YAY! Do you know what I'm doing right no to celebrate not being in class? I'm at work! YAY!
Actually, my job rocks. I feel special here in my own little workspace on the 8th floor of the First Bank building downtown.
Oh, and if anyone is looking to get rid of either a twin bed or a dresser, I know of a good home. (I need a dresser, Plop needs a bed.)
On a more serious note, I want to recommend something that I did yesterday. The gospel just didn't feel real, so I took up one of the gospel tracts, (I actually used one that I stole from Philly that we modelled the CCK tracts after but thats off the subject,) anyways, I picked up the tract and went through it slowly, reminding myself of the truth in the points it presented, and I tried to make the gospel feel real, because it IS real. God met me and blessed my effort yesterday. So, I guess my point is that really simple devotions can sometimes be valuable, and if you are struggling in preaching the gospel to yourself, pick up one of those tracts. The gospel is in that little thing.
Friday, April 28, 2006
Saturday, April 22, 2006
A man who seeks God with his whole heart.
I was reading Psalm 119 this morning, and I began to meditate on what it would look like to be this guy in verse 2. "Blessed are those that keep his testimonies, that seek him with the whole heart."
As an exercise, I thought it would be helpful for me to write down what it would look like to truly seek God with all your heart. So, this is what I put in my journal, I thought it might be helpful to share.
He wants God. He wants to be with God. He is constantly longing for communion with God. This is more than a purposeful mind setting aside time for communion; the man who seeks God with all his heart LONGS for the time that he gets to spend with God. He doesn't have to focus his thoughts and affections on God, the thoughts and affections he has for God are vibrant and expressive, but just as much, they are also ever present. Just as a man gazing upon his bride has no problem producing right affections when he sees her approaching down the aisle on his wedding day, so the man who is seeking God with all his heart will not have to work up affections. They will already be there, and they will be ever-present. He will be able to pray Psalm 42:1 with all honesty.
He will keeps all the commands of God. For who against against that in which the whole of his affections are laid? He will wake up in the morning and thank God for all of the grace that he has poured out upon him, especially through his sacrifice of His son on the cross. He will go to bed at night with the same thanks streaming forth from his lips. Throughout his day he will not be able to keep the affections of his heart to himself. He will tell about them, he will sing because of them. God's praise will constantly be upon his lips, for what else can he talk about, when his entire being is fixated on only one object?
How would he suffer an occasion to sin? How could he? The man who seeks God with his whole heart would rather have both his arms torn off than offend that which all his affections are set upon. There is no analogy to describe how foreign it would be for this man to be swayed by the offer of pleasure present in sin. It would be more likely for a mother to pleasure in inflicting pain upon her own children than for this man to pleasure in sin. This thought is simply unheard of.
Rather, he would infinetly disdain all forms and all manners of sin. He would use all force and all means that he had at his disposal to destroy any sinful inclination present against his beloved God. His delight is in God, and his law, while sin and the offense against God are the single focus of his hate.
All I know is that this man is not me. I want it to be, but I am so far from this, and I realize that I will never get there while I am alive. Why do I not seek God with all my heart in light of what he has done for me? How in the world can I forget, or minimize the importance of the cross in my life? How can I sit down and watch a stupid TV show in the morning instead of getting up, leaving my apartment and studying his word? What is wrong with me? Who will rescue me from this body of death?
As an exercise, I thought it would be helpful for me to write down what it would look like to truly seek God with all your heart. So, this is what I put in my journal, I thought it might be helpful to share.
He wants God. He wants to be with God. He is constantly longing for communion with God. This is more than a purposeful mind setting aside time for communion; the man who seeks God with all his heart LONGS for the time that he gets to spend with God. He doesn't have to focus his thoughts and affections on God, the thoughts and affections he has for God are vibrant and expressive, but just as much, they are also ever present. Just as a man gazing upon his bride has no problem producing right affections when he sees her approaching down the aisle on his wedding day, so the man who is seeking God with all his heart will not have to work up affections. They will already be there, and they will be ever-present. He will be able to pray Psalm 42:1 with all honesty.
He will keeps all the commands of God. For who against against that in which the whole of his affections are laid? He will wake up in the morning and thank God for all of the grace that he has poured out upon him, especially through his sacrifice of His son on the cross. He will go to bed at night with the same thanks streaming forth from his lips. Throughout his day he will not be able to keep the affections of his heart to himself. He will tell about them, he will sing because of them. God's praise will constantly be upon his lips, for what else can he talk about, when his entire being is fixated on only one object?
