Romans 10:17

"So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ."
-Romans 10:17

Father, you've granted many opportunities and placed many people in my life who need to know You.

Help me with my unbelief and grant me faith to open my mouth and the patience to love. The gospel matters. Jesus be glorified.
-Jon

Week 2 Update

As it's nearing the end of week #2, all I can say is that God is good, the gospel of Jesus is powerful, and there's much work left here to do.

It's a crazy thing that as a super senior I think I have it all figured out ... at least what college is and what to expect ... only to see more of my pride, more of my unbelief, and more of my own self-dependence and cowardice. Heh, God's been pinning the word "IDENTITY" back into my world and at first glance I think I already got it ... I've heard the sermons, listened to Lecrae's song about it (shout it and prayers go out for Him and the ministry God's given him), but I'm finding my heart wanting to drift to so many other things to base my identity off of. Whether it's on the good side or the bad side of the spectrum, this is the state of my heart. He's still working it out ... that the gospel is something I still very much need to sanctify me.

On another note, if you glance at this, pray for courage and energy. I may sound old for saying this but I find myself spiritually tired ... in that I just find myself wanting to push away from gospel intentionality. I just want to be alone sometimes, just want to read a book (sometimes even my Bible) to get away from investing in people's lives and getting in their mess. Sometimes I want to just do religious things to run from that discomfort of engaging in mission and obedience. Honestly, I just find myself not wanting to do it anymore. "I've poured so much" is what I hear myself saying and I just need prayer to not believe the lie that I've finished my course here at Baylor. Truth is, there are multitudes of people who have never heard the gospel here at Baylor, countless who still think Christianity is just about being moral people, and so many more who are bitter against the church. And sometimes, it overwhelms me ... almost into despair that things wont change, hearts wont be transformed, and people wont ever "get it."

That was a little more honest than I wanted to be with this post but that's where I am sometimes.

Heh.

It's an interesting thing. In the end, God saves, God transforms, God will be the glorious one, not me.

Jesus, call your sheep by name. Some are so lost. I feel guilty and sometimes helpless when I see it, so help me with my unbelief. Open up my hands to speak and my hands to serve in love. Don't let me believe the father of lies and his pathetic words. I just want You to take off here. Inflame my heart for it. Thank You for the cross, for purchasing me with Your blood, for bringing in the new covenant that grants life. Thank You that came to rescue sinners.
-Jon

"How was your summer?"

So I'll be heading back up to waco in a week as school starts a little less than 2 weeks from now ... And it's got me thinking how I'll answer that question of "How was your summer?" And in the past I've thought about such questions and the opportunity for them to advance the gospel. And I don't want this last round of those questions for me (yay last semester in college!) to be wasted.

It's an interesting thing. Heh, seriously though ... I somewhat still can't believe all that's happened and where God's placed me this summer. I honestly just don't know how it all turned out the way it did. How this got closed and that got opened and such. Ha, I still don't really know where I am yet and what God's been doing in me. I'd attempt to try to blog it out (which would help sort things) but should you read this, just pray that God would give me rich thoughts this week ... that He would minister to me and encourage me to look towards Christ above all, that my eyes would be fixed on Him and the things above. There's a ton that God's been working on in me this summer and I can't believe how patient He is with my unbelief and stubbornness to trust Him. I just don't want to assume the gospel anymore in how I speak and live. Maybe we can do this together fam. Pray that God would help us sort through how to answer that question for His glory, for the advancement of the name of Jesus and the good news of His death and resurrection for the joy of all.

God, let me not assume the gospel through what I say and do. If the invitation really is free and the celebration feast that awesome, I don't want to cower in fear. Open opportunities, open conversations. Help me see that You are Lord of ALL things and all realms of my life and not just some. Thank You for being mighty to save, for pursuing a wayward bride such as us, for not letting us go, for ensuring us that You're not far by the blood of Christ. Oh, help us want You more than our sin. You're so much better. Help us Father. Thank you for this journey you've had me on and for giving opportunity to declare your gospel already. Nothing is hidden when you see me, yet that you would let me go to work with You. Thank you for your grace. Keep pruning. Keep saving me.

