In honor of President's Day

I recommend the book I have recently started, 1776 by David McCullough.

I am about 50 pages into it, and it is great.  As a lover of fiction and someone who enjoys history, it is a book that weds the two beautifully, recounting the true events of 1776 while reading like a novel.  I love it so far, and I anticipate loving it the rest of the way through.

It was recommended indirectly to me by Nate Hughes via his blog (click the link to check out his take on the book).  It even made his "Top Nine Books of 2009."  So, I figured I'd ask for it for Christmas, and it has not disappointed.

The book also contains maps and pictures of painted portraits of most of the major figures, which I found rather...cool.  You are thirty pages in, and you see the pictures and think, "I 'know' that guy.  He did 'this' or is like 'that,'" and you have a real face to go with the real people of history you are beginning to follow for one of the most historic years on the world stage.

So, in honor of President's Day, check out 1776, a book that follows many of our nations early presidents (especially Washington) and founding fathers through one of the most important years of their lives.

You know you live in a fallen world when...

You can't even trust the hair on your own body.

That's right, I have discovered it is simply untrustable, which is quite sad.  In a world of plastic surgeries and fad diets and lots of make-up products that simply baffle me, I thought I was doing alright being happy with the genes God gave me.  I got the genes from Isaac that were suppressed in Jacob but were quite dominant in Esau.  I've embraced being a hairy guy.  I enjoy not looking like a twelve year old.

Unfortunately, our world is broken and fallen - from the great moral evils of the day to simply not being able to enjoy being hairy in peace.  Thirteen days ago I had a pilonidal cystectomy.  Yep, that's what I said, and no, it's not from Harry Potter.

A pilonidal cystesctomy is basically the removal of a pilonidal cyst, which is a cyst that forms at the base of the talilbone, most common in males 14-25 years old (and I was right in the sweet spot, I guess) and likely caused by a really bad ingrown hair (so the prominent theory goes).  Well, I'm sure some friends of mine are putting two and two together by now.

So, because recurrence rates are quite high (The doctor said if I do not keep hair out of the area, it will recur, which equals no fun.), I'll likely be getting some laser hair removal (something I thought I would never do.  Me?  Laser hair removal?  God has a sense of humor we've learned.) since I have no interest in constantly using hair removal cream and shaving back there.  What a pain in the butt (pun intended).

Well, back to the beginning, you know you live in a fallen world when you can't even enjoy the fruit of the DNA God gives you.

A Taste of "The Fifth Gospel"

If there's a "PTL! (Praise the Lord!)" for anything in this life, it's that this is true.  He came for me, for someone like me, for someone unlike me.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:1-10).

Believe!  Believe on Jesus Christ for salvation, and if you don't believe now, start seeking after Jesus, and if you already believe, remember, remember Jesus; remember the all sufficient grace He has poured and continues to pour and will pour out for you so you can do those good works to proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.  Amen.

Sin and Sex, or "Love" Pt. 3: Its Greatest Distortion

Sin is in essence playing God by self-centered self-service, with a mind-set that grabs rather than gives, especially where pleasure is concerned; so it was inevitable that in a sinful world God’s delightful but delicate arrangement for the simultaneous joy-getting through simultaneous joy-giving of married couples would suffer. And so it does.

Because sin is self-indulgence, and the pleasure level of sexual action is high, exploitative sex, in which one partner uses the other in order to get a good feeling, abounds both within marriage and outside it, in the world of prostitution, where feelings become in effect a commodity for manufacture and sale. Again, because sin is lawless greed, the passion to possess sexually someone who is not your mate keeps recurring; lust joins hands with the equally sinful desire to dominate, and fornication, adultery, and child sexual abuse take place, if not in the flesh, then in the heart. Once more, because sin is egoism and sexual pleasure is a short-term ego-booster, rapists and seducers force sexual action on others by physical and psychological violence, anticipating a grand euphoric glow when it is done (which glow, be it said, does not always come: see 2 Samuel 13, especially verse 15). Victims of sexual violence are sometimes called sex slaves, but that phrase would apply even better to its lust-driven perpetrators.

So many moderns are ‘sexually scarred’ either as practitioners or as victims of sexual egoism and callousness, the ‘love’ that is really self-absorbed lust, and it would be ‘sexual hypocrisy’ (denial of the truth about ourselves) to pretend otherwise. Today’s sexual mess is universal, and one way or another we are all in it together.

From Personal Standards by J.I. Packer

"Caprica"

Caprica is a new television series that has recently premiered on Syfy.  Only three episodes have aired, and they are all currently online (You can watch them on Hulu or Syfy. FYI, this show does contain some heavy PG-13 level content).  Though I have found myself caring about the characters and interested in the story, it is the writers use of worldviews in characterization and conflict that I have appreciated most.

