I am sitting looking at photos and feeling convicted. To a certain extent this is a continuation of yesterday, and the main part of the text is not that God gets angry (he does, and there is scripture to show this: this was in today’s lectionary but it is throughout the Bible.

God gets angry because we provoke him. By our rebellion and disobedience. And I am quite aware that I do my fair share of provoking. And he is merciful to us despite this. Do not read the Psalm extract as a proof text that you will be automatically blessed. I left out the rest of it, where Ephriam loses the leadership of Israel, and Joel, who is preaching during a famine, and predicts an army with severe discipline conquering Israel.

Therefore, when the LORD heard, he was full of wrath; a fire was kindled against Jacob;
his anger rose against Israel, because they did not believe in God and did not trust his saving power.

Yet he commanded the skies above and opened the doors of heaven,
and he rained down on them manna to eat and gave them the grain of heaven.

(Psalm 78:21-24 ESV)

I think we need to look again at what Christ said. He was very clear in his teaching that there was a very high chance that you would lose everything: and by everything he means all. Your wife will hate you and leave you. Your children will abandon the faith. You will be denounced to the zampolit, the SJW of this time. And money? Do not put your trust in it, for if your family does not take it the taxman will.

There is a cost in following Christ, and it can be your life itself.

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

“Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

(Luke 14:25-35 ESV)

Most preachers talk about bearing one’s own cross, and the discipline of resisting the temptations of this life is a real issue, a real discipline. We are not immune from temptation. We have to be in this world — but the world influences us, at times overmuch. And this is wrong. We are supposed to influence the world. If we are of the world we are useless. Will S. commented yesterday on this.

And to leave any churches and denominations that in any way, shape or form, whether in one’s local congregation or in others in the denomination, promote any aspects of the prog, SJW, agenda.

Locally on the issue of this time — the progressive agenda — my Kirk has stood firm on the issue of sexual morality: much to the horror of the progressive congregations who are now under direct orders to not promote faux marriages, and to keep the eldership for those who are chaste — either in godly celibacy or holy matrimony. We are much less discerning when it comes to the political process: the progressives want us to hate Israel (and Jews) while loving Palestine (and Islam) — which to my mind, is the wrong way to see this: we need to pray that they all find Christ.

In particular, we need to stop putting people in holes. Categorizing them by skin colour, disability, who they sleep with (or not) how much money the have (or not) their occupations (with a special note that the Stayathomemomma versus Workingwoman fight seems to continue, without any acknowledgement that most women have times at home with kids, and times when they have to work (with kids). Or homeschooling vs. Cooperative vs. church school vs. secular school).

We need to be different. We have been given a structure — in the writings of Paul and of Christ, in scripture, and there are clear rules for both men and women, with some differences: for men and women are different (thank God). Let the rest of the world try to become faux eunuchs. Let us instead, pay the cost required to be salt.