I ventured over to the other blog and something else caught my eye about these two “Sarah and David had never kissed each other or anyone else for that fact before today. Their very first kiss was today at the altar. How incredible.”

How incredible, indeed. Here are two people who lived out God’s commands. This summer I had the honor to be at a wedding of two people who are very dear to me, who lived out their lives in obedience too.

There is a beauty in their obedience. There was a God glorifying beauty in the first kiss between husband and wife. The first kiss between my two friends is something that I will remember for a long time because the results of their obedience ended up in something so God Glorifying.

Why am I talking about this, you wonder? What does this have to do with anything? What do I know about marriage?
I know nothing about marriage and am finding out that I know even less about love.

What I do know about is the results of sin. I don’t know who reads my blog, not sure if anyone does. But if you are someone at the cross roads between obedience and living for yourself or if you are questioning God’s commands about purity, here are some things to think about.

I didn’t go down the road of obedience, I went down the road of living for myself. My first kiss was to a girl some 25 years ago and I have been with others too, who either despise me or hopefully just have forgotten about me.

Five years ago God claimed me as His own. God calls us to purity and holiness. The battle rages within me as much as I want to be pure and holy, the false promises of the world keep trying to tempt me. The seduction of the pleasure of sinful sex is extremely powerful

Though it is possible that I will get married and it will be a beautiful God glorifying marriage. I will always have the echo of my past memories in my head trying to destroy what marriage is suppose to be and trying to make it into the image the world portrays.

Albert Mohler, in 2004 gave a talk about “The Seduction of Pornography and the Integrity of Christian Marriage” (available in a manuscript and audio form) to the male students of Boyce College. I am stealing the quote from the infamous Justin Taylor. See the contrast between one who believes and lives by the worlds lies or lives by the command for sexual purity:

Two Pictures: Purified vs Pornified

I encourage young guys in particular to read it and listen to it.
Here is an excerpt, where he talks about two pictures of male sexuality:
The first picture is of a man who has set himself toward a commitment to sexual purity, and is living in sexual integrity with his wife. In order to fulfill his wife’s rightful expectations and to maximize their mutual pleasure in the marriage bed, he is careful to live, to talk, to lead, and to love in such a way that his wife finds her fulfillment in giving herself to him in love. The sex act then becomes a fulfillment of their entire relationship, not an isolated physical act that is merely incidental to their love for each other. Neither uses sex as means of manipulation, neither is inordinately focused merely on self-centered personal pleasure, and both give themselves to each other in unapologetic and unhindered sexual passion. In this picture, there is no shame. Before God, this man can be confident that he is fulfilling his responsibilities both as a male and as a man. He is directing his sexuality, his sex drive, and his physical embodiment toward the one-flesh relationship that is the perfect paradigm of God’s intention in creation.
Mohler then asks us to consider the picture of another man:
This man lives alone, or at least in a context other than holy marriage. Directed inwardly rather than outwardly, his sex drive has become an engine for lust and self-gratification. Pornography is the essence of his sexual interest and arousal. Rather than taking satisfaction in his wife, he looks at dirty pictures in order to be rewarded with sexual arousal that comes without responsibility, expectation, or demand. Arrayed before him are a seemingly endless variety of naked women, sexual images of explicit carnality, and a cornucopia of perversions intended to seduce the imagination and corrupt the soul.
This man need not be concerned with his physical appearance, his personal hygiene, or his moral character in the eyes of a wife. Without this structure an accountability, he is free to take his sexual pleasure without regard for his unshaved face, his slothfulness, his halitosis, his body odor, and his physical appearance. He faces no requirement of personal respect, and no eyes gaze upon him in order to evaluate the seriousness and worthiness of his sexual desire. Instead, his eyes roam across the images of unblinking faces, leering at women who make no demands upon him, who never speak back, and who can never say no. There is no exchange of respect, no exchange of love, and nothing more than the using of women as sex objects for his individual and inverted sexual pleasure.
By logical consequence, he achieves sexual gratification at the expense of women who have been used and abused as commodified sex objects. He may imagine a sex act as he fulfills his physical pleasure, but he almost certainly does not imagine what it would mean to be responsible for this woman as husband and accountable to her as mate. He can sit in his soiled underwear, belching the remnants of last night’s pizza, and engage in a pattern of one-handed sexual satisfaction while he “surfs the net” and forfeits his soul.
Here’s the point:
These two pictures of male sexuality are deliberately intended to drive home the point that every man must decide who he will be, whom he will serve, and how he will love. In the end, a man’s decision about pornography is a decision about his soul, a decision about his marriage, a decision about his wife, and a decision about God.
Pornography is a slander against the goodness of God’s creation and a corruption of this good gift God has given his creatures out of his own self-giving love. To abuse this gift is to weaken, not only the institution of marriage, but the fabric of civilization itself. To choose lust over love is to debase humanity and to worship the false god Priapus in the most brazen form of modern idolatry.
You can read it and listen to it online.
If you are struggling with sexual sin or any sin. Find a trusted Christian brother and bring the issue out into the light and through God’s mercy and grace, and your discipline you can become the man God wants you to be.

