Opposition

Posted: Wednesday, November 17, 2010 by Morgan in
0

I was watching some preaching by Mark Driscoll the other day, and something he said really jumped out at me. When discussing spiritual warfare, he says this: ..."the Bible gives us three categories of opposition: the world, the flesh, and the devil." That got me thinking about the nature of sin and how we as Christians are have died to sin but still struggle with it.


For now, I want to focus on the flesh.

Though Satan and the world are not to be overlooked as categories of opposition to us as Christians, God has been teaching me about the flesh as it relates to sin in the past few weeks. The flesh is the source of sin that is always with us. We can remove ourselves from the world, we can conquer Satan by the power of the Holy Spirit, but we cannot escape from the flesh as long as we live. And that's why I think it's so important to understand.

It all started by taking a friend's advice and praying that God would convict me of sin. I have been praying not for simply guilt or intellectual understanding of sin, but for true, meaningful conviction so that I might truly appreciate what Jesus Christ did for me on the cross and so that I might love Him more. And God has been faithful. It hasn't been difficult for Him to show me what sin really is...there's plenty of it in my life.

Here's what I learned: sin, fundamentally, causes a separation from God. It is an act of utter rebellion, it is a slap in the face to God who sent Jesus Christ as a sacrifice for sin. I have felt a very real sort of barrier between God and me when I am in sin. It is something I have felt before but had never really thought twice about it because it was constant. Somehow it's different now. I can see clearly the barrier and exactly what is causing it: sin, and specifically sin of the flesh.

But haven't we died to the flesh and sin? Romans 6:6-7 says this:
We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.
What the heck? If this is true, why do we as Christians still sin? We died to it when we placed our trust in Jesus Christ and accepted his sacrifice for us in faith, right? Yes, but Paul goes on in Romans 7:21-24:
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
The key is that we are still literally and physically living in the flesh. Paul says that our physical bodies are the sources of sin of the flesh. I am now beginning to see my body as an enemy of my soul. Through the power of the Spirit, I am seeking to kill my flesh daily. Romans 8:13 says
For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
That is the answer. We must kill our flesh daily. It's quite a daunting task, since the flesh is filled with distracting and sinful desires, emotions, and appetites. Practically, I came to the realization that if I can't understand and control my simple desire for food or sleep, how will I ever be able to understand and control the desire of lust or an appetite for pride? Now I realize that it's easy to exercise self-control and be physically disciplined for the wrong reasons, but I am praying that God will continue to change my heart so that I am not focused on myself in this pursuit of putting the flesh to death, but that I am focused on drawing closer to Him in the process.

All this talk about constantly living with sin in the flesh can be depressing and hopeless, and it would be if not for verses like Romans 8:37-39. I find great hope in this promise.

"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:37-39

Wonder and Beauty

Posted: Saturday, November 13, 2010 by Morgan in
1

My life is pretty much planned out and I think I'm getting complacent. I don't rely on God for everything. I'm thankful for the great things He has put in my life and I am blessed beyond measure, but things aren't really hard. Here's the plan: I'm going to finish college, get a good job, get married, have a family, make lots of money and give it away. I'm in the "finish college" stage right now and just can't wait to be done with it. I long for the future. There is this something that I'm looking forward to, but I can't really put my finger on what it is. I've been told that longing is for heaven, but that answer doesn't satisfy me and the fact that it doesn't satisfy me bothers me.


I've been learning about and struggling with my relationship with God. No matter what specific problem I'm working through, the basic issue is the role of faith and works in sanctification. I know that I have been saved solely by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement through his death and resurrection. I know that I have not been saved because of anything I've done in my own strength. But I also know I'm supposed to display the fruit of the spirit and that I am to become more and more like Christ. I know I'm supposed to do that in God's strength, but I don't know how. The only way I know to do what is expected of me is to do it myself. I don't know how to trust in God anymore. The most frustrating thing is that I did it all last summer, so I should be able to keep on doing it. John Wesley struggled with this issue his entire life. I'm struggling with it right now and I want some kind of conclusion.

Basically I'm not content. I wish for the future, but I'm living in the present. And the present is missing something.

And I think that something is wonder and beauty.

As an engineering student, nothing is wondrous to me. Nothing. I'm being taught how everything fits into a system, everything is explained to me, everything makes sense (eventually). The only thing that even comes close to wonder is an equation that makes an engineering problem easier. And beauty is....not really something we think about very much. The closest we come to beauty is adding the "aesthetically pleasing" category into a design project. There is almost nothing that brings these two things in my life.

The answer that presented itself almost immediately was to find a girlfriend. Since that solution came from my mom and my best friend simultaneously, I'm having a hard time figuring out whether it is a serious solution or not. Apparently girls are wondrous and beautiful, and since I need both of those things, a girl is the perfect solution. That's the logic at least. But if you look at it in the way I just described, it's a super selfish solution. A relationship based on my needs is based on the wrong thing and is not going to work. And I don't have time for one. Let's find a different solution.

Somehow the answer is God, but I can't figure out how. I don't really see beauty or wonder in God. I just don't. Sorry. I know He is, but I can't see it. I'm sick of knowing things without those things having any real meaning, but I don't know how to make them meaningful. I can't. I just have to trust in God, which I've established that I don't know how to do.

It's a great place to be.

"As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust." Psalm 103:13-14

The Spiritual Realm

Posted: Sunday, October 31, 2010 by Morgan in
1

I had an interesting experience tonight. As you may notice, I am writing this on Halloween, a day that I think Satan has hijacked from Christianity (as many have pointed out, it is also Reformation Day, but it is heavily overshadowed by Halloween). It is a day of candy, "costumes," pranks, and fun surface stuff like that.


But....

There's also another side to Halloween. It is a dark, terrifying, and hopeless side. For every physical thing there is also a spiritual counterpart. There are people who dress up as scary monsters, but there are also real, tangible, evil spirits who wreak havoc on this earth. They are as real as you and I. Though Halloween may seem like an innocent holiday full of spreading candied joy around the neighborhoods, there are forces of evil at work, both physically and spiritually.

Anyway, as I was cleaning the office in my high school tonight, I was constantly overcome by an unshakable sense of fear. Now, I'm not generally a fearful person, and I've cleaned the school at night plenty of times and there would be no reason for me to be afraid. Even so, I was constantly on edge and honestly scared for no particular reason. I kept hearing little noises that I am sure I didn't make. Some stuff I stacked on a counter fell down and scared me half to death. There was once when I'm sure I heard a voice say something. There were a couple times when I just went and checked all the rooms to make sure nothing was there. I even closed and locked the front door, which I usually leave open because it gets hot inside when I'm cleaning. It was creepy.

