My Perspective Is Eternal

This week at LBC, we hosted a missions conference. There were missionaries from all over the world who shared their vision, and hoped to recruit a few more harvesters for the field. Their stories were touching, and their passion was convicting.

One special session was devoted to agonizing over the lost. They called this session, "A Call To Anguish." During the hour, we watched a clip from the internet taken from a pastor's sermon. His sermon was also entitled, "A call to anguish." In the selection that we listened to, the pastor stated that passion is born from anguish, and we as Americans no longer anguish over the lost. There are 1600 people groups that have never even heard the gospel. We hear stats like that, shake our heads, say "that's terrible," and go back to the news.

"THAT.. SHOULD... NOT... BE!" -John Piper

Well I took the challenge to anguish. I knelt to pray, said, "My Father," and broke down. I completely lost it. My heart was in turmoil over the fact that there are people that have never known him, and probably never will. Families, fathers, mothers... children: all dying and going to hell.

After contemplating this truly inconvenient truth, I went to work. I started talking to the other man I work with, and realized that my mission field is right here.

The man I work with grew up in a Christian home, so he knows just about everything there is to know about Christianity. I asked him what his views are and he said that he does not care if God exists or not. So, I guess he would be labeled an apathetic agnostic.

I then got this vision of seeing him in Heaven, but not in the good sense. I was picturing death and hades giving up its dead, the damned bowing down, and then burning in the lake of fire. He was among the damned.

Brothers and sisters, my heart is bleeding for this man. I have never felt so much anguish and pain for one person before. Please, please I beg of you, pray for this man. Pray that Satan's darkness will be lifted from his heart, and the gospel will permeate his entire being. I do not want to worship in Heaven without him.

Y'all come back now, y'a hear?

Every summer, my family visits my grandparents in Kentucky. It is always a great time catching up, telling funny stories, and just relaxing in the relaxing pace of the South. One of our favorite pastimes is going to yard-sales. There is something that is so rewarding knowing that you are paying so much less for other people's junk than what they paid for it.

Our yard-saling adventures have taken us all over Marshall county, Kentucky. We have been to trailer parks, homes by the Kentucky lake, farms, and developments. There is one yard-sale that still sticks out to me.

We were following our map, my granddad as our navigator, into what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. This was the only place I have ever seen that actually marked its dirt roads with street-signs. After sliding our way through the muck that had to rival the jungles of Nicaragua, we came to a house with a sign that said, "yard-sale out back." We all stepped out of the car, careful to not step in any hidden animal feces and possible remains of beer cans. We headed to the back yard and there was a family of three, lackadaisically welcoming us to their sale. They had a few tables set up with the normal yard-sale items: Clothes from the '80s and computer games compatible with Windows '95. Placed behind the sale were cages with mutts and all sorts of other animals, like pet squirrels and jackalopes. The Father was smoking a cigarette as he leaned over and told his son, "He Bo, why don't you show them the boa?" Bo then brought out their snake and my fiance, Steph, pretended not to shriek as she hid behind me.

I then found a rack of books they had for sale. I looked through them until I found one that surprised me senseless, "Christian Counseling."

The wife saw that I was looking at it and said, "We used to be pastors."

They then went on to tell me that they used to be pastors in Tennessee. They explained their calling, and their call to leave. They gave me tips on how to minister, and how to not minister. They decided to give me whatever books I wanted for free.

I learned a valuable lesson that day. Never assume anything about anybody. They just might surprise you.

The Fear of God

A few of my close friends got into a debate yesterday over the topic of fearing God. This inspired me to write about some of my own views concerning fearing God.

The first issue is the need for pre-salvation fear of God. I cannot elaborate on this too much, because I believe that all that is required for salvation is faith and repentance. God saved me as a sinner of four years old. At that young age, I did not fear God. I knew He loved me, and I loved Him. I knew that I was a sinner destined for Hell, but I did not even understand that Hell was His judgment. Therefore, based on my own experience (for I do believe I was truly saved at four), I would say that you do not need a fear of God to be saved.

The next issue is the definition of fear. The main argument is literal fear versus respect. I believe that the Bible does command us to literally fear God. Many people do not like to view God this way because they believe it takes away from his grace, mercy, and love. On the contrary, it leavens them all.

When I was a child, I had a healthy fear of my father. My father was not abusive in any way, but I knew that if I disobeyed him, a spanking was a'comin. I knew he loved me, and I loved him. I called him Daddy, and he called me Buddy. He loved me, but there was judgment when judgment was needed.

God is not a teddy-bear. He is the Almighty that destroy nations with a word, but He also decided to love you. May we never test God on this. God is like a bull dog that will break you to pieces, but He will use those pieces to create a masterpiece.

I would like to leave you with a personal experience of my own. There was a moment that I was being tempted to sin. My flesh and the temptation seemed to overpower my conscience. When the temptation was reaching its strongest, the thought of God's disappointment flashed through my mind. I thought, "I really do not care if God is going to be mad or not." As soon as I thought this, an overwhelming fear enveloped me because I realized what I had done. Was this fear simply from a respect for God? No. I know His true power, and the sin unto death is real. Let us not test the murky waters of God's wrath. He saved us, and we need to obey accordingly.

Keep the Faith

Faith is a word used in two major ways. The first is the idea of belief in the unseen. The second way is synonymous with religion. No matter how you use it, it always has the feeling of believing in something without doubt. This idea of faith goes beyond religion.

During the Age of Reason, many wise (yet, boring) philosophers spent their lives trying to understand truth. They wanted to logically create models for truth that could not be torn apart. One of the ideas that came out of this age is "cogito ergo sum: I think, therefore I am."

Cogito ergo sum is a doctrine of philosophy that goes a little something like this.

