There is this story in the gospel of Luke about Jesus visiting the home of Martha and Mary. The whole point of the story is to explain how sinful cleaning your house is. Jesus clearly sides with Mary after Martha gets upset that Mary is listening to Jesus instead of sweeping the floors. Luke 10:38-42
Ok, it's really that easy to get the bible to say what you want it to say. Once during my freshmen year of college i was in an english class and we were having debates about random topics. One of them ended up being public prayer in school, so there would be two teams and each would be assigned a position, either for or against the issue. During the debate one of the members for the anti prayer side quoted Jesus when he said "But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father in heaven, who is unseen." Matthew 6:6, he thus made the argument that even Jesus did not want public prayer in school ( I think it was Joel Olsteen now that i think about it).
Ummm, clearly this has nothing to do with prayer in school, to be honest i personally don't care about the subject, we have bigger issues than forcing people who dont know Chist to pray to him in public while we sit back and let the poor and hungry and hurt and addicted and lost fend for themselves cause how dare we actually fulfill the role of Jesus while he's gone. Jesus, in Matthew 6, was talking about the issue of pride and how the Pharisees used prayer as an ego trip. In short, Jesus was ticked cause prayer was being used to glorify people instead of himself, God.
So all this to say is be careful what you take as truth, check it with the scriptures. Just because something sounds catching or makes you feel good doesnt mean it has anything to do with the truth ( politicians, pastors, people, everyone). One more thing, have you ever noticed that people claim truth when they agree with what it says, but it's an agenda or a conspiracy theory when they don't. For example, the guy making the point about school prayer in our debate, took this Jesus quote as a statement of truth, but i wonder about the part where Jesus dies on the cross to save us from this broken system of a world and to unite us with him the way it was always planned since before the beginning of the beginning, i wonder if he claims that as truth too? I wonder if very many of us do as well, i think if more of us did, this place might look a little different.
So be critical, be open minded, have integrity, consider all viewpoints, try to relate with people. Yes, i think you can do all of those and still claim Christ as the one real and ultimate truth, which is why it is so important to know what you believe and why, otherwise you will fall for this trap of the world telling you unless you believe everything (except Christ) then you are a backward, redneck, uneducated meatball. And since i going completely random tonight, i was thinking the other day how usually people who have a problem with God subscribe to the darwin theory (theory= maybe there is a chance that this idea could possibly be something close to what actually might be true). Darwin says that the strongest survive, basically, right? Then those same people are the ones who cry and scream about some bird who's home is being torn down by humans right? I just think thats funny cause at least christians aren't the only ones who dont know how to live what they believe, but we sure do get blasted for it. I wish we would get blasted for telling someone about Christ, or selling all of our stuff to help out the less fortunate, or adopting kids whose have no parents cause they died of AIDS or at least giving an insignificant amount of money ($32 a month) and some prayer and a few letters, which means food, hope and an education for someone somewhere, or something so radical like that, that Jesus might have suggested it. I for one, will say that i fail when it comes to this, but i working on being more like him.
This was not at all what i intended to write but the tangents just came out.
Also, i want to say that i am not at all claiming to know how to be a christian better than anyone else, or to have it figured out. I just know the One who does. I just have ideas which i test with scripture but if you ever see something that doesnt fit with what the gospel says, call me out, please. I just like to think about these kind of things so i started writing them down.
sorry for the endless runons. they happen.
if you are like me and want to do something to help children, i suggest compassion international. Fantastic ministry that feeds kids, gives them educations, hope, and shares Christ with them all over the world. 32 dollars, a few letters, prayer is all it takes to help someone out.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Blindfolded: Part II
This is part two. What makes part two become part two, it is the fact that there is a part one. Part two will make much more sense if you include part one.
In the other section i talked about that mission trip in Honduras were we came together and shared our junk, and how through that i truly felt that the gospel had meaning for one of the first times in my life. What if, this was how we related to people who don't know Christ. What if we had an understanding of what grace and mercy truly are. Paul did. I just got a lesson in that several weeks ago from a tshirt. I was at Pine Cove helping set up for camp. I loved that week and one of the fun parts for me was looking at every one's shirts, trust me, when you get several hundred college christians together, you get a lot of interesting shirts. So i saw this one guy who's shirt had with the name 'Scum of the Earth Church' on it and i just thought it was interesting but didn't give it much thought. Well a few weeks latter i was reading through 1 Corinthians for the first time, and i kinda learned something about God and the church by accident.
'We have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world.' 1 Cor 4:13b
This is how Paul ends his description of his fellow apostles. All of a sudden that cute shirt i saw was laden with some thick truth. I may be guilty of miss applying this scripture but it seems that instead of thinking of ourselves as better than everyone, maybe we should humble ourselves. Maybe we should check our pride at the door of our daily lives. I can't say what this looks like for everyone, but for me i can think of so many things in my life where i failed at this that it hurts. It's so lame to think i missed it so many times, but I'm trying to do better. It's not easy and if you have ever been around me you'll know how much i struggle with this.
Have you ever tried to love someone that isn't as good as you. Or, have you ever tried to relate to someone who has messed up where you haven't. If you are like me, probably not cause if you really believe that those previous statements are true then you are probably not in a place to try to love other people. When i was on that mission trip and we were all open about our junk, it became so easy to love and relate cause we were all on the same level and we weren't being fake and focusing on putting up walls of happy faces. instead we were too busy trying to figure out how to live life to bring the God who chased after us glory. So this part about being on the same level brings up a good point that i believe is essential to learning how to live out the gospel in a broken world. Once again Paul says it quite well,
'As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you use to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings or our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions, it is by grace that you have been saved.' Eph 2:1-5
When you understand this, and you understand that everyone human has at some point been disobedient and it is only by grace that God showed us mercy, HOW CAN YOU THINK YOU ARE BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE! The only difference between me and joe six pack is that i am on the right side of the blood of Christ, in the form of a free gift that i did not and cannot earn.
