Wednesday, 03 April 2013

  • Transfixed, With My Guitar

    My electric guitar is important to me. That statement is a paradox. I don't even own my own guitar right now. This hurts me deep down inside.

    I started playing guitar in my church's worship band about 7 years ago. Previously, I had taken lessons with the worship leader, so he asked me to play. At that time, depression and loneliness were normal in my life. Playing my guitar became a cathartic release. It allowed me to explore parts of worship and parts of my relationship with God I had never considered.

    There is a lot of beauty in corporate worship. I joined a small community of people who led the congregation in worship. I became transfixed in worship while playing my guitar. Every once in a while you could see people's lives changed by what God was doing. It was a beautiful experience.

    I recently moved to a new city. Now, I'm not regularly playing in a worship band. I'm not regularly mesmerized by worship. I'm mostly bored with worship. It's been about 4 months since I've played my guitar in earnest. It takes a toll on me. I haven't been doing what God called me to do.  

    My guitar is important because not only is it an act of worship, it is a discipline. I don't yearn to play my guitar in order to worship God. I yearn to play my guitar because it enables me to worship God more fully. This is what I'm striving for - holistic worship. Worshiping God outside of corporate worship is harder when I don't worship him within the bounds of the community.

    Whatever it is that you do that enables you to worship God - strive for those things. God has put a guitar in my hand because it helps me (and I like to think it helps others) worship. This is why my guitar is important to me and this is why I need to go pick it up and play it.

Wednesday, 27 March 2013

  • Judgement and Forgiveness

    I live in a small town. You know, the kind that people make horror movies about. The county consists of cornfields, soybean fields, and dairy farms. About a year and a half ago, a man and his daughter were brutally killed (I won't go into the specifics). It rocked the community. The worst part about it was the cops never found the person(s) responsible. Yesterday they finally arrested someone who the cops think is the person responsible.

    Needless to say, Facebook has been abuzz with news stories about this guys arrest. People tend to give their opinions on him. One person said, "Throw the book at this scum-bag! This is the murderer we have been searching for." He has been tried, sentenced, and now deserves "the book."

    Well, I definitely would throw the book at them - the Bible (perfect segue). "Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him" (1 John 3:15). "But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins" (Matthew 6:15). "For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it" (James 2:10). "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). "He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matthew 5).

    So yes, it's easy to look through the Bible and pick out verses that can prove my point. My point being that we all are equal in life. A rapist, a thieve, a liar, a vandal, a murderer, a child molester, a drunk, a glutton, a luster, etc. . . We are all equal because we ALL have fallen short of God's glory. We all sin and mess up. God's grace is working in everyone, even the one's we think deserve death or life in jail. It is God's never-ending grace that allows us to form a relationship with him.

    I know  that I need to be reminded of God's grace. I need to be reminded of what God has brought me through and saved me from. It is easy to forget. The guy that may or may not have murdered people in my home county needs God's grace. He does. He doesn't need punished, retribution, or even death in order for him to see Jesus, and really that is what we should want of him. He needs God's grace. He doesn't need people telling him that he deserves to die. He needs people to come beside him and show him God's grace and God's love. Without it, no amount of punishment, jail time, or the death penalty will fix the problems he has. 

Sunday, 09 December 2012

  • My Vegetarianism

    I love steak. That’s why I became a vegetarian. I loved meat too much. I loved meat even though almost a billion people in the world are hungry. So, I decided to do something about it. I gave up meat, and never looked back.

    Worship happens when we align ourselves with how God is moving in the world. I knew that because I loved meat, I could never really understand what it was like to live in a third world country and struggle. I couldn’t understand, because I could simply drive to McDonalds and get a Double-Cheeseburger for a dollar. I didn’t know struggle. I couldn’t fully align myself to God’s will for my life because I didn’t fully understand God’s will for the world.

     God’s will doesn’t include famine, disease, or war in the world (most of which is happening in the developing world). God’s will is for peace, for the wolf to lay with the lamb, and for the calf to hang out with a lion (Isaiah 11). There will be an eschatological age of peace! I want to live my life in that peace. I want to take hold of what God is doing, claim it in my life and bring the kingdom of Heaven to Earth.

     I want peace in my life that only God can give. I was listening to a sermon by Greg Boyd, and he said, “Purity of heart means that you are no longer double-minded.” We live in between Jesus’ resurrection and his second coming. We live in a state of “in-between-ness.” The fullness of God’s glory and power hasn’t come to fruition, but we are charged to live it out. In order to have a more pure heart, I can’t let something as little as Jesus’ second coming stop me from living as if God had redeemed everything.

     So, I became a vegetarian in order to live out God’s eschatological peace (consider it a sort of head start). I didn’t have to and I certainly don’t advocate others to do the same, but God was calling me to it. I still love steak and I still struggle sometimes but now, I’m happy to struggle.

