When Will I Learn

Right now I'm moderately frustrated with myself. I knew exactly how to solve it, but pushed it off by watching TV for the last 2 hours. That's dangerous - TV can have quite an influence over emotions and what not - not in a good way mind you. So I'm here now, sick of myself and refusing to put it off any longer.

I woke up this morning - late, took a shower thinking I could fit it in before I had to leave for camp college, and was out the door before I could eat breakfast or... read my Bible. Now, contrary to the more common excuse that "I just forgot" or "I didn't have time," well... that just wasn't the case. I got 9 hours of sleep - more than ample and could have easily woken up in time enough to get my day started off right. I actually walked out the door pretending to have a conversation with God that went something like this:

-"Evan! Good morning! Hey, could I talk to you?"
"Not now, Lord, I'm a little late."
-"It must be pretty important to you."
"...Look...I'm sorry, I'm just trying to be the kind of person you want me to be."
-"What kind of person is that?"
"Well... In this case I guess it's the kind of person that is dependable and committed to his word." (Ja. 5:12)
-"Evan...I want you to be committed to My Word." (Ps. 119:97)
"I'm... sorry... I have to go. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

And no... I'm not schizophrenic.

Believe it or not... this happens often. Whenever I am tempted and have time to think about it. When I give in, it ends in the same fashion as the above conversation. One side reasonable and true, the other relying on weak sauce excuses, knowing which way to go and turning from it.

One side is the flesh, the other is the Spirit. The question I have for myself is - when will I learn to follow the latter all the time. It's so obvious! Even my flesh knows that following the Spirit is the blessed way (Psalm 1). The answer is relying on the power of Christ (Phil. 4:13) to be able to discpline my body (Rom. 6:12) and truly put Christ and His Word at the forefront of my mind, even if it means waking up a little bit earlier and getting a little less sleep (in this case, that still being over 8 hours). When will I learn to let the Spirit loose inside me and have Him control my life rather that myself? Luckily I did not put it completely off today, and convinced myself that watching prime time TV is not the best way to energize myself.

A small piece of advice for those Christians attaining the unattainable: Let the Spirit loose.

1 Corinthians 9

It's about time for another post. I've been on this book for quite some time now. I only expected it to last a couple weeks, but hey, the Spirit has led me to say other things, which I suppose was the whole idea of the blog in the first place. I might decide to move those to another blog and post there instead of in 1st Corinthians whenever I get the chance or the inspiration. That way if one wanted to learn about 1st Corinthians they could come here, and if they wanted to figure out what Evan thinks about other things... they could go somewhere else. Just a thought.

1 Corinthians 9 is a great passage with what seems to me to be a challenging spiritual principle, and that is to go above and beyond what you are called.

Theres a synopsis at the bottom if you find yourself short on time.

Self Denial

In verses 1-18 Paul defends his apostleship to the Corinthians, and also explains that this gives him the right to marry, and have his family be materially sustained by the church (v.1-5). Instead of claiming this right, he gives it up in order to bring no hindrance to his success in ministering to the people. That would be the equivalent of the senior pastor taking on a full time job on top of shepherding the church so that he can care for his family! I imagine that would be an extremely challenging task. Now, since Paul had no family, I suppose this made the prospect of not receiving a church salary plausible. The idea here is that we as Christians, in order to bring in the greatest spiritual harvest, should be willing to give up as many material rewards as possible (v.12b). This is the self-denial that Christ preached being manifested to the extreme in the apostle Paul.

Now, I said that a great spiritual principle is to go above and beyond what we are called. Well, I must confess that isn't really true. The Bible calls us to conform to the mindset of Christ, who did everything imaginable. I suppose the point I was trying to make was this: We should not only be hating sin, but loving righteousness. And although I think the former is hard, the latter can be harder.

For example, some people may struggle with crude jokes, gossip, and cussing. It would be difficult for that person to stop doing those things of course, but to take that one step further and turn those sins of the tongue into encouragement and speech full of grace - how much more do we need Christ for this? James 4:17 says: "Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin." We need to keep ourselves separated from sinfulness and put on the righteousness of God which is manifested in the difficult qualities of love that covers sin, joy in all circumstances, peace that passes understanding, and daily self-sacrifice - among others I am sure.

