breaks are good, but it's easy to slip into apathy and too much tv watching. i'm trying hard to keep a handle on things but i'm not always successful. (a rainy weekend is the devil!!!) it's hard too feeling like we're losing friends. (to an extent) it was good to hang w/ the shep's this weekend. (even though we didn't buy their daughter a gift, they still let us eat and such) it's so weird how lack of proximity almost instantly creates distance in ways other than geographical. just not going to the same church creates barriers to hang-out invites etc. (no fault with anyone, it's just the way it is.) C is having a hard time with the loss of a particular friendship that started long before we left. not by her choice or by the other persons but because of me and my issues. we are both saddened by the ever increasing distance between us and one of our closest friends. we're not sure what is causing it, but it is very difficult for us. all attempts to reach out have been effectively blown off.
this whole process has been difficult (obviously) but i'd hoped that the friendships wouldn't fade so quickly.
i'm still waiting to see if i'm accepted to uta or not... (i gotta know soon because registration deadline for fall is june 6th.) unfortunately even if i am i may not be able to get the pell grant for the fall semester because 'priority' is given to everyone who gets the FAFSA application in before may 15th. and then us latecomers have to fight over the scraps.
i think all of this has contributed to my general malaise at the moment.
i know this blog is really not designed to be a 'feelings' blog, but i really didn't feel like putting this on xanga or myspace. it seems better since no one ever reads this one.
30 May 2007
18 May 2007
history and destiny
Pastor Mark Batterson of NCC in D.C. said someting on his blog at www.evotional.com that I thought I'd pass along...
"I'm not even sure what I'm trying to say, but I think it's this: a healthy church has a strong sense of history coupled with a strong sense of destiny. If you lose that sense of destiny it is so easy for a church to turn into a museum. We need to remember where we come from. But we also need to know where God is taking us. Our sense of history has to fuel a sense of destiny."
I cannot communicate tht any better than he did.
~Liles
"I'm not even sure what I'm trying to say, but I think it's this: a healthy church has a strong sense of history coupled with a strong sense of destiny. If you lose that sense of destiny it is so easy for a church to turn into a museum. We need to remember where we come from. But we also need to know where God is taking us. Our sense of history has to fuel a sense of destiny."
I cannot communicate tht any better than he did.
~Liles
12 May 2007
There is Peace
A passage from tomorrow's lectionary.
John 14:27:
"I do not give to you as the world gives"
What has the world given us? The systems of humankind have been subject to sin and the curse of living in fractured existence. A fracture that separates us from our intended union with our Creator. Systematically, we are losing ourselves. Our grasp of what is true and beautiful is being corrupted by the brokenness of humanity without God.
We make war with a mind for nationalism over the rights of all humans. We ignore the poor and those not in our class - giving no mind to the inequality of the world's systems. We give into the selfishness that drives the sinful nature. We look to fill the emptiness inside with things, with stuff, with a thousand pieces of consumer goods. We abuse ourselves, giving away precious purity for nights not spent facing ourselves in the dark. We fight, we hate, we backbite, we refuse to look at the world from any perspective other than the one that fits our wants.
And the world keeps spinning. And dying.
And Christians gather weekly. And we sing, and we laugh, and we enjoy our buildings with good sound, great video, and comfortable pews. And the world our God created is dying all around us - both the rich power mongers and the poorest children in lands far away.
But from the mouth of a seemingly ordinary carpenter turned teacher/rabbi two thousand years ago, words are spoken that are changing everything. That rabbi was more than a moral teacher. He was the Son of God. The Son of Man. The Messiah.
"I do not give to you as the world gives"
Peace. Love. Mercy. Grace. Healing. Restoration. Unity with the Creator.
Life as it was meant to be.
Jesus is making a new way. The kingdom has come, and is invading the world as we know it. The principalities and powers are being overcome. Creation is being redeemed.
The time has come to stop being comfortable in our churches. It is time to start risking. God has called us to GO into the world, the culture, and love those the comfortable religious establishment has not loved. To be the hands of Christ.
The hands of Christ are scarred. They show the marks of suffering. They are not all dressed up and hiding behind the masks of perfected appearances and religious dogma.
As followers of Jesus, we should not give as the world gives. Let's start being honest and living in the kingdom and not the world as we know it. Then we might just taste heaven.
Don't be afraid. The king is making all things new.
Peace be unto you, brothers and sisters.
~Liles
John 14:27:
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.
