You are my King, O God;
ordain salvation for Jacob!
Through you we push down our foes;
through your name we tread down those who rise up against us.
For not in my bow do I trust,
nor can my sword save me.
But you have saved us from our foes
and have put to shame those who hate us.
In God we have boasted continually,
and we will give thanks to your name forever.
-Psalm 44: 6-8

I was once given an audio book by my good friend Mike entitled "I am not, but I know I AM". The entire focus of the book is that I am infinitely small, but God is infinitely large, powerful, in control, and the purpose of the entire universe's existence centers on him. How often do I need to be reminded of the fact that my life, being a part of that universe that he created, centers on him as well, and that the universe does not center on me.

More than that, how much does God want us to rely on him for victory so that we can boast in him, and not in ourselves. This is the very foundation of our faith, that it is God who chose us and saved us, and it is by faith that we are saved, not by our actions, so that it is God who is glorified, not us. I can say nothing of my own salvation except to point to God and say, "he did it all, not me."

Ephesians 1... I love it!

Tonight, I was reading Ephesians 1:3-14, and decided to break it down into a list. I do this sometimes, but I wanted to cut through the beautiful language and get to the meat of the passage. It says so much about who God is towards us, but always keeps one thing running through the entire section: The praise of God's glorious grace. Everything he does is to the praise of his glory, which is central to our identity as believers of Jesus Christ. Our very being is to the praise of God, not ourselves, therefore our entire existence should reflect his glory. So, here's what the passage says:

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, ⁴ even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love ⁵ he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, ⁶ to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. ⁷ In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, ⁸which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight ⁹ making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ ¹⁰as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

¹¹In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, ¹²so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. ¹³In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

What does this passage say about us as believers?

1. He blessed us (v. 3)
2. He chose us before the creation of the world (v. 4)
2a. Which means that he planned for us.
3. He made us holy and blameless before him. (v. 4)
4. He loves us (v. 4)
5. He predestined (or planned. see no. 2) our adoption (v. 5)
6. He adopted us as his sons (v. 5)
7. He did this according to his will, so he wanted us (v. 5)
8. He blessed us with his grace in Christ. (v. 6)
9. He has redeemed us (v. 7)
10. He has forgiven us (v. 7)
11. He has lavished his grace on us (v. 8)
12. He has made his will known to us (v. 8)
13. He unites all things in him, including us (v. 9)
14. He has given us an inheritance. (v. 11)
15. We are to his praise of his glory (v. 12)
16. We are sealed with the Holy Spirit (v. 13)
17. We are guaranteed our inheritance - the Holy Spirit (v. 14)

What does this passage say about God?

1. Take the list about us, and switch the wording around. He does all of these things.
2. He plans, and is in complete control of creation. (vs. 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11)
3. He is to be praised (vs. 3, 6, 7, 12)
4. His is merciful (forgiving sins and giving grace). (vs. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

All in all, we can look at this passage in one of three ways: We can see how much we are blessed, we can see how amazing God is, or we can see both. If we look at this from only the first perspective, it puts the focus on us, and we can easily distort this to say that we are the center of God's attention. If we focus on only the second, then we miss out on the amazing blessings that come from a life given to God. But if we focus on the third, then we see that God blesses us for the purpose of bringing himself glory. God's main concern is with his own glory, but that is the best thing for us as humans. Even in blessing us, God is still the center of the story, not us. I love this passage because it shows me that, even in my blessing, I am not the center of the universe, God is in complete control, and I can live in complete abandonment to him.

Praise up!

on blacking out in the bathroom...

In my twenty nine years of living on this planet, I have never once blacked out for reasons not pertaining to head trauma. I've been knocked out once, for about 10 seconds or so after doing a nice backwards head-plant on a ski slope, but that's the only time that I know of that I've ever lost consciousness other than falling asleep.

That all changed this morning when I blacked out in the bathroom, and woke up on the floor in a panic, not having any idea where I was or what was happening. All I knew was that I was on the floor and that I couldn't control my arms. It was, without a doubt, one of the scariest feelings I've ever had. It was interesting. I woke up this morning and was thirsty, so I got a glass of water in my bathroom and proceeded to take a drink. The gulp of water didn't want to go down, so I took another to force the first one down. You all know what this feels like. However, the second one wouldn't go either, and the resulting pain was so great that my entire body tensed up and I began to hear this rushing sound, similar to static that just grew and grew and eventually overwhelmed me. I woke up on the floor in a puddle of water from the cup that was in my hand, in a state of total confusion and panic.

I've never had an experience like this before, and frankly, I don't want to have it again. It made me realize something, though. I'm not invincible. I treat my body pretty poorly, as most people can attest. I have high blood pressure that I usually ignore, type II diabetes that I usually ignore as well, I'm out of shape and I my diet is less than healthy to say the least. Despite these problems, I've always just dealt with it, never really having a situation where things were beyond my control. Today, was it. It was the first time that something happened that I couldn't just ignore. It was out of my grasp.

So... why am I blogging this? I don't know. I guess it seemed rather significant.