Sometimes I feel like Denzel Washington….

I just watched the Book of Eli this weekend. The movie actually moved me quite a lot. I had to watch it twice to get all of it, and I’m probably still missing something. Now, my interest in this could be from my lack of TV watching since this was the first movie I’ve watched in a while, but nonetheless, something about it was very relatable to me.

Without spoiling anything (until later, so you can close your eyes then), I’ll give synopsis of the plot by explaining how I related to Denzel’s character, Eli. Throughout the entirety of the movie, Eli is wandering through this portion of his life alone. He literally fights these battles. It seems that everyone is after him. Everyone wants him for only one reason, the book. He had something and people wanted him for it, not for himself.

After pondering about the internal struggles Eli had in the movie, I felt like the movie could have been about my life. Now, I’m not trying to throw myself a pity-party or pat myself on the back or even expect anyone to come running with sympathy, there were just some things that really stood out to me. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one struggling with fighting these battles. I feel like I’m alone sometimes. The encouraging part of the movie was Eli’s unmoving faith. He always kept his focus on his purpose. Nothing ever got in the way or swayed him otherwise.

I think it has to do with peace. I believe that God woke me up yesterday so that I would go to church to hear a message that he had given the pastor for me. I honestly believe that the ultimate purpose for the message was for me. If we have peace then we can face anything. In order to have true peace, or Shalom, we must understand the depth, breadth and power of the atoning blood of Jesus Christ and how THAT is the only reason we are loved and are able to love. Trusting Christ gives us peace. This is an internal peace, but because we contain this peace we can share it with others. However, sometimes this peace can be sort of blocked out by things in our lives. Or it can be clouded up because of stress and worry and other things that we let slip into our hearts and minds. Jesus is what gives us peace. Nothing else. Having peace is more than just the peace we think about like “peace and quiet” or when we grant others peace when depart from one another. This isn’t the peace we hope for between nations throughout the world. This is peace that allows us to understand joy and gives us hope that can’t be removed. Hear what Jon Foreman says about it:

-------------------------SPOILER ALERT---------------------------------------

So it turns out that Eli is blind the entire movie. He goes about and physically fights and wanders through his life with one purpose of going west. Am I blind too? What am I missing? I feel like I’m fighting things every day, but am I doing it without a vision? I know my purpose. And I fight for my dreams. I have hopes and aspirations and I know that finding hope and joy in a Savior will ultimately carry me. But could I possibly be doing this without looking? Maybe the idea behind Eli’s lack of vision was to show that all he needed was his heart set on a certain goal. I don’t know. Whatever the case, I will continue. I will do everything I can to defeat the things that crush my dreams. I will not let anything get in the way of my purpose in the world.

One more thing that I got out of the movie was how precious my bible is. It’s so important to keep these words. Learning what it has to say to you and sharing that with the people in your life. These are God’s words. They are from his mouth. Tell everyone about it. Love ‘em.

And 2 months later...

I haven't realized that it's been 2 months since I last posted. So much has went on and time has really flown by. So I guess it's about time I update my virtual "diary" and keep things jotted down on my online ink and paper.

Since music is what fills my life mostly, I'll begin and finish with this topic. On October 29, we played our debut show in downtown Asheville. It was quite a fun experience. We had a great time and I am thankful for everyone who came out and supported us. It seriously meant a lot. You can check out some of the footage of the show as well as some other entertaining clips at http://www.youtube.com/user/piedmontmusic .

The very next weekend we traveled back to Manchester, KY with Campus Crusade to minister to the locals there and give out coats and blankets. Again, like last year, this weekend rocked my world and shook up my life. These people are hurting so much. They would walk into the warehouse where we were and sit down with us as we explained to them our purpose for being there. We were there to share the love of God. As we loved on these people, some would seem to 'zone-out' while others would tear up and fight back their weeping. I immediately channeled this into a song. I want to be able to help out everyone who walked through that door with despair on their faces. With water in their eyes, where do I turn? It gets me down when I know that I can't save them. But, even though I'm not their savior, I know the answer and the hope that can heal their broken hearts. Let salvation carry you home. There is love for them. There is love for you.

We're going to be recording more on the album in a couple of weeks. Keep your ears peeled (??) for any updates about where you can get it.

So, 2 months later....here I am. Ready for what's next, a changed soul.

