You are currently browsing the tag archive for the 'Religion' tag.
My whole life I was taught never to write Merry Xmas, that it was taking Christ out of Christmas. Then just yesterday I was reading an Advent devotional book that gave the reason for Xmas. So here is the jest of what I read. The word “Christmas” comes from the English “Cristes maesse” meaning Christ’s mass. Xmas is sometimes used instead of Christmas. This tradition traces its use to the fact that X is the first letter of the name of Christ in Greek and, as a result, X was frequently used as a “holy” symbol. Who knew that the X was holy? Not that I will go around signing my Christmas cards Merry Xmas, but now I won’t feel so bad when I see Xmas. Thought some of you might like to know this little tidbit of information!
I am a very lucky man. I have a lot to be thankful for this Christmas season. I have a beautiful wife, two healthy boys. I have a home, a vehicle, & nice clothes. I am not in need. Yet, I like everyone else in the United States, feel the need to buy more this time of year. I buy more toys on top of the ones my boys already have, because if I don’t I feel am doing them an injustices. I buy my wife clothes in which she already has plenty of and my wife buys me electronics, which, frankly, I really don’t need (but don’t tell her that).
All this spending, all this hustle and bustle that we do for one day in December, makes me wonder WHY ARE WE DOING ALL THIS? Now don’t get me wrong, I love buying things for people, I admit I am part of the problem. But have you ever stopped and wondered how far we have gotten away from what Christmas is suppose to be all about, the birth of are Savior. Since when did we start buying presents for everyone else other than the person having the birthday? When it’s my wife’s birthday, I don’t go out and buy my boys and myself a gift. That would be ridiculous, but we do it on our Savior’s birthday.
I think if we were to put the focus back on Him and less on ourselves, Christ still would not want any presents. Rather knowing Christ’s nature, I believe He would want to help his sheep that are less fortunate than we are.
I stated early what I was thankful for but I left out key things that I take for granted everyday, like water. Did you know there are people all over this world that do not have clean drinking water. Food is something else I take for granted. I go to the pantry anytime I want and grab something to eat. There are millions of people that will go without food tonight; most of them are children. Nevertheless, as not to make others and myself feel too bad this Christmas season, I’ll stop. On the other hand, maybe we need to hear more of this very thing to take the focus off our greed and more on the hurting and needy people of this world.
Adventconspiracy.org that talks about this very thing, spending less on ourselves and using that money to help others. It is a site worth checking out, but be warned it may change the way you view Christmas. Merry Christmas everyone!
I evaluated my thinking recently and was amazed just how fair away I am from God. Here is what I was thinking. I started my day by getting gas and I was standing at the end of the line waiting to pay, while I hear the cashier speaking to the person at the head of line. The cashier, obviously not from this country, had a hard time speaking English and I thought to myself, “Man, I wish they hire someone who was from this country, who could speak English better”.
Then once I got back in my vehicle, I mapped out all that I had to do that day. But once I arrived at work I was bombarded with a list of things that had to be done, none of them was what I had in mind. So I thought to myself; “that’s typical, now I can not accomplish anything I wanted to get done, now I will be playing catch up all week”.
Now here’s the kicker, I’m done with work driving to a friends house to help him do something, when I am stopped at a red light and there to my left is a dirty man holding a cardboard sign that reads “out of work, will work for food”. I look away as not to make eye contact with him and think that there’s work for him, he just isn’t looking hard enough or he is probably just a drunk wanting a hand out.
These experiences from one day are typical of the thoughts that inhabit my mind time after time and you know what? I am sick of them. I want to be more like my Savior, I want to think more like Him. What I lack is the heart of Jesus. And here is the scary thing, it is scary to begin to see the truth about our own thoughts and its need to be cleansed.
I imagine having a mind more like Christ, freed from all the derby that blocks my best intentions. What would it be like if the first time I saw a person I started to pray for them? What if instead of getting upset at how my day turned out I thanked God for the ability to work and thanked Him that I still have a job in this economy? What if I looked at that man standing on the street corner and did not pass judgment on him, but offered to take him to MacDonald’s?
That’s what it would look like to have the mind of Christ. That’s what it would look like to be immersed in the scriptures. The Bible teaches us how to live the kingdom in the here and now. I have never known someone who was truly spiritual in the truest sense who had not been deeply immersed in the word.
So this week I am trying to be more like Christ, by being more in the word of God, by trying to have more of the thoughts of Christ and less of my own. This week begins the second week of the Advent Season, where we start thinking of the birth of our Savior and what He has done for us. What better way to start this Advent Season than to think more like Him.
