Let Me Sleep, It's Christmastime.

"Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel, (which means, God with us)." Matthew 1:23

It has been a while. No surprise there, as when I am home I am easily distracted and don't do much good. But here is a passage that blows my mind. And it fits a nice Christmas theme. The Christmas season is one for miracles. The virgin birth seems to be the big one people talk about. That is a biggie, I will grant it, but the more I think on it, the biggest thing that blows my mind about Christmas is Immanuel, meaning God with us. That God stepped down into His creation and took human form. Christ, who is equal with the Father did not see equality with Him as something to be grasped (Phillippians 2:6) but He came down to be a servant and die for our sins. He left perfect intimate fellowship which He had enjoyed for all eternity, and came down to bear the wrath of God for my sins. He came to have the father turn His face away. God, all powerful, magnificent, he came down and was born a small crying child in the humblest of surroundings. It is amazing. God with us! GOD WITH US! Not some distant God of Mount Olympus who comes and goes as he feels. Not some removed prescence that may or may not care. But God, perfect and loving beyond all comprehension, with us, on Earth walking, living as a man. The same weaknesses. The same struggles. The pain. The death. The scorn. And He rose and ascended and sent the Spirit of God, to be with us now. God with us. Christmas is the day to celebrate Jesus' birth, when love was made manifest in flesh, human form.

This hits me right now as I am here feeling far too human lately. Feeling like I do not eveen do a very good job at that. That I don't really want to be here. Don't really want to be anywhere. Hell, don't really want to be at all. But at the very bottom of things, far down past it all, wherever in my mind or heart I feel despaired, I feel alone, I feel unloved, somewhere down there something is whispering "Immanuel." Love came down. Love for me. Jesus would deign (Deign is one of my favorite words to use talking about this, since it means "to condescend to give or grant" meaning He would come down to our level despite the fact he is far superior) to come down, leave the Father, live as a man, facing all the trials, temptations, and fears that we do, be hated, beaten, and killed, because he loved me. And He loved me for no other reason than that He loved me. I am a terrible person. I am, there is no denying that. All the time, I am a terrible, sometimes I display it more clearly, but it is always there. And that doesn't matter. God loves me. Jesus died for me. My sins are forgiven.

Some 2000+ years ago God came down. God with us. God saved me.

Papa Don't Preach

"God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba, Father!'" Galatians 4:6
"See what kind of love the father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are...Beloved, we are God's children now." 1 John 3:1-2

There are more, but these are the two that struck my mind as I thought of this one. I am starting here, with a truth that strikes me as so hard to comprehend. We are children of God. We have a close, intimate relationship with Him, to the point we call out "Abba!" which means daddy. That is not a word that is used for just anyone. It signifies a close and personal relationship. And this is what we have with God. The one true God. The great I AM. The creator of all that ever was, is, or ever shall be. He is God over all the nations. And this God, I can call Him daddy. This He tells us. We are His children, beloved.
There are so many crazy promises in scripture that I cling to even as I struggle to fully comprehend or believe them. But this one is staggering. We are nothing, deserving of nothing, with nothing to offer. And He is God. There is nothing there that would merit Him to love me. In fact, there never was nor ever will be any reason for Him to love me, other than that He loves me. That He, according to His perfect will and purpose of election loved me and chose me before the foundations of the Earth were lain. That is staggering.
So why don't we believe this all the time? I think the thing that gets me is that God is so big that I am in awe of Him to a degree I cannot comprehend Him as a fatherly figure. Fear and awe and reverence cloud my view. And while God is to be feared, marveled at, and revered, He also tells us we have this close bond with Him.
It kind of is like children who see their dad as the greatest person ever, who can do anything and easily beat up anyone else's dad. He can do no wrong. They are in awe of him. They love him. They respect him. But they also are able to run to him. When they scrape their knee or there is a monster in the closet, he is there, close and personal. Even for all their fear and reverence of him, they never forget that he is their dad and loves them like nobody else could.
Driscoll told a story that ignited this line of thought. He was talking about how we are God's children and also about the fact that we sometimes, when we worship or pray do so with language that is extra magnanimous, thinking that God wants to hear that and will respond better for it. But he told a story about his son, who he woke up one night to hear shrieking. He ran to his son's room to find his son in great pain. Apparently he had gotten his first charley horse and it woke him up in terrible pain. And he said to his dad as he came to help him "Dad, make it better." No thee's or thou's. No lofty speech beseeching him and requesting his attentiveness. Just a simple "Dad, make it better."
Dad, make it better. God is our father, and He should be viewed as such. He is a loving and kind, caring father. And He deserves our respect, our love, our fear and awe and admiration. But He is always our father. To whom we can say, in a spirit of love and faith and knowing he cares, "Dad, make it better."
And that is a truth, a promise that we have; that we are children of God. That we can call Him Abba. To know that, the closeness of God. The true depth of His love. It is amazing and something that is unrivaled in all of creation.

Living Just To Find Emotion

Knowing and believing are two very different and very important things. Right now I am a bit too tired to go into anything in real depth, but in the near future it is something I will write about. The Bible has some crazy promises that God makes for us who love Him, and they are so important to both know and believe, because they are promises that we need to cling to. Lately, for about a month or two, I have felt odd, like I have reached a point of stability. I almost feel like I am not learning anything new, but am only building in to the things I already know, reinforcing them and coming to know them more completely. This has been odd. I don't know. I feel like if I am not learning something new then I am missing something. But maybe I just really need to have the same stuff reinforced. These promises are one of those things that is being beaten into me to the point I am realizing the crazy importance of it. But like I said, more will come. Until again, farewell.

Farmer in the Dell

I am not really that familiar with farming. But growing up I wanted to be a frog farmer, so I think that qualifies me to write regarding farming from a point of some, if not unlimited, knowledge.

Being a Christian is a lot like being a farmer. I mean, look at the Bible. We all know the parable of the seed sower. Parables about mustard seeds. Not letting a seed of bitterness sprout up. Knowing a tree by its fruit. And the list could keep on going.
But the passage I want to focus on is in Galatians:
"Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life." Galatians 6:7-8
So as I read this the other night my thoughts went back to chapter five of Galatians where Paul writes about the desires of the flesh and the fruits of the Spirit. What I have come to realize is that I am the most foolish farmer that ever has lived. I hate being bitter. I hate being angry. I hate being jealous. And this list too goes on and on with all these desires of the flesh. I hate them. I want the fruits of the Spirit. But what I am finding is that all I do is plant seeds of destruction. I let these seeds of anger or bitterness or jealousy or lust fall. I see them hit the dirt and be firmly planted there. I do nothing. Then I go on watering them, nurturing them, watching them grow. All the while I stand as a spectator in my mind wondering why I would do this. And in the end I am surprised when what I get are rotten things. On the other side I also know the things I can do to be planting seeds of the Spirit. And I know how to feed these. The thing is that it is harder this way.
There is that old story about two wolves that fight within the soul of a man, one of good, the other of evil. The one that wins is the one that you feed. It is kind of like that, in that the seeds that grow are the ones I water. The ones that grow are the ones that are going to produce fruit. And the fruit I produce shows who I am. And so this is why I am trying to make a better conscious effort.
Farming was never my forte.

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry

I am going to die. Before that day comes I am going to do my best to live.
There is a time for everything under the sun. There are going to be seasons of joy and plenty, seasons of pain and loss and famine. There is a time to mourn, a time for silence, a time to speak, a time to move on. In all of these things God has placed opportunities for joy if we are seeking Him. There are always opportunities to love Jesus and bring Him glory. That is what matters. Life is so short, then we die. While we are alive we had best be living, not just existing. Eat, drink, be merry! Do not let your eating turn to gluttony. Do not let your drinking turn to drunkenness. Do not let your merriment turn to debauchery. Do not use your freedom to gratify the desires of the flesh. But in all things seek first the kingdom of God. Find joy in your days. A day like today where I could sit under a tree in the sun listening to music, even with all the crap going on around me, there is joy there. God is there through it all. He makes everything beautiful in its time. That is all that matters in life. God. He is it. Death will come, and when it does it will seem like it is there far too soon. Whenever my lot is up, I am okay with that, but from now til then I will live.

The Fall of Carlyle

Just a few verses tonight. I will let you figure out why they are all in my head tonight and how they all fit together within my life and the context of Ecclesiastes.

"For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin." Romans 14:23
"Behold, all was vanity and a striving after the wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun." -Ecclesiastes 2:11
"So I hated life..." Ecclesiastes 2:17
"But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." Matthew 6:33
"Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." Ecclesiastes 12:13
"For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?" -Mark 8:36
"So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God." -1 Corinthians 10:31

Okay, I am going to explain each in a sentence or two, because I still feel like typing.
Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. Everything under the sun (which means apart from Heaven or God, which is to say anything solely of the world or for the world) is meaningless, vapor, a striving after the wind. So when we seek anything apart from God, then anything, and everything, we do is not only useless, but also sin. And what use is it for us to gain anything we think we want in life if to do so is sin? It is of no use. And so we may look at life and hate it for nothing has any meaning and so often we are led to sin.
But, whatever we do, we can also do to the glory of God. This includes eating or drinking or anything. Things are not intrinsically evil. But our motives for doing them make them so. So living for the glory of God is the cure. Fear God and keep His commandments. Then we will live for His glory. Then we can eat drink and be merry and do so to the glory of God, so that we will not be in sin. And of course the only way to do this is to seek first His kingdom and righteousness.
My mind is on overload. So many strings coming together. I love God. I hate sin. I hate the sin within me. But I love God. And that is enough. He is enough.

