Atlantic City

I got sick swimming in the Atlantic Ocean in Atlantic City. The money, the whores, the drink, the garabage, the strip clubs...little sin city. My sickness reminds me of my sin. Sin is sick---soul sickness. I loath myself. If it is not for God's grace there would've gone I.

Love, fire---burn me out.

Song of Solomon---A dangerous book...read it, if you dare. If you want your heart to burn you, to consume you with love, the hope of love, the ideal of love, then read it, and you shall indeed be "sick with love" (Song 2:5).

I will elaborate on the Song of Solomon, chapter 8 in particular.

Below is my ideal of love; it is how I will pray in relation to the love(r) which God sends me:

When God descended on Mount Sinai he came in fire (Ex 19:18). "The mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven" (Deut 4:11). Love, avows the Song of Solomon, "Flashes forth flames of fire, the very flame of the Lord" (Song 8:6). Love burns to the heart of heaven, for God is love. "The very flame of the Lord." Love is the very flame of the Lord--the very flame. Love is a coal from the altar of the divine. Love between a man and women. Love which, though marred by the fall, can be restored by Christ's grace. Love flashes forth flames of fire.

I cannot and I will not settle for any thing less than love, than a fire that burns through me and into the heart of my lover. She will be my fire, my flame of the Lord. But does anyone hope for this love? Does it last? (If and) When married, I will pray to this God of love, I will pray for fire, I will pray that he flashes forth on me any lover his very flame. The same love that the Trinity contains. That love teaching that Christ poured upon the disciples on the journey to Emmaus, their response: "Did our hearts not burn within us."

How can the audience of Song of Solomon then not say, "Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love!" (Song 5:1). "Be drunk with love", "I am sick with love (Song 2:5)", "the very flame of the Lord." I'd rather be single for 1000 years than find a love less than what Scripture displays to me. I want the love to burn me out, to make me sick, die, and be resurrected. Yes, an unreasonable hope between humans. But as I burn in Christ, perhaps he will grant me and my lover a spark, a flame from his throne, from himself. If he grants me but a spark it will be a love of force, power, and delight, reaching to the heart of heaven. Be it only a spark, this love is the very flame of the Lord. And thus the love is sufficient if only a flash, for our Lord is infinite, and that is all.

He has brought desolations

Psalm 46:8, "Come, behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth."

Come check this out!

The Psalmist appears to have this tone of voice. "Come, behold the works of the Lord." He bids us view the power of God's desolations worked upon the earth. "Come, behold the works of the Lord." Emphasize it. What does he want us to see? He wants us to see "how he [the Lord] has brought desolations." Who has brought the desolations?--Answer: THE LORD!

A belittling passage for those who question God's sovereignty in operations. He coordinates every action on the earth---even desolations on the earth. This truth challenges faith. It calls us to the floor; it calls us to examination. "Do I believe the Bible?" "Do I believe God would bring desolations on the earth?" I mean for real: desolations? The Lord works desolations. According to the Bible, he does.

Christ took desolation. He became desolate (Phil 2:5-7). He fasted for 40 days and was hungry (Luke 4:2). Satan tempted him. He lived with the beasts in the desert (Mark 1:13). He withdrew to desolate places and prayed (Luke 5:16, 21:37). God brought desolation on Christ. Christ as God took it upon himself to become a servant, a bearer of suffering, an embracer of wrath for the elect. Repent and believe. Oh, save the sinner our Christ and Lord. Save me.

I am spent

Psalm 39:10

"Remove your stroke from me; I am spent by the hostility of your hand." This might be translated, "Stop beating me; the wrath of your hand has completely crushed me."

How does this verse square, or factor, in the conscious of the American Church today. In Psalm 39 David acknowledges that God has wasted him. The pain, the emotion, the truth...such a verse heals the wounded soul. At the end of the day David could confess that God caused his pain. David foreshadowed the sufferings of Christ. Christ was spent, the Father spent his wrath upon the son. The son, being in the form of God, very God of very God, reduced himself. He took on the form of a servant, and equipped himself to the sacrifice to atone for the sins of the elect.

Delight yourself in the Lord

Psalm 37:4

"Delight yourself in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart."

Ah yes, Psalm 37:4...

...this is an abused passage in Scripture. The Church has used it to mean this: love God more, and the more God will get you. Of course, this "more" has by the Church never meant more of God, but the more God can get you. In our materialistic age, our age (in America at least) where humans are consumers, controlled by markets measured by the NasDaq, the Dow Jones...oh, by the way, what mortage rate you qualify for? Forget your soul, what is your credit? You are plastic, a Social Security number, a percentage rate, and maybe you get a decmial point. I think you get the point.

The Church has bought (pun intended) the world's marketing ploy. We in the Church read Psalm 37:4 this way: "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you more of the earthly goods you really want but don't have right now."

Is the Psalmist so foolish to think, that when you delight yourself in the Lord you will then want more of the world's things? Does the man who delights himself in his wife, suddenly want more of her cooking?, or, does he want to taste more of her love, i.e., does he want more of her!?!?

The more delight yourself in God, the more you will want God. Psalm 37:4 translates more like this: "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart, i.e., he will give you more of himself." If we delight ourselves in God, won't we want more of God? The more that we "taste and see that the Lord is good!" (Psalm 34:8), the more we "feast on the abudance of your house, and you give them [us] drink from the river of your [Christ's] delights" (Psalm 36:8), the more of Christ we will want. When we delight in God, we delight in God. In fact, the more we delight in God, the more we will desire him and desire the world less. So in reality, what meaning the Church has give this verse is actually contrary to what it means.

In review: the Church has understood this verse to mean that if you delight in the Lord, the Lord will give you more of the earthly stuff you want. In reality, the truth is this: if you delight yourself in the Lord, YOU WILL WANT LESS OF THE EARTHLY STUFF you thought you onced desire. In fact, you will suffer the loss of all things to gain Christ (Philippians 3:7-10, 11-14). We will pick up our cross with joy. We will go outside the gate and bear the reproach that he endured (Hebrews 13:12-14). And we will do this because we consider the sufferings of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt (America)" (Hebrews 11:25-27).

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you more of himself.

Reality Grace

We live life and then...

...What does it all amount too...?

Do you live to pay off debt... raise a family...?

Wait, my alarm... I can't forget to set it... it gets me up...

Sometimes it seems so pointless...

But God is so gracious by the pointless he throws us in, in it
we find that he is the only point.

Only one thing is necessary...

OH LORD, make me feel pointless all day long to find the one thing necessary!