Category: Bible

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Taking Death Seriously

Lately something has been growing on my heart, I don’t feel like we take death seriously. Specifically here I am taking about the taking of someone else’s life. I want to start by saying I believe there is a time for war and there is a time for a person receiving the death penalty. I can’t tell you exactly when is the right time for a life to be taken but what I do know is any time a life is taken it should make us heavy hearted, it should not be done lightly.

I have seen so many post on facebook from good Christian people lately that have really troubled my heart. Talking about the military, and making light of the killing that goes on during war, I have also seen people talk very brashly about the need for someone who has done something wrong to die. I feel we should be very careful not to deal out death too quickly.

Another thing that struck me was a war movie I was watching, during one scene the solders were yelling horrible things about the men they were fighting against, I can’t imagine what it is like to fight in a war so I want to be careful what I say but I know this isn’t right. Even in war, the person on the other side of the gun is another human being and even if we must kill them to defend ourself and others we should do it with a heavy heart.

The bible is clear that we are all created in the image of God, we must remember that it also says we must love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:43-45). I don’t believe that this means we can never take a life but it must not be done rashly or taken lightly.

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We fail repetedly yet He saves us, shouldn’t we do the same?

I think in general the church does not do enough to help those who are lost and hurting, those who are hungry and dying, those who need earthly things to continue. One of the biggest reasons I have heard and always made a bit of sense to me was we need to be careful not to give handouts to people who have ruined their own life and people who will not act responsible with what we give them. While I do believe there is a small kernel of truth in there I do believe for the most part we have missed something huge and something Francis Chan said completely blew me away and I think really set me straight on some incorrect thinking.

This is not an exact quote but he said something to this effect: We need to accept/help/love people who have ruined their own life people who put themselves in troubled places and people who have tried to recover and failed again and again, because that is who we are to God. We may have our cute little life in order but we sinned we ruined our life we deserve hell but God stepped in and gave away everything so that we would be saved, and now even with that forgiveness we continue to walk away and come back, we continue to sin and do wrong, yet God is always there ready to take us back into his arms of forgiveness.

Think about this, He gave his all to save us even though we continue to fail him, most of us are not even willing to give change to someone we don’t think deserves it, we have been called by someone who is greater to do something far greater. We must love the unlovable, feed and clothe the undeserving then and only then will we begin to look like Christ as he calls us to walk in his steps.

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Get over your rights!!

At a conference I was at recently one of the speakers who was talking on the public school system really bothered me and I have been for quite sometime trying to figure out what it was I did not like about her and if it was founded. I think I figured it out and it is two fold.

First and the biggest thing is this, instead of talking about the problems in the public school system as a warning to Christians of something to be careful about with their children and the children they interact with she spoke as if it was something that MUST be fixed. While I agree the public school system is in trouble and the lack of acceptance of the Christian faith (whether this is real or not I can’t say) is not necessarily the best possible situation for kids, I don’t agree that we have a right and I feel that is what she was pushing. Instead of sympathy and sadness for the direction of the public school system she spoke as if we had a right for it to be different as if Christians deserve to be accepted as if our desires were what are important in the system and I simply don’t agree. As Christians we should not cling to our rights, we should love this world and do our best to improve it.

Secondly a huge of her talk was on how homosexuality was becoming completely accepted in the public school system. I think this is really sad but I also think that as Christians we tend to pick out homosexuality as a super sin. Why do we get so much more angry and passionate about homosexuality than other sins (but this is another topic for another post.)

Anyway I think I am fairly justified in my frustration with this speaker but I would love to hear any thoughts.

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Have we Complicated The Messages of Salvation?

I have always been amazed at how hard it is to talk to someone about Jesus, and honestly been surprised how confusing it sounded when people tried to explain how to do it at Awana training events or other such events. As I was reading “crazy love” by Francis Chan it struck me that we have made it way more complicated then Jesus ever intended, and the sad part is we have changed the message to something we can handle, The Salvation message is just a little to difficult for us.

In the gospels, Jesus doesn’t ask us to “pray a prayer” or “trust in him” in some strange figurative way. He wants us to drop everything, follow him wholeheartedly, giving him every ounce of ourselves, trust our life completely in His hands(think a second about that). When he says “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” in Matthew 22:37 it does not have some figurative meaning, He means what He said. When Jesus ask for followers he is not even interested in someone who is going to say they trust in him yet not show it with their life. We should not complicate the message, we should tell people what they are getting into, it is a scary, weird thing but far more amazing than what we have made salvation to be.

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Don’t Water it Down

In Seth Godin’s book Tribes(a book on leadership). He talks about how important it is that a leader of a tribe, which for these purposes will be any leader in the church, or leaders in church as a group, not water down the message that they stand for.

He make such a solid point that if you water down your message, though you may gain some people who would be offended or not interested otherwise, you will loose the passion and commitment your “tribe” could have. The message of Christ will sometimes be offensive and sometimes it will just be inconvenient but that should not stop the leaders church from holding to it strongly. So pastors, don’t let your messages become easy, challenge us, offend us. Youth pastors make the kids know what Christ stands for and how important it is that they live a life for him, challenge, inspire and strengthen them. And to the leaders of the church stand strong with the bible’s moral standards don’t let the world around us influence our morals.

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The Bride of Christ?

Well a few weeks ago I was talking to someone about my blog, and mainly about how harsh I have been toward the church in general and he said you still need to remember the church is still Christs bride. I did alot of thinking about that comment and here is where I am at.

