On God's Glory pt. 2

This is pt. 2 of todays earlier post.

Five Passages on Unconditional Election

Of the many passages in the New Testament which provide the wider biblical foundation of this doctrine I will mention only five.

1. Romans 9:14–18

First, Romans 9:14–18. This chapter so captured my mind and heart about fifteen years ago that I wrote a book trying to understand it. The God of Romans 9 took me captive. No other picture of God ever commended itself to me as more true to what the Creator must be. If there is a God, he must be the God of Romans 9. After years of effort to understand this chapter it still seems to me that its essence is this: God's righteousness consists in his being an all-glorious God, and refusing to be anything less than all-glorious. It has began to be the delight of my life in these past few weeks to behold this God and to ponder his awesome sovereignty. If this blog had never been written it would still be a treasure to me. No one asked me to write it. Few people knew it was emerging. The Grand Subject drew me on. And to him I owe all "the willing and running."

Paul asks, "What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! For he says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.' So it depends not upon man's will or exertion, but upon God who has mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh, 'I have raised you up for this very purpose of showing my power in you, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.' So then he has mercy upon whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills."

Paul draws out of Exodus 33:19 the same doctrine we have. The basis of God's mercy to me is not my own will, but his will. When I choose God, it is because he has first chosen me. My will is not sovereign and self-determining. God's is.

2. Acts 13:48

Second, Acts 13:48. Luke records for us Paul's preaching in the synagogue of Antioch of Pisidia. Then he interprets for us how we should understand the response to this message in verse 48: "As many as were ordained to eternal life believed."

In other words it is not the belief of the people that determined whether God would ordain them to eternal life. Just the opposite: the prior ordination of God determined who would believe. Faith is a gift of God's grace and saving grace is given to whomever God wills—unconditionally.

3. John 10:26

Third, John 10:26. This is very similar. In Acts 13:48 we learned why some people do believe. In John 10:26 Jesus tells us why some people don't believe. He says, "You do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep." Notice, that Jesus does not say "You are not my sheep because you do not believe." In other words your believing does not make you a sheep. Being a sheep enables you to believe. You do not make yourself into a child of God by your own initiative to believe. God makes you into a child of God so that you have a nature that can believe (John 1:13). He is gracious to whom he will be gracious.

4. Ephesians 1:4–5

Fourth, Ephesians 1:4–5. "God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. He predestined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will to the praise of his glorious grace." God preserves his freedom in the dispensing of his grace so that when we boast, we will boast in the Lord and not in ourselves. All his choices are for the sake of the praise of the glory of his grace.

5. 2 Peter 1:10

Fifth, 2 Peter 1:10. If the glory and the name of God is his sovereign freedom, how then should we think about our believing and our obedience? Peter gives us the answer. He says, "Therefore, brethren, be the more zealous to confirm your call and election, for if you do this you will never fall." In other words our zeal of faith and obedience does not make us elect. It confirms that we are elect. Faith and obedience are a gift, and the possession of the gift is a confirmation of the favor of the Giver. God is not moved to choose us because of our faith. We are moved to have faith because God has chosen us. He is gracious to whom he will be gracious.

So the doctrine of unconditional election is not the product of an isolated text. It has a broad biblical foundation—much broader even than we have seen here. And this is what we should expect since the doctrine is rooted in the very name of God and is the heart of his glory.

Four Practical Implications of This Doctrine

Now I must turn finally to some practical implications of this doctrine on us.(the Church that is..)
(and they've all started with H's so you might remember them)

Humility for the best of saints.
Hope for the worst of sinners.
Help for the cause of missions.
Homage for the name of God.

1. Humility for the Best of Saints

There is no doctrine that tends more to the humility of the saints than the doctrine that every virtue they possess is owing to the sovereign grace of God. O how we need to dwell on the truth that our faith is an absolutely free and unmerited gift. It will make you tremble when you realize how utterly dependent on God you are.

