I am retired. The heart of retirement is time. In a way, my time is limited. After all, I’m 71 years old. But, in another way, I have a lot of time. For 40 years, between school and my job, I worked. I was fortunate in that my job gave me more time off than most. As a wild guess, I had about 6 hours a day, 100,000 hours total, of what I would call free time while I was working. If I am retired for 25 years, I will have about 10 hours a day, 100,000 hours total, of free time. These numbers are a bit surprising, even to me. My free time comes in larger chunks these days. It seems as though I have more free time now than ever before. So…..what do I do with all of this free time?  When I look at how I spend my days, I find that the two biggest ways that I spend my time are hobbies and sitting in a chair on my back patio enjoying the view. I am blessed in that the view from my patio is really nice. It is a view of nature. There are trees, wildlife, a valley, and hills or even mountains. There are very few people. There are no problems. There is no anger, crime, or meanness. There is no talking head on the TV trying to get me worked up over his political problem du jour.

In a word, my patio time can be summed up in one word……peace.

I spend my time as though it were a limited resource, because it is. I spend my time on the things that I value the most. And from my chair on the patio, I have concluded that one of the things that I value the most in the closing years of my life……..is peace. People around me find it frustrating that I don’t worry a lot about problems…..the federal debt, immigration policy, wars, crabgrass. But, I just don’t. Perhaps I am ignoring all of these important problems. Could be. But, the truth is that I am pursuing something immeasurably more important, more valuable than crabgrass. I am looking for peace.

I have a good friend who is a Bhuddist. He spends a lot of his free time seeking nirvana. I haven’t studied Bhuddism a lot, but it seems that nirvana and peace are very closely related. We are so different in many ways. And yet, we both are pursuing what is essentially the same thing.

I can only conclude that peace is a need, a goal, a destination that is deeply embedded in the human heart…….Christian or Bhuddist.  I am convinced that most of the problems in our culture….in our world……come down to our pursuit of things other than peace.

If you are not at peace……..you cannot be happy………regardless of your situation.

If you can find peace……grow peace…….you will be happy…….regardless of your situation.

I am a Christian. I follow God and God’s wish for me is peace. The path that I try to follow in my quest for peace is codified in the Bible……especially in the teachings of Jesus. It is said that the two signs of the presence of God are joy and peace.

So…….what does Jesus say about peace?

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But, take heart, I have overcome the world.”

Jesus, John 16:33, ESV

“Peace I leave you: my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

Jesus, John 14:27, ESV

And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness, and trust forever.

Isaiah, 32:17, ESV

If possible, so far as it depends on you, Live peaceably with all.

Paul, Romans, 12:18, ESV

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Desiderata

When we are facing an extremely important decision, we have a phrase to describe it:

Life and Death

This is, in terms of real world application, the very essence of the idea of “important”.

Life is pretty straightforward, we do it all day, every day. Whether we do it well……or poorly……..we all have a clear understanding of what it means to be alive.

Death, on the other hand, is a much more slippery idea.

I’m 71 years old. Death is close. I spend a lot of time thinking about death. Every day I sense something in my body. And I wonder……is this the beginning……..of death?

So…..today, I want to explore death.

It turns out that there are two critical questions that we must each sort out regarding death:

Is death real…..does it even exist?

What is death……or non-death…..like?

I’ll tackle the easy possibilities first.

Death is real and when it occurs, the lights just go out. Death is nothing…….dead…..black…..nothing. No part of what is “you” goes on. The implication of these two possible facts is that this life is all that you have…….all that you will ever have. So…..live it up.

“Eat, drink and be merry……for tomorrow you will die.”

Ecclesiastes 8:15, and Isaiah 22:13

This is pretty much how most Americans, Christians and non-believers alike, practice the art of life. It is a life that is, at once, both exhilarating……..and grim.

And then come the hard possibilities:

Death is not real.

and

What is this “non-death” like?

