“You are not your own.” (1 Corinthians 6:20)

I find that kelp swaying in the ocean is a good analogy for my life. It wobbles and in the limbo of the current and never really finds its resting place because it is only committed in one area, the bottom. So I have not been wholly committed in life to Christ, but only at one point, yet grace demands all, more, fullness, because its free in fullness.

So I have the anchor of my soul, the blessed Savior of the weak, stupid, blind, downcast, lame, ugly, and totally unworthy as my holding place. He has kept me alive in this haze of life, with nutrients gained photosynthesizing His true word and the illumination of the Spirit. But in this mass of vacillation in trying to go to school and then failing, trying to get a career and failing. I realized a few things.

Firstly, that I was trying to do it in my own strength, and failing miserably. Lost because I did not have a direct revelation of Gods specific will and discontent in my current situation I was grasping for the wind and always coming up short in every aspect. I just wanted something to ‘do’! But the gospel says, “If we have food and clothing, with these we will be content” (1 Tim 6:8), and I was not content because I was not where ‘I’ wanted to be. Not resting in grace, trusting in a finished, beautifully accomplished redemption. But, my life is ‘not my own’, its His will not mine. I was striving in all of mans ways to get things done.

Second, I tried to do it an ignorant naïve faith. Keep in mind those two adjectives before faith for they are crucial. I was in folly not working and just foolishly saying, when I knew better, ‘The Lord will provide’ and He does by his grace. I was banking on it while being lazy, a sluggard of sorts. Which in the end turned to nothing, because I was still discontent and using the promises of God to get what I wanted. Using God for my own ends. Saying such things and then not acting upon them in dependence is truly vile. And it mocks the ‘actual’ provision that we receive form the Lord.

Then, the Lord put it in me to work, and to have faith, and to remember that I am, ‘not my own’ but I do what He says, knowing that He definitely calls his people to serve him and provides all, even contentment when he does, “For he who called you is faithful, and he also will do it” (1 Thess 5:24). So I found the goodness of the Lord in waiting, “The Lord is good to those who wait on him” (Lam 3:26), and worked hard unto his glory in contentment Him, “whatever you do work at it as working for the Lord, not for man” (Col 3:23). I found myself at the end of my rope, only with submission to grace to hold onto singing ever so sweetly with tears welling up face, “Amazing grace how sweet the sound,…I once was lost(in myself and in discontentment outside of God) but now I’m found.” I was found in the general will of doing it all for His glory, then in contentment in that, I was given the specific. Let us learn from Jeremiah Burroughs on what is true contentment: “Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in Gods wise and fatherly disposal in every condition” Perhaps one day we will be so wrapped up in Gods love that this mental utopia found in Gods grace shall truly penetrate us unto absolute solidity.

So in conclusion, let us not work for ourselves, but remember that the gift of grace is slavery, to call God ours and for Him to call us His(Gal 4:9). So when we come to God, we get God, and nothing but God, “For whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ” (Phil 3:7).

Here Hudson Taylor says it better than I:

“It makes no matter where he places me or how; that is rather for him to consider than me. For the easiest positions he must give me grace, and in the most difficult, his grace is sufficient. So, if God places me in great perplexity, must he not give me much guidance; in positions of great difficulty, much grace; in circumstances of great pressure and trial, much strength? As to work, mine was never so plentiful, so responsible or so difficult, but the weight and the strain are all gone. His resources are mine, for He is mine.”

Read it again.

Christian freedom is being able to be anywhere in fullness because of the fullness of grace given in Christ.

Found this Video on Pyromaniacs

Here is a video by Penn Jillette of "Penn and Telller" very interesting.

As I Lay Dying....(New Album, at least new to me)

For those of you who do not know, As I Lay Dying, is a metal band from San Diego.

This album is new to me because I pretty much know more about Jonathan Edwards than I do the metal scene, and I know nothing about Edwards. Did you want a short bio on his life by the way?

So about the album a little. This album is for you if you like chainsaw massacre guitar riffs that cannibalize harp-like beauty (thus destroying all previous conception of melodies) and want to have your own brain pried out of your head and put in your hand while you're staring slack-jawed at the wall. I submit that the recipient of the aforementioned aural assault will thereafter be broadsided by the tsunami of sound wrecking devastation upon his conscience, leaving him on the floor in his own drool, convulsing for more.

I listen to it when I read Carl Trueman who according to Pyromaniacs sponsors intelligence infusions while wielding a flamethrower set to 'Total Righteous Destruction'.

Carl Trueman Busts Out The Flamethrower

The blazing mass of lyrically amazing words thrown together by Carl Trueman here in his new article at Reformation21 pretty much melted my face off, let alone any postmodern communally driven, social anarchists.

A few excepts to season your tastebuds:

"He doesn't write books; he merely does the evangelical equivalent of lip-synching, more akin to Britney Spears than Martin Luther...

Before I switch my flamethrower to `Total Righteous Destruction' (did a Presbyterian just actually say that? Im not alone!) it is worth reflecting for a few moments on ....

I also believe it can involve clear intellectual theft, albeit a kind of ironic theft with permission (get ready for the massacre)...

It is rather like buying a Pink Floyd album, only to find that the music and the singing has been done by a cover group; all the original band have done is lip synch. We would regard that as unacceptable in secular pop music, as witness the cases of the awful Milli Vanilli and the unthinkably bad Boney-M...

Or is this just one more area where Christians actually in the vanguard of setting new levels of ethical and cultural mediocrity?

(drum roll please) Of course, this ties in with one of my pet peeves: that the evangelical subculture simply replicates (usually in a more mediocre way) the practices, values, and behavioral patterns of the advanced consumerist societies in which we live."

