Seeing the World through the Stories we Tell...

2006-09-25T20:25:00.000-07:00

I have a new blog now.

http://mynameisderek.blogspot.com

thanks.

2006-03-08T23:18:00.000-08:00

"Where in the Hell did Jesus go?"

In response to 1 Peter 3:19 at my Bible Study tonight.

2006-02-28T10:55:00.000-08:00

Hoy la tierra y los cielos me sonríen;
Hoy llega al fondo de mi alma el sol;
Hoy la he visto.., la he visto y me ha mirado...
Hoy creo en Dios.

-Becquer en Rima XVII

2006-02-21T15:40:00.000-08:00

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/02/21/funeral.motorcyclists.ap/index.html

Who's more like Jesus here?

Honestly, I feel physically ill after reading this article.

2006-02-12T20:54:00.000-08:00

http://www.stjamesucclimerick.org/

Just go there. Look up the verse at the top. If you love irony, you will love this site.

I emailed them asking if they know. I hope they respond.

2006-01-10T17:46:00.000-08:00

I live a lot of my life in the world of should's. Often I equate the person I should be with the person I am. I speak of should's and ought's as if they were my reality when they are far from it. More and more I find the person I should be is often the person I'm not.

I do things that a good Christian would do, not because I want to but because that is what I should do. I know how things should be but they really are not at all; nevertheless I live in this world of should's because it allows me to speak of things like truth, and beauty, and love without ever really experiencing them. I know the "right" things to say and do without feeling purity in the desire to do them.

When in truth, I am destroying myself. I am making myself out to who I would like to be instead of who I am. And until I come face to face with who I am, I will never be who I should

Purity, The Way the World Really Is...

2005-10-14T22:39:00.000-07:00

^"8Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded." James 4:8

Purity is one.

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. ⁵ Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." Deuteronomy 6:4-5

God is one.

You are pure because that is the way God made you to be. He made you to be one as he is and purity flows out of that oneness. Pureness is a oneness or sameness that exudes from a person or thing. Often we think of purity in relationships as something sexual but it's more than that. It's oneness; being the same person you are in one relationship as you are in others. It's being the way God created you to be out of his image. This oneness is exectricably tied to God's love found within purity in relationships. To truly be one means to recognize the truth that you are loved and accepted regardless of what kind of person you may be living like. It's about living out of the purity that God made you to have. To be one in your relationships with both God and man. We were made to be one thing and when we live apart from that we become double. We become two things and live in the contrast that God made us to be.

God is one.

God is love.

And I'm just trying to see the world the way it really is...

2005-10-02T15:31:00.000-07:00

I have been listening to a series by Rob Bell recently and have been thinking and mulling over his thoughts from the lessons. These next couple of posts are just some thoughts that I have had stemming from his teachings.

Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Cor. 6:9-11

I love the above passage. Paul is talking to a group of people who he calls saints (6:1) who are acting anything but saintly, holy ones who are anything but holy. Paul is saying you were once all these things but now you are something new. A new creation that has been washed, sanctified and justified through Christ Jesus. The reason I love this passage is because in the very next paragraph Paul tells the Corinthians to quit sleeping with prostitutes. It seems like the Corinthians are acting like the same people Paul just said they were not. The same people Paul called sanctified are still falling down over and over again.

Paul here is saying quit living like you were; that's not who you are anymore! You are a new creation so start living like it. You may mess up but that's not who you are. Becoming a Christian is more and more about seeing the world the way it really is.

For the longest time, anytime I went into a gas station or restaurant I would always say something to the cashier or waiter. I was just looking for an opening to maybe build a relationship with the person in hopes of telling them a little about Jesus. And while I am not doing away with that sort of intentionalism, I always felt like something was not right about it. It felt like I was selling some sort of product and hoping for a chance to get a plug in. Again, the intentionalism is great however I now do the same thing with the same hope of telling them the good news but for different reasons.

I think you love that person because they are loved. Because that's the way the world really is. And whether they know it or not they are loved and they need to see that reality. As a Christian, I am seeing a world for what it really is for the first time, and I'm just trying to help others see that too. And whether that person knows I am a Christian or not, hopefully they can experience the truth, for even just a moment, that they are loved more than they could ever imagine.

"Don't you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast -- as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed."
- 1 Corinthians 5:7.

The next couple of blogs I will be exploring this idea of seeing the world the way it really is and why we do the things we do because of it.

2005-10-01T14:16:00.000-07:00

Could it be that morality
Got the best of you and me
Got us thinking
That we’re on the brink
Of a drink of the cup that’s all filled up
With the cross havin’ even a little to do with us
It was His day
It was His way
To the glory of His grace
Took our disease

- Shane & Shane - "God Did"

What is the Gospel? (Part 3)

2005-09-23T15:10:00.000-07:00

The gospel is the openness of the Kingdom of God. No matter who you are or where you have come from there is good news for you. The Kingdom of God is open for sinners and saints alike. It is more than just the death and resurrection of the Christ. In Luke 9, Jesus sends out his disciples to preach the gospel to the surrounding villages. This is before Jesus’ crucifixion, so the gospel is more than just his victory over death. I believe it is the availability of God. The Kingdom of God has arrived as Jesus says so often. The gospel is God’s grace to allow the world access to Him. The gospel is freedom from death, freedom from sin, freedom from shame. The good news is the love of God in spite of our sinfulness; it is God emptying himself to become man (Phil. 2:5-11). It is knowing who we were always meant to be.

The gospel is Jesus.

