new years.

granted, this would be more timely had it been posted on new year's eve or january first but it is coming now so deal with it.
i haven't ever thought about new year's and the meaning or symbolism behind it but it struck me funny this year when there were so many ads surrounding resolutions and changing yourself for the new year.  i'm all for the exciting incident or incentive that a new calendar year may bring to one's life but i found myself so much more reflective than futuristic at the end of 2012 and dawn of 2013.  there is a saying that says hindsight is always 20/20 while looking forward is often less than that basically emphasizing the importance of reflection.  and besides the importance, think of the practicalness.  try as i may, i'll never predict the future.  James 4:13-15 seems pretty straight forward that we do not even know our next moments. if the fragility of life wasn't enough, we have the impending coming of the Kingdom.  so relish our past, our experiences, our failures and triumphs.  for 2013 is sure to hold them too, i just do not know if we need to plan them.

A Call To Remember and Obey

This is one of my favorite thanksgiving passages, the Lord provides:

Deuteronomy 8

8 “Be careful to obey all the commands I am giving you today. Then you will live and multiply, and you will enter and occupy the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors. ² Remember how the Lord your God led you through the wilderness for these forty years, humbling you and testing you to prove your character, and to find out whether or not you would obey his commands. ³ Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. ⁴ For all these forty years your clothes didn’t wear out, and your feet didn’t blister or swell. ⁵ Think about it: Just as a parent disciplines a child, the Lord your God disciplines you for your own good.

⁶ “So obey the commands of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and fearing him. ⁷ For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land of flowing streams and pools of water, with fountains and springs that gush out in the valleys and hills. ⁸ It is a land of wheat and barley; of grapevines, fig trees, and pomegranates; of olive oil and honey. ⁹ It is a land where food is plentiful and nothing is lacking. It is a land where iron is as common as stone, and copper is abundant in the hills. ¹⁰ When you have eaten your fill, be sure to praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.
¹¹ “But that is the time to be careful! Beware that in your plenty you do not forget the Lord your God and disobey his commands, regulations, and decrees that I am giving you today. ¹² For when you have become full and prosperous and have built fine homes to live in, ¹³ and when your flocks and herds have become very large and your silver and gold have multiplied along with everything else, be careful! ¹⁴ Do not become proud at that time and forget the Lord your God, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt. ¹⁵ Do not forget that he led you through the great and terrifying wilderness with its poisonous snakes and scorpions, where it was so hot and dry. He gave you water from the rock! ¹⁶ He fed you with manna in the wilderness, a food unknown to your ancestors. He did this to humble you and test you for your own good. ¹⁷ He did all this so you would never say to yourself, ‘I have achieved this wealth with my own strength and energy.’ ¹⁸ Remember the Lord your God. He is the one who gives you power to be successful, in order to fulfill the covenant he confirmed to your ancestors with an oath.
¹⁹ “But I assure you of this: If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods, worshiping and bowing down to them, you will certainly be destroyed. ²⁰ Just as the Lord has destroyed other nations in your path, you also will be destroyed if you refuse to obey the Lord your God.

Love you guys, I am thankful for you guys and thank God that I have two amazing brothers to walk along side me through life. Happy Thanksgiving.

prosperity gospel?

so i've been in the library a tad too many hours lately. so when i check my twitter and all the peeps are hittin me up (aka none) i sometimes get distracted. but the weird thing about twitter is sometimes random people "follow" you. i don't know why. and you have no say in the matter! if some rando tried to be my facebook friend, i'd block them so quick. anyways, some twitter person followed me so i check out their "page" is what i think it's called. you can see it here. and then there is a link to their website so i click on that which takes me here.
my thought process goes something like this, "oh whatever cool they want people to give back... good idea i gue.. wait what?!? it says (and i quote), 'you deserve to be rich - financially, emotionally, spiritually, and in all areas of life'. um excuse me? wanna back that up a bit?"
i just don't know where in the Bible someone would get that. it is like they never read Job or Psalm 88. there is nothing positive or rich about those passages. don't get me wrong, God has blessed me beyond what i deserved and frankly beyond what i asked for.  i want hardships.  i know for a fact i have a hard time accepting love and help.  and it is almost like i don't need to because my life is so easy, too easy.  at the very least, i know that i do not 'deserve to be rich - financially, emotionally, spiritually and in all areas of life'

