Hayo everybody,
It's no surprise that God created appetites and also pleasures to satisfy them, but I wanted to dig at the purpose of pleasure. on the one hand pleasure IS a gift and blessing to His beloved children, on the other (the part we often forget) it is meant to serve as a reminder to worship. pleasure is meant to be God-glorifying when coupled w/ thankfulness. This is why i do not consider as sanctity, the ascerbic denial of pleasure for its own sake - fasting is pointless unless it is coupled with praise.
This is why we say grace before we eat, to take at least 10-30 seconds out of our busy lives to essentially say "hey God, i have food, it is good(?) for me and will probably taste delicious - i get pleasure out of eating this. This is ultimately a gift from You, so thank You." This is, i think, the proper way to experience pleasure - any pleasure. When we delight in art, music, our loved ones, our...ahem...spouses, our strength, and our beauty, we should be just as persistent and genuine in giving God glory through thanksgiving as we do in meal time prayers.
I go on to say that anything outside of that becomes sin. Pleasure for its own sake, without thanksgiving to the God who gave it to you is pride and idolatry. This means a man can be damned for eating a piece of chocolate without an attitude of thankfulness by essentially thinking, "I earned this chocolate, this chocolate is rightfully mine, I deserve this pleasure." Purposefully exaggerated, but on some levels, this IS how we all think when we fail to give God praise. I dont say this to use fear or guilt as a call to worship, but to hopefully show how much grace is accorded us DAILY when we sin by forgetting God. Sin is not simply doing bad things, but also turning morally neutral, or even good, things into idols.
Lastly, given that we're designed to hunger and long for things Eternal, experiencing good and beautiful things and attributing praise to God is the ONLY way to experience true, lasting pleasure. This is because what we're really looking for when we seek worldly pleasures is Eternity. Solomon was able to experience everything the world had to offer in terms of pleasure and his conclusion towards the end of his life was that apart from God, all of it was a meaningless chasing after the wind.
Encouragement for the week, glorify God with our pleasures and appetites through active praise and thanksgiving.
Have a pleasurable week!
Edward
"For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer." - 1 Timothy 4:4–5
"But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin." - Romans 14:23
"'Everything is permissible for me but not everything is beneficial. 'Everything is permissible for me' - but I will not be mastered by anything." - 1 Corinthians 6:12
After the dentist (thx sandy!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txqiwrbYGrs
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Happy Wednesday! (Linked) (03/25/2010)
hey guys,
a conversation earlier this week reminded me of an awesome sermon. Piper, borrowing the words of Jonathan Edwards, made the point that Christian virtues are concatenated (that is: to be interdependent, linked, connected). This means that you can't simply be strong in one virtue and weak everywhere else; or be strong in almost everything but lacking in one. It's all one packaged deal. In Galatians 5, Paul talks about the fruit of the Spirit - fruit (singular) and not fruits (plural). So its not a matter of growing the fruit of love and another fruit of peace, its a matter of cultivating one tree (you) into yielding one fruit that has all the characteristics of holiness.
I say this because im convinced that it's impossible to have true humility without self control. While the two doesn't seem like they have anything to do with each other, both are characteristics God wants us to cultivate. Thing is...to lack self control (be it with food, video games, relationships, or pornography) is nothing less than the gratification of your own desires. Humility is all about selflessness. You can never be genuinely humble when you have a habit of selfishness.
Another example that i've noticed in myself these past few days, I dont think its possible to love without being hopeful. An unsaved family member, coworkers who drive you nuts, a friend with a bad habit - all these relationships where we believe we're genuinely loving people, but have given up hope in seeing God move in their lives. Where there is no hope, there is no prayer, and therefore no faith - in short, there is no real desire for God to bring about Good in this person's life. Simply putting up with people doesn't seem like love to me, puts a new spin on the phrase "love your enemy" doesn't it? Among many other things, true love hopes; desperately, faithfully, painfully, against-all-evidence-that-says-otherwise-ly hopes. This is tremendously harsh...but any love that is NOT hopeful, or patient, or trusting, or selfless, or perseveres; any love that fails to protect, is an imperfect love. It is not Love the way God Loves, and it is a kind of love that can be distorted and twisted into something harmful.
List can go on and on. My aim is not to put down people's efforts towards sanctity and Godliness. But I want to be aware that i can't split up aspects of my spiritual walk like some kind of homework problem set; to work on patience today and kindness tomorrow. I want to encourage everyone to pursue holiness with this holistic (ahahah get it? get it?) understanding of concatenated virtues. I want the genuine pursuit of Godliness to move us away from posturing and posing and into true kindness that is also joyful, true peace that doesn't forget love, and true gentleness marked by self control.
Have a happy wednesday!
Edward
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." - Galatians 5:22-23
"Love is patient, love is kind. it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." - 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
hahahaha, hamsta stuck in a video game
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I9xMVbtTdY&feature=related
a conversation earlier this week reminded me of an awesome sermon. Piper, borrowing the words of Jonathan Edwards, made the point that Christian virtues are concatenated (that is: to be interdependent, linked, connected). This means that you can't simply be strong in one virtue and weak everywhere else; or be strong in almost everything but lacking in one. It's all one packaged deal. In Galatians 5, Paul talks about the fruit of the Spirit - fruit (singular) and not fruits (plural). So its not a matter of growing the fruit of love and another fruit of peace, its a matter of cultivating one tree (you) into yielding one fruit that has all the characteristics of holiness.
I say this because im convinced that it's impossible to have true humility without self control. While the two doesn't seem like they have anything to do with each other, both are characteristics God wants us to cultivate. Thing is...to lack self control (be it with food, video games, relationships, or pornography) is nothing less than the gratification of your own desires. Humility is all about selflessness. You can never be genuinely humble when you have a habit of selfishness.
Another example that i've noticed in myself these past few days, I dont think its possible to love without being hopeful. An unsaved family member, coworkers who drive you nuts, a friend with a bad habit - all these relationships where we believe we're genuinely loving people, but have given up hope in seeing God move in their lives. Where there is no hope, there is no prayer, and therefore no faith - in short, there is no real desire for God to bring about Good in this person's life. Simply putting up with people doesn't seem like love to me, puts a new spin on the phrase "love your enemy" doesn't it? Among many other things, true love hopes; desperately, faithfully, painfully, against-all-evidence-that-says-otherwise-ly hopes. This is tremendously harsh...but any love that is NOT hopeful, or patient, or trusting, or selfless, or perseveres; any love that fails to protect, is an imperfect love. It is not Love the way God Loves, and it is a kind of love that can be distorted and twisted into something harmful.
List can go on and on. My aim is not to put down people's efforts towards sanctity and Godliness. But I want to be aware that i can't split up aspects of my spiritual walk like some kind of homework problem set; to work on patience today and kindness tomorrow. I want to encourage everyone to pursue holiness with this holistic (ahahah get it? get it?) understanding of concatenated virtues. I want the genuine pursuit of Godliness to move us away from posturing and posing and into true kindness that is also joyful, true peace that doesn't forget love, and true gentleness marked by self control.
