Soli Deo Gloria

Soli Deo Gloria is a phrase that means "To God Alone the Glory". Primarily used by reformers it was a rallying cry for the Protestant Reformation (5 Solas-fide,gratia,Christo,Scriptura). It means that no matter what God gets the glory and ONLY Him. This is not just a cry theologically but its practical. The Westminister Shorter Catecism question 1 asks what is the chief end of man? Answer: Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Our sole purpose on this earth is to glorify God and enjoy that.
To illustrate this I came across a wonderful passage that just made me want to jump up and down and just made me feel good.
Psalm 105:1-6,8,11

"Oh give thanks to the LORD;call upon his name;
make known his deeds among the peoples!
²Sing to him, sing praises to him;
tell of all his wondrous works!
³Glory in his holy name;
let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice!
⁴Seek the LORD and his strength;
seek his presence continually!
⁵Remember the wondrous works that he has done,
his miracles, and the judgments he uttered,
⁶O offspring of Abraham, his servant,
children of Jacob, his chosen ones!

⁸He remembers his covenant forever,
the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations,
¹¹saying,"To you I will give the land of Canaan
as your portion for an inheritance."

This passage says that we are to sing, to praise and to find glory in His name. The amazing part of this psalm is that it brings up so many connections with our New Testament. We see the covenant being remembered by GOd (which is a theme from Genesis to Revelation).

Vs. 6- tells us that the offspring of Abraham his servant (which brings to mind the promise that we have through Abraham as we are His children in Galatians 3:15-25) and we are His chosen ones (Jacob or Israel) which we can see from Eph. 1:4.

The vs. 11 gives us the promise of the "promised land" (eternal life in heaven can easily be trasnferred here as the covenant promised to thousands of generations from Abraham (see Galatians 3 again) we are given the promised land through Christ due to God's promise. That is exciting to me!!

Man to glorify God and enjoying that forever? Isn't that were our joy is derived and so then as this life is short and we know the pursuit of all this is "hebel" (futile, absurd or meaningless) our pursuit should always be of enjoying this life given as a gift and using it to glorify God with all things. I wish I did this more, I wish I would let the pursuit of all other things cease or be turned down so that I may enjoy the gift that I have in Christ. That I may pursue Him, glorify Him in action, but also with my heart, my mind and all that I have. But I know at the same time that because of Christ and His righteousness, His glory, and His indwelling inside me and my drawing closer to him (do not mistaken this for a works or merit based comment) and absolutely finding joy in that. If I took everything I did and dedicated it to the glory of God how would my life change? How would yours?

So then how are you doing this? Comment if you like

Be Blessed

All fall short...

My roomate today let me know that one of our favorite Christian rappers Da Truth (as well as Ambassador from Cross Movement who was removed from their label) is stepping away from his music ministry due to a "moral indiscretion." To my knowledge he cheated on his wife with his "mentors" wife or something. Either way I came across this guys blog and he broke down the situation to say that Da Truth puts on a holier than thou persona so it was expected. He says this:

"I’ve always said a person struggles the most with the thing they won’t shut up about. Well, when you present yourself as “holier than thou” you had better be! But what I think makes these “falls” worse is that they’re so deliberate and calculated. Sin is sin and I get that, but cheating on your wife, especially with a choir member or fellow artist’s (who used to be your mentor) wife who’s been through something similar, etc. is just a tad bit ridiculous."

In his blog he proceeds to indicate he is a believer. With this I was most disturbed by the lack of grace in this article.

"I think makes these “falls” worse is that they’re so deliberate and calculated."

Isn't all sin deliberate? I mean we sin because we want to, not because someone holds a gun to our head. You lie because you want to look good or get out of a jam. You gossip so the attention of someone else' faults is in view. You get angry when you dont get YOUR way. All sin is deliberate!! There is that moment where you know its wrong yet you do it anyway.

His second quote also showed lack of grace:
"Sin is sin and I get that, but cheating on your wife, especially with a choir member or fellow artist’s (who used to be your mentor) wife who’s been through something similar, etc. is just a tad bit ridiculous."

