A Word From Casey

The Holy Church God is Holy. Jesus, the Only Son of God, is Holy. But the Church, is it really Holy? Yes the church is holy, and if you doubt it, read on. Lately I have been thinking about a challenging bit of scripture from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.   I want us to study it together because it contains truth we often ignore. In Ephesians 1:18-21, Paul writes, “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know….his (God’s) incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.” Paul is saying that God has incredibly great power for us who believe. He says that God has raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand.

Our Imperfect Faith and God’s Perfect Faithfulness I once had a seminary professor, Paul Lehman, who during a class told us students that he did not always have ahold of God. We students were surprised. He went on to tell us that he rejoiced that even when he did not have ahold of God, God still had ahold of him. I have never forgotten this important lesson. How do we “hold on” to God? We hold on to God by faith. Is faith important? You bet it is! But is there something even more important than faith? There is! The most important thing in our relationship to God is that God loves us, God is committed to us, God’s Son died for us, and God is faithful to us! In fact a Christian’s faith in God is faith in God’s prior and continuing faithfulness. A person must come to faith in God and in His Son Jesus Christ to experience salvation. However part of that faith is knowing that God was committed to us long before we were ever committed to Him. God loved us long before we ever loved Him back.

  To Fear God?? About forty years ago I once heard an Irish -American pastor, Alan Meenan, say this: “Modern-day Americans are afraid of many things… but not of God. By contrast, our Puritan ancestors of the 17 th century were not afraid of most things, but they were afraid of God.”    I have never forgotten these words. Recently my wife and I were reading in Proverbs, a book of wisdom written by Solomon. Right at the beginning, Proverbs 1:7 says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” So in its very first chapter, the wisdom book of Proverbs says that true wisdom begins with the fear of God!   Many modern people do not like this verse, and there are at least two reasons:   First, many modern people totally reject a God who is to be feared. Somehow they fear the effects of the force of gravity if they were to step off a cliff into a chasm, but they do not fear opposing or ignoring the God who created the universe.

As I wrote this a week or so ago, I was hospitalized for observation after receiving an experimental and investigational anti-cancer therapy.  They have good food at M.D. Anderson Cancer Hospital, and you can order off of a gourmet menu. Before I get to the specifics of the menu there is something else I want to mention in order to lay some ground work for my subject. Like many of my readers I have had the privilege of traveling and even living in other countries where I did not know the language. Like some of you I have held a dictionary in one hand and looked up words and tried, with difficulty, to figure out menus or directions or tourist information. Sometimes when you look up a phrase word by word in the dictionary, it just does not make much sense. Many of the patients at M.D. Anderson come from all over the world, and some of them speak very little English . I was thinking of them the other day when I was reading the MD Anderson menu. It was describing a particular hotdog an

Learning From Animals My cousin Nancy is a dog lover. She takes in strays and is connected with a rescue center. You don’t want to know how many dogs she has in her house at any given   moment. Today I was reading something written by CS Lewis which made me think of her. He is talking about how God became man in Jesus. “Lying at your feet is your dog. Imagine, for the moment, that your dog and every dog is in deep distress. Some of us love dogs very much. If it would help all the dogs in the world to become like men, would you be willing to become a dog? Would you put down your human nature, leave your loved ones, your job, hobbies, your art and literature and music, and choose instead of the intimate communion with your beloved, the poor substitute of looking into the beloved's face and wagging your tail, unable to smile or speak? Christ by becoming man limited the thing which to Him was the most precious thing in the world; his unhampered, unhindered communion with th