This may be harsh... But I just watched two videos on YouTube. One saying the differences in Jesus and the Church by a Christian (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IAhDGYlpqY&feature=player_embedded), and the other knocking some believes of Christians by a Muslim (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNGqrzkFp_4&feature=related)
Although I did get a little feisty with the second video I will admit that he did bring up some, I say SOME good points. One being what you believe but more importantly why do you believe.
I think the hardest thing for a Christian will always be defending God with "sounds good" logic. But only because we try to defend with countered "Christian Logic" as if we were solving a math problem. We completely forget to reference our heart, our experience, our relationship thinking that we could have been wrong this whole time. I don't know, maybe we didn't actually love him all this time.
The thing I walked away from (among other arguments which I will not rant and rave here) is this question: If God's followers were like an army, like we know today, would I be a volunteer or would be a draftee. Would I have chosen to follow this idea, this path. Or would I have been chosen by others to follow it. Do you believe what you believe because you believe, or because you were brought up to believe and those around you do.
Food for thought.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Witnessing
I was talking to a dear friend of mine the other day and we were discussing witnessing. Now I had gone to a different church one weekend and heard a pastor preach on witnessing. It was a very compelling message and probably more in your face and call to action than most pastors would do. Once it was over you were left with a sense of purpose with that message, as if you need to bring this to someone else to share what you had just heard. I am sure everyone sitting there in the soft piano background music who were left to think for themselves how they had not been witnessing to their capabilities were on the right track. As for me, of course, I was thinking down a different trail.
My thoughts were not of how much of a failure I was being as a true witness, or even how much anyone else around me was missing the mark as well (gotta compare to others you know). But more so why we don't witness that often. Why we have a particular fear or struggle to do the thing that is most important and probably the easiest. I mean lets be honest, we get a new car, a new phone, a new anything that we put significant value to and we share it like crazy. It is on our Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Myspace, and every other possible social media site. It is on our face when we talk about it, smiles and excitement, and we are eager to tell every detail that we know. But when it comes to Jesus or our relationship with him, even if it is a strong close relationship we tend to stray away from the excitement of it.
But the question is not that we don't do it, or how often, or if we are a bad person or Christian because of it, but the real question is why do we become timid. 2 Timothy says that we were created with the spirit of power and love, so why when we are simply expressing what we have felt, what we know to be true do we suddenly become timid? I think the answer is how we walk in our faith with Jesus.
On the day that I became a Christian, the day that I found Jesus and decided to walk with him I had to make two points very clear to myself. One, I love and am loved... My purpose is not decided by this world but by Jesus. And two I am not perfect. I am a sinner. By becoming a Christian I am not accepting and trusting my perfection but his. but lets come back to that in a second. As a Christian sometimes it is hard to keep the faith that you are good and striving for better. You are striving to see God's image when you look in the mirror knowing of course that we will always fall short. And our most vulnerable time is when that fall occurs. And for me at least that fall occurs on a daily basis (which sucks). And at that time the enemy likes to pick at things he knows we are going to be a little more accessible with. Like a friend or someone you look up to or a more mature christian noticing the fall or being a little more critical on your walk or your stumbles. And although it is good to have checks and balances in your life it hurts to hear that stuff. So you lose a little confidence in yourself at that moment and then all of a sudden BOOM you have thoughts running around your head like someone just set off fireworks. Thinking of how many times you have fallen, how many times you have tripped, how many times you have completely failed and the enemy just keeps picking and picking. On the inside its a hurricane, hours and hours of relentless battering against your spirit. But on the outside the normal day to day is still happening. Now comes the time to witness. Sometimes witnessing happens without you even knowing. Sometimes who you are and how you live beams out of you and hits someone right in the heart giving them hope and courage to go forward because what is shining from you is Jesus. And when they ask you just how the heck are you so happy, how the heck are you so strong. You simply smile and reply with your story, with what you know to be true. Now that all happens in a perfect world under a perfect scenario.
But lets flash to what probably really happens.
You just fell short (Romans 3:23). your mind is racing with how horrible you are or how undeserving you are of Gods grace. You sigh and feel like you could cry for hours. You feel ultimately unworthy. Someone comes to you with a question about God, or a fear about life, or just to say hello and the first thing that comes out of your heart is not the excitement about the thing you find most valuable but about the weather or just random chit chat. You glaze over the topic because you don't feel worthy of being the one to talk about it. You feel as if you can't get it right so how could you help someone else. Matthew 7:5 tells us to take the plank out of our own eye before we can remove the speck from our brothers, but in reality we become so fixated on the plank in our own that we never move on. We become some worried that there is a plank in our eye we forget to move it to help our brother. And when we are consumed with our transgressions, when we are focused on our falls we can't, we wont witness nor be able to teach those following us how to witness and to teach those following them.
Isaiah 43:10 - You are my witnesses, declares the Lord, and my servant whom i have chosen, that you may known and believe me and understand that I am he. - 1 Peter 3:15 - But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the HOPE that is in you. - Do not lose that hope and be ready to share it. For God has chosen us, he believes in us. And if he believes in us, we should start standing up for that and doing the same.
My thoughts were not of how much of a failure I was being as a true witness, or even how much anyone else around me was missing the mark as well (gotta compare to others you know). But more so why we don't witness that often. Why we have a particular fear or struggle to do the thing that is most important and probably the easiest. I mean lets be honest, we get a new car, a new phone, a new anything that we put significant value to and we share it like crazy. It is on our Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Myspace, and every other possible social media site. It is on our face when we talk about it, smiles and excitement, and we are eager to tell every detail that we know. But when it comes to Jesus or our relationship with him, even if it is a strong close relationship we tend to stray away from the excitement of it.