Have a happy wednesday!
Edward
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." - Galatians 5:22-23
"Love is patient, love is kind. it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." - 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
hahahaha, hamsta stuck in a video game
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I9xMVbtTdY&feature=related
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Happy Wednesday! (Maturity) (03/17/2010)
Sup guys,
Hebrews 5:11-14; 6:1-3 (http://tinyurl.com/yk2a98p, http://tinyurl.com/ylalbte)
I've been told that chapters and verses weren't in original scriptures but were a later addition. The same goes for those lil one-line description for sections of bible. Like the one just above Hebrews 6, "Warning Against Falling Away." I often use these descriptions to zero in on passage i want to read and that particular one (above hebrew6) caught my eyes this morning because right below it, i had the "you need milk not solid food" passage highlighted. It got me wondering what food had to do with falling away, this was what I learnt.
The author was lamenting hte lack of spiritual growth in the hebrew church, the analogy used was how they're still stuck on baby food when they should be eating steak. I think it is important to eat spiritual foods that match our state of growth. As a new believer, it isn't wise to dive right into heavy theology/service. It would be like a beginning guitarist refusing to do basic drills and instead tries to learn to play a song that is waaaay beyond his skill level; then, getting discouraged, he quits guitar entirely. I think in teh same way new believers have certain crucial foundations in their understanding of God that needs to be laid, without which they're likely to fall away in times of trials and persecution.
But there's a second warning here in Hebrews 6. I imagine most christians on this list DO have solid foundations in their understanding of Christ. An adult would find no satisfaction in eating baby food alone. In the same way, once that guitarist masters his basic drills - unless he moves onto more advanced lessons, he'd quickly lose interest and end up quitting for lack of challenges as well. To not grow in our spiritual life is to stagnate. We're meant to be challenged in our faith, to continuously seek out new understandings of God instead of sitting on the basic foundations that originally brought us into christianity. Often times i find my spiritual walk to be little more than an endless cycle of sin and repentance. Not that we are to stop repenting, but if that is all our christianity is made up of we'll be stuck in that cycle not GOING anywhere. Humans aren't designed to live unchallenged lives. Being stuck in that cycle without any growth and without constant examples of God's grace/love in our lives as proven by hardships and lessons learnt, we will find our faith growing stagnant and like that guitarist, see little point in continuing in something we're so passionless about. Worse yet, we simply get by on routine and pretense - alive on the outside, spiritually dead on the inside - and deceive ourselves and others into thinking we have New Life.
Encouragement for the week, seek to challenge yourself beyond the barest minimum of christianity. Foundations and basics are important but passion demands growth. There is more to THIS than sin/repentance, I want us all to press on towards greater maturity in Christ and to continuously seek to challenge our faith without taking on more than we're able (by God's grace) to handle. Lets constantly delve into deeper things of God and stretch our capacities to love, to learn, to sacrifice, and to grow.
Have a happy wednesday!
Edward
"These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning!" - Acts 2:15
"Then [Jesus] told them, 'Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.' They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine...This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him." - John 2:8-11
(happy st paddy's =D)
awesomest gift idea ever!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9hnZX6eyTA&feature=related
Hebrews 5:11-14; 6:1-3 (http://tinyurl.com/yk2a98p, http://tinyurl.com/ylalbte)
I've been told that chapters and verses weren't in original scriptures but were a later addition. The same goes for those lil one-line description for sections of bible. Like the one just above Hebrews 6, "Warning Against Falling Away." I often use these descriptions to zero in on passage i want to read and that particular one (above hebrew6) caught my eyes this morning because right below it, i had the "you need milk not solid food" passage highlighted. It got me wondering what food had to do with falling away, this was what I learnt.
The author was lamenting hte lack of spiritual growth in the hebrew church, the analogy used was how they're still stuck on baby food when they should be eating steak. I think it is important to eat spiritual foods that match our state of growth. As a new believer, it isn't wise to dive right into heavy theology/service. It would be like a beginning guitarist refusing to do basic drills and instead tries to learn to play a song that is waaaay beyond his skill level; then, getting discouraged, he quits guitar entirely. I think in teh same way new believers have certain crucial foundations in their understanding of God that needs to be laid, without which they're likely to fall away in times of trials and persecution.
But there's a second warning here in Hebrews 6. I imagine most christians on this list DO have solid foundations in their understanding of Christ. An adult would find no satisfaction in eating baby food alone. In the same way, once that guitarist masters his basic drills - unless he moves onto more advanced lessons, he'd quickly lose interest and end up quitting for lack of challenges as well. To not grow in our spiritual life is to stagnate. We're meant to be challenged in our faith, to continuously seek out new understandings of God instead of sitting on the basic foundations that originally brought us into christianity. Often times i find my spiritual walk to be little more than an endless cycle of sin and repentance. Not that we are to stop repenting, but if that is all our christianity is made up of we'll be stuck in that cycle not GOING anywhere. Humans aren't designed to live unchallenged lives. Being stuck in that cycle without any growth and without constant examples of God's grace/love in our lives as proven by hardships and lessons learnt, we will find our faith growing stagnant and like that guitarist, see little point in continuing in something we're so passionless about. Worse yet, we simply get by on routine and pretense - alive on the outside, spiritually dead on the inside - and deceive ourselves and others into thinking we have New Life.
Encouragement for the week, seek to challenge yourself beyond the barest minimum of christianity. Foundations and basics are important but passion demands growth. There is more to THIS than sin/repentance, I want us all to press on towards greater maturity in Christ and to continuously seek to challenge our faith without taking on more than we're able (by God's grace) to handle. Lets constantly delve into deeper things of God and stretch our capacities to love, to learn, to sacrifice, and to grow.
Have a happy wednesday!
Edward
"These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning!" - Acts 2:15
"Then [Jesus] told them, 'Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.' They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine...This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him." - John 2:8-11
(happy st paddy's =D)
awesomest gift idea ever!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9hnZX6eyTA&feature=related
Happy Wednesday! (Holes) (Unused)
Sup guys
no...this is not another painful pun about socks w/ holes in it (apologies to those who had to sit through that last sunday). i was listening to a sermon by cj mahaney earlier this week and something he said in passing early in the message caught my attention. It was not the main focus of his sermon so i missed it in the past but the point kinda hammered home this time around.
He talks about thomas jefferson's efforts to make hte bible believable and inoffensive. In the Jefferson Bible, officially titled Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, Jefferson sought to cut out any supernatural events, any references to jesus' divinity, as well as any bits that he considered misinterpretations by the four gospel writers. Using a razor, jefferson cut literal holes in his bible, selected bits and pieces that didn't offend him from the four gospels, and rearranged them in rough chronological order to create a single narrative. The jefferson bible ended with the burial of christ - no resurrection, no pentacost, no redeemed Peter/Paul - Jesus died, period. The End.
while most of us wouldn't be so arrogant as to physically remove/edit bits of the bible, I was reminded that this is in effect what we do everytime we deliberately ignore or conveniently forget laws of God. Isn't it? The bits that we find uncomfortable or offensive are the exact bits we tend to defocus on. Instead we hone in on the bits that talks about forgiveness and grace, the parts that talks about our adoption as children of God, all the highlighted portions of our bibles that give us warm and fuzzy feelings. We crave inner healing and affirmation but avoid conviction like a plague. If not in my own devotions, very definitely in my personal walk, i often find myself deemphasizing the parts of scripture that talks about hating worldly desires, practicing holiness, dying to myself, and taking up my daily cross. Encouragement for the week, let us not treat God's word with contempt in our selective understanding of holy scripture, and pursue with wholehearted honesty the holiness He has mapped out for us.