1O LORD, God of my salvation; I cry out day and night before you.2Let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry!3For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol.4I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am a man who has no strength,5like one set loose among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand.6You have put me in the depths of the pit, in the regions dark and deep.7Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah8You have caused my companions to shun me; you have made me a horror to them. I am shut in so that I cannot escape;9my eye grows dim through sorrow. Every day I call upon you, O LORD; I spread out my hands to you.10Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the departed rise up to praise you? Selah11Is your steadfast love declared in the grave, or your faithfulness in Abaddon?12Are your wonders known in the darkness, or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?13But I, O LORD, cry to you; in the morning my prayer comes before you.14O LORD, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me?15Afflicted and close to death from my youth up, I suffer your terrors; I am helpless.16Your wrath has swept over me; your dreadful assaults destroy me.17They surround me like a flood all day long; they close in on me together.18You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me; my companions have become darkness.

~Psalm 88

break from studying.

for lack of time for a full post, here is something to hold your interest when a study break is necessary. but do not fear, a post will come soon.

worst music video of all time?

and after that

cutest eating contest of all time?

whoa...finally posted...

Well another summer come and gone and classes have begun. first week completed and 29 weeks of classes remain (not including finals week).
ups and downs for sure. praises for getting a killer job at nordy's and succeeding in it. downs with....well you guys know (relationship problems) haha.

Another up was that I was blessed to be able travel the world, or a little section of it this summer...yes im talkin about Italy. Amazing.

It was super interesting to see ruins that dated all the way back to the time of Jesus. it felt like being there in a way. the architecture was amazing, its hard to believe it only took 8 years for the Colosseum to be built without modern tools or cranes. it was built 80 years after Jesus died, and as you walk in you can hear the sounds of the crowds just like the games are still going on...i wanted to jump into the middle of the arena and act out a scene from gladiator...Russell Crowe style!!

I enjoyed walking around on the cobblestone streets of rome seeing a different culture and lifestyle take place. best part about the culture was the siesta which was observed everyday from 1-around 4 pm. not to mention the food was pretty bomb to (not in rome, everywhere else).

We did some hiking along a row of these coastal towns called the Chinque-terre and was able to see the Mediterranean, so blue and beautiful. Interesting history of these towns, they were all isolated and weren't able for the children to meet potential partners so they build these trails/roads from town to town so that the kids could meet up on the paths and fall in love...or something like that. All along the trails there are pad locks placed by tourists that 'fell in love' on these paths. I had no such luck in meeting an Italian dream boat but i did break a pretty good sweat from the heat.

So much more to tell about this trip but ill save it for our next skype session, otherwise this post would be super long and boring (it already is boring).

Finally I've been reading a book called: Not A Fan by Kyle Idleman for our house bible study and ive got to say...as a non reader...this book is pretty stinkin good. only a chapter or two into it but its a call out for sure. the whole premise of the book is asking are you a FOLLOWER of Jesus or are you a FAN of Jesus. My favorite part or sentences from the book so far is this: "The biggest threat to the church today is fans who call themselves Christians but aren't actually interested in following Christ. They want to be close enough to Jesus to get all the benefits, but not so close it requires anything from them." That really makes me think. This is going to be a good call out for myself and hopefully more guys in the house. Please be praying for us! Can't wait to learn more by reading this book and hopefully I am called to reform in areas of my life so that I can be a true FOLLOWER of Jesus Christ.

hellbound?

