From wes at the101series.com  Thu Jan 11 11:24:08 2007
From: wes at the101series.com (wes  olson)
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 08:24:08 -0800
Subject: [Roundtable] a problem bigger than war
Message-ID: <000001c7359c$ee584100$f993f204@your4f1261a8e5>

This year I am embarking on a study of Christians and war (justifiable
force).  I am also studying Chitins and Christmas and Christians and the
movies.  I recognize now these all have to do with a Christians response
to their culture.
 
THE PROBLEM
 
premise 1: People are driven to celebrate, enjoy seasons, be part of the
culture around them (e.g. the nation of Israel)
 
premise 2: When people get saved, they get a spiritual identity in
Christ, but no physical culture to replace the one they left.
 
conclusion: Christians are left with a cultural vacuum and tension.
 
 
I am hoping to resolve which one of these premise's or what part of this
conclusion is in error.
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From jefferis at petersonsales.net  Thu Jan 11 12:47:20 2007
From: jefferis at petersonsales.net (Jefferis Peterson)
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 12:47:20 -0500
Subject: [Roundtable] a problem bigger than war
In-Reply-To: <000001c7359c$ee584100$f993f204@your4f1261a8e5>
Message-ID: <C1CBE258.4D866%jefferis@petersonsales.net>

On 1/11/07 11:24 AM, "wes  olson" <wes at the101series.com> wrote:

> This year I am embarking on a study of Christians and war (justifiable force).
> I am also studying Chitins and Christmas and Christians and the movies.  I
> recognize now these all have to do with a Christians response to their
> culture.
>  
> THE PROBLEM
>  
> premise 1: People are driven to celebrate, enjoy seasons, be part of the
> culture around them (e.g. the nation of Israel)
>  
> premise 2: When people get saved, they get a spiritual identity in Christ, but
> no physical culture to replace the one they left.
>  
> conclusion: Christians are left with a cultural vacuum and tension.
>  
>  
> I am hoping to resolve which one of these premise's or what part of this
> conclusion is in error.


Hi Wes, 
I?m not sure there is a conflict at this point, but let me give you my
initial feedback and see if I?m understanding what you are after.

Every aspect of God?s involvement in history has always been incarnate and
in-culture-ated.   The scriptures are written through the fabric of the
culture in which the people live, the governments and the times.

Calvin talked about the three aspects of the OT law: the moral [unchanging
as a reflection of the character of God], the ritual [superceded by Christ's
fulfillment], and the civic [case law that depends upon the spirit of the
law in a local or governmental context].  So, civic laws about 10% civil
taxes, involuntary servitude of aliens, how you approach the king in court,
etc., are conditional laws that reflect the times and the culture. Hanging
horse thieves may have been appropriate in the old West, where people's
lives depended upon their horses; while today it isn't - may be an example
of changing cultural laws.

Have your read the profound by short book by H Richard Niehbur?

Christ and Culture (Torchbooks) (Paperback)
by H. Richard Niebuhr

 http://www.amazon.com/Christ-Culture-Torchbooks-Richard-Niebuhr/dp/00613000
39/sr=8-1/qid=1168537630/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-1709065-3635268?ie=UTF8&s=books

He talks about the 5 approaches to culture: Christ Transforming Culture is
one of the options.

Jeff 
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jefferis Peterson, Pres.
Web Design and Marketing
http://www.PetersonSales.com




From wes at the101series.com  Fri Jan 12 12:18:01 2007
From: wes at the101series.com (wes  olson)
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 09:18:01 -0800
Subject: [Roundtable] Roundtable Digest, Vol 29, Issue 2
In-Reply-To: <mailman.91.1168621361.83235.roundtable@scholarscorner.com>
Message-ID: <000001c7366d$9eafb940$7f3cf204@your4f1261a8e5>

Jeff,
Thanks for the reply.  Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree...wouldn't be
the first time.  My family and I (and many Christians around me)
struggle with their Christianity on the one hand, and the pressures of
this culture on the other hand.  Now that we are Christians, do we go to
war?  Should we celebrate holidays that are pagan in origin?  Should we
watch movies that present unedifying images and message (98% of all
Hollywood movies)?  Or do we watch them for the "redemptive" qualities
we can find in them.  We perceive a tension here that is difficult to
resolve since Christianity seems to provide no culture to replace the
one we have left behind.  Does that make any sense?
My "Christ & Culture" is coming in this week.
Wes

