{ smithed }

I've never done one of these before, but it looked like it might be kinda intriguing. It was. And completely silly. But now I know.

IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?
O Worship the King- Passion

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Phos Hilaron - Passion

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Chain of Fools - Aretha Franklin

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
Inside Out - Yellowcard

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
At the Foot of the Cross - Parsons

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Come Thou Fount - Parsons

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Never Dim - The Waiting

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS?
Heaven is Home - The Waiting

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
New Law - Derek Webb

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIENDS?
My First Stereo - FM Static

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
What A Friend - Brothers of the Empty Tomb

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
You Make Me Sing - Jimmy Needham

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
The Taming of Smeagol - Howard Shore

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Alone - Sanctus Real

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Mood Rings - Relient K

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Track 10 - Swing Classics

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Elysium - Hans Zimmer

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Purity (Part 6) - Joshua Harris

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
The Leave Taking - Howard Shore

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Track 3 - Swing Classics

WHAT COMES TO MIND WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT YOUR FUTURE?
The End - Kids in the Way

WHAT SONG WILL BE THE SUBJECT WHEN YOU REPOST THIS ?
Against the Grain - Earthsuit

One of my roommates and I struggled last week over this quote from John Piper:

"You cannot be a loving person and not want your life to count for the ends of the earth."

Is that true? If it is, then it is a mountain-shaking indictment against the small geocentric minds that most of us have in comfortable America. It is maybe one of the most shocking statements about the failure of the human heart to grasp the purposes of God. If it is true.

So I spent some time thinking about it. I have heard it before, dozens of times. He makes that statement in probably my favorite message of his, "Holy Ambition". For the first time, though, I began to really assess what he said seriously, rather than nodding my head in empty affirmation.

Do I love God? If I do, then surely I want to walk in obedience to Him. He has made it clear (Matthew 28:19, Acts 1:8) that the making of disciples and the proclamation of His name needs to be carried out by His servants. Furthermore, if I want to be aligned with his purposes and see His perfect will done on earth (Matthew 6:10), then I should not only obey, but also long for and desire to see His work carried out among all the peoples of the world.

Do I love the gospel? Do I take the good news of Jesus life, death, and resurrection as my only hope of escaping the wrath of God and being reunited with him through the cross? Is there any other way? I search my heart, and say no. If it were not for the message of Jesus Christ, I would be lost in my own corruption and therefore given to rebellion against my Creator. I do love the gospel, and love leads my heart to celebrate it and rejoice in it and share it with as many people as possible (Psalm 67:1-2).

Do I love other people? Do I want to see them escape hell and pain and suffering? Do I want to see an end to famine and war and strength to endure poverty and persecution? Do I want them to bring them joy and hope and peace, letting them know that the deep things that they truly long are found in the person of Jesus Christ? If I say that I love these people, yet do not see or feel the need to bring them Jesus, I make my words empty and my love merely hypocrisy.

So do I agree with the statement that he makes? The conclusion I come to is twofold. I cannot deny that I ought to care for the ends of the earth. A love for Christ, his gospel, and other people necessitate a desire to see light brought to darkness and God be proclaimed in places without the gospel. There is no way out of it. The second conclusion I come to is this: Often, so often, I do not care as I should, and this is not merely disobedience in action, but it reveals the smallness and the weak-heartedness of my love.

O Christian, do not feel satisfied with the amount of love that you share! Do not become haughty or elevated in your position, looking at the unlove of non-Christians, and so contend, "I am a loving person!" The difference between our love and theirs is so regularly finite and wavering. All human love falls vastly short of the endlessly wide, strong, love of Christ, for we can hardly love the people that live with us much less the ones who might die without the gospel in India! Let this sink in, and draw us to repentance. Then, let us turn our eyes, humbly, in faith, to the One who alone can fulfill this mission of love.

God gave us Sundays.

That's the first reason they're wonderful.

Why did He give us Sundays? Well, in an abstract sense, so that we might find Him and see Him and enjoy Him. But there are experiential ways that that plays out.

For example, I was given this Sunday to enjoy His word. Mitch taught about suffering, but he preached through Romans 8:28-39. It was a heralding of the insurmountable commitment of Christ to love us and keep us with Him. In short, it was awesome.

Then I was given Sunday to enjoy the friendships with the men and women on my team during a picnic lunch and antics with frisbees. They are beautiful, humble people, created to reflect the sweet fellowship that I have with Christ.

Then I was given Sunday to relax and read through a good book. Today was Piper's God is the Gospel. It was, honestly, a little complicated to follow, but it therefore forced me to pause and consider Christ as the highest and best gift in the universe. And he truly is. Sunday mornings are brief and fleeting, but the Word of God will be enjoyed for all eternity.


