Doing Life Together

One thing is for sure – the body needs water.  The body is composed primarily of water.  Water is involved in every important function in our body.  Experts tell us that most Americans are in a chronically dehydrated state.  We are advised to drink 2-3 quarts daily.

What makes this really strange is that, unlike much of the world, we live in a country with an abundance of water.  We have it on tap in our homes, and we can buy bottled water everywhere.  Speaking of bottled water, here’s an interesting fact:  bottled water is less regulated than tap water.

When we are engaged in strenuous activity in hot weather, it is especially important to stay hydrated.  Have you ever experienced dehydration?

I remember having the dehydration thing hit me while I was serving in the Army Reserve.  We were at a firing range and were being trained on the M-60 machine gun.  It was mid-July, and we were in full combat gear out in the blazing sun.  Drinking water is a constant emphasis by the leadership in the Army, but for some reason, on this day I just didn’t think I needed it.

I started feeling funky while we were on the range, but when I walked off my firing position, I felt sick and started seeing spots, and the earth was spinning.  I must have looked really bad because my squad leader put me in the shade and ordered me to spend some time with my canteen.  I laid down on my poncho spread-eagle.  One of my fellow platoon members walked up on me and thought I was in need of CPR – which scared him to death!!  The thought of giving me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation about did him in.  I assured him I was good and just needed to rest, much to his relief.  After a while I began to feel better and was able to resume training.

The problem for me was not a lack of available water – it was a lack of water intake.

The Bible is to us spiritually what water is to us physically.  It is crucial to good spiritual health.  Yet we so often find ourselves spiritually dehydrated.  Ironically, like water, we have the Word all around us.  The problem is not a lack of available Bibles – it is a lack of Bible intake.  We neglect to “spiritually hydrate” our inner man and as a result become increasingly dry spiritually.

We need to drink deeply from the Word “early and often,” not just when we feel dehydrated in our walk with the Lord.  The key is to stay hydrated.  We want to avoid what the Bible calls a famine of hearing the Words of the Lord.

I love this quote from George Mueller,

“I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord.  The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man may be nourished…I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditation on it.”

Let’s stay hydrated today – both with water and the Word.

Today our Jewish friends celebrate Yom Kippur, or The Day of Atonement.  Yom Kippur is the highest holy day for the Jews.  They observe it in various ways, depending on their level of orthodoxy.

You can read about how it was to be observed at the Temple in the Old Testament by the children of Israel in Leviticus 16:1-22.

The Bible paints a clear description of the perfect atoning sacrifice of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  The Day of Atonement was a picture (or type) of what Jesus would one day accomplish once and for all by His substitutionary death on the cross followed by His glorious resurrection.

Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!  2 Corinthians 9:15

• David Nasser is the man!  What a great day yesterday!  God used him in a powerful way all day long!
• Long Hollow’s Student Crusade continues tonight with Clayton King preaching.  Should be awesome!
• Chris White and his band are also awesome!  He’ll be here all week.
• Vandy is ranked 13th in the country!  Go Dores!

• Titans are 5-0!  Only one other team is undefeated in the NFL – the defending Super Bowl champion New York Giants.
• Nashville is becoming the football mecca.
• Tennessee is struggling mightily – but my blood still runneth orange.
• My youngest son turned 12 yesterday.  He is the man!  Loves to play drums.  Can anyone say earplugs?
• I tried my hand at this tenderloin everyone cooks at their tailgate parties.  It could replace pork chops in Dale’s Sauce as the Landrith’s favorite for the grill.
• Tomorrow the world turns its attention to Nashville for the presidential debate at Belmont.  Amazing!
• Regardless of your political persuasion, you have to admit Tina Fey has Sarah Palin down cold.

• Big question – will it snow this winter?

Man, I love this time of the year!  I always have.  I love the cooler weather, I love football, and I especially love the color of the leaves.  The fall always has always been a rejuvenating time for me.  The beauty of a sugar maple in the fall gets me fired up!!

You don’t have to go to the Smokies to find beautiful color.  Just get out and drive a country road, and you’ll be blessed.

It’s good to be a Tennessean, but especially this time of year!

Today I read a chapter in A Godward Life, by John Piper, that greatly challenged me.  Drawing from Jonathon Edward’s writings, he calls us to a higher expression of gratitude toward God than just simply what God has done for us.  It is convicting to consider the foundation for our gratitude to God.

Here are a few of his thoughts:

“…gratitude that is pleasing to God is not first a delight in the benefits God gives (although that is part of it).  True gratitude must be rooted in something else that comes first, namely, a delight in the beauty and excellency of God’s character.  If this is not the foundation of our gratitude, then it is not above what the ‘natural man’ - apart from the Spirit and the new nature in Christ – experiences.  In that case, gratitude to God is no more pleasing to God than all the other emotions that unbelievers have without delighting in Him.

You would not be honored if I thanked you often for your gifts to me, but had no deep and spontaneous regard for you as a person.  You would feel insulted no matter how much I thanked you for your gifts.  If your character and personality do not attract me or give me joy in being around you, then you will just feel used, like a tool or a machine to produce the things I really love.”

So it is with God.  If we are not captured by His personality and character, then all our declarations of thanksgiving are like the gratitude of a wife to a husband for the money she gets from him to use in  her affair with another man.”

Wow!  Chew on that for a little while.

He goes on to say,  “It is a shocking thing to learn that one of today’s most common descriptions of how to respond to the cross may well be a description of natural self-love with no spiritual value.”

Let that sink in for a minute.

Finally, he writes, “God is not glorified if the foundation of our gratitude is the worth of the gift and not the excellency of the giver.  If gratitude is not rooted in the beauty of God before the gift, it is probably disguised idolatry.  May God grant us a heart to delight in Him for who He is so that all our gratitude for His gifts will be the echo of our joy in the excellency of the Giver.”

Makes you think doesn’t it?  It’s not wrong to be grateful for all God has done for us, but that’s not the starting point.  Gratitude starts with an awareness of who God is – being in awe of One so powerful, holy, sovereign, etc.!  If not, we treat God like a genie in a bottle.

Thanks, John Piper, for challenging us to think about our faith!