Happy Wednesday!
edward
"I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teachers others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." - Matthew 5:18-20
Inmates from the Philippines performing Jai Ho (slumdog millionaire)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTMUZ39UHgo&feature=related
no...this is not another painful pun about socks w/ holes in it (apologies to those who had to sit through that last sunday). i was listening to a sermon by cj mahaney earlier this week and something he said in passing early in the message caught my attention. It was not the main focus of his sermon so i missed it in the past but the point kinda hammered home this time around.
He talks about thomas jefferson's efforts to make hte bible believable and inoffensive. In the Jefferson Bible, officially titled Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, Jefferson sought to cut out any supernatural events, any references to jesus' divinity, as well as any bits that he considered misinterpretations by the four gospel writers. Using a razor, jefferson cut literal holes in his bible, selected bits and pieces that didn't offend him from the four gospels, and rearranged them in rough chronological order to create a single narrative. The jefferson bible ended with the burial of christ - no resurrection, no pentacost, no redeemed Peter/Paul - Jesus died, period. The End.
while most of us wouldn't be so arrogant as to physically remove/edit bits of the bible, I was reminded that this is in effect what we do everytime we deliberately ignore or conveniently forget laws of God. Isn't it? The bits that we find uncomfortable or offensive are the exact bits we tend to defocus on. Instead we hone in on the bits that talks about forgiveness and grace, the parts that talks about our adoption as children of God, all the highlighted portions of our bibles that give us warm and fuzzy feelings. We crave inner healing and affirmation but avoid conviction like a plague. If not in my own devotions, very definitely in my personal walk, i often find myself deemphasizing the parts of scripture that talks about hating worldly desires, practicing holiness, dying to myself, and taking up my daily cross. Encouragement for the week, let us not treat God's word with contempt in our selective understanding of holy scripture, and pursue with wholehearted honesty the holiness He has mapped out for us.
Happy Wednesday!
edward
"I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teachers others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." - Matthew 5:18-20
Inmates from the Philippines performing Jai Ho (slumdog millionaire)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTMUZ39UHgo&feature=related
Happy Thursday! (Hope) (03/11/2010)
Sup guys,
I wont lie, this is a long one and im not even gonna bother to apologize for my tardiness. Heard this from a Tim Keller sermon (http://tinyurl.com/yeg6nw7) and thought it was awesome enough for me to scrap what i had written up before for yesterday's email and use this instead. highly recommend listening to it as i reeeeally didn't do keller justice here. The verse is 1 Peter 1:3-8 and, as the subject suggests, it talks about hope. Specifically for those who don't have much of it because of sorrow, fear, and worries (probably all of us).
Keller points out that Peter writes both the rejoicing and the experience of sorrow in present tense, meaning both are happening at the same time. Peter tells us to rejoice while in sorrow. How is that possible?! I mean realistically speaking, joy is usually the last thing on my mind when im suffering. There're times in my anger or sorrow when I can barely work up the inclination to even pray, much less remind myself to be joyful. In a world where the average person associates hope/joy with perishable things and suffering with the loss of these very perishable things, this doesn't seem possible. I liked the way verse 4 puts it, our hope is in the imperishable.
I think christians often have a wrong view on the way to handle grief, worries, and fear. Scripture is so full of promises of joy and peace in spite of present suffering that some christians (or at least edward) adopt an almost macho/masochistic approach to suffering. Assuming the suffering doesn't crush them outright, i think we (or, again, at least edward) take the position that it is somehow sinful to grieve and take fear/worry and admitting hurt as an indication of a lack of faith. It becomes worldly to grieve, because we're supposed to be strong in the Lord and appear cheerful, if our outward appearance somehow deviate from that there must be something wrong with us. Spiritual macho'ism mistakenly tells us to "jus have faith, dont cry and dont scream in agony. just be ok and whatever you do, dont cause a scene." This sounds very extreme but there're countless ways this manifests itself: distrust of the opposite gender after a painful relationship, blaming ourselves for tragedies when the fault was never ours, develop an uncaring attitude towards a harsh parent. we come up with all sorts of ways to protect ourselves from grief. While none of these three examples of sorrow management sound particularly joyful/happy, i would argue that they share this in common with each other, they don't allow the person to deal with their grief and hurt in an honest way. Instead, these methods channel the sorrow into anger or indifference and both can be equally sinful. That's just the point, hope ALLOWS us to experience fear, hurt, and grief and be strengthened by it. Verse 7 talks about the refining of gold in fire as an analogy.
Even if we are able to grieve openly, i still think most ppl dissociate joy from sorrow because we dont believe the two can mix. We enter into our faith thinking "well of course ill go through rough times, but if i hold on long enough, God will pull me through to the good times." The thing is, it's not about good or rough times, our joy and hope is founded on something beyond our present circumstances and solely upon our Lord and Saviour (romans 8:18 agrees with edward). If we're only joyful in the good times and not the bad, it hints that perhaps our hopes does not rest solely upon Him. God is with us not just on the other side of suffering but in its midst as well - this gives us reason to be joyful even in sorrow. Living hope makes us sadder and more joyful at the SAME time with the loss of a loved one, or job, or pet hamster, or watever else. It frees us to have the humility to grieve openly but at the same time, since our hopes rest in the imperishable and we know that God is working this loss to our good, we can freely rejoice. Christ is the perfect embodiment of this, we see him grieve openly and honestly, especially in the garden of gethsemane. Yet concerning his most sorrowful and painful experience, hebrews 12 says this of Jesus, "for the joy set before him [he] endured the cross." Jesus was not jus sorrowful in the garden, he was joyful at the same time. weird but true.
But lets get practical now, how do we feel joy when our natural inclination in sorrow won't allow us this? Afterall, this is not a natural reaction. Verse 8 tells us that hope/joy is to LOVE him. I think that's probably the key to all of this. I haven't had the chance to field test this yet myself, but I think the promise is that even in the midst of our sorrow, if we remember how much God loves us and how we love Him, we get filled with that "inexpressible and glorious joy" peter talks about. Dont let sorrow or worry distract you from that love for a millisecond, that's where sin and lack of faith truly lies - not in the worry or sorrow themselves, but in the distraction.
Encouragement for the week, practice this next time life sux for u: Allow urself to grieve/worry honestly, but at the same time remind yourself of hte love between you and God, remember where your hope is, and be genuinely joyful and sad at the same time. This is the only way i can think of to worry/grieve in faith and without committing the sin of idolatry.
