the Way, the Truth, and the Life

giving till it is Questioned

2011-03-07T19:23:00.000-05:00

What happens when I wait for things to happen, not much. Nothing really happens. But when I take what has been given me and run with it, things happen. And this not of my doing, so that I would boast about it. It is all given to me from God, and yet I squander much of what is going for me.

Christ is just too important to be taken advantage of. I don't simply want His grace alone, I want to be able to run with that grace that has been given, with the peace that passes all understanding.

This is true witnessing of Christ, that what has been restored restores others. That what has been given is shared. Then, and only then, is someone curious as to where I got this grace from.

open for Business

2011-02-13T14:08:00.000-05:00

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a rundown, inner-city store. It is open all the time yet not many enter in. The paint peeling away on the one side of the building, the dilapidated awning, and only a couple parking spots in the front on the street deter many passing by from checking it out. On the inside, it is part café, part coffee shop, part book store.

Much time is spent there for those who do enter into the store. Many relationships are deepened with conversation that goes late into the night and people come to realize who they are more and more. Causes are taken up to paint the plumber’s store across the street, to clean up someone’s mother’s yard, to take in the drug addict on the street. And all the more, these people come to realize who they are.

But people keep passing by. People who attend churches painted well, with covered doorways, and a sea of parking available. And no relationships are developed.

But in the rundown, inner-city store that sells, well, no one really knows, there is a store Owner that people can’t stop talking about. And the store has still never closed.

The story above is a concept of how God is always available, yet many seem to not want to engage Him. It may have to do with how the Kingdom of Heaven works among us, and not how we want it to work. How we won't go where Truth goes, instead pleading with Truth to come to us.

what just Happened?!

2011-01-09T17:05:00.000-05:00

I find myself freed from something I created on my own. It was the entrapment from what I thought was school and the push towards that goal. When I finished my last class, with just my masters essay to go, I went to work the next day. And that's when it washed over me that I could do anything I wanted; start another band; join a gym; begin recreational reading; become an avid bowler. So many choices that are now available to me all of a sudden!

As quickly as that wave of emotion came, what followed was a profound question. What stopped me from doing all that before? I know that I may have literally been busy, but the more I realized what was hitting me I understood that it wasn't that all those ambitious things were not available to me to do, but that instead it was that I prevented them. And more so, I was emotionally stopped. It was the feeling of burden, and for no more reason then that I was in a self imposed stupor.

What hit me that day after my last class was the enlightened feeling that all is possible for me to do. My ambition meter immediately shot off the scale. And so I am left realizing that I never want to be the way I was before, bogged down in a rut that I get to attribute to my worries of tests 3 months in the future. Or papers due in a week. Or anything else like that for that matter. I am free to do anything, I hope that I just don't do things for myself now but to better all around me and in my life.

v 2.3

2010-12-31T17:17:00.000-05:00

New header, new colors, revamped blog, again.

Detroit skyline of a picture I took when I was up on a building listening to a lecture about how to reinvent Detroit's urban landscape with art, or the artscape if you will.

I hope to speak of restoration that happens in places we do not expect. As Detroit begins to turn corners, it is possible to witness even our lives turn corners, to claim victory with means beyond the walls we live in. The Kingdom of Christ beckons to restore the worst of things, to set free the imprisoned.

Here is a part from the Thrice song "The Earth Will Shake" that inspired my subtitle for the blog:

Heartbroken, we found a gleam of hope
Harken to the sound, a whistle blows
Heaven sent reply, however small
Evidence of life beyond these walls
Born and bred in this machine
Wardens dread to see us dream
We hold tight to legends of
Real life, the way it was before

relationship

2010-11-11T19:22:00.001-05:00

This may be a post where I am part convincing myself, part convincing the reader. Maybe I should not look at it like that at all, and just spell this out.

God. It does all come down to relationship. I was talking with a friend of mine a week ago about what makes a Christian Christian. What separates the greatest humanitarian atheist from a meek, non-confrontational, addict-overcoming Christian is echoed in this statement: "I don't know you." This is found in some parables explaining how God will look at some people who will cry out for Him. But how can the God who created not know His creation? I would venture to say the same way a wife may turn to a husband at some point in the marriage and say, "I don't even know anymore."

Either asleep at the wheel follower or atheist, both are missing the relationship with Jesus. I find this term something of a given since it has been injected into my head over and over growing up in the church, but I don't think it can be taken as a 'nice way of putting things.' I nearly dismissed it entirely the more I tried to find out the logical steps of being a Christian. Just knowing that it was a relationship kept, well, the relationship, rather wide open. You can have a strong relationship where you cry, laugh, fight, love with another, and you can perhaps have a relationship to a certain degree with the owner of the sub shop down the street.

What I think has been happening to me is that I have been having a sub shop guy relationship with God, in the interaction level, while reading up on all the intricacies about Him. Frankly, I don't think I am any good at relationships in a deep sense, and so it looks like I am at a disadvantage with Christ. How am I suppose to deeply open up to Him, cry with Him, fight with Him, Love with Him if I stumble with my human relationships?

Instead of following God like it is a formula, that I have to feed the poor and turn the other cheek, abstain from hateful thoughts and sexual immorality, you know, the checklist syndrome, it is all about relationship.

The profoundness of standing up one day and shouting to God your hate towards Him is only part of the process of being healed by Him, because in your address to Him you acknowledge Him, not unlike the greats of the old testament. It is that interaction He seeks, and wants to work with us so desperately. Our greatest accomplishments can never be the things we do but Who we know. Of course what follows is nothing short of becoming a champion of humanity, helping the poor, dealing with personal faults like sexual immorality, jealousy, greed.

What makes a Christian a Christian is simply the hardest thing to do, to humble our small egos enough to become friends with the One who made us and saved us. The rest will follow. Pursue relationship that is capable of telling God He is wrong (like Abraham in Genesis 18:16-33). That is a relationship that is worth pursuing.

a morning Stroll

2010-08-07T00:29:00.001-04:00

Freshly Painted Shed at Warren and Trumbull

I took a stroll this morning, at about 9:30am, in the neighborhood I am moving away from. After two years in the wonderful Detroit neighborhood, Woodbridge, it is only starting to come across how amazing this place is. For sure it has benefited from being adjacent to Wayne State University, although in a love hate relationship (WSU was about to rip through it in the '80s, but some professors stepped up to the plate and started buying homes, see the website on the building to the right).

As I walked around, I saw the old St. Dominic church accessory building being renovated by the new church plant that is going on by The Citadel Detroit (watch the video in the link). They are creating something called "The Dream Center." Can't wait to see what this will come to, but what I do know is that the lead pastor will be a speaker at this year's Christian Community Development Association national conference, so he must be doing some amazing stuff in Detroit.

As I continued my walk, two girls were out in their front lawn, one holding a book. Just as I got to their lawn the older one, both had to have been between 11 and 14, reached out the book towards me and asked me if I wanted to buy it. She said it was for a book sale she will be doing soon. I asked her what it was all for. She said that she needs to start saving for college and wants to have a yard sale so she can raise enough money to go to college. How awesome is that?! When I was that age, I was trying to be cool, I was playing sports, and I was not thinking about college.

New Murals

As I continued through Woodbridge, I noticed some newer paintings on a building the other day and wanted to see what they were. When I got closer, I could see that a couple buildings had murals painted on them, not just the one, going down the back of the alley. After taking a couple pictures a lady came down the alley just in my view as she past by the back of the building. An older lady, she said out loud how nice the new murals are. I told her they are amazing! She then said that she guards them in a way, by sitting on her front porch across the street and makes sure that no one puts graffiti over them. Of course she sat on that same porch over the summer months witnessing the creation of the murals and would not want anything done to these beautiful additions to the view out the front of her house. She expressed how much she hopes nothing happens to them, and will indeed be watching, as she sat on her porch scratching off the lottery tickets she just purchased from the corner gas station. The same gas station, according to her, that was the only uncooperative building down the whole back alley that would not allow the artists to paint the back of their building. Sure enough when I strolled down it, they were the only one that resisted, even a funeral home allowed the painting of a mural.

Garden Next to Woodbridge Pub

My walk continued to the Woodbridge Pub, a fine establishment that opened just shortly after I moved into the neighborhood a couple years ago. Now across the street from it is a small garden, with some vegetables. A big piece of art was up against a building in the garden. The sunflowers were so big and bright in the morning sun, they were begging for a photo shoot!

I went around a couple more streets and came back home only cause I was getting hungry from not eating breakfast. I couldn't help but reflect on all this and realize one important thing: Woodbridge is going to be alright. In fact, it already is. But to try and convince other suburban folk that it is indeed alright, in fact better, is nothing short of a miracle. Perhaps it is because it is too nice, too better, too simplistic and organic and all the other buzz words affiliated with organic. But for the people that find out about a neighborhood like this one and actually come down to live in it for a while, whether mainly for college or to live close to downtown and midtown, they have found a diamond in the rough.

I am glad that I spent two years here. And as a result of not only my morning stroll but also the people and small conversations involved with it, I can't help but to boast the big boast, and say that not only is Woodbridge going to be alright, but Detroit is going to be alright too. I hope those girls go to college, I hope that lady protects the murals, and I hope that Detroit continues to grow like the garden. But most of all, my hope is that Jesus provides the hope. The only Hope for all of us just trying to find our way around here, saving for college, standing guard, and growing.

for more pics, click on this link.

two posts in one (or 'a bit Later'...)

2010-06-10T21:50:00.010-04:00

Part 1: Their is Work to be Done Here

I took a bit of a hiatus on the old blog world. It was first prompted by this complete revamping of the site design. When I first launched this thing back in 2005, I was in a C++ computer programming course and designed the previous layout while code was running through my brain. Then come this past December, I got the itch to get creative again and do something way different, and this is the result! A couple friends helped guide me through the process of course, from graphic design experts to internet web masters. They provided the proof reading and dotting of i's (and hurdles that needed to be overcome, like getting that background image up!

The background image was taken by myself at this location in Detroit. It shows what use to be a whole church mission there on Rosa Parks and Elmhurst. There was a main church across the street, and then there was a soup kitchen and much more.

In the picture to the right, there was a plea to build up the youth of Detroit. In Christ, all things are possible, and the possibility of developing the youth of Detroit with a Christ like love is exciting. Seeing the dilapidated buildings was not disheartening to me. With the contrast of the decay and vacancy of the church itself shouting to present further evidence of a lost and hopeless city, I saw a call out for our city. The ambition that these followers had, and hopefully still have, demonstrates the absurdity of the hope we have in Christ. That somehow the kids of Detroit can cut through, or maybe dig deeper into their surroundings, however one would look at it. Instead of loving the youth in a way which is trying to get them to escape (kinda like the gospel message that centers around yearning to get out of this world as fast as possible just so we can bask in the riches of heaven), the youth need to be loved in a way that the Spirit leads them to dig deeper into their environment and be that light in the darkness. The hope that exists by the presence of this message written by those who have been inspired by the greatest hope themselves is something that permeates the city of Detroit, it is swelling at this very hour.

Part 2: A Bit Later...

And then a blog entry itself formed as a result of the 6 month pause. The site redesign has been finished for over 3 months now. The hesitation to write has come from a number of areas, mostly a so called busyness. I think the actual reason is because the busyness led to tired, resulting in giving myself no reason to write garbage if I couldn't even think straight without having to type it out.

But an even more staggering reason was because I think I became dried up spiritually. At least at a point of hallucination. Things have not been the same since I took on an internship and got intense with school. Somehow, in the cliche way of saying it, I was putting God last. However this differed slightly in that it was not a conscious act of placing God to the side but instead a deadly passivity. Instead of dealing with situations where before I had been enlightened to the fact that God is everywhere, that in every situation His presence is so announced that it really did not make sense to me how people did not see Him moving and acting and relating to us, that all that was now a complete wash. I had felt nothing and had internally believed all at the same time. But I was not interacting. I was not relating Christ to His creation and His Kingdom like I had been before.

It is just like the spouse who says to their lover, 'I don't know you anymore.' It's not that they don't know their favorite dinner, or hobby's and interest, like some bullet point grocery list created by a 3rd party analyst. No, they don't know them because they have become indifferent. Relationship is intentional, and I have truly discovered why the language of a 'personal relationship with God' has formed. It is because it is true. And if relationships are hard to begin with, then the relationship we have with our heavenly Father will be the most dynamic one we choose to have. I am sifting through right now and I think I am being watered, but there is much to do.

My silence was a statement of how little words really mean, but instead how truly important the Living Word is, practiced moment by moment.

pigs and Potlucks

2009-12-13T18:33:00.003-05:00

Those who had seen it told the others what had happened to the demon-possessed man and the pigs. At first they were in awe - and then they were upset, upset over the drowned pigs. They demanded that Jesus leave and not come back.

- Mark 5:16-17, The Message

Here is the story of the madman who was demon possessed. Jesus just got done casting the demons out of the man and into some nearby pigs. I find the above part of the story very fascinating. This little snippet and many others like it make the bible so down to earth, literally coming down to earth and meeting us in the mess of a people that we are.

Can you imagine giving a response like that one above? Demons are literally gone from a man and then there are pigs jumping off cliffs. Pretty exciting to say the least. Powerful. Yet, some of the first traceable advocates of anti-animal cruelty are documented here.

I can imagine a scene today. Jesus enters into a church and knows that there are a few in the congregation who are hungry and barely have any food. They would likely be going home hungry that day. Jesus then has compassion and fills the alter with food and asks those who need it to come and take what they need and more. The congregation is amazed by this and are in awe, but become displeased once they realize that their potluck after the service is ruined because it will be mostly empty.

This isn't a perfect comparison but an element remains the same. Jesus destroys something so that something can be saved. What He destroys is the concept that a Sunday afternoon brunch can be so important in our life, even convincing some that this exhausts fellowship and meeting the needs of the congregation. Of course, instead, we are offered the Acts 2 church that made sure everyone went without need and shared resources. So while the Sunday potluck is nice and is a start, it is of little value in the long run. In comparison, the pigs act as sources of economic value for those who were tending them, but the madman has a greater value placed in him by God then pigs as economic resources.

After all of that, the people still did not realize what was important, even though the madman could barely contain his enthusiasm for Christ, confessing how good God is.

Henry's church, Henry and Mitch's Story

2009-12-10T15:31:00.000-05:00

One Church, One Story - The Detroit Blog - TIME.com

This is the church just down the street from where I live. When my friend, John, told me about the story of this church over a month ago, we were compelled to at least make a visit. John actually knew about the church a while back when Mitch Albom first wrote about it nationally in Sports Illustrated. The story in SI ran back on January 7, 2009.

John and I went for a visit on a Thursday night sometime in late October/early November. We went in and found that they were sheltering people that night, and we spoke with some of the helpers at the church. Then we met Henry, the pastor, only briefly as he was busy at the moment checking with people at the time. Before John and I entered in, someone at the door asked if we were with the press. I could see why he might have thought that, because we were two young white college looking kids that don't attend the church.

We soon found out why were asked if we were the press. As we were standing in an entrance way waiting to talk to Henry, in walks Mitch Albom. John had no idea what he looked like apparently cause I had to point out that the guy who just walked in was the guy who wrote the story that brought us here in the first place. I remembered Mr. Albom from the sports reporters on ESPN that airs Sunday mornings, thanks to the many times I would wake up late for Sunday school. We talked with Henry and Mitch a little, and then the press guy did come in who was there to interview Mitch. John and I talked with Henry more about the needs of his church and the homeless barbecues that we assist with.

What impressed me though was that Mitch didn't write the SI piece to get attention or create some emotional story for a national audience to read about Detroit. He was there at the church on a random fall night months after the article printed. He is actually friends with Henry as we could tell from the short time we were together that night. It's as if Mitch was drawn to the impossibility that the church overcomes.

I think that what happens when Christ is lived out, people notice. Many will not understand and actually hate what Christ's church does. Some will not understand it but become very fascinated by it. Still others will be drawn to it, even from different religions and backgrounds (Mitch is Jewish). Needless to say, when the body of Christ is doing Christ's work by helping those who are oppressed, poor, widowed, or orphaned, people have no choice but to notice, especially when Christ works with a hole in the roof.

Father's home is Coming.

2009-11-23T19:47:00.005-05:00

My thoughts are so scattered right now that there is no reason at all for writing a blog. Not at least if it is the case that people are going to be reading it. I'm currently sitting in a caribou coffee in Royal Oak, the anti-Detroit. You know how we have the capability of moving whole buildings from one place to another? Soon, I hope, we can have the technology to move Royal Oak to Downtown Detroit, somewhere closer to it at least.

I have recently been thinking a lot about the parable of the prodigal son (or the forgiving Father). This has to be one of the most hopeful parables of Jesus. In spite of what the son did, even at the beginning basically considering his Father dead by asking for his portion of the inheritance, the Father had a deep Love still for this son.

When I think about when I came to God, I don't remember squandering what my Father gave me. I remember being a young kid who wanted to go to heaven. Nothing really wrong with that, except maybe I was not taught that I should have been looking for heaven to come to me, as the kingdom of heaven is among us. This at least makes sense when considering the parables just before the prodigal son, the ones about the lost sheep and the lost coin. The Owner was already looking for them. The point is I was limiting myself by not thinking a whole city could come floating in amongst my life and settle down where I am. I did not think the technology was available.

The son returned to his Father's place, but I wonder if it was ever far from the son. The son went to a distant country in terms of physical distance but his Father's place came close when he realized what he was missing. He went back there because he felt what was there, he knew what it was like there.