What is the Gospel? (Part 2)

2005-09-17T22:02:00.000-07:00

Furthermore, the gospel is not baptism. Speaking from my own tradition of the church of Christ, I have seen this being preached too many times as the good news. While it may be an appropriate reaction to hearing the good news, it in itself is not what is good about the news of Jesus. Too many times I have witnessed a message of baptism instead of a message of the gospel. Baptism is important but it needs to be seen in the appropriate light of what the good news really is. Baptism is a reaction to the love of Jesus. It is the response of seeing the world for what it really is. It is not the ultimate goal but a response and a step along in the journey. Baptism is very important and an essential response to the gospel but it is not the gospel. It is but a shadow of reality, Christ however is the reality (Col. 2:17). “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power” (1 Cor. 1:17). Baptism is not the gospel.

The gospel is good news for everyone, everywhere, and of every faith, atheist and Christian alike. Whether a person believes or not is inconsequential, it is still good news. For example, a person whose life has been totally touched and transformed by the gospel moves into a neighborhood surrounded by atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, and so on. As the Christian’s life becomes more and more transformed as he comes more and more in line with the life of Jesus he becomes more serving, more generous, and loving. The people around him begin to benefit from this love and this transformation. The unbeliever benefits from the gospel. (This last paragraph was greatly influenced by the book Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell)

What is the Gospel? (Part 1)

2005-09-15T05:59:00.000-07:00

I just finished writing a paper on "What is the Gospel?" for my preaching class and I figured I would post it in a series on here.

In Mark’s account of the Great Commission, Jesus instructs the disciples to go tell the world the good news. It seems as if the hearers of this instruction are responsible for carrying on the mission of Jesus. To be effective we must know the message that we are to proclaim to the world. What is the good news that Jesus is telling his disciples to spread? Often times in our Christian walk it seems like there may be no good news at all. Or the message of good news gets mixed in with the bad news of the world that the hearers walk away more confused and wondering if there is really any good news at all.

The church itself has at times done a poor job of making the message clear. To define boundaries by starting with what it is not with such a message is often ill advised but I believe in a world where the message can be so easily confused, it is necessary to first define what the gospel is not. To begin, the gospel is not morality. At times we preach the message of morality to people in place of the message of Jesus. To alcoholics and drug addicts, we often preach a message of sobriety in place of a message of redemption. Sobriety and overcoming addiction is a side effect of the gospel not the heart of it. Ravi Zacharias said it best, “Jesus Christ did not come into the world to make bad people good. He came into the world to make dead people live.” Any message of morality whether it be sobriety or abstinence or even as far as heterosexuality ultimately fails. All people fall short of the standard of morality they set before them. What people need is not a moral teacher but a savior, not someone to teach them how to be good but someone to give them desire to be the people they were always meant to be. The gospel is not a gospel of morality.

2005-08-29T09:16:00.000-07:00

Well I haven't posted in a while. So I'll just throw out something we've been talking in class lately and I'll expound upon it later.

When does Jesus know he is the Christ?

2005-07-13T11:30:00.000-07:00

This summer I have been teaching a class on sharing your faith. Next week I am going to start going through common objections to the Christian faith. The first question I will be going over is, "If God is all loving and all powerful, then why do bad things happen to good people?" Honestly, I do not believe God provides a direct and clear answer through the Bible. I have some opinions and guesses that I can make based on what I know about God but I do not think there is a clear cut response from God on exactly why.

So I would like to ask the people who might be reading this, how would you answer this question. I want to provide various ways of looking at it because I believe each of us comes to answers on our own that speak to us. I don't want to give them all some cookie-cutter answer but I want to give them real and personal ones in hopes that some answers will speak to some and others to others. What speaks to me may not speak to them so I would like to hear varying thoughts and ideas.

Thank you.

2005-06-27T22:20:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I went to Zenith which is a kind of church camp at Oklahoma Christian (it's like Harding's Uplift or ACU's Kadesh). It was a blast and a great experience for both me and the kids in my youth group. Throughout the week they split up all the campers into groups of about 20 or so and pair them with two counselors. I was one of them and I was able to be a counselor with another from a church here in the Ft. Worth area. She was awesome and I was blessed to be able to spend the week with her, however on Tuesday of the week she did something that bothered me a lot and I do not know if it was because of my personality or because of something else.

She had the whole group stand in a circle around a pair of shoes. Once they were all in position, she said, "Pretend like the shoes are God. I want everyone to move to how close they feel they are to God." The youth then either took steps towards or away from the sandals to indicate their relationship with God. As soon as she gave the instructions I felt my stomach sink. I these things, I would dare say more than anything. When people try to get me to open up in front of groups of people I get sick. I don't want to. I don't want people to know all about Derek. So as I sat there and "opened up" (I put it in quotes cause I really didn't), I couldn't figure out why I despised this exercise so much. My co-counselor didn't seem to mind it so much, nor did any of the campers. I am fully supportive of anything that helps those youth grow closer to God and I will sacrifice my own desires to aid them in that but I couldn't help but just feel sick throughout the whole thing.

Maybe it's just my own insecurities creeping out. My desire to be independent and not need anyone else. Or maybe I was being judgemental and seeing my own lies in others as they judged their relationship with God. Or how does one even gauge spirituality? Is it something that can be measured? Since when did we ever think we could measure a relationship between two beings? After all isn't that what spirituality is about a relationship between God and man. But the more I thought about it the more I realized what bothered me the most was how impersonal the whole thing was. The whole process enabled the counselors to see how everyone felt they were doing spiritually. No relationship was needed. We were able to stand back and objectively see how spiritual each kid was or thought he was.

