A Disciple's Journey

Song of the Redeemed

2011-10-19T13:46:00.002-04:00

I've been experimenting with some audio editing recently, and figured that I would attempt a decent recording of one of my songs that I wrote last spring. Enjoy!

Song of the Redeemed by benwulpi

Healer

2011-10-18T22:41:00.000-04:00

The other day I was listening to Spotify radio, and the song "Healer" by Hillsong United came on. I'm actually a fan of this song, mostly because of the journey it has taken me on since I first heard it. The song was written and performed by a man named Mike Gugleilmucci, who had recently been diagnosed with cancer. He sang this song that hailed the Lord as the ultimate Healer with such passion and abandonment, that it was really inspiring. To see this man potentially dying of cancer, singing his heart out in a song of trust and praise to his God in the midst of these circumstances, was truly something holy. Check out the video below and see for yourself:

But as it turns out, the whole circumstance was a lie. Gugleilmucci had lied to everyone (including his own family) about having terminal cancer in order to cover up his addiction to pornography (don't ask me how that works).

It's easy to feel duped, and feel like this guy betrayed all of us who got so much inspiration from his story. I find myself wondering, If the inspiration was founded upon a lie, can any of it be true? Can God still use this lie to speak into people's lives?

The answer to those questions is, of course, yes. The Lord quickly reminds me that I am not much different. My sins may not be as public or controversial as this guy's, but they are sins that keep me from the Lord nonetheless. But how many times have I seen the Lord work through me, despite me? How many times have I seen the Lord use me for His Kingdom, even when I was caught in sin?

And this is the miracle of the Kingdom of God--that somehow, the Lord uses broken and sinful people for His Kingdom's sake. That the pure and unadulterated holiness of the Lord can be seen in wicked, unclean people. I'm reminded of Isaiah crying out "Woe is me! For I am a man of unclean lips...and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty!" And then the angel touches the coal to his lips and cleanses him, in order that he might be sent out.

We are an unclean people made clean for the sake of the Lord's work. Truly the Lord IS the great Healer, the One who takes our brokenness and ugliness and turns it into something beautiful, for His sake. And truly we can praise Him for this, lifting up our voices along with all the other sinners and saints that are called the Bride of Christ.

A God made Weak

2011-10-05T09:17:00.000-04:00

Notevery wise man has known foolishness.

Notevery strong man has known weakness.

Notevery rich man has known poverty.

ButHe,

theall-wise,

theall-powerful,

theall wealthy—

Hehas known weakness.

Hehas known poverty and shame.

Andhe has known a foolishness that shames the wisdom of this world.

Forthough He was rich, for our sake He became poor,

Thatby His poverty we might become rich.

(2Corinthians 8:9)

On Desperate Prayer

2011-09-27T23:38:00.002-04:00

‘When I write that my own situation [during my illness] in those months of pain and decision can be described as prayer, I do not only recall that during that time I sometimes read the Psalms and they became my psalms, or that, as I have also mentioned, I occasionally cried “Jesus” and that name was my prayer, but I mean that I also at times would shout “Fuck!” and that was no obscenity, but a most earnest prayerful utterance.’
—William Stringfellow, A Second Birthday, 108-9.

Ecce Homo

2011-04-22T11:39:00.000-04:00

“Behold the man!” shouts Pilate to the crowds gathered round. He emerges before the mob, barely able to walk after being scourged, beaten, and spit upon, a crown of thorns thrust into his scalp and a purple robe thrown upon his shoulders in mockery. He stands before the crowd, bruised and bloody, and his silence is pathetic. The crowd lifts up their voices in unison at the sight of the man, crying “Crucify him!” Behold this man, a king of the Jews, standing before his people in shame, mocked by the very people he has come to save.

Behold the man, as a heavy cross is forced on his shoulders, the weight of our sin to bear. He stumbles and falls several times under the load, his strength dried up through the beating and scourging. Behold him as he climbs to the place of the Skull, the hill that waits to receive his offering of blood and water. Behold the man, the Messiah who has come to save the world, but cannot even save himself.

Behold the man, lifted high upon the cross at the top of that hill. As he slowly suffocates under the weight of his own body hanging from nails, he hears the shouts of derision coming from the soldiers below him and the criminals beside him. Behold him upon the cross, who is mockingly identified as “The King of the Jews” by the sign above him, as he slowly and painfully enters the darkness of death.

And behold the man, as he cries out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?”, quoting the ancient psalm of suffering as he takes the suffering of all of the world upon himself. And behold, as he breathes his last, and darkness covers over the land, and the curtain of the temple is torn in two. As the centurion standing guard beheld this, he proclaimed “Truly this man was the son of God!”

Yes, behold the man, the Son of God, the sacrificial Lamb who was slain for the sins of the world, who with the giving up of his spirit proclaims to us that, now and forever, “It is finished.”

Come and behold the Man, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, the One by which all the heavens and the earth were made, the manifestation of the fullness of God Almighty, as He is crucified for our sins. Behold him, as the work he has done is for the salvation of the world. Behold him, as your sins are laid upon him, and you are washed white as snow.

Behold. This is your salvation.

On Counting the Cost

2011-04-08T12:06:00.000-04:00

To take his yoke upon us means that we are content

That he appoint us our place and our work,

And that he himself be our reward.

Christ has many services to be done:

Some are easy, others are difficult;

Some bring honor, others bring reproach;

Some are suitable to our natural inclinations and material interests,

Others are contrary to both.

In some ways we may please Christ and please ourselves;

In other we cannot please Christ except by denying ourselves.

Yet the power to do all things is given us in Christ, who strengthens us.

Therefore let us make this covenant with God our own,

Trusting in the eternal promises and relying on divine grace.

--John Wesley, Methodist Covenant Service

An Incarnated Thirst

2011-03-18T20:35:00.000-04:00

"O come to the Fountain all you who are thirsty." (Isaiah 55:1)

"We must begin with the beginning: you. As a human being, a spirit-in-the-flesh, you are a thirst (noun, not an adjective). Every single choice you make all day long is proof that you seek, you desire, you want, you lack. Nothing is ever enough. You always want more of delightful experiences, and when the same experiences begin to wear thin and bore you, you seek new ones as well as heightened intensities of the old. You are engaged in an endless whirl. Always you seek, desire, want, lack. Furthermore, you may have noticed that even after the most thrilling experiences (a success, a vacation, a party, a date, a dance), when you are quiet and alone, you perceive deep down a small voice saying, "Is this all there is?" Nothing is enough: not praise, not success, not youth, not love. You are a thirst in the flesh, an incarnated thirst. You yearn for endless beauty and joy, endless love and delight, endless security and happiness--and an immortality in which to enjoy it all. You cannot help being an incarnated thirst. Nor can I. We were born that way and we will die that way. We may differ in how we seek to slake our thirst. Some go up blind alleys. Others go to the Fountain. But all seek."

--Thomas Dubay, "...And You Are Christ's": The Charism of Virginity and the Celibate Life

On Fasting

2011-03-14T23:04:00.003-04:00

Not a totally irrelephant picture.

Hunger.

Not a sensation I'm used to feeling. I'm used to being able to access food whenever I want to--to satisfy the craving within minutes, and feel contentment again. Food has never been a resource for which I've been wanting. And it's never something that I've not enjoyed. I love food, and I really enjoy eating. I do believe that delicious food is one of God's gifts to man, and the fact that we can find pleasure through our taste buds, while at the same time fulfilling this basic human need, is no accident.

So why do we fast? Why would God ask us (and expect us![Mark 2:20]) to intentionally go without food? Fasting is a religious practice that dates back way before Jesus' time, and has always been expected as a discipline for people who follow the Lord. This is something that I have never really understood, my tradition being one that didn't really emphasize this spiritual discipline, but also because I tended to be actively against it, for reasons stated above and for the fact that it seems to be earning our favor in God's eyes through our works, showing God how good and holy we are.

But what I've learned (so far) in fasting is that it can be a real blessing on our lives, for multiple reasons and benefits. Here are a few of them that I can think of:

1) To highlight our weakness - By intentionally causing our bodies to suffer, we can come to a greater realization of our dependence on the Lord, to know in our weakness that truly we are dust, and to dust we shall return. To know the limitations of our own flesh in light of the great power of the Lord by His Spirit is a profound thing, and one that teaches us and shapes our worldview more and more to be dependent on the Lord. When we highlight our weakness, it's easier to see God's strength, and we may more easily pray with John, "He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30).

2) To seek the Lord - In this special season of Lent that is set aside to seek the Lord, fasting is a regular practice. Fasting is something that is put in place to remove obstacles that might otherwise hinder us from seeking the Lord. And when we seek the Lord while we are surrounded by our own weakness, it opens up a lot more opportunity for His strength to shine through, and sharpens our focus on Him. Think about a time when you were underwater for too long, whether someone was holding you under or you were stuck. When you start to feel the pressure on your lungs, desperate for air, your heart starts to beat faster and your mind begins to panic, and all your focus and energies are driving you toward one thing--air. Your entire body and mind, focused on one goal, will do anything it can to give itself air. It's kind of like that in fasting. When we suffer, our energies can be focused, and our senses heightened, and we use that to our advantage in seeking the Lord.

3) To gain mastery over our flesh - It's funny how exercising some self-control can make you realize how out-of-control your life sometimes is. When I fast from food, I realize just how unnecessary my constant snacking between meals is, and how superfluous is the amount of food I eat at dinner to what my body actually needs. When I fast from media, I realize just how much time I spend on Facebook, or how much time I use up to watch movies, reminding me that my time is not my own. Through this fasting, I realize just how much these things tend to dominate my life, how much my life is directed by giving in to every little desire and whim, like a horse being led about by its bridle. And through fasting, I slowly get better at directing myself, of choosing to use my time and my body for the things of God, rather than for the desires of my flesh. Yes, I still fall and give in, and probably still will for a very long time. I'm stuck with this tent of flesh for the rest of my life, and my sinful nature will continue to hound me until the Lord takes me. But I want to give my life over in obedience to the Lord, rather than my flesh. I choose to make the energies of my life directed towards what the Lord will have me do. And this choice requires some training in overcoming the natural inclinations of my flesh. Fasting is a big part of our training for this, and it helps us to gain control over our flesh and settle the chaos of giving in to every desire.

4) Learning to die to self - "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?" (Matthew 16:24-26). The more we die to our old selves, the more we allow the new creation that has been proclaimed by Christ through His resurrection to transform us. All of these points really come down to this. We are a new creation, and we are not to be bound by the desires of our old, flesh-driven lives.

These are still things I'm learning and trying to put into practice. Oftentimes I fail. I'm actually really bad at all this, but I'm learning. And I think I'm getting better at it. And I'm realizing that it can only be done with the Lord's help. We ask Him to purify us, so that we can present a our lives as an offering to Him, pure and undefiled. Not that He won't accept any other offering other than one that is totally pure (if so, He wouldn't receive much, at least not from me). But the Lord calls us to live lives that are holy and set apart for Him. This holiness is our offering, a thank offering in response to His great work in our lives. By striving for holy lives, we may, like Christ, be a "fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (Eph. 5:2). Amen, may it be so Lord.

On Kingdom Ecumenism

2011-03-04T12:45:00.000-05:00

Check out this great post by Halden on what real ecumenism means. I loved it, and I think he's spot on in pointing out our common misconceptions about what ecumenism is and what it should be. Living ecumenically is not about compromising our beliefs in order to not step on anyone's toes, but it's about living in the Spirit and living with radical acceptance of each other, knowing that that which binds us is so much greater than that which divides us.

I've been blessed to experience this kind of ecumenism this year in Ann Arbor. I've absolutely loved fellowshipping with my Orthodox and Catholic brothers and sisters. Before this year, I never even knew anyone who was Catholic or Orthodox, and now I can say that I have good friends (but even more so, brothers and sisters) who fit into those categories. And I've written about this before, but I think it's worth mentioning again, that this is something beautiful. This is our glimpse of the Kingdom of God breaking into this world. And it is only possible by the working of the living God through the Holy Spirit, who alone brings unity. Unity is something I'm very passionate about, and am blessed to be participating in a community that really strives for it in a real way.

Check out the lyrics from this classic Christian hymn, Blessed Be the Tie that Binds:

Blest be the tie that binds

Our hearts in Christian love;

The fellowship of kindred minds

Is like to that above.

Before our Father’s throne

We pour our ardent prayers;

Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one

Our comforts and our cares.

We share each other’s woes,

Our mutual burdens bear;

And often for each other flows

The sympathizing tear.

When we asunder part,

It gives us inward pain;

But we shall still be joined in heart,

And hope to meet again.

This glorious hope revives

Our courage by the way;

While each in expectation lives,

And longs to see the day.

From sorrow, toil and pain,

And sin, we shall be free,

And perfect love and friendship reign

Through all eternity.

Through all eternity we will dwell with the Lord in unity. We have the incredible opportunity to begin this now. Let's go for it.

A Kingdom that Cannot Be Shaken

2011-02-09T16:06:00.000-05:00

"See that you do not refuse the one who is speaking; for if they did not escape when they refused the one who warned them on earth, how much less will we escape if we reject the one who warns from heaven! At that time his voice shook the earth; but now he has promised, 'Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.' This phrase, 'Yet once more,' indicates the removal of what is shaken--that is, created things--so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consuming fire."

Hebrews 12:25-29

We who know the salvation of Jesus Christ have inherited His Kingdom. This Kingdom is in clear contrast, and often in direct opposition to, the "kingdoms" of this world. We have received this inheritance now, but still await its full coming. It dwells among and within us now, but it is coming as an unshakable force that will shake up all the things of this earth and reveal their weaknesses, and revealing the uncompromising truth that "the old has gone, and the new has come." In this, we find the truth that God is making all things new. This Kingdom is near, it is here, and it is coming soon.

And as those who await the coming of the Kingdom, we have the choice every day to live within it. To choose to live in the Kingdom that is unshakable, rather than in the kingdoms of this world that are so easily shaken, daily passing away. We must choose to live firmly rooted and founded in this Kingdom, which is a more solid foundation than anything else we will find, rather than trying to set our foundations on the things of this world which are passing away.

Are you rooted in the things of this world? Are you investing yourself in the things of this world? Or are you investing in the Kingdom of God?

Songwriting and Blessings

2011-02-05T23:57:00.000-05:00

One real blessing that I've been able to experience this year has been in songwriting. I made it one of my (many) goals at the beginning of the year that I wanted to start trying to write songs. So far I've written five this year. Each time the process seems to be a bit different. Sometimes it takes about 45 minutes before a full song is produced. Other times I get a solid beginning and then wait a few days to come back to it. Mostly I've just been experimenting with different ways to write and worship through song. It's been a great blessing to my prayer life to worship through the creativity that the Lord has blessed me with.

One example is a song I wrote a couple months ago called Psalm 85. With this one, it began mostly as simply an experiment in songwriting for me. I found a riff that I really liked, and decided to make it into a song. So I just opened up to the Psalms and found number 85 and started working with it. So lyrically, it wasn't so much inspired, but I figured that since it's Scripture, it's already inspired, so...there you go. But it's turned out to be one of my favorites of what I've written so far. Sorry the quality is pretty crappy, but check it out:

Psalm 85 (Restore Us Again) by benwulpi

Feel free to check out my other works at my SoundCloud page. I'd love to hear people's thoughts on them. Hopefully some of them will get used in corporate worship someday soon.

For the praise of His glory,

ben

Citizens of Heaven

2011-02-01T11:07:00.000-05:00

"For Christians are not distinguished from the rest of humanity by country, language, or custom. For nowhere do they live in cities of their own, nor do they speak some unusual dialect, nor do they practice an eccentric way of life. This teaching of theirs has not been discovered by the thought and reflection of ingenious people, nor do they promote any human doctrine, as some do.

"But while they live in both Greek and barbarian cities, as each one's lot was cast, and follow the local customs in dress and food and other aspects of life, at the same time they demonstrate the remarkable and admittedly unusual character of their own citizenship. They live in their own countries, but only as non-residents; they participate in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners. Every foreign country is their fatherland, and ever fatherland is foreign.

"They marry like everyone else, and have children, but they do not expose their offspring. They share their food but not their wives. They are in the flesh, but they do not live according to the flesh. They live on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They obey the established laws; indeed in their private lives they transcend the laws. They love everyone, and by everyone they are persecuted."

Selection from The Letter of Diognetus (2nd century A.D.)

Don't Waste Your Inheritance

2011-01-12T00:32:00.000-05:00

I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know Him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power for us who believe, according to the working of His great power.

Ephesians 1:16-19

If you truly knew the hope to which you have been called,
you would not despair.
You would not lose your cool over menial issues.
You would not be content with living a mundane life.

If you truly knew the glorious inheritance you have been given,
you would not squander it on the things of this world.
You would not waste your time on video games or Facebook or blogs.
You would not be satisfied with using this inheritance
for anything less than the glory of the One who gave it to you.

If you truly knew the Love that was the driving force behind all of this,
you would not look in the mirror and be disappointed in what you see.
You would not hate your fellow man who has been shown this same Love.
You would not waste another moment not telling everyone around you of this Love.

May your heart be enlightened, may you be given a spirit of wisdom and revelation, in order that you might not squander your great inheritance.

On Martyrdom

2010-12-31T10:01:00.000-05:00

"Even though there may be no occasion for persecution, peace has its own martyrdom. For even if we do not actually place our necks beneath the steel, we inwardly slay our carnal desires with the sword of the Spirit."

-Gregory the Great

Martyrdom is both a daily act of all believers, and a final act that many of us will commit as a witness to the power of the Gospel for the glory of God. Martyrdom, which comes from the Greek word for "witness," requires that we daily pick up our cross in order to follow Christ (Luke 9:23, Mark 8:34, Matthew 10:38-39). It requires daily laying our life down before the Lord, choosing to love and serve Him more than we love and serve our own interests.

