Still preaching the gospel to myself...

Sanctify me oh my God! Take this death from within, this poison that curses you and blasphemes your Son. There is a very real want of holiness within me. A longing that comes from within when I am around others. My failures are so transparent to my own eyes, and it’s a wonder that no one comments on them more. Perhaps there is a certain cultural silence that is understood among our church family where grace is applied to shortcomings without confrontation. Perhaps it is my own spirit crying out within me aided by the accuser throwing darts of despair at me time and time again. Perhaps they are legitimate tugging of your Spirit trying to curve me back to a proper place, to sanctify me. Whichever it happens to be, I do not need to think much about myself to see how depraved I am. It is common in my mind to see the need of preaching the gospel to myself, but how much I fail at doing this task. The gospel is so incredible, the restoration of sinners being made right with God without a compromise of your holiness or justice through the atoning death of Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. The gospel is not just something that we preach to convert souls. Surely the gospel has the power, or more properly, is the means by which sinners are saved, but if this were the whole picture how pitiful would be our life, what would sanctify us? Sinners must know they are sinners to receive the grace offered by your Son, but to become more like your Son, we must become more aware of how we fail to be like your Son. We learn the depths of our depravity the more we understand your law and your holiness. The deeper our understanding of our depravity and your law, the more we need to hear the gospel and the richer and more beautiful the cross becomes. Well beyond our salvation, our sanctification was purchased upon the cross. The blood that Christ Jesus spilled not only saves us, but assures that the scriptures are fulfilled that say that you who started a good work in us will continue it until the day of completion. I am such a wretched man, full of pride, sloth, lust, rage, covetousness, apathy, slander, and a whole host of other sins, but how great is your love? Oh, how infinitely valuable is the blood of your Son that was spilled on that dark day. On that day you tore the curtain, once and for all appointing Christ as the high priest who alone mediates between God and man. Because of that horrific and beautiful day we are brought close to you, adopted as your children, and we have entrance before your throne. No more priests are needed to mediate but the all-sufficient High Priest named Christ Jesus. Our righteousness is but filthy rags before you, but your Son’s righteousness is imputed to us so that we may be brought close to you. Christ Jesus is the holy of holies, and the tabernacle is the church, where two or three are gathered before your throne. Oh how sweet is this gospel, this good news! We have nothing to give, no future but hell, and because of your love you exercise the greatest act of grace, and the greatest act of justice at the same time, upon the cross. This is wonderful and humbling! This is the gospel. So sweet to the soul is this truth. A divine vindication, not of my own deserving, but because of Christ’s blood. This is the refreshment that comes from the child of God taking heed of and preaching the gospel to himself. There is a want of this in our church. Only thinking upon the cross will manifest religion that glorifies you and you alone because after all, we as Protestants do claim “Soli Deo Gloria”. If we are to be honest about our doctrine, we must start to believe them and have them transform our lives! To make disciples of all nations we must preach the gospel to sinners. To sanctify our hearts and our minds and become transformed to the example of your Son we must preach the gospel to ourselves. To accomplish anything in this world for your glory we must preach the gospel! Take hold of the cross, pick it up, and follow Christ! Sanctify me of my God!

Creation

This is not a blog that gives any answers and it merely poses questions and observations on things I speculate. There are things I affirm, and things I reject.

I understand God to be outside of time, so I do not believe that it took God any time to create everything, as I do not believe God is inside of time. Time is a created measurement of days and nights. So from Gods perspective then I believe that creation, and everything that has every transpired in time, happens in God's perspective as something we can't even imagine, a perpetual now. The question is, when was time created, and how does that effect the days of creation. Was there a time before the 4th day where a sun was created to give light? Was time present at the first instant something began? To think about a being outside of time doing things inside of time is one of the reasons that I can't be hardcore in any camp. We're dealing here with abstract concepts with our feeble human minds. Anyway, on with the blog.

