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Over the past couple of months, there have been a series of changes that have caused me to seriously reconsider many aspects of my faith. Some of these changes were depressing, others solemn, and yet some were joyous and causes for celebration. I don’t mean to get off topic, but only put this so that this change might be put into perspective. More and more, I’ve come to learn about glory, our chief end in this life, and what it means to be a part of Christ. It’s like having a new set of eyes and ears by which the world looks and sounds totally different.

At any rate, during one of the times when discussing the trinity and trying to figure out exactly the trinity relates to in this world… something interesting caught my eye. It’s no secret that things come in threes:

So we have the trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. All three are clearly defined in the bible. Three in one. What else is like this? Genesis 1:3. God creates light.

What is light? More specifically, what is white light?

From Wikipedia (White):

White is a color, the perception which is evoked by light that stimulates all three types of color sensitive cone cells in the human eye in nearly equal amounts and with high brightness compared to the surroundings. A white visual stimulation will be void of hue and grayness.

The human eye has 3 types of cone receptors and 1 type of rod receptor (Trichromacy). Those 3 cone receptors are what give us the ability to perceive color by responding to red, green, and blue light. In other words, every time we white light, we see a simultaneous trio of equal portions red, green, and blue light… a trinity if you will. Each plays it’s own role in forming that white light. They are all required in order to produce it, too.

I believe in the same way that God made our eyes to take the three wavelengths of light so that we could see white light, He made our hearts receptive to the trinity so that we could see Him. Or at least, attempt to see Him. Staring too long at a bright light can make you go blind. :)

My point is this: Look no further than your own computer monitor to understand how three can make one. As you read this blog post, it is happening right in front of you. I pray that if you have a problem understanding the trinity, you will seek the word to know more and perhaps this illustration might be useful.

I wanted to expand on a comment I made and get some feedback regarding a video on Vimeo entitled An Interfaith Dialog. The whole video is worth watching, but the part I’m really talking about is from 16:05 to 17:34. Here is a transcript of that section:

When she was a student at Carlton College in Minnesota, there was a mosque that was burned down in an arson attack in Minneapolis. And she was taught in her Evangelical Christian tradition you help your neighbor. It’s basic. You love your neighbor. You love your neighbor. So the Imam of that mosque said, “Will you help us rebuild?” Will you help us rebuild? [She] said “yes.” I want to love my neighbor. And there were people in her Christian group that said, “How can you help these devil worshippers? How can you help these people who worship the wrong thing?” [She] said, “I disagree with their worship, but they are my neighbor. I want to help them.” Kicked her out of the Christian group. And [she] had a choice. “Am I going to be a Christian the way that some of these people view Christianity? In a way where I secretly applaud the burning down of a mosque? Or am I going to follow that ethic in my heart that says ‘Help your neighbor?’”

After listening to Eboo’s thoughts, the story about the young Christian woman who was ostracized from her church stuck with me. My initial reaction was to feel sorry for her. But after considering this story, and re-reading the Parable of the Good Samaritan I feel there is an aspect of this conversation missing. And this anecdote provides a good basis to relate how I feel.

First, I know very little about the “Jesus Ethic.” From the context and meaning of the words, I would guess that it means something to the effect of… the moral and ethical teachings of Christ devoid of soul-saving faith in Him. If this is incorrect or incomplete, please let me know! But running with this, it would seem that Eboo puts much weight in works, but we need faith: “And without faith it is impossible to please God”. If that is the case, then it makes his message very weak. But I digress.

“Love thy neighbors as yourself” is Jesus’s greatest commandment. It was a command in the old testament. It is also important to know that our chief end is to glorify God. We do that by following in Jesus’ foot steps. This is where the “Jesus Ethic” seems to come in.

Okay, so let’s break it down:

While the act of helping to rebuild a mosque is definitely loving your neighbors, I don’t think that it glorifies Jesus. It is one thing to achieve a common purpose which glorifies God with others from disparate (or even disagreeing faiths). It is another to commend a Christian rebuilding a mosque. Aren’t mosques places of worship for Allah? The god of Islam and the god of Christianity are two different Gods. They must be since Jesus was “the way, the truth, and the light” and Muslims don’t follow Christ. It would follow that she was essentially helping to rebuild a temple to a false God. That, in my mind, is pretty good grounds for making someone leave your church.

To respond, I would ask another question, “If your friend didn’t know Christ, and he/she was addicted to drugs.. and let’s say that they are a nice person, too. If that person’s stash disappeared… would you help them buy some more to replace it with?” Call my crazy, but I think that is a fair analogy. To help someone get something back which the desire, but draws them further from the truth of Jesus Christ is to say, in essence, that it is okay for them to go to hell. There is no Universalism.

One last thought: there is a great difference between, say, helping a person of any color or creed on a personal level and helping a group that follows a different creed. We must love our brothers and sisters… But worshipping Allah/Mohammed, to me, is a sin. Love the sinner, hate the sin. It is cliche, but that is the point: Love the individual, not the religion. Rebuilding a temple of worship is not loving an individual, it’s loving another religion.

I applaud Eboo’s generosity and his openness to discuss these things. As a Muslim, it seems as though there are not enough of them that want to have dialogue. However, I get the feeling that he is talking about some sort of inclusive unitarianism. I mean no disrespect to Eboo, but I think his liberal Islam would give him a firm foundation for being a Christian. He understands what it means to give glory to God (and lots of Chrisitians have a problem with this, including me.) But ultimately, all of the good works will amount to nothing unless each and every one of us pick up our cross and follow Jesus Christ!

It has been one of my dreams for the longest time to go on a mission trip to another country. I’m happy that prayer has finally been answered! At the end of July, we’re going to Haiti with a group out of Kansas City, Missouri.

