Grar.

Under 5 minutes

So I thought that I would spend today preparing Matthew 15 for some questions Tiara had, but this happened. I recently submitted a small group application for next year and I was interviewed by Irena and Ryan. The small group application had a question regarding my testimony, which I was blessed with a chance to reflect on the past few years in my walk with Christ. Fortunately, during the interview Irena asked me to tell her about the gospel in my own words. I didn’t have a clear answer for her at the time, so I strung a line of Christian clichés. Thankfully, because of that, God has been owning me the past few days. Firstly, that my gospel message was religious jargon. And secondly, because my testimony didn’t reflect the gospel, but rather my life. Well here is finally a personal post that I am not privating, because His gospel is meant to be shared, and I should hopefully have opportunities this break.

Anyway, I was born in a Christian home. Throughout my life, God showed me more and more of how sinful I was. So eventually I accepted Jesus and I accepted Christianity. What happened when I grew up in the Church was that I learned a bunch of rules like the Ten Commandments. It didn’t take long before I realized that there was no way that I could obey them. Soon enough, being a Christian meant that I had to pretend to obey the law. And church stuff was my specialty, so I was good at pretending.

However, this life was just exhausting. I had to act as though I had it all figured out and constantly feared that someday it might all come crashing down.

⁶ All of us have become like one who is unclean, 
       and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; 
       we all shrivel up like a leaf, 
       and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

My life was just striving for moral perfection and being a perfect Christian. I kept trying to not be the sinful person that I really was by doing more righteous acts. But as Isaiah 64:6 states, even if I lived my life striving towards righteous things, they were just filthy rags to the King.

Then there was the gospel:

That God sent his only Son. Not because I am worthy of a savior, but that I am worthless and in need of a savior.

Jesus loved me right now, and all I needed was faith to believe.

My life of building up righteous brownie points meant that I was still damned.

But that was perfectly okay, and I didn’t need to live under my own ‘self-justification’ bondage anymore.

Religion over the years told me that I was a sinner and to just throw on some Jesus in order to feel better. Feeling better about yourself is not biblical. Having good self-esteem just made me try to hide how horrible I was. And that robbed the very power of the cross that I needed.

I thought that encountering God was sinning less and an easier life.

Job’s response to encountering God?  Humility.

⁶Therefore I retract,                                                                                                                 And I repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:6)

Or Paul (The guy, in whom people stole his clothes to heal others, is the foremost of sinners?)

¹⁵It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all.                            (1 Timothy 1:15)

Our gospel is so good because Jesus accepts us because we don’t have it all figured out. I do not need to be self-sufficient and sin-free to receive Jesus whom is more than I deserve. Christianity isn’t a religion that says “be clean, and when you are, you are a good testimony”. Christianity is a religion of sinners that cling on to Jesus as our only salvation.

It is 4am so this might seem jumbled. If you have questions please feel free to ask me. And thanks for your prayers. My friends have made it safely back to Austin. 

Galatians 3 Part 1

To sum up the previous: If justification requires works, then Jesus’ death has less meaning.

The first part of Galatians shows us the difference between confidence in self and confidence in Christ.

Paul is frustrated as the church is moving off course. His first argument in regards to salvation: if Jesus Christ publicly died for our sins why go for the things under the table?

One reasons is that the believers were ashamed of the cross. The cross was depicted as a sign of death for some of the worst of criminals. Many believers didn’t want to identify their saving grace because of His death on the cross. (Acts 13). The cross is quite similar to the serpent stick saved the Israelites. It might be a sign of death and their sin, but all they had to do was look. No good works required. The second reason is persecution.

Verse 3: Are you so foolish? Having started with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?

Your relationship is a gift by faith. Well what about sanctification talked about in James 2? Unfortunately we sometimes see sanctification as the works we do as Christians. Ex. John Piper. Not saying he’s wrong, just saying that his word choice is off. Talking about this next time.

We see this in the first example by Paul. Many Jews thought that Abraham earned his righteousness. Examples of this are found in maccabees. I forgot which one tho, it’s in the apocrypha which is really not worth reading. Paul quotes scripture and points out that faith is why Abraham was justified.

So what’s faith…

Well there is the good old stool example which you guys might have heard before, unless you didn’t grow up in church and that’s good too.

So quickly. The power of the cross is like a stool that holds you down. And it’s a pro stool. The stool is the object we place our faith in. Faith is not the stool. When we sit down, the quality and the quantity of faith does not help in holding us up more.

So why do we put faith in Christ (verse 8)

-Jesus earned what we could not earn his righteousness is accredited to us

-Remove the curse of the law

What’s the curse of the law? The fact that we could never be fully justified in God’s eyes. The law demanded sacrifices as temporary replacements for our sin, but we could never be free of sin nor could we walk with Christ. The law deems us unholy.

