The Purpose of This Blog

Like many people, never did I think I would wind up writing a blog.  When I thought about it though, it only made sense to combine my enjoyment of writing with my passion for God, and that is what this blog will hopefully always be centered around: God.

As some of you may know, I will be headed to Peru to live for three months this summer to serve the Lord, I will be teaching, preaching, discipling, evangelizing, participating in service projects, helping with a church plant, and bringing hope in the form of Jesus Christ to poor and desolate areas where no hope may otherwise be seen or known. That being said, the original purpose of this blog was to keep those who will be supporting me on this trip informed in regards to what would be happening in Peru and what kinds of things the Lord would be doing through me, and thus through them as well because were it not for their faithful provision, I would not be able to serve in such a manner. This makes them (my supporters) equally important in fulfilling the Great Commission. Not everybody is in a place in life to travel to other nations, some are loaded with their labor for the Lord here, but they can still be involved in the Lord's work abroad by sending others, I am very thankful for these people.

The original purpose of this blog has changed to a much greater purpose, maybe I've been led to do this through the direction of the holy spirit and maybe I haven't. Either way I'm definitely excited about it.  Every day my mind is constantly saturated with thoughts about God. This is something I'm extremely thankful for and I consider myself blessed beyond belief for this alone.  These thoughts can be about several things pertaining to God, anything from theology, different doctrines, the attributes of God, the meaning of a scripture I just read, conviction, repentance, applications/implications learned from scripture, evangelism, missions, the lost, etc etc... I could literally go on and on for quite a while.  Honestly I just had to get some of these things out and onto paper (or screen), my hope is that even one person could benefit from the things I will be writing about but if not at least I have a catalogue of thoughts that I may reflect upon.

I titled this blog "The Knowledge of God," for a reason.  My number one passion in life, what gives me the most joy, and what is absolutely the most interesting and exciting use of my time is discovering more and more of who God is.  This is a process that can really never end because God is just that big and indeed in heaven we will never cease to be amazed by the depth and riches of our God. I base this blog off of a couple different passages, mainly Jeremiah 9:23-24 which states, "Thus says the LORD: Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD."  And also John 17:3, "And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."

From these two scriptures alone we can get a feel for how important it is to know and understand God. My prayer is that there would be an innumerable amount of people in this generation that would come to take delight in the Word and in their understanding of God, I pray that a revival might break out and young Christians would cease to look at the bible as simply a book containing intriguing words of wisdom, but that God's word would become their sustenance for life. That they wouldn't merely base their knowledge of God from what others tell them but instead they would dig into the scriptures for themselves to seek our God who so delightfully revealed himself to us in the pages of the Bible.

I ask people this all the time, "If God said it, then it must be important right?" I just don't understand how there are those who can get more excitement or joy from watching TV, playing a video game, or talking about the latest news from Hollywood. Obviously I am referring to professed Christians here but I mean... even speaking hypothetically, say there was a God who created the entire universe, who created you, who gave you a purpose, and who has offered you eternal life through the greatest sacrifice ever known by giving himself up for you.  One day you find out that he has written a book, wouldn't you not only desire to read it but also do anything you could to get your hands on it?  There are Christians in other nations who are killed for merely owning a bible, here in America we have them all around us yet take this for granite and allow them to collect dust, this is not the mark of someone who truly loves the Lord and my desire is to see this love ignited. Jesus said, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples." John 8:31 He did not mean "If you abide in my word then you will be my disciple," as if it was by works that you have become his disciple but rather, "If you abide in my word that is evidence that you are my disciple." Are you a disciple of Christ?

One of my favorite passages on this matter is 1 Peter 2:2-3 "Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation---if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good." Pastor/Bible teacher John MacArthur explains this passage by saying, "Spiritual growth is always marked by a craving for and a delight in God's word with the intensity with which a baby craves milk." Are you craving scripture like a baby craves milk? If not, do what I did, pray.  Do you not think that God would delight in his children asking him for a greater thirst for him, a greater passion, a greater fire for his word, to love him with a greater intensity?  This is a re-occurring prayer for me, God answered it at a time when I was very apathetic in regards to my longing for him and though I crave more of him every day I continue to pray this, one can never get enough of God. The beautiful thing about this is that I find it to be a cycle, as you seek God out you begin to love him more, the more you love him the more you seek him out and it never ends.

Another point I will make before ending this already too-long introduction post is that you should read with the intent of understanding, not reading merely for the sake of reading.  If you want to know who God is, and if you want to develop a greater and greater love for him, you must understand him.  One of my favorite quotes in regards to this comes yet again from John MacArthur who says, "The meaning of the scripture is the scripture, if you don't have the meaning then you don't have the scripture."  It only makes sense, if you're not understanding exactly what God intended to be understood by a particular passage then you're not understanding that aspect of God, you're missing the whole point. You cant go through scripture extrapolating something in ten different ways to mean something you'd like it to mean, you need to ask yourself, "What does this mean? What did God mean by this?" Once you understand that you can then proceed to weigh the implications it has on your  life and also consider how to apply it.  Be careful though when going through scripture for the purpose of application, many people comb through the scriptures for the purpose of finding themselves in the stories all the while forgetting that the bible is not about you, it's about God. The entire bible is Christocentric. What I mean by this is that while it is healthy to see how you might apply certain scriptures to your life, do not forget who it's really about.  I don't remember if I heard this from John Piper,MacArthur or maybe even Sproul, but one of them have said something to the extent of, "So many pastors look through the scriptures in order to find themselves and their congregation while they should be looking for Christ."


Anyway, that's all for now, more on this and other topics later! I applaud you if you actually read all of that! I will return to edit the numerous mistakes I have probably made but for now I need to study for an exam!

In Christ,

-Chris