Walmart employee trampled to death on Black Friday

Robert made me aware of this sad article. It's sad to see the grip that saving a few bucks has on many of us, turning man into something that resembles a beast.

"Those who desire to get rich...plunge people into ruin and destruction."

Become a wise consumer of culture

Josh Jackson, editor of Paste Magazine, recently wrote a short blurb on the search in our lives among the countless entertainment options.

"I think I may have a problem...With nearly every CD released coming through my office, most every film I want to see already in my Netflix queue and more magazine subscriptions than would be humanly possible to read, I’m never at a loss for some form of entertainment to fill the gaps in life. Even when I’m standing in line at the back, I’ve got a phone in my pocket with access to free games, YouTube videos and the rest of that wonderful composite of all the knowledge of recorded human history: the Internet. I’m in danger of, as Neil Postman put it, amusing myself to death.

It’s been 47 years and billions of entertainment options since that great ‘malaise’ Binx Bolling, in Walker’s Percy’s The Moviegoer, found more meaning and purpose in his trips to the cinema than in his own life. To counter that, he became enamored with the search--’To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.’ I like to think I’m on that search, and I find that books like The Moviegoer, as well as music, film, magazines--and even TV and video games--can illuminate the path ahead. But only if I’m vigilant about actually living, and separating the wheat from the chaff when I do stop to enjoy a piece of our culture.

...At Paste, we see it as our job to help you discover entertainment options pertinent to your search--not to serve as a replacement for your own story. I believe we were put on this earth to help redeem it. The best music, film and culture will do you no good if you’re buried under it. Become a wise consumer of culture. Or better yet, become a creator of it."

I've blogged before on why you check out Paste Magazine. Do it.

The Audience of One

Roy spoke Sunday about community. He said that community a sense of belonging and that it's crucial that we first make sure we're living before God, our Audience of One. If we don't belong to Him first and foremost, our relationships become strained because we'll never be completely satisfied with the community we have. We'll always seek to gain maximum approval from others. And we'll always seek to find the "perfect" community in which there are no problems because everyone is all about us. He even cited Adam and Eve's perfect community and how they weren't ultimately satisfied with it. They wanted to be God. And in a sense, we act the same way we don't allow ourselves to live solely before and belong to the Audience of One.

Tim Challies also recently blogged about this idea here. He mentions it regarding leadership and takes a look at Os Guinness's book, The Call. He points out really interesting stories of celebrities who go to extreme measures to make sure they are praised by others. He says this of the book:

"In The Call, Guinness discusses narcissism in the context of audience. Christians are to be motivated to serve and to please an audience of One. We are to called to seek the pleasure of God."

I appreciate Roy and Tim discussing this idea. For me, this concept of living before an Audience of One has been my chief aim over the last five years. Back in 2003, in the midst of struggling with anxiety that was rooted in self-absorption, God revealed to me in various ways how the key to freedom was living before Him alone. I think there were two key books that I read that year that helped me start moving towards this kind of freedom. The first was In the Shadow of the Almighty which is mainly journals and letters penned by Jim Elliot. In the book, he has a chapter entitled "AUG" or Approved Unto God. To see him focus his efforts there, as a student at Wheaton, was a powerful thing for me to see.

The second book is Humility by Andrew Murray. In it, I began to discover the true freedom of getting outside of myself and being caught up with who I was in Christ. The quote that has had the MOST profound impact on me outside the Bible comes from this book. It says:

"It is indeed blessed-the deep happiness of heaven-to be so free from self that whatver is said about us or done to us is lost and swallowed up in the thought that Jesus is all.""

That is what I seek.

I need Africa more than Africa needs me

I was asked by Mocha Club to write about the concept of why ‘I need Africa more than Africa needs me.’ Mocha Club is a community-based website where members can start a team and invite friends to join them in giving $7 a month – the cost of 2 mochas – to support a project in Africa. Mocha Club's vision is to provide a way for people who don't have hundreds or thousands of dollars to make a difference in Africa.

