The Self and God's Self-Existence

So, after a good, long conversation with my roommate, I have more to write about. Lots more, but I'll contain it to one topic. God's self-existence, if that's a real word/phrase. "I am what I am" was God's answer to Moses when he asked how to respond when the people ask who sent him. God exists and doesn't need us or depend on us for existence, while we, on the other hand, need Him desperately and intrinsically. I have no control over my existence. I am dependent on God, but, because of the Fall of humankind, I live and act and think as though I am independent, when, in fact, I am not. I have no control over whether or not my liver will continue functioning properly or that my legs will work in the morning to get myself out of bed. Tozer talks about the essence of sin being that I put myself on the throne of my Self, where only God belongs, because only He is self-existent. I am dependent on Him, so I can't claim any authority over my life or existence. That being said, we are stained and bent towards this Self-exultation and that is the essence of our sin nature and rebellion against God. It isn't that we got drunk or had sex before we were married or murdered someone. It was that we determined that we would decide whether or not those actions were okay for us to do. We decided our own morality. We, created beings, refused to acknowledge our creature-hood and instead told God that He can take a hike. That's how we live. That's the root of the problem for anyone who doesn't believe in and follow Jesus Christ and that's the root of the problem for those who do. We are constantly climbing back up on the throne of our Self and refuse to submit to God.

So then, how do we live? If we want to surrender that delusion of authority, if we want to lay down our Self ("deny yourself" as Jesus put it)... how do we do that? What does that even mean? It is easy to talk about things like this within a Christian context, because I'm used to the jargon. "Take up your cross daily and follow me" and other verses like that are too familiar. How do I practically "take up my cross"? If, like the apostle Paul said, "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." I am phyiscally still alive. I have never been crucified. So is this verse just blatant lie? I don't think so. So there is something spiritual that is going on that I can't see, something abstract... When Jesus Christ was crucified, somehow, I died, too? How? Or is that what Paul means—that through faith, I accept that this mysterious truth is, in fact, true? I guess this is getting a little too "systematic theology" for me so I'm going to switch gears a bit...

How do I as a follower of Jesus Christ live this out? I believe there is something deeply true about this concept, but it is hard in this culture (or maybe every culture) to live out. How do we deny ourselves and take up our crosses and follow Christ? How do I keep from exalting my Self? How do I surrender that and submit to God on a practical level?

Discipline and Discipleship

Thanks to May for posting this link:

http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/mens-advance-2006/reverse-engineering-your-life


A couple of small things he says don't sit right with me, probably because it is convicting and/or a little too "self-help" sounding, but underneath the semantics of how he words things or whatever, I am deeply convicted and encouraged to have a vision for my life and prioritize accordingly. I will write another post about this once I've spent a little more time thinking it through. It is a long audio file, but in case you missed May's comment on my previous post, the link is a really worthwhile listen, if you've got 95 mintues or so. Very thought-provoking... 

Time Is Not On Our Side

I've been thinking a lot lately, trying to process life and how to live it well. I have succumbed, yet again, to allow life to happen to me, rather than living life intentionally and purposefully.

Time does not slow down, in case you have not figured that out yet. It keeps going, and you either catch up to it or it bowls you over. I think it's probably safe to say that most of us struggle with time-management. I like to think that because it's less alienating that way. How do we juggle all the things of life that seem so important to us? I'm not talking about trying to fit in more shopping time or learning the cello (which is something I want desperately to learn - unfortunately, it has a hard time climbing the priority ladder). I'm talking about spending time in solitude, quieting our hearts down to appreciate life and find rest and strength in God. I'm talking about going grocery shopping, eating healthier, and exercising regularly. I'm talking about spending time with people, getting to know them better, learning how to love them more deeply, caring for their needs, learning their mannerisms, enjoying the ups and downs of life together. I'm talking about taking time to develop the gifts and talents and skills that we all have, in order to effectively serve the people around us and/or provide for those we are responsible for. I'm talking about reading books slowly and journaling about the ways those books affect us.

How do we find balance?

The very popular scripture tells us to "seek the kingdom of God first, and all those other things will be added to you". What does it mean to seek the kingdom of God first? And, honestly, how does that play itself in the everyday stuff of life? Because no matter how I slice it - I have student loans I need to pay. That means I have a job I have to work. That means a commute I have to drive. That means a lack of time that I have to deal with. That means I start managing people, instead of enjoying them. I start treating people like resources and priorities and scheduled appointments, instead of friends. Something about that seems desperately wrong. We weren't meant to live at such a breakneck pace. So how do we slow down? How do we slow down our activities, without withdrawing into self-gratifying hobbies and entertainment?