After a while I sort of realized it was a demon. I firmly believe that it was and I will stand by that. So I just started praying, praying against Satan and his strongholds on this earth, praying against the dark forces at work in this world, praying against the actions of people who worship Satan and his demons, praying against the demon of fear that was present at the school. I recited Romans 8 over and over and over and over until I left. At first I started saying it in my head, but near the end I was speaking out loud. It held back the fear. I don't know what would have happened if God was not there with me, but I was assured of His power and faithfulness in an incredibly tangible way. We serve a powerful God.

I read the book Adam, by Ted Dekker a couple years back. It was about a psychologist working for the FBI who is tracking down a demon-possessed serial killer. I know, I know, super weird. But that book vividly illustrated the realities of the spiritual realm to me. I have also talked with people who have had encounters with evil spirits, which brought the entire issue very close to home.

Now we can discount the power of demons and we can ascribe too much power to them. But we must not relegate them into nonexistence. That would be foolish. Many of Jesus' miracles included the casting out of demons. As Christians we know that if Jesus dealt with demons (or suffering or being hated for our faith or anything else), we can be sure that we will deal the same things. "For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son..." (Romans 8:29).

This isn't meant to scare you. It's just a reminder that there are actually evil spirits at work in this world. It's also a reminder that God is far more powerful than they are. Satan himself is on a tight leash and he will be cast into the lake of fire in the final days. This is a reminder that God wins in the end. We don't serve a "sky-fairy Jesus," as my pastor reminded us a few weeks ago. We serve the Jesus described in Revelation 19:11-16:
Then 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. 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. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. 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. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.
I'm glad he's on my side.

The Point of Friction

Posted: Friday, October 8, 2010 by Morgan in
1

It's been a rough 6 weeks at George Fox for me. I've been struggling to develop relationships, to delve into my engineering studies, to stay connected with friends at Hillsdale, to discern truth from error, to settle into a church. It has been extremely difficult, especially since this summer was so good. It was a very hard summer, but I tasted God's faithfulness almost daily and my spiritual life was thriving. But now, things are hard and it's difficult to see God's hand in anything. I have been striving for moral perfection and maturity, and I realized that it won't do me any good. I have been focusing on sins rather than sin. God won't love me because I am good. Sin is not an action, it's a state of being. We were all born with it and we can't get rid of it through simply avoiding sins (Romans 5:12-13), and even if we were morally perfect, we would still owe our lives to God. Instead, God provided a perfect high priest to atone for our state of sin: Jesus Christ and His death and resurrection (Hebrews 10:12-14).


We are not sinful because we sin, we sin because we are sinful. Conversely, we are not made righteous because we do good, but we do good because we have been made righteous through Christ.

I realized something like that this morning. I realized that I was sinful, prideful, selfish, weak, and impatient and that I couldn't do anything to change that. So, I went for a drive. I drove out to the Newberg countryside, parked on the side of a gravel road, and sat in God's creation, looking for answers. I didn't find anything except vast plainlands, wire fences, clouds, smoke from burnpiles, and brown grass. God seemed silent. I stayed there awhile and then gave up and went home. I was discouraged.

It wasn't until later (a few minutes ago, actually) that the answer came. I picked up My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers and read the entry for October 2nd. It was called "The Place of Humiliation," and it went a little like this:

After every time of exaltation we are brought down with a sudden rush into things as they are where it is neither beautiful nor poetic nor thrilling. The height of the mountain top is measured by the drab drudgery of the valley; but it is in the valley that we have to live for the glory of God. We see His glory on the mount, but we never live for His glory there. It is in the sphere of humiliation that we find our true worth to God, that is where our faithfulness is revealed. Most of us can do things if we are always at the heroic pitch because of the natural selfishness of our hearts, but God wants us at the drab commonplace pitch, where we live in the valley according to our personal relationship to Him. Peter thought it would be a fine thing for them to remain on the mount, but Jesus Christ took the disciples down from the mount into the valley, the place where the meaning of the vision is explained."If Thou canst do any thing..."

It takes the valley of humiliation to root the scepticism out of us. Look back at your own experience, and you will find that until you learned Who Jesus was, you were a cunning skeptic about His power. When you were on the mount, you could believe anything, but what about the time when you were up against facts in the valley? You may be able to give a testimony to sanctification, but what about the thing that is a humiliation to you just now? The last time you were on the mount with God, you saw that all power in heaven and in earth belonged to Jesus - will you be skeptical now in the valley of humiliation?

It all became very clear. God answered my cry for help. The place I am at right now is the valley of humiliation. This is the place where real life is lived. This is where my trust in Him is tested. This is where the rubber meets the road. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the point of friction.

There's no telling how long this point will last. Will it be a day? A couple weeks? Three years? A lifetime? Will I continue to trust God in the midst of the valley of humiliation? I must. The only alternative is to trust in myself, and I've seen where that leads. I have no choice. It's more difficult than it sounds, and it's going to be a long road, but I know God is with me even if I can't see Him all the time.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths." Proverbs 3:5-6

Christian Metal

Posted: Thursday, October 7, 2010 by Morgan in
1

This is an issue I've been involved in for quite some time. Some people think hardcore metal is demonic. Others could take it or leave it. Still others think it's a great form of worship and witness. But is it?

I believe so.

Is metal worshipful? In a moral sense, metal is not evil in and of itself. Just like money is not evil in and of itself. Both can (and are) misused, but in the same token both can be used very effectively for the kingdom of God. In more aesthetic sense, two people can be singing the same song in church. One can be raising his hands and belting out the song while the other is simply singing with his hands at his sides. One (it doesn't matter which) can be truly worshipping while the other is just making sounds or movements because that's what everyone else is doing. I've been in both places. Christian metal can be much the same way: that is, some can use it as a means of worship while others just hear noise.

Ok, so it can be worshipful, but is Christian metal a good witness? Well, it seems that many Christian metal bands do fall prey to the same downfall of mainstream Christian pop and rock bands do. That is, they try to "hide" Jesus in their lyrics. I am often forced to search very hard for a Christian meaning in many lyrics, and I often come away disappointed. Some of these bands have Christian overtones in their lyrics, but often they just end up being Christians who happen to be in a metal band. They separate their faith from their music. I might be stepping on some toes here, but some of these bands include Demon Hunter, The Devil Wears Prada, and As I Lay Dying (which used to be my favorite Christian metal band).

But, there are bands that have solid theology and a good witness, and they're doing a heck of a lot more witnessing than many of us. I was introduced to one of these Christian metal bands (For Today) by a good friend of mine. They are not ashamed of making blatantly Christ-centered music (even using words like God, Christ, the Lord, etc.). Again, like Christian rap, they sing about real issues that Christians face, like surrendering to Christ, the judgment of God, victory over sin, and hope in heaven. I have been inspired by their witness and encouraged by many of their songs. They're reaching out with the love of Christ to people who (let's be honest here) we would avoid like the plague. They are being lights in a very, VERY dark place. Many (or all) mainstream metal bands (much like mainstream rappers) have horrible content and an utterly despairing message in their music, and the people who are immersed in this culture may never have real contact with a Christian aside from the music they listen to. Keep it up boys.

