The Story of Humanity and Time

There is a really good song by Lecrae I was listening to the one day and later I got one line stuck in my head. I kept on having this one line looping in my head, but it took me awhile for it to finally hit me with how much meaning it had.

Lecrae - Killa
I'm doing myself dirty, flirting with what's perverted
I should follow the word but I guess I'd rather be murdered
Excuse me I mean martyred 'cause I'm killing myself
My sin conceived a baby, and we gon name it death, breath
(Gasps) -Taker, she take my breath away
Replaces it with poison and I'm so swept away

The main line I had stuck in my head was "My sin conceived a baby, and we gon name it death." It just hit me thats the way it always is. Thats what sin does. The reason we have death is because sin entered earth and man. 

When Adam and Eve sinned they weren't just kicked out of the garden, cursed, and separated from God. They also received the anticipation of death because of sin. No longer was humanity and creation perfect and therefore things eventually wear out and you die.

Sin conceived a baby and that baby is death. Ever time we sin punishment is due and the punishment that is due is death. Now when we think about how death entered the world by Adam and Eve's sin we think of how someday we will be put in a box and lowered into the earth but, that isn't just physical death, but eternal spiritual death as well. Don't just take my word for it though.

Romans 6:23

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The best part of this verse is how everything is changed around by the "but". Sin causes death, but Christ gives life. Its all really simple and I think thats sometimes what we miss. We get caught up in a lot of other things and make Christianity complicated when really its quite simple. 

Are we living in the realization of our everyday sin causing death, but that Jesus saves us from that death? Its really profound how God the one who created us was willing to not only pay for our mistakes, but to also do it by his own sacrifice.

Mini-post Sunday - Thankfulness

So the other day I was eating ice-cream and thinking about what I am thankful for and what I would say I am thankful for if I was asked. Personally I am thankful of many things, God, life, joy, plenty, love, and Jesus. However, that is not at all a list near as long as it would be if I were to mention everything. Yea everything, am I thankful for everything. Can I be thankful for everything because that would include death, sin, and other not so nice things?

So that causes me to ask the question am I thankful for everything like including sin coming into the world? I never really thought about it before and I know its crazy to say, but I kinda feel like I'm thankful that sin did entered the world. Yea I know that because sin entered the world death, pain, and suffering entered as well. However, would we love God as much as we do with sin if sin never existed on earth? Would we know of God's love for us and His desire for us to love Him as much if sin never entered the world?

Are we profoundly thankful for even the bad things that happen because we know that you often learn most from the bad things that happen? Do we see the lessons that can be learned from the worst of situations or do we just see how we have been hurt?

Fear

You know a lot of times I think the world lives in fear, in fear of many things; debt, losing a friend, pain, disease, and death to name a few. A website had this as a definition of fear.

"An unpleasant emotion caused by being aware of danger."

However I don't really think that is a sufficient or really good definition. I think that a better definition of fear would be; An unpleasant emotion of worry or terror caused by a possible unpleasant result. If you think about it one of the main reasons we fear debt, losing a friend, pain, disease, death, etc is because each one of those things causes pain or unfavorable results.

Now there are a bunch of different types of fear, excessive, irrational, worrisome, beneficial, and rational. Now I think that each of the listed types of fear above really aren't types of fear. If they aren't types of fear what are they? They are the results and extension of original fear. These different "types" of fear are just a result of how you react to fear and danger. One of the reasons you may have excessive fear is because you may be a worrier. Irrational fear is typically a fear caused by the anticipation of a possible occurrence created by your imagination. Worrisome fear is very closely related to excessive fear and is based off of your worries. Rational fear is pretty much the same as original fear and comes from a real threat to your life. Almost all the time fear is not good to have, but there are times when you can have beneficial fear. Beneficial fear is a warning of a high probability of danger. This fear can warn you when your about to do something stupid or when your close to a cliff edge.

One of the biggest fears for humanity because it is eminent and will happen to everyone is death. Death is a legitimate fear if you don't know God because you don't know what will happen. Do you just die, or do you live on in some sort of different universe, are you reincarnated, or what?  However, if we know Christ we need not fear death. Death has been defeated by the death and resurrection of Christ.

