Thoughts while riding

These days I've been riding my bike a lot. I love riding my bike now. I truly am my father's child. As I ride my bike, I try to listen to either podcasts of sermons, or do what I did yesterday, which was start to listen to the Bible on Mp3. I listened to Genesis 25-Exodus 23, and it was quite good. If anyone knows me, I'm not much a reader, so going through the Bible on mp3 was an interesting way to approach the Bible. It's definitely not meant for serious meditation, but you want something to listen to as you commute somewhere, or clean the house, or exercise, I think it's a valuable thing to think about doing. It's free too on Itunes, so no excuses^_^

As I rode my bike I took some pictures that I'll post periodically through out this blog. I haven't posted my thoughts in a while, but I was thinking recently about how I view Christ, and some important things that have come to my mind about Him. I realize that perhaps for much of my life, I don't think I was looking at Christ with the right lens. I definitely saw him as loving, the one who I owed my entire life to, the only one who could pay the penalty that I so justly deserve. It's not that I had a wrong view of Christ, but I wasn't seeing the whole picture, and it was really cloudy my desires and left me longing for other things than Christ.

I realized that I wasn't seeing him as the beautiful treasure he is that is so wonderful, that He's all you want in life. There's nothing more desirable than Christ. There's nothing more in all the universe, that fits more perfectly with our desires and the way we were designed. We were designed to worship Jesus. And if you don't grasp the fact that your deepest joy in the life is worshiping and being satisfied in Christ, you will always turn to something else. In the past, I always felt like owed Christ something, instead of realizing that I can't pay back Christ at all. There is nothing I can offer him that would somehow make us even. But instead, I am now realizing that I follow Christ not because I have to, but because he is irresistibly beautiful. My heart wants nothing else but to worship and follow. It's not a duty, but a desire. And if we don't see Christ as supremely valuable, all we are left with is empty religion and idolatry. We will not be content in Christ. We look for value and joy in other things. And we will try to somehow appease God with our acts of religion.
But something I heard John Piper said changed my life I think. He said that "worship is the consummation of joy in anything." He used music, movies, or books as an example. If you read a really great book, what's the first thing you want to do after you read it? You want to tell other people about it. You can't hold back your praise, worship, honor, and glorification of this book. You want others to know how amazing this book is as well, and it brings you so much joy to tell others about it, and to see them enjoy it as well. We are like this, because God made our bodies for worship. And it should be the same with Christ. Our deepest joy in the entire world, period, is worshiping Christ. It doesn't matter what other desires you have that you think will bring you more joy...they won't. Nothing can top this; because this is how we were designed. Nothing will ever give you more pleasure, meaning, joy, and satisfaction than glorifying God through enjoying HIM forever. I have to scream this to myself every day, because there are so many other things in the world lying to me telling me there's something else that can fill the craving that only Christ can satisfy.

My prayer is that we would seek after joy and satisfaction. That we wouldn't run from pleasure, but pursue it whole-heartedly in Christ. Because it's the only pursuit worth it.Another thing has been on my mind recently as well. Recently I've heard many people having complaints about hell for one reason or another. People generally seem to dislike it because it just seems to harsh. And I understand them. I understand how they're feeling, because I've often felt that way. But something radically needs to change if we are going to have a proper view of hell, and I think this worldview issue is the primary reason why so many people have a difficult time believing in hell.

People won't, can't accept the idea of hell because they fundamentally, at the core, think that they don't deserve to go there. No body wants to think that they are bad enough for hell. People will admit that they've messed up, but messed up to the point of eternal damnation? That seems like too much. And even though I would have said that yes, without Christ, you are going to hell, it never settled well with me. Now I'm not saying that hell should be an easy concept to handle. It's not. There's nothing in the world harder to consider. But we should never let it get to point when we start to doubt God's justice, love, and goodness.

So basically, there has to be a paradigm shift. We have to get to the point where we stop seeing ourselves as basically innocent with a couple of blemishes, and see ourselves as we truly are. Guilty, sinners, worthy to be cast into hell. That we have all fallen short of the glory of God. That we have spit on and mocked God. That we have committed treason against the most high God of the universe. That God would be completely just and right to strike us all down at this moment. That we were all once enemies of God. We hated God. The last thing we would want to do is to be with him. We are completely worthy of hell. Every second we are alive, is an act of mercy and grace from God, because he is allowing us one more second to live and to turn from our lives of sin, and turn to him.

If we don't see ourselves in that light, we'll never truly accept hell as a reality for people without Christ. I mean, I don't understand why people always talk soooooooooooo much about getting saved, and about how amazing Christ is as our savior, but seem to leave out the part about what we're being saved from...? Why would people embrace a savior if they don't feel like they need to be saved from anything. And without realizing the true depth of our sinfulness, we will never come to truly cherish how AMAZING God's love is for us!

So most people would think about hell, and begin to question God's love. I would submit it's the opposite. The existence of hell proves God's love to be 100 times deeper than the latter. It's only when we see ourselves as we truly are, that we are able to grasp the infinite love that Christ has for us in dying for us while we were yet sinners, deserving of judgment.

It might seem like an easy concept, and pretty basic to our Christian foundation. I KNOW. So why is it such a taboo topic then?

Those are just some thoughts. I haven't given any in a while. If I feel so inspired, hopefully I can write some more.^_^ Can't wait to see everyone:)