Martyrdom is an act of witness. In the book of Acts, Stephen, the first disciple killed for the Gospel, is called a witness to Jesus. Martyrdom is a witness to the world that the love of Christ is greater than the love of one's own life. Maybe many of us will not get the chance to be a witness in death, but how can we be a witness to God's love through our daily lives? If, for you, the love of Christ is greater than the love of your own life, than this will be reflected in how you spend your time, how you interact with other people, and how you put the priorities of Jesus above your own. We are actually laying our own lives down for the sake of Him who is our life (Colossians 3:4).

Martyrdom is an act of warfare. In Revelation 12:11, it is said that the martyrs have conquered Satan "by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death." And it was Jesus who was the initial conquer, winning the victory by the shedding of His blood. Martyrdom in our daily lives includes the resisting of temptation, putting aside sinful or distracting pleasures, and facing our fears. This is why 1 Peter 4:1 says, "Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has finished with sin." In this daily fight against sin and Satan, the laying down of our lives before the Lord is our main weapon to fight the powers of evil. It can be pretty counterintuitive, but in this great war against our enemy the Devil, we find victory by surrendering ourselves to the One who has already claimed victory.

Martyrdom is an act of love. John 15:13 says "Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." Not much more needs to be said than that.

In Luke's account of the teaching, Jesus says that we must daily pick up our cross and follow after Him. Daily we must be willing to lay down our lives, allowing the Spirit to crucify the sinful nature within us, in order that we may be daily raised to new life in Christ. But please don't attempt to rely fully on the Spirit to do all this for you. It's going to require work on your part. And it's not going to be easy, or pleasant, much like physical martyrdom. But this is the life that Jesus has called us to--daily. What areas of your life do you need to lay down and bring to the cross to be crucified?

Magnanimity and Pride

2010-12-29T10:53:00.002-05:00

Yesterday’s meditation at the Servants of the Word Christmas retreat was on magnanimity. While that’s an interesting word to say, it’s even more of an interesting concept to ponder. The idea is summed up in the phrase “Expecting great things from God; Attempting great things for God.” Magnanimity is defined in the meditation as such: “The virtue that aspires to do great things that bring great glory. It is the virtue that aims at things that are great in and of themselves.”

Magnanimity is not about vain glory seeking, but about seeking glory for the Lord and for His people. “Magnanimity makes a man deem himself worthy of great things in consideration of the gifts he holds from God.” It involves recognition of our high calling, which is a gift from God (1 Cor. 2:12). Inherent in a spirit of magnanimity is an eschewing of mediocrity, as well as an opposition to presumption, ambition, vainglory, and faint-heartedness.

It is the tension between magnanimity for God’s glory and for my own glory that I struggle with. Oftentimes I find myself wrestling with my motives prior to an action, whether I’m doing it for the sake of the glory of the Lord, or if I’m doing it for my own glory, my own recognition and honor and respect from other people. And oftentimes my struggles and back-and-forth in my mind only leads me to inaction—I’ll end up doing nothing.

If I am to truly attempt great things for the Lord, I cannot let these struggles keep me from action. There are things that I want to do, that I’m pretty sure will bring glory to God and benefit His people, but there is a sneaking suspicion that I’m only doing it for my own selfish glory, so I don’t end up doing it. It’s as if a fear of my own pride is paralyzing me. Although I think my intention in guarding against my pride is good, there comes a point where I need to just do something, and let the Lord sort out my motives in my heart later. After all, the glory of the Lord lasts forever, while my pride is passing away as the grass of the field, and my heart is being redeemed day by day, and one Day will be completely made new and holy, praise be to God.

“The glory of God is a human fully alive,” said Iranaeus, the 2^nd century Church father. Truly living, living magnanimously, doing great things for the Lord, requires getting up off our behinds and moving forward without fear. For if Jesus Christ has truly redeemed us, and is redeeming us day by day, then sin, and the fear of sin, is far outweighed by the great things we can do for the Lord.

Are you expecting great things from the Lord? Are you attempting great things for the Lord? What is keeping you from this?

Living Incarnationally

2010-12-24T23:29:00.000-05:00

As we take this season to reflect on this holy day of Christmas, the Incarnation, the inbreaking of deity into reality, I am continually astounded at this miracle. Just the fact that the Lord of the universe, holy and exalted as He is, would choose to limit Himself so much and come into this world, born into humble circumstances, living a life of homelessness, and finally subjected to a shameful, torturous death--it blows my mind.

And how this miracle impacts our daily living is something that I'm still working on trying to grasp. Because an incarnational worldview is what sets Christianity apart from other religions. For while most religions seek to escape the reality of this world, Christianity is all about a God who dives headlong into the world in order to redeem it. And so do we. We who are redeemed do not seek to escape this world, but rather to invest in it, to live incarnationally, confident that Jesus is bringing about redemption for all of the fallenness of the world. We get to play a role in that.

For Jesus tells us: "As the Father sent me, so now I send you" (John 20:21). As Jesus was sent into this world to redeem it, so are we. We are to live in such a way that reveals the incarnated Lord to this world. Not escaping reality, but embracing it as our mission field.

The way you look at life changes dramatically when you start to see everything not as fallen beyond all hope, but fallen and in the process of being redeemed. And there is nothing that is beyond Christ's redemption. The pedophiles, the murderers, the rapists, the tax collectors, the Buckeye fans, no one is too far fallen that Christ cannot redeem him. "There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still" (Corrie Ten Boom).

So let us live incarnationally, diving into the (often terrible and messy and fallen) realities of this world, knowing that there is a reality greater still that is working to redeem all of this around us. Let us love with hearts of faith that know the truth of God's love working through us. And let us celebrate this Christmas in knowing the power of redemption through Christ's coming into this world.

A light has burst into the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. And we who are called the light of the world are called to seek out the darkness in order to bring God's illumination.

Colbert on Christmas Charity

2010-12-17T15:36:00.000-05:00

"If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we've got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition. And then admit that we just don't wanna do it."

- Stephen Colbert

Watch the very interesting (and entertaining) video clip here.

Exulting in Monotony

2010-12-04T06:32:00.000-05:00

In reading Ephesians chapter 1, I was struck this time by the style of Paul, the author, who writes with such passion and excitement that he often goes off on tangents while proving his points. In the midst of making a point to the people of Ephesus, he starts trailing off, exulting in what the Lord has done through Jesus Christ who has risen from the dead and is now exalted above all. A friend of mine once called this kind of rambling "praise vomit."

In reading this and trying to get a feel for Paul's heart (which is not too difficult, given his writings), I am struck by how excited he gets every single time he begins to talk about the Gospel and our salvation. It doesn't matter how many times he mentions the same thing over and over again. Usually, when we hear or talk about something again and again, it leads to the invention of phrases like ad nauseum. But the Gospel, it doesn't get old to Paul. It doesn't get boring. Because this salvation we have received is the greatest thing that has ever happened in the history of the universe! And blessed are we among all creation, for the Lord has seen us in our helpless state and called us to life, to redemption, to be His own forever and ever! And the love and the grace which He lavishes upon us is beyond our comprehension, but we who have experienced this salvation and have been sealed with the Holy Spirit can do nothing but praise and exult in it, because there is nothing greater that has ever happened to us, or to all the world.

When we are filled with this life and joy, we are free to exult in this beautiful monotony of the Gospel. In his book Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton (whom I've been quoting a lot recently, but never enough) says:

"A child kicks its legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough... It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again," to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again," to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike: it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we."

This may be what it means to have a child-like faith. To be filled with such life that the gift we have been given in Jesus Christ never gets old. We continually are amazed and excited about the power of the Gospel, so that once we are done hearing of it, we eagerly shout "Tell me again!"

Be awakened to and rejoice in the salvation you have received in Christ. Exult in the greatness of the story in which you are a main participant. Praise the God who has redeemed us and is making all things new. Refuse the temptation to get tired of hearing about the Gospel and its power in your life and in the life of those around you. Share it with others. Rejoice! I say it again, rejoice! For God has been merciful to you.

Transformed eyes

2010-12-02T23:48:00.000-05:00

"...the whole philosophy of St. Francis revolved 'round the idea of a new supernatural light on natural things, which meant the ultimate recovery not the ultimate refusal of natural things."

- G.K. Chesterton, in St. Francis of Assisi

This is the grace of the Holy Spirit, that transforms the very way we perceive the world around us. To live with eyes that are transformed by grace--that will really be something incredible. To see all things as sacred, simply because they are God's creation, will transform the very meaning of pleasure and joy in how we experience them. It would let us see the good creation of God that is waiting to be redeemed.

Having now finished Chesterton's biography of St. Francis, I am inspired by the life of this great saint. Chesterton described him as a Jongleur de Dieu, a Tumbler of God, a court jester of the King who sees life upside down while he's standing on his head. Francis saw the world differently than most people, and that allowed him to have a love and joy for the natural things in life that most people don't. He truly lived his life in the light of Jesus, looking first to God, and then seeing all else around him from that perspective, and then acting out of that love and joy that naturally (supernaturally) came as a result.

If I, if we, lived our lives like this...how different things could be. How much more like Christ we could be. How much more of a powerful witness to the world of radical transformation by the Holy Spirit we could be.

Lord, transform and sanctify my eyes, so that I might see all around me in light of Your love and grace, to be filled with joy and the pleasure that only comes from You, and in doing so, find greater joy and pleasure in Your creation, taking part in the redemption of the whole world that You are working. Amen.

The Courage and Love of St. Francis

2010-11-29T17:44:00.000-05:00

From G.K. Chesterton's biography of St. Francis of Assisi, this excerpt records an event early on in Francis' life:

An incident occurred which is perhaps the shortest and sharpest summary that could be given of a certain curious things which were a part of his character, long before it was transfigured by transcendental faith. While he was selling velvet and fine embroideries to some solid merchant of the town, a beggar came imploring alms; evidently in a somewhat tactless manner. It was a rude and simple society and there were no laws to punish a starving man for expressing his need for food, such as have been established in a more humanitarian age; and the lack of any organised police permitted such persons to pester the wealthy without any great danger. But there was, I believe, in many places a local custom of the guild forbidding outsiders to interrupt a fair bargain; and it is possible that some such thing put the mendicant more than normally in the wrong. Francis had all his life a great liking for people who had been put hopelessly in the wrong. On this occasion he seems to have dealt with the double interview with rather a divided mind; certainly with distraction, possibly with irritation. Perhaps he was all the more uneasy because of the almost fastidious standard of manners that came to him quite naturally....Anyhow Francis was evidently torn two ways with the botheration of two talkers, but finished his business with the merchant somehow; and when he had finished it, found the beggar was gone. Francis leapt from his booth, left all the bales of velvet and embroidery behind him apparently unprotected, and went racing across the market place like an arrow from the bow. Still running, he threaded the labyrinth of the narrow and crooked streets of the little town, looking for his beggar, whom he eventually discovered; and loaded that astonished mendicant with money. Then he straightened himself, so to speak, and swore before God that he would never all his life refuse to help a poor man. The sweeping simplicity of this undertaking is extremely characteristic. Never was any man so little afraid of his own promises. His life was one riot of rash vows; or rash vows that turned out right.

Chesterton goes on to talk about the courage of St. Francis, not only in battle (he was a soldier for a while), but in love and service, not being afraid to give to the needy or hug the leper.

I want to be like that.

The Beauty of Unity

2010-11-28T23:00:00.000-05:00

This morning I joined the Karagoulis family in Lansing for the service at a Greek Orthodox church. I was able to follow along pretty well for the most part, and I enjoyed testing out how much I remembered Greek. There was a lot of the service that I didn't understand or participate in, but the parts that I did, I really appreciated. Not just for the personal value I received from them or the worship I gave to the Lord, but for the fact that I can go to a church service that is completely foreign to me and acknowledge the same Lord and Father of us all. I was able to recite the Nicene Creed and the Lord's Prayer with my brothers and sisters, and drink in the richness of the Christian tradition that spans thousands of years, hundreds of nations, and a multitude of denominations.

This is something that I always enjoy learning again and again: that I love the Body of Christ. I love the Church which comprises every person who has ever called on the name of Jesus for salvation and sought to live a life of discipleship. I marvel in the Grace of the Lord which is as broad as it is deep. I rejoice in the Lord who accepts and cherishes people of all nations, races, and backgrounds.

And I celebrate the incredible opportunity I have this year of being part of a community that celebrates and practices and works really hard at Christian ecumenism, in order to unite the Body of Christ as one. There is no Protestant, Orthodox, or Catholic. There is no Jew or Greek, no slave or free, no male or female, but we are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28). There is one body and one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all (Ephesians 4:4-6). And it is truly a beautiful thing. It's not perfect, and won't be until Jesus returns. But I feel so blessed to be a part of this, where we get to actually practice Christian unity on a regular basis.

With all that divides us, may the bond of unity that binds us be stronger still. May it be the blood of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sins that reconciles us not only to the Lord, but to each other. And this Advent season, as we await the Lord's return, may we pray and look forward (while also working toward!) that day when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father, and we will be as one in our eternal worship of the King of kings.

Blessing the World - Bonhoeffer

2010-11-15T20:08:00.000-05:00

The world lives by the blessing of God

and of the righteous and thus has a future.

Blessing means laying one's hand on something and

saying: Despite everything, you belong to God.

This is what we do with the world

that inflicts such suffering on us.

We do not abandon it;

we do not repudiate, desire, or condemn it;

instead we call it back to God,

we give it hope,

we lay our hand on it and say:

may God's blessing come upon you,

may God renew you;

be blessed, world created by God,

you belong to your Creator and Redeemer.

- Deitrich Bonhoeffer, Meditation and Prayer, ed. by Peter Frick

Never give up on that which the Lord has redeemed. Instead, do everything you can to remind him/her/it of this glorious redemption.

Cynicism

2010-11-15T14:08:00.000-05:00

I think cynicism is one of the most destructive attitudes that a person can have--not only to those around them, but to themselves. I've noticed this in myself a lot in the past year, and I believe that becoming aware of it in yourself is the first step to recovery from it. Because it does actually take a process of recovery to counteract all the damage that is done by cynicism. How much truth have you overlooked because, in your mind, being wrapped up in a cliché makes something invalid? How much joy have you missed out on because of your intellectual arrogance? How much beauty have you missed out on because you approached a situation with a cynical attitude?

That's what cynicism is when it's really boiled down: intellectual arrogance, and a defense mechanism against the fear of naiveté. It's comes from a sense of superiority for whatever reason, causing the cynical to look down on those who are not as intelligent or aware or right as they are. It's a result of pride, but really it's only a way to deal with our own insecurities.

I found this blog by Donald Miller to be very interesting. I think he's right, that this attitude seems to exists mainly among American white males in their 20s. Cynicism seems to be part of the effort to find an identity. If you are a Christian who suffers from cynicism, know that your identity is found only in Jesus Christ. And learn to appreciate things. Be aware of all the different sources that you can learn from. Practice some humility. You might find yourself a little more joyful, a little more able to love, and growing a lot more in wisdom.

The Wonders of Human Achievement

2010-11-08T18:19:00.000-05:00

Watch this:

And then watch this:

Even the little victories count for something, I suppose.

Quick Thought #5

2010-11-01T15:46:00.000-04:00

If you claim the name "Christian" for yourself, remember that you are representing Jesus Christ at all times and in all places. Don't try to compartmentalize your spiritual life as something separate from everything else.

Haiku crazy

2010-10-26T11:24:00.000-04:00

I just had to post this because I wasted way too much time on it yesterday, and it was one of the highlights of the day for me. Included in the thread are my former Bible professor (who owes me a seminary reference) and HU campus pastor. Sorry for the poor formatting, I don't really know how to put these together well.

Kenosis Love

2010-10-23T16:48:00.000-04:00

With committing Himself to successive covenants with Israel, we see an unlimited God limiting Himself. With Abraham, with Moses, with David, the Lord makes these covenants to which He is bound to this people. The idea that a God who cannot be bound by anything in the entire universe (since He created it) would purposefully and humbly choose to be bound in such a way is pretty incredible.

With this new covenant we find ourselves in, this same Lord chooses to limit Himself even more, completely emptying Himself of all power, subjecting Himself to weakness and shame, even unto dying on the cross. The Greek word that is used here for the concept of "emptying" is kenosis. The place in Scripture that is most famous for this term is Philippians chapter 2:6-11, which is often called the Kenosis Hymn:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied (kenao) himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death--even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The love of God compelled Him to empty Himself of all things. This is agape love--self-sacrificial, unconditional love that puts the needs of others before oneself. Jesus Christ became empty of all but love in order to save us. And it is through this emptying that He became exalted in glory.

Similarly, we are called to the same sacrificial, self-emptying love. Like Paul exhorts us: "Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus." We are called to pour ourselves out in love in the name and example of Jesus Christ. And in this we might find glory. This is the foolish logic of love, that by giving everything away we can then gain everything, that by dying we can find life, that by losing our life we can find it.

It does seem foolish, doesn't it? Because this kind of love is going to force us into weakness. It is going to cause people to take advantage of us. It is going to strike a blow at our pride. But it is only through this emptying, the pouring out of ourselves for the sake of God and others, that we can truly come to know the heart of God. No amount of studying theology or the Bible will get us to this intimate knowledge of the Lord. But only by becoming like Him in His love will we truly come to know Him.

We must become empty in order for the love of God to fill us. Let us follow in the example of the Lord Jesus, in Spirit and in Truth, to let the power of love show forth in our weakness. And in this we will find unity with God.

"By this we may be sure that we are in him: whoever says, 'I abide in Him,' ought to walk just as he walked."
- 1 John 2:5-6

Quick Thought #4

2010-10-21T23:31:00.000-04:00

Serving the poor is not about your politics (AT ALL!). It's about living like Jesus did.

