Mother

“For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb.” (Psalm 139:13 NASB)

For a good parent, a child’s needs come before any other duty or concern. Thank you, Mother, for being all things to me when I came into this world completely helpless, blind, and vulnerable. Hallelujah!

Before any outing with your husband or friends, before any scheduled appointment, came my every need and heart’s desire. Hallelujah! Before the checkbook could ever be balanced or the grocery list completed, you considered the needs of your baby boy. I have yet to see the face of Jesus as I shall someday. However, since before I was able to crawl, through it all, stand or fall, you have been here for me. I have said and done so many things unnecessarily. Yet, allow me to say now that I do recognize just how blessed and highly favored I have always been to have a mother who, next to God, placed my well being above all else in life. With exemplary devotion and love you have always been a testament to God’s perfect love.

Despite the many moments when I acted quite unlovable, you never failed to demonstrate the unconditional love and faithfulness of God to me clearly. Your acceptance and encouragement are the soil in which I have grown up to be the man I am today. Thank you, Mom, above all. I thank God Almighty for you and honor you today just because I can and I must. I love you! Praise God!

© 2013 Brian L Hunter

Marriage? Really?

“It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house.” (Proverbs 21:9)

As my sister in the Body of Christ, though the Word of God should motivate you to press for the mark for the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus, “if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you (Romans 8:9),” I make demands upon neither your level of maturity (Hebrews 5:15) nor your love quotient (1 Corinthians 13:4-7). However, when you say you want to be a bride, then the Word of God judges your worthiness to be so. Do you qualify?

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” (Romans 8:1) Period. There is no condemnation to them which have been abused sexually as children, stalked, raped, maimed, disfigured,  addicted to drugs,  prostituted, or oppressed in any way, shape, or form. Hallelujah! You are, most assuredly according to 2 Corinthians 5:17, a new creation in Christ. Praise our Most Merciful Father who art in Heaven. [I capitalize Heaven because, since God resides there and He is the preeminent Creator of all things (John 1:3, Colossians 1:16), Heaven is, in my heart, mind, and soul, a “proper” noun.] Hallelujah!

Now, we know that sanctification is a process through which we must (Imperative - no “other” way) press toward the mark (Philippians 3:11-21) diligently, with great zeal and fervor (the fervent heat mentioned in 2 Peter 3:10) as opposed to a luke-warm temperature (Revelation 3:15-16). If we are not actively killing sin, sin is actively killing us. We can have multiple doctorate degrees in psychology, theology, Christian counseling, law, or medicine and be light years away from deliverance from the pain left behind as a residue from our past experiences.

Therefore, though we can dress you in Versace and parade you down the runway of life looking quite fabulous and you, through practice and rehearsal, have perfected the mechanics of praise, worship, and even, to a degree, ministry, your pain is showing and your attitudes, lack of patience, inability to trust, and rebellious self-reliance, greatly hinder and short-circuit your chances of experiencing the abundant life paid for by Christ upon the Cross. How then, are you qualified to be a help meet for any man of God? How then, shall you have peace in your home? How then, shall peace, like a river, attend your way? How, then, shall you be able to cease being a brawling woman in a wide house?

Please, learn. Please accept the fact that you do not have all the answers. Please let go of the rebellious notion that you are able to experience deliverance without the proper instruction and wise counsel. As James Brown so eloquently sang, “Please, please, please.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKNCySAvY5Y Imagine that God, rather than James Brown, is singing this song to you, Beloved of God. Also, I cannot recommend enough that you read and follow the “steps” outlined in the Books of Pastor Larry Low; first of all http://www.amazon.com/Eight-Steps-Inner-Peace-Low/dp/1466365706 then http://www.amazon.com/Genuine-Christianity-L-F-Low/dp/1589824830 and finally http://www.amazon.com/Your-Pain-Showing-Attitudes/dp/1452857024 Please, please, please do this “work” before spending even one more minute considering marriage. Be sober, be vigilant, and be ready before you say “I do.” This will save not only you, but also any men with whom you become emotionally entangled prematurely, much time and energy that would be, could be, and should be invested rather more profitably in seeking first the kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33). Beware the flesh. The flesh should be disciplined to wait upon the Lord to renew strength (Isaiah 40:31) before entertaining the lusts thereof (1 John 2:16).

