When all you can do is breathe - keep breathing!

My heart's prayer for you is for your Daddy God to be ALL that you need. Indeed, with God as your source, friends may leave, people may abandon or betray you, but you will NOT be shaken for your strength is not found in people but in Him.

God loves you more truly and completely than any one on earth can ever love you. Embracing His love will give you tremendous power to stand against life's tragedies and become all that God has destined for you to become. 

He loves you that much and He wants to be everything to you. He wants to love you when no one else does. He wants to stand by you when everyone else turns away. He will be your family when you have none of your own. He will restore your soul, lighten your load and fill you with His joy.

You have only to turn to Him and give yourselves to Him, body, soul and spirit - to lay down your life, your longings and desires and give Him your every breath. And with every breath you breathe, you will be declaring your love for Him. 

The Ex-Gay Story in the Pop Music World

An interesting article by Roberto Marchesini

NARTH International Representative - NARTH Italia

Italy's "Festival di San Remo," the most important musical happening in my country which is seen on T.V. by millions of Italians, became the unlikely platform this year for a powerful ex-gay testimony. The singer, Giuseppe Povia, winner of the festival in 2006, presented a song entitled, "Luca Era Gay" (Luca was once gay) -- SEE VIDEO HERE. The title of his song, implying that some gays can change to heterosexuality, was sufficient to destabilize the Italian gay movement. Gay activists threatened to block the festival, and Europarlimentary member Vittorio Agnoletto asked for a European resolution to stop Povia from peforming the song. Povia, himself, received death threats. The gay association "Everyone" denounced Povia to the Procura of the Republic for alleged "homophobia." These efforts failing, gay activists then asked the Festival organizers to "counterbalance" Povia with a song by a gay singer, about "the perfection of homosexual love." That effort too, failed.

Finally, on February 17th., Povia sang his song on the first evening of the Festival. "Luca Era Gay" recounts the transformation of a man named Luca from the gay lifestyle. Without the help of psychologists and psychiatrists, he digs deep within himself to understand the sources of his homosexual attractions. An emotionally disconnected, detached father and a smothering mother, he says, created confusion about his sexual identity: "I looked for men who would be my father, I went with men not to betray my mother." The song also alludes to a superficiality in homosexual relationships. He says, "between love and deceit, often we betrayed each other." The song ends with this verse: "This is my story, only my story. No disease. No healing. Dear dad, I forgive you even if you didn't come back. Mum, I often think of you, I love you and sometimes I still bear your reflection, but now I am a father and I am in love with the only woman I have ever loved." The music, a soft rap with dramatic tunes, carries a direct and honest text while never judging homosexually oriented people for their own personal lifestyle choices.

Before Povia's song was aired, the Italian comedian Roberto Benigni presented a twenty-minute show in which he condemned Povia, saying that homosexuality isn't a sin and that gays have been persecuted historically "because they love someone." He then read an excerpt from Oscar Wilde's "De Profundis."

After Povia's song, contrary to all custom, the conductor gave the microphone to Franco Grillini, former parliamentary member and former president of ARCIgay, the foremost gay association in Italy. Grillini said he had received a cellphone message from a friend (although all celphones were supposed to be turned off during the festival...), who had cried when he had just heard Benigni reading "De Profundis," because it brought to mind his partner who had died of AIDS. Grillini concluded by saying that Povia must learn what gay love is.

Then, the unforseeable happened: people in the theater started to hiss at Grillini (in Italy, hissing is like booing)! The crowd's sympathy was with Povia, not with the gay activist.

Povia's song went on to the finals and Saturday night, won second place in the San Remo Festival, while outside the theatre, gay activists continued to protest against him. Povia himself said: "I too had a gay phase--it lasted seven months and then I got over it."

The popularity of "Luca Era Gay" has given courage and dignity to the ex-homosexual community in Italy, who, until now, have been thoroughly intimidated by gay activists. The text's real-life insights regarding the ex-gay experience are undeniable.

TO SEE VIDEOS OF THIS SONG, CLICK HERE.

