Consider the steadfast love of the Lord. He has redeemed us from so much darkness. He has brought us into the light.
The love of the Lord is delivering:
Psalm 107:6,13,19, 20, 28
The Love of the Lord is satisfying:
Psalm 107:9
The Love of the Lord is illuminating:
Psalm 107:14
The Love of the Lord is bond-breaking:
Psalm 107:14
The Love of the Lord is healing:
Psalm 107:20
The Love of the Lord is transforming:
Psalm 107:33-38
The Love of the Lord is humbling:
Psalm 107:12
The Love of the Lord is redeeming:
Psalm 107:2
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Jr. High + POP = God's Sovereignty
"Calvary SLO Jr. High 2010!" "Whoo Whoo"!
This is how Jr. High Group starts off now. It's pretty exciting, or at least more exciting than my preaching. But even more exciting than both of those was that I decided to surprise them with a movie night, with popcorn and gushers. Gushers for the one lactose intolerant kid! But before I put on the movie, I preceded to convince the kids that I was going to teach through the entire book of Leviticus in one night. They did not look too excited. And so as I do every time we meet, I asked the group if someone wanted to open us up with some prayer, and as previously, no one wanted to pray. SO being the opportunist I need to be, I used this time to talk about prayer. We talked about what prayer is...that it is conversing with God, it is praising God, it is reminding of ourselves of His promises. And then we talked about why they do not like to pray. There were the different responses that ranged from not knowing what to say to being ashamed from a past experience an so ensued another facet of the conversation, in which we talked about how it does not matter what people say because prayer is not about what others think of us, in fact Jesus instructs us to not pray so that we sound glamorous on the outside, and that He is after the heart. And so the kids prayed for the night.
So you're probably wondering what the heck does POP mean? If you know me, I like acronyms, hence my blog name, and hence POP. POP stands for Power Of Prayer. Because one of our kids, Ryan, had just had meniscus surgery a couple weeks before, and was finally off of crutches and at youth group on this night. During the movie, on his way back from the bathroom he fell on his bad knee and it hurt really bad. So we stopped the movie and gathered around and we prayed for him and his knee. Soon after his parents came to pick him up. But the next day, his knee no longer hurt, it was totally healed.
And so as i look back on that situation, I begin to see how God was sovereignly working. THat God would provide an opportunity to talk and address prayer, and then allow Ryan to fall on his bad knee in order to provide us with an opportunity to pray for him...applying what we had talked about. ANd then the next day Ryan was healed. I think God's purpose in us talking about prayer at the beginning of group, and His purpose in allowing Ryan to fall on his bad knee was to ultimately show us how He works in prayer, His power through prayer!
SOML
Sincerely,
JDV
This is how Jr. High Group starts off now. It's pretty exciting, or at least more exciting than my preaching. But even more exciting than both of those was that I decided to surprise them with a movie night, with popcorn and gushers. Gushers for the one lactose intolerant kid! But before I put on the movie, I preceded to convince the kids that I was going to teach through the entire book of Leviticus in one night. They did not look too excited. And so as I do every time we meet, I asked the group if someone wanted to open us up with some prayer, and as previously, no one wanted to pray. SO being the opportunist I need to be, I used this time to talk about prayer. We talked about what prayer is...that it is conversing with God, it is praising God, it is reminding of ourselves of His promises. And then we talked about why they do not like to pray. There were the different responses that ranged from not knowing what to say to being ashamed from a past experience an so ensued another facet of the conversation, in which we talked about how it does not matter what people say because prayer is not about what others think of us, in fact Jesus instructs us to not pray so that we sound glamorous on the outside, and that He is after the heart. And so the kids prayed for the night.
So you're probably wondering what the heck does POP mean? If you know me, I like acronyms, hence my blog name, and hence POP. POP stands for Power Of Prayer. Because one of our kids, Ryan, had just had meniscus surgery a couple weeks before, and was finally off of crutches and at youth group on this night. During the movie, on his way back from the bathroom he fell on his bad knee and it hurt really bad. So we stopped the movie and gathered around and we prayed for him and his knee. Soon after his parents came to pick him up. But the next day, his knee no longer hurt, it was totally healed.
And so as i look back on that situation, I begin to see how God was sovereignly working. THat God would provide an opportunity to talk and address prayer, and then allow Ryan to fall on his bad knee in order to provide us with an opportunity to pray for him...applying what we had talked about. ANd then the next day Ryan was healed. I think God's purpose in us talking about prayer at the beginning of group, and His purpose in allowing Ryan to fall on his bad knee was to ultimately show us how He works in prayer, His power through prayer!
