The Pulley

I just read this poem on DesiringGod's website. It's by George Herbert. I love it. I hope it will bless you.

The Pulley
When God at first made man,
Having a glasse of blessings standing by;
Let us (said he) poure on him all we can:
Let the worlds riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.

So strength first made a way;
Then beautie flow’d, then wisdome, honour, pleasure:
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that alone, of all his treasure,
Rest in the bottome lay.

For if I should (said he)
Bestow this jewell also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts in stead of me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:
So both should losers be.

Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlesnesse:
Let him be rich and wearie, that at least,
If goodnesse leade him not, yet wearinesse
May tosse him to my breast.

A little snow

The national weather service says that the Ogden area is supposed to get about 1-3 inches total this afternoon. In the last hour we got about 3 inches. It's really starting to come down. I was just driving in it and you couldn't start from a complete stop without sliding. I saw some cars making left hand turns slide and drive over the curb, and a bunch of people that were trying to go way to fast. Driving in weather like this isn't too bad. It's driving in weather like this with other people who don't drive too well that makes it bad :) Even four wheel drive trucks were sliding. Anyway, I'm also supposed to go to my parent's church for their Christmas Eve service (mine isn't having one this year) and then up to their house where I'll spend the night and tomorrow. Lord willing, we'll all survive the drives. I hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas and take the opportunity to really reflect on the birth of our Lord. "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14, ESV) The Word became flesh. We can't even fathom the depth of this truth. It is too wonderful for us, too lofty for us to attain. Jesus Christ, the image of the Father, emptied himself and took on the likeness of sinful flesh in order to take on our sin and give us his righteousness and has now ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the throne of God. There is no greater act accomplished for the love of his people and the demonstration and sake of his glory than what Jesus Christ did for us and for God and for himself. The Word became flesh. The image of God, the transcendant Word through whom the universe exists and through whom we live and move and have our being, came into time and tabernacled with us. We have seen his glory. He has revealed himself in order to show us the Father in order to transform us into the images of his glory. We beheld the fullness of grace and truth. All grace was demonstrated in him and there is no truth apart from him. He is all in all, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the great "I AM." Praise be to God and to him alone.

Winter

Winter is officially upon us here in Utah. It's been freezing the past couple of weeks with nighttime temperatures getting as low as 11 degrees. However, we haven't really had a good snow fall. We've had a couple of inches here and there, but they usually melt away within a few days. However, we're getting some good storms going through the area right now and the snow's really falling. We're getting thunder and snow at the same time. I've never really experienced it like this. Usually when that happens it's rain mixed with snow. But this is pretty good snow. It is wetter then we usually get here, but it's full-bodied snow. The skiers are going to be really happy. This also means that we will almost undoubtedly have a white Christmas. I know I will because I'm going up to my parents house and they live over the mountains where there is a great deal more snow. All-in-all, it's getting a lot colder and a lot whiter here. If I didn't have to drive in it, I would love it. At least we have a good snowplow system here. I just got a call from my worship leader and, due to the snow, we're cancelling worship practice. Anyway, if you like snow and mountains, Utah is the place to be right now :) The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmaments declare his handiwork.

A little mormonism

This is a good post on some information concerning Mormonism. It responds to a Fox News 21 question interview with someone from the Mormon church and the answers given there. If you want to see the interview itself, you can find it on Justin Taylor's blog. While I was reading this, I thought about Catholocism and the comfort that comes from having a set doctrine from the church that is set down and historically proven and Catholics hold to it. You can easily point to the areas of disagreement and continue from there. The Mormon church is really slippery. Part of this, I think, is because they don't base all of their belief on head knowledge. They don't go around spouting off doctrine. They promote and "evangelize" by talking about their experience, or the "burning in the bosom," or by talking up how great the family life is in Mormonism. If you've ever seen commercials for the Mormon church, the family is the center of everything they believe in. They don't go into anything about their beliefs. In fact, the only reason you know it comes from a religious group is that it's from the LDS church. What this means for witnessing is that when we try to address the doctrine of the church and hold it next to the Bible, they turn quickly to their personal testimony and how awesome their culture is to defend their beliefs and will cease to engage with you. This isn't always the case, but it can often be. My fear and concern is that the Mormon church is starting to look more and more mainstream and Christian. Mitt Romney can give a speech about how he believes Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of the world and all of a sudden, his beliefs are looking more and more Christian to the outside world. Perhaps this isn't entirely due to the Mormon church covering up their "strange" doctrines and obvious inconsistencies, although I believe much of it is. I think some of the problem is that the Christian church is no longer looking as Christian as it should. We don't stand for doctrine. We begin to spout our own personal testimonies and family life and traditions. We shouldn't neglect to talk about how Biblical Christianity does impact our lives, but those must be evidences for the truth, not the foundation for it. We have reverted to experience instead of truth and doctrine in our witnessing and apologetics. We must return to our historical roots and fight for the doctrines and truths that separate us from the rest of the world. If Christians would stand up for the sovereignty of God and his all-suffeciency, the doctrine of justification by faith alone, salvation through grace alone, the inerrance of the Bible alone, the divinity of Christ, the Trinity, etc. then perhaps the world wouldn't confuse Christianity with Mormonism and Catholocism and Mormonism and Catholocism would stop wanting to be associated with us. We need to take a stand on the firm foundation of Scripture alone and seek to show God as glorious and not our mega churches and our institutions (marriage, family, life). If we boast in our mega churches it should be because of the change produced by God through that instrument in the lives of people and the community. If we boast in our institutions like marriage and family and our pro-life causes, then it should be because they flow from a God-centered theology. We have to stop leaving God out of the center (and often the entirety) of our witness. We must boast in him and nothing else. The souls of the people of this nation depend on it.

Psalm 36

In my daily devotions I read Psalm 36 a while ago and I thought I would share some thoughts:

After a long list of the traits and character of the wicked, David caps it with this: "He does not despise evil." It is the character of the righteous to despise evil. We should be very fearful when we cease to despise evil. This is a trait I see lacking in me so often. Often I can hold up and praise that which is good, but I don't want to despise what is evil. I think that's often because I don't want to give up those parts of my life. I enjoy some of those evil things and if I despise them, then I will have to give them up, so I don't shed the light of the word on those areas of my life because I want to expose my own evilness. The heart is indeed desperately wicked, who can know it? This is a sobering reminder.

And after a long list of God's attributes and why the godly flee to him, David caps it with this: "In your light, we see light." When we line ourselves up with God and can be siad to truly be in him we see him. We don't see anything else. When we are enveloped in this marvelous light, all we see is the glory of the light. Our eyes get fixed on Jesus. We were blinded by the god of this world, but then God opens our eyes to see the "light of the glory of the gospel fo Jesus who is the image of God." In order to experience this we must be in the light. In order for this to happen we cannot be prideful (vs. 11). Once pride takes it's foothold in our ives we will cease to be in the light (not in an absolute, salvific sense) and we will not see the light. Pride is a destructive sin and it has destroyed many of the unrighteous. We must not be found with it. Destroy your pride and flee to God in abject humility and he will show you light.

I love the contrast presented here. The first four verses are dedicated to showing the wickedness of the wicked. In the next five verses, David contrasts the wicked - but not with the righteous. He contrasts the wicked with God. In doing so, David exalts comparing ourleves and others to the true standard - God - instead of the false one we so quickly embrace - each other. He also demonstrates that the only true righteous One is God and we all would be like the wicked where it not for God's grace. This contrast is indeed impressive and should be taken not of. Use it to cast down your pride and your view of yourself and exalt your view of God and his loveliness and how deficient sin and wickedness is in the light of the fountain of light.

...............................................................................................................

Even though I wrote that about a week ago, I think I needed to go back over the truth in those verses. It is so easy to compare myself with others and think that I'm okay and that, compared to the rest of the world, I'm doing pretty good. But they're not my standard. God is. And the only way I can stand blameless before the throne is if I'm dressed in his righteousness alone.

I saw "I Am Legend" Saturday and this Psalm reminds me of some of the themes in the movie (really good, by the way). Without giving anything away, there were a lot of contrasts in the movie between light and dark. Dark was when the evil was present, but they hated the light. Light was the only way to defeat the darkness. Then Will Smith quotes Bob Marley when he says in response to racism "Light up the darkness." We don't light up the darkness by focusing on ourselves. We light up the darkness by giving the darkness the true Light. He is the source of all light and he is the only way that light can pierce the darkness and overcome it. We have no light in ourselves. It only comes through God. We must give the world God. Nothing else will do! Show them the light of the world by being lights ourselves. Let your light so shine before men that they will see your good works and glorify God. We can be a light so long as Jesus shines through us. We have this treasure in earthen vessels so that the glory will go to God. We are frail. We need to let the power of God shine through our weaknesses so that the world will see that it is God that changes it and not us. "Light up the darkness" with the only light that really matters - Jesus Christ. God give me the grace and the strength to see this through - every day. I have no strength to do this. I cannot move unless you move me. I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me so that the life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loves me and gave himself up for me. The world needs this gospel. And were the ones who have to spread it. I can't fail in this task anymore due to my lack of desire to despise evil. I must live in the light.



