When the Narcissists are Gone

My first understanding of a narcissist was as someone who was in love with themselves. It was only in the last few years that it was explained why, which is, a narcissist is unable to receive a healthy shame message. They can’t admit they are wrong when they are wrong because the shame of being wrong (as they see it in their own mind) is so reprehensible that they can’t ever let themselves feel such a crippling emotion. This, of course, results in them loving and taking care of themselves no matter who gets sacrificed along the way. 

The Bible speaks of narcissists, but God has his own word for this condition that was in use long before Greek mythology presented the idea or modern psychology popularized the problem. God’s word for narcissism is “stiff-necked”. A stiff-necked person is someone who, when confronted with anything they have done wrong, cannot admit to it. Instead of bowing their head in a good and healthy response of shame for what they did, they stiffen their neck in absolute pride that they will never admit to doing anything wrong. 

The sad thing is that I can replay virtually every church I have been in and tell you the head narcissist who ran the life of the church. And they did this primarily by making the rules of how everyone had to behave and treat them so that they were never the bad guy about anything. They also delighted in gathering intel on the weaknesses of as many of the members as possible because these weaknesses could then be exploited to keep these people supporting the narcissist out of self-protection rather than doing God’s will out of faith, hope, and love. 

I bring this up because of where I am in my journey through the book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah was one of the fulfillments to a prophecy God gave his people a hundred or so years earlier, prior to the judgment of the exile. God promised, “‘And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.’”[1] Ezra and Nehemiah were two of those shepherds who overlapped in their work, Ezra focused on rebuilding the temple, and Nehemiah on rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem. 

I am into chapter 9 of Nehemiah. The people have rebuilt the temple and the wall. They are organizing for reestablishing themselves as God’s people in the land, particularly once again centered on Jerusalem. They have begun coming together to hear the word of God read to them daily. And they are so aware that it was the unrepentant sins of their people that brought all the judgment of God upon them. 

As I found them this morning once again gathering to hear the word of Yahweh, this is the way Nehemiah’s journal describes it: 

Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the people of Israel were assembled with fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth on their heads. And the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.[2] 

The following verses show how “they stood up in their place and read from the Book of the Law of the LORD their God for a quarter of the day; for another quarter of it they made confession and worshiped the LORD their God.”[3] 

Following this is a detailed confession of the sins of the people over the generations of their history, including three expressions of “stiffened their neck” in response to God’s prophets. This included them acting “presumptuously”, they “refused to obey”, and they “were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them”.[4] 

Another way this narcissistic tendency is described in God’s word is when people “harden your hearts”. A hardened heart produces a stiffened neck. All of it is a refusal to hear what God says about our sin. And churches are destroyed by such prideful rebellion because the narcissists always aim to control the church to keep anyone from daring to suggest they are doing anything wrong. 

Both these phrases come together in God’s rebuke of king Zedekiah. First, we read that, “He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD his God. He did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke from the mouth of the LORD.” And then that, “He stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the LORD, the God of Israel.”[5] 

The reason this is standing out so much for me today is that I have witnessed too many churches held back (usually completely controlled) by the chief narcissists. They will sacrifice anyone on the altar of their self-protection to maintain the appearance of always being right and never being wrong. 

And in comes this glorious picture of God’s people returning to their homeland, coming every day to hear the word of the Law of God read to them, humbling themselves under the word of God to do what it says, and now clearing up with God any sins of every generation of their people. It was the unrepentant sin of their fathers that got them into the exile and captivity, and it would be repentance of sin that laid the foundation for their return. 

The good news of the gospel began with these words from our Savior’s heart, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”[6] Repentance and belief always go together. Repentance is usually pictured as the “turning away” from sin, and belief, or faith as the “turning to” Christ. 

In fact, this is made abundantly clear in these words from the apostle Paul, “He has delivered us FROM the domain of darkness and transferred us TO the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”[7] We are delivered “from” our sinful lives and “transferred to” God’s kingdom. That happens as we join this work of God in repentance and faith. 

In the seven letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3, Jesus is clear to point out the good he saw in some of the churches, but also to identify the things he held against them. Why? Because we are taught “to PUT OFF your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to PUT ON the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”[8] The “putting off” is repentance, and the “putting on” is faith. They are always together. 