You were dead in trespasses and sins, unable to lift the little finger of your will to please God (Romans 8:7–8; Ephesians 2:1; John 15:5). And God, in absolutely free and unconditional grace, set his favor on you and made you alive. He took out your heart of stone and gave you a new heart of flesh, with a will to believe and obey. Therefore every act of faith and every hint of obedience is the work of God's grace in your life. This should humble us to the dust, and cut out of our lives every motion of pride. The doctrine of unconditional election means humility for the best of saints.

2. Hope for the Worst of Sinners

This is what the doctrine supplied to Moses. Moses needed hope that God really could have mercy on a stiff-necked people who had just committed idolatry and scorned the God who brought them out of Egypt. To give Moses the hope and confidence he needed God said, I WILL BE GRACIOUS TO WHOM I WILL BE GRACIOUS.

In other words, since my choices do not depend on the degree of evil or good in man but solely upon my sovereign will. Therefore no one can say he is too evil to be shown grace. The doctrine of unconditional election is the great doctrine of hope for the worst of sinners. It means that when it comes to being a candidate for grace, your background has nothing to do with God's choice.

If there is anyone reading this today who has not been born again and brought to saving faith in Jesus Christ, do not sink into hopelessness thinking that the excessive rottenness or hardness of your past life is an insurmountable obstacle to God's gracious work in your life. God loves to magnify the freedom of his grace by saving the worst of sinners.

Turn from your sin; call upon the Lord. Even in this message he is being gracious to you and giving you strong encouragement to come to him for mercy. The doctrine of unconditional election means hope for the worst of sinners. "Come, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool" (Isaiah 1:18).

3. Help for the Cause of Missions

If this doctrine means hope for the worst of sinners, then it also means help for the cause of missions. David Brainerd, the young missionary to the Indians in New England 200 years ago, drew strength from this doctrine again and again, as have hundreds of other missionaries.
On Monday, June 25, 1744, Brainerd wrote in his journal, "I was enabled to cry to God for my poor Indians; and though the work of their conversion appeared impossible with man, yet with God I saw all things were possible. My faith was much strengthened." Missionaries never need to despair as though any people or tribe were too hard or evil for God to revive. He will be gracious to whom he will be gracious. And so it does not finally depend on the will or the running of the missionary or the people, but on God. There is always hope for the worst of sinners and so there is always help for the cause of missions.

4. Homage for the Name of God

The name of God is I WILL BE GRACIOUS TO WHOM I WILL BE GRACIOUS. His sovereign freedom is his glory. If we knew God for who he really is, we would be a different people. Oh how full of reverence and lowliness and meekness we would be. We would stand in awe of the absoluteness of his sovereign freedom. We would bow low in his presence. We shrink in fear from any attitude which belittles him. And we would rejoice with unutterable and glorified joy that he has set his favor on us.

Here's to this beautiful Doctrine

Lates

On God's Glory

God's Glory and God's Name

Moses asks to see God's glory. God proclaims to him his name. In other words, if you grasp the name of God, you have seen his glory. God is not playing games with Moses when Moses cries out, "Show me your glory!" and God answers, "This is my name!" The names of God are the manifestations of his glory.

The name in verse 19 is Yahweh, (the LORD, in your versions). This name typically means I AM, or I WILL BE, but this time the name is given a different explanation, "I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy to whom I will show mercy."

In Exodus 3:14 the name Yahweh was explained with the words, I AM WHO I AM. Here it is explained with the words, I WILL BE GRACIOUS TO WHOM I WILL BE GRACIOUS. Notice how these sentences are both built in the same way. In Exodus 3:14 the focus was on the existence of God—that he is what he is without anything outside himself determining his personality or power. In Exodus 33:19 the focus is on the gracious action of God—that he does what he does without anything outside himself determining his choices. This is what God reveals about himself when Moses asks to see God's glory.

The Glory of God Is His Sovereign Freedom

And so, I would draw out this doctrine: It is the glory of God to be gracious to whomever he pleases apart from any constraint originating outside his own will. Or another way to put it would be that sovereign FREEDOM is essential to God's name.

