...we.were.made.for.this

Thoughts:

Scattered, random, and incomplete, but thoughts nonetheless:

Joy is inextricably connected to Jesus Christ and right relationship with him…

What culture has increasingly attempted to achieve in recent years is to extricate Christian virtues, attributes and characteristics of God, and model those independently from God. There are atheists committed to love; therefore, they partake in water purification projects. There are humanists committed to justice; therefore, they participate in equal-rights campaigns. There are activists committed to beauty; therefore, they levy for environmentalism. All of these attributes flow out of the character and the image of God, and at best humanity apart from God is displaying shards and pieces of the totality of what God looks like and what true humanity, as image bearers of God, was created to display. Where they fail to achieve happiness or enjoyment is that no single attribute is to be the goal of our lives or the object of our affections. Rather, when God is the object of our affection, and His Glory is the goal of our lives, we are conformed more into the image of His Son, and what inevitably flows from this transformation is the totality of God’s attributes and characteristics shining forth from our lives on display to the world. Summarily, if God is our goal, we increasingly radiate that which is of God—justice, compassion, love, truth, etc. Yet if that which is of God is our goal—that is to say, if we make the aim of our life “to be a loving person, to find the truth, to fight for equal rights, etc”—we ultimately fail, and at our best only achieve an empty reflection of a piece of some dismembered emotion or cause, neither of which will achieve our happiness, because we are not created to worship or love or commit our lives to an emotion or attribute, but to the God from whom these characteristics emanate.

We are not Christians because we seek to be loving people, we are not Christians because we seek to eradicate extreme-poverty, we are not Christians because we believe in equality, or peace, or hope, or love, or justice. We are Christians because we seek God—or rather, He seeks us. Every fiber of our being cries out for a relationship with the God who created us in His image, and we cannot be satisfied until something reconciles us to our Creator and liberates us to live as we were created to live. Christians are not humanitarians. Christians are lovers of God and reflectors of His image. We do not set out to be good people; we set out to Love God and to become more like Him, not by choice, not by effort of the mind or willpower, but by the irresistible Grace and calling of His Holy Spirit. When He calls us by name and rips our heart of stone out of our chest to replace it with a heart of flesh and gives us a new spirit--His spirit, which molds us more into His image—we naturally, we supernaturally, begin to love the things that God loves and care about the things God cares about, as our hearts begin to break for the very things that break the heart of God.

Therefore, our primary goal is not to feed the hungry and clothe the naked to alleviate their suffering in this sin-stained world. Focusing primarily on the alleviating of suffering, the eradication of hunger, or any other such worthy cause is an aim far too limited, far too incomplete, far too meaningless a goal to be undertaken. It makes a worthy task, but a terrible goal. It is a good endeavor, but one that is incomplete. If one is to devote his life to feeding the hungry, he may well feed them his entire life, yet we as Americans know of all people that food does not satisfy the soul—with the largest obesity rate and the highest depression and suicide rate in the world. Filling the stomachs of the emaciated alone will do nothing to change their government, give them education and justice, give them jobs or houses, or impact their children’s lives. Most importantly, it will not satisfy them or give them peace, it will not give them a relationship with their Creator, and a life eternally free from pain and suffering.

Our goal, our joy, our purpose, is a passion to treasure Christ supremely above all things. And as God achieves this purpose in our lives, He is Glorified and we are satisfied—as well as sanctified (made more like Christ—the image of God). Focusing our aim on God and His Glory will give us His heart—which beats constantly for the poor, the oppressed, and the hungry—and which will lead us to not only feed the hungry, but to lead them to Jesus Christ. This passion for the Supremacy of Christ in all things, to all nations, leads us to desire that all humanity experience, see and treasure and the infinite worth of Jesus Christ, so that God’s Glory and Fame might be increased and made much of throughout all the world.

