Be Real

There's something inherently interesting about meeting people. This year I've been the most conscious I have ever been when it comes to introducing myself to those whom I've never interacted with before. First impressions are interesting but rarely accurate. I've learned part of the fun is follow up introduction after that initial awkward meeting stage is complete.

I've challenged myself to be real this year, even when I meet people for the first time. Enough with the superficiality I've only grown to hate more since I came to college. I've always hated fake people. People who care so much about their reputations, they forget to be honest, not only with themselves, but with their friends.

So this year I want to be real. People may not like it... and I'm working on that. But I'd much rather prefer honesty with people than acting like everything is okay when it is not.

Come Thou Fount

It has always amazed me, that in a day and age where song writers struggle to write songs with applicable meaning, that many hymn writers of old already succeeded in this feat centuries before today's artists! Take the hymn "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing." I am amazed at the theological richness found within the hymn that is easy to overlook when singing it.

First Stanza:
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love

The author, Robert Robinson, recognizes that it is God who must tune our hearts to sing of the grace of God in songs of loudest praise. The Lord must teach us this "melodious sonnet" of His redeeming love. Our salvation is not something we earn or achieve through our own merit. The hymn writer writes that God tunes and teaches us to sing of the love of His redemption for us.

Second Stanza:
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Hither by Thy help I'm come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.

Ebenezer is an Old Testament reference to "God who has helped us." Certainly the Lord has come to our rescue from sin bringing us home to fellowship with Him. Once again the author notes how Jesus sought us when we were strangers wandering from God. "Interposed" is a key word referencing the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross taking our sins as His own. There was nothing we could do that deserved this sacrifice. Left to our own devices, we had wandered away! Christ did not only die for us, He also came sought to rescue us. What an amazing Savior we have!

Stanza Three:
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let that grace now like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above

I think that might be my favorite stanza. When we think of the concept of being a "debtor" to something, a negative connotation immediately comes to mind. We do not want to be in debt. Sin is a debt. It is a debt that continues to grow larger and larger to the point where we would never be able to pay it off. Imagine a debt like that in your personal life. A debt that grows by the millions per year while you only made a tiny fraction of that amount. Even if you paid some of it off, the debt would only grow larger. But Christ is our sacrifice. He paid that debt for you and me. And now we are debtors but no longer to sin, but to His grace. And as we live day by day in the process of sanctification, our debt to grace increases and increases. But this is not a bad thing as the author notes for he wishes to be "constrained" with a fetter to the Lord.
The author recognizes the tendency in man to wander. But through the grace of God we can constrained and bound to Jesus Christ forever. What a wonderful promise that our Father gives to us.

Truly this treasured hymn of the church has much to teach us when we stop for a moment to meditate on its words.

Mark 5:25-34

25A woman who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years, 26and had endured much at the hands of many physicians, and had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse-- 27after hearing about Jesus, she came up in the crowd behind Him and touched His cloak. 28For she thought, "If I just touch His garments, I will get well." 29Immediately the flow of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction. 30Immediately Jesus, perceiving in Himself that the power proceeding from Him had gone forth, turned around in the crowd and said, "Who touched My garments?"31And His disciples said to Him, "You see the crowd pressing in on You, and You say, 'Who touched Me?'' 32And He looked around to see the woman who had done this. 33But the woman fearing and trembling, aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth. 34And He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your affliction."

Although this is a familiar passage, I think it is a good reminder of how intentional Christ acted here on earth. Even His miracles point to a higher purpose, picturing His own actions as Lord. The woman in the crowd suffering from a bleeding disease would have been considered unclean within Jewish society. Such a curse would have prevented her from worship in the temple and fellowship with God's people. She was denied the right to participate in one of the most important aspects of culture- that being the act of coming together with her people to worship Jehovah.

Similarly, before we are justified through Christ, we are unable to have full communion and fellowship with the Lord. Our sin prevents our worship with the Creator as we are unclean with sin. Like the woman, we seek the help of outside sources spending time and money where we will not find help. We look to our own strength and the wisdom of the world for answers. However our own actions will not satisfy our healing and restoration to fellowship with the Lord. We must come before Him humbly, on our knees in faith, knowing that when we are drawn to Him, Christ provides healing and salvation.

Jesus chose not to ignore the woman rather taking the time to note her faith. He will also acknowledge us before the Father as our Mediator and the Savior of our sins. Because of His work on the cross, we are no longer unclean. How marvelous this miracle of Jesus to not only do a wonderful thing in the life of a suffering woman, but to also show a picture of His remarkable work of salvation in the lives of suffering humanity!

Summer Hopes

“We have within ourselves
Enough to fill the present day with joy,
And overspread the future years with hope.”

-Wordsworth

Six weeks from yesterday I move back down to Hillsdale. I am honestly really excited- and optimistic- for whatever the next year will bring. Days like today remind me why I am pursuing knowledge at a college like Hillsdale. Being frustrated with a summer job seems like such a pointless waste of emotion. Yet it is hard for me to be apathetic about anything, hence I tend to become frustration when something I invest it does not work out. Regardless, it has been my hope and prayer this entire summer for the Lord to bless this upcoming year. I am reminded however, that God is faithful and sufficient. My happiness is in Him not because He does what I want Him to do, but because I grow closer to Him and His will each day.

We live and interact in such an emotion driven culture. Everything is subjective to the current state of our feelings. Think of how often our initial reaction is "how we feel" about it. There's nothing wrong with our emotions, but I am thankful that God is teaching me not to overlook His truth within our emotions and feelings.

It is true that within ourselves we can offer joy each day and hope to our future. But such hope is based also on our emotions and feelings which can deceive is. When we conform to God and His will, He will be within us. He will be our joy and our hope. He will be sufficient for all our needs.

Reformed Theology

Listening to John Piper and Sovereign Grace sermons on the ipod at work has prompted a renewed personal appreciation for Reformed theology. Growing up in the reformed tradition, its teachings were definitely something I took for granted without truly understanding the meaning. Yet now they have become a source of comfort for me at this point in my life. Even though so much of life changes, knowing that my faith remains rock solid has been assuring rather than disconcerting, as answers sometimes can be. Especially, if they are answers that are not popular with modern culture.

By recognizing that our depravity is actually GOOD news because of the sacrifice of Jesus, I have realized that the Christian life is never about yourself. It never seeks to bring glory or credit of any kind to the individual. This fact alone has been comforting because when I look at myself, I see someone who does not even come close to receiving any sort of credit for anything I have ever "accomplished." My salvation especially, is not something I deserve any recognition for.

The process of sanctification must continue if we are to live in Christ. What a struggle to live each day trusting Christ all the time for the renewal of our mind and heart away from ourselves and into His likeness...

west michigan weather from this past weekend

The raging storms may round us beat,
A Shelter in the time of storm
We’ll never leave our safe retreat,
A Shelter in the time of storm.


God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea And rides upon the storm.



There’s not a plant or flower below, but makes Thy glories known,
And clouds arise, and tempests blow, by order from Thy throne;
While all that borrows life from Thee is ever in Thy care;
And everywhere that we can be, Thou, God art present there.



I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth." Genesis 9:11

Summer 2008

Is it too early to want to go back to school already?