God is utterly free from the constraints of his creation. The inclinations of his will move in directions that he alone determines. Whatever influences appear to change his will are influences which ultimately he has ordained. His choice to show mercy to one person and not to another is a choice that originates in the mystery of his sovereign will not in the will of his creature. And Exodus 33:18–19 teaches us that this self-determining freedom of God is his name and his glory. If God ever surrendered the sovereignty of his freedom in dispensing his mercy, he would cease to be all-glorious, he would no longer be Yahweh, the God of the Bible.

Moses' Astonishing Request

Before we unpack some of the practical implications of this doctrine, let's put the context into better focus. This will help us see just what implications this doctrine had for Moses.
Back in chapter 32 the people of Israel had rebelled against God by making a golden calf to worship. God says to Moses in Exodus 32:9, "I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people; now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them."

Moses responds to God (in verses 11–13) with a desperate prayer for the people. He makes his case not on the basis of Israel's worth but on the basis of God's worth. "Your name will be profaned among the Egyptians, and your word to the fathers will fall." God relents. Instead of destroying the whole people, he appoints the sons of Levi to kill 3,000 men (32:25–29) and sends a plague among the people (32:35).

Then God resumes his purpose to send the Israelites to the promised land. In verse 34 God says to Moses, "But now go, lead the people to the place of which I have spoken to you; behold, my angel shall go before you." But Moses will not be satisfied with an unknown angel. In 33:15 he says, "If thy presence will not go with me, do not carry us up from here."

This is an astonishing request. For God had said in 33:3, "I will not go up among you, lest I consume you in the way, for you are a stiff-necked people." In other words God had said that if he goes up with them, he will wipe them out along the way. But Moses says that if God will not go up with them, he won't go either. Moses is holding out for something unspeakable—that a holy God will have so much mercy upon a stiff-necked people that he will not only go up with them to the promised land, but also, as it says in 33:16, that God would make them distinct among all the peoples of the earth.

If Moses' request was unthinkable, God's answer in Exodus 33:17 was doubly so. He simply says, "This very thing that you have spoken I will do; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name." In other words, God says Yes, he will go up with this stiff-necked people. He will let the grace that he gives Moses flow over onto this rebellious people. You can see from Exodus 34:9 that this decision of God to go with the people is pure grace. There Moses says, "If I have found favor in thy sight, O Lord, let the Lord, I pray thee, go in the midst of us, although it is a stiff-necked people." The people do not deserve the blessing of God's presence. They are stiff-necked. But in mercy God is going to give them another chance to follow him in obedience.
Why Does Moses Request This?

Now the question rises why in 33:18 Moses prayed to see God's glory? "I pray thee, show me thy glory." I think the reason was this: Moses knew that his request for God's presence with a stiff-necked people would never succeed if it were based on any qualification in himself or in the people. (In 34:9 he included himself in the sin and iniquity of the people.) So for Moses to have assurance that God would actually be this gracious to Israel, he needed to see some basis in God and not in himself or the people. He needed a glimpse into the nature of God.

He knew God was an all-glorious God. But was this glory of such a nature that it would encourage Moses to believe that God would really be gracious to a stiff-necked people? So Moses says, Show me your glory. Let me have a glimpse into your divine nature. Let me see the meaning of your great name. Show me the foundation of this amazing promise. Give me some assurance that you will indeed grant your saving presence to this stiff-necked people!
To this God responds in verse 19, "I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you my name YAHWEH; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy." In other words, when Moses asks to behold God's glory, God reveals as of first importance his name, which he explains with the words, "I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious."

So in its Old Testament context the declaration of God's absolute freedom to be gracious to whomever he pleases is intended to give Moses hope and assurance that God indeed can and will be gracious to the stiff-necked people of Israel and go with them to the promised land.

Theology and Everyday Life

The Bible never gives us glimpses of God's nature merely for intellectual discussion. It opens the name and glory of God to our understanding in order to help us revere God and love him and trust him and obey him. So when God stands before Moses and uncovers his innermost soul—the glory of his absolute divine freedom—he is doing it for a very practical purpose, namely, to give Moses encouragement to get on with his mission of leading a stiff-necked people on to the promised land.

