Judging Others

It is not a rare occurrence that I find myself in the presence of  those who curse, and I would venture to guess that this is the case for many of us. Perhaps there is a different situation which irritates your soul such as drinking, smoking, hateful words, laziness, violence, blaspheme, perversity, lust, irrationality, idolatry, adultery, or sexual immorality. I am sure that every devout Christian hears, see's, or feels others' sins. If you claim to be a Christian and do not notice other's obvious transgressions, you may seriously want to examine your faith, for that must mean that your soul is not in the moral position it should be (or you have isolated yourself from the world in which case a psychiatrist may need to be considered).

The fact is that this world is full of sin. On a daily basis, every human see's others pierce Christ's hands with what they do. All Christians have experienced that awkward and uncomfortable moment where someone blatantly sins in front of them and they are faced with a choice: say something or remain quiet. What are we to do? Doesn't the Bible say we shouldn't rebuke others while we are imperfect beings? We say to ourselves "so if I say something, I disobey the Bible, and if I don't say something, well, my conscience is heavy but it makes life easier" and we continue to rest in our ignorance. Once, I heard a Christian youth pastor say "I always think it's funny when I'm around my non-Christian friends and one of them curses. They always look at me and say 'Oh! Sorry man! I forgot your a Christian." to what the Christian replied "Oh, no, really, don't worry about it. Your not a Christian so you don't have to follow that."

Let's take a look at the passage where Jesus talks about judging another person.

"Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgement you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. Do you not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you."
-- Matthew 7:1-6

Jesus says that we should not judge (something non-Christians and Christians alike love to mention when a believer try's to correct someone's behavior). But there is a condition under which we should not judge. Jesus says "first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye". It's that simple, don't be hypocritical in your judgement. If you curse like a sailor, don't tell others to not curse. But if you have gained control of sin in your life by the grace and mercy of God, than you are in every position to rebuke and aid others in their difficulties. Not out of hate and mockery, for that is sin, but out of love and a desire to further their experience with Christ. Jesus even says in Luke 17:3 "Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sin's, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him."However, there must be a balance in the Christian life between Judgment and forgiveness, we have a responsibility to aid those who are poor spiritually but also a responsibility to forgive those who have come to acknowledge their depravity.

Some may say we have a tough job. For we are called to rebuke and forgive those who's sins we witness. Let us not say to those who are non-Christian that it is okay for them to sin because they do not believe in Christ. Denying a belief does not make it false. I can say that the world is flat, should I therefore live as if it is? Never traveling across water, worried that I may fall off the edge? I surely will but others have the responsibility, in their greater wisdom, to tell me the truth, that I may understand life further. We Christians are in the same position, we must proclaim Christ when given any opportunity, whether it be someone cursing in front of us, or someone coming up and asking us plainly about Jesus. We are called to a life of purity, judgement, and constant fellowship.

Our Jealous God

"For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." -- Philippians 1:21

To live is Christ and to die is gain? Does that fit with the way you view the world? Last I checked, dying wasn't the most pleasant thing. In fact it is quite horrible. Isn't it? Not to mention that I sure never thought of dying being a thing of "gain". Whatever that means.

For the one who has little faith, this verse can be difficult to understand. However, for the one who has an abundance of faith, this verse is close to heart. First, Paul meant that living is his most heartfelt way to express his connection with Christ to others who are lost, and that in this life, there are opportunities to be tested and therefore opportunities to further express one's love for Christ. Basically, in this life, Paul can understand the sufferings Jesus experienced because he suffers. Secondly, he meant that in death, he will experience closeness again to his savior and his Father and because of the effect of death, what seems to be loss is gain.

If it's true that we Christians are supposed to look at life as Paul did, think of life as an opportunity to live like Christ, and look at death as simply a passage to a greater ultimate reality with God, than maybe this whole "Christian" thing isn't what some of us thought it was. Many Christians assume everything is done for us. After all, God died for us, we live for us, I choose God, God hopes I choose him. It's a perverse logic so many of us have adopted. I will make this next statement as clear as possible. Everything that happens is made to happen by, for, and through God. Look at some of these verses supporting this premise.

"For I [God] knew that you would surely deal treacherously, and that from before birth you were called a rebel. For my name's sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another." -- Isaiah 48:8-11

"I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins." -- Isaiah 43:25

"Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." -- Psalms 44:22

"We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, be we in disrepute. To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things." -- 1 Corinthians 4:10-13

"But whatever gain I had, I counted for loss for the sake of Christ." -- Philippians 3:7

It is obvious that all of these verses point to things being done for the sake of Christ, not for ourselves (even though sometimes it seems it is being done for us). God blots out our transgressions and forgets our sins for his sake, not ours; God makes us suffer for his sake, not ours; God loves his children for his sake, not ours; God has mercy for his sake, not ours. Paul realized this in his letters, he realized that God didn't save him so that he could go do whatever he wanted, but so that God would be glorified through his salvation. He realized that he didn't suffer because God is an evil tyrant, but because God will be more glorified in  the end through his suffering. The reality is that God does things for himself, sounds selfish? Get over it. We serve a God who does not "give up his glory" to anyone, a God who loves, but not because he feels bad for us, a powerful God who isn't selfish but glorifies himself because who else is God to glorify? Us? Absolutely not. Nothing created deserves glory, only that which did the creating deserves glory.

Does all of this make sense? I hope so. Sometimes it won't make sense why God made us suffer, but that is because we don't see the whole picture. Can you tell what the puzzle is going to be when you look at just one piece? No. In the same way, when we look at one instance of evil in our life, we don't understand because we can't see how this fits into a picture that is glorious, but we are only seeing one small piece of the puzzle.

How glorious is God? We have a God who knows the beginning from the end, is transcendent yet immanent, incomprehensible yet understanding, wrathful yet lovable, merciful yet just, pure yet exposed. He is a God who gives glory to himself because he is the only one worthy of such glory.

On occasion, we think we are worthy of God's glory, well in reality, those who think they are worthy are less worthy than those who think they aren't. God did not come to save the righteous, but sinners. Not the rich, but the poor. Not the strong, but the weak.

Blasphemy

What do you think of when I say the word blasphemy? Do you think of when someone exclaims "Oh my God"? Do you think of someone who refuses God? Do you think of cursing? Or calling upon evil spirits? Maybe you think of sin in general, or maybe you think of not doing the will of God. To have any one of these views is more cultural than it is biblical. And even if some of these views are accurate, the list is not exhaustive--it does not have all the situations in which God is blasphemed. Yes, it contains cursing, denial of the spirit, demonic practices, and sin, and though there is two more I wish to add to this list (which this post is about), the list will still not be complete, but it will be slightly more extensive (by two).

Now, read these Bible passages and think about blasphemy.

"But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep." -- 2 Peter 2:1-3

"Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin." -- Mark 3:28-29

Many of us are familiar with the verse in Mark presented above talking about the one who blasphemes the Holy Spirit being unable to redeem such a sin. But many of us have heard the more cultural (but less biblical) version of this verse, that is "Anyone who blasphemies God will not be forgiven". What does this mean? Does it mean that Jesus' death on the cross did not cover the sins including blaspheme against God? Such as saying "Oh my God" or saying "God doesn't exist"? There are those who teach this doctrine, but it is a fallacy. There is no denying that their is some sort of blaspheme that is unforgivable, and in this passage, it is referred to as the "blasphemes against the Holy Spirit". One more very important thing to notice in Mark is where it says "sins will be forgiven...whatever blasphemes they utter".

Now let's take a look at the passage in 2 Peter. The verse begins by talking about false prophets. What is a false prophet? It is someone who is persuasive, seems to have all the right answers, seems to have the truth, but is a liar. They are people who bring about heresies and sin, gossip and hate, false teaching and slander, idols and poor doctrine. When talking of these false prophets, the passage says they "even deny the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction." So it seems that denying the Master (Jesus and his salvation) causes a path to destruction (hell). It goes on to say that many will follow these false prophets, and then it says "and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed."