I am eternally grateful that the Father is so willing to forgive and that He wants to make His home with me. The Holy Spirit reminds me of how great a place the kingdom of heaven is and comforts me with this. Just before I entered into the kingdom of heaven, it was running at me when it saw me.

failing Breath

2009-10-07T15:16:00.002-04:00

But I refuse to breathe the breath of the failure!!!!

- The Chariot, 'Teach'

That line has been with me for a while now. Ever since hearing it, the power coming from the lead singer's screaming lungs has upped the ante. Interpretations of this line could be numerous, that is the beauty of music and art. But here is my interpretation. He is shouting out that he refuses to breathe in the destruction of the Great Failure, aka Satan.

I had been hearing a lot recently about the Breath of God. A couple sermons, a dialogue with a friend, and then this. There is something about breathing. God breathed life into us, in fact breath and spirit are the same in the Greek translations of the bible. Our spirit is the breath of God in us, and the Holy Spirit is His Breath. The word spirit won out more or less in the English translations cause it sounds better, I mean think of the concept when Jesus breaths his "Breath" upon the disciples. Kinda awkward sounding.

With this in mind, the Failure has a breath as well. But how strong do I tend to think of Satan's breathing power? Do I even use the imagery of him as the Failure? The lyrics are providing another angle to look at the same situation that has been said by many in many ways. I love it when artists do this because it is another angle to say the same thing, not to confuse the same words to have people look at something else, to take us away from the Truth. No, instead I am looking at the Truth from a way that helped stir me into thinking afresh. Satan (The Failure from now on) and his ways are those of a failing way.

But do I refuse them? Do I look at it that strongly?

(Note: originally penned on 8/30/09, adapted slightly since then)

Links

2009-09-27T15:40:00.001-04:00

Some interesting sites

Relevant Magazine

Christianity Today

Burnside Writers Collective

The Jesus Manifesto

"so that you through His povery might become Rich"

2009-06-01T13:19:00.006-04:00

General Motors is now officially in bankruptcy, and with all the news channel viewing I just did one channel really brought this story to the level that will most likely be overlooked in the media for awhile. The loss of blue collar, assembly plant jobs. Much of the talk had been about the whole thing in general. The large implication that the company is basically changing and starting new, and what this means on a corporate, long term level. Which is key mind you, because without a company to hire people, people can't work.

But it is the affect of the bankruptcy with all the job losses that are going to happen, here in Detroit especially, that continue pushing people down and out. The ripple affect will be a wave crashing onto shore, not a mere pebble dropping in an ocean. People will leave and more resources will be stripped away from this region. For those who remain, what hope can be found? Our incomes are so important, our standard of living is indispensable!

Hope in Christ. That is what can be leaned upon. Detroit church (which is defined as city and suburb), if Paul were to write a letter to you, what would he say? I don't think it would say that we must protect our standard of living and to put our trust in a private company or a worldly government. The Kingdom of Heaven needs to be the safe harbor in this time. Actually it always should have been, there never should have been stock placed in how fat we have been and how well off we were in Detroit. The riches that should be boasted about are Christ crucified and all that comes from the risen life He has for us. The edicts to follow should be of His Kingdom and we should rejoice in the company benefits that come from being part of this different kind of union. A union that looks out for its members like no other union on earth does, or can.

My roommate played a John Piper message about the recession a while back, and this was the amazing passage used. If Paul were to write to the Detroit church, I hope that the following could be said about us, or to us:

¹And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. ²Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. ³For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, ⁴they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints. ⁵And they did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God's will. ⁶So we urged Titus, since he had earlier made a beginning, to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part. ⁷But just as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us—see that you also excel in this grace of giving. ⁸I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. ⁹For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

II Corinthians 8:1-9, NIV

The reader here could replace Macedonians with Detroiters for greater emphasis. Or this is truly a plea for our present condition as verse 8 is directed to the Corinthian church, which could be the Detroit church, that our love is about to be tested for its sincerity. And consider this, the details are not given as to how this was accomplished, but we certainly know the motive for doing this. But I am glad that we are not presented a detailed description of how the Macedonians did this from a structural standpoint because that would remove the freedom and creativity to accomplish such a monumental task of love. Their motivation is what we know, Christ!

So Detroit church, what can we do? How can we role up our blue collar sleeves and put to work our lives for the Love of Christ?

miles from the scars of Detroit

2009-05-27T00:06:00.009-04:00

When I was forced off of I-94 heading north from Detroit due to the crazy rush hour traffic, I chose my logical substitute, M-3, a.k.a. Gratiot. I have traveled this before a few times, a straight shot from the 94 Detroit Gratiot exit all the way to the family abode. This time it was different though, I had my urban planning goggles on this time, and Christ's mercy.

The trench freeways in Detroit that I have been educated so much about really do a great job of masking the truth. I have heard in class, even in my undergrad courses, that the design of the freeway system was to target the worst neighborhoods and clear them out, called urban renewal. Also, in my point of view, the freeways avoid the visual mess of surface streets and neighborhoods. It was clear seeing all the struggling people, the collapsing homes and buildings, the garbage and debris, that Gratiot in Detroit was not a pleasing site. The freeways are underground to allow for a pleasant commute between downtown and the suburbs, a way of getting around the 'mess.'

People (the suburbanite or the traveler) have hardly a visual for the blight of Detroit. There are rumors. There are myths. But there are hardly first hand witnesses. The freeways have covered up the true sights and sounds of the majority of Detroit, namely any area not downtown or midtown.

I wonder if this is a convenient way not to look at the results from the sins of the past. I know in my personal life I do not want to have contact anymore with the infection, to try to deny the scars from the sin in my life. But scars are scars. God has given me a clean slate, but I act as though there is something to be covered up, tucked away, driven past. The greater Detroit area shares the same problem. The sins of those in the past, the racism through real estate red lining, white flight, and resource redistribution to the suburbs, left a race of people behind because they were already behind. Scars bleed out in the form of the desperate and needy of Gratiot and the collapsing buildings. But you can't see it when you drive the freeways.

I challenge those who have not taken Gratiot or Woodward to downtown recently to do so. In the same way, I challenge all of us to truly examine ourselves in the faith we have in God, to see if we are thinking of ourselves so much that sin has bled through. You will see things that you don't like, but please do not confuse the sin with the sinner. The sinner has so much potential in Christ; the sin in fact needs to be cast away. Detroit and its residents have so much potential as well, its just that the sins of the past are more visible and longer lasting ones when the sins are made by a mass amount of people in a large public area. Kind of sounds Old Testament like, doesn't it?

Redemption is not far and not hard, but it comes with a great price. Ask Jesus what redemption cost for the whole world and all its sins. How much cheaper can redemption be for a city then? Or, what could the body of Christ do with that costlier, more powerful redemption working for it?

switching it Up!

2009-05-22T02:23:00.004-04:00

I need to change up the style of these entries. Realizing that I write every now and then, and more so discussing massive theological breakdowns that need to be chapters, if not books on their own, I want to shorten up my writing and write about a lot more. Everyday life may enter in, massive theological breakdowns still may have a place, but I am certain that American Idol will not appear here. Like in the last sentence.

Besides, my blogging sort of started with everyday observations. Writing down, or at least keeping mental notes of significant events in life would keep me fresh and aware of what God was doing in my life. I have written a lot about how the mundane or day in day out activities are not wasted gaps in our lives in between the giant choir concert or the overseas mission trip. Every moment has something to do with Jesus, and He just wants us to acknowledge that plain truth with His Spirit. When I skip over this is when life will truly become mundane, tedious.

So, more events, more observations, because only some of us can be amateur theologians, the rest of us must be the results, the fruits of a good theology, the works of a beautiful Savior.

creative Freedom

2009-05-04T23:35:00.005-04:00

Understanding godly freedom is a bit of a challenge for me. First, freedom has become a bit of a buzz word of sorts, like faith, grace, and the like. What comes to mind is listening to a person at church use freedom in a way that suggests that they are free even from God's commands. When I hear that, alarms go off in my head. They are not saying this directly of course, but certainly implying it, if not acting it out.

This gets to my point on freedom. I struggle much thinking that we have been freed by God through Jesus. All I hear are things like: obey my commands; stop living for the self; death comes through these actions; life comes through these. What exactly are we freed from?

The question is answered better by asking why we are freed. We are freed to use our freedom creatively, moving with the Spirit of God. I do not have to pull out a map anymore. With this specific action at this specific time I only need to keep two things in mind. First, Love God (do not hurt Him by breaking His heart, sinning if you will). Second, Love Others (do not hurt them by breaking their hearts, sinning if you will).

I believe there is weakness within me when it comes to living creatively with the freedom that has come upon me. Instead of being rigid, I am to walk in humble confidence knowing that Jesus rescued me and I am free to serve as best fit. All the rules and commands still are there, Jesus said so (Matthew 5:17-20), but I cannot and do not have to force myself into doing them. If I reduce the freedom, in fact strip it away, then I am back to depending on myself. If I focus on the unimaginable act of the Creator of the universe dying for me and raising to life for me, then I cannot help but act with Jesus.

And this creativity that I am stressing is where we the church make decisions that are not normal but supernatural. I get to decide how to show grace to my neighbor, or how to encourage my friend, or how to love a stranger. We need creative thinking if we are going to be free, otherwise we might as well go back to the road map, placing one foot in front of the other monotonously. And we are certainly prone to wander off anywhere on our own.

Creative actions are not super genius by any sort either, just actions that are unique to each one of us that reflect the way of God's Kingdom, not of the worlds. What are the ways that we can express Christ's commands in ways that are creative to our unique situations? I pray that I can dig deeper and that the church can as well so that we can use our freedom to its fullest, not to have it be wasted and abused.

good friday Changing

2009-04-10T20:02:00.004-04:00

Lately I have been contemplating what it means to keep changing. The stress is in the word 'keep'. Realizing that God calls us to a radically different life then what we see in the world, a one and done event is never enough, God wants to keep molding us into a beautiful creation, allowing for us not to stay the same.

If spiritual maturity has been reached in some fashion, then of course that is a wonderful praise filled change in our life. If we only take it as something that happened once however, we are subject to great difficulties later down the road. This happens because we feel, rightly so, that God has changed us for the better, yet we don't know what to do when new circumstances occur because we were changed under older ones, past ones. What I'm leading to is that although we may have come to God and He has pressed upon us a new way of life, this is the wonderful creative God who says I can be more than I think I am because He will give me the ability to be whatever He wants me to be.

Right now I have come to realize that I have an identity with many people, including myself. This might be called self awareness, I don't know, but whatever it is it is certainly a humbling experience when it floods over you. "Is that really me? Is that how I really reacted to that person or situation?" I am left surprised that though I claim God is my guide in life I still allow the weak flesh to take over and act as though I have to figure out how to react daily to people all by myself.

But the Spirit is with me. And He is always nudging me.

The fact is, thinking that I will only be this one way in life is not healthy. This life is a journey God has provided for me, and Christ as my savior wants to see me loving like He did in this situation or that situation. His patience is overwhelming, yet I very well know that a better way of life is at hand if I change more. This better way of life is the best life, by living out the fruit of the Spirit not all at once, but through a lifetime.

Jesus gave His life up for me so that I can change freely. Once I establish a relationship it is as if I set an expectation of staying the same with that person through our relationship. Acting a little different all of a sudden might raise eyebrows. Oh my!

My prayer is to wipe away fear of change. I should be praising God more in my vocabulary, stop side stepping when someone is truly in need, listen better to those around me, and above all, to love Christ no matter the situation I am in or who I am around at the time. I have an awesome personality that God has already given me, He just wants me to look more like His Son. I believe that this is the greatest sacrifice that we can make, giving up ourselves, our way of life, our way of being a lifetime christian, our set patterns, our false pat on the backs. Give up our lives, look different each and every waking day, as Christ gave His life away up on that cross for all our sins.

aware

2009-03-20T02:58:00.004-04:00

When God wants to work on you, He will use anything and take however long it takes to do so. What has surprised me lately is the amount of self awareness He has placed upon me. Prior to this self awareness, I think I was just going through the motions for a while. During a time even prior to that, not to confuse the time line, I had been learning a lot on my own by experiencing life and community in a very different manner than I have previously.

So as I write, God has rescued me from a lull that for better or worse happened. It was just a time where you go to school, do work, wake up at a certain time, go to youth group Saturday night, sleep in Sunday morning, have an adventure here and there, and pause a moment and say 'didn't I just do this yesterday, not last week?!' And during this time I was being stripped of things I assumed both of myself and the world I live in. Now I'm being clothed by what God wants me to wear and how to show it off to the world. What I did not know was that during the lull I was being shown for who I had allowed myself to become. Complacent with knowing God intellectually, talking about Him here and there, all the while continuing in sins that I figured would become healed eventually, but just not right now for some reason.

He woke me up.

The honesty that came down upon me was overwhelming. By showing me Christians who live as though He is right here among us I have been refreshed in knowing that He is here and I do not have to define myself by appeasing the person next to me. Instead, I can demonstrate this amazing saving God who is with me right now. Practicing the presence of God.

Another wake up call came from newer Christians. The refreshment came from hearing what they have been saved from, some pretty radical changes, amazing because I seriously carried around doubts that such changes could take place. This certainly was a faith issue. The passion that they have is tenfold of mine, maybe because they have been saved from a lot, or maybe simply just because they know who has saved them, and I have an intellectual concept instead of a Shepherd saving a sheep from a falling rock. Why I doubted that these changes could occur was simply a lack of experience with such people in my generation. Maybe I have heard of people on tv or in print or at larger seeker churches, but not face to face talks with people who have come back home to Father. I now know prodigal sons and daughters are coming to Him all the time, and this has increased my own faith.

Last, God basically revealed that I can keep on sinning, keep bringing death upon myself, or I can simply put an end to it. He has always given me a way out of these sins, but I haven't taken them. Its hard of course, speaking from a human sense. I'm just glad that I always knew that it was sin. Some don't, even in the Christian family, and this is saddening because He wants us to help each other out and He wants to guide us by His Spirit. This can't happen without self awareness. And what I had become aware of I knew already, but I didn't realize this literally could be what defines me before God. Better to have Jesus define me!

who do I rely On?

2009-01-11T21:19:00.007-05:00

God is always the rescuer and I am the one in need of rescuing. It is wonderful to know that God will be the one to seek me when things are rough, especially if I sin against Him. The times when I distance myself from Him out of shame is terrible because He is the one that is always pursuing, always chasing after me if I have even sinned against Him. I know no one else like that at all. To hit someone in the face and have them chase after you to get to know you and not strike back is something you do not see amongst people.

As I continue to experience great transitions in my life I need to be aware that career, education, even friend transitions all mean nothing if I don't continue transitioning towards Jesus. He cannot be placed to the side while I figure out what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.

Psalm 5 :1-7 (NASB) says:

Give ear to my words, O LORD,
Consider my groaning.
Heed the sound of my cry for help, my King and my God,
For to You I pray.
In the morning, O LORD, You will hear my voice;
In the morning I will order my prayer to You and eagerly watch.
For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness;
No evil dwells with You.
The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes;
You hate all who do iniquity.
You destroy those who speak falsehood;
The LORD abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit.
But as for me, by Your abundant lovingkindness I will enter Your house,
At Your holy temple I will bow in reverence for You.
O LORD, lead me in Your righteousness because of my foes;
Make Your way straight before me.

As I continue transitions and live for Him, I should remember that as for me, Jesus has a love and mercy that will allow me to enter at any time, because of Him, into His Kingdom. My sins, past as they are, cannot scare me and prevent me from engaging a God who allows entrance into His house. And my transitions in life should bring me excitement, not worry, because worry means that I am lost within God's house.

invisible dose not equal Imaginary

2009-01-01T22:36:00.007-05:00

Recently I have been stunned by a lot of things going on in my life, and the lives of others around me. What is going on in my life is the awakening that I better stop speaking so much about myself and more about Jesus. He needs to be the reason behind everything I go after, everything that I participate in, in short, everything. Period. Where I am finding that He is absent is in my present situational vocabulary. Out of the abundance of the heart come my words. And attributing events to Jesus just does not come out often. What I am getting at is there is a failure to verbalize the greatest person in my life, which in fairness He's no easy person to verbalize!

I am not looking for empty sayings to stuff into my conversations. It should be a natural overflow of the heart, that I am not simply talking about Jesus to talk about Him, but because He is really right there in all situations.

Seriously, however, the words that come from my mouth, that are absent, should be the last step in the process of a renewed heart. I should be verbalizing Jesus genuinely because of how I'm changed from within. Hanging out with some brothers in Christ recently, I have found that although they apply Jesus to a lot of situations, it is not unnecessarily at all, it's always an honest overflow from their hearts. If I'm giving props to Jesus inside of me, then I should just say it out loud instead of using filler words that we all tend to use when talking.

But I don't want Jesus to become a filler word either, it must be genuine, from a gladdened soul. I can't treat Him as though He is inside of me but not around me, cause that would be just an imaginary friend. And we don't want to tell people about an imaginary friend that we have. Nor do I think they would have any interest in listening about someone that we ourselves have come up with on our own. Or worse, someone we are doubting exists right now, that we are still convincing ourselves.

My prayer is thus; that I do not lose sight that the invisible is not the imaginary, that it is alright to talk about the invisible, and that the name above all names, Jesus, is not some pop culture catch phrase.

serving in Gladness

2008-12-20T10:20:00.004-05:00

Gladden the soul of your servant,
for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.
For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,
abounding in steadfast love to all who
call upon you.

