This blog is intended to supplement the book: Candle Drippings: Musings from My Mind and Other Itinerant Places. You may find many of those meditations helpful. If you are interested, you can check out the book at Amazon.com. Just type in the title to search for this inspiring book and read one or two of the reviews.

Thanks bunches for your interest!

.....KRC

Holy Ground

To many of the members of the Order of the Arrow, a fraternity of campers within the Boy Scouts, the Ordeal Ring at Worth Ranch was a sacred place.  It holds many significant memories.  There some members passed their own "ordeals," their induction into the Order of the Arrow, and their induction ceremony was in itself almost a religious experience, a sacred thing.  Not just anyone could actually enter the Ring.  It lay hidden in the woods somewhere down in the "bottoms"; and unless you were a member of the Order, you didn't even know where to find it.  Rock walls guarded it on three sides, while a gentle slope dropped off the back side.  A narrow passage between two boulders served as an entrance.  When not used for "Ordeal" ceremonies, the ring offered a quiet haven for solitude, meditation, and reflection.

            That Sunday morning in December, as our troop began cleaning up after breakfast, I set out alone for the ring.  I needed a moment of solitude and personal reflection before the boys gathered for camp worship.  The Ordeal Ring contained no seats except for an occasional rock here and there low to the ground.  There was a mosaic of grass and patches of dirt for a floor.  As I sat down on a rock near the center, I felt captivated by the sounds, a winter bird chirping somewhere in the woods, the breeze rustling high in the branches around me.  I sat there thinking -- I'm not sure what, now -- until a sense of God's presence seemed to drift around me, gently, quietly.  No burning bush.  No earthquake.  Not even a still, small voice.  Just a sense as real as the wind in my face that He had joined me.  I almost expected to hear a the voice saying, "Take off your shoes.  This is holy ground."  For the brief space of half an hour, it was holy ground to me.  Not because I passed my ordeal there.  I didn't.  But because the presence of God met me there.

            What made that spot holy ground?  Remember Moses?  While he shepherded the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, he had a more dramatic encounter with the Lord.  At the time, he was just an ordinary person who had found himself on a spot covered with patches of grass, rocks, a scattering of bushes meager in size as well as number.  But there God chose to reveal Himself to Moses.  First, "the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed." (Exodus 3.2)  This was unusual in that wilderness.  Not unusual that the bush caught fire, but that it never burned up.  When finally Moses could contain himself no longer, he turned to see why the bush had not burned up.  Then, the Lord Himself spoke to Moses from the midst of the bush.  And He said, "Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." (Exodus 3.5)

            A patch of grass, dirt, and rocks -- holy ground?  You bet.  Why?  What makes such a scrubby spot holy?  A holy God stepped out of His holy place and stepped down to an unholy earth to meet a sinful man right where he was and to transform his life.  And the very presence of that holy God transformed that otherwise scraggly spot into holy ground.  Isn't it amazing?  Any place -- a church sanctuary, a football stadium, a clearing in the woods, or a spot on a mountainside -- can become holy if God is there.  When God reveals Himself at such a spot, that revelation nearly always includes a vivid awareness of His holiness.  God is holy.  How desperately we need to grasp that fact.  Of all the attributes theologians have categorized, this one dominates.  Jack Hayford said the holiness of God is that which preserves who He is as God.  In fact, biblical writers themselves use this term holy more frequently than all others to describe the nature and being of God.  He is the Holy One, or the Holy One of Israel.  His is a holy name.  He dwells in a holy temple.  He is addressed in prayer as Holy Father.  God is holy.

            When God shows up, the ground all around Him becomes holy ground.  When He reveals Himself to unholy man, it usually results in a response from him.  And it's usually more than just taking off his shoes.

The Whole of Man

I love a good mystery!  When I was growing up, I cut my teeth on Sherlock Holmes and Perry Mason.  In fact, I still love an occasional Perry Mason rerun.  But there is a mystery in the universe that makes a Sherlock Holmes adventure look like a child's puzzle.  That mystery is the Lord Himself.  He is inscrutable (Isaiah 40.28).  He is incomprehensible (Job 37.5).  He is unknowable (Job 36.23).  He is awesome, majestic, full of wonder (Exodus 15.11).  He is limitless (Job 11.7).  His ways are beyond us (Isaiah 55.9).  Great minds, past and present, have tried to penetrate the mystery of God, to fathom its depths, to comprehend His ways.  Scientists have tried to explain His ways while philosophers have treated Him as a quaint idea.  But after centuries of inquiry, God is still a mystery.