I was given Sunday to enjoy conversation about life, career, marriage, and kids, with Scott and Chelsea. The intellectual stimulation was engaging, the heart probing was provoking, and the stew we had was delicious.

Finally, I was given Sunday to meet with my capable leaders to examine the health and heartiness of our team. While that was the purpose for the rendezvous, we spent a good deal of time doing what we do best--discuss and debate whatever topic is at arm's length. They are very smart, and the conversation was very satisfying.

Sunday was given for the enjoyment of God's children, and Sunday was given for the children of God to praise him for every good and perfect gift.

O praise Him, that He is the same every day as He is on Sunday!

I am broken from the inside out because I try to live from the outside in.

If it were not for Christ, I'd have given myself over to the madness of my own pride and self-fascination long ago. Even now, his mercy blissfully holds me at that place between peace and panic. I hate sin, none worse than my own, and I rejoice at the very thought that it will one day be destroyed, the old man disintegrated fully, and nothing but the holy desire of being found in Christ.

Oh, how my heart aches for that day!

I see the effects of sin in the suffering of children with cancer. I hear the effects of sin in the perishing of the nations who do not know God, to exist forever in hell. I watch the effects of sin slowly consume the comfortable lives of American pseudo-Christians who have no earnest love for the one who saved them. I know the effects of sin on human relationships as dear brothers and sisters limp away from its devastation. I feel the effects of sin creep like black tendrils over the hopes I try to hide away in my soul.

Who will save from this body of sin? Who will rescue me from the sickly sweetness of this dying world?

When all is darkness, the light is that much stronger, that much clearer, that much more glorious.

There is nothing but Christ.

This day I will arise, not because this world brings me pleasure or comfort, but because Christ is worth it. It is worth it to see him shine in the conversion of darkness to light and death to life. It is worth it to see him stir the sleepy hearts of an unrepentant church. It is worth it to see him bring balm to the wounds caused by broken relationships. And it is worth it, so worth it, to see him vanquish the flesh still struggling within.

This morning, as I sat in my apartment and fought back the tears that so often accompany the heartache over sin, God gave me this psalm, and in it I will rest.

Here's a video Kyle made for his first few days in Peru. It's really beautiful down there, and the video is a good reminder to pray for our brother.

So here is my testimony. As many of you know, it has taken a long time to get anything on paper, and even now, I feel that this does an injustice to the events as they actually unfolded. But I was *encouraged* by Kate to get this out of myself. It's maybe not as personal as I feel it should or could be. I'd be happy to talk to anyone if they have questions about what I've written. Also, if God does not receive the due honor at the end of this, please let me know, so that I can scrap it and start over. Really, the whole point is to be a witness to his grace on this wretched sinner's life.

I grew up going to church, and had even taught Sunday school and given short devotionals a couple times during the service. Unfortunately, going to church in itself does nothing to make somebody more like Christ. In fact, it can more easily turn someone into a Pharisee. And that’s what I was, growing up: a Pharisee. Jesus would have called me a “white-washed tomb”[1], meaning that I looked nice on the outside, with my combed hair and polite manners, but I was dead on the inside. He would have said to me, “Eddie, you honor me with your lips, in your songs and your churchy words, but your heart is far from me”[2]. I knew so much about God, but I never knew God personally, because in my pride I felt I could have a relationship with him on the basis of my own righteous deeds. I was a shallow person, and blind to the truth of how bad a person I was, and how holy and perfect God is[3].

For example, I cherished the lust in my own heart, both for women at school, as well as countless, nameless, pornographic images. And I thought it was okay, as long as it happened in secret and no one, parents or friends, knew about it. I didn’t consider what Jesus said, that lust in the heart is seen by God as adultery[4]. Before I had even graduated high school, in my lechery I had committed adultery with hundreds of women. Then there was the anger. Maybe it’s because of a red-haired Irish heritage, but throughout high school and into college I would release pent up anger in bitter rages. I punched holes in doors and drew blood from my knuckles on punching bags, imagining them as people I knew. I thought it was healthy to vent that way--rather than on people—but again, Jesus called that kind of attitude the same as that of a murderer[5]. Here I am, in my self-righteousness, not seeing the men and women I have killed in my black heart! And it was that, the self-righteousness, which was the worst sin of all. God has told us that we have all failed to honor God and worship him as he rightly deserves[6]. To stand before God and say that we have not failed to treasure and worship and praise him rightly is to call God a liar, and not only robs God of his glory, but places the glory and praise on ourselves[7]. We do not worship God. We worship man, and expect God to do the same.

