Cravenness or surrender

Heb 4:12-13 - "For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. 13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account."

There are two ways to take these verses: craven fear, or surrender. The one who resists God, still knows there is an all knowing God out there who sees all his sin. And God is strong enough to judge him for it, too. He has a razor sharp sword that can slice and dice you for your sin, and He has an eye that sees every milligram’s worth of that sin. You are toast. So with craven fear, it’s either fight or flight. We cower in a corner and deny His existence, or we blaspheme Him.

But when we read ahead the next verses say we will receive grace. There is another option: surrender and submission. We give up, confess our sin, and trust Him that we will survive under the knife of His Word.

So don’t play passive-aggressive with God, covering up and denying your sin. Don’t argue with Him, or wish Him away. Confess to Him.

10/11/09

Reverence and discernment

Angels in the Architecture, by Doug Wilson and Doug Jones

Chapter 3. Te Deum: Remembering the Most High

The medieval conception of God was reverent and humble before His incomprehensible majesty. By contrast, moderns are irreverent, crass materialists. Doug Wilson looks at how Beowulf speaks of the Most High. Pagan converts to Christ had (have?) a greater reverence than secular converts, who have little prior conception of deity. At least the pagans had an unfocused reverence in place already. Most of us lack this, and need to learn reverence from the ground up. How do you reverence God in your family? How do you speak of the Lord of life? What names do you use for the King of glory?

Chapter 4: The Emerging Divide: Losing the Serpent... and the Greeks

Modern Christians are embarrassed about some Scriptural truths ("excommunication, the death penalty, patriarchalism, slavery, a young earth, and monarchy..."). Medievals weren't embarrassed to grapple with the best human wisdom and toss it if it was inconsistent with Scripture. The best example is philosophy. Medievals engaged with it. They appear to us to have compromised with it, but how often do we compromise with contemporary thought? As often, they expunged the worst of the Greeks from the worldview they were constructing. Don't follow modern scientific findings blindly. It can be a long, complicated process to find the divide, the antithesis, to discern between good and evil in a given cultural phenomenon. Sometimes we draw the line in the wrong place (all movies or alcohol are sin), sometimes we draw a line when there doesn't need to be one (one nursing method as God's way?), sometimes we don't draw a line when there should be one (David with Absalom). In your family do you need to draw, erase, or move the line in any area of life, to follow God's Word more faithfully?

Surrender

Sermon text: 2 Samuel 3

Whether you are tempted with subtle pride, like Abner, to think you are the center of things, or have committed horrendous sins like Joab, you are at the son of David’s table, and He receives you like He did Abner, on one condition – that you hand over to Him your Michal. This means 2 things for us. We must hand over to God alone our guilt, not trying to deal with it ourselves by covering it up or by working harder, but trusting God to take it away at the cross of Christ, by grace. And second, we have to hand over to God our hopes and dreams, the life we hope to have. It is His kingdom, not ours. We are not the center, here to give Christ our all-important allegiance that He so desperately needs. No, no. We are here to receive HIS blessing. We are Ish Bosheth – we used to claim the throne, but we have to give our Michal to David. That highest hope you have for your future – lay it at the feet of Jesus, surrender it to Him. We must give our all to Christ.

10/4/09

A New Center

Phil 2:1-4

Each Christian goes through a Copernican revolution at his conversion. We realize that what we think, and do and feel isn’t the center, the standard, it isn’t right just because it is ME. Rather, we have to confess to God that His will and Word is the standard, and that we have broken it. As believers after we are converted, struggling in the remaining sinful nature in us, we are still tempted to make ourselves the center. The pull of gravity to selfish ambition, interest, and conceit is not gone. But the Son has risen in our hearts, and we now have a new center.

10/4/09

Postage Stamp quilt

I can't decide if Ilike this latest quilt or not. I started it by trying a new technique of piecing the "postage stamp" squares in the center. I first ironed all the squares onto a piece of water soluable interfacing, then sewed up the long seams. The process is described here. It was an interesting way to piece a lot of little squares quickly, but I was not a fan of sewing through the water soluable interfacing. It was like sewing through plastic! Some squares shifted a bit, so the corners are a bit wonky in a few places. The finished postage stamp section is only about 8x11 inches.

Here's where my dilemma comes in... I had this fun tiny quilt, but wanted to make a it larger, perhaps a baby quilt. But what to do for the rest of the top? The center part is busy, so I decided a nearly-solid surrounding fabric with some simple quilting would balance it out. But I'm not sure it worked. I feel like the center section is "trapped" in a box, but perhaps the diagonal quilting gives the piece the needed movement. I did end up putting a bright yellow binding around it, so the eye bounces back and forth between that and the center . I guess I like the finished effect, but perhaps the colors aren't quite "baby" colors. What do you think?

Finished size is 30x31".

Happy Bloggy Birthday to us!

We're 5 years old!! Last month, amidst the craziness of flu bugs, the Olympics, and other life events, the Hemmeke Blog turned five.

What do you enjoy the most about our blog? What would you like to see more of?

