Conviction...

It's funny how conviction works...

People like conviction, yet at the same time, people don't like it.

Conviction is hard. It's painful. It's a punch in the nose. I like to call it a sucker punch of grace. And I desperately need it. I need it all too often.

I used to think that when I finished up college and moved into the real world, it'd be easier. Sin wouldn't be as big a problem, I'd have more time to spend with Jesus... oh how far from the truth that is. The real world is hard--if anything, it's harder. There's more temptations, more responsibilities, more things to prioritize.

In a blink, I can be miles from where I thought I was and it takes a sucker punch of grace, usually in the form of conviction, to bring me back to my senses.

Thanks be to God that he loves me enough to do that.

I think of how hard it is to confront friends with an issue. You know, when a roommate's music is too loud, or they slam doors in the wee hours of the morning? Maybe it's just my personality type, but I struggle with even that minor of a confrontation. Praise the Lord he does not hesitate to confront me. Praise the Lord he loves me enough to convict me.

He uses all forms of communication too. Just this morning, I read Psalm 1:1-2. Have you ever read Psalm 1 before? I don't think I ever had. With all the Psalms out there, why pick the first one?

"Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

but his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night."
-Psalm 1:1-2 (ESV)

Boom. That was the conviction I needed.

Do I walk in the counsel of the wicked? Yeah, but not all the time...
Do I stand in the way of sinners? Yeah, but I'm not that bad...
Do I sit in the seat of scoffers? Yeah, but I don't always do that...
Do I delight in the law of the Lord? Well, sometimes?
Do I meditate on the law day and night? Well, you see... no.

That was the sucker punch of grace I needed. God hit me right on the nose. It wasn't fun, but discipline isn't always fun. I can try and negotiate my way around that Scripture all I want, but I'm only negotiating my way around a flawless and perfect God. Who am I to tell God what his law says? When I shortchange Scripture, I shortchange my faith.

There's a two-step process from here. Acknowledgement and repentance.

Step one, acknowledge that I've failed (miserably) and fallen short of this command. Step two, come to the Lord in prayer and repent. The Greek word for repentance is μετάνοια pronounced "meta-noi-ya". It means a physical turning away from sin and towards God.

And, I guess there's a step three, accept grace. It doesn't do me any good to wallow in self pity. I can sit there and pity myself all day long, but that is just depressing and not productive. Grace is awesome. John Mark McMillan sings in one of his songs, "If his grace is an ocean, we're all sinking" and I love the imagery that portrays.

However, Paul cautions us about grace...

"What then shall we say? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin continue to live in it?"
-Romans 6:1-2 (ESV, emphasis added)

It's as simple as that. I've died to sin, I am a new creation in Christ (2 Cor 5:17), so how can I continue to live the life I've died to? It's easy, I cannot.

But, it is hard. And that's why his grace is an ocean. There's never an end. There's no bottom. It will never run out. And in that, there is comfort. There is hope. There is peace.

Ask...

I've always struggled with the idea of prayer.

I'm not entirely sure why.

I've fallen captive to this instant gratification society that we live in. I have a smart phone, I have FiOS, I have a laptop... everything around me is about speed. Send a tweet, post a status, check my email, watch a Youtube video.

What! I have to wait 10 seconds for this video to load? Ridiculous.

Being a product of this instant society--this always-on culture--I struggle with waiting.

When I pray, I want an instant response. I want to know that: a) God heard my prayer, and b) He's already acting on it. It's hard for me to wait. It's hard. I think this is what I struggle with most when it comes to prayer.

I'm so used to a world of notification. A buzz in my pocket, a pop-up on my screen, a little red 1 when I log in... When I pray, I don't always get that instant feedback. In fact, most times, I don't get any feedback at all.

However, that's not the important part. God notes that He hears prayer. He says so in His word... numerous times. For example, in Luke 11, Jesus is teaching on prayer. He says:

"And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened." - Luke 11:9-10

In James 5, James writes about the "prayer of faith". He writes that the prayer of faith is powerful! He goes as far to say:

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. - James 5:16b

How awesome is that? And those are just two of the countless examples of God working through prayer. Rather than get caught up in instant gratification, I need to get caught up in truth. The truth is, God works through prayer. He hears prayer and He acts on it.

This doesn't insinuate that there are things God can't do if we don't pray. That would limit His sovereignty and omnipotence. That would be a false statement. God doesn't need us to pray. However, I certainly believe He wants us to. He wants us to pray according to His will. In 1 John 5:14, we can read:

And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. - 1 John 5:14-15

That's the answer right there. I love those verses. I love how simple it is. I don't have to think back far to see how God has answered prayer in my life. It's not always fast, it's not always on my timing, but it happens...Prayer in alignment with God's will happens. That is awesome.

Relativity...