The solution: Jesus gives us his spirit. The spirit gives us strength to pass trials to become like Christ. If we take our life into our own hands we miss the point of why the spirit was given to us. The power of the spirit not to make us stronger, it’s to make us cling on to Christ more.

The important post next time.

Galatians 2:11-21 intro part 2

Background: The Church is still in the process of figuring out doctrine. There is no bible yet except the pentateuch. Paul plans churches but is followed around by people that distort the gospel. In this case these people preach that the Jewish law is necessary to becoming a Christian (call Judiazers I think).

We see their affect on the community starting at verse 12. Peter is afraid to eat with the Gentiles. Then the other Jews followed suit.

So Paul is telling the apostles that they are diverting from the gospel. Gasp. It reminds me of when my pastor calls out John Piper (And if you’re a baptist that’s like double gasp).

Anyway, we see here that because of the distorted gospel there is a separation. But wait a minute. I haven’t even talked about the gospel yet. I just talked about Peter not eating with Gentiles because of something about not converting.

Verse 15-16 Paul’s argument.

“yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.

And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ,

and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law.” (Galatians 2:16)

I’m going to start by defining some terms.

Righteousness-meeting a standard

Justification-God says you meet the standard

Paul states that that we are justified by faith not work. The law never worked. Why did the law never work? Because the standard was so high. We see from 5:48 that we can never meet this standard. Jesus did not tell us in the verse that we need to become absolutely perfect, instead he pointed out that we really really really need Him.

So God lets us use Jesus’s perfect life to meet the standard and we are then Justified. Note: God does not make you right, but He makes you right with Him. The last part of verse 16 shows us that we obtain Christ’s perfect obedience by faith.

IT SEEMS TOO FREE. And so artificially barriers are sometimes put up (as seen in this case and in many other aspects in our life)

When we accept Christ the law isn’t suddenly forced us like the Judiazers proclaimed. How justified we are (if that is possible to quantify) does not correspond to how holy we are. (Why we should live holy lives is explained in Galatians 3:17-21 tho)

Galatians intro - a look into the gospel

The girl told me to blog Galatians 3. So I’m going to start writing the intro because I have class at… actually I have no class on Tuesdays.

Setting

By the middle of the first century, although the early Christian movement was still connected to Judaism, an increasing number of its members were Gentiles. The relationship between the new non-Jewish converts and Jewish Christians was complicated. One issue was concerning the law of Moses. Should Gentiles convert to Judaism in order to become Christians?

Paul attacks this question head on in this early letter. He argues that the Jewish law is unnecessary for Gentiles (more on this later). This book is a stepping stone into Romans as many things are further clarified there. Because this is a letter and not a teleconference, this book makes a lot of counter arguments (biblically and emotionally) against expected opposition.

Galatians is split up into 3 parts

The first part from chapters 1-2:14, Paul talks about his life, his mission, and his relationship with the church and apostles.

The second part from 2:15-5:1, Paul presents the gospel, his arguments regarding converting to Judaism, Abraham’s inheritance, purpose of the law, baptism, inheritance of the children of Christ, danger of slipping back into bondage, and a story about Hagar and Sarah.

Paul finished Galatians by giving application, discussing Christian liberty, and morals.

Intro Part 1

There is just one work that can bring us into a right relationship with God. This is by the work of Christ-His voluntary offering of his own life as a payment for our sins and guarantee of eternal life with God.

However this will always be under attack from those who want to add to the finished work of Christ, and in doing so this destroys power of the Gospel.

Part 2 Testimony

Paul’s life proved that the gospel of grace was from God. This was the one and only way of salvation. Nothing but the supernatural grace of God could have redeemed such a violent and self-righteous man and transformed him into one of the greatest appostles/preachers to the gentile world. Paul’s life shows that nobody is beyond the gospel. Paul was a lover of religion, but not God (verse 14). But God revealed His son to Paul (15) and Paul was born again.

Transformation: After Damascus road, Paul does some ministry, but for most of the years afterwards he instead gets doctrine and training from God. We suck and don’t deserve to serve God, but He trains us to be less sucky. We see this example in Moses as he is called out at 80ish years old, and we see this in David in the events after his anointing as king (goes back to tend to sheep).

This is my last tumblr post, I think, as I’ve already starting drafting on another blog. I just didn’t really like the feel of tumblr, so I’m moving and combining my blogs. Uh. That’s it I guess.

Acts - God part 3 and the first ‘Christians’

It’s late so most likely a work in progress. Last post today. I really should go to sleep but my drafts folder looked sad.

We’re in Acts 11. This is the first time that the gospel goes into a major city. The city of Antioch.

Background:

Acts 7 The first martyr (Steven) sees Jesus standing at the right hand of God right before his death. This is the first time that Jesus is not sitting at the right hand of God. Martyrs are called by some commentators as Heaven’s standing ovation. Jesus stands for his martyrs.

