Truth on rye

 

So many things going through my mind right now: what to work on, what to do, what to write. It truly is the most frustrating feeling in life. The “Untitled 1” document begs for my attention. “Le Triangle” is playing through my headphones now, not helping to drown out distractions. Jackie’s sitting next to me, wanting so badly for me to answer any questions she has. Still nothing is getting done.

Jackie’s laptop background shows a news headline with the infamous picture of a Chinese man standing in front of a tank battalion. Truly an “Icon of the Revolution,” as the title states.

This brings to my focus thoughts already on my mind. Am I standing firm in front of Satan’s battalion of demons? Or am I running for the hills with Jim and Barbara? How would I even know? My eyes have not been opened to the spiritual realm as Elisha’s had been. So I raise this question: what is, if any, the way to measure revolutionary joy and love output?

Now, I want to make myself clear: I am not talking about simply loving the people around me or even just emitting the aura of love. What I mean is, what is the inward change that occurs where we can look back later on and say, “Aha! That’s when I started having this kind of joy and love.” For me, I caught a glimpse of that on August 1, 2005 when I prayed to have Christ’s forgiveness pay for my sins and to have a relationship with Him. Where did it go? Quite honestly, I believe it was gone before I knew it. That kind of joy and love rekindled to about 50% when I found a body of believers with whom to be involved. But even that has dried up a bit.

Since then, having joy has been an inward struggle. Outwardly, it’s easy to pull off. However, God does promise to change us from the inside out: first, by giving us such a love which we can’t help but feel complete and can then give where we had only taken; and second, by giving us the hope that He will make us complete in the Day of the Lord and by giving us good works for us to step into.

Well, anyway, this will be the topic for my blog going forward. I need to get back to my book report and to digesting all that I heard during the XSI 2009. Speaking of which, what a great XSI! I really need to go back and re-write my notes some more, in addition to changing out my music so that I can listen to Joni’s and Lee’s speeches, as I missed those ones.  Thanks Joel for encouraging me to get on Blogging to help my horrible writing skills.

Ta-ta!

 

“Get good grades!” “Study beyond what is required!” “You’ll never get into a good College if you keep this up!” “How will you provide for the family if you don’t have a “real” job!”

 

Worldly Knowledge over Godly Wisdom

Youths are bombarded with these phrases, or versions of them, throughout their scholastic careers. Many kids of unbelieving parents have been limited in coming to Word and other activities because of this. Are we in the BOC partaking in encouraging worldly knowledge over Godly wisdom? I know my parents were fairly strong in getting me and my 3 brothers into college, and into a “real” job. Mostly my mother, whom never was able to go to college, but also my father who graduated with multiple degrees, pushed for college. So much so that every decision I made was geared towards getting into college and succeeding in a worldly sense. When I received Christ in 2004 and my world was rocked I was left drifting without a body. When Neil interceded with Gods guidance and led me to a BOC, my eyes were opened. I started to learn under Marks encouragement the difference between worldly knowledge/wisdom and Gods wisdom. For awhile I was very torn, I wanted to get out of school and focus on Gods kingdom. Looking back I know I was ignoring the fact that I was surrounded by unbelievers at school(they are everywhere by the way.) When I realized this I was more than happy to finish my last year of school and focus on the relationships there.

 

Camels Everywhere

I am surrounded by camels(Mark 10:25) in my “real” job and dang it they just wont go through the eye of the needle! Yes I can focus on persuading men(2 Cor 5:11) as I would feel the need to do no matter rich or poor, educated or non-educated. The bibles focus on the poor is strong(Jer 5:28) and the difficulty for the worldy rich(mostly college educated) to enter the kingdom of heaven. So why set up a strategy to be surrounded by the wealthy?

 

What about being culturally relevant?

Do you need to go to college to be culturally relevant? HELL NO!  Well, brothers and sisters, the poor are by far the majority in this world and as we saw earlier in Mark 10:25 they are more open to Gods truth. Is it more strategic to be relevent to the majority or the minority?

 

Missiological Aspects

 Researching mission’s agencies revealed yet another stifling affect of school debt. Most mission agencies require you to have a certain percentage of your school debt paid off before they would even consider you for being sent to the mission’s field. In other words if they can send someone cheaper they will, this is their stewardship. I paid $63,000 for a paper proving that I am worthy of worldly praise, is college a good stewardship? 

 

Encourage Godly Wisdom

If we are consistently encouraging Godly wisdom the decision to go or not to go to college becomes their own, as it should be. Learning how to seek Gods will for their own life and letting them give that decision up to God is the only way they will be guided in making the decision. Do we desire worldly wisdom over Gods wisdom?

 

 

 

Closing

There is nothing wrong with going to College, I went to college, many of my brothers and sisters have gone or are going to college. The problem is that when parents shove college down their kids throat, they are emphasizing worldly focuses instead of Godly wisdom and character.