            God is far too complex for the scientist and far too deep to satisfy the philosopher.  By now, you have probably sensed some of my own struggle with this mystery.  Larry Crabb said men inevitably have difficulty handling mystery; and he's right.  So please bear with me as I consider once more the question how then should we respond to Him?  The wisest man in history suggests the only appropriate response a finite person can give to the infinite God:  "Here is the  conclusion, when all has been heard: fear God and observe His commandments, because this is the whole of man" (Ecclesiastes 12.13, my translation).  We have already seen a little of what the fear of the Lord means, but what does it actually involve?  How does it become a reality in our experience?

            In his conclusion, Solomon focuses not on fear and obedience, important as they may be, but rather on God and His commandments.  The Hebrew is more emphatic, reading like this: "God fear and His commandments keep!"  When we focus our attention on the Lord Himself, our response follows spontaneously.  And that response is essentially one of fear and trembling.  Albert Martin suggests several ingredients that comprise the fear of the Lord.  Let's look at two of them.  One is a pervasive sense of the presence of God.  If you are conscious of the presence of God manifest around you and in your life, you will naturally respond with fear.  Let me suggest (if we are not too proud to receive it) a modern example from Kenneth Grahame's delightful tale, The Wind in the Willows.  Rat and Mole are approaching the mythical creature Pan on some island in their world, speaking to each other about him as if he were God.  "'Rat,' he found the breath to whisper, shaking, 'Are you afraid?'  'Afraid?' murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love.  'Afraid?  Of Him?  O never, never, never.  And yet---and yet---O Mole, I am afraid.'"

            When we enter the presence of God, our response is much the same.  We are not afraid and yet we are.  A.W. Tozer calls this one of the paradoxes of the Christian faith, to fear and not to be afraid.  We enter His presence in fear and we walk with Him until our fear matures into fellowship.  But ultimately the fear lingers when we're in His presence.  Remember Jacob?  When he awoke from his dream, he said essentially, "The Lord is here and I did not know it.  I'm scared." (cp. Genesis 28.16-17).  The presence of God alone generates godly fear of the Lord.

            Martin offers a second ingredient, a correct concept of the character of God.  Even a brief glimpse of Who God is should send us trembling to our knees.  When King Uzziah died, Isaiah experienced the presence of God and a glimpse of His character at the same time.  His response to both was to fear the Lord.  He saw the Lord sitting on a throne, surrounded by angelic beings.  The temple was filled with smoke, the doors trembled on their hinges, the seraphim covered their faces with their wings and cried to one another, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory" (Isaiah 6.3).  The entire scene radiates the holiness of God.  As a result, Isaiah feared for his life.  He fell on his face and cried out, "Woe is me, for I am ruined!  Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts" (Isaiah 6.5).

You see, God is a God of holiness, a God of majesty.  A God of transcendent glory.  Our God is an awesome God.  Perhaps the greatest title of honor we can place upon the Lord, however, is that of holiness.  God is a God of love, no doubt.  The Bible says so.  He is a God of light and of wrath.  But holiness reflects the majesty of His very name.  Holiness reflects the venerableness of His name.  The beauty of the Lord glows through His holiness.  Over three hundred years ago, Stephen Charnock said of all the attributes applied to the name of God, holy is the most frequently used.  The holiness of God, he adds,  is "the glory of every perfection in the Godhead; as His power is the strength of them, so His holiness is the beauty of them; as all would be weak without almightiness to back them, so all would be uncomely without holiness to adorn them...."  According to Charnock, God's purity is the splendor of every attribute in the Godhead.  The majesty of God stands for His purity, His truth, His holiness, His justice, and every expression that indicates the moral supremacy of the Lord.  And it is the moral purity, the holiness of God that moves us to fear Him.  And Solomon said this is the very essence of our being ---to fear the Lord; it is "the whole of man."

All Things New

The Bible is a remarkable book! One of its most fascinating characteristics is that it begins with an account of Creation and ends with a vision of a new creation. In between, it tells how we messed up the first, creating a need for the second. You see, God is in the business of creating, even takes delight in creating. I love the way poet James Weldon Johnson expressed it:

                        Then God smiled,

                        And the light broke,

                        And the darkness rolled up on one side,

                        And the light stood shining on the other,

                        And God said, That's good! (Italics are mine)

Again and again, Genesis one echoes with the words, "That's good!"