1. Human approval is divided. Some like you, others dislike you. A split vote. Who can you believe?

2. Human approval is shallow. None of them know your deepest heart. What if they did?

3. Human approval is distorted. Your friends overlook — hopefully — some failings. Your enemies are blind to your merits. How do you sort it all out?

4. Human approval is unsatisfying. The need of your heart for belovedness goes far beyond anything another sinner can say or do.

5. Human approval is a blessing. The loving favor of true friends is a gift from God. Receive it cheerfully, with thanks to Him. And be sure to give it out to others in generous supplies every day.

“I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.” Philemon 7

“[The apostle Paul] exhibits the two great counterparts of sin and righteousness as equal realities – the one as the world’s ruin, the other as its restoration. The one is a completed fact as well as the other. They are the only two great events or facts in the world’s history, and they confront each other.”

George Smeaton – Nineteenth-Century theologian

““But if you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments, if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, then I will do this to you: I will visit you with panic, with wasting disease and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you.”
(Leviticus 26:14–17 ESV)

Four more times in this short section of Leviticus God warns what will happen to us to Israel as their disobedience deepens (Leviticus 26:18-20; 21-22; 23-26; 27-33). Each time the punishment gets more severe. Sadly Israel didn’t listen. Sadly we don’t listen to the warnings God gives us either.

But… God gives them and us a way back home again. Back to Him

““But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me, so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. But the land shall be abandoned by them and enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them, and they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they spurned my rules and their soul abhorred my statutes. Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them, neither will I abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them, for I am the LORD their God. But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the LORD.””
(Leviticus 26:40–45 ESV)

We are just like the Israelites of 3500 years ago. We let our sin and pride carry us away. While today we don’t get carried out of country to another land, we do lose our focus on God, which makes it seem we are very far away. The advise is the same as it ever was, come to God to confess and repent of our sin with a humble heart and then we can be be rejoined with our Heavenly Father.

What strikes me most about this, is as outraged as God is for the sin of Israel (and our sin), He gives a way back to Him.

One day someone gave Magician and Atheist Penn Jillette a bible. This video has been floating around for a while, but it once again challenged me when I was asked if I was going to invite my parents and sister’s to our ELQ (which is like alpha). Hear his reaction from his own mouth and be challenged by his words.

Here is what he said:
“I’ve always said that I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. I don’t respect that at all. If you believe that there’s a heaven and hell, and people could be going to hell, and not getting eternal life or whatever. And you think that it’s not really worth telling people this because it would be socially awkward. And atheists who think that people shouldn’t proselytize, just leave me alone, keep your religion to yourself. How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize, how much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible, and not tell them that. I mean, If I believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that a truck was coming at you and you didn’t believe it that that truck was bearing down on you, there is a certain point where I tackle you, and this is more important than that.”

To live by the gospel, then, means that we firmly grasp the fact that Christ’s life and death are ours by virtue of our union with Him. What He did, we did. This is the only sense in which we can understand Paul’s bold statements in Romans 8: “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1); “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31); and “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies” (Romans 8:33).

These statements by Paul are objective truths; that is, they are truth whether we grasp them or not. So often, however, we find it difficult to believe them. Because of our frequent failures before God, we do feel under condemnation, we do not feel God is for us but rather must surely be against us, we do think He is bringing charges against us. At such times we must preach the gospel to ourselves. We must review what God has declared to be true about our justification in Christ.

Justification is a completed work as far as God is concerned. The penalty has been paid and His justice has been satisfied. But it must be received through faith and must be continually renewed in our souls and applied to our consciences everyday through faith. There are two “courts” we must deal with: the court of God in Heaven and the court of conscience in our souls. When we trust in Christ for salvation, God’s court is forever satisfied. Never again will a charge of guilt be brought against us in Heaven. Our consciences, however are continually pronouncing us guilty. That is the function of the conscience. There we must by faith bring the verdict of conscience into line with the verdict of Heaven. We do this by agreeing with our conscience about our guilt. but then reminding it that our guilt has already been borne by Christ.