There Is Love For You

So many people/So many broken

Abandoned, forgotton/Left without hope

There are so many hurting/So many loved ones

They've been beaten down/Can't stand to fight it

There is only one answer

There is only one hope

When you're lost with no place to go

There is love for you

Yes, enough for you

Let it come--lay your burdens down

It can heal the wounds in your broken heart

Let it comfort you

Let it come to you

Oh, let love make your life brand new

There is love for you

I've seen so many people/Water in their eyes

Despair on their faces/The same on mine

So where do I turn to?/How can I save them?

Oh I'm not a Savior/I can't save myself

Now I know there's an answer

I know there's a hope

Salvation's right here

Let it carry you home

"untitled"

it's been less than a week since my last post, so this is unusual of me. But I'm just going to be honest for a moment. I'm feeling awful. It just seems like this is a horrible week. It's Monday. I don't even want to finish this week out. Meaning, I'm ready for Friday. I don't want to do whatever I have to do this week. This mostly has to do with the load of school work I have, but still, I don't want to do this. I don't want to be here right now. I'm in my last year of college. I'm not content with the work I have to do. I don't want to follow anything regarding my degree. I'm just so ready to be done. I'm looking forward to the future, but it seems like the process of getting there will be slow, tedious and overly-frustrating. I'm not looking forward to that.

Last night we were rehearsing our songs from the project we're working on, and I felt so confident and happy the entire time we were working on stuff. I found what I want to do. It's so frustrating to know that I have to stick out this part of my life before moving on. Sometimes I wonder if I should regret my decisions that led me here. Then again, those same decisions could be what brought me here, musically. I never thought I would even be this far along with my music. It's absolutely a miracle.

I don't know what I'm saying. I guess I would covet any prayers that you could throw up on my behalf. Thanks to all you who run over here to the blog. Love you all.

just stop and think.

Take 15 minutes and watch this clip. It will change your life.


if you can't see the entire video, you can find it at juststopandthink.com click on "get dvd's" then select 'watch movie' under just stop and think. (It may be in better quality, also.)

girls, girls, girls....

I don't trust God. That's what it comes down to. I simply don't. I want to, but I never do. I always rely on myself.

This weekend at Ridgecrest, I worked as the sound tech for the North Carolina Baptist State Convention...for women. I was one of six guys in the room. Three of them were musicians with Laura Story (she wrote Indescribable), one was Laura's husband, another guy worked with me and the last guy headed up the conference. We were out-numbered by about 250-300. I wasn't sure if I really wanted to pay attention to the talks. I was afraid of what I might hear. But, I did catch a few things that really hit home for me.

This past week I kinda got out of my normal everyday routine. I woke up later than usual a few times and I headed out the door before I got to spend any time letting God speak to me. There's something about reading the Word before you really start the day. A lot of the time, when I fail to do so first thing, I'll never get back around to it that day. And somehow I always feel like the day just doesn't flow like it should. One of the talks from the conference reiterated to me how important it was to make sure I prioritize my time accordingly.

A tithe is a 10% contribution. We, as Christians, usually understand this to mean 10% of our income. God blesses us with this income so we give a part of it back. He also gives us time. 24 hours each day. That's 1,440 minutes. If we choose to give 10% of each day, we would spend 2 hours and 24 minutes (144 minutes total) getting to know Him better. Well let's just look at the hours we're awake. On average, we'll say we sleep 8 hours a night. That leaves us with 16 hours. A tithe of this would only be 1 hour and 36 minutes. Still too long? I'm not saying any of this to play the judge of how many chapters of Leviticus and Deuteronomy you read each day, I'm just sharing some thoughts I've had over the past couple of days. It convicts me of how much time I actually don't spend trying to understand the Love of God better.

God doesn't specifically say that we must spend this much time in solitude with our Bible, but I feel like He wouldn't mind more of our time. I'm guilty of doing my own thing too much. I'm on Facebook way more than I should. I watch too many episodes of House. I spend too much time just goofing off. I really need to straighten up my to-do list, work on time management and get my priorities in order.