What killed me was there was no personal relationship. Instead of entering into a relationship to see and meet the kid where he/she was at we sat at a distance and judged like some scientist conducting and experiment. I can never see Jesus ever not being personal. Everything he does is about being a relationship with someone. The way he heals the way he talks and treats people all meets people where they are at and talks with them. I find more and more that in this I wanted a relationship with the kids not just a measuring stick. When we minister to people, when we reach out, we have to see the person there.

Then again maybe its just me.

2005-06-23T14:44:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Blue Like Jazz. I really loved the book but I d reading it. Not that it's not an amazing book because it is. But because it seems like everyone and their dog is reading it. And everyone and their dog continually asks me how I'm liking it (and at this point I'm going to be hypocritical and tell everyone and their dog to read it because it's amazing). The whole time I'm reading it, I kept thinking to myself why am I reading this? And I couldn't figure out why it was bothering me so much that I was reading such a great book.

I don't like doing what other people do. I almost can't. It bothers me and I realized this as I was reading it. Everything from the way I dress, to the bass guitar I play, to the books I read. I don't like being like other people. And reading Blue Like Jazz made me realize how this individuality has affected my relationship with God. In my life I know I have received His grace and I live like it, but I find that I want to earn it. I want to work my whole life to deserve what God has freely given. I talk about how I want God's grace but more and more I find that in reality I don't. I do not want to be dependent upon God for something beyond myself. I try to earn the one thing I know I can't and so when I fail it hurts. When I find I don't measure up to what God has called for me I hurt because I couldn't reach the God. My individuality bleeds into my spiritual life; my desire is not to be like everyone else.

So I find myself trying to gain the one thing I cannot. I can no longer reach to earn God's forgiveness but merely to receive it. I cannot earn the life given to me but live it.

2005-06-17T08:29:00.000-07:00

There's a true story about a study of three men in a Mental Institution who all suffered from some sort of mental disorder that all made them believe they were God. The doctor treating them wrote a series of articles descrbing how he treated these men. He would take all three of them into a room together and have them interact. One day one man proclaimed to be Jesus. When asked how he knew this, he said, "Cause God told me so." At which one of the other men across the room responded, "No I didn't."

And as crazy as it sounds I relate to these three men. Inside them I see myself, my inner most thoughts and desires played out. I suffer from a Messiah Complex, the idea that without me the world would fall apart. That if I do not carry out certain tasks then they will never get done and if they do then they won't be done right. So I burden myself with self-appointed crusades that I must do or the world my fall apart. And as I write this it all seems rather silly but in reality these are the thoughts that cross my mind. Maybe in less exaggerated terms but nonetheless the thoughts and emotions are there. I feel as if God has blessed me with certain gifts and I must use them. It's not so much the Father's love I seek but the Father's pride. I want to make Him proud of what He has given me and what He has done through me.

The complex reached an all time high this week which left me laying flat on my face. I had agreed to do too many things thinking I could do them all. I had extended myself into too many relationships, too many activities and flat out too much stuff. And it's ironic to see the one man that would have reason to have a Messiah Complex doesn't. When I read the gospels, I never see Jesus hurried, I never see Jesus rushed, and I never see Jesus overextending himself. In fact, at times it seems He's not pushing Himself enough. And with this I think God is screaming to me, You don't have to save the world. It's already been done. Just live with the opportunities you've been given.

There's something amazing that happens when we try not to do everything ourselves. We see people step up and we see people empowered to do things they normally wouldn't do. Maybe that's one of the reasons Jesus didn't try to do everything Himself. Maybe I need to leave some things for others to do. Maybe I need to quit being a Messiah.

2005-06-16T14:41:00.000-07:00

By the time I finish I writing this I may take it back but here it goes. Understand I am thinking as I write and when this happens I may come back and disagree with myself at a later time or I may ramble or I may even just delete all of this.

When I see people speak the Word of God at times I am amazed with their passion and excitement. The way some are able to take the Word and make it come alive. The words leap off the page and where once there was just ink and paper there comes Life. Where once it was mere words now there comes a world of something tangible even almost palpable. And when they do this I also become amazed at their spirit and their love for God.

Yet sometimes I think we take these remarkable God-given gifts and look more into than what they are. Often I believe we equate spirituality with Spiritual gifts. The ones that have the gift of prophecy and teaching we often equate with closeness to God ( I acknowledge the generalization found here). I think this might come back to a deeper problem in the church. Church has almost become a product. Something that is sold and dispensed on Sunday mornings with the ministers, the ones on stage, the ones teachings as the manufacturers. With this often comes lack of ownership lack of the feelings of being compelled to move to do something.

2005-05-28T08:44:00.000-07:00

For the past month or so, I have been struggling with faith.My prayer life has sunk and when I do pray it feels empty and devoid. For the longest time I couldn't put a finger on why I was struggling so much. I felt as if God was far from me. I never doubted God's existence or His Son but something was gnawing away at me and eating away at my relationship with Him. That was until last week.

I began reading Hebrews and came across chapter 11. As I was reading the author go through name after name after name of men of great faith, it dawned on me. None of these great men of God never saw their purpose in life come to a completion. All that was promised them was never given in their life time. Moses never saw the people he helped lead out of Egypt become the nation of God that they were destined to be. Abraham never saw the world blessed through his offspring. Jacob never saw his children become the leaders that they were meant to be. David was never able to complete the temple for God that he so strongly desired. As I read about these men, I cannot help but wonder if a sense of failure swept over them as they passed away. All that they had worked for, the missions of their lives never seemed to come to completion. In the end it was God that carried out the greatest accomplishments in each of these men's lives.

