Author Archive: Revraney

Chris was feeling pretty good.  Here he was, on his way to look at the house of his dreams.  It was one of a kind; as if it had been made just for him. If things went well it would be his. He knew there would be others there to look at the house as well and only one of them would get it. Chris’s anticipation had grown daily as the appointment approached.

He had an hour to get there. “Shouldn’t be a problem”, he thought.  After all, he had a personal guide to take him. Jesus was riding in the passenger seat and giving directions.  He lived in the neighborhood where the house was located.  Jesus had offered to drive but Chris insisted he drive instead.  So Jesus climbed into the passenger seat and gave directions.

Things were going smooth as they drove through the city.  Jesus told Chris to turn left at the light and he did. About one hundred feet later there was a small alley, barely visible, on the right and Jesus told Chris to turn into the alley.  Chris looked at the alley.  It was small and dark. He wasn’t even certain his car would fit. “Who knows what is down there?” thought Chris.  He told Jesus, “I’m going to go on up to the light and turn right.  It’s only another hundred feet.” He drove right on past the alley and turned right at the light, just as he had said.

Within a few seconds of making the turn Chris knew he was in trouble. There was construction on the road and traffic was at a complete stop.  A couple hundred feet ahead there was a detour sign going off to the left, but with the traffic not moving it may as well have been miles ahead.  On top of that, who knew where the detour went?  There was no room to turn around so Chris was stuck.

Two hours later Chris had finally made it to the detour where he could turn left but he had long ago come to the realization that this turn was taking him even further away form the small alley that Jesus had told him to turn down and he had resisted. The decision to turn at the next light and onto the street was just a guess in the first place.  He had been afraid of the alley and followed his gut in hopes the street would be a better alternative. Now he was forced to make another turn with no knowledge of where it went.

Chris found himself already hours late for his appointment and with no idea where he was now headed.  He could see the house of his dreams slipping away.  Surely he had no chance of getting it now. Chris had long ago come to accept that he should have trusted Jesus and gone down the alley.

“You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit!”   Acts 7:51

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.” John 1:1-3

It is amazing how many educated people refuse to accept the existence of God as the creator. Education, especially for those who study the sciences and engineering, emphasizes organization, design, and process. Even when writing a paper, the student is taught to organize their thoughts and material into an outline.  Scientists and engineers are trained in the mathematics, techniques and rules of design.  Experiments are set up and executed in orderly fashion on purpose.  Even those who study the cosmos do so using mathematical ‘rules’ of order.

Yet in the midst of all this culture and dependence on design, order and organization, many of those same individuals believe the world around us is the result of chance. Intelligent people design and plan roads, buildings and much more in their process of ‘creating’ them, and then reject the idea that the same went into the creation of the universe.

This denial is not based in science, but rather in the sinful pride of the human heart.  “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools”.  Romans 1:21-22  Man was not made void of a knowledge of God.  Man willingly chose to reject that knowledge in favor of setting themselves up as gods.  To accept God as the sovereign creator requires that we also accept him as sovereign Lord over that creation, including ourselves.  To accept Him as sovereign Lord (absolute authority and master) over ourselves requires submission and obedience.  The sinful pride of the corrupt heart will not allow such submission.

The only answer is a repentant heart and surrender to the Lord himself, Jesus Christ.

Years ago a Pastor paid a visit to a gentleman from the congregation.  This man’s participation in the life of the congregation had become more and more erratic and diminished to where it was almost nonexistent.

It was a cold winter evening when the Pastor knocked on the door.  The older man opened the door and invited the Pastor inside.  There were two chairs sitting next to an inviting fireplace.  The old man sat in one of the chairs and gestured toward the other with his hand for the Pastor to join him.

As they sat together, enjoying the fire they exchanged some small talk about the cold weather and the short days.  They were both old enough that they did not need to fill every moment with chatter.  Through their years they had learned to be comfortable in silence.  After a little bit the Pastor asked his host why he was no longer interested in being a part of the spiritual life of the congregation.

The man thought for a minute before answering.  He didn’t feel the need to make excuses or feel threatened by the question.  After a moment he finally told the Pastor, “I guess I just lost interest. Nothing happened nor did anyone do anything to make me mad or hurt me. I just lost interest.”

