NO GROUND FOR REPROACH

NO GROUND FOR REPROACH

Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world. (1Peter 2:12)

At this, the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent. (Daniel 6:4)

The  Christians of the early church suffered terrible persecution, that St. Peter in his exhortation, encouraged them to  do good, remain upright and blameless, even  when mistreated and insulted by their pagan neighbors. 

The  religious prejudice, and violent opposition  against the early  Christians are hardly  surprising. They refuse  to worship the pagan gods of their gentile neighbors that they were branded as atheists. Under the   reign of the powerful Roman Emperors, deity is accorded the Roman Emperor, and they refused to worship him, so they were accused of rebellion against Roman authority.

St. Peter believed that the best defense for Christians to survive in this situation is to do good. Peter advised his fellow  Christians to keep their conduct  honorable.  As Christians they worship the true and living God who commanded them not to repay evil for evil. The only way by which they could repel the evil that is spoken and done against them is to do what is good  and to live honestly so that regardless of the wrong things charged against them, by the unbelievers, their good conduct  will shine like lights, before the eyes of their persecutors. Like Daniel, they could not find in him any ground for reproach, for he was trustworthy, and neither corrupt nor negligent.

Peter capped his exhortation by this most inspiring statement: “And who is he that will harm you if ye be followers of that which is good? But and if ye suffer for righteousness’ sake happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled.”

SHAKE THEM OFF AND TAKE A STEP UP

SHAKE THEM OFF AND TAKE A STEP UP

A couple of years ago my wife forced me to attend the high school graduation of our younger daughter, as she scolded me that she had been the only one doing this favor to our children, and it was the time for me to do my share of showing that I could be a supportive parent.

So off I went.

I was getting bored with the English and Chinese languages being spoken. I was waiting for some special guest as commencement speaker, but there was none. No politician, no high profile personality, no wealthy business guru.

I realized that the petite and brilliant Principal Miss Uy was all the students had. There were no lavish introductions.

Without much ceremony she spoke to the graduates and narrated the following story:

“One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally he decided the animal was old, that the well needed to be covered anyway and that it just wasn't worth retrieving the donkey. So he invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement, he quieted down.

A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well and was astonished at what he saw. With every shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up. As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off!”

With that story the school Principal, said, “My dear students, when you leave school and be on your own out there, life isn't going to be easy. Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. In order to succeed, don’t yield and accept all the dirt, shake them off and take a step up.”

I rose to my feet and gave a strong applause.

Image from sparkpeople.com

TAKING A MARRIED WOMAN

TAKING A MARRIED WOMAN

Genesis 20:1-18

Now Abraham moved on from there into the region of the Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur. For a while he stayed in Gerar, 2 and there Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” Then Abimelek king of Gerar sent for Sarah and took her.

3 But God came to Abimelek in a dream one night and said to him, “You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman.”

4 Now Abimelek had not gone near her, so he said, “Lord, will you destroy an innocent nation? 5 Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister,’ and didn’t she also say, ‘He is my brother’? I have done this with a clear conscience and clean hands.”

6 Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know you did this with a clear conscience, and so I have kept you from sinning against me. That is why I did not let you touch her. 7 Now return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, you may be sure that you and all who belong to you will die.”

The Sunday before Thanksgiving I listened to the sermon of our Pastor who bewailed the prevalent theme of immorality often seen on television. He said he is alarmed by the popularity of storylines depicted on TV where one man’s wife is taken by another man in a so called love triangle. This reminded me of Abraham, the Jewish Patriarch, who allowed his wife to be taken by a king named Abimelech, to be his wife.

What happened here is interesting.

Abraham led a nomadic life after his call from God to leave his country and to go to the land God has promised him. In this episode, the great patriarch left his encampment in Mamre, and migrated to the southern part of Canaan. He lived between Kadesh and Shur. For awhile he stayed in Gerar a rich pastureland, ruled by a pagan king Abilemech.

Abraham was afraid of the king and the people of Gerar where he dwelled. He was filled with anxiety and he feared for his own life. His wife Sarah was a very beautiful woman. With foreboding he knew it was only a matter of time that someone would take an interest in  Sarah, as to do away with him, because he was her husband.  To spare himself he  introduced his wife Sarah as his sister, to the people Gerar. The king Abimelech, who believed Sarah to be Abraham’s sister took her to be one of his wives.

But God came to Abimelech in a dream. God spoke to this pagan king in a dream as He intervened to preserve Sarah’s virtue. God warned Abimelech that he would be good as dead because the woman he took was a married woman. 

Abimelech in his conversation with God in the dream, explained that he did not know the truth about Sarah’s relationship with Abraham who presented her to be his sister. Abimelech pleaded he had a clean conscience. God knew that this pagan king had a clean conscience and this was the reason God kept Abimelech from sinning. 

