FunHaterJames's Xanga

bridge to something

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 03:07:20 GMT

I had the most interesting day today that I've had in a long time.

Facebook is down...

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 04:41:43 GMT

so Xanga, how you been anyway? We should catch up.

And can it be?

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 23:12:52 GMT

I get to preach next Sunday. So now I need to make like a real pastor and read and write in my office, rather than just going and playing on the instruments in the sanctuary all day =0

Lately I've been thinking about life. How it's kind of like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get. And how nothing can escape the governing of God. And stupid is as stupid does. And one thing secures us, whatever betide, the Scripture assures us, the LORD will provide. And this is the world as best as I can remember it. You really ought to try these random blog-generators; they're pretty cool.

Did I mention I was reading Luther's commentary on Romans? The Preface really is very good - sort of "heart-warming" you might say. It was written around 1517, or at least that's when Luther lectured on Romans at the University of Wittenberg (two years before the famous Door incident). It was read aloud on Aldersgate St. in London in May of 1738, in the hearing of a certain frustrated young Anglican missionary. But anyway, here's some actual Romans:

Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in the hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverence; and perseverance, proven character, and proven character, hope. And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts throug the Holy Spirit who is given to us.

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

The familiar focus of this passage is Romans 5:8: "But God demonstrates his own love toward us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." [This is one of those passages that my NAS-using self still tends to quote in the NIV thanks to the memorable teaching efforts of my old friend John Paul ;)] He didn't die for good people, healthy people, useful people, whole people. He died for bad people, sick people, washed-up people, broken people. He died for us just because of his agape, his unfailing love. Of course you might say He had some unfair inside information since he knew that he could *make* us into worthwhile individuals! Maybe his love wasn't so disinterested after all, since he knew that those who were not a people would become a people, and that after a little fixing-up, we would be all ready to do those good works which God prepared beforehand for us to do. (Don't worry, I'm just joshin' ya Lord!) [Is that irreverent?]

But the part that really jumped out at me this week was verse 10:

"For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life!"

Do you see what I see? Cause I see something I'd never noticed in Romans 5 before. Something more than reconciliation, something more than being made right with God. That right there is FULL salvation. There it is, the whole ordo salutis just waiting to be unpacked. In the fertile soil of this thesis chapter on Justification By Faith, we have a few little seeds of Sanctification just waiting to sprout up. The next one is in 5:19, by the way. When God says "the many shall be made righteous" he ain't just talkin' make-believe. Jesus makes us righteous in the same way that Adam made us sinful. Not just theoretically, officially, juridically, on-the-books. But really, truly, down to our very core.

After Adam's sin, death spread to all humankind, "even those who had not sinned in the likeness of Adam." It follows that after Christ's act of righteousness, life spread to all humankind, even to those (that is, everyone but Jesus) who had no righteousness of their own. Am I suggesting universal salvation? Well, no, because other texts make it clear that those who do not believe will not enjoy these benefits. And because we can't forget the preamble to Romans found in chapter 2 - there will be righteous and impartial judgment based on good or evil works. But in *this* spot, right here, caught up in the thrilling thought of God's gracious free gift, Paul comes awfully darn close! For in v. 18 (*finally* reaching the "even so" to the "just as" from v. 12), he says: "So then, as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men!" It's not so much that I don't think 'all' really means "all" here (cause I hate when people do that, don't you?), but maybe it has more to do with the translation of "there resulted justification for." But I'm no Greek scholar so I'm not gonna get in to that. Well maybe I'll quote McReynolds' wooden word-study translation: "Then therefore as through one trespass into all men to condemnation, thusly also through one right act into all men into rightening." There, that clears that up, right?