I'm sure there's a way. I can't explain it, but this whole balance-issue isn't as heavy as it once would have been. I would have sunk into a very discouraged depression and checked-out mentally. Now, it feels more like a challenge. I'm probably to blame for most of the chaos I feel, so if I made choices to get me here, I can make choices to get myself out of this.

Any suggestions?

The Supernatural

Our culture is a slave to science.

The more I wrestle with my experiences and thoughts concerning God, I find more and more tension between the world around me that I can see and the world around me that I can't see. After taking Intro to Philosophy at Cedarville University (thank you, Dr. Mills) way back when, I've been okay with the idea that I can't prove God exists. That might be frightening for some people, though I hope it isn't. There is so much in our day-to-day lives that we can't prove, yet we have a body of substantial, practical evidence that suggests we can trust and live and love. There's just an element of my own perspective as a finite human that I can't escape. Think of the movie The Truman Show, and you'll get what I mean. There's no way for us to prove that our lives and the circumstances aren't an elaborate hoax or subtle deception. I can't prove that the Milky Way galaxy exists. I can't prove that my parents love me, though all the evidence points to the fact they do. I'm just saying, there's a lot that I'm learning can't be measured by science, and I'm okay with that. Science, at its best, explains how things are and move and interact, etc. Science is silent as to the question, "Why?" Why are we here? Why do I exist? Why do I wonder about what happens to me after I die if there isn't anything after we die? Science just can't answer those questions. Yet, we have pretty effectively allowed science to be the litmus test of any thought, any idea, any belief. If science says it is physically impossible to walk on water, then anyone who claims to have walked on water, or seen someone walk on water, must be crazy or a liar. That sort of thing. I think I'm getting off track...

My point was simply that I am okay with the limits of science and understand that there is something beyond what I can sense with my 5 senses. There is the metaphysical... the supernatural... the spiritual, whatever you want to call it. There's more going on beneath the surface. And the biggest thing that seems to be there is the concept and the Person of God. I'm going to sort of skip past trying to argue for God's existence or the reasons why I think He does exist... Though, that would be a worthy post in and of itself.

Instead, I'm going to question - why is it so hard for me to experience the supernatural? I hear stories upon stories about people in other third world countries and/or in books, etc. where people have experienced healings, miraculous visions and dreams, demonic activity, etc. I'm not hoping for an exorcism or anything, don't get me wrong! But it does make me wonder. Is my lack of spiritual experiences a result of this culture's post-modern brainwashing? Or is it because that stuff just really doesn't exist? If it has happened and is happening in other places around the world, I'm going to go with that evidence and say that our Western culture has effectively tamed the spiritual. We have quantified and analyzed and scrutinized and measured everything about the world around us, from millions of light years into the black void of space to sub-atomic quantum mechanics and string theories about what holds molecules together... Ghosts and UFO's are the mainstay of tabloids (which people actually do read, which really speaks to a deep truth in us that something does exist out there) and yet are completely written off by the intellectual elite of our society.

I believe God exists. I believe that our society has done a really thorough job of convincing us not to expect anything supernatural, anything too spiritual. Even our Western churches have swept away the miracles and healings and visions that were common in the early church, or so it seems, and instead, replaced them with systematic theology and doctrine. Most evangelical circles write off all that stuff easily, saying that was just for the Apostles to authentic the gospel message they preached as it went out. Maybe. That's totall possible! This post, which is getting longer and longer, is really centering around the concept of hearing from God. We have the Bible. Most people stop there. I believe that the Bible is complete and contains everything necessary for us to put our faith in this God that, most of us, have never seen. In 1 Peter 1, it says, "Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls."

I want to love God more fully, more deeply. It is difficult to love someone who is invisible. I know enough about Him to know and believe and trust that He is good, that His thoughts towards me are affectionate, kind and faithful. So how do we experience God more intimately? How do we search for Him with our whole hearts? I think of all the martyrs over the course of history... I believe George Washington existed, but I'd deny that in a heartbeat if my life was being threatened. George Washington who? How do we fall deeply in love with God to the point where it wouldn't matter if every other Christian you knew decided that God was a big hoax and didn't want anything to do with God or religion ever again? Would I still believe if my parents stopped believing? Or if Cedarville University closed down after a retraction statement apologizing for wrongly attempting to education college students about a God that doesn't exist after all? Is there anything deep in my own experience with God that is so deeply personal and true that if everyone else walked away, that I couldn't?