God instructed Abimelech to return Sarah to her husband. God further removed the curse upon Abimelech, his wife and his maids.

This is a sobering thought, in an age where unfaithfulness abounds and marriage is hardly recognized as sacred, but simply a contractual arrangement. Adultery is a sin. God did not mince words in declaring that a man is as good as dead when takes a married woman. As long as Abimelech had another man's wife under his roof, he was a "dead man" until he released her to go back to her rightful husband, even though he had not yet touched her. This was true for even a pagan king.

For Abimelech, the idea of having a new partner came naturally for he had concubines.  Perhaps because of his position and authority, getting any woman that caught his fancy was his prerogative. He was the king. He was a man of great importance.

And yet in the end, his lust led to an intense standoff with God. Only a clean conscience and a repentant spirit saved him from God’s judgment.

ON MEDITATION

ON MEDITATION

There are a few well meaning Christian friends who ask me about my leaning towards eastern philosophy and meditation. I would like to disabuse their minds.

I admit that before becoming a Christian I was particularly interested in the Eastern Religious forms of  Meditation.      After I became a Christian I was heavily influenced by the writings of Brother Lawrence, “The Practice of the Presence of God.”

The transcendental form of meditation in eastern thought is an attempt to empty the mind, to be detached from the world, and in the process to lose one’s self, and become one with the so called Cosmic mind.

The discipline of contemplative meditation, which, is hardly discernible, among Christians, except to a few who have embraced the monastic life, is not exclusively innate to Eastern thought or Philosophy.       

Meditation means “the act of focusing one’s thoughts: to ponder, think on, muse.”

Meditation is reflective thinking or contemplation, usually on a specific subject to discern its meaning or significance or a plan of action.

Meditation is synonymous with contemplation, reflection, rumination, deep thinking, or remembering in the sense of keeping or calling something to mind for the purpose of consideration, reflection, or meditation.

Scripture abounds with passages teaching, even commanding us, to Meditate:

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”(Philippians 4:8)

“When I remember Thee on my bed, I meditate on Thee in the night watches”(Psalm 6:36)

“I remember the days of old; I meditate on all Thy doings; I muse on the work of Thy hands.” (Psalm 143:5)

How is it then that this religious discipline of Meditation is hardly significant in the lives of modern day Christians?

One reason is perhaps the lack of understanding, teaching, or  practice of Biblical Meditation as an individual discipline, which shapes and directs the life of a believer.  Another reason, yet, may be the complete misunderstanding of the contemplative discipline as something unique only in Eastern thought, and religion, that, to even consider the practice, would  expose  the Christian mind to mystical or new age thinking. This position is understandable for it seems that a thin, line, divides the external meditative life of a Christian and  the eastern mystic.

As Christians our meditation is anchored on God’s Word, the Bible. Biblical Meditation is object oriented. It begins with the reading, re-reading, memorizing of God’s Word;  thinking, and reflecting. The object of reflection is God, His Word, and His revealed truths.

While Christian meditation may involve a greater degree of silence and solitude, unlike the Eastern tradition it does not mean sitting and focusing the mind upon infinity or  emptying  the mind so that  some cosmic force is summoned to fill it through repetition of some chant or mantra. The Eastern forms of meditation teach detachment from the world. The object is detachment.

Biblical meditation, involves becoming removed from the ways of the world, from worldly thoughts and influences, that we may abide with the living God through Christ. The object of Christian meditation is the worship of the true and living God. It is the discipline of walking in the spirit and not in the flesh.(Galatians 5:16) 

This is where Christian meditation diverges from the similarity.  Meditation in the Bible is an exercise in reflective thinking, divining Biblical truths, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who indwells every believer. In this way God is able to speak to the believer through Scripture, and through the thoughts that come to mind which reflects on the Word,  filtered by the Word. A Christian who practices the contemplative life of meditation is ever mindful God’s reminder to his creation, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9)

WHEN TIMES WERE SLOW

WHEN TIMES WERE SLOW

I wish I could return to the time when life was slow, simple, and quiet, where I spent my youth in the farm. There was no electricity. Gas lamps lighted the house. Eating a meal needed time of waiting for cooking. Cooking was done  in a stone stove using firewood as fuel. No cold drinks but there was spring water held and chilled in earthen jars or  the “banga.”  No refrigerator, but only the “platera” (food cabinet) where  food was covered and kept. Television was unthinkable, though we had transistor radio, around which,  the family members gathered  listening to soap box drama.  

There were nights when I    sit by the window gazing in the dark watching the beautiful fireflies playing in the dark night air, their twinkling  lights  a wonder to behold.  

Deadlines and hurried appointments were virtually non-existent. Only times of planting and harvest, sowing and reaping,  and waiting in between. I don’t recall we ever had a clock on the wall. The radio announcer  was the time keeper.

