STRAIGHT OUTTA’ DENVER

You’re probably familiar with statements such as, “we don’t GO to church. We ARE the church.” There are similar ones that go something like this: “Church is not what we do when we gather on Sunday mornings for an hour or so. Church is not a place or a building. It’s what we are OUT THERE.” Well, I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and, although there’s some truth and some wisdom in these statements (which I’ve spoken myself), I’m no longer so sure about them on the whole.

This kind of thinking has developed enough steam over the last few decades that I think you could fairly call it a “movement.” I’d suggest that its full name is the “anti-church-as-an-institution-or-building” movement. It’s also quite opposed to all forms of regular, traditional (and, especially) LOCAL churches. I attended a pastors’ convention in June in which a youth pastor preached one of the workshops. According to his senior pastor, this particular young pastor was being greatly influenced by his buddies in the International House of Prayer (IHOP) movement (which may or may not be influencing him in this area). Anyway, the main thrust of his message was that “we need to get free from the local church” and “we’ve got to get away from local church kind of thinking and get out there and be the kingdom.” Naturally, I couldn’t help but notice that he was saying this in a local church that paid him a nice salary, etc., but I digress.

In the past year, one of my good friends whom I deeply respect – a thoughtful Christian with a PhD in philosophy – dropped out of the local church. He, like many others, thinks that it would be better to simply be a follower of Christ “OUT THERE,” meeting with various close friends in various settings, committing oneself to a group of fellow disciples who meet in various contexts. Frank Viola and the late, great Internet Monk (Michael Spencer) have written books in support of this line of thinking. Another man I respect, Wayne Jacobson, a former pastor in my hometown of Visalia, California, has now dedicated his life to these ideas and to this “anti-church” movement. He and his partner are the guys who formed Windblown Media – the publisher of THE SHACK. Speaking of the SHACK, I’m one of those people who enjoyed that book and recommend it to folks struggling to understand how God can be a good, loving, and gracious God in the midst of unthinkable tragedy and suffering. I think it’s a helpful book on several levels. Its main weakness, in my opinion, is one that’s not often mentioned. I think that the book (and its author, I presume) presents an extremely weak, if non-existent, ecclesiology. For our English speaking friends, I’m saying that the book subtly presents a very low view of the importance and significance of the local church. Barna put out a book a few years ago charting this anti-church phenomenon and called it a REVOLUTION. Keven Miller, in his critique of Barna’s book called it an ABDICATION. For reasons that I will outline below, I’d have to agree with Miller and go with the “abdication” theory. Miller wrote, “Barna’s enthusiasm for First Church of the Individual raises troubling questions.” To my mind, that would be quite the understatement.

I will say that I’m not alone in my apprehensions about this “non-church” and “anti-institutional” movement. I’d like to mention two of my allies, Eugene Peterson and P.T. O’Brien. I’ll begin with O’Brien and his article on “church” in IVP’s “Dictionary of Paul and His Letters.” A friend of mine, Steve Bryan (one our church’s “missionaries” who earned his PhD in New Testament from Cambridge) suggested that I read (or re-read) O’Brien’s article. I did read it – and I am sure glad I did. My suggestion is that everybody give it a careful reading. This is a brief summary (at least, as I read them) of O’Brien’s findings:

1. In the centuries before the New Testament, the term ekklesia was used for political gatherings, the assembly of “full citizens” of the polis. Ekklesia only existed when it actually assembled.
2. In the LXX (the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible), ekklesia NEVER referred to Israel as a national unit. It always referred to an actual assembly or gathering of people. “It did NOT designate an ‘organization’ or ‘society.’”
3. Ekklesia is used 114 times in the New Testament – 62 times by Paul. Paul does not use the term as a metaphor. To Paul, it is descriptive of an actual object. Unless on the rare occasion when he uses the term for the “heavenly” church (i.e. the “future” church, the heavenly kingdom of God on earth), he only applies the term ekklesiato an actual gathering of people. “It is doubtful whether Paul (or the rest of the New Testament) uses ekklesia in a collective way.” The primary use of the wordekklesia as a gathering of actual people predominates overwhelmingly in the NT.
4. The local church (each local church) is not part of the church of God nor a church of God. Each local church is THE church of God – the only form it takes in this present age. Each local church is a reflection and manifestation of the “future ekklesia” (the completed, fulfilled Kingdom on earth – which will, indeed, be a universal gathering when the whole universe becomes the dwelling place of God, the holy of holies). The church (each local church) truly is an outpost or a colony “from the future” – that is, each church is an eschatological church, the kingdom in advance and in locale.
5. Christians were reminded and admonished (Heb. 10:25) to assemble in local congregations here on earth, for this was an important way in which their fellowship with Christ was expressed. When they met like this with each other, they also met with Christ himself who indwelt them corporately and individually.

Well, that’s my interpretive summary of O’Brien’s excellent article. Others can read it and reach their own conclusions. I turn now to my second ally. Eugene Peterson, in his book, “The Jesus Way,” writes:

It is interesting to note that Jesus, who in abridged form is quite popular with the non-church crowd, was not anti-institutional… Those who followed Jesus, followed him into buildings, into religious institutions… We sometimes say, thoughtlessly I think, that the church is not a building. It’s people. I’m not so sure. Synagogues and temples, cathedrals, chapels, and storefront meeting halls provide continuity in place and community for Jesus to work his will among his people. A place, a building, collects stories and develops associations that give local depth and breadth and continuity to our experience of following Jesus. We must not try to be more spiritual than Jesus in this business. Following Jesus means following him into sacred buildings that have a lot of sinners in them, some of them very conspicuous sinners. Jesus doesn’t seem to mind… A spirituality that has no institutional structure or support very soon becomes self-indulgent and one-generational (pp. 230-232).

In saying all this, however, I should probably say what I’m NOT saying. I’m not saying that much of the critique of the anti-institution and no-church movement isn’t valid. The reasons for dropping out are often legitimate and real. Churches, especially the ones that I’ve encountered in the North American evangelical sub-culture, are often awash in all kinds of assumptions, blind spots, and ways of doing business that are in great need of reform. I’m not saying that local churches never hurt or harm people or groups of people. I’m not saying that churches shouldn’t do everything possible to avoid the superficiality and trivialization of worship that is all too common. I’m not saying that we should endorse the depersonalized, functionalized, market-driven approach so prevalent in many of our churches. Finally, I’m not saying that following Christ isn’t a “24/7” all-encompassing calling that does, indeed, involve all of our lives “OUT THERE,” nor that we don’t have much in common with fellow believers (and non-believers) as we work and play, live and love, in our everyday lives.

What I AM saying is that even with all that valid critique, we, like Jesus and his first followers, should think long and hard before walking out on the local church to which the Holy Spirit appointed us. To me, most of the New Testament’s instructions about elders and deacons, Baptism and Holy Communion, singing, elders who work hard at teaching and preaching, about “coming together as a church,” and all the “one anothers” (about loving, forgiving, accepting, welcoming, encouraging, rebuking one another, etc.) make no sense in Barna’s revolutionary “no church” world. Speaking of Barna, I’d like to end this thing by returning to Keith Miller’s critique of Barna’s book, REVOLUTION:

Want to become a revolutionary? Here’s my counsel. Trade your copy of Revolution for Life Together, the manifesto written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the dark days of Nazi Germany. Then, to do heroic and revolutionary exploits, stay committed to your local church – something 20 million people no longer have the courage to do.

We are proud to announce that this article had been featured on Clarion Journal as well as Brian Zahnd’s blog.

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Do you even know what a Wawa is? (part 4, Starting up the party)

Posted on July 2nd, 2010 by Darth B'strad.
Categories: Ethics, Orig. Literature, Creative Writing, Cultural, Stories.