(Jerry Bridges; Discipline of Grace; page 54)

When our heavenly Father looks upon the broken mess of our lives, he doesn’t snicker or sigh.

He ministers to us a sweeter comfort than any temporary and worldly comfort we’d sought before.

We are told by the prophet, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” [Ps. 51:17].

God doesn’t despise us in our brokenness; he comforts us in it.

The greater the brokenness, the greater the impulse to trust him.

The greater the trust in him, the greater the joy of his salvation.

So, then, the further to the end of ourselves we go, the more of Christ we will enjoy.

This was what I needed to hear today…

HT: Justin Taylor

It is going on five years since I have given my life over to Christ. The more that I learn, the more I understand, the more my faith grows in Jesus Christ. One of the things that I have struggled with over my time as a Christian is that God not only, so LOVED the world, but He so loved me, that he gave His only begotten Son… (John 3:16).

I have spent most of my life isolated from the world. Only in the last 5 years or so have I really started being a bit more social. I am not very good at relationships. I am not very good at having people close to me, I struggle on how to do relationships. In a lot of ways I am very immature when it comes to dealing with people. In a word I tend to be a misanthrope, far easier to avoid and hate everyone, than have to deal with people. It is hard enough for me now to believe that I have such quality people in my life. It is even harder for me to believe that these people would befriend, and even go further to love me and call me brother.

Though I have been a Christian for the last five years I could never wrap my mind around the fact that God loved me. Just like in my relationship with people I always take the cynical route. I just couldn’t believe for any reason that God really wanted me to be part of the Kingdom. I could certainly see why God loved others, but never could understand how he could me. I often sabotage myself to fulfill the self-proclaimed “prophesy”. Sometimes even sinning, just to thumb my nose at God, and to try to put up another barrier between God and myself. To be loved has always scared me.

Coming face to face with the “burning heart” of God has destroyed all pretense that the Love of God is only for those who are better than me. God’s Word says that in love he predestined us for adoption before the foundation of the world. God knows exactly who and what I am. He knows how I am going to succeed and how I am going to fail. He chose me anyway. He didn’t choose me because of who I am, but because of who He is. Though I am not a very good Christian, a slow learner, I want to live a life that honors and glorifies God. I want to learn to be holy and be sanctified and transform from one degree of glory to another.

It is through His promises that he makes out his great, passionate, steadfast love that sustains us on the trail of holiness. Even as I struggle through some of my darkest times of depression, His love is a beacon in the darkness.

His love has brought me from death to life, and if you let Him, He will do the same for you!

How many other people in the Bible could God introduce in the way He introduced Job? How many men living today could be introduced that way? My guess is not many. Job was the gold standard of men, in the time he lived and even to this day.

This brings me to the cross, because I know that without Christ’s death God could only see me as an enemy. I know full well how sinful and terrible of a person I am. It is only through the blood of Christ that God could see me as someone worth considering, as a servant, and even a son. It is not through who or what I am, but through God’s loving plan the God would even deign to look at me, let alone adopt me as His son.

1. The biggest reason is that I have been lazy. It takes time and effort to write.
2. When I sin, I feel like I have no right to write anything especially about God’s Word
3. Intimidation. I am privileged at my church to study and work with people who have great minds, who sometimes listening to them makes my head hurt. I think that I have to write and think on their level. I am not smart enough to be the next John Piper, CJ Mahaney, or Craig Muri.
4. I might be wrong about something and someone will think less of me. I have people who I admire and respect read this blog and do not want to be looked at as stupid.

So why do I blog?

1. It started off with the fact that I use to like to write and every once in a while I was able to write coherently.
2. It helps me think through things.
3. It is a way, maybe just maybe I can reach out to someone.

Why start again this year?

1. Help me think through new Biblical and life concepts that I am learning. Reading and studying through the Bible and trying to live a holy life it is not enough to just read and listen, you need to interact and wrestle with the text from the Bible and try to integrate concepts into your life.
2. Help me learn to communicate more clearly.
3. To possibly learn from others. Instead of being wrong, I will get a chance to learn.

My goal is to write at least two blog entries each month. With the hope of doing blog posting at least once a week. I am hoping that as I write I am able to wrestle and learn things that will help me become closer to the image of Christ. My hope is through His help that I am able to write things that are God glorifying.