Keep your promise!

Howdy, gents.

Racing toward another volatile election, the airwaves continue a non-stop bombardment that this election will prove a pivot-point for our nation. While I won't dismiss the importance of the November vote, it's not the man in the White House that will determine our nation's future. It's the man in the mirror.

The other day my son watched a program on ESPN about the murder of a youth on the streets of urban Chicago who promised to be the next basketball phenom. The piece pulled on heartstrings but failed to address the prime failing in our urban jungles, the disintegration of the family. Let's aim the scope with a bit more precision because most of the time the disintegration of the family occurs because the man (husband, father) refuses to act the man, refuses to shoulder his responsibility, refuses to fight his temptations, and refuses to honor his vows, his covenant to his wife and to his God.

I can sit hear, fingers pecking away, and plead that you should love your wife. I've done that plenty and will continue to do so because God's word tells us to do that, but telling you to love your wife will have as much impact on your family as our next president will have upon our national throes because what we are as a nation depends not so much as who's at the top but upon the quality of the people.  Likewise, who I am as a husband, father, and friend depends upon the quality and treasures of my heart. There is only one way to change a heart, let God do it.

A lengthy passage from Ezekiel, but let it resonate:

Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. And I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant, that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations. Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations. It is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord God; let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel.

As is true for Israel, so true for man today. A man may will to do, he may try to do, but in the end, he will reap frustration (Romans 7:24). He will remain a self-absorbed, self-impressed, self-loving husband, father, and friend. Only the power of God in a redeemed life can impel and motivate a man to love another as Christ has loved him (John 15:12-13) and to lay down his life for another, especially his wife (Ephesians 5:25).



Dinesh D'Souza

This is why Maggie Gallagher's story of Dinesh D'Souza (here) and stories like it are particularly grievous. "Is it a bad thing that I am engaged before my divorce is final?" Might I ask why a Christian is divorcing his bride in the first place?

Yes, I know, sin can ravage any marriage. Yes, God did provide a wafer-thin avenue for divorce when a spouse has shown disregard and contempt for the vow that they have made. At the same time, when a man loves the Lord his God with all his heart, all his soul, all his mind, and all his strength, he will love his wife as Christ loved the church, and if he so does, I contend that his wife would be hard pressed to leave her man. If a man pursues his woman with so compelling a love, divorce rates will shrivel in the land.

Here's how Ms. Gallagher closed her essay.

After all, is marriage such a horrible cross to bear?

With marriage, you choose one woman. You promise to love just her the way that God loves everyone, until death do you part.

So love her. Keep your vows close...Show your children, show other people's children, that in this too-swift race between love and death, which is all that our lives are, that love can be trusted.

If Christians could just do that and nothing else, it would transform our culture.

If we cannot do that, I fear, nothing else will.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Husband, love your God.  Love your wife.

Shallow man

Does not wisdom cry out,
 

And understanding lift up her voice? 

She takes her stand on the top of the high hill,
 

Beside the way, where the paths meet. 

She cries out by the gates, at the entry of the city,
 

At the entrance of the doors...

Proverbs 8:1-3

We are shallow, and we don't care.

As America swirls with greater speed into the porcelain abyss, we get more and more and more talk. We get very little thought and almost no reflection. In the debates that have taken place for a Republican candidate and will certainly come for President and Vice President, the respondents will have 30 seconds to craft an argument. Folks, you can't develop an argument in thirty seconds. You can cough up a sound bite or a hair ball, but a man must build  an argument upon foundations of substance and not propaganda, emotion, and slander.

If we elect substance over form in the coming election, it will only be by God's good grace. Few will do their homework before November.

This past week, I spoke with a young man who had just returned from an overseas mission trip. He said to me, "Mr. Pond, I was amazed because men just don't want to get involved within the church." He meant in the country where he had ministered, but I turned it back on him, "It's not just in foreign lands. In the American church today, it is the women who are hungry for the things of the Lord."

Consider, brothers:

-- Do we know God and his word? (John 17:3)

-- Is his pleasure the most important thing to me in everything that I say and do?

