"Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." 1 Corinthians 10:31

Thursday, July 31, 2014

On Messages and Mystics

     We need to be careful when we go demon hunting. As Christians we understand that the world we live in is fallen and at odds with the God we serve. We know that we can't simply trust what seems to be good and must be even more careful of the things that claim to be good. There is so much out there than will teach us wrongly or influence us in a negative way. However, not everything is actively backed by the powers of evil.

     Technically yes, everything that is not of God is part of the world system like a person still wired into the Matrix, but that doesn't mean that everything out there is intentionally trying to deceive and destroy our morals and beliefs. We need to be careful no to see demons in every shadow and monsters around every corner. To do that is to give the real enemy more power than he already has. It makes us paranoid and scared. We need to be aware of the dangers without obsessing over them and keep an eye out for enemies without focusing on them too much.

     One important aspect of this is perceiving and understanding the nature of the attack on God's good plan and purpose. We are Christians, and as such we actually hold to a very rational faith. Everything we believe makes logical sense. Even if we don't understand it all, God does. We need to remember that this is not a war of magic or mystery, it's a battle over ideas. The devil is a strong and powerful adversary but not because he wields God-like power. The devils tool -his only tool- is deception. He cannot create, he cannot control those who are saved, and he cannot simply make things happen, he can only talk. Grant it, he is quite good at it.

"You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.
He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth,
because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources,
for he is a liar and the father of it.”
(John 8:44)

In scripture there are very few instances of anything miraculous happening due to the working of evil. Mostly we see this in the book of Revelation but even then it's as a part of the divine plan for the punishment of the earth.

And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon,
out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.
For they are spirits of demons, performing signs,
which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world,
to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.”
(Revelation 16:13-14)

The point I'm trying to make here is that we are battling ideas and propositions not mystical leanings and dark magical influences. The devil can't slip some sort of evil signal into your mind and corrupt you without your knowledge. The corruption he can bring about is by convincing you that what you once thought was wrong is really alright.

     Remember Christian, that evil is not a force and sin is not a power, it's a choice. What we call evil is the willful decision to go against God. Objects and symbols and signs cannot be 'evil' because they have no will They can make no choices and can perform no actions. Remember that Jesus told us that we have sinned not when we've finally acted but when we've thought about it.

You have heard that it was said to those of old,
'You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.'
"But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause
shall be in danger of the judgment.
And whoever says to his brother, 'Raca!' (worthless) shall be in danger of the council.
But whoever says, 'You fool!' shall be in danger of hell fire.
...
"You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not commit adultery.'
"But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her
has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
(Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28)

     Finally, lets not forget one very important fact. The unsaved people of this world are indeed enemies of God as the Bible says, but that doesn't mean that every one of them is actively and willfully trying to destroy others. Most people are just living their lives as best they can and doing all they can to ignore the truth of their own sinfulness. Most people are so used to deceiving themselves that they don't even realize the truth anymore. So I very much doubt there are many intentional conspiracies against God and Christianity, against goodness and morality. I think most people have simply come to believe a lie and are trying to defend what they see to be truth. Remember, only one man was ever born perfect and we were all saved from our sin.

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?
Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals,
nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards,
nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.
And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified,
but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”
(1 Corinthians 6:9-11)

     So please, don't waste your time looking for hidden symbols or subliminal messages luring us to evil or corrupting our minds. They're not and they can't. This another of the devil's clever smokescreens used to keep us chasing ghosts instead of focusing on the real problem. Men and women all around us are lost and there is only one way for them to be saved, the grace and salvation that comes from Jesus Christ.

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

God Gives the Increase

     You will never save anyone in your entire life. No matter how much you preach, or how many times you volunteer to teach your Sunday school class, or how many words you type into your tiny little blog, no one will ever find salvation because of you.

     That's more than just negative fatalism, it's the truth. We do not have the power within ourselves to save souls. That is the specific territory of God alone. Now God may use our words or actions to lead someone to Himself, but that's God using us, not we ourselves saving anyone.

Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed,
as the Lord gave to each one? I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.”
(1 Corinthians 3:5-6)

     Now some might take that and use it to support their own laziness. Why bother with any of it if God is just going to save whom He will anyway? The answer (at least part of it) is that we have been commanded to. It is written all over the Bible that we are to go and tell people of the good news of God. He has ordained that preaching and teaching and the spread of the Word be the vehicle for the salvation of mankind. So if nothing else, know that you've been told to!