That's the kind of faith I want. I want to love the Person of God in such a real way that it isn't just a mental thing. But that's where this science-loving culture has made me feel awkward about asking God for deeper spiritual experiences that would help my love for Him to be true and lasting. I don't need more facts. I need more of God's Spirit interacting with me in ways I can't necessarily explain with science. If I was married, I wouldn't write down an exhaustive list of all the things I could think about my wife and carry that around with me and point at it and say, "See? See how much I love my wife? We're married. Look how much I know about her. She's real, you know, my wife.". Having that list and knowing everything about my wife isn't going to do a thing for our marriage if we never spent time together. If she never talked to me, if she never told me that she loved me, if she never communicated and encouraged me, would we really have a relationship at that point? If we just occupied the same house, slept in the same bed but never had sex, ate at the same table, but never shared conversation, knew every fact about each other, but never experienced life together to see her mannerisms and laughter and pains, etc. could I really say I had a relationship with her? Sure, we met and signed a marriage document, but realistically, to say we have a loving relationship would just be a lie, right?

Is it possible to have that kind of loving relationship with God?

The Balance Between Holiness and Self-Righteousness

After a fun conversation with a good friend, I wanted to write a post about this. How do we find the balance between desiring holiness (since, in some sense, it is commanded) and not becoming legalistic and self-righteous?

This could be a confusing post. I'll try not to simply ramble. It stems from the title of a book called, "Worldliness". I have not read it (yet?). My gut reaction to such a title is to roll my eyes, as if bracing myself for another tirade of self-righteous condemnation on the majority of Christians and how worldly they are because of the clothes they wear and the music the listen to and the show or movies they watch, etc. etc. To be fair, I don't want any of this to reflect on the book, because, again, I haven't read it. It makes me question the motives of those who point out "worldliness" in others. What is the motivation for that? Love? Holiness? I'm not sure. I don't understand the balance between allowing an individual the freedom to walk by the Spirit of God, and trust that God will convict and direct their actions in a way that is right and good, versus speaking the truth in love to people and confronting and rebuking sin. Who am I to play Holy Spirit for them? That's a tricky situation...

I guess, instead of rambling on like I am prone to, I wonder how we as Christians can love God more fully. If I was really in love with God, the things I would choose in light of that, would naturally result in holiness and that wouldn't have any kind of self-righteousness in it. I do want to be holy. I don't want to be worldly. But I also don't want to be motivated by fear. Fear is not attractive and, aside from the reverential fear and respect that the Almighty Creator deserves because of His essence and being, I think fear is a poor motivator. Granted, it might be a good starting place, but that is not God's heart. He doesn't want a bride who "loves" Him because she is secretly afraid of Him and honestly doesn't feel like she has a choice. So even in our pursuit of holiness, how do we find motivation for that from our love for God? How do we all love God with all our heart, and with all our soul and with all our minds? Because if we can learn that, and to learn to walk by the Spirit of God, I don't think we would need to point out specifics for each other (when it comes to actions not clearly sinful).

Photo Show and Tag

I was tagged by my old friend Gina yesterday (old as in known-for-a-long-time, not elderly).

1) Go to your documents/pictures

2) Go to your 6th file/folder

3) Go to your 6th picture

4) Blog about it

5) Tag 6 people to do the same


This is a picture I took from my phone, while I was sitting in the back of my dad's Mustang. We are sitting on the side of the road, on rt. 107, because we got pulled over. Scotty and Danielle were following in his Mustang, and we all assumed that the cop just thought the cars were cool, because he didn't give my dad a ticket and said that he had "a tail light out" or something like that.

Consider yourself tagged:

1. John
2. Danielle
3. Adam
4. May
5. Jake
6. Andy K.

Most of you don't have blogs... consider this an incentive. Your thoughts are valuable. Share them.

Flesh versus Spirit

I'm no Greek expert... Well, actually, I don't know Greek at all anymore, so that's a silly way to start this post. It comes from my curiosity to what Paul meant when he said "flesh". Is he talking skin and muscle? Is he talking about our physical cells and DNA? After the comment (Thank you!) about Romans 7, I went back to re-read it. Here's the part that stands out to me (v. 15-25):

"For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin."

