Strap yourself in.

This could get a little wordy. I've been planning on writing on this subject for a couple days now, but have not had the energy or courage to tackle what could conceivably become a very long post.

But now its late at night, I have a few hours to burn before I have to make a trip to the airport, and I'm just tired enough to do this. I think. I have plenty of sugar in my system, a chair upon which to prop my feet, and the quiet I would need to stay focused. Here goes...

First of all, you must become acquainted with one A.W. Tozer. To read Tozer is to find a new friend that is probably more honest with you than most people who actually know you. Tozer shows his love to mankind as a bi product of his commitment to God. Although its pretty contrary to the popular view of love on which the world is bleeding itself out today, true love is focused on providing the truth that provides remedies to the whole mess as opposed to so called "love" that includes giving instant gratification and telling people what they want to hear. So Tozer says some things that I don't want to hear. But they are good for me.

They are the best there is for me.

Here it comes.

"God Must Be Loved for Himself"
"GOD BEING WHO HE is must always be sought for Himself, never as a means toward something else.
Whoever seeks other objects and not God is on his own; he may obtain those objects if he is able, but he will never have God. God is never found accidentally. 'Ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart' (Jer. 29:13) .
Whoever seeks God as a means toward desired ends will not find God. The mighty God, the maker of heaven and earth, will not be one of many treasures, not even the chief of all treasures. He will be all in all or He will be nothing. God will not be used. His mercy and grace are infinite and His patient understanding is beyond measure, but He will not aid men in their selfish striving after personal gain. He will not help men to attain ends which, when attained, usurp the place He by every right should hold in their interest and affection.
Yet popular Christianity has as one of its most effective talking points the idea that God exists to help people to get ahead in this world. The God of the poor has become the God of an affluent society. Christ no longer refuses to be a judge or a divider between money hungry brothers. He can now be persuaded to assist the brother that has accepted Him to get the better of the brother who has not.
A crass example of the modern effort to use God for selfish purposes is the well-known comedian who, after repeated failures, promised someone he called God that if He would help him to make good in the entertainment world he would repay Him by giving generously to the care of sick children. Shortly afterward he hit the big time in the night clubs and on television. He has kept his word and is raising large sums of money to build children's hospitals. These contributions to charity, he feels, are a small price to pay for a success in one of the sleaziest fields of human endeavor.
One might excuse the act of this entertainer as something to be expected of a twentieth century pagan; but that multitudes of evangelicals in North America should actually believe that God had anything to do with the whole business is not so easily overlooked. This low and false view of Deity is one major reason for the immense popularity God enjoys these days among well-fed Westerners.
The teaching of the Bible is that God is Himself the end for which man was created. "Whom have I in heaven but thee?" cried the psalmist, "and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee" (Psa. 73: 25) . The first and greatest commandment is to love God with every power of our entire being. Where love like that exists there can be no place for a second object. If we love God as much as we should surely we cannot dream of a loved object beyond Him which He might help us to obtain.
Bernard of Clairvaux begins his radiant little treatise on the love of God with a question and an answer. The question, Why should we love God? The answer, Because He is God. He develops the idea further, but for the enlightened heart little more need be said. We should love God because He is God. Beyond this the angels cannot think.
Being who He is, God is to be loved for His own sake. He is the reason for our loving Him, just as He is the reason for His loving us and for every other act He has performed, is performing and will perform world without end. God's primary reason for everything is His own good pleasure. The search for secondary reasons is gratuitous and mostly futile. It affords occupation for theologians and adds pages to books on doctrine, but that it ever turns up any true explanations is doubtful.
But it is the nature of God to share. His mighty acts of creation and redemption were done for His good pleasure, but His pleasure extends to all created things. One has but to look at a healthy child at play or listen to the song of a bird at sundown and he will know that God meant His universe to be a joyful one.
Those who have been spiritually enabled to love God for Himself will find a thousand fountains springing up from the rainbow circled throne and bringing countless treasures which are to be received with reverent thanksgiving as being the overflow of God's love for His children. Each gift is a bonus of grace which because it was not sought for itself may be enjoyed without injury to the soul. These include the simple blessings of life, such as health, a home, a family, congenial friends, food, shelter, the pure joys of nature or the more artificial pleasures of music and art.
The effort to find these treasures by direct search apart from God has been the major activity of mankind through the centuries; and this has been man's burden and man's woe. The effort to gain them as the ulterior motive back of accepting Christ may be something new under the sun; but new or old it is an evil that can only bring judgment at last.
God wills that we should love Him for Himself alone with no hidden reasons, trusting Him to be to us all our natures require. Our Lord said all this much better: 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you' (Matt. 6:33) ."

