We compromise so much of our Christianity, and I don't mean in the way of morals and law and the such, but that we subscribe more to a worldly lifestyle than a Godly one, and we do this more than we know. We do this every time we put ourselves before God, or before anyone else for that matter, with our time, money and aspirations, which is practically all the time.
Yet we excuse it - heck, we see nothing wrong with it - because we consider ourselves "upstanding" because we don't do this or that certain "immoral" thing. But we still take on the world's self-centered philosophy all too easily, holding on tight to the ideals of how we think our lives should go, seeking comfort above all and living a life that searches for security in all the wrong places (our jobs, our relationships, etc) instead of surrendering ALL to God. From dreams to finances, we rarely let God be apart of that, and at the end of the day, we're seeking our own self-furtherance instead of the Kingdom.
Who lives a life in which the main aim is spreading the Gospel as well as always actively living it out? Don't we concern ourselves much more with the things of man than heavenly things, barely taking any consideration to the fact that we're all going to die someday, and then what will we have to say of our lives? What will any of this matter when we're dead and forgotten? All else will fade away except our souls and God.
I guess I'm increasingly seeing the vanity in so many of our practices. Things that we take on willingly, yet upon deeper inspection are really bred from the world and are far from what Jesus actually called us to do. To follow Jesus when He walked the Earth was to drop everything and give all wholeheartedly to Him. His disciples left their jobs, left their families, left every idea they originally had for how their lives were going to turn out to follow Him - He was literally their lives. So why would the definition of following Him change now?
I wrestle with this daily. Because I don't think I follow Christ as I really should. I don't think most of us do. We shouldn't be fitting Christ into our lives, but giving our lives fully to Him. The only question we should be asking ourselves in regards to our lives, our plans, etc is "How can I spread the Gospel, the love of Jesus?" and as God reveals that to us, letting everything else fall into place. I'm sick of asking "How can I get myself here in regards to my finances or to this place in regards to my career?" and having those questions dictate the direction, decisions, and motivation of my life. I want to be concerned with nothing but how to get this world to where it should be with Jesus. That's all.
Mark 8:34-38
And calling the crowd to Him with His disciples, He said to them, "If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and of My words win this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Sunday, November 25, 2012
What Sets a Christian Apart?
That's been on my mind for the past couple of days. What makes us different? What separates us from anyone else? There has to be something or else why would Christianity be anything to desire? Why would anyone come to Christ if our lives do not show that Christ offers something different and better than the world and ourselves outside of Him?
The question popped into my mind as I was with other Christians. If a non-believer was in our midst, would anything in how we were set us apart from them? Not in a way of being "holier" or "better", but would there be a difference? If none of us said a thing about the faith we subscribed to, would they know that we were Christians? That something was different about us?
I think we're set apart by our perspective (the way we see things and through Whom we see everything), our objective (why we do things) and for whose behalf we act on (not our own).
Perspective. Knowing what eternity offers so that we are not concerned with the material or discouraged with our temporary circumstances. Knowing the worth that God has placed on the human soul and doing all we can to love them above all else, because we realize that's more important than anything, including furthering ourselves. Our perception of tragedy, disappointment, and even seemingly good circumstance is affected by Jesus. Like a filter on Instagram, Jesus affects how the world looks to a Christian.
We are characterized by our words (uplifting, encouraging, and unifying - to build up, not break down, yet still saturated in truth) and our attitude, which like our perspective is determined not by circumstances, but set upon the unchanging goodness of our Lord. It is always hopeful, always knowing that the Ultimate Positive (that is, love that breeds grace and all that it leans to for eternity) remains untainted by anything else we may experience.
This is what sets us apart. And this is what we must openly display and champion. Not in order to assert that we are holy (for in ourselves, we are not), not as a claim that we are better than anyone else, but that everything we are bears testament to the One who is better. Our difference lies in the fact that we are not of ourselves, but that Jesus shines through us so that people many see Him, be drawn to Him, and want Him in them as well.
