Dare to Be: What it Means to be a "Christian" Part 3

One of the most overly used religions to be used as an affiliation when there is a lack of one is Christianity. Many people believe they are a Christian because they believe in God or their parent believed. The sad truth is Christianity is not a religion where affiliation or attendance of church makes you a follower. With the constant growth of secularism and the removal of church from the general public, we have seen a surge of "good" people with hopes they will get into heaven.

The term "good" is really a relative word that does not truly have a set meaning rather, a general consensus of what it is. In fact one person may feel something is good while another feels that it is not. For example, an individual may feel it is "good" to lie to someone to protect them from the truth which may hurt them severely while someone else may feel it is not good to lie to someone no matter the situation. We at this point have a conflict with what is good and not and the lines become blurred. With this knowledge we can not truly say anything or anyone is good with out a set of guidelines from someone who is truly good. I though have an aversion to the word good and instead like to use holy or unholy. When we extract the word good and replace it with holy, we no longer have the dispute of what is right and wrong. It is unholy to lie but, it is holy to tell the truth. It is unholy to lust but, holy to love. Once we see the guidelines are no longer blurred we can truly say there is no human who is holy and we are in turn not good.

So what makes one holy? The Bible says that we are saved ut, grace and not by works. This is a gift from God so that no man can boast and say my works are better than someone else's and that he worked his way into heaven. Instead we have been given a gift through the sacrifice of Christ for the atonement of our sins . No longer are we required to do works to get into heaven but, rather we do out of obedience to the One who gave us life. No longer are we bound by the shackles of sin that once bound us to an eternity of torture and the flames of hell. We have redemption and the only way we can truly say "I am a Christian" is if we believe in the One who gave it all. Good is relative and selective but, holy is direct and nothing and no one can blur the lines of what is right and wrong if we view everything through the eyes of God.

 

Dare to Be: What it Means to be a "Christian" Part 2

Last time we met, we discussed the idea of unplugging yourself from the major distractions of this world to be able to focus on God. We also looked the idea of the iChristian and the repercussions they have. Today we will be looking at the the iChristian and the win the world philosophy.

One of the most overused pieces of scripture is John 3:16. We all know it and have recited this verse since we were young. We see it on billboards, on hand made signs at sporting events and on the covers of a multitude of books. Unfortunately, this extremely beautiful verse in the story of the nighttime visit of Nicodemus to Jesus has lost it's power with the public and has become a symbol of normalcy. This verse however is anything but normal. The verse describes an all powerful, benevolent, connected God and His love for a sick, fallen, desecrated world. An image of eternal mercy and love is painted by this one verse and the gateway to eternal life is opened up to us. The idea that this verse is just used as an everyday symbol is sickening.

The point of this rant is due to the degeneration of this verse, churches have taken the verse and tried to use it as a "save the world" philosophy or build church membership ideology. The idea that many churches have is to make sure they preach the love but, not the blood. To offer salvation without the sacrifice. To preach mercy and grace but, forget the penalty of our transgressions. Why? Sacrifice and death do not sit well with the masses. These ideas make us feel uncomfortable and make us face the reality that there is a cost to our actions. We work so hard to cover this up we seem to even forget God. We tell people we love them and that if they love Jesus (the man) and go to church they will go to heaven. We push the very thing that saves us aside and we are never covered in the blood of the Lamb. Sadly, most Christians horizontal relationship makes up so much of their lives, they have no room for their vertical relationship with God.

The easiest way to remember the horizontal and vertical relationships is to look at the cross. The vertical beam represents our relationship with God and the horizontal with others. If you remove one of the beams you no longer have a cross which lets us remember our sin and the price that was payed for us. A problem though that has seemed to infiltrate the church is the removal of the cross inside the church. It bothers me when a church says they do not have a cross because they "do not have room". My problem with this is they are basically saying we do not have room for the sacrifice of Christ. My advice, make room. "It makes people uncomfortable", my response is good! It should because it reminds us of our sins and the we should not be comfortable with our sin. "It offends people", my response is: perfect! It should offend people because the Bible offends our sin and makes us look at our lives not through the eyes of men but, those of a holy God. Church is not about gaining souls for heaven (although this is a huge part and is one of the main focuses and should not be taken that it is not) but, it is for us to glorify God. All that we do should be for His glory, not the approval of man. If claim to be a Christian then make sure your relationships are balanced and don't worry, you will offend people but, thats ok we want people to see their sin and come to Christ because they want salvation of their sins.      

Dare to Be: What it Means to be a "Christian" Part 1

As times have changed so have people and the hearts of men and women of God. Advances in technology and the release of social media have bound the hearts of so many and have lead to almost a pandemic of young adults and teenagers who have become addicted to it. Unfortunately, the church has not been immune to this and the rise of secularism (even though secularism has always been around) has brought forth a new kind of Christian. This "Christian" for the sake of time we will call the iChristian. Over the course of the next few posts we will attempt to detoxify ourselves from this pandemic and return back to the time when being a Christian was not a passive event but, one where you would boldly stand for what you believed and sought after the glory of God.

