Verses from GrandCon Service

Hey guys!

The Chapel Service at Grand Con was excellent. We were a small group of 10 with a baby in tow. We sang a couple songs, enjoyed the Communion together, and I gave a message on God terraforming our hearts. I did record it and I do hope to get it up on You Tube but I do not have a timeline for that.

I had planned on using a projector, but that did not work out. As I went through many verses to help us get an understanding of how God cares about our hearts, I thought I would leave them here for you to ponder.



The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.

Genesis 6:5-6

Yet the Lord set his affection on your ancestors and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations--as it is today. Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes.

Duet. 10:15-17

Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.

Duet. 11:18

 

But be very careful to keep the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the Lord gave you: to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to keep his commands, to hold fast to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

Joshua 22:5

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

Proverbs 4:23

For this is what the high and exalted One says— he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.

Isaiah 57:15

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

Ezekiel 36:26

Stories and Truth

Greetings Nerds of the High King.

So I just found an article on comicbook.com about a very interesting new class being offered in the spring term of 2015 at the University of Baltimore. This is a class on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yes, that is right. A class on Marvel movies such as the Avengers, Captain America and even Guardians of the Galaxy. This is being taught by a professor who has taught classes on Comic Book history and Zombies. The University's statement announcing the class can be read here. 

The class will focus, in large part, on the inter-connectedness of the universe being built in these movies but also on the ideals and perspectives on modern issues found in them. I think this sounds like a fantastic class. There are many thoughts to be pulled from these movies about modern issues, ethics, etc.

The Professor, Arnold T. Blumberg, was quoted on the Univ. of Baltimore as saying this:

"Every generation has a modern media mythology that serves as a framework for entertaining as well as educating about ethics, morality, issues of race, gender, class, and so on," he says. "For the past several years, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings have served in that role for tens of millions. When I was younger, it was the first Star Wars series, which I saw in the theater. For me, that saga—along with many other science fiction stories—provided that essential exploration of the hero journey, the struggle of good vs. evil, in a mainstream pop culture context."

Why does every generation have stories like this? I have a simple answer for you: truth can not be ignored. We live in an epic universe, but we don't believe it is epic. God created this vast universe, gave us a great opportunity to follow Him. We chose our own way, with a little help from a dangerous being who was jealous of God. So God sent His son to come to us. To teach us, train us, and love us; but ultimately to pay a heavy price so we could be back in relationship with God.

Some people do not believe in a spiritual realm. They have all sorts of ideals of what truth is, but they don't want to see the Truth Definer.

In Romans 2:14,15 we find out that:

Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.

God has placed bits of truth and woven them in our various cultures on Earth. Unfortunately the devil also wove some lies amongst many of those same truths. I encourage you to hold fast to the Bible for:

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 2 Timothy 3:16

The Holy Spirit is also sent to us to comfort us and protect us and train us. When we put these two together we become strong in the Christ. Life is epic. God has an amazing story and adventure for you. Do not miss out on it!


 

Cosplaying and Worship

In the last post we considered that Jesus has far more to offer us than we realize. A woman at the well found this out in meeting Him. Now we conclude our look though John 4.

As the woman realizes there is a lot more to this man, she begins to wonder why this Jewish man would come to her little town. "You Jews say we should worship in Jerusalem but our ancestors worshiped on this mountain." Now, this is kind of like board gamers asking "Should we go to Gen Con or Essen?" For others it might be like "Should we go to Dragon Con or Wizard World?" Jesus takes this deeper than a location. 

"...believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is coming and we must worship Him in spirit and in truth." John 4:21-24

This idea of Spirit and Truth is a big one. This means the worship will go beyond sincere to something "corresponding to the nature of its object." (Vincent's Word Studies) The Bible tells us many things about God. He is love. He upholds justice. He hates sin but gives mercy. In order to worship Him, you have to seek after God just like you learn about a character you are cosplaying. 

When you cosplay, you choose a character you love. A character you enjoy reading, watching. Often it is one you find to be a great example of a value that means something to you. Then begins the process of creating or ordering a costume that fits the character. In worship, we see the nature and the values of God and we uplift them. This happens in song, lifestyle, conversation. We tend to only focus on the singing part of worship. But when we vocalize something of the nature of God, whether in private or in a conversation, we are worshiping Him. As a cosplayer you will try to pose and act like the character, but in worship we seek to live a lifestyle that reflects Christ.

So to worship, you need to get to know Him. This is why worship leaders often start with a scripture. As we learn Who God is and reflect on that, worship becomes more meaningful.
 
This weekend (Sept. 19-21, 2014) is GRAND CON! Nerd Chapel is excited to provide a Sunday morning worship experience for those attending the convention at 9am. Come and join us as we discuss "Terraforming the Heart" and as we worship the God we are continuing to learn about.

Kheb and Christ

Today is  flurry of details as I get read for the Church service at Grand Con. I am excited for what God is going to do as we come to worship Him and step closer to Him.

