New blog

For the millions of you that view this blog religiously :p I have made a new blog that consists more of my daily life…

http://tothisend87.wordpress.com/

just a thought

God is faithful because he does what most glorifies Himself, not because He grants our wishes or desires.

Life Goal Verse

Colossians 1:28-29
” We proclaim Him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with His energy which so powerfully works in me.”

I believe together with this verse and the one verse I shared in my last post that I have what I am striving for in my life.

This verse gives the idea of confidence in Christ because of the power that He give that works in us. It gives an urgency of proclaim Him to all. I really like this verse a lot. And plan to strive for it.

Distorted Humility

For some time now I have positioned my Christian life goal at humility. I thought that if I could strive and attain that in my daily life then I would be in the position which God desired most out of our lives. I based these views on one of my favorite verses 1 Peter 5: 6-7…

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you”

However, my striving for humility also brought along quite damaging effects. Or perhaps the effects were already there, I just masked them with humility to comfort my Christ seeking conscience.

See, I have never been a very confident person. I have always been one to over analyze and compare everything. This lifestyle becomes very depressing when you grow up “mediocre” in everything you do. I compared what I did to the best. In sports I compared myself to my peers, if I could triumph over them, then I would move on to those that were greater. In academics, music, and friendliness my sister was far great then I and so on. I could go on but since you have never heard my name as a well known Olympian, mathematician, or what have you. It can be assumed that I was always able to find someone who was greater then me in whatever I pursued. This caused haphazard feelings, a lack of motivation, and worst of all a desire to be alone. I didn’t want to be noticed unless it was for something great, and since I never viewed anything I did as something great I preferred to just not be noticed.

There are so many flaws in this line of thinking and all of them absolutely destroy the Christian life.

First of all I don’t want people to think that I am condemning a life of humility. I still believe that it is one of the best ways to allow God to use you. I just believe I was missing a key component of it. The life of humility involves recognition of God and His supremacy over your life, but also Christ fulfillment. The flaw in my thinking was that I recognized how worthless I was without Christ in my life, but I did not recognize, or at least I did not apply it to my life, that now that Christ is in my life I can have complete confidence. Not only to come to the throne of Him who has saved me (Hebrew 4: 16), but also to have confidence about using the gifts that God has given me. Even if there is someone who is better or more qualified, if He gives me the opportunity then I should take it with confidence that my abilities are enough to accomplish His will.

I must admit I struggle with this daily, I still desire to be by myself, then to risk looking like a fool in front of people. I have forced myself into positions were I have to be around people just so I have to get over this. I never made people skills when I was younger, so I struggle very much with small talk and things along that nature. I know that God desires us to love and reach out, and that it is impossible to do that when I am alone. I also know that God has designed us each differently, so I may ever be the outgoing person that I sometimes desire to be. I think though that if I am confident in Christ and what he has enabled me to do, then it should be honoring a pleasing to Him…. Which pleases me…

Gifts

As I have been reading through the scriptures. I have noticed one very important thing. That, love, is the key to a Christian life. “That was renown!” you’re probably thinking. You where hoping for something more. There is a little bit more.

See, being at the wonderful bewildering age of 21, my thinking often swings too, “I wonder what God has gifted me at, or how will He use me?” How does one find these things out? How does this relate to love?
Long ago, yes, even before my last post :p, I was reading in 1 Corinthian. I was coming up to the, oh, so famous ‘love chapter‘. I must admit I like chapter 13 and have committed sections of it to memory. This time reading it, it struck me as odd. Why does Paul stick this love section here? Why does he not put it a few sections back around the marriage area? Is that not more fitting? But he doesn’t, he sticks it after chapter 12 talking about spiritual gifts.

We often start chapter 13 with, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong…” Rightfully so because it is the first verse in the chapter. With this we tend to forget as to why Paul is even writing this chapter in the first place. If we step back into chapter 12 and look at the last verse; he gives us why. “But eagerly desire the greater gifts. And now I will show you the most excellent way”

This was interesting to me…When I write something, it generally is written down in the order that it comes to my mind. Certain thoughts will trigger other thoughts and then some where in the randomness I will end the letter. Like I said before, I found it strange that Paul did not put the ‘love chapter’ by the marriage chapter. Marriage makes me think of love, so then if I were writing about marriage it would likely trigger me to write about love next. But not Paul. What seemed to have trigged his mind was talking about gifts, not only the gifts but how they then compliment each other to make a body. His thinking seemed to be that the attributes of love are supposed to be shown to all. If it was only shown to a select few the body would then be incomplete or nonfunctioning. Therefore, connecting it with only marriage would not have encapsulated all that love was supposed to be. He recognized that love made things functional and it also would give opportunities to find greater gifts.