Effective Witnessing

The next few verses are, once again, great verses (honestly, which ones aren't?! It seems to me that all of them have great and simple yet profound truths that we all need to learn or be reminded of). These verses describe a certain style of witnessing that Paul thought to be effective. That was to explain to people the truths of the gospel on their level. "And to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some" (vv.20-22). Paul had experience being all of these things. He never tried to be something he had not already been before, but he took on all these characteristics when he was with these people so he could show them that all of these were appropriate positions from which to seek after Christ. In my case it would probably be something more like: to the philosophers I became as a philosopher, to the scientists I became as a scientist, to the Indians I became as an Indian (HAH!)

...Ok bad joke (Only those who saw or know about the Green skit at Survival Camp 2005 will get it). Anyways, I hope you are getting the picture I am attempting to paint. When we think like the group of people we are witnessing to, we become more effective ministers for Christ because we touch on what matters the most to them. We touch the heart, and that's what Christ wants to do: He wants heart change and an intimate relationship with the Truth, not simply a head-based knowledge and acceptance of the truth.

The Christian Life

In the last few verses if this chapter, Paul compares the Christian life to a race, explaining how we should live it. The first way he says to run is with desire (v.24). We are to live up to the motto Carpe Diem. But this isn't for ourselves, it's for God. We should renew the time and make the most of the days that God gives us here on earth to battle sin and witness to others. We need to run after Christ as if we want to win the only crown that Christ is giving out. How fast would you run?

The second way he says to run is by the rules (v.25)! You can't be taking shortcuts all the time and expect to win the prize at the end. There's no excuse for that - none of this "oh it was just a little bit" stuff. You cheated. You are disqualified. There isn't any excuse. Whether you "meant to" or not, you cannot be considered a candidate anymore because you didn't follow the track. In the same way we should strive to run the race of life with flawlessness, resting in God's grace alone to forgive us for our faults that everyone seems to so easily assume we are bound to fall into.

The last way Paul says to run is with purpose (v.26). We know where we going and what we're doing. If you find yourself ignorant of a purpose in the Christian life, sit down with someone and figure it out, otherwise you are just going to run yourself farther and farther off course. Or stop running completely - I'm not sure which is worse. As Josh Storrer put it: we're aren't just running in an endless circle around a track, we are aiming to get the heck out of that forest as fast as we can! (Again only Survival Campers will fully understand).

A Quick Overview

Deny yourself, and do it regularly. "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." ~ Luke 9:23

Get to the heart of the audience you are witnessing to. "For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." ~ Hebrews 4:12

Live life with a desire for Christ. "And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength." ~ Mark 12:30

Life life by the rules. Trust me, it's better that way. "Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart." ~ Psalm 37:4

Live life with purpose. "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." ~ 1 Corinthians 10:31

Let Us Pray

I've been listening to a certain song by my best friend Steven Curtis Chapman lately (ask Kelsey), and it's all about prayer! Basically I think it's a really great song about what prayer should be like. I'll just post it here so you all can read for yourself. It has quite a few words, so prepare!

I hear you say your heart is achin'
You've got trouble in the making
And you ask if I'd be praying for you please
And in keeping with convention
I say yes with good intentions
To pray lately making mention of your needs
Since we have this moment here at heaven's door
We should start knocking now so what are we waiting for

Let us pray, let us pray
Everywhere and every way
Every moment of the day
It is the right time
For the father above
He is listening with love
And he wants to answer us
So let us pray

So if you feel the spirit movin'
Prompting, prodding and behooving
There is no time to be losing let us pray
Let the Father hear us saying
What we need to be conveying
Even while this song is playing let us pray
And just because we say the words amen
It doesn't mean this conversation needs to end

Let us pray, let us pray
Everywhere and every way
Every moment of the day
It is the right time
Let us pray without end
And when we finish start again
Like breathing out and breathing in,
Let us pray

Let us approach the throne of grace with confidence
As our prayers draw us near to the one who knows our need
Before we even call his name

Ok, so I have a few favorite lines, the first one is when he says:
Since we have this moment here at heaven's door
We should start knocking now so what are we waiting for
In prayer we have an exciting connection to God Himself! That is amazing if you really stop and think about it. We, who are lowly and pretty much insignificant little specks in the vastness of all the universe, are loved by God so much that He gave us a way to petition Him at any time. Christians are literally keyholders to God's throne room, and I think Steven really hits it when he says "what are we waiting for?"

For the father above
He is listening with love
And he wants to answer us
So let us pray
There's no good reason for us not to want to talk to God! He is the most beautiful, loving, attractive, holy, and powerful being in the universe and He wants to talk to us. That's extremely exciting to me.