I cannot prove anything. I must doubt all that I experience. Everything that is happening to me could be an illusion, and I would have no way to argue that it is not. I must doubt everything. I doubt my sight, I doubt my feelings. Finally, when it comes down to it, all that is left is that I am thinking. When I doubt that I am thinking, I am still thinking. I am a thinking thing. I know that is truth.

With that philosophy, everything else in this universe is built on faith. I have the faith that my senses are not picking up an illusion, and my surroundings are real. Right now, I have the faith that I am at a computer, typing away and watching the letters appear on the screen. I do not know it for sure, but I do have the faith that it is happening. You have the faith that you are reading this. Now that you have faith that your senses are experiencing reality, you must have the faith that the information you are receiving is true.

All of history is believed on faith. None of us were there when Julius Caesar was assassinated, but we believe it without doubt, because we have faith in history. We have no choice but to believe it. Even scientific data must be believed by faith. Some of us have the faith to believe that we as humans are putting enough carbon dioxide into the air to melt the polar ice caps. Others (like myself) would first believe in the abominable snowman before accepting that bologna.

When someone says that you can only have faith that Jesus Christ rose again from the grave, make sure they understand that you have to have faith to believe anything. For reality itself is not simply accepted as truth without going through the soul's filter of faith.

Evangelogical

At my college, we have chapel three times a week. Luckily, being a commuter, I only have to go once a week. The infrequent attendance keeps chapel fresh for me. Everyone knows it is time to begin chapel when one of the Poorman sisters starts playing an instrument, and the rest of the band joins in. By the second song, people are really getting into the worship. As I look around, I see many people with their hands in the air, their eyes closed, and just praising God for all they are worth. I look at them and think, "This is really nice. I like to see people praising their creator." I think it is nice that they can get into the worshiping mood by listening to the music, because I am a musician and cannot.

You may be thinking, "Now hold up. That does not make any sense. You are trying to tell me that because you are a musician, the music does not move you?"

That is exactly what I am telling you.

As a musician, I understand the dirty little tricks that musicians play on peoples' psyches in order to make the listeners feel all bubbly and emotional inside. When I hear a song, I dissect the music, and it does not have the simple beauty that the other people are hearing. Picture Neo after he comes back to life in the Matrix. He sees everything in the code of the Matrix, as opposed to the illusion everyone else sees.

I find moments of worship in another way, a trusted way. When I am alone, I read the Bible. When I find a phrase that should be awesome to me, I contemplate it for a while. After I read it about a dozen times, key turns over the ignition in my soul, and I am overwhelmed by the truth that I am reading. Everything else fades away. My worship comes from reason. Sound boring? Sorry, but I guess I am not much of a romantic.

My Christianity is rooted in the word, and thinking about it intently. I worship God as an Evangelical that contemplates the word with logic. Therefore, I call my form of Christianity, Evangelogical.

If someone else has already coined this phrase, please tell me. I do not want to go on thinking that I came up with it if I have not.

Existence of God proven

The old version of proof for God's existence is the analogy of wind. You cannot see the wind, but you believe in it. This argument can hold up for some time, but eventually the other party will realize the apparent flaw in the analogy. Though you cannot see the wind, you can still experience it via touch. It is experienced by a sense. They would say that you cannot draw the analogy because a person cannot experience God by a sense (sight, taste, touch, hearing, smelling). I have thought about this for a while and thought of an argument to the opposing side's argument.

Man was created in God's image. That is one belief that is nearly a fundamental in the Christian world. The hard part is figuring out what it means. I have heard it said that we have emotion, and that separates us from the animal kingdom. The problem is, that animals also experience emotion. You know when your dog or cat is angry, scared, or happy. Science has even observed what seems to be "love" in chimps. Therefore, I do not believe that emotion is the quality that makes man an image bearer of the creator. What separates man from the animal kingdom is passion (worship), and unpredictable will.

If emotion is not a spiritual, image bearer act (though it can be fueled spiritually), it must be a physical phenomena. No doubt our emotions are light-years ahead of any other animal, but they still have their roots in the brain for the use of primal protection.

If a person is experiencing great trial in his life, he will be distraught. If his wife left him, he lost his job, and his home, it would seem that all hope is lost. But when that man has the emotion that everything is going to be all right, we call that 'God.' It is a spiritual, miraculous intervention from God Himself in the physical aspect of emotion. There is no way to disprove that it happened if it is a personal experience by the man.

Thus, God is experienced by the physical realm.

Psalm 119, Beth.

In my pastoral ministries classes, I have been given the task of finding something wrong with me, and making it right. The process is what Dr. Ayers calls, "character contract." This semester, I have decided to focus on purity. Now, purity does not simply mean sexual purity. Purity means freedom from sin's contamination. But for me, I do want the emphasis of my purity to be in the sexual area, because I am engaged, and would like to get married without bringing baggage into our new life. The first assignment I chose for myself was to write three-point sermon on the topic of purity. Enjoy.

One day, I decided I was going to read the Bible. I quickly flipped to the Psalms, because I often overlook them. I generally avoid them, because I enjoy logical arguments--something for which Psalms is not exactly known. Ironically on many levels, my Bible flipped open to Psalms 119:9, which is the section of Beth, the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The section starts out with a question, "How can a young man keep his way pure?"

I recognized a three-step process presented by the Psalmist.

In verses 9-11, David instructs the young man to learn scripture; to seek after the truth in it with all force and diligence.

In verses 12-14, David speaks of praise. The praise is done by simply singing God's grace, or even teaching others the amazing love in the Law. If David can rejoice reading Leviticus, what excuse do we have for not praising?

Finally he concludes with verses 15-16. These verses speak of meditation. It is meditation on the Word that truly uploads the livability into our lives.

When the steps are completed, the result is purity.