baseball. its kind of like religion. October 29, 2009
Posted by highofseventyfive in just thoughts.Tags: faith, God, phillies, religion, yankees
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baseball. its kind of like religion. and its kind of more like religion than religion is. i’ll explain.
now that the yankees and the phillies are in the world series, its been really interesting here in Central New Jersey (yes it does exist). As I walked my dog this morning, there were signs in windows, “go phillies!” At work, everyone talked about it. Two brothers came in, one wearing a phillies jersey, the other wearing a yankees jersey.
I find it interesting, that my parents spent last night clapping and whooping and hollering in delight at a band of grown men in tight pants swinging sticks at balls. (nothing against baseball) they clapped and clapped and their hearts were captured by every pitch, every swing, every catch. and yet, its just some guys, getting paid WAY too much, to play a game. How come my parents, when confronted with faith, pale and become quiet? Why doesn’t the fact that Jesus came to bring life (eternal life!) and a chance to be with the God who created everything, who created them, loves us with an unending passion– bring that sort of joy, instead a sour face and listless, “well that’s good for you”? Why?
Why is it that baseball brings out people’s allegiances, the way ash wednesday does? (on ash wednesday, you find out who all the religious people are, because their foreheads are marked with an ash cross, if they were religious enough to go church that day). Suddenly, you see who the Phillies and Yankees fans are, because they wear the jerseys, and earrings, and all sorts of fan gear. They hang up posters in their windows so everyone knows who they support, who they believe in, to win the games, who they feel to be superior to all others.
And somehow, everyone’s okay with that! Sure, there’s friendly rivalry, and some people might get a little annoying with their fanaticism, but at the end of the day, both teams’ fans are respected by the others’. Two brothers can stand in line together for coffee with opposing jerseys on, and can still get along. You can say you’re a fan, and no one turns you away, or says you’re weird, or asks you to stop pushing their team on you. No one finds it offensive that you voice your opinion of your favorite team from your window or shopfront or with what you wear. No one asks you to take down the posters or stop wearing the jerseys or take the sticker off your car because it bothers them.
What if religion was like that? What if everyone was so jovial about faith in God? What if Christians wore their faith on their shirts and had it on the tips of their tongues? What if God was the topic at the coffee shop, at the checkout counter, and the bank? What if people were actively engaged in their faith, so that they could easily say, “so how bout church on sunday?” instead of “so how bout that game last night?” What if families spent their nights together reading and learning about how exciting God was? What if we cheered like we do at sports, about what God was doing in the world?
“People in Philly, it seems like it doesn’t matter if sports fans or not, they know what’s going on,”
“POWER AND GLORY” trumpeted the front page headline in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
And why can’t Christians have as much confidence, knowing that victory is already won? The Phillies fans do:
“it seemed like overconfident fans were already planning a victory parade.”
Well I can tell you one thing; it wouldn’t go over well. The Christians would be told to shove it, to shut up, to stop “pushing their Bible in people’s faces”. And so yeah, I don’t wonder why people don’t cheer like at sporting events, or bring up God like the weather in public places.
Because faith is “personal”. Therefore we shouldn’t bring it up, unless we are sure that the people around us believe it too. Is that logical?? A Phillies fan, who eats, sleeps, and breathes the team, only has that on his mind the day after a great game. It comes up naturally, bubbling out of him, because he can’t help but be excited and proud of “his” team. In the same way, a Christian eats, sleeps and breathes faith, because its his identity. Its all of who he is, and so naturally, the things God’s doing in his life, the things he’s learning, should bubble up. Yet that is seen as being a fanatic, or a bible thumper, or just plain old offensive. What if I went up to a Yankees fan and said, “please stop talking to me about the Yankees, because I don’t believe they should win the world series”. No, that would be ridiculous. Maybe I really don’t think the yankees stand a chance, but i’m not going to make the other person shut up or leave me alone. I’ll politely listen to their reasons, or their apologies for the players who didn’t do as well as they should have, and that will be that.
i just think its odd how pointless little things in life, and not just baseball, are totally okay to flaunt. and yet faith, which should be the most important thing to us since it drives our being, it relates to our creator, and how we function in our daily lives, is totally taboo.
so, hey religion, i wish you were more like baseball. baseball is exciting, it unites people, and its a topic that everyone seems to enjoy talking about, even if they aren’t a really big fan.
and hey baseball, i wish you would be less like a religion. stop consuming so much time and energy from people.
and hey God, show some more people how great You are, how captivating You are, and how much we need You.
just-in-case faith September 20, 2009
Posted by highofseventyfive in documenting life, theology.Tags: acts 17, church, faith, gospel, Jesus, matthew 8:5-10
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Jeff Bell came and was a guest speaker at church today. He’s Jeremy’s brother, from Indiana. He gave one of the most compelling gospel presentations today. It was “bring a friend sunday” which i totally forgot about. But the message was sooo good! He talked out of Acts 17, saying how the people of Athens had an unknown god amongst their idols, “just-in-case” they missed one. Likewise today, if we come to church just on Christmas and Easter, or when we really need something or come into a rut, we have just-in-case faith. This is a hard place to be in. Our lives are are centered around in fact no faith at all, and we pray or attend church just-in-case God is really there. Or we might have a buddha in one room, a statue of the virgin mary, a kabbala bracelet, etc, again– just-in-case.
