For my Biblical Theology of Worship class I had to choose to write a hymn, poem or some other form of artistic work as means to worship and so I chose to write a poem...my first ever. I know poems don't have to rhyme, but I don't know how to write poems that sound cool without doing it, so here it is. Please be gracious, it's my first, and feel free to give me some pointers.
From Death to Life (Ephesians 1 & 2, Isaiah 53, Romans 10:9)
Day by day and night by night my heart whored out to people and possession. The people and objects changed over time, but my love for them never lessened.
A child of wrath, all my passions and desires given over to my flesh and to my body. I was chosen even though I was lifeless, lost in transgression but in Christ I am now lively.
The Father has chosen me before anything has been made, before any mountain, sea or sky. I was made to be holy and blameless before Him, predestined to be adopted, thus Jesus had to die.
On the cross His blood was shed, redemption and forgiveness are now mine, like the adulterous woman about to be stoned as Jesus crouched and wrote...maybe lines.
He was despised and rejected by men; I am ashamed to admit that I was one of them. "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace."
The truth I have now heard, the gospel of my salvation has sealed me with the promised Holy Spirit. By grace I have been saved, none of this is of my own merit.
Day by day and night by night my heart whored out to people and possession, New days are here and truth is known, now this is my confession...
"Jesus Christ is Lord!" This is what I believe in my heart, "God raised him from the dead!"
"On the day when you feel as though you'll never get it, you'll never please him, you're such a failure, you must remember the lavish gift: his great heart pumped blood through his veins and then out his wounds so that he could bless you. This perfect blood streamed down his body and tumbled through space, pooling on the earth beneath his feet. It was trampled on by those who stood below jeering. It mingled with the dirt he had created, and from it grew your hope. And then, on the days when you believe you're finally getting it, finally pleasing him, when you think you can look in satisfaction at your goodness, you'll need to look at that blood even more closely. Take yourself to Calvary and stand there until all your good works seem to you as they really are: vile sludge purified only by his cleansing flow."
"When we look inward, we live by the subjective, the temporal, the ever-changing, the unreliable, the likely-to-be-false. When we look outward, to the gospel, we live by the objective, the never changing, that which is perfectly reliable and always completely true. Our life in Christ is based on objective truth, and the chief truth among the innumerable glorious truths of Scripture is that Jesus died for your sins. That's the heart of the gospel."
This guy always has me on the verge of tears when I listen to him preach/teach/speak, not because he's flashy, not because he's cool, not because of the eloquence of his speech, but because they use cool music in his videos, but because I am always reminded of Jesus and what he has done in spite of who I am. Praise God for using Tim Keller.
“The Bible’s purpose is not so much to show you how to live a good life. The Bible’s purpose is to show you how God’s grace breaks into your life against your will and saves you from the sin and brokenness otherwise you would never be able to overcome… religion is ‘if you obey, then you will be accepted’. But the Gospel is, ‘if you are absolutely accepted, and sure you’re accepted, only then will you ever begin to obey’. Those are two utterly different things. Every page of the Bible shows the difference.”
It's been one calendar year since I've moved out to Louisville, KY and I still can't believe it. Kentucky is only good for chicken and Papa John's pizza (i bet you didnt know that!), right? The area has begun to grow on me, but home is home and I miss it. I miss family, friends, diversity, continental pizza & subs on New Hampshire Ave and the always overlooked Popeye's on Georgia with the buy 20 pieces get 20 free coupons. Before coming out to school here I thought that I could come into the school and learn without being conformed by the people around me. I've slowly begun to realize more and more that the hyper conservative, southern baptist bubble has influenced me more than I ever thought. Theologically I don't think I've run into many things that challenged my previous beliefs and the many new things that I've learned seem to fit well with what I already believe to be true and I believe that the professors do their very best to be biblical, but I have caught myself conforming to a hint of coldness that can sometimes be felt on campus. Theological nerds who scoff at people who would even think about picking up books written by certain authors and Arminians are treated as heretics...this is the kind of chill felt even on warm June nights. The thing is that I have discovered that I started to become like the people I never wanted to become, a Christian who talks more than he walks. I found myself criticizing my sister's church because it had all the tells of an emergent church and was ashamed to tell people at school that I enjoyed "Blue Like Jazz". I have learned that I am a Calvinist and I do understand the dangers found in the teachings of some of these books, but I do not think that these beliefs are the source of coldness...it's because I began to get caught up in secondary issues that have nothing to do with the gospel, but was treating them like they were gospel. I took the advice of some professors and other pastors to start out my first ministry position by preaching through a book of the Bible and it is through the preaching of the Gospel of John that has had me come to realize this....my viewpoints have not changed and my pretty super conservativeness has not changed, but remembering that Jesus Christ, the Son of God who came down to earth as man to die for and in my place for the sins that I and all of man have committed and rose again after three days, defeating sin and death, ascended to heaven and will come back one day is what the gospel is. I still do believe that I need to work through and think through secondary issues, but the gospel of Jesus Christ is central...he kept repeating it over and over and over again throughout John that he is God and that we must place our trust in him. That life is only found in him. How is it that I can have this smug attitude towards people while I have been saved completely by grace? I hope that after I am done with my schooling here that my life would be filled with both GRACE and TRUTH like my Savior.
Jinwoo Chung
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. - John 1:14