I say all this because what I struggle more with is not that God is but that God works. I feel so often that the things that I do, do not have any lasting impact and the goals I set never seem to truly extend God's Kingdom. And then I realize in the end it is not man who accomplishes great things but God. Even after the death of His instruments God carries about his own works so that none can take the glory for it but Him Himself.

These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. Hebrews 11:39-40

2005-04-14T05:52:00.000-07:00

Found this today; thought it was interesting...

http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/04/13/young.adults.religion.ap/index.html

It reminds me of a quote from Leonard Sweet:

"Postmoderns are not less interested in religion than ever before. Indeed, they are exploring new religious experiences like never before. The church has simply given them a less interesting religion than ever before."

2005-03-27T07:06:00.000-08:00

¹On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. ²They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, ³but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. ⁴While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. ⁵In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? ⁶He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ⁷‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ”

Why do you look for the living among the dead? This simple question is what I want written on my tombstone because my Lord has risen and one day I will follow. Our God, He is alive. Hallelujah our Lord, our Savior is alive. Amen.

The Idolatry of Harding

2005-03-19T23:08:00.000-08:00

This is more of a post for those at Harding than anything. Harding is breeding ground for marriage. The culture here revolves around it, everything from Ring Ceremonies to even traditions about when you're supposed to marry someone (three swings and a ring etc...) This focus of marriage greatly shapes the values of students and interaction between the different sexes.

The longer I attend Harding the more I notice an idea commonly held among students. To many Harding students the epitome of life is marriage. This in itself is a lie and idolatry. More and more I see students living for marriage. It is something amazing and great but the whole of your life does not culminate to it. Yet I find more and more students' worshipping it and forcing it upon themselves. Student life becomes so that it's almost shameful to not be ready for a serious relationship.

Life is not about getting married. Your life will still be complete without marriage. It something amazing that can be added upon the many blessings God has already given you. I wish more students would realize this and see marriage as a way to bring glory to God and not as the fulfillment of a Christian life.

2005-03-17T00:17:00.001-08:00

What do I need to do to be saved? I cringe everytime I hear those words, and I don't know why. I just feel in this question, there is too much emphasis on us as humans. That the world and that God revolve around us and our salvation. There may even in that thought be the idea that we deserve the salvation. What do I need to do to be saved? Maybe a better question would be how can I bring glory to God and His Kingdom? Through that is our salvation. The act of salvation I think is a by product of coming into intimate contact with God. But to enter into it with that mindest of "What must I do to be saved?" conveys to me self preservation, and an egocentric view of the world in place of a God one. And maybe I'm wrong, but I do know that everytime I hear that question my stomach turns knots, and I dont know why. And I want to know.

A preacher once said, "Instead of asking people, 'If you died tonight would you go to heaven?' We should ask people, 'When you wake up in the morning, will you have any reason for living?'"

Maybe what I am writing is wrong and complete heresy, and if it is I want to know. It is 2AM so have mercy on me, but it's something that I have been thinking about. I want my heart to be in harmony with God and call me out if it's not. I desperately desire to have the heart of Jesus and want to know if I'm far from that.

Maybe I am just missing the Gospel, but I feel that God is worthy of worship regardless of what He has or has not done. God is God and I am not, and he owes me nothing. From that base we should seek to live our lives in praise of him, and bring him praise for all that he has done through words or through deed. If God saves me, He saves me. My purpose in life is not to be saved but to live out the will of my Father.

2005-03-15T20:23:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I just want it to be done. I want to be able to look back on my life and hear "well done you good and faithful servant." I just want to be finished. God has so much to teach me. And I want to learn. I want to know what it's like to be a true disciple of Christ and to be able to be washed in his glory and love. But I'm so far from that, it's such a long journey and sometimes I worry that I may not have what it takes to make it. That somewhere down the road I might stumble and fall off the path. I get so focused on the goal that I forget the race that I'm running.

People do not just run races to finish. I can never forget that, or I might miss the course that I'm running. I might miss the scenery and the people that run with me.

I might miss the thrill of simply running.

2005-03-12T11:23:00.000-08:00

It's funny how a song can bring you back. Anytime I hear Usher or Kanye West, I always go back to this past summer at Fortress. I never imagined culture shock could happen to me without even leaving the country but that was exactly what hit me the first few weeks in inner city Ft. Worth. Everything from the people to even the sounds of this neighborhood were completely foreign to me.

Often we criticize the music that comes out of such places. They are often filled with profanity, violence, and hatred. Rap is at times considered one of the devils of our society, yet after this summer I do not think I can ever look at rap again. Throughout this inner city, I witnessed the music of rap being played out in real life. To the kids in my youth group, rap was not some evil foreign force infiltrating their society it was the world around them. The subjects of the songs were real issues and real people. To them songs about love and a good life were completely foreign, why should they listen to these seemingly imaginary objects? Rap spoke to them unlike other music.

We often criticize the evils in our music in our society, yet maybe we are missing the point. It's not the music that needs to change, its the society. When we are critical of music we are merely diagnosing a symptom of a greater problem. Like in the inner city the problem was not the music, it was the fact that these kids knew nothing else. They did not know what things like real love or hope were. The music became a peripheral issue to a much greater need.

And as I write this I find myself wondering, what else do we miss in our world by simply diagnosing a symptom and not the true problem underneath?

2005-03-06T14:23:00.000-08:00

I rode home this weekend with a friend, and in a nine hour drive you talk about a lot of things. In fact, you pretty much talk about everything and then when you run out of things to talk about you start all over again, especially when you have two extroverts trapped in a box for half the day.

