New years resolutions are probably the most annoying thing about all of it. I am pretty sure the tradition of a new year’s resolution was made so people could feel better about themselves. It’s a new year I am going on diet, I am going to start running, I am going to spend less money, or I am not going to watch as much T.V. That is great until month four rolls around and you are back to being a broke lazy glutton. I find it funny when someone makes a more or less life changing, or highly altering choice, just because some random day like January 1st rolls around. If you really want to start losing weight or stop being so lazy you will make that choice based on your own personal convictions on whatever day they tend to arise. People wonder why they always fail at keeping a new year’s resolution. Well maybe if you actually wanted to keep it in the first place, because you realized in your heart that there was something wrong that needed fixed, you would. And maybe it would help if you didn’t make a ridiculous resolution like, “I’m going to run five miles a day and only watch thirty minutes of T.V. a week, just because today in January 1st”. My friend Brea made a resolution, last year, not to eat French fries. She didn’t go on an all out diet or decided to exercise for ten hours a day. She decided to do something small and easy. I was with her when 2008 was officially over and she could eat French fries again, we were here:

Actually, we were in a McDonalds close to that, which is the Hong Kong harbor, but that is beside the point. The thing is, she accomplished her goal because it wasn’t something she did just because it was the New Year. Her choice in not eating French fries was not made to impress other people or just to feel good about knowing she made a new year’s resolution. To sum up 400 words, if you really want to do something don’t wait around, make the initiative to do it and get it done. Also, don’t make a new years resolution just because everyone else is and you think you might impress someone. You won’t.

For the first time, this Christmas break, I experienced culture shock. I was able to visit China for two weeks over the break and it was quite the experience. I’m sure when you think of China, you might think of the Olympics in Beijing, Yao Ming, and the Great Wall or you might think of the U.S. buying 321.5 billion dollars worth of imports from China, the communist revolution of 1945-49, or maybe the significance of the Han dynasty. Either way, everyone has preconceived notions and ideas of China, or anywhere or anything for that matter.

Before I went, I had my own preconceived notions and ideas of China as well. Little did I know, they would be blown out of the water and once again I would be forced to accept my ignorance of the world. In a “small” city roughly the size of Houston, you would expect sky scrapers, bustling crowds of pedestrians, and a constant excess of noise right? For about two weeks I was in a city that, on average, has about as much noise pollution as Canyon does. Looking out over the city you might see something like this:

Or if you look out from the window of the hotel room I stayed in you might see this:

Or of course, you might come into contact with a random mountain jutting out of the ground in the middle of a group of buildings, such as this:

Since there are eighteen college campuses in the city I went to, the majority of my time was spent on a college campus like this one:

Or this one:

We talked a couple times in a classroom but most of the time was spent just hanging out on campus meeting students. Whether it was playing ping pong outside in the thirty degree weather,

Watching badminton inside,

Or attending class with new Chinese friends

we were slowly immersed into Chinese culture and a very different way of life. Even though the food might be a little different

and the language is unspeakable as well as unreadable,

the friends I made in China are very much like the friends I have here in the state. It didn’t matter if I was playing Counter Strike with some guys in a LAN café

or sipping tea while looking over one of the four lakes in the city,

I realized no matter where you are in the world, people still have hopes, desires, ambitions, they still laugh, they still cry, they still feel joy, they still feel pain, and probably most important of all they have a life full of very different experiences that you can learn from if you stop thinking about yourself for five minutes and open your mind to a world outside of your own.

If you remember, earlier in this post, I mentioned how I experienced culture shock. The thing is, being in China did not bring about the culture shock. The irony is, the culture shock came when I left. Although that statement might be confusing, ill explain it in part 2.

1. Have a good Bible.
Every Christian needs a good Bible that they can easily read and enjoy. A translation such as the English Standard Version (ESV), the ESV Study Bible is very well done, or the New International Version (NIV) is preferable as your primary reading Bible, although there are many other translations that are also quite good (e.g., New King James Version, New American Standard Version).

*Personally I enjoy the New King James but right now I use an ESV and it is growing on me. The ESV Study Bible is looking pretty promising but I also recommend the Key Word Study Bible. I also think it is good to have a bible with no notes or commentaries so you can make your own conclusions and not have to look at the bottom of your page to have a question answered. Without the commentaries and other “study bible” features you are forced to search out and find your answer yourself.

