Posted on

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.


Posted on

The Fierce Urgency of Now!

Home_header

"The war in northern Uganda has been called the most neglected humanitarian emergency in the world today. For the past 23 years, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Government of Uganda (GoU) have been waging a war that has left nearly two million innocent civilians caught in the middle. The GoU's attempt to protect its citizens from this rebel militia has largely failed, resulting in an entire generation of youth that has never known peace."

 http://www.invisiblechildren.com/about/history/


Joseph Kony for the last 23 years has been "offing" anyone and everyone that he so desires. More recently his actions have been more brutal and he has been abducting innocent children and making them be child soldiers and if they don't go and don't kill when Kony says kill then they will be killed. If they escape from their abduction and Kony's army (the Lord's Resistance Army) finds them, then they will re-abduct just to kill them. 

I mean come on. Enough is enough! He's killing people and he's been doing it for 23 years and now its spreading to the surrounding countries of Northern Uganda, but there is a way to help. 

First. Go Here!

Second. Sign the petition 

Third. Give $5 bucks of your money to help the children

Fourth, Fifth, etc. Email, call, or send letters to your congressmen and congresswomen and your state representatives and ask them to sign the bill we now have in play, "LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act"

We have to stand up for those that can't stand up for themselves.

Posted on

65%

Check this out: 

"Among non-Christians ages 16-29-atheists, agnostics, those undecided about their faith, and individuals affiliated with other faiths- more than four out of every five have gone to a Christian church at some time in their life (82%). Most of these attended for at least three months. And two-thirds of non-Christians (65%) said they have had conversations in the last year with a Christian friend and their faith views. More than half (53%) said they have been specifically approached in the past few years about becoming a Christian.

Most teenagers in America enter adulthood considering themselves to be Christians and saying they have made a personal commitment to Christ. But within a decade, most of these young people will have left the church and will have placed emotional connection to Christianity on the shelf. For most of them, their faith was merely skin deep. This leads to the sobering finding that the vast majority of people outside the church in this country, particularly among young generations, are actually de-churched individuals." 

Quite a sobering finding, but even more sobering….

"Most Americans, including two-thirds of all adult Mosaics and Busters (ages 18-41, and 65%), tell us that they have made a commitment to Jesus Christ at some point in their life." 

65%. 

Ages 18-41

Made a commitment to Christ. 

It implies that 65% of them actually sat down, and looked at the facts, read the gospels, listened to sermons, maybe participated in a bible study, and then eventually they committed themselves to be disciples of Jesus Christ. 

Then the world came crashing in. Reality started to set. Encountered probably some ridicule for being a believer in Christ and then with each comment and each doubtful experience, Jesus, the Christ whom they professed to believe and follow gets closer and closer….

and closer. 

To the shelf. 

A very sad notion, but all the same its reality of believing in something. Having faith in Jesus is a crazy notion. According to the world and so its hard. When or if anybody becomes a disciple of Jesus Christ there is this thought…

A part me thinks that a reason that some of that percentage does not stay the same is that we as human beings are well aware of our faults and think we cannot do it. It's too hard. I need to fix myself before I accept Christ because Christ is perfect and I'm not and I cant come to Him and say I'll follow Him as his disciple when I'm not fixed. 

"There's no such thing as perfect people. 
 There's no such thing as a perfect life. 
 So come as you are, broken and scarred
 Lift up your heart and be amazed 
 And be changed by a perfect God." 

God doesn't want perfect people, because he didnt create them. He created us in such a way that is not perfect but that is so beautiful. Come to God just how you are. 

Posted on

Striking Quote

As I was reading unChristian this quote just really struck me, and I can’t disagree with it. It really intrigues me though. Thoughts?

“Having spent time around “sinners” and also around purported saints, I have a hunch why Jesus spent so much time with the former group. I think he preferred their company. Because the sinners were honest about themselves and had no pretense, Jesus could deal with them. In contrast, the saints put on airs, judged him, and sought to catch him in a moral yep. In the end it was the saints, not the sinners, who arrested Jesus.”

-Philip Yancey, from his book, “Whats so amazing about Grace?”

Posted on

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.