Confession

O God,
I confess that I have seen You at work in, even on my life.
I have seen You at work, I have heard You calling out, but I confess that I have responded sluggishly.
I thought I could put my life together
I wanted to have my life together
But I didn’t. I was missing You.
Not formally missing You - You were there on the stand in Your place by the Bible on the shelf – but missing You. I let You have a place, but I disgraced You by not giving You the place You deserve, that place that You require.

If I truly believed I would bind my soul to You and declare an oath of eternal fidelity; instead I have been content to leech from You a “free gift” and I have become a whore-mongering taker, interested only in self-indulged hedonism.
Forgive me, O Giver of All,
For I have used You
I have usurped You covenant promise
I have presumed upon Your grace
And made a mockery of Your mercy, while tempting Your wrath and testing Your justice.
I, Your vassal, beg of You O God to be gracious,
For I have not kept my oath of fidelity.
I have sought happiness from personal accomplishment
I have sought fulfillment from love and temporal relationships
I have sought gratification from the accumulation of wealth.

Enable me to live like Your servant Paul of Tarsus, cruciform, a life of servitude – even slavery to You. Let me affirm my oath by pouring out my life as an offering in worship to You.
May Your Holy name be ever praised, O Lord of my salvation.

What Happened?

sometimes life is hard.
but i think that death is always harder.
especially when there aren't many answers.


Life can't be that bad for anyone.
I know you hate this world, but please put down your gun.
Believe me, no one wants to see you dead.
Just start a new life and forget the past instead.
And it's okay, if you never, forgive me.

What happened?
I saw you way back with your friends.
They left you, they broke you, they ripped you apart.
Worst of all she broke your heart, it's not your fault.

What happened?
Your parents loved you so much.
You're bleeding, and crying, and screaming out loud.
There in the corner with it figured out, don't give up now.

Life can't be that bad for anyone.
It's not so easy to say that now that you're gone.
Someday I will see you again,
And we'll both be in heaven not thinking about what happened.

What Happens In The Dark.

Just as I had slept

To achieve solace

In dreamy escape

I was now awaked;

Thrust once more into the arena,

That fire filled hell ring some call life.

Midnight’s lightning blade

Saved me from drowning

In acid darkness,

But scarred memories

Became the end of my pain-filled dream,

Re-beginning my hate filled life.

It's been almost two months since my last post, but I feel that it is time to end my sabbatical. I had an awesome summer interning at Grace, absolutely loved my time in Europe, and now I'm gearing back up for my senior soccer season - which looks quite promising. I don't know how much I'll post about all these experiences, so if you want to here about them your best bet is to e-mail or call me. I will however resume creating my shattered mosaic.

Reflection

A Reflection on the July 4^{th entry of "My Utmost For His Highest" by Oswald Chambers} – Oh how tremendously wicked I am. I worry and wonder constantly over whether or not things will go “favorably” for me. But what is this? It is nothing but the selfish wanting of my own corrupt soul, a soul not properly influenced by the powerful and peaceful shadow of our God. I worry about money and try to figure out how I can get more. I lose sleep over a girl and try to get her to like me. I get anxious about my future and try to plan out where I will be and what I will do. My mind sleeps in a state of constant apprehension keeping rest from being truly restful. All this, while I claim to believe in a sovereign, omniscient, omnipotent God.

But that is not belief. It is the seed of sin sprouting into black flowers of ungrateful contempt. It is the growing cloud of selfish ambition. It is the anti-God, the voice of pride calling out in scorn “My will, not thine.” It is nothing other than the ancient snare of self-love that Lucifer fell prey to before the age of men.

Constant state, Paranoia, Embezzler of life,
Captures Conscience, burns him upon the Stake of Trepidation.
Mind breached, Mistrust thrusts her blade Suspicion deep into Heart,
Cutting out Trust, rendering Heart loveless.
Empty of right, know only wrong,
Devoid of love, loss of life.
Speaking treason to Heart, Mind betrays, enslaves, to suffer an existence of miserable apprehension obsession.
King Terror and Queen Fear make hate;
Prince Unrest is begotten.

