Ecclesiastes 3:11...he has put eternity into man's heart..
Have you ever felt like you were supposed to be doing something, you just didn't know what it was. Have you ever watched something that normally you would enjoy, but felt like you wanted to turn it off and go and do something else? Been playing your favorite video game that normally you could play for hours, this time your just not feeling your normal level of enjoyment?
I've been feeling like this a lot in the last couple of months. There are a lot of tv shows I enjoy watching on a regular basis. But a lot of times when Leann asks if I am ready to sit down and watch with her, I'm feeling pretty ambivalent about it. Leann sometimes feels like I'm not wanting to spend time with her, but in reality it has nothing to do with her. I'm just feeling like there is other things I could be doing.
In what I am sure will come as a shock to a lot of people. I have the same feelings about sports a lot now. I still enjoy watching them, and I can sit and watch a couple of games at a time like I always do. But there not is not the life and death feeling that used to come with me missing a particular game.
I think a lot of it has to do with now I'm watching these shows and thinking about what they say about God, or lack thereof. What kind of theology or doctrine is being presented. Even shows that have nothing to do with religion on the surface present a theology or doctrine if you take the time to think through them. For most of t.v., it is that God doesn't exist, or if he does, what he has revealed in us word is no longer relevant.
Leann and I were watching the episode of Glee last week that dealt with the death of one of their cast members in real life. (I like musical tv shows and movies, except for Sound of Music, my sister watched it too often when i was growing up.) The episode dealt with people remembering the character, but never mentioning how the character died, in real life the actor had died of a drug overdose. While there was a lot of emotion coming from the actors who were close to the deceased. And there were moments that made me tear up, at the end I couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing. But I couldn't place what I was missing until today.
The show was missing Hope, the hope that comes for Christians who realize that this world is not the end. In one scene a character put his thumb over the dash on a memorial marking the character, separating his birth and death dates. Remarking how short that was that his thumb could cover what represented his friend's entire life. And this life is indeed short, here on earth. But humanity is not mortal, but eternal. We do not cease to exist.
Hence there comes the restless feeling these days for me, even before that episode. As I read and study more of Christianity, theology, doctrine, the history of the faith. Heaven and the fact that everyone we meet will spend eternity somewhere, this drove Christians for centuries. What drives Christianity today?
Furthermore what drives where we desire to spend eternity? is it where our friends, family, where the fun is? Is it the lack of pain, tears, fear? or is it the presence of the ONE who loved you before there was a you?
I don't want to be restless, I want what i do to echo throughout eternity.
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Doctrine leads to worship
Romans 11;33Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
My old pastor used to say that we don't worship a doctrine, we worship God. While this is certainly true, for the Christian, their doctrine, which is what you believe, is of vital importance. If your doctrine is off, then your worship will be off. Our doctrine informs our worship.
Let's look at the cross for example. If all you believe was accomplished on the cross is that Jesus died for your sins so you wouldn't go to hell. Then you only are scratching at the surface of Christianity and your worship will reflect that and be shallow.
But if you study what the Bible says was accomplished on the cross by Christ, then you will realize that so much more was accomplished there. A partial list would be-
Access to God in prayer
Sins forgiven- past present and future
Healing
secured our eternal life
wrath of god satisifed
If you read the apostolic letters in the Bible, there are times when the writers will finish explain something about God, and they just begin to break into a doxology, or praise of God. The one that starts this post above comes at the end of Paul discussing how the Gentiles have been saved and brought into the gospel. The Jews have not been ignored, left out or forgotten. But God has grafted the Gentiles in. The knowledge of what God has done in saving both the Gentiles, and making future plans to bring Israel into the plans of salvation. Moves Paul to worship and praise of God the father. As it should for us.
S.D.G.
My old pastor used to say that we don't worship a doctrine, we worship God. While this is certainly true, for the Christian, their doctrine, which is what you believe, is of vital importance. If your doctrine is off, then your worship will be off. Our doctrine informs our worship.