But Jeff told us that we can have a just-Jesus faith. Because Jesus is the hero that conquered all, who’s big enough and powerful enough to handle anything, and worth giving our whole lives to. Jesus is the answer.
The thing that struck me today, was part of his message for believers. We looked at Matthew 8:5-10,13 where it says that a centurion came to Jesus asking for help to heal one of his servants. Jesus says, “I will go and heal him”. The centurion says, dude, you could just say it, from here, and it would happen! you are the Lord! I’m a guy of authority, i tell people what to do and they do it. How much more will that be so for you! (that was my paraphrase)
When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.
Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that very hour.
Jeff asked us, if Jesus would be stopped in his tracks, astonished, by our faith, or by our lack of faith.
and the youth group band played, which meant there was way more energy in the room, it sounded awesome, and we rocked as we worshiped God!
purpose: to put, place September 16, 2009
Posted by highofseventyfive in Uncategorized.Tags: faith, God, growing up, humans, life, philosophy, post grad, purpose, reason, thinking
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Q. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
last night, elizabeth brought up an excellent point. Jesus didn’t do anything “worthwhile”, or, he didn’t start his ministry, until he was 30.
huh, doesn’t that take the pressure off quit a bit? i mean, here i am 22, graduated college, and all of a sudden i expect to be making great change in the world, having a job with health insurance, paying my college loans, finding a place to live, start having “purpose”. well? we’re so antsy these days, with no patience for the things God has stored up for us. The pressure from the world to leave college and become a fully-realized purposeful person is seemingly insurmountable.
how do I know that my super duper awesome mind boggling purpose isn’t until I’m 30? or 82? or that i’ve already had it? (how bout THEM apples). apparently my only job is what it says in
Romans 8:28, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
Romans 12:2, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this word, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is– his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
a quick study on Purpose:
[Middle English purpos, from Anglo-Norman, from purposer, to intend : pur-, forth (from Latin prō-; see pro-1) + poser, to put; see pose1.]
Purpose is the cognitive awareness in cause and effect linking for achieving a goal in a given system, whether human or machine. Purpose serves to change the state of conditions in a given environment, usually to one with a perceived better set of conditions or parameters from the previous state. This change is the motivation that serves the focus of control and goal orientation.
“There is a fundamental human need for guiding ideals that give meaning to our actions”, states Roger Fisher. Renowned psychiatrist Victor Frankl’s premise is that ‘man’s search for meaning’ is the primary motivation of his life. He speaks of the ‘will to meaning’ as opposed to Freud’s’ ‘will to pleasure’ and Friedrich Nietzsche’s ‘will to power’.
First attested in c
.1290, from earl Old French porpos “aim, intention”, purpose is related to from porposer “to put forth,” from Vulgar Latin corruption of por- “forth” (Latin pro- “forth”) and Old French poser “to put, place”.[1] Purpose is related to the term pose used from 1374 as to “put in a certain position,” or “suggest, propose, suppose, assume,” a term use in Late Latin debating (c.300–c.700) from pausare “to halt, rest, pause”.[2]
[Middle English purpos, from Anglo-Norman, from purposer, to intend : pur-, forth (from Latin prō-; see pro-1) + poser, to put; see pose1.]
(make one of these! its from Wordle)
so if the word purpose could also mean: aim, intention, put forth, to put, place, put in a certain position, suggest, propose, suppose, assume, halt, rest, pause. This forces us to ask a few questions.
can you acquire purpose? can you earn or ask for it? or must it be delegated, designated? is it an action or just a state of being? does there need to be an achievable goal to have it? Is a purpose the same as a reason? it seems like, purpose is doled out like the newspapers are thrown on your driveway. It is put there, then, and only then, does purpose exist. So someone has to do the putting. We put purpose into something for a reason. We say, “well the purpose of what i’m doing is to _____”, or “my purpose is to ______”. There is a reason, an aim, a goal, that gives something enough value to consider it purpose. To consider that something was MADE to achieve this goal, really is just because of the placement of its value upon it. It is set, rested, placed, paused, at the place it needs to be.
