"I'm Afraid that I'm Losing My Faith!"

I am reminded of an event that occurred in a military chapel years ago.

The chaplain was having a prayer request time at the end of the service. During this prayer request time a woman raised her hand and complained that she was losing her faith and that she was worried about all her doubt. She was afraid of all the sin that she was committing and it had really upset her that she was falling away. She was afraid that she was becoming lost.

The chaplain replied, "We will pray for you, but the fact that losing faith bothers you is a good sign. If you did not have faith, you would not care about it at all. You are a sinner and that really bothers you. God be praised!" He then directed her to hold fast to the cross. He proceeded to give instruction from the pulpit that Christ did not come to be with the healthy, but treat the sick.

He was right. Would an unbeliever give a flip about not having faith? Would a hell-bound sinner care about eternal life and his position with God? Of course not! Because those feelings and convictions come from the Holy Spirit alone.

And where you find the Holy Spirit, you find Christ. And where you find Christ, there is forgiveness and salvation.

The Devil hates that. He must destroy it. This is why he attacks your confidence with lies and false arguements. He reminds you that you are weak and inadequate and suggests that that fact somehow matters to God. Of course you are weak and inadequate... that's why Christ died for you in the first place and continues to be your advocate! Does your inability to be holy matter in the slightest? No. Faith and salvation are unwarrented gifts.

The Answer to Chaos is not Order... but Peace

One of the hardest (and perhaps the greatest) lesson that I have ever learned is how to properly view and react to chaos. Chaos takes many forms and is present in varying degrees all around us. There is, as we all know, financial chaos. There is also political chaos, meteorological chaos, and even the constant emotional chaos that we all face. There is the one that I fear most which is the chaos that comes with the habitual, unrelenting desire to sin. Simply put, chaos is unpredictability, randomness, and turmoil.

The human temptation is to oppose Chaos with her linguistic opposite: Order. Is something chaotic? Establish order. Put it back in its place. Exercise control and make the chaos behave. But is that always the right answer? Does it even work? No. The problem is that order may be the opposite of chaos, but rarely is control ever the solution to combat chaos effectively. Control has its own set of problems. Executed improperly (which is most of the time) it can cause as much damage if not more than the chaos it was intended to fix. Especially in the spiritual life that Christ calls us to, order for order's sake is as bad as the chaos that rages in our mortal flesh.

So what is the answer to the chaos that rages and haunts us? What ends the reign of this turmoil?

Peace. The true solution to chaos is peace. That is all any measure of order is trying to achieve in the first place, right? To turn the chaos into peace?

So when your life is filled with turmoil. When your soul is ravaged by the chaos of sin, the temptation is to establish control and clamp down on the chaos by force. Make it behave. The same thing is true with emotional chaos. We want to get control of our lives and our feelings. We want to make all of this mess behave. We think that is what God wants, but we are wrong. He does not want "good little Christians". He wants repentant sinners who cling to Christ by faith alone.

We seek order when all we need is peace. How about the chaos of our rebellion and sin? We want to force it to stop and behave as if it was something that we could actually achieve on our own. This is not the solution.

The answer is peace. There is peace which is found in Jesus Christ. As the tumult rages, the face of Christ bears the image of a merciful God who loves you. This is the same God who brought form to all creation, calmed the stormy Sea of Galalle, and will one day establish His perfect kingdom of holiness and peace that passes all human understanding. Amid the raging problems and transgressions of the day, the God of peace offers genuine comfort and renewal.

Know that the chaos here is temporary. It is the final death throw of a world that has been corrupted and mangled by Adam’s sin. It will pass away and God will put things right again. He will reestablish the peace that was His good and ordered creation.

Until that time, control can actually be your enemy. Of course we should resist sin, but when the battle against our sinful flesh becomes about controlling ourselves instead of repentance and faith, we have missed the boat completely and peace will never be found. There is no peace to be found in the quality and constancy of your works. They will fail and the chaos will return. You cannot win.

