The Seventh Fall

2 Timothy 2:20-21: Vessels for Honor and Dishonor

2012-01-09T23:21:00.005-07:00

2 Timothy 2:20,21 But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor.
Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work.

My friend Cody recently led a men's Bible study covering these verses and the men attending were expected to study ahead and be prepared to share. This was one of those verses that at first glance seems a little strange. In my recent experience those have been more loaded with meaning than the more straightforward verses; not necessarily because there's more to be found there, but the harder to understand verses make me ask a lot more questions.
I started by looking up the word for "vessel" in the original Greek on Blueletterbible.com which is "skeuos". It literally means a tool or container. The Greeks also used it allegorically to refer to the human body, as they believed the body is a vehicle for the human soul. It was also used in Romans 9 in the exact same way comparing what I think are believers to either being vessels of honor or dishonor, except that Romans 9 goes as far as saying the vessels of dishonor were meant for wrath. Really reading all of Romans is what's needed to put this in more of a proper context, but the gist is that Paul is telling the Roman Church that even though all Jews were born of Isaac, not everyone born of Isaac was a true Jew. The descendants of Esau were rejected (9:13) and became the Edomites. Paul poses the question, "Is there unrighteousness with God?" Was it fair of God to "play favorites"? Personally, I think it's a joke whenever people, in our abysmally small understanding of the big picture, point a finger at God to doubt the only One who's never failed or been unfaithful. Unless you're willing to ask the question and get to other side of it though, I don't think you can really come to a complete trust in God. So Paul indulges those who would think that God is unjust. In the verses following, Paul basically says that none of us deserve anything good from God. Those of us who have received His mercy are fortunate because His mercy to us is completely unmerited. Paul goes back to the example of Pharaoh and points to the fact that God hardened his heart. He says that people point to that and say, "How can God find fault with Pharaoh is He's the one who hardened his heart?"(9:19) Ultimately we always have the choice. We judge ourselves and we judge God by saying that we are the masters of the law and that His way is not good enough. We've been saying it since Genesis 3:5. God allows us to make our own choice: His way, or our way. When we choose our way, God will still use us to glorify His name. That should not be encouraging though. Verse 22 says that for people who choose their own way, God will glorify Himself by showing patience and enduring their rejection of Him until they finally expend their entire lives in a pattern of rejecting Him, at which point their own judgment of themselves brings them to eternal destruction. The good side of that is that those of us on whom God has extended His mercy stand out as the ones who will share in God's glory. Again, not by our own merit, but purely by His grace.
Verse 30 ends this thought by summing up the fact that God saved the gentiles, who were not originally His chosen people, because in faith they trusted in God's righteousness instead of their own; the Jews however, continued to pursue their own righteousness by works of the law in the flesh.

Romans 9:33 Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, and whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.

Jesus was an offense because He said the righteousness of the Jews could never be good enough. The best person in the history of the world could never reach the perfection required to approach the absolutely 100% pure holiness of God. They wanted to hold on to their righteousness. They were in control of their righteousness, and it let them be their own masters instead of submitting and forfeiting their pride.

Now I believe that Timothy would have been familiar with the Romans 9 teaching, and that's why Paul only spends 2 verses on the idea. Timothy knew the broader context and what Paul was implying.

I understood more what Paul meant in 2 Timothy after this Romans 9 cross-reference, but still didn't feel like I really understood why he used vessels in a house as an analogy, so I went to another place "skeuos" was used.

Hebrews 9:21 Then likewise he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the VESSELS of the ministry.

Jackpot! One thing to note is that when looking up words in the original language, just because the English word is the same in the Old and New Testament doesn't mean the original language had the same meaning in Greek (New Testament) and Hebrew (Old Testament). Here Paul (who I personally believe wrote Hebrews) gives us a definite link between the Hebrew and Greek word for vessel because he's referencing the items that were used to serve God in the Tabernacle. Their construction is outlined in Exodus 25-35 and their use is outlined in Leviticus 1-17.
In Leviticus 1:5 and 3:8, Moses is outlining God's instruction to sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice on the vessels of the Tabernacle (namely the altar) to purify it and sanctify it for service. Interesting considered we as vessels are purified by the blood of Jesus who was the ultimate sacrifice.
There was another type of vessel in use in the Tabernacle. Common vessels were used by the priests after sacrifices were made in order to prepare and eat the meat that was allotted to them by God's law for their sustenance. Note that these vessels were made of clay and they could not be used to serve God, only man. If these vessels came into contact with anything holy, even the meat from the sacrifice which the priests were allowed to eat, it had to be broken immediately after use. If metal vessels were used, they had to be scoured, but clay vessels had to be destroyed. (Romans 9:22 "vessels prepared for destruction").
This really points to the interpretation that vessels of clay and wood are the works of man. They look godly and are in God's house, but are for people.
I began a search on how the words wood and stone were used in the original Hebrew, and it really backed up this understanding. Those words are used together 16 times, 9 of which refer to false gods, which are the lifeless works of man's hands. Ezekiel 20:32, Deuteronomy 28:36, and Deuteronomy 28:64 all demonstrate what happens when we try to replace God with man: we end up serving false gods of wood and stone.
Isaiah 37:19 and 2 Kings 19:17,18 tell us that these false gods of wood and stone are meant for destruction (another reference to Romans 9:22).

2 Peter 3:10 "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up."

1 Corinthians 3:10-23 According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on this foundation [with] gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one's work, of what sort it is. If anyone's work which he has built on [it] endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. Do you not know that you are the temple of God and [that] the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which [temple] you are. Let no one deceive himself, if anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their own craftiness"; and again, "The LORD knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile." Therefore let no one boast in men. For all things are yours: whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or things present or things to come--all are yours. And you [are] Christ's, and Christ [is] God's.

In Exodus 7 God through Moses turns water to blood. Interestingly enough, the Egyptians carried their water in vessels of wood and stone, which the Holy Spirit goes through the trouble of making special mention of in 7:19. This water was used for 2 purposes: sustenance and cleansing. Reading through the rest of the chapter, what God does is take their sustenance and their purity and shows it for what it is: death.
In Revelation 3:14-18, Jesus Himself is addressing the Church in Laodicea. Laodicea was a city known for several things: an eye salve that was exported throughout the ancient world, a special kind of black wool that was used in expensive clothing, immense wealth because it lay on a main trade route, and the worship of 3 particular Greek gods which are Zeus (god of thunder and characteristically erotic), Apollo (god of light), and Æsculapius (god of healing). Jesus has a stern rebuke for the Church in this city.

Revelation 3:17,18 Because you say, "I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing"-- and do not know that you are wretched (vs mighty like Zeus), miserable(vs healed and enlightened like Æsculapius and Apollo), poor (vs their material wealth), blind (vs their eye salve), and naked (vs their luxurious wool)--. I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, [that] the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.

