Purpose through pain

So I was reading my Bible this (Friday) morning, in Isaiah, and a verse really stuck out to me, it was verse 11 "after the suffering of his soul he will see the light of life and be satisfied". Christ's pain accomplished God's purpose. Without His death there would be no life, no salvation. In the amplified everything is, well... amplified a bit, here; read this:
Isaiah 53:10-11
Yet it was the will of the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief and made Him sick. When You and He make His life an offering for sin [and He has risen from the dead, in time to come], He shall see His [spiritual] offspring, He shall prolong His days, and the will and pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.

He shall see [the fruit] of the travail of His soul and be satisfied; by His knowledge of Himself [which He possesses and imparts to others] shall My [uncompromisingly] righteous One, My Servant, justify many and make many righteous (upright and in right standing with God), for He shall bear their iniquities and their guilt [with the consequences, says the Lord].

*His life is an offering for sin.
*When we take the life-offering He gave to atone for sin we become his spiritual offspring!
* After the suffering/travail of His soul he will see the light he conquered death and darkness to bring burning within us, this will satisfy him.
*Though his soul suffers the fruit of his travail/light of life will satisfy Him
*by knowledge of himself he will justify, and make many righteous/ in right standing with God.
*He took the consequence for our sins (death) and bore both our iniquities, our sins, and the punishment for them, which was death. He overcame death (the consequence of our wrongdoing) and the wrong (sin) itself. In his death we can find life!

So much to learn, how amazing that I can read the will of God! For this I am exceedingly grateful. God has proven himself faithful and continues to give me revelation and meet me in the place of my need, exactly when I cry out to him in this dry and weary land.

Give or take a little, it's better to get?

So I've been reading through the books of Acts recently, and I love it! An intriguing and engaging account of the acts of the apostles and occurrences in the early church. As I was reading today I kept my eyes open for what they actually did back then, and in the few chapters I learned a good deal; here's some of it...

Paul traveled and spoke words of encouragement to people (e.g. fellow Christians in Greece - see Acts 20)

On the first day of the week (for us that's Sunday!) they came together and "broke bread", Paul also spoke to the people (And talked till midnight. So this guy ends up falling asleep and out the third story window; obviously he dies. Paul's like "Don't be alarmed, he's alive!" They eat some more and he talks till daylight. Two key things; breaking bread and talking/preaching, with a miracle thrown in too.

Paul lived a life serving the Lord with humility and tears, through all his trials, he has not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful.

He taught both publicly and from house to house, to Jew and Gentiles, declaring they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in Jesus our Lord. (Acts 20:20)

He testified to the gospel of God's grace

he proclaimed the WHOLE will of God.

He supplied his needs and the needs of his companions.

He found it more blessed to give than receive.

Y'know, I think that just might be something to strive for in modern Christianity, do you think so? I really like verse 35 "In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive." Jesus said it, so we know it's truth. Then again, do we live like we believe that? I don't think so, at least I don't really. Think about it - if we thought it was more blessed to give we wouldn't always interject our two cents into the conversation as a friend pours out their heart and passions, we would truly care about what people had to say when we ask "how are you doing?" instead of anxiously waiting to say how we are today, we would give others the last slice of apple pie, or the biggest one, we wouldn't be so afraid of hurting a little bit that someone else could be more comfortable. So I don't feel that we TRULY think it is more blessed to give than receive.

And Christmas- how could I forget about that? If it were more blessed to give than receive we wouldn't make mile long Christmas lists and gorge ourselves on ham and fudge- we would go out to the hurting and use what we would spend on ourselves to bring a child joy with a simple toy, or we would serve the homeless our luxurious Christmas meals, and even more we'd eat with them, and give them a listening ear, caring heart, quality time. But will anyone do that? I wish I could say "I will", but I don't think I can...

Tonight there are...

So many thoughts swirling in my mind, so many emotions battling within my heart, do I let the war wage on?

better than life

I love worshiping, so when I felt my desire to go to our worship chapel ebbing I wondered what was wrong. It was just one of those whirlwind mornings, when I got up too late and had to rush around finding clothes to put on, my brush, sketchpad,etc; hectic in the small sense of the word. As I was painting in class the Psalm I had read that morning flitted in and out of my mind. I read Psalm 63, I love it -

O God, you are my God, I earnestly seek you. My soul thirsts for you, my body
longs for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water. Because your
love is better than life my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as
I live,and in your name I will lift up my hands.

