Rest

Matthew 11:28 - 30: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

There are a couple of meanings I get from this. One of the first things that come to mind is the context of the law of Moses, the law that Israel was under prior to Christ's coming. The law was a burdensome thing, a huge list of do's and don'ts that haunted every single person. Nobody could completely and consistently satisfy all of the requirements of the law. Nobody could say that they were 100% right with God. Jesus came and fulfilled the law; whereas the law showed us our depravity, Jesus showed us the way to sanctification. We are no longer weary under the burden of the law that shows us our sin; we have rest through Jesus' sacrifice.

"Take my yoke upon you..." If we look at Jesus' life, we consistently see him doing two things: staying in relationship with the Father and fulfilling the will of the Father. Jesus accomplished these two things by staying in submission to the will of the Father. I've heard it said that "Jesus is ultimately responsible for your relationship with God." There's nothing we can do on our own to grow closer to God or to justify ourselves in His sight; all we can do is be in relationship with Him and live a life submitted to Him. Through this we allow Him to make the relationship stronger, to direct us where He wants us to go. We take it out of our hands and put it into His, where it belongs. We don't have to worry about fulfilling a law or doing all sorts of works to make God accept us. God has already accepted us through Jesus' sacrifice. We have to accept that there is nothing of our own we can offer that will cause God to accept us other than what was already done for us, outside of our own power.

"I am gentle and humble in heart." God's goal isn't to plow over your will so that His be done. He wants you to be willfully surrendered to Him so that He can accomplish His will. He wants us to participate in what He's doing so that we in our submission to Him can work with Him towards what He is fulfilling.

"You WILL find rest for your souls." We were created to be in relationship with Him, coming along side Him and being in His presence. There is no greater peace than being with Him.

"My yoke is easy and my burden is light." We don't have the responsibility for making our relationship with Him work. We simply obey and He makes the relationship work and come alive. Once we can lay down our pride and our will and accept His, He works to accomplish what He wants through you.

Man's Insignificance?

Today a friend of mine on Facebook pointed out that today was Benjamin Franklin's birthday as well as being Martin Luther King, Jr. day, and wondered why we don't celebrate Benjamin Franklin as we do Martin Luther King, Jr. One person commented that Benjamin Franklin was (my paraphrasing) a womanizer and alcoholic so he wasn't really "deserving" of his own day, America's founding fathers were simply in the right place at the right time so they didn't really deserve our respect, and the comments went on and on from there. Essentially this person's platform was that man is flawed and thus undeserving of respect/admiration/honor, and only God is deserving of our respect/admiration/honor for the outcomes He brings about through us.

In my opinion, this is a very flawed point of view. If this was the case, if man and his actions are so insignificant in the grand scheme of things, God wouldn't have put a single person's name in the Bible. God called Abraham His friend, called David a man after His own heart, calls us His sons and daughters; He loves us and doesn't want to devalue or marginalize what we have done for Him. For example, in the parable of the talents, the servants that did well were told to "enter into the joy of your Lord" - God is joyful when we are obedient to Him. I believe there's a big difference between respect/honor/admiration and worship. I don't hold Franklin, any of the forefathers, great spiritual leaders, or anyone in a place of worship. I might hold them in high regard for their accomplishments, but I would never worship them.

I believe God created a place for honor in our humanity. He said we will be given crowns in heaven (that we will cast at His feet). He instructs us to honor our father and mother and to respect the elderly. He killed 42 children with bears for making fun of Elijah. But as the example of Nebuchadnezzar and the golden idol show, man is not to be worshiped; that is a place reserved for God. So although man is flawed, I believe there is absolutely no issue with holding a person in a place of admiration for whatever reason you think them to be worthy, but when it comes to worship, our ultimate love, devotion, and praise belong to Jesus. Thoughts?

[NOTE] I can throw in some Bible verses to back up my statements, but I'm about to go to bed, so I'll add them later if someone needs to see them.

Final Goodbye

Blue,
I'm sorry I couldn't be there when you passed away. I'm sorry you had to go the way you did. You were a great friend to me for years. You were a beautiful cat. It saddens me to think that your beauty is now being hidden under the ground for nobody else to see. There won't be any more pictures, any more tail flaps, shoulder rides, hugs, pets, nothing. I'm having a hard time dealing with that. I've cried for almost two days now. Even though you were "just" an animal, you were a big part of my life and meant a lot to me, even though I've been mostly away from you for five years now. I'll always remember you and you will continue to be a part of my life in memories and pictures. I don't know if God has a place in heaven for pets, but if He does, you surely belong there. I thank God that He brought you into my family and that we had so many years together as friends. I love you and I miss you buddy. Goodbye friend.

Quickie

Reading Eugene Peterson...the below is lightly paraphrased:
"We don't get Jesus on our terms. Jesus and the salvation He embodies are not consumer items. Jesus provides both context and content for our salvation. None of us provides the content for our own salvation; it is given to us. Jesus gives it to us."

This reminded me of Ephesians 2:8 & 9:
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God - not because of works, lest any man should boast.

There's a lot of thoughts you can derive from this. I need to go to bed so I won't go any deeper. Something good to think about though.