Psalm 86:4-5 (ESV)

I don't get into the Psalms enough at all. If I would, I would find calls out from the heart like this one from King David. This is such a wonderful passage because to me I have been trying to understand the true motivation through life. Is it suppose to be somber, pious, joyous, glad, or all?

The key is that of course there is a time for every emotion, but I am talking about the motivation behind the emotion. Even more direct, what is my motivation to be a faithful believer in Christ and not a drugged out Law practicer?

I like what the verses above have to say. God has a steadfast love to those who call upon Him. And he gladdens the soul that belongs to Him. That I sift through passages like Galatians attempting to try and figure out how we are instructed to stay away from the Law and the curse that it brings upon those who try to follow it, yet only later in the same passage be given a list of things not to do, I am at a loss. But, it is the attitude that frees us. It is the gladdened soul that will serve. And it has been gladdened because we know of His amazing love, a love that forgives regardless of the terrible Law breaking we have done.

It is all a matter of our spirit walking with God's Spirit. That's it. So, my motivation should only be enjoying this gracious walk with God, staying in step not out of dodging the vices of life on my own effort, but instead having a gladdened soul every time I am reminded of God's steadfast love, a love that sacrificed His only Son for me. Wow, that should gladden any servants soul!

for Kyle

2008-11-25T13:47:00.001-05:00

So my room mate Kyle wished for me to write a new blog entry. So, here it is.

A better one should follow.

Procrastination will end.

Productivity will increase.

the year that Changed

2008-09-03T16:19:00.004-04:00

It has taken a month, but finally I have felt what has happened.

I moved. Physically to a new location, and overall. I moved through a year of freedom.

And it all became overwhelming. A year went by that included so much change and excitement that I can barely digest it all right now. A year off of school, with degree in hand, and with many deepened relationships. I have been looking back already, but today I got hit in the stomach. And the tear ducts turned on.

It all came rushing through my head; the road trips, the bible studies, the new friendships, the job experience, the growth in my character and skills (and discovering of skills), the walks with God, the struggles with God, the fight with future plans, the redefining of my purpose in life, the polished world views, the enlightening.

Now I find myself in a basement apartment not too far from where I grew up and hindsight is kicking in. Alternate realities with different choices made, chances to deepen the already deep relationships, to straighten out relationships, to make choices based not only on want and need but instead about God, etc. The past never felt so demanding of me as it did today because my past is what I have to go off of. The other resource, and most important, is trust in God, a trust that says in spite of what opportunities I have messed up, like pressing the blue button instead of the red button, my future is still alright.

I just miss things already that I'm not far from. The regretful things that I could easily mend and help out in more. But I have so much to digest still with this year. In fact, I could be so blind as to want to go back and change the year to be better with what I now know. That is ridiculous. I must press on and let the past be the one tool I use to affect my future, the other of course being trust in God. I might even be disappointed in career goals. But I can't let that affect me. I must respond to the wisdom of God. Where I want to let my year of always saying yes and never saying no dictate me and wish that things can just happen and all I have in terms of responsibility are to find out who I'm hanging out with tonight and whether I work the next day or not, this is where I must let go.

I shed tears realizing that my parents always supported me no matter what I was doing at any time in my life. I shed tears because I have those relationships to figure out more. I shed tears because I found out I cared. It's better to find out that I cared about what I did then to take it all as just something that happened. My one year of freedom has taught me many things, and I shall live out new years with compassion, thankfulness and bigheartedness.

the Confession

2008-08-01T23:06:00.004-04:00

I just finished "Jesus for President." The whole book did something funny to me. Aside from the obvious political emphasis of the book, it was the alternative life that the authors presented that stung. They actually live the life they diagnose. Section four of the book was a stab in the heart. So, here is a confession to all, because I really have nothing else to say right now.

(all ESV)

"But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgement." Matthew 5:22
But I remain angry and lash out even at my parents.

"But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Matthew 5:28
But I look lustfully at woman.

"And when you fast..." Matthew 6:16a
But I do not fast to begin with.

"Judge not, that you be not judged." Matthew 7:1
But I judge.

"A dishonest man spreads strife, and a whisperer (gossip) separates close friends." Proverbs 16:28
But I have gossiped amongst the closest of friends.

"But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the cheek, turn to him the other also." Matthew 5:39
But I hit even harder back.

"But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Matthew 5:44
But I hardly Love my enemies, and I do not pray for those who persecute me because I do not think I stand out enough to even be persecuted in the first place.

"If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink, for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you." Proverbs 25:21-22
But I have not fed my enemies. I think it would be difficult to give Osama Bin Laden a drink given the chance.

"Show hospitality to one another without grumbling." 1 Peter 4:9
But I have grumbled while washing feet.

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth..." Matthew 6:19a
But I own a lot of crap.

"And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need." Acts 2:45
But I have allowed fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to go home with needs unmet, while I have a pile of crap still.

"...for God loves a cheerful giver." 2 Corinthians 9:7b
But I do not give much, and when I do, it is grudgingly. And I still have the pile of crap.

"Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me." Matthew 25:40b
But I have walked by the thirsty, the hungry, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned giving them nothing.

"Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." James 1:27
But I have a religion of memorizing verses and having debates and then talking some more about my religion, all the while getting stains on me from the world.

"And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me." Matthew 10:38

But I carry a toothpick.

enforcing the code of Grace

2008-07-13T23:27:00.004-04:00

I'm a substitute code enforcement officer for a city. I tell people to cut their grass, pick up their junk, paint their garage and generally that they are slobs that never cleaned their rooms when they were kids. Fun job.

There are connections, however, between code enforcement and God that I have come to appreciate. The code (or the law, if that has not already begun to cross your mind as an analogy) is something that truly has a purpose. This is the first lesson I learned. I could not for the longest time justify going up to an elderly lady and tell her she had to paint her garage. Seems rather non-merciful. But the lesson is simple. If she does not paint it, the garage deteriorates and drives down the property value. I am thus both looking out for her investment in her property and the neighboring ones as well by telling her to paint it. And that is the purpose of the law that God gave, to look out for me and my neighbors. Also, it teaches me who my neighbor is and why they matter at all.

Second, since the code is there for protection of something valuable, that which is deemed valuable must in fact be valuable. That was a wordy way of saying we have great worth because God looks out for us, and thus has established a code to protect what He has deemed valuable. He wanted no harm done to us, although harm had entered the world, so the code set us apart from others to show how valuable we are. With that mindset there should never have been a sinning Jew nor a junk car in a backyard of my city.

But there are. There were still sinning Jews no matter how important God told them they were (seriously, think about it: God interacted with them and gave them a rich Promise, told them how they are separate from the nations, how He selected them, how He wanted to protect them. The God of the universe! Should that not have made them be absolutely devoted!?). Also, there are junk cars in people's backyards. The value of their property does not seem to matter when there are other distractions all over. Sure they own a chunk of real estate, of which they earned rather than had been given (such as their life), but that is theirs to decide what to do with. So the junk car is staying no matter how valuable you tell them their property is and how much more it could be. Same with the Jewish nation. They wanted to look like the other nations after awhile. Despite that whole deal of the God of the universe hanging out with them and selecting them!

And then the ultimate clincher. The code exists, but was never the plan. It exists in that we can be sure of what is screwed up in our city, or in the other case ourselves. But it is the usage of the other word, enforcement, that is the true shocker and where the comparison between God and code enforcement ends. To the world He gave His Son. He sacrificed. He demonstrated grace, which by definition is not merely not giving you what you deserve and walking away (think driving by a junkyard without telling you that you have a junkyard), but giving you what you do not deserve instead (think giving you an extra shed to store your junk in).

If grace was the vehicle by which I enforced the code of the city, it would look heavenly. What I would be doing is this. I would go up to someones house and point out that they have a junk pile. I would then proceed to get my gloves out and start cleaning up with them. Maybe I would be doing it all or the majority of the load, but I would certainly be giving them a helping hand. Grass would be cut by the city, but without a charge on the property owner's taxes. Buckets of paint would be filled inside my beat up old cop car instead of warning notices that I cram into doors or into people's faces.

This is God's grace, and where our world of code enforcement does not mirror God. I thought I had been gaining a lot of gusto by telling people they are wrong. I found I need more gusto. I need to participate in the rejuvenation of the person. God sacrificed everything, He complied the code. Not only did He initiate the process of cleaning up our property, He now expects a response. It is either the continuation to dig our heals in against Him (for whatever reason, I can't comprehend why someone would reject such Love anymore) or to pay respect back by demonstrating whatever gratitude we can towards Him by keeping our life up.

That is how backwards we are as people, we simply want justice where we tell people off and hope that they pick their yards up. That is our system. In a Christian nation, we would have Paint Patrol and Junk Eliminators. Not Code Enforcement. It is God's to avenge, God's to judge. Those who do not respond in gratitude for what God has offered will get what is coming for sure because it just does not make sense why people would hate someone paying their penalty for them. Unless of course they witnessed near nothing in terms of grace and redemption on earth, which is all on Christ followers. If they don't see us in their life helping out, what makes them think that God is doing anything, or has done anything?

So enforce the code by acting out the remedy of the code, instead of leaving a ticket in the front door suggesting they stop gluttonizing, stop committing adultery, stop being greedy, stop being angry, etc.

ultimate fighting Jesus

2008-06-25T16:27:00.004-04:00

In "Vintage Jesus" Mark Driscoll titles a chapter "Where is Jesus Today?" I almost skipped over it at the time, because I did not care to strap a GPS on Jesus. He's in heaven, right, end of story? Driscoll makes a statement in the chapter that pops up a couple times. He says:

Sadly, when many people think of Jesus they only understand his past humble
incarnation and neglect his current glorious exaltation. (pg. 149)

I found this to be very refreshing and helpful. To walk away understanding the full portrait the Word speaks of itself is to find the classic story of the King amongst His peasants . This romanticized tale that is common helps me now to appreciate the power of Christ in the present. It has been said thousands of times in thousands of ways, but the fact that God humbled Himself and took on flesh is a wonderful expression of True Love. But where I find the story missing its fullness, and where it rightly comes up short, is when we leave out that this King went back up to His crown and rules not at a distance but now with the sympathy that He now owns. We are not merely peasants who do not abide by his edicts, we are poor, broken peasants seeking compassion from the King. He has always had that compassion, He just had to visit us and thus demonstrate how we should live, in complete humility.

But then there is a little more. Driscoll goes further to tell us what Revelation shows about Jesus seated in glory, and power. I would rather you, the reader be the judge here. Revelation 19: 11-16 says (and please do read the whole chapter and context):

11Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one
sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and
makes war. 12 His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many
diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. 13He is
clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The
Word of God. 14And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure,
were following him on white horses. 15 From his mouth comes a sharp sword with
which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He
will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the
Almighty. 16 On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings
and Lord of lords.

Driscoll dubs this Ultimate Fighter Jesus. Though not solely Jesus, remember King amongst the peasant Jesus, this is but His glorified position. This is a God who actually has an answer to evil, where he took care of our sins by way of humility on the cross, and by the ultimate defeat of all sorrows at this second coming event riding on a white horse. Driscoll reemphasises, "If we were to see Jesus today, we would see him in glory, not in humility." (p.150)

Jesus' portrait should thus grow for you as it has for me, if it had not been full already. The lesson is fantastic; The King gave up His power to show us how to trully live, then returned to power so that we shall not despair in our low position, when we are draining our pockets to feed the poor, when we are taking out our precious time to comfort the widow, when we give up pursuits of fame for that of humble living. He is in power, He will fight for us to the end.

review of Vintage Jesus

2008-06-22T22:32:00.004-04:00

I just finished "Vintage Jesus" by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears today. I have to say that I was surprised by the content and the frankness of the book in general. For as little as I had known about Mark before the book, which was what I'm sure the average person knows (a hothead preacher who spits venom and is only awake at night in order to stay away from the sun), the book was solid. Questions were the titles of all chapters, and thus he set out to answer those questions. Very straight forward.

As a great apologetic tool as well as Christology, Vintage surprised me with the explanations to almost all questions. The most important message to take home from the book is biblical supremacy. Mark and Gerry do not shy away from first saying what God tells us, and then from there drawing either contemporary or ancient ideas to compare with the Word of God. Mark uses examples from all around our culture without covering up who our culture thinks Jesus is. I enjoyed this because too often people take the culture and do one of two things with it; either they embrace it to incorporate it into the Kingdom of God, or they find it so wrong that even in talking about it they cover up what our culture says about Jesus. It is as if the latter camp by saying these things about Jesus believe that this is now attributed to them. It is not, as long as we follow the example of Mark and Gerry, by comparing it the Word, not incorporating it into the Word.

I will be sprinkling some thoughts from this book throughout future blogs, so more of the beef will come out. This is due to the many topics within the 12 chapters each one discusses.

My final two points. First, a critique. I laughed out loud at times when Mark talked like Mark. This is to say that he swung for the fences and took no prisoners in these comments. I would suggest, however, that he can retain the humor without creating casualties at the same time. Second, a praise. In not only a time of postmodernism, but also coming from someone (Mark) who has spent significant time conversing with those upholding this view and the many conclusions that come out of it (because, well, what conclusions can one draw when they lead to more questions?), it is refreshing that a stance for Truth can be found inside the Emergent label. If we screw up Jesus, we have a different god. But if we draw from the Word, the source, then we can paint Jesus not with our own strokes, but with His hand guiding ours. We can't afford to get Jesus wrong because simply, we need a Savior that only God provides, not the personal savior of our desires and sinful nature.

future Sin

2008-06-14T22:41:00.003-04:00

I write about sin because I'm told I am sinful (Romans 3:23). Then, I come to realize that I'm not just being told this, but I find myself to be sinful (Romans 7:14). Then, I am reassured by the Lord, the comforter, the actual Saviour that it is He who grants the power and ability to break free from this sin I now realize that I struggle with (Romans 7:24-25; 1 John 2:1-2).

Where I am often scared and rightfully fearful is afterward; when will this happen again?

I should claim victory and rest in the sacrificial blood spilled by Christ. It is over, it is finished, the matter is so done with that when Christ speaks on my behalf to God, God ends up freeing me from any accusation (Colossians 1:22). That is worth thanking enough. It is worth becoming my motivation, that He has completely forgiven me so that I can be at peace afterwards and continue living for Him. But my fear of repetition aches me. I understand grace, so if I have been given what I do not deserve, why could I place a bet on the fact that I will sin in some form in the next day (let alone the next moment!)?

I think I have to stop forecasting the future. That is such a dangerous practice of ours, that we can dream about tomorrow. It would be best to leave tomorrow where it is located because the present calls for way more attention. Living presently with Kingdom thoughts and reactions are better ways to react to anything. However, my disappointment in knowing that the same temptation that came my way and won will come again should be laid wayside if I truly believe that Christ can inhabit me with His Spirit. That inhabiting presence is always there, it is all about whether I want to walk hand in hand or at an awkward distance. And when the tempter does come again, I hope that I can laugh in my weakness knowing full well the strength that Christ supplies me.

Honestly, I need to get over it not because of the guilt, that is gone, but because of the uncertain future. The more uncertain the better, it will be exciting and make for a better story anyway!

the Loved amongst the Religious

2007-11-24T15:55:00.000-05:00

Short and sweet, but here is a thought that has come to mind as I continue on through new Life.

There is always talk about the religious of the religious, the saints if you will. These are the exemplary of the bunch of us sinners, supposedly models of Christ likeness demonstrated at the highest level we sinners can achieve. Perhaps more humbly, those of us who just fell in love better than others.

There is also talk of those of us who are the religious of the religious in another sense, the legalistic approach. Those of us sinners who have truly despised sin so much that they take extra lengths of measure to separate themselves from sin while in the world (as if God had not distanced them far enough from sin when they excepted the blood of Christ).

In both cases it is a matter of the true pew fillers over those who are simply warming the bench. The religious of the religious. Both have their immediate and visible impact on the church as they are the active or busy bees humming around all over the place, moving around to show that they in fact are doing something for the Lord.

But the thought came over me as God impacted me more yesterday with another challenging day here on earth:

Why not instead act like the Loved amongst the religious? Not to act like the religious of the religious, to do things because others are not doing them. But to do 'things' because I truly feel Loved by Christ, motivated by this Love that is supposed to be used and not suppressed, that I seem like a love drunk teen committed, seemingly delusional to the rest of us, to his love of his life.

Yes, to emerge from the pew as the Loved amongst the religious, crazy and madly in love.

again, Others

2007-10-24T00:53:00.000-04:00

The hint I gave in my last posting in regards to De Roulet's book "Finding Your Plot in a Plotless World" was a lousy cover up. I mentioned that God wants me to look around myself and not at myself. By doing so, I look at others. I realize that after you look at God long enough, as I have my entire life being raised a churchgoer, eventually He starts nudging at you, with a body motion that snaps the head with raised eyebrows, and while standing, motions you towards something other than Him. That is why Christ gave us the second greatest commandment after the first, because some had been doing a rather good job at only focusing on God and not others.

By the time he ends the book, De Roulet has fixated the reader from "what now do I do with God and myself" to "what now do I do with God and others?" Through some wonderful illustrations De Roulet makes clear that in the times of little to no hope, or not to even go that far but simply the mundane, helping others will help us and please God. It's that sort of blessing, which really all are, that come when we don't want them. They come because we have served, we have given up on our trivial endeavours and moved towards helping other's trivial endeavours become golden dreams.

