objective beauty

Great post I just read. I was really excited reading this as defining the "beauty" of God is something I am passionate about.

the paradox I live by

I feel like I need to clarify some things. The name of my blog is "reverence of the mysterious" and I want to explain the title and what it means to me. I would like say that I do not subscribe to the popular belief today that God is a great mystery that cannot be known with certainty. I believe in certainty. I think that is what makes Yahweh unique among other "gods". He has chosen to reveal himself. The reason we have the Bible is because God chose to reveal himself through human words. God is knowable and I do not buy into the false humility that comes with admitting that you are uncertain of all your theology. However, I am only 18 years old as I write this and I am uncertain about many of my beliefs and theology. I am at the stage of life where I am just starting to learn about who God is and exploring and defining what I believe. But I believe this journey will lead me somewhere and it will lead me to a place where I can define assuredly some things that I believe about God.

But in all this I would like to point out the reality that God is beyond human understanding and this is what makes God beautiful to me. He is mysterious and wonderful and I love exploring the things about him that I know I will never fully understand. So here is the paradox I live by: God is knowable and I can have certainty about what he reveals about himself in scripture yet God is also mysterious and beyond me and there are many things I cannot know about him. So my blog title means that I can know things about God, his character, how he relates to man, and what he demands of me; this is why I have the ability to stand in awe of him in "reverence". But it also means that He is a God who I see as beautifully "mysterious" and I love pursuing this being that is beyond my understanding.

kingdom epiphany

Jesus came two millenniums ago and proclaimed a kingdom. He preached the idea that the Kingdom of Yahweh was here. And the reality of this just dawned on me tonight in a new way while I was reading Matthew. God's kingdom is now. Now is the time. I do believe in a future kingdom, where Jesus will return to earth in bodily form and recreate earth, but the kingdom here and now is what will affect the future kingdom. I think Christian like to get caught up in morality and "living right". We get obsessed with being "good" when that means nothing unless it goes hand in hand with being a servant in the Kingdom. I have been struggling with uncertainty about what God wants me to do in certain aspects of my life but I feel like this sheds new light. Yahweh is calling me to pursue him and live for his kingdom and he will take care of the rest. I can be patient and trust God to be in control of my life. I can surrender control of my life to him. I know this might all sound very basic and simple, especially to those of you who grew up in a Christian church, but it has a renewed meaning to me right now. There is so much freedom in a life where proclaiming the reality of the Kingdom is all that life is about. My relationships are about showing the kingdom, my schooling is about showing the kingdom, my leisure is about showing the kingdom, my morality is about showing the kingdom, my money is about showing this kingdom, my time is about showing this kingdom, etc. I have noticed that it is such a struggle for me to living every hour with this kingdom in mind. There is still a part of me that is living for my own desires. I want the high calling of being a Kingdom servant to break me free from this.

"If Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is at hand, and I believed it, would it be possible for me to proceed upon ambitions and desires that were more important to me than the ushering-in of that Kingdom?" -Nate(intothedesertblog.blogspot.com)

the purpose of earthly pleasure

“Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.” (C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity)