Abide in me, and I in you
There are many themes that run through the Bible, and there are many different things that God is calling his children and faithful followers to, but lately one theme has shone brighter to me than all the rest.
“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15: 4-5 ESV
This is just a brief glimpse into this post. I have really enjoyed reading through, praying about, and learning from God about this section of scripture this past year. It has really helped shape me and my mindset for doing ministry and living my life for Christ amongst many other life circumstances. To read the rest of this post, visit the Veritas blog here, and while there maybe take a peak at some of the other posts my peers have been writing.
Yes, like the flower… (TULIP pt 2 of 6)
“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no on does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Romans 3: 10b-18
(more…)
Yes like the flower… (TULIP pt 1 of 6)
TULIP, does that ring a bell to any of you? It probably isn’t the first thing you think about when you wake up or the last thing you pray about before you go to bed, at least for most of you. This past week it has been for me, weird I know. The idea and belief system behind TULIP has been monumental in my walk with Christ, and how I view christianity in the world around me. Though I will say its been a progressive line of thinking, like all of our christian walks with faith. We take steps, sometimes baby steps, and sometimes steps in the wrong direction, but none the less we take steps. TULIP is no different, it needs to be taken in steps, but taken none the less. (more…)
Give us this day our daily bread
Uncertainty, the unknown, darkness, anxiety, confusion, unpredictability, vagueness, wonder, worry. All words we associate with our future, all words we associate with how we live our daily lives. I don’t know one person in my life who doesn’t think about their future and one of these words pops up in their thoughts or in their situation. I know this is the case for me, just ask some of my closest friends, I get anxious about whether I am in the right line for a film at True/False or whether I am driving too fast on my way to L’abri, sometimes I feel like some of these words never escape me, and I know I’m not alone. (more…)
God is in control, and thats a good thing!
This is a post that I have written for today on Veritas Mizzou’s blog. I hope you like it!
God is in control, and that’s a good thing!
If you guys are like me you tend to try and control as many things in your life as possible. This could include finances, grades, work, what people think of your image, how smart you are, what kind of car you drive, if you can eat, what you wear, what you read and watch, who you talk to and what about, to name just a few. Every now and then we are thrown a curve ball; an F on our latest test, a speeding ticket on the way to church, fired from work and no income, some topic or global phenomenon we cant understand, amongst many other ‘inconveniences’ in our days. At this point if you are anything like me you get frustrated, defeated, mad, angry, sad and just plain upset. We like to control our lives, it’s a known fact, we try and do as much as we can to control every aspect of our lives, and sometimes it just doesn’t work out.
The other day I was reading a passage out of Luke that helped me calm some of my anxiety about situations in life. Jesus speaking to his disciples said;
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. 23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. 24 Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! 25 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 26 If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? … O you of little faith! 29 And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. 30 For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31 Instead seek his kingdom and these things will be added to you.” Luke 12: 22-26, 29-31 (ESV)
What a wonderful passage, this little section here in Luke helps me remember that I need not worry or be anxious for I have an awesome God! In this little section there are three reasons why we need not be anxious; The first is found in verse 23, “For life is more than…” fill in the blank. I believe that this verse speaks for it self, our life is more important than food and clothes. The second is found in verse 24, “of how much more value are you” Humans are the most valuable of all God’s creation, for humans were the only things created in God’s image (Gen. 1: 27), because God gave the human race dominion over all the earth and its creatures (Gen 1: 28), and because God gave his only Son to die for us (John 3: 16) because he loves us so much! The third is in verse 25; because no one has enough control over his own life even to “add a single hour to his span of life” There is nothing in our power as human beings that allows us to do this!
Do not seek does not mean to give up and neglect to work and support ourselves, it serves as a warning, a warning that we should not continually be seeking what to eat, and what to wear, or what to drive. Jesus gives us the example of the birds in verse 24 and explains to us that if God should care to feed the ravens then he will surely care to feed you also. To be anxious, then, demonstrates a lack of trust in God, who promises that he will graciously care for “all these things”. So what then do we seek, what then do we do if we aren’t to be anxious over these things? Jesus gives us exactly what we are looking for in verse 31; “Instead seek his kingdom and these things will be added to you.” We should be seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness! What a great promise to hold on to! I like the way Matthew ends this little section of passage;
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Matthew 6: 34 (ESV)
Solitude and Silence, part 3 of 5
Like i said before, I really enjoy Mark Driscol, and that means I really enjoy his blog. He is thought provoking and practical, things that I love in my life! I have been following his posts on finding solitude and why we need a time of solitude and silence. This is the third part of his five part series. Enjoy.
