The Christian in Complete Armour by Wlliam Gurnall(1655)

You do not beat the air, but wrestle for a heaven that is yonder above these clouds; you have your worst first, the best will follow.

You wrestle but to win a crown and win to wear it, yea, wear, never to lose it, which once on, none shall ever take off, or put you to the hazard of battle more.
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Peace is sweet after war, ease after pain; but what tongue can express what joy, what glory must fill the creature at the first sight of God and that blessed company? None but one that dwells there can tell.

Did we know more of that blissful state, we ministers should find it as hard a work to persuade Christians to b

Man as Sub-Creator

J.R.R. Tolkien's poem depicting human persons as sub-creators:

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Although now long estranged,

Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.

Dis-graced he may be, yet is not de-throned,

and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned;

Man, Sub-creator, the refracted Light

Through whom is splintered from a single White

to many hues, and endlessly combined

in living shapes that move from mind to mind.

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Christians should be shapers, makers of culture, not simply critiquing it.

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COMMENTS
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Janet Spitler

Your ability to discern the "heart" of the matter is incredible. As Christians (especially reformed), it seems we have become a passive people. Most of the time I think that we don't realize what being redemptive looks like. Or maybe we have been so dumbed down that we no longer possess the skills to make or shape culture. We can judge a painting, but we can't paint. We can judge music, but we can't compose or play an instrument. We can judge a book, but we can't write. To me any time we take an ordinary activity and turn it into an art form, we are being redemptive. My job is about making listening, speaking, reading, and writing art forms. Greg and I are proactively making cooking, gardening, and hospitality art forms. These are the activities that are near and dear to Greg and me. There are many others to be claimed.
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Martine Smith

Excellent quote, Rick - and Janet's comment was a perfect follow-on. It is sad to see how we as Christians are always in the critic's box, rather than out on the frontlines of creativity, taking the blows that come with any creative effort. It's "safer" to just sit on the sidelines and be righteously disparaging. Yet in the end I know I will be the one most saddened to see all that God equipped me to do, but that I shunned doing out of fear.
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Janet Spitler

Well said, Martine. I want to believe that I am never too old to begin, and I am tired of beating myself up because for most of my life I have chosen (out of fear) to merely survive. However, I survived by always running--moving on to the next thing. I never stayed long enough to really invest my heart and mind. Believing it was my enemy, I avoided the ordinary.

My Room by George MacDonald

[This is almost the last part of this poem]

Baby is the cause of this;
Odd it seems, but so it is.--
Baby, with her pretty prate,
Molten, half articulate,
Full of hints, suggestions, catches,
Broken verse, and music snatches,
Like an angel gone astray,
Must be taught the homeward way;
Plant of heaven, she, rooted lowly,
Must put forth a blossom holy,
Must, with culture high and steady,
Slow unfold a gracious lady;
We must keep her full of wonder
At the daisy and the thunder,
At the moon and stars and sea,
At the butterfly and bee;
Never her and childhood part,
Change the brain, but keep the heart,
So, from lips and hands and looks,
She must learn to honour books,
Yet must learn that mere appearing
Gives no title to revering;
That a pump is not a well,
Nor a priest an oracle:
Sight convincing to her mind,
I will separate kind from kind,
And those books, though honoured by her,
Gently lay upon the fire;
Sacred form even shall not hinder
Their consumption to a cinder.

Would you see the sight immortal,
One short pace within our portal?
I will fetch her.--See how white!
Solemn pure--a light in light!
Gleaming frock and lily-skin
White as whitest ermelin
Washed in palest thinnest rose!
Like a thought of God she goes,
Wandering ever in the dance
Of her own sweet radiance:
Books and music far asunder--
Of all wonders, she's the wonder!

But, my friends, I've rattled plenty
to suffice for mornings twenty,
I should never stop of course,
therefore stop I will perforce.--

Did I lead them up, choragic,
To reveal their nature magic,
Twenty things, past contradiction,
Yet would prove I spoke no fiction
Of the room's belongings cryptic
Read by light apocalyptic.

There is that machine, glass-masked,
With continual questions tasked,
Ticking with untiring rock:
It is called an eight-day clock;
But to me the thing appears
Made for winding up the years;
Yes, thank God, fast as it may,
On it draws a mighty day.

The Road of Redemption

When winds the road we see
find the center while passing we
the pitfalls see on either side
fall we out of outrageous pride
in the things we create
while striving to commiserate
with each other and together
we find solace whether
the road dips or swerves
throwing us off as it curves
as knowing the road ahead
darkens into light dim once said
"press on to the goal" ever
partake of the gaudy never
finding our life part reclamation
if we are on the road of redemption.

What is Covenant Theology?

A friend asked me to explain why I now beleived in "covenant" theology.

So how do I explain something as vast as 'covenant' theology. Maybe it's more about experiencing the theology, not just talking about it. So let me use one or two word sound bites.

family
corporate worship
means of grace
Christ not me

I can hear your question. What do you mean? ;)

What it is not. Church is not where we go to find out how we failed(the Law), and how we can do better. It's about how we always fail , but Christ lived that righteous life that I can never live, and now that righteousness(our standing) is imputed to us. It's about grace that is greater than our sin (Rom 5:12 through the end of the chapter), not just a little greater but super abounding beyond greater.
Here is another way to look at it. We need the gospel, not just when we first believed, but every week, every day, every minute, because what we would do, we don't(Rom 7), and only Christ did what we desparately, feverishly want to do. So I need to be reminded of the Law, but also that as I confess and repent, that Christ has forgiven me, that Christ loves me. And when I hear the word preached, there is grace imparted, that when I partake of the Lord's Supper, it's not just a remembrance(it is that in a big way),but Christ is there serving us through the elders and imparting grace that we need to for our walk through this life.
It is that those who are there and have been redeemed are truly and deeply family, not just strangers that pass in the night, not individually part of each other but corporately part of the necessary fellowship we need each week.
And I guess finally, but not fully, it is about Christ, not about us and how we can 'be' better. If we keep our focus on ourselves and not on Christ, that is a miserable state. "Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith" is a beginning to end experience.
I manage, architect and build IT projects for Seagate, from the cradle to the grave, as we say. It's a full package, and just so our Christian lives, we must have grace always and every way, Word, sacrament(yes I used the 'Catholic' word...horror ;) , prayer and fellowship.

So in the end, it's a mindset - not pietism but Christ, not morality, but Christ, not me, myself and I but 'Christ in us, the hope of glory'.