The reminder of pain

Pain, we all live with it. Whether it’s emotional, physical, or spiritual, pain is probably the most common part of the human experience. Ever since The Fall pain has served as the constant reminder that something in our world is out of sorts, that things are not as they should be.

We can’t enjoy our playing our favorite sports because of arthritis; we hold back from giving ourselves completely to the ones we love because of some emotional wound, we distrust God because of some spiritual betrayal in the past. Pain is the silent messenger whispering to our soul that there is something about us that is corrupt and foul. We believe that we’re somehow of lesser value because of it. If it’s physical pain we’re ashamed that we can’t contribute more to society. Emotional pain leaves us feeling dirty and that we somehow deserved whatever it was that happened to us. Spiritual pain convinces us that God must not love us and that our darkest fears of being to sinful to be saved are true.

Pain points to the ugly reality of sin and death, while at the same time pointing us toward the glorious hope of Heaven and the restoration of our bodies to their original perfect, sinless form. That’s why we must learn to embrace it, not in a masochistic kind of way, but in a redeemed God glorifying way. We need to learn to use it to remind us that God has promised us perfect, sinless, bodies, hearts, and minds, and that pain now is a small price to pay for an eternity without it.

Oasis and The Gospel

“Some might say we don’t believe in Heaven, go and tell it to the man who lives in Hell.” – Oasis, “Some might say”

As some of you know I’m a big fan of the British rock band Oasis. Today Noel Gallagher, their lead guitarist, left the band after getting in yet another fight with his younger brother Liam who’s the lead singer. There’s a part of me that would love to pull out the Kleenex and play “Wonderwall” full blast. I’m going to resist that urge and instead use it as a springboard to write about something meaningful.

As I was talking (texting) with Jimmy about this I made the comment that they were gifted musicians but incredibly lost people, which he pointed out is the general story of rock n’ roll and that it makes him look forward to the day we’ll be in Heaven. As much as I love Oasis’ music, I love the prospect of spending eternity with Jesus an enumerable amount more than that.

In moments in my life where something shakes up my world to some degree, I find it’s often easier to see life in light of the reality of The Gospel and eternity. While I’m saddened by Oasis’ split, I’m reminded that it’s God who gave me my love for music because He loves me and wants me to enjoy His creation. Someday I’ll join a choir of millions singing creation’s most perfect love song, and the loss of one rock band will be a distant memory.

Markers along the way

I think it's important for people to have mementos from important moments in their life. Birth certificates, diplomas, wedding rings, these are all reminders of significant events in our lives. For Christians it's also important to have things that remind us of the times in our spiritual lives that God provided for us in unforeseen and amazing ways. We see this repeatedly throughout the Bible, especially the Old Testament. After their miraculous crossing of the Jordan river the Israelites set up a stone memorial to remind them of what God had done for them there. (Josh 4:20-24) In fact in the book of Joshua alone the Israelites set up seven memorials to remind them of important moments in their history. (Josh 4:20-24, 7:26, 8:28-29, 8:32, 10:27, 22:34, 24:26-27)

In my own life there are things that are markers of times God has worked, for, in, and through me. Anytime I see a Pizza Hut I'm reminded of my salvation and the joy and freedom I have in that. My charcoal and navy blue fleece is a reminder of my mission trip to Vietnam, what I saw God do there, and that I'm supposed to live as a missionary where I am. My newest marker (and the one that prompted this post) is the skyline of Denver and the Rockies. I was driving home last night from Buffalo Wild Wings and came over the crest of a hill and there below me was Denver. Between the street lights, the skyscrapers, and headlights, it looked like a giant living Christmas tree. I was reminded of everything God had done on my behalf for me to arrive here. An Air Guard recruiter so determined to fill slots that he looks through the IRR records to find people in those career fields, the only one in Colorado who does that. A new GI Bill that provides me with the income I need to live here. Putting me in touch with an Acts 29 church that's not even a year old yet, thus making it the perfect learning opportunity for me. Helping me find and sign for an apartment in less then a week that "just happens" to only be three and a half miles from where I go to school and church. Those are just some of the things I'm reminded of when I see the Qwest building, or The Flatirons. I smile, laugh, and thank God for providing for me far beyond what I deserve in spite of the fact that I never have, and never will, do anything to deserve it.

These are some of mine, I would encourage you to stop and take a few minutes to think about times God has moved mightily on your behalf and what some things are that remind you of that. Because there will be times that you'll feel forsaken and need those things to remind you that the God who was with you then is still with you now.

What is The Gospel?

I talk about The Gospel a lot in my blog but I haven't every really defined what I mean when I talk about The Gospel. Today I want to try to address the fact that I think most Christians aren't really sure what The Gospel is. This interferes with their ability to live lives centered around The Gospel, negatively affecting their children, and rendering them impotent as missionaries in their culture. Before I get to far into this post I want to make it clear that I'm a Calvinist and that my view of The Gospel and salvation stems directly my theology.