So does this make God some esoteric egotistical maniac suffering from a low self-esteem problem? Were God fashioned in our image this would surely be the case. Rather, when a Being who is infinitely great, and infinitely good, and infinitely loving exists, the greatest gift He can bestow upon His creation is Himself. Therefore, our aim is to share the gospel, to share the goodness of Christ with all humanity, for the Glory of God. The outworking of this aim is the salvation of all peoples as His beauty and grace calls and compels them into perfect relationship with their Creator as He places a new heart, and His Spirit within them, sanctifying them and making them more like His Son, His Image, which is the ultimate joy, the ultimate purpose, the all-satisfying meaning and gift of our lives. Through their redemption, they then begin to love and act in mercy, compassion, justice, and truth received from the Spirit of Christ in them. This cycle continues as their passion for the Glory of God overflows and compels them to share the gospel with others, who in turn, receive new hearts and new Spirits, and begin to love and act in all the ways of God.

This is the gospel. This is good news to all people. It is in treasuring Christ above all things, it is in laying down our lives—in the example of our Merciful Saviour—that we truly live, that we experience joy and live life to the fullest extent, life, more abundantly—and more importantly, eternally.

This image-bearing—along with all of creation—is the art of a romantic lover pouring out His love and crying out to be loved in return. Our desire for justice is to draw us to the One who is truly Just. Our quest for truth is to lead us to the Absolute Truth. Our love of beauty is to send us in search of the Creator of all that is good. There is no objective for justice apart from God, there is no basis for truth outside of the Truth. When we feel strongly “this is wrong,” or “that is unjust,” it is the outworking of our image-bearing of God. God is the fulfillment of the totality of all of our desires for justice and peace and truth and love and life. All of life is a declaration of the sovereignty and majesty of God, and of our need for Him. The heavens declare the Glory of God. We who corrupt justice, who suppress the truth, who act in anger and hate, try to stand above God and judge Him as being unjust, untrue, and unloving? The very concept of justice, truth, or love does not exist apart from God.

If what we believe to be unjust does not come from God, it is not truly just. If what we believe to be loving does not come from God, it is not true love. If what we believe to be truth does not come from God, it is not absolute. Rather, the ways in which our perceptions of truth, love, and justice conflict with God, reveal to us our misconceptions construed from the culturally constructed influences we are bombarded with from birth.

I've been accused of having blind faith. I have no blind faith. I believe in God. I live with God, I enjoy God, I experience God, I love God.

Everyone has a cannon, everyone has a belief system. Your “bible” may be the compiled writings of musicians and rock stars and the conjecture of philosophers and scientists who preach that this God is archaic and unreal and nonexistent. Your pastors and priests may be cultural icons and talking heads that spew forth conjecture presenting God as unloving and unjust and the world is meaningless, flawed, and hopeless. You may blindly accept their teachings based not on experience but upon logic and familiarity. Your experiences and your vision and your life declare the love and the majesty and the Glory of God. Please do not convince yourself that by believing in the wisdom of a 2lb hunk of pinkish flesh called the human brain that you do not have blind faith. Blind faith closes its eyes to the beauty of the Cross, the Glory of the Christ, and the weight and severity of our depravity and sin and the world’s condition. Our entire education system has been indoctrinated by the preaching and teaching of B. F. Skinner, Freud, Kinsey, and Maslow. We are the cultural experiments of a belief system, and we are trained to have absolute faith in it. The result of this faith system is disgruntled America. So acknowledge your belief system, acknowledge your authorities. Your thoughts are not your thoughts, they are the socially conditioned beliefs spoon-fed from the lying, depraved mouths of talk show hosts, musicians, and old men living in their mothers’ basements ranting about the Mean Nasty God™ who does not exist.

Christ came to break through this culturally ascribed value system that is going nowhere to offer us the True Way of Life. All of our being resonates with His message of hope and resurrection and redemption because our hearts cry out for eternity, our souls cry out for justice, and our being cries out for relationship with our Creator. We all know we were created for more than a working week, wasted weekends and death at sixty. We all know there is something deeply flawed in the suffering of humanity, the injustice of the oppressed, and the maddening emptiness of a self-centered life.

This knowledge is the grace of God drawing us to Himself.

We can suppress the truth in our foolishness, drown it in our addictions, and hide it with empty conjecture and philosophizing, or we can embrace the Savior, fulfill our deepest longings and live life to the fullest extent in right relationship with our Creator, in service to others and in opposition to ourselves.

I choose-or rather, am chosen--to accept grace.

...skater.diet.

someone at work asked me what i had eaten that day, the following results were yielded:

monday

7:30am Bottom dregs of X energy drink found in my car

9:00am Piece of chocolate cake with chocolate icing from graduation party

1:00pm Two pieces of double doozie cookie cake from wedding/graduation/going away party at work

2:30pm Kool-aid burst (w00!)