I had met the brother of the groom at the house and shook his hand saying “I’ve heard a bit about you,” and he responded by saying that he’s heard a bit about me too. Instantly right there, I knew this was a good man and that he would and will be a great friend. I was just a joy to finally meet this man and to find out the he just personified Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn in real life. A man who just acted in a pure heart in everything that he did without even noticing the typical rules that we live by in this society and it was refreshing to meet such a man of good character. As we found our way to the cabin they actually talked me into giving them a short sermon along the way all on the prodigal son. The groom couldn’t get the key to work at all so finally he let another guy have a try (who I’ll be calling the caretaker for this story). Of course the caretaker took care of it and after very quickly looking through the place we quickly sat down at the table with two bottles of scotch and started toasting. None of seven of us have any idea what we really toasted to that night ’cause there was just too many of them to recall but the majority were quite absurd and dealt with the stories of our lives and to that we tied to sing the traditional bachelor’s party song but I completely failed at remembering the words so I made a good attempt but it just fell flat. I did end up making up a poem for them although I also don’t remember what I said ether. And with that, I finally got some sleep.

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Do you even know what a Wawa is? (part 3, Off to a town in the middle of nowhere)

Posted on July 1st, 2010 by Darth B'strad.
Categories: Ethics, Orig. Literature, Creative Writing, Cultural, Stories.

I plan as much as I can but I get so little information that I don’t know how I’m going to get anywhere. I buy three tickets online and considering that no one given me any clear answers on how I’m to get from Philadelphia over to this small town somewhere in north central PA, I just deiced to rent a car and just drive on out there. I still had to work the night before my flight starting a 10 and then all the way through to 6:30 in the morning. From there it was a straight drive back up to my house where I still had to finish packing, print off some directions and then move on to the bus to get on over to the airport. I almost missed the first bus (and that would have made this whole thing collapse if I had) but I was lucky enough to make it but I only had an hour to get through security and to my gate. The dreaded security only took twenty minutes and then I laughed at my self that I still had another 40 minutes to wait. Off through the sky, not knowing what awaited me but yet somehow I knew two things– I would meet the mother of the bride first before the bride there and that I would make it in time to bachelor party. There was of course no way that I could have know this but I just knew that I would like the mother of the bride. Landing, now I have to find out how to get that car. I wander about till I find buses gong to rental places and find my car waiting for me fully gased up and then took off hoping that the directions that I printed up would be sufficient in finding my way there but yet I didn’t expect to find myself driving through what looks like a jungle to a simple Coloradan. With road weaving this way and that and signs being completely unclear, it seems that I somehow found my way on the right road although I still had a problem. This right road was a tollway and I need to find some cash to pay it. So I took one exit hoping to find a gas station and it takes me for 15 minutes under bridges and winding roads and no way to turn around. Right when I thought all was lost the road finally came to an intersection and right there was my lucky gas station! Hop out really quick, hit up the ATM, and then backtrack to the right road and then I was off to driving again for another two an a half hours. As I’m pulling up to the last highway to my destination, the first sign I see an ad for a porn shop and I start to quickly wonder what kind of a town am I going to not to mention all of the sign essentially treating the drivers like idiots. “Don’t tailgate” “watch out for aggressive drivers” and “be careful, many trucks on the road” were among the numerous warnings along the road and I just could help but laugh at it all. Finally, I pull up to the home of the bride and walk out to meet P Muse who promptly informed me that if I hadn’t rented that car I would have ended up staying in an apartment with four other girls that night and then brought up later and now I was really wondering why I didn’t make this trip more interesting and just trusted my friends. So I came around back to where everyone was sitting and had a bunch of people to meet and as I said, I met the mother of the bride first and I liked her right away, then I went into the house and gave the bride a hug. But It still wasn’t over! I was informed that I still had to drive out another hour to the cabin that the guys were saying at but at least someone else was driving, the groom.

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Do you even know what a Wawa is? (part 2, A proposition)

Posted on June 29th, 2010 by Darth B'strad.
Categories: Ethics, Creative Writing, Cultural, Stories.

Pennsylvania– one of the 13 colonies and also just so happens to be the title of song by Blood Hound Gang that we would play every now and then and sing it out. However, I’ll have to warn you that it’s not really a wholesome band so if you are easily offended by vulgar language then you most certainly shouldn’t go looking this band up but still it has it’s part in this story. I’ve stolen a line from that song to title this piece and soon enough it will all come clear. Pennsylvania is a state that I’ve never been to and never really cared to go there but yet I have some friends that did and so I was suckered into heading out there for this trip. Back home in Denver in the basement of the Falling Rock, our favorite bar in town, I was sitting with a group of my friends talking to the bride of this story. I had known her for a little bit and she was nice and kind woman and I liked the guy she was marring. She started in asking me if I had a girlfriend to what has been my typical response throughout the years has been no. She said I was the sort of guy who would know right away when I met the right girl then I would know it. Considering that such “knowledge” had worked out poorly for me in the past, I quickly dismissed the idea. But yet still, she said that I should come out to her wedding because there were sure to be some cute girls there and you never know. Now I did know that going out to her wedding in Pennsylvania wouldn’t result in me finding a girlfriend right now but she is a loving and caring woman and I just couldn’t refuse the invitation. So on a moments whim– I just decided that I would be heading out to the state of PA and see what fate would bring me. As the months grew closer to the date I also found out the convention for the fellowship that I am part of was also having it’s convention in Mankato Minnesota in the week following the wedding and my pastor said I just couldn’t miss out on that ether. So now it’s a three pronged trip– Selilensgrove Pennsylvania, Mankato Minnesota and then back home to Denver Colorado were in every case I have absolutely no idea where I’m going or how I’m going to get there or even where I’m going to stay but I just have to figure out how to make it work. So this should be an interesting trip!

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Do you even know what a Wawa is? (part 1)

Posted on June 26th, 2010 by Darth B'strad.
Categories: Ethics, Creative Writing, Cultural, Stories.

I’m sitting right now here at the Minneapolis airport, the date being June 24th at about midnight, awaiting for my flight that still won’t be showing up till 9 in the morning. But I’m not alone here– I have an elderly couple with me and the man is the financial director of the missionary fellowship that I am a member of. While I sit here amongst the escalators that keep pushing forward on their endless flight to reach a top only to find themselves on a return trip back to the bottom, ferrying weary travelers to wherever fates that await them, I’m most certainly pondering over this trip that’s closing to it’s end. What a trip it was! Most certainly nothing about this trip should have worked out at all– but yet– every small moment had it’s place and it’s own divine intervention in every way. To put it plainly, it was a pilgrimage, a journey put forth for God’s service but yet none of it was service that you would expect God to have me do. Thinking in a standard sense of service to God– you would assume that would mean going off to some odd country that is completely impoverished with people suffering of lack of food and most certainly, you’d be on your way to help in whatever way that you could to relive that pain. Not to say that I’m down playing that sort of trip, for such trips are made of God and are part of His work throughout the world– but yet this trip was not about feeding the poor but it was about feeding the hopeless, guiding the lost or just simply– to bring a smile to someone you hardly know. But even more so, there was not a single piece of this trip that was about me. Sure, I talked about myself to people, quite a lot in fact but yet it still had nothing to do with me. In every way, this trip had something greater for me to see. While I keep the names of people anonymous here certainly the friendships and people are quite real and this is of real life. God working behind the scenes and allowing every part to come out just right but yet all completely unexpected.

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Being Broken

Posted on September 14th, 2009 by invot.
Categories: Ethics, Philosophy, Creative Writing, Religon, education, Christianity, Comedy, Sermons.

The Philosophy of Brokenness

So how many of you have heard the cliché…”if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”…?

Most people tend to abide by that with the exception of boys between the ages of 2 and 6.

I discovered this a few years back while helping my girlfriend at the time, Heidi, babysit. Her younger step-siblings were bouncing about in front us us, demanding every ounce of our attention, while we tried to prepare dinner for the four of us.

