Saturday, May 31, 2014

Big Brother and Big Sister

Before I forget the unwritten poem. ;) Thank you Daniel and Christina for all that you have done in my life. I see you as my older siblings not only for age but also for maturity and godliness. Thank you for modelling Christ and pointing me to Him.


Big brother and big sister
Thank you for showing me
The wounds of our big Brother
Hanging on the tree

Big brother and big sister
What more is there to say?
You've helped me see the risen Christ
I say to you this day,
"Thank you."

Monday, May 5, 2014

Christ the God-Man

The Mediator between God and men must be both God and man. There is none other than God who can bring us up to Him. Yet God cannot bring us to Himself apart from living out our obedience, suffering, and dying as a man on our behalf. Jesus could not suffer and die without being man, yet he could not pay the infinite ransom required for our offense against the infinite God without being God himself. None but God can pay an infinite ransom, yet man must be the one to pay it. Blood must be slain, yet God cannot die. Turretin says that Jesus must be “Man to suffer, God to overcome; man to receive the punishment we deserved, God to endure and drink it to the dregs; man to acquire salvation for us by dying, God to apply it to us by overcoming . . . this neither a mere man nor God alone could do.” The hypostatic union makes Christ as Mediator possible. He represents man to God and God to man. He is Immanuel, God with us. 

Friday, April 25, 2014

A Brother's Love

My feet still trod this darkened path
In vines and chords entangled
Through thickened air the demons laugh
My plight, my pain, my sadness
These are my friends tonight 

In gloomy night I stand alone
Surrounded by my family
With trembling heart I see the bones
Of those who found no pardon
How could the stories long ago
Say this was once a garden? 

I touch a tree with sides still wet
Look at my hand now dripping red
These drops of blood are not my own
Yet I can find no flesh or bones
A bloody trail leads down a path
My heart drops to my stomach

Though fear excels, yet I press on
The wind blows gently forward
Into a cave it leads me down
Shows me the nails and thorny crown
Shows me a man with man’s blood stained
The marks of one who just was slain

Through pain-struck tears and smiling gaze
He proudly calls me brother
I look at him, “Can this be true?
We do not share a mother”
He holds my hand to lead me out
“I’ll take you to our Father's house

I made this world; I hold it up
This place was once a garden
The son of man became corrupt
His sons have found no pardon
I came into the world I made
To finish what I started

Now I am making all things new
The demons laughed, but if they knew
My plight, my pain, my sadness
Now comfort you tonight
Through tear-filled eyes I ask him “Why?”
He says “Because I love you.”



Saturday, April 19, 2014

Mercy at the Fall

The Lord warned Adam & Eve that the day in which they ate the forbidden fruit, they would surely die. Despite all of the goodness and favor God had given to them in the garden, Adam & Eve reached out and snatched the forbidden fruit. In a moment of sheer panic, shame and guilt surged through their bodies. It must have felt as if they were standing in a crowded place and all at once their clothes were stripped off. Blameless innocence was now a blissful memory. In this moment, there was no peace; there was no bliss.

The presence of God, which yesterday brought comfort and peace, now brought the impending judgment from which they hid. 

But see here the patience and mercy of God. He did not approach in a pillar of fire and thunder to smite them for their sin; rather he came walking in the cool of the day. He did not (justly) pronounce accusations and condemnation on them; rather he asked them questions and allowed them to respond. However, they did not choose their words very wisely, but acted in line with their recently acquired sin-nature. Even God's curses were better than the death they deserved. And even the pronouncment of painful childbirth anticipated the children they would later receive. 

Behold the mercy of God in that before he uttered a single curse to Adam or Eve, He promised to crush the seed of the serpent through the seed of the woman. God spoke this promise knowing that it would cost him the life of his Son, Jesus Christ, in order to keep it. Yet the Lord gave mercy. But he did not overlook their sin or sweep it under a rug. From the first few pages of Scripture, it is clear that God is willing to pay the full price for our sin in order to be both merciful and holy. 

Thanks be to God. 

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

What I Want To Do After Graduating

What do you want to do when you move back to IL this summer? 

Ah! The graduation question! I'm stunned by your novelty.... I think questions like this are usually fishing for "What job will you look for? Will you go to seminary? Or other schooling? etc." Usually I want to answer with big items like these. But if I start answering honestly, it may look more like this . . .