The question popped into my mind as I was with other Christians. If a non-believer was in our midst, would anything in how we were set us apart from them? Not in a way of being "holier" or "better", but would there be a difference? If none of us said a thing about the faith we subscribed to, would they know that we were Christians? That something was different about us?
I think we're set apart by our perspective (the way we see things and through Whom we see everything), our objective (why we do things) and for whose behalf we act on (not our own).
Perspective. Knowing what eternity offers so that we are not concerned with the material or discouraged with our temporary circumstances. Knowing the worth that God has placed on the human soul and doing all we can to love them above all else, because we realize that's more important than anything, including furthering ourselves. Our perception of tragedy, disappointment, and even seemingly good circumstance is affected by Jesus. Like a filter on Instagram, Jesus affects how the world looks to a Christian.
We are characterized by our words (uplifting, encouraging, and unifying - to build up, not break down, yet still saturated in truth) and our attitude, which like our perspective is determined not by circumstances, but set upon the unchanging goodness of our Lord. It is always hopeful, always knowing that the Ultimate Positive (that is, love that breeds grace and all that it leans to for eternity) remains untainted by anything else we may experience.
This is what sets us apart. And this is what we must openly display and champion. Not in order to assert that we are holy (for in ourselves, we are not), not as a claim that we are better than anyone else, but that everything we are bears testament to the One who is better. Our difference lies in the fact that we are not of ourselves, but that Jesus shines through us so that people many see Him, be drawn to Him, and want Him in them as well.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
We're All So Selfish
How have we become a generation of Christians more concerned with ourselves than for others? There is a distinct lack of compassion to be witnessed, and it seems that a lot that we do, though supposedly done in the name of Christ, is highly motivated by a legalistic self-righteousness instead of love. Even in our preaching of the Gospel, which comes off more as a "well, I do it because I'm supposed to" or an assertion of our own holiness. Something bred from an idea of "you should be like me because I'm so good and have it together" as opposed to being motivated by a deep and genuine care for the well-being of our neighbor, realizing that we were once as they are and sharing what we have in Christ, so that they may experience something truly wonderful as well.
Not to mention, so many of our aims and goals are so self-motivated. We look to move forward in our career to gain security and to "do what we love" or what we're good at, but rarely is our number one aim in all that we do actually what Jesus commissioned us to do - make disciples of all the nations.
Which is why there is such a huge discord between the early church and the present day church, and I believe the root of the problem lies in the our selfishness. We are willing to actually give very little up in service to Jesus. Not our pride, definitely not our money, certainly not our dreams and security. We do not view the Gospel as the single most important thing, despite of what we may claim. We are happy to accept it for our own salvation, yet it stops there with us because we do not give everything we have to then further the spreading of the Gospel. Heck, we put more effort into making sure our hair looks nice in the morning than sharing the Gospel.
We are not eternally-minded or as compassionate as we should be, because it we were, every single second of our days would be dedicated to making sure everyone can know the love of God forever and ever.
We live a comfortable Christianity, and this faith was never meant to be comfortable. Let us instead strive to live out a radical Christianity, which is actually just Christianity at its natural state. Let us realize that the world we live in now is temporary, and everything we build in it will one day disappear unless it is built on the foundation of God. Let us stop pouring everything into what will mean nothing when we die, but start building up for what will carry over into the afterlife. When we stand before the throne, how far we made it in our career or how much money we saved or if we kept in tune with current fashion or even if our love life was successful will absolutely not matter, but rather what we did to further the kingdom of God.
My prayer is that our church can start to look like it did in the book of Acts. That our discipleship will look like it did in the Gospels. That we use all we have not for ourselves, but for our God.
If we struck out every bit of self-seeking out of our lives, we'd have something revolutionary on our hands. You can say that sometimes we have to look out for ourselves, but that's not true. God is looking out for us in a much better capacity than we could ever look out for ourselves. So let us entrust ourselves to Him, wholly - not just for a well-being, but by using all that we have to live out in service to Him. Taking advantage of every day, every opportunity, every resource to use for His greater purpose, not our own smaller ones.