I just wish christians would just sit down and listen to people. Maybe somewhere in that conversation we would find out why that person is the way they are, chances are most people don't plan on drug abuse or becoming addicted to sex. I bet we would learn a lot. I bet somewhere in there we could talk about some of our junk too. Then maybe we could build a friendship built on 'common junk sharing'. Maybe in the mist of the friendship that person would ask us how we could over come our junk. We could talk about how Christ helped us put our lives back together and how its not easy but its better, its not a quick fix but its better than chasing the world. And we could do this without shame cause there is nothing to hide, instead of condemning that person we actually tried living life with them, in the same way Jesus would. This doesn't mean we condone their sin. Not at all, but we share common ground. I bet that would be the first time that person had ever met a christian who didn't look down on them or write them off. I wonder what this looks like when some of our churches now include weight rooms, book stores, cafes, coffee bars, and athletic facilities. What an awesome way of being the arms and feet of Christ, building walls so that we don't have to mix with the unchruched. No wonder we are the butt of jokes on tv. Come to our church and you wont ever have to be around anyone who is different and might make you live out your Christianity. No wonder we think we can only tell people about Christ on mission trips far away from home. I'm pretty sure that the Bible says 'to be in the world not of it', but not 'be in the world only while driving to chruchcityUSA'. Our sports teams need christians, our schools need christians, our coffee shops need christians, our businesses need chirstians, we have to live life with people. Not because we are better but because if we don't, how will they know? By no means am i saying that God is limited in how he moves, i just think that the 'unfixed' are much more likely to come to know Him when i can live out my life with them, together.
In the other section i talked about that mission trip in Honduras were we came together and shared our junk, and how through that i truly felt that the gospel had meaning for one of the first times in my life. What if, this was how we related to people who don't know Christ. What if we had an understanding of what grace and mercy truly are. Paul did. I just got a lesson in that several weeks ago from a tshirt. I was at Pine Cove helping set up for camp. I loved that week and one of the fun parts for me was looking at every one's shirts, trust me, when you get several hundred college christians together, you get a lot of interesting shirts. So i saw this one guy who's shirt had with the name 'Scum of the Earth Church' on it and i just thought it was interesting but didn't give it much thought. Well a few weeks latter i was reading through 1 Corinthians for the first time, and i kinda learned something about God and the church by accident.
'We have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world.' 1 Cor 4:13b
This is how Paul ends his description of his fellow apostles. All of a sudden that cute shirt i saw was laden with some thick truth. I may be guilty of miss applying this scripture but it seems that instead of thinking of ourselves as better than everyone, maybe we should humble ourselves. Maybe we should check our pride at the door of our daily lives. I can't say what this looks like for everyone, but for me i can think of so many things in my life where i failed at this that it hurts. It's so lame to think i missed it so many times, but I'm trying to do better. It's not easy and if you have ever been around me you'll know how much i struggle with this.
Have you ever tried to love someone that isn't as good as you. Or, have you ever tried to relate to someone who has messed up where you haven't. If you are like me, probably not cause if you really believe that those previous statements are true then you are probably not in a place to try to love other people. When i was on that mission trip and we were all open about our junk, it became so easy to love and relate cause we were all on the same level and we weren't being fake and focusing on putting up walls of happy faces. instead we were too busy trying to figure out how to live life to bring the God who chased after us glory. So this part about being on the same level brings up a good point that i believe is essential to learning how to live out the gospel in a broken world. Once again Paul says it quite well,
'As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you use to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings or our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions, it is by grace that you have been saved.' Eph 2:1-5
When you understand this, and you understand that everyone human has at some point been disobedient and it is only by grace that God showed us mercy, HOW CAN YOU THINK YOU ARE BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE! The only difference between me and joe six pack is that i am on the right side of the blood of Christ, in the form of a free gift that i did not and cannot earn.
I just wish christians would just sit down and listen to people. Maybe somewhere in that conversation we would find out why that person is the way they are, chances are most people don't plan on drug abuse or becoming addicted to sex. I bet we would learn a lot. I bet somewhere in there we could talk about some of our junk too. Then maybe we could build a friendship built on 'common junk sharing'. Maybe in the mist of the friendship that person would ask us how we could over come our junk. We could talk about how Christ helped us put our lives back together and how its not easy but its better, its not a quick fix but its better than chasing the world. And we could do this without shame cause there is nothing to hide, instead of condemning that person we actually tried living life with them, in the same way Jesus would. This doesn't mean we condone their sin. Not at all, but we share common ground. I bet that would be the first time that person had ever met a christian who didn't look down on them or write them off. I wonder what this looks like when some of our churches now include weight rooms, book stores, cafes, coffee bars, and athletic facilities. What an awesome way of being the arms and feet of Christ, building walls so that we don't have to mix with the unchruched. No wonder we are the butt of jokes on tv. Come to our church and you wont ever have to be around anyone who is different and might make you live out your Christianity. No wonder we think we can only tell people about Christ on mission trips far away from home. I'm pretty sure that the Bible says 'to be in the world not of it', but not 'be in the world only while driving to chruchcityUSA'. Our sports teams need christians, our schools need christians, our coffee shops need christians, our businesses need chirstians, we have to live life with people. Not because we are better but because if we don't, how will they know? By no means am i saying that God is limited in how he moves, i just think that the 'unfixed' are much more likely to come to know Him when i can live out my life with them, together.
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