December 7th

The title explains a lot. The semester is wrapping up. Holidays are coming for Ashley and I; family will be seen. The next semester is soon to start.
What else, I am about to take my mom's Buick to see if someone wants to buy it, yay. John Harden wants to buy my old Civic from me, we'll see what he thinks about it. Also, I found Pandora.com. It is a radio thing. Just go to the webpage and type in an artist or song (since it is Christmas you can put holiday after the text you search for and it finds Christmas music similar to it) and after type in something it will boot up a radio station that is custom designed to fit with and complement the stuff you put in. As you listen you can check whether you like a song or not or the band etc and the station gets smarter and smarter concerning your likes and dislikes. I love it love it! Also, I casually searched for some good online commentaries on the Bible and here is David Guzik's commentary on most books of the Bible, I think it is really good so far. I guess that is about it for now. Here is an assignment I just finished up for OT Survey.

Joe Lang / BIB1110 / PAA#5 / December 04, 2007 / Box: 5 / Row B

Passage: Joel 2:12-13

Principle: God’s primary and foundational interest is always in our heart, our heart’s condition towards Him.

Explanation: An explicit statement of “rend your heart, not your garment” directs us to evaluate our hearts before our clothes and other outward expressions of our heart’s condition. An implicit explanation is that Joel’s exhortation when considering the Day of the Lord is not for outward expressions like sacrifices and obedient actions. Instead his focus, while considering the final judgment of men’s lives! is on their hearts.

Application: (application extends further than an isolated relationship with God and includes our relationships with the people God commands us to love) We need to evaluate ourselves the same way that God evaluates us; we need to try to consider internal matters, matters of the heart before we consider external matters. A very specific application is a family situation concerning my wife’s family taking action towards a cousin of my wife’s. They keep thinking of actions to take and ask if people think it is right or wrong. The application is to make sure you didn’t miss the foundational step of evaluating the heart first, even if it only requires double checking. I think that some of the courses of actions they want to take stem from unhealthy resentment they have in their hearts. Of course I hope this isn’t the case but regardless I think the principle is applicable here because you (the family) can’t skip the step of checking your (their) hearts’ condition. Before they continue asking what is right or wrong to do they need to ask if their heart’s conditions towards the cousin are right or wrong. Then they might be better suited to further consider external actions. Application = Before I ask if an action of mine is right or wrong (godly) I need to ask if the motivating condition of the heart is right or wrong (godly).

Passage: Habakkuk 3:16-19

Principle: Who God is and His presence in our lives is a more than abundant source of joy.

Explanation: Habakkuk knows that God’s majesty, power, wisdom, mercy and grace etc are not diminished by people’s, or even by his own, experience of difficult trials in life. God is still who He is so you can still rejoice; God loves you yesterday, today and tomorrow. Rejoice. Habakkuk did and we can/should too.

Application: Be joyful because of who God is. We derive happiness from things in life and eventually may tend to think that these things are sufficient sources of joy. We need to guard against thinking that things in life can ever come close to proving the joy we have in God. That means several things apply to our lives. Even though we are happy or content we still need to regularly bring focus onto who God is regardless of our own circumstances and rejoice. When we aren’t happy we can remember that while our lives change, they ebb and they flow but God doesn’t and we have that unchanging source of joy in Him. Phil 4:4

Passage: Psalm 1:2

Principle: We glorify God by delighting in and meditating on His Word (“His law”).

Explanation: What do I delight in? The man blessed by God delights in God’s Word. A man’s heart will not remain empty because it was made to be filled. Psalm 1 says that the blessed man fills his heart with the Word which he delights in. It also says that he meditates on God’s Word constantly. That means he thinks about God’s Word and doesn’t just read it. This (thinking) is how God’s Word is put into action in our lives… living close to God like a strong tree bearing its fruit in season.

Application: I have to recognize God’s Word for what it is and how great it is. God didn’t give us His Word in the same sense that a technical writer sends a manual on operating a VCR. God’s Word has the aroma of God’s loving touch still rising up from its pages. God loves us and His Word is a testimony of that, its worth delighting in every time I think about it. I need to think about God’s Word constantly (this is an illustrative hyperbole of course of how often I need to rely upon God’s Word and think about it). The water by the tree in Psalm 1 never dries up and my reliance upon God should never diminish either. That means I can consider God’s Word before I act, before I assume, before I believe; it has to be foundational to my worldview. That will require my meditation as long as I live because I will never exhaust the blessing God can provide from His infinite love. (Personal Application Assignments require thinking and are an application.)