Jesus shows the church of Laodicea that where they think they are the strongest in their flesh, they are actually their weakest. A study of the first 3 chapters of Revelation shows Laodicea to represent the modern day Church, but that's for a different study, though it is extremely appropriate for this study.

So What?

Our works of flesh, especially when done in the house of God, are nothing more than death (Exodus 7). Most if not all of us start off like that, thinking that God wants our works and thinking that we have to be good enough, but we miss the point. The work of Jesus Christ makes us good enough. The things we do that are driven by love for Him are the only things are acceptable to God and the only things that have any eternal value once all things are judged. The vessels in the Tabernacle were purified by the blood of sacrifices just like we are purified by the blood of Christ. If you take an honest look at yourself and your actions and find that you are attempting to please God with works of your flesh, there is hope.

2 Timothy 2:21 Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work.

Now we may try to cover our fleshly works in false holiness.

Habbakuk 2:19 Woe to him who says to wood, "Awake!" To silent stone, "Arise! It shall teach!" Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, yet in it there is no breath at all.

But only God can cover us, who ourselves are just clay (Gen 3:19).
The vessels in the Tabernacle were not solid gold, but wood covered in gold (Exodus 25-27).We are sinful and unholy, but we are covered by the works of Jesus Christ, the same foundation Paul spoke of in 1 Corinthians 3. This foundation (the work of Christ, not our works) and what we build on that foundation are the only things that will last.
In Revelation Jesus counsels the Laodiceans to buy from Him "gold refined in the fire". How do we buy it? We trade our worthless works of the flesh for the perfect work of Christ.
We accept that we are not good enough and we stop trying to be good enough to please God. In humility we say, "Lord, I am poor and wretched and naked and blind," and we rest on the completed work of Christ.

Romans 8:10

2011-05-09T10:45:00.001-06:00

And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.

The original language is very straightforward here. Pretty much, the English words used represent how the original Greek is used throughout the rest of the New Testament. A couple things to note however, are that the word for body (sōma) is used for a living body as well as a dead corpse (see Matthew 27:52,58,59) and that the word for death (nekros) is used both for people who are already dead, but also for people who are not yet dead (Matthew 8:22, 23:27, Luke 15:24). We get so tied up in the current condition of our bodies, which are in a way already dead. In Genesis 2:17 God tells Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because in the DAY they eat of it they will surely die. We are told that they ate the fruit, but they live for years and years. Obviously death means something else. Look at the name of the tree: The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The law. There is no evil if there are no rules. The initiation of the law was our choice as humanity. It's just like in 1 Samuel where the Israelites wanted to transition from a Theocracy where God was king to a Monarchy where a man was in leadership. 1 Samuel 8:11-18 is a great outline for the same choice we tend to make of choosing legalism and our own strength over pure love for God. Since the very beginning we have chosen to be subject to the law which only condemns us rather than subjecting ourselves to law of love (the commandment to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength).
...the body is dead because of sin...
It's important to remember that the body is not dead because of Christ. We chose death ourselves a long time ago. He is just giving us a way to be saved from what we already chose.
...but the spirit is life because of righteousness.
Not our own righteousness. Not at all, because any righteousness we would have would be from the flesh, according to the law, which is what makes us dead in the first place. The righteousness is only OF Jesus Christ and accessible to us BY the Holy Spirit.

So What?

Just like the original language in this particular verse is very literal and its meaning is face-value, our choice is a simple, face-value choice. Are we going to keep trying to be good enough in our flesh according to the law that condemns, or are we going to devote ourselves to understanding and applying the new commandment of love? Yes it can be difficult sometimes to know ourselves well enough to see when we're trying to live by the old law, but once we see it, it's a simple choice. We can never be good enough. We just have to grasp that. It's a 2-part process though because we have to let go of our own inadequate righteousness but also grab hold of Christ's perfect righteousness. This isn't just us saying, "Ok yeah, I'll do that. Jesus, be righteous for me." Our receiving of Christ's sacrifice means our receiving of Christ as Lord. As our Lord, we are obligated to obedience, but He makes that simple because His commandment is simply to love Him and love each other. Doing this fulfills every requirement of us.
Keep in mind that loving God is not an abstract idea based on feeling. When you sit down and figure out the time you spend on different things, would that indicate that you love God like you love your family or a significant other that you spend a lot of time with? When you look at finances, what does God get back vs what you spend on yourself for pleasure? When you talk, how often are you talking about your relationship with Christ vs games or movies or possessions? Those are tangible, measurable indicators that could fairly easily show you if you're on track to following the new commandment or not.
Don't just think about it, do something about it. Know where you're at and correct it when you see that you fall short of making Jesus Lord.

1 Corinthians 13

2011-05-08T21:19:00.005-06:00

Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. Though I have the gift of prophecy and can understand all mysteries and knowledge but have not love, and though I have all faith so that I can remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
Love suffers long and is kind. Love does not envy, love does not parade itself, is not puffed up, does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
Love never fails, but whether there are prophecies they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For now we know in part and we prophecy in part, but when that which is perfect has come, that which is in part will be done away.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, and I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. For now I know in part, but then I will know just as I also am known.
And now abide faith, hope, and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
~1 Corinthians 13

It's been really really good for me working hard to memorize scripture lately. I've been responsible for memorizing Romans 8, but on Thursday I really felt prompted to memorize this chapter, so I did it. It's been a long long time since I've sat there and memorized a whole chapter in a day, and it was a struggle from the beginning. I was only a few verses into it on the bus, then right next to me this lady started talking on her cell phone (inappropriately loudly I might add) to one of her girl friends about how it's good to try and work at a marriage, but if it doesn't work out, you need to make sure you do all these things in advance to protect yourself and set up secret finances and get living arrangements figured out just in case something happens and you don't feel like it's good for you to be in the relationship anymore. I wonder how many people have that mindset toward their marriage. "It's great when it's good, but if it gets to the point where it's not making me happy anymore, it's time to just cut my losses and leave." It's no wonder marriages don't last anymore. We set up prenuptual agreements and set up a legal framework against the other person before the marriage even starts. To me, that seems like the best way to make sure it fails.
I think people are so confused about what love is. Almost everyone has felt that heart-pounding passionate infatuation that makes you unable to think about anything else other than the person you love. There are no fights because nothing else matters and the most significant event in your life becomes a kiss or a touch form that person. I've been there and felt that. It's amazing. It's like for a little while your heart and head and hormones are all in agreement and nothing is strong enough to come against the way you feel.
Is that love though?
What about this picture of love from the Bible? Suffering? Enduring? Giving my body to be burned? Dim mirrors? Do these really belong in a chapter devoted to describing the attributes of love?

