Leading By Circular Logic

Friday, October 20, 2023

And now, a word to you who are elders in the churches.  I, too, am an elder and a witness to the sufferings of Christ.  And I, too, will share in his glory when he is revealed to the whole world.  As a fellow elder, I appeal to you:  Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you.  Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly—not for what you will get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God.  Don’t lord it over the people assigned to your care, but lead them by your own good example.  And when the Great Shepherd appears, you will receive a crown of never-ending glory and honor.  In the same way, you who are younger must accept the authority of the elders.  And all of you, dress yourselves in humility as you relate to one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”  1 Peter 5:1-5

Apostle Peter addresses elders, leaders in God’s church, with instruction on how to lead.  This instruction is mostly about the attitude of a leader.  Note the words the big fisherman uses about the tenderness with which a church leader leads the flock entrusted to him:  care…watch over…lead by example.  And then Peter closes the door on the matter with the fact that humility covers all of it.

There are two caveats we must add to this leadership seminar of Peter’s:

1.    Leaders cannot lead this way unless followers follow this way.

2.    True followers will follow if leaders lead this way.

Every instruction God ever gave is predicated on the truth of God’s creation.  Those upon whom God places His call to lead in the church must respond to God’s call by leading selflessly, caring for the flock without pursuing personal gain.  Those who follow must respond, expecting to follow.  It’s a form of “circular logic” and requires trust (faith) in all directions.

Circular logic (or circular reasoning) is most often defined in a pejorative, or belittling sense.  With those for whom logic is the only acceptable pathway, the idea of faith must never cloud the issue.  That person would say about God, prove to me that God exists.  Believers answer that without faith (defined as a blind-leap without proof) it is impossible.  But if you believe (trust) He is real, you will have all the proof you need.  Another way to express that is from the atheist view:

An atheist says:  I won’t believe in God until I see Him.

A believer responds:  You’ll never see Him until you believe.

This same issue is true in the Leader/Follower issue Peter presented in his epistle:

Skeptical Christian:  I won’t trust or follow unless that leader is proven worthy

God’s Word replies: Have faith and by your faith I’ll make that leader worthy.

For You Today 

Is faith a form of circular logic? 

Absolutely!  

It begins with:  

In the beginning God…

It flows through:  

For God so loved…that He gave…

It ends full circle with:  

Even so, come Lord Jesus…

Circular logic may make the hair stand up on the back of a scientist’s or philosopher’s neck, but faith begins in the heart of a human being, created by God, for His glory and our good.  It won’t float in this world’s view, but for those who respond in faith, they will see God face to face.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,600 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road library.

Title Image Pixabay.com  Images without citation are in public domain or cited via weblinks.  

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©   

Morning Prayer

Thursday, July 27, 2023

Your laws are wonderful.  No wonder I obey them!  The teaching of your word gives light, so even the simple can understand.  I pant with expectation, longing for your commands.  Come and show me your mercy, as you do for all who love your name.  Guide my steps by your word, so I will not be overcome by evil.  Psalm 119:129-133

Laws are meant to be broken!  So goes the twisted thinking of the outlaw.  Yet, those who perceive themeselves as uniquely qualified to judge the laws of God and man do not realize (or perhaps they do not care) that by ignoring how the Sovereign Lord has designed life to be a blessing, they are storing up misery for themselves, and anyone who will follow their lead.  Jesus, speaking to religious leaders who were largely hypocritical imposters, said they looked like big shots, parading around in their expensive robes, but on the inside they were lawbreakers; their hearts were set on their own will, not God’s:

 Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.  Matthew 23:28

The “law” the Psalmist characterized as “wonderful” was what we commonly call the Ten Commandments[1].  What makes them so wonderful is the power they contain to make life wonderful and a blessing to all who live within their parameters.  Consider the outcome when we live God’s way:

1.    No other gods – Life is better with focus…not a thousand different gods.

2.    Worship God, not what He has created – again focus…worship only God.

3.    Keep God’s name holy – think of life without Hollywood’s profanity!

4.    Sabbath reserved for worship – we often forget important stuff.  A routine that includes worship guards against slipping-away from good living.

5.    Honor father & mother – what you do is what you’ll also receive…honor.

6.    Do not murder – would our lives be better off with less homicide?

7.    Do not commit adultery – wouldn’t trust be better than constant suspicion?

8.    Do not steal – would life be better if we could do without locks on things?

9.    No false witness – if truth reigned, the courts would be empty.

10. No greed for what’s not yours – would life be simpler if we were people of glad contentment – both for what we have, and glad for what our neighbor has worked for?