Follow the line of logic here. We know that blaspheme against the Holy Spirit brings about an inability to be forgiven. We know that blasphemes that are uttered can be forgiven. We also know that the Holy Spirit is the life of Jesus inside each child of God. And we learn in 2 Peter that false prophets (or teachers) blaspheme the way of truth; and that blaspheme leads them to destruction. It must be then that blaspheme is not what so many people think it to be, for I know that I do not have a reservation in heaven if my sins have not been forgiven for my cursing and anger towards God on certain occasions. But as we know, things uttered are forgiven.

These verses are talking about the second most severe form of blaspheme: the blaspheme against saving grace. The blaspheme of when a person turns away from God in resentment, or ignorance because they are either too lazy or angry to follow God. The blaspheme of when people curse God whole-heartedly wishing him eternal damnation. The blaspheme that denies the saving grace God offers. For who can be saved without the gift of the holy spirit? No one. Not only this, but the first most severe form of blaspheme is also within these verses. Think of the false prophets for a moment. The worst form of blaspheme is a "lukewarm belief". By a "lukewarm belief", I'm talking about those people who claim to be a Christian, but their lives show otherwise, and because their lives show otherwise, others see and follow a false Jesus living within them. I'm talking about those people who go to church for the holidays and drink every weekend; or those who claim to hold the spirit within their soul, but rather than lead people to Christ, they take them from him. The people who are supposed to be a light in this world, but are a dark place to hide. The people who don't stand up for their faith, but rather duck down and dodge the bullets. They say "Lord, Lord" but they have never opened their Bible a day in their life. To these people, the kingdom of heaven does not belong. Because they have not received the Holy Spirit if the Holy Spirit is not seen in them through their actions. All you atheists who hate Christians and hate Jesus, do you truly want to blaspheme God? Become a Christian and live as if your not. If someone thinks they are safe, then that is right where Satan wants them, when you think you are healthy, you won't look for a cure. Little do you know, your dying.

The Bible as a Movie

I recently finished the book of Matthew. I never realized the life-changing power that the Bible has until I read it and actually tried to comprehend what I was reading. Ya know, as opposed to that reading-but-not-hearing-what-your-reading method; a pretty common method (especially when it comes to God's word). Why is that? Why is it that the single most important book that anyone will ever read is so easily drowned out by other things around us? It seems that if God really wanted his people to write a book that was divinely influential, as the Bible is supposed to be, he would have made it entertaining. Maybe throw a few battle scenes in, have a clear antagonist and protagonist, and obviously the protagonist would have to win. Another essential to any good story is you have to fall in love with the protagonist and hate the antagonist (unless it's some bizarre psychological experiment). So what was God thinking? Doesn't it feel like we don't find any of these things in the Bible?

Actually, the reality is that we find every one of these in the Bible, the old testament in Judges and other books is filled with battle scenes; in Job, we see the battle between God and Satan and the sovereignty of God. There is even a very clear antagonist--satan--and protagonist--God. Here is the best part though, the protagonist even wins. It seems the Bible does contain all the essentials for a great story.

Ya know that part in every superhero movie where it seems the protagonist is going to lose and than he draws on his last bit of strength to end up conquering the day? Like when spider-man gets the crud beat out of him but ends up winning against unlikely odds? Or when Batman has a dilemma to solve and he ends up finding a loophole? Well, in the Bible we find the same thing once again. When Jesus was on the cross, he died!! How much more distress and lack of hope could you possibly have for a dead protagonist? Talk about a depressing ending to a film. The sad part is it isn't a film, it's reality.

Ya see, the key is to make people lose all their hope in the protagonist and they, against all odds it seems, make a come-back. It enhances the viewers faith and hope in the protagonist. I don't know how you could have anything make you lose more hope than death. That seems pretty final to me, but Jesus rises from the dead after three days. He had even predicted this to the disciples, but they had doubted it. Could you imagine the anticipation? He dies, you run because your next, and those next three days are probably the slowest of your life. The disciples were probably counting down the seconds to that third day wondering whether Jesus was the real Christ (savior). And then, against seemingly unspeakable odds, Jesus rises from the dead exactly when he said he would! He is victorious after all. Not only that, but he has conquered the most persistent enemy known to man: death. If you can overcome death, I don't think your gonna be having much trouble with anything else. Agreed?

It is a beautiful story, and if you think about it, one that man simply could not think up. The complexity, yet simplicity of the story is genuine, unimaginable, and not comprehendable. I don't know about you, but the last thing I would do if I was making up a religion that was fake would be to make it so complex, yet that is what we find. We find simplicity and complexity inside one concept. The complexity of pure theology and the simplicity of "Jesus died for you". Beautiful.

Jesus' Parable of the Wedding Feast

This parable in Matthew 22 is a controversial one amongst the Christian community because of its' blatant ending statement: "For many are called, but few are chosen." Some have read this last verse and concluded that some people are Christians today, but on the day of judgement--the time that we die and God judges our lives--they will be sent to hell.  Others have taken the statement to refer to the "lukewarm" believers. In Revelations 3, John vividly describes the voice of Jesus in his vision in reference to the Church in Laodicea saying, "I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of my mouth." Many believers think that the verse in Matthew, where Jesus talks of the people who are called but not chosen, refer to those that John talks of in Revelation--the lukewarm: the people who say they are Christians but do little for Christ; they have one foot in the world, and another in the Kingdom of Heaven.

These are a couple of the views that are widely accepted but are inadequately supported. Let's take a further look at the first view I described. The first view, in my opinion is terrifying. Keep in mind, this view is less accepted than the second, but it still has its place in our cultural Christianity. Think about the implications of believing that some are Christians but simply will not go to heaven. I am a Christian but is my spot in heaven guaranteed? This verse seems to say it isn't, but look at some other verses.

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

Romans 10:13 "For 'everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'"

There are many more verses supporting the paradigm that "those who call upon the Lord shall be saved", but I will just share these few. Seeing as I am a Christian and there can be no contradictions within the Bible, it appears I have run into a problem. Matthew 22 seems to say that not everyone who calls upon God is chosen for his Kingdom, but these other verses in Romans and John seems to clearly state that anyone who calls upon God for salvation will be saved. See the problem?

Let's now look at the second, more common view. This view claims that those people are being called but not chosen are people who have asked God for salvation but have not done enough "works" or good deeds to gain true salvation into heaven (the lukewarm people). The problem with this view lies near the same place as the problem for the last one. Firstly, the verses in Romans and John again make this statement difficult to support because this view claims that you must do some works along with your faith in order to be saved, but the others say it is simply the faith that is essential for salvation (John and Romans). Here is another selection of verses that makes this view so difficult to hold:

Galatians 2:16 "yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified."

2 Timothy 1:9 "who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began."

So what view are we to hold? These two seem far too contradictory and unstable to maintain with confidence. If we look into the beginning of Jesus' parable, we find that these views are not what he intended and that with the correct view, there is no contradiction.

In this parable, Jesus compares a king throwing a wedding feast to the Kingdom of Heaven. He says, "Then [the king] said to his servants, 'The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.' And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, 'Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?' and he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, 'Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' For many are called, but few are chosen."

Notice, in this parable, that the king (God) tells his servants (Christians) to go out and tell everyone about the wedding feast (heaven and the gospel). This concept fits well with other verses:

Mark 16:15 "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned."

The problem is that people are interpreting the word "called" in the parable incorrectly. From the way the story is told, it should be interpreted in the sense that many are going to be "told" of the gospel by Christians, but few are going to accept it. However, it is being interpreted poorly as God will call many people, but only some of those people are actually chosen. The problem was in the words "many" will be called, and "few" will be chosen because this indicates a different number of people for each category, but with this new interpretation of the verse, this is no longer a problem. We know that it is our job to tell all about the gospel (few of us actually do so however) and we also know that not every person we tell is going to accept it. This was a straw of Jesus' message through this parable; tell others of him, but expect some not to listen.

expected ignorance

I believe I am speaking,
But the evidence proves me wrong.
I can feel my throat vibrations
And even hear my song.