[By the way, the english words are subtitled in the first video at the top of the page]

Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God

“Jesus’s teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing, religious people of his day. However, in the main, our churches today do not have this effect. The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones. We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church. That can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did.”

Henri Nouwen

Real caring 
is the willingness 
to help each other 
in making our brokenness 
into the gateway to joy. 

Solastalgia for His Presence

There is a modern day phenomenon that is sweeping across our world. It is characterized by an underlying sense of loneliness, melancholia or homesickness. The thing that is different about this malady is that this sense of loneliness, of melancholia and homesickness is experienced by people who remain in their home, and familiar environments. Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht has stated that, Humans are experiencing epidemics of physical and mental disease that have connections to the environment. He has called this phenomenon, Solastalgia, nostalgia of the soul. Albrecht relates this Solastalgia to environmental issues, but in reality, even in the church, amid our myriad of activities, and busyness we find countless Christians who would say that they too are suffering from a form of Solastalgia. Homesickness when they have never left home. This is simply homesickness for the Presence of God.

Missing Him

Most observers of the modern Church movement tell us that we live in a time in the West of unprecedented wealth, and activity. We have more resources than ever before in the history of the Church. Our calendars and our mail boxes are filled with opportunities for seminars, training weekends, conferences and conventions. We are more highly trained and equipped than ever before. Yet in increasing numbers we have people who are jumping off the Gospel Ship in droves looking for something to fill the Solastalgia that they feel. And honestly, many may not be able to even articulate what it is they are homesick for. They only know that deep within there is a longing that is not being filled with the activities and programs of the modern church. Many have gone from church to church looking for something that would fill this void, and not finding churches that meet that need, drop out completely. Because they have never known it, they do not realize that the nostalgia they feel is a longing for the Presence of God.

Reasons for His Absence

The question then needs to be asked, Why is God not with us? Are there reasons for His absence? Of course, we have used theological arguments to justify our lack of the Manifest Presence of God in our midst. We say that God is everywhere, so He is indeed here with us. But our hunger for Him belays the reality there is more that God wants, and more that we hunger for. A careful study of Scripture and of history will yield many examples of periods of time where the Presence of God came into a community in such glory and power that even the unbelieving world recognized that God had come to the community. It is the desire of God to dwell in our midst, but there are clear reasons why God does NOT. A passage that we have looked at before is clear. Hosea 5: 15 Then I will go back to my place until they admit their guilt. And they will seek my face; in their misery they will earnestly seek me. Though God loves us passionately, his holiness and justice are such that he cannot live with evil. As the prophets Habakkuk and Isaiah put it, Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong (Habakkuk 1:13), Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you (Isaiah 59:2). 

Getting Real

If this is all we had, we might be tempted to conclude that is does not get any better than this. However, in communities all across our globe today, God is showing up in power and grace. This is happening, not by chance, but where God is finding a core of people who are getting real with Him and with one another. People who are so desperate and hungry for God’s presence, people who are sick of the solastalgia, that they are willing to do whatever is necessary to see Him come to their communities. It does not matter who they are, and most of the time they are the unknowns in a location who are the catalysts for God’s entrance. In Northern Thailand, a mighty revival is being led by Kindergarten children who spend up to eighteen hours at a time in prayer and worship. God is not impressed by all our posturing and programs. He reads the heart and will respond to sincerely hungry hearts. Today He is looking for those in our communities who will have the courage to get real with Him, gather with others of like heart and passion, and seek Him until He comes.

Living in Expectation

Too long as a Christian community we have lived in an atmosphere of unspoken defeatism. We live with the attitude that we can work hard and do our best, but really it will not get much better than this. Confessing and forsaking sin, dealing ruthlessly with everything that keeps God at bay must be accompanied with a Biblically based expectation that if we indeed to what He tells us, He will come! We cannot produce transforming revival, but we can prepare our hearts and prepare the highway for God, and know with a certainty that when we do that. HE WILL COME! (Hosea 6:3; II Chronicles 7:14) 

Now is the time. Are you tired of your solastalgia? How hungry are you for His Presence?

