Pat's Ponderings

Well.... If you're reading this between 4:30 AM on the 1st of June and later afternoon on July 16th, I'm not in town. I'm probably not even in the country. Thus, I won't be able to respond, etc. for a while. Thanks for your prayers.
Peace
-pat

The ideas for this post have been sitting around for a couple weeks now, but I came across some good stuff in Matthew that tied in well. So, I decided to sit and write rather than pack for the trip. Only a few hours left...

The entry for May 11 in My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers, started the thoughts:

YOU WON'T REACH IT ON TIPTOE

"Add to your brotherliness . . . love." 2 Peter 1:7

Love is indefinite to most of us, we do not know what we mean when we talk about love. Love is the sovereign preference of one person for another, and spiritually Jesus demands that that preference be for Himself (cf. Luke 14:26). When the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, Jesus Christ is easily first; then we must practise the working out of these things mentioned by Peter.

The first thing God does is to knock pretence and the pious pose right out of me. The Holy Spirit reveals that God loved me not because I was lovable, but because it was His nature to do so. Now, He says to me, show the same love to others - "Love as I have loved you." "I will bring any number of people about you whom you cannot respect, and you must exhibit My love to them as I have exhibited it to you." You won't reach it on tiptoe. Some of us have tried to, but we were soon tired.

"The Lord suffereth long. . . ." Let me look within and see His dealings with me. The knowledge that God has loved me to the uttermost, to the end of all my sin and meanness and selfishness and wrong, will send me forth into the world to love in the same way. God's love to me is inexhaustible, and I must love others from the bedrock of God's love to me. Growth in grace stops the moment I get huffed. I get huffed because I have a peculiar person to live with. Just think how disagreeable I have been to God! Am I prepared to be so identified with the Lord Jesus that His life and His sweetness are being poured out all the time? Neither natural love nor Divine love will remain unless it is cultivated. Love is spontaneous, but it has to be maintained by discipline.

Paul talks a lot in Colossians about love amongst the brethren, how it is because of Jesus that we should love each other deeply, putting on a "heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience." Because of Jesus' death, the dividing wall was destroyed and "Christ is all, and in all." There are no divisions, no inequalities; we are the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ! We should act like it in love toward each other. And where is this love in the Church today? I don't want to be hypocritical, but we have come a long way from the unity of the earlier church.

I think about Jerry, an older black man with a scraggly whitish beard and a slight odor to his worn blue coveralls. We picked him up under an overpass on our way back from Kansas last week. He has chosen somewhat of the drifter lifestyle and seems to fit a lot of the outward stereotypes. He has been all over the place, served in the military for seven years, and carries all his possessions in a small green suitcase and a black duffel bag. The point is, regardless of his appearance, Jerry is still a human being, a creation of the Most High God. But, when we dropped him off at the McDonald's in Ardmore, Oklahoma, the stares of my fellow middle-class, white Americans bored holes through his heart. I imagine he is probably used to it, but it angered me that we can't love people if they are different from us. I don't really know where Jerry is at with the Lord, but I hope to say that he saw the love of Jesus shining through us.

Anyway, I got off on a little rant with that, but it's all to say that, on the whole, we flat out don't love people like Jesus called us to. How can we realize that the Holy God of the Universe loved us so much that He sent Jesus to die for us while we were still in straight-up rebellion to Him and His purposes (Romans 5:7-9) and not be moved to love people like that?!? Do you need a reminder of how much He loves you? Check out Matthew 18! Jesus uses the parables of little children and lost sheep to show us just how much the Father really wants to be with us. We get so caught up in our own pursuits and position that we forget two fundamental truths: 1) We have been given an inexplicable love that was completely unmerited and 2) Jesus tells us to show that love to everyone around us, not just the people we like (Matthew 5:43-45). It's time for the American church to get out of our pews, out of our special 'worship' services, out of our protective little Christian bubbles, and love people. Love people like Jesus! Don't just talk about it, do it. Look back at what Oswald challenged us with: "Be so identified with the Lord Jesus that His life and His sweetness are being poured out all the time!" Jesus didn't pour out His life in the ultimate act of love so that we could just enjoy the benefits. He wants to love people through us. It's time to wake up to be what Jesus wants His Bride to be.

