Lost Crusader #171 You Must be Born Again

 “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new…For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

Paul to the Corinthians

Christianity is not about reformation. Its goal lies far beyond the ability of mortal human beings. The goal of Christianity is the perfect human being. Hopefully, this illustrates the futility of reforming our behavior enough to meet the goal. The good news (the gospel) is that God has provided a means of reaching the goal—He will do it for us—that is, if we allow Him to do so.

Rather than reform us, God offers to transform us. In Christ, we see how this works. Christ, the sinless Son of God, took on the burden of humanity’s sin—He was made sin for us, or like us. He then offered His blood as the sacrifice for sin. This was the just payment named by God the Father for sin. Since we could not pay that price and yet live, Jesus who could lay down his life and take it up again did it for us.

He did this that we, by accepting His sovereignty, could be made righteous like Him. In effect, He will share with us His divinity, as He shared our humanity. This does not mean Christians are free to act any way they choose. The key above is accepting His sovereignty. He is King of Kings; we are His subjects. If we stray from His commands, we are corrected.

You have no doubt heard that doctors practice medicine. When I was a nurse, I practiced nursing. I spent 25 years practicing and never did become a perfect nurse. In fact, what I didn’t know and couldn’t do would fill volumes. By the way, I never found a perfect doctor either.

Christians entering into a relationship with Christ become disciples (practitioners) of Christianity. In a spiritual sense, they have a diploma saying they graduated from their old life into the new Christian one. They are then sent out into the world to practice Christianity. Do not expect perfection in that practice, but steady advancement pleases God. Of course, your standards may be higher than God’s.

I readily tell people that I do not practice what I preach. I preach Christ in whom the fulness of the Father dwells, without sin, and full of mercy and grace. I don’t pretend to reach that high. I can barely conceive of the notion enough to aspire to it.

I do not fear to stand before God just as I am. Why should I, he knows me—yet He loves me. I do shrink in my unworthiness from the prospect. My confidence in my appearing before God lies in the One who stands by me and in me—Jesus Christ. He has picked me up many times. To my sorrow, He will need to do so many more times before I appear wearing His righteousness as He wore my humanity.

Maranatha

Know Jack #380 Oh, the Horror!

 “How can you call yourself a Christian and write all those horror stories?”

Not a-fan.

I’ve been asked this question repeatedly over the years and the answer is twofold. One part is philosophical/theological. The other part is practical. The former I am always quite ready to share. The latter, not so much. At least I have not chosen to share it in a public forum such as this before. However, I will do so this once.

I will start by saying that I am not ashamed of my faith in any way. I think that no matter what I am writing, my faith is not hidden. However, I think my faith, as expressed in my writing, tends to be more overlooked than sought out. It happens in the same manner that f-bombs are skimmed over by readers who don’t like their use. But on to the question at hand.

First, the philosophical aspect of the answer. It’s really quite simple, for me, horror reduced to its elemental parts, is nothing but a battle of good versus evil. Sometimes good struggles while evil seems to gain the upper hand. This is done not to glorify evil, but to paint a realistic picture. Being “good” isn’t always easy. In fact, sometimes the narrow way is paved with tribulation and pain.

Goodness always comes at a price. It is a price not everyone is prepared to pay which is what separates true goodness from the “I’m good enough as I am”. Spoiler alert—in my stories, good wins every time. That, to my way of thinking, is not fantasy, but fact.

The second part of the answer always leaves me feeling let down. When I say let down, I don’t mean disappointed, more a kind of bittersweet sadness. I said this part was practical, and so it is. The bottom line is that people buy and read my horror stories. They do not buy my faith-based work. I’m not complaining, I’m just telling it like it is.

Would I quit writing horror and write only stories of faith if the opposite were true? No more than I have quit writing my faith-based novels. I will say this though, for the last eighteen years I have written for readers. However, while I write for the reader, I write whatever inspires me at the moment. As a chef who cooks, because he likes to see people eat, I write to see people read. If that were not true, I wouldn’t be publishing books in the first place.

Few people buy my Christian stories, which means few people read them. Numbers don’t lie. The strange part is—it doesn’t mean I’ll stop writing them. Hope springs eternal.  So, there it is, the mystery unraveled. Christianity is not a roadblock to life. It is the superhighway of real life that gives meaning to everything else.

Maranatha

Lost Crusader #170 Blessed Poverty

 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Jesus Christ

 

It is common practice by those outside of Christianity (and some inside) to quote the first four words of that sentence and stop both mind and mouth. It is not a modern phenomenon, but it has found a secure home in modern American thought. Victimhood is the golden calf of the woke and media shepherds as though poverty was a virtue. As they would have us believe, poverty is the direct result of oppression.

What Jesus was actually speaking about is a spiritual virtue. To be poor in spirit does not mean to be lacking in spirituality. Some would have us believe that to be spiritual is some kind of choice about lifestyle that disregards religion. Of course, this is utter nonsense. Human beings are spiritual creatures. We are born a living spirit, and we carry our spirit with us into whatever realm awaits beyond the physical life we are now experiencing.