Question One:

Death is not real. I know……I know. You are asking, “what is this guy smoking?” Bear with me. What I mean is that physical death is not the end of our existence. Rather, it is a transition from one type of life to another type of life. The details of this second phase of life……this Act II……are not entirely clear. But, it will last forever. And that means that what goes on after our non-death is infinitely more important than what we do before our non-death.

Question Two:

If death is not real, then what is our non-death like? Now we get to the heavy lifting. There are several dominant philosophies that deal with the subject of non-death. I am a Christian so what follows is pulled from the teachings of Jesus……and others…….in the Bible. Much of the language used in the Bible is symbolic; but, the central theme is crystal clear. After your non-death, you will transition to a life that is endless. That life will either be very nice…..or unspeakably bad.

But which?

This brings us to the greatest misconception in Christianity.

Good people go to paradise….bad people go to hell.

NOT TRUE…… this is what most Christians believe; but, this is not what Christianity teaches……it never was.

Christianity teaches that the people in paradise will be fallen people…..sinners……who have been forgiven. The people in hell will be fallen people…..sinners…….who have rejected God’s forgiveness. These two groups of people will score about the same on the scale of goodness. Being good is a positive side effect of forgiveness. But, being a good person is not your ticket to paradise.

The great irony is that we get to choose what follows our non-death. You get to choose your fate.

Accept Jesus’s free gift of forgiveness. The rest will follow.

That’s it……you’re done.

As it turns out Henley, in spite of himself, was right in the poem “Invictus”

And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

“He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

Jesus, explaining death from God’s perspective,
Luke 20: 38, ESV

“There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’ And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’”

Jesus explaining life, non-death, paradise, and hell,
Luke 16: 19-31,ESV

c

When I was a young man, I dated a young woman for a short time. She was a serious “born again” Christian…..and I was not. She was nice, truthful, kind, etc. The only problem was her faith. It terrified me. I could see that Christianity was going to get in the way of my plans. So I broke it off. We talked about important stuff. I once asked her what was her greatest desire.

Her answer…….wisdom.

At the time, wisdom would not have made my top 10. Looking back…..she was well on her way and I was not.

Wisdom is funny stuff. It is arguably the most important contributor to a successful, satisfying life. It is readily available. And, best of all, it is free. Yet, many of us fail to pursue it.

And that leads to the big question.

Why?

Why did I ignore something so valuable, so readily accessible, so inexpensive, for so many years? Why don’t we all make the pursuit of wisdom one of our highest priorities?

I think that it is because other things get in our way.

The things that stop us from pursuing wisdom are other desires…….other goals that we have decided are more profitable, more fun. These would be the things that filled my “top ten” list as a young man.

My list as a young man:

My career…….translation…….money and prestige
A wife……..who would not interfere with my career
A family………that would be subservient to my career
A better car
A big house in a prestigious neighborhood
A good pension plan
Health

Others will have different lists:

Their politics
Sex
Self actualization
Control of their bodies
Freedom
Peace
Drugs
Alcohol
Gambling
Sports

You can sum up all of these impediments to the pursuit of wisdom into one word:

Appetites.

The problem with wisdom is that it will interfere with the pursuit of some of our appetites……of some of your appetites. It has stopped me from pursuing some of the appetites that I pursued as a young man.

But, here’s the thing. Wisdom will lead you to new appetites…….appetites that will fulfill you in a much better way, a much more permanent way………appetites that will lead you to higher levels of satisfaction………yes, even to joy. Wisdom will promote in you appetites that are based on truth……appetites that grow out of the truths that are written on your heart…….appetites that were put there by your creator.

In the final analysis:

Your life is measured by your actions.

Your actions are driven by your appetites.

Good appetites are shaped by wisdom.

Wisdom grows from truth.

Truth comes from the creator and it lives inside of you right now.

All other appetites come from someone else.

In the final reconning, we choose……..eternal satisfaction…….or transient pleasure.

We either persue wisdom………or its natural enemy, our appetites.

“Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for—both wealth and honor—so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings. And if you walk in obedience to me and keep my decrees and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life.”