Clouded eyes look past the song,
Into their own abyss,
As if the song I sing
Is completely being missed.

Is it no longer of importance?
Or did it start like this?
Did the clouded eyes of conversation
Simply lose interest?


I give up trying,
For they have been lost.
Perhaps tomorrow, one more go,
But will agony be the cost?

Walking away to go home and rest,
Glancing into the streets;
A cursed vision bestowed
Upon these starlit pupils.

What vision did I see you ask?
One of glory perhaps?
Or maybe it was my beloved friend?
If it was, I wish not to comprehend.

The horror was too great,
Too full of hate,
Too full of shame,
Too full of a desire to be selfish with fame.

I saw children walking with parents,
The Children’s eyes starlit with prospect.
The parent’s eyes dark and lost,
A curse to the blessed elect.

The Children talked to their parents,
Unaffected by the world,
Listening for listening,
But finding only ignorance.

“Is this the way of the world?”
The children thought,
Ignorance beginning to take its’ toll.
“It must be okay, this is what our parents have wrought.”

The parents completely unaware
Of the way they used to be:
As their children are now,
Searching for hope and someone who can truly see.

But this is the way of the world,
We do not care what others speak,
We wait for what we say next,
We look but do not seek.

I will not try to sing again,
My voice is worn out,
In silence I will sit,
That others may be heard out.

Love story

Love has been expressed by humans through words, actions, time, and gifts. But what is this most mysterious, yet powerful thing we call love? We all supposedly understand it, yet we use cute metaphors and sayings to explain it. Why not be straight forward with our answer? Is it that we really don't understand it? Even our dictionary explains it as "an intense feeling of deep affection". I don't know about you, but that doesn't satisfy me. It is far too vague and broad to actually help me understand love intellectually and apart from my feelings. But can love even be understood this way, or is it to be forever felt but never thought?

Me and my girlfriend tell one another that we love each other and we hope this feeling to last. I would like to think that this feeling is genuine, but how can I really know without a solid intellectual understanding of what love is? I don't believe I can, hence the problem.

We can define love as the dictionary does, we can make up our own definition, we can even say it is merely a feeling one gets that cannot be described, or we can choose to not define it at all and bask in the joy and happiness it has brought humanity. However, it is not like me to merely cast aside an attempt to try and understand this mysterious abyss that philosophers have been trying to understand for years. With that, I now make my attempt.

I believe love to not be something of this world. An odd statement? To many people, yes. Someone is saying, "but love is part of this world. Whether we understand it or not, it is irrefutably a large part of the human race." My question is this: If it is such a large part of the human race, why can we not understand it? Can our mind understand everything but love and is hence inadequate to try and understand anything. If a source of knowledge is not all-knowing, than it knows nothing for sure. For example, I may see my water bottle as being blue, but do I know whether or not there is another way to see its true color apart from sight? No. Therefore, because my whole knowledge for the water bottle being blue comes from my empirical data, I cannot trust it. Empirical data is no source to be trusted because it is not all knowing. Since we cannot understand love, since we cannot think of love clearly, it must be either an alien to us, or we have become alien to it. The latter is my opinion.

This world was born of love, it lost love, it was saved by love, and it perseveres because of love. In the second stage of this, we lost touch with what exactly this thing called love is. In the third stage, we learned again that perhaps love was not dead forever and there was still hope to be found in a new source.  And in the fourth stage, two thousand years later, we have began to lose touch with it once more, but not all hope is lost. In fact, I know the end of the story....yeah, I looked. And by the way, to answer this complex question, "what is love?", that's an easy one, God is. And in the end, love wins.

Presupposition's of Rationality

Everyone depends on God. Not in the sense that everyone trusts God, nor in the sense that everyone believes in the existence of God; in the sense that everyone's existence is dependent upon God. An odd statement? Possibly one that questions my ability as a thinker and writer. However, given the known fact that life is present, that events happen, and that matter is existent, isn't this an unavoidable conclusion to arrive at? 

   

If we assume that we are truly rational--which science, thinking, philosophy, and empirical data are all dependent on--than we must have some ground for believing that this is the case. I would rather not consider the option that all thought is completely irrational, nor, I'm going to assume, would my reader. Let's dive deeper into this premise. 

By rationality, I mean the human ability to reason towards accurate conclusions on the basis of empirical or philosophical data. This ability is not one that arises from random occurrences; from, namely, the theory's of the sciences. It would be much appreciated if at this point, my reader would join me in thinking through this. At this moment, I sit in a coffee shop with a cappuccino  next to me. What empirical data is present in this statement that allows the reader to feel this is an accurate statement? There is none whatsoever. So why are you inclined to believe me? Because you find me trustworthy. "Why would he lie to me about such a mundane detail?" you ask yourself. Well there are several reasons I may twist the truth of this detail: for the sake of an example, for a necessary hook (though this is not the best hook), or simply to get more words on the page. It can now be concluded that there is a possibility I have either lied altogether or twisted the truth to fit my hopes for this blog post. 

  

Premises in science are accepted with a similar lack of questioning. I do not claim that they have not been tested, or that all things in science are inaccurate. I claim that certain theory's in science have been so desired that it has resulted in a determination, if not hostility, towards the questioner to not so much answer the question's of the science-skeptic, but to merely tell the questioner they are senile for considering a  paradigm that is incompatible with a scientific theory. 

   

Many hostile atheists believe we are mentally confused, and they are intellectually credible and thought-through. But are they not guilty of clinging to their views with arms squeezing? Yes, Christians also cling to their views, but why is the atheist so hostile? Why is the new-atheism so against us? It is one thing to have a naturalistic basis for your views (the atheist), but it is totally another to have a supernatural. The naturalist is not backed except on the basis of his own rationality; the Supernaturalist is backed by a being who has provided our rationality. If nothing has given you rationality, why trust it? It is a fallacious way of reasoning; one’s quality of reasoning is only as good as it’s source. 

Strong Weakness

I feel misunderstood;
significantly insignificant.
As if only I notice
me and my magnificence.

I pray for contentment,
for joy in who I am,
and the answer I get
is seemingly grim.

"Why do you feel
as though you are lacking?
Why do think
that you are worth nothing?

"I tell you the truth
when I speak of contentment,
your significance is found
in your insignificance.

"Your importance is not based
on your amount of skills,
your importance is based on your chosen
gear for climbing life's hills.

"I do not care
for what others see,
only I care for the
way you trust me.

"When climbing a hill,
bring your best,
do not settle,
it is a test.

"But when it is over,
you will be renewed,
to a life of joy
and solitude.

"I grant you hope
and abundant strength,
but don't expect
lessened pain.

"For when you are weak
then you are strong."

REDEMPTION

A broken spirt,

an uplifted soul,

seem contradictory,

but the two make one.

How is there such grief,

and yet such desire,

contained inside,

one empire?

Pain inhabits grief,

while passion occupies desire.

Passion, pain; desire, grief:

An image of transcendence. 

Could man at his best

forge an image,

as that of such a 

magnificent pilgrimage?

Nay, for too great

is such a picture,

and too significant

are the limits of humanity. 

Most of the posts on this blog are intellectual, full of difficult concepts, full of thought-wrenching ideas that make the mind reach beyond its average capacity. But where, one might ask, is the emotion; not the thought-wrenching, but the heart-wrenching? Where is the emotion that the gospel carries with it?

A broken heart.
Ehh, what's new?
A fallen world,
I'm used to that too.

Some have become
insensitive to pain.
They look the other way
as if heartbreak is gain.

Yes, everyone suffers.
Yes, everyone Cries.
So why should one care
for the tears in your eyes?

The tears are not a curse,
but rather a blessing.
A way to end
all of the suffering.

Though I have no tears,
I still feel pain.
Though my crying has ceased,
I endure my shame.

Much of life hurts,
but put your pain on a scale.
Measure it compared
to the pain of His tale.

In comparison,
one finds difficult to do.
It's not what i've done,
but what he went through.