6:30pm Another piece of double doozie cookie cake

8:00pm One (1) Cheesy Beefy Burrito from taco bell


when i actually think about it, i'm not really sure how i'm alive.

...be.yourself

no one else can do it.

life = rad

tuesday was the last day of classes ever. i don't even get that yet... probably because i have finals all week, but i'm sure it will be awesome after the fact. all i know is i'm definately hitting up Quaker Steak for all you can eat wings Tuesday night.

i took off work early yesterday and picked up Seth and Isac from school. we were supposed to go destroy the skatepark, but instead i destroyed my ankle in the first ten minutes... that was definately not zesty, but we still had an awesome time nonetheless. after skating we went and chilled at the mall and got into some craziness at little creek park. people as white as me have no business cruzing to tobymac and kirk franklin...

we're taking a skatepark/beach road trip in june that i've been dreaming about for years... it's going to be absolutely insane.

looking for a rush? luge down the soap box derby at LC park... crazy stuff.

i'm heading up to morgantown this weekend, while laura is heading back to charleston... i'm not really sure how that happened, but i've got to stain our front porch.

...acquire.the.tired

wednesday night my car got towed... they charged me $150 bucks to move it like five miles... so, thursday night i couldn't sleep. every time i heard a motor i was sure my car was getting towed again... finally, around 2am i ran out to my car, drove to panera, and slept in the parking lot until 5:30...

we took some kids from the church up to acquire the fire in pittsburg. i definately was not impressed with the speakers [1]. nobody at those events ever really deals with the whole sin issue, they just get all the kids hyped up in some psuedo-Jesus-hype fest and everybody gets saved five times and starts a new myspace group.

it really broke my heart how many thousands of kids "came forward" every night, without any understanding of what it means to follow Jesus. the goods news [2] of Jesus was never mentioned. Jesus Christ is so much more than a prayer you say to get into heaven. i could rant about that for a couple of hours, but it's not really worth the time.

the kids were awesome, it was a blast getting to know everyone and goofing off downtown. highlights of the event included spontaneously bursting into rounds of "father abraham" with the goal of seeing how many random people would join in by the end, starting a hard-core dance in the middle of the concourse and hi-jacking the town carousel.

church meeting was refreshing sunday. my friend ethan showed up, and it was definately chill to catch up with him.

oh, and while i was away, Brandt the Homeless Evangelist stopped by Davis Park in Charleston with the Apprentice... i am bummed about missing him speak, so if anyone caught that please give me a call... Here is a sad feature story in theGazz about him visiting Joel Osteen's church:

http://www.thegazz.com/guide/articles/Events/3104/FEATURE%3A+Young+evangelist+gives+up+all+to+preach

[1] day of pigs, roper

[2] 1 cor 15

...welcome.to.the.working.week

so i showed up at work monday to find my cube looking like this:




and this...

i was pretty impressed with the rockstar can and stress relief ball, that took talent...

i'm gonna miss this job

...how.do.you.get.a.cold.when.it's.80.degrees.out?

i had a profusely important exam today at 4:00. i took off work a bit early and headed to the library to study and fell asleep on the couch around 3:15. i awoke to jessica yelling "why didn't you show up to take the exam today?!" i awoke in a mad frenzy and did my fair share of freaking out and wondering how life would work out homeless without a job or degree. then i noticed it was 3:30...

...jessica is not a very nice person :P

went skating with my boys--davis and blake--today... davis brought waffles and a toaster to the skatepark. oh, and just in case there was a shortage of electricity, he pre-nuked about 10 chocolate chip waffles and brought those in a tupperware container.

mike--whose real name is allegedly "brianna"--sat down next to me, looked down at the tupperware container, and looked back up at me...
"are those... waffles?"
"yep."
"suh-weeeet!"

heh, i'm definately gonna miss my crazy, weird, amazing friends when i move to mo-town. it was a killer skate session until davis rolled his ankle.

i think shawn and i are headed up to mo-town in the morning. shawn is going to be a lab-rat for drug testing and i am going to work on our place with my brothah, keith, all weekend.

i'll close with some random thoughts that came up with a friend about an angry neo-athiest philosopher:

If nothing greater than humanity existed, debate may be quite productive.

