So My Wife is Pregnant!

I did it! Yippee! Also, oh dear.. We're excited, we're terrified. About a million emotions ran through my body when Katie told me. As of today she is 10 weeks and 5 days along, we've known for a while now but the sense of excitement hasn't passed. As she is dealing with all the changes in her body, I am also trying to adapt to the concept of being a father. Also, what does it mean to be a father in Scripture?

Now that time has passed for a bit, I have had time to contemplate and pray about being a father. I don't really care, whether it is a boy or a girl, but I do care that I raise the kid to be not only a decent human being, and not those monsters that are technically people (I'm sure you're thinking of someone right now), I am also overwhelmingly concerned about raising them to live a life in relationship with the Lord.

I didn't come to Christ until I was in late middle-school. And now that I am in seminary I am constantly hearing stories of people who's parents were pastors, and their children totally rejected Christ, or the exact opposite of that. Its a scary position to find myself in, after all this child is my wife's and my responsibility. If it is not our responsibility to share the love of Christ with this person that is going to be born in about 20 weeks, then who's is it?

I'm used to responsibility, I pay bills, I help put food on the table, I pay rent, I have a car payment, and my wife expects me to lead her spiritually. But a kid? Kids are scary. In my mind a child is a future adult. That future adult is going to be shaped by many different inputs, a huge one of those inputs is going to be their parents. I don't want to raise a monster, I want to raise a person that is going to love the Lord with all their heart and come to know Jesus more intimately than I do. Do I know how to do that?

Nope.

Will I figure it out?

I sure hope so.

Well readers, I am most likely going to be writing more about this pregnancy in the future, as well as my thoughts on fatherhood. I don't know what I'm doing guys, but that's okay. All I know is that even after knowing that my wife is pregnant for the past few weeks I feel like crowing like a rooster, beating my chest, building something, and hunting a bear. It's a pretty awesome feeling. For those of you that are finding yourselves in this same situation, enjoy it. I'm having fun at least.

Love y'all. 

Alexander Gebert.

Love God Love Others

Since this semester started a few weeks ago God has been drilling the two greatest commandments into my head and into my heart. The two greatest commandments are to love God, and to love others, as can be seen in Matthew 12. Every meeting, every class, and most conversations with peers have this topic being talked about in some way. Even with some of my friends that are not Christians, I have had conversations about these two greatest commandments. I am not entirely sure what it is that God is attempting to get me to realize or prepare me for, but I know that it has something to do with these two greatest commandments.

In fact, because of God getting my attention about this particular passage I have been pondering it for a while now. You know how you get a thought stuck in your head and you just can't stop thinking about it? I like to call it my "brain kitchen", you see, I like to cook experimentally. Sometimes when I cook with something new, or try something I've never tried before it turns out absolutely delicious, other times it turns out to be absolutely disgusting and not fit for human (or otherwise) consumption.

I didn't make that meal, I promise. However, I can't think of a time I wouldn't say no to a hot dog and mac and cheese.

The point I'm trying to make is that I've been cooking with Matthew 12 and the two greatest commandments. As Christians we are called to love God, and to love people, everything else falls in line with these two commandments. Loving God is the first greatest commandment for a reason, by loving God and making him central in our lives we experience a paradigm shift. Once we reach that point where we receive a shift in our priorities and God is no longer at the top or the bottom, but is instead the basis of everything, then we will love people. Being a Christian is more than simply doing what the Bible says, it is a change of who we are. We BECOME a Christian, we do not simply act as a Christian. The paradigm shift that is experienced with a re-orientation of the believer's life, changes who that person is.

Have you experienced that paradigm shift? If you have not then I beg you to explore what that would look like in your life.

Re-orientation of our lives as Christocentric is essential.

Jesus loves you man

Alex Gebert

Work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, constant never-ending work.