On the off chance that you're interested in what quality Christian metal looks and sounds like, here's one of their music videos of a song called Saul of Tarsus.

Here are the lyrics...
Saul of Tarsus (The Messenger):
Let the world know that I am yours, I will never be silenced. (x2)
I will never be silenced (x4)

I will resist my sin to the point of blood, and I will wear my scars like badges of honor.
But let my hope cry out that my God is greater than the pain of persecution.
My God is greater than this world.
There will never be another chance to live today for God.
There will never be another name that can save us from ourselves.

And so, steadfast and undeterred, I will proclaim the name of Christ to a dead and dying world.
I am not ashamed. (x3)
We will resist our sin to the point of blood, and we will wear our scars like badges of honor.
But let our hope cry out that our God is greater than the pain of persecution. Blinded, I saw that Christ is Lord.
Now, may the world see You through open eyes.
God, my Father, reign!

"Be exalted, O LORD, in your strength! We will sing and praise your power." Psalm 21:13

Questions

Posted: Wednesday, September 22, 2010 by Morgan in
0

So we have been talking about heresies about Jesus in my Christian Foundations class. Someone asked why God didn't find "an easier way" than to sacrifice Jesus to bring us salvation. Someone else said He sent His son to die for us simply because we as humans can relate better to Jesus than some impersonal spiritual vehicle of salvation.

My first reaction was this: who are we to question God?

I remembered that Job did just that. He questioned God's justice, power, and sovereignty. In Job 38-41, God has that same reaction and Job realizes his foolishness, saying,
"I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know...I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefor I despise myself, I repent in dust and ashes." Job 42:2, 5-6
At the same time, there are things God has revealed to us. He is a speaking God. He speaks through His Word and the Holy Spirit (and nothing the Holy Spirit reveals to us will contradict what He said in scripture). I believe that the bible is the ultimate source of knowledge about God and that it contains everything we need to know about God in this life.

My second reaction was this: There is a reason behind God's method of salvation.

By sending Jesus to earth as a sacrifice, God was not choosing a method of salvation out of the blue, but rather he was upholding His own standard of justice that He set up in the beginning. Jesus' sacrifice was the fulfillment of the Old Covenant that is revealed in the Old Testament. A good example of the aspects of the Old Covenant in question can be found in Numbers. Chapter 8 explains the purification and atonement that is required of the Levites for their priestly service, and Numbers 18 explains the Levites' priestly duty of bearing the iniquities of the people. I encourage you to read them because there's too much to quote in this space.

The book of Hebrews focuses on the supremacy of Christ and his sufficiency for salvation, so it seemed like a good place to go to find how Jesus's death fulfilled the Old Covenant. All throughout the book, the writer speaks of Jesus Christ as making purification and propitiation for sins. In Hebrews 7:27, when speaking of Jesus as the perfect high priest in comparison to the high priests of the Old Covenant, the author says:
"He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself."
And again in Hebrews 10:14:
"But whenChrist had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified."
So, Jesus was sent as a sacrifice because He is the only one who could serve as our high priest and because He is the only perfect sacrifice that will cover all sins for all time. Nothing else would do.

God does things for a reason, but whether or not we can understand it is another matter. In this case, the method of salvation, it seems that God has seen fit to reveal His plan and reasons to us through His Word. When we can't understand God's design, we probably aren't meant to understand it. That's ok. He's God. We aren't.

"God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." Exodus 3:14

Bad Theology

Posted: Monday, September 6, 2010 by Morgan in
4

I've been increasingly disappointed with the theology at George Fox. It seems to become less and less biblically sound every time I go to chapel or a spiritual life event.


GFU is fairly liberal for a Christian school, and unfortunately their theology follows the same lines. The university pastor is a woman, which isn't necessarily unbiblical, but in this context it does seem to violate the biblical principle of male leadership. Each time I have heard her pray she addresses the Holy Spirit rather than God the Father or Jesus, which also isn't necessarily unbiblical but a little concerning. She also called us Sons of Christ rather than Sons of God (which is straight up biblically incorrect. See Romans 8:16-17 if you're skeptical).

But that's the least of my worries.

To open chapel today, the pastor read from Matthew 13:31-46, which contains Jesus' parables about the kingdom of heaven. She talked about the mystery of God and the difficulty of understanding Him (the verse she used was 1 Corinthians 13:12 from The Message translation, the veracity of which is questionable. See What kind of message is The Message?).

"I'm sure you've had lots of conversations about the mystery of God and at some point in the conversation you're having this big theological discussion and at some point someone says, 'Well I think we should believe the Bible.' Well what do you say to that? 'I don't think we should believe the Bible?' All of a sudden it's like throwing that trump card in that says, 'Well if you just read it right here it gets really clear.' Well, actually what they mean is that you should read their version of how they think about the Bible because they're the ones that have the exact unparadoxical unmysterious knowledge and they're able to just tell you exactly what it says. But instead we find a God that has wide open space and that we can come in at different angles into God and experience all that God has for us. There's so much paradox in God...

Here's what I get from that: Don't read the Bible because people misinterpret it. Just experience God. Either that or that understanding God is relative.

Later she said this: "The bible is full of questions, …. So to be in a place of asking questions to determine who God is and what God is about is the very heart of the gospel message because Christianity doesn't just have a lot of paradoxes, it's paradoxical…." (emphasis added).

Here's my question:

WHERE DO YOU GO FOR ANSWERS IF NOT TO THE BIBLE?!

You can't ask questions and hope the answers will just come to you in a vision. Seriously, God wrote the bible for a reason. He gives us ALL we need to know in it. It's not just a decent source of knowledge about God, it's THE source of knowledge about God. The bible is "able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ" (2 Timothy 3:14-17).

During the message, she shared a story about a pool that she bought on a whim against the better judgment of her husband. She said, and I quote: "I kind of thought that perhaps some of the regulations about the pool were more suggestions." So she set it up right next to her house without leveling the ground and dumped bleach into the water instead of using the filter. (It seems she treats the bible much the same way as these directions.) Guess what happened? It turned out badly. The pool turned into a mosquito breeding ground and they had a terrible time emptying it because they set it up right next to the house. If that isn't an illustration on the merits of male leadership and the consequences of disregarding God's perfect, well thought-out design for our lives, I don't know what is.

Here is a caption from a powerpoint slide she used (it is also the GFU Spiritual Life Twitter account status, so it must have been a fairly important quote): "when you are immersed in God, you find that the paradoxes of Christianity don't drown you, but give your faith buoyancy." She expanded on this by saying that we can only really begin to understand the mystery of God unless we "get in the water." These paradoxes and mysteries can only be understood in the context of immersion in God.