But the point I want to make about sin is that even if God never held our fathers' and mothers' sins against us, we would still die because of our own sins. That's what Ezekiel the prophet said. That's what I think Paul says in 5:12. And there is a parallel which causes much consternation between Protestants and Catholics. I won't turn it all the way around, because as Paul said, "the free gift is not like the transgression." It would be going to far to say that "even if God didn't remember the righteousness of Christ, we would still be rewarded because of our own righteousness." No way - we have no righteousness of ourselves apart from the free gift of God. However, as mentioned above, we have to remember Romans 2, which states that in the righteous judgment of God, he

"will render to every man according to his deeds: to those who by perseverence in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation. There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, but glory and honor and peace to every man who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek."

So if our eternal judgment is going to be by our deeds, by works, then it only stands to reason that our eternal salvation has to do something about this. As sinners all, we start off on that sure path to destruction. We are enemies of God. But then through the death of Christ we are reconciled to God, we are made right with God; our relationship to the One who created us is fully restored. All our sins are washed away; everything that stood between us and the Lord is gone. But that's not all! "Much more," says Paul, having been reconciled by his death, we shall also be saved by his life. We are taken off the path of destruction and put on the path of life eternal. His death takes care of our sin. His life takes care of our righteousness. His life gives us our final salvation, now and forever. "His life," if I may read it broadly, includes all the meanings of the way he lived his earthly life, his triumphant resurrection from the dead, and the new birth he offers us. His life is an entirely new kind of life. His life, imparted to us from above when we are "born again of the Spirit," gives us power to conquer sin now, here, today. His life, "working in us both to will and to do the good," gives us power to do the good works he has prepared for us all along, for which we will someday be rewarded with everlasting glory and honor and immortality. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me. He does everything, really.

But just because he does everything does not mean that we do nothing! No, that is made clear in the following chapter, in 6:17-18. "Thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness." And slaves, as far as I know, generally have to do stuff. Of course we are only "slaves" in a manner of speaking, as Paul says, "in human terms." The much more awesome truth is that we are children and heirs. "See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God!" says John. "If we died with him, we shall also live with him; If we endure, we shall also reign with him," says Timothy.

So here is God's great love: while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And he didn't die to play a game of make believe with our sins. He died to make something holy out of us. To "pick up the pieces that were pure and true, and breathe His life into them, and set them free," to borrow the words of the guy whose voice DW needed to hear...

which brings me back to where I started this post, several hours ago. Well it turns out returning to Xanga has been very productive after all. No, this is not the sermon I'm going to preach, but it is the IBS notes I would turn in to the professor along with the manuscript. In the real sermon, I'll make sure to use more Greek words and Latin phrases, just so people know I'm really serious. :)

Monday, July 21, 2008

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:40:23 GMT

I got a new cell number today. It's a funny feeling driving away from the phone place knowing that at that moment in time, nobody can get a hold of you, cause your number has changed. If you have my old number, I'll give you a simple code to get my new number. Yes, this is the same exact game I played on Xanga back in March of '07.

Kentucky number = (859)-ABC-DEFG

Enid number = (580)-HIJ-KLMN

where:

H = A-1
I = B+2
J = C+5
K = A+1
L = K
M = L
N = M+1

I almost asked for a different one when they showed it to me today, but now I'm thinking it could make for a good eschatalogical conversation piece.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 04:25:52 GMT

My Xanga is feeling neglected. I've actually written two fairly lengthy Facebook notes since posting anything substanian here last. I'm not sure I want to transfer them though. Xanga is like an old friend. Maybe we can renew our relationship with different material. Here is a cool portion from Isaiah (or deutero-Isaiah if you like). They've caught my imagination the past few days.

