For my Wife

How safe my heart is held
Whether far or near my skin
For the vessel in which it melts
Is your love, your sweet devotion
Your illuminating stream of wisdom
Pouring from lips of pure gold
Chastening me perfectly seldom
My jagged edges gently to mold
Let me not refuse your instruction
Let my ears not burn at the sound
For your love is your inspiration
And by it I am not beaten, but crowned
So let my adorned head be held level
Neither lowered in prostrate shame
Nor exalted to proudly revel
Only level to whisper your name
Only less than to bow in prayer
In praise for the blessing of you
To humbly proclaim our Father’s care
And grace that can carry us through
To the side where we will radiate
With love perfected, sublime
Where our lips will cry out for a new song to create
A duet to our Lord for all time

Who I Am

Take this world from me
These painful memories
The days I can't see
through the clouds of grief
take these weary hands
do through them what I can't
Make me understand
just who I am

I am a child of the king
The bride of Christ and so I sing
Praises to the one who gave me breath
Till I sing no more lay down and sleep
Beside the one who fills all my needs
and I will glorify you Lord in life or death

Take this broken life
all these tears I cry
every time I ask why
every time life passes me by
Sing to me of grace
of love that I can taste
of seeing Your face
Till I find my place

Mission

Oh wretched man
That I have been and am
Had it not for Your hand
And Calvary’s sacred stand

The torrents assail
The thoughts like a gale
Striking harder than hail
And I soon fail

Sinking with my mind
Forsaking my Savior behind
Into the valleys I wind
And will my eyes blind

But Your will is higher
Even than my deepest desire
And I find You never tire
Until I humbly inquire

If You still love me
If I can beg You to be free
If I can be but a servant and see
The day of Your glory

But where sin abounds
Grace’s triumph resounds
With peace thundering the ground
In a quiet whisper You announce

That I am still a child
Your son though weak and wild
Though wandering and defiled
And I am beguiled

That You can capture
With reassurance enrapture
Raising my eyes to the rafters
Still promising ever after

God You are beyond description
I can but fall in submission
That Your dreams may reach fruition
Here I am, give me my mission

Shortsighted

I’m so shortsighted and I try to hide it
But it’s too late, it’s too late
Your love compels me, to let the world see
But I wait, I hesitate

(bridge)
Cause it’s not worth it yet I just can’t seem to let
Go of all these things that I dream of
You’re not my all, You’re not the cross I carry
And I don’t want to speak of Your love

(chorus)
And maybe I can’t see the tears they’re crying
But in my heart I refuse to see they’re dying
They should be dining at the master’s table
But they can’t cause they are not able
Cause we’re too ashamed of the gospel
To speak


I hate confession, cause I love my obsessions
If I’m lost in pleasure, I can’t feel the pain
But Your pain Oh Lord, leads me to repentance
Let me count it loss, oh for Your gain

My Heart for a Small Group

As I was reading When I Don't Desire God by Jown Piper, I felt that these attributes of a small group were laid on my heart.

1) Meetings are began and ended with prayer, not a single prayer, but communal prayer until God calls someone to close the prayer time

2) Worship through music either follows or is intermittent with prayer

3) Groups of two or three individuals break off to discuss past weeks accomplishments and needs

4) Groups having met the preceding week then meet and speak scripture that God has laid on their heart for other group members

5) A teacher then speaks from the Word a message God has given him

I believe that God desires His people to come together in true, heart-enraptured prayer and worship as often as is possible. The picture of the first church seems to suggest members meeting almost every night of the week. Acts 2:46 Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.

We must also allow the bittersweet cleansing of the Word of God to proceed from our mouths and to be received by our ears for exhortation, correction and encouragement. This is why I believe that it is so necessary for believers to share what God is doing and to allow God to speak through, and to them, by His Word. 2Ti 3:16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;

This is what I long for in a small group. It is not impossible to pull off an inspiring small group using prewritten outlines and guided teaching, but how much more awesome and refining for the whole of the small groups' activities to be based off of the word and the direct interposing of God's voice through individuals for the use of ministry? Would it not be a higher calling for believers to pour through the word of God; searching for those few scriptures by which a brother might be saved, encouraged, exhorted or corrected instead of listening to a well-outlined and researched teaching method? Would it not lead to a greater maturity and accountability, knowing that another believer will benefit from your study and prayer for them throughout the week; and even more that they will have done the same for you?

Application-based Preaching and the loss of Spirit-led teaching

In my oppinion many, if not most, pastors are moving in the direction of premade sermons that are rehearsed prior to Sunday morning and deviated from only for the occasional anecdote. Biblically I see no foundation for this method of teaching. Pastors of the first church were led by relevant issues, studied the word of God intensely and spoke directly from the word of God and the moving of His Spirit.

