How to tie a tie

Hey! Here's a link that helped me learn some new knots. It's from a blog called The Art of Manliness. Very classy website! Click here for the video.

The irony of Prosperity

 I wonder how prosperity gospel preachers can miss the connection between these two ideas: the cross, and suffering. They are one and the same. We are called to take up our cross, and this is no light matter. This doesn't sound like a life of ease and financial buffering in which we're sure we live in abundance every year. How can the cross, a bloody, splintery symbol of suffering, be turned into this idea of smug self-satisfaction that drives us to focus on us, our wealth, our happiness? It's the CROSS! Jesus bled on it! He died on it! He didn't spend his life chillin' around!

So if what you stand for is yourself, and that's all you care about, then rip that cross off your neck and hang a TWINKIE there. Live your life without ever really carrying the cross... I dare you. Jesus didn't die so that you could sit there, self-indulge, and whine about what you don't have in this temporary world. 

And by the way... to some degree, this applies to everyone, myself included, because none of us are completely righteous of heart. I'm feeling guilty as I write this, because I know that I don't carry the cross like I should. But I am not judged by my deeds, but by what's in my heart... and the same goes for you. And that is good news indeed.

When we don't feel like being forgiven

ESV 1 John 3

[ 19 By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; 20 for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. 21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22 and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. ]

 ~

This is a very encouraging passage of Scripture! Before this passage, the author describes how our willing adherence to God's law proves what's really in our hearts... God, not evil. So look at verse 20. "For whenever our heart condemns us,' (ever felt guilty and unworthy of the love of God?), 'God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. 21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God" (the opposite of self-hatred). So he's describing two different scenarios... one person feels self-hatred, the latter feels confident.

This difference, this shift, is explained after reading the next verse and relating it back to the previous passage.  

22 "and whatever we ask we receive from him" (that can be a spirit of forgiveness so that you can feel totally accepted by God). He doesn't only give things like healing, a better paycheck, a long-expected pregnancy. He gives gifts that help you uplift His name... that's the whole point. It's not about you and me! And the underlying reason He gives to us freely: "Because we keep his commandments and do what pleases Him." 

So there you go. We know we're saved because we can see a vast change in our lives from before we became believers. BUT, sometimes we can feel unworthy, and our hearts condemn us... BUT God is GREATER than our heart, so He can give us anything we ask... SO if we ask for a heart that loves Him, that accepts His death as being enough, then suddenly we realize how silly we were to feel unworthy because it made His death in vain. 

This is a cycle I go through all the time. Not letting the grace of Jesus apply to me. But grace is undeserved! It is getting what we don't deserve, by definition. How wicked is my heart, that despite that Jesus did everything for me, I don't even want to accept free grace! Thank God that He pushes me to accept His love and that He won't leave me alone.

A drop of encouragement... and a prayer

I have been struggling with lust recently, but basically let's just say that I have been able to rebuke it and deny it because I no longer want it as much as Christ anymore. Sure sometimes it overwhelms but lately my love for Christ won't let me go down that path.

Can you guys pray for me that I grow a hatred for my pride such that I throw it down and run to Jesus every time it swells up? And there's another thing I've never mentioned in public... I have a hard time being around confident women, and I'm not sure why, but when I am, I get really threatened inside and I get really irritable and I shut down. Please help pray that I figure out the source of the pain and work through it.

The insatiable desire for more

I've been having a resurgence lately of feelings related to the fact that I... naturally want a woman. I mean, hey, I'm a dude with no legal outlet for my sexuality according to God's law, and frankly, that makes me a little frustrated! Humor aside, I'm trying and trying to manage it but the answer doesn't lie in that, it lies in surrender and just letting to and stopping what I'm doing. Because nothing I can do can improve this situation. I've had crushes and I've tried to make moves but it never works out. And I don't really have any strong feelings for anyone right now, which I guess is a good thing, especially since I'm not in a good stage of life to start dating someone. But then again, my reasoning is discarded by a wise God who has better plans. So who am I to say when the best time is to find a wife? It could come in the most inconvenient time for me, just to test my character.

And I really do want somebody. I've always deep down wanted to be a loving husband and a great dad who is well-integrated into his children's lives. Even if I'm not graced with kids, I'd love the opportunity to share the close intimacy with a woman. I feel the need for closeness with another soul... the desire to "know" a woman intimately, like they used to say in the old days and before the 60's when a new wave of sexual vocabulary made its entrance.

Sex is not a game. I've never thought it was. Ever since I was little, I treated it with respect and seriousness and discretion. When people started joking about it in 2nd grade, me and my friend Emily went around the classroom telling everyone "Sex just means whether you're a boy or a girl." We were innocent of sexual sin and we had no idea.