There’s just something about being in a group or club that cost you something. When I was in college, I belonged to a fraternity and it felt good to belong to a group that not everyone was a part of. Anyone that knows anything about fraternities of sororities knows that you have to be sponsored be someone already in the group that vouches for you and they say that you would be an excellent addition to our group. However, this does not guarantee a spot in the group. First, you must rush, in my case for a week, where your fellow brothers, as they are known, can get you to do pretty much whatever they want. Then they drill you with questions in an interview and if they like you, you’re in! You are now part of the brotherhood! You’re a big dog on campus now. You’re part of an exclusive group that many want to be a part of and yet only a few ever get to opportunity to join.
Not much has really changed since my days as a member of the Phi Simga Cia fraternity. Yes, I am no longer a college student who likes to hang with my brethren, but I am part of another exclusive group, the church. In many ways, the church feels a lot like my fraternity, for we have the tendency to be exclusive as well.
Many members of the church world will call themselves the insiders and they want to separate themselves from the outsiders. We don’t dare say we’re exclusive, but it’s how we act that gives that perception. We have set in place external practices that separate us from the outsiders – our vocabulary or dress, who we associate with, and so on.
We have become proud and judgmental toward the outsiders. We often pride ourselves on how righteous we are, so much so that we can just look at someone and tell right away whether they are an insider or outsider. However, with Jesus, the leader of the church, this wasn’t the case at all. His messages and mission was to have everyone be an insider. Not just to belong to an elite group of people that are super spiritual, but to belong to a group of people that wanted to be transformed into “new creatures”. Jesus didn’t focus on what someone looked like or how they acted, rather he looked at the persons heart.
I have been a part of some wonderful churches in my life and every one of them has added to my spiritual walk with Christ. Nevertheless, each one of them, some more than others, had their own bench markers. Some of them could have had a pastor consumed with pride and was a glutton, but as he was growing or at least maintaining the church, he need not worry about his job. But if by chance a church member saw him on the golf course smoking a cigar with a friend, you wouldn’t see him next Sunday at church. Why is that? Well probably no one would ever say that smoking a cigar on the golf course would be a worse sin than a life consumed with pride or a glutton. Although for many in the church world smoking has become a bench marker for many. It is one of the churches ways to tell if you are a wolf or a sheep.
We all know that smoking is not the unpardonable sin, but it breaks many churchgoers unspoken bench marker. Something like this could upset a church’s sense of identity. It doesn’t matter really if you are Baptist, Catholic, Pentecostal, or Greek Orthodox I bet you can come up with your own set of bench markers. This type of spirituality puts most of the focus on your position. Are you in or are you out?
However, Jesus is more concerned with people’s hearts. He wants to know that they moving forward in their spiritual life, do they have the love of God and their fellow man in their life. That is way many people were shocked in his day when He said that many of the religious leaders were outside of God’s kingdom, because they were more concerned with the bench markers than peoples heart. John Ortberg in his book, The Life You’ve Always Wanted,” said it well. He said “The ‘righteous’ were more damaged by their righteousness than the sinners were by their sin.”
Question, “Is the church keeping us from fulfilling the great commission that’s found in Matthew 28:18-20 18Jesus came to them and said I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth! 19Go to the people of all nations and make them my disciples. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, 20and teach them to do everything I have told you. I will be with you always, even until the end of the world. (CEV) Look at the first few words of verse nineteen carefully, “go to the people…” Now this does not say wait for the people to come to you, while you sit inside your pretty church – but rather it says to go to them. Meaning we are to get off the padded chairs/pews that we sit on and go to them.
I love to read church signs, for the simple fact that they make me laugh most of the time and for no other reason. I have been a Christian now for twenty seven years and I have never once visited a church because of what a church sign has said, whether it talked about a revival or whatever. And I bet for the most part not many others have either.
So what makes us think someone who is not a Christian is going to step inside our church because of a sign or because our church has a pretty curb appeal? I have been around and part of a church my whole life and walking up inside of a new church I visit for the first time scares me to death. In addition, let’s be truthful, most of us are pretty bad ambassadors for Christ, once we are inside the confines of the church building. We fail miserably at really making someone feel welcomed. We rather see the same person, asking them the same questions that we asked them the last time we saw them in church – instead of talking to someone new. But you say that’s the reason why we have greeters in the parking lots and at the doors for, to welcome the visitors. Come on who are we fooling that doesn’t really make someone feel like your church is a church they could feel a part of. Everyone expects to see a greeter at the door, they say hi and shake your hand, but that doesn’t make you feel like you belong.