Our Loving and Gracious Lord, we thank You that Your desire more than we can ever know to dwell in our midst. Forgive us for living with a defeatist solastalgia that is not what Your desire for us. Grant us the fortitude to break free from our bondages and seek You until You come to our lives, our churches, and our communities in all Your manifest power and glory. We confess there and now, only You can make the changes our society needs today. Lead us to others with hungry hearts, that we might seek you together. We pray this in Jesus Name. Amen.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solastalgia

quote

“For just as sin, addiction, and misery typically go together, so do confession, healing, and the long process of redemption. We need redemption not just from our sins and addictions but also from their miseries - particularly those miseries that occasion more sin and deeper addiction. As all recovering sinners know, this process of healing and liberation, this ‘conversion unto life,’ this set of lessons to teach us how to dance again will prove to be as cunning, baffling, powerful, and patient as addiction itself.”

- Cornelius Plantinga, Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be 

An email from a friend:

Let's pray that our generation wakes up to the fact that what we need isn't in the unhealthy relationships and same-sex relationships we crave or are in. That what we really need is healing from our wounds, and forgiveness and freedom from our sins, which can only be found in Jesus, and in the Father's love, which Christ has secured for us. Pray that our generation, by God's mercy and grace, will see this, that the veil will be torn away from the hardened, wounded hearts of many. And that we will respond by receiving His love for us in Christ, growing in it, and becoming true worshipers of the Living God.

--Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

Proverbs 19:22

~What a man desires is unfailing love; better to be poor than a liar ~

People who pray regularly recognize and must accept that they don't always desire God as much as they wish they did. It is an uncomfortable truth that requires a certain amount of courage before we can even admit it to ourselves. But once we do -- once we accept that weare weak in our desires for God -- a new path opens up for us. We come to recognize that it is "better to be poor than a liar." 

From such a place of honesty we are now free to choose whether agenuine desire for God is something that we really wish to have or not. If it isn't, then at least we are being true with ourselves and can now ask God to continue working in us so that this might someday become somethingwe actually desire. Perhaps this is the very "poverty of spirit" that Jesus spoke of as, paradoxically, a blessed state. If, however, a desire for God is something that we do wish for ourselves, then we simply and earnestly have to begin asking for it. 

If, in examining ourselves, we recognize that our hearts have become tepid, it is quite legitimate for us to take a step back and pray for the desire to desire. If we feel that we have lost our passion, we can simply be honest about it and ask the Holy Spirit to increase our desire for God, to restore us to our first love, or to wean us away from the things that now distract us. 

A sincere desire for God is something that can always be restored to us. But, before that can happen, it might be necessary for us to first recognize and admit to ourselves that it is absent. 

O Jesus, my desires are often weak and wayward, and I don't know what I can do about it. I wish to see them increase and to have my life directed more towards what I know I desire most -- You. 

Thank You Lord that this relationship does not wholly depend on me. For I know that I would be lost and without hope if it did. 

Thank You that You continually create for me the path that I am to follow. There is nowhere else from which to begin this path than from where I am right now. 

Thank You that, though You call me to seek You, You also reveal Yourself as the One who has already found me. In such faith, I know I am saved. Amen

Article by Rob Des Cotes 

Spiritual Fulfillment

Understand the difference between ambition and true leadership and it is this: Ministry is not a call to lead, but to die.

Every advance that I have made spiritually was preceded by an opportunity to die to self. The power in my life comes from where I have died to self and now live unto Christ.

Do you want to advance spiritually? The gateway to resurrection power is crucifixion. God will arrange opportunities for you to die to self. You must discern them. Dying to self and its ambition is the means of reaching true spiritual fulfillment. If you react to the opportunity to die with fleshly anger or resentment, you will fail to reach fulfillment. However, if you can maintain your vision even while your ambition dies, you will succeed. 

Hopeful Expectation!

