You Get A Line; I’ll Get a Pole (or Net)

March 23, 2013 purposeunderheavenLeave a comment

Patrick’s heart desires to fish for men, women and children. He views Ireland as part of the far reaches of the world and believes these people need to be told of Christ’s salvation.

And I wish to wait then for his promise which is never unfulfilled, just as it is promised in the Gospel: “Many shall come from east and west and shall sit at table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob [Matthew 8:11].”

Just as we believe that believers will come from all the world.  So for that reason one should, in fact, fish well and diligently, just as the Lord foretells and teaches, saying, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men [Matthew 4:19],” and again through the prophets: “Behold, I am sending forth many fishers and hunters, says the Lord [Jeremiah 16:16],” et cetera. So it behooved us to spread our nets, that a vast multitude and throng might be caught for God, and so there might be clergy everywhere who baptized and exhorted a needy and desirous people.

Just as the Lord says in the Gospel, admonishing and instructing: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always to the end of time [Matthew 28:19].”

And again he says: “Go forth into the world and preach the Gospel to all creation. He who believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he who does not believe shall be condemned [Mark 16:15].”

And again: “This Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached throughout the whole world as a witness to all nations; and then the end of the world shall come [Matthew 24:14].”

And likewise the Lord foretells through the prophet: “And it shall come to pass in the last days (sayeth the Lord) that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams; yea, and on my menservants and my maidservants in those days I will pour out my Spirit and they shall prophesy [Joel 2:28].”

And in Hosea he says: “Those who are not my people I will call my people, and those not beloved I will call my beloved, and in the very place where it was said to them, You are not my people, they will be called Sons of the living God [Hosea 1:10]

Ireland · March · March 17 · St. Patrick · St. Patrick's Confession · St. Patty's Day

Patrick Can’t Keep Silent

March 6, 2013March 6, 2013 purposeunderheavenLeave a comment

Therefore, indeed, I cannot keep silent, nor would it be proper, so many favours and graces has the Lord deigned to bestow on me in the land of my captivity. For after chastisement from God, and recognizing him, our way to repay him is to exalt him and confess his wonders before every nation under heaven:   For there is no other God, nor ever was before, nor shall be hereafter, but God the Father, unbegotten and without beginning, in whom all things began, whose are all things, as we have been taught; and his son Jesus Christ, who manifestly always existed with the Father, before the beginning of time in the spirit with the Father, indescribably begotten before all things, and all things visible and invisible were made by him. He was made man, conquered death and was received into Heaven, to the Father who gave him all power over every name in Heaven and on Earth and in Hell, so that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and God, in whom we believe. And we look to his imminent coming again, the judge of the living and the dead, who will render to each according to his deeds. And he poured out his Holy Spirit on us in abundance, the gift and pledge of immortality, which makes the believers and the obedient into sons of God and co-heirs of Christ who is revealed, and we worship one God in the Trinity of holy name.

Can’t keep silent. Today we some how believe it is wrong to talk about the acts of God in our lives. I grew up in a church where on Wednesday nights and some times Sunday nights people stood and told their testimonies. You don’t hear Christians telling other Christians what God has done in their lives much any more.

The Lord answers prayers in my life. He rescues me from the jams I get myself into. He has prepared me before hand for a crisis I will be asked to face. But the Lord also does sweet miracles (God kisses) that may not seem like big things to others but mean all the world to me. Over and over God cares for me, but it is seldom I tell people.

Patrick can’t help but tell others about what God has done for him. He says it is what is owed to God.

For after chastisement from God, and recognizing him, our way to repay him is to exalt him and confess his wonders before every nation under heaven:

Jesus said

Mark 16:¹⁵And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.

Why I am so silent when I should be shouting out everything my Lord has done for me? Why do I allow our society to coward me into silence? Why do we not practice sharing what God has done in our lives with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Patrick continues

He himself said through the prophet: “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me [Psalm 50:15].” And again: “It is right to reveal and publish abroad the works of God.”

Christian. · Ireland · March · March 17 · St. Patrick · St. Patrick's Confession · St. Patty's Day

Christianity Is Not in Our Genetic Code

March 3, 2013 purposeunderheavenLeave a comment

I, Patrick, a sinner, a most simple countryman, the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to many, had for father the deacon Calpurnius, son of the late Potitus, a presbyter, of the settlement of Bannaven Taburniae; he had a small villa nearby where I was taken captive. I was at that time about sixteen years of age. I did not, indeed, know the true God; and I was taken into captivity in Ireland with many thousands of people, according to our deserts, for quite drawn away from God, we did not keep his precepts, nor were we obedient to our presbyters who used to remind us of our salvation. And the Lord brought down on us the fury of his being and scattered us among many nations, even to the ends of the earth, where I, in my smallness, am now to be found among foreigners.

Patrick’s story opens with a teen of sixteen. He lived in a land where Christianity existed. Look at his family and you would assume Patrick lived a nice Christian life. His father was a deacon; and his grandfather appears to have been a priest.

But reading his words, I believe Patrick lived in a society where Christianity had slid from faith to just words and acts. Patrick admits he knew of the true God, but he did not personally know this God. I gather, in the area where he lived, this was true of the majority of people.

Patrick gets swept up in some type of raid. Thousands of his country men and women are also captured. The people of the land had abandoned faith in Christ, not for a new god or some new wave faith, they left God out of neglect.

Patrick believes the disaster which fell upon his people and their being taken as slaves is a result of their turning their back on God. He sees a comparison between his people being scattered and their not living for Christ.

Made me think of the prophecies associated with Israel.

^{Amos 9:8}Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the Lord.

⁹For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.

Today, I think Christians of America often sound like the Christians of Patrick’s villages.

“for quite drawn away from God, we did not keep his precepts, nor were we obedient to our presbyters who used to remind us of our salvation.”

I know from my own experience of slipping away that you do not have to make active decisions. Sometimes it results from wanting something you know is outside God’s will. In a past decade, I

I look forward to studying what Patrick discovered. I think the first thing is that we are not Christian because our ancestors believed. Christianity is not genetic.

Ireland · March · March 17 · St. Patrick · St. Patrick's Confession · St. Patty's Day

St. Patrick’s Confession

March 3, 2013 purposeunderheavenLeave a comment

Since it is March, I thought it might be fun to parse through the letter written by St. Patrick laying out his life and his relationship with God.

St. Patrick’s Confession

Birth 387 – Death 17 March (either 460 or 493–some debate)

This Confession was written in response to charges being made against Patrick and his work in Ireland. They explain how he came to love the Lord and the events of his life as he showed the Lord’s love to the inhabitants of Ireland.