"Mortification (killing of your sin) from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, to the end of a self-righteousness, is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world."

john owen, the mortification of sin, AD 1656

been enjoying my first John Owen read. it's refreshing: to the point, exegetical and unashamed as to what Scripture declares. That quote up there, from the introduction, does well to re-align our flawed ideas of who, precisely, does the killing. And what, precisely, is our responsibility. highly recommend. challenging, because it should be.

some help from piper here.

and those at acts29 summarize it well here.

john owen at wikipedia.

middle east, june|10

venice, dec|09



a quick winter trip, more soon...

migration.

((new look? now address? blogger doesn't want to have to do FTP posting any more, so i had to point my servers here. not a huge fan, but, meh. not enough to complain about. we'll make it more seamless later...))

life's good. we're getting more used to being in the States, tho it still is awkward at times. rumor has it that it will take a full calendar year to really feel settled in to my home country. wouldn't have expected that, however, things are a LOT different now than say, January, a month after we arrived. little by little.

and just like that, we're preparing for a short trip overseas again, this time to the middle east, which we've really been looking forward to.

other random lately-ness: settling in the home, enjoying the lakers and LOST: live, in HD, and free (via our OTA antenna), a couple nights of rock band goodness with the co-workers, and running with my bride...

bereza.com, near-death by facebook.

we're back in the States, currently traveling thru Illinois seeing family and re-adjusting to our home culture. it's been nearly a month since we arrived, and though we've adjusted to the time zone and being able to drink out of the tap, there are many other things that will take a bit more time.

before coming here we were at Encounter09, a winter Campus Crusade conference along with 200 staff and nearly 1000 college students from around the region... a great time to see some old friends and re-connect with our company, state-side, for the first time.

and after a week of being here we're heading out to soCal for a couple weeks- the first time we'll be there in nearly 3 years. looking forward to warmer weather (it was 0F this morning when i woke up), seeing the ocean, and hanging out with the ol' crew.

hoping to get this site ramped up a bit more. thanks for stopping by!