Again I ask:

HOW DO YOU IMMERSE YOURSELF IN GOD WITHOUT GOING TO THE BIBLE?!

Perhaps most concerning is the misinterpretation of scripture at the end of chapel. The pastor used the parable of the merchant to illustrate the fact that, not only is does the treasure represent the kingdom of heaven for us, but that MORE IMPORTANTLY we are the treasure for Jesus. Almost like He needs us. Which is not true. God is triune and perfect, not needing anything or anyone but Himself. He gave us the opportunity to spend eternity with Him not because He needed to give it to us, but because of who He is, because he is both loving and just. Here's a real paradox: He punishes sin and grants mercy at the same time through the death and resurrection of His son Jesus Christ, who is the perfect sacrifice that was made for all sin (Hebrews 10, 1 Corinthians 15, Romans 5, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). That's just the gospel, plain and simple.

I am saddened by the prevalence of this sketchy theology in a Christian university. The college age is one of the most important for development of ideology, character, belief systems, etc., and I don't think I can sit idly by and let this flawed teaching wash over the better part of 2000 young men and women who will go out into the world and be witnesses for Christ. I want to do something about it. I want to change chapel for the better. I want to be taught from the scriptures, not from stories about pools or cleverly organized curricula based on the word "mystery."

Teach me the Bible, please. That's all I need.


"All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work." 2 Timothy 3:16-17

Cling To You

Posted: Saturday, September 4, 2010 by Morgan in
0

First of all, please click on the link. I promise it will be good for you. You can't read any more unless you do. As I was listening to Trip Lee (one of the Christian rappers I mentioned in an earlier post), I heard this song, which deals with some of the issues in my last post. Anyway, he says it better than I could, so just listen to it.



Lyrics:
Lord, I'd like to start by saying I can hate where I'm at
When this life is hard and situations take me aback
The fight is hard and I can hardly face it in fact
In life it's hard to get up like a bar with weights that's attached
It really seems the situations that I'm facing is whack
I been awakened but now I'm feeling forsaken and trapped
With no hope and I'm broken open for Satan to trap
I been bothered since You Father put this weight on my back
So please erase it's whack, cause when this pain it attacks
My weakness is at it's peak and I'm feeling strained and I lack
The trust in You I struggle through the ways that I should come to You
Lord, what am I gonna do? It's true this pain it distracts
But I see my only hope when my backs on the ropes
Is in You so I read through the facts that You wrote
The pain may fade away, but if that's my only hope
Then You don't get the glory alone not even close

Lord, it may get better but it may not
So when I pray God, I pray I
Would trust You whether or not the pain stops
So when the the pain falls, coming down like rain drops
I just gotta cling to You

Lord, You know I'm hoping that my situation will switch
That You'll show me You're amazing by erasing it quick
But I've noticed that my hope was in You changing it quick
Instead of knowing You're enough Lord I was chasing Your gifts
But then I opened up Your text and looked at David and them
Their situations was grim, but it ain't change them within
They prayed You'd take it away but sought Your face in the end
And found comfort in Your justice and the grace You extend
So in this life full of strife if my days get grayer
I'm content with the fact that You'll stay my Savior
No change in my King, man, it ain't no greater
Comfort than what's found in You that's so major
So in this life full of strife if my days get grayer
I'm content with the fact that You'll stay my Savior
No change in my King, man, it ain't no greater
Comfort than what's found in You that's so major
So in this life full of strife if my days get grayer
I'm content with the fact that You'll stay my Savior
No change in my King, man, it ain't no greater
Comfort than what's found in You that's so major

Lord, it may get better but it may not
So when I pray God, I pray I
Would trust You whether or not the pain stops
So when the the pain falls, coming down like rain drops
I just gotta cling to You

Suffering

Posted: Thursday, September 2, 2010 by Morgan in
1

As an American, my "bad days" are insignificant in comparison to the rest of the world. So what if I had to spend a lot of extra time preparing my food? So what if I have to ride my bike 4 miles every day carrying a heavy backpack? So what if I had a hard time with engineering homework? So what if I had to walk around in the hot sun writing tickets all day for my security job? So what if I don't know many people? So what if my religion class is a joke?


You know what I realized? None of this stuff matters.

The fact is, I can cook my own food, I have stuff to carry around, I have the ability and the privilege to learn complex technical information, I have a job and transportation and friends. What am I complaining about?

As a Christian, I can be sure of a couple things: that I will spend eternity with Christ (yes, please), and that that I will suffer on this earth (1 Peter 4:12). I'm not sure anything we experience in America on a day-to-day basis can really be called suffering. Think about the people who live on a dollar a day. If what we face is suffering, their daily life is a horrific, unending torture. I suppose one could argue that "relative suffering" is some kind of negative deviation from the normal or desired lifestyle, but I am so sick of subjective crap like that and I don't think that argument would carry much weight when God is looking at our lives and actions and attitudes and thoughts objectively (he does look at all that stuff you know).

At the same time, there is a difference between "just suffering" and suffering for your faith. This sort of suffering can be common with the wealthiest American and the most impoverished and destitute Somali farmer. Christianity is a great equalizer in many ways. This is the sort of suffering that is promised to all believers. 1 Peter 3:14 says,
But if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them or be troubled.
And in the next verse, Peter gives a reason for this suffering,
But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.
Paul says almost exactly the same thing in Romans 8:17-18

—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Just put your suffering in perspective. We have it easy. Be thankful for where God has put you and what He has given you there.


"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Mere Christianity

Posted: Saturday, August 21, 2010 by Morgan in
0

I finished Mere Christianity today (finally) and I have some thoughts about it. C.S. Lewis is a very personal writer, and he does a good job of reaching out to the reader in meaningful ways and making his ideas relevant to real people. It was an enjoyable read, and I'm sure I'll read it many more times over the course of my life. There are some beliefs that Lewis seems to hold (evolution, for example) that I struggle to reconcile with Christianity, but after you dig through the layers of logical argumentation for the existence of God, the philosophical evidence for Christianity, sound moral teaching, and witty illustrations that explain some of the nuances of Christianity (all these things are valuable), it all boils down to a simple truth that is found in the scriptures: if you try to find anything besides Christ or find something in addition to Christ, you will never find it, but if you seek Christ primarily and exclusively, you will find everything you really needed.


