Monday, May 21, 2012

Faithfulness


Disclaimer: This was not just for this blog. It was an Omni assignment. I just thought I'd post it cause I liked it decently well. It's from Daniel

Faithfulness is the power of the Holy Spirit coming to rest, as bestowed by God upon us. And in Daniel, every single faithful thing is worked through that Spirit. Whenever you see Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, or Abednego standing firm against any adversity while doing what God commands, God is showing us in His Word how His Spirit can take cooked noodles and turn them into unyielding steel. So since faithfulness makes this steadfastness actually possible, what are really these Heroes? People transformed by God’s Grace, Hope, and Truth, led by and enabled by the Spirit. All through the book when these heroes pop up, namely Daniel the multiple times, you’re really seeing God’s Spirit at work to instill Faithfulness in His Believers. Faithfulness is not just the disassociated sort of abstract trust that you might think that you have in God upon becoming a believer (the devil himself has this so called “faith” in God, knowing he’s there as God in all His Being); but Faithfulness, like Love, and all other Fruits of the Spirit, is a verb, implying, commanding, entailing, and MEANING action. It is not faithfulness without constantly ACTING it out. Not just admitting to the Gospel, though that’s a great part, it’s living it out, come what may. And it doesn’t matter an iota what God starts with, because God’s Strength is so far above ours that any greater or smaller strength on a human scale is completely irrelevant. His Holy Spirit transforms all those who truly receive it, to give them not a transformed Spirit and Heart, but a new one.  And when you’re a new person, you can do new things. God puts HIMSELF into you so your Spirit is only HIs, work-completed, and therefore everything about you is His alone. Daniel says to us, “See what ‘I’ just did? You can do it too, because I’m not the one doing it. It’s God. And if He can work through me, He can work through you too.” Faithfulness is the fuel for our Christian lives, and it’s always infinitely available. Without it, no one can hope to achieve God’s Commands.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Long due










From the title, you might think I'm sad that I haven't posted in a while. I'm not at all. I have a life, you see. But, as it happens, my life involves time enough for worthless action, such as this is. Hence the worthless action to come. I'm posting some adorable pictures of my puppy (not really a puppy, actually a full grown dog, but I call her puppy.), Snickers. Or Snick. Or Idiot. Or even "Oops." She comes running at the mere mention of "oops." Or Whoops. Or *gasp*. Even, AAAAAAA, my mom's OH NO, or lily's giggle. She knows very intuitively the sort of exclamation which means, "I've just dropped tasty num-nums on the floor." Therefore, she appears apparitionally and extremely punctually at the very spot which has the food, freshly dropped. In other words, pronto. So here it is, from yesterday morning.
Cuteness abound!
~Aaron