On Life Changes - Graduation

Today begins my first post in a series dedicated to the many "big" life changes we often face as the days of life rapidly pass by us and how God has worked in me through the presence of many of these at one time.

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For many college graduation is an exciting, yet also a very scary time. Through many long hours of diligent, hard work (or lack there of), degrees are finally earned and we are able to advance into the real world where money can be made and lives can begin. However, for many this is also where the fear takes hold. For most of our lives, we have known the securities that our parents have provided and have hid under the proverbial blanket that is schooling. For many of us, school has played an huge role in our lives for over seventeen years of our twenty-some years of existence. However, despite these cliche moments that a college graduation often presents, most of the thoughts and feelings I have experienced, and what God has taught me in the process have nothing to do with them.

Entering my undergraduate years, I was certain of what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go. I had a plan, I was sticking to it and I was going to be successful. God however had a completely different plan set for my life and in the early moments of my collegiate career called me to a life that would be spent for Him and His gospel that He might gain sole glory for the days remaining for me on this earth. This calling set forth for me a different, yet still exciting path for me towards obtaining my degree that I may move on to theological training at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. So with a calling so sure and more school looming ahead in the future, what could God have possibly taught me in this transition and big moment in my life?

Public relations, my undergraduate area of study, was something that I had longed to pursue for a long time in my life. For a while, it was what I live and breathed. When God called me into ministry, I knew fully that I was made to do nothing else but serve Him in full-time ministry, yet I never really had to physically give up the career I had so longed to pursue until my graduation day. It was easy to talk and say that I was giving up everything I had always wanted. But until I graduated, I never really fully had to give it up. Graduating from my undergraduate studies caused me to relinquish everything I had always dreamed and wanted that I might be used by God for His name and renown.

During this time, many days were spent in darkness, despite being overjoyed for the time that is still to come and the journey that God has remaining for my life. I cried out to God several nights wondering why He had chosen me to do His work and why other people were chosen to fulfill His calling by doing the things they loved. It was in this time that two particular passages of Scripture gave me comfort and encouragement to press on in the calling God had made so apparent in my heart.

But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. [Acts 20:24]

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. [Philippians 3:8-16]

These verses encouraged me greatly in giving up everything I had gained, my dreams and accolades, that I might obtain a prize far greater than any that this earth can offer. God's calling is greater than man's longing. God's Word remains faithful and it spurs us on to do the work of the Lord, knowing full well that our reward is not of this earth. My sinful heart may yearn for what this world offers, it may yearn for what I could have accomplished in the career I always wanted. However, I have been given the grace to know the worth which surpasses all of this world and that is knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. And even greater, I have been called to not account my life as precious or dear to myself, but to finish the course and the ministry which I received from Him. With His strength sustaining me, despite the great sorrow that filled my heart, I was able to say with hope as I walked across the stage to receive my degree:

forgetting what lies behind, and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

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Let The Journey Begin

I recently received the news with great excitement that I have been accepted to The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to pursue my Master in Divinity. This stage in my life is something I have looked forward to with much anticipation for the past few years now and am filled with overwhelming joy that this time has arrived. Only God knows where this new beginning will take Casey and I, because only He knows what the future holds. However, the one thing that remains certain is the calling which He has so firmly placed upon my heart and life. The following is my spiritual autobiography I wrote as a part of the application process to Southern. In it I explain my calling, how I came to know the Gospel, what I believe to be the Gospel and why I chose Southern for my seminary education.

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The apostle Paul wrote in Acts 20:24, “But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.” Speaking to the Ephesian elders, Paul conveys with such passion and surety the calling of which he received from the Lord. Knowing what lies ahead in his journey, knowing that he will face many trials and sufferings, he proclaims boldly of the calling Christ has put upon his life.

This also is my calling. I have no knowledge of what lies ahead, only that I must push forward and fulfill the calling of which Christ has so evidently placed upon my heart and life. This calling, through the power of the Holy Spirit, I have received so graciously by my Lord Jesus Christ, to know Him more fully and to make Him more fully known. This calling, I am sure, has been so powerfully written into the fabric of my being that no trial, no suffering, nor even the fear of death could separate me from what I know is to be true in my life and that is that the Lord Jesus Christ ransomed me so that I might proclaim His glorious name to a corrupt generation and shifting culture.

Growing up as the son of a pastor, this calling seemed so close, yet so distant. I grew up around the gospel, I knew the gospel, yet somehow I never fully embraced the gospel. I came to the realization of needing Jesus Christ as my Savior at the age of seven, while my father served as a youth minister outside of Detroit, Michigan. Despite this commitment to know and follow Jesus as my Lord, I very rarely showed it in my life and actions in the years to follow. Throughout middle school and high school, I followed my own way and life was about pleasing myself and seeking after the things that I desired. Outwardly I lived a life apparent to be Christian, because it was what I had been taught, but inwardly I was living a life full of my own pride and hanging onto my father’s faith.

