All I Want for Christmas is CHRISTMAS

I've had to do a lot of thinking about this one. Ever since I was born my family has done Christmas much the way the rest of the world does. The tree, the presents, the church, the feasts...etc. But a few things have changed since I've been away at college. One of those things being that my heart was regenerated by the Holy Spirit and the Lord gave me new desires. My other immediate family members are Christians as well. My family is growing in many ways. However, we have not grown out of the way we do Christmas...and I have just now realized it. In fact, it was not until during a prayer meeting at Living Hope that I realized that I had bought into consumer-driven Christmas.

As December began I started fretting about what to buy my family and what I could get them. I spent long hours on ebay looking for good books and hard to find items, and being quite successful in my searching. But the more I bought for my family, I could not get over the conviction that what I was doing was empty. I could not answer the question of why I was buying the gifts. Of course, I knew the gifts were for others, but still...why was I buying them? What it boiled down to was that I felt compelled to buy them. There was this habit formed by 2o years of Christmas that was controlling what I did. It was almost as if there was this obligation to buy the perfect gift for my family and for Bethan. For what? I don't know. I felt like a robot. This isn't the worst part...

I always hear Christians talking about the "real reason for the season" (notice the token catchy Christian subculture phraseology?). Pastors everywhere preach sermons about how Christmas is really about Jesus' birth; about God coming to be with us, eventually to be crucified as a perfect sacrifice for our sins. And "amens" pour in from the congregations too. In fact, many people make a huge deal about the media and the department stores beginning to say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". They claim they are taking Jesus out of Christmas. But I say differently. I say Christians are responsible for taking Jesus out of Christmas. Seriously. My family has also contributed their fair share. We are all believers, yet we still spend Christmas much the same way the world does. We spend awful amounts of money on gifts for each other and place them under a Christmas tree. Doesn't sound bad does it? But where did this tradition come from? And even if some good people began the tradition, is it Biblical and is it right? Christmas trees come from pagan druidic cultures who worshiped trees...how did that get incorporated into Jesus' birthday?

Perhaps this blog is written more specifically to those of us who have a family full of believers. Why have we bought into the world's Christmas? Why is there no time of worship Christmas morning? Why are some churches not holding services this year because Christmas has fallen on Sunday? Why are we showing our children that Christmas is about getting presents? I don't care how many times you read the Christmas story to kids on Christmas morning, they are still antsy to get presents. If Christians are really serious about Christmas being all about Jesus, why are WE the ones getting gifts? Why don't we spend the money on something better? I have a good friend (along with his girlfriend) who is using the money he would have spent on Christmas to support a missionary. My grandparents sent a letter out this year saying they were not going to do the same ol' Christmas thing either; they instead gave the money to the Good Samaritan organization in Corpus Christi. To me, these are great examples of something better to do with the money.

No one will touch this subject though. I've yet to hear a pastor teach about it or even want to discuss it. I think there needs to be some things changed. In fact, if we look at the Magi in the Bible and what they did on Christmas we'll see something much different: They came from far away (far enough that it took them a couple years to get to Jesus) because they knew the prophecies and had seen the star. They followed it until they found Jesus and they worshiped him and brought HIM gifts. I'm not saying we have great gifts to offer Jesus (we have, in fact, none), but we can worship Him and we can adore Him. We can talk about Him with our loved ones. We can use money more wisely for the gospel to be spread. We can turn Christmas into a day to worship. We can preach about it. We can stop worrying about buying gifts for no reason. We can show our kids that Jesus is better than gifts. We can show the world that material things have no hold on our lives. We can get honest about what we have done to Christmas and finally stop blaming other people for why Christmas has become centered on gifts, trees, Santa, and materialism.

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." - John 1:14. If we have seen his glory, it must change the way we do things.

