I just have to say that I am VERY disappointed in many of my Christian friends in regards to their response to the election!
In EVERYTHING you do, you are representing Christ. In every slanderous statement you make about the president, in every hateful, emotional word you use to criticize the ones you disagree with, you are representing Christ. You should be ashamed of yourself! Are the words you are saying and the statements you are making on Facebook and Twitter representing who God really is and what God would really want?
In just a few moments of looking on social media, I have seen my Christian friends say some horribly mean, hateful things about President Obama and our future government.
Do you really think President Obama is as bad as Hitler and Stalin who are responsible for killing MILLIONS of innocent people?
Maybe calling President Obama supporters morons is not the best thing to do. They are the majority, as we found out last night, and how is that Christ-like?
Do you really think our country will be "dead" within the next four year? And what exactly does that mean? Do you really think that the President has that much power. You are putting A LOT of trust in the president to screw the country up. Maybe shift that trust to God who is ACTUALLY in control.
Are you really going to pick up your whole family and move to another country? Is it really that bad here? Are you going to let one man effect you that much?
To those who think America is becoming a communist nation, I understand your frustration with the welfare system, but isn't communism a little extreme?
Isn't our goal as Christians to love like God loves and bring others to Christ? How are your hateful statements representing God? They aren't. There is too much hate in this world already, for us, as Christians to join in! God calls us NOT to be conformed to this world. So while everyone is bashing each other with hateful words let us stand up against that in LOVE.
So maybe your candidate didn't win, I'm sorry. Maybe you think our country is in trouble. Ok, actually DO something about it. PRAY for your country, PRAY for President Obama, PRAY for our senators and representatives. Get involved in your local government! Write your representatives and senators about your ideas and concerns. Oh, and here is an idea! TRUST in God. Trust that he is still in control, KNOW that he is still in control!
I'm sorry you are upset, but STOP the name-calling, hateful words, and people bashing. There is no good that comes out of those statements except hurt feelings and broken relationships.
Like it or not, Barack Obama will be president for the next four years. As a Christian, how will you respond?
A Christian Conservative Disgusted with my fellow Christians,
Katie <><
Here is a quote from John Wesley (the founder of the United Methodist Church) in regards to voting:
1.
To vote, without fee or reward, for the person they judged most worthy:
2. To speak no evil of the person they voted against: And 3. To take
care their spirits were not sharpened against those who voted on the
other side
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Justifiable Anger
"In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers at their business. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all, with the sheep and oxen, out of the temple; and he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, "Take these things away; you shall not make my Father's house a house of trade." His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for thy house will consume me"
John 2:13-17
In another version of the story in Matthew 21:13 Jesus puts it this way, "My house shall be called a 'house of prayer'; but you make it a den of robbers."
For the first time I felt the same anger that I believe Jesus felt when he went into the temple and overthrew the tables. Not only was Jesus' anger for the people inside the temple justified, but it was selfless. I had always thought about the anger Jesus felt as justified, but never as selfless. It's an anger that is rooted so deep inside of you, the origin can ONLY come from the Holy Spirit. It makes you tremble from the inside and makes you sick to your stomach. This anger is not an anger for revenge, for pain, for self reconciliation, it is for God. It is the anger knowing that God's people are interjecting their pride, their agenda, themselves in God's name, God's word and God's message and therefore corrupting it. There is NOTHING like the power of conviction when it involves the justice of The Almighty! In the notes of one of my study Bibles it says this in reference to this story, "Not an outburst of temper, but the energy of righteousness against religious leaders to whom religion had become a business".
"to whom religion had become a business"
This is the perfect way of putting where my anger lies, in those who have made religion, made God into a business. This has happened more than once in the the history of Christianity.
In the early 1500's Martin Luther was fighting against the selling of indulgences by the church. The church was a profitable business, selling people good merit to get back into good favor with God. People literally paid for their salvation. The leaders of the church had changed the message of Jesus for personal gain; for personal profit, for pride and unjustified authority. Martin Luther became angry. I believe God gave him the "energy of righteousness" against the church leaders of his time. He famously wrote the 95 Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences and nailed them to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany on the eve on All Saints Day in 1517. This was what credited as starting one of the greatest Christian reformations in all of history, the Protestant Reformation. He got angry and stood up for God's true message and reminded people that only God has the power to forgive and salvation is granted through grace, not by good works; both revolutionary ideas at that time.