Like I said, this same concept is found in the gospels in the familiar teaching of Jesus:
And he said to all, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it , but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?" (Luke 9:23-25)

Staying true to the first part of Jesus' teaching, Lewis lays lots of emphasis of the putting off of self in the search for Christ, saying that as long as we are looking for ourselves, we will never find Christ. This concept connects to the centrality and danger of pride, which I talked about in my last post. He even goes so far as to say that we don't have personality outside of Christ, and that we only truly have personality when we give ourselves wholly over to Christ:
As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. (226)
So that is his basic message, one which we would all do well to implement in our lives. It seems that humility and selflessness are the keys to finding Christ, both of which are really hard for sinners like us to do/be/have. He has a TON of great stuff to say besides that, but it's really his main point. I've compiled a list of things I underlined as I was reading, and I'll just list some of them.

"God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from. He is our only possible ally, and we have made ourselves his enemies." (31)

"What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could...invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history...the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy." (49)

"God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing." (50)

"But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because he loves us..." (63)

"I do not mean for a moment that we ought not to think, and think hard, about improvements in our social and economic system. What i do mean is that all that thinking will be mere moonshine unless we realise that nothing but the courage and unselfishness of individuals is ever going to make any system work properly." (73)

"One great piece of mischief has been done by the modern restriction of the word Temperance to the question of drink. It helps people to forget that you can be just as intemperate about lots of other things. A man who makes his golf of his motorcycle the center of his life...is being just intemperate as someone who gets drunk every evening. Of course, it does not show on the outside so easily: bridge-mania or golf-mania do not make you fall down in the middle of the road. But God is not deceived by externals." (79)

"I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.... If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charities expenditure excludes them." (86)

"Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God." (101)

"That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither." (103)

"...the dying away of the first thrill will be compensated for by a quieter and more lasting kind of interest. What is more (and I can hardly find words to tell you how important I think this), it is just the people who are ready to submit to the loss of the thrill and settle down to the sober interest, who are then most likely to meet new thrills in some quite different direction." (110)

"The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor, act as if you did." (131)

"The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible." (132)

"Now, once again, what God cares about is not exactly our actions. What he cares about is that we should be creatures of a certain kind or quality — the kind of creatures He intended us to be — creatures related to Himself in a certain way." (145)

"Thus, in one sense, the road back to God is a road of moral effort, of trying harder and harder. But in another sense it is not trying that is ever going to bring us home. All this trying leads up to the vital moment in which you can turn to God and say, 'You must do this. I can't.'" (146)

"Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map." (154)

"Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else." (177)

"That is the devil getting at us. He always sends errors into the world in pairs — pairs of opposites. And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse. You see why of course? He relies on your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one." (186)

"[Christianity] is more like painting a portrait than like obeying a set of rules." (189)

"We are all trying to let our mind and heart go their own way — centred on money or pleasure or ambition — and hoping, in spite of this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly. And that is exactly what Christ warned us you could not do." (198)

Pride

Posted: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 by Morgan in
0

This is a major point of friction, even if people don't realize it (and maybe because people don't realize it). I realized that there was pride in my heart, which was surprising because pride and arrogance is my least favorite attribute in others. As I was reading through Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, I read the chapter entitled "The Great Sin," which is all about pride. Lewis says that pride is the foundational sin and that it is different from all other sins because it is based on competition and one-upping everyone else. "Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man...It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest."


Pride is dangerous because it leaves no room for anybody besides yourself. When pride reigns in your heart, nobody else's opinions, desires, pleasures, values, loves, friendships, or characters matter. This not only completely alienates a person from other people, but also from God. It was pride by which Lucifer became Satan: he wanted to be greater, more holy, and better than God. The consequences for his pride were dire and we would do well to avoid both the sin and the consequence.

Pride encroaches on all aspects of our lives, and everybody is guilty of it at one time or another. Even Moses, who was the meekest man in the world, had his issues with pride. In Numbers 20, when the Israelites were complaining about the lack of water in the desert. Moses intercedes for the people because, although it wasn't right, it was one of the more legitimate things they complained about. God gave very specific commands to Moses to get water out of the rock. He was to take his staff and tell the rock to give up its water. This way, there would be no contact between Moses and the rock and though it was his word that caused God to let water out of the rock, it was God in the end that performed the miracle. Listen carefully what Moses says to the people: "Hear now, you rebels: Shall WE bring water for you out of this rock?" He then strikes the rock twice with his staff. This right here is pride. Pride pride pride. Even though Moses knew God was providing the water, he took part of it into his own hands, thinking he could do something about it rather than trusting God completely.

God punishes Moses and Aaron saying, "Because you did not BELIEVE IN ME, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land I have given them." It seems that pride and lack of faith are closely connected in this instance.

So what do we do? The cure for pride is God (through humility). Lewis explains this a bit better, "[God] and you are two things of such a kind that if you really get into any kind of touch with him you will, in fact, be humble — delightedly humble, feeling the infinite relief of having for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless and unhappy all your life." The first step toward changing is admitting that we are prideful, which is difficult, and being humble enough to ask God for help in transformation. For we can only work out our salvation with fear and trembling because God first worked in us.

"Love the LORD, all you his saints! The LORD preserves the faithful but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride." Psalm 31:23

Numbers Once Again

Posted: Thursday, August 12, 2010 by Morgan in
0

Numbers is seriously full of great stuff. Lately God has shown me that even though we constantly complain and are unfaithful and ungrateful and blasphemous, etc., He is still faithful. He has a perfect plan for us, but when we insist on changing His plan, He gives us over to our desires. We often realize later that what we wanted isn't really what we wanted, and we come running back to Him and He takes us back and heals us (the Prodigal Son of the Old Testament anybody?).


Examples of this in Numbers are plentiful. In chapter 11, the Israelites complain about food and God provides it for them. Later, in Numbers 21, they complain about the food God provided them saying, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no food and no water and we loathe this worthless food." First of all, there was food (food that they requested nonetheless), they just didn't like it. So God, who provided the "worthless food," sent snakes among the camp to show the Israelites just how good they had it. Only after some of them died from snakebite did they realized they had sinned and asked for intercession from Moses. Interestingly enough, God didn't take away the plague He had given them, but He did provide healing and restoration to those suffering from the pain they brought on themselves.

Again in chapter 14, after Moses sends the 12 spies into the promised land and 10 of them come back with a bad report, the Israelites complain about their fate saying, "Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness!" Famous last words (probably not as famous as "Hey guys, watch this!"). They refuse to invade the promised land and God gives them exactly what they asked for: "What you have said in my hearing will be done to you: your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.... Because you have turned back from following the Lord, the Lord will not be with you." The Israelites then decide to do what God originally had in store for them even though He made it clear that He would not be with them in the battle. They tried to take over the promised land anyway and were utterly defeated. Retroactive obedience after the orders have changed isn't actually obedience, it's turning your back on God twice.

And in Numbers 20, when there was no water to drink, they complained AGAIN: "Why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness, that we should die here, both we and our cattle?" Simple, because they asked for just that in chapter 14. God is continually providing exactly what Israel wants. They just want the wrong thing all the time.

