"It's not the best"

There are a few sayings my mom used to say to me and my brothers all the time when i was a little kid. And one sticks out to me more than all the rest. This thought has shaped how i think. It creeps back in my mind and convicts me. I have no doubt that i will remember this saying on my death bad, even if i forget who my mom is.

If we asked her why we couldn't have that cereal, or watch that t.v. show, or own that item, or eat that candy, she would tell us, "it's not the best." If the youthgroup at my church was participating in a certain event that my parents didn't want us to go to, my mom would say, "It's not 'what's wrong with it?', but its just not the best."

My mom always wanted the best for us. And when someone like John Piper agrees, it's like
honey on my lips.

In his book Don't Waste Your Life, Piper talks about the right questions and the wrong ones:

People who are content with the avoidance ethic generally ask the wrong question about behavior. They ask, What's wrong with it? What's wrong with this movie? Or this music? Or this game? Or these companions? Or this way of relaxing? Or this investment? Or this restaurant? Or shopping at this store? What wrong with going to the cabin every weekend? Or having a cabin? This kind of question will rarely yield a lifestyle that commends Christ as all-satisfying and makes people glad in God. It simply results in a list of don'ts. If feeds the avoidance ethic.
The better questions to ask about possible behaviors is: How will this help me treasure Christ more? How will it help me show that i do treasure Christ? How will it help me know Christ or display Christ? The Bible says, "Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (I Corinthians 10:31). So the question is mainly positive, not negative. How can I portray God as glorious in this action? How can I enjoy making much of him in this behavior?

I think this is what my mom was getting at, only not in so many words.

Thanks mom!

A Tragedy In the Making

Have you ever read something, and immediately thought, "that's me!" This is a passage from John Piper's book "Don't Waste Your Life." where that to me severely. I think it accurately decribes a tragedy in the making that still has a partial hold on my life, but also in the lives of millions in our culture.

"You may not be sure that you want your life to make a difference. Maybe you don't care very much whether you make a lasting difference for the sake of something great. You just want people to like you. If people would just like being around you, you'd be satisfied. Or if you could just have a good job with a good wife, or husband, and a couple of good kids and a nice car and long weekends and a few good friends, a fun retirement, and a quick and easy death, and no hell--if you could have all that (even without God)--you would be satisfied. That is a tragedy in the making. A wasted life."

In Honor of Rosamond Herklots

23 years ago today a woman named Rosamond Herklots died. I stumbled upon a hymn she wrote last Sunday in church. This is one of the most beautiful hymns i have ever read.

"Forgive our sins as we forgive"
You taught us Lord to pray
But You alone can grant us grace
To live the works we say
How can Your pardon reach and bless
The unforgiving heart
That broods on wrongs and will not let
Old bitterness depart?
In blazing light Your cross reveals
The truth we dimly knew
How trifling others debts to us
How great our debt to You
Lord cleanse the depths within our souls
And bid resentment cease
Then by Your beauty reconciled
Our lives will spread Your peace -- Rosamond Herklots

As i was reading Acts, it is wonderful to see all the different people God uses to spread the gospel. Ananias, Aeneas, Tabitha, Cornelius, Paul (formerly a persecutor of Christians), and Peter (formerly nothing but an unschooled fisherman). Fastforward to today. The hymnal is full of the art of hundred of different poets and musicians. Each author has experienced the life-transforming power of the glory of the greatness of the grace of God! God has used each one to help Christians all around the world preach the gospel to themselves through song!

23 years ago the Lord took home one of His own. Paul said, "to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21). If we truly believe that, then 23 years ago today, Rosamond gained. And to this very day, 23 years later, she has no less days to sing God's praise!

The Power of Grace

"BUT BY THE GRACE OF GOD I AM WHAT I AM, AND HIS GRACE TO ME WAS NOT WITHOUT EFFECT. NO, I WORKED HARDER THAN ALL OF THEM -- YET NOT I, BUT THE GRACE OF GOD THAT WAS WITH ME." - 1 COR 15:10

At a Bible study tonight we listened to John Piper talk about the power of future grace. And by future grace, he means the grace that God has given to us moment-by-moment. And in this grace, Paul tells the Corthinthians, is power. We humans are sinful, weak, and unholy (Rom 3:23, Is 64:6), but God has given us the Holy Spirit, and through Him the power of grace. Grace is what saved from our sinful nature and the punishment of sin (Eph 2:8). Grace is what allows us to resist sin and live a life pleasing to God (Tit 2:11-12). Grace is what humbles us, pointing us always to the giver of grace: God. How can we do anything but praise Him for such a gift.

