest brother confided to their mutual friend, Dr. McVicker: “Phillips might have saved himself, and so prolonged his life. Others do; but he was always giving himself to anyone who wanted him.”

Dr. McVicker replied, “Yes indeed! He might have saved himself, but in doing so, he would not have been Phillips Brooks. The glory of Phillips Brooks’ life was that he did not save himself.”

The journey of Easter was a special time of recalling and re-telling the stories of Jesus, especially those stories as told in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Each reminds us that Jesus came first as the Son of Man, but he also came to seek and to save the lost (Matthew 18:11; Luke 19:10). Journeying beyond beyond Easter toward Pentecost makes our journey with Jesus a further time when we recall and renew ourselves in his caring love.

When we celebrate the glory beyond Easter toward Pentecost, we rejoice in the firm faith that Jesus chose to do the will of his Heavenly Father and that he committed himself to save others rather than to save himself.

          

This is walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com; indeed: how blessed we are!_____ 

THE TRUTH ABOUT LIFE

"There is a sense in which every man must build his life from the foundations up and must learn all its life from the most elementary to the highest; but through cooperation and the preservation of the wisdom of the past, profitable living should become easier for each succeeding generation." So wrote Warner Monroe in his PhD thesis in the late 1940's.

"The preservation and accumulation of the truth by which men live and the sharing of practical wisdom in the solving of life's problems are the work of a cooperative society," Monroe concluded in his published volume, An Introduction to Christian Ethics (Warner Press, 1947)

The 2020 rendition of our succeeding generations finds itself facing a global Pandemic.  Covid-19 came to us out of Wuhan, China and there is much debate about who is to blame for this this death-ridden disaster. American politics can blame it on the intentional mishandling of truth by the Communistic Chinese Government and trying to control the flow of information, but that does not explain all the rest of the globally viral pandemics we have experienced and survived.

Some people of faith want to simplify life to the point of blaming it all on God, or the behavior of people, and say simply that people are ignoring God and this is God's retribution on them for ignoring him. John Calvin leaned that way, as did Augustine, simplifying life down to a kind of behaviorism that is as simple as God selecting some for election (salvation) and others for judgment and hell.

The Apostle Paul did not find life that simplistic. Once he got over his own arrogance of destroying these Jesus-followers of The Way, he began to understand the relationship between God and mankind in a more relaxed but complicated manner that Professor James Arminius called man's free will. Paul concluded that man had some input in this relationship with God and he appealed to his Roman readers, "by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service."

Therefore, concluded Paul, "Do not be conformed  to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" Romans 12:1-2 RSV, italics mine).

Picking up Warner Monroe again in a more lengthy quote, let us see if we can make some sense out of this global pandemic we face today. Monroe affirms candidly, "Though the importance of the legacy of the past cannot be too greatly appreciated, the solution of new problems and the discovery of new truth must not be neglected."  I have italicized this to get our attention for what Monroe now declares as true: There are many problems which are recurrent, for they are faced by men of all ages and can therefore be solved or partly solved once for all."

I am reminded of this every time I see someone questioning this pandemic and asking God for a quick-fix solution. I believe people think God is our eternal errand boy and that prayer is simply a matter of asking God to deliver us from this evil. We have a way of proclaiming a certain faith in God's ability to deliver us from all evil, protect us through all problems, and ultimately free our lives of all problems and perplexities. When it comes time for the rubber to hit the road, we expect God to deliver prosperity for the asking, power on demand, and personal avoidance of all perplexities. We proclaim an evangelical message that focuses on an old rugged cross, but when a difficult time arises, we expect God to shower us with sunshine and roses-without thorns.

This latest pandemic is simply one more reminder of what Monroe wrote in his text on ethics: "More abundant and more baffling are those problems which have never been faced before." Have we been looking at this from a wrong perspective? Well: what does Monroe say about this?

"Life is, and must forever be, a process of change, adjustment to new situations, and  a discovery of new truth; and in this process of adjustment and discovery co-operation is indispensable. The machinery and methods of co-operation must conserve and give stability, but must not become so fixed in nature that they arrest progress or make impossible the solution of new problems as they arise. 

 "The methods of co-operation must be regarded strictly as the handmaid of an outflowing stream of life, and stability should take the form of the permanent posssibility of  adjustment to changing circumstances" (pp 120-121, Italics mine).