P.S. I Am Legend is a really good movie. If you go see it, look for the analogies to Christ and the light/dark metaphors. It's really cool.

Due to popular demand...

...here is the link to pics of the house I looked at: http://utahrealestate.com/reports/photo/index.wfr?types=&find_listno=748489&ptype=p_res

Unfortunately I couldn't post them directly here, and I didn't have my camera with me when i went to see it. But hopefully this will sate your curiosity :)

House Search

Recently I've been looking around at houses in the downtown Ogden area with my friend who's also a real estate agent. After seeing a bunch of houses that I wouldn't want to buy at all, I finally found a house that very well might be a great house. It has three bedrooms and one bath, a little more than 1500 square feet, a fireplace, plenty of living space, a killer kitchen, and a sane floorplan. It is also in the price range I've been looking for. If the Lord wills, this could be a killer place to buy. You might ask why a guy my age would be looking to buy a house instead of renting until marriage or beyond. I've come to learn that my knowledge of the will of God is much more limited than what I once thought it was. God gave me a general direction to press toward when I was 17 and as I continue to grow toward that goal, God continues to whittle down the generalities and bring me to the exact place He wants me to be in and the work He wants me to do. With that in mind, God appears to be leading me to make my home in Ogden for the foreseeable future and seek to be a light to that city. Ogden has a lot of crime and there doesn't seem to be much of an effort on the part of Christians to make an impact in the heart of the city. Most of the churches that are "successful" seem to be found in the suburbs. As far as I can tell, there really aren't many God-entranced, Bible-preaching, Gospel-centered churches in the city and God seems to be leading me to that area. So with that in mind, I've been looking at houses in the area in order to live among the people that I would be ministering to and evangelizing. Anyway, the reason I'm bringing this up is that I would really appreciate your prayers for wisdom and discernment in this search. I desperately need to be focused on God's will in this situation and not just on my own desires which seem to so often conflict with God's. May my ways be His ways, and His thoughts my thoughts. Sola Deo Gloria

Youth Group and some randomness

How great is our God!!! For the second time in about as many months I got the cold that's going around again. A couple of days ago, my throat hurt so bad I didn't even want to drink water. Even now, the sore throat has gone away, but it's left a bad cough behind and my voice isn't strong at all and it sounds a lot different then normal. I save you the details about the crud in my throat as well. Anyway, I started the post this way because every time I've needed to sing or teach or go to an interview or anything like that, God has given me enough strength and decongestion to speak and sing clearly. We have youth group on Wednesday nights and this night I had to lead the whole thing because all of the other youth leaders were at a funeral. So this meant I had to do all the small group teaching (we're going through the "Truth Project" dvds - really good) and I normally lead worship. God gave me the strength to do all of it. And then, in the small group we were talking about evolutionists and Rom. 1:18-20 and all that good stuff and I started bringing the gospel to bear on it and emphasizing that we shouldn't go around calling them stupid and thinking ourselves superior to them, because we all used to be like that. And I was getting some of their thoughts on this and my only senior started busting out the gospel and how amazed she was at it and the incredible love that Jesus displayed toward those that were crucifying Him and just marvelling at our Savior. She's one of the deeper ones in the youth group and I know that she pursues God and loves God and is saved, but I've never really heard her just talk about the gospel that way and really be that affected by it. And I couldn't help but wonder if God is using the gospel series that we're going through to really bring home the amazing grace God has bestowed on us and how awesome heaven will be because God will be there and how that really makes death gain. I don't know if that's the case, but I hope God's used it in a small way in her life to bring her closer to God in that way.

Plus, I can't thing of a song more upbeat than "Sugarpie, honeybunch" or whatever the name of that song is. I was just at the grocery store on my way back home and they were playing that song and you just felt like singing along with it and dancing. Praise God! He's given me a really great night and it's nothing of me! I didn't do anything to make tonight cool. It was all God. How great is our God!!!

A little Newton

“Though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say that I am not what I once was, a slave to sin and Satan. And I can heartily join with the apostle and acknowledge that by the grace of God I am what I am.”
- John Newton

This came from the blog, firstimportance.org. It's an awesome site. I highly encourage visiting it. And what truth is embodied in this statement. What a glorious reality that we are no longer slaves to sin and Satan. And praise God that we will yet be glorified! We will not stay in this state forever.

No mercy

"He that is appointed to kill an enemy, if he leave striking before the other ceases living, does but half his work."

John Owen - The Mortification of Sin (pg. 51 as cited in Overcoming Sin and Temptation)

We are appointed to this task. This is our job on this earth. God has given us an enemy, a means, and a motivation (be killing sin or it will be killing you). If we fail to completely accomplish this task then we have completely failed. Sin must be crushed. This reminds me of sports. In sports, a championship team is characterized by what is called "smelling the blood in the water." When they knock a team down they put their foot on the neck and go for the kill. They show absolutely no mercy toward their opponent. They leave no doubt. So it is for us. We must leave no doubt. No mercy for sin. Kill it and kill it now. I love how Piper characterizes this battle. He says that we as Christians need to have a "mean streak." This isn't a pleasant affair. It is bloody and dirty and we must have a mean streak. In the case of sin we must have a bloodlust and seek its absolute destruction. There is no room for anything but violence. May God give us the grace to be steadfast in this battle and give us the strength to persevere. Praise God that he has already claimed the ultimate victory over this enemy and has given us all we need to see the battle through to its glorious end.

Glorious Dawn

Glorious Dawn

Give me ears to hear and eyes to see.
Wake me up to see your beauty.
Oh that glorious dawn, that glorious dawn,
As into your presence I am drawn.

And we cry holy, holy, holy
Holy is the Ancient One.
We give glory, glory, glory
Glory to the Risen Son.

Frail and sin-filled man that I am,
I put my trust in the slain Lamb.
My God, by grace, passed over faithlessness,
For glory, to demonstrate his righteousness.

And we cry holy, holy, holy
Holy is the Ancient One.
We give glory, glory, glory
Glory to the Risen Son.

Perfect glory and depraved man
Combine, for glory, grace to land.
To impart the vision of the risen Son
At glorious dawn, we are transformed into one.

New York: Day One

This is actually the only day of the trip that I took pictures. We took a red-eye flight out of Utah at 9 pm MDT and arrived in Denver at 10. Then we had a two-hour layover and flew out at midnight and arrived in New York at 6 am EDT. It was still dark when we flew in and we got a really good view of the skyline from the air. It was really amazing to see the Statue of Liberty in the harbor and then to see the Empire State building and the Chrysler Building and a big empty space in between them where the World Trade Center stood. After we landed we took a van service to the church in Brooklyn where we would be staying and then we slept. Sweet sleep. We woke up around noon and we decided to do some sight-seeing in Manhattan. We didn't have to be back at the church until 6 pm so we had a few hours. All of my pictures are from this short period of time. I also only have building and scenery shots, nothing really of our group. However, a bunch of other people took photos throughout so hopefully I'll get some of those and post them accordingly. Anyway, here are my pictures.

This was my first view of Manhattan after getting off the Subway. Really cool architecture



I took this one from the shore of Battery Park.

This one was also from Battery Park.

This is Wall Street.

This is the bull at the beginning of Wall Street. If you've seen Hitch, then you're familiar with the other end of the bull. There were about 50-75 tourists standing around taking pictures of the bull so this is the best one I could get.

This is ground zero. It was amazing how massive the hole really was. Off to the left there is a subway running through it and that cement hole in the middle was probably part of the parking garage underneath the towers. It was really sobering to see the aftermath of 9/11.

Anyway, those are the highlights of my first day. If I get any more pictures from the others, I'll post those, but for now you'll have to settle for my descriptions of what we did. God Bless.

Happy Reformation Day

Today is the 490th anniversary of the nail heard round the world.

Just letting you all know, I made it home safely. New York was amazing. Seeing the sights was pretty cool too. The mission trip made a big impression on me and brought me to tears on a number of occasions. (I know, I know, crying isn't manly, but I think this kind is acceptable.) I will be posting a much more detailed account soon, but for now I just want to say:

Happy Reformation Day

O What great things our God wrought 490 years ago today that continue to shape this world and bring many to the greatness of knowing Christ!

New York

I leave my house in about an hour to go to New York with my church's youth group and the youth group of our mother church. We're going with an organization called Center for Student Ministries and we will be doing a lot of work with the poor and homeless. It's going to be pretty crazy. Hopefully I'll come back with some good stuff to write about, maybe even a few pictures to post, and most importantly, a little bit more transformed into the image of Christ.

Train up a child...