Now things are different. Perhaps its easy for me to say this because life has made me emotionally numb... it is true that I haven't been able to cry in months. I'd really like to, it'd help things. Anyway... nowadays I have scars from the things I've done, and though I never had sex, I kinda came close. Fortunately my relationships grew more and more pure as time went on, from the first to the fourth relationship. God saved me just in time, and I'm very thankful. I never really wanted to open that present before the birthday. I'm mostly over my ex girlfriends now... it was a really hard walk, letting go of them.

Why is it that we can never get enough of anything? I mean, other than the obvious religious answer, which is, "material things don't satisfy". Let's get past asceticism a little bit and just look at things differently.

Perhaps we can't get enough sex, enough power, enough money, enough glory (all righteous things in the correct context) because we're valuing those things the most in our lives. We won't settle for sex being number 2... it's gotta be number 1 baby! That's the way most men our age think. And the answer why is something for another time, another blog, and I will get to that.

But another answer comes to mind. Perhaps... we were made for eternity, or infinity. We were made to want an inexhaustible well, or fountain of... SOMETHING. But what is that something, exactly?

LOVE.

The reason we keep seeking after so many different things and they keep failing us is that our hearts are designed to want love. We can't function without it. The problem is that no one really knows what love actually is! But some are on the right track for finding out, and those people are those who genuinely love Christ. He is the only never-ending love that is ever-increasing.

1 Corinthians 13. Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way (when in doubt, listen). Love is not irritable (no matter how early you get up for work), and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged (no grudges). It is never glad about injustice (abuse) but rejoices whenever the truth wins out (honesty is the best policy). Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance (no matter what cancer or age do to her).

Which one of you can love like this??? For even one second? To progressively work on each aspect and claim you've achieved it is to claim you're as good as God, even for that second. Blasphemy. None of us can do this. But Paul encourages us to pray and throw ourselves at it in PASSION and ACCEPTANCE of our partners. This makes people who divorce their partner suddenly look very foolish.

I'm not saying it's a perfect world. People can definitely marry someone who, for all social and emotional reasons, is their opposite and enemy. But if you looked at marriage like God does, you would understand that BECAUSE you married her, she is the one for you! Your marriage agreement makes her your ONE! So choose wisely, or not at all. This sums up what Paul was trying to say.

Wanna know what I did over SPRING BREAK????

Wednesday I went to the beach with Matt Warnick; we just chilled out there for a couple hours playing guitar and talking. It wasn't flipping awesome but it was still restorative. We played some O.A.R. songs and I sang. I recorded some video of it but when I was listening to my voice I realized it sucked! Haha so I don' t know if you'll see those vids on facebook or not.

Afterwards we went to see some friend/acquaintances who were at the beach too, and that was fun even though we didn't really know them. Apparently a lot of the stuff I said was really funny. I guess several girls + social awkwardness because two unfamiliar guys show up = laughs.

Then I went home that night. The next day I got up and started sanding the paint off of this floor lamp that my friend was gonna throw away. You know how college female freshman furnishings are always green, orange, purple, and yellow? This was somewhere between snot green and lime. Anyway, I sanded that paint off (without reading the label on spray paint which says when you sand paint it may contain lead, so that probably explains any drop in IQ from now on, because I definitely inhaled some of it).

Then I took the lampshades from the lamp and sprayed green and yellow on the inside. When lit, it looks like lemon/lime colors. I wanted it to go with the beach theme of the apartment.

I then painted the main shaft and base with this new spraypaint that looks like sand/adobe texture with sand grits in it. Hopefully it's dry by now... I had to leave it at home because it wasn't. Then part of the lamp that flexes like a Mr. snake light, I painted light blue.

So when the dang thing dries, if it does, it'll be amazing. Apparently I have a thing for making lamps... this is the second one I've made. I love lamp.

My view on Gospel tract booklets

This is a Gospel track booklet I found at Zaxby's the other day. Seems like I keep finding them everywhere.




I think the use of paper track booklets with the Gospel printed on them is a horrible, skewed idea that makes Christians look like distant, unrelatable people. It is not a substitute for sharing the Gospel in person. And I would have to ask why we fear man more than God, that we would let a booklet do the talking instead of putting ourselves in the hot seat. We need to show that we care enough to deliver the message in person instead of remotely. The Gospel belongs on our lips... not only on paper. Let each of us question our hearts and see that out of our love for God, shall we not share what we have that gives us hope?

Number two... Heaven isn't a place for people who are afraid of Hell. It's a place for people who love God. This booklet is written in a critical, condescending style that belittles and cracks on people who have fear and anxiety about their fate. The whole reason we "get saved" is not to save ourselves, but because we see who the real God is and we want to return His love. It's not about us!