Resolutions

For some reason the first thing that popped in my head when I typed that title was The Supertones' song "Resolution". Classic. You might be able to hear it here. Or just Google "oc supertones resolution" it and it should be the first thing that pops up.

I've never really been one to make New Year's resolutions, my opinion has always been that they're just a silly tradition that everyone talks about but nobody really follows through with. At this time in my life, however, I do recognize that there are deficiencies to address and opportunities to take advantage of, and I haven't been doing that. It's way too easy to get lulled into the rhythm of wake-work-wind down-sleep-repeat x 5, weekend, start all over again. Following this pattern of the ordinary isn't going to get me anywhere except for where I am now. If I don't fix what's broken and seize what's possible, I'll be looking back 30/40/50 years down the road thinking, "what if..." I need to make the most of life now because zoning out in the ordinary/comfortable is going to be the death of me. Here we are:

1. Spend time daily in prayer/reading scripture.
I fail hard at this right now. Throughout this past year I've gone through phases where I do spend that time daily, at least reading. I reap the benefits of a sense of greater closeness with God, more joy, more peace, more love for other people, more patience...everything you can imagine that's good. But then distractions get ahold of me and I start to fulfill what the carnal self desires instead of what the spirit desires, and I am soon back where I began. I need God in my life daily, so I will start waking up at 5:30 every morning to spend at least 30 minutes reading/praying/meditating.

2. Lose weight by eating healther and working out.
From 15 - 25 I weighed about 185 pounds. Ever since cancer struck, I have been gaining fairly quickly. In the year that's passed since my last treatment I've put at least 40 pounds on. My plan is to work out at least 3 times a week, for at least 15 minutes or until I'm winded and have a sweat going.

3. Play more guitar.
I haven't played a whole lot of guitar lately at all. I still have the skills, I just don't use them. It's hard to have a desire to play when you don't have people/a band to play with. I can at least start thinking up music and recording that. I'd like to spend time at least once weekly playing. If a need arises at church for a guitarist, then that's great, but regardless of that, I need to play and continue to develop my talent. Even though I'm not what I would call "good", and probably won't ever be a Paul Gilbert or John Petrucci, there's still an expressiveness that comes with playing that makes me feel better.

4. Develop at least one Android application.
My dream is to develop THE killer Android app that everyone buys, make tons of money off of it, pay everything off here then move down to the Caribbean. The whole Caribbean thing is kind of a joke, but it would indeed be nice to have another source of income. If I have the time and talent available to do it, why not do it? Not only could this have financial benefits, but learning benefits as well. There is a book called "Hello Android" that goes through all of the basics of Android development to provide a foundation to start from. I already have a foundation in Java, so if I can also get the Android foundation built, I'm good to go. As soon as I get a copy of that book (will check the bookstore this week), I'll start on this.

5. Contribute to open source.
I've been using and loving Ubuntu for over four years now, and I've always wanted to contribute by writing some code, but didn't know where to get in at. I now have an idea for something I can contribute. I frequently find myself needing to resize pictures to a smaller size, but I've never had a really good tool to do this. I'd like to write something in Java that accepts one or more pictures, offer multiple options for how to do the resize, and spit out the resized files. Although I'm more of a C/Perl guy at heart, Java would ensure maximum cross-platform compatibility between Linux, Windows, and Mac (IF Jobs doesn't get his way and kills off Java on the Mac platform). Hopefully I can get started on this soon. I just need to find out if there are any good image manipulation libraries in Java, and if not, how to start writing them myself.

6. Veg less, learn more, do more.
This ties in strongly to all of the previous points. Many days I come home from work not feeling like doing anything, so...I don't do anything. This stops now. I will FORCE myself to do something. I can't let opportunities slip by or problems fester while I get my "wind-down time" every night. It's just being lazy. Sure, I need down time once in a while, but not every night.

So that pretty much sums it all up. For me, this won't be a walk in the park. It will require a fundamental change of life, of mind, and of will. It will be hard. But pushing forward through the difficulty to be a better person will be well worth it. I'm hoping that in 2012 I can look back at this post and check each piece off, reflect on how it has shaped me into who I am a year later, and what new challenges/goals are out there that I can strive for in another new year.

Love and Forgiveness

A lot of times I forget how extremely vital love and forgiveness are to the core of who God wants me to be as a Christian.  It's so natural, so human to think negatively about others that don't quite fit into our world view, either through their behavior, their personality, the color of their skin, idiosyncrasies, etc.  Take it a step further - think of someone that cuts you off while driving, that pushes you out of the way at the store, that you find out has been disparaging your reputation by spreading rumors and untruths.  It hurts, and naturally, we want to get even - to let them feel the full expression of what we consider to be the recompense of our pain.  Many times that translates into a grudge, bitterness, or unforgiveness.  We think we have to keep that hurt alive in our hearts and minds to keep ourselves from being hurt again by that person, but it only hurts us more.  The fact of the matter is, people are going to hurt us.  We're going to hurt people.  We're going to mess up because we are corrupted, we are far from perfect.  God calls us to His perfection (Matthew 5:48), however, so we are compelled to forsake what is natural to our corrupted nature and live into His calling with the grace He has given us (II Peter 1:3).

