Feel insignificant and at the same time fully alive.

Here is a video to give you a perspective of space.

It is quite regular to feel insignificant in this world. The more we learn about the people on the planet as well as the universe and natural realm therein, we wonder how important are we, really. Our cultre would tell us we are "special" and each one of us is immensely important. The world is the way it is because of me. I can (and do) make a difference.

Are we really that important?
People who are deemed "important" and have many eyes on them are trainwrecks. 
Look at millionaires, people in entertainment, politicians. They more attention concentrated on oneself, the more unhappiness. 

I think feeling insignificant is not a bad thing. I think we need to keep in mind our vulnerability. When we stand on the top of a mountain, or the Grand Canyon and literally are breathless, we are touching something truly eternal within ourselves. - "You've never felt more insignificant, you've never felt more alive." When the attention is off of us and is on something so beautiful, vast, immense, and worth so much more attention than ourselves, that is what we call worship.

Even the hill country was breathtaking. And this is Texas!

And that is what worshiping God is. In light of all the facts, of who we are, and what Jesus has done, we direct every gaze we have towards Him. And that is when we are happiest. Everything else is sub-par. Even earth will pass away. We are already seeing this happen with global warming and pollution. This would not bother us if we were not longing for this breathtaking natural world to go on forever. Indeed at some point the view or experience looses its "special effect" it initially had on us. What more evidence is needed to explain our eternal nature?

Skeptics bring up how insignificant people are quite often, and they do so to refute this idea that God cares about us. Instead, knowing this is true (not because the universe is about us, but because of the nature of God Himself) let's think about this-
If space and all its grandeur is smaller than God (because He has created it), what does that tell us about God's grandeur ?

Temporal and Permanent

Youth is an age of polarization.

I remember as a teenager, being very zealous and legalistic in my Christianity. Whether or not I was "doing well" or "being a christian" was completely based on whether I was
1. Reading the Bible
2. Praying
3. Evangelizing
4. NOT sinning
5. etc etc.

It wasn't until much later that I realized that all these factors were based on me.
On what I was doing.
My eternal salvation, and my sanctification (looking less like the world and looking more like Jesus) was 100% dependent on my doing.
When God reveals to us He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, we need to throw our lives on those words. If I am only as good a christian as I am a well disciplined human being, then why would I need Christ other than to give me a little "boost"?

First, let me point out that religion is much more antagonized in our day than say, a cavalier spirit. Jesus himself was in direct opposition with the religious leaders of his day and spent His time with the sinners and tax collectors of His social group.* 

This morning,  I read a portion of Colossians 2.

"After all, the legal decrees against us and the passions of the flesh controlling us have been nailed to the cross along with us and Christ. He has disarmed the rulers and authorities that held us, therefore, Let no one pass judgement on you in food or drink or regarding the festivals or the Sabbath."

Why?
Why shouldn't we continue to keep the Sabbath as in the old law? Why shouldn't we abstain from certain foods or drink? If God gave it as Law to the Jews, isn't God's law permanent? They are shadows, but the substance is Christ.

Christ is the substance. The laws of food and drink and Sabbath are signals, pointing to a person - Christ. 

 Paul tells us, that the Law and customs of the Jewish people bring no salvation nor sanctification. If they did, God would be obligated to give us salvation and sanctification -


Romans 4: "4 Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. 5 However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness."



Our actions bear the fruit of our hearts, they do not bear fruit in and of themselves.

 The Pharisees did everything right, but "tax collectors and prostitutes entered the kingdom before they (Matthew 21:31). They are part of the kingdom because they "repented and believed". Both of which are heart issues.

Paul says those who continue and hope in these traditions puff up their self-made religion, and belittling Christ. They are futile in controlling our eager indulgence in the flesh. It must be through Christ and not external regulations that we are sanctified. 

20 Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”?22 These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.


So then how are we made pure?

That will be another post.

*We should, however, recognize the obvious motivation to extinguish religion and spirituality comes from our culture. Since the modern(1900+) and postmodern(1945+) world, Western society has latched on to numerous "cavalier" ideas, from a French/Neo Enlightenment Romanticism to Nietzsche. These values and ideals, as all worldly inclinations, makes their way into the Church. So I encourage you to read this post out of a desire to love Christ and serve the body (and also putting to death the world within you-Colossians 3). Also, I encourage your position as, "Better to err on this side of the pendulum than that." Remember, we are not called to be relevant to this culture. 