Christ in you

This weekend is R.C. McQuilcken something or another weekend where the son of the founder of CIU gives out a few scholarships to a ton of kids that come to CIU to be considered or something about like that. We had some kids from Turkey and places far off like that. Anyway, the speaker was Adrian Duprees the chaplain of the USC football team, he speaks frequently throughout the US about evangelism. His messages are always very emotional and he always tries to challenge you very directly. Before I talk about his message let me tell you that every time he gets on stage and gets so excited and exclaims that his "wife is one righteous fox, she's 5'5'' comes up to about here on me and I'm madly in love with her and I love to brag about her and think that every man should brag about his wife every chance he gets, it should be a man law, in fact every married man in here stand up and I'll give you ten seconds to brag about your wife." He's a real riot.
Basically he just went over three events from the Bible that illustrate one point/challenge: that God goes to extreme measures to save the lost. First was Elijah challenging the prophets of Baal. Adrian is an expert at bringing to life for his listeners some type of information or message or story. The charismatic 6'6'' former football player with super-hyper-active attention deficit disorder runs up and down the stage and isles yelling and screaming about each illustrative story. He called Elijah the wide-receiver of the Bible. Wide-receivers in the NFL always strut around bragging after a good play in a game, autographing a ball after a touchdown and throwing it into the crowd etc and so Elijah goes on to mock the prophets of Baal to bring fire down on their sacrifice and he asks if their god might be busy in the bathroom or maybe needs to be woken from his sleep etc. Then he wets down his own sacrifice and digs a trench for water all around it so that only fire from God would consume it and no trick he might try lighting it on his own. Of course God brings fire after Elijah asks Him to so that these people might believe that He is the one true God. The next story was Jonah... Adrian got us all riled up because he joked that the next thing he was about to say might prevent him from ever being invited back. He drug that out and the finally said it - that Jonah probably hadn't actually read 'the book of Jonah' before he requested to be thrown off of the boat into the story water in the middle of a hurricane. Jonah had effectively committed suicide by asking to be thrown off that boat. A fish comes and etc, that's extreme measure number two. Adrian's most effective story he acts out is Christ's crucifiction - extreme measure number three. The whole time Adrian was holding out finishing a story about a class he had in seminary that changed his life. It started with a depiction of God with man; creation. Then a depiction of man without God but surrounded by tall grass that pointed up at the man which meant that because he had a fallen nature he naturally sinned. Then the last depiction Adrian waited to tell what was with the man until the end. But he had told us that the man was standing in grass still but the grass was cut pretty short and was only around his feet representing a still present struggle, but sin no longer reigned over the man and what he finally told us was just that in the man was C-H-R-I-S-T. Very straightforward but at the same very nonsensical. He went on to share a kid's question to his dad, "Dad, how big is Jesus?", "About the same size me I guess, we're not exactly sure son.", "well dad, if he is in my heart then wouldn't he stick out all over the place?" Here Adrian sticks out his arms and legs like he is sticking out of a little boy and he makes the point that like the kid said that when you have something so big in you that it does stick out, it sticks out all over the place! He went on to describe how so many people don't quite realize what they have in them, or maybe they do know what is in them to a degree but they don't realize how big the person inside of them truly. I was pretty surprised when Adrian said that his biggest fear in life is actually self-esteem. Before he gets up to speak he gets so nervous and doubtful telling himself that he has nothing for us, nothing to share, nothing to change us or nothing that will speak into our lives. But he gave the example that if you have "The Rock" or some big strong wrestler as your tag team partner then when you get into a squeeze you would just have to trust some in that big tough guy and just say, "tag, you're in now" and then he goes in for you. The same situation exists before Adrian has to stand up and speak to a crowd, he has doubts in himself but he knows that God is his tag-team partner and that God will stand up for the situation, when he's sharing the gospel, he knows that it will be God opening that person's understanding towards God and not himself. Adrian just wanted to hammer home the point that for each and every one of us that "Christ is in you."
Two days before he gave a message and talked a bit about Jesus. Back in the times of Jesus' ministry the question whether or not he was deity, God. Adrian explained that that obviously wasn't the question to us at CIU that day otherwise we wouldn't be there, we all believe he was God. The question for us today is whether or not we are going to "follow Christ with reckless abandon or not?" He also spoke about a treatise this pastor wrote and I'll share it because I really like it. By the way, you can probably find some of these chapel messages at the bottom of ciu.edu where it says podcasts. 2007.11.30