How would he suffer an occasion to sin? How could he? The man who seeks God with his whole heart would rather have both his arms torn off than offend that which all his affections are set upon. There is no analogy to describe how foreign it would be for this man to be swayed by the offer of pleasure present in sin. It would be more likely for a mother to pleasure in inflicting pain upon her own children than for this man to pleasure in sin. This thought is simply unheard of.
Rather, he would infinetly disdain all forms and all manners of sin. He would use all force and all means that he had at his disposal to destroy any sinful inclination present against his beloved God. His delight is in God, and his law, while sin and the offense against God are the single focus of his hate.
All I know is that this man is not me. I want it to be, but I am so far from this, and I realize that I will never get there while I am alive. Why do I not seek God with all my heart in light of what he has done for me? How in the world can I forget, or minimize the importance of the cross in my life? How can I sit down and watch a stupid TV show in the morning instead of getting up, leaving my apartment and studying his word? What is wrong with me? Who will rescue me from this body of death?
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Interruptions
Ok, last post I admitted that I had done something really nerdy. This post, I'm going to admit I have done something really feminine. I went ot and read a few posts on Carolyn McCulley's blog for single women. I hadn't ever been there before, (so it's not a habit,) but on her blog, she had a quote from Douglas Wilson's Her Hand in Marriage. Now, I'm not familiar with either the author or the book, but since I like it and Carolyn McCulley said it, I figure this guy is fairly legit. But anyways, why I want to post it is that the quote was actually advice for guys, not girls, which Carolyn McCulley simple applied to girls. Anyways, enough of this self-defending babbling.
Carolyn McCulley used this for girls to say that they should be "waiting to be interrupted," but for now pursue the plans that they have in front of them to support themselves if they never do get married. But for guys the advice is more clear. "The whole point of courtship is to interrupt a young lady's plans."
Now, first of all, this isn't why I'm still single. I have several other reasons that I'm not going to get into right here on my blog, but I have to admit that a sense of passiveness in how I want to pursue a girl has been present as I have thought and prayed about it. So, this was helpful to me, although I realize not to take it too far, and I personally think that it is more applicable to marriage than to courtship. Well now I'm off talking about a topic that I really know nothing about, so I'm going to shut up now, for it is better to be silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
But boys must be trained to take risks, which means being confident in the midst of the unknown. As they do this on an immature level, fathers should work with them, and teach them, without destroying this masculine impetus.
Courtship reveals how necessary this masculinity is. Many modern young men approach a girl, and they are quite serious as far as their intentions go, but they are afraid of interfering with her life. "You know, she is going to graduate soon, but she wants to go to school at Notre Dame, and I don't really want to go to Notre Dame, and showing interest in her would really disrupt all her plans." But the whole point of courtship is to disrupt a young lady's plans. A godly young woman is not going to stand around waiting for marriage. Rather, she will be preparing herself for marriage. This means she will be heading in some particular direction, and not just marking time. A young man should not be afraid of disrupting, because marriage is by its very nature a disruption of her previous way of life.
Carolyn McCulley used this for girls to say that they should be "waiting to be interrupted," but for now pursue the plans that they have in front of them to support themselves if they never do get married. But for guys the advice is more clear. "The whole point of courtship is to interrupt a young lady's plans."
Now, first of all, this isn't why I'm still single. I have several other reasons that I'm not going to get into right here on my blog, but I have to admit that a sense of passiveness in how I want to pursue a girl has been present as I have thought and prayed about it. So, this was helpful to me, although I realize not to take it too far, and I personally think that it is more applicable to marriage than to courtship. Well now I'm off talking about a topic that I really know nothing about, so I'm going to shut up now, for it is better to be silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Professing to be wise they became fools...
Ok, I am a nerd. So is Jeff Moore, and so is Dave McCarthy. We are nerds. Why are we nerds you ask? Well, because the three of us decided to spend our Friday night attending a philosophy lecture than partying or whatever else it is that college students are supposed to do on Friday night. (I'm a nerd, so I wouldn't know.) I tell what he talked about for the first part of the post, so if you don't have time to read a long post, just skip to the end (Past the dashed line.)
The speaker for the night was a distinguished professor of philosophy that I think it would be smarter not to include his name considering how I attack his ideas. I don't know what else to say about him other than what he said. He asked us to look at the word God and seperate the name from the event. By that he meant for us to take what is really meant by the three letters G-o-d and analyze it without letting your perception be skewed by the name itself. He said that the event is what is actually going on in the word. Then he proposed that the event contained in the name G-o-d has been distorted in theology because it is caught in power and sovereignty. In other words, in viewing God as soveriegn and powerful we are viewing God wrongly because he isn't sovereign or powerful.