Now after saying all that and having read the whole book, the cure to the plotlessness of life is something that I'm terrible at. I'm a very inward person, I'd go as far at to say depressed, as kind as to say mildly content. Somebody's else's mess is something I'd rather stand away from. Unfortunately so are their joys. It has been historically hard for me to connect socially with other people because I'm uptight and afraid of condemnation. Again, over the joyous things, not just the tough stuff.

A good amount of that has changed. That's that maturing thing again. But the flesh I was dealt with remains. I do listen to people more, I do engage with more people than I have before, but I feel as though I'm contributing to more plotlessness and less resolve in other's lives. Maybe it is because I have not gotten deep enough with enough people to come along side and help them. Maybe because it is because I have backed off when the issue is right in front of me. Maybe it is because I have suppressed myself and have not given all of it away.

Quite frankly, its hard to reach out and be vulnerable. It is not something we do everyday. We don't start conversations "Hey Chuck, I was thinking, why do I feel so down all the time, you know!?" and then Chuck, even rarer, responds "Well, come to think of it, I'm bubbly all the time, but I force it out through my teeth because my dad yells at me all the time!" Those are real problems, sins, and taboo to talk about.

We can pray and pray to God, while the whole time He is nudging us the answer; "look around you, not at you, I've answered you with a friend that you won't talk with. A person you won't open up to. An image of Me that you would not even suspect." And we will be helped when we help another.

in-and-out Belief

2007-10-19T16:36:00.000-04:00

I just finished an excellent book entitled "Finding Your Plot in a Plotless World" by Daniel de Roulet. The title is self explanatory, but my best insight would be it is a "Purpose Driven Life" for people who realized the intentions were well, but the practicality is somewhat hard to grasp in such a violent, tipsy world.

I want to write about this book later, after it soaks in a lot more, but I mention it here just to set up where I am at in life. I understand fully that Christ is worth believing in, but at times I feel as though I am believing in something that I get warm and fuzzy with and that is it. I can be very sure that I am maturing in action as well, but it seems cloudy, as if I am cutting through fog before I can reach a better understanding of how to react to the situations I face in life. If it is a random conversation about music taste, to an actual personal encounter with someone in need, there is a right and wrong choice, supposedly, to make. My problem is I recognize that there are a numerous amount of choices, a most high choice and a terrible choice being the most exemplary.

But it is Christ that I keep coming back to. Belief in Him is something that eventually becomes a rude awakening. It is the reaction to the rude awakening that haunts me. I can't speak for most, but I just might, but it seems that I can say that He represents some good ideas and that He reaffirms my existence and that He is there if I need Him. This is all good points, but I understand that there must be more to it than this.

A brief dive into de Roulet's book clears up what I am verbalizing. He talks about what is the cure for the mundane, the fill in the blank moments in life. Why are they there if God is suppose to be this great presence that clears up all the slop and brings me to a new hope? Why then do I find myself writing activity logs at my job or pushing paper or waking up and falling into the same routine? Should not God supply a long lasting vacation from this mundane world once I accept Him? Well of course that's latter. So for those moments, the day to day, punching in process, "Office Space" like, I struggle with finding greater meaning in them. De Roulet's answer is less shocking than one would think, because it is God's, but I'll save that for another posting.

The point of this year-and-a-half-about-later posting is that Christ is ever so refreshing, as long as I allow Him to be. If I am hesitant and think that He is not in the mundane, then I am terribly mistaken. He is, I just need to look around me and not look at me. The belief issue is something of another matter, how strong I feel towards His warm presence compared to others is hard to tell, it's like crossing over into the do not judge territory. But, and this should be the last but, I know that if I feel that it is most proper to talk about Christ as much as possible, actively engaging in his plan so that I can even live it out and less talk it out, then that is how strong I have been pulled into Him.

I can't wait for other people to jump ship if I already know that I must in order to live.

a chance to be pulled Out

2006-03-18T00:56:00.000-05:00

To go with the flow is ever so easy
and to stay in the current is but no hard task,
once caught, you try hard to jump out,
only after your eyes have opened at last

But for many the choice is not made,
carelessly accepting where the current goes,
for the current is so strong, it can't be wrong,
at least this is what was thought to be so

No attempt is made to understand,
only excepting what they feed you through their hands,
what if there were another?
this hand outstretched with all the power from a Father

Many have gone by Him down the river,
many have simply gone under and drowned,
their expressions of pleasure for the moment
have failed to notice Him standing on the side, crowned

What if the Truth was held out to help you,
would you allow Him to have a chance?
do all the questions seem so overwhelming,
as if they were there to counter act this Son of Man?

Since they are, you might as well forget them,
for they have no purpose in His kingdom,
because no matter how fast that current is flowing,
He will pull you out, simply for knowing...

...Him!

pay your respect to Jesus

2006-03-16T15:39:00.000-05:00

Barry Bonds and his steroid episode have raised some very important questions, the obvious being the steroid question. But with all this ruckus comes many different viewpoints from different sports writers and as well as regular columnists. What I have found to be particularly counter intuitive is the common premise out there that says that Major League Baseball has as much responsibility if not more for Barry's steroid usage. For every 5 Barry bashers there seems to be one of these arguments. Their point is that because the league allowed steroids at the time, or from their point of view did not have a ban on steroids, Bonds is in less a fault as the league is. These writers are putting out the argument less used in order to get people to read into their story and to try and make sense of it in a society that puts all the responsibility on the individual for their actions.

I couldn't help but realize for the first time after listening to this argument what the writers ideal world is. Its a world where authority has everything covered so as to prevent wrong from happening, or at least to punish wrong. The thought that a country that has laws against killing ever since it started can actually prevent killing is preposterous. Those who wish to desire so will still do so. The action will still occur.

Now of course the numbers will go down, since open hunting season on each other is never opened. The same will and hopefully has applied to the new rules against steroid use in baseball. But a ban will not prevent people from taking steroids, it will only discourage them to. This applies to all things in life that seem to have gone wrong, through the sinful nature that has entered the world. C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity covers in a chapter about how it is rather pointless to achieve a goal of a utopian society (why is there even an idea of one, it has to be pinned up against what is wrong, and therefore there has to be a universal wrong). His argument says that at the end of the day, some new form of corruption will make its way in that sabotages the goals of this utopian place.

And that it exactly why decisions are made at the personal level when it comes to morality. The ever famous Puritans, and for all the wrong reasons, crumbled when the Law of God was made the law of the land. It can't happen anymore, not since that wonderful time around 30 A.D. happened. Jesus supplies the grace that we need, as long as we are willing to admit that we have done (and continue to do) wrong. Barry is accountable only to God and then himself, to God because of the expectations He has for us, and to himself for the children he has to set an example for. Its not hard to recall why as a teen we all seem to paint a lot more graffiti and brake more windows in our life then and not later (hopefully not later) due to the inability to grasp why on earth there are laws to begin with. Of course for some that frame of mind continues on into the dazed and confused college years, but eventually one has to pay his due to the man.

Unfortunately, we all have to pay our due to the Man, God in the flesh, at all breathing moments of our lives. Bonds may be right to have stuck a needle into his posterior (which some suggest)when the law of baseball did not prevent such an act, but what about sticking that needle in the presence of God? And that goes for everyone as well, because I don't know if Barry is a Christian or not determines how I react to this. If he is, then he has some explaining to do to God. If he isn't, then literally he did nothing good or bad when he used steroids under the non-banned era in the viewpoint of an atheist, however still not escaping final judgment. Its our personal decision to follow God's commands after being saved that truly distinguishes if we truly believe in being rescued from the sinful nature. Setting up laws of a country or a league can only discourage, it can't make the decision of taking or not taking the action for us.

believe, but believe what is most Convenient ?

2006-03-11T15:20:00.000-05:00

As an avid reader, I must confess that my viewpoint and ability to argue an argument is not as up to par as I would prefer it to be. With that, I can't help shake, from time to time, all the argumentation over theological matters in Christianity that I run into. I see both view points and I understand even where they are coming from, but isn't it better to have an actual Truth rather then a debate? Unfortunately that is not possible on this broken world, that is to not have debate, not that Truth is not floating around in the midst of it all. So whether you identify yourself as emerging, conservative, protestant, catholic, Episcopal, Baptist or anything else under the umbrella of modern Christianity, I'd love to agree with you, but.....

....What are we all basing this off of? I read arguments that at the end sound as though the sins that you are being saved from once believing in Jesus are only sins that you consider to be sinful. As strange as that sounds, I must ask those people what can Jesus save me from then? Should I try the sins that you are working on first, and then try the ones that I feel as though are sins, but the Christian next to me feels as though those aren't?

And that's just talking about sins and the Bible as a rule book. What about the Trinity debate, the importance of the cross and Jesus' death debate (1 Corinthians 15 is my best answer for that one, but hey, what did Paul know anyway, anything?). How about the argument that Jesus was only preaching to Jews and trying to challenge the Jewish faith in its sincerity, not to create a new movement. One begins to see that there is room for interpretation for anything involving Christianity.

I beg to differ. And I do so because from both the viewpoint of a history major and as well as practicing believer in Jesus, that there is solid ground. Jesus is of course that foundation of solid ground, but all He ever said in those regards was that we should not build our house on the sand but on rock, never referring us to what exactly that rock is. So out of the many things to consider, I love to ponder out loud every now and then about the ideas of a mentally challenged person, or even more milder, just a person with learning difficulties. What are their theological argument to Jesus and His firm stance on many moral subjects? What can that person add to all of these arguments? I'm afraid not the answers we are looking for, but perhaps the actual answer that we need. It would be better to tell that person exactly what the Word of God says, exactly the way those privileged apostles told us about their encounter with God in the flesh.

After all, primary sources are the most persuasive accounts in regards to a historical document. Maybe we should give credit to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John with their primary sources so as to go by them in terms of defining Jesus. I'd also have to say that Paul's conversion and experience at propelling the Church cannot be taken lightly either, and so the more we question what he told us, the more we question what God is capable of doing.

So before we go off saying that we are Christians who enjoy postmodern theology or anything else that allows us to always question and never settle our houses on that Rock, I think it is better to take at face value what Jesus taught us in the Bible, because what other source do we have of His teachings and life?

the warmth of the Womb

2006-01-29T14:13:00.000-05:00

17 percent of all abortions are from born-again Christians in the United States of America. There, that's the startling statistic for this piece. After that, Christians all across the board have to figure out what to do about this statistic. This was brought up in the sermon today, which dealt specifically with the Spiritual aspect of abortion. My music pastor gave the sermon today, a warm and clumsy man that would be the last of my pastors I would think of presenting such a delicate issue such as this one. On account that this was truly the first direct abortion sermon held at my church to my recollection, it was amazing to hear such a stunning presentation brought forth by him, not to take away from his abilities. The often goofy laughable man had us all thinking deeply about the topic, penetrating to the core of some, as noticed by their constant sniffling and emotional looks they gave.

The sermon pleased me ever so. I expected the worst; a bantering of why it is the right thing to do, that is to vote Republican. The sermon was far from that, and to tell you the truth, I have a bad stereotype developing by those who say that Baptists will bash you over the head for committing such sins as voting Democrat. No, I under estimate my church a lot, but that is worth noting in another post. The fact of the matter is that my pastor gave a presentation of the topic in a very non-political matter, even going as far as to say that we have taken this truly Spiritual topic and made it a religious one, and then into a political one, as man has always seemed to do. The political battle is formulated so as to make everyone think that there is a black and white, a right or wrong, a "if your on this side, this means that you support this and do not support that." No, my pastor went straight to the Word and told us what God thinks. And yes, God is a pro-lifer, to the chagrin of some (out of the many, the best is Psalm 139:13-16).

This made for a better train of thought, rather than one that I possess from time to time that involves debunking the hidden messages from the speakers mouth. I understood full well that 17 percent of all who have abortions need attention. All who have had an abortion do, but the ones that we as brothers and sisters in Christ are responsible for in the process of caring for and growing with in this Spiritual journey with need an extra hug all the time. And do not get me wrong here either, everyone else needs an extra hug as well (if we are giving one in the first place), however Paul makes it especially clear that as the Body of Christ we are obligated to form an unusual bond with each other, one that the world would see as rather odd.

I could barley look at the emotion on one man's face during the service; if not for social norms and what not, I would certainly have gotten out of my pew and ran over to him to give him that needed hug. I don't even know who he was. But I remained in my uncomfortable seat and kept from doing the thing that I knew God was nudging me to do.

We as the Body need one another so much, and we all need to realize that true comfort is found in Christ, but an actual physical demonstration of the reflection of Christ's Love should be bouncing back and forth between us all the time. It is by this love that can remedy that 17 percent; in fact it is the cure for that number. Love bouncing back and forth will actually make that number drop drastically, because others will realize how much each of us values them and the decisions that they make in life.

That was the demeanor of the first Christians, a love bouncing back and forth that could not be stopped, not even during the full extent of the persecutions of the Roman Empire against them. It was not until following Christ became a political tool, a political designation that the horrible reputation began to build up against Christianity (Constantine). It's too bad that the political ties of today have twisted the direction of the sanctity of life, because followers of Christ could have helped combat this outside of the political arena with our beautiful reflection of True Love. That is what we have to practice instead of practicing our speeches for a political convention.

change with no Fear

2006-01-20T17:31:00.000-05:00

A small larva that crawls along the dirty ground, going from plant to plant living its mundane life is a very unassuming creature. It's business does not seem all that exciting, if even known or appreciated. A lot of them are more than likely eaten by other creatures, stopped before they can even imagine of what is to come in their lives, if they can imagine. But what do they think about when they spin a cocoon and emerge a new creature. Newly clothed, but still the same larva, do they flip out? I know that I would, but then again that is because I have an advanced way of thinking about things, being human and all.

The point I'm getting at is that it should be scary. To us as man, it would be an event that once we emerged out of the cocoon, we would fly around screaming at the top of our lungs. What do we do now, how do we go about crawling on the dirt again, how can we be unnoticed like we were before? Now we are beautiful butterflies that attract attention automatically now. This has to be a confusing process.

And that is how coming back to God seems to me. It is quite frightening. I had a previous life that involved crawling on the ground, eating the crumbs of whatever I could feast off of, not being able to get the full attention of what I felt I was not receiving. And then all of a sudden I'm being lavished with the warmth from God that fills me up so much that I do not know what it was like before. But then life kicks in again and that is when the panic starts. There is a lot that I have to accomplish, a lot that I have to change and I do not know where to begin. I know that God has high expectations for me now, and I wonder where to start. The frightening part of it all is that the world still exists; that out there is where I still have to live.

I have the same old friends, which the Word tells me to not yoke with. I have the same old habits, that the Word tells me to kick. This is the scary part. I know that I have to sit at tables with tax collectors, but not to yoke with them. I know that the world and flesh exists despite the Kingdom that I have joined. As a new creation, this freaks me out.

Yet this is what Jesus stood up for and directed. He wants us to look at the world with a new world view. He wants us to think and act like citizens of the Kingdom. He wants us to not worry about the change we have made; he wants us to fly like butterflies in the same world we lived in as larva.

Not to crawl on the dirt anymore.

war on christmas, that already happened in the 1600's!

2005-12-22T12:49:00.000-05:00

Disclaimer: I apologize for this out of character posting, simply because I rant a little more than usual and present a tone of bitterness and sarcasm. It is the side of me that is a history major that has to bring this forward, to at least make sense of the blinders that some people put on everyday.

For every evangelical that is pushing for the defense of Christmas, all I personally recommend for you to do is try and catch the history channels show on the historicity of Christmas overall.

I would also suggest that somehow you obtain footage of the ESPN Sportcenter's story about Reggie White's passing away, which first aired almost a year ago today. The connection is quite simple, that is by learning what December 25th of the Judeo-Christian calendar truly involves, you might want to consider taking the stance that Reggie took for the few remaining years of his life here on earth.

He stopped celebrating Christmas, and for good reason. He never, ever stopped being a believer in the power of the Christ Child, or more importantly the risen Saviour, but instead focused more on the root of Christianity by tracing its Hebrew origins and coming up with different stances than what his fellow pastors, as well as brothers and sisters in Christ take.

I'm not saying to go and learn how to speak Hebrew, but I am saying that if you to did just a little bit of digging around about the topic of Christmas, you would find that there is a strong secular connection with it, even pagan. Nothing that I would enjoy being apart of, and neither did those good 'ole Puritans of the 17th century as well. But that is all in the history channel show.

If you do not get around to seeing it, I'll at least leave you with this little tidbit that a commentator on the show said. He said it is quite fitting that the patron saint of America, Saint Nicholas, would be propped up side by side with the backbone of America, commercialism. His comment was directed towards the placement of a real life Santa Clause in department stores, a decision made in the mid 19th century. Funny how this icon would be placed side by side with commercialism, and then defended 150 years later by a people that support a party centered around big business (i.e. the Republican party, in case you did not know). History has a strange way of supporting itself through the years without even trying real hard at it.

He spoke in Stories

2005-12-05T22:40:00.000-05:00

The power of story cannot be overlooked, nor replaced, ever. There is something about story, a story, a tall tale that can transform the way we look at everyday life, and yet be a simple message that a child could understand. Not a child who is skeptical and does not except what he is told because somehow it seems impossible. Just because he has never seen giants fall by a single rock or men re-emerge from the belly of a fish does not mean that it is time to stop listening to such stories. No, not even a bunch of dead baseball players walking out from a cornfield in the middle of Iowa should stop the child from leaning in even closer to pay attention. There is a moral of every story, and that is what the child will tune into when he gets older.

