So, as I was cooking lunch this afternoon, I realized that my grumpy attitude and frustrated thoughts probably had a root in not reading my bible this morning and praising Jesus for his awesomeness. I decided instead of watching something crappy on TV I would do my devo at lunch. And man, I'm glad I did. I decided to just start reading 1 Corinthians, it's a great book and a lot more fulfilling than my lunch was...
Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things-and the things that are not-to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God-that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."
I got to this and immediately pulled out my pen to mark it. It's funny how God can answer prayers as fast as a blink of an eye or take years to answer it. When I was thanking Him for my food, I also asked that He would show up today in my life. I know it probably sounds a bit selfish, but that's what I prayed for. And I'm so glad He did.
Those verses (1 Cor 1:26-31) blew my mind. I know I've read them before but it's funny how some things don't ever mean anything and then all of a sudden, BOOM! we understand it, and it's impactful.
This past season of my life I've been struggling a lot with living my own life, as just me, JB and no Jesus to direct my life. The work positions that I've had have been great opportunities to submit to Jesus, but I've been having a really hard time doing that. I've had this opinion of myself that since I'm in charge of others I don't need to have anyone in charge of me.
I've been boasting in myself.
I've been upset with myself a lot, on edge with others because I've been judging myself by my standards, wanting to keep myself on a pedestal for all to see (metaphorically speaking) and not taking on the position that my Savior gave me. The one who literally had everything before Him, got on his knees to clean the dirt and poop and trash off His creation's feet. He was being tortured and killed by His creation, when He could have gone Super Saiyan on them (Yeah, I just related Jesus and Dragon Ball Z ;)
I can't fully wrap my mind around the fact that the Creator of everything became a human and died for us. I mean, I can say that and from a literal standpoint it's easy to understand, but to go deeper and think about who that Creator is and what He has, is and will continue to do is unthinkable.
I guess I wanted to write this blog because I've been struggling with boasting only in Christ Jesus. It's not a fun thing to admit that I've been putting myself before my Lord, but I thank the Holy Spirit so much for bringing to light what has been hidden in darkness in my heart these past few months. I hope if you read this that you can keep me accountable with boasting only in Christ and the things that He's done and is doing and will continue to do. And I pray that you can be encouraged that if you're feeling down, like you're worthless, foolish, lowly or whatever that God has made you mighty in that, in these weak positions we cannot boast of ourselves but only in Him who made us righteous.
Being honest sucks sometimes. I didn't know if I should blog this morning. It was a rough night last night, where I had to share some past sins with Emily. Some painful sins that needed to be revealed and have light shed on them.
This morning has been a tough one, one spent in prayer and mourning. While sitting in prayer and journaling, I felt a tug on my heart to read some of Boy Meets Girl by Joshua Harris. I had been going through it earlier in the semester but had stopped. For some reason though I felt the Spirit leading me to open it back up and turn to the chapter entitled "When Your Past Comes Knocking." It's an amazing chapter that I highly recommend reading whether you're in a relationship or not. There's a part that I want to share from it in which he quotes out of another book, When God Weeps by Steven Estes and Joni Tada. It is probably one of the most impactful scenes that I've read about the crucifixion and what Jesus dealt with on the cross.
"The face that Moses had begged to see-was forbidden to see-was slapped bloody (Exodus 33:19-20). The thorns that God had sent to curse the earth's rebellion now twisted around his own brow.
"On your back with you!" One raises a mallet to sink in the spike. But the soldier's heart must continue pumping as he readies the prisoner's wrist. Someone must sustain the soldier's life minute by minute, for no man has this power on his own. Who supplies breath to his lungs? Who gives energy to his cells? Who holds his molecules together? Only by the Son do "all things hold together" (Colossians 1:17). The victim wills that the soldier live on-he grants the warriors continued existence. The man swings.
As the man swings, the Son recalls how he and the Father first designed the medial nerve of the human forearm-the sensations it would be capable of. The design proves flawless-the nerves perform exquisitely. "Up you go!" They lift the cross. God is on display in his underwear and can scarcely breathe.