Isaiah 54:1 - 55:13 Sing, O barren one who did not bear; burst into song and shout, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate woman will be more than the children of her that is married, says the LORD. ² Enlarge the site of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. ³ For you will spread out to the right and to the left, and your descendants will possess the nations and will settle the desolate towns. ⁴ Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed; do not be discouraged, for you will not suffer disgrace; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the disgrace of your widowhood you will remember no more. ⁵ For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is his name; the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. ⁶ For the LORD has called you like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, like the wife of a man's youth when she is cast off, says your God. ⁷ For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with great compassion I will gather you. ⁸ In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the LORD, your Redeemer. ⁹ This is like the days of Noah to me: Just as I swore that the waters of Noah would never again go over the earth, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you and will not rebuke you. ¹⁰ For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the LORD, who has compassion on you. ¹¹ O afflicted one, storm-tossed, and not comforted, I am about to set your stones in antimony, and lay your foundations with sapphires.¹ ¹² I will make your pinnacles of rubies, your gates of jewels, and all your wall of precious stones. ¹³ All your children shall be taught by the LORD, and great shall be the prosperity of your children. ¹⁴ In righteousness you shall be established; you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear; and from terror, for it shall not come near you. ¹⁵ If anyone stirs up strife, it is not from me; whoever stirs up strife with you shall fall because of you. ¹⁶ See it is I who have created the smith who blows the fire of coals, and produces a weapon fit for its purpose; I have also created the ravager to destroy. ¹⁷ No weapon that is fashioned against you shall prosper, and you shall confute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD and their vindication from me, says the LORD. ^NRSIsaiah 55:1 Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. ² Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. ³ Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. ⁴ See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. ⁵ See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you. ⁶ Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; ⁷ let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. ⁸ For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. ⁹ For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. ¹⁰ For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, ¹¹ so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. ¹² For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. ¹³ Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the LORD for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

I long for the peace of Lord YHWH. Let it rain down from heaven, O God.

started to post something I'd found but couldn't get it formatted right

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 19:21:04 GMT

then realized it wasn't really that funny anyway =0

Love

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 01:28:54 GMT

It's Valentine's Day. I used to have a tradition some of you might remember, the Valentine's Day Mass Email. Recently it's been sort of a bi-yearly thing. Now I don't even have Outlook Express anymore. So this is a note to all my Facebook and Xanga friends, whether you're tagged or not!

This is the day we celebrate and talk about and think about Love, whatever that means to us. It's always been a special day for me - for some reason I can look back on so many Valentine's Days and remember what I was doing, what I was feeling, the wry jokes I made, and who I was with. Like the year me and Travis went to Burger King in Adams (was that '04?). Or the first time I sent out that email ('00), hangin' out with Neal and APack in the Honors dorm. Or my senior year in high school ('98) when I was so pleased with the fact that the thought of Valentine's Day didn't even occur to me until the middle of the afternoon on the way back from some music thing (Tim, were we maybe with Kirk trying out for OU or OCU?). Before that it gets kind of blurry...

Have you ever noticed how so often the words we say or hear the most just lose their power? "I love you!" ...whatever. "God loves you!" ...*yawn*, I've heard that one before. "Love your neighbor as yourself!" ...when I get around to it. Words get dull with repetition. Sometimes we need to hear it with different words, or in a different language.

I've been reading Genesis 22 in Hebrew - the part where the LORD tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac - "your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac." This was not a remarkable thing for a deity to ask, by the way, but that's another story. What gets me about that narrative is its matter-of-factness (Isaac carrying the wood and Abraham carrying the fire and butcher knife) combined with its gratuitous use of repetition. It never mentions Isaac without appending "his son." Over and over again, you hear "Isaac, his son, Isaac, his son." "And they walked on, the two of them together."

On that day, *The God* revealed himself to be very different from all the other gods with which Abraham and his world were already familiar. He himself saw to the sacrifice for His offering, just as Abraham had said. And so the Father still does for us. He asks us to sacrifice *everything* to serve God, to know God, to be faithful to God - but the Father has made the real sacrifice, the true sacrifice, the perfect sacrifice, of the perfect Son, already. What do we do when this call comes? What did Abraham do? We may just shy away, afraid to give up our favorite things. Or we may move forward, grimly expecting the worst. Or we may already know how good and loving the LORD is, knowing the end of the story, and assume we won't have to make any real sacrifice after all. None of those are quite the right answer. So what is? Well, I'll leave that open for now, since this isn't a sermon; it's just a Valentine, so, back to the point...

