LOVE REMINDER
BY ERIC DARSIE
Once upon a certain time, we were told to love one another if we want to follow JESUS CHRIST. For me, it was a checkpoint, I would continue in the pain if I truly love my men. Then a promise I had to make with myself. A promise to CHRIST as well, and that’s to love my men like I love GOD.
Dear Love,
Why do you suck?
It seems like when I try towards you,
I always get burned.
The madness always comes thorough,
It always begins each time I get rid of you.
Could you do me a favor,
Please,
And just leave me…
For good?
A hard promise that I need to maintain. Oh LORD, my GOD, I need YOU now. I made a promise to myself, but more importantly to YOU. Why is it hard for me to let go fully and rely on what is true, which is YOU?
Dear Myself,
Why don’t you surrender everything to HIM?
It would be that much easier for you,
Really!
I know things aren’t going your way lately,
But do you think GOD has something to do with it?
I bet HE does!
Then just simply shift control over…
BABY!
“Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” Easier said than done, but why? I cannot wrap my mind around it! Why is our human nature so idiotic? And why I have to question every single thing?
Dear Mind,
Why do you question everything?
Why did you let philosophy corrupt your mind?
It would be much easier, you see,
If we all quit questioning everything that comes our way, right?
Then why don’t we do that than?
Once I surrender it all to God above, life would be simpler. Yes, I will go through some hard times, like now, but I need to remind myself that if I truly love my men, I will go through this heart-ache and all these troubles for them. Do so, and love them. Fulfill the promise you made, to yourself, and to GOD.
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Sunday, January 3, 2010
"Go and Radiate My Glory"
“Go and Radiate My Glory”
Hello everyone again, it’s another blog written by me, for my blog site, for you to read. Hope ya’ll enjoy this blog this time around. The last time I did a blog thing similar to this was almost a month ago, Sunday, December 6th, 2009, with “December to Remember to Forgot to Remember to Forgot that it’s December.” So this will be an update, in ways, since then.
Schools done. Failed my metaethics class, but that’s expected. The professor wanted more from me in the class than I had to give, and with me having a bad memory and it’s difficult for me to memorize the handouts for the exams, I had no chance. Not trying to make an excuse, but wanting to state a fact. And having a couple of classmates from metaethics with me in epistemology, I talked to one of them and he memorized the handouts and the best grade he got on the exams were an A-, because, something along the lines of “you pretty much spat out my handout, I wanted your own work.” That’s sad, and which is why I got a hardcore metaethical fail in that class.
My epistemology and social and political philosophy classes (my other two philosophy classes for the semester), I got B-‘s in that class, and I’m super excited for that, I was expecting C’s in those two classes. Thank the Lord that I got B-‘s in those two classes.
The poetry class I took, I got an A. Pretty happy with that. Thanking the Lord for getting an A, two B-‘s, and an F. Weird that I am thanking Him for an F, but I could have got even worse grades for my other three classes.
Besides finals week for me for classes, been writing for CamelClutchBlog.com. Been one of the “regular” bloggers/writers for Eric Gargiulo. Good stuff, I guess. I don’t like to brag about my wrestling writings. All I will say is check them out. I have them linked out on my facebook page. So if you’re reading this through following my blogs/writings with CamelClutchBlog.com, add me on facebook. Mention in the message that you read my articles on CCB and you read this blog.
Writing for CamelClutchBlog.com is something I always wanted to do, I guess. Well, writing about professional wrestling. It’s been my passion since forever. I do it for free, which surprises a lot of people, and I do it for free because if it’s God’s plan for my life after college to bring Him most glory, this could be a step in the door for me into getting a paid job doing this. And if this isn’t what God’s plan for my life after college, and He wants me to stop doing this, I can officially say I wrote for a professional wrestling site writing about professional wrestling. Finally fulfilling my lifelong dream.
Talking about God’s plan and will for my life….
TCX. Twin Cities Xperience. Monday, December 28th, 2009, to Friday, January 1st, 2010. The three speakers were Millie Welsh, Dr. Crawford Loritts, and John Piper!
Mellie Welsh talked about Heaven (first talk) and Letting Go of Idols (second talk).
Dr. Crawford Loritts (who a friend and I met in the elevator’s, just chilling in the morning in the elevators, doing our “Breakfast with Aaron and Darsie Show,”) talked about the 5 Value Statements of Solomon (first talk), Prayer without Ceasing (second talk), and Life Lessons from a Samaritan (third talk).