Tuesday, 25 September 2012

  • What I'm listening to [With Videos]

    Music is one of the guiding forces in my life. I need good music in my life to stay sane. Soooo...  I thought I would share with you people some of the songs that I have been overly obsessed with lately (In no certain order). :)

     

    1) Flowers in Your Hair - The Lumineers


    2) Black Me Out - Laura Jane Grace (formerly Tom Gabel)


    3) February 1878 - mewithoutyou


    4) The Plan - Built To Spill


    5) Gangnam Style - Psy


     


    So there you have it folks, some of the music I've been listening to. I hope you enjoy.

    What music are you listening to?

     

Thursday, 20 September 2012

  • Was Jesus Married

    On Tuesday, Karen King (Harvard Divinity School) revealed an early manuscript that seems to claim that Jesus was married. It is interesting as it is written in Coptic but it uses Greek letters and is thought to be from the 4th century. There is only a fragment of the manuscript, it looks as if it was cut out of the larger manuscript. There was a lot of publicity about Jesus being married after the Da Vinci Code saga. To some, this is more proof. To others, it's just a gnostic document.

    As you can see, what little there is, is completely incomplete. It's composed of sentence fragments and incomplete thoughts. There is no context. The Text literally reads:

    1: not [to] me, my Mother gave to me li[fe]

    2: The disciples said to Jesus "

    3: deny. Mary is worthy of it

    4: Jesus said to them "My wife

    5: she will be able to be my disciple

    6: Let wicked people swell up

    7: Let wicked people swell up

    8: As for me, I dwell with her in order to

    9: an image

     

    There you have it...  What scholars are calling the Gospel of Jesus' Wife. It is likely from a gnostic text. Gnostics have written about Jesus kissing Mary Magdelene in the Gospel of Phillip. For something like this to finally come out, isn't that surprising. This text doesn't validate a belief that Jesus was married. It only means that someone at one point believed Jesus was probably married, not that he actually was married.

    What do you think about this new manuscript? Do you think Jesus could have been married? Why or Why not? If He was married, would it change anything about your personal relationship with God? Would it change anything about the institutional church?

crevis05

  • Visit crevis05's Xanga Site
    • Name: Travis
    • Location: Lima, Ohio, United States
    • Birthday: 9/16/1987
    • Gender: Male
    • Member Since: 2/7/2005
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About Me

  • I have this deep desire of late to help people. Mostly the poor, decrepit, hurt people. Which is just about everyone. So, I'm trying to figure out what God wants me to do about it.

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I review for Thomas Nelson Book Review Bloggers

Chatboard (19)

  • gene546
    I’m Roman Catholic, one year close to become a priest; I married and father six children. I have two B.A.’s, Natural Philosophy and Theology, and a personal library of 480 books. I don’t know much about anything; I’ am ignorant enough to say it. Thank you. Gene546
    • Posted 1/4/2010 11:45 AM
    • by gene546
  • purplemoon3@revelife
    hey Travis have you ever heard of J-HOP? http://jhop.org/ I WAS READING your info and noticed that you said that you have a burden for for the poor and those who ahve been lied to. check out the link above mabey you would like to get involved somehow with them. have you ever heard of lou engel? he
  • crevis05
    @AOK4WAY - NP... I don't really have anything for my next entry... I'm lacking inspiration... or motivation... one of the two
  • AOK4WAY
    Hey Travis, thanks for accepting my friends invite. Lookin' 4ward to your next entry!
    • Posted 1/13/2009 4:50 PM
    • by AOK4WAY
  • crevis05
    @hope_9 - Absolutely, I completely agree. He challenges churches, he's pretty much saying they might not be doing things right. I agree with him. I saw him speak like a year ago before I read the book. I thought he was cool, but I was stuck in the conservative Christianity, and I didn't really li
  • hope_9
    @crevis05 - Same. A bunch of my friends has some theological debates about stuff it was mostly minor. I think a lot of it was fear of change Shane is radical he pushes boundaries and sometimes as humans people like that are scary because they force us to reexamine the comfortable complacent life tha
    • Posted 1/7/2009 1:57 AM
    • by hope_9
  • crevis05
    @hope_9 - I loved it. Shane has a huge heart. I definitely learned a lot. I know a lot of people don't like Shane, but I don't think I have heard him say anything that could be definitively proven wrong by scripture. What do you think about him?
  • hope_9
    How are you liking irresistable revolution? It's a really challenging book eh? I read it about a year and half ago for school
    • Posted 1/7/2009 1:40 AM
    • by hope_9
  • indiechickee
    @crevis05 - its ok. lol! ill check it out!
  • crevis05
    @indiechickee - I think they might of deleted your comment... because it's totally not their... It says that their is 11 comments, but if you count them... their is only 10