Return to blogging.

Now that I am at a place spiritually where being fed will depend more on individual exertion, I plan to start blogging more and more.  I don’t know if anyone reads my blog, but hopefully it will be encouraging and edifying for someone.  New blog post to come out this week.

A poem, The Student Union

Clip-clop Clip-clop
Open-close Open-close
People walking, talking, a steady flow.
That distinct sound of pots and pans clanging in the background.
The priest walks by saying, “This place reminds me of an airport”
Life, vitality, study, study, eat.
So many faces drawn with a careful finger.
Sensational smiles, somber frowns, observant stares.
Like a ca-boos of an old train engine life pumps.
Chug-a-chug-a chug-a-chug-a
A building of glass, and a restaurant style bench.
Bright faces with youthful longings in their eyes.
The custodians cleaning, bare the face of failure;
They’ve seen this world.
Ambition is at the core.
I think back to when my Father created this world, the terrible darkness shortly-thereafter.
The golden glorious ray of hope when his Son saved the world.
My Father let’s us live.
Chug-a-chug-a chug-a-chug-a
God doesn’t take our lives.
Ambition is at the core.
Everyone has a purpose-a motivation.
But is it because God has saved them?
The Sons of God, the elect sit in this room.
Is it her? Is it him? The girl with the pink headband, brown hair and a distinctive patch of freckles on her nose?
Brother Paul says it’s because they suppress the truth.
He is right.
My heart grows heavy and sad, I don’t want them to die.
Jesus can save their lives.

The Lord Reigns

The Lord reigns; he is robed in majesty; the Lord is robed; he has put on strengthat at his belt. Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved. Your throne is established from of old: you are from everlasting. The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their roaring.  Mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the Lord on high is majesty! Your decrees are very trustworthy; holiness befits your house, O Lord, forevermore. 

 

 

A Psalm for the day.

Flight of The Concords

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The importance of words.

John 1:1-5(ESV)

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.  In him was life, and the life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

John in his gospel (good news) is referring to Jesus Christ,  the Holy anointed one who became flesh and dwelt among us so that by faith and faith alone in him we might be saved and reconciled to our creator.

Studying words, language, literature is one of my favorite things to do in this life.  I have been blessed with the ability to read and understand words.  I have been meditating lately on how important words are.  God spoke the world into existence using words. (Genesis 1)  The serpent tempted Eve and deceived her using words.  Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s word, his command which was spoken to them.  All the prophets spoke to the people of Israel using words.  Jesus was the word made flesh and is God’s word incarnate.  The Holy Spirit working as the triune Godhead inspired the written word of God to be given to us today so that we may learn about our creator, redeemer, saviour and Lord. 

I plan on teaching High School English and today in this generation words are slowly becoming obselete.  Most people speak in short words, texting, blogging, email, voicemail the expression of written language is slowly becoming outdated and undervalued.   This is not merely a proposal to save langauge but a reverent thankfulness to God’s ordained use of words.  I thank God that Jesus came as the word and died on the cross for my sins and resurrected conquering sin and death giving me new life by the free gift of grace he has given me.  Because of my disobediance to God’s word I should have endured the fiery wrath of hell, but now am saved by the perfect word Jesus Christ.  

Proverbs 2:1-5  “My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.”

Words are so important and they can be either words of truth or lies.  It is my privilege and duty to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ  with words.  I hope that my future as an educator will be a lifelong of sharing words and language and showing students how important words really are.

 

“But men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. A person rejects the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed’ (John 3:19-20)

After reading Tim Chester’s book Total Church I gained much insight to Apologetics. There is a chapter about apologetics in a postmodern society.  Mainly about the common issue of why using apologetics will only get us so far.  Here is a quote from Frederich Nietzsche,

“It has gradually become clear to me waht every great philosophy has hitherto been: a confession on the part of its author and a kind of involuntary and unconcscious memoir; moreover that the moral (or immoral) intentions in every philosophy have every time constituted the real germ of life out of which the entire plant has grown.  To explain how a philosopher’s most remote metaphysical assertions have actually been arrived at, it is always well (and wise) to ask oneself first: what morality does this (does he) aim at?  I accordingly do not believe a drive to knowledge to be the father of philosophy, but that another drive has, here as elsewhere, only employed knowledge (and false knowledge!) as a tool.”

‘This is a quotation from the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, in many ways the supreme manifestation of modernist thinking, But, as Nietzsche recognizes with characteristic honesty, all philosophy, however rational, is ultimately a justification for the way we want to live our lives.  And modern people want to live their lives without God. So they construct a world-view in which God is either marginal (deism) or non-existant (atheism).  Aldous Huxley says: I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; and consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption…The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusvely with a problem in pure metaphysics; he is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do.  For myself, as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation…from a certain system of morality.  We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom; we objected to the political and economic system because it was unjust.  The supporters of these systems claimed that in some way they embodied the meaning (a Christian meaning, they insisted) of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and at the same time justifying ourselves in our political and erotic revolt: we could deny that the world had any meaning whatsoever.” 

In this quote from Huxley and also Total Church explains this is the cry from our friends and family members who justify their sin in this postmodern world with a relative argument.  I like how well Total Church explains this fact and how the bible already covered this in Psalm 14.  Total Church writes, “This should be as no surprise to readers of the Bible.  The fool in Psalm 14 who says in his heart ‘there is no God’ is not ignorant.  They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no-one who does good’ says the Psalmist.  What prevents us from knowing God is our rebellion against him.”

 Total Church sums up their point and it is the Bibles point too, “The problem is not that we cannot know God.  The problem is that we will not know God.  It is a problem of the heart rather than the head.”

 This is really refreshing to me again to see where God in his perfect wisdom outlines why people don’t come to him and how I can help to cut away peoples lies and guide them to Jesus.  It comes down to the simple thing of confronting people with their sin and offering them Christ. 

I Heart Huckabee!

Catchy name but that which I speak of is Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.  A great quote I came across in USA Today further compelled me to align with his character, USA Today asks Huckabee, “When asked if he thought Jesus would support the death penalty, Huckabee said, “Jesus was too smart to ever run for office.”

Indeed much wisdom and great thought has come from this presidential hopeful.

Clavinism

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Articles/ByDate/1985/1487_What_We_Believe_About_the_Five_Points_of_Calvinism/#Depravity

In understanding Calvinism and how it is biblical truth and how Calvin actually isn’t the center of it, but rather the Gospel is Pastor John Piper and his church give an explanation and history of it and explain it in a way better than I can. 

Ramen Noodles or Ramen Noodles Soup?

You be the judge, do you eat it as soup, or as noodles? Which one is the right one? I personally stand behind Noodles as being the right way to eat Ramen Noodles.

Praise God for his Holy Spirit!

A work the Lord is doing in my heart is teaching me the beauty and power of his word.   I have been learning many insightful things with my church family, and through reading Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem.  Praise God for his word, and the work of his Holy Spirit.

 Ephesians 4:11-16

“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.  Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”  

“But in no case are we free to say that the teaching of the Bible on any subject is confusing or incapable of being understood correctly.”  (Grudem 109).  

“Furthermore even, though we admit that there have been many doctrinal disagreements in the history of the church, we must not forget that there has been an amazing amount of doctrinal agreement on the most central truths of Scripture throughout the history of the church.  Indeed, those who have had opportunities for fellowship wherever we find a group of vital Christians, almost immediately a vast amount of agreement on all doctrines of the Christian faith becomes apparent.”  (Grudem 110).