Living in Mercy

2010-10-20T09:46:00.000-04:00

It can be so humbling to stand before the Lord and realize that you are nothing without Him. That there is nothing that you can do to earn your own salvation. That you are only the person that you are because that's how He made you. That even every single breath you take is a gift from the Creator. That your efforts will usually end in failure without His help.

But at the same time, we have been given victory in Jesus Christ. (Given being the key term here, rather than being won ourselves). We have been given a spirit of power and love and self-discipline, not one of timidity. We have been called and charged as God's ambassadors in this world, to preach the Good News to all the world. We have been given the Holy Spirit to go with us and empower us.

It is this balance that we find we have to walk in living the Christian life. One the one hand, knowing that we are worthless pieces of $*!#, and on the other, knowing that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. And this is what it means to live in the mercy of Jesus Christ. To live in humility, but to walk forward in confidence. To live in mercy means that you live knowing that your life is not about you, and knowing that the Source of your life is steadfast and mighty, giving you strength for each new day.

Choose this day to live in the mercy of the Lord, choosing to be merely a clay jar through which the power of the Holy Spirit will be made known.

Quick Thought #3

2010-10-18T23:12:00.002-04:00

If you are convinced that you have a purpose for living, but aren't using every moment of every day to fulfill that purpose...what are you really doing with your life?

Quick Thought #2

2010-10-18T19:26:00.001-04:00

Pacifism does not have the same root as "passive."

Quick Thought #1

2010-10-18T14:50:00.000-04:00

Theology is great and has it's place, but if we really want to know God, we need to live like Jesus. It's time for us to stop living in the abstract and live out the Gospel in the here and now.*

*Spoken to myself, as well as anyone else who needs to hear it.

On Being Taken Advantage Of

2010-10-11T09:51:00.000-04:00

I shared this thought last night at the community prayer meeting, and I figured I would flesh it out here, because this is something that the Lord has really been teaching me recently.

As I've wrote about earlier, the Lord has really been urging me on to serve the homeless and the outcast. To truly try to love like Jesus loved, in loving the unlovely, reaching out to the social outcast, and seeing the image of God in all people, no matter how skewed that image may have become. This is something that I have come to believe is essential for Christians to do, if we are to truly follow Jesus and continue His ministry to this world.

Anyways, this begins with a small story. A few weeks ago, after the Lord has laid this conviction on my heart, I encountered a homeless man on campus who asked me for money. I offered to buy him a meal instead, so we went to Jimmy John's. When we got there, I told him to order whatever he wanted, and in his slightly drunken speech he asked for the biggest thing on the menu. It was an $8 sandwich. Part of me was like, really? Can't you order the basic $4 sandwich to tie you over? But by the grace of God I kept my mouth shut and gladly paid for his meal.

The Lord taught me a lesson in that instance about serving: when you serve, when you give of yourself in order to love others as Christ loves them, then there will undoubtedly be many instances where you will be taken advantage of. And that's okay, for that's part of what love is.

For in that moment, I felt the Lord saying to me, How many times have you taken advantage of My love? How many times have you rejected my gracious offering to you, instead choosing to spit it back in my face? I came and I suffered, I was rejected, I was murdered, and my love was reduced to shame. And still you take advantage of me. But it's okay, for that's what love is.

If we are to truly love as Jesus loved, then we have to be willing to put ourselves on the line, to put the needs of others before our own, to lay down our lives. And that can be terrifying, but that's what love is. It can make us feel weak and abused (and may I kindly point you to this), but somehow it is still the greatest thing in the world.

Let us love as Christ loves. Or rather, let us be the channel through which Christ loves. And as His love continues to transform our hearts and minds, may we love others with reckless abandon, as He has called us to.

Lay your weapons down

2010-09-28T09:57:00.000-04:00

What does it look like to fight in a battle that’s already won? This thought has been bustling around in my mind recently, and I'd like to try to unpack it in a specific way, if you don't mind. Feel free to join me.

In this battle, we do have a real Enemy, but I think we as Christians have the tendency to confuse the Enemy with those that we are trying to love and see reconciled to God. We have the tendency to direct our fighting against people or groups or ideologies, creating this culture of separation between us and other people who are made in the image of God. Maybe instead of fighting, instead of creating the dichotomy of “us vs. them”, maybe we can come to nonbelievers with a white flag of humility, understanding that we are all fighting on the same field. Maybe we can beat our swords into plowshares, our spears into pruning hooks and turn the battle field into a garden, working to create something beautiful on this journey we are on together. Maybe instead of creating more and more separation with nonbelievers, we can work to identify with them, coming alongside them where they are in love and grace—the same love and grace that we have been shown where we do not deserve it.

As the Church, we need to emulate our Lord, with His outstretched hands on the cross, inviting in the enemy (you and me!—see Romans 5:8) to share in His Kingdom, His love, and yes, even His sufferings. We also need to obey His command for us to “Go out.” We go with confidence, knowing that our Lord has already won the victory. We go with humility, knowing that we were nothing before He saved us, knowing but not knowing this Mystery that dwells within us, working through our weakness. And so a new paradox of our ministry is created. We are ever going out while ever inviting in. We are to be ever inviting people into the heart of the Church while ever working to expand the heart of the Church to the fringes, the outer margins of society and faith.

It’s this concept of working to identify with people in order to bring them to reconciliation with God that fascinates me. Because that’s exactly what Jesus did. Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” Even to ones who don’t believe in Him, Jesus identified with them when He cried out on the cross, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” G.K. Chesterton once wrote: “Let the atheists themselves choose a god. They will find only one divinity who ever uttered their isolation; only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist.” In this in another lesson for us: in our moments of doubt and uncertainty, we need to cherish those painful times and use them to identify with nonbelievers.

Identification towards salvation—this is what Jesus is all about. This is what Christianity should be all about. We can’t be their savior, but in humility we point them to the only One who can save them. You can’t love someone like this while attacking them and considering them an “enemy.” We are called to be separated from this world, but we need to be careful not to become separated from people, which is exactly opposite of our mission here.

How does this actually happen in real life? I have no idea, but I pray that we trust the Holy Spirit to work Jesus’ incarnational ministry through us for His glory. So lay your weapons down. Begin to see your “enemies” as brothers and sisters, and beautiful things can happen.

Love can only lead to poverty

2010-09-27T17:12:00.000-04:00

At a time when spiritual leaders were teaching believers to collect, count, and carefully record their good deeds, [St. Therese de Lisieux] firmly rejected that sort of accounting: I count nothing. I simply do everything out of love--and if I then stand empty-handed and utterly poor in the ranks of those who collected, counted, and recorded their merits, isn't that, after all, the poverty that Christ speaks about in the Sermon on the Mount: Blessed are the poor?

-Tomas Halik, Patience with God: The Story of Zacchaeus Continuing in Us, pg. 33

A Conviction

2010-09-22T10:48:00.000-04:00

In the Gospel of Luke the Greatest Commandments are given, not by Jesus, but by a teacher of the law who desired assurance of the way to eternal life. His answer,

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."

is affirmed by Jesus as the way to eternal life. But even with this affirmation, the lawyer wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus then launched into the parable of the Good Samaritan:

"A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he out two denarii, gave them to the inkeeper, and said, 'Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.' Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."

Although these two sections of the same passages (the Greatest Commandments and the Good Samaritan story) are well known, we tend to read them separately. But here we have Jesus, giving us a definition of what it means to be a neighbor to someone, right after affirming that loving our neighbor is one of the greatest commandments that will lead us into eternal life. The two parts of the passage should not be separated.

But I think it's pretty incredible that here, Jesus explains in detail how to really live out what He is teaching. I can't think of any other place where He really does that. So, in other words, pay attention. Greatest commandment --> specific application. Got it?

The reason that this has been on my heart recently is because of this application to my life. In the past year or two, the Lord has really given me a heart to love those who are loveless, those that are on the fringes of society, those that the rest of the world tends to pass by on the other side of the road. Not that I'm super good at it now (I'm not), but it's just been weighing on my heart more and more how crucial it is for the life of a Christian to live like this, to "Go and do likewise." Not only for the sake of just doing good things, but for the sake of seeing the image of God in the Undesireables of this world. For knowing God's heart for those who no one else cares about. For allowing God to use us to be His hands and feet, which can be as much of a benefit to us as to those we are helping. For knowing that every human being needs to know the love of Jesus Christ, in whatever form it may take.

Last week I made a vow with the Lord, one which I'm not quite sure how to keep yet, but that won't keep me from trying. I told the Lord that I will never intentionally avoid eye contact with a homeless person or someone whose presence makes me uncomfortable. I will try to never miss an opportunity to buy a hungry person a meal and have a conversation with them and try to befriend them. I will do whatever I can, no matter how small of a gesture, to help someone and show them the love of Jesus Christ.

It's been difficult at times, especially when all someone wants from you is cash, which you should never give to a homeless person. But still, I think just making the effort to see them as a real person with real needs, regardless of whether they are telling you the truth or not, has to count for something. I have faith in the love of Jesus Christ to have power in people's lives, whether I see the effects or not.

In God's Kingdom, there are no social boundaries. God has called us to love all people, regardless of race, class, gender, or hygiene. And people need to know that love. They need to know that they are accepted in the eyes of the Lord, and thus in ours as well. And we need to know that they are real people with real stories and real hurts that need healing.

Refuse to let social boundaries contain the love of God. Refuse to allow your discomfort to contain the love of God. Allow God's love to work through you to love the unlovable, comfort the uncomfortable, bring hope to the hopeless, and bring the light of God's Kingdom to this world.

Amen.

Psalm 27:1

2010-09-16T20:36:00.000-04:00

"The LORD is my light and my salvation;
   whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life;
   of whom shall I be afraid?"
Psalm 27:1

This verse has been my anthem the past week or so. It began when a brother told me that during a time of prayer over me, this was the psalm that came to his mind for me. I've been meditating and praying on it since then, and the impact of what it means still hasn't fully been revealed to me yet, I don't think. But I pray you are blessed by this meditation, as I have been.

The LORD is my light.
What is light? It is a wave and a particle (somehow), and it is a force, not opposite of darkness, but one that chases away all darkness. Because darkness is not a separate force opposite of light, but rather it is the absence of light. Where a light shines, no darkness can remain within the reach of that light (see John 1:5). For the LORD to be our light, it means that He is the one who illumines our lives and chases away the darkness. There can be no darkness where the light of the LORD is shining. There can be no falsehood where Truth is king. There can be no depression where Joy is master. There can be no hate where Love reigns.
   LORD, be my light. Be the One that illumines my path and my life. Be the light that chases away the darkness in me. Let Your light shine through me, to bring the light of Your truth to a dark world.

The LORD is my salvation.
How easy it is for us to say this and take it for granted, or to not even grasp the fullness of what it means. The LORD is salvation to the lost, wholeness to the broken, healing for the sick, joy for the downtrodden. The LORD has paid the debt owed on us, brought us out of our exile into His freedom, cleansed us from all our sins and brought us into the glory of His Kingdom. Nothing can compare to the greatness of the salvation that we have through Jesus Christ. Hallelujah! What a Savior! My words cannot even begin to do it justice. All the books in the world could not hold enough praise, and the extent of our language is frustratingly limited to express the greatness of our salvation.
LORD, be my salvation, now and forever. Daily your mercy restores me to Your will and keeps me dwelling in Your presence. You are my rescue, my salvation, the hope of my glory. Use me to bring the news of your great Salvation to the world.

The LORD is the stronghold of my life.
A stronghold is a place you can go to be safe. The alternate word used in the Scripture is "refuge." A haven. A sanctuary. A place of rest and security. A place like home. A place that is a solid rock upon which to stand amidst a sea of chaos. A fortress of peace in the midst of a war surrounding you. When all around is bearing down on you with demands, persecutions, criticisms, stress, conflict, hatred--the LORD is a refuge. He is a stronghold whose walls of protection nothing can penetrate. Run to Him and let Him receive you in love. The stronghold of the LORD is a place where you know you can trust Him to protect. It is a place where you know you are safe. It is a place where you know you are loved.
LORD, be the stronghold of my life, the refuge of protection that I run to when I am troubled. In the good time and bad, You are constant, and You never change as a source of love and goodness and protection from all evil. Let the peace of Your refuge be shown in my life, that others may know the power of Your love.

With the LORD, there is no fear. His perfect love casts out all fear. With the knowledge of His great salvation, living in His all-pervading Light, secure in the comfort of His refuge, there is nothing that can come against us. If our God is for us, who can be against us? Know the goodness of the LORD, His goodness that is for you. Meditate on His light, His salvation, and His stronghold and what these can really mean for you in your day to day life. And be blessed by the Lord of all the universe, Who loves you more than you can imagine, and desires to be known and loved by you.

Amen, and glory be to our God forever and ever!

Side-Effects of a New Creation

2010-09-06T15:50:00.000-04:00

"From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view (according to the flesh); even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!"

2 Corinthians 5:16-17

"I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

Galatians 2:20

These two oft-quoted Scriptures in our modern Christianese are also two of the most ignored. It's really easy to quote Scripture that can inspire us and make us feel good, but when it comes down to looking at what these really mean for our lives, it's easy to look only as far as we're comfortable.

The Lord has been hitting me over the head with this the past couple weeks. I came into this year fully expecting that it would change my life. Recently I realized that my prayer for God to change me was really more like "Lord, change me, but only in the ways I want to change." I want to grow spiritually and in my maturity, but only in ways that conform to my plan for my life. Really, I don't want to be single anymore, I don't want to give up my things, I don't want God to mess up my plans. "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails." Proverbs 19:21

Do we really realize that we are, in fact, a new creation? Do we really know that the old "us" has passed away, and we are being made new in the name of Jesus Christ? Have we really crucified our old lives to be in conformity with Jesus?

That's the unfortunate side-effect of being a new creation: that newness requires change, discipleship requires a cost, and crucifixion requires dying to self.

But it's this radical change that Christ calls us to, and it is for this purpose that He came. This is the purpose of God for you--to make you a new creation. But first you must die.

"Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life."

John 12:24-25

We need to stop getting in the way of allowing God to bear fruit with our lives. What are you holding back? What part of your old life are you holding onto? In this life, with this faith, it is not about you. It is about a God Who is bigger than you can possibly imagine, Whose love goes farther than you can comprehend, Whose greatness we can never even put into words, Whose glory lights up the whole universe! This God is your salvation, and you owe him everything.

If you're reading this, please don't just read and nod your head and say "Amen, brother." Please take time to examine your own life and ask the Lord what He wants from you. What are you holding onto that is keeping you from the Lord? If your automatic answer is "Nothing," then search deeper. And then search again. This is the most important thing you can do with you life--do you really understand that, at your core?

This is stuff I'm just re-learning and trying to apply to my own life again, and I feel the Lord calling me to share it. This is the Gospel that He wants us to preach. This is Good News.

How Sweet It Is

2010-08-23T10:36:00.000-04:00

"How sweet it is when brothers and sisters dwell together in unity." (Psalm 133:1)

This was the verse on my mind all throughout the week that I was able to attend to COA (Campus Outreach Academy). When we arrived last Sunday, I knew a total of about 5 people beforehand (and those I had just met the week before), out of about 90 people altogether at this retreat. But after just a few days, it was easy (and necessary!) for me to call all these people my brothers and sisters. It was awesome how a group of people from all different backgrounds could come together to worship and fellowship with such passion.

The focus of the COA this year was on ecumenism. If you don't know what that is, by definition it's

/ɪˈkjuːmənɪz(ə)m/ (noun) the principle or aim of promoting unity among the world's Christian Churches.

Ecumenism and Christian unity have long been strong parts of the calling that the Lord has put on my life, so I loved every minute of it. And what was even cooler than all the talks was seeing ecumenism lived out in a very real way at the retreat. There were Catholics, Orthodox, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists (I think I was the only one of those, actually), and others--all worshiping and fellowshipping together. It was a beautiful thing. I love corporate worship, and witnessing a huge crowd all lift up their hands and voices to the King of kings. But to see that happening among traditionally disparate groups who have been unable to worship together because of their differences--that was incredible.

And we ask, how can we make this happen in a larger context, out in the world? The answer, I've found, is with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit longs to bring believers together and to unite us under one purpose and one Name. UCO and its supporting communities were borne out of the charismatic renewal movement that started in the 1960s, right here in Ann Arbor. This movement believes strongly in the work of the Holy Spirit and working for ecumenism. And the latter can only be possible by the former. It's really cool to see the results of this being worked out in real life. I've never really had any Catholic friends, and I didn't really know that there were any Orthodox believers in America. But now I can say I have friends (more so, brothers and sisters) in both denominations, and many others.

The COA has made me very excited for what this year is going to bring, and the work that the Lord is going to do through us. Unfortunately, I had to leave COA early (it's actually still going on now), to come home and be with my family as we wait for my grandpa to pass away. So if you all wouldn't mind sending a prayer for my family in this time, we'd appreciate it.

Update

2010-08-13T10:23:00.000-04:00

The Catherine Street houses in Ann Arbor

After four days of living on Catherine Street, things are going very well. The brothers here are great, and I've felt very welcomed. When I first got here on Monday evening, I joined several of the guys who met up with a large group to play soccer. I didn't have cleats, so I didn't play well, but it was a lot of fun. Then we came back and ate some dinner, and a few of us went out onto the porch and smoked a pipe and drank beer. Not exactly what I was expecting for my first night of living with the monks, but it was awesome. Since my job hasn't started yet, there hasn't been much to do during the day. Usually I try to do some reading (and often fall asleep), or take a walk, etc. But every night there's been something going on, whether it be soccer, going for ice cream, watching a movie, or going to a prayer meeting and then to the pub afterward.

The brothers join together for prayer three times a day: in the morning, evening, and right before bed. Eating meals together is very important for their community life, and everyone helps out with the cooking and cleaning. I'm actually looking forward to learning how to cook well. I don't think the brothers would enjoy my grilled cheese as much as I do.

