Easy Slow Cooker Carnitas

Ingredients:

-4 Boneless pork chops (small)
-1 Red bell pepper
-Chicken broth
-Taco sauce
-Paprika
-Chili powder
-Garlic
-Pepper

Directions:

1. Place chops into the slow cooker and pour in chicken broth until the meat is just covered (use another type of broth, if you prefer).
2. Add bell pepper that has been chopped into strips (the ratio of pepper to pork should be about 1:4).
3. Pour in a tablespoon of taco sauce.
4. Cover and allow to cook on high heat for one hour.
5. Flip pork, cover, and allow to cook on low heat for one hour.
6. Remove pork and cut into thin strips.
7. Return meat to slow cooker for another half an hour, or until the meat is tender.
8. Drain, and serve on tortilla with preferred additives, like cheese or rice.

A Prototype Problem

It’s a rainy day. Or, as my husband says, “it’s a nice day to be a duck”.

What it is about rainy days and “should be”?

There is something about the grey, the damp, and the howling wind that makes people unstable. And when people feel unstable, at least in my experience and observation, we tend to look for models of security. We begin to demand that things make sense rather than facing the uncertainties of our life.

I’m speaking more, I think, to emotional and spiritual uncertainty. Questions like whether or not our lives have meaning after all, what we have to hope for anyway, and so on. There arise those unwanted, uncomfortable feelings of being lost, if not lost for eternity, than at least lost in much of what this life seems to be.

Desperate to get a grip, I think many of us in our uncertainties seek a prototype. We look for a prototype of God. A prototype of self. A prototype of daily life. It seems we’re looking to escape the difficulty of relying wholly on our Savior and the Spirit’s work in order to live under the false pretense that everything is in order, in an order that we can comprehend.

Instead of seeking the Lord, we seek simply Adonai, the father figure God. Or perhaps God as our protector. Maybe we look for the Jesus who identifies with us because once He was a man and was tempted too. A controlled idea of God is what we desire.

As for ourselves, we begin to analyze. Some of us are more critical, seeing ourselves as selfish, hopeless sinners who can’t deserve anything at all. We mourn and grieve our sins and punish ourselves for being so human. Others take refuge in the goodness of their deeds and seek to self-justify. Whatever defines us, we're just glad to be understood.

And then there are our lives. Our jobs, our responsibilities, and the expectations placed on us. Lists develop, miles long, of our failures or our successes. We compare these lists, and ourselves, and our relationship with God, to others. We edit and rewrite our versions of God, of ourselves, and of our life-lists to mirror the prototypes that look like the best investments.

So it goes on. Over and over. If we stop to think about it, it seems a little silly. Isn’t this a child’s game? Don’t children get freaked out over this stuff, and grown-ups have it all figured out? You eat, you work, you sleep, you chat, you watch TV, the end. Don’t do bad stuff. Be a good person. Life can’t be that hard, it can’t be as complicated as our feelings and ideas make it out to be.

Good news! It isn’t. The truth is simple.

                God is God. He isn’t made in our image. Phil 2:7.

 He doesn’t play “good cop, bad cop” with us, revealing only certain versions of Himself at particular times. He has always been at work, has never changed, and lives up to all that He claims to be. Heb 6:17, Heb 13:8, Psalm 100:5, Rom 1:20.

His records are perfect, there is no detail glossed over or misinterpreted. Psalm 37:23, Psalm 139, Isaiah 40.

The Lord is not a prototype. He is alive. His Word and Spirit are living. And He is who He says is. John 14:26, Hebrews 4:12, Exodus 3:14.

                We are who He says we are.  Sinners, saved by grace through repentance and faith in the our Savior. Romans 3:23, Ephesians 2:8.

Further, we have been redeemed and adopted as God’s own children. We face His loving discipline, as He is our Father, and we know that we will are rewarded by inheriting eternity with Him. Galatians 4:7, Hebrews 12:7, Romans 8:17.

Our hope is in Him, and we can live before our Lord in all confidence because of His mercy and grace. 1 Tim1:1, Psalm 62, Heb 4:16.

                Our lives are in His hands. We can be anxious for absolutely nothing, because He always provides sufficiently. Psalm 31, Matt 6.

                It’s alright for us to not know. And to not worry about what happens or what we gain or what other’s lives seem to be like. To be with Him is everything! Psalm 73, Isaiah 55, Proverbs 19:21, Jeremiah 9:24.

               

                Enough with the prototype problem. There is no “should be” that our Lord has not (past, present, and future) considered and covered. Life is not an equation that we have to plug the right stuff into to get good results. God is not a concept. We are not set in stone. Life is not a neat little story. He is living, He gives us new life, and it is a life without end.

                Praise the Lord that we don’t have to worry about what we don’t know, or what we can’t do, or any of the stuff that attempts to convince us that we are actually lost. We know exactly Who we need to, and He is sufficient!         

      

                 Colin Smith says it well when He explains what the true faith that we rely on is:

“Christian faith does not rest on our feelings, it does not rest on our insights, it doesn’t rest on our interpretations, Christian faith rests on God’s explanation of His own actions, revealed to us and recorded for us in the Scriptures. He has risen. Who says so? God says so! And you can stake your life and your eternity on that.” –Colin Smith, Unlocking the Bible, “Jesus Offers Life to His People”, April 16, 2014.

                Psalm 23 reminds us that, in all circumstances, on all days, He is with us, and we have nothing to fear. Not even uncertainties and insecurities.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,

he leads me beside quiet waters,

he refreshes my soul.

He guides me along the right paths

for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk

through the darkest valley,

I will fear no evil,

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff,

they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil;

my cup overflows.

Surely your goodness and love will follow me

all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord

forever.”

