moving about

Out of my mind and into Christ's

I decided for the main theme of my plan to draw closer to God I wanted on focus on gaining and remaining in the mind of Christ as defined in 1 Corinthians 2

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. 14The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment:
 16"For who has known the mind of the Lord  that he may instruct him?"But we have the mind of Christ.

In these verses Paul is talking about how the spirit of man is the only one to know the thoughts of the man and how the spirit of God is the only one who knows the thoughts of God. If it stopped here that would be a pretty depressing statement but he goes on to say that God has given us his spirit in order that we may discern his will for our lives. And How did we gain this spirit? Through Christ who died in place of us so that the connection between God and man would be repaired. He has known the mind of the Lord and now we have it!

When I say I want to gain the mind of Christ heres what I mean: I want to be so filled with the spirit of the Lord that I am always thinking about Christ in relation to everything. Asking “would Jesus approve of me doing this?” “can I use a particular situation to benefit the kingdom” etc.. Even if it means simply maintaining a good attitude when situations are less then ideal, setting a good example, or doing little things to serve others. I want my faith to be so grounded in my life that it is the base on which all my other views build and from which they cannot be separated. The foundation of all my decisions and the final say in all I do

Anyway thats the theme anyway I'll be building off of that as time progresses.

raining outside but not on my parade

Bonhoeffer on Cheap grace vs. Costly grace

"That is what we mean by cheap grace, the grace that amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs from sin and whom from sin departs. Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sins that frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap Grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, Baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. Costly grace is the hidden treasure in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye that causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at Which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him. Costly grace is the gospel that must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ...."

-A passage from his The Cost of Discipleship

A little bit of an update...

I really am having trouble figuring out how I want to word so many different posts, thus why I haven't said much as of late. Its not that I don't actually have things to say. Anyways heres an update post until I get my wording down. So far so good so good on my self improvement goals. All except typing cause I can't find my typing program. I also thought of another thing to add to the list which is to work on not slouching all the time. This also seems to be going well for the most part except sometimes after work my back hurts when I do it. Oh well, no pain no gain...Work seems to be going well other than occasionally leaving me rather worn out. The days go really fast now as apparently does the summer. Its practically half over. I feel like I have so much left to do. I seem to be running into a lot of things of late that stir up a lot of memories (people, places, video games, etc.) I saw one of my friends from before college that I hadn't seen for like 3 years while I was home. He had recently gotten married and he and his wife had been living in California. He seemed to have matured a lot since I last saw him. I wonder if I've grown up much since then? Anyways I'm gonna work on one of my other future blog posts for a bit to see if I can't figure this out.....