Wisdom from Above

"But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual and demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice"

-james 3:14-16

Lord, help me to be content. Help me not to look at others with a jealous heart. Help me to not see the ways in which you've gifted me as a means to bring glory to myself. Give me eyes to see that you are God and all in all, whereas i am just a man.

"But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace"

-james 3:17-18

Lord help me to seek after your wisdom. Help me to seek after your righteousness. I am weak, but you are strong. Help me to be strong in you as I seek to be peaceable, gentle, full of mercy, impartial and sincere in my dealings with other. Help me to consider how you have been all those things to me and more. :o)

Poor Investments

I recently received my state tax assessment for my house in maryland. I was shocked to see that the value of the house has dropped by $100k since 2007.

How did this happen? Lots of fraud and foreclosures around me.

In case you were wondering, yes, i'm underwater. My prayer has been for continued trust in the Lord in this situation. Anxiety would not be God-honoring and rash decisions would result in huge financial losses.

I think that i'm officially "in it" for the long term. Exactly where I don't want to be, but that is the only option.

Have i considered walking away? Yes. But i'm convinced that to do so would be a sin. Texts like "The wicked borrows and does not pay back" have a hold of my conscience. Also - I wouldn't have considered walking away from the mortgage had the house maintained its value nor would I have done so if the house had appreciated in value.

There is the temptation to feel like a sucker in all of this. The people committing fraud and walking away from their mortgages are only making things worse for me and I sit around like a fool just losing money.

But the Lord sees all of this and he is faithful. Please keep me in prayer.

thoughts?

Gay Marriage

I was talking with some of my christian friends the other day and this came up in conversation. Here is a brief look into the conversation that we had:

i agree with a lot of what has been said. Speaking about a specific issue should never take precedence to preaching the gospel unless that issue is a HUGE stumbling block to the person

on some:

yeah, i hear what you're saying about Jesus dying for my sins, but what about my boy over there who is gay? are you saying he can't be saved? Because if that is what you're saying, then i want no part of christianity

But i will say this:


I honestly believe that all of the legal protections afforded heterosexual couples should also be given to homosexual couples.

After a marriage ceremony, does a husband have to wait until the state sends back a copy of his marriage certificate before he can marital tango with his wife (without being in sin)? No.

I say that to show this: Marriage in the eyes of the Lord and marriage in the eyes of the state are two different things.

The state performs "civil unions" and calls them "marriages". We (as believers) sign marriage certificates ONLY because we want to be granted the rights that the state gives people that the state calls married. We want easy inheritances/estate planning, we want hassle-free health insurance for every member our families, etc etc.

I feel like we (christians) are fighting over semantics and i think too much money has been wasted on this fight.

We may ask: "What good is a state marriage license if the Lord views the union as thoroughly sinful?" And my response would be: What good do we do in saying "Well, you can't get married, but you can get this other thing that is just like marriage - but with a different name"? We are wasting millions of dollars and precious legislative time over semantics.

If we agree that there should be no civil/criminal penalty for people who fornicate, divorce or do any other such thing, why not allow the state to recognize the civil union that gays have in the same way that it recognizes the union that straights have?

Will forcing a regard for the Lord in a particular area bring practicing homosexuals any closer to the Lord? Do we gain some sort of "gotcha" pleasure by holding onto this last front in the culture war that we have fought and lost? (i hope not) Do we really think that the legalization of gay marriage will bring about a new wave of evil that is presently unseen in this country?

I'm not trying to say that we shouldn't legislate morality. We do it all the time and we should continue to do it. For example: Even though banning abortion will not change the heart of the mother it will prevent a life from being taken. The only thing that a gay marriage ban accomplishes is making stuff more difficult for gay couples than it has to be.

thoughts?

Football Player blames God for dropped pass

Here's a link to the article on the football player.

Pass dropper, Steve Johnson had this to say on twitter:

"I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND THIS HOW YOU DO ME!!!!! YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS??? HOW???!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!!! THX THO..."

There's so much that i want to say about this. The short version is this:

God makes many promises, none of which is a guarantee of worldly success. Blessings are not earned nor are they merited, they are graciously given by God in his sovereignty.

This dude needs prayer. You can't deny the fact that he's hurt - but the theology that is informing his anger is wrong and will only lead to disappointment like this. I'm concerned about how he will respond in a much more serious situation.

still single

still single. not really worrying. Praying that my heart would be at rest in the Lord and his provision.

There are times when i wonder if my standards are too high.

I've loosened the reigns on the "must be reformed" and "must be in a good church". But i'm still single.

I don't think my physical standard is too high. I'm not waiting for the proverbial "halle berry" to come along. In my fraternity in college, some dudes actually made fun of me for having a physical attractiveness bar that was set too low ("dude...you think SHE'S attractive?!?")...so that isn't the issue.

