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I have to admit that today my brain isn’t quite working right. It started last night with the bad idea to take a quick nap after I’d finished packing for my week long trip to Germany. The problem was that it was about 8pm after I’d finished. After I’d woken up from my nap it was hard to convince myself to go back to sleep later and in fact my body figured “much later” was better. Add that to a semi early morning wake-up to head to the train station and a 3h train ride and I’m pretty exhausted.

I had a thought last night that really pierced my mind. Where is God in an age where He isn’t wanted. I’m no historical expert, but from what I know from Hollywood’s documentaries and movies religion was a huge part of every culture to every point in history up until now. The Romans and the Greeks were these pioneering societies but religion and “the gods” were a vital part of their everyday life. Looking east into Asia and south into Africa, spiritual aspects were (and are) a large part of every day life. In this post modernistic something has changed and we now focus our praise, dependance, adoration, love and worship on… ourselves. If that sounds a little selfish then I think its fair to say that we focus on mankind in general.

There’s an interesting “series” (I’m not sure what you’d call it) called “TED” (and I don’t even remember what it stands for). Its a really interesting set of quick presentations based on new discoveries, or inventions or ideas. Its neat to see whats out there with these modern innovations, however the one thing thats seemed to always strike me is that it always seemed to me to be like some kind of a church service. There’s this audience and a “preacher” who is sharing this new revelation. By the end of the presentation the audience is wow’d and amazed at the wonder of what we Humans have been able to accomplish.

France too is a very humanistic country. It seems like they nationally gave up on organized religion and I can’t say that I really blame them. The church entity was hypocritical and did some pretty atrocious things. In ditching the church they in turn gave up on God and turned to themselves. Museums are dedicated to amazing human works, human figures have been “immortalized” in stone (or wax at the wax museum). The people are very focused on making it for themselves. We’re a generation who is dedicated to ourselves. We devote ourselves to knowledge like a God. I hesitate to use the word science in the place of knowledge because I don’t think a lot of this knowledge is science. Science is something that can be reproduced constantly with the same results every time. What we’re busy putting forward at a furious pace is theories and opinions. Ideas on what is happening, ideas on what is correct. When a theory is proved wrong we must come up with another theory to explain it, or just divert attention.

We immortalize people. Steve Jobs, Tiger Woods, sports stars, Presidents, and others are lifted above this simple level of Human to an icon… a god. With all that we praise humanity for, what value do we put on human life? I had a discussion a while ago which brought up the topic of abortion. We have given ourselves the authority to define what life is and it seems to be “if people are not like me….”. Everything comes back to center on me. Rules are defined around “me” and what I feel like. “Nothing is right or wrong so long as it doesn’t negatively affect me… then you better not”.

This is our world now. We’re a bunch of individuals trying to live completely independent lives when surrounded by millions of other people trying to do the same. Where is God in all of this? What place does he have in our society?

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The past 2 weeks i’ve been taking the metro into Paris for language classes at Alliance Français.  There’s 1 thing I’ve noticed every day that seems to be common between most people that commute on the metro… Headphones.  There’s white ones and black ones and red ones, in ear, over the ear and stylish ones but it has given me some insight this past week.  For my work here I have 2 very decent sets of headphones,  on the metro I see many people with very good headphones as well.  I see the whole range from your basic iPod headphones to some really good pairs.  What is the difference?  What drives people to replace the stock iPod headphones for something different?  Sometimes its style, they come in bright fancy colors and looks.  Most of the time I think its for tone and accuracy.

For this I think you have Rap & Dance/Club music to thank.  So much of this music is dependent on the beat and “thump” you get from the lower frequencies.  Just take a listen to the next car that drives by with a subwoofer… thats what they want inside their head.  If I’m not mistaken, an artist called Dr. Dre (or ‘Monster’ in a marketing push) introduced a line of headphones called “Beats” which made it stylish to want “better sound” out of a portable device.  Before that it was only the losers and nerds who made a big deal about sound quality.  People are now spending a lot of money to try and get the best possible sound from their devices (iPod, cd player, home theatre… you name it).  People are after authenticity.  They want to accurately reproduce the source.

