its all in the blood

for those of you who dont know i am 1 of 4 children and my little brother and sister #1 kill it at snoboarding like Van Gogh at art. dont believe me? check out my little bro winning like 5K in the most prominent snowboard am rail jam of the year and my little sis taking 2nd. the proof is in the pudding.

they rock.

i love em so much!

this is how serious religion is.

unreal, or maybe, so real.

substitution is no joke.

desperation...

“And what you think your good enough? Is that it? You’re hip enough? Cool enough? Creative enough? Smart enough? Oh you read Kellers book that came out on the 14^th, okay. Oh, you’ve been online; you’ve read everything you can get your hands on? Alright. Listen, there is a power that you don’t get to control, you just get to submit to it. And the ones who are truly going to missionally engage this culture are those who understand the might and sheer power of the glory of God in Christ. And find there spirits overwhelmed to the point of prayer and the pursuit of him, to see his weight established in the hearts of those around him.” –Matt Chandler, Vision of a Church Planter, preached at ‘Text and Context’ in February 2008 at Mars Hill Church Seattle.

i confess, that i dont pray enough, im not broken enough because my schedule takes priyority over preaching the gospel.

what is hell nic? do you believe it? then why are you so afraid, or more modern, to busy to talk to people who have NEVER HEARD THE GOSPEL AND WILL SPEND AND ENTIRE ETERNITY IN SUFFERING!

God help us to get beyond our privatized schedule and onto his glory in the preached word.

oh....and all you reformed folk, lets stop talking about double predestination, and start watching it happen (that means go share the love of Christ in the gospel with someone you have never met).

...and pray that i would as well, give us courage LORD.

we all need a little more boar in our yard...

"Chrirst desires to have our hearts so free and divested(of our own righteousness[good things you do that you talk about] and wisdom) that for our sins we fear no denial of grace and for our virtue (good skills you have) we seek no glory and vain satisfaction." -Martin Luther, Romans, p29.

its funny how you find the key to your spiritual life after you have banged into the door so many times it has red stains in it.

this quote, sets us free to live for the Lord. That serving the Lord is not some worrysome tumor on our brain constantly nagging, 'is it sin? i dont know? i cant watch movies! thats bad.' which eventually leads to suffocation and life staring into a corner. Nor is it a life so free that if you put up our lives to the lives of others in the world that there is no contrast but only blended grey.

But only here, knowing that Christ is sufficient to keep us, and forgive us, to draw us back, to continually(that means continuing, not giving up) guide us because his grace allows us to. And if anything is accomplished, its because of God.

i need this humility and God centered view of reality.

be free, remember the cross, and take up yours, for your joy, and his glory.






i started blogging again because of mike neglia, he is amazing. check him out, its way worth it.

"...doctrines are like lenses or prisms that make it possible to see things in a new way. We need to look at the world through a doctrinal framework, rather than allow ourselves to become fixated on those doctrines themselves...Herberts poem(Quoted earlier) challenges us to avoid being mere theological mechanics, and instead to open our eyes to the new world of ideas that theology makes possible." -Alister Mcgrath, Creation, p.27.

As a child who is always playing on the railroad tracks so I am in constant danger of studying the theology, nature, culture, and even the bible as means in themselves. Instead of looking, observing, and analyzing them to see more the glory of God in the dispersion of his attributes to the giving of thanks for his common grace and mercy. This inturn would inevitably lead to a richer, fuller, more complete worship of him, to the praise of the manifestation of his glory. Let us look upon this world and glory in Him.