Now we do not literally sell salvation as the church did back in the 1500s, but Christ's message has still become corrupt and self centered. We mistakenly think that God needs us to spread his message. Our pride gets a hold of us and we think that we are so vital to God's plan for the world that He cannot do it without us. We start "selling" salvation to the lost. We start counting the "souls saved" and everything become for the purpose of saving souls. Your complete purpose in life becomes for the purpose of saving souls. Jesus did not preform miracles "for the purpose of saving souls" Jesus preformed miracles because he saw a need. Jesus saw the needs of the people; the hurting and the lost, and because He loves, He provided a need. THAT is the message of Jesus! People were healed BECAUSE of their faith (like the centurion's servant in Matthew 8 in which Jesus says, "Go; be it done for you as you have believed.") and Jesus often told the witnesses to tell no one of what they saw (just as he does when he heals two blind men in Matthew 9, Jesus warned them sternly, "See that no one knows about this."). Jesus was about love, about relationship and fulfilling the need, not about trying to achieve a goal of converting as many people as possible.
It was not Martin Luther's intent to start a revolution and create a new sect of Christendom with his 95 Theses. He saw the corruption of the people in the church and Christ's message going by the wayside. His intent was to draw attention to this corruption and fix what was broken. He questioned the church and its intentions. He wanted to start a discussion so that the true message of Christ was not missed. The Roman Catholic Church wanted no part in this discussion and that is what fuel the flame for the Protestant Reformation. Just as Martin Luther's intent was for discussion, mine is as well. My intentions are to make you think, to make you question, to make you dive into scripture and discussions to find your answers. Are we missing Jesus' message? Was Jesus all about “saving souls” or about loving people and being in relationship with them? Are we providing the needs of “the least of these”? Or are we like the people that James talks about in James 2:15-17, “Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead,” by just simply telling the needy, the hungry and the lost to “be blessed”?
John 2:13-17
In another version of the story in Matthew 21:13 Jesus puts it this way, "My house shall be called a 'house of prayer'; but you make it a den of robbers."
For the first time I felt the same anger that I believe Jesus felt when he went into the temple and overthrew the tables. Not only was Jesus' anger for the people inside the temple justified, but it was selfless. I had always thought about the anger Jesus felt as justified, but never as selfless. It's an anger that is rooted so deep inside of you, the origin can ONLY come from the Holy Spirit. It makes you tremble from the inside and makes you sick to your stomach. This anger is not an anger for revenge, for pain, for self reconciliation, it is for God. It is the anger knowing that God's people are interjecting their pride, their agenda, themselves in God's name, God's word and God's message and therefore corrupting it. There is NOTHING like the power of conviction when it involves the justice of The Almighty! In the notes of one of my study Bibles it says this in reference to this story, "Not an outburst of temper, but the energy of righteousness against religious leaders to whom religion had become a business".
"to whom religion had become a business"
This is the perfect way of putting where my anger lies, in those who have made religion, made God into a business. This has happened more than once in the the history of Christianity.
In the early 1500's Martin Luther was fighting against the selling of indulgences by the church. The church was a profitable business, selling people good merit to get back into good favor with God. People literally paid for their salvation. The leaders of the church had changed the message of Jesus for personal gain; for personal profit, for pride and unjustified authority. Martin Luther became angry. I believe God gave him the "energy of righteousness" against the church leaders of his time. He famously wrote the 95 Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences and nailed them to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany on the eve on All Saints Day in 1517. This was what credited as starting one of the greatest Christian reformations in all of history, the Protestant Reformation. He got angry and stood up for God's true message and reminded people that only God has the power to forgive and salvation is granted through grace, not by good works; both revolutionary ideas at that time.
Now we do not literally sell salvation as the church did back in the 1500s, but Christ's message has still become corrupt and self centered. We mistakenly think that God needs us to spread his message. Our pride gets a hold of us and we think that we are so vital to God's plan for the world that He cannot do it without us. We start "selling" salvation to the lost. We start counting the "souls saved" and everything become for the purpose of saving souls. Your complete purpose in life becomes for the purpose of saving souls. Jesus did not preform miracles "for the purpose of saving souls" Jesus preformed miracles because he saw a need. Jesus saw the needs of the people; the hurting and the lost, and because He loves, He provided a need. THAT is the message of Jesus! People were healed BECAUSE of their faith (like the centurion's servant in Matthew 8 in which Jesus says, "Go; be it done for you as you have believed.") and Jesus often told the witnesses to tell no one of what they saw (just as he does when he heals two blind men in Matthew 9, Jesus warned them sternly, "See that no one knows about this."). Jesus was about love, about relationship and fulfilling the need, not about trying to achieve a goal of converting as many people as possible.
