1 Corinthians 1-3 (Devo Update)

I’ve decided to be more intentional in 

1. Reading Scripture daily
2. Communicating with community

so I’ve started reading Scripture and posting my thoughts. Here’s where I picked up: 1 Cor. 1-3

The first thing I noticed is that Paul exhorts and gives thanksgiving in his opening. This was kind of a surprise to me, for I know that Paul lays into the Corinthians pretty heavily later on, so it was a testament of Paul’s intentional living and God’s grace that he started with positive rather than just diving in.

The second also came from chapter 1. Paul talks about divisions in Corinth and how they need to stop. Now. Which made me think of my disagreements and “divisions” with fellow believers, and even Christian leaders and how talking about these things publicly disgraces Jesus’ precious name, and how I need to be much more careful in how I communicate my disagreements, and even to quell some of them if possible.

Then Paul gets very philosophical (which I loved). He starts talking about wisdom and folly, and how “God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong,” and it gave me comfort knowing that there are no qualifications God needs of us intellectually, and that when we’re weakest, that is when he most shines.

Chapter 2 continues with the philosophy and dives into the question “How can we know God?” which is very popular. Paul argues we can know God best through the cross of Christ. Upon receiving his gift, we receive his Spirit who “Knows the thoughts of God,” and who “searches everything, even the depths of God.”

Back on Track

 

I was talking to a friend the other day about our men’s purity group. As it turns out, communication is extremely important; not just what we say, but how we say it. The same truth can be spoken two different ways, and can come out meaning two different things. We have to be intentional in how we communicate.

Just like Scripture.

I dove into Romans 12 today, and I emerged with a lot of underlines when it was all said and done. Romans 12:12 holds a positive correlation to trudging through the mire of sexual temptation. 

Too often, we use behavioral modification to wrap us up into a nice cozy blanket of legalism, and we shift our focus off Christ to fixing ourselves our way. Scripture reminds us to “Rejoice in hope, be patient in affliction, be persistent in prayer.” These things will help shift our focus back to Christ, and to remember to see the behavioral modification techniques only as tools that our good God has given us to help fight the battle.

Thoughts from a Mixed Up Man about His God

It’s 5:19 in the morning. 

On any other morning, I’d be sleeping next to my beautiful wife, enjoying my day’s 8 hours of rest. 

Not today.

I’m sitting outside marvelling at the light rising around me (fearing the skunk across the yard…) and reflecting on my life and God’s grace in the past few weeks. 

It couldn’t be more than two or three weeks ago that I was in the ICU at the hospital I serve in, with a friend wondering if her dad would ever regain his brain function. My friend got married yesterday. And her dad walked her down the aisle. 

A little over a week ago I woke up to a call from a dear friend. His dad, whom I had the privilege of serving in the hospital off and on for a year, had died. 

What am I to do with this?

I’m a pretty crappy friend. I don’t know what to say. God made me a man to reflect His Son Jesus and to help redeem what we can in this broken world, yet I don’t know how to respond to either of my friends. Their situations are opposite: one impossibly joyous, one incredibly grievous.

(moves inside, skunk uncomfortably close)

This leaves me in a fragile state. I don’t like being fragile.

My wife will tell you, I’m a control freak. Some might call it sin, I would call it…an interesting extension of being made in the image of God. I don’t things out of reach. I like my wife to answer her phone the first time I call. I like my DVR to work properly. I like teaching. I like to drive my Jeep (manual engine). All, at least to some extent, because I like control. 

I was talking to a friend recently about the movie Signs, directed by M. Night Shyamlkajsdan. We had talked about chance, whether it exists, or what the alternative would be. M. Night has told an amazing story centering on this topic. I won’t type the whole story (I’ve got to be at church in a few hours ), but M. Night believes in a higher purpose. Things don’t just happen. They are directed and guided by some higher being. 

I know him as Savior.

It’s at this point in every conversation (and even typing this) I start to cry. Why me, God? Why your grace in my life? Scripture tells me it has nothing to do with me and what I’ve done. I believe it, not only because it’s God’s word, but because anyone who knows me knows that I, left to my own devices, would never be where I am this morning without Him. 

Things don’t happen by chance. Dads don’t walk their girls down the aisle by chance. Dads don’t die suddenly by chance. 

God has a plan.

Believe me when I say, I’m kind of a manly man. On most days I’m not some starry-eyed dreamer. However, I can say “God has a plan” with confidence because I’ve seen it moreso in my life than I have hours spent in school… I sit here today, at 5:43am, to tell you you’re not alone, because God doesn’t abandon. You’re worth something to Jesus, because I have seen His love. You’re valued. You’re accepted. You’re loved. 