The deepest doctrines of God have to do with everyday life. Theology is the most relevant and practical of all the human disciplines. If that isn't our experience, it's either because our theology is untrue, or because we go about it in a spirit of irreverence and make a game of it. The doctrines of God revealed in the Bible are of immense personal, practical, and eternal importance. O how we need to study the name and glory of God. The God of Exodus 33:19 is virtually unknown in popular American church life today.

The practical relevance of God's freedom for Moses leads to some practical implications for us too. But before we unpack some of these, let's define our doctrine more precisely and survey its wider biblical foundation.

The Doctrine of Unconditional Election

I've stated the doctrine of this text with these words: It is the glory of God to be gracious to whomever he pleases apart from any constraint originating outside his own will. Or: God's sovereign freedom is essential to his name. When this doctrine is applied to the salvation of individuals, it is called "unconditional election." "Election" refers to the choice God makes of whom he will save, and "unconditional" refers to the fact that his choice is not based on any condition or qualification that individuals have. It comes from the mystery of God's sovereign will.

I've tried to ask the question why God is the way he is, and the answer I received from him was, I AM WHO I AM. There is nothing outside God that makes him the way he is. His being originates in himself. He simply is who he is from everlasting to everlasting. We can worship in awe, or we can rebel in unbelief.

This week(especially after the things God has done in my life) I try to ask the question why God was gracious to me, and the answer I receive from him is, I WILL BE GRACIOUS TO WHOM I WILL BE GRACIOUS. There is nothing outside God that constrains his gracious election of me. His choices originate in himself. He chooses freely apart from any conditions in us. We can stand in awe of his sovereign freedom and worship with gratitude. Or we can rebel against this absolute authority and confirm that we have been passed over.

The doctrine of unconditional election is rooted in the nature of God. His very name, his innermost glory, is this: I WILL BE GRACIOUS TO WHOM I WILL BE GRACIOUS. If God were not free in the grace he gives, he would not be God. This is his name!

Here's to this beautiful doctrine.

lates

On Religion

This will not be one of those cliche` statements on religion. Ya know the ones that say like "I don't follow a religion, I follow a relationship"...or even the t-shirts that say "It's against my relationship to have a religion"...I can assure you it wont be that. Also just to go ahead and get this out of the way this will most likely be the longest blog to date. With that being said:

True Religion confronts earth with heaven and brings eternity to bear upon time. The messenger of Christ, though he speaks from God, must also, as the Quakers used to say, "speak to the condition" of his listeners; otherwise he will speak a language known only to himself. His message must not be only timeless but timely. He must speak to his own generation.

The message of his words/teachings do not grow out of these times but it is appropriate to them. It is called forth by a condition which has existed in the Church for some years and is steadily growing worse. I am refering to the loss of the concept of majesty from the popular religious mind. The Church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted it for one so low, so ignoble, as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshiping men. This the Church has done not necessarily deliberately, but little by little and without the Churches knowledge; and the churches unawareness only makes our(believers) situation all the more tragic.

The low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us. A whole new philosophy of the Christian life has resulted from this one basic error in our religious thinking.

With the loss of the sense of Majesty has come the further loss of religious awe and consciousness of the divine presence. We have lost our spirit of worship and our ability to withdraw inwardly to meet with God in adoring silence. Modern Christianity is simply not producing the kind of Christian who can appreciate or experience the life in the Spirit. The words, "be still, and know that I am God," mean next to nothing to the self-confident, bustling worshiper in 21st century.

This loss of the concept of majesty has come just when the forces of religion are making dramatic gains and the churches are more prosperous than at any time within the past several hundred years. But the alarming thing is that our gains are mostly external and our losses wholly internal; and since it is the quality of our religion that is affected by internal conditions, it may be that our supposed gains are actually losses spread over a wider field.

The only way to recoup our spiritual losses is to go back to the cause of them make such corrections as the truth warrants. The decline of the Knowledge of God has brought on our troubles. A rediscovery of the sheer majesty of God will go a long way to curing them. It is impossible to keep our moral practices sound and our inward attitudes right while our idea of God is erroneus or inadequate. If we would bring back spiritual power to our lives, we MUST begin to think of God more nearly as He is.

