SMP ‘09

Wow, it’s been a while since I was last on here; learning to be a blogger is harder than I thought, especially when life gets busy.  Busy is good, though, when I consider where I’ve been and where I’m presently.  

Back in March when I first heard of Campus Outreach’s (CO) Summer Mountain Project (SMP), I thought, “God why do you always tear me in multiple directions and make money so scarce?”  I was so committed for this summer to what I thought was going to be my best opportunity for money and a future (Marine Corpes’ Candidate Officer Program), but God reminds us, ” ‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts,/Nor are your ways My ways,’ declares the LORD” (Isaiah 55:8).  So long story short, the Marines will have to wait at least one more year (if not longer), and my Lord lead me to SMP and here I am.  

Describing SMP without bringing you here is nearly impossible in order to do it justice – or should I say do Him justice who brought me to this awesome community and character building experience?  However, let me make it clear that it’s not about the experience but rather Jesucristo (Jesus Christ), the brothers and sisters here, and personal growth in the Spirit.  God’s blessing is assuredly with this project: it isn’t so much a feeling as in emotion, which is fleeting over time when hardships descend, that accompanies the participates, but a genuine love for their Lord and each other and much resulting joy even when energy is low.

Physical weariness is catching up with everyone this week as the schedule picks up, and the effects of work and early rising increase; however, weaknesses grow faith and character: praise the Lord!  As way to shortly describe why everyone is feeling the strain and what we doing, here is a simple rundown.  Church is at 8:15 a.m. and runs until 10:30 and then the rest of the day is free until the 5:30 p.m. service that last about an hour.  Mondays are free except for three hours of “Word training” starting at 10:30.  Work at Dollywood or Splashcountry (for me, consisting of standing over a grill that spits 450-degree grease for eight to nine hours) begins at 9:00 or 10:00 from Tuesday through Saturday.  The weekly rally (talk or what ever you call it) is Tuesday evening, evangelism training is Thursday, and evangelism (sharing the gospel to unknown people throughout Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg) is Friday evening.  Probably  that list bores most readers but for those who wonder there it is.

God is really growing heart and minds here on project as His Spirit moves.  I have one simple request to make of those who do know the Lord: please pray that many lives are changed by this summer, this including those here and those in connected spheres of influence.  God is great and is making Himself Savior AND Lord in our hearts.  All glory, praise, and honor to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost forever and ever.

Nothing

 

What can wash away my sin?

And what can make me whole again?

No other fount I know nothing but the blood of Jesus

Nothing can for sin atone

And not of good that I have done

This is all my hope and peace

And this is all my righteousness

Oh how presious is the flow that makes me as white as snow

Nothing but the blood of Jesus

“Nothing but the Blood” is an older hymn, composed by Robert Lowery in 1876, which contains a simple message that carries the whole weight of the Christian faith: nothing but the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ is enough to justify sinners before a righteous God or please a 100% just judge.  This imperfect world is strained by the filth of man’s short-comings (sin) of God’s glory,  ”for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:23 says.  Also, the King of the universe is so perfectly pure and so strongly hates sin that he can not even look at, let alone allow into his presence, “…a man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5), or men bound to the lusts of this world.  Because of God’s holiness, “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), meaning that this physical life on earth is finite and afterwards is absolute, eternal separation from God’s love in the lake of fire, hell.  As Jonathan Edwards preached in his sermon, “Sinner in the Hands of an Angry God,” “…so it is easy for us to cut or singe a slender thread that any thing hangs by: thus easy is it for God, when he pleases, to cast his enemies down to hell.”  This means as sinful men, we are enemies of God and have no other end than death; BUT WAIT, THERE IS HOPE!  Hallelujah (praise the Lord) that there is a second half to the verse Romans 6:23: “but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, a gift is, “a thing given willingly to someone without payment.”  Why would a holy, almighty God gift humanity with eternal life instead of endless suffering under his perfect wrath?  The God of the Old Testament is the same as the one of the New Testament and now; I wanted to clear that up, because the New Testament is the truth concerning God’s greatest gift of unconditional love to humanity [the Old Testament is a history of Yahweh (the Lord) lovingly disciplining his people just as a parent teaches his or her child regardless of the child's dislike or misunderstanding of it].  The gift, resulting from this boundless unconditional love God has for his creation formed in his own spiritual image (Genesis 1:26), is Jesus Christ, who is “his only begotten son” (John 3:16).  Christ’s primary purpose on earth was to die.  How could a person’s purpose in life be to die?  Jesus, who is fully God as part of the triune God-head, had to live on earth as wholly man so that he could “increase in wisdom… and favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52),  while suffering temptations and weaknesses in a physical body (which he never gave into), all so that he could be the unblemished and spotless lamb for a bloody sacrifice meaningful enough to turn the Father’s wrath away.  The obedience of Christ to his Father as “…a gentle lamb led to the slaughter” (Jeremiah 11:19) pleased the Father so much that he is willing to present the gift of, “the right to become children of God,” to, ”…as many as receive him… even to those who believe in His name”  (John 1:12).

