zacfoo.com

first thoughts today

okay, so i actually wake up thinking deeply about something.... odd...  here's the contents:

you cannot make somebody love you; they cannot be forced or coerced or anything.  you must simply love them.  and pray they return the love.  forced love is fake love, empty love.  give of yourself freely, leave it upon the altar of another's affections, offer it up as a sacrifice.  whether it is returned or not is up to the other person; you have done your part.  love; and don't expect anything in return.  give. be. trust.

my prayer to you as you love and give:  that the love would be returned in kind and that you may not be trampled upon.

think upon God's love for sinners:  Jesus has bled for you.  Dare you reject him?

Thank you Franz Ferdinand for the ideas.  You're so lucky, lucky, lucky... Doo do doo, do do do do do doo.

In defense of zacfoo and Bob Jones University: Regurgitating Starbucks

This has turned into a debacle:  I must officially state my reasoning, thought processes, cognition, mulling over, et cetera for all this hype over BJU dumping Starbucks as its Snack Shop coffee supplier.

First off, I deeply regret previously stating my opinions in such a callous and unloving manner.  Please accept my humble apologies for being tactless in my delivery.  I haven't gotten so much feedback ever from the general population as I had on that article; so you must understand that I wasn't thinking about the "general population" before I wrote it; I wasn't thinking about my audience at all or their way of seeing what I had written.  I was simply reporting an event and giving my opinions at the end.  And judging by the numerous disagreeing comments, I had to evaluate:  was I getting visitors from only a certain camp, was my content being misread/misinterpreted, or was the problem with my presentation?  "A little of the first two," I said at first, thinking "how in the world could I possibly be wrong."  But with some probing, I must admit that the ball is in my court and I must 'fess up that it was my bad too.

But you must understand where I'm coming from...  I'm a present student at Bob Jones University and I can't diss my school.  That would be bad form.  But I will state that I'm not some clone; BJU does not make it their business to produce clones.  As Jon, from Biblical Repertory, states, "BJU may at times make decisions or take stands with which I or many others may not agree. Nevertheless, I believe that BJU provides a unique and wonderful service: a thorough liberal arts education with a Christian world view."  It is that Christian worldview with which visitors to my site must take issue.  I am not a Bob Jones University parrot nor am I its spokesman.  I am a spokesman for Christ.

So when BJU made the decision to stop selling Starbucks on campus and told us the reason for such a move is in relation to poor customer service I accepted that line of reasoning: not because I blindly accept like a robot whatever they say, but because they clearly stated their case and I believed it.

I am NOT anti-gay.  I have gay friends.  I want to see homosexuals come to Christ.  I want everyone to come to Christ.  Becuase that is the real issue at hand; in any discussion the point is whether they are in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  And I lost that desire... I did not view that article as a potential gospel for others to read and come away with a longing for Christ.  I failed that time in my responsibility.

Christian spirituality is all about loving people: no matter where the come from, what they have done, what they are involved in now, etc.  The motivation, though, in expressing that love is not vindictiveness or pity, it is a deeper love for Christ.  He is so wonderful that his love for me overflows through me in my love for others.  People need to encounter Christ, that is the purpose of my life.  And once people do truly know who the Jesus of the Bible is they change; and always for the better. 

Paul said it best: "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."  (1 Corinthians 6:9-11) 

The key here is that before salvation some people practice homosexuality (among the many other vices and sins people do), BUT once people are washed, sanctified, and justified by God they do not practice those sins anymore.  Not because they necessarily want to stop - it is extremely difficult to change "nature" - but because of the work of God in their lives they realize deep down in their soul, for the first time, that homosexuality (or whatever sin) is contrary to God's way of seeing things, and since God did so much for them - "you were bought for a price" - they desire to now "glorify God in [their] bodies." (1 Corinthians 6:20; same passage, same context).

My prayer is that all people will get saved, that they will realize the all-satisfying pleasure of glorifying God with their lives, and that they will see the awfulness of sin and avoid it at all costs.

arrgghhh!

why is it that when you are a blogger all these great ideas to blog about come to you at all the wrong times?

i have had 3 such instances today.  i was at work, not able to get on a computer at all, and 3 great ideas came.  my thinking was on a roll and i was moving in the right direction, but it all stopped before i had the chance to put it here for posterity.

but i do remember one thing, because i've been thinking about it for the past week or so.  it has to do with this whole starbucks thing:  I'm sorry.  I'll explain in the next post...

you should see my stats

the whole starbucks ban thingy sure has become a hit.  check the comments out.

anyway, i guess I should post something.  I've become a bore, apparently.  naw, just kidding! :)

Life's hectic: school's riding hard on my back.  learning lots.  Rome is a hoot with Dr. Matzko, so much information.  Greek is killing me, as always, but I'm fighting back pretty hard.  keep praying.  American Novel continues to amaze me with how good a class it is.  I learn so much every day.  And reading the books, as hard as it is to fit it in with everything else, is really relaxing. work's fine. no problems there.

