A Fine Farewell Indeed!!

There probably won't be a lot of posting going on, I've begun to think that if I were to compile all my thoughts in a journal I may be able to publish them one day and make money off of you, all my adoring fan...no no you would get a free copy...if you reply!!!...anyway, I'm seeing the internet as a large waste of time and am spending very little time on it...I will be checking the email as occassionaly as I check it now, i.e. you'll be lucky if it's once a week, so if you desperately need me, call me, fax me or do something else that will get my attention faster.  If anyone wants to communicate the way they did in the...er...1900's I would be willing to write a letter or two...it's a lost art and I fancy myself to be an artist of a sorts.  So the Email is metal_for_christ@hotmail.com the snail mail is....no no i'm smarter than that if you want the address email me, same goes for the phone number. if you want to know what i've been writing, hopefully, i'll let you in on it.  Praying for almost everyone I think who commented on the last two posts, and your spouses and children too; love you all in Christ and some of you as if you were my own borther or sister.  please don't fall victim to the internet and stay out of contact with me, i'd miss you all very much!

                                                                                                                                                          Sincerely,

                                                                                                                                                           Thomas Wilhelm Mahon

Godly Men Make Godly Decisions

     I've started reading through the Bible, cover to cover, never done it before.  It is encouraging what God shows you even in doing that.  I've just finished Genesis and I'm halfway through Exodus, I also read the tail end of Joshua because my Bible was open to it and I had nothing to do, and I noticed something yesterday: Godly Men Make Godly Decision.  It is not, however, the mans Godliness that allows him to make the Godly decision, it is quite the opposite: it is the Godly decision that makes the man Godly. Now, there must come two decisions. First the decision to be obeidient to God. Then the making of the Godly decision, following that obedience you have decided upon in your heart.  Joseph chose to be a Godly man, so when he was faced with a decision (i.e. Potopher's wife and the welfare of Egypt, and by the providence of God even his own family) he made the Godly decision.  Moses, when given advice by Jethro, because he chose Godliness, through faith, over disobedience, he made the Godly decision.  Joshua who, through evidence of his life, chose Godliness, through faith, could boldly say to the children of Israel that "we will serve the LORD." 
      And this is indeed by faith.  Just like our salvation, our Godliness rests in faith. Faith that God is truth and that He will lead us "in the paths of righteous, for His names sake."  God wouldn't lead us in a direction that wasn't for His glory, and our good.  Even His chastening is not only for His glory, but our good:  "For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, (not for our good, but there best interest) but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. "  It says that our fathers "chastened us as seemed best to them". That is not the case with God. God chastenes "for our profit (good)," as much is necesary for us to come back to partaking in His holiness, where we will be glorifying Him again.  We must have the faith to say, "I know that you are Truth and that you will only lead me in paths of righteous for the sake of your name and your kingdom, and that you won't let anything come to me that you do not controll."  Only then when we are faced with a choice, a trial, a temptation will be able to obey and and make a Godly decision. 
      It is that Godly decision that causes us to grow and become Godly.  "Consider it all joy my brethren when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have it's perfect work that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."  We will not have endurance until we pass a trial, failing a trial does not produce endurance.  Godly decisions produce endurance.  Godly decision make us Godly.

life in the left hand

            Ok so I'm not living with thirty four cats or a retired plumber, but I am alive and well.  God is loving and that is good. I've been reading Psalms and in the first 70 chapters, you know the first two books written by David, he mentions "the right hand of God" a lot.  Yes, there were times in David's life where he messed up, where he was outside of the will of God, where he sinned...we all know the stories. However, for the most part David was in the right hand of God, the side of favor and strength...sorry lefties. Obviously God doesn't have literal hands, it's an Anthropomorphism, but there is the concept of being in His either right or left hand, the place of favor or the place of discipline. Let me make mention of this before we go on, both hands are hands of love; For what does it say about even the unbelieving? "For God so loved the world" and "while we were yet sinners Christ died for us," the greatest display of love possible, "for greater love has no man than this, that he lay his life down for his friends."  Beloved of God, there is no unloving hand of God. God's left hand of discipline and chastening is just as loving as His right hand of blessing and strength.  God never not loves us, or God never falls out of love for mankind.  However, the left hand of God is not where He desires us to be, but what hand we are in is not part of the sovereign decision making of God either.  Our choice of whether we are going to be disciplined or blessed, chastened or strengthened is entirely ours.  It is not Gods responsibility to make us righteous, "do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God." 
          The key to the Christian Life is this: Live Practically what you are Positionaly. Yes, we are righteous before God, positionaly, but we do not become righteous before men the same way, that is practical righteousness.  Sanctification, or holiness, starts with righteousness, "For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification"   Patrick Trevor Ward, the modern scholar and philosopher, theologian and friend, said it best that salvation and holiness aren't the same thing.  Positionaly speaking they are, but practically we cannot go on thinking that since we have become Children of the living God we can go about living in sin and maintain our righteousness.  We will not lose our salvation, that is outside of the character of God, but we will not be holy if we are not, first, righteous. 
         I know this for a fact, because I have spent years in the left hand of God and you have seen evidence of that if you have read my blog before. Judah was in the left hand of God.  Disobedience, Pride, Coveting, etc.  those things do not put you in the right hand of God, but they keep you in the left.  "Just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness..." this is talking about practical unrighteousness, which merely leads to more practical unrighteousness; "so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification," unlike unrighteousness, which doesn't end but cycles back to from where it began, righteousness results in sanctification.  lets live righteously today and "holdfast to our confession of hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful."

                                                                                                                         Press On,
                                                                                                                         Thomas

God is Good, even when we aren't.  Immutable is the theological word, i.e. He doesn't change. 

"This is a trustworthy statement, 'if we died with Him we will also live with Him; if we endure we will also reign with Him; if we disown Him, He will disown us; if we are faithless He remains faitfhul, forHe cannot disown Himself.'"