Sure, discipline involves pain. It’s not always comfortable or convenient. But pain is inevitable in life. And every man must pick the pain he’d rather have.

You either pick the pain of DISCIPLINE.

Or you pick the pain of REGRET.

There are no other options.

- Marcus Brotherton

http://www.marcusbrotherton.com/2012/01/perfectly-good-word.html

To say that this has been a growth experience for me would be a huge understatement. I don’t possess any of the gifts that one would typically associate with a leadership type. I’m not a people person, I’m not particularly charismatic, and I’m neither wise nor well spoken. But God is using me anyway. He does not call the qualified, he qualifies the called. This has been a hugely humbling experience for me.

In my walk with God one of my greatest stumbling blocks has been always my pride. I tend to think I’m pretty awesome. But God knows better. He has put me into a number of situations for which I am unqualified and horribly unsuited.  And then he does His thing and makes things turn out well anyway.

In the meantime I’m learning. Slowly the lessons that He is teaching me are sinking into my thick skull. I’m beginning to suck less. I’m learning humility and I’m learning to put my faith in Him and to give Him all the glory that he so obviously deserves.

Pray for me, if you would. Pray that I will continue to learn and to grow and that He will use me in ways that I can’t even imagine. It is hard at times but it is worthwhile and invariably rewarding. It is a privilege to serve Him and His church. God is good. To Him be the glory. Amen.

Jones

There is however a danger in collecting and sharing quotes. When we read a particular quote we always approach it with our own particular biases and worldview. Often we are unaware of the circumstances in which they were originally penned and therefore substitute our own. When someone else reads a quote he may take it to mean something remarkably different from what we ourselves may take it to mean.

Take for example the following quote by Francis of Assisi:

Preach the Gospel always, and if necessary, use words.

A while my pastor spoke about sharing one’s faith with the world. He mentioned this quote. He made the point, in contradiction, that to be seen as a good and moral person is not enough but, rather, as Christians we must always use words. His argument was longer than I can do justice to here but it was a very good one.

The funny thing is that I had a very different take on what this quote meant. You see, when I first came across St Francis’ tidbit of wisdom I was in the very early stages of coming to faith in Jesus. I had some sense of the Truth of the Gospel but I was turned off of Christianity by the Christians that I knew. There seemed to be a whole lot of folks out there thumping Bibles who didn’t seem to live very Christ-like lives at all. I saw the quote as an admonition to avoid hypocrisy. I saw it as a statement that your words will carry no wait if your you live your life without credibility, perhaps in reference to Luke 6:42

How can you think of saying, ‘Friend, let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.

I’m probably wrong about the original intent of the quote but I like my version better. It’s a lesson that I try diligently to remember.

Jones

On this evaluation I scored quite high in the areas of Knowledge, Discernment, Serving, and Helps. The spiritual gifts were defined as:

Discernment: the God-given ability to tell the difference between good and evil, truth and error, and to sense the presence of evil.

Knowledge: the God-given ability to study, gain information, analyze it, and use it for the good of the body of Christ.

Serving: the God-given ability to identify unmet needs and to make use of available resources to meet those needs.

Helps: the God-given ability to find spiritual value in accomplishing practical and necessary tasks withing the Church.

I’ve always enjoyed doing personality tests and the like, not so much for the insight they offered but more so for the fun of analyzing them and judging how closely they fit with my own ideas about my personality. This evaluation presented a similar opportunity.

Overall I think it was pretty accurate. Serving and Helps are pretty closely related and I think that there is enough overlap there that I tend to think of them as one gift rather than two. There is no question that I’m a get-er-done type of guy and I like to be useful. All too often I find this world has too many talkers and not enough doers. Rather than adding to the problem I try to be a part of the solution. I pride myself in being the sort that can be trusted with a task and then forgotten about, safe in the knowledge that the task will be completed well and on time.

There is no mistaking my love of knowledge. I love to study, to learn about anything and everything I can. I particularly enjoy studying theology and the Bible and reading what smart people have to say about it. It makes me sad that I don’t read nearly as many books as I used to but I have become a huge google/wikipedia nerd and the internet is an easy fix for my information addiction. As handy as it is though, I miss being able to immerse myself deeply into a subject as one can best do with a good book. I intend to read more paper and fewer pixels in the future.

Discernment – there’s a tricky one. Discernment is something that most people seem to feel they possess. Who doesn’t fancy themselves a good judge of character? Who doesn’t know right from wrong, good from evil, and truth from error? For this reason I’m loathe to assess my own abilities in this regard. Ironic, maybe? That the purportedly discerning fellow is unable or unwilling to discern his own capacity for discernment.