No the great commission states that we go to where the people are at, in your towns and communities. I know that’s a bit weird for most Christians, to be with or hang with sinners, but think about it we have the Holy Spirit with us to empower us for such a task and yet we still get nervous. So you know a non-believer has got to be scared to walk up in a church building. I believe that is why many churches are dieing. We can’t understand why in the world people are not attracted to our theatrical performances and our grand light show. Our churches our intimidating to many first time visitors no matter how people friendly we may think our church is.
That is why we have to go to them. Missional is a word that has been around for a while and within the past few years has caught favor with many Christ followers. To be missional means we must see ourselves as a missionary wherever we are currently at. It doesn’t have to be overseas; you are a missionary right in your hometown. It is realizing that the lost are not going to come to us, but rather we have to go to the lost.
Most of the churches that are growing in America today have a missional mindset. These churches are biblically sound and don’t mind getting out there in the culture. They are the types of churches that don’t see today’s culture as something to run from, but rather they engage today’s culture – wanting to put Christ in the center of today’s culture as much as possible. The reason so many churches are falling at this is that they see culture and church on opposite ends of the spectrum that these two worlds are polarizing to each other. That is simply not true. Take a look all through out the New Testament and where do you find Jesus? Not in the synagogues, but in the towns and villages with the people. Jesus engaged his culture. He went to the people. So the question that has to be asked is are we going to the people or do we expect the people to come to us?
Many churches see this word missional as offensive, because they have seen what they have done in the past work, but what they fail to realize is what worked ten or twenty years ago will not work for today’s culture. Many have allowed the traditions of the church to blind them in their thinking that there is only one way to do church and that is the way they are currently doing it. Why is it that we allow change in just about every area in our life, but the church? Twenty years ago, hardly anybody had a cell phone, now everyone has got them even grandma’s. The way we communicate has changed and we adapted. So why can’t the church adapt the times as well, as long as we don’t change the content of scripture. Does it really matter how we deliver it?
As I said early being missional is not new, Jesus was missional. I think what scares most people is the fact that we have to change the whole way we have been approaching church for most of our lives. It is getting out of our comfort zones and it’s exploring unknown territory. Being the creatures of habit that we are we don’t like this. Being missional makes us rely more on the Holy Spirit and it forces us to form new relationships, something many of us have forgotten how to do.
Also being missional is a lifestyle change, because you are trying to look at the world through the eyes of Christ. Missional living is making your life about establishing relationships that are meaningful, always looking for new ways to engage culture so that you might have a opportunity to share Christ with someone. Living a missional lifestyle is about being part of a community that cares for the needs of others before your own. This lifestyle is very contrary to the world’s lifestyle; because of this very few will take this style of living. When you live the missional lifestyle people begin to look at you differently and you realize what it is like to truly be just a strange of this world only passing through for a short time.
Starting to live like this myself, I see things differently now. , because I have realized there is much more to life than what just makes me happy. With each day that passes, I feel like it is lost forever, that I will never get that day back to make a difference in someone else’s life. Making a difference for Christ! I feel like God has given me a new zeal for life like my life now has a purpose and that for me is very fulfilling!
Those of us that long for God and take our spiritual life very seriously always experience periods of spiritual darkness and loneliness. Is it just part of the spiritual quest for Christians?
Sometimes we may feel overwhelmed with God’s grace and kindness. Other times we may feel distant from God. We know this happens to all Christians from time to time and Saint John calls these times the “dark night of the soul”. At times our “night” seems darker and deeper than others, why is that?
Could the “dark night” just be a reminder that we are spiritually incompetent and in constant need of a Redeemer? What are our thoughts?
Today in church the pastor talked about miracles and that often times our miracle is just waiting for us if we just go ahead and receive it. He used passages found in scripture like Galatians 3:5 Then does He Who supplies you with His marvelous [Holy] Spirit and works powerfully and miraculously among you do so on [the grounds of your doing] what the Law demands, or because of your believing in and adhering to and trusting in and relying on the message that you heard? (Amplified Bible) And James 2:26 Faith without works is dead. (NIV) I believe in miracles, in fact I went down front so that I could be prayed over for a miracle I want to see happen in my own life.
But the question I find myself asking quite a bit is why don’t we see more miracles in our lives. Is it because we don’t truly believe that God can perform miracles, or is it that we don’t ask because we don’t think our request is truly miracle worthy?
For me, I think we don’t ask sometimes because we may be scared, that God may just give us that miracle. That sounds strange I know but think about it, if God answered some of the things we would like to see happen in our lives it shock the socks off us. I also think we sometimes don’t ask for some miracles because of the responsibility that would be required on our part. Maybe your miracle hasn’t happened yet because you haven’t acted out in faith.