Maybe if I spent more time understanding the life of Jesus and listening to what God has planned to show me, then I would learn to trust Him more. One of the talks of this conference was titled "Winning Over Worry." When I wasn't thinking about how many women I know who worry too much, I would ponder my worries. I worry about my future all the time. I feel like I'm getting somewhat better at this, but I still do it excessively. I worry about finances and how I will pay bills after school. I worry about girls and how I'll know when I find 'her' (hence the name of the post). I worry about my music and my musicianship which leads to more concern for my future regarding a career. I need prayer. I need to let someone else have control of my life. I need to let Jesus. I need Jesus.

One last thought on girls. Seeing these ladies experience their creator through music and prayer was a blessing. Laura was great. I'm usually bias (but NOT sexist!) when it comes to female musicians, but she rocked the house (figuratively speaking). [Nice sounding guitar. And the rest of her band sounded great too. I like guitar tone :)]. I was surprisingly challenged from this weekend. I saw God move among His people...specifically me.

Side note and accomplishment on worrying: I've almost quit worrying about school related issues because I'm ready to be done with it. HA! So, there's one that I can check off the list. I'm focusing on the goal, now. Graduation. How I get there is the only question. But no worrying. I'm just going to get there.

today, I'm thankful for salt.

I just moved into a new place here in Asheville. I think we're finally settled in. And just like any other time you begin living in a new place, there is a period of time where you start to realize the things that you need. Well, it had been about a week and a half when my roommates and I were tired of eating our food without any salt. After two or three trips to the grocery store and returning without any, we finally wrote it down on a list and set out to buy some. And today, I'm thankful for it. I feel like thats one thing I would have the toughest time cutting out of my diet.

So I got to thinking about its importance and then the Sunday School bible verse came to mind: "...salt of the Earth...". So we're supposed to positively 'flavor' the world right? And my other question is, am I doing my part?

I crossed paths with someone yesterday. A guy I have known as a fellow believer. So, as a believer I find it important to have a genuine concern for others. Now, this is no pat on the back for me, but when I greet someone and ask how they are doing, 9 times out of 10, I truly mean what I'm saying. I honestly want to see how they are. But when you have this cliché response, I find it offensive to not take the extra second to stop to genuinely, casually chat. Maybe it was just me being in a weird mood where everything bothers me, who knows. But, I do know that we are called to have community with other believers. Therefore, I believe it's important to show love to everyone. I believe this can be the most simple way to show love. It's different with 'strangers' but I still find it necessary to have a loving demeanor regardless of who you meet.

There is such thing as being over-salty. I believe there is a balance. You can over saturate your fries at Wendy's which makes them less enjoyable. So, if we try to show this same compassion to just anyone, things can become awkward real quick. Sometimes a simple smile and head-nod will do the job. But I think that when there is a tighter bond between you and whoever else, it's appropriate to show your care for them.

I feel like we owe this to the American culture. In America, we think it's important to be polite and speak but I feel like it's worse than being impolite when it's obvious you don't care how someone's doing. Since when do a conversations look like this:

Person 1: "Hey, how ya doin'?"

Person 2: "How's it goin'?"

And they keep on walking. Neither question was even addressed. It's kind of funny to realize how many times we do this. But, there were two questions proposed here and neither was answered. I do think that if we are genuinely concerned about others, this could be a small step in bettering our world. We could start with our relationships with those we consider acquaintances. You may not be their best friend but you do know their name and have at least met them before. You can speak some love into their life if you show that you are truly concerned with their general well-being.

Maybe this is just one of my quirks. Or maybe it just hit me weird yesterday. This may not even make 'a lick a' sense'. I don't know. Just something I felt I needed to share to whoever may run across this. But I honestly try my best to be Love to everyone around me. I think we can make a little difference with improvements in areas like this. I feel like this is one step in 'flavoring' the world. I hope I'm doing my part.

Believe and Be Love.

this summer.

Let me say I've had the most wonderful summer ever. I couldn't wait to blog about how this entire season has built me up, humbled, and readied me for the next chapter of my life. Now I've finally found some time to smear some virtual ink across a page so here we go.

First off, I got a job at a conference center near Black Mountain, NC called Ridgecrest. When I found out I had the job, I didn't know what to expect. I learned that I would live at this place with a few other college students who were doing the same kind of thing. Little did I know that these people would change my life. Especially the men who I've come to know as my brothers. I owe it to them for impacting my life so much.

Not only did I have a job and got paid, but I truly enjoyed the work I did. The work consisted of running sound and setting up for bands, learning how to patch audio signal in some of the most complicated but efficient ways, and bat wrangling. Yes, like real bats. The ones with rabies and all.

