God Almighty, None Compares

First, watch this video:

God Almighty, None Compares

I must go on and say that the entire CD is amazing. It's a new kind of Christian music I'm unfamiliar with and the style is really...well, sweet. Ha. On with my thoughts!

"Glory and honor...wisdom and power...Grace and fury...splendor and might...O you are splendor and might...Matchless beauty...endless light...All heaven's ringing...All the angels are singing...All heaven's ringing...All the angels are singing...You are all i need...You're my everything...God almighty...God almighty."

God Almighty. El Shaddai. All-sustaning God. God of Everything. God of All. Who is worthy to be mentioned alongside you? To whom shall we go? You are God, the Living God, the only God--nothing compares.

Do you know who this God is or have you fastened for yourself an idol, a God you can deal with on your own terms? It's a tough question, I know--but a necessary one. The Living God cannot be contained, and can hardly be grasped by the human mind. But we are certain of a great many of the personal attributes of God--and are all the more amazed because of it.

He sustains and loves a creation which He cannot possibly benefit from. He perfectly balances grace and fury. He is without beginning, without end. All power belongs to Him--and He speaks worlds into existence. His wisdom is unsurpassed. Righteousness, glory, splendor--all belong to Him for He alone deserves them.

Perhaps the most amazing fact of all is that He has allowed us to come and stand before Him, to renew a right relationship with Him through His Son--and yet, knowing all of this--we so often fail to strive for increasing closeness and intimacy with the all-sustaining God in our day-to-day lives.

This must change. We must above all else desire to know God more and more with each breath we take, or we will inevitably be going in th opposite direction--away from the heart of God.

Slow down. Take in the breath of God and let your life be an outpouring testimony of His love and power--forsake all else, and you will find the peace and purpose God has been trying to give you all along.

"My desire for you is that you may be like Moses--so close to God, that no one can look at you without realizing that you have been in the presence of something, something totally different." I recently heard a pastor say this at a revival. He was talking about Moses, after he had seen the "backside" of God. Moses had literally only seen where God's presence, stuffed into a finite space, had just been--and yet his face glowed so that it bewildered (and frightened) the Israelites.

Pray that you may be so close to God that no one can associate with you without feeling the full weight and power of the Holy Spirit upon you. It's a tall order--but it is precisely why Jesus Christ died and rose--and we must take our responsibilities to be Christ to the world more seriously than anyhing else.

Thanks. I hope I get some more blog visitors soon and I pray that whoever happens to read some of this suff is touched and God has used me to minister to someone.

-CF

Learning from Socrates

Ah, there he is. It's Socrates--Ancient Athenian Philosoper exraordinaire. Socrates undoubtedly has left a huge impact upon Western philosophy and culture--and we as Christian youth workers and members can learn a number of things from him as well.

What did Socrates spend his time doing? Talking and asking questions. And then asking more questions. And then asking questions about those questions. And then questioning the nature of questioning and the question of the questioner. To some it up, he was a man of many questions.

Maybe you've heard of the Socratic Method? It is still widely practiced today, and is essetially the art of asking questions. The idea came from Socrates' desire for his students to assume nothing, and seek greater and greater insight and understanding into the nner workings of well...everything.

If you were a student of Socrates, and you believed or saw anything, he would encourage you to probe it to the greatest depths imaginable, in hopes of gainin a better working understanding of the thing itself. The big question for Christians is, can we be willing to do that with matters of our faith.

We have all experienced times of questioning God--His existence, His motives, and often His goodness and love. What if, instead of avoiding these questions we were to seek answers? Our faith would not shrink, but burgeon and grow with each advance in our knowledge of God.