However, God also provides for His people in the miserable situations they get themselves into. He gives them food, water, protection, and healing, all the things a million nomads could hope for in the middle of a desert. God is adaptable. He knows what's going to happen and nothing takes Him off guard. Even when we take a different path than the one He planned for us, He always teaches us and brings us back to Himself. That is comforting because I know I don't always want the right things. We don't ever know exactly what's going to happen, but He does. Just follow Him.

"Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it." 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24

Rap (Unashamed)

Posted: Saturday, August 7, 2010 by Morgan in
3

So I was listening to Ovadia while I was working a couple weeks ago and I decided to check out some other Christian rap. I didn't really know what to expect, but what I found was pleasantly surprising.


It actually gets down to the issues that mainstream Christian music doesn't. Christian radio and the music they play is generally all about how God loves you and will help you with your girlfriend or pay your bills or just feel good. Christian Rappers like Trip Lee aren't afraid to bring up serious issues and doctrines like finding joy in Christ and predestination and serious issues like depression, lust, pride, faith and perseverance in trials, the nature, holiness, and glory of God, and wives submitting to husbands. They aren't afraid to rap things like "I don't know what you heard, but I hope it matches with the Word" or "If I was worth dying for, this God is worth living for" or "I'ma confront you of your sin, but I'm gonna forgive you as I've been forgiven." Sorry, but I've never heard anything like that from Relient K.


These guys are unashamed of the gospel. They preach it through their music. You don't have to search through the lyrics to find a Christian theme. You don't have to wonder whether the song is supposed to be about a girl or about God. The message in Christian rap is raw, uncensored Christianity. I guess this is a challenge to go deep and be real about the Christian life. It definitely challenged me.



The King, Lecrae

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JEbk1dhOD0


Bear With You, Trip Lee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-NTgtGSCp0


Sho Baraka, Higher Love

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZb_-hiq8ZY


Holy Hip Hop

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upt1ErURFHk



"For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels." Luke 9:26

Numbers

Posted: Monday, August 2, 2010 by Morgan in
1

So after I finished reading Romans, I began reading Numbers. It sounds like a strange transition, but my mom had been reading Numbers for a while and she found that many of the lessons in Numbers and Romans are the same, they just are expressed in different ways. 


(Quick bit of trivia: the Hebrew name for the book of Numbers is In the Wilderness, which is way better since it actually describes what the book is about instead of describing two censuses that are more or less insignificant in the big scheme of the book.)

The Old Testament generally uses a story to illustrate the same principles and ideas that the New Testament does through logical organization of ideas in a sort of a lecture format. So I've been trying to make connections between the Old and New Testaments, and God has shown me many similarities and identities between the two. Most significantly, he has shown me that he is the same God no matter where he reveals himself in his Word.

I've found a recurring idea in my studies thus far:

God has a purpose and a plan for his people, and even though it may seem outrageous or impossible, he faithfully provides the means for them to carry out his plans for them.

An example of this idea can be found in Numbers 4 when God was giving the Levites their duties for the tabernacle. Moses mentions that if any of them who are not priests touched the holy articles (lampstand, altar, ark, sacrificial bowls and utensils, etc.) or even looked at them, they would die instantly. This seems pretty harsh, but before this passage, Moses described all the coverings that were to go over all these holy items. Some were wrapped in 4 layers of cloth and goatskin, which means that there is no way the Levites could touch the articles themselves or even see them without going to lots of effort to disobey this command. God doesn't just make impossible and arbitrary demands on his people, he protects them from his overwhelming glory and holiness and provides whatever they need to fulfill their duties to him.

Another example is found in chapter 11. The Israelites complain about their diet after God had delivered them out of torturous slavery in Egypt and provided food and water for them in the middle of a desert. God is astounded and angered at their ingratitude and consumes part of the camp with fire. Moses intercedes for this ungrateful people and expresses his inadequacy to guide them by himself. He even asks God to kill him rather than see his failure in this position. God hears his plea and divides up the spirit he had given to Moses and gives it to 70 other leaders, allowing them to bear part of the responsibility for this obstinate and stiff-necked people. God hands the people over to their desire for meat, giving them so much meat that "it comes out [their] ears and becomes loathsome to [them]." Moses is incredulous. How can he possibly find enough meat to feed over a million people for an entire month? This is the best part. Here is God's response: "Is the Lord's hand shortened? Now you shall see whether my word will come true for you or not." Sure enough, God brought loads of quail for the Israelites to eat, so much that the slowest and laziest gathered 6 bushels. 

Yeah, God provides. We just have to trust that he will.


"For I the Lord do not change..." Malachi 3:6a

Marijuana, Weed, Mary Jane, Grass, Whatever, It's Not Good

Posted: Friday, July 30, 2010 by Morgan in
0

So I was working the other day (converting THOUSANDS of 90s hip hop album art to JPEG format), and the guy I'm working for came over and started reminiscing about the cover I was working on, told me about the centrality of drugs in the hip hop industry, and warned me that one hit of crack would destroy my life. Just one. That's all it takes. After this conversation about drugs, it got me thinking about the issue of the legalization of marijuana. I knew I was against it, but I wasn't sure why exactly. I had a couple extra hours, so I did some research on the subject... Here's what I found.


The pro-legalization side focuses on downplaying the physical danger to the user of marijuana and other drugs, which isn't an incredibly persuasive argument for me since America is the so-called land of the free where we're free to do whatever we want, but we're also responsible to face the consequences. It's up to you if you want to start doing crack or heroin or whatever and completely destroy your life. Even so, 17,000 deaths every year are caused by illicit drug use, which is likely caused indirectly by marijuana. Beyond this, look at all the problems caused by alcohol and tobacco, both of which underwent a similar legal process. Tobacco-induced respiratory disease is among the leading causes of death in the US, and as I will discuss later, there is a huge correlation between alcohol and violent crime. How, I ask, can marijuana avoid or lessen the problems already inherent in our society because of recreational drugs?


What the pro-legalization side doesn't address is the effect of marijuana on other people and the tendency of marijuana users to move onto harder drugs. A huge amount of crime is directly related to drug use. 1.4 of 1.7 million American adults who are incarcerated have serious drug/alcohol problems. "Eighty-one percent of state inmates... committed substance offenses such as selling drugs or driving while intoxicated; were under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of their crime; committed a crime to get money to buy drugs; or had histories of regular illegal drug use, alcohol abuse or alcoholism." A chart I found in my research shows that a large majority (71-78%) of state and federal inmates have a history of using marijuana, and smaller percentages of those have histories of using harder drugs and alcohol. There is an undeniable connection between marijuana and crime.


