Gnarly Sins
Dear Family & Friends,
Last week I had the joy of speaking in our Multnomah chapel. Five years ago on Nov. 14, 2004 I also had the same opportunity. This CLASSIC update from 11/4/2004 describes this earlier chapel message.
I had the privilege of speaking in Multnomah’s chapel on Friday. I confessed–I think I understand the Bible, it’s just Jesus that I cannot understand. The Sermon on the Mount is hardest for me. Jesus tells you to pray in a closet and then prays in public all the time. He teaches against sin and tells you to gouge your eye out or cut your hand off if they cause you to sin (Matt 5:29-30). But NT believers did not go around with one eye or mutilate themselves. Jesus knew the eye did not cause the sin; it started in the heart (Matt 5:28). Jesus did not require literal mutilation, but His statements are dramatic. When a sin is dominating, He commands that we do whatever it takes to cut off the sin. The skateboarders gave me the right word for these strong statements – GNARLY. When sin gets gnarly with your life, you must get gnarly with it. Cut off your computer if you are captured by pornography. Cutting off a sin must be done, but ultimately we need a heart that loves God more than sin. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied (Matt. 5:6).
G
Bible Marathon: Fri Nov 27 (10am-4pm) Psalms (room for 5 more)
Sign up at: gfriesen@multnomah.edu
Next Aslan’s How Tour Sat. Dec 14 (11am) has openings.
Kigali Kollection: 11,030 (goal 15,000 by Dec 15)
November 15th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
I wrote this letter to you a couple of months ago, but wasn’t able to get it to you. Now a friend has sent the form that comes with your web page.
I read your article on grace, and was responding to that. In the letter I mentioned Norm Thiessen, but now I note he is at Western Seminary, not Mult. He was in our college group when he was going to Biola, and I spoke for him in Des Moines at Grace Bible for a week.
When I was going through the grades, we lived in Portland, (Alameda District, near 33rd and Prescott) and Mult. was down near the Willamette River near a Dental school. I always wondered why they’d have a school of the Bible. Many years later I found out.
Just a thought. My wife and I have lived a life under grace for over 50 years. Raised three girls under grace and all three are busy, two have been on Campus Crusade staff and one is in the Philippines. Grace. They grew up never being scolded or threatened or spanked. What they got was our unrequited love and approval; and in return we got very independent girls who thrived in the sunshine of love and never strayed an inch from the Lord. It was their thing and not borrowed.
We ran youth groups in our Friends Church for nearly 40 years, and the girls saw it all, where the kids came from and out of what they came from, and saw what they had and loved it. They each married guys from our groups, to whom we had earlier ministered grace, so it made for very harmonious marriages. The guys still had to learn a lot, but they got it.
One girl (the missionary) had seven kids and no rebels. Next had three and the third two. All busy at the Lord’s things. Ten of the 12 grands are married. Married into homes with varying degrees of grace or none at all. So there is a mixture and diminishing effect. But the family is in total harmony and the in-law kids are learning. We have, at present, 21 great grands, the eldest of which is 14 and they do well. No rebels, and it appears there won’t be.
Grace, Ah, the glorious theme. We are poster children for the selling of grace. Our Friends church, a mile from Biola and Talbot, is closer than that theologically. But the whole denomination has shifted in California, and grace is the norm, and the few Arminians still around have given up on the fight for their ‘truth.’ When we got saved it was 98% Arminian, it has been a fun thing to watch. And, true to grace, it never was a fight, just an ooze as people saw how grace was not threatening or leading to licentiousness, quite the opposite. Quite a story, I might say. Surely unique, as the usual denominational drift is going sour, not getting better.
We have a Friesen family in our church and know a lot more with that background. Great people. Many from Dinuba, of all places.
Robert Seelye
La Habra CA
robertseelye@earthlink.net