Because I’m the smartest man in the universe, I thought it would be a good idea to distract them with whatever shiny objects I could find. I gave little Corinne a toy convertible that was lying around. Then I reached into the drawer in front of me, looked at 5 year old Dylan, and handed him a fillips head screw driver. Go me!

Well, Dylan walked away with the screwdriver, and from seeing his dad around the house, Dylan knew exactly what to do with it… or should I say… he at least knew how to operate it.

Dylan took his new found friend and started going around the house in search of something to turn with it. Door knobs, toys, toilet seats… on and on.

When dinner was ready, Heidi walked over to Dylan’s room, but quickly returned with a doorknob in her hand and a look on her face that said “I still love you, despite this…”

We found Dylan in the garage, standing on a chair removing all the screws to all the garage door brackets that he could reach. One click of the garage door opener and the whole door would have collapsed onto the ground.

You see, Dylan’s philosophy was …”if it ain’t broke…then break it”

“if it ain’t broke…then break it” think about that for a minute. Do you realize how utterly God-like that is?

The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them;
he delivers them from all their troubles.
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
The righteous man may have many troubles,
but the LORD delivers him from them all.
- Psalm 34:17-19

You see, God wants us to break. He promises to be “close to the brokenhearted,” to be our source of power, courage and wisdom, helping us to get through our problems. This is when he can show us how great he is and how much we have to learn..

Oswald Chambers said this about brokenness:

When God gets us alone through suffering, heartbreak, temptation, disappointment, sickness, or by thwarted desires, a broken friendship, or a new friendship—when He gets us absolutely alone, and we are totally speechless, unable to ask even one question, then He begins to teach us.

The Method of Brokenness

So let me tell you about another member of Heidi’s family, her youngest sibling, Corinne. When Corinne was real young, she had this pillow-like stuffed animal that she referred to as “Puppy.” It was really just a cheap pillow. The material was thin, the colors faded rather quickly and it really wasn’t something that you were proud of when you went out with her and she would want to take ’Puppy’. Countless times while babysitting we tried to bribe her into leaving it in the car. Never happened. She was as proud of her Puppy as anything. If you knew Corinne you knew Puppy. They might as well have been sewn together.

Then one day, while I was again helping Heidi babysit, the “Puppy” had a run in with the “Dog.”

Needless to say, the Dog won. Puppy was strewn from one end of the house to the other. There was stuffing everywhere. I never knew that Puppy had so much in her. And of course, before we could pick up Puppy’s remains, Corinne walks in and finds Puppy’s tattered corpse lying by the couch. But being the trooper that she was, and much more adult-like than either Heidi or myself, Corinne picks up Puppy and brings it to her big sister….still leaving a trail of stuffing behind. She holds Puppy up with big blue, wet eyes and simply says… “Puppy’s bwoke.”

And that would have been fine if both of us didn’t burst out laughing. Which instantly caused Corinne to run to her room and slam the door. What then emerged was a tug of war between Heidi and her sister over Puppy. After going on for what seemed like days, Heidi finally looked down at Corinne and said:

“I can’t fix her till you let go of it.”

And she let go. And through the years she gained a lot of experience with letting that thing go, because poor Puppy had to be fixed a lot. If it wasn’t an animal tearing it up, it was her brother pulling the puppy’s tail off, or the dryer burning a hole in it’s cheap fabric.

“I can’t fix her till you let go of it” isn’t that what God is telling us too?

If it ain’t broke….then break it….but let go of it when it breaks.

The Problem with Brokenness

We need never be ashamed of our tears,
for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth,
overlying our hard hearts.
- Charles Dickens

In our age of disposable everything, what do we normally do with something that is broken?….we throw it away and get a new one. It’s easier that way isn’t it?

Well God does things a little different. God is in the restoration business, so rarely does he give us an easy road to take. He wants to see us repaired, instead of replaced. He wants to see us turn to Him, instead of ourselves. He wants us to get down to the point that we can confess those parts of our lives that are painful and hurting, those parts that are not perfect an don’t measure up. God knows that when we get there, our humanity and it’s frailties will become instruments of healing if we allow it to lead us to confessing to God. He wants us to know that our dependence on Him will set us free.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. - 1 John 1:9

Letting go of it. This is where Bryan can tell you I have a major struggle. I’m one of those classic types that much prefer to suppress my feelings and hurt than have to share it with anyone. I always rationalize it by saying that it’s easier that way. I just try and bury it all and think that it won’t affect me nor will it affect others. However, doing that never works very well, now does it? Bryan can tell you about many a times where my emotional bottle broke, and everything torrents out over a hysterical phone call.

I know that some of us are much like that. It’s usually the quiet types, but sometimes it’s the outgoing ones as well.

But I learned something very valuable about all that: You see, those hurts you are feeling are the beginnings of a brokenness. Call it a crack if you will. But what I, and maybe some of you, tend to do is to try and take some emotional cement and try and patch that crack up. And that may work for a little while until that crack happens again. Stuff starts to seep out and it begins to affect your relationships.

So we may take that cement and try and patch over the patch. And it may work a little while until it starts to crack again. We repeat this process over and over and each time it works for a shorter duration. Finally one day the patch no longer works and most the gunk we kept putting in there, finally explodes out.

It is written in the Psalms that tears are like seed and weeping is like the sowing of that seed in prayer. (Psalm 126:5-6)

God will never plant the seed of his life upon the soil of a hard, unbroken spirit. He will only plant that seed where the conviction of His Spirit has brought brokenness, where the soil has been watered with the tears of repentance as well as the tears of joy.
- Alan Redpath

The Strength in Brokenness

Is this brokenness? That depends on your next move. You see, you still will have bits of that patch on top of the crack that hindered all the gunk from coming out. And if your next move is to try and patch it again yourself, it will remain the weakest part of your heart and the whole process is destined to repeat itself. I know this because I’ve been there and done that many times.

However, if at that point, you turn to God and ask him not to throw in a quick-fix or replace it or simply hide it away, but to restore it, then you have reached brokenness and true healing can begin.

This is His plan for you.

God wants you broken so that you turn to him for help. Then God wants to restore us and make us stronger. But how, you ask, is something stronger once it is broken?

Lets look at the word restore. That word comes up over a hundred times in the Bible. The word itself back then, was a medical term that meant, “to set a broken bone”. And as a Christian, when we fall into sin, it’s much like a broken bone that affects the rest of your body…it needs restoring. When you break your leg, you normally end up on crutches and then your arms and other leg must then support the weight of the injured leg until it heals or is restored.

And once that broken bone is set, it actually heals and becomes much more stronger than the surrounding bone.. Almost as if nature were determined to fortify herself against another attack.

And look at other examples of something becoming stronger after breaking.

Immunities…you’ve heard of developing immunities against a sickness before. Like the bone, your body will become more resistant to illness, the more you have them.

A piece of steel can break, but once welded, the weld itself is many times stronger than the surrounding steel.

Also, a piece of steel becomes harder and stronger when you temper it. This is a process of heating and cooling it many times, thus breaking down its internal structure to become stronger. Tempered glass is much the same way. It is breaking down its internal structure to produce something 5 times stronger.

The incision that is made into a heart during open-heart surgery, if properly cared for and allowed to heal, becomes the strongest part of the heart muscle.

If it ain’t broke…… then break it….you’ll become stronger.

The Greatness of Brokenness

So then how does God use something that is broken?

In Judges 7, we see that after Gidean’s army was whittled down from 32,000 to a mere 300. God equipped them with only a trumpet, and a torch inside an empty jar. But when they broke those jars and blew their horns, the Midianites were thrown into chaos from all that racket and turned on them selves.

Could you ever ride a horse that has not been broken? A broken horse makes a great companion, but a stallion out of control is dangerous. A horse does not give up its strength or power when it is broken, but rather it is just brought under the control of its owner. Kind of like us and God don’t you think?

