The Tulip Driven Life

The battle of the Christian is a battle for joy in God. It is a real battle, it is not easy. The Christian doesn't fight for holiness because it gets him into heaven or will assure him that he will get there in the end, but rather because to not do so would be to, in effect, commit suicide. When God changes your will so that you want Him, you don't want sin anymore. The mind, the heart, thirsts for God, to know Him more, to love Him more. But our old sinful flesh still desires the sin. It craves it. It calls us to indulge in it. Sin is still pleasurable, and that's the damned problem. I think at the heart of every true Christian is the passionate desire to love righteousness and hate sin. Psalm 97:10-12 says: O you who love the LORD, hate evil! He preserves the lives of His saints; He delivers them from the hand of the wicked. Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart. Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous, and give thanks to his holy name! Romans ...

In the nearly three years of holding to the doctrines of grace, I have heard many learned men in the realm of theology and Scripture say that most reformed folk are cold, callous and apathetic when it comes to proclaiming the gospel. I expected to hear that from non-Calvinists. When I started hearing it from fellow Calvinists, I began to get angry. First, an admittance. It is true, some Calvinists tend towards hyper Calvinism, or at least take a lethargic, ho-hum attitude toward sharing the gospel. The zeal for evangelism doesn't seem to be there. No doubt this is problematic, to say the least. But when I hear Calvinists say that other Calvinists and Calvinistic churches have a problem sharing the gospel, I get upset not because they are going too far, but because they are not going far enough. In my book you aren't a Calvinist if the gospel isn't everything to you. A Calvinist who is apathetic towards sharing the gospel is no Calvinist; in fact he is far worse than a...

I don't even want to pretend like I know about military life, or the sacrifice soldiers make for us. All I know is I wouldn't want to do it. I'd probably try to dodge the draft. So from that perspective, I have a great deal of respect for those in the military, even though some are just in there because that was the last place for them to turn. That's the only way I would go. Some people feel a sense of duty for their country, for their nation. Without the military, without God's instruments of wrath and justice, we would not have the freedom we now enjoy. What 9/11 reminds me of, much like the tornado that ravaged my hometown, is the fact that it is ultimately God's grace, and not man, that keeps us safe. That's not an attempt to undermine the military; I am not trying to say that they aren't a grace of God to us- they are. My point is simply that, no matter how much we try to protect ourselves, the only thing keeping us from total destruction is the ...

           Ephesians 5: "22  Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.  23  For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.  24  Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so  let  the wives  be  to their own husbands in everything.  25  Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,  26  that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word,  27  that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.  28  So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.  29  For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord  does  the church....

Before I say what I want to say about dating relationships and marriage, let me say this. I didn't expect to continue blogging very much, if at all, while at Bible College. The obvious reason would be because of the amount of studying to be done, along with time spent in fellowship with other students and faculty. Yet another reason, and perhaps the main reason, that I didn't want to blog here is because I felt like it could come off as arrogant. Meaning, if I write a blog, and write frequently, it could appear that I think I know more, and am holier, than the other students. And I didn't want that. I want to be in a student mentality, not in an instructive/teaching mentality. If I blog about my beliefs and write to try and persuade and edify others, I feel that that may come off in such a way that I am unteachable, or that I have it all figured out. I don't believe that at all. I don't have it figured out. What's more, I do not claim to practice what I preach...

UPDATE: My first year at Reformation Bible College is now almost over, and I can assure the prospective student that all I have said below has held true. It is a wonderful college and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn the reformed faith in an environment conducive to growing spiritually as well as theologically.  So I've been in Sanford, Florida for what feels like a long time now, even though it's only been a few days. Settling in has been a bit easier than I thought. I've also had two days worth of classes now. There has been some anxiety, and I think the course work will be hard, but I believe if I do my reading and pay attention in class, I'll manage pretty well. It's great, and humbling, to be around so many smart people, people whom God has graciously blessed with insight and wisdom. I am not only talking about the professors, but fellow students. When you are sitting at home, cut off from other reformed folk, you can begin to think tha...

Chapter 3 of my Treatise of Calvinism:                I was always taught, as long as I could remember, that God knew all things. And, if we leave it at that, that is believable enough. After all, if God can create everything out of nothing, then for Him to be able to know all things isn’t really a stretch. The limits of my human mind and ability are not a good reason to demand that God be limited to only that which I myself can understand and do. Anyone who thinks like that is not a Christian, for they would never believe in a God greater than them, since from the outset they remove the possibility of God doing anything or knowing anything that they themselves cannot do or at least fathom.                 So it is certainly acceptable, and reasonable, to believe that God knows all things, past, present, and future, even though I cannot. How...