Farewell, Joel Osteen .

If you understood this well at all, you should be upset. God doesn't want to help you with your goals. Its funny that God should ever come into any serious conversation or thought we have as a secondary character. If the Bible teaches us that the rain falls on the righteous and the wicked, and makes a point of the fact that God does not give favor in earthly standards to the children of the burning heart, then how do we allow ourselves to slip into this simple, camouflage-less trap?

Let me just say that I personally cannot see the inherant evils in comedy. This could go a number of ways. We could say Tozer may err to the legalistic side, which is probably somewhat true given the time period and social and ideological norms. Also, if the comedy industry of the 40's and 50's was anything resembling todays, it seems obvious that we could label it as one of the "sleaziest fields of human endeavor." Also, it is important to realize that this individual whom he speaks of could probably be most easily comparable to a football player who points to the heavens in victory or an actress thanking God for her emmy. While there may be exceptions, most of the time the lives and endeavors of these people completely contradict any real glory they may bestow. Personally, having read countless pages of Tozer and seen the truth he understood, I trust his judgement on the issue completely.

The important thing to take from this real life analogy is not even the actions of the comedian, but the ready acceptance from Christainity. I would guess that I know far more Christains who would be happy with this "expression of faith." But here's the point. If the life is not lived in complete devotion to God and His will, how can one truly try to honor Him with his own success?

Cain's fruit wasn't rotten.

But it wasn't what God desired from him.

Too often we look to ourselves for what direction our future should be headed, ignoring God's direction or leaving Him out of the conversation altogether. Then, when we have done well, which is done easily without God's assistance, we want to give it back to Him? Its simple math.
If good works aren't worth more than filthy rags, how would positive personal endeavors possibly hold the same or more weight?

Hey God, I know you had a plan, but mine turned out pretty awesome, right?

The audacity of this statement doesn't hit us as hard as it should, but its what we do! And Christianity only flourishes because of the loose description we place on who God is and what characterizes Him! To think that Christianity prospers not based on God's great blessing but on our great watering and misrepresenting of who He is!

SO MANY PEOPLE THINK THAT AMERICA IS BLESSED BECAUSE IT HAS SUCH INTENSE CHRISTIAN INFLUENCES, WHEN PERHAPS WE SHOULD REALIZE THAT TRUE CHRISTIANITY FLOURISHES IN PERSECUTION, AND CHRISTIANITY THAT FLOURISHES OTHERWISE SHOULD BE LOOKED AT SUSPECTLY, CONSIDERING THAT IT IS MOST LIKELY SKEWING THE TRUTH.

In truth, Man is created for the sole purpose of knowing and revelling in the glory of God. Nothing else should even come on the radar. But we live our entire lives ignoring God or trying to milk Him for something we want. God gives us other gifts, but His goal is to glorify Himself. God's goal of glorifying Himself and doing what pleases Him is so much greater in any other possible desire He could have that it could basically be said He has no others. We shouldn't either, especially if we desire happiness and fulfillment in life. After working on this post for days on end, this can be simply summed up. God is all there is of worth.

The big question that remains is, can we flesh this out.

It was a first for me. I have grown fond of Oswald Chambers, as you can tell by scrolling down. I mean, I have read him very irregularly for three or four years now, so it was a surprise to me to come upon a day where I wasn't simply confused by him. Usually, I am either really blessed by Chambers or really confused by Chambers. Today, I read and found myself in complete disagreement with everything he said!

Then I read it two more times. I finally agreed with him.

I don't really want to copy the entire thing here, but you need to have a context.

Some of Ozzie's statements seem to flat out contradict the verse he references until you understand the entirety of his entry, which even then has to be clarified by close assessment. He seems to be saying that Christ (and subsequently Christians) was tempted in an entirely different way from the rest of humanity. He says all this while referencing Hebrews 4:15, which states that He was "... tempted as we are, yet without sin." I think, after careful dissection, that the point he is making is that the purpose for the devil and the situation and effect for the children of the burning heart is greatly different from simple temptation of the unrighteous.

