So, I Fasted For Class Today...

Right now, in my current school of choice/which I am attending, Heritage College in Cambridge, Ontario, I am taking a Spiritual Formation class. In this class, part of the homework this week was to fast from food and solely have water for one day. In this day, aided by no one being here on account of it being Thanksgiving weekend, I decided to take today and spend at least most of it being solid God time. For part of it, I chose to journal through John Piper's book, Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ, for a few hours. Not that long into it, I decided to, instead of having three hours of solid reading and journaling (with a short little break every hour), I chose to do two, and for the third, write a blog and copy out all of my notes that I made, quotes I copied, and expanded commentary on various quotes/content from the book/et cetera.

The below are my notes on Chapters 3 through 5.

3. - The Lion and the Lamb: The Excellence of Jesus Christ

-How can someone who is equal to God have a deep reverence for God?
-The Shepherd is the Lamb.
-Rev. 5:6 (all biblical quotes that I add are NIV, courtesy of BibleGateway.com, "Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.) Even though Jesus was slain, He's standing, not sprawled over in a heap.
-Matt. 11:28-29 ("Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.") When you share in Christ's burden, it's implied to be done with a sense of humility.
-Matt. 28:18-20 ("Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.") Jesus owns everything and He's telling you to go do it (aid in saving lost souls), and He's also saying that He'll have your back.

4. - The Indestructible Joy: The Gladness of Jesus Christ

-1 Cor. 1:9 ("God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.) Salvation isn't for forgiveness. It's to hang out with Jesus forever.
*Please help me not to identify myself with my denomination, but with Christ. Amen.
-(for the first point) Even though forgiveness isn't the point, it's the method to get us there.
-"If this fellowship is not all-satisfying, there is not great salvation. If Christ is gloomy, or even calmly stoical, eternity will be a long, long sigh.
But the glory and grace of Jesus is that he is, and always will be, indestructibly happy [My new favourite sentence. Ever. *grins* ;) :).]. I say it is his glory, because gloom is not glorious. And I say grace, because the best thing he has to give us is his joy." - John Piper
-"So Christ not only offers himself as the divine object of my joy, but pours his capacity for joy into me, so that I can enjoy him with the very joy of God. This is glory, and this is grace." - John Piper
-"From eternity he has been the mirror of God's infinite mirth." - John Piper
-:O?!?!!!!???! God (the Father) refers to Jesus as God and has the same amount of reverance that Jesus show the Father??!!!!!!!!?!???!!??! *mind explodes*. Hebrews 1:8-9,
"
But about the Son he says,
"Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever,
and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom.
You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions
by anointing you with the oil of joy."
"
-Acts 2:25-31. ("David said about him:
" 'I saw the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will live in hope,
because you will not abandon me to the grave,
nor will you let your Holy One see decay.
You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence.'

"Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay.") Peter acknowledges that in having Jesus as his rock and firm foundation, he'll be eternally happy and won't shut up about it.

-"The risen Christ will shake off the shades of death and be glad with the very gladness of God." - John Piper

-"The carefree merriment of a ballroom gala and the irrepressible joy in a Russian gulag are not the same. One is trite, the other triumphant. One is glib, the other glorious. There is a pasted smile that has never known pain. And it does not make for a good pastor or a great Saviour. But Christ is a great Saviour." - John Piper

-Christ has known pain. Christ has known suffering. This makes His joy true. This makes His joy gloriously and legitimately triumphant. Awesome.

-"This "great high priest" is not unable to sympathize with us in out weaknesses, because he was tested in every way as a man like us. He wept with those who wept and rejoiced with these who rejoiced. He was hungry, he was weary, he was forsaken, betrayed, whipped, mocked, and crucified." - John Piper

-Even though Jesus is The Supreme Being, He can still relate to humans like us because He's been through it all and knows what it's like.

-(talking about Jesus) "There were divergent notes in the music of his soul, but the result was a symphony." - John Piper [my second new favourite sentence ever :).]

-"A general's complex battle strategy may suffer the enemy to have temporary and apparent tactical triumphs, only to gain a greater victory in the end. This is not a mark of confusion in the mind of the general. It may appear so to those who see only part of the field." - John Piper

-Even if, from our human perspective, life seems like one jumbled mess, it is only because we can only see one small, minute, insignificantly minuscule part of the grand scheme that God has set in motion for the ultimate great purpose of all of mankind. Wow.

-"Have you ever noticed that we are not only to imitate the Lord's suffering, but the Lord's joy in it?" - John Piper

-There is a difference between joylessness & suffering.

-"We stand in wonder that the light of Jesus' joy makes a rainbow in the tears on his face." - John Piper (in the prayer at the end of the chapter)

5. - The Waves and Winds Still Know His Voice: The Power of Jesus Christ

- Seeing and being in the eye of a hurricane would blow my mind because it would be an eerie, almost supernatural calm in the midst of chaos and destructive confusion.

-Even when majestic, ancient trees fall down, it's as if they're bowing in reverence to God.