During one of my first weeks, I got to run sound for Todd Agnew. I didn't really have to do much since the band was already mixed but I still felt a little more awesome from that. Speaking of, getting to experience Todd leading worship for the Fuge Camps was a life changing experience in itself. With experience and a desire to lead worship, it was a privilege to see this guy do his thing. Each week was essentially the same, but once every week, he would talk about God's love for us. Every time I was floored. I had been struggling with the question of why God loves me. As big of a screw up as I am, how could someone so beautifully perfect, actually enjoy my life? But what it comes down to is that no matter what, God sees us like a groom seeing his bride walk down an aisle with this undying love. It's still hard to grasp. I definitely do not deserve it. But at least now, I'm letting God love me in a different way than before...a better way. And I actually UNDERSTAND this love in a better way. Not completely but better than I did.

On the spiritual side of things, God lead me to read through the New Testament this summer. I admit that I had never went through every book of the NT before. But I hadn't gotten through the gospels before God was teaching me so many things about how to live and love. Reading about Jesus' life was so much sweeter reading it four times in a row. What a man!

Next on the list: my dreams are coming alive a little at a time. My music-partner, Randy, and I completely wrote an album earlier this summer and are in the process of recording it. As of right now, we have all the drum tracks finished. It's amazing because we actually wrote 7 and 1/2 of the songs this summer. The other 5 and 1/2 were mostly written. We hope to have everything mixed and ready to hand out by December. It's so stinkin' awesome to hear our own music like this. I get so excited every time I think of the positive things that COULD come out of this. The negative ones, they kind of suck. It's a hard road to go down, but I want to do this thing. And I feel like God has given me this desire for a reason. Pray for us. We were both able to work together at Ridgecrest this summer which was a plus since it gave us ample time to discuss, write and exchange ideas with each other in our spare time.

So...this summer. It's been a great one. It's arguably close to last summer when I traveled to Europe. But most importantly, this summer has helped me to grow in many more ways than last year. I have been blessed. Ridgecrest will always have a piece of my heart....even though I will continue to work there as a temp.

And for today: I can't get enough of Switchfoot. More specifically, Jon Foreman's songwriting. How can a man write so deep? I want to shed tears every time I finally realize what this guy is saying. For instance, they put out an album awhile back called The Beautiful Letdown. I've listened to it thousands of times, but today I was listening to "On Fire." He wrote, "....Everything inside me looks like everything I hate. You are the the hope I have for change. You are the only chance I'll take." I may sound dumb or illiterate, but I never quite 'got' what he was saying here. This is what I've been trying to get out. Just a minute ago, you read how I was faced with the question of why God would love me. Well, today, I sang, in my car, what I've really been wanting to say. I had been hating myself because of how wicked I really am, but I will only chance on the One who gives me hope to change. I still feel like I'm having trouble communicating this.

youtubers

Visit my YouTube channel for footage of iPraise 2010 on May 8, 2010. Set list was:

1. All About Love

2. Carry On

3. The Remedy

4. Your Name is Love

5. From the Very Start

Take a look and tell me what you think.

CS Lewis

I finally finished up Mere Christianity tonight. There was so much in that book, I don't even know where to begin in this blog. In fact, I would prefer you read it yourself. In my opinion, every citizen of the world should be required to read this book in order for them to make their own judgement of who God is and what Christianity has to offer. So many get things so twisted that its almost impossible for people to understand what Jesus really did here on Earth. This book cleared up so many confusing topics in Christianity for me and helped me to understand my God. Not to sound contradictory to the Word of God, but the contents of this book are a perfect complement for the Bible. I HIGHLY recommend this to YOU!! Read it. I promise that you won't regret it. But, reading the Good Book should be our first priority.

The Rescue

From the book, When God Weeps:

The face that Moses had begged to see--was forbidden to see--was slapped bloody (Exodus 33:19-20). The thorns that God had sent to curse the earth's rebellion now twisted around his own brow...

"On your back with you!" One raises a mallet to sink in the spike. But the soldier's heart must continue pumping as he readies the prisoner's wrist. Someone must sustain the soldier's life minute by minute, for no man has this power on his own. Who supplies breath to his lungs? Who gives energy to his cells? Who holds his molecules together? Only by the Son do "all things hold together" (Colossians 1:17). The victim wills that the soldier live on--he grants the warriors continued existence. The man swings.