Story is the way to communicate to children, and we must never forget that even though we mature, at heart we are always children. The more we attempt to break down and formulate the story, deciding at the end of the day that either it is impossible for a man to survive in a great fish, or that he actually did survive in a great fish, disrupts the moral of the story and wastes precious time that could be used in carrying out that moral.

Jesus spoke in parable so as to allow little children such as us to understand the ways of the Father as best as we can. We began right away attempting to break it down and play connect the dots with ancient texts. The meaning, the moral of the story is the only thing that God Himself expects of us to understand, because not everyone can become a professor of theology.

Besides we did not write the story, so how can we break it down? We can only listen and obey It's command.

off guard Expectaion

2005-10-30T18:41:00.000-05:00

The weather has such a grasp on our emotions. On this day in particular in the year, the Sunday after the falling back of an hour, your emotions are doubly toyed with. Today it was 60 degrees which most certainly does not depict a normal October 30th in the state of Michigan. And I would have to assume that they planned to do this time switch on a Saturday so that your first time to adjust with this shift to a quickened darkness would be on a Sunday night. And Sundays most assuredly have a different feel to them anyway, if you are a Church goer. SO all this equaled to a spurt of emotions that I could only recall as the dawn of Halloween.

Its effect actually triggered memories from my RAM (random access memory). I could recall, after filling up my tank of gas from the same neighborhood station at the same pump, unique memories as I drove through the neighborhood. They were very comforting as they are memories that remind me of who I am and what I have done in my life. But these are the little moments of walks down streets after school or visits to houses that I have been in only once. Their effect nonetheless are big. And the weather seemed to accompany them at the same time.

I feel then at the same time that this is how God is. That here I am running through life, but when that sweeping feeling comes over me reminding me who I am it is God. He does this because He wants me to be confident. School seems to be going fine and my Spiritual life keeps progressing, but the future scares me. But God's warmth comes over me when I get to that stage and all is well again. That is who I am. That is what I'm doing all of this for. For Him.

The thing is is that when day light savings time hits, that is truly a once a year experience. Even the odd temperatured day, like the one that occurred today (but in Michigan that day is almost all the time). Still, God is there all the time providing warmth unexpectedly. We can chart and prepare for the hour gained, but when it gets dark at 6 o'clock we are still amazed. No matter how many times I wake up knowing that God will be walking with me today, it still is very surprising when he supplies that reassurance. That feeling that sweeps over me and reminds me that He is near. God has such a grasp on our emotions.

time not well Spent

2005-10-28T19:13:00.000-04:00

It can only be viewed as an understatement, but free speech most certainly has to be the most important part of democracy. Without this vital characteristic, people would be pinned up in a fear of when and where they can say what they truly think and believe. On that note, it can be a double egged sword. I find this to be true when I began to listen to Christian talk radio for the first time. There had been a reluctancy before my decision, for I have been a Christian for quite a while. I'm sure that it is not even a requirement anyway that upon becoming a Christian you have to listen to Christian talk radio. But this reluctancy had been bred by my stereotype of the tone of these talk shows. I thought that I was going to be exposed to never ending gay bashing and abortion talk, but instead it was worse. I thought I was listening to Rush Limbaugh.

Throughout the entire show, and that being only what I was listening to at different hours of the show, there were non stop political discussions. I was taken aback. If I had wanted to know the latest about the Harriet Miers resignation I would have simply watched the Daily Show later that night. But I wanted to listen about engaging Christian topics that would either further my growth in Christ or at least get me thinking. Boy did I have high hopes. Instead it was more political analysis than I thought the Bible even gets into.

Now I have nothing against speaking your political voice. I have nothing at all against people bringing up stimulate discussions about politics. Really, I have nothing against a Christian talk show bringing up politics in any way, because it would be almost impossible to avoid in this country. I was disappointed however that there was no Christian talk to be found, only lobbying for the Republicans. And quite frankly what was I thinking, or expecting? I thought that I would only have to bare a couple political segments and that would be it. But it never stopped. And that is when I began to ponder whether the Jesus that talked only about others, who talked about how to enter the kingdom of Heaven, who talked about loving God first and then loving our neighbors was talking through the radio show. If an immigrant to this country turned on that talk show and that was their first listen of a Christian talk show, they would have seen no separation between Jesus and politics. They might have even thought that Jesus was running in '08.

I was surprised I have to say. I did not know that it was this bad. I have only taken information in from my experiences, which have been few, from my Baptist church when dealing with this whole G.O.P. is for God thing. And they are actually rather silent, not broadcasted over a loud speaker. But this talk show was a beacon not for Hope but for Republican hope. And truly I have no animosity towards those who are Republican. I just do not understand how a Christian radio talk show can go through a broadcast without discussing events that are happening today with a fresh interpretation of the Word of God as the center piece. The Word of God was only used to give some fresh insight into the political field and to provide support for the Republican party.

Obviously I'm describing something which has been the center of much debate and countless blogs, and I don't feel that I have actually added anything new to this topic. But from what I observed today, what I heard pouring out of my car speakers was something that I had to record for histories sake, like the many out there that are doing right now. My only argument is that we bring Christian talk radio back to a focus on Christ and not a political lobbying machine.

There could be many more words said then that could contribute to many other Christian causes; stirring Christians up to feed the poor, getting a nice Sunday morning lesson about how to change my attitudes and shortcomings (sins if you will), or even relating current events with Christian reasoning to help explain them. Instead your getting the same message at the end of the show that you could get from listening to Rush. In fact I heard the host of the show say that because some caller mentioned Rush in the last call that many people might flock over to Rush's show that airs at the same time. Why on earth would that even be possible, that a listener would go to Rush for the same information a Christian talk show is presenting? Rush does drugs, he is not exactly a good Christian. Oh wait, he is a good Republican so that is kind of the same thing.

Come to think of it, I don't believe political lobbying is a Christian calling anyway.

break up, but love them more than Yourself!

2005-08-29T16:10:00.000-04:00

I'll tell you what, postmodern can go find a better way of going about things. Since I have been introduced to this open minded type of a Christian, I realized something right from the start. These people are just a 'type' of person who has always existed, it is just that they never knew fully how to get some organization together and 'break away.' I know these are some over generalized statements and what not, but I know for sure that it is more so personality traits that we are dealing with. But I came across a blog the other day that I did not like. I mean, I liked what the purpose of it was, but not how it went about describing it. Actually when it ended there was no resolve to it. It was bringing up problems with the evangelical church.

This blog brought up the dis-connection the author felt between the evangelical Church and them. That is great and all, and I most likely would have hoot and hollered about what was said at least a month ago, but I have changed. I know that I have been drawn even closer to God this summer, basically by reading His Word with much greater intensity. I understand His ways more clearer. With that said, I am still a long ways off to understand Him. In fact I'm going to have to get rid of this flesh first in order to know Him completely but I don't plan on killing myself (perhaps though I could be struck down before I finish this sentence by Him.) But since I'm still here, let me get to my point: I like the emerging Church, I like what it is all about, I enjoy the fact that I wont feel guilty walking into the voting booth and voting blue instead of red. But I must understand that I have to be careful, in fact any emergent mind has to be careful how we go about dealing with the unofficial counterpart of the emerging Church: Evangelicalism.

Short and sweet, the Protestants broke off from the Catholics, the Puritans were crazy fundalmentalists and so Roger Williams was kicked out by them (the father of separation of Church and State) and the emerging mindset is in danger of kicking up dirt into the evangelical face. Is a wake up call needed, yes, in terms of the evangelical, but from now on with the mindset of Jesus, emerging people should be more effective with actions. Words are great, and after I'm done writing this, more than likely I'm gonna become a coward and quiver in a corner the next time I walk into my Baptist Church because I know I have a lot to say, but when zero hour comes I realize I just might be to harsh and stubborn with my explanation with what I feel is wrong. It is that mentality that needs to be shed, and not to look out to change the evangelical mind, that would be like changing the Catholic mind. I truly believe we are talking about personality differences here.

Parable time. Cut off your right arm if it causes you to sin. If it does not than I don't need to cut it off. It is possible for me to sit down and watch an episode of Family Guy and not be influenced by it. Some people are, but I watch it because I'm amused part of the time, and other times curious as to realize just how sinful man really is. You know your 'enemy' a whole lot better then (1 Corinthians 9:19-23). Paul also talks about weak and strong Christians, and the strong have to sacrifice sometimes for the weak. If Joe evangelical does not watch bad movies, then I should not talk about the R movie I just watched to Joe.

So, let us not be harsh to them, let us control the fact that we have different generalized personality traits that enable us to see the Truth from a different angel. Protestants realize by now that not all Catholics are wrong, so before emergent snow balls into main stream culture, we must be careful now so as to not damage our link with brothers and sisters in Christ who see life differently yet strive to abide in the never changing moral Truth, Jesus. We might be different, but the Way is the same way it has always been.

is anyone out There?

2005-08-18T21:59:00.000-04:00

When one goes to the beach, they are looking for a way to get out and relax. That's where I went to the other day, about a 5 mile journey on my bike. Unless I move to some other body of water later in life, I better not take this for granted. The beauty of the beach stretches not only the length of it, but also how deep the lake seems to go on forever. Just staring out there can mesmerize anyone, anyone who wants to look out and find beauty. It is pretty amazing that we look out and admire something that we are not even designed to enter, I mean with the h2o thing and all that we can't breath in. We admire it because it is somewhere that we can go, but not often. We can go in the water, but not for long. It is something that is hard to adapt to, but the sea is something that we are drawn to almost instinctively.

But we aren't drawn to people who talk to themselves. Out loud. In public. A bum is one thing, he might grumble a couple of times, might even try to ask you for something, but for the most part I have not seen many bums who talk to themselves. While at the beach sitting out on the point reading some scripture a man ridding his bike rode by, as many were, but he was having a conversation out loud. I looked up from some spot in 1 Corinthians and found out to my surprise that he was talking to himself. With scripture in front of you witnessing a moment like that, one can't help but feel a bit guilty. First though, a simple question filled my mind "does this man have anyone to talk to; does he know anyone who will listen?" A follow up idea was that the worlds population has never been higher than it is today, and yet he most likely can not find someone who will listen to him. I can't imagine why someone would begin talking to themselves other for that reason.

Well, since I did not stop him to talk to him, or at least say hello, I have no idea. It seems though that these people who begin talking out loud to themselves, in public, do so for many reasons. Perhaps he always had a tough time just talking to people, having a kind of apprehension. Maybe he had people to talk to but they just didn't care. This then leads someone to go ahead and, well, talk out loud. Really we have to look at it as just saying your thoughts out loud, which we all have long thoughts, conversations if you will, in our minds. Since the norm is not to say your thoughts out loud (which would mean this world would be a lot louder) then this guy becomes an oddity.

What if someone talked back to him? What if someone one day ends his miserable self conversations and offers feed back after listening compassionately, not just nodding their head in agreement? I saw that as so depressing, because that is what we all are calling out for, is attention. And not with our selves or a pet rock, but with other human beings, other beings who were created in the image of God. In fact, I bet you that there are droves of people out there who don't even talk out loud in public and yet are yearning for someone, for a relationship of some sort that is more meaning full than the ones they either currently have, or ones they don't have at all.

Their is a relationship, a yearning that feeds all of our needs. That relationship is the one we have when we re-connect with God. God fills that void when we decide to except Him, and then we are filled with a joy from a relationship we never thought could even be possible. Sure you wont be able to hold hands and kiss or what not, but you wont need those kinds of little bits of affection that we need with each other as indicators of another's love. No, all we need from God is His open arms that are willing to take us back after the Fall of Man. He will listen to us, He will direct us how to live the life He wants us to. It is all in His book, the bible which he enlightened and revealed His ways to us through chipmunks. Wait, not chipmunks, not trees, no not even whales. He spoke His ways to those who needed help, those who needed to know how to re-connect to Him. He spoke to us because he cares about us that much. He talked to prophets like Moses and Samuel so that they could tell us what God expects from us if we want to be back in our relationship that we had, but that we messed up. He even came down onto earth and spoke face to face, walked hand in hand, and yes, kissed people on the cheek.

God speaks to us even after we ruined what he created, and your tellin' me that we can't even talk to a fellow human being who needs someone to answer him when he is talking out loud?

fur or Emotion

2005-08-14T18:33:00.000-04:00

Goose bumps are quite wonderful. These funny little things that sprout out of our skin gives us a wonderful feeling. I get them every time I feel overwhelmed with true spirit, an event that stimulates me and makes me feel alive. Goose bumps are great indicators of being alive. For this, I could only think of these little things as emotionally related things. Sure when you get cold they sprout out, but more often they come out for me whenever I fell over joyed.

Now they are under attack.

I read in a recent Time magazine an article about intelligent design v.s. evolution, more specifically whether or not intelligent design should be allowed to be taught in classrooms. In it a psychologist who advocates evolution claims that goose bumps are the by-product of evolution. He says that they are still with us because back in the day we had fur all over our bodies, and when we would get cold the fur would stand up by means of what we now call goose bumps. They basically would fluff up our fur to try and keep us warm.

My question is simple; why do they stimulate our feelings? I mean feelings of joy and happiness. The goose bumps you get when you hear a fantastic jazz trumpeter playing only a couple rows away from you. The goose bumps you get when the preacher hits the right chord with you and your emotions and you get that tingle, in the form of goose bumps, of the overwhelming realization of what Jesus did and who He was and what He said. In fact, I get those just from reading the Word myself, as should everyone. And it certainly most is not from me feeling a draft. I couldn't believe that some guy would be toggling the air conditioning up and down in the sanctuary at timed events during the preachers sermon. You'd have to take a lot of time to convince me that when I read my bible in the hot summer sun out on a little road side park located on my local bike trial that all off a sudden an arctic breeze abruptly swept over me. In the middle of the summer. 90 plus degrees. And there is no way that I got cold during my high school's annual jazz band concert featuring Bobby Lewis playing the sweetest trumpet I've ever heard live. We were indoors and I was actually pretty warm at the time. Unless ole' man winter decided to pull a prank on me and send a chill throughout me just as Bobby was hitting the peak of his performance.

So please stop, science, with the tinkering of my emotions. Or at the very least toss a giant block of ice on me so that at all times I can feel that beautiful calmness that goose bumps produce. You really don't have to stretch evolution that far.

survival of the Holiest

2005-08-11T11:54:00.000-04:00

As I look around at my surroundings, the situation that I am currently facing in life, I sometimes forget how exactly I have come to this point. What I mean is that sometimes I just flat out forget major events that have happened in my life, possibly because I look forward so much as of late. I don't fully grasp where I have come from, what experiences I have had that has made me who I am. This amnesia can be good because as all those self help gurus pound into our minds that we are to look forward and what not the amnesia is what helps us look forward. But I am just now finding out that looking back is not a sin, in fact it is almost necessary. If I don't look back it almost seems that I am just fooling myself in the present.

I'm not the life of the party. By no means. That is not bad at all though, I mean I could then be that person who doesn't say much in public yet still says meaningful phrases when I do say something. Nope, I'm not that guy either. I say the stupidest things around my friends, and other people, frankly because I just don't know what to say. It seems as though I have a hard time trying to figure out what the people around me want to hear. That would seem like the problem right there, that I should just say what ever I want to with a free conscience. But I, as do most others, say things with ethical considerations around the group that I am talking to. You know the drill, kids try not to cuss around elders, I emphasize try not to, but pay no mind when they are around their friends.

I take this to an extreme though. I limit my likes and dislikes to the person that I am talking to. I don't boldly say that I'm a Christian if I know the reaction of the person would be chastisement toward me. Pretty bad, huh? Which leads me to this; my social awkwardness is what determines my direct value to others. My best friend usually hears my best conversations, simply because there is nothing to hide from him. But other people (and unfortunately friends of mine) don't get that rare moment from me, they get a passive shy person who says irrational things every now and then to try and get a laugh.

So there I have spilled the beans a little to describe how I am. I'm that weak person that Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 1. And there is a strange coincidence. The only other friend of mine who at the very least picks up a bible, is the other awkward member of our group of friends. Why is it that way? Why can't there be a 'popular' person who speaks fluently with grace and cunning in our group who also believes in Christ Jesus? Is Christianity a 'weak' thing, a 'crazy' thing (Mel Gibson is not weak, so he must be crazy then.) By no means it is not. By no means is it a psychological answer and social acceptor only for the weak. Someone did not event religion so as to go around saying "treat others as you would treat yourself, because I really hate it when you pick on me guys!" This does nothing for the person being picked on, because nature, and anthropologists, would contend that the survival of the fittest stands firm and that the 'strong' person is not going to listen to your bantering of "treat me fair." Religion, Christianity, is so much more complex than that. Paul was a hard nosed tax collector who had much weight in the social society of ancient Israel. He was one of those 'strong' people, survival of the fittest people. He got turned around though (very dramatically) and became incredibly humble. The strong can enter the kingdom, it is just that they have to use their strength for good, to be humble in their gifted areas.

Anybody can become a Christian. It takes their ability to become humble and to become a servant that will determine if they can or can't. It takes solely belief upon the Cross as to whether or not they are atoned for their sins. The atonement already happened, they just have to except it, and then have to reconnect with God. God is not something that the weak have devised so as to combat the strong. Instead, God created the weak and the strong so as to teach just one of His many lessons in life, that the weak will prove the strong foolish!