Work never ends, it never stops, and it will never let up. If I've learned one thing in my life from my time in college, the Navy, and Seminary it is that I will never stop working. I've worked hard, I've slacked off, and I've done everything in between. This semester I have been taking a course in Hebrew which has been kicking my behind. The studying does not stop, between the vocab, grammar, and syntax that I have to dive into constantly I have little time for anything else. There have been times this semester where I did not want to study anymore at all.One specific time came to mind, I had been studying 75 Hebrew words for about 5 hours and for some reason could not remember them. I don't know why I was having trouble with them but I still do with a few of those vocab words. After about 5 hours I wanted to give up but I knew that I couldn't. So I prayed for God to help me with them. Instead of giving me the gift of tongues, (which would have been awesome) God reminded me why I was working so hard to learn Hebrew. I'm learning Hebrew so that I can better understand the Word of God, so that I can be a better pastor, and hopefully be a more effective evangelist.

This reminded me about the whole reason that I am here at Asbury Theological Seminary in the first place. I am here so that I can better serve God. When I was a youth pastor back in South Carolina I used to tell my youth that no matter what they were doing, (as long as it isn't sinful) do it for God. The Christian faith is not something that can be claimed and not lived. I would tell my youth that if they were skateboarding, to skateboard with God and tell the people that they were skating with about Jesus and their faith. I would tell them to go to school and do their best at school because they need to make school about God. Youth aren't the only ones that need to be told this either, adults need to be told this constantly. Think about it, when is the last time that you made your work about Jesus? Why do you work, do you do it because you need money or is it to serve Christ? Don't get me wrong we still need money in order to live in this society but we need to have a higher purpose as to why we do what we do. 

Make your life an act of worship.

Alex Gebert

Keeping God Central, and Vocations

One of the classes that I'm taking this semester at Seminary is Vocation of Ministry. Well I've heard some bad things about this class, but the semester is only a week in so who knows, I may like it. But that's beside the point, I want to talk about one of the books that I read for the class. The book is The Call by Os Guinness  is a fantastic book that focuses on the call that every Christian has placed on their life. Os Guinness states that every person has a primary and a secondary Call that has been placed on their life.

The first calling that every person has is a calling to pursue God as the center of all things in life. Guinness also says that our secondary calling is our vocation, which can be anything from full time ministry to construction. A lot of people get these mixed up, they put their vocation or in some cases just regular work beyond their first calling. The secondary calling is to be lived out in response to the first calling. The key to this is that the secondary calling, your vocation, becomes a "why" rather than a "what". For example, a person has recognized their gifts that God has given them and serves God faithfully by using them in his construction.

Believe it or not the very term "Work-a-holic" was coined to describe the way that many clergy members were obsessed with their work to the point that it was ruining their very faith. God needs to be the center at all things in a person's life, especially at the center of our earthly vocation.

What I'm trying to get through to you here is that through the pursuit of God in the center of everything that you do is where you find your vocation. If you follow and walk with God everything else will come in time. And if you already are in you vocation then please remember, your vocation is secondary, but following God must come first.

"Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the Love of Jesus"
-Mother Teresa

Thank you for reading, keep God central. (Read The Call, DO IT.)

Alex Gebert

Death

Recently in my ethics course at Asbury Theological Seminary we discussed death. This statement was on one of the slides in the class;

The understanding of death always implies 

something about the understanding of life 

and the understanding of life always 

implies something about the telos of the

functional moral anthropology.

In summarization of the above quote, the way death is viewed affects the way that one views life. 

Without a doubt, death is something that needs to be talked about in a proper setting and in a proper way to be understood through the lenses of the Christian faith. The early Church represented change of the view of death that the world vitally needed. Christians no longer need to fear death, it is something that was once feared by all, but ever since the resurrection of Christ Christians have thought of death as just another event in the life of a person. Death went from the ultimate fear and end, to something that can be crushed under the heel of the believer and laughed at. 

When I was a youth pastor I once had a youth ask me about death.It was a pretty general question that basically was; How do we as Christians deal with death? Imagine when you were in middle school or high school, death was something that was quite foreign, at least it was for me. Death is something that has to be taught to youth in a Christian context. 