Now that’s the short list of benefit tracks that could make life much sweeter.  There could be volumes written on all the side benefits associated with living like God designed it.  But the chief benefit of all is being able to approach God at any time of day with confidence that your prayers will be heard with Heaven’s favor.  The value of having an up-to-the-minute relationship with the King of the Universe is eternal joy.  Knowing He loves you is wonderful, but sensing His presence, because your heart is clean before Him is abundance in all that makes life worthwhile. 

For You Today 

My morning prayer, every morning tracks with the Psalmist’s thought:

Guide my steps by your word, so I will not be overcome by evil.

I want that more than life itself. 

If in this moment it was possible for you to have a house valued at $5-million, and a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce, $3-billion in the bank, and be elected President of the United States – OR an up-to-the-minute, intimate friendship with God, which would you choose?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,600 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  

 

Title Image:  via Pixabay.com   Images without citation are in public domain.   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©  

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[1] Exodus 20:1-17

From WHAT to WHY and EVERYTHING In-Between

Wednesday, March 1, 2023

So Moses chiseled out two tablets of stone like the first ones.  Early in the morning he climbed Mount Sinai as the Lord had commanded him, and he carried the two stone tablets in his hands.  Then the Lord came down in a cloud and stood there with him; and he called out his own name, Yahweh.  The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out, “Yahweh!  The Lord!  The God of compassion and mercy!  I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.  I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations.  I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin.  But I do not excuse the guilty.  I lay the sins of the parents upon their children and grandchildren; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations.  Exodus 34:4-7

There is a statement which, in essence, is deeply-ingrained in American culture, and is unquestionably anti-Christian.  It uncovers just how far we can drop from the tree of faith.  The statement (or its equivalent) is thus:

Nobody can tell me what to do; it’s MY life.

There are two responses to that statement which make it a logical non sequitur:

     1.    Your life would be yours alone if you didn’t belong to someone else.

     2.    Your life’s actions would have no consequences if the One who owns you didn’t connect you to everyone else, including your family tree.

The first response comes from the unquestionable fact that you didn’t create yourself.  Your parents had a hand in things, but it was God who formed you in the womb, and breathed the breath of a soul into your bones.  God said so in his meeting with Moses…Yahweh…the LORD; He is the Creator/Owner of all.

The second response is about consequences of what we do, which Yahweh also covered in the agenda with Moses.  The “document” he chiseled in stone covered the basic details of human behavior.  We call it the Ten Commandments; we venerate them, and, to a person, violate them.  And when we transgress those we set up misery for those who follow, even to the third and fourth generation.

Of course there is a positive side to view in this.  When we are obedient to God’s ways, we set up blessing to the generations that follow.  However, adopting the current culture’s mindset of I’m the only one that matters…I’ll do what I want, is hardly a formula for blessing.  Suppose that “what I want” is to become an alcoholic-addicted bank robber?  Think of the tentacles that reach into the wake of your actions for the many humans of the world’s population.  And imagine your children (and theirs) living with the fallout from that heritage of your behavior. 

When it comes to communicating a message of God’s love and our responsibility to respond with Godly living, people want to know why they should be subjected to living within so many rules.  Well, you have questions, and you want answers; God, the Sovereign Lord of the universe and all it holds has those answers, from the WHAT, to the WHY, and EVERYTHING IN-BETWEEN!

For You Today 

Do you remember what your father or mother (or both) said to you when you asked the why question as a little child?  They said:  Because I said so.

You didn’t like that…it wasn’t enough.  Now you understand…they were only repeating what God said.  He said to Moses, and all of us:  That stuff I wrote on those stone tablets…you do it…because I AM said so.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

            Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

Trivial Pursuit  and  Rats      

Title Image:  Pixabay.com   Images without citation are personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

Cradle to Grave - Part 4

Friday, November 18, 2022

Just as you cannot understand the path of the wind or the mystery of a tiny baby growing in its mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the activity of God, who does all things.  Ecclesiastes 11:5

Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.  Psalm 127:3

This week we have been tracing some of the moral, ethical, and spiritual perspectives surrounding the issue of abortion.  It’s time to cut-to-the-chase with a summary of logic.

The illogicality of choosing abortion ignores the basic premise that God alone is God, and we are not!  If God is truly the creator, giver, and sustainer of life, choosing the opposite – death – is nothing less than an all-out declaration of war.  We have free will to disagree with logic and the supremacy of God, but the result is never pretty.  The Creator is greater than what He has created.  As created beings we are subject to the governance of He who is above creation.  God is the arbiter of what is holy and sacred, and life is His choice.

Those who choose abortion disregard the responsibility of parenting, which begins with the decision to be sexually active.    Sexuality is a gift from God that is primarily/inextricably tied to reproduction.  (Even the most rabid of those who are pro-abortion use the term reproductive rights.)  While pleasure and intimacy are a wonderful part of a sexual relationship, not just by-products of the reproductive process, they are not primary.   As anyone with half a brain can attest, with rights come responsibility to use those rights in accord with that which respects the possible outcome…the re-creation of a new life.

