It’s not about me…

You know, I could really start, no, I should really start every blog post with that. It’s not about me. How often we make it about us. What do we make about us? everything. I’m in the middle of the book Blue Like Jazz by donald miller, and well, I love the book and I hate the book. I had already passed judgement on it by page 30, I didn’t like it, the author, I felt was too liberal, too, I don’t know, outside the box, I couldn’t see where he was coming from or going. My brother and alicia said to keep going, that it would make sense, and well, now I see. I’m well over half the book now and I see what don is trying to point out. It is not about me, but the problem is me. If that makes any sense.

I am challenged, challenged by the things I have subscribed to. Not about God, but about life and what is important. I am challenged by what my faith looks like and what I think it should be and what I think Christ wants from me and what I have actually given Him. Lord, make things clear.

back to work, but more later on this, I promise.

Back to business

I haven’t been blogging here recently, but I think that I have to again. More on that later, I want to have everything compiled in one place, if possible, so I will move the stuff from teh past 8 months here over the next few weeks.

Back to business

I haven’t been blogging here recently, but I think that I have to again. More on that later, I want to have everything compiled in one place, if possible, so I will move the stuff from teh past 8 months here over the next few weeks.

It is just easier to post the same things to all blogs. I have found that I can’t keep up multiples, so I will just keep up the two, ironmen and heavier side and keep more family stuff in here. keep reading, I should be back for now. I have backlogged much so that we have not lost anything.

TB

Why the Cross…

There is so much to comment on. I found it very helpful that these 2 chapters mirrored so closely what the sermon covered this week. It has been good to keep it in front of me, in reading and in thought througout the day, considering my condition, considering God’s holiness, considering God’s solution to us. I’ll only highlight 2 different lines that really spoke to me this morning and let some others write on about the rest of the chapter. The partial description of what it means to really follow the 2 most important commandments is still a little painful and raw right now, so I’ll leave that alone. But oh how thankful it makes me for God’s grace.

pg 28 – middle of the page… In our relationship with God, we cannot claim our christian duties, as helpful as they may be, or our external morality, as exemplary as it may be. Instead we must confess with Ezra “Our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to the heavens.” (Ezra 9:6)

This is only part of the verse – from the message it gives the whole picture…

Ezr 9:6 And I prayed: “My dear God, I’m so totally ashamed, I can’t bear to face you. O my God–our iniquities are piled up so high that we can’t see out; our guilt touches the skies.

That is how Ezra felt, and that is also how Isaiah felt in Isaiah 6:5. We are totally undone, we are ashamed, we realize our sin and the holiness of God and we tremble. How much we need to realize these things before we can fully understand (and we can never really fully understand) the greatness and depth of God’s love and grace to us.

My last highlight is on page 29, bottom of page:

And it is a continuing sense of the imperfection of our obedience, arising from the constant presence and remaining power of indwelling sin that drives us more and more as believers to an absolute dependence on the grace of God given to us through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

I guess my pain, my agonizing lately, and maybe many have seen it in my blog is living both in recognition of my sin and resting in the Grace of God. it is a constant struggle, one that I think remains for life, unless someone can show me the way. At times I focus too much on my failure and don’t recognize grace enough which possibly shows distrust in the Lord, at least in my actions. At other times I rest to strongly in His grace, not fully realizing the depth, breadth and seriousness of my trespasses, trivializing them away as “Not being the big sins”. How do we live in recognition of both and remain reverential to God and yet rest in His grace? I am eager to read on. I am eager to hear your comments.

Lord help me to understand these contradictions that my mind puts in front of me. I know Lord that I am a sinner, lowly, filthy, rubbish. I know that you are Holy, unable to bear my sight. Lord I know that you sent your Son to die for me, for my sin so that I could have peace with you. Help me to understand how to put all these together, to live in Joy with your gift, to know that because of your son only that you Love me, not for anything that I have done. Help me not to focus on any one part except as it works for your discipline of me to bring things to light of things you wish to correct in me. Lord, you know my heart, you know my deeds. Thank you for your grace, for Your Son, for Your Love everyday that sustains the very life in my body, the air that I breathe, the land that we walk. I love you Lord, help me live like it. Amen.