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blaise_pascal
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Name: Jeremiah
Interests: Studying. Lots of Studying. The Bible. Theology. My wife.
Expertise: I excel at nothing in a grand kind of way except being able to find books at Barnes&Noble.
Occupation: Seminary Student
Industry: Customer Service
Message: message me
Member Since:
11/18/2003
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| hmmm...I just decided to check my subscription list here and the vast majority of people haven't said anything in almost a year and a half.. | | |
| Wow...I'm a sad person...I haven't been on Xanga in so long that I couldn't remember how to enter a new blog!!! Man...I remember the days when I used to put stuff up semi-regularly...Now I put something useless up once every six months!
My advice for this evening however is to go read Psalm 30. I'm preaching a funeral sermon in my Preaching class tomorrow from this text.
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| I just took this test about my understanding of Christology...You should take it and find out if you are orthodox or not in you understanding of Christology
You Scored as Chalcedon compliantYou are Chalcedon compliant. Congratulations, you're not a heretic. You believe that Jesus is truly God and truly man and like us in every respect, apart from sin. Officially approved in 451.
Go here to take the quiz:
http://quizfarm.com/quizzes/new/svensvensven/are-you-a-heretic | | |
| Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you. Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh—though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone
else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more:
circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of
Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed,
I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing
Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all
things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and
be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from
the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the
righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not
that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on
to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers,
I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do:
forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who
will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the
power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
I think everyone should read and dwell on this passage for a while. Just consider how Paul builds up his comments here. He goes through the entirity of salvation making various comments on it. I think that the main thrust of the chapter is vv 8-11 (which begins with "Indeed, I count everything as loss..." and finishes the paragraph there). This is a beautiful passage dealing with who we are in Christ and the hope that we have of attaining the goal that He has for us in this life and the here-after! Blessings!
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| There is much to be said about life in the aftermath of a mission
trip... There is even more to be said about life in the aftermath of
two back to back mission trips. I survived. I went. I returned. I
am tired. I am mostly recovered and gearing back up for the usual
preparation for Bible studies and quiet times and activities with the
youth. I wonder at the work that the Lord has done these two weeks in
my life. I have seen Him work in the kids lives. I've seen them
stretched beyond their strength, seen them pulled to do what they would
normally not do. I have seen them grow deeper into Christ in the midst
of hard labor and obedience. I have seen what true spirituality is and
it doesn't involve seeking out spiritual experiences outside of serving
God, but it involves doing what God has told us to do, what Jesus
Himself reiterated in the Sermon on the Mount. Our actions are to
reflect that which is on the inside. If the inside is dead and nasty,
no matter how glamorous our actions on the outside look, they are just
as dead and nasty. If we are clean and have God's Spirit on the
inside, then no matter how small our outward action, it is approved by
God because we are able to do it with the right intentions. However,
if outward obedience doesn't follow from the inward change, then how
can we believe there is an inward change?? That is pure presumption!
I'll start with the Middle Schoolers and Chattanooga.
This
trip came out of nowhere! Not that we hadn't planned on doing a middle
school trip, but the original idea was canceled due to a lack of youth
groups coming on it. So, instead of trying to do another trip with Son
Servants (the organization that sets up and plans the trips) for the
same week which would have cost a great deal more, the parents opted
for a trip in a different week. So, we ended up going to Chattanooga
the week before the High School mission trip. That was quite the hard
decision for me to make. I was torn between feeling like I needed to
do both trips, being the youth intern who had signed up for two mission
trips this summer, and trying to find someone else to make one of the
trips. After much prayer and consideration, I decided to do both
trips, which Rachel agreed would be good. And so began two weeks
driving a fifteen passenger van over 2700 miles!
On our way to
Chattanooga we stopped in Montreat, NC to pick up our other adult
advisor for the trip. Carolyn, the advisor I was picking up asked if
the kids had known we were stopping to get her. She thought it would
have been funny had I not told them I was going to be picking her up.
Had I done that, I could've got them believing that I was picking up a
random hitchhiker that happened to be sitting in the Bilo parking lot
waiting on a ride (which I must say would have been pretty funny).
So,
we set off from there and drove through the mountains of North Carolina
and then through the mountains of Tennessee and stopped for lunch in
Newport, TN. From there we progressed on toward Chattanooga, with a
brief stop in Athens at the Wal-Mart that I had only visited once since
they built the new Supercenter there. It was quite a trip, remembering
all the places I used to hang out at and things that I used to do when
I lived down there. It made me sad that I couldn't make it over to
Tellico Plains, my hometown, being only a short 25 minutes off of the
interstate. But that couldn't be worked in, not justified, though I
think it would have surprised the kids to see such a rural town because
most of them have been raised in and around the huge city of Charlotte
or something that compares to it. I can't imagine the shock many of
them would have had to see all the rural back country that made up one
town and total lack of every kind of fast food restaurant that they
were used to! Granted, we did get off the interstate in Cleveland and
take Hwy 58 to the campground where we would be staying for the next 5
nights, which offered up quite a bit of farmland and open stretches of
country side, though none of them noticed it that much since I didn't
have anything to say about considering it was an area that I was
unfamiliar with.