There are a few scriptures that really stand out to me about this topic.

Matthew 5:23, 24
"...if you are standing before the altar in the Temple, offering a sacrifice to God, and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there beside the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God."

God won't accept what we bring to offer Him if we're not right with someone.  If we come to Him offering our worship, our service, our time, etc., but we're not right with somebody, He will not receive it.  He wants His church to live in unity, but we can't do that if we have grudges against other people or if they have grudges against us.  We have to be willing to lay down our pride and our rights and humble ourselves and make things right with whoever we have harmed or who has harmed us.  Psalm 51:17 speaks to how God will not refuse someone with a contrite (humble) heart.  If we are living in a state of humility we won't hesitate to make things right with someone we may be at odds with.

Matthew 18:23-35
"...the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. He couldn't pay, so the king ordered that he, his wife, his children, and everything he had be sold to pay the debt. But the man fell down before the king and begged him, 'Oh, sir, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.' Then the king was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt. But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment. His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. 'Be patient and I will pay it,' he pleaded. But his creditor wouldn't wait. He had the man arrested and jailed until the debt could be paid in full. When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him what had happened. Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, 'You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?' Then the angry king sent the man to prison until he had paid every penny. That's what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters in your heart."

The message here is simple.  God cannot tolerate unforgiveness.  He has forgiven us a lifetime of sin, yet we'll explode in rage if someone cuts us off in traffic and makes us a few minutes late.  What can someone possibly do to us that can overshadow the amount of forgiveness God has shown toward us?

I've heard this explained another way that I feel really puts things in perspective.  Genesis explains to us that man was created in God's image.  So whenever we get mad at that person in traffic, we look with disgust at an individual that's not like us, we grumble against someone that's not living up to our expectations, we are marginalizing His creation that He loves.  If we are pursuing after God, we cannot ignore those that He loves.

I John 4:20
If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

This further illustrates the point above that we cannot forsake people and love God.  God's Word says we are a liar if we say we love Him but do not love another person.  We have to love as Jesus loves - unconditionally, without holding back, without a grudge.  I have to check myself on this daily.  I'm still working on this but hopefully I can keep this at the forefront of my heart and mind and truly show people love.

A few months ago I had a falling out with someone I was friends with for many years.  We came to a disagreement on a number of things, and ended up even attacking each other personally.  After some of the lessons above, I realized I had to make this right, and I did.  It involved casting off pride and humbling myself, which is hard.  To me, the initial thought of getting rid of pride hurts, as if I'm giving up a piece of myself.  The reality is that there's freedom there.  There's freedom when you're not holding that grudge, when that bitterness is gone, when you can draw near to God and He draws near to you because you don't have anything against a brother or sister.

This is what I challenge you (and myself) to do daily.  Check yourself.  Did you marginalize someone else because they disrupted you in some way or another?  Is there a past hurt that needs to be resolved?  Is there pride that needs to be forsaken to make things right with a brother or sister?  Are you willing to enter into a deeper relationship with God?  Or do you want to hold on to your pride that will get you nowhere in the immediate or in the eternal?

Colossians 1:9

Colossians 1:7 & 8
"You learned it from Epaphras..." "It" in this context refers to the gospel. These two verses speak about Epaphras, who is considered at length at this website: http://thebible.net/modules.php?name=Read&itemid=8&cat=5
I won't go any more into these verses since this covers it pretty well.

Colossians 1:9
"For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding."

This verse sheds a little more light onto what we saw in verse 3. Verse 3 showed us that Paul prayed for the Church. Verse 9 goes into more detail about how he prays:
- "Since the day we heard about you..." This implies an immediacy to Paul's prayers for the Colossian church. He didn't make a note of them on his prayer list and prayed for them when he got around to it. His prayers were immediate.
- "...we have not stopped praying for you..." Paul's prayers were persistent. Just as Paul said in I Thessalonians 5:17, "pray without ceasing", here we see evidence of that. Praying without ceasing is not simple repetition (Matthew 6:7); rather it is an open stream of communication between yourself and God. You bring EVERYTHING to Him, and He speaks back to you. Prayer is not just us talking TO God, it's talking WITH God. It is enormously difficult to constantly maintain a state of prayer where we can really stay in tune with God when we're at work, at home, running errands, etc. Paul would not ask us to do this if it were not possible. I think one of the keys is simply to draw near to Him.
- "...asking God to fill you with the knowledge of His will..." Paul's prayers were specific; they spoke to a need. He knew what the Colossians would need to continue to grow. When we come to God with a request for a person or a situation, we must be able to speak to the specific need that we see. As we draw closer to Him and acquire His insight, we will be more able to speak directly to those needs.

"...to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding."
To know God's will we have to be actively participating with Him, drawing nearer to Him, to really understand what He has planned for us. I believe some people will live life as they want, not in submission or obedience, with the thought that "as soon as God tells me what to do, I'll go for Him." If we're not staying in tune with Him, we are going to mis out on what He has called us to. We have to be listening intently to hear.

I'm tired. Bed time.