While research has not proven that marijuana is a gateway drug biologically, but there IS evidence that it is a social and psychological gateway drug. That is, there isn't any chemical in marijuana that causes the brain to crave cocaine or LSD, but "because of its illegal status, cannabis users are more likely to be in situations which allow them to become acquainted with people who use and sell other illegal drugs." (and making it legal isn't really going to change that.) Saying marijuana isn't a gateway drug is like saying a teen guy who looks at the magazines that are right next to porn magazines isn't going to look at them.


Even without either of these arguments, there exists the legal issue of legalization.  Legalization brings with it the problems of regulation. Secondhand smoke with tobacco cigarettes is bad enough, but think about secondhand smoke from marijuana cigarettes. Imagine this, your neighbor lights up in his backyard and your kids are playing outside... The entire structure of smoking/anti-smoking laws would have to be rethought, which would take a huge bureaucracy and committees and tax dollars, because I obviously want to pay more taxes and have more laws to regulate something that I am completely against and that was illegal last year. There would have to be really strict guidelines and even stricter punishments for illegal production and use of marijuana too, not to mention all the stoned-in-public charges that will have to be dealt with by the police force (they're just trading one problem for another). 


Here's the bottom line, which I didn't come up with myself. It's really good and concise though, so I'm going to use it. Marijuana is a problem, that is apparent, but making something that is a crime legal isn't going to fix it. 


Now this post is full of statistics about drug usage and crime and prison and all sorts of inanimate figures like that, but we have to remind ourselves that this issue will affect PEOPLE. People who have addiction problems, whose addictions affect their economic lives, family lives, social lives, spiritual lives, and pretty much every other kind of life you can think of. The legalization of marijuana would make it that much easier for someone to get into the drug culture and possibly throw away a bright future or cause an already bleak life to be dragged down into complete oblivion. If nothing else, this law would be the number one enabler. Fight it.


Some Resources:

Reassessing the Marijuana Gateway Effect

Andrew R. Morral , Daniel F. McCaffrey & Susan M. Paddock

Drug Policy Research Center, RAND, Arlington, VA, USA

http://drugwarfacts.org/cms/?q=node/30#illicit

http://www.casacolumbia.org/articlefiles/379-Behind%20Bars.pdf



"For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer." Romans 13:3-4

Upside Down Kingdom

Posted: Thursday, July 29, 2010 by Morgan in
2

[As a disclaimer, the topic I'm about to talk about is SO HUGE that I can't possibly address it in this post without writing a book at the same time. There have been books written on it (The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a good example), so I won't write another one. These are just some of my thoughts on the subject of Christian stewardship.]

As I was listening to a song today (called Upside Down Kingdom...go figure), I was reminded of a book by the same title written by Donald B. Kraybill, a leading scholar on the Anabaptism and Amish Studies. I read parts of this book in my Old Testament Survey class last semester. Okay, I only read one section of it one time, but the single chapter I read literally changed the course of my life. I only have a sense of  what I read, but the idea that was planted in my mind from that brief reading matured and became a clear course of action. The chapter was about the relationship between wealth and social justice and salvation. Before reading this chapter, I only had a very vague idea of what I would do with my future career when I got there: get a steady job at a great engineering firm, make a comfortably large amount of money to provide well for my family and get really nice cars (Acura TL Type-S as an everyday driver and a Lotus Elise/Subaru WRX STi for fun). 

Now that's great from the world's perspective and loosely follows the biblical imperative for fathers/husbands to provide for and protect their families, but in the back of my mind I knew that if that was the extent of my goal, it would really be meaningless. Families and marriages don't have the same meaning in eternity, every physical possession we have on this earth will burn, and wealth is shown all throughout the bible to be a major point of contention between the Christian and God, causing the Christian to become self-sufficient and worldly. It just didn't sit right with me, but I wasn't really looking for a solution because the sinful nature inside me liked the idea of being wealthy so that I could enjoy the pleasures of this world.

But after I read The Upside Down Kingdom, the dangers of wealth to the Christian and the importance of good stewardship became very apparent to me. The importance of these issues struck an inexplicably heavy blow on my heart. The chapter "Luxurious Poverty" addressed Jesus's teachings on wealth, which was all well and good, but many of you know that  raw theology is at best annoying to me, so I read further to see if any course of action to go with the theology existed. Sure enough, there was. It was all about good stewardship, living within your means, and various ways of tithing in the "jubilee spirit," a main theme that is present in the book.

Anyway, this section went into many examples of how to give responsibly and in the correct spirit. The specific example that really struck me and set a goal in motion was the idea of a graduated tithe, where, for example, a family establishes a basic budget of $30,000 per year and tithes 10% on that amount and then a 5% tithe is added for each thousand dollars of income above the basic $30 grand. "When the income reaches $48,000, all of the last thousand is given since the graduated tithe has jumped to 100%...Such a tithe embodies the jubilee spirit and nudges us in the direction of generous stewardship."

That idea stuck with me. The idea of having a steady, unchanging income and giving all the rest to my church and various effective ministries was (and still is) very attractive to me, so I decided to make that the goal for my career. I have seen the impact Christian organizations can have in the lives of young and old, the well-fed and the starving, the wealthy and the impoverished, but I have also seen some organizations cease to be effective because of a lack of funds. A desire was sparked in me to employ the graduated tithe system (or something like it) to provide the means for those ministries to go on. This way, I can strive to make as much money as I can for the purpose of advancing the kingdom. 

I could go on to delve into the issues of storing up treasures in heaven, the specific dangers of wealth, the dangers of legalism in tithing and the principle of "living within your means" as a loophole for extravagant living, and other things like that, but people would stop reading. Also, this is long enough as it is. Sure, this is an idea that I think will work for me, but it's not for everyone. It's really the heart that matters. Jesus sums it up quite nicely, so I'll give him the last word...

"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Luke 12:34

P.S. If anyone is interested in hearing the song, I feel obligated to warn you that it's Christian hardcore metal... but if that doesn't rub you the wrong way, here's the information and a link: 

Upside Down Kingdom by As I Lay Dying http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBzBivZBRwY

Romans

Posted: Monday, July 26, 2010 by Morgan in
0

I have recently finished studying Romans with a good friend from Michigan, so I'll be periodically posting just a few of my favorite things that God showed me as I was reading. 


But first, the story of how this arrangement came about. I had been struggling with reading the Bible for a long time. Honestly, it was boring to me. I couldn't really get into it at all and I was simply reading it out of sheer, almost blind obedience, which is not the way the Bible is meant to be read. It's the living, breathing, Word of God, and I was treating it like homework from a history textbook (most of you know how much I just LOVE history). I was talking to my mom about it and she encouraged me to find someone else I could study it with. It just so happened that I called my friend the next day and told him about that conversation. He said he was restarting Romans the next day and that I could join him. Even this seemingly insignificant coincidence of plans was directly from God. In the weeks that followed, God gave me the joy in reading his word that I have almost constantly been praying for over the past year or so. 