How recently have you read the story of Jesus meeting with the Samaritan woman? He was resting next to a well and she came to find water for her household. The story can be found in John 4. Jesus asks her for some water, as he does not have any way of getting it. In their conversation a couple things stand out to me. Today we look at Jesus provision for us and next time we will look at their discussion of worship.

First of all, Jesus was coming across lines here. Men did not speak to women and Jews did not associate with Samaritans. So this was a huge moment as Jesus met with her and broke down these walls. He also revealed that he knew about her sin, but was still interested in talking with her and spending time with her. Jesus tells her "If you knew who I was, you would ask me, and I would give you living water. You would never be thirsty again; indeed this water would lead to eternal life."

In trying to imagine how she felt, I think about SG-1 visiting a monk in an episode called "Maternal Instincts". Daniel Jackson and the team are looking for the Harsesis, a son of Sharee/Amunet and Apophis that has all the knowledge of the Goa'uld. They come to Kheb, a place where people are welcome to come and learn to ascend to a different plane of existence.  

Found on the Stargate Wiki

Daniel Jackson has quite an experience talking with a monk and eventually meets an ascended being he eventually comes to know as Oma Desala. As Daniel tries to learn their ways, he gets frustrated (although not as much as O'Neill does). The guy keeps using confusing sayings to express his ideas. Daniel soon realizes that they are so much more than he ever thought and that there is so much out there he does not know about. As he sees this, a Goa'uld army gets closer and closer, but when they arrive the ascended being destroys all of them, and even gliders, with lightning. Daniel finally realizes what they were saying: The Harsesis child is better off with us. But more than that SG-1 was opened to a whole new perception of the universe.

Jesus is saying that he has far more to offer than we can hope or imagine. More hope, joy, lessons, protection, mind blowing ideas and experiences than we will ever understand. Sometimes we get frustrated by Jesus. Looking at some of His sayings in John (i.e. "I am the Bread of Life" or "watch out for the yeast of the pharisees) we feel a little bit lost. His disciples sure did! But Jesus has so much love, mercy, and even deep truth just waiting for us! He just wants to walk with us through all this and show you what He has for you.

Do Good to the Those Who Exterminate You

So I've been watching a lot of Doctor Who lately. Over the summer I watched much of the classic Who available on Netflix, including quite a bit of the "Key to Time" storyline. Lately I've been watching "Nu Who".

Announcing that the Master will be in "The End of Time".

Today I watched both "The End of Time" which is our last storyline with Mr. Tennant (apart from "The Time of the Doctor" 50th Ann. Special) and also "Into the Dalek"; our second full experience with Mr. Capaldi on Doctor Who.

What has been amazing to watch is how both these story-lines show an attempt to win over a mortal enemy. In "The End of Time" the Doctor takes on the Master. The Master has implanted himself into all humans around the world through a device that was part of a space ship that fell. He intends, as always, to take over the universe.

"You are so brilliant. So beautiful" Says the Doctor. "Come with me. You don't need to own the whole universe; just see it!" He tries so hard to get the Master to change. Of course, the Master refuses and the Doctor has to run away for a time while he figures out what to do.

Jesus said the following about enemies:

"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. "If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. "If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount." Luke 6:32-34
                                                                                                                  

In "Into the Dalek" we have this weird experience of a Dalek that has seen that Dalek's must be stopped. He is damaged and the Doctor and a few people actually miniaturize to go inside the Dalek to find what is wrong and fix it. The Dalek, who was named Rusty by the Doctor, talks of seeing the birth of a star. "Resistance is futile" he says, trying to explain to the Doctor that as much as Daleks try to destroy life, it will always be rebuilding itself.

After repairing the Dalek, it starts back into normal "dalekism". Rusty starts attacking the rest of the ship's crew and then sends out a signal to a large Dalek ship which brings more Daleks on board. While the Doctor starts to point out how evil Daleks always are, Clara looks at him. "Is that what we've learned here today?" she asks him. No. It isn't.

Found on Denofgeek.com

What we learned is that even Daleks can be reached; at least to a point. As Clara climbs around in a Dalek's memory center to bring back the image of a star being born; the Doctor goes to be face to face with Rusty and gives him a link to his mind.

After seeing the beauty of a star being born and seeing more beauty in the Doctor's mind; he starts a change of mind. Now, the Dalek doesn't quite take the lesson as the Doctor wants him to...but he does change. He stops the Dalek attack on the Aristotle and changes to a new trajectory in life. Unfortunately the most impacting find in the Doctor's mind was his hatred of Daleks.

Jesus told us to pray for those who persecute us and love those who hate us. This is hard to live out. As the song "Jesus, Friend of Sinners" by Casting Crowns says:

"No one knows what we're for only against when we judge the wounded
What if we put down our signs crossed over the lines and loved like you did"

You don't have to start big. You can start small, like saying "hi" or getting someone a cup of coffee or water. But Jesus calls us to start somewhere.