Barn Cats and Butter Paws (By Michael Tracy)

Over the years that our family has lived in Iowa, we have quite naturally met many people who grew up on farms.  Since my early years were spent in the suburbs of Buffalo NY, Boston MA and Cleveland OH, the stories and experiences that these friends had were far different than mine.  I have found these stories to be interesting, entertaining and educational.

One structure that farms have in common is a barn.  There are a lot of different barn designs and buildings.  Depending upon the type of farm, the barns may have different purposes.  A barn for hay storage is different than a barn for milking the cows.  One feature that they seem to have in common though are cats.  Barn cats can be really helpful in keeping the rodent populations down.  Apparently these cats can have a tendency to reproduce and also to get underfoot and in the way when things are going on in the barn.

One friend in particular told us what their family did when they needed to have the barn cats out of their way.  They would catch the cats, put butter on their paws and put them in an out-of-the-way corner of the barn.  The cats would be so focused on licking their paws to get all the butter off that they would stay put and pay no attention to what else may be going on.

That is quite a picture of course and it made me think of how God’s adversary works.  (Yes, there is an adversary and sadly most Christians seem to be ignorant of his devices and therefore vulnerable to him). This adversary has two desires:  to be like the Most High and secondly, to hinder the purposes of the True God. 

One way that this adversary will hinder the purposes of the True God is to distract God’s children from God’s Will and Purpose for their lives.  It seems that there is no end to the variety of the distractions!  Work, sports, television, the computer, religious activities (gasp) can all be “butter on the paws”.  Obviously that list is not exhaustive.

If it seems that you never have time to quietly and privately commune with God – you may have butter on your paws.

If you are always too tired to stay your mind and meditate upon God’s Word – you may have butter on your paws.

If it is never convenient to fellowship and worship with likeminded believers – you may have butter on your paws.

If you are too busy to pray with and be of service to a brother or sister in Christ – you may have butter on your paws.

If you are never able to find a way to share out of your abundance – you may have butter on your paws.

There is nothing more satisfying in life than to live in harmony with our Heavenly Father and in alignment with His purpose for our lives.

What if?

What if we stopped treating Sunday like an extra Saturday? What if we didn’t think of it as one more day to go to Home Depot, or one more day for kids’ sporting events or another day to prepare for Monday? What if we treated Sunday like the Lord’s Day? What would be the difference in our lives between making this decision this week and a year from now?

One year from this Sunday, we will have spent 52 days with our heart focused on God and Jesus Christ. Seven and half weeks learning about the blessings and responsibilities of salvation—what would that do to us?

Wait! What if we actually treated Saturday as the day to prepare for Sunday? I’m not saying all day, but you know.  What if we got our mind and heart ready on Saturday to worship God, hear His Word preached and fellowship with other believers?

Wait, again! What if we treated Monday like the first day to review and put into practice what we learned on Sunday? What would the rest of the week look like?

Wait, wait, wait!! What if during the week we took some action to connect with other believers to encourage one another, to pray for one another. What if we just connected by phone, e-mail or over coffee? What if we encouraged our pastor?

Wait (I know, I know, I get too excited)! What if we took the first and greatest commandment  – “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind ” and the second commandment “You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37, 38)”  and applied it to how we live? Just thinking.

Theistic Evolution

As I mentioned a few blogs back, there is renewed effort to send the Bible’s account of creation and Adam and Eve to the garbage dump. I also mentioned that this renewed effort is being made not only by atheist Darwinists, but by some Christians and other religionists. They call their theory of the origin of life “Theistic Evolution.” These are people who believe in God but who reject the creation account in Genesis. Personally I do not know how you can believe in God and yet reject the beginning of the Scripture as fantasy. If you can’t trust the beginning of the Bible how can you have faith in another section of Scripture (a topic for another blog)?

Theistic evolutionists propose that after the initial “Big Bang” God unleashed evolution to do its work. Thus trees, frogs, birds and man were not created by a specific act of God, but slowly came into being by a process of random acts of evolution that took billions of years.

One such theistic evolutionist is scientist Francis Collins. Collins is a brilliant scientist who once headed the Human Genome Project. This was the monumental and successful endeavor that mapped the 3.1 billion letters of the human genetic code. Collins work is to be applauded heartily. President Obama appointed Collins to direct the National Institute of Health.