But these pains are a mere warm-up to his other and growing dread. He begins to feel a foreign sensation. Somewhere during this day an unearthly foul odor began to waft, not around his nose, but his heart. He feels dirty. Human wickedness starts to crawl upon his spotless being-the living excrement from our souls. The apple of his Father's eye turns brown with rot.
His Father! He must face his Father like this!
From heaven the Father now rouses himself like a lion disturbed, shakes his mane, and roars against the shriveling remnant of a man hanging on a cross. Never has the Son seen the Father look at him so, never felt even the least of his hot breath. But the roar shakes the unseen world and darkens the visible sky. The Son does not recognize these eyes.
"Son of Man! Why have you behaved so? You have cheated, lusted, stolen, gossiped-murdered,envied, hated lied. You have cursed robbed overspent, overeaten-fornicated, disobeyed, embezzled and blasphemed. Oh, the duties you have shirked, the children you have abandoned! Who has ever so ignored the poor, so played the coward, so belittled my name? Have you ever held your razor tongue? What a self-righteous, pitiful drunk-you, who molest young boys, peddle killer drugs, travel in cliques, and mock your parents. Who gave you the boldness to rig elections, foment revolutions, torture animals and worship demons? Dies the list never end! Splitting families, raping virgins, acting smugly, playing the pimp-buying politicians, practicing exhortation, filming pornography, accepting bribes. You have burned down buildings, perfected terrorist tactics, founded false religions, traded in slaves-relishing each morsel and bragging about it all. I hate, loathe these things in you! Disgust for everything about you consumes me! Can you not feel my wrath?"
Of course the Son is innocent. He is blamelessness itself. The Father knows this. But the divine pair have an agreement, and the unthinkable must now take place. Jesus will be treated as if personally responsible for every sin ever committed.
The Father watches as his heart's treasure, the mirror image of himself, sinks drowning into raw, liquid sin. Jehovah's stored rage against humankind from every century explodes in a single direction.
"Father! Father! Why have you forsaken me?!"
But heaven stops its ears. The Son stares up at the One who cannot, who will not, reach down or reply.
The Trinity had planned it. The Son endured it. The Spirit enabled him. The Father rejected the Son whom he loved. Jesus, the God-man from Nazareth, perished. The Father accepted his sacrifice for sin wand was satisfied. The Rescue was accomplished.
Don't move too quickly from this scene. Keep gazing. The Rescue accomplished here was for You. John Stott writes, "Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us (leading us to faith and worship), we have to see it as something done by us (leading us to repentance)...As we face the cross, then, we can say to ourselves both 'I did it; my sins sent Him there,' and 'He did it; His love took Him there.'"
Did you see your own offenses on the list of sins that necessiated the Cross? If not, name them yourself. Name your darkest sin. Now reflect on the fact that Christ bore the punishment for that sin. He took the punishment you deserved. Do you feel His passionate and specific love for You? He died for You. He was condemned and cursed so that You could go free-He was forsaken by God so that you would never be forsaken (Hebrews 13:5).
This passage brought my heart to my knees in awe at the amazing reminder of how much Jesus loves me. Loves You. It's difficult to really picture what Jesus was dealing with on the inside during his suffering and death. I think it's easier to picture the physical pain that Jesus endured on that day 2000 years ago that we call "Good Friday." But to think about what really happened to Him, the pain of being cut off from God's presence... It blows my mind.
While I don't have any encouraging words or profound thoughts today, I do pray that if you get a chance to read this, that the amazing words of Estes and Tada can bless you and whether you are struggling with guilt, doubts in life, doubts that anyone loves you, whatever it may, that you know how much Jesus loves You. He went through all of that to show us what Love is, to let us know how much He truly cares about us.
Do you ever hear those songs that speak to you? Like, it was created and meant just for you? I love those kinds of songs, I'm pretty sure God knew what He was doing when He created music. Music is one the most amazing intangible things ever created.
