What is a successful life?
The world tells us it's 'being all that you can be', that you are 'unique'; and they are right in the fact you are unique, but how come the lobbyist of any company tries to convince you that you need to be like everyone else; to purchase and consume as much as you possible can, in fact more than anyone else; in their eyes having more than everyone is unique and successful.
What's the truth though? Well you can't be successful in those circumstances, you are fordoomed to failure. For you can never have enough, there is someone always out there who has more, or is better in some way. It's a never ending cycle, you won't find success in the eyes of the world, at least not more than the typical 15-minutes of fame.
So then how do you live a successful life? Well here's some more truth, from the beginning of our life we have been destined to end up 'failures' because no matter how far we get in life the end result is that it will all end, that there will be a point to where we won't be successful of inhabiting this earth.
So what then? Well if you understand those truth then let me convey another truth your way, God is real. To facade around the idea that you are alive by some random chance in the universe is almost some plain insanity. The fact is God has created you to have a successful life.
But wait, didn't I already say we were destined to fail? Yet God created us to have a successful life? That doesn't make sense right? It's true, living a life that results in failure does seem pointless right? Well even though God created us to live a successful life, we can't do that alone. Why you might ask? Because of our sinful desires. I have them, you have them, we all have. From birth we have had them, as soon as we come out of the womb we are already crying for attention, trying to acheive a successful life (at least get 15-minutes of attention from Mommy and Daddy), but it's sinful desire to do it on our own, is what will end up in failure. The only way for us to even come close to a life of success is to follow the man who gave the perfect example of a successful life. Jesus Christ.
Not only was the guy successful in his life, he is successful even after his life on earth. Who is talked about more, Adolf Hitler( a radical man who affected the world entirely with his selfish attempts at success in his eyes; in the early 1900's... the not too long ago period) or Jesus, the guy who even are calendar is based off of. He had some much of a influence we even based our timeline off the guy. How successful is that?
But really he was successful because he was truely and ultimately the perfect example of how we need to live if we want this success.
Here's the kicker as well, not only does Jesus live the successful path, he dies in it as well, and makes our path of ultimate failure have a road to hope. He can make our lives a success, a life that does not go down the roads of failure but instead ends at a successful everlasting destination.
How's that for success, even succeeding over death. Jesus did it, he conquered the grave. He gives us hope and a guide to how to live a successful life.
Thank you Jesus for all you have done. Praise the Lord.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Monday, September 11, 2006
Asymmetry
Asymmetry;
But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to be baptized, he denounced them. "You brood of snakes!" he exclaimed. "Who warned you to flee God's coming judgment? Prove by the way you live that you have really turned from your sins and turned to God. Don't just say, `We're safe--we're the descendants of Abraham.' That proves nothing. God can change these stones here into children of Abraham. Even now the ax of God's judgment is poised, ready to sever your roots. Yes, every tree that does not produce good fruit will be chopped down and thrown into the fire.
Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here's what you do: Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It's the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts. Mean-spirited ambition isn't wisdom. Boasting that you are wise isn't wisdom. Twisting the truth to make yourselves sound wise isn't wisdom. It's the furthest thing from wisdom—it's animal cunning, devilish conniving. Whenever you're trying to look better than others or get the better of others, things fall apart and everyone ends up at the others' throats.
Real wisdom, God's wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.
So, my very dear friends, don't get thrown off course. Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle. He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all his creatures.
I do not spend time with liars or go along with hypocrites.
Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, 'Let me wash your face for you,' when your own face is distorted by contempt? It's this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.
How can you think of saying, `Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,' when you can't see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log from your own eye; then perhaps you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye.
He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: " 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
YHWH give me a clean heart. Lord I want to not be two-faced in situations of my lifestyle. Lord you want the heart in everything we do, and Father I need to surrender every aspect of my life to you so I can absolutely-without-a-doubt-undeniably-no-turning-back live for you. King of Kings, I am a hypocritical Pharisee. Jesus, the amount of times I've read your law and not used it as a road map for my whole life. I made excuses saying "I'll just follow these directions from here to here" instead of looking at the whole and in the end I just ended up getting lost. Rescue me Abba, save me from my pride Christ, remind to constantly stop and ask directions so I can continue down the right road. Beautiful One tear off these masks I've created and reveal to the world who I am in you! Only then can your word flow through me Emmanuel. Saviour thank you for your saving grace for redeeming me and declaring me worthy enough to die for. God you are for me, none can stand against you, even my egotiscal pride and selfishness, kill it off. Let your elders declare today that I am sanctified in your presence and unless that holiness in all aspects of my life.