So, where is the emotion?
Where is the feeling?
Where is the love,
that reaches to the ceiling?

It's all around you,
just search high and low.
You are sure to find it,
even if it is below.

The love of a savior
can be hard to find.
Do not search in the
depths of your mind.

Look east,
Look west,
and you will see,
although subtly,
a love as big,
as the sea.

I Don't Know...God Does.

God knows the all-encompased past, present, and future. No devout Christian would try to refute this statement, but many do so without trying. When a belief is accepted as true, one must accept the implications of said belief as true also, lest the logic for the belief become inconsistent, and thus lack a foundation. This is the problem that is present in many Christian's understand of omniscience (complete knowledge). They accept omniscience as true, but deny an attribute called sovereignty. Sovereignty is a word meaning basically "complete control". To put all of this more succinctly, many Christians assert that God knows all (The base belief), but deny that God has planned all (The implication of the base belief). This is a large problem in today's liberal theology that makes God seem weak and impotent. It needs to be addressed.
Let's begin to adress this problem on a base that all Christian's would agree with: humans are individuals with distinct personality's. We all have unique desires and passions that make us who we are. Can we all agree with this? Most unbeliever's would even agree with this truth, it is indispensable. From this basic truth, the Christian must concede that God created us differently; with our personal desires. Seeing as God does not create without a purpose (For his glory), it must be admitted that our personal ambitions, our unique outlooks on life, our different passions, have been put there for a purpose; and if everyone has specific passions, everyone has a purpose; since everyone has a purpose, the world has a purpose. Following? Furthermore, granted omniscience, if the world has a purpose, God knows the purpose for the world; if God knows the purpose for the world, than he has known it from before time began. What follows is this: If God has known the purpose for the world before time began, than he had the ability to fit said purpose to his goal. And in adjusting the purpose for the world, he must adjust personal passions, lifestyles, and desires. In doing so, he has inevitably planned for a world that follows his outline and will meet his goal. We have fallen into sin because it is in God's plan; we have crucified our Lord because it was God's way of showing us his amazing grace; we have suffered because God wants us to understand what Christ went through for us. Everything happens because God has ordained it to.
In denying that God has planned out personal lives, one can see now that they are denying complete omniscience; and accepting "partial-omniscience", that is, they believe God knows, but deny he has known from eternity. It is wrong for us to simply accept what is being taught in many churches and to not investigate it ourselves, if we do so, we fall into a inconsistent belief, such as this, that makes God appear as a being who puts us humans above himself; with all due respect, that is not the God I follow.

Reducing God

"God is not great". Have you heard this before? Perhaps from a close friend, from an enemy, or from Christopher Hitchens 2007 book god is not Great. This is not usually thought to be an empty solution to a contradiction in God's attribute without any backing, but that is what it inevitably reduces to. "Ah!" you say, "but God has shown he is not good, look at all the evil in the world! Does not a similar cause produce a similar effect?" Oh how quick we are to point fingers, to push the guilt off of ourself, to find another to blame. That is not my argument, but it's a valid point. My argument is this: if given the oppurtunity to do evil, and we do, is that evil? Of course! If given the oppurtunity to do good, and we do not, are we evil? No! In the book of Job, Satan comes up to God and tells him that the only reason Job is following God's word is because God has blessed his sock's off! And God says essentially, go ahead and take away my blessings and see what Job does! Do you get it yet? Is it not true that christianity believes that God has not so much said "yes" to evil as he has said occasionally "no" to blessings bestowed on us: Health, wealth, and family? Have we made the monumental mistake of reducing God to not only to the natural, but to an even lower unhuman standard? How crucial a mistake! For we consider ourselves justified when we say "no" to giving a homeless man money, and we see God as not being justified for saying "no" to that man's blessings. I suggest that we think of God not even merely from a natural perspective, but a supernatural one.

Romans 12:2 "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."

We should not be in harmony with this world; the world that we are in the presence of until we die. This world will pass away, this life itself will pass away. We should in fact, hate certain things this depraved world has created. In Romans 7 I believe, Paul says that if "I do what I do not want, than it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me". You see, if we are sinning and we hate it, it is litteraly not our soul or spirit that commits it, it is our flesh.

So many times, people judge by the appearance of the body, but our body is not who we are, it is our container. Being imperfect, we will always be contained in a bodily and physical form which distinguishes us from God. I remember a specific example once given to me by my grandmother, she compared our physical and spiritual form to a penut. A penut has a shell and does not come into existence without one, but the inside of the peanut is never seen until you examine the peanut beyond its external appearance. Humans are the same, we are in this physical container and cannot escape the bounds of it. The Bible tells us that when we get to heaven, we will have heavenly bodies, so my question is: Seeing as us humans are always going to be confined in a "container", is this simply so that God can put limits on us and show his dominion over us? Or is there another reason God has done this?

By focusing no longer on outward appearance, the world, or sin, one can focus and be closer to God presence. But only in heavenly realms will one experience the greatest possible intensity of God's presence.

The miracle of fasting

As I sat in the kitchen, I heard my sister and mother talking about fasting for twenty four hours. Out of a natural curiosity, I asked them why they had decided to fast (they have never engaged in fasting before). My sister answered saying "My friends parents, who have been married for like sixteen years, are thinking about separating, they got in a huge fight." Immediately I responded by saying that I would also like to participate. That night at 8:30 p.m, me, my mom, and my sister, would not eat for 24 hours. And every time that we thought of our hunger, it would remind us of the unfortunate seperation and we would pray for them. I would try to get on my knees in full surrender to our Lord in hope that his wonderful grace would be shown on this marriage, and with faith that his will would be done either way. There were several times that day I felt the full spirit of God descend on me and his grace radiate throughout my body. For once, I felt the completeness of full surrender to God. How glorious this was! The next night, we ended our fast and ate somewhat of a late dinner after one more deep prayer with our family. The next day, I found out that the night we ended our fast, EVERYTHING was back to normal and my sisters friends parents were as close as ever in their marriage. God is good!

IMAGINE

Can you imagine weightlesness? Think about the problems on earth that weight bring up: Stereotype, irrational judement, uncomfort, inadequacy to perform certain skills, etc... Weight makes things heavy, makes it difficult to carry certain objects and burdens. Weight is what makes a burden a burden.

I sat in a tub of water today as I meditated on God's word, I searched for a perfect balance, and could find none. When my hand was under the water, it was pulled to the top; when it was above the water, it was pulled to the bottom, there was no perfect balance. One could put their hand half in each, but as I tried this, it made simply an uncomfortable tension, half of my hand being pulled up, but the other pulled down.

This imperfection of balance will be impresent in the heavenly realm when we have reached eternity with God. Burdens will not be held, for they will lose their weight. I challenge you this, how much more will the absence of force other than that of the perfect God, affect a life of perfection? I think it is no mistake to make the assumption that the absence of gravity other than that towards our Lord and savior may be the best thing that a believer shall ever experience.

Chapter one of Biblical Love: Love for yourself

Love for yourself

Romans 13:9 “The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery,
You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and
any other commandment, are summed up in this word:
‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

In America, you can go up to nearly any woman (regardless of size) and ask them if they are trying to lose weight, and if they are being completely honest, the answer would commonly be “yes”. You can also go up to nearly any man in America and ask him if he wishes he was stronger and he would say “yes”. Why is it that we always see the negatives about ourselves? If you went up to a woman and asked her how much weight she has lost, she would say a number and instead of continuing to boast about how much she lost, she probably would go on to tell the person her goal weight. When is it enough? When do we need to accept ourselves for who we are? Moreover, when do we need to realize that God accepts us for who we are?

Why is it that we are constantly bombarded by negative reinforcement? We are constantly finding what is wrong with our appearance or attributes and trying to adjust them to what is popular. So there must be something that is contributing to this negativity in our self-esteem. Of course there is! People, magazines, television, school, the internet…etc. All of us are told that if we don’t look a certain way, dress a certain style, or go to a certain school that we are simply “not as good”. Why else would it be that some girls spend around two hours on there hair every morning? Even guys often lie about engaging in sexual activity to avoid being called gay and gaining a bad reputation.