When I think about that statement, it's a little difficult at first. I'm an American. I'm a guy. I have a job and a place to live and really everything else I need...right? Well, as I think about it more, I realize I'm still lacking something. I'm lacking people around me that are different enough from me to help me get outside of myself. I live in the north Atlanta suburbs and nearly everyone I am surrounded by is pretty much just like me. We're mostly all white. We all rank among the wealthiest 5% of the world. We all have been influenced by the consumeristic, individualistic, and materialistic mindset of 21st century America. We are taught to be self-sustaining. But...

I need Africa more than Africa needs me because I need to see the world as God really created it. He created it in diversity, and He desires unity in that diversity. The people and culture of Africa are vitally important for helping us realize that the kingdom of God is not just about a people and a culture just like us. God made every person on this planet in His image and we need Africa to see more of who God really is.

There are huge atrocities going on in Africa. Children are being taken captive and used as soldiers, water availability and purity is a huge problem, AIDS continues to sweep across the continent; these just to name a few. And God intends for us not to just pity them, but to partner with them in bringing His kingdom here on earth, as it is in heaven.

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section or even blog about it yourself. Join in the worthwhile cause of recasting the damaging images that force pity over partnership. Come back Dec 1st to see what Mocha Club is doing about reforming that image.

Turmoil in DR Congo

The Big Picture, over at Boston.com, has done a photo journalism piece on the turmoil going on in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The pictures are very sobering.

Also, here's a timeline of key events in DR Congo.

Thy righteousness is in heaven

Because of Clay's encouragement, I recently relistened to John Piper's biography of John Bunyan. The sermon is full of rich insight in the areas of suffering, God's sovereignty, and Bible memory, but the most significant thought for me in the last couple days came from Bunyan's conversion experience. He says this:

"One day as I was passing into the field...this sentence fell upon my soul. Thy righteousness is in heaven. And methought, withal, I saw with the eyes of my soul Jesus Christ at God's right hand; there, I say, was my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me, he wants [=lacks] my righteousness, for that was just before him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness was Jesus Christ himself, 'The same yesterday, today, and forever.' Heb. 13:8."

What a wonderful thought that is. When we sin overtakes us and wants to condemn us, all we have to do is look to Christ and claim His perfect righteousness as ours.

The gift of spiritual handicaps

Have you ever had something in your life that you felt like God should free you from, because it's just causing you pain and frustration? I have. Reading Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 12 brings comfort that God is ultimately loving me when he gives me these "thorns in the flesh," because I have to look outside my self and depend on Him. This comes from the Message:

"...I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan's angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn't think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,

'My grace is enough; it's all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.'

Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become. "

Obama's faith

An interview from 2004 was recently published where Barack Obama sat down with Chicago Sun Times columnist Cathleen Falsani to talk about his faith. In the interview, Obama answers questions regarding his thoughts on sin, heaven , Bible study, prayer, and Jesus. Click here to read it.

Unhappy people watch more TV

An extensive new research study has found that unhappy people watch more TV while those consider themselves happy spend more time reading and socializing...

'TV is not judgmental nor difficult, so people with few social skills or resources for other activities can engage in it,' says the study. 'Furthermore, chronic unhappiness can be socially and personally debilitating and can interfere with work and most social and personal activities, but even the unhappiest people can click a remote and be passively entertained by a TV. In other words, the causal order is reversed for people who watch television; unhappiness leads to television viewing.'

Read the whole thing

(HT:Tim Challies)

Creation is pointing to its Maker

Roy Keely:

The Sages, it is often said, can see no answer to the riddle of religion. But the trouble with our sages is not that they cannot see the answer, it is that they cannot even see the riddle. -GK Chesterton

Everyday I wake up and that should be enough to convince me, yet still I wonder. I then imagine a world where the Sun only rose once. A world with but one lily, with but one wave, with but one instance of love . Would not every instance of these rarities be considered a miracle in of themselves? How have the givens been forgotten as the gifts, the axioms which make all things possible.