Well don Prof. Trueman. Like Driscol says your putting the 'Fun' back into 'Fundamentalism'.

Dr. Mohler On Study Bibles

Right so we have all been in Church and seen those people who have an entire library of church bulletins in their already bulging study bible, which you can tell upon engaging them in conversation, they don't use. Here is one of the brightest minds in Christendom(so smart he makes jokes about medieval Italian Law) talking about how to avoid that embarrassing paradigm of collecting a library of church bulletins in your study bible and rather using it to not be strangled from ignorance. Its like the prophet always says, 'Them peeps get lynched 'cause d'em dont know em bibles'(authors translation of Hosea 4:6).

Its short and really worth reading.

Authority of the Holy Spirit

In the fall of 1957 'the doctor' spoke to a group of students in Ontario Canada on 'Authority' what it means, what it is, and what it comes from. Here he is ending his message on the authority of God the Holy Spirit.

“What conclusion do we arrive at as the result of all this? Let us go on with our practical efforts and let us go on with our study, but God forbid that we should rely upon them. Let equip ourselves as best as we can. We shall never be as able and as learned as the apostle Paul, St. Augustine, Luther or Calvin. They were men of great learning and giant intellects. That is the kind of man God seems to use when He does His greatest things in the history of the Church. Let us go on, however, and seek knowledge and equip ourselves as perfectly as possible. But, in the name of God, let us not stop at that. Let us realize that even that, without the authority and the power of the Spirit, is of no value at all. ‘Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love (a product of the work of the Spirit), I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal’ (1 Corinthians xiii.1). It does not matter who I am or what I may do: it will get me nowhere. It is the authority of the Spirit that alone avails.
Now this is what grieves me. I very rarely hear any Christians today, even Evangelicals, praying for revival. What do they pray for? They pray for their own organized efforts, either at home or in various other lands. In a typical prayer meeting this is what happens. ‘First of all let us have the reports’, says the chairman. Having heard them, he adds, ‘Let us go to prayer about it. You have heard the facts; let us pray about them.’ We pray only for blessing on our own efforts, whether it be a great evangelistic campaign, or work in the foreign field. That is quire right, of course, and we should do that. But the trouble is that we always start with ourselves and our efforts and ask God to bless them. When did you last hear anyone praying for revival, praying that God might open the windows of Heaven and pour out His Spirit? When did you last pray for that yourself? I suggest seriously that we are neglecting this almost entirely. We are guilty of forgetting the authority of the Holy Spirit. We are so interested in ourselves and in our won activities that we have forgotten the one thing that can make us effective. By all means let us continue to pray for the particular efforts, for the minister, and his preaching every Sunday, for all essential organizations and for evangelistic campaigns, if we feel led to have them. But before it all, and after it all, let us pray and plead for revival. When God sends revival He can do more in a single day that in fifty years of all our organization. That is the verdict of sheer history which emerges clearly from the long story of the Church.
This is the greatest need today, indeed it is the only hope. Let us therefore decide that day by day, and many times during the day, we will spend our time before God pleading for revival. But foolish as we are, we will never do so until we have come to the end of ourselves and of our own resources. We will do so only when everything else has failed, and we have realized our utter bankruptcy and impotence, and we have come to see that our Lord spoke the simple truth when He said ‘Without me ye can do nothing’ (John xv. 5).
Let us remind ourselves that God who in the past has come suddenly and unexpectedly upon the dying Church and has raised her to a new period of life and victory can do the same still, that His arm is not shortened, no His power in any sense diminished. Let us wait upon Him, let us plead with Him, let us learn to agonize in prayer and let our one prayer be:

Revive Thy work, O Lord,
Thy mighty arm make bare;
Speak wit the voice that wakes the dead,
And make Thy people hear.

‘O Lord, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy’ (Habakkuk iii. 2).” -D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Sin...Who wants to talk about it?

The beloved MLJ(Martin Lloyd-Jones) gives us a clear cut, not legalistic, anti-religious, view of sin in its reality. The brevity of this statement should gut you like a hunters fresh catch. Can you feel the blood flow?

"Nothing is quite so fallacious as to think of sin only in terms of actions; and as long as we think of sin only in terms of things actually done, we fail to understand it. The essence of biblical teaching on sin is that it is essentially a disposition. It is a state of heart. I suppose we can sum it up by saying that sin is ultimately self-worship and self-adulation; and our Lord shows (what to me is an alarming and terrifying thing) that this tendency on our part to self-adulation is something that follows us even into the very presence of God. It sometimes produces this result; that even when we try to persuade ourselves that we are worshiping God, we are actually worshipping ourselves and doing nothing more." -D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Sermon on the Mount, p301.

He is pretty much saying that even in your best times, when you are praying your best, on a mission trip, serving the Lord, you are in the greatest danger of becoming prideful. Keep watch on yourself lest you be strong and forget the Lord

The Shack Review

The Resurgence just put out a review on the immensely popular book 'The Shack' and they pretty much said what I've been saying since I heard about the book.

"I believe that those who are well-grounded in the Word won’t be harmed by the weaknesses and deficiencies of the book. Unfortunately, few people these days are well-grounded in the Word." -Scott Lindsey, Review on 'The Shack'

Beware those of you who 'search the scriptures' the Zombie armies of The Shack equipped with 'anti-intellectual' helmets, mysticism bracelets, and negative discipline belt are coming to a neighborhood near you. They will be groaning, 'It only a story, it doesnt actually effect your theology.'

Read Old Dead Guys people. Seriously.

The Name of My Blog

I was going to write an explanation of why I named my blog 'Contra Mundum' and then I waited, and waited, and finally the guys over at Pyromaniacs did it for me. So if you were wondering what my blog name means check out this.