The turn of events after Peter’s death: The church scatters to Phoenicia, Cyprus, Antioch, etc.

Acts 10 Peter figures out the gospel is for all people

Acts 11:19 Christians spreak the gospel to the Jews and the Greeks. The Greeks become interested and many accept the word.

Background of Antioch: a city of 500,000 and one of the most diverse city with Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Jews, Chinese (pretty sure), and lots more.

Verse 22 Barnabas described as ‘the encourager’ heads over to Antioch.

Verse 23 Barnabas “witnessed the grace of God” at Antioch. What does this look like? How is this so different from the American church?

So what did Barnibus see. In verse 21 he saw “a large number who believed [turn] to God”. But that’s not what set apart the church of Antioch.

More background on Antioch: It was a city that was divided into 18 segments. This was to separate the different races into their own segments. This is because cultures believed that they were vastly superior to others. It was so severe that quarells between races would result in the genocide of the weaker race.

But in Antioch when the gospel was brough to the city, people crossed the walls to worship God. We can see this in Acts 13:1 as the five leaders of the church represented four different cultures.

Why is this significant? Throughout history religion was tied to the culture and races worshiped the Gods that corresponded to that particular race.

Verse 26 The disciples were called Christians in Antioch.

Early followers of Christ never refered themselves as Christians till around a century later. However, the city needed a name to call this unique group of people, that for the first time crossed social and racial barriers; so the name ‘Christians’ was bestowed on them.

“The reason this church was growing was not just that this multi-ethnic, multi-racial, bringing-down-the-barriers new fellowship was the result of the preaching of the gospel, it probably was the reason the gospel was believed. It was not only the result of the gospel but it also was the communication of the gospel.” -Timothy Keller

This is the beauty of people that follow Jesus when they come together. Wouldn’t be cool if people looked at our love and relationship with our brothers and sisters that they have to call us another name?

Verse 26 Spiritual growth most easily done by regularly feeding on the bible. It’s a spiritual mystery, but it’s true. We see in Verse 26 thatBarnibus and Paul know this too. So they spend a year to sow the word of God into the people.

Verse 28 Agabus said to be one of the 72 predicts a severe famine. At this time the Nile river was overflowing and caused a 100 year flood (bad) in Egypt. Price of grain was monster high at this point.

Verse 29 The Church in Antioch heard the possibility of need and gave. The grace of God is astounding. This is an amazing example of Church. They are so loving and so spritually full that they can respond to unpredictable times in unprecedented ways.

Acts - God part 2

I should not be doing this right now. I have an 8am.

Moving on to the next chapter (10) in a series on more application and less theology. Anyway, Luke describes Cornelius as a God fearing man. This means he was considered Jewish convert with the exception of circumcision. An angel tells Cornelius to get Peter.

Part 2: Peter has a vision.

Background: God had called Jews to be his chosen people and there were many regulations on which foods that could be eaten and how they were to be prepared. From birth Peter has been held to a strict standard. Early Jewish Christians still follwed the old Jewish laws of eating certain foods and believed circumcision was still necessary in order to become a christian (stone people should know this as it’s in 1st corinthians). At this time Jews still believed that they were superior to gentiles and did not associate with them.

Part 3: Peter rejects the idea of eating unclean animals. We see Peter disagree with God often in scripture, as like most of us, he has his own idea on how God’s kingdom should be run. (not correct)

Part 4: The voice was repeated three times. Peter is a smart kid and he understand the connection between the unclean animals and the gentiles, but we needed God to imprint this truth into his own heart.

So God begins to extend salvation to the Gentiles. The Jews has racial pride. God’s character is different.

Part 5 (Verse 17) God starts a transformation in Peter. Peter shows hospitality towards the Gentiles that come into his house which was an action that was unfamiliar to the Jews.

Part 6 (Verse 23) Road trip. Six Jewish believers accompany Peter. This is signifcant as they bear witness to the event.

Verse 28 Peter puts the puzzle pieces together. Good job Peter.

Verse 34 God does not show favoritism. Yea we all know that christians should luff everybody. But we’re human. We suck.

Verse 43 Peter and his Jewish friends were suprised as the Holy Spirt was poured out to the Gentiles apart from Judism. For those of you skimming through this, now you’re caught up.

Acts 11:1 The other believers raged on Peter. Jews and gentile interactions was still uncomfortable for many people.

Acts 11:17 “So if God gave them the same gift he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” Peter rebutes the Jews time and time again throughout the scripture: Galatians 2, Acts 15:7-9.

What is the progress that peter made? Peter is not just tolerant towards the Gentiles. He loves them.

So what does this mean?

