Death in Hollywood

Well...another person has died in Hollywood. Forgive me, but I can't help but notice the ever increasing trend of self-destruction among the famous people in the United States. When I asked my Bible classes what was the cause, I received a variety of answers. They included the following: searching for God, a lack of real friends, drug abuse, living in a fishbowl, a lack of self-worth, the lonely feeling of stardom, no rules, bad parenting, etc. However, upon further reflection on C.S. Lewis' book The Problem of Pain, I realized that all of these people endure suffering and what they are trying to do is alleviate the pain in their lives. Face it, Heath Ledger, Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan; they are all just people like you and me. They all endure trials just like you and me. They all reach for help just like you and me. Sometimes we reach for the wrong thing, just like you and me. Christ tells us to cast all our cares upon him and he will give us rest. The difference between Hollywood and the Christian perspective is that we look at the eternal, as well as having a different concept of pain in general. May God help us all to endure the pain in life to the glory of God, and to carry the burdens of others that we may fufill the law of Christ.

Divorce

Okay, well the topic of today is quite possibly the most stupid man made idea that I have ever heard of, its called divorce. Yes, I know that Jesus says that its permitted in some cases of marital unfaithfulness (the definition of this though can be quite varied), but I sincerely wish that we could do something about the dissolution of the nuclear family. Recently someone extremely close to me that has been married for 52 years is getting a divorce. Whether this sad thing is thrust upon people because of violence, money, or just because they do not like each other anymore; it is quite plain that marriage no longer means what it used to mean. Our culture seems to have lost the meaning of the word commitment and replaced it with selfish conditional love. If, and yes I realize that this is virtually impossible, we as men and women could just follow the advice of Paul in Ephesians chapter 5, then homes would not be broken, children emotionally scarred, and lives lost to the other spiritual side. Please understand however that I believe a woman should submit totally to her husband. A husband should love his wife like he loves Christ. If both partners keep this as their goal, what a different understanding of Christian marriage would their be in this world. I do think women should be doormats for their husbands. I do not think husbands should just make all the decisions and use the submission concept to dominate their wives. This is not the point that Genesis makes when it says that couples should be one flesh. One flesh is the idea of unity. This means that you have to operate as one being because that is the way that God views you. This does not mean that you should just defer to the man in every decision. To be quite honest, sometimes I defer to my wife's judgement because I trust her. She defers to me some of the time because she trusts me. When we don't agree, we continue to COMMUNICATE until we find some resolution. That is another thing about marriage. If you have the attitude or the mindset that you can just quit, then you are doomed from the beginning. Marriage is not something that you should just quit, unless you think you can quit on God and I would not advise that either. What God has created, let no man put asunder.

The Problem of Pain

Today, I had to pull out a student from chapel and, with her mother present, pray for her Uncle as he is apparently on his death bed. It is at times like these, when I truly realize my incompetencey as a minister. What words can I offer to comfort this sort of pain? What can I do? The painfully obvious answer is absolutely nothing other than pray. These events, while traumatically painful beyond all comprehension, should bring each one of us to a pause. As God calls this man into eternal fellowship, we are called by the spirit to evaluate how we view life...and death for that matter. Life, how infintely a short thing to understand. Perhaps, now, after considering the sum of our actions in life, we can be changed by the power of God to be a different person that brings glory to him. Having an eternal perspective that comes only from Christ, we are challenged by death to live differently than the present. In terms of death, for the believer and non-believer alike, an eternity awaits. Death to those of us with hope is not an end, it is not the end, it merely is another door through which we all must pass. We step into eternal fellowship with God and leave the temporary darkness of this world and move into a realm where no darkness is tolerated. The other option, well, although it is real place and real people dwell there, is rather painful to discuss. Hell... a word we use frequently, yet do not fully understand at all. However, I sincerely hope that God can use to me keep people from this literal God-forsaken place. It is truly a privilige to minister to hurting people, to show them Christ's love. As Christians, it is our calling to carry each others burderns because the other option is nothing short of the failure of the kingdom. May God use each one of us to live for heaven, to point people towards it, and keep our eternal perspective on life. God will accept nothing less, and we can give him nothing more than all of who we are. Now...get out there and show some love!!!!