On Sunday I leave for the Campus Outreach Academy (COA), a nine retreat for training people in UCO. It's weird, because since I'm on UCO staff this year, I'm expected to lead parts of this, even though I have no idea what I'm doing, and the people I'm leading will know a lot more than I do. But from what I've been hearing about it, COA is always an awesome time, so I am looking forward to it.

Spiritually, it has been a very interesting week. I struggled a lot spiritually this past summer, so to jump right into an environment where seeking God is built into the structure of the day has been good for me, but I'm hesitant to jump right into this place where it's so easy. I don't want the strength of my faith to be entirely reliant on my context, because what will happen then when I leave this place? Faith is something that needs to come from my own convictions and relationship with God, which still is not where it needs to be. So this week has included a lot of quiet repentance and prayer for renewal and obedience.

The other things I'm struggling with is the worship of the brothers here. The Servants of the Word was born out of the charismatic movement a few decades ago, so there is a lot of focus on speaking in tongues and prophecy and the other spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit. These are things that I am by no means opposed to, but given my background and my personal experiences in worship, it's not what I'm accustomed to. I know that the Holy Spirit has power to work in our lives, especially in worship, but I just don't know. This year will be a good one for learning more about the Spirit and how He can work in my life. I'm excited to learn and grow as much as I can this year, and my prayer is that God will prepare my heart and mind for what is to come.

A New Adventure

2010-08-08T22:56:00.000-04:00

Hello.

If you're new here, welcome to my blog. You're just in time to join me on this new journey I'm about to begin. For the next year I'll be living with the Servants of the Word, a neo-monastic community, in Ann Arbor, MI. I'm going to be working on staff with their University Christian Outreach (UCO), a evangelistic and discipleship-oriented college ministry directed at the students of the University of Michigan. I'm doing all of this under the umbrella of what's called the GAP program, which is where young adults like myself take a year to do service of some type. So the cool thing with that is that I'll be doing this alongside peers who are doing similar things.

Some ask why I choose to do this with my year after college. In short, there are 4 main reasons:

1. Celibacy - For the past two years I've felt called by the Lord to commit myself to not dating. This I have done, but as for the long term, I have no idea where God is leading me. So one of my biggest intentions for this year is to explore the call to celibacy and whether or not that might be where God is calling me. I don't expect to have it nailed down by the end of one year (for many it takes several years to make a decision like that, as it should!), but this will be a good start for me.

2. Spiritual growth - Spiritual disciplines are things that I have never been very good at, and this year will no doubt be very good for developing those more fully in my everyday life. Also, I realize that I just have a lot more growing to do spiritually in order to become the leader that God has called me to be. I fully expect this year to impact my life in an awesome way in this category.

3. Not academic - I'm planning on going to grad school after this, and toward the end of my college career I just felt burnt out on academics, so this is a welcome break from the stresses of school work.

4. Awesomeness - who gets to say that they've lived with monks? I mean, seriously, it's going to be a pretty awesome experience, and I'm excited for it.

This year is something I'm very excited for, and I expect to learn and be challenged and grow a lot. So, hopefully I will use this medium of my blog to keep all you folks out there updated on what's going on, and I'm sure I'll jot down things I learn and all that stuff too. I greatly appreciate all your prayers, and I hope you will join me in praising God for the great work that He does through this!

Desensitized

2010-08-05T23:39:00.000-04:00

When I was in 8th grade, a kid in my class was killed. His name was Butch Harris, and he died when he was hit by an out of control car while he was riding his bike along the road. I didn't really know Butch. We didn't really run in the same circles, and I can't even remember if I ever talked to him. His death didn't have much of an emotional impact on me at the time. I don't know if it was too much for my 14 year old mind to register, or if I just didn't care that much. But I remember my mom talking to me about it, and expressing concern at my lack of concern. She said that she was worried that I'd been "desensitized" too much by TV, video games, and such.

And I remember being really offended by that comment. I mean, here she is, attacking the TV I choose to watch and the games I choose to play, claiming that they are somehow poisoning my mind. All because I didn't have an emotional reaction to the death of a kid I barely knew? I was really annoyed with her for that. I mean, they talked about the kids that shot up Columbine as being influenced by their violent video games and music, but everyone knew that that was just crap. We can't be controlled by the media we consume. We are individuals with free will to choose how we behave. We are our own creatures to control.

Now that I'm older and slightly smarter, I see things a bit differently. As I've grown, I've found myself less and less entertained by violence in movies and video games. Instead of cheering when the bad guy gets killed, I often find myself wondering if he had a family that loved him and how he got on the wrong track. That's stupid, some might think. It's a fictional character--no one really died here. It was an actor who was paid to look like he died. But, on the other hand, if our movies are supposed to be a reflection of life and reality, I have to ask myself--am I really cheering for a human life that just ended? A human, made-in-the-image-of-God life?

The main reason that I became a pacifist is that I value the sacredness of life. I believe that each and every person has incomparable value simply because they are human, and they have worth and feelings and thoughts and hopes and dreams and people that love them for the complexities of their personalities and yes, even their flaws. And every time a person is killed, whether in real life or on TV, it represents the cheapening of that sacred life, in that situation and in our society.

I'm currently finishing up a book called On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, by military psychologist Dave Grossman. It's a fascinating book, but toward the end, he discusses how the conditioning of America and her children through media is eerily similar to the conditioning of soldiers in preparation for war. Using classical and operant conditioning methods, the military has to break down the soldier's resistance to killing the enemy. Through our media, we are conditioned to be entertained by violence instead of disturbed by it, making it easy to emotionally distance ourselves from the enemy, and from other people. One fact that Grossman cites is that, at the time of his writing (1995), there had already been over 200 studies demonstrating the correlation between television and violence. And, even though correlation does not equal causation, there has to come a point, maybe after 200 studies, where you know causation is present.

So my question is this: does there come a point when we realize how much the media influences our behavior, and if so, do we do anything about it? Is it possible for us to become re-sensitized to the horrors of violence and death? Can we as people learn to value people again?

I would love to hear others' thoughts on this issue, since it can be a sensitive (no pun intended) issue. What do you think? Does violent media cause us to be more violent? Have we been desensitized to violence and war and death? Have you noticed this in your own life at all?

Confidence

2010-07-29T18:22:00.000-04:00

It is often thought that success will build confidence. But I think that real confidence is in being okay with your failures, content with not being the best at something. Real confidence comes from being secure in your identity, which, while being shaped by your experiences, is not defined by them.

When confidence turns into arrogance, I don't want to say that that is borne out of an insecurity of identity, because I can't make that judgment. But it seems to me that real confidence leads to humility. If you're confident in who you are, you don't need to be the best, you don't need to make yourself feel superior. Maybe, when we really have confidence in who we are, we can actually stop focusing on ourselves and begin to love others.

Hauerwas - America's god is Dying

2010-07-23T17:45:00.000-04:00

"Dietrich Bonhoeffer thus got it right when he characterized American Protestantism as 'Protestantism without Reformation.'

That is why it has been possible for Americans to synthesize three seemingly antithetical traditions: evangelical Protestantism, republican political ideology and commonsense moral reasoning. For Americans, faith in God is indistinguishable from loyalty to their country.

American Protestants do not have to believe in God because they believe in belief. That is why we have never been able to produce an interesting atheist in America. The god most Americans say they believe in is just not interesting enough to deny. Thus the only kind of atheism that counts in America is to call into question the proposition that everyone has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

--Stanley Hauerwas, excerpted from "America's god is Dying," on ABC's Religion and Ethics Portal, July 20, 2010.

Read the whole article here.

The Costs of War

2010-07-20T22:31:00.000-04:00

War is an environment that will psychologically debilitate 98 percent of all who participate in it for any length of time. And the 2 percent who are not driven insane by war appear to have already been insane--aggressive psychopaths--before coming to the battlefield.

-Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, On Killing, p. 50

I've just started reading this book, and so far it's pretty chilling, as exhibited by the quote above. According to Grossman, there is something innate in humans (and all animals, for that matter) that resists the killing of its own species. War, killing, and violence have a much greater impact on us than I think we've realized before. And governments have to compensate for that by conditioning soldiers to conquer that resistance. And cultures condition their children with violent video games and movies that glorify the act of killing, making it seem easy.

When we have to be conditioned to not resist killing our own brothers and sisters, something has gone wrong. We were not made for violence.

You are God's Child

2010-06-27T23:03:00.000-04:00

You,
human being,
no matter who you are,

you are God's child,

you are included in God's love,
out of the pure, incomprehensible grace of God;
accept this word, believe in it,
trust in his rule
rather than in yourself or in your own party,
rather than in your own work or your own religion.
God does as he wills.

Turn your misery into God's blessed presence,
and from within your guilt and distress
hear the voice
of the eternal, living God.

--Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Meditation and Prayer, ed. by Peter Frick

This is why I am a pacifist. I know this wasn't Bonhoeffer's point in this meditation, but these are the thoughts that have led me to my commitment. How can I cause harm to something/someone God loves so much? How can I support the killing of a human being, made in the image of God? There is so much hope for each person in the love of God through Jesus Christ. How can I take that away?

I feel that this principle is slowly and surely changing me. Changing how I view the world, how I view people. May God's "blessed presence" be with me as I live it out.

Truth and Love

2010-06-25T09:14:00.000-04:00

Insight, knowledge, truth
without love is nothing--
it is not even truth,
for truth is God, and God is truth.

So truth without love is a lie; it is nothing.
Truth just for oneself
truth spoken in enmity and hate
is not truth but a lie,
for truth brings us into God's presence,
and God is love.

Truth
is either the clarity of love,
or it is nothing.

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from Meditation and Prayer, ed. Peter Frick

Justice

2010-06-20T20:52:00.000-04:00

In yesterday's paper, there was an article written by a reporter who got to witness the execution of a man in Utah who was convicted of two murders. Apparently, it was the first execution by firing squad in Utah (the only state that still permits such a method) since 1996, which was made it a news-worthy event. The reporter chronicled the final moments of this man, who had no final words, and how the bullets ripped through the target on the left side of his chest without much flair or excitement. There was no visible blood pouring out, and there was no dramatic reaction from the condemned man save a clenched fist. By all standards, justice was carried out swiftly and cleanly in this execution, despite the seemingly archaic method.

Yes, justice was served here. This man killed a man in a robbery, then years later killed again and severely wounded another man. He was a violent offender, a ruthless criminal, the scum of humanity. He got what he deserved. People may argue about the ethics of the death penalty, but the issue at hand here is justice. This man killed, so he was killed. This speaks to how we as a society define justice--evening things out, keeping things fair. Justice, karma, fairness, equity--these are the things that keep society in order, and for which our justice system works for. These are good things.

And yet, as I read this article chronicling this man's death, I hated almost every word of it. Not just because I'm a pacifist and don't support the death penalty. But because in the world's eyes, this was so right. A man's life ended, probably without him knowing any form of redemption, and Lady Justice smiled on (although I don't know how she sees through that blindfold).

It was then that I realized that at the root of my discomfort with this was in the inconsistencies between definitions of justice. I believe God defines justice much differently than any government does. Or rather, maybe at the root they're the same definition, but the end and means of justice are different. We can still define justice as "making things right." But to what end? What is "right"?

To the world, it's almost as if the end is to even the playing field, as if killing the bad guys will create more good in the world. But to God, the end goal is to bring people back to Him, to the way He intended us to live within His purposes. That which is right, or righteous, is that which is within God's purposes and intentions for mankind. God's justice is about us, being reconciled with Him. For God, the means of that justice are the forgiveness and redemption offered to us through Jesus Christ.

God's justice is rooted in His love for His fallen children. God's justice is in the open arms of the father embracing the prodigal son. God's justice is in the anxious heart of the shepherd searching for that one lost sheep. God's justice is in the blood of a Savior who was crucified unjustly on a Roman cross.

God's justice isn't about getting what you deserve; it's about Grace.

Praise God that we do not get what we deserve. If so, we would all deserve eternal punishment. We are sinners who live in a fallen world. We have fallen away from God and from our purpose as created beings. Real justice is getting us back to that purpose, back to God.

Real justice is grace.

Silence

2010-06-15T22:59:00.000-04:00

We are silent
early in the morning
because God should have the first word,
and we are silent before going to bed
because the last word also belongs to God.

In the end,
silence means nothing other than waiting
for God's Word
and coming from God's Word
with a blessing.

Real silence,
real stillness,
really holding one's tongue,
comes only as the sober consequence of
spiritual silence.

There is a wonderful
power in being silent
--the power of clarification, purification,
and the focus on what is essential.

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from Meditation and Prayer, ed. Peter Frick

Knowing the Unknowable

2010-06-08T10:10:00.000-04:00

In a discussion with a few friends this past weekend, we were talking about how our theological attempts necessarily limits God. Whenever we try to define God through our limited language, this is an attempt to contain the Uncontainable. We talked about the purpose of apophatic (or negative) theology in trying to avoid this, where we attempt to define God by saying what He is not. But even that puts limitations on God, just in a more roundabout way.

We ended that discussion on a note of helplessness--what can we even do? How can we even know this God who cannot be contained in our knowledge?

I believe that the purpose of theology is to know God. Not to contain Him, but to explore who He is. And, praise the Lord, we have a God who desires to be known! Everything God has done in Scripture and today for His people is to reconcile the separation between God and man, and to reveal Himself to us. God reveals Himself to us not in clear, definable terms, but relationally and mysteriously. Not that He desires to remain cryptic and unknown, but to show us that He is a mystery, far beyond what we know and experience. He desires to show us Himself in how He relates to us and what He's done for us.

He reveals Himself most of all through the Incarnation in becoming one of us. For in Jesus, "God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him" (Colossians 1:19). In Jesus we find God's greatest act of revelation. In Jesus, God makes Himself known to us. In Jesus, the truth of who God is is shown by the love and justice of the Gospel.

Though our language will always necessarily limit our experience, whether of God or anything else, we are stuck with it, and must be content to know that which has been given us to know. We have a God that wants to be known. Do all you can to know Him as He is.

Another Decision

2010-05-31T23:53:00.001-04:00

I just decided this weekend that I'm pretty sure I am a pacifist.

It took a terrible Memorial Day sermon in church for me to finally come to this conclusion, which I've been wrestling with for a while now. When it really came down to it, I see no way to justify killing a human being that is made in God's image. No matter how just you think your cause is, God's purpose for life and redemption is a greater cause. Of course, there are still going to be gray areas, and I'm not foolish enough to assume that this is enough to satisfy all of life's questions on these issues. But I've decided that I need to start living my life and organizing my principles around this cause--fighting for life, rather than to end or harm it. From what Jesus has taught me, I see no other way for me in my life right now. I'd love to discuss it more if you're interested, because that will help me flesh out my thoughts even more.

Ironically, I just realized that I struggled with the same kind of thoughts last Memorial Day. You can read my discussion with Steve about all that here.

Return, O Wanderer

2010-05-22T09:29:00.002-04:00

"Return, O wanderer, now return,
   And seek thy Father's face;
Those new desires which in thee burn
   Were kindled by His grace.

Return, O wanderer, now return,
   And wipe the falling tear:
The Father calls,--no longer mourn;
   'Tis love invites thee near."

-William Bence Collyer

I just rediscovered this written down in my notebook yesterday, and I can't remember where it's from or when I wrote it down, but it managed to speak to me just as much this time as it did the first time.

The Church and Postmodernism

2010-05-12T10:35:00.000-04:00

I finally finished up the paper for my independent study, called The Church and Postmodernism. It was a tough semester, with all the research and time put into it, and I think I learned just about as much from the process of doing it as I did from the research itself. My hope is that this will be a stepping off point for more research in the future (since, even with all the work I put into this, it barely scratches the surface), and that it will help serve me (and others!) in ministry to a culture that might consider itself 'postmodern.'

It is now available online for the world to see, and I would love it if you would check it out and maybe leave your thoughts. You can see it here, or just click on the box linking to my Scribd account on the right side of the page and find it there.

All Things New

2010-05-10T18:41:00.001-04:00

As I was driving today, I was just pondering my own sin, and it sucked. I was just in one of those moods that really gets you down for no particular reason, and it occurred to me that it’s those times that show you who you really are.

Sometimes when I get a glimpse of who I really am, I don’t like it.

I screw up all the time, and I am not who I appear to be on the outside. I am a hypocrite, a liar, a cheat, an incorrigible sinner who pursues his own desires far too often. It sucks to realize this. It does not feel good. It does not put one in a better mood.

I began to just pray about it and confess, and started listening to a song on my iPod by a friend of mine. As I prayed, I just felt God urging me to come back to Him, and I heard His gentle reminder:

“Behold, I am making all things new.”

The King is coming, and He is coming in power, and He is coming in glory. He is coming to make all things new. He is coming to dwell wholly with His people. His coming will change everything.

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away” (Revelation 21:3-4).

Sin will be no more.

There will be no more struggle.

There will be no more hurt.

no more pain.

no more sorrow.

no more brokenness.

no more poverty.

no more disease.

no more hatred.

no more war.

no more death.

All things, all people, will come before the One who sits on the Throne of Heaven and declare that He is King of kings and Lord of lords.

Usually it’s so tough to think about the impact of this—the coming that is so far away and so far removed from the physical, tangible present that overwhelms us. But today, when I heard this whisper,

“Behold, I am making all things new,”

it hit me on a new level. God was speaking this into my life—right here, right now. It was for me. I felt the reality that not only is God making everything in His creation new, He is making me new as well. And this addendum changes everything.

“Behold, I am making all things new—even you.”

There is hope for a future. A glorious future in which we will be one with the Father and He will dwell with us. But it is not here yet.

There is hope for now. In Christ, we have been made new creations—the old is gone, and the new has come. It is here now, and it is salvation for all that believe in the name of Jesus.

Behold what the Lord is doing. Behold Him making all things new. Behold Him, our coming King and present Salvation, in whose Name is hope for all nations and all creation.

