May 26, 2009

Justify the Means

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Oh, I should have known that I
Couldn't just lie
About these chains I hide
From my own mind.
I can't believe it's true…
Still, though, I knew,
All of this time I've been through.

In hindsight
I see now that I had tied
My heartstrings
To too many birds with wings.

Oh, I should have known that they
Couldn't just stay
That they would fly away
Now I regret
All of the days that I'll never forget
Because of the things I let slide

These chains are
Tearing my heart apart
And still I,
I just can not let it die.
I don't know,
I'm drowned in the undertow,
Can't break through,
So tell me what I should do

My mind just won't let my heart go free
It locked it up and it burned the key.
Now logic is the restraining force
Holding back my heart from its normal course.
It won't let tears fall, it won't admit
That my hearts been hurt, that I'm numbing it.
And I won't fight back, because I know it's wrong,
Oh I'll stand my ground long as this goes on.

Oh, does the end justify?
Or does the means damn you for things you let slide?

Sanctify
Fighting for a lie
Does my righteous cause
Justify the loss?
Oh my heart will bleed
And the wounds will sting,
But I'm haunted by
Whether I had tried.

Filed under Poetry, Music by Santeyio

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May 23, 2009

The Bread of Life - John 6

it seems for a while now that I've been going back and back again to John chapter 6. One night I was sitting somewhere. I don't remember exactly where, I think it was at the kitchen table or in my bed. I think I got around to thining about the eucharist and transubstantion and sacraments and stuff. And I remember being a little indignant over the dumb materialistic idea (that I generally associate with Baptists) that the eucharist is just 'remembering' the sacrifice of Christ, and that there's no literal spiritual benefit from it (kind of like the sacrament of baptism… yeah… let's not even go there…).

And somehow the idea of Jesus as 'the bread of life' stuck in my head. Jesus as metaphorical bread. Jesus as sustenance. Jesus as food. So I decided to look up the place where Jesus talks about himself being the bread of life, that is, John 6. I've read the chapter countless times before, but this time somehow it all seemed new. It was like I could see spiritually, my eyes were opened for a brief time as I sat and soaked in the passage. There was so much that I saw I don't think it would be possible for me to recount it here in a blog post… but I do want to just touch upon a few.

"I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst."

Even if everything I say makes no sense, and even if I'm completely wrong about everything, the one thing you can take from this post is that verse. Think about it. Repeat it to yourself over and over again. Figure out what the words mean. Look it up in different translations (it's verse 35).

"What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?" asked the people. They wanted to know how to live out the Christian life. They wanted the principles and laws and standards by which they were to live. They wanted the steps they had to take to get to their resurrection bodies, they wanted to know what they had to sacrifice in order that god might work through them. You know how Jesus responded?

"This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent."

Please think about that for a moment. It seems to me that this statement by Jesus throws a wrench into the entire system of modern evangelization theory. The ongoing work of God is to believe on Jesus. The goal above others is to believe upon Jesus, and to believe upon him more and more fully. This is not a one time mental statement of belief; no, this is a process of discovery and strengthening. To believe is not an easy thing. Belief is a progressive revelation by God. It is not something achieved by human endeavor or toil, it is a divine gift.

After this the people are like "Oh… so if you're the Son of God then prove it to us. I mean, our fathers were shown a sign: bread fell down from heaven to feed them. What sign are you going to show us to prove you're who you say you are?"

Jesus doesn't exactly answer their question. I think it's kind of funny, but many times it seems like Jesus answeres questions with more questions. Or he answers them with statements that seem to be somewhat unrelated to the question direclty at hand. He responds by saying the bread their fathers recieved from Moses was not true bread. I guess he means that the mana was physical and not spiritual. It only met temporary physical needs, not true spiritual needs. It wasn't real food, it was fake food.

For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world, says Jesus. So apparently true bread, according to Jesus, is that which gives life. That would mean that physical food, which gives us physical life and vitality, is not true bread, which in turn would mean that physical vitality is not true life. Your breathing body is not your life. It is your spirit that is your life. There is such a thing as a living dead person: someone who is spiritually dead. Dank rotted spirits clothed in breathing flesh.

Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Our very *food* as Christians is the words of God. We cannot live on just material food. If we do, we'll shrivel up and die. All that is required of us in order for God to be spiritual sustenance to us is that we believe upon Jesus his Son. That is all. nothing more, noting less. We must believe.

I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. Believe upon Jesus brethren, for that is all that is required of you. Simply believe and God will follow. Believe.