In magazines, I constantly see titles such as “lose weight now!”, “Best bodies!”, “How to look good in a bikini”. Whether we wish to believe it or not, the majority of Americans have allowed this to affect their life in a huge way. We worry what we look like on a date, women carry make up in their purse, men do everything they can to become muscular. It literally takes up peoples lives and turns there heads from what’s important; love. In these circumstances, it is not love for others that is needed, it is not love for a thing that is needed, and it is not even love for your family that is needed, its love for yourself.

Genesis 2:27 “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

We were created in the image of God, every one of us. Whether we are blind, naked, unloved, hated, persecuted, or rejected, human beings are none the less the divine and incredible image of God.

Perhaps “image of God” does not refer to looking like God, but rather, the way God wanted us. For example, if I was to make a bowl out of clay and I had shaped the bowl exactly how I wanted it so that it could be used exactly how I wanted, one may say it was created in my image, not because it looks like me, but because it was my perspective that created it the way it was. And that is exactly how I wanted it.

At the beginning of the earth, this is what God did. He took humans and molded them exactly according to his will, not the will of the person across the street, not the will of the media, but the will of God. If we think about it this way, it helps us understand why people aren’t accepting of others; because it isn’t their will or perspective that is prevailing, it is God’s.

When we were molded by God, we were molded in such a way that we would fit perfectly into his plan. God has a plan for every one of us, not just the strong, not just the week, not just the rich, not just the poor. Every single one of us makes a contribution to further accomplish God’s plan. People in America commonly think of only themselves and what they are going to do. But the Bible talks about the “body of Christ”, and that is not plural. If we are to contribute to the “body of Christ” than we have to think about not just how we can help ourselves, but how we can contribute perfectly to that “body”.

Let me use this example, God molded some of us into a fork, some of us into knives, some of us into cups and plates. But if a fork is all on its own when something more tough comes along, you are going to need a knife, and if something with more liquid comes along and all you have is a plate, your going to need to go grab a cup. You see? Everyone has a specific purpose to serve while we are down here. Other wise, God wouldn’t have put you or me down here at all.

The easiest way for someone to loose sight of God’s plan for their life is to allow others “will” to affect them instead of the will of God. God’s will for us is perfect and fits into his amazing plan. But a person’s will is complete imperfection and can distort our view and, possibly, will contribute to us turning our eyes from God.

So how do we love ourselves? By ignoring what others negatively tell us, and accepting what God truthfully tells us. When we listen to God, we discover a joy that reaches down to the pits of our heart and soul and binds them in such a way that we realize we are truly worth something. Let not things of the earth define you, such as money, sex, power, and drugs, but rather, let yourself be defined by the acceptance and love of Christ.

You might ask why I decided to have the first chapter be about love for ourselves. Maybe it seems like it should be focused more on something like: Love for God, love for people in Africa, love for family…etc. But the reason I decided to start on love for yourself is because once you have love for yourself, you gain love for others and God.

The bible tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves (Romans 13:9). But that commandment is impossible to follow if we do not know how to love ourselves. Furthermore, if Romans 13:9 tells us that in order to follow all of the commandments, we must love our neighbor as ourselves, than we cannot follow any of the commandments from the bible without self-love. This is why I started the book with this, because if we are to have any hope of understanding the deep love of Christ and the deep love we should all strive to acquire for Christ, than we must learn to love ourselves.

Biblical love: introduction

This is a book I have been writing in my free time. I ask you guys for comments on it so that we allow God to speek through you in order for me to improve it enough to hopefully get published. This is the introduction. Enjoy and please Comment:

I rarely come home from a Christian book store with a book that doesn’t talk about Calvinistic theological beliefs and defenses for such beliefs. My family is very strong in their beliefs towards the Calvinistic ideas of Christianity and the contrary to this belief is frowned upon in our household. However, I recently came home from a bookstore with a book called “Fearless” by Max Lucado which had appealed to me at that time because I was being troubled by some things in my life and I felt that it would be a good time to purchase such an item.
I got half way through it the first night I bought it and was enjoying it quite a lot. Once my brother caught a glimpse of it, he was somewhat taken back that I had bought a book that wasn’t referring to specific theological ideas that me and my family had so earnestly indulged in. He asked me why I had bought such a book and I simply told him that I thought it looked like a good read. He then walked off with a glimpse of disappointment. I find this to be a concise example of how Christians forget about the single most important thing God asks of us; love.
I, myself am an example of a person that is consistently distracted by things that cause you to turn away from the important things in life and pursue something because it seems more appealing. I turn away from things such as: The bible, God, my family, my friends, school, and prayer. I exchange these for: Video games, a movie, physical attraction towards the opposite sex, and just about everything that your mind can come up with that is unneeded for a happy life. I have been condemned for both lists, but I have only been convicted of the second. Condemnation is feelings that people have of doubt, or insecurity. They are feelings that are untrue and come from an unreliable source. Sometimes they come to us through feelings the devil gives us, sometimes through other people, and sometimes through ourselves. However, conviction is a true thing that could, in a sense, be considered somewhat of a conscience. Conviction brings about feelings of things you should not have done, guilt, and often times, if you listen to it, ends with an apology to God or a person who was wronged.
It is most important that we do our utter best to control our lives in such a way that we are not distracted by the things of the world such as: drugs, sex, pornography, lying, cheating, steeling, hating, murder, adultery, etc… but instead our faces make a one hundred and eighty degree turn towards: God, the bible, family, Christ, and prayer, or….you could simply refer to the latter list as love. 1 Corinthians 13:13 “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
Love really is an intriguing word, in today’s society it is used with nearly everything that appeals to someone. Many of us say things such as “I love that TV”, or “I love that video game”. But at the same time, it is used as a word of affection and sensitivity towards people. We use it towards our kids, our parents, our spouse, our girlfriend or boyfriend, and towards God. If we use the word love towards our possessions on earth, than why do we also use the same word in order to glorify God? I hope that God does not mean as much to some of you as your TV or your video game system does. Therefore we shouldn’t be using the same word for both. We must choose whether we wish to use, what the bible tells us, is the single deepest way to express compassion and kindness towards another being, for God or for items.
However, there are many types of love, the love one has for another Christian, for a spouse or loved one, for objects and idols, and most importantly, for God. Many people take these loves and twist them in such a way that they might love God in the way that they love an idol, or they might love an idol the way they should love God. Therefore their love has become perverse and twisted. And the only antidote to confused love is God. My goal is to allow God to speak to people who have mistakenly twisted their ideas of love so that God (not me) may help you and guide you on the path to correcting, what I like to call, biblical love.

Christianity uncovered: Understanding Creationism

One of the more common questions that arises against the belief in God creating all matter and everything that exists is the universe is "Who created God?" Let me start off by saying, before I answer this question, that if the person reading this is truly looking for an answer to that question, there is no where else to look but the bible. If someone asks this question, they are surely, but subtly, admitting God exists, but they are denying to use the bible as God's truth. This is somewhat ironic as you may be able to see. If you truly are looking for an answer to this question, then I suggest you keep an open mind and believe the resources I am going to use. But if using this question, for you, is just to deny the deity of God, asking a question about God, but not listening to what God tells you, is not the way to go about it.

Now, in the bible, we are told that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). If we are too fully understand this verse, we must dig deeper into the meaning of "beginning." Beginning could be reffering to: the beginning of time, the beginning of creation, or, as some may think, the beginng of all thing. However, it is in fact reffering to the beginning of a new dimmension called time. Humans are stuck in time, where as God is not and therefore has been and always is there. Not only does the "beginning" refer to the beginning of time for us, but it is simply an attempt for the human mind to understand how God has always been and always will be. There is no word in the english language, nor in probably any other language, that means "always before the beginning." Why? Because it is impossible to fully understand that deffinition. The reason this is such a difficult concept to grasp is because God did not give us the ability to understand us. But he did give us the ability to believe and trust him, so that is what we must do. We have to simply have faith in God's word, without faith, no person would understand this concept in the least.

