Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Not Even Sure What To Call This One

WARNING: I am going to write this as nicely as I can muster... no promises though.

If any of you guys are my Facebook readers then you probably think this particular blogpost is going to be about an ignorant student who told my speech class that America is corrupt. You however are wrong because believe it or not, I ran into even more idiotic people. No idea where this is going to go but I assume it will probably be a rant so brace yourselves:

For the past 2 weeks on Tuesday, a crazy psychopath comes to my College and stands on the main patio of our campus and twists Bible verses around while screaming at students. We all know the Gospel (for these purposes I will be condensing this like a ton and also will be using the short version that most of the people 2 generations above my own would use): We are sinners, we deserve hell, Christ took our sins. If you are my age you would realize how... unappealing, I suppose, this sounds, and you would revise it to look more like the truth: we are sinners, God is love beyond our understanding, he can help us out as people as well as help us out with our eternity, yadda yadda yadda. My generation prefers this second approach for multiple reasons that I will not delve into now. Once we mature as Christians, it is a lot easier to swallow the whole "we deserve hell" thing. I'm like completely okay with hearing this, I understand it completely, and this fact actually makes my relationship with God better. Nevertheless, my generation generally takes a different approach to the Gospel.

With that being said, this crazy preacher literally stands on a pillar and screams in essence "YOU'RE GOING TO HELL!!" in this face of students as they walk to class.... very encouraging right before an exam I must say.  My purpose is not to necessarily talk about this crazy man, however I will include some vital information: The man believes a variety of incredibly not true things. The one under discussion today was that people could lose their salvation just because they sinned. Here is what he meant: He believes in Jesus therefore he is a christian therefore he no longer sins.  He believes that if you are a christian and sin you lose your salvation. One of my good friends was pulling out verses left and right disproving this and the guy would not have it. Ultimately the guy said "Are you a Christian?" and when my friend replied yes he said "Well then I'm not really here for you. I'm moving on." SO, what Im trying to get to is that this guy claimed he was here for non believers.

Well, I was standing in the back listening to all of the nonsense comments being made while the crazy psycho was talking to individuals. A series of events that completely disturbed me occurred as follows:

1. A Giant dude and scrawny little dude were talking. I couldn't tell if they were honestly stupid or a little drunk or both. I'm leaning towards both. Anyway, the big, giant, dumber one said something along the lines of:
"DUDE *obnoxious drunk/stupid laughter* What if.... what if like.... like everyone just was doing shrooms out in the desert and like... wrote the Bible man *more obnoxious drunk/stupid laughter*"

Being as this comment was made after a slew of other ignorant ones, I couldn't take it no longer and politely informed them that that indeed would be absolutely crazy being as like 90% of religions use the same Old Testament so like how crazy would it be if they had all been on shrooms and written the exact same thing??
The idiots thought I was agreeing with them.
They then talked about how maybe they all just Plagiarized after one another. This, of course, was after the big one announced "I ate beer for lunch man *obnoxious hick laughter*"
Moving on.

2. My friend came to talk to me about when Jesus talked about how a fig tree bearing no fruit needs to be cut off. Not going to teach on this, if you want clarity google it please. If you understand the passage, move on.

A pink haired girl with her head half shaved came up, randomly in the middle of my conversation, and said in a very hippy-esce tone "Yeah, I mean by fruit don't you mean like peace and love man?"

No, hippy girl. No, that is not what fruit is.

She then said "Cause, I mean, this dude is hate. He ain't love, man. He's hate. He's worse than Satan."

WORSE THAN SATAN. I don't think this point even needs to be addressed. If THIS is her version of Satan, the vision of hell that she has in her head is paradise man.

3. A long haired freaky man ran up behind crazy preacher dude and yelled "Hale Satan!!!" to which the pink haired hippy said "Yeah, man!" and then went and hugged a random dude like pink-haired hippies would do.


Not really sure where to go with this. There is no lesson here. Just a lot of sadness. My heart is deeply pained by these people and their beliefs. They have honestly put no thought into it at all, not even a little. And anything we say they will be turned off by because being a Christian in that crowd right now is sooooo "not cool".

My bad though, I thought we were in college. Not middle school.


Sunday, September 21, 2014

Your Glory is so Beautiful

   We live in a scared, fragile world. You have to really think about what you're about to say because someone's feelings could get hurt. More people are in counseling now than ever before. It's always someone else's fault and there is no such thing as "sucking it up", but more like "you owe me". We live in a world full of sinners who want to proclaim they are saints.

    This theory has desensitized our churches and has given our people a feeling of false self-righteousness. 