I believe we are created by God and in his image. That demands a certain freedom of choice for us, although we acknowledge the Sovereignty of God. So that we do not remain mindless creatures of habit and instinct, God has extended to us the freedom to choose him or reject him, to work out our own salvation by means of his grace, and to face some tough times rather than enjoying a simplistic health and wealth utopia.

There is a lesson for us to learn in Psalm 139; it is that God knows us inside and out. No matter how far we go in life we can never go so far we lose the influence of God, However, we do find we do not escape perplexities and problems either. Somewhere along our stoney pathway there is a stone that will take down Goliath. In other words, life does not avoid problems, but God has filled our bible with stories and illustrations of how He (God) will lead us over, under, around, or through any problem we encounter

We have made it this far, and together we can make it through today and still have hope for tomorrow. With that thought in mind, I offer this poetic challenge, titled DON'T QUIT:

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile,' but you have to sigh,
          When care is pressing you down a bit--
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As everyone of us sometimes learns,
And many a fellow turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out.
Don't give up though the pace seems slow--
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor's cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out--
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when your hardest hit--
Its when things seem worst that you mustn't quit.
                                                                               Author Unknown
Be blessed;
This is walkingwithwarner,blogspotcom_____

CALLED TO HOLINESS

The early church called believers from impurity, to holiness and sanctification (1 Thess. 4:7). Leon Hynson wrote in The Wesleyan Renewal, suggesting that John Wesley regarded holiness as a lifelong process in which God skillfully sculpts us to his image. Using Wesley's analogy, Hynson describes repentance as the porch and faith as the door into the house, and reminds us that Wesley taught Christians to press on into perfect love.

Hynson says that Wesley sought two ends: 1) replacing the spirit of evil with the love of God, and 2) preparing believers to love the world in order to redeem the world. As people of God, it is critically important for us to have a firm conviction of whom and what we are.

The Lord your God has chosen you, Moses announced, and The Lord will establish you (Deut. 7:7b; 28:9). Paul pursued this theme in Rome, when greeting believers he described as chosen by God and actively committed to God's redeeming activity in the world (Romans, chapter 16). Peter insisted, You are a chosen people (1 Peter 2:9).

WE DISCOVER HOLINESS BY PURSING THE HOLY SPIRIT'S GIFTING.  He promises to empower and build up the body of Christ, as we use this gifting for the common good health of the church body, that it may be healthy (Eph. 4:11-13; I Cor. 12:7). As His people, we exercise the ability of dispensing grace (I Peter 4:10).

WE MODEL HOLINESS THROUGH PERSUASIVE LIVING. By making Jesus our model and mentor, we serve, rather than being served (Mk. 10:43). We do what we can for the least of these, because it is of utmost importance to the Lord (Mt. 25:40). We serve lovingly, knowing that anything less is a clanging cymbal (I Cor. 12:1).

WE COMMUNICATE HOLINESS THROUGH DISCIPLING.  Christ's last instructions were to go ... make disciples ... baptizing ... and teaching them everything I have commanded you (Mt. 28:19-20).

WE CONFORM TO HOLINESS BY SEEKING "FIRST" HIS KINGDOM (Mt. 6:33).  We strive  to carry out the will  of our Heavenly Father, staying action oriented, prioritizing discipleship and avoiding what Peter Wagner called St. John's Syndrome, that lukewarmness of spiritual old age and being at ease in Zion (Rev. 2:2).

WE WITNESS TO HOLINESS BY BEING CHRIST'S AMBASSADORS--people through whom He speaks to others (2 Cor. 5:19-20).  He commissions us to regard no one from a worldly point of view. We emulate His example by being His hands and feet wherever we go--living as tangible evidence of reality in a values-distorted world.

In 1995, General Colin Powell advised that he would not run for any political office in the government of the United States, because he lacked the "political passion." God calls us to holiness and charges us to be passionate about it. We are to be people mentored and commissioned by Jesus--focused above all else--on Christ.

As we focus upon His presence, Christ calls us to find each other in unity of purpose and allow Him to form us so that, united, we can make a difference in redeeming the world ... as contemporary as today's newspaper. He calls us to abandon the trivial and the piously self-serving, to separate from attempts to domesticate the Divine, and to become passionately involved in reconciling our splintered and fragmented world to his loving grace (2 Cor 5:19).

From Warner's World, this is walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com