okok my brain is mush. but i tried writing down initial thoughts in my journal so hopefully this is a little bit more organized and succinct.  but i just got back from a movie in downtown pasadena and sat through an hour and a half of a cinematic package of theological banter about hell.  now i'm going to give some points that the movie made and ask a bunch of questions because i think this should be a discussion! the main reason i think this should be a discussion is because i had never had one about this subject.  for me at least, it felt almost taboo.  and of course it wasn't but it was just never spoken of.  so this was super cool to hear multiple positions and them each be supported by people who actually believe them rather than a professor who is just listing various theories.  but here goes nothing!

the two main theories discussed in the movie were the classical view of an eternal, punishing hell that contains people sent there because they did not accept Christ's offer of being the way, the truth, and the life.  the universal view contains a temporal hell.  there are some various offshoots in terms of the length and condition of that hell and even who goes there which i'll bring up but that's the main tenant.

i really don't have a great way to discuss the rest of the movie so i'm gonna do a good ole bullet point approach to some of the takeaways i had.  not necessarily things i agreed with and not necessarily did i disagree with them either. just thought provoking stuff.
  ps i'm going to say "i" instead of "we" because i'll own up to what i'm saying but feel free to include yourself in what i say if it applies

• i take on assumptions that are given to me as dogmatic or factual.  obviously, hell was one of those things where i was never given an alternative to the classic view. 
• if i believe that God seeks to be one with His creation and is also all-powerful, then why would there be a permanent hell?  if there is a permanent hell then there are two options, either God is not powerful enough to save everyone and see His will come to fruition or God does not want to save His creation.  He may have a select group who He called (called calvinism and commonly held belief by pastors such as mark driscoll) and only they will be saved.  how is this loving and also how does this fulfill His desire to be one with His creation?
• a common argument for a permanent, punishing hell is the identification of evil people such as hitler.  surely hitler cannot be strolling in the pearly gates with me on the day of judgement.  but if i do this, i condemn hitler ourselves and deny him Christ's grace that i turn around and expect to be bestowed upon me.  who made me the judge?
• could the eschatology of hell and heaven have arisen from the human view of justice which primarily comes out of retribution?  i want evil done to those who did evil so i impose hell on the text to satisfy my human desire for retribution.  i sure hope that my view of justice is not the same as Christ's view of justice.  and if it isn't the same, who am i to define what His view is? could it not supersede my understanding?
• universalists have never proposed the lack of hell, only the lack of a permanent, suffering hell.  when we pass through the refining fire (1 Cor 3:11-5) the wheat will be burned off to allow the silver, gold and precious stones to remain.  could that maybe indicate that we all pass through "hell" and have our sin burned away so that only our Christ-like attributes remain?  this may mean that hell lasts longer for the hitlers of the world while mother theresa just dips her little toe in but could we all experience it?  
• "hell is a human desire. i would suggest that Christ ethics supersede human ethics"
• "we don't read the bible as it is, we read the bible as we are" ~ thomas talbott
• "if we really believed in hell, we wouldn't be in college, we would be like schindler from schindler's list, trying to sell his ring just to save one person.  maybe the westboro baptist church contains the only people who actually believe in hell" 
• and finally, if we hold a universalist eschatology, what does that mean for the great commission? for evangelism?

that's all i got. let the discussion begin between each of us, and our respective friends at school. by no means do we have to get all heated about this, for none of us have the answer.  but honest, fair and civil discourse can do nothing but improve our theology and our view of the great God we serve and strive to love. 

what's your "train"?

pretty simple, poking around donald miller's blog as usual and stumbled upon a little link to this website here.  so if it is good enough for donald miller, it's good enough for me. so i read it and it was really neat because i think that it is easy to be apathetic.  at the very least our culture doesn't necessarily encourage us to be all out gung-ho for things. we gotta be cool, calm and collected. but i think that God created us to be wildly passionate, do things on an impulse, live life without caring what others think.  i think God created us to be screaming at trains, having others stare at us for knowing what a "snc52" is.

also, i can see nathan bofto being that guy.