This past Sunday we opened our service by singing the hymn “Immortal Invisible God Only Wise”.  This is one of those hymns that deserves a closer reading of the text with the statements about God’s character that are contained and the praise that ensues.  Here is the text that we sung this last Sunday.

Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
Most blessèd, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
Almighty, victorious, thy great Name we praise.

Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light,
Nor wanting, nor wasting, thou rulest in might;
Thy justice like mountains high soaring above
Thy clouds which are fountains of goodness and love.

To all life thou givest—to both great and small;
In all life thou livest, the true life of all;
We blossom and flourish as leaves on the tree,
And wither and perish—but naught changeth thee.

Great Father of glory, pure Father of light,
Thine angels adore thee, all veiling their sight;
All laud we would render: O help us to see
’Tis only the splendour of light hideth thee.

This hymn was written by Walter Chalmers Smith.  The last stanza of this hymn is actually a combination of the original last 2 stanzas.  Here is the original text of the last 2 stanzas.

Great Father of glory, pure Father of light,
Thine angels adore Thee, all veiling their sight;
But of all Thy rich graces this grace, Lord, impart
Take the veil from our faces, the vile from our heart.

All laud we would render; O help us to see
’Tis only the splendor of light hideth Thee,
And so let Thy glory, Almighty, impart,
Through Christ in His story, Thy Christ to the heart.

I appreciate the original authors understanding and inclusion of the fact that apart from His sovereign grace we are unable to praise Him in all of His magnificence but we need His grace that only comes through Jesus to unveil our faces and remove the vile from our hearts.

Here is also a modern rendition of this hymn that I personally enjoyed.  You can listen to it for free on spotify.

Link to song.

Link to spotify if you do not have it.

In 1973 the Supreme Court legalized abortion giving the right to women to be able to murder a child in their womb for any reason that they see fit.  Inconvenience is now considered to me a legitimate reason for aborting a child.  Since 1973 more than 53 million babies have been aborted in the United States, a whole generation has been lost during this time.  Today there are currently 3,000 babies aborted each day.  Margaret Sanger was the leading figure that brought about the modern birth control movement and established Planned Parent Hood.  She was a racist and targeted black communities in the US for her abortion clinics.  A similar genocide took place in Nazi Germany in the early 40s, the target were the Jewish people.  Adolf Hitler declared the Jewish person as non human, similar to how we describe the baby in the womb, not yet a person.  Here is a very well done video that describes the similarities between Nazi Germany and modern abortion.  This video is 33 minutes long and well worth the time it takes to watch.

Many times I wonder what I can really do to change things that are so big.  I am just one person, what can I do?  The first thing I can do is to appeal to the righteous judge who is seated on the throne by praying for our country, leaders, and women who may be considering an abortion.  In our country we also have a say in the policies that are put into place and also a say in who is going to be drawing up these policies and putting them in place.  Another thing we can do is vote.  As a christian I believe that it is wrong to vote or support for any candidate who supports abortion.  Given the sheer magnitude of the issue abortion is one thing that should disqualify a candidate.  There are many issues that qualify a candidate but there are also some issues that should disqualify a candidate no matter what else he supports, abortion is one of them.   One other thing that we can do is sign the Life at Conception Act.  You can find more information of this proposal here and also if you Senator or Congressman co sponsors this Act.

We live in world where every person has feelings of insecurity and inadequacies that plague us day in and day out. These insecurities are a result of the fact that we have turned our back and rebelled against our creator, God. We were made for the purpose of reflecting God. When Adam sinned that relationship was destroyed. Feelings of inadequacy and inferiority are because of the choices that we have made, the choice to turn away from God, the choice to be in control of our own life, the choice to become like God.

People have been trying to recreate those feeling of acceptance, value, and importance ever since. The attempts take various forms and sometimes look totally different. Some will attempt to take control of their own life by doing whatever they want to do and taking advantage of people to get what they want in an attempt to fill that void that they have. Others will attempt to follow all of God’s rules so that they will be able to stand before God and say “I have kept all of your rules now you have to accept me.” Either path that a person takes is an attempt gain control over their life and their destiny, this is the same ugly path that we have been on since Adam ate the fruit in the garden.

The problem is that the only thing we know how to do is continue on this path of self-esteem, self-help, self-justification, and self-exaltation leaving us empty and feeling totally inadequate because the truth is we are. We are totally inadequate and never able to fix this on our own. Every religion in the world is based on a man-centered power from within. No one possesses this and no one is able to fix this from within themselves because the thing that is missing is not from within. The thing that is wrong, the thing that our sin has destroyed, and the thing that we need most of all is a relationship with God. This is what is missing and the very thing that we were created for.

