Aspiring Spurgeon

A Far Too Common Story

2012-02-10T07:48:00.002-06:00

She walked into the bar. Tired, worn down and out. The bags under her eyes were obvious, the same clothes she had on yesterday cling to her skin. There’s a look of desperation in her face, of worry and torment.

Flopping into a seat near the bar she orders her drink. Huddling over it once it arrives she begins to gingerly milk it little sips here, little sips there. Tears, and possibly a scream seem to be close to bursting from her.

She’d been here last night, this bar. But then she was vibrant and happy, laughing at the stupid jokes and dancing the night away. But now she seems broken.

He’d been a nice enough guy. Seemed to genuinely care. He bought a few rounds for her and her friends and made polite small talk. After she’d denied his advances of becoming a little too physical he left. She thought nothing of it at all.

She’d parked too far away from the safety of the lights, she’d said goodbye to her friends, and she was alone.

He took her. He raped her.

Here she sits the next day weeping into a cup of coffee. Trying to find what she’d lost at the place she had it last.

It’s the story of far to many women.

It’s the fear they’ll never tell.

But it’s a travesty.

To believe the lie of being, ‘broken,’ and therefore unwanted. To remember the youth group teaching, “Who would want someone who’s not a virgin?” Yet that’s the lie.

God wants the broken. It’s the culmination of Christianity. That the destitute are redeemed, that the broken are made whole.

There’s a Redeemer who’s come to save. The righteous has no need of saving, it’s the sick that need the Doctor, and it’s the broken that need the Mender. It’s the raped that need the Healer.

So to Jesus she runs, to him, who'll treat her like the daughter she is, she clings. Away from the mire of the past and into the glory of the future. Because hope has come.

In all seriousness: If this story is you, don't let the boy who did this get away. There are many who will help. There are friends who'll listen. You, of all people, are not alone.

Thinking Things Through

2012-02-08T07:58:00.002-06:00

While I worked on some things this picture came across my mind. The passage is John 2:13-22.

The temple was created for worship, much like mankind was created for worship. It was to be pure, to be spotless, to be the meeting place of God and man. Sound familiar?

Once was a garden wherein man lived and communed with God. God had made man to worship Him. It was the reason for creation, to glorify God… It still is the reason for creation.

But man sinned and fell.

The Temple created for worship, intended for nothing else but worship, fell.

Then Jesus came in and whipped out the traders, turned over the root of the issue, the money, and cleansed the Temple.

John 2:13-22 is a picture of the Gospel, of what Jesus does in the life of his people.

Traders buying, selling while the moneychangers finance it all inhabits you. Yet Jesus comes crashing into your life, whip in hand, and doesn’t simple go for the small issues, the pigeons and goats, he turns over the root of the problem, your sin filled heart. Then by the blood of himself he cleanses you and calls you, “Mine.”

Yet we are constantly being made new. Sin is continuously being routed out by the work of the Spirit, the Helper.

Jesus has done precisely what was planned. Cleansed.

Beautiful, no? To be the temple of the Spirit, the dwelling place of God. Him moving and working and causing life to be and sancification to occur. Wonderful.

Yet still there's sin.

This shows how deep the problem goes. Everything we are is corrupted by sin. Everything (Errything).

The situation ought to seem a little desperate. That we're all hypocritical messes just waiting to explode. But today I'll go to lunch at The Anchor and talk like a leader.

Because there's only one reason why life can carry on while a tooth and nail war is raged in your soul.

"My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness... His oath, his covenant, his blood supports me in the whelming flood. When all around my soul gives way, he then is all my hope and stay."

At least this must be the aim.

Evangelical Leprosy

2012-02-06T08:41:00.000-06:00

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD). It’s a blight on evangelicalism. It really is a disease inside the Christian Church.

Let’s take the idea one word at a time.

Morals. Lists of rights and wrongs made up by every individual person to live a good life. No drugs, no pre-marital sex, no cursing, no alcohol, yes church, yes trying to be kind, yes being a ‘good’ person. The ~~church~~, meeting place, is teaching how to have a better life, and be a better you, and managing debt well, and have a better marriage/parenting/spouse/fill-in-the-blank-here.

Therapy. We all know this one. There’s no guessing what it’s about. Making us feel good about who we are and what we’ve been/are. No pushing to change only the desire to see just a few more 'how to’s' added to the list of morals from above because hey, God loves you.

Deism. Deism is the belief in a Supreme Being who created the universe. But deism is nowhere near Christian. Deism holds that this Creator created then left us to play everything out. The clock-winder-god. He wound the clock and now it sits on his mantel only to be glimpsed when wanted. This is not Christianity. Not. At. All.

Morals won’t save you.

Therapy won’t make you well.

Deism doesn’t do anything.

Morals won’t save you because you can’t be good enough (Romans 3).

Therapy won’t make you well because pride kills (Psalm 31; 59:12; Prov. 8:13…).

Deism won’t save you because it is absolutely void of the Gospel.

Let this be crystal clear. The cross is central to the Christian faith. Jesus is what separates Christians from all other religions. To call deism ‘Christian’ is like calling a mouse an elephant and the moon the sun. 1) It is a lie. 2) It is a blatant disregard for the way God has made things. 3) It is pure ignorance.

It’s why we preach the Gospel. It’s why we talk about the brutality of the cross and the glory of the resurrection. It’s why Christianity is Jesus and not morals or therapy or deism.

Quite frankly - I'll go Puritanical in my speech here - this way of teaching (MTD) needs to die. Pastors who preach this will be welcomed into hell by the screams of their congregants, I don't doubt this. "Whoa, that's a little harsh Sam." I'd agree with you, if it wasn't the glory of God and the saving of souls at stake. Wishy-washy belief makes for non-commital people which causes heresy that is not Christian.

And this heresy staralizes people to the Gospel, because why would a 'good person' need saving?

Mercy Falling From the Sky

2012-02-03T08:01:00.001-06:00

The rain falls; I can hear it out my window. The thunder claps, frightening the cat. The grey morning begins to shine. Mercy is falling from the sky.

Often the thought never sticks and the idea floats away that all we know and all we have is a mercy so undeserved.

We deserve immediate death.

The replacement of this rain with the fires of hell, but yet it rains on outside.

How long will it take for us to see?

The party doesn’t last, the drink doesn’t quench, and the cigarette must be followed by another. Thing upon thing we’ve used to supplant the Supreme. And time after time we’ve seen them to fail.

Insane is what we are, the textbook definition tells us. Repeating the same action hoping for a different outcome.

But…

God.

Frees us from our repeating of nothing and causes us to do something. Saves us from our captivity and calls us to be satisfied in him. To throw away all the ignorant vices we once had and cling to the cross.

While it won’t be easy, it’ll be worth it. While it won’t be safe, it’ll be worth it. While the journey will kill us, it’ll bring us to our Savior whose beckoning us home.

Sin No More

2012-02-01T08:46:00.000-06:00

9) Why is the sentence, “Go and sin no more,” not apart of our thoughts/words?

That was one of the thoughts from Monday’s post. As I wrote it then I knew I’d want to do a follow-up on it for more than one reason.

First, because it’s a massive statement to be thought let alone said.

Second, because of recent issues involving church discipline.

While in some instance the passage this quote is taken from is considered an extra-biblical text (for more info: here). The theme of the story, and the story itself does not deviate from or give a different picture of Jesus in any way whatsoever. So it’s safe to assume this story actually happened, just not in the chronological order assumed in John.

But that’s beside the point, the point is, “Go and sin no more,” a sinner being forgiven.

“What? How could Jesus say this to someone even though he knew they’d sin again.”

Two things.

First, why would Jesus say, “Go and sin as little as possible”? Does that make since? Nu-huh.

Second, Jesus is a sinner’s forgiveness. It’s the point of his coming, to take all (by all I mean all) of the sins of sinners and pay for them. Leaving the sinner as though they’d never sinned. (Which doesn’t allow for ‘living-like-hell’ syndrome, but for gratitude.)

“… As the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. (Col 3:13)” This ought to hit hard.
We forgive and call for ourselves and others to, “Go and sin no more,” because it is precisely what Jesus did to and for us.

So in terms of church discipline this means we forgive. The bit about forgiving 70 times 7 (maaaath/ Matt 18:21-23) isn’t just for some and not for others, it’s for all, when we are sinned against we forgive.

As it comes to repentance I want to know someone is truly repentant, but will I? No. I won’t truly know if someone is truly repentant, the same way I won’t truly know someone is a believer. It’s not in my hands or capability to know. Sure it’s possible to have a reasonable assumption, but in the end it’s just an educated guess (like true false on a test).

The point is this: go and sin no more trusting Jesus to be the final authority on their repentance and their forgiveness, the same way you trust him to be yours.

Thinking Thoughts

2012-01-30T08:35:00.002-06:00

1) Found out my boy cat is a girl cat… Luther is now Katharina… Yup.

2) I got a lady friend (like a human lady, not a cat).

3) Bacon and coffee

4) If you’ve never read John17, or just haven’t done it in a while, then here

5) I’m reading The Hunger Games and trying to make them last

6) The Scarlet Letter

7) My thoughts on the whole Mars Hill discipline issue

8) Skittles are getting me through my College Algebra homework (the red pack, not some silly purple or blue pack).

9) Why is the sentence, “Go and sin no more,” not apart of our thoughts/words?

10) The trash truck that drives by my house every Monday might as well be a tank.

Grateful vs. Duty

2012-01-27T07:57:00.001-06:00

I’ve had a thought running through my brain most of this week, more like a question really, “What would be, for me, disobedience if I don’t do it?”

What I mean is, is there something I should be doing (now or in the future) which if I don’t will be a sin? Is there a specific call on my life to do a certain something or start a specific somewhere?

Know what I mean?

I remember singing, as a kid at school, “Obedience is the very best thing to show that you believe.” I think we’d even clap along while we sang it. I disagree, in part.

Obedience is great, but the best way to show you believe must be love, for if it is how all will know we are of Christ, by the way we love each other, then surely love would be the best way to show belief (or disbelief). But even love, if not done correctly cannot be the supreme way to show belief.

It’s the chasm between obligation and gratitude, which separates correct love/obedience and incorrect.

Obligation is this, “I love you because I have to.” Flattering, right?

Gratitude is this, “I love you because of who you are.”

The first is forced action the other is a welling up within another because of the worth of the one loved.

So, back to the beginning, what should I be doing, not from having to, but from getting to, which would be disobedience if I don’t do said thing?

Controversy in Discipline

2012-01-25T17:09:00.003-06:00

Recently some issues have come to light about church discipline (read Matthew 18:15-18 for a base) , specifically the misuse of discipline within a church, which is an injustice. For some time I’ve spoken about the final step of church discipline, what it means to treat someone like a non-believer, like a Gentile and a tax collector.

That’s what I want to do here.

I remember listening to sermons at one point and understanding church discipline as cutting ties, breaking fellowship, disposing of the person both in mind and heart. I was a janitor at the time, cleaning a toilet. So needless to say some thoughts ran through my mind of what it’s like to discard (*ahem flush ahem*) them away from yourself.

But it seemed wrong.

Treat someone, arguably a non-believer with the same contempt you treat your own waste. That seems a distant meaning from Matthew 18:17, so far in fact I consider it non-biblical.

Non-believers aren’t excommunicated, are they? We don’t go around shunning folks for not believing the gospel; we befriend them and love them in hope they’ll someday come to salvation, at least that’s what we preach (at least we ought to.). Heck, we even invite them into church.

So why should we excommunicate someone who sinned but didn’t repent of it? We shouldn’t. Sure how we view them changes, they go from brother or sister to simply friend, from inside to outside, from family to acquaintance. But we don’t openly (nor inwardly) damn them.

Gentiles and tax collector come into the inclusion of the Gospel. They are apart of the promise. Jesus hung out with them. One of the apostles was a tax collector. Mark isn’t a Jewish name (Gentile). Galatia isn’t a place in Israel, neither is Philippi, Colossi, or Corinth. My heritage is Scottish.

You see my point?

If the final step of church discipline were exclusion, revulsion, and casting away then the likelihood of belief for any outside of Israel would be doubtful… But it’s not so, is it?

In fact the Gospel goes to the four corners of the globe to the Gentiles and the tax collectors.

I am not advocating doing away with church discipline, not at all. Bold confrontation of sin is necessary in believer’s lives. We are, more often than not, blind to our own sin (because we don’t want to see it) so we need brothers and sisters to tell us about our blind spots.

And when/if repentance doesn’t come we don’t damn, cause surely that is not our place, we treat them as we do the lost with love and the hope of salvation (not in a Ned Flanders style either)

Yet there’s another point, believers don’t do a fantastic job at spending time with, “sinners.” They’re dirty.

So were you.

In response to the controversy: I think a church messed up, but I can’t nor won’t damn them, it’s simply not my place. But I will use it to point to the beautiful fact that the church is a whore. She is broken and dirty and loved.

Loved.

She’ll mess up and she’ll be confronted (as she is now) and she’ll learn. Because Jesus saved her at the cost of his life that’s why she’ll repent and learn.

So, we must now learn from others.

School's Started Thoughts

2012-01-25T08:23:00.000-06:00

1) I have a professor with a bow tie (Prof. Bow tie), and another who looks like Dumbledore.

2) Last semester! (As long as college algebra behaves itself)

3) My classes have me writing 2-3 papers a week. Hello, Humidor

4) 24 hours = not enough

5) WSU should get a Starbucks… Or at least some good coffee

6) New bedtime: 9:30pm (So what, I’m an old man.)

7) This whole spring/fall thing in winter is lovely.

8) Bacon and orange juice is routinely breakfast.

9) Luther (the cat) goes nuts for bacon. Like try-to-climb-my-leg nuts.

10) I need a bigger music budget.

Political

2012-01-23T08:21:00.001-06:00

I’ve been having quite a few ‘political thoughts’ this past weekend (scary). Usually I like to steer clear of that whole arena of thinking and talking (some who know me, know this well).

(I'm calling it as I see it.)

But here’s the deal, the thing that sent me thinking all day Saturday. There is no leader to follow, none. None which will fix the problems of the nation or help the plight to get better.

Sure, they’ll all promise it when the time is come for ballots, but will they do it, no. It’s the same great scam over and over and over…etc, a suit stands in front of crowd gets their votes and makes a career out of what should be an honor.

Working for a few days a year then taking the rest of it off, tossing around some legal jargon (which they probably don’t understand) and then campaigning to get re-elected, using the same lies they used last time.

We’re used to it, we expect politicians to lie.

That’s despicable. We expect the people who lead us to lie to us…

I’m not going to tell you who to vote for. I’m not going to give you some savvy political advice. All I want out of this is to make a few people think.

Think about the simple fact there is no leader to unite a nation unto its salvation. Sooner or later all nations fail and fall Egypt, Greece, Rome there’s not yet been an exception.

I’m an American, an (voting) American who’s tired of crappy politicians and a fractured, divided and leaderless country (leaderless in the sense of none to unite all). Men died to see a free country; something tells if the vast majority of those men saw us now they’d be sorry.

But we don’t hope in a nation do we?

We hope in God. In Jesus.

Outsiders

2012-01-20T08:01:00.000-06:00

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, he world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” John 15:18-19

We don’t get a choice in being hated or not. As Christians we are naturally the outsiders, the misfits, the one’s that look different.

The withdrawal at the mention of what you are, “Christian.” The hesitation in their eyes at the mention of that name, his name, “Jesus.” The eagerness to die for the Gospel and willingness to let everything go to see the shadow of everything pass away.

But Jesus is the one who picks us out of the world to be outsiders and misfits.
He is the one who saves us so it should be that he is the one who chooses us.

As Christians we’ll be hated, things won’t ever be in our favor because we believe, we’ll suffer, we’ll die, and we’ll be abandoned and cold. Yet we expect things to be fine and dandy, happy clappy fluffy fun for all of life.

If that’s your reason for being Christian then don’t stick around.

Last I saw the word hated doesn’t mean fine and dandy, it means to be passionately disliked, you know the kind of dislike with a bullet not a teddy bear.

Out of the world he chose us to be castaways in a far land, outsiders in our own communities.

Because as outsiders we are insiders, we’re in the favor of God the salvation of Jesus. As misfits of the world we are suited quite nicely for the wardrobe as sons and daughters of the King.

Amaze

2012-01-18T08:19:00.001-06:00

I was able to go see The Civil Wars again last night in Lawrence. This was my second time and still it was amazing.

The crowd would scream, clap, whop and holler at the end of a song, yet during the song they (all 1200 of ‘em) would be still enough to hear a mouse squeak.

I don’t know if you could call it awestruck (or perhaps star struck), but I’m certain it’d have been admiration in the least if not much more.

Amazed.

Standing in front of a stage filled with just two people, a guitar, and a piano.

It’s how a believer stands before the cross, only in a smaller sense.

We stand before a hunk of wood and are truly amazed and awestruck, not by the melody it produces (though this melody becomes our song) or by the craftsmanship of the wood (though it’s roughness tells of the life we’ll lead) but by the act, which was done there.

Yet more than the finished act we look at the re-taken life. Laid down and picked up at the will of the one who lived/lives it.

So, yes, The Civil Wars were amazing to see again, and yes, their songs are still powerful for me, and yes, they are a shadow of the truth which we’ll know in time.