Vapor

In Ecclesiastes, the word meaningless, or vanity, or frustration, may also be translated to mean vapor. As in, all life under the sun (apart from God, the earthly realm alone) is vapor, like seeing your breath on a cold day, brief and then gone forever. I listened to a few Driscoll sermons on the first two chapters of Ecclesiastes, and I again realize the reason I love this book is that it is depressing, but brutally honest. Meaning, of course, that the brutal truth of life is somewhat depressing. It doesn't matter if you are wise or a fool, in the long run both die. Nothing here really matters. We work so hard to get the things we want, but then we are too busy to enjoy them, then we die and someone else takes them and gets to enjoy them.
Here lies the problem of my life: "I will be happy, just as soon as..." and fill in the blank with the things I think I need that will make me happy. I'd be happy if only I had money, so I didn't have to worry about things so much. I'd be happy if I had love, or at least a girlfriend because then I wouldn't be so alone. I'd be happier if I just had knowledge, what to do with my life, how to do things. I would be happy if I just had leisure, nothing to do, no worries. This mindset leads me to be depressed. Because I don't have these things. But I think that they will bring me happiness, if only I could get them. They are vapor. They will not bring me joy. They are not God.
Eat, drink, and be merry. This is something Solomon says we are to do. We need to find contentment in what God has given us and blessed us with. We must not strive for more things, never taking time to enjoy what we are given. Eat good food, enjoy it, but don't let it become and idol. Drink good beer, or wine if you prefer, enjoy it, don't sin in drinking too much and don't let it become an idol. If you find love, enjoy it, but it is not God, so don't let it try to be. Enjoy the blessings in life, but don't elevate them to something more than they are. They are, in the end, vapor.
God is lasting. God is good.
In the beginning God was Lord and steward over us. We were lords and stewards of the earth. Then we sinned and our relationship with God was ruined. And as we were now frustrating and a problem for God, he cursed the earth to be frustrating and problematic for us. This frustration we feel with life, this hatred of life we may come to feel if we continue to persist in foolishness, this is pointing to God with all its might. Because God alone will endure. The rest is vapor.

The Vanity of Pleasure

"I said to my heart 'Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.' But behold, this was also vanity." Ecclesiastes 2:1

In the first verse here we see what has become a traditional view of how to live life. Enjoy yourself, deny no pleasure, and surely this will satisfy you. Solomon, in his life, enjoyed pleasures that we may never dream of. But behold, it was also vanity. It was meaningless. A chasing after the wind. "I said of laughter 'It is mad,' and of pleasure 'What use is it?" Laughter brings joy and merriment for a moment, then it ends and silence pours back in. Pleasure may fill that gaping hole inside of us for a moment, but then it recedes and we are left alone with our emptiness that has now grown deeper. "I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine." This is a verse I can get behind. Of course this just brings up the same old problem of nothing good coming from it, and only a temporary feeling of satisfaction that is fleeting and turns into a feeling of foolish shame. He goes on to talk of great works he accomplished to bring him pleasure. Great gardens grown. Slaves owned. Herds and flocks, more so than any who had come before him. Silver and gold and the treasures of princes and provinces. Singers and concubines "the delight of the children of men."
"So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem." -2:9
"Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept from my heart no pleasure." -2:10
But for all of that he finds this in verse 11: "Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after the wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun."
I think of all the things I want to do that I do not do because they are sins. Now there is a part of me that still strongly desires to do them. Not the whole of me, for there is a part of me that wants to do only good and obey the Lord and keep His laws that I know are good (see Romans 7). But at the same time the temptations are still there. But look at Solomon. He lived it. He had the sex, the booze, the money, the power, the fame. He had it all. Everything there is in this world that men tend to put ahead of God. And what did he find in the end? He looked over it all and realized that none of it was worth anything. It was vanity. Useless. A chasing after the wind. It is sad sometimes that we don't take other peoples' word for things. like if we listened to this maybe we would recognize that no amount of perceived pleasure is ever going to mean a thing without God. God is the only thing in this life that satisfies.
So I need to look at my own life through that lens. There are lots of things I think I want. But having a new car, while it might make me worry less, it is not going to satisfy me. Having a job is not going to satisfy. Having more money isn't going to do anything. Finding a date or a girlfriend is not going to bring me any real joy. None of these things, in and of themselves, are going to make me happy. I feel like they might. I feel like I want them so badly that I hate it. It doesn't mean that they are bad things. It doesn't mean that my desire for them is necessarily bad. But if they are the things I am seeking first, then they are. Because all they will amount to is nothing. They are useless, like chasing the wind. Instead I must learn to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Not, of course, a promise that I will get everything I want. But a promise that God will provide me with exactly what I need, and also provide me with the heart to want those things, and so my desires will then be met, because they are His desires for me. Not sure if that made sense. But I like it.
Pleasure is vanity. Nothing matters if we do not first seek God. Fear God and keep His commands. This is the whole duty of man. Amen.

Vanity

All is vanity. So begins one of my favorite books of the Old Testament. The reason I love this book, Ecclesiastes, is the it gets to the heart of existence. Everything is useless, it is all mere vanity, a chasing after the wind.
What does man get for all his toil? Nothing. In the end we will all die and all the work we have done will have been for nothing.
The sun rises and goes down and rises, the winds blow on and on. It is endless, but my days are numbered, they will end.
All streams run into the sea, but the sea is never full.
All things are full of weariness.
The eye is never satisfied with seeing, the ear never fulfilled in its hearing. We will never find anything here to satisfy us. There is always this hunger for more and more in the world.
There is nothing new under the sun. Everything has been done before and will be done again.
Everything will be forgotten. Things in the past already have been, and the future will look on these days now and remember nothing of them, they will have been as nothing, but it will not be new.
Wisdom and knowledge, they are mere vanity, they increase sorrows.
This book starts off outlining these things. This seems depressing. Perhaps it truly is, and now you know why I love it. But the thing is, this whole book outlines a life full of everything men seek after. Solomon, who is attributed the authorship of the book, lived a life most would envy. He had great wisdom, answers to all that people would ask. He did great wonders. He had power, wealth, women, and whatever else he desired. But in the end he looked back and saw the truth, that all he had done, all he had sought, it was all worthless, it was all vanity, a chasing after the wind.
Think of the wind, it would be foolish to chase it. Yet this is what we do every day. We chase after the wind. What would be gained even if we could follow the wind to where it ends? Nothing. It would be useless. The wind is useless to us and the chasing of said uselessness if more foolish. This is to say that we waste our days endeavoring for something we never needed in the first place. All we are is foolish people chasing vanity.
Now, Solomon spends a good portion of the book dealing with all of this. And I will admit it gets confusing at times, but I enjoy this book and so I am letting it direct my reading and writing for the next little while. I am not sure if anything remotely of value will come of it. But of course it ends with the command to fear God and keep His commands, this is the whole duty of man. And that is the only thing that has any meaning. That is why I like the book so much.

But in this first bit I se the futility of a life lived apart from Christ. And while I try to center my life on Christ in all that I do, I find too often the wind distracts me and I chase after it. In my mind I somehow imagine that I have found some magic secret, something new under the sun, if you will, and in the end it is meaningless vanity. The other verse that is dominating my life lately is Matthew 6:33: "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." That verse and this book go together perfect in my mind. Because whatever else we seek is meaningless. God is the whole meaning of my being here. And that comforts me so much.

Past to the Present Future

"I cry aloud to God,
aloud to God, and he will hear me.
In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord;
in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying;
my soul refuses to be comforted.
When I remember God, I moan;
when I meditate, my spirit faints.
You hold my eyelids open;
I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
I consider the days of old,
the years long ago.
I said, “Let me remember my song in the night;
let me meditate in my heart.”
Then my spirit made a diligent search:
“Will the Lord spurn forever,
and never again be favorable?
Has his steadfast love forever ceased?
Are his promises at an end for all time?
Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Has he in anger shut up his compassion?”

Then I said, “I will appeal to this,
to the years of the right hand of the Most High.”

I will remember the deeds of the Lord;
yes, I will remember your wonders of old.
I will ponder all your work,
and meditate on your mighty deeds.
Your way, O God, is holy.
What god is great like our God?
You are the God who works wonders;
you have made known your might among the peoples.
You with your arm redeemed your people,
the children of Jacob and Joseph.

When the waters saw you, O God,
when the waters saw you, they were afraid;
indeed, the deep trembled.
The clouds poured out water;
the skies gave forth thunder;
your arrows flashed on every side.
The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind;
your lightnings lighted up the world;
the earth trembled and shook.
Your way was through the sea,
your path through the great waters;
yet your footprints were unseen.
You led your people like a flock
by the hand of Moses and Aaron."

-Psalm 77

I read this this weekend and it has ascended to near the top of my list of favorite psalms. It is just full of amazing things. First, the psalmist is in the midst of a trial. He is melancholy, and yet he begins by saying he will call to the Lord and he knows the Lord hears. This is important because the second half of the first half of the psalm is about God seeming to not be there, so the fact that he says this and knows it even if he can't feel it is sweet. Next, he acknowledges that he is in the midst of a bad time, and his frist instinct and action is to seek the Lord. Not to mope around or go buy whiskey or do something stupid, but to recognnize the trouble that you are in and seek the Lord above all else as the cure. Then he goes to talk about how God seems to have left him. But what does he do then? He looks back at all the things God has done. He remembers how great God truly is.

