"He who prays without fervency does not pray at all! We cannot commune with God, who is a consuming fire, if there is no fire in our prayers!"
-Charles Spurgeon
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Judge of the Secrets
Came across Romans 2:16 when I was reading today, and was reminded of this beautiful Sovereign Grace Music song. As I read through the lyrics, I started meditating more upon the crazy dichotomies of the gospel.
We are totally sinful, God knows all our sins, AND we deserve eternal hell. It seems logical that our solution should be to run away and hide, and come back when we've cleaned up our act. But the gospel says otherwise. Even though God knows our hearts, we have no reason to run away from Him because our righteousness is found completely through Christ alone AND God accepts us despite our sinful nature.
Breaking down the song...
1. God is the holy Judge who knows all of our deepest secrets and sins. He knows the absolute depth of our wretched hearts, more than we ourselves can grasp.
The heart of a man is a maze within
So, come, light the way, illuminate sin
2. God has every right to condemn us to hell.
I was condemned under Your law
Rightly I stood accused
3. How can we assume that our good deeds make us more righteous than others?
So how can I judge the ones who fall?
I know in my heart I'm just like them all
4. There is only one thing we can do:
I will confess: my righteousness
Jesus, must rest in You
5. Through grace, the Lord accepts us completely in our mess. Even though we have so much to be ashamed of, and even though God knows every single shameful thing in our hearts, we can still rest in Him.
Judge of the secrets
Of the hearts of men
Here I surrender
And humbly repent
You've conquered my soul
Now be its defense
I will not run, I will not hide
I know I'm safe with You.
We are totally sinful, God knows all our sins, AND we deserve eternal hell. It seems logical that our solution should be to run away and hide, and come back when we've cleaned up our act. But the gospel says otherwise. Even though God knows our hearts, we have no reason to run away from Him because our righteousness is found completely through Christ alone AND God accepts us despite our sinful nature.
Breaking down the song...
1. God is the holy Judge who knows all of our deepest secrets and sins. He knows the absolute depth of our wretched hearts, more than we ourselves can grasp.
The heart of a man is a maze within
So, come, light the way, illuminate sin
2. God has every right to condemn us to hell.
I was condemned under Your law
Rightly I stood accused
3. How can we assume that our good deeds make us more righteous than others?
So how can I judge the ones who fall?
I know in my heart I'm just like them all
4. There is only one thing we can do:
I will confess: my righteousness
Jesus, must rest in You
5. Through grace, the Lord accepts us completely in our mess. Even though we have so much to be ashamed of, and even though God knows every single shameful thing in our hearts, we can still rest in Him.
Judge of the secrets
Of the hearts of men
Here I surrender
And humbly repent
You've conquered my soul
Now be its defense
I will not run, I will not hide
I know I'm safe with You.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Monday, February 17, 2014
Farm and Flora
Super late photos from last year's awesome summer retreat (on how we should look forward to the return of Christ). So many animals! Unfortunately I did not take any photos of people, cafeteria food, campfire smores, or late night ramen :(
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Chocolate and Strawberries
My small group decided to bake for the senior guys (and spontaneously surprise them at small group). We tossed sprinkles, watched frosting melt, and honed our artsy chocolate drizzling technique.
While we didn't intend for it to be super fancy, everything unintentionally ended up fitting well with Valentine's Day weekend :D
While we didn't intend for it to be super fancy, everything unintentionally ended up fitting well with Valentine's Day weekend :D
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