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| so i was just pondering the awesomeness of God (instead of writing my 2000 word paper) and i started thinking about how our finite minds can't even begin to comprehend our infinite God and with our limitations of time and space we will never understand him in full. it won't be until we die and go to paradise and witness the returning of King Jesus that we will be able to understand such things. i was then praising God, telling him that if we halfway understood who he truly was and all he did/does/has done for us, we would never be able to praise him and give thanks to him enough if we did so for the rest of our lives with every breath we had. i then realized that maybe (i say maybe b/c of the very fact that we can't understand his ways on this Earth and also b/c who am i to authoritatively declare anything definite about God's ways) God knew that it was necessary for him to give us finite minds with a finite understanding of him while we are on Earth for that very reason (the reason being us realizing our need to thank him and praise him while not being able to do it enough with our time on earth). it was necessary for him to do so because if we caught a deeper glimpse of even a portion of his awesomeness, we would stop everything we were doing on Earth and just praise him until we died. i doubt we'd be able to eat or sleep consistantly, let alone do anything recreational or relational with others. therefore, we have finite minds on earth so we can actually do the Lord's work while we're here. this is not to say that a life of praise is bad - that's actually what we were created for. i'm just saying that God couldn't possibly show us his true awesomeness if he wanted us to get anything else done here. this could also explain the necessity for eternal praise - we can never praise him enough for who he is and what he does for us. he wants to give us all eternity to delight in him! how amazing. but for now, we can't comprehend all he is and all he has prepared for us. all we can do is trust in his awesome love by faith while loving and serving others in his name.
a correctional note: it is true that God reveals his majesty to us through nature, tangible blessings and love from others, personal revelation, and the "peace that surpasses all understanding." however, i do believe in an awesomeness of God that we can't possibly know or understand, and that is what i am referring to here.
ps- don't take this too seriously or as solid, grounded theology. the only point worth taking away from this is God is awesome. | | |
| alright i'm sticking with a fairly short entry this time in hopes more people will read it.
i was reading over the wake-up weekend material today and it makes a reference to The Purpose Driven Life. the material points out that the first sentence of the book is "It's not about you." now, when most Christians start growing due to their relationship with Christ, they stumble upon this truth, and it's usually a tough pill to swallow. i mean, it is human nature to be completely self-centered, seeking to have our needs fulfilled before anyone else's and having an attitude of "everyone needs to be doing whatever is best for me." this attitude is part of the nature we are born into; we're taught this by the world. as we earnestly seek Jesus, we spend more time with him; as we spend more time with him, we become more like him; in becoming more like him, we begin to lose focus on ourselves and see the world through his eyes. one thing that we come to realize early on in this process of growth (i say "early on" because this is something i have realized and i know i am in an early stage of the eternity-long journey of diving into the character of the Trinity) is that if everything actually was about us, we'd be in serious trouble. can you imagine how much pressure we would face if the world, the country, the town we live in, our household, or even our individual relationships really were centered on us? i don't know about you, but anything completely focused on myself would be fairly lacking in interest and depth. don't get me wrong; every person is amazing and unique and wonderfully made, but the identity, richness of a free personality, and depth of a person comes when they are found in Christ. anyway, my point is simply thank God that the world truly is not focused on ourselves like we tend to think it is from time to time. all i know is loving other people and serving the Creator and Ruler of the universe would be a lot more satisfying for any human than living as if everyone around us needs to adjust themselves to do what's best for us all the time. we need to check out attitudes and patiently make allowance for other people's existance. if we really grow in the spirit and cast off the old nature, we will actually start to think of others as better than ourselves and be sincerely interested in the affairs of others (Phil. 2:3-4). we can never be filled when living with ourselves as the focus. praise God for meeting us when we humble ourselves and say "it's all about you, Jesus."
It's all about you, Jesus,
and all this is for you,
for your glory and your fame.
It's not about me,
as if you should do things my way.
You alone are God,
and I surrender to your ways.
in other news, life is good, and by good, i mean interesting, wonderful, new, challenging, and delightful. i just try to take each day as it comes and seek guidance in the day. i have future goals in mind, but God's future plans are rarely made clear to us. he just tells us where to go in faith and we take it from there. yeah, i don't think that makes sense but i don't care.
