There is Hope

    Often times I feel like there is no hope for getting over my sin. Just as Paul says "For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out." (Romans 7:18). I desire greatly to do good, what I know is right and pleasing to the Lord, but I often times mess up and find myself back at square one. I realize there is forgiveness, and I accept this, but when I look at the monster that is my sin I feel defeated, for my sin is great. Yet grace abounds.
    There is one major flaw in this perspective: I can't conquer my sin. I, alone, can never free myself from sin. I am a fool to ever think that I can conquer sin on my own. For if I could there would have been no reason for the cross. I'd wager to say it is even prideful to think that I can defeat sin. Often times when I am confronted with sin I try to fight the battle on my own, but this is wrong, and I will always lose.
    There is hope however. God promised to deliver the people of Israel from their uncleanliness by placing in them His Spirit.

"I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules." - Ezekiel 36:25-27

Jesus did not leave us here to fend for ourselves when he ascended, but he also left us with the Spirit. Through the Spirit and what Christ did on the cross we have all we need for the battles we face. Peter iterates this very thing in his second letter:

"His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire." - 2 Peter 1:3-4

    I cannot rely on myself to resist sin. Rather I must surrender myself to God, His Spirit, and Christ. If I am consumed by the Spirit, I will not be able to help but to walk in God's statutes. Gordon Dalbey says it well in his book Healing the Masculine Soul,

"Under the new covenant initiated by Jesus, another avenue has been opened for lasting saving power. Through Jesus' death and resurrection, the powers separating us from God—namely, our self-centered pride that leads us to sin—have been overcome. We no longer live by threat of the Law, but by the promise of the Holy Spirit, who empowers us to draw close to God and overcome our desires of the flesh."

    The battle against our sinful desires is not a hopeless battle. As much as the enemy would like me to think otherwise, there is hope. I myself cannot win the battle, but the battle was won on the cross. It is there that Christ died, to cleanse and deliver us from our sin, to deliver us from death to life, eternal life! We also have the Holy Spirit living inside of us that will help us to walk according to God's statutes. It empowers us! All we have to do is surrender. Surrender our pride and stop trying to fight the battle we can't win alone. The battle that is already won! There is hope! God made us as masterpieces and he wants to restore us to the masterpieces he intended us to be.

