Burn Us Up

I have never really had a CD player in my car. Ever. Unless you count a portable one tethered into my cassette tape player. But my new car finally allows my to listen to CDs on the go. So I recently listened to Shane and Shane's Pages. If you've never heard it, you need to at least hear the song "Burn Us Up." It's a song about Daniel's three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (or Rack, Shack, and Benny.) The song beautifully depicts the scene where Nebuchadnezzer threatened to throw anyone who did not bow to his statue into the furnace. I've always liked the song, but for some reason it struck me in a different way this time.

The bridge of the song starts out by like this:

"You are able to deliver from the fire of affliction!
It's the declaration of my Lord!
You're not an image of gold!
You're the God of Old.
You have made us. Come and save us. We are yours!"

The part that caught my attention is the next line: "but even if you don't." In Daniel 3, the three men say that they will not worship the image of gold. They know that God is able to save them from the fire of the furnace. But they will worship Him only, even if He doesn't. They were much more concerned with the glory and majesty of God then their own safety.

I believe we also need this attitude. If we desire for God's glory to fill the earth, we will begin to care less about our own happiness. We will learn to find joy in Him and not in the world. I also think about John the Baptist, who said "He must become more, I must become less." His goal was not to create a large ministry for himself... he gladly gave this up so Jesus could enter the spotlight.

Of course, John's story doesn't have a happy ending like the one in Daniel. John is beheaded in prison... he dies in obscurity. He is not saved from his affliction. The story doesn't always end the way we think it should. But His promise goes beyond this life and beyond anything we can imagine.

"Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me." -Luke 7:23

It's the simple things, sometimes...

I have always been fascinated by airplanes. Small, big, it doesn't matter. They amaze me. I love watching them, flying in them, and reading about them. I don't know if it's possible to have a "crush" on a genre of transportation, but I'm one step away from being considered a stalker. Anyways, I was recently waiting in the Richmond airport for a flight to Newark, NJ. I was staring out the window at all the planes taking off, landing, taxiing... I was in awe! It was just like any other day at the airport.

Until something amazing happened.

No, nothing exploded. Nothing caused the entire airport to break into a panic. In fact, I'm positive that I'm the only one that noticed. As I stood at gate B2, watching my Embraer Regional Jet park at the terminal, a tiny fly landed on the window. This fly was barely bigger than than the point of the pen I was holding. Yet the tiny wings on its back blew me away. (Not literally.) I had been standing there in amazement at the brilliance of man to create flight, until I realized that God had the idea way before we did. That tiny little bug became more amazing to me than any of the giant flying hunks of metal I had been staring at for over an hour.

"But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong." -1 Corinthians 1:27

God continues to use little things in my life to prove to me that He is faithful. This is no exception. His message to me this time was "Hey, you're going to think things of this world are great! Just remember that even My smallest creation is greater than anything the world could ever give you."

Am I Free?

This question burns in my mind. Am I truly free?

"My dead heart now is beating, my deepest stains now clean.
Your breath fills up my lungs, now I'm free, now I'm free."

I sang those words last night. They are from one of my favorite worship songs of all time. Thinking about it now, I don't know if I really believe those words. I do know that my dead heart is beating. I do know that my deepest stains are clean. Jesus did this for me already. His breath has filled up my lungs.

But I don't feel free all the time.

It's easy to sing that "sin has lost its power," and that "death has lost its sting." But it's much more difficult to remember that when I'm at my worst. When I'm most selfish. When I'm bitter or jealous. When I feel hatred towards another person. Sometimes I still feel like my sin holds me captive... withholding me from God's full potential for me.

Sure my dead heart is beating, but sometimes I feel like it's struggling to hold on.

But my dissatisfaction with my sin is what reminds me that I'm still a work in progress. God is actively pursuing me. I am sure of this because deep in my heart, I know He is the only thing that can satisfy. I know that He is the only One who can fill the emptiness that so often cripples me. Even when I try to fill the void with other things, I know that none of it will ever give me as much joy and peace with life as would the love of God.

And I know that nothing else could set me free.

-kevin

"You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." -Romans 5:6-8 (NIV)

Learning Patience

I have never been a guy who likes to sit around and do nothing. So far this semester I have had many hours to myself. I have to admit, it's kind of nice to have free time for once. But I just have a feeling that I'm not supposed to sit on my hands the whole time. Thus, of course, why I'm writing in this blog. I've always enjoyed sharing my thoughts, whether one person reads them or a thousand people read them. I will try not to make this a biographical session, but I do hope to share what God is doing in my life.