My question is, what is your source?  If you are accurately and authentically (catch word of today’s culture) reproducing something, what is it?  The portable music world is ruled by mp3s (and aac-iTunes).  These are honestly garbage.  These formats are known as compressed files.  Take a newly downloaded song from iTunes, its 256kbps (kilo bits per second).  The original file from a cd is 1411kbps.  The compressed format contains less than ¼ the amount of “data” as the original file.  Most mp3 files are worse.
My point isn’t to start an mp3 vs wav file war, but to impress the fact that we’re now spending a lot of time, money, and effort to reproduce something that isn’t authentic itself.  Its made me think a bit about my life.  If I am a tool which is trying to produce an accurate image of something, what is it? Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.  So if God created us in His image, then we’re supposed to reflect Him.  Looking at my life and the culture around me I see something different.  We’ve taken the whole image of God, and “compressed” it to something else; throwing out what we don’t want.  So what image are we reflecting?  Look around… Sex & the human form, understanding & human ability, power, possessions.  All of these things God created but they are not the whole picture.  We need to authentically reproduce the real thing.

How??? Jesus did it.  Col 1:15 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” …  19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven…”

To faithfully be reproducing the image of God, we must constantly be looking to Him so that we know what he is like.  Through the sacrifice of Jesus we have been given the gift of God’s presence.  Don’t take it for granted.  Spend time with Him.  Know Him more.

Like it or not, your life is reproducing an image of something.  What is your source?

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I’ve seen a couple Facebook posts on this “new” Titanic 3D movie thats come out.  Personally it doesn’t really interest me too much… I mean, (spoiler alert) it sinks.  To be entirely honest, I’ve never had the patience to sit through the original version in its entirety (the benefits of being single).

With the 100th anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking it brought me to think about how quickly things change from what we expect.  I’d like to think that I’m a positive example of this.  Had you told me in September that I’d be living in Paris in 6 months I’d have probably laughed at you.  Things changed very quickly for me.  Its a great example of how God is in control.

It also serves as a warning.  If God is in control then I am not.  Humility is huge.  As they say, pride comes before the fall.

We also need to be careful where we are steering the boat.  Just like the Titanic was warned about ice, we too are given warnings in life. 1 Col 3:5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming.  If thats not a “steer clear of icebergs” I don’t know what is.  I think that one of the biggest problems with modern western society is that we don’t believe it.  Where else are these things more evident than in our churches!!!  Why do we have such a small view on God’s holiness?

Have we overemphasized God’s grace and love?  I don’t really think so, what I do think is that we have underemphasized and even neglected the Holiness and supremacy and anger and wrath of God.  I know I’ve neglected this and even forgotten about it.  When I read it again this morning on the train into Paris it really jumped off the page.  Yes God love me, but ignoring sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness (idolatry) is like playing chicken with an iceberg.   You may miss this one and or that one, but sooner or later the Wrath of God is coming.

Let me tell you that living in Europe has given me a new perspective on what it means to hit the iceberg.  Europe is a place where Christianity thrived in the past.  Where is it now?  Through generations of ignoring this warning and even promoting these “earthly” things we now find Europe as a very “Godless” place.  People reject Christianity and God (& “Religion”) with a passion but are searching for something to fill that emptiness.  Here in Europe that’s taken the form of worshiping “humanity”.  I’ve never seen so many statues and figures or so much praise for “Man’s” achievements.

What are we as Christians doing about it?  Honestly, it seems like many of us (including myself) ignored it.  Not only have we ignored Europe but it seems like North America is moving this way too.  We’ve left the wheelhouse of our life, we’ve stopped trying to avoid the oncoming icebergs and we’ve gone down to the casino on the lower decks because “God loves me no matter what I do”.

While we’re busy wasting our time on worldly things others are hard at work promoting.  On the right is a screenshot I grabbed from FaceBook the other day.  Is.lam is coming into Europe with a strong presence.  Where are the Christians?  We’re sleeping. We’ve gotten lazy and tired and out of shape… myself included.

There’s a warning about that too. Matt 25: 1-13

1 “Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3 For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, 4 but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. 5 As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. 6 But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him. ’ 7 Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. 8 And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out. ’ 9 But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves. ’ 10 And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. 11 Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us. ’ 12 But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you. ’ 13 Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

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Well its more than 15seconds, but Northview Community Church wanted to interview me for a video series before I left for France.  Check it out:

Check out our latest PULSEpisode:
PULSE is a 15 Episode series highlighting how people are involved in doing justice and mercy, speaking the gospel, and reflecting the reign of Christ in their lives.

http://northview.org/outreach/local_outreach/pulse/

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Its going to be a long night…  I should have just gone to sleep, instead my curiosity was grabbed by a BBC documentary on atheism.  It was an interesting look at disbelief from an atheistic standpoint.  If I had to summarize what I saw it was this… A blind man trying to describing what he cannot see. There are 2 key points which I think that they missed.  The sovereignty of God, the role of man & ‘blindness’.