I'll tell you what's really convicting and inconvenient about this chapter. "When I became a man, I put away childish things." When you really start thinking about the place this has in the chapter, you might start looking at the way you love and it makes you uncomfortable. That's what it did for me.
Kids are very uncomplicated. Everything is about them. I will share MY toy if you share YOUR toy that I want to play with more anyway. I will listen to you only because you have the ability to inflict pain on me because you're an adult. I will scream if you don't give me what I want exactly when I want it. I like you because you give me things. I refuse to walk because when you carry me it's much easier.
Basically if you take that verse in the context of the chapter, Paul is saying there is an understanding of love that is immature like a child's way of thinking.
I'll be really honest. I want my love to be reciprocated. When I perform an action out of love for someone, I want something back. Generally if I extend love and it is not reciprocated, I withdraw it and my energy is spent on someone who I know will love me back. In some situations that's not possible. Family, marriages, etc.
Love suffers long. Love does not seek its own. Love endures all things.

I've come to understand some things about suffering love. I think that a love that suffers has to be one of the most painful things you can endure. Sometimes you pour out more and more until you feel like there is nothing left to pour out. You're trying to get a reaction that shows that your worth and efforts are validated by the person you're pouring into, but there is nothing. You wonder if your love isn't good enough, if you're just not doing the right things, if YOU'RE not good enough. At that point you have to make a decision.
Why do you love?
A love that exists to get reciprocation, in other words, a love that's only there as long as love is returned, is childlike and immature. I don't think very many people understand that and they're always stuck in a place where love isn't self-sacrificial, not really. Does your love suffer long, or is it willing to be inconvenienced for a while as long as it is made up for later? I have to say that that's really convicting for me. What 1 Corinthians 13 implies is something that I want to plug my ears to. I can't say that on my own free will that I'm willing to suffer long or endure without some kind of compensation soon. It hurts a lot to really love someone and by their actions, you're not sure if they even love you back. It hurts for a day much less months or years, and I think a lot of people experience that. How long would you last? What choice would you make?

I think the first level of application we look to this chapter for is our interpersonal relationships. We think about being kind and patient with each other, not being selfish in our love for each other. What about God? When I was memorizing it, that thought popped into my head when I was almost done. "Yeah, I understand a lot of ways that this applies to how I love my wife and family, but I love God right? This would probably apply to that too right?"
The answer is yes in two ways. The first way is that without a genuine love for God, all of our faith and gifts and sacrifice are nothing. All the way through the New Testament, we're told by Jesus and Paul and others that the greatest and really only commandment in humanity's post-law relationship with God is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Are your gifts to the poor for your own ego or are they originated with a pure love for God? Do you have faith and exercise your gifts through a genuine love for God and to see Him glorified, or yourself glorified? Would you suffer long for Jesus, are your words and thoughts kind toward Him? are you seeking your own when you pray? Are you easily provoked to anger against God when things happen that you don't understand? Do you rejoice in the Truth we have about who God is in the Bible?
The second way this chapter applies to our walk with God, and probably the more profound of the two, is that this models directly how Jesus loved and still loves. He suffered long when we as humanity rejected Him. Really, we still reject Him. If we're honest, how many times do we who profess to be Christians reject Him? Jesus never sought His own, He sought us. He wasn't provoked, not even when He was tortured before going to the cross because His love was such that He would endure even that, with no repayment on our part, just for the sake of giving us a chance to just have a relationship with Him.
If you find yourself in a relationship where you feel like your love is not reciprocated either short term or long term, think about how long Jesus needs to wait for you to reciprocate His love. Do you ever? If you were in a marriage, how long would you be happy if your spouse talked to you once or twice a week, and then only to ask you to do something for them? What if once a week your spouse sang you the words to a great love song, and then you tried to talk to them about how much you love them and your plans for the future and they started nodding off because they were bored and just not really into it? Would the songs mean much? What if that's the only time you saw your spouse and you were trying all week to call them and did all kinds of things to show them that you loved them? What if you always provided for them and gave them really meaningful, thought-out gifts and they took the gifts and ignored you for days? Isn't that how we treat God?
There isn't a difference between our love for each other and our love for God, except that God is the only one who loves perfectly. In fact, there are a lot of references in both the Old and New Testaments describing how our relationship with Jesus is like a marriage. That's on purpose, and it's a deep analogy.

So What?

I think we are allowed pain in our relationships to teach us what real love is. If your love is tested by you not getting something back, does it fail? That's not love. If your love can't endure when your emotions aren't there to make it feel good, is it really worth anything? Does it have any real strength? Is it childish and always wanting to be indulged? If so, that's not real love, but a counterfeit emotion. Emotions are constantly coming and going and swaying back and forth with circumstances and hormones and the weather. Can anything based on that be trustworthy and strong? I would say no. It's a great, great thing when our emotions back up what we know is right, but man those times seem to be so few and far between.
I'm not trying to be hard on people who give up or be flippant about what people can go through. I KNOW that pain. I KNOW the temptation of giving up the hard love that doesn't feel good a lot of the time, especially when there are more places you could go where the acceptance and good feelings come at a lower cost. You have to be strong and use your head in spite of your feelings though. What is fought hard for is worth much more, if for no other reason than it makes you stronger and better and it makes your love more true.
If you struggle with pain caused by love, remember the love Jesus has for you and try to identify in His pain caused by His love for you. He always wants us and unlike us to other people, is always 100% available to give His attention to us. Be happy when love comes with pain, because it's a chance not only to refine your own ability to love, but also to identify with Jesus, who will always have a more real love than we are capable of.

Romans 8:9

2011-05-04T13:43:00.001-06:00

But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.