God loves you.

As someone said in chapel this morning, the creator of the universe, the one who spun the stars, saw fit to stoop down and become one of us, one of *us*, these little vulnerable creatures that we are. And that's how God shows his love. For you. For me. For everyone we've ever loved or been loved by, hurt or been hurt by. He took all our loves and hurts upon Himself. Jesus Christ took all the consequences of all our evil ways upon his own body and suffered death in the grand irony of the only human being who never deserved death conquering death for us poor and helpless sinners.

And all that so we might have life, abundant, wonderful, amazing, full, awesome, astounding, never-ending, bona-fide LIFE, full of peace an serenity, free from the shackles of fear.

Maybe you yourself are celebrating this good news today. Maybe you don't believe it, or you used to believe it, or maybe you think the whole story is positively barbaric. But I'm telling it anyway, cause it's the story of my life, a story for all of us, a story that is being told and believed and shared all over the world every day. And though my mind and heart may become fearful, worried, and discouraged when the Church on earth is embroiled in strife and beset with failures, in my deepest spirit I know that the Holy Spirit is at work in all of our hearts, and those who are truly *hungry* and truly *thirsty* will eat, and drink, and live.

[finally, since this thing wouldn't be complete with at least one hymn or song...]

Could we with ink the ocean fill
And were the skies of parchment made
Were every stalk on earth a quill
And every man a scribe by trade
To write the love of God above
would drain the ocean dry
Nor could the scroll contain the whole
though stretched from sky to sky

(Meir Ben Isaac Nehorai)

A happy Valentine's Day to you all, what is left of it =) May your day and your week and your month and year be filled with love of all sorts.

-James

Friday, February 01, 2008

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:33:53 GMT

My Xanga deserves an update. Maybe later ;]

Thank you

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 05:37:47 GMT

Lord you are good, and I want to thank you

For those little bits of encouragement sent at the right time

That remind me that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand

It is right here, right now

You are right here, right now

In this very room, with me

and working in my friends and family

The time is coming quickly

2000 years is but a day

So thanks for the reminders

that it's worth the higher life

laying down the things of this world

for what cannot pass away

Jesus is my boyfriend?

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 01:59:20 GMT

This is something I found on a message board about issues surrounding men and church. The background was talk about the "Jesus is my boyfriend" kind of praise song that some men (and some women) really tire of singing in church. One poster made a rather sarcastic commentary of a song that several friends and I enjoyed singing to God just the other night - "I'm madly in love with you" by Steve Fee (people think it's by Charlie Hall). I think some of the criticism is pretty unfair. There is a place for many varieties of expression of our love for God and his love for us. I think this poster said it well (he goes by JadedGuy on that board):

"A word of caution is needed here. We should understand that the love of God is surpassing any human relationship. We are told to love him more than our loved ones, and with the very fiber of our being. Psalms 42 shows the earnestness of this love. I have no patience for a Christian Men movement that suggests that Real Men don't cry, don't humble themselves like children, etc. God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. Yes, portraying Jesus as the Divine Boyfriend or the Lady With the Beard is troubling but so is portraying him as the CEO or Hunting Buddy. He is our King and our Redeemer. I have no life, no existence, no way of coping apart from him. Just as an sound doctrine demands that his humanity and divinity be fully appreciated, so must we see the immensity of love and required intimacy alongside the immensity of holiness and required reverence. To diminish either truth is slide into the mire of heresy."

I like the ballance there. Jesus is not effeminate - but he does not conform to worldly views of masculinity either. Finding that discussion forum is going to make me more discerning in the worship music I choose. I don't want to overuse "intimate" type songs and make people uncomfortable... but I think there is a place for them. Do any of you old Wesley praise team people remember how we used to fight over who had to sing lead on "Your Love is Extravegant"? =o

Here is the thread:

http://cfmboards.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=849

Any thoughts?