Rants on Issues that MATTER!!!
(to me)Archive for November, 2008
.in this tension.
So I was thinking yesterday… which is really a dangerous thing sometimes. I will never deny that we as Christians are to contend for the faith, which sometimes involves attacking wolves. Yet, in Philippians Paul calls the Christians there to let their gentleness be seen. How does one live within this tension. Sometimes with my fellow believers I need to be firm, yet gentle. With wolves how do I contend and still have my gentleness seen by all. Am I reading too much into this? It seems like such a hard place to be- contending, yet gentle. It is so easy for me to contend and throw some sarcastic punches at the person… however a lot of times this is not right. So where does the balance lie?
.the dangers of not contending.
So I have a whole other post ready to go, saved from before lunch so that I could finish it up and post it now, however I feel like this is more important right now.
Here is the thing. If I had a friend who was going to walk into an area with dangerous animals, would I not warn them? It would be wrong of me to not warn them. So when I see someone going down a dangerous path why would I not yell out “WARNING”.
Then why when someone yells out “WARNING, that person is a wolf, they are a heretic” do others say “that is so mean of him”? It would be mean and hatful for one to go “just wait they are about to go into that wolf preserve and they are going to get devoured, but at least they are on the journey”. What? How is that loving or caring? If I see a wolf that is dressing as a sheep why would I not shoot at him and warn other sheep that there is a wolf trying to act like us. If the person has beliefs that fall outside of the bounds of what has been considered orthodox since the early church then why am I not going to say “WARNING, THAT PERSON IS A WOLF, DRESSED AS A SHEEP!!!” How mean of me would it be for me to sit there and do nothing or encourage the person to wrestle with what they thought was Christianity yet was something masked as Christianity. So I will heed the warnings talked about in Jude
3 Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that the Lord has once for all entrusted to us, his people. 4 For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.
I will contend for the faith and continue to fight against those who have slipped in and acted like Christians, yet have perverted the Bible to mass extremes. Call me mean, angry, hateful, spiteful, jealous or what ever you want. Yet may I not be concerned not with what the wolves have to say or what people think, rather may I seek the glory of God and the proclaiming of the Gospel to all people.
So what do you think? Am I wrong? Am I right? Why?
.six words (001).
So I heard on the Mike and Mike show on ESPN about a 6 word essay contest. So I decided it would be fun to try to have a series of posts that are six words long. So here it is.
God alone is sovereign, not us.
.don’t worship America.
So I was not going to post on politics because others have done a great job on it and really I would rather not spend so much time on politics. However I have continued to read blogs and facebook stati of Christians and I have been very frustrated and sad at who they are worshiping.
To a lot Christians out there- stop worshiping America… yeah I just said that. What if it is God’s will that America falters? Then what, is your faith going to be destroyed because your faith is not in God, rather in America. What if America succeeds even though there is a man in office that you think is an evil sinner? Is your faith going to be destroyed. In your mind should only a good Christian president have success?
Also somehow Christians have bought into this idea one candidate is “good” and one is “evil”. The Bible would say that all our fallen sinners. I guess though if you are worshiping America, then your savior needs to be good and the other side needs to be evil. So in some minds everything that their candidate is perfect and that they are not corrupt.
It just saddens me that somehow Christians have bought into this idea that if we have the “right” people in office somehow we are going to be a Christian nation… we never have been nor will we ever be. So I vote my conscience and vote for who I believe will be the best leader for our country. What I mean by that is one who values life and will help the poor. Now what happens after I vote is not in my hands rather in God’s. I worship Him, not America. See, having the right laws in our country will never change people’s hearts and have them be reconciled to God- on the other hand preaching the gospel can.
America will never save you or satisfy you. If the country completely implodes well then we are to preach the gospel- in our words and our actions and if it succeeds we are to preach the gospel in our words and our actions. So whatever happens good or bad, Jesus is in control and we are to worship Him alone.
.the world is going to end(not really).
So I was going to post about the election, however two people I know did a great job so I will just point you to their posts and let you read them. The first one is about frustration with other Christians and the other one is about how Jesus voted for Obama. They are both great reads and say most everything that I would about the subject.
To summarize what the main points are that I wanted to get across are it is monumental that America has elected an African American for President, God is sovereign, that government is not God and no matter what happens- our job as Christians is to preach the gospel in what we say and our actions.