2 Corinthians 5:21 tells us that Jesus took our sin and gave us his righteousness. This is nothing that we have done but it is based on what Jesus has done. Anytime that we are looking to our own strength to save us we can never have the confidence that our standing before God is secure because it is not. It is only through Jesus that we have confidence that our standing before God is right because He gave us His righteousness. The perfect Son of God took our sin and gave us His righteousness and in that alone is where we can find confidence.

This gives us confidence that we have been accepted, that we are loved, and that we have been justified. From this comes the confidence that we have the truth and that we can speak the truth. From this comes the confidence that we have value and worth and frees us from attempting to gain this one our own. From this comes the confidence to stop trying to gain favor from men because we have the favor of God. From this comes the confidence and the freedom that we have been liberated from slavery to sin and we don’t have to sin anymore. This results in the seemingly paradoxical person who is both humble and confident.

Jesus told us that the least will be the greatest. People quote this a lot in Christians circles but sometimes I don’t think that we fully grasp the gravity of this statement and what Jesus was really saying.

So what does Jesus mean by these words? In Luke 9 Jesus takes a little child and says that if anyone receives this little child then he receives Jesus himself. In Matthew 18 he says that if we don’t become like little children we will never inherit eternal life. So what is Jesus telling us? Little children depend on their fathers for everything, for their daily bread, clothes, and direction in life. They depend on their fathers to tell them what they should and should not be doing. They depend on their fathers for their basic needs for survival. They depend on their fathers for protection. They depend on their fathers for everything.

Jesus is telling us that we need to trust the Father for everything. We need to know and trust that He is good and that He cares for us. When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden they made a decision that they were not going to trust in the Father anymore but they were going to trust in their own abilities. They made the decision that they would be in control of their own destiny. This has been the overarching problem with all humanity since that time, we want to be in control and we want to do things our way.

This desire for control has manifested itself in two completely opposite ways but at the core is the same underlying motivation. People try to gain control over their lives by either breaking God’s rules or by keeping them. The person who breaks all of God’s commandments is making the statement that he doesn’t need God and all of his rules and that he can do it on his own. This one is obvious and we can easily spot it. We look at him and say, “Yep there is a sinner look at want he did”. Then there is the person that keeps all of God rules to be able to control God himself. We have this idea that if we keep his rules then he has to be good to us. This type of person believes that God actually has to accept him because of how good he has been. This mind set is much harder to identify both within others and within ourselves, especially within ourselves. This person appears to know Jesus because they tend to look like a good Christian when in fact their heart is in total rebellion to God.

If we look back to the Old Testament one thing that we see is God always takes the initiative.  In 2 Samuel 7 David decides that he is going to do God a favor.  He thinks that God’s living conditions are pretty pathetic while his are pretty good so he decides that he must be the guy to build God a temple.  God speaks through the prophet Nathan and tells David that he isn’t going to build a house for him and in fact it is God who was going to build a house for David, and it was God that had done and initiated everything on David’s behalf up until this point.

When we see Jesus on the cross we need to understand that He died for our sins. For us to be saved it took God himself to leave Heaven, come to earth, and die the death that we should have died, he took the initiative and we aren’t the ones who can. No other sacrifice would do. This is how bad we are. To think that we could actually do something to merit the favor of God and gain eternal life is anti-gospel thinking. Yet we do it a lot. Have you ever looked at another person and thought “Well I would never do that”. Essentially what we are saying is that I am good enough because I would never commit a sin bad enough that God would reject me. In reality we have all committed sin and as a result we all deserve to live for all eternity apart from God in everlasting torment, Hell.

What the gospel does is tell us that we are a sinner and it points to how bad we really are. I love the hymn text,

Ye who think of sin but likely.
Nor suppose the evil great.
Here may view it’s nature rightly.
Here it’s guilt may estimate.
Mark the sacrifice appointed.
See who bears the awful.
Tis the one the Lord anointed.
Son of Man and Son of God.

When we are able to fully understand the nature of the gospel and see how bad our sin truly is it is a very humbling experience. No longer can we look at people and think I am better then they are. No longer can we think that if we could just be good enough then we can demand that God look at us and listen to our demands. No longer can we think that I deserve anything. We then at that point become like little children, depending on the Father for everything and understanding that it is only by His goodness that we are even allowed to breath. Until we come to that point we have no hope of eternal life.

