The Secret Wireless

Your life is precious to God.  And no one knows why. That is the great mystery of God's grace.  Why does He love us?  Why does He do good to us and not evil?  It is simply because He loves us, we are precious in His sight.  But we don't know why. God does not need us.  He does not owe us anything.  We are nothing more to God that the workmanship, the artistry of His hands.  He could destroy us with no less thought than we might destroy a picture that we have drawn on a scrap of paper. Yet God values human life (animal life too, albeit not equally).  And so should we. Of course we know why we should value life: because no one person is created greater than another in the sight of God.  You are no better or more precious than I am.  I am no more precious than you.  The infant in the womb is not less valuable than I am.  The elderly woman suffering in a nursing home is not less precious than you. Amplifying this to...

This world is not our trash heap. This planet is not your personal ash tray. This universe is not yours, period. Human beings are created by God and given dominion, or lordship, over the creation (Genesis 1:26-28).  Yet God remains Lord over all.  It is His creation, not ours.  And we must take care of it as good managers, good stewards, of the things He has given. Yet, this creation is passing away... because of our sin .  The land is cursed because of Adam's fall into temptation (Genesis 3:17-19).  We cannot save this world from deteriorating anymore than we can save a loved one from dying.  We can delay the inevitable.  We can do our best to care for what we have.  But the end will come when Jesus returns. We are not, however, waiting for Christ to come again and eliminate matter from existence.  We await a new heavens and a new earth (II Peter 3:13). You see, you are a creature .  And you belong in a creation.  And y...

The devil, like the Batman’s Joker, is an agent of chaos.   He loves chaos, thrives upon discord and disorder. But God is not a God of confusion, but a God of peace.   (I Corinthians 14:33)   He has established His order within His Church.   He has established His order within His creation.   And we are to follow that order. Some of this order is easier to understand than others.   Parents are to discipline their children, not the other way around.   Teachers are to teach and students are to learn.   Pastors are to forgive and preach while laymen are to gladly receive these gifts.   But what about hierarchy?   What about order in the Church when it goes past pastors and laymen?   Who tells the pastors what to do?   Who trains them?   Who will step in when the pastor steps out of line? These are questions that the Bible, by-and-large, does not answer.   Yet, we know that God loves order, and not ch...

The female half of humanity is not second class.  It is first class in a very unique way. In creation, God makes everything in a very orderly way.  And as He goes along, He makes things more and more grand.  It all comes to a climax in the creation of humanity, summarized in the forming of Adam ("the man") from the dust of the earth.  (Genesis 1) Yet a few verses later God says something shocking.  "It is not good," He says, "that the Man should be alone." God created the world good, at the end of each day saying that it was "good".  So it should knock us for a loop when He says that something in His perfect creation is "not good".  How will He fix this?  How will God finish His creation, putting on its crowning jewel? He creates Woman. That's right.  Men are not the height of God's creation.  Women are, Eve in particular. This is something that I think men know inherently.  You can't look at a woman and not thi...

How can you make God happy?  This is the question of righteousness before God.  And this question leads to the essential difference between Christianity and every other world religion. How can you make God happy?  How can you be righteous in the sight of God?  Ask a Mulsim and they will tell you to follow the Five Pillars.  Ask a Jew and they will tell you follow the Torah and tradition.  Ask any follower of any religion, and they should be able to give you a descent answer. But if you ask a Christian they should be dumbfounded.  Christians do not have an answer to this question, how do you make God happy.  The Christian answer is: "You can't!" The bedrock foundation of our trust in Jesus Christ is believing that He is the only one who can make God happy.  He is the only one who is righteous in the sight of God.  Can you, then, ever be righteous in the sight of God?  Yes!  But not by doing anything at all.  On...

Private confession is not an outdated practice.  It may have fallen out of fashion, but it is certainly not out of necessity or usefulness. If you are troubled by your sins (I certainly hope your sins trouble you) then it is more than appropriate that you bring those sins to your pastor, confess them to him, and allow him to forgive you under the authorty of Christ Himself. No one should be compelled to do this.  Confession should come freely from a person to their pastor.  That is because confession flows freely from a conviction that your sins will be forgiven for the sake of Christ. Confession, and the subsequent Absolution (forgiveness) are meant to strengthen faith in Christ.  This is why, when you confess your sins to the pastor, and he forgives you, he will NOT then tell you to go and pray 50 Psalms, or to help 10 people, or give $1000 to the Church.  There is no need to do anything to "make up" for your sin, because Jesus has already done that....

We don't really call it that anymore, well, Lutherans don't anyway.  We call it the divine service.  This goes back to what I said about tradition a few posts back, but we do not throw out ancient practices of the Church for no good reason.  Lutherans have kept what is beneficial from the past and only jettisoned that which is contrary to the Gospel.  We still begin our services by invoking God's Triune name.  We recite or sing the Psalms.  We read from the Scriptures, sing hymns, hear a sermon centered on Christ, recite or chant age old Christian verses.  We still celebrate the Lord's Supper with frequency.  Of course not all Lutherans (probably not even most Lutherans) celebrate the Lord's Supper every week.  I believe that is more out of a high respect for the preached Word than it is out of a lack of understanding about the Supper.  But why do we retain all of these strange things?  As my brother-in-law once asked, "What...