As the man swings, teh Son recalls how he and the Father first designed the medial nerve of the human forearm--the sensations it would be capable of. The design proves flawless--the nerves perform exquisitely. "Up you go!" They lift the cross. God is on display in his underwear and can scarcely breathe.

But these pains are a mere warm-up to his other and growing dread. He begins to feel a foreign sensation. Somewhere during this day an unearthly foul odor began to waft, not around his nose, but his heart. He feels dirty. Human wickedness starts to crawl upon his spotless being--the living excrement from our souls. The apple of his Father's eye turns brown with rot.

His Father! He must face his Father like this!

From heaven the Father now rouses himself like a lion disturbed, shakes his mane, and roars against the shriveling remnant of a man hanging on a cross. Never has the Son seen the Father look at him so, never felt even the least of his hot breath. But the roar shakes the unseen world and darkens the visible sky. The Son does not recognize these eyes.

"Son of Man! Why have you behaved so? You have cheated, lusted, stolen, gossiped--murdered, envied, hated, lied. You have cursed, robbed, overspent, overeaten--fornicated, disobeyed, embezzled, and blasphemed. Oh, the duties you have shirked, the children you have abandoned! Who has ever so ignored the poor, so played the coward, so belittled my name? Have you ever held your razor tongue? What a self-righteous, pitiful drunk--you, molest young boys, peddle killer drugs, travel in cliques, and mock your parents. Who gave you the boldness to rig the elections, foment revolutions, torture animals, and worship demons? Does the list never end! Splitting families, raping virgins, acting smugly, playing the pimp--buying politicians, practicing exhortation, filming pornography, accepting bribes. You have burned down buildings, perfected terrorist tactics, founded false religions, traded in slaves--relishing each morsel and bragging about it all. I hate, loathe these things in you! Disgust for everything about you consumes me! Can you not feel my wrath?"

Of course the Son is innocent. He is blamelessness itself. The Father knows this. But the divine pair have an agreement, and the unthinkable must now take place. Jesus will be treated as if personally responsible for every sin ever committed.

The Father watches as his heart's treasure, the mirror-image of himself, sinks drowning into raw, liquid sin. Jehovah's stored rage against humankind from every century explodes in a single direction.

"Father! Father! Why have you forsaken me?!"

But heaven stops its ears. The Son stares up at the One who cannot, who will not, reach down or reply.

The Trinity had planned it. The Son endured it. The Spirit enabled him. The Father rejected the Son whom he loved. Jesus, the God-man from Nazareth, perished. The Father accepted his sacrifice for sin and was satisfied. The Rescue was accomplished.



All your sins are covered. My sins are covered. We're free.

Sharing Joy

First of all, I wanted to look back over the past 365 days in my life. This has been a wild ride and an incredible year. I feel like I'm treating this as New Year's but summer time is around the corner and it will be the start of my final year as a kid before I head out and start paying some bills. Right now, I'm one exam shy of wrapping up my 3rd year of college. This time last year would have been the beginning of my summer vacation. At this point, I felt like I had been living life the same way over the past two years. I was just so complacent and stagnant in everything. I never looked outside the box to see the world around me. My life was more of a day-by-day routine.

My life changed a lot shortly after summer started. I made a huge decision that has affected me greatly spiritually as well as challenging me to grow up and really be a man. This was the first step of really opening my eyes to see that I needed to stop living for just myself. I needed to serve others. Life's not about pleasing myself.

Since then, I've been able to pursue my dreams even more. I've been able to write tons of music and even record some. Music is where my heart is. What's been so awesome is that I've been able to channel what I've seen into music. I've started to see more of the injustice in the world and the fact that so many people around me are missing the point. So many don't see the Love that they've been shown and they take each day for granted. I wish I could illustrate to everyone the things I've understood so that they can start to realize these things and how important it is to not put yourself first all the time.

None of this is what I wanted to say today. I wanted to put my thoughts into words regarding something that I read earlier today. I'm reading a book called Boy Meets Girl, by Joshua Harris. The book is about the 'proper' way to date when preparing for marriage. There's no way I'm ready for marriage, especially after reading this book, so I'm going to enjoy my time as a single for now until "my lady" shows up.

