The Tulip Driven Life

  Luke 9: 23 Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, [ a ] and follow Me. 24 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. 25 For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost? 26 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels. These words of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ should not be taken lightly. The life of the Christian is one of spiritual warfare, denying ourselves and our sinful fleshly impulses for the sake of Christ and His righteousness. The way we do that, of course, is by the power of the Holy Spirit, for we cannot find the goodness to obey Christ and take up our cross in and of ourselves. This is why Christ took up the cross for us. We are simply following in His footsteps...

I have learned so much from Postman's discussion of America and media. In fact, I just posted on my Facebook page that everyone in the United States needs to read this book. I had never even thought of analyzing the way in which different mediums shape the way we view truth and epistemology, and even what we consider worth investing our time and energy into knowing. Postman opens his book with the amazing statement that "Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education, and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice. The result is that we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death." (p.3-4). Observing society today, and after hearing Postman's arguments in the first five chapters of his book, I would have to agree with his assessment. The fact that he said this in 1985 is incredible. If anything, the advent of the internet and social networking sites like Facebook and T...

                What is love? Love is reflecting God’s character, his attributes, in its totality, in a certain way.  It is a certain spirit, or disposition with which we glorify God. It is glorifying God with a desire to glorify God, a passion, a delight in glorifying God. It is taking satisfaction in, joy from, glorifying God. 1 Corinthians further goes on to explain that love is patient, love is kind, is selfless, is not puffed up, etc. So love is a sort of way in which we obey God’s law for His glory. And according to 1 Corinthians 13, it profits us nothing and is still sin if we attempt to obey God’s law for His glory without love.                                 That is what I said towards the end of part 2 of this blog series. Now, I would like...

            I suppose there are many ways and places to start unraveling and explaining the teachings of Calvinism. Many may go through the acrostic TULIP which may be what Calvinism is most known for to those who are unfamiliar with what it teaches. And I’ve done that before, going through things point by point, but I am not going to do that this time. Instead, I am going to try and write in a more conversational tone, and address some of the common questions and objections that usually arise.             So I have decided to start with what it means to be a sinner. We have to start with ourselves, after all, before we can move on and understand anything else rightly. To put it succinctly- to be a sinner is to love self and sin, to live for self and sin, and to despise God and His law/commandments by our very nature . For many Christians, including myself before I really st...

            There are really only two questions that matter in life: are you a Christian, and are you a Calvinist? The first, being a Christian, determines who you live for- yourself, or the God of the Bible. The second, being a Calvinist, describes how you actually know God, think of God, and ultimately live for God, as a Christian. Being a Christian means you live for Christ, and being a Calvinist is the correct way to live for Christ, at least for the purpose of this writing.                                  I say that without hesitation. I have come to learn, in the nearly three years of embracing and growing in the doctrines of grace (the doctrines of grace being another name for Calvinism), that you can’t fully know God, love God, and live God apart from Calvinism. To be ...