Come, my Light, and illumine my darkness.
Come, my Life, and revive me from death.
Come, my Physician, and heal my wounds.
Come, Flame of divine love, and burn up the thorns of my sins
kindling my heart with the flame of thy love.
Come, my King, sit upon the throne of my heart and reign there.
For thou alone art my King and my Lord.
(St. Dimitrii of Rostov)

Our God Reigns
By Delirious?

40 million babies lost to God's great orphanage,
It’s a modern day genocide and a modern day disgrace
If this is a human right then why aren’t we free?
The only freedom we have is in a man nailed to a tree.

100 million faces, staring at the sky,
Wondering if this HIV will ever pass us by.
The devil stole the rain and hope trickles down the plug,
But still my Chinese take away could pay for someone’s drugs.

Our God reigns, Our God reigns,
Forever your kingdom reigns.

The west has found a gun and it’s loaded with ‘unsure’
Nip and tuck if you have the bucks in a race to find a cure.
Psalm one hundred and thirty nine is the conscience to our selfish crime,
God didn’t do wrong when he made you,
He’s a father who loves to parade you.

Yes he reigns, yes you reign, yes you reign,
For there is only one true God,
But we’ve lost the reins on this world,
Forgive us all, forgive us please,
As we fight for this broken world on our knees.

http://www.delirious.org.uk/lyrics

O Father, my hope:
O Son, my refuge:
O Holy Spirit, my protection:
Holy Trinity, glory to thee.
(Prayer of St Ioannikios)

Christus Victor!

On prayer. We must always pray. Origen claimed that one's entire life should be prayer. We give ourselves as a holy sacrifice to Jesus. Paul writes, "pray without ceasing". (1. Thessalonians 5:17, NKJV) We should always pray to our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ.

On the sacraments. We need to sacramentalize the everyday life. To be a Christian is to adopt a form of life, a Lebensform, a mode of being. We should live holy lives, giving ourself to Jesus Christ. But we can never look aways from the sacraments. The sacraments are holy, and given to us by God for justification, sanctification and deification. Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians: "For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes." (1. Corinthians 11:23-26, NKJV) As Christians we should receive holy communion every day, or at least once a week. This is the celebration of our righteousness, we celebrate that Jesus died for us (and rose again), and that we are made righteous in the face of God. We receive his body and his blood, and what happens can be called transsubstansiation, the wine and bread appears to be merely bread and wine, but it changes in its essence and becomes Christ's flesh and blood. Baptism is equally important. Peter writes -in one of his beautiful letters: "There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him." ( 1. Peter 3:21-22) Baptism is a confession to God, and the water is a symbol of the new convenant with him in Christ Jesus.

On Christian mysticism. Every believer is called to be one with Christ. Because of the cross of Christ, we can enter into a unio mystica with the Trinity. We may be lovers of God, because Jesus died for us, he shed his precious blood on calvary. Paul writes, in his letter to the romans: "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek." (Romans 1:16, NKJV) And also: "Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more." (Romans 6:8-9a). Paul testifies that he is crucified with Christ and that Christ lives in him. "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." (Galatians 2:20) In Philippians Paul writes: "For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain." (Philippians 1:21) We are called to crucify our sinful nature daily, we are called to crucify the flesh. This is a daily struggle, and we must always start the day with prayer and reading of the Bible. We must always seek to live every day in The Holy Spirit. We must flow in the Spirit of God, and be united with Christ in our daily activities. "And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." (Galatians 5:24) Yet we will also suffer persecution. We must be prepared to be persecuted for Jesus Christ. The biblical heroes of faith, the great men of the Bible, from David to Paul, were persecuted."Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution." (2. Timothy 3:12) But the Christian mystic will always have victory. Christus Victor -and the one who is united with him, will always experience victory. Thus Paul writes, in his beautiful epistle to the romans: "Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:37-39)

Dedicated to my friend Dag, who took care of me for one year.

On Mary. There is no doubt that Mary deserves our respect. As I see it, there could have been no virgin birth if Mary was disobedient, God needed a real servant, an obedient person who could help him carry out his plan. Mary worked together with God (synergeia), she received the co-operative grace. "For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed." (Luke 1:48, NKJV) All generations will thank Mary for her contribution to the divine economy, God's plan for salvation.

However, we must not worship Mary. She is the Theotokos, the mother of God. The reason is that Mary is created, and not uncreated. We worship the Lamb of God, but not the mother of God.

Dedicated to my Cahtolic friends, Johannes and Andreas.

On arguments for the truth of Christianity. I think there is a web of arguments for the truth of Christianity. Some of the most important are:
1. The proof from prophecy
2. The historical Jesus
3. The argument from religious experience
4. The genesis of the Bible
5. The aesthetic quality of the Bible.

This is something I am considering for a doctoral thesis topic. I don’t know if I want to write such a work. But I am convinced that real analytical thinking leads us to the truth of Christianity.

Dedicated to my cousin, Mathis.

On science. You know, science can give prediction and control, but science must be rejected when it conflicts with Scripture. I believe in the Christian a priori. That means that we must hold Biblical truth as a kind of a priori truth, that never can be falsified by empirical science. However, I believe that Christianity can be verified by experience. That’s why Richard Swinburne talks about the argument from religious experience. The enemy can give people confusing experiences. (See Ephesians 6:11-12, and also verse 10!). But by experiencing the love of God,we can verify the truth of the Bible. I believe this is a knock out argument, in fact one of the best arguments ever. In fact, if one understands the argument from religious experience and other arguments (like the proof from prophecy and the historical Jesus), one must become a Christian. So true science, real high quality scientific thinking, points to the truth of Christianity.