2. Have some good Christian books.
If you want to build a reference library, the first book you should buy is A Commentary and Reference Survey by John Glynn by John Glynn. That book will tell you which other books are the best resources available for in-depth Christian study and anyone who is serious about studying should have a copy of this book.

* Here are a couple of really good resources for some solid books. The monergism.com bookstore and the Westminster Theological Seminary bookstore both are great resources.

3. Have some good (free) online study resources.
There are many great websites that can help you do Bible word studies and such for free. Good examples include the following, with the first one built and run by Mars Hill elder, Zack Hubert:
ReGreek specializes in word studies from the Bible ‘s original languages.
Crosswalk has many translations and Bible study tools.
Bible Gateway has many translations and Bible study tools.
CCEL has most of the major works from Christian history for free and a “Study Bible” feature that pulls up historical church commentary on specified verses.
E Sword has numerous Bible study tools.

*I haven’t used ReGreek very much, although I have played around with it and I am impressed. As for the others I can say they are all a great asset to anyone wanting to study the Bible.

4. Have some good Bible software.
If you can afford it, Bible study software provides some amazing resources and companies like Logos Bible Software are worth considering.

*I haven’t ever used any Bible software but I am pretty Martin Luther didn’t either so I don’t feel that left out.

5. Have some good websites.
There are many great resources available for free on the web with articles, books, blogs, podcasts, vodcasts, and MP3s. The following are some recommendations:
Desiring God is the website featuring a large repository of sermons and articles from my friend, Dr. John Piper.
Covenant Seminary has a “Free Downloads” link on their front page that will enable you to listen to hundreds of hours of their class lectures on many areas of Christian study. I am grateful to my friends at Covenant who have given the church such a gracious gift.
Mars Hill Church is where hundreds of hours of my teaching is available for free and has been the number one podcast on iTunes for religion and spirituality.
carm has good articles on cults, world religions, and apologetical issues.
equip.org has good articles, book reviews, and more, on cults, world religions, and apologetical issues.
www.christianitytoday.com/historyhas some great articles on Christian history and biography.
www.monergism.com has an almost overwhelming number of free articles on nearly every theological issue from a Reformed perspective.

*All of the sites he mentions are great. Itunes is also a great outlet. There are many churches that have their weekly sermons up in a podcast. There are also several seminaries that offer full audio transcripts of classes.

6. Have some good community.
Most of the Bible was written to communities of people and is therefore best studied in community with other Christians. For this reason, getting plugged into a Community Group and/or taking midweek classes in addition to regularly attending a Sunday church service is essential.

*This is very essential. I strongly suggest finding a group of about 3-6 friends that can keep each other accountable and offer each other a strong sense of community.

1.  Here is a link to the original post on the resurgence website.

2.  I might have to try some of this stuff as well.

Google Chrome

As I logged onto my wordpress account I saw an interesting link for another blog. This was located under the Religion section so I clicked on it and read through most of the post. Basically, it is another spill from someone asking how can a good God do bad things to people, why have there been so many people killed in the name of religion, and all the other questions intellectual, wise, realistic people like to throw out at “religious nut jobs”. It cracks me up how people are so quick to judge Christians and Christianity yet they know nothing about the basic concepts or theology of Christianity. Oh well, I got a good laugh out of it. The sad thing is, I think this guy is serious.

On another note, Google’s new brower, Google Chrome, was released yesterday. So far it seems faster than Firefox. That might be because each tab in Chrome is its own seperate process. Who knows but I like it.

Real people. Real sin. Transformed lives. A compilation of heartfelt letters written from a pastor to his people that explains Jesus’ work on the cross.

Death by Love is a unique book on the cross of Jesus Christ. While many books debate the finer points of the doctrine of the atonement, what is often lost are the real-life implications of Jesus’ death on the cross for those who have sinned and have been sinned against. Written in the form of pastoral letters, Death by Love outlines the twelve primary effects of Jesus’ death on the cross and connects each to the life of a different individual.