God answering Solomon’s prayer, 1 Kings 3:11-14, ESV

Wisdom rests in the heart of a man of understanding

Solomon, Proverbs 14:33, ESV

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Solomon, Proverbs 1:7, ESV

but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

James 1:14-15, NIV

I know a guy.

He knows everything about everything. Whatever question you have, he can probably give you the facts behind it. His fund of knowledge is shockingly broad. Just about every time we talk I learn something new. In a word, he is extremely knowledgeable. And yet, his life is a mess. Knowledge is a good thing; but, it is only the first step. There are savants who can memorize the Oxford English Dictionary……..but who cannot feed themselves.

Knowledge is the accumulation of facts. But, for knowledge to be of any value, we have to be able to assemble those facts into a useful structure. This is the next step…….intelligence. Intelligence is the ability to manipulate facts into a useful framework……to be able to use facts…….to be able to apply facts. If I know the dimensions of all of the parts of a watch, I have knowledge. If I can apply that knowledge and assemble the watch, then I have intelligence. Intelligence is applied knowledge. Intelligence is a loftier goal than knowledge. But even this is not enough. Some of the most successful criminals in history had knowledge and intelligence. They used these gifts to create criminal empires……to cause wars……to rob, maim, enslave, and kill. Clearly, knowledge and intelligence are good, things. But, history teaches that they are not enough. There is a goal that is loftier yet.

Wisdom

Wisdom is intelligence applied to knowledge to achieve good. Now we are getting somewhere.

Knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom are good things. They are things we should strive for. But there is good news and bad news. The bad news is that for each of us, there is a limit to the knowledge and intelligence that we can posses and use. Some have great intelligence and a huge fund of knowledge…….others, not so much. The good news is that wisdom has no limit. There is no glass ceiling preventing your development of wisdom. Wisdom can be studied. Wisdom can be learned. We learn wisdom by apprenticeship. We learn wisdom by reading the works of the wise. We learn wisdom by associating with wise people. We learn wisdom by associating with good people. The Bible is a good place to start.

Though I didn’t graduate, for a couple of years I attended a prestigious university and I accumulated a lot of knowledge……90% of which I have completely forgotten. But I once took a literature course on short stories. One of the assignments was “Gimpel the Fool” by Singer. This story changed my life. I keep a copy and reread it every now and then. I strongly recommend it. It is the story of a man who lacks knowledge and intelligence…….but who, through a lifetime of experience, observation, and action, develops wisdom.

Seek out wise people…….good people.
Avoid angry destructive people.
Read the writing of the wise.
Study the Bible.

Apply knowledge and intelligence to do good.

“Now then, my children, listen to me; blessed are those who keep my ways. Listen to my instruction and be wise; do not disregard it. Blessed are those who listen to me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at my doorway. For those who find me find life and receive favor from the Lord. But those who fail to find me harm themselves; all who hate me love death .”

Wisdom speaking, Proverbs 8: 32-36, ESV

But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.

James 3:17, ESV

indeed, if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding

Solomon, Proverbs 2:3-6, NIV

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

Jesus explaining wisdom, Matthew 7:24-25 NIV

This week’s post is a follow-up to last week’s post which dealt with 3 eras in our relationship with the Trinity. The three eras were: the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. This week I want to explore these eras……particularly the current era, the era of the Holy Spirit…..The Spirit of Truth. Be forwarned, you may not like all of this.

Each of these eras has a dominant theme. I believe that each of these eras is there to teach us something…….to help us to grow in our relationship to the Trinity.

The Father era, the Old Testament, was a description of the early history of God’s people. It was loaded with rules. The Father was majestic and powerful, but distant and often punitive. This era was the foundation of our relationship with the Father. It was all about authority. We are taught that the Father is in charge, absolutely and completely. Like it or not. The Father operates on an entirely different plane than man. He makes the rules. He is the boss. We are subject to him. We do not get to approve or disapprove of his actions. We oppose him at our peril. This was the era of authority. God’s authority, God’s sovereignty is the lesson of the old testament.