"Brief" Story

    So just to start off I feel like it would be appropriate to give a "brief" overview of my story. Or rather, His story about me. At least I'll try to keep it brief; I can get a little wordy sometimes. Please stop me if I do (Ha! You really can't). I grew up in a somewhat Christian home. My mom would take my sisters and I to Sunday school every week. We never really went to an actual service, except for a few Easter services. I grew up in a pretty normal home I'd say. In middle school my family moved and church was a little farther away. Having to get up earlier to get there coupled with just being a middle schooler and starting to get lazy, staying up late and sleeping in on the weekends, I eventually stopped going to Sunday school.
    Throughout middle school and high school I was probably what one might say was a "good kid". I never really got into any trouble; I wasn't one to party, never had a sip of alcohol, never tried any drugs. Perhaps running track, and later cross country, helped deter me from that path. Even if I wasn't doing any demanding sports I don't know if I would have tried any of that stuff. It's just not my thing.
    The biggest turning point (or rather just a point of finding direction) would probably have to be my sophomore year. I was sitting in my room one day giving some thought to what I was going to do in my life. I asked myself, "What's the purpose of life even?" I turned to the only thing I had ever known, the bible. I believed in God and figured he probably had some answers, so as any logical person would I began reading from the beginning, Genesis. Just a heads up, Genesis is not where I'd recommend starting to read your bible for the first time, it will quickly become a long and grueling task, especially when you get into the few books following it. Start in the new testament, that will probably be the best place for a starter. So I started reading my bible... from Genesis... and it was long. I've yet to read the whole old testament.
    New thought I've just realized: One thing I really needed was community and a community was quickly provided. We were sitting in my ecology class that I sort of got stuck in and my teacher was offering extra credit if we went to a seminar at a local college university. My friend Tom exclaimed "But I have bible study on that day!" Half joking, half curious, I said "I wanna go to bible study." Tom looked at me with the biggest smile and said "Do you really?!" "Sure," I replied. So I met him in the lobby after school and basically joined his bible study, turned out a lot of my friends were in it. They had all gone to Young Life camp that summer and this study was a spawn from that to keep them all connected and growing. Nonetheless, I began growing in my faith and I learned a lot. I stayed involved with Young Life stuff throughout high school, senior year not as much, but I was still in bible study that met once a week.
    After high school and some changing of plans, because post-secondary education doesn't come cheap, I was to be attending Northern Kentucky University. I had interest in being a volunteer Young Life leader because I believed in the words of Jesus when he said "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations." I believed that was my purpose in life and I wanted to be apart of the Young Life ministry because I believe it worked at making disciples. I met a lot of great people my age from other high schools in the area who also wanted to be volunteer leaders. I went to the weekly leadership meetings, but I didn't start actually leading at the time my other friends were starting to lead. Initially because I didn't have a car, which is kind of a problem and I just needed to grow some more. Boy, did I ever grow.
    My first semester of college went well. I was doing the things I felt were important I do as a Christian; reading my bible and praying everyday. All was well, but then I started to think about some things. We learned about personality in my psychology class and discussed where it is believed to come from and that just caused me to start asking myself some questions. Didn't shake me up too much, but it was the start of what would be a pretty strenuous and trying time.
    I always loved science and for my nature writing class I decided I was going to write a paper refuting abiogenesis, the theory that life arose from nonliving things through a complex series of atmospheric changes and chemical evolution. I dug really deep into all the science and tried to understand all that I could. As I read about it, I began to think that maybe this wasn't such a far-fetched idea after all. On the matter of the debate between pro-creation and pro-evolution scientists, I didn't find many of the Christian scientists' ideas to be very convincing, or a good argument against the idea that life arose from nonliving things. I felt like they were just trying to find any small thing they could to dismiss the idea of abiogenesis. And the pro-abiogenesis scientists seemed to just fill in the hole to make it work, however, I do think they were very critical in their reasoning to hypothesize what they were not sure of. The argument kept leading me in circles.
    As I researched all this and began to find abiogenesis more plausible, it started to set off some red flags. It began to tear down some ideas that I had concreted in my head. The ultimate question: "If it is possible that life could have risen of its own accord, then is there a God?" This led to me asking other questions about my faith such as: Did Jesus really rise from the dead? Was he God in the flesh? Was he more than a mere man? These questions also led me to look into a lot of conspiracy ideas behind Christianity and its origins. I also asked other more general questions such as what makes Christianity the right religion. If I was raised, say in the middle east, I would just have easily followed Islam, so how could I be sure Christianity was truth? Are we all just fooling ourselves to believe what we want?
    Everything I thought I once knew was falling to pieces around me. Was everything I was living for a lie? No one likes to be deceived or tricked, but I was feeling this way. I spent a long time digging into all these questions, or at times even ignoring it because it really tore my heart up. I could no longer read the bible and believe it as I once did. I had trouble praying because I wasn't sure if anyone was even listening. It felt contradicting to pray to a god I wasn't sure if I even believed anymore. I was so afraid of letting go of everything I had believed for years past. I'm not sure if you've ever felt this way, but this was the most mentally and emotionally stressing thing I've ever dealt with. I went to a lot of different people (both Christian and non) sharing what I was going through hoping they may be able to offer some solace or a straight answer. Much to my dismay, no one had a straight answer to give. I would find rather, that it was a heart issue and something that I must decide for myself. However, many of my close friends I had been confiding in told me "Joey, no matter what decision you make we will always love you." One night I lied in my bed crying and I prayed "God, if you're there, if you're real, just give me some sort of sign." God didn't answer me that night. It was really rough.
