Road to Corinth

Then whence cometh evil?

2011-04-19T09:17:00.000-07:00

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

--attributed to Epicurus or Sextus Empiricus

God is able AND willing. He is GOD. I will argue that he can prevent and stop evil. The simplest solution? Eradicate free will? But where then, leaves the value of our love and relationship? What is the worth of the love of another if it is forced? None. The authenticity of our relationships, with others, and with God, comes of our free will, that we give it freely, and without constraints or conditions. The purpose of creation was and is fellowship, relation, and worship with God, the creator.

If God is good, and holy, and pure, and perfect, then he is the definition of such things. Thereby, the complete and total anti-thesis of these things is evil. Those things wholly and completely opposed to holiness, love, perfection, goodness, are defined by it's absence, as cold is the absence of heat, and dark, the absence of light. While I will argue that no man is completely void of those attributes stemming from God, none is perfect.

As it is written in Romans 3:10

"There is no one righteous, not even one;"

and Romans 3:23

"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"

Until we are complete in our perfection, when Christ comes again, there will be evil, by the definition of allowing man a choice. That the grace and gift of our Lord Jesus, freely given, must be accepted to obtain our salvation, a choice made of our own freewill.

Divorce, Remarriage, Adultery, and Homosexuality

2010-01-01T01:12:00.000-08:00

A Very controversial, confrontational, and biblically education post at blog.emergingworshiper.org

Good argument on Christianity

2009-06-15T12:28:00.000-07:00

A good argument on Christianity on </Dream.In.Code>.
See Here
Feel free to post!

DreaminCode.net

2009-05-10T21:12:00.001-07:00

For those of you coders, A great Website for Coding help is: http://DreaminCode.net

Commanded to Love

2009-05-02T18:57:00.000-07:00

We are commanded to love. Not suggested to love, or asked to love. We are commanded to love. To love God, to love ourselves, and to love other people. Too many people, including some Christians, forget that we have to love people. Too many people make life about themselves. We need to love others as Christ loved his church. We need to love other people so much that we are prepared to die for them if need be. Our Love should flow from Christ, and shine from us that all will see our love simply by our presence. 1 Corinthians 13 gives the best known, and accurate, description of how we should love, and indeed live. Love should not be something that we choose to do once in a while, like reading a book or watching a movie. No, Love should be a defining characteristic of our lives. That everyone we meet, even if we do not like them, we love them. It means letting go of our hate, for hate is the absence of love. It means humbling ourselves, dying daily to ourselves and our selfish desires. Romans says that we must feed our enemies if they are hungry and give him a drink if he is thirsty. We must Love our enemies. Everywhere that you look in the bible, you find proclamations of love, command to love. This the way that true Christian should live and measure their lives by. Love should define you and consume you in its entirety.

"You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself"

~ Leviticus 19:18

"And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'..."

~ Mark 12:31

"A new commandment I give unto you, love one another as I have loved you, that by loving one another, others will know that you are my disciples"

~ John 13:34-35

"Be affectionate with one another in brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another"

~ Romans 12:10

"If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
If he is thirsty, give him a drink;
For in doing so, you shall heap coals of

burning fire on his head"

~ Romans 12:20

Worthy is The Lamb

2009-04-19T20:57:00.000-07:00

"Worthy is the Lamb" is an amazing song written by my friend and mentor Ken Bussel. The following is a link to his blog post on the song:

http://blog.emergingworshiper.org/2009/04/worthy-is-lamb.html

Chords & Lyrics

Good Friday

2009-04-14T17:15:00.000-07:00

Good Friday. Our Christian celebration of the Crucifixion of Jesus. A day that we remember the day that our sins were paid for. The day that we wereh redeemed. Too often though, we hold this unrealistic image of the crucifixion. Jesus did not hang on the cross clean and composed, with every hair in place. Nay, The Word says that he was battered and bruised. He was betrayed with an unfair trial. Beaten with a rod that held ropes tangled with broken glass and steel hooks. Thorns as long as your fingers shoved on his head. As he was crucified, as he hung on the cross feeling the full weight of your punishment, of the rightful death that is mine as the consequence of my sin, his blood stained the cross, and pooled at the cross. As prophesied, he was barely recognizable as being a man. Too many fail to realize the full measure of their sin and the total that was paid out in full for their ransom. No words we have can come to fully describe the Cross. We have invented the word excruciating specifically to describe it, but it still falls short, and has been overused. Know that your debt was paid in full. Christ has redeemed you by his perfect, divine blood. Your are not your own, but have been bough with a price. Rejoice! Your chains are broken! The Lamb has been slain once for all.

A Great PodCast from Solid Rock Church

2009-01-15T11:07:00.000-08:00

A great podcast. I especially love listening to John Mark Comer.

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=84246334

A Dedication

2008-12-04T00:21:00.000-08:00

A Stray Thought....

2008-11-02T22:03:00.000-08:00

Just a thought.... Jesus did not spend his time with the priests, the acolytes, the people of the church. He hung out with the liars, the thieves, the prostitutes, the Tax Collectors. Jesus spent his time with the sinners. The people living in the darkness, those who desperately needed the light. If we are to be like Jesus, if we truly desire to grow in our faith, then we must share our faith. Freely give it away. Christ broke our chains. We are freed from this world, no longer of it. However, as Christians, of Christ, we are obligated to show others the truth. Nothing is gained telling those that are saved that Christ died for their sins. They are saved. They know. Proclaim it for all who are still in bondage to their sin. Those who need the bread of life to satisfy them. We are called to love. All people. If you love them, show them the Way. Let your life and your walk be righteous. Let others know Christ through your love and your giving.