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: a problem bigger than war (Jefferis Peterson)


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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 12:47:20 -0500
From: Jefferis Peterson <jefferis at petersonsales.net>
Subject: Re: [Roundtable] a problem bigger than war
To: "Roundtable [Posts]" <roundtable at scholarscorner.com>
Message-ID: <C1CBE258.4D866%jefferis at petersonsales.net>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="ISO-8859-1"

On 1/11/07 11:24 AM, "wes  olson" <wes at the101series.com> wrote:

> This year I am embarking on a study of Christians and war (justifiable

> force). I am also studying Chitins and Christmas and Christians and 
> the movies.  I recognize now these all have to do with a Christians 
> response to their culture.
>  
> THE PROBLEM
>  
> premise 1: People are driven to celebrate, enjoy seasons, be part of 
> the culture around them (e.g. the nation of Israel)
>  
> premise 2: When people get saved, they get a spiritual identity in 
> Christ, but no physical culture to replace the one they left.
>  
> conclusion: Christians are left with a cultural vacuum and tension.
>  
>  
> I am hoping to resolve which one of these premise's or what part of 
> this conclusion is in error.


Hi Wes, 
I?m not sure there is a conflict at this point, but let me give you my
initial feedback and see if I?m understanding what you are after.

Every aspect of God?s involvement in history has always been incarnate
and
in-culture-ated.   The scriptures are written through the fabric of the
culture in which the people live, the governments and the times.

Calvin talked about the three aspects of the OT law: the moral
[unchanging as a reflection of the character of God], the ritual
[superceded by Christ's fulfillment], and the civic [case law that
depends upon the spirit of the law in a local or governmental context].
So, civic laws about 10% civil taxes, involuntary servitude of aliens,
how you approach the king in court, etc., are conditional laws that
reflect the times and the culture. Hanging horse thieves may have been
appropriate in the old West, where people's lives depended upon their
horses; while today it isn't - may be an example of changing cultural
laws.

Have your read the profound by short book by H Richard Niehbur?

Christ and Culture (Torchbooks) (Paperback)
by H. Richard Niebuhr

 
http://www.amazon.com/Christ-Culture-Torchbooks-Richard-Niebuhr/dp/00613
000
39/sr=8-1/qid=1168537630/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-1709065-3635268?ie=UTF8&s=b
ooks

He talks about the 5 approaches to culture: Christ Transforming Culture
is one of the options.

Jeff 
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jefferis Peterson, Pres.
Web Design and Marketing
http://www.PetersonSales.com





------------------------------

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http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/roundtable


End of Roundtable Digest, Vol 29, Issue 2
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From jefferis at petersonsales.net  Fri Jan 12 13:06:45 2007
From: jefferis at petersonsales.net (Jefferis Peterson)
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 13:06:45 -0500
Subject: [Roundtable] Roundtable Digest, Vol 29, Issue 2
In-Reply-To: <000001c7366d$9eafb940$7f3cf204@your4f1261a8e5>
Message-ID: <C1CD3865.4D928%jefferis@petersonsales.net>

On 1/12/07 12:18 PM, "wes  olson" <wes at the101series.com> wrote:

> Jeff,
> Thanks for the reply.  Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree...wouldn't be
> the first time.  My family and I (and many Christians around me)
> struggle with their Christianity on the one hand, and the pressures of
> this culture on the other hand.  Now that we are Christians, do we go to
> war?  Should we celebrate holidays that are pagan in origin?  Should we
> watch movies that present unedifying images and message (98% of all
> Hollywood movies)?  Or do we watch them for the "redemptive" qualities
> we can find in them.  We perceive a tension here that is difficult to
> resolve since Christianity seems to provide no culture to replace the
> one we have left behind.  Does that make any sense?
> My "Christ & Culture" is coming in this week.
> Wes

Hi Wes, 
I believe the tension you face is the same one we all face, and all
Christians have faced throughout time. Christ against culture advocates
advocate withdrawal [like the Amish], but it usually produces no effective
ministry. The Mennonites are pacifists, but engage the world. The polar
opposite is of the Amish are those who identify an earthly government with
Christianity per se, which led to the corruptions of the Papal States and
wars between states over religious identification: Protestant or Catholic,
and the use of the state by the Church to enforce doctrines, as in the
Inquisition or Calvin's Geneva, or Luther's crusade against the Anabaptists.

