I've started my new part-time job. My body is not used to stayin up all night, so I promptly got sick which it made it that much more fun. Today both my daughters were sick so I got up and down all afternoon taking care of them and then overslept when it was time to pick my son up from school. Fun day! And it's not over 'cause it's back to work at 10pm.

I am glad to have some kind of job to get some money coming in though. I am going to focus on songwriting and recording, and giving music lessons in whatever spare time I have. Until I get done with training that won't be much... But this job is pretty gravy, I must admit. Out of eight hours there is probably two hours of actual work. The rest of the time is monitoring systems, which means it's pretty much free time. So they said I can bring my guitar to work....kinda cool...

Sometimes I wish God would be more specific and direct in his directions. This job will probably only last until August and then I will have to have to bring money some other way. My level of trust is much deeper than it ever has been, but it would occasionally be nice to know where I'm going a little in advance.....

Whining over.
Have a God-filled day!

Screwtape according to Wayne Jacobsen in "The Naked Church":

Sometime late in the third century Satan must have called a conclave. Hades I, he might have called it. Since persecution had failed so miserably, this diabolical council needed to develop a new strategy to undermine the life of the church. The solution it produced has done far more to render the church powerless than any persecution ever has.

The objectives were clear: The plan would have to diffuse the self-sacrificing love that carried the church through conflict, distract it from intimacy with God, and devalue the importance of the individual believer. And, since the church had already prevailed over direct assaults, the plan needed to be so deceptive that it could not be recognized as coming from hell.

A few suggestions were offered, but they were so weak that they didn't even invite discussion. After a painfully long silence, someone, perhaps Screwtape, cam up with a very simple idea: "Trying to keep it small hasn't worked-let's make it big!"

All the other devils gasped, thinking that old Screwtape had finally bolted his sanity. "Make it big? What do you think we've been working so hard to prevent?"

"Hear me out, colleagues. We can kill it with its own success. What would happen if the church suddenly became acceptable?"

"Lots of people would go to it, you idiot."

"But what would all those people do to it?" Screwtape replied with a smirk, then sat back as he watched their minds churn. One by one the others began to see the brilliance of the scheme.

"Many would come for social reasons. They would quickly dilute those who are really in God's clutches. And imagine all the programs and activities they would have to plan to keep those people happy. Nothing chokes out intimacy as well as busyness."

"A crowd like that would have opinions so diverse and disruptive that the power of the gospel would be compromised in just a few short years. The church would eventually become a machine, chewing up individuals instead of loving them. Programs would take over where personal ministries now flourish. And everyone knows how easy it is to kill a program."

"Hear! Hear!" they all yelled.

"They couldn't possibly teach all the followers to walk with God personally, so they would soon substitute rules and guidelines for his ever-present voice."

"The machine would have to be run by professionals. The others would become nothing more than spectators and bill-payers. And that leadership would waste most of its time tied up in administration, which we know benefits almost no one."

"Who would have time for individuals" They would have to try to disciple people by regulations, and the cracks in that are so wide we could go on vacation."

"And best of all," Screwtape spoke up again, "they wouldn't even know what happened to them. They would think themselves successful beyone their wildest dreams. They would be pillars in the community and stand before huge crowds. We would let them keep all their Christian terms, but we would substitute our own meanings. It's foolproof!"

"But size alone won't do that, Screwtape," Satan himself finally said. "They could still teach all those people what it really means to follow God and they could still love people one-by-one no matter how big they got."

"True, O Wicked One," Screwtape waggled his index finger, "but do you think they would? Do you think they would risk losing all those people or would resist the corruption that such power and influence would give them?"

Satan smiled in whatever ecstasy hell allows. "Of course not!" He slammed his fist on the table, "Let's do it!"

Righteous

God has a sense of humor. Not, my sense mind you... I have a part-time night job lined up doing computer operations. Just what I left when I went into "full-time ministry". Not all that thrilled about it, but I need to do something to make ends meet around here.

We are opening up for our friend Blue and her band Morning Vision tonight. If you are in the St. Louis area come on out!

I have been reading Wayne Jacobsen's "The Naked Church" for awhile now. I'm taking my time because I realize there are still some presuppositions about this journey that I need to unlearn. I've been particularly challenged by the concept of righteousness. I've always been under the assumptions that righteousness was something that I could attain with effort. God gives grace to get into to heaven, but I had to take care of things while I'm here on earth. Unfortunately, I am an absolute failure at maintaining righteousness. My failures either led to disappointment or anger with myself, because of my weakness, or with God, because he didn't give me the strength to resist the sin.

James 1:14-15 tells us that sin consists of two things: desire and opportunity. Unfortunately, I have been taught one of the many traps of dealing with sin. There are several ways that Christians deal with sin:

1. Bear the consequences of it, because salvation can't heal us from it.
2. Conquer it by sheer force of will.
3. Deny ourselves ANY sinful opportunity (become isolated from society and legalistic).
4. Allow Jesus to deal with our self-centered desires.

The first three deal with the opportunity, only the last deals with the core issue, our desires.

Wayne points out, and I think rightly so, that most followers of Jesus don't hunger for holiness today because they have misunderstood the process that brings it to them. We think holiness comes through gritted teeth. But, if righteousness comes as I learn to trust in God above my self-centered desires, then righteousness is a product my relationship with God, changing me from the inside out. It really has very little to do with me. As I trust in Jesus he changes me from the inside out, replacing MY desires with HIS.

So the basis of my righteousness is relationship. It is a gift from the Father, not something I can earn. Sin is a relationship breaker. It's not that it removes me from God's presence, it's that it keeps me from the deep, inner change that God desires as the result of trusting in my own desires over and above my Father's.

Trust, and live a righteous life...