We can give purpose to light switches, guitars, and processes like evaporation, but that is because we can see both the beginning and the end. And really, even that could be subjective. The purpose of a guitar for me, is to be played, to make music. The purpose of it for someone else might be to smash it at a rock show.
We have decided that it is reasonable to conclude that the purpose of evaporation is to get water back in the sky, so it can more easily travel by the wind, to somewhere else, to rain and water the ground. But the only reason we can say that, is because we watched water come down, go back up, and come back down again. We see it keeping a cycle going, and keeping life on our planet.
I don’t think that we can give ourselves purpose. I think our job is to discover our already pre-determined purpose. Can you do enough good things to earn purpose? I guess so; you could win enough votes to run an office; You could see a need, and invent yourself into the solution. But still, in order to actually obtain purpose, it needs to be acknowledged or approved of, by some higher or other source.
Is purpose only purpose if a clear goal is within vision? Can something be purposeless? In my thinking, nothing can be without purpose, because God is a god of order. Everything has purpose. We have purpose. Our ultimate purpose, as far as I can tell from the Bible, is to glorify God and be in relationship with Him. This is the aim and intention suggested and put forth by God. He has placed value in us. Our mini-purposes are many and constant. I think what gets in the way is, reason. What is the reason that we must glorify God? Why must we be in relation with Him? Why? And so we confuse purpose and reason, and feel that we need a reason to have a purpose.
Reason: Reason, cause, motive are terms for a circumstance (or circumstances) which brings about or explains certain results. A reason is an explanation of a situation or circumstance which made certain results seem possible or appropriate: The reason for the robbery was the victim’s display of his money. The cause is the way in which the circumstances produce the effect, that is, make a specific action seem necessary or desirable: The cause was the robber’s extreme need of money. A motive is the hope, desire, or other force which starts the action (or an action) in an attempt to produce specific results: The motive was to get money to buy food for his family.
“Purpose serves to change the state of conditions in a given environment”. Our purpose is to love God, but God is never-changing. So, loving God must actually mean not change in Him, but in us and our environment. Funny! Our purpose seemingly for someone else, is actually for us! Now, don’t loop that around and say our purpose then is for ourselves. That is where the world has gone completely wacky. But, if God intends for us to love Him, and receive His love, that is in turn transformative. And since there is only one end of the equation to be changed, loving God changes us. Our purpose is to start to match God, not only in “image” but in totality (heart, character, virtue, holiness). God knows what is best for us, because He created us, and put forth our purpose. To match him, to reflect him, to pour him out, is to glorify him.
Q. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
comments welcome.
Final Tozer thoughts July 14, 2009
Posted by highofseventyfive in profound thoughts, theology.Tags: a.w. tozer, artificiality, believing, faith, God, speaking
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A.W. Tozer is the man. Here are some more quotes from his book, The Pursuit of God. He’s so REAL. and these things are great thoughts that I hope I can re-express in evangelism as I share God’s story.
A.W. Tozer
Religion has accepted the monstrous heresy that noise, size, activity and bluster make a man dear to God. But we may take heart. To a people caught in the tempest of the last great conflict God says, “Be still, and know that I am God” (psalm 46:10). and still He says it, as if He means to tell us that our strength and safety lie not in noise but in silence. It is important that we get still to wait on God. And it is best that we get alone, preferably with our Bible outspread before us.
A man may say, “these words are addressed to me,” and yet in his heart not feel and know that they are. He is the victim of a divided psychology. He tries to think of God as mute everywhere else and vocal only in a book.
I believe that much of our religious unbelief is due to a wrong conception of and a wrong feeling for the Scriptures of Truth. silent God suddenly began to speak in a book and when the book was finished lapsed back into silence again forever. Now we read the book as the record of what God said when He was for a brief time in a speaking mood. With notions like that in our heads how can we believe? The facts are that God is not silent, has never been silent. It is the nature of God to speak.
Faith is the least self-regarding of the virtues. It is by its very nature scarcely conscious of its own existence. Like the ye which sees everything in front of it and never sees itself, faith is occupied with the Object upon which it rests and pay no attention to itself at all. While we are looking at God we do not see ourselves– blessed riddance. The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One. While he looks at Christ, the very things he has so long been trying to do will be getting done within him. it will be God working in him to will and to do.
Faith is not in itself a meritorious act; the merit is in the One toward Whom it is directed. Faith is a redirecting of our sight, a getting out of the focus of our own vision and getting God into focus. Sin has twisted our vision inward and made it self-regarding.
Faith is a redirecting of our sight, a getting out of the focus of our own vision and getting God into focus. Sin has twisted our vision inward and made it self-regarding.