Stories of the Prosperity Gospel in the 1600s

Same Story, Different Year

It was my under standing that the Prosperity Gospel was a recent development to skew us from the true gospel. But in fact, nothing under the sun is truly new.
Here's an excerpt from the highest sold book written in English, Pilgrim's Progress (1657). The speaker who makes the opening statement is named Mr. Holds-The-World 

      Mr. Holds-The-World-  for for my part I can count him but a Fool, that having the liberty to keep what he has, shall be so unwise as to lose it. Let us be wise as Serpents; ’tis best to make hay when the Sun shines; you see how the Bee lieth still all winter, and bestirs her only when she can have Profit with Pleasure. God sends sometimes Rain, and sometimes Sun-shine; if they be such fools to go through the first, yet let us be content to take fair weather along with us. 

He goes on the say, "I like Religion best when it shows the security of God’s good blessings to us...Since God has given us all these good things in life, wouldn't he want us to keep and enjoy them for his sake?" Don't these assumptions sound familiar? I am not talking about particular people on television, I am talking about the conversation happening all around us. More than just a all the of TV preachers, this is a position of the heart.

This man is with  three companions. One whose name is, Mr. By-Ends poses a question. A very reasonable question if we were all honest with ourselves. He asks Mr Holds (I paraphrase), "What if a man comes to a sort of christian faith or other to increase himself?" To which his friend answers, 

     Suppose a Minister, a worthy man, possess’d but of a very small benefice, and has in his eye a greater, more fat and plump by far; he has also now an opportunity of getting of it, yet so as by being more studious, by preaching more frequently and zealously and because the temper of the people requires it, by altering of some of his principles; for my part I see no reason but a man may do this, (provided he has a Call) ay, and more a great deal besides, and yet be an honest man. 

"Besides," he continues, "if his desire for benefits makes him more studies and educated in the bible, it improves his preaching. Making him a better man."

Christian's Answer...

It is interesting too that these three talk about how to approach Christian (the book's main character) and to convince him that they are in the right for believing this way. Doesn't our conscious bear witness to this? Aren't we apt to justify through Reason our disagreements with Christianity?

But Christian's response is perfect. First he says,

     For if it be unlawful to follow Christ for loaves, as it is John 6. how much more abominable is it to make of him and Religion a Stalking-horse, to get and enjoy the world. 

Jesus would not even be used by men and women to be the solution to world hunger. If his primary purpose is not this, why would it be to add cushion to an already privileged life?

My favorite line is when Christian says, "if a person takes up Jesus to gain the world, they will throw away Jesus for it also." 

Let us be watchful and full of repentance when this desire arises in us. There is abounding mercy for us, but we must see it for what it is and renounce it. 

John Bunyan (1628–1688).  The Pilgrim’s Progress.
The Harvard Classics.  1909–14.

The day I lost 5 years

It happened about a year ago

 It was outside of my power of control and resulted in me losing a lot of items very important to me.

 - About $500+ in music equipment
 - Close to 30 books I had read in college and after
 - About 5-8 years worth of journals I had written
 - A family heirloom

It was very devastating to lose these things. 
Not because of the articles themselves, but because of the time and energy and attention I had sown into them. I had made an album with that equipment, I had spent hours studying and taking notes in those books, and I am quite prolific compared to most, so many ideas and emotions and first reactions and "me" was lost. 

My father's peacoat

Gone.

One minute, your memories have signs, the next they become a breath. 
Some things were immediately painful to lose- all my guitar pedals, my Fender Amp.Others took more like weeks and months until I slowly came into reckoning. I don't have dad's pea coat, nor my journal from my senior year in high school anymore. All these memories I made with items won't ever be recounted. I had built my life on reading, writing, and music. And now.

Where was the foundation?

I think the purpose of this loss was that the Lord had to expose some carnal desires that we all know and understand. Frequently I asked myself, why? First for the obvious, why did this happen to me. But then I was asking the more important question, why do I feel such despair over these things?

Matthew 6:19-21 AMP
19 Do not gather and heap up and store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust and worm consume and destroy, and where thieves break through and steal.
20 But gather and heap up and store for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust nor worm consume and destroy, and where thieves do not break through and steal;
21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also

None of these articles had any heavenly importance. 
It is like I had built my castle in the sand and the tide had risen and the waves came and washed away what I had spent so much time building. And I cursed the waves!