“Coming events cast their shadows before them, and when God is about to bless his people his coming favour casts the shadow of prayer over the church. When he is about to favour an individual he casts the shadow of hopeful expectation over his soul. Our prayers, let men laugh at them as they will, and say there is no power in them, are the indicators of the movement of the wheels of Providence. Believing supplications are forecasts of the future, He who prayeth in faith is like the seer of old, he sees that which is to be: his holy expectancy, like a telescope, brings distant objects near to him.”

- Charles Spurgeon, The Holy Spirit’s Intercession

The Sexual Resolution

I like this..its originally posted by Renee on January 17, 2009

This is the premier month of Joe Dallas podcast, The Sexual Resolution with Joe Dallas.
Check out the podcast here.

What is The Sexual Resolution?
In essence, making a resolution means we’re hoping we can change a behavior we’ve engaged in so it will be back in alignment with our value system. If I value having a fit body or a healthy heart, I may resolve to quit smoking or lose that last ten pounds. In so doing, my behavior and my values line up.

But resolution also has a synonym—courage. That may explain why resolutions are so often abandoned when tested: It takes courage to live according to one’s beliefs.

Webster’s Dictionary has a few interesting definitions of the word “resolution” which communicate concepts I think are helpful in understanding what it means to be striving for “sexual resolution”. Let’s consider a few:

1) progression from dissonance to consonance

Many of us are living our lives in ways that conflict with our values and so we are in a state of dissonance. Think back to the last third grade band recital you attended and you’ll know what I’m talking about. One instrument may be playing in tune, but another instrument isn’t. When they play together, you have dissonance! And it can be very painful to listen to. In the same way, our values are like the instrument that plays in tune and our behavior is like the instrument that’s out of tune. The lack of harmony between the two creates a stressful, uncomfortable life until the dissonance is resolved.

Sexual Resolution depends on our getting back in tune with our belief system.


2) the point in a literary work at which the chief dramatic complication
is worked out

When we live our lives out of tune with our values, we create drama, don’t we? It starts with us, moves into our marriages, our finances, our jobs and complicates just about every relationship we have. Whether we want to admit it or not, our behavior may be causing us to be the “chief dramatic complication” in our loved one’s lives. Instead of a relationship of love and mutuality, we become a burden they have to deal with day after day.

Sexual Resolution is when the complications created by our wrongful behavior begin to cease because we’re “owning our stuff” and working towards living back in line with our beliefs.

3) a measure of the sharpness of an image i.e. the total number or density of pixels in the image

Sometimes we can be like a low resolution digital photo, or a fragmented hard-drive. When we join ourselves in sexual behavior outside of God’s design, little pieces of our emotions get bonded to this person, then that person, or that image, until little pieces of us are all over the place. When a partner has been engaged in sexual activity outside the marriage, neither partner can be content or fully functional in the relationship until God is allowed to reclaim those pieces, bring them back into focus and align them with His image of us.

Sexual Resolution is when my fragmented, pixilated emotions are recaptured, reexamined, and reassembled to form a sharp, focused picture of the true person I was meant to be in Christ.

So, courage my friend. And commitment. And take a minute to listen to The Sexual Resolution podcast. -R

http://www.oneplace.com/Ministries/sexual_resolution/

Holiness

taken from Innocence Restored
http://innocencerestored.wordpress.com/


Was the title of this post a turnoff? That question isn’t meant to be in-your-face. It’s just an honest question. Holiness is not a popular word. It’s practically fallen out of our vocabularies. When uttered, it now almost has a pejorative hue to it. It sounds stuffy. It sounds Victorian. It sounds like something that strips the relevance right out of Christianity. If someone were to call you or me holy, would we recoil because it isn’t true, or because it makes us sound flat-out irrelevant? It’s an easy question to gloss over without any true introspection. Do we avoid the word holiness because it is condemning or because it is seen as a liability or hindrance?