Filed under God, Metaphors and Analogies, Christian Living, Scripture Passages by Santeyio

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May 21, 2009

Pride

Sometimes, life can be hard. Sometimes, nights can be dark. Sometimes days can be hazy and confusing. Sometimes people get hurt, and sometimes you get hurt. There is a lot of pain in our world, and there is a lot of selfishness. I think I realize every day just how human I am, and just how self-righteous I am, and just how much I think I know about things I know nothing about. I've begun to understand that I truly am naive to the point where I'm able to admit it to myself and everyone else. You know, I'm really not that great of a person, I'm really not that spiritual of a person. Yeah, sure, sometimes people think that. Sometimes they say that. Whatever. I am what I am.

And you know what I hate? When people are all self-righteous about their humility. I hate it when people are all like "Oh I'm the worst of sinners" and "Oh God is so merciful to save such a wretch as me who has sinned so much" and they don't believe the words they're saying. When they're thinking in their head "Yeah… but God sure has changed me… I sure wish he would change all the other people around me like he's changed me… man… the world would be such a better place if it was full of a bunch of me's…" And they make themselves a martyr in every situation they possibly can… where everyone else is wronging them and they're *ever* so *righteously* accepting all this 'persecution' with the greatest grace. Disgusting.

I'm obviously speaking from experience. God (and everyone who knows me) knows I've done that too often. Arrogance is the most vile of sins I think.

There is something liberating about recognizing the truth, though. There is something comforting in humility; that is, seeing the truth. There's no quiet solace in feigned humility, there's only firey pride that riles up strife and division and argument and backbiting. When a proud man faces death, he is false martyr who is dying for his own great righteousness, who is being a wonderful example of a servant of God. When a meek man faces death, he is a sinner who is recieving pardon for his sins. But the proud man does not think he is a false martyr dying for his own righteousness, he proclaims for everyone to hear the words which are deeply rooted in the meek man's heart, the words which are so real to the meek man that he has no need of proclomation.

Pride gives a man no rest, it is always bashing him over the head for the sinner he is, it is always driving him onwards along the path of righteousness, it is always comparing with everyone else and trying to match up to the standards. Pride is restless, goading, grasping. It is the very thing Jesus came to conquer, and yet the thing that holds in bondage innumerable servants of Christ. Jesus also came to conquer fear, which grows like a weed in the hearts of the servants of Christ.

Humility is quiet. It does not feel good, it does not make one joyful, neither does it make one happy. Perhaps sometimes these are by-products of humility, sometimes contentment, joy, peace, happiness are granted on occasion. But humility is not about feeling happy or peaceful, and these are not even necessarily absolute products of true humility. There is pain in this world, there is death in this world, there is hurt in this world. And yet humility will silently draw one towards God, the humble man will slowly hold up the good in everyone and accept with grace their sin. He will harshly judge the sin in himself and belittle his own good qualities.

Humility is a paradox, though. It is not self abuse, for that is pride. But the humble man will harshly judge and chastise himself, and will never shy away from self-condemnation. Neither is humility peaceful and joyful, for it can be quite dark. And yet at times it *is* lighted by spiritual peace and joy.

And humility, I have truly come to believe, is not something that can be 'practiced' or something that can be 'acquired' by much hard work and devotion to God. It cannot be earned, it cannot be somehow hammered into one's character. All human efforts to be humble ends in pride, fire, and downfall. No. Simply believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ. That is grace. That is God. That is life eternal. Amen.

Filed under Rants, Test Yourself, Christian Living by Santeyio

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May 12, 2009

Of Ends and Means

Does the end justify the means? That's a question that's been cropping up in my thinking quite a bit. In fact I think I've realized that quite a few decisions come down to that very question. And here's an even harder question that I've been puzzling over. Say we have a bad situation, and if this bad situation is left alone, then it will get much worse. Our problem, though, is that there is no way to remedy the situation that will not cause damage. But the damage you would cause in trying to remedy the situation seems to be less than that which would occur you merely left the situation alone. Is harming a situation a good thing if it keeps the situation from escalating to a much worse degree?

My conclusion has been this: in a lot of situations, the end actually *does* justify the means. But I would like to make a point here, one I find often overlooked. And you absolutely cannot take my former statement without this point. Because if someone quoted me as saying "The end justifies the means" then that would be completely not what I'm trying to convey. So first I want to look at a common abuse of the princple.

