I have been reading in 1 Corinthians recently, and a few days ago, I read chapter 8. While I usually do not stop reading after three verses, I did this day. The first three verses of the chapter hit me really hard. I could not go on. I just had to sit there and meditate on it. It turned into a meditation I kept coming back to throughout the day. 1 Corinthians 8:1-3 says this:

Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we have all knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant but love edifies. If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know; but if anyone loves God, he is known by Him.

   This hit me hard because I am in a full-time pursuit of knowledge. I am studying at one of the elite ministry training schools in the world. I am on track to get a master's degree in two or three years from now. I am in a fast and furious frenzy to get lots of knowledge in a short amount of time. But this kind of knowledge could be dangerous if given the wrong place in my heart.

"I am smart. I know more than you.
Therefore, I have more power than you.
As a result, I am more important.

   In this passage, Paul contrasts two kinds of knowledge. He says knowledge makes arrogant. Here he is talking about "head knowledge." This is the kind of knowledge you would be talking about if you said, "I know that 2 + 2 = 4." This can be dangerous if allowed to gain the throne of your heart. It says, "I am smart. I know more than you. Therefore, I have more power than you (the old adage 'Knowledge is power,' is quite true). As a result, I am more important." This is when knowledge can get dangerous.

   The second kind of knowledge Paul discusses in this passage is "relational knowledge." It is the knowledge demonstrated in knowing God. This is the kind of knowledge you would be talking about if you said, "I know my dad." This is how we ought to know. When we know really know God, our pride is crushed because of how awesome God is, and love springs forth from our hearts.

   I believe it is totally possible that you can be a Christian, and have knowledge about God, but not really know him. I am not saying that you don't know him vaguely and distantly and don't have at least some diminutive relationship with him. Every Christian at least has that. But just like a friend you knew in first grade that you don't really know anymore and haven't talked to since then, it is possible to not really know God that much after knowing him initially when you were saved. And I think that Paul is trying to warn the Corinthian Christians against falling into the enticing trap of knowing about God but not really knowing God.

   This passage hit me really hard because I have certainly felt that relational distance from God lately because I have not spent much time with him. I overwhelmed my calendar with studying about him so much that I neglected getting to know him better. So this is what I wrote in my journal:

The kind of knowledge that really matters is knowing God. Lord, as I pursue academic excellence today, please let me excel far more in my knowledge of you. If you took school away from me, or worse, if you allowed me to fail at school, and in the process I got to know you much better, I would be supremely satisfied. Would you please draw near to me today? I desire you more than academic prowess, but I seem to still be distant from you, honestly. Please help me to draw near to you, precious Lord, I pray, no, I plead. I need you more than my next breath, more than anything.

   What about you? How well do you know God? Be honest. Are you satisfied with that?You will never get closer to him until you are honest about where you are now. Begin praying for the Lord to change your heart and draw you ever nearer to him. And you find that in his amazing grace, he will give you more than you ever asked for.

Adapted from my journal on September 13, 2012:

   I am thinking about the word Hosanna. So often when we sing it, I think we think it means "Praise God!" But it means the equivalent of "Lord, save me!" And if we knew what it meant, I wonder if we would sing it differently. I have definitely been singing it differently lately.

   I need God to save me. I mean, he already saved me at a justification level. But that's not what I mean. I need God to save me at a daily-save-me-from-myself-and-everything-pressuring-me level. I need him to save me from not being able to pay for school, my car, and food. I need him to save me from my own selfishness. I need him to save me from failure to complete my school work well. I need him to save me from my anger. I need him to save me from the agony of waiting... But most of all, I need him to save me from a failure to seek him, to feel his love, to love him back, to know him, and be close to him. I am in such danger of not being close to God.

I need God to save me.

   I need his salvation.

   Everyday.

   In everything.

   Hosanna!

   Sorry that it has been a while since I have written any post. I know many of you enjoy reading these. There has been a lot of transitions going on in my life that have kept me from being online, let alone blogging. The biggest of these transitions is my family's move to Chicago. Yes, that's right. My dad just recently got a job at the Moody Bible Institute as chief investment officer. So I am really excited for him, but the move down here is really stretching our time budgets. Thus the absence of any recent blog posts. But, I am glad to say that I am back to blogging, and really excited to share once again what is on my heart and what God is doing in me and those around me.

   Just like I have been experiencing recently, life never seems to let up. Whenever you think you have reached the end of your list - or are getting close - you look back at the list only to find a hundred more things life expects from you. It never seems to end. The days seem to blur together. The noise of life never ends. And after a while life looks like a child's painting - lots of things going on, but little of it makes any sense.

When we are distracted everywhere,
it becomes difficult to see God anywhere.

   In the middle of all this, it gets rather difficult to see God or to experience His presence. When our attention is stretched so thin, and when we are distracted everywhere - phones, texting, Facebook, Twitter, anything Google, apps, games, parties, sports, television, music, fashion, and so on - it becomes really difficult to see God anywhere. When we let our minds be intoxicated with so much stuff, our hearts are the part of us that begin the process of spiritual suffocation. It is slowly separated from being set on God because it always distracted. And after a while, our spiritual lives feel like they shrivel up and die.

   There is a band that I really like to listen to. The are called Welcome Wagon, and they have a song titled "Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing." I like the way that song title is phrased because it refers to so much more than sexual purity. Purity simply means nothing is present that would detract from the value of something. A diamond, for example, is pure when there are no defects or inclusions. And a heart is pure when love for God is all that fills it. There is nothing else in the will of the pure heart than to be with God and love him deeply.

   The bottom line is this: A heart that is purely filled with the love of God will do what it takes to remove the distractions.

   What are somethings that are distracting you from a closer relationship with God?

