Posted on by Abe Austin

A Foundation Built on God- A Little Leaven

Time Equals Love)

As I have considered ways to make my life built more on the foundation of the Almighty, the simplest solution seems to simply be spending most of my waking time in direct communion with God. If I slept for 8 hours, strove with God for 9 hours, and took care of my personal affairs for 7 hours, who could argue that God wasn’t the most significant thing in my life?

As a general rule, we tend to give greatest value to the things we spend the most time with. Even if it’s not something we particularly enjoy, we still give it weight and meaning because we gave it so much of ourselves. Ask any man who worked a career he didn’t like for forty years to provide for his family whether there is substance and significance to the labor he did, and of course he’s going to say “yes.”

So, should we all become spiritual hermits or join the priesthood? Well, the body of Christ we are told is made of many different parts. We can’t all be hands, or all be feet, or all be eyes, or all be mouths. Some must work to build society, which typically consumes at least half of the waking day. Add in the time for family and personal affairs, and the window for exclusive focus on God becomes a small minority of the day.

A Small Foundation)

But maybe a minority of time can still have a majority of impact. As Paul taught, “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump” (Galatians 5:9). Consider also the example of the foundation of a building. Typically, that part of the structure is only a small percentage of the building’s total height, yet it supports the entire thing. The Burj Khalifa for example 2,7117 feet tall, with a foundation of only 164 feet, about 6% of the entire structure.

The question then, is whether that relatively small amount of time with God is being laid at the foundation, or lost in the middle of everything else? Is it being allowed to spread its leaven through the whole, or is it isolated where it cannot activate any of the rest? I think it is possible to establish a life founded on God, even with a minority of time dedicated directly to Him, but the dedication of time must be of the right quality.

With this idea in mind, I will try to identify a way to achieve the right quality of time dedicated to God with tomorrow’s study.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Great Forgiveness

Great forgiveness is not passively forgetting your pain over the passage of time, but actively surrendering it while it still burns bright. Obviously, forgiving over time after the pain has died down is better than not forgiving at all, but it is only a step towards greater, more active forgiveness.

Jesus gave an incredible standard for forgiveness when he declared, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He was not only forgiving those who tortured and killed him, but he was doing it in the very moment that they were carrying out that torture and execution, not after he was resurrected and impervious to their pain. Perhaps we will never get all the way to being able to match such great forgiveness as that, but that is the ideal that we are meant to move in the direction of.

Great forgiveness is not passive, it is active.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 13:5

5 And it shall be when the Lord shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee, a land flowing with milk and honey, that thou shalt keep this service in this month.

As I mentioned before, the Israelites who left Egypt were as far removed from Joseph as we are from William Shakespeare. Obviously, they were even further removed from Abraham, to whom God had originally promised the land of Canaan. From when God gave Abraham His promise to the birth of Isaac was a period of approximately 25 years. Isaac was 60 years old when Jacob was born, and Jacob was 130 when he entered Egypt. The Israelites dwelled in Egypt for 430 years. Thus, God’s original promise for Abraham’s seed to inherit the land of Canaan was now 645 years old when Moses led the people out of Egypt. Of course, because of some rebellion that we will soon read about, the fulfillment of the promise would be delayed another 40 years, making a wait of approximately 685 years. For comparison, 685 years before today was 1,338, at which time the Byzantine Empire was still standing!

But God had already fulfilled one of His promises to Abraham. He had made the man’s descendants into a great nation, approximately with 2 million souls, and the fulfillment of that promise was preparatory to Israel having the strength to claim the second.

No matter how much time has transpired, no matter how forgotten by man the promise might be, and no matter how many unexpected twists and turns come along the way, God will not forget or renege on His word. Many generations might pass away, but His pledge will not.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 12:40-42

40 Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years.

41 And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.

42 It is a night to be much observed unto the Lord for bringing them out from the land of Egypt: this is that night of the Lord to be observed of all the children of Israel in their generations.

