Denying Self

And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.

                                                                                                               - Mark 8:34

Just before going to bed this scripture popped into my head. I was writing in my journal and it seriously just stuck. It's also been something that God has been continually putting into my time with Him. Constantly He's been trying to get this idea across: Are you doing everything for me or are you partially for me and yourself?

In the Greek, the word "ἀπαρνησάσθω” or “he must deny,” can literally mean “he must renounce claim to.” I think this translation is absolutely essential to what a disciple must do. I believe it is at the point when we as Christians start living for ourselves that we find serious problems. According to what Jesus said, we have to follow Christ and give God the calls to every area of our lives, not just some of them. As the text writes, we “must renounce claim to” ourselves.

If a disciple does not give up his life for Christ, is he really following after him and giving him complete control? Or is he just partially walking the Christian life like the Church at Laodicea was doing? Just a thing to think about.

Faith and Doubt

     The other day I read some of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis for a class assignment. For that particular assignment I had to read C. S. Lewis' take on faith. When I read the section, I found it to be very insightful and really helped me to get through an important issue that I believe each of us will inevitably go through at one point or another, "unreasonable doubt."

     C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, book 3 says this about faith:

"In the first sense it means simply Belief- accepting or regarding as true the doctrines of Christianity. That is fairly simple. But what does puzzle people- at least it used to puzzle me- is the fact that Christians regard faith in this sense as a virtue. I used to ask how on earth it can be a virtue- what is there moral or immoral about believing or not believing a set of statements? Obviously I used to say, a sane man accepts or rejects any statement, not because he wants to or does not want to, but because the evidence seems to him good or bad. If he were mistaken about the goodness or badness of the evidence that would not mean he was a bad man, but only that he was not very clever. And if he thought the evidence bad but tried to force himself to believe in spite of it, that would be merely stupid."

     Later on in the chapter he goes on to bring up an important point, that often our emotions and imaginations make us not want to believe, even if our reason would say that everything we believe to be true, correct. I would classify this as doubt. Many times life comes our way and inevitably everything explodes, makes a huge mess, and leaves us sitting in the trash heap of life's lows. After sitting in the rubble for a while, our heart and emotion wants to tell us that our logic sucked and thus begins the battle between "faith and reason" and "emotion and imagination." On one end you think about your faith and your reason and it makes perfect sense and find no flaws in the arguments, your even able to defend against good objections, and then on the other end your heart wants to retreat and give up, thus what I call "unreasonable doubt." The only way out of our "unreasonable doubt" is to continual remind yourself of what your logic and reason first told you to be true before you got into the temporary mess of life's explosion. We all inevitably go through trials that WILL test our faith, but in the end will allow us to come bigger and stronger in the end. Sure, results aren't always immediate like we would like them to be, but if we keep pushing and continually pray for God's help, God will answer and will get you through, you just got to trust him.

Life Worth Emulating

     Tonight for some reason, I cannot go to sleep. I’ve been thinking and thinking and so I opened up my bible and read part of Mark 9. One thing that stood out to me was verse 42.

Here is the verse:

“And whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea.”

     This particular verse deals a lot with leading other people and guiding them in their walk. It deals even more specifically, with our own personal walk. There is one quote I’ve seen on every leadership test that I’ve taken at Liberty and it goes kinda like, “to disciple someone you must have a life worth emulating.” Leadership in it’s very beginning phases is a lot like, “you see, I do,” and eventually goes on to the disciple doing, and the leader seeing, but for the disciple to get to eventually do the work, the leader has to lead by example. As Leaders, We MUST live by example because what leaders do, the disciple will eventually do and apply to his/her life. We also MUST make sure our actions are pure and free of sin and that involves seeking God’s face and asking him to be brutally honest with us so we can work with him to be more Christ-like because, as it says in the verse, “it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea.”

The Friends Who Sucked at Giving Advice

            The other day before I went to sleep, there was a passage that was put onto my mind. The passage happened to be 1 Kings 12:1-14. The first time I read the passage I said to myself, “what the heck? This is crazy stuff,” so over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about this passage over and over.