Last night I spoke for my youth group at Faith Community Church in South Boston, VA. I began talking about prayer, and how sometimes God doesn't give us what we pray for because He has bigger things in mind for us. I didn't get far into my lesson before the students started sharing stories about times this happened in their lives, and how God used that situation for the better. This was, of course, going to be my point, but they said it before I could. Youth can truly be amazing! Thinking back on that today, I wonder if I'm really living with that mindset, or if I am more often bitter and angry when things don't go the way I thought they should have.

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us." -Romans 8:18 (NASB)

For me, this puts things into perspective. God's Glory > present sufferings. God's Glory > present disappointments. God's Glory > me. (That is the point of Littleman, I suppose. It would make sense for me to remember it more often.) But I forget most of the time.

So I suppose God is teaching me patience right now. He is teaching me that there are things in life that don't pay a dime now, but may have heavenly rewards. The problem with heavenly rewards is that we don't see the fulfillment now. But the Glory that is to be revealed to us is much greater even than our present satisfaction. That's the promise God gives us. And we may not recognize that when things don't go our way, but the promise is still there. It's always there. Though every disappointment, every suffering, every hardship. We must not forgot that God is God, and He will never break His promise.

-kevin

Am I who I want to be?

I recently remembered that I have this website. I've posted randomly over the past few years, and I originally opened this account to keep my friends and family in the loop about my first summer at IMPACT Florida in 2007. I also intended to do that this past summer, but as you can see, that didn't happen. In either case I decided to go back and read some of those old posts. I was reminded of how much I love IMPACT Florida, which in turn reminded me how much I love leading worship. It also made me think "hey, I should write something."

So here it is. For the past few months I've been trying to figure out what I want to do after I graduate in May. Actually, I'm marrying Emily in July, so I should say that we have been trying to decide what we want to do after graduation. As we look forward to an amazing life together, we both decided that grad school was in the future for both of us. Cause, hey, why not add enormous amounts of stress to our newly founded family, right? No, but seriously... in an effort to find her a free education at Liberty, I applied for two full-time jobs at the school. I was soundly turned down for both, of course, because God's plans are always bigger than our own. After the disappointment began to wear off, I realized something... and this is the point of why I'm writing.

Whatever God is doing is exactly what is supposed to happen. The jobs I applied for have nothing to do with my calling. I am a worship leader. I love nothing more than approaching the throne with other believers. God has graciously gifted me with talents, passions, and opportunities to do this, and to do anything else with my life would be a waste of all that. So, this fall, Emily and I will being moving to Wake Forest, NC so I can attend Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. There I hope to pursue a degree in Church Music.

I realized, through my disappointments, that I did not like who I was becoming. I was trying to force myself into what I saw as convenient and comfortable. I realized that I would rather venture into some new and frightening place than waste my life pursuing something God had not called me to.

In an effort to keep this post from getting too long, I will stop now. I have a lot more I could say. I plan to update twice a week from now on. I'm not sure which days yet... possibly Monday and Thursday.

Be who you were meant to be.

-kevin

I overcome

This blog was really made for last summer, and I'll be using it again this summer, but I wanted to go ahead and start using it a lot more, so here's a thought I had tonight.

I'm doing a little studying for a Greek quiz on Friday. As I was going through a long list of verbs, I came to one, νικαω. which in English would be spelled nikao I think. In either case, I read the translation next to it.

I overcome

That's all it said. I overcome. Just reading that simple transition made me stop and think... wow, I can say that! Not by my own power, but I have the ability to say that with confidence.

νικαω - I overcome

It's the word Jesus uses in John 16:33 when He says "Take heart, I have overcome the world." In that passage, the word "have" is implied by the perfect tense. This verse just became a million times more meaningful to me. Basically what Jesus is saying is "In this world, you will have trouble, but take heart! I overcame the world, and for the rest of eternity, the fact will remain."

Jesus has overcome the world. You see, perfect tense is used for a past action that has present implications. It's the same tense used with the verb τελεω when Jesus is on the cross. Teleo is the verb meaning "to complete, end, or finish." This word was used in legal transactions to show that a debt had been paid off. It's the word Jesus said right before He died.

Τετελεσται. "It is finished"

But it doesn't mean that Jesus's life was now over. It does not mean that His Earthly ministry was over. This specific word implies "The debt has been paid off. I have done it now, and the implications was last forever. To reach all peoples, for the rest of enternity.

To reach to us. Today.

It is this word, spoken by Jesus, that allows us to say "I overcome." Praise Jesus!