The Fellowship of the Unashamed

I am a part of the fellowship of the Unashamed. I have the Holy Spirit Power. The die has been cast. I have stepped over the line. The decision has been made. I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. I won't look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still. My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, and my future is secure. I am finished and done with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tame visions, mundane talking, chintzy giving, and dwarfed goals. I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits, or popularity. I don't have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded, or rewarded. I now live by presence, learn by faith, love by patience, lift by prayer, and labor by power. My pace is set, my gait is fast, my goal is Heaven, my road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions few, my Guide is reliable, my mission is clear. I cannot be bought, compromised, deterred, lured away, turned back, diluted, or delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of adversity, negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity. I won't give up, back up, let up, or shut up until I've preached up, prayed up, paid up, stored up, and stayed up for the cause of Christ. I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. I must go until He returns, give until I drop, preach until all know, and work until He comes. And when He comes to get His own, He will have no problem recognizing me. My colors will be clear for "I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.." (Romans 1:16) By Dr. Bob Moorehead

Funeral

When I get a chance I want to blog about my great grandmother's funeral, some of you didn't get to attend.

Under Construction

Blog from beyond...

This blog won't be original material, I'm just posing my homework...

Joe Lang / BIB1110 / PAA#4 / November 6, 2007 / Box: 5 / Row B

Passage: Isaiah 1:2-3

Principle: As our father and master; God will provide care and guidance for us at all times. We would be foolish ever to forget who God truly is in our lives.

Explanation: It was insulting to say that such a simple animal as an ox or donkey understood who its master was compared to Israel who didn’t understand its master. At times we can fall into a similar pitfall of forgetting who God is in our lives. We can forget that he is master of our lives in general or we can box God out of a certain part of our life. If a donkey can remember who its master is, then we too need to remember who our master is.

Application: When my life seems to spin out of control in some way, and I feel stressed out or overworked, I sometimes try to buckle down and fix the problem all by myself. I think that the solution is simply for Joe to work harder. At this point I am sad to say that; I can focus so much on the task that I forget who my master is. I may think that my only goal is to finish my homework and will forget that I am doing the homework and attending this school so that I can know God better and be changed in a way that glorifies God. The application will be to keep a balance in living my life that reflects who my master is. For example: doing my homework because God is using that to make me more like him (praise the LordJ) and not doing the homework only to get a grade.

Passage: Isaiah 40:6-9

Principle: Proclaim God’s word.

Explanation: Our lives are beautiful, but are nothing compared to God’s everlasting word. Our lives will only gain their true value when they reflect that which is forever valuable – God’s word. God makes it clear here that we need to “Call out… Here is your God”. Israel was told to call this out to Judah but today we can similarly proclaim God to the nations (Acts 1:8). Today we can proclaim this message with our words and with our lives. It is also interesting to point out the communal basis of this command. When you proclaim something you proclaim it to another person. God’s plan for man is clearly based on relationships. The value in our short (like short lived grass or flowers) lives are realized when we proclaim God to others.

Application: I will try to reflect God’s word in my life so that others will learn who God is. I have a friend, Daniel, and I have to be a witness to him if God gives me the opportunity. We are great friends and at times in the past I’ve neglected my witness to him, which is not something I want to repeat. An application is to live as a witness to him or to fix any specifics that have hindered my witness towards him.

Passage: Isaiah 26:3 (Isaiah 9)

Principle: God is a God of peace. Remain steadfast on Him and He will give you perfect peace.