Let's look at the cross for example. If all you believe was accomplished on the cross is that Jesus died for your sins so you wouldn't go to hell. Then you only are scratching at the surface of Christianity and your worship will reflect that and be shallow.
But if you study what the Bible says was accomplished on the cross by Christ, then you will realize that so much more was accomplished there. A partial list would be-
Access to God in prayer
Sins forgiven- past present and future
Healing
secured our eternal life
wrath of god satisifed
If you read the apostolic letters in the Bible, there are times when the writers will finish explain something about God, and they just begin to break into a doxology, or praise of God. The one that starts this post above comes at the end of Paul discussing how the Gentiles have been saved and brought into the gospel. The Jews have not been ignored, left out or forgotten. But God has grafted the Gentiles in. The knowledge of what God has done in saving both the Gentiles, and making future plans to bring Israel into the plans of salvation. Moves Paul to worship and praise of God the father. As it should for us.
S.D.G.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
The spiritual problem of GYPSY's
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Yesterday, Pastor Chris linked to a blog that seeks to explain why people of Generation Y tend to be unhappy. The link to the article is here (Generation Y Yuppies are unhappy). The article does a good job of explaining the general malaise the people of that generation feel. However it does not address an important problem with the Y generation. The article is not written from a Christian perspective and it was never meant to address the problem. How do you reach a generation with the gospel that has been told that they are special, a generation that feels a sense of entitlement, a generation that is wildly ambitious and wants that #1 spot in whatever they are pursuing at that time.
The idea that everyone in the detrimental sense has even creeped into the church. I remember singing a kids song when I was growing up that went " I am somebody, because God loves me. I am accepted, just the way that I am." That however is not the message of the gospel. The message of the gospel is that we are an extremely messed up people. All of humanity is stained with the curse of sin. Left to our own devices we are going adulterous idolaters who are going to to chase after whatever makes us feel good, and worship whatever is most important in our lives.
The idea of transformation is throughout the Bible. We see it introduced by God when Abram becomes Abraham and Sarai becomes Sarah. God continues the theme in the New Testament when Simon becomes Peter and Saul becomes Paul. Through the Bible God through the prophets and the apostles preaches a message to his people. You are broken, I can fix you. All your human efforts to make yourself better will ultimately fall short. You cannot earn my love, and your works will never be complete enough to earn my favor.
How then do we reach a generation of people dissatisfied with their lives and have been told through those same lives that they are special? We reach into that discontent and dissatisfaction and tell them of the one who can make their lives whole. You take their sense of ambition and direct it to the glory of God and show them something that they work to that will out last them into eternity. You battle their sense of entitlement with the truth of their sin and show them the humility of Christ, the Son of God become man. But in the end only the Holy Spirit has the power to transform these lives. This is a generation that needs not the platitudes of Osteen, but the purifying, transforming power of the gospel.
S.D.G.
Yesterday, Pastor Chris linked to a blog that seeks to explain why people of Generation Y tend to be unhappy. The link to the article is here (Generation Y Yuppies are unhappy). The article does a good job of explaining the general malaise the people of that generation feel. However it does not address an important problem with the Y generation. The article is not written from a Christian perspective and it was never meant to address the problem. How do you reach a generation with the gospel that has been told that they are special, a generation that feels a sense of entitlement, a generation that is wildly ambitious and wants that #1 spot in whatever they are pursuing at that time.
The idea that everyone in the detrimental sense has even creeped into the church. I remember singing a kids song when I was growing up that went " I am somebody, because God loves me. I am accepted, just the way that I am." That however is not the message of the gospel. The message of the gospel is that we are an extremely messed up people. All of humanity is stained with the curse of sin. Left to our own devices we are going adulterous idolaters who are going to to chase after whatever makes us feel good, and worship whatever is most important in our lives.
