Coercing Greed

"Some people feel a spiritual kinship to being stewards of creation, but in this debate (as in many others) Mammon trumps God. Human beings change their behavior only when danger is imminent or when there is money at stake."

John Meacham - Recycling Won't Save Us but Greed Might, Newsweek Nov 9, 2009.

"The sky is falling and no one will care as long as it lands overseas."

Thrice - The Sky is Falling

It isn't hard for cynics on both sides of the God debate to poke fun at human nature. If there is one thing that we agree on its exactly that - that people overall are pretty pathetic at moral consistency, factual accuracy, personal responsibility, or whatever other objective standard we attempt to hold ourselves to. The difference, at least with this particular example, is in how we deal with it.

Meacham sets forth an interesting idea that has become all too common in our culture. Since we know that we cannot expect moral consistency to save us from the ills of the world (once communism, fascism, Muslim control of Jerusalem and now terrorism, ecological collapse, and economic exploitation), then we must appeal to our selves to save ourselves. the argument he sets out is perhaps flawless to the point of not being worth mentioning from a pragmatic perspective. If we cannot count on people's moral fortitude, lets use what we can count on - their lack of it. We know that people will seek self advancement whether we provide them an avenue for it or not, so we must simply make what is right and what is most profitable coincide.

The problem is that what is right and what is most profitable rarely, if ever, coincide. This is not to say that ethically or spiritually responsible advancement cannot occur, or to claim that when Christ commanded us to take up our crosses that He envisioned an army of itinerant beggars. To claim such would in its own way undermine the Gospel, as we preach what Christ brings to us, not what He commanded us to take from you.

Christianity would claim is that its almost always more materially profitable to take for yourself than to work for the good of all. Yet, if God seeks to bless us in both this world and the next then how can this be so? Likely, because we live in a system that rewards (and truly, we always have rewarded) the largest accumulation of either wealth or power or both. Men have always sought to be their own gods, and I think that God Himself likely allows this to be so, if only to show us the morally and spiritually bankrupt ends that "me by any means necessary" will invariably produce. "For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? (Matt 16:26)"

It becomes a question of what we ultimately value. We can either love God and each other and profit because that love is valuable and commendable, or we can seek profit for its own sake. To do the first embraces the idea that: "we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him. (Romans 8:28)" The second embraces something much crueler: "the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short (Hobbes - Leviathan)." This is the choice we are presented with: either righteousness for the good of all, or advancement for the good of me.

We have come to accept that if doing what is good is hard, then we will not do it by nature. This agrees with the Christian world-view and should not come as a surprise. However, to assume that we can achieve what is good by making moral choice easier or by making it profitable is untenable. Afterall, how many of us give the dollar a day to feed or clothe third world orphans, and do any of us think that if it were only a nickel, that our minds would suddenly be changed?

Appealing to the baser nature of man to save the planet is doomed to failure, because that part of us will always look at it as: "that is nice, but if I wasn't green then I could have more." Only social coercion or genuine moral choice will ultimately face and deal with the distinct possibility that we are making our environment uninhabitable.

Christianity would argue that the latter is both more effective and more satisfying. As Meacham points out, the choice is eternally between God and Mammon, but unlike Meacham, Christ refuses to let us have it both ways. We may be blessed beyond measure in taking up our crosses, but we cannot prop them up with stock portfolios. Instead we are asked to choose forever the masters of our hearts - God or Mammon, but certainly not God through Mammon.

If we as a society attempt to skirt this choice in our moral and spiritual lives we will only find that Mammon is an eternal opportunist, far more skilled at twisting our intentions than we are at manipulating him.

The heart is deceitful above all things,
And desperately wicked;
Who can know it?

Jeremiah 17:9

Singing of a Violent, Tireless Mystery

And as Moses Lifted up the Serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only beloved Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

John 3:14-17

As I look at this blog I realize that it really has been some time since I posted here. Much has happened since then, changes in jobs, in churches, in life and in friends. Most everything has been for the good, and I can truly say that God has allowed me to see both some heinous and wonderous things of late. The most noteworthy being the new life of an acquaintance (conversion is not an adequate word to describe it) turning friend that can only be characterized as miraculous. It is these events and the tumults and conversations they have started that have led me back here with the intention of posting something. Yet, I want it to remain something simple and elegant, and that in turn leads me to John.