-Even when Job has lost e..v..e..r..y..t..h..i..n..g, he still, "...fell on the ground and worshiped." (Job 1:20)

-Job acknowledged that in genuinely and legitimately serving God, it is ludicrous to think that you can take only the good (from a human vantage point) and neglect the bad. (Job 2:10, "He replied, "You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?"
In all this, Job did not sin in what he said."). He realized that God has to ultimate power to give and to take away and should be worshiped regardless what happens.

*I remember when I was little, when I used to think that thunder was God bowling with my grandpa that I never met in Heaven...:).

-Everything, including nature itself, bows in reverence to and obeys the authority of Christ. Even when there's a storm and He's sleeping in a simple boat....

-"Now we have a choice. Worship or curse." - John Piper

-When something goes bad or wrong in our lives, or something gets destroyed, we have two options: curse it for happening, or worship God in all of His majestic power. Do we even have a right to choose?

-"Teach us to wait and watch for your final and holy purposes in all things. Grant that we would "rejoice in hope" even when present circumstances bring us to tears." - John Piper (in the prayer at the end of the chapter)

There. There are my notes. I hope they help you in some way. Read them and I hope you get something from them. Have a good one and God bless.

FRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK

You know those times when you can have perfectly fine conversations (most of the time) with your best friend, then whenever you hang out with them in person, they treat you like you're not really there and only say hey and little else?

THAT FRICKING SUCKS.

God Made Adam & Eve To Make People Who Made People Who Had Their Heads On Their Shoulders

Love.

Don't we show it enough? Or do we? What do people think of us when they see us, or hear us speak, or watch us act? Is what they think summed up in one word that's at the top of this very post? Or is it the opposite? What would you rather have someone see in you? The epitome of God's grace and goodness and respect and caring contained in the simple acting upon the definition of the word love, or the opposite? Would you like it if you looked at your children only to see the purest form of hatred bleed out of their piercing eyes with their actions only being of things that would make you as a parent weep because you love them so much, but they've done nothing but go against what you would love for them to have or what you know is best for them? What would you do for them for them to be able to see how much you love them and how much you deeply, deeply care about them? Would you be willing to be tortured for their sake? Would you even be willing to die? If you died for your children, even if some of them still didn't love you back, would you still do it?

It happened.

God sent Jesus - His son, yet also He Himself - to die because we as a human race messed up. A lot of the time, the way we are and the way we act, is like spitting in God's face. He is our heavenly Father. Don't you think it breaks God's heart when we do things when He knows it's not what's best for us? Just a thought. Also, it's pretty evident that not everyone accepts God's grace and forgiveness. That said, He still loves everyone, regardless who you are, what you've done, or what you will do. He sent Jesus to die for everyone that would accept His forgiveness (John 3:16, Romans 10:9, et cetera).

We should follow that lead. I'll readily admit that I haven't always listened to my own advice and probably won't always listen to my own advice in the future. That said, ESPECIALLY because God loves EVERYONE, no matter who they are, what they've done, or where they're from, we should follow that lead and respect everyone else. Respect where they come from. Respect where they're at. Respect them for what they think and believe.

Above all, NO MATTER WHO THEY ARE, show them love. Show them love like Jesus would show them love.

Oh how the sweet tides of time have intertwined to wrestle themselves to the death.........with them both ending up victorious.

Haha.........well........if I explained it, it would make sense, so you have nothing to worry about :)

Oh how the tides have changed............

Something happened last night that almost completely negated my entire previous post. Sweet :).

Don't worry. It's a good thing.

WHY DO I HAVE TO 'ING SUCK AT LIFE?!!??!??!?!?!???

I have come to the conclusion that I suck at life.

I suck at life because I have crazy strong feelings towards my best friend and I don't know if they're reciprocated.

I suck at life because I let it bother me.

I suck at life because I'm too chicken to ask.

And I haven't seen her in two weeks and haven't hung out with her in a week or two more, which sucks because I LOVE hanging out with her and she's just one of those people that whenever I talk to them, they help make my day better even if it was good to begin with (and it's not exactly like she doesn't live in town). And I The only other person that can do that is my sister, whom I care for dearly.

It doesn't help that I'm running on five hours of sleep.

The ironic part is, is that I told myself yesterday that I was going to try to not complain about ANYthing for the rest of the week. Another reason why I suck at life.

I hate it when this happens. Frick. I just want to see her........

Why am I even typing this? I don't even friggin' know. This is sad. It really, truly is.

Oh well, I'll probably end up listening to a sermon or something to that effect later.......maybe some Prison Break. Or even a nap. Yeah, a nap would help :).

I just got addicted to metaphorical crack today.

Today, I discovered two things of greatness. The first being a facebook group equating the awesomeness of Bill Nye (of the Science Guy fame) as greater than the awesomeness of Chuck Norris. I was thoroughly pleased. It made me chuckle rather heartily.