In these verses we learn that the Israelites lived in Egypt for a total of 430 years. Of course, not all of that time was spent in servitude. There is an unspecific gap of time between when Jacob and his sons came into the land and when a later Pharaoh decided to subjugate the Israelite people. It seems likely that most of their time was spent in freedom, as they were not put under Egyptian oppression until they had grown to a mighty number, and the population growth would have started relatively slowly, becoming exponentially greater with each passing generation.

430 years was long enough to make all the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the great patriarchs, distant history to the current generation. Consider that 430 years before today’s date would have been 1593, which was the time period of William Shakespeare and Galileo Galilei. Shakespeare is as far removed to us as Jacob was to Moses. Not completely removed, still well known and with a clear line of connection in between, but removed still the same.

Thus, it was a new Israelite nation that emerged from Egypt, far different from the one that went in. This new Israelite nation was one that knew nothing of its forefathers’ land of inheritance. It was one that had become accustomed to living under another’s rule. It was one that had been surrounded by all manner of false gods and strange practices. But in spite of all this they were being called to reconnect with their foreordained place in the world.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Thought for the Day- Never Enough Time

There is never enough time to do all the good that you imagine.
So surrender that, and simply do what you can.














Posted on by Abe Austin

Solemnity and Joy- Ecclesiastes 3:1-4

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

COMMENTARY

To every thing there is a season
A time to be born, and a time to die
A time to kill, and a time to heal
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh
A time to mourn, and a time to dance
We have been discussing the need for times of solemn reverence and also times of unfettered rejoicing. Is it any wonder that we would need both, given the fractured, dual-natured world we live in? As these verses illustrate, we pass through all manner of different experiences, the entire spectrum of good and bad. We get to welcome new babies but also bury old friends. We build things, but we must break things as well. We have times of health, but also times of pandemic. To deny an entire side of this reality for the other would be deluded.
Does living in the gospel give us a hope for a happy ending, and does that hope instill us with an abiding joy and peace? Yes, but Jesus still wept when Lazarus died. And are there times when we are treated unfairly, hurt and offended, some of us even killed unjustly? Yes, but Stephen still passed away rejoicing, surrounded by the glory of his God and Savior.
We are complex beings in a complex world. There is not only space for the entire spectrum of emotion within us, it is necessary for us to embrace them all. We should let each have dominion over its proper season.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Give Thanks- Time

I am grateful for time.

Time is a powerful commodity, the greatest currency in our lives, one that we spend at a regular rate. And if we observe where we have passively spent that time it will reveal to us the things that we love most. For more than words and commitments, the proof of our devotion is where we have dedicated our days and hours.

But we can also consciously spend our time on the things that matter most to us. This is the surest way to guarantee that those things receive the respect they deserve. We can even spend time on the things that don’t matter to us as much as we think they should. After enough time is spent on something, we inevitably form a powerful bond to that thing.

And spending time isn’t all. We can also invest it. Even a small contribution each day can yield a powerful profit. And slow and steady contributions of a person’s time have resulted in some of the greatest work this world has seen.

In short, time is the currency by which everything we do gets done. It allows us to take a our current situation and, through time, improve on it. Given enough time, we can become the sort of person we want to be.

#givethanks

Posted on by Abe Austin

Making Time for God- Summary

Many of us see the tragedies in the world, feel very discontented by them, and idly hoped that “someone would do something.” I certainly have had those moment myself, times where I vaguely wished for God’s help in the world, but at the same time was not actively making Him a part of my life.

Even then, I knew in my heart that God’s help is enacted through the people that strive to walk with Him. Therefore by not making Him a part of my life, I was actively disqualifying myself from being one of the instruments that I knew the world needed.

So maybe I don’t know how to cure all of the world’s problems. Maybe some of them I can’t do anything about. But I do know that there is some impact for good that I can do, and the only way to do it is if I am actively making time for God. This study helped me to explore why this is easier said than done, though, and what strategies we can employ to counter those obstacles.

