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Jun 1st | Leave it All Behind
In order to make sense of these verses you have to take them in the context of the letter so far. Weird how that works huh? So basically you got this...
(1) You have been chosen by God, set apart by His love mercy and grace.
(2) This grace gives you hope when you face trials and pain. Hope because your pain is temporary but purposeful and your goal is eternal.
(3) this salvation you receive is something those before you only dreamed of, we have experienced it!
THEREFORE! Whenever I see that word I say "Hey, what is that THEREFORE there for??"[READ MORE | Posted on: June 1st, 2010 PST | By: Bryce Cooley] |
May 26th | Just Do It!
As our lives play out we go through a lot of junk. I already talked about this I know, I am just recapping. All the stuff we go through on a day-to-day basis has a specific purpose. Let's call it the refining process. As metals are refined, heated and cooled, heated and cooled the impurties are scraped away. This refining process is key in bringing out the integrity and purity of the metal. In the same way this refining process must work in the life of a Christian bringout out the integrity and purity of faith. Why do we push forth? What i[READ MORE | Posted on: May 26th, 2010 PST | By: Bryce Cooley] |
May 26th | Life is Hard
Let's face it. Life sucks sometimes... The bible likes to call the lame times "trials" or adversity, affliction, temptation, pain... I think we have all been there. I can speak for myself I have been there, I am there... Most of my misery is self-made misery which is way more frustrating because I know better. But there are certain things that we deal with that are not purposeful because the world is a hard place to live in. Sin is in the world therefore there is pain, jealousy and strife in the world. There is really no way around it.
1[READ MORE | Posted on: May 26th, 2010 PST | By: Bryce Cooley] |
May 25th | The Chosen
For the longest time I celebrated the idea that I am one of God's elect, God's chosen people. I relished in the fact that through Christ's sacrifice I have been set apart. To be sure I still do, but now there is an even greater burden on my heart.
Peter in the book of 1 Peter addresses his letter to "the elect" or "God's chosen" which is a very interesting term. Interesting / frustrating beyond all reason. These are the terms Calvanists use to say that God chose to save some "the elect" and not others "the non-el[READ MORE | Posted on: May 25th, 2010 PST | By: Bryce Cooley] |
May 25th | Heart Surgery
Recently I went to San Francisco to do some missions work (see photo album YWAM). There are not a lot of photos with the houseless and homeless people we ministered to in order to respect there privacy, but it will give you an idea.
Anyways, it has become more and more apparent to me that I need heart surgery. not in the literal sense, as far as I know the old ticker is doing just fine, but on an emotional and spiritual level. Nothing seems to move me anymore, at least not in the way I think it should. I hear some of the most heartbreaking stories and [READ MORE | Posted on: May 25th, 2010 PST | By: Bryce Cooley] |
May 17th | Time to Redefine
The thought was sparked today at church when my pastor read an old familiar bit of scripture. 1 Chronicles 4:9-11 Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, "I gave birth to him in pain." 10 Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, "Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain." And God granted his request. I kind of laughed when I saw this. Primarily because when I worked at the Christian book center "The Prayer of Jabez" was the hot [READ MORE | Posted on: May 17th, 2010 PST | By: Bryce Cooley] |
May 12th | Mitzvah verses Averah
Just a thought.
Mitzvah verses Averah.
Mitzvah: the hebrew word for good deeds.
Averah: the hebrew word for sin.
Mitzvah: good for something.
Averah: good for nothing.
Mitzvah: leading a blind man across the street.
Averah: drawing a map of how to cross the street for a blind man.
To Judaism, and conclusively to Christianity, averah is not an action of simply doing bad, it is an action of doing nothing good for anyone.
Jesus has the most tender heart of all of us. The action of giving someone a glass of cold water on a hot day is enough to bring him to tears. And [READ MORE | Posted on: May 12th, 2010 PST | By: John Chaffee] |
May 10th | Kavanah
It's dark, it's solemn, the air is silent, so silent that it is somehow both uncomfortable and comfortable, this is serious, this is a moment filled with a stoic sense of awe and wonder. But we don't like to be serious, we always want levity and a stand up comedian to be our pastor or priest. Kavanah is the hebrew word that in essence translates as "the mood of the heart," the heart must be silent, and remember the severity of the issue.
Yes, devotion to Christ can be very light-hearted and often filled with inexplicable joy or happiness, but perhaps there are cer[READ MORE | Posted on: May 10th, 2010 PST | By: John Chaffee] |
May 8th | the 'I AM' theology of John
At first glance the "I AM" statements of Jesus don"t seem to be anything of consequence. They seem to be simple statements of Jesus providing sustenance, light, protection, a path. It is not until we look deeper into these statements, the reactions they received, the context and the original language that their true theological weight begins to shine through. In order to begin our descent into the deeper meaning of this phrase "I AM" we need to start with the root of it. This goes back to the second book of the Old Testament; Exodus. In Exodus 3:14 God, so far unnam[READ MORE | Posted on: May 8th, 2010 PST | By: Bryce Cooley] |
May 6th | Play your part in the Song
This won't be longwinded (i think, we'll see by the end of it). It's just a thought, something to muse upon throughout the day. But recently through a growing Christian personality I have heard that a good way to think of God is as a song. A lullaby or hymn that grabs our attention, a song that we simply cannot seem to get out of our heads once we learn to listen for it.
It's kind of like buying a new cd, with a song on it that you could listen to on constant repeat, a song that you could wake up to, fall asleep to, get pumped to, and chill out to. You know, a song that [READ MORE | Posted on: May 6th, 2010 PST | By: John Chaffee] |
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