For some reason, when people decide that in fact the end does justify the means, they seem to begin to think that the means in and of itself is ok. I would like to point out that just because one saves countless lives by assasinating HItler does not in any way make murder an acceptable or good thing. Perhaps it could be argued that in that specific instance the vast number of lives saved would somehow justify the evil of murder; but we would assuredly have to confine ourselves to that situation, while still agreeing that murder is always a bad thing, as well as a sin in God's eyes.

So we must keep in mind that an end never justifies a means in the sense of making a means good on an absolute scale. Perhaps an end justifies a lesser evil over a greater evil, but by no means does an end make what would ordinarily be a bad means a good thing of itself.

So perhaps another question that might be asked: is morality an absolute thing? Is murder absolutely bad? Perhaps morality is merely obedience to God and God's will in a given situation? If that is the case, then we needn't be worried about doing something "bad" to prevent something worse, because as long as we're doing something for the greater good, then it is in fact absolutely good. This presents us with two ways of looking at the moral quality of an action. Either it is absolutely good or absolutely bad, or its morality is defined by whether or not it is helping the greater good.

Ok. Wow. I want to stop here a minute… I've written all this over the course of like three sittings, and I feel like somehow I'm getting really disjointed and lost in metaphysical sophistry. So… maybe I'm kind of becoming impractical here. Does this really have anything to do with practical… well… anything?

Irrelevant Parenthetical note… you can skip this if you want… it's a little off-topic

(If you haven't noticed alreay, I ask a lot of questions in my posts, and I ask them like I don't know the answer. Then I go on to give an answer to the question. That seems a bit contradictory, I guess. If it helps you understand my blog post style a little, the way I do this is I begin by asking real questions that I have, and proceed to think about them as I write. So essentially I'm coming up with answers as I write. This is, in fact (haha, ok, I'm realizing I way overkill the phrase 'in fact'… just so you know that I know), one of the reasons I like to write, because it opens new trains of thoughts and helps me to nail down what I actually think. But when I ask a question and the proceed to give an answer, don't assume that I'm going to die by my answer. I reserve the full right to recant of anything I say on this blog. Furthermore, the most recent post overrides the authority of any previous posts. So if I contradict myself, the newer post holds precedence. Just a house keeping note for future reference.)

So back to my question. Am I getting all caught up in vain arguments about words and terms? Does all this ends justifying means actually mean anything in terms of the practical outworking of Christianity? I guess the entire reason I brought this up was because it's been a question that's been weighing hard on my mind of late. It really is a hard question, I think. And one that should be thought about. IS it really ok to do something bad to prevent something worse? Is it a good thing to do? Is it the right thing to do?

Filed under Theology/Doctrine, Author by Santeyio

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April 30, 2009

Humility, Growth, Bitterness

Do you think we're supposed to love other people more than we love ourselves? Are we supposed to love ourselves at all? At least in the Medieval sense of piety pride is bashed constantly and humility and hatred of oneself is constantly affirmed and praised. How are we supposed to love ourselves? How can anyone who looks into his heart and searches the depths of his spirit; how can that man love himself? How can he find any worth in himself? Is there anything worth saving? It sure doesn't seem like it to me.

I've always heard people talk about how one is supposed to see himself as worse than everyone else, how he's supposed to see himself as the worst of sinners. But my question has always been "But… what if you ARE better than they are? Are you supposed to feign humility? Isn't that false humility?"

Here is what humility is not: it's not about saying "Oh I'm such a sinner… woe to me! look how evil my heart is!" out loud. It's never about telling anyone that you're a worse sinner than they are. It's never about saying out loud "Oh I'm the worst of sinners." Now don't take I'm saying it should never be said or that it's somehow sinful to say such things… but it can easily become a very arrogant form of humility. I hate to use the Pharisees as an example because they get bashed so much by everyone, but like Jesus said in the sermon on the mount, it's not about doing stuff in public. It's not about other people knowing you're humble. It doesn't matter if people say you're humble or arrogant, because what people say doesn't change what you are. That's something I've realized lately. Words are not truth. Truth is truth. Neither do words change truth.

Here's what I think a part of humility is. You can see inside of yourself, while you cannot see inside of other people. It isn't possible in a literal sense to get into other people's heads. I can see all the junk in my heart that you can't see, I can see all the laziness and arrogance and general filthy sinfulness that goes through my mind. I can see my motives, you can't. So obviously the inverse follows: I can't see all the stuff that goes through your mind. Keep these postulates in mind, I'll use them in a second.