We have tricked our churches and done the nations injustice. Our congregations are filled with people who believe they are good enough to get into heaven on their own, or with just a little bit of Jesus. We have completely forgotten the gospel. One of my pet peeves is churches who don't preach the Old Testament. I think it is so incredibly crucial to know where we came from and why we needed Jesus in the first place. I'm not talking about just reading Genesis 3 occasionally either. I have spent far more time in the Old Testament than I have in the New Testament because it makes me realize what my human nature tells me to do, the grace and love of Christ, and the holiness of God. Now you go to church and listen to a preacher spin a single New Testament verse into a lovey dovey mess that has lost it's original meaning altogether. We need the Old Testament to make us realize that we are sinners, we turn away from God daily, and we NEED Jesus. 

But the problem isn't that the churches don't talk about the Old Testament. The problem is that churches don't want to talk about sinners. Recently someone told me that they felt uncomfortable when someone was sharing the gospel and told them that we all deserve to go to hell. I was so surprised. Isn't that what the entire gospel is? The Bible tells a story and isn't this the essence of the message? 

Romans 3:23-24 "For ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ."

So why aren't we talking about our sins? Why do we feel uncomfortable when someone points out that we are sinners?

How can one truly appreciate what Christ has done for them without acknowledging that they are indeed sinners. With me its a matter of worship. I worship Christ by acknowledging that through Him I have obtained wholeness and holiness even. And I'm sick and tired of our generation, our country telling Christians that they're good enough with or without Christ. 

Use your unholiness in worship next time you go to church, or even right now. Embrace what Christ has done for us and the redemption that comes from him. Because we are sinners, we have fallen short, and we are in need of a Savior. 

Below is one of my favorite worship songs, "Your Glory" by Alls Sons and Daughters. If you get 6 minutes of free time, listen to it. 





Monday, September 8, 2014

The Blog Post that Proves Christianity

Okay, so maybe this title is a little bold. Proving Christianity is no easy task, mainly because God wants us to rely on a certain amount of faith. He gives us the equation y-mx+b, gives us numbers for three of those variables and expects us to solve for the last variable. It's not black and white like that for all of us, however.  It blows me away how many times I have heard some of the following theories when it comes to religion/heaven:


  • No matter what someone believes in, if they're a "good person", their eternity will be spent in heaven.
  • All of us on Earth will end up in heaven. 
  • What someone else believes is none of my business
Okay, I'm just going to ask some questions here...

So, if all you have to be is a "good person", then why does anyone practice a religion? What's the point in praying and abstaining from sex and not doing drugs and going on mission trips if all you have to be is a "good person"? Further, who dictates what a good person is or not? Doesn't everyone think that they themselves are a good person by human standards? So what/who dictates exactly what makes a good person?

Piggy-backing off of that, if everyone goes to heaven, whether they are a good person or not, then again why does anyone go through the restrictions of a religion? What is the point?

Stopping here for a second, you see my point. If either of these were true, then no one would feel the need to have a religion. I've heard Muslims and Christians both say these things. My question to them is this: if you truly believed either of these things, then why are you restricting yourself with religion? I'm 18 years old. I know exactly what "fun" i'm missing out on by being a Christian. I don't get high, I don't attend the parties on campus, I don't drink, I don't have sex (or anything NEAR it), I don't dress provocatively, and I don't find humor in crude jokes. Is any of that easy as a Freshmen in college? NO NO NO NO NO. So why would I do that if all I had to be was a relatively good person, or, by even easier standards, just a human being? Why would anyone do that?

The point is, from the beginning of time people have believed in something. God, Greek gods, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, or even if you believe in Science (I'm talking to you, atheists). Religion has always been there. The funny part about this is that most major religions share the same Old Testament. The Bible, The Koran, and so on. From this, any logical person could infer that if 99% of people who have ever lived on Earth believed in SOME higher power, then a higher power likely exists. Second, if most religions share the same Old Testament, that's probably true too. The great part about this point is that the religions vary by who they perceive is the prophet described in the Old Testament. For sake of time, it is very extremely clear to me that the scriptures point directly at Jesus with big flashing signs. And if I believe that, then I have to believe the New Testament too. And I believe the New Testament, then I take it very seriously when Jesus tells us that He is the only way to heaven. And if I believe this, then I take each and every soul on this Earth that much more serious. So yes, it is my business what the person next to me believes. They aren't just a person to me. They are a soul, they have a purpose, and they were formed by God. This is SERIOUS business.

So, with all that being said, I prove my point. Yes, the title was bold, and maybe I didn't exactly prove Christianity. However, I got y'all thinking. If you believe in one of the above theories, why? And does that actually make sense/line up with your religion? If you are an atheist,you don't have a code of ethics really. You have nothing to tell you "yes, this is correct" or "no, this is wrong". Therefore, the answer for you is probably yes. However, if you are a Christian or a Muslim or a Jew, does that really line up with your religion? And if you aren't following your religion close enough for the answer to be no, then ask yourself why you are really even in a religion at all.

And all of you- why do/dont you believe in Jesus? Do you understand the facts I stated about the Old Testament? If not, please contact someone. Me, a local pastor, somebody. God is real, Jesus is his son, and he is speaking to your heart. He has provided a way for you to get more information, but you HAVE to take the opportunity. No excuses.