It was not Martin Luther's intent to start a revolution and create a new sect of Christendom with his 95 Theses. He saw the corruption of the people in the church and Christ's message going by the wayside. His intent was to draw attention to this corruption and fix what was broken. He questioned the church and its intentions. He wanted to start a discussion so that the true message of Christ was not missed. The Roman Catholic Church wanted no part in this discussion and that is what fuel the flame for the Protestant Reformation. Just as Martin Luther's intent was for discussion, mine is as well. My intentions are to make you think, to make you question, to make you dive into scripture and discussions to find your answers. Are we missing Jesus' message? Was Jesus all about “saving souls” or about loving people and being in relationship with them? Are we providing the needs of “the least of these”? Or are we like the people that James talks about in James 2:15-17, “Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead,” by just simply telling the needy, the hungry and the lost to “be blessed”?
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Life is Beautiful
It used to drive me nuts when my dad would just “take pictures”. He wouldn't ask us to pose and in fact he would get mad if we DID pose. My siblings and I quickly caught on to this “act like nothing's happening when Dad has the camera” but our friends and the youth at church (and everyone else my dad took pictures of) didn't quite understand the concept of “don't pose”. For a long time I didn't understand why he did that, but now I completely understand and have the same policy. Which would you rather have? Which would have more meaning? A picture of a group of people just smiling at the camera or a picture of that same group of people sawing, measuring, and drilling as they work on a wheelchair ramp for an elderly lady.
The pictures above are both of my son. The one on the left was me trying to get a picture of him in his overalls because I thought they looked cute on him. The one on the right was during one of the first days of spring that was nice enough to go outside and play. In this picture he is peeking through a hole in the fence and looking very surprised at what he saw. It is honestly one of my favorite pictures of my son.The stronger memories and all around better quality picture fall with the picture on the right. I'm not saying that posed pictures are bad (because they are not) I just think that sometimes we need to let the beauty of life happen and capture that moment in a picture rather than trying to make life seem more beautiful by changing it.
This isn't just about photography though. I think this applies to life in general. Sometimes God has something beautiful planned and if we just let go, let go of the worries, let go of our fears, let go of the unknown, that beautiful things happen in our lives. A lot of the time we think we can “fix” things in our life to make them better, to make them easier, but God's saying “Stop! Don't pose! Just let life happen! I have it all planned out and in the end, it's going to be the most beautiful masterpiece ever!”
"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
Friday, November 12, 2010
To An Unknown God
Many may know the story of the Unknown God...
In Acts 17 it talks about Paul visiting Athens. He is completely shocked by all of the idols that the people of Athens had. Because this upset him so much he started preaching the stories of Jesus and reasoning with the people of Athens. Now the people of Athens were very up to date on all the trends at the time (theological ideas included) I would say they were the Orange County of the ancient world.
The idea that was most trendy at the time was Epicureanism, the idea, simply, that the goal of life was to obtain happiness and pain and pleasure are associated with good and evil. Those people who followed Epicurus' ideas were those in which Paul was trying to reason with. Wanting to keep up with the latest trends, they were curious about what Paul had to say, but did not understand his way of teaching.
In Athens there were twelve main gods and an uncountable number of smaller gods. There was also an entire temple and altar dedicated to Agnostos Theos, an unknown god. They were so worried about offending or forgetting a god they covered all their bases by having an altar to an unknown god. To help the people understand his God and the story of Jesus, Paul used this "unknown god" as a way to relate. He claimed to them that he knew this unknown god, "What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands" He goes on to say how God is not dependent on us, but we are dependent on Him.
This is all great and full of rich history, but what can we take out of this story of Agnostos Theos? Well, Paul tried to reason and preach the gospel in their synagogues the way that he thought was best and they did not understand. He then used something, an object common and familiar in their culture to explain his God to them. I personally think this was wonderfully creative, and it worked.
