Travis_Mitchell's Xanga

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 00:17:16 GMT

I'm bringing Xanga back - drop a comment if you're with me!

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:11:12 GMT

Sorry, guys. But from now on I will simply post new entries at steppinginfaith.com. If you'd like to read and it's worth the click to you, go check it out!

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Tue, 31 Oct 2006 16:17:32 GMT

Happy Reformation Day, World

This entry was originally published at Stepping in Faith

About five-hundred years ago the Church’s cage got rattled. Martin Luther, among many, helped to lead many away from a tradition-driven understanding of Christianity and into an understanding of God as Sovereign, Holy and Gracious. The God that Luther described was one who offered salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone and to the glory of God alone. We refer to that time as the Reformation.

How much has the Reformation affected my life? Probably more than I’ll ever know. This is because the Reformation was not about politics or power. It was about the gospel. It was about truth. Could the free access that I received to the true gospel be anything more than infinitely valuable to the state of my entire existence? Not likely. And this may well not have happened had the Reformation not happened. Thus if the Christian God is real, and Jesus was his son – if the bible is real, and not fabricated – if salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone – if Jesus rose from the dead (he rose!) – then the Reformation has to be one of the most important events in Christian history. It just has to.

Yet even still, the battle for gospel truth is not one that we should primarily view as having been won or lost in times past, but rather, as one that is always being waged, everyday. This is because people still don’t get it – the gospel, that is. They’re all over the map, too, in their mishandlings of Truth.

People still hang themselves in their traditions.

People still don’t think they need to repent to be saved.

People still try to earn God’s love and work for their salvation.

People still look at the cross like they look at their coffee: a little tart, but culturally beneficial.

People still ask good questions, and give wrong answers.

People still use God as a means to fame and fortune.

People still hang themselves in their traditions.

So happy Reformation Day, world. Happy “I know the greatest truths conceivable” day. Happy “don’t think for one moment that life is about your traditions” day. Today we Christians celebrate the freedom of Christ through the work of his gospel. Today we celebrate the imponderable thought that by grace, he died for us, and through faith, his death atones for us, and in the end, our calling is simple; love the gospel, because God is the gospel. Love people, because God loves people. Love grace, because grace is everything. And share the gospel, because the gospel is precious, and it’s true!

...more about the Reformation here...

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Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 16:21:45 GMT

Onward Christian Soldier!

This entry was originally published at Stepping in Faith

About two years ago my life took an upward turn of infinite proportions. Within a moment everything I thought I knew about love and morality and purpose and God all changed. No longer did I have locked in my heart a desire for the selfish gratifications of lust, greed and pride. No; something absolutely fundamental to my being changed. I, by the sovereign grace of God, was born again to a living hope. The bondage of sin that enslaved my soul was broken; done away with. In Christ I died. With him I was buried. With him I was raised.

…and that’s when the war began.

As Christian’s we must understand that before our conversion we laid on eternity’s battlefield as though dead and conquered. There was no battle; no struggle. We had no armour with which to cover our flesh, nor muscle to cover our bones, nor breath to fill our lungs. It was as though the enemy needn’t know we existed, for the slain pose no threat to anyone. Indeed our lifeless bodies served only as a footstool for the enemy to gloat about on. Oh what pitiful creatures we were! Blind to all movements of God and numb to all jabbings and mockeries of the enemy!

And then – altogether instantly – our eyes were opened, our lungs were filled and our muscles found foreign strength and tightened up. Yes, and even then, at that same moment, armour and weaponry were made available to us. The enemy, who had since Adam gloried at our demise, turned a sharp, unbelieving eye, to the resurrected soldier that stood, sword in hand, on the field he thought was his.

This is why we still struggle with sin! We struggle because of grace; grace to see and fight the wickedness that pervades us. Before we couldn’t see the battle all around us. Now we fight! Now we resist! And there can be tactical defeats through the course of a war, but by the grace of God through faith in Christ, brethren, we will conquer! And so my prayer is that today you will press on to know the Lord and resist the devil with all your God-given might!

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Saturday, October 07, 2006

Sat, 07 Oct 2006 17:29:46 GMT

The Self Component

This entry was originally published at Stepping in Faith

I have been thinking a lot lately about this comment given by Meghan a few days ago on the post entitled "The 'Half Truth'." I quote: Lately I have seen a huge trend of looking at the Lord like we would look at a textbook or a math problem, and discussing him accordingly. And sometimes that is good — sometimes we need to wrestle in our minds with the idea that God could have ordained sin, or with the seeming contradiction in the fact that God’s will is never thwarted, yet we His children quench His Spirit.

BUT…I so rarely see, in myself or others around me, a passionate discussion about the depths of our God from the foundation of our hearts, rather than our minds. Maybe it’s safer to stand on intellectual thinking than to be vulnerable and acknowledge feelings such as love and fear, or maybe we are honestly forgetting that our God is deeply emotional.