Making Time for God is Just Hard

The most frustrating thing about not putting God first is that we feel like it should be an easy thing for us to do. We think that giving Him daily devotion and training our thoughts to be pure should simply be a matter of dedicating a few minutes to him and exercising some mindfulness. When we fail to achieve this, we start to think that there’s something wrong with us.
The simple, and hopefully encouraging, truth is that making time for God is not easy, and there is nothing wrong with us when we struggle to do it. We all live in a fallen world, one that is intent on crowding out things of a spiritual nature. The distractions of life are expertly subtle, cloaked so innocently that we don’t give them a second thought, and then they silently leech our time and energy from God.
Any opening in our lives is a vacuum that will be filled. In my own life I’ve noticed how I always seem to be subscribed to just enough YouTube channels to fill up all my available time. If ever I try to cut back, something instantly springs up to take its place. Something little, something innocuous, but something that isn’t God.
1 Corinthians 2:14- But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

We Are In Our Own Way

The problem with that “natural man” is that, well, it is natural. It is inside all of us without exception. There is a craving for the worldly distractions that each one of us is born with. It might manifest with different tastes, but each of those tastes can be easily indulged on this earth. Do you prefer lust? Do you desire recognition? Do you want a thrill? Gossip? Idle entertainment? Meaningless achievements? A never-ending chase for something new? It’s all here, take your fill, the supply will never run out!
In the end our problem doesn’t begin with the pornography or television shows or workaholic mentality. It’s that we don’t know how to just say “No!” to these things. We do not know how to master our selves, to meet our needs in healthy ways, to steer ourselves to something better.
We can’t make time for God because we can’t keep our own promises to ourselves. We can’t escape our sins and vanities because we don’t have the nerve to live without them.
1 Corinthians 3:3- For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
Mosiah 3:19- For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord.

Putting God First Requires an Entirely New Us

And now we get to the bottom of it. This is why putting God first is so hard: because it requires a totally new version of ourselves, one where our spiritual self has defeat the carnal. But how can our spiritual self be powerful enough to defeat the carnal, except for by us having already putting God first in our lives?
It is a conundrum that is beyond us, a paradox that would halt us all, were a Savior not to intervene. We cannot lift ourselves by our own bootstraps…but he can lift us. He can pull us out of the water, because he alone can stand unsinking upon it.
Making time for God and becoming someone new are able to happen in one and the same moment with Christ’s help. Yes, at the start we lack the necessary self-mastery, but he will give us of his own. He asks us to choose one way that we can make God more a part of our lives, and if we sincerely try, then he will make up the difference and we can hold that change. And then another after that and another. The further we go, the less of a void he has to fill within us, the more we have been remade as him.
Making time for God isn’t just the first step along the way towards perfection, it is the entire journey.
2 Corinthians 5:17: Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Making Time for God- Question

The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and we have a lot of wheels squeaking in our lives! The smartphone chirps at us, social media rants at us, the television blares at us. Life is a dashboard full of meters constantly draining towards empty, and we rush about frantically trying to fill them all.

We’re afraid of losing things, of missing out, of leaving opportunities on the table. Our lives become machine-like, incessantly servicing all the many calls for our attention.

God, meanwhile, doesn’t squeak at us at all. He’s much too dignified to stoop to that level. This shows what great respect He has for us, but also makes it easy to lose sight of Him amidst the din of the world. Still He waits, patiently, for however long it takes. He waits for us to come to Him. Usually when we do, we’re the ones squeaking now. Squeaking in pain!

Well, God has grease for His in-pain, squeaky-wheel-children. He commiserates with us, then soothes us, and finally heals us. Then we, eternally grateful, skip away happily and promptly lose sight of Him once more. We’re caught back up in the world, we’ll come back when we’ve scraped our knees again.

It’s a way to live life, and I suppose it could be worse…but also it could be better. God invites us to make Him a more permanent fixture in our lives, to give Him time each and every day to heal and strengthen us. He offers to be with us every hour.

With this study we’ll consider how to push some of the world’s clutter off of our shelves and make space for God. We’ll examine what tricks the adversary uses to distract us from the things that really matter. Before we get started, though, I’d love to hear in what ways you’ve found yourself overwhelmed by the noise of the world, and how you were able to make a time and place for holiness.