God lessons
In a condensed, money-eating-Internet type of fashion:
"At the Day of Judgment, we shall not be asked what we have read, but what we have done; not how eloquently we have spoken, but how holily we have lived...He is truly great, who is great in the love of God. He is truly great, who is humble in mind, and regards the earth's highest honors and nothing. He is truly wise who counts all things as dung, in order that he may win Christ. And he is truly learned, who renounces his own will for the will of God" (The Inner Life, Thomas a Kempis)
A glorification of intellectualism was really prevelant during my time at UW, but I've also found it within myself and among my friends. It's something that for me is a sin, and I'm perpetually drawn toward being thought very intelligent by people in conversation. I did it again today, when I started talking about Northern Ireland politics. But it's all vanity - literally. It's about self-glorification. About being more interested that people think highly of me than that they think highly of God. It needs to be okay for me if people think I'm stupid because I don't fight to make my opinion heard in a debate. Unless I use the knowledge God has given me in a way that serves and glorifies Him, my speech and thoughts are absolute nonsense and even worse than that, turn into sin. Yikes.
What else...
Thinking a lot about being counter-cultural. Realized that even our "joking" cultural prejudice against Canadians (see, you just chuckled, didn't you!?) is inappropriate for Christian. This is a weird thing, and I'll write more on it later.
A question: Why did Jesus refer to himself in the third person in John 3:16-17? I just noticed that today and I think it's weird.
You're kind to stick with me in this.
posted by Lacey @ 1:38 PM
2 Comments:
Glorifying intellectualism...I have to admit that I am guilty of the same sin. Maybe even placing a higher value on friends that are a little more intelligent than others, and maybe even letting that show.
As far as Jesus reffering to himself in the third person goes, it seems like he did that a lot, before he was "revealed" or whatever...I really don't know the technical term for it. Then again, I'm not sure where this event lines up with everything, I might be crazy. In the next chapter, he's talking to the woman at the well, and refers to himself as the savior in the 1st person, so...yeah...really not going anywhere with this, but I wanted to ramble at you anyways.
Holly, thank you for replying! I think you're right about Jesus. Who knows? Interesting. More about intelligence to come, it seems to be the theme of my life right now :)
Go to www.watoto.com and see if there's anything that looks interesting for next summer??
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