Anyway, here is a tiny bit from the first part of the first chapter. If I wrote much more, people would just stop reading my blog because it would get so long. Seriously, someone could write a book about this stuff.

Romans 1:18-32
This section is about the consequences of failure to honor God: "For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened." (R 1:21)

So God is obvious, and it isn't that man doesn't see God, it's that he tries to ignore him and worship the things of this world. Here's the scary part. God lets him. God hands him over to his sinful nature. He doesn't force man to be righteous, but lets him become all the depraved things Paul lists in verses 29-31. Man knows that these things are wrong, but he accepts them wholeheartedly and praises others who practice them. All this (envy, strife, maliciousness, invention of evil, hatred of God, ruthlessness, and deceit to name a few) comes from the root cause of not giving honor to God. It's a slippery slope, so don't forget who is the potter and who is the clay. 

I could go into some stuff about freewill vs. predestination here, but I'll save it for later. We'll come back to this section.

"For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the path of justice and watching over the ways of his saints." Proverbs 2:6-8

Wishes and Questions

Posted: Friday, July 23, 2010 by Morgan in
0

A couple things tonight.


First, last night, as I was talking with a good friend, the question of wishes came up. Specifically, whether or not we would wish to change something in the past, including all the real life consequences of such a change. Would life really be any better if one significant thing that we desired was changed? Aren't the bad things in our lives part of the good things in our lives? Would it still be our life if we changed it? If someone had a regret in their past and chose to go back and erase it, would they not make the very same or only slightly different choice/mistake later without learning from it? If right now was the only moment that we could change something in our past without destroying the spacetime continuum, what would it be like? Would our knowledge or memories change? Would we know that anything was different? Would we feel the old regret slip away only to be replaced with another? 

As I thought about it more, the sovereign nature of God kept coming to the forefront of my mind. God has a perfect plan for everything. EVERYTHING. He allows and orchestrates every decision we make, guiding us into his perfect plan for us. Take this analogy, if you will: our lives are a delicious meal in the process of being cooked. Each part of the recipe may not be pleasant when it is added, but when it is mixed with everything else, it turns into a tasty and nourishing meal. If we decide we want to replace the olive oil with maple syrup, it's not going to taste right. Also, if we try to eat the meal before it's finished cooking, it's probably going to be fairly nasty and even dangerous. Like I have told one of my friends before, "God is cooking awesome sauce in your life right now, you will just have to wait to taste it." Patience, I think, is the lesson here.

So at first I decided I would formulate a change in the past that would not have any negative consequences, but now I think I'll just rest in God's plan and learn from the hard things in life. He can see the big picture, we can't.

Second, as I was talking to another of my good friends earlier this evening, the question of questions came up. We began talking about how to find things out by asking questions of people. There's a lot of information out there, we just have to be willing to ask the right questions to get at it. I realized that I often know what kind of information or knowledge I want to get, but I almost never know what questions to ask to get it. Sometimes, I think, you have to ask completely different and seemingly irrelevant questions to find the information you want. For example, if you asked someone what their philosophy of life was, I doubt you would get a coherent answer. Who formulates an answer to that question? "Oh yeah, I'm a neo-Platonic Nihilistic pantheist, but I also believe in original sin and karma." Mmhmm... You would probably have more luck asking about what books they like, what their family is like, what their priorities in life are, and what their ideal mode of transportation is. 

The point is, you can learn a lot about someone by asking questions, and not just questions like, "So how was your day?" and "What are you doing this weekend?" and "What classes are you taking next semester?" Questions that matter, for example "Are you happy?" and "How serious are you about your faith?" and "How do you get along with your family?" 

To recap:

Have faith in God's work in your life. He knows what he's doing, you don't.

and

People matter, so ask questions.

"Do not be deceived, God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please the sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the spirit, from the spirit will reap eternal life." Galatians 6:7-8

Confidence

Posted: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 by Morgan in
0

Since I've had an hour-long drive to work lately, I decided to listen to Ravi Zacharias, a really awesome Christian apologist, while I drove out to Newberg. The lecture I listened to was called The Spurious Glitter of Pantheism. Now, aside from the fact that I didn't know what spurious meant and had to look it up, I found Dr. Zacharias' insights to be clear, valuable, and applicable. Pantheism, and specifically Hinduism, is inextricable connected to culture. "Religion is the essence of culture. Culture is the dress of religion. Which means, when you are talking to an Indian, you cannot separate his culture from his religion." 


Here it is, short and sweet. Hinduism is based on the fact that all life is completely unified and that mankind is evolving to attain the ultimate impersonal divinity. This unity is so pervasive that some Hindus will not even pray because it denotes an individual being praying to another, albeit very different, being. It has only two doctrines that are not negotiable: reincarnation and karma. Hinduism is a very open religion, and one will often find that Hindus will tolerate almost any religion and trade facets of their own for others in order to be accepting. Most orthodox Hindus (whatever that means), when confronted with Christianity, will say that Christians are right in a sense because they were born Christian and are believing in and following something. They will also say that Christians are never living their final life, that there will be at least one more round of reincarnation. If you're interested in this lecture series, here's the link: http://www.rzim.org/resources/listen/justthinking.aspx?archive=1&i=50

Anyway, this is all very interesting, but let's get to the point. As I was thinking about karma and other iterations of works-based salvation, I was struck with how much they leave a person wondering if they've "made it" yet. There's no mechanism for determining how good is good enough. There's no way of measuring how many and what kind of good deeds outweigh the bad. Does volunteering once at a homeless shelter cancel out swearing at stupid drivers? If not, how many times do you have to volunteer? How long do you have to volunteer? Does it depend on how many times you cussed? Does it matter what you said? The point is, I thought about the absolute confidence I have in Christ's atonement for me. "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified and with the mouth one confesses and is saved." (Romans 10:9-10)

Salvation through belief in Christ is simple, and at the same time it satisfies a right vs. wrong system if you need to think about it that way. It all started with the sacrificial system in the Old Testament, where sin was paid for by blood. Certain sacrifices paid for certain sins, and this was the way to be justified (sort of, just bear with me). Every sin. Every SINGLE ONE, either intentional or unintentional, had to be paid for. If you don't pay for your sin, you're done. It's as simple as that. BUT, when Christ died, it was such a huge sacrifice that it covered every sin and replaced it with His own perfect righteousness. Every SINGLE ONE, either intentional or unintentional. 

The gospel makes sense. There's a standard. There's a system. There are clearly delineated requirements for salvation. I have confidence in Christ's ability to cover for my sins, and I rejoice and marvel in that. It's love and grace though and through, and I'm seeing it more and more every day.

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes..." Romans 1:16