Mysteries

1 Tim 2:8-9 "Deacons must... hold to the deep mysteries of the faith with a clear conscience"

So the verse means this for me (wow, i cant believe I just wrote that. My bible intrepretation teacher would have my head if he read that): I must hold to the deep mysteries of the faith with a clear conscience. But as I've reflected and meditated on the verse, I realized that I didnt really even have a clue on what the "deep mysteries" even were. I thought, okay, "The Trinity", God as one and as three. Right. Deep mystery number one solved. Okay "Calvinism vs Arminianism" Yes... No... Neither...Um Both. Right...Deep mystery number two solved. Okay "Escatology".......
So on and so on.

If is true that my brain "solves" these "deep mysteries" why would I still need hold them with a clear conscience. Wouldnt it be true that there would be no cognitive dissodance (a phrase I picked up in psycology) and I wouldnt have to hold them I just would have them. Now you can write this off to semantics and greek translations and what ever else, but I usually hold on to something, cause I love it (like a treasured memento or a loved one) or because it threatens to get away from me (like a climber on a rock or a wild horse) And somuch of what we loved in the begining, what made our eyes sparkle like newborn children, threatens to get away from us. The deep mystery which we once embraced has been replaced by something less real, something less than God. The deep myteries that I've been abble to come up with go something like this.

God is real.
God speaks.
God does stuff.
God loves us
God has changed my life
God changes other peoples lives.
God hears us.

So in my mind, these are the things that I ignore the most, believe the least, and are probably the most true thing I can experience. How does the Pretrib,posttrib,pantrib(thank you Monty) argument compare to the simple yet profound statement that God is real.

God is real. I start there. Because its true and I miss it. If you've been reading my blog, there was one about trusting God. And I realized that as a pastor I was missing it. I was missing the growth and power of God in my life to affect personal change. Oh my ministry was doing good. I adressed problems with the proper application of scripture, personal anctidotes, and quality goofing off time to where I saw growth in others, but never really inmyself. But to others, growth and expansion in ministry IS growth with God. Or at least looks like it. When asked about how my life was going, I always talked about ministry, never what GOd was teaching me. Dont get me wrong, I prayed, I read, I led worship. But somewhere in the nooks and crannies of my brain were the beginings of the hints of wispers of doubts. "Adam, you are wasting your life. What if its not true?" And to be honest those doubts still exist. Knowing that alot of what I do and who I am and the choices Ive made SEEM to be leading me away from the things I once had and what I desire most in life. Because God is real. Of all these things, if I dont hold to that, then my life is just a sham, my ministy a jobchoice and my relationship with God, just me talking to the celing. The funny thing is that its so obvious to us we ignore it. We almost laugh out loud when someone accepts the Gospel for truth and their eyes get bright with the reality that God exists. Deep mystery ..1

God speaks. When I speak of KN or MS, you've heard me say these words "I am no mystic." You may have even thought you knew what I was saying. In one sense it is true that "magical" thinking about God gets us into all sorts of trouble. On the other hand what I was really saying is that "God doesn't speak to me" with underlieing conclusion that "God doesn't speak to them either" and ultimatly the realization hits me now that "God doesnt speak at all because He's not real." (Are you a priest that I might make you my confessor? You didnt mean to be so candid in your email, and neither did I, yet I feel compeled to write.) But God does speak. He even speaks to me, and not in the "the bible is all of God's word we need" sort of way, though that seems to be the primary way. Its not audible. Its not a voice. I've seen a vision but only one. I have dreams but I never know what they mean. The best way I can describe it is as a thought that I have that injects itself into my "inner dialoge" which usually and almost always I reject with that same inner dialog. And its not little things. Its insight into peoples lives that when spoken allows people to releace things. Its insight into the hearts and minds of the church. And as weird as it sounds it's insight into my own heart and motives and feelings. And within the last couple of months or so, there have been four or five big ones and countless small ones, where some of them I was faithful to say, and some of them I wasnt, one of which the phrase in my head was "there's no way in hell" and the other voice said "that's right because you are not destined for that place" and then somebody else stood up in our church and said the exact thing that I had been told to say. Not just the jist of the comment, but word for word the sentance I was denying in my head. I'll pause at this point for you to reconnect your brain after the shock. Im not a skitso. I dont hear voices in my head. Like I said, its my own voice, only its not. The weight and the intrusiveness of the thought is diffrent than the normal free association that goes on in my mind. I wish I could explain it better so that, you myfriend, halfway accross the world, would be excited that God speaks. Reading this over, i kinda sound like a lunie. This is the first time I have ever tried to articulate the interaction. And to write it down, even here to a friend, makes me feel kinda vulnrable and I keep writing in little things to push off that vulnrability. But it is one of the things that made my list on the deep mysteries of God.