Lately I have had the privelege of being around a bunch of little kids. And I don't say that sarcastically :) Between the families at my house church and my friend and his family that I hand out with at least once a week, I'm around about a dozen different kids during the week and only about two of them are older than 10. The rest are younger than 6. It's been a very interesting experience. For instance, at my house church three out of the last four weeks one of the kids has thrown up. I meet with my friend every Tuesday night and he has five kids under the age of six and I usually spend some time reading to them while also trying to keep them from falling off of barstools and telling them to get off the table. I'm starting to wonder what God has in store for me in the future and if he's using this to train me for something. To be totally honest, I'm kind of terrified. Don't get me wrong, I like kids and I look forward to the day when I will have some of my own. But I'm terrified that I won't be a good father. There is so much that goes into it and I know I'm going to make a ton of mistakes and I just pray that the mistakes that I do make aren't too severe. The very prospect of being a father really makes me grateful that God is a sovereign God and he will keep me and my wife and kids. He's in control. I couldn't even imagine wanting to be in total control over the situation. I would totally screw it up. Anyway, the reason I brought all of this up is because being around this many kids has caused me to think a lot more about how to raise them and the verse that keeps coming to my mind is Proverbs 22:6 "Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it." If God ever blesses me with a wife and children I think this verse will define much of my parenting efforts. If I want to raise my children and in a God-glorifying manner, then I must train them up in the way of the Lord. If I want them to be not just good kids but good adults that seek after the glory of God, I must raise them to love and seek after God through the Bible. I must constantly be teaching them the Bible and the gospel and how everything is about the glory of God and that it is in seeking that glory that we will be satisfied and find eternal life. There is no greater parenting method than to train your children in the word of God. What a God-given blessing that my parents thought that way and constantly taught me the Bible. I can only pray that God would give me the grace to do the same for my kids. Praise God that he is a good Father and a sovereign Lord and he leads us in the way everlasting and provides for us the ultimate example of the kind of fathers and mothers we should be.

Gospel Series

I never blogged about it, but about two-and-a-half months ago I accepted the position at my church as youth leader. I'm not paid staff or anything, but I teach the youth (grades 7-12) Sunday mornings and I'm one of the youth leaders for our Wednesday night gathering (we combine with our "mother church"). So far we have gone through the book of Ruth, and the last two Sundays I have taught on heaven and hell. In teaching about hell, I centered on II Thess. 1:6-10. One of the phrases really caught me, and that is verse 8 where it says "dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus." After teaching about the eternal torment of hell and that it is those who don't know God and don't obey him that will endure that, I was deeply struck by the need to preach about what the Gospel is. In order for us to obey it, we must know it, and by knowing the Gospel, we will know who our God is. So I came up with a tentative eight-part series on the Gospel. Let me know if you have any feedback or additional topics that would be helpful to cover. Anyway here's the series:

The Good of the Gospel - God
The Object of the Gospel - Jesus
The Dilemma of the Gospel - Man
The Means of the Gospel - The Cross
The Effect of the Gospel - Sanctification and Glorification
The Enemies of the Gospel - Legalism and Antinomianism
The Power of the Gospel - God's Sovereignty and Evangelism
The Purpose of the Gospel - The Glory of God

That's it. Let me know what you think. God bless.

Response to my pastor

This is a response I just sent to my pastor about an article that he sent me and wanted my thoughts on it. In short, the article sees problems in the maturity level of believers in today's church and encouraged the development of small groups and discipleship to correct the problem. Anyway, I thought I would share my response with you.

I think he's right on in most of his assessments. A couple of minor nit-picky things like using the term saints for mature Christians. Paul even called the Corinthians saints. We don't want to create a catholic mindset where we elevate mature Christians over immature ones. We are all one in Christ and we don't want to create division where the Bible doesn't and in fact fights vigorously against it (Eph. 4:2-6). But overall I think his analysis of the problem is right on. Modern day evangelical churches are producing baby Christians - Hebrews 5 Christians if you will. The level of immaturity is even such that we are losing (perhaps even lost entirely) our distinction from the world and we cannot accurately gauge the salvation of most of the people sitting in the seats in front of us. Not that we are the judge of the people's salvation and relationship to God. May that never be! I would hate to think about me judging anybody's salvation. What I mean though, as I'm sure you know, is that all we can look at is the fruit in a person's life and if the American church today is producing fruit, it is small and produces little impact. There is an aspect where I don't fully line up with the solution that is being offered. Let me say, first, that I think small group discipleship and accountability are key. If we lack that, then we miss out on half of the equation and we won't achieve the fullness of God's blessing for us and we won't fully achieve the measure of a mature Christian and thus our church bodies won't achieve the full measure of a mature man. We must have small groups. We must encourage tight knit relationships (Col. 2:2 - being knit together in love). We must have close relationships founded upon, grounded and established upon, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This is my concern with the emphasis on small groups. The emphasis on small groups seems to think that if we just had good small groups then all our problems would disappear, or at least a good deal of them would. And my response to that is how often in scripture do we see the writers putting an emphasis on small group fellowship, above and beyond that of the larger fellowship? To be sure, there are examples. Acts 2 comes to mind as well as all the portions of scripture that talk about the group that Paul took with him. He was never without Barnabas or Silas, and it seemed he always had disciples around him as well, such as Timothy and Titus. He also spent a great deal of time with Aquila and Priscilla as well. In fact, at the end of most of Paul's letters he sends greetings from a great deal of people that were with him. At the end of II Timothy Paul urges Timothy to return to Paul quickly because only Luke was with him and everybody else had either abandoned him or gone into ministry in other parts of the world. All that to say, we have a great list of examples of small group fellowship and how needed and beneficial it is. If we think we can go it alone and be the American lone ranger Christian, then we have got it all wrong. We need each other, particularly in a smaller group as these examples illustrate. But my question is where do we see the gathering into small groups encouraged or commanded in Scripture? I'm just working off of memory, but I can't think of a single passage that relates small group fellowship specifically to spiritual growth. Large group fellowship is most definitely encouraged and commanded (Heb. 10:25 among others) but I can't think of any verses that specifically talk about small group fellowship and discipleship.

Rather, what I think you see more often in the Bible is an emphasis on preaching and teaching truth, specifically that of the gospel. You see this in passages like Eph. 4:11-16. What comes first? People gifted to preach and teach and expound upon the truth of God's word, and by so doing they equip the people who hear them to grow themselves up into a strong and mature body. What's interesting about this passage is that it links maturity to a knowledge of the Son of God and unity. And the end goal of all this is that we attain to the measure of the fullness of Christ. As it has been said before, when you train a cashier to spot a fake 20 you don't have them look a bunch of counterfeits, you have them look at and study the real thing until they are so accustomed to seeing the real thing that spotting a fake is easy. We all are, as Christians, called to be like Christ, so the only way that we can truly be like Christ is if we look at Him constantly. When Paul came to the Corinthians his goal and his means of making them mature Christians was to preach Christ and Him crucified and at the end of I Cor. he says that this is of first importance. When Paul wanted to correct heresy in the Galatian and Colossian churches he told them about Christ. In fact, in Colossians 2 Paul tells us that the way to be firmly grounded and established in the faith is to know and understand and gaze upon Christ. When Paul wanted to give the Philippians a reason for joy he talked about nothing other than Christ. When Paul wanted to have fellowship with the Roman church he wrote the book of Romans and then called the whole book the gospel in chapter one. In Rom. 1:14-17 Paul tells the Romans that he longed to preach the gospel to the believers there. Not to unbelievers, but believers. I think the church has made a huge mistake in thinking that the gospel is what brings us from life unto death and then the rest of our Christian lives is training separated from the gospel. I've been thinking about this and writing about this a lot lately and the short end of it is I believe that it is the gospel that saves us and, if you will excuse the word choice, it is the gospel that keeps us saved. As you know, I fully cling to and believe in the perseverance of the saints and that it is God's power that does it, but I believe that the means that God uses to do this is through the gospel. And if I went into some of the thoughts I've been having about all this and reasoning from the scripture, then this e-mail would get far too long. But the basic gist is that I believe all texts speak of God as seen through the face of Christ (II Cor. 4:4,6) and we must focus on Christ in order to produce transformation into the image of Christ in the lives of those who profess belief. So my conclusion about this article is that it is right in that we focus too much on programs and we have weak (even blasphemous) preaching and teaching, shallow books, and a self-centered gospel. But the answer isn't encourage small groups. The answer is preach and teach in such a way that people see the face of Christ and leave transformed into the image of Christ's glory and then those small group fellowships develop much easier. Granted, because of our nature and our individualistic culture we must encourage small group fellowships from the front, but I guarantee that it will be much easier when the congregation is gazing into the face of Christ and not just going along with some program that tells them that the Bible and God is all about them

The Trinity

How often have you guys thought about the Trinity - what kind of impact it has on our beliefs, is it really a core doctrine, why the need for the nicene creed, and how it affects our day to day lives? I have to admit I haven't really thought a lot about the Trinity...ever. I've known that it was a core belief. I've known the basic tenants of it since I was a child. I've even known how to defend it at a very basic level for a long time. But I've never really thought long and hard about it before. Until recently, that is. The Trinity has been at the forefront of my mind a lot lately, and I've come to realize just how utterly essential this doctrine is to everything that we hold. It affects our beliefs, it affects how we view God, it affects how we view ourselves, and so, not surprisingly, it does have an impact on how we live our daily lives. We must live our lives in light of a trinitarian worldview. We need to know that God has always been in relationship with God and has loved that relationship for eternity past. There has never been a time when God lacked perfect fellowship. Simply put, the Trinity destoys all our hopes of being the center of God's "life." God has always been the center of God's "life" and He has never needed us. The Trinity is a wonderfully humbling thing. And oh how wonderful it is to be humbled by a loving God who loves showing us how perfect He is. Hopefully, Lord willing, I'll be posting more on this subject in the future. I'm sure they will be pitiful in light of this glorious truth, but I pray that I will learn so much more of the nature of my God through this study and be brought so much lower than I currently think myself to be. God bless.

