Grace is Not Supreme

Thanks to the good folks at Christianity Today, I was privileged to read your article, That Grace is not Supreme.  Very interesting.

To qualify my thoughts to follow, I am 85 years of age - and "movin' on", a Christian for many years, but more importantly, introduced to Grace as a topic several years ago. Up until then, I thought of it only as another of the often used terms we hear from our pulpits and seldom seen on the streets where I live.

Then, I met - as I like to say, God, heart to heart, mano mano, man to man., some forty years ago, but until then, most of our "conversations" had o do with His answering my petitions for help..

Then, I was introduced to Grace, answering my most urgent question, "So, I have been "saved" - now what?  Sin had still preoccupied my thought processes and even though, I tried to focus on living up to "Christian" standards, I knew I was failing, daily.

Maybe it was because, there were few gifts I received as a child.  I either promptly ignored them, but I held onto a few for many years.

So, I wondered about this Grace, this gift from God and I wondered if it could help me with the sessions of doubt and yes fear, I had often experienced.

I decided to put it to use.  Rather than another "fall from Grace" I decided to use it as the power by which I could eradicate my tendency to sin.  It seemed to work.  In fact, the more I used it, the more I felt confident that I no longer needed the temptations that had led me to sin.  And over the years since applying my theory, the happier I am with whose I am, and occasions for temptation are few and far apart.

Alas, I have often shared these thoughts with Pastors, learned practitioners of the faith and the best response I have ever received was an occasional, "Bless you, my friend."

When asked if such thoughts are "scriptural" I quickly point to the verse I heard from on high, shortly after my conversion, Acts 1:8 "And you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you shall be My witnesses - wherever, whenever, you move about."  The later is my interpretation of the places mentioned in the text.

It answers the ancient question, Saved yes, but saved for what?"

Sadly, in and around Cookeville, TN, where I live, it is typically answered, "..saved from Hell" but since I never read where Jesus put it that way, I am content to use my version - "saved for good works," in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Would love to hear your response - even by phone, 931-528-7238.

Oh yes, you will find this on my blog - ReflectionsOnALifeWellSpent.blogspot.com

Sherwood MacRae

What's happening, a review

I've been away from this address for a few days because I could not sleep a few nights ago and woke up, a bit confused as to whether I was coming down with something, or whether it was just another encounter with the fact, I am not getting any younger.  For those who do not know, I plan on becoming 85 years of age in August.  What really troubled me, I had obligations involving others.  One was a long overdue "getting together" with a spiritual brother with whom I have enjoyed special times of "refreshing" for a number of years.   The other was an obligation to my church, to facilitate a gathering this morning to reveal our interests in proving we are good neighbors in the community where we worship.  It all worked out as we have many willing hands in our church and I am blessed to realize how true this is.

My good friend and I can get together, hopefully, next week.  In the meantime, I had the experience of being served by yet another person who went out of her way to help me in a time of need.

I was reminded of these experiences a few minutes ago when I read of another friend of mine, Frank Viola, who has written another book to go along with the eight others he has written in the past.  I am not sure that I have any of those others in my library, but I have read a lot of the things he has had to say by way of the Internet and generally speaking, I have agreed with what he has to say.

Now, in his new book, which will not be available until next month, Jesus Now, I have to say, the title misses the mark of what I have to believe is the "high calling of God in Christ Jesus".  You may recall that the Apostle Paul used this term and reveals his motivation in the third chapter of Philippians.  I love it, as I loved it when I first heard of it - so many years ago.  Let me remind you of what He had to write in its entirety in verses 13 and 14:  "Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the upward  call of God in Christ Jesus."

That reflects my own life when I first read this passage years ago and it remains my goal in these days.

Now, reading Viola's title, I have to wonder as Jesus reminded us, "I will not leave you.... I will come to you." (John 14:18) and goes on to say, "... the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance, all that I said to you."

It is my cherished opinion, that we do not have to wait another month, nor week, nor day, nor hour nor even a moment, to hear Jesus as He reminds us of the struggles we all face in a world in which we live today, or lived yesterday, or will live tomorrow, for He continues to say, "Come to Me. all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

It has to be my opinion having experienced His love, His comfort, His assurance, for all of these many years that what this world, our nation, our cities and the country places in which we live, need more than anything else has to embrace that promise, that even though we may be weary and heavy laden, He promises His rest; not as the world provides, His refreshing rest.