Obsessed

2012-01-16T10:20:00.001-06:00

So, I’ve got a cold. Last night I was up off an on the whole night (2:53-4am all at once. Bam.), not really feeling icky just awake. But my mind was racing with thoughts and images and ideas (probably why I couldn’t sleep).

Recently I was hooked on Lost. The show that was all the rage a while ago (I know, I’m behind.) I also started reading The Hunger Games. The thoughts shooting through my dome last night were everything from, “How do they get Claire back? (Lost)” to, “Is The Hunger Game trilogy three different Hunger Games or does the story stay with Katniss?” (If anyone tells me the answer to either it’ll be a bad day… for them.)

I was obsessing. I restlessly tossed and turned. Luther (the cat) just sat on the bed watching.
But then the thought occurred to me, “What’s the point? These fictions are taking over my reality.”

We obsess so easily about different little things shows, books, relationships and I am chief offender. But to be obsessed with the glory of God would be another matter entirely.
Think about it.

Men who’ve been in this line of obsession have and do shape our present. The Apostles, Augustine, Martin Luther etc… Consumed by one thing, seeing God glorified over and above all else.

Sitting at Death's Door

2012-01-13T07:50:00.000-06:00

There’s a chair, it’s a big soft one, sitting in the corner of the coffee shop. It’s inhabited by all kinds of folks throughout a day. Youngsters reveling with friends, older men reading the paper, a man receiving news of a relative’s death.

He’d probably just been to the hospital or nursing home, saying his final goodbye. Coming here to get away and, ‘work,’ which was really just an excuse to not be in the room at the same time as Death.

He’d probably met Death before in some dark alley a world away or in an open street fighting a war for someone else’s freedom explaining his reticence to be around it when it came knocking this close. Trying to forget the final gasps, trying to loose himself in something, anything else.

His phone rang, sounding like a funeral march in his ears. He answered. It was done. They were gone. There was nothing left for him to do but to marvel at the sun that shown on his back and feel the heat of the day, the warmth of life.

The same call had been made before, the call of death.

But instead of being made with a phone it was made with nails and a spear. The thud of the hammer and the thrust of the spear spilled and spelled certain seemingly unalterable death for its victim.

The family wept. The friends sat in their chairs and stared in unbelievable disbelief at some unfocused distant point.

But soon they would know what the man in the chair at the coffee shop knew death isn’t a vault anymore, it’s a revolving door. The one they wept for would shatter the vault’s door leaving alive and free to reign.

Things I Struggle With...

2012-01-11T08:03:00.000-06:00

1) Loving The Avett Borthers, NEEDTOBREATHE, The Civil Wars, Adele (Ahem-Taylor-Swift-ahem), and Mumford & Sons too much.

2) Agnostics: I was one. And I love logic.

3) Moralistic Therapeutic Deism: The American Church’s fake Gospel. It’ll make sound truth of Matthew 7:21-22.

4) Lady Gaga: What’s a ‘gaga?’

5) ‘Christians’ taking their list of conscionable (extra-biblical) morals and placing it on everyone (i.e. legalism).

6) Folks that ask for advice then don’t take the advice. The Three Musketeers had a quote about that, “As a general rule, 'he had once said, 'people ask for advice only in order not to follow it; or, if they do follow it, in order to have someone to blame for giving it.'-Athos”

7) WSU’s Earth Science class, last week we learned about Mars (?!?), and all the videos are from 1980, so mullets prevail.

8) Jalapeño Cheez-its. They look like the original, but they are most definitely not the original, surprise!

9) Straight evolution: If it was Theistic evolution I might could understand a bit more, but straight up undiluted evolution makes me go, “Whoa, that’s a lot of faith,”

10) The Silmarillion, it’s good, but you need to focus to read it.

Grasping at the Trinity

2012-01-09T10:24:00.001-06:00

This weekend while we were in John 1:1-18 we discussed, in part, the Trinity, the doctrine of the person(s) of God. While Mathematically it makes no sense (3 is 1), and all of our descriptions of it fail (for all we have is what we know and all we know, save God, is creation) this doctrine is reasonable and sound.

Another way to say God is Trinitarian in nature is to say, “God is love.”

God is love means God is Trinity.

Let me explain.

God the Father is eternal. He is the most perfect Being in the entire universe and as such he deserves worship from all other beings including himself. Therefore he must love himself above all things. He, the Father, loves himself in such a perfect fashion so as to be the person of the Son. The love between the Father and the Son is so perfect and so complete so as to be the person of the Spirit.

And since God is eternal we cannot say that there was any one time when God was not God and the Trinity did not exist.

This love is one. It cannot be added to nor subtracted from. For we cannot say the love between the three was so perfect and so complete so as to create another being (for there is no other being).

3 is 1 and is stronger than any other number. Given three points you’ll have a triangle, the strongest form in geometry, engineering and architecture.

Yet the roles of these three (one) are different.

Think of a play. (This description fails in the end but serves a purpose)

Seeing the director as God the Father, the stage manager as God the Spirit, and the lead actor as God the Son. Such are their roles.

The Father oversees, coordinates and plans the play; he is the orchestrator of it all. The Spirit moves props and flats into position so as to make the movements of the Son effective. Thus all eyes are turned onto the Son, the one sent into human history to redeem.

Yet the Trinity is still beyond us and for that we worship God, because we must confess his ways to be higher than our ways and his thoughts to be higher than our thoughts and his very being to be higher than our being.

Remembering Psalm 19

2012-01-09T09:02:00.001-06:00

My class memorized Psalm 19 in kindergarten. I remember reciting it in our little room and then in front of all our parents at the end of the year for ‘graduation.’

I remember thinking the words, “handiwork,” “bridegroom,” and “firmament (we used the NKJV, I think)” being weird words.

I remember this Psalm. Not by heart, but I remember it.

“The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.”

“The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.”

“The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.”

“The Commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.”

“The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever.”

“The rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether.”

Great, right? But I’ve long thought knowing, remembering these things is fine and dandy, but if there is no living these things then the knowledge of them is faux (and something tells me Mrs. Dyck wasn’t having us memorizes this to just know it).

So, here’s to it Psalm 19, pointing us to Jesus. The law, the testimony, precepts, commandment, fear, and rules point us directly to Him.

The law does because only Jesus could uphold it perfectly; the testimony of the Lord because all of the testimony of Scripture is about Jesus; the precepts of the Lord because these points us to the prefect God-Man; the Commandment, because we must believe the Gospel; the fear of the Lord because Jesus is the only one who intercedes between the wrath of God and man; the rules because Christ is the rule of all of life.

The New Year… So Far

2012-01-06T08:45:00.002-06:00

1) Reading The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien and geeking out about it.

2) My cat, Luther, is no longer echolocation-kitty – he’s falls-in-the-toilet-kitty.

3) When I heard Boeing was closing its Wichita plant I thought of the song “Further Along” by Josh Garrels

4) 2012 has started off with a furry.

5) I’m taking a pre-session Earth Science class. Yesterday's lesson was about Mars. Thank you, WSU.

6) Colossians 3:12-17 is good stuff and Romans 7:24-25 still defines me.

7) My Christmas tree is still up.

8) This years reading list (so far): The Lord of the Rings, The Hunger Games, The Arabian Nights…

9) Where’s a place that works on record players?

10) Scotland. I wanna see Scotland.

A Half Smoked Cigarette

2012-01-04T07:50:00.000-06:00

He was looking for a cigarette in the cracks of the sidewalk. Not one he’d dropped, but one that had been half smoked by some cold individual just wanting a fix and to get back inside.

Thinking he’d found a good one he smiled and pulled a rag from his pocket. But as he stooped to pick it up he saw it was just a filter. Quickly he returned to his walk past the window.

The urge had probably begun a few blocks back, thinking a smoke would warm him up on the sunny yet chilly day. But the urge would return, he knew even if the one he spied had been worth the smoking.

Just on the other side of the window pane a man tore a page of The Wichita Eagle into long strips after he’d read it’s entirety. He’d done it to every page he’d finished, his OCD spurring him to do so.

The urge was so strong and the satisfaction so immediate, but so short lived. He’d begin reading the next page with a fever.

The fix didn’t fix anything.

Another and another and another would be needed throughout the hour throughout the day. Tomorrow a man would walk the streets looking for a half smoked cigarette while another would tear every page of the paper into long strips.

This boat is full of all of us.

Thinking the fix will cure us. Thinking the outcome will save us. Running from temporary to temporary, wanting them to be our saviors. But we know tomorrow will bring the same hunt for satisfaction.

Maybe we’ll get it, we’ll understand nothing but Jesus will satisfy and save, or maybe we’ll keep hunting for the next fix. But writing can’t save and neither can music. Her beauty isn’t enough and his style won’t do. We need the living God to do it, not a cigarette or some paper.

More Tragedy

2012-01-02T08:42:00.003-06:00

I finished The Three Musketeers last week (year). It didn’t end the way I thought it would. Most of our stories now (movies count as stories – but their still not as good as books) end happily.

The boy gets the girl and the whole world smiles. The bad guy is defeated and the good guys win. While in the overarching scheme of everything I agree, but in the day-to-day plot of a lifetime tragedy is very much the main course.

Yet at the same time it’s possible to look back over your own history and see the good of it all. While it was deeply tragic then it now serves a better purpose.

All of that to ask this, “Why don’t we have more tragedies on the screen?”

When Romeo dies and so does Juliet. When Constance dies in the arms of her lover. When the family remains broken.

I know the answer; “We want to escape from the hurt for an hour or so into a fiction.”

Well that’ll work for a day but not for another. Sooner or later pain must be faced and a lesson must be learned. The more we run the less we’ll see and our ignorance will continue to grow. For pain is a great teacher (not a comfortable one, neither was my soccer coach, but he got results).

So my thought is this: stop running from all your fears and worries and start facing them. Yet in all of this facing look to Jesus.

He perfectly faced your greatest fear.

2011's Favorites

2011-12-29T07:45:00.004-06:00

In chronological order:

This Must be Dealt With
I’ve used this one to end two different sermons. The power in it has been captivating to me. There are a few who want me to read it for a poetic reading (that’s a big maybe). I wrote it one cold January night when it was snowing. Looking up all the passages for this one was particularly fun.

I Believe, Help My Unbelief
Written in 2010 for a friend this post kept punching me in the brain. I finally posted it at the end of January and it’s one that still is running through my thoughts.

Quite Frankly
This one was a tough write for me. I’ve thought this for a while, but never voiced it until I wrote this post.

The Armor of God (Sermon)
This one is a favorite because it was the first time I’d ever had a manuscript for my sermon. It worked well for two or three, now I’m back to a half-note-half-manuscript deal.

Letting Go of the Faded Memory
Inception & C.S. Lewis collide. Enough said.

Getting Ahold of Happiness
I wrote this puppy after “AFTERdark” a Christian pep-rally some WSU students put on in early spring.

Common Error pts 1, 2, &3 & A Response to Myself pts 1,2, 3 & 4
These were quite literally me thinking out loud for the world to read. I had always had an issue with the term ‘common grace’ and if you read these you’ll see my reasons plus my own response to, well, me! O and these were written and posted in 2 days.

He is Here
This one is my hand at poetry. You have to be kind to read it. It’s a wee rough.

What is Joy?
The church I work for (Journey the Way) did a sermons series through Philippians and it was titled the ‘Pursuit of Joy.’ This was the ending of a sermon I had preached over the summer, which I thought applied rather nicely.

The Thinker's Thoughts on Thinking
This one still kills me.

A Little Spilled Coffee
This was the first of what I hope to be continuing posts. It’s observation with my own speculation. Watching people is apart of what I do and my mind tends to write a story for each person I never get to talk to. Others like this one are: A Coffee Shop Scene, Tragedy and Two Pairs One Table

Final Stress
This one was good for my heart to write, and my head. Ugh finals.

Christopher Hitchens
I really will miss this guy’s whit and cynicism.

The most popular posts of year:
1. The Hidden Hide
2. Christopher Hitchens
3. A Coffee Shop Scene

My Past

2011-12-28T08:58:00.000-06:00

I’ve been doing a lot of reminiscing lately. Remembering things I’ve done and places I’ve been in contrast to where and who I am now.

Typically I don’t look back. (but I may try to forget some things, but even those things are daring to be remembered too.)

Red Lobster, that’s where it began. Eating a lovely meal with grandma. Thinking, “Tables were never this clean in Egypt and food was never this good in Uganda.” Seeing, in stark contrast mind you, the difference from where I was and where I am.

That’s where many of my thoughts have been lately.

There’s a dirty and bland world out there. There are starving children and kids with AK-47’s killing each other and their families. There are women dying in the streets far away from their home. And a man with one hand no lips, no eyes, and acid burns on his face begging for money in a dank corner of a Ugandan market.

We’d consider it out-of-control, they’d consider it normal.

Egypt I loved, Uganda scared me, Israel was homely, Amsterdam was crazy, and Frankfurt was too short.

This isn’t a list of credentials to be read and envied. It’s not a look-at-me-I’m-better-than-you-cause-I-traveled list. It’s just a dude remembering how good we’ve got it here in, “no-where,” Wichita, Kansas.

We can drink the water in the showers, and brush our teeth from faucet water and not a bottle. We all (for the most part) have cars (no matter how crappy they are). Houses, safety, and pets we don’t have to eat.

No-where Wichita seems like a vacation compared to war-torn Africa. #justsaying

Christmas Time-ish Thoughts

2011-12-27T08:35:00.002-06:00

1) Case of Skittles... 'nough said.

2) I got to hang out at The Anchor for a little bit. It was a good Christmas present.

3) Are there any good excuses to leave my Christmas tree up all year long? ...other than being a redneck.

4) Does the world end at the beginning of 2012 or the end of 2012?

5)I bought The Hunger Games to read after I meander through The Lord of the Rings again. (Starting with The Simarillion, then The Hobbit, then LOTR) In other words I'll be in the realm of complete and utter nerdom for the first few months of 2012.

6) New vaccum! (You know you're grown up when this excites you)

7) Hey Wichita, if you add 50 to the highs these days, they still don't touch this summer's temps.

8) Gonna see The Civil Wars, again!

9) Hat Man Jack's andThe Spice Merchant.

10) Fight the good fight of faith.

Two Pairs One Table

2011-12-20T15:38:00.007-06:00

They were father and son, the father near ninety his son in his sixties. Both bedecked in hats, the father with his bolo tie and boots, the son in a simple jacket.

The gentleman at the table next to them complimented the father’s tie; he said he got it from his wife for their 25th wedding anniversary and the ring on his middle finger she’d given him for their 50th anniversary. The son simply listened to his dad’s tale.

“She’s gone now.” Said the father, the son gently nodding in agreement. Neither pain, nor regret hindered his voice; just the simple fact that she’d moved on was all that could be read in his voice. Finishing their drinks they moved on because, “There are people to see and places to be.”

A few minutes later a couple took the seats at the same table. His salt and pepper hair was in stark contrast to the conversation they were having and the pictures she was holding. A sonogram, a little blip on the picture indicating a baby.

They launched into a discussion rather happily, both leaning closely over the little Starbucks table, of how to break the news to their family. “Should we do Christmas day or Christmas Eve, over e-mail or Skype?” His Scottish brogue said so nicely.

The little table heard & saw both pairs. With what might be the father’s final Christmas, and what is a baby’s first days of life. The discussion of a father and his son, the love between soon to be parents while the world whizzed by in the chaos of shopping, these moments will be remembered more than trifles and gifts.

While the father will lavish his great-grandchildren with presents and his son with the respect of age and the love only his tried wisdom can bestow; while the parents will prepare for the child to come with beautiful little trinkets. The relationships will never be as fresh as they are now.

For the chasm of death will separate both pairs eventually, but it doesn’t now. So conversations and memories are being made and one day the chasm will be no more and the bonds of fellowship will be picked up in perfection more vividly than they were five days before Christmas.

Weekend Thoughts

2011-12-19T08:54:00.000-06:00

1) My cat uses echolocation to get around and likes coffee as much as I do.

2) Toys-R-Us has Twilight toys for preschoolers. Unacceptable America, unacceptable.

3) Christopher Hitchens died? Dang it. Read more here.

4) Sherlock Holmes 2 = success

5) Grace, grace, grace, it’s all grace.

6) I’m not sarcastic. Ever.

7) Do Christians really want to die on the hill of “Happy Holidays?”

8) The closer you are to a situation the less you see it.

9) I’d like to be in Bethlehem this time of year, or Scotland. Either one.

10) Grandma took me grocery shopping! Food, good food!

Bonus:

11) The Three Musketeers is teaching me a lot about myself. Read it.

Christopher Hitchens

2011-12-16T08:35:00.002-06:00

“Christopher Hitchens died today, he was 62.” This is what will be published in articles across the world. Many know him as a scathing writer. His books against the existence of God are well known; his speeches are all over YouTube. His calling Mother Theresa a, “Fraudulent fanatic,” is remembered well.

Cancer is what killed him. The incurable disease, the one science can’t fully fix. Irony, for the man who put his ‘faith’ in science to be killed by its failure at the end.

But to damn the man in a blog post is to affect nothing. Sure I could rant at his open disbelief in God, but I think that cowardly since he can’t offer a rebuttal.

No, I will call him a well-written man and a wonderful rhetorician. Causing all kinds of people to think and consider. Whether they were Atheist or Christian. I will pity his death; for I rather enjoyed listening to him speak.