But what did I expect? Waves are brought in from the tide. 
It would be easy to resolve, I will take more caution and build more security around the things and people I love so this will not happen again!
But that too would be wasted efforts - Proverbs 16:33 "We roll the dice, but the Lord determines how they fall." If God is even involved in something as seemingly random as throwing dice, wouldn't he have more control over my possessions than I?

And you have to ask, What constitutes castles in the sand?

Well, it is simple. If moth, rust, worm, thieves, and time can destroy, then it is not worth our time and investment. If I am eternal, then I need to build myself on what is eternal. 

If it can be stolen, you can't find any real satisfaction in it. Sure, they may give us pleasures, but they cannot meet what we demand they be.

And now I see this is even true for memories, that is even nostalgia cannot meet the demands we place on it.
But I feel this is another topic altogether.

I learned to stop building my castles in the sand. And to build them somewhere else.

The Financial History of the Ordemans' First Year

It was about a year ago this month that my college car, a 2000 Corolla, died on a road trip we were taking to Denton, Texas.

We made it only 30 miles when the engine gave up.

I had had that vehicle about five years, and it had been quite resourceful, but like everything material in this life.

It stopped working.

Sylvia and I were now dependent on her vehicle for transportation, even though we were living in two place (not yet married). I become a regular on the Capital Metro, going form work to her place after work and spending the afternoon with her before she dropped me off in South Austin each evening. 

**Frankly, I love using the Metro. I still use it every morning. I enjoy the freedom from driving. The freedom from the stress of the traffic, and the amount of time redeemable by way of reading a book. It's great. Sylvia and I currently only have one vehicle, and although we may get another this year, it is nice not having more than one.** 

This situation, however, was quite taxing on us. She was having to drive a lot, and the gas prices in her V6 racked in the dollars.

At the time I was tithing more than I ever had before. 

It was one wet and muggy Friday night, when worry came knocking on my fiance's door.

Her Grand Am, after 7 years, wouldn't start.

With the little cash we had, we paid a mechanic to come take a look at the car Saturday morning. It only took a few minutes before,

"Yup. This car ain't going nowhere."

The oil had leaked and the car had overheated, melting the engine to a state where it would not turn. We were car-less. 

Keep in mind, we were trying to save for our honeymoon.

Our community group immediately stepped in and helped us. 

Some friends of ours (also newly married) lent us their SUV indefinitely. As the wedding date came closer, the group gifted us with a check as our wedding present. This group of four couples gifted us with 1,500 dollars. It was incredible. 

Sylvia and I had increased our giving that year. The times seem to punish us for it. 

But God was there. In every moment our disparity struck, there was always a moment of God's sovereignty. Like one of the first times the car broke down while Sylvia was alone and a tow truck rushed out of nowhere to help- free of charge. Like during our honeymoon when the whole resort we were staying in was empty and the owners gave us the Honeymoon Suite (from a $100 to $300 a night room), or when our bills would miraculously lower themselves so that we had enough to make it to the next month.  We had a 1993 Volvo 850. I bought it for $800. And then someone hit me from behind. It turned out to be God's providence once again. The woman who hit me had insurance that paid for their appraised price of the car (yet as ugly as my car was, it was legally drivable, I was able to drive it until we got the Versa). The appraisel price was $1200.

With the gift from our small group, some money from our families, the money from the Volvo, and a bit of savings, we paid for half of our 2011 Nissan Versa.

Later, after we were married. I quit my job for another, which turned out to be a scam. Sylvia and I had only been married a few months, and her patience and understanding was a tremendous example of God's grace. Because, frankly, I had put us in this position.

Free upgrade of our honeymoon suite

I was employed at a temp agency which who provide me with odd jobs in odd companies, usually about $10/hr and could range from 8 hours to 30 hours a week. During this time we never had to dip into our savings. Just when our checking was running low, another 2 day job would arrive and we would be alright.

It wasn't until we looked back, but we were in awe of God's coverage. Our faith remained. We decided we would not change our giving from the % we started our marriage with despite my unemployment. 

A month later I got the job I have now. Within the first two weeks I was promoted from Data Entry position to Marketing Assistant (the position I had been applying for for many years). Within three months I was given a raise. It was incredible. 

We increased our giving. As I write this, my wife has just received a raise. We had prayed for a promotion, but was denied one. Nevertheless, she was given a raise.

I can't write all the small blessings we see in our household (like getting a 3 nights for the price of 2 at a cabin during Christmas break when we didn't at all qualify for it!)

Our home and car

Just give. 

Give more than 10%. 

It's just money. It is not your security, nor your joy. 