Application time: there are times in my life where I go on living and cannot feel God's presence. I feel so far and solated from Him. Often times this leads to despair. To feel so disconnected from Him who gives life meaning leaves life feeling quite empty. And I am too quick to not look to the Lord immediately. But I need to remember that He hears our cries, even if we don't realize it, if we can't feel Him all the time. And more than that, I see the need to remember who God truly is. To look back at all He has done, to search His Word and recall all the wonders He has done. To reaffirm His love for me, that even if I can't feel it at the moment, I can see so clearly evidenced by the simple fact I am still alive right now.

This is just a sweet psalm and I wanted to put it out here. God is so amazing and I don't know what else to say unless I want to make up more words for how great He is. I did realize one thing. That if I focus my whole being on the Lord, on who He truly is and how He truly loves me, it makes me want to either jump up and down in joy and make up words for how great He truly is, since no word exists to do that justice, or it makes me want to cry. I don't cry, a defect I have left over from the old days, but if I were going to cry it would be because of the love of God, that He loved me so that I would love Him. That is amazing, since I know all the crap I've done.

Thank you God for loving me.

Let's Be Blunt

"How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, then follow him; but if Baal, then follow him." -1 Kings 18:21

If the Lord is God, then follow Him. If something else is god, then follow that. It truly is that simple. We cannot go limping between these two different opinions. Now, you might say or think, as I did at first "Well that's easy. God is God. I follow God." But then I stopped and looked at my actions and my life. Maybe I follow God most of the time, but I am still putting things above him, a different opinion as to what deserves to be central in my life. But let's be blunt here. You either follow God or you don't. Let's be logical. Has anything other than god EVER satisfied? No! Has anything other than God EVER led to anything truly profitable? No! Has anything other than God EVER given me anything but misery? No! THE LORD IS GOD! There is no other option. Baal, or any other false idols we want to throw in there, they are nothing. And if the Lord is God, FOLLOW HIM! With everything you are, follow Him. It is that simple. But of course, I am a human and a foolish one at that and I am an expert at making something complicated out of something simple. But we need to stop limping after two opinions and run full fledged after the Lord who is God. That is all there is to it.

Skrishelic (Agnew)

So I have to quickly write something that amazes me. I may come back to this in length later, but for now I just wanted to touch on it. In my journal I am looking at and writing about Matthew 10, because there is some sweet stuff there, some amazing and important things, and I love it. I also am hoping to write on Ecclesiastes on here, but I am having some difficulty right now. I am Xangaing through the 12 steps, which is going well, so ultimately I hope to be writing daily because that is always good for me. Anyways, here is something I love:

"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father....Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows." Matthew 10: 31, 33

First time I read this I thought that many sparrows would still only cost a few cents, a dollar or two at most, and that thought amused me. But the heart of this these verses is amazing, especially for someone like me who wonders sometimes if God truly cares about the little things in my life. In the midst of great tragedies and wars and all the great evils of this world, I can't comprehend that God would deign to hear my tiny prayers about the crap in my life. As Kevin Devine said in song "I realize that my (crap)'s about as small as it could be, but that just makes me feel worse for even feeling that bad in the first place." So I know my problems may be small in the grand scheme of things. But Jesus tells us that no sparrow falls from the sky without God's hand in it. And what is a sparrow? It is nothing, they are sold two for a penny, which, adjusted for inflation, would basically be them paying us to take sparrows. They are meaningless. And yet their lives are held in the hands of the Lord. And here are we, here am I, a human made in God's own image. Humans, elevated over all creation. If God cares enough to watch the sparrows, then how much more will He watch over us and love us?! I know God loves me. And I will always say that on a macro scale that is evident. But on a micro scale it is not always evident, not always palpable. But there it is, Christ assures us that it is there, that love, in every detail of our lives. That the life of a lowly sparrow is held in God's hands, and so my life too will of course be there. God is a God who knows, who pas attention, and who cares. Because He loves us so much and He only wants us to be happy. And for us to be happy means that we see and know God and love and appreciate and glorify Him for it. That is when we are most satisfied, when He is most glorified. It doesn't mean that I am going to get the thing I want, because it is entirely possible that by not getting said thing I will need to rely on God, be satisfied by Him alone, and come to grow in my love and appreciation for Him. That is awesome. God withholds no good things from those who love Him. And I know I love Him, so I know that He is not withholding anything that is good for me. Heck, he cares about the sparrows, and I am worth at least six or seven sparrows, so then I know that God cares about me. In the big stuff, in the little stuff, in every aspect of my life. How amazing is our God? A God of infinite majesty and power and might who loves me, a lowly creature. It is truly amazing, I cannot even explain it with words. I feel there is no word capable of expressing how truly mystified I am. It is Skrishelic (A random word I am making up because a proper word does not exist). Thank you God!

Don't Forget to Breathe

"None sing hymns to breath. But oh, to be without it." -Lord of Light

"Nor is (God) served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and BREATH and everything."

Breathe in. Good. Now breathe out. Wonderful. Think about what just happened. You breathed. Not a big deal, right? We do it all the time. Oxygen comes into our lungs, goes out in our blood cells, and goes to our cells all over the body, and then we exhale CO2, which is bad, and this keeps going, and so we live. (Okay, if I remember my Magic School Bus, that is how it works when we breathe. If that is wrong, then I am stupid and apologize, but my point is still valid.) How often do we stop and thank God for giving us breath? How often do we recognize this as an amazing manifestation of his grace and love. Just simply to breathe.
How about before a rainstorm, when the air is charged. Think about a cool autumn day, crisp air filling your lungs. Biting cold in the middle of winter, you can feel the air going deep and see it come back out. Or simply emerging from a stuffy room out into the clear night to get fresh air. Breathing is amazing. In fact, I will honestly say that one of my favorite things to do is breathe. Just sit back, in a meadow or by some body of water, close my eyes, and breathe.
But days wear on and they take their toll. Before we know it we are rushing from one thing to another. There is always something to worry about, someone to please, and so we lose sight of breath. We still are breathing, but we just don't notice it. One of those tiny miracles we take for granted. No one celebrates breathing, but to be without it is torture.
So here is my honest plea to all of you out there who happen to read this (which I think is at one person right now), please, don't forget to breathe. Don't forget that you are breathing. Notice it, enjoy it, and above all, praise the Lord that you are breathing.
It is something more than utilitarian. Just some method our body uses to keep us alive. It is a gift from God.

God, thank you for the gift of breathing.

Ranting at 2 am.

So when will we all wake up and admit that America is pretty much struggling to stay afloat? I read a bit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech before the U.N. and while I think he is an idiot (solely for his denial of the Holocaust) it saddens me that he makes a lot of sense when talking about the state of America. He said "As long as the aggressors, because of their financial, political and propaganda powers, not only escape punishment, but even claim righteousness, and as long as wars are started and nations are enslaved in order to win votes in elections, not only will the problems of the global community remain unsolved, but they will be increasingly exacerbated," and while I do not agree with a lot of his thoughts, some of them, like this one, make sense.
America is no longer this shining beacon of greatness, this ideal nation that the world ought to be worshiping. If we ever were that it ought to be plain by now that we no longer are. Hell, 700 Billion dollars to bail out Wall Street ought to sound odd to us and really, it should piss us off. What has our government been doing? Other than winning elections based on gay marriage, abortion, and stem cells, none of which they have done much about, they have simply put us in a position where we are in a war that is unwinnable, costing billions of dollars, and killing thousands of people. Causing unrest in the Middle East. Ignoring social justice issues like genocide in Darfur. Hell, Bono is doing more good in the world than our government, than our country, and why is it that no one is pissed off about this?
I cannot put all the blame on the government. I am not a fan of Bush, but that hasn't blinded me to the fact that this is all our fault. Yes, you and I, the average American. Consumer extraordinaire. Why does no one care that our country is failing? Because it could be worse. We look out, and we still own cars and plasma screen tvs. Ignore the fact we can hardly afford gas, can't pay our cable and electric bills, and probably can't even afford the houses we live in.
We live in a country that is run by companies and advertising. Please consider that the entire purpose of advertising is to convince you that you need something that, before you had ever seen it, you lived without perfectly. but we are motivated because if our neighbor gets one and we don't have it we will be looked down upon. Yes, we are that foolish and easy to manipulate. All we want is more. We buy our Nike's made by slaves, marked up several hundred percent, endorsed by someone who makes more to play a game than some countries' GDP, and we buy them up and wear them proudly.
We live in a society so numb and paralyzed by fear that we need to be taking pills to make it through the day. If you aren't satisfied you must have a mood disorder. Because of course the American dream is supposed to be some pretty fairy tale where all we do is frolic in meadows and drive our hummers to little league where our sons grow up to make millions and buy us a nice place to retire. And if we stop to look around at what is really going on we see something so different that is scares us, and instead of doing something about it we let ourselves become zombies.
We live in the age where counterculture has stalled. Gone are the days of true protest, of hippies redefining love and creating something new. Gone are the days of punk where people gave a nice F-off to authority. Now we have hipster bull crap that creates nothing new and adds nothing to the world but some misplace sense of mass-produced "individualism" and angst.
We live in an age of calloused indifference which threatens to destroy everything. We live in what is supposed to be the best nation on Earth. Full of freedom and opportunity. But we get caught up in xenophobic hatred, irrational fear, created by those who say they are protecting us. We are lied to, by our government, by the media that, once, was the backbone of democracy. We are lied to by every single product and advertisement that tells us we need it.
The slums of third-world countries are more alive, more thriving, than our supposedly great country. We are afraid of everything. Community dies as we grasp for more and more things to call our own. Life is dying as we go from living to merely existing.
And one election is not going to fix it. Yes I will vote in November, and I even hope that it does some good, but this goes way beyond picking a new man who will be 90% like the old one. I don't know what the answer is. I don't know if anything short of massive revolution will solve it.
And to us, oh Christians, how we have dropped the ball. We who spend so much time picketing homosexuals, praising our president who lets hundreds of thousands be massacred in Africa, tell me where our priorities are? Because I can't figure out which passage in the Bible tells us to hate. I find several, however, where Jesus calls out hypocrites, then goes off and eats with the tax collectors and prostitutes and loves them. This callousness from us, who call ourselves Christians, that more than anything is unforgivable.
Sorry for the rant, but I needed to say it.