Happy Thursday!
Edward
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish... In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith...may be be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy..." 1 Peter 1:3-8
Inmates from philippines dancing to jai ho (slumdog millionaire) - awesome way to rehabilitate criminals back into society, they really seem to enjoy themselves =D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTMUZ39UHgo
I wont lie, this is a long one and im not even gonna bother to apologize for my tardiness. Heard this from a Tim Keller sermon (http://tinyurl.com/yeg6nw7) and thought it was awesome enough for me to scrap what i had written up before for yesterday's email and use this instead. highly recommend listening to it as i reeeeally didn't do keller justice here. The verse is 1 Peter 1:3-8 and, as the subject suggests, it talks about hope. Specifically for those who don't have much of it because of sorrow, fear, and worries (probably all of us).
Keller points out that Peter writes both the rejoicing and the experience of sorrow in present tense, meaning both are happening at the same time. Peter tells us to rejoice while in sorrow. How is that possible?! I mean realistically speaking, joy is usually the last thing on my mind when im suffering. There're times in my anger or sorrow when I can barely work up the inclination to even pray, much less remind myself to be joyful. In a world where the average person associates hope/joy with perishable things and suffering with the loss of these very perishable things, this doesn't seem possible. I liked the way verse 4 puts it, our hope is in the imperishable.
I think christians often have a wrong view on the way to handle grief, worries, and fear. Scripture is so full of promises of joy and peace in spite of present suffering that some christians (or at least edward) adopt an almost macho/masochistic approach to suffering. Assuming the suffering doesn't crush them outright, i think we (or, again, at least edward) take the position that it is somehow sinful to grieve and take fear/worry and admitting hurt as an indication of a lack of faith. It becomes worldly to grieve, because we're supposed to be strong in the Lord and appear cheerful, if our outward appearance somehow deviate from that there must be something wrong with us. Spiritual macho'ism mistakenly tells us to "jus have faith, dont cry and dont scream in agony. just be ok and whatever you do, dont cause a scene." This sounds very extreme but there're countless ways this manifests itself: distrust of the opposite gender after a painful relationship, blaming ourselves for tragedies when the fault was never ours, develop an uncaring attitude towards a harsh parent. we come up with all sorts of ways to protect ourselves from grief. While none of these three examples of sorrow management sound particularly joyful/happy, i would argue that they share this in common with each other, they don't allow the person to deal with their grief and hurt in an honest way. Instead, these methods channel the sorrow into anger or indifference and both can be equally sinful. That's just the point, hope ALLOWS us to experience fear, hurt, and grief and be strengthened by it. Verse 7 talks about the refining of gold in fire as an analogy.
Even if we are able to grieve openly, i still think most ppl dissociate joy from sorrow because we dont believe the two can mix. We enter into our faith thinking "well of course ill go through rough times, but if i hold on long enough, God will pull me through to the good times." The thing is, it's not about good or rough times, our joy and hope is founded on something beyond our present circumstances and solely upon our Lord and Saviour (romans 8:18 agrees with edward). If we're only joyful in the good times and not the bad, it hints that perhaps our hopes does not rest solely upon Him. God is with us not just on the other side of suffering but in its midst as well - this gives us reason to be joyful even in sorrow. Living hope makes us sadder and more joyful at the SAME time with the loss of a loved one, or job, or pet hamster, or watever else. It frees us to have the humility to grieve openly but at the same time, since our hopes rest in the imperishable and we know that God is working this loss to our good, we can freely rejoice. Christ is the perfect embodiment of this, we see him grieve openly and honestly, especially in the garden of gethsemane. Yet concerning his most sorrowful and painful experience, hebrews 12 says this of Jesus, "for the joy set before him [he] endured the cross." Jesus was not jus sorrowful in the garden, he was joyful at the same time. weird but true.
But lets get practical now, how do we feel joy when our natural inclination in sorrow won't allow us this? Afterall, this is not a natural reaction. Verse 8 tells us that hope/joy is to LOVE him. I think that's probably the key to all of this. I haven't had the chance to field test this yet myself, but I think the promise is that even in the midst of our sorrow, if we remember how much God loves us and how we love Him, we get filled with that "inexpressible and glorious joy" peter talks about. Dont let sorrow or worry distract you from that love for a millisecond, that's where sin and lack of faith truly lies - not in the worry or sorrow themselves, but in the distraction.
Encouragement for the week, practice this next time life sux for u: Allow urself to grieve/worry honestly, but at the same time remind yourself of hte love between you and God, remember where your hope is, and be genuinely joyful and sad at the same time. This is the only way i can think of to worry/grieve in faith and without committing the sin of idolatry.
Happy Thursday!
Edward
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish... In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith...may be be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy..." 1 Peter 1:3-8
Inmates from philippines dancing to jai ho (slumdog millionaire) - awesome way to rehabilitate criminals back into society, they really seem to enjoy themselves =D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTMUZ39UHgo
Happy Wednesday! (Maturity) (03/17/2010)
Sup guys,
Hebrews 5:11-14; 6:1-3 (http://tinyurl.com/yk2a98p, http://tinyurl.com/ylalbte)
I've been told that chapters and verses weren't in original scriptures but were a later addition. The same goes for those lil one-line description for sections of bible. Like the one just above Hebrews 6, "Warning Against Falling Away." I often use these descriptions to zero in on passage i want to read and that particular one (above hebrew6) caught my eyes this morning because right below it, i had the "you need milk not solid food" passage highlighted. It got me wondering what food had to do with falling away, this was what I learnt.
The author was lamenting hte lack of spiritual growth in the hebrew church, the analogy used was how they're still stuck on baby food when they should be eating steak. I think it is important to eat spiritual foods that match our state of growth. As a new believer, it isn't wise to dive right into heavy theology/service. It would be like a beginning guitarist refusing to do basic drills and instead tries to learn to play a song that is waaaay beyond his skill level; then, getting discouraged, he quits guitar entirely. I think in teh same way new believers have certain crucial foundations in their understanding of God that needs to be laid, without which they're likely to fall away in times of trials and persecution.
But there's a second warning here in Hebrews 6. I imagine most christians on this list DO have solid foundations in their understanding of Christ. An adult would find no satisfaction in eating baby food alone. In the same way, once that guitarist masters his basic drills - unless he moves onto more advanced lessons, he'd quickly lose interest and end up quitting for lack of challenges as well. To not grow in our spiritual life is to stagnate. We're meant to be challenged in our faith, to continuously seek out new understandings of God instead of sitting on the basic foundations that originally brought us into christianity. Often times i find my spiritual walk to be little more than an endless cycle of sin and repentance. Not that we are to stop repenting, but if that is all our christianity is made up of we'll be stuck in that cycle not GOING anywhere. Humans aren't designed to live unchallenged lives. Being stuck in that cycle without any growth and without constant examples of God's grace/love in our lives as proven by hardships and lessons learnt, we will find our faith growing stagnant and like that guitarist, see little point in continuing in something we're so passionless about. Worse yet, we simply get by on routine and pretense - alive on the outside, spiritually dead on the inside - and deceive ourselves and others into thinking we have New Life.