...it was the worst of times

What an awesome thought that this earth is the worst of times for us! It will never get any worse than this life. I was talking about this with a friend of mine today and we both had had pretty rough days at work in general. Things just hadn't gone too well. And we both were filled with joy at the thought that the glory that awaits us will make all of this look like nothing. Our time down here doesn't even compare to what awaits us. What a hope we have in Jesus. We have died with Him and our life is now hidden in Him awaiting the time when we will be revealed with Him in glory. I love how I Peter 1:8-9 talks about our lives here on this earth. Right now we don't see Jesus as we will at the revelation of His glory (I Jn. 3:2), but we love Him and believe in Him and because of this glimpse we see now in the word we rejoice with joy inexpressable and full of glory. Let us take rest in that. We rejoice explosively because of the little bit that has been revealed to us about our Savior. Imagine what heaven will be like!

God loves being God

Lately, I've been looking at a lot of cool things in creation. Last Saturday, I watched part of a show on the Discovery channel called "Blue Planet." In the one we watched they took a submersible two miles down to the floor of the ocean. Down there there is no light. The weight of the water is a pulverizing 3800 pounds/square inch. The temperature at the thermal vents is around 750 degrees. It's an amazing world. And at the bottom of this world there are animals that create their own light called bioluminescence. This light helps them catch food and evade attack. While I was watching that the thought struck me that even in the darkest places, there is still light. The analogy is pretty obvious in that even in the spiritually darkest places, there is still light. It might be small and weak, but it is still there and it still illumines and transforms. The show continued and they showed these incredible creatures that looked alien. I had never seen anything that looked like them. And the amazing thing is that even under all that weight of water, their physical structure looked more delicate than anything I've seen above water. And then today, I got on the hubble telescope web page and looked at amazing pictures of far away galaxies and stars. I realized that these things have been there since God spoke them into existence during the first six days of time itself and man had never seen them. God didn't create creation for man. God created everything for God. God loves being God. God loves displaying His glory for the very sake of demonstrating the overflow of His nature even if man isn't there to appreciate it. It brought to mind Job 38:25-27: 25 “Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain and a way for the thunderbolt, 26 to bring rain on a land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man, 27 to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground sprout with grass?

God brings rain on land where there is no man because God wants to pour it out and show the greatness of His glory. We are not the center, we never were the center, and praise God we never will be the center. He was, is, and always will be the center of everything and in Him everything lives and moves and has their being. All things are from Him, through Him, and to Him, to Him be the glory forevermore. We were made to feel small.

D. James Kennedy

D. James Kennedy died earlier this morning in his sleep. From what I understand (which isn't much) he had been having some health problems lately and had decided to retire from his ministry. I never knew much about him but I was aware of him and some of his impact (especially as it related to ECT) and from what I've read lately he was a faithful servant of God and served the church in America greatly. I'm sure he will be greatly missed by many. Another saint has gone home. Praise the Lord!

I Beg

This is another of the great songs on Shane & Shane's new cd "Pages." (You're probably going to be hearing a lot about this cd over the next few posts.) I just want to talk about the chorus of this song. It starts with a pre-chorus that says "I'm haunted by a God that has the right to ask what by the very nature of my rebellion I cannot give" I love this line. It is so Augustinian: "Command what you will, but give what you command." This has been my prayer over the last couple weeks. Probably in large part to reading Piper's short commentary on Augustine in "The Legacy of Sovereign Joy." I too am haunted by the fact that God commands me to do things that I am completely unable to do them. One of the major sins I struggle with in my life is that of trying to rely on my own strength to do things. I acknowledge that God is sovereign, and I frequently ask God to reveal His will to me and then I respond "Thanks God. You can step aside now. I got this." I think I can figure it out, perform the work, say the words. I am completely incapable and I've been wrestling a lot with my pride over this issue. So my prayer is the same as the chorus of this song: "I beg for you to move, I beg for you to move, I beg for you to break through." O God, break through my pride and the heart that I keep trying to turn back into stone. Make me humble. I long for brokenness, and the desire to say "Not by my will, but the Lord's. Not by my strength, but Yours." Have Your way with me.

Doxology

I couldn't think of a title for this post, until I got to the end. I'm currently listening to the new Shane and Shane cd. It's incredible. It's definitely different from their past cds. I know it will take some time to get used to it, but its a great cd. It leads into worship so well. I can't help but worship my Redeemer when listening to these songs. So far my favorite song on the cd, and perhaps of all S&S songs, is "Embracing Accusation." When I heard it I burst into tears and wept with joy and grief. The truth of the song is so amazing and it coincided with some of the things that God has been showing me in His word. What an amazing Gospel song. Even if you don't buy the cd, listen to that song. It may not impact you as dramatically as it did me, but the truth of it cannot be denied. Praise the Lord! My Redeemer lives! My Advocate, Intercessor, Savior, and my Righteousness! To You alone be all glory forevermore!

And there was great rejoicing

Shane & Shane's new cd comes out tomorrow! I pre-ordered mine in order to get the behind the scenes extra stuff, so I don't know when exactly I'll be getting my copy, but when it does come, expect a review. Until then, go now and buy it as soon as possible. It's bound to be good.

I smell like smoke

After five years of having a job, I finally took a vacation. I've had some long weekends before, but this summer I took some serious time off. I just spent the last five days at Grand Teton National Park (which is right next to Jackson, Wy) with my parents, and my sisters and their husbands. It was great. I had forgotton how much I missed camping. Being outside, sitting by the campfire, watching black bears roam through the campsite looking for food (picture forthcoming), I love it. It was a really good week. We did a lot of stuff. Monday we had dinner at the Bar J Ranch. If you are ever in Jackson, you have to visit the Bar J Ranch. This was my third time. Basically, it's a real cattle ranch and you show up (hopefully with a reservation, you'll need it) and pay for your meal. There are about five choices. I had the chicken and bbq beef combo. Then you find your table in this big barn-looking auditorium. There are about 700 people seated in the building. They are able to serve all 700 people within 20 minutes. It's pretty cool. After you finish eating, you get some dinner entertainment with the Bar J Wranglers. They sing a bunch of songs, do some comedy stuff, it's a blast. I highly recommend it. Tuesday we visited yellowstone and saw Old Faithful and walked around the geysers and the hot pools. Wednesday, we went whitewater rafting down the Snake river. This was also my third time doing that. The rapids weren't as big this time as they have been in the past due to a lot of rain that they have had lately. But it was still a ton of fun. If you've never been, basically you sit on the side of a small 8-man raft and you have to paddle through all of the rapids. If you don't paddle, then there's a good chance that you won't make it through, so there is pretty good incentive to paddle through them. It's always a little scary at first, but it's a ton of fun. On one of the bigger rapids with six foot waves, my brother-in-law, Eric, was sitting in front of me and got knocked back into me. It's pretty intense. I love it. Thursday we took a day and just chilled out. We didn't do anything planned, we just sat around the campfire and read, or played Scrabble or cards, some of us took a walk, just a good relaxing day. I got a fair amount of reading done. Spent a lot of time reading the Word and I got half-way through both Preaching the Cross and The Legacy of Sovereign Joy. Both really good books. I look forward to finishing them. And finally, I drove home yesterday. As much as I love camping, I really loved sleeping in my own bed last night. If only I could get the campfire back home, then everything would be perfect. Anyway, that's where I've been the last week. Hope your weeks have been good. God Bless.

The long awaited return

Sorry I've been away for so long. Some of that has been because my computer had a nervous breakdown and gave me the blue screen of death. It took a while but it's finally back on its feet. I feel as though a lot has happened to me lately, but ironically I don't know what to talk about. Let's start with a cd review.

I recently bought Matt Redman's new cd, Beautiful News. I must say it is excellent. It's one of the best cds I've ever listened to. It is incredible musically (especially considering the worship music genre), but the best part of the cd is the lyrics. They are so God-centered and Bible-saturated that they can't help but convict and encourage and uplift. They constantly point me to God time and time again. My favorite song on the cd is "Yes and Amen." It has been a particularly convicting song to me lately. We need to declare Yes and Amen to everything that God does and asks us to do. So often my mind is on my own agenda and my own ideas and I need to remember that God is the sovereign ruler over my life and He is also a good and loving Father and everything He asks of me and everything He does is good and perfect and is the best thing for me and I need to obey in faith (Rom. 1:5). That concept of the obedience that comes from faith has also really been on my mind lately. Maybe I'll devote a future post to that sometime.

