‘Give justice to the poor and the orphan; uphold the rights of the oppressed and the destitute.’ Psalm 82:3 NLT

I used to say, ‘When pigs fly,’ but then the swine flu.

PIETERMARTIZBURG, South Africa – The HIV/AIDS pandemic sweeping African nations is destroying entire families – from grandparents to children. One Christian ministry, with the help of Southern Baptists, is making a difference in the lives of thousands of adults and children.

Read about it at http://ping.fm/zb2af

These two older women care for 20 children whose parents died of AIDS. The World Hunger Fund supports a feeding project that helps families like this.

An overweening intellect is like an unweaned baby.

Psalm 131
1 LORD, my heart is not proud; my eyes are not haughty. I don’t concern myself with matters too great or awesome for me.
2 But I have stilled and quieted myself, just as a small child is quiet with its mother. Yes, like a small child is my soul within me.
3 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD — now and always. (NLT)

There is an immaturity in the mind that refuses to accept some things are simply beyond the grasp of the human intellect. It may be a complexity of systematic theology, or it might be a thorny problem we are trying to sort out for ourselves.

The mind that refuses to accept its limitation before the Lord is like a newborn that wants what he wants, when he wants it. A mature mind places its trust in the Lord and walks beside him, instead of demanding to be fed simply because it is hungry.

In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul says he couldn’t teach the believers in Corinth like he could have if they had been spiritually mature. Instead he had to give them baby’s milk. He said that one proof of their spiritual immaturity was that they quarreled among themselves. Sound like any church members you know? Any systematic theology buffs?

A proud heart is a fallible mind that tries to force finite truths to explain infinite, infallible truth. Haughty eyes look upon a pastor or teacher and complain, “I’m just not being fed by this man.” Why would we be surprised quarrels occur when people refuse to grow up and start eating meat instead of mother’s milk?

The pride is so deeply rooted in some hearts that they believe they are eating solid food, when in fact they are still sucking at the teat. Ever known a systematic theology buff who was so proud he had mastered the minutiae of another man’s thoughts? Ever known a church member so spiritual that she criticized the pastor for not teaching deep truth from the pulpit – or for teaching deep truth instead of preaching Gospel basics every Sunday?

Paul says some believers are like children who ought to be eating solid food but instead still need milk. “Solid food is for the mature,” he says. (Hebrews 5:14)  He exhorts immature believers to stop going over the same truths again and again and move on to maturity in understanding. (6:1)

He also warns of dire consequences for refusing to grow up. He warns that turning away from maturity amounts to rejecting the Son of God and holding him up to pubic shame. A field that insists on yielding thorns and thistles, instead of the crop planted by the farmer, is worthless and in danger of being burned off.

We need to confess our pride and admit that some things are just beyond our grasp. We need to quiet ourselves before the Lord and leave to him the matters that are too great for our finite, fallible minds. We need to walk with the Lord and let him teach us truth himself, instead of sitting at the feet of other men and taking their insights as the Gospel itself.

We need to in humility put our hope in the Lord – now and always – instead of placing it in human abilities that are bound to fail.

A new post by Cleve Persinger at Empowering Community on using fantasy football as a men’s outreach.

Join the discussion at http://ping.fm/m5RJf

Keith and Kristyn Getty’s Awaken the Dawn

Most of the complications in my life have been of my own making. I have not always done my best in doing things the Lord’s way. And when I have made my own way crooked, there is precious little I can do to straighten it out. We can do what we can, but the Lord is the only one who can truly make the crooked straight.

As Isaiah noted, however, the Lord’s ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8) Sometimes he makes the way crooked to teach us what we need to learn.

In that regard, then, the Teacher’s insight is profound: “Accept the way God does things, for who can make straight what he has made crooked?” (Ecclesiastes 7:13 NLT)

It is our thinking that says the path before us should be straight and smooth. God’s thinking says our strength grows the most when the course we follow is challenging. Great difficulty in life may indicate we have made foolish choices that needlessly complicated things. Or it may indicate the Lord has chosen a path of hardship and trial for us so we will learn to trust and depend on him instead of our own strength and wisdom.

Either way, whether the difficulty is of our own making or the Lord’s, the only good choice before us is the Proverbs 3:5-6 solution: trust in the Lord with all our hearts, don’t depend on our own understanding, seek his will in everything we do, and trust that he will show us which path to take.

Just remember: The path he intends us to take is not automatically the straight one.

Who is Paul speaking to in Romans 2:5? ‘…you are storing up terrible punishment for yourself’

It’s a mistake. It was supposed to be the Nobel Pizza Prize. The committee ate at Medici’s last month, and since the prez is the incarnation of Chicag-O …

Nothing is ever a problem, but some things are less not a problem than others.