If you do anything, please at least watch this video and wake up to what God is doing in the world!
Often, I find myself caught up in my own little world. With class on Mondays and Wednesdays, work on Thursdays and Fridays, business project after business project, weekly Cornerstone obligations, and all the other stuff I do in my free time, I find myself in a bubble. I don't take time to look outside of my bubble and to see what God is doing in the world. I'm really ignorant when it comes to the world and the movement of Christ. But I'm definitely not alone in this ignorance.
I think this ignorance plagues almost all Christians in America. How many believers do you know who talk about Christ's work in other countries and around the globe? For that matter, how many Christians do you know who talk about Christ's work here? I think Christians with a heart for the world are few and far between. I want this to change! I challenge us to embrace the world and to embrace missions to the dying 2 BILLION unreached people!
At the Advance 09 Conference, Piper said God made our hearts to embrace the nations and to live missionally. He compared our souls being designed for missions to our legs being designed for walking. Obviously, if you don't walk, your legs will grow weak. In the same way, our souls grow weak when we don't embrace missions. I believe all the TV, movies, music, video games, and other entertainment we try to fill our soul up with has made us numb. Numb to the glorious extent of the Gospel. Our souls are sick and weak because we don't take up the infinitely large purpose for God-centered missional living.
I pray we will wake up to God's global movement for His glory and repent of our self-centered attempts at satisfying the longings of our soul. Wake up and live for Him!
In Him,
Mark
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Resting in Christ
I really can relate to JD Greear's blog post today. He talks about how many Christians suffer from trying to do enough for Christ and how this mentality destroys the Gospel. I find myself in this predicament often. I constantly am examining my life and looking at ways to improve it. I ask myself questions like: Why am I not working more hours so that I can give more money to missionary efforts? Why don't I spend more time serving others here at school? Why don't I witness to my lost friends more? Though these questions can arise from a natural response to the Gospel, I think they generally originate from my sinful desire to please God with the 'good' things I do for Him. Obviously, such a mentality will cause me to get overwhelmed with doing 'good' things because the debt I owe can never be paid back through such attempts no matter how much I do. Only the work of Christ on the cross can pay back my immeasurable debt.
I pray God will grant me the power to rest in the cross and stop my feeble attempts of improving my Christian walk in order to earn my salvation. I want my God-given love and desire for Him to generate the 'improvements' of my life. May what Christ has DONE be my motivation! Otherwise, my self-righteous, religious sin will keep me stagnant in His process for the sanctification of my soul.
The Gospel is not spelled "D-O" or "D-O-N-T" but "D-O-N-E." -JD Greear
In Him,
Mark
I pray God will grant me the power to rest in the cross and stop my feeble attempts of improving my Christian walk in order to earn my salvation. I want my God-given love and desire for Him to generate the 'improvements' of my life. May what Christ has DONE be my motivation! Otherwise, my self-righteous, religious sin will keep me stagnant in His process for the sanctification of my soul.
The Gospel is not spelled "D-O" or "D-O-N-T" but "D-O-N-E." -JD Greear
In Him,
Mark
Friday, October 16, 2009
Viewing God Rightly
The way we view God in our hearts shapes everything about us. This is apparent in many different ways. Questioning His existence allows doubt to creep in and cause anxiety. If we disbelieve His goodness and wisdom, then it becomes easier for us to ignore His commandments about proper living. When we diminish God's omnipotence, our prayer life dwindles from a lack of faith in His ability to answer our requests so we start to rely on our strength. When we disregard His great love for us, we do not and can not love others the way Christ commands.
Hence, viewing God rightly is essential to the Christian life. Currently, I believe the majority of Christians including myself suffer from a low view of God. Instead of magnifying God in the sense of striving to see Him as BIG as He is, we magnify God in the blasphemy of seeing Him as small then trying to make Him look bigger. To solve this devastating problem, we must repent of the latter and ask for divine help in the former. Then, God will faithfully begin to craft our notions of Him to conform more and more to His true essence. We will see His awesome majesty and glory more rightly than before.
