October 13, 2021
Leadership Notes
Here's the quote we began worship with:
"Earthly Christian fellowship of true believers in Christ is a shadow of the
real fellowship of all believers in heaven. God is good!"
- Elizabeth@ElizaEll
Following up on the C.S. Lewis quote from last week, here's the full paragraph:
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of it victims may
be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons
than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may
sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those
who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do
so with the approval of their own conscience.
Am I the only one who would like to see a revival of the usage of "cupidity"? The entire quote is frameable.
Our landscaping at home has 35 hostas, around 12 daylilies, about 8 hydrangeas of various types, 3 hibiscus {which earned a reprieve for another week or two as 2 of them just put up another flower} and about another 8 of various other plants. It is flora city.
Monday morning we spent a couple of hours doing our fall trimming…to the ground, mostly. As I cooled off in the house, before showering, Lori said, "You smell." I laughed, knowing how working in the yard can attach a musty, musky odor to one's person. It's a good, outdoorsy, working man's odor.
About 30 minutes later, I went upstairs to shave and shower. I noticed an odor, first emanating from our bedroom and then our bathroom. I checked sink and bathtub drains. I looked under vanities. I even checked our granddaughter's room for the source. Could not find it. It was disgusting.
As I was shaving, the stench lingered. We hadn't cooked anything with onions the day before. I was baffled. Until…until I realized I was smelling me. It was my rancidness. It was a combination of my work shirt that hangs in the garage that hasn't been washed for at least three months and my sweat which recombined with said shirt to attach a putridness to my person. The light {lower wattage} went on in my brain. I realized my wife was overcome with a different kind of stink. It wasn't the muskiness of a working man. It was the odor of death and decay.
How often is sin like that in our lives? We either ignore it, rationalize it, or honestly can't see it. But it's a cloudy stench hanging over our lives. Like the cloud of dust enveloping Pig Pen in the "Peanuts" comic strip. I would like to say I can go longer than a full day without that cloud, but that would be a lie. To paraphrase the Apostle Paul, the underlying narrative to my life is his cry, "O, repugnant man that I am. Who will rescue me from this body of sin?"
A shower set me free from my offensiveness. Spiritually, we are set free from sin by the cleansing and restorative power of the cross. And as part of God's plan and purpose for our lives, as we'll see in a few weeks, Galatians 5:22-23 defines for us what it looks like to live freely in Christ.
Finally, branching off from last week's foray into the young earth/old earth dilemma, here's another question. Is the Earth Flat? Answer:
Yes, it's a lot flatter than you might think. In order to explain, we'll need to
break down some common misconceptions about how we understand the
term "flat."
And now, your Moment of Spurgeon:
"It is wrong to suppose that because all sins will condemn us, that
therefore one sin is not greater than another."
With Much Love and Affection,
Richard