sarkakaiaima

I have in recent years come to put into words a truth that I knew for many years before this from my own experience. That is, “God does not waste anything.” What I mean by this is that in our own evaluations of our actions, thoughts, experiences and cultural upbringing we tend to make harsh distinctions between what is good or bad, worth remembering and treasuring and that which we want to leave behind and forget. And we tend to also assume that God views our lives and our actions in the same way. Yet this is not so.  The Almighty God perceives the totality of our lives, as individuals and together in local communities, within nations, and in the broad outworking of historical events. God is “no respecter of persons” (Romans 2:11)—seeing and judging us as we are and within the time-space historical time that God set us into. Whatever or whoever shaped or formed our view of what is real, true and beautiful is known by the Holy Spirit, and he can and does utilize that for our good—...

  "If we were asking a favor from someone in a high position, we'd do it with humility and respect. How much more, then, should we approach the Lord, the God of the universe, with complete humility and sincere devotion!  We must remember that we are not heard because we say many words, but because we pray with a pure heart and true repentance. Therefore, our prayers should be simple and sincere, unless God's grace moves us to pray longer. When praying together as a community, however, prayers should be kept brief. Once the superior gives the signal, everyone should stand together." *Cited from The Rule of St. Benedict : A modern translation, St. Benedict, translated Peter Northcutt (Modern Saints Books:2025), chapter 20, p.31.

Good Summer to you all.  I have been out of the pattern of posting here on this blog because I have been working on other writing projects (a second book), and also due to having timeframes for completing writing projects related to my work. There is only so much time I have. However, I will aim to at least occasionally get something posted here.  Thank you for reading these posts over these years since I first started this. Jason Caywood  

Many of us, as we follow Christ, face a very troubling problem. We find that we just can’t do the good things we know we should do. Sometimes, we even feel a strong resistance inside us when it comes to obeying God’s will. The apostle Paul talked about this struggle in Romans 7: “We know that the law is spiritual, but I am flesh, sold as a slave to sin. I don’t understand my own actions. I don’t do what I want to do, but instead I do what I hate. And if I do what I don’t want, I am agreeing that the law is good. But really, it is not me doing it, but sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is good, but I can’t. I don’t do the good I want to do; instead, I do the evil I don’t want to do. And if I do what I don’t want to do, it is not really me doing it but sin living in me.” Even if, for a time—maybe months or even years—we feel a sense of freedom and peace in our souls, the enemy will still try to use that against us...

  “O wondrous creature, inferior only to the Creator, how much will you debase yourself? Do you love the world? But you yourself are superior to the world. Do you admire the sun? But you yourself are brighter than the sun. Do you philosophize about the harmony of the revolving heavens? But you are more sublime than the heavens. Do you examine the mysterious causes of the creation? But no creature is a greater mystery than you. Do you doubt it, when you may pass judgement on all creatures, yet none of them on you? But if you wish to judge them, then do not love them. Do not love to judge them. Love him who set you over, not under, all creatures. He set you over them not that through them you might be happier, but that he might be the one through whom you would be superior, subjecting all things to you as a crowning honor and keeping himself for you as rewarding happiness. Why then do you pursue fleeting beauties, when your own beauty neither fades with age nor grows shabby with pove...

  “[In praying for God’s Kingdom to come] we are also praying over the dark deeds of others in the world around us. We see how they are trapped in what they themselves often disown and despise. And we are especially praying about the structural or institutionalized evils that rule so much of the earth. These prevailing circumstances daily bring multitudes to do deeply wicked things they do not even give a thought to. They do not know what they are doing and do not have the ability to distance themselves from it so they can see it for what it is. That is the power of ‘culture.’   Culture is seen in what people do unthinkingly, what is ‘natural’ to them and therefore requires no explanation or justification. Everyone has a culture—or really, multidimensional cultures of various levels. These cultures structure their lives. And of course by far the most of everyone’s culture is right and good and essential. But not all.  For culture is the place where wickedness takes o...

Now the apostle Paul, in his correction to the misguided notions which the believers in Corinth had, assumed what our Lord told the 12. He had come to understand this fully and thus we find the Lord’s way of relating and loving as a spiritual leaders enacted in his ministry. Comments on Text: 1 Corinthians 4:1-21 First, notice that the apostle Paul gives them this corrective: “Think of us [apostles] in this way: as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries.” (v.1) Apostles have been called and equipped and commissioned by Christ to proclaim and teach and lead others into an accurate knowledge of God, in knowing God’s Messiah and his way. They are entirely servants whose legitimacy as spiritual leaders and teachers comes from their fidelity to the Masters teaching and way of life. They protect   the Lord’s word by accurately teaching and shepherding others into practice of the faith of Jesus the Christ. There is no presumption here or selfish ambition or aim at self...

Today there is a resurgence in some Protestant circles about the position and ministry of apostles. In some current Protestant circles today that emphasize the charismata (“spiritual gifts”) heavily one will find teaching asserting that the “five-fold” ministry of the Church needs to be restored. They will cite Ephesians 4:11: “He himself granted that some are apostle, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, . . . ” (NRSVue) Some sociologists and historians who study Christianity in the modern period have designated this movement as part of the “third wave” of charismatic renewal movements in the Western world. I am all for people exercising the charismata, and for churches to have a genuine openness to the work of the Holy Spirit. But this movement needs to be noted because it unfortunately had deviated from biblical teaching and the historic practice of the Church. Thus I want to address this matt...