Refresh.

For reasons of mental and spiritual health I decided to take a short sabbatical from my usual routine. This involves abstinence from engagement in any sort of formal theological inquiry, supplemental reading, and anything of the nature. (Except of course what is required for me to adequately teach my American Church History class.) I will continue the series on Romans 4.1-9 at a later date.

Instead, I am taking this time for prayerful reflection and contemplation. I think that soul searching is something that all of us need to do once in a while. And I feel that with my internships, upcoming ministry trip to Europe, and various other events in my life it is a good time for me to take a break from "thinking" as my sister Candace says and try to focus on a simple, even mystical faith.

In the meantime, if you haven't read any of my early posts I would encourage you to. They are much different from what I have been doing recently and are more artistic in nature. Also, check out my brothers blog over at mycollegedebt.org.

Sola Fide: Part 3

Our righteousness

The primary discussion taking place in Romans 4:1-8 is a matter of how or by what God regards his children as righteous. This is commonly referred to biblically and extra-biblically as justification. The idea behind justification is that because of some reason God in some way deems the unrighteous human being as righteous and therefore worthy of communion with himself.[1]

But what is this “righteousness?” Or rather, what does this term “righteousness” refer too? According to W.E. Vine “righteousness” may carry a couple of different ideas with it. The first is the idea of “righteousness” as “right action.” We see this usage employed by Paul on five occasions in Romans 6, in Ephesians 6:14 and in other places throughout the New Testament. The other usage implies that of a gracious gift given by God to bring those who believe in Jesus Christ into right relationship with himself (Vine, 980).

In my estimation it seems to be this second definition which Paul is implying in his use of the word righteousness. There are two primary reasons here in support of this definition. The first is that we see this idea prominently throughout Paul’s writings and especially in close conjunction to his discussions of justification and reconciliation before God. II Corinthians 5:21 says, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” just after urging the Corinthians to be reconciled to God in verse 20. Titus 3:5 shows that our salvation is not because of any righteous works that we have committed but because of God’s own mercy upon us. Paul states a similar idea in Ephesians 2:8-9 and says that it is by God’s grace alone that we are saved through our faith with no relation to ourselves and completely apart from any works. And lastly Paul gives us these ideas in Romans just prior to the passage in question. No one will be declared righteous because of law observance, but the righteousness we do have is from God, apart from the law, and through faith in Jesus Christ.

The second reason for my understanding of the word “righteousness” is that if we take “righteousness” to mean “acts of rightness” or “right action” then all of the above statements by the apostle implicitly contradict themselves. We cannot affirm that our righteousness is granted to us apart from our own action while at the same time claiming that it is by our righteous action that we were justified before God. For if we do then either we need to seek a new understanding of such statements, or they must be accepted as logically false statements in which the case we must reject the whole of the gospel.

I believe that Paul was quite intentional of his use of the word righteousness. He quite clearly departed from Jewish tradition showing that the right action idea was wrong. According to both Josephus and Philo righteousness is an “ethical conception” or “chief cardinal virtue which originates in the soul” and “is meritorious” (Bromiley 171). So when Paul goes against the grain of popular Jewish thought and pairs righteousness with faith he is quite clearly making a statement about what he believes righteousness to be and how he thinks it should be viewed in light of the gospel message he is preaching.[2]

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[1] The reason and way of God’s justification has yet to be addressed. The focus here is on Paul’s understanding of righteousness and how exactly God views this righteousness. Discussion of the means of obtaining righteousness will be included under point II (consult outline for reference.)

[2] It should be noted that Paul’s argumentation against the Jewish train of thought is important to this passage and integral to its proper interpretation. This idea of Paul’s argument against popular Jewish thought will be addressed more completely further on.