Because what we think about when we think about God is the most, the most, the most important thing about us. No religion has ever been greater than it's idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God. For this reason the greatest question before the Church is always God himself.

If I were able to extract from any man a complete answer to the question "what comes to your mind when you think about God?" I could predict with certainty the spiritual future of that man.

Without doubt, the mightiest, and heaviest thought the mind can entertain is the tought of God, and the heaviest word in any language is it's word for God.

Our real idea of God may lie buried under the rubbish of conventional religious notions and may require an intelligent and rigorous search before it is finally unearthed and exposed for what it is. Only after an ordeal of painful self-probing are we likely to discover what we actually believe about God. This is where I am in my religion. And I am totally okay with calling it religion.

I would like to end this blog with a prayer by the late great A.W.T

" O Lord God Almighty, not the God of the philosophers and the wise but the God of the prophets and apostles; and better than all the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, may I express Thee unblamed? They that know Thee not may call upon Thee as other than Thou art, and so worship not Thee but a creature of their own fancy; therefore enlighten our minds that we may know Thee as Thou art, so that we may perfectly love Thee and worthily praise Thee. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen"

So here's to all of you with your religious cliche`...

On Hosea

This is the lamp of Hosea's Love:
A bride made ready at the door.
A shabby slave waits her embrace,
Blood-bought and beautified by grace.

Amen, and Lates

On life...under the sun

it seems to me that my general focus is always on the next big thing. the new ipod, the new bands, the new clothes, the new phone. it's almost as if these things define me. and we live our lives out with our new toys. it's no different than when we we're kids. i for one know that all i wanted as a kid was the new G.I. Joe toys, woah, woah, woah let me rephrase action figure. so i would plead for these little toys..that would lose their luster after about a week. however i would spend a lot of that week not even playing with the toy, but just looking at it, taking it to church to show all my friends.

and theres nothing new under the sun. when i got a little older, and i got a pair of nikes i would make sure to clean them every night, so at school i had the cleanest and coolest nikes. so all my friends could see them. so everyone knew that Dakota Zook had some fresh kicks. again in highschool...if you're like a guy i know named Jordan who would come into breakfast every morning and being so very cool he would toss his keys on the table. not in his pocket where keys would normally go...no he needed people to know that as a sophomore in high school he could drive. and he was sooo cool because of it. it's no different. in highschool i followed what seemed to be trendy. i was a touch of a goth for a while...if you can believe that. yes it's true. i did decorate myself daily in my black dickies, my black chuck taylors, and my black band t-shirts. i hung out with all my gothic friends and we would talk about how much we hated shcool, and man we couldn't wait to get out of this town.

that didn't last very long.

i then returned as a skate boarder. and if you've ever seen me...i'm no skateboarder. the thing was i am too simply for those things...so i looked for what was simple, i found myself being best friends with Jacob Frazier...and we were friends. he was my best friend. we would drink the weekends away together(because we had such tough lives...) only to do it again next weekend. and while i still care for Jacob and he will always be a close friend...that scene got old fast. so i moved on to being a gooood christian kid. the problem with that was all my "christian" friends were worse than my "non-christian" friends. and they would often point out how i shouldn't hang out with my "non-christian" friends. i remember my AIM profile...(who doesn't? 8th grade anyone?) and i would put a bible verse in there...only to be approached by my youth pastor who so confidently told me "that's living the truth bro"...is he kidding? putting 1 John 1:9 in my profile made me a living breathing christian? that my readers is popycock. so i never had a balance.

and everything i ever did or tried to do was always what defined who i was. but thats not who i am, and it doesn't define who i will be. putting bible verses on facebook and myspace, and aim doesn't mean you're doing anything for the kingdom...it just means you're making yourself look and feel like you might be. all the while living a life of gossip, and finding yourself worth in your things, and toys. i wonder how many people have had a "G.I. Joe" so to speak? what is it that could be inside of our lives that makes us desire these objects that will all be gone? one of my friends who i wont mention by name, but she is named after a famous singer...who sang songs such as "after the glitter fades", "alice", and my personal favorite "edge of seventeen"...however each of us have these desires that make us who we are...and this friend imparticular wants to get married soo badly...i'm not sure why? but it's like that will finally define her...when i wonder if she knows that she isn't going to be married forever, once she dies...that's it. there's no marriage in heaven. we do and find things to define who we are...and everything under the sun is worthless.