The next part that really stuck out to me was this section of the chorus:
Let us pray, let us pray
Everywhere and every way
Every moment of the day
It is the right time

The Bible contains many exhortations for us to pray "without ceasing" and it's so encouraging to me that this song does too! I'm really not sure what I can add to that, those lines pretty much say it all. However, if thats not extreme enough for you, read this next line:

Even while this song is playing let us pray

Wow! Now that is hardcore! Even while his own song his playing he encourages us to pray to God, to worship Him in that way. We have that privilege and that ability. That might seem difficult, even impossible, but if we strive for it, where will we fall short? If we are seriously seeking to fill every full moment with prayer, how much more will we be filling those unused moments of our day with it? This also seems to be a serious help in times of temptation. Then again, if we are constantly talking to God, what time is there to be tempted? There's just no room for it! This is indescribeably exciting to me! Our victory over sin is all about running towards God and wrapping our arms around Him, completely focused on His face...
Let us approach the throne of grace with confidence
As our prayers draw us near to the one who knows our need
Before we even call his name

We can come to God with assurance that He will answer, after all the Bible says that those who come without faith are double minded and should not expect anything from God anyways (James 1:6-8). This verse also asserts that praying to Him will draw us closer to Him. Now, it really isn't all that magical. The thing I love about Christianity is the fact that it's based on reality! Religion will not get anyone closer to God. It's like this: If you want to get to know someone, if you want to have a truly intimate relationship with them, you talk! You don't do a little dance and expect to know them. You don't go to war for someone and therefore know them any better! You talk to them! You get to know them, and then perhaps you'll do an amusing dance for them, or go fight for them. Prayer is talking to God. When we sing worship songs to God, we praise Him for what we know about Him. We don't know about his love because we praise Him, we praise Him because He has let us experience His love! At least I think that's the way it should be.

Let us pray without end
And when we finish start again
Like breathing out and breathing in,
Let us pray
This is the last part of the song that really stuck out to me. Again, the pray without ceasing theme. Our prayer's should be always happening, and if we ever do finish a prayer, no problem, just start praying again! It's like breathing, always starting and ending, always happening, without it we suffocate. I've experienced this before. I had neglected to pray for a certain amount of time and during that time my emotional state started going down hill. I couldn't really be happy with anything, and I couldn't figure out why! If anyone ever feels depressed I encourage you to ask yourself: Have I been talking to God and letting Him talk to me, devoting my whole heart to Him. I have never found a time where I was depressed and this answer was "Yes" at the same time. It is so obvious and convicting that it's annoying! The flesh so desperately wants to be able to be happy without God, but it just doesn't work that way, and I know it!

This song was based on a few verses which I will list here (NIV):

"Pray continually" ~ 1 Thess 5:17

"Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful." ~ Col 4:2

"And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers an requests.
With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints." ~ Eph 6:18

"Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence,
so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." ~ Heb 4:16

"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." ~ Rom 12:12

I hope this entry has encouraged you to pray always without end! And if you ever finish, start again!

1 Corinthians 8

All right. It's been a little while since I last posted, over a week, so I'm getting one of the posts up that I wrote while I was on my vacation in Mexico! And here it is:

The first time I read through this chapter of 1 Corinthians I wasn't sure how exactly I was going to apply it to real life. It's about food sacrificed to idols. No one (that I am aware of) sacrifices to idols these days, so you can see my dilemma. This passage is, however, a great example of an appropriate time to take a principle and apply it to other areas of life, so let's do that.

In verse one, Paul says: "Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." That in itself is enough to write a book on, but I'll sum it up as best I can. Without love, knowledge only makes us arrogant and self-righteous, consequently tearing others down and making them feel inferior. This is the antithesis of love, which by definition builds others up and encourages them. We can see this from our life experience as we examine the reactions of people and see that this is obviously true. People like being loved. They crave it. No one looks forward to anyone making them feel lowly and ignorant, which is what knowledge will do without love. Simple enough, right?

Now, why is Paul telling us this? It's because he's giving us a reason to prefer love, so that the consciences of the weaker brothers are not violated by what those with stronger consciences do. In the case of the Corinthians, it was over which foods they could eat, but it could be appled to a multitude of other situations. A specific example eludes me at the moment, but I'm sure you all are intelligent and can think of an example from your own life. Perhaps it is over decided whether to send one's child to public or private school, or deciding whether to go to Christian or secular college. Oh! Dancing, now there's a grey area if I've seen one. Some people's consciences are pierced by doing this, whereas other people have no problem with it. The point is that as Christians we can have a great freedom in the things we do (v.8) bar sinfulness, so long as it doesn't violate our consciences or anyone else's (v.9).