Sure, we know that God exists and that He is real, but why are we afraid of the tough questions? Are we afraid we will be caused to doubt if we pursue them? Do we fear the disdain of church members who would prefer to 'simply believe and recieve.'? There is absolutely nothing wrong with seeking answers from God and about God, and if you approach His throne with a sincere and genuine heart, He will be with you every step of the way.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

So said Socrates himself, having been accused of poisoning the minds of the Athenian youth and teaching them against the state religion. In reality, he had done neither, but only asked them(his students) to appeal to reason. Our faith is reasonable and we should not be afraid to ask questions so that we may also defend it. If you are unwilling to examine to inner workings of your faith, I fear (within good reason) that it may be because you lack true faith in the first place, and fear exposing the emptiness that is within your own heart. Faith in God that is false is not a worthwhile investment of your time, as it wil only grant you the wrath of God--not eternal life through His Son.

Fixing the Youth Problem

See, this blog has two goals: one, to help Christian youth have a place to get a 'fix.' And two, to help turn the tide in a war the church is losing--a war for the souls of teenagers--a spiritual war that is somewhat dimished by calling it a mere 'problem.'

Let's focus on Number Two: Fixing the Youth Problem!

Sounds a bit ridiculous, eh? How dare I suggest that a problem may be present in the church youth today! What would possess me to actually believe that youth groups are, by and large, losing the battle and missing the point?

Well, there's a question I can answer. No matter how old you get and how much things change, you never really "un-belong" to your home youth group. I still belong to one. I was a faithful attendant at youth meetings throughout high school and I have a little experience at belonging to the classical example of a youth group.

We had loads of fun. We were frequently encouraged to 'get real' with God and deepen our faith in Jesus Christ. We were a close-knit communtiy--most of us became best friends at school and at home as well as church. And these things were all great.

But what was missing? I did not have an actual relationship with Christ. And I would be willing to venture that none of my friends did either. When I got to college, I struggled immensely--because I was essentially faithless and had never truly converted to Christianity--I was just a hypocritical liar attending church meetings and hanging out with my friends in a church building. We all know how difficult the walk is when we are attempting to be genuine--so it is no surprise that someone without any real appreciation for the things of God would be completely and totally--well, UNSAVED.

The core of the problem? We teach and allow the children who grow up in church to become comfortable with being pew-warming, potluck-attending, dry-as-bones Christianity. Christianity, to those few precious youth we manage to bring in early enough to be impacted by our holy cause, becomes simple adherence to a set of binding doctrines--not a true and heartfelt love relationship between the only Living God and his frail and fallen Creation.

To a young person, getting saved is becoming defined as--

"Agreeing (generally) with a presuppossed and binding set of doctrines about things that happened 2000 years ago--and attempting to live your life as though such things (which defy logic and reason) actually happened."

This definition is without faith, and as such is also seeded with doubt. Faith is thought of as "agreeing with" and at the most basic level it is a faith in some THING, and that thing is nothing but seemingly archaic knowledge--that of course must be wrong by the standards of modern science and philosophy.

Getting "saved" is

"coming to believe that Jesus Christ is who he said he was (the Son of God) and accepting the forgiveness of sins through His atoning sacrifice of Himself on the Cross."

When you have faith is some ONE, things change. It doesn't matter how long ago He lived on Earth--because His Spirit is still alive and active today. It doesn't matter what people say about you and your beliefs--because there is always a defense and Jesus Himself said that we would be hated because of Him--by this we will know that we are His followers. And when you understand what faith really is--you can really have it. And when you really have it--you will undoubtedly feel the work and presence of the Holy Spirit in your own life.

Until youth groups begin to become hardcore, radical, SLAVES of Christ--I fear our problem will continue. We will continue to see stale, lukewarm youth who grow into stale, lukewarm adults. We must pursue the Work of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ without crutch or hinderance if we are to succeed--and this means laying aside our preconcieved notions of what a youth group is or isn't supposed to be. All youth who are old enough to understand the Gospel Message are old enough to begin living for Christ on His terms.

We cannot continue to allow youth groups (and in many cases, whole churches) to sell out wholesale to the wiles of Satan--and become breeding grounds for wordly desires and sinful activity. Because they can quickly become just that. God expects godliness. Are we willing to cast our crowns aside and start acting like the people He has called us to be or not?