All others offer merely, more of the same.  He, alone, is what is actually happening, today.

March 5, 2014whe

I don't know about you, but one of the many debates raging across our nation the is one that gets head- lines whenever someone shoots up a school or a movie theater or whatever might come next, and is the one that tends to infuriate me.

I am not opposed to people owning guns as long as they have a legitimate, personal reason, to own and to use one, but turning them on our innocent is beyond the pale - in my opinion.

Hiding behind the Second Amendment is not a legitimate excuse.  Problem is, when they taught history in most of our schools - including my beloved Yale HS in Yale, MI, in the early 40's, they failed to make the events, personal.  For example, the Revolutionary War which had to have been in the minds of those authenticating the Second Amendment, where the gallantry of Washington's volunteers would be uppermost in their thoughts, many of those soldiers were carrying weapons they brought from home. The first armed resistance to the British came from our locals, carrying their own weapons.  These men and some insist, their women folk, were so determined that they were not going to live under the reign of a foreign power, they were willing to give their lives as a tribute to the freedoms we have today.

So, as the Second Amendment, came up for a vote, the electors had a vivid picture in their minds and the need to have a well regulated militia was appropriate.  There was no way they could have envisioned a demented person in the 21st century entering a classroom, intent on slaughtering as many children as possible.

Please don't try to argue Second Amendment "rights" with me.

Especially when tomorrow, a foreign power, intent on destroying all of our efforts to live as free people in a nation bent on preserving those freedoms, could loose a thousand drones, each carrying a nuclear bomb into our beloved land and our freedoms would be blown away.  An exaggeration, you say, so let me ask you, prior to the time when slaughtering children in their schoolhouses became almost too common place, would you have believed that we would experience such horror in our nation in your generation?

I vividly remember December 4, 1941, as the only person in the family assembled that day, who knew where Pearl Harbor was and was familiar with the shape of the Japanese aircraft launched to create the horror that happened.  Prior to that day, such an invasion was unthinkable to most of us.

Now, that we have experienced 9/11, we have a corporate fear that it might happen again, so we seem to be intent on arming ourselves to prevent such a recurrence.  What other excuse do we have for our demand that everyone have a gun to protect ourselves?   It is an irrational fear and it occupies the minds of those who appear to be reluctant to protect the innocents among us.

So, what are we doing about it?  Frankly, I do not know, I do not have a clue as to how I might influence the minds of the NRA members who are party to our mania.

This I do know, I can tell you about an incident that happened recently among our neighbors to the North in Kentucky.  It came to me over my computer from www.abpnnews.com.  It involves the Kentucky Baptist Convention's initiative to "lure unchurched men" to worship in one of their churches. It involves. specifically, the Lone Oak First Baptist Church in Paducah and a wild game dinner to be known as a "Second Amendment Celebration and Dinner".  Their Pastor, Dan Summerlin, was formerly the President of the Kentucky Baptist Convention.

What intrigued me was the fact they would be giving away shotguns, rifles and handguns as incentives to attend what they seem to insist is a legitimate Christian activity.  As one person suggested, it was a "hook that draws the unchurched".   I have no problem with the motive, if it really is their motivation, but what ought to be obvious, it is a distorted endorsement of the Second Amendment "right" violations promoted by the NRA.   And it seems to be endorsed by the Southern Baptist Convention.

I know the  Christ of whom they would claim as their motivation for their spiritual endeavors.  I have claimed Him to be my Lord and Savior from the first I really came to know Him.  It was through a very personal encounter almost thirty nine years ago and I vividly recall His first "instruction" to me as a follower.  It can be found in the book of Acts, chapter 1, verses 8: "...you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and YOU shall be MY witness..." as I like to add, "..wherever your feet shall lead you" (which I believe is what He meant when He referred to as "..the remotest pats of the earth.")

I pray that these Christian brothers and sisters will come to their senses and stop attempting to draw the world into their churches and instead, work on drawing their churches into the world where the love of Christ is even more desperately needed.