I do however know that quite often in my professional life I have ‘gut feelings’ about certain people and situations that rarely prove false. But how much of that is God-given discernment and how much of it is hard-won experience and instinct? I couldn’t say.

The list of spiritual gifts is pretty long, containing as many as 28 abilities, depending on who you ask. As a read through them there are many that I know I don’t possess and I don’t miss at all. But the one that I truly wish I possessed is Wisdom.

Oh wisdom, how I long for thee. I think that I can say without boasting that I’m a reasonably smart guy by most peoples’ standards. I always got good marks in school. I’m good at math. I am familiar with history, politics, philosophy, and religion. I’m a decent critical thinker and problem solver. I’m good at acquiring knowledge and figuring out how to best apply it.

But, you see, that is where I fall short. I have knowledge and I know how to apply it. But I don’t. I have a personal tradition of poor decision making. Sometimes I learn from those decisions but I cause myself unnecessary grief because I usually know better before I make them. Why do I do dumb things? Why do I always have to do things the hard way?

Have you ever done one of these spiritual gifts tests? What did you think? Is there a gift that you really wish you had. Do you have a gift that you wish you didn’t?

Jones

There are two major Rubicons that are crossed on the way to full adulthood:

1.  You stop doing your laundry at a laundromat*
Eventually you obtain access to a washer & dryer which aren’t next to a sink where homeless guys wash their hair.

2. You stop looking at alcohol as a path to intoxication.

It often amazes me how some people can grow up to be responsible adults in so many ways but never learn to properly enjoy an adult beverage. To a discerning palate, finer beers, wines, and spirits have a depth of character unrivaled by any other taste experience. Why can’t people enjoy this wonderful gift from God without abusing it? Here’s how best to enjoy it:

• Enjoy your drink in comfortable surroundings. Relax, be at ease, enjoy the experience.
• Enjoy your drink alone or in intimate company. Both the drink and the company should contribute to the atmosphere and should complement each other.
• Avoid distraction. Turn off the electronics. Even (especially!) your smart phone.
• Pay attention to your drink. Experience the complexities of its aroma and its flavours.
• Keep it to one drink. Drink it slowly. Savour it.
• Enjoying a fine beverage should be an end in itself, not a means to get drunk.

It can be strangely enjoyable.  Just you, your drink, and that’s it.  It’s extra enjoyable if you know you’ve got someone you like quite a bit on the way.  Going from just you, to a better form of you because you’re with them, ain’t a bad way to wrap up a day.  A shared dessert of course, will make it all the better.

Original text can be found here.

Some will say that we should be happy. They point to Psalm 9:1-4:

¹ I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart;
I will tell of all the marvelous things you have done.
² I will be filled with joy because of you.
I will sing praises to your name, O Most High.

³ My enemies retreated;
they staggered and died when you appeared.
⁴ For you have judged in my favor;
from your throne you have judged with fairness.

Psalm 97:10 tells us:

¹⁰ You who love the Lord, hate evil!
He protects the lives of his godly people
and rescues them from the power of the wicked.

Others say that we should not celebrate such a thing. They counter with Proverbs 24:17:

¹⁷ Don’t rejoice when your enemies fall;
don’t be happy when they stumble.

In Matthew 5:43 Jesus tells us:

⁴³ “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. ⁴⁴ But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!

Clearly we should not hate bin Laden.

St Augustine once wrote “Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum” which translates as ‘With love for mankind and hatred of sins’. Clearly St Augustine doesn’t have the authority of Jesus but he was a pretty smart fellow. So maybe we can hate a man’s actions without hating the man. I don’t know.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 22:37-39 that

“‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

This is what I do know. I sometimes struggle with loving my neighbor. I definitely struggle with loving my enemy. But I can say this. I love my neighbor well enough that today I’m celebrating the fact that Osama bin Laden will not be responsible for killing him. Or anyone else. Ever again. Does this make me a bad Christian? Judge me if you will.

Jones

Modern-day Easter: This group likes being in Deep Water

By GEOFF BIRD
Mon, Apr 25 – 4:55 AM

Pastor A.J. Thomas (Ingrid Bulmer / Staff) Pastor A.J. Thomas preaches to the Deep Water Church flock on Easter Sunday at Park Lane Theatre in Halifax. (Ingrid Bulmer / Staff)

Late in the morning Sunday, a Foo Fighters track plays to an expecting crowd at Empire 8 Park Lane Theatre in downtown Halifax.

Only hours earlier, Scream 4 played on the big white screen, but now there is a flashy sleek graphic promoting the website, Facebook and Twitter pages for a Protestant church called Deep Water.

When the music fades, Pastor A.J. Thomas, 33, steps out and addresses his congregation wearing faded jeans and a collared shirt that is not tucked in.