The goal is to work with an established project there: Joshua’s Village, a village for abandoned, orphaned and neglected special needs and at-risk children.

The cost of the trip is $1,400, not including all of the required medicines and vaccinations or the travel fees since we don’t live in Missouri. If you’d like to help, with financial stuff, please let me know. I am taking donations!

Also, prayer support is really needed. It seems like after our first visit to the doctor to get shots, questions really started to pop up after we started reading the travel guidelines. It’s definitely outside of my comfort zone! Being away from home for more than 3 days has always made me feel uneasy, but in a country where diseases are running rampant, kidnappings are common, and a curfew is the law… gosh. However, the need is greater than my fear — pray it stays that way!

My mentor at church has said that the enemy will throw all sorts of nasty things to discourage us especially when doing something like this. I can definitely feel it already.

So I hope that even if you are unable to provide financially, you will pray for me, Jessa, and our entire group, as we embark on this journey together.

I have a big problem reading God’s Word every day. My boss gave me daily-read bible that you through everything chronologically. It’s great and I really look forward to reading it. But i’m behind a couple of days now, but I’ll catch up this afternoon. Sunday afternoons are always my catch-up days. (Right now it’s going through Leviticus and Numbers, which, imo(In My Opinion) are semi-boring because they are very repetitious.)

I had a conversation with myself a couple days ago. It went something like this:

“Why didn’t I read the Bible today?”
“Because I was busy.”
“Yes, but watched 5 youtube videos and looked at lolcats for almost 10 minutes during lunch.”
“Well, yeah, that was taking a break.”
“God’s Word = best break evar.”
“I didn’t have my bible handy.”
“Perhaps you’ve used BibleGateway or Youversion?”
“Yeah, but what am I supposed to read?”
“This.”
“Yeah, but I’m not always at my computer…”
“Ownt.”

Unless you are phone-less, computer-less, and bible-less, there really isn’t a reason to not dive in, even for a little bit, every day. We need it to survive. Our spiritual food. I’ll skip the cheesy analogies that our Pastor gave us a few weeks ago and skip straight to the meat. Living a Christian life in this world takes so much. I can’t tell you how many times I can feel anger in my heart or how many times I almost (or do) speak harsh words to someone. No matter how much I try to cover up that those words were rooted in truth, you would never tell because they were shaped and brought forth by anger and not love.

The Word of God is a seed. A little bit of it gets put in us when we our saved, but it is our duty to make sure it is cared for so that it grows and produces fruit. We are expected to be grow and do something with what God gives us. The Parable of the talents Matthew 25:15-30 gives us a really clear picture of the expectations that God puts on us. It’s a lot of work, really. But it’s all worth it.

After all, we get God’s protection with his Word in us. Ephesians 6:17 says Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.. His Word is also our protection. Like I said in my last post, being able to lean back on the sturdiest foundation of all has been my best defense against the one who would rather not see me thrive in Christ.

There are so many ways to get into the Word. BibleGateway was my favorite for quite some time, but YouVersion seems to have a much more interesting interface and is really made for people like me (web-enabled, bloggers, etc). I go back and forth between the two. If you know of any other good ones, please e-mail me or add a comment.

There is a lot going on in my life right now. You might be able to tell that from my previous post. I’m going to try my hat at some different writing for the time being. There is quite a bit of adjusting going on from myself, my family and Sarah’s family. It’s all going really well (I think). During this adjustment I feel like I’ve really been able to open up and be really honest with myself and with others. It’s tough for me to be open about what I’m thinking about because of how I think and the processes that go through my head.

I’ve had a chronic problem since the 7th grade with two specific problems: autophobia (fear of being alone and something that some people on the internet have dubbed “rapturephobia” (fear of the apocalypse).

Anyone who knew me in high school and early in my college years might have easily guessed that I really didn’t like being alone. I got really antsy and acted very immature whenever I was alone. I spent a lot of time in front of the computer and it seemed to help assuage the pangs of anxiety. I constantly had to have something in front of me to distract me from the reality of being alone whenever I was. Luckily I had some good friends and roommates and that was never a problem and, for the most part, never really adversely affected me in deep painful ways. It was usually what followed in those times when my thoughts would creep down a path that I dare not tread.

Fear is a powerful force. It can spread the fastest of any sickness and cripple armies, spreading from one person to another. It can cause you to act rashly and trip over yourself, even when there is nothing to truly be afraid of. Lord knows that I’ve done my fair share of tripping, running and being overly fearful for things that, as a Christian, should not even have a place in my life. I guess that is why they call them phobias, though. There is that irrational characteristic that gives that edge any other common fear.

I can’t tell you why I fear the end of the world. I just know that when the fear grips me, it holds me tight and fiercely. The fear itself might not be the biggest issue. For me, it’s always been my reaction to the fear: running away, hiding, or just plain panic. It cuts me off from the world. It destroys the peace in my heart. As a man in battle, if my training was completed, my weapon issued, and my life and my freedom were at stake my reaction would be to fight. The fear of engaging in combat and possibly losing my life would be swallowed up by what I’ve been trained to do to protect myself and defeat the enemy. And in my heart, I believe that I have a fight inside me that would not be easily conquered.

What is at stake here is not my physical life and freedom, but my mental and spiritual well being. I have no reason to fear. I never had one. There is no reason to fear anything that is coming because in Christ we have a promise:

John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (NIV)

This script is quoted so often, I think, because it sums it all up (John had a way with words and putting things in such a way that made it that way.) The message is plain, overt, and unmistakably clear: we have nothing to fear if we trust in Jesus Christ. This is my foundation, my training, and my song. Now, when I feel the sword of fear coming down upon me, my weapon will be ready and I will fear no more. I will stand fast in the promise that has been made by the only one who is capable of making it.