The Dazzlingly obvious conclusion now arose in my mind: in the whole history of the universe the laws of Nature have never produced a single event. They are the pattern to which every event must conform, provided only that it can be induced to happen. -CS Lewis

Jesus, our true elder brother

I recently listened to a sermon entitled "Prodigal Sons" by Tim Keller. In the sermon, Keller shows how the story in Luke 15 is really about both brothers, the elder and the younger. Whether it's our worldly hedonism or it's our religious self-reliance, both lifestyles are in need of God's grace.

At the end of the sermon, Keller sets up a beautiful picture of Christ being our true elder brother.

"The true elder brother would have seen the agony of the Father and said "Father, I'm going to go out and look for my brother. And if he has ruined himself and squandered his inheritance, I'll bring him home at my own expense.' That would have been a true elder brother. Poor kid, he doesn't have a true elder brother...but we do. Jesus Christ gives us a bad elder brother so we'll long for the right one. We don't just need an elder brother to go out in to the next town to find us, we need someone to come from heaven to earth. We don't need an elder brother who brings us in to God's family just at the cost of wallet, but at the cost of his life. Because on the cross, Jesus Christ was stripped naked so that we could be clothed in the robe of honor that we don't deserve. On the cross, Jesus called 'My God, My God', the only time he never called Him Father, because at that moment He was not being treated as a Son so you and I could be. There He paid the debt that deep down we all know we owe. And because everything He had--He had everything the Father had, but He shares it with us and brings us home at enormous expense to Himself. And when you see that, to the degree you see that, it will change the absolute motivation, your whole approach towards God. And you won't be into self-discovery or moral conformity, you'll be a Christian."

Go here to check out more about Tim Keller and get some free sermons. The "Prodigal Sons" sermon is about half-way down the page.

Moving from Vagueness to Specificity

Piper has some advice on how to move from vague feelings of badness to specifically naming sin...and the benefits of this.

"A vague bad feeling that you are a crummy person is not the same as conviction for sin. Feeling rotten is not the same as repentance."

Read the whole thing to see how and why he makes the move.

Rigorous Study of the Bible Should Lead to Worship

I love this story about Piper as he explains why he quit teaching. He desired to have the diligent study of the Word to be in conjunction with singing and worship. It shows what God wants for us as we study His Word in depth.

"One of the highest points in my short, six-year teaching career in the Biblical Studies department at Bethel College was in the spring of 1977. I had spent the entire semester on Romans 9-11 leading about dozen advanced Greek students through the rigorous exegesis of these three chapters. It was the final class of the year and I was drawing the final 'arcs' on the board to sum up all the relationships between all the units. I drew one last arc over all three chapters, from one side of the board to the other, and underlined Romans 11:36 as the ultimate point of the entire section:
'From him, though him, and to him are all things. To him be glory forever.' Before I could turn around, these twelve students—some of the brightest I ever had—began to sing the doxology.

I didn’t ask them to. I didn’t plan it. It just came out. And that’s the way it was for Paul when he wrote this. He comes to the end of these three chapters on the ultimate purposes of God to show the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, and he breaks into doxology as he closes. All theology, rightly grasped, leads the mind and the heart to doxology. The story of God is about the glory of God. All revelation of the ways of God leads to exultation over the wonders of God."

It comes from this sermon.