Paul is an interesting case study. He was not above using his Roman
citizenship to protect himself from the injustice of the mob:

"But when they had tied him up with thongs, Paul said to the centurion who
was standing by, "Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who is
uncondemned?" When the centurion heard that, he went to the tribune and said
to him, "What are you about to do? This man is a Roman citizen." The tribune
came and asked Paul, "Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?" And he said, "Yes."
The tribune answered, "It cost me a large sum of money to get my
citizenship." Paul said, "But I was born a citizen." Immediately those who
were about to examine him drew back from him; and the tribune also was
afraid, for he realized that Paul was a Roman citizen and that he had bound
him. Since he wanted to find out what Paul was being accused of by the Jews,
the next day he released him and ordered the chief priests and the entire
council to meet. He brought Paul down and had him stand before them." Acts
22:25-30, NRSV.

What was the problem here? If they flogged a citizen without proper trial,
the whole city could be destroyed if Paul pressed the matter. The Romans
were ruthless. Paul also used the benefit of the Pax Romana to travel freely
through the Empire spreading the Gospel, a road not possible if bandits and
warring city states ruled the land.

Paul considered the government, however imperfect and corrupt, an instrument
in God's hand for the suppression of evil {Romans 13}, as did Peter.
Governments can, by nature, more or less support justice and the gospel or
oppose them both through corruption and persecution, so the Church's stance
will vary on the degree of cooperation there is between Christ and Culture.

In the 1950's, e.g., with Leave It To Beaver on the television, the culture
generally supported traditional Christian moral values. The schools
encouraged and reinforced those values taught at home. Divorce was not even
legitimized by the Supreme Court, and in the 1940's cited the Scriptures as
their reason for not allowing it. There has been a massive shift in the
culture since then, where now, the schools in part and the government and
the laws in large part oppose Christianity and Christian values. Life is no
longer considered sacred, and sexuality is no longer a matter of morals but
of liberties, desires and 'rights.'  Rampant individualism has replaced the
sense of civic responsibility, which was considered more basic to the
foundation of social liberty.

Here is a short article I wrote about the way the church can cooperate with
civil society in the sphere common grace for the benefit of the mutual
common good:
http://www.scholarscorner.com/Scriptum/sherald.htm#Adversaries

 And it refers to the work of the Center For Public Justice, which based its
theology on Abraham Kuyper:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Kuyper
>  He developed so-called Neo-Calvinism, which differs from conventional
> Calvinism over issues such as divine grace and the role of the state.
> Furthermore, Kuyper was the first to formulate the principle of common grace
> in the context of a Reformed world-view.
> Most important has been Kuyper's view on the role of God in everyday life. He
> believed that God continually influenced the life of believers, and daily
> events could show his workings. Kuyper famously said, "No single piece of our
> mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not
> a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ,
> who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!'" God continually re-creates
> the universe through acts of grace. God's acts are necessary to ensure the
> continued existence of creation. Without his direct activity creation would
> self-destruct.

Now as to how we participate in culture, it takes daily decision making.
Some movies, for example, that promote the occult [witchcraft and
divination], horror [fear is not of God], or pornography, we will not see as
a matter of course [keep yourself unstained from the world]. For why should
we tempt ourselves with things God despises, and use for our entertainment
things he calls 'abominations?'   But some movies are like the Psalms, they
tell the story of human perspectives, laments, hopes, and fears, struggles,
victories and defeats. Ballads of the human condition are not something we
need to shun. Some even wade deeply into theology: Amadeus for one or the
first Matrix [which I consider an anti-abortion film :-) ].

While not seeking out reasons to offend God, I also recognize that living in
this world is going to require a daily foot washing as I will come in
contact with the dirt of this earth. I will  make mistakes. I will be
enticed by things I should not and be tempted by the ubiquity of sensuality
even when I'm only trying to watch the news! Sometimes there are reasons for
withdrawal, for prayer and seeking God's face in the matters of life. At
other times, Jesus goes back down the mountain after a transfiguration to
get involved with the lives of people in the real world.