Driscoll, one of America’s most influential pastors, and Breshears, a respected theologian, help readers understand, appreciate, and trust in Jesus’ work on the cross in a way that will transform their lives. Both deeply theological and intensely practical, this book shows how everyone can find hope through the death of Jesus Christ.

Here is the official website with a pretty cool video preview for the book.

http://relit.org/deathbylove/

Hey freshman, welcome to college. In the next four or five…or six years you will possibly have the best time of your life and worst time of your life. You will be lifted up and torn down. You will be praised and shot down. One day you will be on top of the world and the next day you will be the biggest reject in the world. Welcome to college…well actually welcome to life. What does this mean? Well in my short twenty two years of experience I still, unfortunately, have not grasp the simple truth of, you can not live for yourself. You can not live life making choices that, at the root, have the sole purpose of nothing other than to affect your own selfish desires. Unless of course your selfish desires are none other than glorifying Jesus Christ. Obviously, it is easy to say that. It is easy to say you should live for the glory of God, you should base your choices/actions on the will of God, and you should walk each step focusing on the glory and will of Christ. What is hard is doing those things. Not only doing but doing with the right motive. The motive that says, “Jesus, I am doing this for you not myself.” The motive that says, “I am finally dying to myself and living for you, Christ (Philippians 1:21).” So what do we do? We do not base our life and our foundation on ourselves but on Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone nothing more nothing less. Jesus is THE foundation that you must base your life on or you will be miserable, you will fail, you will be lonely, and you will constantly be searching for that mind blowing love, peace, and comfort that only Jesus can offer. I am not going to say everyone is different and everyone needs to find his own spiritual path in life. I am not going to say Jesus is one option and one way. Jesus is the only way (John 14:6). I am not going to sugar coat the truth. Jesus did not sugar coat anything when He said, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it (Matthew 10:37-39).” Jesus also did not sugar coat anything when he told the Pharisees that their mom slept with devil (John 8:44). Yes, that does mean Jesus made the first “your mom” joke.

So why base your life and your foundation on Jesus? The answer is simple, Jesus is God. Jesus was there before time began and was with God before time began and was God before time began (John 1:1). When I hear people say Jesus was a good man and possibly a prophet but he was born, lived, and died just like every other human, nothing more nothing less, Jesus was a good person that taught good morals and that is all, my blood starts to boil. I very rarely get mad but hearing that, well it gets the job done. Jesus was not just a man He is God. Alpha and Omega Beginning and End the whole nine yards no strings attached, it is not rocket science.

So how is Jesus God? Where in the Bible does Jesus flat out prove He is God? Here are ten examples that show where Jesus either says He is God or proves He is God.

1.Jesus said He came down from Heaven.

Throughout history there have been many people that have claimed to have a near death experience and go up to heaven. People like Burt Reynolds to the Muslim prophet Muhammad have claimed to “visit” heaven and “see the light”. The question is how many people have, not gone to, but come from heaven? Unlike everyone that tells stories about getting to see a glimpse of Heaven, Jesus makes the radical claim of not only being God and living in Heaven, but coming down to visit earth from Heaven. In John 6:38 Jesus says, “For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.”

2.Jesus said He was more than a good person.

Mark 10:17-18 states, “And as He was setting out on His journey, a man ran up and knelt before Him and asked Him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.’” In the passage Jesus tells the man there is no good people because everyone is a sinner. Only God alone is good because He is sinless. In saying this, Jesus tells the man He is more than just a good person, He is God.

3.Jesus said He is the Son of Man.

The Old Testament contains countless names for God. Some of those are:

First and Last
Light
Rock
Husband or Bridegroom
Shepherd
Redeemer
Savior
And Son of Man

In the book of Daniel the prophet had a vision; the Son of Man comes to the Ancient of Days, the Lord Himself. But He comes from the clouds, from heaven, not from the earth. From this we can conclude the Son of Men Is not human. He then is given messianic dominion and authority, which is something no angel can obtain. Ironically Daniel is speaking of the same person that David speaks of in Psalms 110. The Old Testament reveals the Son of Man to be a divine person sitting alongside God Himself. 600 years later, Jesus comes to earth claiming to be the Son of Man, claiming to be God.

4.Jesus performed miracles.

