Stopping to Think

Disclaimer: If any of you recognize or remember this, it's because I wrote it over a year ago.  I read it tonight and saw some changes that needed to be made and thought I'd add a link to the video.  Matthew 11:28-30 (NKJV) -“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” I tend to struggle a lot with anxiousness in my life. And I choose the word anxiousness instead of worry, because it’s not necessarily a conscious thing, so much as it is a subliminal or mindset based problem. I don’t necessarily waste my day worrying about how this thing or that is going to turn out. It’s something that has taken up residence, “set up shop”, if you will, in my mind. And it shows up in everything from what I think about, to how I think about it, and eventually flowing into my actions. And all of t...

One of these days I will be cool and have a website with links.  Until then I'll just write a blog post filled with links.  Okay, so maybe two links doesn't constitute filling.  But regardless. Genuine Motivation "Press On" archives : http://genmoycm.wordpress.com/category/press-on/ Link to my Facebook notes.  A few okay ramblings there, along with some pointless stuff.  I may rewrite some of it down the road: http://www.facebook.com/#!/cwdole?sk=notes

David.  Isaiah.  Job.  Jeremiah.  Jesus.  I could add more but you may want me to quit listing and start writing.  What that short list (which could easily be expanded) is in reference to, is people who were broken before -or broken by- God.  People whos hearts were broken either by their own sin or the sin of others, and in some cases, both.  One of my favorite parts of the Gospel narrative is Matthew 27:46  where Jesus cries out, "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”"  Here we see Jesus, God of all the universe, come to earth as a perfect and sinless man-broken and abandoned by God, through no fault of His own.  This is the epitomy of despair, when He who is God is forsaken by His Father.  That is a brokeness our finite minds cannot fathom. His words here echo the words of the Psalmist in Psalm 22:1-2, "My G...

A sense of urgency.  It's something I desire greatly.  I have been listening to a lot of Christian hip-hop lately, which is odd for me cause honestly I'm kind of a country music guy, and most Christian music just annoys me with it's lack of depth spiritually.  But I ran across some stuff by Lecrae and Tedashii one time while looking for John Piper clips on youtube.  And I was greatly intrigued.  Here was an artist(s) who pounded the gospel song after song.  And not in some soft, warm and fuzzy, type of way.  You can't listen to much of their music (or others, such as Trip Lee) without hearing about the Gospel and the affect it ought to have on my life today.  And it has given me pause to think.  How am I living?  Do I live each day as if it were my last?  Not only my last, but the last of a friend?  Do I really believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven?  If so, why do I deny Him with my actions, why do my words not cons...

So this will probably be another short one.  But I have been wrestling for a while now with the whole concept of sin.  What is sin?  I can go to the Bible and from there determine what actions and inactions are sinful, but is that really what sin is?  How does fit with the Gospel?  Jesus came to die, not from my wrong actions and/or inactions, but from my sin that condemns me to Hell.  But how can we call actions a heart condition?  We seem to teach something that is contradictory, like there is a disconnect between our doctrine of sin in reference to actions and our doctrine of sin in reference to salvation.  And this has bugged me.  If sin is merely to "miss the mark", to do what I ought not, or to not do what I ought, how can I be saved from it?  I still do things I ought not and fail to do that which I ought.  Even the Apostle Paul wrestled with this problem!   But.  What is the mark that we are missing?  It is t...

Okay, so it's late, so I'm gonna keep this short.  But I'm gonna ask you a few questions and ask you to think through them critically, because I believe your answers to them will radically affect your beliefs...let me rephrase, they do  radically affect your beliefs, this will simply aid us in identifying this circumstance.  When we read the Bible we often come up with questions.  This is good, and healthy.  Questions encourage thought and when we question and subsequently find answers our thoughts are more firmly established, faith is built, etc.  But there are times when we come to Scripture and are troubled by what we find.  Times when God exercises speedy justice and we question His fairness.  Times when we see something go unpunished and question His justice.  Times when we come up against a doctrine (eg, predestination) that seems to contradict our view of who God is and/or how He operates.  In times like these ...

So.  A few quick thoughts on something that has been ripping at my mind and wrenching at my heart lately.  I have lost many hours of sleep to it without necessarily finding so many answers as I do more questions.  But here is my primary question?  What does it look like to be a disciple of Jesus Christ?  What should life as a Christian look like?  I look around and see all these different ideas clashing in culture, in our church sub-culture, in society in general, but in the midst of all these ideas I notice a lack of sufficient answers.  Rare is the person that you can look at and say "Wow. They have something different. They must be a Christian."  And yet the very term Christian finds its origin back in the 1st century, it's literal meaning is "little Christ".  People used it as a derogatory term to make fun of believers in Jesus, or as Luke calls them in Acts, followers of the Way.  That last term I think is an int...