But I will also say, there is more to life then being well written and a beautiful speaker. There is more to life than making people think. There’s more to life than all this life and death and tragedy and comedy. There’s love

Not the blind love of youth. Nor the love I have for Oreos. But the love of a Savior for his people, which causes faith in what is unseen.

‘Cause that’s all faith really is, believing what you can’t see to be. Hitchens’ had it in the power of words and our modern sciences; I have it in the power of words and the work of Jesus. While science astounds me it cannot redeem me.

But see, that’s just it; I feel the need of being redeemed from my sins. I feel the need for a Savior. Hitchens never did. It can’t be because his brain was more evolved than mine. Nor can it be that his studies revealed more to him than the studies of C.S. Lewis or Sir Isaac Newton.

Perhaps I’ve believed the lie. Perhaps he believed the lie. I won’t damn him, that’s not my place nor my job and he won’t damn me.

All I know is this; I will die for this Gospel, this Savior, this Jesus. Willingly and lovingly die. I proclaim until then His worth and Excellency and work. As Hitchens wrote so I shall write, as he spoke I shall speak. Yet the difference shall be this one thing: there is a God and He’s knowable.

So, I thank Christopher Hitchens for who he was, for his devotion to his faith and his bold proclamation of it. And I say this meaningfully, he will be missed.

Creature

2011-12-14T07:34:00.000-06:00

I got a cat. The Wichita Eagle had a classified add for, “Absolutely free kittens.” I called, went over with my sister and took one (his name is Luther and he’s at current intently watching me type while he lays upside down).

As we were leaving the place my first thought was, “These people are really going to let me walk out of their house with one of their pets? I’m not responsible enough for this! This has to be a crime.” But they did. (O and he’s litter box trained.)

Anyway, enough about the cat.

The point is responsibility, and knowing life isn’t about you. Sure you get a critter to love and nurture, but you also have to wake up to feed them, make sure their healthy, and clean up after them (it’s like an infant on an incredible light scale - but infants don’t have claws).

Learning to put others before you in a small way to begin with. Fighting your (my) sin of workaholic because there’s a creature at home.

Fighting sin to the glory of God should weigh in on many of our decisions.

The Siren

2011-12-12T08:45:00.001-06:00

The Sirens call our names. Calling us to the ‘freedom’ they offer, the ‘hope’ they can give and the ‘peace’ they’ll bestow. As we sail near their islands, their islands which dot every turn and point of our lives.

Yet we know, from devastating experience, these Sirens will kill us on their rocks. There is no island, there’s no hope, no peace, or no freedom, just some jagged rocks, which will do nothing but rip our souls to shreds and sink us in an ocean of despair.

It’s true to say that the valley of the shadow of death knows our names. We know its depths and we’ve seen its turns. We know how it affects our hearts and minds.

But a symphony of blood calls out; it speaks a better witness than the blood of Abel. It rolls back the clouds to reveal high noon in the valley of the shadow of death. All the Siren’s calls are shown to be faux and the despairs we’re in are shown to be nothing in comparison the one who shed the blood, which sings in our defense.

The sea we are in is a sea of grace; the valley we are in is a valley of beauty. We’re lost inside the grace of God. And his grace toward us is not in vain; it will never be in vain.

10 Finals Thoughts

2011-12-09T08:12:00.000-06:00

1) Wait. What? Where am I?

2) Brain = Fried

3) Since when were we studying the weather on other planets? Thanks meteorology class.

4) 3 papers over 10 pages. I have no words. Profreading? Watch this.

5) My heartrate is through the roof. Stress

6) College Algebra. *Sigh* 3rd times a charm?

7) Can I just give a persuasive speech in Algebra telling them why I don't need algebra? Point 1: COMMUNCATION MAJOR

8) On Monday The Three Muskeeters started getting really interesting... Today, I'll pick it back up.

9) Coffee.

10) I wrote a paper like a story & had to talk myself out of putting it on here.

Final Stress

2011-12-07T08:34:00.000-06:00

Typically I’m not a stressful person. Usually things glide along rather well and the stress of it all is a, “whatever,” in my brain. That wasn’t me last night.

Many things accumulated to produce in my spirit such a discomfort and such a loathing of everything that I despaired.

The church changed location, multiple papers are due in multiple classes, tests, exams, finals in every class and on top of it all I spent all last week preparing for a sermon… I’m whining I know.

So what did I do? I took a 45min shower. And the whole time feebly sang Amazing Grace.

He saved a wretch like me; he will see me through Algebra.

When we’ve been there ten thousand years… This week won’t be the end of me.

Stress. It’s a stupid little word. St-ress. Yet we all resound with it’s pitiful call, we identify with it at the end of semesters or the nearing of deadlines. When worry becomes us and we think all shall be lost if things don’t go according to plan.

So let this little post do a work in your heart and your head as it has done in mine, quiet your soul and know that He is still God and you are still man. Though passing might not happen and much must be done there still is on the throne Christ whose plan is certain. And you, O student are adopted as his brother and loved as his sister, because he stooped to save us wretches from far worse than finals.

The Narnian Church

2011-12-05T08:06:00.003-06:00

I was talking with a good buddy this weekend after church and somehow (not quite sure how) we got on the topic of Narnia (‘cause all good conversations should digress into literature or theology). Yet while we were talking I had an idea.

We love the stories of Narnia, all of them, they’re beautifully captivating, children going to some other place and becoming kings and queens and animals talking. Romantic to say the least, imaginative, for sure, since we’ve all desired at some point or another to be royalty.

The kids in the stories go from reality to Narnia, and then in the end Narnia is what is made whole and beautiful.

This mirrors the Church.

We are able to go to the Church, to be apart of her and to love her, but she is not the place we’re going. Yet she will be made new (more beautiful and more splendid).

Worshiping together, fellowshipping with one another, marveling at our God. Will be new and better and more wonderful. The Church, the thing we love and rest in when the realities of the world are too much, she will be made wholly new and wholly perfect.

Because the Church we now know is just a shade of the Church that will be.

Because the worship we now give is hardly a drop in the bucket of the worship we will give.

But if you hate the Church, then this poses a problem. ‘Cause why would you want to spend forever with a remade Church?

My only response to this is, is this: be careful whom you hate (or strongly-dislike, or don’t want to be apart of… etc). The bride of Christ surely is not one to hate. To claim Jesus as your Savior but hate the people he saved is hate yourself.

The Worst Christmas

2011-12-02T07:41:00.004-06:00

"O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer 
Our spirits by Thine advent here 
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night 
And death's dark shadows put to flight."

Christmas time! What with all the trees, lights, gifts, family and friends is always an exciting time of year. As a kid dreaming of what might be in those boxes under the tree you helped mom and dad decorate. Bundling up like Eskimos to go to school. Sipping apple cider with a favorite book in your hand.

The dark mornings and the darker evenings, the cold nights and the freezing car rides (or at least until the heater gets going), singing the music of this time of year.

The music. It's always extremely interesting to me, I used to not like it, but now - after reading Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia - this music draws me to remember the moments leading up to the enemies demise.

The deep breath before the plunge of battle. When warriors courageously died for what would come if the evil one fell. When sword and shield were shattered and rattled in pursuit of freedom.

It’s right to see this time of year in this light. For from the beginning of time the prophecies, the promises, and the people of God yearned for the coming deliverer. One who would cause the stronghold of the enemy to shiver in fear, to quake at their final abolishment and defeat.

All the great stories take their bow to this idea, this theme:

“I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.” (The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers)

Christmas is the worst thing that ever happened to the devil, thank God.

Tragedy

2011-11-30T09:25:00.001-06:00

Ulysses by Josh Garrels
Love. We all want it; we all have it in some degree, but we still want more. Living downtown has taught me this of us. We long to be cared for, mostly because we see ourselves as the greatest thing the world has yet to see.

I was talking with a homeless man about another homeless man. The latter had come through the church a few times but never stuck and gave me the chills. When I asked this particular homeless guy about him he said, “O, man he’s crazy.” Which struck me funny.

Another man, arguably in the same situation mentally calling another man crazy, is this irony? Or is this man so diluted that even the others in his situation don’t want to be around him.

Yet my mind kept spinning, I imagined a story and it went like this:

A couple walked down a snow packed sidewalk. They’d just come from a party in some darker side of town. The booze had been flowing and the crack had been lined so neatly.

The inebriated couple turns the corner and headed toward a clunker car. The light of the street lamp reveals the woman to be heavily pregnant.

A few weeks later she gives birth to a small baby boy. He’s quickly taken away by the S.R.S. to be placed in better living conditions. The mother could’ve cared less where he went she was too bent over in pain from the withdrawals of being without her precious substances for the time it took to be in labor.

The boy is given to his grandma, an elderly woman whose fragility is only kept whole by the strength of her love.

At the age of five the boy’s grandma dies. He is once again handed over to the system to see what ought to be done with him. Foster home after foster home turns him away because, “He’s just too much.”

When he’s 11 he’s standing in a church in an ill-fitting suit looking into a casket with some tiny meth addict inside it. His mom. He’d always known who she was, but she was never around. They’d found her in the basement of a meth house, the needle still between her toes.

By the age of 14 he’d been arrested twice and by that same age he’d tried his first hit of meth.

Once he hit the ‘responsible’ age of 18 he’s living on the streets with a mind fried beyond aid…

And now, another homeless man is calling him crazy.

All this story in an instant; my mind trying to answer the question of how someone ended up like this. The lack of love, the absence of parents, compounded onto the unwanted crack-baby born. It’s a sad story, all tragedy and no comedy.

Love. We all want it. Yet a redeeming love, a love that transcends to such depths as this, is only found in Jesus. For no man or woman or child or mother or father could love one to salvation, only Jesus can.

Innocent

2011-11-28T09:16:00.000-06:00

“I am a whore I do confess, I put you on just like a wedding dress and run down the isle. I’m a prodigal with no way home I put you on just like a ring of gold and I run down the isle to you. So could you love this bastard child, though I don’t trust you to provide?” ~Derek Webb

Yes.

Writers write of the ‘loss of innocence.’ Singers sing of it. People speak of it to their friends. But we’ve never been innocent.

If we believe Scripture to be true and foundational, there was never a time in our lives when we were pure, when we were right, when we were good (Isa 64:6; Rom 3:9-18). We’ve always been deserving of hell.

I know, this is a happy Monday post, right?

But we have hope, that tiny yet beautiful word, hope. We can be expectant of our Savior to be enough. Clinging to this hope. We hope on hope that our hope will not be put to shame.

It’s faith really, faith in the unseen. For how can we hope in what we see? How can we have faith in the things we know break or fail?

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

An American's America

2011-11-25T11:13:00.002-06:00

Reading by the candlelight, The Civil Wars playing in the background, sipping on some apple cider by all accounts relaxing. In and of itself is nothing to write home about or to blog about, but when compared to what the rest of the world gets, the ability to relax, to completely chill is profound.

But we whine about our small plights, or poor selves. Yet ironically enough the day after we give thanks for all we have we forego all sleep to buy more stuff. Who are we? What are we? A contradictory statement: having everything but needing more.

As Americans we’re free, right? Yet we’re still enslaved to stuff, and not our stuff, we’re enslaved to other people’s stuff. We want what they have. We’re a country of adulterous idolaters. Claiming to love One yet all the while going to bed with anything else.

What freedom is there in our society? The reply might be, “Freedom to do what we want,” freedom to be ruled by our animal self and all the longings of what we see? That’s not freedom. We’re still enslaved the difference is we just ‘like’ our master.

Don’t get me wrong I love my country, I’ve seen the world and I love living here. But a hundred years ago men worked to bring home the necessities and when they had no money they went without. It appears as though we’ve lost our reason (and by ‘reason’ I mean sense, ability to think clearly).

Self-satisfaction is the god, which rules our hearts. Self-appreciation is the worship song we sing. Self-worth is the highest possible virtue…

But we won’t change that. The master whipping our backs and sinking us into debt is what we call ‘freedom’ but freedom also means no hindrance of restraint, but we’re restrained by what we see in other’s hands, we’re restrained by the debt-collector. We’re locked up nicely in our plush cells – but their cell is nicer.

Stuff is nice, but if we have not a healthy perspective on stuff, stuff will kill us.

Bankruptcy, riots, and more because, “I want what they have, now.”

Thankful Gratitude

2011-11-23T08:31:00.002-06:00

I’m usually opposed to writing about trending topics, but this Thanksgiving I’m making exception cause writing about being thankful makes me more thankful.

So here they are (order has nothing to do here) some things I’m thankful for:

1. The new/focused job. I went from Elder to Deacon, From Community Pastor to Communication/Connection Pastor, and I’m stoked about this. Someday there’ll be a series of posts chronicling the exact reasons for this change.

2. Family. If you’ve met my family you know why I’m thankful for them, their odd, quirky and deeply in love with Jesus. Plus they all speak fluent sarcasm (well… my sister may not, but she’s becoming, “culturally relevant.”)

3. Literature. Dracula > me (I couldn’t do it, too scary for my lil self. And reading scury stuff before bed was not a good idea) The Three Musketeers = Amazing (so far).

4) Writing. Having a blog is dang therapeutic for me.

5) Scripture. Without it there is no message, there is nothing to proclaim. For in it we know of Jesus and his Gospel.

6) Music. Yes, Taylor Swift is a favorite of mine. Her words get to me. And she is seems to be a rather classy woman.

7) Words. Without them I have nothing to say, nothing to write and no way of relaying my deepest passions. Shoot, I couldn’t even say ‘hello.’ Which means I should watch how I use words.

8) Friends. Who listen and care. Who stand beside me and proclaim truth with me.

There was a thought recently, one, which has continued to reoccur in my mind. In this thought I am an old man sitting near a fire recounting the life I’ve lived. Thinking back and being able to say, ‘I’ve done that.’ Not from a proud perspective, but from a humbled view. To be unworthy of the capability of doing what was done.

But, I suppose, the catch should be this: in our thankfulness and in our doings there should be little obligation but much gratitude. For none of this is deserved. Because God rains down mercy, for now.

A Coffee Shop Scene

2011-11-21T13:30:00.003-06:00

Their chairs were moved close, their eyes and attention where at and with each other. He held her hand, gently, their knees were touching as they sipped their coffees and chatted, infatuated with each other. His camouflage was in stark contrast to her jeans, his tan boots were immovable near her feet.

One would speculate he’d just returned from a far land, a war-zone, protecting this woman whose hand he now held. Putting life and liberty, pain and suffering on the line for her, not for the others in the coffee shop, not for the baristas or the infant in his mother’s arms, but for her, his love. The businessman in his suit and the pastor reading his Bible sat doing their mutual duties, but this warrior sat holding his love’s hand.

Doing a duty he was glad to shoulder, doing an obligation with such gratitude and such joy that to call it a duty would be to do harm to the image, for his love was for this woman, for her and her alone. It is no duty, it is, indeed love in the most real sense of the word.

The quote on the board read, “As we express gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. J.F.K” Sure, this solider had told his love of his gratitude, sure he’d expressed it a million times as he approached the plane to take him to war, sure, he’d said the necessary, but he now lives the gratitude. Expressing it with unwavering attention and the gentleness of holding her hand.

This has happened for us.

The Warrior came and fought the forces of the foe. He crushed the serpent’s head. He put to death, death. And now, he unwaveringly intercedes on our behalf. The love with which he loved us was immense enough so as to take him to the worst possible death.

The love for His Church, his bride was a reason for the death he died and the life he now lives. The Warrior triumphed and will one day soon gently hold the hand of his bride.

A List for Monday

2011-11-21T09:30:00.003-06:00

1) I want to watch/read ALL The Lord of the Rings again (really, mostly this is an all-the-time feeling).

2) Twilight fans: watch this he has better reasons for not liking it than me.

3) "How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes the only God?" John 5:44

4) As a single dude, I think being a loving father and loving one (1) woman for all of life is a thousand times more noble & honorable than gun fights, sword fights & church leading.

5) Thanksgiving! I will spend most of my days off reading this scary book... I have to read it when the sun is up.

6) I was bored half way through the latest Transformer movie. Like real bored.

7) New location for Journey the Way was *ahem* Saweet!

8) Literature is, for me, a gift of God to my over active mind.

9) I now have curtains at my house & if I do say so myself, they look wonderful. (I also steamed them to get the wrinkles out, does that make me odd?)

10) Coffee + pumkiny goodies with cream cheese iceing = heavenly.

Pre-Thanksgiving Thoughts:

2011-11-18T08:24:00.001-06:00

1) We had Thanksgiving dinner at my community group last night.

2) Said dinner was wonderful & the 14lb bird was "decimated."

3) My house only holds so many people before it starts to feel like a sauna.

4) More turkey & stuffing next week? Yes, please.

5) Martin Luther is currently punching me in the face.

6) I think these are stupid cute.

7) The difference between Christianity & any other religion is Jesus. Read this.

8) NEEDTOBREATHE is always playing in my head.

9) Taylor Swift is usually right in the mix next to them (go ahead judge, I'm ok with it).

10) Coffee.

Luther's Words for All Now

2011-11-16T14:19:00.002-06:00

"Here then, I see, you suppose that the truth and the utility of the Scriptures are to be weighed and judged of according to the opinion of men, nay, of men the most impious; so that, what pleases them or seems bearable, should be deemed true, divine, and wholesome: and what has the contrary effect upon them, should at once be deemed useless, false, and pernicious.

