Why religion is silly (part 3)…

** From time to time I will come across an article that simply makes me think “Religion is so silly!” As a disclaimer I should state, I have no problem with these people’s right to worship as they please (this is the U.S.), but to do this in the name of Christ is just silly (and that is the nicest way I can out it.**

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po8zNqSt5t8&feature=related]

“Pastor” William J. Collier and his Church of God’s Chosen held a “Christian” conference in Winfield, AL and all are invited — as long as they are white. Flyers for the conference with the title: “Annual Pastors Conference All White Christians Invited” first appeared last Monday around town outraging many local residents. According to the local new the mayor was adamant that the event is not representative of the community in any way.

“Business people are upset. The city is upset. The city of Winfield does not condone this…”

– Mayor Wayne Silas

The event was reportedly draped with symbols of the Ku Klux Klan, Confederate flags and white supremacy slogans. When confronted by a reporter with Bible verses on equality of all races, Rev. Mel Lewis, the founder of Christian Identity Ministries, the event’s co-sponsor, got defensive:

“Well, you’ve picked out some wonderful verses out of context and out of the direction of Scripture. All you’re doing is making a mockery of God’s Word,” said Lewis, according to WFSA. “You’re absolutely abusing the Scripture.”

The three-day conference concluded on July 6 with a cross burning, which organizers are called a “Sacred Christian Cross Lighting Ceremony.”

Honestly, after reading and researching this article I was left completely speechless. The audacity, and overt nature of this bigotry is one that seems to have caught this nation by surprise. This is nothing new for me unfortunately and now its at the forefront of America’s minds. This is yet another example of the destructive silliness of trying to achieve your own righteousness through [your] works and not grace.

I would love to hear your comments below…

Why religion is silly (part 2)…

** From time to time I will come across an article that simply makes me think “Religion is so silly!” When that happens I will post it so you can see the destructive silliness of trying to achieve your own righteousness through [your] works and not grace… enjoy!**

“Religion is the default mode of the human heart”

– Martin Luther

An Islamic cleric living in Europe reportedly has warned Muslim women not to get too close to bananas, cucumbers or other produce — to avoid having “sexual thoughts.”

The unnamed cleric, whose directive was featured in an article in el-Senousa, a religious publication, purportedly said that if women wanted to eat these foods, a third party — preferably a male related to them, such as their father or husband — should cut the items into small pieces before serving, the Egyptian website Bikya Masr reported.

Carrots and zucchini also were added to the alleged cleric’s list of forbidden foods for women.

News of the statement quickly spread online, leaving many liberal Muslims embarrassed and angry, evoking a flurry of mockery in online forums.

“Many of the commentators are Muslims themselves, who have expressed their anger against the cleric for making Islamic religious practices appear unreasonable,” The International Business Times reported.

BikyaMasr.com said the cleric, identified only as a sheikh, was asked in the interview how to “control” women when they are shopping for groceries, and whether holding these items at the market would be bad, to which he replied that the matter was between them and God.

Questions also arose about the validity of the original published interview. An online search for the el-Senousa article, for instance, yields only results linking to the Bikya Masr report.

But the mere suggestion of a strict order for Muslim women handling food has been enough to send people to website forums and Twitter to air their indignation.

Danish/Lebanese journalist Helen Hajjij tweeted: “So if Muslim women should stay away from cucumbers and bananas, should men stay away from melons?”

What is a Christian’s greatest fear?

I was in the 5th grade when I decided to begin pursuing the opposite sex, armed with only vague things I had seen from my parents, siblings and TV. I fell head over heels for a young lady (to remain unnamed) and tried to do anything to gain her attention. After months of impressing her (i.e. multiple home-runs in kickball, touching the bottom of the basketball net, and other rather silly things), it came! A note with her handwriting on it (much better than mine), the smell of her perfume, I treasured it but did not dare to open such a gift. On the bus ride home I presented the note to my co-conspirators and they marveled in the work that we had accomplished, and then my big brother noticed. He knew of my love interest and from behind me he began to mock me aloud letting everyone on the bus know who the note was from. I was absolutely devastated and simultaneously angry. I decided to stand up for my honor and started a fight with my brother in which he took the note read it out loud and to my further embarrassment laughed with everyone when it was discovered that her feelings were not the same for me. It was a horrible day, I was publicly humiliated, rejected and thought I would never recover.