Harris wrote something that made me realize a ton of stuff that I've never thought of before. He writes, "Doesn't a sunset that you're able to marvel at with a friend seem even more beautiful than the one you watch alone? When we share something with others, we increase our own enjoyment." I've never thought about this in this way, but it's so true because you have someone there to share the beauty with.

Although this is referring to including your family more in your joy during your courtship/engagement, I took it more generally. I was thinking about hilarious videos that I've watched on YouTube lately with some friends. (YouTube is awesome, we all know) Some of them I thought were so funny were not so funny the next time when I watched them again by myself. It was because of sharing the experience with others. When you see a really good movie, the kind that changes people's lives, you want to find out who all of your friends has watched it. Even though you watched it separately, you can share the goodness of the movie when you talk about it. This causes you to appreciate the movie even more.

More than this, it got me to thinking about when I discuss Jesus' Love and how He's been working in my life. He's done nothing but show me just how crazy He loves us (read the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan. I blogged about it a few months back.) It's awesome when you start to realize just what he did for each of us. Not too long ago, I was trying to define the word 'atonement' with a friend. From that conversation, I comprehend a little more of what was done for me. Sharing with each other is such a great time to be able to spend. This is one thing that we are called to do. It builds into each other. And above all, it will leave you feeling more joy than any YouTube video can put in your heart.

Love God and Love People!!

fightin'

Yesterday was Easter Sunday. The day the we take, as Christians, to remember Christ's life as He conquered death which gave us freedom from all the wickedness of the world. I get to thinking about what a guy said in church yesterday. He said that if Christ would have just died and never rose from the dead, then Christians should be pitied more than any other people in the world. He then said, "I don't feel sorry for anyone here." That was encouraging to remember that this is the only belief system in the world that has a God who died for people and then came back alive. It's so good!

Now on to what I want to say about my life. I've been fighting with these thoughts like, if God is completely sovereign and it's impossible for Him to even consider sin and we are completely human and it's impossible for us not to sin, then is it even worth fighting everyday? Recently a friend introduced me to a friend of his. I am thankful for him because he was straight up with me. I asked this question to him. By not really knowing him well, I expected to hear something that was somewhat agreeing with me or along the lines of what I was saying. Instead, he told me that EVERYDAY is worth fighting for. God is jealous for each of us. It should be our goal to strive to be more like Christ instead of just giving up and saying we can't do it because we're human and are guaranteed to sin.

But God didn't stop there. This morning I decided to work through the book of Ecclesiastes. It's believed that Solomon wrote this book. That has a lot to do with why I wanted to work through it. He is said to be the wisest man to live. So, I've read through the first two chapters and it's been telling me how everything is meaningless. Everything. Wisdom, pleasures, everything. In a way this started making me think about what I had been dealing with such that I would think 'well, if everything is meaningless, then how can I even strive to be like Christ. Why not just be human and not worry about living right?' Then I felt God speak to me about what I was actually reading. Everything started to make sense. The meaninglessness is when you're life doesn't honor the Savior. Even the wisdom is meaningless when it's not glorifying God because it's being wasted, more or less. For example, wealth is meaningless because it doesn't benefit the wealthy one. It is just passed on. But, when it brings glory to name of Jesus it has the ability to point others in the direction of God.

Whether you are a wise man or a foolish man, a rich man or a poor man, you're still gonna die. So why not make the best of this one life that you're given. The only way to do that is to live to honor the Creator, the King of Kings, Jesus.

True Love

Check out this song...It's called True Love, by Phil Wickham. We're planning on playing it at an upcoming conference (Campus Crusade for Christ Leadership Conference). I love it and can't get enough of it. Good stuff.


And for the playaz out there...here is a lesson on how to play the song. Watch it, learn it, sing it, and share it.

impressiveness and the like

I've been reading/studying in Romans and so far, I really like chapter 12. I'm going to go back and re-read a lot of it and take a deeper look at it, but for now, chapter 12 is my fave. So, along with being impressed with Paul's letter to the people of Rome, I tried out a cool feature on a web site, www.wordle.net. It's called tag clouds. You take a section of text or whatever floats your boat and this Java program creates this word collage. I took Romans 12 and created this tag cloud. I'm kinda impressed with this thing. These things look sweet to me. Here's my creation (click to make it bigger):

Spectacular Sins

Spectacular Sins? Oxymoron? How does this work? How could a sin glorify Christ?

