This upsets me.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
Music.
To be completely honest I didn’t want to write this post, but during the past few months I’ve felt the Lord urging me to talk about this. Some background first. God created mankind; we sinned, and incurred His holy wrath. We took the world with us (now disease entered, pain, sadness, etc). However, God still gives us certain common grace (if He didn’t, our societies’ over history would have torn each other to pieces in a way that no one could imagine, and natural disasters would destroy what’s left). Thus, it is due to God’s common grace toward to each of us (including those who have not accepted Jesus’ payment for their sins) that He allows us to keep living and enables any person can do “good works” (i.e. the kindnesses that fellow humans–even unsaved–give each other). God also endowed all of humankind (e.g. people building architectural wonders, inventing new things, writing, using the Arts). Music is included in this list. These gifts somehow (even coming from those who spurn God’s special grace) glorify God–even when used for personal fame and fortune. Thus, even if I listen to secular music, my soul can still glorify God and extol His greatness, but there can be two problems: the lyrics and my heart. 1) Lyrics do not necessarily glorify God–glorifying sin is one example of un-glorifying lyrics. When I hear these words of this type, I cannot glorify God because sin is being exemplified. Thus, this music is not good for my soul. 2) My heart: if I’m focusing too much of my attention on music (even “good” music) and not on God, then I have created an idol in my life that needs to go. So, even if the music is fine, I’M not fine because it’s not drawing me closer to God.
On a personal level, when it comes to listening to music I listen to practically everything: classical, jazz, rock, metal, rap. However, recently I’ve been evaluating my music determining a few things. First, why do I listen to the music I do? Second, how does the music affect me and make me feel when I listen to it? Third, is what I am listening to glorifying to God? If not, what are my reasons for listening to it music? I challenge you to ask yourselves these same questions. A few days ago I was going through my music library synching music to my mp3 player, when these thoughts came to mind. As I thought about the music I was listening to, and I came to realize that the music I was listening to was not something God would want me to listen to or support. A lot of today’s secular music is focused on profanity, sex, drugs, pimps, adultery, the list goes on. And sadly, most of the rap in my music library was filled with this.
If anyone has music consisting of things I’ve mentioned above, I ask you to take it before God because it’s not right. As Christians is it our responsibility to give all of our tastes, our likes and dislikes over to God. Romans 6:13 says
Offer your whole self unto God. To offer means to give in to, to submit, and to surrender. Romans 12:1 speaks of presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice unto God. I believe this means that we should come to God in prayer and tell Him that we want to give ourselves unto Him. We choose to give Him our lives and surrender to Him by telling Him that we have decided to do so. You must decide that you want God to have you entirely and that you are willing for Him to be in charge of your life. Tell Him that you want Him to have you entirely. If there is any area of your life that you have not surrendered to Him, tell Him that it also is His to do with as He pleases. For me this area was music, I just recently I gave that part of my life over to him. Yet I know for myself, there are still things in my life I haven’t given fully to God yet, and it’s vital that I do. I also know that God may still address music again in the future. My heart needs to be willing to follow His leading
Moving back to the music subject, I would say that I believe music is inherently powerful. It affects people physiologically, psychologically, and spiritually. Now, that is not necessarily the same thing as saying music is inherently moral, or immoral. A gun is inherently powerful, but not inherently moral. The same gun can be used for good or for evil. Can the same thing be said of music?
My personal belief is that there is some music which produces no good and therefore I’m willing to call it inherently bad. I do think, however, that most types of music can be used for good effect, and for evil effect. I think the power of music is clearly visible in the Bible. Music is present in much of the ceremony and ritual God prescribes in the OT, David drove demons away by playing on his harp.
One thing I think the Bible has to say about all “Christian arts” is that to a Christian, all arts are Christian. What I mean by that is the Bible teaches us to do everything as unto the Lord. To see that we serve and glorify God in everything we do. A part of that is recognizing that even in the mundane everyday tasks we do, God is present. How much more so in our art when we pour our hearts and lives into it; so a piece of instrumental music, made by a Christian, is as much “Christian music” as a song about Jesus.