The next is Prison Break. I've been hearing from multiple sources that it is quite the good time. So, in honour of payday (a.k.a. the day I get more money and buy more crap I really don't need when I should be saving said money for school), when I saw the Season One box for twenty bucks, I bought that like parents bought Tickle Me Elmo at Christmas '96. When the promos first got aired back when it started, I was like, "HOLY CRAP!! It's that guy that was in the Dinotopia mini-series!! [Wentworth Miller, and as for Dinotopia, if I was the only one that cared, I am okay with that]". Next, waaaaaaaay before I saw the first episode of Prison Break (which would have technically been yesterday when I cracked open the box and slapped disc one in the drive of my laptop), I heard that Blaine Hogan (who is in it) got saved (to those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, it's Christianese for him converting to Christianity, with Christianese being a term concocted, oddly enough, by Christians for describing words, phrases, and terminology generally only understandable to Christians and within Christian circles) and then threw down some seminary after hooking up with XXXChurch.com (hit it up. it's a good time :) ), so when I saw him, I was like, "HOLY CRAP!! IT'S HIM!! :D". It was great. Seriously. I am now addicted.

When normal people buy box sets, they watch an episode or two at a time. I, on the other hand, am far from being a normal person. I sat down and proceeded to watch a disc and a half almost straight (which, if you do the math, means I'm halfway through disc two. Of six.), which brought me to about 5 am, Eastern time. If I didn't have to work in 12 hours, I would probably watch it straight 'till noon. Those of you (read: 0 :P) that know me and my sleep habits know that I would probably do it too. It would be grand. But, alas, mine eyes and prior commitments treat me differently than life itself, so, for the time being, I must bid thee (both of you in 'The Artist Formerly Known As Blogspot' land and my laptop) farewell for the night/morning.


Adieu.

Oh My Sweet, Sweet Mother Of............Babies?

So, I was originally going to start hacking this baby to pieces and write this friggin' bad boy as a review of Daredevil. Yes, I know it's as old as your mom............but I finally got around to watching it a few mere hours ago. So, instead of going through it, picking it apart, I will say this. Ben Affleck. Great actor (see Jersey Girl and/or Good Will Hunting for reference material). Colin Farrell. Cheesiest dialogue known within the entire history of mankind. It would be akin to scripting a movie about the events in the Garden of Eden and the only lines you gave Eve were after God banishes her and Adam from the Garden for eating the forbidden fruit, she turns to Adam and says, "Whoops. My bad."

And it had the cheesiest fight scenes ever. Ever.

Although it is nowhere near being on par with such awesome superhero fare as Batman Forever, Spiderman 3, The Tick, or Earthworm Jim (hey, you have to represent somehow ;) ), I still thought it was a decent watch, despite each and every word I have previously mentioned. Smooth.

Today, I started working towards some goals. Reading more. Being less lazy. Getting a wife. Ring any bells? The reading more got done while I was reading an article HM when I was planning on plowing through some C.S. Lewis (not Narnia. I'm talking his deep crap. Mere Christianity represent.), but that clearly did not end up happening. The being less lazy ended up happening when I decided to do some dishes. And the getting a wife................? Well..........let's just say I'm still working on that one ;).

It was also quite the random day. I randomly got woken up by the Internet repair guy when he showed up without warning at about 10 this morning. It was kinda funny though, so it's all good. Then my friend/roommate and I ended up chatting about how he was in Ann Arbor yesterday, chillin'. Then I went back to sleep around 11:30 and proceeded to wake back up at about 3:45. Sweetness came in by the droves.

I also came to a few more conclusions, among the old and the new, today. Some preachers are friggin' CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZY muckanuckas. Seriously. When you preach, a. actually preach using the Bible, not pulling crap out of the top of your head, b. DON'T think you're more important than Jesus. You aren't. No single person (other than Jesus) is infallible., and c. people like Benny Hinn and TD Jakes and the reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally strange Pentecostals (no, I'm not Pentecostal-bashing. I am one. I'm just talking about the ones that are waaaaaaaay out there and don't preach about crap from the Bible, and that goes from anyone from any denomination. Not just Pentecostals. Moving on...............) are.................interesting.


Oh sweet, sweet joy.


Sweet, sweet joy indeed.

Initiation.

I have officially initiated this blog.

Its initiatingness will initiate mothers and small children the world over.

Right now, I'm listening to old Skillet. (For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, look up a band named Skillet. Listen to any of their albums before Collide. Now that we are all well acquainted, moving along.) Oh yeah. Invincible represent.

Remember back in the day when crap would convict your pants off? Like, I'm talking Smiley Kids, Sick of Change, Calibretto 13 (when they still had the 13), old Skillet........all that jazz. I miss it. I really do. Listening to all that stuff back in the day made me look back and think, "Holy crap. I really need to be more like Jesus and this is how I should be more like Jesus." I got more out of punk from back in the day than I did ANY sermon sitting in church (except for the rare occasion, as well as things like camp, youth conferences, et cetera, up until I came to Bible college this past fall. Go figure.). To put things into perspective, I started going to church the minute I came out of the womb. I know exactly how it goes ;).

I should probably get to sleep now. So should you.

Have a good one, all you crazy muckanuckas ;).