THE THINGS WE MAKE, MAKE US?
“The human heart is a factory of idols…Everyone of us is, from his mother’s womb, expert in inventing idols.” – John Calvin
I saw this add campaign by Jeep recently online, and it screamed out to me that we are broken. We are a fallen creation that has chosen to elevate the creation over the creator. As Calvin said we are indeed experts at making idols out of everything our hands touch.
At the fall in Genesis 3 we exchanged the truth for a lie… the lie that creation would bring us more satisfaction then God the creator. Today we are still falling for the same lie. The things we make will never make us. It may at first sound neat or catchy and when paired with cool photos even look appealing but even uttering the phrase of this add out loud shows how dumb the concept is… “THE THINGS WE MAKE… MAKE US.” If that is true what a sad creation we are.
Fear of the Lord Message, Sproul Excerpt
I used this excerpt from R.C. Sproul in my Fear of the Lord message recently, the way he describes our actions when not inline with the Father absolutely blew me away. Great wording that’s excellent to think on and brings clarity to sin and what it says through our actions.
God voluntarily created us. He gave us the highest privilege of being His image bearers… We are not turtles. We are not fireflies. We are not caterpillars or coyotes. We are people. We are the image bearers of the holy and majestic King of the cosmos.
We have not used the gift of life for the purpose God intended. Life on this planet has become the arena in which we daily carry out the work of cosmic treason… No traitor to any king or nation has even approached the wickedness of our treason before God…
When we sin as the image bearers of God, we are saying to the whole creation, to all of nature under our dominion, to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field: “This is how God is. This is how your Creator behaves. Look in the mirror; look at us, and you will see the character of the Almighty.” We say to the world, “God is covetous; God is ruthless; God is bitter; God is a murderer, a thief, a slanderer, and adulterer. God is all of these things that we are doing.”
– R.C. Sproul
I’m Losing You Slowly
I’m losing you slowly, I’m losing you fast
I heard these lyrics belted out in a song by Zach Williams and they stuck with me. His intentions for these lyrics are not what I began to ponder though… I have found that in my walk with Christ there are marked times of profound closeness, and yet other times of desperation and aloneness.
I’m losing you slowly, I’m losing you fast
These lyrics seem to mark my state in the times when my relationship with Christ isn’t at it’s peak moments. The feeling of moving off course, but yet wanting to be back in moments of clarity and closeness.
I’m losing you slowly, I’m losing you fast
In the hard times I have to realize that he never walks away and always deals bountifully with me. My battle in dark times is against my own flesh, self induced if you will. And the only way to flee the valley is to fight to get back to the mountain, to push aggressively back towards Christ.
I was losing you slowly, I was losing you fast
Redemptions Hill Desktop
I love messing with design stuff, and have for quite some time. Interesting designs intrigue me, and make me want to “reverse engineer” them so I can perform them. Here is a poster/desktop that I made wanting to try a design technique I saw. It was created in Photoshop CS5, if you click on the thumbnail it will open up into a full size image.
Dark Night of the Soul
Psalms 13:
1 How long, O Lord? Will you w forget me forever?
How long will you x hide your face from me?
2 How long must I take y counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?3 z Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;
a light up my eyes, lest b I sleep the sleep of death,
4 c lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”
lest my foes rejoice because I am d shaken.5 But I have e trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall f rejoice in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.
My mind has been really consumed with the idea of the dark night of the soul, the time that you feel like God is so far away. The scriptures comfort me to know I am not the only one that feels the weight of this type of situation, especially since church people (for the most part) would never admit they feel this. The feeling that though you never doubt God exists, he seems a million miles away…
I’d say that is the way I feel this week, and the reasons why are what really get my mind turning. If God never changes, then it has to be me. As I search my habits I realize God never walked away for a break from me, I (through my actions) started walking away from him as if I could handle things for the week. I’m like a wondering child that should stay near his parents but thinks he can wonder off, then a little time goes by and I realized I got myself lost and have to get back. No moral failures, just the honesty of person that needs to rely on God without a break.
Resurrection: by Rob Bell
Resurrection: Rob Bell from The Work of Rob Bell on Vimeo.
Jesus is standing in front of the temple in Jerusalem
the massive gleaming brick and stone and gold house of God
and he says destroy this temple
and I’ll rebuild it in three days
the people listening to him said how are you going to do that?
it took 46 years to build this temple!
but he wasn’t talking about that temple
he’s talking about himself
he essentially says, listen
I’m going to be killed
that’s where this is headed
because you don’t confront corrupt systems of power
without paying for it
sometimes with your own blood
and so he’s headed to his execution
if you had witnessed this divine life extinguished on a cross
how would you not be overwhelmed with despair?
is the world ultimately a cold, hard, dead place?
does death have the last word?
is it truly, honestly, actually dark
and so whatever light we do see
whatever good we do stumble upon
are those just blips on the radar?
momentary interruptions in an otherwise meaningless existence?
because if that’s the case then despair is the
only reasonable response
it’s easy to be cynical
but Jesus says destroy this temple and I’ll rebuild it
he insists that his execution would not be the end
he’s talking about something new and unexpected
happening after his death
he’s talking about resurrection
resurrection announces that God has not given up on the world
because this world matters
this world that we call home
dirt and blood and sweat and skin and light and water
this world that God is redeeming and restoring and renewing
greed and violence and abuse they are not right
and they cannot last
they belong to death and death does not belong
resurrection says that what we do with our lives matters
in this body
the one that we inhabit right now
every act of compassion matters
every work of art that celebrates the good and the true matters
every fair and honest act of business and trade
every kind word
they all belong and they will all go on in God’s good world
nothing will be forgotten
nothing will be wasted
it all has it’s place
everybody believes something
everybody believes somebody
Jesus invites us to trust resurrection
that every glimmer of good
every hint of hope
every impulse that elevates the soul
is a sign, a taste, a glimpse
of how things actually are
and how things will ultimately be
resurrection affirms this life and the next
as a seamless reality
embraced
graced
and saved by God
there is an unexpected mysterious presence
who meets each of us in our lowest moments
when we have no strength when we have nothing left
and we can’t go on we hear the voice that speaks those
words
destroy this temple and I’ll rebuild it
do you believe this?
that’s the question Jesus asked then
and that’s the question he asks now
Jesus’ friends arrive at his tomb and they’re told
he isn’t here
you didn’t see that coming, did you?
he’s isn’t here
there is nothing to fear
and nothing can ever be the same again
we are living in a world in the midst of rescue
with endless unexpected possibilities
they will take my life and I will die Jesus says
but that will not be the end
and when you find yourself assuming that it’s over
when it’s lost, gone, broken and it could never be
put back together again,
when it’s been destroyed and you swear that it could never
be rebuilt
hold on a minute
because in that moment
things will in fact have just begun