Colossians 1:15 tell us:

"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-all things were created through him and for him."

Notice it says He is the firstborn of all creation, God was the only thing there was. Nothing created him, He just was. Nothing was there before him, He simply, was. If we think about our own lives, everything we know, see, taste, hear, feel, touch, and smell were created at some point in time. At no point in time, are we physically with something or someone that wasn't created. It is our mere nature to understand that everything is created, it lives, then it dies. God, however, is incomprehendable because he contradicts what our understandable nature tells us, God truly is everlasting. We however, and everything around us, is not.

Revelation: 22:13 "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."

Christianity uncovered: Love; Action or Feeling?

In today's day and age, love is seldom reffered to as something a person does, rather, it is usually thought of as something that has a "spark" to it and can be forgotten about over time. In my very first post; biblical love, I talked about love as, contrary to popular belief, not being a feeling for the reason that the bible tells us that love never ends and feeling's come and go. I would like to expand on this concept and explain how to apply it to our love for God and how God apply's it to his love for us.

I would first like to quote a verse out of 1 Corininthians to build off of:

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 "Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong doing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

Building off of this verse, we can realize that love is slow to anger, it is not boastful or envious, nor is it rude or prideful. Now if we think about this deffinition of the word love, how does it differ from that which most humans think of love today?

If I were to come up to a girlfriend and boyfriend who were arrogantly fighting but still had no intentions of breaking up, and I went over to them and asked them if they loved eachother, I would not be surprised, nor do I think any of you would be, if they responded saying "Yes, we are just fighting," or something to that effect. This is quite frankly a perversion of the word love, love is in fact an action, not a feeling.

The way the bible defines love is all by actions: selfless, not arrogant, not irritable, rejoices with the truth. Love is the action of controlling your actions and feelings, but it is not a feeling that comes and goes; for love endures all things. In order to fully understand the word love though, we must look at how God loves us.

1 John 4:16 "So we have come to know and believe the love God has for us. God is love and whoever abides in love abides in , and God abides in him."

We never speak of love in the way it is expressed in 1 John today. We never say that someone IS love. We may say they do love, but I can honestly say that I have never heard it stated in this manner. If God is love, what does that mean? It means that God endures all things, He bears all things, He is selfless and does not envy or boast. With this knowledge, we have the ability to take a great leap into a few of God's divine characteristics and therefore, respond to them better.

How do we love God then? By believing in Him, by trusting Him, by attempting to follow his commandments and rejoicing in the faith we have in Him. Without this love for God, there is no love for God's chosen people (1 John 5:1). Without love for God, life is a mere pointless breeze that will blow but have no good, or spiritual, or even meaningful effect on anyone. Without love for our savior and Lord, your life, although contrary to logic, will cease to have meaning.

1 Corinthians 13:2

"And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all

knowlege, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains,

but have not love,

I am nothing."

Christianity Uncovered: Savation through works

The idea of being a good person and getting to go to heaven is a very common and accepted belief amongst christians and atheists alike. This belief for atheists presents a ground for them to fall back on, lest their ungodly beliefs be incorrect or compromised. In other words, an atheist (that has been a nice person) may believe their whole life that God doesn't exist, but many will still aknowledge the possibilty of their incorrect assumption and therefore, feel more comfortable to say that a good person will go to heaven, regardless of faith. Although this is a common and soothing belief, it is biblically incorrect and should furthermore, be studied on the basis of God's word and not be bound by human instability.

In order to strongly and accurately grasp the concept of salvation through faith alone, we must realize that our idea of something good is corrupt and should not be linked with God's divine understanding of something good. For example, today there are many things that the world would call good that God frowns upon, such as becoming drunk and having premarital sex. Not only do some people consider these good, but many people have a strong sense of pride during a time of financial success or something that has recently been accomplished by them or of something too that effect.

Not only does God consider our view of good to be corrupt, but it is in fact, impossible for a human to commit a good work. In the book of mark, Jesus is called a "good teacher", and although this seems like a good title to us, especially if it is being associated with someone
(Jesus) that has lived a perfect life, Jesus says that he should not be called good, for "no one is good except God alone":

Mark 10:18 "and Jesus said to him, 'why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.'"

If we know that even Jesus the Christ, who lived a blameless life, was not "good", then who are we to call ourselves good? We are far from it. If man is not good at all, there is no possibility of salvation through what he does, only through God's grace and mercy being shone on our absolutely corrupt lives, does the reconciliation of our sins take place. "No one in the flesh can please God" (Romans 8:8)

So, how then do humans have a hope at all of doing truly good deeds or pleasing God if we are absolutely corrupt? I must admit, I had trouble with this question as I was studying it until I stumbled upon Phillipians 2:13, which says:

"for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure."

No man, on his own, and according to his own will can please God. But God can please himself. And if God is working through a man who has faith in God in order to complete his holy will, then the man with faith is not pleasing God, but God through that man and on account of that man is being pleased, therefore that man is credited for his Godly actions which are brought about by God. But without faith in Jesus Christ and God, pleasing Him, and much more, aquiring salvation, is impossible and should not be attempted.

Introduction: Christianity uncovered

Some while ago, I was asked a question that I found somewhat difficult to answer, even though if I would of thought about this question prior to being asked it, I probably would of said to myself "Yes, that's an easy one." None the less, after realizing this to be a somewhat challenging question for myself, I thought it essential that I explain to my fellow brother and sister's in christ, and hopefully to some that don't know much about God, the answer to this complex question. The question that I was asked was "What does it mean to be a christian?" It is very possible that if I was asked a theological question, I would find less difficulty in answering that than in answering the actual asked question. Often times, I find that, I myself, get too focused on theological ideas of the bible that I forget to get back to what really matters, forget to get back to the basics.


Throughout this series, we will study subjects such as: different denominations of christianity, the role of a christian, spiritual gifts, and acceptance of Christ. These are divine truth's that I feel are not studied or looked upon often enough. I will do my best to remain away from strong theological points but let us remember that I am imperfect and I would expect that some will unknowingly slip into this series.

My hope for this series is that the people reading them would become stronger in their faith with Christ and that possibly some people, by God's grace, may come to know him. I ask for prayer during this series from fellow christian's so that I would not make the mistake of getting hung up on theological ideas. I am by no means against theology or deep thinking of the bible, for that is the reason I even started the blogs. But for this series, I feel it is important that we focus on God's amazing grace and how to worship and come to know such an awesome God. God bless all of you and I hope God speaks to you during this series.

God, Sin, and Man Parable.

I had a trip to go on today for my band class at my high school and God gave me a, what seemed to mundane at first, but was in truth, a miraculous experience. It was not actually on the band trip that this experience occured. It occured while I was walking home after me and my band had arrived at school. I was walking home due to lack of my family's ability to pick me up, everyone in my family, at the time, was preoccupied. So, without arguing, I told my dad I would simply walk home (it wasn't that far of a walk anyways). And as I was walking home and I had reached the street I live on, God presented me with an experience, that very well may be with me the rest of my life. I continued walking down my street, and after I had reached just a quarter of the streets length, I saw a crack in the pavement on the road (as you may know, there are cracks all over the roads in Klamath Falls). I obviously have seen plenty of cracks in plenty of roads. But, i'm am honestly not sure why I did what I did next. I walked up to the crack on the other side of the street and stood there for a second on one side of it without crossing over to the other side of the crack. Something in my head told me to think of the crack as God, and I, of course, represented a human. I then went on to imagine that a car (but there was not one there at the time) coming towards me, on the opposite side of the crack, would represent sin. And I thought of this to be somewhat of a pointless thought, because, in this case, the sin would not be able to reach me because God was intervening and would be blocking the sin from reaching me. And since we all sin, this felt somewhat rediculous for the time being. I then continued to walk down my street, not really thinking about what I was just imagining. I saw a rock that looked like it would be fun to kick, so I walked up to it and swung my foot at it, unfortunately, I missed. And after I missed, my foot tumbled and I fell. What I realized right as I was stumbling was that I was on one side of a crack when I had kicked the rock, and I was on the other side of the crack after I had fallen. I realized that if a car (sin) would have been on the other side of that crack, I would have (litterally) fallen into it. After this experience, I realized that it is not so much the sin that bashes through our belief in God and enters into our life, it is us that bashes through our belief in God in order to fall into sin. Perhaps a better example of this (that I also thought of on my walk home) is imagining us (humans) standing on one side of a door (God) and another man (sin) standing on the other side of the same door knocking. Now, the man who represents sin cannot reach us unless we open the door and, in doing so, push God aside and accept that sin enters into our life. Therefore, we are the sinners and God is our defense.

