Why is it that sometimes so many things happen in a day that it’s just overwhelming, and there’s really just no way for them to all be processed? It’s like a log jam or a bottleneck of life. Simply overwhelming and incomprehensible.

I used to think that all the things things that happened in a day had purpose and meaning. There was something being said in the succession of events and those particular moments that stood out for some odd reason. I used to spend hours writing about them in my journal attempting to discern and decipher their meaning. But these days, more often than not, if a day whisks by with its inundated load of meaning, it’s just gonna have to pass. There just seems like not enough time or energy to process things.

But reading my past journals made me realize how I’m still so similar in so many ways. I still write about similar things, I still somehow have the same perspective on things, and when I look at my old self now, I wonder why I wasted so much time being concerned about the things I’m still concerned about now. There’s a life to live, son. There’s more important things than the things I find myself wrapping my head around and trying to grasp with my own hands.

But even then, until now, I see the faithfulness of God. My 24 year old self was indeed shown mercy. Just as my 33 year old self is being shown mercy. Life might just be passing me by faster than I’d like, but there’s always going to be the need for me to be thankful and grateful for the innumerable blessings and even unrecognizable graces that I’ve received.

Coffee keeps me…

Coffee keeps me up at night, among many other things. When rest doesn’t come when it ought, when a night is missed and the day begins, and in helplessness I stay awake. The desired haven is only elusive only quenched and sought by its fragmented illusions. One day the illusive hope will fade, will be ever unquenchable, will die. A fragment a mere fragment! A god of deception, the father of lies.

What will be left? The stars arise, and the sun will shine, and I will be awake. Awake as if for the first time.

Dig deep and dw…

Dig deep and dwell deep. Superficiality is the great weakness of the evangelical world today. The skill in dramatic entertainment, which so many evangelical leaders are past masters in, does not make up in any way for the failure to dig deep and dwell deep in the realities of scripture truth and scripture logic.

Expect incomprehension from your evangelical friends. Superficiality doesn’t always recognize itself or its need to go deeper. Expect opposition from great sections of the church and furthermore from the secular community. Expect opposition to the emphases that you are seeking to make. Those emphases must be thorough going. They bust be found by digging deep and must be dwelling deep.

Fallen human culture is upside down at just about every point. Every aspect of it needs to be inverted in order to come right way up. The inversion will not be welcome to the people who think that they have already found wisdom and should rather be going on as they are going now. So be prepared to meet opposition.

Seek fellowship amongst those who share your vision of the renewal that the Christian world needs–even that the evangelical world needs. Recognize that spiritual truth and spiritual renewal are the primary things and that ecclesiastical matters come second. Then, the Lord will be with you, will bless you and use you.

 J. I. Packer

Walking in the Spirit

What does it mean to walk in the Spirit? It’s a far more important and significant part of the christian life than we realize. It also doesn’t mean just following the lead of the Spirit in our lives, but it means that the whole of our lives are centered in the Spirit. Paul says in Romans 8, that you either live according to the law of the Spirit or the law of the flesh, one or the other. So how does it mean to walk/live according to the Spirit?

1. Setting your mind on the things of the Spirit (Romans 8:6)

Setting your mind on something means to have the whole focus of your life committed to the things of the Spirit. It seems like a vague phrase but a couple verse to clarify that are:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Philippians 4:8)

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (James 1:17)

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)

What the Spirit does is that he draws us to the full reality of what God has done for us in Christ. Our minds and our lives must be set on the things of the Spirit, on the very things the Spirit himself is consumed with. In essence to be consumed with Christ, by his righteousness, by the justice and love of the Father, by all that is good. Our lives need to revolve around these things, or it is rather revolving around the way of the flesh, apart from God.

2. Put to death the deeds of the body (Romans 8:13)

Living in the Spirit means to actively put to death the deeds of the body. Actively putting to death the sinfulness remaining in our own lives. If you live by the Spirit, you will fight with the Spirit against your own sinful flesh. There’s a distinct difference, and no middle ground between who we are as Christians and who we are in our flesh. It’s not the idea of that there is some good in me and that I need to be only partially healed, or that only some parts of me need to be redeemed, but it is the whole of our being that is sinful, and the whole of our being needs to be transformed by God himself. Whatever that is of us that is not of God must be put to death. We cannot live according to the flesh, we must live according to the Spirit.