Indeed, implying the question, "is it really true?" How do you know if INDEED the Spirit of God dwells in you? "To Dwell" in the original language of this passage is oikeō. It means to dwell in or with, not in the sense of a roomate, but in the sense of a husband and wife, where there is a practical effect of the relationship on the lives of the people in the relationship. It is used in 1 Corinthians 7:12,13 like this and then in 1 Timothy 6:16 when Paul is describing the majesty of God as He "dwells in inapproachable light." That's interesting. We are told in Revelation 21:23 that "The city (heaven) had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light." And then in Revelation 22:5, "There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light." God and the light do not coexist as separate entities. The light is literally part of God and radiating from God who is its source. I'm not saying that we can take the way oikeō is used in 1 Timothy 6:16 and just plop it in to every other place it is used to mean exactly the same thing. As someone who is not independently fluent in Ancient Greek the best I can do is look at the different ways the language is used and gain better understanding of the idea in general by cross-referencing the context of the word in all of Scripture. The implication is that this dwelling is not two separate people living together, but one relationship created by the merging or marriage of two formerly separate things. "If indeed the Spirit of God oikeō you."
Now contrast that idea to the next half of the verse where it states, "Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His." Have (echō in the Greek) is a very general term used over 700 times in the New Testament to describe possessions, having different emotions, or being clothed with something. I wonder if there are varying degrees of having the Holy Spirit. I know this is a huge subject and I can only scratch the surface at the moment, but we know we can have the Holy Spirit, be filled with the Holy Spirit, and have the Holy Spirit come upon us and overwhelm us for a specific task. I wonder if this verse can be read to mean, "If the Holy Spirit is merged to who you are so that your entire life is affected, you cannot be in the flesh. But if you don't even have any kind of ownership by the Holy Sprit, you don't even belong to God." If this is an accurate understanding (dependent on more research on the topic of the Holy Spirit), then that could mean that you can belong to God, but still be in the flesh. In verse 1 it states, "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not WALK according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." Your walk will show who's in control. If the Spirit is in control, there is no condemnation for you because it is impossible for you to be in the flesh if the Spirit truly permates who you are. Jesus took our condemnation on Himself. Period. I wonder though if there can be times where we choose to walk away from that covering and give our lives back to our flesh. I'm not talking about the loss of salvation, just wondering if we can walk out from the protective and faithfully secure covering of the blood of Jesus.
Why else would Paul say in verse 13, "if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live," if they didn't need a reminder to continually put the flesh to death?
The more I read it, the less I think that being in the Spirit is being saved and being in the flesh is being unsaved.
The choice seems to be ours. Will we own the Holy Spirit in a way that we can put it on the shelf and walk away when we want to flesh out, or will we be joined to the Holy Spirit so that everywhere we go and in everything we do, the Spirit is part of it?

So what?

How do we think of the Holy Spirit, or God in general for that matter? Do we go to church hoping to get close to God? Do we segregate our lives into different areas like "work" and "family" and "church" where there is little or no mixture between them? Is the Holy Spirit someone we bring with us sometimes in kind of a fuzzy, generalized echō kind of way, or does the Holy Spirit oikeō us? If we received Christ and claimed His righteousness as our own, He has ownership of us. We can still walk in flesh, but after we are saved we become disobedient servants instead of enemies. A disobedient servant is almost worse because they claim to serve their master, but their actions betray him. An enemy can be trusted to be an enemy, but a servant who isn't dedicated to their master is good for nothing and can be trusted for nothing.
If we're going to choose, we need to choose. John 3:16 tells us about the circumstances by which we are able to become servants, but the "other" 3:16 warns us about being disobedient servants once we're in. "So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth." Revelation 3:16.

Romans 8:1-8

2011-05-04T11:50:00.002-06:00

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. For the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

The “Therefore” is referring to the previous chapter, where Paul talks about the law being unable to justify, and that the righteousness of Jesus has made us free from the law, similar to a woman whose husband dies and she is now free to marry again. The law is dead and we have been joined with Christ, where the “law” now becomes our voluntary love for God instead of our obligatory requirement. Chapter 7 ends with Paul being thankful that Christ has freed us from the struggle of our warring members so that while we are still at war with our flesh, we no longer bear the consequences of it.

Therefore, because we are “widowed” from the law and our new marriage is based only on the devotion of our hearts rather than our actions, we cannot be condemned because Christ cannot be condemned. Our old husband was there for the sole purpose of condemnation, but our new husband is there for justification. The sign of our being “in Christ” is if we follow the new law, which is simply loving God. John 14:21 says, “He who has my commandments and obeys them, it is he who loves me.” What commandments? In Matthew 22:36-40, Jesus states that all the law and the prophets hang on first love for God, and secondly love for people. To prove love for God, you need to follow His commandment, which is loving Him with all your heart, soul and mind. It is very simple, but not as cut and dried as the law.

Even though it is much less openly apparent if someone is following the new law instead of the old law, there are several “heart checks” you can do. Matthew 6:21 says that, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” One practical way to see if you love God is to see where your “treasure” is. What do you value? Where does your time go? Where does your money go? What things do you guard as the most sacred with both possessions and time? If an honest evaluation shows that you guard your time with the LORD and that you demonstrate through giving that your finances are available for God’s use, then you can be pretty sure that you do love God in the way that Jesus was talking about.

Understanding what it means to walk according to the Spirit instead of the flesh is an extremely important concept to get a grasp on, but it is also difficult due to its subjective nature.

For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin.

There was nothing really wrong with the concept of the original law. It could theoretically lead to salvation because if perfectly kept, one would be perfectly righteous before God. The one thing that makes the law weak is that we in our fleshly wickedness and weakness are utterly unable to follow it. The intent of the original law was not to make us righteous, but to prove our unrighteousness. Jesus came as a man to atone us because we were unable to do so for ourselves. Had Jesus committed even a single sin, He would have been disqualified from being our atonement because He would have suffered the wrath of God for His own unrighteousness. Because He was absolutely perfect and blameless according to the law of God (keeping in mind the ridiculous extra rules the Pharisees created are NOT the law of God), he did not have to suffer the wrath of God; however, the option was open to Him to suffer the wrath of God on our behalf. Not the wrath of a hateful God against a creation that He was no longer happy with, but the wrath of a righteous and holy God against the sin which had caused our eternal separation from the creation He loved. Sin cannot come into the presence of a holy God any more than darkness can creep into a well-lit room. Once the light is turned on, the darkness is banished out of the room and cannot enter the room unless the light goes away. It’s the same with our sin. Because our NATURE is sinful, we are bound to it like yeast in a loaf of bread. It cannot be extracted piece by piece leaving the loaf intact as it was before. For us to really enter God’s presence, we would be destroyed along with the darkness inside us. That’s why it is impossible for us to go to heaven on our own power.

He condemned sin in the flesh that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

The Greek word for “in” is en, which just like in English is a preposition representing a position. It is not an action we perform. It is not fulfilled because of us or through us, but inside of us by the work Christ did replacing our righteousness with His. The Greek for “walk” is peripateō which basically means to make your way or navigate. It doesn’t mean our works are spiritual and holy, but rather that the decisions we make are guided by our spirit instead of our flesh. We “walk according to the Spirit” by using the Spirit as our compass instead of the law or any other fleshly thing we would normally use as an indicator of what direction we should take.

For those who walk according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who walk according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

The mindset we are in when the Spirit is our compass instead of earthly things is that in every situation we evaluate how our actions relate to our walk with Christ and we evaluate His approval/disapproval. We are always concerned with the eternal implications and not concerned with fulfilling our flesh or the impact of our actions on earthly things such as popularity, position, and comfort.