Now, in terms of the Contemporary Christian movement, I would say there are a good many solid-out, rock-solid bands and artists - ranging in style - that are worth listening to, especially when they are truly worshipping God with what they do (i.e., MercyMe, Casting Crowns, Stellar Kart etc.).
Bands that are allegedly Christian but do not make clear statements about God, I don’t think should be associated with that movement, but rather perceived as secular. That doesn’t make them bad; just that they don’t really fit the criteria. And well… a lot of Christian music doesn’t fit the correct criteria.
With that said, I’d like to move lightly into a genre of music, known as “Screamo’ or/other 'metal' with examination and study I’ve come to the belief that this sort of music culture is not honoring to God in anyway. (That does not mean it’s wrong to listen to) Usually then, people then ask me, “What’s wrong with it” I’m usually put in the position to defend my belief, however, now it’s your turn. I ask, “What’s right with it?”
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Never Knew How Much I Kept To Myself
As I approach the end of my fourth week in college, I was thinking about the new culture that I've been put in. I realized that I had been living in my Christian "bubble." Sure I talked to people who weren't Christians and I even had some non Christian friends but, for the most part, my life was around other Christians. I would talk to other Christians and live the Christian lifestyle.
Now that I am thrown back into the secular world and what they are taught, I have a renewed understanding of what is going on. I feel like my little "world" I had been living in was an artificial comfort zone created by my parents, friends, and leaders at my church. I had been so accustomed that when you talked to someone they would have a moral base, they wouldn't casually respond with swearing. I was separated from how most people my age have been growing up.
Now that I talk to dozens of people my age every day at school, I have come to realize how incredibly different our lifestyles have been. I feel as if I had been out-of-touch with culture without my knowing. Talking to my unsaved friends I now realize why people are so broken. Why they engage in the activities they do; I realize that these people are begging to hear about God.
I never thought that all these people have a true interest to talk about the meaning of life, why they are here, and that people actually care about them. Today the Gideons visited our college. All these college kids were sitting there with little green Bibles in their hands reading random verses. They were amazingly open to hearing what the verses meant and how it applies to them.
I had never thought that all these people actually wanted to hear the gospel. How long have I been sitting here while I was surrounded by people eager to discuss God? These people didn't appear yesterday and, I'm sure, realize their need for something more at the beginning of the quarter. In fact, as I look back, I see that I have been surrounded by people "asking" me to share God to them. Why had I not!?
I feel that, until recently, I hadn't realized how unsaved the unsaved really were. I had heard and talk to these people before, but I've never been in their lifestyle, gone into their houses, struggled with them, and talked about the issues of life with them until recently.
People are open for the gospel and my question for everyone is; are you just living your life? Or, are you actively pursuing the spreading of God's word. Are we trying to make God famous?
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
School, School, School
This last Monday was my first day of school!!! College is a new experience for me and I thought I'd share what I've thought so far.
Here is my schedule:
5:50am - Both of my alarms go off in my room so I have to walk to two different locations to turn them off. Than I get ready to go to school.
6:30 - Leave the house for school
7:00 - Spanish 101 starts. This class is especially interesting since Spanish is the only language that is allowed to be spoken in the class.
8:00 - I make a quick run to the other side of the school to go to my math 104 class. I like the professor here. He's like it doesn't matter how you do your homework as long as I can see that you did it.
9:00 - And my English class. I %#^&# English! But this teacher is nice and she doesn't assign too much homework.
11:00 - VOLLEYBALL!!!!!!! It will start in about a month so I don't know what I think about it yet.
12:00 - Lunch :-)
1:00 - I study until I'm done than go home and complain about the day...
College is a really neat experience so far, but it still feels like school (and a lot more of it). It is nice only having THREE classes though!
Monday, September 15, 2008
Day at Fair
Well I just got back from a long day at the Fair. I think that every time we go to the fair I bore my family by hanging out in the Hobby Hall and carrying on long conversations with random people. Fortunately with cell phones we no longer have to all be at the same spot in the Fair at the same time.