Diction, Ad

Sometimes I amuse myself with the little things in life :)
So I came across something today and it immediately made me think of things regarding the spiritual realm. Here is what I read, from the magazine AdBusters:

"What most of us experience when it comes to addiction is a pattern of continually seeking more of what it is we don't really want and, therefore, never being satisfied. And as long as we are never satisfied, we continue to seek more, while our real needs are never being met."

And at this point in reading, I realize, we, as humans, are addicted to sin.

I will try to explain my logic here. See, we know we sin. We are sinful both by nature and by choice. We are descendants of Adam, and we have original sin and so our very nature is sinful. And considering that before we accept Christ nothing we do proceeds from faith, and so we know from Romans 13 that everything we do therefore is sin. And we know we choose to sin, because we have all done it. Many times. But then we come to know Christ and we are freed from the bondage of free will. That is, we are finally able to do good because of Christ and the Spirit. We are no longer slaves to sin. And so we now have the ability to sin no more. But we still do. Christ proved that it is possible to live a fully human life and never sin, despite facing all the trials and temptations that we all face. So then, we know it is possible, through the Spirit, to not sin. But we do. There has to be a reason. And there is. We are addicts.
We need to understand this concept of "what we really want" because that is important. What we really want is to be happy, to find joy, to find meaning. These are, I would argue, the basic desires of humans. What we overlook is that there is no source of true joy other than Christ. So the only thing anyone really wants, and the only thing people need, is Christ. Think on that and see if maybe your heart for evangelism changes a bit....it is slowly starting to work its way into me, though I am not there yet. But anyways, we are all striving after meaningless pursuits that we do not really want. They seem like what we really want. They may look like it on the outside, or at least give a temporary impression that they are the true thing we seek, but really, they are nothing. And we are left unsatisfied. his is where we mess up really bad. We feel dissatisfied, and too often we attribute that to God. We think that God is withholding our happiness from us. Because, we argue in our minds, if the thing I really want (but not really) isn't satisfying me, then God must be responsible. This is especially true for believers who assume they have been pursuing Christ, but have lost sight of Him and are going after something that seems like the real thing but isn't. And of course an illusion of Christ is not going to satisfy truly. So we assume that it is actually Christ that hasn't satisfied us. I do not know how, with all the love and grace we are given, and all the pain and sorrow being far from Him causes, how we can think that Christ would somehow not satisfy us, but I believe we truly do assume this, at least down somewhere really deep in our subconscious. So then we decide to look elsewhere for satisfaction. And again we are not satisfied and this keeps going until we finally recognize that we have turned so far from God and that this is the reason our lives no longer resemble anything good or worthwhile.
We are addicted to sin. We have, as believers, entered into a recovery program, that, if utilized properly, is 100% effective. But we don't really know how to use it to maximum efficiency, or else we don't believe it really is perfect, and so we fall off the wagon and go on binges, ending up face down in a mixture of (metaphorical) blood and vomit and waste and after spending time wallowing in rock bottom we recall our program (God, Christ, and the Spirit) and because it is perfect we are able to get up again.
We are sick and need to be made well. We have the most amazing healer.
We are weak and cannot stand on our own. We have the power that raised Christ from the dead within us.
We are addicts. But we have Christ, we have grace, and we know that is enough.
No man can, of his own will and power, overcome an addiction. It is a compulsion, something he cannot, of his own will, control. It is impossible. For man, but not for God. With God, all things are possible.
I am so thankful we have a God who loves us and saves us from the ravages of this horrid addiction.

Better

"Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you." Psalm 63:3

I read that, and I can't comprehend it sometimes. Most times. Your steadfast love is BETTER THAN LIFE! Better than being alive. The love of God is better than the whole of life. That statement is huge.
And it seems so simple. Of course God's love is better than life. Life is sadness, we are here in the midst of a time where sin runs rampant on the streets. We live in a place where there is sadness, pain, loss, death, anger, hate. We live in a world where hatred is so strong that seven years ago some people hijacked airplanes and ran them into buildings. We live in a world so heinous that war is not only a constant, but it is also a billion dollar industry. We live in a world where people are bought and sold as though they are things, as though they are less than human. We value money more than love, power over peace, security over justice. We live in a world that screams that life is the best thing there is.
Your steadfast love. Steadfast. It means immovable. The love of God is steadfast, it will never move, indeed it isn't able to. He loves us so much! And that love, it is better than life.
Life can be good. We can find ways to enjoy it. I can list of a seemingly infinite list of all the crap about life that drags me down, and I listed a bit of it above. At the same time I can list so much more that life has to bring us some form of joy. Every blade of grass, every star, every breeze, each drop of rain, all of it is beautiful. Every person that brings a smile to my lips just to think about or to see. These things that are part of life, they are great and I am thankful for them.
Even still, God's steadfast love is better than life. It isn't even close. Not that life is so bad or so good, but it is that God is infinitely greater than all we can know or imagine! God is so much better than life. Every time I read this, it gets to me. One verse, but so powerful.
I consider all the actions I take in a day that seems to be my confession to the opposite; that I love life more than God, that I think it is better. I only need to take one second to remember that is not true. That the steadfast love of God, the God of the universe, who is and was and ever will be, who chose me and set me apart before creation, not for any good I had done or ever would do, but simply because He loved me according to His sovereign purpose, that this God, the God of all creation loves me with a steadfast love! Yeah, that is better than life. And I thank God for that love every day.

Pleasure Cruise

"For am I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ."

Now I know we like to please man. And we all do it. When we avoid calling someone out, we do not speak truth in love, we stay silent in fear of confrontation or what they'll think. But this isn't about that.
How do we please God? Think on that for a moment. What comes to mind? What do we have to do to please God? We went over this tonight, and it led to an interesting thought.
God reveals His will to us in His Word. We are told to "Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God." -Micah 6:8, "Love the Lord your God with all your strength and all your heart and all your mind," and "Love thy neighbor as yourself." -Matthew 22: 37-39. But of course, though these are the things we think of, how we might obey, what we might do that God will be pleased with us, we may not think about John 6:28-29 which says "Then (the disciples) said to (Jesus) 'What must we do to be doing the works of God?' Jesus answered them, 'This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom He has sent."
We were talking about grace, and being cloaked in righteousness. And when this question, of what pleases God was asked, another guy answered, saying that because of grace, God sees us who have accepted Christ as perfect. Which sparked a thought. I will tell you my thought process:
God tells us His will for us in scripture. He has commands which He has given us. And so obedience is important and good, but it can so easily become corrupted by our selfish desires. And selfishness is not pleasing to God. And then I think of this verse where after Jesus was baptized, "A voice from Heaven said 'this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased," -Matthew 3:17, and so we know that God is pleased with His son, Jesus. And we see in Romans 3:21-25 "But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins."
We are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, because of His grace. We are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, with whom God is well pleased! So then, when we lean fully on God, embrace His grace and trust fully and wholly in it, when we sacrifice any claim to righteousness we think we have on our own, cling to grace and clothe ourselves in the righteousness of Christ, then the Lord can look upon and and be well pleased! And it is nothing of ourselves, it is all God's love and grace, and Christ's sacrifice and grace. And we need to thank God for that every day.
Speaking of that, I think we really don't appreciate the magnitude of grace. Common grace, the fact that we are allowed to live at all, the beauty of creation, all of it is a gift of God's grace and a testament to His love for us. Breathe it in deep. It is amazing. I say this because a few hours ago Adam and I were on top of the parking ramp so he could take pictures for a class. While we were up there I looked into the sky and muttered a prayer simply asking to see a shooting star. Not two minutes later, there it went, splitting the night sky with light. And it was amazing. Grace: A favor rendered by one who need not do so. A simple gift, but so amazing. Praise God!

Can Heal The Leper's Spots

"And a leper came to (Jesus), imploring him, and kneeling said to him 'If you will, you can make me clean.' Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, 'I will; be clean.' And immediately the leprosy left him and he was made clean." -Mark 1: 40-42

The other day I was reading an old issue of AdBusters, an amazing magazine, and I came across this quote, regarding prevailing attitudes in America. After an hour of frantic searching I can't find the exact quote, but it was something to this effect; That the leper is resigned to a life without feeling. He loses his toe because he cannot feel the pain of the cuts he gets, cannot feel the infection spreading. He loses limbs because he cannot feel them as they are beaten as he goes through his day. He feels nothing.
And tonight at church it hit me that Jesus cures leprosy several times. And that there may be some incredible symbolism there. Not simply the miracle that Christ heals the sick, because yes that is there and important, but I look at this, and we are all lepers.
We numb ourselves. We go through the day, letting ourselves get nicked. We cut our (metaphorical) feet on broken glass. We bang our arms and legs on tables and doors. We do not feel the infection we pick up in the street, cannot feel the bruise on out skin. And so it festers. We are all in danger of becoming leprous. Uncaring, unmotivated, completely oblivious to what is going on with our bodies, with our lives.
But Christ can cure us. He does. He is moved with pity. Anyone who knows me well should know I do not like the idea of being pitied, but when I look at something like this, that Christ, moved with pity, heals the leper, I thank God for His taking pity upon us. We need to implore him, to be on our knees, asking to be made clean, because our nerves are dead in leprosy. They need to be awoken. We need to feel, to know when we are nicked and cut, so we can be healed. This is, I suppose, an urgent plea not to grow calloused, so numb that it becomes a disease that you can no longer feel. Don't become a leper.