I've also been recording some guitar parts (and the occasional vocal part) for a friend of mine. He's written a bunch of songs based on the Song of Solomon and we're recording them at a studio. Hopefully we'll have a cd all together sometime soon. He's also doing me the honor of recording a song that I wrote and putting that on the cd as well. I've had a lot of fun doing it. I'm looking forward to recording the rest of the songs. The songs also have really good lyrics and it's been a joy to hear scripture sung.

And finally, I just got back from spending a week with Jen and Kellen up in Salmon, Idaho. Kellen just became the pastor of the Calvary Chapel up there. It's been very encouraging to see what God is doing in him and in the people of the church up there. We had a lot of good discussions and it was a great time of rest and relaxation. I think that was the longest amount of time I have had off since I started working when I was 18. Up until then I hadn't had anything longer than a five-day weekend, so it was a good vacation. I was able to do a lot of praying and reading during that time also. I read Mark Driscoll's "Confessions of a Reformission Reverend," which just proved to me that I am not Mark Driscoll. It was a good autobiography of sorts and gave an inside look as to how Mars Hill started and what it's goals were and are and how they hope to acheive them through the grace of God. I also read most of "The Supremacy of God in Preaching" by Piper and "How Readest Thou" by Ryle. Both are really short and really good. I recommend them both.

Anyway, that ought to be enough for now. I know I've promised it before, but this time I really will try and post a bit more frequently. Be praying for me. I have some pretty big decisions to make and I need a humble heart before God. And thanks to my two readers for checking in on me :) God bless.

Quote of the Day

Charles Spurgeon on Calvinism and the Gospel, as quoted by Mark Dever at blog.9marks.org:

"I have my own private opinion, that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and him crucified, unless you preach what now-a-days is called Calvinism. I have my own ideas, and those I always state boldly. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism. Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith without works; not unless we preach the sovereignty of God in his dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor, I think, can we preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the peculiar redemption which Christ made for his elect and chosen people; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation, after having believed. Such a gospel I abhor. The gospel of the Bible is not such a gospel as that. We preach Christ and him crucified in a different fashion, and to all gainsayers we reply, "We have not so learned Christ."

Postmodernism's Delimma: Part 1

I was going to write this paper back in September. I started on it and worked on it for about a week and then I kind of hit a roadblock and totally stopped. Well, I have started to work on it again and I'm going to start posting parts of it. Hopefully this will inspire me to complete the work as best as I possibly can as soon as I possibly can. This first installment deals only with the philosophical propositions that hold postmodernism up, namely that of relativism. Also, I should note that, although the thoughts are my own, I am a philosophical second-hander and am basing most of my assumptions in this paper on the work of David Wells and his book "Above All Earthly Pow'rs" and my experience in college as a philosophy minor and hearing my professor describe his own relativism. I also realize that this is only a brief handling of the subject and could us a great deal more depth, so I would appreciate any comments anybody has on the subject. Anyway, without further ado, here is part one:

The Definitional Impossibility of Relativity

As our world moves farther along the road of post-modernism, we must consider whether or not its guiding principles are valid or not. Post-modernism relies very heavily on relativity. Postmodernism is a move away from modernism and the enlightenment and the belief that there is absolute truth. Truth is relative and is defined by the self, now. Whatever is true for you is what truth is. We must be tolerant of everyone else’s beliefs and “truths” because there is no set truth that we must believe in. The only thing that we can be intolerant of is the forcing of our own “truths” onto someone who does not accept those truths, and therefore, is not held to them. That person is only held to the truths that he or she accepts. Therefore, postmodernism can be defined as the rejection of absolute truths (hence the "post" modern) and the belief that truth is now relegated to the individual and cannot be universally applied.

This belief is founded upon the fact that many people have very differing views of what truth is. I believe that such and such is truth, but someone else believes that the opposite is true. How can we determine who is right? What determines absolutes? Instead of wrestling with these questions, the postmodern turns to the answer that there must not be any absolutes because we can’t seem to agree on what truth is and who determines it. Truth is relative. But can this be possible?

In a word, no. Relativity is definitionally impossible. Relativity is founded upon the principle that there are no absolute truths. This is an absolute statement. But we’ve all heard this objection before. It usually goes something like this:
Professor: There is no such thing as absolutes!
Smarty-pants Student: But isn't that an absolute statement?

Why hasn’t this derailed post-modernism? Is this objection a correct one? I believe that it is a correct objection. We’ll deal with why it hasn’t derailed this dominant belief system later. For now, I will deal with the philosophical problems that relativism must face. I believe it is a correct objection because for postmodernism to be true it must be the case that there are no truths that are absolute, otherwise, we could hold all people to the same absolute truths. If there are absolutes, then postmodernism fails because its guiding principle, relativity, crumbles. To put it in a classical argument it would go as follows:
1. If relativism is true, then there must be no absolutes.
2. There are absolutes (as demonstrated by the above statement)
3. Therefore, relativism isn’t true
Relativism is, therefore, definitionally impossible.

But are there ways around this? Postmoderns can’t say that there are no absolutes because that would be an absolute statement. They can’t say that there are absolutes because that denies relativity and is an absolute statement. But can we say that there might be absolutes? This is not an absolute statement, because it doesn’t say that absolutes exist or not, it only allows for the possibility. But it is this very possibility that denies relativity. Relativists cannot allow for the possibility of absolutes because that would mean that truth is not always defined by ourselves, but that there can be (or at least might be) objective truths for all people. So relativity in general is impossible. But can we allow for ethical relativity? This is where postmodernism hangs. After all, a postmodern relativist would still claim that 2 + 2 = 4 in all cases, but they would deny that what is ethically true for me must be ethically true for others. So postmoderns wouldn’t deny absolutes absolutely, but they would deny them in ethical matters and matters of religion.

However, the same problem crops up in this area as well. Definitionally, a relativist cannot claim that there are no ethical absolutes because that is an absolute statement. However, it could be objected that the above absolute statement isn’t an ethical statement and therefore does not fall into the same trap as before. That is to say, you can make absolute statements about ethics because those absolute statements only negate general relativity, not ethical relativity. Therefore, I can say there are no ethical absolutes without denying my original premise. This is an untenable position. In this scenario absolutes are allowed but only in regard to general matters, not in regard to ethical maters and then trying to differentiate between ethical relativity and general relativity. If general relativity doesn’t exist, then how can ethical relativity? We cannot make absolute statements about ethics and still hold on to ethical relativity. I cannot think of any argumentation that would support this without becoming absurd.

There is another problem with ethical relativity. Relativity itself isn’t the only force behind postmodernism. Moral elitism, or rather, the repugnance of it is also a driving force behind postmodernism and the relativity that is its bedrock and cornerstone. Postmodernism rejects the idea that we can impose our ethics and morals on another culture. How dare we claim that we know the only right way to live and act and then expect all other cultures and persons to ascribe to it. This is one of the main criticisms of religion in general and Christianity in particular. It is okay (indeed, even encouraged) to have and hold certain religious beliefs. The problem comes when we attempt to change the worldview and ethics of those who don’t believe the way we do. How can we possibly say that we have the right to try and convert other religions and peoples to our way of thinking. There are so many different religions and faiths, how can we claim to have the best one? Therefore, ethics (and religion, morals, etc.) must be relative. How can we impose our ethics on one another?

But in saying this, they deny their own ethical relativism. They have made supposed moral humility an absolute moral good (not to mention that their moral humility turns into pride when confronting those seeking to impose ethical absolutes). They also commit the same error as general relativity because it declares there can be no moral absolutes. This, obviously, is an absolute statement. Postmoderns cannot cling to moral relativity and then declare tolerance of other religious views an absolute moral good. You cannot attack those who are intolerant of other religions and then say that morals and ethics are relevant. Ethical relativity in the postmodern worldview is impossible.

Really quick

If you haven't visited desiringGod.org recently then you need to know that this coming Wednesday and Thursday all books in their store are only $5, no exceptions. I know I'm going to be getting a whole bunch of them :)

A much needed update

I just became a man today! I shot a bunch of guns :) I went with my pastor and some friends and we shot a couple of shotguns, a pistol, and a couple muzzle-loader rifles in a ravine near the Salt Lake. It was a lot of fun. We were throwing skeet and trying to shoot them. I was by far the worst, but, in my defense, all the other guys had a lot more experience shoot various things than I did. They all know what they're doing. I'm pretty good at shoot a pistol or rifle at a stationary target, but trying to blow something moving out of the sky is a bit more tricky. It was a lot of fun though. My shoulder will probably hurt for a week now.