The fallen are in complete despair. Regardless of how closely they know this, every circumstance to sin is simply an opportunity to continue in self-destruction. They are in the same place either way, there is no change made, period. For the disciple however, the devil has greater intentions, for the stakes become much much higher. For those following God, a temptation is an opportunity to put down what is valuable, what we are supposed to be characterized by, and what gives us and our lives worth. It is an opportunity to change our point of view and see things differently.

This entry went from contradictory of scripture to extremely personally applicable to my life today! It is so important to understand all the aspects of falling into a conscious personal decision to sin in an individual situation. Our life focus, worth, and personality are all at stake. Of course, this only makes sense if a follower is actually following. But that's another story, albeit a precursor to this lesson.

I was blessed.

After having all this to say about the circumstances of 1943, I'm pretty sure J.R.R. Tolkien would turn over in his grave if he knew the current state of the world.

"The bigger things get the smaller and duller or flatter the globe gets. It is getting to be all one blasted little provincial suburb. When they have introduced American sanitization, morale-pep, feminism and mass-production throughout the Near East, Far East, USSR, the Pampas, el Gran Chaco, the Danubian Basin, Equatorial Africa, Hither, Further and Inner Mumbo-land, Gondhwanaland, Lhasa and the villages of the darkest Berkshire, how happy we shall be. At any rate it ought to cut down on travel. There will be nowhere to go. . . Col. Knox says one-eighth of the world's population speaks 'English' and that it is the biggest language group. If true, damn shame -- say I. May the curse of Babel strike all their tongues till they can only say 'baa-baa'. It would mean much the same. I think I shall have to refuse to speak anything but Old Mercian. But seriously, I do find this Americo-cosmopolitanism very terrifying. . ."
Roger Sales saw in later days that, "Tolkien has always spoken. . . as though only fools and madmen would contemplate the twentieth century without horror."

Goodbye, localized culture. . .

This brings me to tears. Pray continuallty for the lostness of the world.

G.A.T.O. - Thailand from Kim on Vimeo.


Bringing HOPE!!!!


The Well from Kim on Vimeo.

There are little light bulbs in even the darkest corners, for the Lord is faithful and merciful...

I was talking the other day to a very dear friend of mine whom I find in a very large delimma, facing circumstances reminding me of my pre-mustache days. His is a situation so reminiscent of where I have been in the past that it sounded like he was reading some statement I had made at an earlier time back to me. To see a friend in a place where their future could be either a glorious story of boldness through Christ or a greatly inhibited mediocrety put me on full alert. This is an awesome guy, who I wouldn't want to make the mistakes I did because I thought I knew better. So, after talking to him and even suggesting some Chambers, this was what I read today.

"IMAGINATION V. INSPIRATION
'The simplicity that is in Christ.' 2 Corinthians 11:3
Simplicity is the secret of seeing things clearly. A saint does not think clearly for a long while, but a saint ought to see clearly without any difficulty. You cannot think a spiritual muddle clear, you have to obey it clear. In intellectual matters you can think things out, but in spiritual matters you will think yourself into cotton wool. If there is something upon which God has put His pressure, obey in that matter, bring your imagination into captivity to the obedience of Christ with regard to it and everything will become as clear as daylight. The reasoning capacity comes afterwards, but we never see along that line, we see like children; when we try to be wise we see nothing (Matthew 11:25).
The tiniest thing we allow in our lives that is not under the control of the Holy Spirit is quite sufficient to account for spiritual muddle, and all the thinking we like to spend on it will never make it clear. Spiritual muddle is only made plain by obedience. Immediately we obey, we discern. This is humiliating, because when we are muddled we know the reason is in the temper of our mind. When the natural power of vision is devoted to the Holy Spirit, it becomes the power of perceiving God's will and the whole life is kept in simplicity. "

Its so hard to try not to just think out a good loophole. I did it for years, I probably killed some of my best brain cells trying to figure out the truth instead of sitting in silence waiting on the Lord and obeying fully. Its so much easier to see not only the truth about the choice, but the great gap between the outcomes of the different options. Its not really the choice it appears to be, its a simple one that is always identical. Chose God, or chose what makes more sense, sounds better, seems positive, etc. I've nevere been one for wise choices. Sure, alot of people, even Christians, would consider my decisions well founded, but they don't even see the heart of it.

I love my friend. I'm scared for him. Not because I trust him so little, but because I only trust him as much as I trust myself. Most people might not see this issue as large as it is. Either way, most people wouldn't notice the difference made. But the decision could either show his life to be one devoted to God's glory, or one devoted to his decision making skills and well-being.