Andrew Murray makes a very helpful point about sanctification and what God wants from believers and further what God desires to do in our bodies. “Many believers fail to watch over their bodies, to observe a holy sobriety through the fear of rendering them unfit for the service of God. Eating and drinking should never impede communion with God. On the contrary, they should help us maintain the body in its normal condition. The apostle spoke also of fornication, this sin that defiles the body and that is in direct opposition to the words, ‘The body is for the Lord.’ It is not simply sexual promiscuity outside the married state, but all voluptuousness, all lack of sobriety regarding sensual pleasure that is condemned in these words: ‘ Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost ’ (1 Corinthians 6:19). In the same way, all that goes to maintain the body—to clothe it, strengthen it, give it rest or enjoyment—should be placed under the control of the Holy Spirit. Just as, under the old cove...

A friend of mine related to me that this past year Javalina came onto his property and dug up and tore out an irrigation line which he had put underground. This irrigation line stretched around his whole property (about one acre of his land). He had to replace the entire irrigation line because of the damage done by the Javalina—which cost him a lot of money and took a lot of time to replace! Javalina are notorious for scavenging whatever they think is needful for them to survive. Many people think that navigating through human experience requires more or less the equivalent behavior of the Javalina. Yet this is not God’s way revealed to us in Scripture but rather the perverse and insidious deception of sin and the demons. Sabbath keeping is revolutionary because it profoundly challenges and protests against the notion that we must initiate and establish our own security and safety in life by means of our own devising. Sabbath keeping is an act of faith in the living God to be one’s ke...

Some years ago I wrote something on the topic of the Sabbath. I am sharing that here with you all. This is part one and the second will be included in the next newsletter. The Sabbath has been on my mind much lately as I was able to take some down time due to the Christmas season. The more I consider what it may mean to keep the Sabbath the more I have turned toward the human body and the doctrine of sanctification. A connection between Sabbath keeping, the body and sanctification has been emerging in my mind more and more. I am convinced and thus would suggest that it is sound to even think of Sabbath keeping as sanctification. To explicitly connect these is new to me and I will attempt to clarify why I think they should be linked. The connective points in my mind begin with a remarkable comment made by the writer of Hebrews which I have pondered for many years. In a section on God’s interactions with the ancient Israelites (see chapters 3-4:11) the writer states this: “For if Joshu...

  “It may sometimes happen that the more troubled you have been outwardly with active work the more fervent your desire will be for God and the clearer your view of spiritual things, by the grace of our Lord, when you come to devotion. It works out as if you had a little burning coal with which you wanted to make a fire and get it burning. You would first lay sticks on it and cover the coal; and although it might briefly seem that you were putting the coal out with the sticks, nevertheless after a brief wait and a little blowing there soon springs out a great flaring flame, for the sticks have turned into fire. It is just so spiritually; the will and desire that you have for God are like a little coal of fire in your soul, for they give you some amount of spiritual heat and light: but very little, since they often grow cold and turn into bodily rest—sometimes into idleness. So it is good to put on sticks, which are the good works of active life. If it happens that these activities ...

Comments on Text : Daniel 8 & Matthew 24:15-28 The vision granted to Daniel in the 6 th century BC is a glimpse into the “end of time”: As Gabriel said to him, “the vision is for the time of the end.” (8:17) This is a vitally important statement to keep in mind, not only as we attempt to interpret this specific vision within the book of Daniel but also the second section of Daniel (chapters 7-12). What the careful reader finds is that Daniel is given in the different visions something like short video clips or pictorial metaphorical representations of persons and events that will profoundly change and shape the history of the world—but in a time that he will not live to personally witness (see 8:26). The particular vision of chapter 8 prophecies the dominance of the Medo-Persian empire, and thus implies the downfall of the rule the Babylonians. (v.20) And then the scope of it reaches further to the downfall of the Medo-Persian empire and the mighty triumph of Alexander the G...

  “Through all those centuries of clashing and changing frontiers, Christendom in terms of time and space extended itself. Its missionaries succeeded among the barbaric as they had among the cultured, and such gatherings as the Synod of Whitby, far by the North Sea and almost on the edge of the ancient Empire, repeated, to their degree, the Council of Nicaea. Both the Gospel and the Creed mastered the new world. But the method of conversion had perhaps changed somewhat. In the old days it had been individuals who had been converted, either by intellectual persuasion or spiritual violence, by grace, by intellect, or (at lowest) by fashion. But now it was whole communities which were abruptly annexed. The prestige, the power, and no doubt sometimes the piety of Christendom subdued one dynasty after another; a sudden rain of culture and Christianity descended over their territories, and the Christianity was often no more than the chief interference of the culture. The mass of the conv...

  “The things that have come into being have received from the Creator their proper place, their beginning and, in some cases, their end. But there is no boundary to virtue. The psalmist says, ‘I have seen the end of all perfection, but Your commandment is very broad and is without limit’ (Ps. 118[119]:96). Now if it is true that some good ascetics pass from the strength of action to the strength of contemplation (cf. Ps. 83[84]:7), and if it is true that love never fails (1 Cor. 13:8), and the Lord will guard the coming in of your fear and the going out of your love (cf. Ps. 120[121]:8), then love has no boundary, and both in the present and in the future age we will never cease to progress in it, as we add light to light. Perhaps this may seem strange to many. Nevertheless it has to be said, and the evidence we have, blessed Father, would lead me to say that even the angels make progress and indeed that they add glory to glory and knowledge to knowledge.”   *John Climacu...