If you are not yet an overly addicted Derek Webb fan...just give a few of his songs a listen. This is a lot easier to do because as of tonight at MIDNIGHT...for the month of September he's putting his "Mockingbird" album online for FREE downloads! I rekcon he's trying to sread the word about his newest album. I heard him in concert a few months ago...and he explicitly told the crowd to download his stuff for free, burn CDs of it, and give it to everyone who wanted a copy. So, I'm doing my part to spread the word about one of the most Christ-centered, intelligent, and REAL lyricists I've ever heard. Enjoy!

http://www.derekwebb.com/news/article/25

"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline." - 2 Timothy 1:7


"Although the community of the Lord's servant-witnesses is characterized by a tangible love that is attractive to outsiders (Acts 2:47; 5:13), their testimony makes no peace with any alternative to faith in Jesus. Religious "solutions" apart from Jesus the Savior are dangerous frauds with which there can be no compromise or polite toleration." - Dennis Johnson in "The Message of Acts"


Where does the boldness and confidence come from to proclaim unapologetically the gospel of Christ (defined in Romans 1 as the "power of God for salvation to everyone who believes [in Christ Jesus])? It comes from an unshakable confidence that the Word of God and all that He proclaims through it is Truth. Where does this unshakable confidence come from? It comes from faith. Where does faith come from? It is the first drop of living water that lands on a parched soul...the first drop of a never-ending deluge of divine grace. It is a gift, according to the passage quoted above from 2nd Timothy. God did not GIVE us a spirit of timidity, rather He GIVES us one of power, love, and self-discipline.

So God is not calling us to testify to His saving perogative and transforming power based on our own strength. He is not commanding us to search our souls and muster up the cahones to declare His Gospel to our friends, coworkers, neighbors, bosses, fraternity brothers, family members, classmates, strangers, etc. No! He points us away from ourselves and our meager supplies of courage. He gently lifts our eyes to Heaven...to marvel again at who He is...to hold out our pauper hands and ask Him for faith to believe, faith to declare, faith to live a life unashamed of the King of Kings, faith to actually see and live according to that which is not plainly visible. He will give abundantly to those who ask. To those who seek His Kingdom...who hunger for the grace to be made useful in His Kingdom work...He will surely give.

Because a non-testifying saint is a non-believing saint, we must repent...we are called and commanded to repent of our self-infatuation, of our refusal to bow before our King and submit to His will. So, if you are like me and play the role the coward well...or if the message of Christ crucified has ever challenged your arrogant pride to the point that you would rather not talk about Jesus than talk about Him and risk enduring the same ridicule He experienced, then join me in repenting and relying again on the accomplished work of Jesus...the work of Jesus that resurrected you, that made you right with God once and for all, that wiped away the crimson stains of your embarrassment of Him...the work that equipped you to serve, that dispatched the Spirit of Omnipotence to your very heart.

In the end, we've got to remember that this life is not easy. God calls His people to live differently, to live costly lives...that are colored more by suffering and sacrifice than comfort and security. He beckons us to die every day and carry our cross. The same brand of cross that Christ bore...the cross that was so inextricably associated with humiliation. As we seek to die to self and live to Christ, let's remember the Captain of our faith...who never trembled before men, who never cowered from submitting to His Father's will...not even when His Father's will consigned Him to the deepest shame of dying abandoned and stark naked on a Roman cross.

Funny...yesterday there were 9 planets in our solar system. As of this morning, there are only 8. In the history of democratic decision making, I think this is by far the sweetest thing ever voted on.

Check it out: http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/08/24/pluto.ap/index.html

Eureka!!! A hit from Perth, Australia! PS...this is a picture a friend of mine took while we were in Sydney. This is the position you will usually find a Koala bear in. The eucalyptus leaves they eat are so low in nutrition that the little fuzzy bears typically sleep 23 hours a day...and eat during the remaining 1. Not a bad life at all, if you want my opinion. Which...if you're reading this blog...I figure you're at least vaguely interested in what I have to say.

Psalm 139: 23, 24

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.



"I have found, to my regret, that the degrees of shame and disgust which I actually feel at my own sins do not at all correspond to what my reason tells me about their comparative gravity...Our emotional reactions to our own behavior are of limited ethical significance." - C.S. Lewis in 'Letters to Malcolm'

"If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God." - Paul of Tarsus writing in the sixth chapter of his letter to the church in Rome, verses five through ten.


In his commentary on Romans, John Stott says, "The cross should be enough to break the hardest of heart, and melt the iciest" (117). Do his words describe your relationship to the cross? Or do they indict you and reveal your rather trivial relationship to it? My answer to these questions is conflicted: many times the cross does indeed break my icy heart, but there are certainly other times when I either don't think at all about the cross in my daily living, or worse yet, I don't apprehend...or care about...its significance.