Christians call that realm heaven. This is more than the minute glimpse of golden streets, walls of jasper and gates of pearl that John saw. To be equipped for that heavenly realm requires a certain type of spiritual poverty—to wit a humility of spirit That is, a spirit that does not boast itself, parade itself, or set itself above others. It is a spirit of love—pure and undefiled by self-promotion. The poor in spirit have a clear vision of a proper relationship with their Creator.

Who decides what is proper? That is simple enough to answer—the Creator. God is not “the man upstairs”. He is not a man at all. He is the Creator who made us for Himself. He also gave us a free will to choose between a loving relationship or an adversarial one.

Though most of us never read them, when we enter a website, we are asked to agree to the terms and conditions associated with the site. The same is true with God. You may enter His kingdom, but only if you agree to His terms and conditions. The difference is, God takes them seriously and violating His community standards carries a more severe penalty.

The poor or humble in spirit realize this relationship truth and hold God in the awe due Him.

 Maranatha

Know Jack #378 Resolutions

 New Year’s resolutions can be difficult to keep. They can be especially difficult for writers, like me, who have trouble managing the multiple voices vying for control of the agenda. I began the year with a definite plan to write four books (only half of which I have an idea about the storyline) and a timetable for when each project was to begin.

That plan lasted three and a half days. Three-quarters of the way through book number one in the lineup, Ed Landry rushed in demanding to be heard. I protested that he wasn’t due to begin until the start of summer.

“Yeah? Well, you’d write this down,” he replied.

That was when the plan began to fall apart. I probably should have told him to just be quiet and let me finish my coffee, but he never listens to me. So, I wrote down the opening scene of the next Landry novel and tiptoed past where Kit Mann was sleeping. One prima donna at a time is much easier.

Not wanting to be detained for long, I sent Ed to the waiting room and returned to the task at hand. When I did, I found my new character Elmer Levesque sitting in Ft. Laramie with his lip pooched out, all bent out of shape because he thought I liked Ed better. Though it’s Elmer’s style, he didn’t challenge me to a duel on the field of honor. I dodged a bullet there--literally. I was holding aces and eights at the time.

The resolution further crumbled when I had the bright idea that I would get my three yet unpublished books edited too. Seven books in a year? I’m an old man. I’m supposed to be retired. What happened to that resolution to slow down?

Resolutions are fine. They sound noble, but the goal should be realistic and the motivation in keeping with who we are. I’m not going to quit writing and I’m not going to slow down. That’s not who I am, and I wouldn’t be happy if I kept my resolution.

I am tempted to say that I’ll slow down when I die, but I know that ain’t happening. I don’t know if they have books in heaven. I do know there are storytellers (I peeked) and I want to be one.

So, be it hereby resolved—I’m going to try and write every story that pops into my head.

Maranatha

Know Jack #378 You Never Know

 Writing is a triple dog dare. Sometimes I think you can do it. At other times, that ground gets kind of shaky beneath my feet. I had the usual English teachers who thought I had potential. I also went down in flames the first time I let my father read my writing.

Later, I filled multiple composition books with short stories and a couple of novels before considering, even for a moment, letting anyone read them. The reason was simple—the twin fears of failure and appearing a fool. You may remember what Twain said about keeping one’s mouth shut.

I had read so many books, though. Lines from those stories had become a part of me. Writing seemed like the natural thing to do. I was confident I could do it too. On the verge of showing my writing an insidious thought would always creep into my head. What if I accepted the dare and ended up with Fire and Rescue coming to get me off the flagpole?

That bit of movie advice that says, “If you build it, they will come”. Yeah, that doesn’t work with writing. I knew that right from the start. I was never one of those who thought I had just written the latest, greatest bestseller. Hope may spring eternal, but reality has a way of tempering expectations.

I never try to be original. I’m a firm believer that there’s nothing new under the sun. If you render any story down to the bones, it’s been done before. The only thing I had to offer was my own voice. Well, that and a willingness to write what I liked even though it was considered passé and overdone.

Speaking of being out of fashion, my voice, if I let it have free reign, has the rhythm and word order of Jacobean prose (think King James I). It takes conscious effort and an editor to turn it into something understandable to most people.

So, in my odd voice I started writing werewolf stories. Still, no bestseller or NYT list. But somehow, against all the advice and the odds stacked against me, they do sell, and there are people who actually like them. Who knew?  Not me that’s for sure.

I’ve found that you’re only a failure and a fool if you decline the dare. You just never know what you can do until you try.

 

Lost Crusader #169 Save Me a Seat

 “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ…and made us to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

Paul to the Ephesians

Even a cursory perusal of the New Testament scripture is sufficient to understand that all twenty-seven books revolve around a single point—the man who is also God—Jesus. He is the Way, the Life, and the Door that leads mankind to God. He is the Word and the Truth as expressed to mankind by God. He is the Savior that God provided God for mankind.