Encouragement for the week, seek to challenge yourself beyond the barest minimum of christianity. Foundations and basics are important but passion demands growth. There is more to THIS than sin/repentance, I want us all to press on towards greater maturity in Christ and to continuously seek to challenge our faith without taking on more than we're able (by God's grace) to handle. Lets constantly delve into deeper things of God and stretch our capacities to love, to learn, to sacrifice, and to grow.
Have a happy wednesday!
Edward
"These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning!" - Acts 2:15
"Then [Jesus] told them, 'Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.' They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine...This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him." - John 2:8-11
(happy st paddy's =D)
awesomest gift idea ever!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9hnZX6eyTA&feature=related
Hebrews 5:11-14; 6:1-3 (http://tinyurl.com/yk2a98p, http://tinyurl.com/ylalbte)
I've been told that chapters and verses weren't in original scriptures but were a later addition. The same goes for those lil one-line description for sections of bible. Like the one just above Hebrews 6, "Warning Against Falling Away." I often use these descriptions to zero in on passage i want to read and that particular one (above hebrew6) caught my eyes this morning because right below it, i had the "you need milk not solid food" passage highlighted. It got me wondering what food had to do with falling away, this was what I learnt.
The author was lamenting hte lack of spiritual growth in the hebrew church, the analogy used was how they're still stuck on baby food when they should be eating steak. I think it is important to eat spiritual foods that match our state of growth. As a new believer, it isn't wise to dive right into heavy theology/service. It would be like a beginning guitarist refusing to do basic drills and instead tries to learn to play a song that is waaaay beyond his skill level; then, getting discouraged, he quits guitar entirely. I think in teh same way new believers have certain crucial foundations in their understanding of God that needs to be laid, without which they're likely to fall away in times of trials and persecution.
But there's a second warning here in Hebrews 6. I imagine most christians on this list DO have solid foundations in their understanding of Christ. An adult would find no satisfaction in eating baby food alone. In the same way, once that guitarist masters his basic drills - unless he moves onto more advanced lessons, he'd quickly lose interest and end up quitting for lack of challenges as well. To not grow in our spiritual life is to stagnate. We're meant to be challenged in our faith, to continuously seek out new understandings of God instead of sitting on the basic foundations that originally brought us into christianity. Often times i find my spiritual walk to be little more than an endless cycle of sin and repentance. Not that we are to stop repenting, but if that is all our christianity is made up of we'll be stuck in that cycle not GOING anywhere. Humans aren't designed to live unchallenged lives. Being stuck in that cycle without any growth and without constant examples of God's grace/love in our lives as proven by hardships and lessons learnt, we will find our faith growing stagnant and like that guitarist, see little point in continuing in something we're so passionless about. Worse yet, we simply get by on routine and pretense - alive on the outside, spiritually dead on the inside - and deceive ourselves and others into thinking we have New Life.
Encouragement for the week, seek to challenge yourself beyond the barest minimum of christianity. Foundations and basics are important but passion demands growth. There is more to THIS than sin/repentance, I want us all to press on towards greater maturity in Christ and to continuously seek to challenge our faith without taking on more than we're able (by God's grace) to handle. Lets constantly delve into deeper things of God and stretch our capacities to love, to learn, to sacrifice, and to grow.
Have a happy wednesday!
Edward
"These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning!" - Acts 2:15
"Then [Jesus] told them, 'Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.' They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine...This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him." - John 2:8-11
(happy st paddy's =D)
awesomest gift idea ever!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9hnZX6eyTA&feature=related
Monday, March 8, 2010
Sermon: Pursuit of Holiness (03/07/10)
For those of you who dont get it...that's a sock with a hole in it. it's a holey sock. Holey. As in it has an opening in it, but it sounds a lot like the word "Holy," which is how we describe the living God. It's a pun. I made a punny on my first sermon.
I am by no means qualified to talk on the topic of holiness. I stand here as a sinful man. I can give a message on holiness and anyone of you would be right in calling me a hypocrit after im done. This is not modesty, just the plain, ugly, and honest truth. I am arrogant, selfish, lustful, and quick to anger. As preacher once said, "I am not obsessed with holiness because I am holy. I love the holiness of God because it is my only hope. Without his mercy and holiness there would be no restraint to my wickedness." I was given carte blanche by uncle joe to pick any topic i wanted and i choose this one because it is so important to our lives and I think is utterly essential to our understanding of the Apostle's Creed which we've been studying. I want us to get a true glimpse at this God that we believe in. So please pray with me as I ask for God's help to try and communicate the words He wants said.
[prayer]
let me make this clear: this sermon is not simply edward telling you to stop sinning and be more like Jesus. That WILL happen, but it isn't my primary goal. My initial impulse is to give you all a definition of the word "holy" in order to give you a solid framework to hang this sermon on - that's the structured way to do it and I tend to like structure. I decided not to do that though, at least not yet. i want to take holiness in all its angles before coming, hopefully, to some form of conclusion as to what holiness should mean to us and what it means to pursue it. I think most of us have a general grasp of the word "holy." we imagine holiness to be bright lights and clouds in the heavens (we really do, i google imaged it).
I think the word "Holy" has two aspects to it. On the one hand, it has EVERYTHING to do with what you're doing on the computer in the middle of the night, it has to do with the grudges you hold. It has to do with how you deal with pride. Sin and holiness certainly encompasses all of these things. I think moralistic purity is probably the definition most people tack onto God when they think of the word "Holy." But I would argue that this understanding of holiness is insufficient by itself. If we observe holiness in light of moralistic purity alone, God repeatedly breaks His own commandment, "thou shalt not kill." We get nervous when nonbelievers point at stories like the judgement fire poured upon Sodom and Gomorrah, and we cringed at how the earth opened up and swallowed unbelievers. Really, we dont even have to look in scriptures for examples, God has killed every human being since the dawn of time (with exception of two, enoch and elijah). It's called death, it symbolizes everything we hate and fear, and its something we'll all go through with. Yet despite being the author of death, God remains (to use john piper's words) "impeccably holy!" It's not about moralistic purity, at least in the sense that we understand it, its about something higher.
The other, and i think the primary, meaning of the word "Holy," or "Kadesh" in Hebrew, is transcendence and separation. It's the "otherness" of God that is most glorifying. In the vision described in Isaiah 6, we find the seraphims declaring "Holy! Holy! Holy is the Lord God Almighty!" I'm told that the Hebrew language uses repetition as the mode of emphasis, to say something 3 times is like typing in CAP LOCK, size 30 font, bolded, italicized and underlined. It was not enough to say "Holy" or "Holy Holy," they take it up to the third degree - no other attribute of God is praised in this way, not His wisdom and not His power. Only His uniqueness and separation, His absolute VALUE, that human language tries its best to sum up with the word "Holy."