None of us are beyond prejudice, but it’s not like we’re hard core haters to specific types of people. But like with Peter, we should be more than tolerant, we should be intentionally loving those we might not favor. You’ve probably heard this before, but I’m telling you again. No big words just practical.

What’s so wrong with having a group of people that we are comfortable with? Do our groups we have to be so inclusive? Yes because it’s God’s design.

Example on next post.

Acts - God part 1

Here’s a short aside. It’s 6 in the morning so this post might be a little incoherent. I usually like multi-tasking, but today I slept all day since last night was a long night. Anyway, the last few hours I sat on my bed listening to biggie and praying for my brothers. Take care of them.

Well today I’m not going to pick up back at John which I finished at the beginning of the summer, nor hebrews which I finished during summer. If you want me to type up my notes just ask, but today I’m going to go over Acts and start a series about characteristics on God found in Acts.

This post is going to be more like footnotes which is similar to what I’ve been doing in the summer.

Acts 9:1-4 God does not give up on Saul. Who is the person least likely to be saved in your world. Anybody can be saved, do not stop praying for those in your life.

The Damacus road: We gets knocked down, look for God.

The command: Saul follows God’s 3 commands. Follow God even if it seems bizarre.

Verse 10: Ananias’ prompting. What is at risk if Ananias didn’t listen to God? Saul kills Christians, Do we trust that God knows what is best?

Verse 19: God says everybody is worth it. Only God could have saved Saul.

For those of us who are carrying the name of Christ. Make sure our edge is sharpened like Ananias. I’m glad that God didn’t give up on Saul. So don’t give up on Sauls.

John 12:27,31-32 The cross + rebuttal of JC’s commentary

Too lazy to edit. Forgive any grammar mistakes.

Okay. This post will be talking about the cross. I was thinking a little about John Calvin’s commentary on verse 27, and I remembered hearing something quite different from a sermon a long time ago time ago. So I took my questions to my pastor and we worked a little something out. Here we go.

Our focus for verse 27 is the very beginning where it states:

‘Now My soul has become troubled…’ (NASB)

John Calvin put it as: I’m going to give you the link cuz I butchered how he explained it.

What seemed strange to me was that Jesus knows of the bigger plan and knows that His death is not the end. So really what made him so afraid? Was it the pain and suffering He had to go through? Well Jesus is God. So I looked for a better answer. That brought me to Mark 15:34

‘At the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?” which is translated, “MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME ?’ (NASB)

This was the the last thing that Jesus said before He died and it shows us a little bit more of where Jesus’ fear lies. We first need to know that Jesus and God, since before God created time, have had the most holy, pure, magnificent relationship ever. We see this in John 1:1-2.

‘¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was in the beginning with God.’ (NASB)

But in the instance when Jesus took up the cross something happened. From the famous verse 2 Corinthians 5:21

‘²¹He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.’ (NASB)

Jesus becomes the very thing that separates us from the Father. He doesn’t just take on our sin. He becomes sin. It says it right there! This is what causes Jesus’ soul to be troubled. Dang Dawg.

Well you might think, why do we need to know this? Because we are called to be like Jesus. We need to put sin into perspective. We cannot be comfortable with the one thing that made Jesus troubled/afraid/dreading/shaking in His boots. We have to flee from sin and have our hearts break over the very nature of it. A good example of this is Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. When she wanted to sleep with Joseph we see that Jeseph abandoned ship.

‘¹²She caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me!” And he left his garment in her hand and fled, and went outside.’ (NASB)

We need to follow Joseph’s example and flee from sin. Jopesh didn’t simply walk away, he ran away. We cannot be comfortable with sin!

Moving on. It’s alreay 1 in the morning and I have to wake up early tomorrow.

Okay. So Mrs. Davis, one of Char’s friends came to one of our prayer meetings and asked a question along the lines of: ‘Why did Jesus die on the cross?’. Well I think. Maybe it was more along the lines of: ‘What did Jesus dying on the cross accomplish?’. I forgot the actual wording. Actually, the first question was explained in the last post. The question answered in verese 31-32 is ‘What was accomplished in his death?’ There are 2 things. The first one is the bible school answer, but the second one keeped us guessing for a good 10 minutes.

³²“And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.” (NASB)

The reason in verse 32 is the easy one. Jesus came to die and rise again to conquer death and save us from our sins. That’s sunday school 101 if you missed out.

The reason in verse 31 is quite different. ‘³¹“Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.’ (NASB)

The ruler of this world is Satan. If you’re wondering why God isn’t refered to as the ruler of this world then here is a little break down. During the fall of man, God gave over a certain amount of authority and dominion over the world to satan. This authority and dominion are limited, and God is the one entirely in charge. We see this example in Job 1. I’ve reference Job quite a bit in my first few posts, but if you don’t remember, Satan asks God if Job will still worship Him if Job isn’t in his wealthy-healthy bubble. So God gives Satan the power to pretty much destroy everything Job had.