"What else do you mean by all this, than that the words of God should depend on,

stand on,

and fall by,

the will and authority of men? Whereas the Sctripture, on the contrary saith, that all things stand and fall by the will and authority of God: and in a word, that "all the earth keeps silence before the face of the Lord." (Hab 2:20)

"He who could talk as you do, must imagine that the living God is nothing but a kind of trifling and inconsiderate pettifogger decalaiming on a certain rostrum, whos words you may if you be disposed, interpret, understand, and refute as you please, because He merely spoke as He saw a set of impious men to be moved and affected." ~Martin Luther

To overlook orthodoxy is to place Scripture in subjection to what one wants.

It is to misunderstand the Gospel.

It is to misunderstand God.

Just a Moment

2011-11-16T08:38:00.000-06:00

You know those moments when multiple people are just silent in awe of a sight or a sound? When the beauty of a thing is palpable or so thick you can grasp hold of it? Those are wonderful moments.

Last night was one of those moments. The bar was silent, the singer sang his heart out and played his guitar with such gusto and passion, all were quiet, all were seemingly in a trance with the words he sang and the tune he played.

Now for the really Christian questions: Have you ever had that feeling with God?

They don’t come often, when you’re washed by the beauty of who he is, and they don’t stay long. Yet in the moment, the rapturous moment there is a solidity of eternity, quite literally a peace surpassing all understanding.

But mostly we try to run to these grandeurs, looking, searching in every place possible for the feeling. But a feeling searched for is faux. For how can a manufactured feeling replace what is real?

Thus we study and work and wait for God to move in our hearts to reveal the light of the knowledge of himself in the face of Christ Jesus our Lord.

Professional Worrying

2011-11-14T08:58:00.003-06:00

“Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 4:5-8

We are society of professionals when it comes to the game of worrying. In fact it’s possible to worry us right into the hospital (which many people do). Whether it is our job, friends, boyfriend/girlfriend, TV show or gas prices (or all of the above) we can, and do, worry about it.

There are a couple meanings, which I think would be beneficial to know about the word ‘anxious.’ It’s first and most simplistic definition is: “greatly worried,” however there is a second meaning which I believe is just as important and necessary of knowing as the first: “earnestly desirous; eager.”

We earnestly desire to see something besides God’s glory as true.

We are eager to look at small plights and see them as more dangerous than our sin.

This, in my opinion, describes our sin life to a T.

Rather than being satisfied by the Controller of the Universe (The Creator and Destroyer of everything) we’d like to live in the fantasy of faux control. Eagerly thinking us the captain of our own demise, the leader of our own life, the champion of whatever cause we deem worthy – but this is a far cry from belief and faith.

“… In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

In Jesus we are hidden and safe, we are guarded from a pitiful and unreasonable worry (it’d be safe to call worry ‘stupid’). It is the reason our salvation is described as a helmet and our righteousness as a breastplate in Ephesians 6, Jesus is our salvation and as such is capable of protecting our minds, he is our righteousness and will guard our hearts.

Thus, we, you and I both, need and should and must eagerly desire to see our Savior as capable of seeing us through these hard times, these small worries.

Deism

2011-11-09T14:22:00.002-06:00

Deism is not Christian. This is something I’m rather forceful about. Deism is not Christian. The happy-clappy huffy-fluffy religion associated with Christianity is not Christian. Let me explain the main major difference between what most would call “Christian” and what actually is Christian.

Deism has nothing to do with Jesus. That is the difference. Deism is the idea of a god creating all things and then actively (or passively) having no part of it. But somehow this idea of deism has been married with Christianity and there are many who don't realize that deism has absolutely no power to save.

Christians stake their hope on Jesus, not a list of good morals or the therapeutic idea of one’s own worth (moralistic deism).

Christians understand this life will be a continually war against their own natural depravity, not thinking themselves as naturally good people (thereapuetic deism).

Christians know God who is present in failure as well as victory, not some god who is disinterested in the lives of his creation (deism).

Christianity is nothing like deism. In Christianity God is vastly more beautiful and powerful than the apathetic god of the deist.

So what am I saying? I’m saying this heresy of moralistic therapeutic deism should be done away with. I’ll agree with Martin Luther, “I feel indignation against the matter also, that such unworthy stuff should be borne about in ornaments of eloquence so rare; which is as if rubbish, or dung, should be carried in vessels of gold or silver." So do away with speaking of a god who has no strength, grace or mercy and come to know the God who is devestatingly exqusite.

Monday Notions

2011-11-07T08:49:00.002-06:00

1) What you do with Jesus is the difference between life & death, paganism & belief.

2)How you know you're a Pharisee: when you hear truth are your first thoughts, "______ needs to hear this." or, "I wish ______ was here to hear this."? If they are, you're a white-washed tomb.

3)Does what I teach line up with my life?

4)The Gospel will always need to be applied to yourself.

5) Don't color people by their sin.

6) If He is worthy of "living for" than surely you think he's worthy of dying for (right?)

7) Monday... Monday.

A Little Spilled Coffee

2011-11-04T07:53:00.001-05:00

She had spilled a little of her coffee on his computer - but he was drunk so he could’ve cared less. He was more infatuated with the gospel music piping out of its speakers than the little bit of coffee on the corner.

Gingerly she cleared away the coffee with the sleeve of her yellow cardigan and went a little further to clean a portion of the screen where there was no coffee, just a smudge. He just sat there in his drunken stupor, seemingly unaware she was even there. She patted his knee and left. He remained intoxicated by both the alcohol and the music.

Everyone else walked by and stared, everyone else sat around and wished he’d turn down the sound. But she stopped and stooped to care just a little more than what was necessary.

She came back a little later, he still in his stupor, with a pair of headphones. Plugging them in and with the same gentleness she had cleaned his computer with handed the headphones to him. He took them, no gratitude or second thought; no hesitation or wonder, just took them.

As time wore on still more, a cup of coffee came and a breakfast sandwich appeared; this woman had bought him breakfast as well as given her headphones up and not a word of thanks was said just that he wanted to smoke a cigarette.

Compelled by who-knows-what she served a man who could’ve cared less. She loved one most considered unlovable, one whom most passed by and judged she considered and she stopped. To call her a believer or un-believer is not a judgment to be made, but to see her example and do similarly to the glory of God is no wrong thing.

The sick and destitute, the broken and forgotten of society are still creations of God, and still in need of being loved. Though it is not evangelism to clean a screen and spend a little money it is still loving to do so. Though it won’t save a man from drunken debauchery or hell it will, by the grace of God teach others to love those of the hideous underbelly of the world who live on our streets.

Cloudy Day Thoughts

2011-11-02T10:03:00.000-05:00

1) Driving with my headlights on during the day makes me feel nifty… so do suspenders.

2) I was asked to speak about Calvinism at my old high school (hahaha).

3) I want to read Dracula.

4) I like jackets but I hate cold.

5) Cloudy day music = Elbow

6) My generation talks in events, older generations talk in ages.

7) I’m glad I have a perma-scarf on my face (beard).

8) Matter of fact scarves mess up my beard-doo.

9) I want a Seeing Eye dog… So I can walk into restaurants and have him with me… I just want a dog, a big dog, like an Irish wolfhound.

10) I might love London’s weather if it’s cloudy a lot.

The 95's Relivence for Now

2011-10-31T09:12:00.003-05:00

494 years ago today Martin Luther nailed his 95-Thesis to the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany. Today the whole list is still timely and relevant. For we have replaced indulgences with our legalism and we have sought to be made whole by all other means rather than the cross.

Here are a few of his thesis which I feel are worth being pointed out, the rest might be found here.

1. “When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said ‘Repent’, He called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” It is, I fear, often the hope of many churches to have a ‘new-believer’ to sign the card after they’ve walked the isle. To not call for a life of repentance but rather to cushion their number of those they’ve ‘saved.’ (The notch in the belt, jewel-in-the-crown routine.)

32. "All those who believe themselves certain of their own salvation by means of letters of indulgence, will be eternally damned, together with their teachers.” “I’m righteous because I prayed a prayer when I was 5.” Yet now they live like hell and all manner of sinfulness and un-repentance is the life lead. It is simply pure foolishness to place stock and value in your past action, if this is your reason of salvation.

60. “We do not speak rashly in saying that the treasures of the church are the keys of the church, and are bestowed by the merits of Christ.” Gospel, Gospel, Gospel. There is nothing more for the church to teach than the merits of Christ. Yet, there are many who teach much less than the merits of Christ. The term is Moralistic Therapeutic Deism; if Paul heard it he’d be furious, if Luther heard it he’d cuss them out. But we stand by and let the garbage flow from the mouths of ‘eloquent preachers.’ Either you teach about Jesus or nothing at all.

62. “The true treasure of the church is the Holy gospel of the glory and the grace of God.” If you want to hear something more than the Gospel of Jesus which brings the glory and the grace of God, then you don’t get (understand) the Gospel.

92. “Away, then, with those prophets who say to Christ's people, "Peace, peace," where in there is no peace.
93. Hail, hail to all those prophets who say to Christ's people, "The cross, the cross," where there is no cross.
94. Christians should be exhorted to be zealous to follow Christ, their Head, through penalties, deaths, and hells.
95. And let them thus be more confident of entering heaven through many tribulations rather than through a false assurance of peace.”

Fight the good fight of faith, put on the armor of God and stand firm in these dark times. Welcome to the Christian life, welcome to the war against the demonic and sin. Jesus bids us to come and die. He is our only hope.

Ripped from the Journal: My Denial

2011-10-28T07:44:00.000-05:00

Peter denied Jesus three times. I’ve denied him so much more, or been ashamed of him so much more. Failing to bear the punishment or disgrace he bore, not being reviled for the sake of Jesus’ name but rather because, “I’m right.”

Though I very well may be right it does not necessitate or mean acting or thinking myself a better or smarter person than the opposite (you know like the Pharisees). Rather it means I ought to speak the truth with and in love to the opposite.

Jesus was not or is not ashamed of me. He did not deny me; in fact he welcomed me in with open arms and brought me in by the shedding of his own blood and the brokenness of his own body. From gratitude I should welcome the scorn of his name; from thankfulness the reproach he endured.

Faith?

2011-10-26T09:43:00.001-05:00

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. “ Hebrews 11:1

“This is faith: a renouncing of everything we are apt to call our own and relying wholly upon the blood, righteousness and intercession of Jesus.” John Newton

“...a man will be justified by faith when, excluded from righteousness of works, he by faith lays hold of the righteousness of Christ, and clothed in it, appears in the sight of God not as a sinner, but as righteous...” John Calvin

Faith, it’s a churchy word (just have faith!), it’s also a pop-Christian word (“O I just need more faith to choose between the Chris Tomlin album or the other pop-Christian artists.”), but more than these other two it is a biblical word. Often I marvel at the gravity of words, to take the biblical definition over the dictionary’s definition (for words folks that’s a big deal) and, by God’s grace, live it.

But how do we know we have faith? What makes our faith solid and true faith and not simple some popish thing which whelms us one day and is completely absent the next day?

Allow me to relay what we, as Christians believe. 1) God created something out of absolute void. 2) We jacked that creation up. 3) He sent his Son (who is one with Himself, yet different). 4) Through a women, there was no human dad, God was the Father. 5) This Kid (Jesus) lived a completely sinless perfect life (imagine a six-year-old boy not punching his sibling in the face… difficult?). 6) He was wrongly convicted of being sinful (basically he was too perfect). 7) He was killed (ya know like dead, without a pulse, ummm lights out). 8) He rose from the grave (wha?). 9) He ascended (floated up) into heaven to make intercession for those who have faith in him.

That takes faith to believe. So how do we know whether or not we have faith? “This is faith: a renouncing of everything we are apt to call our own and relying wholly upon the blood, righteousness and intercession of Jesus.” Because everything else is worthless in our eyes when compared with knowing Christ Jesus our Lord; because even though the facts seem ludicrous they make complete sense; because God loved us and made us alive together with Christ; because there is an assurance beyond reason and logic which presses us to know and love and die for this irrefutable truth.

“Therefore… let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:1-2

The 'Ahhh' Effect

2011-10-24T08:54:00.000-05:00

“Our wisdom in so far as it ought to be deemed true and holy wisdom consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.” John Calvin

This is an extremely applicable quote. It is typically taught to have a high view of self, to have a good “self-esteem.” Yet this idea of self-esteem would run contrary to the biblical idea of being known or knowing yourself.

For self-esteem is, in a sense the idolatry of self. By definition it means: “confidence in ones own worth or abilities.” But biblically speaking we, you and I, are not worthy. So to see a worth that is not there is to make something it is not, namely to place self on the pedestal of supremacy.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying go around being a Debby-Downer nor am I implying your need to have no confidence. Confidence is extremely important, but not confidence in whom we are, will be, or have been, but rather confidence in the person and work of Jesus.

This wisdom we are given of God, this Bible we have to read doesn’t only teach us about God, it teaches us about ourselves. It is an infallible inerrable living document (and by living I do not mean changing) and is continuously showing us ourselves as in comparison to God.

Therefore it is crucial to know who God is to better understand yourself. I would submit that you may have a good idea of who you are outside of the knowledge of God but you will never truly know yourself unless you are pitted against your Creator. For in this God given action of knowing God there is the deep and abiding realization of your need for a Savior, the passion to be joy filled, and the hope to endure all things.

So to know oneself is to better understand God; to know God is the root of knowing oneself. Their intertwining is deep and the root of the two must eventually become one for the believer, it is, at least, the groaning we feel somewhere near our heartstrings.

Timing Fight

2011-10-19T09:17:00.000-05:00

“Today you will be with me in Paradise.” Luke 23:42

No time for training; no time for development; no time for baptism. He had no time for understanding the deep Theological nuances of the faith, no time to proclaim this gospel boldly to others, no time to read the Bible. Only enough time to die. Simple (and by simple I mean miraculous) belief was all that saved this man.

Just as Paul informed the Galatians as to the foolishness of their striving to be accepted rather than their striving from (or because of) acceptance so it is here. Nothing may be or can be added to this one unassailable fact: “It is finished.” Not it is finished but you need to do a wee more, not it is finished but you need to pray the prayer but simply and astoundingly just, “It is finished.”

And it remains so now for us. There has been no special revelation to the Church to begin to earn your salvation (and the likelihood of that happenings is zilch). As if the world full of iPhones and iPads and cars could change the message and reality of Jesus’ finished work.

Either there is belief or unbelief, belief being the understanding of the finality of Jesus’ work, and unbelief being the since of legalistic religion, trying to earn or gain the position of acceptance. On the one side is the understanding of striving because you’ve been loved the other side is to work for (to gain) that love – which is an altogether sad story.

Fight to believe the work as done. Cling to the hope that Jesus is sufficient for salvation. Strive to see the cross as wonderful. Press on to know this God of Victory. For, “My God has broke the serpent’s teeth, and death has lost it sting.”

Literary Things

2011-10-18T09:01:00.000-05:00

I finished reading the Harry Potter series over the weekend, and then I promptly began reading Dracula (you know just reading books pop-Christianity has damned at some point but are now classics) at the recommendation of a good friend. But back on the track of Harry Potter I wish to relay something, something that I feel, rather know to be truer than the weird legalism that tells people certain books send you to hell if you read them.

"Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, &, above all, those who live without love."

Love. We over use the word to be sure. In Harry Potter it is the only thing, which kills Voldemort (Ahhh! I said his name!). In The Count of Mounte Cristo love is the only thing that keeps Edmond Dantes from carrying out his revenge (Yea, the movie screwed that up bad). In A Tale of Two Cities love is what presses Sydney Carton to be executed in the place of Darnay saying, “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.” In the Christian narrative the thing that brings about the end of Satan, sin, and death is the love of God. “For God so loved the world…”

This ethereal thing, this love, is powerful, in literature it proves to be the downfall of the antagonist; in Christianity it presses God to save man; and in life we are pushed to give up dreams and fight for those we love. To sacrifice and compromise to see the good of another carried out.

But more than these nifty little things it must be highlighted that love is the reason God saves anyone. Yet we expect it to be love for us, when reality speaks to the love of himself being the cause for redemption. Egomaniacal? Yes, thank God. ‘Cause if God is to be God he must worship what is most worthy of worship and if God is most worthy of worship then he must worship God or prove to be in contrast to his own law of idolatry.

Pity those who live without love. Pity because there is no power, no hope, and no joy. Pity because there is nothing more exquisite than love. Pity because the love of God has proven, will prove, and is proving itself to be the end of the fall.

Legalism Vs. Discipline

2011-10-17T10:03:00.000-05:00

“O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” Galatians 3:1-3

This would be the Paul-getting-all-up-in-some-Galatian’s-faces passage. Twice he calls them foolish and twice he asks them a rhetorical question to help them further understand their ludicrous thinking as ludicrous (no, not the rapper). Yet more often than not these words rip directly into my heart, into my thinking, into my actions.

I would guess the majority of us struggle deeply with that fine line between self-discipline and religious legalism. Having our ‘lists’ so neatly centered in our brains so when they are transgressed by someone, anyone else we are appalled at their actions. Or the opposite, of fighting so hard against lists so when someone tries to dictate a certain truth to you your gut reaction is to punch them in the face rather than listen.