You are the leaders of the Church, you are the people that youth look up to for answers. Study the scripture and the Early Church and learn about death in a Christian context so that you can teach the youth. Otherwise they will come up with their own answers, and they will more than likely be misguided. 

Be the leader that God calls you to be.

Alex Gebert

D

Personal Growth: Making Your Desk Your Altar.

So in a couple of hours I start my first class at Asbury Theological Seminary. My first class is New Testament taught by Dr. Keener, and from what I have heard he is a complete genius. He wrote a commentary, and is world renowned for being an expert on the New Testament. Needless to say, I'm excited. Not only to be taught by some of the most knowledgeable people on the planet about Scripture, but also for my own personal growth.

Something that I have lived by since I started my educational career is making my desk my altar.

I make my desk my altar because I recognize that I know enough to know that I don't know enough. By that I mean that the more that I learn about God, Scripture, and how he chooses to work in his creation the more that I can grow closer to God.

I look at learning about God the same way that I look at learning more about my wife or a good friend, I don't know everything about them and the more that I learn about them and who they are the closer I can become to them. Albeit there is  a good bit more to learn about God than my wife or a friend. It still works the same.

The same as you worship at an altar at Church, I tend to worship most passionately when I a at my desk researching, exploring different assets, or trying to understand God. I love it. Most of the time during my studies I have had to stop at some point and simply thank God for giving me the opportunity to learn more about him. And hopefully this inspires you to do the same. 

I want everyone that reads this to really get into studying, I understand that most of the time it is difficult and a lot of people don't even try because they don't enjoy it. But there is something special about studying God and Scripture. I'm not talking about just reading scripture, scripture must be studied in order to be understood. God gave us a brain for a reason, to use it. Every study is a study of God's creation, any sort of science, history, scripture, almost anything you can think of. I really hope that you will try it out and let me know if you have any questions or ideas. 

You're awesome, go study the creation of God.

Alex Gebert

Arminian Vs. Calvinism. The Bare Bones.

So today we're going to talk about the difference between Arminianism and Calvinism, and why I am an Arminian. I'm sure that many people that read this are Calvinists and that is okay. You chose to be that way ;)

First off if you don't know much about either of them that's okay, a lot of people don't and you don't have to in order to read this. Hopefully I explain it well enough or spark enough of an interest to get you to look them up using your amazing googlefu. Here is a JPG. to help you maybe understand it a little better.

One of the main points of argument between the two is the subject of free-will, specifically about salvation. Calvinists say that God chooses us (humans), and that we don't have a choice. If God chooses us to be part of his elect (the saved) then we will be. Arminians say that the option of salvation is there for everyone, all we have to do is reach out and take it because Christ died for the entirety of the human race, not just the elect.

I'm just briefly going to touch on the P part of TULIP before I get into why I'm an Arminian just so that you can better understand it. Basically, Calvinists say that you cannot lose your salvation/walk away from God. Arminians say that you can because God gives you that choice since love cannot be love without the choice to love. 

Okay, so this is why I am an Arminian I could preach an entire sermon series on this and I probably will one day but for now I will settle for a blog post. To put it simply, love can't be love without the choice to love. Let's start with the subject of sin, in Arminian theology God created free-will and sin was a by-product of free will. The opportunity to sin was there the same as the opportunity to close your computer and go make yourself a pot of coffee, but God himself did not make that pot of coffee. Without humans having free will, then God specifically made Adam and Eve sin, causing the Fall. Then even if a person completely devotes their lives to God but they are not part of the elect then they will go to Hell and burn for eternity anyways. That explanation of God sure doesn't sound like the God that I have a relationship with. 

Rather, God lets us choose because he loves us. If we make the choice to accept Christ then we are saved. Arminianism is all about free will, and I love that, it fits in scripturally whenever context is actually looked at. If you want to know more let me know, or look it up. If you look it up you'll probably learn more. 

I promise I won't post super serious posts like this very often but this is one of my favorite things to study. Hopefully you enjoy it too. So if you have questions let me know. I could go on longer about both but this post is already super long and my wife is telling me to hurry up and come to bed. 

Thank you for reading.

Alex Gebert