tomorrowsreflection.com
the personal blog of jeremy jernigan

I’ve reached the point, like many others I know, where I’m quite bored of my music collection. As a result, I’ve been listening to Pandora recently and I’ve been quite impressed. Pandora is great because I can play it at home or anywhere where I have internet on my computer. It comes in very handy when you are sitting in Starbucks and trying to drown out the never-ending coffee machine reminder beeps that they have going on behind the counter…

You can listen to up to 40 hours a month for free, but I surprised myself with how quickly I arrived at that. Your options from that point are to pay 99 cents for the rest of the month or pay a year in advance at $3 a month ($36 total). This option allows you to listen with no ads (which were my only complaint from before) in addition to downloading a desktop application and better quality music streaming. I just did that and I’d highly recommend it. For the price you’d pay for about 3 albums on iTunes you can have a year’s worth of unlimited music. This is an incredible way to find new music that you’d like.

If you want to check it out for yourself, click here to listen to my “Chill” mix that I’ve created. Enjoy.

For those of you who read my previous blog on this topic, or have had the unfortunate situation of sitting and staring at my nail while I teach, here is an update for you. Today was a big day!

I recently finished Andrew Farley’s book, The Naked Gospel. For those of you that read my blog regularly, you are aware that I rate each book I read and give them a rating from 1 to 5. I considered giving this book a 5.5, or a 5+, or something to show how thoroughly I enjoyed it. But then I didn’t know what would happen if I broke my own blog rules…

This book addresses the “hybrid Christianity” that many Christians live by (a mix of the New Covenant and the Old Covenant). Farley approaches the topic by unpacking Scriptures in ways you likely have not thought about them. One of the strengths of the book is that he writes well, he supports his arguments with strong Biblical contextualization, and he has an ability to create helpful analogies that avoid being cliche yet allow you to see his point in another light. I can’t recommend this book highly enough. Here is a taste of some of its goodness:

“The original sin was not Adam and Eve’s thumbing their noses at the goodness of God. Instead, it was their wanting to author their own system of right and wrong so they could make sure they did right and avoided wrong. Today, we can be deceived by the same offer. We may find ourselves pursuing the knowledge of good instead of listening to our heartfelt yearning for an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.”

“Just as a will isn’t in effect without a death, a covenant doesn’t go into effect without a death. Meaning the New Covenant did not begin at Jesus’ birth but at His death.”

“Jesus told Nicodemus that each human being’s real need is to be born a second time. He wasn’t urging the Jewish leader to turn over a new leaf, to try harder, or to polish his lifestyle. Instead, he was addressing the heart of the matter, namely, birth. While some regard Christianity as a behavior improvement program dressed up in religious clothing, Jesus revealed that God’s plan was actually an exchange of nature.”

“There is no better test as to whether a man is really preaching the New Testament gospel of salvation than this, that some people might misunderstand it and misinterpret it to mean that it really amounts to this, that because you are saved by grace alone it does not matter at all what you do: you can go on sinning as much as you like because it will redound all the more to the glory of grace. If my preaching and presentation of the gospel of salvation does not expose it to that misunderstanding, then it is not the gospel… There is this kind of dangerous element about the true presentation of the doctrine of salvation. – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones”

Like many other people right now, I am fascinated by the show Lost. In case you aren’t up to date on it, the show is in it’s sixth and final season. It is a show that creates exponential amounts of questions for every few answers that it gives…but they tell us that answers are coming. Season five elevated a new focus of light vs. dark that has added an exciting new element.

For those of you that are fans of the show, click here to check out a website from a guy who writes all about the show Lost. He writes from a Christian perspective, so in addition to having someone help explain things to you, he adds an insightful commentary to what you see on TV. He even does a recap of every episode thus far in case you are hopelessly behind or just in need of a good refresher. For any fans of the show, I recommend you check it out.

Also, here is a video from the producer of the show, J.J. Abrams. This is from a speech he gave at TED where he talks about mystery and it may give us a hint at what we are in for in the weeks to come. This guy is brilliant.

I’ve often heard parents talk about how selfishness doesn’t have to be taught to kids. The illustration is usually given about kids using the word “mine.” The point is that they learn this concept naturally and parents have to teach them how to not say it.

So I’ve been waiting for those types of moments with Gavin. But surprisingly, I realized that there is a different phase that comes before the “mine” phase. Gavin loves to go around and give people his toys. I can be sitting in a chair reading and in a matter of moments half of his collection of toys will be in my lap. Even as I write this he is handing me things.

So my parental question is: which is truly in our nature if this is what comes first? Now, maybe not all kids experience it in this order, but it has got me thinking. I wonder if we are naturally selfless but we unlearn that as we get older?