Wow.  Salvation is a gift that cannot be earned by any means, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).  Neither is there anything that can reverse it since, “It is finished” (John 19:30) and was finished once and for all.  This all means that the God of complete justice is now so pleased with his son’s intermediary act of love, that sinful man is whiter than snow in the Father’s eyes, and he is free from the desire to practice the filthy sins of this fallen world.  Paul explains the freedom from sin while still in the flesh in Romans 7:14-20,

“For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.  For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.  But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good.  So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.  For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.  For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.  But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.”

These verses explain how being saved from sin does not mean a person will stop sinning but instead will hate his or her sinful nature; the person has the freedom of choice to set his or her will (desires, purposes) against sin.  This life on earth in full of suffering, because of sin and poor choices based off the sin within; however, NOTING but the blood of Jesus and belief in his truth can give a person the freedom to experience an overflow of joy – that is love.

Jump

Faith.  That is the first blog word that I have ever typed in a blog as I jump into my blogging journey towards the unknown, so I want to start off with a focus that describes what my purpose driven life is about and relies on.  Faith in the saving power of the blood of Jesus Christ, who is the only begotten son of the living God of the universe, and hope in eternal life in his presence at the end of my time in this finite world are what gives my life purpose.  The overflowing of joy that is found in glorifying my heavenly Father brought me to the decision of finally attempting this concept of blogging, so I am sharing parts of my life hoping others may know the love and forgiveness of my Lord.  In a way, this is one of many ways that I seek to fulfill the great commission found in Matthew 28:19-20.

Facebooking and email are so common, but, apparently, blogging is a whole new whole that actually requires thought.  Only recently, I started to enjoy assigning my thoughts to physical sentences – although they still do not make sense to either you, as the reader, or I, as the writer.  Actually another minor reason I am beginning to blog is an answer to a challenge from a close friend to make my left-brained thoughts more than  just a jumble that cannot find its way to my mouth.

Now that my reasons for doing what I originally thought impossible for me are somewhat clear, a few basic factors of my life want to make themselves known.  I am a full-time, first-year student that is on athletic scholarship for cross country at Tennessee Technological University (Tech) in Cookeville.  Distance running has been my passion since I was seven years old, and, of course, cross country is the competitive  form of that – unless you participate in street races outside of school.  There has been many times that running has become an idol to me, but many stress injuries in the past four years have reminded me that it is only a physical gift that I am obligated to employ for God’s pleasure.  Also at Tech, I am studying for a degree in electrical engineering, since the present technology growth and usage has created an enormous demand for such.  One fact that usually gets people’s attention here in Tennessee is that I have lived in North Carolina for the past fifteen years; the usual question is why am I out of state.  For now I will leave it at: because God has holy plans for my life here.

Unusual that for my first time blogging that I can dribble so many words on a page in twenty minutes.  Well, there is at least a start that needs work and refining, but skill comes with time spent in practice.

Until whenever I next find time: later and out.