Explanation: Fully trusting God will bring us perfect peace and Isaiah 9:6 says that Christ is the prince of peace. It seems to me that peace is the result of God being a God of perfection and unity (as fallows)… Isaiah 9:6 seems to indicate that God’s plan of salvation through Christ isn’t just good, it is perfect and so trusting in this plan of God’s can assure you peace! Ironically in my last PAA I wrote that, we are not promised a bed of roses but that God may leave thorns in our side during our walk with Him, the Prince of peace. Even so, God is still a God of unity. We have a tough lot in life (Genesis 3:16-19) but God offers a perfect solution (Isaiah 9:6). I am so glad that we have realistic guidance from the Bible. Life will be tough at times, but God doesn’t just offer a good solution. His perfect solution gives me endurance to run the race because I have peace from having hope in Christ. God is a God of peace.

Application: We will get ourselves into tough situation and life will bring additional tough situations but they never have to diminish our peace. We have an everlasting rock we trust in and when we remain steadfast of mind in this God will keep us in perfect peace.

The application is simply: to remain steadfast of mind on trusting in whom God Is.

Between classes

I just got out of chapel, they spoke today about the study tours we can get school credits for. We can go to Belize, Israel, Europe, and one other?! The Israel tour sounds so awesome, to go and touch, see, experience the things we so often read about. On one tour they visit Rome and you can go in the prison that Paul wrote 2 Timothy in. The stories of people that went were fascinating. Maybe Ashley and I will go one day.

I am about to finish up a little project, I need to construct a systematic theology of the Christian and political authority based on 1 Timothy 2:1-2, 1 Peter 2:13-17, Romans 13:1-7, Acts 4:1-22, and Acts 5:17-42. Maybe I will post my final statement when I finish.

Other news, Ashley withdrew from USC a few days ago. This is her second time doing this now so apparently she has some issue with school that was still unresolved when she re-enrolled. She feels a lot of pressure to meet the expectation of being a college grad etc. Regardless of that I hope this will be a fruitful time where she learns, whatever it is she wants to learn about. Maybe the value of a degree, or the other options to choosing a career without college, or how to muster the determination to complete the task you sign up for. The biggest challenge may just be to deal with life without overbearing guidance or pressure. Her options are wide open and she has to decide what to do without any one direction seemingly predetermined for her. So I am actually really excited for Ashley to be in a situation where she can learn about herself and grow. College is great and I can think of very few reasons not to get a degree but working a job without a degree does not condemn you to an unhappy or unfulfillable life. You will just have a lower standard of living and probably less freedom, more risk etc. But any healthy person should be able to adapt because not amount of increased standard of living is ever enough. We'll see what's in store for the next couple of months. Thanksgiving and Christmas aren't far away. In fact, for Thanksgiving (5 days) Ashley and I will be hosting two Korean students from Ben Lippen High School that need a place to live while the dorms are closed. It should be a fun experience. And lastly, I found out I have 23 credit hours left after this semester until I graduate with and bachelors, yay :)

Halloween

Last night Ashley and I went over to Clint and Amy's. Ashley works with Amy at Barnes and Noble and Clint is her husband of three years, they are actually the same age as Ash and I. We watched 1408 which was okay, I would describe its main characteristic as freaky. Nothing is too unexpected in the movie that you would jump out of your seat but it does have stuff that kind of makes you cringe because it just creeps you out. I say it is freaky because stuff happened to the main character that makes you very uneasy but it occurs in a place that all of us stay, hotels. The stuff is creepy but you worry about it happening to you which freaks you out, so 1408 = freaky imho. Money is tight, we're in the red for October so I've skipped a class or two to go to work and make up the difference between income and expenses so that is discouraging. I really need to do some extra school work to get ahead right now but I am working instead. But lets look on the positive side, hopefully I'm learning a lesson about what I am willing to give up buying so that I have the freedom to do schoolwork instead of having to work. But don't pity us, we have money in savings, I just don't want to spend it so I'm working instead. I'm off to work now, catch you later.