The Son era, the New Testament, is a description of the life and teaching of Jesus, the Son. Jesus teaches that all of the old rules are superseded by two new rules: Love God…….love everybody else. The Son was human and he was very close……he was with us. He embodies the authority of the Father but emphasizes love as our highest aspiration. He teaches that love is the central theme of all relationships. Love is the primary reason for our existence. This was the era of Love. Love is the lesson of the New Testament.

The Spirit era is today. The Spirit is our guide to living in the modern world. I have struggled to identify the overarching theme of the Spirit era. This is probably because the Spirit is kind of hard for me to get a grip on. But, I will give it a shot. The theme of the Spirit era is truth. The Spirit was given to us at Jesus’s departure……at pentacost. It was even called the “Spirit of Truth”. Somehow, the truth part has been lost. Every day, our culture whittles away at the truth. We come to accept ideas that daily become more outrageous. Each new lie is built on the foundation of yesterday’s lie. We even refer to our culture as “the post truth era”.

But, the Spirit lives in us. The truth lives in us. It is “written on our hearts”. We rail against it. We fight it…..every day……every one of us. You shouldn’t be surprised. God’s people resisted his authority in the Old Testament. Christians resist acting on love in the New Testament. The sad truth is that we ignore and deny the truth…just about every day…….every one of us.

Like it or not, we are called on to seek the truth and and act on it. Sounds good. But, every day we fail. Why?

We ignore or deny the truth when it interferes with our appetites. We toss out the truth when it keeps us from getting something that we want very badly.

If you don’t believe me, consider:

A person with a Y chromosome and a penis doesn’t like maleness and all that goes with it. He identifies himself as a woman, uses the women’s locker room, and dominates women’s sports. This satisfies his appetites…..but it is not true.

A preacher who is offended by the guy in the women’s locker room preaches a fiery sermon and damns him to hell from the pulpit. He satisfies his appetite to vent his rage in the name of Christianity…….but this is not true.

The truth in other areas is more complex:

Abortion: every abortion does 2 things: It allows a woman to control her body. It kills her child. Both of these statements are true. And yet, both sides of the debate ignore or discard half of the truth. Both sides are dishonest.

Guns: guns primary purpose is to kill. Even shooting games like skeet are designed to improve our skills…..at killing. I am a shooter and I enjoy it……..but the fact that guns are for killing is true. Guns are good when they protect us from evil. But, they are bad when they are used to commit evil. Both of these statements are true.

The wall: the purpose of the wall (both the physical wall and our entire failed immigration policy) is to keep people out. This is true. It protects our appetite for our standard of living. But it traps a lot of families in poverty and corruption. It is good when it keeps gang bangers, traffickers, and drugs out. It is bad when it keeps a family that is fleeing a corrupt government and seeking a better life out. Both of these statements are true.

We have decisions to make. Some are straightforward, some are complex. But we must begin with the truth. And the truth is written on our hearts…….put there by the “Spirit of Truth”. Truth is the lesson of the current era…..the era of the Spirit.

The truth must take precedence over our appetites.

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

Jesus, John 14: 15-17, ESV

Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

Jesus, John 16: 7-14, ESV

This is a confusing topic.

The trinity is the heart of my faith. Three faces…..one entity. I won’t pretend to say that I understand it fully. But, I will offer my thoughts.

In practice we can divide the human experience into three phases. The God phase. The Jesus phase. The Holy Spirit phase. This is based on the dominant phase of the Trinity that we are exposed to during each time period. This is not exclusive. All three faces of the Trinity are present all of the time. But, depending on the era, one face is dominant.

