“If you can make God bleed people would cease to believe in Him…” -Whiplash played by Mikey Rourke (:35 Seconds into Clip)

O’ the irony. Making God bleed actually was the reason for belief, my belief. God came in the form of a man, Jesus Christ, to die a bloody death on the Cross, under the hands of Roman guards.  There he covered my sins and purchased for me belief/faith.

I am glad that God bled.

Hebrews 9:14
“how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”

Colossians 1:20
“and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”

P.S. .. I cannot wait for Iron Man 2 to come out!

Yes.

Tucked away in seclusion,

overwhelmed by the sheer thoughts of nothingness.

Recycled themes clutter the real joy in life.

A joy I see glimpses of, but fail daily to retain fully.

Books & blogs.

Science & Religion.

Atheism & Faith.

I rest on these borders everyday.

What I know to be true is bombarded with doubt and frustration.

But why?

My nature as man seeks the corrupted.

The shiny, the massive, the bold…

I seek wisdom, while my very being still craves.

To be seen.

To be wanted.

To be somebody.

But the wisdom I seek, shows me to flee these things,

For I am one of His.

These cravings will soon give way to total surrender.

Only in this surrender will I truly be free.

-Wes Pendleton

http://wespendletonmusic.tumblr.com/

Oh, the majesty of this Book, from creation to the culmination. How it behooves us to be diligent in our study!

Source: MacArthur, J., Jr. (1996). How to study the Bible. John MacArthur’s Bible Studies. Chicago: Moody Press.

If God is God-Centered, How Can He Be Loving?

Here’s the key question that I want to close with, because I know that it starts to rise here. I’ve said this truth, that God is a God-centered God and that his God-centeredness is the root of my God-centeredness. I’ve said that for twenty years to people, and the question begins to rise: “This does not sound loving, because the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 13:5, ‘Love seeks not its own.’ And you’re telling us now, for the last fifteen minutes, that God spends all of his time seeking his own. So either God is not loving or you’re a liar.” And that’s a big problem. So let me try to answer how it is that God is loving in seeking his own self-exaltation.

Help from C.S. Lewis

I found the key in C.S. Lewis. If any of you have read Desiring God then you remember this quote. Lewis was a pagan till his late-20s and he hated God’s vanity. He said that every time he read the words in the Psalms, “Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord”–and he knew Christian doctrine, that the Psalms were inspired–he knew that is was really God saying, “Praise me, Praise me” and it sounded like and old woman seeking compliments.That’s a quote from Reflections on the Psalms. And then suddenly God came into C.S. Lewis’ life. And this is what he wrote:

The most obvious fact about praise, whether of God or anything, strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows in praise, unless sometimes we bring shyness in to check it. The world rings with praise: lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poets, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite games, praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians and scholars. My whole more general difficulty with the praise of God depended on my obsurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely valuable, what we delight to do–even what we cannot help doing–with regard to everything else we value.

And then here comes the key sentences:

I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the joy is not complete until it is expressed. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are. The delight is incomplete until it is expressed.

Now, that was a key for me that unlocked something with regard to how God can be loving and self-exalting in all that he does. It goes like this. Let me put the pieces together for you.

The Answer to the Question

If God is to love you, what must he give you? He must give you what is best for you. The best thing in all the universe is God. If he were to give you all health, best job, best spouse, best computer, best vacations, best success in any realm, and yet withhold himself, then he would hate you. And if he gives you God and nothing besides, he loves you infinitely.

I must have God for my enjoyment if God is to be loving to me. Now Lewis has said that if God gives you himself to enjoy for all eternity, that joy will not come to consummation until you express it in praise. Therefore, for God to love you fully he cannot be indifferent to whether you bring your joy to consummation through praise or not. Therefore God must seek your praise if you are to be loved by him. Did that make sense? I wonder if I should run that by you again. That’s the essence of my life. I believe it’s the essence of the Bible.

To love you he must give you what is best for you. God is what is best for you. “Thou hast shown me the path of life. In thy presence in fullness of joy; at thy right hand are pleasures, pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). God gives himself to us for our pleasure. But Lewis has shown us that unless those pleasures find expression in praise to God, the pleasures are restricted. And therefore God, not wanting to restrict your pleasure in any way, says, “Praise me. In everything you do, praise me. In everything you do, exalt me. In everything you do, have a passion for my supremacy,” which simply means that God’s passion to be glorified and your passion to rejoice and be satisfied are not at odds. They come together. God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him.

Now that’s the end of this morning’s talk. Let me tell you where we’re going with this tomorrow, so you can be praying toward it and so that you can, I hope, come and let me finish, because I’m not finished. If this is true, that God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him–and therefore there is no tension or contradiction between your satisfaction in him and his glorification in you–then the vocation of your life is to pursue your pleasure. I call it Christian hedonism, and I want to talk to you tomorrow about how you do that and why it will transform your relationships, your campuses, your worship, and your eternity.

- John Piper (Passion for the Supremacy of Christ, Part 1)

HT: Pure Church

Man-Up Curriculum!

We’ve raised $193,328.53 of our $225,000.00 goal. That’s 85%!

As the men go, so goes the culture. The degradation of women, the fatherless culture, and the breakdown of families mark an alarming state of manhood in our culture today. We want to help build Godly, responsible, noble men in urban culture. Man Up will be ReachLife’s next major curriculum project. It is currently in the research phase.

Gifts earmarked for ManUp! will be set aside specifically towards a groundbreaking curriculum aimed at building up Godly men in the urban community.

https://reachlife.donortools.com/my/funds/10475-Man-Up-

Doug Wolter:

Today a friend of mine graciously gave me a copy of Tim Keller’s book,  Counterfeit Gods. Normally I don’t do this, but I was so intrigued with the title of the Epilogue (Finding and Replacing Your Idols) that I started reading there first. Keller poses one main question in this section, namely, “How do we discern our idols?” Here’s the outline of his very helpful and very challenging response:

1. Look at your imagination. What do you think about in the privacy of your heart?

2. Look at how you spend your money. Patterns of spending reveal idols.

3. Look at what you are really living for. What is your real–not professed–god?

4. Look at your most uncontrollable emotions. When you pull your emotions up by the roots, you will often find your idols clinging to them.

(HT: Take Your Vitamin Z)

Lecrae encourages the crowd in pursuing the unwasted life, one that spreads a passions for the Supremacy of Christ in all things.

One life to live and soon it will pass, only that which is done for Christ will last…