I had to sit down in a hidden nook outside and read this Psalm again before chapel to remind myself why I worship Him. I don't go to our worship chapel just because it's required, I don't go there because I know "the band", or because of the amazing music, or the heightened emotions, or to hug all of my friends - I go there to worship because God's love is better than life. If his love is better than all aspects of life then I certainly need to continue praising Him though life can be less than ideal at times. Because that's not why I worship- I don't worship because my emotions are all lined up and pointing to it, or because God seems to be blessing my day, I worship because His love is better than life, whether that life is down in the dumps or peachy keen, in either case His LOVE is still better than life! So when you don't feel like worshiping, get over yourself and the emotions your life is prescribing, and remind yourself that His love is better than life. Worship is more than a feeling, it's a conscious choice, one that I have chosen to choose today, I hope you will choose to choose that today also. By the way, chapel was great- because of God- and I ended up being extremely blessed. There's some stuff in Isaiah I read today that I'd like to share with you later- after the class I must go to now, perhaps?

HIS LOVE IS BETTER THAN LIFE

7 times a day

In Psalm 119:164 David states the facts;
"Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous laws."
So I've been stuck on this since last night, this morning I woke up early, scarfed down my cheerios with pineapple floating in soymilk, dropped off my enormous sketchpad in the art building and found a secluded corner to read and pray and think alone. I found this verse and looked over it again, and I wrote, asking myself where 7 times a day would fit in. I came up with these times for myself:
1= as soon as I wake up
2= when I eat breakfast
3= after my first class
4= before/during lunch
5= mid-afternoon
6= at/before dinner
7=before I go to bed
So there are seven distinct times throughout the day. Seven seems to be used a lot throughout the Bible, so I decided to do a little research... The number seven occurs 392 times in the Bible (which also happens to be the sum of 7 squared and 7 cubed!) That is tangential, the important thing is that seven is fullness or completeness. Then is David really saying, "I completely praise you throughout the full day"? Is he saying he lives and breathes a life of praise? It seems so.
Back to praising God 7 times a day- if I am going to do that I need to know how to praise God - what different ways can I do this (according to the Bible)? So I checked out my Bible's concordance. I found some interesting stuff (of course - this is the Bible we're talking about!)
Psalm 69:30 talks about praising God's name in song
Psalm 71:22 David will praise with the harp
Luke 19:37 says to praise God in a loud voice
James 3:9 says with the tongue we praise our Lord
Acts 10:46 talks about speaking in tongues and praising God
1 Corinthians 14:16 praising God with your Spirit
There are so many nuances in the verses I have just listed - it's hard to pick apart scripture and make lists, it's meant to be read, for one to see the whole picture, which is why I suggest you dust off your own Bible and READ it!
I have soooooo much more to say on this, but for now I have to return to busy college-kid life - I will be back though,sometime...
I still want to write about what we praise in God, expound on how we do it, if there are better ways for different people, or at different times and places, what does God like most about praise - does praise differ from worship, can a non-Christian praise God? So many ????????????????????????'s
Praise God today!

He's Enough for me

Today was a day with thoughts rushing through my mind like New York natives all trying to jam into the subway. But the busy-ness of it helped me to enjoy the rest I got even more. Though fast-paced, today was simply lovely, after painting for two hours it was 10, so I boogied on back to my room and pick up my guitar. I practiced a worship song I really enjoy, called "Enough". I adore the chorus:
All of you is more then enough for
All of me for every thirst and every need
you satisfy me with your love
and All I have in you is more then enough
It makes me question myself though- is God completely fulfilling my every thirst and need? Is His love completely satisfying me? Is simply knowing God is by my side enough for me? And if it isn't why not? I refuse to sing a song if I don't agree with the lyrics, so sometimes I have to pause and reflect on the chorus and ask if God really is enough for me. And of course He is, but do I let him fulfill the role in my life of complete satisfier? Or do I search for meaning in other things?
It seems all that I could find meaning in has crumbled- I used to be a stellar student, you know the type, straight A's and shocked if I got a B, but this semester I'm having to accept less than what I'm accustomed to. And maybe it's just because I'm not getting my grades handed to me. I've never had to work extremely hard for them, what if I am not willing to put the time into it that they actually requirI always need to center my priority list around God, and not the other way around. Make sure you do that too, otherwise He'll get pushed out by way less important things.
Sweet Dreams ... (I did have a very sweet dream last night, perhaps I'll write about the role dreams play in my life sometime - but not tonight.)

PS about the picture, it's by Scott Ambler, author of Agile Modeling, explanation of the line: "anything to the left of the line implies that you still have work to do, anything to the right implies that you've done too much work".
He goes on to say that if something is JBGE (just barely good enough) then doing more work on it is clearly a waste: something fulfills its intended purpose then any more investment in it is simply busy work. I agree with parts of this, but disagree in some cases. Anyhow, I thought it kind of went with being good enough.