Humbleness

Today I would like to talk about a famous man by the name of John the Baptist. John is role model of mine for many reasons, but one of the reasons is because he was an incredibly humble man. It is very hard to be humble but John was, let me explain how.
John chapter 1. It has many verse so I won't post them all, i'll save you the trouble and summarize it. Basically John the Baptist who is a cousin of Jesus, was preaching in Israel. And he was gathering quite a following. He was sharing the gospel, and most notably preparing the way for the lord. This is a somewhat difficult position to be in. I mean who likes to prepare the way for anyone, we all want to be the person in the spot light but John said no, my job is to prepare the way.

Now because he was gathering so many followers and performing miraculous signs people began to wonder if he was the messiah. They asked him, are you Elijah? are you the prophet? are the the Christ? wow what a hard position to be in. Are you the Christ. What if he had said yes. Do you realize how humble he needed to be to say no to essentially an opportunity to rule Israel. If he had said yes the Jews would have followed him and he could have easily led them in rebellion.
This was John's response.
"I am the voice of the one calling in the desert, prepare ye the way of the lord." He described the true Christ to them as, "He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie."
This man was truly humble.

Later on in chapter 3. Jesus’ is becoming more and more popular and the people are rallying around him. Now John is in an awkward position. He used to be the guy but now he submitted of his own free will to let Jesus be the leader. John was related to Jesus. They were cousins and Jesus was younger. So he was submitting to his younger sibling and saying he is my lord and I’m unfit to untie his sandals. He was a humble man.

Then at the end of the chapter, John's disciples approached him saying that some man was baptizing people in the name of God. Basically they were saying this was your job, this other guy is trying to take your job should we take him out? John's response is incredible. He says, "He must become greater; I must become less. This man was Jesus of course and John realized that he needed to submit his will to God's.

John is a perfect example of Humility.

Is christianity blind faith?

Today I would like to talk about faith. Now when I tried to share Christianity with people I've heard often experienced a similar response. "well I can't follow your religion because it is blind following, it is blind faith so I can't follow that religion. This is a very common reply but one that I believe doesn't really make sense if it is dissolved.

First of all what is faith. Well according to the bible, Hebrew 11:1, "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."This is a very straightforward definition. Faith is a huge part of any type of belief. Now most of "these people" that I referred to before, are believers in evolution. But what they fail to realize is that Evolution is also based on faith, any belief is cannot be repeated must be taken by faith. This is hard to understand because faith has been given the bad rap that it is unrealistic. Faith has been separated from belief and for some reason, belief has become something more logical then faith.

Take for example any historical fact, all of them are something you have faith in. It could all be made up you don't know you've just read it in books and assumed it was true. You have faith in the writer and the historian who claimed to find it, that it's not just a story. Or that the world is round, how could you prove it? we take somethings for granted. Now I'm not disagreeing with these I'm merely stating that we take very, very many thing by faith, though many of us refuse to use it for religion.

Now why do we have faith in these historical facts? Because we have proof backing it up right? We used other things to prove another thing or to assume it's true because blank is true.

My point is, is Christinaity faith. Yes. Is it blind, No unless everything else you believe about life is considered blind to.

As Christians we believe by faith certain things because we cannot prove them. But we believe them because other parts have been found to be true and proven, and it makes it a reliable witness to prove other things. We will never no everything about Christianity, it says in the bible hundreds of times that we are saved by faith. We are going to just have to believe in certain things with out having proved them.

So is Christianity based on faith, Yes hugely. But is it Blind? No.

Purpose of Life

A few weeks ago when I was on my way back from a vacation in Ohio, I was reading in the airport waiting for my flight, when I heard a lady talking on the phone behind me. I tried not to eavesdrop but the book was getting kind of boring. She was talking about a friend of hers who had been feeling a bad headache the week before. And then the next day she died of a stroke. I began to feel bad for the lady. She continued talking and said yeah well that's just proof of that fact that we should live like there's no tommorow. And I was agreeing inside we should live that way but her next comment saddened me. And then she kind of laughed and said let's party enjoy life while you can. This is from a 50-60 year old lady.

This is really saddening for me for several reasons. First of all that is the opposite of what our perspective should be, and Second I know that alot of people live misguided this way.

