Thursday, September 30, 2010

Our Future Hope


Time to get back to basics, i need to refocus on the fundamentals and return to my first love. It is frustrating that in times of joy and times of pain that idolatry develops so naturally as a byproduct of the many beautiful gifts from the Father. Idolatry in any form will inherently lead to a lack of intimacy and emptiness which whether we recognize it or not, manifests itself through pain. This pain is redemptive and loving as it calls us to our brokenness and the fallen nature of our world that cannot be overcome by anything but Christ. I have read a lot about pain and suffering in the past few years, struggling with my health. Pain is something that is sexy and eloquent to write about, but to actually work through it, in reality is messy, exhausting and emptying. However, there is beauty in suffering for the Christian because it is a tangible reminder that the world is not the way it should be, an alarm clock to grieve that we are fallen and things are not the way they ought to be. Tulian was preaching through Job and said something to the effect of, "Pain involves a distant memory of what once was before sin, death and disease entered the world and a cry for the future glory of what one day will be a universal reality." That is the hope we must cling to or our lives, my life means nothing and is pointless. The two most painful encounters in history was the physical and spiritual anguish Christ endured on the cross for our sins and the pain of the Father to give up His son for that purpose. We are called to trust in God not in his explanations, and I love how this passage in Colossians points back to Christ and puts things in perspective.

1 Colossians

15He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,20and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

21Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— 23if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

Monday, September 13, 2010

My Home

"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself."
C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)