I know that not everyone in the church is a narcissist. However, we all have that narcissistic tendency to avoid shame by denying we have done something wrong. Many of us have deep hidden shame inside us that terrifies us of experiencing it again and that works against our obligation to always resolve our sin problems, not only with God, but also with anyone we hurt by our wrongdoing. 

But it is the gospel we believe in that gives us the ability to face our sin. Why? Because in Jesus Christ it is forgiven. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”[9] Even our Old Testament brothers knew this, as the psalmist wrote, “If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.”[10] And, “For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.”[11] 

The whole message of the Bible is about God the Creator who wanted a people in his own image and likeness upon whom he could show the glories of his love. The “for God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”,[12] was written into the script of salvation before creation began. And it is that love that softens hearts and necks to humbly receive the word of God. 

In our home church we promote the idea of “keeping short accounts with God”. It means that we are quick to repent of sin so that nothing has time to take root in our hearts so we “give no opportunity to the devil.”[13] 

However, for those times when we realize that we have hardened our hearts against admitting our sins, or stiffened our necks when a sermon or a scripture was working to convict us, we may need to stop and get caught up on confessing our sins and receiving forgiveness. If we ask the Lord to show us all our unrepentant sins, he will do so in the most loving and gentle ways, and we simply need to confess them and receive forgiveness. 

I often use this verse in my praying for others who are hurting the church with their unrepentant sins, and also in reminding me how I should view the times when God is being patient with me in my struggles. Paul warned, “Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?”[14] His point is that, just because you don’t see any direct discipline on specific sin in your life, don’t show contempt for God’s patience by delaying your repentance. Instead, we are to view the kindness of God’s grace and patience as the means of leading us to repentance because he would much rather bring us home the easy way than the hard way of discipline. 

Well, enough said. It is still true that “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”[15] So, “humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”[16]

 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

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[1] Jeremiah 3:15

[2] Nehemiah 9:1-2

[3] Nehemiah 9:3

[4] Nehemiah 9:16,17,29

[5] II Chronicles 36:12,13

[6] Mark 1:15

[7] Colossians 1:13-14

[8] Ephesians 4:22-24

[9] I John 1:9

[10] Psalm 130:3-4

[11] Psalm 86:5

[12] John 3:16

[13] Ephesians 4:27

[14] Romans 2:4

[15] James 4:6; I Peter 5:5

[16] I Peter 5:6-7

A Warning About Concussions and Abscessed Teeth

A week after my concussion (bonked my head on the ice at public skating Dec 22) I had to go back up to ER because of severe pain in one of my teeth. When I got in to see my dentist after Christmas break, he discovered a tooth was cracked all the way down the middle. I got it removed yesterday. 

In the instructions for recovery, a familiar warning was included. There is something called “dry socket” (sounds painful just to say it) that results when the clot is dislodged from covering the wound. I have heard of this numerous times. In fact, I was waiting in a dentist office years ago and overheard the receptionist talking to someone who was obviously frantic because they had dry socket and she had nothing she could tell them to make it better. 

Why this update on how I’m doing? Because I keep hearing people say that the Bible’s talk about God’s judgment against sin is just a bunch of scare-tactics or fearmongering. But when I hear about dry socket, something I have never personally witnessed, it scares the heebie-jeebies out of me enough that I want to follow the instructions to the T, as they say. 

In the same way that the goal of the instructions is the ultimate healing of the extraction wound, and the warning about dry socket is just a fact of life we need to know about to help us do the right things for healing, the goal of the Bible is to lead people to know the God who created us so we can return to him. It’s just that there’s a lot working against us in that department and the wide road that most people prefer just happens to lead to destruction. 

So, while age and life continue to take their toll, and the headlines even just of the Coquihalla Highway around Merritt this week have been full of bad (and even deadly) news, warning people to have proper snow tires, carry chains, have an emergency bag in the car, and drive to conditions, are not scare-tactics or fearmongering (just ask someone who has seen the devastation on icy and snowy roads), and neither is it a scare-tactic to tell people about the end of the road that leads anyone away from the only true God. 