Massive Miniatures

So I read something Piper wrote about the miracle that is rain. He goes through a theoretical conversation trying to explain how rain occurs. How water turns into vapor, rises into the air, travels miles and miles before condensing and dripping back to earth in what is really a complicated process. Here is the link: http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/TasteAndSee/ByDate/1998/1117_The_Great_Work_of_God_Rain/

Reading that gives me a greater appreciation of all the miracles we take for granted. The rain, falling down from the sky. How often do we think of the true miracle that is there. See, science explains away a lot of things. But I feel that something is overlooked in the whole science vs. religion debate, and that is that science reveals much of the glory of God! How can I say this? Simple. God created everything, and His providence sustains it. And so a rock will always be a rock, and will always have the characteristics of a rock. Water is water and always will act like water. Atoms, chemical bonding, and a whole bunch of other chemistry and biology and physics terms that I don't know, all of them reveal a God who is massive and controls everything, even down to the tiniest detail. I don't know about you, but I find that incredible. So when it rains, we ought to appreciate that great work of God. When the trees change colour and go bare in the fall, appreciate that as a great work of God. To me, science doesn't negate the existence of God by any means, it shows just how great He is.

God, your glory shines around. The moon and stars arrive by night, crying out to show your glory and love. The waves sing hymns off the rocks as they crash, they raise a joyous tune in their ebb and flow. The wind sings through the trees, songs of your righteous deeds. The sunset illuminates the beauty of the God who came to save. The plants grow skyward, exalting you, raising their limbs to touch you. The sky spreads out over all creation showing the expanse of your glory and perfection. The lightning shines, illuminating your truth, the thunder rings echoes of your justice. Lord, the birds cry out for want of you. The creatures call out, proclaiming your provision. The ice crystallizes and reflects your glory. Fires rage, illuminating and burning with your passionate love for us. O God! Let me join in with creation to praise you! Lord in whatever way you desire let me fill it. Let my tears water your earth as my knees hit the floor. Let my blood be a testament to your sacrifice. Let my life join in with creation to bring you worship and praise. Father God, perfecter of love, God over all else, whom I love with all my heart, my whole life; Lord be glorified. In my life, be my life. Be glorified Lord. Every step, every breath, every beat of the heart, every instant, be glorified. Be glorified. This I beg. This I pray. Amen.

Discontent

I remember an airplane. I was lying against the window. Finished watching Run Fatboy Run and done sleeping through 21. I remember looking out the window from several thousand feet in the air, looking down at Greenland. I recall scribbling emotion down on what would turn out to be three pages of paper, telling someone how much she meant to me and how much I was going to miss her. I remember the bright white of snow so far below. The pools of glacial blue water nestled here and there to break of the monotony of purity. And I remember thinking how much simpler life would be down there.
I remember back farther, a modest proposal. A ghost of a hope of a girl with flowers in her hair. A life that could have been so much simpler had it worked out, and we would have gone and never looked back.
I remember sunsets over mosques over a river in the middle of summer. Days and nights that seemed like they would never end.
But mostly I remember looking down from so far above at the blankets of snow. I remember feeling somewhere in those moments that it was all real, and it was over. And I remember hating it. I remember spending a week in isolation, trying to deny it, to prevent moving on. I recall names and faces and words and jokes and as I recall I smile though I could easily cry.
I remember, but sometimes I think my memory is skewed. Looking back it seems things were so much easier, so much better somewhere in the past. I look around me now, on nights like tonight with such a feeling of discontentedness. Maybe I am just tired, that is always a danger...I tend to get maudlin when I get tired.
But why is this here and not on another of my blogs where I like to ramble aimlessly and all depressed like? Because of this:
"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." Romans 8:16
A verse I need to be reminded of. This kind of goes with my previous post. Christ knows the sufferings we go through. The sadness, all of it. But we also must remember to look ahead to the glory yet to be revealed to us and recognize that these present sufferings aren't worth comparing with that.
See, I am suffering. Whether it is simple exhaustion, or perhaps I am longing for things that have passed me by, maybe my life isn't quite adding up, maybe my heart is conflicted and confused, maybe I feel like so much I thought was real may be empty, maybe I am a total mess, all that matters is that none of these present sufferings matter when compared to the love and grace of God. Jesus is all that matters.
And so I may still get maudlin from time to time, and I may still suffer, in fact I am sure I will suffer, but the main goal is just to focus on Christ, as always, and know He is all I need, all that matters.

Friends and Relations

"For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted." -Hebrews 2:18

I picked this verse among many. Read 1 Peter also as it talks extensively about the suffering of Christ. And also how we are called to share in his sufferings. Because one of the most important aspects of Christ that I often forget, much to my own damage, is that he was human. I think I forget that while he was still wholly God, he "did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped" (Philippians 2:6), and as such he stepped down, humbled himself, and became human. And so he knows. He knows what it is to be a human. He understands pain, loneliness, sadness, betrayal, and all the things we face, and he knows them to a greater degree than we can imagine. He knows the everyday struggles. He can relate to the temptations that are there on a daily basis.
We do not have a God sitting on the clouds sipping wine, oblivious to what it is to be here. He knows. He lived it. He suffered greater than we ever will. He felt every height and depth of emotion. And he faced every temptation yet never sinned.
So first conclusion is that the temptations we face we can overcome through Christ. Yes they are strong temptations and to try and face them alone is foolishness and failure. But we know Christ was able to withstand, and we know that "No temptation has seized you except that which is common to man, and the Lord your God is faithful, and will not tempt you past your ability, but with temptation He will also provide a way to escape, that you may be able to endure it" (1 Corinthians 10:13).
Second conclusion, and the one I forget so often, is that God cares about us. Even the little things. Because He knows what it is like to suffer through the little things. God's plan for our life is perfect. And this extends beyond salvation. God's plan is for all of our life. So when I am feeling brought low by sadness, loneliness, a feeling of desertion or betrayal, worry about tomorrow, etc I can know I have a God who knows how that feels, who can relate, and who cares.
I never want to forget that, because when I do I feel so alone. But we never are. Never. And that is the most amazing knowledge to possess, the most important thing I can feel when I don't have the capacity to feel at all.

Fortunate Son

Excerpts from a novel I am reading:
"But in his heart he knew that she had been right. He still dreamed too much, and-what was worse and far more shameful-he dreamed of the wrong things."
"I am a fortunate man, he told himself. Heaven has smiled upon me, far beyond what I have earned, and I have everything I could want-or nearly so. I must accept these great riches and not ask more, lest I anger god with my greed. I am a fortunate man and I cannot, even in the foolishness of my secret heart, ever forget that."

I am forgetful. Or maybe my memory is just selective on what I keep and what I let slip away until I am left with only the bad things and the things I really ought to remember have been left by the wayside.
I am a dreamer. Quixotic is the best word I have ever heard to describe me. And I know it is the truth. I am a dreamer, plain and simple. To go along with that I am something of a massive pessimist. Is that even possible? I don't know. I am the most fanciful pessimist I know of though. And that ought to be worth something.
So why does any of this matter in the context of God and life? Why am I drawn to these passages? The answer is obvious and plain, but I feel the need to (literally) spell it out.
Greed. That is the only way I can say it. It is an ugly word and an uglier feeling and more so one of the ugliest feelings to be dwelling on. When you lack for nothing yet still feel lacking. When you know that you have everything you need and still want something outside of that. I can sit here and count the blessings I have, and were I to do that I would never do anything but count, as I would need to count every second as each one is a renewal of God's grace and a blessing in itself. I would need to, at some point, move on to count the stars which shine their beauty over me. And so I would begin and end each day with numbers until I end my days with one final blessing that is the end of breath.
For someone to sit here with everything, someone who deserves so much less than nothing, and yet to still want more, I don't know, it makes me sad. That I am not happy with happiness. I am discontent in my contentedness. It is not as though I desire riches or fame, no, the Maltese Falcon has nothing on my desire. But it is a noble pursuit I swear it. Yet it remains elusive and I remain ungrateful. A child with a million new toys, all the best and brightest, but he wants none of them, instead he stands eying the poor boy with a stick and a ball and a smile on his face that he will never know.
"For we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him." -Romans 8:28
"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed." Romans 8:18
And God says "My grace is sufficient for you." -2 Corinthians 12:9
We have before us a gift of unparalleled proportions. We have assurance even that though we might feel suffering in this life it is nothing compared to the greatness that is to come. We have a promise that all things are working for our good. And we know that we need nothing save God's grace.
And yet here I sit, like Jonah. See, I identify with Jonah. Mostly whiny Jonah from chapter four. Jonah is upset at God since he wanted God to destroy the Ninevites. So he plops down on a high hill in the sun and wind, then complains about being wind and sun burnt, God provides relief in the form of a gourd (depending on the translation....I like gourd best), then removes the gourd and Jonah is pissed. In fact, he wants to dies. Let's not forget that in chapter two, as Jonah was near death, he cried out and begged God to spare his life, and now he has such contempt for his situation, feeling sorry for himself, that he no longer wants to live. And sadly I must again admit that I see a touch of me in there.
I make things bad for me. My mistakes, my sin. Sinful by nature, yes, but also by choice. I know I am accountable for them all. So I know if it were up to me I'd be dead right now because I am too stupid or foolish to survive. But God provides. He gives me what I need to live and so much more. Blessed beyond measure. Now, when God chooses to withhold something or take something away, this upsets me.
I ought to know that "Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing (Psalm 34:10)" and "No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly (Psalm 84:11)."
I know these are similar, but I see a slight difference. Not only do I lack no good thing, but if there is something I want that I do not have, that God is withholding, then it must not be a good thing. That is important and I wish I would remember it more often.
Because I am a fortunate man. And I pray that no matter how foolish my heart is, that no matter what I desire deep within me, that I will never forget that.

