Another Book, The Same Savior

It's been a good while. Life has been redonk (short for redonkulous...a spin off of ridiculous) considering the amount of work my gracious teachers have bestowed upon me to do. For example: "Let's see...today is Tuesday...by Thursday you all need to read chapter 7 to the end of the book (approx. 200 pgs.) and write a paper synthesizing the material." But enough of sinful complaining, Jesus is still King. And...I just finished "Becoming Conversant With the Emerging Church" by D.A. Carson. Carson did a phenomenal job, I thought, in producing cohesive thought on a topic that is not too easy to be cohesive about if you get caught up in the philosophical aspects of it (see what Col. 2:8 says on that). His conclusions: "The truth is that Jesus Christ is Lord of all - of the truth and of our experience. The Bible insists that we take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ (2 Cor. 10:5)." You need to read the book to figure out why that is such great line for the end of it, however, I feel that my brothers and sisters in the Lord can rejoice in that conclusion anyways...because that's some good stuff. Get the book and read it.
In other news, we need Jesus. I was reading Matthew 26:36-39 the other night and part of it stuck out to me: "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will." And when I read this, two things always stick out: 1) Jesus' sorrow 2) the cup that had been poured for Jesus to drink. I always find it so mind blowing that we see Jesus sweating drops of blood due to his anguish in this scene, yet Hebrews tells us that he did it "for the joy set before him." The Lord's ways are definitely higher than our ways if in the midst of such sorrow he can still operate out of the joy set before him. At the same time, the cup poured for Jesus drove him to such depths of sorrow and yet it was his joy because it was his Father's will. And that cup was filled to the brim with the wrath of God and the sin of mankind. We must worship our Father who set that cup in front of His own Son and asked him to drink it. And he drank it. And now we can know Him.

Here I Stand

Today I finished Here I Stand by Roland H. Bainton, a life of Martin Luther. It is an outstanding book. I am biased because I love biographies, and even more biased because Luther was a reformer. However, the Lord mightily used this book to teach me many things about spiritual warfare, standing upon the foundation of Christ, and never folding when it comes to obeying what the Bible says. The man was a servant of the Word of God. I also came to find out that most people (including myself before this book) know very little about his contributions after defecting from the Catholic church. His accomplishments demand that we look to Jesus and give him praise for supplying Luther with strength. Jesus spoke life to us when he said, "Apart from me you can do nothing." Anyone who is looking for a great read about a man who was just like us in his struggles and temptations, I commend this book to you. God is gracious and good to use ordinary men to bring about his sovereign purposes.