Humility is not something we can achieve on our own, if we do then we will be proud of the fact that we are humble and that is not humility. Humility is something that God grants to us through Jesus and His death on the cross. Jesus is the true humble servant that not only gave up His position as King but gave up His very life so that a retched sinner like me may be saved.

The last couple of weeks in our community group I have thrown out a little challenge to myself and the rest of the group. “How does the Gospel change us?” And “What changes does the Gospel bring?

First we need to nail down exactly what I mean by the Gospel. Simply stated it’s Jesus. He is the gospel. The Word gospel means “good news” so what we are talking about here is the goods news about Jesus. The Angels proclaimed the good news about Jesus’ birth. Paul repeatedly proclaimed the good news about forgiveness of sin through his death and the good news of a new life through his resurrection. When we get to revelation it is the good news that Jesus is coming again to once and for all destroy sin and reign as the perfect benevolant King. Again, simply put, the Gospel is Jesus, he and he along is the good news. Not me, not you, and certainly not the human race.

Over the course of the next few weeks I am going to attempt to write a post each week that explains how the Gospel changes us and what those changes are. Hopefully by looking into the Gospel a little deeper we will be changed. My reasoning for this is that I believe we believe the Gospel but have difficulty actually applying the Gospel into our daily lives, actually living out the new creation.

For Christmas this year, like last, the Youth Group decided that instead of having the typical, maybe fun but somewhat worthless, gift exchange we were going to use our resources to help other people. Last year we helped 1 family but this year we were able to help 14 families with clothes, food, and presents.

Due to the fact that we increased the number of families 14 times we asked for help from the rest of the congregation.  Basically I don’t think there is anyway that we could have done it without you.  We were able to help meet the needs of 14 families in Kalamazoo because of your generosity.  One way that this happened was in my community group.  Each group was challenged to come up with an outreach activity, we decided to make 8 blankets to give to the children and parents of 2 of these families.

Just the other day Adam Snider suggested that each year we double the number of families that we do this for.  That means that this coming Christmas we would help 28 families with food, clothes, and presents for Christmas.  Wow, 28 families that we would have the privilege of helping!!!  I think it would be great to give each child in each family a coat, an outfit, and a toy.  Along with those items for each child a generous food basket for each family. This means that we need to plan on being able to come up with enough items for between 75 and 100 children and teenagers, so I started early.  Michael Norton informed me that winter coats were on sale at Wal-Mart on 9th st. so I went and and bought a few coats to get started, 22 to be exact.

Being generous isn’t something that is reserved just for Christmas.  Being generous is a result of being redeemed by Jesus.  God, through Jesus, has been generous to us.  As a result of experiencing that generosity we become generous people.  There are both sins of commission and omission.  A sin of commission is doing something that you ought not to be doing.  A sin of omission is not doing something that you should be doing.  You may say that you didn’t steal anything in 2010 but did you give?  Were you generous?  We have an opportunity to be generous this year even when the rest of the world is stingy because they are unsure of the economy and their security.  Whether the economy tanks or not, we find our hope and salvation in Jesus.  So my request is that each of you reading this would go and hit the seasonal clothing sales and stretch our resources to be able to help more families this coming year than we did last year.  I am no financial adviser but I am pretty sure that you couldn’t invest that and get a better return, so help us invest in the people of Kalamazoo because they are part of God’s creation, the creation that He called good and came to redeem.  They have value, so lets invest.

Dear Mom,

Mother’s Day is just around the corner so I was thinking about you. I started thinking, I love you but why? So I began pondering over the course of my life and the things that you have done. There are so many things that I can point to. For example, now that I have my own children I realize what you did before I can even remember, the countless nights awake feeding me and cleaning up from my various messes. And then I was able to walk and run, you were always there tending to my wounds and watching out for the dangers that I didn’t even know existed. Next I went off to school, everyday making me a lunch, giving me what I needed to grow physically. Every night reading to me from the “Keys for Kids” book and the Bible, giving me what I needed to grow Spiritually. You would pray for me, that I would love Jesus. And then came puberty, oh the dreaded and never forgotten years of puberty. What I wouldn’t give to erase that from my brain. Yet you were there, loving me with an endless and unconditional love that I had no understanding of. Thank you, Mom.

