processing others' thoughts...

it's kinda been a boring couple of days to start the week.
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the highlight... and also the downlight... of my day yesterday was a little research i did on jeffrey dahmer and ted bundy. i happened upon dahmer's story as i saw in the news one of his "almost victims" had been an accomplice to murder. i thought to myself "you know - i really don't know the dahmer story other than what i've heard from others." if you want to make yourself sick, read about these guys. part of you wants to understand them, but most of you (i hope) doesn't want to... either way, it's sickeningly fascinating!
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today was better in that regard, though schedule-wise, there's nothing really going on.
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for my usual prayer time this morning, i decided i wasn't going to "request" anything from God. i was only going to worship Him, thank Him, etc. it's all about Him anyway, but i wanted this to be an exercise in putting Him ahead of myself in prayer. if you've never tried this, i think you'll find it hard. i did! try praying without even asking for His forgiveness for the daily sin(s) you've accumulated. don't even pray for other people. just worship. unfortunately, prayer time was a bit short this morning... but i had told God it wasn't about me this morning.
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i've really enjoyed getting to know john piper's teachings on God, the bible, etc. lately. in reading radical, it has been awesome hearing platt reaffirm things i've learned from piper. for instance, i had never thought of it before, but God's main purpose throughout history has been to glorify Himself. after all, if He didn't seek to glorify Himself, then why would He teach us to do the same? wouldn't He be a hypocrite? and besides... who IS He supposed to worship if not Himself?
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also - many people think the gospel of Christ is about God loving us and sending His Son to die for us... which is true... in part. we tend to drop the latter part of the gospel... God loved the people of the world so much that He sent Christ to die... so that He may be glorified. if God's purpose is to glorify Himself, then why not turn sinners from their evil ways, not by their own doing, but by God's doing... it sounds like that glorifies God to me.
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(i hope i'm wording all of this adequately...)
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another thing that hit me today was our idea of "holiness". not God's holiness, but ours as humans. platt pointed out that we tend to define christian holiness as what we don't do; however, it should be defined by what we DO. in matthew 28, Christ, tells us go... baptize... make disciples... not don't do this or that. as platt puts it, we are disinfecting rather than discipling. it's true that there are things we shouldn't do as followers of Christ... BUT, that shouldn't be what defines us alone.
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anyway - if you want to read about it, i recommend the guys that wrote it. the above is just my short thoughts on how i'm processing it all.
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favorite bible verse read today: "Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world." (Jesus - john 17:24)
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no pictures today. as always, i encourage you to think of something beautiful and pretend i took the picture for you to view... unless it's inappropriate... then we need to have a different conversation...