The more major questions of participation in war, citizenship and its
responsibilities, and the like, I will leave till you get deeper into the
course :-) 

Jeff 


~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jefferis Peterson, Pres.
Web Design and Marketing
http://www.PetersonSales.com




From jefferis at petersonsales.net  Mon Jan 15 17:37:07 2007
From: jefferis at petersonsales.net (Jefferis Peterson)
Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 17:37:07 -0500
Subject: [Roundtable] Release of my book online
Message-ID: <C1D16C43.4DA92%jefferis@petersonsales.net>

Pardoned or Paroled? The Second Edition:
I have recently made available the Full Second Edition online. We are
releasing the book online in hopes of creating a better market for the work,
since we  do not currently have a distributor.
http://www.ScholarsCorner.com/pardoned.html

In Christ, 
Jeff

Still available for purchase at www.is61.com


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jefferis Kent Peterson
http://www.scholarscorner.com
jefferis at scholarscorner.com

Feeling Guilty? Are you "Pardoned or Paroled?"
<http://www.ScholarsCorner.com/pardoned.html>
 
 



From jefferis at petersonsales.net  Thu Jan 18 09:26:47 2007
From: jefferis at petersonsales.net (Jefferis Peterson)
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 09:26:47 -0500
Subject: [Roundtable] FW: Steve Jobs at Stanford
In-Reply-To: <17366283.1169125895751.JavaMail.root@elwamui-ovcar.atl.sa.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <C1D4EDD7.4DD90%jefferis@petersonsales.net>

 This is an amazing speech, and very powerful. Even though Steve Jobs is not
a Christian, I found it to be something like faith...

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jefferis Peterson, Pres.
Web Design and Marketing
http://www.PetersonSales.com


This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple
Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the
finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be
told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.

Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal.

Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed
around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why
did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed
college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She
felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so
everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his
wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that
they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a
call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do
you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out
that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never
graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers.
She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would
someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that
was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents'
savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't
see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no
idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending
all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to
drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the
time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The
minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't
interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor
in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5? deposits to buy food
with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one
good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I
stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be
priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction
in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every
drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and
didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy
class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif
typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter
combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful,
historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I
found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But
ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it
all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first
computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single
course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or
proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its
likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped
out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal
computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it
was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college.
But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them
looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect
in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life,
karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all
the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky - I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started
Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years
Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion
company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest
creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And
then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as

Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the
company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our
visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out.
When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And
very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone,
and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the
previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as
it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried
to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I
even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began
to dawn on me - I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had
not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And
so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was
the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being
successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less
sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods
of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company
named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my
wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature
film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the
world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to
Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's
current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from
Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it.
Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm
convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I
did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as
it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life,
and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great
work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you
haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the
heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it
just gets better and better as the years
roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each
day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made
an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in
the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my
life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the
answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change
something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever
encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost
everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment
or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only
what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best
way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are
already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the
morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know
what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of
cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than
three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in
order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell
your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them
in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so
that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your
goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy,
where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my
intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the
tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they
viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it
turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with
surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I
get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to
you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely
intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die
to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever
escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the
single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the
old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too
long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry
to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be
trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's
thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner
voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and
intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.
Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth
Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a
fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought
it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before
personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with
typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in
paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and
overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and
then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the
mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a
photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find
yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the
words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they
signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for
myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.



Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.



Thank you all very much. Steve Jobs





From jefferis at petersonsales.net  Tue Mar 27 13:42:46 2007
From: jefferis at petersonsales.net (Jefferis Peterson)
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 13:42:46 -0400
Subject: [Roundtable] God was In Christ
Message-ID: <C22ECFD6.51E09%jefferis@petersonsales.net>

"that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting
their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of
reconciliation." 2 Corinthians 5:19, RSV.


I've been thinking about this phrase this past week as the Lord opened my
eyes and gave me some revelation into it. If I may say it another way:
God was in Christ, reconciling the whole world to himself not counting our
trespasses against us...

