Tag: Gospel

Tough Love

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Journal Entry // January 9, 2022

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

Matthew 5:43-44 ESV

Yet again Jesus brings his counter-cultural teaching to expose the self-centeredness of worldly wisdom and our sinful nature. We believe that since we are a modern society with advanced technology that we have everything figured out. But this statement from Jesus cuts just as deep and precise as it did 2,000 years ago. Do I love my enemies? Do I pray for those that persecute me? That sounds almost repugnant to my ears. Why in the world would I ever love my enemies and pray for them? It’s quite the opposite in fact. Like Jonah refusing to preach to the Ninevites, I want my enemies to taste the full wrath of God. It’s this heart attitude that Jesus speaks his gentle command of love and prayer for my enemies.

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Eternal Endeavors

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Journal Entry // December 25, 2021

Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people.

Revelation 14:6 ESV

This is one of the passages that the Lord has been imprinting within me for the last 25 years. He has put a desire within me that wants to be part of this eternal gospel being proclaimed to everyone. I want to see people from across all cultures and contexts come and join the chorus of praise and worship to our holy and sovereign God. I want to be part of this process in some form of fashion.

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Irrationally Angry

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Journal Entry // December 8, 2021

But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.”

Jonah 4:9 ESV

Jonah is a tough read for me. I really enjoy the honesty of Jonah’s life and how we get a real glimpse of life at a prophet. There’s no doubt Jonah loved God and there is no doubt that God loves Jonah and used him in amazing ways, but I see far too much of myself in how Jonah respond to adversity and God’s plan. Even after Jonah repents inside the fish and is vomited onto the shore heading to Nineveh and sees a whole city repent in response to his message of destruction, Jonah is not only unhappy but angry. Not just angry, but irrationally angry.

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No Darkness At All

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Journal Entry // December 2, 2021

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

1 John 1:5 ESV

God is light… Pure light. He is light without darkness. That’s an intriguing phrase to use. If God is light then surely it is understood that darkness cannot exist in light. Why does John point out the obvious of the statement? I think it’s because we will naturally put this into our human experience and begin to taint the purity of God’s holiness. I know that God’s light is in me, but I also realize that there is darkness lingering. John wants me to understand that this is not true of God. He is light… No darkness at all.

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