Anyway. We see in verse 31 that Jesus has come to get rid of Satan’s authority over the world. We see this in the protoevangelium.

¹⁵And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her seed;
He shall bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

For sake of time I wikianswers this topic and got a pretty decent result. So pretty much verse 31 states that Jesus’ death also came to fulfill Genesis 3:15. Jesus indeed has taken away Satan’s authority over the world. So how does this apply to us? Well we need to know that Jesus has conquered Satan and that Satan no longer has any hold over our lives.

John 12:27-28

Just got back from playing football after sleeping 30 hours in the last 37 hours. It’s pretty bad… Anyway we’re moving on through John 12. Over the last three posts we saw what it meant to die to oneself and to want what God wants instead of what we want. We then need to follow after Jesus + other application. Well now in verse 27-28 we see Jesus apply verses 24-26.

John 27-28 ‘“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say-‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”’ (NRSV)

Pro or pro? We see that Jesus doesn’t ask for deliverance from the cross because it was the reason He ended up on earth. And why did He die on the cross? Jesus came to earth and His motivation to go through life was to Glorify the father.

Note: I got major h00ks mod on this over the past few days, it might sound different than what you’re used to hearing, cry me a river but it’s backed up biblicly.

Jesus didn’t come down to earth for you. Yes, He did die for you and take your sins away, but Jesus came to glorify God. You might have not even understood what that meant… It’s not super important so let’s move on.

Anyway here is the important part. This is the sparknotes version of the last 4 posts: We need to become people whos motivation in life is for the glory of God. In everything we do. Do it for the glory of God.

So what does this look like? 2 things. Loving no glory. Loving His glory.

I was talking to a friend a while ago about why I blogged. I didn’t really have an answer for her at the time. Luckily my pastor gave me these verses.

Matthew 6:1 “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.” (NRSV)

Isaiah 42:8 “I am the LORD, that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols.” (NRSV)

The first point. Loving no glory. I need to make sure that my underlying motivation for all I do is for God’s glory, and not my own. I rejoice in the fact that I get no glory because He is lifed high.

The second point. Loving His glory. I need to be fulfilled by only God. My life is devoted towards God’s glory to be shown on earth.

John 12:26

This post is a continuation of the last two posts. So far we’ve looked at the fact that we need to die to ourselves, we need to hate the things that the world defines as good because it is polar opposite to God’s view, and some application. Today we will go a lil farther. So in the last week of His life, Jesus drops another crazy truth. Now in verse 26 He gives us another one of God’s promises and some more application.

Here is verse 26 for all you lazy people.

John 12:26 “If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.” (NASB)

First off we’ll look at the first section. We have a classic computer science if-statment. The condition is ‘If anyone serves Me’. So lets see what ‘serves’ means. This is the same serve used in the John 12:2 where Mary served Jesus and the whole perfume ordeal. Serve here is not a service out of obligation, but one of love. Because love will always end in service. I’m not just talking about helen and peter love boyfriend and girlfriend love, although it does apply. I’m talking also about a love that Jesus showed to this world, a love that we should strive to have, a love for the poor and the needy in spirit, a love for the unloved. For Jesus did not just sit around in heaven. He loved the Father so much that He came as a servant. So we too are to serve the people that God loves (which means everybody even people you don’t love).

Back to the beginning of verse 26: ‘If anyone serves Me’.

So our service to the Father is out of love for Him. Our service doesn’t stem from what He does for us, or how He makes us feel. We need to understand that He’s has saved us, and love Him as our God, our Father, and our purpose in this life. Because physical/emotional blessings from God will not always come, or may never come. We need to hold true to God and not just His benefits.

Well if we are to serve Him, then we must follow Him. We must become His disciple. This means that we must learn from Him and actively become like Jesus in character and in love.

Here are my two life verses for application

Micah 6:8 ‘He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, and walk humbly with your God?’ (NASB)

The New Testament version. A lot more in depth, but not as pretty sounding

Ephesians 4:1-3 ‘¹Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, ²with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, ³being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.’ (NASB)

Okay this next verse is like a double-edged sword (like a lot of other stuff in scripture)

John 12:26 ‘and where I am, there My servant will be also’ (NASB)

I finished watching the korean drama boys over flowers, and so I’ve decided to give the bad news first: If you’re not with Jesus then you are not his servant. If you walk in darkness then you cannot be with Jesus who is pure and holy. Consequence? Bad bad bad things.

Yet this promise is also amazing for those who love God. ‘…If anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.’ (John 12:26 NASB) Anybody means anybody. I would like to make that clear. Because His promise tells us that where ever you are with God: a Christian for 50 years or someone really shaky in thier faith. When you devote your life and choose God over yourself, then He Will be there.

