zacfoo.com

school is killer

yah, it is.  killer. i need prayer.  i just don't feel like really putting my heart into my schoolwork now.

so, i was translating 1 Thessalonians 1 from the Greek New Testament last night and at the same time I was listening to the new Casting Crowns CD on my ipod.  well, i came to verse 9 in my traslation: "For they themselves report concerning you of what sort of entrance we had to you, and how you turned to God away from idols to serve the living and true God..." and at the same time that i was translating that verse the song "Set Me Free" came on which tells the story of the demoniac of the Gerasenes from Mark 6.

It hasn’t always been this way
I remember brighter days
Before the dark ones came
Stole my mind
Wrapped my soul in chains

Now I live among the dead
Fighting voices in my head
Hoping someone hears me crying in the night
And carries me away

Set me free of the chains holding me
Is anybody out there hearing me?
Set me free

Morning breaks another day
Finds me crying in the rain
All alone with my demons I am
Who is this man that comes my way?
The dark ones shriek
They scream His name
Is this the One they say will set the captives free?
Jesus, rescue me

As the God man passes by
He looks straight through my eyes
And darkness cannot hide

Do you want to be free?
Lift your chains
I hold the key
All power on Heav’n and Earth belong to me

You are free
You are free
You are free

I can't describe the incredible feeling i experienced right there in my seat at B&N.  WOW!  The combination of all my senses and faculties - thinking, writing, hearing, emotions - brought this great, overwhelming sense of awe at how God can work in ANYONE'S life, from demon-possessed people to idol worshippers, and radically turn their life around and bring them into a loving relationship with Himself.  God is so cool!  Thanks.

A Better Place

The world is now a better place. 

Slobodan Milosevic is dead.  The non-Serbians, et al. can rest easier tonight knowing that the man responsible for attempting to anihilate their entire people group is gone and can no longer be a threat to their lives. 

I really want to feel no sympathy for someone called "the Butcher of the Balkans".  Even though Christian love calls for me to love my enemies, I find it really hard to even consider his death the loss of a soul to hell.  I want to think that this man lost his soul, or sold it to the Devil, a long time ago.  To think of what he did, for no certain purpose other than hatred, is disgusting. *shiver*

This is where the rubber meets the road, especially for believers who were the target of Milosevic's wrath:  Ought we to love even someone like this?

The bad part about it is that he never was convicted of the crimes he committed against humanity.  But those who lived through his reign of terror can rest assured that he now stands before the Judge of the universe, who shows no partiality or ability to be swayed.  He alone is perfectly just, and He will rule rightly.

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.

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...

Starbucks banned at Bob Jones University

Dr. Steven Jones, President of Bob Jones University, announced today in chapel (the official "platform" of BJU) that we are not having Starbucks coffee ever, ever, EVER AGAIN at good ol' BJU... Know why?  Cup #43 in their "The Way I See It" line carries a quote from a gay person endorsing the gay lifestyle....

*cricket, cricket*

Okay, if I left it there people would most likely be saying stuff like "Of course, those bigots in their whited fundamentalist towers WOULD be doing stuff like that.  Yup, going off the deep end is BJ's specialty.  Gay quotes on coffee cups equals Starbucks mystically subverting young people's minds.  But BJ is doing that already, aren't they? Well, that explains why they'd want to get rid of the competition."

**Please notice the quotes there! I am playing the Devil's Advocate (and a very good one at that, I must admit. sounds really antagonistic, doesn't it?).  This does not in any way reflect the official opinion of anyone officially connected to the school.  That means me, zacfoo.**

So, you can probably guess what the topic of conversation at lunch today was.  You guessed it: music....

But, wait!  Wasn't that whole thing about "gayness" and "coffee" and "hypnotic powers" important enough for a conversation piece.  Sounds controversial to me.  And you know how college students love talking about controversy.

I should back up.  Dr. J went on to explain WHY we were doing that.  Back in September, "#43" caught people's eyes here at the Institution. Mr. President promptly wrote a letter to everybody in Starbucks corporate kindly asking for an easy explanation as to why they are selling such "potentially" offensive material especially when they have Christians, soccer moms, and good ol' fashioned-family values people consuming this stuff (coffee, and gayness to this one aspect) on a highly regular basis.  (I have no problems with drinking a lot of coffee, Starbucks or not, and paying for it too.)  They got back to him in November.  Yah, that late... Like they didn't care.  But the guy from Starbucks said they did care, that they were getting a lot of negative feedback from the paying public, and were talking about doing something about it after the Holidays.  He promised to call back in less than 2 weeks.  After 3 weeks of no contact with Starbucks, Dr. J sends a total of 8 emails/phone calls none of which are returned, answered, or apparently cared about.  The regional sales guy from our area even called the corporate dude and told him we were somebody to be reckoned with.  They still didn't care.

Thus, we don't have Starbucks anymore.  And I agree with the school on this one.  BJ was patient, kind, considerate, tactful, and concerned.  They were even humanitarian, reaching beyond the Bubble to remind Starbucks that other people shared in their displeasure.  But all to no avail, apparently.  Starbucks couldn't care less.