Ain't No Good In Me

"For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me." Romans 7: 18-20

If there is one thing I am ever sure of, it is that no good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. Now I will be the first one in any situation to tell you that I am no good. This might be some sort of indication that I am humble or simply that I tend to think lowly of myself. Either way it is helpful in maintaining this attitude and recognizing the truth that is there. I am not good. My flesh is corrupted and nothing good dwells within it.
Now, let's take a moment to realize that there is, in fact, good within me. However, this does not come from me but comes from God. For we know that to those who believe He bestows His Spirit. And I have the Spirit within me and so I know that there is good inside. And from that is the knowledge that there is a possibility of true good to come from me. But again, this does not truly come from me but from the Spirit of God which is within me.
When Paul speaks here he makes the distinction 'in my flesh.' There is no good in the flesh. I think this is important to realize, lest we get sucked into the illusion that it is us who does any good, that it is from ourselves that any good might flow. We need to see that.
But then we move on. "for I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out." First, one important thing I see here is singular first-person pronouns, or to put simply Paul is saying "me" and "I" which is important to note. Because what this implies is that, while I may indeed have desire to do what is good and what is right I cannot. God can. God does. All good things flow forth from Him. But I cannot, alone no one can. We have this desire to be good and to do good, to seek righteousness and truth, but we do not have the ability to do it. We can sit here and lament that fact, hating ourselves for our weakness or trying to atone in some way. Perhaps we take some vow, or attempt to change our lives until we gain that ability to do what is right, but it will never come. Indeed the only way we will ever find a way to fulfill that desire to do what is right is to give it to God and let Him work through us. We do not have the ability to carry out our desires. It is impossible with man, but not with God. With God all things are possible.
"The evil I do not want is what I keep on doing." This part of the verse always gets to me. We hate sin and evil. We despise it and yet that is what we keep on doing. It is a horrible symptom of the fallen condition of humanity, but all we can do is evil. It comes down to the fact that anything that does not proceed from faith is sin (Romans 14:23) and whatever we are doing of our own power is counted in there. We continue to do evil because we continue to forget that all we have and all we are comes from the Lord. That any triumphs we see are His and not ours. We must lean wholly on Him and not at all upon ourselves.
And again we come to the fact it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me. And again I come to the same conclusions as I did before. This is in no way an indication that we are not at fault for our failings. This is an sad and stunning truth that we will all struggle with sin but we need to realize that though the flesh is weak, and in fact useless so far as this is concerned, there is a fight that needs to be had. We have good within us, though not in the flesh, but apart form it, the Spirit who dwells within us with the power that raised Christ from the dead. How much more then shall we fight against our sinful flesh knowing that power is within us? We must never accept it, never grow callous towards our sin, not feeling it and writing it off. We must see it. To see it we must acknowledge the worthlessness of our flesh and anything that is ours alone. Our effort, our pitiful attempt at righteousness, none of it is worth anything. It is the righteousness and obedience of Jesus that saves us. It is his grace and mercy that allow us to be saved. It is not of us. "For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh." Amen! And I know that all good flows forth from the Lord. So let us praise Him in His magnificence and cast down our idols that we make of ourselves!

Divided Man

"For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin." Romans 7: 14-25

This is an amazing and important piece of scripture, one which I have always felt an affinity for. John Piper did seven sermons on these verses. I have decided to attempt to write my thoughts on them in a much shorter time. For now I will tackle the beginning:

"For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me."

I can't help but feel the reason I am often drawn to these verses is that they are some of the easiest to relate to verses I know of. I love the law. I love the word of God. I feel it deep down within myself that I know in my heart His laws and His word are the single greatest things we can heed. For we know that the law is spiritual. The things God tells us not to do are for our own good. It is so that we are not corrupted and so that we may be more like Him and have our hearts closer to alignment that He gives us these commands. And, despite my foolishness that sometimes makes it seem otherwise, I want nothing more than to do as God tells me to do and grow closer to Him. So I have no trouble relating to Paul as he writes a bit earlier in Romans about how great the law is, and here that we know the law is spiritual. And I also have great ease relating to the statement that, while the law is spiritual I am of the flesh, sold under sin.
Now it is important, I feel, to address the fact that Paul is writing this as a believer. This is a point that is debated often, whether this is Paul speaking as a non-believer, a young believer, or as a believer as he was as he wrote this. And the context that he writes this is very important since it gives the whole thing a different flavor depending on which you believe and can change how you read it. This isn't to say that the main point is different depending on which view you hold. The main point seems to be that we are sinful, by choice and nature, and that it is only through Christ that we can overcome. But for the sake of what I write, know that I subscribe to the view, for a few reasons (all of which are from Piper's sermon(s)). 1) Paul uses personal pronouns so we shall assume he means himself. 2) He declares that that law is good "when he says, "I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man." It's this phrase "inner man" that sounds so much like the way Paul talks about the Christian's real, inner self. And when you put that together with the word "joyfully concur" ("I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man") it sounds to me like Paul's description of his present deep joy in the truth and law of God, not a carnal and superficial and ungodly joy that would be the experience of an unregenerate Pharisee." -Piper. 3) Paul, when talking about himself before his conversion, never talks negatively about himself, he even says that he was perfect as far a Jewish law, only the Paul who came to know Christ admits his sin.
The practical implications of believing this are simple in that it helps us, as believers to know that sin is a part of our being. Indwelling sin, you will here it called. This in no way means that we are to be at peace with sin, with idiotic sayings like "well, sin is within me and so I cannot fight it, so I won't try." Just the opposite. This shows us that we must never rest on our heels, for sin is always at the door waiting for any sign of weakness, waiting for us to ignore Christ just long enough for it to grab hold of us and attempt to drag us down.
This is one of the most difficult things to understand and come to terms with. Sin is still a part of our lives. How can this be? Christ died to set us free from sin. Piper says this: "The other thing that should be deeply rooted in your mind is that, even though a decisive deliverance from the dominion of sin has happened, a final and perfect deliverance from the effects of indwelling sin has not yet happened," which means that while Christ's death on the cross decisively defeated Satan and sin, and it cannot be overturned, the final and perfect victory, the one that will destroy all sin and free us perfectly has not yet come, and will not come until Christ's return. So we know that we who have accepted Christ have assurance of eternal life. But all of us will still admit that we still struggle and still sin.
And we hate it. Which is a big difference between believers and non-believers. I know the days when I am struggling or flat out failing I cannot stand to even look in the mirror. I do the very thing that I hate, and I do hate it. I hate sin so deeply and yet far too often I let it take hold of me. Why? Sin is so deeply a part of us as humans, weak and flawed as we are, that we still let it control us, we still let ourselves be of the flesh and sold under sin.
But Paul tells us, if I agree that the law is good, that is good. Then it is no longer me who sins, but the sin within me. This is interesting, and by that I mean confusing, because on a surface level this could be interpreted to an extent that lets us off the hook. "I didn't fail, that was just indwelling sin." And yet no one ought to be so foolish as to think they can escape the consequence of their sin. For sin does dwell within us. There is no doubt. It is the only reason I can imagine as to why, despite the fact I agree with the law, see my need for it, and love it that I would ever still break it and do so often and willingly. There is sin that is so much a part of our flesh, and we are confined to that flesh in this life, that sin will always be there and it is in our nature for that to appeal to us. We are sinful both by nature and by choice, and the two work together in some hideous beauty of synchronicity to try to destroy us.
So there is a man. We will call him Tory, you know, for the sake on anonymity. And Tory loves the Lord, with all his heart and soul and mind. Tory longs to do what is right, to obey the law of the Lord. Tory longs to do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with the Lord. Indeed his whole will seems to point towards nothing save pleasing the Lord and bringing Him glory. And there is another man, or rather another Tory. The same man, just a different part. A part that, admittedly, the other Tory abhors. This Tory longs for nothing so more than to gratify the desires of the flesh. He wants money and fame, he is greedy, lustful, prideful, a man of flesh. And so we have a divided man. A struggle, because in his mind Tory agrees with the law of the Lord. In his heart he knows it is the best thing in the world and the only thing worth striving for. He loves it. But his flesh continues to sin. He is weak, you see, this divided man. And so it goes, on and on, with this Tory character doing the very thing he hates.
Now, Tory has several options. He could give in, decide that while the law is good and all, the flesh appears to be stronger and give up, beginning to revel in his sin, seeking it out and feeling nothing negative due to it. He could go far the other way, demanding adherence to the law, and so he will put out his eyes, chop off his tongue and hands, and probably cause himself to go deaf in an attempt to adhere to the law through a shear lack of possibilities for evil. Or perhaps he ends up hopeless. He sins and fails again and feels so dejected, like such a failure that he avoids the mirror because when he looks into that glass he feels such loathing, not simply towards the sin within himself, but for himself as a whole. And in this anger, this hatred he gives up, feels this is a hopeless struggle, and ties a rope to a tree or takes out a revolver and gives up in the most ultimate of fashions.
Or he can realize something of great importance. That his guilt or innocence, his purity and holiness do not, in fact, come from the law. The law is good, there is no doubt of that. The law is there for our own good, that we adhere to it benefits us. But it does not justify us! Only Christ can be our justification. The law is great in that it reveals our sin, shows us our weakness so we can give it to Christ and rely on His strength to overcome!
I went through stages as a young believer, and it was around a year ago that I went through this one, of an intimate feeling of indwelling sin, falling over and over into the same sins. I felt hopeless, worthless, like I was a failure and was the single worst Christian ever to the point I avoided mirrors because the hatred I saw in my own eyes as they looked at me scared me. The hopelessness failed me. It was one of the greatest revelations I ever had to to realize that the fact I hated sin so much was a good thing. That my hatred was misplaced. It was not me who does it, but the sin within me. This passage is not about being okay with sinning because indwelling sin exists. It is about recognizing that sin within you and hating it and fighting it. It is not the law that justifies us, but Christ.
As I said, this is one of the most important pieces of scripture I have come across. More will follow in the coming days. Until then, God bless.