One thing we talked about was evangelism and reaching out to people. The youth minister at the church we come from does an amazing job in preparing youth to be people that reach out and that feel the burden for the lost. This was her first semester at Harding and as we talked we both noticed the extreme need in our churches and even at Harding to equip people to share their faith. Equipping them with apologetics and the confidence that comes with those. Brian Mclaren writes Adventures in Missing the Point:

"The cost of sloppy apologetics is high. Without clear
and convincing answers to common questions about faith, believers lack
confidence. They're quicker to abandon their faith and slower to share it
with others."

Am I wrong here, or are there others out there that see this need? Maybe I'm just wrong. Does anyone else feel this way? Are our churches adequately equipping themselves to share their faith? Do the churches inspire confidence in their people in answering the questions of un-churched people?

Furthermore, what can we do to change this?

2005-03-04T06:26:00.000-08:00

Rick Atchley, a preacher out of Ft. Worth, once said that in the beginning of his ministry he would often close with the phrase, "The safest place to be is in the arms of God." He recently said, he regrets every sermon that he ever preached using those words.

The kingdom of God is a dangerous place that calls you to live out on the edge. In the arms of God, is a both an amazing and dangerous to place to live. If you are truly living out a kingdom life, there's no telling what might happen to you in this world. Ask any martyr.

Lord, make me into a dangerous weapon for you

2005-03-02T00:02:00.000-08:00

So I realized that I just spent ten hours of my day typing a paper that only one other person will read and that that one other person has to be paid to read it....

School has reached a new low. Atleast its done.

2005-02-28T20:13:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, I find myself being caught up in the enormity of our God. Caught up into the grandness, that transcends all understanding and from that comes the awe of the mystery of the King. I see God before all of history standing over it both past, present, and future and yet coming down to thread himself through that history. And its times like these in the middle of this worship that I find myself completely humbled.

I have been praying that God give me a spirit of submission. I desired to have the heart that could honestly say, "Not your will but mine." I realized my own spiritual poverty in my inability to pray those words. I want to be completely stripped of all the earthly roles I play and come before God in complete humility and honesty, and say, "This is who I am Lord. Please help me to change." So I struggle with this desire of who I want to be and yet who I am.

And so last night, in awe of God and all his wonder and mystery, I prayed those words. At the foot of the throne, I submitted. I still do not feel adequate to pray those words in public for anyone I know because I realize the power that they carry. I have realized that it is a matter or desires, while it may be a "cop out" to some, to others it is a heart felt desire. I pray to be the latter, yet I also pray that I keep honesty and integrity with God and myself.

2005-02-27T05:23:00.000-08:00

I'm speaking in chapel in about a month on the topic of "The Aroma of Christ." And I was searching the internet when I came across this little novelty...

http://www.mcphee.com/bigindex/current/11343.html

How telling of our society. And we laugh when we see things like this, yet often times we find ourselves wishing the Aroma of Christ was just that, a little sweet cinnamon fresh smell that lightens the stench of our world. I do not think that Jesus came to Earth to be made into some sweet smell to the world. And I think that is just what we've done. Yes, Jesus brings comfort and peace but before any of that he brings the smell of sacrifice and even death. He brings the smell of a man struggling to climb a hill with two wooden planks strapped to his back. He brings the smell of blood and sweat pouring from a man begging His Father to intervene and let him live. He brings the smell of tears as a mother watches her son die, knowing full well this is what must be done.

And yet we become slaves to this God of comfort, of this sweet smelling Jesus who calls nothing more of us than to merely stand in his fragrance and think of how beautiful life is. And it is. But He came for so much more than that. He did not come that we might not stand here and be comfrotable in our lives, but that we may live boldly on the edge of His Father's Kingdom. The Aroma of Christ carries power and sacrifice along with grace. And yet we remember the latter while forgetting the former.

God calls you to live on the edge for Him, not to be comfortable. He wants you to spread his frangrance among the world even when it may hurt or bring challenges. You have been forgiven so much, you have smelt the grace of Christ in your life and now it brings power for you to pass it along and to show the world just how far this love carries your own life.

2005-02-26T20:13:00.000-08:00

This, then, is how you should pray: “ Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors."

Forgiveness is such a tricky thing. It combines empathy, humility, and love all together into one amazing, yet also amazingly difficult act. Someone once told me that forgiveness is giving up of your right to be hurt. By forgiveness we relinquish whatever justice we may think we deserve and fall into the arms of grace. God calls us to have mercy on those that have wronged us. Dallas Williard writes that a more appropriate word for today's language would be pity in place of mercy. We take pity upon someone in the full knowledge that more than once we have had to ask for the same grace not only in our heavenly relationships but earthly as well. I believe the word pity fully describes our necessity from God and from others.

This is the exact word Jesus uses to describe the relationship of the master and the servant in Matthew 18. It is interesting to note that in this parable we find one of the only times in the Bible where forgiveness is revoked by God. The master revokes the forgiveness he has given when the servant fails to forgive others.

If we fail to see and live out simple forgiveness among our fellow men then how can we ever understand the amazing grace that has been given to us by our God? I think there is something very telling in seeing grace in our lives among each other in enabling us to see the grace of God and living in it.

2005-02-22T22:56:00.000-08:00

The other day a student prayed something in Chapel that made me want to stand up and scream. A student's father was involved in a terrible car accident the night before and was clinging to life at that very instant. The student that was to pray informed the people of this and then began to pray for "God's will" to be done. I felt sick. The girl's dad was dying! And instead of praying for healing you pray for the will of God, without even knowing what that is. Is that really what that student meant? Surely not. And even more so, I doubt it is what the man that was hooked to life support wanted at the moment. Is that what any of us wanted? More than anything when someone is sick or hurt we pray that God heal them, if it's His will, but do we really mean tha?. I doubt that girl, watching her father slowly slip away, had any thoughts of God's will in the matter and that when she hits her knees in prayer she does not ask for some divine providence but asks for a miracle.

