Dale Cresap's blog

The horizon is the visible line where the terrain meets the sky. It is the most distant thing you can see on the earth’s surface. Pilots use it as a reference for their attitude. The stars are further away, but they also serve as a position and directional reference for those who can read them. For those who are prepared to accept the idea there is a transcendent horizon. This is may not be visible, but it is a real source of directional reference for those who walk by faith. My word commends those who lived and died in faith, saying that they could see afar off, and sought a city with foundations in the heavens, whose builder and maker was God. How far can you see? 

Do you like instant gratification? Who doesn’t? Your whole commercial culture is built around it and electronic communication devices make it easy to get instant results. Yet you are still tied to a long term gratification cycle that you can’t escape because you need to eat. Anyone who has grown a garden knows that food grows in a gradual process. You can’t see it happen as you watch, but over time it does. This is more essential to your life than communications that happen immediately. Let me teach you a lesson here through nature that applies in other areas too. Be patient. Some things take time. 

I have taught you to love your enemies. Does this sound like an impossible task? Don’t pretend that you don’t have any. Do you ever have a smug sense of satisfaction when you hear about a scandal in a church much different from your own? Are you eager to spread the news? This is not a gracious attitude or act. Are you willing to see my body as a single entity? This is the image I give for my church. I point out how absurd it would be for one part of the body to say that it has no need of another part. How much more absurd would it be for the right hand to gloat because the left hand is injured? 

Are you easily offended? Perhaps you think this is a virtue. If you take upon yourself the role of the defender of the faith, then you have a lot of chapters and verses to defend, and you will find many opportunities. Be careful that you don’t make more enemies than converts. Can you shrug off a direct insult? A woman came to me on behalf of her sick daughter. I did not respond readily and even made a disparaging remark comparing her to a dog. She was not easily put off and replied that even dogs got table scraps. She was not easily offended, and I healed her daughter. It is hard to humiliate the humble. 

Do you see your doctor as having the primary responsibility for your health? Or your employer or the government or your insurance company? You do well to seek capable medical care when you need it, but you will be healthiest if you consider yourself to be primarily responsible for your health care. What about your spiritual health? Do you think that is  the pastor’s job? I assign them to watch for your souls and give an account, but you can choose your pastor in much the same way you choose your doctor. You will have the best spiritual health if you consider it your primary responsibility rather than someone else’s.

Do you understand that your spiritual journey takes a lifetime? Don’t let this discourage you. It is the purpose of your life. Does knowing that this is a long term project make it easy for you to be complacent? This is not an appropriate response either. You need patience to not be discouraged by the length of the task. Yet you also need patience to remain fully involved and engaged with it. Patience is not only a lack of stress for things that take time. It also allows you to maintain a sense of urgency in spite of the long duration. Do these things appear to be in conflict? That is why patience is a fruit of the Spirit. 

You are made to look forward and not back. Your own anatomy teaches you this lesson. It is possible to walk backwards, but it is awkward and clumsy. In like manner you can look back over your shoulder, but this is uncomfortable especially if you do it very long. You are built to look in the direction of movement and you have modern secular proverbs about watching where you are going and keeping your eyes on the road. This is obvious in a physical sense. Do you see the spiritual parallel? No man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the Kingdom of God, and run the race with your eyes on the prize of your high calling. 

Do you find that intelligence is a highly rated attribute among intelligent people? This is something that is valued by your culture as a whole, but I gave everyone their abilities, and did not make those with less intelligence to be inferior beings. Every positive quality, such as beauty, carries an inherent risk, such as vanity. Those with greater cognitive abilities are more likely to trust in them. Yet I am smarter than anyone, and even the most intelligent cannot generate divine wisdom on their own. The more willing you are to seek and trust me, the more access you will have to divine wisdom. The smarter you are the better you should be able to understand this. 

You do not live as a disembodied spirit. You have a spirit, but you also have a body, and I created both. In times past some schools of theology considered the body to be inherently evil, and so they saw a conflict between body and spirit. You live in a culture that celebrates the body and youth, so it admires bodies, but only those that are perfect by its standards. If your body doesn’t meet these standards is it a burden to you? Your embodied presence is more than a number on the bathroom scale. It is the earthly temple of the essence of your being, and of my Holy Spirit. Don’t let your culture rob you of this perspective. 

My word describes many encounters that I had with the Pharisees, and I had some sharp words for them. For whom were these written? Do you suppose any of them read these as scriptures after they were canonized? My word says that these things were written for you. The Pharisees represented the religious establishment in their own generation. Do you in yours? If so then you should be aware that the same dynamics can be in effect, and the same faults can ensnare those in similar positions. I make no accusations and only invite you to examine yourself in this matter as you do others. Only wear the shoe if it fits.