I appreciate all of these things for they have shaped me and molded me more that anything else in my life. But I began to realize the thing that I received from you that I didn’t even know was there. You shared the love of Jesus. You gave up your time, your resources, and your energy for me because you love me. Just as Jesus gave up His time, His resources, and His energy, even His very life for me because He loves me. Just as Jesus poured His life out on the cross for me you have poured out your life too, for me, because you love me. This love comes from you, not because of anything that I have done but because I am your son. In fact this love that you have for me didn’t cease even when my words and actions said that “I hate you and want you out of my life”. Jesus’ love comes to me not because of anything that I have done to deserve it but because I am His creation. In fact this love that He has for me didn’t cease even when my words and actions said that “I hate you and want you out of my life”. I realized now that I love you only because you have loved me.

You have shown me a divine love that only comes from Jesus. Without you I don’t think that I could understand the love of Jesus and what He did that day on the cross. You have given me a personal experience of the love that Jesus has for each one of us. This is the greatest thing that you have done for me and I hope that I can give this love to my children too.

I Love You Mom.

Have you been looking for a Bible to read to your children or to get your children so that they can read?  The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name by: Sally-Lloyd Jones is by far the best children’s Bible that I have come across.  Sally-Lloyd Jones does an amazing job of pointing each story to the person and work of Jesus, that is what the Bible is all about and finally there is a children’s Bible that does this.  Not only would I suggest this book for people with children but I would suggest that any christian would benefit from reading it.  You can get it in various formats: Just the Book, The Deluxe Edition (includes a bookmark ribbon and 3 audio cds, they are good), or the Spanish Edition.

A few months ago I wrote about a new songs that Misael and I wrote, that we also sang in church. Here is a demo mp3 and also the chord sheets. Note that this is just a demo mp3 recorded with my logitech webcam microphone.

Guitar Chord Sheet

Bass Chord Sheet

We recently song a new song in church that Misael Acosta and I wrote.  We adapted the text from a puritan prayer “The Great God,” from the book “Valley of Vision: A collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions” by Arthur G. Bennett. This is a great book to pick up, the prayers are all one page long and also very thought provoking.  Great if you want to be able to read something that you can think, pray, and meditate on throughout the day.

This particular prayer is very humbling.  Recognizing that we are sinful and helpless apart from God and it is He and He along that can regenerate us and give us new life.  This idea recognizes Him as being great. Just the fact that He can save a sinner as myself speaks of His greatness and that He is the only one that can rescue me points to His greatness and glorifies Him even more. Read through the text and meditate on this, it is very humbling and encouraging.  We serve a Great God.  At the bottom you will find the guitar and bass chord sheets.  I will be posting an mp3 later.

The Great God

O Fountain of All Good,
Destroy in me every lofty thought,
Break pride to pieces and scatter it to the winds,
Annihilate each clinging shred of self-righteousness,
Implant in me true lowliness of spirit,
Abase me to self-loathing and self-abhorrence,
Open in me a fount of penitential tears,
Break me, then bind me up;
Thus will my heart be a prepare dwelling for my God;
Then can the Father take up his abode in me,
Then can the blessed Jesus come with healing in his touch,
Then can the Holy Spirit descend in sanctifying grace;
O Holy Trinity, three Persons and one God,
Inhabit me, a temple consecrated to thy glory.
When thou art present, evil cannot abide;
In thy fellowship is fullness of joy,
Beneath thy smile is peace of conscience,
By thy side no fears disturb,
No apprehensions banish rest of mind,
With thee my heart shall bloom with fragrance;
Make me meet, through repentance, for thine indwelling.
Nothing exceeds thy power,
Nothing too good for thee to give.
Infinite is thy might, boundless thy love,
Limitless thy grace, glorious thy saving name.
Let angels sing for sinners repenting, prodigals restored,
backsliders reclaimed, Satan’s captives released,
blind eyes opened, broken hearts bound up,
the despondent cheered, the self-righteous stripped,
the formalist driven from a refuge of lies,
the ignorant enlightened,
and saints built up in their holy faith.

I ask great things of a great God.

Guitar Chord Sheet

Bass Chord Sheet

I have been thinking about the upcoming election quite a bit later.  Seriously how could you not?  Have you not watched even one TV program or visited a web page, the ads are everywhere.

As a Christian I have to decide who I am going to vote for, and here in Michigan the other big thing on the ballet is proposal 2.  Proposal 2 would expand the use of human embryos for any research permitted under federal law subject to a few limitations.  There seems to be so many different issues and all of them appear to be of the utmost importance, how do we determine which ones we can sacrifice on when we vote and which ones we can’t?  I have done some reading and found a few articles and links that have been very helpful to me in thinking through these issues.  Please read these before voting next Tuesday.

Piper Article

Randy Alcorn’s Blog

Proposal 2

Blog addressing Proposal 2