3. Suffering with Christ to be glorified with him (Romans 8:17)

Living in the Spirit means to suffer with Christ. To share in the suffering of Christ.

⁸ Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— ¹⁰  that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:8-11)

The suffering of the Christian life. Living in the Spirit, fighting the flesh, being separate from the world will inevitably bring suffering. Just as Christ suffered in this life, was not only killed, not only suffered, but was rejected in his suffering. Living in the Spirit means to not live for this world and the promises of this world, but to live for the kingdom of heaven. Willing to count everything as loss compared to knowing Christ (Phil 3:8). A distinct break from this life because the Spirit enables us to live for another life, so real to us that we are even willing to lose whatever we have in this life, even our physical lives because we so sure of the eternal life we have in Christ, that cannot be taken away.

It is a deep intimacy with Christ. To be one with him in this world is to share in the suffering of Christ.

4. Praying in the Spirit (Romans 8:26)

This verse is often used to show the groaning of the Spirit when we do not know how to pray our selves. But in the previous three points, we have to pray in the spirit because those things are so hard and difficult for us to do. With so many distractions in this life, how do we set our mind on the things of the Spirit? We groan because we fail to do this, “prone to wander Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love!” Putting to death the deeds of the body must feel like self mutilation at times, with little pleasure. It’s intensely agonizing. Dragon analogy from C.S. Lewis’ the Great Divorce.  Suffering with Christ, dying to the way of this world is immensely lonely, immensely painful. We groan through all of this. We must pray. It’s an agony that is beyond our own comprehension, but it is not outside of the comprehension of Christ. He himself bore this pain, he himself took on this suffering.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15)

Praying in the Spirit, with deep groans, the Spirit points us back to Christ himself. Not just back to the idea of the Christ, but the very suffering of Christ. We share in his suffering. It is the same essence, it is being united and in Christ. Just as he cried out on the cross, we cry out. Just as he resurrected from the dead, we also resurrect with him. Our hopelessness, our deep agony is answered by Christ himself.

The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:5b-7

The peace that surpasses all understanding, that transcends all understanding. The work of Christ on the cross. More than enough.

5. Confidence in the promise & goodness of God (Romans 8:28)

To live in the Spirit means to be confident of the promises and goodness of God. The way that we’re confident of this is through the cross.

He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? (Romans 8:32)

To live in the Spirit ultimately means to be so convinced of the holy love of Christ. The costly grace that demands everything from you because it is so good, the promise maker is a promise keeper. His words will not fall to the ground. He is not untruthful or a liar. Amazing love, Amazing faithfulness. The whole process. Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Do you know something of this love? Always set your mind on the things of the Spirit. Constantly put to death the deeds of the flesh. Suffer with Christ to be gloried with Christ. Pray with a raw honesty assisted by the Spirit. Be confident in the promise and goodness of God in Christ. It is either this or it is death. Do you know something of this?

It’s tricky. S…

It’s tricky. Sometimes I have to fall back on the purest yet rawest of truths, that I am a sinner saved by grace. And sometimes its like I have to understand/experience it again as if for the first time.

And then I wonder if I’ll ever mature beyond this, and then remember a John Story quote, that true maturity is one of dependence. At the very core of my being, at the barest subterranean rueful foundation, this is who I am. A sinner forgiven, and forgiven daily, forgiven always.
.

Psalm 3

1. The Threat

- Many are accusing that there is no salvation in God

- Vastly outnumbered, deeply immersed and surrounded.

Where Christians as in this world. The unnatural hate that the world has against Christians.  Ann Rice quote. Nietzsche? Anti-grace, the weakness and the shame of it. But to think of what Christians actually believe, in the world’s perspective it’s completely ludicrous. Our hope is not in natural selection, not in human rights, not in wars or peace treaties, not in universal education or health care, not in economic reality. It’s not in science or freedom of expression.

Even David here states that so clearly, those who are his enemies, those who rise up against him, they are those who say that there is no salvation for him in God. That God cannot save. That He has a false hope, that his assurance is a phony. The crass reality is that the Christian, in this world is vastly outnumbered. It might not seem like it in theory, we have a lot of churches around, we hang out with any number of Chrsitians, but go to a work place or a lecture and ask how many believe that the only hope for your soul to be saved can be found in Christ, and nothing else? And you would not find many people who would agree with you.