Oh my... I wish I had more time to post. There are several thoughts bouncing around in my head, but, alas, I'll be getting on a plane headed West but really East in thirty-three hours and four minutes. I might get a post out before that, but I'm not promising anything. If not, I'll return to the blog world in a month and a half.
Grace, love, and peace to everyone.

Well, I just got back from Kansas where my East Asia team and I survived 'O-Week' with FOCUS International. The volunteers and staff at FOCUS provide, I think, the best preparation for going overseas available for short-term teams. Anyway, I just wanted to talk about a couple things that the Lord taught me throughout the week.

Probably, the most impactful lesson was a realization/reminder about depending on the Lord in the midst of difficult situations. One day had gotten specifically difficult for me both as the leader and on an individual basis. I was absolutely worn out physically, mentally, and spiritually. I was frustrated with myself and with some of the authority figures. But, when we got into worship that night, I was sitting there thinking and praying while everyone was singing, and God revealed to me that I had been seeking His strength, when I need to be seeking His Face. I had been relying on His blessings, not on intimacy with my Father. He continued to speak to my heart and brought to mind something I had read a day or two before from Second Peter:

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

The rest of the passage goes on to talk about characteristics in the life of a believer, but these few verses brought home the idea that God has provided, and will continue to provide, absolutely everything we need to live this life for His glory. The key, though, is to seek the Father, not His benefits. When this lines up in the life of a believer, the Lord is going to do some pretty sweet things. It just reminds me of Matthew 6:33: "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you."

We can look, too, at the life of Jesus. Paul talks in Philippians about how Jesus shed His deity to dwell among men and to live life as a man. He did not rely on His deity. He could have called down legions of angels at a second's notice, but, instead, He sought intimacy with His Father on a very regular basis. Now, I don't claim to fully grasp the full doctrine of the deity and humanity of Christ, but I do know that Jesus depended on His relationship to the Father, not on the power that He already had naturally as the Son of God.

I want to be like Jesus!

Well, I re-started reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship a few days ago on the way to go kayaking with my dad. I'd gotten a little over halfway through it a long time ago; so, I just decided to start from scratch. Anyway, this book is really intense and challenging. I am constantly amazed by old-school authors like Bonhoeffer and Chambers and tons others how every single word seems to be perfectly hand-selected to be overflowing in depth and insight.

In the first chapter, Bonhoeffer presents the idea of costly grace versus cheap grace, costly being grace viewed from a Biblical standpoint and cheap from a watered-down and 'easy' viewpoint of the bloody Cross of our Lord. So, here are a couple things he says:

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.

[...] Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: "My yoke is easy and my burden is light."

[...] It was grace because it cost so much, and it cost so much because it was grace.

The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ. Such a man knows that the call to discipleship is a gift of grace, and that the call is inseparable from the grace. But those who try to use this grace as a dispensation from following Christ are simply deceiving themselves.

This standpoint of grace seems to have lost its place in our churches today. I make a generalization, yet I think for the most part a fair one, in saying that most churches have strayed from the truth of the Lordship of Jesus. Let me explain. Last Sunday, in his sermon, Chris Osborne talked about the common 'American' philosophy that God's grace allows us a license for sin. People think they can go about their lives without submitting to Jesus as Lord, continuing in rebellion against His standards, and God will still forgive their sin. This is straight-up self-deception. Paul talks about grace like this: "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?" (Romans 6:1-2). Hebrews is even more demanding: "For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins" (Hebrews 10:26). If we look at the life of Paul, the love and grace of God changed his life dramatically. He was 'glory-driven' because He knew "the breadth and length and height and depth" of the love of Christ in a real, deep way (Ephesians 3:18-19). As American Christians, we are plagued by the false doctrine of being 'pleasure-driven' believing that, because God loves us, He wants us to be happy. Bonhoeffer's idea of 'cheap grace' is similar:

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

The Christian life comes to mean nothing more than living in the world and as the world, in being no different from the world, for the sake of grace. The upshot of it all is that my only duty as a Christian is to leave the world for an hour or so on a Sunday morning and go to church to be assured that my sins are all forgiven. I need no longer try to follow Christ, for cheap grace, the bitterest foe of discipleship, which true discipleship must loathe and detest, has freed me from that. [...] In both cases [of cheap and costly grace] we have the identical formula - "justification by faith alone." Yet the misuse of the formula leads to the complete destruction of its very essence.

Oh, where have we strayed and distorted our Lord's blood to such an extent? How can we look upon the Cross of Jesus and not offer Him our everything? He is so worth it!

By no means, do I have this whole thing figured out, and I am challenged to say that, as Bonhoeffer describes Martin Luther's realization of the magnitude of grace, that it has completely "shattered [my] whole existence." But, I do know that "Jesus asks nothing of us without giving us the strength to perform it. [...] Only Jesus Christ, who bids us follow him, knows the journey's end. But we do know that it will be a road of boundless mercy. Discipleship means joy" (Bonhoeffer). What amazing promises we have in Jesus!

Lord Jesus, bind my life to Your own. Let it be poured out as a drink offering for the Glory of Your Name. You deserve all praise for your inexplicable grace!

hi this is brittany, pat's friend. I am his stalker. :) not really but I am at his house and on his computer. hahahaha

Ok, so I really, really like Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest and will probably quote a lot of stuff from him on here. Anyway, below is today's entry and some thoughts.

BUILDING FOR ETERNITY
"For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?" Luke 14:28

Our Lord refers not to a cost we have to count, but to a cost which He has counted. The cost was those thirty years in Nazareth, those three years of popularity, scandal and hatred, the deep unfathomable agony in Gethsemane, and the onslaught at Calvary - the pivot upon which the whole of Time and Eternity turns. Jesus Christ has counted the cost. Men are not going to laugh at Him at last and say - "This man began to build, and was not able to finish."

The conditions of discipleship laid down by Our Lord in vv. 26, 27 and 33 mean that the men and women He is going to use in His mighty building enterprises are those in whom He has done everything. "If any man come to Me, and hate not . . . he cannot be My disciple." Our Lord implies that the only men and women He will use in His building enterprises are those who love Him personally, passionately and devotedly beyond any of the closest ties on earth. The conditions are stern, but they are glorious.

All that we build is going to be inspected by God. Is God going to detect in His searching fire that we have built on the foundation of Jesus some enterprise of our own? These are days of tremendous enterprises, days when we are trying to work for God, and therein is the snare. Profoundly speaking, we can never work for God. Jesus takes us over for His enterprises, His building schemes entirely, and no soul has any right to claim where he shall be put.

So, what does abandonment really mean? what does it look like? I don't think I'm all the way there by any means, but Jesus says we must hate the people with whom we naturally have the closest relationships. Now that's tough! And, again, what does it really mean? Is Jesus actually telling us to hate our family and loved ones? Clearly, our Lord strongly emphasizes our love for each other (John 13:15). So, we see that the hatred here, put into context, is merely how our love for our brothers and sisters should look in light of our love for our Savior and Lord. Again, we think about the immeasurable grace that has been poured out for us, that Jesus did "count the cost" of Calvary and found that it was worth it all. How in the world can we look at that kind of divine love and not fall so deeply in love with Jesus that all our earthly relations are hatred in comparison!

Read this today... It fits in real well with a couple things the Lord has shown/reminded me in the last day or so about our motivation for living, specifically missions. His love and grace really should compel us, give us a burning desire for other people to know His grace and praise His wonderful Name because of it... His unfathomable grace really is amazing!

"Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are made manifest to God; and I hope that we are made manifest also in your consciences. We are not again commending ourselves to you but are giving you an occasion to be proud of us, so that you will have an answer for those who take pride in appearance and not in heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are of sound mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.

"Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

"Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."

Well, I thought I might try the blog thing out for a little while, but I'll probably just post excerpts from stuff I'm reading or songs I like.... So, don't get too excited. This will probably just be more a place for me to think out loud.... Grace and peace....
-pat

Thoughts on various musical expressions of life:

• Love Alone & Embracing Accusation
  
• Mystery of Mercy
  
• Let Me Be Crazy
  
• No Tongue Can Bid Me Thence Depart
• My Calm // Your Storm
• Take My Life

Thoughts about family and tidbits from my own:

• And This Shall Be No More: Part One - Pain & Death
  
• My Little Brother, the Next Mozart
  

Thoughts on the culture we live in and happenings in the world as a whole:

• And This Shall Be No More: Part Two - Shattered Innocence
  
• Enemies: Going Beyond Love
• Living Like the End is Near
• Pray for the Harvest
• Love... Its Source and Its Expression
  

Thoughts concerning the Church and life as a Body of believers:

• Living Like the End is Near
  
• Take My Life
  
• Absurdity?
  
• We Don't Get It
  
• Love... Its Source and Expression
  
• Costly Grace
  

Thoughts dealing with missions, both local and international:

• Linkin' Logs: The Holy Ambition of Missions
• Linkin' Logs: Knowing Your Call & Changing Missions
  
• Pray for the Harvest
  
• Wow.... I'm back already...
  
• I'm not here...
  
• Craziness...
  
• Dependence
  

My take on talks and sermons I've heard recently:

• Linkin' Logs: The Holy Ambition of Missions
  
• Jesus Blood: Our Justification
• Linkin' Logs: Reshaping Your View of God
• Costly Grace

Blurbs of interest floating around the web:

• Linkin' Logs: The Holy Ambition of Missions
• Linkin' Logs: The Journeymen
  
• Linkin' Logs: Knowing Your Call & Changing Missions
• Linkin' Logs: Reshaping Your View of God

Just my take on things I've read recently:

• Enemies: Going Beyond Love
• Take My Life
• Love... Its Source and Its Expression
• Costly Grace
• Gloriously Stern Abandonment
• Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound

A few of my personal thoughts that got written down:

• Zechariah: The Man & His Visions
  
• And This Shall Be No More: Part Two - Shattered Innocence
  
• And This Shall Be No More: Part One - Pain & Death
  
• Let Me Be Crazy
  
• It's Been A While...
  
• The Selfishness of God
• Buying a Free Gift
  
• Enemies: Going Beyond Love
  
• Jesus' Blood: Our Justification
• Absurdity?
• We Don't Get It
• Pray for the Harvest
• Dependence
• Here Go the Thoughts

Pat's Ponderings
-- just thinking out loud...

Exactly that, these are just some of my thoughts written down, mostly about Jesus and walking through this life alongside Him. I'm not going to make any promises as to what kind of topics will show up on here, but I will tell you that I always get excited about international missions and am re-learning a lot about the foundational truths of the faith. So, those will probably come up frequently.

As for myself, I want to be about Jesus, plain and simple. I want to think like He thinks, love like He loves, and go where He goes. Whatever else comes with that is secondary. Currently, I'm studying Civil Engineering with an emphasis on Water Resources at Texas A&M University. I'd like to use that overseas as a platform for doing the Lord's work among people who've never heard His Name. But, we will see where He takes me. All to His glory!

Feel free to email me with your thoughts or questions at any time.

Below is a list of various categories for my blog entries:

• Personal Thoughts
• Book Commentary
• Sermon Commentary
• Missions
• The Church
• Culture
• Linkin' Logs
• Musical Musings
• Family