The fact is that the Creator created us to be like him. We preferred being like his arch enemy the devil, the one responsible for all the suffering, death, and war in the world. God sent his Son to provide salvation from sin. Most people still don’t want God’s love while the world’s love for the devil seems to be growing exponentially. 

But telling people that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” or that “the wages of sin is death,” or that the wide road leads to “destruction”, is not scare-tactics or fearmongering. It’s just as much just telling the truth as everything I have heard about the warnings for dry-socket and dangerous road conditions. 

So, as I eat my very soft bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, I trust that this will save me the horrible discomfort of that dreaded condition of dry-socket, I thank God that I will soon be well enough to get back on the ice (while appreciating the necessity of wearing a helmet from now on), and I thank the Creator for Jesus Christ his Son who has guaranteed my eternal life with no threat of condemnation or destruction. 

Thank you, our Father in heaven!

 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

To Tremble at the Treasures of God’s Word

First day after two weeks off over Christmas and I was up earlier than my alarm! And that meant extra time to meditate on the wonders of God's word. This morning, it turned into so much that simply had to be shared.

The scripture I came to was this:

So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard, on the first day of the seventh month. And he read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand. And the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law.[1]

As I began to consider this, I suddenly had to make a statement about what it means to me to have my daily time with God. This is what I settled on:

When I went to expand on this for my daily sharing on Facebook, I had too much to share, so it turned into the following post instead: 

To Tremble at the Treasures of God’s Word

SPENDING TIME with God is a mix of being absolutely honest with God about us and how we are doing while receiving with all our hearts the absolute truth about him from his word. For so many years I have watched God speak the truth in love to me through the Bible like hitting the bull’s eye of my soul-condition every time. 

ONE EFFECT of this relationship is that I am in no hurry to get through God’s word. It is like sitting down in the treasure house of God and knowing that whichever diamond, emerald, or ruby I pick up will shine the glory of God’s light into my soul with distinctive nuances of the spectrum that minister healing, comfort, and strength exactly as I need. 

AND TODAY this happened in the simple words, “So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly.” As I looked into this gem of history, I could picture this large assembly of people who came together “as one man”. What a glorious workout for our imagination! 

AND THEN the spectrum drew me to the way this whole assembly of people asked Ezra their priest to read to them from God’s word. What a wonderful experience that would have been to have such a group of people gather, not because of the popularity of the preacher, but because of their hunger and thirst to be fed on “every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”. 

AND THERE I leave it with you. In your own private place, fully open your heart to the “whole counsel of God” in his word, the Bible. Then share the word God uses to minister to you with others who are also seeking God in his word and prayer. And gather with other believers to worship our God together on Sundays, and meet during the week for Bible studies and prayer, and see how God does this same thing with us in our day, that whole assemblies of people would come together to hear and learn the word of God. 

AFTER ALL, If we are the “one new man” that is “the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,” and we are, “a holy temple in the Lord” that is “being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit”, and we are “to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,” and this includes being “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”, then we must gather together “speaking the truth in love,” in order to “grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,” because it is from him that “the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” 

SO, I tremble at the treasures of God’s word once again. Each facet shines the spectrum of God’s light and glory into my soul in distinctive ways that both satisfy my deepest longings while filling me with longing for more. 

AND IF you will join me and others in spending such time with God in his word, and unite with others in sharing it together, we will not only be those who “tremble at my word” as God desires, but we will enjoy getting to know the Triune God better every day than we have ever known him before. And that is what our eternal life is all about.

But then I still had time for my short sharing, so here is how I summarized that:

And the end of it is that I truly want to be part of a fellowship of people both in person and online who make so much of the word of God that others ask us the reason for the hope that we haven, and we just keep using the word to give our gracious and loving answers.

 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

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[1] Nehemiah 8:2-3

The Freedom to Do the Next Things

DID YOU KNOW that, at whatever age we begin performing instead of being, our real self stops maturing and our outer self begins a journey of learning acting skills to handle life? 