But the Bible is not about humanity, the Bible is about God.

Anyone can misquote scripture, pull some stuff out of context, and feel very intelligent and self-righteous about themselves.

I’m not interested in debate. Neither is God.

I’m interested in dealing with sin, and creating a new humanity.

--this teacher-- is not interested in dealing with sin, he’s interested in ignoring it.

I’m interested in loving, living, becoming a better person, and pleasing God with my life.

We’ve all sinned, we’re all dying, the world is broken… we all know this.

I’m interested in destroying sin, ending death, and healing the earth, and Jesus Christ is bringing that together quite beautifully, while --this teacher-- is fussing about why he’s not responsible for believing in God…

I’m not interested in some angst-filled old man ranting about how mean God is like a five year old throwing a tantrum about his dad that won’t let him eat ice cream for breakfast.

This debate offers nothing but an attitude that is egotistical. Selfish. Prideful. Angry.

It is about not seeking help. Is about not admitting our own brokenness. Is about not taking part in the healing of the world. It ignores every important issue in life that matters. I am more interested in feeding children without food… arguing that God does not exist does not fill their stomachs. I’m more interested in my friends who feel hopeless in bondage to alcohol and addictions to drugs… Jesus Christ is resurrection, redemption, renewel and freedom. That’s a gospel I believe in. Arguing God does not exist does not liberate my friends from their bondage or their depression. I’m more interested in a meaningful life. Jesus Christ is giving me a reason to live, a purpose to wake up in the morning that is larger than me or my ego. Arguing God does not exist casts the world into a meaningless fatalistic hopelessness. I believe in hope. I believe in resurrection. I believe in redemption. I believe humanity is going somewhere.

If you’re looking for “arguments” supporting the faith, check out “The Reason for God” by Dr. Timothy Keller. There is a plethora of resources available. But I’m not interested in those either, really… God is true. Jesus is true. Resurrection is true. Love is true. That is what I want my life to be about. Angst-filled human conjecture and opinion holds no answers for me. No truth, just pride.

Those conversations are destructive. They are one sided. They are hurtful.

The conversations point to a belief system. It appears rooted in anger, pride, and destructive lies. I do not see how those conversations are helping the world, advancing humanity, or solving sin problems, freeing those in bondage from their addictions, or feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, or giving justice to the weak and the oppressed. That belief system is not big enough for me, or God, or the rest of the world.

It’s easy to doubt. Anyone can doubt. But if we hunger for the truth, we should doubt our doubt. We should test and scrutinize and doubt our doubts just as intensely as we doubt our beliefs. Because our doubt is a belief system, and if it were true, we could bring it into the light and call it what it is, call it truth, and show it as beautiful and meaningful and life changing. But doubts do not hold up to the beauty and the truth of redemption and resurrection and new life and freedom and love and justice that Jesus Christ embodies.

If you doubt God’s love, then you must prove it and test it. And when I look at the times He has given me life when I should have been dead. When he has freed me from addictions. When he has healed broken marriages. When he has given hope and peace to those who have none. When he has given life abundantly. When I look at my friends and my life and the beauty of the sky and the warmth of the sun… and ultimately when I look at the Cross upon which He suffered for all of humanity, I see His love. I see His truth. I see beauty. I see resurrection. I see life.

And the truth of Jesus Christ pulls a Chuck Norris on my doubt, because there is no “doubt” in my mind that Jesus Christ loves me. My entire life has been a tragedy that he is speaking joy into. He has endlessly, relentlessly pursued me while I've tried to give him the finger and run to the hell of my own destruction.

I have experienced hate and anger and pride and addiction. I do not enjoy them. They leave me enslaved. Depressed. Meaningless. Hopeless. And they do nothing for the rest of the world. They add nothing to beauty, to creativity, to music, to art, to love, to community, to everything that is of God.

I believe in resurrection. I believe in life. I believe in love. I have experienced all of these things. And I enjoy them. I trust them. I have faith in them. I have faith in Jesus Christ.

I have a faith that is going somewhere. I know a God that is up to something in the world. I live a life that is full of undeserved, indescribable joy even in the midst of suffering.

I believe in God.