until we are honestly ready to evaluate life under the sun...and realize that saying a prayer isn't going to save us, and putting bible verses on our profiles wont make us more of a christian...and that every toy we pursue is vanity...and step back and look at the big picture for a second and realize that Christ is the only thing that can begin to mold our hearts into what they need to be...and his love is what defines us...then we will never understand the point of this life.

see cause people say Christ said to enter the kingdom of heaven you must be born again...and Christ also said to enter the kingdom of heaven you must sell all you have and give to the poor...ouch...huh? not happening is it? when Christs people are hungry...the church fails. when the homeless don't have shelter...the church fails. when people assume that bible verses on there walls, and a sinners prayer will save them...the church fails. when we define ourselves by what we have on this earth...we fail. life is a breath...hopefully i can start to live that truth.

so here's to christianity...and all the misconceptions it has become

lates

On friends

Friendship is the glue that holds my life together. whether friends back home(whom i miss dearly) or friends here at school. friends hold life together. and while there may not be a spiritual lesson i've learned in todays post. it's just good to sit back and remember my friends love me despite my failures, they love me because of me.

there is no ammount i paid to deserve the friendship i've gained with some friends...which is the beauty of it. i love my friends. all of them. from my best friends harrison, trevor, evan, and derek. i love you guys, for being here in my life. to the ladies who keep me sane Lauren(who i am particularly fond of) emily, erin, heather, and jo.

if you didnt make this list it's because we're still growing in a friendship. i love all of you for the same reason you love me.

heres to the boys...and the girls

On shortcuts

Yesterday I was driving home from home. (for those of you who dont know me, believe me i realize this makes very little sense, just go with it)

anyhow, i thought (well i was positive) i knew a shortcut. i knew, i knew, i knew. however this shortcut proved to get me absolutely lost. like utterly. lost. after stoping at 2 gas stations and recieving 2 different sets of directions, i made my way back to interstate 81 and then made my way back to Home. this morning i was thinking about my shortcut, and realized that is a big way in how i treat my life, and not just my life but my relationship with christ. i enjoy shortcuts, and who doesnt? right? i mean they get you there faster, they make the trip seem so much easier...and hey who doesn't like a faster, and easier relationship with christ? i know i sure do.

but the issue with that is christ said to die to follow him. he said it costs something, he said it requires you to sell all you have to enter the kingdom of heaven. he says to help the poor, to love the sick, to love the ungodly, to live like he has...maybe instead of griping about how frustrated we are with the way the church is running and or operating we should go in and flip the tables over...but long before we can do that i've gotta let Jesus flip the tables of my heart, and drive out the selfish ambitions, the desire to serve noone but myself. then maybe things can start to look up.

maybe i'll continue to grow on this journey of knowing christ and making him known. maybe i'll continue to look for shortcuts...maybe i'm selfish. no scratch that. i am. maybe i'll allow christ to transform me for his glory. maybe one day i'll die to myself, one day i'll pick up my cross, one day i wont love my father and mother more than him. i feel like this is all going to happen for me..but when? cause i feel like christ is more in love with this future version of myself. the one who doesn't meticulously look for short cuts everywhere. maybe he loves that dakota more. but thats not grace is it? no, the beauty is christ loves me now. right now. how i am. dirty. rotten. ugly. impatient. arogant. proud. selfish. he loves me now and sees me clean. new. beautiful. longsuffering. low. humble. selfless. his love isn't based on what i will be one day. his love is based on the cross and what that means for me.

while i fully agree i need change, i need rest, i need strength, i need forgivness, i need grace, i need hope...i can rest, and have hope in the fact that right now christ loves me.

heres to shortcuts. they never work.

lates

oh if you interested here are some good bands i've been listening to that i think everyone needs to check out:

Maximo Park
Brendan Benson and the Wellfed Boys
El Presidente
Derby
Black Kids
Mint
Carolina Liar
and last but certainly not least....
The Lovemakers