But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to be baptized, he denounced them. "You brood of snakes!" he exclaimed. "Who warned you to flee God's coming judgment? Prove by the way you live that you have really turned from your sins and turned to God. Don't just say, `We're safe--we're the descendants of Abraham.' That proves nothing. God can change these stones here into children of Abraham. Even now the ax of God's judgment is poised, ready to sever your roots. Yes, every tree that does not produce good fruit will be chopped down and thrown into the fire.
Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here's what you do: Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It's the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts. Mean-spirited ambition isn't wisdom. Boasting that you are wise isn't wisdom. Twisting the truth to make yourselves sound wise isn't wisdom. It's the furthest thing from wisdom—it's animal cunning, devilish conniving. Whenever you're trying to look better than others or get the better of others, things fall apart and everyone ends up at the others' throats.
Real wisdom, God's wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.
So, my very dear friends, don't get thrown off course. Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle. He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all his creatures.
I do not spend time with liars or go along with hypocrites.
Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, 'Let me wash your face for you,' when your own face is distorted by contempt? It's this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.
How can you think of saying, `Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,' when you can't see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log from your own eye; then perhaps you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye.
He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: " 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
YHWH give me a clean heart. Lord I want to not be two-faced in situations of my lifestyle. Lord you want the heart in everything we do, and Father I need to surrender every aspect of my life to you so I can absolutely-without-a-doubt-undeniably-no-turning-back live for you. King of Kings, I am a hypocritical Pharisee. Jesus, the amount of times I've read your law and not used it as a road map for my whole life. I made excuses saying "I'll just follow these directions from here to here" instead of looking at the whole and in the end I just ended up getting lost. Rescue me Abba, save me from my pride Christ, remind to constantly stop and ask directions so I can continue down the right road. Beautiful One tear off these masks I've created and reveal to the world who I am in you! Only then can your word flow through me Emmanuel. Saviour thank you for your saving grace for redeeming me and declaring me worthy enough to die for. God you are for me, none can stand against you, even my egotiscal pride and selfishness, kill it off. Let your elders declare today that I am sanctified in your presence and unless that holiness in all aspects of my life.
Google's great dictionary services provided me with great defitions of the word God recently revealed to me before I wrote this.
Asymmetry: the depiction in a work of art of two sides as being not identical without impairing the general harmony of the work. Asymmetry is used to prevent a work from appearing static and superficial, as no two sides of a life form are identical.
Lack of balance.
Lack or absence of balanced proportions between parts of a thing.
Got an idea of what the word means? If not well how's this it means all the sides of an object don't match. That's exactly what I've been called on in my life.
I have a great idea of who God is, and what it looks like to be a Christian. At Battle School, Danielle Stricklen gave us a great eye-opening shocker that has stuck ever since, and has been developing ever since I got back. Many times Jesus calls the Pharisee's two-faced. They act that way in the synagogue, but when they leave they become a totally different person. Which in turn makes their prayers not from the heart, it makes their sacrifices ugly, and makes their faces two-sided, wished washed and straight up hypocritical. Usually we go, ya, those Pharisee's they deserved what was coming to them, and it's true, unless they turned from their selfish, hypocritical ways, they sure in fact were not going to be apart of the kingdom. But what is interesting, is that if you compare me to anyone in the scriptures I'm alot like a Pharisee. I know the law, I know what God wants, I have the gifts and the talents for his kingdom, people recognize me as a leader, etc. But even in my own life, I am a hypocrite.
It was really bad before Battle School. I disrespected my parents, used and abused my friends, and was honestly really only looking out for my own interests. Not so much now, that I've started to realize what it looks like to be a Christian in my family life. But school, man that's hard. What does it look like to be a Christian in the school anyway? Sure I made a post about what "actions/outward" signs you could do to be an ideal Christian in school, and that's great in theory, but honestly it's really hard. Your Athiest friends are talking about smoking pot, sex, pornography, or that friend at school who's a real big loser. The list continues, they talk about how school sucks, or swear about this or that, about how they just jacked some guy from his ipod, or even about the latest trend or about Jeni told Cindy who told Sara that Lorean totally flunked yesterday's test. What does it look like to NOT conform and to love everyone. It's so hard, so much easier to just go with the conversation. For me, when I know nothing about the story or have nothing to input from experience, I just fabricate one to look cool. It happens alot. I'm really really good at it. I can trace my roots back to fibbing to my parents about who broke the picture frame. Anyway, as Christ followers, we are called to live the example of Christ in all aspects of our lives.
