illijam

A Christian drumline junky from suburbia who married Hip-Hop | Philippians 3:8 #CountItLoss | [email protected]

[illijam @Illijam]

“Wilt” now streaming everywhere 🥀

https://t.co/6IZ59hNRkP

Prod. by @SignatureNation 🔥
Artwork by @jbtzxclsv 👌🏻
Engineered by @yjo_beats 🎧

[Greg Cello @gregcello]

https://t.co/rTGNoSu6Ek

[illijam @Illijam]

Flowers die in the darkness

Live in the light; that’s how life is harnessed

[Faithfulness Okom @AttorneyF_]

Galatians 4:4 looks like a transition verse.

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son.”

If you read it fast, it sounds like a timestamp. But if read slowly, it is the most staggering sentence in the Bible.

‘Fullness of time’. Paul isn't saying God picked a convenient moment. He is saying God declared a moment complete. “The preparation is finished and everything I have been building across centuries is exactly where I need it to be”. God looked at human history and said: now.

Which forces the question. Why then? Why not a thousand years earlier, when Moses was fresh? Why not a thousand years later? What was so perfect about the first century?

I started looking into it and I have not recovered.

God needed a people with the theology. He spent 2000 years forming Israel; the covenant, the sacrificial system, the prophets, Isaiah 53 written seven centuries before Calvary, the framework of a coming Messiah who would bear the sin of the world. The Jews were shaped by wilderness, exile, and divine discipline, until the theological infrastructure for substitutionary atonement was fully in place.

But theology alone could not travel. God needed a language. Not a tribal dialect, but a universal tongue. So five hundred years before the Gospel, He let the Greek philosophers begin.

Heraclitus sat in Ephesus and concluded the universe was governed by an invisible rational principle. He called it the Logos.

The Stoics built on it. Philo of Alexandria stood at the intersection of Greek thought and Hebrew scripture and said the Logos was the mind of God in creation. For five hundred years, philosophy built a conceptual category it could not fill.

Then God sent a conqueror with no interest in theology. Alexander the Great wanted glory and empire. God let him want it. In satisfying his ego across three continents, Alexander Hellenized the ancient world and forged Koine Greek, the common tongue of the docks, markets, soldiers, and slaves. A language stripped of complexity, simple enough for anyone, universal enough for everyone.
The Hebrew scriptures were translated into it. The Septuagint was born. God used a pagan conqueror’s ambition to translate His own Word.

Then Rome came and paved the road. The Pax Romana. Piracy cleared. Stone highways stretching from Spain to Syria. A framework for movement the ancient world had never seen.

None of them knew they were collaborating.

Heraclitus thought he was doing philosophy. Alexander thought he was building a monument to himself. Rome thought it was building an empire for Rome. Not one of them understood they were stagehands. God was with Heraclitus in his pondering, with Alexander in his conquest, with Roman engineers laying stone, quietly requisitioning their work for a purpose none of them could see.

And then, when the covenant people were in place, the language primed, the roads built, and the category ready, when everything He had been quietly assembling was finally set, God stepped into the room they had unknowingly prepared.

John picked up his pen and wrote: “In the beginning was the Logos.”

Every Greek philosopher in the Mediterranean felt the ground shift. “And the Logos became flesh.” The category they spent five centuries constructing was not a principle. It was a Person.

The ‘fullness of time is not a timestamp’. It is God’s signature on a completed work. And the humbling thing is that this work was not built by saints. It was built by conquerors, philosophers, and emperors who thought they were writing their own story. God let them think that. And used every word. If this is not amazing then I don’t know what is.

[Michael Foster @thisisfoster]

Here’s a simple way to get unstuck when you’re worried, overwhelmed, or overthinking a decision.

Ask yourself one question:

What kind of thing am I dealing with?

Most issues fall into one of three categories.

1. Settled Things

These are things that have already been decided.

Your birth family.
Your nation of origin.
Your height.
Your past decisions.
Your upbringing.
Things you did.
Things done to you.

Some of these things were decided by your own past actions. Others were decided by God’s providence. As Paul says in Acts 17:26, God determined our appointed times and the boundaries of our dwelling place.

You can’t go back and change these things.

So the question is not, “How do I undo this?”

The question is, “Does this have any bearing on what I should do now?”

If not, leave it alone. Don’t spend your life fighting settled things.