On Treadmills

Today at work i had the distinct responsibility to deliver a note to north campus. as i was walking around north campus on my way out i saw several kids running on treadmills.

just so we're clear on what treadmills are here is a brief discription.
they allow you to run and excersise indoors, on a conveyor belt type thing.
very useful for stay at home moms.

but i just noticed these people running on these devices, and the sad thought dawned on me, these people are just running and running and running and running...but never really going anywhere. and i think that is how our lifes and or relationships are. not just with christ, but also with boyfriends, or girlfriends. we have this idea that we are doing things good, and accomplishing so much but we may never really be moving, or going anywhere.

we can appear to be in amazing shape, and to have all these great stories about the lord but have never really done anything but run in place. i like to call this conveyor belt christianity. we go solely on emotions to emotions...and we feel like we are doing so good, we dont break rules that the world has set up as standard. and we dont live by what the bible truly says. we dont live by faith. we dont let the bible be our standard. we just run in place on our convenient conveyor christianity with the worlds rules for our lives. i often wonder if jesus really cares if i listen to punk rock music. i often wonder if he minds the pixies, or the shins. anyone?

the point being today i realized that i had been going, and going, and going...but not going anywhere. this is not just in christ, but in everything i do. my relationship with someone wonderful*, my friendship with evan, and derek, the way i talk and treat my mother and father and brothers. it's all so flippantly based on this conveyor belt idea of running, and running, and serving and serving without ever having to actually do anything.

here's to treadmills and the death of me.

lates

On Hand Sanitizer

I like to often post things in my day that remind me of what to do, and what not to do. lessons learned, things i see that remind me of the God i serve. today i saw just that. i had just sneezed into my hand, which is what we're supposed to do, as opposed to blowing the snot germs on others we just blow them on our own hands infecting ourselves with nasty snot germs.

so this happened to me today. i then got some hand sanitizer that was so conveniently sitting next to me. i squirted a little bit on my hand and i was germ free. now i think there is an obvious example of how this relates to God. so many times in my life, and possible all christians..the data is not in yet, however so many times i blow germs all over myself...i make a terrible pit of my life...i dirty myself up...i allow my mind to be self focused...i dont seek anything other than my good. and when i feel dirty, i put a little bit of the scripture in my life, or a little bit of the Lord in my life and...TA DA! all clean. germ free. dirt free. ugly is now made beautiful. stains are now cleansed.

and this has been my idea on christianity, that when things go wrong we can just put a little hand sanitizer(so to speak) on our lives and all of a sudden we get this title of cleansed. and we actually feel better about ourselves. while hand sanitizer does clean your hands...or i guess whatever you apply it to.(as weird as that is, i however do not know the fettishes of whoever may read this, to each his own) but yes it does clean the germs, but what about the ones under the fingernail? it's just as apart of the hand...and the sanitizer falls very short of it's job of cleansing the whole hand. and what about the germs floating underneath the surface?

see while hand sanitizer cleans the outside, the outter shell, what about the inner? how bout the parts of our soul that we keep just deeply deeply hidden? so while we use the word of God to give us that quick fix, or maybe a short prayer so we feel a little better about ourselves during the week, maybe we might even go to a church service and donate that hour of our week to the Lord, then we can walk out still dirty; however appearing clean. we can even give some of our money to the poor, and walk away feeling clean.

ahhh the madness never ends. the word, and the Lord are not used to merely clean the outside debre of germs out of our lives, but rather to get underneath the fingernails where the infection lives, where the real dirt dwells, and sin is just increasingly more and more difficult to hide when we let the word of the Lord effect us like this. and not a mere heart sanitization where things are rubbed off, or waxed out...but not erased. not cleansed.

hand sanitizer is great for cleaning the snot of our our hands, and even some tiny germs, but how terrible is it when we use it like we use our bible, our God, our money, our family, our friends, our selfish desires. please dont get me wrong, i live sold out to myself much like everyone else. but please Lord im begging that i might die to myself.

so heres to hand sanitizer and the long blog it produced.