Word

Very rarely do I even try and review a musician’s show, but this one I must. As the lights dim I am totally ignorant of what to expect from Laurie. The lights come up as she is singing a song about a fictional period when the earth was nothing but air and birds. The birds are just flying aimlessly. Her story goes that one of the birds dies and the question arises, “what do we do with the body?” A Lark then has the idea to bury the bird in his head, and thus the first form of memory is introduced to this bird world. At this point I am willing to recognize her interesting imagination and am more at rest about how the rest of the show will be. She then, using a voice changer, talks about some political issues assuming the identity of the government officials. “Ok”, I say to myself, “everyone has different opinions on political issues.” She hits the typical issues: the wars, the presidental race, free speech, etc, etc. She talks about a story of a woman volunteering to be in the military because she has no other way to pay for college. Thats where I had to stop and think. Not only is there so much money available for college for anyone whose anyone, but you could work and go to school. Heck, I did it. Sure I had to take loans too, but I did it. She then continues on about how the military is at fault for her volunteering. Either Laurie has a giant misconception on volunteering, i.e. she thinks that if someone volunteers for the military they should not be subject to a war situation, or she thinks that the military should never engage in war. Well it becomes clear that she believes the later. Which raises the question, why does the military even exist? She talks about how great everything was in all the countries before the
US military invaded and disrupted the peace. I’m sorry but thats simply ignorant not to mention the fact that if someone volunteers for an organization that is used to engage in battle and then doesn’t like it, thats their fault. Mixed with this and attacks on evangelicals she completely lost my interest. This concert overall was very poorly presented. At best the attendees are those that believe exactly like her and are her “followers.” The way that she attacked such controversial issues would never attract anyone new, and certainly not me. Her “music” if you could call it that, was poorly organized with really random tempo changes and at times so many sounds you could not pick out exactly what was playing, but I must give her credit. She has made money off of all this.  

I have a burden. The burden is for missions. And there is a lingering  thought that comes with it.:”Is it a real burden?” This has been a mighty struggle. Having thoughts of traveling so far from my comfort zone leaves me feeling almost giddy. I mean look at all thos missionaries who speak so powerfully in perspectives class and through movies (End of the Spear.) I need to be carefull to not respond to the great commsion with emotions only. Through consistent prayer, council, and perpectives class combined with an open heart to what the Lord is asking of me I have been able to say that the burden is real. Its time to start thinking about it realisticly. I am not going to be able to go out there if I cannot learn to effectively minister where I am. Also looking at my current priorities and how its been a battle centerd around comfort, I know that there are heart issues that I need to work out with God. Patience has always been my vice and I do have another lingering fear. “Will I act on this burden?”The only way I can help missions right now at this moment in time is prayer and financial giving. Which is great if I know who needs prayer. The missions prayer meeting has been great for this. CHECK IT OUT!

Being able to deal with spiritual attack is another key to being missions minded, especially if the plan is to go. I feel that I havnt a clue what spiritual attack is. Sure I feel the pull from the world but nothing like the lies, deceit, and mystical holds Satan has on many unreached cultures. Some things that we think can only be manufactured in hollywood may be going on all over the world!  Its a hard thing to take in but since Satans plan with us works so effective, he has no need to try anything else in the U.S.

So overall I think my burden is two fold, to work toward the missions field and to help bring knowledge of the lost to our fellowship.

Searching through old things is always thought provoking

Although sometimes I find reminants of painful reminders.

A rock of all things leaves me breathless, and heart throbbing

Reminded of her, her deep desire for the Lord, her interest in geology and how He made it all.

Reminded of her pain in the past with him and her success with Him

“How could she go back to that pain!”

My heart screams out, I want her thoughts to be clear

And his evil destroys our calls and clarity in the situation.

“If only she could see her situation”

“She see’s and know’s so well” is the reply

So blinding is the evil in him, the love of the Lord and His body is hidden.

Disguised by clever rhetoric he is indeed an evil theif of her gifts and talents,

And she so quickly is willing to give up everything to follow what the Spirit is telling her is wrong.

How truely truely sad this is, all I can do is hope and pray that they will come back

Two guys in our Jr High cell have received Christ in the past week!

So I got married and stuff right. Been reading and studying the word, been praying alone and with the wife. Been getting my chill thing back on after a long period of not meeting because of holidays class schedules and honeymoon. All this and I think to myself that there are no real issues to think of right now. And I think “uh oh.” There are things going on that I am either not aware of or that I am so used to that it doesnt seem as a problem.  What could it be? Reading Men and Women has been the very usefull in putting my finger on the problem. Even during periods of appearing others centered, I am still selfcentered. If I focusing on others, more often than not is it to fix the relationship in order to make the relationship bearable. So it is more than just doing things for people that make others feel loved. It is genuinely careing for their well being and figuring out a way to display that. I have several ways that I have been told that made others feel very loved and they were:

1. Checking up on past problems, and not always focusing on problems

2. Random calls and/or get togethers

3. Fnding something the other person likes, and they know that you dont, and doing that.

This not being a comprehensive list, but its enought to see my point.