This is Barrett, my roommate. The yellow hangy-down-thingy by his face is a small rubber chicken that poops out an egg when you squeeze it. Seeing that we had both a rubber chicken, and a string used to pull down the attic door, Barrett figured what better to do than to combine the two and make a game out of it. What's the game? It has not yet received a name (and we haven't played it in a while), however the goal of it is for a person to run and jump and hit the rubber chicken as hard as they can with their forehead to see if you can make it swing back and hit the ceiling. Barrett was very successful. I post this blog to show that, though drowned by college, our imaginations are yet thriving. In fact, Barrett lined up plastic army men atop the ledge that hangs over our sliding glass door and invited us all to shoot them down with nerf guns. Thanks to Barrett, studying for finals has been a little less stressful this year. I give him a heartfelt 'woot'.

As "No Shave November" came to a close, I was antsy to get the mass of hair off of my face. Much more fun than growing the beard, however, was taking pictures with a dirty mustache afterward. I've come to a couple conclusions during this endeavor: 1) My generation can not seriously pull off the 'stache. 2) If your 'stache splits down the middle, you have hit a whole other level of dirty. The jacket was compliments of my dad circa 1980 (note the elbow patches) and the scarf was Bethan's. Next November, we'll try the "Handlebar" look, if indeed it is possible for me to do. Then, maybe I could join these guys. I sure hope they'll let me in...

"But the Lord Knows Their Heart" is Precisely Their Problem

I was thinking about the phrase: "But the Lord knows their heart." I usually hear this applied to situations where a "Christian" is not acting like a Christian, and one of their loved ones defends their actions. I also hear this when people die who did not know the Lord...or at least did not seem to know Him. And every time I hear it, it rubs me the wrong way. Sometimes I concede and think to myself, "They're right...I don't know their heart. I better watch myself." And that in itself is true: I can not read a person's heart, and being prone to mistakes I sure as heck better watch myself. However, along with confessing what goes on in my head when this common phrase is spoken, I'd like to explore what the Bible says about this...

I guess first it would be appropriate to see where people are getting this idea from. Perhaps it is Acts 15:8 - "And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did us." Or maybe it is from Revelation 2:23 - "...I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you as your works deserve." In fact, there are probably tons of verses dealing with God and his ability to see the intents of the heart. Therefore, if someone says "God knows their heart", they speak absolute and unshakable truth. But when that is said, there is usually a different meaning behind it than when the Bible talks about the heart of men. For instance, Jeremiah 17:9 says, "The heart is deceitful above all else, and it is desperately sick; who can understand it?" Or this passage from John: "Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man." What are we seeing here? We can see that when the Bible talks about the heart of men, it is negative 99.9% of the time, usually saying things like man cannot be trusted, or man deceives himself, or man HATES God. So then, why do we speak about the hearts of men in a different way, implying their "deep-down" goodness? The truth is, the concept of a good human heart is foreign to the Bible unless it has been regenerated and quickened by the Holy Spirit.

All this to say, the phrase "But God knows their heart" should serve to make us tremble rather than making us more comfortable with who humans are. I realize that we want to believe the best about people, but even the best a human being can offer is deserving of Hell. Perhaps this phrase should even be used as motivation for evangelism in some situations; that is, when we start to think "Hey, he seems like a great guy. Maybe he does know the Lord." We can remind ourselves that the Lord knows the heart and does not justify human sin.

Broken Cisterns, Purses with Holes, Bland Food: These are a Few of Our Favorite Things.

"Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water." - Jeremiah 2:13-13

"You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes." - Haggai 1:6

"Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food." - Isaiah 55:2

The Lord graciously continues to reveal to me a clearer understanding of how depraved and without hope humans really are without Jesus. Between watching myself and my closest friends, I have been able to see many things lately that exhibit the deficiencies mentioned in the above verses, of which I will not go into detail. It matters not what exactly happened; only that humans - myself included - continue to prove that unless we are regenerated and renewed by the Holy Spirit, we will always seek that which is lawful and unprofitable over that which is most valuable. In fact, that may be the definition of sin - the forsaking of our greatest Treasure in order to love what is worthless; at least, that is what I take the verses from Jeremiah to mean. "My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken ME, the fountain of living waters, and have hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water." That is God's definition of evil. As we read about Israel and their idolatry, God sums up their sin by saying that they have forsaken Him and chased after worthless idols. And over this the heavens are to be appalled and shocked; utterly desolate. For the angels, who see God all day, look down from heaven and watch what seems to be insanity: the people of God exchanging Him for things that are not Him. And I'm sure they can't believe their eyes! To them we must look like a people trying to store water in "broken cisterns" and trying to fill with money a purse with holes. We spend the majority of our efforts on things that are lawful and unprofitable rather than becoming obsessed with Him who is the treasure of the universe. We dine on bland food when we have been freed to "eat what is good and delight ourselves in rich food."
And what furthers this sadness, is the justification of the convicted. We read the Word - "a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart" - and we justify to ourselves and, ultimately, to God why we do what we do. We make the mistake of thinking that God desires for us to spend time playing video games and mindlessly watching T.V. We mistakenly believe that God is fine with His people pursuing that which is merely lawful. He murdered His own Son on the cross to free us from lives of pursuing the dull and meaningless; but sure, He'll understand. I say this not looking down on those who read, but looking eye to eye with people who struggle with the same things I do. Do we not do this? We read about abundant life, yet live as though it is not available. The verses above point to eternal and abundant life, but we look to mediocrity and lawfulness to entertain us.
I think perhaps I'd like to end with a question (or questions): What is the Bible's stance on this? Is it not insanity to give time and love to things not conducive to loving Jesus? Is it idolatry when we are anxious for the cares of this world (no matter how small), yet uncaring when it comes to knowing Jesus?

I'll have to admit that I am quite inexperienced when it comes to noticing license plates, so there may be one much more humorous out there than this one. However, I will say that seeing this at 11:30 at night as I walked into West Campus Library was slightly more than a "hoot". There is another one I'd like to submit along with this, but we'll save that one for next week.

"The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand." - John 3:35

I was thinking, when I read this, that I am one of great talent when it comes to justifying certain things in my life; particularly how I spend my time and where I place my affections. But once again, the Word proved to be a "discerner of the thoughts and the intents" of my heart. At first glance, I assigned this verse a big "duh" and almost moved on; however, I remembered that the Word does not exist that I might gain merely ideas and notions about God. It exists that the Spirit might use it to cut me to the heart and expose reality, and through conviction, mold me into someone who looks a bit more like Jesus. It was about that time that it hit me: this verse exposes the heart of the Father...the very thing that Christians are supposed to be hungering and thirsting for. (And I was gonna just move on!) Perhaps even more stunning, was that it reveals the meditation of God's heart: Jesus. If God were to reveal his innermost thoughts to us, we would find Jesus there; constantly on his mind in an obsessively loving way. Now, I don't mean to be abstract, because most of the time when people discuss abstract ideas it is only to sound smart, or present some mind-numbing thought that never really helps us live out the Christian life any better than we were before we heard the idea. I believe this to be extremely applicational in at least two ways:

1) If Christians claim to be seeking to have the heart of God, then we should want to have the same obsession as the Father: Jesus. "The Father loves the Son." The Son is always the focus of the Father and the ultimate end to which the Father does all things. Jesus is the center of the universe. We must stop looking past Jesus to get a glimpse of the Father, because "in him the fulness of the diety was pleased to dwell." If we want to know God, we must focus on Jesus who said, "I and the Father are one." In all things, we must seek to know Jesus more.

2) There is a very applicational issue of trust in this verse, because we see the Father has "given all things into his hand." So we see that God loves and trusts Jesus with his whole heart, giving all the universe into his hand. The perfect judgment of character by the Father is shown in his giving all things into the hand of Perfection. And if we translate that into our lives, it means that when we do not trust Jesus with all things, we express two incredible blasphemies: We question the Father's judgment of character, and we doubt the dependability of Jesus. This is our sin when we hesitate to trust Jesus. It's no small thing to call into question the acts of the Creator and his Son.

All that said...we need to love Jesus....more. So much more that our time and our affections are placed where we can continually enjoy Jesus.