In the Similrilion, Tolken writes about how Middle-Earth was created and I absolutely love the way he describes his world being formed. In it, he has one great being who has these subjects who were created to do it's bidding, kind of like God and angels is how I took it. Anyways, the subjects are given these instruments to play to glorify the creator, and the music that they play out of their instruments creates different parts of the world. For instance, one plays a great horn and creates all of the elves in middle earth, another beats something like a drum and the mountains are formed and another one trills on a flute and the tides of the ocean are created.
While the bible says that God spoke creation into being, I can't help but wonder if there wasn't some awesome soundtrack going on in the background while He spoke. I can picture some amazing metal riffs and double bass drum beats happening when God spoke the ocean into existence while Jesus and the Holy Spirit are doing some windmill kicks and throwing down together.
Music, like many other things in this world, blows my mind. It can set moods, create atmosphere and even play with our feelings. I can't help but wonder how incredible heavenly music will be, and hearing the angels worship the creator in all of His splendor, in ways that our bodies would not be able to handle now and our minds would melt because of how holy it is. I'm excited for that day. Until then I will keep enjoying the earthly music that we have been blessed with.
Golden brown eyes shoot wide open, only to shut tight again. The blinding white light of the iridescent bulbs are a surprise.
Where am I?
Trying to sit up, he meets resistance. Squinting open his eyes he notices a brown leather strap across his chest, pinning his arms down.
What is going on? Why am I strapped down?
Turning his head to the side, he realizes he's in a sterile laboratory. Operating tools sit on a small push cart along with a vitals monitor hooked up to his arm. Trying to move his legs, he realizes that they are strapped down too.
Realizing he's stuck, he tries to figure out his surroundings. The only noise is a hum from what's probably an air filter. There are no voices. No footsteps. Nothing. Twisting his head to the side, he sees a video camera blinking a red light.
Someone is watching, someone knows what is happening.
"Hey! Whoever is watching, tell me what's happening! Where am I? What's going on? What is all of this?"
The red light blinking is the only answer he gets.
Trying to shift his body around in the straps, he's completely stuck. No wiggle room and the table he's on is welded to the ground.
Yelling in frustration, he curses at the camera.
"Now, now. Subject 5-A-Z-7-8. Calm down." A female robotic voice fills the room, it makes him jump. There's no speakers visible, but it continues "You are probably upset and confused. But we need you to remain calm. Dr. Wilken will be with you shortly. He is dealing with another patient right now."
"What is happening? I want answers now!"
"Subject 5-A-Z-7-8, I have told you once to calm down. Your heart rate is escalating, if you do not restrain yourself and return your heart rate to normal, I will have to sedate you."
"Tell me! Who are you people? What do you want of me?"
The vitals monitor next to him hums to life and a liquid flow through one of the tubes connected to his arm.
His eye sight instantly seems to go into tunnel vision before completely blacking out.
Slowly opening his eyes he sees a man with a surgical mask looking straight into his eyes.
"Hello Saverio, it's a pleasure to see you again."
Gasping for air, Saverio let's out a, "No...It can't be." As the man with the surgical mask places a breathing tube to Saverio's nose. Feeling the anesthesia take affect, Saverio starts to black out again.
To be continued...
Well, I had a different blog I was working on this afternoon, but I was interrupted while writing it and kind of lost my motivation when I came back to it. So, I saved it and will post it another time, plus it felt a little forced writing it, and I'd rather for the writings to come a little smoother than what it was.
This weekend I was on duty at the dorm and couldn't go to church this morning, which bummed me out. I'm not going to lie and say that sleeping in wasn't great, but it would have been much more fulfilling to go to church and be around my community of believers that help make up the bride of Christ. I think it's hugely important to be around those that help build you up and encourage you and really push you in continuing to grow.
I've been really blessed with the community of believers here on campus. Our CSF group is awesome. I love getting to see my fellow college students serve each other whether through helping lead worship, or leading small groups or those that come to set up and tear down the room that we're in. I listened to a sermon today while working on my pottery by Francis Chan entitled "Grace and Love" and his passage for that sermon was Galatians 5:1-15, and the verses that I really love are 13&14 which say, "You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"
There is something truly incredible about loving others through serving. It's something that is not really pushed in our culture. We look at greatness as: how much you have or how you seem better than the other guy. But serving others, actually loving others, is selfless. True love for someone is selfless. John 15:13 says, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." Jesus knew this when he came to earth, it was why he came to earth. To show us that unconditional, agape, love and set us free of the bondage of sin.