    Though I didn't get an immediate answer I feel like God gave me a sign in due time. At any rate, the bible says "Do not test the Lord your God". Yet, over the following months something began to come over me I believe. I feel as though God gave me a keen awareness of His Love and what that looked like when lived out in the lives of those who love Him. I was finding a great heart and feeling of compassion for people. I had been attending a church with my friends called Crossroads and they were beginning their Game Change campaign as they called it. They showed a little video to outline their initiatives for the campaign: Expanding their reach by establishing new church sites, establishing a permanent medical system in Mamelodi, South Africa, rescuing girls from sex slavery in India, and a project called Citylink. Seeing all of this moved me, but the breaking point was probably when a preacher in Mamelodi was standing next to a man from Crossroads and said (paraphrased) "This is God's love. That two people from completely different parts of the world, can come together and praise God." I'm pretty sure this was the point where I lost it. There are a lot of good people in the world who don't believe in God and do good things, but I feel the magnitude of what Crossroads was trying do can only be accomplished by God's Love that overflows from us.
    I saw God's Love in other places too. I had been going to my area's Young Life leadership group for two years and around me were over 70 people, ranging from young college students to a mom and dad with three kids to take care of, who loved God and because of that choose to spend much of their time (and even money) building genuine friendships with high school students across northern Kentucky in order to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with them, just as Jesus did the disciples.
    In the smaller community of friends I was spending most my time with, who were volunteer leaders or were moving to a new stage of their life from leading or even stepping into the shoes of leading, I also witnessed God's Love. That many of them expressed they'd love me no matter what, because I was their brother, meant a lot to me. Without that community, I'm not sure where I'd be now. I think God really blessed me with these people in my life.
    I came to realize that if there was anything at all worth living for, it was this Love that I had found. If by chance I was wrong, then I would one day simply die and that would be it, but I would have lived a life that brought me great joy. And even much of the world would say "Do what makes you happy." If, however, I was right in my choice, not only would I have lived a life that brought me joy, but I'd have lived a life that glorified my maker, and I would one day be reunited with Him in a place where ten thousand joys await. As for all the questions about the origin of life that I had been chewing on for some time, they don't really play that big of a role in my faith. I believe there is a God and I believe he descended as Jesus Christ to give us the good news and then died to save us from our sins that we may live eternally with Him. I believe Jesus was the Christ because I've seen a lot of people give their life over to him and change completely. It is a beautiful thing to see. In essence believing in these things is most critical for my faith. In light of my salvation, it doesn't matter too much whether or not the earth was made in six days or over billions of years, or whether or not we came from apes. I believe there was an intention behind whatever process by which we are here. For the intellectual folk, I understand this may be viewed as weak argument. I do not claim it to be an argument for the Christian faith, but rather this is my reasoning for following it and ultimately it is a choice I myself have made.
    So where am I now? I am now a volunteer Young Life leader at Campbell County High School. My co-leaders are like family to me and it is such a blessing to serve along side of them. None of us are perfect, but I think that is why God has all of us together; that we may build on one another to do the work together that none of us could do on our own. Where one of us may have a weakness, another of us has their strength. Apart we are dysfunctional, but together we create something beautiful. God uses imperfect people to bring about His kingdom. I'm really excited to see what God has in store for the community of Campbell County and I'm excited to see students come to know and grow in Him. I'm also very excited to see how God will grow me through this experience.
    ...Yeah... so this wasn't at all brief, but I did follow through in that it was a story. In case anyone were to stumble upon this blog that is at a similar point in their life and not sure what they believe anymore, or maybe they are looking at Christianity for the first time, I have one encouragement to offer: SEEK.

"Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart." - Jeremiah 29:12-13

This is a promise the Lord makes and it is a promise I believe He will deliver on. Seek God with all your heart and you will find Him. It was not any of the science or philosophy that answered my questions and established my faith, but seeking God. I believe he will reveal Himself to you in some way if you seek with all your heart.
    Now that this has all been laid out perhaps any following entry will be much more brief.

First

Welcome! This blog is a place for me to put my thoughts on paper (if you will). I'm a follower of Jesus, but it's been a long time coming (yet not so long). I thought I "got it", until I started asking a lot of questions about life and its beginnings and other philosophical-like questions. For a little over a year I searched for answers. Some were found. Many were not. Long story short, God granted me a keen awareness of His Love. It was all around me the whole time. I still have questions occasionally. Those questions will be presented here along with my thoughts on them. I may also lay out questions I've asked in the past and reflect on them and where I am now on the matter. I'll also be sharing any thoughts I feel are prompted or inspired by the Spirit, which speaks ever so loudly when you listen. Welp! Stick around if you wish. I'll be stopping by more often than not hopefully.