Tag Archives: experience

The Dark of Night

26 Monday Jul 2010

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God perceives the imperfections within us, and because of His love for us, urges us to grow up.  His love is not content to leave us in our weakness, and for this reason He takes us into a dark night.  He weans us from all of the pleasures by giving us dry times and inward darkness.  In doing so He is able to take away all these vices and create virtues with us.  Through the dark night, pride becomes humility, greed becomes simplicity, wrath becomes contentment, luxury becomes peace, gluttony becomes moderation, envy becomes joy, and sloth becomes strength.  No soul will ever grow deep in the spiritual life unless God works passively in that soul by means of the Dark Night.

–St. John of the Cross, as quoted in A Beacon in the Darkness

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The Unfortunate Reminder

20 Sunday Jun 2010

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Alert: this is another gut-level post. You’ve been warned.

So, I’m watching New Moon whilst drinking a Vanilla Coke.  And the scene just went by where Bella says something to the effect of, “the pain is the only thing that makes him feel like he was real.”  Edward has, immediately previous to this scene left Forks (where Bella lives) and removed all evidence he was ever there in her life.

Sometimes that’s what I feel like.  I once had a friend…my best friend.  I wasn’t attracted to him, but I loved him.  I would’ve moved half-way across the country for him.  I’d take a bullet for him.

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The Gospel Is Not Your Story

23 Sunday May 2010

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Many folks in evangelicalism who routinely ‘share their faith,’ go about telling their story.  They talk about how Jesus has saved them from this or that sinful behavior or thought pattern.  Some folks’ sin of choice involves alcohol, some are sidelined by homosexual behavior, others by drugs, anger, or nicotine.  Whatever they wrestled with before, they have the victory over now…all thanks to Jesus.

Here’s the problem: even if we are to grant that God has wrought such life-change through sanctification, this is still not the Gospel. Such life-change is potentially a fruit of the Gospel, but the Gospel and its fruit must never be confounded.  Someone recently asked me to summarize the Gospel.  Here’s what I answered:

That Christ, acting outside of me, apart from my will, died for me in history and that he rose again, giving me his righteousness which covers me like a robe would. His righteousness is always and always will be alien to (outside of) me.

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The Trouble With Attention

08 Thursday Apr 2010

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I’m just about as insecure as the next guy. I mean, I hold my own in a discussion, I conduct choirs and orchestras with a minimum of challenges, I speak in front of groups about the Bible with no trouble at all, I can even handle a classroom full of junior high kids for 80 minutes at a time.

But I’ve never gotten past the idea I have about my being physically undesirable.  It’s terribly difficult to put myself in situations to ask out girls (which I’ve done three times in my life, being shot down very recently without even as much as a second hearing).  I just never think any girl alive (or even guy for that matter) would ever want me. I would categorize myself as clumsy and awkward, even though most people would probably label me as confident.

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Churches and Gay Youth: A Response, part 3

18 Thursday Mar 2010

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The following post is a continuation of Part 1 and  Part 2 of this series, which references this news story.

John & Charles Wesley wrote and translated many wonderful hymns.

But their theology stank.

The idea that “Christian perfection” or “the victorious Christian life” or “walking in the Spirit” could actually happen this side of heaven is nothing but garbage.  It doesn’t confront the reality that Paul speaks of his life at the time of his writing Romans 7, not in terms of his pre-Christ state.  Romans 7, therefore, is the picture of a Christian…not one who “has not yet surrendered his life to Christ.”

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Churches and Gay Youth: A Response, part 2

16 Tuesday Mar 2010

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The following post is a continuation of Part 1 of this series, which references this news story.

Quoting Lucky Severson:

Pastor Heidi Neumark says that condemnation has led to outright discrimination. She says too many churches have created an environment where it’s okay to bash gays or lesbians or bisexuals or transgenders, known collectively as LGBTs.

In this, I would say that Neumark has a legitimate complaint. The types of jokes I’ve heard at churches, the types of references to gay individuals said with a sneer, even from a pulpit!…these are real things I’ve experienced myself.  This doesn’t mean that everyone who makes a joke or a derisive comment is liable to drag a homosexual behind his/her pickup truck.  I’m not nearly that paranoid.

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Churches and Gay Youth: A Response

13 Saturday Mar 2010

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This news story was brought to my attention by someone who was curious as to my reaction to it, so here are some thoughts regarding it.  As always, I welcome comments on my opinions but I ask that anyone who comments to take the time to watch the story and/or read the transcript at the link already referenced so that any discussion can be useful and productive.

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Getting to God sans Jesus

09 Tuesday Feb 2010

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I keep hearing all these awesome things about a guy named Henri Nouwen.  And then a while back  in my RSS feeder, I saw this quote from page 51 of his book, Sabbatical Journey:

Today I personally believe that while Jesus came to open the door to God’s house, all human beings can walk through that door, whether they know about Jesus or not. Today I see it as my call to help every person claim his or her own way to God.

Is anyone else who would consider themselves to be an evangelical a little disturbed by such a statement?  I want to get this book now and give it a good read so that I can hear his whole argument.  If this is ripped out of context, I’d like to see what that context is, because this doesn’t sound much like biblical teaching on this topic (John 14:6, Acts 4:12, etc.).

Yahweh Yireh: My Provider

03 Sunday Jan 2010

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I spent the evening with a dear friend and his boyfriend this evening.  I haven’t seen this friend in a very long time and it was wonderful to meet his boyfriend and get caught up on friendship stuff.  I have found that it is an excellent idea to let folks whom I love know that I love them unconditionally, whether or not I agree with their decisions, like their sins (because I am aware that I sin…a LOT), or think they could be more moral.  What I’m supposed to do is to call them (as myself) to repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Christ.

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