During the time covered by the Old Testament, the primary face of the Trinity that we saw was God. God told us what to do in very detailed and concrete terms. We called this “the law”. It really made very little sense to us. It still doesn’t. But, God backed it up with miraculous events and we obeyed……or tried to obey…….some of the time. The most striking feature of this time period was that God kept his distance. He lived in a tent. Only one priest was allowed to enter the inner room. Anyone else who approached God was destroyed. Burn incense the wrong way and you were zapped. We were repeatedly told to fear God……..or else. With few exceptions, anybody who tried to get too close……too “chummy” with God died……and it was not pretty. In a word, God was distant. The emphasis in our relationship was that we were on a far lower plane than God. We were in a parent/child relationship…….seen but, for the most part, not heard. We lived by the law. We were guided, not by the carrot, but by the stick. We were children…….toddlers. There was a clearly defined line between us and God and we crossed it at our peril.

During the New Testament era, we were introduced to Jesus. He made it absolutely clear that he was God…….by what he said and by what he did. He made it so clear that he was crucified for it. But, Jesus was drastically different from the Old Testament God. He was approachable. He was God; but, he was also a friend……he was also human. You could walk up to Jesus and talk to him……… hug him……even kiss him……and not be incinerated. Jesus taught us a new way to relate to the Trinity…….a far more intimate way. This way was centered on love rather than law. Instead of God’s children, we became Jesus’s friend. The stick was replaced by the carrot. The Jesus phase lasted only three years. But, it completely redefined our relationship with the Trinity. We found ourselves drastically closer to the Trinity. We were taught to live by love rather than the law. We became adults…….young adults.

And then, Jesus was gone…….at least physically.

We are now in a new era. The post Jesus era. The era of the Holy Spirit. And I have to admit that I am struggling. I think that the defining feature of this phase is distance…..how far are we from the Trinity…….more importantly, how far do we choose to be from the Trinity. In the God phase of the Old Testament, we couldn’t be in the same room with God……we couldn’t even be on the same mountain. In the Jesus phase, we could sit down and eat, we could touch, we could talk with the Trinity. But now, in the Holy Spirit phase, the Trinity lives inside of us. God lives inside of us. Jesus lives inside of us. The Holy spirit lives inside of us. All three……all of the time…..God the parent, God the friend. God the spirit. In our hearts, we have the information. We have the power. We have the resources. We have no excuse.

But do we have the will?

In a way, the responsibility for our relationship with the Trinity started out in God’s court, Jesus passed it to us, and the Holy Spirit says to us. “The responsibility for your relationship with the Trinity…….with us……is in your hands”. We can feel it, we can be guided by the spirit, we can act on what we know in our hearts……..or we can ignore it.

The ball is in our court.

Three faces of the Trinity…….three eras.

But, the Bible teaches that even this era of the Holy Spirit will end. There will be another era, yet to come. I don’t have a good understanding for what this future era will be like. My best guess is that some of us will be even closer to the Trinity than we are now…….and some of us will be much further away. This future era will be timeless…….eternal.

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever. the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

Jesus, explaining the Holy Spirit. John 14:16-17, ESV

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

The arrival of the Holy Spirit. Acts 2: 1-4, ESV

Relax, I haven’t fed a “one armed bandit” or visited an “adult” business. Cindy and I are eating at great restaurants and seeing some great shows…….including a Chicago concert. This, incidentally, was our first date….almost 50 years ago. We are staying at a very nice hotel and the place is not only beautiful, it is spotless. If you drop a napkin on the floor somebody scurries by and picks it up in minutes. At night, landscaping crews manicure every plant. A cleaning crew shampoos the carpet at the front door every night. The carpets in the casino are vacuumed several times a day. A maid sterilizes our room every day while we are out.

But, the dirt is just under the spotless patina. Everywhere you go, there are images, some of them 5 stories tall, of half or fully naked women. The images of men fortunately are only half naked. The hotel room has a well stocked minibar. In addition to salty snacks, it has a full compliment of hard liquor………and a nice selection of condoms. Just in case.

A prostitute recently killed a “customer” in the fancy hotel we are staying at. I’m told that this happens every day in this spotless city. The only reason that it made the news is that the customer’s wife is suing the hotel for negligence. The locals are outraged……..not by the murder, but by the lawsuit.

I have been struck by how much effort the businesses and people here go to……to maintain the veneer of beauty…..to keep the dirt covered up…..to make “sin city” look nice. The amount of money that they spend on clean-up and maintenance is staggering.