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
"teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo,
I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen.”
(Matthew 28:19-20)

How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?
And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?
And how shall they hear without a preacher?”
(Romans 10:14)

     Admittedly that alone is a pretty uninspiring reason to do something. It's like parent's who can't motivate their children and rely on “Because I said so!” Of course God, having all proper right and authority, should be obeyed and is thoroughly in the right to simply tell us what to do. Even still, He provides other reasons. Think about this; the God who is infinitely powerful and in need of no assistance from anything has made a place in His work for you. You have the opportunity to come along side the creator of all things and work -with- Him. What an honor!
Finally we also have the promise of a reward. God has rewards ready for our service, crowns of honor for lives given to Him. We can look forward to these gifts at the end of days and strive to earn them in the time that we have here on earth.

And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men,
knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance;
for you serve the Lord Christ.”
(Colossians 3:23-24)

"For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels,
and then He will reward each according to his works.”
(Matthew 16:27)

"And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me,
to give to every one according to his work.”
(Revelation 22:12)

     For me personally I take this as a great comfort and it is why I can write these posts and not be scared stiff of dooming someone to Hell. I know that whatever I say or whatever I do, I am not responsible for anyone's position in Hell. Just as no one will be in heaven by my efforts so also no one will be in Hell because of them. God will not lose any who are His own. That doesn't mean I or anyone else can be lax in our teaching, or not bother to make sure we teach the truth. It does mean however, that we need not be paralyzed into inaction by the fear of getting it wrong.

     So get out there! Find someone who knows less than you do and teach them what you know. Find people and tell them the good news! We are not invaders destroying innocent belief, we are the cured giving away the cure! Sure we'll stumble and fall down on occasion, but then we just repent and correct our statements and move on. We are none of us perfect, but we serve a God who is and what He has ordained will most surely come to pass.

Then Job answered the LORD and said:
"I know that You can do everything,
And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.”

(Job 42:1-2)

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

The Beast

The Beast inside is hungry
It yearns for every meal
And cares not how it gets it
Whether barter, beg, or steal.

The Beast will slay a hundred
For the chance to sate its need
Whatever obstacles it finds
Will soon be made to bleed

The Beast inside is hungry
And grows stronger every time
You give in to your desires
Or when I give in to mine.

The Beast will quickly bore
Of the same old tired treats
It will pursue and soon require
Ever stranger meats.

The Beast is always with us
Though not quite from the start
It lurks in deepest shadows
In the corners of our hearts.

The Beast is quite a foe to face
And believe me, though I've tried
It cannot be defeated
Despite earthly strength or pride.

~However~

Once there was a Man they say
Who came prepared to fight
A strong two-edged sword he bore
to mend what wasn’t right.

He gave us strength to fight the beast
and behind Him we aligned
And then He died, accused and killed
When mortal pierced Divine.

Yet death could not contain Him
and in three days He arose
The beast thrown down in victory
Our sorrows overthrown.

That Man was more than human
For God had put on skin
His perfect life a sacrifice
To free us from our sin.

So does the beast still haunt you?
Can you feel its rasping growl?
Does its hunger still compel you?
Do you fear its wretched howl?

Don't listen to its grumbling
ignore its hollow boasts
a toothless beast cannot compete
with the Lord of heavenly hosts!

Turn your eyes to Jesus!
Turn from shadows unto light!
Accept from Him, freedom from sin
He'll make your pathways right.

You need not spend eternity
In the prison you have built
For God still loves you dearly
Though He knows your crimes and guilt.

Our nature ever drives us
To turn and walk astray
And you'll find your only hope is in
The Life, the Truth, The Way.

by. Jonathan Schaefer

06/25/2014

Monday, July 28, 2014

A Desperate Understanding

     Something I ask myself sometimes, and something you should as well, is whether or not I really understand what my sin means. As much as I can anyway. We have such a blasé way of thinking about sin most of the time and I think it's because we fail to understand the horror of it. If we understood the nature and scope of what we've done and what we are more, I think we would be all the more grateful to God and all the less likely to repeat our sins.
     As Christians we all know the answers to the questions that we all hear every Sunday. We know the story. God is the rightful ruler and creator and our sin is defiance against Him. Do we truly grasp that though? I don't think we do. God is more than just the rightful king. He -is- good. He is the perfect one, the only and every necessary thing. The definer of righteousness and holiness. The one to whom all things belong and because of whom all things exist. He is God! He is God and everything we do apart from His will is the most heinous crime one could conceive of. Our littlest lie, our most well hidden secret, our tiniest indiscretion is a filthy splotch of oil on the white canvas of His purity. Because of the all encompassing nature of His goodness even the small things show up like four hundred foot tall neon letters on a pitch black night. Our sin is horrible, but what makes it so awful is not the degree to which it damages ourselves or others but the fact that it so starkly contrasts against God's perfect purity.
     In an earthly sense, we see laws and moral judgments and we can see ways to balance and compare them and thus lessen their impact. In movies and books we have main characters that are bad men and women but they seem like the good guys because compared to the circumstances they are in or the people they are against they seem better. A thief can be a hero when he steals from the rich, or a murderer can be justified if he kills the unjust, or a con-artist can sleep better at night because he only swindles those who can afford to lose what he takes from them. We do not have that luxury with God. God will always set an unmatchable standard. We cannot justify our disobedience because He has every right to rule, we cannot sustain our lack of gratitude since we have no right to the gifts He provides, and we have no right to take the life of another when we do not even have ownership of our own selves. We are in the wrong and there is no way to rectify it or explain it away.