The six days in Gen 1 are as follows:
Day 1 - Creation of the earth and light. Division of light and darkness (day and night)
Day 2 - The waters separated and the sky dividing the waters above from the waters on earth
Day 3 - The waters are gathered together, dry land appearing, and vegetation and plants created
Day 4 - Creation of the sun to give light to day, and the moon to give light to night
Day 5 - Creation of the animals in the water and in the air
Day 6 - Creation of the animals on the land and of man and woman

I clearly reject the theory that each "day" of creation was a long era where the earth and animals evolved and changed. People use this argument to defend an old earth view that "explains" how the earth changed, and things evolved, but each segment of earth change shows signs of death (fossils) and death being a product of the fall, this cannot be. Now we understand days to be solar days with 24 hour periods of time. On the surface, 6 day creation means that each day was a 24 hour period. The sun not being created until the 4th day, the latter 3 days of creation could have been solar days, but the former 3 couldn't have been. So the idea of a 24 hour day (as dictated by our solar days) seems to be imposed on the text because that is all we as humans can understand days to be. This is clearly possible. In genesis one, each day is defined by "And there was evening, and there was morning—the _______ day." I don't know if this statement is to be understood sequentially or simultaneously. From our perspective in our environment to experience night and day, it has to be in sequence because day precedes night. But if the text is to be read that the presence of night and day is what dictates a day, then that process could happen instantaneously. While it is night time in Fillmore, it is day in Paris. At this instant there is both night and day.

Now looking at the text in Gen 2 is something else that seems to complicate my understanding of a 6 day creation.

4 These are the generations
of the heavens and the earth when they were created,
in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Here we see a barren earth, with no vegetation. From that earth God brought forth water and from the dust created man, and then created vegetation and put the man in the midst of that. The tension here is that the creation of man seem to precede the creation of vegetation. I cant understand how sequentially this does not contradict the creation account in Genesis chapter 1. If these are different explanations of a simultaneous act of creation, then there's no issue at all in my mind. So the account in Genesis 2 inclines me to believe a simultaneous creation as I understand it now.

Another matter that has been on my mind all day seems to incline me to a literal 6 days. What about the Sabbath. The Sabbath was a day that was commanded as a day of rest, for the reason that God rested on the 7th day of creation. Not that God didn't cease to be God and hold all things together, for if he did then we would have died on the 7th day. So clearly God never ceases to do what he does as God. But the reason behind the 4th commandment is the 7th day of creation, a day where the work of creation was finished and God ceased to create. Having a literal day set apart definitely inclines one to believe that the 7th day was actually a day, and thus the first 6 must have been. From an instantaneous view, the Sabbath couldn't be literally defined by the 7th day of creation, but could only be understood as a symbolic day set apart to praise God for his completed work in creation. This has more tension here.

Long story short, I have many questions, and few answers, and a lot of study and thinking to do on the topic.

Pray through your creeds...

