Life update.

It's always been hard for me to answer the question "How's life?" because I usually don't know where to start. But today I simply can say that I'm content. I just came back from Access, a youth ministry friday night deal we have back at my home church in Houston and it's just ... encouraging. I love the gospel. I love being around other people who love it too. I love being shaped by fellow guys that stand in it, are stretched by it, and are being sanctified through it. One of the younger middle schoolers was leading worship and he's not the most gifted singer but just as he was leading, I was surrounded by people I love who were clapping, raising their hands and shouting the lyrics of how faithful God's been and is. A bro to the left of me was so exuberant in shouting praise to God that he started repeating the chorus where the worship leader didn't and it was hilarious. There was lots of laughter in worship tonight. Some of my closest friends at Baylor were there today for it too so it was that much more awesome. It so happened that it was a lot of the praise team from AFC there so we ended up jamming for awhile :), and by the end of it people from so many networks of mine were just singing together and praising Jesus Christ and I was just kinda taking it in and smiling (though maybe my demeanor was blank).

Life is hard. The narrow road always will be. The cost of following Jesus is something I keep seeing as serious business. Like ... "lose your life for my sake," "those who love father or mother more than me are not worthy of me" serious. And collide that with just who Jon Lau is ... and produces an incredibly ugly mess. But in between the constant battle against sin, there are subtle things where God whispers to me "see that? ya i know you're a mess. look at what I'm doing. Get in on this. Come to me, and I will bind you up son." There's so much to be said about life and what's going on but I can't but see that God's doing something bigger. I chatted with my dad for a while the other night and honestly, I disagree on A LOT of things but it just got me thinking big picture. Like God's redeeming plan in history big. And I'm freakin excited about not only my part to play in this grand scheme of history but my peers. Of course there are tons of crap to be wary of but God is raising up God-fearing, scripture-loving, disciples of Christ. And for that I'm grateful.

I think 90% of my blogs are always heavily internal and harshly self-examining but I can't help but see that though that stuff is important, maybe I need to take a second to just breathe, trust that GOD, not Jon Lau, is holding the universe together at this very moment, and listen to what He's saying. I want to get in on this. I want Jesus. Nothing else will satisfy. If you stumble upon this and actually read this, would you partner with me in getting on your knees and face and plead for God to glorify His name mightily? Would you implore God, for His namesake, to make some noise? I'm not sure where you're at right now with your walk with God, or what your context looks like but I think there's a unified, deep deep hunger for what this Christianity really is ... I can feel it. I can see it in the eyes of my peers. I'm not sure why but it's just there even when I'm not looking for it. God, shout how awesome You are. My prayer is that You'd rescue sinners ...

I'm grateful that I can honestly say that I rejoice when You are seen as worthy of worship ... When You are seen as supreme. Thank You for saving me Jesus. I was hopeless. I can't believe and am humbled that You call me to be a minister of reconciliation, You making Your appeal through me.

Glorify Your name Jesus.
-Jon

Happy Thanksgiving?

I find that the more honest I am with myself, the more I see how prone I am to wander, prone to leave the God I love. I chase really silly things, such vain ambitions that never satisfied in the past. I attribute things God has done to foolish things like putting a ball in a hoop. I do whatever it takes to prove myself better than you. I find myself going "did I really just think/say that" frequently. I make other things an end in themselves instead of God as the goal, the prize, the treasure. I pat myself on the back in times of success and pity myself when things get hard. I play serious life things going on in other people as "trivial" and my pride always goes "grow up," as if I'm beyond that. I am constantly on the fringe from being content in God and craving the praise of men. As much as my theology will say to distrust the human heart, I find myself enslaved to its sinful desire to just do whatever it takes to be liked. I hate that I often choose an appearance of Godliness over the real thing. I hate how I compromise.

I'm fearful that I can go days or even weeks (God help me ... maybe longer) with just being okay with Jon Lau's own sin, and not thinking and pressing into the only thing that stands when the storm comes. I find that when I struggle, I run away from God instead of pressing towards Him.

As much as a theology of the cross of Jesus Christ ..., the "It is finished-ness" of the gospel ..., has stirred and stirs my heart's deepest affections, I have a fearfully sharp, whispering thought in my head that constantly puts into question whether my repentance is counterfeit. Just cheap.

Like ... There's been moments in life where when I'm honestly examining my heart and a fearful thing comes upon me where I see just how on the fringe I am in all of this ... Where I literally see the balance between selling out on the Gospel and being a faithful servant ... and how weak I am that literally one thing could tip it over for destruction. Its where all the fruits of sanctification collide with the fact that if not for sheer grace, I am the porn-addict, the guy that cheated on his girl ... I am the apathetic, the bitter, the insecure child that is willing to claw and do anything it takes to gain approval. Like ... if left on my own, I see how effing quick this whole Christianity of mine would plummet. When I'm honest, I see in myself just how quick I'd sell out and compromise the Gospel and the training in Godliness for applause.

By the grace of Jesus Christ, gratitude and thankfulness have much more frequently been my cries in prayer. I don't usually ever say anything about it being thanksgiving and all but since it's coming up, the thing I'm most thankful of is that "He who began a good work will bring it into completion in the day of Christ" (Philippians 1:6). If my working out my own salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:13), were without the next verse ... I'd have no hope. I'm thankful that ultimately it is not Jon Lau but God Himself who works in me, who keeps me. I think the biggest things that held me back from going all in on this Christianity thing is that I knew that "if You get me then I know that You got me." And I've found immense comfort in knowing that His promise of never letting go, of always being faithful to a faithless, stiff-necked sinner, has not been shaken. I know that if led by my hand, this thing would tank so effin fast but I'm grateful it's not in my hands. I'm so effin grateful.

Praise be to the God-man, Jesus Christ who saved a sinner like me. No regrets. I'm thankful. He died the death I should have. He absorbed the wrath due me. He raised for my justification. Praise God. I pray that He'd "get you" too ... I'm pleading that He would call you by name and raise you from the dead the same way He did me. I long for the day that you call Him "abba, father" not as a servant but as an adopted son or daughter. Oh how beautiful is His glorious name. I plead daily that God would have you taste and see that He is good. He is good.

Happy thanksgiving?
-Jon

Older.

I don't realize that I'm one of the older ones now ... There's no more of an excuse. Whether or not the way we live is Christianity or Christian-y is no longer something I can excuse as out of my hands. As much as I want to be a friend to these freshmen, I think they need me to be an older brother to them.

God, give me the grace to not withhold any longer. Everything in me wants to share my joy and share my cautions of love. I don't want to see my little sisters hurt. I don't want to see my little brothers be okay with being boys. They need someone to grow them. I don't want to withhold. God, kill this pride in me. I don't know how to fix myself. Fix me.

Greater and grater Need

I find in myself more and more everyday the need to preach the gospel to myself.

Prone to wander.

Heavy wrath, heavy grace.

If at the heart of the gospel lies the doctrine of propitiation, should not the attribute of God's wrath be addressed, taught, and defined?

I admit it is terrifying to study God's wrath that pervades the entire Bible, but I've found that when life knocks the wind out of you, and you're left brokenly exposed to the reality of who we really are in light of who God is, when the cross is seen as the ultimate response to God's just anger against the offense we are, there is created something that holds tighter, endures with more patience, and praises w/more tears of gratitude. I've found God to be that much more worthy of affection the more I see how God feels towards the reality of sin and, ultimately, the response of love. Jesus Christ overcame. The love of God overcomes. Praise Christ.


The hard thing about seeing these things is that God whispers "You see it now ya? Now go." Crap.