I realized a few days ago just how hurried my day-to-day activities and my walk had grown over the last several months, and so, in an effort to counteract that & to truly meditate upon & soak in the lessons I learned this past year, most of the next few posts will be a review of things God taught me or caused me to remember in 2008.

Round One:

Our God is not served by human hands, as though He needed anything. He needs naught. He wants naught. He by no means needs us to bring anyone to Himself. He is glorious- regardless of whether or not we honor Him in our worship. Just as the brilliance of the sun would not be diminished if I were blind, so the glory of the Lord is not diminished by one atheist.

The only way I can love Erin more in a way that honors the Lord more is to love HIM more.

God did not have to create romantic love, but He chose to do so in order to communicate something pivotal about how deeply, affectionately, and sacrificially he loves us.

If we don’t love the Word of God, if we don’t treasure it as the very keys to life, the very things that God has chosen to make known to us about Himself and His will, our very sustenance… then surely we will be a people who perish for a lack of knowledge. Let that not be said of this over-busy, over-comforted generation, O Lord.

Christ in the garden shows us a true understanding of the gravity of sin. He sweat blood for it- for the heartbreak of losing the pleasure of God, the terror of God’s wrath, and the stripping away of the deepest, most satisfying, purest intimacy with the Father. O that I would react to sin in the same way! That my heart would rather be ripped out of my chest than to be separated from my God! And how I should mourn that my heart never thus grieves over my sin… More often than not, I attempt to gloss over it, my treason, with an attitude akin to apathy. Lord, let me learn to weep over my sin, to repent, to believe in your past, present, and future grace, and to boldly fight sin thereafter.

Everything that is admirable in Erin (or anyone I admire) is perfectly admirable in Christ. Everything she (or anyone) is terrible at is, yet again, also perfectly admirable in Christ. He is perfectly, forever beyond us.

And so, great calamity comes and the “god” that has “given” us our carnal delights is called into question, because his “goodness” no longer pleases us. Instead of responding with outrage and accusatory anger, we should be crumbled in thanksgiving and repentance, asking God why we were not destroyed alongside them.

(Upon reading and discussing Habakkuk 3, the fiery furnace in Daniel, & Jonathan Edwards’ Resolution #52 with Erin): How will I be able to look back at my life and say, “I have lived to old age & have lived just as I wished I should have lived”? At first I determined that it would be okay if no one ever knew my name, but that those that I poured my life into would truly, whole-heartedly give their lives to God. A feeling of nausea and realization of sickening pride and sin came over me. Well, I thought, maybe if my kids truly follow God, then I will be able to look back at my life and say that I lived well, that my life was honoring to God.
No, no, no, no, no! If my life bears no fruit in others, if I live in darkness for the next fifty years like Mother Theresa, if God does NOT save me from the furnace, if everyone I pour myself into, my kids and wife included, turns away from the faith, STILL should my very soul sing the deepest praise to the Lord God Almighty. A life well-lived is one that is lived for Christ’s sake, regardless of the outcome. Though the fig tree fails… He who has the Son has life; He who has not the Son has nothing.

A life spent without repentance and reflection is one spent without growth.

Why should we fast & pray? Because we hunger for God’s praise to resound among the nations, for his glory to be restored in the church, and for His Son to return to His people. Let us pray and fast until the Bridegroom returns and sets all things aright!
-Edwards- It seems that God often withholds the things His people pray for, perhaps even increasing the darkness for a time, until He who continues to pray without fail, is changed.

Do we really want God? If we want Christ, we will go to the nations. If we want Christ, we will bombard his throne day & night. For Zion’s sake, I will not keep silent. You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest and give Him no rest. Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us.