I don’t expect many to say amen regarding this. And, please, understand that I am just talking about what I am talking about and not directing this toward any individual or group. If the Word of God convicts and the shoe fits, then “despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.” (Proverbs 3:11-12) Hallelujah! Don’t shoot the messenger who loves you enough to risk hurting your delicate feelings. Trust God! Evict that foul spirit and his lies! "Crack that whip! Give the pass a slip. Now whip it - into shape. Get straight. Go forward. Move ahead. Try to detect it. It's not too late - to whip it - whip it good." (Devo, 1980)

Let us pray without ceasing. (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

© 2012 Brian L Hunter

Election 2012 Facebook Ugliness Response

“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” (Psalm 133:1)

I can remember studying The Amy Vanderbilt Complete Book of Etiquette when I was a teenager. Two topics are considered by diplomats to be unfit for discussion in social settings. Those two topics are religion and politics. Offering my political opinion openly in the marketplace or at a formal dinner party would not be completely unlike eating meat that had been sacrificed unto idols (1 Corinthians 10:28). I would undoubtedly be offending someone by doing so. Should such be named among us? Does such unite us? Nay, I would think my concentration would produce better fruit (not bitter) by focusing on that meat Jesus spoke of having that the disciples knew not of (John 4:32).

“Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.” (Psalm 19:14)

© 2012 Brian L Hunter

American Shame 2012 Part 3

“As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions.” (Romans 14:1 ESV)

Are we praying, or whining and complaining? If the church would get up, stand up, and obey the Word of the Lord rather than arguing with the world and spouting political opinions as if they matter, then, for example, millions of our young girls wouldn’t be so likely to consider having abortions. Trees cannot be cut down from the top and neither can unrighteousness. Unless you affect the root, you may as well save your energy and your outrage for more productive activity such as prayer and preaching the Word of God in season and out of season (2 Timothy 4:2). Jesus, in the seventeenth chapter of the Gospel of John, prayed that we, His disciples, be one as He was one with the Father and vice versa. Is sharing my political opinion and my judgmental outrage about government’s ungodliness lifting up Jesus and drawing all men unto Him, magnifying the Lord, or exhibiting faith in God’s sovereign omnipotence and trusting wholly in His ability to perfectly care for me? I pray for higher heights and deeper depths of faith to become evident in my walk and in my talk...

 © 2012 Brian L Hunter

Expository Preaching?

“How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14)

Of politically correct humanist self-sufficiency couched in Darwinian overtones and faith flavored promises of going to the next level regarding profundity and wealth, I shall prove to be rather ignorant. I come not with enticing words, three points and a poem, nor a fundraiser in the form of a theatrical performance. No. I fear God too much to allow the world to classify me as a preacher by today’s standards. Just call me Brother Brian if you please. For preaching of the highest order, I would direct ones attention to the oratory of John Chrysostom, other Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers willing to be burned at the stake or thrown into the lion’s den rather than recant their testimony of Christ as Lord, and Jonathan Edwards.

Concerning modern expository preaching, I would also caution us that it is possible to go completely overboard with exposition for the sake of exposition even when based upon thorough and defensible exegesis. Reason, even when doctrinally sound and theologically relevant, cannot save, heal, deliver, or set any captive free from sin. Personally, I will always tend to reject an argument that is mean spirited or made by an individual or group claiming absolute moral and intellectual superiority. In this regard, I cannot imagine that I am altogether different from most people. The question then arises, “Is it Christ or the preacher that is being lifted up?”

We are not angels, saints. Therefore, the mechanics of our communication can easily become more important to us than the power, love, and sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7) meant to be conveyed by our singular message of hope, the kernel of which is Jesus Christ and Him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2). We can therefore, much like the Pharisees, “err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.” (Matthew 22:29) Has God made us to be ministers of the New Testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit? Yes! For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life (2 Corinthians 3:6). Shame on us, if, by way of arrogance and pride, we work against the abundance of life that is the inheritance of all those who are in Christ. Let faith and not condemnation come when we have spoken.

 © 2012 Brian L Hunter

Dark Places, Empty Spaces, and Presidential Races in 2012

We see in the Gospels that Jesus often met the misguided good intentions of the Pharisees with compassion and disdain, only to be set upon by the same religious elite with burning eyes, crass insinuation, and outright mockery as foreplay which led ultimately to plots of conspiracy, false witness, and murder. God, The Ancient of Days, was in mid swing reconciling fallen man to himself through the manifestation of His Word become flesh, Jesus Christ The Anointed One and His Anointing. Hallelujah. Can there ever again exist a more horrifically tragic transmogrification of irony, evil self-aggrandizement, and hypocrisy as that which was demonstrated by the scribes and Pharisees? It remains a mystery how Christ could be simultaneously fully God and fully man - the hypostatic union to reference the proper Christology. Yet, like a kernel of wheat destined to be made broken bread (John 6:35, Matthew 26:26) and like a lamb born to be led to the slaughter (Jeremiah 11:19, Isaiah 53:7), Jesus Christ laid it down, giving up the ghost in the very prime of His human life here on this earthen soil.