In a way this is comforting, figuring out what I am supposed to do is something that I am often perplexed about. Knowing that “the most excellent way” to find greater gifts is by showing love, seems simple. However, this also comes as a great challenge. So many things are involved with love. It says “If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.” That means that I could give everything I have and still not love. Meaning that love is more then just an act, it is a complete change of heart. No doubt that love also includes actions (1 john 3: 18). It requires both and “love comes from God” (1 john 4:7). Therefore, I believe that the best way to go about figuring out what gifts I have, is to ask God to inscribe in my heart a pure: patient; kind; not envious; not boastful; not proud; not rude; not self seeking; never failing love.

…one mind

I just read this verse today:

‘Finally, brothers, good-by. Aim for perfection, listen to my appeal, BE OF ONE MIND, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.’
2 Corinthians 13: 11

I thought is was cool because is matched what i said, and the more scripture the better

One mind…

I was watching a movie the other day, actually probably several months ago now, when a line from it caught my attention. The movie was The Last Samurai. For those of you who have not seen the movie, it is about an American military adviser named Nathan Algren, who was captured by the very people he was trying to destroy, the Samurai. While being held captive, he becomes acquainted with their way of life and practice. This particular scene enters with Nathan attempting to learn the technique and art of the samurai sword. During many failed attempts at beating his opponent, Nobutada, comes and tells his American friend in his broken English, “To many mind– Mind sword, Mind face, Mind people watch, too many mind. No mind.”

What wisdom! How many times has my goal to serve and honor my savior been distracted by things of little value? “Too many mind” I could say to myself, “Mind future, mind school, mind girl, mind people watch, too many mind. One mind.” Perhaps others creep in there … mind money, mind food, mind car… There seems to be endless thoughts that captivate our minds. Anyways… If you noticed I said “one mind”, having “no mind” gets you no where. Having one mind that is looking to love and glorify the Lord (Mark 12: 30). Have that mind be unaccompanied by any other thought or distraction, that gets you somewhere.

“… We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts. You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed—God is our witness. We were not looking for praise from men, not from you or anyone else.”

1 Thessalonians 2: 4-6

“God is our witness” It is so simple but yet seems to be an impossible thing to fully grasp. We have no real use for having our minds in so many places. No one else is going to judge use… Meaning no one, who has any eternal ramifications upon our life, is going to judge you besides God.

Over and over again, seemingly with every action I take; I have to make this decision. Am I going to glorify God or glorify self? If I choose not to glorify God, it automatically defaults the glory too self. Whether that is purposeful, by boasting or other means; or unintentional, perhaps through laziness or procrastination. Regardless, it brings the glory away from God. If I had that one mind, that one mind that is only looking to please God, to glorify God, I would not have a “wasted life”. Obviously I stole that line from John Piper, and I am also going to end with a quote by him from “Don’t waste your life.”

“What you love determines what you feel shame about. If you love men to make much of you, you will feel shame when they don’t. But if you love for men to make much of Christ, then you will feel shame if he is belittled on your account.”

Make it your goal to not belittle Christ… Have “one mind” thats purpose is to glorify God.

mmmm… That smells Good…

I always love walking into a room and being greeted by the smell of food. There is nothing like entering the front door of my parent’s house, especially around the holiday season, and smelling fresh baked bread or pie or cookies. The lingering smell draws me towards the source; it distracts my mind and makes my stomach growl. My salivary glands go crazy, and my mouth yearns to only take a bite and fully enjoy one of the delicious treats…

As I was reading today, I came across a verse. I obviously thought this was an excellent verse before, because I found it highlighted in my bible. However, this time it hit me a little differently and really grabbed my attention…

“But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task?” 2 Corinthians 2: 14-16

“the aroma of Christ” We are to have the aroma or smell or fragrance of Christ to others. We, just like the lingering smell, should be drawing people towards Christ. We should draw people towards the source of what gives us our appealing aroma. We should make there mind go crazy and the soul yearn to understand and to eventual fully enjoy Christ. Christ in essence is the cookie or pie; he is what will give the actual satisfaction and joy. He is what enables us to have our aroma, without the cookie there is no sent. Our job is only to direct people show them, guide them, to the real satisfaction. It says they will perceive it as they wish; maybe they will reject the truth and find it as “the smell of death” but just maybe God has given them understanding and they will see it as “the fragrance of life”. Either way it is our duty to be an aroma, a reflection of Christ. It says “And who is equal to such a task?” Meaning, who is better who is more equipped, then those who already have the guiding of the Holy Spirit. It later says in chapter three, that we should have confidence in ourselves through Christ, knowing well that our competence comes from God (2 Corinthians 3: 4-6).

