I love you all, more than you know.  My gifting and passion is primarily teaching and writing.  My great desire in my ministry for you all, is that by the grace of God, He might use me to reveal some measure of Truth as to who He is.  The mystery of our sanctification, is that by the Spirit of God in us, we are conformed into His image as we see Him.  2 Corinthians 3:18 – “we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same imagefrom one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”   1 John 3:2 – “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”

Seeing is becoming.  Amazing.  It changed my life when I first understood that.  It is the fuel that drives me to want to help others see and savor the true God of the Bible, Jesus Christ, in every facet of His glory.  It’s the reason that theology for me is as much about the heart as it is the head.  If knowledge does not produce awe, wonder, and delight, it is useless.  Put another way, if Heaven is being fully reconciled to go, without sin, so that we can know Him fully, in perfect intimacy; and it does not product awe, wonder, and delight – Heaven would not be Heaven.  The gospel would not be the gospel.  But we, who know what it means to treasure Christ for who He is, know that His love is intoxicating, our soul’s appetite for Him is insatiable.  Every longing of our heart finds its fill in Him.

Why do we enter into Christian community?  Why do we evangelize?  Why do we go out to serve the poor, to seek justice where there is none?  If you answer begins with, or is only “because we are told to”, my heart aches for you.  Christ did not free us from the law of Moses, and our inability to follow it, only to set down another law for us to follow out of sheer willpower.  It was for freedom that Christ set you free.  So how then should you act?  What guides your living?  A love for Christ and a hunger for the glory of His name.  With each passing day, each hour, each breath, I fall short of my Master’s calling.  The measure of my failings increase, even on my best day.  Surely the wrath of God is fierce against my sin; my sin that mock’s the name of my Creator and His perfect righteousness.  Oh what a savior we have in Christ!  Whatever we know of the grace of God today, we see even more when we add tomorrow, and the next day, and every day until we are in His presence.  This grace was purchased at great cost, through the blood of Christ, the Spotless Lamb, the Righteous One, the King of Kings.  God made Him, who knew no sin, that in Him I might become the righteousness of God.  A love for Christ for who He is, compels me to want to follow after Him irresistably.  Though I stumble, the grace extended to me in my stumbling only causes my love to grow, compelling me forward to know Christ and make Him known.

Psalm 115:1 – “Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!”  If my every desire is met in Christ, then my hunger is to know the name of the LORD.  My want is to see, to understand, and treasure, his name, high and lifted up as magnificent.  Not to me, not to me.  Father, help me if any should rest affection of hope in me or my words, rather than in you; their loss will be great.  Our treasure in Heaven is nothing less than the glory of the name of Jesus Christ.  Therefore, I want glory attributed in Christ in every aspect of my life.  I want His name to be made much of.  I want every boast to be in Him.  My greatest claim is that I know Jesus Christ and Him crucified.  It is the love of Jesus through the gospel that produces a love of Him in us.  1 John 4:19 – “We love because He first loved us.”   That love produces a hunger in us for the glory of His name.  That hunger for the glory of His name manifests itself in our pursuit of Christian community, missional living and evangelizing, seeking opportunities to serve the poor, and seek out justice where there is none.  2 Corinthians 5:14-15 – “For the love of Christcontrols us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.  For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” 

Grace and Peace,

Adam