John 3:16 is possibly the most quoted verse of the Bible. I remember having it etched into my brain at the age of 12 at Tabernacle Christian Academy. They had painted the verse onto the walls of their lunchroom, and by seeing it day in and day out it probably became the first verse I ever memorized. In fact, memorized to the point that it stripped the verse of all meaning, and to this day I have trouble quoting the verse by itself. Something about it feels cheap.

Yet, that singular verse is likely among the most important in all the Biblical account, and shows us the most about the nature of God. "For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten (beloved) Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." So much meaning packed into such a small package, so much in fact that it can often be overwhelming. In that singular statement uttered to a confused Jewish Priest looking for legal retribution Christ defines all that is true and has ever been true of God, and turns most all Jewish expectations of the Messiah on their head.

In it we see a God who has been seeking and planning since the beginning to bring man back into fellowship with Him, despite all that has been done and all that will be done. A God who shows mercy to all that will have Him, beginning with Enoch and Noah, and moving on through Moses, David, Peter, and Paul, and picking up prostitutes, Egyptians, Syrians, and Queens of Sheba along the way.

This is the God that Christianity worships. One who, though He continually demands that we acknowledge justice and our lack of it, never demands that we hold a standard we cannot achieve. One who, when our weaknesses finally show us incapable of following Him, comes to us incarnate, in the flesh, and dies at our hands to save us. He does not do this because it is easy, or because it gives us hope or a nice fairy tale, but because we have agonizingly proved that we cannot save ourselves and that has broken His heart.

In this hope we are justified, in this act we are saved from the tyranny of our own creeping mortality and gnawing resentemente'. By this sacrifice we are given again the ability to approach God as the sons and daughters that He has long sought to have, that indeed Christ may be: "the firstborn among many brothers." (Romans 8:29). That brotherhood is what we rejoice in, and what we ought to remember when either the cares of this world or doctrinal technicalities occupy our souls.

Thought I must be dead or dreaming
When my captain still battered, betrayed
Pulled me up, laid me over the beam he clung to
Breathed his last and sank under the waves

Your body is a bridge across an endless sea

Thrice - The Great Exchange

A New Direction - An Introduction

We in the modern church place a huge amount of emphasis on doing. We have programs, dinners, we go to shelters and create groups and on and on. All of these things can be good, and often have good results, but they also often come dangerously close to transforming Christianity from a spiritual movement into a cultural one. It seems that the modern Christian's expectation is to move from conversion and bestowal of the Holy Spirit to immediately "winning" entire rooms or stadiums for Christ. We want spirituality, but we want it quick, we want it easy, and eventually we want it to come along with all of our normal creature comforts.

In a way its extremely understandable, I've felt similarly myself for much of my early time as a Christian. Suddenly, we feel that everything is changed and we need to immediately run out to write the song or start the group or sing in the church that will convert the lost and turn our society into a shining city on a hill that testifies to the awesome power of God.

So why do I (and not just I) say that this is an attempt at the short-cut to spiritual power? I think the answer lies in our understanding of Christian life and often our lack of adherance to it. We too often understand our faith on the most shallow of terms. As wonderful as the initial experience with the Spirit can be, it is just that - a singular experience. Tozer points out that we don't expect to have a singular phone conversation with someone and know them intimately, but yet we expect that after a singular encounter with God we can part waters and pronounce His will. It is not that much different from the soldier who picks up his first rifle and thinks he's going to win a war. It is the result of an admirable courage running headlong into a pronounced lack of experience, and in the flesh we call this naivete. It is on this subject that Tozer's writings and sermons become strangely prophetical. He found that even in his day Christians relied too much on the spiritual equivalents of quick fixes and 5 step plans. In one sermon he stated that we looked at the Holy Spirit like an Ovaltine commercial - it would give us a quick boost in the morning and help sooth us to bed at night.

If the comparison of the Spirit of the living God to Ovaltine disturbs you, good. It ought to. It is a trite comparison for what has become the superficial treatment of our greatest asset (possibly our only asset) as Christians - our fellowship with God. If the nature of the fall is indeed the seperation of man from the divine nature, then new life in Christ as cultivated by our relationship with the Holy Spirit is our redemption. Through it we can come to know God more intimately than even Moses and the Prophets, for what they saw with their eyes we can feel in our hearts.