SOML
Sincerely,
JDV
Friday, May 28, 2010
Slammin for Jesus...
So i had to write a poem for my poetry class. Poem writing is hard stuff. Especially rough, when you're trying hard to be extra creative in a "poemy" kind of way. You know like "Two roads diverged", or "Half a league onward", or "O Captain, my captain". So after failed attempts at creativity (3 hours) I finally got back to my roots. I love acting ghetto, I love being called "hood", and I'm beginning to love slam poetry. Theres just a deep, distinct feel to slammin. And so I wrote my poem...slammin style.
GLORY
Meticulously articulate, exquisitely particulate,
Particularly intricate, His divinity implicitly explicit.
In his creation…
Self-inspiration, from creature to nation
Not a drop of tired perspiration, simply divine configuration.
Of a story…
God, self-contented full of glory. Life-giving oratory.
None is more holy. All deserving of all glory.
But humanity…
Instantly, relational calamity,
total depravity, eternal cavity.
Chained…
Man sinfully stained with disdain, unmerited self-proclaim
By nature, woefully maimed, life of sinful refrain,
Their lusts uncontained and untamed: fig leaves of shame
his divine name, they profane, blindly insane.
But now…
The perfect creator, heavenly Narrator
Writes Himself into redemptive character
Called Christ….
Who took on death, so we can have life,
Called Christ…
Who became disunioned, so we can have communion,
Called Christ…
Who took away the sin in me, so I can enjoy His Trinity,
Called Christ…
In love and glory, sincerely,
The Author of Divinity
Called Christ.
GLORY
Meticulously articulate, exquisitely particulate,
Particularly intricate, His divinity implicitly explicit.
In his creation…
Self-inspiration, from creature to nation
Not a drop of tired perspiration, simply divine configuration.
Of a story…
God, self-contented full of glory. Life-giving oratory.
None is more holy. All deserving of all glory.
But humanity…
Instantly, relational calamity,
total depravity, eternal cavity.
Chained…
Man sinfully stained with disdain, unmerited self-proclaim
By nature, woefully maimed, life of sinful refrain,
Their lusts uncontained and untamed: fig leaves of shame
his divine name, they profane, blindly insane.
But now…
The perfect creator, heavenly Narrator
Writes Himself into redemptive character
Called Christ….
Who took on death, so we can have life,
Called Christ…
Who became disunioned, so we can have communion,
Called Christ…
Who took away the sin in me, so I can enjoy His Trinity,
Called Christ…
In love and glory, sincerely,
The Author of Divinity
Called Christ.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
How's your relationship with God going.....
This quote rocked me the other day as I was perusing a wonderful quote site called www.FirstImportance.org and I wanted to share it with you guys.
I wanted to share it with you guys because I feel like it exposes the only way to approach God. Yes, I am sure, intellectually speaking, we all know we can only approach God solely by the blood of Christ; however, the real question is do we understand that functionally speaking. I saw how much I had begun to subconsciously merge my personal performance towards God (Prayer, reading the Bible,etc) with my understanding of my position with God.
A little example....Have you ever asked someone "How is your relationship with the Lord going? Whenever, I want to initiate convo about God and a friends spiritual life, I usually ask that question. BUT, I realized that I need to be careful, because often times when someone asks me that question, I will reply in one of two ways. Either I haven't been able to get into my word and prayer life is not that good, so my relationship with God is not doing well. Or, I've been getting into the Word and praying, and so my relationship with God is great. Now, don't get me wrong these are valid questions and responses, but they need to be categorized correctly. Our relationship with God is meant to be cultivated by all means! But If I think that my performance with God changes my position with God, I have been grossly mistaken. I happen to think that D.A. Carson puts it quite a bit more eloquently ;)
“How dare you approach the mercy-seat of God on the basis of what kind of day you had, as if that were the basis for our entrance into the presence of the sovereign and holy God? No wonder we cannot beat the Devil. This is works theology. It has nothing to do with grace and the exclusive sufficiency of Christ. Nothing.
Do you not understand that we overcome the accuser on the ground of the blood of Christ? Nothing more, nothing less. That is how we win. It is the only way we win. This is the only ground of our acceptance before God. If you drift far from the cross, you are done. You are defeated.
We overcome the accuser of our brothers and sisters, we overcome our consciences, we overcome our bad tempers, we overcome our defeats, we overcome our lusts, we overcome our fears, we overcome our pettiness on the basis of the blood of the Lamb.”