So the answer is not impose order, but to seek peace. We must let go of our control and our precious order. We must stop overanalyzing the past and the future and address the serious task at present. We must take our inadequacy that fails to deal with the chaos that afflicts us and place it at the foot of the cross where it belongs. When control is relinquished and a desperate appeal for peace is made, the tranquil pouring out of forgiveness flows from Our Lord’s tender mercy and cleanses all ills. We rest in the stillness of the knowledge that there lies for us a holy and eternal city that has no knowledge of chaos and sin. By the power of the Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ, we are secured in the knowledge that God will calm all fears, remove all doubts, and heal all defects. These things will be put away and Prince of Peace shall reign eternal. We do not achieve victory over chaos with our control, but with the peace that comes from the crucified and risen Christ.

Order and discipline does not force this peace... it is a gift from the Holy Spirit. Once peace is secured, faith begins to grow and bloom. From this peace, true order can be established in the form of Christian discipline... an order born from faith and peace rather than desperation and chaos.

What if a Lutheran Wrote the National Anthem?

...It would be called "Oh, Say Can You See by the Dawn's Early Light", sung much faster, and we would find a way to modulate it into a minor key!

...and since it says "Dawn's Early Light" it would only be sung during Matins or Morning Prayer.

...it would be 4 versus long, but there would be 50 additional versus that would talk about each state in the union for use during that state's birthday.

...and we would figure out how to add a doxological verse at the end.

Prupose Driven People Hate the Church

"I said, 'I'm starting a church for people who hate church.'"
-Pastor Rick Warren, Purpose Driven Guru

You heard it straight from the horse's mouth. If you are an enemy of Christ's church, adopt his purpose driven methods. If you hate the assembly of Christians (you hate church) and what they do, then his teachings are for you!

hehe... I couldn't resist!

I Declare Homiletical Malpractice!

Here were the readings in chapel today (which I hope you all know is the Baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ):

Old Testament: Genesis 1:1-5 (ESV)

The Creation of the World

1In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

3And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.


Epistle: Acts 19:1-7 (ESV)


Paul in Ephesus

1And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples. 2And he said to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" And they said, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit." 3And he said, "Into what then were you baptized?" They said, "Into John’s baptism." 4And Paul said, "John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus." 5On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying. 7There were about twelve men in all.


Holy Gospel: Mark 1:4-11 (ESV)


4John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. 7And he preached, saying, "After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

The Baptism of Jesus

9In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11And a voice came from heaven, "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased."


WOW! Just looking at these texts… the sermon practically writes itself!

The OT Reading creates a perfect image of the old man before baptism: dark, formless and void. There we see the Holy Spirit hovering over the water. And what follows? God’s declaration of light! This is how it is with us God creates Light and Form from our formless darkness through baptism by His Word and the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Epistle highlights how this baptism is not our work, but God’s work. Here we see that a baptism that is centered in man’s work of repentance is nothing compared to the baptism that gives the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus. This upsets the popular, erroneous belief that baptism is our work of obedience. No, it is the work of the Holy Spirit that creates the indwelling of faith...through baptism!

Then we come to this titan gospel text! Look, here we see Christ’s baptism. Just as He would in His Holy Supper at the end of His earthly life, Christ actually participates in the sacrament that He institutes for His church. Christ's ministry is literally book-ended by the two Sacraments: Baptism and Eucharist. Then we see the explicit depiction of the trinity: The perfect Son Jesus Christ standing in the waters of baptism, the Holy Spirit descending from heaven to the Son in the form of a dove, and the voice of the Father speaking His pleasure over His son. What truth and depth! What meat!

As if the readings were not direct enough, the name of the Sunday is “The Baptism of Our Lord”. Every song, collect, petition, and bulletin clip art points to this event. How could you miss this? It’s so plain that even this two-year Lutheran neophyte can see it.

But this is NOT the message that was preached in the Lutheran chapel service today! Baptism wasn’t even mentioned! I sat in the pew absolutely stupefied. It filled me with frustration and physical grief. My fellow Soldiers became concerned about my health because I could not hold back my visceral distaste for what was going on. How could a sermon today not talk about Baptism? How could the children's message be about taking care of the planet and not littering? How could a Lutheran chaplain get this one so wrong?!?