Countless times, God has restored a broken heart to achieve greatness.

- Before Abraham became the father of many nations, his wife suffered from a barren womb.
- Before Joseph ruled Egypt, his brothers sold him into slavery.
- Before Job’s estate was doubled, he lost everything he had, including his family.
- Before Moses led Israel out of Egypt, he was a fugitive running for his life.
- Before Samson crushed the Philistines, he met Delilah.
- Before David was anointed king, he was rejected by his family.
- Before Hosea became a powerful spokesman for God, his wife betrayed him and returned to prostitution.
- Before Peter preached 3,000 souls into the kingdom, he denied his Savior three times.
- Before Paul brought the gospel to the Gentiles, he was blinded on the Damascus road.

Before these ministers here have brought you a message, they were all broken.

These men experienced brokenness before greatness ever became them. Breaking is a good thing. God established a pattern long ago of preceding greatness with brokenness.

If it ain’t broke….then break it…..greatness will follow.

The Call to Brokenness

I want to share one more example of brokenness from the bible, which I think will hit us all close to home.

Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.
When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is–that she is a sinner.”
Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”
“Tell me, teacher,” he said.
“Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”
Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.”
“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.
Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven–for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”
Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
- Luke 36:48

This sinful woman became broken in front of Jesus and all else there.

You would not be pleased with sacrifices, or I would bring them. If I brought you a burnt offering, you would not accept it. The sacrifice you want is a broken spirit. A broken and repentant heart, O God, you will not despise. - Psalm 51:16-17

My question to you tonight is this: How can we, be more like this woman? How can we break our hearts for God?

The Puritans, a group of people I personally have much respect for, are known historically for actually calling themselves “repenters” rather than Christians. Can we say the same? Can we call ourselves “repenters”? Can we submit to a life filled with repentance and brokenness, just like the sinful woman in Luke 36?

For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation… - 2 Corinthans 7:10

God is close to the broken hearted. And you know why?…because the broken have discovered what is really important in life.. The broken have learned the difference between what is real and important, versus what is fake and unimportant.

However, you can’t choose how you will be broken. Puppy didn’t choose the encounter with the Dog. God uses all sorts of methods to break us. It may be a friend-of-a-friend that you don’t particularly like, an event you don’t want to attend, or circumstances that may seem unfair. At some point you will need to stop asking “why is this happening”? and then turn to God and say….”so what do you want me to learn”?

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. - Matthew 5:3

You are the only one that can surrender to brokenness. God may bring you to that point over and over, but he won’t push you through it…he won’t beat you into submission. You have do it yourself.

And if you refuse to be broken in this life, well… you won’t have any choice in the next.

He can’t fix you until you’re broke….and he can’t fix you until you let go.

So if it’s not broke….then lets break it…..let it go…….become stronger…..and let the greatness God has in store for you….. come through.

2 comments.

A nice shock!

Posted on September 2nd, 2009 by Darth B'strad.
Categories: Ethics, Philosophy, Creative Writing, Christianity, Cultural.

An alternator. You know that device that spins about magnets in it’s self inducing a charge inside it’s self and then uses diodes to direct that charge to the batteries to keep them all happy and ready to start up the engine at your leisure. I guess one might get the impression that thous diodes are completely a one way street and only go out of the alt. and not into it. Well a flash of light and an orange glow will quickly tell you that was a stupid thought! So I just did what any good Christan would do: high tailed it over to the fire extinguisher rush back to the bus I was working on, jab out the pin and let thous yellowish-white chemicals fly! After the chemicals start settling (that really does have the same exact taste as the stuff that comes out of air bags) you start to find all of your co-workers hacking up the fumes and the foreman sanding right there with the look that you don’t have to guess what’s coming from him. So you bet him to the punch! “I was removing the back plate to the alt. and it touched the power wires inside and grounded out with case and thus it sparked and lit all of that oil and brake cleaner in the engine compartment.” Now if I was a better mechanic I would have simply flipped a switch thus cutting off the batteries and preventing the elections from making their eager charge to complete the path through the alt. making that nice little spark and the subsequent fire that followed and I wouldn’t have to be rushing my butt off to get the fire extinguisher. But I wasn’t being smart! I was being stupid!

While I’m sitting here making up a post to try to make a witty and funny laugh of that moment, the reality is that I could have died last night. It just so happened to have to be (most likely on purpose) that at the end of my shift, one of the day guys was reading off what the chemicals in brake cleaner do when they ignite on fire. Apparently when one of them combines with water, like the water that’s in your nose, it makes hydrochloric acid. Another one of the chemicals is the same exact one the Germans used in World War I to kill off the enemy. So if I had actually had a really good whiff of that stuff, I most certainly would have passed out into the flames that were going on in the engine compartment. So point being that it was only by God’s grace that I didn’t end up dead last night like I could have been. So you just rationalize it away saying that God still has plans for you yet, and that statement is exactly correct and true. He’s set His plans in motion from the very beginning and He knew, just as I somehow knew, that that night was not the night for me to take my rest until His return. But yet that still raises a good question in my head! Am I really doing what He wants me to be doing with my life? Truth be told: I haven’t really had my head in my work for a while now. Not that it’s completely boring now, nights like last night prove that to be an incorrect statement. But the reality is: it doesn’t take much effort to understand what I need to do. That piece is broken so I just need to replace it like this. It’s really like I only spend 10 percent of my thought process to really come up with what I need to do at work. While the rest of the 90 percent of the time I’m thinking about what I could do or what I could say to help make someone life better. Someone that I know and care about, not someone that I don’t know! Or maybe someone that I have yet to meet or re-meet. But I have bills to pay! I can’t very well quit and leave my brothers who I own a house with hanging! But yet I also have to admit that this job is taking it’s toll on me. Not that I’m upset at it! No! I’ve been greatly blessed by it! But I have days of brimming energy after only 2 hours of sleep and then days where I completely crash and sleep 12 hours. So this does now present quite a problem for me! Because of the agreements that I made a little less than three years ago are now keeping me boxed in to where I’m at now when I would actually give every last piece of everything that I own up if that would mean that I could spend every waking moment doing everything I can to help everyone that I love. So in the end, I don’t have a solution here! So I keep handing it up in prayer, hoping that a simple dream will come true.

1 comment.

Why have faith?

Posted on August 27th, 2009 by Darth B'strad.
Categories: Ethics, Philosophy, Religon, Christianity, Cultural, Sermons.

My little bible study group and I are going down to Crestone, Colorado this weekend having a little camping trip down there. Crestone is a little town about half way between Durango and Denver but one of the interesting things about this town is that it is a religious town with many different Faiths building up beautiful temples and churches around that city. At a time like this, it’s easy to ask why do we do all these things. We fight and struggle to try to please this God that we have never personally met. We try to be good and obey His commandments. But what real right to we actually have to clam that Christianity is the only true way to reach God? Doesn’t it seem quite arrogant of us to say that all these other religions we have around us in this town are all wrong when in reality we really don’t have any proof of our claim. Now we do have a lot of evidence to suggest that we are right and that’s mostly due to the fact that we are telling a story that quite frankly was too crazy to make up! What sort of person makes up a God who is said to love us more than we could possibly love Him back so much so that He would make Himself flesh so that he may walk among us. But the story gets even more crazy when we say that this guy also choose to die so that we may live. What kind of crazy story is that? Why would someone possible need to die for us human beings! What could we possibly need saving from? Being bad people? Well that’s actually quite absurd because Christians are no better a group of people than of any other religion, we still go through as many divorces and commit as much sin as the rest of humanity. Not to mention that all the other religions have just a good a moral code as Christianity does. I have a friend a work named Mohamed and just like his name implies he is a Muslim. Now if I were to get overly religious on this guy then he wouldn’t be my friend, he’d be the enemy because he believes something different. He’s the enemy because he thinks differently than I do. And most certainly he does! Most of Christianity preaches that the ideal of life is to have only one spouse and this guy has three! But yet he is one of the nicest and kind guys that we have in the shop and he’s fun to hang around. So again what right do I have to tell this guy that he’s headed straight to hell when I find that some of my fellow Christians act far worse than this guy does!