Clarification: Trust Vs. Love

2008-09-29T15:25:00.001-07:00

So, for those of you who are confused, or have questions, Trust of a sort is part of love. But must be distinguished from the selfish trust. With loving a person, you gain reassurance. You have faith in the mutual love that your relationship is framed in. Unlike trust, this reassurance is not selfish. It is not about your expectations, but is about being secure in the presence and love of another. This must be made to be seen different from trust, which apart from trusting God with all of your being, trust as made by our culture and society is selfish. It is about someone else fulfilling our expectations in order to be granted privileges within the relationship. With love, while we are reassured, we have confidence in the other person, the relationship does not hinge upon it. If we lose that reassurance, we still love them. We don't decide that we will no longer be their brother because they did something that we don't agree with. We tell tell them that we disagree, make our point, right or wrong, and move on. Love understands that it is not about us, and thus our faith must be about them. As we give more love to a person, you - hopefully - receive more. As more love is exchanged in the relationship, you gain confidence in the sincerity of the person, and recognize that love is exchanged and that the feelings are mutual. You have a reassurance in the strength of your relationship. This could be called trust, but must be distinguished from the trust of our culture.

A Description of True Love

2008-09-26T22:34:00.000-07:00

The other day I was asked "You are only 18. How is it that you know so much about love?". The answer to that? I don't. I know nothing about love. I do however have one in me who's love is beyond description. I am loved by one who loved me so intensely, so passionately, that he bore the weight and punishment of my sin. All of my mistakes and transgressions. He was beaten, whipped with cords that were studded with jagged, sharp pieces of metal. His flesh was stripped away, pieces of his muscle and skin flying with every lash, a beating that did not end until he was cut to the bone. It didn't end there. He was mocked for his love, his grace, his perfection. His rightful reign was acknowledged with a crown of thorns. And then he was nailed to the cross. Not nails you would use to hang a photo on, but thick nails. Nails hammered by a smith. Large nails, rough, crude nails. about as thick as your two thumbs together and longer than the combined length. He was nailed to a cross with these nails. Spikes of iron forced through the bones in his wrist to wood of the cross beneath him. No anesthetics, no sympathy. His blood flowing freely. I ask you, could Iron really hold the God of creation? Cause him to suffer so much? To suffer the separation of the love and presence of God, Our rightful punishment? I tell you, answer is no. With the power to speak creation, nothing can over come him. Except Love. I tell you that those spikes did not hold my Lord there. I did. I held him there, as he was mocked, beaten, hung on a cross. I kept him there to die. An act that I repeat every day. My sin held him there. The full weight of my worthlessness and debasement. Lifted freely off my shoulders. That is Love. A love so profound, that while we have one word, others found that many are needed to describe it accurately. A love so awesome, so amazing, so passionate, that to fully describe it would drain me of all life before I had finished. A love so deep that I am overcome with passion and awe just to speak of it. And this love is offered freely to you. Every moment I live, I never cease to be amazed and the wonder of that offer. To take my sin away. To love me for all of who I am, even knowing how unworthy of love I am. Wow.

Love Vs. Trust

2008-09-01T18:44:00.000-07:00

So, to start, do you frame your relationships in trust or love? Notice that while we are commanded to trust God, we are commanded to trust him ALONE. We are commanded to love our neighbors, to forgive them, to help and protect them, but not to trust them. For all have fallen short of the glory of God. We are by nature sinful and will eventually, by nature, break any trust placed in us. It is our flaw. So to trust another person is to set yourself up for disappointment. However, we are commanded to Love one another as we were first loved. Love is an infinitely stronger framework for a relationship than love. While trust, once broken, must be earned back, love forgives. Love keeps no records of wrongs, and love never fails. Love looks out for the interests of the other person, and while you know that they are not perfect and will sometimes do something that you don't want them to do, or don't think that they should do (trust...), you love them enough to realize that, and love them in spite of it. Trust in people is more about you and how comfortable to are with someone. Love is about the other person. Love is also harder, and leaves you more vulnerable and open. Loving someone, especially love outside of family or significant other relationships, is hard, and something that we as a culture and society are not raised to do. We are taught that we trust people, and if they do something that we don't like, or want them to do, or believe is an appropriate action for them to take (an assumption based on past actions and behaviors), then we have lost trust in them, and they have to earn our trust back by fitting into the mold of what we think they should fit into to be trusted. Trust in people easy. It is about us. Love is not. Love is unselfish, it is not always about us. Love requires us to do things for other people that we don't want to do. Love requires us to step outside of our comfort zone. It is hard to forgive people. It is hard to love people. Especially when you barely know them. When they are rude, selfish, or act like they are better than you. But love, in the end, is the most powerful force in this world. It is what caused the creator of the entire universe to send his only son, his firstborn, his heir, to die one of the most horrible deaths that we have yet to invent. It is what drove a perfect, sinless man to the cross, for everyone except for himself. It is what drove that man to take the burden of every single person on that ever was, is, and will be. Now, I don’t know about whoever else reads this, but the burden of my own sin, one person, is one I cannot carry alone. Let alone the innumerable others. That is love at its best, its most perfect. Trust is knowing that God is perfect and always fulfills his promises. We have no such guarantee with people, except that we will, and will continue to sin, and fall short of any standard. I by far prefer someone to love me rather than to trust.