There is a place for submission to God and His rule, and I am willing to give that, but when I pray I pray to move mountains not slyly sit in the back and hesistantly ask for God to work. Christ did not die for timid prayers. He died so that we may boldly come before God and pray the prayers that truly matter to us. More often than not we use the phrase "if it's God's will" as a cop out instead of out of a spirit of submission. We use those four words not out of submitting to rule of God but bracing ourselves for the fall if God does not seem to agree with what we ask. These words become more of a disclaimer than submiting to the rule of a King. I desire to pray real prayers with the boldness that Christ brings, and being fully willing to submit to the reign of God.

2005-02-13T10:57:00.000-08:00

I was listening to the Christian Rapper KJ-52 this afternoon and I think he said something very profound. The song is "Dear Slim Part-2", and it's in the form of a letter to Eminem. In the song, he talks about he prays for Eminem everyday and that KJ wishes that Eminem would one day come to know Jesus.

In the middle of telling Eminem how God is chasing after him, KJ says these three lines that I think are very descriptive of the environment that we live in today:

Too bad alot of Christians all they do is hate on you

Instead of droppin' to their knees

And takin' time to pray for you

And it could not be anymore true. Often we Christians, in one hand, say that this world does not matter, yet our actions reflect something so much different as we often attempt to create a Heaven here on Earth. And yes, we should be champions of good moral values, but we must never let that overshadow the need for grace in a world so desperate for it. Instead of being so vocal about a man's music and getting it off the air, why not try to reach the man himself. We are merely attacking a symptom here when we try to keep the air waves clean. There is a place for this, however I think our passion for a cause must never be greater than our passion for the person. More effort should be in put in on our knees in prayer and in reaching out to the people behind the music instead of putting the same effort toward being vocal to the FCC and getting obscene music off the radio airwaves.

Change the person and the music will follow. Work from the inside out and bottom up not top down. Changing the actions of a world never really changed anything.

Before calling for the transformation of the airwaves, we must give the world a reason to change.

2005-02-13T00:48:00.000-08:00

My past up until senior year in high school isn't exactly picturesque. High school for me was a time where I lived out the typical hypocritical Christian. I was a Christian only one day a week, and only by name not by life style. I was talking to my girlfriend Ashley the other night about my high school experiences, and she responded in a way I had never thought of before. She said, " You were the one of the guys that we had to fight against. You were one of the ones that gave Christians a bad name. " While painfully obvious, I had never realized the damage that my life had caused. I was in effect hurting the efforts of true Christians at my High School through the way I was living. Who knows if my non-Christian friends could have known the amazing love of the God, if not for me. Indirectly, I was damaging the efforts of those Christians that were reaching out to the lost at my school.

But then I realized in Chapel the other day, how amazing now that I am welcomed into the Kingdom of God? I, who was an enemy of God, am now welcomed into it as a son. I truly was in direct rebellion against the Father, and fighting directly against His efforts as He chased after those lost ones, and yet now I am considered one of His own. Truly, how amazing is the Father's love for us, that we should be called children of God. Because you too were once in war against God, some more than others. Some hurting the good fight more than most but nonetheless still rebelling, and yet now, we are all welcomed into the Kingdom.

I do not think that I will ever understand how I could go from one day a bitter enemy of Christ to be called one of His own. How amazing is His love and forgiveness.

2005-02-12T00:35:00.000-08:00

It's been amazing to me to see how different people have reacted to their friend telling them that his mom has cancer. It's such a blessing to have so many great friends that care for me and have been praying for me and my family. Each person has tried to comfort me in their own way, and I greatly appreciate it, yet I find that no words can console me.

In spite of the all my friends' attempts to help make some sort of sense out of this suffering, none of it is effective in taking away the pain. I have been given countless reasons or thoughts of why, out of all the people in the world, my mom has to have cancer. However, while they all make sense in some respect, none of them are able to give comfort. Because in the midst of suffering, I don't want reasons. Less than rationals for why this has happened, in place of an explanation I desire a person. I want someone to be there and not tell me everything is going to be ok, or even why I should think so; I merely want someone to be there with me and to enter into my suffering with me the best that they can.

I think God knew this when He sent His Son. God could have told us every reason why bad things happen to good people or explain why he allows suffering, but those questions are mainly asked by those not going through the pain but are on the outside of it. Because at the first hearing of my mom having cancer, my first response was not Why? But Who? Who can I turn to, who will just talk with me and feel what I feel. God could have sent a book of answers but instead He sent a person. Because those that go through suffering, more than wanting answers, want someone to simply come and enter into their suffering with them. If you look in the Bible, I dont think you'll find every answer to every question about the world that you have, but you will find a man and a God that care very much about you and what is happening in your life, for good or bad.

2005-02-09T22:01:00.000-08:00

This past Friday my mom was diagnosed with cancer. My world was turned upside down. I still am spiraling and searching how to react to this news and I've come up empty. Honestly, I have no idea how to act after receiving news like this, but with strength from God I will make it. I am sure some good will come out of this. What has been even more interesting to me is how my friends have reacted to the news.

