So yeah, Oswald has alot of good insights. Its pretty interesting to think that this was a statement made roughly a century ago. Wow.

"This is a day when practical work is overemphasized, and the saints who are bringing every project into captivity are criticized and told that they are not in earnest for God or for souls. True earnestness is found in obeying God, not in the inclination to serve Him that is born of undisciplined human nature. It is inconceivable, but true nevertheless, that saints are not bringing every project into captivity, but are doing work for God at the instigation of their own human nature which has not been spiritualized by determined discipline."

I know there can only be more truth to this in our culture today than there was in Chambers' day. This is only the tip of the iceberg in talking about the tangent issue of negative social standards invading the Christian life unacknowledged. Leaving that for another discussion, it is quite obvious that this issue is something that invades the personal life as well as church settings.

Although there is alot to look to in culture with makes this easier to disregard or overlook as normal, in reality it is an aspect of sin nature rather than a socially bred ill.

Social standards don't create problems, they just decide whether they are tolerable and in extreme cases, noticed at all.

In our churches and other ministries it becomes obvious that there are definitely ministries which have been started and run without God's instigation. There are also those which started out well and, through leadership changes or daily grind, have lost whatever vision and focus they were designed with. Men think too quickly and start ministry without realizing they are too fallen to know what is right. Instead of walking into Christ more, they try to build Him a worthy empire from what they know.

It is also easy to see in my own personal walk this truth is very evident. Some ministries are sometimes borderline, hard to discern as to where their focus, leadership, and trust lies. This is never true with my heart. I was talking to a friend, and came to the conclusion that I am definitely a "big picture person," one who loves to think about great huge things and how awesome things could develop, but dreads thinking about day to day processes. It is easy for me to look back and think of a million schemes , often with the goal of God's glory, if sometimes only a secondary factor. In fact, I can't really think past those things when they are on my mind. What else have I focused on?

Certainly not often have I been one to sit in silence and worship who God is without any plan to follow. Its pretty easy to look past the simple way of waiting on the will of the Lord, pursuing His heart rather than looking for a cool idea.

Psa 37:4
Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

What a verse, to think that it is abused and worn out on the lips of those often using it to express the opposite of its meaning! It joins a multitude of others in the ranks of the recited foundation for personal oppinions. These verses are used to explain how obviously individual opinions are made crystal clear through the contorting of contexts.

We overlook the great depth within this verse, when held in its true context. Delighting in God is no little task. This is not a "be a good person and God will reward" you kind of verse. This is not even a "know God and He will make you want the right things" kind of verse. Delighting in God is to be as close as fallenly possible to allignment with His Heart, without any action taken. This verse follows.
Psa 37:5
Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.

This goes against any idea that we will get what we want.

Not we get to act. He will act.

He will act on His own agenda. So we simply trust. That sounds alot like waiting until something outside ourselves creates change. And Self is foiled again.

But we are men of action! This was a revolutionary idea, one which would create good change in problem areas! We're totally in the wrong place, something of this world, which is probably not a bad thing. Let us sit and simply soak in Christ, and see what happens. Easier said than done. So, to comfort us on this path, may we take a look at a closing word by Chambers, one much more straightforward in wording than we usually find Him.

"We are apt to forget that a man is not only committed to Jesus Christ for salvation; he is committed to Jesus Christ's view of God, of the world, of sin and of the devil, and this will mean that he must recognize the responsibility of being transformed by the renewing of his mind."

Here is an amazing band called by the name The Oaks. While there is no out right statement that I have come across explaining any specifics of faith, the actions, attitudes, and statements confirmed on their website most definitely lend to some easy imagining of deeper roots. Thats a pretty awesome accidental pun. But common, with a song called "The Two Calls (Of Dietrich Bonheoffer)," can you really go on denying the likelyhood of their basis? Plus the music is indie roots-meets-imternational with a jam back beat that keeps coming back. Read the band's story while you listen to their tracks!

