End of semester

I can’t believe another semester is just about over.  It’s amazing how quickly time passes now days.  It seems like only yesterday that I was moving back into my dorm for the fall semester and now I’m packing up to go home for the holidays.  Don’t get me wrong, I love breaks a lot!  It’s just a little sad that this is my last winter break ever before I have to work full time. I don’t want to waste this break!  I’m determined to use this break for Jesus in any way possible!  Because when I’m most satisfied when I’m most satisfied with Christ and living for Him alone.  Breaks are always a good way to start afresh in terms of redeeming my schedule of devotions and time in the Word.  We discussed this last night in accountability and how all the guys in my group can be encouraging and reminding each other to be spending time in the Word and with God.  Steve and I are working on memorizing scripture to be our motivation to spend time with God every day.  I also want to use this break to spend lots and lots of time with Jess because her next semester is going to be crazy and she’s going to have tons of work to do all the time.  I want to bless her a lot during this break  make sure that we both can get the most out of this break!  After the spring semester she’s leaving for China for two months so I won’t see her at all over the summer.  I feel a huge burden to make this winter break count.  But I know that the grace of God will be with me and strengthen me to live up to His plan for me.

I also want to start a new section on my blog specially designed for the Christmas season!  It’s called the reason for the season!  I’m just going to post verses from the Bible that declare the true meaning for the Christmas season and why it is so important for the whole world.  The first one will be tonight and the verse is:

Isaiah 9:6-7

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace.  Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.”

Hiatus??

So I’ve been wondering why I haven’t wrote a blog in almost 9 months and I just now figured it out………i went on hiatus!  I just now figured it out, but I forgot to officially announce it.  I should have known better a put out a press release or something lol.  I write press releases at work too!  But I guess this is me coming out of hiatus and getting back on a regular schedule (somewhat) again.  And now that the semester is pretty much over I can devote more time to things like this.  I don’t really have much more to say besides this so I’ll call it a day now.  Walk in love as Christ loved us!

“The wise decision is living life as a Christian, to live and die in submission to His disciple’s commission and, that’s why I’m praying I’ll never deny His name.  Im’a rep Him if I’m in pain or I’m threatened, to die is gain.”–Steven the Levite

baseball!!!

wow 2 posts in one day!  this one is actually important lol.  The 2009 MLB season starts in 6

 days!!!  I love this time of year because the weather is getting warm and nothing beats spending an afternoon or evening at the ballpark and the atmosphere of a baseball game!  Opening Day 2009 is on April 6th and the O’s are playing the Yankees, could that be more perfect?!  I’m trying to go to as many O’s games as possible this summer so I’ll let everyone know when the first game I try to go to is.  Right now I’m thinking Friday May 8th.  It’s another home game against New York.  The New York/Boston games are always the best!  Peace.  See you at the Yard!!

a pleasing aroma

I read something in my devotions today that I had never really considered before.  I had heard about it from sermons and other people before but never really thought it through all the way.  As Christians, we are image-bearers of God and we are supposed to represent God’s nature to the world.  God takes much joy and is glorified when we act like He does.  It pleases Him to see us reflecting His qualities to others.  Our lives, as people who have been bought by theprecious blood of Christ, are meant to be a pleasing aroma to the LORD.  Just as in the Old Testament, the temple and the sacrifices made there were a pleasing aroma to the LORD (Lev. 1:9), we are also to make sacrifices and offerings of our own.  Not sacrifices and offerings of goats, bulls, and rams, but of our own lives.  Of course we’re not supposed to slaughter ourselves for the glory of the LORD, but God is pleased when we choose Him over other things in our lives.  When we decide to open the Bible instead of turning on the TV, or journalling instead of getting on facebook.  God loves to see us make sacrifices, mainly of our time.  When we do the things God calls us to do, He is pleased.  And when we make God and Christ look more valuable than things of the world, He is pleased.

One thing I really struggle with is how I spend my free time.  Most of the time I do not glorify God with it.  I spend my free time advancing my own personal desires and interests.  I would rather play video games and watch TV than work on homework or study God’s word.  The first thing that needs to change is my heart towards these things.  I have to realize that my time is not my own since I have been bought with the blood of Christ and knowing this truth will hopefully cause me to be less selfish with my time.  I believe that God is just as pleased when I even choose to do homework over watching TV because I am choosing to spend my time wisely instead of wasting my life as John Piper would put it.  I pray that God would grant me a new heart towards being about His kingdom and not my own purposes and leisurely activities.  I want my life to be pleasing to God in all aspects, which includes my free time and the choices I make.  God’s timing in revealing this to me is nothing but perfect because it’s that time of the semester when all of my projects and assignments are due and it really is crunch time.  Every semester at this time I find myself needing to make adjustments to how and when I work, so God, once again, has reminded me of this and convicted me of how I’ve been living all semester in folly and laziness.  As rapper Timothy Brindle puts it, “Sluggardly laziness, it shouldn’t be named among us just like nuns on a dating list!”.  By His grace I will prevail from this semester still on my feet, but hopefully I will have a new heart towards pleasing God and what it means to offer my life up as a sweet aroma that is pleasing to God.

what a relief!

