On Writing

Maybe you want to be a writer. You blog, you read books on writing, you have a best-selling novel wafting through your dream senses.

Let’s talk.

If you google “writer,” you’ll find 24 million hits. And most of those are things for writers to collect buy. Writing is big business.

It can get overwhelming and maybe you’re stuck on how to meet your goals.

So let’s start with the obvious: what is your goal? Write it down. (What else would a writer do, anyway?)

My goal is to express ideas in a clear, creative way that impacts people and honors God.

Writing is about ideas. My sister is an artist who paints her ideas. My husband is a carpenter who builds his ideas. But for me, I write.

Writing is about thinking. I’ve found that I work out the idea as I write. It’s a meandering process that resembles that snaking line at Disneyland but I have often completed a few paragraphs to wonderingly discover thoughts that I didn’t know I had. How does that work?

But I want to give you a single assignment before we examine that any further. Write down your goal. Keep it in one manageable sentence. None of this using semi-colons to string 1000 words together. Pare it down. Make it clear. Store it on your hard drive where you can find it. I’d love to hear what you come up with.

Remember that words are important to God. God’s words created the world and God’s Word saved the world. Being made in God’s image ought to open that door of expressing thoughts with words

Next week, we’ll look more at the process of thinking and writing.

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness…”

Gen 1:26

Galatians: an introduction

The churches planted in the area of Galatia were Paul’s first church starts and he wrote this letter bristling like a protective dad to defend his churches from false teachers. Judaizers – Jews who claimed that first you had to adopt the Jewish way before you could become a Christian – were trying to lead the new believers down a road of effort, not grace.

The book of Galatians reminds believers that we were set free from bondage. Paul reminded his readers that the Jewish law did not deliver, Jesus did. Why return to the bondage of the law?

Paul also reminded the Galatians that the covenant was based on faith, not observance of the law.

The stakes were high. Since the first Christians were Jews, some wondered if the way to Jesus was through the Jewish observances. Paul strongly opposed that.

The way to Jesus was through faith. Salvation comes by grace, not by what we do. The Spirit came by belief, not by observing the law. The Gentiles were adopted into God’s family not because they became Jews but because they saw Jesus as their Redeemer.

Judaizers were trying to lead the new believers down a path of law but Paul called that the path of slavery, of following the way of Hagar. A follower of Jesus had the path of freedom, adopted into Abraham’s family and heir to his promises.

Why, then, return to the yoke of the law? A believer had started his new life following Jesus and his freedom. Why trade freedom for the slavery of the law?

Those are the issues of the book of Galatians.

I’m starting a Monday Bible study which, for next six weeks, will look at the book of Galatians. Try to read chapter 1 before next Monday, when we discuss authority.

Frost-bitten

Sharon had gotten frost-bite once, on a snowmobiling trip with a short-term boyfriend. She hated the cold, that crunch of snow and the sting of ice crystals.

“I don’t go skiing,” she informed her friends. “I’ll sit by the fire and read a book in the lodge.” Well, it wasn’t long when she didn’t bother going to the lodge but stayed home with her book and her cozy quilt.

She found new friends, too, ones who weren’t so crazy about the cold. They could sit with her by the fire, reading books and drinking Earl Gray tea.

Before long, they formed a club and met weekly to sit with steaming tea, a favorite book, and a hot fire. She met a nice young man who didn’t like the cold either and eventually they married and started a family.

But their last-born was a strong-willed one who refused to stay by the fire. Julie had discovered snowballs and toboggan trips were exhilarating.

“Mom, Dad, listen, there some exciting people who play in the snow!”

“It’s too cold,” Sharon told her. “I will not get frost bite ever again!”

Julie was a loving daughter so she considered that for awhile. But the call of the adventure lured her. “I feel something spiritual out there,” she told her mother. “I feel more alive, almost like God is with me.”

Sharon never joined her. But Julie found a good coat and took the risk.

In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

1 Peter 1:6-7

The church of the unaffiliated

Sixteen percent of American adults say they are not part of any organized faith, making “unaffiliated” the fourth largest religious category.

That’s according to a survey from Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

They’re telling us what we may already know. For one thing, many people are moving between denominations freely. The denominational loyalty of the ‘50’s and ‘60’s is largely gone.

It’s not surprising, then, that among the fastest-growing groups is nondenominational Protestant Churches, which are largely evangelical. Megachurches are still growing fast, according to the survey, as are Pentecostals and the Holiness Church movement.

“The trend is towards more personal religion and evangelicals offer that,” commented Stephen Prothero of Boston University. He added that those offering impersonal religion are losing out. Even the megachurches succeed only when they offer smaller ministries within.

But many are simply leaving organized religion altogether.

People surveyed are not generally becoming atheistic or agnostic, but simply describe themselves as “nothing in particular.”

Some things we can learn:

• In general, Americans are not leaving religion, only organized religion.
• Americans crave personal religion.
• Denominations no long rule the religious horizon.

So how do we respond?

Jesus walked the earth during the heyday of organized religion. Remember how the Samaritan woman questioned why her people couldn’t worship on their own mountain? Meanwhile, the Pharisees tithed even the herbs from their garden.

Jesus didn’t even assemble his own church but he went out among the people with compassion, bringing the truth and offering the scent of life and freedom. His passion was for people, not religious props or church structures. He sought out the unclean and the unlovable.

That church of the unaffiliated needs the presence of Jesus. And he left us here to bring that to them.

He replied, "You give them something to eat."

Luke 9:13

By the pun...

Did you know:

• If you take a laptop computer for a run you could jog your memory.
• A dentist and a manicurist fought tooth and nail.
• A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.
• Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.
• A backward poet writes inverse.
• In a democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, it's your Count that votes.
• A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion.
• If you don't pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.
• With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.
• Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft and I'll show you A -flat miner.

A new robe

Abigail nervously adjusted her simple woven dress, wishing she had something more magnificent. Her bridegroom would come soon and she wondered again at his love, for he was rich and would come in purple silk and gold. Why had he noticed her?

Didn’t he know that her father was dead, unable to give her the things she needed? Her brother did what he could, but he was busy with his own family. She knew her dress was inadequate before her beloved but she had nothing better.

Then, in a flurry of activity, he arrived with a large group of attendants. His robes were magnificent but he paid them no attention. He approached her tenderly, placing a jeweled tiara on her head, bowing before her. “We will be married in a grand ceremony.”

Couldn’t he see that she had no place in the palace? Tears welled in her eyes. She had tried to find cloth that would please him but she knew she simply didn’t measure up. There was no reason for her to go through this humiliation. She turned away.

“I’m not adequate,” she said.

“You are not,” he agreed. And in a flurry, his attendants clothed her in beauty, transformed her into a princess. This was not her work, but his. Not her plans, but his. Not her riches, but his.

She took his hand, head raised, and began the march.

I will sing for joy in God, explode in praise from deep in my soul! He dressed me up in a suit of salvation, he outfitted me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom who puts on a tuxedo and a bride a jeweled tiara. For as the earth bursts with spring wildflowers, and as a garden cascades with blossoms, so the Master, God, brings righteousness into full bloom..

Isaiah 61:11

Expectations

What do you think God expects from you?

Just this:

• Live in his presence in holy reverence,
• Follow the road he sets out for you,
• Love him,
• Serve God, your God, with everything you have in you,
• Obey the commandments and regulations of God that I'm commanding you today—live a good life.

Deut 10:12-13