Oh what heartache, what despair. What is this thorn? what is it that would drive me to such ends? How might I stumble upon this path? How I long and ache. I feel called to battle, i feel called to wield the blade. But what enemy do I run to fight? Oh but it is my self that I rush to meet upon those bloodied fields. What is it that makes ones self the enemy? Why must I do this to myself? I must not continue but another minute sitting here with my thoughts, I must take action. For no battle was ever won by a man consumed with his thoughts, the battle is won by the man who takes action. Oh but now the question is what is the action that one must take? Do I take up my sword? Or do I put on the armor? Where may I rest my head? Where may my heart rest? Where may I find understanding, and right thinking, that I may put this enemy behind me and move on? Oh what is this enemy within! Oh how my anger burns against this one!

a blessing and encouragement

This past weekend I had an amazing opportunity. If only for but a moment. I got to stay with a family for one night. You are probably saying so whats the great opportunity, what's the big deal about staying with a family? Now you see that this was not just any family. I've spent a lot of time with many families, seeing how they interact with each other. Now, there is something about me you should know. When I am with a family, I watch them, and observe closely how they interact with each other, and with others. I want to understand how the parents love their children, how they encourage them to grow. I want to understand how the children love their parents and submit to their authority. I want to understand how the children love the Lord, and want to serve Him. Now i have spent time with many families, who bicker and argue. Husbands and wives who seek their own benefit rather than the good of their spouse. Parents who seek their own blessings rather than the blessings of their children. Children who are too concerned with their own desires than to seek to love their parents. Parents who are too concerned with their own vacations too want to spend time with their kids. But not all the families I have spent time with are so flawed, I have seen many husbands who love their wives compassionately and sacrificially. I have seen wives love their husband and kids so affectionately with so much care. But this family I spent time with was different. No, don't get me wrong, Im not trying to put them on a pedestal and say they have no flaws. We all are in process of learning and growing deeper in our spiritual maturity. But they were just closer than the rest I've seen. The father, was a leader. He was a strong man, who didn't feel the need to exert his strength or authority, which actually added to his authority. He was a fisher of men, and discipled men and women to be fishers of men. He loved his wife with humility, meekness, and strength. After a late night of loving young believers and shepherding them to evangelize he woke up early to spend time with the Lord in the scriptures and in prayer. He then continued to clean the house before his wife awoke. His wife displayed a gentle submissive love to her husband. She was so loving to everyone in her home, even though we kept her up late, she enjoyed being able to serve and love those, whom her husband shepherded. It was an amazing thing, as they understood what each other lacked, and the other took up slack in that area so that they could better represent Christ together. They loved their children, encouraging their growth, as the father brought his son along with him in ministering to these young believers, so that his son could understand the importance of discipleship and so one day when the son leaves his fathers household he would continue the work of the gospel. I have only spent a little amount of time with him, but he radiates a joy for the Lord. He is still young, but he has the makings of a great man within him. Their youngest daughter is filled with a joy that can only be understood as a joy in Christ. She is loving and excited. Her interactions with her father are full of love and submission. Not in a submission that is forced and bleak, but in a joyous submission as Christ submits to the father, and the church submits to Christ. Submission because her father loves her unendingly, because her father knows what's best, submission because she loves her father. Her interactions with others show her meekness and humility, not because she is weak because surely she is filled with strength but because she is full of the Love of Christ. And I have had the great opportunity to know their oldest daughter. And I thank God for her, for she is an amazing sister in the Lord. She has such a heart for the gospel and for evangelism. She is bold in her preaching. She has no fear of man, or his rejection. She is never ashamed of the gospel. She is filled with adventure, and doesn't let fear overtake her. Her trust is in the Lord. She is humble and meek, loving, and strong. She has a passion for the scriptures, and her life is marked by prayer. She honors her father and her mother, and values their authority over her that God has entrusted to them. When I see her serve her brothers and sisters down at school I stop and thank God for the father and mother He has given to her, that she was raised in the Lord. I do not wish to imply that everything was always so cheerful, there may have been hard times, but I know that they have grown through those trials, they have grown closer to the Lord through them. I am so thankful for the time that i spent with this family, even if it was only one night.

Salvation to the gentiles

Salvation to the gentiles

John 4:4

“Now he had to go through Samaria”