--I believe in God, the Father Almighty
Thank you God that your are my Father. You adopted me and called me your own. You called me from darkness and death, and you breathed new life into me, marking me as your own, and giving me inheritance in heaven! You are mighty and you alone are God, there is none like you, and there is no other! You are a God perfect in all of your ways, and infinitely above me. You are the strong man who keeps me safe.
--Maker of heaven and earth
All of creation is yours, and you made everything perfect! From something so large as the space and all the stars within, to something so small as the atom and all the parts within. All of creation praises your name and stands as proof of your goodness and your perfection. A grand, majestic designer who intimately created everything and knows all his creation by name!
--And in Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ! The name above all names! The man who was fully man and fully God! Perfect in all his ways. All the prophets and patriarchs looked forward to him, and now we look back to him! Oh, so sweet a name, the embodiment of your love for us!
--His only begotten son, our Lord
While we are adopted children, Christ Jesus is the only son who shares the full likeness of you our Father! We are mere humans, mortal and created. But Jesus is not like us in that regard! He alone is the Son of God who has the essence of our Father! He is Lord and we serve him! Though he sympathizes with our humanness, he is God incarnate, and when we see Him, we see you, God!
--Was conceived by the holy spirit
While he is a man, he is not like us. He is the only begotten of God! While we are born from fleshly fathers, Your Spirit came upon Mary and from You he was conceived! Fully man, yet fully God! Emanuel, God with us!
--Born of the virgin Mary
Such special privilege that was bestowed on Mary! Found lovely before God and was blessed by bringing fourth our Lord! Thank you Lord for keeping your promise to Eve, in that even though childbirth will be marred by sin, through childbirth your Redemption will come! Mary was the vessel you chose, pure as a virgin, never known by a man, and in that innocence you thwarted the wisdom of man and by your Spirit brought fourth our King!
--Suffered under Pontius Pilate
Your only begotten, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, was subjected to death by one of your magistrates! A man who should have bent the knee and taken his place as subject to his Lord, that was the man by which Your son suffered! May we (as we will when we purely follow you) suffer for Your namesake, and know that this suffering is temporal. May we know that as our Lord suffered and was hated by men, so we will suffer and will be hated by men! Thank you that our suffering is not what we deserve, and may we bless those who persecute us, even as our Lord cried our forgiveness as he hung in our place!
--Was crucified, died, and was buried
This was the death we deserved! Thank you so much for your grace and mercy! May we never forget that is was not free, but our Lord payed for it dearly! He was crucified for us, died our death, and was buried in our grave! May we rejoice and praise your name and never forget this pure love!
--He descended into hell
It was hell that we deserved, and the just punishment for our sin was poured unjustly on the innocent lamb! May we never forget this! We deserved hell and we were snatched from is grasp by innocent blood, the blood of the Son of God!
--On the third day he rose from the dead
Praise God that death could not hold our Lord! Because Jesus conquered hell and death, so we shall never die and never taste the fires of hell! Without the resurrection Jesus would have saved no one, but to finish his work, and display his deity and establish his authority over sin and death, he DID rise from the dead!
--He ascended into heaven
Now that the plan of redemption has been accomplished, he awaits us in heaven, and is preparing our new home! He returned to You and has rejoined his triune fellowship! Because he is in heaven, and he intercedes for his adopted, blood bought, children, we can now fully apply His salvation and we are being sanctified into a pure, spotless bride!
--And sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty
The King of Kings and Lord of Lords, our Lord, now sits upon the throne of David! He has all authority in heaven and on earth! Our King has established his kingdom, and now sits in glory, adorned by the throne He alone deserves, and with the crown of thorn transformed into the crown fitting the King of Kings!
--From there he shall come again to judge the living and the dead
As our King and our Lord, he will judge all mankind. For those who do not believe, he will judge them justly and they will be condemned and sentenced to hell. For those who do believe, their condemnation he has taken upon himself, and he will reward us according to our deeds! All men, alive or dead, will stand before Christ Jesus, and every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He alone is Lord! Thank you God that confession will be one of joy for those of us who know you!
--I believe in the Holy Spirit
Your Spirit! The person who awakens us from our death, the breath of life that calls and regenerates us! The Spirit of life that sanctifies us and works in all of your adopted children and creates in us what was accomplished on the cross! The One who convicts us from our sin and causes us to repent and love you! Thank you for your Spirit!
--The holy catholic church
We as Christians have one universal church, and all of us, though we may disagree on doctrine because we see through the glass darkly, we all have one Lord, one baptism, and one salvation! Your church, Your bride, can cling to your son, and because of this we are brothers and sisters who will eventually in heaven love one another perfectly and see you perfectly! Cause us to love one another as we are family, and give us unity as we hope in the same Savior!
--The communion of the saints
We are a community! No man is an island, and no man was intended to be so! As it was not good that Adam was alone, and so you gave him Eve, neither is it good for us to be alone! We are a community, and we are called to love one another, building one another up and encouraging and edifying one another, bearing each others burdens, and spurring each other on to Your Son! Thank you for the family you have brought us into, and help us to be a family!
--The forgiveness of sins
Praise God that our sins are forgiven! We no longer have to fear you as judge, and we can love you as Father! Christ payed once and for all the punishment for our sins, and because of this we are no longer slaves to sin, but we are now alive in Christ! We were born slaves and now we are set free! We will sin until the day we die, but now that we know you, our sins are washed by the blood of the lamb, and we can now please you and do good!
--The resurrection of the body
We may die, but we will not stay dead! We will never taste the second, eternal death! We will be resurrected with perfect bodies, no flaws and no pain! We will not be disembodied spirits floating around as some naively believe, but just as you created us with bodies, so we will have bodies again! All those who died before us and trusted in you, and each of us who will likely die as well, we will once again have our bodies, but they will be perfect and flawless and we will praise you eternally with them!
--And the life everlasting
We are mortal, and we have a beginning, but we will have no end! We will praise and worship our Lord and our God, seated on his throne, forevermore! Time will not enslave us in bondage as it does now, but we will be so enraptured in worship and praise, and we will see purely what we see so dimly now, we will have everlasting rest, everlasting peace, everlasting praise! Thank you for all these gifts and all these truths, and we will have eternity to do so!

