The Lame Shall Walk

God really does make the lame able to walk again.

Amanda's roommate of last year has been in France. Her mother has had MS for 25 years. Recently, she has undergone surgery in Costa Rica, and has, since, slowly been able to regain use of her muscles. Her story can be found here.

Praise God.

Word of the Day: sturdy

Quote of the Day: "I feel like I am in a parallel universe!" Emily Groot

More xkcd.

I definitely have this more since I have read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Also, writing a paper for religion on Mark 1:1-20. Why didn't Mark insert the Genealogy of Jesus or the birth of Jesus in his gospel? This confuses me to no end, and there is not one general agreement that theologians and biblical scholars (yes, they aren't the same thing, blew my mind too) can decide upon. Of course, this is frustrating. Someday, if I remember, I'll ask Mark myself.

The most epic part of my week was this: I finally gave a name to the dear and wonderful new iMac that The Crown purchased. It's name is Milton. I think it suits it quite nicely.

Word of the Day: Milton

Quote of the Day: "It's very possible I could have Jewish background! There were a lot of Jewish people in Holland, a long time ago...wait..." Nate Smit

From dust we were created, and to dust we shall return.

Psalm 23

A psalm of David.

¹ The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

² He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,

³ he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.

⁴ Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

⁵ You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.

⁶ Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

Joe Knapper. Grandpa, father, brother. Born: January 19, 1929.

Went to be with the Lord: August 25, 2009.

Psalm 91

¹ He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

² I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust."

³ Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare
and from the deadly pestilence.

⁴ He will cover you with his feathers,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

⁵ You will not fear the terror of night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,

⁶ nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
nor the plague that destroys at midday.

⁷ A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand,
but it will not come near you.

⁸ You will only observe with your eyes
and see the punishment of the wicked.

⁹ If you make the Most High your dwelling—
even the LORD, who is my refuge-

¹⁰ then no harm will befall you,
no disaster will come near your tent.

¹¹ For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;

¹² they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

¹³ You will tread upon the lion and the cobra;
you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

¹⁴ "Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

¹⁵ He will call upon me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.

¹⁶ With long life will I satisfy him
and show him my salvation."

Tell the World

With a close to the Easter season, I am forced to study for my religion course. It's interesting how the content I am studying pertains to witnessing the good news of the Risen Savior to a culture that believes God is dead. We live in a story of Confessional Humanism, caught in the middle of the truth that I AM has already put his redeeming plan into action.

Confessional Humanism 101.

If God is dead, we must replace him as Creator.
If God is dead, we must replace him as Ruler of history.
If God is dead, we must replace him as Savior and Redeemer.

And what do we come up with? Science. The Industrial Revolution. We come up with a consumerist story of the world where religion is only relevant to the individual. What happened to a church that was part of every aspect of society? This is why Christians today are stuck in a rut. Christ has been minimized to our personal Savior. He is no longer the author of history, the ruler of all creation, and the redeemer his fallen people. No, he gets to live in our hearts. But not our cities, not our governments and most definitely not our churches.

Instead, Christians today have to ask themselves. 'Do I believe the Gospel truth that the Bible says- that God is ruler of all creation, and has already won history, and his rule is over ALL things?' or 'Do I believe that Christ is my personal Savior, allowed to come out only on Sundays, but maybe not even then, because he is just relative anyways?'

Alright, so I'm a little irritated. But let's think about this. The North American church is shrinking, not growing. We sit in a comfortable society, where we can have all that we could ever want and need, and as long as our faith is kept in its own box, we can avoid the persecution. No one wants to suffer for their beliefs. Guess what, God says its manditory. You must first die to yourself and to this world, before you can live for him. Take up your cross...

On Good Friday, God sent his only son to the cross to die not only for your sins, but to redeem every part of creation. On Easter, Christ rose from the dead and claimed victory over death itself. And now, we live in a time where God has called us to be witnesses. Soon, Pentecost will be upon us, when God poured out his Spirit so that the whole world may know the good news that the Kingdom is not coming, it is HERE!

(besides the point that Hillsong standing up there is very hypocritical and that the show is what its about, in this Easter season, the lyrics are appropriate.)



I know it's confusing, but we truly live at a crossroads between a perverted society and the supreme truth of Christ. Go ahead, tell the world.

Good, Good Friday

Jesus Before Pilate

²⁸Then the Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. ²⁹So Pilate came out to them and asked, "What charges are you bringing against this man?"

³⁰"If he were not a criminal," they replied, "we would not have handed him over to you."

