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Thoughts from Today.

“The Affirmessy Process – The postmodern thought that life is a journey, or process, that affirms the multiple realities of all people and allows for messy conversations, messy theology, messy questions, and messy understanding. The journey in the affirmessy process is not about having all the answers, but rather the answer is enjoying/allowing/affirming each other’s asking of the messy, unsolvable questions.” 

-Russell Clark, 2009-

Lately I have been encountering from different perspectives in my life that there is a certain amount of feeling the need to be clean before coming to God. Let me explain. How many times have you heard this: 

“I can’t pray to God and accept Jesus into my heart until I get my life fixed.” 

“I can’t come to God like me!? Are you nuts?” 

Well, maybe I am, but that’s another discussion all together. 🙂 However, that thought that we have to be perfect to be “allowed” to talk to the Lord is….well, it seems to me to contradict who God is, what he represents, and who He has a passion for. It’s very true in fact that God has given us a gift of his grace and love through the sacrifice of His son Jesus Christ and that is very difficult, sometimes it seems impossible, to accept.  There is something that doesn’t fit with “free gift” for us as human beings, but that’s exactly what a gift is. It’s free, you don’t have to pay a down payment, or a monthly charge. It’s free. We are ok with this idea when it comes to getting a gift from say your mom, dad, brother, sister, or even your best friend, but when it comes to God’s free gift of grace and love? 

We struggle with that. We can’t wrap our mind around..that. 

With presents from your mom, dad, etc. you can return the favor. With God we feel unworthy. There’s a reason for that. 

We are.

(Just a little side-note: What if it stopped there? Praise God that it doesn’t)

But.

(That one word makes the sentence take a 180. We go from fallen to forgiven. Just one word.)

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” -Romans 5:8

I present to you Exhibit A. Jesus Christ was sent for the sole purpose of giving the world redemption through His blood. Period. God knows that your messy. You got junk. Baggage. Things have happened in our lives that have damaged us. hurt us to the core, and what is God’s response? 

He wants you and I to come to Him with ALL our junk, baggage, and everything that makes our lives messy. God says, “Bring it. I can take care of this. I got this.” 

“The Affirmessy Process – The postmodern thought that life is a journey, or process, that affirms the multiple realities of all people and allows for messy conversations, messy theology, messy questions, and messy understanding. The journey in the affirmessy process is not about having all the answers, but rather the answer is enjoying/allowing/affirming each other’s asking of the messy, unsolvable questions.” 

Point is this. We don’t have all the answers, but we do have God and He tells us that we are loved and its ok to not know everything. He says its ok to not have it all “together,” and its ok because of what He tells us through Paul in Philippians 1:6: 

“being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” 

It’s a journey, filled with mistakes and joys and tears and laughter and love. We will all understand fully when we see Jesus’ face to face.

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Faith based on Lifestyle and Transparency Christians

Faith- believing in things you cannot see or cannot prove. (my definition) 

Living your faith that is based on Lifestyle is dangerous. So very dangerous for the message that Jesus Christ has entrusted his believers with. As the Apostle Paul stated in Galatians 3:3, “Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?” It’s impossible to succeed at such a notion of living your faith out by morals. 

Now, don’t get me wrong morals are crucially important, but it seems that there is this belief that if you aren’t a Christian then you just can’t hack it. You don’t have what it takes to be holy. These types of thoughts and statements are what the new generations feel about Christianity today. Very scary and dangerous indeed. They feel repelled by Christians, but even more intriguing than that is that they don’t feel rejected by Jesus, but rejected by Christians. 

See, the mere fact is that we are fallen and we need God…everyday. That we cannot do it alone. Only one person could and he did it so well that we named the entire thing after him, but he was and will always be God. 

“There is darkness in our skin; our cover is wearing thin.” -David Crowder, from the song “Rescue is Coming”

“We should have an honest estimation of ourselves, measuring our worth by God’s purposes for our life.” -Romans 12:3

We have to as Christians be Transparent and be merely trying to act right but being honest with who we are. Yes we are believers in Jesus Christ and we believe that he is our savior. That does not exclude the fact that we are fallen and we need Him every single day of life on this earth! Without Him we are nothing. 