The tagline of the show lets the viewer know there's more to it than mere drama: "The future of humanity begins with a choice."  The writers communicate that no one just makes a choice, but everyone operates from a set of beliefs that inform and move him or her to make the choices he or she makes - one's worldview or belief system.  Episode 1 hints at the larger and more complex use of worldviews to establish characters and conflict, but Episode 2 bothers with no such subtlety.

These worldviews come clashing together as the show's writers begin asking questions and making statements about human life and morality.  Is there absolute good and evil.  Are there absolutes at all?  What makes a human...human?  What constitutes life?  Is a human mind just a really phenomenal biological computer, or are we more?  What is the soul? 

Daniel: What if you could copy all the information that makes up a person and put them in a program and bring them back to life.  What if you could copy the soul.
Joseph: You can't copy a soul.
Daniel: How do you know?
Joseph: I don't know.  I just know what I know.

Those of the monotheistic cult in the show are the only ones that believe in absolutes, that god has declared what is good and what is evil.  The society at large is polytheistic and has its laws and principles, but it is clear they are grounded on nothing - no foundation to base these laws and principles on (Jesus gives a great illustration/metaphor/word picture for this).  As one character said, "You can rationalize anything."

And rationalize the people do as the writers begin to contrast belief systems and how one's beliefs clearly affect how one lives.  The writers accurately portray that a people with no absolutes are a people guided only by selfish desires and ambition.  Belief in the supernatural does not automatically provide a ground for absolutes or real good and evil, and the show reveals this.

The writers of this show also accurately portray the depravity of man.  Even in these first two episodes they have revealed an understanding of man's nature, showing that the time and place of man does not change who he is, all that changes are the methods we use to feed our nature and glory of self.

And here's the truth: We are all evil, selfish through and through, born as totally depraved creatures.  Mankind has not changed from the days of the Colosseum; we have merely changed how we feed those same desires.  Of your own accord you will  never proceed toward a brighter and better future of your own life nor will we as a people.  Each one of us is on our own personal path of destruction toward the dead end of death to spend an eternity in Hell for sinning against a Holy God.

We have sinned against God.  We have wronged and turned our backs on our Creator.  We have given him 'the finger' and yelled, "Screw off!" as we turned and went our own way.  This is a big deal, this is a massive deal because He is holy.  He was our Father and we said, "No, I do not want you.  I don't want your goodness.  I don't want your love.  I don't want to live in such a way that is selfless.  I want to be god.  I want to be the most important thing.  No, take your love and shove it.  Take your holiness, your perfectness (and I mean your perfect justice, patience, kindness, hatred of evil, all that really good perfect stuff you are and have) because I want me," and we lost it.  We chose the path of death and destruction away from God to suffer the consequences forever, in this life and the next.

But God said, "No, I will save you from yourself though you are ill-deserving of it.  Though you have made yourselves My enemies, I will save you.  Though you have dumped gasoline on your lives and lit the match, I will rescue you," and He sent His Son, Jesus Christ -- God become man, the God-man -- and He lived the life we could not and choose not to live, and He died the death and took the punishment we deserve on the cross, and three days later He rose from the dead to the eternal life all of us desire but could not attain in victory over Satan, sin, and death; and He said, "Repent of your sins and believe on Me for salvation - the forgiveness of your sins and eternal life in Heaven, a reconciled and restored relationship with your Heavenly Father - your Creator - to be forever indwelt by the Holy Spirit - God Himself, and a life of purpose, meaning, value, peace, joy, hope, and love - redemption, real salvation."

• (Here's how another person puts it.)

Leave your life of death behind where you glorify yourself to your own end, where you rationalize the evil deeds that destroy you and others and repent: see your sin, sorrow over your sin, confess your sin, hate your sin [1], and turn from your sin to believe on Jesus Christ for salvation - eternal, abundant life.

• (Want another good illustration/metaphor/word picture?  Like candy?  I thought so.  How this looks for a real life situation?  Here's a few: Francis Chan and Johnny Cash and Robert Robinson.  Check out one, two, or all three.).

All that said, I'm looking forward to the third episode.

A supplement to love, or "Love" Pt. 2

After posting my blog entry on love, I got feedback from plenty of people and watched some good Bible teaching on the subject and had some really good conversations with friends and family about it.  The teaching that I found to be the best supplement and addition to my post is Rob Bell's Nooma video "Flame."  It's an 11-minute video that is well worth your time.



I think he has it right.  This idea of "falling in love" is the world's distortion of "ahava," and this has to be built on "rya" if it is going to succeed, or if "ahava" shows up first, we know "rya" must very quickly be established (or lit if you are still working with the flame analogy).  If "ahava" is continually fueled and cultivated without fueling and cultivating "rya," you end up with the world's distortion - Satan's lie.

Ultimately, we desire to be like Christ and to love as Christ loved in all our relationships.  The love that is not addressed in this video is the love of one's enemy, to love when it is hard, when the object of your love is undeserving of it.  What then?  How do we love someone who is unlovable in our eyes?  We must remember the cross; we must remember Jesus Christ.

"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:6-8).

And,

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.  Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us" (1 John 4:7-12).