It's Not Busyness that Eats Away the Soul

I really liked this article....

It is not busyness that eats the life out of the soul, if busyness means simply having lots to do. To be human is to have lots to do. What wears down the inner life is the impossibility of sustained concentration in a world...

• Where everything under the sun is relentlessly, rapidly, even simultaneously presented to the senses with demand for some kind of response, though no response is expected.
• It’s the bewildering fragmentation that accompanies unlimited access to everything.
• It’s the barrenness that results when one’s most significant contact, quantitatively speaking, is with virtual reality, insulated from the solid pleasures and stubborn challenges of pre-virtual reality: back porch conversation, rainstorms, weeds, machinery parts, street beggars, and handheld musical instruments.
• It is the lethargy, the listlessness that breeds when all is instant (or trying to be), when one has forgotten how to be deliberate, and to write in pencil.

It’s not busyness that eats away the soul; it’s the acid of catered sovereignty, of dwindling finitude.

Ben Miller: Click here for article

How To Be a Legalist

So I came upon a very interesting letter that I believe is very helpful in understanding what legalism is. So here it is:

Dear Cousin Gall,

We are excited to write to you regarding the new training we have received from our great mentor. He has come up with a wonderful ploy to create havoc with the enemy. We know that hordes of converts have gone over to the side of our most hated one. We are not able to unconvert them, for once they are converted to Him, He keeps them on His side. So what can we do? Our great leader advises a new way by which we can paralyze them to make their impact in our domain slight.

How is that? The principal means is by stealing their liberty. We can do that by binding them with chains where God has left them free. We will direct their attention to a different law, a false law, a new law. We’ll tell them that what obedience to the enemy really requires is that they refrain from dancing, from smoking, from wearing lipstick, and from going to movies. By putting the accent there, we can keep their attention away from pursuing real righteousness and the fruit of the Spirit. In a word, the strategy we will employ is to make them legalists.

Of course, we know that it is not legalism to obey the law of God, but it is legalism to think that the enemy’s law is something different from what it is. We must work hard to fool them, to tell them that true righteousness comes by obeying these cultural standards that we will suggest to the church. We’ll get people so caught up with refraining from these worldly things that they will be paralyzed and confused about what true righteousness is. We’ll also get them to think that by keeping this new law, their works will save them.

If we’re not able to convince them altogether of this false law, then we’ll give them an unbalanced view of the real law, that is, we’ll encourage them to act like the Pharisees of old by majoring in minors, by obeying lesser items of the law while ignoring the weightier matters. This is part of the strategy of keeping them unbalanced and paralyzed. If we can accomplish this stratagem, then perhaps our gates will prevail against them.

Your Master,
Legion

Are You Ignorant of Your Ignorance?

 "To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant."

Almost every day, one can see people who speak with great confidence as they make stupid and even idiotic remarks.  Whenever I see such displays of what might be called arrogant stupidity, I often find myself thinking, "These are people don't know what they don't know." In short, they are ignorant of their own ignorance.


People who suffer from this affliction generally speak very confidently, or even with great certitude, even when it is clear that they are wrong. And, predictably, they are extremely unreceptive--or even downright hostile--to information or evidence that does not support their view. It's almost as if they are saying, "Don't confuse me with the facts; my mind is already made up," Arrogant stupidity shows up all over the globe
and in every sector of life.  And, sadly, we see it all too frequently in the world of politics.  Over a century ago, George Bernard Shaw had a character in his play "Major Barbara" (1907) say:

  "He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything.
    That points clearly to a political career."

I don't want to come across as condescending here, for I can recall a number of times in my past when I preached on some subject with very little knowledge--and sometimes even faulty knowledge--to sustain and strangthen my views.  Perhaps you have done the same thing from time to time in your life.  As you reflect on how the phenomenon applies to you, let your thinking be stimulated by these observations:

  "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
          Saul Bellow 
"The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance."
          Samuel Butler
  "The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don't know anything about."
          Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
  "Knowledge slowly builds up what ignorance in an hour pulls down."
          George Eliot 
"The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: Be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge."
          Elbert Hubbard 
"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it."
          Thomas Paine
  "Against logic there is no armor like ignorance."
          Dr. Laurence J. Peter
  "When ignorance gets started it knows no bounds."
          Will Rogers 
"Our biggest problem as human beings is not knowing that we don't know."
          Virginia Satir 
"Ignorance is not bliss--it is oblivion."
          Philip Wylie

Courtesy of Dr. Mardy