He then stated that people ask two questions wrongly when they think about God. the first is, Can't God do anything?, and the second, What about evil why doesn't God stop it.
While he was explaning the second question I actually had a flash of fury rise up in my heart. It was the only time during this lecture that my pity at their ignorance was replaced with fury. He started talking about the book of Job in relation to why God doesn't stop evil. He said something like, "Job was right all along. He was right. God had no right to do this to him. And look at the end of the book. What does God say? 'Where were you when I created the world?' What is that? Then Job blinked and admitted he was wrong. It kind of like you as a parnet when one of you kids starts annoying you by asking you a lot of questions that you say, 'If you ask that again, you'll pay for it.' There is no reason behind this other than a threat, and Job gave in under pressure." This prompted laughter from the audience at Scripture. I wasn't laughing. Jeff wasn't laughing. Dave wasn't laughing. I could not bear to hear God's word laughed at. But anyways, he moved on.
He moved on to two other statements that kind of irked me as well. First, he took the common quote, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" which is used of human rulers, changed it, and applied it to God and said, "Infinite power corrupts infinitely." Yeah, that didn't go over to well either. The second thing came right after that when he was talking about how God had power over everything, God over man, but then you had tiers. There was man over woman, man over animals, amn over plants, "there was a whole system of subjugation." I was with him right up until he said subjugation. I guess what I saw is that even in high academic circles, for one person to have authority over another means that the one who doesn't have the authority is being subjugated.
He then defined sovereignty as, "The ability to make an exception. The law holds unless I say it doesn't hold. It is the power to act unilaterally."
"Suppose we treat Jesus as the icon of God, that there is an image of God in Jesus. Jesus is unique among other religions not because he was a miracle worker or that he was incarnated in the virgin birth, but rather that he was executed. He was radical about the poor, he was radical about healing, but most of all he was radical about forgiveness." These are my notes of his description of Jesus. He then went on to say that he sees Jesus in the plea for sinners while he was on the cross, but not in the transaction, the substitutionary atonement. He sees that as a perversion. He thinks that Jesus is the icon of God, but doesn't ascribe to him the ability to get down off of the cross. He proposes that Jesus was unable to do that.
He stated, "Suppose that event that typifies the nature of God is weakness, and the cross is its emblem. Suppose Jesus' death was a great 'NO!' to injustice and unrighteous execution." He called this the "power of powerlessness."
At this point he apologized to the crowd because he had promised to be heretical but hadn't gotten heretical yet. Jeff and I both laughed at this. If that wasn't heretical, what is? Then we found out what he thought was heretical, and yes it was heretical. It is below.
If God is powerless then what is God? He started to answer this question. First he stated that God was not a being, nor was the source of all being, nor was he beyond being like "the Good" which was held by the philosophy professor I conversed with a few months ago. He proposed that the structure of God is an event of an unconditional answer. That God was an unconditional promise. The promise of a future life, a promise that this isn't all there is. You wouldn't so much say that God is, but that God promises. He said that God was also an unconditional memory. This memory of Jesus' death and the "NO!" to unjust suffering. He also said that God was an unconditional call. That we call God's existence into being. That we bring his power to bear.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So I heard all of this, and noticed Jeff Moore's little note he wrote me in my notebook saying Romans 1:22, which simply says, "Professing to be wise they became fools." That was what had happened here. None of this, what I posted above makes any sense. I understand his points, but his points themselves don't make sense. He has no basis,no foundation for anything he says. It made me think of the end of the sermon on the mount where you have the builder who builds his house on the rock versus the one who builds on the sand. But I thought that the analogy of sand was a bit to generous to describe the situation. Perhaps trying to build a foundation in a cloud or in the middle of the ocean would be a better description. The sand at least holds up until the storms come. This thing never had anything beneath it. It is a theology built on air.
He is proposing that God is weak and that He is not sovereign, that he is not powerful. But what he is actually saying is that God does not exist, that He has been created by humans, but then he goes on to describe what this God is or isn't. Now, if God is defined as that which people accept God to be, how can God be something different from what people believe Him to be? Furthermore, how can this professor state that God is actually all about weakness, when all believers see him as strong, and then say that He only exists in the mind? How can he say that God is only a conception, but the conception of God is faulty? If the conception of God is God, how can it be wrong about who God is? Do you see why this is absurd? Not only is it untrue, but it is self-defeating.
