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Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Mother Love

"And a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house.  And she had a sister called Mary..." (Luke 10:38-39).

Mary and Martha are sisters, each with a different personality.  Mary is passive, quiet, resting at the feet of Jesus, receiving His Word.  Martha is active, busy, constantly doing, serving.  Opposite personalities, and yet sisters.  Reflect on the fact that as sisters, Mary and Martha are daughters of the same mother.

In spiritual terms, that mother is Love.  God's love gives birth to two daughters.  One is named Faith (Mary) and the other Works (Martha).  Faith is passive, quiet, resting at the feet of Jesus, receiving His Word of forgiveness at all times.  Works is (are) active, busy, constantly doing, serving wherever there is a need.

The two sisters, born of Love, dwell together, as did Mary and Martha, in the same house.  And that house is your heart.

The only caution is that Martha (works of service) not be allowed to take Mary (faith alone) away from her resting place at the foot of the Cross.

Wednesday, July 3, 2019

Remain a Pupil

Some Christians struggle to believe that Genesis 1 and 2 are describing an actual week and that Creation took place over the course of a literal six-day period.  Their pastors don't always help.  At a recent conference, one pastor publicly denied a literal six-day Creation.  I was both saddened by this and alarmed, recalling that the very first temptation (Genesis 3) was to deny God's Word.  When will we learn?

Luther called the article of Creation "harder to believe than the article of the Incarnation."  But he wrote: "If you cannot understand how this could have been done in six days, then grant the Holy Spirit the honor of being more learned than you are.  For you are to deal with Scripture in such a way that you bear in mind that God Himself says what is written.  But since God is speaking, it is not fitting for you wantonly to turn His Word in the direction you wish to go."

I agree, but I also add something.  I observe a strange focus on Creation Week and the question, "Is it literal?"  And I say that, because in the Gospel we are presented with another week, the one that begins on Palm Sunday and climaxes on Good Friday.  It could be called Redemption Week, through which the Lamb of God took away the world's sin.  How come no one has ever questioned the literalness of this week, especially when you stop to consider that to redeem the world was indeed a thousand times harder to do than to create it?  And that's because at Creation there was no resistance, no enemy.  Whereas Redemption fought a battle against sin, death, devil, and hell.

And so next to Redemption Week, I find Creation Week very easy to believe.  And I will spend the remainder of my life not wondering whether God created the heavens and the earth in six literal days, but pondering that He redeemed the world, and me, in six literal hours upon the cross.