We are called to follow Jesus, after all. Not just to take in His words, but to imitate His life. Examine His motives, His aims, His actions and know that His life was truly not lived for Himself. And so our lives should be lived out the same. God's agenda ultimately benefits us. Likewise, our agendas should benefit others.
The amazing thing, when we truly do live a life of selfless surrender, we are blessed with the greatest joy. The more we lose of ourselves, the more we gain of God, so ironically in our selflessness, we end up gaining so much for ourselves.
Not to mention, so many of our aims and goals are so self-motivated. We look to move forward in our career to gain security and to "do what we love" or what we're good at, but rarely is our number one aim in all that we do actually what Jesus commissioned us to do - make disciples of all the nations.
Which is why there is such a huge discord between the early church and the present day church, and I believe the root of the problem lies in the our selfishness. We are willing to actually give very little up in service to Jesus. Not our pride, definitely not our money, certainly not our dreams and security. We do not view the Gospel as the single most important thing, despite of what we may claim. We are happy to accept it for our own salvation, yet it stops there with us because we do not give everything we have to then further the spreading of the Gospel. Heck, we put more effort into making sure our hair looks nice in the morning than sharing the Gospel.
We are not eternally-minded or as compassionate as we should be, because it we were, every single second of our days would be dedicated to making sure everyone can know the love of God forever and ever.
We live a comfortable Christianity, and this faith was never meant to be comfortable. Let us instead strive to live out a radical Christianity, which is actually just Christianity at its natural state. Let us realize that the world we live in now is temporary, and everything we build in it will one day disappear unless it is built on the foundation of God. Let us stop pouring everything into what will mean nothing when we die, but start building up for what will carry over into the afterlife. When we stand before the throne, how far we made it in our career or how much money we saved or if we kept in tune with current fashion or even if our love life was successful will absolutely not matter, but rather what we did to further the kingdom of God.
My prayer is that our church can start to look like it did in the book of Acts. That our discipleship will look like it did in the Gospels. That we use all we have not for ourselves, but for our God.
If we struck out every bit of self-seeking out of our lives, we'd have something revolutionary on our hands. You can say that sometimes we have to look out for ourselves, but that's not true. God is looking out for us in a much better capacity than we could ever look out for ourselves. So let us entrust ourselves to Him, wholly - not just for a well-being, but by using all that we have to live out in service to Him. Taking advantage of every day, every opportunity, every resource to use for His greater purpose, not our own smaller ones.
We are called to follow Jesus, after all. Not just to take in His words, but to imitate His life. Examine His motives, His aims, His actions and know that His life was truly not lived for Himself. And so our lives should be lived out the same. God's agenda ultimately benefits us. Likewise, our agendas should benefit others.
The amazing thing, when we truly do live a life of selfless surrender, we are blessed with the greatest joy. The more we lose of ourselves, the more we gain of God, so ironically in our selflessness, we end up gaining so much for ourselves.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
When Man Attempts to Redefine Christianity, It Ceases to be Christianity
There has to be an absolute truth, and that truth must be set by someone who is all-knowing. Who else is all-knowing but the Creator of the universe, without whom there would be nothing? He created the world - us included - and set the standards. We don't have to follow them, but it's futile to dispute, for we would be fighting against an all-powerful God and proclaiming that we - mere humans, a creation - know better than Him.
This is the definition of pride. Let us humble ourselves, admit that we know nothing, and trust in God rather than our own meager knowledge. Instead of trying to make the workings of the world bend to our own flawed logics and limited perspective, let us set our minds instead on knowing God more and allowing Him to reveal His truth instead of trying to redefine truth by what we think will work best.
Maybe when we create a universe, then maybe we can have a say in things. But until that happens, let us accept the truth and power of our omniscient and omnipotent God in our humility instead of trying to created an altered religion of our own.
