Thank You, Lord

Ephesians 5:20 "always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God" ...'giving thanks' is eucháristos = being thankful, grateful - actually the obligation of being thankful to someone for a favor done (from eú = well + charízomai = to grant, give). Christian eucháristos comes from perfect submission to the will of God, knowing He is working all things together for good (Ro 8:28, 29).

Thank you, Lord, for the new writing assignments coming in.

Thank you for the spring weather that is bringing the family out of the cabin fever stage.

Thank you for the great Bible teaching we're getting at church.

Thank you for the chance to teach students at the Sunday night Bible study.

Thank you for Jill being so caring and loving.

Thank you for You.

Pilgrims' Chorus from Wagner's Tannhäuser

Once more with joy O my home I may meet
Once more ye fair, flowr'y meadows I greet
My Pilgrim's staff henceforth may rest
Since Heaven's sweet peace is within my breast.

The sinner's 'plaint on high was heard
On high was heard and answered by the Lord
The tears I laid before His shrine
Are turned to hope and joy divine.

O Lord eternal praise be Thine!

The blessed source of Thy mercy overflowing
On souls repetant seek Ye, all-knowing
Of hell and death, I have no fear
For thou my Lord are ever near

Alleluia!
Alleluia!
Alleluia! For evermore

words of an agnostic

Agnostic Robert G. Ingersoll's words in reflection on his life in a letter to his brother:

"I feel that we have passed the crown of the hill, and that the milestones are getting nearer and nearer each other, and now and then I catch glimpses of the great wall where the road ends. A little while ago, I pressed forward; now I hold back. In youth we woo the future and clasp her like a bride; in age we denounce her as a fair and beautiful liar and wonder at the ease with which we were duped. Pursuing that which eludes, gazing at that which fades, hoping for the impossible, regretting that which is, fearing that which must be, and with [nothing] worth having save the bliss of love. And in the red heart of this white flower there is this pang: 'It cannot last.'"

Our failure

When I came to North America, I found that most churches, pastors, seminaries, colleges, and parachurch agencies and agents were in the grip of this secular passion for successful expansion in a way I had not met in England. Church-growth theorists, evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and others all spoke as if: (1) numerical increase is what matters most, (2) numerical increase must come if our techniques and procedures are right, (3) numerical increase validates ministries as nothing else does, and (4) numerical increase must be everyone's main goal.

Four unhappy features marked the situation.

First, big and growing churches were viewed as far more significant than others.

Second, parachurch specialists (evangelists, college and seminary teachers with platform skills, medicine men with traveling seminars, convention-circuit riders, top people in youth movements, full-time authors and such) were venerated, while hard-working pastors were treated as near-nonentities.

Third, lively laymen and clergy were constantly being creamed off, or creaming themselves off, from the churches to run parachurch ministries, in which quicker results could be expected and where accountability was less stringent.

And fourth, many ministers of not-so-bouncy temperament were returning to secular employment in disillusionment and bitterness, having concluded that the pastoral life is a game not worth playing. . . Faithfulness, godliness, and loving service are the divine measure of real success in ministry

J.I. Packer, Christianity Today, August 12, 1988, p. 15.

Reflection

I think of all the achievements and honors that I was fortunate enough to receive in my lifetime and I can in all honesty say that it is so much codswallop.

Much like Solomon I feel that anything achieved in human effort is so brazenly cheap compared to the actual blessing-relationship with the Lord.

Human praise is overstocked. It's like the end-of-the-school-year awards banquet for teens I heard about. Over a hundred kids. Everyone got at least one trophy. The sheer abundance of awards cheapened the whole affair. There was so little value that the teens told me the trophies had no worth to them.

That's the way human glory is.

It's all so much cardboard.

Give me the true gold of God's friendship any day.