I am a selfish person, I don't always like admitting it but I am. It's something that I struggle with a lot actually. The later part of Romans 7 really does a better job of explaining that struggle than I ever could. Recently though, my selfishness has been revealed to me in a new way. Being in an amazingly Christ-centered relationship with a very godly woman, has been incredible in more ways than I could describe. But, one of the ways that I know Christ is in this relationship is in the way He reveals sin in my life and uses Emily to help shed some of that light in my life. And I know that she is showing Christ's love in helping me grow more like Jesus, instead of allowing me to remain in my sinful and stubborn ways. I remember hearing a sermon about how sometimes our punishment for our sin is that we remain in that sin. Too many times I think about being punished for sin as getting caught and having consequences that go along with that, but really it's good to get caught and be disciplined. Proverbs 13:24 is usually quoted as "spare the rod, spoil the child" but it actually goes a little more like "He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him." It's a tough thing to think about, being disciplined for doing something wrong, our culture loves slackness, letting people off the hook or letting it slide this one time. But really, that doesn't make an impact, it doesn't change how people think.
Our goal as Christ followers is to pursue a life of righteousness and part of that is learning from our sins, not going back to those sins or "returning to vomit like a dog." As much as it hurts sometimes of having certain sins revealed or to be brought out into the open, it's really one of the greatest things as believers that can happen. To have that darkness of sin be exposed to the light means that it can't hide, it has no place to go except away, and to have those who love and truly care for you know what your struggles are, and help keep you accountable is amazing, because as sin leaves our life, we begin to look more like our savior, a perfect human and the son of God. While the rest of my life will be of God transforming my life to look more and more like his son's, I'm enjoying what He is doing now, using those around me who care and love me enough to help bring me to my knees and shed that light on the sin in my life that needs to be exposed.
*I will go ahead and apologize if my theology is not completely correct in what I've just written, I do want to have correct theology and not be a false teacher by preaching incorrect truths, but I did want to share some thoughts that have been on my heart.
I've decided to switch up my blog style, if I have cool dreams I'll post them on here, but I've decided to start sharing some of my thoughts. A normal blog I guess is what it'll be, but at the same time unique, cause I'm writing it, and let's be honest, I am a very unique individual...
I was working out this evening at the gym, and besides popping my blood blister, I had a great time listening to a podcast by Francis Chan entitled "Living for that Moment" it's the first part of a 2 part sermon. In it Chan preaches on living for the moment that Jesus comes back. We really have no idea when it will happen, but he spoke on how most of believers don't actually live like Jesus is gonna come back. And I'll be the first to admit that I usually don't think about that, I mean in my head I know that Jesus will come back someday, but I picture myself growing old and dying and then going to heaven. It could be just me, but I think that's how many of us live.
Francis brought up a really heart convicting idea to think about. He said think about the 10 worst things or sins you've been in this past year or done, and think about how it would be if Jesus came back at that moment. I actually paused my iPod to think about that for a few minutes, it was heart wrenching to think about. I don't think this is the place to mention what those "top 10 worst sins" would be for me, but I will say that I abhor the thought of Jesus returning while sinning.
Francis talked a lot more about Jesus' second coming and that it will happen, but that there will be mockers and those who bring you down and call you a fool for believing that Jesus will come back, but there is hope, because Jesus said he would come back, and everything he has said has come to pass and I believe just because he left this earth, he won't stop fulfilling everything he has promised.
I'm very thankful for the opportunity to listen to these podcasts while I work out, it's a great time to get some deep thinking in, in such a busy and hectic life. I used to do a lot when I worked at the golf course in Fairbanks right before going to Africa, and Francis Chan was one of my favorite pastors back then and helped encourage me when in Africa.