But before the ideals of self-discipline may come to bear on our lives we must first understand (and by understand I mean if we don’t get it the rest fails) it is the Spirit who enables faith and it is the Spirit who is perfecting (sanctifying, redeeming) us.

Now, in all our self-discipline if it is placed on the shoulders of others rather than left to being SELF-discipline we have made it a religious legalism. Also, when we start to see discipline in terms of ‘have to’ rather than ‘get to’ it becomes religious legalism. Lastly, when we start to see discipline as more important than Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection, we’ve made our discipline our functional savior… a functional savior to hang ourselves with.

Have we begun in the Spirit to now be perfected by the flesh? Did we receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? These are the questions we must ask ourselves often, though our motivations can nor never will save us our motivations must be thoroughly examined, indeed we must learn to have quick minds. For in the course of life, or even just a day, we strive (because of the work of the Spirit) to be found in Jesus to the glory of God. Because He is our joy, not our actions or our intentions, Jesus, He is and can only ever be the one who saves us, completes us, and gives us true lasting joy.

Hell & Heaven

2011-10-14T09:28:00.000-05:00

“They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.” 2 Thessalonians 1:9-10

Do you have those verses you love but forget you love them until you read them again, or is that just me? This particular one, when brought up, I love to read then I’ll sit there and go, “how did I forget how much I love this text?!?” It, this verse, shows us a few many things.

First, the punishment of unbelievers, “They,” means, “… who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. (2 Thess 1:8)” Inside this punishment is the constant continual action of eternal destruction. Which means it goes on for eternity (true story). This is not unclear; this is not guesswork on the meaning of a word. ‘Eternal’ means eternal and ‘destruction’ means Frick-this-is-hell. In modern vernacular, it’ll freaking suck! So arguing the semantics of the ‘end of hell’ is about as illogical as wondering if McDonalds is healthy for every meal.

Second, the part I love to read with vigor, “… When he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who believed…” ‘Glorified… marveled at,’ he’s not saving us because we are worthy of redemption; he’s not saving us because he is so head-over-heels in love with his creation; he is saving us because he loves himself and loves us enough to give us what is vastly more gorgeous than all things, he loves us enough to give us himself!

Let’s not mix any meanings here, there will be and is Hell, it’ll be eternal; it’ll be awful. But the juxtaposition is just as unimaginable, to glory in God and to marvel at Him, AKA Heaven. I say this all not to tout the I-want-to-scare-you-into-belief doctrine, but to simply go, we must deal with Scripture and when verses like this pop up we must understand them in relation to the whole Scriptural narrative. Hell (God’s vengeance on sin) is real, yet Heaven (Glorying in and marveling at God) is just as real.

“To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” 2 Thess. 1:11-2

The Victim Vindicated

2011-10-13T09:41:00.002-05:00

“Somewhere in this wretched tale there must be line where the victim gets his way just one time.” (NEEDTOBREATHE)

The villain seems to be treacherously strong. Knowing that he’s beaten but seeing him destroy and attempt to usurp the throne he’s wanted for so long. Evil is everywhere. The days are evil, the times they are fallen. People seem to be falling at the edge of his sword with every glance in every direction.

Friends are consumed with substances and bottles; roommates strive to be made whole by a pitiful boy; students are herded through massive rooms and taught anti-truths that seemingly look like truth but won’t stand the test of reality outside the classroom. Deism is the new Christian. And Jesus is not the point of faith in many spheres.

So who’s the victim? Are we the victims in the sense of being the ones surrounded by the vast broken of the world? Is God the victim because his name is the one defamed? Are the people in these pitiable plights the one’s victimized?

I’d offer we are the victims, but nothing is technically happening to us. I’d say the people in the situations are the victims, but often times the reason they’re there is their own volition or their own provocation. I’ll submit that God is the victim and that is what is true.

“But if God is the victim then how can he be God? A weak God is no God. Christians are sorely inconsistent.” might be some thoughts (and quite frankly I wrestled with this as I wrote up there). Here is my reasoning: God is the one being directly ‘sinned’ against. While I see my friends suffer and while my friends suffer he is the one against whom the sinning is done, “Against you, you only, have I sinned  and done what is evil in your sight.” (Psalm 51:4)

He will vindicate his name (Rom12:19). He will judge the quick and the dead (2 Thess 1:5-12). He will save the redeemed (John 17). He will put death to death and right all wrongs; he will catch the tear and uplift the broken. He will comfort the mourner and give his kingdom to the righteous (Matt 5:2-12).

The victim will get his way, the line in the tale reads, “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Rom 11:36)”

Shakespeare Will Always be a Difficult Read (again)

2011-10-13T07:47:00.000-05:00

(I repost this one - again - cause it gets me every time)

There is much I do not understand. Much that will always remain a mystery. Much that I will always marvel at with childlike awe; much that will consume my attention for an amount of time that I’ll never know because I am transfixed; much will always be unattainable for this mind to grasp.

But beauty remains there, even in the mysterious. It is rapturous, a sunrise or sunset. Though they’ve happened from the beginning of time we still marvel at them. Every night the sun goes down and the colors shock; every morning the sun comes up and the cool gentile radiance warms us. The stars circling in the heavens on a clear night and in the outskirts of Wichita they are nearly indistinguishable from each other. The smile of a baby, the warmth of a dear hug, the love of a mother, the tenderness of a good father, the smell of a new (or really old) book all of these things are beautiful. But even beauty I will never fully know.

I will never behold with my own eyes the depths of the seas. I will never see the sunrise from the moon. I will never fully understand the love of Picasso. I will never fully grasp the depth of Mozart and Bach. I will never savor the full goodness of French cuisine. I will never fully gain an intimate eloquence with the English (or any) language and Shakespeare will always be a difficult read. But I feel I know something.

Rather I feel I know some things. I concur with John Newton, “I know only two things, that I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior.” This is all I will ever know for certain. Though the constellations will change and the sun cease to rise and set in due time, this one fact remains completely unassailable. Jesus Christ came to save sinners.

All my ranting and raving and kicking and screaming will not change it. All my looking to something or someone else to save me will not change it. All my hatred of this idea of me being fraught with sin cannot change it. All the sophisticated ethical debates I can conjure up against this idea cannot change it. It remains completely the same and has so for centuries and ages and will for eternity (past and future). Jesus Christ saves sinners.

I feel that all beauty and all radiance and all splendors may be lumped together and it would be incomparable to the sheer beauty of these two knowable things that Jesus Christ saves sinners. Though tears run freely at this thought and though the stars shine for this one purpose and though the trees raise their arms for this one purpose and though the sun sets and rises for this one purpose it does not compare to the simple idea that Jesus Christ came to save sinners.

Though our sin runs deeper than we’ll ever know Jesus’ finished work runs deeper. Though our curse is our nature Jesus’ nature is our new nature. Though our righteousness is as filthy rags Jesus’ righteousness is given to us. Though we can never pay this debt back we are seen as paid for.

“I know only two things, that I am a great sinner and Christ is a great[er] Savior.”

Crazy Big Stuff

2011-10-10T08:49:00.000-05:00

God is the gospel. It gets said a bunch around our church. It gets explained just as often. However, it is what we cling to – the gospel – and therefore we must press ourselves in every aspect of our lives to have a deep and abiding understanding and passion for this God who is our good news.

For as the illustrations of the life preserver was used yesterday so too is it applicable today (& not just cause it’s cloudy and drippy as I’m writing this). All our life and all our eternity depend on this one thing, this one bit of news. Yet we so often forget our hope, our joy and our God.

It’s a pivotal idea, really, to think that God saved us for Himself, not for our own good, but for Himself. Scripture is replete with passages speaking about God’s redemption of man for his own glory. (A personal favorite is Isaiah 48:9-11.) But more often than not we catch ourselves spiraling downward into thoughts of personal greatness because we’ve been redeemed (maybe that’s just me – but I doubt it.)

But here it remains; Jesus came to glorify the Father in the redemption of sinners (in other words, God came to glorify God in the redemption of sinners). We’re not the center of the universe, we’re not the center of the world, we’re not even the center of God’s plan, God is the center of God’s plan. He must be.

If God is to be God then He must worship that which is most worthy of worship, namely himself; if however He turns to worship man then He is not God and therefore cannot be good and thus must not be worshiped by us.

God is the gospel. He has wooed us and saved us to himself, for himself and by himself. So it is before this God we worship one who is so far above and beyond our thoughts so as to make us feel tiny in comparison, yet who stooped to love us and give us the greatest possible thing in all of creation (and out of creation), He gave us himself.

Vacation Thoughts (pt. 2)

2011-10-04T06:28:00.000-05:00

1. Breckenridge, Colorado will be the closest to heaven some people will ever get.

2. NorthFace, Chaco's, & the latest & best climbing gear will never save a man... Neither will his intentions.

3. God bring me a godly wife.

4. Rest, rest, rest God us in control, trust him, hide in him.

5. Hey Matt, Chad, & Dave, I finished my meal!

6. This time change crap is weird & messing with my eating habits.

7. From now on the warmth of the sun will & should remind me of the embrace of a loving Father.

8. The Church is an odd organism.

9. I'm ready to do my call.

10. One wreck can quite literally & effectively shut down a large portion of Denver.

11. Home has nothing do with the place, but rather the people.

12. My bladder can last one (1) full gas tank.

13. Kansas gives out free coffee when you cross the state line.

14. People with NASCAR stickers should always be driving faster than me.

15. I find the big pictures of (or about) Jesus on the side of the road creepy & ineffective.

16. I successfully navigated Denver & three other towns in the mountains, but Newton is a screwy little town.

Vacation Thoughts (pt. 1)

2011-10-03T16:24:00.001-05:00

Just got back from my trip to Colorado. These are some of the thoughts that ran through my head while gone. I wrote them down 1) cause I write everything 2) cause they could be beneficial to others & 3) cause I'm odd like that. Some are serious most are random, enjoy!

1. Construction, you stupid

2. I can sing as loudly as I want... Wherever I want.

3. Small town folks stare at you funny when you have a deep v tee-shirt on.

4. I bought Funyuns with my subway sandwich cause no one will whine about my breath or the smell of them stinking up the car, ‘cept me.

5. My antenna killed a butterfly.

6. If I were a pastor in Western Kansas church discipline would involve high noon, a saloon fight, & six shooters.

7. There's a sign for a Denver Restaurant outside of Hays, Kansas further illustrating the void of nothingness in Western Kansas.

8. I crossed the state line... Where's the mountains?!?

9. Are those clouds or mountains?

10. To get to heaven (the mountains) you have to go through hell (Denver traffic).

11. I hate & love the word nostalgia.

12. The Civil Wars is great mountain music.

13. Bon Iver is perfect Harry Potter reading music.

14. If you speak sarcasm fluently you're accepted in Kansas, but everywhere else they just don't get it. True story.

15. People look at you funny when you're eating alone.

16. It's 45 degrees, time to put up your creepy napkin sized shorts. K? Good.

17. A babbling mountain stream will always be more beautiful than my most favorite guitar solos, singers, or banjo players.

18. Why is it that leaving helps you find yourself more in Christ than staying in the familiar?

19. If it wasn't for money I'd do this more often.

5 Questions I Need Input On

2011-09-28T09:27:00.002-05:00

This weekend I’ll be headed up to the mountains to do some lovely resting, relaxing and all around chillaxing! Thus, there will not be a post on the blog(inator) this Friday or next Monday, which means the 12 of you that read this will need to find some other source of entertainment for the five minuets it takes to read these puppies.

However, I’ve some questions, which might be beneficial for others to read and grapple with too. So here they are:

1) Is spiritual depression a sin?

2) Is one who suffers from Spiritual depression a, “very poor representative of the Christian faith? (Martin Lloyd Jones)”

3) When it comes to this matter – spiritual depression – what thoughts are given to Jesus being, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief?”

4) What about the prophets? What about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? What about David and Solomon? Did they deal with spiritual depression?

5) Mountains or beach?

Now, I’m serious when I say, I want your answers if you’re willing to give them. So either leave them as a comment (anonymous if you’d like) or e-mail to me here: samorris882007@yahoo.com

Stingless Death

2011-09-26T09:07:00.000-05:00

“My God, how many are my fears
How fast my foes increase
Conspiring my eternal death
They break my fleeting peace.
Arise, Oh Lord, fulfill your grace
While I your glory sing;
My God has broke the serpent’s teeth
And death has lost his sting.”

Death is unknown to us, and reasonably so, for none who has traveled it successfully has returned to tell of the subtle nuances of it. In many respects it is the final journey. Faced alone. “Alone into the unknown.”

But imagine this, for those who are believing the gospel, the burdens shouldered for their entire life will be finally removed on those other shores of eternity. The weight of sin rid of completely. The thorn in the side ultimately eliminated.

The fears and the foes, which increase, those conspirators of death, usurpers of peace have been beaten back to the gates of hell, and will be forever locked in the depths of their ‘kingdom’ for the serpent’s teeth are broken and death has lost it’s sting.

Though the flesh may fail our Jesus did not. Though the heart might faultier our Rock remains firm. For God will give the poor in spirit his Kingdom; comfort to the mourner; the earth to the meek; righteousness to those who thirst for it; mercy for the merciful; himself to the pure in heart; & his kingdom to the persecuted. He is & must forever be the strength of our hearts and our portion forever. He is enough. He is good. (Ps 73:23-26; Matt 5:1-12)

“But you my glory and my strength
Will on my tempter tread
Will silence all my threatening guilt
And raise my drooping head.”

Ripped from the Journal: One

2011-09-23T09:08:00.000-05:00

“You will be hated by all for my name’s sake.” Luke 21:17

Hated for the sake of Jesus, for his name’s sake. Too often we’re reviled as believers not because of Jesus’ name but because we’re judgmental prigs or Theological throat cutters.

We’re hated because we’re jerks. Rather than living lives of love we’re living lives of I’m-right-and-you’re-wrong-and-going-to-hell-for-it.

Hell is real and important but as finite individuals we’re not capable or are we ever commanded to damn anyone or make definitive statements about other people’s salvation. It’s a big enough deal to, “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” rather than trying to work out everyone else’s too.

But in the end, whether you’ve been believing since you were five or just started believing at 55 or are far from belief the fact remains true, we all need the gospel. The message will not or should not change. What is effective at saving dead men is effective at feeding the living.

The Hidden Hide

2011-09-21T09:00:00.002-05:00

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the LORD, ‘My refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust.’” Psalm 91:1-2

I was at a conference last week where one of the speakers spoke (odd, right?) about hiding in God. At first thoughts it sounds like a cheesy Christianise statement, some cliché thought up for the Kindergarten Sunday School class in 1992. But the depth of it is mineable, so mineable in fact that one could mine the aspect of hiding in God for one’s life and never run dry.

At least that’s the thought.

For the flight back I had bought “A Greif Observed” by C.S. Lewis (because the only seventh Harry Potter book the store had was a hardback brick and errbody know my arms are little) wherein he begins to talks about the door being slammed and double bolted in his face when he needs God most.

I’ve felt that, have you? Even though I don’t believe God to ever be silent, I’ve experienced a seeming utter silence. When shouting only compounds the void.

Lewis goes on further in the book to recount the locked door again by saying it was his own cries that drowned out the answer, his own forceful hammerings that caused the small whisper to be lost.

That might be true. But it may be as simple as we don’t want him to answer. Even in our desperate need, with as many pure motives as possible there is still sin. Sin which reviles the shadow of the Almighty because, “I don’t want to live in anyone’s shadow.” Or, “I don’t need to hide, I’m a man.”

Which leads me to the verse I want emblazoned on everything everywhere, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

My Climbing Tree

2011-09-19T21:31:00.002-05:00

I have a tree and no it’s not the one in my front yard. It’s my, “Climbing Tree,” tucked away nicely in Riverside Park, it’s a big birch tree (and now that I’ve told you, you can’t go steal it, ok? Good.).

Perfect for climbing or sitting at its base and thinking. I’ve been finding myself there often lately. It’s a true statement to say the tree has seen me cry more than most people. It’s also seen me laugh a whole dang lot (my mind is kinda odd… if you didn’t already catch that little factoid).

Which brings me to my point. Suffering or pain or misunderstanding whatever vocabulary you’d like to chuck its way. And on top of it joy, ‘cause I think joy is misunderstood to mean happiness. But I don’t think joy means feeling happy, no; I don’t believe that by any stretch of the imagination.

What I mean is this: In the midst of misunderstanding the circumstances I am in complete understanding (and more than that, believing) the reality of the gospel. So in loss recognizing the vast gain found on the treasure of the gospel. Or in pain realizing the comfort found in the refuge of Jesus.

Joy is understanding your eternity is secure. Not as seeing your circumstances as painful. Oh though they might be more painful than you’ve ever felt before, and all the crushing weight of fear and the unknown come washing over you like some torrent of needles… Joy is planted in the heart so firmly so as to be the roots of faith.

But these lyrics ring true, “Soon shall close the earthly mission, swift shall pass thy pilgrim days, hope soon change to glad fruition, faith to sight, and prayer to praise.”

Essentials

2011-09-19T08:26:00.000-05:00

Broken and dirty,
Bare and laid out,
Everything inside us is filthy and tainted by the profusion of our sinful hearts.
We’re unable and dispassionate,
Shattered by the fall we need you.

