Rants on Issues that MATTER!!!
(to me)Archive for January, 2009
.five reason why…(001).
…IT WOULD BE BETTER TO BE ATTACKED BY A PITBULL THAN BE EMERGENT: (aka, why being emergent is stupid)
5.) Why be kosher unless you are Jewish?
4.) Universalism is doesn’t make sense.
3.) One can preach the Gospel AND help people.
2.) Didn’t the Methodist try the social gospel and become irrelevant?
And the top reason why it would be better to be attacked by a pit bull than be emergent is…
1.) Jesus is a better savior than any Rabbi or other “deity”.
Additional reason that was a comment on my FB status: You can see the damage from the pit bull.
And those are the reasons why a person shouldn’t be emergent. The end.
.poop v slice of laodicea cage fight postponed.
URGENT UPDATE ON CAGE FIGHT: It looks like the cage fight of Poopemerges v. Slice has been postponed, due to it being picked up by ESPM, they want to show it on Saturday January 31st. Poopemerges was a little sad about it being postponed and being shown on ESPM “I just fear that somehow I might lose to a female and that would be bad, especially with it being on ESPM.” Well we will keep you informed to the smack talk going on between the two. To those fans out there that worry about the ref being bribed don’t worry. Contend Earnestly has been put in a box so that he can study to be 5 pointer.
.poopemerges v. slice of laodicea.
This just in the author of Poopemerges and the author of Slice of Laodicea got so mad at each other that they decided to meet and have a cage fight Monday January 26th. When asked about the cage fight Poop said “I normally don’t fight females, but when she attacked Mark Driscoll, it was on. I have no problem taking her out and then kicking her until she bleeds.” What is one to say to that and after he said that to me, he started to foam from the mouth.
So I went to talk to Slice and she was like “I am not afraid of the Poop man, I will play dirty and hide some chains in the cage and use them on him.” When asked why she would bend the rules and do something so haneous she said “Well I hope that I can beat up on Poop so much that he can’t preach or have a man crush on the Driscoll guy anymore.” Well how could we expect Slice to be any more honorable than that?
When asked about the possiblity of foul play the ref for the cage fight Contend Earnestly said “I am going to be on the lookout for foul play and while I am a four pointer and may miss out on some things I plan on being on top of this match and watch out for some cheap shots from Slice.”
I promise to keep you up to date as this fight nears. Hopefully this will be a cage fight for the ages.
.farming is hard work.
FROM THE COUNTRY
So, I grew up in the country and somehow because of what Jesus wanted I ended up living in an urban setting as a pastor. However I still do have many examples from farming. This may have been because my grandpa owned a farm and I helped out there or it could be because I worked another couple of years working at a lettuce farm, either way I have examples from down on the farm.
THE FARMER
So when a farmer wants corn, he doesn’t just pray “Lord I have complete faith in you that you are so in control that you will make the corn grow.” Now imagine that farmer goes off and just relaxes around the house. The farmer then goes on a vacation to somewhere that has a beach, he then comes home and when he gets home and relaxes by the pool. Then as fall comes, the farmer goes out and as he goes to harvest, he notices that there is no corn there. What happened? Well the farmer didn’t do what he was supposed to. A farmer is supposed to go prep the land, go plant the seed, water the seed, spray for weeds, make sure animals don’t destroy the fields and then go harvest the crop when it is done.
THE FOLLOWER OF JESUS
Isn’t that how it is with us followers of Jesus? I am guilty of this. So while we believe that Jesus is the one that does the work, we have a responsibility like the farmer to work hard. To take the example of the farmer we as follower of Jesus are to go plant the seed, water the seed, get rid of the weeds and then harvest. See what that involves- hard work. The things we are called to involve action, us doing something instead of us just sitting around
Sometimes we think that if we work hard we are saying that God is somehow not in control. For real, if you meet an honest farmer that works hard you don’t hear them saying “well good thing I can make that seed grow.” A farmer that is honest knows that God is the one that makes the seed grow into a crop. Same thing with the mission of Jesus, he is in control just as he is with the seed, yet he calls us to work hard, just like the farmer works hard.
.something new.
This video makes me laugh a lot. I know that it is only the partial truth of the speech. Yet something about a campaign that was based on change and then this video, just makes my day. Which probably means that I don’t have a life.
.the slightly irritated whopper.
So I went to Burger King today after seeing the sign and advertisements for the Angry Whopper. Don’t they just have the coolest commercials for the Angry Whopper? I love when they have the farmer and how he raises the onions that go into it. So I decided to get it and I took a bite and was like “hmm this is not as hot as I thought it would be.” So I decided to take another bite thinking maybe the next one would be a little better. That bite was slightly hotter but not much. So I finished the burger and my nose didn’t even run. As I am writing this a commercial for the AW just came on again and I say “lies.” It is not hot at all, it tastes good, yet not hot. So the AW leaves me slightly irritated and feeling lied to.
Anyone else try it? What did you think about it?
.a radical life.
Maybe you grew up in a church that was like the one that I grew up in. Maybe you knew or know a Christian that went to a church like the one that I grew up in. People came on Sunday and most on Wednesday, some even to a Bible study on another day. Here is the thing, most of them if you would have seen them outside of church, you might never have known that they were a follower of Jesus. The thing about that church is that Christianity was taught as something that you lived when you were at church and that was it. Maybe you have come across Christians like that or have experienced church in that way. The truth is, that is not what being a follower Jesus is at all.
Truly being a follower of Jesus is something totally different. If one reads through the Bible to see what it looks like to follow Jesus, they would find out that following Jesus is something that requires one to give up their life. The big myth in Christianity is that we can live the way we want to 6 days a week and then once a week we come to church and get fixed and then go back out and live another 6 days for ourselves. When a person truly declares that “Jesus is Lord” then their life will be changed. Now this doesn’t mean that followers of Jesus will be perfect, yet they will be different, be changed, and live their life serving Jesus. You see, following Jesus involves giving up what we want for what Jesus wants us to do. It includes but is not limited to where we live, how we spend our money, how we do our job, how we treat people that we meet, telling people about Jesus even though they might think that we are crazy, it includes how we use our time, it includes who we hang out with and so much more. It also means that we want to learn more about Jesus, we read the Bible, pray, fast, go to church, we live our lives with other Christians to help us grow, and ultimately we strive to live all of life for the glory of Jesus. This is what being a follower of Jesus is about.
This is a radical idea, isn’t it? The truth this is what is going to change the world. Jesus didn’t call us to a life that doesn’t have meaning, rather he came to offer life, true life. I wonder what the majority of people who go to church are going to choose, a fake and unsatisfying version of Christianity or the real thing of following Jesus.