I SUSPECT that it would be no surprise that it is quite easy to see this in others but very difficult to see it in ourselves. However, if we will look at this honestly, we will find that churches seem to have far more people living by performance than simply being who they are in Jesus Christ our Lord. 

WHY IS THAT? Because so many people have a very immature commitment to self-protection and can only maintain their charades if they hide themselves from everyone in churches that will agree that the outer self is all there is. 

ONE OF the biggest lessons of the past few decades is that the growth of the kingdom of God is constantly hindered by professing Christians who are unable and unwilling to do the next thing God is calling them to do. They can’t join God in his work because that would take them places they don’t want to go. And so, instead of doing the next thing God says (like Jesus telling his disciples to get into the boat[1]), they continue to contribute their performance to the programmed activities of the church and are applauded for playing such an important role in keeping the machinery running.[2]

WHY IS THIS my focus today? 

ANSWER: because it is so apparent that the men in the Bible who are mentoring me through life keep showing me how they were real with themselves, God, and his people, no matter what they were facing. 

THIS MORNING, this stood out in my journey with Nehemiah. I have walked with him through his obvious concern for the people of God, his grief in hearing how poorly they were doing back home, and his inability to leave his service to the king to go and do anything about it.[3] Months had passed, and his sorrow was still so intense that the king became aware of it and asked him, “Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart.”[4] 

THIS COULD be a death sentence for Nehemiah since a servant did not impose his negative emotions on the king. But the moment the king asked him about his sad countenance, Nehemiah’s genuine response was, “Then I was very much afraid.”[5] 

WE ARE NOW watching a scene unfold where one of God’s children is “much afraid” of what could happen to him simply because he brought a negative emotion into the king’s presence. But the question is, what would come out of Nehemiah? Would he do what is most common, to fabricate a self-protective performance to avoid the danger? Or would he be honest of heart and trust God with the outcome? 

HIS RESPONSE was this: “I said to the king, ‘Let the king live forever! Why should not my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?’”[6]

OKAY, SLOW DOWN and let that sink in. Nehemiah just got poked with the piercing interruption of tremendous fear, and what came out of his heart was the most sincere admission of what was causing his sadness of heart. In other words, his love for God and his people was so genuine that he would never sacrifice anyone on the altar of his self-protection. He lived as his real self, and so his real self came out in even the scariest scenarios. 

I HONESTLY do not know what it would be like to be mentored in person by someone like Nehemiah. But perhaps that is so that I can put the spotlight on what every one of us can experience by having a daily time with God in his word and prayer. He will use the men of God in his word to mentor and disciple us in how to be our real selves in Jesus Christ. 

HOWEVER, here is a little nuance of growing up in Christ we must consider. If the day we started living a performance instead of being genuine our real self stopped maturing, guess what that means. It means that, when we deny ourselves any more right to live by performance and self-protection, we will necessarily find ourselves a lot less mature than we have been acting! And that may just be the scariest thing we have ever faced, that we are this old and that immature! 

BUT ALL THAT MEANS is that we need to follow Jesus in what he said about becoming like little children in order to experience the kingdom of God![7] 

OKAY, so that was a surprise thought to me that now has me wondering at the wisdom and knowledge of God in presenting such a clear statement of, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God”. I have never thought of it as God’s grace to the big people who discover their real self is still just a child so we would know we could come to him right now, today, just as the little children we are, and Jesus himself will lead us to grow up in him to the glory of God and the good of his people. 

I BELIEVE that, if you have made it this far, you may be willing to ask God to please help you do the next thing in his work of addressing why you are unable to do the next things he calls you to do. I know by experience that, if we will address this every day of our lives, and will listen to God’s word everyday to hear what he is saying to us, we will not only see him showing us his will on a daily basis, but we will see his will applied to us in the most customized ways as our heavenly Father cares for us in every way and helps us with our fears, heartaches, and even self-protection. 

AS WE get to know him like that, “we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”[8] 

AND TO EXPERIENCE how God is doing this, we simply must meet with him the way we really are, and listen to what he really has to say, so he can make us like he really is. Just tell him every morning that you are willing to do the “next things” he shows you before you even know what they are. It might seem scary, but getting to know Jesus by personal experience as the Savior who calms the storm-tossed seas of life is vastly superior to the doldrums of a shore-bound life because our self-protection has never let us feel the wonder of joining God in his work.