“This is the day that we celebrate when Jesus was dead and then wasn’t dead anymore,” Thomas said to the sound of a few laughs.

This plain and simple delivery is a feature of Thomas’s sermon. Over the following hour and half, Thomas uses comic book analogies — at one point comparing indestructible action-hero Wolverine to the indestructibleness of God — dodge ball references and quotes from Mumford & Sons lyrics to relate centuries-old themes of grace and faith to his congregation.

The analogies seem to be working. A quick scan of the theatre reveals an unusual church-going demographic: young people. At a time when some churches are withering away with greying memberships, Deep Water has quickly grown in its first five years, mostly attracting people not yet in their 40s.

At the Easter service, roughly 200 people were seated in the plush seats of Theatre 8, many with coffees tucked away in their drink holders. Every Sunday, there is a free concession stand that serves up four different blends of coffee and a selection of teas for people to sip during the sermon.

“Anything you can do while drinking a coffee is informal,” Thomas said in an interview a few days before in Deep Water’s abbey, a tongue-in-cheek name for the church’s office.

The abbey is a converted top-floor apartment in a heritage building off Spring Garden Road. It has a modern feel with black leather couches and soft beige walls.

That modern feel is repeated in every aspect of the church. Deep Water has a slick website where weekly sermons are available for download as a podcast and a Twitter account that routinely invites uninitiated Haligonians out for Sunday service, always with the offer of free coffee as a virtual icebreaker.

Thomas said having the church’s home in a theatre also helps to bring in new people.

“There’s the sense that this is a public space, so nothing weird is going to happen. It’s more like going to a coffee shop than someone’s house.”

When looking for a venue for Deep Water, Thomas said he approached Park Lane after exhausting a list of more traditional places to gather. He said the church’s home in the theatre is a perfect fit, with great acoustics, comfortable seating and management that lets him do unusual things in a room designed for movie screenings. He has baptized several adults by immersion in a huge container of water without a complaint from the theatre.

Sitting in the theatre on Sunday, Tari Wilson, a second-year university student, said when she moved to Halifax for school, a friend recommended Deep Water.

“I didn’t want anything crazy. I just wanted a good place to go,” said Wilson.

She said when she was younger, she often went to a more traditional church than Deep Water. Wilson said that while sometimes she doesn’t connect with Thomas’s Wolverine analogies, she enjoys that he is trying something different.

“I like that he isn’t using the typical Christian terms,” she said. “Using the comic book analogies makes you look at things in a different way.”

The message resonated with some of the older folks in the crowd, too.

“It’s refreshing,” said Barbara Jones, 64.

She said her son encouraged her to come to the Easter service, which was her first in years.

“I think my generation would like it, too, especially the ones that just got tired of it.”

Take the case of the extermination of Jesus Christ . No doubt there was a strong case for it. Jesus was from the point of view of the High Priest a heretic and an impostor. From the point of view of the merchants he was a rioter and a Communist. From the Roman Imperialist point of view he was a traitor. From the commonsense point of view he was a dangerous madman. From the snobbish point of view, always a very influential one, he was a penniless vagrant.

From the police point of view he was an obstructor of thoroughfares, a beggar, an associate of prostitutes, an apologist of sinners, and a disparager of judges; and his daily companions were tramps whom he had seduced into vagabondage from their regular trades. From the point of view of the pious he was a Sabbath breaker, a denier of the efficacy of circumcision and the advocate of a strange rite of baptism, a gluttonous man and a winebibber. He was abhorrent to the medical profession as an unqualified practitioner who healed people by quackery and charged nothing for the treatment.

He was not anti-Christ: nobody had heard of such a power of darkness then; but he was startlingly anti-Moses. He was against the priests, against the judiciary, against the military, against the city (he declared that it was impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven), against all the interests, classes, principalities and powers, inviting everybody to abandon all these and follow him. By every argument, legal, political, religious, customary, and polite, he was the most complete enemy of the society of his time ever brought to the bar.

He was guilty on every count of the indictment, and on many more that his accusers had not the wit to frame. If he was innocent then the whole world was guilty. To acquit him was to throw over civilization and all its institutions.

History has borne out the case against him; for no State has ever constituted itself on his principles or made it possible to live according to his commandments: those States who have taken his name have taken it as an alias to enable them to persecute his followers more plausibly.

It is not surprising that under these circumstances, and in the absence of any defence, the Jerusalem community and the Roman government decided to exterminate Jesus. They had just as much right to do so as to exterminate the two thieves who perished with him.

George Bernard Shaw

On the Rocks (1933)

What do you think? Comments?

Jones

Jones

Jones