So, us lunchers talked about music instead...

Does Starbucks have an agenda?  I don't know, but this makes them suspect.

The whole thing is really ridiculous:  Starbucks has the whole world of books and authors and smart people to quote from on their cups.  But they choose to use a gay man (I'll give 'em that; homosexuals can truth too) and his gay-promoting quote (not good) to encourage English-speaking youth (people like me and younger; like, YOUR KIDS) to explore and experiment with gayness.  That is just plain wrong.

Sorry, Starbucks.  You are no longer my cup o' tea.  Even if you try to make up for it with a Rick Warren quote...

lots going on here

wow, this semester sure started out in Turbo Mode. i won't bore anyone with the details, but i will say that this semester will sure be interesting.  zacfoo will need your prayers, big time.

new addition to the zacfoo universe

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SGI #3

**Sorry that I didn't post this earlier, but I'm on vacation after all... Give a blogger a break, huh?!**

So, you ask, what is my general feeling of this conference? Has it met my expectations?  Have they (the SGI conference staff and guest speakers) met the goals that SGI set: has the title, “Declare His Glory Among the Nations”, been adequately defined and explained? Yes.

Was this conference better than the last one?  Yes.

So, where does that leave me?  The second full day of the conference, from my point of view, cannot be said to have been better or worse than the first. But that is not the point, is it?  I will say though that I learned more on the first day, but was more spiritually challenged today.  I didn't learn much today because I spent the last night (the second night of SGI) at a good friend's house talking till 2 in the morning, and as a result sleeping in and missing the first two sessions of the morning.  I was told that Dr. Jordan's message this morning was excellent; too bad I missed it.  Lunch was the next exciting thing of the day as I spent most of the time talking heatedly with friends about the conference rather than eating. 

Funny how I can remember that we had a good discussion going but cannot remember a lot of what we were talking about.  It was important and pertinent, but not too memorable, regrettably. The major theme we covered was about how we fundamentalists (I use the term lightly), as a group, tend to focus so much on peripheral issues rather than core issues.  For example, we enjoy talking (complaining, most of the time; especially if you're a student) about music standards and dress codes: like whether something “checks” or not.  And the real issues at hand are whether the gospel is getting out to a lost and dying Greenville, SC or if the Dupont Drive neighborhood is seeing God high and lifted up in a certain zacfoo's life.  I mean, c'mon, “checkability”?!? GROW UP and MOVE ON, childish thinking like that is playing into the devil's hands; no one in the real world cares about such trivialities.  I've often had the feeling/attitude that the Institution looks on us students as “old children” instead of “young adults”.  Well, keep that “checkability is all-important and I like to make mountains out of molehills, too” viewpoint and they're gonna continue looking at us that way.

Sorry, I didn't mean for that to turn into a rant... Our conversation during lunch was much more uplifting than that; we advocate deference here @ zacfoo.com.

I picked the next session because it wasn't going to be audio-recorded and it seemed to be somewhat controversial, like the China sessions were the previous day.  This one was not controversial in any way.  The speaker spoke on ministering for Christ in a closed Muslim country. Interesting.  Good information presented on how to deal with very kind, yet dead-set in my Islamic way of life, thank you very much, people.

After this session was the best part of the day:  the Concert of Prayer.  This was a structured prayer time, led by Dr. Doran, in which we focused an hour of the day on praying for missions and missionaries and our role in missions and for God to continue to work through the conference, even past the end of SGI. This was my prayer: that God would use me in missions in any way that he sees fit.  That he would continue his work on my desires for the Chinese church and that I'd remain open to his leading regarding that part of the world.  That I would do my part in home-based missions (primarily witnessing to people in Greenville) faithfully and consistently.  That I'd be an encouragement to my peers to be involved in missions. That I'd attend Missions Prayer Band consistently. That I'd pray for missionaries more. That I'd keep in contact with a missionary (J.D. Crowley, in Cambodia, perhaps).

The closing session was the perfect ending to a great missions conference.  Dr. Doran challenged us to consider whether the name of Jesus Christ is a strong enough motivation to give up everything and follow him.  Is serving Christ worth the risk involved in losing everything you have?  What do you consider of more worth than the name of Christ?  Give up everything? My take (directly from the Moleskine): As a student, it's easy to say such a thing, because you don't have much to give up. The longer you wait, the harder it becomes to give everything up.  He ended by making a great comparison; one I believe I've heard before; but this time around it hit home well.  Doran compared missionary service to military service.  Think about it: It's okay to die for patriotism for one's country; we applaud it and have Memorial Days for it. Great stuff: movies are made about it all the time.  But we flinch and even shudder at the thought of simply telling our neighbor about Christ, much more giving up all to preach Him in a foreign country. Meditate.  The mission always demands this type of commitment.

I know I have a lot of praying to do.

Bottom line: you should've been there, it was tremendous.  SGI: done.