Good Works

Let me start off by saying that this blog, although it may seem like it at first, does not contradict my last post. In my last post, I meant to be speeking of the result of the holy spirit being in you; which is doing good works. But in this post, I will be talking about whether or not good works can save you apart from belief in Jesus Christ, as this seems to be a popular belief amongst human beings today.
The idea that good works apart from belief in Jesus christ is by no means being set from a biblical point of view. In the book of Galations, Paul adresses this issue:
Galations 2:16 "yet we know that a person in not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified."
This states quite clearly that a person is saved by the belief in God and not by good works or "works of the law." Not only this, but it impossible for someone who does not accept God as their savior and Lord to please him:
Romans 8:8 "Those who are in the flesh cannot please God."
Therefore, if we cannot please God if we don't accept him as our savior, then a person who lives a life full of good works but doesn't love God will fail carelessly to please him. Like I talked about in my last post, good works is the evidence of our salvation, not the cause:
Ephesians 2:10 "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."
As you can see in ephesians, God planned out and prepared beforehand what good works his followers were going to perform. Hence, why it is the evidence of our salvation. Furthermore, when something is our workmanship, it is the representation of what we are able to create. Therefore, if we are God's workmanship, then we have a responsibility to do good works so that others will see that we are honoring God. For it is dishonoring to God if we do not do good works, because as his creation, we are responsible to honor God in everything we do.
Titus 2:7 "Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works and in your teaching, show integrity, dignity."
Not only are we dishonoring God when we don't do good works as he commands, but we also dishonor ourselves. We should show dignity when teaching and doing good works so that no noe can condemn us or judge us when they see us do something that is against God's law. So, although works are not what make us recieve salvation, we are still commanded to commit them. How will others know that we are regenerated by Christ if we are not walking in good works. In order to honor God, we must be living a life where we are attempting to live for him with our best ability. We are not expected to live like Jesus did, but we are expected to try.

Biblical Faith

Faith and hope, although closely related, must not be mistakenly thought of as perfect matches. In Hebrews, it gives us a good definition of what faith is:
Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."
If faith is the assurance of things hoped for, then faith cannot exist without hope, but hope can exist without faith. In other words, hope would, in a sense, be a lesser version of faith. For example, if you have faith that something is going to happen, you believe in your heart that that thing is going to happen. If you hope for something to happen, you wish or long for that thing to happen, but there is not assurance in your heart. Faith is the assurance or confirmation of hope. We also must realize that there are two parts to faith, there is the confirmation of hope in your heart, and then there is the works, or deeds that comes along with it. In the book of James, it quite clearly tells us that faith without works is useless and dead:
James 2:17 "So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead."
James 2:20 "Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?"
The bible also tells us that faith is what gives us our salvation:
Ephesians 2:8 "For by grace you have been saved through faith..."
Therefore, if there are two parts to faith, the believing and the works, and we are not completing one of those two parts, than how is it possible that we have salvation? Quite frankly, you are not saved if you are only completing one of these parts to faith. It is not that you are not saved because you are sinning often, but it is because if you truly have faith in God, it would result in an attempt to follow God's commandments and not just throw them aside. I am wrighting to those of you that claim to be christians, but in your heart you feel no guilt for your sins and make no attempt to turn away from the flesh. For those people are only decieving and tricking themselves. I do not mean to comdemn anyone by what I am saying, but rather, I want to speak only the truth and help those who are only completing one part of faith to realize the mistake they are making and possibly give them the knowledge to correct it.
The bible also talks about faith as being a christians shield:
Ephesians 6:16 "In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one."
The bible refers to faith as a shield for many reasons. First of all, there is the fact of being able to overcome anything with faith in God. And second of all, there is the concept of when we are being spiritually attacked, we will be able to remind ourselves of the truth because of the faith within us. Faith is a strong tool and dependable attribute if it is set in the correct spot. Do not set your faith in the wisdom of men, but instead, set it in the power of God (1 corinthians 2:5).

I think it is essential that I explain what I mean by "works." I did not mean that if a person does not do good things then he is going to hell. What I meant, and this could be easily mistaken, was that if you are making no attempt to turn away from sins and feel no guilt or conviction of your sins, then indeed, you have no right to call yourself a christian. "works" is the attempt to turn away from the flesh and live in the spirit.

Men and Women's Role

Men and Women both have very different roles in relationships and in the church and really just in general. In today's society, many people want to focus on the idea of equality in the church, in relationships, and equality in political issues. How society today views equality is incorrect and twisted to the wants of certain people. First we will talk about a women's role.

Speaking in terms of authority, women are the least capable and least able to handle a position like this and should not be in a position of authority over man:



Timothy 2:12 "I do not permit a woman to teach or to excercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet."



We also must realize that in the beginning, God created man first and then created woman because it was not and is not good for man to be alone, God also created woman to be a helper to man:



Genesis 2:18 "Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.' "



Women must realize that they are the glory of man because they were made from man:



1 Corinthians 11:7 "For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man."



The deffinition of glory is "something that is a source of honor fame or admiration." Therefore, for a woman to be the glory of man, she must show him honor, respect, and admiration. But we must not make the mistake of thinking of women as a slave to men, but we will talk about this matter more when we speak of men's role.

If women are meant to be a helper to man, they should not be leaders in the church or in marriage. The authority should be given to the man. I have heard the defence that when this is talked about in the bible, it is only talking about that time period. If we are basing our views off of this, than how do we know that Jesus didn't just mean to save people from back then? The fact of the matter is that when someone says this, they are arrogantly twisting the word of God to what they're flesh desires. Many women do not realize this, but they should not be trying to get men to be attracted to them or try to show off there looks. But instead they should be modest and self-controlled:

1 Timothy 2:9 "Likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire,"

Women should not be spending an immense amount of time on their hair or jewelry or make up in the morning, but instead, they should focus on how the Lord chose to create them, and realize they are more beautiful in their natural state.

Now, let us speak of a Man's role on earth. Men have the authority in the church and in a relationship with a woman:

1 Corinthians 11:3 "But I want you to understand that the head of every man is christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God."

1 Corinthians 14:35 "If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church."

One of the most important things a man must realize though, is that although he has authority over a woman, by no means does this mean that they should be treated as less than us. It simply means that women should be submissive to the man while the man should love his wife and realize how delicate she is:

1 Peter 3:7 "Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered."

Men must realize that women are the weaker vessel and treat them as such. A woman must be treated, by a man, with love, and understanding. But most importantly, the Man must realize how delicate a woman is. I cannot stress enough how neccesary it is for a man to take the role of leader in the house and in the church, but also realize how delicate the woman is. Men must realize that how a woman looks is just how God intended her to be and since the bible tells women to not worry about how they look, we must focus on if they love the Lord our God. And base our relationships more off of that. In order for man and woman to be obeying God's commands, they must be take the appropriate rolls.

Good God VS. Evil Earth

Recently, some people have been asking me how it is possible, if God is so good, that there is so much evil and suffering on earth. I feel compelled to help, anyone with this view, correct it and base there beliefs off of God's word and not twist there understanding to what makes sense to there human mind.