This was written in response to the practice that some have of compromising Scripture and contorting Christianity to fit their own notions and expectations. Disputing God's ways and trying to form them into what we think is right, neglecting to respect that God's ways are much higher than ours and cannot fit into our little box. If we don't understand His ways, it does not mean that they're flawed or nonsensical - it just means our knowledge and "logic" is limited and we need greater truth revealed divinely to us.
Commonly I see the veracity of the Bible as well as its modern day application disputed, even within the realm of Christians. Also, there are some people who have accepted Jesus as their way to God, but will argue that He is not the only way to God and other people can find a way to God through a different path. That's us tampering with the clear definition of Christianity and trying to make it something human rather than something of God. Once again, it's pride. If every human had the right to make Christianity into what they want, based on what they think, then we'd have no way of truly knowing which definition was right. That's why there needs to be an absolute truth. And as I started out this blog by saying, God is the author of this absolute truth. He is clearly the only One who knows truth. You don't have to believe that, but if you don't, then you also have to concede your beliefs of God as a all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present God. You are entitled to believe whatever you want, but know then that you are not believing in the Christian God, but a God of your own creation. Which is idolatry by definition.
Here's the thing. The Bible is truly God's Word because of the effect of the Holy Spirit living inside of all believers, including the ones who wrote the Bible, and if you have experienced the Holy Spirit, then you know His ability to do things in the one whom He inhabits that are truly and only of God, not of that person. The Bible is correct in its current form because God is sovereign with His hands over everything, and He of course has the power to preserve His Word in the way He wants it. Even from human error, because is God not clearly much greater than man? To read the Bible by a "pick and choose" method in fear that some things might have been 'lost in translation' and to dismiss its complete value because it was written thousands of years ago shows both a disrespect and mistrust of God and His power and influence.
And Jesus is the only means of salvation (as in, the only path to God), because the point of salvation is to get us back in union with God (reconciliation), which we can't have in ourselves alone because we are sinners and God is holy (and thus in His perfect holiness can have nothing to do with sin or else He'd cease to be pure). So Jesus is the way to God by atoning for our sins by being perfect, allowing Him to take on our sins because He had no sin of His own that needed atoning for, and by accepting His sacrifice, we are made clean and redeemed from our sin, so that we can with God now, and there's no other way to attain that holiness that will reconcile us with God and make us worthy of His true presence, because no amount of work we do will make up for the sin that's there.
If you don't believe in the Gospel, then okay. But if you do and you truly know the Gospel, then you cannot say that the Gospel is just one of many ways to God, because that contradicts Jesus's sacrifice. If there is another way to be reconciled with God, then that renders Jesus's work on the cross completely pointless, and it wouldn't have been necessary to begin with.
These basic truths about God's sovereignty, the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, and the story of the Gospel demolish certain forms of "liberal" Christianity, which isn't really Christianity, but a rather perverted form of it in which man worships himself by trusting in his own judgment and setting the standard from his own mind instead of worshiping, trusting, and learning from God.
(Note: I don't mean 'liberal' as some evil, disgusting word like a lot of people do, but rather I'm just using it as a way to define a certain belief, so please don't take that as condemnation or an insult. I'm actually very liberal in my politics; just not in my Christianity.)
A person is perfectly entitled to pick and choose what they want to believe in, and they're entitled to base their beliefs on their own opinions and such, but it doesn't mean it's absolute truth and it certainly is not Christianity. It may be derived from Christianity and have its roots in Christianity, but true Christianity is defined by God, not by man. He gave us a definition, and if we add or take away from it, then we find ourselves dealing in something that is not of Him, but of ourselves.
Lastly, I saw this post on tumblr earlier which deals with a lot of the same themes I just blogged about. Check it out: http://abideinhislove.tumblr.com/post/35477452112/we-must-all-learn-to-hear-what-we-do-not-like
This is the definition of pride. Let us humble ourselves, admit that we know nothing, and trust in God rather than our own meager knowledge. Instead of trying to make the workings of the world bend to our own flawed logics and limited perspective, let us set our minds instead on knowing God more and allowing Him to reveal His truth instead of trying to redefine truth by what we think will work best.