"Great honor do men of this sort pay to the blessed martyrs, who, they think, are to be made glorious by trumpery tapers, when the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne, with all the brightness of His majesty, gives them light." - Vigilantius

I have posted this because it is just a way cool quote. I read about Vigilantius in a letter written by Ambrose (an early Catholic church father). In the letter, he is vehemently condemned by Ambrose for being an iconoclast - that is, someone who was opposed to the worship of icons or relics in the church; Ambrose, as you probably guessed, was a supporter of icons and relics (a "man of this sort"), and therefore he was determined to dirty Vigilantius' name. What I find great about his attempt, is that he quotes Vigilantius as saying the aforementioned quote and thus reveals Vigilantius' true heart: He wanted Christ to be worshipped, and not relics. I don't know all about Vigilantius and his background, but I thought it was a profitable thing to say considering we (the protestant church) still make much of idols and men of the faith, when it is Christ "with all the brightness of his majesty" who gives us light.

"And from his fulness we have all received, grace upon grace." - John 1:16

As the Lord teaches me how and disciplines me to read His Word, I start to realize all the simple statements that I just pass over. You know, I just read over them thinking that I know what it means and fully understand the height and depth that these verses touch. Since I have been studying my way through this gospel (John), many of these short, but loaded verses have come across my path. I start writing about them and before I know it I have filled up pages on what started out to be a simple comment. The above reference to John is one of those verses. As I came across it about a month and a half ago, I had to stop and think about it for a long time before any ink could go on the page. And then, as the Lord granted me a little bit of understanding about it, I wondered how many Christians are doing this same thing during Bible study; that is, missing out on the profundity of even the shortest and simplest verses.

The implications of this verse are huge for how I understand Jesus and the way he acts toward me. It gives light to my questions of why he does anything at all in connection with humans. What I mean by this, is that there are many times when I struggle to understand why God does anything for us. I struggle to understand why he even created the world. I hear in church that his love is unending and I read in Romans that nothing can separate me from it (8:38-39). And those are great reassurances...but the looming question in my mind is "Why?". Perhaps when it comes down to it, we are not supposed to know the fulness of why until we get to heaven. But for now, a lot of my "why's" are answered in that verse (John 1:16): "from his fulness." It's quite simple actually. He's just full. He is so full of his own qualities, so full of himself, that he seeks ways to let it out. And when he exudes those qualities, their level of abundance inside of him never diminishes nor decreases. They just continue to overflow throughout history.

So what do I mean by God's being "full of himself"? That statement almost sounded like blasphemy when I first heard it. As humans, we are taught (and rightly so) that this is a negative quality to have. No human is deserving, nor capable, of being full of himself; that is, their well-spring of qualities is insufficient for them to remain filled with them, and their depravity/"finiteness" prevents them from even being credited with anything good. But we can not attribute human insufficiencies to God when we think about him. He is wholly different than us. He alone is a being in which all his qualities are perfect and infinite, and therefore their supply is unending. He is definer of what is good and perfect and is thus justified in counting himself as the greatest treasure in and beyond the universe. But we should want God to be an exalter of himself. We should want God to seek his glory and his fame in everything. And we should want this precisely because if he is the greatest treasure to behold, then we want him to be supreme in all things...including his own thoughts. If God has mankind as his first love, then God is an idolater. Idolatry should probably be defined as "choosing anything less valuable when something of supreme value is available." Since God knows he is perfect, he must choose himself over everything else. We see this in the cross of Jesus Christ as well, in that God - through great cost to himself in the death of his Son - made us able to enjoy making much of him forever. It is for his own glory that he displayed his Son as a sacrifice, because as we enjoy him, he is made much of. God's glory and our joy are not separate issues.

This is what should come to mind when reading the aforementioned verse. "From his fulness we have all received, grace upon grace." It is from God being full of himself, full of his God-qualities, full of love for his own Son, full of the Holy Spirit, full of the perfect love that is between the Trinity, that we can be loved by him. This is life-giving comfort to Christians; that is, knowing that God's love will not decrease toward us simply because God's love for his own glory will never be lessened.