God isn’t asking you to be perfect. God is telling you to come, because HE will make you perfect. So again. 2 choices. We can choose to be a seed that doesn’t die and forever be a useless seed. Or we can have a heart that wants to serve the Father and die to ourselves to produce fruit for His kingdom :)

John 12:25

John 12:25 “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.” (NASB)

Well here is the key verse for today. Last time we looked dying to ourselves and choosing the will of God. We saw that Jesus tells us that we need to die in order to produce any fruit in our lives. Because a seed (you, me, Jesus) needs to die or we will not bear any fruit. And that would be a useless life that God will not work through.

So how do we die? Well verse 25 says we have to hate our life.

Side note: Don’t start cutting yourself; Jesus does not say to hate life, because life is one of God’s highest blessings. But He does say to hate my/your life.

Side note #2: Jesus doesn’t say hate yourself. Jesus says hate your life in this world. You are not to hate yourself because God loves us and He also calls us to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Side note #3: Don’t hate the earth. Mother nature helps show the glory of God. Save electricity, carpool, and recycle :P

Moving on. The word for ‘hate’ here is the same word used to describe hate towards Babylon at the height of it’s evil. So Jesus definitely calls us to hate something. But if we’re not to hate life nor hate ourselves… then what do we hate?

We are to hate the things that compete for glory with God. There are 2 things I want to go over.

Firstly we hate our fading life. The one that will pass away and rot in time. We are not to fulfill this fading life, but to build up things that are eternal. (Matthew 10:39)

Secondly we are to hate the world.

“And, indeed, whoever is attached to the world does, of his own accord, deprive himself of the heavenly life…” (John Calvin)

We are to hate the things that the world values. Because the things that are of importance to man are hated by God. God does care about looks, talent, brilliance, etc… But the things that He does care for are: character, humility, and selflessness. As Christians we too are to hate these things that put on pedistals by this world and strive to be the things that God loves. For we are to constantly die to our own desires and fill them up with God’s will.

I don’t want what I want. I want what God wants.

So what do we need to work on? The fruits of the spirit (Galatians 5:22) is a good start, and fighting the deeds of the flesh (Galatians 5:19) is just as important… if not much more important.

John 12:24 + updates.

On the contrary to popular belief: I did not get run over by a cow on my way to class. I just haven’t logged onto tumblr for a long time. Well It’s pretty cool seeing how more and more people are updating thier blogs. Although some post have tmi…

My update from aggieland: Yesterday we had the ‘Big Event’. This is the largest nationwide student lead event where tons of students gather to do community service for the people of Bryan and College Station. Over 12,000 people showed up at 7.30 in the morning in frigid weather. It was pretty cool. We huddled together and listened to speeches from various people. Notably, a speech from Oscar Newton which actaully relates to today’s verse, and former president George Bush Sr. (He’s the one in the picture)

On to other updates: I finally got to meet with my discipler today after a refreshing spring break. For spring break we strayed away from our normal routine and listened to sermons instead. It was quite relaxing listening to pro people do the work for you. Specifically we went over the influence series from Willow Creek Community Church. Here is a link if you’re interested. I really want to go to chi-town :[

Anyway, I’m back to where I left off before spring break. In John 12. There might be a gap inbetween posts, so I’ll try to talk about key verses in future entries.

So today I’m going to share another one of Jesus’ truth. It’s going to be fun. The importance of this truth? You will not bear spiritual friut if you do not practice this truth. It’s purty important.

To set the scene: Lazarus was raised from the dead in the last chapter, Mary pours purfume on Jesus in the beinning of this chapter, there is a passover festival, and Greeks want to see Jesus.

Well, we see Jesus’ response to the Greeks in verse 23-24. In verse 23 He tells them that it is almost time for the knowlegdge of himself to be spread around the world (not just that he is going to die). He tells us that even in death there is no stopping His glory from being revealed (death is not the end). (example. verse 24)

Verse 24 is where we’ll focus on:

John 12:24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (NASB)

Here is where I’m going to reference Oscar Newton’s speech. Newton told us about two types of people. Examples of the first type: A very rich guy (forgot his name) who had everything, but towards the end of his life he killed himself because his life was pointless and the woman who made the Winchester house. The second type: Mother Theresa (forgot the other examples). Even though His speech was to a group of college kids, He did in fact reference some scripture when he was making his point (I was surprised, but then I realized it’s a&m).

Oscar Newton’s examples applied similarly to verse 24. We (and Jesus) are the grains of wheat in verse 24. Verse 24 and Newton’s speech had a similar ideal: In order to bear much fruit we need to die to oursleves. I’m going to follow John Calvin’s approach and talk about the doctrine behind dying to ourselves today. I’ll talk about hating your life means when I do verse 25, then apply the two verses to understand verse 27-28 more clearly.

