Saturday, November 20, 2010

"I Make War": Circle versus Path


Intro (john piper):
I hear so many christians, murmuring about their imperfections, and their failures, and their addiction, and their shortcomings. And i see so little war! Murmur, murmur, murmur. Why am i this way? Make war!

Verse 1 (tedashii):

Bang with me
Ba-bang bang, ba-bang with me
No more playing games mane
Cause this thang can get risky
So mane if you in christ
Take up!!
Your cross quickly
Stand fearless on the frontline
Time to come with it
Do the right thing
Wake up!!
And lets get it
I ain't even in the ring
They throwing bows like riddick
Persistently attacking me
They're even in the back of me
It's either fight or lose my life and i can't take this passively
So what you think i'm bout to do
I'm bout to do what i can do
Trust the one who got me through
And fight like it was after school
Never giving up
Steady, standing on the battle field
Feet firm to the ground like i stepped on Chapel Hill
Flesh feeling frisky, sin persuades and tempts me
Satan cheers me on
Guilt followed by conviction
It's the same ol' trap
And we fall like we defenseless
Work your senses
Grow in wisdom
Stand firm and be relentless



Hook:
I make war!
Cause sin never sleeps
It's got me in a trance
You can see it in my dreams
I make war!
Man i beat my flesh
To the death
Every breath
Like i beat my chest
I make war
Sun up
I make war
Sun down
I make war
Time in
I make war
Time out
I make war
Against lust
Against pride
Against me
Until i die

"But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage that I may gain Christ," Philippians 3:7-8

"For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." Philippians 1:21

So one thing I have been holding back about recently is another sin God revealed to me a little while ago. I'm not sure why I did not write a blog post about it when I thought about it. I think that maybe sometimes this blog can almost sort of feed my pride slightly. I struggle with pride a lot, course not nearly as much since I became a Christian last year PTL!, but still struggle and most of the time I do not realize when something is feeding my pride. I think that sometimes it is easy for me to write about my rejoices on this blog and then everyone, if anyone, reads it get the idea that my relationship with Jesus is so good and full of blessings, joy, and rejoicing. This is such a lie because it paints a terribly wrong picture of Christianity and what my relationship with Jesus looks like. In truth, I have struggles, I fall far from glory all of the time, my heart is sinful, but why don't I share these more often? Shout out to a friend of mine who at a community meeting for CO about two or so weeks ago pointed out that in the story of the woman at the well, the woman realized how great Jesus was and how much she needed Him when Jesus showed her her sin. Most of the time in ministry we try to show people how good God is and pray that God uses our lives as an example as we rejoice in Gods provision and faithfulness. Which is totally fine and dandy but sometimes we need to show people how desperately needy we are of Christ because we immeasurably sinful. By showing them our imperfections they see a real picture of Christianity, that we were all born sinful and yet God was so good to give us the ultimate gift of grace through His Son. Therefore, as Christians we are not perfect, we cannot hope to be as long as we are on this earth, but we strive to know more of Christ as we see how sinful we are and how big Gods grace is. So all that to say that I never show you all my imperfections. And lately, God has revealed to me that I have begun to value other things above knowing more of Him. Most of the time this shows itself in the morning when I am tired and so I tell myself that I won't spend time with Him that morning but later that day. And of course I do the same thing at other times of the day or forget about it, or other pressing things work their way into the picture. So then I think 'how do i fight this?' memorize verses, pray, fight to get up in the morning and spend time with God. So I fail at fighting and then God reveals this to me again, and it seems just like a circle. This evening, several friends of mine from this summer came to visit, a bunch of girls from Western Carolina and another guy friend who just graduated from Wofford. The Lord totally provided for me today because as me, Drew and two other girls had to wait an hour at Fatz to be seated, I was able to talk to Drew about a bunch of different things and I shared this with him. He told me that it is often a struggle for him especially now that his schedule looks a lot different being out of school. But one thing he commented was that it seems like a circle, but with the circle perspective there's no logic in fighting because its never ending. There's no hope. And as I listened to the above song just a little while ago, I realized I am much like what John Piper describes in the beginning. Murmuring about my imperfections and my failures, but not wholeheartedly stepping on the front lines to fight, to make war. I am not counting everything as a loss for the sake of knowing more of Christ, instead I am counting sleep as a gain and knowing more of Christ as a loss. This is not where I want to me at all in my mentality or my walk! And so I must fight to get up in the morning and spend time with God in whatever way, I must fight to memorize scripture, to keep His word in my heart and know that His word tells me that knowing Christ is a gain and His word is perfect. I must fight my sin and if not wholeheartedly then claim wholeheartedly and pray for God to burden my heart for my own sin. At times I can feel so burdened for others, the fact that they do not know the love of the Lord, and for their own sin, but not for my own sin that inhibits my relationship with God and blinds me from seeing so much of His grace!

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