“Understanding Silence and Solitude
Silence and solitude is fasting from people and noise for a prescribed time to connect with God and replenish the soul. The opposite of solitude is isolation, where someone is burned out and goes into survival mode by disappearing. Solitude is godly, isolation is deadly, and if we don’t enjoy the former we’ll wind up pursuing the latter.
Despite the constant pressures upon his time from family, friends, and fans, Jesus’ own life was marked by ongoing times of solitude. The following verses speak of how Jesus often practiced the spiritual discipline of solitude:
- “And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone.” (Matt. 14:23)
- “And he said to them, ‘Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.” (Mark 6:31)
- “And when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place.” (Luke 4:42)
- “But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.” (Luke 5:16)
Furthermore, as we study Scripture we see that Jesus used solitude for a multitude of purposes. Following his baptism, Jesus spent forty days in solitude preparing for his public ministry (Matt. 4:1–11). After his cousin, John the Baptizer, was beheaded, Jesus spent time alone to mourn (Matt. 14:12–13). Jesus also used times of solitude as occasions for intense and focused prayer (Matt. 14:23; Mark 1:35; Luke 5:16). Jesus specifically used solitude as an opportunity to pray and seek the Father’s will before choosing the twelve disciples (Luke 6:12). In addition, Jesus used solitude to rest after a hard day of work (Mark 6:31). Finally, knowing he was soon to be crucified, Jesus spent time alone in the Garden of Gethsemane, coming to grips with the painful obedience that was required of him (Mark 26:36–46).
Other biblical figures also used solitude for a litany of purposes. Moses spent time alone on the mountain with God in order to receive a word from God, namely the Ten Commandments (Exodus 19–20). Isaiah was both saved and sustained by God through his times of solitude with the Lord (Isa. 30:15). In Psalm 62:1–2, 5 David says that in solitude God calmed his fears and encouraged his soul. Paul as well spent some three years in varying degrees of solitude being prepared by the Lord for ministry, according to Galatians 1:17–19.
Clearly, time alone with God serves innumerable good purposes in our lives. Therefore, to help you consider how to enjoy purposeful times of solitude, I would encourage the following. One, you may need to simply schedule a day of solitude to ensure that this is a regular part of your spiritual life. I do this at least one day a month and find it to be the most important and refreshing part of my life; it enables me to function in the other areas of my life because it helps me remain continually connected to Jesus. Two, find a place where you like to go. This may mean that you spend a day in God’s creation hiking or simply resting. Three, if you are a parent, this may mean that you have to get up early or stay up late to get some time to yourself at home.
There are many things you can do during your periods of solitude, including:
1. Nothing
2. Meditate on a short section of Scripture
3. Rest
4. Read long sections of Scripture
5. Pray, including a prayer-walk/hike/bike
6. Read a good book
7. Journal”
Solitude and silence part 2
I said I would follow this series from Pastor Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill Church, so here is the second part from their blog. It’s a good section of what comes next, conviction and heart change and some good practical ways to go about it. Enjoy.
“Four Ways to Change Your Life
Heart change – conviction from God and repentance from you
Study – research and fact-finding for how to change your life, which includes reading the Bible and other books, speaking with people you know who have wisdom, etc.
Plan – ongoing, detailed, and prayerful life organization
Action – working your plan and making changes as life requires:
Moleskine – always keep a journal like this nearby to jot notes, thoughts, and convictions in
Journaling – use your laptop to gather the scattered ideas in your Moleskine and prayerfully and carefully add to and consider them
Calendar – take action items from your silence and solitude day and put them on the calendar, as without being officially planned, nothing ever gets done to completion
Most people are good at one or two of these steps. Some have a heart change and do their homework but do not make a plan and take action to change their life. Others have plans and action but are religiously just doing duties because they have not experienced heart change from God. Others move from heart change to action without research and a plan; they mean well but make their life (e.g., health, finances, relationships) worse.
Take some time and be honest with yourself. List each of these steps in order from the one you are strongest at to the one you are weakest at.
Where is your life getting stuck and what can you do to grow where you are weak? Who do you need to talk to and learn from? What do you need to repent of?”
Is this your brain on God….
This article and image caught my attention the other day on NPR.org, i frequent their website with no time to listen to their broadcasts unfortunately. The article title was interesting to me to begin with, the picture and layout was even more interesting. In the picture you will see an image of a brain and then some bubbles that cover certain areas of the brain and why some scientists and biologist and brainist (i know it’s not a real word) say we are just programmed to think and imagine God in different ways. All i have to say to that is, duh!! Christians have been saying that for years!