So after we got there I spent a long time looking at stuff in the Hobby Hall and talking to other beekeepers (who actually remembered me from last year).
I did manage to get a few pictures of some stuff we did at the fair. The quality may not be any good since they are from my cell. ![]()
We went to some country singers who same some classic songs. I don't know about the rest of my family but I had a blast! That guy had an amazing voice. I did feel kind of out of place, everyone around us was older than 60 and there I was sitting there. The other sad thing was he sang a song from the 40s and I knew it :-)
We also went and saw Roberto the Magnificent! I don't think the show is as good as it was when the Gentleman Jugglers were together but it is still one of the best juggling shows I have seen.
We than saw the Mutton Buston. This is where they put little kids (6 or under and less than 60 pounds) on the back of sheep and try to see how long they can stay on. It's kind of a weird thing watching a 4 year old cling on to the sheep for dear life and than fall and get stepped on by the sheep.
We did see a whole lot more than this but I didn't get pictures of it. Such as the human cannon. That was incredible and I would totally do it. They put this man into a cannon and shot him around 180 feet!!! It looked like so much fun! I wonder how people get into that?
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Honey Extracting
The past two days I spent extracting honey from bees. On Monday I was helping my cousin extract her honey and on Tuesday my cousin helped me extract honey. This process was amazingly fun and we all got covered in a whole lot of honey!
We started at my cousin's house where we took the supers off of her two hives.
We didn't have a bee trap so we ended up blowing the bees out of the suppers with the shopvac.
When we had all of the frames cleared of bees we all moved into the shop where we started the actual extraction.
We have a decapping knife which gets really hot so it will melt the wax off of the tops of the honey. That way the honey will fly out when it gets spun in the extractor.
We finally got everything worked out and the performance went really well with my cousin Anna decapping the frames. My cousin Nathan turning the extractor, and myself moving the frames to their position and holding the extractor steady.
Everybody ended up working until we got what we were looking for... ![]()
The next day we moved to my friend's house and got my honey super off of the hive there, than we drove back to my house with them following to help.
And did pretty much the same thing except I had a few more honey supers
It's a little more crowded in our kitchen and I think that it will be really sticky for a very long time, but we were able to extract the honey.
What was cool was everyone got to help out in a bunch of different ways. ![]()
Than we bottled everything ending up with around 6 gallons of honey just from one hive!
Anyway I won't bore you any longer with going into detail on everything we did. I'll just say it was loads of fun and really messy. I think I'm going to go to bed and sleep for three days.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Can You Lose Your Salvation Part 2 /Eternal Security/Continuing Conversation(per can you lose your salvation)
I appreciate you expressing your views. And also thank you for taking the time to excogitate this matter. To be a careful thinkers on issues such as these we must realize that some biblical texts aren’t always so clear cut. Careful study can lead to conclusions from these texts you mentioned, which do not necessitate the idea of losing your salvation.
I shall elaborate…
I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the field of Biblical Hermeneutics (the study of accurate Scriptural interpretation) which looks more deeply at passages when it seems to be giving some sort of contradictory teaching on some particular theology. I myself am far from an expert in Hermeneutics, but I do know for certain that there are many passages in the New Testament that argue for the position of eternal security. To consider a few passages that ‘seems' to support the “loosing salvation” belief. It creates problems because it offers contradictions with other doctrines and passages throughout God's word; including salvation by faith, the sin nature of man, and why Christ went to the cross to die for our sin in the first place. According to the Scriptures true children of God are forever saved and forever eternally secure.
“It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.”
This passage is speaking to the unsaved who have heard the truth and acknowledged it, but who have hesitated to embrace Christ. These Jews had been wondrously blessed by God's enlightenment, by association with His Holy Spirit, and tasting of His heavenly gifts, His Word, and His power. And still they did not believe. The passage of 6:1-8 could be summarized this way: “You had better come to Christ now, for if you fall away it will be impossible for you to come again to the point of repentance." They were at the best point for repentance - full knowledge. To fall back from that would be extremely fatal.
