26 Sunday Dec 2010
Posted in Theology
From the Greek of Anatolius, Patriarch of Constantinople and a member of the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, A. D. 451. Translated by Dr. J. Mason Neale, 1862.
A great and mighty wonder
The festal makes secure
The Virgin bears the Infant
With virgin-honor pure.The Word is made incarnate
And yet remains on high
And cherubim sing anthems
To shepherds from the sky.
12 Sunday Dec 2010
Posted in Theology
This is probably my favorite Advent hymn. I love the original two verses by Wesley, but I especially appreciate the first half of verse 3, penned by Mark Hunt.
I’m a bit of a hum-bug about Christmas, but hymns like this really do prepare my heart (through the truth of the Gospel presented therein) for the celebration of our Substitute’s birth.
19 Tuesday Oct 2010
Tags
insecurity, loneliness, prayer, preaching, psalms, relationships, Scripture, sexual sin, worship
Psalm 88
I Cry Out Day and Night Before You
A Song. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. To the choirmaster: according to Mahalath Leannoth. A Maskil of Heman the Ezrahite.
1O LORD, God of my salvation;
I cry out day and night before you.
2Let my prayer come before you;
incline your ear to my cry!
3For my soul is full of troubles,
and my life draws near to Sheol.
4I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
I am a man who has no strength,
5like one set loose among the dead,
like the slain that lie in the grave,
like those whom you remember no more,
for they are cut off from your hand.
Psalm 88 has long been one of my two favorite psalms of lament. The other, a close second, is Psalm 13.
Today’s lament really started in earnest yesterday afternoon. I was driving away from school and there was a runner with an amazing body standing at the intersection that I didn’t just lust over…I was full-on envious.
Then this morning, I saw two or three guys who I find myself being very intimidated by at chapel. They seem very articulate and talented and like they’ll be good pastors. And they’re all really attractive on top of all of that. And they wear that attractiveness like it doesn’t really matter to them…they could take or leave it.
Oh, to be that bold. To have the security to hold one’s looks loosely in one’s hand like they seem to…it’s a pretty impossible task. How many idols have I just rattled off? Probably five or six.
I just feel very alone; I couldn’t really concentrate in Sermon Preparation & Delivery today…I sort of phased in and out on what the sub would say (though he had excellent things to say, and the stuff I did hear seemed very insightful). If there’s one class I never check out of, it’s Prep and Del. But I just couldn’t focus.
I unfriended someone on Facebook this morning. The past few times I’ve gone to his page to see what he’s up to, he and his cute boyfriend are all over the place. The guy himself looks like a model. I get that life isn’t fair…but like Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes fame), I ask, “but why can’t it ever be unfair in my favor?”
01 Sunday Aug 2010
Posted in Theology
I am made right with God
only by true faith in Jesus Christ.
Even though my conscience accuses me
of having grievously sinned against all God’s commandments
and of never having kept any of them,
and even though I am still inclined toward all evil,
nevertheless,
without my deserving it at all,
out of sheer grace,
God grants and credits to me
the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ,
as if I had never sinned nor been a sinner,
as if I had been as perfectly obedient
as Christ was obedient for me.
All I need to do
is to accept this gift of God with a believing heart.
When I say that by faith alone I am right with God;
it is not because of any value my faith has
that God is pleased with me.
Only Christ’s satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness
make me right with God.
And I can receive this righteousness and make it mine
in no other way than by faith alone.
—from Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A’s 60-61
And how do I accept this gift with a believing heart?
By the regenerating work of the Spirit. Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!
12 Saturday Jun 2010
Posted in Uncategorized
Great Creator, we thank You
for the gift and mystery of our bodies.
We thank You for the gift of loving sexual intimacy.
Forgive us the misuse and abuse of that gift:
For taking it too early, with the wrong person,
for replacing love with lust,
for separating concern from self-fulfillment.
Make us pure in love, discerning in passion.
Make us choose commitment over possession.
Christ Jesus, who came to reconcile and restore all relationships,
heal and restore our fragile or broken marriages.
In your name, Lord, we pray, Amen.
23 Sunday May 2010
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
experience, Gospel, homosexuality, music, Scripture, theology, witnessing, worship
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.
21 Friday May 2010
Posted in Uncategorized
Isaac Watts, the lyricist of such hymns as “Joy to the World” writes in this hymn of Christ, our sacrifice. The hymn contains all the necessary elements…confession of sin, assurance of pardon, indeed the Gospel itself.
11 Tuesday May 2010
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Why should we, as the gathered church, confess our sins, out loud, as a group? Many churches never do this and it seems very strange to even consider doing so. Some churches do it and congregants never really consider why they confess their sins publicly and privately in the course of a worship service.
The first blurb is from Reformed theologian John Frame…the second thought is from me.
24 Wednesday Mar 2010
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
A Hymn by Joseph Hart
Come, ye Christians, sing the praises of your condescending God;
Come and hymn the holy Jesus, who has washed us in His blood;
We are poor, and weak, and silly, and to every evil prone;
Yet our Jesus loves us freely, and receives us for His own.
24 Wednesday Feb 2010
Posted in Uncategorized
Gay and Evangelical 