However, if we think that we can be creatures of flesh one minute and then be instantly transformed into perfect spiritual mediums of the Will of God, then we have likely magnified ourselves. Yet again, relationships take time, and the one we have with God is no exception. God is indeed all around us be we have trained ourselves not to hear. This has lead many of us to a kind of half hearted Christianity, where we base our faith on already having all that there is to have spiritually, and thus we eschew the world and preach the gospel. Problem is that without the deeper searching for God we cannot know the things that would lead us to inner peace apart from what this world offers. We become trapped because we refuse the pleasures of the world but we don't know how to cultivate the joy of the Spirit.

This is not the way that God intended us to be, and the knowledge of that fact is enough reason to move away from such half-heartedness. But where do we move to? The answer to that is both wonderfully freeing and wonderfully singular. Simply towards God. Bend the knee, bow the head, knowing that the simple intention of better understanding our Creator is something that He delights in. No human frailty, no sin, no weakness of spirit is too much for God to overcome. the only responsibility we are given is to seek, to look longingly for a better understanding.

"Lord, teach me to listen. The times are noisy and my ears are weary with the thousand raucous sounds which continuously assault them. Give me the spirit of the boy Samuel when he said to Thee, "Speak, for thy servant heareth." Let me hear Thee speaking in my heart. Let me get used to the sound of Thy Voice, that its tones may be familiar when the sounds of earth die away and the only sound will be the music of Thy speaking Voice. Amen."

A. W. Tozer

Humble Yourself

I'm going to take a few minutes to write what may be one of the only posts that ever coincides with what being taught concurrently in my church.  It has become very easy for us as Christians to become wrapped up in guidelines, signposts, and definitions.  We can easily become defined by what causes we support or what books we do or do not read or our personal standards of righteousness.  There is nothing wrong with setting standards to be sure, but we have to be very careful not to change the message of Christianity from joy to an ideological prison.  

This is not to say that all preaching or all theological or spiritual discourse should be upbeat and peppy; that would also lack authenticity.  What it does mean is that whatever we preach, advocate or share should always have something to offer people.  The message of Christ should always carry a sense of joy and possibility.  As Lewis describes: 

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

Too often we lose sight of this.  Instead of a joy our faith itself becomes a negative thing, something that we qualify by what we're not doing, how bad we haven't been.  "I didn't yell at anyone today", or "I haven't lusted after a woman in awhile."  When and if we begin to think these things unbelievers are right to point out that our faith has become petty and useless.  There is very little power in simply refraining from active evil.  

Rather, the spirit of God that is in us is something that is meant to give life - to reconnect people with God and divine purpose, and in the process illustrate how small and petty our personal attempts at fulfillment are.  It is not something that is meant to be hoarded or that can be nurtured by self-interest, fear, or bitterness.  Instead we need to be willing to have compassion and to give of ourselves without the fear that we'll be somehow taken advantage of.  What exactly can man take from us that God cannot return to us and multiply?

But at the same time, our resistance to this kind of ministry is often based in our experiences.  Either someone used our compassion or we thought so large that we ended up doing nothing.  Personally I've struggled with both.  To the first, the best answer is probably what has already been said:  If showing compassion and having mercy (going out of your way to help those who are afflicted) is a kind of ministry, then what do we stand to lose from doing this?  If it is something that you have been molded for then God will support you in it.  This is not to say that your compassion will not be tempered with experience; we will all learn better ways to use our gifts and sometimes its best to withhold what someone wants so that they can discover what they need.  It is not always best to give your child their new toy, at some point they must earn it by making a contribution and regarding their fellow man.  Taking the time to teach this sort of principle is also an act of compassion.   

As for the problem of thinking too large, it's likely a problem many of us suffer from.  I want to join the peace corps, but I should really spend more time at the homeless shelter first.  One of the things that we keep echoing around the church is "find something small to do and do it well."  This is generally true, because what you're looking to cultivate is not a great work but an attitude of humility and service.  The former of those glorifies you, the latter glorifies God.  And that is the far better place to be.  

Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: 

to visit orphans and widows in the trouble, and to keep oneself 

unspotted from the world.

James 1:27

Primacy of Christ Part I

The problem with Christianity isn't that it has been tried and found wanting. 

It is that it has been found difficult, and left untried.

G. K. Chesterton

Many of us have bad experiences with Christianity, whether it be from a specific church or family member or ministry, or maybe even looking out on the Body of Christ in general.  To claim otherwise is to create a kind of immediate suspicion, the kind that seems to say that you're either naieve or hiding your head in the sand.  However, to assume that this speaks for the validity of Christ as the only faithful Son of God is really to misinterpret both Christ's message and the nature of Christian experience.  