At the end of 1 Kings 11, Solomon had just died in the passage right before and so he was buried with his father David. The story then unrolls like this:

Then Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king. Now when Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard of it, he was living in Egypt (for he was yet in Egypt, where he had fled from the presence of King Solomon). Then they sent and called him, and Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel came and spoke to Rehoboam, saying, “Your father made our yoke hard; now therefore lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke which he put on us, and we will serve you.” Then he said to them, “Depart for three days, then return to me.” So the people departed. King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had served his father Solomon while he was still alive, saying, “How do you counsel me to answer this people?” Then they spoke to him, saying, “If you will be a servant to this people today, and will serve them and grant them their petition, and speak good words to them, then they will be your servants forever.” But he forsook the counsel of the elders which they had given him, and consulted with the young men who grew up with him and served him. So he said to them, “What counsel do you give that we may answer this people who have spoken to me, saying, ‘Lighten the yoke which your father put on us’?” The young men who grew up with him spoke to him, saying, “Thus you shall say to this people who spoke to you, saying, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, now you make it lighter for us!’ But you shall speak to them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins! Whereas my father loaded you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.’” Then Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day as the king had directed, saying, “Return to me on the third day.” The king answered the people harshly, for he forsook the advice of the elders which they had given him, and he spoke to them according to the advice of the young men, saying, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.” - 1 Kings 12:1-14 NASB

First of all, Rehoboam was a flat out fool, but I’m sure that it was pride that got him there. He goes to men that served the wisest man that had ever lived, hears their advice, and decides that their advice isn’t valuable in the least bit. The first thing I learned from the passage is that we should listen to those people who are both older and wiser than us. We shouldn’t be quick to just put off good advice. Part of the reason he did this was because of his own father’s disobedience, but nonetheless Rehoboam did not follow the elder’s advice.

Second of all, what in the world was his friends’ thinking? The first thing they did was embellish the story a little bit in v.10. They make the people who came to him sound much more demanding. Then at the end of v. 10 they tell him the he should say, “My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins!” While reading the end of v. 10 I was thinking, “are they serious? Did they really just say that?” For them to even tell him that is absolutely crossing the line. That’s just plain, full out, disrespect to your own father, or really even anyone. To me, it almost sounds like these young men that he grew up with only wanted to boost his ego so that they could be later rewarded. All in all, his friends’ were probably the absolute worst people he could have gone to for advice.

As Christians, we must make sure we are not like Rehoboam who forsook the council that was given by the elders and went with horrible advice. When we are facing big things we should go to someone who has experience, rather than the young men who likely had absolutely no governmental experience. We must stay humble, and always seek wisdom, not foolishness. 

Vilnius Mayor A.Zuokas Fights Illegally Parked Cars with Tank

Video really speaks for itself. If only this happened in America. =T

Lets Drop the Rituals

     A couple nights ago I was reading my bible and currently I’m reading through Mark. The passage I read happened to be Mark 12:13-40. I read the whole thing then read it just one more time to gain some more clarity, but one thing stuck out to me the most. The spot happened to be Mark 12: 29-33, where Jesus is talking to a scribe, right after he was talking with some other high ranking religious leaders. The scribe had basically asked Jesus what was the greatest and most important commandment that God has ever given. The story unfolds like this:

     Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” And the scribe said to Him, “Right, Teacher, You have truly stated that He is One; and there is no one else besides Him; And to love Him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength and to love one’s neighbor as himself, is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

     The most important thing to take from this, when coupled with the rest of the passage, is that God wants our hearts, not our actions. He doesn’t want complex answers to complex questions and He certainly doesn’t want our prideful actions either. He really only wants us and our hearts, not the “burnt offerings and sacrifices.” He calls us to follow him and leave our own agenda’s and to-do-lists somewhere else, preferably is a dark, bottomless abyss. It’s time to drop the empty rituals and start giving our hearts to Christ.

Busy Brick

     I think recently God has been trying to teach me the importance of some alone time. Recently I have been working a decent amount of hours, along with the internship and various other fun opportunities that pop up here and there. Just tonight I decided I would go on a walk after work and a fun opportunity. I think all the stuff has just compounded all together into one large "busy brick," which then formed my week. As I look back to examine my brick, I notice that there really wasn’t too much alone time in there. I personally think that just being able to sit and think about something other than what needs to be done or will be done is quite soothing, but truth is if you don’t make the time to do that then what soothing will actually get done?  I’m going to challenge myself to make an honest effort to try and put that soothing time into my day before I run myself into complete insanity.