For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

When we take the burden on ourselves, the best we can do is fail with good intentions. Death. We cannot reach the requirement. If we devote ourselves to fulfilling our popularity, position, and comfort, we give our precious time to things that will not endure past death, if they even make it that far. To be spiritually minded, we place our hope beyond this world, so nothing that goes wrong in this world can shake our eternal perspective. There is nothing bad that can happen here that will endure through eternity besides our decision to deny the gift of salvation our entire lives.

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God and is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be,

The law of God is love for God. The text seems to imply that we are carnally minded even if we are trying to follow the law and please God if we are doing so in our own righteousness, not motivated by love for God but by a desire for self-righteous salvation.

So what?

We have to have a change in our thinking when it comes to pleasing God. The law was not created so that if we follow it good enough, God would be happy with us. There is no "good enough" There is perfect and there is failure, and if you're old enough to know how to read what I'm typing, then you've had plenty of time to prove to yourself that you are completely unable to be perfect. We can say that we are saved by grace all day long but when we really understand that concept, a significant change occurs in the way we go about our lives.
Jesus did not do away with this old law, but fulfilled it (Matthew 5:17). Nothing changed in the requirement. That is still perfection.
As Christians we still try to do good enough, even though we should understand that we either pass or fail, and we have already failed.
As I went over before, there is a new commandment, one that is one a higher level than the old law, because if the new commandment is followed, the resulting righteousness will be greater than the righteousness of someone who was excellent at following the old law. See Matthew 5:20 where Jesus says that unless someone is MORE righteous than the Sribes and Pharisees, he will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The Scribes and Pharisees literally made a career of legalism and understanding the law and creating ways to ensure that they follow it by making extra rules. The implication (their righteousness must be EXCEEDED) is that even this was not good enough.
The new and greater commandment that is sufficient for pleasing God is the commandment to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. This is not a little thing. For one, this is the one thing we need to get because it is the key to how we are to conduct ourselves for the rest of this life. We have to get it. The alternative is failure.
The second reason this idea is so big is because it is so much more difficult than it is often made to sound. Do you REALLY love God with all your heart? Where is the evidence? What are your motivations? Do you hunger and thirst for God? Are you willing to give up the things you want most in the world if God has other plans? When there is a quiet spot in your day are you meditating on God?
I know when I was dating Heather that when I wasn't with her, I was thinking about her because no matter what I was doing, I didn't want to be doing it as much as I wanted to be with her. My mind, my heart, my efforts, all of it was tied to trying to be with her again.
That's the idea, though the application is a lot more difficult. We can never depend on hormones or feelings to propel us toward God. More often than not our chemistry and circumstances are pulling our hearts AWAY. We must master that as it says in 2 Corinthians 10:5. We must come to the place where we subject our feelings to do what we know in our heads is right. Our minds are the rudder and our emotions are the sails. Sails with no rudder will bring you places you don't want to go and a rudder with no sails will leave you stranded.
You must set your mind and will to turn your heart to God, and then only by sumitting your will to the Spirit will you be able to carry out subjecting your emotions toward loving God with everything you are.
That is what I believe the key is to "not walking according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit".

So What?

2011-05-04T00:22:00.003-06:00

This is what my mentor asked me after I was assigned to write out some thoughts on Romans 8, which I am currently studying. I wrote a thoughtful, pretty solid paper on the first few verses, but at the end he asked me, "So what?" What does that mean? What is the application? Why should it matter to me?
He encouraged me to write it in a way that I was teaching it to other people. There's an idea with a few of the good teachers I have the privilege of learning from that nobody learns as much as the one doing the teaching.
I'm in a place in my life right now where I have to work very hard to keep from sliding into complacency. I have a chance to grow more now than I ever have, but there is an equal temptation to do the easier thing and stay where I am. There is a lot of pain in my circumstances, and a lot of temptation to deal with the pain by numbing myself with entertainment like we are quick to do in our culture. This is profitable for nothing.

This is a way not only to remind myself to prepare it like I would teach it when I study, but also to keep me accountable in the consistency of my study. It's easier and more organized to have a place online to organize my thoughts. Who knows? Maybe a thought or two might even be useful to someone.

As a man tanks, so he is

2011-05-03T23:43:00.001-06:00

I have always been very into hero figures. As a kid my GI Joes would sit at the windows of my sister’s Barbie house; M-16 at the ready waiting for Destro to come steal the fine china. I loved the Ninja Turtles before I was even allowed to watch them because I knew that they made fighting evil look bodacious. I told my brother bed time stories I made up while we were laying in our bunk bed about how Dr. Robotnik stole all the color from Mobius and Sonic the Hedgehog risked his life breaking into the color vacuum so the citizens of Mobius could return to their normal lives.

Heroism seems to be getting plastered over every form of entertainment medium there is, and with greater intensity all the time. There is the afflicted hero who battles his inner demons like Batman or Boromir. There is the perfect hero who is a role model in every way like Superman or Obi-Wan Kenobi. They can be magical or ordinary, humble or charismatic, and represent just about any cross-section of society that you want. You can watch them, read about them, play as one of them, or create your own.

I have always wanted to be a hero. Actually, that is an understatement. I have always felt in every subconscious fantasy, in most dreams, and in every vision of my future that I was meant to live or die as a hero of some kind. I find myself wishing for the opportunity to put myself at risk so others can be spared some kind of unwarranted evil. I find myself sink into depression during the times in my life where I don’t feel that I am on track to someday realize my dream of heroism, and that has gotten me into a lot of trouble over the course of the past several years.

I think part of the problem is that I know how close and clear that path is for me. I have slept in orphanages in India and Nicaragua who rescue unwanted and exploited kids. I have friends and organizations I keep in contact with all over the world who engage regularly in undercover rescue operations covertly infiltrating prostitution rings and rescuing children trapped as slaves by evil men. Real evil. Real heroism. Nothing could be so close and feel so incredibly far away from reality for me.

This creates the root of my frustration, which sets the stage for my means of getting into trouble. I’m pretty sure this is common to more people than just me in that when I experience frustration and have no relief for it, I will often seek out a way to distract myself from the emotional pain. Fortunately for me, the society I live in is ecstatic to oblige. For me to be a real hero, it would take years of dedication, the right circumstances coming about, careful financial planning, and a lot of other circumstances coming together over a long period of time. The alternative is to experience heroism vicariously through movie heroes and comic book superheroes and to have an entire online fantasy world where I can intricately customize my own hero to go out and save the world(s). It’s me moving the character and talking for the character and controlling every action, but instead of years of hard work and painful lessons learned, I just hop on and train my digital character. Yes it takes hours (days and days in fact) to work at being good at my role as a digital hero, but that is not the same as months and years of training your real body with little to no results, or training your brain to do something that isn’t easy or natural.