John uses the word δει which is translated as ‘to be necessary’ to show that Jesus needed to pass through Samaria, which would be the shortest route to go to Galilee from Judea. But the word δει, is consistently used to show divine requirement, or necessity (Jn 3:7,14, 30; 9:4; 10:16; 12:34; 20:9). Which can be seen in John 3:7 when Jesus speaks with nicodemus concerning the need to be born again by spirit, and again in John 3:14 where Jesus says that the Son of man must be lifted up that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. Both of these verses clearly show that the necessity is one of providential plan. If we simply ignored the way that John uses this word in the context of his gospel and ascribed his need to go through Samaria to one of time constraints then we would be blind fools. The fact that he had to go through Samaria due to providential plan is key to this passage as it sets us up to understand that Christ did not come to save just the Jews, but the world. Jesus did not just come to save the chosen ones of Israel, but to extend grace and salvation to everyone who would believe in the name of Christ Jesus. And it is so key the fact that he went into Samaria to show us this fact, due to Samaria’s rocky history with Israel. Samaria was well known for their indiscretions against the Lord and their blasphemous ways. Jews did not associate with Samaritans from the time of the exile to babylon, as it began in 2 Kings 17:23-41 Kings When Israel was exiled to Assyria for walking in the sins of Jereboam, and the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hmath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the people of Israel. The remaining Jews intermarried with these foreigners which was clearly a trespass against the Law of God. When the Jews returned from Exile, they steered clear of the Samaritans, knowing that they, themselves were exiled due to their flagrant violations against their God, therefore they refrained from interacting with them, because of their intermarriage with foreigners and their worship of other gods, even to the point of rejecting their offer of help to build the Temple when they were commissioned to build the temple by King Cyrus. And in response the Samaritans “discouraged the people of Judah and made them afraid to build and bribed counselors against them to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia. And in the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem.” (Ezra 4:4-6) As time progressed the relations between the Jews and the Samaritans worsened into racism, and in Jesus’ day it reached a point where devout Jews would walk completely around Samaria in order that they would not be defiled by their interactions with Samaritans. Which can be seen in John 4:9 “. . . (for Jews do not associate with Samaritans)”, which can actually be translated as “do not use dishes Samaritans have used”. In this we see that Jesus is completely going against Jewish tradition, in order that we may rejoice in that Christ came not only for the Jews, but to save the whole world.

I feel discouraged today. I dont like this place. This place is full of sorrow and there is no love in this place. I want to go back home already. I want to be back with my brothers and sisters. I want to be back with my family, I miss them. I don't know what else to write, i just feel defeated. Not that it is not profitable to be here at least for a short time, so that i can encourage people here, but i feel all joy being sucked out of me. Please pray for me.

Oh what is this. What is in my heart? I feel a torrent of desires, pursuits and goals that race for control. Which do i heed? Is it really a battle? Do i know the one I will follow and I just want to entertain other ideas? Oh my heart yearns. I want to just follow what it wants. But what is a man who gives into the desires of his heart against the guidance of wisdom? Where is his foundation? Should he run off and pursue the desires of his heart too soon? Or should he wait until the appointed time? Oh but where is the joy when a man denies the desires of his heart for a time? Is this what maturity is? To deny thyself the desires of a heart? No, I am not saying we should throw off all reason and wisdom and pursue things simply for the pursuits of my heart at the detriment of holiness and righteousness. But when the desires of my heart are to glorify and honor Christ through a covenant of joy and blessing then why should I not pursue it?

This semester I have been given an amazing opportunity!  I learned more than i ever thought possible.  It wasnt just about head knowledge.  It wasnt knowledge for the sake of knowledge.  It was knowledge that transformed my heart, and my walk with Christ.  I have been challenged in so many ways, I have had so many trials.  And these trials were such blessings.  But I have failed most of them.  I look at where I was, where I am now, and where I could have been, and i can honestly say that I have failed.  I am so much farther than where I was at the beginning of the semester, but I could have been so much farther.  

Ive been wrestling with what it means to be a leader.  I want to train to be a leader, i want to see what that looks like on a day to day basis.  I want to be prepared to lead my wife.  I want to live in the spirit in such a way that i may encourage, build up, guide, and lead my brothers and sisters in living for Christ, and preaching the gospel.  I want to study more than anyone, so that I can guide and build up my brothers in sisters in knowledge of God that will change their hearts, and encourage them in their pursuit of Christ.  I want to gain wisdom and discernment in the spirit that i can guide my brothers and sisters in decisions so that every decision we make will point us back to the cross.  I want to grow in humility to serve my brothers in sisters in a way that will show the love of Christ. 

I really dont know where to go from here.  I just know that this is the desire of my heart.  

Thorn

Oh what is this?  This thorn in my flesh.  That would cripple me to the point of inability to think straight?  How am i so easily deceived?  How am i so easily lead astray?  How can i fall so easily to this spiritual warfare?  Does not the Holy Spirit in me protect me from this?  Is not the Lord Sovereign?  So then why do i stumble with this?  Why do i fall every time?  I do not even have a defense against it?  How  then can i guard against this?  How? please just tell me how.  I can not think straight.  I walk around as if in a stupor.  I think i do right yet I do not.  

For I do not understand my own actions. For x I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with y the law, that it is good. 17 So now z it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwellsa in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 b For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, c it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

Oh how i hate my own actions.  I can not lift this oppression of which i am burdened.  It bears down upon me and i can not escape it.  Oh how I long for God's perfect and pleasing will, but I do not have the ability to carry it out.  For how can I if I can not even think straight? How can i do what is right if Satan blinds me to what is right and what is wrong?  I wish to tear this thorn from my flesh and be free from it, so that I may serve the Lord.  Even now i still am desiring those things that I have been deceived into believing are right.  With my every action i am seeking my destruction.  My very heart yearns to be torn from my chest.  Is it satan that has this hold on my or is it my sinful flesh?  

i want to break

I want to cry

i want to be rid of this burden

i want to be in heaven with Christ

the enemy seeks to conquer me

how long must i fight?

i have not the power to win this fight 

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

Oh this body of death.  So much death.  

The Lord is sovereign and works all things for our good.