Grace Like Rain

When I was in seventh grade I started looking at Christians and who they were.  What I was for the most part was people who said and did on thing on Sunday mornings and Wednesday night (awanna) then went out and lived something else entirely throughout the week.  With few exceptions all I saw in the Church was a bunch of hypocrites(the thing I hated most in this wold was hypocrites).  So, I left the church and God, I was gonna find my own way.  for about two years I searched.  They say hind sight is 20/20.
What I failed to realize is that while all I was seeing was hypocrisy, there was something else at work.  Gods grace.  I am not making excuses for the sins that myself or others were committing, but as you read through the Bible God uses the flawed among us to accomplish His will.  King David is called a man after God's own heart after he commits adultery, and murders a man to cover it up.  Peter who swears that he will not betray Christ, than denies Him less than 24 hours later, is call the rock upon which Christ will build his church.  The 11 disciples, men who continually question, doubt, and totally misunderstand Christ teachings are the same men who were used by God on Pentecost to bring many to Christ.  Paul who called him self the greatest of sinners and who, before his conversion was on a mission to kill all Christians, was the first, and perhaps greatest, missionary to the gentiles.  The point is that God uses the imperfect people that we are to bring people to him, & while we are all hypocrites, it is Gods grace that saves us and allows us to be tools for His work.

Reawakening

So, I am reading a book by Timothy Stoner called "The God Who Smokes".  As I am reading I am seeing a lot of what I have come to believe reflected in the book.  Sometimes the things he sais, I think, are too soft, and, other times I disagree with how he constructs his argument but for the most part I am in agreement with the premisses of the chapters and the book as a whole.   Agreeing or disagreeing with Stoner in my case isn't really the point.
The point is that reading what he rights has reawakened something in me.  Something that as I wrote in a letter to my wife, "died long ago".  It is a burning desire to know God and about him, but mostly to know Him.  One of the first things that God has shown me throughout this book is that all of the "great" modern Christian theologians, Like C.S. Lewis, Towser, Simpson, and others all have in common is that they trully know the God that they serve.  This is was also true of the earlier theologians like Calvin, and Luther.  I want what they had, that deep relationship with the Creator God.
While I want it and I am working twords having a deep relationship with God I know it is a lot of work and that I need to commit my self daily to studying His word, praying and living a life of worship to Him.  In one of my favorite hymns it says "let thy goodness like a fetter bind my wondering heart to thee...".  That has become my prayer over these pas couple of months.

"Come thou Fount"

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I’ll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.

-Robert Robinson 1758

My Story

I am starting this blog to share thoughts and lessons on my spiritual journey, some I have learned long ago, and some are new to me.  I am by no means perfect nor will I ever claim to be I just want to put into writing what I am learning.  Some of my ideas will change and mature as I go along some will become more concrete without changing at the core.  I am a Christian and have been for 13 years now, but for the past 4 or 5 I have not ben living as a Christian should.  It has just been within the past several months that I have realized that I need to come back to him.  This is due in large part to attending church more regularly at the Lincoln Barean Church and the sermons of Paster Bryan Clark.  I have been reminded of so much recently and learned so much more.  If anyone ever reads this I hope it will bless them as God is blessing me.