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 - Endorsed - Indifferent - Contested
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| The Nashville Statement
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Name:Daniel
Home: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
About Me: I used to believe that evolution was reasonable, that homosexuality was genetic, and that people became Christians because they couldn't deal with the 'reality' that this life was all there was. I used to believe, that if there was a heaven - I could get there by being good - and I used to think I was more or less a good person. I was wrong on all counts. One day I finally had my eyes opened and I saw that I was not going to go to heaven, but that I was certainly going to suffer the wrath of God for all my sin. I saw myself as a treasonous rebel at heart - I hated God for creating me just to send me to Hell - and I was wretched beyond my own comprehension. Into this spiritual vacuum Jesus Christ came and he opened my understanding - delivering me from God's wrath into God's grace. I was "saved" as an adult, and now my life is hid in Christ. I am by no means sinless, but by God's grace I am a repenting believer - a born again Christian.
My complete profile...
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Daniel's posts are almost always pastoral and God centered. I appreciate and am challenged by them frequently. He has a great sense of humor as well.
- Marc Heinrich
His posts are either funny or challenging. He is very friendly and nice.
- Rose Cole
[He has] good posts, both the serious like this one, and the humorous like yesterday. [He is] the reason that I have restrained myself from making Canadian jokes in my posts.
- C-Train
This post contains nothing that is of any use to me. What were you thinking? Anyway, it's probably the best I've read all day.
- David Kjos
Daniel, nicely done and much more original than Frank the Turk.
- Jonathan Moorhead
There are some people who are smart, deep, or funny. There are not very many people that are all 3. Daniel is one of those people. His opinion, insight and humor have kept me coming back to his blog since I first visited earlier this year.
- Carla Rolfe
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| Avoiding the Cross... |
 We have all seen them - the roadside cross.
They mark that one spot on the road where somebody, at some point in time, suddenly stopped breathing forever.
The cross has been a symbol of death ever since the Romans decided it would be a new and improved way to kill people.
In order to avoid having our own cross on the side of the road, we drive as responsibly as possible. We love our life after all, and want to avoid dying if at all possible.
It is for that very reason that few Christians these days are living crucified lives - we want to avoid the cross like the plague.
In order to avoid giving ourselves entirely to God, we pursue morality, virtue, spirituality, theology, or even ministry. But in holding onto that little portion of our self, we fail to give up our lives - the very thing that keeps our flesh breathing. Oh we wonder where the streams of living water are that are supposed to be flowing out of our innermost being - but we fail to understand that until we give up our life (that is, all rights to our life and the control of it), we should not hope to be raised into "newness of life" because we are still "carnal" - we are saved, but walking in the flesh.
It is the cross that God uses to slay us - but because we don't want to die we instead linger on in our death throes - trying to do good but without the power of God - a power that can only come through the cross. We certainly have the mould that looks like godliness, but the mould or form of our godliness lacks God's power. We say that we are walking in the light -but we are lying because we are really walking in darkness. Oh, we say - not pure darkness - but scripture is a knife - it tells us that light has no fellowship with darkness at all - that if we have any fellowship with darkness whatsoever, we are not walking in the light as Christ is in the light - and that is why we don't fellowship with God as we ought - or one another. Don't get me wrong - we want to be crucified, just as a thirsty man wants water - but every time we try and nail ourselves to the cross, we find we still have one hand free - and for all our good intentions - we immediately take ourselves off the cross as soon as it becomes inconvenient. A thirsty man might want water - but few thirsty men are willing to pay all they own or will ever own to have a drink.
The reality is that no one can crucify themselves - crucifixion is not accomplished through suicide, nor indeed can it be. We neither pick the time, the place, nor even the duration of our own execution - we are not in control because that crucifixion by which we are being crucified, is not something that we are doing to ourselves, but something that is being done to us - a process over which we have ultimately no control.
What then can we do?
Accept it. Having been crucified already, your job is not to kill yourself, but to offer your members as instruments of righteousness to God - to offer yourself to God as alive from the dead. Let God worry about putting you to death, you just worry about living each moment with your eyes on the Lord.
It is the hardest thing in the world at times to take our focus off ourselves - and trust God to sanctify us - we want to sanctify our own selves - why? So that we feel better. Isn't that sad? Even our motive to be sanctified is tainted by self. That is why God isn't running about trying to heal you - His cure is the cross, not the hospital. Our job is to trust that God is going to do everything He said He would. Not to let go and let God - but to hold on to the promises of God, and in order to do that, we need to let go of our own focus on keeping the outside of the cup pretty. Not that we have license to sin (God forbid!) but that we trust God to take away our stony unyielding hearts and give us hearts of flesh as He promised. |
posted by Daniel @
12:26 AM
 
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| 4 Comments: |
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Again, very solid Daniel. Hey, plesae shoot me an email (marc@furtherup.com) I need to ask you something...
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wow, you changed you layout. I will have to dig out my glasses. I always look foward to your newest post!
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I wish I could say that I thought it all up myself, or that there was some great effort or intellect on my part that produced something good to read.
The reality is that I love the Lord, and as I meditate on the Lord, and on His word - and especially on my own lack in the things that I wish I were doing - these sorts of post come out.
Physician heal thyself! :-D
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Daniel, can you make your posts less convicting? Thanks
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Again, very solid Daniel. Hey, plesae shoot me an email (marc@furtherup.com) I need to ask you something...