I wish I could go back. I am now approaching seniority, and those days would only remain a memory. I now live in a time of quick, fast, fixes.  Ordering  a meal now is fast though   complicated with all the different  choices and combinations of rich, junk food  pushed into our faces, selecting one confounds the mind.  Everything is fast and quick.  We have gadgets which work fast.  Everyone is in a hurry, and busy racing against deadlines, appointments, catching up with social functions and meetings. The cellphones, I-pads, I-phones, and computers are the modern day marvels creating a fast moving world which abhors slackness, or slowness. 

No one wants to wait, and everyone complains if made to wait, more so when the internet    connection is slow. We expect instant gratification and immediate results. We do not know how to wait anymore. Tempers are quick to flare up in long lines. The discipline of waiting is a lost virtue. 

God did not intend us to  live this way. God appointed times and seasons and it is not our business to hasten what He has established. 

The Soap Maker

The Pastor of a large Parish in a big city was bothered by the absence in church of his friend, a wealthy business man who owned the soap manufacturing company in the city. For several Sundays the Priest noticed his friend had not been going to church so he paid his friend a visit.

After the greetings the Priest got directly to the point of his visit. He asked the businessman why he stopped attending church.

The wealthy soap manufacturer was likewise direct in his response. He said, “What good is religion? What good is my faith? Father, look around, we see trouble, misery, violence, wars, wickedness, injustice, greed, and all these years of your preaching and teaching haven’t done anything good. What good is it when evil still exists?

The Priest remained quiet for a long time. He had no ready answer.  Then he saw a child playing in the gutter . The child was filthy, covered with dirt and mud. The Priest said, “Look at this child. You are proud of the soap which your company produces, but I say soap is useless. This child is still filthy. What good is soap, it doesn't do any good. With all the soap in the world this  child is still dirty, so what good is soap after all?”

“But Father”, the businessman exclaimed, “Soap can’t do its job unless it is used.”

“Exactly my point,” the Priest replied, “The same is true with our faith.” 

The Lesson Of The Ant

The Lesson Of The Ant

A biologist once was doing a study of ants. One day he watched a worker ant

carrying a piece of straw. Compared to the ant's size and weight, that straw

must have been a heavy and unwieldy load. But the ant kept working -- kept

carrying his load.

After a while the ant came to a large crack in the earth. He explored to the

left and the right, but there was no way to go around -- and the crack was too

wide and too deep to get across.

The ant stood there on the brink of the precipice as though pondering the situation. 

Then, he took the burdensome straw off his back. Stumbling, tumbling, and straining, 

somehow he managed to put one end of the straw on one side of the crack and let it fall 

across the span! Then the ant walked across the straw safely to the other side.

With a few tugs and strains, he pulled the straw across the crack, put it back

on his back... and went on his way again! He triumphed by using his burden as a

bridge to the other side.

What a lesson for us!

In this life we will have burdens. The Apostle Paul noted, For we that are in

this tabernacle do groan, being burdened (2 Corinthians 5:4). But we need not be

unduly crushed to the ground by our load if we allow the Lord and His strength

to sustain us. The psalmist cried, Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall

sustain thee (Psalm 55:22).

Jesus said, Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will

give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly

in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my

burden is light (Matthew 1 1:28-30).

Did you notice that Jesus did not say, "Come throw down your load and 

walk away with no burden at all. "He only promised to give us rest. 

Then we are to take on His yoke and pick up His burden. 

And what kind of load is it? It is a light yoke, an easy burden!

The Lord has not promised that we will not have to work in this life. There is

no guarantee that we will not face difficulties and trials. Nowhere does He tell

us that the road will not be long or the night not so dark.

Rather, He promises that where we go, He will go... and never will we be left

alone. For he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee (Hebrews

13:5). And He also promised, Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the

world (Matthew 28:20).

If Jesus is with us, and His burden is always light, why do we get so loaded

down at times? I think it is because we pick up the burdens of the past along

with tomorrow's burden and add it to the load allotted for today.

John Newton once wrote, "I compare the troubles which we have to undergo 

in the course of a year to a great bundle of fagots, far too large for us to lift. But

God does not require us to carry the whole at once. He mercifully unties the

bundle and gives us first one stick, which we are to carry today, and then

another, which we are to carry tomorrow, and so on. This we might easily manage 

if we would only take the burden appointed for us each day. But we choose 

to increase our troubles by carrying yesterday's stick over again today 

and adding tomorrow's burden to our load before we are required to carry it."

Jesus says, "Come rest. Lay down yesterday's burden, and don't lift tomorrow's

load yet. Just pick up today's burden... and it will be easy!"

And like the resourceful ant, we may discover that at times we can use our

burden to bridge the chasms in the path before us. It can literally become a

stepping-stone to higher ground.

-Dr. Rexella Van Impe

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