The idea of transformation is throughout the Bible. We see it introduced by God when Abram becomes Abraham and Sarai becomes Sarah. God continues the theme in the New Testament when Simon becomes Peter and Saul becomes Paul. Through the Bible God through the prophets and the apostles preaches a message to his people. You are broken, I can fix you. All your human efforts to make yourself better will ultimately fall short. You cannot earn my love, and your works will never be complete enough to earn my favor.
How then do we reach a generation of people dissatisfied with their lives and have been told through those same lives that they are special? We reach into that discontent and dissatisfaction and tell them of the one who can make their lives whole. You take their sense of ambition and direct it to the glory of God and show them something that they work to that will out last them into eternity. You battle their sense of entitlement with the truth of their sin and show them the humility of Christ, the Son of God become man. But in the end only the Holy Spirit has the power to transform these lives. This is a generation that needs not the platitudes of Osteen, but the purifying, transforming power of the gospel.
S.D.G.
Saturday, September 28, 2013
S.D.G.
Colossians 3:17 "And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."
I used to write a lot more than I do now. Mostly blog posts that in reality were mini sermon ideas that I could write and flesh out. But even on occasion I would write songs or poetry. It was never great poetry or songs, but they could help me try to express the thoughts that were swimming around in my brain. But for the past couple of years I haven't done any real writing. I think there are a couple of reasons for that. The first is that I'm working more now than I used to, so that leaves less time for writing. Especially when your work involves sitting at a computer for 8 hrs a day. Some of those hours involving a lot of typing. As a correlation to working more, I am not reading as much as I used to do. I'm still reading my bible at my normal pace. But I'm not reading as much fiction or non-fiction as I used to. It's books that a lot of times would make me look a certain idea or scripture in a second light, and inspire me to write something on it. But honestly the main reason I stopped writing as I once did, was that I didn't think anyone was reading my writing. Or even worse if they were reading my writing, didn't think it was good enough to tell me they were reading it.
The problem was that I was writing for the approval of others around me. I love a line out of one of Lecrae's songs. "If I live for their approval, I'll die by their rejection." I can't control how many people read he stuff I write, whether they like it, or whether they comment on it. What I can control is whether I am going to use whatever talents or skills I have to glorify God. So that's why I changed my blog title to one of the slogans of the Reformation. I want whatever I do, whatever I write, from here on out in my life, to be for the Glory of God. Someone more talented than I Johann Sebastian Bach ended all the compositions of his music with the initials of S.D.G. to signify that God was to be given credit for his masterpieces. While this is no masterpiece, I'm going to steal that idea.
S.D.G.
I used to write a lot more than I do now. Mostly blog posts that in reality were mini sermon ideas that I could write and flesh out. But even on occasion I would write songs or poetry. It was never great poetry or songs, but they could help me try to express the thoughts that were swimming around in my brain. But for the past couple of years I haven't done any real writing. I think there are a couple of reasons for that. The first is that I'm working more now than I used to, so that leaves less time for writing. Especially when your work involves sitting at a computer for 8 hrs a day. Some of those hours involving a lot of typing. As a correlation to working more, I am not reading as much as I used to do. I'm still reading my bible at my normal pace. But I'm not reading as much fiction or non-fiction as I used to. It's books that a lot of times would make me look a certain idea or scripture in a second light, and inspire me to write something on it. But honestly the main reason I stopped writing as I once did, was that I didn't think anyone was reading my writing. Or even worse if they were reading my writing, didn't think it was good enough to tell me they were reading it.
The problem was that I was writing for the approval of others around me. I love a line out of one of Lecrae's songs. "If I live for their approval, I'll die by their rejection." I can't control how many people read he stuff I write, whether they like it, or whether they comment on it. What I can control is whether I am going to use whatever talents or skills I have to glorify God. So that's why I changed my blog title to one of the slogans of the Reformation. I want whatever I do, whatever I write, from here on out in my life, to be for the Glory of God. Someone more talented than I Johann Sebastian Bach ended all the compositions of his music with the initials of S.D.G. to signify that God was to be given credit for his masterpieces. While this is no masterpiece, I'm going to steal that idea.
S.D.G.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)