Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Answer

If my servant would but forsake the foolishness of his lies. If he would reject the self dependency, the ridiculous lie that is his own rightesouness and turn to me. There is salvation and peace for those who turn to me. There is no salvation in any other. He who would be free of sin must frist die to sin, by dying to themself. If you will not die, I cannot set you free. Die to yourself, not in some impertient pompous show of humility, but truly die. Fall into the grave that has been dug by your sin, and let the dirt of your consequences overtake and overwhelm you, and I will set you free. For I do not meet you in strength, nor do I meet you in glory....no I greet you in the grave, clutched by death. Die or else you will never live. Live and sin will never die. Turn from your foolish ways and back to me. Die to your sin, and seek forgivenss and you will be accepted, stand upon your own rightesousness, and never live.

Complaint

If God had pity on man, he would rend each of us in two, so that the vile beast within may be seperated from the new man. For we are all two different people living out very different lives in the same body. We are sinners and saints at the same moment. Blessed are those who are ignorant of the war that wages within, and accursed are those who know.

To see two people within your mind, one that seeks only self gratification and destruction, and the other only desiring God. What a wretched war that plagues the mind, heart and soul of any honest man. Anyone who does not experience war and strife is lying to themselves. There is no peace on Earth, there is no hope here.

To live is to sin.....to end one's life is a greater sin full of cowardice. How blessed are those that die young!

Wretched God here my complaint! Why must your servant suffer the burden of sin? Why must i daily be torn in two by the competing desires of my being when I call out to you for release! Are you a deceptive brook? are you a God with no ears for the complaints of your people? or are you even worse: a liar? Answer me! Here my complaint oh most mighty and ever living God. You call me to serve, to prophecy, and then you stand in the way. You call, and yet do another. Why are you two sided? or are you even worse...not there at all?

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Social Justice

“Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.” Mat 6:1-2
What were the pharisees doing that made Jesus so angry with them? They were giving money to the poor, they were caring for those oppressed...they were performing social justice and Jesus got mad at them. Why? The reason why is that the pharisees were performing social justice for the wrong reason. They wanted to be made right in the eyes of God, and glorified in the eyes of men. Justice was just a means to an end, the end of standing before men. If Christ was concerned with the motivations of the pharisees in performing social justice we should ask the question of ourselves: What is our motivation here at Valparaiso University for our concern for social justice. Are we like the pharisees seeking to look better before men? Or are we seeking to be right before God through our actions even though its impossible? Or have we turned justice into an end rather than a means?
As Christians we should not view justice as an end. We seek justice because it helps restore right relationships between individuals and groups. Christ mission here on earth was not to turn the earth into a just paradise, his mission was to die on the cross for the sins of the world. When we turn justice into an end, we lose sight of the only end, which is Christ. Christ is our end, he is our motivation for justice, he can be the only right motivation for justice. Let us first seek Christ, and in that seeking we will be just.

Amos

The night is cold and dark, the sun has set. A clear sky above, a cool breeze below. The night is calm, the night is still, the night is a mystery. We live in a night, a time of darkness, a time without the light of the word of God. As the prophet Amos wrote: “'The days are coming,' declares the Sovereign LORD, 'when I will send a famine through the land—not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD. Men will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.”(Amos 8:11-12) We live in a time when there is a famine, not of food, but of the word of God. Humanity is falling apart from centuries of 'enlightenment', from denying Jesus Christ his proper role as Lord of the Universe, and denying the Word of God. We live in a dark time, a blackening night. But as with every night, all darkness does is to accentuate the stars. Be stars to this world, share the Word of God. Amen.

What is man?

What is man that you are mindful of him? What is the essence of his days that you notice them? We are all but matches in the wind, quickly lit and quickly snuffed. Here today and gone tommorow, we leave no imprint, no legacy upon the earth for all we do will be wiped away by the torrents of time.

We strive and work out our weary days and maybe better our time, or better the future but that is all for naught, the sun will die, the earth will return to vapor, and the universe will end, and for what do we labor? for what do we strive? NOTHING! We labor and work away what precious few days we have and accomplish nothing!

Thanks be to God that we dont matter at all. If the measure of our existance relied on what we have done, then we would be nothing, but praise be to Christ Jesus, that all we have hope for and all that we are is found in Christ Jesus. We are nothing, Christ is everything!

Sleepingawake

We are all sleepingawake. Our eyes are open, our bodies move and yet we are all asleep. We are trapped in a lie, trapped in a prison of our mind. Sounds like the Matrix right? Well it isnt to far from the truth.

Sinners! Until you repent you will be enslaved to sin, only sleeping your way through life dreaming that you ever lived.

Christians! Until you let go of the lie, the dream you are holding onto, you will always be asleep. Asleep wandering day to day doing things that are but puffs of smoke in the mist of time blown away by the most gentle breeze.

Wake up! You sleepers, awake the king is coming!