Working with youth has been a passion of mine for some time and for a while I had the privilege of working with a group of young men. I came to see the a rise in selfishness and self preservation in the young men. Cell phones, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter seemed to be the main focal point of almost any conversation. We had a rule where we would collect the cellphones of the teens and of course, some tried to hang on to them as if they were a lifeline that if removed, would kill them. Now, me understanding that most of these kids had never had a church upbringing attempted to play the law keeper when it came to paying attention in church. This I can attribute to being raised in the Baptist church where you were taught from a very young age you did not do anything except listen to the pastor when he was speaking. It taught me a form of respect and reverence for God.

Seeing these teens however breaking what seemed to be a cardinal rule to me was very unsettling. I explained to them that using their cell phones in church showed God the same disrespect as it would if you were to invite someone over to hang out with and they sat texting someone else the entire time. This did not set well with the group so, cellphones were never seen out again.

I began to think that it was only the you teens whom came from non Christian homes until I began to see it in adults whom claimed to of been brought up a Christian. In fact, they would brag about doing so to others. Now I can understand using technology to take notes or even use for a Bible in church but, the texting, IMing and even checking the scores of a game is flat out rude. Now, please understand I am all for using technology and social media; I myself use it on a daily basis but, there is a time and place for everything.

The iChristian seems to have a hard time with this concept though. the usage of these things during church does not seem to be a problem with them. They say the times have changed, people are more relaxed or it doesn't really matter. The fact is, it does matter. If your pastor is standing up in front of you and delivering a sermon, most likely these are words God wants you to hear. "I multitask" is a big excuse I hear and that's all it is; an excuse. The carnal nature of the human does not see the problem in this and tries to justify the actions. The truth is multitasking allows only so much of your brain to be used for each activity. Say you are on Facebook and listening to the sermon, while using your device you are dedicating a maximum of 50% of your attention to the sermon and to the device. You are not fully absorbing what the pastor is saying and because of this, you may be missing something that could completely change your life.

After Christ ascended into heaven and Peter gave his ever famous sermon at Pentecost, the people dedicated themselves to the teachings of the apostles. They even went as far as to sell their possessions and gave to those who needed what they had earned. They devoted their lives to God and because of this they were blessed. I believe that a revival is coming, a great revival that will sweep over the world and turn the hearts of men, women and children of all nations, languages, creed and walk of life to God. I do believe that many will not turn their hearts to God but, many will. Before a revival can happen we, the Christians of the present need to come back to our first true love and lay down our selfish prides and ambitions. We need to unplug and the iChristian needs to become the follower of Christ. It is time we get back to the beginning; go back to our roots. We need to sit at the feet of those who teach and listen to the words God gives them for us to hear. We need to either become hot or cold but, no longer lukewarm. It is time to be a follower of Christ and not someone who claims to follow religion.        

Dare to Transform: Never Silent

Far too many times we come to points in our lives where we expect God to lay His mercy and blessings out directly in front of us. I know as a Christian, a man, a human I have sought out the blessings of God and prayed for God to lay out His grace on me where it was evident that His hand was directly at work. Then times come when this unrealistic expectation is not met and we stand with our nose in the air and become mad at God because we were not handed what we wanted on a silver platter. Sometimes, the greatest blessings and healing of our souls comes from the the circumstances when all seems to be lost and the pain can no longer be bared. Some of us fall by the way side and do as Job's wife told him to do and curse God and die. Some of us weather the storm and wait to see a miracle; but, what is the mighty hand of God does not intervene? What if the blessings and the mercy we seek is not laid out in front of us? What if we are left with the pain and the hurt? What if God seems silent? 

We may feel this way but, there is no such thing as God being silent. Even at the darkest point in the history of mankind as God offered Himself to die, He was not silent. In the depths of your sorrow and loneliness, He is there. Sometimes the healing we seek is found in the tears we shed. Sometimes the blessings fall in the rain and His mercy rises with the dawn. If we seek His blessings to better our lives and forget to glorify Him, we fall into the humanistic culture of selfishness and neglect Him. Once we open our eyes to the One who gave us life and seek after the glory of God and take off the coat of the unrighteous, then and only then will we see His hand at work and hear Him screaming in the depths of our soul "I have never left you and never will! I am the One who always has been there for you, is with you and forever be with you! I am everlasting and my mercy is poured out to all mankind and overflows! I have never left you nor will I ever!" Oh Lord how we have been so blind to you and your work in our lives; forgive our hearts and may we seek only to glorify you so that we may see your grace, love and mercy in our lives!