-- Do I even know what his pleasure is? Have I ever read the entirety of his word? Do I feed upon it, study it, and know it?  But I do know how many RBI's Josh Hamilton has.

-- Does my understanding of the world around me pass through the lens of God's word? Do I scrutinize my life and the world around me based upon what God's word says?

In light of that point, I am dumbstruck when I hear Christians talking about the American political process and our government, and the things they say fly in the opposite direction of God's clear proclamations.

Continuing.

-- As a man, how are you serving in your church? What do you do to help the body be the body on a regular basis?

-- Is your pastor bold and unashamed about stepping on your toes, confronting sin in the church, confronting sin in our nation and culture not by standing high atop his pulpit and pointing down in condemnation but by announcing with clarity what God's word says?

-- Has he ever dared preach a message on damnation and salvation? If he has, does he ever not? Does he get past the salvation message to preaching of the full counsel of God's word so that the believer might be equipped to move beyond baptism toward living life in a fallen world in a manner that pleases our God and Savior? 

-- Are we taught and disciplined toward reflecting Christ above all things that we might love him with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength?

We say it. We know it. But we do not do it. It's like loving your wife. We might cover the passages in Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, and 1 Peter 3 regarding husbands and say "Oh, yeah," but when it comes to living it out, our legs are as useless as the man beside Bethesda. When Christ commands, "Get up and walk," if we just sit there, our newly strengthened legs avail us nothing.

Wisdom calls aloud in the streets. God is not hiding from us. We know right where to find him.

When I began my first blog, Ripples Across the Pond, I did so to spur on the men of my church. Our discussions over the things of this life in light of God's word seemed to get cut short on Wednesday nights, so I started writing about those things through the lens of God's word to encourage and prod my brothers forward. Today, most of my readership is women.

Our nation's Founders didn't have Call of Duty VIII; they answered the call to duty. They labored hard at their business or at their farm or both, and in the evening, they fed upon God's word and upon great works of literature. They didn't avoid conversations about politics and religion, those were the topics of conversation because those were the things that mattered. These men hammered their ideas and convictions upon the anvil of God's word, and as iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17), they further honed them in debate and argument with one another.

Husband, if we want to be men that matter in the darkening days our nation's history, we must work. Read well and read deep. Study God's word in all its pages first and foremost, but read widely, too. Read history. Read great fiction. Read great non-fiction.

And then talk. Talk with your family. Talk with other men. Rhetoric has died. "Dude, how you doin'?" is all we can muster. Challenge a brother. Challenge yourself. "Hey, Bob, I'd like to know your thoughts on Paul Ryan as a vice-presidential candidate for the Republican Party," and see if you and Bob can discuss it without resorting to slander and name-calling. If you think Barack Obama has tanked the nation, can you explain why in more than three sentences? How does he compare with our Founders' intentions for a Constitutional Republic? How has he stood as a leader in light of God's word?

Brothers, I don't have all the answers, but I ache for men to spur me on. If I desire that, my hope is that other men might desire a kick in the keister, too. I write these missives not for you to enjoy but to move you to love your wife by being the man God has called you to be.

Let us not be shallow men. Let us prepare ourselves so that when God seeks a useful man, he might find us prepared, ready to be used in whatever manner he sees fit.

"Let us strive to think well." ~ Blaise Pascal

First things first

On occasion as the need has arisen, I have had the opportunity to preach at my church.

One of the challenges with preaching one Sunday on rare occasions comes in seeking the passage upon which you will preach. The expositional pastor, the man who goes through a book of the Bible, chapter by chapter, verse by verse, doesn't have to worry about what he's preaching Sunday; he follows the flow of the text. Yes, this is gross oversimplification because much goes into God-honoring expositional preaching. To my mind, it is the best preaching. Still, the passage does not have to be chosen. Pared down and poured over, yes. Chosen, no.

The guy who has one Sunday would be hard pressed to get through 3 John in three, which leaves him to search for a small passage or small topic that he can treat with respect and honor in a single Sunday. God burdened me with "The Greatest Commandment."