The greatest teaching I have heard, the most challenging and refining words, came not from a seasoned seminary graduate, but from a young man who prayed for hours before and after teaching. By teaching I mean illuminating the truth straight from The Word by whatever words the Lord layed upon His heart. Sometimes there were no words until we all bowed in prayer to seek the Lord.

I fear that pastors are no longer the champions of communing with God, knowing Him and His word, and instead are becoming competitors for who can make "dusty old church idioms" into "culturally relavent, specifically and immediatly life-applicable topics."

I believe that The Word of God is meant to be preached from the pulpit with accuracy, whereby it is then able to pierce men's hearts as at Pentecost. There then remains no one specific application for everyone who hears, but a longing to be led to an individual revelation by the Holy Spirit in every willing hearer's heart. This revelation will stir its own application within the timing and planning of the Heavenly Father.

Possibly Heretical Musings

Job 40:8 "Will you really annul My judgment? Will you condemn Me that you may be justified?"

Is God held to the same standards that He holds men to? Psa 50:21 "These things you have done and I kept silence; You thought that I was just like you; I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes. "

Obviously in some cases the answer is no, such as in worship, but should the answer always be no?

In no way do I seek to discredit the Holiness of the Most High, but instead I wonder if our view of His Holiness is a distortion, a limitation. Do we judge God the same as we judge men? Is there always in the back of our mind the idea that "God would never do that because such an act is inherently 'evil'?"

Can we let go of our finite understanding of right and wrong as it applies to God to try to understand Him, and while doing so still be Biblically sound?

I want to propose a few predicates:

God is the Creator of all, in effect all things are His property. Psa 24:1 The earth is the LORD'S, and all it contains, The world, and those who dwell in it.

The owner of property has exclusive rights over his property.

God always acts to achieve the most perfect goal.

The most perfect goal is the most amount of glory being attributed to His name.

Based upon these predicates, I would like to begin a discussion of the actions of God and why we sometimes struggle especially with His old testament actions. Please post your comments along with mine. I wouldn't even mind if someone just said I was rambling and should delete this post.

Ultimately though, we must all come to a point in our lives that we proclaim as Balaam and Job did:

Num 23:19 "God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? "

Job 42:1 Then Job answered the LORD and said, Job 42:2 "I know that You can do all things, And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. Job 42:3 'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?' "Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know." Job 42:4 'Hear, now, and I will speak; I will ask You, and You instruct me.' Job 42:5 "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees You; Job 42:6 Therefore I retract, And I repent in dust and ashes."


(All references from http://www.blueletterbible.com/ -NASB version, emphasis added)

Evil: injurious or immoral?

Jdg 2:15
Wherever they went, the hand of the LORD was against them for evil, as the LORD had spoken and as the LORD had sworn to them, so that they were severely distressed.

Culturally, when you say the word evil, the definition that our generation knows best is described by Webster as "adjective: morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked: evil deeds; an evil life, or "noun: the force in nature that governs and gives rise to wickedness and sin." As with many words in the ambiguous grey scale of one-word, many-definitions found in English, this is not the only meaning the word has. The other definition found in the dictionary is that of an injurious, harmful event.
When reading Scripture, we must be familiar with the definitions of the words we see and not assume that there is only one way to look at a particular word or phrase.

(All references from http://www.blueletterbible.com/ -NASB version, emphasis added)

Tired feet, why not knees?

Each day presents us with its own mountains. Today has been a day of unexpected climbing. My feet being physically tired reminds me of the journey my heart takes each day. If only I could live with the faith of a mustard seed, these unexpected climbs would be no more. If only I would quit starting the day on my feet and instead begin on my knees then I could simply say the name of Jesus to these mountains and they would be cast into the sea. But as of this moment, my feet are sadly more tired than my knees.

The way of the Master

I have heard Christians claim in the past that God's Will always calls men to professions that are difficult, trying, and contrary to what they are good at or enjoy. While this may seem on the surface to be true, I believe that comments such as these are distortions of the truth, and not the heart of God that those who have experienced such a call are meant to see. To discuss this topic further, let us first consider the origin of humanities' desires and motivations and the effects that sin produces upon that origin.

The bible states that God has formed us in his own image. An image, understood as in a portrait, is a flat (let us say finite) creation meant to resemble the attributes of an object or person that has shape. (let us say infinite) It is my belief that the nature of God, being eternal, is limitless in its expansiveness and is therefore impossible to fit into one person. For this reason, I would suggest that each man receives but a portion of God's character that is central to his core desires and motivations. Along with this portion, God has also placed in every man an unquenchable desire for the rest of the attributes of God that are only alluded to in his own life. One has only to look around at the actions of the typical person to realize that, though terribly distorted by sin, the taste of the character of God in that person and their desire to know and experience the infinite attributes of God, are evident in the choices they make and the things they strive for.