What is Christian fellowship? I hear it prayed so many times by my brothers and sisters in Christ when we are gathered, "Thank you for the fellowship tonight" or "allow our fellowship to bring you glory Jesus." But what happens after the prayer is usually a night full of fun and laughter, but not much depth. We all joke around with each other and eat and have a good time, but is this really true fellowship between believers? Is there anything happening that is strengthening us as Christians and making us more in love with Jesus? These are questions I have to ask myself after a tiring night of much laughing with great friends.
Perhaps there doesn't seem to be much wrong with the things listed above; after all, what is wrong with having a good time with your friends? So let me clarify my angle: how deep do we actually go with our friends when expressing our faith? Does it only come out when we get dogmatic? Is the only time we mention Jesus when we talk about the mere semantics of theology and Biblical doctrine? Is there still a "Jesus wall" of defense up when we converse over topics that require compassion and emotion? This is where I am coming from. I found out about two years ago that my relationships with my brothers and sisters in Christ was really superficial. We talked about movies (quoting them extensively), food, sports, and school...but when it came to Jesus we barely scraped the surface. And then it occurred to me that for having such a deep and complex God, we sure do have shallow and unexpressed affections for Him.
I wonder sometimes how we can read the Bible and still act the way we do in groups. How do we waste nights with the Church body present and never touch on anything spiritual? How do we never confess the thoughts we have about Jesus? The Bible is clear on how the apostles thought of fellowship. In 2 Corinthians 7, Paul talks so much about how much joy the coming of Titus produced in him. And not only that, but Titus was filled with joy because he had just come from being with the Corinthian church and they had made him joyful. So not only does Paul rejoice in the coming of Titus, but he also says "we rejoiced still more at the joy of Titus because his spirit has been refreshed by you all." So he is rejoicing in Titus and in Titus' joy. I can honestly say that I have enjoyed fellowship like this only a few times. Sure, we can argue that Paul was desperate to be with a brother considering he was being persecuted heavily; therefore it is obvious that his joy would be great. But that explanation doesn't match up with other passages in the Bible such as Acts 2:42-47, Acts 4:32-37. (If you read them you'll know what I mean!) For some reason, having this kind of joy and fellowship in our day and time has been labeled "Brady Bunch" or "not real", and I am pretty tired of it. Our hearts must be completely open with each other when it comes to rejoicing in the Lord, or expressing hurt, or doubt, or depression, or whatever. I think that we have closed our hearts to each other in the modern church (I speak from my limited experience). I have rarely had a brother express love for God like David did in the Psalms - "I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together!" Sure there will be language differences, but the heart is the same. Our desires must be after Jesus and Jesus alone. And when our desires are such, they must be expressed amongst believers that we may rejoice with each other in fellowship, or hurt and mourn with each other in fellowship. So basically what I mean is...I do not have a working definition of fellowship, but I know we must grow from where we are now into what was meant to be.

I wonder if we have been humbled by the hand of the Lord yet? I know I wasn't until last night. My friends and I had been preparing to be hit by the hurricane considering we are merely and hour and a half away from Houston, which was originally thought to be where the hurricane was going to make landfall; that is, after it wiped out the entire island of Galveston. People in College Station were panicking and everyone was buying out the water and bread in H-E-B, and not to mention the gas. Well, it ended up that Rita turned a bit more northeast than expected and College Station was spared from everything except for weak gusts of wind and sprinkling rain. At first I was a little disappointed because the whole town was going crazy and then nothing even happened. I was counting on seeing how amazing the weather really can be during a storm so large. I quickly realized my sentiments were wrong and should have praised the Lord for sparing us and much of Houston. Then, last night, my fiancee made the statement, "It's funny how humans are so cocky and arrogant, exulting in their own accomplishments; but all God has to do is send a hurricane our way and people are running scared to escape its path." And it is true. He sends a hurricane (passively or actively...either way he is sovereign over it) into New Orleans, and people are devastated. A tsunami into southeast asia...and people are brought low, wondering how something like this could happen. But I think we need to acknowledge that God has purposes in everything he does, even the hard things. In fact, most of the hard things God does are meant to humble us and bring us low that we might "seek him while he may be found, and call upon him while he is near." Even if we did not get hit by the hurricane, we saw it's damage and have been affected by it. There will be many Christians pointing the finger and saying things like, "New Orleans was a center of much sin. They deserved it!" Which may be true when considering God's righteousness and justice. But all our lives have, at one time or another, been the center of much sin. When Christians see what happened with these hurricanes, we should thank the Lord for his mercy (whether we were hit by it or not) and posture ourselves to seek his face. God is sovereign over all things; if he sends us calamity we can not boast that it is undeserved. And if he sends us safety, it is out of his abundant grace and mercy.