Psalm 119:105.

Out of the billions of facebook and tumblr posts, instagram pics, and tweets, out of all the ideologies and sermons that we hear everyday in our music and movies, out of the billions of ideas and thoughts and images within our grasp every single day … If you don’t read the Bible and don’t know what the book is basically about, you’re inevitably going to take in all that stuff and choose the bits and pieces of ideas you like that can at least (or at best), empathize your hurts and ultimately put you as the only one worthy of all affection. If you don’t ever get to reading the Bible for yourself and understanding the main idea of it, you’re going to watch movies and buy the sermon they’re preaching that leaves you with no answers and only a small glimmer of hope that things will somehow work out. If you don’t get the gospel, you’ll enter friendships with the idea that everyone should value you as awesome first and foremost. You’ll enter relationships that have marriage nowhere in sight. Your favorite music will be songs that understand how hurt you are and that’s all music will be for you … a message that you’re not alone … that we’re all hopelessly broken people … a justification that no one can judge you. You’ll play hours and hours of video games to escape thinking about things or you’ll change your lifestyle so that you live at such a fast pace that you’ll simply have no time to think about the deep realities of life or the direction you’re headed in. You’ll make something the only thing worth living for and stop at nothing and stop for no one to get it. Or maybe you’ll even dig yourself so deep that one day you’ll find yourself asking how you even got this way … so low.

Honestly, I just came off of playing LoL (which apparently is #1 pc game now … great haha) for hours and hours and I just kept feeling this sense of emptiness and I was questioning “What did I do with today?” I can justify it by reading a small passage of the Bible but in the end, it’s no use. And I just can’t help but feel this weight that’s telling me that this is what we do and are. We obsessively attach ourselves to these things, this job, this game, this relationship, this hobby, this whatever, and we just go and go and go because maybe then we’ll never have to confront the truth that we’re not just victims of the “injustice” of others’ neglect of us. We’re actually sinners. We’re actually offenders of God, people who willingly rebel against God in an instant and worship created things over the Creator. We’re actually the people responsible for the cross of Jesus. We crucified Jesus.

If only we would give up. Give up on the theology of “I’ll get it together myself … somehow.” If only our pride would be overthrown and we’d ask the Spirit to help us want to read and understand the Bible. If only we’d then by faith, do the work of reading and studying it instead of thinking we know how life works better than how God already said it does with Him and His glory at the center. If only we’d turn and repent of trying to be our own saviors … Then maybe we’d see that the Bible isn’t just a prognosis of what’s wrong with us or how lovely we are. Maybe then we’d know life isn’t at best just a clawing for survival in a cold, fallen world. Maybe then we’d get it that faith isn’t just some blind one-in-a-million, “spray and pray it hits” type of hope but a backbone of steel in a finished work by a perfect God-man. Maybe then we could live out the identity Christ purchased for us and stop feeling sorry for ourselves for not having what everyone else seems to have. Maybe then we could cry tears of joy rather than tears of despair. Maybe then we’d be marked as redeemed people who rejoice instead of a tired people who are primarily the same as everyone else but with a religion attached to them.

There’s good news in the wreckage that we’ve made. That’s what the Bible is all about: God is the good news, despite the wreckage that we are. Please, let’s read what He gave us. The invitation to the banquet is open as long as it’s called “today.”

Father, help us want to read Your Word. Help us want to study it. Give us a hunger for it. We want meat that will nourish. These other cheap substitutes are starving us. Help us. Thank You Jesus.

Not worthy to preach but ... ya.

Sometimes the scriptures seem too weighty for me to even attempt to expound. But here I am, given an opportunity to say "Thus says the LORD." Galatians 2:20 is the main text. Prayin that I'd be faithful and gripped by it even after tomorrow.

On a side note, what a blessing to preach my first sermon at my college roommate's church here in Brooklyn. God's shown so much grace ... I'm excited.

Pray that the Holy Spirit would awaken dead hearts tomorrow. Pray that He'd preach to me too.
-Jon