Then man messed things up by sinning. That's not good! But God is also in the business of re-creating. It goes by many names--restoration, reconciliation, regeneration, redemption; but it still takes an act of God, and it is still an act of creation, bringing  about something that is new. He sent His Son to begin the task of renewing His creation; and in the end, His Son will complete the task. Theologian Bernard Ramm explained it this way: "The culmination of redemption is to bring into existence the new, so that the theme of eschatology could well be that given in Revelation 21:5, 'Behold, I make all things new.'"

Eschatology is the study of last things, things that will happen at the end of the age. And at that time, our Lord will have made all things new. In the meantime, however, He has been at work already making things new. In fact, the word make in Revelation 21:5 is a present tense verb, which means that He is making all things new even as I write this sentence. Redemption began at the beginning when God clothed Adam and Eve with animal skins. Actually, it began before the beginning, since God chose us in Christ "before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him." (see Ephesians 1:3-5) Now, in Christ Jesus, He continues to make all things new. And will continue until He consummates His work into eternity.

The Bible has several words for new. The one John uses in Revelation 21:5 is the Greek word kainos, meaning new not in terms of time, such as recently occurring, but new in terms of form or quality. It is something of a different nature from what is old.

To make "all things new," He began with us. Paul says, " if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come." (2 Corinthians 5:17, italics mine) God doesn't just patch up the cracks we've created in our lives. Remember Jeremiah's potter? "But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make." (18:4) Jeremiah pictured what God is doing for us this very day, remaking us into another vessel as it pleases Him.

He is changing the form and quality of our lives to make them more like His (Romans 8:28-29; 2 Corinthians 3:18). In Ephesians, Paul described it. He said, "... that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth." (Ephesians 4:23b-24, italics mine)

Our new self is characterized by righteousness because righteousness is a vital quality of God's character (John 17:25). Our new self is holy because He is holy (Leviticus 19:1; 1 Peter 1:15-16). And it bears the integrity of truth because He is the truth (John 14:6).

As we begin each new day, week, month--yea, each new year, we can praise the Lord that Jesus will not present us to His Father as merely the "old man" improved, but as an entirely new creation with a new name, a new heart, a new nature, and a new body  "holy and blameless" in Him (Ephesians 5:27) who specializes in making "all things new!"

Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.  ~~ Ronald Reagan

A Sheltering Tree

(Original Candle Drippings Title: "The Lord of Love")

As our years increase and grey hairs begin to invade the brown, our hearts turn to reflection.  About youth, love. Sunsets. Cool evenings.  Spring rains.  Age, joy, friendship, the ideals we once embraced.  Shortly before his death on July 25, 1834, Samuel Taylor Coleridge expressed his reflections in a poignant poem, Youth and Age.  In the middle of the poem, he wrote,

Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like;

Friendship is a sheltering tree;

O! the joys, that came down shower-like,

Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,

Ere I was old!

            I'm intrigued by the second line of this excerpt: "Friendship is a sheltering tree."  Friendship seemed to come hard for Coleridge.  All of his life he suffered from numerous physical ailments.  As a result, he frequently took heavy doses of laudanum---opium dissolved in alcohol until he became addicted to the drug.  Perhaps because of the influence of the drug, perhaps not, who can tell, he struggled with loneliness and the sense of isolation that often accompanies it.  But there were a few friends who took away some of the loneliness.  One of them,  William Wordsworth, was especially close.  From their first meeting right up to Coleridge's death, Wordsworth was to him a sheltering tree, bringing the ailing poet into the shade of comfort, encouragement, and support that often defines a true friend.

            I have a friend like that.  His name is Jesus.  And before He departed this world, He commanded His disciples to be that kind of friend to each other.  "A new commandment I give to you," He said, "that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another."  (John 13.34)  Here is one instance where we are specifically told to act like Jesus.  Love one another even as I have loved you.  The words even as mean "in just the same way."  We need to love each other in just the same way Jesus loved us.  Then we, too, can grow into a sheltering tree for one another in Christ.