Anyway, a lot has happened over the last month or so. A few weeks ago I road-tripped to Las Vegas with a friend of mine in order to visit some friends, Andy and Annie, that were there for a few weeks training at the Air Force base near the city. We had a really good time. The trip was really good and we listened to some good sermons. The first night we were there we ate dinner at In 'n out, which is the best fast food place of all time and I haven't had it for about three or four years or so (we don't have one in northern Utah). We then went to a massive Pro Bass Shop in one of the casinos (my friends are big into hunting and fishing). They had a pretty big aquarium in there with some various rays and some small sharks along with a bunch of cool fish. After we had seen our share of outdoors stuff we went to the Belagio and walked around inside a little bit (very fancy and upscale) and then we watched the fountain show. If you've seen Ocean's Eleven, at the very end of the movie all the characters stand around the fountain and watch the show. That's kind of like what we did, only with a lot more people around us. We watched two shows and my friends' baby, Henry, demanded that we go back to their room. It was a really fun night. The next day we went to Hoover Dam and took the tour. It was amazing. The dam is massive. I'd post some pictures, but I'm too lazy to upload them to my computer. That night we went to the Stratosphere, which is the Space Needle looking thing, and went to the top and checked out the strip at night. We got some really good views, the night was clear, and everything was brilliantly lit up. Before we did that, though, we went to the Saturday night service at the local mega church, Central Christian Church. Surprisingly, it wasn't half bad. They only did three songs (instead of spending all their time on songs) and the sermon attempted to exposit scripture and actually lasted longer than 30 minutes. The sermon could have been better, but it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. All-in-all, a good night and a really good trip. And much to the chagrin of Vegas (and its nickname) we did it all without partaking of the vast amounts of sin available. That was the beginning of my summer. More to follow...

Interview

I have had a great couple of days. I think I may just have to post about them. Which I guess would be the exception given my current lack of posting. But for now, I will post an interview courtesy of Laur.

1) Have you ever gotten a ticket? Tell us about it.
Twice. The first time I was driving to work and I was going 47 in a 35. However, the other side of the road had a 50 mph speed limit so I thought it was crazy that I got a ticket (but I didn't say that to the cop. It kind of came to me sometime after). To make matters worse, they changed the limit about two weeks later. But I didn't fight it because I had been speeding in the previous section and figured it was my just deserts. I ended up going to traffic school though and the ticket is still not on my record :) The second time I was trying to stay behind my brother-in-law and rolled a stop sign pretty badly even though I knew that there was a cop on that road. That was a pretty stupid ticket :) I think that was about 3 or 4 years ago. Since then - ticket free!

2) When you were small, say 7 years old, what one food would you have wanted to have if you had to pick just one to eat for the rest of your life?
Hands down, pizza - pepperoni only. I thought that was God's gift to mankind. I could eat pizza all the time.

3) Pets as a child? (Not a yes or no question.)
Yes :) ...But seriously, my family had a dog and a cat when I was a kid. Our dog was named Uriah and was about the ugliest mutt you have ever seen, which actually made him rather adorable. He was a great dog. Very devoted and very protective, which was his unfortunate downfall. Because he was so protective he ended up biting a few people that he thought were threats to us kids. So my parents ended up taking him to the pound. As a family we never had a dog after that, although my younger sister now has a basset hound named Phebe. My cat was named Emily (although the name Bathsheba was jokingly kicked around) and we got her when I was 3 or 4. She was a great cat. Very personable and enjoyed being around you, but wasn't too needy. She lived for about 14 years and died of natural causes. Since then my family has gotten two more cats named Shylock and Othello.

4) If you could own a plane or a boat (for personal operation, not just to have a lear jet and a pilot to fly you around), which would you pick? What would you christen it?
Interesting... That's a tough one. I would probably go with a plane. That way I could use it to visit my friends and family, whereas a boat would probably end up being more recreational only. Plus with a boat you then have to get a trailor and a new truck. And although the new truck sounds tempting, I'll have to go with the plane. You could also use the plane for mission trips and, if big enough, perhaps I could even get to Europe with it. As for the name, I only have two options. One is Sola Deo Gloria for obvious reasons. The other would be Diana. The reason for this is that after I read Jane Eyre I really liked the name Diana and for a long time wanted to name my first daughter that. So I think those would be my two options.

5) When were you baptized and why then?
I was baptized when I was about seven. I can still remember sitting in my pastor's office with my dad while he explained what baptism was. He said something like "baptism is a little like taking a bath. When you take a bath you wash all the dirt off of you. Baptism is an outward demonstration of when our sins were washed off of us." Or something like that. I knew that when we are baptized we are proclaiming that we are Christians and I wanted to do that. My dad ended up baptizing me and I remember giving an account of my salvation and who I believed Jesus was and my dad asked me what my favorite Bible verse was. It was Phil. 4:13. I thought that was about the coolest verse in the Bible. Back then I thought that meant that if God wanted me to, I could outrun my dad's truck. My dad tried to dispell that notion and give me a more biblical view, but I still believed that if God really wanted me to, I could :)

If you would like to be interviewed and join in the fun than just follow these directions:
1. Leave me a comment that says "Interview me."
2. I respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you ask them five questions.

Prayer Request

Wow! It's been over a month since I last posted anything. A lot has gone on since then. I've still been working about 50 hours per week. God's teaching me a lot about endurance and work ethic through that. But what I really need prayer for is this Sunday. We are having a missions Sunday and I'm giving one of the messages. The Lord has really been teaching me a lot through the whole process. I'm having to learn all over again how dependent I am on Him and how to stop doing things in my own power. It has been a really humbling experience. And on top of that, it just so happened that our worship leader is going on a camping trip that Sunday and needed me to cover for him, so I'm leading worship this Sunday as well. Pray that God would give me the physical energy and vocal cords to do everything and more importantly pray that God would speak through me and impact the hearts of the hearers and that I would be humble and give the glory to God. I'm looking forward to what God will do through all of this. What a great and glorious God we serve! Grace and peace to you all.

I'm back again

So I know I haven't posted in a long time, but I have a good excuse. I ended up moving into a room in a friend's house a couple of weeks ago and I didn't get internet access until just now. Plus, I don't know if I would have posted anyway during that time, because I've been working like a mad man. I think I've worked an average of about 55 hours per week over the last three or four weeks. I've had one Saturday off in the last month. The only reason I'm up right now is because I'm waiting for some laundry to get done. And the only reason that can't wait until tomorrow is because I have some dress shirts in the dryer and I have to take them out immediately so I don't have to do any ironing :) I dislike ironing. I think I've only done it once. Perhaps I would enjoy it if I knew how to do it. My work schedule hasn't been all bad though. I'm beginning to learn how you can waste your life working. I used to think of wasting your life only in terms of doing nothing, watching a lot of tv, etc. Now I know you can totally waste your life by working too much. I tell ya, at the end of a hard day I feel emotionally, physically, and spiritually dry. It can get really hard to focus on Christ after days like that. But I'm slowly learning how and I'm really resting on the phrase in Psalm 23 when it says that He restores my soul. I love that God restores our souls. Just yesterday, I got to experience it up close and personal. I worked from six in the morning until noon and had a fairly bad day. But when I got home I started studying for my Sunday school lesson and just dived into the word and a commentary and I felt totally refreshed afterward. It was like the morning never even happened. What an awesome God we serve who continues to keep His amazing promises. Praise Him!

Today has been a really good day too. After church, I played basketball with some guys from my church and another church and there was a guy there shooting around. He ended up playing a couple games with us and me and my pastor got a chance to share the gospel with him afterward. We talked to him for about 15 minutes before my pastor had to leave, but I ended up talking to him for about 30-45 more minutes, after which he asked God for forgiveness and trusted in Christ alone to save him! It was really cool. I had never been used to lead another person to salvation before. I'm constantly amazed that God would use such a frail vessel as me. I love II Cor. 4:4-7. We are the ministers of such an amazing gospel and we carry it in vessels of clay in order that all might know that it was God and not us that did the work. Anyway, I took him to the college group tonight and gave him a Bible. He seemed to connect with some of the people there and there definitely seems like a change has taken place in his life, but we don't know if this is just seed falling on rocks or if it is a genuine conversion until fruit becomes evident. I'm going to take him to my Bible study tomorrow night. I really hope that he has a true relationship with Christ. How amazing His work is! Well, I think I need to take a shower and get my laundry.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ

Hymn rewrite

I was reading about William Cowper on Micah's blog and I really loved the lyrics to "There is a Fountain." I hadn't read them in a long time, and I think I'm finally beginning to understand the beautiful depth of them. However, I'm not a big fan of the tune. It's not a bad tune. It's just not my favorite. So I decided to rewrite it. This is my second tune rewrite. The first was "Be Still My Soul." But I did something different with this one. As I played through my rewrite I decided I needed to add a chorus. Personally, I really like this recent twist on old, awesome hymns. I know, it might be close to blaspheme for some :) but I like it. I think it adds a central thought to fix your attention on and not be lost in the number of deep thoughts that are being sung. Anyway, here is my rewrite:

There Is A Fountain
Verse 1
There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains.
The dying thief rejoiced to see, That fountain in his day;
And there may I, though vile as he, Wash all my sins away. (2x last half)
Chorus
There is a fountain so rich and free,
There grace was bought and applied to me
Glory displayed and peace restored
And but the cross I boast no more
Verse 2
Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood, Shall never lose its power
’Til all the ransomed church of God, Be saved to sin no more.
E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream, Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme, And shall be ’til I die. (2x last half)
(Chorus)
Verse 3
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue, Lies silent in the grave,
Then in a nobler, sweeter song, I’ll sing Thy pow’r to save. (2x last half)
(Chorus)
(End on last verse)
©Darwin Jordan Music.