Here he seems to do what many Christians tend to do--elevate a certain kind of sin over all others. Once again the biblical view of sin is distorted in this article. Sin is sin--meaning its all the same, there is no elevation of particular sins being worse than others. (Unless your Roman Catholic of course). But he seems to just throw that out and looks at the human situation and emotional toll. By no means am I saying what Da Truth did was not bad. The problem is the same with all of us: we dont realize that sin doesn't merely affect us both those around us. Yes Da Truth made a bad decision, he made a fleshly decision, he allowed sin to control him and offered himself to it voluntarily (Romans 6:12-14).
At the same time God is a God of restoration. He continuously put up with the Israelites and their complaining, turning away to idols, running away from God, seeking other pagan religions (quote any OT book). Yet he was always ready to restore them:

"my heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender, I will not execute ym burning anger, I will not again destroy Ephraim, for I am God not man." Hosea 11:8 (ESV)

Cause the wonderful thing about us is that "for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." (Rom. 3:23) "There is no one righteous, not even one..." (Psalm 14:1-3; 53:1-3) "every inclination of [man's] heart is evil..." (Gen.8:21)

We will struggle: (Romans 7:14-24)-"For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.."

Praise Jesus (trust me I am very very very very thankful for this verse)-
1 John 2:1-2: "I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense, Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and not only for ours but also for the sins of the world."

The Kingdom of God

Ever been in a situation where someone uses a phrase or a word that you dont understand yet pretend to understand for the sake of the conversation or let it gloss over without thinking? Its usually due to the fact that we dont want to seem uneducated or like we dont understand. Lets face it most of the time its a pride thing. I have done it before, mainly with my girlfriend :-) Either way we have done it at some point or another. We hear alot of phrases in church and among believers yet never really stop to think of what that phrase or word really means. There are so many common words or phrases in Christianity that we just kinda seem to nod our heads and say sure, or yes. We dont take the time to extract its meaning and what it means to us as individuals. Let me give some examples:

1. The Trinity--with this we like to merely use the water analogy or sing the 3 in 1, 1 in 3 song from Pilgrims Progress.

2. The big 3: Justification, Sanctification, Glorification--yes we can define these in simplest forms but think about your everday Christian can barely and accurately define these words. (Unless your friends with John Kandra--who is probably still reading the Book of Job).

3. The Kingdom of God--to me this is a biggie, most people have 1000 different concepts of what this is. This is the very thing we are trying to bring people into. Jesus said the "Kingdom of God is at hand" (Mark 1:14) so then exactly what was he saying????


So I post this to say to you world wide web and those who stumble across this blog:

What is the Kingdom of God? Is it manifested now? If so how? What is the kingdom? Physical, spiritual? Dont let this term just fly by as it is something that we are trying to bring people into. How can you do that if you dont really know what it is?

I will respond in a week...
Be blessed!

Book Review: Francis Chan's: Crazy Love

I finished a couple weeks ago Francis Chan's ( I almost wrote Jackie Chan) Crazy Love. This seems to have been a popular book among young (high school/college) age Christians. I did not pick the book up for that reason, rather it was a random buy at Lifeway while picking up commentaries. Anyway I figured I would give my 2 cents worth of what I thought of the book.

Overall I enjoyed the book (I give it a B). Chan focuses mainly on the grace of Jesus Christ to us as sinners and how we can't DO anything to gain his favor, or work to achieve anymore love than what we have been given in Christ. He funnels this idea to see if we grasp how crazy in love GOd is with us and how just that alone should motivate us to do the same. Most people will enjoy the first 4 chapters as they give kinda the theology of everything with a lot of practical application. I enjoyed his chapter on "Lukewarm Christians" citing this reference from Revelation 3:14-22. His argues that there is no such thing as a lukewarm Christian but rather those people are not Christians in the first place! I tend to agree with Chan, he cites the context of Rev. 3:14-22. Why would Jesus talk to believers in this way? Even in the OT God always backed up his rebuke and judgment with I will restore you and no where in that passage does Jesus do that. Chan continues to say that we may have lukewarm tendencies but by all means there are no lukewarm Christians. He continues to give what a lukewarm tendency is along with Scripture passage to give testimony to his point.
The second half of the book wasnt so inpiring but nonetheless was informative. He gives examples of people who not only hear the Word but do what it says (James 1:22). Some stories are really neat and some are not. Some (like on Amazon's reviews) see the second half (stories of works) of the book as a contradiction of the first half (grace). Rather I saw him building on the same biblical conception of: if you have this grace, this wonderful good news then you will want to get your sorry butt out and serve. He tells us the readers to be uncomfortable, get out, stop making excuses for serving our Lord. To the largest effect I agree with him. Too long have we made excuses (I have work, I have no time, I need this or that) but in the end there is always time to serve our great God. I know some of you may take offense to that last sentence like: well I really do have alot of work, and thats cool but I know taht we will all stand before a Holy God and see if that will fly with Him? :-)

So overall it was a good read, I encourage those out there to purchase it if they do not have it. Its an easy read, a good read, but of course the Word is so much better and worthwhile. This book willl make you reflect and think but its just a guy and the Word is God's special revelation and always is number 1 (Heb. 4:12)