The problem
So we Christians are faced with quite a problem here: we go around saying that we have the answer to everything but we don’t act how we preach and yet these are the same people that get really self righteous and preach the hardest at people. So they’ll start with the idea that their right and you’re wrong. And so they’ll do everything that they can to tell you how wrong you are and force you to think the why they do. But yet that sort of mindset is exactly the same thing that Jesus preached against when he says in Mattew 5:21-22:

“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

Now Raca is a Aramaic word that essentially means empty, or that you’re calling someone here empty headed. So this would be just the same as one of us saying that someone is retarded or stupid today. So Jesus is telling us that if we even say that someone is stupid then we are in danger of going to hell. Well why would Jesus be so extreme? That’s because this is a horrible thought to get caught up in. As history tells us the Nazis thought they were right in everything that they did and the Jews were the people causing all of the problems of the world. So they killed six million of them. So thinking you’re right and everyone else is wrong will lead you to murder as you let that grow in your heart.

So then some people will react to that and do the opposite, a sort of masochistic line of thinking that I’m quite famous for. So this one says you’re right and I’m wrong. Well that certainly stops you from condemning anyone else! In stead of saying it when someone does something wrong you go around and say your in your head that you’re even more horrible than them and have less to offer than they do. But in the end is that really any different than what the first person was thinking only now you’re calling yourself empty instead of them. Wouldn’t that still lead to murder only this time it’s yourself rather that someone else? Jesus also said in that same sermon:

Matthew 5:13
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

So Jesus is saying that if you don’t believe that you have anything good to say then what good are you? You’re salt that has no saltiness and that’s completely worthless. So we also can’t be going around thinking that everything we say is worthless.

So if we can’t condemn others and we can’t condemn ourselves then that must mean we have to be the live and let live types, right? So now this one is I’m right and you’re right. So everything is just ok and we can just go around singing Kum By Ya and everything will be just fine. Why worry about what’s happening in this world? All good things come to an end so just live a good life and let it be. But yet that’s not what Jesus was saying either. In that same sermon Jesus says:

Matthew 5:17-20
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. Truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Now the Pharisees were the best of the best here! They knew everything and had all of the right answers and you couldn’t trap them. They were like Billy Gram on crack! You couldn’t surpass their goodness, their righteousness. You couldn’t out teach them the law, they were the experts on the law! So isn’t this all completely contradictory and nothing here can be done because no one on the earth is that good. Who among us can possibly keep every bad thought out of our minds? Who among us can possibly keep from any kind of lust like Jesus told us to. Who among us can keep every single thing about us completely pure? We can’t! We fall sort of that! So we have a big problem here. How can we preach our religion when we can’t hold up to it’s own standard?

Why believe?
So in the end the real true answer is that we have to say I’m wrong and you’re wrong. That nothing in this world is right and everything is completely messed up in this world! But isn’t that just a little messed up here to be saying that nobody has life right here! That everybody lives their life wrong in this world! Well yes we can say that and mean it and it is true. Why? Because we all die. If we really could work a way into God’s favor then why would we all have to die someday? That’s the one truth that none of us can deny: we will all die someday. Back in October I had lost a good friend of mine and I do keep on bringing him up because I don’t want anyone to forget him. His name was Jon Hutchinson and if you ever want to see a life well lived he’s most defiantly a good example. He was always a joy to be around and you always saw a smile in his eye. He was just happy to be living and went out to grab life. He went on a lot of missions trips and gave all that he had to give. And the wonderful stories about this man are endless from the people who knew him best. He was afflicted with brain caner a few years back and he beat it twice but it still came back a third time and he died from it. Now if there was anyone who could have possibly earned his way out of death and straight into heaven then most certainly it would have been my friend. But he still died young at the age of 24 from a horrible disease that he most certainly didn’t deserve to have. I never had somebody close to me die like that before so his death hit me very hard. In the year that followed was by far one of the hardest that I ever had to live through. I saw every little dream and hope that I had be shattered one by one until everything that I hoped for was gone. And I had sat there many nights wishing that I had switched places with Jon. That I had gotten the brain caner and he had lived on, that just seem to be much more fair to me. But it just wasn’t so.

The real hope
A little more than month back, I was having horrible nightmares but I couldn’t remember any of them. I just knew they were bad because I would wake up extremely tense and petrified so I knew they were filled with evil thoughts. I talked to Invot about it and he did suggest that I should start praying over my dreams too. So then the next day I prayed for God to let me have a dream that is pleasing to Him and to let me see that lived out in life. I had a dream that day and I saw a woman who I had never seen before in my life. In the dream I walked up and kissed her and then at that moment I knew that she was pregnant and her name was Molly. Weird dream and it was a nice drem but I had no idea why God would give me this dream. So I just went along with life as usual until one day I just deiced to just go up to the mountains. I went up to rocky mountain national park just driving along the stop off points to take pictures. But then I came to another one of the stops and I saw her there. She was there with her husband and she was pregnant and even more crazy was that I did hear her husband call her Molly. In God’s own unique way, that only He could possibly do it, He stopped me right there and reminded me that He is pleased with life. That He is pleased with a new child coming into this world. When they found Jon they said he had a smile on his face. And why would he have a smile on his face? He knew he was dieing! He had a smile because he knew that he already won victory over death. Because Jesus came to this earth, the one true and perfect human being on this planet, who had never sinned one bit but yet still choose to die anyway to take our sins. Yet, He still rose up from the grave a changed man being perfect in spirit and in physical body to prove to us that He did win victory over death completely. So now Jon rests with that smile on his face knowing that his death is a temporary thing because Jesus said: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) And that’s why we do what we do! We don’t go out there to say that we’re right and you’re wrong. No! We go out to boldly proclaim that Jesus is right, that Jesus has the answer to this world and that Jesus won victory over death. Jon was a great man because he lived out a life grateful to God for giving him his life. That’s what this life is all about! It’s easy to get caught up in all of the worries of this world and let them take your attention off of God but we have to try to keep focused on God. Jesus said: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; those who seek find; and to those who knock, the door will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8) If you’re seeking out Jesus, you’ll find Him. If you’re looking for new life, you’ll find it. If you’re looking for God to redeem you, He will. And you can find Him in prayer, in His holy word, and in His believers. And so I conclude with Jesus’ great commission:

Matthew 28:18-20
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

0 comments.

Make love and get war

Posted on May 21st, 2009 by Darth B'strad.
Categories: Ethics, Philosophy, Media, Christianity, Cultural.