One friend in particular took me aside to pray with me about it, for which I am very grateful. However what he prayed took me back. In the middle of praying for my mother and her health, he asked that "If it's Your [God] will, please heal Derek's mom." I was taken back. My first reaction was well of course it's God will that my mom be healed, it's my mom! And then I was angry with my friend for even saying that. My friend is an amazing man of God and I dont want to take away from that, especially because I have prayed that prayer for others repeatedly. But I do not think that we fully understand what we mean when we pray for God's will to be carried out.

Praying this prayer for my mom, means that I fully accept the possibility that God's will is that my mom could die, and that that is what I want. It is not in the least bit my desire.

I do not want God's will here, I want my mom. Praying for His will is inviting God to do with her what He wishes. I am not ready for that, and I think that I will never pray that prayer for anyone ever again. I am ready to submit to whatever He may bring, however I do not think that I am ready to accept it just yet. We do this sort of thing many times in our prayer lives. We pray things such as "God, if it's Your will, help me find a wife." Praying this is implying that we are fully willing to accept that God may not ever send someone to you and you could be single for the rest of your life. I do not think that this is what we often mean by this prayer, and we often merely throw it in as a disclaimer.

If anything, this has caused me to look at my prayer life and ask myself am I really meaning what I pray when I pray it?

2005-01-14T06:38:00.000-08:00

A man's life is always reflective of a man's god.

2005-01-13T21:00:00.000-08:00

I recently read a book about the ancient philosopher Pythagoras. You may remember him from such great theorums as the Pythagorean triangle, Pythagorean number pyramid, or the always favorite Pythagorean theorum, A^2 + B^2 = C^2 which has become a staple of classic geometry. Pythagoras was an amazing philosopher not only in mathematics but also in many other areas of life. During his life around 580 - 500 BC, he amasses a great number of followers to which he taught them what he called the secrets to life.

I say all this to tell you about what happened after Pythagoras passed away. It's amazing that even after Pythagoras' death in 500 BC, documents continued being attributed to him. Apparently, Pythagoras' disciples continued to write and make new discoveries and feeling in debted to Pythagoras they wrote his name to the documents. So Pythagoras is single handedly attributed with hundreds of theorums spanning several centuries. It's even become so that it's almost impossible to differentiate between the discoveries of Pythagoras and his followers.

When I read this I immediately thought of Jesus. The man who has given us all the secrets of both life here and now and the eternal. It explains Paul writing to the Colossians:

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. 3:17

2005-01-11T00:42:00.000-08:00

So I was threatened with my life to keep blogging so here we go. This is something that happened to me a week or so ago.

I was walking back to my house one day from my aunt's. It's a long walk, about 2 miles, but it was pretty outside, so I decided I would head home instead of waiting for a ride. It was about 5 o'clock or so and the Sun was slowly setting on the horizon. It was nothing fancy or strikingly beautiful compared to other sunsets but I remember thinking to myself, "Wow, the Sun is gorgeous tonight." For those that don't know, I have spent the past semester in Chile, and at the time I was accustomed to seeing gorgeous sites and being simply in awe of God and all His creation. I had merely made the comment out of habit more than actual beauty of the sunset. But on this particular evening it hit me, this is the exact same Sun that I marveled at so much while in the Southern Hemisphere. The beauty was always there, I had merely failed to take the time to see it or even appreciate it. I had become so accustomed to this amazing gift that God had given me that I had failed to understand the true beauty of it.

I think sometimes we do the same thing with the Gospel. We get into the habit of seeing it and hearing it so much that we fail to see the wonder behind it. And thats what it really is, wonderful. Full of Wonder. Giving both breath to breathe and taking your breath away all in the same moment. We have merely walked beneath the glory of Gospel for so long that we fail to stand back and stand in awe of it. We fail to stand breathless in the mystery of a God who died for a man. Stand under the light of the Gospel that shines from day to day, and take time to think and be in wonder of what God has done. See the light for what it really is, a true work of beauty.

2004-12-16T13:49:00.000-08:00

So last night I saw Closer, possibly the worst movie ever. If you've seen it, I would like to apologize on the behalf of Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman and Miramax Pictures for making you sit through such a painful two hours. I walked out of that movie needing a shower and wishing I were dead. Anyways, it got me thinking about some other movies I had seen recently and Spiderman 2 came to mind.
There's one scene in the movie where Peter Parker (aka Spiderman) is photographing at a party for his work. While at the party, everyone is barking orders at him, ignoring him, and completely humiliating him. It reaches a pinacle when Peter's dream girl, Mary Jane, walks down the aisle hand in hand with another man, only to hear them announce their future marriage. Peter is frozen in place while his boss begins yelling at him to take pictures. As I am watching this, all I could think was wow, if you only knew who you were talking to. If you only knew what power there was behind this seemingly frail body. Peter Parker, the apparently helpless kid in black rimmed glasses, the kid that you treat as if he were nothing, if you only knew what he was capable of, or even what he has done, how much would things be different. The spotlight would be changed instantly if only a fraction of who Peter is was revealed. And yet Peter in his immense power, sits there and says nothing.
And when I saw this, I thought of Jesus. A part of true humility is to have the power to rule over someone and yet instead to choose to serve. To be walked over by someone who has no right to have any sort of authority over you, and yet to stand there in all your power and all your glory and to simply stand aside.

2004-12-13T21:52:00.000-08:00

I want to give credit where credit is due and say that a sermon by Rick Atchley inspired most of what I wrote tonight.