I too, in 2012, have witnessed horrifically tragic transmogrification of irony, evil self-aggrandizement, and hypocrisy not unlike that which was demonstrated by the scribes and Pharisees long ago in a galaxy not so far away. I have seen people bend and twist their theology and doctrine to make it line up with their prejudices and fears. Multitudes this year walked by sight rather than by faith while being swept up into emotional political hurricanes and mob mentalities which all could have been much more God glorifying than they shall, years from now, turn out to be in the final historical analysis. Periods of America’s churchy past are far from scripturally sound and this year revealed much guile in us which was the opposite of spiritual fruit. God’s true church, just as it was during the not so distant and extremely profitable era of American slavery, is indeed invisible. Thank God for zealous abolitionists. However, in terms of representation in American churches, righteousness was quite the minority then as is the case this very moment. Some still wonder if Heaven will be segregated. We have heaped shame upon ourselves in abundance, Heavenly Father. Please help us, Lord God Almighty, to see ourselves the way You see us and not through phantasmagorical rose colored glasses like we apparently see ourselves as though we have not sinned and You are a liar (1 John 1:8-10).

You have not called us to win any popularity contests, Lord. The truth always has and always shall either make us mad or make us glad. Such is the nature of conviction, Holy One of Israel. Righteousness shall never sit on the fence. There is no in between. There shall be no co-mingling of funds so to speak. I suspect my friends list shall dwindle not many days hence after the transparency with which I have herein had the gall to express myself. And, oh my goodness, has this American actually had the nerve to play the race card as we have so benignly classified such blood forced verity? Has another figurative Native American actually had the nerve to cry foul from the Trail of Tears? Yet, being neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, I am completely unconcerned how I appear to people who can neither create nor destroy my life. “It is too late baby. Now, it’s too late,” said Carole King some forty one years ago. Whether it is regarded as diatribe or ballyhoo, my cat is out of the bag. Praise God! I am but a foolish thing of the world if I confound but one wise man in this day and age.

Fortunately for the faint of heart, like a bear, I am entering hibernation now with these keystrokes. I am not boring as some have surmised. There should be some humor evident in whatever this communication is ultimately classified. Genuine friends will love me hereafter regardless of what I think out loud. All may take solace in the fact that I shall not soon be heard from again. I need a season of quiet reflection, perhaps a month, perhaps longer, in which to dream of a kinder, gentler America than this year has fully disclosed. We are a nation of brilliant rain men. Idiot savants rule us. I would imagine at least one someone out there shares this sentiment. I want my imagination to run wild having been fed a steady diet of God’s Word, the whole counsel of God, and nothing but the truth.

Therefore, help me, God is my prayer. Make me a thousand times more loving, forgiving, and compassionate than I am. Help me to wash away all the pain of my experience thus far so that all that remains in me is what You shall use to glorify Your holy name, Lord Jehovah. Hallelujah! I am excited about the new things around the corner of my life in Christ. I anticipate sharper senses, keener insights, and greater discernment through which You shall be glorified and exalted. Purify my thoughts, oh Lord. Strengthen my resolve to present my body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto You. Please do not allow me to be conformed to this world, oh God. Help me to be transformed by the renewing of this mind so that I may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will which originates in the thinking of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost who agree wholeheartedly in Heaven as one . Hallelujah! Smile graciously upon and bless exceeding, abundantly, each and every soul who spared the time to read this inconsequential post during my hiatus. Thank You that I can hear You more clearly now, Lord. If I never do this again, please let me serve You more obediently with the greatest sense of purpose imaginable. Let me take everything as seriously as I have taken music all of my life thus far. Let me gladly give up Facebook altogether if that is what You call me to do in this hour, Lord. Considering what You have done and continue to do for my benefit, I will gladly change my life for You, Almighty God. Help me to decrease so that You may increase in me for the rest of my days in Jesus’ mighty name. Amen.

© 2012 Brian L Hunter