We need you to be Creator,
To create new hearts within us;
We need you to Promise,
To covenant with us;
We need you to be Listener,
To hear the cries of our affliction;
We need you to be Priest,
To perform our religion;
We need you to be King,
To reign in our hearts;
We need you to be Prophet,
To declare your Truth;
We need you to be the God-Man,
To bear our penalty;
We need you to be crucified,
To bear your wrath;
We need you to live,
To be our intercessor;
We need you to be Avenger,
To conquer our enemies;
We need you to be Warrior,
To slay our adversaries,
We need you to be our God;
This is what we will need forever and always.

More than self-help, self-awareness, self-efficacy, self-pity, self-confidence, self-glory, or any other hyphenated self-word you can toss out,
We need God to be God.

Ripped from the Journal: Crying Stones

2011-09-16T08:04:00.002-05:00

"I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out." Luke 19:40

Their very redemption was at hand. The stones could feel their purpose riding by; knowing their groaning had been heard by their maker & they were soon to be remade. Renewal from corruption; freedom from sins; the curse turned upon it's head and the world to be right once more.

It is the same for those who've heard their Master's call. The once stone hearts have become living flesh and are singing the glories of their King. The very stones are crying out in adoration to the Redeemer.

Quick Thoughts on I Corinthians 16:13

2011-09-14T08:57:00.000-05:00

“Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.” I Corinthians 16:13

This verse has been popping up in my little brain for the past 3 weeks like clockwork (and no that clockwork is not orange). It’s simple enough, right? I mean, Paul gives 5 statements, how hard can that be to understand? Let’s take ‘em in stride.

“Be watchful…” It’s Paul, so let’s assume he's speaking of being watchful for the return of Jesus as well as being vigilant against wolves seeking to lead people away from Jesus. Yet at the same time seeing your own heart for what it is and knowing the necessary antidote is nothing more or less than Jesus. You must be watchful in all things (and by all I really mean all).

“… Stand firm in the faith…” Not wavering with every turn of your heart or gust in the relevant theological trends. Believing so boldly and so soundly in your mind and heart so as to understand Martin Luther’s words of, “sin boldly.” Seeking above all things the truth of Scripture and wisdom of the Lord.

“… Act like men…” Yes. Not a boy who is being rebuked and thus cowers with his head hung low not looking into the eyes of the rebuke. Not a boy who would rather have momentary gratification than protect and lead a family. Not the pansy who thinks working out more and having more sex and drinking more than anyone else makes him more "manly." Act like men. (Eph. 5:25-33; I Tim. 6:11-21; Titus; I Peter 3:7)

“… Be Strong.” Be strong for the weaker vessel. Be able to protect the one in need of protecting. Be strong in the faith for your family and friends. Be strong in the Lord because he has made you that way for his own glory. Not weak of mind, but strong; not weak of spirit, but strong; not weak of heart, but strong.

“Let all that you do be done in love.” Again, I’m fairly sure that, “all,” here means – ALL. Paying the bills, doing the laundry, speaking with that annoying person, let all that you do be done in love. I would dare to say there is nothing more powerful or dangerous than love. It is thus understandable for God to command us to, “Love the Lord with all your heart with all your soul and with all your mind. (Matt. 22:37)

Simple enough, right? Only by the grace of God purchased at the cross of Christ will our sinful hearts be able to do any of these. Only by Jesus are we made free. Free from cowardice, weakness, apathy, faithlessness, and blindness. So, you see, we don't just need to act better, we need to be born again.

Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.

J.I. Packer Quote

2011-09-13T09:01:00.001-05:00

This is a quote from J.I. Packer's "Knowing God" a wonderful book. Anywho, this quote is my song today. I pray it is as helpful to you as it is to me.

“Still He blesses those on whom he sets his love in a way that humbles them, so that all the glory may be his alone. Still he hates the sins of his people, and uses all kinds of inward and outward pains and grief’s to wean their hearts from compromise and disobedience. Still he seeks the fellowship of his people, and sends them both sorrows and joys in order to detach their love from other things and attach it to himself. Still he teaches believers to value his promised gifts by making them wait for those gifts, and compelling them to pray persistently for them, before he bestows them. So we read of God dealing with his people in the Scripture record, and so he deals with them still. His aims and principles of action remain consistent; he does not at any time act out of character. Our ways, we know, are pathetically inconsistent-but not God’s.”

Again, "Still he seeks the fellowship of his people, and sends them both sorrows and joys in order to detach their love from other things and attach it to himself."

May it be his merciful grace for us to understand this within out heart of hearts.

Monday

2011-09-12T08:26:00.000-05:00

It’s Monday. The week is beginning. Many of us are headed to our jobs to do our tasks. Many of us are headed to our classes to be bored by our professors while we strive to just pay attention. These things seem so small, don’t they? Jobs, school and the general hustle and bustle of life.

Often these things become our focus, our aim and our goal. To succeed in the arena of job or school becomes a higher dream than knowing God.

We are broken, this is true, we are shattered by the fall but we are not helpless. We are, as faith (singular not plural) so dictates, rescued by the Rescuer.

Jesus has redeemed us from the curse of the law so that we are now capable to seeing our jobs as fuel for his glory; our schooling is now instrumental to our callings.

So go, work your job; strive to pay attention in your classes. Because the King sits on his throne and the Redeemer of your souls has covered you with grace so your guilt and your shame are no longer you. Who you are, the real you (as a believer in the gospel), is the finished work of Jesus. You are righteous because he has made you so. You stand before the throne of God above with a strong and perfect plea and it is Jesus.

Simply Complex

2011-09-09T07:49:00.000-05:00

“Astoundingly simple yet infinitely complex.” This is the gospel we believe. For in a sense all that must be done is to believe, truly believe, yet in that same sense, “truly believing,” comes only from the changing of your heart. Being born again – made fully, and finally, alive.

For many they “cannot help but believe,” which for agnostics and atheists alike drives them nuts (and reasonably so). For some they must search out meanings and swim in the fathoms of the ocean of belief before they’re saturated to the heart with it. For others, they simply can’t believe.

“… If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Rom 9:9)” It is indeed astoundingly simple, this process of belief. Yet the complexities of it will resonate through the believer’s life until their death, and even then their eternity will be and already is being shaped by it.

“Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. (Isa 45:22)” Turn, some translations say ‘look,’ and be saved. What is more easy than looking? Yet what is more difficult than dying to self?

Astoundingly simply, yes - O my God yes - to believe my wretchedness redeemed is astoundingly simple (because I long to believe it). Infinitely complex, very much so, for why should God redeem my wretchedness? How do I die to myself? How do I see Jesus as more worthy of all of me than my stuff? (I’m sure the questions would fill this journal if I were to keep writing them, for infinitely means unending).

Alone & Thinking of...

2011-09-07T08:51:00.001-05:00

I was thinking the other day (I know odd, right?) about the word ‘alone’ (Man, when I say it like that I sound/feel like such a nerd.). We use it fairly often in descriptions of relational status’, who we’re not with, and other goodies such as, “The tree stood alone on the hill.” But the thought occurred to me while I was thunking, “We’re not ever really alone, strictly speaking.”

Really the idea came up ages ago from an old Youth Pastor, it was the first thing he told me when I conveyed my desire of being a pastor to him. He said, “Are you alright with being alone?” At the time I didn’t get it (quite actually, I still don’t think I get it.), but now it makes a little more since.

I don’t think he meant physically alone. Like, “Are you ok with being by yourself.” Nor do I think he meant it in the terms of the lonely-leadership syndrome. I really think he meant it like I mean it now to say, “Are you ok with being alone with God?”

You see that’s the issue. We’re not alone, there’s an omnipresent God around. But we’re not ‘ok’ with being just with him. Is this wrong? To some degree it is. When we’re constantly running from thing to thing trying to never be alone, then yes, yes this is wrong. But when the silence of the absence of others washes over us and we are alone with the Creator of the universe – that’s probably one of the best things to be doing.

So, here it stands, the question at the end of my thinking, “Why am I not alright with being alone with God?” The answers are long and various, but the simple fact-of-the-matter is this: my sin can’t stand him. Thus, it’s back to Jesus my saving Lord. Who makes me capable of knowing I need this omnipresent God and not merely that but causing me to feel love toward this ever-present Father.

The Doorless Closet

2011-09-06T07:38:00.000-05:00

We never realize our weakness or meanness or baseness until there is something bigger or scarier or worse than we thought possible knocking down our closet door to devour us while we tremble under the covers. When the other side of things starts to become more real to us than it ever had been before.

As believers we shy away from the fact of spiritual warfare. Our Christian “Society” brands people “weird” for seeing or feeling or fighting the demonic - but it’s what we’re told we'll fight, not flesh and blood but rulers and principalities of this present darkness (Eph 6:12).

I don’t think everything the believer fights is demonic, nor do I think that there is a demon behind every problem, but I do think when the believer is believing but is still fighting with all their might there is a spiritual battle occurring.

You might know this feeling. When you believe that Jesus is your only hope, but still feel as though the ground is falling out from under your feet. When you say, “I believe, help my unbelief,” and you mean it with every fiber of your tiny being yet still feel your weakness more than his strength.

However, what must be remembered are these light and momentary afflictions; these struggles against the spiritual and the physical; these duel wars of treachery and weakness are preparing for us a glory which cannot be imagined in our baseness.

The serpent’s teeth are gone. The demonic forces – which are real -- have no lasting power. We, you and I dear believer, are to be fighting one fight from now until we’re called home or our King returns: Believe Jesus to be your only hope.

Ripped from the Journal: Am I lost?

2011-09-02T08:28:00.001-05:00

Am I lost on the journey; have I doubled back in some same way before and again? There is a theme to these last few days, which haunts me. A theme well remembered from times before, a theme well spoken in my heart so much so it might be in the realm of a mantra.

Maybe I’m just less found than I guessed I was. Thinking I knew the path before me but never having seen or tread it before. Remembering the previous dark part of the forest and thinking this one so similar as to be one with the last.

Perhaps this is where I’m supposed to be. Returning to a familiar lesson to learn it again (kinda like my experience with Algebra). Or maybe he thinks it best I have my doctoral dissertation written on this field of study so as to be of maximum help to others.

Whatever the reason I am back to the same place and the trees look so very familiar and the undergrowth is becoming broken down in the path for either I’ve walked it time and time again or he has prepared a way for me.

Learn your lessons well and look to lean on the Lord the teacher of your soul. Because the pupil needs to be guided by the hand at times for the want in his heart is be waylaid by the tempting sight of a far off mountain. Yet he must press on towards the lofty goal set before him, though he often losses sight of it in the trees.

Hoping Against All Hope

2011-08-31T09:24:00.001-05:00

Hope. It’s a word I love. Probably, it would be safe to say, this is my favorite word. It’s tossed around in political campaigns and desires for grandeur, fame, relationships, food and money. But hope is such an all-encompassing feeling like joy or love. Yet it’s much more than simply looking forward to something.

I would submit that most of what we feel as hope is something we would classify as nostalgia. Remembrances of our past, good things which cause us to hope for their return, C.S. Lewis hits it square in the face by saying, “These things-the beauty, the memory of our past-are good images of what we really desire… [But] they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited.”

Our hope in so far as it is deemed to be true and solid hope is not simply in what we desire for the future, but what we know from the past, mostly Jesus’ finalized work on the cross and victory over death. For if we hope in the future there must be an understanding of this past accomplishment not simply as fact but as faith.

But to hope in things seen is to not hope at all for hope is in the unseen, the eternal rather than the transient. Sure it may be a desire of things to occur, but it is not hope. Hope is founded in faith. But faith in the transient is misplaced faith. For though I can have faith in a relationship working and hope for it to last, that faith and that hope will not change what will be. But faith in the Eternal and hope in the Lasting leads to not simply to momentary satisfaction but lasting joy in the love of God.

So hope is just as complex as joy or love. But rightly placed hope will never put one to shame. For rightly placed hope does not merely look to the future of what will be but simultaneously looks to the past of what has been finished in one’s place for one’s sins.

God Created Reality

2011-08-30T09:55:00.001-05:00

Have you ever felt thwarted at your every turn? Having thought you’d done everything correctly and been as wise as possible in your decisions only to realize you’d failed? Attempting to grasp at the reasons for your failure but even in that failing to understand the breaking point.

Is there a proper way to respond to this? Is anger at your misunderstanding proper? What about confusion? What about complete indifference? Quite frankly, I don’t know what the right response is for those in this station. For in some sense anger seems correct because you desire to understand, but in some sense is your misunderstanding worth being angry over? Confusion seems proper because you have no idea what’s going on, but we linger here too long. Indifference seems most right in my mind, even though it might mean not learning a lesson at this exact moment.

Here’s my answer: sitting in a library looking at birds play while listening to some dang good banjo playing. That’s my answer. Trying to understand one thing: God created reality. For his own glory because that is (really it is, truly) my good.

Confession of a Restless Pastor

2011-08-29T08:59:00.004-05:00

Some things I do well. Some things I do not do well at all. One of those things, which I cannot do to save my life, is rest. Taking naps is difficult, doing nothing is a strain for my mind and turning my phone off is maybe a yearly phenomenon.

But what is rest? Is it playing with friends or taking naps? Sure, physically speaking my body is rested in naps and friends encourage while we do things. But that’s the key; I’m still doing something.

Being rather than doing that is rest. Relying on a sovereign God to complete what he has begun. Trusting him to uphold me in the course of my focus on him. Having faith that God will do what he will do and being made humble by him to accept what he’s done as what I need.

I wrote a post called, “The Thinker’s Thoughts on Thinking,” and much of it has to do with rest, the necessity of turning off my brain. My proclivity is to burn both ends of the candle until I come to not simply a weary state of physical exhaustion but until I get to such a soul-tiredness that all I can do is weep…

It’s sin. Straight and simple, it is sin. To not trust the sustainer of the universe to sustain my being for a day is to tell the omnipotent God, “I got this, back off.” Essentially wanting to redeem my own soul by the sweat of my brow, the tears of my labor, and the blood of my heart. (Check out the personal pronouns in that sentence and try to tell me that’s not prideful.)

Pride is the root of unrest, prideful self-reliance. What must needs be learned is trust. Trust in God to do what he will do for his glory which is very much one with my good.

Our Constant Need

2011-08-24T07:40:00.001-05:00

Do you know that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach? The one that feels strangely similar to hunger but isn’t hunger at all? Maybe yours is that feeling in your heart, when it seems to free-fall to your toes? Or perhaps yours is the fogginess of the brain, where the simplest thought is the hardest of struggles? What do we need in these moments, what must we have?

Jesus. Not a man to give advice or a woman to listen to the issue, we need Jesus. We do not need to understand the nuances of the deepest theology we just need Jesus.

We need him… I need him to have lived a perfect life. I need him to have been beaten far beyond recognition as human. I need him to have been nailed to a torturous cross. I need him to have yielded up his spirit. I need the blood and water to flow. I need him to have been buried and more than that to have risen from the grave. I need him to be seated at the right hand of the Father on high interceding on my behalf.

Saying, “His debt I have paid and his heart I have won. I have loved him before the foundations of the world were set when You, my Father, gave him to me. He is mine and I will not loose him.”

More than self-help and self-worth and self-love we need to hear of Jesus, the perfect God-Man, doing what none could do and willingly dying for wretch’s sins.

And this we will always need, even when our stomachs feel the way they should and our hearts are stationed in their proper places and when clarity of thought is a breeze. We can never or will ever outgrow our need for the astoundingly simple yet infinitely complex beautiful gospel of Jesus Christ our Savior.

Obligatory Duty.

2011-08-22T09:02:00.001-05:00

“He died for me why wouldn’t I live for him.” I hate this statement. Not only because it’s cliché but also because it is filled with bad Theology. But this mindset is a very difficult thing to get away from.

The mindset is this: To live in such a manner that is either 1) attempting at paying God back for saving one's soul or 2) attempting at making God love one more by doing or not doing a prescribed list. The affect of this is to kill the Christian, to choke out the newly forming plant because there is no air for it to be itself.

(We’ve this idea in our brains that all Christians should look exactly alike… I'm gonna go ahead and completely disagree. Will there be similarities, for sure, but will we all look just like each other, no, thank God. Because, quite frankly, I don’t want to be another Billy Graham or John Piper.)

The issue with the above (dumb) cliché is this: The Christian life is lived out of gratitude not duty. To hold to the above statement is to simply say that because someone did something for me now I’ll pay him or her back. Do you see the nonsense here? If there ever were a love for the one who redeemed one there would be an understanding of the great incapableness to even attempt at paying him back.

It must be understood to live for Christ is to do so gratefully as a since of love toward him, an overflow, if you will. To love him as a sense of duty would be like buying something for someone you love and telling them, “I got you this because I have to.”

Friday's Ripped from the Journal: The Shrewd Manager (huh?)

2011-08-19T08:40:00.001-05:00

The parable of the dishonest manager or the shrewd manager in Luke 16:1-13 is a conundrum to me. I don’t exactly know what to take from it. I suppose the unrighteous money does not mean unrighteously gained money but rather money which is not set apart for the work of the ministry – but this I only suppose.

Indeed as believers we are to be as cunning as serpents and as innocent as doves. We must be on constant guard for the coming of our King, but until then making friends with the world so that some might be saved.

This would make more since to me. To be in the world building friendships -- genuine friendships – with co-workers, in all being intentional with how we speak and what we speak about. Being careful to not be persuaded of the beauty of loveless trinkets. Being intoxicated by our King of Glory who’s redeemed us by the death of His Son.