"I do not give to you as the world gives"
What has the world given us? The systems of humankind have been subject to sin and the curse of living in fractured existence. A fracture that separates us from our intended union with our Creator. Systematically, we are losing ourselves. Our grasp of what is true and beautiful is being corrupted by the brokenness of humanity without God.
We make war with a mind for nationalism over the rights of all humans. We ignore the poor and those not in our class - giving no mind to the inequality of the world's systems. We give into the selfishness that drives the sinful nature. We look to fill the emptiness inside with things, with stuff, with a thousand pieces of consumer goods. We abuse ourselves, giving away precious purity for nights not spent facing ourselves in the dark. We fight, we hate, we backbite, we refuse to look at the world from any perspective other than the one that fits our wants.
And the world keeps spinning. And dying.
And Christians gather weekly. And we sing, and we laugh, and we enjoy our buildings with good sound, great video, and comfortable pews. And the world our God created is dying all around us - both the rich power mongers and the poorest children in lands far away.
But from the mouth of a seemingly ordinary carpenter turned teacher/rabbi two thousand years ago, words are spoken that are changing everything. That rabbi was more than a moral teacher. He was the Son of God. The Son of Man. The Messiah.
"I do not give to you as the world gives"
Peace. Love. Mercy. Grace. Healing. Restoration. Unity with the Creator.
Life as it was meant to be.
Jesus is making a new way. The kingdom has come, and is invading the world as we know it. The principalities and powers are being overcome. Creation is being redeemed.
The time has come to stop being comfortable in our churches. It is time to start risking. God has called us to GO into the world, the culture, and love those the comfortable religious establishment has not loved. To be the hands of Christ.
The hands of Christ are scarred. They show the marks of suffering. They are not all dressed up and hiding behind the masks of perfected appearances and religious dogma.
As followers of Jesus, we should not give as the world gives. Let's start being honest and living in the kingdom and not the world as we know it. Then we might just taste heaven.
Don't be afraid. The king is making all things new.
Peace be unto you, brothers and sisters.
~Liles
06 May 2007
Part 2: Revelation 21:1-6
Correction: the readings in this and the last post are from today's lectionary. let's dig in...
Revelation 21:1-6
Last post, I quoted/commented the following:
Revelation 21 begins with a bold proclamation - "a new heaven, and a new earth"
Redemption is completed in the act of the Messiah coming to redeem all of Creation that chooses to worship God alone. Here we see the New Jerusalem coming DOWN from heaven. Now what does all this mean? Is creation redeemed and restored? Or is the physical world, the first heaven and first earth, destroyed in favor a new celestial home - heaven in the traditional Protestant sense? I don't claim to know the answers, not would I want to make claims that are speculative - the very next chapter in Revelation warns against such things. But the question must be asked:
Why would a wise and divine Creator spend history/time redeeming and restoring Creation - evidenced/proven/completed in the death and resurrection of the "only begotten Son" Jesus - and then suddenly reverse course (and overturning the imagery of the prophet(s) in Isaiah) and destroy that Creation and whisk a remnant off to a celestial city beyond the cosmos?
This is a question that will proven in God's timing alone. However, the beautiful image is that of two worlds/realms - currently separated by the chaos of sin & death - are being restored by the victory of God begun at the cross. It is this restored unity, this heaven, this perfected state, that ALL the writers of scripture speak to.
Heaven is a widely debated subject by writers, thinkers, and dreamers. In search of how it is to be defined, we must speak of it in relation the kingdom that Jesus himself spoke to:
(courtesy of WIKIPEDIA)
In both Isaiah and Revelation, the coming of Messiah ushers in the eternal age where heaven and earth are no longer separated by sin and death. The kingdom, or reign, of God is unified. It is interesting to note that along with the "first earth," the "first heaven" is also passed away. Hmmmm. Maybe heaven is not all about angel wings and us cloud hopping for eternity...maybe it is the idea that the separation between us and God is no more, and things are set right in Creation.
Note verse 3:
"And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them;'"
and Verse 5:
"And the one who was seated on the throne said, 'See, I am making all things new.' Also he said, 'Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.'"
"the home of God is among the mortals," "He will dwell with them," and "I am making all things new"
The thing to ponder is the inflection of these types of phrases from God through God's chosen writer of the book of Revelation. It denotes not something created elsewhere but the transformation of something already created. It is "all things new" not merely "new things." See the difference?
The takeaway point:
I believe heaven is the unity of God with Creation. I believe it is the reign of God for eternity, in which those who accept the salvation offered by God are united with their Creator to live as they were intended to. For me, God is redeeming and transforming all things through the power of the Holy Spirit. And one day, God will complete the transformation. The systems of sin and death - the corruption of humankind's misuse of all of Creation - will be overturned and defeated.