AMEN

Preach the gospel to yourself

Rom 7.21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 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. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. Rom 8.1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

This is something I need, more than breath in my lungs, I need to realize this personally and intimately. Guilt and condemnation from my past seems to loom over me. I fear God, but not as I ought. I fear him as a judge about to recall all of my sin and sentence me to death. I should fear and revere God as God, for I am but a man. But as a child of God, purchased from hell and death by the precious blood of Gods begotten Son, Jesus Christ, I should be moved as a lover to his beloved. I should bask in grace and bathe in the smile of my Father. When The Apostle says "Wretched man that I am! Who will save me from this body of death?" I cry out with him. I am a man who is tainted and marred by sin. I breathe sin and it flows through me. For me to say that theres "no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus", I know that so well in my mind. But believing that is the key to freedom. Owning that truth is my crucial need at the moment. I need to believe that "the law of the Spirit of life has set (me) free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death", and upon believing this true freedom will be mine. I am pained when I hear people say that theology makes no difference in your life, and all these doctrines are great in theory, but it doesn't effect your life. They say that the point of Christianity is to live a good life. But who is good? What man apart from a forgiven man can do good? Without owning these doctrines, the Christian life is futile. This futility I have tasted, but at a time I have also tasted pure freedom. Satan is a master of bringing up your past. Sin that was crucified to Christ on Calvary, sin that has been washed by blood and removed as far as the east is from the west. This is what our Beloved accomplished for us. Freedom from sin and death. And while I have mental assent to this, my flesh is weak and I have been consumed with my past, and now I need to desperately to believe genuinely in Christ's atoning death and the freedom that flows from that death. Doctrine matters. Faith impacts your life. As I sit here now, I have confessed this need to friends, and my spirit cries out (as the father of the demon possessed boy) "I believe, help my unbelief!" My God has obeyed the law perfectly on my behalf because I could not because He is a righteous God who demands perfect obedience, and because of that I have been adopted as a child of the King! This is my life, this is my value: the blood of Christ. Who will save me from this body of death? Christ has saved me! I believe Father, please help my unbelief. Liberate me from this improper condemnation, for it has no place in my life as you condemned Christ on my behalf! Doctrine matters, and believing certain doctrines is the means of believing in what is true, namely that I am freed from my sin and saved from hell. Cause me to believe.

Ps. 42.5Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.

Another Prayer

Wondrous almighty God
Your child lies here waiting to be held
I want to marvel at your world
I want to bask in amazement
I want to see beyond this veil I wear
I want to see into the infinite
You have given me exactly what I can bear
And when I fail you pick me up
You carry me more than I walk
And your faithfulness has no end
How many times will I pick up the hammer
…will I drive the nails in your hands
…will I spit upon your face
…will I whip you to disgrace
Yet your arms reach out again
…hold me when I’m alone
…protect me when I cant see
…pick me up and carry me again
Wondrous almighty Christ
You bore my sins and you call me home
I see you now in your glory
I see you now in your humility
I see you now as my King
I see you now as my lover
You will never leave me nor forsake me
And when I cry you comfort me
You pour your grace and love on me
And your worship has no end
I love you so pitifully
But with all I am I want to sing
You will cause me to love you more
Amen

A prayer

Your love astounds me
A love of heavenly wisdom
A love of unforeseen grace
How marvelous is your guidance
Wrestling with fear and doubt exaggerated by anger
But because of your preexisting knowledge I trust
My knowledge of your wisdom
…of your love
…of your guidance
…of your brilliance
As a child huddled in the corner
In a dark and strange environment
I find myself wanting something I know
I know you
I find myself wanting something I trust
I trust you
I find myself wanting someone who loves
You love me
I step forward in the dark scared that I will fall
Your providence lays a firm foundation
I step trembling scared like a lost child
My footing being established by you
Despite my fear your peace surrounds me
I experience your wisdom
…your love
…your guidance
…your brilliance
As a child I cling to you my father
I find myself scared and yet trusting
Your love astounds me

Glories in Christ for October 5th 2007

So I sit here in Starbucks and I just started to write. This is the product. It is not polished and rehearsed...it is spontaneous and honest. Enjoy

