January 2012
58 posts
Next Year In Jerusalem! →
All I can say is… Next year in Jerusalem. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
December 2011
39 posts
This Christian's take on Japan tourism
clee:
I’ve been in Japan for a few days now. Most of them have been visiting Kyoto. Unlike my parents’ home in downtown Tokyo, Kyoto is more rural and traditional Japanese. Most of the tourism there (and in most of Japan, but there especially) involves visiting Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines.
It’s an awkward situation to be in as one who is amazed at the architecture of these buildings and...
“Lord I Offer My Life” — May...
Sound
The Hallelujah Chorus is taken from this section of Revelation: “Hallelujah! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.” Read it for yourself:
Then I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give the...
Will
I’ve been reading through Zechariah and finding some really interesting
things. As I’m also on the lookout for God’s will, I found this passage
particularly interesting:
“For thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘Just as I purposed to do harm to
you when your fathers provoked Me to wrath,’ says the LORD of hosts,
‘and I have not relented, so I have...
Joanna: Two thirds equals a pair!
Beauty
“Music is not robust to degradation.”
I’m watching a video about the attempt to restore musical cognition to patients with cochlear implants. They perceive language well, but pitch is apparently nowhere close—and even if the pitch was close, the music would still sound terrible. (In my humble opinion, a pitch sounds the worst when it’s just a little bit wrong,...
Me: Choral music. The most hipster of all!
Caleb: So ironic!
“Who Am I”, recorded in 2007.
Again,...
“Fix You” (no beatbox… feel free...
Merry Christmas?
dragonshiryu123:
It’s been pretty interesting coming home for Christmas. Most of my family is together for the first time in a year and a half. We’ll be complete after new years, when Joyce comes home. This year, mainly this semester, has been the first time where I’ve really contemplated these big holidays that we, as believers, celebrate. And Christmas has been no exception.
I first began...
The Only Thing You Can Take With You
And I heard a voice from heaven, saying, “Write, ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on!’” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “so that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow with them.”
Christmas Presents
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to thank my parents enough for how they consistently sacrifice themselves in order to point me toward God. They do this by praying every day for my siblings and me (for a long time… I sat in on it once and almost fell asleep), by giving me so many good things (like the enjoyment of singing and the desire to learn), and by striving after God in all...
“A friend loves at all times,
and a brother is born for a time of adversity.”
– Proverbs 17:17 (via songofvictory)
What is Love?
songofvictory:
I used to think that I knew what love was. I’m not talking about love between brothers, not even love between a parent and child. I’m talking about a romantic relationship. What is love? I also realize that every time I type what is love I sing baby don’t hurt me in my head.
So we’re supposed to love each other based on agape, right? What’s the difference between agape...
How to Ensure that God Will Act in Your Life
Her leaders pronounce judgment for a bribe, Her priests instruct for a price And her prophets divine for money. Yet they lean on the LORD saying, “Is not the LORD in our midst? Calamity will not come upon us.” Therefore, on account of you Zion will be plowed as a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins, And the mountain of the temple will become high places of a forest.
Tell other people...
dragonshiryu123:
“Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.”
-1 Corinthians 16:13-14
Interesting how Paul speaks of something so much more than a lifestyle. Be on the alert, be standing firm, be men, be strong. All that stuff you’re doing? Let it be in love. It’s not a lifestyle—it’s just who we are.
I don't think any death should be celebrated
jaeunki:
no matter how horrible that person was.
Unless it’s my own!
I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me.
Lose your life to gain it.
“We get to spend a lot of time with other young pastors. I think the most...”
– Matt Chandler, “The Image and Glory of God”, Part 2
“How we defined an idol in week two was a desire, and desires aren’t inherently...”
– Matt Chandler, Buying the Field (via solideogloriaa)
Me: I don't like this song. It doesn't mean anything.
Talha: Why does everything have to mean something?! Do I have to mean something to you?
Me: ...
Talha: Wait that's bad! I better mean something to you! Tell me I mean something to you.
“You say the most important thing on the face of the earth is to know Jesus...”
– Paul Washer (via joshuadylan)
Studying for DSP
Me: I want to build an artificial brain that thinks like my brain.
Nick: That's impossible. No one thinks like you do.
Ben: Yeah... you'd have to build a normal brain...
Nick: And then punch it a bunch of times!
Ben: I was going to be nicer and say spill coffee on it.
“The Gospel came to the Greeks and the Greeks turned it into a philosophy.
The...”
– The Problem with Pastor as Rock Star (via more than 95 theses)
Another Random Thought
I’ve been poking around the internet but I can’t find what I’m looking for. You’ll have to believe me!
As a believer in a Creator, I heard things growing up about how the Earth was in a close-to-perfect position in the solar system, and later I heard about how the Sun was in a a close-to-perfect position in the Milky Way. Perhaps someday I’ll hear how the Milky Way...
Random Thought
So the fall of man was a desire to be God. In some sense, we wanted to take God’s place, so we strove to usurp him. (Gen 3)
The call of God is his desire to make us look like him. He calls us to strain toward the place that he has prepared for us. (Phil 3)
I think this is a fundamental flaw in much of what I do—that many of the “good” actions I do are more of a desire to...
Some of the most famous words from Hosea:
Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from death? O Death, where are your thorns? O Sheol, where is your sting? Compassion will be hidden from My sight.
This confused the heck out of me. God is going to ransom these people, but them turn around and hide compassion from them? Why are these two completely different concepts...
Hope (Joyful Noise, Christmas 2011)
[I wrote this as a possibility for the insert in the program for our Christmas concert, but it ended up being a little off-topic. If you come to the concert, you can instead read what this really cool person wrote—I recommend coming!]
—
When people (read: aunts and uncles) ask me how school is going, I’m never sure how to respond. If I’m honest with them, I’d say...
“In the west we go through these seasons of new-fangled theologies. The whole...”
– Ravi Zacharias (via solideogloriaa)
12 Reasons for Christmas →
“For this I was born and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth” (JOHN 18:37).
“The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 JOHN 3:8; cf. HEBREWS 2:14–15).
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (MARK 2:17).
“The Son of Man came to seek and to save the...
You only get one second chance, but that’s what third chances are for. (Col 3:13; Matt 18:22)
The Gift of Self-Forgetfulness →
Christian growth is not becoming stronger and stronger, more and more competent. Christian growth and progress is marked by a growing realization of just how weak and incompetent we are and how strong and competent Jesus continues to be for us.
Good stuff, but a little abstract. Just to fill this out a little bit—I think there is a time and place to think about both the old self and the...
“To me one thing that has emerged from my experience and from very rigorous...”
– Neurosurgeon/Neuroscientist Dr. Eben Alexander in an interview regarding his NDE (via solideogloriaa)
"All men will know"
Jesus is eating with his disciples, and then suddenly Judas leaves. Immediately following, Jesus has this to say:
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.
With his death so near, “love” here takes on the strongest...