So, how does a sin get the title of spectacular? John Piper, in his book, Spectacular Sins: and their global purpose in the glory of Christ, addresses some of the greater sins from the bible (i.e. the sell of Joseph into slavery, the fall of man, the people building the tower of Babel, and the most spectacular of all, the betrayal and murder of God's Son). One thing to always remember when analyzing The Book is that everything will ultimately point to the Cross. All those Old Testament stories point to the Cross. All of these "Spectacular Sins" point to the Cross. It's amazing and mind-boggling to wrap your mind around the idea that Adam's fall finally glorifies God through His Son as well as the other points mentioned in this book.

I got this book about a week and a half ago. It's fairly short, but with lots of depth throughout every page. So, by the end of this post, maybe I can convince you to read it.

First thing to note is that no matter what God is sovereign over everything including your greatest sin. There is nothing that He can't do. He has a plan for everything, nothing surprises Him, and even though things make no sense to us, there is a purpose for them.

One of the biggest things that I got out of reading this book was the fact that everything was created through Christ and for Him. In Colossians 1:16, Paul tells us this. (If you read verses 15-23, you get an even clearer picture of Christ's supremacy and our redemption through His sacrifice.) Even the evils of this world. As we all know, way back when, Satan was condemned into Hell for his ungrateful desire for power. And you may ask, could God not have prevented this from happening? Yes, He could. Why didn't He? It was all in His plan. Satan's fall ultimately glorifies the Son. You may have tons of questions, as do I, but we read in 1 Corinthians 13:12 that we only "know in part; [but] then I shall know fully." So, some questions seem impossible to answer while on Earth, we should not be brought down by the lack of knowledge that we have but wait until it's worthy of knowing. A big question I have is: why did all this have to happen in the first place? In other words, why couldn't God have just created things so that sin was impossible? Here we recall the idea of "free will" and how Adam had the "free will" to choose to sin. This part of spiritual doctrine is very confusing to me anyways, so I cannot attempt to answer. Piper gives a clear explanation in his book concerning this but some things still seem blurry in my comprehension of it all. All I know is that I am not going to worry about it, but just love Jesus until I can "know fully."

The third chapter in the book was my favorite. It was entitled, The Fall of Satan and the Victory of Christ. The Victory of Christ. This is such a wonderful thing to remember as we journey through life. In God's plan, the outcome would be to glorify Him. Never forget that God always rules over Satan. Even though this devil disobeys God's commands, God never loses the ability for Satan to overpower Him. Genesis 3:15 says "...he shall crush your head and you will strike his heel." At the cross, the seed of a woman (a human being) crushed Satan. Even though Satan's strikes at our heels everyday, in the end we know that Christ is victorious. We may not understand why things happened this way, but we know God is the victor and sin has no hold on us. Because of Satan's "Spectacular" sin, Christ was able to crush him with three nails and some splintery wood.

Another question you may ask would be: why didn't God just wipe out Satan when this happened? To answer this we can simply say that He wanted to glorify Himself so he allowed for Satan to be defeated.

The other "Spectacular Sins" are covered in the book. Go read it for yourself. It's deep, but very moving. You will see things like you never thought you would.

I'm not trying to turn this blog into a book review site, but I've read some very good books here lately and I want to encourage you to check them out for yourself. Instead, I'll leave you with some good music to check out. John Mark McMillan, an incredible songwriter from the good ol' North Carolina, has written a song called Death in His Grave. This song is worth listening to for it's accurate description of Christ's victory as well as the creativity of his ability to create art with his music and poetry. Such a great song. The chorus says...laid down in grief but awoke with the keys of hell on that day, the first born of the slain, the man, Jesus Christ, laid death in His grave. And then in the bridge of the song he says....He has cheated hell and seated us above the fall. In desperate places He paid our wages one time once and for all. Man, good stuff.

new song

So here are a few vids I took while we were recording a song called Yesterday. We recorded most of the parts in this auditorium. It gave a BIG roomy feel to the song. It's not completely done yet, but progress is being made. One clip is most of the song and the other two are when we were tracking guitars. Enjoy.

crazy love

Wow. I can't believe it has been over a month since I last posted something. Regardless, something hit me about two days ago that I knew would end up on this blog.