From a personality perspective - i'm just looking for chemistry. I think that will come from some degree of mutual understanding. Doesn't have to get all my jokes (i tell bad jokes - lots of them), but should be someone who would appreciate the effort, you know?

to be honest, i've had "chemistry" with girls i've met over the past 1.5yrs in school, but they all hit their heads on the "must be a christian" bar (and not just someone who goes to church twice a year).

Aside: that "hit their heads on the 'must be christian' bar" reversed the "bar" analogy. The "bar" was initially something that people would have to step/climb over, but in this case, the bar is something that would have to be walked under - hope this doesn't cause confusion.

idk, yo.

Gigging at churches with bad doctrine?

I filled in for a friend on bass at a seventh day adventist church here in nyc today.

We played a bunch of music - a lot of contemporary gospel. The church appeared to be very solid doctrinally. The lesson during sabbath school (sunday school) was justification by faith. The songs were edifying.

It was your typical west indian mixed with african american worship service.

The things that stood out to me were the emphasis on doctrine and the fact that the doctrine wasn't focused on their distinctive (or at least what i thought to be their distinctive) as a denomination. There was only ONE reference made to the sabbath while i was there - and there weren't any antagonistic statements made toward non-SDA people.

Here's what stood out to me:

During the sermon, the preacher, a traveling evangelist, spoke about part of the changed life of the believer as one that is free from smoking, drinking alcohol and drinking soda. There isn't a biblical proscription against any of those things, but some people extrapolate that idea from the whole romans 12 "body is a temple" text. For the purposes of majoring in the majors (as opposed to majoring in the minors), i let those statements go.

But then towards the end of the sermon (which was actually a very nice sermon) during the altar call portion of the sermon the preacher said something to the effect of "repentance, faith and confessing the Adventist church as the TRUE church"

shocked

There was an OVERWHELMING response to his sermon so i didn't even think that it would be appropriate to find him and ask him about it (because they were planning to baptize people ON THE SPOT after the service - he had something like 30 people to baptize and i was STARVING!)

There is a VERY high chance that i will get called back to this church to play again since i have good friends that are musicians that play there faithfully.

I'd like to go back there with a clear conscience.



Here's an email that i just sent to the church's contact line:

Today during the altar call that took place after the sermon, the evangelist said something to the effect of "turning from sin, faith in Jesus Christ and confessing belief that the Adventist church is the true church".

Does your church (and/or the larger SDA umbrella organization) agree with his statement that the adventist church is the TRUE church? Confessing your church to be the true church means more than "we believe that our doctrine is correct", it also states that you believe all other churches to be false churches.

Today was my first time visiting your church. I enjoyed the worship service. I was encouraged to hear teaching on justification by faith prior to the 11am service. I was just curious to understand your stance on this issue.

I am not a reporter of any sort. I do not have any ulterior motives in sending this email and soliciting a response.

I am a christian. I am a member of Sovereign Grace City Church, a new church plant, in brooklyn. I am originally from brooklyn, ny and this is the second opportunity that i've had to attend an SDA worship service. I have many friends who are SDA.

I also took it upon myself to read up on SDA churches on CARM and it appears as though there are several problems with their doctrine in general. But it also appears to be the case that SDA church 1 does not equal SDA church 2 - so i'll get to the bottom of all this before i agree to play there again.

Superstar in church

One of the most famous (and probably top-selling) christian artists of 2009 was at the 11am service at my church this past sunday. The awesome part was that he didn't receive any special treatment or recognition. He probably would've been embarrassed had any of that taken place.

Coincidentally, the sermon was out of phil 2:1-11 on humility.

should i marry an unbeliever?

I just shared this with someone - figured that others could benefit:

You should mos def be careful of the counsel that you receive from people. A lot of these people responding to your post are not believers and they don't care about what the word of God says at all.

There are two kinds of people in God's economy, believers and unbelievers. Saved and unsaved. Lovers of God and haters of God. There is no middle ground.

You are in one category and your boyfriend is in the other.

To be blunt, I don't think that it is wise for you to even be in this relationship. The end goal of relationships for the christian should be MARRIAGE. If someone doesn't meet the FIRST item on the list of "qualities of a potential spouse", which is TO BE A BELIEVER, then they are to be immediately disqualified as a potential spouse.

As a believer, your end goal in life is not to get married and have children with some guy, but rather to glorify God with your life and your obedience.

Marrying an unbeliever is disobedience. I do not think that it is wise to be disobedient and hope that good will result from your disobedience. Such an action would be sin in hope that God's grace to you would increase. Read romans 6 (shall we sin that grace may abound? by no means!). Christians are supposed to turn from sin and seek to honor God in obedience everyday and in all things.

Read your bible, seek to know the Lord as he has revealed himself in his word - and pray that God would send you an ephesians 5 man who will love you like Christ loves the church.

Patience is a fruit of the spirit. Trust God. His grace is sufficient.