It was during my senior year of high school that God began to lay forth His plan of redemption in my life; a plan that would turn my world upside down and radically change my heart and innermost desires. My plan throughout my final year in high school was to attend Eastern Kentucky University and major in public relations. However, by God’s grace I received a full ride scholarship to any in-state institution of my choice and I quickly changed my plans from Eastern Kentucky University to West Virginia University. Through this scholarship and change in my plans for undergraduate study, God began to unveil His plan of greatly revealing Himself to me and calling me to a life of service to Him.

West Virginia University is known throughout the state and nation as one of the largest party schools in the country. It was my full intention to join this party and enjoy the years that college life would bring. However, by the sovereign hand and grace of God, people had been placed in my life from the minute I stepped foot onto campus that encouraged and led me in a different direction. I began to get involved with Baptist Campus Ministry and very quickly God gripped into me a fear I had never before experienced.

Throughout the first few weeks of my college experience, I spent many nights on the floor, on my knees crying out to God. This fear He had placed so deep within me, was so evident, so clear that I could not resist the work that was taking place. It was during this time that I came, in my own heart and life, to know the person and work of Jesus Christ. It was also during this time, that I not only came to know Christ as my Savior and Precious Redeemer, but that I also felt a deep calling to spend the rest of my days He had ordained for me proclaiming His name to the lost, broken and depraved.

Although I knew this Savior of mine and knew His calling upon my life, it was not until a couple of years after these initial moments in my dorm room that I came to know what I know to be the gospel today. In the spring of 2008, my father invited me, along with other men of our church, to attend the Together for the Gospel conference in Louisville, Kentucky. It was during this conference, that God began working in me to not only call Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior and to feel His calling into ministry, but in these two distinct foundations of my life to deeply know and understand Him and His Word.

It was in the foundation laid at this conference, and in the weeks and months that have since followed, with much study of Scripture and books, that I have come to know the gospel that God has undeservingly called me to preach: God in His infinite and immeasurable grace, knew that in our depraved hearts and minds we could not obtain salvation on our own, and in knowing this began a journey and dwelled among us in the form of Jesus Christ His son, so that He might become the perfect sacrifice needed to ransom our souls and thereby grant eternal salvation through the washing and regenerate work of the Holy Spirit to those of us who would believe in Him that to Him and Him alone would be the glory forevermore.

This is what I have come to know as the essential Truth, by which I must preach and by which I must call men to repentance. God has deeply planted within me a desire to know Him more fully and to make Him more fully known. So much so, that by the power at work within me, nothing can separate me from this calling to proclaim His name to a hardened generation. When looking for a place that would equip me for this calling, a place that would stand on the basis of Truth and nothing else, God brought me to Southern Seminary. No other place, I believe, stands for the Truth and prepares men to uphold the marvelous gift of God’s Word like that of Southern Seminary. I have bathed this decision in deep prayer and counsel from others, and know that nowhere else will I be best equipped to come to a deeper knowledge of God, that I may fulfill my calling in the Lord to make Him more fully known.

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John Piper on His Annual Writing Leave

John Piper is about to embark once again on his annual writing leave. He has some really great projects in the works and I encourage you to join with me in praying for him during this time. He writes:

Thank you for supporting me in these focused times away. They are not vacation. I usually work longer hours during writing leave than during regular ministry seasons.

So please pray for me that I would love my family well and that I would be very productive for the glory of Christ. Pray that I would devote more time to prayer, not less; that I would give more time to read and meditate on the Scriptures, not less; and pray that I would see beautiful truth in God’s word and be able to write about it in spiritually compelling ways.

Also, he includes why he values and pursues writing in the way that he does. One particular reason he writes greatly hits home to the passion that dwells within me for writing:

...there is an inner impulse that I cannot explain that drives me to write. I would write if there were no possibility of publication. I have hundreds of pages that no one has ever seen but me, and it would not matter ultimately if they were destroyed. I wrote them not to be published but because there is an impulse from within.

You can view his plan for his writing leave, as well as his other reasons for writing (perhaps the greatest reason being that he writes to make God look great) here.

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The End is Just the Beginning

"Better is the end of a thing than its beginning."
Ecclesiastes 7:8

These words from King Solomon have been on my heart for the past several days now. I think back to all of the dreams, hopes and visions I had when I arrived to begin my undergraduate studies. A completely different man than the one that writes these words today: one gripped with fear, immaturity and a desire to glorify self and self alone. As I make my way towards the end of this road, reaching my next journey, I think back to the many struggles and triumphs that have been had on this road. I look back towards the beginning and recognize the young, naive man who once embarked and is now emerging as the man God was calling Him to become.

