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Tag Archives: gospel

What is the Gospel?

The gospel is the belief that the creator God, sent his son Jesus, to be a sacrifice for our sins; so that we could be with him forever.  The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), and Jesus paid that price for us, in obedience to God the father (Mathew 26:39) so whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16).  This belief brings the forgiveness of our past transgressions, and the removal of condemnation of our sin before God.

That means every lustful thought, spit in his face.  Every hateful thought towards our fellow man, a Roman scourge to his back. Every lie, great or small that crosses our lips, a crown of thorns on his head.  Every self serving and self glorifying action or thought, our cry to “CRUCIFY HIM”.

His reply; “father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)

That’s the gospel. and for that reason, I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. (Romans 1:16)

How to love your neighbor…

As is the case with everything it starts with God.

I’m speaking to believers here of course, but take the time to really reflect on God and who he is.  Infinite, immutable, omnipotent, righteous, perfect in every way.

Really get in there, think about this.  Sovereign, in control of everything.  Knowing the end from the beginning, working all things to his glory and to the good of those who love him.  The only thing in existence worthy of praise, because through him all things are made.

Now, stop and look at yourself.

Whoring ourselves out to anything that can offer you a quick fix to your immediate pleasure.  Even in our most righteous state, we are still unimaginably self centered and dirty.

Really get in there, into the darkest recesses of your mind where no one but you can hear the most intimate desires of your heart.  Really focus on that for a second, is that desire for God?  Is that desire wholesome?  Is that desire a desire you honestly believe God looks favorably upon?  Sin, is in the heart, not the act.  By sheer desire for a thing, apart from God, we have committed idolatry.  Like disobedient children, we choose our own way, completely defiant and ignorant to the right punishment we deserve.

The wages of sin is death.  There is no other way to look at that.  Now hold that thought for a moment.

Perfect God, compared to fallen man.

Focus on this now for a moment.

We deserve nothing, nothing but wrath.

Really stop and be honest with yourself, innocence vs. guilt.  The guilty should die no?

Yes, by all rights we should die.  Yet, instead of wrath, instead of death, instead of destruction, we receive mercy?

Not only mercy, but we receive God himself, as a living sacrifice to atone for our sins.  To not only die for us, but to live the life we couldn’t possibly live.  One of perfection, of righteousness, then obediently take death on a cross, and separation from the perfect communion with the God head.

We not only received this INCREDIBLE salvation, but we also received a place alongside God as co-heirs to the throne.

We are not worthy.

We will never be worthy.

We owe our everything to God, for his mercy, for his steadfast love, for his promise, for his good nature, for himself.

So how do you love your neighbor?  The same way it began with God, and ends with God.  You love them the way God loves you.

Unendingly, sacrificially, mercifully.

So stinking busy…

On a more regular basis I’d like to keep a stream of technical write ups, gaming news, theological thoughts, and or general “what’s going ons” with me and my family.  However with a work trip to Houston last week and general slap busy nature of my work since returning home; I’ve not had any time to collect some thoughts and formulate them into a blog post.  I want to hit some high points, and perhaps elaborate on them more in future posts.

High point #1 Samba DC

Ok, so people who have known me for any extended amount of time (from the age of 16 to 30) knows that I’m a Linux fan.  My work and lively hood mind you thrive around a Microsoft world, but I will never sell Linux short, nor fail to marvel at the amazing things that a thriving community of passionate individuals can create.  I also maintain a Linux server out of my home to manage DNS, DHCP, VOIP (TeamSpeak) and File sharing (NFS, iSCSI, and SMB).  I will also, on occasion, bring up outward facing game servers.  Just recently I decided to convert that server into a SAMBA DC for my, primarily, Windows 7 environment at home.

I run CentOS as my server distribution, which is a downstream of RHEL.  I’m running Samba version 3.5.4, at the time of this writing 3.6 is the latest stable release but didn’t offer enough improvements for me to go outside of my natively distributed yum version.

Also, aside from a few changes to the registry and local security policy that had to be made on the client side of the machines, the migration was fairly painless.

The first change resolves the issue of Windows 7 being able to find the domain for insertion, and the security policy solves the issue of Domain Trust at login.  It’s also wise to disable the password reset of the machine to DC to avoid potential relationship issues.  I’d not seen this issue myself, but until I see a confirmation it’s resolved (supposedly coming in samba 4) I’ll err to the side of caution.

My next step will be to integrate Open LDAP functionality into the DC, and an Apache http server.  I assume these will be fairly painless projects, but for risk of breaking my current domain environment I’ll need to wait till I have the time to deal with a potential ldap migration failure.  I also don’t have a strong enough list of pros for it since this is just a home network.  Mind you it’s more sophisticated than the average home network, it just seems a bit over engineered.  As for the Apache server, I really want to get back into some web development so I’d like the internal server for development purposes….