Unbelief has put self where God should be, and is perilously close to the sin of Lucifer who said, “I will set my throne above the throne of God.” Faith looks out instead of in and the whole life fall into line.
Now, if faith is the gaze of the heart at God, and if this gaze is but the raising of the inward eyes to meet the all-seeing eyes of God, then it follows that it is one of the easiest things possible to do. It would be like God to make the most vital thing easy and place it within the range of possibility for the weakest and poorest of us.
Several conclusions may fairly be drawn from all this. The simplicity of it, for instance. Since believing is looking, it can be done without special equipment or religious paraphernalia. God has seen to it that the one life-and-death essential can never be subject to the caprice of accident. Equipment can break down or get lost, water can leak away, records can be destroyed by fire, the minister can be delayed or the church can burn down. All these are external to the soul and are subject to accident or mechanical failure. But looking is of the heart and can be done successfully by any man standing up or kneeling down or lying in his last agony a thousand miles from any church.
Since believing is looking it can be done any time. No season is superior to another season for this sweetest of all acts. God never made salvation depend upon new moons or holy days or sabbaths. A man is not nearer to Christ on Easter Sunday than he is, say, on Saturday, August 3, or Monday, October 4. As long as Christ sits on the mediatorial throne, every day is a good day and all days are days of salvation.
Neither does place matter in this blessed work of believing God. Lift your heart and let it rest upon Jesus and you are instantly in a sanctuary though it be a Pullman berth or a factory or a kitchen. you can see God from anywhere if your mind is set to love and obey Him.
Now, someone may ask, “Is not this of which you speak for special persons such as monks or ministers who have, by the nature of their calling, more time to devote to quiet meditation? I am a busy worker and have little time to spend alone.” I am happy to say that the life I describe is for every one of God’s children regardless of calling. it is, in fact, happily practiced every day by many hard working persons and is beyond the reach of none.
Many have found the secret of which I speak and, without giving much thought to what is going on within them, constantly practice this habit of inwardly gazing up on God. they know that something inside their hearts sees God. Even when they are compelled to withdraw their conscious attention in order to engage in earthly affairs, there is within them a secret communion always going on. Let their attention but be relieved for a moment from necessary business and it flies at once to God again. This has been the testimony of many Christians, so many that even as I state it thus I have a feeling that I am quoting, though from whom or from how many I cannot possibly know.
Now, if faith is the gaze of the heart at God, and if this gaze is but the raising of the inward eyes to meet the all-seeing eyes of God, then it follows that it is one of the easiest things possible to do. It would be like God to make the most vital thing easy and place it within the range of possibility for the weakest and poorest of us.
The moment we make up our minds that we are going on with this determination to exalt God over all, we step out of the world’s parade. We shall find ourselves out of adjustment to the ways of the world, and increasingly so as we make progress in the holy way. We shall acquire a new viewpoint; a new and different psychology will be formed within us; a new power will begin to surprise us by its upsurgings and its outgoings.
For sin has played many evil tricks upon us, and one has bee the infusing into us of a false sense of shame. There is hardly a man or woman who dares to be just what he or she is without doctoring up the impression. The fear of being found out gnaws like rodents within their hearts. The man of culture is haunted by the fear that he will someday come upon a man more cultured than himself. The learned man fears to meet a man more learned than he. The rich man seats under the fear that his clothes or his car or his house will sometime be made to look cheap by comparison with those of another rich man.So-called “society” runs by a motivation not higher thn this, and the poorer classes on their level are little better.
Let no one smile this off. These burdens are real, and little by little they kill the victims of this evil and unnatural way of life.
…
Another source of burden is artificiality. I am sure that most people live in secret fear that some day they will be careless and by chance an enemy or friend will be allowed to peep into their poor, empty souls. So they are never relaxed.
I am sure that most people live in secret fear that some day they will be careless and by chance an enemy or friend will be allowed to peep into their poor, empty souls. So they are never relaxed.
Bright people are tense and alert in fear that they may be trapped into saying something common or stupid. Traveled people are afraid that they may meet some Marco Polo who is able to describe some remote place where they have never been. …Artificiality is one curse that will drop away the moemnet we kneel at jesus’ feet and surrender ourselves to His meekness. Then we will not care what people think of us so long as God is pleased. then what we are will be everything; what we appear will take its place far down the scale of interest for us….There is no release from our burden apart from the meekness of Christ. Good, keen reasoning may help slightly, but so strong is this vice that if we push it down one place, it will come up somewhere else. To men and women everywhere Jesus says, “Come unto me and I will give you rest.” The rest He offers is the rest of meekness, the blessed relief of which comes when we accept ourselves for what we are and cease to pretend.