Jesus, in his anger and his holiness, would have been totally justified in punishing me for all the sins that I had committed against him[8]. I deserved nothing but hell for my idolatry. It is true that we were created in the image of God, but our subtle self-worship distorts our purpose and mars what God created. Anything that God does for us--bring us to heaven, help us pass an exam, bring food to our table, allow us to have another breath--is done purely by his infinite mercy. When God communicates to us, it is not because we are so worthy, but because he is so good.

I can't be exactly sure about this, but I think the first time I heard Jesus speaking to me was in an art room at Colorado State University. I had just done some really awful things with a girl I was dating. We were in that cycle of mess-up, break-up, and make-up, each new attempt ending worse than the one before, so this wasn’t the first time. Normally, though, I just took a shower and tried to wash away the guilty feelings I had and justify my course of action. This time, however, I thought I had hit bottom. And then Jesus spoke to me. But he didn't try to comfort me, and He didn’t tell me everything was going to be all right. He said that I was not only hurting myself, I was tearing her apart, and what’s worse, I was hurting and rebelling against Him. That didn’t make me feel any better. If anything, it made me feel worse. But I thought I could see the right thing to do now.

“OK, God, I’ve been just thinking about myself. But now I’ll think about her, and I’ll try to think about you also. I’m going to do the right thing now”. I went back to my dorm room determined, white-knuckled, feeling like a new man, confident that everything was going to change. It did, but not the way I thought. The situation didn't improve; it spiraled out of control.

Really, it didn’t make any sense to me. I was reading the Bible, going to church, and I had even tried to make an agreement with my girlfriend of things we would and wouldn’t, could and couldn’t do. But the pain of that cycle only seemed amplified by these things. Every stumble, every mistake, was even more destructive than before. I became irresponsible, untruthful, and unfaithful to this girl. I finally broke up with her, because it seemed no amount of effort or good deeds could restore our relationship. I slowly cut myself off from others, because the hypocrisy of my outward goodness and my inward sin and sadness felt like skin disease that everyone could see and no one wanted. I decided to give up being good enough. I now knew I was a sinner, and that I couldn't keep up the pretense. I felt that Jesus and Christianity had failed me, and there was only despair left.

Then, one day, I was sitting in Newsom Hall at CSU, writing a paper for class. As I listened to the lyrics of a song I had heard dozens of times before, a furious beam of light pierced through the dull despair of my life and into my atrophied heart:

Yes, everything's plain
Next to the mystery
Of almighty God nailed to a tree
Taking His place
Where I should have stood
The beautiful blood
The beautiful blood

[The Beautiful Blood, by The Waiting]

I slid from my chair onto my dorm room floor and wept. A kind of weeping that I couldn’t control, and didn’t want to stop. For the first time, I believe God communicated to me what the Bible calls the Gospel, or the Good News.

Do you see? God came to earth as a man, humbled himself in love, and lived a perfect, sinless life. It was the “good life” that I couldn’t live. Then he ended it be laying down his life, suffering and dying by the worst form of execution perhaps ever created, the cross. He did this not simply to show me he loved me, as a token of his affection, but to effectively take my punishment away[9]. I deserved to hang from that cross, and I knew it. I deserved to die, I deserved to be nailed there, not this innocent man. Now, I also knew that he was my substitute, my exchange, the one who stood in my place so I could live with him. Oh, how beautiful is the blood that was shed so mine didn’t have to be!

The Bible teaches that “God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”[10]. This says that Jesus of Nazareth, who had never sinned, took on all my sin. My lust for pornography, my anger, bitterness towards people, selfishness, pride over academic success, is placed on the back of Jesus. In return, we receive the righteousness, or right standing, of God in Jesus. No longer does God see me as a rebellious, unrighteous, broken man. He sees only His son, whom he loves. And so he loves me also.

I had been going to church for so many years, and had even been reading the Bible for some time, but never before had God opened my eyes to see the truth of Jesus’ death on the cross. Please, friends, do not think that going to church or reading the Bible will save you. These are good things; there you will find people who have God living in them and words filled with Gods message, but nothing other than the “gift of God…in Jesus Christ our Lord”[11] will take your punishment and wash away all your sins!

I was so excited that I ran in tears across campus to tell one of my friends that I understood. It has been a few years since that day, and I am not perfect--I still struggle with lust and anger--but I can endure in my pursuit of knowing and loving Jesus, forgetting the sins of my past, because a loving God has made me his own[12]. In all the time since God found me, I am still running, and I am still in tears.