Month: October 2011

We serve an awesome God. Through him we’ve received freedom from sin, death, and hell. We need to take heart and trust in him. We need to love him with all that we have within us. Put aside your sin and run the race that is set before you. This takes putting off the old man and becoming new. How do we put off the old man and become new?

By loving the Lord will all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving our neighbor as ourselves (Luke 10:27). In other words, obeying the commands God has put down in his Word for us.

I’m so incredibly grateful for the saving grace that God has given to me.

Day 276

Today I’m thankful for work. Otherwise I’d be bored, and that’s never good. ^_^

Day 275

In a time long ago there lived a small boy. He grew up in a small village that was situated in a small valley. He loved his goats that he took out to the mountains day after day. He loved looking up at the mountains and admired the beautiful flowers that came in during the spring. He laughed and played with his friends in the cold mountain streams during the summers. He meandered through the trees as they glowed a final goodbye before their beauty hid itself for the winter. He loved staring at the fire while snow billowed outside during the winter. And he loved the people around him. It was a simple time. The people were simple. They loved their little valley. This small boy slowly grew older. Once he turned eighteen he heard stories of the big cities beyond his large mountains. He heard of the fun, the business, the trinkets, and the many people there were. He slowly became dissatisfied with where he was at now. What were these people doing? They were simpletons. And so he left. He left for the big city.

As he came into the city after a tiresome journey he looked around and marveled. “Such large buildings,” he thought. So many people bustling around. He wandered around and stared in shop windows, admired the street vendors, and eventually ended up in the city square. In the city square there was what seemed to be a riot going on. There were people yelling. There were signs with expletives written all over them. And he wondered why these people were so angry. They had so much. They had their beautiful buildings. They had their big towers. Yet they still weren’t happy. He wandered away and saw husbands working in offices. But where were their wives? In his village families worked together. And no one looked happy. They owned big houses. They had lots of trinkets. They had so much, yet they weren’t happy. Why?

It seems like when we have much we forget about the simple time of life. Now we are so busy. We lose focus on the things we should focus on. We don’t see the simple life as cool. But I do see some of its benefits.

Day 274

Have you ever caught yourself trying to be somebody you’re not? I have. I want to look good in other’s eyes. I want to act how they act. I’m trying to change my personality or get rid of my sin nature in order to look good in their eyes.

But the problem that I’ve run into is that you can’t keep up your facade forever. At some point, people are going to figure out that you’re a sinner (*shock*). But because you built your relationship on false assumptions at some point the relationship could end in disaster. People imagine you’re one thing and in actuality you’re a totally different person.

People tend to want to be accepted for who they aren’t. Or they have a fear that who they are and what their personality is will not be liked. And honestly, we’re sinners. We aren’t super pretty. We sin. But if someone can’t accept that you’re a sinner they won’t make a very good friend.

Now this does come with a caveat. You can’t show up in a relationship and say I steal, cheat, and am addicted to pornography and then expect people to just accept that’s you as a person. If they’re going to be a true friend they will not accept sin as good. Why? Because they love you. If you were to die tonight without them calling you to repent of your sin, how horrible would they feel?

However, don’t try to change your personality. Your personality is you. You should be willing to change things that are sin, a lack of character, or being unloving, and such. But don’t try to become someone you’re not. Don’t try. You’ll fail and be unhappy at the same time.

As friends we must push each other. And the only way to push each other is to know each other. If your relationship is built on a facade, how will you ever grow?

Day 273

I’m amazed at how often I hear about racism.  Thankfully, hating people for the color of their skin is still a sin in our post-modern world.  But it’s hard to find a lot of rational thinking on the topic.


It’s easy to play the “race” card, but the very sensitivity to “race issues” usually stimulates even more racism.   Just watch little children. Do they really care what someone’s skin color is? No. But then we spend so much time talking about it, we all develop a big conniption about it and wallah, we’re back to being racists.  Skin color.  How is it that any different from the number of eyelashes one person sports over another? If we spent hours upon hours talking about how we shouldn’t think less of someone who has 100 eyelashes in comparison to someone who has 150, what do you think is going to happen? I used to care less about who has how many eyelashes. But now, I’m going to be checking everyone’s eyelashes.


Couldn’t we instead just say we are all created in the image of God? And then marvel at how amazing it is that God created a gene pool in one man and one woman that could have created so many different varieties in shapes, sizes, and skin pigments?