   May I lovingly encourage you to stop making excuses today, and put them away?

   The change starts now. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Resolve to put away the distractions.

The Source of all comfort
You are becoming to me.
When I am alone and weary
You will be my strength.
I need you in the battle
When I've fought my heart out,
And my spiritual sweat
Makes my armor slip off,
And I can't make it anymore.
You miraculously appear by my side
And pick me out of the mudpit.
You put my helmet back on.
You send me back into the fight.
"Why Lord? I can't do this.
I have nothing left.
In fact, I am going to quit
Right now."
"No. One more battle.
Give me your best. I am with you."
And his tender friendship comforts me,
And his fierce strength empowers me,
And his suffering love lifts me,
And his warm smile encourages me...
For one more fight.

Many grieve after the Aurora shooting
massacre, and wonder "Where was God?"

    About a week and a half ago, CNN posted a question on Twitter. They asked "Where was God in Aurora?"  They were referring to the recent shooting massacre at the showing of Batman: The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado. Within 24 hours, over 10,000 responses were submitted, and in a wide variety of theological conviction. I am not going to give you a sampling of what was said. If you want to read the whole article, you can find it here. I simply want to give my own evangelical response to this age-old question posed in modern terms.


    The question asked was, "Where was God in the Aurora massacre?" And many good answers were given: 

"He was in the hearts of the men jumping in front of others to take the bullet instead," 

"God was in complete control," 

or a little bit longer, 

"We as a country have been telling God to go away. We told him to get off our currency, get out of our schools, get out of our Pledge of Allegiance, take your Ten Commandments out of our courthouses, get those Bibles out of hotels and no graduation ceremonies in our churches. How can we expect God to give us his blessing and his protection if we demand that he leave us alone?"

    I have a short answer, and and a long answer. My short answer is this: He was in the exact same spot that He was 2000 years ago when He watched His son Jesus get brutally tortured, sentenced, and murdered by irreverent soldiers and religious leaders alike. He was right there sovereignly in charge of all things, and deeply grieving over the evil.

   But my long answer answers the question that I think CNN was really asking. I think they were really asking, "If God is omni-present (i.e. everywhere), good enough to hate evil, and powerful enough to stop it, why did He allow the horrendous evil to ever happen?" And this answer is a bit complicated, so buckle up.

   First, God did not create evil, nor does he approve of evil (Habakkuk 1:13). He is intrinsically opposed to evil. That is simply his nature as a holy God. So where did evil come from? It came from the free choice of man to reject God way back in Genesis. So wait... How could God be sovereign over all, yet give man a free choice? Picture this, you have two daughters. One of them is your direct descendant, and one is a bio-chemically engineered robot who is programmed to do what you want. So you program the robot daughter to say "DADDY!!!" and hug you every hour. But your biological daughter does that every day when you arrive home from work. Which one do you feel loved by? Obviously, you real daughter. Why? Because she freely chose to elevate you in her affections. If God simply made everyone perfect and unable to make mistakes, we would not be able to love Him because real love requires a free will to exist. So God made us with the free choice to love, but with that free choice to love God also comes the free choice to reject Him. And that is what happened on July 20th in Aurora, Colorado. Rejection of God and his standards was made gruesomely evident. So God is not the author of evil.

    Second, God is present in the world restraining evil (2 Thessalonians 2:7). In other words, the evil that is present in this world could be much, much worse were God not alive and active on planet earth. But the question remains, if God hates evil, why does he not stop it with His infinite power? Answer: if he did, man would no longer have the free choice to choose to love God. Therefore, evil remains.

Jesus bore the full, infinite wrath of God
on the cross, so we wouldn't have to!

    However, all is not lost. There is a solution! There is a cure for the rampant evil in this world. But this only cure comes in individual doses. And it is found in Jesus Christ. As I mentioned earlier, God watched as His son Jesus was crucified by sinfully "religious" men. Why? To save men from the consequence of their evil. Believe it or not, every person on earth is sinful enough to deserve the just and infinite wrath of a holy, offended God. According to Romans 3:23 and Romans 6:23, every person to ever lived is infected with a poison called sin, and this poison leads every man right down the path to eternal death, aka hell. But God offers everyone the free gift of salvation. And the basis of that gift is what Jesus did on the cross 2000 years ago, so we wouldn't have to (even though we could never pay the infinite price for our sin). When he died, he bore all of God's wrath against every sin of man for all time. He paid the price! You don't have to. All you have to do is believe in Jesus and repent of your sin. If you do this, your sinful record will be erased, and the spotless, clean record of Jesus will be applied to you. So when God sees you, he no longer sees a sinner deserving hell, but a forgiven child of His who receives His crazy, amazing, undeserved, unhindered, unbound, infinite love.

    God also promises hope for a world-wide cure to evil. This will come when Jesus returns to earth and takes every person who has believed in Him and repented of their sin to sinless paradise with Him. On that day, He will justly and mercilessly crush all evil, and restore creation to sinless harmony. This is why I urge all to repent and believe while there is still time. There isn't much time left. I am excited for Him to come back, and I hope you can join me in saying, "Hallelujah! Lord, Jesus come quickly!" If you don't know whether or not you can say this, I strongly invite you to contact me at brantcole13@gmail.com. I would love to talk to you. Or you can call 1-800-NEED-HIM. This is not a decision you can afford to put off. If you are confident in the hope of eternal life, this, my friend, is a time for much rejoicing!

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Why do we flock to watch senseless evil?

    And just one more thought: if we are so eager to endorse, and buy tickets for, and make posters of, and plaster logos of, and stand in ginormous lines to watch senseless evil for hours in a movie like The Dark Knight Rises, why are we so horrified when it happens in real life for just a few minutes? Interact with me on this one in the comments below!