Faith is a huge part of miracles. Think about that for a minute, a miracle is performing something that is beyond human capabilities, something out of the ordinary. That takes a huge amount of faith.
So maybe the question shouldn’t be why don’t we see more miracles happen today, but how are we when it comes to our faith. Are we stretching our faith enough to allow God to do something worthy of a miracle or we just playing it safe and only asking for the things we know will happen anyway?
Have you ever thought to yourself, man if I could only change the way that person views life. I think that person is so off base in their beliefs. I just wish they could see what I see. But if you stop and think about it what makes us right – how are we so sure that we are right and someone else is wrong?
James Sire the author of “The universe next door” gives one of the best definitions of what exactly is a worldview. “A worldview is a set of presuppositions, (assumptions which may be true, partially true, or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic make-up of the world.”
Until just a few years ago I was under the false pretense that if you did not view life exactly the way I did you were wrong in your thinking. A lot of this had to do with being immature I know, but I also believe a lot had to do with my lack of understanding of God’s worldview in the Bible. I, like many people, just took for granted that what people told me was pretty much the truth, especially if it were a pastor. But what if they made a mistake, what if they were miss guided by someone?
Most people’s worldview is not something that they have thought out and wrestled with on their own, rather it is something they have accumulated over the years. Our view of the world is shaped by our parents, the culture in which we live , our religious traditions or lack of, the type of education we received, the media, and much more. All these things influence our thinking and how we view the world and our place in it and the sad thing is we don’t even realize that these things influence us. I heard it stated like this once, “ we learn more than we create; we accept more than we reject. So concisely we do not formulate our on worldviews, we simply regurgitate what we have already been taught.
This to me is very sad, because if this is true then very few people are able to rise above their cultural prejudices, or the cultural norms of society. We may like to believe that we are free thinkers independent of the influences around us, but were not. If you think about it, it is quite frightening how many incorrect assumptions we have adopted as our own. For many they are quite contented not to dig deeper or try to think more independently. We like to believe that our worldview is correct. And if we are challenged with another person’s worldview that does not line up with ours we usually get defensive about it. Instead of taking the time and ask questions and wrestle with their answers we throw condemnation their way.
Just recently though, I started welcoming other peoples worldview not as my own, but to better understand people who hold different views of the world, so that I can engage them in intelligent dialogue. I also started going to the scriptures to see if what they are telling me lines up with scripture. As well, I am seeing if what I believe is lining up with the scriptures. I find myself letting go of those once sacred cows, I once held so tightly to. I am now asking God to make my worldview more like his, more open and not so closed-minded.
Lord, I pray that my way of viewing the world (in all that entails, my beliefs, my views on other dominations, the way I treat others, and so on) would be more like yours.
I was reminded the other day that Jesus was accused of being “a friend of sinners”. That was supposed to be an insult to Christ. But it turns out to be a great source of hope to all of us. We all know we are full of sin and fall short of God’s glory, but God is gracious. God in His grace allowed Jesus to hang out with unrespectable people. So I am just thinking here out loud, if our congregations are full of respectable people – then could it be said that we have not truly grasped the radical grace of God. Just a thought, any comments.
“1 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2 Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” This passage of scripture shows God’s amazing love He has to His wayward people. It seemed at first that Jonah did everything he could to resist God’s calling the first time around, after Jonah repented God called him again. God chose to do this out of his grace and mercy.
It is very interesting that God in verse 2 tells Jonah to preach the message that I tell you. Suggesting that Jonah does not know what he will be delivering to the people of Nineveh. God simply tells Jonah to go and wait for instructions. It’s funny for I see God working like that a lot in my own life and my flesh often times finds it very irritating that He does.
The story of Jonah demonstrates why God so often leads us one step at a time. Because when God told Jonah the first time in chapter 1:1 what to say, Jonah discarded the call. So often times God only will tell us what He thinks we can handle at that time. Then in verse 3 Jonah realizes that resisting God is useless and can get you into a lot of trouble. Thus Jonah goes to Nineveh, obeying God’s call.
Then in verses 5-9 we do not see the actual word repentance being used, but we can see through the passage that is what they did in their fasting and wearing sackcloth. Repentance starts with believing God. And repentance is turning away from your evil ways, which is what the people were doing. These people were so serious about their repentance that they even made their animals fast.
Then finally in verse 10 we see that God honored their repentance, even though their sin was reason enough for harsh judgment. The people in their repentance appealed to God’s mercy and grace and not his judgment. I am so thankful that God acts more on his mercy and grace than He does on his judgment. For where would any of us be if it where not for is mercy and grace.
