You may not suspect anything frightening to come from Jesus, at least to those who he calls his children. We expect Satan to be condemned and non-repentant sinners to be sentenced to death, but for those who are his sons and daughters: what scary thing could he say to them?

They’re forgiven, so the deal is sealed. Hell is over: bye bye death, cya latter pain. No- there are still chilling obligations to be heard from our master.

He demands something of us. Yes, we are purchased- there is no doubt that we belong to him. But still, he turns to us and says something. A normative but fearful command that will make our hearts drop, our fists clench, and our teeth set on edge.

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

Deny myself? Suddenly my chest tightens while fear and greed take hold. Deny myself of what? Everything? Which things? Not everything: how then can I live? Only the bad stuff, right? I hope…

Not everything I have is bad. Can I keep; that stuff, those people, those plans and dreams? I’ve wanted some of those things my whole life. I thought you wanted me to have; that, those, her, him, it? God this is my life. Mine. Greed and fear still hold me. Does he want everything? Can I keep some of it?

“For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

I don’t want to lose my life. I like it. Correction: I love it. Please don’t take it. You promise: if I lose my life for you, then I’ll find it. Not the same life obviously, better I hope. But I don’t want better, I want the same! I want these friends, this degree, this job, this family, this life. I’m happy, most of the time. Things are wearisome here and there, but it’s not bad enough to want change.

Who wants to take up the cross? If I die to myself, will anything be the same when I wake up? Will I recognize this place? Will anything be familiar to me? Will I have anything left? The cross, the practice of death isn’t something I willingly climb up to.

No, I will not give up my life. At least not until I’m sick of it.

“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life?” (Matthew 16:25)

Written April 2, 2007

Yesterday a friend asked me if I would continue to blog. After enjoying the boost of pride, I said yes. I don’t blog often, it’s difficult to just ‘think up’ something, but what I think I might do is write here what I’m actually writting for other things. We’ll see how this works out.

The purpose I’m posting this passage is for its value in perspectives on proper argumentation. I’m not posting it as a proper evangelistic tool for the purpose of seeing Salvation in lives. Though it can be apologetic, I found this passage clever for its value in the perspective Kierkegaard has on the topic of good rhetoric.

“A direct attack only strengthens a person to his illusion and, at the same time, embitters him. There is nothing that requires such gentle handling as an illusion, if one wishes to dispel it. If anything prompts the prospective captive to set his will in opposition, all is lost. And this is what a direct attack achieves, and it implies moreover the presumption of requiring a man to make to another person, or in his presence, an admission which he can make most profitably to himself privately. This is what is achieved by the indirect method which, loving and serving the truth, arranges everything dialectically for the prospective captive, and then shyly withdraws, so as not to witness the admission which he makes to himself alone before God- that he has lived hitherto in an illusion.

Ever since Plato and Aristotle battled in disagreement, the relationship between faith and reason has been uneasy. Plato taught knowledge is a memory of something divine, while Aristotle taught knowledge could be obtained by reason alone. This battle continued and resulted in a separation between faith and reason. While faith and reason are completely compatible and not contrary to one another, faith must precede reason in both priority and in the order of events.

Faith in the Christian sense is a nebulous word implying faith may not be justified and that it cannot be justified. There are variations of this in Christianity, from the fideist who teaches that everything outside of divine revelation is not beneficial, to the complete compatiblist who teaches that faith and reason are

If you’re like me, you haven’t seen something like the picture above too much lately. Maybe once a week, or even every day when times get bad enough.
It’s funny, well not really funny in the sense of haha, but I find it interesting that I’ll have days where I say to myself, “Wow God, where are you? I haven’t seen you lately.” Very faintly God will reply, “I have been here, where have YOU been?” With a hurt expression, I normally reply, “Oh, about that…”, then talk about how busy I’ve been.
In reality, it’s always us who draws away. God has this crazy, passionate love for us. In His love, for seemingly no reason as we are anything but lovable, he is always seeking us. Who knows why? This love always should direct man back toward God, but someway we always wander away from God and in result, wonder where He is.
Yesterday I realized that someway I had drifted away from God. Simply put, I had not stopped to say hi to God daily and meditate on his Word and Law. Funny that, well not really funny, despite how simple God makes this relationship, we still fail at it. Today I thank God for His Justice, Grace, and Love for us.

Read Matt 19 and Psalms 43.

I’ve come to find that while I’m always unsettled, and very much desire for this feeling to end, I hope I never become settled here on earth. You see, the reason why I’m always unsettled is that what I really want isn’t here, He’s somewhere else. So if I ever feel settled, as if life is perfect, that means I’ve lost my first love and settled for something that is here, which will never be Him.
So sitting here, I know now that being constantly unsettled is not a curse but a blessing that I can never thank God enough for. It reminds me that what I’m longing for is not on the earth, but somewhere else. The fact that I can be unsettled is a symbol of reassurance of hope, a hope to see Him face to face, seated on the thrown.
In heaven we will look at Him who has the appearance of jasper and carnelian, His thrown surrounded by a rainbow with the appearance of an emerald. At the thrown we’ll see flashes of lightning and hear rumblings and peals of thunder. There we will stand, surrounded by an endless sea of glass, almost like crystal.
We will see the King.

What a nasty word, Humility. A concept no one understands, but everyone honors. Humility is a Latin word, meaning low and from the earth. Things low and from the earth aren’t the most esteemed creation, you know, the stuff on the ground that people step on? Things like ants, snakes, lizards, beetles, and worms.

St. Thomas Aquinas defines humility similarly as “the virtue of humility” that “consists in keeping oneself within one’s own bounds, not reaching out to things above one, but submitting to one’s superior” (Summa Contra Gent., bk. IV, ch. lv, tr. Rickaby).

I seem to have a hard time in keeping true humility. Either I’m full of pride and work against the heart of men, or I’m humble but I loose my value in Christ and concentrate on all my faults. It’s so hard to understand that we’re actually made of dirt and that God doesn’t need us, but at the same time understand that God loves us and that’s why we’re valuable.

Humility is a daily balancing act for man.

Once again today I had to sit down and remind myself of the great story of man’s past, and look into the promise of man’s future. Looking at my own life, it’s easy to loose the hope of the future because at times it seems so far away, almost unreachable.

After the fall of angels and in result, the fall of man, we’ve been on a path downward to destruction. God in His love for us has been resetting our tracks to put us on a path of redemption, but due to our fallen nature, some way we always seem to jump off the path God has created for us. Even more so, for a redeemed person who is a child of God, whose enslavement to evil has ended, they still jump off the path God has set before them. Why do they do this? They have all help, all hope, all love, all power given to them, but for some reason they choose against it.

Man is a curious creature indeed, fighting against the one he loves, who loves him, refusing to draw upon the strength given to him, and insisting on destroying the life given to him. If we were to look at this situation in the life of an individual, we would say that the individual hated himself.

Does the race of man hate himself?

Pray for man.

Well, I normally blog at blogspot, but all my other friends blog here. I know, I’m a follower. I’m going to move some of my blogs from where I was to here, sort of like moving into a new house. Everything I put up today… unless I say otherwise, is from my old blog. I don’t expect people to read everything, but it’s there just in case you’re curious.