On the rational level, Christianity is a religion based on the sheer divinity of Christ - the perfection of His example in both upholding the law and loving His wayward brothers.  When He chastises the Pharisees saying that they should have had mercy, compassion, and justice on top of their sacrifices and prayers He is able to speak because He upholds both.  This is rarely more apparent than in the Gospel of Mark:  When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things. (Ch. 6 v. 34).  This example carries more power in context, where the narrative shows this particular instance to have lasted roughly 12 hours and to have come directly after Christ attempt to have some time to spend with His disciples alone.

If we put together the unique aspects of each gospel account what we find is a teacher who baffles all standing authority with His dedication to righteousness, a servant who baffles all men with His willingness to deny Himself, and a man who extends mercy to everyone including His murderers.  And it is this combination that is the rational basis of Christianity; the idea that Christ surpasses men in all virtues.  His selflessness is not naivete, but dedication to the will of a Father who desires to bring all men back into communion with Him.  

However, it is in John that the power and purpose of Christ are really fleshed out.  Yes, all of the above things about service, righteousness, and caring are excellent virtues, and they help to raise Christ above the reproach of nearly every religious system.  But people somehow always seem to find a hole to use these virtues to transform Christ from the only living Son of God into an especially enlightened teacher, political figure, or what have you.  What we so often miss is that these things that Christ embodied are not simply qualities to be admired; they are living proof of  real communion with God.  One of Christ's running arguments was that no mere man could do the things that He advocated, and that this should convict us rather than motivate us.  Don't emulate, humble yourself.  

In the words of one RZIM pastor:  "Christ did not come into the world to take bad people and make them good, He came to take dead people and make them live."  It is in this statement that we see sin and human imperfection for what it is.  It is not the failure to uphold a standard or set of rules, if this were true then certainly someone in the Jewish legal authority would have gotten it right.  Rather sin is seperation from God, the gulf of willfulness that stands between us and divine blessing, purpose, fulfillment, and hope.  This is an idea that extends all the way back to the beginning of the Torah and Genesis, where our progenitors decided that they could take for themselves what they assumed God was not giving them.  

Therein lies the essence of sin.  It is not what you do, not a moral accounting of your actions good or ill.  Many Buddhists have moments of compassion and many Christians and supposed Christians have moments of indifference.  It is the assumption that my destiny is my own, that I can make myself happier following my own devices than God can with infinite love, wisdom, and power.  And truly, we are given the capacity to make our own choices and live our own lives, but at what price?  How many of us can actually say that we know what's best for ourselves?  The trails of mistakes, broken hopes, and forced choices we've all experienced really ought to tell us differently.  Further, what hope is there in trial and error?  I can avoid one mistake or two with the culmination of experience, but the frame of reference is still so limited.

Then there is always what might give us greater pause, what a former teacher of mine called slavery to our experiences.  That we can indeed become the culmination of the conditions or the lot we've been dealt or created for ourselves.  This is what Chesterton referred to as a man living in a box with the sun and stars painted on it.  A reality constructed entirely of our choosing, one which is created to justify how we have lived and one which we become increasingly wedded to for fear that our world will come crashing down and we will be left with nothing.  

This is the essence of seperation from God - a reality where God is replaced by either ourselves or our constructions.  It is an existence where we are truly the highest beings in our own universe because we choose what to accept or allow into our personal realities and what to exclude.  It is a world where we have infinite freedom to choose our beliefs but also infinite powerlessness to experience anything beyond ourselves; an empty and circular movement around our own egos.  

"Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, for they 

do not know what they are doing.

'And they divided up his clothes by casting lots."

Luke 23:34

Notes on Chesterton and debates with a Buddhist

If chance be the father of all flesh, 

Disaster is his rainbow in the sky.  

And when you hear: 

"state of Emergency, 

Sniper kills 10, 

Troops on rampage, 

Youths go looting, 

Bombs blast school!" 

It is but the sound of man 

Worshipping his maker.

Steve Turner

Perhaps one of the greatest stumbling blocks to faith for both Christians and non-Christians alike seems to be how we perceive God.  Who is He, what is He, what does He desire, and where do we fit in?  This is a very hard question for people to answer, partly because the minute we arrive at a definite conclusion we find ourselves flying headlong away from what we are trying to describe.  

