Thoughts-ish

1) Have you ever just wanted to keep driving? You know, away.

2) This was my first week of working just a job. No classes, no homework, just work... I think I'll start a coffee shop with my extra time.

3) Re-reading Harry Potter.

4) I had deja-vu all day on Thursday.

5) The Killers: Sam's Town. Fantastic album. The Horrible Crowes: Elsie. Another fantastic album

6) "Am I more than the sum of the things I have and haven't done." ~Abandon Kansas

7) Come to me you weak, you broken, you messy lives, you weary, you heavy laden; I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)

8) This slow unstoppable march to our ends from our beginnings makes our middles the adventure (and makes them flutter with butterflies), the time when closing your eyes, shutting out the outside, is the worst possible sin.

9) Went for a walk. Saw fireflies. Now it's time to capture them!

10) Fight the good fight of faith. Fight to believe. Fight to see Jesus as your only hope. Fight.

Christmas Time-ish Thoughts

1) Case of Skittles... 'nough said.

2) I got to hang out at The Anchor for a little bit. It was a good Christmas present.

3) Are there any good excuses to leave my Christmas tree up all year long? ...other than being a redneck.

4) Does the world end at the beginning of 2012 or the end of 2012?

5)I bought The Hunger Games to read after I meander through The Lord of the Rings again. (Starting with The Simarillion, then The Hobbit, then LOTR) In other words I'll be in the realm of complete and utter nerdom for the first few months of 2012.

6) New vaccum! (You know you're grown up when this excites you)

7) Hey Wichita, if you add 50 to the highs these days, they still don't touch this summer's temps.

8) Gonna see The Civil Wars, again!

9) Hat Man Jack's andThe Spice Merchant.

10) Fight the good fight of faith.

Creature

I got a cat. The Wichita Eagle had a classified add for, “Absolutely free kittens.” I called, went over with my sister and took one (his name is Luther and he’s at current intently watching me type while he lays upside down).

As we were leaving the place my first thought was, “These people are really going to let me walk out of their house with one of their pets? I’m not responsible enough for this! This has to be a crime.” But they did. (O and he’s litter box trained.)

Anyway, enough about the cat.

The point is responsibility, and knowing life isn’t about you. Sure you get a critter to love and nurture, but you also have to wake up to feed them, make sure their healthy, and clean up after them (it’s like an infant on an incredible light scale - but infants don’t have claws).

Learning to put others before you in a small way to begin with. Fighting your (my) sin of workaholic because there’s a creature at home.

Fighting sin to the glory of God should weigh in on many of our decisions.

The 95's Relivence for Now

494 years ago today Martin Luther nailed his 95-Thesis to the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany. Today the whole list is still timely and relevant. For we have replaced indulgences with our legalism and we have sought to be made whole by all other means rather than the cross.

Here are a few of his thesis which I feel are worth being pointed out, the rest might be found here.

1. “When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said ‘Repent’, He called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” It is, I fear, often the hope of many churches to have a ‘new-believer’ to sign the card after they’ve walked the isle. To not call for a life of repentance but rather to cushion their number of those they’ve ‘saved.’ (The notch in the belt, jewel-in-the-crown routine.)

32. "All those who believe themselves certain of their own salvation by means of letters of indulgence, will be eternally damned, together with their teachers.” “I’m righteous because I prayed a prayer when I was 5.” Yet now they live like hell and all manner of sinfulness and un-repentance is the life lead. It is simply pure foolishness to place stock and value in your past action, if this is your reason of salvation.

60. “We do not speak rashly in saying that the treasures of the church are the keys of the church, and are bestowed by the merits of Christ.” Gospel, Gospel, Gospel. There is nothing more for the church to teach than the merits of Christ. Yet, there are many who teach much less than the merits of Christ. The term is Moralistic Therapeutic Deism; if Paul heard it he’d be furious, if Luther heard it he’d cuss them out. But we stand by and let the garbage flow from the mouths of ‘eloquent preachers.’ Either you teach about Jesus or nothing at all.

62. “The true treasure of the church is the Holy gospel of the glory and the grace of God.” If you want to hear something more than the Gospel of Jesus which brings the glory and the grace of God, then you don’t get (understand) the Gospel.

