Note to Self in Time to Come.

"And how foolish the preacher who uses fine and hard words in his preaching, which, though admired by the shallow, convey no instruction to the multitude." -Adam Clarke

Gospel: God Worked.

In the Gospel, God worked. The Gospel can be condensed into 4 power-packed verses in the book of Romans. You ready? It's Romans 3:23-26.

"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." Romans 3:23-26 (NASB)

meh. it's like one of the many verses we just read and overlook. But these verses clearly outlines why God has worked, what was it He worked, the resultant of His work and what our response is toward that work that He did. In short, in the Gospel, God worked, Jesus paid the price in full, His blood appeased God's holy wrath toward sinners and we are justified as we put our faith in Him and His complete and perfect work on the cross.

Sounds pretty low level isn't it? But it's exactly this that we so desperately need! Our assurance should have never depart from the work that is already completed on the cross. We have chosen instead, to place our assurance in the things we do as Christians, the duties, obligations, service, the battles against our old selves, trying not to sin or break God's law, etc, etc. Now, the problem occurs when we find ourselves simply, unable. (But that is reserved for another time.)

to be continued...

Gospel.

If i were to ask you this question, "Where would you go if you were to meet with a fatal accident tonight?".

No, this aint for non-believers but believers. Now i imagine, you'll be thinking of the things you've done or not done in your life pertaining on the things of God. Great! let that flow for a while and then as you resolve to yourself if you've qualified or not for heaven, let me tell you this...

You are simply unconvinced of the gospel.

Just as i was. Until recently as God spoke thru His Word and thru gospel-centred preachers like Joshua Harris, Matt Chandler, C.J. Mahaney, John Piper and Mark Discroll then i realize how wrong my beliefs were and that just made my Christian life so full of uncertainties, so full of defeats, so full of fear and all so performance-driven.

We live our lives with a theology so flawed, caused by our lack of understanding of God's Word and our laziness to examine scripture. So we fall back on the most basic thing that our heart calls us to: work. Effort is good, it gets us good grades, gets chores done, gets us awesome career reports, etc, etc, oh wait, i'm sure it's so good that it gets us to heaven too! So the gospel just becomes a name we call the first 4 books of the new testament or just something of a cliche term for nonbelievers.

That's where we are so wrong.

to be continued... (or post will get really loooooong! :O)

Finally!

Had the best worship session today. The setlist was pretty easy, beats were normal and songs that i liked. Though it's just another acoustic guitar and my electric, i think we pulled it off pretty well! GAAAHH I just love God is Able! The progression is so simple and it allows so much improvisation on my favorite phrygian mode!

It's like finally i felt that i dont suck, at least not that much. And i'm so encouraged by the words of affirmation i received from a lot of people today. I really needed those, they mean a lot to a budding musician, so if you see anyone doing well in just about anything, please encourage them!

Also, my pedalboard is just about done! Will upload some photos of it soon. Currently it can do some prettty awesome U2 sounding delays, which fills up some space; gives a bit of a overdriven sound and also does pretty good ambient/sustain/pads. All i need now is a tremolo to finish off a light sounding pad whenever there's no keyboardist and an upgrade for my mid/high gain pedal, which comes in really on the low priority because i dont see myself using it too much in our church setting. If God willing, a second (cheaper! i hope!) delay pedal would be awesome, so i can do like quarter notes and dotted 8ths, which will essentially fill up ALL spaces.

Haha that'd cost easily 400 bucks if i manage to get most of them 2nd hand. So i guess it'll definitely have to wait, like i said before, GAS can turn really ugly and right now i'm learning to be a good steward of my moolahs. I'll just have to use what i have to the best of it and clock in even more hours in practice. ;)

God Doesn't...

"God doesn't need our good works, but our neighbor does." -Martin Luther