God is Not Your Bitch

Pardon my french

The title is taken from Mark Morford's provocative article in the San Francisco Chronicle found here- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/07/24/notes072409.DTL

Read the article, please do it. It embodies a major complaint against all sorts of organized religion (even the kind "that's a relationship, not a religion"). Morford is very thought provoking, and I even agreed with him at a couple spots.

I had seen this video right before I read Morfords article, which happened to be a very personal, precise, and minute grace.

Tim Keller also has these incredible words on what it means to be a Christian, which provides a very fitting reply to Morford's complaint.

http://www.monergism.com/acidtest.html

All three of these pieces helped me understand the infinite yet personal glory of God that works in the heavens, in the earth, and in our lives. It is time to worship

no business

God has no business being human. He has no business getting dirty, being humble, serving people, getting toilet trained, living homeless, and spending three years with people who would deny him and betray him.

But he did.

Winning Races

The sun is rising on football season. For me this is an exciting time, though there are admittetly mixed opinions on the value of sports in America. While human nature will always find ways to twist and debase sports into an idol and obsession, there is a lot to learn and love from the fields of competition. For example, if anyone needs help understanding total depravity- examine the Washington Huskies 2008 football season. More positively, I have been tremendously helped by the perseverance and courage experienced in sports. Paul commonly uses racing imagery in his letters, and it ought to be commonly remembered.

In Pauls letter to the Philippians

"But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way"

In Pauls letter to timothy

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith"

A succesful running lifestyle involves two things- good work and good rest. In the long run you must have those two components. Both are found in Jesus Christ. Most often people think life is all about one or the other. But nobody wants the "most often" results in life do they?

My old cross country coach showed this to our team prior to one of our state meets. It's one of my favorite videos ever.

5 stars for the gospel

If someone told me to buy a 133 page book on the parable of the prodigal son by a pastor from New York City, my reply would be something like this...

"Does the parable of the prodigal son really need more press? Don't I have enough pages to read already? There are pastors in New York City?"

Thankfully, I am mistaken at every level of thought. The Prodigal God by Tim Keller is one of the most valuable books I have seen in a very long time.

Why? It gives the good news, and you will probably read it in one day. I could write a very long list of more sophisticated reasons, but I don't feel like being long winded- Buy this book.

The fool or the fool who attacks him?

A man who is a brother in Christ was recently called the "Howard Stern of Christianity"

This is just one of the flaming arrows that I recently thought only the devil would be throwing at Christians. I was largely unaware of this problem in Christianity because I was a huge partaker of it. This quote from A.W. Tozer was very convicting about "Christian" maliciousness that is so prevalent today, from the least to the greatest of us.

"Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander,
as well as all types of malicious behavior." Ephesians 4:31-32

Dispositional sins are fully as injurious to the Christian cause
as the more overt acts of wickedness. These sins are as many
as the various facets of human nature. Just so there may be
no misunderstanding, let us list a few of them: sensitiveness,
irritability, churlishness, faultfinding, peevishness, temper,
resentfulness, cruelty, uncharitable attitudes; and of course
there are many more. These kill the spirit of the church and
mar the witness of the church in the community. Many unsaved
people have been turned away and embittered by manifestations
of ugly dispositional flaws in the lives of the very people who
were trying to win them.

Unsaintly Saints are the tragedy of Christianity!

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." Gal. 5:22-23

chew on this

wisdom from the letters of John Newton:

"The Lord permits us to feel our weakness, that we may be sensible of it; for though we are ready in words to confess that we are weak, we do not so properly know it, until that secret, though unallowed, dependence we have upon some strength in ourselves is brought to the trial, and fails us. To be humble, and, like a little child, afraid of taking a step alone, and so conscious of snares and dangers around us, as to cry to him continually to hold us up that we may be safe is the sure, the infallible, the only secret of walking closely with him."

These words easily resound with our hearts after a long and trying day. God is good.

Summer reading

Herman Bavinck's Reformed Dogmatics will be my prize as soon as I get my first paycheck from newly found summer work! Check out part of the fourth volume on amazon- http://www.amazon.com/Reformed-Dogmatics-vol-Spirit-Creation/dp/0801026571/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245277347&sr=8-2

It's a God-glorifying, Christ-centered, biblically saturated(check out the scripture index in the preview of the book via the amazon link!), intellectually challenging, and devotionally applicable 4 volume set. Will I ever finish reading it? Probably not, but that never stopped me