We don’t pray that God would make us holy anymore. We ask God to make us “Christ-like.” We ask God to pry our clutching fingers from the sin we love. We ask God for wisdom and guidance. But we don’t ask God for holiness. But isn’t praying for Christ-likeness the same as praying for holiness? Biblically, yes. But American Christianity is enamored with the idea that you can be Christ-like and not be set apart. It’s bent on trying to prove that you can listen to the music that glorifies the ungodly, and watch the peeping-tom movies, and pepper your speech with innuendo for humor’s sake and still be “Christ-like.” Throughout church history, that wasn’t considered relevance. That was considered irrelevance. What good was a Christian who looked like the world?

Our culture detests anything holy. The great American motto is: “Don’t rock the boat.” We don’t care who you are, what you do, or what you believe so long as you look like everybody else. And yet true, authentic Christ-likeness means to be different. How did the Romans know who to toss to the lions? God’s holy people couldn’t blend in. How did the Roman Catholic Church know who to burn at the stake? The people who were rocking the boat. The world is always unholy. Therefore the world’s culture will always be unholy. Being Christ-like means being set apart. It means rocking the boat.

I think it is undeniable that our generation, our Christian culture, is horrified to call something sinful that really isn’t sinful. And I think we really don’t care about compromising holiness because we consider looking like Bob Jones or Pensacola to be a far greater sin than “crude jesting” or “filthy talk” or “walking in darkness.” Christian witness isn’t destroyed by looking different than the world. It’s destroyed by looking just the same as everybody else. What unbeliever wants a Savior that will change them into what they already are?

So when we pray for Christ-likeness, are we praying for holiness? Are we praying that God would set us apart and make us look different than the world and culture around us? If we are, then we’ll suffer for it. Satan will not tolerate those who do not participate in his culture of wickedness. And sadly, many Christians respond to holiness by turning their weapons upon their brothers and sisters whose lives stand in contrast to their own lack of holiness. Living a holy life is the same as painting a bull’s-eye right over your heart. Suffering is sure. But then again, Jesus told us it would be this way. These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage,; I have overcome the world…For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it…Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. ( John 16:33…Mark 8:35…Matthew 5:8 )

Charles Finney

This great revivalist and evangelistic, spent long hours everyday in prayer. He knew the power of prayer and could teach it too. One very powerful statement Charles Finney said was, “Truth, by itself, will never produce the effect without the Spirit of God., and the Spirit is only given in answer to prayer. The truth by itself will do nothing more that harden men unto repentance.” Selah!

Find God!

by Francis Frangipane

There is only one thing that keeps most churches from prospering spiritually. They have yet to find God.

Holiness Comes From Seeking The Glory Of God
"How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another, and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?" (John 5:44) If we are displaying our spirituality to impress men, still seeking honor from others, still living to appear righteous or special or "anointed" before people, can we honestly say we have been walking near to the living God? We know we are relating correctly to God when our hunger for His glory causes us to forsake the praise of men.

Does not all glory fade in the light of His glory? Even as Jesus challenged the genuineness of the Pharisees' faith, so He challenges us: "How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another?"

What a weak comfort is the praise of men. Upon such a frail ledge do we mortals build our happiness. Consider: within but a few days after the Lycaonians attempted to worship Paul, they were congratulating themselves for having stoned him! (See Acts 14:11-19.) Consider: was it not the same city whose songs and praise welcomed Jesus as "King . . . gentle, and mounted on a donkey" (Matt. 21:5-9), that roared, "Crucify Him!" (Luke 23:21) less than one week later? To seek the praise of men is to be tossed upon such a sea of instability!

We must ask ourselves, whose glory do we seek in life, God's or our own? Jesus said, "He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory" (John 7:18). When we speak from ourselves and of ourselves, are we not seeking to solicit from men the praise that belongs only to God? To seek our glory is to fall headlong into vanity and deception. "But," Jesus continued, "He who is seeking the glory of the one who sent Him, He is true and there is no unrighteousness in Him" (John 7:18). The same quality of heart that made Christ's intentions true must become our standard as well. For only to the degree that we are seeking the glory of God are our motivations true! Only to the degree that we abide in the glory of Him who sends us is there no unrighteousness in our hearts!