³¹Pilate said, "Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law."

"But we have no right to execute anyone," the Jews objected. ³²This happened so that the words Jesus had spoken indicating the kind of death he was going to die would be fulfilled.

³³Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?"

³⁴"Is that your own idea," Jesus asked, "or did others talk to you about me?"

³⁵"Am I a Jew?" Pilate replied. "It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it you have done?"

³⁶Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place."

³⁷"You are a king, then!" said Pilate.
Jesus answered, "You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me."

³⁸"What is truth?" Pilate asked. With this he went out again to the Jews and said, "I find no basis for a charge against him. ³⁹But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release 'the king of the Jews'?"

⁴⁰They shouted back, "No, not him! Give us Barabbas!" Now Barabbas had taken part in a rebellion.
(John 18:28-40)

Jesus Sentenced to be Crucified

¹Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. ²The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe ³and went up to him again and again, saying, "Hail, king of the Jews!" And they struck him in the face.

⁴Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews, "Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him." ⁵When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, "Here is the man!"

⁶As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, "Crucify! Crucify!"
But Pilate answered, "You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him."

⁷The Jews insisted, "We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God."

⁸When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, ⁹and he went back inside the palace. "Where do you come from?" he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer. ¹⁰"Do you refuse to speak to me?" Pilate said. "Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?"

¹¹Jesus answered, "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin."

¹²From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jews kept shouting, "If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar."

¹³When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge's seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha). ¹⁴It was the day of Preparation of Passover Week, about the sixth hour.
"Here is your king," Pilate said to the Jews.

¹⁵But they shouted, "Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!"
"Shall I crucify your king?" Pilate asked.
"We have no king but Caesar," the chief priests answered.

¹⁶Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.

The Crucifixion

So the soldiers took charge of Jesus. ¹⁷Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). ¹⁸Here they crucified him, and with him two others—one on each side and Jesus in the middle.

¹⁹Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read:|sc JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. ²⁰Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. ²¹The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, "Do not write 'The King of the Jews,' but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews."

²²Pilate answered, "What I have written, I have written."

²³When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.

²⁴"Let's not tear it," they said to one another. "Let's decide by lot who will get it."
This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled which said,
"They divided my garments among them
and cast lots for my clothing."So this is what the soldiers did.

²⁵Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. ²⁶When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, "Dear woman, here is your son," ²⁷and to the disciple, "Here is your mother." From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.

The Death of Jesus

²⁸Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, "I am thirsty." ²⁹A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus' lips. ³⁰When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

³¹Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. ³²The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other. ³³But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. ³⁴Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. ³⁵The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. ³⁶These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: "Not one of his bones will be broken," ³⁷and, as another scripture says, "They will look on the one they have pierced."

The Burial of Jesus

³⁸Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews. With Pilate's permission, he came and took the body away. ³⁹He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.^d]">[d] ⁴⁰Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. ⁴¹At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. ⁴²Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.
(John 19-entire chapter)

"You know just how far the East is from the West- one scarred hand to the other."
-Casting Crowns

Revival

I am so excited right now. I have just come back from Hot Spot, (for those readers who don't know what that is, the jist is just like an hour and a half of praise and worship) so my excitement comes from a very evident spiritual high. It also comes from the realization that the world situation, finances, and wars are the beginning of an incredible revival in the Church.

Let me explain.

I have this feeling deep inside me that this generation is begging for something new. The church is being turned upside down with radical worship. The African church has spread like wildfire throughout the land. Universities in Korea are meeting for prayer at 5am every morning. The western god of money is falling, and people are desiring more. They want to know why their gods are not answering their calls.

Earlier, I blogged about the 'pursuit of happyness' that this culture is facing. In that pursuit, we have settled for a money-driven society filled with the notion of 'me, me, me'. This mentality is starting to fall apart. People's futures are no longer secure. Big corporations are shutting down. The middle-eastern wars are raging on, as intense as ever. The USA is coming under new leadership. Canadian politics are hitting a climax. The economy is suffering. And in all that, the despair, the brokenness, there is a shift in the modern story. The modern story allowing us to believe whatever we want. The story where a true God is fallacy, and human capability is all that matters- that story is falling apart. In all the mess of the world, and the economy, God is sending a fantastic revival through His church.

It's up to this generation to get out of the pit of religion, and start bringing the Gospel, the story of God's redemptive plan, to the world. The kingdom of God is drawing near. So Christians, I urge you, be on your guard. Spread the good news. For the Spirit is moving.