Really though, do we expect any other result?  Is God a being that can be described or understood on our terms?  Chesterton writes that one way to answer the madman who claims to be God is by pointing out that he could only be master of a small and pitiful world.  Similarly, if our imaginations are adequate to encapsulate the creator of the universe, as tiny as we are, then we do have reason to lament.  

And yet this is a fault that all men share.  We try to define things to have power over them, any anthropologist will attest to that.  If we can tell you who God is, we can figure out how to please Him, and what we can get away with.  In this way we try to become gods ourselves by having an answer for everything.  As the classic dialogue between Einstein and Boehr goes: "God doesn't play dice."  "Don't tell God what to do."  The unfortunate side-effect is that we lose our capacity for wonder.  God cannot suprise us because we claim to know all that He is.  Reality becomes a small, encapsulated infinite circle.  Again, as Chesterton pointed out, the Christian is free to  believe that there is a great deal of order in the universe, but the materialist cannot allow even one fairy into his design.  

This is the biggest problem with most philosophies.  We are sold on the promise of absolute freedom to decide, only to become slaves to our decisions.  Once we draw our lines in the sand we cannot allow contrary possibilities to exist.  To do so would lead us back to uncertainty, and cause our carefully built castles to collapse into the ground.  But these are small worlds built by finite minds, and absolute certainty isn't a sane option for finite beings.  

I don't think that we'll find many people who would argue with these ideas up to this point.  Our culture as a whole seems to have accepted that if truth is not an illusion it is at least elusive.  The mantra is to learn to be content in nothingness, and often this is used to justify either complacency or hedonism - "eat and drink for tomorrow we die."  Frameworks that provide a greater surety are considered cultural constructions or the fairy tales that put us to sleep at night.  

Sometimes this is true, even of Christianity.  But what the sceptic misses here is that Christianity isn't a religion based on human capacity.  We do not seek God as a Buddhist seeks Nirvana or a Muslim seeks Allah.  God seeks us before we know Him.  Salvation neither from works or from faith but from grace, defined as the desire of God to bring all men back to Him regardless of their characters or mental abilities or whatever else we regard as valuable.  For us, God is not something that is inside our human potential, but a being that acts on our potential.  This is in fact far more merciful and freeing than contemplation or perception, because all it requires is surrender.  

I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; 

I was found by those who did not seek me. 

To a nation that did not call on my name, 

I said, 'Here am I, here am I.'

Isaiah 65:1

Joy Part 2

In the shuffling madness

Of the locomotive breath,

Runs the all-time loser,

Headlong to his death.

He feels the piston scraping --

Steam breaking on his brow --

Old Charlie stole the handle and

The train wont stop going --

No way to slow down.

Locomotive Breath - Jethro Tull

The last post on this subject concluded with the assertion that faith provides a measure of joy that transcends what the pleasures of this world have to offer us. Is there any proof for this, or is it just the byline of an often repressive and hateful religion? I think the answer is that it offers us everything, so long as we do not mistake the constructs of men for the promises of God.

The key to grasping the kind of joy offered in Christ is understanding that the temporal pleasures described in my last post are fleeting. They will pass. This is not debatable; wine, women, and song can only sustain a man as long as he is able to court them. Even if we manage to stave off our existential terror through our youth, the problem will come back to us eventually: who am i, where am i going, and what did all of this mean anyway? We cannot escape human frailty: "the fact that we do not know who we are or where we are going in this ocean of chaos." (Timothy Leary)

However, Christ can. He is not a man in history or mysticism who achieved transcendence; instead He brought transcendence with Him. What this means for believers is that Christ brings with Him an intrinsic joy that is not bound by transience. What we are given does not fade, it does not grow old. It is something given to us by God, who is a source that has power to add to us what we cannot find in ourselves. Going back to Lewis, why "[fool] about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us?" Consider that for a second. How far is it that we go for some small escape from boredom, misery, or our various insecurities? Yet here is the offer to take those issues off our back permanently for submission to what most of us ruefully admit anyway: the fact that we are unable to manufacture our own fulfillment.

If Christ offers us all of these things, can our faith really be called different?  Are we simply gorging ourselves on a mystical or spiritual high rather than a material one? I think the answer to this question lies in Christianity's insistence on a self-denial that seems so counter-intuitive. We are told that men must lose themselves to find themselves, and that those who would wish to become great must be the servants of us all. Not removed from the world, but rather consistently laying down our own interests, security, and comfort for that of our brothers. This is what distinguishes Christ among religious figures – His total dedication to those around Him to and beyond the point of death.