Therefore, let us give ourselves to seeking the glory of God, and let us do so until we find Him. As we behold the nature of Christ, as our eyes see Him, like Job we "abhor" ourselves and "repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42:1-6 KJV). As we are bathed in His glory, we shall be washed from seeking the glory of man.

If we truly find Him, no one will have to tell us to be humble. No one need convince us our old natures are as filthy rags. As we truly find God, the things which are so highly esteemed among men will become detestable in our sight (see Luke 16:15).

What could be more important than finding God? Take a day, a week or a month and do nothing but seek Him, persisting until you find Him. He has promised, "You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart" (Jer. 29:13). Find God, and once you have Him, determine to live the rest of your life in pursuit of His glory. As you touch Him, something will come alive in you---something eternal, someone Almighty! Instead of looking down on people, you will seek to lift them up. You will dwell in the presence of God. And you will be holy, for He is holy.

Convicted by mercy

“Repentance out of mere fear is really sorrow for the consequences of sin, sorrow over the danger of sin — it bends the will away from sin, but the heart still clings. But repentance out of conviction over mercy is really sorrow over sin, sorrow over the grievousness of sin — it melts the heart away from sin. It makes the sin itself disgusting to us, so it loses its attractive power over us. We say, ‘this disgusting thing is an affront to the one who died for me. I’m continuing to stab him with it!’”

- Timothy Keller, Church Planter Manual

Less of Me

Dig the mud from my mossy wells
On these manicured lawns rake away the stones
Weed the weeds from all my beds
Take the cold from all my bones
Stoke my coals that barely ember
When I should be burning in heaven’s consuming hearth
In my eyeballs blue those flames reflect

Un-sear my conscience burnt with iron cast
Blinded by the steam of seeing
In my weakness let Your strength
All Your life to speak from me
Mine eyes be light and single
Un-erred by fear of men
That they may see less of me

Trawl my heart for hidden splinters
Scan my mind of worldly kosmos
That hangs my neck time after time
Like fish on the hook
The secrets are in Your book
Thank You for the thorns that pierce
That prick with needles crusty dust
Turning to Your face I can
Eye to eye cheek to cheek
Hand to hand to You we turn we must

Break the jawbones of my foes
Re-arrange my heart and soul
Smash my tongue with heated coal
Don't hold back Your perfect work
Prepare me for the kiln of truth
The Highlands sing the song of clans
I can hear Your song for me
Your tender hand extending nigh
That I may live the truth and kill the lie

For You I long from this unpleasant tent
I long for ownership dominion all
Not to dance in tattered clothes for rent
I call my lover Lord
King, Warrior, Friend and Brother
The urbane blend of sundry heavens
Take all my leaven that falsifies this loaf
My incense I yearn to fill the air
But pure must it surely be
Aroma sweet to smell for You
So dig it deep my beautiful reverent King
And let it be less of me.

On the train England
9th February 2000
Stephen Bennett

'I have overcome the world'

Article from:
The National Post Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Page: A16
Section: Editorial
Source: National Post

Sic transit gloria mundi -- thus passes away the glory of the world, the old Latin phrase puts it. In 2008, the glory of money took the biggest hit. The economic ground shifted beneath our feet, and so much that was solid, so much that was powerful, so much that was thought stable, has passed away.

The mightiest of them all, General Motors, has devoted its most intense recent energies not to production, but to begging. The year began with five famous investment banks on Wall Street.

In 2007, they distributed year-end bonuses to their combined 186,000 employees of some $38-billion -- more than the GDP of Bulgaria, to put it in perspective. In 2008, Bear Sterns and Merrill Lynch were bought out to save them from going bust; Lehman Brothers went belly up; Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley converted themselves into regular banks. Transit: 5; gloria mundi: 0.

We learned some ancient lessons anew in 2008. There are no entirely safe investments, and if something seems too good to be true -- like owning a house with bad credit, little income and no assets -- it probably is. We learned again, too, that the innocent suffer for the sins of the wicked, as many charities the world over are now discovering, thanks to Bernard Madoff.