To discuss the effects of sin on this portion of God's character that resides in each man, let us first examine sin using the following definition: any distortion of a creation of God. A distortion, by definition, has no substance of its own, no "self" to hold its shape; it is simply a misinterpretation of a real object by a real object. It is then safe to assume that God inherently, when He created man's free will, gave him the ability to distort His perfect creation and thereby sin. Mar 7:20 And He was saying, "That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. Mar 7:21 "For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, Mar 7:22 deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. Mar 7:23 "All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man." Notwithstanding the waterfall of arguments that might be incited by this assumption that sin does not exist aside from men's perception, let us continue on to consider its effects.

Adam and Eve were imbued with the attributes of God perhaps more than any two people that are recorded in biblical history. The Bible is not specific about the time that elapsed before the first sin occurred, but regardless, they walked with God fully in His presence learning from His mouth directly. This was possible because they were perfect and without sin. I am convinced that in their hearts was a holy desire for wisdom and for the power of God. Since they were perfect, this desire must have stemmed from a longing to bring God glory and worship by the filling of their lives with the things of Him and by becoming more like Him by this knowledge. When the serpent came to Eve and said Gen 3:4 "You surely will not die! Gen 3:5 "For God knows that in the day you eat from it (the tree) your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil," the serpent presented Eve with distortions of Holy desires already implanted in her from creation. The distortion came not in the idea of attaining wisdom or becoming like God, but in the reason for, and the means of, doing so. Eve was now introduced to a wholly selfish idea of attaining what were Holy desires by a means other than faith and trust in the Father God.

If we then apply this to our own lives as Christians, we see that there is one root of our desires -the nature of God and the longing to be like him, and two resultant attempts to attain satisfaction. The first, most "natural" and certainly the easiest in the short run, is that same selfish path passed down from the very first act of rebellion in the garden. It is the striving of our old man by its own strength to attain power and "god-likeness." It is inherently prideful in its boast that it can attain its own desires without the help of the Heavenly Father. This is earthly pleasure and when we claim that God calls us to do things that are hard and that we are not good at, it is this path that we are alluding to. It is in the opposite direction of this path that God beckons fervently. For this path's end is always destruction; it is always born of a distortion of the means by which we can attain satisfaction of our heart's Divine desires. The fact that God calls us away from this path does not mean that God is calling us away from what we enjoy or take pleasure in, only away from that which cannot truly satisfy us. Our deepest joy and pleasure comes from the satisfying of our deepest motivations; those same motivations that are born of the nature of God and can only truly be satiated by a pursuit of Him -the second path. This second path necessitates a surrender of our heart's distortions and a desperate cry to God by faith that He would let us see less dimly in the mirror by which we see His Kingdom.

We will never, in this present life, rid ourselves of the ability to distort God's perfect creation and the desires that He created us with. However, we must, above all, seek to keep our heart from turning mere distortions into delusions. A delusion is when one accepts a viewpoint that is false even when presented with undeniable evidence of the truth. For the Christian, whenever we are presented with the preposition of satisfying a Divine desire that requires faith and we choose instead to cower in fear, attempting to find an earthly way that does not require faith, we begin to form a delusion. Unfortunately, many of us go about our lives with countless delusions underlying our daily decisions. Delusions about protection, provision, careers, family, church and witnessing. A delusion is most certainly a stronghold of sin in our lives.

Eph 4:17 So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, Eph 4:18 being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; Eph 4:19 and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. Eph 4:20 But you did not learn Christ in this way, Eph 4:21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, Eph 4:22 that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, Eph 4:23 and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, Eph 4:24 and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

(All references from http://www.blueletterbible.com/ -NASB version, emphasis added)

Most Recent Song

Your eyes oh Lord are on every place
You see the evil and the good
And when I kneel humbled by Your face
Hear the cry of my heart by Your grace

(chorus)
Let my mind be a place where you dwell
Let my heart and my life be as well
May all I dream of, be inspired by Your love
Oh Jesus, fill me, with You

Your Love, oh Lord, is an endless fountain
Flowing forth from tears on Calvary
Your righteousness rises in me like a mountain
And your peace is a refuge from my sin

First Blog EVER!

As a general rule, I've shyed away from blogs due to an overabundance of pressing matters. Now, however, I find the only pressing matter is: how do I spend my time waiting for centrifuges and FPLCs. Since I've come up with very few solutions, starting a blog to discuss relevant issues and post things I've written for others to enjoy or rail seems intriguing.