We have a massive problem in this nation and it’s some that’s just tearing at the very fabric, we have one issue that we just don’t respect anymore that is killing and distorting everything that was once good and great about this nation -in fact the biggest falsehood and lie that we’ve come up with is: We’re extremely health conscious in this nation, but yet when it comes to one of the biggest health issues that we have, we throw it around like it’s a beach ball; We have to ensure that we count up all the calories and fat grams, make sure we have it down perfectly, don’t get any trans fat in there or whatever other new little thing that we need to make sure we don’t eat or do eat. We have health studies all the time and keep dumping them up to the ceiling. First, you’re not to drink any alcohol at all, then you’re suppose to have a glass of wine everyday, then you’re suppose to limit the amount of carbs you take in. On and on the studies go in an endless cycle that just drives me nuts. Yet they ignore the 500 pound gorilla in the room in favor of chasing after the nats and the reality is that it’s killing people. It’s completely tearing our nation apart and they just don’t get it. It has it’s hook so deeply sunk inside us that no one’s willing to start trying to remove it. By far the nastiest diseases come from it but for a county that freaks out over the flu and every other little possible thing, we just ignore this one. Just get tested so you know but yet people do and then they just go ahead and just keep making the problem worse. But hey they’re just going to do it anyway, right? Quite frankly folks, this nation is on a one way road to complete annihilation and there’s one thing that’s doing it: sex. Or as they like to say “making love,” which is actually quite an absurd description of it since I see many people not treating each other with love when they go around sleeping with everyone. Now if you do support gay marriage then you’re most likely ether already offended or just think I’m being absurd. In that case I would suggest that you stop reading this now because you’re most likely going to become more offended as you go along and you won’t understand me anyway. So you should save yourself the trouble and go read something else because you’re just going to become more upset and angry at me and that won’t do ether of us any good. If you read this anyway and get offended then you’ve been warned and your offense is your own fault. However if you do believe that marriage is between one man and one woman then this is a post that you should take seriously because this is a matter that killing one massively important thing that’s been keeping our country alive for over two centuries: families. I also include a lot of personal stories in this post that are just intended to make my point stronger. So please, let’s keep names off the comment line.

The dehumanization syndrome
I always found it completely vile the way women are treated in middle eastern countries. The way they completely dress them up and force them to cover their face. Cover their face! That’s what criminals do when they’re trying to hide their identity and when they do that they become less than human taking what they want and hurting whoever gets in their way. So to force a woman to cover up completely so that they no longer bare any resemblance to someone human just makes me feel sick. It’s a disgusting practice and I would want to see someone’s face so that I can identify with someone. But yet for how much the feminist talk about how they want equal rights for women, why do they never pick this issue up? It’s wasn’t until recently that I just realized that we do the exact same thing to the women in our country only far worse. Thous counties methods of dehumanizing women is by hiding their faces while ours is to plaster up a picture and have the guy focus on the breasts rather than the face. That’s just as dehumanizing! Ever wonder why Hugh Hefner gives so much money to feminist causes? It’s because it helps him with his business. It actually all about turning women into sex object rather than real human beings. We have this picture of women that no real woman is but yet we plaster that up there like it is and we wonder why they’re so depressed lately. And that is the why we train them up to be. I was at a concert a few months back (a frockus concert in fact ) and I was there with a girl who was friends with the band. She was a really nice girl, a church girl in fact, but she was really obsessed with her looks. We were just sitting down talking over several things and then just said “you haven’t been starring at my breasts at all.” I thought of saying “well my parents raised me to treat women with respect” but for some reason we just got off that subject and went to something else (in retrospect I should have said that). But what I found so interesting was that I was treating her like a normal human being here and she kept trying to make herself into the sex object. You could very well say that she was trying to dehumanize herself and what for? Because that’s the ideal that this society keep plastering up there? That this is what you need to be in order to be happy? Everything about this girl was not happy, she was very insecure about herself and couldn’t control herself. Why was that?

What you think will free you, will enslave you
I go dancing a lot and that gives me a chance to meet interesting people and find some new friends. About two years back I had met a fiery red head that I really wanted to get to know! So I figured it would be a good idea to get to know her friends and get their approval, so I walk right up to her friend and the first thing that came out of her mouth was “I’m depressed over not getting laid.” Right then I bit my tong so that I would say some stupid one liner but without saying another word she just kept on going on and on about how she tried to commit suicide. So I thought this girl was completely crazy and wasn’t really wanting to try to get to know her any better. Now I think that should have reflected poorly on that fiery red head that I wanted to date and as I later found out that red head was quite crazy too and I’m glad that I never did date her but at the time still wanted her. So I just started putting up with the friend but for some reason she really liked talking to me. The red head pushed me off to the side so I ended up talking to her friend for months. I kept on trying to reason with her on how she was living her life. By the time she was 17 she had already had sex with 9 different guys and was always depressed but she wouldn’t ever listen to me. She was an absolutely beautiful girl but she always dated and slept with guys who were complete jerks. She had a great personality and she was fun to hang around but she was extremely selfish and the guys who really loved her she would just dump. One of her “boyfriends” was as far as I could tell a really good guy but she just took his virginity and then just dumped him. I guess he just wasn’t interesting enough for her but she never did tell me why she dumped him. After a few months that guy took a gun to his head and pulled the trigger but the clip jammed and it didn’t fire. He told her about it and her response was “how could you do that to me!” She wasn’t trying to help him she just condemned him for hurting her feeling and just pushed it off to the side like she wasn’t doing anything wrong. She really didn’t respect herself at all, she just let guys have their way with her and then she wondered why they’d call her a bitch. But the unfortunate truth is: she deserved it. And then she call me strange for the fact that I’m still holding my virginity for the woman that I’ll marry but it came down to the fact that she didn’t respect herself at all. But she always kept on talking about that first guy. She kept talking about how he promised her that he’d give her children and that he’d always love her but in the end he just left her. Left her seeking that love that she had never had but instead of letting another guy love her that way she would go for the guys that would do the same thing to her. She got addicted to feeling that same pain and wouldn’t give that up for a moment and she wouldn’t trust in the possibility that God could heal her of it.

What you think will empower you, will kill you
I had a friend once tell me that every time the issue of sex would come up I would freak out! Well he wasn’t really right about that but I have had a lot of issues with always falling in love with girls that I would never have. It always seems to me that every time that I express the slightest interest in a girl, that’s when they would flee off! That’s always been quite depressing for me, nothing ever works out and here I am at 24 and I can’t say that I’ve ever had a real girlfriend. I’d have friends that would tell me that I should just try it out! See how sex feels, you need to know what it’s like if you’re going to get married. Some of them even tried to set up situations were that would happen and thank God that they didn’t work out. Somehow I just knew that if I were to just have cheap sex it would put me in a far worse position and I’d sink worse into depression but I couldn’t figure out why. Most my friends that have done it didn’t seem to be suicidal at all but yet somehow I knew that I would start down a path that would just completely tear me to shreds if I had done the same. Thinking back over my life I did remember that I had a childhood love. In fact I was quite certain that she was the one for me! (of course I knew everything at the age of 10 ) I had remembered all of the good times I had with that girl and she was most defiantly my best friend at the time. After a few years her parents took her with them to other parts of the country and I of course lost my love there but yet thinking over it now, I don’t remember any tears over it. I found that really odd considering that I was madly in love with her and I remember fighting with my brother over it because he was trying to convince that I shouldn’t marry her. But the more the he tried the more certain I was (like I said, I knew everything at the age of 10). But it actually was very strange for me because I don’t remember a single feeling over her leaving But yet I remember plenty of tears over other girls I had known so I didn’t understand why she was different here. But she was completely different than all of the rest of them because of what I did and I just didn’t want to remember. I have some large gaps in my memory especially centered around thous years around third grade and there are plenty of time where people will bring up stories that I just can’t remember. Somehow I did have a concept of sex when I was really young and I still don’t know how I knew of it when I was that little. I just thought it was something that people do when they’re in love and I loved her and I thought she loved me too. I had a really fuzzy memory that’s recently come back to me and I’ve been trying to figure out what it’s meant for several weeks now. I just remember being in my parents bathroom and I had started getting naked in front of her and she walked out. I don’t remember what was said or anything else but I know I felt humiliated and in fact I still feel humiliated. That’s something that I’ve worked really hard to bury very deep inside myself and never feel that again. However instead of bringing that to God and allowing Him to heal me I just kept hiding it, especially from myself.