Christianity is not a popular position. Two places. All are lost and condemned. Only way to be saved is Christ alone. Every other hope and system is faulty, we do not put our trust in hope in it.

2. The Help

Despite all of this, David calls God his Shield (protector), his glory, the lifter of his head.

v. 3. Three things.

1) God as a Shield

- God himself is the one who defends David and protects him. Though thousands surround him, though people rise against him, it is god himself who watches over david, he himself who is his shield and defends him from all attacks. How has the church survived all these years? Been through all kinds of trials and difficulties. How did the church survive in the years of persecution, God himself who saves us.

2) God as our Glory

- glory as the object of honour, reverence and glorifying, כְּבוֺדִי Psalm 3:4 my glory (the one whom I glorify)

How do you honor or revere someone? You have to know who they are. The help is a God who reveals his glory to his people. David beholds God and then glorifies God because he know shim. When we sing praise songs, we’re meant to sing because we glory in God. We see and know him for who he is because he’s shown us who he is. The reason we praise him is because he’s shown himself to be praise worthy. Glory is a hard word to describe in English, what we get by it generally is something wonderful or bright. But when the bible speaks of glory, it’s more than just light, it’s a heavy weight, a mighty strength, and supernatural light. All something out of this world. A sure foundation, is the glory of God. The ability to overcome death is the glory of God. A light that shines in utter darkness, brings hope to the hopeless, is the glory, the unique quality that outshines everything. What happens to the stars, the moon when the sunrises? It outshines them all.

3) God the Lifter of our Head

A shield about me, my glory, both seem pretty distant. I imagine a huge shield covering over me. When I think of God’s glory, it puts me to shame and emphasizes my smallness. But God, the lifter of my head is a sign of great intimacy. There’s understanding in lifting up someone, encouraging someone, changing someone’s demeanor from being downcast, to look up in hope, something has to really change. In our discouragement, or lostness, in our distress, God is the one who lifts up your head and allows you not just to look at the circumstances in a different light, but more so he lifts up your head, your eyes, the whole direction of your life to look back at him.

“I cried aloud to the Lord, and he answered me from his holy hill. I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me.”

The hope that we live in. A God who hears us and intimately draws near to us. But why? Why does God do this?

3. The Salvation

The problem is that there’s such a thing called sin. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. When Jesus died on the cross he was surrounded by his enemies. Surrounded by the Roman soldiers doing the work they were unjustly called to do, the religious leaders surrounding him who called for his death, and even his disciples, confused, ashamed, and unable to rightly react to the suddenness of what’s happened. Our problem is, is that we are enemies of God. Psalm 51, David himself.

3:7, David cries out for Justice against his enemies. Had Jesus cried out against us what would happen? If God struck us on the cheek, and broke our teeth? But what does he rather say? “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”

When Christ hung upon the cross, the Lord was not a shield about him. The mocking and the jeering, the nails that tore his flesh and hung him on the cross. The thorns punctured his head, the spear in his side. He was not protected.

The heavens had gone dark. Where was God’s glory as Christ hung upon the cross? A supernatural darkness. The lack of glory in this.

And his head was not lifted. Does not see the face of God, but rather face death and bears the wrath of God.

And for what? Why does he do this?

v. 7. Becaue he will arise, because this is what saves us. This destroys all his enemies, this breaks the teeth of sin “Death is swallowed up in victory.” ” O death, where is your victory? O death where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 cor 15:54-57

v. 8. Salvation belongs to the Lord, your blessing be on your people!

We are saved from the midst of our enemies, we stand victorious in a sea of enemies deriding remarks, persecution, hate, disdain, etc. We suffer lose for their sake, we are broken for their sake, because that’s the way Christ loves us. In life, or in death, we are a people with true salvation. We are a people full of blessing.

___

Other application: 1. Christians being a shield and protecting others. 2. Christians displaying the glory of God through our speech and action. 3.  Christians intimately and personally lifting up the heads of the downtrodden and discouraged.

