• I owe you two more comments on General Assembly, one on something called the Federal Vision movement and another on Paedo-Communion. I think I’ll get to the first tomorrow. For now, two important prayer needs. I encourage you to steal a moment and bring both of these to God today.
• First, John Trindle’s very important open-brain stimulation to reduce the symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease is tomorrow. The prayer is simply that this would be overwhelmingly successful. As you know, the Lord has asked a great deal of the Trindle family. Why this is so is beyond what I am permitted to know in this life. What I do know, just as you do, is how to love and pray for someone. Let’s do this together for the Trindles. This is an important hour in their lives.
• Second, Jeanie Stacy has her second round of Chemotherapy tomorrow. As most of you know, the Stacy’s have health challenges very similar to the Trindles: Jay’s very serious heart condition, which he has downplayed with a wry smile the entire time I’ve known him, and now Jeanie’s cancer. They also need our prayers and our love. This is where we show that we understand the doctrine of the body of Christ, the fact of our being members one of another.
• Finally, I noticed a pattern reading through Luke 11 this morning. First, there is that woman in the crowd who cries out, “Blessed is the womb that bore you!” To which Jesus responds, “blessed rather are all those who hear the word of God and keep it!” Second there is the Pharisee (his dinner host) who is “astonished” that Jesus does not wash before dinner (Jesus refers to the man and his companions as “fools”). Third, there is the lawyer who says to Jesus, following the Lord’s pronouncements of woe, “teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.”
• Each person expects Jesus to endorse his or her private values: the woman and motherhood; the Pharisee and his customs or rituals; the lawyer and his own self-estimation or stature. Though it’s less clear with the woman, all three are insulted, their sensibilities are wounded. None of them seems to understand that Jesus is entitled to redefine what they take to be important, or that he has come to rearrange their sensibilities entirely. In fact, we’re a little surprised at how openly they express their displeasure or disagreement with him. Their blindness remains.
• Listen carefully to what God, in his sovereignty, is permitting in your life. Be slow to have your sensibilities offended. Rather, ask Him if you are clinging to things that ought to be discarded altogether. Are you offended by those things that are truly an offense to God, or are you frustrated that God is not offended by those things that are merely offensive to you? If so, He’s not afraid to call you a fool. You may want to listen for that. I’ve heard it more than once myself, lately. With David, let’s love what God loves and hate what he hates.