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
That last one might seem strange in this context; but let me reveal to you what God recently layed out about it. Laying down our lives, actually looks like giving up are "easy" life we have around our friends and families and instead taking up Jesus' Cross and boldly living a Christ like life in even those circumstances.
God hasn't called us to do the idiotic, the reward is there, if we want this holiness/sanctification that God has ordained for us, we need to live in Christ.
For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
New School Year
Well it's that time of year again, when everyone is going off back to school (Well not everyone, but a lot of people my age that's for sure) and your probably wondering "Brent, what are your plans for your last year of highschool?" among other questions such as "Brent, what is some advice for being a Christian in your school?" or my favorite "Brent, what are some things I should do in order to make this year at school a success".
Well your in luck because this blog is dedicated to all you school-goers alike. But first, a look at last year.
Well last year was a good year for me, it opened my eyes to see that a vision can actually shape others around you. Most of you know God planned for me to start a Cell-group in my school, so I took him right up on his offer, and at first it had some good results. Evendently do to my egotiscal controlling like personality it soon had some bad results due to the fact that Jesus was still teaching about leadership. Still it was a year to open my eyes to see what doesn't work in Cell Group formats. That is, doing it alone, will have you end up taking it alone. I lost God's direction and went ways off from what he had in mind. But at least I did make a few new friends and learn a lot along the way.
It was also a year of good disciplining from Cory, a great end to XLR:8 and probably the thing that impacted my life the most; the year in which I took upon the Battle School Program. I've been shaped in so many ways it's almost hard to recognize me anymore. At the start of the year I had good understanding of what a servant was, and how to serve God whole-heartily but God wasn't done with me there. I've had my gifts of evangelism, prophecy, and leadership go through intensive toning. God's plans for me have been way more wide and almost hard to grasp, and I've only been looking at the narrow version I had figured out.
The one thing I did pick up that I find has shaped my views of God; is the intimate relationship he longs for with us. I've learned how to overcome the flesh with spirit, how to listen to God's voice in all circumstances, and to shut-up when I want to say something and to speak what God wants to say instead (very hard lesson, I'm still trying to master).
Now then onto this year of School... hooray!
What are my plans for this year of School?
Nothing other than rely on God and his guidance this year. I'll only do what he tells me and follow as he says. What that looks like is still being revealed to me, but I do know I get to put into practice daily evangelism (ie. Like making friends in the hallway, like talking about Jesus in every circumstance, not holding back anything due to the fears of the world... etc. I actually can't think of anything right now, it'll be a difference experience daily.) I am probably going to get a few good friends in my school together at lunch for a small cell group, where we look at the bible intensely and a place where you can bring your friends. I really want to look at concrete footings for Christianity. I find too often we forget who Jesus was, what he did, why he did it, how he did it, and pretty much the basis of the early Christian church; figure out what it means to love in pratical ways. But that's an idea, I'll pretty much go as the spirit leads. I am taking guitar class, and history, chemistry, and english. Not sure about taking Math or not. Drama, web design and going to be changed Portfolio class (Praise the Lord).
What's my advice for being a Christian in your school?
Be who God created you to be, and follow his direction. Pretty much if you do that, you'll go far.
Practical ways? Don't conform, uphold your school rules, pretty much be like Jesus. If you wanna do extreme things... how about, mmm buy your whole first class candy bars, go early and put them on everyone's desk and attach like a Jesus loves you note... or something. My idea was sell all your possesions including your clothes, and only buy like two pairs of pants, two shirts, two pairs of socks, one pair of runners. Give all your other clothes to charity or something. Who knows, the list is limitless with Jesus; Even sitting down with a person you've never met and talking to the whole lunch period is pretty extreme. If you Be who God created you to be, and follow his direction; everything else will fall in line.
Making your school-year a success:
TOP TEN THINGS IMP You Should do to make your School-Year a successful one.
1) Make one new friend and have a strong relationship with them
2) Know all your peers in all your classes
3) Buy a Hampster for your science class as a "pet"... if there is some rule against it, then ask for the rule to be enulled, if that fails, buy one and put it in your locker.
