In the vein of
Friday is for Fotos and
Thumbs-up Thursday, a new tradition is going to begin, Wednesday is for One Year. I am going to attempt to create a post every Wednesday pertaining to our One Year Bible reading. I want to encourage others, particularly those at
EBC, to feel free to leave comments about your thoughts from the weeks reading.
“Who Am I”
My best friends father sought to kill me. My best friend died an early death. My promised wife was given to another man. I am a man of bloodshed. I had a man murdered. I committed adultery. My infant son died at seven days old. One of my son committed rape. This son was murdered by another of my sons. This son sought to overthrow me and kill me. I am the Lord’s anointed. I am a man after God’s own heart. I am blessed by God and my family has God’s promise to endure forever. God’s love will never be taken away from my family.It is obvious that this is David, but it is sometimes confusing to put the sins and despair with the blessings and godliness of this man. The beginning statement is not really meant as a guessing game, but it is David’s prayer to God in 2 Samuel 7:18-19,
“Who am I, O Sovereign LORD, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? And as if this were not enough in your sight, O Sovereign LORD, you have also spoken about the future of the house of your servant. Is this your usual way of dealing with man, O Sovereign LORD?”
As I try to reconcile God’s blessing on David, and David being a man after God’s own heart with his sin and despair, I keep coming back to this line, “Who am I?” What humility. After David’s son died because of David’s sin what did he do? He worshiped God. What humility. As a mighty warrior after he has been seated on the throne, what is his reply to his success? ‘Who am I? Do you normally deal with man this way?’ He was a man, a created being blessed my God. Sure difficulty came, but he did not lose sight of who he was, God’s creature. We cannot lose sight of this fact either, David was a man, but he truly loved and worshiped God. He is a reminder that as a child of God our sin has consequences but does not separate us from the love of God. He is a reminder that blessings from God are undeserved by any man. Therefore, we should praise God louder for our blessings than we groan for our despair. Despair is rightfully deserved by man, blessing is all of grace.
Posted in
Family by ministerandy on May 30th, 2006
We had a relaxing weekend at the Lutz household. We played outside, went for Ice cream, had a church cookout, and went to the Lemon’s house for a grill out on Monday. I have a few random quotes and stories that I want to write down so that I remember them.
Friday night we meet some friends at Ice Cream Plus in Lapel. I ordered a Strawberry milkshake for me and Tyler to split and we started talking and enjoying our ice cream and shakes. Tyler, who likes things in order, began to tidy up and throw all of the napkins on the tables away. Next thing I know, I go to drink my shake and there is no cup! Everyone in the place, except me, saw him throw the almost full strawberry milkshake away. Then everyone just got a good laugh at my expense, I had even splurged and gotten a medium, but even I had to laugh at my little neat freak.
Saturday I was tossing the football with Kara and teaching her how to catch it. I threw a nice one right at her, but she moved her hands and it hit her right in the nose, it was nerf. I quickly told her, hey you are okay shake it off. To which she quickly responded, “Daddy, don’t forget I am a tender butterfly.”
Monday was Lauren’s turn. We went to a college friend’s home for the afternoon. One of our other buddies was supposed to come over, but was late. When Goodenough, that is his last name, walked in Lauren, who is quite vocal about not liking boys, ran to Heather and jumped up on her lap and said, “He is the Dude!” She then began to act a little shy.
Dr. Mohler posted an article worth checking out. It links The DaVinci Code and the Left Behind series in their appeal. Read it here. It is a reminder to the church to uphold the meat of the gospel, so that the lost may hear of and encounter a perfect savior who satisfies.
Kara is mastering bicycle riding now. She asked me the other day to take off her training wheels. She said, “Daddy I don’t want to waste another minute!”
While I have never read the book, with the release of the blockbuster film coming out I have come across some great links that counter this “fictional” novel. I admit I like Tom Hanks and Ron Howard and mystery movies really intrige me, but the temptation to see this movie is low. Whether or not someone calls it fiction, I would never go to see a movie that made my wife out to be a liar, a sexual deviant, or anything less than who she is. With that in mind, why would I want to go and be entertained by fiction about my savior that makes him to be a liar, not God, and eliminates him from being my savior. But it is just fiction many will argue. I still cannot handle Christ being portrayed in this way any more than I could handle my wife being slandered in the name of fiction. But it goes beyond this. To slander another human is one thing, but to slander God is blasphemy and breaks the first two of the 10 commandments, whether done in the name of theology or fictional entertainment. Now I am not on a campaign against this film, but I do hope that those who love Christ will stop and consider what they allow themselves to be entertained by.
Here are some links that take a more theological look at the Da Vinci Code:
Thanks to Dee for the Links.
Well, we did it! Heather did a great job training and we, Heather’s Mom, Heather and I, all stayed together and finished the 13.1 mile race. For those concerned about me, ye of little faith! It was a lot of fun, but I think we will try tennis next year.
In honor of Dave’s Preludal Picture Day I have finally posted a picture. This is me in my Nike Free shoes “training” for the mini-marathon that is run this saturday. 13 miles, I guess 3 miles a month is not the best training. Here’s to hoping I finish. By the way Nike Free stands for free cuts, free scrapes, and free blisters the size of texas. Our entire church body is cheering for Heather to clean my clock!
For those of you that were there, you already know, but to the rest of you, the conference was great. To be able to worship with 3000 men, and these were the kind of men that loved to sing, is an experience I loved. The preaching was what you would expect from Dever, Mohler, Mahaney, Duncan, MacArthur, Sproul, and Piper. It was convicting, ecouraging, humbling, clear, and christ-centered. I rushed out of the conference to make it back to the bedside of a dying deacon from our church. The emphasis upon Christ-centerdness and then watching a man cross over from this earth to the presence of God went hand in hand.
Here are a few quotes/paraphrases:
Piper: “If you could have heaven, your health, your relationships, your dreams, and God is not there is that okay?”
Mahaney: “Don’t ever limit your evaluation of yourself to yourself.”
MacArthur: “In our church if you don’t love who we love (God/Christ), then you are not comfortable.”
None of those quotes do justice to what we heard, but hopefully it gives you a taste. If you want to read more go to the live blog.
And if you are a Pastor and you missed it, set your calendars for April ‘08.