I think the natural human response to God's holiness, as I just defined it, is fear. Ever heard of the term xenophobia? It's the fear of strangers or the unknown. I think if we were to truly encounter God in all his glorious holiness, we'd be struck w/ the worst case of xenophobia imaginable. Consider the disciples's reaction when jesus calmed the storm (Read Mark 4:35). You would think they were afraid of the storm, but we see that their fears became even greater upon witnessing Jesus calming the waves and winds. The disciple's response was based on their fear of the holy. It was not Christ's moralistic purity but His alien'ness that look lustfully at scared the bejesus out of them. Their reaction was not "oooooh...jesus u're sooo holy, u never tell a lie...ooooo." It was more like "JESUS CHRIST, WHAT ARE YOU MAN?!" ...Profanity was intended. we often sneer at how spiritually blind the disciples are. oh we'll usually say that we're no better but a part of us always think we would've done better if we were in their shoes. But really...even if their fearful response was born out of sinful, human nature, they at least saw jesus for who he was. I wonder if we could even lay that claim upon our own perception of christ. Do we even SEE the real Christ. the Holy One of Isra El. Or do we look to the Holy Father as a genie and pout when things fail to go the way we want, do we shake our fist at Him in the midst of tragedy. The only sane response upon a true encounter with holiness is fear and trembling, and this you'll find throughout scripture. There is an aversion built into the heart of sinful man against anything holy precisely because it is so foreign and alien to us. In the words of R.C. Sproul "As long as our gaze is fixed on the horizontal plane of this earth, we have no problem with ourselves. But if we lift our gaze to heaven and contemplate what God is, we will be broken. Security and smugness is annihilated."
Because if holiness defines God's otherness from us, sin defines OUR otherness from Him. Let's face it, our natural selves don't want a Holy God. We want an unholy god that is humanly predictable and does what we expect/want of Him. one that embodies what WE envision as good. We want to create a "safe" god to accommodate our unholy ways, a god we can RELATE to. An idol. God's Holiness means that He IS morally pure, which is exactly why He can not act the way unholy humans expect Him to - can't operate by the same rules - He needs to be separate/above creation. The two aspects of Holiness are interconnected. I really want us to get this, how he is so different from us precisely because of His moral perfection, and our depravity. His holiness means that his moral purity is so far above ours that we don't even understand it and it becomes alien and foreign to us.
(everything he does for the good of those who love him; maxi good)
Holiness won't always appear the way we think it should, that's not God's fault, it's ours. One question nonbelievers often ask to trip up christians is "how could a good, loving and all powerful God permit human suffering? either He wants to help but cant, in which case he's not all powerful; or he could help but doesn't want to and is therefore not good." I think the answer to that lies in the fact that He is Holy. In His holiness, His unique and uncompromising nature of moral perfection, God aims at maximizing Good at the end of all things, even if it means suffering in this lifetime. If there is one way in which God is limited, it is that He can't NOT be God, He can not do anything that would lead to less Good than is possible at the end of time - His Holy nature will not permit Him that. Holiness is the only way I can explain how a Good and all powerful God exists in a suffering world. (present suffering not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us) In other words, God is being Holy when you face rejection, persecution, slander, ridicule, loneliness, depression, and exhaustion; when the worst imaginable thing happens to you, He is being Holy. God was being Holy when he allowed the Haiti earthquake, or withholds rain from famine stricken countries, or choose not to answer prayers of cancer patients....... I learnt earlier this week that three of the villages i recently served in Uganda was hit by a mudslide that killed hundreds of people. Children who took refuge in schools, buried alive; patients who took refuge in hospitals, buried alive; christians who took refuge in churches, buried alive. EVERYTHING destroyed, the economy of the entire district devastated - leaving the already impoverished survivors in even greater poverty... God was being HOLY when he permitted ALL of this because SOMEHOW, in ways we can't begin to imagine, it will all add up to greater Good in the end. Hold ONTO that fact so that when disaster hits your life you have a ROCK to hold onto and won't curse the Holy One of Israel. In the face of suffering believers are given three choices, to shut our eyes and pretend it did not happen, to renounce God's Goodness, or to believe in faith, that He is being Holy in bringing this to pass. I'll push it even further and go on to say that God would be UNholy if he averted/interfered with events such that there would ULTIMATELY be less Good in the end, even if in the short run it would mean Haiti averted, or cancer cured, or......young lives saved. Do you see how uncomfortable that makes us feel? Do you SEE how uncomfortable that makes us feel? This claim I'm making...that God would be unholy and unworthy of our worship if He were to answer some of our best intentioned prayers... We're so accustomed to thinking about "holiness" from a humanity centered perspective... It's not, holiness was, is, and always will be GOD centered. Holiness doesn't come cheaply, not for us, and especially NOT for God. Holiness meant having to allow Haiti, or cancer or bududa, it means allowing children He desperately LOVES to suffer. Holiness meant turning His back on the Son as He was crucified, the most horrific of tragedies to happen in human history, deicide! Never. take. the word. "Holy." lightly. Im not playing word games here with this concept of "Holiness" - to give you all this cool new definition or outlook on this sunday school term. I want us to see this Holy God, to truly SEE Him, and to be utterly amazed at this...being that we gave our lives to and who gave His live for us in order to overcome this separation defined by His very Holy nature and our sinfulness.
Which brings us to the Cross, the ultimate expression of God's love and holiness. I spent all this time to tell you how different, alien and inaccessible God is to us. Now, if uncle joseph and ben will allow me 5 more minutes, I want to spend what little time I have left to tell you how he MADE himself accessible. Jesus made it possible for us to come to the Father (noone comes to the father except through me). To make US holy, a mark of separation from this world, and in doing so glorify the Father and the Son. That was the whole point of the Cross, it's not about us and our salvation, but about God and His glorification. I promised uncle joseph that I would talk about how we should stop sinning and to pursue holiness. so, here it is: everyone ready? you should stop sinning and pursue holiness. hahaha...really, what else is there to say? Is the Holiness of our God not enough? let me leave you a verse to hang this on, (hebrews 12:1-2) Notice it doesn't just say throw off sin, but EVERYTHING that entangles, even morally neutral things. You all know what im talking about. All the idols that we set up in our lives: sports, families, grades, careers, relationships. Everything that is not brought before the cross in submission to the Father's will. Holiness is more than moral purity and more than a list of rules we follow. If you were to ask 10 people what they thought it means to "pursue holiness" you'd get 10 different answers (i know, i tried), but most of their definitions point towards this concept of imitating Christ. Be like jesus, WWJD, 10 steps to being more like jesus - books and cds for sale in the foyer after the service. But what do we really mean when we say we want to be more like Jesus? Are we to imitate his humility in serving others (philippians tells us to do this), or perhaps we need to imitate his unconditional love (1 corinthians tells us to do this too), scripture is FULL of commands that would have us emulate characteristics of Christ and we come to believe this to be all it takes to be Holy. if we could just figure out which traits we're supposed to copy...how very very pharisaic of us. Are we to imitate the traits of Jesus or are we to imitate the very THING that defined his "Otherness," his unswerving dedication, allegiance, and SUBMISSION to the will of the Holy Father when he prays "not my will but your will be done." Holiness, for us, begins with submission. Humility, love, all of that will naturally follow, but they are meaningless, completely unattainable, and dangerously fakeable characteristics for us until we learn to pursue a holiness born of submission.