First we have to define what The Gospel is. I have to admit this is something I struggled with a great deal when I felt the Lord first calling me to church planting 2 years ago. Because of the people that I was reading and listening to, primarily Acts 29 guys, the common theme was The Gospel. I kept coming across things like; the local body of believers needs to be Gospel centered, preaching needs to be Gospel centered, mission needs to be Gospel centered, essentially everything that is done by Christians was to be centered around The Gospel. This sounded reasonable, the only problem was I didn't have a clear enough understanding of what The Gospel was to make any sense of what they were trying to say. I think it's important to point out that I've grown up in the church, sat under solid bible teaching for most of my life, and have a mother who is gifted at teaching children the concepts and doctrines of the bible. Yet, somehow, I was never taught The Gospel clearly and repetitively enough that I could clearly articulate it. I understood enough to know that it was more then simply doing certain things and refraining from participating in others, but I was unable to get much farther then that without getting confused. I continued to read and research what exactly The Gospel IS and how to explain it to myself and then to others. The quotes I came across that helped me the most are these three:

"The Gospel is: God has come to rescue and redeem creation through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ on our behalf." - Tim Keller

"For to Calvinism there is really only one point to be made in the field of soteriology: the point is that God saves sinners. " - J.I. Packer

"Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you— unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures" - 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 ESV


At it's core The Gospel is simply the fact that we're all sinners, living contrary to God's law, incapable of saving ourselves.(Romans 3:23) That our only hope of being seen as holy and perfect in God's eye's is through receiving His gift of salvation that was bought through Jesus' sinless life, His death on the cross in our place, and His resurrection from the dead three days later, forever defeating Satan, sin, and Death. (Mt. 27:32-50, Mt. 28:1-10, Rev. 19:11-21) Thus securing eternal life for all those He calls to Himself. (Romans 9:1-29)

So how does this affect us as we attempt to live lives based on this reality? Simply, one day Jesus will return and restore the world to it's original perfection. (Romans 8:19-23) In the mean time we are called to be agents of His kingdom here on earth proclaiming what He accomplished during His time here on earth, assisted and guided by the Holy Spirit in our actions. (Mt. 28:18-20, Acts 1:2-8) This means we should view our time, talents, and money not as ours but as tools given to us by our Heavenly Father for the advancement of His Kingdom. This means our lives aren't based on what's best for us, but what brings God the most glory.

I know one pastor who drills the idea that everywhere we go we're to be missionaries into his kids minds by having the following kinds of conversations with them on a regular basis:

"Why do we play in little league?"

"So that we can tell people about Jesus."

"And....?"

"To have fun and play baseball."

This is a brief overview of The Gospel and how it is to be intertwined with our lives. It's not a very good one (I think) so I would encourage you to order Tim Keller's study guide on The Gospel and have your entire family go through it together. Also, Ed Stetzer is a brilliant missiologist (The idea that we're to be missionaries right where we are) and has many excellent resources available that would be well worth your time to make use of.

I hope you've found reading this to be a profitable use of your time.

Gospel centered bus riding

Since I'm naturally interested in people and love to watch the way they interact with the world around them, riding the bus the last couple of days has been like Christmas on wheels. It's amazing what you can learn about people without them ever saying a word to you. Where they sit, how they sit, whether or not they strike up a conversation with the people around them, all these things can tell you a lot about someone. This morning for example you could tell that almost everyone on the bus was still trying to wake up. Almost all of them were wearing sunglasses so that it was easier to nap and several of them had mp3 players pumping background noise into their half awake brains. Shy people tend to sit as far from everyone else as possible, I actually saw one person sit on the edge of their seat just so they wouldn't have to sit to close to the person they were sharing the bench with.

Humans fascinate me. Since I'm a Christian and I filter all of life through The Gospel, I believe that all people reflect the glory of God and bare witness to some attribute of His nature, people watching isn't just socially informative it's also theologically informative. Obviously because we live in a fallen world these attributes and traits aren't seen in the same perfection and holiness as they exist in God but we can see a small glimpse of God in His creation. Joy, love, kindness, anger, community, compassion, and many other emotions and actions are all small flashes of His personality, like fireflies in a night sky. In the words of 1 Corinthians 13:12:

"For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known."

For Christians simply seeing creation through the filter of The Gospel isn't enough though, we must act to bring that creation into a correct relationship with it's maker. This is hard, thankless, unglamorous, frustrating, time consuming work that in the end may not bare any kind of visible fruit. Thankfully our charge isn't to see who can harvest the most fruit, but to simply work faithfully for the advance of The Gospel.