I pray that we all can know the reality of a new creation in our lives. I pray we can all hear the voice of the Lord speaking to us, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

Amen.

The Song of the Spirit

2010-05-08T17:34:00.001-04:00

Last night I went to a Sleeping at Last concert at Taylor University with a bunch of friends, which was fantastic. Afterward, when asked how she enjoyed the concert, one of my friends commented that she had a difficult time enjoying concerts because she wasn't musically inclined, so she couldn't pick out harmonies or listen for chords and things along that line. I responded to her that those things are not what enjoying concerts is about. For me, music is something that is great to understand and be able to play and recognize what others are playing, but the real beauty of music is when you can just sit and soak it in, and let it speak to your soul. That's why music is so powerful, because it can have an emotive effect and can speak to us on a level that words or ideas cannot.

Something else occurred to me shortly after that. That is, sometimes we treat our biblical interpretation in the same way. We try to interpret what the Spirit is saying to us by looking at the historical context, the author's original intent, the original language, and a plethora of exegetical methods. I think that sometimes in all our digging around and trying to build our interpretation from the ground up, we can miss the point of what the Holy Spirit is saying to us through the Word. Not that those things aren't good or helpful--I think they are absolutely necessary for good interpretation. But we are fooling ourselves if we think that this methodical exegesis is sufficient in itself.

The beauty of Scripture is not only that we can know the historical context and the author's intent, but rather that through it, we can allow the Holy Spirit to speak to us in our context now, in our situation. Like music, the Spirit can speak to us on a level that words and facts and exegesis cannot. That's why I think meditating on Scripture (not merely studying it) is so important. In this we allow the Spirit to speak the Truth of the words to us.

It's fascinating to me how the Spirit chooses to speak through these words. There are many different theories of how He does this, but what really matters when it comes down to it is that He does. And it can be a beautiful thing, if we choose to let them be spoken to us. God is singing a song to us through His Word, the very music of Heaven. Biblical exegesis, theology, philosophy--these are things that are aimed at finding the heart of the song, but we have to remember to sit back and enjoy it as well, letting the Spirit sing to us the song of Heaven.

Soak it in. Let it fill you. Let it speak to the very core of your being as you seek God through His Word.

Meditations

2010-05-02T01:19:00.000-04:00

A bathroom devotional I wrote for my floor--my last one as a CMC in Wright Hall and as a college student. With all the craziness going on in life, it was a reminder I needed as well.

I want to take this time to remind you to make sure you take time to simply slow down. Take some time for yourself, take time to just breathe, take time to sit and do nothing for a while. Take some time to meditate on the Lord and what he has done for you.

Take comfort in His goodness.

Find peace in His protection.

Find strength in His joy.

God has promised to never leave you nor forsake you.

He has promised this.

You have been given victory over sin in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Victory – know the power of it!

You have been given new life in the Holy Spirit—

Once dead, now alive!

You have been called by the King of kings to share in His eternal Kingdom—

A royal inheritance.

You have been adopted as a son by your Heavenly Father—

A family to which you are welcomed with open arms.

Our God has done so much for us, and has promised so much more. Claim these promises for yourselves. Claim the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. Trust in God’s goodness. Rest in His unfailing love. You who have fallen away from Him, He is calling you back. Come. Come to love and trust and serve Him once again. As when the prodigal son returned to his Father, our Father is waiting with open arms to receive you again, and overflows with joy when you return.

May these meditations refresh you and allow God to speak to you. May His strength carry you throughout the end of the year and into the summer, whatever you are doing. May His love never cease to amaze you and renew you. Amen.

Speaking the Word

2010-04-26T18:16:00.002-04:00

Joshua 1:1-9, 16-18

¹After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord spoke to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying, ²‘My servant Moses is dead. Now proceed to cross the Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the Israelites. ³Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, as I promised to Moses. ⁴From the wilderness and the Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, to the Great Sea in the west shall be your territory. ⁵No one shall be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you. ⁶Be strong and courageous; for you shall put this people in possession of the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them. ⁷Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to act in accordance with all the law that my servant Moses commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, so that you may be successful wherever you go. ⁸This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall be successful. ⁹I hereby command you: Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.’

¹⁶ They [the people] answered Joshua: ‘All that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go. ¹⁷Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you. Only may the Lord your God be with you, as he was with Moses! ¹⁸Whoever rebels against your orders and disobeys your words, whatever you command, shall be put to death. Only be strong and courageous.’

After God repeats this command (“Be strong and courageous”) to Joshua multiple times, Joshua even hears it from the people of Israel that he is leading. As their newly established leader, they commit to following him as they did Moses, and giving him their blessing. They speak the very same words that the LORD spoke to Joshua—“Only be strong and courageous.” Joshua’s community, Israel, affirms the Word of the LORD in Joshua’s life.

Within our communities, we need to be always speaking the Word of God into each others’ lives, and affirming the call of God that we see in each other. Our lives are to be the proclamation of the Word made flesh not only to the world around us, but to each other. With the authority of the Holy Spirit, the Author of the Word, within us, speak the truth of God into the lives of those around you. Encourage, affirm, rebuke, challenge, and build each other up, “so that your words may give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29).

“Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.” (1 Peter 4:10-11)

The World Can't Cope

2010-04-04T17:29:00.003-04:00

"We could cope—the world could cope—with a Jesus who ultimately remains a wonderful idea inside his disciples' minds and hearts. The world cannot cope with a Jesus who comes out of the tomb, who inaugurates God's new creation right in the middle of the old one."
— N.T. Wright (Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church)

The Wonderful Cross

2010-04-03T00:44:00.000-04:00

These lyrics really impacted me at this evening's Good Friday service. This is good news.

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.

See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

His dying crimson, like a robe,
Spreads o’er His body on the tree;
Then I am dead to all the globe,
And all the globe is dead to me.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

Writing

2010-03-29T22:42:00.000-04:00

So far I'm really enjoying my Creative Non-Fiction class this semester. Writing is always something that I've always wanted to do and felt that I'm decent at, but never had the patience to sit down and do in a quality manner. The class so far has really stretched me, showing me that the quality of writing mostly lies within hard work in revisions. And it's nice to have an outlet for creativity, which sometimes I don't realize I have.

Our first writing project was a personal memoir. After all the revisions and reworkings, the professor actually chose my work as the top in the class, which is pretty cool for a newbie! If you would like, you can read that work here. The second one we wrote was a biography and/or character sketch, which I wrote on my grandpa. This one I felt rushed to turn in and didn't do the greatest quality effort on, so I'm not as proud of. But we'll see what the revisions can make of it. I'm hopeful that when I graduate I'll have more time to just do some writing on my own and see where that takes me.

If this guy qualifies, then I definitely do...

2010-03-26T13:21:00.000-04:00

A Prayer

2010-03-23T13:04:00.000-04:00

This is a prayer I wrote last week on our Spring break road trip. We were on the way to California and I all of the sudden just felt like writing this down. It's long and kind of scattered in places, but I really like it.

LORD God, King of all Your Creation, Lord of all land and see, all trees and grass, all deserts and rainforests, all bird and beast--all these cry out to You giving You all the glory and honor and praise as You are worthy of. For all of Your creation is a reflection and messenger of Your glory, crying out in a language unknown by any ear but understood by all hearts, and telling of Your majesty and Your eternal reign as King of kings and Lord of lords.

Glory to You, O Master of all, and holy, holy, holy are you Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! The powerful angels surround You and submit to You, singing Your praises without ceasing forever and ever. All kings and rulers of the earth are humbled before You, laying down their crowns - their power and authority - before You, Triune God. For on that Day when all things are revealed, no one will be able to stand before You, let alone boast in our own power or claim any control for themselves. Your Power and Authority will bring the claimed powers and authorities of this world to nothing. Because You, O God, are the Source and the Sustainer of all things. In You all things live and move and have their being, and to You goes all the glory for our mere existence.

Glory be to You, Holy Father, who sits upon the Throne of Heaven. You are the Creator and Sustainer of all things and over all things You are exalted as Lord. You are the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End of all things. All things that exist exist for the purpose of glorifying You. You are holy, and You reign forever.

Glory be to You, Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of the Father. You, as the eternal Logos, were present at the very beginning of creation, and all things were created through You. In Your incredible grace, You were united to man, becoming like us in order to pay the debt of our sins and redeem us from the inevitable power of death. In Your death, You took the weight of our sins, and in Your Resurrection, You proved Yourself to be Master over Death, bringing us into new life and inaugurating Your Kingdom among us, to slowly but surely take over this world. You are holy, and You reign forever.

Glory be to You, Holy Spirit, the Giver of life. You are the very Breath that was placed in all the creation to bring about the miracle of life, and You are the very Breath that brings new life into the creation that has been called according to Your purposes, day by day renewing the face of the earth and empowering Your people to do good works. You are the Bringer of Truth, our Advocate and Counselor who is the very presence of God with us, Your people. You are holy, and You reign forever.

Holy Trinity, we are Your servants, and we submit ourselves fully to You for Your purposes. We are Your ambassadors to this world and the messengers of Your Gospel, by which You are making Your Kingdom come here on earth and redeeming all Your creation.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. You are holy, and You reign forever.

Amen.

Come, O LORD, and Breathe Life into Us

2010-03-22T15:16:00.004-04:00

Ezekiel 37:1-14

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out
by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley;
it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very
many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me,
“Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.”
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them:
O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to
these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.
I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you,
and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live;
and you shall know that I am the Lord.” So I prophesied as I had been
commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling,
and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were
sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered
them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy
to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the
Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these
slain, that they may live.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the
breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast
multitude. Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house
of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are
cut off completely.’Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the
Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your
graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel.
And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and
bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within
you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then
you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,” says the Lord.

Taxing a Political Church

2010-03-01T00:17:00.000-05:00

I came across a really interesting article from the Indianapolis Examiner calling for a revoking of the tax-exempt status of churches, because of the large amount of political influence they wield and preach. While some would argue that preachers have every right to preach whatever they want from the pulpit (I would disagree though--the Bible makes it pretty clear what we should be preaching), this article points out "when [churches] use their tax-free money and the pulpit to influence policy, they are no better than a lobbyist." Because of this, the article argues, churches should have their tax-exempt status removed, if they want to play such a role in the politics of our country.

You should go read the article rather than just reading my summary of it, but I found myself agreeing with it. If we use the church to be a political instrument, then it should be taxed as such. And, from the biblical perspective, I think the Church has a much larger agenda than trying to influence the policies of a single government. We, the global Church, are called to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and be working for the coming of the Kingdom of God to this earth. We preach a message of love, not one of politics. We the Church need to start asking ourselves some serious questions:

Are our actions serving our purpose of preaching the Gospel and bringing about the Kingdom of God?
Are we being faithful stewards of the resources God has given us?
As a part of the universal Church, what is our relation to the politics of one nation?

What are your thoughts? Have churches forfeited the privilege of tax-exempt status? Are we really being faithful to our divine calling? Please share.

Truth: Subjective and Absolute

2010-02-19T17:15:00.000-05:00

I always used to think that the reality of Truth had to be objective. If it wasn't objective, or objectively realized, then it's not really Truth. If there is Absolute Truth, which as a Christian, I believe is God, then that Truth must be able to be reached objectively, and that's what we must strive for. I've always been taught in this paradigm of modern thinking.

But as I've learned and grown more, and have been reading up on postmodernism, I have come to understand t that Absolute Truth and objective truth are not the same thing. Absolute truth refers to the fullness of reality, which, I think we can safely say, we humans are far too dumb to grasp. Objective and subjective distinctions refer to our perceptions of truth--objective meaning that our search and knowledge is unaffected by our own opinions or biases, and subjective meaning that our knowledge is affected by those things.

The question that has recently come to my mind is, Can we really know any truth objectively? Everyone sees reality from a different angle. This means that all of our perceptions of the world are subjective to our perspective. If I am looking at a cup in front of me, I only see that cup from one angle. Actually, we must go further in this act of observation. My eyes see the cup, the image is sent to my brain which then interprets the image. My interpretation of that image is affected by many things: my education, my experience, my background. And even though this all happens within a split second, it is still an interpretation. Anyways, onward. I can't know the full reality of the cup that I see in front of me. I can't, by myself, grasp the fullness of the truth of that cup. My interpretation, combined with my experience with previous cups and general knowledge about cups, leads me to think that I've got this cup all figured out. But in that moment of observing, I am forced to subjectively interpret what I'm seeing.

As a quick aside, I think this illustrates one of the great importances of community (and diversity within community!): because we all see things from different angles and perceptions, we must try to help each other to know the different angles of the reality of something in order to grasp as much of the fullness of reality that we can.

If we as Christians believe our Lord when he said "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life" (John 14:6), we must acknowledge (which I don't think any of us will have a problem doing) that Jesus, the eternal Logos, is the embodiment of the reality of Truth. He is the Absolute, in terms of what we might know as the reality of Truth. There is no reality apart from, or greater than, Him. If we believe that Jesus alone is the fullness of Truth, then we have to say that someone can't know the fullness of Truth apart from knowing (or having a relationship with) Jesus. If this Truth is something that you can only come to know through a personal experience, then that is subjective. Therefore, Truth, as we know (think intimately knowing here) it, is subjective based on our own perspectives and relationships with that Truth.

But even Christians, who we can say know more fully the Truth through knowing Jesus, can't know the fullness of Truth, because, frankly, it is far beyond us. God is a mystery that cannot be subjected to our rationally thinking minds. And, as we're always perceiving reality through our subjective lenses, we will never know the fullness of Truth until we come into God's Kingdom. "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known" (1 Corinthians 13:12).

When I brought this topic up in conversation with a friend, they said to me, "So, you don't believe in absolute Truth then?" No, that's not what this means at all. I believe in absolute Truth, which is the fullness of reality. But our perceptions and perspectives of the world do not equate to the fullness of reality, because we are so limited. We can only know reality through our interpretations. And those of us blessed to know the salvation of God through Jesus are blessed to know Truth itself in our Lord.

This postmodernism stuff is really resonating with me, and at the same time challenging me to rethink what I know. I would encourage all of you to do the same.

Peace.

Ash Wednesday and Lent reflections

2010-02-17T17:07:00.000-05:00

Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you

In thought, word, and deed,

By what we have done,

And by what we have left undone.

We have not loved you with our whole heart;

We have not loved our neighbor as ourselves.

We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.

For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,

Have mercy on us and forgive us;

That we may delight in your will,

And walk in your ways,

To the glory of your Name.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord,

Amen.

(BCP)

Whatever thing I have denied my selfish desires, Christ denied more to condescend in human likeness and perfect humility.

Whatever temptation I have had to overcome, Christ overcame more on my behalf that he might present a perfect substitute for me before God.

Whatever pain I have endured—whether physical or emotional—in denying the longings of my body and mind, Christ endured more under the just wrath of God on the cross in my place.

Whatever loneliness I feel (imagine: the pathetic loneliness of one who is a temple of the Holy Spirit and a child of God), Christ felt more when the Father turned his back on him because of my sin.

Christ has made a way. He has given me his Spirit. Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe.

So grow up. Be a man. After all, "you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin" (Heb. 12:4).

via

The season of Lent has begun to mean a lot more to me in the past several years. I grew up in a tradition that practiced it, but never really taught me about what it was really for. I just knew that you were supposed to give something up for 40 days before Easter. But now I realize the real significance behind dying to myself in this way. In denying myself certain things, in fasting, in dwelling on the awareness of my own sin, I prepare my heart for the new life of the Resurrection that I live through again at Easter. Lent, as well as the other seasons of the liturgical year, is Christians around the world living through the story of salvation once again. Not that we don't live out our salvation every day. But this is the time for us to set aside especially to focus on the salvation story in our lives and the Lord's work in this world for redemption. Lent is a time for acknowledging our own weaknesses and sins, in light of the knowledge of a God Who is far too holy to allow sin in His presence. It is a time of repentance, for us to turn away from our own desires and from the world's temptations in order to turn back to God.

This year for Lent I'm giving up Facebook once again. Though not something bad in itself, I spend way too much time on it on any given day, time that could be much better spend in the Word and in prayer. So I would encourage you to take some action as well. Give up something. It doesn't have to be like trying to kick a bad habit, but our fasting from these things is a reminder that it is not our desires that matter--it is about what God is calling us to, which is His new life.

Embarking on a New Study

2010-01-30T14:23:00.000-05:00

This semester I'm doing an independent study for the last of my Religious Studies credits. It's called "The Church in Postmodernity," and the goal is to explore exactly what postmodernity is, what the Church is, and how the two can interact and (maybe) even thrive together. Some have said that postmodernity is here to stay, and some think it's a passing fad. So how do we as a Church react and respond to that, or do we even do anything? I'm really hoping to explore the question of the depth of interaction between the Church and the culture. Should the Church even respond to culture? Should it change up its practices and attitudes in order to reach those immersed in the culture? Or should the Church be removed and set apart from the culture, as a manifestation of the Kingdom of God here that is far more eternal than the come-and-go cultural paradigms that surround us? These are questions I'm really looking forward to digging into this semester with this class.

The first book I'm reading is called Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church by James K.A. Smith, which explores postmodernism as a philosophy from three different angles and appropriates it for the Church. I've only just started the book, but I really enjoy it so far and resonate with what Smith has to say. In the first chapter, he pretty much laid out what his end goal was and how he would get there, and I found myself agreeing with most everything he had to say about the Church and its relationship with the culture. Which has me a little bit wary, because I want to be able to go into this study with an open mind, rather than just reinforcing what I already think but haven't been able to articulate to this point.

Hopefully I'll be blogging more in the near future about my explorations into these questions, so be on the lookout for that. And hopefully these posts will spark more discussion so that we can all learn together.

