Recently, I had quite a few dealings with a man who was being very critical of Christianity. In truth he was mocking it. I made a comment about God and his replied asking about which god. Of course, he knows very well that I believe in the One True God. He then made some more disparaging remarks about how God was invented and other remarks about the Bible. He attempted to take parts of the Bible out of context to goad me more, but fortunately, despite being an “ordained minister” and claiming to have read the Bible, he just didn’t know enough to make it a very effective attack. The next day was Christmas and he and another person restarted the attack, this time displaying their vast historical knowledge about how December 25th was some sort of pagan holiday to some sun god and other nonsense. I realize the date is not exact. It’s not important, that is the day we celebrate Christ’s birth. We could celebrate it on July 5th and it wouldn’t reduce the importance. There would just be more fireworks.
Regardless, he was really getting under my skin. So, if you’ve followed me on Facebook or Twitter, you know that another man I know, a devout Catholic, gave me some great advice. He said, “Don’t let him steal your peace.” It was just that simple but it was so clear and so well timed. It can be truly amazing how God can send a perfect message out of the blue just when you need it. And I needed it. I really wanted to hit this guy. After this, I was much better, and as it turned out the guy stopped giving me a hard time.
I took a couple things away from this experience.
One, we need to let God be God. I think this is one of the most difficult things to grasp for me as a Christian. It’s not that I want to take God’s place, I just feel so burdened to succeed in so many aspects. This is especially true after I read James. Very much a works oriented book, James will really make you want to go do “works” for God. I suppose I could look at it from a military standpoint. As a private or even a corporal or sergeant, a person’s ability to do anything effective is limited. You may be able to keep your men alive, or succeed in a battle, but you aren’t going to win the entire war by yourself. It’s similar for us as Christians. We can do our part. We can pray, we can vote according to our faith, and we can spread the gospel. But that is what we can do. We can’t change the hearts of others. Only God can do that. I get so frustrated at times. I will be very honest, sometimes I get very tired of…well…losing. I want to win! I want the Ten Commandments to rest easily in the Supreme Court. I want prayer to be allowed in schools. I want to win. But I have to remember to let God be God and not get frustrated with the rest.
The other thing I took away is that God can use anyone to speak his word. And that just because someone doesn’t follow our exact flavor of Christianity doesn’t mean that they’re deceived and going to Hell. While the Catholic Church certainly has some flaws, I’m beginning to think that God is still working within that church. The Protestant churches have some pretty big flaws themselves, some (if you use the human scale of grading sins) are even more egregious that that which Protestants accuse the Catholics of. Of course, this isn’t endorsing a many roads to Heaven philosophy. There is only one way to Heaven and that is through Christ Jesus. But I really believe that God revealed to me that there are saved souls in all of Christianity, not just Baptists or Methodists or Evangelicals. It’s the belief in Christ that makes us Christian.
This brings to mind a final word. It’s heavily tangential, but it does relate. One of the criticisms I have heard of the Catholic church is that as time wore on and the rituals became more intricate and traditional, the Catholic faith began to believe in its rituals more than in the blood of Christ. I will tell you that the man who told me not to lose my peace does NOT believe his rituals will save him. He believes that Christ’s blood saved him. He defends his Catholic rituals as reminders of Christs sacrifice. More like tools to help guide him in his faith. In a conversation with my mother the topic of rituals and scripted prayers and things came up. The current Protestant church (particularly the Pentacostal movement) tends to reject heavily ritualized traditions. Scripted prayers and things of that nature aren’t heavily used and are more likely to be avoided. Still, those scripts can guide us and keep us on the path. They can prevent us from straying off, making prayers that are actually performances, or talking to ourselves more than to God. The danger is that they can become mechanical and empty. But in rejecting them completely, we run the risk of falling away from the core of our faith. It’s just an interesting thought. Quality assurance inspectors and pilots and many other fields use check lists to make sure that everything is done right. These are professionals that know their jobs inside and out. Yet they still use checklists to prevent them from straying or missing important steps. We could look at rituals and things like that as well.
It’s just a thought.
Later Days!!!
Those of you that know me know that my sons have autism. I just returned from a trip and my youngest keeps saying, “Hey Mom? I don’t want Daddy!” I wonder if that’s how God feels about us. He loves us so much, and we keep saying, “I don’t want God!”
Wow.
Later Days.
I overheard a conversation that was rather sad today. One young man was lamenting to another that his ex-girlfriend was pregnant, and that there was a possibility that he was the father. He continued on to declare that she needed to get an abortion because he didn’t have the time and the pregnancy would negatively impact his life. Another young man (who was ostensibly a friend or at least good acquaintance of the first) objected to that. Unfortunately, he continued on to say, “…it’s just a kid…” as though there was no real consequence to bringing a child into the world.
Neither one of these young men were on track. The first was completely selfish, placing his personal life above the life of an unborn child. The second was equally wrong. He failed to recognize the gravity of bringing up a child.
The conversation was a very sad reflection on the value that people are placing on human life these days. One was more comfortable with the idea of killing an unborn child than he was with facing up to his responsibility for his actions. This seems to be a common theme that the world puts forth. The other had no idea how serious parenting is. Although the world would have us believe that it’s fine to be a single parent and that divorce is perfectly acceptable and that your personal happiness is more important than your responsibilities, it’s simply not true. The lack of a parent significantly impacts a child and stays with them into adulthood. Our society’s failure to address parenting and the family can be seen in many of our societal ills today.