 

service httpd start

Ok, so now I’m running an Apache server off my server as well.  Linux is so hard.

 

 

High point #2 Admin Studio 10

So I was in Houston last week.  I’m now “officially” trained to use Admin Studio 10 for package (msi, app-v, xenapp, and thinapp) development, repackaging, and migration.

So what does that mean?

Well as most of you know I work with a product from Microsoft called SCCM.  One of the primary features of SCCM is application deployment.

So what is application deployment?

Simply put, it’s installing applications to multiple machines over a network.

Ok, I think I see.  So why would you need to do package development to deploy packages?

Well, you don’t have to.  One could feasibly shoehorn an installer given by a vendor, but ideally you want to build out a standardized installer or load for your company.  For us that means I’ll be building MSIs, MSTs, and App-v packages.  As well as isolating application installs that might otherwise break functionality of OTHER applications they share hard drive space with.

Wait, what?  Isolate, break, huh?

Almost all applications rely on libraries.  Think of them as a set of shared instructions that applications go to when asked what to do.  Well in most cases these libraries are shared by multiple applications.  And, sometimes one application wants a vanilla library, and another wants a chocolate.  Well these apps will fight, and one of them will win and another one will lose.  By isolating them I can give them what they want so they don’t break the system, or each other.

Our company will also leverage App-v packages which are essentially virtualized installs of these applications that, although they run locally on the machine, they are actually virtualized (or encapsulated) and are separate from the actual operating system.  Xenapp and Thinapp do the same thing.  I’m particularly excited about application virtualization, it can come with a bit of overhead, but it’s nice and contained.

Ok, I stopped caring somewhere around chocolate and vanilla.

Yea I figured as much.  Either way, it is a tangible notch to my hard skill set and I’m glad that I was able to get it done.

 

 

 High point #3 Gospel in Life

What does a Gospel centered life look like?

What does it mean to be in the world but not of the world?

Is the Gospel as narrow minded to culture as people often proclaim it to be?

What does a Gospel centered community look like?

These are part of the current bible study I’m involved in with my brothers and sisters in Christ called Gospel in Life by Timothy Keller. It’s a great study that forces you to take a look at your heart, your life, and your community and compare it to what and how it is defined in the Gospel. I would recommend this study to anyone who is a believer. Even if the information isn’t new to you, as most of it hasn’t been for me, it’s still food for the soul. A reminder of the higher purpose we are called to as Christians.

Truthfully, I’d encourage non-believers as well to read this study. If for nothing else, than to hold Christians accountable to the teachings that we claim to believe.

 

 

High Point #4 Ignoring my Family

I’ve taken way to long to blog this, and my wife has informed me that I should blog about how I’ve ignored my family, to blog.

When she’s right she’s right.  Thank God for her gentle reminders.

 

Taking stock…

The job market continues to dwindle, government spending continues to rise, and people continue to go hungry.  Marriages crumble, lives are shattered, and hearts are broken.  Wars continue, and families fear for the safety of their loved ones.  Housing market falls, your monetary value shrinking with it, and your bills increase.  Traffic’s at a stand still, gas cost way too much to refill, and it’s all starting to make you feel ill.

So, let me ask this.  What is going right?

Two things we discussed yesterday in church, and it’s wholly gospel related.  Sovereign God, and God Centeredness.

As we see what is falling apart around us, failed machinations that our own sin filled hands have wrought, do we see what he is building?  If God is good and His will is perfect for the good of those who He has called to His purpose (glory); why aren’t we lamenting at his great work in us and around us?  If God is sovereign and we profess his sovereign nature, why don’t we get excited about the possibilities of what is to come when those derailments happen?  Why do we worry so much when we know that He is enough, and that our needs will be met. 

The answer?  God is not enough.

At least that is what our actions and our thoughts cry out as we fight and worry and complain about what is upon us, as if it were something we could control to begin with.  The chief end of man at that point becomes, survive at any cost.  Your focus is you and you’ve abandoned the God who made you.  I’ve abandoned the God who made me.

The truth of that statement is so simple, yet so profound, to realize that you continually fail.  That thought should invoke inside the Christian a heart of repentance and an awe for the grace that has been bestowed upon us.  To realize that we are incapable of saving ourselves, of being righteous and as God centered as we should.  We should be bursting at the seams with joy, to know that we are truly loved and forgiven.

So why aren’t we?

The only answer I have for that is one I find through prayer and scriptural meditation.  I’m designed to worship, but my sin nature drives me to seek immediate gratification.  I want the next best thing, not the one right thing.  My heart is fickle and prone to wander; and love like anything important, requires work.  I have to continually seek his face, to focus on what was done for me, and take stock of what is being done FOR me, and shift the perspective away from done TO me.  We also need to break away from our relative view of what is best for us and understand that we can’t know all angles.  Our God is good, and what is in store for us will be of like nature, and that is something we can rest in.