There is something, nay, everything! Everything is precious and amazing about our life. I do not mean our material existence or the ability to move and breathe and function. I mean spiritually. The fact that we are both again, regenerated and brought from death and damnation, enemies and haters of God who are taken into his arms and embraced by God while we fight Him, and by his amazing love and sovereign grace, he breathed into us life, love and righteousness. With his effectual calling he brings his enemies and makes them his lovers. This is an incredible power, but it should not surprise those of us who know of Jesus Christ. This power that regenerates us and causes us to love God in the midst of our vehement rebellion, this is the same power that raised Lazarus from the dead, and even more it is the same power that rose our Lord and Savior, the reason we live and breathe, Jesus Christ from the dead on the 3rd day. This grace is amazing indeed. Not only is it immeasurable in power, but also it is unmerited in application! We know that mankind is at war with God by nature, no one is good and no one does any good. God would be completely justified in sending every single human to hell as soon as they’re conceived. This is understood. But what a scandalous proposition that God should make the unrighteous righteous! How can a just and holy God just forgive sin, which is by its very nature an affront to him? Can God just forget our wrongdoing and be just? May it never be! For God to be just, he must extract punishment worthy of the violations that every human commits against him. This is the state of humanity, and this is our only plea when we stand before God: “Guilty and worthy of hell”. That is what we would have to declare and just as all hope was forever dashed, Christ our King stands up and says, “I will bear the punishment for his sin”! The Son of God stands before us and his righteousness becomes ours and at the moment of regeneration, we gasp for air and say “I believe!” and at that moment all of our sin is washed away because Christ was our wrath-bearer. What did I do to deserve this favor with the Son of God? Why am I not being damned to hell with the rest of humanity as I rightly deserve? How can one who did not desire or love God be transformed and have faith and actually start to love God? The death of the King of Kings on the cross, secured for me heaven, eternal life, faith itself, and all good things! What blessed grace. Regeneration secured my salvation and created the faith to accept the gospel of grace, the gospel of my salvation! Regeneration, blood bought and blood secured, the source of infinite, eternal blessing and favor with the God of the universe. I was once at war with God, but I am now reconciled by the blood of Christ. I was a slave to sin and marked by wrath, but I am now held in the embrace of the God I trespassed. This is my salvation, and today I praise God for the gift of regeneration that made this possible.

It will come back...

Spiritual depression has lifted, and I should be engaged and writing again soon...so check back periodically to see if its up and running!

See my pain?

Something that happened at work yesterday helped me realize something. I've been somber and more melancholy than usual, in part due to anxiety and in part due to internal struggles I think. Anyway, at work I had to step back from what I was doing because I didn't know exactly how to do it, and Darren at work was stepping in to finish it. I was probably a bit annoyed when I walked away but my dad saw me and took me outside and went on about how I disrespected Darren in the way I walked off and acted. Perhaps that's true, and if so then I'm sorry. But i wanted to scream at him and say "LOOK AT ME! Look at me and see that somethings wrong! I'm not good, I'm not OK, I'm depressed all the time!" I noticed that people don't see much beyond that they want to see a lot. People don't come up and ask whats wrong, perhaps because I've grown adept at hiding it. I'm not totally surprised with my dad, since I don't think he's very into his faith right now, and that means that you're not mature and in tune with the spirit if you're not walking with Him, but it served as a lesson to me, since I fail at this as well: we need to look deep into each other and when there's a problem dig it up and deal with it. We need to care for each other and bare each other's burdens. You can see pain in people's eyes, and you can see it in their actions. True, I am very select in who I will open up too...not many people and even then it's hard, but it's the carelessness that hurts the most, when people see you and don't do anything, even worse when they won't see it in you. I pray we grow more sensitive.

The Missionary Heart

John Piper just had a blog on Karen Watson's epitaph which reflect the missionary's heart. It was very moving, and I pray we all grow close to having this type of devotion and passion.

Ephesians: To Live By

You will not go wrong if you plunge into Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Master it. Be mastered by it. Work Ephesians into your thinking, your living, your prayers, and your conversation. The Bible is vast and deep, and human life is diverse and perplexing. But in a pinch you could do all counseling from Ephesians. It’s all there: the big picture that organizes a myriad of details.

David Powlison from the book Seeing with New Eyes: Counseling and the Human Condition Through the Lens of Scripture. Taken from the blog about Powlison warning against the dangers of extreme introspection. A good read.

New creation?