The Pastor thought about that answer sincerely.  He appreciated the older man’s honesty.  But he was also concerned about his spiritual well-being.  After sitting there for moment he took the small ash shovel standing next to the fireplace and grabbed a red hot coal from the fire.  He placed the coal on the rock hearth.  He didn’t say a word as both men sat and watched the red hot coal.  After a few minutes the coal lost some of the intensity in its color.  Gradually and slowly the coal continued to lose its color and heat until finally it sat there on the hearth, nothing more than than a black and grey pile of ash, completely cold to the touch.  Being removed from the fire it gradually lost all of its brilliance and heat and became a worthless pile of ash.  Good only to be thrown out.

The Pastor didn’t have to say or explain anything.  The somber look on the older man’s face clearly showed that he understood what he had just been taught.  The Pastor then had a gentle but serious time of prayer for the man and his soul.

Once removed from the fire we begin to lose our spiritual brilliance and heat.  We no longer absorb or provide any light or heat. In order to continue to burn bright and hot we must stay in the presence of the fire.  We need to remain immersed in the Word of God, in prayer, and the fellowship of the believers.  The Holy Spirit works through these to build us and each other up in the Lord.  Do not neglect the gathering of yourselves together, nor the instruction in the Word, nor the communion in prayer.  It is easy to let the tares choke out the life of the plant. Once the plant has has withered it is worth nothing. Once the coal has lost its fire, it is fit only to be thrown out.

Recently an article written by Tracy Moore was brought to my attention.  The article is titled “Godless Parents are Doing a Better Job” ( one shouldn’t be surprised at the conclusions in the article considering it comes from a site named Jezebel.com).  The article starts off poorly and goes downhill form there.  The bias of the author is made clear in the very first sentence; “Hate to break it to you, Bible thumpers”.  The writer’s credibility is dismissed when she starts off her article using a derogatory term to insult Christians.  She defines Christians as people who use their Bibles to thump other people.  I know for certain that I have never once in my life thumped someone with my Bible.

The author then states the overall premise and conclusion of the article that children raised by parents who do not profess a belief in God do just as well and possibly even better than those raised by parents who are believers.  The criterion for such an assessment? “Overall, not believing in God seems to make people and their offspring more tolerant. Less racist. Less sexist. Enviro-friendly.” Wow! First, lets take a look at that claim and the inherent problems.  Such measurements are incredibly subjective.  So what is the definition of ‘more tolerant’ or less sexist’? The writer does not provide us with any information to help us understand those conclusions.  She simply makes the assertion and then points to an op-ed written by sociologist Phil Zuckerman. Phil Zuckerman is an agnostic who wrote the book, “Society Without God.”  To make matters worse, the op-ed by Mr. Zuckerman grossly misinterprets the material of Vern Bengtson, whose study he references quite extensively.  For more information on this read about Vern Bengtson’s study regarding Families and Faith.

So how does the author, Tracy Moore, determine that children raised by parents who are not believers are more tolerant? Far too often tolerance is measured either by standing up for nothing or by “do you agree with me?”  If I stand for nothing I can be viewed as someone who is tolerant when in reality I am simply someone who wants to remain disengaged.  On the other hand, to many in the progressive movement of today one is often considered intolerant if they believe differently than the progressives do, especially regarding the litmus test of social issues such as abortion, homosexuality, etc.

What exactly does the author mean by less sexist? Does she mean if someone has a different view of the differences between men and women than she does they are sexist? Are children of Christian parents less ‘enviro-friendly’ because they may doubt the claims of global warming advocates.  A primary tenant of Christian teaching is good stewardship, including the world in which we live.

After reading the assertion that children of parents who are not believers are more tolerant, it is incredibly ironic to read the author’s tirade against the religious people of the small town she grew up in. “I would like to take this time to say directly to the small town I grew up in and its endless youth groups and Bible studies and Baptist churches and even grosser fundamentalist Church of Christ churches, and all the prayers before games, and Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the fear-mongering attitudes and pervy youth group leaders and gross, self-righteous, hypocritical, sexist, homophobic, racist, shallow, anti-intellectual, anti-questioning, anti-books, anti-music, anti-art, utter crass consumerism in place of actual Christian-ness: FACE. Big, stupid FACE in your FACE.” Does that sound like the voice of tolerance? She later writes, “(I almost exclusively grew up with Baptists and Church of Christ nutjobs)”.  Tolerant? She refers to God as the “Big Kahuna”.  I suppose another conclusion would be that these children are more respectful.