Funny how things work out

Hmmm… funny how when you think you don’t have anytime to wright, you find yourself writing anyways…I have had the privilege this year to of being part of GRIT (God’s Recruit In Training). It has broken down a larger group of students into smaller more personal accountability groups. In which we are challenged to look at particular areas of our lives such as: exercise; devotions (time and quality); involvement in church; a discipline of some sort, such as with staining from something for three days our spend so many hours in prayer; and reading a good book. In my particular accountability I am leading the discussion on the book. My group choose “Don’t Waste Your Life” by John Piper, and I must admit I was disappointed by their choice. I was looking forward to reading a book that I have never read. However, being sense I have read it, it put me into a position where I could lead the discussion on it. I have found it fascinating that when you are not very enthused about something God will put you into a position of leadership. That key role of leadership will force you to participate and then, looking back upon it, you are very thankful that He (God) did just that. This happened to be one of those situations, and I am thankful that God is having read that book again…

“The thought of building my life around minimal morality or minimal significance — a life defined by the question, ‘What is permissible?’ — felt almost disgusting to me. I didn’t want a minimal life. I didn’t want to live on the outskirts of reality. I wanted to understand the main thing about life and pursue it.”

Reading that section of the book really hit me — how many areas in my life am I only going to give half effort or maybe no effort at all– My mind instantly went to my schooling, and how I can’t even remember when the last time I actually read the text book before class or when I actually studied before I absolutely had too. Or when I actually felt ready for a Test.
Why does it matter? Does God really care– I mean I am still passing my classes with good enough grades– God only really cares about the “Christian” aspect of my life right? This thinking when read is easily seen as flawed, but I am afraid that I find my self thinking those very things. That doing my devotions and being apart of a ministry and other “Christian” things is the only parts of my life that I should give 100 %. I know it is a basic idea and all of us know 1 Corinthians 10: 31 “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” It just was a good reminder for me that not giving 100 %, in every aspect of my life, for His Glory is a wasted life.

Deviance

sorry I have very little time to sit down and write anything new so I am going to post a paper that I wrote for a sociology class I had last semester…

We as an American society view the Christian religion as something of the every day occurrence, and rightly so, for 76.5 percent of Americans claim to be Christian (Composite). We hear of it daily. We have “Christian” churches on every other street corner and around 40 percent of people claim to attend church regularly. We view Christianity as the norm of the norms. This is something that most of us just say we are; something that is far from being deviant. This is because we as a society have lost what Christianity was meant to be. We view it as a religion when it is far from that. Even though our society is thought of as a Christian nation, it still looks upon Christianity in an interesting way. Our society views a Christian as patriarchic, ritualistic, homophobic, fundamentalist. Patriarchic, because it seems to point towards male dominancy. In the book, “Sociology”, by John J. Macionis, it points out the passage Ephesians 5: 22-24 where it says, “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church… As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands.” Then ritualistic, because of the repetitive prayer, confession, church going, lent, and other “holidays”. Homophobic, because of the signs some hold up saying that homosexuals are condemned to hell. Lastly fundamentalist, because of how they stand for what they believe in. Even though there are some inevitable failures because we are dealing with humanity, we will hopefully see how Christianity, according to its roots found in the Bible, is completely deviant.

First, lets look at some of the inevitable failures which “Christians” have had. The Crusades, which was an effort to rid Jerusalem or the “holy land” from Muslim rule, lead to the death of a lot of Christians and Muslims for an unjust cause. Another failure was around the 1500’s, when Pope Leo X raised money by selling indulgences. Indulgences were used as a way to pay for the sins one had committed. So, in essence, you could pay to get your sins forgiven. One of the worst things happening now is that Christians replace the hate for sin, which is biblical, for the hate of the actual person. This becomes evident in our present changing culture where sexuality is becoming more open. We see “Christians” holding up signs that say, “Homosexuals go to hell”. We have also seen priests molesting little kids and extreme religious activists who kill and murder. The list goes on. It would be futile to say Christians have an ability to be flawless, for they are human. It will never get to the point where we can not point out flaws. However, we are not here to judge the person, but what the person should be following, and that is the Bible and Jesus Christ.Jesus Christ, the God of the Christian faith, is the perfect example of deviance. There are several instances in the Bible where Christ was almost unlawful in the eyes of the Pharisees or Teachers of the Law. One of the best examples is in Mark 2: 15-17, “While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” were eating with Him and His disciples, for there were many who followed Him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw Him eating with the “sinners” and tax collectors, they asked His disciples: ‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and ’sinners’?’ On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” As we see in this passage Christ is doing something that the Pharisees see as uncharacteristic. In the age of Christ the Pharisees would be considered upper class because of their knowledge of the Torah orLaw. It was not unusual for a Pharisee to have all of the Torah memorized, and the prestige that comes along with that. Tax collectors would be the lower class. They were known for taking advantage of their job and charging more tax then what should have been. Even though this was how they made there living, they where still considered outcasts. Therefore, it is easy to see why in the Pharisee’s eyes this behavior was not acceptable. In Mark 2: 23-24, “One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as His disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to Him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?’” This happens consistently through out Jesus’ life.Christianity deviates itself from other religions by the concept of grace. Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism all focus around the idea that you can work your way to heaven or some other form of afterlife. Islam or Muslims believe that the highest human good is to follow the path outlined in the law or the Shari’ah (p 241 Ludwig). Judaism is similar but instead they follow the Law of the Torah or the Mosaic Law. Hinduism strains for a moral and prosperous life according to the Vedas, in the hope that their next reincarnated life will be better then the previous. Buddhism also believes in reincarnation. They live their life for morality, mental development, and enlightenment. Christianity says that no matter how righteously you live your life, no matter how good of a person, no matter how closely you follow the Law, you can not get into Heaven. This is because you are a sinner (Romans 3: 23) and therefore never going to be worthy of a perfect God. In Ephesians 2: 8-9 it says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not by works, so that no one can boast.” The only way in which you can receive eternal life in Heaven is by faith, faith in Jesus Christ. Even though we are imperfect, Christ is our mask, so that when we have faith and a belief in Him, God then no longer sees our sin, but Christ’s perfection (Romans 5).

