The Road of Faith

The one who says, "I have come to know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked. - 1 John 2:4-6 (NASB)

Every person on the face of this planet is on a journey. Both the journey and the destination do matter, for one is spent with what reality is and the other is the parody of it. The destination is either complete perfection or complete denial, there is no alternative. I guess I wanted to write today about "walking" as the passage mentions. I believe that I know Jesus Christ as my everything everyday, but I am stricken with my own sin and the things that happen around me. I admit that I do not obey his commandments, but like any person I try. I attempt to walk like Christ. Two things have recently reemphasized my appreciation for the grace with which Christ walked this earth. First, my father has been diagnosed with cancer. I haven't a clue to what type, but to be honest that isn't important. My dad, this man of all men from perspective, is coming to grips with this worst type of news. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, I have witness my father sharing his faith in a way that make my heart want to explode. I then realized, would I walk like my father? The answer is only time will tell. I am so proud of him and what he has done, and I am truly humbled by the fact that God showed me grace upon grace by giving a father who walked as he did and is still doing.
Second, I have recently struggled as work with a variety of issues. I know that I am not the teacher I should be, but (primarily because of the example of my father's walk), I will never quit, period. He never gave up on this son (I am talking about my own physical and spiritual father as well), and I will not quit on the young people I work with. I will walk with them through whatever valleys they go through...and yes, I can't help them all. But my father sowed his righteousness into the lives of me and a lot of other people, I want to walk as he walks. So, I will help as many as I can. Because, after all, we are all on the same road...the road of faith. Some are close and some are far from Him who loves them best. I hope my journey can one day be similar to what these verses have talked about. I want to walk with Jesus in the same way my dad does. And just like Psalm 73 mentions, It is good to be near God. That's where I want to end up with everyone I know or can get to know. It's my calling. To walk with people on this road...this road with an infinite destination.

War is Hell

As I listened to NPR this morning, I once again became terrified by the effects that War can have on humanity. The reporters related a story of some army drinking buddies doing what soldiers do when they get home (having a drink with their buddies), when one suddenly shoots the other five times with virtually no hesitation. The report further stated that the shooter had a myspace page dominated by his tattoos that said things like "born to kill" and he also apparently had a Waffen-SS tattoo. Forgive me, but I can't help but see this as another negative aspect of exposing God's creatures to a sin they should have never experienced. Its as though once humanity got a taste of killing their own kind, they have never stopped developing it as some sick art form. War...must be one of the most difficult things for the human intellect and emotion to endure. People go, defend themselves and their country, are exposed to traumatic amounts of violence, and then go home and people expect them to just be okay. Aside from this instance, I recently was reenlightened about the sad state of many of our veterans in the care of our government. I did not know of the Walter Reed incident where many wounded and disabled veterans experienced a new "hell" when they came home. Some had to literally army crawl to the bathroom, and apparently there was even one soldier who had not been given a change of clothes or a chance to go to the bathroom for three days. This is unexcusable. We say that we support the soldiers, concepts like freedom and liberty, and then the very men and women who provide this blanket of protection, we basically just forget about. Once again, this just shows you how quickly Americans forget the freedoms that we have, just like most things in life, are bought with a price. I really look forward to the days when wars are over and the soldiers can return to a state of peace. I have a feeling, and I am not soldier so I don't know for sure, but I think soldiers that have really seen true combat spend the rest of their lives trying to do one of two things: finding peace or re-living the most difficult experience in their lives. I hope in God that one day all of this War will cease. Psalm 46:9-10 states that "He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two; He burns the chariots with fire. Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." Let us not forget that War is a terrible thing that should never happen. Sadly because of sin, however, sometimes people have to fight for what is right.

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.