have a nice week/month/few months, depending on the next update. | | |
| yeah so it's been a while. i haven't really had time to write or anything deep to share. i will say, however, that i had a wonderful christmas break. God blesses us so much through family and friends on this earth to make life on this fallen world so wonderful! well, as wonderful as we can possibly imagine, though our relationships with friends and family will be amazing beyond belief when God returns and dwells among us. there is one thing relating to that point that i have learned through my church and my community of believers and my religion courses at baylor so far - the church today, especially baptist churches, present a form of salvation that focuses mainly on the individual. salvation is available for the individual, and salvation starts with an individual's decision to put faith in Jesus Christ, but God's plan for salvation doesn't end with the individual. God's plan for salvation is to redeem ALL of creation! he created his believers to live in community with one another, to fellowship and worship together to honor his name and to show the attractiveness of living in the christian community. once we are saved, we become a part of this community and it is God's plan that we be active in investing into the community as a whole and not focused on our individual self. also, when Jesus returns, He will redeem all of creation. Peace will be restored. we will have a perfect relationship with Our Creator, and we will also have peaceful relations with one another. God will dwell with us, and we will relate to one another under direct influence of exposure to His Perfect Love! everything we do will be with full knowledge of his love for us and the glory and majesty of who he is. i have no idea what eternal life will be like, but i have a feeling it's going to be mind-blowingly incredible.
sorry that was a lot of rambling. not sure how that got started in my head. anyway i asked God what was on his heart today and after a while he showed me some awesome stuff in Isaiah 57-
15The high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, the Holy One, says this: "I live in that high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble. I refresh the humble and give new courage to those with repentant hearts. 16For I will not fight against you forever; I will not always show my anger. If I did, all people would pass away--all the souls I have made. 17I was angry and punished these greedy people. I withdrew myself from them, but they went right on sinning. 18I have seen what they do, but I will heal them anyway! I will lead them and comfort those who mourn. 19Then words of praise will be on their lips. May they have peace, both near and far, for I will heal them all," says the LORD. 20"But those who still reject me are like the restless sea. It is never still but continually churns up mire and dirt. 21There is no peace for the wicked," says my God.
if God showed his anger towards us forever, all the souls he has made would pass away forever. he has seen our evil deeds, but he will heal us anyway. he will lead us and comfort us when we mourn! he heals us that we might praise him. God's heart is that all people would know how deep his mercy is! he sees what we do, but he heals us anyway. amazing. God wants his mercy to be known, that we might praise him not for custom's sake (though that sort of praise can hardly be considered as such) but with the knowledge of his great love for us! so, those who have received healing should continue to invite the healing of the Lord, live in accordance to his laws that they may have peace, and boldly proclaim the grace of God. i feel that's what God wants, and it makes me pretty happy/excited.
anyway, like i said before, the break was really good. i feel like i'm a soldier in battle and the christmas break was a month home away from the battle for me. it was good, but my fighting skills were a little rusty when i came back. now, the spiritual battle spills over into every aspect of our lives, but God grants us tangible gifts to help us out. he gives us blessings because he loves us and wants to give us happiness on this earth. thank you Lord for your blessings! and also for your testing. "Fire tests the purity of silver and gold, but the Lord tests the heart" (Prov 17:3). he tests our hearts for our own good - to keep us dependent on and seeking after him.
so that's about it for now. i could write forever but the longer the entries, the less people actually read them.
You're lovely, baby. This war is crazy, but I won't let you down. Oh, no. No, I won't let them take you.
EDIT: you're not allowed to comment unless you read the whole thing...or at least skim most of it...BECAUSE I SAID SO | | |
| Singing along to Say Anything (the fun songs, not the raunchy ones), a little Shawn McDonald, a little Shane and Shane, some requests from son to Father, some wisdom from Father to son, the dispatch of angels to the place I was leaving, and a plea for peace to where I was headed. I have driven from waco to home and back several times this semester, but not once have I traveled alone. Our God is real and he is personal.
Yesterday was a really good day. Relationships are really important. I saw a few good friends yesterday, had a great dinner with Dad, and played a lot of Speed with a special girl. I also attended a great Christmas Concert! College life and college friends are amazing, but there is no place like home.
Yesterday, I learned something new about warfare. Many times in our lives, someone we care about is under attack and hurting. In that situation, I usually strap down and say, "alright, the only way to handle this is dig down deep into the heart and draw out all the pain that it could be spoken to and healed! LET'S DO THIS!" and I get all hyped up about the opportunity to call to Jesus to heal those deep heart hurts after drawing out the pain and the lies that the pain makes us believe. I learned that this can't be done all the time and can't even be done all that often. Sometimes the best thing we can do for that person that we care about is offer ourselves and our joy rather than attempt to force some sort of radical healing. Offering healing sometimes simply means smiling and playing games. When I am in a bad mood because something happened that is reflective of or brings up a deeper pain in my heart, I don't want someone to force counseling me in the deepest parts of me. Sometimes I will want to talk about it, and I hope that the people I care about will be ready to intercede and lead me to healing, but most of the time I would just like someone to give me a cheerful look and take me away from the issue. For some reason, I didn't realize how true this is until yesterday. We can rescue people simply by offering a comforting and cheerful presence.
"Worry weighs a person down; an encouraging word cheers a person up" (Prov 12:25)
"A Cheerful look brings joy to the heart; good news makes for good health" (15:30).