Submitting Ourselves to Divine Surgery

This post speaks to the similarities between going through a "routine" surgery and dealing with our own sin. The author basically goes in for what he considers a routine surgery. He is surprised to find out that more equipment and more staff are there than he would have thought to be necessary. Here's his conclusion:

"Deeply entrenched sin can only be taken care of with a full surgical team. Dignity must be laid aside; others must be allowed into your shame. There can be no self-surgery with such sin—no way around the humiliation of exposing yourself to others in a less than flattering way. We cannot have both dignity and repentance; both self-respect and freedom. Would you be released from the burden of sin? Then you must lose your pride and submit yourself to the divine surgery, knowing the attending nurses in God’s operating room will be—quite awkwardly—your brothers and sisters in the Lord. It’s uncomfortable, humiliating, and the only way."

(HT:Tim Challies)

What's Left After Obama?

Adbusters latest article is an interesting one. It looks at the possible outcomes of Obama taking charge in Washington.

"What are the possible consequences of Obama’s victory? I think there are at least two possibilities that circle in a perhaps melancholy dialectic. One possibility – which is highly unlikely, but at least conceivable – is that the change of regime will lead to local and diverse forms of popular politicization which perhaps might place in question the current socio-economic doxa. On this view, emboldened by Obama’s victory, various groups might accelerate their political activity around issues such as immigrant rights, union representation or corporate greed. What Obama’s victory might unleash is a sequence of progressive radicalizations inside the US and perhaps outside as well that would act as a serious irritant to the usual business of the state or the usual state of business.

The second possibility is the reverse, namely that the popular force that has been mobilized around Obama’s presidential campaign simply exhausts itself in its governmental victory. On this view, once Obama has been elected, citizens can switch off politically and sit back and watch how well his administration does. Politics becomes reduced to a spectacle of media and governmental representation. Furthermore, this possibility is undoubtedly the one favoured by the Obama campaign itself, which explains the somber, slightly disappointed tone to Obama’s speech on the night of his victory: ‘The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term’. On this view, the rhetoric of change (‘Together we can change the country and change the world’) was simply what it took to get people mobilized. Once the victory is secure, there must be no further mobilizations at the popular level. All must henceforth be mediated through the apparatus of government. Politics as the experience of a people suddenly present to itself and aware of its awesome power has to die at the precise moment when a representative government is elected. "

Coldplay last night

It was a pretty cool show.
Here's a view of Scott and Rachel from our seats (down with all the rest of the common people).

Scripture is the nest that teaches us how to live and how to fly

"If any man despises the words of Scripture as language fit for simpletons and, in the stupidity of pride, climbs out of the nest where he was reared, woe betide him, for he shall meet his fall. Have pity on such callow fledgelings, O Lord, for those who pass by on the road may tread them underfoot. Send you angel to put them back in the nest, so that they may live and learn to fly."

Augustine, Confessions, Book XII, Section 27

The most important word in the universe

from Ray Ortlund

"What is the most important Book in the universe? The Bible. Which book within the Bible is the most important? Romans. Which chapter in Romans is the most important? Chapter 3. Which paragraph in Romans 3 is the most important? Verses 21-26. Which verse in that paragraph is the most important? Verse 25. Which word in verse 25 is the most important? Propitiation: ". . . whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith."

Therefore, the most important word in the most important verse in the most important paragraph in the most important chapter in the most important book within the most important Book in the universe is propitiation. That word is worth studying, understanding, revering."

Propitiation defined

Augustine on joy and suffering

"It is always the case that the greater the joy, the greater is the pain which precedes it."

Confessions, Book VIII, Section 4

The Freedom of Life in the Spirit

The following comes from Galatians 5, starting in verse 16 (The Message version)

"It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don't use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that's how freedom grows. For everything we know about God's Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That's an act of true freedom...Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit. Then you won't feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don't you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?...Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse."

I was really helped by this earlier this morning. It's so easy for me to be selfish. It's difficult to remember the Truth that getting outside myself and serving others in love is where true freedom lies. I often let my emotions dictate how I act towards people, instead of recalling the Truth of Christ's undeserved and uncoditional love for me. And I burden others by seeking their approval of me, instead of coming to them selflessly, trusting in the One who given me all the approval I need.

Spirit of Christ, set me free.