It’s always such a relief when you turn in assignments that you’ve been working on all semester!  My accounting annual report project is finally done and turned in!  I was very glad to finally be taking that burden off of my back, but at the same time I was really nervous because I need to do really well on it to pass the class.  I have to get a C- to pass since it’s required for my major.  It’s not impossible, but I definitely need to hit the books and grind it out for the last month of the semester.  All I can do is work my hardest, not give in to distractions to slack off, and trust that God will deliver me from this trial and put me in the place He wants me to be in.  

This week will be pretty crazy because I have an accounting exam on Wednesday and I have a consumer behavior project to finish by Friday.  I know God will give me the strength and mental toughness to make it through and succeed.  I’m also extremely thankful that God has provided me an oasis in which I can rest in and can trust for encouragement.  My wonderful girlfriend is so great at listening to my many complaints about how much I don’t like school right now and always encourages me to keep going.  She is such a blessing that I can forget about the world when I’m with her.  I thank God for her everyday and how she is always there for me.

be salty!

It’s been a while since my last post cuz school has been kicking my butt!  But I’ve decided to kick school’s butt for the rest of the semester so I’m gonna try to get back into a regular pattern of posting.  But I was reading Colossians 4:2-6 today and was impacted by the words in verses 5-6.  Paul writes, “Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.  Let you speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.”  These verses stood out in particular because of this week’s care group discussion.  We talked about our own successes and failures in personal evangelism.  We just started reading the book The Gospel and Personal Evangelism by Mark Dever and so far it’s been very convicting.  My recent evangelism history is pathetic and is embarassing to discuss because it is so poor and infrequent.  During our care group discussion we mentioned how non-believers will see that we are different from the rest of the world by the way that we act and the things that we do and don’t do.  We are set apart from the rest of the world, we are salty.  Jesus says in Matthew 5:13, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet“.  God’s people are described by many analogies and metaphors throughout the Bible such as a beacon, the light, a city upon a hill, and the salt of the world.  The salt metaphor is the strongest to me.  Since salt is a seasoning and a preservative, we must be the same way with our thoughts, actions, and words.  We season the world with the truth of God by representing the Gospel of Jesus and we preserve righteousness in the world by standing for truth and promoting the worldview of the Bible.

But if salt looses its saltiness it is “thrown out and trampled underfoot” as our Savior says.  If we are not representing the truth of God in our every action, thought, and word then we might as well be thrown out and disregarded.  God is all about His own glory and wants us to always put Him on a pedastal.  If we are not doing that, we are not glorifying Him and are instead valuing ourselves.  God has no use for people who think they don’t need Him.  But for all who are in Christ Jesus, we are about our Master’s work.  The Spirit of God that resides within us gives us a newborn passion for His glory and a passion to be salty.  If we are in Christ we will be salty!  So i pray for myself and everyone reading this that we would not hesitate to represent the truth of the Gospel which is the power of God to save our souls!  Go out and be salty!  Grace and peace.

perserverence mixtape

brand new christian hip-hop artist Believin’ Stephen’s debut album The Perserverence Mixtape is available on Trailblazinministries.com and holyculture.net.  Believin’ Stephen is the brother of Christian rapper Timothy Brindle who is the artist behind the albums The Great Awakening and Killing Sin.  All three of these albums are must haves for any fan of holy hip-hop.  Check out Tim and Stephen Brindle today!

 

The Perserverence Mixtape

Christ’s Preeminence

Quick one today!  I’m reading in Colossians now and was impacted by verses 1:15-18 when Paul is describing Christ’s superiority over all things.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.  For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, wheter thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.  All things were created through Him and for Him.  And He is before all things, and in Him all things consits.  And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.

–Colossians 1:15-18

This passage reminds me of how small and insignificant we are compared to the glory and superiority of Jesus Christ.We are finite, He is infinte.  We are the created, He is the Creator.  We are all like grasshoppers to him who created the universe but yet He loved us enough to die on a cross for our sins!  What a Savior!  I love this passage and it really puts my humanity into place and really humbles me everytime I read it.  Praise God that our lives are not what it’s all about!  If my life were not subject to a higher authority I’d be completely lost.  Since Christ is king over all the earth, He is king over me and it is my joy to be His subject!  ”For a day in Your courts is better is than a thousand.  I would rather be a dorrkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked” –Psalm 84:10.

