80's Hair Found in the Flickr Creative Commons

Growing up as a kid and a teenager, I remember watching movies from the 80's and thinking "Wow, did people really dress like that back then? That is so cheesy!" Of course, I was only born in '88 so I could ridicule the teased out hair and high jeans without any of that reflecting back on myself.

I've recently found several movies on Netflix released back in the mid 90's that I had never heard of before that sounded interesting, so I sat down and watched them. They were entertaining movies, don't get me wrong, but there were multiple times when I just thought to myself, "Wow, I cannot believe how cheesy the 90's were!" I was only a kid during the 1990's, but even as a teenager in the 2000's (is that how we're referring to the last decade?) I remember listening to a lot of 90's music and watching 90's movies and genuinely enjoying it without realizing how lame some of it may have been

(Full Disclosure: I still love 80's rock and a lot of 90's metal, hardcore, and grunge.)

Welcome to our second resource roundup! This week I wanted to take some time to highlight three distinctive articles from John Piper's Ministry Blog, Desiring God. From a Christian perspective, these articles have provided me with added insight and I hope they will spark interest in you as well!

Desiring God is a collaboration of resources, most of which are authored and/or produced by Pastor John Piper of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. If you would like to learn more about what Desiring God is all about, a short mission statement for their ministry can be found here.


Life Is Not Trivial

Despite the fact that this article was written more than 30 years ago, it still rings true to this day. In this post, Piper explores the idea of life being insignificant and meaningless, and concludes that such a thing would be impossible based on the way nature exists, from what he reads in scripture, and what he feels as a human being.

Through the conversations that I have had with many Christians in the past, one of the most frequent subjects, when it pertains to faith, is the hardships surrounding living life as a Christian. It can be overwhelming at times to see our shortcomings - to live in our failures and sin. By struggling through tough times, and even living in the good ones, our faith may seem like it is not backed by a sense of passion and fervor that - deep down - we know should be there.

Photo Credit

As Christians - We know that Christ lived as an example, died as a sacrifice, and rose as our savior; but somehow, it just doesn't feel like this message is truly affecting our lives. If we're found in a state like this, our faith may seem completely dry, combined with a feeling of apathy, or indifference.

We've all been there before - Or if we haven't, it's safe to say that we will experience these feelings at some point in time in our spiritual walk (most likely).

So what causes this spiritual deadness? What makes us feel like our faith is unproductive, stagnant, and dry?

In Prison Photo Credit.

Can you be a prisoner to your philosophies? Yes! And even if you’re a Christian, if you’re not on the lookout you can be taken captive by fallacious teachings:

Colossians 2:8 (Niv): “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.”

What a serious verse! I think this may be the Bible verse that best epitomizes the mission of Cranial Collision. We don’t want to be taken captive by the faulty philosophies of this world. In order to keep up our guard against them, we diligently seek to train our minds to identify bad reasoning and to recognize the truth. And we write these posts for you to help you do the same thing.

Welcome to our first Resource Roundup! Since there are so many Christians that God has already blessed with amazing gifts of preaching and teaching, we thought that it would be a good idea to put together a post every week with a handful of links to resources that we think are extremely useful and insightful.

Another reason we are putting together these posts is because, again, this mission is bigger than just us! We don't live in a vacuum--we have millions of brothers and sisters in Christ spread all around the world. Let's get to know them and interact with them a bit!

Now on to the post:


Don't Shoot Other Christians

A week. A day. A minute. A second.

Lately, the concept of immediate time has plagued my mind with unfaltering constancy.

Many of us, at one time or another, have probably felt as if the days and weeks that we live pass by too quickly, or not quickly enough. Have you ever found yourself looking back on a much anticipated vacation, trip, or experience and wondering how it passed by so fast? The moments, and years that have brought us to this point can only be viewed now as memories - And in hindsight, one's life history may seem like it has happened in the snap of the fingers.

Total Relaxation Photo credit.

I wrote a blog post on my career-focused website a few weeks ago that was focused on the value of taking a break from the constant pressure of work and life. In the post, I referenced the Biblical command to take a day of rest every week. You can read those concluding paragraphs here:

Rest
See: there is something to be said for resting and re-energizing. Just today I read an article on The Resurgence  emphasizing the importance of scriptural rest. I know this command and know why it's true, but as I look back over the past few months, I've realized that I really haven't ever taken a full day off and just relaxed. I always seem to cram something into my free time. If I'm not working my day job, in class, or doing homework, I try to do some blogging. I'm constantly squeezing in some rough draft writing, editing, polishing, publicizing, et. all.

From here on out, I'm going to try to consciously take one day per week to de-stress, relax, and refuel for the coming week. By doing so, I anticipate that my overall productivity will increase: a win-win!