So, we got to the campground, checked in and
began meeting other people from other youth groups. It was mostly
southern kids (if my memory isn't failing me, which it might be with as
much as it took in during these two weeks of traveling) with a big
group from Florida (which as we all know is not really Southern at all
;)
The neat thing about Son Servants is that when they do a
mission trip, they take care of all of the logistics and Bible Studies
and what not. They also partner with a local ministry in the area
where the mission trip is so that we are giving aid to the local
ministry in accomplishing their goals in the area. In Chattanooga, we
partnered with Widows Harvest Ministries. This ministry's sole reason
for existence was to go take care of widows. Their work ranged from
simple house hold things (changing light bulbs, fixing doors, etc.) to
re-roofing houses to simply visiting the widows in their homes and
offering Bible Studies for them to attend in order to meet other
people. It is truly a God-sent ministry for these women! The founder
of it in Chattanooga, Mr. Mason, has been doing this for something like
30 years! He has a heart for ministry and wants to do this all for the
sake of Christ! Truly a man of God that we should remember in our
prayers!
Our typical day involved wake up at 6:30a, breakfast at
7, quiet time at 7:30, quick group devotional at 8, then to the vans
and to our work sites at 8:15. We left the work sites at around 3
(maybe a few minutes earlier if you were really far away from the
campground, or a few minutes later if you were finishing a project).
From when we got back to the campground to 6p was free time. Dinner
started at 6p, with adult counselor meetings at 6:30-7:15ish. Our big
meeting was from 7:30-9 with family time going from 9-9:45 and everyone
needing to be in their respective cabins by 10 (this didn't always
happen, but they weren't too hard on us if any kids wandering from the
bathrooms had an adult advisor with them to keep them out of trouble).
Lights out at 10:15p, with sleep coming when you felt like it, which
was pretty quick considering the work we had just accomplished that day
and doing it all over again the next! All in all, a good schedule to
keep for a week for the kids (though for me it was two weeks).
One
of the hardest things for me that week was being the leader for the
work group I was part of. The first day was torturous for me because
I'm used to just jumping in and doing work and people following my
lead. That's how it usually works with adults (and I say "usually"
because of my time at Wal-Mart as a Lead Night stocker in Frozen and
Dairy because the guys they gave me weren't always the best at
following the leader...). So, I had to hold back and teach the kids
what they were doing and stay aware of them in order to correct or help
them accomplish their job a bit better. Our job was to scrape an old
house and then prime and re-paint it. One of the difficulties in
scraping the house was the fact that its siding was made of asbestos,
which meant we needed to be careful about how hard we scrape lest we
send up bits of fiber for us to inhale. That was something I had to
really watch out for because some of the kids really wanted to do a
spectacular scrape job and get every shred of paint, even if it wasn't
in the least bit willing to come off, off! Doing that was sure to cut
into the siding and send asbestos fibers into the air.
I do have to say I asked the kids in our youth that went with me to
pray for me in this area, that I would able to delegate work and
oversee without trying to do everything myself. God answered that
prayer in an abundant way that week! He truly worked through me! I
didn't even have to try to not do everything, it never crossed my
mind! I just helped the kids do the tasks that i assigned to them and
kept an eye out for anything else that needed doing! All in all, God
really worked through me during that week of leading my work crew (a
job that I had prayed would not be given to me, but God had other plans in mind, I suppose!).
I only got to work with two youth from GSPC, Maddie and Harris, but it
was a good time with them. I got to know them a bit better since I was
working with them everyday and I hope to continue to cultivate that
relationship. And even though I didn't work with any of the others,
the week provided a great deal of time for getting to know everyone
else. I especially had a good time connecting with Zach and I do look
forward to how the Lord is going to work through him in the future as
he grows in Christ more and more!
The most impressive thing about the week was what all the kids learned
from the experience. When I say "all," I mean everyone that came to
the mission trip. On the last night, there was a time of sharing what
the Lord had done in them and taught them throughout the week. The
theme that all of them had was basically, "It's not all about me, it's
really about God and Who He is." These testimonies were truly
breathtaking! All of these kids came with so much selfishness in their
hearts, but through working with widows, who had nothing in comparison
to our plentiful lifestyles, but were more thankful than anyone I have
ever met, God changed them little by little to see that all their toys
amounted to nothing! I pray that that lesson is something they
continue to learn and take hold of as our own culture becomes more and
more superficial and materialistic and that maybe they can be part of
God's plan, I hope, to stem this tide away from Him and show others the
pure love of Christ in everything that he does!
I think that is about all I can say for the time being. I don't think
that I am done just yet talking about Chattanooga. I haven't mentioned
our trip to the Church of the Firstborn, where VBS was held all week
and how the kids responded to the speaker! This, again, was a truly
amazing night in my life, as well as all the kids who experienced the
same thing that I did!
Until then, may God grant you peace and grace as you travel through this alien land on your pilgrimage toward the Son!
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