Substitution

I think I found a new favorite theologian quote.  I was reading In My Place Condemned He Stood and read the quote by John Owen which goes “If He fulfilled not justice, I must; if He underwent not wrath, I must to eternity“.  That hit me like a ton of bricks.  To me, that sentence fully embodies what Christ’s mission on earth was and the reason He died.  He didn’t die because He was guilty of a crime according to man, or because He was a filthy sinner.  Christ was innocent and completely sinless and pure.  Jesus was the only one who lived in compliance to God’s Law.  The death He died, He died for me as my substitute.  

 

Jesus willingly carried the cross for our sake

In IMPCHS JI Packer defines the word “substitutionary” as something done in the place of someone else that they had no power in themself to accomplish.  The dictionary defines “substitute” as “a person or thing acting or serving in place of another”.  Christ wasn’t my representative, He was my substitute.  A representative is someone designated by those who need representation to act in their place.  If Christ was my representative, I must have told Him to fix my sin problem.  That couldn’t be farther from the truth.  The amazing thing about grace is that it seeks you out.  I couldn’t have done anything to seek grace, it found me.  Christ was indeed my substitute on the cross because I was in the crowd jeering and slandering Him while He was being nailed to the cross.  Christ, as my substitute, underwent wrath so that I would not have to, and He fulfilled justice so I wouldn’t have to.  Because if I had to do either of these things my future would hold nothing but condemnation.  Praise God Father, Son, and Spirit for the substitutionary death He died to ransom my soul and those in the Church!  Grace and Peace.

Your own preacher

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. ¹³Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

–Philippians 3:12-14

The thing that worries me about Christianity is that some people don’t inquire of God themselves.  They tend to let their pastors do that for them and blindly accept everything they hear from the pulpit.  There obviously is no perfect church, no church has a completely correct interpretation of scripture because the lies and deception of sin occasionally creep in the Body.  But that is where personal inquiry comes in.  Each believer is subjected to the Sunday sermon and should take it very seriously.  But taking a sermon seriously involves more than swallowing it the second you hear it.  It involves discernment and research on your own part and time studying the Word.  

And^(A) he gave the^(B) apostles, the prophets, the^(C) evangelists, the^(D) shepherds^[a] and teachers,^[b] 12(E) to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for^(F) building up^(G) the body of Christ, ¹³until we all attain to^(H) the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God,^(I)to mature manhood,^[c] to the measure of the stature of^(J) the fullness of Christ, ¹⁴so that we may no longer be children,^(K) tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in^(L) deceitful schemes. ¹⁵Rather,^(M) speaking the truth in love, we are to^(N) grow up in every way into him who is^(O) the head, into Christ

–Ephesians 4:11-15

I love this passage from Ephesians because it describes in full the mission and purpose of pastoral ministry.  Teaching and studying scripture is not just for the pastors, it is for the prophets, evangelists, the teachers, and the shepherds.  Teachers and shepherds may sound like they mean the same thing, mainly pastors, but the way I see it, it has a double meaning.  It surely does mean pastors and leaders, but every believer is a shepherd of his/her own soul by nature of the indwelling Holy Spirit.  Hebrews 5:14 explains this well:  

But solid food is for^(A) the mature, for those who have their powers^(B) of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

The writer of Hebrews is warning against apostasy in this verse and tells the Jewish believers that they need milk instead of solid food because their faith is wavering and they need to better understand the basics of the faith much like a baby needs milk in infancy.  The solid food is reserved for those who can discern good from evil in teaching to guard their souls against false doctrine and apostasy.  Therefore, we are called to be discerning for ourselves what we accept to be true and what is good or evil.  

I’m not censuring acceptance of everything pastors say, but advocating a spirit of inquiry among the Body of Christ.  The blind sheep approach to ministry is never a good idea and takes a great deal of discernment to each believer to determine what they personally believe.  As long as a believer’s individual beliefs and convictions don’t compromise the essential truth of the Gospel, then why can’t we accept others beliefs?  As long as you can say without conviction that “the Gospel… is of first importance” then, personal differences are fine.  If we claim to have figured God out all the way and say we absolutely know everything about God, then we limit Him.  Our God is infinite in all His attributes and our fallen human minds cannot fathom the characteristics of Almighty God.  

Don’t limit God by blindly accepting everything you hear from the pulpit.  Rather, prayerfully consider everything and study the Word with a spirit of discernment and love.  Allow yourself to be led by the Holy Spirit to shape your own personal convictions and beliefs that allow you to experience God to the fullest extent and to fully experience the joy of salvation in this life while we eagerly await the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ when everything will be laid bare and the truth of God proclaimed across the earth.  Grace and Peace.