can't get no satisfaction

This video was brought to my attention today. It's John Piper preaching against prosperity gospel. He gets pretty intense in this video. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this term, I doubt you are unfamiliar with the main contributors: Joel O'Steen and T.D.  Jakes. I was watching another video, a segment MSNBC did on the mega churches industry. It was startling and sad to hear these two famous pastors have the opportunity to share the gospel with those that are hurting and searching for hope but instead they share the prosperity gospel. The health, wealth and prosperity gospel basically says if you come to Jesus you'll be rich. You'll drive a nice car and have nice clothes. They sell this gospel version to the masses and profit from it. All the while there are still people that are hurting and searching and are being sold lies.

God does love you and He wants you to prosper, but there is so much more to the story. He has the gift of salvation, a gift of hope and it is free. It is not contained in the latest O'Steen book for $24.95. You can find all the answers in the Bible. Many people would give you one if given the opportunity. I know I would. It doesn't matter if you are rich or poor, if you drive a beamer or a pinto. He wants you to be holy above all else. Christ did not lead a glamorous life while on earth. In fact, it was the opposite. It was a life of pain and suffering and sacrifice. Why do we feel we deserve something different?

John Piper also said "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him." I joke about the things that make me happy (chocolate and shoes), but realistically speaking, I don't find my satisfaction in Him. I search in other places, always coming up empty. I want to be able to say He is enough. I pretend I believe that, but my life speaks so differently. I know I'm deriving a lot from this one video, but it just got me thinking. Do I find satisfaction solely in Him or is it more centered on what He does for me or the things He gives me?

snow. snow. snow.

I know some of you are probably wondering where I have been lately and why my blogs posts are so sporadic. (I'm trying to discipline myself and get on a schedule of writing) First off, I'm buried in snow. Well, almost. When I look out my windows, all I see is mountains of snow. The Boston area has had well over 50 in within the last month! That's a lot of snow for this Florida girl. There has been so much snow that they don't have any more places to put it. I heard on the news they are seeking help from "snow farms." I've never heard of such a thing. I can't even tell you how many times I've considered just throwing caution to the wind, extending my arms and free falling backwards into the deep, deep snow. Just out of curiosity, I reached out to touch it the other day (it looked so soft). When I reached out to run my fingers through soft, powder-like snow I was instead confronted with the harsh reality that all of the snow was deceiving me. It had rained the day before and the temperature had dropped again significantly in the night. The once soft snow had now turned to solid and unforgiving ice. I am so glad I did not give into the temptation of making snow angels ha.

The other reason for my lack of blogs has to do with my work load at this time. The next few weeks, maybe month, will be busy. I'm working on a project now then I leave for Italy and Israel for two weeks at the beginning of March. I'll try my best to get a couple blogs out in the mean time, but you can count on lots of them when I return from my trip!!

Thank you for your patience :)

the enemy

Last year, I took this counseling class. It's basic premise was self-counseling before you start to counsel others. It was all about confronting yourself, and getting to the truth of who you are. I was scared to death. I knew I couldn't handle the truth. Deep down, I'm a scary person. No offense, but we all are.

I read the most incredible books during that class, and they rarely are far from me. I was going over one of the books recently just to refresh my mind. I have to do that whenever I find myself “acting” or becoming a little “holier-than-thou.” There are times when I look at my life and justify the sin because of all the good I am doing. So I have to face the truth about myself. In this book, The Enemy Within, the author, Kris Lundgaard, mentions the battle Paul refers to in Romans 7. He says that the sin living within us is a law. Lundgaard says, “Paul uses 'law' as a metaphor. He needs a way to express the power, authority, constraint, and control that sin wields in our lives, and he picks 'law' with a touch of irony.” The author continues by using the law of gravity as an example. It's a force that causes objects to obey it's will. The same is true of the sin in our lives. “We have met the enemy and he is us.” (Pogo).

See even when we try to be the best we can, we still fall short. We will always be fighting the battle against our own sin nature. Lundgaard continues by saying, “Few people have come to terms with the law of sin. If more people had, we would hear more complaints of it in prayers, see more struggling against it, and find less of its fruit in the world.”

A professor recently mentioned, its not about how little or insignificant our sin is, but how great the God is that we are offending with our sin. The cost of our sin has to be considered. Christ paid it all with His life. Our “small, insignificant” sins have a very high price. While we are forgiven by God, we still have to face the consequences of our sin.

I wrote out this blog and left it unfinished before heading to my classes. Then the chapel speaker touched on this very topic. “Touched” might be a slight understatement. He actually hammered on this subject. He said too often “we are quick to worship and slow to confess.” Roy Hession states in his book Calvary Road, “We pray long to be cleansed from some sin and for peace to be restored to our hearts, but unless we are willing to be broken on the point in question and be made a partaker of the Lamb's humility there, nothing will happen. Every sin we commit is the result of the hard unbroken self taking up some attitude of pride, and we shall not find peace through the blood until we are willing to see the source of each sin and reverse the wrong attitude that caused it by a specific repentance, which will always be humbling.”

That's the bad news. The good news is although He is a holy and righteous God, He is forgiving and loving. No matter how far we fall, it's never too far for Him and His love. The self-confrontation class was difficult, eye-opening, and hard to swallow, but it was then that I truly learned the depth of my depravity and the depth His love. It absolutely blows my mind.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39 NIV)