And it has nothing to do with you.

But it has everything to do with Him.

for more information about…Jesus…click on the tab above, or hit me up on facebook, twitter, or google plus.

This day in our history…

Two years ago today I asked my girlfriend to marry me…on her birthday. And she said yes! On 7/2/11 we were married!

I just wanted to take a minute to tell the world that I love my wife.

I won’t sugar coat anything…life has gotten a lot harder. Instead of one life of difficulties, I have two to wade through. But I’m not alone in the hard times. Even though I have way more “problems” than I did when I was single, Hannah is there beside me, drawing me closer to Jesus, our Savior. She knows she doesn’t have all the answers, and so she points me to the One who does. And for that, I cannot say enough how thankful I am.

Love you boo.

The Hunger Games Trilogy Visited by Jesse Gruber

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Katniss Everdeen.

She is trapped in a broken system of violence, poverty, and societal expectations.

The Hunger Games serve as a grim reminder of the failed uprising of Districts 1-13 in Panem almost a century prior to the setting of the books. Now, there are only 12 Districts (officially). 13 was destroyed by the incomparable Capitol. Filled with the “best” Panem has to offer, the Capitol also houses the infamous President Snow.

Snow’s hatred for our Katniss is sparked by her stunt she pulled in the 74th Hunger Games. Her and the male Tribute from 12, Peeta, almost committed suicide. You see, the Games only have one victor in the 24 contestants (2 from each District, male and female). The rest are killed by the other Tributes til one is crowned victor.

Katniss and Peeta are stopped, both being crowned victors in the 74th Hunger Games.

And so it begins.

I’ll forego a synopsis of the other two books (Catching Fire and Mockingjay), because I want to focus more on the people than the actual books.

Peeta loves Katniss, while receiving absolutely nothing in return. He sets himself up for hurt after hurt, but he still loves. Katniss is confused, but never truly reciprocates until the final pages of the final series.

In those three sentences lie a truth completely obscured from our self-centered culture’s “me-relationships”.

As Tim Keller points out in his new book The Meaning of Marriage, we’ve lost a love for one other. Even in our relationships, it’s about us staying the same, and the other person adapting to our wants and “needs”. The idea that relationships are about receiving, not sharing is killing marriage as a whole.

Self-sacrificial love is an unheard of concept, and is detestable to our human nature.

But Suzanne Collins thinks it should be more than that. I would agree with her.

Relationships are more complex that “just” feelings or emotion. They are complex down to the core of our souls, and Katniss and Peeta capture that beautifully.

Some people would make an argument that there is only one person out there, a “soulmate” if you will. So what they do is they wait and wait to get married, all the while tasting all different kinds of people (figuratively and literally) in an attempt to find this soul mate.

I hate to break it to you. There are no such things as soulmates. Not in the sense that our American culture has defined for us anyway. Marriage isn’t about you. It’s about the other spouse, and how you must choose to serve them day in and day out. This doesn’t match up to the “perfect” me-marriages our culture sets the standard of. There’s no such thing as “get married and life will be easy because I will constantly receive and never have to give anything.” That world doesn’t exist. Marriage is about commitment. If you don’t have that, then you’ll just add to the upsetting divorce statistics.

Christians, please don’t get me wrong! The person you marry is the person you are to be committed to, and in that sense a “soulmate” type of thing is worked out. However, the idea that we can sit on our haunches to be served by a “soulmate” is the thinking I’m attempting to flesh out.

On a different note, and in light of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, I’d like to start a discussion on Katniss and how she morphs through the series.

After the Hunger Games, her life is changed forever by what seems to be PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). Even the slightest sight, sound, smell, or touch sends her back into the midst of the uncomprehendable pain of the Games, and she needs to be reconstructed again and again into something that resembles a functioning human being.

This is the experience of assault victims.

In fact, next to war veterans, sexual assault victims report the highest PTSD symptoms of any other demographic. Why?

Sexual assault doesn’t just damage the body. It damages the soul. The damage done flows through every aspect of their being until they’re utterly destroyed in every sense. In the words of one of my friends, ”The places that once were safe became the sources of pain and hurt.”

I was co-teaching Sunday School at Fellowship Bible Church recently on Judges 19 and 20, the Levite and his concubine.

