I can picture God as I or any struggle through thoughts of depressed relationship between us: He looks upon us with wide dialated eyes and forcefully yet with peace and an overflowing heart says, "I still want you. I have not changed my mind about you yet, nor will I. Here's my love. Take it. Know it. Embrace it. I'm embracing you. I do not say you have never forsaken Me. I do not say that you have never played the whoremonger. I do say My faithfulness toward you will endure. Remember - I am love. Therefore, I am faithful. Your relationship with me is not based on you and your character. It is based on Me and Mine. I will not change. My thoughts about you won't either. Therefore, you are mine forever, o dearly beloved of My soul."

"I love you more than the sun and the stars that I tought how to shine - you are Mine and you shine for me too. I love you yesterday and today and tomorrow, I'll say it again and again - I love you more!" - Matthew West

What does it mean to be "right with God"? I would suppose that it means to be a person who runs after God's own heart. Wouldn't that assume that the same person is himself resembling God's own heart? Granted we are fallen. Granted we will not fully resemble Him until glory. But, like David who was an obvious sinner more than other Biblical examples of a Godly person, we can have God's desires be our own and pursue them as much as we are able. My problem is realizing that I don't have to understand every problem to the fullest extent in order for it to be dealt with. I can seek God while still having problems. Isn't God the one who is able to defeat the sin? So why do I think I have to have my problems under my thumb in order to be "right with God"? If I wait for that I will never be useful for God because I will never be satisfied because of Him. Rather, the recognition of our sin ought make us awefully consider God who calls us His beloved and chosen regardless of our sins against Him. We ought to consider the grace that yet called us. What did David do in most of his Psalms? Work out his own problems in his head and then display his thoughts on parchment? Rather he drew a picture of the person of God, to His praise. When David saw his sin, he turned the gaze of his heart to God who did not change His mind about him.

I was reading Isaiah 5 this morning before bed and was immensely blessed by the first 7 verses. It tells an allegory of a planter planting a "beloved vineyard" and making all the necessary preparations to assure a quality and bountiful reaping of grapes. To the planter's dismay, all the vineyard produced was wild grapes. It was as if the planter had done nothing to the vineyard at all. Had he done nothing, the end would have been the same. Nothing but wild, useless grapes. God compares this story to His interaction with Israel. Though God dealt wisely with His beloved nation and blessed them beyond measure, Israel still lived as though God had no part with them - as though He never had existed. They claimed their own lives. Back to the allegory: God, acting as the planter, upon realizing the outcome of the crop, decided to let the field be "devoured" or "grazed over." He tore down the walls to the field for it to be trampled down by whatever fealt like coming through. The planter would no longer weed or till it. Comparing it to Israel, it was as if God said "If you wish to live as though I don't exist, then I will grant your wish. I will leave you to yourselves that you might see what will become of you apart from Me." The vinedresser in the allegory left the field to itself and it was destroyed by natural events. In like manner would Israel be destroyed when left to it's weak self. What's this mean to me? Many times I play the part of Israel in this story. I live as though He doesn't exist, though I make my pious claims that my circles expect. My heart doesn't really acknowledge Him, though my mind might. I have no feelings for Him at all, and true love will always come complete with feelings of some sort to some degree. Through all of this, I lose sight of reality; I find myself strong, and God unneccessary. So, God lets me see what I am when left to myself, and it is the most depressing experience imaginable. However, the point of His tactic is to bring me back to Himself, as it realines my perceptions with reality. Too bad I don't always recognize reality right away when it layed out right in front of my face. I'm way too stubborn. Dumb pride.

I've been thinking a lot about Christian liberty lately. Most would apply the discussion to personal standards, but I'm not so sure the idea keys in on standards. It may impact standards practically, but only indirectly. Galatians 5:1 tells us to stand in the liberty of Christ, not the yoke of bondage. This yoke is what the false teachers, probably Jews, were trying to give new Christians, saying they had to keep the law of Moses with Christianity. I have fallen into this belief personally, but the yoke is not the law of Moses. Rather I convince myself that unless I can comprehend Scriptural ideas as much as I can apply practically, I am not right with God. I have been learning that the Christian life is lived by the same grace that saved me, and my salvation is based on the mystery of God's love and providence. Both of which factors I cannot comprehend. How then is my life to be based upon rational ability instead of faith? Is not faith the evidence of things not seen? So I have replaced faith with self-effort, similar to the yoke of Moses' law. I am commanded to live in liberty. Liberty lets one live free because of the expense of another. I've nothing to contribute - not even my mind or heart. Rather, those are effected by the one who is sovereign over them, and wisdom is gained only because God chooses to impart it to the one who has already known God by His grace through faith.