In the World of Warcraft I am a tank. In every game I play I naturally fall into that role, but in WoW it is very defined. The role of a tank is to be the first one into battle and to draw and keep the attention of all enemies while your comrades attack them. You take an incredible amount of damage, you die the most, you have to pay the most for armor repair, you are responsible for nearly every mistake that can wipe your group out, and you have to know the most and execute the best. It is a job that for the most part you don’t get recognized for being good at it, mostly just yelled at for making mistakes. I can’t be happy any other way.
Now, sit me down in front of WoW to quest by myself and I very quickly lose interest, but give me a group to watch over and fight for, and I’m hooked. I’ve spent weeks researching on multiple forums and websites the mathematical program equations for holding aggro and mitigating damage, and keeping up to date on the frequent changes to my character abilities that will affect how I tank. I have spent a total of 71 days, 10 hours, 23 minutes, and 29 seconds on my main character (that’s in actual played time) and an additional 21 days on my other characters in my fantasy combat environment.

I guess in a way this distraction is more like a lie. With lies, the best and most dangerous ones are the ones with the most truth mixed in. With gaming, I can “practice” being a hero. I can sprint over and head off an enemy trying to attack my healer. I can single-handedly run to almost any area in the game and wipe out all enemies, saving whoever I choose to. I can choose to assist the helpless and champion noble causes and resist “evil”. Sometimes I will do that for no other reason than I get to save some low-level civilian non-player characters (NPCs). With gaming I can run with a group of my friends, and do everything I can to keep them safe through the most difficult parts of the game. I can be confident and knowledgeable, and be one of the best tanks there is when I really try at it. It’s the ultimate distraction (lie) because A) I’m doing heroic things (kind of) B) I’m “rescuing” my real-life friends C) I’m marching fearlessly and selflessly into “combat” like I would love to be able to do in real life.

I want, no I yearn and I long to be a hero and spend my life like a rocket expends its fuel charging towards the absolute best thing I can be. There are so many things in the way though, and it is so long and exhausting reaching for the best. I have succumbed to the imitation. It’s so much easier to be numb and distracted. Most people are. If you can have an imitation and then go out and live a tame life, you don’t make enemies and you can avoid a good portion of pain and struggle.

Conviction lets you know that you’re spiritually alive like having your nerves exposed to the open air and tasting your own blood reminds you that you’re physically alive. Having it thrown in your face that you’re not what you should be is a good sign that you’re also not as bad as you could be. It’s when you stop struggling that you can be sure that you’re not who you could be.

I could die in a car accident driving to the grocery store. I could die of carbon monoxide poisoning or a brain tumor in my sleep even if I never leave the comfort and safety of the house. How is it a greater risk to spend my life standing up to the real evil that exists everywhere as someone who is prepared and equipped when people die as victims and passengers and bystanders every day?

God give me real pain and real tears and real struggle so in the end I can obtain a real prize.

Prae Asperum Victoria

Your mother is a whore, but she's the only mother you have.

2011-05-03T23:41:00.001-06:00

The title is a quote(or very close to the quote) I heard in Church History class that refers to the Body of Christ. Lately I have been very sad to see a lot of friends that I care very much about walk away from the Church and say that they don't need the Church or that they would rather not be around all the hypocrites. Some people I care about say that they can "figure things out" by themselves without getting mixed up in a church where they feel like they always have to be above a certain "perfection threshold" to be accepted.
This is absolute garbage. The whole reason the Church exists is to be a hospital for those of us who are hurt and confused and screwed up. In fact the reason why churches have so many issues is because the people in them like you and me are screwed up! Perfect people don't need church, and boy do I need to have my butt in there.
I saw a link to these videos that were made by a former pastor and the woman who it seems she is discipling. I believe this issue is absolutely crucial, and I've spent an awful lot of time cross-checking what was said on the videos and what was said in scripture, and I absolutely cannot be quiet about the issue. Please watch them if you possibly can and take a few minutes to read my response (which will probably not be posted on the website because it disagrees).

http://kathyescobar.com/2010/07/12/church-refugees-part-1-a-video-conversation/
http://kathyescobar.com/2010/07/19/church-refugees-part-2-life-outside-the-bubble-a-video-conversation/
http://networkedblogs.com/65Z9P

My response:
So I can relate to a lot of this. I was a young guy, very committed to serving my church, very responsible and enthusiastic. Well, a lot of people related a lot better with me than with the actual ministry leader and I was continually ostracized and penalized and burdened with extra rules. I was also placed on the outside in a way by my peers because I felt called to go to a 4-year college instead of the church's Bible school. On top of that a couple women who are very dear to my heart were sexually taken advantage of by men in the church who pretended to come alongside them and be their more mature christian friend. My father who is a very wise and very patient man has been pushed out of leadership because he dared to question one of the pastor's decisions, even though it was in a very respectful and resonable way. All that to say, I know what it's like to be an outcast, and I know what it's like to be hurt by a church that you've invested so much in.
That being said I'm alarmed at how as a christian counselor you're encouraging people who are feeling hurt and lost to throw away the fellowship, accountability, and discipleship that can really only be found in a church. I was very careful to watch the entirety of each video and understand the whole point of what you were trying to say. Why would the Apostle Paul spend his entire ministry building churches if that wasn't the way that God wanted us to interact with one another?
You make some good points, and that must have been a very horrible church if they were so concerned about getting more members and hiring growth consultants and being consumer driven. That is not a church at all. I would like to respectfully suggest that you are equating A church with THE Church, which could be a very wrong generalization. It is absolutely wrong when churches push away people on the "fringe". In Matthew 18:12 Jesus said He will leave the 99 healthy sheep to seek out the 1 lost sheep, and in Matthew 9:12,13 "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick... I did not come to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentance." I am currently part of a church (in fact related to several churches) that make it a point to welcome the confused, the broken, the alcoholic, the homosexual, and to love them to Christ and out of their sin and confusion in a non-condemnational way.
Now your church from the perspective you had was certainly not Biblical, and I'm sad to see some of the conclusions you've drawn from that.
In video 2 you refer to church as "The disease of consumerism." That was your church, not a Biblical church. You also said "Refugees have to belong somewhere." YES! In a Biblical church that believes it should act as Christ acted!
You talked about "resisting that tug back to Egypt." You should know as a church leader that whenever Egypt is used symbolically in the Bible it refers exclusively to worldliness. It is an unbiblical stretch to apply that to the body of Christ.
In this third video you talk about ways to "feel safe and grounded." I would like to put out there that especially in times where you are struggling and emotional because you've been hurt, feeling safe and grounded is not the same as being safe and grounded. Jeremiah 17:9 says that "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" The worst possible thing for someone who is hurt or new to the faith or ungrounded is to venture out away from the institution built by Jesus and His apostles to give us strength. 1 Peter 5:8 says "Be sober and vigilant, for your enemy the Devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he can devour." How do lions pick their prey? The weak ones who separate from the group. I'm just worried that people will watch these, hear you say to go out and make nonbelieving friends and not "be concerned about their soul", and "look at people with no Christian filter and no agenda." People are going to hell every day. If we follow Christ we need to be concerned all the time about the state of people's souls as God is. 2 Corinthians 6:14 "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?" Life is too short and uncertain to spend it confiding in people headed to hell without being passionate for their salvation and doing everything possible to point them to Christ, and I have seen it personally over and over and over again where someone in a rocky point in their walk with God starts giving more and more time to non believers who can do no benefit for them spiritually, and they ended up pulling further away from God than they were before.
It would be good to remember 1 Timothy 2:1-6. Here, where it talks about God's desire that all men be saved and come to a knowledge of Him, it talks about intercessory prayer. You say to just not try to get the right words out and to light a candle instead. DID JESUS CHRIST GIVE HIS LIFE AND TEAR THE VEIL SYMBOLICALLY SEPARATING US FROM GOD SO WE COULD "PRAY" TO GOD WITH A CANDLE?!? We are told by Jesus Himself exactly how to pray to the Father in Matthew 6, and Paul says "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God." (Philippians 4:6)
We don't need a new way to seek God or a new way to pray like you say in this third video, we need to get back to what the Bible says about prayer and fellowship and discipleship.
Here is what the Bible says.
The church exists for accountability- Hebrews 13:17
Fellowship is not optional- 1 John 1:7, 1 Corinthians 12:21
We are to comfort one another- 1 Thessalonians 4:18
We are to build one another up (on the solid, unchanging foundation of scripture, not teaching each other to act on feeling sorry for ourselves) 1 Thessalonians 5:11
We are to confess our sins to each other and pray for each other- James 5:16
We need to minister to each other- 1 Peter 4:10
And "not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another."- Hebrews 10:25

