Let me suggest to you that God uses suffering to draw us into his presence. It is often far better to be held by God than to be healed by Him.

-Christian George

Only Love could leave such a mark, only Love can heal this scar.

To Tell You The Truth

If the truth is worth telling, it is worth making a fool of yourself to tell - Frederick Buechner

Unchanging Covenant of God's Grace

The Father fixed his gaze on me, Foreknew my soul that I should be At first ashamed before his face, And then a vessel for his grace; And in the Holy Trinity Engaged a glad conspiracy Of love that all the energy Of God should be employed to see That I, when all his work is done, Would bear the image of his Son. By John Piper

One of the truths that God has saturated me in today is that of his covenant grace with his people. Into eternity past within the Trinity, the Father and the Son throught the Spirit, planned the cross so that Jesus might receive what you and I deserve namely the wrath of God. By his death he bore our complete punishment and by his resurrection he conquered death itself. He did this because he planned to save you and I. We know that this was always his plan. You can know that you were always his plan by these words.

Hebrews 13:20 May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep,

In Revelation 13:8 Jesus is "the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world."

^{Eph 1:4 says} For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.

You were chosen by God before the creation of the world through His eternal covenant. His covenant preceeded the fall of man. His covenant came before your sin. You cannot be seperated from His love because the unchanging purpose of his covenant was to save you. May this truth stimulate us to right thinking. We need not fear that one day he will be dissapointed with us. We can be confident that he is the friend that sticks closer than a brother. This truth leads us into a new relationship with Jesus. A relationship not based on my obedience for his acceptance but because of his acceptance I can now obey without fear.

Glory to God for his grace that saw me, his grace that chose me, and his grace that keeps me.

Your loss will be met with a hurricane of love.

I am tired today.

Arena Diary

Hello Blog World! I have finally broken down and joined the blog wagon. I have named my first post, Arena Diary because blogging is like writing a diary but for everyone to see. Prepare to be amazed! Just kidding. Seriously though, I feel that this probably a good way to talk about matters that are close to my heart. One hope that I have is that I can engage with people on matters of Faith. I think it's healthy to discuss our faith. There are different questions that I have wanted to ask people but have never gotten the opportunity. So maybe this is it! It would also be good to talk about culture, literature, world events, and maybe even a little celebrity gossip. Wink, wink. G.K. Chesterton once said that an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered. Perhaps blogging is the art of perceiving inconveniences as adventures. May we all be wrapped up in HIS adventure.