Then it was John Piper. His two talks were God’s Passion for His Glory (first talk) and Holy Ambition (second talk).
Piper’s quote that I love that he mentioned was:
“God is most glorified in me when I'm most satisfied in Him.”
But one thing that I took out of the whole thing was it’s time to grow up (John Piper’s second talk—the Holy Ambition talk), and to be fully surrendered to what God wants to do with me, which was His intent for my creation. Over TCX, I finally was obedient to serving with Campus Crusade for Christ after I get done with undergrad with St Cloud State University in the May of 2011. What would I do with Campus Crusade for Christ? I don’t know. That’s the beautiful thing. I am open to either stinting over in Ghana for a year (a yearlong placement overseas as an intern helping reaching college students in foreign countries) or interning with Crusade on my campus for at least a year, am open, and am thinking and praying about interning at SCSU for two years. Reasoning for two years is the guys who I have in mind to disciple/lead in a bible study, I want to be there for them for most of their college career and help them grow in Christ. That’s kind of weird, but I feel like God has put them on my heart for a reason and if this is what He wants me to do, I will do.
And one of the things I want to do this year is being nicer to people. That may sound weird if you haven’t seen or experience this side of me, but I can be a jerk to people, especially when I joke around with people. I want to stop being a jerk.
But yes. I was able to connect with two of my bible study dudes at TCX, and had a two and a half hour conversation with one of them at TCX and it seemed to only be an half hour and both of us didn’t want to end the conversation. That meant a lot to me. You know who you are, if you read this, and again, thank you for that. That conversation meant a lot to me. Thanks, and I love you bro.
To wrap this blog up, thanks ya’ll who read this. I appreciate it. It does amaze me that people do want to read what I have to say. It really boggles my mind. I even question myself on why do I write, and I have a passion for writing [which explains me writing for CamelClutchBlog.com, my major being Philosophy, and my minor (not officially yet) being Creative Writing]. God could very well use that to bring Himself glory and honor. And if so, that would be awesome. But to end it, I want to leave you guys with a verse. Jesus prayed this for us all. It’s John 17:24-26. This verse comes from the first talk John Piper gave during TCX. Thanks everybody!
John 17:24-26:
“24-26Father, I want those you gave me
To be with me, right where I am,
So they can see my glory, the splendor you gave me,
Having loved me
Long before there ever was a world.
Righteous Father, the world has never known you,
But I have known you, and these disciples know
That you sent me on this mission.
I have made your very being known to them—
Who you are and what you do—
And continue to make it known,
So that your love for me
Might be in them
Exactly as I am in them.”
[The Message]
“24Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."
[English Standard Version]
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
What is Life?
What Is Life?
While on a walk this past summer, summer of 2009, I often stopped and wondered many different questions. One question that hit me hard and a question that I asked a lot of my friends is this: what is life? I got answers from them, but one friend challenged me to sit down and write out my thoughts on the question. When I did think more on this question, I couldn’t give it justice on an answer. So I had to break down the question into two new questions, after which I was able to give it justice and answer the new two. I answered the question what is life? with the answer what is a life with Christ? and what is life without Christ? I will break this article down into two parts, each part answering each question.
(1) What is life without Christ?
To be dead honest, absolutely nothing. I’ll clear this more in the second part of the article. But to backup what my answer, let’s look at Deuteronomy 30:20:
“…20loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them. (ESV)”
What the heck is “…for he is your life and length of days...,” one may ask? If you make God your focus of your life, then He’s going to be the center of everything you do, say, etc. But what if someone doesn’t want to choose God as their center in their life, proverbially sent Him in a box and up on a shelf? One could do that then, but wouldn’t be truly following God if they do that. If that doesn’t make sense, let’s evaluate what’s center of your life. For me before I came to Christ, I was (and still am) a huge professional wrestling fan and one can say I was worshiping that day-in and day-out. I did go to church every week and even went to youth group every Wednesday night during my tenth grade year and part of my eleventh grade year. I wasn’t following Christ. I didn’t know that to follow Christ I had to pick up my cross and follow Him (Matthew 16:24 and Luke 9:23 )and not doing so, I wasn’t truly a Christian. How can we be a Christian? I’ll answer that in the next paragraph.