Biggest thing in my life right now:  I'm starting to attend sunday worship services at a new church, North Hills Community Church.  I'll post more on that later on.  But for now I'll say that it's wonderful, a real refreshment.  I'm glad I can get away from the whole BJ crowd, and worship with some people who don't feel the pressure to conform to "Rome's way" of doing things.  I'm being facetious here, but there is some truth.  If you know (*nudge, nudge.  wink, wink*) what I'm talking about, you know how I feel.

zacfoo turns 25!

Happy Birthday to me.  Yay, I'm finally 25 years old.  Now, I.. can.... Wait a sec. Is 25 that big of an accomplishment?  Certain people bugged me about that fact, so much so that I was thinking it was nearly to caliber of the "right of passage" age, 21.  or was it 18?  or 13?  2?

Something spectacular happens when you turn 25: you're not 24 anymore.  That's about it.  Nothing else much happens. 

It's about 8am right now, as I'm writing this, and I don't hear much fanfare, sirens, marching bands or anything proclaiming to the world that the most important person in it has had a major milestone pass without any complications.  (Sad how we think that way.  But we're selfish creatures.  Centers of our own little universes.)

Well, there were a few complications this past year... God threw them into my path...

God knew what he was doing.  God always does.  Even when we don't. (Isn't that funny how that expression comes to mind: "Even when we don't" know what we are doing. C'mon.  We never know exactly what we're doing. We may think we do. We may want certain results to come of something that we're doing. But God works all things out for our Good and His ultimate Glory. Because He's God, and He has the power to make things happen.  That is such a comforting thought.)

But at the same time.  We know that what we're doing is usually what WE want to do.  No matter what our good, honorable, proclaimed-as-Christ-glorifying intentions are.

Speaking of intentions: a "really good friend" of mine asked me to write about my philosophy of love as money and a spring. (You SO know what I mean by those quot. marks...)

Love (the genuine, healthy, pure, "love your neighbor as yourself" kinda love) is usually thought of in terms of money.  You spend love like most people spend money.  You like something, you want it, you buy it, with your love. You decide something is worth investing in, time spent with, imparting your self and soul to, and then you decide it's worth the risk to put aside other things that your "love money" could be spent on and you love that something.

Ugly. wrong. totally different idea from what Jesus implies when he says that He wants us to love our enemies, to love those who would use you, to love those whose greatest desire in this world is to persecute and kill people just like you (Christians).

How easy though it is to slip into the mindset of spending love like money.  Love is NOT a commodity to be bought and sold and lost and gained and bankrupt, and even invested in.  Love is not economics.

Love is a flowing stream.  Love is a fountain of an unquenchable, neverending, tapless spring.  Love gushes forth from the depths of who you are as a person.  Love like this should be the primary indicator that a person is a Christian.  If the person does not love like this then that person probably doesn't know what true love is.  (Is he even a Christian?)

True love is God's love, and God demonstrated his deep, unfathomable love for us by lavishing Christ  upon the world.  Christ coated the world in his blood because he wanted to show the world how much he loved us.

True love, the deepest, most pure love, is a free gift. And the worth of the gift is measured by the difficulty in deciding to give it away, free of charge, with no strings attached, with no desire to get  anything in return.

God's free gift to man was Jesus, the one who will save people from that alien degrading force called sin. My (meaning mankind's) free gift is giving away/sharing the most important thing in the world to me:  my self and soul.

One of the coolest songs ever...

The Gash - The Flaming Lips

Is that gash in your leg really why you have stopped?
Cause I've noticed, all the others,
Though they're gashed, they're still going.
Cause I feel like the real reason
That you're quitting and admitting that You've lost all the will to battle on.

Will the fight for sanity be the fight of our lives?
Now that we've lost all the reasons that we thought that we had.

Still the battle that we're in
Rages on till the end
With explosions, wounds are open,
Sights and smells, eyes and noses,
But the thought that went unspoken
Was understanding that you're broken...
Still the last volunteer battles on,
Battles on...

Bertrand Russell FQ

"The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time" - Bertrand Russell
 

might i suggest...

rereading this post from a little under a year ago...

Have I really learned from that and put it into practice in the past year?  I'll have to admit, I've been pretty lazy.  But I'm lazy in so much of my life...  But I'm determined now to make a difference with the people I'm friends with and the people I'm gonna be friends with.  The saying goes that you are no different now than you were ten years ago, aside from the books that you've read and the friends that you've made.  But as a Christian it goes one step deeper:  who are the people that you've influenced for Christ?

Thanks, PC and button-nose...

**I met a friend of mine coming into school today and I was proactive and asked him to lunch.  Pray that I'll be a blessing.

wow

Yah, wow.  Okay, this'll be different and the general public prolly won't understand, but I'm gonna be proactive.  No more reactive living.  I've been too much of a fundy thus far.  Take life by the horns and tear it open to see what's inside.  Deep living in a superficial world.  God has been too much of an addendum to the message of my life: "please check for a little bit of loose leaf left in the envelope... yah, this is a message from God: do right till the stars fall" or some such trite statement.  By God's grace, and through his ennabling power, I'm gonna live a sermon.  I want my life to shout Jesus Christ.

Not for me, not for anyone else in particular, not for my reputation. But all for God's glory: so his splendor can redound to the utmost reaches of whatever.  I wanna be used to bring others to see the perfection and utmost satisfaction that is Christ.

Lord, here am I, use me!