But it is also important that we realize that this dedication is not an end in itself. Christ does not dedicate Himself so fervently to the salvation of men simply for their own sakes. As Paul states: “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.” (Romans 5:7) I know that I am neither righteous nor good, and can give many examples to prove that point. Rather, Christ's dedication comes from the fact that all men are the sons of God, wayward sons most certainly, but sons nonetheless. This does not imbue us with any innate righteousness, it simply emphasizes that we are precious to Him and He seeks to draw us back into His presence. It is that presence which instills such a powerful sense of joy, and what gives men the ability to sing praises to God in the same breath that they are fed to lions in the Colosseum.

Thank you for reading, I'll hope to have another update ready this time next week. Until then, be well.

"Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give 

him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him 

a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know 

how to give good gifts to your children, how 

much more will your Father in heaven give 

good gifts to those who ask him!“

(Matt. 7:9-11)

Joy Part 1

One theme that tends to confuse us Christians more often than not is the Biblical conflict between pleasure and pain. At times our Lord promises us material and spiritual joy in this world and the next, then at moments He tells us to take up our crosses and those that remain faithful to the end will be saved. How do we reconcile the fact that the fruits of the spirit are peace, joy, and love with our understanding that we must lose ourselves in submission to God? It is this question that causes men like Lewis to balk at promoting Christ as an agent of happiness, because those seeking fulfillment are likely to find more immediate pleasure in a bottle of port. Yet at the same time, Lewis also wrote that God likely found our desires to be too small; that we often were "fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us."

So do we live lives of penance or joy? I think that the answer for me and many Christians is often both. The problem, as Lewis aptly points out, is our definition of happiness rather than a conflict within our faith. When happiness or joy are mentioned we all too often go immediately for those temporal things with which we try to sustain ourselves. We think of our lovers or our wives, children, careers, money, or just breaking our scores on Guitar Hero. All of these things can provide a measure of happiness, but all are also fleeting at best. We get old. Our loved ones die. Retirement sets in or our carefully planned investments implode in a moment of economic crisis. Further, all of these things come with unforeseen consequences. Spouses and families demand time and attention, and we exchange personal freedom for company and responsibility. Likewise a successful career can be very rewarding, but it can swallow our personal lives. More than one millionaire has ended life with a shotgun barrel in his mouth.

In American society we often try to solve these problems by double-dipping - we try to have things both ways. We want a successful career or the illustriousness of graduate school and the party life. We go through college working feverishly during the day only to throw ourselves into bars at parties at night and on the weekends. Our mantra is "do what you want, you only live once," or as the apostle Paul puts is: "Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die." ( I Cor. 15:32). This kind of life takes its toll, either by exhausting us, reducing us to machinations, or making us immune to the needs of our fellow men.

Does Christ have an answer for this problem, or will Christianity force us to submit to what has become our greatest fear - missing out on some pleasure or opportunity in life? I believe that it does have an answer, and I believe that answer is that it removes the massive burden of our own fulfillment from our shoulders. Rather than trying to seek everything that might give us some fleeting pleasure, we trust God to deliver those things that will bring us lasting joy. In fact that submission to Christ itself is the creation of joy by reconnecting us with our creator.

For the sake of length I am going to end this post here. I'll be taking some time to expand on this idea in my my next post, and possibly try to address any comments or questions people may have. Until then stay well, and thank you for reading.

⁵If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. ⁶For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with,^a]">[a] that we should no longer be slaves to sin— ⁷because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

⁸Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. ⁹For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over Him. ¹⁰The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God.

Romans 6:5-10

Maiden Voyage

When i first decided I wanted to try to write a Christian blog, I though I would theme it on apologetics.  I imagined that I would use this as a vehicle to deal with questions, sharpen my own expository abilities and maybe even combat some common arguments.  Since then I have really come to think that was too arrogant a presumption to start a work for the Lord.  Instead, I want to try to take this in a more humble direction, as an outlet for the writing I already do on the Bible and Christianity on almost a daily basis.  

I would still welcome any comments, questions, or suggestions from anyone who actually too the time to stop by this page; honestly I'm honored that you'd take the time to read anything I wrote.  Currently I plan to try to make weekly updates, and for now I'm just going to focus on throwing some material out there and seeing where it goes - I pray that we can all be mutually edified by whatever dialogue ends up happening here.  Again, thank you for stopping by, and I'll have more material up shortly.