Well we learn one thing right off the bat. Ability to produce spritual fruit has nothing to do with your talent. Remember God uses the weak to humble the strong. Ability to produce spiritual fruit rests solely if you can die to yourself. Because spiritual fruit is God given, and God will not use you if you do not first die to yourself.

Before we know how to die to ourselves, we need to understand that God’s plan is so much bigger than ourselves. We don’t live with our plan, and we don’t even live with God’s plan first, then our plan. We need to completely stop wanting what we want, and want only what God wants.

I remember talking to a good friend of mine about her changed life after she started to love God. A big thing that was changed in her was the fact that she became less self conscience. It finally hit me when I was writting this that it related to denying ourselves. When we deny ourselves we start not defining ourself by our image but by the image of God. I dunno if that makes sense. I hope this isn’t a fail epiphany moment. Anyway, when we die to ourselves we stop being (1) self conscience and being (2) defensive our image because we realize that we are not defined by our physical selves, but by God. Similar to that, something that I’m grateful to experience at a&m, as christians we do not (3) promote ourselves (it gets tough sometimes tho). I can’t express how powerful it is to have a community with minimal power changing and more God lifting. You have no idea. The last big thing is seeing a community that also doesn’t have a problem with fighting the specific sins in our lives. I dunno if that relates, I might be happily ranting.

Well, non-self-conscienceness isn’t the solution (if you haven’t been paying attention), but it def is an attribute of a christian who dies to themselves. Just wait for the next post to build on this one. I dunno when I’ll write it since I have an ochem test tuesday, so maybe tuesday night.

Finally, do we give up our lives like Jesus?

Romans 6:5-6 “For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin” (NASB)

John 11:47-52

Well I finished John 12. It was definitely a struggle. So to actually start of John 12, I’m going to actually go back and touch up the end part of John 11. John 12 will cover a lot over characteristics of a Christian, and today’s topic will cover God’s will.

Okay in this set of verses we see that the Pharisees are conspiring to kill Jesus. From the last post… a long time ago… we see that God is a sovereign creator. In this scenario, we just see the forshadowing to the inevitable. Becuase we know that God has already chosen to kill his son Jesus to save the world. We see this throughout the entire old testment and in the teachings of Jesus. God is actually doing something in this world and in our lives. The will of God is unstoppable. The only thing the we can change is which side will we be on; God’s side or not His side.

The first step is that we need to know that God is doing something in our lives. The pharisees didn’t understand this concept so when the hard times came, they relied on themselves and grabbed for control.

Next we need to know what He is doing. We see that in the death of Jesus, that what God has planned sometimes cannot be grasped human mind. We as humans are quite narrow minded and do not think about the big picture. Well here is the big picture that God is showing us. That the problem in this world is not our circumstances, nor the circumstances of the world. Poverty is not the big problem, war is not the big problem, and job security is not the big problem. The big problem is if you die in sin. God’s solution for this world is not more comfort and less pain. The solution is that sin need to die in our lives.

The only way that can be solved is by the death of a perfect God. This is love that is from God, He gives us what we really need. Even when we don’t deserve it. This is why we remain on earth. What we do as christians is that we receive God. What we also really need to do is to realize how terrible sin is. To cooperate with God, we need to reprioritze our life. What must take the top spot in our life needs to be the realization that God is working in our lives. That the death of sin is so powerful and the love of God is so strong. Everything in our life needs to be put second, because we cannot be on the same side as the pharisees. We need to cooperate with God and realize that He is the solution to the greatest fear in the world.

Well we have the privilege of doing God’s will. In verse 52 we see what God is doing. Jesus came to gather His children, and to bring them together as one. Now that Jesus has ascended it is our calling to not just share the Good Word, but to also make disciples. And finally to become one body. Where we do not care for only ourselves, but for our other brothers and sisters in Christ.

(John 17:20-21) “²⁰‘I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; ²¹that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.’” (NASB Jesus speaking)

John 11:45-48

So Char asked me if I was interested in discipleship the last time I was back in Austin. It’s something I really wanted to do for a while, but I guess the formal invitation helped encourage me. So for the past few weeks I’ve been compiling discipleship material instead of posting. The main reason was because it took less time. Blame it on the… (i really want to break out into song lyrics) ochem test that I had today. I’m not going to post any of my discipleship stuff on tumblr so just ask me if you are interested. Anyway without further adieu on to more of John 11.

For this set of verses, I focused on the response to Jesus’ miracle (raising Lazarus from the dead) and the dialogue of the pharisees. All to sum it up into the topic of faith.