If you are in complete control of your accounts, you are hiding opportunities to see God miracles in your life. Be risky on how much you give. 

Because the truth is, you are NOT in control of your accounts. They are His anyways, whether you surrender them or not. Just give Him more. 

You get to see His grace materialize in the physical world!

On Approaching Philosophy

Colossians 2:

6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces[a] of this world rather than on Christ.

9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. 

I read this today and wondered, what is hollow and deceptive philosophy? Which philosophies depend on human spirit and the material, elementary teachings, vain deceit, and intellectualism (as the Amplified depicts) ?

First, a word on intellectualism. 

The New Testament repeats again and again that we were once hostile in mind (Colossians 1) but are now being transformed through our faith in Christ.

I remember a time when I was looking towards Reason to lead me to God. I remember thinking, "if I thought so objectively and without any bias, surely the Truth would be the only logical explanation and appear as the obvious answer in the universe."

This is both right and wrong. 

True, Christ is the end of all wisdom, the zenith of mental climb. But it is not Reason that leads us to God, it is Christ alone. Reason was a god to me, and I believe to many. 

Reason is deeply flawed in this way - 

John said the Light had come into the world but the world did not recognize Him. They could not see Him as He truly was (John 1). In John 3:19-20, John says that people have loved darkness more than the light and people run to hide from it so their deeds would not be exposed.

1. The chief motivation of philosophy and all mental exertion without Christ, is to expel Him (who He is, as He is)from our minds.

 - This was an attack on my view. It dumbfounded me. How could my searching faculties be flawed? How could anything be known without functional searching faculties. But the Truth I sought, and we seek, is not like the formula of a neutron star, or the psychological grounds for depression. It is emotional and physical, yes, but it is spiritual also. Thus if our spirit is truly dead (as Jesus says) before we come to Him, there is no way we can use spiritual reason to choose Christ.  It told me that taking an objective stance to cast my lot (and be saved) on what was true was not possible for me at all because God is spirit, and He must be worshiped in Truth and in Spirit. It told me that my pursuit of God through my own reasoning would lead me into rejecting Him. Because,

2. The heart guides the mind.

 - And the heart is dark. There is confusion and seeming insignificance and endless toil in vanity outside of Him. The entire idea of schools and universities who believe they are so objective in their deductive reasoning that the conclusions they come to are devoid of emotional sway cannot be true. It astounds me that end of the most educated and bloodiest century in history (21st century), popular culture says education is the way to unite in love and end violence - save us. 

But as we saw previously, the revealing of facts doesn't alter us. This is why when we are caught, or not caught, doing something we know or feel is wrong, our mind quickly justifies our actions. "Well, it's because of the circumstance, if they had been different..." or "Well it's because of how I was raised." or "Nobody is perfect. So what" Our hearts direct our minds to work, sometimes work hard, to justify our hearts in order to numb our conscious. 

3. All the fullness of God dwells in Christ.

 Our reaction to Christ as God will tell us where our heart is. He is a fact. But if there has been a birth of His Spirit in us, then our spirit reacts with Him. And our spirit challenges and through time changes our hearts so that the truth  we know at one point seems bitter, and at another seems sweet. If Christ has any value to us, then chase knowledge of Christ because your heart will lead your mind to God Himself.

Be a Christ centered intellectual.

What else is worth spending our lives studying?

3 Reasons People Accept Atheism

The search for what

Any true scientist will tell you the job of a scientist is to answer the question of "what". What makes this happen? What are the properties of this object? What causes the stars to rotate around a black hole?

Science was not purposed to answer the question of Why.

I remember Neil deGrasse Tyson speaking to an audience of the highest educated professors in physics. He showed how throughout history, scientist such as Newton, when they had gotten to a place in their mathematics and calculations and observations where they could not explain any other mysteries of the universe they looked up to heaven and said, "The rest is the glorious work of our Maker which is too spectacular for any to explain!" What followed was Neil explaining that now we know much much more, and thus God is not needed to explain. So why is He still around? The argument is "The God of the gaps". That is, when there is a gap in knowledge, we fill it with God. Then we discover it's natural explanation and can dismiss the idea of God creating it.

