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Daniel of Doulogos 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Remorse
I want you to spend a couple of minutes putting yourself in the mindset of an OT Jew; specifically, imagine learning that you had committed an unintentional sin - let's say that you handled something unclean and through handling it, you became ritually unclean, but didn't realize it. Later that day you engage in some spiritual activity that is only permissible if one is ritually clean. In the middle of this holy activity someone informs you that you are, in fact, unclean by virtue of previously handling something that was unclean, and you realize that you have been sinning in partaking of this activity while unclean.

It was not your intention to sin in this way, but you cannot deny that you have. Now, in the light of that knowledge comes the realizeation that God has made provision for this sort of unintentional sin, and has prescribed a special sacrifice to deal with it.

Here, your wealth will dicate the value of the sacrifice you make. Can you afford a goat, or a lamb, or maybe just a couple of birds, or maybe just some flour? If you truly can afford to sacrifice a lamb, a couple of birds won't do - you really are required to sacrifice according to your means.

Now there are really only two ways you can receive the knowledge that you must sacrifice something in order to be right with God - you can rejoice that there is a way open to you to be reconciled to God, or you can bitterly mourn the fact that this is going to cost you something.

You see, above and beyond whatever this offering is supposed to symbolize, it has this effect also - it allows you to see the state of your heart towards God. Are you happy to surrender what gain has come to you because the things of the world are nothing in comparison to being at peace with God, or do you ache to be parted from your hard earned goods, so that you give it up begrudgingly and sourly?

Do you see that the first way is the way of trust - that the first way puts on display the fact that you are righteous by faith, but the second puts on display that you are not acting in faith, but are trying to be righteous by doing the righteous thing?

There are so many applications for this observation that I would weary myself (and you) long before I exhausted explaining them all. It is suffice to say that if you give anything to God begrudingly - your time, your offerings, your worship -- anything; you ought to open your eyes and see what is going on in your heart, and repent.

Godly sorrow has no bitterness for loss in it.
posted by Daniel @ 8:29 AM  
3 Comments:
  • At 4:30 PM, December 09, 2009, Blogger JIBBS said…

    I say amen!

    (Begrudgingly, of course, since you have, once again, spoken directly to the sinful inclinations of my soul). J/K

    Peace,
    JIBBS

     
  • At 5:41 PM, December 09, 2009, Blogger Daniel said…

    Jibbs - my last remaining faithful reader (Besides Kjos of course)!

    I just love reading Leviticus - I get so much out of it every single time.

     
  • At 10:40 PM, December 09, 2009, Blogger JIBBS said…

    Yeah, there was a time prior to my conversion (and honestly, for a brief period after) that I thought the Old Testament was boring and unnecessary to read. Then I learned it was all about Christ, ALL OF IT, and I couldn't get enough of it. The depth of God's Word is without measure.

    BTW, this blog is like reading a contemporary, CliffNote version of all the Puritans.

     
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