Let us move forward as believers in Jesus Christ and be honest with who we are. Have an open mind and realize that some of the ways that we live is not a good witness and not representative of the life that Jesus taught us to live. Thank God for what you have today. It is a gift because He is gracious and loving.  

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Onto something? No not so much

Do you ever get that feeling when your studying your bible that you are onto something? Well, I did. Yesterday. If you read my previous post about Genesis and God creating light then you know full well what I’m referring to. I was correct i think in a sense, however I would like to clear up that God did not create evil but that Adam and Eve’s choice to eat of the fruit brought sin into the world and so from then on we were a fallen people who needed a savior. When it comes to the light, yes God did create Light twice, sort of. In Genesis 1:3, God does in fact create Light by saying, “Let there be light,” and so light existed, then in Genesis 1:5 God seperates the light from the dark. And finally in Genesis 1:14-19 God gives the world the Sun to govern the light of the day and the Moon and stars to govern the night.
Point being this: God’s creation is beyond comprehension and its vast and amazing and glorious and magnificent and beautiful and overwhelming and I could go on and on. God has done an amazing work here in this world, not because he needed to but because He wanted to. God’s love for us is unquenchable. He gave us the world, to care for, and to love Him. He desires so much a personal relationship with all of us. And I do mean ALL. Genesis is a book that has been debated on for thousands of years, and we will never truly know how God did it. That doesn’t really matter anyway. He did it. End of story and end of statement. That is all that matters.
Because God is Love.

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Creation Story Thought Throwdown…

So, this week in the sunday school class i teach for the 7th graders we are talking about the Creation story in Genesis 1:1-2:4 this week and I was reading it today a couple of thoughts were running through my head so i need get some feedback on this. See what you all think.
Look at Genesis 1:5.
Done? No, seriously get a bible and look it up. Or go to www.youversion.com and look it up there. (Awesome site btw)
Now look at Genesis 1:14.
Seeing anything? In verse five this happens:
“God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. ”
Verse 14 reads this way:
“And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years,”
God creates “light” twice. Or does he? Where do we get the “light” during the day? From what source? The sun, and what about the night, well of course its the moon. So the creating of the sun and the moon and the stars happens in verse 14, right? But in verse 5 God still creates some form of “light.”
Ok go with me on this. Could this be God creating good and evil? Because one is light and one is dark. Thoughts?
Please get back to me on this. I’m really intrigued about the responses on this one.

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Rain

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYKa9E1xzao&hl=en&fs=1&]
“When the rain come. It’s not like they might. They do. It rains in our lives….a lot.” – Rob Bell
I love that line from this video and actually the main reason that I feel the need to blog about this. Rain will come. Storms will come in our lives. You can’t stop them from happening, they just do. The last couple weeks in the sunday school class that I teach we have talked about this every now and then. We talked about it in the story of David and Goliath and this past sunday when we talked about Samson. You see in life there is a path that we are on. Everyone has a path, and sometimes roadblocks get in the way. So, if you can’t stop something from happening. What do you do about it?
In life your gonna make mistakes. Just like rain, they are going to happen. So, what do you do when you make mistakes? Give up? No, when it rains do you stay inside all day everyday that it rains? No, you get an umbrella. Mistakes are gonna happen. In life we are going to fail. That’s not the point though. The point is that we were created by a God that is all knowing and knows everything little you and I are going to make, but He still loves us and has a future for us!
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” – Jeremiah 29:11
When it rains you get an umbrella and and when you fail you realize that you are still loved by God. You always will be. Always.
Here’s a thought to chew on. No matter what mistakes you make in life or how many you fail, God will ALWAYS be there for you waiting to support as you go on. He is always with you and He will always love you. Always. You can fail everyday of your life and yet He will still love you!