"All creatures of this tangible world lead the soul of the wise and contemplative person to the eternal God, since they are his shadows, echoes and pictures...They are set before us for the sake of our knowing God, and are divinely given signs. For every creature is by its very nature a kind of portrayal and likeness of that eternal Wisdom" -Bonaventure (1217-74)

"...the gospel is not just something to be listened to, or to be applauded, but ever to be applied...but it is the same theme from beginning to end, and the think that is common to the three divisions in the general statement is the terrible warning about the fact of judgment. That, as we have see, is the theme right through this seventh chapter of Matthews Gospel and it is most important that we should realize that. It is the failure to grasp this that accounts for most of our troubles and problems. It accounts for the light and superficial evangelism that is far too common today. it accounts also for the lack of holiness and sanctified living that is true of most of us. It is not that we need special teaching about these things. What we all seem to be forgetting is that the whole time the eye of God is upon us, and that we are all moving steadily and certainly in the direction of the final judgment." -D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

i just want to give up trying to blog when i read Lloyd-Jones.

you should probably read him if you dont already. it will most likely change your life, if you can handle that on top of creating new ipod playlists.

Compartmentalized Humility

I recently read an intro and into to a book which portrayed a family who was going to church. Pretty normal huh? Yeah that’s what I thought especially when in the story escalated to bitter nostalgia with the father was yelling at the children to get them to go to church, speeding on the way, the wife was making rude comments back to him, and the kids stood in cold blood silence like someone had just been murdered because spears their parents were throwing. It was showing that there is an inconsistency in belief with lifestyle, a schism between what we hold to be true, and the reality of our actions.

Unfortunately this is a more common occurrence than not in the western world modernized beyond recognition. It curses us with the black plague of hypocrisy that lies in every human heart, home, and life. Is that not the most common argument that atheists have? “They are all a bunch of hypocrites.” And rightly said so, don’t believe me? “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Did you pass that test? Yes? What do you think your parents would say about that?

As I was considering this I realized that we don’t think of ourselves like this, we don’t think we are hypocrites. And anytime someone tells us that we are, we always try to justify ourselves, “You see man the crusades were really about…”. We as Christians in the world think of ourselves basically as good people, not hypocrites. How could we, who hold the truth of God, go to church, have a good community be wrong? “Dude, I read my bible I’m not a hypocrite.” Self-defeating argument. If we see something that needs to be done we do it, sometimes, Lord knows we can do everything. But if we are truly are hypocrites, (pause, then read again), then we are not fully submitted to God, because if we were, we would have the life of Christ (Rom 8:3,4) and this would cause all un believers to gaze upon this city on a hill and see the light and not walk in darkness. And besides no one enjoys conversation with a hypocrite.

One of the problems I see exceedingly consistent in my life is what I call ‘compartmentalized humility’. And this simply is that we, being children of God, have experienced his grace, gone on mission trips, shared the gospel with our coworkers even though it was really hard, and gone to church yet only have fruit in certain areas, or are hypocrites in some, but not all stages of our life. And because of these few varied graces we tend to think that we have it figured out, that we are humble, that we are Christians. Automatically assuming that humility has folded over into every are of our life. Instead of thinking that we are figuring it out, what we are becoming humble. And that we still need the grace of humility in other areas of our life. You see, when we have figured something out, there is no need to work on it anymore. Who keeps on building a Lego castle after you finished with the directions? But if we see ourselves as a ‘work in progress’ then we realize that salvation is not complete, but it is a lifelong process, that is continually being worked out by our continual submission to God and his revelation through his word. And then we begin to become humble.

So if you are having problems with a ‘consistent’ Christian walk, then remember that you have not figured it out, Christ did, that we are not humble, but Christ was, and we are not glorifying to God, but Christ was. This is the reason that the singular expression, “in Christ” is mentioned 13 plus times in the book of Ephesians in the first 3 chapters. This is to show the sufficiency of Christ in light of our deficiency, or hypocrisy. He gives you his mind through the new birth to be able to make decisions now to glorify God and enjoy him forever, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5). And in this mind is understanding the absolute necessity of submitting ourselves to the glory of God, for our total joy.

I guess in conclusion if you suffer from the black plague of ‘inconsistent Christianity’ or better defined, maybe you have given up on trying not to sin. Then perhaps you need to submit areas of your life back to God and, “bear fruit in keeping(as in continually) with repentance” (Matt 3:8).

And remember this submission, its not stoic, its for your joy, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (use a concordance to find this verse so you will remember it).