Entries from June 2006 ↓

As many of you figured out, yesterday was my 20th birthday. I crossed a threshhold of life, sealing the lid on my second decade of life and beginning my third. As my good friend, Steve Crawford, reminded me of the fact that twenty is a strange age - not a teenager, but not a legal adult. O well, we can still live our twenty-first year of life powerfully for the glory of God.

Many people showered me with Happy Birthday’s and gifts. I was happily surprised by all of the people from school and IBEX that took the time to pass on their best regards. And so, to all of you, I give one big heart-felt thank you.

Well, as we know from John Piper and C.S. Lewis, our enjoyment in things is not complete until it is expressed in praise. So I wish tell you of a few things I received yesterday.

My sister, Charissa, gave me a coffee maker, from which I am drinking some Starbucks French Roast. The glory of this experience cannot be described in words.

Mom & Dad, Ian, Nathaniel, Josiah, and Kimberly went together to get me a new speaker system for my car. What a blessing it will be to crank Steven Curtis Chapman without it sounding like he’s spitting.

My sister made a killer glazed strawberry pie. I tasted glorious, especially because the strawberries were freshly picked from our garden.

I received some other things too, such as a Starbucks card, Subway in the park with my dad, and new shoes from my Grandma.

I am so blessed by the people around me and thank God above all else because it is only through His infinite love for Himself that I have any value or worth. I would be not be where I am after 20 years without His sovereign, sustaining power.

My friend from school and fellow IBEXer (and Washingtonian), Ryan, posted on some questions that he has had floating around in his mind recently. I found them very profitable and thought you could benefit from them as well.

1. Do I really understand how depraved I am and how incredible God’s grace is that He gives constantly? I feel like I am painfully learning that I cannot live “successfully” even in the easy times without God. And I’ve tried. Over and over again. And God welcomes the prodigal. 2. Do I really understand how depraved everyone else is around me? Sometimes I realize the evil in my own soul, but somehow still think other people don’t share those struggles. What a lie. 3. Am I a little boy playing at being a man, or am I a man struggling with acting like a little boy? 4. Is there more to the Bible saying “our enemy the Devil prowls around…looking for someone to devour” ( 1 Peter 5:8) that I give credence to? 5. Do I know how to give life to others by my words? Do I purposefully encourage my mom and sisters with my words, as a godly son and brother should? 6. Am I seeking to develop my practical life skills or am I lazily watching time fly by? Could I fix the car? Could I plan a budget? Could I lead a household? 7. Do I know how to rest with passion, letting go of my anxieties? 8. Am I dying to my will for the sake of Christ’s will? 9. Am I willing to be wrong? Am I willing to take criticism? Am I willing to look stupid for a good reason? 10. If I’m not a good son, brother, friend, what deludes me into thinking I would be a good husband? 11. Sin starts in the mind. What’s on my mind? Do I hate sin? 12. Why do I feel superior when I have been forgiven so much?

The Christian community has been holding up Brittany McComb as an example of suffering and taking a stand for Christ. She had been awarded the title of Valedictorian and had the opportunity to speak at her high school graduation. She submitted a script of her speech at the school’s request, which was edited and given back to her. They told her that she could not make references to God and Christ because it was a school endorsed function and thus could not promote a single religion, promising her that if she did that they would turn off her microphone. She agreed to give the edited speech. But when she actually gave the speech she recited the full, unedited manuscript. The school officials then killed her microphone. For more information and some videos, click here.

Many people, youth and adult alike, are applauding Brittany for her testimony for Christ. In the face of opposition (the school board), she dared to take the risk and talk about the the impact that Jesus Christ had in her life. Although I don’t think that the school did the right thing by turning off her mic, I don’t think that Brittany was entirely in the right.

What do unbelievers think when they see this girl who claims to be a Christian, who rebels against authority, and who goes back on her word? She said that she would give the unedited speech, but then without informing anyone, gave the other one instead. So, the very mouth that said that Christ was her greatest influence, lied directly in the face of her authority.

I understand that we must disobey our earthly authority if it is commanding us to disobey our heavenly authority, but you must decide which one you are going to obey. Don’t switch your allegience half-way through. Show from start to finish that you answer only to God.

I found some interesting comments by Richard Baxter in his work The Reformed Pastor about why Christian education is necessary.

“Nothing can be rightly known, if God be not known; nor is any study well managed, nor to any great purpose, if God is not studied. We know little of the creature, till we know it as it stands related to the Creator. He who overlooks Him who is the ‘Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending,’ and sees not Him in all who is the All in all, does see nothing at all.” “None but a Christian can read one line of his Physics so as to understand it rightly.” “Your study of physics and other sciences is not worth a rush, if it be not God that you seek after in them. To see and admire, to reverence and adore, to love and delight in God, as exhibited in his works - this is the true and only philosophy. This is the sanctification of your studies, when they are devoted to God, and when He is the end, the object, and the life of them all.” “Theology must lay the foundation, and lead the way in all our studies. If God must be searched after, in our search of the creature, then tutors (or teachers) must read God to their pupils in all; and divinity must be the beginning, the middle, the end, the life, the all, of their studies.” “Our physics and metaphysics must be reduced to theology; and nature must be read as one of God’s books, which is purposely written for the revelation of Himself.” “If tutors would make it their principal business to acquaint their pupils with the doctrine of salvation, and labor to set it home upon their hearts, that all might be received according to its weight, and read to their hearts as well as to their heads.”

And here is his word to teachers

“You, that are schoolmasters and tutors, begin and end with the things of God. Let some piercing words fall frequently from your mouths, of God, of the state of their souls, and the life to come. Do not say, they are too young to understand and enterain them.”

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” James 1:27

I’m struck once again by the bluntness of Scripture. Christians today try so many different ways to act out their religion. They try Bible studies, support groups, outreach events, and potlucks. God’s Word doesn’t prohibit or condemn any of those things, but it does give us specfic instructions as to what our responsibilities are as believers.

James says that if we want to present to God religion that is pure and holy, undefiled by sin, then we are to do the two things listed. I first thought that it presented some conflict with the teaching of Jesus and the apostles because they focused on the heart - the issue with all of Christianity is who you love, God or yourself. It seemed that this statement that the religion that God wanted was concerned with actions rather than the heart.

This initial incongruency turned into perfect fusion of how obedience to the first and second commandments given by Jesus is fleshed out in visiting orphans and widows in their affliction and keeping oneself unstained from the world. James is not saying that these things are the only thing that will constitute true piety or that nothing else is essential to religion, but holds these up as examples. If one is truely worshipping God in way that is “pure and undefiled” from wrong motives then that worship will be practiced and bear fruit in these two ways. That true worship will show itself in many other ways too, but the apostle James holds these two up as important and necessary. If these two characteristics are absent from one’s life, then true religion does not exist.

This passage was on my mind today because I spent most of the day with two widows in our church: my grandma, Jeannie Marzolf and Jan Leaf. One of them lost their husband almost 15 years ago and the other one, only a month ago. Both women are faithfully serving their God in the absence of their soul mate. In both of my conversations with them, their husbands came up and my heart went out to these two women who have to deal everyday with the fact that the man that they loved so much and gave themselves completely to . . . was no longer there. They have to do things on their own and live by themselves.

What a great opportunity the church has to minister to these faithful women. Most of the time, they are old and cannot do many of the things that the younger generations can do. Let us apply the words of Scripture and to take the initiative to visit such people and not wait until they tell us about a pressing need.