If one were to ask me the greatest thing I learned during the past four years while pursuing my undergraduate degree, it would have nothing to do with my studies. For I have full assurance that God did not bring me here for an education. An education was obtained and will be useful in getting towards the next journey life might bring, but God brought me here to prepare and make straight the path His plan for my life. A young man so certain that God could not satisfy the way his own desires could came, but what is leaving is a man that resolves to think that the only thing worth caring about is to know God more fully and to make Him more fully known.

It's by the grace of God that He has brought me by His sovereign hand to this place. Nearing the end, I look forward to the new beginnings that are rapidly approaching. These beginnings already bring me much joy and excitement, and I can only imagine the growth God may continue to bring forth in my life. I stand now with an open heart and an open mind to what God may accomplish in the days he has left for me and hope that in everything I may seek to bring Him glory.

The great wisdom that lies in these words of King Solomon, is that at the end of a journey one may look back and recognize where that journey brought them. The power in these words can be found so richly in the process of sanctification. How in a matter of a few years, one can be brought much closer to a knowledge of God and the gospel, and much closer to the freedom of the bondage of sin and death. Perhaps the most glorifying part in it all, is that at the ultimate end, our sanctification will be made complete. At that time we will look back on our rugged journey with new bodies and renewed minds; and it will be just the beginning of a life filled with eternal praise and glory.

To Him who is able to bring us into His righteousness through the power of His redeeming sacrifice, to Him who sanctifies and renews our hearts and minds, to Him be glory, honor and full praise throughout all nations, tribes and tongues throughout the rest of time and the future glory to come. Amen.

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On The Incarnation

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father full of grace and truth…And from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.
(John 1:1, 14,16)

To feel and comprehend the magnitude of the birth of Christ, one need only to turn to the Holy Scriptures where God lays forth His redeeming plan of salvation, giving hope and light to the depraved souls that walk the earth. Before time even began, God knew that eventually sin would enter the perfect world He would soon create. He knew that man, not perfect, because He and He alone is perfect, would fall prey to the temptations given under the domain of darkness and that redemption would have to be accomplished. He also knew, however, that the only path to true glorifying redemption would be a perfect sacrifice, without reproach, that would bear the darkness of the wretched world. Therefore, because of the fullness of His immeasurable grace and truth, God himself entered the world that He would become this perfect sacrifice the world so desperately needed.

The beauty of the incarnation, God coming to dwell among us so that we might be presented blameless before Him clothed in His righteousness and glory, lies within the incarnation itself. Through the conception of the Holy Spirit, God entered this world in the form of a man, named Jesus Christ; Three persons in one; the Trinity fully embodied. Oh the power and majesty of the person of Jesus Christ. Where else can one see a clearer picture of the work of the Trinity than in the birth and life of Jesus Christ? The Son, begotten of the Father, through the power of the Holy Spirit leading a perfect and blameless life so that He could become the sacrifice needed to cleanse the sins of the world!

Christ himself was not a creation of the Father. He was the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit’s conception in the womb of a virgin named Mary, thus starting the journey of God’s miraculous plan of salvation being fully unveiled, a journey that has yet to end.

On a cold and bitter night, the lack of room for the son of God to be born began to foreshadow the lack of room in the hearts of the world He had come to save. Being born of a woman, fully human, yet fully God, Christ entered the world in the lowliest of lows; being born in a stable and placed in a manger. One can only imagine the glory bestowed from within the newborn babe as he lay helpless in a world that He would soon save. The innocent cries of the infant would soon become that of tears of blood just mere years later as His prayer to His Father tells of the redemptive work being made complete, “I glorified you on this earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (John 17:4-5) God entered this world through Jesus Christ for one purpose, to bring righteousness to the sons of man, through the perfect life He led and atoning sacrifice He gave to glorify Him more fully.

As we look towards the nativity, as we look to the birth of Christ and recognize the power of the incarnation, let us also be quick to look at what the incarnation began. It began a journey to a cross. One that the Son of God would bear, taking on the sins of the world that we might be heirs and inherit the kingdom of God for all eternity, being with Him in glory. As we sing these great songs of joy and hope, telling of the Messiah and His coming, let us be quick to feel the magnitude of the grace that was given through the incarnation of the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us and let us not lose hope because our Messiah will be returning and what a glorious day it will be when we are taken with Him in glory as heirs in His blood bought righteousness.

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