WWW.THEOAKSBAND.COM

In reading yesterdays devotion by one Mr. Chambers whom many have come to rely on for solid guidance, I saw a very clear application of his comments to ideas being recently on my mind as well as this blog. http://www.studylight.org/devos/utm/

"If you have become bitter or sour, it is because when God gave you a blessing you clutched it for yourself; whereas if you had poured it out unto the Lord, you would have been the sweetest person out of heaven. If you are always taking blessings to yourself and never learn to pour out anything unto the Lord, other people do not get their horizon enlarged through you."

It is insightfully true to realize this, for all too often I find myself simply content if I am able to recoginize and truly thank God for the blessings He gives me. But does it occur to us to think that God is purposeful in His gifts, and would not simply have us realize this but also continue on to return this gift to Him by whatever means possible. And as this quotation and the text itself end here, I am brought to think of the impact my blessings can have on my fellow man.

So I begin to think, "How can I use my blessings to bless others?"

But that is so short sighted of me.

So we take a step back in the text to "the sweetest person out of heaven." When thinking about the glory of God in all things and my desire to worship Him as He worships God, it becomes obvious that broadening other men's horizons is a simple bi-product of our worshipping God in all blessings. It really shouldn't even be a main focus, although it should be prevelant.
The design is a recycling system. God gives us blessings. We are attentive to these blessings and purposeful in all circumstances to bring them back to him in simple thankfulness. And as an aside, the lifestyle just happens to be revolutionary. So becoming "the sweetest person out of heaven" is being as close as possible to living in right relation to God as one perfected after life.

This makes me think of the times again and again when I have prayed what I consider still a good prayer, but one easily surpassed every time. "God, help me to reflect You to others clearly without allowing myself to blur the image." Doesn't this work better? "God, please allow me to be a direct reflection of You back to You. I pray that You would see Yourself more clearly through me."

It seems appropriate that God be referenced so many times in such a short prayer.

So I really wanted to encourage you guys with somethings God has been showing me.
Hebrews 1 and Psalm 45 have a couple verses of overlapping text. They're both awesome, check them out. But these verses, they talk about how God anoints God because of how great He is. So God is worshipping God.
Which really makes alot of good sense, even though it seems really foreign. I mean think about it. Sure we know that God is ultimately trying successfully to gain for Himself as much glory as possible. But this includes first and foremost, actually actively worshipping Himself in everything He does. So the greatest Glory God ever gets is in when the only perfect one, God, is constantly Glorifying Him. Kind of a confusing circle.
Or we can think about it this way. We are created for the highest purpose, to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. We are also created in God's image, to look like Him. So naturally, the greatest and ultimate reason for our creation is going to be a direct reflection of what God does. Now that we're fallen we don't glorify Him in all we do, like we should, but we ultimately try to glorify ourselves in all we do. God does the same thing. But ours is illigitimate.
I would say we can probably only know like 1% of who God. I think anymore would make our heads explode. I think it could kill us. John in Revelation and Isaiah both come to mind as people scared of death because of how much they know about God. We aren't designed to comprehend Him. Never were. Eve didn't, that's why she was able to question Him in the first place, when she was still flawless.
But I think we should always seek to know more. We should always be trying in everything we do to gain the very thing which could kill us if we get too much of it.
So even the wisest of men probably only know less than 1% of who God is and why He's so glorious. When we worship, we should be thinking about the fact that most of our good reasons to worship Him continue to ellude us, and always will. Be we should be begging for just another hint, another drop of knowledge on what makes up the character of this God.
My prayer is this, that we would worship God in this knowledge in everything we do, knowing that we don't really know anything about who He is, but desiring only to know Him more fully.

In the church of the past, before protestant theological assertions were made, Christians found the arts to be a vital part of worshipful life experience and aesthetic concern was a part of church aspiration. In this time, as a respect for beauty and goodness was at a peak. A respect for the contrast found in the ugly and disgusting was also seen as not only acceptable but necessary for a proper perspective and balanced portrayal of the reality of the nature of truth in life. A Christian's beliefs about the nature of reality should be constantly reflected in their mindset for daily living, and the imagery surrounding them should also help to focus this.

Here are some images from some more famous artists, used in churches to help keep perspective.Michelangelo : Last Judgement

Hans Memling : Last Judgement

Jans Van Eyck : The Last Judgement