That’s my thought for today.
Later Days!!!
I just had a great conversation with a friend and co-worker. We both share the same faith and we were talking about the state of the Church, being involved in church, and things like that.
What struck me and inspired this post is how nice it was to talk and discuss things with someone who shares my faith. It was good to be able to profess the power of Christ without instantly having to defend or explain it. Even when we reached issues that we disagreed upon, we still shared the same common core beliefs and were able to discuss those issues from that standpoint. The conversation was so much better than the conversation/argument that another co-worker started over whether Christmas is a pagan holiday. Incidentally, whether the date is an amalgamation on the part of the Roman empire or not, we Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, definitely a Christian event.
I believe this is why Paul professed that it is good to congregate with other believers. This is why church is important. It’s not because we have to go to a special building to worship God, but so we can spend time being revitalized and refreshed in our beliefs by other believers. The world will wear us down and erode our beliefs if we’re not careful. There is also the thought of remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy. But that’s another post for another day.
So, that’s my thought for today.
Later Days!!!
One man’s junk is not necessarily another man’s treasure. Sometimes one man’s junk is junk. If you have something that you don’t want, and you offer it to someone else, don’t get offended when they don’t want it either. That’s just silly. Offloading your trash onto someone else is not a great act of altruism and generosity. It’s offloading your trash on someone else. Think about the message you’re sending.
“This isn’t good enough for me, but it’s certainly good enough for you.”
Really?
There’s nothing wrong with offering something that you don’t want anymore to someone else. Half my house is furnished this way. But if they don’t want it, don’t get offended, just get rid of it some other way.
Later Days!!!
I was just working in my basement and thinking about doing a good job. It brought to mind one day, long ago, when I was working for my father. We were painting a house. My father left me alone to work for a while, and I made a rather big mistake. I remember overhearing the conversation that the owner was having with my father. He commented on how the work wasn’t very professional. I had damaged the reputation of my father that day. To this day, I still feel badly about what I did.
How often do we damage the reputation of God? I feel badly about what I did to my dad’s reputation, but do I get that same feeling after I have failed to uphold Christian ideals, either by something I say or something I do? We should feel just as badly about hurting God’s reputation as we do about damaging the reputation of our employers or friends or spouses.
This just popped into my head a few minutes ago, and I figured I would share it before it left.
Later Days!!!
We had a last minute health crisis with our scheduled worship leader, so we had to put the entire music worship service together right before church. I got to play guitar today, which is nice. Usually, I’m on drums. Not that I mind the drums, but it’s nice to do something new once in a while. We were definitely winging it. The songs were songs that the usual worship leader knows by heart, but the guy filling in wasn’t quite as familiar with them. It turned out good. I really do love playing in the praise band.
The message was from James and centered on the dangers of our language. It’s a familiar theme, but as with almost everything in the Bible, it’s good to be refreshed on it. It’s so easy to let the lessons of the Bible slide away. I suppose that’s one reason it’s so good to go to church every week. One of the interesting thoughts that our pastor put out was that our words reveal the condition of our heart. It’s not enough to just guard our words, but we must also change ourselves inside, or more accurately, ask God to change us. If our hearts are right, then our words will be right too. If our hearts are wrong, then even if we remain silent, our hearts are still wrong.
Anyways, it was a good message. It certainly gave me something to think about as my mouth is one of my personal stumbling blocks.
That’s all for tonight.
Later Days!!!
I think I figured out a way to get my posts flowing across all my different accounts. We’ll see. If this post stops at Facebook I will have run out of ideas. It might be time to hang 10 on Google.
Later Days!!!
I’m so frustrated right now. I set up a Facebook account, a Twitter account, and I updated my MySpace account. I then linked the Facebook to my blog, the Twitter to my Facebook, and the Myspace to the Twitter. It worked flawlessly. I could post once and it was propagated across four different sites. Awesome. I then renamed one of my blog categories to “My Faith”. Aaaaannnnnd….everything stopped. I managed to get the blog and Facebook linked. But the blog posts won’t post in Twitter. They stop at Facebook. If I write something directly into Facebook Twitter picks it up.
I’m so frustrated. I’ve about had it with this social media thing. Does anyone want to come over for a FACE TO FACE cup of coffee?
Later Days!!!
My last blog talked about the importance of true sorrow for our sins. So this post is about repentance.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” (Matt. 5:4)
I think that we, as Christians, may rely too heavily on God’s grace. This is not to say that we should be relying on our good works to get into Heaven. What I mean is, we are so confident in God’s grace and forgiveness that we skip an essential step…repentance. It may just be me, but it seems like we place so much emphasis on God’s love and grace, that we forget to emphasize why we need God’s love and grace in the first place. We are sinners and require God to forgive us. In order to receive forgiveness, however, we must repent. If this wasn’t so, why is the call to repentance repeated so many times in the Bible? In the Bible, forgiveness is always preceded by repentance.
God does forgive us time and time again, and for that we should be glad. At the same time, I think that when we fail to realize how sinful we are, we also fail to appreciate the awesomeness of God’s grace and love. None of us are perfect, and we all need to repent of our sins. The good news is of course that God “…is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:9). This is encouraging to say the least.
That’s the post for tonight.
Later Days!!!