And that got me thinking. How much of my energy……how much of my resources…….do I spend covering up the dirt in my life? How hard do we work as a society…….to gloss over our failures? How hard do we work to redefine our sin out of existence……to put lipstick on the pig.

Anger, jealousy, greed, hate, dishonesty, lust, disrespect……the list goes on:

A poor family crosses our border illegally, looking for a better life……we worry that they are using up our resources. We cover our reaction with a veneer of justice when greed is at the core of it.

A child is unhappy with his life and believes he would be happier as she. We allow this, to the point of excluding his parents from the conversation, and we call it self actualization.

We allow terrorists to disrupt our campuses…….to attack Jewish students…….and we dress it up as free speech.

Our prime time television experience is littered with sex and murder. We call it entertainment……..and we pay for it by spending our money at the businesses that sponsor it.

We share a Facebook post that is riddled with lies and hate……..we tell ourselves that this will improve our society.

“Hate cannot drive out hate…..only love can do that.”
MLK , Jr.

Every one of us participates in one or more of these efforts to cover up the wrongs in our culture. And it is far worse than it was when I was young. I wonder what our culture will be like when my son is 70 years old.

God quietly reminds us:

Love God……Love everyone else.

The solution is that simple.

We are slowly but surely drifting away from these two bedrock rules for living.

We sit by and watch as our entire culture morphs into Las Vegas…….a veneer of beauty covering a core that gets uglier with every passing year.

See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse— the blessing if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today; the curse if you disobey the commands of the Lord your God and turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known.

Moses, Deuteronomy. 11: 26-28, ESV

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Paul, 2 Chronicles, 7:14, ESV

You’ve all heard about the creation story. God created the universe in 6 days and then he rested on the 7th day.

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Genesis 2: 2-3,  ESV , the description of the 7th day of creation.

I believe that every word in the Bible is important.  The words that are not there are important too. Did you notice anything peculiar about day 7? ……..anything different from the first six days of creation? I’m 71 years old. I have read or heard this verse a hundred times and I just noticed it today. The description of days 1-6 all end the same:

And there was evening, and there was morning —the sixth day. (or fifth day, etc.)

Each of the first 6 days ends with a statement that indicates that the day was complete…….that the day was over.

There is no such “completion statement” at the end of day seven.

Let that sink in.

For a little background, you might want to read my post on earth days, galactic days, and God’s day.

I believe that the absence of a “completion statement” after the description of day 7 is important.  What if day seven isn’t over? What if we are living in day 7. That means that we live in a time that God has blessed and made holy. Maybe God is resting between his creation and the “re-creation” of his world. That means that every day of our life is a Sabbath…….a day given to the Lord.

I’m not saying that God is taking a nap……that he is on “sabbatical.” There is plenty of evidence for God’s active  presence in the world today. It’s all relative. God was extremely active and involved in the 6 days of creation. He will be extremely active and involved in the end times as described in Daniel and Revelation.

He is relatively less active today. And we are a bit adrift. It was hard to ignore God when he was a cloud over the temple or a pillar of fire before Pharoah’s army. It will be hard to ignore him during the plagues of the end times. It’s much easier to dismiss him……to ignore him today……while he is resting.

But, we do so at our peril.

Sorry Neitzche……..God is not dead……..he may just be resting……….before his final act.

Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.

Revelation 1:7, ESV

Once, I had a conversation about creation with a secular humanist. She finally got exasperated. She chuckled and said, “surely you don’t believe in creation in 7 days”. The subtext was: “how could you be that stupid?” This was her “kill shot”. I said, “yes, God can do anything”. But I have struggled with this ever since. It is hard to reconcile the Biblical time line with the geological or cosmic time lines. Many souls are lost to God because of this particular conflict between Genesis and science. This is tragic. And it all comes down to the definition of “day”.