4) Start or join a ministry in your school
5) If you don't have one; get a mentor, if you do; take on a disciple
6) Read your bible for 5 minutes a day
7) Spend 30 minutes in prayer a day
8) Eat at least 5 chocolate bars, everyone loves chocolate
9) Excersise at least 5 chocolate bar lengths a day (what that even means, I have no clue)
10) Come up with a list of things you'd like to do yourself.
Praise the Lord,
-Brent
Well your in luck because this blog is dedicated to all you school-goers alike. But first, a look at last year.
Well last year was a good year for me, it opened my eyes to see that a vision can actually shape others around you. Most of you know God planned for me to start a Cell-group in my school, so I took him right up on his offer, and at first it had some good results. Evendently do to my egotiscal controlling like personality it soon had some bad results due to the fact that Jesus was still teaching about leadership. Still it was a year to open my eyes to see what doesn't work in Cell Group formats. That is, doing it alone, will have you end up taking it alone. I lost God's direction and went ways off from what he had in mind. But at least I did make a few new friends and learn a lot along the way.
It was also a year of good disciplining from Cory, a great end to XLR:8 and probably the thing that impacted my life the most; the year in which I took upon the Battle School Program. I've been shaped in so many ways it's almost hard to recognize me anymore. At the start of the year I had good understanding of what a servant was, and how to serve God whole-heartily but God wasn't done with me there. I've had my gifts of evangelism, prophecy, and leadership go through intensive toning. God's plans for me have been way more wide and almost hard to grasp, and I've only been looking at the narrow version I had figured out.
The one thing I did pick up that I find has shaped my views of God; is the intimate relationship he longs for with us. I've learned how to overcome the flesh with spirit, how to listen to God's voice in all circumstances, and to shut-up when I want to say something and to speak what God wants to say instead (very hard lesson, I'm still trying to master).
Now then onto this year of School... hooray!
What are my plans for this year of School?
Nothing other than rely on God and his guidance this year. I'll only do what he tells me and follow as he says. What that looks like is still being revealed to me, but I do know I get to put into practice daily evangelism (ie. Like making friends in the hallway, like talking about Jesus in every circumstance, not holding back anything due to the fears of the world... etc. I actually can't think of anything right now, it'll be a difference experience daily.) I am probably going to get a few good friends in my school together at lunch for a small cell group, where we look at the bible intensely and a place where you can bring your friends. I really want to look at concrete footings for Christianity. I find too often we forget who Jesus was, what he did, why he did it, how he did it, and pretty much the basis of the early Christian church; figure out what it means to love in pratical ways. But that's an idea, I'll pretty much go as the spirit leads. I am taking guitar class, and history, chemistry, and english. Not sure about taking Math or not. Drama, web design and going to be changed Portfolio class (Praise the Lord).
What's my advice for being a Christian in your school?
Be who God created you to be, and follow his direction. Pretty much if you do that, you'll go far.
Practical ways? Don't conform, uphold your school rules, pretty much be like Jesus. If you wanna do extreme things... how about, mmm buy your whole first class candy bars, go early and put them on everyone's desk and attach like a Jesus loves you note... or something. My idea was sell all your possesions including your clothes, and only buy like two pairs of pants, two shirts, two pairs of socks, one pair of runners. Give all your other clothes to charity or something. Who knows, the list is limitless with Jesus; Even sitting down with a person you've never met and talking to the whole lunch period is pretty extreme. If you Be who God created you to be, and follow his direction; everything else will fall in line.
Making your school-year a success:
TOP TEN THINGS IMP You Should do to make your School-Year a successful one.
1) Make one new friend and have a strong relationship with them
2) Know all your peers in all your classes
3) Buy a Hampster for your science class as a "pet"... if there is some rule against it, then ask for the rule to be enulled, if that fails, buy one and put it in your locker.
4) Start or join a ministry in your school
5) If you don't have one; get a mentor, if you do; take on a disciple
6) Read your bible for 5 minutes a day
7) Spend 30 minutes in prayer a day
8) Eat at least 5 chocolate bars, everyone loves chocolate
9) Excersise at least 5 chocolate bar lengths a day (what that even means, I have no clue)
10) Come up with a list of things you'd like to do yourself.
Praise the Lord,
-Brent
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