[prayer]
_____
I am by no means qualified to talk on the topic of holiness. I stand here as a sinful man. I can give a message on holiness and anyone of you would be right in calling me a hypocrit after im done. This is not modesty, just the plain, ugly, and honest truth. I am arrogant, selfish, lustful, and quick to anger. As preacher once said, "I am not obsessed with holiness because I am holy. I love the holiness of God because it is my only hope. Without his mercy and holiness there would be no restraint to my wickedness." I was given carte blanche by uncle joe to pick any topic i wanted and i choose this one because it is so important to our lives and I think is utterly essential to our understanding of the Apostle's Creed which we've been studying. I want us to get a true glimpse at this God that we believe in. So please pray with me as I ask for God's help to try and communicate the words He wants said.
[prayer]
let me make this clear: this sermon is not simply edward telling you to stop sinning and be more like Jesus. That WILL happen, but it isn't my primary goal. My initial impulse is to give you all a definition of the word "holy" in order to give you a solid framework to hang this sermon on - that's the structured way to do it and I tend to like structure. I decided not to do that though, at least not yet. i want to take holiness in all its angles before coming, hopefully, to some form of conclusion as to what holiness should mean to us and what it means to pursue it. I think most of us have a general grasp of the word "holy." we imagine holiness to be bright lights and clouds in the heavens (we really do, i google imaged it).
I think the word "Holy" has two aspects to it. On the one hand, it has EVERYTHING to do with what you're doing on the computer in the middle of the night, it has to do with the grudges you hold. It has to do with how you deal with pride. Sin and holiness certainly encompasses all of these things. I think moralistic purity is probably the definition most people tack onto God when they think of the word "Holy." But I would argue that this understanding of holiness is insufficient by itself. If we observe holiness in light of moralistic purity alone, God repeatedly breaks His own commandment, "thou shalt not kill." We get nervous when nonbelievers point at stories like the judgement fire poured upon Sodom and Gomorrah, and we cringed at how the earth opened up and swallowed unbelievers. Really, we dont even have to look in scriptures for examples, God has killed every human being since the dawn of time (with exception of two, enoch and elijah). It's called death, it symbolizes everything we hate and fear, and its something we'll all go through with. Yet despite being the author of death, God remains (to use john piper's words) "impeccably holy!" It's not about moralistic purity, at least in the sense that we understand it, its about something higher.
The other, and i think the primary, meaning of the word "Holy," or "Kadesh" in Hebrew, is transcendence and separation. It's the "otherness" of God that is most glorifying. In the vision described in Isaiah 6, we find the seraphims declaring "Holy! Holy! Holy is the Lord God Almighty!" I'm told that the Hebrew language uses repetition as the mode of emphasis, to say something 3 times is like typing in CAP LOCK, size 30 font, bolded, italicized and underlined. It was not enough to say "Holy" or "Holy Holy," they take it up to the third degree - no other attribute of God is praised in this way, not His wisdom and not His power. Only His uniqueness and separation, His absolute VALUE, that human language tries its best to sum up with the word "Holy."
I think the natural human response to God's holiness, as I just defined it, is fear. Ever heard of the term xenophobia? It's the fear of strangers or the unknown. I think if we were to truly encounter God in all his glorious holiness, we'd be struck w/ the worst case of xenophobia imaginable. Consider the disciples's reaction when jesus calmed the storm (Read Mark 4:35). You would think they were afraid of the storm, but we see that their fears became even greater upon witnessing Jesus calming the waves and winds. The disciple's response was based on their fear of the holy. It was not Christ's moralistic purity but His alien'ness that look lustfully at scared the bejesus out of them. Their reaction was not "oooooh...jesus u're sooo holy, u never tell a lie...ooooo." It was more like "JESUS CHRIST, WHAT ARE YOU MAN?!" ...Profanity was intended. we often sneer at how spiritually blind the disciples are. oh we'll usually say that we're no better but a part of us always think we would've done better if we were in their shoes. But really...even if their fearful response was born out of sinful, human nature, they at least saw jesus for who he was. I wonder if we could even lay that claim upon our own perception of christ. Do we even SEE the real Christ. the Holy One of Isra El. Or do we look to the Holy Father as a genie and pout when things fail to go the way we want, do we shake our fist at Him in the midst of tragedy. The only sane response upon a true encounter with holiness is fear and trembling, and this you'll find throughout scripture. There is an aversion built into the heart of sinful man against anything holy precisely because it is so foreign and alien to us. In the words of R.C. Sproul "As long as our gaze is fixed on the horizontal plane of this earth, we have no problem with ourselves. But if we lift our gaze to heaven and contemplate what God is, we will be broken. Security and smugness is annihilated."
Because if holiness defines God's otherness from us, sin defines OUR otherness from Him. Let's face it, our natural selves don't want a Holy God. We want an unholy god that is humanly predictable and does what we expect/want of Him. one that embodies what WE envision as good. We want to create a "safe" god to accommodate our unholy ways, a god we can RELATE to. An idol. God's Holiness means that He IS morally pure, which is exactly why He can not act the way unholy humans expect Him to - can't operate by the same rules - He needs to be separate/above creation. The two aspects of Holiness are interconnected. I really want us to get this, how he is so different from us precisely because of His moral perfection, and our depravity. His holiness means that his moral purity is so far above ours that we don't even understand it and it becomes alien and foreign to us.