Maybe when we create a universe, then maybe we can have a say in things. But until that happens, let us accept the truth and power of our omniscient and omnipotent God in our humility instead of trying to created an altered religion of our own.
This was written in response to the practice that some have of compromising Scripture and contorting Christianity to fit their own notions and expectations. Disputing God's ways and trying to form them into what we think is right, neglecting to respect that God's ways are much higher than ours and cannot fit into our little box. If we don't understand His ways, it does not mean that they're flawed or nonsensical - it just means our knowledge and "logic" is limited and we need greater truth revealed divinely to us.
Commonly I see the veracity of the Bible as well as its modern day application disputed, even within the realm of Christians. Also, there are some people who have accepted Jesus as their way to God, but will argue that He is not the only way to God and other people can find a way to God through a different path. That's us tampering with the clear definition of Christianity and trying to make it something human rather than something of God. Once again, it's pride. If every human had the right to make Christianity into what they want, based on what they think, then we'd have no way of truly knowing which definition was right. That's why there needs to be an absolute truth. And as I started out this blog by saying, God is the author of this absolute truth. He is clearly the only One who knows truth. You don't have to believe that, but if you don't, then you also have to concede your beliefs of God as a all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present God. You are entitled to believe whatever you want, but know then that you are not believing in the Christian God, but a God of your own creation. Which is idolatry by definition.
Here's the thing. The Bible is truly God's Word because of the effect of the Holy Spirit living inside of all believers, including the ones who wrote the Bible, and if you have experienced the Holy Spirit, then you know His ability to do things in the one whom He inhabits that are truly and only of God, not of that person. The Bible is correct in its current form because God is sovereign with His hands over everything, and He of course has the power to preserve His Word in the way He wants it. Even from human error, because is God not clearly much greater than man? To read the Bible by a "pick and choose" method in fear that some things might have been 'lost in translation' and to dismiss its complete value because it was written thousands of years ago shows both a disrespect and mistrust of God and His power and influence.
And Jesus is the only means of salvation (as in, the only path to God), because the point of salvation is to get us back in union with God (reconciliation), which we can't have in ourselves alone because we are sinners and God is holy (and thus in His perfect holiness can have nothing to do with sin or else He'd cease to be pure). So Jesus is the way to God by atoning for our sins by being perfect, allowing Him to take on our sins because He had no sin of His own that needed atoning for, and by accepting His sacrifice, we are made clean and redeemed from our sin, so that we can with God now, and there's no other way to attain that holiness that will reconcile us with God and make us worthy of His true presence, because no amount of work we do will make up for the sin that's there.
If you don't believe in the Gospel, then okay. But if you do and you truly know the Gospel, then you cannot say that the Gospel is just one of many ways to God, because that contradicts Jesus's sacrifice. If there is another way to be reconciled with God, then that renders Jesus's work on the cross completely pointless, and it wouldn't have been necessary to begin with.
These basic truths about God's sovereignty, the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, and the story of the Gospel demolish certain forms of "liberal" Christianity, which isn't really Christianity, but a rather perverted form of it in which man worships himself by trusting in his own judgment and setting the standard from his own mind instead of worshiping, trusting, and learning from God.
(Note: I don't mean 'liberal' as some evil, disgusting word like a lot of people do, but rather I'm just using it as a way to define a certain belief, so please don't take that as condemnation or an insult. I'm actually very liberal in my politics; just not in my Christianity.)
A person is perfectly entitled to pick and choose what they want to believe in, and they're entitled to base their beliefs on their own opinions and such, but it doesn't mean it's absolute truth and it certainly is not Christianity. It may be derived from Christianity and have its roots in Christianity, but true Christianity is defined by God, not by man. He gave us a definition, and if we add or take away from it, then we find ourselves dealing in something that is not of Him, but of ourselves.
Lastly, I saw this post on tumblr earlier which deals with a lot of the same themes I just blogged about. Check it out: http://abideinhislove.tumblr.com/post/35477452112/we-must-all-learn-to-hear-what-we-do-not-like
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