Alone or Lonely, I am pretty sure everyone knows this word quite well. I don't know why this word has sprung into my life. Sometimes I think that the word or feeling is the word "meaningless." I will stick with Lonely for now. I was thinking about why God made us to eat food and get energy this way. As most of you know I have had a weird food thing for the past few years and my perspective on the subject has been quite skewed. Through a partial Revelation yesterday I think I truly understand a few very positive aspects of working for food and having to eat as often as we do. I really struggled with why God created us this way and in part still do. Questions like, why did God design us to grow the way we do? Why all the eating and processing? Why couldn't we just drink water or some thing like water that has everything in it that we need to grow? It would be abundant and easy to store and maybe only drink like once a day. Eating really is so time consuming. Then I came to feeling alone, or lonely. I thought if I could survive without food I could just go read and sleep and read and sleep or travel and sleep. Or I could just work on a project without interruption. I imagine a painter who doesn't have to put down his brush to go to the bathroom or fill is stomach. I imagine how much work he could get done and how.... you could get to a place where you are completely... and utterly....alone. Eating food keeps us together and in relationships. Working for our food provides even more relationships. If I were a farmer who sold goods from my farm. I would have to be unified enough with people and understanding enough to make the exchanges for money or other goods. It would cause me to get out, to interact with people and to join in community. Most jobs are like this and they teach us patients, love, and respect. As an artist I want to spend a lot of time alone making masterpiece after masterpiece but then I miss the very thing that I am making the masterpiece for. People, Relationships, community, they are all driven by Gods divine design of eating and growing. If it were not for this we would surely be alone. I think of times when I was a kid and I was bad and sent to my room. Heck I could have stayed in their forever if I had my magic nutrient drinking tap water but, I had to eat. Even now in this day and age I have to go to places that have food and mildly interact with people enough that I am on the shallowest level in community with them but I also have to be skilled enough socially to stay employed. I am convinced the community is balance from the need to work for food.
I can't help noticing all of the good things that God has created that I can't see. I drive around constantly alone especially on lunch and I have to remind myself that I am not alone even with cars and people walking everywhere. I have to think of my little pretend satellite that sees the world and its massiveness from a different perspective. Before, I used to feel so detached and alone and confused. Since Jesus came into my life I no longer feel empty emotion of loneliness. I am technically, physically alone but, I know God is there and always has been .
Now when I sin I feel alone, or separated from Jesus as if I was playing a video game and I was near the end and my sin my imperfection caused me to fall back a few levels further away from the end where Jesus is. This is bad theology because you are never alone and we don't get to have a relationship with God because of something we do but sometimes it feels that way.
My feeling of loneliness is usually like I said before accompanied by a feeling of guilt for a particular sin. In my mind the only way to not feel that way is to be forgiven by God repent of your sin and feel the affects of forgiveness wash away the loneliness. This loneliness leads us to Jesus and thanks to our Dads design we join in community with him and with others and feel that unconditional love we so long for.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Law
We constantly drive around thinking that the rules of the road are acceptable and when we get into an accident we go through the hassle and haggle of trying to justify what happened and if it comes down to it we go to court and there we stand and the judge listens to our case and gives the verdict. It seems to me like we accept the rules given by our government but when it comes down to Gods rules and commands we seem to think that no one is looking.
Slowly but surely I have found Gods Law to be perfect but not from some wise person telling me but from my own arrogant approach of trail and error. If you tell someone the ten commandments supposedly the laws are written on their hearts, and when they hear it they will feel convicted. But is that the Goal to make a person feel convicted, probably not. I noticed that it is very unencouraging when a person just tells you what you are doing wrong most people are well aware but if they are not the laws are a good place to start. Although it may be loving in a tough love way it seems to get me down and get me trapped in all the things I do wrong which when boiled down to where my heart is at, is almost always. I was told to do what other people have done to me that I liked. I like it when people don't constantly strike me with criticism and do the opposite the accept me and encourage the things that I do that are good. This I like. I was once told that if something is good then pay attention to it, later I found out that it was from the Bible Philippians 4:8. Gods law is good in fact its too good, I think that's the point, no one can fallow his laws, especially in their heart Jesus tells us. Ever since I read in proverbs where it says meditate on the law day and night I have been trying to think about where my heart is according to the law day and night and surprisingly its not where I think it could be. I have beat myself up for this but some wise folk that I know reminded me that we can not keep the laws they are too perfect too good that is why we need Jesus and the holy spirit Prayer and Worship to help aim us toward perfection and walk on a desirable path. When I meditate on the laws they can get me down and then the new covenant that Jesus calls us to be in is even more difficult because it is not only our actions but our hearts. I heard a preacher once say that if you look at the 10 commandments you will basically be looking at the new covenant, the old law was perfect back then, Jesus came to fulfill the law not make new laws like the Pharisees. The new covenant is the same just without needing to sacrifice animals for our sins since Jesus came as the supreme sacrifice. Gods law is good and therefore worth looking at day and night like King David said. What comes from the heart goes to the heart and I think his Son was given to us from his heart so he could be in ours. I think if you ask anyone if they can claim they have kept all of the 10 commandments they will surly say no if you ask a Christian I think they would say i am trying with Gods help. Ultimately the law pushes us back into the boundary of freedom that god ordained for us to exist in. When we disobey the law we get a ticket and go to court and when found guilty, pay the consequences and repent or change and go back to not breaking the law. The Law Moses delivered is even so perfect in every way every day I have noticed meditating on it that it is the biggest push for me to understand God with all of my heart mind and and soul because his love for you and me is so perfect and so huge that it keeps me consistently in awe and baffled how good it really is. Every Christian is a hypocrite not a single one of them can keep the laws that is why we hang so close to our faith in Jesus. In this massive croud of people we find ourselves without direction, seeking direction by fallowing the law or covenant leads us to Jesus and then he helps us find our safe boundary of true freedom that God has made for us in our fallen condition.