In John 1:4, it states:
“4In him was life, and that life was the light of men. (NIV)”
Okay, what does that mean? What John means by this verse is Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, our God, is life, and anything out of Him is absolutely not a life worth living, heck, really nothing when it comes to the end of days. Honestly, I am surprised that I have given this much time to this question, but hey, it needs to be answered right the first time around and it’s a great question, so it deserves a great answer, which I hope I’m giving. If you have more questions about this, feel free on asking me or any Christian that you know to help answer any question(s) that you man have, we’re here to help you out.
(2) What is a life with Christ?
A life with Christ is a life glorifying God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. I believe a Christian has resources that God provides every day of their life to help glorify Him, if they notice it or not, and if they do notice it, it’s their choice how to use it for His glory. For instance, using myself as an example again, I am a Christian, and I currently work at a copy shop at campus and have my own blog site on the internet. After finishing this article up, editing it, and making sure all sources are correct, I have those two sources to bring glory to God through this article that I am writing. If I put it up online at my blog site (http://www.jericholoic 2009.blogspot.com/), I didn’t bring full glory to God that I could by printing it off at work. And vice versa. My intent is to do both, print it off and put it online for people have different ways to get to this article.
There have been debates if Christians are elected by God or Christians have free will to come to Him for salvation. That’s another topic for quiet possibly another article from this philosopher, but either way, through Jesus is where we find life.
John 5:21 states:
21For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. (NIV)
21For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. (ESV)
What does this verse state? And yes, before you ask more, I did put this verse twice in two different versions, I like how these two versions differ on the verse. It’s up to Jesus to give us life (eternal life, quite possible another article for another day from this philosopher) and we have to come to believe what He did here on Earth and what He did upon that cross for us 2000 years ago. Here’s another source to that. John 11:25 states:
25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies…” (NIV)
What does Jesus mean that “…He who believes in me will live, even though he dies…?” Good question deserves a good answer, and this quote is great. What Jesus means by this, I do believe, personally and philosophically, that we will live with Him up in heaven after this life. Our bodies originally came from dust and He breathed life into us through Adam (Genesis 2:7 ) and made Eve from Adam’s rib (Genesis 2:22 ).
You may ask, what about the people who lived before Jesus’ time or after His time and never got a chance to make the decision to live for Him or not? Let’s jump into John 5:25-26. John 5:25-25 states as follows:
“25I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. 26For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. (NIV)”
Okay. What does this passage mean? Another great question and here’s another great answer. Meaning that when Jesus was here on Earth, everyone dead before hand had the chance to hear Him speak and were able to make a decision to either follow or not. What a huge claim that doesn’t make sense. I cannot reason that. I really can’t. I cannot think of use any logic that would make that statement make sense. That’s what great about the God I love and the God I follow, we cannot fully understand. And if we fully understand, then we become God, and that’s impossible, even though we’re filled with Him (the Holy Spirit—Yeah!).
But to conclude this article, I hope that I was able to come through for the challenge that my friend challenged me to, on writing out what I believe is right for the question I posed several weeks ago at the college group meeting that we had. I am up to hear other people’s opinions about such a topic. I hope this also helps answer people’s question on “What is life?” or “What is the meaning of life?” or whatever comes out of the main question. I gave a lot of thought into this topic and enjoyed being able to spend a Saturday night during my summer break of college in trying to answer this question. I do hope I get more time to answer more questions that may arise while fellowshipping with one another. But thank you for your time on reading this, have a great day. This is Eric Darsie from Minnesota, jamming out to Randy Travis’ Glory Train: Songs of Faith, Worship, and Praise, goodbye!
While on a walk this past summer, summer of 2009, I often stopped and wondered many different questions. One question that hit me hard and a question that I asked a lot of my friends is this: what is life? I got answers from them, but one friend challenged me to sit down and write out my thoughts on the question. When I did think more on this question, I couldn’t give it justice on an answer. So I had to break down the question into two new questions, after which I was able to give it justice and answer the new two. I answered the question what is life? with the answer what is a life with Christ? and what is life without Christ? I will break this article down into two parts, each part answering each question.
(1) What is life without Christ?