The Church as in institution is not Christs bride, the group of people making rules and standards, the building, that is not Christs bride. And for the most part that is where my problems lies with the institution of “The Church”. Christs bride is made up of those people who follow Christ, it is made up of the Christians. There are many people who I am honored to look up to in “The Church” but it is “The Church” I am frustrated with.

So I just wanted to make that clear, I am frustrated with the institution of the church and I believe God is too. That said there are many people in the church, even our church, that I look up to and respect for there walk with God, people who I know are following him and my frustration is not toward them.

Let us never become to content with “The Church” or get stuck with the idea it is Gods bride. Because the institution is not, He already at least some what replaced the Catholic Church, there is no reason that he will not do that again  with the american protestant church.

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Welfare our fault?

What do I mean? I am against welfare, and pretty much all the socal programs that take my tax money and give it to someone else. That is clearly not the job of the government was never meant to be and I am sure the founding fathers would shake there heads in disbelief.

What I want to know is did we cause this, did we create this monster. As a church the bible calls us to care for ophans and widows in there distress. To help those in need and to care for the elderly. Is the reason welfare is around, because the church failed to do what the bible calls us to do? I definitely think that is part of the problem though I am not sure I would say it is one hundred percent.

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Fear of God

The concept of Fear of God confused me for quite a while when I was younger, well confused is not exactly the right word but I did not get it or try to get it. In one of C.S. Lewis’s books in the Narnia Series he I think explains it as simply as it can be.

One of the of the children ask about Aslan(the character that plays the part of God/Jesus) right after they find out he is a lion, “is he safe”, the wise beaver looks at the child and says.

No he is a lion, he is not safe, but he is good!

How true is this of our God, no he is not safe, he has the power and the reason to wipe every one of us out. If it were his will he could destroy us. In Romans 9:14-16:

14What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15For he says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.

I it so awesome that God has taken our place, and has take the punishment for our sin, and that he desires to be in communion with us but let us not forget to fear him. So often today I feel like we try to make Jesus our buddy, and we tend to forget to pay him the respect and fear and awe that he desirves.

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Hypocritical Church

Yeah I know that was kinda a bold statement to make but this one is for real, no joke or hidden meaning. When it comes to judging and correcting I believe the church is doing almost the exact opposite of what the bible(there for God) has called us to do.

There is a great line from a “Casting Crowns” song, it goes:

God’s gotta change her heart before He changes her shirt.

We are we constantly paying so much attention to what is going on in the world around us. Why do we judge people when we see them. Why do we try to point out the sins of someone who does not know God. The concept of sin is foolishness to those who are not Christians. Yet we still try to inforce our “morals” on people through telling people they need to change, by politics and other things. But until someones heart has changed what does it matter how much sin is in there life. That is not for us to figure out.

On the other side we read in 1 Cor 5:11-13:

“But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked man from among you.”

This both backs up my last point and begins my next point. Why do we never call each other on our sins. Why is the church so full of sin and no one has the guts to tell someone else that what they are doing is wrong. Sure maybe sexually immoral and drunkard might not be real common but the others? especially idolater. How many people go through their lives with out ever setting aside good parts of there day to spend with God. I believe the American church today is at its weakest, prayer and listening to God just take to much dang time. Maybe you might read your bible if you have time and spend 2 or 3 minutes praying for a few things you think you “should” pray about. But the people of the American Church today do not find the time they need to make God first. Something can not be first in your life if finding time to spend on it is an after thought in your day. Rather you must plan your day around finding time to spend with God. Yet ever time I told someone in the church I struggled with prayer, the response was almost all ways the say, it was understandable, everyone has that problem, even the leaders of our church, and very few of the people I asked to keep me accountable ever did.

Let me ask you this, if Jesus(the son of God) had to spend hours and hours in prayer, why do we think we can get away with less. Even leaders of the church, elders and pastors are often stuck in struggles to find time for prayer, and all we can say is we understand that is everyone struggle. The church should never be lead by people who are not constantly praying for the out come of the church. But not just the leaders every christian needs to make prayer, reading their bible, worship in song and listening to God priorities in their life.

What needs to happen in the church is for people of the church to turn back to God and pray. And leaders of the church to call people on it when they are not spending time with God. And also, let the outside world be, that is nothing for us to judge nor does it matter this is only our temporary home.

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Selling the wrong product

As a church I feel like we are selling the wrong product, maybe because it is easier to sell but as a result we are creating many fake/half hearted christians.

The idea that the reason you should become a christian is because that is the only way you can get to Heavan is a very popular idea. No one wants to go to hell so as long as you can convince them that jesus is the only way to heaven this is a great way to get someone to accept Jesus, if the goal is to make lots of “christians”

As I see it the reason someone should become a “christian” is because God has called us to be his sons and daughters. He wants to know us personally and wants us to surrender to him, calling him abba and making him the center of our lives. And with any thing we make the center of our life we should always be striving to make it more center and do a better job of following him. That is what God has to offer because of Christ’s death on the cross, heaven is just a continuation of what has been offered on this earth. Heaven will be the fulfilling of what we were meant to be and hell will be the opposite.

As Christians we need to start explaining christianity as it really is, and yeah maybe we would have less people become “christians” but the church would not be broken, the church would be what it was meant to be not what it is. The church would be strong and maybe people on the outside would want to be a part for reasons other than heaven. If the church was how it was meant to be I believe that people would see the difference and have a strong desire to have part in that.