We'll do one more CD while we are at it. This band has not taken off as much as I expected them to as of yet. They played at a DiscipleNow that I had the pleasure of being apart of in the Woodlands, TX. Worshiping with these guys was amazing. The lead singer - Josh White - was completely open and honest with us about his life as a lost man and how the Lord pursued him and called him into salvation. He has an amazing story. Along with this, the band is incredibly talented and their music is a great blend of acoustic/sort-of-euro rock. Josh would preach as they played and it was such a blessing to find out that his music was as God-centered as his preaching. He really loves the Lord as I'm sure the rest of the band does. So...check out this CD, and if you don't like this one, then check out their last one - "The Beauty of Simplicity" - because it is just as good if not better.

(Yep...Zach does CD reviews as well. But here's one he can't do yet, because it's not out!) What's that? Yes I know that the new Crowder CD has not come out yet. But somehow, a copy made its way into my hands and my ears have been feasting on Crowder's creativity throughout this 21 track masterpiece. I dare say that the David Crowder Band is quite possibly the best thing that ever happened to Christian music. This album somewhat takes up where Illuminate left off style-wise. It is a broad mixture of slightly techno background effects mixed with rock/acoustics, which all blend together to make a style of its own. One thing that is great about Crowder's songs is that you come away from listening to it, knowing that the man who wrote the songs is genuine in his faith. His words are often simple, yet provoking and - I don't know about you - but they lead me to be more vulnerable with Jesus...that is, forgetting about putting on a show for the Lord and coming clean and being real with Him. IT IS GOOD STUFF!! So, on September 27th when it comes out, buy two copies and give one to someone else. It is that good!

The Beginning

I feel out of place, first of all. Most of these blog thingies seem to be for "artsy" kind of people who say great things (or not so great...?) and keep them up weekly; perhaps even daily. I would not consider myself artsy, nor do I have the time to be consistent with the updates for these things. Basically, I get the urge to write sometimes and my friend Zach started one of these bad boys, so I figured I'd give it a whirl. Hopefully, profitable things will be written on it, so that those reading it will not consider it a complete waste of time and I can release my writing energy. (Zach's blog kills ten birds with three stones...I guess mine is only two with one. Zach wins again...) Most of the time what will be written are merely things that I am currently learning from Jesus, the One who miraculously pulled me from death into life and occupied my life with the worship and enjoyment of Himself.

I feel the need to explain the title of this blog. I was trying to think of an original title without trying too hard to be deep like most current bands do as their minds brew up an ingenious band name such as the "Lost Prophets" or "Screaming Monkeys". However, the title comes from the gospel of Mark, chapter 10 and verse 25: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." In context, Jesus had just confronted a man with the reality that his material possessions were his god. The man had asked Jesus how to inherit eternal life, yet he was not willing to give up simple things such as his wealth. The state of this man's heart, coupled with the teaching that we must forsake everything and follow Jesus, leads a person to one of two thoughts: 1) Receive Jesus as the greatest treasure in the universe and give your life to Him forever, or 2) I hope I can find either a tiny camel or a really large needle. Trouble is, the latter will leave you hopeless and without a new life in Christ. TRUTH is, Christians tend to think the second thought more than the first. We are called to a life of making Jesus our supreme treasure, ruler, friend, lover, sustainer, object of worship, Father, Savior, and Helper...but we try and hang on to our lawful, unprofitable, worthless worldly possessions in order to satisfy our desires. This is what I battle daily along with millions of other Christians. Sometimes we live as divided people, "unable to do the things we ought, and doing the very things we hate." What is posted in this blog will be things that the Lord is using to win that battle in my life; whether it is through rebuke, correction, encouragement, or deliverance.