(everything he does for the good of those who love him; maxi good)
Holiness won't always appear the way we think it should, that's not God's fault, it's ours. One question nonbelievers often ask to trip up christians is "how could a good, loving and all powerful God permit human suffering? either He wants to help but cant, in which case he's not all powerful; or he could help but doesn't want to and is therefore not good." I think the answer to that lies in the fact that He is Holy. In His holiness, His unique and uncompromising nature of moral perfection, God aims at maximizing Good at the end of all things, even if it means suffering in this lifetime. If there is one way in which God is limited, it is that He can't NOT be God, He can not do anything that would lead to less Good than is possible at the end of time - His Holy nature will not permit Him that. Holiness is the only way I can explain how a Good and all powerful God exists in a suffering world. (present suffering not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us) In other words, God is being Holy when you face rejection, persecution, slander, ridicule, loneliness, depression, and exhaustion; when the worst imaginable thing happens to you, He is being Holy. God was being Holy when he allowed the Haiti earthquake, or withholds rain from famine stricken countries, or choose not to answer prayers of cancer patients....... I learnt earlier this week that three of the villages i recently served in Uganda was hit by a mudslide that killed hundreds of people. Children who took refuge in schools, buried alive; patients who took refuge in hospitals, buried alive; christians who took refuge in churches, buried alive. EVERYTHING destroyed, the economy of the entire district devastated - leaving the already impoverished survivors in even greater poverty... God was being HOLY when he permitted ALL of this because SOMEHOW, in ways we can't begin to imagine, it will all add up to greater Good in the end. Hold ONTO that fact so that when disaster hits your life you have a ROCK to hold onto and won't curse the Holy One of Israel. In the face of suffering believers are given three choices, to shut our eyes and pretend it did not happen, to renounce God's Goodness, or to believe in faith, that He is being Holy in bringing this to pass. I'll push it even further and go on to say that God would be UNholy if he averted/interfered with events such that there would ULTIMATELY be less Good in the end, even if in the short run it would mean Haiti averted, or cancer cured, or......young lives saved. Do you see how uncomfortable that makes us feel? Do you SEE how uncomfortable that makes us feel? This claim I'm making...that God would be unholy and unworthy of our worship if He were to answer some of our best intentioned prayers... We're so accustomed to thinking about "holiness" from a humanity centered perspective... It's not, holiness was, is, and always will be GOD centered. Holiness doesn't come cheaply, not for us, and especially NOT for God. Holiness meant having to allow Haiti, or cancer or bududa, it means allowing children He desperately LOVES to suffer. Holiness meant turning His back on the Son as He was crucified, the most horrific of tragedies to happen in human history, deicide! Never. take. the word. "Holy." lightly. Im not playing word games here with this concept of "Holiness" - to give you all this cool new definition or outlook on this sunday school term. I want us to see this Holy God, to truly SEE Him, and to be utterly amazed at this...being that we gave our lives to and who gave His live for us in order to overcome this separation defined by His very Holy nature and our sinfulness.
Which brings us to the Cross, the ultimate expression of God's love and holiness. I spent all this time to tell you how different, alien and inaccessible God is to us. Now, if uncle joseph and ben will allow me 5 more minutes, I want to spend what little time I have left to tell you how he MADE himself accessible. Jesus made it possible for us to come to the Father (noone comes to the father except through me). To make US holy, a mark of separation from this world, and in doing so glorify the Father and the Son. That was the whole point of the Cross, it's not about us and our salvation, but about God and His glorification. I promised uncle joseph that I would talk about how we should stop sinning and to pursue holiness. so, here it is: everyone ready? you should stop sinning and pursue holiness. hahaha...really, what else is there to say? Is the Holiness of our God not enough? let me leave you a verse to hang this on, (hebrews 12:1-2) Notice it doesn't just say throw off sin, but EVERYTHING that entangles, even morally neutral things. You all know what im talking about. All the idols that we set up in our lives: sports, families, grades, careers, relationships. Everything that is not brought before the cross in submission to the Father's will. Holiness is more than moral purity and more than a list of rules we follow. If you were to ask 10 people what they thought it means to "pursue holiness" you'd get 10 different answers (i know, i tried), but most of their definitions point towards this concept of imitating Christ. Be like jesus, WWJD, 10 steps to being more like jesus - books and cds for sale in the foyer after the service. But what do we really mean when we say we want to be more like Jesus? Are we to imitate his humility in serving others (philippians tells us to do this), or perhaps we need to imitate his unconditional love (1 corinthians tells us to do this too), scripture is FULL of commands that would have us emulate characteristics of Christ and we come to believe this to be all it takes to be Holy. if we could just figure out which traits we're supposed to copy...how very very pharisaic of us. Are we to imitate the traits of Jesus or are we to imitate the very THING that defined his "Otherness," his unswerving dedication, allegiance, and SUBMISSION to the will of the Holy Father when he prays "not my will but your will be done." Holiness, for us, begins with submission. Humility, love, all of that will naturally follow, but they are meaningless, completely unattainable, and dangerously fakeable characteristics for us until we learn to pursue a holiness born of submission.
[prayer]
_____
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Happy Wednesday (Sin) (03/03/10)
Sup guys,
some observations i made about sin this past week:
we tend to treat sin the same way nonbelievers treat addiction when it's really not hte same thing. realization/acceptance is NOT the first step. I say this because to some degree or another we are all aware of the sins in our lives. That knowledge alone has never moved me a single pace and leaves me constantly stranded in the same struggles, how could i call that a "first step?" for me, the first step is coming to terms with the fact that this sin will not satisfy me, and that God is infinitely greater. It is so important that we replace whatever we sweep out of our lives with God. We're built to have cravings and if the emptiness in us is not going to be filled with God, it will be filled with something else - this is the essence of idolatry. basically, we need believe that we actually WANT God more than we want this addiction.
sometimes we would rely on almost anything rather than God when it comes to dealing w/ sin (does anyone else notice this?): accountability, books, tricks, and scarily enough...even prayer. I find my prayers concerning sin so bland and formulaic sometimes and completely devoid of the repentant spirit God is looking for. While accountability, books, tricks and prayers can all be important tools, they'll only take us so far on the surface level. I do believe that at the core of every spiritual battle i fight against sin, after we strip away all the books and accountability partners and advice givers, there are only 3 players: me, satan, and God. I find myself constantly having to ask "who am I allied with?"
each person is ultimately responsible for what he/she does with sin. while absolute blamelessness is not a requirement for God's followers, active pursuit of holiness is. Encouragement for the week, fight sin with God.
Have a happy wednesday,
Edward
"When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first." - Luke 11:24-26
"Be holy, because I am holy." - Leviticus 11:44
This is too cute, i like how the husband shows a naughty side at 1:00.... (thx for sharing this grace!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtyAsiZWktY
some observations i made about sin this past week:
we tend to treat sin the same way nonbelievers treat addiction when it's really not hte same thing. realization/acceptance is NOT the first step. I say this because to some degree or another we are all aware of the sins in our lives. That knowledge alone has never moved me a single pace and leaves me constantly stranded in the same struggles, how could i call that a "first step?" for me, the first step is coming to terms with the fact that this sin will not satisfy me, and that God is infinitely greater. It is so important that we replace whatever we sweep out of our lives with God. We're built to have cravings and if the emptiness in us is not going to be filled with God, it will be filled with something else - this is the essence of idolatry. basically, we need believe that we actually WANT God more than we want this addiction.
sometimes we would rely on almost anything rather than God when it comes to dealing w/ sin (does anyone else notice this?): accountability, books, tricks, and scarily enough...even prayer. I find my prayers concerning sin so bland and formulaic sometimes and completely devoid of the repentant spirit God is looking for. While accountability, books, tricks and prayers can all be important tools, they'll only take us so far on the surface level. I do believe that at the core of every spiritual battle i fight against sin, after we strip away all the books and accountability partners and advice givers, there are only 3 players: me, satan, and God. I find myself constantly having to ask "who am I allied with?"
each person is ultimately responsible for what he/she does with sin. while absolute blamelessness is not a requirement for God's followers, active pursuit of holiness is. Encouragement for the week, fight sin with God.
Have a happy wednesday,
Edward
"When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first." - Luke 11:24-26
"Be holy, because I am holy." - Leviticus 11:44
This is too cute, i like how the husband shows a naughty side at 1:00.... (thx for sharing this grace!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtyAsiZWktY
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