People often times make the mistake of deciding themselves, what is "good" and what is "bad." However, although few people realize this, it is not our decision to decide what is good and what is bad. We are imperfect human beings and we are constantly following our fleshly desires, this makes us even less qualified to set the boundaries for good and evil when we are so oftenly living in sin. Instead it is God who decides what is Good and Bad:



Psalms 51:4 "Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgement."



Notice, that he says I have sinned against you and done what is evil in "your sight," not his own. Because we enjoy sin, we therefore can never fully understand good from evil like God can. So to understand how there is suffering and evil on the earth, we must first realize that this is not our job to judge what is good and evil. We also must remember that at the beginning of the earth everything God had created was good:

Genesis 1:31 "And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day."

At the beginning of when God created the earth, everything he made was good but then the earth entered into the curse of sin when Adam and Eve sinned against God:

Genesis 3:17 "And to Adam he said, 'Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;"

God promised Adam and Eve that if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that they would surely die, therefore if they would of not eaten of that tree, no one would die today(although we must remember that if we would of been put in that case one of us would of done the same thing, so the blame is not on Adam and Eve, but on the human race). This explains why people die in the earth, it is not God being mean to us, but it is us getting exactly what we deserve.
We must also remember that whenever God does something that seems evil to us, it is not, because what God does is made holy because he is God. For we are his creation and he may do with us what he pleases:

Romans 9:15 "For he says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion'."

Also, we must realize, that although suffering will come about in life, do we forget about the good things God gives us? Why is it that these are commonly less acknowledged than are the bad things? All things that are good come from God, even the very fact that we are alive:

James 1:17 "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change."

When we are suffering, it helps us to endure more sufferings to come, and helps us to understand Jesus's suffering, and therefore, be able to become closer to him, and more deeply understand his love for us when we began to experience suffering for ourselves.

Romans 5:3 "More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering poduces endurance,"

Phillipians 3:10 "That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,"

These are all biblical explanations for suffering on earth when we have a good God. We must remember not to turn to our own logic and mind but instead, think about what the bible has to say about it, if you are denying or getting worked up about these explanations because you think it would make God mean to not make our earth good, than you most certainly are focused on your own logic.

Love the Lord your God with all your might (3)

This post is going to conclude this three part study we have been working on, in deuteronomy 6:5. In this portion we are going to be focusing on "Love the Lord your God with all your...might." For the last time, once again, we must understand what the bible means by the word "might." In this part of the verse, some bibles translate the word to "strength" which is the same thing as "might." So for this post, we are going to be going by the word "strength" in order to avoid confusion. Now, when this piece of scripture is talked about in Mark 12:30 Jesus uses the greek word "ischus" which means: ability, might, power, strength. It is quite obvious that Jesus is not talking about our physical strength because everyone who is a christian is not "buff" or "ripped." Instead, Jesus is actually talking about our ability or our power. When Jesus comes into our life, he renews our strength or "ability"



Isaiah 40:31 "But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint."



In this verse it quite obviously is talking about our ability or power. Running is an ability that takes power; walking is an ability, these are all metaphorical examples of what God does to our ability. Furthermore, Proverbs 24:5 says:

"A wise man is full of strength, and a man of knowledge enhances his might,"

This verse is saying, in simpler words, that a man who is very wise or has much knowledge in God has more strength than a man who is unwise, and since not everyone who is smart is physically stronger than someone who isn't very smart, we must not make the mistake of assuming that the bible is speaking of physical strength. Now that we understand what the bible means by "strength," we can understand what it means to love God with all of our "strength." Since the word Jesus used in Mark 12:20 means ability, power, or strength. We know it is not physical strength or physical power and that leaves us stuck with "ability" which we have already talked about. The word ability means: "competance in an activity or occupation because of one's skill, or training." This may seem a little fuzzy, let me try to explain. God is our trainer and what he wants of us is our occupation, that he will train us in. So, in order to love God with all of our strength or ability, we must be willing to let God train us so that we are able, and willing to do what God has planned for us. As I was studying deuteronomy 6:5, I realized that that one verse really sums up pretty much the whole bible if you dig deep enough.

Love the Lord your God with all your soul (2)

In the second part of this study, we are going to be focusing on the "Love the Lord your God with all of your...Soul" portion of the verse.
In this section, we also must identify what the bible means by the word "soul." The bible says that man cannot harm the soul (matthew 10:28), so this tells us that the soul is not a physical thing, but we must not mistake this by saying that the soul is not as real as a physical thing because it is just as, if not more, real as our physical being. The soul is our spiritual being, it is one of the main things that distinguishes us from animals and "beasts of the earth," because animals do not have souls, they are simply mans helper. Throughout the bible, it repeatedly talks about the soul being revived or restored by God (Psalms 23:3, Ezekiel 18:20). If the soul needs to be restored, this means something must be making it indecent or unacceptable to God. We also must realize that if God is the only one who can effect our soul (Matthew 10:28), this means he is the only one who would be able to restore it. The thing that has been dirtying or making our souls unacceptable to God from near the beginning of time is sin (1 peter 2:11). And the way that we wipe sin out of our life is by asking God for forgiveness because of his amazing sons sacrifice. If a clean soul in unacceptable to God, then we cannot completely love God with all of our soul unless we are asking for forgiveness and God is wiping away our sins. This does not mean that if we forget to ask for forgiveness for one sin, that we are condemned to hell. God knows that we are forgetfull beings and far from perfect and as long as we are trying with all of our soul to stop the wicked things of the flesh, our sins will be forgiven through Jesus Christ. So then, how do we love God with all of our soul? We must first realize that we are imperfect beings and thank God for his son and pray for forgiveness of our sins. And if you are asking God for forgiveness with a sincere heart and have been convicted of your sins, then God has made your soul pure, and you will find that you are already loving him with all of your soul. Now, in the bible, Jesus also talks about our souls being at rest if we are willing to follow him (Matthew 11:29). What does this mean? It simply means that we will be living in his will and our soul will be clean, making us more at rest with how pure our soul is and we will be sure of where we are going to go when we die (heaven). If we are truly loving God with all of our soul, than we will be feeling convicted rather often.

Love God with all of your heart (1)

There are going to be three sections on this next subject that we are going to be speaking of. All though the verse we are going to be talking about seems simple and mundane, it is actually a very complex part of the bible once you began searching more deeply and thoroughly through the word of God.





Deuteronomy 6:5 "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might."





During this section, we are going to be focusing on the "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart" portion of the verse. We must first start off by acknowledging what the word of God means by the word "heart." When it uses the word "heart," it is quite obviously not speaking of our physical heart which keeps us alive and beats constantly, but rather, it is speaking of our mind set and morals. You may ask how I know this, allow me to explain. The heart is completely sinful and "evil" from the time you are born.



Genesis 8:21 "...for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth."



Our physical heart cannot be evil, it is simply sitting there and keeping us alive. When we have an evil intention, it is always in our mindset or it is due to poor morals. If someone has just gone through a divorce and they say "My heart hurts," It is not their physical heart that is putting them in pain, instead it is their mindset that has been troubling them.

How than do we do good things if our mindset is constantly evil? God gives us a new heart or purifies the one we have.

Deuteronomy 30:6 "and the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live." The word circumcise means to "purify spiritually."

In other words, we can only do things pleasing to God if our mindset is changed and purified by
God. Now that we understand what the bible means by the word "heart," we can interperate correctly what it means to love God with all of our heart. In order to love God with all of our heart, we first must be given a new heart that is pure and cleansed by God. Without this new heart, we can do nothing pleasing to God, and therefore cannot love him, as this would be pleasing to him. This means that God will purify our mindset and our morals for good and holy things and get rid of the evil and unholy things. Loving God with your "heart," or mindset (which are the same thing as we discussed earlier) means that your morals are based off what the bible commands us and your mindset must be set on holy things and not evil things, therfore after God has cleansed our "heart" or midset, we will already be loving God with our heart because God himself would of already have set them in the right place.
If our physical heart is not working correctly, our physical body will become worthless. In the same way, if our "heart" or mindset is not set in the correct place, our life will become worthless.