I believe with all my heart that by telling "church refugees" to walk away from the Body of Christ (you said you were a "Pastor" which is Latin for "shepherd"), instead of protecting the weak and injured of the flock, you are telling them to go ahead and leave the herd and play around in back where they have room to stretch out. All the while Satan is having a field day, because that's EXACTLY how a lion hunts (1 Peter 5:8).
I say this only out of concern for those people who have been hurt like I have. I have a huge heart for the outcasts and the people on the fringe who don't have ulterior motives, they just want to love God. The church is imperfect, yes, but how will these people be ministered to if you walk away? Isn't it better to change the wrong things? Especially as a leader! Saying that your messed up church (which you said you were a leader of) is synonymous with the Body of Christ, and that both should be shunned, is wrong. Even as you made this video people said "Why don't you start a group?" What would that group be? An extension of the Church! It would be another church just as full of sinful and imperfect people as the next. As the old saying goes "If you don't like church because there are so many hypocrites, you should come on by because there's always room for one more."
I am passionate only out of concern for people who are hurting, the same as you two ladies are. Please, if you have issue with what I said, really look at exactly what the issue is with it and see if it's not actually an issue with the Bible itself. I didn't do this in any way to attack you, but you made your public proclaimations that I feel further endanger already at-risk people, so I was compelled to reply in an equally public way.
The God of the Bible has never changed, and His Word never changes, and to say they do is to worship a false god.
Thank you, and may we all pray and seek God on His will for ministering to the people He loves so incredibly much.

Sailing in a Storm

2011-05-03T23:38:00.001-06:00

I posted this on Facebook a while ago but figured this is a better spot for it.

I'm the type of person who always tries to maintain control. Can't help it. I can read situations and figure out how things work pretty well, and I can generally figure out how to get the results I want if I take control. For a long time though I have felt completely out of control. For years I've been struggling with the most painful trial I've ever gone through, and the more I've tried to get control, the more it's slipped away. It's not that I don't understand it. Actually, I have a very clear view of what's going on and what the motivating causes are. That's what has made this time more frustrating than any problem I've ever faced. I know what the problem is, I know ways it can be fixed, but I've realized that I have absolutely no power anymore to make anything better. In fact, I only have the power to make things worse, and I can see where all of this is headed and it's more dark and hopeless than I can handle sometimes.
In my darkest moments I feel that nobody knows my hurt, and that I can't even cry out for help because there is nobody who could offer any advice that I haven't already heard or thought of, and my life keeps slipping a little further out of my grasp every time I have a meltdown. It's like holding on to a slippery ledge where the more I try to grip, to more I slip, and I start to instinctively flail, which loosens my grip even more.
I feel like destruction could be a moment away and that all it would take is one more episode and my life will be changed forever. I feel myself becoming a warped and twisted version of who I really am, or who I once was... Not really sure which. Anger and cynicism have dug their trenches, and I find myself sometimes not just losing control of the situation, but losing control of who I am.
Today God reminded of the passage in Mark 4:35-41 where the disciples and Jesus were on a boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee and a storm came up that was bad enough that they thought they were going to die. There were several things that jumped out to me as I thought about it throughout the day and how it pertains to my situation.

1) Jesus was the one who initiated the route and timing of the trip. The disciples didn't just run off on their own against God's wishes and put themselves in the middle of the storm. They were doing what Jesus told them to do. I have certainly made plenty of mistakes, but overall I always try and give God control of my major decisions. Whether I've done good or bad, because of my relationship with Him I am confident that He has led me to this place in my life. I have sufficiently evaluated the situation to know that I didn't not bring about the storm because of my own screw ups (though my reactions to it have certainly been downright sinful at times). I was just trying to serve God and do my best and here I find myself.

2) Jesus was asleep. What? As the disciples asked, didn't He care about the situation and that they were about to go under? The obvious thing that could easily be overlooked is that He was right there with them, in the situation, on the same boat. Just because God isn't freaking out about losing control doesn't mean He doesn't care or see or that He's distant. He was also in the stern (back) of the boat according to Mark. I picture the disciples being there, not having any clue where they were or what their bearing was. I've been on a large lake when a storm rolls in. I've been in situations where the motor begins to run out of gas and you can't see the shore and all you're thinking about is how to find the closest place to dock the boat. Jesus was in the back. He told them to head out and then lay down and relaxed. He wasn't in front of them leading them like a lighthouse in the fog. They couldn't see anything and didn't know where they were going. That's totally how I feel. I don't know where to go, I'm completely out of control, and honestly sometimes feel like I'm the edge of losing my life, and I can't even see which direction to head. That's why I feel hopeless. I don't even have a destination that I can see to give me hope and keep me headed the right direction. I could end up anywhere, and God has not chosen to be in front of me revealing where and how to follow Him. But He is there. That is the real lesson in faith. Can I trust Jesus even if He's not letting me see Him lead? Can I trust that He will calm this storm that I am absolutely powerless to survive and bring about hope even though I see no possible earthly way that things can get better? Can I trust that even though He seems to be asleep in my life that He is just relaxing and waiting for me to figure out how to let Him be God?