Others

2005-08-07T16:49:00.000-04:00

So as we are getting pulled over on the entrance ramp, I'm wondering why am I trembling? What is this fear that I have, that I'm experiencing? I could not understand it at all considering that I was not the person driving, I had no drugs on me or in me, and I had no warrant out for my arrest. So what was there to fear? I kept trying to reason out the situation, figuring that obviously I had nothing at all to fear. But I kept feeling a steady tremor pulsating through my body along with a twisting of my stomach. There was nothing that I ate previously that could have been doing this, especially since the feeling didn't commence until we were pulled over.

So what than? Where was this coming from? Enough with the questions, I was thinking to myself. I began to ponder, all the while my best friend is being handcuffed because he was driving with a suspended license. Could this alone be the factor that was turning my stomach into knots? Of course, with his girlfriend being right next to me in the back of the car panicking and adding more drama to the scene than what was already being provided sure helped the fear factor.

I began to reason the obvious and work from there; this fear is the fear of power/authority. I usually react more emotionally than my friends. I hold it inside though, feeling as though I am being way to over concerned with the matter. 'Feelings' are always things that a man should not possess. OK, we have all heard that before, but I wonder if they (feelings) come from what each individual has dealt with through the growing period of his/hers life. I began to doubt this because some people have experienced much tougher situations in life than I have, and some have gone through life still trying to break the habit of sucking on their thumbs.

I had to come to the conclusion though that this was only the 2nd time in my life I have ever been involved in being pulled over. The first time is when I was actually pulled over for an illegal turn, which I got a ticket that would later be stripped from my record anyway. My best friend though, well he had a suspended license, so I don't need to go into detail, but he has gone through this experience a number of times. So experience is very crucial here.

I still can't answer why I was unable to control the way I was feeling. And it struck me. Authority. I feared it the same way that I fear God's authority. Good, end of blog. But it can't be, because that is to loose of a comparison. I say this because I don't' think that I get this way often. I mean in a way towards God, as in breaking His law. His law is a stumbling block that we can never live up to, so as I go on serving Him I'm going to slip up and mess up a demand of His every now an then (hopefully every now and then and not any more frequently.) God does not send His police force out to patrol us and write us tickets and throw us in jail while we are in this world. No, we have to acknowledge that there is a punishment without a pat down and strip search, that the trial happens and is over with as soon as we commit a sin. It is ultimately wrong in His eyes and ultimately wrong gets charged right away. Fortunately, God is patient and forgiving, and compassionate. compassionate in that He sacrificed His Son to pay for my sin and yours. Fortunately, he does not pull us over. A consequence is instore if we do not understand that we just sinned, but if we confess, He is willing to forgive.

So where is the fear and why should there have been any? Because in the same way that the cops instilled fear in me just by the presence that they had, that something was happening to my friend but yet I was scotch free, the Fear of God is the same. I should be just as concerned at my own well being with God as I should be concerned with my neighbors. I feared that my friend was being judged and that there was nothing I could do about it by than. He was let out of the car after he got ripped by the cops, state cops for that matter, about driving with a suspended license. As he should have been. But grace was demonstrated as they let him out instead of imprisoning him overnight as they could have. I was so concerned though about his trial, his trouble with the authority that I realized my struggle with the authority is fine and all, but could I have not done something to prevent my best friends trouble with the authority?

How about could I do something about his trouble with the Ultimate Authority, as he is not on track with that Authority. Should I not be in fear and trembling over my lost friends struggle with God? I should be that concerned all the time, because the most I can do is teach him about that Authority's plan, which I have failed to fully do so yet.

Woe to me for not spreading the message, the warning.

opportunity is all Around

2005-08-04T20:48:00.000-04:00

We all want to sit around the den, smoking our pipes while reading an exhilarating study on southeastern Christian movements of the U.S. We all want to find that comfort zone that also intertwines our intellectual abilities, enabling us to stimulate our minds during recreation. Don't we all? Well I guess this is what I want to do, and furthermore this is what I would like to do once I'm retired. Until then I am going to pursue the academic study of history. But why can't I study and read what I want to. I mean that is the goal, the purpose of going to college, to be able to do something that you at the very least will enjoy.

If I get a job writing for a history magazine, or a magazine that I'll be writing the history article, I would simply enjoy this. I would be able to research and figure out interesting stories to tell the populous, to bring forth a topic that I would deem important to know. Perhaps I'll be working for a company writing their history as it passes by. This does not sound like the joy I'm looking for in my future career, so I'll do my best at staying away from that route. But if I must I will take that sort of a job.

ultimately I want to be an expert of Christianity's history. What can I do with this sort of experience and knowledge you ask? I don't' know. Maybe I could get into teaching at a Christian college or high school (a bonus because they are private, so that means more pay!) Maybe I simply work for a ministry, writing for them and teaching, or something. I have this big idea of going out unto all the world, and you know, spread the Word. The experience would be amazing, traveling all about and such, and the purpose is of the highest nobility. I'm very young still, but I know that at the end of the day God will take care of me and will direct me.

simply put, kicking back and reading around the fire of my den might or might not happen, but I better keep on reading and learning so as to allow God the opportunity to work with a well studied mind, one that He can put to use no matter what route He so chooses to send this mind down. If I'm writing company history reports, I better do it as though I'm doing it for the Lord, and I better spread the Word to every fellow employee I'm with. I better reflect Christ in my actions so that even though I might not be traveling the world in search of Christian history, I can at least do what He expects of me. My big goals and American Dreams can go on the back burner, humility should keep my journey in life in harmony with the right perspective.

I might not be a PHD guy down the road, but I better serve God no matter what I do.

stay married and don't Cheat!

2005-07-28T11:58:00.000-04:00

C.S. Lewis in a letter to a friend: "Christ promises forgiveness of sins: But what is that to those who, since they do not know the law of nature, do not know that they have sinned? Who will take medicine unless he knows he is in the grip of disease? Moral relativity is the enemy we have to overcome before we tackle Atheism." (p.73 of "The Question of God" by Dr. Armand M. Nicholi, Jr.)

Now what do we do about that statement? By the way, it is not just a statement, but it is a truth that is hard to deal with, and keeps getting more difficult as each day passes by. Moral relativism is so much more deadlier than atheism because there are countless masses who believe, and yet are living the life they want to live. This has been brought up to me recently by my philosophizing uncle. He is a guy who not only knows at least something about everything, but also has a strong opinion, a deadly combination. Trying to combat him in a conversation of worldviews is a strenuous competition.

What he makes clear is that there is a God, and that Jesus was the Son of God. But I get a hint of Eastern philosophy in him every now and then. The deadliest part of it is the notion that as long as one is right with God and is happy, than everything is alright. Everything being that as long as you aren't going around killing people and speaking hate and such, then everything else is permissible. He speaks of balance a lot, because realistically nobody can go cold turkey on something because they are just going to pick up some other habit to counter it. Balance however allows one to get that immediate satisfaction, as long as they don't go off the deep end with it.

1)Have a beer, just don't get drunk (OK, I can live with that, Paul even brings that up in 1 Timothy 5:23, just keep in mind though the parable of cutting off ones hand if it causes you to sin, hence you should cut out drinking entirely if you always end up getting drunk).

2)How about, if I'm gay, than as long as I walk with God and I am accountable for what I do and devote endless hours to Church ministry, then I'm fine (OK, now we are going off the deep end).

3)Get angry at objects that are not people and cuss them out whenever you feel pent up anger and frustration (but this can lead to flying off the handle someday at someone because of how frequent one allows themselves to get completely enraged).

The list goes on and on. What exactly is God than if there is no moral law? What is that you are changing that is not right with God? Do you even think that you sin? Or is it a pick and choose type of thing, "well I'm greedy, and that is the way I've always been, and it pleases me when I get what I want, so let me just skim that over in the Word of God from now on and I'll just focus on something easier that I can change, like slander." This does not work. God's Word is God's Word and the moment relativism enters it, whole passages are stripped away. They simply are not needed. This is exactly what needs to be fought instead of Atheism, especially since recent Gallup poles say that 80% of America believes in a personal God.

Digest that for a minute. 80% of America believes in a personal God. 96% believe in a God. With that information alone we can tell already that 16% of those who believe there is a God will be knocking on the door for the Master to open, but he will adamantly proclaim that he never knew them. How sad. Then, let us not judge salvation or anything, but 80%? O.k. Let me be blunt. Hell no! How is that even possible!?

I say all this because of a news report me and my uncle saw yesterday on CNN. Two different people were interviewed about their current situations as Christian believers. Both being gay, but one trying to change. The one attempting to change (which I cant stress enough, is one of the central messages of Christ when He was hear on earth) basically said that if he has to be celibate, that he will, but he thinks he can like girls enough to give that route a try. The other person is openly gay, but he profess Jesus as his saviour and devotes much of his time for the ministry of Christ. This just makes a mockery out of God, religion, and anything else in between.

There is something called the Fear of God that many don't understand. I walk with joy every day now that I understand Him more and more. But the Fear of God grabs hold of me and sets me straight. I have to admit, it is a tremendously scary fear, because I realize that I could be or just did sin against God. I'm in a heightened state of awareness all the time now, not panicking and hiding under a rock from God's rath or anything of that nature. Instead I am more happy than I have ever been because I have re-connected with God, the Fall of man separated us, but now we are back together.

Why, and I borrow this from Don Miller, would a bride walk down the isle and look into the crowd, asking herself why not to go ahead and have sex with all the cute friends her Bridegroom that she hasn't yet.

Becoming married to her Bridegroom should not prevent her from fulfilling her pleasures, doing what it will take to make her happy in life.

There is no freakin' coincidence that Jesus uses the analogy of the bride and the Bridegroom for the relationship us and God must have, we the bride and Him the Bridegroom. No freakin' coincidence. Unless of course there is nothing wrong with getting divorced in your eyes, and thusly completing a Cartesian circle!

i get no Respect!

2005-07-24T20:44:00.000-04:00

How do you respect someone who is not you? O.K., how about someone who is not in your family? What about a step further, someone not in your 'group?' How about even to stretch it as far as your enemy? How do you respect them? This word is so big, respect, because it can truly effect a persons ability to function in life. If one is not receiving enough of it than they begin to question things. They begin to think, "is God the only one who respects me?"

This is a rant and rage more than a blog. This is emotion.

I simply can not accept that cliques form within the church . I'm not saying just little groups of friends. I mean high school childish cliques. This is something that has to stop. Please stop it. Unite. Don't start singling out people because they are not like you; they don't vote your party, they, oh my goodness, had a divorce! Please stop this. Jesus is all about uniting followers, not casting stones at each other, even if some mess up more than others. James spoke of encouraging the brother or sister struggling with sin, as well as John. We aren't perfect, not even the best of us. Let's start respecting everyone, those who do not walk in through the doors of the church, as well as those who do. There is a step in life that people seem to over look, which is after becoming a believer. Your still in the flesh, so please excuse the person who messes up because this step is now to change. This takes a life time. As long as they are not trying to justify what they are doing and claiming that what they are doing is fine with God, than give them a break and help them.

They feel a billion times worse than you could imagine.

You still sin of course, don't you? Don't you know what it feels like to mess up on God's terms, knowing that you did? Good, than, that is how they feel. Now help them and end all cliques. Keep your best friends, but care about others in the church, try to respect them more. This just should not happen in the church. This should not happen with Christ followers.

forget about protons and neutrons, lets shoot for mustard Seed!

2005-07-17T11:23:00.000-04:00

It is quite amazing that I would be able to come full circle in understanding God. See, I walked with faith when I was young growing up in church (hmm, that must be what Jesus meant in Mark 10:15 "I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it") . Then I got it destroyed by a couple of internet sites about people who take God's word to the extreme, coming to different conclusions after long drawn out studies of what it takes to believe and just exactly who the wolves in sheeps clothing are that are leading the masses to death. But now I come back to realize two key elements that have been revealed to me after coming across these sites; one being that God should not be taken lightly, he just cant be used as a trump card whenever we need to use Him (i.e. death, Sunday morning, political arguments, etc.), that instead we need to keep changing into becoming better than what we think we are (pride), and the second being that we need to read into scripture very carefully and meticulously.

These people might have rattled me for a little while with their drawn out explanations on how everyone is pretty much a false prophet except them, or how that all will be saved by God, whether in this age or in the next. These are matters that made me look deeper into the bible than I ever have before, and enabled the Spirit to dig deeper into my mind and cultivate it like it has never been before. Without these direct threats to the comfort that I have grown into, I think I would have continued being way to comfortable with just faith and not acting upon it. Are these two shocking statements true or, not? I have to keep living and breathing God in order to figure things like this out.

As I go on now, a more renewed mind then before, I am so confident in my faith in God that I think I'm getting closer to that mustard seed faith. It is that faith, that faith like a child that is so willing to except God without asking all these hard, deep questions that will allow me to persevere. I cant just go around with faith, as James tells us; it must produce the good fruit, it must change my actions, all of them. I cant keep on deliberately sinning against God after hearing Him and knowing Him (Hebrews 10:26), because that is exactly like cheating on Him.

My faith is there, and it saves me. Then this faith must work through me. I cant become complacent with who I am. I must continue to change. None of this by the way was stirred up by my Baptist congregation, but from the internet guys. Sure they might seem extreme from the beginning, and even after surfing through their site, but I was able to take valuable lessons from them. Not their theology or anything, but small points.

Some people need a kick in the ass to get going, some people don't. I needed to get put into misery in order to come out stronger and more determined in my faith upon the Cross then ever.

P.S. I would like to note that for a readers perspective, I am not saying that one has to now walk around wondering if they are saved or not because they got angry the other day at the microwave for blowing up. I am saying exactly what the Word tells us, that we need to be conscience about our decisions and actions as believers, even to not be afraid of re-evaluating where our walk with God is currently, to not be afraid to change even more!

narrow Gates

2005-07-13T16:56:00.000-04:00

I wonder how narrow the gate to heaven really is? I do believe that a lot of people over the years have wondered this as well, coming to long drawn out conclusions that lead them into cults and psychotherapy. It has been a close call for me a couple times, but I am able to rest assured of a couple facts. First, Jesus is the savior of the world and that belief of what His death meant and that He did in fact rise from the dead is how we are saved by God's grace. So the next obvious thing that must be done once someone comes to this understanding is that they must obey His commands if they truly love Him. This is the tough part, because we will never be able to fully carry this out with our sinful nature that is our flesh. Don Miller gets it so right that the Christian experience is a journey and not a check list, because if it were then there would be no reason to keep it up. You would get your sharpie, make a nice looking check mark on you 3' x 5' card and enter heaven when you die. But this is absolutely not what God told us to do, in fact He told us to endure to the end, which can be interpreted as the end times and one's life.

Change is required and that is the secret to walking the narrow path to the narrow gate, and finally entering it. This is so freakin hard! But the idea of it is that we as believers in Christ can not be satisfied with how we are, because everyone falls short of the glory of God, and His law. The narrow gate will open for us only after a lifetime of living for Him, doing whatever it is that you do, but doing it for Him. That is the key. That is where so many people miss the idea and why so many will cry out "but I know you Lord, don't you know me, let me in?" And the 'master' or God will simply say, "I never knew you." People keep Jesus in their back pocket, but we need to keep Him on our mind. Yet another reference, but this is why he said that the man who thought about committing adultery is just as guilty as the one who does it, because Jesus would never have even thought about doing that since He is God, and a house divided cannot stand. Yep, that was another reference.

But simply put, there will be those who will want to deceive, but we must stay on the path that has been revealed to us, which is contained in the bible. We can only depend on other people's books and opinions as enlighteners that break the bible down for us better, cause it certainly is a hard read. That is why we must be careful to what we listen to or read about concerning God's message. We must have enough biblical knowledge as to not go astray without even knowing it, because that is what happens to so many people. We are not expected to be literary geniuses like C.S. Lewis, but we must certainly not take him as the one who we follow.

As Paul broke down in 1 Corithians 1, we are not to follow and believe in Paul, but in Jesus!

is someone getting the best of You?

2005-07-06T16:53:00.000-04:00

has someone taken your faith,

it's real, the pain you feel,

you trust, you must confess,

Is Someone Getting the Best, the Best, the Best, the Best of You?

Now, I probably will not quote the Foo Fighters all that often (or ever), but I must. Lyrics are everything about a song, but the music can enhance the emotion like it does in this Foo Fighter song. But the fact that lyrics can go by without even comprehending what they are saying happens too often. I tend not to fully grasp the lyrical content of a song right away, perhaps because I am much more a music guy and judge a song by the music purely. Here though are lyrics by Dave Grohl that one cant escape the meaning, the meaning is quite clear and he emphasizes the meaning by repetition, to get it ingrained into one's head. Well, it got into mine!

The difference though between it just getting in my head and actually having meaning has come in part due to my current state of spirituality. See, God has been really grabbing hold of me, communicating to me through the mediums that he does, and so I have been listening a lot more to my surroundings lately. In fact, as C.S. Lewis would state, I have become much more aware and in tune to my world around me and more intellectually inclined then I have ever been. God demands a strong focus on Him, and it takes a strong disciplined concentration to narrow into His presence. I'm not merely describing meditation or anything in that realm, but instead a look past the distractions of life and into the obvious that surrounds us all.

That look allowed me to pick up on the Foo Fighter's new song "Best of You." I could not help but answer Dave's question out loud, "yes, someone is getting the best of me, and I know who he is. It is non other than satan."