It seems like, as Paul describes the civil war inside of him, who he is in Christ wants to do what is right, desires what is good. His heart/spirit/inner being is good and wants what is good, but this thing called "sin" or his "flesh" is not his identity, though it is a constant thorn in his side, it seems. I don't understand exactly how that works itself out. It is clear, from a realistic standpoint, that it doesn't matter theologically what you call it - we all seem to experience a tension between our desire for doing what's right and our actual actions of doing what is wrong. I think what I am learning is that there is freedom and power, to understand that we are good at our core now. In our inner being, in our spirit, if Christ's spirit dwells within us, we are new and pure. Sin has lost it's ability to condemn us and identify us. We are no longer guilty by association (with the sin that was in essence our master, our boss). I think why my thoughts are leaning in this direction are because if I believe that I am still desperately wicked and evil, I have experienced a lifeless guilt, a wallowing in my sinful condition. I echoed what Paul said, "Wretched man that I am!"... but the thing that the church didn't teach me when I was growing up is that Paul didn't end the book of Romans at chapter 7. He continues into chapter 8 with, "There is now, therefore, no condemnation for those who are in Christ". He goes on and makes some more spiritual/logical connections of thoughts to verse 9, "You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you."...

All this is simply to say, we are free. Sin is real, don't get me wrong, and it is obviously still present in my life. I still feel that tension. But there is something liberating to understand that sin can't control me. I don't have to sin. I am no longer a prisoner to my flesh. I can choose to obey it and give into it, but that's like choosing to do work for an employer you don't work for anymore. The paycheck from that employer is death, so to speak. Anyway... this isn't completely solid in my mind/heart, but I'm finding that there is a freedom in it that I previously did not know when I consistently reminded myself that I am wretched. I'm sure it is a balance, as most things are, but for too long, my pendulum has swung way too far to the side of believing that God's spirit within me doesn't change how wicked I am. If that's true, that's not very good news...

Desperately Wicked

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws." (Ezek. 36:26–27)

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"(Jer. 17:9)

What kind of hearts do we have? Wicked hearts of stone or new hearts of flesh? If we, as believers/followers of Jesus Christ have, in some mysterious way, been reunited with the Spirit of God and been renewed in a spiritual sense, is this statement from the book of Ezekiel true? Does it apply to us now, or is it in some future tense? It seems as though it is true now, though maybe it will become truer in the future, in a more mature and complete way, but to whatever degree it is, the Spirit of God indwells us and enables us to respond to God with love and faith and obedience... so that makes me think that Ezek. 36 is true for today. We have new hearts of gentle flesh. If, indeed, that is true, why do we still sin? Why do we still neglect God? Why do we still operate out of fear and cowardice and complacency and independence? Maybe it is because most churches don't teach us that we have a new heart. Most churches, in my experience, and most christians, for that matter, still operate out of a sense that we are still desperately wicked. And from that, the majority of our lives are spent avoiding sin. To those outside of a relationship with Jesus, Christians just seem like narrow-minded straight-jackets who live lives of fear and safety, trying to simply be as moral and serious as possible. There is a lack of freedom and a lack of joy in my life, that I think, took root as I was continually fed the idea that even though I'm a Christian, I still have a wicked sin nature and all my desires and emotions are still evil and I will spend the rest of my life battling myself. I think that is not true. And from a practical sense, it is severely short-sighted and incomplete. I'm curious, though, why so many people and churches still operate out of the idea that our hearts are still desperately wicked. Is it because it is true? Or is it that we are strongest when we operate out of the new hearts that God has placed within us and the enemy doesn't want us to live that way and spends more of his energy trying to steal, kill and destroy our hearts, so that we stay broken and limping. We're so used to crutches and so afraid of being prideful that we choose to keep limping, just in case running is arrogant or something. I don't know... it just seems like we are missing something and I am finding a curious hope in the idea that our hearts are no longer evil, that Jesus has placed a new spirit, His Spirit, within us...

The Foundation of a Promise

"So long as we imagine that it is we who have to look for God, we must often lose heart. But it is the other way about; He is looking for us. And so we can afford to recognize that very often we are not looking for God; far from it, we are in full flight from him, in high rebellion against him. And He knows that and has taken it into account. He has followed us into our own darkness; there where we thought finally to escape him, we run straight into his arms. So we do not have to erect a false piety for ourselves, to give us the hope of salvation. Our hope is in his determination to save us, and he will not give in." - Simon Tigwell

This is a cool thought, to me. I am very aware of the verses in scripture that tell us that if we search for God with our whole hearts, He will be found by us. My first thought is that this completely contradicts what Mr. Tigwell said! It is very clear that we have to seek God, pursue Him, etc. The more I think about it, the more I think Tigwell's quote is accurate. Why is it a promise that our pursuit of God will be rewarded by receiving God? Probably because God is already in the process of offering Himself to us, that He is already paying attention to us and pursuing us even when we are oblivious and neglectful of Him...