The rest of them might be more self explainitory, or less in need of explination, or something.

God loves us. Yes He does. No really. I mean it.

I thought it didnt need any explination but Im wrong. (The internal dialog/God speaks thing again) How many things do I do inlife to earn affection. I clean my room so my parents praise me. I get the right clothes and listen to the right music so my friends my like me. I take a girl out to dinner so I might get a peck on the cheek at the end of the night. I work hard so my boss accepts me and gives me a raise. All of my life I have had to earn my affection. Very rairly is "love" given without a reason. Its tit for tat and risk analisys. If I give them this much affection and energy, how much am I going to get back. This person didnt respond the way I wanted them to last time so im going to just hold back a little more this time.

But God does not do risk analisys.

And that way of loving is so forign to us that we ulimately do not hold to the truth that His love is permanant. And I end up working off my sins. We scoff at the middle ages, with their indulgences but I get them! Its way easier to "work off" my sins, than it is to relized that He loves me even when I don't love Him. In Him there is NO TURNING. It is amazing to see a new christian say, I found this verse and its amazing. Have you ever read it? Its John 3:16... and before he can finnish we cut him off with our quick, deadpan, un-empassioned recitation, that leaves him there with a bittler taste on his lips, his excitement like ash in his mouth, and it poisins the soul. God loves us.
Read it with a stirred up soul, empassioned for the mysteriy of God's love.

FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY SON SO THAT WHOM EVER BELIVES ON HIM SHALL NOT PERISH, BUT WILL HAVE THE EVERLASTING LIFE!!!!

And when we believe that, and that before it, my lens starts to bring something into veiw.
I cannot remain the same in His love. He wont allow for it. Jesus is the impertinant fix-it man. I call him into do a simple job like stoping a leaking faucet and come home to major remodel, with an added story, new windows and an east wing. Theres stairs and cranes and alsorts of activities, and when confronted about how he's "ruining your house" he comes back with the line "Im just making it perfect" Of all the impertinant..... aggg......agggg.....arrrrrr. But yet isnt it the truth that when God started working on you, and when God started working on me that neither one of us saw the road ahead. Not just the exterior one of travels and homes and friends and ministry. No I mean the inward one where God broke me of pride, and anger and the one where he continues to breakme of loneliness and uncertainty. Where He's brouhgt faith and joy and hope and love to make me perfect. To make you perfect too. God changes people's lives. For the better. Because He loves us he will tell us. And all of that because God is real.

And the last one is that God hears us.

I am no "back burner" project with God. Neither are you. God doesnt have the kids you work with on the back burner, your friendships, your relationship with Him, nor your futurespouse on the back burner. God is not a "back burner" sort of God. Rather His thoughts about you are at the forfront of His mind, numbering as numerous as the grains of sand. He says "Trust me Adam, for you are in the middle of everything that I have planned for you." He says it to you, he says it to me , he says it to all of creation, even while it growns, even while it pains in the labor of the new life to come. God hears us, and changes us to love Him more, because He first loved us, speaking to us that He loves us and that He exists.

These are the deep mysteries. The ones that I will hold on to lest they get away from me.

There might be more. Maybe you can come up with a few. I dont know.