Im going to make this post brief because i have the opportunity to blog on a college ministry blog and i am going to make a more in depth approach to this article in the next week or so. But i do want to look at this briefly here first. This article proves one thing to me, that God did look at even the most of the details when creating us in his image. We have grown up hearing that God knows every hair on our head just as he knows every star in the sky, but never really have we thought about it before. Well think about it now.
God knows us in such detail that he gave us genes, little elctro-current-brainism-power in our heads to turn on when we think about Him. It’s amazing to me the detail that God put into creating humans. He truely loves us. This article didn’t disturb me, it didn’t make me mad that this is being said, it just helped me realize how much detail God really puts into his creation.
If you want more detail on this subject or other great blog posts from great people on topics involving God and christianity go to http://veritasmizzou.wordpress.com/ and check them out. I should be posting sometime within the next couple of weeks so keep checking. Thanks.
Cover-alls…
This picture is many things when you look at it. Its funny, its sad, its insightful, thought-provoking and many other verbs can describe this picture. To me its ironic and illustrates a lot of what its like to live in todays world. Most of you know by now but i am a Christian, i profess my love for God and Christ everyday and worship my creator and thank Him for the many gifts He has given me. This picture reminds me of the christian life in many different ways. Many of which are probably not healthy and good, but are what come to my mind first. When thinking a little more on what this image means to me i was struck by a passage a few times that really helped me understand and pin point the meaning in this picture. In Ephesians Paul writes;
22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4: 22-24)
Paul explains here that we are to put off our old, to put off the sins that were given to us because of mans fall, and to put on a new skin, the new skin being in Christ, only in Christ and only because Christ was raised up and put to death on the cross are we even aloud to have a new identity. This goes for everyone, everyone was given a new start because of Christ. In Ephesians Paul was preaching to the Gentiles who were non-believing, non-worshiping humans.
Anyways, thats not my point about this picture, my point is the opposite. We are told we have a new skin, a skin and identity that leaves us pointing to Christ. But what if people use that as an excuse. What if we start covering our selves with things we want to be instead of the things we are. Hopefully i am clear, its clear in my head but that doesn’t mean i will always get it out right. What im trying to say is that i believe somethings, actually a lot of times, more times than not we put on a pseudo self. We think we have the right to believe and act and look the way we want to be instead of the way that God made us.
We all have been given a uniqueness, but when we try and cover that up with a trait from someone else’s uniqueness, we become false. Our lives are false, our thoughts are false, our look is false, our ways are false, our uniqueness is lost. Once we try and cover ourselves up with something other than our new skin that was promised to us from Christ and God, we loss who we really are. Once we try and fix something in our life, that God has placed there for a reason, we have misused our new self’s.
Hopefully that made sense, like i said it made sense in my head. We were promised something from God through Christ that is greater than anything, that is a new identity. Stop trying to cover up who really are, stop trying to make yourself something you are not, receive the gift of a new identity, stop putting on a cover up.
What does your Heaven look like?
What does your Heaven look like?
So I admit this is sort of an unfair question, I mean it is wonderful and great to imagine what heaven will be like for each one of us, it was God who blessed us with minds that can wonder away in the middle of the day or late at night about His dwelling place. I am no theologian, or even close, I am just a college student who wants to be faithful to The Word of God and to follow Christ Jesus till I die, and go to heaven. So I got thinking, from the help of Mercy Me in their song Finally Home (like I said, I love to listen to Christian music) that everyone seems to have their own version or image of heaven. Is that right? Is that biblical? Have we got it all wrong?
Well I am sure that we have got it all wrong for multiple reasons. One we are broken and fallen people in a broken word. Since the fall of man in Genesis 3 we have lived in a world that is tormented by evil and surrounded by sin and torturous things to our soul. Thankfully by the Grace of God we are forgiven for our brokenness because Jesus gave Himself up on the Cross. Two our minds are so limited and finite we can only imagine so much. Yes we have got some greatly imaginative minds that have brought us great work like C.S. Lewis and his vision of heaven in The Great Divorce. Just imagine this;
“But I don’t understand. Is judgment not final? Is there really a way out of Hell into Heaven?”