Developing such a high, majestic view of God will bring us to the beauty of the Gospel. When we start to rightly understand God's holiness, our hearts will cry out in sorrow because of their depraved condition. In this desperation, we will see our need for a Savior to rescue us from the just and holy wrath of God the Father. Bearing the cross, Christ comes in as our righteous advocate. God grants us pardon in light of Christ's sacrifice and we receive the spiritual blessings Christ deserves. Naturally, we will find our joy in worshiping God the Father for radiating His glory in the beautiful love story of sending His Son to die in our place and securing an eternity with Him. With this view of God, our lives will dramatically change!
I think Isaiah 6:1-8 portrays the effects of viewing God rightly. Check it out:
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:
"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory."
Hence, viewing God rightly is essential to the Christian life. Currently, I believe the majority of Christians including myself suffer from a low view of God. Instead of magnifying God in the sense of striving to see Him as BIG as He is, we magnify God in the blasphemy of seeing Him as small then trying to make Him look bigger. To solve this devastating problem, we must repent of the latter and ask for divine help in the former. Then, God will faithfully begin to craft our notions of Him to conform more and more to His true essence. We will see His awesome majesty and glory more rightly than before.
Developing such a high, majestic view of God will bring us to the beauty of the Gospel. When we start to rightly understand God's holiness, our hearts will cry out in sorrow because of their depraved condition. In this desperation, we will see our need for a Savior to rescue us from the just and holy wrath of God the Father. Bearing the cross, Christ comes in as our righteous advocate. God grants us pardon in light of Christ's sacrifice and we receive the spiritual blessings Christ deserves. Naturally, we will find our joy in worshiping God the Father for radiating His glory in the beautiful love story of sending His Son to die in our place and securing an eternity with Him. With this view of God, our lives will dramatically change!
I think Isaiah 6:1-8 portrays the effects of viewing God rightly. Check it out:
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:
"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory."
At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
"Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."
Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"
And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"
In Him,
Mark
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Embracing Christian Hedonism
This past summer I started praying for God to reveal more of His heart to me and to give me wisdom. Often times when I pray for these two things, I end up reading Paul's prayers in Ephesians copied below.
"I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms."
Ephesians 1:17-20
"I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."
Ephesians 3:16-19
Recently, I've experienced God's faithfulness by His answers to these prayer requests. Through various sermons such as Piper's The Supremacy of God from Passion '97, books such as The End for Which God Created the World by Edwards, and passages of Scripture such as Isaiah 43:6, Psalm 106:7, Isaiah 48, and Romans 15:8, God has taught me about the love He has for His own glory. This truth is completely blowing my mind and revolutionizing my life! I'm coming to realize how God-centered God is and it's giving me peace, understanding, and hope I've never known before!
One might ask, "How can God be simultaneously God-centered and loving?" This is a great question and I think C.S. Lewis gives an insightful explanation. I won't describe his full explanation, but go here if you want to read it. Basically, Lewis argues that God is the highest good in the universe, God gives Himself to us, and to fully experience the pleasure of God's goodness we must express our satisfaction in Him through praise. Viewing God and reality in this way is turning my world upside down. And I love it.
Oh how I pray God would allow my heart to embrace a passion for His supremacy in all things and in doing so experience the greatest possible joy. In other words, "the chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever." Piper describes this statement as the essence of Christian hedonism, which I consider my aim in life.
In Him,
Mark
"I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms."
Ephesians 1:17-20
"I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."
Ephesians 3:16-19
Recently, I've experienced God's faithfulness by His answers to these prayer requests. Through various sermons such as Piper's The Supremacy of God from Passion '97, books such as The End for Which God Created the World by Edwards, and passages of Scripture such as Isaiah 43:6, Psalm 106:7, Isaiah 48, and Romans 15:8, God has taught me about the love He has for His own glory. This truth is completely blowing my mind and revolutionizing my life! I'm coming to realize how God-centered God is and it's giving me peace, understanding, and hope I've never known before!