The Thinker's Thoughts on Thinking

2011-08-17T19:41:00.004-05:00

I sometimes wonder if I had more patience when I was younger. It’s probably nothing more than the romanticization of youth, but still, in some areas I think it’s true. Also, I used to not think much. That’s probably why I had more, “patience,” cause I had no idea what was going on and was fine with it.

But I think about crap so dang much. The meanings of words, the gestures of friends, the possibilities for anything, wondering if I could or should say or do or not say or not do or passively be nothing. It’s a constant wonder and process of decisions.

Is it fine to covet the ignorance of some? To crave to not wonder, or to not be a, “thinker?”

And yet, I seek my thoughts out. I desire time in them. To be swamped by the feelings and the view of lofty thinking – I think this is a sin for me. Being much to absorbed in my thoughts… and yet here I sit writing in my thoughts.

Indeed this is a gift, but it feels so much like a curse. But is it that a musician is only thinking about music when he is playing, surely not. Surely the melody of some distant tune is floating amongst his imagination and around his frontal lobe.

So here it stands, the discipline of thought. It seems quite reasonable to discipline oneself to not think just as much to discipline oneself to think. To be indifferent to the outside stimuli, to simply be, surely this must be true, for there is a time for everything.

Perhaps this is true, truer than I’ve thought possible. Perhaps there are times and areas of life where the constant thought is to be released for the simple beauty of our dearest friend which is Trust.

To merely – yes, merely – trust what will be to be and accept the simple facts of God-created reality.

In All Things

2011-08-17T08:35:00.001-05:00

“I don’t pray enough.” I’m fairly certain most people I know have said this at least once – if not more. And it’s true I don’t pray enough. But what is prayer? Is it just talking to God? Is it a, “War-time walkie-talkie (John Piper)?” Is it for comfort? Or, maybe, is it for strengthening? Jesus teaches us to pray to the Father (Matt. 6:9-13), so does this mean prayers are ineffectual if they are prayers to the Holy Spirit or to Jesus?

You see, we say (rather I say) we don’t pray enough but when it comes to the actual act of prayer we don’t really 1) know how to pray or 2) know what it is.

As to how we ought to pray I would say there is no better outline for it than the way Jesus taught us. This is not to say that praying to the Holy Spirit or Jesus is sinful, but it is to say it is not how Jesus taught his disciples to pray. We pray to the Father through the redemption of the Son in the power of the Spirit.

As to what prayer is -- it’s everything. For are we not supposed to be doing all things to the Father through the redemption of the Son in the power of the Spirit? So if this were done perfectly (ahem) would it not be conceivable for all of life to be constant prayer?

So comfort, strengthening, war, talking, humbling, emboldening, and discouraging are all encompassed in prayer, and not simply those but also our jobs and families and friends and driving. These are all encompassed in the scope of prayer. We are to be doing all things to the Father through the redemption of the Son in the power of the Spirit (Phil 4:6; Col 4:2).

Perhaps it would be better to live a life of prayer than any other form of life.

What is Joy?

2011-08-15T08:41:00.000-05:00

Let me explain a word to you, a word, as I understand it.

Joy, joy is not simply happiness, nor is it simply excitement. For in joy there is sadness and there is brokenness, happiness and sorrow. Joy is an idea held within the heart transcending all aspects of life, from the devastating to the amazing. Happiness is fleeting and sadness will not last, but joy goes right through the heart of both of these.

Joy has been a recent theme in my life. Not simply in my personal study but in the teachings of the church as well as the discussions with my friends. Joy, it seems, is such an elusive thing.

We’re always wondering how it came to us when we have it and where it went when we don’t. But I don’t think that’s a proper understanding of what joy really is.

Joy, it would seem, is a constant. Once it is had, it will never go. “But what about when I feel no joy?” you might ask. Joy is no feeling, it’s an idea held in your heart -- not your brain. We feel excitement and happiness but much like love joy is not a simple emotion.

It is quite complex really. For though I love The Anchor I do not love it the same way I love my nephew. And though I love my nephew I do not pray for him the same way I pray for my future children. So it is with joy.

But with joy we have lower words to describe those base feelings of happiness and excitement, it is not so with love (I love Oreos and I love God – same word completely different meanings).

This is joy: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you… So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”
This is joy." (2 Cor 4:7-12,16-17)

Friday's Ripped from the Journal: The Coming Storm

2011-08-12T08:52:00.001-05:00

Everybody wants encouragement. I’m okay with making that sweeping generalization. In some capacity or another each one of us desires to be validated in what we’re doing or saying or where we’re going. In fact we’ve got terms specially designed to describe it when folks are “fishing for a compliment.”

But what about when encouragement comes and you’re not looking for it or fishing for it, what do you do then?

Isn’t it sweeter than those placid compliments you went digging for, to find encouragement in a place you didn’t expect? Or when the exact phrase you needed to hear is said, but you didn’t know you needed to hear it until it was said. Or even when there are no words at all, just a bird chirping or the rain falling or the rolling thunder – there’s encouragement in them too.

Maybe that’s the issue. We look to hard for encouragement, when the world around us is teaming with reasons to take heart and stand strong.

I’ve never thought about it like that. How would things change if instead of dying to find what I think I need I simply look at what is?

How would we be different?

If the bird can sing as the storm begins then perhaps a soul should still feel joy when the suffering starts.

Plateau-ing

2011-08-10T09:37:00.001-05:00

Recently I was chilling in one of my favorite coffee shops working on a few thing when I over heard this statement, “I like my Christianity just the way it is.” Needless to say I dropped eves for the rest of their conversation – I know wrong, somehow.

But it got me to thinking, how many Christians live in this same mindset, “I like my belief just the way it is.” It seems ridiculous to me. To think where your faith is now is where you'll want it to be for the rest of your life. Quite frankly, I don’t think that is the point of faith.

Oughtn’t our faith to be growing and changing? Morphing us from who we were to who we are to who we’ll be. And as our faith grows oughtn’t our capacity to love increase as well? To see those we once held in contempt as either dear brothers or people in need of friends.

To think oneself of having arrived in the perfect position of faith is to not have faith in the least. For if, “you’ve arrived,” then you’ve done everything that is possible leaving nothing more to be done and that’s not faith, it’s legalism.

It’s a dangerous thought – the plateau – killing what little faith might have been present (The Parable of the Sower Matthew 13:1-9). But the thing with the Gospel is it leaves little room for, “arriving,” or, “plateauing,” in fact it leaves little room at all for anything you’ve done (Isa 64:6). The beauty of grace is it makes life unfair and the wonder of Jesus is he makes you good enough.

So in a sense the plateau is real, for Jesus is the plateau and on him we stand. But in the sense of growing faith the plateau is dangerous and ought not be trifled with, for we simply will never arrive at needing Christianity just the way we like it.

Demanded

2011-08-08T08:52:00.001-05:00

This morning I read Luke 14:25-33. The section heading in my Bible is, “The Cost of Discipleship,” and it uses words like, “hate,” “bear your own cross,” and “renounce.” It made me think of an interesting theme, one that has been running through my mind for quite some time now.

I don’t like soft language. To be sure it is necessary at many times, but, also, many times call for the proper words to be used, words which might be considered harsh.

Take for instance this passage; many might say after reading this, “God wants us to sacrifice our lives to him.” WANTS? Or to say it another way, “God wishes us to sacrifice our lives to him.” For wish is the definition of want. To soft serve what should be the most threatening statement of a believers life? This is a tragedy (it’s far worse than thinking turkey-bacon is somehow comparable to real bacon).

He demands our lives. He demands we live as dead men walking. He demands our crosses be daily on our shoulders. He demands all else to be renounced and used for his glory. He demands our love for him to be powerful and so all-encompassing that love for family looks like hate.

Is this demand one that should be on all believers? Yes. Why? Because we are his disciples, it is the cost of discipleship. Yes, it is a hard cost to pay – but the beauty of the Gospel is it makes life unfair and the debt we owe is paid. And therefore, the demand, though it looks hefty is seen as light for our burden of sin was nailed to a cross and we no longer must carry our pain. We are free to be radical in the mundane.

Friday's Ripped from the Journal

2011-08-05T09:28:00.002-05:00

Luke 10:38-42
“Now as the went their way Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went to him and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”

Is there enough time allotted in my day to sit at Jesus’ feet?

My service to the church will be futile if I am not at my Master’s feet biding his call. Orders will not be properly heard or understood if I cannot hear my Captains voice.

The hustle and bustle of the pastorate can so easily ensnare my soul. I must, by the grace of God, transcend and be at his feet whilst doing my duty.

If fear it is the same for many, to go all day without any form of communiqué with our Leader. We are offered so much in such a small thing, but we cannot bring ourselves to perform it, yet often times when we do we perform a hideous form of it.

Prayer is what I write of. We do not pray, as we ought. Either we pray with intent to get something out of our one-sided conversation with the Divine or pray in a completely wrong manner.

Indeed he must make us humble to learn and accept what prayer is and its paramount importance in the fight.

Fight to Love

2011-08-03T08:21:00.002-05:00

“Fight the good fight of faith.” Paul said it; I use it at the end of e-mails, Facebook messages and letters. But what does it mean? Sure it means, fight the good fight of faith, but more than that simplistic definition what does it mean for our lives? Let me tell you how I think.

I like to romanticize things, it’s a way of coping, I suppose. You see, if I think about something in terms of a story than I am much more apt to be appreciative of them, it or whatever. So when I read, “Fight the good fight of faith,” my instant thought is, “God knows how to talk to my brain – Duh.”

Look at it like this, rather than the monotony of the drudge of simplistic life see it as war. Well, really, believers should be seeing every moment as a war.

In each corner of our lives we are struggling against an enemy who is very much apart of us. We cannot escape his ruse, for a part of us wants his ruse to win. Striving to push back the fall but failing all the while.

Fight the good fight of faith doesn’t mean strive to live perfectly. It means fight to believe. Fight to see Jesus as sufficient. Fight to see this life as war. Fight to see this war as won but not yet over. Fight to love your family. Fight to cherish your friends. Fight to see a sip of coffee as worship. Fight to believe.

All of everyday of each moment of our lives will be – as Christians – a battle to see any of this Jesus stuff as wonderful. Sure we believe it, but we simultaneously don’t. So to see this life, this belief as easy, is quite frankly, to not know Christ. For why else would it be called a fight if it was really a cake-walk?

Death is Grace

2011-08-01T08:49:00.001-05:00

What do we think of when we think of death? Often, I assume, we think of caskets and crying widows, Psalm 23, or the manner in which a friend died. Driving by graveyards with our breath held because it was a fun game when we were 10. Viewing the, “Homecoming Escort,” as both annoying and morbidly intriguing.

We usually steer clear of the discussion of dying. And, to be honest, we rightly do so, for it is a vast unknown. Some have faith, and some have science, but both are not 100% sure what will happen.

As one being saved by Jesus I would fall into the category of faith of an afterlife and an eternity with God. But sometimes I have my doubts. And sometimes I want nothing more than to be there now, and it of this I wish to write.

‘Longing’ might be a good word here, longing to die. To be free of earth and sin and myself, to look beyond that vast unknown chasm knowing what it felt like when my last breath was gone.

(Now, I’m sure some of you are thinking, “Get this dude a psychotherapist because the suicidal thoughts in the post are everywhere.” Societal thought has made death taboo however it’s just as much apart of life as love and we can talk about that without need of psychotherapist all day long).

But here’s my point: when we feel and understand so deeply our revulsion to sin we are, in that moment, screaming at the top of our hearts, “O death where is your victory? O death where is your sting?” And it is then when we see death as a grace not as a monster.

For what good God would let his loved creation wallow in the self-deprecating pitiful state that is Falling Short? How could a loving God be loving if he sat aside and let all men trudge along rather than bringing them away from the monotony? How could a glorious God be glorious if he did not eventually show his awful power and beautiful splendor to those he made to behold it? You see, death is a grace.

Friday's Ripped from the Journal

2011-07-29T08:38:00.000-05:00

It is becoming increasingly important in my mind that we use our words properly. A higher level of vocabulary is not what is needed rather an understanding of the words already known. For true eloquence is not in the refined spinning of a phrase but in the speaking of the heart.

In the proper use of words is meaning conveyed and pressed forward, but in the flippant sentence is a misunderstood meaning and thus something is done unintentionally. (Saying something off cuff and instantly regretting what you’ve said, It’s kind of like the dream where your running around your high school naked. That sense of ‘uh-oh I’m embarrassed.’)

Yet, if we grasp what we are saying and are endured to its truthfulness then there will be conviction in our voices and belief in our eyes. Because words are the only real magic we possess.

For with words people are transformed--changed--what was once unknown to them is now known, what was once unknown to you is now a possibility. Do you see what I mean by ‘magic’?

Life is given, pictures are painted, blindness is cured, deafness can hear, people are devastated or built up and all of this comes from our use of words. We must use them properly. They are powerful. The can cut deep and run many away from what we ‘believe.’

This is a recent conviction of mine, to think before I speak (a conviction I so often fail at). Weighing the meaning of a word and its use in a sentence to grasp and saying exactly what I mean to say. Because if it is true (and I believe it to be so) and, “Faith comes hearing and hearing from the Word of God.” (Rom. 10:17) then I’d better watch my words carefully.

Now is Important, right? (pt 2)

2011-07-27T06:21:00.002-05:00

Last week I blogged on some musings from 1 Corinthians 7:17-24 in a posted called “Now is Important, right?” (Read it here). I’d like to continue the theme from that post, applying it to something different.

We all want to be loved. To be hugged and cherished, to be - perhaps - swooned over and recognized for what we are or who we are. The way we dress, the way we speak, what we read, and what we own all of these things are attempts at placing ourselves in the realm of the people we esteem. We want to be cool.

Not to be the odd nerd in the corner or to be the guy with his nose stuck in a book. But to be the one everyone loves, that’s what we want, but why?

Why do we want to be loved by everyone? Becoming social chameleons to be hated by none. We even do this in the church, changing and adapting and lying to not be left out or given the cold shoulder.

But shouldn’t the church be the one place where you are capable to be you? To not worry about what the “cool folks” do and feeling the pressure to conform to their image?

God has made us. He has made us who we are and wired us the way we are wired for one reason, and for one reason only, to glorify himself. But we take this body, personality and characteristics and cannibalize them, ripping them limb from limb and duct taping them together to make this Frankenstein of a monster for the sake of being cool.

How would things look if you were the person you are when your alone all the time? And to say it wouldn’t be pretty is to say that what God created is ugly.

Made to Last

2011-07-25T09:07:00.003-05:00

I like old things. If you’ve ever been to my house you’ll understand immediately what I mean. Trunks, radio, books, tables, all these things have seen time and, “lived to tell about it.” A few items take places of prominence, a hundred year old copy of Edgar Allen Poe’s Poems, two family Bibles that came from the motherland (Scotland) and a radio from the 1920’s (which still works).

Trinkets I could live without very easily, but things holding special places in my heart. Poe has always been my favorite poet because of his raw use of words and his vast understanding of depression. The family Bibles teach my more than just where I came from, they teach me who I am. The radio, though for most is an interesting talking point, still works ninety years later – it was made to last.

Faith. Belief. Biblical terms thrown around like paper airplanes in a fourth grade classroom. Often I worry/wonder at why I use the words I use. For I wholeheartedly agree with Dumbledore but will adapt him for reality: Words are the only real magic we know.

If we understood faith like Poe understood depression; if we gleaned information from belief through the love of Scripture; if we looked at faith and belief as made to last longer than the radio how would things be different?

Rather than seeing faith as a cheap trophy for your shelf to see it as a treasure to be protected, loved, polished and grown. Things just might change. Rather than seeing belief as all about what you do to see it as made for eternity by the Eternality. This just may push you over the edge of fiction into reality.

Friday's Ripped from the Journal

2011-07-22T09:00:00.006-05:00

(A couple of weeks ago I read something in my journal which I thought interesting so I posted it. So, welcome to the inaugural post of "Friday's Ripped from the Journal" anything's game here, so it could be down right weird or upright funny, or simple confession of sin, there's no telling. Thoughts, comments, or anything you think of while reading you should post as a comment. We could have some neat conversations. Enjoy!)

"Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light." Luke 11:35-36

Often it is asked, “How do I be a light?” or “How can you be more of a light?” For many think it is what you do that makes you exude light in dark places. So in response to these questions people go to bars and don’t drink beer to be ‘a light’ or hang out with friends and don’t cuss to be ‘a light.’

But it is not what is done or not done which makes someone illumine a dark place it’s the feeling persuasion of the heart and head, the conviction or deeply rooted intent of the person, which makes them a conduit for glory.

Many men of old did and said things which modern “pop-Christianity” would find astonishing. Yet “pop-Christianity” is changing, moving from one set of systems and philosophies of thought to another. And while the system and philosophy is not an issue, the heart is. For if the system is seen as paramount in the realm of importance than there is no light in a dark place.

It is thus reasonable, no reasonably important that our motives, our reasons for doing something are being checked in a constant continual fashion. For while it is not wrong to abstain or partake on their own merits, it is wrong to not why you’re doing what you’re doing.

The intent must be sought out, and by the grace of God it will be the glory of God.