To be dead honest, absolutely nothing. I’ll clear this more in the second part of the article. But to backup what my answer, let’s look at Deuteronomy 30:20:
“…20loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them. (ESV)”
What the heck is “…for he is your life and length of days...,” one may ask? If you make God your focus of your life, then He’s going to be the center of everything you do, say, etc. But what if someone doesn’t want to choose God as their center in their life, proverbially sent Him in a box and up on a shelf? One could do that then, but wouldn’t be truly following God if they do that. If that doesn’t make sense, let’s evaluate what’s center of your life. For me before I came to Christ, I was (and still am) a huge professional wrestling fan and one can say I was worshiping that day-in and day-out. I did go to church every week and even went to youth group every Wednesday night during my tenth grade year and part of my eleventh grade year. I wasn’t following Christ. I didn’t know that to follow Christ I had to pick up my cross and follow Him (Matthew 16:24 and Luke 9:23 )and not doing so, I wasn’t truly a Christian. How can we be a Christian? I’ll answer that in the next paragraph.
In John 1:4, it states:
“4In him was life, and that life was the light of men. (NIV)”
Okay, what does that mean? What John means by this verse is Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, our God, is life, and anything out of Him is absolutely not a life worth living, heck, really nothing when it comes to the end of days. Honestly, I am surprised that I have given this much time to this question, but hey, it needs to be answered right the first time around and it’s a great question, so it deserves a great answer, which I hope I’m giving. If you have more questions about this, feel free on asking me or any Christian that you know to help answer any question(s) that you man have, we’re here to help you out.
(2) What is a life with Christ?
A life with Christ is a life glorifying God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. I believe a Christian has resources that God provides every day of their life to help glorify Him, if they notice it or not, and if they do notice it, it’s their choice how to use it for His glory. For instance, using myself as an example again, I am a Christian, and I currently work at a copy shop at campus and have my own blog site on the internet. After finishing this article up, editing it, and making sure all sources are correct, I have those two sources to bring glory to God through this article that I am writing. If I put it up online at my blog site (http://www.jericholoic 2009.blogspot.com/), I didn’t bring full glory to God that I could by printing it off at work. And vice versa. My intent is to do both, print it off and put it online for people have different ways to get to this article.
There have been debates if Christians are elected by God or Christians have free will to come to Him for salvation. That’s another topic for quiet possibly another article from this philosopher, but either way, through Jesus is where we find life.
John 5:21 states:
21For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. (NIV)
21For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. (ESV)
What does this verse state? And yes, before you ask more, I did put this verse twice in two different versions, I like how these two versions differ on the verse. It’s up to Jesus to give us life (eternal life, quite possible another article for another day from this philosopher) and we have to come to believe what He did here on Earth and what He did upon that cross for us 2000 years ago. Here’s another source to that. John 11:25 states:
25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies…” (NIV)
What does Jesus mean that “…He who believes in me will live, even though he dies…?” Good question deserves a good answer, and this quote is great. What Jesus means by this, I do believe, personally and philosophically, that we will live with Him up in heaven after this life. Our bodies originally came from dust and He breathed life into us through Adam (Genesis 2:7 ) and made Eve from Adam’s rib (Genesis 2:22 ).
You may ask, what about the people who lived before Jesus’ time or after His time and never got a chance to make the decision to live for Him or not? Let’s jump into John 5:25-26. John 5:25-25 states as follows:
“25I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. 26For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. (NIV)”
Okay. What does this passage mean? Another great question and here’s another great answer. Meaning that when Jesus was here on Earth, everyone dead before hand had the chance to hear Him speak and were able to make a decision to either follow or not. What a huge claim that doesn’t make sense. I cannot reason that. I really can’t. I cannot think of use any logic that would make that statement make sense. That’s what great about the God I love and the God I follow, we cannot fully understand. And if we fully understand, then we become God, and that’s impossible, even though we’re filled with Him (the Holy Spirit—Yeah!).
But to conclude this article, I hope that I was able to come through for the challenge that my friend challenged me to, on writing out what I believe is right for the question I posed several weeks ago at the college group meeting that we had. I am up to hear other people’s opinions about such a topic. I hope this also helps answer people’s question on “What is life?” or “What is the meaning of life?” or whatever comes out of the main question. I gave a lot of thought into this topic and enjoyed being able to spend a Saturday night during my summer break of college in trying to answer this question. I do hope I get more time to answer more questions that may arise while fellowshipping with one another. But thank you for your time on reading this, have a great day. This is Eric Darsie from Minnesota, jamming out to Randy Travis’ Glory Train: Songs of Faith, Worship, and Praise, goodbye!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)