Heaven is for Real, And We Shouldn't Diminish That

www.christianpost.com

Quite a bit of controversy has arisen over the popular book and film, Heaven is for Real. It might seem a little silly to squabble about. But I have to admit that many of both Christian and secular discussions of this story -even in reviews and articles- are disturbing. 

I am disturbed for this reason: 

Heaven is not the good news. The good news is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When we take liberties, even small ones, in what we proclaim, believe, and set our sights on, we are vulnerable to in-numerable trappings and abuses. Further, when we condone or approve of such liberties, we expose others to a wayward path.

And, in more detail, 

1. We diminish the kingdom of God when we place our faith in human experiences that add to or subtract from the Word of God.

It seems in regards to this story that we are all largely concerned with the things of this world, not with the Kingdom of God. Some of the concerns, for example, involve believing/disbelieving a four year old child whose experience occurred while he was drugged. Others involve what to make of the "evidence" for his story, namely that he was able to piece together things that were never directly spoken to him. 

Generally, when people publicly claim to have had spiritual experiences that are not in line with the Bible, Christians largely consider the experience to have been misunderstood or to be folly. For example, many believers have claimed over time to know details about Christ's return. Scripture is usually quickly referred to -no one knows the time of His return (Mark 13:32). No person is given license to add to the Bible in such a way. 

People also try to subtract from Scripture. For example, many individuals have tried to claim that all spiritual paths can lead to God, dismissing that Jesus is the way, singular (John 14:6). Bible-believing Christians often respond in unity, appealing to God's Word as infallible.

This is according to Scripture. Deutoronomy 4:2, for one, says:

"You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you."

What the Bible tells us about heaven is not in line with stories like those presented in Heaven is for Real, or the many other differing tales on the topic. So what about the evidence people provide to justify themselves?

Trying to work out the nuances and "science" of experiences like those presented in Heaven is for Real is foolish. The story isn't a myth to be debunked, it isn't truth just because it was sincerely spoken. Heaven is not in need of our discovery and presentation; the Bible has got that covered.

2. We diminish our hope in the Lord and His Gospel when we take foolish risks about what we should or shouldn't believe.

Our hope is in the Lord. The Gospel alone saves us. Without the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it doesn't matter if we believe in heaven and want to get there. It doesn't even matter what we think heaven is like. The Kingdom of God exists. Scripture tells us to "repent and believe in (the good news of) the Gospel" (Mark 1:15). We learn that the Kingdom of God isn't a worldly or human matter, like eating or drinking, but is found in the Holy Spirit, and in pleasing God (Romans 14:17-18). 

Romans 14:20 highlights the issue for us. "Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food." 

The Greek word "food," transliterated "bróma," is figurative and literal. It indicates anything selected for the purpose of satisfying the soul or the mind. The implication is that the selected thing is not God Himself.  "Destroy," transliterated "kataluó," describes an act of thoroughly loosening or breaking up something bound properly, like a yoke.

This verse exhorts us -do not loosen the yoke of the Gospel for the sake of something to satiate you with satisfaction apart from the truth.

Further, later on in, in verses 21 and 22, we read this: "It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall. So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves."

It is better not to participate in things selected to satiate us that could cause another person to loose hold of the truth. Our beliefs about the things that might be currently considered unclear spiritually in our minds are between us and God alone. We are blessed by not approving of things that we might actually be condemned by. 

It is also wise for us to not jump on a feel-good bandwagon that could be headed far from the truth, simply because it might satisfy one of our many sinful cravings for foreknowledge and hope beyond the sufficiency of Christ. This is even more so because it might not be only ourselves that we condemn in the process, but others who are led astray. 

3. We diminish the sufficient and living quality of God's Word. 

We have good reason to be cautious in what we believe about other's experiences. Scripture has plenty of examples of visions, signs, and wonders, that are not of the Lord (see examples such as Egyptian magic in Exodus 7 or Satan and the false apostles being disguised as angels of light in 1 Corinthians 11). 

There are also a few Biblical examples of people having visions of heaven -but always for an explicit, new purpose and message from God. Those who died and are raised in the Bible, regardless of their experience with death, never recorded what occurred during the experience. And all occurrences are in absolute conjunction with each other and the rest of Scripture. The stories we hear of modern folk's experiences of heaven, like in Heaven is for Real, are never like those had by Biblical characters and always add something.

Why do we "add to the truth" as if God's promise of heaven (the Kingdom of God, which is at hand!) isn't sufficient? Why do we place our hope and faith in the fanciful dreams of men and their children instead of in the One who is living? And in His living and active Word? 

4.  We diminish our belief in Jesus Christ, and Him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2). It matters that we put our whole faith in Jesus Christ, and not in any person, no matter how convincing their tales. Christ alone is the Savior who is with us and will be with us forever.

The glory of heaven is something to look forward to, but we don't have to wait for the peace and joy and righteousness of the Kingdom of God. It begins for us, though it is not yet brought to completion, when our life is given anew in Him. When the Holy Spirit begins to work in us and we can securely fix our eyes on the Savior who is with us and will be for the rest of eternity, we have the guarantee of future glory, and we have the beginnings of our witnessing glory now. 

We shouldn't diminish the reality of heaven. We must not diminish the Gospel that gives us access to eternity in glory. Yet we do diminish all these by skipping over the Gospel, dismissing it, or putting it in second place, right after our own "happy day" arriving in heaven. Heaven is established and maintained by God, who is the only one worthy of all glory and honor and praise. 

........

Hebrews 12 is a beautiful place to revisit the course laid out for us, remembering not our selfish desires for glory, perfection, and joy, but our actual goal:

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." (Hebrews 12:1-2)

And what is our prize? Not a jolly mansion in the sky, not schemed up angel wings, not seeing people who we've never even met, but as Philippians 3:8-14 states:

"I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

(Underlined emphases added)