Mixtape 2009

2009-12-31T00:48:00.000-05:00

I figured that it being the last day of the year, it would be appropriate for me to give out my favorite songs of 2009. At least, I'm pretty sure most of them are songs from 2009. Either that or I discovered them in 2009. Which is good enough for me. So, in no particular order, here is my epic mixtape of the very best of my music for the year of our Lord 2009:

Future of Forestry – Hills of Indigo Blue
Matt Papa – No One Else
The Ember Days – Fortress
Gabe Dixon Band – Disappear
Mute Math – Clipping
Switchfoot – Your Love is a Song
Ingrid Michaelson – Maybe
Paramore – All I Wanted
Jars of Clay – Hero
Andy Davis – Hard to Believe
Mae – Night/Day
Owl City – Fireflies
Dave Matthews Band – Funny the Way it Is
Regina Spektor – Eet

Eternal Word, born in the flesh

2009-12-25T00:20:00.000-05:00

Here's a side to the Christmas story that isn't often told: Those soft little hands, fashioned by the Holy Spirit in Mary's womb, were made so that nails might be driven through them. Those baby feet, pink and unable to walk, would one day walk up a dusty hill to be nailed to a cross. That sweet infant's head with sparkling eyes and eager mouth was formed so that someday men might force a crown of thorns onto it. That tender body, warm and soft, wrapped in swaddling clothes, would one day be ripped open by a spear. Jesus was born to die.

John MacArthur, God With Us

Today is Christmas. Along with all the commercialism and consumer-driven celebration, with the watered-down, seeker sensitive messages of Jesus born in a manger with cute animals standing by, reigns the fulfillment of the promise of God in Emmanuel: that God is with us. The Eternal Logos has broken into our world, for the sake of our salvation, to rescue a broken and hopeless people. The power of God is shown in the weakness and innocence of a baby, born the King of kings and Lord of lords. The love of God is shown in the miracle of the Incarnation, that a member of the Holy Trinity subjected Himself to the weakness of human flesh, for the purpose of dying a shameful death. The coming of Jesus Christ into our world means the beginning of our salvation. It means that the Kingdom of God has come here among us. It means that there is hope for the hopeless, light to break into the darkness, and deliverance from our sinful states. It means that God is with us, God is with us, God is with us, forever and ever, and will NEVER leave us or forsake us. This inbreaking of the Divine into our world is the most significant event in the history of creation up to this point. Because it brings the Light of the world to us. Emmanuel, Prince of Peace, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, JESUS! He is here! "A thrill of hope, a weary world rejoices!" REJOICE! Sing glory with the angels, for God was made flesh and made his dwelling among us. "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests" (Luke 2:14).

Rejoice on this day, for it celebrates our salvation and freedom and hope and life and the very power of the Gospel that changes lives, and has changed this world forever.

O come let us adore Him!
O come let us adore Him!
O COME LET US ADORE HIM!
CHRIST THE LORD!!

Amen, glory to God forever.

Lord Christ, Master of Death

2009-12-23T13:43:00.001-05:00

"If, then, it is by the sign of the cross and by faith in Christ that death is trampled underfoot, it is clear that it is Christ Himself and none other Who is the Arch-victor over death and has robbed it of its power. Death used to be strong and terrible, but now, since the sojourn of the Saviour and the death and resurrection of His body, it is despised; and obviously it is by the very Christ Who mounted on the cross that it has been destroyed and vanquished finally. When the sun rises after the night and the whole world is lit up by it, nobody doubts that it is the sun which has thus shed its light everywhere and driven away the dark. Equally clear is it, since this utter scorning and trampling down of death has ensued upon the Saviour's manifestation in the body and His death on the cross, that it is He Himself Who brought death to nought and daily raises monuments to his victory in His own disciples."

St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 5.29

My grandma just died last week, so death has been on my mind a lot recently. At the same time, I've been trying to read through this book by Athanasius as an Advent devotional. There are so many good chunks of this book I could quote here, but I especially like this one, mainly because of that last sentence, in that Christ, the Victor over death, "daily raises monuments to his victory in His own disciples." Athanasius goes on to talk about martyrdom and the men and women of Christ who so despised death that they went to face it head on without fear. Death used to be something to fear, something "strong and terrible," but now through the victory won by Christ's resurrection, it has been subjected to scorn and ridicule and has been made impotent. Instead of feared, it is despised. Death is still the enemy, but no longer an enemy that has power over us. And that power over death is displayed in Christ's disciples as a testament and a living monument to His victory. Our lives can be ruled by fear of death or power over death. Let's choose to live in that power, living in glory, celebrating with all the saints as we sing out the truth, "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" (1 Cor. 15:55) Praise Jesus!

The Gossip Guard

2009-11-17T01:13:00.002-05:00

A New Family

2009-11-09T21:43:00.000-05:00

I want to explore the depths of what it means to be a brother in Christ. I want to know the potential for the reality of the relationship between brother and brother, sister and sister, and brother and sister in Christ.

I've been realizing recently just how important these relationships are in the Kingdom of God. In the Old Testament, the blood family was the primary social and spiritual unit. It was through Abraham that his descendants, the people of Israel, received God's blessing. It was this family identity (Israel, tribe, and clan) that was foundational to the religious identity of the people of Israel. In the New Testament, Jesus brings the Kingdom of God to us, and with that a new paradigm of religious identity. Spiritual blessing and identity is no longer through the blood family, but rather by belonging to a new family--the body of Christ. This was exemplified by Jesus when his mother and brothers came to talk to him, but couldn't get near him because of the crowd. When someone told him that his mother and brothers were waiting outside for him, Jesus said, "My mother and brothers are those who hear God's word and put it into practice" (Luke 8:19-21, also Matthew 12:46-50, and Mark 3:31-35). Jesus no longer defined "family" by blood relation, but by Spirit-relation. Or at the least, one had taken priority over the other. The family of Christ is one that is united by the blood of Christ for the forgiveness of our sins, and is bound together by the workings of the Holy Spirit. Jesus showed us that this is a bond that goes much deeper than that of a physical family. We are no longer united by our own blood, but rather by the blood of God Himself.

Why don't we take advantage of this relation? Why do we fail to see its potential? We often feel awkward sharing our lives and passions and pains and struggles and joys to the degree of intimacy that this family allows for, or maybe even expects of us. We are afraid to be vulnerable with each other. Often we look to our brothers and sisters to "keep us accountable" (a term i dislike), and leave it at that. Helping each other to steer from sin and live righteous lives is definitely a part of living in this family, but it's so much more than that! We are brought together in order to share in each others' lives in a real way, to REJOICE together, to PRAISE together, to PRAY together, to LOVE together, to CRY together, to LAUGH together, to MOURN together, to WORSHIP the God of our mutual salvation together and to WORK together for His Kingdom and GLORIFY Him together forever! There is no awkwardness in the Kingdom of God! With the freedom we have in Christ, nothing has the power to keep us from sharing in each others' lives completely.

It's easy for us to pick up on this togethering thing and agree with it on the grand scale, but how does it affect our individual relationships? How can we practice doing life together and honoring God together in our one-on-one's? It starts with just investing in each others' lives, pouring ourselves out for the sake of others, putting their needs above our own, and loving each other in mutual submission. And it starts with prayer. We need to be praying more as a body and family of believers. We need to be praying for, with, and over each other all the time. Prayer unites us, and works to change us. When we submit our relationships first to God, it brings us closer together. Have you ever had the experience of feeling really close to someone after praying for them, even if you didn't know them that well in the first place? Praying together is the process of communing with God by the same Spirit that unites us together as believers.

What's tough for me is the relationship between me as a brother and my sisters. Especially for me, as an intentionally single guy, to try and explore the potential of the Spirit-bond between myself and a single sister can be tricky. I feel like our culture is so dating-relationship focused that attempts at intimacy in the Spirit between a brother and sister can be misinterpreted on either side as something with a more romantic interest. So what's the answer to that? Do we safeguard ourselves and not attempt to be a invest all of ourselves in a brother or sister, holding back in order to protect ourselves? I think, to an extent, at least for me, this can be necessary, but overall, i think we need mutual understanding and minds and hearts that are transformed by the Spirit, desiring to seek God and honor Him above all else, and willing to pour out ourselves into the lives of our brothers and sisters.

But the main point is, we need to take more seriously the responsibility we have as brothers and sisters. We need to take advantage of this relationship, and the incredible potential for communion with others and God. Stronger than any blood bond, stronger than any experiential bond, stronger than any dating bond, is the bond of salvation in which we are washed clean by the blood of Jesus Christ and have been brought into His Kingdom to share in this community of faith that glorifies Him forever! We all share this most incredible gift, and not of ourselves, but only by the grace of God. It is by this grace that we have been saved and have been brought into this community of faith--this family of Christ.

This journey is not meant to be traveled alone. The more i learn and grow, the more i'm convinced that community is one of the most important things in all of our faith. Let's put it into action. Let's pray for each other. Let's share what God is doing in our lives. Let's be vulnerable with each other. Let's truly worship together. Let's glorify God through the bond of this new family.

Reformation Day

2009-10-31T01:45:00.000-04:00

Today, All Hallow's Eve, also doubles as Reformation Day, the 492nd commemoration of the somewhat historical event of Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the door of a church at Wittenburg. I'm not sure how i feel about celebrating such a day. The Reformation, for being a movement with the purpose of restoring the Church, ripped it completely apart. Since then, the Church has been split down the middle, and into hundreds of separate denominations and ideologies. I really, really love the Church, feeling it an under-emphasized (or neglected) aspect of Christian teachings and theology, and i feel called to serve her. So, do i commemorate this day? Probably not. But, nonetheless, it is a significant moment in the history of the Church

Jared over at The Gospel-Driven Church, is commemorating Reformation Day by making his own 95 theses for the American Church today. I really like his blog, and recommend checking it out. The 95 theses are split into five parts:

Part One: discipleship
Part Two: community
Part Three: the Church
Part Four: the pastorate
Part Five: purpose

One of my favorite quotes is by none other than St. Augustine, who said "The Church is a whore, but she's my mother." Even though the Church of Jesus Christ is broken and wounded with divided loyalties, we are still called to love and honor and serve her. Amen.

A Theology of Swearing

2009-10-25T01:27:00.005-04:00

Words are only symbols for the meaning that we attribute to it, and they only carry the meaning that we give to them. Language is kind of random like that. It's why, in the 90s, teenagers could get away with using the word "bad" to refer to something something good, or "wicked" as something super cool. I can make up any word and give it any meaning i want (this is actually kind of fun, if you get a good word and it catches on with friends).

And we get so worked up over the little things like words someone once defined as "swear words," and don't bother worrying about the meaning (or lack of meaning) we attached to the rest of our vocabulary. Which is a worse sin, if i say the word "fuck," or if i say "Jesus is Lord" without really meaning it? Our words either don't carry any weight at all, or we've given too much weight to the wrong ones.

Stop worrying so much about swearing. It has no meaning except for what you give it, and it has no power unless you choose to submit to it. Worry instead about the words you say, and be deliberate in your speaking. When we lack meaning in our words, we can deceive ourselves and others, and it leads to a life of hypocrisy where we say one thing and do another. Be deliberate in all that you do, but i think a great place to begin this is with the words that we say. Maybe it starts with not saying anything at all.

*Disclaimer: Unless it's funny or circumstantially called for, i think swearing is really stupid as well. In light of 1 Corinthians 10, in which Paul advises that "Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial," and talks about working to not offend brothers even if your conscience is clear, i do not regularly swear, because many Christians do take offense to it and see it as a sin. But what really gets me is when those who do take offense get so worked up about such a tiny sin, and that was the point of this post.

Reclaiming Christians for Christ

2009-10-20T00:28:00.003-04:00

There's a fundamental difference between serving the world and your own desires in a Christian manner, and serving Christ in a way that leaves no room for anything else and reaches out to the world from that foundation. This is a distinction that i think many American Christians do not get, nor do they want to get. Because it's a reality that is not easy to swallow. It may be a subtle distinction in our own eyes, but it is one that goes to the very core of who we are.

I'm realizing more and more just how clever we Christians are at deceiving the world and ourselves. We are very capable of looking and acting like we're serving Christ, when in fact we can be submitting to the world's demands on our life, adding in the pursuit of our own desires. We have been so twisted up and turned around that the world's demands become our desires, and we don't realize the difference. It's easy to say that the world is bad, especially when we see on the news reports of disease, war, greedy CEOs, starvation, rape, murder, etc.--you know, the big stuff that is obviously the result of sin in the world. But we miss out on the little things--the more dangerous things--because we don't realize how great an influence the world has on our lives.

I'll give an example, on that has been frustrating to me recently. (By the way, i'm just as guilty as anyone of all this, so i can't point the finger without four pointing back at me (cheesy, but i like that image. It works.)) Last week on our campus, we had a Living Single for the LORD emphasis week. Some monks, with whom i got to go up and live last January, came and talked about this Biblical alternative that is given to us in order to more fully devote ourselves to Christ and the ministry He has given us. Being a typical Christian campus, i think the majority of the students shut it out after the first message, and were frustrated that these guys were telling us that we couldn't get married if we wanted to be good Christians, and saying things along the likes of, "I just don't feel that that calling is for me, and I'm really looking forward to getting married, and GOSH DARN IT, I WANT TO HAVE SEX!"* I would argue that the people who reacted this way, although completely allowed to do so, have completely missed the point. If we are to be followers of Christ, true disciples, we have to be willing to put Him first, ahead of all things, which means that we have to be willing to give up all other things if He were to ask us, including marriage and sex.

That's one example, but this applies in so many areas of life. How we act and what we say are so often determined by an analytical look at what is socially acceptable in the world's eyes, how we pray with each other is done in a way that avoids awkwardness, and how we live in community is done in a way that is comfortable and encouraging for us, but doesn't leave us too vulnerable. All these things make us slaves to the world's standards.

We have become worldly Christians, rather than Christians in this world.

We have been set apart (read: made holy) to have a new identity, separate from the world, and to have a new purpose, a new mission, and a new Master of our lives. This does not mean we withdraw from the world, but we invade it, secure in our identity as the Church of Jesus Christ our Lord and Master, unwilling to yield to any other lord or submit to any other way of life that might tempt us. We are foreigners in this land, and we do not belong to it. We must submit our lives only to the Authority and Lordship of Jesus Christ. Nothing else must have our devotion. Nothing else is worthy of our devotion. This world is passing away, and so we grab on to and commit ourselves to the only Eternal One who will serve as the foundation of all that we are and will be.

Our Enemy is very good at making us like accidental traitors in this war. People that in reality serve the world when they think they are serving Christ. People that claim to be "sold out" for Christ when they have no notion of what that term means. People that proudly do their own thing and call it Christian while ignoring the call that God has placed on their lives. People that serve the world's purposes, disguising them as "Christian."

Looking back at what i've just written, it is harsher than i set out to make it. But i'm not convinced it was unnecessary. I am convinced though that we need more table-tossing and whip-cracking in our Christian communities. Those that fit the profile that i've gone through include my brothers and sisters in Christ, and i the chief among them. I want to see, in myself and in the community i live in, a renewed devotion to our Lord Jesus. I want to see a renewed passion for the Gospel. I want to see purpose and intention in following Jesus. I want to see the Holy Spirit ruling and directing our lives. I want to see Christians reclaimed for Christ.

*Not a real quote.
As a quick aside, we Christians are probably the horniest people on earth. We just repress it to the point where it manifests itself in other ways, like getting married way too young and then adding to the highest divorce rate of any faith group.

Intentionality

2009-10-15T00:23:00.004-04:00

I don't know if intentionality is a real word. But i'm using it. Because it fits. And i can.

I am currently called by the Lord my God to live single. I have felt this calling on my life ever since just over a year ago, at the beginning of my junior year of college. You can read more about that decision if you want here and here. It was at a time when i really felt the Lord calling me to a deeper walk of discipleship with Him, to devote my life more fully and completely to His purposes. I read 1 Corinthians 7, the famous passage where Paul talks about living celibate for the sake of Christ. He talks about how if one is called to live single, then they can devote more of themselves to the Lord's service and to ministry, without having their interests divided between a family and ministry, and i thought Yes! This is great! This is what i want to do! Serve God fully! And when i committed myself to not pursuing dating in order to try and discern God's call on my life, it was fantastic. My relationships with female friends grew immensely, and this time with pure motives on my part, and i just had a better outlook on life.

A year later, and i'm struggling. At the end of this past summer, i decided that i needed to renew my commitment for another year, because i had been slacking off. And so far this semester, it has been one large struggle to maintain a pure heart and mind in intentionally being single. My old thoughts and habits have begun to return to me. Doubt crept in. Did i rush into renewing this commitment? Am i just supposed to get married and stop trying so hard, when all i do is fail?

This week is a spiritual emphasis week here on our campus, about Living Single for the Lord. It is being put on by the same monastic community that i visited last J-term, and i learned an immeasurable amount about living single from them. Through having them here, God has reminded me why He called me to this in the first place--for the sake of ministry. I haven't been called to live single for this time in my life just for kicks and giggles. I've been called for a purpose. I have been called out so that my life can be more fully devoted to the Lord's service. This is what i'd forgotten. This is what i'd been missing, and why i'd been struggling. I was missing the intention behind the action.

As Christians, we are all called for the purpose of sharing and spreading the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to the world, investing ourselves in the Kingdom of God and showing the love and light of Christ to all those around us. We can do that whether we're dating, married, widowed, or single. It's just a matter of serving this purpose the best you can in whatever situation you are in. But those who have been specifically set aside for singleness have the purpose of being single-mindedly devoted to this work. I've been missing out on the intentionality and the purpose of what i've been called to. My heart has not been focused and devoted to the Lord throughout this discernment process, which makes the whole process kind of pointless.

We are all called to live with intention. We are all called to one purpose. We are called to live deliberately serving the Kingdom, not just by accident or just when we feel like it. But all the time, on purpose, for a purpose. Some are called in different ways than others. But our purpose remains the same, all glory to God.