If you received a proper sermon from your pastor on this Sunday of Sundays, call or email him and thank him for his dedication to you. You are truly blessed.

BOLL is Back in February

I have my orders and my duty assignment. Technology will permit this blog to come back on in full force by mid February. I have posting during my suspension because I could... and I will continue as long as I am able.

[Google Analytics said that I have only dropped 10% in daily readership anyway. That would be 9 instead of 10 people. hehe.]

See you in February! God Bless!

God Bless a Man in Black!

My new laptop has video software. Enjoy!

Good Book on Vocation

Luther on Vocation
by Bustaf Wingren, translated by Carl C. Rasmussen
Wipf and Stock Publishers

I have purchased this book and have found it to be a very useful work on the topic of vocation. It contains a very clear and exhaustive summary of Dr. Luther's thoughts and teachings on the subject. (Pr. Hall will be pleased at all the footnotes.) Laymen who are interested in this topic should check this one out. It is one of the better summaries on vocation that I have found.

Here is an excerpt from the book:

“Even while man contends on earth with a specific outer sin which is hard for him to master, that sin is forgiven in heaven, before God. The battle lies outside of the conscience and leaves faith undisturbed, since it rests secure in God’s promise. Sin is resisted in such a way that man is not cast into despair; the outcome is certain, through God’s word about the eternal life after death. If a man cannot believe that the sin with which he struggles is forgiven, the law has risen up in the conscience (that is, in heaven) and faith gives way to works before God. Then eternal life does not depend on God’s promise but on man’s progress in the battle against his sin. That is desperation.”

“This desperation increases the earnestness of the battle against sin, and prepares man to see the great miracle in the gospel when at length it comes back and makes the conscience free and calm. God wills the agony of the Christian which enters into the crucifixion of the old man, for crucifixion is fellowship with Christ, and Christ endured the agony of despair on the cross. In his earlier writings Luther exhorts us to seek the cross and hardships. In his Treatise on Good Works, in 1520, Luther still divides the death of the old man into two parts: that which we bring upon ourselves and that which we are subject by reason of the connection our lives have with the lives of others. This is a remnant of Luther’s pre-Reformation thought. We miss the attack on a self-chosen and self-imposed cross found in his later and more detailed expositions of the Christian’s cross. The fanatics excelled at putting on a furrowed countenance. With Luther’s perception of this new monastic spirit in evangelical circles came the end of his commendation of self-chosen crosses. The cross is not to be chosen by us; it is laid upon us by God, i.e. the cross comes to us uninvoked in our vocation.” -Luther on Vocation, Pages 52-53



You can purchase this book here.

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

Excerpt and cover image used by permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers.

Wipf and Stock Publishers
http://wipfandstock.com/
199 West 8th Avenue, Suite 3
Eugene, Oregon 97401

Luther on Vocation By Wingren, Gustaf
Copyright (c) 1957 by Wingren, Gustaf
ISBN: 1-59244-561-6
Publication Date: 2/19/2004
Previously published by Muhlenburg Press, 1957

Funny Song!

Enjoy this song... "I Think My Wife's a Calvinist". I ran across it because this was the song that came after listening to "All Things Are Better in Kione" over at incarnatus est. Both are VERY funny.

I don't want to ruin it for you... but the hook about the unconditional election in his romantic relationship is priceless!

I almost peed myself!

A Proud Lutheran Husband

My wife has taken to Lutheranism like a fish to water. Here is an excerpt from a recent instant message conversation.

Me: "You know who else is horrible at translating the Bible and explaining it in context?"

Me: "(Besides Joel Osteen)"

Wife: "Joyce Meyers"

Me: "lol... besides her."

Wife: "Binny"

Me: "I'm talking about someone who is not considered a kook by most people."

Wife: "lol"

Me: "good grief... you're like a heretic blotter."

Wife: "The Pope?"

Me: "LOL!!!!"

Wife: "lol"

The Pope! hehe... Luther would be proud.