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