I understand now the complexity of the Flesh and the new nature I am dealing with. See, as a believer in Christ, I now have the Holy Spirit. The Spirit helps guide me through this new nature, which I must confess is the hardest thing a man could possibly do. He must re-think every thought before it comes out as something contrary to what God expects of him now. Oh, and also so that eventually every thought is pleasing to God, because he certainly knows what is going on in our craniums. This is so hard, so challenging that the fact of the matter is we, as a believer, will never fully change our ways to perfect heavenly ways, because of that flesh we still live with. The flesh thusly is this earthly body we still have, and this is the vulnerable part of the believer. This is the part that satan can control, if we allow. The thing is though, this struggle goes on and on, day after day, and is not going to let up until we meet God face to face.

So right now, satan is getting the best of me. And I absolutely hate it! I cant emphasize that any more. Everyone has a different area of sin they struggle with. Paul writes how in Romans 7, the flesh does what his mind does not want him to do. He admits that this struggle shows that the moral law of God is powerful enough to control the mind, but the final outcome may not be what we want it to be. God's law ultimately shows how no one can ever be fully righteous, because we will always struggle with our flesh, or also called the sinful nature. Of course though, that's what Jesus came to do, was to justify us by his sacrifice. Basically it was God saying that we can never live up to His law, so here is a final sacrifice (for the Jews had to have animal sacrifices to atone for their sins). As a believer though, Paul speaks very clearly that we need to stop deliberately sinning (Hebrews 10:26), because of the fact that we know about Him and believe in Him. Satan just seems to get the best of me though, when I am most vulnerable, when my guard is completely down (or just partially), and he seems to be very good at trickery.

I can only keep persevering and changing. That is such a struggle. Let me put it like this. The second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. One of the many little but still yet important commands of God is to not be homosexual. I am glad that I don't struggle with the latter, but I struggle every single day with the former; I simply fall short more times than not at loving my neighbor. And the majority of the problem is more on the side of inaction that of action. I pass up at saying something nice, or helping someone out of no where much more than demonstrating hate toward my neighbor. I am fairly good with not being envious, or greedy, or even slanderous (though I gossip to much). But in general I could do a lot more at helping others, and that was something that I did not do before COMPLETELY turning my life over to Jesus.

I almost wish that all I had to do was struggle with being gay than to have to struggle with being a people person.

Almost.

But in the end I know that satan will try to get the best of me, but I must not let him. Only Jesus can help me, or you, at defeating the temptations and deceptions of this world. Only Jesus is the way to the Father, which is where we wont have to put up with satan and all his crap!

talking about out of no Where

2005-06-22T14:57:00.000-04:00

The fact that I have been tuning myself in to God's radio station for the past 2 or more years now has enabled me to finally get the right frequency. I'd love to challenge all the psychologists out there that say that hearing God is essentially based upon one's own preferences, and that their blinders have them honing in on anything that they would feel as being related to God. The example they would give would be like a Christian saying that a brownie taught them a lesson the other day about God, that he 'spoke' to them through the medium of a brownie. That sounds freakin crazy.

But is it crazy?

The main point of Romans 1:18-32 is to fire up the Romans into understanding that God's presence has always been around, but instead of seeing that we have seen the tree of knowledge; we have chosen to see the devil. Since the Fall of mankind, there has been this distortion between what we commonly accept and what is. God IS; and the devil is the distortion. What we commonly accept is then up to whether or not we continue being distorted, or if we choose to see what IS, as in to say what God is, and what he is about. This, by the way, is one of the reasons for Jesus coming to earth, so as to show us by becoming us, breathing like we do, going through the struggles (see Luke 4:1-13) like we do, showing us where God is on this earth (which is everywhere mind you).

And the obviousness of God is all around, even in people who do not follow Him. My supervisor at work the other day told me something that caught me off guard. Now I can tell by his actions and his ways (things of which he brags about and desires) that he does not exactly follow God. This of course is judging, and further more judging someone's relationship with God. It is best that I just ask him eventually if he is a believer or not, but for the time being I can tell that he is not motivated by Jesus. To put it truly in perspective, I get caught up in his conversations or my friends conversations at work and I could be confused as a non-believer.

The point is what he told me. On the way back from work yesterday, we saw a guy riding a bike on the side of the road. He began to tell me how he use to bike around all the time, how much he enjoyed it and what not. Then he told me about one night, when he was drunk at a bar, he came out and saw a man who appeared to be either homeless or at least in poverty. My supervisor had rode his brand new bike from K-Mart to the bar. The poor man said how great it would be if he could have a bike, how he could go anywhere he wanted to go, possibly to just get away from his current surroundings he must have been trapped in. My supervisor, drunk, told him that if he wanted a bike so bad that he could just go ahead and take his. This warm gesture not only caught the poor man by surprise, but me as well. I thought to myself, "never, I mean never in a million lifetimes would I have ever thought of giving that to him, let alone actually giving it to him!"

This short story is amazing because it showed to me the character of God is all around. The character of God is good, and that could be the hint as to figuring out what God is, and whether or not he has spoken to me or you. But our preconceived thoughts, our stereotypes blind us all the time from a lesson. God has been 'speaking' to me so much as of late, that I'm beginning to wonder if it is just a case of me never listening, which is exactly what it is to be truthful.

Now the ending of the story gets harsh, like all the things you might be wondering out loud, like what about my supervisor, what about all these things I'm suppose to be looking for? Well, as far as my supervisor, it is simple; Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes before the Father but through Him. The example is that if your giving and doing and helping because you feel that not only that it benefits the person you are doing this to, but also yourself, then that is where it is wrong. We are suppose to do these things for the glory of God, not to glorify ourselves. There is nothing that we can do to gain salvation, BUT we are to, after accepting and believing in Christ, keep growing, keep repenting, which means to say your sorry AND do something about it, not to just say your sorry. My supervisor probably doesn't know the real message of God, or a message at all, and that is a major responsibility of mine. But luckily after I inform him of this wonderful relationship, it is not up to me to convert him, but up to God, as he will work in him. I just have to describe the blueprint.

I just have to give bikes out for free, more often. As often as I can.

bursting through the Door

2005-06-19T18:28:00.000-04:00

Just as I was about to go out for a bike ride out to the local park, to go and read and catch some evening sun, in through the door comes some of my family. I've had a lot of ideas through my head lately, big ideas, theological religious emerging evangelical type of thoughts. But instead, as life does, it goes the route that we don't expect. That really is the way God works. Paul was just an unsuspecting ruthless tax collector, minding his own dirty business, when God blinds him with a big beam of light, during the day, down a road which he is traveling with friends. Paul's life was forever changed, because God wanted Paul to do His dirty work, the most difficult job ever in the history of the world: start the Christian following. Jesus knew what he had to do, carry the burdens of the worlds sin's as the ultimate sacrifice, He knew that ahead of time. That job though was the toughest. Paul's was lucrative.

So taking me out of step are my father, his brother and sister, and my grandmother. Three out of the four mind you are tipsy, due to their afternoon at the Detroit Tiger's game (mind you a 10 inning walk off homerun win for the Tigers). They were visibly drunk. And they demonstrated that through their actions, as my uncle gave me the longest kiss in my life, then challenged me and my brother to a push up competition, and farting a billion times. But with that aside, I was able to remember something that has bothered me for a while. My uncle was the loose drunk, party have an awesome time drunk, but my dad was still his regular old self. This indicated to me that he wasn't that drunk. My dad and uncle were themselves; themselves when they are sober, but magnified. My uncle is the kidder of t he family, always being the comic relief, while my dad is the book worm God fearing guy. My dad has read Lord of the Rings a couple times through. That pretty much explains him.

The point that I come across is this: my dad is the more visible Christ follower, while my uncle believes as far as I know, but is not the visible follower. And I'm left to believe that it is because who they are, who they have always been. My dad's imaginative and open minded thinking, I believe, allows him to understand and comprehend God and the whole spirituality thing better then his brother (or both his brothers for that matter). His other brother is the eldest, the jock. The three of them could not be any more stereotypical, not even Seth McFarlane could dream up a cast like this one. But they love each other, despite their apparent differences. So Seth couldn't write anything good for his Family Guy show. My dad is the one though who has raised the kids who fear God the most, because he did.

So is all of this religion thing stereotypical? Are the weak, geek, nerd, humble, meek, all the ones who only get it? Is religion the invention to make mankind co-exist and defy the logical "only the strongest survive?" No, and no again. Jesus does come to earth to heal the sick, which are those who are not righteous, not the strong, not the powerful, not the best. But as Paul wrote "but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong" (1 Corinthians 1:27 NIV). This is the reminder that man's system of cliques and groupings and stereotypes mean nothing to God, so much so that he has sarcastically decided to choose the weak to prove the strong shameful! But that is the outcome, that the strong could become meek and humble. It's not like God discriminates against them, as to make a strong person, a popular person think that he is not what God wants to speak on behalf of Him, no, God wants all to bow to him and worship Him. Some people are just more strong willed and outgoing, that's a fact. But my uncle has a chance to understand God, all that we have to do is present it to him in a way that he could fully understand. And even then he himself can be the only one to choose God. And also have the Spirit enter into him. But it takes the attempt to relate to the strong, the popular, as to present God's plan in a way that they can say "hey, I had that all wrong."

God is love, and he will reveal that love, gentleness, humbleness and meekness to anyone.

The question is how much are we willing to suck it up, stop being unconfident in our faith, and state to them that His love is like no other, His grace can never be measured, and His retirement plan is the best ever!

All we have to do is love them while speaking the truth, otherwise it wont come out has truth, but instead just some horrible, "your wrong, you have to change the way you live, I'M JUDGING YOU!"

vile Language...

2005-06-13T13:52:00.000-04:00

...That's what spews from my friends mouths. I have always known, as Paul goes into great detail in Romans 7, how the law declares what is good, and what isn't. Thusly the law makes things that are evil plainly evil, and noticeable. I have always been raised in the church, so I have had an understanding of black and white, right and wrong. So it has never been a shock to me that what I here coming from other's mouths can be down right brutal. I mean, all those four letter words come out as if they were throw up from a dog.

But wait, there's more! More what you ask? Well, I have an interesting take on four letter words. They are completely relative. If I tell you that you are awesome, then you would appreciate that. But say I told you that you were f-ing awesome, than that means you're that more awesome! Of course, there is a wrong usage of the word, which is used in context of anger and its actual definition (although I don't see why a married couple, Christian or not, would not use this word in passion, because they are married you know, and that's what they do, f*$#!).

And that is what I say to set up this: anger. Bad language should be referred to as angerment and talking bad about someone. If I call you a stupid head, that is just as bad, let me say that again, JUST AS BAD as calling them a dumb f#$@. I'm degrading that person in both phrases, and we are told to love one another. It is the angerment that comes from the person, the tone of what they say, the context they are using that spews vile toward another. That's the s%$! That is f#$&ed up!

But enough with the funny signs to cover up and censor swear words (or curse words, as South Park brought up, they are cursed!). Filthy language becomes more rampant as you become closer to God. That is not a mis-quote. What I mean is that the more you come to understand God, the more the Spirit fills you up, the more filth you here around you. Normal everyday conversations involved with other people are filled with stuff like, "that trick can shut up," "I hate...(add noun here)" or "that is so gay." This talk can be found from elementary school, all the way to your death bed.

After reading Don Miller's chapter about the lifeboat theory in his book "Searching for God Knows What," I found myself hanging out with my secular friends, listening to all the hate. And do you know what, I got caught up in it. I said something about someone (who mind you was not there) and then someone else adds to that, and it keeps on going. It is simply amazing, that as soon as that spark ignites, people cant stop talking about the subject of breaking someone apart. It seems to be the thing that everyone knows something about, and is on the tip of everyone's tongue. And all I could do after a while is stop and sit back, digest what I had said and what everyone else keeps saying, and thinking to myself "everyone who is on this lifeboat of life would throw who we are talking about overboard, right away, no questions asked. The problem is they would right now, but when it would come down to it there would be a lot of hesitation. But eventually someone would throw him over, just because he didn't conform to what 'they' declare as acceptance."

Well, darn it, acceptance should be humanity. Hate talk is the easiest thing to get caught up in, most likely the easiest sin to commit. Only the Garden of Eden and Heaven know what a place without hate talk is like.

the Lord works in mysterious Ways

2005-06-08T12:12:00.000-04:00

Elwood Blues is definitely right.

The answer to prayer is what can deter a faith or build it up stronger than one could have imagined. Metallica's lead man James Hetfield was denied an answer to prayer when his Christian Scientist mother died of a cancer, after the family requested no treatment because of the Christian Scientist's belief in God being the only healer, not medicine. This ultimately turned James away from God for good, and now enjoys phenomenal success, and therapy, as one of the greatest entertainers of all time. But here, I have the opposite situation developing; God has answered my prayers (he probably did so as well for James and his family, just not with the outcome they were expecting, more like a Job type of situation) and instead of rockstar fame, I'm probably going to have to endure no-body status.

I am going to become a historian. A biblical one in fact, but for now I'm just going to work on the major at Wayne State. See, it is a weird and long road that I have gone down in order to come to this FINAL decision, and final it is, with a lot of prayer and reluctant "all right, I'll keep on doing this even though I don't know what exactly it is I'm doing." But God knew, in fact he knows all, and then some.

I cant tell you where the actual beginning is, but I can certainly start at a key point. It was the beginning of the fall 2004 semester, and I had just come off a Purpose-Driven Life summer. My church went through it around March, but as a busy student of studying and playing video games, I had no time for this book. Plus I felt very suspicious about the whole thing, mainly because my whole church was getting geared up about some book that wasn't the Bible. Mind you, this was way before I had even heard the terms 'postmoderism' or 'the emerging church.' Instead, it was a gut feeling that I knew this was not something completely well with my spiritual growth. But eventually I began to read the book in the summer, and I started to enjoy it. It wasn't a step book that tried to explain that this is what you have to do, then this what is next, and then finally you get to see God! No, Rick Warren wrote a book that basically attempts to set a fire under all Christians, to be more complete in what God wants from us.

I did realize though how wrong the 40 days of purpose event was, and how completely absurd it is. To think, a life's journey where day by day we are attempting to become that much more Christ like, though at the end we will never fully accomplish that, only through death. It took me all summer to get only up to day 33, when eventually I had to put the thing down because I did not think I was accomplishing the first purpose, or the second one, or any of them! See, instead of flying by with the book in 40 days, one has to take time to digest it and to put it into action (kind of sounds like another book we all know about). The book did however accomplish it's purpose, which was to light a fire in me that had not been there before; I was driven.

So in the beginning of fall 2004, I wanted to join a Christian organization on campus. Finally the day arrived for all the organizations to have their exhibition's. One of the Christian organizations was passing out gift bags, big ones that were stuffed with cd's and books. This was the last thing I did before going to class, and I took the second to last bag. Inside the bag was Don Miller's "Blue Like Jazz" and this would be the first, maybe second event that changed me. I got hooked big time to the book. I loved that all that he did was describe himself, his life, and even though some people might find that to be annoying, I enjoyed it. It was an autobiography about a Christian, with events that made me say, "hey, thats happened to me, or is happening, I see now that I'm not the only one going through this in our modern day." The bible helps you out because it is a bunch of stories and autobiographies, but to picture them in modern day light is hard.

Then just before the semester ended, I had a change in heart about becoming a statistician, which I had just decided upon entering the fall semester, and so I decided to do something else. This was the next big event, as my only idea of something else was Geography. Perhaps this was because I had won the 5th grade Geography-Bee, and if so what a stupid sounding thing to base my career choice on. But as the title of this suggests, the Lord does things that we think are crazy, and "I wouldn't do that" or "What significance does this event have on my life." Obviously a big one.

After convincing me that the Geography department was going to go down the tubes, the head of the Urban Studies department at Wayne suggested that I look into urban studies. What the hell, it is sort of geography related, and I've already taken the intro course. But this is a co-major at Wayne, and so I realized that a double major type of a deal was going to have to happen. After one of the best talks I have ever received from a teacher, he left me to consider what I enjoy, and to choose that as my major. Never, and he meant never to choose it on the base of how much money that profession pays, because I mean look, the big 3 pay pretty well for assembly line jobs!

And so I began the winter semester, and a new year, as a history major and an urban studies co-major. History took a while to figure out, but it was the first thing that jumped into my mind. It was hard to choose because I thought "what can you do with a history major other than become a history teacher." I half to admit I'm still at that point, but I know God will direct me otherwise. Anyway, the winter went by, and I ended up acing every class, except history. I got a c. A c-.

The next thing that has happened is the same thing that has happened between semesters or during the summer so far in my college career; I begin to question what I'm doing. This time I had some great support. I had just recently purchased Don's next book "Searching for God Knows What," along with a scientific God book and a great philosophical book comparing Freud to C.S. Lewis. And immediately these began spinning my compass around. I didn't purchase a good urban studies book, I purchased books that would help me better understand God. Urban planner's have lives to, but I'd rather learn about the Civil War, or about the Greek's and their society, or even biblical histories. And so I have been praying to God for the past three or so days now about what decision I should make; drop urban studies and do something (I still don't know what) with history, or keep urban studies and just go with the flow.