What does it mean to follow Jesus? I don't want cookie cutter answers, but really...why did he say to count the cost. We're called to "pick up our cross daily", and to be willing to forsake everything, family, friends, belongings, and even our own lives. But is this type of faith practical? Does God have a place in our every day lives? To what extent are we new creations? We live as though Christ is the icing on the cake, he makes everything good but he isn't relevant to much of our lives. Faith is not something we go to when things get hard, and Christ isn't a person who only makes us good people. Faith is something that should be as visibly necessary to us as oxygen, and Christ should be someone who radically transform our thought and every aspect of our life. The way we approach relationships, business, politics, our entire worldview and everything that motivates us should be permeated with Christ! If you can make any decision without considering Christ then he is not you're life yet. There should be nothing that Christ does not influence about us, but yet Christ has a small corner of our life. He may be useful in morals and ethics, but not much more in our practical lives...how is this picking up our cross, how is this forsaking all, how is this a new creation?

Maybe I'll have more developed thoughts later.

Schaeffer on True Spirituality

1. The true Christian life, true spirituality, does not just mean that we have been born again. It must begin here, but it means much more than that. It does not mean only that we are going to in heaven. It does mean that, but it means much more than that. The true Christian life, true spirituality in the present life, means more than being justified and knowing that I am going to heaven.

2. It is not just a desire to get rid of taboos in order to live an easier and looser life. Our desire must be for a deeper life. And when I begin to think of this, the Bible presents to me the whole of the Ten Commandments and the Law of Love.

3. True spirituality, the true Christian life, is not just outward, but it is inward -- it is not to covet against God and men.

4. But it is even more than this: it is positive -- positive in inward reality, and then positive in outward results. The inward thing is to be positive and not just negative, and then sweeping out of the inward positive reality, there is to be a positive manifestation externally. It is not just that we are dead to certain things, but we are to love God, we are to be alive to him, we are to be in communion with him, in this present moment of history. And we are to love men, to be alive to men as men, and to be in communication on a true personal level with men, in this present moment of history.

When I speak of the Christian life, or freedom from the bonds of sin, or of true spirituality, the four points listed above are what the Bible says we should mean, and anything less than this is trifling with God -- trifling with him who created the world, and trifling also with him who died on the cross. This is what we are to have in mind when we begin such a study; otherwise, there is no use even to talk about experiential freedom from the bonds of sin or about an experiential reality of the Christian life, or true spirituality. If this is not in our minds, at least in some poor comprehension and at least in some poor aspiration, we might as well stop. Anything else is trifling with God, and because it is trifling with God, it is sin.

Schaeffer is incredible! Such a mind, such a heart...

Giving needs to increase...

I was thinking about how many churches around are almost weekly bringing up and having someone discuss giving and how the church needs support. Week after week hearing the same thing, it begins to become a broken record that skips over the same part over and over again. I was thinking that this cannot be a healthy sign. This got brought to the forefront of my mind tonight because I recall my friends' church in Ontario, and out of all the times I have had the pleasure to attend, I don't ever remember hearing anything regarding money. There was a small notifier in the bulletin as to how much the last weeks offering was, but it didn't even have a budget given. I cant recall if the bulletin is consistently like that, because I only noticed it on my last visit, but something else struck me. They don't even to my knowledge pass around an offering plate. It's very weird, and refreshing in many ways, to see a church that doesn't have to constantly be reminding its congregation to give. The fact that they have no offering, and there is no expected giving listed in addition to the fact that it is not mentioned, and yet the church survives and the funds are met as they are needed is so amazing to me. Examples like this give me a glimpse of what a healthy church looks like. When you are leading the flock as you ought, the flock will grow and become mature believers, and as they mature they grow closer to God and giving and taking care of one another become natural to them. Isn't this the way we ought to be? You cant make giving and charity natural when you keep begging for money. It is something that is the product of a healthy, mature, biblically based church. Thank God they exist, and God willing may there be more and more of such churches. Christians who believe their Lord when he says that He will provide, and who obey when He urges them towards giving and charity. Praise God!

Justified in Christ!

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. - 1 Cor 6.9-11

This is amazing, and humanity is found guilty of the condemning list given. Praise God that the list ends with hope! We, as children of God, though we deserve hell for we have sinned, we are washed and justified in the name of Jesus Christ by the blood he spilt on the cross! Let us bend our knee and praise our King!

I hope to have something substantial posted tomorrow, be blessed!