Category: Life Wisdom

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Should I lead?

Don’t be afraid to ask that question, whether you are leading now or you are not yet, ask! If you should lead it is important that you do but if what you are looking at leading is not the right place for you to lead then it is just as important that you do not lead, that you get out of the way and let someone else, someone who is passionate and committed take the lead. A passionless leader is not a leader it is simply someone filling in.

Make sure you do not lead something if the passion is not there, do not try to fill shoes that were not meant for you. But if you have a passion about something, don’t be scared to step out and lead, it is scary, and it does take commitment but if you truly have a passion for it, if you have a desire to see change then you have a responsibility to lead.

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Powers and Dangers of Religion

What is Religion? Religion is a way of organizing faith, it is sets of rules, it is what helps people be open with others about our faith, it is what guides people in how they should act. Those are the main purposes of a religion.

Our faith is vital, believing in Christ as our savior, and living for him because of that faith that is vital. We need faith, religion on the other hand is a tool it is something we should use because it has much power but not something we should get to enmeshed in. Our religion gives us encouragement from others who share our faith, and support from others, it helps us to see a good set of rules, it helps us to be open about what we believe BUT there are also dangers to religion and though you should be apart of the christian “religion” I caution you about this.

Do not let the apathy of the people around you over come you. Do not let the people who all they desire is to keep things the same keep you from being passionate for God, from changing things, from making a difference. Don’t let religion get in the way of your relationship. Also make your rules and regulations your own, the bible should be the ultimate source for what is right and wrong, though the church may be able to help you come up with good guide lines you need to own your rules, you need to believe it and it needs to come from the bible and from you faith not from someone who told you this is what you should do.

In short, use religion as a tool as a resource to make your faith stronger and to spread you faith but NEVER NEVER let religion get in the way of your faith, NEVER let religion slow down your passion for God.

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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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If love is what your counting on you better plan on a divorce

That is the summary of something my mom said to me that I think is so true. I think so many people rush in to a marriage knowing they love someone so much. And Love is a wonderful thing but sometimes things are going to suck. Sometimes marriage is going to be no fun and you won’t think you really love that other person. If at that point you are counting on love to keep you together it won’t because the feeling is gone.

What you need to count on is commitment. If your desire when you marry someone is to be with them for life(which it should be) you need to base it on commitment otherwise you won’t beable to last.

Anyway this is coming from an unmarried person but still I think it is true.

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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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One sin greater than another

Some times in Christianity we focus so much on the fact that God does not see one sin as greater than another that we forget the not all sins are the same to Satin. You may wonder why that matters if you are a christian so let me explain.

As a christian we must do our best to live our life in comunion with God, but when sin enters our life it can many times pull us away from him because it can either absorb our life or maybe in order to continue sinning we have to stop listening to God all together, you can’t just shut off the warnings and expect the rest of your relationship with christ to continue.

What the devil wants most from christians is to see us sin and to fall away from God. I think for some christians he may twist the understanding of one sin not being greater than another, because though to God they are the same in badness(all sin seperates us from Him for eternity except through Jesus). Sometimes satin twists our minds so that we can believe all sin is the same and does the same damage to our spiritual life this is not true….

Some sins are much easier to over come than others some sins are one time only. But when you fall in to a sin that grabs hold of your life(like many sins do). It will cause you to fall away from God, it will cause you to turn from him and while you are sitting there thinking that all sins are the same satin knows that as long as he can keep you thinking that you will continue and you will decive yourself thinking at anytime you can turn from whatever it was back to God like it was no different that just the little lie you told last week. But when you try to turn you will soon realize that satin has lead you down that path and it will take much work to make your way all the way back to living in a right relationship with God. Don’t take me wrong God will be right there to be with you as soon as you turn but you will find that that sin will for a very long time be there try to pull you back in to itself.

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Passion For the Word

So in mexico I had alot of time to think and really focus on God, not so many distractions and one thing really hit me that I thought I would share.

I realized that the reason that I had such a hard time finding times to read my bible and seldom remembered what I read for very long or got excited about it was because all I was doing was reading it because that is what you should do.

It hit me on this trip that I need to have a passion for the Word. I need to want to know what God has to say, and I have just been praying that God would give me a passion for the word. That God would give me a desire to know him more. And it has been cool having that desire and that I want to read the Word and I get excited about what I read.

Anyway I think someone told me a while back that you have to have a passion for the Word but I kinda let it go, sometimes it takes it really hitting you yourself for you to realize.

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Why God?

So many people ask the question why God, and so many people say why would a good God let this happen to me. Why do some people seem to have it so perfect and others have it so hard? I would say that the answer to that is this, When did you forget this is God? The creator of the Universe the all powerful one?

It is put so perfectly 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.”[f] 16It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.

God choses what he wants and he has a plan for everything(Romans 8:28). So at some point we must stop trying to figure out why God and say Yes God your will be done. Because God is all powerful and he has every right to do anything he wants but we do know that all things are done to bring glory to him. So in the end as long as our desire is to bring glory to God as it should be we need to learn to trust, stop asking why and start saying Yes.