Our perspective on life should not be "Enjoy life while you can because life is short," I agree that life is short but because of that we should accomplish something with our lives. By saying enjoy life while you can she's not only being selfish and only thinking about herself, but making her life into just another failure story. We as christians know that their is a higher purpose. Here on earth is not our life, this is the prelude that determines the ending. We have knowledge of information that can save the world. We need to share and spread it otherwise we indeed waste our lives and might as well be partying. Our goal in life does not need to be to party but it should be to make a difference to make a change. To spread the good news. I encourage you find out what your living for, and to make sure it is centered on God. Don't waste your life.

The truth shall find you out

Today I'm going to discuss an interesting verse I found in Matthew, 7:21-23.

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'

Now there are several important things that we can draw from this verse. First of all which is something that threatens the very existence of christianity today. Is the amount of fake christians. People to claim to be christians yet who aren't. People who cry "Lord Lord," but the Lord doesn't know them. These people have infiltrated The World of Christendom and now nobody can be sure of anyone else until the Judgement day. That's why for once we all must worry about ourselves before we can help others. You know on the planes when they tell you about the oxyegan masks, they tell you to put on yours before helping others. We must be sure of our place with God before we can try to lead other people. Otherwise it shall be the blind leading the blind.

The second conclusion and the one that has most captivated my attention, is what is says in verse 22-23. That not only will people claim to be christians yet aren't, that is not that uncommon but that they were able to prophesy in his name, drive out demons, and even perform miracles. What fascinates me is that these people, who were fake christians who said they followed Jesus but rejected him in their's hearts, these people who God says he despises were able to preform miracles? cast out demons, prophesy? How is this possible, how can people that deny God have his power? yet others who search whole heartily for him are denyed?

Now the only plausible answer I can come up with is that it's Satan's power, because I mean who else is there? And it would seem to make sense, the bible says that Satan is very crafty and this would seem to agree with that. That he could trick people who everyone looks up to as heros in the cause of Christ into actually being against God. Makes sense right? Yet another verse in Matthew causes me to wonder. Matthew 12:25-28

Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, "Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? And if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

Well… then who is it? I know this is rather unfair of me to end this with a question, but I don't know. So what is this third power that gives to humans the might to do the supernatural?

Mutilation of Words

I bear sad tidings of a revelation I have received, we have forgotten the name of God.
Now I don't mean literally but we have forgotten it's meaning which leaves us in grave danger. The common names for God are obviously, God, Christ, Lord, and Saviour. I don't think people even realize what these words mean anymore. What all these words have in common is that they emphasize a Master and a servant. And I'm sorry but we are not the master. We are servants, we are people who have failed and should be humbled by are weakness. Yet these words God, and Lord slide off our tongues so easily. We don't even realize what we are saying anymore. If you think about it words like God and Lord have even more personal effect then if their was a king of the entire world. If you have a lord or master you would be a slave to his every whim, Now God is not calling us to that but yet we call him Lord yet deny what he asks of us with saying things like not now lord I'm busy, Or I want to finish this first. If he is truly our Lord and and he is truly our master and truely our God How Dare We refuse him.

God is even higher then that. Your God is infinitely higher then any man made position or king. If God is truly your God then you worship him, you sacrifice everything you can for him, you'd do anything in the world to please him because he is your God your ultimate devotion. With modern Hollywood today people idolize certain people they dress like them talk like them and act like them, they even study them, these people are their idols. Yet we can't even do the same thing for Our GOD?

And the small difference my friends between an idol and a God, is that an idol is fake and temporary, and God is real. How dare we not have the same curtsy for our God, The person who saved us, who loves us, who cares for us, who never leaves us, who will never forsake us, who died for us, who created us people.

Where do I get this you ask? first of all from the divinely inspired word of God, the Bible. Romans 1:21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Or Romans 2:24 As it is written: "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."
So you want more then biblical proof? Well then listen to how many times people say "O my God."

We have fallen away from the true meaning of God and Lord, and we are in grave danger. It is time that we restored God to his rightful place as a holy and righteous God who is coming out of his way for us, Not us making time for him. Think about this next time you say the words Lord or God. And think about if you really mean it.

Salvation

Now today I would like to talk about a very important issue, Salvation. Now Salvation is simply put the Christian view on how to be forgiven from your sins, so that you can spend eternity in heaven instead of hell. I am writing an essay on this so any thought you can give me would be appreciated. But the typical view is that to become a christian and be saved you must genuinely ask Jesus into your heart and admit that he died for you to save you from death, making you righteous then you will be saved, forever. Now i'm sure many of you christians are nodding your heads, well i believe there is more to this then that. Though that is the first step, accepting Jesus I believe that the sign of salvation is Good works. Now you catholics are nodding but the good works do not, Do Not grant your salvation they are merely a sign of genuine acceptance. They are not the only one and you can never judge purely on this and you should never be judging at all. But when someone has genuinely accepted Jesus then Good Works will be impossible for him to not do. His life Will Be Changed, permanently. It says in Matthew 7:16-17, By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.