Mr. Collins has said that God might have known and perhaps even determined the outcome of evolution, but nevertheless made it look like it was produced by random and undirected processes. My question to Mr. Collins would be “Why?” Here is Collins in his own words:

“…evolution could appear to us to be driven by chance, but from God’s perspective the outcome would be entirely specified. Thus, God could be completely and intimately involved in the creation of all species, while from our perspective, limited as it is by the tyranny of linear time, this would appear as a random and undirected process.” [my emphasis] (F. Collins, “The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence For Belief,” New York Free Press, 2006, p. 136)

Call me dumb, but why would God do that? Why would He tell us in the Bible that He specifically created each and every species “according to its kind (Genesis 1), but then make it look like He didn’t? Why would He tell us one thing but then make nature look as if it came about by random acts of evolution over billions of years? To paraphrase the words of Gollum from The Lord of the Rings: “Sneaky little God. Wicked, tricksy, false!”

But wait a minute, you better be seated, Collins a Christian Darwinist believes that God made nature to look like life evolved randomly. But, Richard Dawkins, an atheist Darwinist asserts that the world of nature is full of “complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” [my emphasis] (Richard Dawkins, “The Blind Watchmaker,” NY: W.W. Norton, 1996, p. 1).

Confused yet? Collins says that life looks like it came about randomly and without a purpose and Dawkins says life looks like it was designed for a purpose? Holy thought transference Batman!

You should know that a growing number of scientists question the validity of Darwinism and the idea that life arose from undirected, natural selection and random variations. A study published by Douglas Axe in The Journal of Molecular Biology details the amazing rarity of certain working protein sequences, raising important questions about how blind, random chance could generate them. Axe states that the possibility that these protein sequences evolved is “less than one in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion.” (John West’s article in Evolution News and Views, Jan. 10, 2007

University of Wisconsin-Superior biologist Ralph Seelke has demonstrated that natural selection and evolution cannot produce complicated life. Seelke tested “the ability of evolution to produce a new function when two changes are needed at effectively the same time…in a population of trillions of bacteria and over thousand of generations.” What happened? “A requirement for two changes effectively stops evolution.” (BIO-Complexity 2, 2010, pp.1-9)

I could give you even more examples of research that stops the theory of evolution in its tracks. Over eight hundred scientists from places like Princeton, Ohio State, University of Michigan and MIT have signed a statement expressing their serious doubt that Darwin’s theory of evolution can explain the complexity of life (http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/).

So what are we to do? How about we seriously take God at His Word? “In the beginning God created (Genesis 1:1).”

Should Financial Giving Always Be Kept Secret?

Here is what the Bible says about our financial offerings to the church, “But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work (2 Corinthians 9:6-8).”

Now here’s a question: should Christians share with other believers how much they give in their offerings? I think most of us would say no, it’s a personal matter. After all didn’t Jesus say, “Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly (Matthew 6:1-4).”

Further thinking about this passage may shed new light on it, however. Our Lord is dealing with motives in this passage. The key verse is the first one about doing charitable deeds to be seen by men. So the verses above are not a prohibition against other believers being aware of our good deeds or giving. The command is for us to not do good things just to receive recognition and approval from others. In other words don’t slam dunk your wad of cash into the offering basket.

But there are times when it is good for others to know what someone is giving to the Lord. When the poor widow gave her two mites in the offering, Christ specifically pointed her out and said, “Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood (Mark 12:43, 44).” The widow’s giving was inspirational to say the least.

In Acts 2:45 we are told that the early Christians “sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need (Acts 2:45. See also 4:32-35).” Did other people know who gave what to whom?  Most likely. If you had two prize camels and everyone knew it and then only had one, but Bob who never had a camel now has one, I think people would know what happened and again be inspired by your generosity.

In Acts 4:36, 37 we are told about a man named Barnabas who had lands and sold them and brought the money to the apostles. If Barney was looking for a high five for his gift to the church then his motive was wrong. But it is also clear that it was not wrong for others to know about his gracious gift, because the Bible reveals it.

In order to stir up the Corinthians to get involved in financial giving, the apostle Paul pointed to the very poor Macedonians who dug deep and gave much (2 Corinthians 8: 1-7). And he informs us what inspired the Macedonians: “they first gave themselves to the Lord (v 5).” In the Old Testament, 1 Chronicles 29 declares exactly how much the leaders of the people gave to build the temple. Then Scripture says, “Then the people rejoiced, for they had offered willingly, because with a loyal heart they had offered willingly to the LORD (v 9).”

In the same sermon where our Lord Jesus said not to do our charitable giving just to be seen by men, he also said “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven (Matthew 5:16).”

The body of Christ needs to let its light shine both in the church, to motivate other believers and to the world, in order to offer hope. There’s a time when our giving should be seen, acknowledged and honored, but only at the right time and for the right motive, for the good of others and the glory of God.