This morning I was sitting in a hot tub in Arizona …….at 4 am. The sky was dark and clear. The stars were amazing. I saw the milky way, several satellites, and a few meteors. Then I saw something I had never seen before, a large meteor. It was low on the horizon, unusual. It was very bright, unusual. It lasted a long time, unusual. Then it split into 2 meteorites, which is very unusual…….something I have never seen before. I took this as an omen……..you may call it a coincidence. To me, this said, “Pay attention…….important information is coming”.

And then the question about days came to mind. What follows is speculation on my part.

Genesis tells of God creating everything in six days. But what is a day? We assume that this means a 24 hour day on earth……the time it takes for one rotation of our planet. At least that is how I have always interptered it…….. until this morning. But in God’s universe there are trillions upon trillions of galaxies, stars, and planets. Each of them has a different rotation. Each of them has a day that is different from an “Earth day”.

Length of a day in earth hours/days/months/years:

 Jupiter day         10 earth hours

 Our moon day         1 earth month

 Venus day            1 earth year

 Milky Way day.     225 million earth years

So, how long a “creation day” is…..in “Earth days”….. depends entirely on your point of reference. It seems a bit presumptuous to assume that God uses the same reference point that we do. God was dealing with his entire creation. He could choose any day that he wanted. There is no Biblical reason to believe that he chose earth to define his creation day. If God chose a point of reference with a day of a few hundred million earth years, then everything changes. Suddenly, the Biblical time line agrees with the scientific time line. This also reconciles the Biblical time line with the fossil record and the geological strata of earth.

Suddenly, creation in six days is no longer a “kill shot”. Suddenly, observed scientific fact fits with the narrative in Genesis.

Something to consider, the next time a secular humanist laughs at you………for believing God.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Genesis 1: 1-5, ESV,

God describing the first day of creation…….Notice that God made the first “creation day” before he made the earth……..before the first “earth day” even existed. I am not sure what reference point God used to define his “creation day”. But, it seems unlikely that he used an earth that he had not yet created.

My wife Cindy recently made a gift to “Samaritan’s Purse”. This is an organization that arose from Billy Graham’s ministry. It is one of the best charities in the country. They sent help to the Carolinas and to Los Angeles by the truckload. I strongly encourage you to support SP’s mission in helping the downtrodden. There is contact information at the end of this blog.

We received a very nice thank you letter from Franklin Graham. We also sent a check to the IRS……….and we never heard a word from them.

So……what’s the big difference? What distinguishes the check to the IRS from the check to Samaritan’s Purse?

It’s pretty obvious. The check to the IRS was mandatory. The check to SP was voluntary……..a gift. SP reacted with happiness, and gratitude because we gave freely…..out of love. The IRS didn’t respond because they were entitled. We were required to pay them. Love had nothing to do with it.

What does this parable have to do with God?

It goes to the very heart of our relationship with God. This post is a follow up to a recent post. “Adam, Eve, and the Serpent”. If you haven’t read it, you might want to.

Before the fall, Adam and Eve did not have the power of choice. They did as they were told. God was in absolute control. In a way, God was entitled to their obedience. After the fall, Adam and Eve had knowledge. They understood right and wrong. Even more importantly, they had the power to choose between right and wrong. At its highest level, they had the power to choose or reject God.

After the fall, loving God was no longer mandatory, required. Loving God became a gift, freely given from us to God. As such, our gift of love today becomes immensely more valuable than Adam and Eve’s mandatory gift of obedience before the fall. Like the check to SP, our gift of love is far more valuable, satisfying, both to God and to us, than our check to the IRS.

God didn’t have to put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden. He had to know the risk. He probably saw “the fall” coming. He may even have set the whole thing up.

The irony here is this:

God allows us to spit in his face. Because it feels so good…….both to him and to us……..when we don’t.

God allows us to spit in his face. Because it feels so good…….both to him and to us……..when we don’t.

And that is the key lesson of “the fall”

How you respond to this freedom……to spit in God’s face…….or to love him…….is the most important decision you will ever make.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Genesis 3: 1-24, ESV

Samaritan’s Purse
P.O. Box 3000, Boone, NC 28607