One might ask, "How can God be simultaneously God-centered and loving?" This is a great question and I think C.S. Lewis gives an insightful explanation. I won't describe his full explanation, but go here if you want to read it. Basically, Lewis argues that God is the highest good in the universe, God gives Himself to us, and to fully experience the pleasure of God's goodness we must express our satisfaction in Him through praise. Viewing God and reality in this way is turning my world upside down. And I love it.
Oh how I pray God would allow my heart to embrace a passion for His supremacy in all things and in doing so experience the greatest possible joy. In other words, "the chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever." Piper describes this statement as the essence of Christian hedonism, which I consider my aim in life.
In Him,
Mark
Thursday, October 8, 2009
God and the Problem of Suffering
Last night, the UNC Christian Apolgetics organization hosted Bart Ehrman and Dinesh D'Souza to debate on God and the problem of suffering. Prior to the debate, I knew Ehrman was an articulate speaker and extremely familiar with the Bible because I took his New Testament class as a sophomore. However, I didn't know anything at all about D'Souza until I heard about the debate. Nevertheless, my expectations for the debate were extremely high and I anticipated solid arguments from both sides.
Once both speakers gave their opening statements and rebuttals, my expectations were crushed. Honestly, I think D'Souza did a poor job of representing a biblical, Christian worldview and its response to the problem of suffering. For the most part, he seemed to avoid Ehrman's questions and he weakly presented general arguments. With that said, D'Souza did make some valid points. I feel Ehrman argued much more persuasively. He asked the tough questions and called D'Souza out for not clearly answering them. In my opinion, Ehrman won the debate decisively.
Needless to say, I am disappointed about the outcome of debate. But I trust in God's sovereign purpose for the debate. I was thrilled to see the packed auditorium with so many people interested in intellectually wrestling out this big issue. I'm glad D'Souza and Ehrman took time out to debate. Finally, I encourage all to read J.D. Greear's most recent blog post . It sums up my overall thoughts and feelings on the debate.
In Him,
Mark
Once both speakers gave their opening statements and rebuttals, my expectations were crushed. Honestly, I think D'Souza did a poor job of representing a biblical, Christian worldview and its response to the problem of suffering. For the most part, he seemed to avoid Ehrman's questions and he weakly presented general arguments. With that said, D'Souza did make some valid points. I feel Ehrman argued much more persuasively. He asked the tough questions and called D'Souza out for not clearly answering them. In my opinion, Ehrman won the debate decisively.
Needless to say, I am disappointed about the outcome of debate. But I trust in God's sovereign purpose for the debate. I was thrilled to see the packed auditorium with so many people interested in intellectually wrestling out this big issue. I'm glad D'Souza and Ehrman took time out to debate. Finally, I encourage all to read J.D. Greear's most recent blog post . It sums up my overall thoughts and feelings on the debate.
In Him,
Mark
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
God's Passion for His Glory
After a couple months of reading, I finally finished God's Passion for His Glory by John Piper this weekend. Piper writes the first part of the book, which is actually an introduction and commentary to Jonathan Edward's The End for Which God Created the World. Both authors convincingly argue God considers His glory as the chief end of creation and God's high regard for Himself coincides with His high regard for mankind.
I would sum up the book's thesis with this quote from John Piper, "The chief of God is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." This statement is very similar to the Westminister Shorter Catechism except Piper replaces 'man' with 'God'. So when Piper originally made this statement during a speech at his alma mater, the audience thought he misquoted the catechism. But after making the statement, Piper clarified he intentionally replaced 'man' with 'God' to emphasize the passion and love God has for Himself. Though this idea might seem new and appear controversial, Scripture supports it. For instance, in Ephesians 1, Paul uses the phrase "unto the praise of the glory of His grace" three times in verses 6, 12, and 14 in describing why God gives Christians spiritual blessings. From this passage, it is evident God bestows blessings as a means to achieve the end of displaying His glory.
I plan on writing more about this subject in my upcoming posts because it's really revolutionized my view of God.