The shame that cuts us deep inside
For years I have always felt shame at the very fact that I was a male. I had always hated myself and never thought I was worth anything. It took me by complete surprise the day I learned Bieren actually thought of me as a friend. I thought I was crap. I just kept everything to myself and kept twisting it around in my mind, trying to make the past go away but it never did. I always kept looking at the girls I knew I wouldn’t ever be with as the only ones that I could go for and the ones that really like me, I didn’t believe them. I’d always ether make a fool out of myself or I’d just stay silent and I spent my days in constant hate. Nobody knew how to help me because I didn’t understand or want to know what was wrong with me. But yet Bieren really did help save my life by just deciding to hang out with me and accepting me as I was. He didn’t just write me off as some crazy guy like all the rest of my pears did, he just took me as I was, kept pushing me to do things, try out things. And from that I could start building in myself a new perception of myself: that I’m really not as crappy as I think! And it’s that broken a destructive perceptive that get us constantly doing hurtful things to ourselves and others. I call them demons or you could refer to them as black boxes, but they are thous events that make us react in ways that hurt ourselfs or others. When we hold them down tightly and hide them that’s when they have their power over us. But we can’t have them locked down and tightly secured from everyone, you need to have them out in the open with someone that you can trust. You shouldn’t necessarily go telling it to everyone you ever meet, that doesn’t help you make friends all that well, but you should talk about these things with someone that you can trust and support you. I only write these things here to try to help others and only after I have prayed about it for some time. But the only real way to get past such hurts is to bring them to God.

Forgiveness is the answer
Invot had busted out this Psalm a little bit back:

Psalm 51
Have mercy on me, O God,
because of your unfailing love.
Because of your great compassion,
blot out the stain of my sins.
Wash me clean from my guilt.
Purify me from my sin.
For I recognize my rebellion;
it haunts me day and night.
Against you, and you alone, have I sinned;
I have done what is evil in your sight.
You will be proved right in what you say,
and your judgment against me is just.
For I was born a sinner—
yes, from the moment my mother conceived me.
But you desire honesty from the womb,
teaching me wisdom even there.

Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Oh, give me back my joy again;
you have broken me—
now let me rejoice.
Don’t keep looking at my sins.
Remove the stain of my guilt.
Create in me a clean heart, O God.
Renew a loyal spirit within me.
Do not banish me from your presence,
and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and make me willing to obey you.
Then I will teach your ways to rebels,
and they will return to you.
Forgive me for shedding blood, O God who saves;
then I will joyfully sing of your forgiveness.
Unseal my lips, O Lord,
that my mouth may praise you.

You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one.
You do not want a burnt offering.
The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit.
You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.
Look with favor on Zion and help her;
rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
Then you will be pleased with sacrifices offered in the right spirit—
with burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings.
Then bulls will again be sacrificed on your altar.

That’s the Psalm David had wrote after he had his affair with Bathsheba and had her husband killed and I find it to be one of the most beautiful works of poetry there is. That is because it embodies everything that my faith teaches me. The poem starts out with a cry of guilt, pain and remorse. He moves on to ask God to keep him in His presence and to give him a loyal spirit and for God to not take away His blessing from him. Then David asks God to make him willing to obey Him and then he says he’ll teach rebels God’s ways. Then David makes the point of the one thing God wants most from us: a broken and repentant heart. And as David says: “You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one. You do not want a burnt offering. The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit.” Everything that we can possibly offer to God is meaningless to God when it’s compared to offering Him a broken spirit and God will only delight in anything else we do only after we give Him that broken spirit. But what exactly does giving God a broken spirit mean? How does that renew us? That’s because that’s the way that God can start to take over and start renewing us Himself. I’ve struggled for years over my self hatred. For one thing I didn’t know that I hated myself until last year. I didn’t know how broken my spirit was because I didn’t want to remember it. I was always haunted by my nature and always felt ashamed of myself and I never wanted to let go of it. I remember how violent everything was when I as addicted to porn. I hated the fact that they could do such things and not feel any shame over it when I was ashamed to be me. I wouldn’t talk about what I believed in because I hated me so I naturally assumed that everyone else did too. I started to actually like getting picked on by the bullies in my school because they helped me confirm this messed up view of my self. Like the rash that you just can’t help scratching because you just get a perverse satisfaction at feeling the pain that it makes. But yet you know that it would heal if you could just leave it alone and you so much want it to heal. It’s the same sort of wounds that we create on our souls when we don’t hand our pains to the Lord. This sort of world view that I formed of myself was one that I just wouldn’t want to let go because actually dealing with the problem was too painful. It’s hard to remember something that you’ve been burying for your whole life but if you bring it fourth and give it to the Lord, that’s when you can start to heal.

Building from the roots up
With every single problem we have there is always something that we are valuing more than God. This is the condition that our human nature puts us in and you can trace it back all the way to the beginning. One of the strangest parts about the fall of man was what the tree that caused our fall was named:

Genesis 2:15-17
The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. But the Lord God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden— except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”

It’s the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And that’s how we all stumble! We have all eaten from that tree because we all think that we can make things work out better than God can. That we can actually know better than He does. That we can make things right on our own accord instead of trusting Him with it. But it never works out that way. Every time that I have trusted in my own knowledge and thinking things only turned more and more destructive. I kept running into walls and I kept finding myself in more misery. My lust would only increase and always became more uncontrollable but yet now that I have remembered and given that pain to the Lord, all these things are now starting to heal. The past few weeks I have been far more capable of controlling my urges than I have in months. I’ve been looking more for a brighter future rather than wishing that I was dead and even now many things about me are starting to make sense. Continually bringing our pains to the Lord is something that we all need to do to get His blessings. We need to realize that everything we do in this life is for Him. That is especially true when it comes to the issue of sex. Right after Genesis talks about the tree that’s when it goes into how God made women:

Genesis 2:18-25
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.” So the Lord God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one. He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, and all the wild animals. But still there was no helper just right for him.

So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the Lord God took out one of the man’s ribs and closed up the opening. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man.

“At last!” the man exclaimed.

“This one is bone from my bone,
and flesh from my flesh!
She will be called ‘woman,’
because she was taken from ‘man.’”

This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.

Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.

And this is also why sex needs to be respected because it is an act of two people becoming one. So if you don’t respect it then it tears your soul to shreds not to mention the people that you’ll hurt by it. Every time I’m with a group of people that doesn’t respect sex, I see completely torn apart lives but yet with thous that do treat it with respect I see far more stable relationships. That’s why it’s reserved for marriage because it’s not about getting what you want out of it but satisfying the other person’s need to be one with someone. That’s why Paul said this:

1 Corinthians 7:2-9
But because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband.

The husband should fulfill his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should fulfill her husband’s needs. The wife gives authority over her body to her husband, and the husband gives authority over his body to his wife.

Do not deprive each other of sexual relations, unless you both agree to refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time so you can give yourselves more completely to prayer. Afterward, you should come together again so that Satan won’t be able to tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I say this as a concession, not as a command. But I wish everyone were single, just as I am. But God gives to some the gift of marriage, and to others the gift of singleness.

So I say to those who aren’t married and to widows—it’s better to stay unmarried, just as I am. But if they can’t control themselves, they should go ahead and marry. It’s better to marry than to burn with lust.

Trying to satisfy your own need will not get you what you want in this life. That’s why I included the stories that I have because I see it all the time. But yet I have seen over in my own life and in other: that when you invest in others and love them, giving without expecting anything back from them, that’s when you’ll start seeing them turn around and bless you back.

Working for a new kingdom

Revelation 21:1-8
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”

And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” And then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.” And he also said, “It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life. All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children.

