No Work!

hey guys. i'm off at the lodge until sunday, so this could be a really chill and productive week. (what? the word 'productive' used in a positive sense? who is this mysterious blog writer and what have you done with will weir?!?) i just got off of a very short but encouraging phone call with kristen; she's still rocking. i'm gonna see if the peace corps has any other openings because it really kind of sounds fun. sort of. yea.

well, we got back to journals this week, and here's what's been kind of consuming my mind for the last week or so. hope it finds you well and that you find it encouraging, interesting, or at least pleasantly dull. just kidding. if you, the person reading this, and i aren't caught up with each other, let's talk, yea? yall take care now.

ps - ryan adams with jen tomorrow. boo-yah. (obstructed view. snap.)

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It Started as a Prayer

(So I’ll keep it that way; this is all what I wrote in my brand new legal pad Monday.) Right now, what seems to be a source of some stress (maybe more perceived than real) in my relationships with the community is this issue that you do all things to your glory, that your glory is the utmost cause and quality of your existence. I also believe that, because of your nature – that you are love, and that you’re kind, beautiful, good, and strong – your glory is congruent with “the good of those who love [you], who are called according to [your] purpose.”

I readily confess my propensity to get behind a cause, an argument, and to leave that somehow removed from the fact that you are Person (!); you are not proposition. So take me off of my soapboxes that would merely defend me, my past, and my mind, and help me come to know the truth directly from you and from your Scripture. Because I do believe it’s true. I believe in your love and goodness enough that your hunger, your ownership of your glory doesn’t scare me. But sensitize me even greater to this love and goodness. Help me understand your heart for the nations, your heart for the Church, your heart for individuals, and your heart for me.
Please protect me from serving myself by having a lens on the text from Piper or Edwards.

Isaiah 43:6-7 – “…bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory…”

Isaiah 48:9,11 – For my name’s sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I
restrain it for you that I may not cut you off…For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.

2 Cor 3:7-9 – Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory.

Throughout all of human history, God works to his own glory by redeeming/loving his people to himself. In the Old Testament, the means is the Law’s revelation, condemnation, and conviction of sin with the hope of a Messiah. Paul calls this “the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone,” which still “came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory.” But this glory was “being brought to an end (v. 11),” making way for the new, beautiful glory of the “ministry of the Spirit.” And all of this is accomplished through the surest definition of love we have: Romans 5:8 – “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us;” 1 John 4:7 – “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins;” 1 John 3:16 – “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us…”. So how else are we to know love other than by God’s seeking and displaying his glory in our salvation? As John tells us earlier in this epistle, “your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake (v 12)”. And how great this God is, who is more glorified in the strength of his love than in the strength of his hand.