There is so much we can learn from this story! When we tell people about the story of Christ, and share our love for the Lord it is important to talk in a way that they will understand. This is something Christians often times forget. If we start sharing the gospel with someone using what are commonly known as church-words like "baptized in the spirit", "Presence of God", and "Holy fire" they will be as lost as the Athenians were when Paul first started preaching. We must bring the stories of God to them in a way that they understand, using words and cultural familiarities that they can relate to.
So I encourage you to remove the church language out of your daily vocabulary, especially when you are talking with those who may not be regular church attenders, and non-Christians. You just might find that it is easier to talk to them and relate to them if you do this.
I also encourage you to read the story yourself and see what you think about this story! Acts 17:16-34
Saturday, August 14, 2010
The Numbing Effect
Today we are faced with death, violence, war, poverty, and tragedy on a daily basis. What popular video game these days doesn't involve death, war or violence?! How many times have you past a homeless person while you are driving somewhere? When is there ever a day when the news does not report a horrible tragedy. All these things are horrible, heart wrenching, life changing forever type of events. Yet we are faced with them everyday and have become numb to them.
Death doesn't seem like a big deal because last night you killed 20 people playing your video game.
Hearing about horrible violence on the news doesn't break your heart now that you have seen all those violent and horror movies.
You don't see poverty as a very serious problem. The fact that over 17% of children in Tarrant County live "in poverty" doesn't make your heart sink.
We are so numb to the serious chaos that we live in. We have poisoned, numbed our brains with all the junk we put into it that we so often overlook the real problems because we DONT EVEN NOTICE THEM! I just wonder...why doesn't our heart break when we see a report of a violent crime on the news? Why doesn't the mere statistics of poverty make us want to jump off our couches and help? It saddens me that these real, serious problems in our world rarely budge us, that we are so numb to these things because of all the junk we place in our heads.
One of my favorite lines in a song is "Break my heart [Lord] for what breaks yours" and that is my prayer for us all. That we stop being numb and simply overlooking the serious problems of our chaotic world and that God gives us the desire to do something about it.
Death doesn't seem like a big deal because last night you killed 20 people playing your video game.
Hearing about horrible violence on the news doesn't break your heart now that you have seen all those violent and horror movies.
You don't see poverty as a very serious problem. The fact that over 17% of children in Tarrant County live "in poverty" doesn't make your heart sink.
We are so numb to the serious chaos that we live in. We have poisoned, numbed our brains with all the junk we put into it that we so often overlook the real problems because we DONT EVEN NOTICE THEM! I just wonder...why doesn't our heart break when we see a report of a violent crime on the news? Why doesn't the mere statistics of poverty make us want to jump off our couches and help? It saddens me that these real, serious problems in our world rarely budge us, that we are so numb to these things because of all the junk we place in our heads.
One of my favorite lines in a song is "Break my heart [Lord] for what breaks yours" and that is my prayer for us all. That we stop being numb and simply overlooking the serious problems of our chaotic world and that God gives us the desire to do something about it.
Monday, August 9, 2010
New Life
"You are fearfully and wonderfully made"
In a certain faith tradition when a couple has a new baby the mother speaks a special prayer into the baby's ear the first moment it is born. This is done so that the prayer is the first thing the baby hears after he or she is born. I was so touched by this tradition that I decided to use it. I spent many nights praying and thinking about the perfect prayer to whisper in my son's ear when he was born. I wanted it to be specific to him and special to the both of us.
The prayer that God gave to me was perfect and it stemmed from a thought that I had throughout my entire pregnancy. How can anyone who has had a child deny the existence of God. It seemed like in every step of my pregnancy I was in awe of God's wonder and majesty and power because of this little miracle growing inside of me.
I can tell you one thing...I grew more in my faith and grew closer to God in those nine months before Ian was born (and the three months since) than I have in the past five years. It was like God was letting me take part in a tiny part of his creation. And that tiny role that I had was so huge...it changed my life forever.
If this tiny part of creation that I was able to be a part of radically changed my life so much, can you imagine how HUGE the power of God is? I can't! I can barely fathom the creation and birth of my son...an entire universe is too crazy big to image! How amazing is that?!
So I pray that you get to touch and understand a tiny piece of God's creation. I also pray you understand how tiny that piece is and as a result gain understanding about how GREAT the power of God really is. How AMAZING!
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