I know its kinda odd, but I actually look forward to dying. Its not because I want to end my life, but because I want to be with my God in heaven.

What fears can we get rid of? If we live in fear we live in a way as if we are paralyzed. We can give our fears over to God and let Him control our life. Are you going to let go of fear and worry so that you can live a profoundly freer life God intended for you instead of letting fear control your life?

I AM WHO I AM

Just recently our church has started a sermon series about the names of God. The one week my pastor talked about a verse in Exodus where God is talking to Moses about what to say when he goes to tell the Israelites that God has sent him.

Exodus 3:13-14
Then Moses said to God, "Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you.' Now they may say to me, 'What is His name?' What shall I say to them?" God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM"; and He said, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'"

Lets focus on the name that God gave to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM". My pastor said he can't really simplify the name to make more sense because it is kinda out there.

However, for me though the whole "I AM WHO I AM" makes a lot of sense to me. I am able to understand the whole self defining and reciprocation going on there. What God seems to be saying there is I am who I am, I am myself, I am what I am, I am God. God is who I am so therefore I am God.

 Its a whole self defining thing. Because God cannot be defined or put under any sort of system you have to define God by defining himself. Its a reciprocating and recycling definition. God must be defined by himself because there is no set of definition to be put on him. He is undefinably definable.

Now I don't know if any of my attempted explaining made any sense. It makes sense in my head because I'm ok with defining by self defining, but I don't know if my thoughts in words make any sense. Hopefully somehow something I said made sense so that you can understand one of the names of God better. The profound name of "I AM WHO I AM" is somehow profoundly out of the scale of profoundness.

Pollution Credits

Back awhile ago when the whole global warming craze was started my dad and I started joking about how "awful" it is and how we are going to burn up and die from all the heat. Apparently at some point someone proposed that we should create a system where you buy carbon credits to offset your pollution. How it would work is that the money you pay for the carbon credits go to people who would plant trees, get rid of waste, or whatever.

Well my dad and I had a brilliant idea that we should create a similar product called pollution credits. It would work in a lot the same way as the carbon credits program. What you would do is buy pollution credits so it would be ok for you to pollute some. For example if you have a shop and wanted to get rid of your oil easily by dumping it in the nearby stream you would just by pollution credits so your could dump it into the steam. The more credits you buy the more oil you could dump into the stream because the money you paid for the pollution credits would go to a crew devoted to reducing the pollution. The crew would get the money from the credits you bought so that they could be the ones farther down the stream cleaning the oil out of the stream.

So it would be a system of paying to pollute so that the money would be paying for the offset of that pollution.

Sounds pretty stupid right? Couldn't you just not pollute in the first place so that you wouldn't have to deal with trying to offset the pollution?

You see the whole reason we came up with this is because of the irony of it. How ridiculous it is, but how convincing or real it could become. Even though this is quite a crazy concept I wouldn't put it past the environmental people to actually use it or consider it because of their over zealousness for the protection of earth. We shouldn't become so zealous about something that our vision and thoughts are blurred to the point of losing the ability to use logic. Unless its a profound zeal for God.

Real Life

Something I have realized lately is that this life is real we are here and what we do matters. We are not just here to have a fun time and hopefully make a "good" impact on the world. We are here for a purpose and we are at war. Whether we like it or not we are in war, a war of evil and righteousness.

Ephesians 6:12-15
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.

When I wake up and start to go about my daily activities what ever they are I should not be just trying to become successful and live a happy life. Life isn't just another day. In this life we are at war. We are fighting against the evil powers around us and we are fighting against ourselves as well. Our own personal sinful nature can easily pull us down.

But, take heart like it says later in Ephesians 6 we have the armor of God to help us. We are not alone in this war though, we have God inside us who reigns and will reign forever no matter how bleak it may look right now. We also are not naked and unprotected, God has given us armor to protect us from the spiritual forces of evil.

This life is real, its not some fairly tale where we are born, hopefully life a happy life, then die. This is war, what we do matters. We should profoundly understand that we are fighting against Satan daily, but we can rejoice and be glad because we have God on our side as our king and protector.