God has provided the answer. I was searching, and you know what, God knew what (nice play on words). I woke up this morning to go for a relaxing bike ride to Metro Beach and to read some of Don's book. When I woke up at 7:15, there were rain clouds all around and coming our way. I did not want any part in a bike ride where I might half to dodge rain drops, so I have had my fifth or so failed first bike ride of the summer (I really enjoy biking I might add). I woke up later instead then, and I had a long, unproductive morning. I sat on the couch and watched Sports Center until it played through, then took a shower. In the shower I prayed to God again, asking, and pondering, what my choice should be for my major. This is a pretty big choice, I mean I better get it right now or else suffer through 20 more years of school. Out of the shower and then only an hour away from having to leave for school.

And than it happened. I made the decision to go out in the backyard and at least, since it had now turned bright and sunny with puffy white clouds, to read some of Don's book. I left off ending chapter three, where he talked about how poetry is so ramped through the bible and that that was the desired method to write like back then, because it would reveal God much better than in boring bold faced bulleted steps.

Chapter four began as I sat on my dad's lawn chair, and I could not even finish the first paragraph.

In summary, I had been soul searching the past summer, received a book from an organization that to this day I'm still trying to figure out who they were to either thank them or join them, I became a history urban studies guy, only to feud that and now take a couple requirement classes this summer while I try to figure out to urban study it or not.

But that was the summary, because the conclusion is now. The first paragraph of chapter 4 entitled "Naked" is what helped sttle the score. Don told about how he had gone to Yosemite around the time of taking a Moses study class, which was brought up in the previous chapter. It was a purely transitional paragraph, with its only intention of getting to discussion about Yosemite and the Garden of Eden. His comment about this park is what startled me, as he said that this place is the most beautiful in all of America to him, and that in our busy urban landscape we tend to only focus on buildings, fast food places and what not. Bam! Right in my face! It truly knocked me out.

I had wanted to go for a bike ride, because I find the ride so peaceful and tranquil, especially when I finally arrive on the point of the beach, all surrounded by water, watching boats and taking in God's creation. That's what Mr. Miller was describing. He than had to, but he didn't have to, describe the contrast, our urban environment. The literal translation (like the many people who take the bible as a literal translation) would be hard to swallow as the thing to tell me "Urban Studies and planning is a horrible thing and no godly person peruses that career." No, the fact that that was the example is just coincidental. It did however reinforce the message that God was giving me. "Do the thing that you truly enjoy, historical studies, and hey, you can even mix in me if you want and get into biblical history." How amazing. How out of no where. No wait, I should have been expecting it because it is God we are talking about. Through Miller's experience and obsevation I was able to experience a revelation. God wants me to talk about him, spread his message (and knowledge, as in history) and not to focus my career toward something that I will only have time to study Him scholarly in my free time (and all you professionals out their know all about free time!).

I want to learn about God, I want to tell people about him in every point of view as I can so they can relate to Him, and I want to do something with my life that I will purely enjoy. Yes, I still like the topic of urban studies, but I did not realize that the two classes I have taken so far had been all about the history of urban studies! The literate mind that I posses is something that I have trapped inside because I did not know how to be or what to be. I now know, and I should have realized this a long time ago and not hide it.

I still wish though that I could find that organization, but I see that God places events in our lives sometimes just to plant a seed. Now it has just started to grow!

we are all different, Right?

2005-06-05T23:06:00.000-04:00

Sunday school was starting off as usual today. Given the fact that I had not been to church in about 2 weeks (perhaps longer) I worked myself up to realizing I'm probably going to get little kid syndrome. You know, where its as if it were a heightened anticipation just walking through those oh so familiar doors. Well, that's what I thought I'd experience. What did happen though was I was able to walk into there more so as a consciousness objector. Repetition was out the door and bright observant, no holding back, mind was entering in. What I found in Sunday school was an observation that I have made before, but was reminded of again.

Regular class began with us just talking about whatever, and the whatever topic of the day was Star Wars III. My teacher, who's son was the one who brought it up, started to dive into the old force talk, about how it has to much new age in it and that it should never be ran as a parallel against Christianity. After that there was talk about current events, as they have been dubbed 'updates.' First off, I was participating much more verbally than usual, because the league of absence had allowed me to soak up a lot of information. Second, I was much more observant. I was not paying attention to the annual right-wing conservatism coming from my teacher and his wife's mouths. (Allow me to be more clear about my stance on this a couple of blogs from now, or just click on the next-wave link to find out where I am coming from). Instead I saw old friends, people whom I have come to know over the years, even if it has been just a Sunday morning relationship.

This view that I was seeing was one of personality. We all have one. And how about this: we all have different ones! (what a breakthrough statement.) But as I have been able to figure out so far in 19 years and change, I can tell that there are groupings of personalities. Well, to get to the point, I saw my teacher and his wife in the light of who they are. They are sinful people who are trying their best to alter this nature by following God.

Now wait, isn't that what all Christians are trying to do? Yes. But the point here is that I saw just that, people who have life experiences, who have an embedded personality, who have more years behind them than me. And what they have decided is to follow Christ, which means every word or phrase that comes from your mouth you have to double check, which means that every action you make you make it as if you were doing it for the Lord, which means that every enemy that you have you love them. If these people are republican conservatives, it is because they have a different personality, they have had different environments growing up in, and they have been told different things by different people. Its not their fault they are who they are!

Which brings me to my main point. I am different too. I have a more eccentric approach to life, I have views more like a hippy, I don't think inside the box (though I have tried, only to come to find there is no space inside of it, too many people are in it). All of which I am thankful to God for. My attack here goes then not to my teachers, as it may have sounded through this whole spiel, but against separatists who separate because some theological difference is bothering them so much that they must declare revisionism. I find the Emerging church to be where my mind-set falls under the most, but when I still attend a Baptist church, I get to experience things that are considered taboo by the Emerging church. Sure I'm going to vote Democrat whenever possible, and sure I'm going to keep purchasing Don Miller (bluelikejazz.com) books as well, but I'm not going to go taboo against people who are doing the same thing that every Christ follower is trying to do; Follow Him and throw away the old self. Easier said than done!

Which is why our differences lie only in the pre-existing mainstream following (or in the case of the Emerging church the still developing following) that we say to ourselves "hey, I like those guys, they are Christian, and they have the same brain wave-lengths as me." The part of that that needs to be stressed, is "hey, those guys want to follow Jesus (i.e. be a Christian) just as I want to, I like those guys, I want to help them take the log out of their eye, and hopefully they will take mine out as well!"

cuttin' Grass: the day After

2005-06-03T14:45:00.000-04:00

As quoted by none other than the famous Elwood Blues, "the Lord works in mysterious ways." That whole scene of me on a rider watching parish guy read and soak up info on God, well that turned around. As my Monday classes were rescheduled for Friday because of Memorial Day, my Communications 1010 teacher thought "what the hell, lets have class outside." While we were sitting on the comfortable rock benches that Wayne State University provides us with, Wayne's finest grass cutters were on the move. In fact they were close enough to drown out the professor time to time. This all unfolded just a day after I was in the lawn cutters role.

The message is so clear now from above that it might as well just slap me in the face. We all have to take our turns on the mower. If life was all about sitting down and learning, than we would already have terraformed Mars by now. But there are plenty of other things God has placed us with to do on this world so as to keep it up. Now of course we also do a great job at destroying it as well, but the main point here is that God puts us into the position of mundane servant at times, and at other times he gives us the opportunity to learn about Him, or other knowledgeable things such as how to organize a speech in order to effectively make your thesis be known (I hate public speaking by the way). He will fairly give us the opportunity to accomplish what we really want top accomplish, just as long as we actually use the time he does give us to do so (and not stare off into space while the professor is speaking, of course it does not help that the sound of a lawn mower is in the background).

cuttin' Grass

2005-06-02T22:00:00.000-04:00

I never could imagine spending so much time at a Catholic parish. The thing about it though was that I had to. One of the customers for my summer landscaping job just happens to be an extremely large parish. Even though I got to use the rider all day, the all day part is what needs to be stressed here. Hour after hour, blade after blade of grass I pursued onward (more back and forth, and sometimes back and forth again). So with all that time to think and listen to the hum of the engine, is it possible that God could teach me something? I mean it is a Catholic parish we are talking about. (jk)

Yes, and not only yes but it actually involved someone of the parish (I want to say parishioner, but those are the church goers, so parish guy will do for now). As I was entering somewhere between my 6th and 8th hour, A guy of the parish was laid out on the lawn, sun-bathing while reading some book. It can be a very good educated guess that he was reading something related to religion. By that time of the day the lawn cutting had gotten pretty monotonous and seeing this guy sprawled out reading was starting to look like a slap in the face. He looked young, no more than 5 years older than me, and was probably doing this to me because somehow he knew I've been raised a Protestant.

Anyway, the lesson: cutting grass sucks. That of course is the literal translation, the more in depth look would be to say that cutting grass and lying out on the grass of your parish are two totally different things. Here is a young man on his way to theological success; while here is a young man cutting grass for a summer job. Both are searching for God though. Both have presumably found him (I did not talk to him to find out).

As I went around in circles, fighting the horribly bumpy terrain, I would think time to time about a biblical topic. Though we did not speak to each other, all parish guy saw was just another lawn cutter, with all the stereotypes to follow. But the other lesson from above is that it does not matter what we do on this earth, cut grass, attend seminary, or even be a professional blogger. Instead, no matter how mundane it is, our summer job, profession or career matters only to what we do to serve others. In the time between we can study God, sun-bathing on the lawn or lawn mower.

the LIFE

2005-05-25T18:08:00.000-04:00

............the life. After explaining that Jesus is the way and the truth, now it all comes together. If a person is fully going the way, all along accepting Jesus as the truth, then they are finally living the life that is pleasing to God. The outcome of the first two is life, because without them there is death. Life is when we are physically alive (although this has just become debatable in recent history as in abortion and Terri Shiavo). To read and understand the Bible, one must know the language though that it is using. This life Jesus speaks of is not physical life, but spiritual. At the same time though it will effect our present physical life, and others that are around us.

Jimmy Carter heard someone say this, and it really stuck with him. This is the saying that if he were charged for being a Christian, would their be enough evidence to convict him? The evidence that will be used against him, and me and you, will be our lives. If we are not living the life that God wants us to live, then we walk away from the trial free to do what we want. This is because living for God is compared to being a servant. Even to go as far as saying a slave. But this is not bad because he will provide for us all that we need, some will even get more than they need like the rich or the talented. He is not giving these advantages out without discretion; he wants us to use it wisely.

We can use our riches to help those who are of need. It is not to say don't be rich anymore and don't make the amount of money you are making, but it is saying to not cherish it more than God or not to take advantage of those who have less. The talented help by curing a disease, or hitting a home run for little Johnny. What we do with our lives is dependent upon whether or not we are living the LIFE. If we are living the life of Jesus, rich or poor, gifted or not, we are truly living, for we will conquer death just as Jesus has.

So the decision is there, does John 14:6 really say what it says? And if so, then what am I doing about it? This is what I ask, what every believe should ask. Is my life a reflection of Christ's, or just a reflection of selfishness. Day by day I see a news headline that shakes my head, or hear a conversation with my friends that turns my stomach into knots. This is because many are going down the broad way, they aren't even trying to go through the narrow gate. I want to be able to serve God, and part of this is to tell about him. But in a culturally defined world, even nation, it is hard to penetrate without knowing where the other person is coming from. That is why I'll be writing about anything and everything here, hopefully to inform at least one other person who might come across my blog.

Jesus is the way, is the truth and is the life and no one will come before the Father but through him. I hope to wipe off all the deception that the otherside covers things up with, and to enlighten not only myself but others about God.

the TRUTH

2005-05-25T17:32:00.000-04:00

This is just about the most profound part of the verse. Jesus says that after the way, he is the truth. What makes this so bizarre is to compare it with philosophy. In an intro class I have taken at college, one thing that stuck with me was the pursuit for truth. This search is right next to man's search for life beyond this planet, or the meaning of life, or even what came first: the chicken or the egg? Good questions nonetheless, but the question about absolute truth effects the conclusions to all those questions. For if we do not find out what truth is, our conclusions could just be the opposite of what it really is. So many man hours have gone into defining truth, but more so searching for it. It is even believed that everything is just a cover up and we can never find true truth.

Jesus on the other hand knows the truth. In fact he knows it real well. In fact, he is the truth! All of the searching by man can come to an end, for the conclusion is as simple as saying that it is one man. Though only part man, Jesus proclaimed himself as truth because he is also part God. Yet man keeps searching for the truth because he has reason to be suspicious of what he already knows. Man cant accept that the Earth is in the center of the universe, so he keeps pushing on to where he discovers we aren't even in the center of our solar system! He keeps pushing to discover that there is another half of the world, that its not just an age old rumor (because Columbus just made it official, others were going to the New World for what is now believed to be thousands of years previous to 1492).

But this is all physical truth. When Jesus said he was the truth, he already knew that the sun was in the center of the solar system, and he even knew all the hairs on the head of a Native American living in present day Mexico. But his message was not to give wordly knowledge, for that can be obtained by us by ourselves. All that we are doing is finding out the code to God's physical creation. God's knowledge about his spiritual creation though is only obtainable through Christ and all the others who God has chosen along the way (as in the Jews; Abraham, Paul, ect). Christ is the only WAY (see my previous post) to God's spiritual creation. The way to get there is by listening to and obeying the truth. Only when we believe (which its definition is accepting as the truth, very fitting and ironic) that Jesus is truth, then we can begin to be the new creation that God wants us to become.

Jesus is TRUTH and this is what we have to accept in order to enter the narrow gate
(Matthew 7:13-14). This narrow gate is narrow, because there are many different ways to the god or gods due to all the different religions. But There is only one true God, and his Son is the way to him, the truth about him, and...........

the WAY

2005-05-25T15:13:00.000-04:00

First, Jesus says he is the way. This means that in response to Thomas's question, which in turn was about Jesus's statement, Jesus says that to get to where he is going he is the way. Under normal circumstances, this place would be somewhere on Earth and would have directions to get there that are left, right, north, south. But Jesus says that instead of taking a right on I-94, you go down the path Jesus goes. Where is this path? What is the destination? Where am I going?

This path leads to the place of the Father (God, in case you have not read my first blog). God is somewhere, this is one of the meanings of this verse. To come to the Father means to go where he is, which means he is somewhere. The thing is he is all around, he is the breath you take, he is the door you walk through going into the bar. Unfortunately many do not know the way to him, so when they enter the bar they don't realize God is there. God is in the person who drinks but does not get drunk, so as to be under control of his actions. God is in the person who walks into the bar just to meet with, talk with, and listen to people, not the one who is meeting and talking to people for all the wrong reasons. The way to the path is all around us, its just covered up and hard to find for many.

The destination is to glory. Its to a place where there is no temptation, just pleasure with God. This destination is made possible by Jesus, who clears us from sin. Of course only if we believe in him, that is to say accept him as the truth, that is to say to obey what he says, we will be able to find the way to our destination. The exciting part about it is from that moment you believe and attempt to go the way Jesus went, we can experience this place here in life on earth. Sure temptation is still all around, but you now know right from wrong, you now know love from hate, you now know life from death. Biblically we speak of heaven as our destination, but when someone asks where is this, we point to the sky. How do we know what physical direction it is in; all we know is the spiritual direction, which is Jesus, because he is the way.

To answer which way is it to heaven, simply put it is the way Jesus went, the direction to love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and self-control.

John 14:6

2005-05-23T15:50:00.000-04:00

John 14:6 sure says a lot. So much, that I decided it would be a fitting title to a blog site. Just in case there is no bible handy for you to pick up, it goes something like this: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." This is Jesus, and he's answering a question from one of the twelve (like he does so often). Just before this he is saying that there are many rooms prepared by him for whoever goes to where this is. In good 'ole Jesus style, at the end of verse four he says "You know the way to the place I am going." I say this as typical Jesus style, as how he would teach things, almost with a John Wayne attitude about it. "You know." But Thomas didn't know, because he asked how do they find the way. And again, in typical Jesus style, he comes back with more information then is necessary, because he just wanted to set them up to ask that question.

So he answers with a lot of info. In fact so much info that I find this verse to be the verse that one should ask themselves about Jesus: Is what he said right here true or not. The implications are eternal, either he is a mad man for saying this, or he is the Son of God. There is no in between with this verse. Its not one of those verses, like do not judge verses, or love one another verses. Those are essential to his teachings, but nonetheless they are just teachings. New Agers and what not use these verses all the time. They don't believe in the Son of God mumbo jumbo, but they recognize him as one of if not the greatest human rights activist ever. But right here he starts to jump off the deep end in the eyes of these people, and the mad man comparison starts to kick in. There are yet even some who think that the spirituality part of all this was just added as the years went by.

Here it is though, and all are left to make a decision. He says he is the way, he says he is the truth and he says he is the life. And for any of you out there that believe in the Father, or the God, Jesus is the way to him. How profound. You want to talk about evangelising, this is it. This is the verse that someone says either I accept that as the truth, or I don't. (Or I just waver and not really care much about it at all, I just cant take religion of any kind seriously.) Well, since we all want to find the way to go in life, whatever that is or where we want to go, we also debate about what is the truth, since there is so much deception. Jesus's statement here has huge ramifications, because he says he is all of that.

I have chosen to go that way, to live that life, and, as any
philosopher would gasp at, to accept Him as the truth. Now I
want to write all about it, to express it, and most importantly, to
live it. I want to show how much the Word of God applies to
current day America, how culture interacts, and how I am still
a resident of this sinful world, and I cant be a hermit, I cant
seclude myself in a Christian community either, because the sick
need healing, not the righteous.