Boxes of light

Today was my first day of classes at Colorado University Denver. The campus is a very different place when school is in session. Between the three schools that make use of the Auraria facilities there are roughly 50,000 students. It makes you feel like you're part of a human ant colony. The classes I had today were the lecture and lab for Biological Anthropology and History of Immigration and Ethnicity. I don't think either of them are going to be easy but I do think I'm going to enjoy them.

Today was also the first time I rode Denver's transit system. As a C.U.D. student I can ride the bus for free and I live 2 minutes from a bus stop that goes strait to campus so it makes the most sense. I talked with a guy named John the whole way to school this morning. He's originally from Anchorage, Alaska but earned his bachelor's at Oxford and then lived in London for 2 years while earning his masters and then moved too Denver 4 years ago. Needless too say we had an interesting conversation.

My last class on Mondays doesn't get out until around 8:30 and tonight we got dismissed into a strong thunderstorm. It was beautiful. Pouring rain, giant fingers of lighting, and earth shaking rumbles of thunder all set against the backdrop of downtown Denver. Because the windows on the bus are tented when you look at the sky scrappers at night you can't really see the outline of the buildings you can only see the offices with their lights on. So from where I was sitting it looked like the whole of downtown was comprised of floating boxes of light, it was amazing.

There's more I like too say but it's late and I'm tired so I'll try to write some more here later.

Live from Denver

As of today I've lived in Denver for a week so it seems like a good time for new post. :)

The drive out was pretty uneventful until about 5 miles from our exit when we got stuck in a nasty hail storm. Chris took some pictures during the storm and there's so much hail on the ground that it looks like we drove through a blizzard. ( There was another storm that rolled through that had a little hail in it on Sunday, but nothing close to what we encountered.) After the four of us (Chris, Sara, Jimmy, and myself) got done lugging everything up to my apartment we spent the evening on the 16th street mall, including dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. Which I loved solely for the fact they had entire wall dedicated to The Clash, including one of Mick Jones' guitars.

Friday we all went to Denny's to celebrate Jimmy's 18th birthday and then Chris and Sara went to see the house Chris used to live in and the hospital where he was born. Jimmy and I ran some errands and drove around town so I could show him some things around town. (Parks, the campus, the room where High View meets, etc.) That afternoon the toilet overflowed so we had to run out and get a mop and some bleach. (It turned into an adventure that took longer then it should have, but it was great for making memories.) Not long after we got that all cleaned up Brad, the Lead Pastor at High View, came over to say hi and meet everybody. We tried to talk him into coming to the art district with us for "First Fridays" but didn't have any luck. The art district was awesome, I really wish we would have had more time too look around and really enjoy it but Jimmy and I had to get up at 3:30 a.m. so he could make his flight and Chris and Sara had to start the 1,000+ mile drive back too Indiana in the morning so we had to cut our time there short.

Saturday morning sucked. There's no two ways about it. The three previous days had essentially been a road trip with my three best friends but now reality was setting in and they were all headed back to Indiana and I wasn't. It took everything in me not too cry when I hugged them good-bye. I spent the rest of Saturday unpacking, grocery shopping, and enjoying the fact that for the first time in my life I have a kitchen, bathroom, and living room all to myself. (I've had my own bedroom since I was a kid, so that wasn't very exciting. Actually it's the only thing I wish I was sharing. lol ) :)

Sunday I went to High View and once again got "roped" into being the greeter. (For those of you who don't know, when I visited in July I ended being a greeter that day also.) I really love my new church home and can't wait to watch, and be a part of, what God does through us. The rest of Sunday was pretty uneventful. We had another storm blow through, with smaller hail this time but not much else happened until Tuesday.

On Tuesday I had dinner with Brad at Brothers BBQ, which may be my new favorite restaurant, mostly because they played three Oasis songs while we where there. Playing/knowing Oasis will always get you on my good side. (Not that it's hard too get on my good side, it just expedites the process.) :) Brad and talked and hung out for awhile and then I signed my membership covenant which makes me member family number 3 at High View. (The joys of attending a church plant.) After we were full and had talked theology, church planting, and sports to our hearts content (Okay, so that probably isn't possible for either of us) we drove to the other side of town for community group. We studied James 3:13-18 which was part of Brad's sermon on Sunday and worked our way through some discussion questions and hung out for awhile afterwords.

Wednesday, yesterday, I bought my books for the upcoming semester and attended the new comers orientation, where I learned some interesting facts about Denver, like that Colfax Ave. is the longest continuous street in the country, but didn't learn anything new about the school. I didn't really expect too get any new information but it never hurts too check.

All that brings me to today. I woke up this morning and decided that a week of sleeping on the floor was all my back could take so I drove to Wal-Mart and bought an air mattress. I also purchased a Verizon Wireless broadband internet plan so I can live in the 21st century again.

Tomorrow should be a day to rest and relax and then Saturday and Sunday I have my first drill weekend before starting classes on Monday.

Thank you all for your prayers, I'll try my best to post stuff here on a regular basis.