“It depends on the way ye’re using the words. If they leave that grey town behind it will not have been Hell. To any that leaves it, it is Purgatory. And perhaps ye had better not call this country Heaven. Not Deep Heaven, ye understand.” (Here he smiled at me.) “Ye can call it the Valley of Shadow of Life. And yet to those who stay here it will have been Heaven from the first. And ye can call those sad streets in the town yonder the Valley of the Shadow of Death: but to those who remain there they will have been Hell even from the beginning.” (p68)
I mean how great is that, but still, we are limited in what we can think up. So how can we possibly imagine what is in heaven, the place where God dwells? There is no way, unless we were little gods walking around, thankfully we are not. Third there are not many teachings in the Bible what we will see or can expect in heaven once we die. Let us take the story of Lazarus for example. Jesus brought Lazarus back from the dead and sent him to the after life for only four days. We do not hear of anything about what Lazarus saw, heard, felt or experienced. This may be for the reason that Lazarus just simply could not explain what he saw, or heard or felt because there are no human words or emotions that can explain something as divine as heaven.
Now having said this, I came across this nice little story about heaven, and if I had to make an image of what my heaven would look like, what my finite brain (clearly it is finite I didn’t even think this up) could imagine it would be this little story. Please enjoy, and please don’t stop imagining that is what makes us human!
THERE is the story of a man who died and arrived at the gates of eternity for a guided tour by a guardian angel. The angel took him to Hell, which was a large banquet room with a huge table loaded with food. Surrounding the table were emaciated, groaning people.
The man asked why Hell’s residents were starving when they had so much food in front of them. The angel told him the only requirement in Hell was that the food be eaten with forks that were a metre long.
The forks were far too long to turn and insert into the mouths.
In the next room—Heaven—the table was equally loaded and the forks equally long, but the people were well-fed and laughing. “The same restrictions apply here,’’ said the angel,’’ but the people solved the problem by feeding each other and allowing themselves to be fed.’
So I feel like it is okay for us to make our images of heaven, I don’t think that it is biblical, but what do I know I am still just a college student learning as much as I can. I am not the right answer, only God is, and if God is calling you to write about heaven and explain what you think then go for it, do not listen to me.
One last note, as I was finishing up this blog the song that really inspired it came on, Mercy Me Finally Home. And some people say there is no God!
Dec. 25th – A New Beginning
Christmas Day- A New Beginning
Today is the day that Christians and Non-Christians alike celebrate the day of Jesus Christ’s Birthday, the day that our Heavenly Father decided to give us his one and only true son born of a virgin named Mary, oh I am sorry I meant Christmas. It’s funny to me that on the day when our savior was born who would inevitably die for OUR sins, and save US from the fall of man and give US eternal love from God, we would crowd around pine trees of different sizes to vigorously open presents that we probably bought on credit and just collect more and more stuff. Yes, on the day of Jesus’ birth there were shepherds who brought gifts including gold and myrth, but this was probably because the Angel that came and visited them told them that Jesus was going to be born as the son of God. I think I would have brought the same thing if an Angel were to have come to me and said that!
My point is this, something in my head (there tends to be a lot up there at any given point) is telling me that I need to change something, that I am not celebrating Christmas for the right reasons. You know, I think for once that my head is telling me something I shouldn’t just shut out and listen to. What a perfect way to start a blog, the day of a new beginning for me. On my way home from Columbia the other day for Christmas I was listening to my iPod on shuffle and a Bible verse came on. It was John 11, and usually I turn to the next song because I want to listen to music, but this time I let it play. I liked it, I was listening also thinking that I would read this specific chapter later on to go over what I heard again. Well the man on the speakers said something that I really liked, something that creates a great base or rock for me to start my new beginning on. He quoted (as this is the only thing he does) John 11, 25-26, which really stuck to me.
“25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
Do I believe this? Is this something that I believe? After hearing that for the first time (even though I have read it once or twice) I really started to pick apart my brain, just thinking well what do I believe, is this something that I believe does this match up with what I do believe in? Well the answer which really started to humble me was, well I haven’t really thought about that yet! I do now, this is my time to start. I have been told many times its never to late to start anything, well today is the day where I start believing that Christ has died for my sins so that I can live, even though I will eventually die. I will live and believe in him so that I never die. Today is that day!
For the past 10 years I have said that I am living my life for Christ. I went through confirmation while attending a Methodist Church and about two years ago said that I would live my life for Christ, saying that the previous years I was not really a Christian. But now, on this day I will take that saying and put it into practice, I will become a man of God, and live my life loving Christ and walking with Christ to better myself and the people around me. So on this Christmas, where I stand as 22 years old, I official accept Christ into my life, and will live my life believing so that I can never die thanks to Christ our King.
Attempted Elucidation 