You Satisfy

This is a song I started writing a while ago and I finally got around to finish it. I guess I'm still a pretty massive procrastinator :)

You Satisfy
Verse 1
Two sin I commit, they always find me out
I have turned from You, the Living Fount
Then I turn to the broken cup this world sold
And I drink the sand, for no water it holds
Chorus
O Living Water, You satisfy, You satisfy
And pleasure You possess when I behold You on high
You filled my heart with more joy than all other things
To You and You alone will my praise I bring
Verse 2
Now I live for You, my blessed Savior
And I breath You in, for it’s You that I adore
Now I take delight in You, my portion forevermore
Draw near to me, help me love You more
Ending
My Portion, My Savior, You are good, draw near to me
I live You, breathe You, die to me for You
I hunger, I thirst for You, You fill me, I’m satisfied
All others I forsake now, To You alone I turn

Ockham's Razor and the Problem of Evil

Ockham’s Razor and the Problem of Evil

How can a good and omnipotent God allow sin and evil to exist in His creation? This is the basic question the drives the so-called Problem of Evil (PoE). It has been stated in other formats as well. Such as, how can a loving God allow such bad things to happen. In this phrasing it is assumed that God has the attribute of omnipotence (that is, all powerful) and bad things are evil. The obvious reason why the problem of evil exists is that evil does definitely exist and God could have prevented it. We know evil exists because of things and people like Hitler, the Holocaust, murder, theft, lying, serial killers, etc. And if God is who the Bible claims He is, then He is an omnipotent Being that is capable of keeping evil from ever appearing. He is also a good God and would apparently have cause to keep evil from appearing because of His intrinsic and perfect goodness. It is assumed that God’s intrinsic and perfect goodness conflicts with the existence of evil such that God’s omnipotence would be forced to eradicate it. Therefore, if the God of the Bible exists, then the existence of evil is incongruous with His existence. Therefore, it would appear that if we want to solve this problem, then we will have to change one of the three variables in this equation. However, I’m not going to go into the arguments for and against which variables to do away with or lessen (i.e. lessen the extent of God’s omnipotence). I will say, however, that I don’t think we should or need to eradicate or lesson any of God’s attributes or the extent of the existence and depravity of evil. My goal, however, is to respond to a common objection based on this problem. In a past philosophy class, I was asked by a professor, “Wouldn’t it have been easier to create us without the capacity for evil and sin?” My response at the time was that in order for us to see the fullness of the glory of God displayed in His justice as well as His grace, sin had to exist. He then responded by saying, “Couldn’t God just have shown us a Simpsons episode that described what evil was and then we would have been able to see God’s justice?” I responded by saying that we can’t truly know what grace and justice are (as well as a myriad of other attributes of God) if we don’t experience them. I am not completely satisfied with my answers to these questions. In my first response I think I touched on the truth, but I don’t know about my second response. It may very well be true, but it isn’t the most convincing argument and doesn’t exalt God as highly as He could be. Therefore, it is my purpose to examine this issue further and demonstrate how evil is necessary for God’s glory to be displayed in its fullness.

I believe that the PoE exists in human minds because of Ockham’s razor working in the mind of humanity, which is bent on suppressing the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18). Ockham’s razor states that “entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.'' Basically, this means that given two or more scenarios that have the same or similar result, the simplest is usually the right answer. The simplest answer in the minds of humans regarding the PoE is that God should have made us incapable of evil and then sin wouldn’t exist. We know God is capable of this because of His omnipotence and we know that He created heaven which is a place where we will be incapable of sin and still see the glory of God. Incapablility of sin and ability to see God’s glory are not incongruous. In fact, the Bible tells us that because of our glorification and final sanctification we will actually be able to glorify God perfectly. As is the case in many false teachings, the objection to the existence of evil is based partly on truth. So the root question in the minds of men is why did God create us with the capacity to sin? Wouldn’t it have been simpler to create us without an ability to sin and then we wouldn’t have all the problems that we have now? But I think we need to go back even further to a more basic question. Why did God create the world? Being a perfect God, He didn’t lack something that creation provided. The triune God enjoyed perfect unity, perfect love, perfect enjoyment, and perfect satisfaction in Himself. Why even create the world in the first place? And why create a world that God knows will sin and need saving? Why create a world where one member of the Godhead will have to suffer and die on the cross and bear the sins of many? That doesn’t make sense. To our minds, God would have been better off without this world. God has one purpose and end in all that He does: namely, to glorify Himself. If He failed to have this purpose, then God wouldn’t be God. He would be an idolater. God must glorify Himself in all that He does or He would be worshiping something else and thereby making that object a God and removing His deity from Himself and giving it to another. In Isaiah 48:11 God says, “For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.” Therefore, the only conclusion we can come to about the creation and continued existence of the world is that God intends to glorify Himself through it as its ultimate end. Therefore, in light of this truth, sin is necessary in order to display the fullness of His glory as seen in His manifold attributes. God must glorify Himself by displaying both love and justice, mercy and wrath, as well as many other attributes that are only seen with the existence of sin. God would not create a universe that displays His glory, but does not give a full picture of that glory. So God’s simplest answer to the right question – namely, how can God glorify Himself most fully – is to create a world where sin is possible and then allow it to occur. God cannot defeat His own purpose – His glory – by creating a world that fails to display His glory. This means that His purpose is not only to create beings to see and enjoy His glory, but that creation itself is meant to demonstrate the fullness of His glory as well as a finite creation can display infinite glory. Creation wasn’t just meant to see and enjoy; it is meant to demonstrate and show forth. The only way the universe can show forth the fullness of God’s glory is if sin and evil exist and God can conquer them and show forth mercy and justice, grace, love, wrath, etc.

Prayer Request

If you guys would, I could really use some prayer for my living situation. I have about two-and-a-half weeks to either find a roommate or another place to live. I think God is teaching me how to rely on Him through all of this. I tend to not learn this lesson very well. I find it really easy to rely on myself far too often, which is completely insane considering who God is and who I am. Amazing how a pitiful creature like me tries to say to God, "It's okay, I got this one." So if you would, I would appreciate your prayers for me in this situation. The resolution of my living situation doesn't really concern me as much as seeing Christ in all of this and treasuring that. Wherever I end up living, I just want to trust God more. He is a good and sovereign God, and no matter how hard it gets, He always has my good and His glory in mind. Praise the LORD!

"Please Come Home"

Okay. I've listened to the new, aforementioned, Dustin Kensrue called "Please Come Home." It is an excellent cd. The only way I can describe it is as Johnny Cash-blues-folk rock. I absolutely love it. And I wish I could write stuff like that. The cd receives a solid A from me. Great music and really good lyrics too. The title track is based on the prodigal son and focuses on the father's love for his son. It's really good. I highly encourage everyone to check it out. But if you have doubts, you can check out a few of his songs at myspace.com/dustinkensrue. Well, I should be getting to bed soon. Don't know if I will, but I should :) May God give you all a blessed night.

Check out this video

This is a really cool song by Dustin Kensrue. Very good. In fact, I've been waiting for his solo cd to come out for a while and I just found out that it's been available for a month and a half so I'm leaving my house right now to go get it.

The weather recently has been absolutely beautiful. I love this time of year. Enjoy!

And the #1 Single on the Country-Rock-Half Folk-Kinda Bluesy Chart is...

So I'm sitting in my living room, messing around on my guitar and I start playing this really basic chord progression (literally A, D, A, D, etc.). As I'm playing it I feel the need to sing something to it. But not just anything, it has to be about a girl. (They always have to be about a girl, right?) And not just about a girl, but something vaguely sad, yet oddly uplifting. So I start making up some lyrics and I think I might have just written the first half of the next hit single on the aforementioned Country-Rock-Half Folk-Kinda Bluesy Chart (yeah, I don't know what that means either). So here it is:

She's goin' back home to Georgia (she has to be from the south, right?)
She's goin' back home
She don't know what she's goin' to
But she know's what she's been from

She's going' back home (are you catching a theme?)
To those that know her best
She hates where she's been from
She's tired of being out west

Just for the record, there is no inspiration for this song. Just whatever was going through my head in the two minutes it took to compose this. Anyway, that's the long and short of it.

Chapter One

That's the name of one of Shane & Shane's songs. It's based on John 1:18 "No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known." I was listening to my ipod at work today on shuffle and this song happened to come on. As I listened to the lyrics and thought about what that verse was talking about I just started crying. I realized that lately I've had somewhat of a hard heart toward God and haven't seen Christ as who he truly is and considered him my only source of joy. He is the image of the invisible God and because of him we get the awesome pleasure of seeing God displayed in Christ's face. This is the joy of the world. We see God through Christ, and it is everything to us. Psalm 16:2 "I say to the Lord, 'You are my Lord;I have no good apart from you.'" God has shone into our hearts and has allowed us to not only know him, but delight in him. Praise God that he caused this song to come on and allowed me to truly hear it. I'll leave you with the lyrics. They make an awesome and humble prayer.