The Church - Some Thoughts and Some Ranting

So I was reading in Matthew. You know... the passage where Jesus says that not everyone who cries to him "Lord,Lord" will enter the kingdom of heaven, only he who does the will of the heavenly father who is in heaven gets in. Now, call me a southern simpleton, but upon reading this passage, I began to examine myself and what I feel to be Christendom in general. My question is two-fold, who am I? Am I the one crying Lord, Lord that makes it, or am I going through the motions? I ask the same question of the church in general. So, I know that I don't meet the standard of Christ, but why is it that the church tries so hard to do what is right, and yet can't acknowledge when they (we) screw up. If we did acknowledge this, we could clearly speak volumes about one of our most important doctrines...grace. Instead the world only knows a hypocritical, judgemental, Republican, white, upper-middle class, Jesus that would rather just sip on a latte from Starbuck's than love people in an effort to touch their immortal souls. When we do actually decide to engage someone about their faith, some of us are too busy thinking of responses, judging their views, classifying their theological frameworks, to actually marvel at the beauty found inside a fellow child of God. If we did this, would our hearts not burn like the disciples that spoke with Jesus on the road to Emmaus? Would we not be consumed by a zeal to show people that Jesus, this God man thing Lord, wants to invite them into not just a relationship, but a friendship of unlimited porportions? Instead my friends, I believe we have become complacent. Satan has convinced some that the church and Christ are irrelevant. That...is crap!!!!! In our world, with our problems, Jesus has never been more relevant. From serving in the Sudan to the way you talk to the McDonald's cashier, you and I can actually be used by God to have an eternal impact for his kingdom. The problem that concerns me most, do we possess the constitution, the spiritual gumption, the love of God to go as far, preach as hard, love as passionately as a country boy carpenter that altered the very face of the world. Thoughts anyone?

Blasphemy Challenge www.blasphemeychallenge.com

So, I was told to go to this website by a friend, and guess what I found? A bunch of people in varying ages denying the existence of the Holy Spirit and God. In essence they are making fun of the unforgiveable sin. Certain things are said like "I freed myself from religion" or "its reasonable not to believe in God". To be quite honest, I found this whole idea rather scary. It does show how pop culture can dictate the reason of our youth. Watch the videos and give me some thoughts. Overall, I found the whole thing disturbing.

The Offering of Christianity to Current Culture

As I sat in Seminary class the other night, I suddenly had a question that popped or pooped itself into my mind. If Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world, and having some sort of religious affiliation including atheism is becoming so popular, then what do these other religions and philosophies offer people that Christianity does not? I mean...to be quite honest, one of my largest and over-arching reasons for believing in Christ, notably not necessarily Americanized Christianity, is that the message of the gospel is so transcedentally different than any other gospel ever presented. Whether its Islam, Buddhism, or being your own personal God, not one of those systems is based on the idea that we must die to self in order to love God and our neighbor. Sure, these relgions have great morals, and to be quite honest, probably act more Christian than Christians, but they are rooted in systems of self-interest. I think perhaps that the reason that these other religions are so popular is because they do not force us to really come to terms with the ugly beast of humanity's terrible capacity to sin. Yes, these other religions call for morality, but merely calling for morality is not the fundamental problem. Humanity is flawed and broken. What we must do is not merely force these peoples of other religions to hear us, we must show them a Christ in us that means what he says. We have to take Scripture truth and more than talk about it, more than preach, more than be convicted by it, we must live by it. And if we don't, then we face the problem that the churches in Revelation face, we have cooled off in a world that desperately needs a hot radical purpose. That's what we as society want, but we damn people to hell if we do not provide them will the real answer.Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.Luke 9:22-24