I'm glad I went and heard him though. I got to hear a vary well presented postmodern view of God, and found it both to be completely wrong, and to be self-defeating. That's good enough for a night. But yes, I am a nerd.
The speaker for the night was a distinguished professor of philosophy that I think it would be smarter not to include his name considering how I attack his ideas. I don't know what else to say about him other than what he said. He asked us to look at the word God and seperate the name from the event. By that he meant for us to take what is really meant by the three letters G-o-d and analyze it without letting your perception be skewed by the name itself. He said that the event is what is actually going on in the word. Then he proposed that the event contained in the name G-o-d has been distorted in theology because it is caught in power and sovereignty. In other words, in viewing God as soveriegn and powerful we are viewing God wrongly because he isn't sovereign or powerful.
He then stated that people ask two questions wrongly when they think about God. the first is, Can't God do anything?, and the second, What about evil why doesn't God stop it.
While he was explaning the second question I actually had a flash of fury rise up in my heart. It was the only time during this lecture that my pity at their ignorance was replaced with fury. He started talking about the book of Job in relation to why God doesn't stop evil. He said something like, "Job was right all along. He was right. God had no right to do this to him. And look at the end of the book. What does God say? 'Where were you when I created the world?' What is that? Then Job blinked and admitted he was wrong. It kind of like you as a parnet when one of you kids starts annoying you by asking you a lot of questions that you say, 'If you ask that again, you'll pay for it.' There is no reason behind this other than a threat, and Job gave in under pressure." This prompted laughter from the audience at Scripture. I wasn't laughing. Jeff wasn't laughing. Dave wasn't laughing. I could not bear to hear God's word laughed at. But anyways, he moved on.
He moved on to two other statements that kind of irked me as well. First, he took the common quote, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" which is used of human rulers, changed it, and applied it to God and said, "Infinite power corrupts infinitely." Yeah, that didn't go over to well either. The second thing came right after that when he was talking about how God had power over everything, God over man, but then you had tiers. There was man over woman, man over animals, amn over plants, "there was a whole system of subjugation." I was with him right up until he said subjugation. I guess what I saw is that even in high academic circles, for one person to have authority over another means that the one who doesn't have the authority is being subjugated.
He then defined sovereignty as, "The ability to make an exception. The law holds unless I say it doesn't hold. It is the power to act unilaterally."
"Suppose we treat Jesus as the icon of God, that there is an image of God in Jesus. Jesus is unique among other religions not because he was a miracle worker or that he was incarnated in the virgin birth, but rather that he was executed. He was radical about the poor, he was radical about healing, but most of all he was radical about forgiveness." These are my notes of his description of Jesus. He then went on to say that he sees Jesus in the plea for sinners while he was on the cross, but not in the transaction, the substitutionary atonement. He sees that as a perversion. He thinks that Jesus is the icon of God, but doesn't ascribe to him the ability to get down off of the cross. He proposes that Jesus was unable to do that.
He stated, "Suppose that event that typifies the nature of God is weakness, and the cross is its emblem. Suppose Jesus' death was a great 'NO!' to injustice and unrighteous execution." He called this the "power of powerlessness."
At this point he apologized to the crowd because he had promised to be heretical but hadn't gotten heretical yet. Jeff and I both laughed at this. If that wasn't heretical, what is? Then we found out what he thought was heretical, and yes it was heretical. It is below.
If God is powerless then what is God? He started to answer this question. First he stated that God was not a being, nor was the source of all being, nor was he beyond being like "the Good" which was held by the philosophy professor I conversed with a few months ago. He proposed that the structure of God is an event of an unconditional answer. That God was an unconditional promise. The promise of a future life, a promise that this isn't all there is. You wouldn't so much say that God is, but that God promises. He said that God was also an unconditional memory. This memory of Jesus' death and the "NO!" to unjust suffering. He also said that God was an unconditional call. That we call God's existence into being. That we bring his power to bear.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So I heard all of this, and noticed Jeff Moore's little note he wrote me in my notebook saying Romans 1:22, which simply says, "Professing to be wise they became fools." That was what had happened here. None of this, what I posted above makes any sense. I understand his points, but his points themselves don't make sense. He has no basis,no foundation for anything he says. It made me think of the end of the sermon on the mount where you have the builder who builds his house on the rock versus the one who builds on the sand. But I thought that the analogy of sand was a bit to generous to describe the situation. Perhaps trying to build a foundation in a cloud or in the middle of the ocean would be a better description. The sand at least holds up until the storms come. This thing never had anything beneath it. It is a theology built on air.