It is noteworthy that Jesus does not claim to be a way, a door, or a truth. He is not one of many, He is the only begotten of God who sits at the right hand of the Father. As such, He is able to secure for us a place of our own.

We do not find Jesus—He is not lost and because He is unique, He cannot become lost. In our natural state, it is we who are lost in the swarming masses of humanity in a common rooting about in the mire. We are presently no more than a drop in the sea of humanity.

Now some think it is heaven to be just another drop in an endless sea of synchronized vibrating consciousness. Not only does that not appeal to me, but it makes no sense. Why live an individual, unique existence now in preparation to disappear in a homogenous swirl just as we shed this physical body and life really begins? I cannot fathom it.

Christ offers more, both immediately and beyond this life into the timeless future. He says that I shall sit with Him in heavenly places and ride the high places of the earth with Him. This is no distant promise. It is not a metaphor. I know because I have experienced a taste already. I can deny knowledge, I can deny understanding, but I cannot deny experience. Christ is an experience—not a theory. Taste and see the Lord is good.

Maranatha

 

Lost Crusader #168 Suffer It

 “Suffer it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

Jesus to John the Baptist

Jesus came to John to be baptized, but John was hesitant. His spirit told him this man before him was the incarnate Creator. It just didn’t seem right. Their roles had become reversed somehow and John had questions about that which needed to be answered before he would do it.

God is not afraid of our questions. I dare say God is more willing to supply answers than we are to hear them.

Perhaps the first question that comes to mind is, why did Jesus, the sinless Son of God, need to be baptized in the first place? The answer lies in an understanding of baptism. Baptism does not remove sin. It is a testimony of faith in God. Jesus ever the Faithful Witness, would not miss an opportunity to testify of God’s good will toward men. He went to be baptized as an example.

John understood that. His question was about his own unworthiness for the job. This is the man of whom Jesus would later say, “there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist”. Yet, face to face with Deity, John shrank with feelings of unworthiness.

I think every Christian can identify with John. We have had the feeling of not being equal to the task God sets before us or of being worthy of the blessings we enjoy. From a purely human perspective, those feelings are both true and false. Nobody’s perfect, or as the scripture puts is “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God”. We are not worthy to stand before God as equals, or as co-creators of a mass consciousness as some would have us believe. On the other hand, we are told God fits us for the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, we are worthy participants in the kingdom.

From a Divine point of view, one unbound by time, because we have given our lives as a living sacrifice to Him, we are forever worthy to do whatsoever He asks of us and to hear, “well done, thou good and faithful servant”.

Jesus told John to “suffer it to be so”. You will find newer translations that substitute allow or permit in place of the word suffer. The meaning is the same, as are the implications. Permit God to call on you when He wants a person who can be trusted. Allow God to use you, He knows you can do it even when you have doubts.

It is in our power to say no. We are creatures with free will, able to choose our course. By allowing for God’s faith in us, we subjugate our feelings of unworthiness and fulfill the righteous requirements of faith.

We need not be afraid when God calls on us. It is no sin to feel unworthy or unequal to the task. It is a sin to refuse to answer the call. Whom God calls, He qualifies equips, and empowers.

I am reminded just now of the story of Peter bringing his boat to shore after fishing all night and catching nothing. Jesus instructed him to cast his net once more. Peter told Jesus they had gone all night without success but because it was Jesus who said so they would try again. The net nearly broke from the weight of the fish they caught. When our expertise fails, God’s power begins.

When you feel the Spirit move—allow it to be so. John baptized Jesus and the heavens opened. Those standing by saw the dove and heard the voice because one man, feeling unworthy, answered God’s call.

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.”

Suffer it to be so now.

Maranatha

Know Jack #377 Stupid is as Stupid Does

 In my previous blog post, I outlined several reasons why I should just hang it up. As good as those reasons are, I have since found a reason to continue. I found it in an old playground insult that was later popularized by a movie.

I would appear more intelligent by keeping silent—that is true of most people. However, as the Crusader reminds me, there are things that should be said no matter how they are received. Truth irritates, sounds judgmental, and is unbending. Consequently, the one who speaks the truth is seen in the same light. So be it.

Socrates was tried as a perverter of the young. Jesus was thought to be a blasphemer and a devil. St. Paul was derided as a mad babbler. I cannot match their truth-telling abilities.

I admit that I have forgotten much that I learned. Though I remain unmoved, the things I do know are often passed off as my imagination. To continue to put my thinking out there under such circumstances sounds stupid. Well, by choosing to keep doing it, I’m living proof that stupid is as stupid does.

However, it's comforting to know I’m not alone. People do stupid things all the time—it might be an identifying trait of humanity. Why even today’s near worship of science ignores the fact that most of it is funded by those with a stake in the outcome. To err is human. This goes a long way in explaining most human thinking in my lifetime and charts a course for the future.

Maranatha