Category Archives: grace

Is it luck, or something else?

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I feel like Glen Zorger this afternoon.

2014-08-08 14.49.48I bought a new laptop recently. It’s great. But today, I looked across the table from where I was working and saw a screw — a very small screw. It looked just like the ones in the bottom of my brand new laptop. Sure enough, the screw fit in the bottom. How lucky could I get? That screw could have fallen out anywhere: At Spanky’s this morning. At McDonald’s last night while I was at my Men’s Group. At the Chandler Group on Wednesday. On the porch. On the patio. In the car. On the road. In the grass. But it fell out right there. On the table where I work. Luck!

But the screw was a TORX T05. That means REALLY SMALL. Who has one of those in their desk? I do. I had one because my friend, Tom Milford, had to buy one one time and the thing was so cheap that he bought two and gave me one. I hadn’t seen it for years, but when cleaning out my desk just yesterday, I saw it. I thought, “I should toss this. When will I ever need it?” Well, you know the answer. It was today. Luck!

So I put the screw in and tighten it up and then noticed the other ten screws. Should I check them? Would Lenovo ship a laptop with all the case screws loose?

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Yeah — I better check them. Every one of them was loose. Some, ready to fall out, in spite of the fact that they had thread lock on them. So I tightened each one with my TORX T05 before they all had a chance to work loose and fall out. Luck!

Then I thought of Glen Zorger. He once remarked to me, “I don’t know why I worry about things. God takes care of me in every way.”

He does. Maybe it’s not luck. Maybe it’s providence. Maybe it’s divine oversight. Maybe it’s God paying attention to the most clueless of his sheep. Maybe it’s grace.

Glen went to be with the Lord last month. And it’s nice to be reminded that it’s not luck — it’s Jesus.

Reconciling God’s Sovereignty and Our Free Will

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From time to time, everyone misses the point. This happens in marriage, in the workplace, and even as we approach the Bible.

One place this happens is in the opening verses of the book of Ephesians. I would guess that more theological energy has been poured into this passage extolling or refuting concepts of free-will and predestination than energy poured into understanding what the text is intended to teach.

Unless we lay aside the consternation some have concerning the free-will / sovereignty debate we will miss the point regarding the blessings God has given those who’ve turned from their sins and placed their trust in Christ’s death to pay for their sins.

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Oh Be Careful Little Fingers What You Text…

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Today I listened to Blaine Workman’s podcast: Learning to Speak TOBOG. He was speaking about our speaking — the words we say. He noted that if Paul were writing to the Ephesians today, he might say words like this:

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth or flow from your fingers. Texting, twitter, facebook, blogs — they are all helpful tools for communicating in our digital age, none of them good or bad in and of themselves. But the rotting verbal garbage that some Christians are willing to post in texts or online is just appalling. It has no place  among God’s people. In some weird inexplicable way, talking to their electronic device somehow frees people to spew the most vile and corrupting talk in ways they’d be ashamed to do, speaking face to face with the real person. And brothers and sisters, the anonymity of cyberspace is no license for corrupting talk. If your brother sins against you, Jesus says, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. Today, we go tell the whole world in an anonymous post in a blog somewhere… ~Pastor Blaine Workman

That’s a bold thing for a pastor to say. It’s especially bold today, because it’s a quick way to be unfriended in social media.

Take a listen to Pastor Blaine yourself. Maybe you could post it on your own facebook or other social media page.

I dare you.