As we have been studying Jeremiah, I have been depressed about the state of
our nation and its similarity to Judah of Jeremiah's day. I've been upset
about the political blindness and self centeredness, even the stupidity that
won't try to prevent illegals from smuggling nuclear weapons or biochemical
agents across our borders. And I've been upset by the compromise of the
republicans and by the negativity and complaining of the democrats who are
against everything and pointing figures of blame at all opponents, but who
are FOR absolutely nothing coherent themselves.

But this week I caught a glimpse of God.

We tend to want justice and righteousness and vindication of the good, but
that isn't God's concern. In his eyes, justice has already been served, the
punishment for every evil deed has already been meted out, the penalty has
been paid, and the accounts are already settled. Every evil the politicians
or the Islamists or the Jews or the Christians or the corporate thieves or
the Church does - God has already executed justice and judgment upon it. He
put his own Son to death for those crimes. His justice has been satisfied,
and the price has been paid. God has gotten even with sin!
God is not interested in earthly justice or settling scores; he is
interested in being reconciled to his enemies and saving them. Yes, he is
still angry at the unearthly powers and spiritual hosts of wickedness who
inspire evil deeds, but he is not keeping track of the sins of people. That
is not his major concern. Christ died for every last sin. God is not
counting sins. He is not keeping track of them. He is NOT paying attention
to them. His only concern is reaching the lost and reaching out to them to
save them. 
 "He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also
for the sins of the whole world,"- (1Jo 2:2). Every sin has already been
atoned. Every wickedness was foreseen and punished on the Cross.

So this is so hard for me to grasp, but God is not keeping track of the sins
of homosexuality. or abortion. or rape, or murder, or abuse or of those who
advocate for immoral policies and lawlessness. Oh yes, these sins still
cause pain and still have consequences, sometimes bringing moral and
spiritual as well as physical destruction, but God is not counting the sins
of the advocates for sexual sin, nor is he keeping track of the persecution
of his church. He wants to redeem those under the darkness of those demonic
power and bring them into the light of his presence. His whole motivation is
his great love for fallen humanity and to rescue them from their lostness
under the powers of this age.
 
God was in Christ, reconciling himself to us. And he has sent us out as
ambassadors of this great love.
I had to pray to the Lord to give me his kind of love for his enemies; to
give me his overwhelming compassion so that all I care about is their
salvation, not about their sins. I prayed to see these lost and estranged
enemies with his eyes and through his heart of compassion, that I may
minister to them, not his judgments but his sacrificial love.

Certainly to see things his way is not natural to me. I want justice in the
political sphere, but my justice and his are far different. I want just
laws, but he wants an end to the motives of sin in the human heart. And he
knows the only way that is possible is if his enemies are reconciled to him.

What does it mean that he is not counting the trespasses? It means judgment
is the furthest thing from his mind:
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent
to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen
gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!" -  Lu 13:34

Yes there is a consequence for rebellion, rejection, and refusing to be
reconciled to God, but God is not counting that sin either. Every sin that
was, is, or ever will be has been executed on the Cross of Christ.  He
already got even with us for our sins.  Now it does not count.

So what should our attitude be towards sinful man and sinful laws? Because
there is still a restraining function of the law to protect the weak and the
innocent, there is a point to doing what we can to establish temporal
justice. But our motive towards our enemies should be not merely to seek
political victory or legal justice, but an overwhelming desire to see these
people reconciled to Jesus Christ - and we should be not counting their sins
against them. 
That means, it may not be helpful to my spirit to watch the nightly news or
listen to Rush Limbaugh, or watch either Fox News or CNN, whose advocacies
for partisan causes stir the blood and foment either anger or fear; or whose
focus on every injustice causes the in us desire for vengeance or resort to
force of arms. These things distract from the cause for which Christ died.
I'm not saying we should be ignorant of these things, but only that we
should give a passing glance to the Goliaths of the land, and fix our gaze
upon God and his beauty, and by our rapt attention, be conformed to his
image so that we may reflect his glory, his love and his compassions.

God is not counting the sins of CNN or Schumer or Kennedy or Barney Frank or
Bush or Cheney or Rove or Fox, but God was in Christ reconciling himself to
them.... 

In Jesus,
Jeff 


~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jefferis Peterson, Pres.
Web Design and Marketing
http://www.PetersonSales.com