Next Chapter: John Piper

John Piper has recently become very influential in my growth in my relationship with God this summer. I started by watching a sermon a friend recommended to me concerning the importance living off the Word of God. There is a book he wrote a while back called Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist. I haven't read the book yet, but i'm starting to watch his seminars on the subject through the website desiringgod.org - which is a website devoted to John Piper's ministries. The site is a great tool and full of wonderful resources.

This post is a summery of the first lesson of the seminar for Desiring God, and it is the summery of his philosophy of Christian Hedonism.

Christian Hedonism
1. The longing to be happy is a universal human experience and is good, not sinful.
2. We should never try to deny or resist our longing to be happy as though it were a bad impulse but instead we should seek to intensity this longing and nourish it with whatever will provide the deepest and most enduring satisfaction.
3. The deepest and most enduring satisfaction is found only in God. (Ps. 16:11)
4. The happiness we find in God reaches its consumation when it expands to meet the needs of others in the manifold ways of love
5. Therefore: To the extent we try to abandon the pursuit of our own pleasure we fail to honor God and love people... in other words: The pursuit of pleasure is a necessary part of all worship and virtue.

Image of the Invisible

We're more than carbon and chemicals
We are the image of the invisible
Free will is ours and we can't let go
We are the image of the invisible
We can't allow this, the quiet cull
We are the image of the invisible
So we sing out this, our canticle
We are the image of the invisible

We all were lost now we are found
No one can stop us or slow us down
We are the named and we are known
We know that we'll never walk alone

We're more than static and dial tone
We are the image of the invisible
We're emblematic of the unknown
We are the image of the invisible
So raise the banner, bend back your bows
We are the image of the invisible
Remove the cancer, take back your souls
We are the image of the invisible

We all were lost now we are found
No one can stop us or slow us down
We are the named and we are known
We know that we'll never walk alone

Though all the world may hate us, we are named
The shadow overtake us, we are known

Raise up the banner, bend back your bows
Remove the cancer, take back your souls

- Thrice
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He is the image of the invisible God
The firstborn over all creation
For by him all things were created
Things in heaven and on earth
Visible and invisible
Whether thrones or powers or rulers and authorities
All things were created by him and for him
He is before all things
And in him all things hold together

- Col 1:15-17
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So God created man in his own image
In the image of God he created him
Male and female he created them

- Gen 1:27

Concerning Concerns about Christianity

I talked to a man today... more than an acquaintance, but not quite a friend.

He thought Christianity was bull crap.

Why?

1) Billy Graham's son once said in a sermon, addressing non-believers "your god is not my god"

He took this to mean that Graham's son thought there was more than one god. My friend didn't think this could be, so instead of believing in one god, he simply believes in a higher power that no one knows.

He also doesn't think this god causes harm or helps people out. He doesn't think god is the kind of person who harms people, but he also has experienced too much pain and seen his Christian mother suffer too much to think that god helps out believers.

2) He heard a paster once say the more money you give the more god will bless you. He has heard about how pastors, when they train, are trained in how to get their church to give.

Thus he thinks that the church is only a lucrative business, and being a pastor just another way to bring home the bacon.

3) His heard a pastor say that if you didn't read his Bible, then you aren't reading the Bible at all.

He thinks the pastor is referring to all the different translations, and thinks that each new one waters it down more and more. So how can a religion be worth following, according to him, if everyone is reading a different book, each watered down from the original.

Then he told me the only pastor he likes to listen to is Joel Osteen. He was frank with me, so i was frank with him: i told him most Christians i know reject Osteen as a real Christian (or at least one worth listening to). When we differed on opinion, he exclaimed the problem he had with Christians believing so many different things. It seems to him it is all a matter of opinion, and so how could any one person's opinion be right (meaning how can one know who is telling the truth who doesn't already have the truth).

4) He also brought up the pope, and all the problems catholic priests are having. I don't really need to say much further here... he definitely was right about that.

All this mixed with 55 years of life experience to back up his ideas and a pretty stern and stubborn attitude, it was a very difficult conversation for me to have.

We agreed to disagree... but i still went away from the conversation a little disappointed with the Church as a whole. Why can't there just be one church that is telling the world the same thing?