—D.A. Carson, Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 103
In Christ Alone,
JDV
I wanted to share it with you guys because I feel like it exposes the only way to approach God. Yes, I am sure, intellectually speaking, we all know we can only approach God solely by the blood of Christ; however, the real question is do we understand that functionally speaking. I saw how much I had begun to subconsciously merge my personal performance towards God (Prayer, reading the Bible,etc) with my understanding of my position with God.
A little example....Have you ever asked someone "How is your relationship with the Lord going? Whenever, I want to initiate convo about God and a friends spiritual life, I usually ask that question. BUT, I realized that I need to be careful, because often times when someone asks me that question, I will reply in one of two ways. Either I haven't been able to get into my word and prayer life is not that good, so my relationship with God is not doing well. Or, I've been getting into the Word and praying, and so my relationship with God is great. Now, don't get me wrong these are valid questions and responses, but they need to be categorized correctly. Our relationship with God is meant to be cultivated by all means! But If I think that my performance with God changes my position with God, I have been grossly mistaken. I happen to think that D.A. Carson puts it quite a bit more eloquently ;)
“How dare you approach the mercy-seat of God on the basis of what kind of day you had, as if that were the basis for our entrance into the presence of the sovereign and holy God? No wonder we cannot beat the Devil. This is works theology. It has nothing to do with grace and the exclusive sufficiency of Christ. Nothing.
Do you not understand that we overcome the accuser on the ground of the blood of Christ? Nothing more, nothing less. That is how we win. It is the only way we win. This is the only ground of our acceptance before God. If you drift far from the cross, you are done. You are defeated.
We overcome the accuser of our brothers and sisters, we overcome our consciences, we overcome our bad tempers, we overcome our defeats, we overcome our lusts, we overcome our fears, we overcome our pettiness on the basis of the blood of the Lamb.”
—D.A. Carson, Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 103
In Christ Alone,
JDV
Sunday, April 4, 2010
21st Birthday
Birthdays, in general, are quite interesting. They are good, and can definitely be a celebration of God’s grace on someone’s life. But as I approached my twenty-first birthday, two dilemmas loomed like speed bumps on my road to happiness. The first dilemma was the purpose of the Bible. The purpose of the Bible, from Old Testament to New Testament is to display and point to Christ. The purpose of our lives in growing in Christ-likeness is to display Christ in each moment of our lives, within every avenue of suffering, and through each relational fog. Due to the all applying sufficiency of the gospel, this purpose applies to my 21st birthday as well. It is interesting to me, because so often the focal point and goal of so many Christians, on their 21st birthday is to go drink a brewski, get a little buzzed, get drunk, go downtown just to drink, and yet the focal pointof everything, especially a 21st birthday should be displaying Christ, not pampering my sin.
Another interesting speed bump on the road to my 21st, was the individual mindset I began to acquire as my birthday approached. I began to wonder what my girlfriend got me, or what my family was going to get me. It better be good, I mean I deserved it. I began to feel like I deserve for tpeople to treat me like king. This mindset began to sink in, like every other birthday before this one. The birthday tends to reinforce this misnomer that I deserve something. Only the King deserves something, and only God is king. And so as I began to desire for my birthday to display Christ, rather than pamper my flesh, I began to look where the attributes of Christ are most clearly illustrated, the cross of Christ. And as I began to look at the cross and its implications, it hit me. I don’t deserve anything, not even on my birthday. Birthdays are awesome but they can be devastating too. Because the whole population at least once a year, is massively persuaded and encouraged to believe that they have this inherent right, this deserving to be served. Birthdays often reinforce that we deserve to be magnified, which is ironically, the root cause of sin. Birthdays do not exist to make much of ourselves, birthdays exist to recognize the grace of God and make much of God. Redeem your birthday, display Christ.
Another interesting speed bump on the road to my 21st, was the individual mindset I began to acquire as my birthday approached. I began to wonder what my girlfriend got me, or what my family was going to get me. It better be good, I mean I deserved it. I began to feel like I deserve for tpeople to treat me like king. This mindset began to sink in, like every other birthday before this one. The birthday tends to reinforce this misnomer that I deserve something. Only the King deserves something, and only God is king. And so as I began to desire for my birthday to display Christ, rather than pamper my flesh, I began to look where the attributes of Christ are most clearly illustrated, the cross of Christ. And as I began to look at the cross and its implications, it hit me. I don’t deserve anything, not even on my birthday. Birthdays are awesome but they can be devastating too. Because the whole population at least once a year, is massively persuaded and encouraged to believe that they have this inherent right, this deserving to be served. Birthdays often reinforce that we deserve to be magnified, which is ironically, the root cause of sin. Birthdays do not exist to make much of ourselves, birthdays exist to recognize the grace of God and make much of God. Redeem your birthday, display Christ.
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