            But how?  Jesus's love was unconditional, unselfish, unrestrained, and unending.  He loved willingly and sacrificially.  Friendship, the kind that loves like Jesus loves, actually begins with acceptance.  Have you ever thought how diffcult it is to accept some of our brothers with all their quirks and idiosyncracies?  They do one thing that rubs you the wrong way and you back off.  Even when they apologize and try to make things right, you only move in to  a "discreet distance," or maybe back off further refusing to restore friendship at all. Jesus says we must accept them for who they are in Christ, not because of anything they do.  Accept them because they are His.

            When He found us, Jesus accepted us just as we were.  Look again at those He hung around with.  Jesus was accused of befriending prostitutes, crooked tax agents, thieves, drunkards, and other sinners.  And check out those who became His innermost circle of companions.  Coarse fishermen, a questionable tax agent, a political zealot, to name a few.  Peter was so impetuous he constantly screwed up.  But Jesus said, "I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail."  (Luke 22.32)  John had a temper so intense it earned him the nickname "Son of Thunder."  But he earned the distinction of being the disciple whom Jesus loved.

            Furthermore, Jesus's love was other-centered.  His entire life and ministry expressed His love to others by serving them, pleasing them, lifting them up.  He told His disciples, "Whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." (Matthew 20.28, italics mine)  To serve someone as Jesus did, you have to focus your attention on them, to look after their needs over and above your own.  "Have this attitude in yourselves," said the Apostle, "which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God..., emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant." (Philippians 2.5-7)  Immediately before that, he advised God's people to "do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others." (vs. 3-4)

How can we love as Jesus loved?  Accept one another because He has already accepted us (John 13.20), and look out for the needs of one another instead of concentrating on our own.  When we do, we begin to spread the leaves and branches of a sheltering tree over our brother or sister and show our obedience to and love for the Lord of Love.

Fallen Images

Dr. Elwin Ransom was sent on a mission. In C. S. Lewis's moving tale, Perelandra, Ransom traveled from Earth to Venus on a mission to prevent Venus's "Eve" from yielding to the temptation that would plunge her people into sin. After many days on Venus, he encountered both the King and Queen of that world, the "Adam and Eve" of Venus. Ransom was so overcome by the radiance of their appearance that he fell on his face before them and said, "Do not move away.... I have never before seen a man or woman. I have lived all my life among shadows and broken images."

            Broken images? What did he mean by this? Lewis was reminding us by a subtle suggestion that man and woman were originally created in the image of God: "Let Us make man in Our image," God said, "according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." (Genesis 1:26)

            So what is involved in the image of God? A lot. For example, an image resembles and represents the one it images. Man resembles God in that he is an intelligent, moral being. Man has a mind that can think, examine, analyze and evaluate information. And he can communicate his finding through language. According to Arthur Koestler "The emergence of symbolic language, first spoken, then written represents the sharpest break between animal and man."        Man is also moral. In fact, when speaking of man, the Bible focuses on such moral qualities as purity (1 John 3:2ff., 9); righteousness (Ephesians 4:24); and holiness (Ephesians 4:24).  All these represent ways in which man resembles God.

            The image of God also means that man represents God. In that role, man is ruler of this planet (Genesis 1:26), exercising control and authority in His name. Cultivating the land to improve and control the environment. Establishing laws so communities of people can live in harmony with one another. Governing those communities. "As vassal lord," according to theologian John Frame, "Adam is to extend God's control over the world...." Adam exercised this control at the beginning by naming the animals God brought before him (Genesis 2:19).

            But...! Ransom referred to fallen images. On earth, when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, man fell into sin. Still they remained the image of God (Genesis 9:6), but now the image is corrupted by sin--fallen!

            In Ephesians 4:22-24, Paul describes in part how the fallen image can be restored. "In reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth."

            In speaking to the King and Queen of Perelandra (Venus), Ransom indicates the goal of restoring God's image in man. He said to them, "Take me for your son." This is why God restores His image. "As many as received Him, to them gave He the power to become the sons of God...." (John 1:12, KJV). After that, He is gradually reshaping us into "the image of His Son...." (Romans 8:29). But first, we must receive Him into our hearts and trust Him to finish what He starts in us (Philippians 1:6). Then the new self will gradually replace the old self, the shadows will vanish, and the broken image will take the shape of a restored image.

Note: This article was originally written as a study for the youth at Sagamore Baptist Church, Fort Worth, Texas. I post it here to share it with all who may benefit by it. ~~krc