2. Action Things
These are things you have some real control over.

Your diet.
Your exercise.
Your spending.
Your work ethic.
Your attitude.
Your friendships.
Your theological knowledge.
Your presentability.
Your habits.
Your skills.

These are your controllables.

You may not control everything about your health, finances, relationships, or future. But you usually control more than you think.

So if the issue falls here, don’t overthink it.

Take direct action.

Start small if you have to. Make the call. Go on the walk. Open the Bible. Apologize. Apply for the job. Pay the bill. Clean the room. Do the next faithful thing.

3. Prayer Things

These are things outside your direct control, but not outside God’s control.

The economy.
The weather.
The housing market.
The availability of a suitable spouse.
Other people’s choices.
Timing.
Open doors.
Closed doors.

You can’t force these things. You can’t grab the steering wheel of providence.

But God can act.

So you take indirect action through prayer. You ask. You wait. You prepare. You remain faithful. You do what you can do and trust God with what only He can do.

So ask yourself:

Is this settled?
Then accept it and learn from it.

Is this actionable?
Then do something.

Is this outside my control?
Then pray and trust God.

This is a simple framework, and yes, it’s a little reductionistic. But that’s the point. The goal is not to explain every complexity of life. The goal is to get you unstuck.

Most people waste too much energy trying to change the past, control what belongs to God, or pray about things they simply need to obey.

So categorize the issue.

Then act accordingly.

Accept what is settled.
Act on what is yours.
Pray over what belongs to God.

[illijam @Illijam]

@BreedOfUNO This gif is my friend @jbtzxclsv lol

[illijam @Illijam]

@JCRyle @JohnPiper / @desiringGod

[illijam @Illijam]

@_MLFootball “push-mere” 😂

[Wes Huff @WesleyLHuff]

470 years ago today, protestants Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley were burned at the stake for the preaching and proclaiming of the gospel. After being sentenced in his trial, Latimer thanked God for giving him a death that would glorify his God.

In the midst of his execution Latimer extolled Ridley: "Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out."

[𝕊𝕠𝕝𝕒 ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕕 🎚️ @sola_chad]

The United States of America has never seen anything like this:

-Politicians preaching the gospel
-Pastors urging people to get saved
-The widow a political assassination victim publicly forgiving her husband’s killer in the name of Jesus

Christ. Is. King. 👑

[illijam @Illijam]

We will never be freed from sin while we continue to seed our sin. 🌱

“But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and *make no provision for the flesh*, to gratify its desires.”

Romans 13:14

[Rabbi Brian Samuel @rabbriansamuel]

There are many young people who approve the killing of Charlie Kirk.

There was a "young man" who approved the killing of Stephen.

That same young man would later become a world-changer for the Messiah.

May many Sauls become Pauls in the aftermath of this. 🙏🙏🙏

[Anastasia Hibbs @Anastasia_Hibbs]

The fact that Erika can stand in front of America and say that God is good after her husband was assassinated should show the magnificent power of our Lord.

[illijam @Illijam]

May God’s words breathe precious perspective into our souls when tragedy threatens to asphyxiate.

[Lecrae @lecrae]

The new album “Reconstruction” is out. Love to know how it’s impacting you all as you listen. Thanks for your support!

[illijam @Illijam]

@ajp230 @_MLFootball I’m just here for the @ajp230 hot takes

[Creeds & Confessions @CreedConfession]

“All death can do to the believer is deliver him to Jesus.” John MacArthur
1939 - 2025

[illijam @Illijam]

@ThrillaRilla369 Yes 🙋‍♂️

[Virgil L. Walker @virgilwalker]

It’s Monday. You don’t need a new mindset.

You need the Puritan doctrine of vocation.

Before the "grindset," there was godliness.
Before hustle culture, there was holiness.
Here’s how the Puritans turned mundane labor into majestic worship: 🧵👇

[illijam @Illijam]

@birdchadlouis To echo Piper, I believe God’s ultimate treasuring of His own glory is the most exquisite expression of His love towards us.

And because we praise what we prize, to treasure anything more than God Himself (i.e. us) would be to worship a non-God object unworthy of that place.

[illijam @Illijam]

@birdchadlouis I think that is an apt, refreshing, biblically/faithful perspective!

I wanted to hear your thoughts on this though —

I affirm that God treasures us greatly, but does He not (& should He not) treasure Himself / His own glory most?