Christology

1. Christ as a shield above us. 2. Christ displaying the glory of God. 3. The intimacy of Christ.

dreams.

enlarged apartment  reoccurring dream, realizing apartment is bigger than i thought it was. going through old newspapers, cleaning out cassette tapes, throwing out old magazines. dust being everywhere. need to renegotiate. later realizing the apartment wasn’t mine? strange.

problems. also dreamt of an inconsistent ficb student who was going through financial difficulty, but more so had loaned $5000 from shady people and wasn’t able to pay it back and was worried for his own life. and the stresses and anxiety of it was eating away at him. I tried to figure out his story and said that the church would try to help him, but wondered how we would go about doing something that. 

ficb & family randomly ficb was preparing for some event, and the students were all getting ready for it. but i also realized that my family was visiting and were over at my apartment and we were supposed to get breakfast together. maybe ministry will always feel like that. the people you serve not really understanding what you’re giving up, or maybe it’s just me being up here, even wondering what i’m missing out on and even falling short on carrying out my responsibilities as a brother and a son (and now even an uncle).

living in the hood later i find myself living in the hood. probably had to do with reading generous justice. it was like living in the wire. i thought i was safe being near a police officer, but later it ends up that some runaway prisoners had the police officer hostage and find out later that they executed him. i should have known because the mexican gangsta actually gave me a small gun and told me to hurry up and get out of there.

thoughts. not too strangely these are all thoughts going in through my head. i was reading David Brooks’ The Social Animal before I went to sleep, and in the intro he speaks about how we attribute too much of our thinking to our cognitive thinking, when 90% of our thinking is beyond what we understand that we’re doing. we can actively be aware maybe of 40 decisions our brain is making when the brain is actually able to make millions of decisions a minute. not even sure if the dreams helped me process much cognitively, but hopefully it’s wiring stuff underneath.

I wonder now how is God going to lead me. 

O Lord, how many are my foes!
    Many are rising against me;
² many are saying of my soul,
     there is no salvation for him in God. Selah

³ But you, O Lord, are a shield about me,
    my glory, and the lifter of my head.
⁴ I cried aloud to the Lord,
    and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah

⁵ I lay down and slept;
    I woke again, for the Lord sustained me.
⁶ I will not be afraid of many thousands of people
    who have set themselves against me all around.

⁷ Arise, O Lord!
    Save me, O my God!
For you strike all my enemies on the cheek;
    you break the teeth of the wicked.

⁸ Salvation belongs to the Lord;
    your blessing be on your people! Selah

Psalm 3

I’m grateful for all those dark years, even though in retrospect they seem like a long, bitter prayer that was answered finally.

John Ames, from Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead

Sometimes I’ll talk about my “dark years” from about my junior year in college up until around when I was 27 or so. In retrospect, I’m also thankful for them, but I wonder now if a prayer was answered. If I’m honest enough, yeah, it was, but with more honesty, not quite yet.

And further honesty would have me say that I’m still in my dark years, but somehow attempting to just live with it. Like Jesus who heals the blind man and asks him, “Do you see?” and the man replies, “I see men as trees walking.” Until Jesus touches him another time and he seems clearly.

I can see, but I can see that things are still dark. And I can see that I’m still praying bitter prayers that are yet to be answered. I’m still not fully grateful yet. It must be hard to be grateful in the midst of trials and difficulties. But James reminds his own, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

I know I’m enduring, but so half-hearted is my endurance. I can scarce call it “long-suffering”, more like a dreary, gradual, uninspired suffering.

I’ve begun reading J.C. Ryle’s Holiness, and he states, “True holiness does not consist merely of believing and feeling, but doing and bearing, and a practical exhibition of active and passive grace.” I need to be more than I personally am, I need to be who I am in Christ, to become who the Spirit is working in me to become. and be humbled to daily repentance. Remembering again what this life is all about, what salvation is all about.

And to endure through the dark years, to continue to pray long bitter prayers, and hope for its answer, if by grace, not in this life, confidently in the next.

before it even begins. I can surmise how it’s going to end. Self condemnation & then repentance.

And now the end. You will have to die to yourself for them. The ones you look down on, the ones you despise, the ones you look at with contempt or frustration.  The ones you don’t trust, the ones who weren’t there for you, the ones who don’t know their left from their right, or their right from wrong. Judging passivity will not do. Speech without action is dead. Everyone wants to talk or discuss, but no one wants to do. Do.  Unashamedly do. Fight the good fight.

waking up on the white shores. When I wake up that morning, strewn across the white beach, it won’t matter if I’m young or if I’m old. It won’t matter if I’m well dressed or completely naked. And it won’t matter how I got there. When He comes around and picks up my pieces and proclaims with joy, This one’s mine! That would be enough for me.