As I poured through the text, Mark 12:28-34 and its myriad of byways, I wondered about this blog. Jesus said with unwavering clarity,

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

Do I over emphasize the need for husbands to love their wives? Am I encouraging you to set your bride up as an idol? My heart leaps up in defense, "Certainly not!" That is not my intent.

I began this corner of the universe to encourage men, Christian men specifically, to love their wives because I have seen too many men junk their marriage. Honestly, they first have to junk God before they get to their wives. If my relationship with him is in tatters and his voice has no sway in my life, my bride stands vulnerable to my every whim and idiosyncracy.

The Greatest Commandment must impel me in all things.

And really, it is no contradiction to impel you and others toward loving your wife. Peter did this very thing. As did Paul. So, too, did Jesus Christ when he did not stop with the greatest commandment-- though that is what he was asked--but continued into the second which he said was like the first:

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Indeed, on these hang all the law and the prophets. Our vertical relationship with God must be right, I must love my God above all things, and yet God makes plain in the pages of Scripture that our love for him must bear out in our love for one another. Our sacrificial laying down of ourselves to God, our willingness to see his name glorified at any cost to our lives, is most vividly seen in our love for our neighbor. You have no neighbor closer to you, husband, than the beauty who sleeps at your side.

• Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness...whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. (1 John 2:9, 11)
• Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. (1 John 3:15)

Hate is a strong word. Were I to ask you point blank, "Do you hate your wife?" you would look at me as if I'd just sprouted eight-legs. While we might not confess such a thing, do we live it in practice? Neglect. Biting words. Stilted conversation. No conversation. No tenderness. No nurturing. No leading. Do our actions betray us?

• If anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? (1 John 3:17)

Great question, John. Husbands?

If we do love God, it will blossom in our love (care, concern, affection, etc.) for others. So says the word of God.

• Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. (1 John 4:7)
• Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (4:11)
• If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. (4:12)
• He who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. (4:20)
• And this is the commandment we have from him, whoever loves God must also love his brother. (4:21)

C.S. Lewis summed it up with his usual incisiveness:

When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now.  In so far as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all.  When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.

The priority remains: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul and with all your strength. If you find me deviating from the course in these proddings, prod back. Let me know if the supremacy of Christ is lacking in these things.

Since you cannot have the one without the other, I pray you will understand what I mean when I spur you on with, "Husband, love your wife!"

An MRI

Husband, do you spend time with God in his word?

Next question, when's the last time someone asked you that face to face? Or turn it around, when's the last time you asked that of another brother in Christ? Gents, those questions can expose what's going on inside our hearts better than any MRI. I dare you to lay that question on a brother. Lay it on me.

Consider the follow-up questions that the previous Q's will naturally elicit:

• If you are not in the Bible daily, why not?
• How important is God's word to you? Why or why not?
• What keeps you from spending time with God in his word?
• Do you thirst for God and his word like a football player thirsts for water during August's two-a-days (Psalm 63:1)? If not, why not?
• When you open God's word, do the pages spring to vivid life more than a 50-inch HDTV, or do the words lie there with the appeal of shredded wheat?
• If you are reading, what are you reading? Do you remember what you read this morning? Yesterday?
• What has God taught you in his word?
• How has God manifested his love for you through his word?
• How has God revealed his glory and majesty to you through his word?

All of this because of my relationship to God through his word.

This is no mere book we hold in our hands. It is the breath of God. It is his on-going conversation with us.  It is not static nor stagnant. It is living and active (Hebrews 4:12). It is Christ (John 1:1)! God forbid that we should get into the word as merely filling the square or as mowing the lawn just because it needs it. I should relish being with God in his word as much as I delight in being with my bride in our bed (Jeremiah 2:2).

If God has no place in my life, if I have no appetite for him, I am sick and I need a physician. Little will function as it should if I am malnourished of that which I need above all things. If I do not have a passionate love for God and his word, I will be ill-equipped to love my wife as I should.

So husband, I ask again, do you spend time with God in his word?