Living Life MY way!!!

Living life for God is just a personal choice right, it is good for some but for others they don't need God they are good on their own. They have learned to not hurt people, break laws, they are good (in their own mind), because we all go to heaven in the end, how we live does not matter.

I beg to differ. God is the only way and the way to God is through Christ, not through ourselves. I want to revisit selfishness ("pride" "doing life MY way"). Does it hurt anyone? Yes it does. To understand how we need to visit the definition of life without Christ, the selfish life!

The selfish life, life spent getting your own way looks like this:
Repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs at happiness; trinket gods; magic show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community... (Galations 5:19-21 The Message)

Sound familiar? anyone of the above statements hurt someone. You see everything we do, everything without exception, everything we do affects someone! Sometimes that person is our self many times it is a multitude of people. You see you can do things in love and affect people in the right way or you can be selfish and affect them in the above mentioned way. Loveless sex hurts the giver and the receiver, emotional garbage please we see that hurt people everyday dragging people to their depression depths to the point of suicide, joyless grabs at happiness leave anyone it its path empty and hurt. You want to be really selfish and really self gratifying? learn to Love! Love others and you will love yourself, Love God and you can love yourself, Love others and God and you love yourself. Get it? God is not stupid, God does not work how we want Him to, He does not always work how we understand. But He works to the best in everything, the best in us, the best in His creation, and the way He works is not hidden to us, He works in LOVE.

We are human beings (more accurately our actions) are infectious. As C.S. Lewis calls it we as Christians are a good infection. That would mean we as selfish beings are a bad infection. You can not really live and not infect others one way or another. So if you are living selfish thinking it is not going to bother or disrupt anyone else, think again! We can not help being infectious we were created to co-mingle, co-exist, co-in habitat, there is not way around it. With that in mind live for Christ and your infection will be good and helpful, don't live for self it is ugly and sickening.

In the words of the musical artist Trip-Lee: "what do you pursue is it Christ or is it you"

Existence

I wonder how many people wish they did not exist. My guess would be not many. People seem to get frustrated or hateful of their current situation in life but I would argue they are not wanting to cease existing just to cease being in their current situation. People get caught up with power, wealth, self righteousness, pride you name it but one thing they forget is without the gift of existence (a gift from God) they can not have anything. I believe God wants us to appreciate the gift of existence first and foremost. I think that is why He talks so much about enjoying life and not getting caught up in the circumstances because they are fleeting. When people say they hate life my guess is they hat their situations in life. You see if you were to ask those people what would make life better they would give you a list of reasons they don’t like life an the things that would make that life better. My guess if they are not Christians that list would consist the things. Such as: “if I had money, if I had a better job, if I did not have to work, if my kids would behave, if I had a better car…” You see the focus is on circumstance not Joy.

God calls us to be joyful in all things. Why is that? I believe because He sees the whole picture like we can't. He knows that circumstances are fleeting and we are eternal. He knows that if you get that better job, nicer car, behaving kids, more money, that all those things will lead to new circumstances that need to be changed and create hate of life. You see it is a focus thing. If you focus on the World and the circumstances you are in all you see are the things that are wrong and need changed (most of the time in your own life but sometimes in the lives of others) and you never find joy. Joy is not to be found in life, in good circumstances or bad. You see life is what happens before you die. But we are not called to focus on it. We are called to focus on the one that brings life, that brings existence. When you focus on Him circumstances fade away, they become part of life. You learn to learn from bad ones and enjoy good ones. Our existence extends beyond life so it seems silly to focus on something that is temporary and forgo that which is forever. Our existence was meant and is meant to last forever that is why we at times feel so weird in this temporary world.

Live life to the fullest enjoy the good times learn from the bad times, but don't only wish to change either. You see if your focus is to change your circumstances they start to control you. You become a captive to circumstance and if it is good it never last long enough (you are mad about that) if it is bad it is unfair and lasts too long, do you see the cycle that you create in that thinking, I do! I have! It is a trap, one I wish on no one, but see in many. You find joy in life by not focusing on life but the Giver of Life Christ. You find Christ by denying yourself, you deny your self by giving it all to Christ, and in return Christ gives you life beyond the circumstance!

Praise God!

Why

To be a Christian and to love God you have to know all the whys, correct? I struggled (struggle) with this question just like everyone who has ever lived. We as humans want to understand, want to know, and feel at times we need to know to believe in anything all the "whys". When we get the answer to the whys they have to meet our liking. I believe this search for why was instilled in us by God, I think He wants us to search for higher meaning in things that happen, in things we believe, and in things we do. However I do not believe the answer to that question is always revealed, and at times it is revealed but not to our liking!

As I have struggled through this understanding my uncle explained to me that if I knew all the whys (knew everything about everything) I would be God. I know and he really knows I am not God! Where does that leave me, to be a stupid little child who has to walk around blind not knowing what is happening or why to be lead through life all the time by God and others? No, I think that is ignorant to think we are hopelessly helpless. You don't have to know everything to be able to survive and to believe in God. What you do have to know is how one does get to know God and become one with Him, that way is Jesus, the only way. However, knowing Jesus does not even answer the whys and lead to a completely all knowing relationship. We are not designed to live and to know completely on our own, we are designed to need Him! to need God! to need Jesus!