No more war. No more hate. No more abuse of any part of Creation. No more death. No more sin. No more pain. And we will KNOW that the will of God is complete.
21:4 says "he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away."
"The first (or former) things" - a reference to the curses of Genesis 3 - are passed away...and we see that chaos is again conquered as it was in Genesis 1. I don't want to be whisked away to utopia somewhere beyond the stars. I want to be here when the world Jesus called me to love is redeemed and set right once and for all. I want to worship my God as I was meant to when God called us all "very good"
Amen.
Revelation 21:1-6
Last post, I quoted/commented the following:
'What God has made clean.' What did God call good in the beginning? All of creation. What did Jesus shed his blood to redeem? All of Creation. What is God redeeming through the work of the Holy Spirit? All of Creation.
Revelation 21 begins with a bold proclamation - "a new heaven, and a new earth"
Redemption is completed in the act of the Messiah coming to redeem all of Creation that chooses to worship God alone. Here we see the New Jerusalem coming DOWN from heaven. Now what does all this mean? Is creation redeemed and restored? Or is the physical world, the first heaven and first earth, destroyed in favor a new celestial home - heaven in the traditional Protestant sense? I don't claim to know the answers, not would I want to make claims that are speculative - the very next chapter in Revelation warns against such things. But the question must be asked:
Why would a wise and divine Creator spend history/time redeeming and restoring Creation - evidenced/proven/completed in the death and resurrection of the "only begotten Son" Jesus - and then suddenly reverse course (and overturning the imagery of the prophet(s) in Isaiah) and destroy that Creation and whisk a remnant off to a celestial city beyond the cosmos?
This is a question that will proven in God's timing alone. However, the beautiful image is that of two worlds/realms - currently separated by the chaos of sin & death - are being restored by the victory of God begun at the cross. It is this restored unity, this heaven, this perfected state, that ALL the writers of scripture speak to.
Heaven is a widely debated subject by writers, thinkers, and dreamers. In search of how it is to be defined, we must speak of it in relation the kingdom that Jesus himself spoke to:
"The word 'kingdom' is a translation of the Greek word 'basileia' which in turn is a translation of the words 'malkuth' (Hebrew) and 'malkutha' (Aramaic). These words do not define kingdom by territory but by dominion. Jesus said of the Kingdom of God that one cannot say, 'Look here it is!' or 'There it is!' Luke 17:21. According to C.H. Dodd, the common translation of 'malkuth' with 'basileia' in Greek and hence 'kingdom' in English is therefore problematic; a translation with 'kingship,' 'kingly rule,'reign' or 'sovereignty' should be preferred.[10]"
(courtesy of WIKIPEDIA)
In both Isaiah and Revelation, the coming of Messiah ushers in the eternal age where heaven and earth are no longer separated by sin and death. The kingdom, or reign, of God is unified. It is interesting to note that along with the "first earth," the "first heaven" is also passed away. Hmmmm. Maybe heaven is not all about angel wings and us cloud hopping for eternity...maybe it is the idea that the separation between us and God is no more, and things are set right in Creation.
Note verse 3:
"And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them;'"
and Verse 5:
"And the one who was seated on the throne said, 'See, I am making all things new.' Also he said, 'Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.'"
"the home of God is among the mortals," "He will dwell with them," and "I am making all things new"
The thing to ponder is the inflection of these types of phrases from God through God's chosen writer of the book of Revelation. It denotes not something created elsewhere but the transformation of something already created. It is "all things new" not merely "new things." See the difference?
The takeaway point:
I believe heaven is the unity of God with Creation. I believe it is the reign of God for eternity, in which those who accept the salvation offered by God are united with their Creator to live as they were intended to. For me, God is redeeming and transforming all things through the power of the Holy Spirit. And one day, God will complete the transformation. The systems of sin and death - the corruption of humankind's misuse of all of Creation - will be overturned and defeated.
No more war. No more hate. No more abuse of any part of Creation. No more death. No more sin. No more pain. And we will KNOW that the will of God is complete.
21:4 says "he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away."
"The first (or former) things" - a reference to the curses of Genesis 3 - are passed away...and we see that chaos is again conquered as it was in Genesis 1. I don't want to be whisked away to utopia somewhere beyond the stars. I want to be here when the world Jesus called me to love is redeemed and set right once and for all. I want to worship my God as I was meant to when God called us all "very good"
Amen.
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