If you see someone accept Jesus even if it is geniune, then going back and doing the same things they were before and not having or seeing a problem with it, then they were merely caught up in the emotion of it and I believe they won't be saved. A good example of this I heard by a pastor. The pastor said, "Say I were late today, and I finally got here to preach and you said Brother Paul your late what happened," Brother paul said, "Well I was driving on my way here and I swerved to avoid a deer on the highway. I swerved into the next lane and got hit by a 18 wheeler going that way going 90 miles an hour and it flattened my car. You would look at me and say brother paul that's impossible. You can't be hit by something as big as a 18 wheeler and not be changed. And so he replied, well what is bigger a 18 wheeler or God.

You Cannot truely become a christian and not be permantly changed. You won't listen to music like 50 cent and Eminem with out a guilty "conscience," key word being conscience. Now is the music so bad that it cancels your salvation? No! but if you accepted Jesus into your heart and made him Lord of your Life, your will, you sacrificed all your wants and desires before him till he is King of your heart mind and soul. You won't listen to that music and still be a christian.

It says that few will enter the kingdom of God. Now simply using logic all of people who claim to be chrisitans can't be true follower of Christ, because christianity is the largest religion in the world by millions, and simply by knowing that, we know they must be false. Because few isn't half the world or 40% or 30%. We are missing some great detail that makes us christians because it doesn't work logically. If you asked these people what made them christians they would all say that accepting Jesus into their heart and making them Lord of their life. Though some might say more then that, that is the basic answer. That can't be all, we are missing something.

I believe and obviously all of this has been my interpretation and thoughts it's obviously not foolproof. But I believe that the first step is geniune accepting Jesus that is proved through works and other things. And then I believe there is a third step, but I don't know what it is so for now I shall not go into that. Thoughts are appreciated.

Tithing

Today I would like to talk about a topic that I believe is very important, Tithing. However it is not for the typical reasons that people think. Let me just make this clear, God does not need your money. This is a common misconsumption. God does not need our money to accomplish good, it is after all his money that he has given to us. These verses in Malachi support my point, "Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. "But you ask, 'How do we rob you?' "In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me. That was Malachi 3:8-9. So if God does not need the money, then what does he want it for? Well I shall tell you. In the bible it mentions many times that wealth, and money is evil. Is money actually wrong? Of course not but the love of money is the root of all evil the bible says. 1st Timothy 6:10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. And Matthew 19:23-24, Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. These are just several of the examples that shed light upon this topic, why is it so important? Well because as these verses says Money is the root of evil, simply put money seperates us from God. The bible lists it as the number one physical thing that keeps people away from God. Matthew 6:24 says, "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. So my point is Tithing is something by God used to keep the love of money in check. By giving money away every week at church a large percentage of our income it is hard to fall in love with it. As long as we are willing to give it up we are safe. But at any point if it gets to difficult to give it away we know that we struggle with the love of money. So to wrap up, the purpose of tithing in my opinion is to prevent the love of money from separating us from God.

my favorite poem 2

I would like to finish that thought in another post. Personally i hate when people say that, becoming a christian is easy. Like all you have to do is accept Jesus. Now i used to think the same thing, but people i've grown up being a chrisitian is not the easy path. I was talking with a person i knew and they said prove there's a God. And i replied well scientifically as i'm guessing you want it proven it can't be. However some proof that points to it is me, and the millions of other christians throughout the world. First of all for something to become that popular people must see something in it. Christianity is by far the most popular religion by millions. Now you may say i'm a fool and i'm just making it up but first of all i didn't make it up and i'm not the only fool, your calling like a fourth of the world a fool and ignorant. And even if we were to ignore all that, why do you think I live the way i do. Without drinking, sex, drugs, immoral behaivor, coarse joking all the thigns that you enjoy the most, and all the things the world enjoys. Would I live this way if I were making it all up, would I stay true when everyone was mocking me and my beliefs and saying I made it all up? What could i possibly gain by this? there isn't any thing I can gain if it's all false and a lie, i'm wasting my Life to tell others about this thing that is going to destory the world for eternity. But if it's true… then what happens to you. Do you have any idea how much love and sacrific it takes to tell your friends your family the World that their going to spend eternatiy in hell? Do you think people like hearing this? it doesn't make us popular, were despised and considered ignorant and throwing away our brains. Yet we do it, why? Now there are only two options for them to say after this, either they'll look at you pathetically and say your an idiot, or they'll look you in the eye and say, maybe there's some truth. Now i'm not saying you should say all that but the point is. The life of a christian is by no means easy and we don't gain anything by living a lie. Being a christian is hard, it's hurts. Yet that's what were called to do to sacrfice our will for God's. Being a christian is not easy, but it is right.

my favorite poem

I would now like to share with you probably my all time favorite poem called What Christ Said by George Macdonald. I had to write it again for school today and it's amazing.