The idea here is that if you cause a defiled conscience, you have sinned against your brother and against Christ. If we excercise our freedom without concern for our brother, it can have very serious remifications (v.11). This destruction is the opposite of love and what Christ calls us to, therefore it is sin against that person, and consequently against Christ (v.12). Paul further explains how serious the matter is in verse 13 when he says: "Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall." we see here that Paul is completely devoted to his fellow Christians, regardless what the cost is to himself.

We need to strive to be like Paul, as he strove to be like Christ in this way. Christ was always looking out for the good he could do for us, and was willing to pay any penalty for that good. All the way up to death on a cross, as well as the numerous other pains he endured prior to that so that we can be saved. This especially applies in light of Bobby's message today concerning the family. We can always be looking out for how we can prefer them over ourselves, and I'm confident that we won't have to look long to find an opportunity to do this good work that God has laid before our feet.

"But the man who loves God is known by God." ~ 1 Corinthians 8:3


P.S. Christa's pregnant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Repentance

What if I told you today that I was no longer going to post. I am not inspired to write anymore, I don't have time. School (although it hasn't started) is practically taking over my life. I went to the library and bookstore today and picked up a few books that when put together are as long as the Bible. So I would have to make a tradeoff. Sorry guys.

HAH! What a bunch of bularky. If I told you that today, I would be a dirty liar. A Cretan if you will. ;-) Read my post on faithfulness. My posts seem to be fewer and further between, but what can I say? I really am busy, and for a good number of weeks out of the year I'm away from internet access. I'll be going to Mexico this coming week, and then Survival Camp 2 weeks after that. Don't have a heart attack, though. I'll always come back, and that's what matters.

It reminds me of a certain spiritual area with which most people seem to have problems: that being repentance. Now, I'm coming into this blind, so let's see what I can scrounge up in the way of verses while we walk through this subject. It seems to me that most people take either 1 of 2 extremes on this subject.

The first extreme being that repentance is a safety hatch for all sin that you may or may not do. That meaning that I can go out and do whatever I want with the idea in mind that I can just go back to God and He'll forgive me. Now, although it may be completely valid that we are not at all powerful enough to "out sin" God's grace and that this implies a certain freedom with our actions, if we are sinning blatantly without scarring our conscience, this could be a big red flag saying: "Hey stupid! Wake up and smell the coffee! Salvation means a changed heart, not a license to sin!" If salvation means being rescued from the power of sin, and then we go back to the sin we were saved from, what was the point?! Paul puts it quite nicely in the first two verses of Romans 6. "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?" We cannot die and live at the same time in the same sense. I cannot be brain dead and brain alive at the same time. I cannot be dead to sin and living in it at the same time.

The second extreme is this: repentance is a one time thing that happens when we become a Christian, and since God has forgiven us, we need not worry if we ever mess up. This is not any closer to the truth as the last extreme. We are supposed to repent of our sin when we realize we have done wrong. David did this when he committed adultery with Bathsheba. When confronted with His sin, David immediately confessed (2 Samuel 12). Now, perhaps the problem is not with how often we should repent, but with what actually defines the word. I think that this is what people don't understand. Repentance means confession and a rejection of the confessed sin. I'm not so sure that it necessarily implies a plea for forgiveness (the initial request does. We have to accept God's gift before it's actually ours), since indeed Christ has already forgiven us for all our sin. It does however demand a brokenness over our sin, and an honest desire to seek after Christ and kill the sin that once entangled us.

What then? The idea I'm trying to convey is that neither the power nor the importance of repentance should be taken away. I know that often times I either lean towards one side or the other of these views of repentance. We should not forget to constantly be trying to close the gap between us and God by removing the sin that is in the way, knowing the infinite nature of God's grace. Let's not be afraid of coming back to God knowing our depravity means we are not perfect. Let's not be afraid that God might not take us back this time, that He's fed up with us, that we've sinned one too many times. Let us not forget this, but let us not forget God's anger either. God will NOT tolerate unrepented sin. Evil CANNOT win. God won't let it, and I pity the man who "takes advantage" of God's grace, all the while thinking he's going somewhere he isn't.

I'm having a tough time concentrating right now, but I think that's quite enough to chew on for today hmm? Enjoy. And leave me lots of comments!