Attributing Beauty to Perfection

If you watch the first couple minutes of the video, the speaker talks about how our idea of perfection of the use of our senses is associated with whether or not we can perceive beauty. This is in juxtaposition to an evolutionary stand point explaining how our senses evolved, which is that they developed in order to keep us safe. He goes onto explain that we can provide functionality in hearing with a cochlear implant (language recognition), but tells that those with the implant do not appreciate music the same way people with normal functioning ears do. Because it does not do that, he has set his goals to achieve that.

I find this idea fascinating: that the pinnacle of a sense is the ability to perceive beauty and has less to do with its "functionality". If you don't agree with this, we can also think of someone who is color blind. They can see everything functionally well (unless they're trying to hunt zebra), but we would say that they're impaired because they can't perceive color. The pinnacle of sight is the ability to see a beautiful sunset or whatever your cup of tea is.

This goes hand in hand with the idea that God is the Creator. And we are made to worship the Creator, to enjoy him and his creation, to give praise to him for it.

http://bible.cc/isaiah/6-3.htm

There are a list of cross references in addition to Isaiah 6:3 where the Bible depicts that we are to give praise to God and be in awe of his creation. We are creatures that love creativity and beauty. That's why we don't like it when things are boring. They're not creative, they're not stimulating. Why do we like fiction so much? Because it's creative. (Why didn't we develop super hearing/everything else by now if we had billions of years to do it?)

A Letter to my Focus Family

Hello all,

This is to anyone who recalls the discussion we had on guilt many weeks back.

If you do recall, I mentioned that I felt all guilt was bad. What do I mean by guilt? Guilt is the feeling that you've done something wrong and is a feeling that will put you into emotional and spiritual paralysis. You will mope. You will feel unworthy. You will feel bad. Will you do anything about it though? Or will you with just every bone in your body keep telling yourself how bad you are? There's no need for this. I mentioned this one before:

Romans 8:1
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

This is speaking on the eternal stamp of guilt that you had been stained with through sin. If you are saved in Christ, that stain no longer remains and in fact, you are looked upon as righteous by God, the Father. The same righteousness of Christ's. We are free from sin so there is no need to mope or feel unworthy. They don't do anything for us. Let's repent and turn to God. Guilt will not tell you to do that. Guilt will tell you to hide your face in shame. This does nothing.

That is what I've said previously. Now, I found a new passage a while ago about this:

2 Corinthians 7:10
For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

This is probably what some of you were still unclear about. That it still felt necessary to feel bad for what we had done. We have sinned. We need to repent. And here it says a "godly grief" produces repentance. A worldly grief produces death. This is what the MacArthur study bible has to say about this passage, "That kind of sorrow leads only to guilt, shame despair, depression, self-pity, and hopelessness."

So how are we to know which kind of grief we possess? Is it one that leads us back to God or into guilt?

Jesus is for the weak

I remember one of my good friends was upset. He was telling me about how someone in his class was attacking Christianity. She said that she didn't believe in Christianity because it was for weak people. People who couldn't deal with their own problems. People who couldn't pick themselves up.

Yes. That's true.



Matt 5:2-6
And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Luke 5:31-32
And Jesus answered them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."



We are weak people. And we rely on God's strength alone.



2 Corinthians 12:9

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

Lose Your Life

Matt 16:24-25

Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

And here I've been thinking that I must get my life together before anything else. No, the truth is that I can't even do that. I need only to follow Jesus.

Minimalism

I'm a minimalist at heart because I'm lazy. It's sin. I see it especially in my school work. What is the least amount of work I can put into this class that will get me a grade that I'm satisfied with? Often times, I misjudge and my grade comes out much poorer than I expect but I can't really blame anyone because I chose not to work very hard in the first place.

In any case, how I view school is wrong in the first place because my end thought is the grade that I will receive. Not, did I learn anything from that class? That's what school is supposed to be about right? The end goal often dictates how we view the entire situation.

Too often, I've also been a minimalist in my spiritual life. I've been a minimalist with God. God, what's the least amount of work I can do in order to be saved and go to heaven? It's not about meeting the bare minimum. If you're in the line of thought, you've already gone wrong. Thinking about achieving the minimum is already wrong.

If you do not love God more than anything else, heaven will probably not be enjoyable for you. After all, heaven is enjoying God forever and ever. Will there be pie? Who cares? God is infinitely greater than any love for pie. And you think you're going to be happy "enjoying" him forever and ever if you're not absolutely in love with him? If you've only given the minimum effort?

Don't scrape by. God, you'll forgive that sin, right? He will but sinning while knowing that he'll forgive it is the wrong line of thought. Thinking that is already wrong. And I think this way too frequently.

Lord, transform this heart to be sold out for you. What I think of as radical should be more thought of as normal. Normal to those who love you. What is not normal is sin. Help me to hold onto what is good and flee from what is evil.

My Summer (Part 3)

Long story short. Everything stems from loving God. And you need to ask God for the grace to love him. That should be enough to try to figure out for a while.

Twas the last fortnight

I have been struggling for the last couple weeks to find out what was wrong with me. I went through my school life fairly normally. I laughed with my friends, I fought through homework with them, I served at KCM and and I served at church. Something was wrong though. I couldn't put my finger on it. I sprained my ankle a couple weeks ago so I haven't been to the gym since. I thought I could attribute my weird feelings to that. Maybe it was a fall depression, something unavoidable. I didn't know how to describe it or explain it so I tried to categorize it as some problem far away and very distant from the actual reality I was going through.

The truth is that I was trying to distance myself from a problem that stemmed directly from my unrepentant heart. It wasn't that it was some mildly obscure issue that I couldn't recognize, but it was something at work in me that was far greater than I could comprehend. The Holy Spirit was telling me that I'm lukewarm. No wonder my brain couldn't figure out what was wrong. God is bigger than I am. Right now he's saying to me..."Are you seeking me with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and your strength?"

Mark 12:30

"And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength."

That's a command. A calling. Not an option. Thank you to Pastor David Tauler for revealing God's truth to me tonight.

I'm lukewarm because I got comfortable. I got comfortable being around other lukewarm Christians. I was comparing myself to them. Thinking, "it's okay to be doing this." "This is what this guy's doing and he's a good Christian."

I do not want to blame anyone. This is a result of my own sinful heart. But I do strongly believe that this has been a result of the interactions with Christians I know throughout the school year. I regret that I had not been a better influence on them. I understand so much that everyone is busy with school. It's easy to compartmentalize your life.

"God's called me to be a student." So true. Very true. God's called me to follow him first though. Jesus called his disciples while they were fishermen. They didn't make an excuse. God's called me to love him with all my heart, my soul, my mind, and my strength. That seems freaking impossible. You know why? Because I don't love God that much. But he can make a camel go through the eye of a needle. He can change me as well.

God is good and God is faithful. He has recused me so many times. So many times I've gone down the wrong path. He loves me and he's saved me. He works in a way I'll never understand. Praise him!