I said, "Let me walk in the fields.
He said, "No; walk in the town."
I said, "There are no flowers there.
He said, "No flowers but a crown."

I said, "But the skies are black,
There is nothing but noise and din."
And He wept as He sent me back;
"There is more," He said. "There is sin."

I said, "But the air is thick,
And fogs are veiling the sun."
He answered, "Yet souls are sick,
And souls in the dark undone."

I said, "I shall miss the light,
And friends will miss me, they say."
He answered, "Choose tonight
If I am to miss you, or they."

I pleaded for time to be given.
He said, "Is it hard to decide?
It will not seem hard in Heaven
To have followed the steps of your Guide."

I cast one look at the fields,
Then set my face to the town.
He said, "My child, do you yield?
Will you leave the flowers for a crown?"

Then into His hand went mine;
And into my heart came He;
And I walked in a light divine,
The path I had feared to see.


I like this poem because it has perfect rhyme keeping the idea and has good meter not perfect but similar enough not to throw you off. The poem talks about Jesus calling us to him and our decision. Now every person when he decides to become not only a christian but a christfollower has to make this choice. Are you going to abandon God and leave his path and plan or are you going to abandon your path and plan for his. This is an incredibly hard descision to make and for most it is not a one time thing you did it now it's done but a continual day by day descision. To follow God into the town verses staying in the field. Now an important thing that the peom alludes to is Jesus's cruxification. When it says,

I said, "Let me walk in the fields.
He said, "No; walk in the town."
I said, "There are no flowers there.
He said, "No flowers but a crown."

I said, "But the skies are black,
There is nothing but noise and din."
And He wept as He sent me back;
"There is more," He said. "There is sin."

It points out that though the field may be funner and nicer it is not the right course. And that the easier course is to stay in the field and on the broad road that leads to destruction but narrorw is the path and way that leads to salavation. It's going to harder your going to mocked and persescuated. But it is for the right cause and when it's all over we can go before God at the gates of Heaven and with out falsehood proclaim that we lived to accomplish his will not ours. We must all be prepared to make this descision every day when the trials come.

Requirements before dating (for men)

(I wrote it in question answer format so i can use it)
I have not asked your father
So i have no right or permission to take away their daughter in a sacred unionfor the rest of their lives,

I am not financally able (i'm not positive about this one but we'll keep it in for now)
So it has a much more limited chance of success,

I have other loves and enjoyments
So i cannont give myself wholely to you and I won't rob you of the ultimate sacrifice required to make this a correct relationship,

I am not at the point in my walk with God that I need to be
So i can't father and lead you spiritually as i am called to do,

And I am not at the point where I would gladly lay down my life for you to save you from the slightest pain,
So there is no absolute commitment and sacrifical love that is needed.

I lack the physical, the spiritual, the psycological, the financial, and the leadership required to take on this role, so i cannot with out rightful and holy judgement form God commit myself to you and being in your life until I am able.




Alright so whether you agree with those or not, I believe they would solve a very big problem today which is the plague of recreational dating. Kids in middle school are dating they are pairing kids off in first grade. Now first you must realize this is a modern phenomen this is new in the last 50-100 years. There's nothing in the bible about it because it didn't even exist. The problem is every dates in modern times for fun. And because everybody is doing it, it's considered okay. Now these relationships have been incredibly if they last year, typically around a month. And in most cases the one ending up hurt,
(and i'm not trying to be sexist here) is the girl. Men are more brash and foolhardy and are just looking for a good time. (obviously i'm generalizing again but I think it's fair enough) Now if we followed these rules then the only people who date would be people looking for marriage, the way it should be. I did not make these up the rules are all based on the bible and I can find you verses if you like. But if we followed these so many more marriages would be saved, so much less pain would be in this world. The way dating and marriage is going now, we would be better off with the father picking a husband for his wife. (I'll talk about that more in another post) I encourage you to not fall into the fade of trivial dating which it's only accomplishment is pain on both sides.