Emerald Dawn Part 1: Hal Jordan

When Abin Sur (Green Lantern 1 of sector 2814) crashed landed on Earth, he knew that he was going to die. With what little life was left in him, he instructed his ring to seek out and find "a man who was perfectly honest and born without fear" (since retconned to be: "capable of overcoming great fear."

Abin Sur's ring found Hal Jordan. They would one day say that Hal Jordan was the greatest Green Lantern of them all but before he was inducted, he was an arrogant and reckless air force test pilot. The ring saw potential in him, however, and brought him to the body of Abin Sur.

Abin Sur commissioned Hal to join the Green Lantern Corps. and Hal accepted.

When Hal flew for the first time, a fail safe in the ring brought him to the center of the universe on the planet Oa sector 0 before the Guardians of the Universe. The Guardians of the Universe were the first race created and thus took upon themselves the task of guarding the universe . . . always watching. The Green Lantern Corps. was their second attempt to police the galaxy through the harnessing of the green light of willpower. Anyone who wields the green light channeled through the ring would be able to create solid light constructs, fly, live in space, etc.

Until Hal Jordan, there had never been a human Green Lantern before and the entire corps was skeptical. This included the Corps. drill sergeant, Kilowog, who worked to break Jordan, but try as me did, he couldn't break the nearly limitless will of the human. Hal Jordan showed enough potential for further training. The Guardians saw it fit to pair the human with the pride of the Corps., Sinestro.

Sinestro and Hal became close friends and Jordan flourished under Sinestro's difficult training. The friendship would not last, however, when Sinestro's true nature was revealed. It would become apparent that he had become the dictator of his home planet and forced the natives to follow his every militant order. Seeing that Sinestro was mad with power, Jordan called in the Corps. and threw down Sinestro.

Hell

I will preface this by saying I haven't read this in forever. I wrote it two years ago and it was simply titled, "Hell." ENjoy.

I was once asked the infamous question “What kind of merciful god would send people to Hell” and the only answer that I ever could muster up was, a just one; this of course being a very weak argument that could have been potentially torn to shreds. It was, however, the only way I knew how to explain it. A merciful god would, of course, be forgiving of sins, but due to the nature and purity of God He can not over look the sin in our lives. Hence why He needed to send the ultimate sacrificial lamb namely Jesus Christ.

The wages of sin is death and death is all that God can pay us for the work that we’ve done, unless we have been redeemed by the blood of Christ. There will be a lot of good sinners in Hell, but there will be no redeemed sinners there. This of course raises the question, “What exactly is a sinner/ what makes a sinner.”

A sinner is any man not bought with the blood of Christ, and sin is living a life style that is pleasing to you. In essence, when you live life for yourself you are making yourself God and Lord over your own life, and by asking for salvation you are saying that you can’t guide your own life and that you need a savior. In the end, after death, everyone will get what they want as according to the way or for whom they lived their life. If they lived their life for God, then they shall be welcomed into their Father’s rest, but if they lived life for themselves than they will be thrown from the presence of the almighty and will be torn from Him forever. The presence of the divine being forever absent in their life for the rest of eternity. Everyone wins in the end. If you lived life for yourself and without God in life, then in the end you get what you want, a life without God. This of course is based upon the knowledge that the person you are bickering with believes that there is a God, because you can’t argue the existence of Hell without first arguing the existence of God. If the person you are deliberating with had no belief in God, then first you must establish the belief that there is a God or at least establish the assumption. Typically, I would conclude an argument, by telling the person if they are right and there is no Hell or God, I’m fine. I’ve lived life for a lie and I’m going to rot into dirt, no great loss, but if I’m right, and they’re wrong. Then they will really know what it’s like to live outside the divine for all of eternity, which would be a great loss.

Philosophy of Worship

In this class, we have discussed that worship is in essence to worth-ship or the act of assigning worth to something. I think that this may be is a little oversimplified. I believe that worship is the act of assigning worth to a benevolent deity in response to what you believe that deity has done for you. This may sound shallow, but I would disagree. Without God’s intervention into our lives, we would never know of his existence. Our faith would be built on speculation and on nothing substantial. So therefore, because we have substantial evidence of his existence we can respond with our act of worship.

But how do we worship this benevolent deity who has done so much for us? What could we possibly give to Him that He wouldn’t already have? The answer I believe lies within the action. You see, each and every human being has been equipped with a certain set of talents. Some can sing, dance, act, speak, write, love, or simply open up their homes to whomever. In response to the act of this benevolent God giving us these gifts and equipping us with them, it is our imperative to use them for his glory.

The apostle Paul tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:14, to not neglect his gifts. I believe that this can be applied straight across the board. We need to not neglect the gifts that God has given us. In order to properly “assign worth” to this deity, we need to take the gifts that He has given us and essentially give them back. In this we find that merely living becomes an act of worship both unconscious and unconscious. Because what is life apart from an undeserved gift of this benevolent deity? Nothing.

So I have found that in order to worship God in spirit, we need to make the decision to live our life to the fullest in accordance with his word. We have been given the guidelines and in order to worship Him properly we need to follow them to the best of the ability that He has instilled us with. Thusly worshipping him in spirit. In order to worship him in truth, we need to be honest with ourselves. We must recognize our specific gifts and fine tune with so that they are acceptable tools in the hands of the master.

We should waste our time on frivolous abilities that will never come to us because it doesn’t match our function. I’m not implying that we give up all that is not useful, just simply that we concentrate more on what is useful and less on what is frivolous. Someone who cannot sing but can write or simply be hospitable shouldn’t waste time singing that would be better spent honing the skills that they do have. One cannot simply rest on one’s laurels in the kingdom of God.

This implies a great deal of things with our worship . . . Namely, the concept of first fruits. This is to say, we need to offer God our best not just what comes out first. In order, to properly worship God we need to do so with an ability that makes an unbeliever stymied. If we posses the spirit of the God of creation within ourselves, then it is imperative that we look like we do.

I believe my specific abilities to lie within acting. When I am on a stage, behind a character, I feel more connected to God than anywhere else. It was what I was created to do. If I simply banked on that and perpetually assigned myself to half-hearted Christmas plays that never truly unlock the potential of my talents then I have wasted the gift that God has given me. In order for it to be my worship, it must also posses some worth and in order to show that it holds worth to me, I must give it worth by giving it time.

What I have been discussing is for the most part my philosophy of personal worship. There is, however, a certain element of corporate worship that should also be addressed. I have stated above that not all sing. So does that mean in a corporate setting that I shouldn’t? No . . . perhaps not as a soloist but should I sing as an individual in a group? Yes. When we gather together in the name of the Lord something happens. It cannot be denied. When we raise our voices to the heavens in one accord in honor of God there is a power. I believe this ties more into worshipping the lord in spirit. We have the opportunity to openly commune with each other and with God in a public setting. We have the opportunity to make a public proclamation of faith with other people doing the same thing.

So in conclusion, God has established a connection with us through Creation and through his first coming. He has blessed us with wonderful gifts on top of blessing us with his grace. We respond to this benevolence with a symbolic act of appreciation and love. It is within this symbolic act that we find true worship. Where we connect with God in a way both similar and unique to fellow believers. We then take this connection and we share that with others in a corporate setting worshipping with each other in a way that unifies the body with one voice . . . a voice that reaches the heavens and touches the ear of the one who gave us the voice to begin with.