And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever"... After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sowerd flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

Genesis 3:22 & 24

The stage is set for the greatest risk known to this universe. God has set man down inside a garden and given him the power of free will with only one command, not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In this very utopia, we also find the devil. Satan knowing that he could never hurt God directly decides to attack the very image of God himself, man, and the rest is history. We all know the story, man eats of proverbial apple and sin enters the world. God in response banishes man and woman from the garden for eternity. Now up until now, I had always viewed this banishment as a form of punishment against man for disobeying God's direct orders and in a lot of ways it is. Yet after reading this passage again I find a very different picture, I see not so much a god acting out of justice but a god acting out of sheer desperation. I had always equated the trees of good and evil and tree of life as the same, but in fact they're totally separate. God here is saying with his actions, "I can't bear to be apart from you in this fallen state so for this reason I am removing you from the tree of life so that you can at some point, maybe one day come back to me." And I think that's what the rest of the Bible is about. About the creator who desperately wants to return to his creation. A god who desperately wants to be with his people and will stop at nothing to have them back.
This brings new light to what God says to the sin ridden Israel Isaiah 43:25 "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake." It continually astounds me to think that there is a god out there who is actually affected in some way by the things that I do in my life. That there is a possibility that the Creator of the universe itself, is actually hurt by my absence in his life. And not only me, but the whole world continually amazes me.

2004-12-12T13:42:00.000-08:00

So I definitely gave blood today and definitely passed out immediately afterwards. Apparently a quarter of a waffle and two cups of coffee five hours earlier don't constitute the "good breakfast" that they reccomend.

In other news, I was looking over some stuff and found this poem I read while in Chile.

"Between Going and Staying"
by Octavio Paz

Between going and staying the day wavers,
in love with its own transparency.
The circular afternoon is now a bay
where the world in stillness rocks.

All is visible and all elusive,
all is near and can't be touched.

Paper, book, pencil, glass,
rest in the shade of their names.

Time throbbing in my temples repeats
the same unchanging syllable of blood.

The light turns the indifferent wall
into a ghostly theater of reflections.

I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare.

The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause.

Sometimes I feel like this, like my life is only a pause and I guess in a lot of ways it really is...

2004-12-11T22:14:00.000-08:00

Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
1 Corinthians 15:55 & 56

I have always understood God to be the three "omni's": omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. As of lately though, this last one has given me problems. It all began with the question of whether or not God could sin. Naturally my first response was no, however I then realized that if God cannot sin, then that negates the last of these three characteristics which are generally thought to be essential to the being of God. How can a being be all-powerful if there is something in this world that he cannot do? But then again if God can sin how can He call himself so pure and holy? Now I understand that it is possible that God merely wills not to sin and makes the conscious decision, however I want to concentrate on whether or not he himself has the ability. And I think the answer has something to do with the way that we define what sin.

Often times we view all sin as some inherently vile or evil act. I do not find this to be the case. While a general rule of thumb is that all sin is inherently evil, it is not necessarily always so. For example, the Israelites were commanded through the law not to eat pork and shellfish along with various other forms of animals. Does this mean that eating a pork chop or clam chowder is evil? Not at all! And I think that these two questions of God's omnipotence and the law call us to a new definition of sin. I believe that sin should be defined not so much as an act that is in itself evil but any act that rebels against the will of God. Let me write that again: Sin is any act that directly goes against the will of God. As written by Paul in the verses above, the law gives power to sin and God created the law allowing him to be above even sin itself.

I think this new definition resolves many problems people tend to find in the Christian faith. Questions of why can a God call himself sinless and blameless when he calls for the slaughter of innocent lives? The answer is that it is the will of God and whether it is carried out or not that brings about sin, not some outside force that God is obligated to live by. Sin evolves from man's will and God's will and the contradiction between the two.

First Blog

2004-12-10T13:27:00.000-08:00

When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah:

"He took up our infirmities
and carried our diseases".

When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake.

Matthew 8:16-18

This last sentence has always left a lump in my throat everytime I have read over it. Here in the beginning of Jesus' ministry he finds himself surrounded by the drudges of the Earth. He finds himself situated right smack down in the pain that we ourselves find in this world, the sick, the dying, the people whose souls are held captive by Satan himself. So as we would rightly expect Jesus heals them, and he soon finds himself in a new group of people. People whose lives have just been turned upside down by this man, the incurable have finally been cured, the rejected have finally felt the kind of love that reaches the innermost dwellings of the human soul, the possessed find the one God that can free them from the slavery that has engulfed them. And what does Jesus do in the midst of all this? He leaves. And that simple statement in verse 18 kills me. What more could have Jesus done had he only stayed with these people. Surely he could have healed more people, set more lives free, but instead he leaves. In the midst of all the pain and suffering that he has found himself surrounded by, the fact is plain and simple,Jesus leaves.

And we find ourselves wondering today the same question. Has Jesus left us? Wallowing in our own sickness and struggles, we desperately search for the cure. We all have at one point in our lives wondered aloud, "Where are you God? If you could cure them then before they even knew who you were, why don't you cure us today?" Thousands lay dying in hospitals around the world, Christians seem subject to the same fate no more and no less than others. I've witnessed it myself. Whole churches gather to pray for the health of one person, and yet she passes on. A man and his wife desperately pray to have a child for years and when they finally do the young boy is born with a rare form of brain retardation and will never be a functioning adult. And still we pray. And yet our pleas seem unaswered as if Jesus has simply left us on the shore crying out yet again. All this reminds us of a world beyond this, a world where there is no pain or dying and all are free from the clutches of evil. It reminds us of what truly should be feared. A place where the words of Isaiah do ring true, where Jesus has taken all the infirmities and diseases that could ever really do us any harm and nailed those to the cross. And it is true, Jesus has left us, but this time with the promise that he'll wait for us on the other shore.