So another part of Christianity is about being optimistic (don't get me wrong, there is definitely a place for melancholy, sadness, bitter pessimism. I'll address that in a moment). It's about assuming the best about people. It's about overlooking their faults. Not even just overlooking and ignoring their faults, but seeing them for who they are with all the baggage they have, and it's about loving them for who they are. It's not about trying to cover their faults and making them look as much like a perfect person as you can so that you can treat them with some semblance of respect and dignity, it's about loving them: feeling affection in your heart and living in a way that puts them above yourself. You see that they're people, that they have history that makes them who they are. You understand them. Love.

If we put these two ideas together, I think we get humility. If I can see all the black inner workings of myself and I can't see the same or lack thereof in other people, and if I'm seeing people in love while overlooking but not burying their faults, aren't I naturally going to think poor of myself and more of others? That, I think, is humility. If you have this mindset, I think you almost naturally fall into thinking of others as better than yourself, deep down in your very heart, not merely in words. And it's always about truth, not words. Christianity is not about forms but about heart and intention, though you certainly cannot have heart and intention independent of form. It's about God transforming through spirit and form our heart and intention.

Christianity is a process. I cannot stress that fact enough. It is about growth and transformation, it's about healing and reconcilation, it's about glorification; continual movement forwards. I know a lot of people who feel very pessimistic, who are upset with the church and where they see many Christians around them, people who are frustrated with all the sin and spiritual laxity they see, people who's hearts are bitter and quick to judge. I empathize. You know I do. If you've read my blog long enough, I'm sure you know that fact. I'd like to give you this word: those things are not wrong. It's alright to feel bitter. It's alright to be upset. It's a part of the process of growing up as a Christian. If you stick to God and work out your salvation with fear and trembling, God will grow you, he will transform you, he will heal you. He will move you forwards and mature you. I told a friend recently that babies can't help crying. We don't yell at infants when they begin to cry; it's a natural part of growing up. So also babies need milk, and we do not blame them for needing milk and not being able to consume meat. Dissillusionment is one of the beginning stages of God transforming the heart.

I don't mean to say that babies should never mature and should live their entire life drinking milk; God forbid. So also if you spend years and years reveling in bitter judgemental condemnation of everyone around you, you are missing God's transformational power and you're stagnating. But to feel for a season such feelings is only the natural course of events; they are the growing pangs of the Christian. It merely indicates that we are growing in our ability to recognize sin, spiritual laxity, carnality. As God slowly opens our contracted and selfish hearts he will grant us grace to give others grace, to see what we truly are, grace to love others for who they are and over ourselves. But patience is required. God is not in the habit of making people perfect overnight; it is a slow process. Have patience with yourself, if not for your own sake then for God's sake.

Filed under Test Yourself, Relationships, Christian Living by Santeyio

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What is Christianity?

Christianity is God. Christianity is truth. Christianity is the glorification of God through the glorification of man.

What is Christianity? It's God getting man to where man is supposed to be: in his glorified state. Adam and Eve were not in the glorified state of man before the fall… they were, if I might use the term, in a 'neutral' state. They were neither fallen, neither were they righteous. When the fall occurred however, man went from the neutral state a step down to the fallen state. Christianity is God getting man out of his fallen state to his glorified state. Christianity is firstly about justification and sanctification and the resurrection. Those are the three essential tenets to Christianity, and that's essentially what it is at it's root. I don't think you can really get more basic than that…

Filed under Theology/Doctrine, Salvation by Santeyio

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April 20, 2009

A Few Questions

Here are some questions that a friend (Josh) came up with. We were brainstorming questions to ask for a sort of group discussion. I came up with like one of them, so I can't take any credit for the questions. But I think they're very good questions that everyone should think about. I'm thinking maybe I'll do a series of posts on these, taking one a post. I might only get through one of them and then discover I want to move on to something else. But if anyone has anythoughts on these, please by all means post an answer to any or all of them in the comments. Here they are, for you to ponder.

what is Christianity?
What are we supposed to do with our lives?
what's the point of life?
what does it mean to be a Christian?
is that the same as what makes you a Christian?
on a scale of 1-10 how confident are you that you would go to heaven if you died right now?
how often do you read your bible?
what does God mean to you?
what does God want you to do with your lifewould you say you're living your life the way God wants you to at this point?
do you think God wants you to do what you want to do?
is what you want to do what God wants you to do?

Filed under Test Yourself by Santeyio

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April 16, 2009

Spiritual Understanding

I have been reading Watchman Nee's "The Spiritual Man" for a few days now. I started the book a long while ago but only got a little bit through it… probably because I have so many books to read, but regardless I've been chipping away at it of late (seeing as how it's such a hefty book… well… actually three books…). Essentially the book is a systematic anthropology, and I am completely floored at how extraordinarily systematic he is. I suppose it probably doesn't mean much to most of those reading this blog… but it is quite exhaustive in the anthropological field, and he is very precise, clear, and scientific in his manner of writing.

