Delighting in God

I was reading Piper’s The Dangerous Duty of Delight (an abridged form of Desiring God) and I came across the following quote from Augustine. It was very convicting.

How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose!… You drove them from me, you who are the true, the sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place, You who are sweeter than all their pleasures.

I pray that our finite joys would be replaced with eternal joy and that we would see the greatness of pursuing joy in Christ alone!

Looking in the mirror. . .

Today after taking a wonderful warm shower, I dried myself off and went to brush my teeth. As I raised the tooth brush to my mouth, I looked at the mirror and I saw a face that I did not recognize the face that stared back. I paused for a moment as the face offered a curious look back at me. The reflection didn’t recognize me either. Perhaps the reflection I saw was just the illusion caused by tired eyes, but nevertheless, my mind began to realize that I am no longer a child. It is not to say that I have matured into what I should be, but there was something different in those eyes. A thoughtfulness that I had not seen before. The reflection spoke to me as if saying: “Jordan, it’s time to grow up.” Time to sweat for Jesus. There was no longer a place to hide. Verses like Philippians 4:8 began to jump out at me. God showed me that I am no longer a boy. I am to be a man.

1 Corinthians 16:13

“Act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.”

To love as Christ loves, that is our calling. Christian peers, elders, and even those younger than myself. Let us act like men. Each day when we look at ourselves in the mirror, may we realize that now is not the time to resume former habits. It is a time for sanctification. I pray that every day we would learn to work for Jesus. To strive for the crown of righteousness. That glory would be brought to God’s name, and to God’s name alone.

Soli Deo Gloria

Vacation Day 3

Today as I was walking down a trail with my little brother, he did something quirky. I don’t remember exactly what it was, perhaps a nudge on the shoulder or a kick in the shin. The action really doesn’t matter, but the dialog that followed struck me and reminded me of my own sinfulness and the sinfulness of man in general.

Me – > “Why did you do that?”

Curtis – > “Because I am Curtis.”

At that moment, I thought in my head and generalized the statement to everybody. Why do we do the things we do? Because it is our nature. We are enslaved to who we are. When I wasn’t saved my nature was altogether of sin. I had no place in God’s family.

“I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
—John 8:34-36

Notice, I was a sinner because of my nature. It is not that I have an excuse to sin, but I was not about to stop doing it. It is the nature of the sinner to sin. As a Christian, my nature has been transformed. I am no longer a slave to sin, but now a slave to righteousness.

But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.

-Romans 6:17 

Our sin nature has been conquered and replaced by a nature that glorifies God.   What a wonderful thing! Why do I do what I do?  Because I am a Christian.  It is my nature.

Vacation Day 2

After a decision not to attend the George Winston concert with my family, mostly because I wanted to save money, but providentially, because there were only 3 tickets left for the concert by the time my dad (who assumed there would be a myriad of tickets available) called to reserve them. Sitting in the car on the way here, I picked up one of the books my sister is reading for a high school bible study that Matt Fudge is doing over the summer. There were four books to chose from, but God decided that He wanted to teach me a lesson about his image. The book was Made in Our Image by Dr. Steven J. Lawson. It is fitting that the subtitle for Matt’s blog is “The Image is Everything.”

When I first picked up the book I possessed an attitude that would be addressed in the very opening chapters.  This was an attitude that sought knowledge of God, but did not seek to know God.  It is not that I do not have a desire to know God in the present tense continual sense of the work, but sometimes God choses to show us what happens when He lets us approach him our way.  As I started to pour through the book, I came upon a passage where Lawson discussed his theological arrogance when he was my age.  I could empathize completely.

As Christians and young adults, I think that believers in my age group can develop a certain theological arrogance.  I pray that believers like myself, who have been saved since childhood, would learn to savor what it is truly like to know God.  Even though we can poke holes in all the false views of God, we forget about our sometimes false view of God.  God is not a God limited to the pages of an old book.  God is eternal, omnipresent, and utterly personal.  And jealous.  Oh what a transgression to take our Saviour and to turn Him into merely a text-book subject!

Divine Choice

I wrote this a few months ago, but it was just on facebook, i decided to post it here too.

Divine Choice

It is a sad fate for a man,
Whose eyes have forgotten the sweet taste,
Of tears so dense they reached his lips.

That the cold winds of winter,
Could cause so mild of a reaction, that shivers,
Of even the smallest magnitude can’t be felt in his body.

His heart has forgotten the warmth of love,
The essence of sacrifice and passion,
Divorced from thought, from mind, from being.

Herein lies a mystery of God’s love,
That two such men of equal depravity,
Would wander this earth and yet one would be saved.

That his heart of stone might be turned,
To once again feel the warm summer sun,
And to smile at the dawn of each new day.

To glorify in the work of Christ,
Until the end of his days and into eternity,
When his perfection will be made complete.

But what of the other man,
His cold heart, was not in greater depravity,
He was not stained any more than the former man.

And yet, God, according to His Will,
Casts this man into the eternal fire,
Without hope of quenching the pain in his soul.

But who is that man, or any other,
To attack the purpose of God in their souls,
Who utterly deserve the fate bestowed on them.