He is proposing that God is weak and that He is not sovereign, that he is not powerful. But what he is actually saying is that God does not exist, that He has been created by humans, but then he goes on to describe what this God is or isn't. Now, if God is defined as that which people accept God to be, how can God be something different from what people believe Him to be? Furthermore, how can this professor state that God is actually all about weakness, when all believers see him as strong, and then say that He only exists in the mind? How can he say that God is only a conception, but the conception of God is faulty? If the conception of God is God, how can it be wrong about who God is? Do you see why this is absurd? Not only is it untrue, but it is self-defeating.
I'm glad I went and heard him though. I got to hear a vary well presented postmodern view of God, and found it both to be completely wrong, and to be self-defeating. That's good enough for a night. But yes, I am a nerd.
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Fearing God
Over Vision Quest, I had a prophetic word given to me about how the fear of the Lord needed to be more present in my life. I hadn't realized my lack. But really, I don't fear God in any wsy close to the capacity that I should. So, to help myself out, I picked up The Joy of Fearing God by Jerry Bridges at the bookstore before church this morning. I read the first two chapters this afternoon.
Bridges calls proposes that the most prevelant emotion in the fear of the Lord is that of awe, which he provides a definition of "an emotion in which dread, veneration, and wonder are variously mingled." I had wonder. I was pretty good at that. But dread? Veneration? These just weren't there. He then quotes John Murray who says, " it is the essence of impiety not to be afraid of God when there is reason to be afraid... The Scripture throughout prescribes the neccesity of this fear of God under all the circumstances in which our sinful condition makes us liable to God's wrath."
Now, because I have been justified, I am not liable to God's wrath, but that should by no means diminish my fear of him. The grace is a promise by a being who not only can destroy me, but if He did not save me himself, I would be destroyed. There is a respect for his wrath that must be maintained by a believer, if we are to live rightly before him.
My problem was that I felt like I had become his "buddy." The first couple of nights at Vision Quest, God was kind to me and filled me mightily with his Spirit, but it jsut felt like an experience to me. Yes it was great, but it's just one of those things that happens sometime. I had lost the sense of awe that this great being was dwelling in me,and filling me, nad ministering to people through me, by His power, through His strength, all made possible by His blood. The sense of the absolute impossibility of what was taking place was gone. God was my buddy, and he helped me out sometimes so that I didn't get disappointed. That's why I was amazed when I confessed this, that Matt Bowman, while he was praying for me said that he felt like the Lord wanted to impart a fresh sense of fear. That is something that I am missing, maybe it is the thing that I am missing most profoundly. I pray that God would use these next couple of weeks to really strengthen who he is in my eyes, so that I might fear Him properly.
Bridges calls proposes that the most prevelant emotion in the fear of the Lord is that of awe, which he provides a definition of "an emotion in which dread, veneration, and wonder are variously mingled." I had wonder. I was pretty good at that. But dread? Veneration? These just weren't there. He then quotes John Murray who says, " it is the essence of impiety not to be afraid of God when there is reason to be afraid... The Scripture throughout prescribes the neccesity of this fear of God under all the circumstances in which our sinful condition makes us liable to God's wrath."
Now, because I have been justified, I am not liable to God's wrath, but that should by no means diminish my fear of him. The grace is a promise by a being who not only can destroy me, but if He did not save me himself, I would be destroyed. There is a respect for his wrath that must be maintained by a believer, if we are to live rightly before him.
My problem was that I felt like I had become his "buddy." The first couple of nights at Vision Quest, God was kind to me and filled me mightily with his Spirit, but it jsut felt like an experience to me. Yes it was great, but it's just one of those things that happens sometime. I had lost the sense of awe that this great being was dwelling in me,and filling me, nad ministering to people through me, by His power, through His strength, all made possible by His blood. The sense of the absolute impossibility of what was taking place was gone. God was my buddy, and he helped me out sometimes so that I didn't get disappointed. That's why I was amazed when I confessed this, that Matt Bowman, while he was praying for me said that he felt like the Lord wanted to impart a fresh sense of fear. That is something that I am missing, maybe it is the thing that I am missing most profoundly. I pray that God would use these next couple of weeks to really strengthen who he is in my eyes, so that I might fear Him properly.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)