Deciding to get an abortion is more emotional than logical.  It is the same kind of decision Adam and Eve made out of fear that God would “discover” their sin.  They hid when they heard Him coming.  Their plan didn’t work.  The fruit of the forbidden tree was supposed to make them as wise as God; all it managed was getting them evicted from the perfect home God had given them. 

Emotion, just as sexuality, is many-faceted.  It can have positive benefits when rightly directed, and tragic results when allowed to govern our choices unilaterally!  Logic demands we consider our actions.  Spiritual understanding demands that logic begins with honoring God with all our decisions.  If you need a verse that says that clearly, Solomon, the wise son of King David, is your man:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.  Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.  Proverbs 3:5-6

What are the so-called logical considerations that are common to those who seek to terminate a child in the womb?  Lifestyle interruption – a career, education, personal freedom from parental responsibility…these and more, which say that what we want cannot be interrupted with caring for a child.  It is the height of selfishness.

For You Today  

There is much more to be explored here than is possible in the few minutes of a morning devotion, so I leave you with just these few thoughts today:

There is a decision to be made:  Will it be God's authority or yours?  Will your choice honor or defy God?  Will it be an emotional choice alone, or have you done the hard dance with logic and prayer?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

       When It's God's Move   and   The Cry Heard in Ramah

Images: Title image Pixabay.com Images without citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

Excluding the Includable

[1]

Tuesday, January 15, 2019

We know that God’s children do not make a practice of sinning, for God’s Son holds them securely, and the evil one cannot touch them.  We know that we are children of God and that the world around us is under the control of the evil one.  And we know that the Son of God has come, and he has given us understanding so that we can know the true God.  And now we live in fellowship with the true God because we live in fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ.  He is the only true God, and he is eternal life.  Dear children, keep away from anything that might take God’s place in your hearts.  1 John 5:18-21(NLT)

In public discourse words matter…greatly!  The chasm between the terms inclusive and exclusive has grown to the point where there is almost no balance.  Those who live in the United States abide under a governance of laws, which, by definition, are systemic lines between what is allowed by society, and that which is not!  Actions or deeds that are unacceptable under the law are excluded, not permitted. 

The term inclusive in today’s cultural jargon is the child of a political correctness shift which evolved out of larger human rights’ movements; particularly the waves of racial, gender, and sexual identity struggles.  To demand inclusivity for such is a matter of claiming no barriers can exist, and those which do are artificial and heinous, harmful to society.  Anything suggestive of a lesser standard is labeled phobic, or close to the line of a hate statute.  In other words, to suggest any exclusion in an era of total inclusion excludes he or she who suggests such.  And that, to the extent of being labeled a loathsome bigot…worthy of being ostracized from our enlightened, and more sophisticated company; perhaps, if bad enough...jail time!

Fast-forward to the land of reasonable balance, located on the border between double-standard and logic.  If we as a (human) race demand total inclusivity, law will be outlawed; only anarchy will do.  When restrictions are levied by those in charge (necessitated by judgment of others that you are outside of the acceptable lines) total inclusivity is not a possibility.  The simple truth about anarchy is that it doesn’t work…ever! 

Without pushing this envelope past its capacity, let me cut to the chase.  Those who demand total inclusiveness might consider that means they must also “include” or tolerate (at least) those who would exclude them!  To live in any integrity with this idea of total inclusivity means you must accept everyone who is different from you as equal, valid, and welcome…even those who don’t accept you, to the extent they despise the ground upon which you tread. 

The ideals which spawned recent inclusivity movements are not without merit, and in some instances long overdue.  The problem with most movements, however, is that they attract, and even support radical partisan-ism to a fault.  You wind up with adherents to a movement whose agenda, whether hidden or overt, is to consign the object of their hatred to becoming the new oppressed group.  It is rarely a matter of serving the constituency of the movement.  Rather it frequently becomes just a matter of revenge.  It gets out of hand, and you have mob-mentality instead of civil discourse, from which comes out-of-control knee-jerk pushback from the law-keepers, and pandemonium, bedlam masquerading as an honor-driven revolution; which it is not…it’s just violence.

So, this morning we’re talking human nature, which trends towards selfishness, anger, and disorder, all in the name of the holy grail of inclusive political correctness.  Lord, help us, we need someone with a better idea!

Thankfully there is One who does have that better idea.  God is really in-to being inclusive.  That’s why Jesus Christ came to die for us.  His sacrifice cleanses us from our sins and includes us in God’s forever family.  It puts exclusiveness in our hands; the choice is ours to accept or reject God’s inclusive, open arms…or not.

Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life.  1 John 5:12(NLT)

For You Today

If you’re looking for a better way, come to He who said, I AM the way!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image:  Pixabay.com