Oh wait, but they tell us that man evolved to his present state by natural selection. Now, we don’t know which people are lesser or not. Are the Aborigines truly human? Or how about the wolf people? You see where evolution and the practical working out of Darwinism can end up leading someone? At one point Darwin and his eugenicist cousin Francis Galton slapped Africans, gorillas, Australian Aborigines, and baboons in the same general category.  These are the roots of racism.  If we cannot trace ourselves back to a common ancestor (ie. Adam and Eve), there may indeed be some genetic strains more advanced than others.  The Doctrine of “Survival of the Fittest” then puts the various people groups in competition with each other.


In the end, I think the confusion on different skin pigments/more eyelashes/more body hair, has its roots  in evolutionary dogma. When you start down the road of treating humans as nothing less than animals you’re going to find fundamental differences in people groups, which will lead to dehumanization. 


Survival of the fittest?  No way.


“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” ~ Genesis 1:27


Day 272

And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. ~ James 3:18

Day 271

A machine requires parts to run. In order to make sure you don’t get junk as your completed product you need one thing. Everything that comes into said machine must be the exact same when coming into the box. I think some people apply the same philosophy to courtship. They create this machine called “courtship.” Then they go to lots of classes/conferences on it. They read lots of books on it. They want people to tell them how to do it. They have then created their box. But we run into a small problem. The people coming into this box aren’t boxy. People aren’t widgets. It’s rare to find a person who will fit into a box perfectly.

I complain about the education system. And one of the reasons is because people are individuals. They don’t all learn in the same way and at the same rate. They don’t fit into boxes. But then I go try to create a box for the courtship model?

The thing is, we have to remember the goal of courtship. I perceive courtship as a model that is trying to maintain honor/ purity with an end goal of getting married. You’re testing the waters without breaking hearts. In theory. Yet, it seems everyone has a courtship story of a friend or family member who has had a huge blowup. And I think much of it comes from pride. Pride of the father, pride of the mother, pride of the boy, pride of the girl, etc. Plus the other thing is if one sees a courtship as inevitably ending up in marriage you’re looking at it all wrong. It’s a testing out period. It’s not like it’s different than dating in its goal, that is to get married. Will it inevitably turn into marriage. No. A successful courtship needs to be seen as one that honored God whether or not it ended up in marriage.

When we approach the topic of courtship we need to remember that we are to honor God, as in all things. People are not widgets. And we must love one another through it. Otherwise, go date. Seriously.

Now I’ll take my own advice and take a hiatus from the courtship/marriage topic. *cough* ;-P Day 270

Today I’m thankful for God’s Word and the wisdom contained in it. Without it, we would be lost. We would spend our days wandering along a cliff without a light not knowing which way to turn.


Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. ~  Psalm 119:105


Day 268

I was painting today while listening to a sermon by Voddie Baucham for the fifth or sixth time. Typically, I only listen to these sermons while I work so I miss parts of them when I get really focused. But painting is so boring that.. *cough* ;-P

Anywayssssssss.

Something really hit me smack in the forehead. He said that, paraphrasing, if you really wanted to know if a potential son-in-law is really interested in protecting your daughter and her heart he won’t tell her he’s interested in her. Instead, he’ll come to you first. You know, I kind of already knew this but it came home to me today. If I really did care about a girl and really did want to marry her why would I just want her attention? Of course I do lust after short lived attention and “love.”

If I cared so little that I would try to circumvent the father in her life does that mean I really care about her? And even if her father isn’t involved in her life I want to love her and protect her and still run it by him. Why? Well, because he should be involved in her life and he should be the man who most loves her and protects her.

Being a selfish person, I want to be loved and appreciated without the commitment. Or maybe I could call it a lust for those things. And starting a relationship with a young woman on a note where I could care less about her father is incredibly unwise. It shows that I really have no interest in protecting her. If I show that I don’t care for her father up front, how am I going to treat her later?

The key to this relationship is love for others in Christ. The thing that I must not forget is that when I’m getting married I am getting married because I want to glorify God and I want her to grow more in Him. If she’s not going to grow more in Him, then I am actually hurting her and am not loving her. At times, I see how there is a major focus on getting married around me. And yes, marriage is good. When you find a wife you find a good thing (Prov.18:22). A very good thing. But if you are not under Christ and are not going to point your wife to Him you are failing and should avoid stumbling her.

Day 267