Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Good morning, special ones..

Becki is preparing to take her turn in a dental chair for teeth cleaning and checkup at 8am. Then she’s slated to head to some meeting in Salem where she will be addressing a group of State Government workers on behalf of the Brain Injury Alliance of Oregon.

I now have the job in my lap that I mentioned yesterday—preparing and gathering a bunch of specific wood products for a television commercial. I hope I can check off the items on that list by tonight. The motivation is $1000 upon delivery. And our hungry bank account is eagerly waiting.

Have a blessed day—doing everything you can to align yourself with His blessing. That mindset does not violate GRACE—instead I believe it enhances its flow. And to underscore my point, just try doing NOTHING to seek God, to love God, and to hide His Word in your heart—and see how much blessing and Christian victory results. On second thought, don’t try it. It’s enough to simply observe the huge volume of evidence presented by those who have tried to live independent of God and His Word. (Pause—As I look back on what I just said, I’m tempted to delete it—questioning why am I kind of preaching again at this point? I’ve decided to leave it. If to no one else, I’m talking to me—kind of like David talking to himself in Psalm 103—like, “So I say to myself, ‘Self,’ I say, ‘Bless the Lord! And not just a little bit—but with every fiber of your being! Why? Because HE IS WORTHY!—and you have benefitted richly from His GRACE! And don’t you dare forget it! So there!’”)

Without changing course, I need to shift gears. Blessings on your course today

Love, Dad/Ray.

Do you agree with the strategy of the Creator in His design for human progeny? I begin by asking if you agree because I believe it is very important to agree—very important to comply with the way things have been set by the Creator—even though the same Creator allows you the freedom to disagree if you want. But consider again this general order—that people begin their existence as dependent babies under the oversight and care of parents. Within a healthy Biblical worldview, we have to believe that the ongoing perpetuation of human life is not just a big bunch of random chance that links individual parents with individual children. (Read Psalm 139 again.) Rather these relationships are prescribed assignments. And with these specific parental assignments come the general parental assignment to faithfully and properly nurture, discipline, and train their children while they are young and formable. Why? So that those children can learn to properly nurture, discipline, and train themselves when they move into independent adulthood—prepared to repeat that cycle with children of their own. Solomon states the ideal strategy this way: “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”

When a person is a child, the parents do the training, examining, and testing for them. When that person is a mature adult, he is to do that for himself. And when a person is a young Christian, the Word of God, the Lordship of Christ, along with mature Christian leaders all lend training, examining, and testing so that that person can grow into maturity and do those things for himself. What an idea!

Can you think of anything more important for a mature Christian than to KNOW they are in the faith?—in right relationship with their Sovereign and Maker? This involves knowing how to examine and test oneself against the criteria of the Word of God as opposed to simply comparing themselves among themselves in the popular quest to feel good about themselves (2 Corinthians 10:12). I could get carried away with a huge list of scripture passages to use as a standard for measurement. But I’ll let you do that for yourself. Please do it for yourself! PLEASE!