In Him,
Mark
I would sum up the book's thesis with this quote from John Piper, "The chief of God is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." This statement is very similar to the Westminister Shorter Catechism except Piper replaces 'man' with 'God'. So when Piper originally made this statement during a speech at his alma mater, the audience thought he misquoted the catechism. But after making the statement, Piper clarified he intentionally replaced 'man' with 'God' to emphasize the passion and love God has for Himself. Though this idea might seem new and appear controversial, Scripture supports it. For instance, in Ephesians 1, Paul uses the phrase "unto the praise of the glory of His grace" three times in verses 6, 12, and 14 in describing why God gives Christians spiritual blessings. From this passage, it is evident God bestows blessings as a means to achieve the end of displaying His glory.
I plan on writing more about this subject in my upcoming posts because it's really revolutionized my view of God.
In Him,
Mark
Monday, October 5, 2009
Quick Update
Recently, I haven’t found time to write much on here because I’ve been busy. Business school occupies most of my time with class lectures, group meetings, group projects and written-case critiques. My responsibilities with Cornerstone such as leading Bible study, attending weekly meetings, and discipleship occupy my time too. Also, I work full-time Thursdays and Fridays at an accounting firm. On the weekends, I get to relax but I stay involved with Summit Church on Saturdays and Sundays. Taking time to blog is hard with my current schedule. However, I enjoy blogging and I’m going to try to post more this month.
To update the blog, here are some recent happenings of my life:
At Cornerstone’s Fall Retreat, we talked about the peace of God. During that weekend, God spoke to me about how I should stop trying to please Him through what I do and to rest in His grace. I pray my heart will rest in His grace and experience the peace of God.
About two weeks ago, I led some Freshman guys in a Bible study on Ephesians 1:15-21. Mainly, we discussed the difference between heart knowledge and head knowledge. I found this Scripture challenging because I often find myself filling my head up with knowledge about God and neglecting to ask God to give me more heart knowledge of His presence. I pray God will grant me a greater desire for heart knowledge and His presence.
Around the time of my last post, I started reaching out to one of my high school friends named Alan. I already blogged about the story and my Facebook profile provides more details. I’m excited because Alan agreed to meet with me and talk about everything we’ve discussed. Plus, I invited him to a campus debate between Bart Ehrman and Dinesh D'Souza on the problem of suffering and God. During this time, I pray God will work in the hearts of those who are searching for truth and He will draw them to the cross.
Last Sunday, I signed up to go to Summit’s College Fall Retreat and Passion 2010. I look forward to both of these special times to grow closer to God and to fellowship with other believers. I can’t wait for Passion 2010! I'm pumped about seeing my favorite band Hillsong United play live and hearing my favorite preacher John Piper in person. Oh yeah!I pray God will use both of these events as catalysts to strengthen my relationship with Him!
In Him,
Mark
To update the blog, here are some recent happenings of my life:
At Cornerstone’s Fall Retreat, we talked about the peace of God. During that weekend, God spoke to me about how I should stop trying to please Him through what I do and to rest in His grace. I pray my heart will rest in His grace and experience the peace of God.
About two weeks ago, I led some Freshman guys in a Bible study on Ephesians 1:15-21. Mainly, we discussed the difference between heart knowledge and head knowledge. I found this Scripture challenging because I often find myself filling my head up with knowledge about God and neglecting to ask God to give me more heart knowledge of His presence. I pray God will grant me a greater desire for heart knowledge and His presence.
Around the time of my last post, I started reaching out to one of my high school friends named Alan. I already blogged about the story and my Facebook profile provides more details. I’m excited because Alan agreed to meet with me and talk about everything we’ve discussed. Plus, I invited him to a campus debate between Bart Ehrman and Dinesh D'Souza on the problem of suffering and God. During this time, I pray God will work in the hearts of those who are searching for truth and He will draw them to the cross.
Last Sunday, I signed up to go to Summit’s College Fall Retreat and Passion 2010. I look forward to both of these special times to grow closer to God and to fellowship with other believers. I can’t wait for Passion 2010! I'm pumped about seeing my favorite band Hillsong United play live and hearing my favorite preacher John Piper in person. Oh yeah!I pray God will use both of these events as catalysts to strengthen my relationship with Him!
In Him,
Mark
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