A New Way Forward

Don't think that I am moving forward in any new way, but my blog will. I get a lot of talking to here at CIU and I think I'll share more of it, how does that sound!? In a way my blog will focus less on tracking events and moods and more on CIU and some of what I get to learn about here. And right now I am reading for my hermeneutics class and saw this, "knowledge puffs up; love builds up (1 Cor. 8:1)". So I am not just going to blog more about what I learn but I am going to try to share about things I learn with the goal of loving, the goal of living these things out in my life. What good will it do me to learn from the following chapel I write about that we are to be Holy if I don't aspire with my heart the clenching of holiness with my life's grip to hold onto it as God's mercy chooses for me to work it out in my salvation, my walk with God, my abiding in Him. Which brings me to my next thought, I've always like the title to my online journaling "Joe's Cozy Abode" and this is my third such web log. And I have looked up the definition of abode several times and this time it seemed more fitting than ever. As I talk about what I learn at CIU I will also be talking about what I am doing or living out here at CIU and that isn't properly boiled down to its most basic element until you boil my life down to my walk with God and He commanded me to abide in Him and so I like the ring of Joe's Cozy Abode more than ever, Joe's cozy... {You could say a.) My abode as in my sojourn with God or dwelling with God b.)My abode as in the past tense of to abide, remain and continue in relationship with God, enduring, and accepting} Following are the definitions
a·bode /əˈboʊd/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[uh-bohd] noun:

1.	a place in which a person resides; residence; dwelling; habitation; home.

2.	an extended stay in a place; sojourn.

[Origin: 1200–50; ME abood a waiting, delay, stay; akin to abide]
and abide /əˈbaɪd/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[uh-bahyd] as a verb:
–verb (used without object)

1.	to remain; continue; stay: Abide with me.

2.	to have one's abode; dwell; reside: to abide in a small Scottish village.

3.	to continue in a particular condition, attitude, relationship, etc.; last.

–verb (used with object)

4.	to put up with; tolerate; stand: I can't abide dishonesty!

5.	to endure, sustain, or withstand without yielding or submitting: to abide a vigorous onslaught.

6.	to wait for; await: to abide the coming of the Lord.

7.	to accept without opposition or question: to abide the verdict of the judges.

8.	to pay the price or penalty of; suffer for.

—Verb phrase

9.	abide by, a. to act in accord with. b. to submit to; agree to: to abide by the court's decision. c. to remain steadfast or faithful to; keep: If you make a promise, abide by it.

Today we had college chapel rather than the usual college/grad/seminary etc chapel where everyone meets in one place. Also, rather than a praise band and the normal former pastor turned educator type speaker (Just kidding, we have great variety each time in who speaks from a senator, to the Gamecock's football Chaplin, to our president, to missionaries from all over the world with crazy crazy stories etc.), instead we had the humanities department host the chapel. They played the piano and then talked about 1 Peter 1:13-19. There is one focus here in the center, verse 16 "because it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy." Then there are two lenses that help us see this focus applied to our lives. In a nutshell they are the cross and the crown. They are like two lenses that help us see the call to holiness in our lives! The cross is more self explanatory as the fullest expression of God's love for us and His act to give us a right relationship with Him and then the crown will symbolize the hope that we have laid out for our future. This was elaborated on for a while and the result was pretty good, it was an uplifting view of how we seek holiness (sanctification) in our lives. Some of the quotes are pretty good...
"How do the things you pursue fit in with the holiness of heaven?"
"We keep our cell phones and ipods closer before our eyes than we keep the cross and crown."
and less relevant but it spoke to me, he was talking about someone who said he "viewed sin as though Jesus just died yesterday" which helps clarify sin as iniquity when you may be trying to fool yourself into thinking it is something less. That just spoke to me, at times a sin can seem so small or insignificant but that idea clears things up very quickly.

There is a lot more to write, I'll try to get back again on Tuesday. Some snippets:

• The Gamecocks lost horribly to Vanderbilt and slipped from #6 to #16. Let's go Carolina and beat Tennessee this weekend.
• Karie got engaged, wowzerrs! Congratulations Karie and Andy!!!
• Sammy and Zeus are still awesome
• My friend John Hardin gave his life to Christ on October 20th 2007 and my eyes tear up just typing that :') That's pretty awesome
  
• Ashley and I celebrated our 75th dayversary about two weeks ago, we are happily married for 3 months and 7 days.
  

I am off to read for class... Ciao