On Democracy or Republic

"Pure democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." 
– James Madison, Federalist 10, 1787

Sow for yourselves righteousness;
reap steadfast love;
break up your fallow ground,
for it is the time to seek the Lord,
that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.
- Hosea 10.12

https://ref.ly/Ho10.12 
via the Logos Bible Android app.

tolerance -> silence

Evil talks about tolerance only when it's weak. When it gains the upper hand, its vanity always requires the destruction of the good and the innocent, because the example of good and innocent lives is an ongoing witness against it. So it always has been. So it always will be. And America has no special immunity to becoming an enemy of its own founding beliefs about human freedom, human dignity, the limited power of the state and the sovereignty of God.

- Charles Chaput, Archbishop of Philadelphia, 2012.
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/01/4575/

Psalm 62.8

Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before him;
God is a refuge for us. 

Conviction (Pascal)

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." 
- Blaise Pascal

Make me know my days

O Lord, make me know my end
and what is the measure of my days;
let me know how fleeting I am!
Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,
and my lifetime is as nothing before you.
Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Selah
Surely a man goes about as a shadow!
Surely for nothing they are in turmoil;
man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather!
“And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?
My hope is in you.

Psalm 39.4-7a

I love you, O Lord, my strength.
The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold ...
This God—his way is perfect;
the word of the Lord proves true;
he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.

http://ref.ly/BibleESV.Ps18.1-2 and 30 via the Logos Bible Android app.

Character is often formed on the anvil of pain.
- Alan Crippen

Ps. 5.11-12

“But let all who take refuge in you rejoice;
let them ever sing for joy,
and spread your protection over them,
that those who love your name may exult in you.
For you bless the righteous, O Lord;
you cover him with favor as with a shield.”

http://ref.ly/BibleESV.Ps5.11-12 via the Logos Bible Android app.

Pleasures.forever

You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
- Ps 16.11 ESV

meaning

The meaning of earthly existence lies not as we've grown used to thinking,
in prospering but in the development of the soul.
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Cancer Ward (1968)

music

Music expresses that which cannot be said
and on which it is impossible to be silent.
- Victor Hugo

In your presence is full joy

I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you.”
...
You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
- Ps. 16.2, 11

tempest of living

“Do and dare what is right, not swayed by the whim of the moment. Bravely take hold of the real, not dallying now with what might be. Not in the flight of ideas but only in action is freedom. Make up your mind and come out into the tempest of living.”

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics

Law and Grace

After God gave the promise to Abraham, he gave the law to Moses. Why? Simply because he had to make things worse before he could make them better. The law exposed sin, provoked sin, condemned sin. The purpose of the law was…to lift the lid off man's respectability and disclose what he is really like underneath—sinful, rebellious, guilty, under the judgment of God, and helpless to save himself. And the law must still be allowed to do its God-given duty today. One of the great faults of the contemporary church is the tendency to soft-pedal sin and judgment…. We must never bypass the law and come straight to the gospel. To do so it to contradict the plan of God in biblical history…. No man has ever appreciated the gospel until the law has first revealed him to himself. It is only against the inky blackness of the night sky that the stars begin to appear, and it is only against the dark background of sin that the gospel shines forth. Not until the law has bruised and smitten us will we admit our need of the gospel to bind up our wounds. Not until the law has arrested and imprisoned us will we pine for Christ to set us free. Not until the law has condemned and killed us will we call upon Christ for justification and life. Not until the law has driven us to despair of ourselves will we ever believe in Jesus. Not until the law has humbled us even to hell will we turn to the gospel to raise us to heaven.

- John Stott, The Message of Galatians in The Bible Speaks Today Series (London and Downers Grove: IVP, 1968), 93.

Reverence and Mercy

Lord, as Mary said, please help me revere (fear) You and know Your mercy and lovingkindness.

My soul magnifies the Lord, 
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 
for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. 
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; 
for he who is mighty has done great things for me, 
and holy is his name. 
And his mercy is for those who fear him 
from generation to generation. 

- Luke 1.46b-50

Dostoyevsky: "if there is no God, all things are permissible."

“The Bible is the greatest of all books; to study it is the noblest of all pursuits; to understand it, the highest of all goals.”
- Charles C. Ryrie

Died Feb. 16 2016

following Jesus, not traditions

Matthew 15.1-9:

Then Pharisees and fscribes came to Jesus ffrom Jerusalem and said, 2 g“Why do your disciples break hthe tradition of the elders? jFor they do not wash their hands when they eat.” 3 He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God commanded,k‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, l‘Whoever revilesfather or mother must surely die.’ 5 But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,”1 6 he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have mmade void the word2 of God. 7 nYou hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:
8  o“ ‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me;
9  in vain do they worship me,
teaching as pdoctrines the commandments of men.’ ”

The truth hurts.  Our Lord spoke this way to a group of people, men who upheld one act, one aspect of traditional law, while forgetting or intentionally ignoring another aspect.

While the specific details may be different, the general principle Jesus used is applicable to us, to me, today.  What traditions do I uphold, while neglecting the greater aspects to which I am called as a disciple of Jesus?  How am I honoring God with my lips, my words, while my heart is far from Him?  How often do I, do we worship in vain, compelling the doctrines of men while ignoring the compelling, the leading of the Holy Spirit?

Lord, please help shape me to fall more in line with you, even only for this one day, as each day has enough trouble of its own.