My initial reaction to this line of thinking is something of a negative one. Certainly God can be academically approached in such a way that the emotions – the “love and fear” idea – follow closely on the heels of the mind. God can be approached like a textbook, I would respond, because the mind’s laboring and the heart’s feeling are inseparably intertwined. Thus in order to “love and fear” God rightly we must think on and know Him rightly. I am afraid that much of our evangelical culture has missed this connection. We think that the mind and the heart are somehow separate from one another. This is simply not the case.

Yet after meditating on this comment a little longer, another reaction surfaced, and this time it hit me with loads of conviction. Though I still hold to the previous paragraph, notice a sentence in Meghan’s comment one more time: Maybe it’s safer to stand on intellectual thinking than to be vulnerable and acknowledge feelings such as love and fear…. Do you see what I missed? There is a link between "be vulnerable" and "acknowledge feelings" that I believe deserves every Christian’s full attention. If we, as believers, approach God and life merely through books, sermons, debates, high theological paradigms -- or even doctrines of love and doctrines of fear -- I think we may be missing a critical component to it all. This component is not taught to us or proported by us, it IS us. Reflecting on and acknowledging our personal fears and loves and joys and aches are so important to the Christian life because God is a deeply personal God who desires for us to approach him in personal ways.

Bottom line -- life is personal; it is replete with deep emotions, hard relationships, terrifying situations, glorious victories, happy endings, sad endings, seasons of grief, seasons of joy, and countless other circumstances that God is jealous for us to meditate on and vulnerably offer up to him in worship. This, my friends, cannot be accomplished through mere academic muscle. It just can't.

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Saturday, October 07, 2006

Sat, 07 Oct 2006 15:51:31 GMT

Testimony: Wings of the Wind

This entry was originally published at Stepping in Faith

Jay Whisnand, a Christian worker in China and friend of mine, reflects on Psalm 104:3:

A couple of years ago a friend of mine was going through a hard time in her life. Her dad had died suddenly while she was at college. He had become a Christian a couple years before that, but this was a still a hard time in her life. A week or so later after she had returned to school, I saw her on campus sitting on a bench reading her Bible. I walked up to her and asked her what she was reading. She said “He walks on the wings of the wind.” And then asked me, “Do you feel that wind today?”

I came across this verse again just now and was reminded by my friend again that Jesus walks on the wings of the wind. He is all around us. He is near. That is a comforting statement to me. Next time you go outside and feel the breeze hit you, I hope you think of this verse and find joy in that truth.

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Friday, October 06, 2006

Fri, 06 Oct 2006 16:59:31 GMT

Linking Up (10/6)

This entry was originally published at Stepping in Faith

Books: Christianity Today has compiled their take on The Top 50 Books That Have Shaped Evangelicals. Though a few of their choices may leave you thinking, "?", there are several books on this list worth noting.

Poetry: Candice Martin writes some great poetry.

Debate: For those who only read the RSS of this site and never check out the comments, you may be missing out on one of the best discussions I have seen in the blogosphere of late.

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Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 15:42:54 GMT

On the Cutting Edge…

This entry was originally published at Stepping in Faith

Kyle Hoover, University Minister at Central Baptist Church, has apparently found the secret to growing a successful church-based college ministry: small group bible studies.Â Man, why didn’t I think of that!Â This article, published a few years ago by Lifeway, chronicles the growth and purpose of the University Ministry’s largest activity called Logos.Â (HT: Fillup)

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Saturday, September 30, 2006

Sat, 30 Sep 2006 16:06:59 GMT

The Poison of the ‘Half-Truth’

This entry was originally published at Stepping in Faith

I believe it to be true that knowing something halfway can be worse than not knowing something at all. Don't get me wrong -- I agree that discernment is probably most poignantly expressed by a person’s ability to sift through life’s ‘gold and pyrite’ until only ‘gold’ is left. But I also believe it would be a fearful thing to decide a person’s fate with only half the story made available, for it is my opinion that errors in judgment are most often made not because the facts were mishandled, but because the whole of them were never surfaced. Add in a dash of presupposition with your half-truth and you may well have concocted a bowl of self-deception of the worst kind. Better is it for a man to know nothing at all than to know something all wrong.

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Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Tue, 26 Sep 2006 22:19:44 GMT

On Productivity

This entry was originally published at Stepping in Faith

There is something about a productive and fruitful day that helps line up the fragmented emotions of the soul. Now I’m not arguing that a person’s emotional health is dependant on how many hours he or she puts in in a day. I’m not even arguing that there is a stiff correlation here. What I am arguing is that, to some degree or another, the right kind and amount of productivity can aid in setting the heart to rest for a time. In my own limited experience I have noticed this trend. A man who spends his day working hard on the things the Lord has called him to will probably find a resulting peace -- and maybe even guidance -- in the situations he may or may not be in control of. This seems to be the biblical way of things, too, for surely worrying adds no days to our short lives (Matt 6:27). It seems that it can actually even have a counter effect. I find it ironic that a man can actually hasten his death by fretting over it too much.

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