Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Good morning, dear people.

It’s not really sun shining right now, but I see blue sky out this window that faces primarily west. Becki is at her Bible Study session in Woodburn, and Thano is preparing to head up to someone’s place to split some wood before he goes to his shift at Safeway. My list is huge. I may engage the track hoe and do some wood waste burning for a customer. Oops! I just called the burn info line. Burning is banned for now. Phooey!

I managed a jog earlier. Dandy, in typical form, lost a ball on the other side of a barb-wire fence. I nearly tore my britches getting over it. We finally found the ball. No more ball throwing till home.

Have a good day…a blessed day.

Love, Dad/Ray.

Have you noticed that people who simply do not like the idea of accountability to God do not like you and your display of accountability to God? For you, accountability to God is something desirable, something to be sought, something bearing wonderfully good benefits—besides being something commanded—by the One Who made, owns, and ultimately controls everything. But for them, accountability to God is something repulsive, something to be avoided, something bearing only blockades to their independence and pleasure. In some cases your presence not only makes them uncomfortable, like a bad odor, your presence can make them mad. And they may not even know why. But you do. Because you are able to see and sense things through the lens of Scriptural revelation and you recognize that this subliminal reaction is clearly predicted. It’s just simple math—psycho-spiritual math. It’s like the spirit version of “Birds of a feather flock together”—and birds of a foreign feather fight—at least compete and contend—in a kind of tug-of-war to determine who’s feather style will prevail.

On the other hand, have you noticed the spontaneous positive enjoyable fellowship that ensues when two birds of a passionate Christ-serving feather meet? Sometimes it’s hard to turn off the chirping.

Back to our opposing reality, have you noticed that the prevailing winds of our present culture are blowing contrary against accountability to God. And those of us who practice and promote such accountability to God are fast being regarded as enemies of the state and the political correctness it promotes. Having expended so much effort to purge any notions of accountability to God from our history and the motivations of our national founders, I think it’s only a matter of time before serious followers of Christ are regarded as vermin to be exterminated.

This is not necessarily a very exciting and attractive devotional theme. But it is devotional nonetheless—because devotion to Christ is the stubborn central eternal issue. I don’t know how everything will play out—who will do what to whom, why, when, and how—but it doesn’t look pretty before the Sovereign God of the Bible steps in to shut things down. The bottom line remains: “…but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.”