Nothing can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.
- Sidney J. Harris
Slowly but surely I have found Gods Law to be perfect but not from some wise person telling me but from my own arrogant approach of trail and error. If you tell someone the ten commandments supposedly the laws are written on their hearts, and when they hear it they will feel convicted. But is that the Goal to make a person feel convicted, probably not. I noticed that it is very unencouraging when a person just tells you what you are doing wrong most people are well aware but if they are not the laws are a good place to start. Although it may be loving in a tough love way it seems to get me down and get me trapped in all the things I do wrong which when boiled down to where my heart is at, is almost always. I was told to do what other people have done to me that I liked. I like it when people don't constantly strike me with criticism and do the opposite the accept me and encourage the things that I do that are good. This I like. I was once told that if something is good then pay attention to it, later I found out that it was from the Bible Philippians 4:8. Gods law is good in fact its too good, I think that's the point, no one can fallow his laws, especially in their heart Jesus tells us. Ever since I read in proverbs where it says meditate on the law day and night I have been trying to think about where my heart is according to the law day and night and surprisingly its not where I think it could be. I have beat myself up for this but some wise folk that I know reminded me that we can not keep the laws they are too perfect too good that is why we need Jesus and the holy spirit Prayer and Worship to help aim us toward perfection and walk on a desirable path. When I meditate on the laws they can get me down and then the new covenant that Jesus calls us to be in is even more difficult because it is not only our actions but our hearts. I heard a preacher once say that if you look at the 10 commandments you will basically be looking at the new covenant, the old law was perfect back then, Jesus came to fulfill the law not make new laws like the Pharisees. The new covenant is the same just without needing to sacrifice animals for our sins since Jesus came as the supreme sacrifice. Gods law is good and therefore worth looking at day and night like King David said. What comes from the heart goes to the heart and I think his Son was given to us from his heart so he could be in ours. I think if you ask anyone if they can claim they have kept all of the 10 commandments they will surly say no if you ask a Christian I think they would say i am trying with Gods help. Ultimately the law pushes us back into the boundary of freedom that god ordained for us to exist in. When we disobey the law we get a ticket and go to court and when found guilty, pay the consequences and repent or change and go back to not breaking the law. The Law Moses delivered is even so perfect in every way every day I have noticed meditating on it that it is the biggest push for me to understand God with all of my heart mind and and soul because his love for you and me is so perfect and so huge that it keeps me consistently in awe and baffled how good it really is. Every Christian is a hypocrite not a single one of them can keep the laws that is why we hang so close to our faith in Jesus. In this massive croud of people we find ourselves without direction, seeking direction by fallowing the law or covenant leads us to Jesus and then he helps us find our safe boundary of true freedom that God has made for us in our fallen condition.
Nothing can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.
- Sidney J. Harris
Monday, March 31, 2008
Consequence
Con se quence
1.the effect, result, or outcome of something occurring earlier: The accident was the consequence of reckless driving.
I have had trouble with my words lately but this one seems to be at the top of the list. God does not promise that he will take away the consequence of our sins he just says that he will forgive them. This is a very hard truth for me to swallow. I have been thinking about it for many days now. Over and over I keep thinking why won't God take away the consequence as well? If I truly am sorry and I truly repent, I feel the peace of the forgiveness of sin and then in some form or another I have to get ready for the consequence. It is interesting how God uses these consequences justly and perfectly to bring us back into relationship with him. For example if you sin and ask for forgiveness repent and then become sick because of the particular sin then you seek God to save you from suffering. Suffering is looked at by authors like Paul as an accomplishment. Its weird but I can see how Getting through a time of suffering caused by a consequence could feel like an accomplishment because now you will be closer to God. Yet that does not mean go out and sin and you will get closer to God. I have realized that I have committed every sin out there at least in my heart. Now it seems like it is a slow processes of figuring out what sins I have committed or what sins I am committing and repenting and then, going through the suffering of the consequence thus bringing me to my knees and bringing me closer to God by depending on him through the suffering. We can all chose to end the suffering in some instances or prolong it but I think a way to really mature in our faith is to face the suffering head on as if it were the race and at the end there is feeling of an accomplishment. This is one of the Biggest Bottlenecks to Jesus I have found yet.
1.the effect, result, or outcome of something occurring earlier: The accident was the consequence of reckless driving.
I have had trouble with my words lately but this one seems to be at the top of the list. God does not promise that he will take away the consequence of our sins he just says that he will forgive them. This is a very hard truth for me to swallow. I have been thinking about it for many days now. Over and over I keep thinking why won't God take away the consequence as well? If I truly am sorry and I truly repent, I feel the peace of the forgiveness of sin and then in some form or another I have to get ready for the consequence. It is interesting how God uses these consequences justly and perfectly to bring us back into relationship with him. For example if you sin and ask for forgiveness repent and then become sick because of the particular sin then you seek God to save you from suffering. Suffering is looked at by authors like Paul as an accomplishment. Its weird but I can see how Getting through a time of suffering caused by a consequence could feel like an accomplishment because now you will be closer to God. Yet that does not mean go out and sin and you will get closer to God. I have realized that I have committed every sin out there at least in my heart. Now it seems like it is a slow processes of figuring out what sins I have committed or what sins I am committing and repenting and then, going through the suffering of the consequence thus bringing me to my knees and bringing me closer to God by depending on him through the suffering. We can all chose to end the suffering in some instances or prolong it but I think a way to really mature in our faith is to face the suffering head on as if it were the race and at the end there is feeling of an accomplishment. This is one of the Biggest Bottlenecks to Jesus I have found yet.
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