(The above picture is by Steve Coleman more can be seen here)

We Want to be Remembered

2011-07-20T08:58:00.002-05:00

We want to be remembered. Not to be forgotten in the passing of time. Striving in every corner of our lives to do great things, say great things or write great things. To have our names etched on the stone of eternity so future generations can look back and say, “Look at what they did.”

Especially with my generation, we feel we must do big things (if you want an example ask). Feeling as though dying in obscurity is the greatest of sins.

But what if living a quite life and dying a normal death and being remembered, as ‘Granpa’ for a generation or two then forgotten isn’t bad thing? How would you live your life differently?

Rather than looking to the impact we want to make for future generations we live life and put our hands to the plow now. Rather than (ahem) wishin’, and hopin’, and prayin’ that we’ll not be forgotten, doing what’s in front of us now.

Often as Christians we rail against the American Dream, and I agree, if all your dreaming about is stuff, then your wrong. But to attain the “American Dream” and then rail against it is sin. To park outside of our garages (because it’s full of all our other stuff) while in our minds breathing murderous threats against the American Dream – seems a little two-faced, right?

However to live behind your white picket fence and use all of your assets to the glory of God – that, that is more beautiful than selling everything because some man with a 2100 sq. ft. house told you to. In every respect seeing what you have as fodder for worship is itself radical.

Granted some are called to sell and go and die; just as much as some are called to stay and support and die.

For a great post on this topic go here and read more

Now is Important, right?

2011-07-18T15:52:00.002-05:00

Where you are is important. Often we want to reminisce about where we were or look ahead to where we’re going. Indeed it is a difficulty to look at the ‘right now’ and feel any sense of happiness, joy or completion.

In many regards Lewis said it rightly, “We are far too easily pleased,” and in many estimations he is correct, however in this consideration he is wrong. For we are not mused with what were doing now, or where we sit now, or, even at times, where we live now. Wanting rather to dream about bigger pictures as opposed to seeing the wholeness of the current picture.

We find ourselves asking the questions, “What if I moved?” “What if I changed jobs?” or even, “What if I married another person?” Ever wondering about “could be’s” or “might-possibly-be’s” but not carrying for the “what is.”

Though it is not inherently wrong to look ahead or behind and remember lessoned learn or the beauty of the future, it is wrong to forget what is happening now and substitute it for the things that might, could, maybe (1 in a million, or last man on earth) be.

And in this regard Lewis is right, we are far too easily pleased with the possibilities of what might be (or what has been). Because even if the hopeful things happen we’re still in the current and it won’t be much different, if at all, even in another location.

The issue in the end is not the things that could change, but our hearts. Why do we not love the place we live? Why do we need a change of jobs? Because we do not see our situation as worship, rather we see it as something that ought to be pleasing us (and failing at doing so).

“Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him… You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men. So, brothers, in whatever condition each is called, there let him remain with God.” (1 Cor. 7:17, 23-24)

My Hand at Eschatology (Pt. 2)

2011-07-15T11:11:00.004-05:00

The world is a devastating place. People are inconsiderate, mean and sometimes just down right conniving. Nature is broken, while its beauty surrounds you, you are also surrounded by death.

I’ve said it before and it bears repeating: we’re on an adventure, one that will claim our lives in the end but an adventure nonetheless. Yet here in this statement, I sense something, more like know something, something to be true. I know its been said for generations and generations, but it still must ring true in ours. Our adventure is drawing to a close.

The story has had its climax. The hero has won. The antagonist is wallowing in his own blood lashing out at any which he can reach for he is in his final moments and thus most dangerous sensing the end. The story is wrapping up, the characters are returning home.

Vigilance is now required. The watchman must be set. For before the true end there is one final blow.

My Hand at Eschatology

2011-07-15T09:22:00.002-05:00

You know that feeling when your trying to explain something you saw to someone and they’re just not 1) getting it or 2) caring? They’re off in La-la Land while your settled in reality simply wanting them to understand a point, or a picture, or your idea? (I’m gonna use a Harry Potter reference cause I saw HP7 last night and it was amazing.)

In the “Harry Potter” books it is better realized, the immense importance of folks understanding that Voldemort is returned and meaning (really wanting badly) to do them harm (A.K.A kill ‘em). But in book five the “Ministry of Magic” leader decides that it is impossible for the “Dark Lord” to be back. And thus the battle against him is nearly lost before it’s really ever begun.

But let me now apply this to life. The world is infected with this same sort of evil and all that millions see is “light.” I’ll say it another way, in more “Christianese” terms: Sin is running rampant in our world and very few people see it.

In various realms of the Christian world the footholds have been laid. The castle has been surrounded. And the fight, I fear, is just beginning. I do not often think of (or in) world ending terms but now I’m forced to, not from one act in particular, but from history.

Frodo: “I wish the ring had never come to me; I wish none of this had happened.”
Gandalf: “So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for us to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us…"

“In the Shadow of the glorious cross;
Compelled by grace to cast my lot.
I’ll discard the loss and bare your name;
Forsaking all for Your own fame.”

(The above picture is by Steve Coleman his other works might be seen here)

The Christian Life in my Estimation (Pt. 5)

2011-07-11T17:03:00.000-05:00

Disobedience, slandering, liable, blasphemies, evils, met with judgment, suffering and weeping the crying out of the people to be delivered from their bondage which is meet with merciful forgiveness. It is the theme of the people of Israel, to not obey and to turn back to their wicked ways. But it is also the theme of God to be radically forgiving in his judgment of them and his deliverance of them.

Again this is our life! Living presumptuously and disobeying the decrees of God, many times has God delivered us according to his mercies. Over and over and over again does he free us from the sins we entrap ourselves with, and yet we repeatedly turn back to the evil we’ve just been freed from!

But here is the catch, the deal, and the hook: we have a God who is ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and he will not forsake us! There will be new months and new days, there will be new years and new loves, and there will be new houses and new fathers.

So whether you’re 12 or 65 you’re still growing up and by the sheer grace of God we are told, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, the old is gone the new has come. (2 Cor. 5:17)”

Though our past is devastating to remember and will constantly be used to show us our failings we must, by the grace of God, preach this Gospel-truth to our hearts and apply it to our deep wounds as a doctor applies a bandage, that we have been, and are being made brand new. Though we will fail in the future the same bandage must be applied.

We’re on an adventure. One that will claim our lives in the end, but an adventure nonetheless; one where we’ve left the cool green grass of our childhood and traveled to the bone chilling heights of our youth; one that will take us through the labyrinth like forests of middle age; one where we’ll end in the desert of old age on the shores of eternity.

Though I know little of the trials of life, I know a few things. We’ll fight dragons and demons; we’ll be princes and princesses, we’ll dance knowing our lives won’t ever be the same; we’ll hold our heads high like the hero’s of old; we’ll weep at the death of companions; we’ll cry in anguish in the depths of disparity; we’ll curse God and bless his hand simultaneously. And in all of this that sovereign God will be sitting on his throne orchestrating the symphony of our lives. For! His! Glory!

It is why we exist, not for self, nor for others, but for God’s own glory. This must sink deep into our hearts and overflow into our minds and push our souls up through our mouths. Glory. Glory. Glory.

It’s where we’re going! Can you see it? You can almost taste the sweetness of its air! You can see its shimmer on the horizon of your thought. You can feel the warmth of his face on your heart. Though the valley of our failures oft covers the beauty of the sight every valley has two mountains.

Therefore let that childlike speechless wonder rise. Be again enchanted by something. Once more see your imagination take flight and feel the wonder of your childhood have life breathed anew into it.

See that the fairy tale of your life is no fiction at all. You, are the princess locked in the tall tower whose been saved by our Jesus in his shinning armor. You are the sleeping beauty awakened by the kiss of Jesus your King. You are the slave-child turned royalty by the finding of a shoe and its placement on your foot by Jesus. Royalty is what you are, though you do not feel like it (neither did the pauper).

Therefore, O child of the King, may He live forever, I beseech you to, please, take up your proper place at His side. To, by His mercy, prepare your heart to be fitting for His Lordship. That as you, O royal one, continue in the pain of this life our King, whose rule is eternal, will transform you into such a beauty that all gorgeous surfs will be merely peasants in the mud, yet you will be a child of the King. Realize your position. Take hold of your call. The dragon lies slain at your Savior’s feet. You. Are. Free.

You are free to say with all the strength and vigor that the half dead sinner can muster, “O wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

The Christian Life in my Estimation (Pt. 4)

2011-07-11T16:03:00.000-05:00

Nehemiah 9:22-25

God lavishes the people of Israel with things far beyond anything they ever deserved. He gives them land, multiplies their children, riches, vineyards, orchards, and food so that the people became fat and delighted themselves in God’s great goodness. Things, gifts upon gifts he gave to them.

Christian look at your own life, what has he not given you? You own life, and breath; you have shelter, and by that I mean a house, a nice house, not a box in an alley. You have clothes with which to array yourself, and friends with which to surround yourself. You have a car that drives you further in an hour than many would travel in a lifetime. How many of us in this room worry about our next meal?

You have had things lavished upon you, things which most of the world would never know. Each of you is royalty in your own right by the historical standard. This is nothing more than the sheer mercy and grace of God that you were born where you were born and to whom you born to.

More than that we may learn about anything we desire! A book can be on our phones, and seven novels can be under our arm. The ability for us to know more than any before us is completely at our avail. We are, indeed, without excuse to be ignorant of the mercy of God.

See these beautiful things and worship your God! Grow fat in the delight of the Lord.
This brings up an interesting note: Often when pain comes flying around the corner of our lives like a freight train out of control we say, “God is big enough and good enough to handle our pain while he sustains us through the trial.” And indeed he is big enough to sustain us through pain and be in complete control of the trial we are dealing with.

But in the sentence of God being able to handle our problems there is an inferred ability for us to be able to handle all the good in our lives. So here’s my question: If we are unable to handle the bad circumstances in our lives what makes us think we can handle the good circumstances? What about our lives shows us, humans, as being competent enough or reasonable enough to be able to deal properly with happiness?

The reason for my questioning is I have never heard anyone say, “God is big enough and good enough to handle my happiness (whatever the joy may be); no one has ever said to me, “God is big enough and good enough to handle my engagement, my new job, my newborn, my love, my family, my friends.”

If God can handle the bad things in life, the things that drive us to our knees, which cause blurred vision because the tears are so thick and forced breathing because weeping is difficult, if he can handle those times… surely he can handle our joy and happiness.

I am compelled by the passage to say that we, as believers or unbelievers alike, are unable to handle our happiness in a proper fashion.

The Christian Life in my Estimation (Pt. 3)

2011-07-11T14:38:00.000-05:00

Nehemiah 9:17-21

(V. 16-17a) We often fail. Presumptuously assuming the grace of God to cover our sins. When we do what we don’t want to do. When the sin looks more beautiful than our Savior. You know that feeling. You know it well, don’t you believer? When, God, in your mind doesn’t compare to the gleaming computer screen or the bottle of cheap beer.

We are capable of saying everything is worthless compared to knowing Christ Jesus our King but we are more inclined to love the worthless nothings more than we’ve ever love our King. This is the battle of the Christian life! Refusing to obey and not being mindful of the wonders which God has preformed and continues to perform in our lives!

That we are alive and know his love, that we feel the rapture of his love and the enthrallment of his glory, that we are able to, with a breath, glorify him and, with a tear, praise him. These miracles that he continually works in our hearts and brings to our senses, seeing and hearing and smelling his creation, touching a tasting beauty, these are indeed miracles!
We were once dead but yet we live; we were once deaf but now we hear; we were once captives to our sin but now we are free in his grace, this life we live, this sound we hear and this freedom we know are wonders which God has preformed in our sight but still we turn back to our sinfulness. Like a dog returning to his vomit we go back to our sin.

We do not love him the way we should. We do not listen to him the way we ought. We continue groveling in the dirt rather than understanding we are adopted children of the King. Turning our backs on him and leaving him. Doing our best to run from his voice.

(V. 17b-21) But our God is an extravagant God. Look at verse 17; He is a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and he does not forsake those who are called by his name.

Though we never deserved to know the wonders of God’s works, he revealed them to us. Though we could never earn the ability of glorifying God rightly he created us anew to do just that. Though we could never warrant his love, he made us his children. Though we could never satisfy his wrath, he poured it out on Jesus.

We are a rag-tag group of individuals, idolatrous, adulterous, murders, thieves, boastful, and proud we are a wretched group deserving the worms that would eat our flesh for all eternity, but yet, by the mercy and grace of God, we get God!

The history of Israel is a direct mirror to our own Christian lives. Continually were they forgiven their sins and continually were they reminded of the covenant promise God made with them. Though they spit it the palm of the Giver they were held up and supported by that same hand.

It is the same with believers now, while we are in our sin, he does not leave us there. Like the Israelites in the desert we are not left to wander for all eternity. Though it might be his good pleasure to see us matured from our failings it is not his pleasure to see us die in our sins.
As God lead Israel through the desert with a pillar of smoke and a pillar of fire so too will he not abandon us to torment and death within our own fallen depravity. He will guide and will lead us out of these dangers; indeed he guides us and leads us in his Scripture.

And so it is true, though we are shattered by the fall we are not devastated. Though we are totally depraved in our nature, those affects are being pushed back with every breath breathed because of the beautiful grace of God. The fall, though it once was our only nature is not so any more.

We were incapable of picking ourselves up. Our bootstraps were broken as it were. But because of Jesus the fall is being pushed back. In the lives of believers the affects of the fall are being slowed, stopped and reversed.

They are being slowed because we have the mercy and grace of God displayed before us. They are being stopped because the Gospel of God is being believed by God-given faith. They are being reversed because the faith God gives and gave us is changing us from one degree of glory to another.

So though our wretchedness runs deep, God’s mercy runs deeper. Though our treachery runs deep, God’s grace runs deeper still. Though every fiber of our being has and does struggle against his rule his love will and does captivate us.

The Christian Life in my Estimation (Pt. 2)

2011-07-11T10:08:00.001-05:00

(The first post might be and may be read here)

Nehemiah 9:1-15

(V. 1-5) The people confess their sins to God. They come, after rejoicing and partying and eating the fat and drinking the wine, they come and lay in sackcloth and ashes with dirt on their heads. Separating themselves from those of other nationalities for one purpose, namely to confess their sins. They read the Law for a quarter of the day, looking at their iniquities in specific, confessing their sins as faithfully and wholly as they were possible of doing.

Often when the brokenness is brought about by conviction knocking on our doors we lock it out. We strive in every corner of our hearts to keep at bay the conviction that comes to us from the Father. Trying to hide behind the facade of faux happiness. For though we’ve locked conviction out at the door he has come in through the window and we are broken on the inside.

But here in this fragmented state we wallow and drench ourselves with our own tears. We do not confess our sins to each other; rather we bottle them up inside ourselves.

But this is what Community is for! To confess sin! To sit with trusted friends and weep over the sin that has for so long enveloped you! To be supported in your confession by the loving arms of dear friends. For we see in the passage that this confession turns to worship, saying, “Stand up and bless the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.” (Neh. 9:5b)

(V. 6-8a) In confession the Christian life begins. For only in the God-given realization of your sinfulness is there hope of understanding the Gospel. It is impossible to understand this good-news unless one understand the gravity of the situation. If you do not see your sinfulness then you will not see a need for a Savior; if you do not think you need mercy than you surely do not think you need grace.

Indeed this is the beginning of faith, the root of the Christian life. Faith is, “The assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Heb. 11:1) It is the sense of the Christian life. As you see and hear and touch and smell and taste and by these senses understand the world around you so it is with faith. Faith is our sense of spiritual things it is, as described by Henry Scougal our, “Feeling persuasion of spiritual things; it extends itself unto all Divine truths.”

The feeling persuasion of spiritual things, the heart and the head both uniting and agreeing on the issue of the Gospel, seeing and feeling and reasoning that it is proper and right to believe and be completely about this one thing. It is often said that the world has no idea what man with a call is capable of doing, but I would change the statement to say, “the world has no idea what a true believer in the Gospel is capable of doing.“

All hell might stand before the believer but that will not keep him from his Jesus. All torments of fire and torturous death might be physically before her, but that will not keep her from her God. This Gospel, this Jesus, he is the strength to the weak, the hope to the despairing, the life to the dead.

Because of this feeling persuasion, this faith, the believer knows the world about him. He sees creation in a proper manner for he has heeded Jesus’ call (Heb 11:2). It is by faith that Abram became Abraham for, God found his heart faithful before him (Neh. 9:8)

Salvation, this faith of believing the Gospel is not a simple choice, nor is it a mere prayer, it is a life. Often we speak about the continually nature of salvation. That we are to be being saved, not simple existing as Christian but to be growing as Christian, for a “Christian” who does not grow is no Christian at all.

(V. 9-15) God has condescended to us to make a covenant promise with us. As he did with Abraham so he does with us, we are promised that our sins will be removed from us, as far as the east is from the west (Ps. 103:12). Calling us his son’s and daughters, loving us in such a mighty fashion we have never known nor felt before, further adding to the feeling persuasion of our faith.

God who keeps his promises toward us despite us, though we fail to uphold our end of the covenant, though we attempt to push an omnipresent God away; thought we fight against him with sophisticated doubt and skepticism, all our ranting and raving does nothing to turn him away from his promise toward us his children, those whom he has called to be his. We remain his for he has redeemed us to himself with himself.