Tracy Moore makes it a point to highlight Phil Zuckerman’s assertion that Vern Bengtson says that non-religious families possess ethical values and morals. Zuckerman even writes in his op-ed, “Many nonreligious parents were more coherent and passionate about their ethical principles than some of the ‘religious’ parents in our study,” Bengston told me. He told you? Just like that? Two important things missing are 1) Many of the families Bengtson talks about are families that at a particular time are not associated with a specific church or religious organization.  He makes it clear that in many of these cases the people still consider themselves believers. 2) Bengtson points out that many of these families come back to their religious associations.  Bengtson’s study is actually about the transmission of faith rather than families without faith.

In addition it is always interesting to hear unbelievers refer to morals.  How do we determine what is right or wrong without a standard? You know someone is six feet tall because measure them against a standard composed of feet and inches.Where did the standard come from? Standards are absolute. God is absolute.  Only something absolute can produce something absolute. Subjective cannot produce objective.

As you read this article it becomes clear the author has an axe to grind against Christianity and she found a sociologist who held similar views to support her vitriolic hatred of Christianity and our God.  God loves Tracy Moore and died for her salvation.  He can save her.  The conclusions and assertions in this article are not supported by fact or data.  What this article is however, is one more example of the growing hatred of Christianity (and Christ) in our society today that will ultimately result in the persecution of the saints.  The good news is that God will be with us, even unto the end. Are you ready?

A few years after I was first married I pulled one of the biggest bonehead mistakes in history with my car. We had recently purchased a Toyota Tercel.  This was the first new car we had bought and we were pretty excited.  I was still very young and growing up I had almost no experience working on cars.  I had done a few things on our old car, a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere.  As such I knew little about car maintenance or repair, but I had a character trait (most women would call it a flaw) – I was a man, so therefore I seldom, if ever asked for advice.

It was time for the first oil change so I set to work on the task.  I crawled under the car to begin my oil change.  The Tercel was a front wheel drive vehicle – at this time a fairly new thing.  When I looked up at the engine I was thrown for a loop as there was more than one plug.  Which one was the right one? Well I took a guess and removed one of the plugs and drained the fluid inside.  I did notice this fluid was red, but hey, this was a Japanese car, maybe it uses a different kind of oil.  I got all of the fluid drained and put the plug back in.  I crawled back out and got under the hood.  I found the oil cap and removed it and put in the first quart of oil.  After the first quart I looked on the stick and found that the oil level was already completely full.  Wow, these Japanese cars do not require much oil; this is great.  Yes, it is utterly amazing that I did not consider all of the clues up to this point of my error, not the least of which the amount of fluid drained from the car exceeded the 1 quart of oil I added.

Now most of you are way ahead of me and if you have even the slightest knowledge of cars, realize I had drained the transaxle fluid rather than the motor oil.  So here is my new Toyota Tercel with no fluid in its front wheel drive transaxle but plenty of oil.

The next day I loaded up the car with myself, Marie and our toddler child and headed off to a church softball game. The car sounded a little bit different at the start, but nothing that turning up the radio a little bit couldn’t solve.  We got onto the highway and got up to full speed when the car started making this extremely loud, high-pitched, whining sound.  That sound didn’t last too long as it was replaced by an exploding sound and the car jerking almost to a complete stop in the high speed lane.  Fortunately we were able to get off the road safely and even got someone to tow us for free to the garage. The transaxle had blown up, a huge whole in the casing.

You see, cars do not run well and sometimes not very far when they are lacking something as important as fluid in the transaxle.

I often find myself amazed when people who see themselves as Christians seem honestly confused and surprised things are not going well in their lives when upon examination it is easily evident they have neglected their soul and its need for Christ.  Like my car, the soul does not run well and even sometimes explodes and comes to a jerking halt when it is lacking that which is critical.

We wonder why we make bad decisions or “luck” doesn’t seem to be on our side.  We do not understand why ‘God lets these bad things happen to us’.  We feel betrayed when relationships with our spouse, our children, our friends or others seem strained, even damaged.  Why would God allow such a thing?