One piece of evidence that proves Jesus was more than just another “enlightened” person was his display of miracles. In the New Testament there are forty examples of miracles that Jesus preformed. The Jewish Talmud, Celsus who was a strong opponent to Christianity, and Josephus the Jewish historian all made claims that Jesus “practiced magic” or was “a doer of wonderful works”. Sure, some of Jesus’ miracles have been reproduced by humans such as driving out demons or healing of diseases but can rebuke strong storms and calm the raging seas? In the forth chapter of his gospel, Mark records the events of Jesus calming a storm and the seas while He was with His disciples on a fishing boat. After the storm is calm Mark 4:41 says, “The disciples were terrified. They ask each other, ‘Who is this? Even the wind and waves obey Him!’” Is it possible the disciples were remembering the 107th chapter of Psalms that state, “Then they cried out to the Lord because of their problems. And He brought them out of their troubles. He made the storm as quiet as a whisper. The waves of the ocean calmed down. The people were glad when the ocean became calm. Then He guided them to the harbor they were looking for. Let them give thanks to the Lord for His faithful love. Let them give thanks for the miracles He does for His people.” The disciples realized that only God could control nature and that God in the flesh was on the boat with them that day.

5.Jesus said He was God

Jesus clearly and emphatically stated he was God. One example is found in Mark 14:61. After Jesus has been arrested He is being questioned by the high priest of the Sanhedrin. At one point the high priest ask Jesus, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” Jesus’ response was as clear cut as possible, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of Heaven.”

6.Jesus confirmed He is God

Not only did Jesus say He was God He also reiterated this fact when others seemed to be skeptical or doubt His true identity and authority. When questioned by the Sanhedrin about His claims to be God, Jesus could have repented and His claims and gone free. Instead He made sure the Sanhedrin and everyone there knew He claimed to be God and would not repent that claim. What happened? Jesus was beaten, tortured, bloodied, and bruised beyond recognition. Then after all that He was hung on a cross, one of histories most brutal means of execution. Oh, He was also publicly humiliated, deserted by His closet friends, and spat upon by his fellow citizens who, by the way, rejoiced at His entrance into town days earlier. Why would someone go through all of that just to back up a lie?

7. Jesus said He was sinless

Think of the most perfect person you can think of. Is it Mother Teresa, Gandhi, maybe Billy Graham or Mohammad? Not only do those people, along with billions of others, have faults, but they also admit to it, admit to being sinners, and admit to not being perfect. Jesus on the other hand admitted to being perfect and being sinless. Throughout the four gospels different people try and catch Jesus in sin but have no luck. Jesus even challenged certain people to prove that He had sinned; obviously they could not prove anything because Jesus was in fact sinless.

8. Jesus forgave sin.

Not only was Jesus morally perfect and sin free, but He also forgave sin. Other religions offer advice on how make up their sins by complementing them with good works, but these systems lack the understanding of forgiveness. Jesus’ claims to forgive sin are simply astonishing. All sin is ultimately committed against God. Subsequently, God alone has the power to forgive the sins of sinners. Jesus could only forgive sin because He was and is God.

9.Jesus taught people to pray to Him.

Prayer is conversation between man and God. Jesus did not only command us to pray to God but He actually said we should pray to Jesus Himself (John 14:13). Many people throughout history have cried out to Jesus for help in desperate times. If Jesus is not God then He is nothing more than a cruel liar and sadist for asking us to pray to Him in faith.

10.Jesus said He is the only way to Heaven.

Not only did Jesus declare that He came down from Heaven, but He also taught that He alone is the only way for anyone else to enter into Heaven. While there are many religious and spiritual teachers who claim that they can point you to the path of salvation, they do not claim to be that path themselves. Jesus promised that He was the way and only way to eternal life in Heaven (John 14:6).

Hopefully these ten reason of Jesus’ equality to God and Jesus’ identity as God will not convince you if you are doubting or even wanting more proof/evidence/a good peaceful feeling. The little bit of commentary should not and does not do justice to prove each “fact” or piece of “evidence”. Hopefully, I have done nothing but raise questions and instill a desire to know more or the deep complexities of God. I have completed three years of college and one lesson I have learned is that if you do not base your life on the foundation of Jesus Christ, life will be a literal hell.