And with what more joy shall the other man glory,
Whose fate was no more hopeless than the last,
But whose hope was sealed by God’s choice to bring him grace.

Transformers, more than meets the eye?

Tonight, I went to the much anticipated movie Transformers. Although the visual effects were the most impressive I have ever seen, the movie was ruined by crude humor and sensuality. The first few innuendos I pasted up in my mind. Perhaps I thought they would stop, or perhaps my mind has been desensitized by the propensity towards continual innuendo in our culture. But as the movie progressed, innuendo was topped with more sensual images, ruining what could have been a completely entertaining movie. God’s word tells us:
“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” – Philippians 4:8But despite these grievances, there was one short dialog that really captured my attention. Optimus Prime (the good guy) and Megatron (the bad guy) are locked in a battle of epic proportions. I don’t remember what prompted the two lines, but they went something like this:

Megatron -: These humans deserve to die!

Optimus -: Humans deserve to chose for themselves!

Oh, what a picture of our rebellion towards God. That the evil to the world might speak the truth and the good might speak lies! (Not to say that Megatron was good . . .) The Bible tells us differently, humans deserve not only to physically die, but to eternally die. And as far as choice goes, humanity has, does, and will continue to choose eternal Hell, rather than God. It is not so much a conscious decision. Our desires are just naturally more attuned to what we want right now, in the present. If we could chose our own destinies, apart from God, we would chose present pleasures. God blesses man by changing our hearts. He steps in and softens our hearts. The death of His Son on the cross allows us to see eternal pleasures as better than temporal pleasures. So what does this have to do with transformers? Well, humans do deserve to die, as Megatron said, but God blesses humans in preventing us from choosing temporal pleasures. I am blessed that God has intervened in my choice and pointed me towards the eternal pleasure of being with Him forever. This is a Christianity that is more than morality. It is free of morality, because instead of having to abide by a set of rules, we do what we love. We now desire what is best(more or less) and that makes our hearts happy. This is not the result of us choosing, but God blessing.

Omniscience

His eye searches the depths of man,

And He knows all from when time began.

And through eternity He sees,

Nothing is hidden, all is revealed.

 

Our dreams and what was yesterday,

His mind knows it all,

He knows when He will lift us up,

And he knows when we will fall.

 

The timeline of eternity,

Is written in his books,

And nothing past or now or then,

Does he overlook.

 

All of history He has written,

It has been predetermined.

The dark to us, is light to Him,

And never is He mistaken.

 

 

 

 

 

Living as to die

For me, to live is Christ, to die is gain. – Philippians 1:21

Do we as Christians really have the mentality that Paul had in his letter to the Corinthians? How could Paul be so confident in his Lord that he can be at ease with whatever fate might befall him? It was because Paul had already mortified his flesh. Christ had put Paul’s flesh to death. And the result is the heart of a servant. Ah what a glorious thought it is to die and to fly into eternity. But currently, I would like to bring our eyes towards the attitude that is produced when Christ is indeed the center of our lives.

What is living for Christ, what does the Bible say?

Do not be conformed to this world,but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. -Romans 12:2

Dying to our own desires is more than only fulfilling our own selfish desires that happen to align to the desires of everyone else. It does not mean that our own fleshly desires are merely suppressed, but suppression of fleshly desires in and of themselves becomes pious. And how much did Christ detest the pious Pharisees? Let us not hypocrites. Dying to self is a matter of replacing rather than suppressing these desires. It is prayerfully aligned our desires to Christ’s desires. This then is something that can bring great joy. When we are fulfilling our ultimate purpose, there is no sorrow that can suppress our joy. When our desires are aligned to God we can truly follow the call of the Psalms.

You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy
in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. -Psalm 16:11

The Psalmist was holding to the promised of God, he knew that God would not “let [His]  Holy One see decay.” From verse 10.  And in Verse 2 he echoed a theme very similar to Paul’s in Philippians 1:21:  “You are my Lord;  apart from you I have no good thing.”

What joy is brought when we die to ourselves?  It is immense.  Oh that we would all walk in the path of life.  Let us live as to die to ourselves.  Let as die as to live for Christ.

Amen

Solo Deo Gloria

My Heart is Yours

Whenever I hear a song on the radio that could be ambiguously applied to a relationship with a person or a relationship with Jesus, I wonder. Is the problem that our songs to Jesus are so much like the worlds songs, or that the songs that we should be singing to him we sing to each other?

When I am weary, I think of you,
Ne’er another though crosses my mind,
So beautiful.

How sad it is when things less fine,
Come into my mind,
And clog up my heart.

My heart is yours, and always,
And never will my love fade,
And I know your heart is mine.

When I forget your loving heart,
And I see my heart so lost,
When I don’t always love you.

And so much joy I’ve found it to be,
When I look back,
And your eyes never left me.

My heart is yours, and always,
And never will my love fade,
And I know your heart is mine.

America

America, America, your heart so darkened by your filthy sin. It is not something out of the ordinary. No, it is nothing that is not common to man. Indeed, darkened nations populated the earth long before our continent was even known. In your illusion of prosperity, there is little room in your hearts for realization of our darkness.