Is it okay to go clubbing?

I thought this one was easy. “If you have to ask, then it’s probably not a good idea”. The idea that I still hold true to now is that, if you’re looking to push the line, if you’re looking to see what you can get away with; you’re already wrong. Forget about whether what you’re asking is right or wrong. You’re already wrong in the question. The Christian life is not about doing just the right amount of things to gain you favor with the Almighty. It is about doing things out of a love for the God who has abundant grace, enough to kill is own son for the sins of the whole world and reconcile those he has chosen back into his family. It’s about loving the one who loved us first.

That being said…what if that’s not where you’re coming from? What if you have the correct intentions in asking? That you genuinely want to follow God and just are not sure from your own prayers and studies of the Bible. When I asked the question to myself, I wanted to make sure I was here. That I was on the path to following God and not on the path to attempting to justify the night I had experienced until 4:30 AM in Singapore. At the time, I didn’t know for sure because of how wicked I know my heart to be. But now on the flight from Shanghai to Chicago, that night much further behind me, I can honestly say that my answer right now is: it depends.

This is coming from one who used to think, why would you ever go there in the first place? You’re setting yourself up for temptation. There’s alcohol, there’s provocative dancing. Evangelism? There’s loud music booming in your ears, how can you expect to hold a conversation? Well now I’m thinking…maybe it’s not black and white in this particular way.

When I came back from Zouk that night, I was stoked. I had a blast. I love dancing and this was the place to do it. I’m surprised I hadn’t been to a club sooner in my life. Was there alcohol? Yeah it was mad expensive too. Was there provocative dancing? Was there temptation? Yeah. You’re correct again. Not where I should be right?

But God had a lot of grace with me that night. I didn’t get plastered. I didn’t dance in ways that led me to sexual temptation. I got to make a bond with someone I intend to see more of this semester and evangelize to (though I know it will be a challenge). I was able to make a friend over in Singapore who Asaph and I did eventually get to talk to about her thoughts on God and Christianity. All of this was through dancing. I barely spoke any words while we were there.

However, this doesn’t mean it will not be sin for me the next time I go. It doesn’t mean it will not be sin the next time you go. My point was that it’s not just automatically bad.

I was just reading “Think” by John Piper and on page 27 it says, “Thinking is not the goal of life. Thinking, like non-thinking, can be the ground for boasting. Thinking, without prayer, without the Holy Spirit, without obedience, without love, will puff up and destroy (1 Cor 8:1). But thinking under the mighty hand of God, thinking soaked in prayer, thinking carried by the Holy Spirit, thinking tethered to the Bible, thinking in pursuit of more reasons to praise and proclaim the glories of God, thinking in the service of love-such thinking is indispensable in a life of fullest praise to God.” Piper is saying that thinking can be good and it can also be bad. What makes it good or bad is its intent for God. I’ve gone from clubbing to thinking, I think you could pretty much replace “thinking” in those sentences with anything we do and it would be true. Reading the bible can be done sinfully just as sex can be done for God.

The intent is what is important. So how are our intentions? I thought after reading that passage, is every single step I take taken for God? Is every breath I breathe breathed for God? It’d probably make getting out of bed in the morning a little more meaningful.

Isn’t that really radical and crazy? Yup.

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.