92. “Away, then, with those prophets who say to Christ's people, "Peace, peace," where in there is no peace.
93. Hail, hail to all those prophets who say to Christ's people, "The cross, the cross," where there is no cross.
94. Christians should be exhorted to be zealous to follow Christ, their Head, through penalties, deaths, and hells.
95. And let them thus be more confident of entering heaven through many tribulations rather than through a false assurance of peace.”

Fight the good fight of faith, put on the armor of God and stand firm in these dark times. Welcome to the Christian life, welcome to the war against the demonic and sin. Jesus bids us to come and die. He is our only hope.

The Doorless Closet

We never realize our weakness or meanness or baseness until there is something bigger or scarier or worse than we thought possible knocking down our closet door to devour us while we tremble under the covers. When the other side of things starts to become more real to us than it ever had been before.

As believers we shy away from the fact of spiritual warfare. Our Christian “Society” brands people “weird” for seeing or feeling or fighting the demonic - but it’s what we’re told we'll fight, not flesh and blood but rulers and principalities of this present darkness (Eph 6:12).

I don’t think everything the believer fights is demonic, nor do I think that there is a demon behind every problem, but I do think when the believer is believing but is still fighting with all their might there is a spiritual battle occurring.

You might know this feeling. When you believe that Jesus is your only hope, but still feel as though the ground is falling out from under your feet. When you say, “I believe, help my unbelief,” and you mean it with every fiber of your tiny being yet still feel your weakness more than his strength.

However, what must be remembered are these light and momentary afflictions; these struggles against the spiritual and the physical; these duel wars of treachery and weakness are preparing for us a glory which cannot be imagined in our baseness.

The serpent’s teeth are gone. The demonic forces – which are real -- have no lasting power. We, you and I dear believer, are to be fighting one fight from now until we’re called home or our King returns: Believe Jesus to be your only hope.

Friday's Ripped from the Journal

Luke 10:38-42
“Now as the went their way Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went to him and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”

Is there enough time allotted in my day to sit at Jesus’ feet?

My service to the church will be futile if I am not at my Master’s feet biding his call. Orders will not be properly heard or understood if I cannot hear my Captains voice.

The hustle and bustle of the pastorate can so easily ensnare my soul. I must, by the grace of God, transcend and be at his feet whilst doing my duty.

If fear it is the same for many, to go all day without any form of communiqué with our Leader. We are offered so much in such a small thing, but we cannot bring ourselves to perform it, yet often times when we do we perform a hideous form of it.

Prayer is what I write of. We do not pray, as we ought. Either we pray with intent to get something out of our one-sided conversation with the Divine or pray in a completely wrong manner.

Indeed he must make us humble to learn and accept what prayer is and its paramount importance in the fight.

Fight to Love

“Fight the good fight of faith.” Paul said it; I use it at the end of e-mails, Facebook messages and letters. But what does it mean? Sure it means, fight the good fight of faith, but more than that simplistic definition what does it mean for our lives? Let me tell you how I think.

I like to romanticize things, it’s a way of coping, I suppose. You see, if I think about something in terms of a story than I am much more apt to be appreciative of them, it or whatever. So when I read, “Fight the good fight of faith,” my instant thought is, “God knows how to talk to my brain – Duh.”

Look at it like this, rather than the monotony of the drudge of simplistic life see it as war. Well, really, believers should be seeing every moment as a war.

In each corner of our lives we are struggling against an enemy who is very much apart of us. We cannot escape his ruse, for a part of us wants his ruse to win. Striving to push back the fall but failing all the while.

Fight the good fight of faith doesn’t mean strive to live perfectly. It means fight to believe. Fight to see Jesus as sufficient. Fight to see this life as war. Fight to see this war as won but not yet over. Fight to love your family. Fight to cherish your friends. Fight to see a sip of coffee as worship. Fight to believe.

All of everyday of each moment of our lives will be – as Christians – a battle to see any of this Jesus stuff as wonderful. Sure we believe it, but we simultaneously don’t. So to see this life, this belief as easy, is quite frankly, to not know Christ. For why else would it be called a fight if it was really a cake-walk?