But the question is not that we don't do it, or how often, or if we are a bad person or Christian because of it, but the real question is why do we become timid. 2 Timothy says that we were created with the spirit of power and love, so why when we are simply expressing what we have felt, what we know to be true do we suddenly become timid? I think the answer is how we walk in our faith with Jesus.
On the day that I became a Christian, the day that I found Jesus and decided to walk with him I had to make two points very clear to myself. One, I love and am loved... My purpose is not decided by this world but by Jesus. And two I am not perfect. I am a sinner. By becoming a Christian I am not accepting and trusting my perfection but his. but lets come back to that in a second. As a Christian sometimes it is hard to keep the faith that you are good and striving for better. You are striving to see God's image when you look in the mirror knowing of course that we will always fall short. And our most vulnerable time is when that fall occurs. And for me at least that fall occurs on a daily basis (which sucks). And at that time the enemy likes to pick at things he knows we are going to be a little more accessible with. Like a friend or someone you look up to or a more mature christian noticing the fall or being a little more critical on your walk or your stumbles. And although it is good to have checks and balances in your life it hurts to hear that stuff. So you lose a little confidence in yourself at that moment and then all of a sudden BOOM you have thoughts running around your head like someone just set off fireworks. Thinking of how many times you have fallen, how many times you have tripped, how many times you have completely failed and the enemy just keeps picking and picking. On the inside its a hurricane, hours and hours of relentless battering against your spirit. But on the outside the normal day to day is still happening. Now comes the time to witness. Sometimes witnessing happens without you even knowing. Sometimes who you are and how you live beams out of you and hits someone right in the heart giving them hope and courage to go forward because what is shining from you is Jesus. And when they ask you just how the heck are you so happy, how the heck are you so strong. You simply smile and reply with your story, with what you know to be true. Now that all happens in a perfect world under a perfect scenario.
But lets flash to what probably really happens.
You just fell short (Romans 3:23). your mind is racing with how horrible you are or how undeserving you are of Gods grace. You sigh and feel like you could cry for hours. You feel ultimately unworthy. Someone comes to you with a question about God, or a fear about life, or just to say hello and the first thing that comes out of your heart is not the excitement about the thing you find most valuable but about the weather or just random chit chat. You glaze over the topic because you don't feel worthy of being the one to talk about it. You feel as if you can't get it right so how could you help someone else. Matthew 7:5 tells us to take the plank out of our own eye before we can remove the speck from our brothers, but in reality we become so fixated on the plank in our own that we never move on. We become some worried that there is a plank in our eye we forget to move it to help our brother. And when we are consumed with our transgressions, when we are focused on our falls we can't, we wont witness nor be able to teach those following us how to witness and to teach those following them.
Isaiah 43:10 - You are my witnesses, declares the Lord, and my servant whom i have chosen, that you may known and believe me and understand that I am he. - 1 Peter 3:15 - But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the HOPE that is in you. - Do not lose that hope and be ready to share it. For God has chosen us, he believes in us. And if he believes in us, we should start standing up for that and doing the same.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
The things that excited my heart in the past have become nothing but a bore. The things that I have learned to enjoy and feel delight have dimmed and faded away. Although the foundation of that smile still remains, I must quiver back into its arms to recall just where I am. And maybe, just maybe, when He has whispered that everything is ok he will remind me of that smile that once was.
For being such a hopeful bunch we sure tend to be awfully cynical. We dare to dream, and strive to hope but only in the moments when its easier to talk about and dream about. The future awaits with dreams and hopes that we dare not speak of because that is the beauty of life, we tend to think. But when those things come a bit closer and hope is the only thing that you can see we shiver and stray away from what thing we so strongly spoke about not that long ago. Hope is what guides us, whether you call it fate, faith, or some other clever word, hope is what we cling to in moments where the end cannot be seen. It is a strong emotion, our greatest strength and greatest weakness. I simply Hope that when the time comes I can continue holding especially when all seems lost.
A series of small steps... Big plans and big decisions are carried out by a series of small steps. Crucial to all of these small steps is the first one. We set goals and destinations in our heads and in our hearts, most of the time based on what we feel is on our path given to us by God and sometimes maybe it is just a little bit about ourselves. But there we are. And after making these decisions, after making these desires public to our minds we set some kind of checkpoint system to check up on our progress.. Sitting in your car alone, sitting at your desk by yourself, being in a group of friends, where ever it may be we settle down and ask ourselves where we are in the process. And most of the time we set unrealistic points... We expect to go from 0 to 60, and then cruse on over to 100 in no time flat. We expect to be running faster than ever before because we feel so driven. We expect to be done with it all as soon as we start because face it, we rock. But then we hit a low. And the funny thing is, most of the time the low is not because of the path or the thing that we are trying so hard to get, but because of the pace we are going. We hit a low, we slow down and become discouraged because of how fast we want it. Not because we are failing, not because we are missing the mark, but because it is coming a little slower than what our 90 to nothing mind and heart wants it to come. There are many steps between big decisions and big results so stand strong and hold on. Don't be disappointed with slow progress. Don't be overwhelmed with the destination... Stand firm. Because ultimately the timing and time frame is not in our hands... it is perfect without our touch.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Jesus could have stomped on the devil in the desert. He could have slapped him down as he was being tested. Why did he use scripture. To show us what to do when we are tested? To give us the blueprints of not how our savior defeats the devil but how we will be able to? He's a pretty smart guy, in ways that we could never see. Ans never understand.
I should run. Right to your arms. In moments of fear and darkness. I should turn and run to you. I should run to you like a little boy runs to his father. Because in your arms I am safe. In your arms my scars can heal. Please hold me. Even though I fell after going where I should not. Please hold me.
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