Why is this such a surprise? When we neglect our soul and allow it to be drained of that which is critical and then try to replace that with the wrong thing it is expected that things will run smoothly.  We have removed ourselves from the influence of God upon our lives.  We are a ship floating on the waters with no rudder, no sail and no oars.  We are pushed along in every direction.  Sometimes God may indeed “allow” or even cause certain things to happen in our lives. This can really irritate us as we think “how can a loving God does such?”  Is it not love that would allow or bring into our lives something that would awaken us to Him that we might avoid something far worse and eternal?

We cannot neglect our relationship with God without there being negative consequences. You need the Word of God in your life.  You need prayer in your life.  You need Christian fellowship in your life.  You need to be proclaiming the witness of God in your life.  These things build and strengthen your relationship with God and you definitely need that in your life. Don’t let your life be drained of what is really critical and then try and fill it up with something different.

I’ve been hearing a phrase quite often lately and frankly it confuses me.  The phrase usually occurs when someone is experiencing something difficult and either they or another person will ask that “good thoughts or good vibes” be sent their way.  I’m not quite sure how one can do this.  How exactly do “good thoughts” get from one person to another and how do they help?

It is amazing how easily the world will so easily believe in some sort of ‘telekinesis’ while rejecting or at least diminishing an all powerful God. When I hear terms like this I am reminded of Acts 17:22-23 “Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. ^23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.”  Our society is indeed still religious, but at the same time is so hardened in their heart they cannot accept the one true God.  So they, by choice, remain ignorant of the truth.  Their gut tells them there are spiritual things out there so maybe somehow we can impact someone by sending our ‘good thoughts and good vibes’ to them. However their pride and self , will not allow them to acknowledge the true God of creation and redemption.

Maybe when this phrase is used some may mean we should give encouraging words to the one suffering.  There is certainly benefit in encouraging someone. When the scripture tells us to encourage others we are to do so by sharing the hope and promises of God with them.  While it can be comforting to know someone cares, how much more so to know that He who is all powerful cares? Oh how encouraging to know the truth of “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28).  That truth can only be known by knowing God; not substituting some warm and fuzzy ‘good thoughts’ in His place.

The phrase of sending someone ‘good thoughts’ is often mentioned in combination with prayer; again as if to be sure and include all the different possibilities (you never know which one may work). They are not the same and only one of them really works – prayer.  Real prayer is not merely thinking of someone.  Real prayer reaches out to a living God in a personal way. Real prayer is an act of humility and confidence all at once.  It recognizes God for who He is and understands who we are in relation to Him.  Real prayer looks for His mercy and His help.  It seeks both His strength and His comfort. Think about someone all you want with good thoughts, but if their help comes from the Lord.

For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. ^2 He agreed to pay them a denariusfor the day and sent them into his vineyard.

^3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. ^4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ ^5 So they went.

“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. ^6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

^7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

^8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

^9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. ^10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. ^11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ^12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

^13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? ^14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. ^15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

^16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Matthew 20:1-16

This certainly would not go over today.  All manner of groups and people would raise a fuss, not just those who worked in the vineyard!

Jesus objective was not to give a lesson on free market capitalism (“Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money?”).  There is something else to be learned from this story.

Those first approached by the owner of the vineyard were offered a specific wage for the work.  They thought it was a fair wage and agreed to work for that amount.  As the day went on the owner hired more people who worked varying hours.  At the end of the day when the workers were being paid those who had worked the least got their pay first and received the amount the owner had offered those he had approached first and had worked the entire day. Seeing this they figured he was going to pay them more since they had worked longer. That seems fair and logical. After all, isn’t God fair?  Then when they received their pay they were given the same as those who had worked less hours. That doesn’t seem fair; hmm, isn’t God fair?

Our thoughts about ourselves and about God are often completely backwards.  For instance, we seem to think God exists for us.  In our minds we are the center of our universe.  But this is not true and is our corrupt nature at work.  God does not exist for us.  We exist for God.  We are not the center of the universe, God is.  It is this thinking that has caused so much pain and suffering.  We were not created to be the center of our universe or to have everything be about us.  This self-centered, self-serving view causes us to live our lives in pursuit of things to make us happy.  The result is just the opposite because this is not how we were originally built.  We can not fulfill our grand design by being the center of our own universe.  The way we find fulfillment and subsequently happiness is by surrendering to God as the center of all things, including our own personal existence.  We have our position in the world backwards.

God has promised us from His grace that if we come with Him, whether to work in the vineyard or to sit at His feet, He will reward us.  This grace, this reward, is not something we earn from a God who owes, but rather is a gift from the God who loves us.