Numbers 1-10

1 - census of men over 20 who could fight: 603,550. Not the Levites

2 - placement and movement of tribes in the camp; Judah leads east

3 - Levites to serve in tabernacle for Aaron; census, placement, duties

3 - Levites taken for the Lord's service instead of firstborn of Israel

4 - duties and census of Levites

5 - ritual for testing whether a wife has been unfaithful or not

6 - rules for the Nazirite vow: grapes, hair, dead body; priestly blessing

7 - offerings for temple: dishes with grain, incense; animals for sacrifice

8 - tabernacle lamps; Levites set apart to serve in the tabernacle

9 - second Passover a month later provided for; cloud/fire over tab

10 - trumpets for assembly, moving camp, warfare, feast gathering

Turn toward Him and others at the Table

1 Cor 11:17-29

The church continues to misunderstand the warning in these verses, not remembering the context of Corinthian division in the body of Christ. The problem wasn’t that they weren’t doctrinally discerning where Christ’s physical body was in relation to the Communion elements. The problem was that they were acting like lone ranger individuals in the corporate body of Christ, with no obligations to their brothers and sisters. This makes it especially ironic that our common practice is to descend into ourselves, away from others, and close our eyes when Paul warns us against this very thing. You’re not seeing Christ’s body, you aren’t recognizing, perceiving it, in the church gathered to partake. So I do strongly encourage you, open your eyes to partake; even turn around and look at others with a smile. In dealing with your sin at this meal, don’t turn away from others; turn to them. See other redeemed sinners; see yourself in them. God has made us to need one another in our fight against sin. This Supper is a sober reminder of Christ’s death for us and our sin; it is also a picture of what resulted: food for God’s people. We are the bread. Consider the body of Christ, the fruit of His death, as you eat and drink, proclaiming His death.

9/20/09

Contentment

10th commandment

The commandment against coveting is a command to be content in whatever you have. We are to be content with our station in life, our income, our family. Were you called as a slave? Don’t be concerned about it; but if you can gain freedom, do so and use it. Do you find yourself single? Poor? Be content, and also be diligent to improve your state for God’s glory and the service of others.

The first and last commandments deal with the heart. Idolatry and contentment are matters of where your heart is. Take time on this Lord’s Day to consider the state of your heart. What do you want? What do you spend your time pursuing? Why?

9/20/09

Turn back toward Him and them

Gen 3:8-11 - "And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?”

Sin makes us afraid. We run from God; we run from others. Forgiveness and love received casts out fear. We turn TO God; we turn TO others. God invites us to receive forgiveness by confessing our sin. Have you eaten from the tree? Yes, we all have. Own up to it all. Take the consequences. Tremble before Him, but know He is a merciful Father.

9/20/09

10 in 2010

The Olympic knitting is over and now it's back to my goal of 10 pairs of socks in 2010.

Cast on pair #2 yesterday with some lovely March green yarn. The familiarity of sock yarn and itty bitty needles is wonderful.

Leviticus 17-27

17 - sacrifice only at the tabernacle; only blood atones, so don't eat it

18 - don't do like in Egypt or Canaan: incest, fornication, homosexuality

bestiality. I'm driving out the Canaanites because of these things

19 - laws of justice and mercy, mostly: love your neighbor

20 - death and exile for idolatry, sorcery, adultery, incest, bestiality

21 - priestly holiness: no defects or ritual impurity, only marry virgins

22-sacrifices accepted:no defects, only priest's immediate family eats

23-feasts:Sabbath,Passover, Firstfruits, Pentecost/Weeks, Trumpets

Day of Atonement, Tabernacles/Booths

24-oil for lamps, bread for table; death penalty for blasphemy, murder

25 - sabbath for land, Jubilee, rights to buy back property (or self from slavery) that had to be sold in poverty; permanent servitude allowed of foreigners, not of Israelites

26 - faithfulness to God brings blessing; disobedience brings curses

27-valuations to buy back persons/property given/consecrated to God

The right truth at the right time

9th commandment

The commandment against lying is a command to speak the truth in love, for the edification of the body. We are to guard the reputation of ourselves and our neighbor, by exercising discretion. Discretion is a virtue, which speaks the right truths in the right places. Discretion does not cover up the truth, but knows where and when to speak it. We may not pre-judge what the truth is. We are often tempted to do this by undue speculation, trying to see God’s hand of providence in what just happened; or by coming to a conclusion without enough good evidence, just so we can opine and display our great wisdom about things. We should take as seriously what we say to one another as if we were on the witness stand in court, under oath.

Knitting Gold Medal!

The Team USA Olympic hat is complete!! I finished it just before the men's hockey game went into OT last night. Fun to watch, but more fun to finish my first fair isle knitting project!

What your sins will be

Isaiah 1:18 - "Come now, and let us reason together," says the LORD, "though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

We are to reason with the Lord, to deal with Him, and let Him deal with us. He gives us the promise, even as He calls us to confess, that He will forgive us if we are willing and obedient. You will know your repentance as you are willing to repent before the Lord, as you are willing to offer it to others you have wronged, and as you desire to act differently.

Assurance of Forgiveness – As you have confessed sincerely to God, know that your Father in heaven isn’t angry at you waiting for you to get your repentance right. He is instead loving you as a father, and teaching you how to live a more godly life. As an ambassador of Christ, authorized to speak in his name, I declare to you your sins are forgiven through Christ.

9/13/09