Bitter Draught

"Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice." Ephesians 4:31

"See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no "root of bitterness" springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears." Hebrews 12: 15-17

*Note: this is a subject near to my heart as it is one of the things I struggle with so regularly, so keep that in mind as I use collective nouns I am speaking off of my own experiences, not simply theoretically.*
Bitterness is a poison that we let infect us so easily. To grow bitter is natural, and unfortunately so much easier than the alternative, which is forgiveness. How does this bitterness come about? First there is wrongdoing, or perhaps not even real wrongdoing, but a perceived wrongdoing. Either way, someone is upset. And then those feelings go on unresolved until the hurt and the anger burrow down deep and end up as bitterness, infecting and corrupting all of a person. With perceived wrongs it is worse, because you become upset about something and the other person has no idea why you are upset, and thusly they will not apologize, as indeed in their mind there is no need to. And so you let your anger build, wondering why they care so little how they have made you feel. With other, actual wrongs, there are also complications. If someone knows they upset you but refuses to apologize, then it is very easy to become more and more upset, and then bitter as those angry feelings build and compound on one another. Or maybe they are sorry, and they say it, but you still demand your rights. We all have a right to be upset when something is done to us, or at least we love to think we have that right. And that is a right we like to cling to. Because there is that lingering feeling, the pain of the hurt, that still stings even if we are apologized to. There is still hurt there, so there are still feelings of anger. And so we keep it, deep within, letting ourselves become bitter. And that bitterness destroys us, our relationships with those around us, and more importantly, destroying our relationship with God.
Let bitterness be put away from you. This is Paul's command in Ephesians. He lumps bitterness with wrath and anger and malice. None of these are positive things for cultivating a relationship. We are told that if we go to pray and realize we have something against our brother we are to go and forgive him before we pray. So okay, if I am bitter, I am obviously holding something against someone. And if I am doing that, then I am not in the right state of mind or heart that will be positive to my relationship with God. And of course the only thing that will end bitterness is forgiveness. And the only way to forgive is through the strength of God.
That "root of bitterness" is always at ready to spring up if only we give it the tiniest opportunity to. Because bitterness is so easy to cultivate and so easily can destroy us or at least lead us so far astray, it is a perfect weapon of the enemy. Especially if you are like me, and due to personal issues or problems it is somewhat easier to assume the worst of people, perhaps even inventing issues over which to be concerned and upset, and therefore find bitterness to be a nearly constant threat. Bitterness and (perceived) enmity threaten to destroy relationships all the time. I cannot begin to count the times I have begged God to destroy the bitterness in my heart, the growing anger and hatred that is so easy to feel when that bitter root has taken hold. It is a feeling I dread and hate, but all too often I choose to keep it, because forgiveness is too hard.
Why? Why do we hate to forgive? I think I touched on it earlier. We love to hold onto that hurt. We revel in it. Because it gives us a reason to be angry. We want people to apologize, over and over, when they hurt us. How often does someone bring up something from the past, something you thought you had made amends for? It is because there is still hurt there. Now, forgiving does not mean that the hurt, the pain, will disappear. The pain may never go away, but forgiving means that you don't hold onto the feelings that pain induces. The anger and hatred, the things that make you want to inflict pain back upon the ones who have hurt you. We will need to bear our scars, but we need not be bitter. It is an important distinction, between forgiving and forgetting. No one ever said we have to forget. But we cannot revel in that pain, and by that I mean we cannot continue to hold those feelings against someone if we say we forgive them, we have to let the anger go, even if the pain won't ever die. And that is hard, because there seems to be every right to our anger and our demand for amends to be made.
But forgiveness is the calling we have been called to. Love. We are commanded to forgive others as God, in Christ, has forgiven us. God does not hold it against us that before Christ all we did was sin and spit in His face and have enmity between us. He forgave us. And in that we see hope. Because if He can forgive us for that, and have no bitterness, and He has given us His spirit, then we too can forgive fully. If God can forgive me for hating Him, I can forgive anyone for anything done to me, and mean it. Which means that bitterness has no natural soil in which to let the "bitter root" grow. In our new selves there is no room for that. We let it in, we cultivate it on our own when we forget the truth of the love of God in Christ. We choose to ignore the grace we are given, and with that refuse to give any out. Whether the person apologizes or not, we need to forgive. God loved us even as we were still sinners. Apart from anything we ever done or ever would do He chose us and forgave us. We never apologized to Him when He showed us His irresistible grace and called us. We need to love as Christ loves us and forgive as we are forgiven.
And in that there is no room for being bitter. Bitterness will destroy us, slowly corrupting and rotting us from the inside out until there is nothing left but a bitter husk of a person, a shell of something that used to be whole. It is a killer. It affects so many other areas of life as you become cynical and full of anger and hatred.
So the command is one that must be heeded. See to it that no bitter root takes hold of you. Put bitterness away from you. If you see it and feel it coming do whatever it takes. Figure out what is happening to make you feel that way and forgive them. Talk to them. Tell them what you feel. I have had to have a few awkward "I've been bitter about something between us" conversations the past few months, and they aren't fun, but they are amazing. They are freeing. Life is too short to be angry and to let it fester, letting bitterness consume you. It is too precious to demean with that. We need to learn to let it go. Love is so much more freeing than bitterness. I promise. Beg God to strengthen you that forgiveness would come natural to you. It is not easy. But, like so much else, the easies route is not the best route sometimes. But of course, it is worth it.

Reflections

So a few weeks back I was able to speak in front of my church here in Grand Haven. This is a loose transcript of what I said. Fun side note, our church used to be really stodgy and old fashioned, very traditional, and I was the first person ever to give the sermon who wasn't a pastor. A fun departure from the usual :)