True Christianity according to the Bible covers one basic concept. This concept applies to the before mentioned thoughts on Christianity. That one thing is ‘love”. I know it sounds cliché, but wait and see how it applies to each area. The key verse that will be used is 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails…” Patriarchy, as we saw before in Ephesians 5: 22-24, sounds as if the male has complete dominion over the wife as the sociology book points out to us. He can tell her to do something and by the Bible she should do it. But the book left off the last few verses that are very important…, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church”. A husband is supposed to sacrifice himself for his wife. A man is supposed to complement his wife’s goal to be like Christ. It says, “Make her holy…through the word”. Some may say that it is important that men be the breadwinner in the family, but this idea is of little value. It is more important for the man to provide the “bread of life” for his wife then economic prosperity (Piper). It calls men to love their wives, and if love “is not self seeking”, like it says in 1 Corinthians 13, then how can they be seen as dominant. Finally, we have to recognize one of two things; either we are created by God, male and female, or we are just animals equivalent to mere apes. Since we are dealing with Christianity, the choice is obvious. We are created by God as male and female, who are equivalent but have different strengths; strengths that Christianity is not afraid to point out and utilize. Utilized for one purpose and that is to glorify God.

Ritualism is simply not in the teachings of Christ or the New Testament. Since we are looking at the doctrine and not the follower of Christianity, then we can’t judge that. However it can be explained. It is something purely human made habitual. Quite frankly just doing something because it has and was always done is another one of the flaws of the person. Christ actually spoke against this in Mathew 23: 27-28, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” The Pharisees were doing all the correct actions, but they were merely actions. They did not have the correct motives behind what they where doing. One might think, “Then why do we have the scripture if it is not to follow”. It should be followed, but only if the correct feeling is behind it and that feeling is love, love for God. It says “If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.” Just like a man wants to please the one he loves, he should want to try and please his God; and we please God by following his commands with a true heart of “love”. Therefore, ritualism can be understood and, in fact, is only worth something if we have “love”. Homosexuality, as mentioned before, sadly, “Christians” have a hate for the homosexual people shown through signs and an assortment of hate crime. The signs are true. Homosexuals are deserving of hell, but so are heterosexuals, and everyone else, because all of us are sinners. Romans 3: 23 says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”, and therefore not worthy of a perfect God, we are condemned to hell. Homosexuality is a sin. Leviticus 20:13 says, “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable…” Also in the New testament, Romans 1: 26-27, it is just like any other sin. It is still a sin and therefore can not be and should not be encouraged by someone of the Christian faith. However this does not dismiss the hate shown to the homosexuals, that is wrong. We should still have love for them like we do anyone else. As we can see, Christians are called to be deviant because they are called to love God and love one another… to love each other as 1 Corinthians 13 says. Sadly, this is something that we don’t see played out in our society today. Personally, I think if our society turned to the faith of Christianity and followed it as it is taught in the Bible, then we would not have the problems that face us today.

Bibliography

“Composite of U.S Demographics” accessed 11/13/07 <http://www.adherents.com/ad h_

dem.html>.

Ludwig, Ludwig M. “The Sacred Paths of the West” New Jersey: Pearson Education,

2006.

Macionis, John J. “Sociology” New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2007.

Piper, John. “What’s the Difference?” Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 1990.

The Holy Bible, New International Version. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2002.