I have been reflecting on this semester and I have SO much I want to write about, but I don't want to keep wearing yall out with super long entries. I've already narrowed my number of readers to like 3 people; I wouldn't want to lose you precious few! haha. Just know I am soon to write about conflict resolution and what we can do when those people who are supposed to be there for us abandon us and fall away from us. I'm also thinking of how I can use that last topic to write about how we prevent ourselves from being used as someone who seemingly abandons another who might need us.
My roommate hates wearing a shirt.
EDIT: this song kinda goes along with what i said about others who are hurt. when we're hurt, we won't want to share with others most of the time and that's ok, but we can't leave the hurt in our hearts unreleased or it will kill us. with that said...
God heals us when we're broken
Don't leave your heart unspoken
Out of the dark
Into the light
He is there for us
With all His might
He has the answers
He hears your prayers
Turn every corner and you'll find Him there
God heals us when we're broken
Don't leave your heart unspoken
-Jaci Velasquez | | |
| Robert spoke about this stuff at Antioch last night and I thought I would share because it's really cool.
As we all grow up, we wonder what we should do with our lives. What are we supposed to do? We spend many anxious hours in decision making and prayer about our occupation. "Lord, what should my occupation be? What have you called me to do with my life?" Or better yet, "God, what is your will for my life?" First we must look at the definition of occupation and vocation, for they are two different things.
Occupation- Principal business of one's life
Vocation- a strong inclination to a state of action
The chief business of our lives should not be our careers. Last night, Robert (college minister at Antioch) asked the question, "what if you were called to be a plastic surgeon?" Would you want your mindset to be that the principal business of your life is fixing people's noses? There is not much meaning in that. God has called us to something different, he has given a call to all his people about the chief business of their lives. We are all called to be missionaries. God will call people to a vocation in the field of plastic surgery not to make the main activity of one's life to be fixing noses but because he wants to reach the world of plastic surgery! So what is God's will for our lives? God's vision for how we should live can be presented in 3 points:
1.) Love Jesus.
2.) Feed his sheep.
3.) Fish for men.
The purpose of our everyday lives is spelled out so simply for us in the Bible, but for some reason we lose it when it comes to really living. All we need is to love Jesus, fellowship with and encourage his followers, and actively reach out to those who don't know him. Whether you are a doctor, lawyer, missionary in a foreign country, or a garbage man, you are a success to God if you do these three things. This is our purpose. Just the other day, I was feeling a little aimless with everyday routine and I just prayed, "Lord, I want to bring you glory in everything I do, but how is this done practically? Am I looking at everything incorrectly?" I'm a little hard-headed and I tend to miss the obvious by over-analyzing everything. It is this simple. It doesn't matter what I do as long as these three things are my central motivation (of coures, with the "loving Jesus" part comes the whole obligation of following his laws, living a humble and pure life, and spending time in relationship with him, but these things are the keys to a full and satisfying life! We won't find satisfaction apart from these things). Now, there are 4 things we must keep in mind as we look at how to live out these three purposes.
1.) God is the central theme and figure of all history, not you or me or any individual. The purpose of the work of Jesus is redemption for ALL of creation, not just the individual.
2.) The purpose we exist is to draw together and bring to God a bride - the people who have chosen wholly to love Jesus.
3.) There is an enemy working against God - satan is real and alive in the spiritual realm and "the whole world lies under the spell of the Evil One" (1 John 5:19).
4.) God has appointed the church to combat evil, proclaim the gospel, and win over the lost.
The Church, empowered by the Christ, is the hope of the world. The Church is supposed to be Christ's body. We are supposed to be a family connected in the Spirit that draws people in, loves them, and fosters transformed lives. But how can this be? When we look at the church today, many of us see a large group of hypocrites who judge others by a standard they can't meet themselves. We look at the church and we see social cliques and gossip and people being made hypocritical by their self-righteous attitudes. And this is the hope of the whole world? What has gone wrong? Many Christians miss the Biblical purpose of their lives - the three points mentioned earlier. People go to church on Sundays and then spend their weekdays being doctors or Starbucks employees or college students instead of being Christians. No! We should be a kind of "church planter;" we should be a church planter at the hospital or at Starbucks or at school. Praise Jesus for his grace and power that allows us the strength to do these things. By his grace and power, we can live a life not only forgiven but freed from sin, and in this freedom his love overflows from us and pours out on others. Jesus calls us to seek first the kingdom of God. Let us seek him.
Sorry this is so long, and I really didn't end it well. I really just wanted to point out the importance of "love Jesus, feed his sheep, fish for men" but I just kept writing and writing and I hope the rest makes sense. If you read all of that, I say thanks and I'm pretty impressed that you stuck it out through my ramblings.
So keep breathing, oh, keep that sweet heart of yours beating and I'll be right there. | | |
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