the glory and the horror

My roommate is actually in Russia. They changed plans because of the tensions in the Kashmir area in recent days. It’s cooled down since, but at the time that they made the decision, it was only days before they were scheduled to leave, but that was at the height of the tensions. I’m glad a different destination was worked out for them.

From the PCA website:

“Some people are full of talk against legal doctrines, legal preaching, and the legal spirit. Yet they may understand very little of what they are talking against. A legal spirit is far more subtle than they imagine. It can lurk, operate and prevail in their own hearts even while they are inveighing against it. For as long as a man is not emptied of himself and of his own righteousness and goodness, he will have a legal spirit. A spirit of pride in one’s own righteousness, morality, holiness, affection, experience, faith, humiliation, or any other goodness, is a legal spirit…With such encouragement he goes before God in prayer and expects much from God. He thinks this makes Christ love him and that Christ is willing to clothe him with His righteousness… yet all the while he is merely a deluded creature. It is even possible to have a self-righteous spirit about one’s own humility…” – Jonathan Edwards

Dude, that can so be me.

A bunch of fun links that I’ve accumulated over the days, mostly from a certain UNCer who knows who she is.

The PCA General Assembly’s recent declaration on racial reconciliation
From a church in NY – “Centrality of the Gospel”
Some (IMHO) disturbing information re: some of Falwell’s plans to build some compound which will only encourage cultural seclusion of Christians in the US.
A great piece on just war theology
Gamma girls – a must read for anyone with daughters or sisters.
Megachurches as Minitowns – the title says it all – more on the interesting phenomonen in the US re: churches becoming, IMHO, their own sheltered communities.
Stealth capital of evangelicalism? – I’m about to move to this city.
What Would Pope Stanley Say? – an interview with Stanley Hauerwas, an interesting pacifist/theologian.

Less than 2 weeks.

Just thoughts.

I come home in a month.

My future roommate might be in India right now. I don’t know if he was still on schedule to go with recent events in that part of the world. I emailed him a couple days ago, asking about that, but I never got a reply. I hope he’s ok.

I am concerned about adjusting back to life in the States. I know myself, I know my propensity to be critical, and I am praying for patience and grace in my dealing with adjusting to the states.

I just heard the tail end of a Piper tape on suffering that I’d heard earlier this year. I enjoy listening to John Piper. He speaks well, and the things he has to say are not wimpy and watered-down, but full of applicable Truth that cannot easily be glossed over. One particular thing I enjoyed about this tape is how our suffering “completes” the love of Christ. Not “completes” in the sense that anything that Christ did was insufficient, but complete because we, the Body of Christ, are bringing the very love of Christ, in person to those whom He died for. He notes that the other place that the same Greek word used in this instance (Colossians 1:24, I think. I’ll have to check on that and correct it if it’s wrong) is only used one other time when speaking about Epaphroditus “completing” the love of the churches supporting Paul by coming in person to express their love and concern.

I’d never heard that, but it makes a lot of sense, and fits right in line with the rest of the Bible’s teaching on living solely and completely for the glory of God, and in line with the complete sufficiency of the Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Our suffering is a real way to show what we believe and who we are loyal to and who we love really does love those we seek to share the Gospel with. Is the Gospel worth suffering for? Are the people who need to hear it worth suffering for?

Just thoughts.