Anyway just wanted to share that. Peace.

Joe, something went terribly wrong with your ipod. It started freakin out and Mary shot it!

New Testament

            Kardia is the greek word for heart. Kardia is defined as:

Kardia (kad-dee’-ah)

1.             the heart
   1. that organ in the animal body which is the centre of the circulation of the blood, and hence was regarded as the seat of physical life
   2. denotes the centre of all physical and spiritual life
   3. the vigour and sense of physical life
   4. the centre and seat of spiritual life
      1. the soul or mind, as it is the fountain and seat of the thoughts, passions, desires, appetites, affections, purposes, endeavours
      2. of the understanding, the faculty and seat of the intelligence
      3. of the will and character
      4. of the soul so far as it is affected and stirred in a bad way or good, or of the soul as the seat of the sensibilities, affections, emotions, desires, appetites, passions
   5. of the middle or central or inmost part of anything, even though inanimate

Kardia is translated as any of the following English words in the New Testament: heart, 102; heart’s, 1; hearts, 49; mind, 2; minds, 1; quick, 1; spirit, 1.It is clear from this definition that not only does it refer to the heart that produces blood for physical life, but also the center of emotions and spiritual life. The use of the word kardia translated as heart in Mt 15:18 is clearly referring to the heart as a center of the being. If it was taken to mean anatomically then speaking from the heart would be a disgusting bloody vomit.

Old Testament         

    The Hebrew word “leb” is translated as “heart” in the OT. Leb is defined as:

1. inner man, mind, will, heart, understanding
   1. inner part, midst
      1. midst (of things)
      2. heart (of man)
      3. soul, heart (of man)
      4. mind, knowledge, thinking, reflection, memory
      5. inclination, resolution, determination (of will)
      6. conscience
      7. heart (of moral character)
      8. as seat of appetites
      9. as seat of emotions and passions 1a
2. as seat of courage

The word Leb is translated as the following English words in the Old Testament, the number following shows how many times it is used: Himself, 1; accord, 1; attention, 1; bravest, 1; brokenhearted, 3; care, 2; celebrating, 1; chests, 1; completely, 1; concern, 1; concerned, 1; conscience, 1; consider, 2; considered, 2; courage, 1; decided, 1; determine, 1; discouraged, 1; discouraging, 1; doing, 1; double heart, 1; encouragingly, 1; heart, 396; heart’s, 2; hearts, 40; himself, 6; imagination, 1; inspiration, 2; intelligence, 1; kindly, 5; life, 1; merry-hearted, 1; middle, 2; midst, 1; mind, 36; minds, 3; myself, 6; obstinate, 2; planned, 1; presume, 1; pride, 1; recalls, 1; reflected, 1; regard, 1; self-exaltation, 1; sense, 10; senseless, 1; seriously, 1; skill, 1; skilled, 1; skillful, 3; skillful man, 1; skillful men, 1; skillful persons, 1; spirits, 1; stouthearted, 1; stubborn-minded, 1; tenderly, 2; thought, 3; understanding, 7; undivided, 1; well, 2; willingly, 1; wisdom, 2; yourself, 1; yourselves, 1.Leb is clearly the Hebrew equivellent word for the greek word kardia. Although kardia could be used in the anatomical sense, the two words both deal with the idea that the “heart” is the center of emotions and spiritual life. For instance in Jer 17:9 the author is not saying that we have a medical condition that requires surgery, but that our fundamental center of being is “desperately sick” or depraved ( see word study on depravity.)

Summary    

The word heart is referring to our inner being almost exclusively in scripture. The condition of our heart is very sick as God tells us in Jer 17:9. There is a cure that medical professionals cannot offer in a hospital, yet we can still form a hardened heart as Daniel describes in Dan 5:20. This is a heart condition that still plagues us, yet even with the cure lurking, our being can become hardened to the point that the cure Christ offers cant even break through.

Jackie and I went out to Kingsbury Farms in Hartville last night. It was an amazing place, or maybe it was the company, in any case we had a blast! They have a 10 acre Corn maze that from an aerial picture is shaped like a pirate ship. We tried to get through but it was getting dark so headed back, something to check out though. Also they take you on a Hayride through their farm, but thats not it, they actually stop and let you out in the middle of a pumpkin patch. Yes thats right you actually go out and pick your own pumpkin off the vine! It was incredible. We then brought them back and made lanterns. She made a phenominal cat and I a silly alien. It was the most fun I have ever had carving a pumpkin. The seeds, oh the seeds, the tastey little morsels, the gooey nasty pulp. I looked online and all the sites said to dry them over night! We couldnt wait that long so we put them on a tray in the oven at 200 for about 45 min. Then once they were looking pretty dry we raised the temp to the recommended 275 for about 15 min. Oh the glory! So anyway you dont have to wait a day!

 

Good luck all you Pumpkin Hunters!