In Christian language, we might say we learned that original sin has not gone away. In a time of prosperity, we are inclined to forget that; thinking
that money -- privately earned or spent by governments -- can solve just about any problem. In times of crisis, we remember that isn't true.

The fundamental Christian telling of history is that we are always in crisis to a greater or lesser degree. Man is estranged from God and consequently estranged from his neighbour; therefore he lurches through history trying to avoid one calamity or another. The Christian believer knows we need Christmas.

We need Christmas because, contrary to a certain messianic politics that took hold of so many this past year, the simple answer is that we can't save ourselves. The things we make and manufacture, whether automobiles or mortgage-backed securities, are not the stuff of salvation.

"Yes, we can" is good politics but bad theology. "No, we can't" won't inspire a campaign rally, but the realization that the glory of this world is constantly passing away is the first step in the search for another, more enduring glory.

At the conclusion of his magnificent sermon, The Weight of Glory, C. S. Lewis reminded us that the possibility of glory lies as close as the next human soul: "There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendours ... Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses."

The earliest Christian preachers learned that lesson at Bethlehem, that God had become man, and He had come to be with us so that we might be eternally with Him. The immortal God who comes as a baby at Bethlehem clothes His glory in the flesh of this world, so that the flesh of this world may be taken up into a glory that does not pass away.

"Take courage; I have overcome the world." So Jesus would eventually preach to crowds who knew that the world needed overcoming. Perhaps they thought then, as many do now, that what needed overcoming was this or that political authority, or this or that economic problem.

Yet what most needs overcoming is that everything in this world is coming and going, passing by and passing away before our eyes. Those of us in the newspaper business know that better than most; yesterday's news so often is just that -- yesterday's.

This year we have been reminded that the glory of newspapers, too, can pass away, as so many of our colleagues have faced cutbacks, layoffs and even bankruptcy.

The Christian faith is that the Child in Bethlehem came to save us from this passing world, entering into it that we might, with Him, overcome it. This year we may be more disposed to considering that possibility than most.

To our readers then, who do us the daily honour of passing some of their time with us, we wish a Merry
Christmas and a new year abundantly blessed by those things that do not pass away.

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“Everywhere creation calls for the honoring of God’s standards. Everywhere humanity’s sinfulness disrupts and deforms. Everywhere Christ’s victory is pregnant with the defeat of sin and the recovery of creation.”
- Albert M. Wolter

BEING MISUNDERSTOOD

"They said, He is beside himself." What had He done the seemed insane to them? It could not have been His signs and mighty works--men do not count a man demented for that. Indeed His works were the best proof that He was not insane. "And many of them said, He hath a demon and is made; why hear ye him? Others said, These are not the sayings of one possessed with a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?" (John 10:20, 21). But the manner of His life, perfectly devoted to the Father's will, and the truth which He spoke, which sounded so strange to their ears; also the high place He claimed for Himself, and His demand that they should have faith in Him--that was the reason they thought Him crazed.

Who thought He was "beside Himself"? If it had been His enemies only it would have been natural. But it was His friends, those who knew and loved Him best. That was hard to bear. In verses 31-35, His mother and His brethren tried to get Him off to Himself--for what purpose is not stated, but in the light of v. 21, and judging by the way He ignored their attempt, it was for no worthy reason. The Lord Jesus did not even send them an answer. He merely said to His hearers that He acknowledged only those as mother and brethren who hear the word of God and do it.

Where all is wrong, the right seems odd and strange. Where falsehood has right of way the truth is evil spoken of. Where all are selfish and sinful a pure and true life looks abnormal. Paul, accused of being beside himself, gave an explanation of his life that the love of Christ constrained him to do as He did. That sort of life demands explanation. (2 Cor. 5:13-15). Even among fairly good people a truly devoted life and an unselfish work, is looked on with a little secret misgiving, as a sort of mild insanity. Partly because there is so much that is false and fanatical, a man would be counted as "beside himself" if he should really love the Lord his God with all his heart and soul and strength and his neighbor as himself. Such a one must be content to be misunderstood and misjudged as Jesus was.