The Bible refers to us humans as slaves, servants, children... all belonging to God. We are children of God we are servants of God we are slaves to God. Being described in those terms leaves us to believe and know through experience we are not to know everything. In fact Jesus even says the servant does not know the masters work. The truth is we have a loving caring and just master and He loves us more than we can imagine (more on love in my future post). God does not leave us completely blind to His work. I believe that when we need to know He lets us know, when we don't He doesn't. There is plenty that God has let us mere servants in on, plenty to build a belief that can be unshaken, plenty to point us to Him and to Eternity with Him. Where is your focus? Is it on God and what is pointing to Him that you do know? or is it on self and the things you don't know (or can't know) and thus looking to find ways not to believe?

Have you ever met someone who "knows everything"? Think about that person... (hum some of you are picturing yourself ;-) now have you ever tried to explain something to that person or offer help. Many times they don't want it or think they don't need it because they already know it all! Just a thought, but if God let us in on everything where we are at in this World do you think people would draw closer or farther away from Him?

Everything in this life is designed to draw us closer to God, the emptiness you feel at times, the hurt you feel at times, the love you feel at times, the joy, and even the not knowing. You see by not knowing we seek out the One who is knowing (or we should) and we long to be "in the know" as we long to be with the One who is the knowing. I was watching the short documentary on "The Case for Faith" by Lee Strobel last night. In that there are several examples of people who are at a crossroads in life. Each was lead there by something. The first by not knowing he did not know the answers to why there is pain and evil in the world. The next was lead to the crossroads by his 18 month old daughter being ran over by a car driven by his wife and killed. Both were at a crossroads as the second man explained it naked and humbled, fearing and cold. Standing at that crossroads of not knowing why they each had only two choices. Am I going to take this horrible thing in life that I don't know the "why" and use this to draw closer to God or run away from God. Am I going to walk down the road of not knowing and draw closer to the One that is knowing or am I going to go at it alone in my anger of not knowing.

I pray that everyone will take the road that leads closer to the One that is knowing the One that is Love, the One that will suffer right next to you and love you through the pain of hurt and not knowing the why. You see for God to love you He does not have to give you answers, He gives much more He gives Love, He gives us Himself!

Only the Strong survive

So there is a theory that Christians are weak, wimps, losers or some other demeaning term. I would like to explore that theory and see if we can come to a conclusion it is correct or false. My initial thoughts are yes one must admit they are weak in order to fully let God take over their lives. We find many references in the Bible backing this claim of weakness. Is that where Christians stay do they just crumble into God and become nothingness. I think not.

Claiming oneself as a Christian means that one is living in Christ or better said Christ is living in them. One thing that needs to remain clear throughout any discussion on God is that it has to be preceeded with the thought that the Creation does not define the Creator! The Creator defines the creation. That being said we can not define what God is, He can only define what we are. To get to God's definitions we have several sources, one is the written Word of God, next is confirmation through the Spirit of God living and moving in us, lastly I do fully believe that God uses His own creation to define Himself to His Creation. Trippy huh. God created us so that we could know Him and by knowing Him we could be come whole and we become whole through Him and only through Him. See Paul was on to something when he said that nothing happens that God does not let happen, we only live because he lets us live! God is the one who gives Meaning!

So back to the statement or theory that God's people Christians are weak. Here are some points to consider: is it the weak or the strong who: Say no to temptation, who die to themselves, give up all, take on the cross daily, allow God to lead... the Strong. You see it is far easier to just give into this life lay down and die in your sin. It is far more difficult to fight, stand up to sin, and die to self. But here is the rub... we are all human and in that too weak to stand up to sin and fight off evil. We can't do it.... WITHOUT GOD! The weak who admit they are weak, surrender all to Christ and let Him lead are the only ones who are strong. No strength exists that God does not give. We can not live on our own we have to die to self and live in Christ. It is through Christ that we get the strength to run the race, to fight the good fight, and to live forever. Heaven (the place we spend enternity with Christ) is not going to have any weak people in it, it can't. All the weak do is drag down the strong or drag down the weak who are too prideful to become strong. It takes a strong person to live forever it takes a strong person to live this life fully alive. Some have seen glimpses of life lived fully and they fear it as they fear the One who created it and they run scared to death into the arms of death. How they can do this is beyond me. The day I realized I was weak I longed for the One who could make me strong and He answered my call in a milisecond.

Many people love to lie. In fact the master of the lie (Satan) loves to teach people how to lie. One of the biggest lies of all is that we who run to the One who gives strength are weak. Yes we are as we approach but once we are in God's loving arms we are never weak again. You see the theory of Christians are weak is wrong but at the same time half right. Just because something starts weak does not mean it stays that way, a body builder did not come out of his or her mother with buldging muscles (if they did I will sincerely pray for that mother) they got them some how. In the case of muscles it is always through hard lifting and devotion to exercise. But for true strength, strength to look death in the face and say "you have nothing for me," that is only for the Christians and only through Christ!!

In closing, think of God as a mirror. If we really as Christians live full of Christ then we become a mirror to those who look at us. If we are a mirror then what the world sees when they look at us they see weak people, they see themselves. It is not until they allow God to fill them that they can look at God (the mirror) and see God who is full of strength. Not until you reflect God's glory do you become strong and look strong. God's reflection can only reflect goodness and strength and when the weak look upon it in their weakness they only see their weakness.

Don't let the word lie to you anymore, wake up, get up, and kneel down to the One who wants to make you whole and in that wholeness make you strong.