3) The disciples' reaction was the same as mine is. Don't You care that I'm dying?
Out of control. No view of the future or any bearing to give hope. Well aware that the current equipment and resources are woefully insufficient to survive the storm. Unable to see God leading or even see where the next step is supposed to be. I'm not used to this. I'm used to being able to figure things out. I'm used to at least being able to figure out what I could do better or different that will help fix things. It's easy to say "God is just using this to make me stronger" when you can see hope of an ending or at least have view of a final destination that you are on course for. It's no so easy when there is absolutely no reason for things to get anything but worse and there is no hope because you can't do anything to fix it and it's not up to you to make the right decisions to navigate through. All I can seem to think about is that if things continue like this, my heart will absolutely not survive and I would rather just not live through the miserable and painful outcome of what seems to be settling in.
Drowning has to be one of the worst ways to die. You know it's coming for a long time beforehand. You have time to think about exactly why you will die and to dwell on the fact that you could so easily live if only you had the power to move the few feet to where life-sustaining oxygen is. But the person who is drowning doesn't have the power. They are swept or pulled slowly out of reach of what it is that keeps them alive.

I started thinking about the fact that we are given an example of how NOT to respond when going through an uncontrollable storm, but what would have been the right thing to do? If I was on the boat, what would I have done to respond to the power of God in the right way? I was surprisingly unable to find a lot of good examples that fit that kind of situation. We aren't really told what Daniel did in the lion's den, or Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah in the furnace. We're not really told what Joseph's response was to being in prison, just that God gave him opportunity to move forward. I did find one good example, and that was of when Moses was leading the Hebrews out of Egypt after God decimated the Egyptians and led the Hebrews away in Exodus 14. They walked for a ways until they came to the Red Sea, then they looked back and saw that the Egyptians had decided to pursue them with the might of their army. Again, it's not that the Israelites disobeyed God and ran away against His will. He led them there. They didn't do anything wrong to provoke the situation, it was just the situation they found themselves in. They had no weapon or any means of escaping the impending doom, a lot like the disciples. They cried out in bitterness because they believed that God had forgotten them, and that they were about to die. The LORD, who had been formerly leading them from the front in a pillar of cloud, moved to their rear at their time of greatest uncertainty and despair which is similar to how Jesus was asleep in the back of the boat. Here though, God gives instructions to Moses on what the correct response was. "Why do you cry to Me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward!"

Ok, so there's the response. I believe it's applicable. Why do we sit here crying over and over for God to show us a way and to make His plan clear so we know what to do? Why do we sit in misery like Job, trying to understand God's reasoning and sitting in our heap of ashes when we never will fully understand why He does things? I have to MOVE. Do I see the path ahead of me? No, but that doesn't mean God doesn't know exactly where it leads. Can I see Jesus leading me through the darkness all the time? No, but He's always right there and always in control of even the most monumentally catastrophic situations.
If God led the Israelites out of Egypt and defended them against the entire Egyptian army when they had no means of protecting themselves, and if Jesus miraculously kept the disciples alive when these seasoned sailors knew their little fishing boat could never survive the storm, He is not about to start failing people with me or you.

I like to research my genealogy. I traced my Dutch side back to the 1430's, and given the history of the Netherlands, there's a good chance I had some vikings back there somewhere. That's what I like to identify with as I reenact historical fights with the SCA or go to renaissance festivals. If I was in the boat I would be the crazy one laughing out loud and daring the storm to try and swallow me as I just kept the boat going forward in whatever direction it was pointed.

Yes it hurts so much it feels like death might be a comfortable option sometimes, and there is no hope of things being resolved normally or through any effort of my own, but God is here and there is an end and a purpose. There is also a right response, and that right response does not involve me feeling sorry for myself or having to know where I'm headed or even seeing God laying out just my next step. I have to check myself, make sure God is with me, and MOVE. Doesn't matter where, just matters that I do it in God's strength and stop trusting in my own.
A fitting end to God speaking to me tonight was when the last song that was played at church was Horatio Spafford's hymn "It is Well".You gotta look up the story behind it, it will add a lot of amazing context.

When peace like a river attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roar
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well with my soul

Though Satan should buffet, though trials may come
Let this blest assurance be mine
That Christ has regarded my lowly estate
And has shed His own blood for my soul

It is well
With my soul
It is well, it is well with my soul!

Introductions

2011-05-03T23:24:00.000-06:00

This isn't really for anyone. I just work better when I have someplace to spread my thoughts out and look at them. If I make my thoughts public, maybe some good could come of it. Maybe people might get to understand me better. Maybe in working out my own issues and thoughts there may be a small thing worth using as your own in your issues and thoughts.
Anyway, I'm a very introspective type of person, and I spend most of my thoughts dissecting the subtleties behind more obvious circumstances. I also think very systematically. Everything can be broken down into more and more simple subsystems until all you're left with is the most basic building block. Everything is like an engine. Psychology, science, politics, machines, nature... If you look at the system overall it is very complex until you divide it into it's most general pieces. In a car you have an engine, a transmission, axles, air filtration systems, electronics, etc. Within the engine you have fuel and air injected into a cylinder which is ignited by a spark plug causing a combustion reaction which drives a piston attached to a cam attached to a shaft the rotates on bearings with carefully engineered gear ratios that interact with the transmission which interacts with axles and transfer cases. A car is very complex. A piston cylinder is extremely simple.
That's what I try to do with my brain, and other people's brains for that matter. Every complex thing is simply a system of subsystems that can be isolated and broken down into smaller subsystems within that subsystem until you're left with the most simple idea that a child could fully grasp.

I want to do that with the issues I struggle with, with my mission to figure out where my life should head, with my mission to understand God better and my relationship with Him. I think my overall goal is to know myself for who I really am, which means dwelling on the thought of what I am, really, which means digging into who I am to God who has the only true understanding of who I am. I think I will mostly work out my thoughts on scripture here, but sometimes I wrestle with ideas that affect my life in a big way that are relevant to my search to understand myself.

As D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones explains in his book "Spiritual Depression", in order to gain control over ourselves, we must learn to talk to ourselves to logically get to the core of why we feel the way we do. This is me talking to myself and letting other people eavesdrop if they so choose.