I've probably said this before, but Watchman Nee has been one of the heroes that has gotten me where I am today. Reading the small biography on him in the 'Heroes of the Faith' series reduced me to tears and has deeply influenced my thought. The Spiritual Man is the only writing he left behind (there are many many compilations of notes from his preaching in different collections, but those are not directly penned by him), and what an amzazing piece of work it is.

Essentially, the major theme of the book is anthropology, as I previously stated. There are three different parts that make a man, his body, his soul, and his spirit. The overarching point of God's salvation is to make us spiritual once more, that is, controlled by the spirit and not the body or soul. The spirit is the part of a man that communicates with God. After the fall, the spirit became ruled over by the body or the soul, and an imbalance took place, resulting in sin. So to make us whole and right once more, our spirit must be put back in it's proper place: ruling over the body and the soul.

"Most likely there are many fleshly believers today who grasp so much so well that they can even preach to others but who are themselves yet unspiritual. Genuine spiritual knowledge lies not in wonderful and mysterious thoughts but in actual spiritual experience through union of the believer's life with truth."

When Nee says 'unspiritual' he means fleshly or carnal; that is, not ruled by the spirit but by the soul or body. This really got me to thinking about the difference between spiritual knowledge and carnal knowledge. What *is* the difference?

You can know something in your mind and you can have knowledge, and this is carnal. I can know that sin is a horrible thing. I can know that God is holy. I can memorize these fact and make logical deductions about them. I can decide that because God is holy, then that should induce certain reactions from me. I can decide that sin is a vile thing in God's sight, and deduce from that fact that I should abhor sin. But all that is in my head if that is as far as my thinking goes: it is in essence carnal knowledge; mere facts.

I have decided that I am a rather carnal believer, because I think I've begun to realize that in fact I don't realize a lot of things, or have a good spiritual grasp or understanding of them. There are some things I have come to understand truly and in a spiritual sense, though, the first that comes to my mind is love. I wrote a few posts on love over the past month or two, and I really do think I am coming to understand what true love is, in a spiritual sense. When one knows something spiritually, it really isn't knowledge at all but is more experience. It is something you do and feel, not something you think. It is something you are, not something you make logical conclusions from. It is not something to which you say "I believe that," but it is to which God says "You believe that." One will die for carnal knowledge, but one will live for spiritual knowledge.

Filed under Theology/Doctrine by Santeyio

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April 13, 2009

Open Your Eyes

Finally, done. That took a long time. hmm. Well… now you can enjoy the re-recorded version. Hopefully the singing is a little bit better.

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Frozen forever
In bitter endeavors
To fill with pleasure
It eats you inside
Now you're barely alive
Oh how soon will you die?
Stuck in a rapture
Of fantasized matters
Leaves only disaster
And fragments of hearts
That have shattered apart
Like a glass from the start

He bled
He bled his blood
But not enough for you
He tried
He tried so hard
To heal the scars
You went too far
He called
He called your name
He saw your pain
He saw the stains

But you hardened your heart
Bottled up from the start
All the things that you are
All the plans in your mind
For the webwork of lies
To suppress all the signs
In your self-centered soul
You can't get back control
Because you lost all your hope
All the things that you did
All the things that you hid
Will be hard to get rid of

What have you done?
What have you done?
Why are you hiding in dark from the sun?
Open your eyes
Open your eyes
When will you ever stop living your lie?

She bled
She bled her blood
But not enough for you
She tried
She tried so hard
To hide the scars
She tried so hard
She wept
She wept for years
You made those tears
Why can't you hear?

What have you done?
What have you done?
Why are you hiding in dark from the sun?
Open your eyes
Open your eyes
When will you ever stop living your lie?

For the edification of anyone who cares enough to call himself a Christian, for anyone who claims to walk in the commandments of Christ Jesus, for anyone who wants to follow God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his mind.

Hostile Legacy

May 26, 2009

Justify the Means

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May 23, 2009

The Bread of Life - John 6

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May 21, 2009

Pride

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May 12, 2009

Of Ends and Means

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April 30, 2009

Humility, Growth, Bitterness

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What is Christianity?

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April 20, 2009

A Few Questions

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April 16, 2009

Spiritual Understanding

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April 13, 2009

Open Your Eyes