 

© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

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[1] Matthew 8:23; 14:22; Mark 3:9; 6:45; Luke 8:22

[2] Or they perform at playing the “poor me” victim who just has so many problems that they can’t honestly be expected to ever do anything God expects of his children.

[3] Nehemiah 1

[4] Nehemiah 2:2

[5] Nehemiah 2:2

[6] Nehemiah 2:3

[7] Matthew 18:3; 19:14; Mark 10:14; Luke 18:16

[8] II Corinthians 3:18

Good News for the Darkness of Atheism, Agnosticism, and Evolutionism

Atheism, Agnosticism, and Evolutionism, are all expressions of Jesus’ words, “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” 

Atheists demand the removal of “religion” from everything public because anything about Jesus reminds them that they are sinners in need of a Savior, and that means that the Creator expects them to turn from evil. However, they don’t want their sins brought into the light because that would mean facing the guilt, shame, and fear of what is inside them, and so they try to stay in the dark by keeping everyone in the dark about who we are, where we came from, why we are here, and where we are going when we die. 

Agnostics are the same, but their darkness is that of ignorance, claiming that it is impossible to know if there is a divine being who is responsible for space, time, matter, and energy. And, even if there was a Creator, how would anyone know who he is or how to be sure we have picked the right one? This parade of ignorance also keeps people in the dark so that sin and its guilt, shame, and fear, is not brought into the light, and people are never led to know the love, the grace, and the forgiveness of God. 

Evolutionists aim to keep people in the dark about their sin by claiming that the existence of our universe, and the reality of life as human beings, could have happened by the miracles of random processes that required no divine involvement whatsoever. By denying the creative genius evident in creation and in all living things, and by demanding the miraculous impossibility of the human body coming together by chance and unguided processes, they convince people that there is no Creator to whom we will all give account. And that would also mean that there is no God who has the right to judge us for the evils of our sin, and our rebellious idolatry of ourselves as his judge. 

Atheism, Agnosticism, and Evolutionism are all the faith-positions of people who do not want to face their sin. Their unwillingness to confess their sin holds them in bondage to their mad defiance of truth because they love their rebellion. They fear (more than anything) facing what is wrong with humanity because, without knowing the Creator, they do not know that he has provided for sin’s condemnation. They can’t let themselves see that God has provided a Savior who frees us from the guilt, shame, and fear of sin, a Savior who has so dealt with sin for those who will trust in him that all our sins can be forgiven, and we can inherit the full rights of adoption to be the children of God both now and forever. 

Yes, I know that atheists, agnostics, and evolutionists mock the idea that faith in God is real. They lie and say that their beliefs are based on science while trusting in Jesus Christ is based on fairy tales of faith. However, the fact is that all of them have faith as strong as mine, but their faith is in themselves. They believe that the random firing of neurons in their brains is accurately telling them whole systems of information that are not only cohesive within themselves but are also the true and only story of the whole universe with universal application to every human being. 

And this is while their godless and evolutionary beliefs claim that our brains are not guided by any intelligence at all, but by the magic of random and chance processes that leave them totally unsure if what they think about atheism, agnosticism, or evolutionism is actually a brand-new thought that literally came out of nowhere, or a long-held faith position that accurately reflects truth. In their faith about mindless evolution, they cannot say with any certainty what the random firing of their brains has come up with, and how it compares to what anyone else thinks or believes about anything. 

My purpose in exposing the darkness of sin in every way it is expressed is to share the “good news of great joy” that God himself, our one and only Creator, had in mind from before creation to provide a means of salvation for us because he knew how ignorant we would become in our love of sin. And so, he established his salvation in a time in history when prophecies about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ had already detailed what would happen hundreds of years earlier, when death by crucifixion had already been established by the Romans as a means of capital punishment, and when the whole world was in the darkness of sin with no remedy anywhere in sight. He then sent his one and only Son into the world, God becoming flesh in order to live among us as a man, and when Jesus Christ laid down his life for his people, the curse of sin and death was broken, the justice of God was satisfied in the death of his Son for sinners, and now everyone who believes in Jesus Christ is made alive into the realities of eternal life. 