“But cowards, unbelievers, the corrupt, murderers, the immoral, those who practice witchcraft, idol worshipers, and all liars—their fate is in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

One girl that I know always keeps impressing me. In fact I’ve quoted her a couple of times here on this blog. She a very beautiful girl that goes to my church and I’ve told her that too but the funny thing is that really the reason that I have said that doesn’t have all that much to do with her looks. It’s actually much more due to the fact that she wouldn’t flaunt it like the girl I talked about at the beginning of this post. Unlike every other girl I have met she says more modestly dressed and holds herself in a respectful manner. I saw some pictures of her one time and that made it even more clear that she could be a super model if she wanted to be and make millions of dollars. Yet she chose not to live that sort of life. She chose a profession of serving others and keeps on serving other whenever she can. Instead of trying to use her looks to get what she wants she instead chooses to say “People do not exist to be receptacles for enjoyment and comfort in my life. No, quite the opposite. I exist to bless God and to bless people. and blessing people should not be something that I do when it is convenient for me, or when I know that I will get something out of it. That is missing the point!” And that was something that I had screwy in my head at that time and it still took me months to get my thinking right. But everything in this life is working to serve God and when we give Him our shattered spirits that when he’ll renew us and give us something to hope for. Ultimately our true hope is the renewal of our earth. For it to be made new just as God said He would. And we all need to come to Him to be made new. Only if we bring everything to Him. That woman will live a long and happy life if she keeps holding true to her example and you will also live a good life if you follow her example. But the only why that we can receive our renewal is for us to come to God with our pains and start allowing Him to start applying His treatments to us. Then we can live with peace in our lives.

5 comments.

Ethics Class (maybe I should be ethical, sometimes)

Posted on May 21st, 2009 by Dark Poet.
Categories: Ethics, Cultural.

Here is a paper I am about to submit for my ethics class, be confused and enjoy;

Marriage and society ethics
Ethics

I could argue for marriage or against it. Whether or not it benefits society, or how it benefits society.
First, I could explain the virtues of marriage and how it is good for society. I could use Kant, citing that his arguments, citing even the theological voluntarism side of his arguments. Theological voluntarism can be used both ways, though. God says to Noah, ”Be fruitful and multiply”, and that is in Jewish, Islam, Catholic, and Christian religions; I do not know if God, god, or gods have said that in other religious practices. But therefore, be fruitful and multiply, and the way to do that is to marry, male and female, a have tons of kids. Lead the kids into life, to teach, to support, and to discipline them. Discipline them, which logically leads to a a better child, which leads to a better adult, which leads to a better society.
Discipline is when the kid(s) strays from the path that is RIGHT, correct? The thing about theological voluntarism is that the author of the textbook discredits it by saying that god(s) can change his or her own mind, and therefore an absolute change in ‘absolute’ rights and wrongs. With respect to the child, if this information is to reach the child, would it be conceivable that it is very confusing to the child? But, Mom/Dad, you said that that was right, what now?
I could use Kant’s golden rule, if it is good for you and me, then it is good. Is the marriage good for the couple and good for society? I would say that male to female, female to male marriage is ideally good, because a male, born a male, having sex with a female, born a female, are able to procreate. Does marriage between the parents of a child create more stability for the child rather than non-married parents? The cases of one spouse beating up the other spouse or one spouse breaking the promise(s) that they took at the marriage ceremony could be considered that that marriage is not good for the couple. Therefore that marriage is not good for society.
I could use Hobbes, building off of his social contract theories to explain the virtues of marriage. I think I have read ‘Leviathan’ by Thomas Hobbes right. Man is able to be in the state of Warre, but by reasoning and by covenants there are peace, industry, and society. One must try not to revert back to the state of Warre in a society, because, if they do, they violate the covenant/laws of that society. The people of the society will do what the laws say to do to such a person in the state of Warre. The state of Warre is basically every man for himself, in this state of nature, Hobbes says, killing is justified. It is, then, the nature of society to include individuals, who are willing to actively block the lust of the state of Warre, societal protection. Marriage is, if I may suggest, a covenant between two people. Would it be too hard to the reader to see that by that arrangement that the marriage which is a covenant between two people has benefit of society and the nature of society imprinted on it? I cannot, though use this seemingly solid piece of argument for the virtue of marriage, because of one (maybe more) point. What if the ‘marriage’ is nothing more than the repeated rape of one ’spouse’ by the other ’spouse’? That is called real marriage.
No; the nature of society is not exactly imprinted on that, then, correct?
Hume is in there, too. With respect to the religions of Islam, Catholicism, Judaism, and Christianity, God said to Noah, be fruitful and multiply. So the ethic could be to convey that to the kids. May I suggest that intuitionism is a strong motivator to feel and to think for exploring how heterosexual marriage as the ideal of society? Would the intuitism of a person be relative to culture, though? Since I have broken it off with my ex-fiancée, I have explored with my intuition why heterosexual marriage is good for society, and I have came up blank, except for that it just is.
The thing I get from Hume is that we all have feelings, passions, and intuitions, therefore an ethos argument for one side or another could move people into agreement or make them tend to the defenses. So ponder society and all it is, and then intuit how a male and a female joining themselves for life is for the betterment of that society.
What is society, then? My intuition tells me it is the organization of globalization which is built on top of the organization of multinational business, trade, and culture, which is built on the organization of national culture, business, trade, which is built on the organization of regional culture, business, trade, which is built on the organization of multiple cities/towns/villages. Cities may or may not produce it’s own food, so a city may or may not be dependent on something outside the city limits. For my purposes, I am going to call the city and what it is dependent upon just the city. The organization of the city is built on the organization of sections of the city, which is built on the organization of communities or lack of such a thing. Are my intuitions fairly okay to the reader at this point? Would it be fair to say that a community is a group of people, meeting together for many common goals, processes, and interests? The community is a group consisting of individuals.
Individuals are able to be affected not by the community in which they commune, but affected by the mass media. I will try not to revert back to Hobbes, but society more or less controls the mass media, and so society wants the attitudes and feelings of individuals biased towards a better society. Gender roles play play their part via mass media; from the movie, Conspiracy Theory, they “Betty Crocker the girls, and G.I. Joe the boys”. Do marriage-like partnerships have their masculine-like person and feminine-like person? I am going to assume, even though it might be world’s society around us, that marriage-like partnerships naturally have the masculine person and the feminine person. Would Betty Crocker be the feminine, and G.I. Joe be the masculine? Is the society in which Mel Gibson’s character cited in the movie, Conspiracy Theory, playing off this naturalness? I have the feeling of anti-society right now. What is the alternative to that society? Without Hobbes, and using Humme’s emotional reasoning for ethics, the alternative is to make another society or try to change society.
On the other hand, how can one intuit that society is good without using Hobbes? Is it fair to say, that via intuition, marriage is ethical because it adds depth of feelings and depth of maturity to the individuals involved? Please Let me know if the reader’s intuition disagrees. Would the logically progression of this deepening of maturity and feelings go on the affect other individuals outside the marriage, influencing the community, community influencing the city? And the city influencing the region? Advocating marriage sounds good right now, right?
I can cancel the argument out, by saying that the influencing of community/city/region of a single marriage is very hard to do because there are others who are able influence in quite the opposite direction with quite the opposite ideas, feelings, and intuitions.
In conclusion, you might have got a hint of an idea. This idea formed probably near the end of page two. The idea is that I want marriage to fail, because of me breaking up with the one I was planning to marry. I say this idea is only half true, and that I want to figure out, ethically, or using Hobbes, Humme, and Kant how marriage naturally is with respect to society. For Kant I concluded more or less, that marriage is how one goes about it that affects society. For Hobbes, it is on a real personal level, marriage balances out the state of the Warre. And for Humme, Influencing outside marriage or not, one can intuit that marriage deepens feelings and increases maturity.

5 comments.

Ethics

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Index for posts concerning Ethics

On Going to Church

Do you even know what a Wawa is? (part 4, Starting up the party)

Do you even know what a Wawa is? (part 3, Off to a town in the middle of nowhere)

Do you even know what a Wawa is? (part 2, A proposition)

Do you even know what a Wawa is? (part 1)

Being Broken

A nice shock!

Why have faith?

Make love and get war

Ethics Class (maybe I should be ethical, sometimes)