Treasure In Clay Jars

The power and omnipresence of Jesus Christ was on full display recently in the Mel Gibson drunk driving episode. Moral “outrage” has followed, with most outlets piling on the criticism of Mr. Gibson for his ridiculous anti-Semitic tirade during his drunken state. I submit however that the “moral” outcry is far more about Jesus Christ than it is about Mel Gibson. All of this is no doubt venomous residue remaining within several subgroups from Mel Gibson’s film “The Passion of the Christ”. With that film, Mel Gibson made a lot of enemies in the anti-Jesus-as-Messiah crowd including many Jewish groups, his Hollywood contemporaries, the left leaning media and secularists everywhere. As a result, these groups have had vitriolic animosity toward Mr. Gibson ever since. I can guarantee you that had Mr. Gibson’s hit movie have been “Lethal Weapon 5” or “Mad Max 10”, his drunk driving tirade would have gone completely under the radar, with him remaining firmly ensconced within the bosom of Holly...

That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak." But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." The man asked him, "What is your name?" "Jacob," he answered. Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome. (Genesis 32: 22-28 NIV) So, God decided that for reasons only He understands, the nation Israel would be directly created by Himself. It says so right there in the scripture above. This one act, has influenced the entire hu...

Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" "Who is he, sir?" the man asked. "Tell me so that I may believe in him." Jesus said, "You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you." Then the man said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped him. Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind." (John 9:35-39 NIV) I happen to be reading John Chapter 9 when I came across the above verse of scripture. As with all scripture, it’s accuracy captures the essence of the world in which we live, and as such is a perfect indictment of our fallen society and world. The blind man in the story (and by the way it is a true story) is representative of so few in our world: people who truly want to believe. When Jesus asked the man if he believed in the Son of Man, he didn’t know who that was, but hi...

The Episcopal Church USA continues to stake out their territory as a “church unto itself” as opposed to a part of Christ’s body of believers with such decisions as 2003’s approval of the New Hampshire Diocese's election of V. Gene Robinson, as the organization’s first openly gay bishop. This year the “church” elected liberal Katherine Jefferts Schori as their leader. Along comes this not surprising bit of information about Ms. Schori courtesy of Newsbusters.org . Most recently, she irritated some conservatives by speaking about "Mother Jesus" in a sermon....the website then goes on to quote Washington Post reporter Alan Cooperman who stated: To those who accuse her of heresy for referring to a female Jesus, she responds with a typically learned disquisition on medieval mystics and saints who used similar language, including Julian of Norwich and St. Teresa of Avila. "I was trying to say that the work of the cross was in some ways like giving birth to a new creation,...

The widespread publicity afforded to Warren Buffet last week when he announced his intention to leave his billions to charity coupled with a somewhat similar announcement a few weeks earlier by Bill Gates regarding his intention to step down as leader of Microsoft to focus on his humanitarian foundation illustrates a very deceptive flaw in our global human thinking. These very caring people are to be lauded for their giving spirit to others, but at the same time, the outpouring of attention continues to cement the myth of human “goodness” to combat the evil of this world, when in fact such “goodness” is nothing more than a deception that we can cure ourselves. We as human beings are selfish, depraved and self centered; that is how God describes us in Jeremiah 17:9 - The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? The generosity of billionaires cannot cure it. God presents only one cure for the human heart: If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ours...

I happen to be driving home this evening around 8pm and was enjoying myself listening to a song I really like (“Sunrise” by Simply Red). As I was driving along, I came around a slight bend in the road, and was overcome by the view. There straight before me in the twilight of the evening was this awesome scene of thunderstorm clouds in between clearing in the sky and just behind all this was the most beautiful sunset that cast a Godly glow on the whole scene. What an awesome God we serve! A God that by His words created the incredible beauty of this natural scene…the sun, the clouds, the sky and even the talent of singer Mick Hucknall of Simply Red the words of who’s song was (for me) a perfect background to this awesome scene. Ok it was a sunset, but I didn’t care. God’s scripture is full of so much truth: Now no one can look at the sun, bright as it is in the skies after the wind has swept them clean. Out of the north he comes in golden splendor; God comes in awesome majesty. The Almi...

This week, I happened to be in the company of someone who is dying of AIDS. The ravages of AIDS is well known in our world yet it never loses it’s devastating effects when you are up close to one who is in the grips of the disease and who is also very young. The gentleman is in his 20s or early 30s and is homosexual, so presumably he has contracted the disease during this activity. As has been typical with homosexuals whom I have known, this young man whom I had only met on one previous occasion, comes across as a genuinely nice guy and one who certainly does not appear to deserve his current plight. But then again that is simply a very human response on my part. By virtue of our rejection of God based on our universal human behavior, we all deserve nothing short of death. Simply put: God made us and we have rejected Him. There are sure to be those who would take vehement exception to this statement, pointing earnestly to the virtues of their honest lives and absence of any “real bad b...