Preaching/Weekend Thoughts

1) Everyone is staring.

2) There could be at least 26 sermons from John 17.

3) We are not the hope of God and because we are not the hope of God we are free to be free in our radical hope in God.

4) Sunday afternoon.

5) Watched The Goonies this weekend. Success.

6) Went to The Anchor for an 'employee party.' I'm no employee but I work there.

7) Louis Armstrong

8) Getting undeserved grace and it's piling up like snow that never comes to Kansas.

9) "'The Eagle is right,' said the Lord Digory. 'Listen Peter. When Aslan said you could never go back to Narnia, he meant the Narnia you were thinking of. But that was not the real Narnia. That had a beginning and an end. It was only a shadow or a copy of the real Narnia which has always been here and always will be here: just as our own world, England and all, is only a shadow or a copy of something in Aslan's real world. You need not mourn over Narnia, Lucy. All of the old Narnia that mattered, all the dear creatures, have been drawn into the real Narnia through the Door. And of course it is different; as different as a real thing is from a shadow or a waking life is from a dream.'" The Last Battle, C.S. Lewis

10) Romans 8

India Trip Thoughts Pt. 1

1) It shouldn't be too terribly difficult to find your seat on a plane. They don't move & they're both alphabetical & numerical.

2) "you'd be able to board a train." ~Dumbledore
"and where would it take me?" ~Harry
"On." ~Dumbledore

3) 2 nights on planes. Woah

4) I lost Friday somewhere.

5) Need The Anchor.

6) We barely made our domestic India flight. Barely.

7) Taylor Swift is comfort music. X4

8) There are two white guys in this plane, and they're us.

9) I miss my Kat. A mucho

Thinking Things Through

While I worked on some things this picture came across my mind. The passage is John 2:13-22.

The temple was created for worship, much like mankind was created for worship. It was to be pure, to be spotless, to be the meeting place of God and man. Sound familiar?

Once was a garden wherein man lived and communed with God. God had made man to worship Him. It was the reason for creation, to glorify God… It still is the reason for creation.

But man sinned and fell.

The Temple created for worship, intended for nothing else but worship, fell.

Then Jesus came in and whipped out the traders, turned over the root of the issue, the money, and cleansed the Temple.

John 2:13-22 is a picture of the Gospel, of what Jesus does in the life of his people.

Traders buying, selling while the moneychangers finance it all inhabits you. Yet Jesus comes crashing into your life, whip in hand, and doesn’t simple go for the small issues, the pigeons and goats, he turns over the root of the problem, your sin filled heart. Then by the blood of himself he cleanses you and calls you, “Mine.”

Yet we are constantly being made new. Sin is continuously being routed out by the work of the Spirit, the Helper.

Jesus has done precisely what was planned. Cleansed.

Beautiful, no? To be the temple of the Spirit, the dwelling place of God. Him moving and working and causing life to be and sancification to occur. Wonderful.

Yet still there's sin.

This shows how deep the problem goes. Everything we are is corrupted by sin. Everything (Errything).

The situation ought to seem a little desperate. That we're all hypocritical messes just waiting to explode. But today I'll go to lunch at The Anchor and talk like a leader.

Because there's only one reason why life can carry on while a tooth and nail war is raged in your soul.

"My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness... His oath, his covenant, his blood supports me in the whelming flood. When all around my soul gives way, he then is all my hope and stay."

At least this must be the aim.

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.

What is Joy?

Let me explain a word to you, a word, as I understand it.

Joy, joy is not simply happiness, nor is it simply excitement. For in joy there is sadness and there is brokenness, happiness and sorrow. Joy is an idea held within the heart transcending all aspects of life, from the devastating to the amazing. Happiness is fleeting and sadness will not last, but joy goes right through the heart of both of these.

Joy has been a recent theme in my life. Not simply in my personal study but in the teachings of the church as well as the discussions with my friends. Joy, it seems, is such an elusive thing.

We’re always wondering how it came to us when we have it and where it went when we don’t. But I don’t think that’s a proper understanding of what joy really is.

Joy, it would seem, is a constant. Once it is had, it will never go. “But what about when I feel no joy?” you might ask. Joy is no feeling, it’s an idea held in your heart -- not your brain. We feel excitement and happiness but much like love joy is not a simple emotion.

It is quite complex really. For though I love The Anchor I do not love it the same way I love my nephew. And though I love my nephew I do not pray for him the same way I pray for my future children. So it is with joy.

But with joy we have lower words to describe those base feelings of happiness and excitement, it is not so with love (I love Oreos and I love God – same word completely different meanings).

This is joy: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you… So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”
This is joy." (2 Cor 4:7-12,16-17)