This picture of Preaching/Teaching Elder Chauncey Lattimer and his wife Jessie was taken at the Cedarly Pastor's Retreat facility in Wisconsin (December 2008).
from the desk of...
“How long, O men, will you turn my glory into shame? How long will you love delusions and seek false gods?” (Psalms 4:2)
We have been studying the letters of Peter for several weeks now, searching out firm foundations for living in such shaky days. Three times in just four verses (2 Peter 1:12-15) Peter uses a word that speaks to our need to remember: “I will always remind,” “I think it is right to refresh your memory,” and “be able to remember these things.” What is it that we are called to remember?
Too often we are caught remembering the past as if it were ‘the good old days.’ For Peter, however, it is the truth that needs to be repeated. Part of the truth that we need to remember is our future hope, which is indeed well known to Christians. Yet, he obviously believes it essential to "remind" them of it and to encourage them regarding its application to both life and service.
Somehow love and happiness just seem to go together. Allan Chalmers has written, “The Grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.” It is not surprising to me that our modern world displays the characteristics of being genuinely unhappy – or might I just say depressed! Could it be that the ‘–isms’ of our day (materialism, hedonism, atheism, etc.) have stolen these “Grand essentials”?
We are busy, but do we really have something to do that is meaningful? Since it is February, we will use the word love many times, but have we really moved beyond mere sentimentality and/or excess sensuality? Have we lost our hope for a better, more meaningful life – or worse yet, our hope for eternal life?
Peter’s message is as pertinent today as when he wrote it. If you want to be effective and productive, there are no better qualities to possess than adding to “faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.”
Things really haven’t changed; progress is a misnomer! We have allowed the “delusions” and the “false gods” of the world to lead us away from the truth. “They” have told us that our beliefs are ‘out of date.’ We suffered through the devastating effects of the ‘new’ morality, finally realizing that it was only the ‘old’ morality in false clothing. Truth is not relative! In the words of G.K. Chesterton, “What a man can believe depends upon his philosophy, not upon the clock or the century. If a man believes in unalterable natural law, he cannot believe in any miracle in any age. If a man believes in a will behind law, he can believe in any miracle in any age.” (Orthodoxy, p.74)
Things really haven’t changed much, have they? Paul wrote, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Let’s make February a month of faithfulness in terms of our service, hope in terms of our motivation, and love – not as a feeling, but as the biblical term for our commitment!
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