My First Philosophical Musing

2009-10-08T15:21:00.004-04:00

Going through my philosophy notes in preparation for my midterm tomorrow, i came across something we did the very first day of class. We were asked to distinguish between facts and values. Nothing ever really came of this (i think it was just intended to make us start thinking philosophically), but i rather liked the definition i came up with:

Facts are knowledge about reality.
Values are the reality of our worldview.

Interesting to think about. Back to studying for me.

Of Foundations and Blessings

2009-09-22T11:25:00.006-04:00

Last week was a week of incredible learning for me. It was a week of incredible shame and growth (i hope). It was a week where part of my foundation was revealed, and it was not what i thought it would be. Which was at the same time scary and wonderful.

It started last weekend when i went to go visit my good friend Austin in Columbus. On the way there, just outside of Columbus, i got into a tiny car wreck, in which i rear-ended someone, who rear-ended someone else at a stop light. Everyone was fine, and insurance is taking care of the damage, but as it was my fault, i got a citation for it. Fortunately, the officer there told me he could have held me in custody until i could pay the ticket, since i was an out-of-towner, but he was gracious with me and didn't. Now typically, a $130 traffic citation isn't that big of a deal, you just pay it and you don't have to show up for your court date and all is well. But this happened to come at a time when i was completely broke.

I had about $15 to my name. And my family is just about as broke as i am, with both parents, for all intents and purposes, out of work--so they couldn't help me. And then it happened that money i thought i had coming to me pretty soon, wasn't. I thought i would be getting my scholarship check from the church i interned at this past summer any day now, but when i emailed my pastor, he said that they were having trouble rounding up the money, and they might have to split up the checks, but they would definitely get it all to me by the end of the year, 2009. When i read those words, my heart, and my hope, started to sink. I had no options. Suddenly a small ticket turns into a big deal if you have no way to pay for it, and you know that they will come and arrest you if you don't pay in time.

This all started to come crashing down on me on Tuesday of last week. This is when i started to realize that i had no options, i was broke, and this might end with me getting arrested. I started to panic. I'd never been in a situation like this before. I didn't know what to do. I cried multiple times that day, and was praying about it all day, crying out to God because it felt like i was cornered in the ring and about to go down. Cornered, helpless, and panicking--these weren't feelings i was used to.

And all the time, i was thinking to myself, Why am i getting so worked up about all this? I knew that Christ was my source of hope and life and that i was never helpless with Him on my side. I knew that. I knew that verse that said how beautiful and well taken care of the birds and the flowers are, and since i am so much more important than them, why should i worry? I knew that God was always with me, would never leave me nor forsake me. So why was i acting like this?

It occurred to me then, in the midst of all this stress, that maybe the Lord was trying to show me something about myself. My foundation has not been built solely on Him or the authority of His Word. A big part of my foundation has always been my comfort. My security. I've never been rich or well off or wanted to live with high standards, but i've always had money available to me if i needed it. There is a great security in that. There is a great security in knowing that, even if i don't have much money, still i have enough. I've never been attached to money or been materialistic or greedy, and was always fine with living simply, but just knowing that it was there was enough for me.

This struck me like a bag of bricks. My foundation has been built on something other than Christ.

This is sin. This is idolatry. And i've allowed it to become a foundational part of who i am. This is a big deal. And i think that shook me up more than anything. But at the same time, i was so grateful. Grateful that this was happening now, and that this sin was being revealed now. I posted on my facebook status something to the effect of "sometimes the house has to be shaken in order for the foundation to be revealed." And my friend Brian replied, "I'd rather be shaken sooner than later - to reveal any weakness before things get built too high!" So true. God chose through this extremely stressful occasion to reveal to me the quality and make-up of my foundation at this time in my life, before i continued to build and build on top of it until it would cause irreparable damage. The truth of Matthew 6:24 really hit me here:

"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."

Since last Tuesday, God has blessed me abundantly. Whether through the generosity of friends or mentors, or from earning money where i didn't expect to, the Lord has provided me with much more than i needed. Last Wednesday, i had lunch with my campus pastor, and told him how stressed i had been because of this situation, and he stopped and pulled out his wallet, handing me $130 right there. I was flabbergasted (always a fun word to use) at this, until he reminded me that, we always seem so astounded when things like this happen, but we forget that this is what the Body of Christ is for--to support each other and be there for each other in need. Last week i was definitely blessed by the Body of Christ, receiving much more than i needed. And just today, i checked my campus mail and in it was my check from Good Shepherd, in full, and it was actually more than i was expecting.

God is so good, and so faithful to provide for His children when they are in need. Sometimes we need to be shaken in order for our weaknesses to be revealed. Sometimes we need to trust in a power beyond our own. And another lesson i've learned from this is that we are only blessed so that we can bless others. Money is only a blessing if you use it for the glory of God. I pray that God has received the glory due to Him through my situation, through the money that i have received, if only so that we can praise Him for His goodness to us. But also, i pray that He is glorified by showing me how i can bless others through what i have received. I submit this story to you, not to prove that God will always provide you with money if you need it, or to say that my life is so much better now that i have money. But i pray that together we can praise God for being a God of provision, being a God of faithfulness, and being a God of hard truths. I give this story for His Kingdom's sake, praying that God will be praised and the Body of Christ will be built up in the Spirit, learning to give and receive with the intentional love and support of Christ. You and i are blessed only in order to bless others.

Claiming our Anointing

2009-09-03T01:16:00.007-04:00

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed (Greek crio) me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
-Luke 4:18-19

According to Luke, this prophecy was spoken and claimed by Jesus at the beginning of his ministry. Here, Jesus is claiming to be the one spoken about in the prophecy, the Lord's anointed one. Christ is the Greek word for "Anointed One." Jesus is claiming to be the Christ, to be God himself, and declares his foretold mission on earth. To preach the good news (the Gospel) to the poor, to proclaim freedom for prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, and proclaim the Year of Jubilee (the year of the Lord's favor), in which all debts are canceled, land is restored, and slaves are set free. This incredible claim of Jesus is one of my favorite passages in the gospels because of the boldness and radical nature of such a claim.

Even more radical though, is that this anointing continues to be claimed. We, as Christians, bear the name of Christ, the anointed one.

We are the anointed ones.

We have been anointed by God himself to go and preach the Gospel, to bring freedom for prisoners, to heal the blind, and join in with the counter-cultural paradigm of the Kingdom of God that turns the values of the world on their head. We have been given the Spirit of the Lord. We have been given the gift of His anointing. Everything that Jesus did, we are called and empowered to do. You, as an anointed one of the Lord, have been given power to preach the Gospel, which is good news to a world starving for meaning.

Claim this anointing that is upon you. It's not a physical, material anointing, but a spiritual one, one that goes much deeper than the surface, down to our very core and purpose. Claim the power of the Spirit within you. Preach the Gospel. Free those bound by whatever it is that holds them prisoner. Bring sight to those who cannot see. Live radically, in the light of the Kingdom. You Christian, claim that name that you have the privilege of bearing. Claim the anointing of the Spirit, and the power to change the world.

Love through Community

2009-08-11T19:27:00.004-04:00

I am going to tell a story, one that happened to me, not to toot my own horn, but to glorify God because of how He works and to demonstrate a larger point.

The other day i was in the midst of my prayer time and randomly a friend of mine popped into my head, and the feeling that i should pray for them. I did, as well as i knew how, but then afterward emailed that friend to see if there was anything that i could be praying for them about. The friend emailed me back the next day and said, yes, actually there was some crap going on in their life, below the surface, that really needed prayer. The friend remarked how incredible God was, because in the past few days, no fewer than 5 people had come to them, saying that the Lord had put them on their heart or asking if they needed prayer.

Now, this isn't an incredible, rock-your-world kind of story, but to me, this was a Kingdom story. This was a story about how God works through the Body of Christ to show His love and His strength in my friend's life. This was a story about how, through several, God gave grace to one. And this just caused me to praise God for His faithfulness and His goodness and His love.

God is glorified when we submit to be used by Him. This is the cycle of glory--all for God's glory, for the sake of His people. One is encouraged or comforted, and the rest praise God for His work in that person's life. The Community of Christ exists for God's glory--to showcase His power and His love in our lives. We are all ministers of God's grace, not only to the world at large, but to each other. If YOU are a member of this community, then your purpose is to be a vessel of God's grace to EVERYONE, for the sake of God's glory and His Kingdom. How can God be working through YOU? WHO is God trying to reach through you?

You have a purpose. You have a mission. You are here to show your brothers and sisters, and to show the world, that God's love is strong, stronger than any chains that might be binding them, stronger than any walls that they may have built up between them and God, stronger than the power of sin and death in their lives. God's love is strong, and YOU have the strength of that love within you, waiting to be unleashed to the world. YOU are a vessel of the LORD Almighty, and of His love. You are a minister of His grace.

And you are a member of this divine community. Take advantage of it. Use it for the glory of God. When you are going through crap in your life, tell your brothers and sisters and ask them to pray for you. And when you witness a Kingdom moment, share it with brothers and sisters so that you can all praise God together. Build each other up, hold each other accountable, worship together--all of this is for the glory of God.

Don't waste time. Don't waste your life. Start fulfilling your purpose NOW. God wants to use you. Yes, you. He wants to show His love through you. Will you submit to Him, or keep giving in to the myth that your purpose is greater than His purpose?

Attacking the Church from Within

2009-08-04T00:07:00.003-04:00

"Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love."
--Galatians 5:3-6

I feel like this passage still rings true today for many of us in the Church. But instead of the Law, or circumcision, the way many seek righteousness and salvation is through right doctrine. There are many who are beyond certain that their set of doctrines and beliefs is THE only way, the perfect way, and the only doctrines/denominations/type of preaching that Jesus would approve of. They point the finger at everyone else, crying "HERETIC!" or "FALSE TEACHER!" because the spreading of proper and true doctrine is the most important thing. These people decry teachers like Rob Bell, Richard Foster, Brian McClaren, and those "post-modern liberals", and the "egregiously ecumenical Emerging Church aka Emergent Church--morphing into Emergence Christianity (EC)" (<--quote taken from Apprising Ministries website: www.apprising.org), all because they see these people as tarnishing Christianity and teaching false doctrines and perverting Scripture. I feel like these people have completely missed the point of faith. They are the new Judaizers of Christianity, who try to push their righteous agenda on those who are encouraged by the writings of the New Testament to cling to such things as faith, hope, and love. I mean, the phrase "egregiously ecumenical" doesn't even make sense to me. When did ecumenism become a bad thing? I think the ecumenical movement is one of the best things to happen to the Church in recent history. Many of these reformed believers think that the Reformation was the greatest thing to happen to the Church since Pentecost. IT WASN'T. Indeed, reforming definitely needed to take place within the Church at that time, but the Reformation RIPPED GOD'S HOLY CHURCH IN HALF!

I realize the irony in my rantings, that i am pointing the finger at them for being wrong for pointing their fingers. But i have felt for the past several years that one specific focus of my calling from God is toward Christian unity. I feel so strongly within me that Christ died for His Church and desires to see His Church working together and worshiping Him in unity (see John 17). So when i see these blatant attacks against the Church, sowing seeds of division and hatred, rather than peace and love--it hurts. I love the Church. I love working for Her, i love serving Her, and i want so badly for Her to be united. St. Augustine said, "The Church is a whore, but she's my mother." How can a broken Church serve a broken world?

I'll be honest, most of my frustrations stem from one guy that i'm facebook friends with (but don't really know that well in real life), who all the time posts articles and YouTube videos with attacks like these. I have never responded to one of these linkings, even though i'm always tempted to, because i know that what i respond with won't be nice. But sometimes with all the crap that's posted, i'm at a loss for how to respond. If i'm formulating a response in my mind, i'll come across some other article that answers my point with some close-minded attack. I've seen articles that denounce certain Christians for exalting "love" and "unity" over preaching right doctrine. I just read an article on apprising.org entitled "Turning God's Grace into an Idol," with the tagline saying "Grace Does Not Relieve The Christian From Their Duty To Contend For Proper Doctrine." This is disgusting to me. I am at a loss for how to respond to this. Or should i even bother? Any of these believers is obviously not going to really hear anything i, a blatant heretic and false teacher, would have to say. I do believe that these people are still my brothers and sisters, and that i should love them as such. But that is not going to be an easy task. But no one ever said that love would be easy.

Endurance

2009-08-02T23:19:00.004-04:00

I preached this weekend at Good Shepherd. Four services total: Saturday evening's and 3 on Sunday morning. Phew. It went really well i think, and i think that the Lord definitely was able to speak through me, which is what counts, right? That being said, i am pooped. Doing four services like that is draining. I don't know how pastors do it every week. I came home and immediately took a 2 1/2 hour nap, which was wonderful.

In addition to being physically exhausting, it was also spiritually exhausting. I come off big things like this and just feel like i've got little juice left in me to be strong in faith. Right away, as i let my spiritual guard down, i am hit with temptations and just a general lack of motivation to do what i need to do to continue being an active servant of the Lord.

And it's then that i'm reminded of exactly what i preached on this morning. Faith, following Christ, being a Christian, etc., has to go deeper than just when we feel like it. What's required is a commitment, a commitment that stands the test of trials, temptations, exhaustions, and apathy. To really follow and serve and know and love the Lord is to continue to follow and serve and know and love Him when you don't feel like it. The easy times are just that--easy. They don't really do much for our growth. Romans 5:3-5 says, "...we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." Not to say that i've experienced suffering though this--i haven't. But i'm beginning to see the value of real endurance in faith. This race we run is not a sprint. It's a marathon. And this Hope, this Love planted in me is the blood that pumps through my veins and the oxygen that goes to my muscles to keep them going. It is my means and my end. Jesus--He is my means and my end. It all comes back to Him, every time, doesn't it? I guess He's pretty important.

So "let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart" (Heb. 12:1-3). Amen.

P.S. - Pray for your pastors, they need it!

P.P.S. - If you want to check out the sermon i preached, a rough draft of it can be found here, and you can listen to the recording here.

Of Silly Arguments

2009-07-22T17:16:00.002-04:00

I get so tired of Christians fighting among themselves. Whether from the right or left, evangelical or catholic, emergent or fundamental--it's just frustrating. Everyone thinks they have the ONLY correct slant on the Gospel, and it is their God-given mission to convince everyone to think exactly like them. Everyone can quote abundantly from Scripture to support their agendas, and everyone can point the finger and call an opposing group heretical or sinful. And we don't get anywhere. Is this what Jesus wanted from us? No, of course not. One of my favorite chunks of Scripture is in John 17, where Jesus prayed in the garden before He was arrested. The largest focus of His prayer was for unity among all believers. Jesus desired "complete unity" among all who would believe in Him. Certainly there are going to be things we all disagree on, but how much time do we waste on debating doctrine and arguing over interpretations that we could be spending actually doing what Jesus told us to do?

That's why i loved this article. You should really check it out. It's well worth the read. Plus, watch the video it links to. I love Jon Stewart, i think he's brilliant.

I could go on and on, but what's the point? Unity is good. Disunity is bad. Let's go for it.

Ministers of Grace

2009-07-07T21:56:00.003-04:00

"Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen."

1 Peter 4:10-11

I read this the other day and it really struck me. WE are ministers of God's grace. Grace is a gift that is given primarily through Jesus Christ and His sacrifice. But i think i'm continually learning that grace is something that keeps on giving. It is in its very nature and definition for grace to be a continual outpouring of love. Isn't it incredible that God continues to give out His grace, and to give it out through us!! Think about this: if you speak to someone about the love of Jesus Christ, then you are administering God's grace. If you are speaking, the Gospel, then you ARE speaking the very words of God! It is the word that he continues to speak to humanity, and will continue to speak until that day when every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is LORD to the glory of God the Father! When we serve others, we are literally being Christ to them, showing His love, and administering His grace! When God works through us, there is power, and there is strength. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit to be administers of God's grace. This is not something we should take lightly. We have an incredible responsibility, but it's also exciting, isn't it? Even the fact that God uses us is incredible.

I'm heading to Nashville next week for a missions trip, so i'm excited to try and live this out there. Not that i need to go outside my own town in order to do that. For those of you reading, whether you're in ministry right now or not, know this: God is working through YOU! His grace is being poured out, THROUGH YOU! When you speak, speak as one speaking the very words of God. When you serve, know that you are a vessel of God's grace, and depend on the strength He has provided through the Holy Spirit within you. Grace can take a lot of various forms. How is God working through you?

Religulous, and Doubt

2009-06-24T00:39:00.004-04:00

I just watched the Bill Maher documentary Religulous. I know, two anti-religious documentaries in one week. But have no fear, they haven't converted me. I just find them really interesting. Religulous was a lot better than the other one--much more well done, funnier, and it just made more sense. Rather than trying to prove that religion was all false, Maher just went off the basis of his perspective, that it was false already, and just set out to show how ridiculous (and dangerous) it all is. In the end, he basically concluded that all religions are dangerous and are going to bring about the end of the world all their prophecies looked forward to themselves, rather than God bringing them about in His wrath and judgment. Of course, Maher interviewed all the real crazies of the religions. Many of the Christians he interviewed I found myself disagreeing with. It made me wish that Bill Maher would have interviewed me, so I could tell him how it REALLY is. Hah. It did make me wonder though, because I'm sure he did have some interviews with really rationally-thinking Christians that made sense, but that wouldn't fit into the theme of their documentary, so obviously they couldn't make the cut.

One thing that I did like was that in the end, Maher said that the best "religion" that he had found was that of doubt. There's no way any of us can know everything for certain or have a certain claim on the truth, so why bother. It's a much more humbling standpoint than all that religious rhetoric. While I do think that we do possess a unique angle on the truth because of God's special revelation to us through Scripture, I'm in favor of this attitude. Why do we NEED to know exactly how things are going to play out when Jesus comes back? Why do we NEED to know exactly what happened in Genesis? These are the things that we argue over the most (and make us look the dumbest to the world when we do), yet these things are not essential to our faith.

