05-01-12
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” Romans 1:16-17
These two verses set the tone and the message for the entire book of Romans, the summation point to the most extensive Pauline epistle. The ensuing 16 chapters can be traced back to this root thought, that in the end our hope and purpose, our Christian life and connection to the Lord God, are uncompromisingly linked to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The comprehension of the gospel is the heart and soul of a purposeful human existence, for Christian or heathen. God’s power is wrapped up in the message of Jesus Christ’s death burial and resurrection, power for a salvation not only from hell, but the presence of sin in the believer’s day-to-day life. I am becoming increasingly aware that my daily wrongs and sins can be traced back to a misunderstanding of God’s gospel and His abundant grace.
Not only the righteousness for a right standing before God, but the righteousness necessary to begin our right moments before God, that as you begin to grapple and wrestle with God’s gospel as a believer, the more you will find His righteousness flowing through your life. As Paul points out, ‘the righteous shall live by faith,’ because that righteousness which the gospel provides must guide our footsteps, and if we leave the gospel behind at our judicial standing, then I might say that you are going to heaven, but haven’t you missed the point? That this gospel embodying God’s power was meant for you to live today.
04-12-12
“What is love, baby don’t hurt me.” Haddaway
Definitions are what matter.
You can say you believe in God, but if you conjure up in your mind a pink unicorn then I must heartily disagree for I do not believe God to be a pink unicorn. Almost every person you encounter on the street will believe in ‘god.’ The three english letters which we smashed together are not the defining characteristic of ‘god’, so for you to say you believe in ‘god,’ I must first ask you, “well, who is ‘god?’”
You can say you love me, but if love only means sex the…
04-01-12
Today I got in a fight with customer at Starbucks. It wasn’t even over anything important or consequential. I had just screwed up her tea order and she was giving me attitude, so I made a couple cutting remarks and the whole situation sort of escalated. So after I had gossiped to my co-workers about her attitude, I realized: man, I’m still a jerk.
I would have thought after being a Christian for 10+ years and attending a Bible school for two years I would have become a better human being by now. Yet here I was fighting about something stupid…
03-09-12
I remember racking my brain, frustrated and afraid, as I attempted to choose the school I would attend for the next two or more years. What if I chose the wrong college and God actually desired for me to be thousands of miles away in Maryland? What if I incorrectly interpret God’s Spirit and miss out on the one wife which God wants for me? How do I discern God’s will when two or more equally viable and wise options stand before me? What do I choose, and in making a ‘wrong’ choice, could I in fact miss out on God’s best for me?
Part1:
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03-05-12
“Meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain. Meaninglessness comes from being weary of pleasure. When you have exhausted that last dream and you find it leaves you barren or empty” – Ravi Zacharias
We find the greatest point of weariness not in an excess of pain, but in an excess of pleasure. Indeed an excess of pain may be sharper, but rarely do we find more despair than in an excess of pleasure. This is the discovery of the wisest man who ever lived, Solomon, that upon pursuing and in a great sense catching pleasure entirely,…