The Scriptures recount a horrific period of Israel’s history, where a Levite was staying in a strangers house for the night when the house was surrounded by men who wanted to rape him. Rather than allowing this, he threw his concubine outside for the men to have instead. I’ll let Scripture tell exactly what went on:

the man seized his concubine and took her outside to them. They raped her and abused her all night until morning. At daybreak they let her go. 26 Early that morning, the woman made her way back, and as it was getting light, she collapsed at the doorway of the man’s house where her master was.
27 When her master got up in the morning, opened the doors of the house, and went out to leave on his journey, there was the woman, his concubine, collapsed near the doorway of the house with her hands on the threshold. 28 “Get up,” he told her. “Let’s go.” But there was no response.

-Judges 19:25-26 HCSB

The implication here is that the men raped her until death.

Now, these types of stories are not uncommon in Scripture, they’re just rarely ever taught. So the class tried to make light of it. A common response to something so repulsive.

I was never taught this passage when I was a kid. It was one of the first times I had read through this story, and it made me want to throw up. Not only because it was horrible, but because I know of people that would consider this woman lucky because she died. She didn’t have to live through each day wondering when it would happen next.

I shared with the class just before they left that statistics would indicate that one of the girls and two of the guys in the room have been sexually assaulted. The room got very quiet. I explained how common this atrocity is, and how the proper response isn’t to make light, but to address the issue with grace and humility.

It made me sad, that no one is educated on how to respond to sexual abuse, though it is so prevalent. I want to do my part by opening communication with me as a safe place for victims to run to. I also want to share this group of articles to help as many people as I can with the Gospel of Jesus.

http://theresurgence.com/categories/sexual-assault

So at this point I’ll apologize for not being a great writer and for all that being hard to follow Find me on twitter (@shrankaplooza) or on Facebook (facebook.com/shrankaplooza) or on Google + (Jesse Gruber) and we can talk more about the books, or sexual assault.

The Meaning of Marriage Quotes- Intro and Chapter 1

The Meaning of Marriage is Tim Keller’s latest book, and is based on the premise of “No Soulmates” and allowing the Gospel to drive your marriage and allowing your marriage to reveal the Gospel. Just started this the other day, and I’m thoroughly enjoying it.

Introduction

But beneath these philosophical objections (to marriage) lies a snarl of conflicted personal emotions, born out of many negative experiences with marriage and family life.

Marriage did not evolve in the late Bronze Age as a way to determine property rights.

Marriage is God’s idea.

Plenty of people who do not acknowledge God or the Bible, yet who are experiencing happy marriages, are largely abiding by God’s intentions, whether they realize it or not. But it is far better if we are conscious of those intentions and the place to discover them is in the writings of the Scriptures.

…The biblical authors’ teaching constantly challenged their own cultures’ beliefs-they were not simply a product of ancient mores and practices. We cannot, therefore, write off the biblical view of marriage as one-dimensionally regressive or culturally obsolete.

Chapter One- The Secret of Marriage

I’m tired of listening to sentimental talks on marriage. (Literally the first line of chapter 1 )

Cohabitation is an understandable response from those who experienced their own parents’ painful divorces, but the facts indicate that the cure may be worse than the alleged disease.

Marriage provides a profound “shock absorber” that helps you navigate disappointments, illnesses, and other difficulties.

Studies show that spouses hold one another to greater levels of personal responsibility and self-discipline than friends or other family members can.

Nothing can mature character like marriage.

John Witte, Jr. says that the earlier “ideal of marriage as a permanent contractual union designed for the sake of mutual love, procreation, and protection is slowly giving way to a new reality of marriage as a ‘terminal sexual contract’ designed for the gratification of the individual partites.

In short, the Enlightenment privatized marriage, taking it out of the public sphere, and redefined its purpose as individual gratification, not any “broader good” such as reflecting God’s nature, producing character, or raising children.

Marriage used to be a public institution for the common good, and now it is a private arrangement for the satisfaction of the individuals. Marriage used to be about us, but now it is about me.

In generations past there was far less talk about “compatibility” and finding the ideal soul mate. Today we are looking for somene who accepts us as we are and fulfills our desires, and this creates an unrealistic set of expectations that frustrates both the searchers and the searched for.

Older views of marriage are considered to be traditional and oppressive, while the newer view of the “Me-Marriage” seems so liberating. And yet it is the newer view that has led to a steep decline in marriage and to an oppressive sense of hopelessness with regard to it…The new conception of marriage-as-self-realization has put us in a position of wanting too much out of marriage and yet not nearly enough- at the same time.

A marriage based not on self-denial but on self-fulfillment will require a low- or no-maintenance partner who meets your needs while making almost no claims on you. Simply put- today people are asking far too much in the marriage partner.

But if you avoid marriage simply because you don’t want to lose your freedom, that is one of the worst things you can do to your heart.