As it is written, “the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.” The light of God has come into the world, and the very people who are living in the darkness of sin can have their eyes opened to the light of life in Jesus Christ our Lord. 

This is what is true of all who trust and obey our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” 

And so, while so many preach the religion of darkness, calling people to trust the random and chance and unpredictable firing of their brains (and the psychological triggers of their self-protection) instead of the revealed word of God our Creator, I share with everyone the excellencies of my God and Savior who proclaims “good news to the poor… liberty to the captives… recovering of sight to the blind,” setting “at liberty those who are oppressed,” and “the year of the Lord’s favor” today for all who will attach to him and receive this new life in repentance and faith. 

The amazing thing is, when we come to Jesus, and we have our eyes opened, and we confess our sins to God because we see how he has provided for our salvation in Jesus Christ, we discover that not only do we have a Creator, but it is the Creator himself who has made himself known to us, rescuing us from the deadness of our sin, and we can’t believe that people can believe that he doesn’t exist. 

I conclude with this glorious expression of praise to God our Creator: 

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” 

And that is what will be true for anyone who will “confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”

 

© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

A Man Without A Mentor

OKAY… SO… I was going to begin by addressing why it was so important to my mentor (Nehemiah) to remind God that he was part of a group called “your people”.[1] It is easy to relate this to the new war that has broken out between two groups who both claim to be the real people of God tracing their ancestry back to the same father, Abraham. And it is very personal to consider how real it is in us to long to be part of a people, or, as my wife calls it, “my tribe”. Even in our daycare, the children are always lovin’ on each other with what good “friends” they are, or trying to wound each other by declaring, “You’re not my friend!!!” 

EVERYTHING in life makes a big deal of us being “a people”. Every one of us when we were born increased our “family” (our first people) by one. We discovered that family meant more people than the ones we lived with every day. We found that as we moved through life there were some people who became friends, and we had seasons where we could not bear the thought of losing them. Strange as it may seem, this is because we were made by God to be his people, and all the damage done by Satan and sin to steal, kill, and destroy only proves that being “your people” to God is a central aspect of being human. It also explains why being “a people” can be so dysfunctional, self-focused, and hateful towards outsiders when we try to be a people apart from God our Creator and Father. 

HOWEVER, I was not able to dwell on this very long before I noticed something else that was far more piercing (I smile to write this because I suspect that I am entering another sequence of the Mandelbrot Fractal that will end up leading me back to how I fit in to “your people”![2]): My mentor’s connection to God’s people was as a man who was not… (drum roll please)… MENTORED! 

THAT’S RIGHT, Nehemiah suddenly appears on the scene of God’s work in restoring his people to their home without any list of mentors who trained him and passed on their wisdom, knowledge, and maturity. 

AND SUDDENLY it made so much sense why it had to be that way. God had promised decades prior, “‘And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.’”[3] David had been one of these shepherds much earlier, a man after God’s own heart, and he also did not have mentors who taught him how to love God and trust in him. He learned to know God in solitary places while watching his father’s sheep. In other words, David also had no mentors. The way he knew God was from personally getting to know God! 

THIS REMINDED ME that just before addressing God with the identity of “your people”, Nehemiah had first confessed the sins of the people (including him and his family) as the reason they were in such trouble. It was because they had forsaken their family relationship with God, broken faith with their covenant, and delighted in adulterous idolatry with the gods of the nations. They continued acting like “a people” in their fellowship in sin, but they had forsaken their first love, to be “your people” to Yahweh, the only true God. 

IT SUDDENLY became clear that my years of complaining to God about not giving me godly mentors was sinful. The Bible is full of examples of unmentored men who served God in the right time and place as men after God’s own heart. This is not because it is wrong to be mentored. And it is not because being mentored produces an inferior relationship with God to not being mentored (Timothy is a prime example of a man with a vibrant relationship with God under the fatherly mentoring of the apostle Paul). 