Now I know what you're thinking... you came here expecting a post on Einstein's general theory of relativity. Sorry to disappoint, but we can save that for another time. This post; however, is one on the relativism of truth.

What is truth?

Is it absolute?

What makes a statement true?

Well, let's see... what is truth? Webster defines truth as: "the property (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or reality." Okay, that is acceptable. So to have truth, we need facts or reality to compare our statements against.

Is it absolute? Well, I think there are absolute truths. The sky is blue. That is a statement in accord with fact or reality. I can look at the sky and see blue (assuming it's not cloudy). When I drop an object, it will always fall. Another absolute truth that I can observe by picking up the pen on my desk and dropping it. Even if I drop it one million times, it will never once float in the air when I let go and hover miraculously. The truth of the matter is, it will always fall.

What makes a statement true? This one tends to be a little bit tricky. As Webster defined truth, we need fact or reality to compare this statement to. By looking at reality and gathering facts, we can assess statements as being truthful or false. For example, suppose I say to you, "The sun revolves around the earth." You could disprove this statement by showing me models of the solar system that prove the planets revolve the sun. You could explain to me how gravity works. You could show me other solar systems where planets are revolving their sun. In essence, you prove my statement false by looking at reality, gathering facts, and presenting them in a way that makes an indisputable, absolute truth.

Now, suppose I say to you, "Truth is relative." How would you respond?

But wait a second... haven't I just made an absolute truth statement? By saying truth is relative, I'm implying--absolutely-- that all truth is relative. It's a false argument. I disprove my own statement.

At my church this morning, we discussed truth as we begin our study in the Gospel of Luke. The culture we currently live in loves relative truth. We hate to think that someone else is wrong. We would hate to be looked at as intolerant. However... as we've just discovered, truth cannot be relative. There must be absolutes. There must be facts and statements about reality that are absolutely true.

Luke writes in his account of the Gospel:

"Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught." - Luke 1:1-4

Luke writes this account so that Theophilus, likely a Roman official, might have "certainty".

What am I certain of? Am I certain that if I drop my pen, it will fall to the ground? Am I certain that the sky is blue? Am I certain that Jesus' death paid the penalty of sin?

Sometimes it's easier to be more certain about some things than others. As we discussed earlier, I can always drop my pen and watch it fall. I can always peek out the window and marvel at the blue sky (not now though, it's dark). But how can I be certain that Christ is who he says he is?

Well, as a matter of fact, I can peek inside my Bible and see that indeed, Christ is who he says he is. I accept the Bible as truth because it is comprised of statements and facts in accordance with reality. Romans 3:23 states: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God". That is an observable fact. I can look at the world and see sin. I can see that no person is perfect. I can see that each has fallen short.

Because the Bible is composed of absolute truth, this truth is absolute--in Romans 5:8 Paul writes, "but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

I love truth... and that is a true statement.

Time...

For reasons I can't really explain, time has always fascinated me.

What is time, really? Is it a sensation, a physical dimension, a human concept? I don't know, and I don't plan to dive into all the physics and debate, but nevertheless, I am fascinated by time.

What is an hour, I might ask... well, it's sixty minutes, you say. Okay then, well, what is a minute? It's sixty seconds, you answer. Correct, then, what is a second? Well, it is the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the Cesium-133 atom (Wikipedia).

Shew, okay, sorry about the physics, but it was bound to happen.

So what we're saying is, a second is the time it takes for an atom of Cesium to put off some radiation. But, that doesn't get to my original question: what is time?

Well, maybe if I can't define it, I can define how I use it, how I experience it. I use my "time" to do lots of things. I use a decent amount to sleep and to eat. I use some of it to socialize, I use some of it to write these blog posts.

So I can use time... does time have limits? Well of course it does. I have a finite amount of time. It started the day I was born (or at least when I was conscious that time existed) and it will end when I die. But, is this time really mine?

Now that's a good question.

The simple answer is no. This time is not mine. It's a gift. Well then, if it's a gift, who is it from? It's from God.

So if God owns my time and has given each second as a gift to me, why don't I live that way? Why don't I treat each breath, each passing hour, each new day, as a gift from the Lord?

Now that's a really good question.

The simple answer is, I'm sinful. I'm selfish. I'm prideful. I am so focused on myself. I care so little about others. I care so little about Christ. I live to serve myself. I live to serve my interests.

During my month at Saranac, we challenged our Work Crew kids to memorize Philippians 2:1-5 which (if I remember, and I should) says:

"Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus"

If that isn't proof that the gospel is polar opposite to this world... Those five verses are the exact opposite of my reasons for why I don't treat each moment of time as a gift. If I truly lived out that charge Paul gives the Philippians, I would see each breath, each passing second as a gift from Christ. I would waste no time on myself but instead would give it all away.

My time at Saranac is over, but I earnestly hope that my time learning and living this passage is not. I have so little time, why waste another second?