Sovereignty of God

If God exists:

• Why doesn’t he…
• Why does he let…
• How could he do … to me?

As if God is our puppet!  What is God’s primary purpose?  Ever think of that question?  Often times we (humanity) ask the ‘what is the meaning of life’ or ‘what is life’s purpose?‘ questions.  If you stopped and thought about what is God’s purpose for Himself what would be the answer?  I don’t claim to know what the answer is; but I have a pretty good idea of what its not. I believe God to be Sovereign (supreme power or authority).  Surely then, His purpose can’t be to make my life happy.  I’m going to venture a guess and say that God’s purpose is to make known His Supremacy.  I’ll suggest that he does that in various ways: Creation, destruction, by sending His Son as a substitute for us for the cost of our sin, in giving gifts to His children, and taking things from His children.  The purpose is to draw us back to Him as our sustainer, our provider, our EVERYTHING.  How dare we lower God to the point where we treat Him as our puppet.  By lowering God to this position we declare ourselves to be gods over the Lord of All. Next time God does something for you, next time God serves you, take the time and think about why.  Its certainly not because we deserve it.  Its because he loves us and wants to draw us to Himself.  Contrarily, next time suffering comes, don’t question “how could he…”; he owes you nothing, in fact, the only thing you and I have earned is eternal death and separation from God.  Take that time to draw closer to Him

Roll of Man & ‘Blindness’

Getting back to the documentary, it was interesting to see that the viewpoint of the documentary makers (and all atheists [implied]) was that belief and/or faith, is something that we humans have to do.  Some of them even say “I’d like to believe, I just can’t”.  The common phrase I picked up was “I just don’t understand”.  The host then goes on to talk about what do we have to do to “convince” ourselves of these believes.  He pulled the term “step of faith” out as an example and said that surely we must take this big jump and “see” if the big cosmic power catches us.  So it brings up the question “What must we do to believe?”. I pose a different question, “are we capable of believing?”.  Is faith from a human perspective the result of a “step of faith”.  What is belief?  Go and find some sort of electronic bible and do a word search for “hidden”.  Here are a few of the results I found: Matt 10:26, 11:25, 13:35, 13:44 Mark 4:22 Luke 8:17, 12:2, 18:34, 19:42 1 Cor 2:7, 4:5 Eph 3:9 Col 1:26, 2:3 Why is there so much talk about God hiding things from us.  Take a longer look at 1 Corinthians chapter 2.  It speaks about wisdom and understanding. From vs 7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.  Who didn’t understand this?  The rulers? the “knowledgable”?  (it does say ‘rulers’… but keep reading) 9 But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”  See it yet? ‘What NO EYE has seen…’  This secret of what God has prepared for those who love him is kept from EVERYONE. The good news of the Bible is hope.  If this secret was still kept then there’s no point.  So how do WE believe???  We don’t.  10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. — 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. Believe and Understanding is a gift of God.  So how can someone say “I’d like to believe, I just can’t”. How can they want to believe, but be unable to.  Continue on to vs 14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. No one can understand God except Himself.  He choses to reveal Himself to those to whom he gives the Holy Spirit. I hope that this makes you feel pretty insignificant as it does me.  There is absolutely NOTHING I can to to earn my way to God, nor is there anything I can do to “believe” my way to God.  After the initial shock wears off I hope that this makes you feel better.  The God of the Universe is making Himself known to you, a person fully incapable of knowing him. This all ties back into the Sovereignty of God.  He holds the keys to your belief and unbelief… thats a difficult topic.

Conclusion

I don’t mean this to be any sort of argument against atheism.  None of my words will be able to “make them believe”, its only God that can do that.  I do hope though that this could be taken as an encouragement/challenge for those of us who do believe.  I believe that God grabbed my attention through this documentary which was trying to disprove His existence and to show his children as fools.  God got my attention and used it as an opportunity for me to grow closer to him.  It humbled me and I hope there might be someone out there that God would speak to through this.

1 Cor 2:5

that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

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As I take a bit of a lunch break, I thought I’d share a few interesting facts about the country I live in.

1. Speedos… You all know them and love them and France does too… to the point where its “illegal” to wear any other type of swimsuit in a pool.  Apparently its a health/safety concern.  Thankfully lakes and the ocean are exempt.
2. Circular references.  Its difficult to get things done in France.  Right now I’m trying to get internet/phone at my house.  We look and see that we need a bank account.  Fair enough.  We look at applying for a bank account and find we need a phone bill.  So to get the phone, we need a bank account; but to get the bank account, we already need the phone account.

I’m sure I’ll find more and keep this updated