     My point through all of this is that we do not truly know that we are drowning and so we do not claw for the shore as we should. We need to remind ourselves of the weight of our sin so that we will always cling to our Savior! Are we men aboard a sinking ship who will leap for the hands of their rescuers beyond the rail? Are we hikers who claw at a branch to be saved from the pit? So often I think we are more like a drunk in an earthquake whose body swerves so readily we do not notice the movement of the earth beneath us. We are deserving of infinite hell, and yet God Himself has created for us a way of salvation. The one who is perfect and has no need of anyone or anything, came here in the form of tiny insignificant man and let us kill Him. To save us. To save the very same people who nailed his hands and feet to the cross and who would kill Him all over again if given half a chance. We should be falling at His feet thanking Him and praising His name for this unspeakably generous thing He has done for us. Yet we don't.

     I urge you to ask God for a greater understanding of your sin. Yes you will come to feel worse about yourself, but you will begin to feel a greater love for God than you have before. Your love for God will grow and your gratefulness will grow and you'll find that your worship is more honest, your praise more true and your reliance on Him more complete. We like to think we have a lot going for us, but it's only when we begin to understand just how bankrupt we are that we will begin to see how rich we are in Him.

Friday, July 25, 2014

The Amazing and Wonderful Normal

     So you found a girl (or guy depending on who is reading this) and fell in love and all that jazz and now you're getting married. Yay! Let me tell you something I've discovered as a newly married man. Something I suspect most people don't talk about much. Married life is way more normal than you expect. I mean it, life goes from strange and new and exciting to normal in about three maybe four days. Don't get me wrong you'll have those shock moments when your brain suddenly realizes that you're living with another person and all that forbidden stuff is okay now, but for the most part life gets really normal really quickly. Your new life with your spouse very quickly becomes what's normal for you and let me tell you, it is amazing!




~From our first married Valentine's day. I hung it over my desk!~


     I don't in any way mean that by being normal life is boring, far from it. I've been married for nearly a year now and every single day is wonderful. No matter how exhausting work has been, or how much crap I'm dealing with, or how depressed I feel about my spiritual progress, I still come home to her. I cannot begin to describe how amazing that is. I've never been a terribly social person and having really close friends is not something I've had a huge amount of success at. Yet there is someone who looks forward to seeing me again, who misses me and whom I miss, after less than a day apart. There is so much meaning in just sitting on the couch and watching television (turning your wife into a fellow Whovian is quite fun!) that I can't even explain why it's more than that.

     Society is so obsessed with the new and exciting, the passionate and the intense, that we lose sight of the smaller better picture. Your love will transition from something strange, unknown, and even confusing into something familiar, and safe, and fantastic. Excitement doesn't die, and passion doesn't wane but that newness does. It steps aside and gives place to something infinitely better than excitement. Belonging. You belong together and to each other. 

     Again, I cannot begin to explain what that means to me. I've never belonged anywhere outside my family. I am not naturally someone who relies on or opens my heart to people. I didn't have many friends when I was young and as a consequence I tend to keep most people at arms reach because it's just so much work to make real relationships and you never can tell what people really think about you. In the back of my mind there's the very real suspicion that many of the people I know don't really think very much of me at all. Now I push that aside because I know it's baseless and just my conditioned brain being paranoid, but it's different with her. She chose me. She said yes, she said I do. She loves me. All my life I wondered if I would ever find a place where I belonged and I never really imagined it would be by someone's side. I could go on and talk about this more but really you'll just have to trust me. Work on your love and your marriage, never let it get pushed aside and you'll see what I mean. Love is best not when it's new and strange, but when it's home.

He who finds a wife finds a good thing,
And obtains favor from the Lord.”