I'm in the midst of reading a book by Francis Chan entitled, Crazy Love. The gist of the book is about the endless, unmatchless, insane love that God has for us, His people. It also covers how we should love God with our whole lives. Chapters 5 and 6 have had the most impact on me so far. Chapter 5 is titled, Serving Leftovers to a Holy God. It discusses the 'lukewarm' Christian and how it's best to be completely in love with Christ or not at all. He said in one paragraph, "...Most of our thoughts are centered on the money we want to make, the school we want to attend, the body we aspire to have, the spouse we want to marry, the kind of person we want to become...But the fact is that nothing should concern us more than our relationship with God; it's about eternity, and nothing compares with that. God is not someone who can be tacked on to our lives..." I am guilty of letting these type of things rule over my life. To be quite honest, I'm sure that EVERY one of these things takes priority over my concern with my relationship with my Creator on most occasions. So much goes on in life that I forget that I can't do it on my own anyways and I try to tackle these worries with a finite human strength. From this day forward, I am going to make changes in my life. Chan also made the point that if we are constantly running toward Love, then we will not have room to focus on the hardships and temptations of the world. On the contrary, if we are not running toward Love then we are running away from Love. This allows us to take on the hardships and temptations that we would not have had reason to acknowledge otherwise. This should urge us to desire to fall deeply in love with Jesus, Love.

On a similar note, Chan included a quote from God Is the Gospel, by John Piper that essentially asks whether we are in love with God. "...The critical question for our generation--and for every generation--is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?..." It is amazing to realize where we are as we think about this. For the most part, we tend to imagine Glory as a place of all goodness but we miss the real reason for being there, to worship our God. Heaven is going to have one focus which will be the worship of God and even though all of the rest of heaven is going to be incredibly magnificent, worship will be what the rest of heaven is about anyways. I'm not a scholar or even close to being an expert on heaven, but I know that if we eat food in heaven, as good as it will be, we will eat it out of worship. Any activities, pleasures, or sights will be more perfect than we can imagine with our earthly minds, but we will acknowledge their perfectness in worship. And all of this will be in honor of Christ, our Savior. It's impossible to fathom the greatness of heaven and I do not even know exactly what to expect, but I do know that nothing will ever compare to everlasting songs that we will sing at the feet of Jesus.

Part of my story of coming to know (really knowing) Jesus and who He is includes fellowship with believers. I was hanging out with fellow church-goers imagining heaven. I can't even remember if that was the main discussion point, but I remember thinking, "I want to go where these people are going." That was a turning point in my life. I had repeated the sinner's prayer and been baptized earlier on in life, but in this moment, God spoke to me which began my journey in seeking His Love. I soon confessed Jesus as my King and was baptized again. I urge you readers, if you have never had this kind of thing happen in your life, open your heart and allow God to speak to you. There's nothing I am more joyful for having decided in my life than letting Him take over and consume my life. Do this today.

One final point that Chan made was in chapter 6, When You're in Love. A lot of times we beat around the bush when it comes to growing closer to God. We put up this front of obligation by praying and reading His Word only because we know that's what we are supposed to do. Instead we should just be real with God and ask Him to change us. We know that we should want what He wants for our lives but we don't. I'm going to include the final section of this chapter and let you understand for yourself what Chan is trying to say. The title of the section is: SomeOne I Can Be Real With.

"If you merely pretend that you enjoy God or love Him, He knows. You can't fool Him; don't even try.

Instead, tell Him how you feel. Tell Him that He isn't the most important thing in this life to you, and that you're sorry for that. Tell Him that you've been lukewarm, that you've chosen _______ over Him time and again. Tell Him that you want Him to change you, that you long to genuinely enjoy Him. Tell Him how you want to experience true satisfaction and pleasure and joy in your relationship with Him. Tell Him you want to love Him more that anything on this earth. Tell Him you want to treasure the kingdom of heaven so much that you'd willingly sell everything in order to get it. Tell Him what you like about Him, what you appreciate, and what brings you joy.

Jesus, I need to give myself up. I am not strong enough to love you and walk with You on my own. I can't do it, and I need You. I need You deeply and desperately. I believe You are worth it, that You are better than anything else I could have in this life or the next. I want You. And when I don't, I want to want You. Be all in me. Take all of me. Have Your way with me."