I want to spend time with my family. I want to "meet" some of my younger siblings (maybe even influence their lives, and/or be influenced by them). I want to spend time hanging out with my recently widowed grandma. I want to get involved in a disabilities ministry with Amy (maybe even start one). I want to get plugged in as a regular member of a small-town church. I want to serve homeless people in St. Louis, build relationships, share the gospel. I want to get to know my best friend Emily a little better. I want to get to know my family's friends better, and Emily's family/friends. I want to rekindle old friendships, start new ones, mend damaged ones. I want to see small churches in southern IL strengthened individually, holding hands corporately, and serving Christ globally. I want to spend time with my twin before he moves to Minot, North Dakota. I want to learn how to lead a family by watching my parents who have like 25 years of experience. I want to be a better son, better brother, better boyfriend, and a better grandson. I want to read, write, study, teach, and learn about God and his wonderful-yet-broken-world. I want to glorify God in the little things, serve his church, love my family, and bless the world. 

Oh . . . and of course in order to do these things I'll also need to find a sustainable job. But that's not the answer to your question. That not what I want to do when I move back to IL, it's what I have to do. 

"Sometimes I do what I want to do. The rest of the time, I do what I have to." –Cicero (Gladiator)

Sometimes our questions ask for what is objectively important in someone's life, but good questions pry for what someone actually values. 

Friday, April 11, 2014

Chesterton: "Do it Again"


“Do it Again”

The sun rises every morning. I do not rise every morning, but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my inaction. Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun, and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.

~ G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2009), 91-92

Saturday, April 5, 2014

10 Teaching Principles


  1. Pray before the lesson. If God doesn't work, nothing good will come of it. 
  2. Always have a story or a picture or a picture to talk about. Humans are visual learners. God made Isaiah walk around naked for three years just to add a picture to the point (Is 20). 
  3. Teach close enough to the passage that when they read it for themselves, they'll remember your lesson. 
  4. Never open your mouth just to make the lesson longer. People appreciate a teacher who acknowledges when they've said what they came to say. 
  5. Driving home one point is better than making 10 points that will be quickly forgotten. 
  6. Sometimes Bible lessons aren't as much about clarifying or explaining a truth as they are about allowing people the time to ponder, love, and apply the truth they already affirm.
  7. Learn to live with silence. If God is working, your hearers will be thinking about the lesson during those awkward blank spots.
  8. When you don't know what more to say, read the next verse. 
  9. Focus less of your attention on "how well you are teaching" and place most of your focus on the glories of the message. 
  10. Teach your passion. If you're not excited, they won't be.

Monday, March 31, 2014

A Believer's Fellowship

Both sinners and saints
Look not past the sin
Nor turn a blind eye; 
It's only in vain 
To think sin will die 
Or clean be the stain
When love turns its eye

Both sinners and saints
Look now to the cross
God's love story paints
Your sin and your dross
Away

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Faith Now Sight

Our grandpa lived his life in hope
Of seeing Jesus face to face;
Our grandpa lived his life in faith,
Believing Christ prepared a place
For him to dwell in glory

His hope now gone; as is his faith
For now our grandpa sees
The glory and the majesty, 
The splendor of his Lord and King
With joyous voice he'll ever sing
A song of great Thanksgiving

Though faith and hope are ever past
The flame of love burns brighter
Cast down that mirror, now at last! 
He sees above the mire
His eyes behold so brilliantly
The beauty of his risen King
With joyous voice he'll ever sing
A song of great Thanksgiving


"For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." --1 Corinthians 13:12-13

Thursday, January 16, 2014

A Free and Heavy Cross

The cross of Christ
     A gift so free
That saved my life
     Eternally

But how can I
     So foolishly
Assume the blood
     Which set me free
     Has made the hard path easy?

The cross of Christ
     Though free indeed
Lays heavy on my back

The Fount is free
     But to receive
One must give up his life
     Deny himself,
     pick up the cross
A living sacrifice

Though none can buy this blood-bought gift
All saints must pay their lives
     Deny themselves,
     Pick up the cross
A living sacrifice

For faith is not just seeing
     It's more than just believing
This gift of faith,
     It follows Christ
Picks up the cross
     Lays down it's life

For though our entrance free
    And though the path is paved
The way unto the narrow gate
     Bids us to bare a heavy weight
Yet God will bid his Spirit come
     And give us strength to make it home.