You never marry the right person.

No two people are compatible.

Marriage brings you into more intense proximity to another human being than any other relationship can.

Over the years you will go through seasons in which you have to learn to love a person who you didn’t marry, who is something of a stranger.

The journey may eventually take you into a strong, tender, joyful marriage. But it is not because you married the perfectly compatible person. That person doesn’t exist.

Hauerwas gives us the first reason that no two people are compatible for marriage- namely, that marriage profoundly changes us.

Even today’s critics of monogamy must grant that, at least pragmatically, we can’t really live without it.

Evidence continues to mount that marriage- indeed traditional, exclusively monogamous marriage- brings enormous benefits of all kinds to adults, and even more to children and society at large.

If our views of marriage are too romantic and idealistic, we underestimate the influence of sin on human life. If they are too pessimistic and cynical, we misunderstand marriage’s divine origin.

This is the secret- that the Gospel of Jesus and marriage explain one another. That when God invented marriage, he already had the saving work of Jesus in mind.

On the one hand, the experience of marriage will unveil the beauty and depths of the Gospel to you…On the other hand, a greater understanding of the Gospel will help you experience deeper and deeper union with each other as the years go on.

Marriage is a major vehicle for the Gospel’s remaking of your heart from the inside out and your life from the ground up.

Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws.

The Gospel can fill our hearts with God’s love so that you can handle it when your spouse fails to love you as he or she should.

Real Marriage Quotes- Chapter 7 and 8

Chapters 7- Disgrace and Grace

“We must name the troubling past truthfully-we must come to clarity about what happened,  how we reacted,  and how we are reacting to it now-to be freed from its destructive hold on our lives.  Granted,  truthful naming will not by itself heal memories or wrong suffered; but without truthful naming,  all measures we might undertake to heal such memories will remain incomplete. ” -quote from Miroslav Volf

A person who has been abused can become adept at hiding the pain behind a mask.

For most churches,  this topic is taboo and not discussed,  but for us it had to be.

A few years into this,  I now think redemption is always an opportunity in front of me,  and my fears and “victim identity” are becoming a part of my past.  (Grace)

Chapter 8-The Porn Path

In the best sense of the word,  God intends for a devoted married couple to be “addicted” to each other,  bound together in every way.

This also explains why God intends sexual pleasure to be experienced solely within marriage.  God is good,  and His commands are good.  When He forbids sex outside marriage,  He is not being prudish,  outdated,  or prohibiting our joy.

Most experts agree there are four basic aspects to virtually all heterosexual pornography,  which constitutes the majority of porn-
1-The message is consistent that all women want sex from all men all the time in all kinds of bizarre ways and are essentially nymphomaniacs.
2-Women really enjoy whatever any man does to them sexually.
3-Any woman who does not meet the stereotype of points one and two can quickly bechanged through a bit of force or intimidation.
4-The woman is dominated and degraded by the man in a way that exploits her as essentially a tool for the pleasure of the man and not really a person but rather parts.

The act of desiring the unclothed body of a person is not a sin.  The issue is which person’s unclothed body you are listing after.

Even mainstream women’s magazines contribute to the objectification and degradation of sex.  Cosmo, as well as an entire industry of other women’s magazines lining the rack of your local grocery store,  fills its covers with pornography article headlines shouting to the world that lust is a good thing.  And their pages are filled with detailed instructions teaching a young woman how to look and act like a Porn star so as to attract a boyfriend,  outperform his previous girlfriends in bed,  and be as hot as his favorite porn fantasies.  The goal is to keep him well satisfied and in the relationship as if he were a God to be worshipped. 

“As pornography has become more acceptable,  both legally and culturally,  the level of brutality toward,  and the degradation of women has intensified.”- National Online Resource Center on Violence Against Women

Don’t kid yourself.  Sin is an onramp to death.

You don’t control porn.  Porn controls you.

Do not be fooled,  porn is not about sex,  it’s all about money.

No porn is free.

We have sought to sand the varnish off porn and sinful lust so as to see it for what it truly is-a horrific evil with no redeeming value.

Do not deny the truth because it is embarrassing.  Do not minimize the truth as if it was no big deal.  Do not normalizes the truth as if it were okay because it is so common.  Do not rationalize the truth with excuses like “it’s not as bad as adultery” or you’ve “got it under control. ” Do not celebrate it as freedom when it is in fact slavery.

While none of us can. Become perfect in this life,  God does promise that Christians can put their sin,  including sexual sin,  to death because Jesus died for it.

Sex is a part of your life,  but it is not your life.