Proverbs 18:22

Thursday, July 24, 2014

I Am the Mask I Wear

     I've recently come to the realization that if we want to become what we want to become, we have to be what we want to become. In other words act like you are what you want to be. In my case I want to be a writer, but I most often find myself not writing. This is a problem obviously. I've been fussing over this issue for some time with no real resolution in sight and making myself quite depressed over the whole thing. Now however, I'm starting to think that if I'm going to be a writer in the future I can't just hope for it and pray it happens. We are who we choose after all, so if I want to be a writer I must choose to be one. A writer is by definition one who writes. I don't need to be successful or well paid or even paid at all to be a writer. I just need to write. So I'm doing that. Instead of planning what I'll do with my blog or books or stories I'm going to write the darned things, or at least work on them.

You're Puss in Boots, the one who tricks the prince. He hides who he really is and pretends to be someone else forever. So in time he becomes that person, so his lie becomes the truth, see? He transcends the mask. Don't you get it? That's how he finds happiness. That's pretty good, right?”
-Ninamori Eri, FLCL

     In essence we are always becoming what we are. Do what you want to do, be what you want to be, and eventually you'll look in the mirror and see that that's who you are. It kind of reminds me of the the way we move forward as Christians. Progressive sanctification is the continuing work of God to make us more and more like Himself. We are however, already children of God purchased by the blood of His son. God through the indwelling Holy Spirit is continually making us into what we already are. He's tailoring us to fit the suit. From our perspective it isn't easy and it takes quite a bit of time but God see's the outcome. It's a sure thing because He has ordained it so.

...being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ...” Philippians 1:6


     I find this to be very reassuring. No matter how many times I choose poorly and wander from the path, the outcome is already decided! Those of us who truly are His own will persevere to the end and be glorified. If God can take a sinful man like me and change me into the image of His Son, surely with His help I can make a few changes as well.


(No I"m not going to post videos every time now by the way.  It just seemed appropriate!)

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

So...yeah...Hello Again!

     Okay...so that happened. Pay no attention to the writer as he sneaks back into the room! Seriously though I do apologize for essentially abandoning the blog for so long. For those who don't know, I got married back in September. Unfortunately what with starting a second job and getting used to my new schedule and all the general craziness that goes along with being a newlywed I let the blog fall to the wayside. That being said, I'm back now and I've got some things coming on the horizon!
     One thing you'll notice is that the format will be changing on this blog. I'm going to be relaxing the structure and shortening the posts and just generally making everything quicker and more frequent. I feel like that will fit the title of the blog and my original intentions more than the longer more thought out articles that I have been doing. I'll still be posting the occasional poem and I'll even try and do some link round-ups as well, but in general I'll try and post more but less as it were.
     That being said, I won't be completely disregarding longer articles. I'm working on starting a second blog called “Ex-Positional” which will be the new home to my longer posts and other more serious discussions. I'll make an announcement here and around the web when I start that project, but for now I will be adjusting to posting again and doing so more frequently.

Now, with the explanation out of the way, back to business!


     The other day I was listening to a band called Fireflight (http://fireflightrock.com/), specifically the song “Stronger Than You Think” off their album “Now”. I'm not going to go posting a bunch of lyrics but the point is it got me thinking about personal strength and the spiritual battle we all face every day. After a few minutes it suddenly dawned on me that it's not a battle. Really, it's not. The challenge we face is to either totally crush the enemy in a manner both decisive and unchallenged, or surrender arms and bow to the dark.
     We know that Jesus paid for our sins on the cross and that payment was accepted by God as evidenced by the resurrection. We know that our strength comes from God and specifically the Spirit within us. There are no battles with God. God doesn't struggle or fight to have his plans succeed, what he says go's! That's it. No argument, no debate, no formulating possible alternatives! The lie we all keep believing is that there's chance that we can fail. I'm not saying we can be perfect, of course not. When we sin it's not because some cosmic battle has turned in the enemy's favor, it's because we chose to. Our sin is our choice, because the flesh is screaming in our head all the time and it's so often easier to just say “okay, fine whatever,” then to suck it up, cover your ears, and follow God.

     We spend every day in fishbowl of lies. All around us and inside us are half-truths and straight up falsehoods paraded as reality. The big lies here are several: You're not strong enough, that activity really isn't a sin, God's not watching, and on and on. Sin wants you to think that you can't resist, but trust me fellow Christian you can! You DO NOT have to listen to your fleshly impulses! Since the Spirit is an equal member of the Trinity, and as a Christian God has placed His spirit in you, God Himself is literally residing within you! Think about that! I'm going to keep using exclamation points until you understand, GOD IS INSIDE YOU!! He wants you to succeed, and has given you everything you need to do just that! So stop couching your repentance prayers in language that makes you look better or hedges your doubt about God. Stop saying you failed, or you slipped, or messed up. You chose to sin, and the sooner we can admit to that and repent -really repent- the sooner we can move on and give our lives for Him.