Chapter 1
Stir my affections
Stir my affections
Stir my affection for You
for You're my only hope

You Yeshua
explained the way He moves
as just an ordinary man
then again, You're the first, Jesus
and by Your hand we move
You're the image of the invisible God
You are God, You are God

Bring fascination
Bring fascination
Bring fascination of You
for You're my only hope

Crash and Burn

Can you crash and burn at a job fair without even an interview? I think that's what just happened. Some background: I am trying to find a better job right now. Preferably one that requires some thought. I would like to try and use my degree somewhere. I heard that a local company was having a job fair. The company is ATK Thiokol. You might have heard of them, they do a lot with NASA and the space program. They were looking to fill about 300 engineering jobs. I'm a communication major with a bunch of clerical jobs under my belt. You can probably already imagine how this turned out. I knew I was a long shot, but they were hiring for some non-specialized engineering jobs like quality, so I thought what the heck, I'll give it a try. I got there at around 9 a.m. this morning and went to the front desk to sign in. I greeted the woman behind the desk, handed her my resume and proceeded to sign in. When I finished I looked back up at her and could tell she was wondering what on earth I was doing there. She asked what I was looking into and I told her quality or logistics because with my skill set I thought I would be good at them. She told me that they didn't have any of those hiring managers at the job fair and the best way to get my resume into their hands would be to go on their website and apply that way. I'm pretty sure I just got the boot. She told me I could go in and look at their materials and help myself to some refreshments if I wanted to. So I decided to not make the morning a total waste and took some information and a free pen. The pen looks like it might be a decent one, too. Anyway, that's how you can crash and burn without even an interview.

Clothing

I've been listening to Piper's current series on marriage lately. Ipods and podcasts are really cool, by the way. A week or two ago, he talked about being naked and not ashamed. He was referring back to Genesis 2:25 and the end of God's definition of marriage. As he was talking about the clothing Adam and Eve used to cover themselves after the fall I was really struck with the gospel in this passage. Adam and Eve started out as perfect and therefore there was no need to cover themselves. There was no sin. But as soon as they sinned, they knew they needed to cover themselves. And I was struck with the truth that as fallen human beings, we recognize our sinfulness and attempt to cover ourselves with our own handmade clothing. We do good deeds, give money to the poor, try to live a good life, attend some church, etc. We even recognize those individuals who don't attempt to cover their sins as evil (e.g. serial killers). But this doesn't even come close to acheiving God's standard. We are standing before God with garments of fig leaves saying "See God, I clothed myself, aren't you happy?" When what we need to do is fall before Him, and acknowledge our sinfulness and need to be clothed by Him. When we do that, God shows mercy on us and clothes us with new clothes - the blood of Christ, our righteousness. In the Garden of Eden, God removed the man-made clothes of Adam and Eve and killed an animal to give them clothes of skin. Blood was required to cover up their sin. God demanded a greater blood sacrifice to not just cover sin, but eradicate it. As Christians, we no longer walk around in our man-made fig leaf abominations. Rather we walk around in clothes wrought with blood. Praise God for that! Praise God that we can't earn it! Praise God that we don't have to try and make adequate clothing for ourselves, but that He has graciously provided all we will ever need to be holy before Him!

This week in work

My first post in February of '07. Work has been kicking my butt this past week. As you may remember (I think I've mentioned it here, anyway) I work for IAP in the IRS files division (the IRS contracted it out in December). This means that we have long rows of files on shelves in our buildings so we can reference certain tax returns from within the last year or two. We just got finished shipping a bunch of these out, so we now have to move everything around to make room for the new stuff. You might be able to guess where this is going. Because I'm one of the only guys in the building (the ratio is something like 2 guys to 15 girls) and the biggest at that, I got picked to do the biggest job. We have these boxes that we call shoe boxes because they're about that size (unless their my shoe boxes, in which case they are about half the size). They weigh around ten pounds each and forty of them fit in one column. As of today, I have probably moved around 45-55 columns. This means I take them off the shelving, put them on a cart, attempt to roll the cart on the catwalk grating without tipping it over, and then unload them back onto some other shelves. I counted and I have at least 39 more columns to move. That's right, that equals approx. 1,160 boxes, weighing approx. 11,600 lbs. cumulatively, lifted twice for a grand total of approx. 23,200 total pounds of lifting that I will have to do in the next two days. Wow, I just realized that's over 11 tons. You may think I'm complaining, but I'm not. It's actually nice to do work that requires physical effort. I feel like I've accomplished something at the end of the day (I ususally work the mail desk). Plus, I haven't needed to go to the gym this whole week. All-in-all, it's been pretty good.

Tea

I think I'm turning into a tea guy. I never would have thought this would happen. I'm not a hot drink kind of guy. But I must say, I like tea. I'm kind of new to it and I haven't tried too many different flavors, but so far I think my favorite is raspberry herbal. It's pretty good. Plus, it doesn't keep me up at night. I just thought I'd share that with you.

II Samuel 17:14

And Absalom and all the men of Israel said, “The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel.” For the LORD had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, so that the Lord might bring harm upon Absalom.

Setting: Absalom conspired against David and has driven him from Jeursalem. Ahithophel went to Absalom and forsook David. Hushai is loyal to David and seeks to confound and override Ahitohphel’s good counsel.

In 15:31 David prays that God would turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness.

In 17:14 God answers David’s prayer, but not in the way we would expect. Ahithophel still gave good and sound counsel. But God turned this counsel into foolishness in the ears of Absalom and the rest of his advisors. In this verse, we see a glimpse of how God did this. We get a glimpse into the inner workings of Heaven and God. In short, God manipulated man in order to accomplish His purposes

God ordained – This is the decreed will of God. He commanded that Absalom would fail to heed Ahithophel’s counsel. This wasn’t a small matter either. In 16:23 we learn that Ahithophel’s counsel was highly esteemed by both David and Absalom and was like seeking the mind of God. So God’s command required a reversal of thought and attitude that had been built up over time. Absalom and his men went against their own better judgment. God changes our inclinations to effect change in our wills. They followed their strongest inclination (Freedom of the Will, Jonathan Edwards), but God decreed that their strongest inclination be changed. He moves the hearts of men like rivers of water.

God ordained to defeat Ahithophel’s counsel – He defeated it. How? God used human means to bring about His ends. God used Hushai – a faithful follower of David – to bring about Absalom’s death. God did the initial work of changing and hardening their hearts so they would be inclined to listen to Hushai. Then God used Hushai to bring about His ends. How often this is the case in all aspects of life. God uses His creation to help bring about His ends. Even in salvation, God changes the hearts of men, but He uses us to deliver the message. This should give us all the more incentive to be faithful in all aspects of our lives so that God will use us and bless us through that and bring us joy.

God intended to bring harm against Absalom – God is indeed the judge. God metes out punishment. He is not simply a God of love. He is also a God of wrath. We see that He punishes Absalom for his wickedness, and He disciplines David for his sin with Bathsheba (in the death of Absalom). God intended to do this. It pleased God to glorify Himself in bringing harm against a human being by violating his so-called free will to effect His purposes.

God manipulates man and uses us in order to accomplish His purposes.

Contending for the Truth

That's the name of the 2007 Ligonier National Conference. It features Piper, MacArthur, Mohler, Sproul, and Ravi Zacharias. It's in the middle of March in Orlando. I am definitely going to try to be there. The lineup of speakers and topics alone is enough to make me salivate over it, and then you throw in Orlando at the end of winter (9 straight days of below freezing and counting). It would be totally awesome to be there! We'll see what God has in store.

I promise I'm trying to post regularly

It's just not happening for whatever reason. I guess I just haven't had a lot I felt like posting about. Anyway, I had some friends over to watch the Colts-Pats game. It was a lot of fun watching the Colts come back and win it. It was a lot more fun watching it with good friends that were rooting for the same team. Toward the end of the game we cheered so loud that we startled the Kibbey's baby, Reed. So when the Colt's player intercepted the last pass we all cheered quietly and Tim jumped up and hit his hands on my ceiling. We all had a good time. We'll see what the superbowl holds in store for us.

Other things of note: I put in for a promotion at work. The interview went well and I'm just waiting to see what God does with it. I also got the opportunity to witness to a prank caller. It was an interesting conversation. It was some girl and her friends, and she was claiming that I had ditched her at the mall. At first I didn't know whether or not it was a prank call. I thought maybe it was a friend playing a joke on me. God used that to keep me on the line. I kept talking to her and God really put it on my heart to share Him with her. By God's grace, I was able to give her the basic gospel message. I know that God's word won't return void. I only pray that He uses it to convict of sin and lead them to Himself. Whatever the result, I know I learned something from the experience as well. I learned the importance of being ready to give a defense and that you have to take advantage of every opportunity, and I saw again that salvation is only of God. Praise God for that, for if it was up to me, nobody would be saved. But even while it only God that can open the eyes of their hearts, we carry this treasure in jars of clay. I love that whole section of scripture. It declares the greatness of the gospel and our lowliness in order that God might be glorified even in the delivery of the gospel. There is never a time when we can look to ourselves and call ourselves great. We are but jars of clay-pottery-but we carry the greatest treasure of all time. "But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us." (II Cor. 4:7) What an awesome truth. Far be it from me to glory in anything but the cross.