This is a response to a question asked regarding a previous post: how do you limit the noise in church? In order to answer this question, one must have a proper understanding of noise. What is it? Is it completely external? Noise is anything that hinders clear transferal of communication. Examples of external sources of noise would be an email written in cell phone text language, a noisy room, staticy phone, etc. In church, some examples would be the pastor wearing a clown suit, the sermon being choppy and illogically presented without flow. These are some typical examples. However, one often goes unnoiticed: a traditionalistic mindset in the congregation. This mindset finds it's comfort in the fact that everything is done the way it's always been done. If something is different, critisism and offense arises in the minds of the people. Notice this comfort and basis for offense has nothing to do with what church is about. This mindset comes with a "spiritual" contentment with "doing church" regardless of terminology involved. Therefore, the working of the Spirit is quenched by "leave everything the same" mentality. Change is a swear word. The mindset toward church inevitably latches onto one's mindset toward spiritual things in one degree or another. As I have observed churches, this is typical. A church gets stuck in a rut of traditionalism, spiritaully grows weaker - both tr'ism and spiritual weaknes working together - but then experiences revival. Then things naturally tend to change in the service: the people welcome and even encourage spontanuity, things are cut out of the service to give room for something else that's actually worth doing, etc. So what needs to happen to eliminate noise? One thing, get rid of comfort in how things have always been done. The people need to come to church wanting to worship their God together, regardless of the order of service or elements involved (as long as those elements are worshipful in the first place). If the mindset of the people worships God with the individual elements, then they can do so no matter what order they are in. The problem is that people just "do" the elements of church without being consumed by their God in those elements. So, the lack of noise starts with a right heart. Other options beyond that is to change things up to help people not get stuck in a rut. If a rut is perceivable, it might be wise for a pastor to have a family discussion with the congregation about it, and maybe even take out the cause of the rut for a sufficient amount of time. The service does not have to reflect the immutability of God, but rather praise Him for Him.

A house fire will eventually go out on its own. But the hard work comes with preventative measures - keeping the fire from starting in the first place. Most Christians think they show patience when the internal heat eventually goes away. Rather, such quenching is the natural degression of the flame as teh flame sparking event grows more distant from the concern of the individual. This happens faster or slower depending on the personality's response to or thought processes concerning a certain event. But the flame itself, though not necessarily displayed outwardly, is still spiritually destructive and sinful. Patience is the spiritual fruit that prevents a flame from appearing altogether when a spark occurs. It is making the house flame resistant by nature. This quality grows in a person as Christ imparts to that individual His mind and heart. "Let patience have her perfect work." To be perfect is not to be relative to the extremity of circumstances.

Some see hell as the gun held to their head as someone threatens them. "If you don't accept My grace, I'll pull the trigger!" Hell was never intended to be used by God to threaten. It is a byproduct to ignoring His grace. It was "created for the devil and his angels," i.e., not for humans. So why does one go to hell? That one fails to allow Go'd grace to reign and do His work, i.e., to reject the saving blood of Christ. Why does a person go hell for that? It is a rejection of cleansing by the stained person whose stains cannot enter the presence of God because of His holiness (uniqueness, seperateness). It is a challenge to His glory. Therefore, we are saved for His glory, not our eternal comfort, nor because we give into the hell-gun threat. To give into a threat is not to do so because of the worthy nature of the threatener, but because of desire for personal comfort and life. We are not saved for such reasons. This would mock God by our pride filled motives. We are not saved for us. Heaven is not a reward for accepting His grace. We are saved for God and because of God. We are created for His pleasure - should we be saved for any other reason?