IN FACT, it is quite clear that the healthy pattern of discipling leaders in the church is to involve an unbroken chain of mentoring. Paul said to Timothy, “and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.”[4] Paul mentored Timothy, Timothy was to “entrust” the same teaching “to faithful men” (which would require spending time with them as their mentor), these “faithful men” would need to be “able to teach” others, meaning that Timothy would mentor them not only to live for Christ, but to mentor others in how to do so, and there were “others” that included both the full number of disciples in each location, but also some men among those believers who would also be mentored to be mentors. Yes, that is the way it SHOULD be! 

THE PROBLEM is that the chain keeps being broken by weak links, mostly men who do not want to be personally responsible for having a faith in God that others can lean on (yes, that is such a thing). Because of this, we keep coming back to scenarios in real life where men have not been mentored. And, today, I needed to acknowledge that God expecting me to be a man after his own heart without mentors to disciple me is completely consistent with how he has so often worked with others. He has every right to do the same with me. 

I NOW have a double aim in getting to know Nehemiah. One side is to fully embrace and receive everything God is giving me through his word in the life of this shining example of a man after God’s own heart. Or, to say it another way, I must let Nehemiah mentor me in how to serve God and his people without any mentors! 

THE OTHER aim is to “Consider him (Jesus) who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted,”[5] so I never forget that I AM being mentored by my heavenly Father as I am “looking to Jesus” through the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit. 

WHAT GOD has done to clear up my complaining, and to guide me through confession, is to settle that I have my place in his kingdom to live and learn as a man after his own heart because it is HIS heart, and he is sharing it with me! And that means going into this day prepared to love and care for everyone he brings my way with the expectation that my love will be after the heart of his love. And knowing I have loved others as Jesus has loved me will be the thing that puts a smile on my face for the way the Triune God helps me to do so.

 

© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.) 

 

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[1] Nehemiah 1

[2] 

[3] Jeremiah 3:15

[4] II Timothy 2:2

[5] Hebrews 12:3

Science Calls Scoffers to Surrender to the Creator

After watching a creation-science video explaining how the worldwide flood explains fossils on the continents, and even high on mountains, I wrote the following post to share it with others.[1] Perhaps you will find it helpful. 

SCIENCE affirms the global flood described in God's history book, the Bible. Skeptics who claim this flood did not happen have ZERO scientific evidence to support their claim.

This fulfills EXACTLY what God wrote in his word: 

First, “knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.” Yes, this is what it is about, that “people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil”, just as God’s word says. The issue is the love of sin, NOT the love of science. 

Second, “They will say, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.’” Yes, this was foretold that, just because God’s timetable for the return of his Son is different than man’s, the scoffers will make fun of the idea that it will happen as promised, on target, and on time. 

Third, the reason for such ignorance is, “For they DELIBERATELY overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.” This “deliberate” ignorance is being fulfilled in such blatant ways as famous and infamous skeptics and scoffers ridicule all the scientific evidence for creation and the flood simply because they refuse to acknowledge that we have a Creator to whom all people will one day give account. 

And fourth, how we relate to God’s word about the future will be consistent with how we relate to God’s word about the past. So, it says to us and these scoffers, “But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.” As surely as the earth is covered with evidence of creation and the flood, our planet is heading towards the worst catastrophe imaginable, the coming “judgment and destruction of the ungodly”. 

However!!! Those who believe in and receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior look at all these realities of both the spiritual and the scientific worlds and have this certain hope: “But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” 

I love going out into God’s creation and delighting in what he has made, what has adapted from what he has made, what gives evidence of the worldwide flood, and what shows the glory of creation in recovering from the worldwide flood. But one thing always happens!!! We always need to leave, go home, be apart from the people we loved sharing such experiences with, and carry on with the mundane duties of living in a foreign land (the world) when our Forever Home is constantly calling to our souls! 

The new heavens and earth will be unimaginably glorious (what will it look like to have a “new” planet with no signs of a global flood?!), but there is something even more appealing, and that is the unending attachment of love-relationships with God and his people. We will constantly enjoy the glories of the new creation in the perfection of our salvation where we will always be with the Triune God in whose “presence there is fullness of joy”, and at whose “right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

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[1] The Answers in Genesis video can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3533962263519458&ref=sharing