1 Timothy 4: 10 "For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living god, who is the savior of all people." and
"Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?" Romans 10: 13-15. This passage was on my heart about eight weeks ago as I was commissioned here by Tim and prepared to go to Istanbul Turkey for the summer. I went on a summer project with Campus Crusade for Christ. That first line, Everyone who calls on the name of the lord will be saved. This is a theme that I will continue to come back to, and that is that all people, everywhere, need to hear the gospel and need to know Christ. This seems a basic principal, but it is easy to forget. My thought process for going to Turkey instead of taking another opportunity to go on a different project somewhere in the united states, was that it is a field ripe for harvest, but so few laborers compared to other places.
I am going to try and approach this from a few different directions. First I am going to be talking about Turkey specifically, since that is obviously the area I know. I also want to touch on missions and evangelism in any place. Last I need to mention a few things God opened my eyes to as I was there serving Him that I came to recognize as essential for an intentional life of fulfilling the great commission. But we'll get to that in a bit.
Doing full-time missions in Turkey is difficult. It is not easy. You have to learn quick to adapt. Not only to the culture, but an entirely new attitude towards doing evangelism. Maybe I have been spoiled coming up in Campus Crusade with our yearly trips to Panama City Beach and Indianapolis, talking to people about Christ, and having many people come to know him and accept him as their savior. Turkey is not like that at all. Our focus was to go onto campuses in Istanbul and talk to students, building relationships, and ultimately turning the conversations to spiritual things and hopefully being able to share the fullness of the gospel. Simple right? You have to learn almost immediately that a victory is to go out in faith and do as the Lord commanded. If you have a day, and I had plenty, where you are out for 5 hours trying to talk to people and not get anywhere, you have to know that you did as you were commanded and that that is a good day, a day you were faithful. If you try and think of things in terms of conversions you are going to be crushed. It's a tricky place. Istanbul is such a modern city. You can go into a store and buy a coke. They have iPhones, PlayStation's, skyscrapers, if you aren't paying attention it might seem like a mini-America in some ways. But right below the surface is such a dark undercurrent. Turks have a line on their identification cards that labels them as Muslims. They all believe in God. They have so many false notions about Christianity that they have grown up hearing as truth and have adopted those ideas and in their minds they're real. They are so lost. In America I think we have a much easier time. Most people don't know anything about God or Christianity. That is to say they don't have too rigid a set of beliefs. Many people in America are able to recognize they are not fulfilled or not on the right track. Turks are trying to earn their way to heaven. Islam teaches that good deeds are weighed against bad deeds on a cosmic scale and whichever side wins out determines where you go, heaven or hell. They believe in one God, like Christians, they believe this God is all powerful, merciful, just, etc. They believe Jesus existed, that his teachings should be kept. They acknowledge the Bible is the word of God. Islam is so similar to Christianity and it is something that is so tough to deal with. The big difference is in who Jesus is. They believe he was a prophet, but that Mohamed was the ultimate prophet and the Koran is the final word of God. They do not believe that Jesus' death and Resurrection did anything. And that is the obstacle we face. Well, one of them. Missionaries are frowned upon in Turkey, and so we have to be secretive. We can not go up to students and ask them if they want to talk to us about Jesus or any "traditional" evangelism. So we need to be very careful. The students would not trust us if we walk up to them and immediately try to bring up Christ. To them, missionaries are people who pay others to convert to Christianity and who want to overthrow the government. So to get past this we need to build trust. Most Turks assume since we are Americans that we are christian. But they assume we are like most Americans and that it doesn't matter to us. So we build relationships and friendships, with the hope that we can tell them the truth as a friend. They told us when we got to Istanbul, "These people don't need more friends. They need a friend who can point them to Jesus." And it is so true. But it still isn't easy. There are people who have been friends of crusade people for years and still never accept Christ. Some people, when they eventually find out what we are as missionaries, they disappear and will not answer texts. Others, it may seem like God is working in them, changing them, opening them to the truth of His gospel, only to see no fruit for so long. Turkey has something like 20 million people. Of that, there are about 3-5000 known believers. Let that sink in a minute. 3-5000 out of 20 million. We have to believe God has people in that city, in that nation. The field is ripe. The harvest is ready. There just aren't enough laborers. So, I am back, but please don't stop praying for Turkey. This place is a bridge between Europe and Asia. It is a gateway to the middle east. It is a place with a desperate need for the gospel. There are people there, full-time, working for the Lord, spreading his way. Turkish believers with Crusade. Pray for them, pray for more to be raised up, and perhaps even consider supporting them financially. These people do not have the luxury of friends and family to ask for money. They are abhorred by former friends and disowned by family. So keep praying for them and for turkey.
Jesus gave us an incredibly tough command, to go and make disciples of all nations, in the great commission. I also am reminded of the parable of the sewer who went out and threw seed all over. Both of these start with important verbs. "go" and "went out." This is why evangelism is so hard, and I believe why it is ignored so often in the church. It is hard. You have to be intentional with it. Being intentional about something that is not always comfortable to talk about. Being bold about something that some people are not going to like. 2 Corinthians tells us that we are spreading the fragrance of the gospel, and it will smell of death to some. But we are called, all of us, to go and do it. In the great commission the word "go" might also be translated to mean "as you go," or "as you are going." I am not saying that everyone needs to quit their jobs and move to China and become a missionary. I am not saying we need to go door to door with little booklets of 4 easy steps to salvation. What I am saying is that in our daily lives we all interact with non-believers. With people who NEED the gospel, who need Christ, who are going to hell. It angers me that we live in this post-modern age of political correctness where no one seems to want to talk about hell. The fact is that people around us, people we love are on a path to hell and we may be the only people in their lives who can show them the way. We may be the only instrument God has placed in their life to tell them the gospel. If we do not have hearts that break for the lost, and a true sense of urgency, then this command will never be fulfilled, never be heeded. Now, don't think I am speaking as any sort of professional. I spent seven weeks in Turkey, and in that time I learned that I do not have the gift of evangelism. I am just not that good at it, not really that comfortable with it in certain situations. But that does not mean I am not also called to spread the gospel. As 2 timothy 4:5 tells us, "be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist." We are all called by the great commission Christ gave. We are all told to do the work of an evangelist. This can be a scary thought. I love that this church has made evangelism a priority in the past year. It is the ultimate purpose for our existence. We exist to bring God glory, and what brings him more glory than for us to fill our lives, our hearts, our minds, and our words with him, telling of his glory and grace, and ultimately leading others who did not acknowledge him as lord to see him as we do?
This seems scary, because if you are like me at all you realize that you are not good at things like this, and this seems like an awfully big thing to be entrusted with. Luckily we really don't have to do anything. Christ, before his ascension, tells the disciples to wait until the spirit comes upon them before going out. Then when the spirit comes upon peter in Acts he preaches the gospel and many believe. God does not just tell us to go and good luck. He sends us out with His holy spirit. 1 Corinthians 1 has Paul telling us he came only to preach the gospel, and he did that not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross be emptied of its power. And also, Paul says "I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." It really is that simple. I know I sometimes wonder what I am going to say, how I can convince people I am telling them the truth. But that is all wrong. Nothing you say will convert anyone. Let me repeat this because it is important for a correct view of evangelism. Nothing you say will convince anyone to accept Christ. All you can do is tell them about Jesus, tell them the truth, and let the power of God work in their hearts and He will convert them, He will save them. We are humble tools. A vessel through which the Word of life may flow. It took me some time to figure that out. But it is key, because that is the view of evangelism that is needed. We need to have all faith in Christ and no faith in ourselves. We need to acknowledge that it is all about God, about the death of Christ, and nothing else. We need to have faith.
One of the most difficult passages I have come across in scripture is the last sentence in Romans chapter 14 which reads: "For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin." That statement is staggering. Everything that is done apart from faith is sin. It is a verse that is key to showing why we need a savior, why all the "good people" of the world who do good things are still going to hell without Christ, because even a good deed, if it does not proceed from faith, is sin. So coming to church might be sin, going out to a campus to spread the gospel may be done in sin. God impressed this on my heart over the summer, that f I get upset, distraught and discouraged, and lose faith, if I obey his command and "do the right thing" without any faith, then it is still sin. That doesn't mean God can't use it, because He can, but it does mean that I am sinning even when I do the things I am supposed to. So the right view of God, this faith, is so important.
The other major thing God placed on my heart this summer is the right attitude of heart that evangelism requires. This applies to all people at all times in all situations, whether missionaries in the far east or just a christian in the work force talking to their co-workers. There has to be love. 1 Corinthians 13: 1-3 rocked me this summer. It says "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing." To me these are some of the most powerful words in the Bible. Colossians 3: 12-14 adds "Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. AND ABOVE ALL THESE PUT ON LOVE which holds everything together in perfect harmony." Love, above all else! This blows my mind. Paul speaks of some of the major spiritual gifts, tongues and prophecy, he talks of faith to move mountains, he mentions being burned, martyred, forgiving as God forgives. And over all these he tells us we need love. Without love we are useless, a loud gong or clanging cymbals, good for nothing but annoyance. Without love we are nothing, we gain nothing. My first few weeks in Istanbul I looked at my heart after reading this and realized that I was there not out of love for the people or the gospel, but because God told me to go and I obeyed. I was there out of obligation and dedication. Now, we need to obey, but we ought to obey out of love. I came to realize I loved god enough to do what he told me to do even if I didn't want to, but to me that wasn't good enough. We need to love like god loves, to have that deep of love. I wanted to love god to the point our hearts were one, that mine would break as His does for the lost, that I would love him so much that it was the most natural thing in the world to talk about him. If evangelism is a chore or a duty done out of obligation God can still use it, god is good at that and he is bigger than us. But we gain nothing from it. We become nothing. The heart of evangelism is love. To love all people as they are made in God's image. To understand it pains god to see them in their rebellion. To love them enough to tell them of the gospel, the only hope they have. To want to save them from that torment. If that isn't the heart you have, you end up clanging emptily like a gong. I struggled with that all summer, and every day I prayed god would open my heart, fill me with his spirit, and let my heart be filled with love and that I would go in that love and nothing else. And he is faithful and answered.
"I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." Romans 1:16 The power of god, bringing salvation to all who believe. Which brings us back to the beginning, to Romans 10. How are they to believe without hearing, hear without someone preaching. How can they preach without being sent? We have all been sent. Christ commissioned us to be making disciples as we go. All around are people who need Him. It will look different for everyone. Some have the means and ability to up and leave and go overseas and be a missionary. Some have been called to the workforce. Some to school. People everywhere need the gospel. People in Turkey, people in America, in Africa and Asia and everywhere. It is up to us. We are God's chosen means of spreading his word. He does not send us alone, but gives us his spirit. It is up to us to be bold and courageous speaking the gospel in all boldness and clarity. To let all we do proceed from faith and be grounded and rooted in love. Ephesians 5 says "Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of time, for the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the lord it." The will of god is that we go and do the work of an evangelist. The will of the lord is that we have faith in Him and go out in that faith sewing seed. The days are evil, of that there is no question in my mind, so the question becomes "are we making the bast use of time?" How many conversations do I let slip by, how many of my friends are on a path to hell because I am too chicken to say something? I am learning this as I go, seeing how far I still have to go. But God can use us if we are willing to let him. I said one day "god, use me as you see fit," and he told me to go to turkey. While there we saw no one come to Christ, maybe watered a few seeds, and you know what, that is enough, that is a victory. I urge you all to look at your days. Are you making the best use of the time. Are you being bold with the gospel. Do you trust God to use you. You don't need to know anything but Jesus Christ and him crucified. That God loves us, but we, in our sin, have earned death and separation from him. You only need to know that it is through Christ, his death that we can be saved, and that making that choice and accepting Christ is the only way to be saved, the only thing in life that matters. It is for this reason we toil and strive. So, as you are going through your life, out into wherever your week takes you, go. Make disciples. You have Christ, you know the truth, you have the one true hope. Share it with those around you. Beg the lord to change your heart to love them and to break for those who are lost. Beg him to change your life that it would pain you not to share that hope with them. He will answer. And then, being rooted in love, and proceeding from faith, we can finally understand what the will of the lord is, do the work of an evangelist as we are commanded, and give God glory. Lets pray.