But this is crazy, isn't it? This is not an observation spoken from some objective view point. Neil has decided in his mind that the idea of a God (a being of objective intelligence) is out of the question. His data doesn't support his claim, it merely gives ground to a foundation already planted. "God of the gaps" argument cannot answer where the existence of these discoveries come from. At one point, "what holds the planets together?" and the retort, "only God could do such a thing!" Only to discover it is gravity doing this. But does that mean that God doesn't hold the planets together? No, of course not. Why cannot gravity be the instrument, the tool by which God holds everything together? The god of the gaps counter to Christianity only works with a young child's understanding of theology. It is more convenient to make God fairy-tale-like and dismiss him as childish dreaming, than to seek his complex nature. And man will use his mental exhaustion on whatever seems most valuable - forgetting God.

Three reasons people surrender their search for the answer to Why

1.  Arrogance.

 Arrogance that extinguishes any hope of explanations for the truths we feel within us. "I looked up to the sky and around a star and I didn't see God, so I guess he's not even real." This is an immature response. Suppose a child looks for his mother who is at work. He has an idea of mother because he has recollection of such a relationship (he saw her at breakfast). But he looks around the house and doesn't find her. "She was never even real!" He exclaims. "It was a fancied idea I constructed because only a mother would meet the needs of this relationship I lack." It is true Christians are single minded and stubborn in their views, but an Atheist more so. They must be of the highest elite to know the "truth" about our world while the rest of us have yet to mentally evolve.

2. Intellectual Surrender

As stated earlier, there is frailty and childishness in the atheist-through-science thought. I believe part of the reason their following is small is because they resort to simple answers. Over simplistic answers. This would also explain why their attack against faith narrows on the simple six-year-old child version of Christianity -How a friendly atheist gets offended. 

3.Not wanting to be subject to an Objective Being

When we explore things like Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, we see the impossibility of seeing the whole picture at the same time = man is subjective. If it is impossible for us to see both, then we call it uncertainty.

Uncertainty for us. 

That is, man is uncertain. This very principle, however, is the footstool for many atheists' argument. But what sort of attitude says, "If I cannot understand it, then it must be random chance. If I cannot see it, then it is futile." But just the opposite happens in many of us, hasn't it? This principle lifts up how immense and Sovereign God is that He not only sees both momentum and precision, but He guides them both. (Notice: I am not use God in the gap theory. We are using the facts uncovered by science as evidence that if there was a God, it would have to be one like that is in the Bible, namely completely sovereign.) The attitude of "There is no being higher than I that can make sense of it all. If I don't comprehend it, nothing can comprehend it." Is about as foolish as choosing Anarchy because of a disinterest in politics.

Science serves the purpose of answering the what questions, not the why questions. If we had all the knowledge on everything and knew corner to corner how the universe operated, would we cease to answer the question, "why?"
I don't think so.

Learn to spot deceit

There are messages spoken so loud by people deceived and ignorant people that many times they will damper the truth so successfully it is faintly heard and vaguely identified. It is like a smog increasing in density over palaces.

I feel an obligation, therefore, to write on things in which are of a more serious nature. Please understand, some things repeated many times are not redundant. The Truth is the strongest echo throughout the ages, yet it is never redundant because it still penetrates and wounds and heals and answers all. No one wants the truth about smoking leading to death be withheld from them. Whether they head that wisdom or not is a up to the listener.  People around the world are intolerable towards what is True. 



The descendants of Greek-thought think it is utter foolishness, and the Jews are offended (1 Corinthians 1:23). Nevertheless, God has chosen many unto himself and has done so through ways unique to the individual. Some are moved emotionally by His acceptance, others stirred by his justice, still others reckoned by his sound wisdom and the correct alignment of the Truth. I hope to exam each.

Perhaps you come with skepticism or mockery. 
Let us address these individually. 

     

     1. To be skeptical is natural for anyone over the age of five. Here I am boasting to have Truth that most do not, and have something to say that you would benefit from. Read and comment all you please, but if you feel a cold heart towards what I am saying, I would turn introspectively and question the reason for your defense. Christianity is the longest lasting, strongest message of history. It has spread faster in the modern world (with all of its advancement of ideas and developments) than it did in the middle ages. Be skeptical, but question your reason for skepticism.

     2. To be a mocker simply means you have decided that you are above such petty things. That indeed you are of the "educated" the "higher class" and will not stoop down to discourse with such things. If this is how you feel than I would question your judgement. After all, if Christ actually lived, and he is who he says he is, there must be decisions made.

These being stated, I want to let you know, some of these blog posts will be relevant to one type of person and other posts to another type of person.
Am I a Christian writer? No. I am a christian who writes. I invite you to read this christian. I represent Christ, not myself. Besides, I have nothing good in me to represent.

In my next post, let us begin with the wisdom and foolishness we find through Rationalism.