Kingdom Living

The post-christmas depression has come and gone. Weird how for nearly two months we decorate, shop, and listen to Christmas songs. We go to Christmas Parties, and emphasize family more than ever…..and suddenly after one day it’s all over. And we seemingly wait another 10 months just to be dissapointed again. Weird huh? This Christmas was the best I’ve had in a long time. I made a list. I got everything on that list. I got things that I really wanted, but forgot to put on the list. Monday night I was depressed. Sad that it was all over. Time to take down the tree, listen to NORMAL music again, Save money rather than spend it on other people (some who I don’t even like(I said it, it’s out there).

Having said that, I must say that this Christmas opened my eyes to a great reality. IT’S ALL ABOUT JESUS ALL THE TIME!!! There is no need to wait until December 25th to celebrate the birth of our(those of us who are Christ Followers)Lord. I should wake up every day and say thank you Jesus for stepping from heaven, and being born in a cave so one day you could hang on a cross and take my punishment for sin. I don’t know what Heaven is, but I do know that it’s a place where there is no sin. It’s a perfect place . I do know that this earh is corrupt. It’s nothing close to perfection. I can’t say that if you asked me to leave perfection to come to a place of utmost depravity that I’d get right on that. Or get on it at all for that matter. That would be like asking me to leave Starbucks and go home for a cup of Meijer Brand.(kind of) But Jesus came. He came to save the world. He lived to show us how to live, but most importantly he lived to die. He lived to die the worst of deaths. But not without being beaten until near death, Spit on, mocked, and having a crown of thorns place upon his head. After all that, he went to the cross to take the wrath of God upon himself, for me. So here it is December 27th and I want to take the time to Thank Jesus for being born. I want to celebrate that. Thank you Jesus for living, so that you might die. Thank you Jesus for dying so that I might live! Jesus isn’t just the reason for the season. He’s the reason for all that is good. I look forward to growing in my relationship with Christ over this next year and of course the years to come. Learning to keep Jesus central to all things is a challenge that I’m ready to take head on. Here goes……

The Book of Luke Chapter 2:

11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest,and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

Here goes……I think most everyone has picked up on the fact that I love Jesus. He loved me when I was not worth loving. He gave his life so that I could live. From the time that I was 8 pounds of pure evil until forever. I want to live my life in a way that is pleasing to God, for these reasons. I want to proclaim his name to all I come in contact with, for these reasons. I want to bring glory to Him, for these reasons. I don’t want to be fueled by reaction to what other people say. I want to be fueled by the love of Jesus and HIS redeeming power. Having said that, I think there is a time that we need to take a look at what others have said and take a stand to contend for the true gospel. This is one of those times. Mike sent me an email the other day with this article attatched. If you just read it I’m sure you are feeling my frustration (if you’re a Christian at least….) If you’re too lazy to read it here are some of the quotes that really got me fired up….

“This is my first article of faith. I required no Bible to determine it, and—honestly—I will either
interpret away or ignore altogether any Bible verse that suggests otherwise.This first article of faith was the starting point ofmy journey back to Jesus, and it remains the foundation of my faith. I came to trust the Bible again, of course, but only because it so clearly bears wit-
ness to the God of love I had already chosen to believe in”.

“I simply am not interested in any God but a completely good, entirely loving, and perfect-
ly forgiving One who is powerful enough to utterly triumph over evil. Such a God may not exist, but I will die seeking such a God, and I will pledge my allegiance to no other possibility because, quite frankly, anything less is not worthy of my worship”

“Please, don’t get me wrong. I am well aware that I don’t get to decide who God is. What I do get to decide, however, is to whom I pledge my allegience. I am a free agent, after all, and I have standards for my God, the first of which is this: I will not worship any God who is not at least as compassionate as I am.”

“John Calvin—or Jerry Falwell for that matter—may well be right after all, but ifthey are I would rather cling to my glorious hope than accept their bitter truth just to save my own skin.
You can figure out the rest. I don’t hate God because I don’t believe God is fully in control
of this world yet. Heck, God is not fully in control of me yet, even when I want God to be—so how could I possibly believe that God is making all the bad stuff happen out there in the streets? I don’t hate God because I believe God is always doing the best God can within the limits of
human freedom, which even God cannot escape”

I don’t know who the crap this guy thinks he is, but he certainly is not a Christian. I know it’s a strong statement and I’ll say it a million times over. How blasphemeous to say God is not worthy of his worship. This dude is the definition of dumbass. He wants HIS god(lower case because it’s not the TRUE GOD) to be in perfectly loving and able to triumph over evil and yet comes back in a different area to say that God isn’t completely in control of the bad stuff…. He can’t control the evil that happens but he can defeat it…isn’t that the same thing? I geuss we’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed that God can win in the end. We’ll never be able to be sure until 1. God triumphs over evil or 2. Evil triumphs overs God.We can’t go to the scripture on this matter becacuse God doesn’t know what is going to happen so therefore how could scripture be right in such a claim. Apparently I’ll just have to cross my fingers and hope for the best. In fact we can just dismiss scripture all together unless it falls in line with our personal thoughts about God.. This guy is the reason Driscoll calls emergant theology “limp-wristed and faggoty” It stands on nothing. If I was 15 years old though, I’d really be into it. Because although the Bible says that sex is for marriage, the God I Believe in says live it up and enjoy promiscuity. I don’t care that the Bible says otherwise. I don’t believe in that god. What a great theology. The only person you answer to is yourself. You wake up in the morning and get the dough ready. You go to the drawer and grab your cookie cutter and shape God into what you want him to be. Stick him in your back pocket and live your life. If you wake up tomorrow and don’t like that god you can just make a different one. After all, you can choose the attributes of the god you choose to believe in. You’re a free agent. God needs you to hit clean up for him. You have all the power and god is about the size of your pinky finger. That’s a god that I can get behind. I can worship a god that’s on a level playing field as me. Maybe he’s handicapped. After all he can’t control me. I control him…..(I hope you sensed the sarcasm…I was laying on pretty thick)

But what if there was a substance to our theology?Perhaps a redeeming value. What if God was in control of everything? What if we stopped assuming that we were pretty much good and that God HAS to forgive us? What if we believed scripture? What if we understood that we are sinners? Each and everyone of us. What if we realized our only hope was a loving and gracious God who loved us while we were still in sin? What if we could grasp that we deserve nothing less than hell and every single breath that we get is a gift of God?What if we lived to Glorify God in all that we did? What if we stopped putting a box around God and making him what we want him to be? What if we weren’t afraid to stand firm and not worry about who was being offended so longs as the Gospel was preached. What if we realized that we don’t control results but God does. What if we could unashamedly proclaim the redeeming power of Christ and allow him to do the redeeming. What if Jesus was this dude who stood up and spoke absolute truth and didn’t care who didn’t like it. What if we weren’t sorry that Jesus is the only way. I think we might be on to something. A whole lot less of us…and a whole lot more of Jesus. Less talk about what we think we deserve….and more talk about how God’s grace is so amazing in saving even one sinner from eternal torment. People wanna converse. I say let’s converse. But let’s put the gospel at the center of it all. The only problem is that most people that wanna have the conversation don’t believe scripture is absolute, so they wanna talk about their feelings and how they could be wrong. COWARDS!! If you really believe something then stand up and say you believe it. Don’t be all wishy washy…maybe then I could muster up a bit of respect for you. I know I said I don’t want to be fueled by reaction but I love my Jesus too much to stand by and watch him be marginalized. I can somewhat respect someone who says there is no God. But I cannot respect someone who throws out his OPINIONS on god and isn’t man enough to stick by them. That is all.