After the Reformation, the Church was split apart into literally hundreds of different denominations/sects/claims to truth. People were arguing over so many minute details of theology and Scripture interpretation and religious practices that it was pure chaos. So a bunch of important guys got together and came up with a new concept. It was called adiaphora, a Greek word that literally means "non-essential." This was the category that they put everything that they argued about that was not essential to the Christian faith. It made room for disagreement, doubt, and unity within the Church. It made it so that it's OKAY to not know everything for certain. And it has to be that way if the Church is ever going to achieve any kind of unity.

One of my favorite things that my dear friend Joel Reichenbach ever said to me, when we were talking about teaching, was, "I don't want everyone to agree with me, I don't want everyone to agree with one certain denomination, I just want everyone to be as confused as I am!" Confusion is okay. We don't have to have the answers to everything, or know exactly how everything is supposed to be. Bill Maher is right, saying "I don't know" is a very humbling thing. Maybe we need a bit more of that. Maybe the world would take us more seriously if we started being more real with ourselves and with our beliefs.

The God Who Wasn't There, and Moderation

2009-06-21T20:56:00.004-04:00

I just finished watching the documentary The God Who Wasn't There, a film intended to disprove that Jesus really existed and to basically say that modern Christianity is silly. I didn't think that the film did a very good job of actually disproving Jesus' existence. In fact, it spent much more time examining modern Christianity than its historical foundations. Most of the project seemed like a vendetta of the director, a former fundamentalist, against the silliness of the religion that had oppressed him for so long. Nearly every time Scripture was quoted, it was taken out of context or quoted from a bad translation. I didn't think it was very intellectually honest with itself, or objective. The guy who did this went out with a mission to make Christianity look stupid. And i'm sure lots of people will believe him.

The film also took great advantage of interviews with Sam Harris, the champion of atheist antagonism. Harris has written two books, The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, both best-sellers. Harris is very intolerant against all religion, particualarly Christianity and Islam, which he sees as the two most dangerous paradigms for modern society. I haven't read his books, but i've read excerpts, and although i think Harris is more intellectually honest than this film was, he still seems to have a predetermined antagonism in his work that hinders historical and religious objectivity.

Aside from that, there were actually some good points made in the film. One of the best ones (i thought) was that moderate Christianity makes no sense. This came up while they were on the issue of Christians and homosexuality. Because the Bible says (somewhere in Leviticus) that homosexuals should be put to death, these extremist Christians were actually right in hating homosexuals. According to the film, moderate Christians know about what the Bible tells them, but decide that that's too radical for them. So moderate Christianity makes no sense, because it says that it believes the Bible is the infallible Word of God, but then doesn't obey it. I'm actually in complete agreement with this, but from a different perspective. Moderate Christianity makes no sense. It says one thing and believes something different. It is in conflict with itself, a house divided, and it will eventually fall. From a New Covenant standpoint, in which the message of the love and forgiveness and the Kingdom of God proclaimed by Jesus is central, it is understood that Jesus is the only one with the right to judgment. I believe that, as Christians, our place is not to judge but to show love to our neighbors AND enemies, even those who are labeled as "sinners." If we are following the example of Jesus, at least, this should be our aim. But the issue of homosexuality is not the main point. When Christians read the words of Jesus, our Lord and Savior, whose teachings and actions are the foundations of our faith, and we ignore them, THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE! When we do that, we are contradicting ourselves.

When we read, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matt. 5:44), but continue to throw stones and protest funerals, we are contradicting ourselves!

When we read that Jesus judges our eternal salvation partly on how well we clothe the naked, feed the hungry, care for the sick, visit those in prison (Matt. 25: 31-46), and we continue to rest in our own comfortableness, we are contradicting ourselves!!

When we read Jesus' words saying, ""If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26), and we by-pass that verse because it makes us uncomfortable to think about it, then we are contradicting ourselves!

I could go on. But the point is, for us to be true disciples, we must embrace the whole truth of the Gospel, truly seek the Kingdom of God with all our heart, and learn to love the people that God has called us to. If we do not do this, whether out of fear or complacency or discomfort, then we contradict our own talk, and we will fail. Moderate Christianity makes no sense. If we do not act on what we believe, then do we really believe it?

Hunger

2009-06-20T15:19:00.006-04:00

The U.N. just reported that the number of people suffering from hunger in the world surpassed 1 billion this year. Most are in Africa or Asia, but no country is unaffected. That is absolutely shocking to me. That's 1 in 6 people throughout the entire world!

I just read that in the paper while i was eating my yogurt, shortly after having consumed three hot dogs. Not that i should be guilted in to feeling bad about how well i eat (well, with three hot dogs, maybe i should), but it just makes me think that, as the Church, what are we doing? If we are to carry out and continue Jesus' mission in the world, the mission that He stated in Luke 4, where He came to preach good news to the poor, to bring freedom to prisoners, and release the oppressed, then we should be doing the same! If Jesus called us to feed the hungry, as He did in Matthew 25, why do we not take that seriously? It's obvious in reading the Old and New Testaments that God has a heart for the poor and the oppressed. If we do not have the same kind of heart, what kind of followers are we?

What are we doing, Church?

For Sarah

2009-06-18T01:12:00.005-04:00

Since Ms. Newkirk complained that i don't blog regularly enough, here is a new post.

Actually, her complaint got me thinking. Why do i blog? Because in all reality, i know that not many people read this, and blogging is definitely not the best form of ministry i could be practicing on a regular basis. Blogging is a really popular thing right now, and i think it's a place where a lot of talking is done, but nothing actually gets done. We can discuss and argue and debate over issues, but what is that doing to accomplish the work of the Kingdom of God in the world? I think it definitely can have its good effects, but seriously? Is blogging just an outlet for my own narcissism, in order for people to read my stuff and know how wise and spiritual i am? maybe sometimes. that's why i'm so hesitant about Twitter. I'm tempted to join sometimes, but part of it just feels like pure narcissism wrapped up in less than 140 characters.

but in all honesty, i really do think my main motives are for good, and for good outside myself. i want to bless others with what God has blessed me. I want to teach people. I think the Lord has called me to be a teacher of His Word in some form, and since i don't really have an outlet for teaching at the moment, this is a good place. Even if one person is blessed by it, then it's worth it, isn't it? Ironically, i blogged about this a long time ago, back when i first started this blog. Jesus has called me to proclaim that which He is teaching me, and i want to be obedient to that, whatever form it may take.

So maybe i'll keep trying for now. Not just for Sarah (not that i'm not annoyed by your complaining!), not for me, but for the sake of God's people and being faithful to the calling that the Lord has placed on my life.

Sex and Humanity

2009-06-13T11:48:00.004-04:00

Sex is (for obvious reasons) a very interesting topic. It's so interesting to me to observe the attitudes about sex in our popular culture, and especially within Christianity. We have moved from the Victorian-era taboo attitude towards sex, where talking about it is socially forbidden, to the post-sexual revolution, where sex is very casual and not really a big deal to most people anymore. Many Christians in this generation have turned sex into a big deal again, but in a good way. We are led by the Mark Driscoll's, who's favorite book in the Bible is Song of Solomon, and preach more about sex than most other topics relevant to Christianity. Christians have begun to embrace sex as something God-given and awesome, and propagate it as the highest form of physical intimacy that borders on the spiritual experience.

I think sex is definitely a God-given thing for us to experience pleasure, but I think the pendulum of sexual attitudes has swung all the way to the other extreme of exalting sex too much. This has been a topic talked about in several blogs that I read recently. One great point that was made was that, if we Christians look to Jesus as the archetype of all that it means to be human, then sexuality can tell us nothing about what it truly means to be human, because Jesus was never married or had sex. Sexuality can't be the ultimate human experience, because Christ, the ultimate human, never experienced it. I think that's part of the reason why so many Christians have the attitude towards marriage as bringing completeness in someone's life. Marriage and sex have been so over-theologized that if someone is still single past the expected time when they should be married, then they have not experienced fulfillment as a human being and are somehow not following God's will. Because of course, it is God's will that everyone should be married and have 3 kids and a white picket fence.

I can know the full reality of being human without ever having sex. Because Christ, my ultimate example in EVERYTHING, is the full reality of being human. Frankly, sex and marriage are not necessary to being human. This is not to discount that they are, in fact, gifts from God. There's no doubt in my mind that they are good within their God-given context, but we've just over-glorified and over-spiritualized them.

Humanity has tried making sex taboo, and we've tried glorifying sex, and neither really works. Can't sex just be something ordinary? Why does it have to be something that we haggle over whether it is good or bad, or appropriate to talk about in Church? We just need to get back to the focus of making Christ our ultimate goal, and let everything else fall into place after that.

Awkward Questions.

2009-06-03T23:00:00.001-04:00

This is one of my greatest fears about going into ministry...

A Great Discussion

2009-05-26T01:36:00.002-04:00

Just finished up a great conversation with my wonderful friend Steve via Facebook messaging. Steve and i have a history of arguments that can get a tad nasty, but i think we've learned that we really are good to keep each other in check when we both try to act like we know what we're talking about. I really enjoy the discussions we have when we both seek to find the Truth in what the Lord is teaching us both, and it's great because we rarely agree fully.

This most recent discussion stemmed from a letter by C.S. Lewis that discussed just war from a Christian standpoint. Our discussion then dives into issues of just war, pacifism, authority, and the relationship of the Church and the State. You can view our discussion in its entirety here. I would recommend taking a look at it. I like it, anyways. I love talking about this stuff, it can get me all riled up, so feel free to add to the discussion!

Eyes on the Prize

2009-05-22T14:33:00.003-04:00

“Man was created to this end: that he should praise God, Our Lord, and reverence and serve Him, and by doing these things, should save his soul. And all the other things on the face of the earth were created for man, to help him in attaining the end for which he was created. Whence it follows that man must use these things only in so far as they help him towards his end, and must withdraw himself from them in so far as they are obstacles to his attaining his end…Wherefore it is necessary that we make ourselves indifferent to all created things, in so far as it is permitted to our free will…in such a way that, as far as we are concerned, we should not desire health rather than sickness, riches rather than poverty, honor rather than ignominy, a long life rather than a short life, and so on, desiring and choosing only these things which more efficaciously lead us to the end for which we were created.”
--Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain, p. 269

I think i'm beginning to gain greater perspective on just how much the reality of God must infect everything that i am and do. My life must be so focused on my end goal--the Kingdom of God in Christ--that i understand that everything else in the world can only serve to help me attain this goal or distract me from it. Anything that doesn't affect that end must be met simply with indifference, because it does not matter. Our Lord says to us, rather than worry about what we will eat or wear or do, we should seek first the Kingdom of God and righteousness, and then all else that we need will be given to us (Matt. 6:33). Seek the end goal. All the rest can only be the means to the end or nothing at all. That quote above blew my mind. Sickness, health, poverty, wealth, honor, shame--they mean nothing in themselves unless they are serving as a means to the end of gaining Christ (Phil. 3:8). If sickness will help you gain Christ or draw more into His Kingdom, desire sickness. If your shame brings honor to the Kingdom of God, desire shame. The desire for the end goal must be so powerfully present within us that the importance of everything else is only measured by how much it helps or detracts from achieving it. Therefore, all hardships, all circumstances, all the crappy things that life throws our way--they don't matter. We must keep pushing through them, or use them to attain our goal. "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:13-14). God is blowing my mind with this, and i'm having trouble expressing it in words. I hope that He will rock you as i have been rocked with this, regardless of my limitations.

My New Hero

2009-05-15T01:24:00.005-04:00

This is Lionel Tiger. DR. Lionel Tiger. Go ahead, say his name out loud. And say it again. Do you feel the awesomeness pumping through your veins yet? Did you feel a shiver down your spine at the mere mention of it? He has, hands-down, the coolest name i have ever heard of in my entire life. He is all that is man. And beast. He is a cultural anthropologist, and he is the originator of the term "male bonding." Anyone who does research into male bonding HAS to be the manliest man of all time. I want to be Lionel Tiger when i grow up. Or at least name any kids i might have after him.

Merton on Wars and God's Mercy

2009-05-13T22:07:00.003-04:00

People seem to think that it is in some way a proof that no merciful God exists, if we have so many wars. On the contrary, consider how in spite of centuries of sin and greed and lust and cruelty and hatred and avarice and oppression and injustice, spawned and bred by the free wills of men, the human race can still recover, each time, and can still produce men and women who overcome evil with good, hatred with love, greed with charity, lust and cruelty with sanctity. How could all this be possible without the merciful love of God, pouring out His grace upon us?

Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain, p. 128

What a Terrible Idea...

2009-05-08T15:24:00.004-04:00

The American Patriot's Bible is a new hot product right now. This bible (in NKJV) claims that it "shows how the history of the United States connects the people and events of the Bible to our lives in a modern world." The Patriot's Bible comes with accompanying articles that show how the Bible supports the American (religious right) cause and gives a call to action for true American Christians to stand up for their beloved country that is so very blessed by God. In it, George Washington (debated whether or not he was a Deist) is hailed as the "American Moses," and many of its points are taken far out of context. It is a bible for people who love America AND God. I feel like you'd have to love them in that order if this bible is appealing to you. Here's a promo video for the Patriot's Bible, which claims that its readers will "experience spiritual growth, and an enhanced sense of American patriotism."

This is idolatry. This is the religious right combining their worship of America with worship of God. God did not tolerate this kind of religious syncretism with Israel, and I doubt He'll tolerate it now. Here and here are critiques (a softened term for it--he rips it apart) by theologian-pastor Greg Boyd, the author of The Myth of a Christian Nation. The truth is, America is NOT a Christian nation. Many of the founding fathers were Deists, which is pretty much an anti-Christian psuedo-religion borne out of the Enlightenment. I feel like the religious right in America is beginning to try too hard, because they see their downfall coming soon, and in desperation, they've transitioned to idolatry. Sadly, i think many people will be quite taken by this. Any other thoughts?

A Leader of Leaders

2009-05-08T12:02:00.002-04:00

This is why i love reading Perry Noble. His blog is probably my favorite one to read, and i read a lot of them. He's a pastor in North Carolina, and he's got a ton of passion to go along with a strong biblical foundation and good common sense. He is a leader's leader, and i appreciate his stuff a lot. You should go check out the link on why and how leaders need to have "humble confidence."

The Early Church vs. The American Church: A New Perspective.

2009-05-04T13:31:00.003-04:00

Here's a great post from Larry Osborne on the future of the Church in America. In it, he uses a really awesomely unique perspective from the book of Acts. This post really convicted me. I think i (and many others in my generation) tend to be very critical of the Church in America, and i love to point out problems, but never offer any solutions. Sometimes i tend to hold up the early Church in the New Testament as what we should aim for and the model we should pursue. But, as Larry points out, the early Church was far from perfect, too. They had just as many flaws as we do in the Church today, just not in the same ways most of the time. So go read that. It'll be well worth your time.

Some Individualistic, Narcissitic Thoughts

2009-05-04T00:37:00.003-04:00

No, this is not a "25 Things" blog. Please no. I still refuse to do one of those.

But i think i've been learning a lot of things about myself recently, and they have come to my attention, so i figured i'd write them down.

I prefer to listen rather than talk most of the time. When i'm talking and trying to make a point, i much prefer succinctness over talking for a long time. I have friends that are very good talkers, and they can go on and on about a point, elaborating and elaborating more. Not that that's bad, but it's not my style. I'll try to say it short and say it well. I've especially been noticing this in prayer. Sometimes it almost bothers me when people are praying and they're just going on and on about nothing, and a lot of times it feels like they've said this stuff a thousand times over and they're just saying it to say it. I just like to say what needs to be said and be done with it. That turned into a hyper-critical rant, and i'm sorry about that. Am i disproving my own point? Hmm....

I don't like to form an opinion unless i'm forced to. I find that it works best for me to keep an open mind about most situations when they don't directly apply to me. So that leaves me ambivalent about most things, and I'm okay with that. This applies politically, theologically, philosophically, and relationally. I'll often try to look at the options as objectively as i can and not pick sides until there's comes a point when i have to. I'm not sure yet if this is a good quality or not, but i kind of like it. It makes life and relationships and discussions easier.

My life and my relationship with the LORD improve dramatically when i am doing well at being disciplined, whether it's physically, spiritually, mentally, whatever. But still i don't do well with discipline, regardless of how it affects me. That's dumb.

Sometimes i just like to rebel against the status quo and against popular opinion for the fun of it.

Regardless of that last statement, i've found myself gravitating more and more this past semester back toward the traditional Church practices. There is so much richness and value in those, and it makes me wonder how much other churches are missing out on when they refuse to do traditional stuff.

I like my introverted-ness, but sometimes i wish i was better at conversations with people.

I thought i had more than that, but i guess not. Maybe if i think of more, i'll edit later.

Goodnight!

Wow.

2009-04-29T01:33:00.002-04:00

Go read this awesomely titled blog post by Halden on the pathetic nature of Christian love.

Quotable Merton

2009-04-29T00:57:00.004-04:00

From Thomas Merton's spiritual autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, which i'm reading for my History of Christianity class:

There is not a flower that opens, not a seed that falls into the ground, and not an ear of wheat that nods on the end of its stalk in the wind that does not preach and proclaim the greatness and the mercy of God to the whole world.

There is not an act of kindness or generosity, not an act of sacrifice done, or a word of peace and gentleness spoken, not a child's prayer uttered, that does not sing hymns to God before His throne, and in the eyes of men, and before their faces.

How does it happen that in the thousands of generations of murderers since Cain, our dark bloodthirsty ancestor, that some of us can still be saints? The quietness and hiddenness and placidity of the truly good people in the world all proclaim the glory of God.

Random, i know. But i really liked it.