Okay well I’m going to have a short tidbit on the aftermath of this miracle. So Jesus just brought back a man from the dead. It’s pretty cool. And pretty freaking amazing. So we see in verse 45 that many of the people that came to see Mary as they mourned thier dead brother believed in Jesus. I mean, No duh, I would expect that. Jesus raises a guy from the dead in front everybody that was just mourning about him for the last 4 days. Who wouldn’t believe in Jesus. It just makes sense. Even the pharisees agree that His miracles are from God. Well I remember Kenny (my old small group leader) talking about faith. And that if we saw a miracle from Jesus we would believe instantly right? Like if Jesus raised a buddy of mine from the dead. I would be so transformed by that, that the obvious answer would be to believe in Jesus.

Well in verse 46 we see something that doesn’t make sense. There are Jews that saw Jesus raise a man from the grave and yet they do not believe. Well, it’s not that they didn’t believe what they saw with their eyes, but that they didn’t have faith. Because faith in the fact that Jesus can raise people from the dead is cool, but faith is more than that. Faith is not just a one time thing that brings us into relationship with God.

We will see that a large hinderance for us as Christians, that holds us back from living big lives, is faith. It’s not our own ability to preach, our bible knowledge, our charisma, or our experience. Because we know that we have a powerful God that can overcome our weaknesses. But we sometimes feel that it is hard for us to move into that next step in our Christian walk and live bold lives like paul and the disciples. So the big question is: What is this faith that we need? Don’t we already have faith? Because I mean it is grace through faith in which we were saved right?

Ephesians 2:8 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God.” (NASB)

It is by grace that the group of people in verse 45 believed, when Jesus spoke and performed miracles. It is by grace that our sins have been forgiven and that we have been wiped clean. By some faith and God’s grace, we’ve been given forgiveness and a relationship with God. Well faith accomplishes more than having our sins forgiven and eternal life.

Galatians 3:2-3 “²This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by works of the Law or by hearing with faith? ³Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”

Some background: The Galatians were a church that had Jews and an increasing amount of Gentiles. Their crucial issue revolved around the laws and traditions that the Jews had. Gentiles wondered if they really had to convert to Judaism to become Christians, or if they had to follow up word-for-word and toe-to-toe with Jewish ceremonies and laws. So in verse 2 we see Paul addressing this issue. He’s saying that it was by grace though faith that allowed you to be saved, and not by the works of the law that you followed (as explained above). In verse 3 he tells us that faith and God’s grace is what got us eternal life, yet some people foolishly believe that faith is no longer needed and that laws and tradition can carry their spirituality after their acceptance with Christ. Well as you can see that’s completely dumb. God healed us from our dead selves and created us as new creations so resorting to our own methods to grow spiritually is just like saying: kthx for eternal life God, I know you did everything, but I’ll work it out from now on. Faith is not just something that brings us to God, but something that we need to continuously walk in. We start by faith, and we need to continue by faith, because God draws closer to us more than our efforts at drawing closer to Him.

Well if faith is the one hinderance for us for us to live big lives, then what do we need to do? I’ve been told that I had to grow my faith, but how is that possible? What do I personally need to work on? There are three aspects of faith that we need to look at and all three are examples that the pharisees are lacking.

Verse 47-48 “Therefore the chief priests and the Pharisees convened a council, and were saying, ‘What are we doing? For this man is performing many signs. If we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.’”

We see that the pharisees are afraid that the people would belive that Jesus is the Messiah and that’s not good news for the Pharisees. Because they believe that Jesus is not the Messiah that will bring them freedom from Rome. They therefore come up with their own plan, because it is ‘their own job’ to prevent Rome from destroying Judea.

So what did they do wrong this time? You can see in their dialogue that they never once consulted God, but formulated everything by themselves. So as a measure of our faith we need to see how often we come to God with all of our problems. How often do we check with God first about our lives, our school, our relationships, and our time? We need to make sure that God is in charge of our lives. Since God has a perfect plan for our lives, how often do we check with Him first instead of doing everything by our own plan.

The second thing that they did wrong was that they didn’t follow God. We see a very stark contrast to Paul in my February 3rd post. When a crisis scenario cames the pharisees didn’t follow God. We need to know that God is in charge and sovereign not just in heaven, but in every aspect of our lives. We see this b-eau-ti-fully in Luke 12.

“⁶Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? ⁷But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.” (KJV)

God cares for us greatly. There may be time in our lives when we struggle and we believe that nobody out there knows how hard or cares about our struggles. We need to know that God is there with us. Like I mentioned before with Job, many times it seems like God is the furthest away in hard times, but He might very well be holding us in the palm of His hand. We need to know that God is intimately involved with our life and He cares.

The final point, if we can follow, will define for us either a life of mediocrity with Christ or an abundant life with Him. This is the battle with God. I have gone over it slightly in previous posts, but I really want to nail this down with you. This is the fight for who has control in our life. The way we win this fight is by surrendering. That is how we need to grow our faith to live big lives.

Faith.