When we aren't moved by the message of the cross, I think it's oftentimes because we've forgotten that we have the deepest, most intimate, personal interest in what occurred 2,000 years ago on a hill just outside the Jerusalem gates. When I conceive of the Gospel as a set of tasteless theological facts that are somehow supposed to affect the way I live, I see it as dry history that is profoundly disconnected from the reality of my daily living. But, when I see the message of the cross for what it really is--an account of when I escaped the wrath of my Creator and Law-giver, when my eternal and covenantal friendship with God began, when my seat at the wedding banquet was won, when His loving kindness to me was forever guaranteed--it quickly becomes painfully personal.

So the Gospel is more than bare history; it is my story and my heritage. How we relate to events in the past is largely dependent on our proximity to the event when it happened. Fifty years from now, school kids will read of the events of September 11th and will, understandably, received the information as...boring history...bland fact. Not so for you and me. Nor for those in New York that day. Certainly not for those who survived the building collapses under rubble. This is the point of what I'm writing about here! We are not nearly as removed from the consequence of Calvary as we sometimes think. The message of the cross is not distant history. It is as real and relavant and potent for me today as it was for the Centurion then. It is as really sewn into the fabric of my life as are my family, my birthday, my first day of college.

Why? Because in a sense...a real sense...I was at Calvary. I was on that cross, my 'old self', as Jesus strained for each labored breath all day long. I taunted him with mockery that day as he faded in and out of consciousness. I was crucified that day; and I crucified him that day. Along with the rest of God's people, I am both a cause AND effect of the cross. How could the cross possibly be more personal than that? The cross of Christ was the currency used to purchase each of the Father's little ones.

Do you see how the threads of your own filthy rags are woven into the tapestry of Divine Redemption? Do you really believe you were crucified and raised to life--life to its fullest--that day? If not, cry out for eyes to see. Pray the Holy Spirit of God to take you back to the hill where perfect love met perfect justice...the hill where you were purchased...the hill where the Father laid His Isac down...for your sake. And while He has you there, listen carefully...and hear the King of Kings spend His last excruciating breaths to whisper, "Father...forgive them...they know not what they do." This is how intimate the Gospel gets...this is the personality of the Cross of Christ.

In the middle of an Athenian August night, it's a cool 66 degrees with a light and steady breeze and no humidity to speak of. God is good...so good that I had to walk through North Campus tonight after a great Italian dinner, just because....because the weather was too perfect not to, because I've got scores of thoughts careening through an overly anxious mind...thoughts that need to be distilled into coherence. And if for no other reason, I'm an official alum of the University of Georgia now; never to be a student here again. And I'm at peace about that. Really. I've enjoyed the sweet season of academia God has ordained for me. It is a rich blessing, but I'm thankful for something new, something far more challenging and exhilarating than graduate school.

As I type, a few friends walk by and say hello. Freshmen, visibly uncomfortable in their new town, pace along the streetside trying to orient themselves to the next four years of their lives. As I look over my right shoulder to check out the car whose owner has apparently removed its muffler, I get my first glance of the little surprise a pigeon sitting in the tree above me left...on my arm. Funny, didn't even feel it hit.

You've got to be @%$# kidding me...I've just been hit again! Honestly, who gets nailed twice in one sitting? Now my pants are all messed up. Blasted birds...gotta do a load of wash when I get home now. I'd take a picture of these poop stains, but the little camera on my Macbook is not working at the moment, convenient...I know.

Anyway, the original reason I pulled out my laptop and started this post was not to report on the weather...or my official status in relation to the state's flagship institution. Nor was it my desire to broadcast the defecation patters of Athenian pigeons. Rather, my purpose...my goal in this short little post......@#$%*&!!!! WHOA!!! Glad I moved....a huge dollop of poo just landed in the seat across from me. Hang on a second....I've got to move tables.

alright, I'm back and set up at another table now. So, back to the main point behind this post: I'm writing to publicly express my regret. Regret for letting the last few posts be the only ones in months. For whatever it's worth, I'd planned on being a more prolific blogger this summer. But alas, it was not to be. Now that grad school and finals and last-minute term projects are over...life is gaining a bit more structure, a bit more of a foreseeable schedule.

So, as I complete my RUF study program this fall, I long to share the richness of Scripture and Gospel theology with you, my 2 or 3 regular readers. Seriously though, I intend to share what I am learning, what I am living, what God is doing. In the process, I will appreciate your patience if it turns out I can only share once a week, or maybe even less.

But even more than your patience, I ask you for your prayer. In fact, I beg of you...mention me and the ministry of RUF and the students it will impact next time you approach the throne of grace...the seat of the Living God. We are but feeble and broken instruments...but the instruments are being moved by the hand of Omnipotence and perfect wisdom. Let us all, as the ransomed people of the one, true God petition Him to work out the salvation of His elect at UGA, whether they are presently in the fold or not. Let's ask that His universal call for all men to repent and believe would pierce deeply the hearts of obstinate prodigals. Let's ask Him to use redeemed rebels to woo home still-running rebels. That's asking a lot, but I know you're up to it. So thank you...and goodnight.

Ummm, any guesses why someone in the United Arab Emirates would be reading my blog? Just noticed the little blip on the tracking map...