I share that story for multiple reasons, hopefully you laughed at the sillieness and I wanted you to see a clear example (one of many) of rejection in my life. When I ask fellow believers about how and when they share their faith I constantly hear people scared to be humiliated, rejected and will never recover from it.

What is a Christians greatest fear?

Rejection, primarily when it comes to evangelism.

The moment has arrived, God has opened to the door for you to present the Gospel to that person in your life that you have fervently been praying for. You follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit and pour your heart out sharing the love of Jesus and the sacrifice that he made for the entire world. The conversation exchange seems peaceful, cordial and gives you the impression that all aspects of the Gospel are clear and understood. Then after sharing the Gospel you take the next step, move to the question of commitment and ask if the person if they would like to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. During those next few seconds of waiting with great anticipation to hear their decision, you pray within yourself for God to give the increase. And then it comes. To your surprise and dismay, you hear their response of a resounding …“NO”. The impending victory that seemed so certain has suddenly been turned into feelings of disappointment and failure. You play back in your mind everything that you shared. You are so confident that you presented the Gospel in full context and answered all questions.

Rejection of the Gospel can be difficult. I remember while in school being a part of an evangelism outreach that shared the Gospel door to door in the local community. When we returned back from sharing in a community I was often asked, “how many did you catch for the kingdom?” or “how many did you lead to Christ?” I was always discouraged if I came back with no spiritual notches in my belt. I found myself sometimes trying to win people to Christ in my own strength. What I have discovered was that many Christians are apprehensive about evangelism because they believe that a conversion must occur every time they share the Gospel. As a result, when they share Gospel and do not lead someone to Christ, they feel rejection and are discouraged from sharing Christ again.

When did the importance of planting and watering seeds become so insignificant?

God is glorified when we plant and water seeds. This is what he calls us to do and it is all he has given us the power to do. In evangelism, we are only responsible for sharing the correct information about what it truly means to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. This is how seeds are planted and watered. Only God can make the seeds that have been planted and watered grow. Coming to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ is a supernatural and spiritual event. Only the divine power of God can bring a person to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. In our frail human strength, we cannot make a person accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. We must consider that a Christian may be one of many other Christians sharing Christ in an unsaved person’s life. Be encouraged, even if the Gospel is rejected by a loved one and you’re concerned about their eternal destiny. Remember, God is concerned about them too. If you’ve experienced rejection you have not failed because you were being obedient to God’s call to share the Gospel.

Also, don’t force the Gospel on them, which might push them away from you. Instead, add this person to your prayer list. If they are accessible to you, let them know that you still care very much about them and that you will be available if they have questions about anything that was presented to them.

At the end of the day, when sharing the Gospel we are only responsible for being obedient in sharing the correct data about what it truly means to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. God will do the rest and will deal with people’s hearts. There will be occasions when you will plant or water a seed and there will be occasions where you witness God giving the increase. In either instance, you are being used by God and glorifying him by communicating the greatest news ever.

God is not fair

I remember when I was a kid, I will would repeat these words whenever I felt I was wronged by another person, “that’s not fair!”. Truth is… it probably wasn’t fair but my parents taught me early on that life wasn’t fair. Soon those same words will be ringing through the halls of our household and I will be handing out the same lessons.

I have had this lesson proven to me in a miriad of ways over the years. Without boring you with the details of a sad story about how I was done wrong at some point in my life (I mean we all have those stories), just take my word for it, I have lived most of life knowing that life wasn’t fair and it never would be.

It didn’t make much sense to me as a kid, but as I have grown older, and hopefully a little bit wiser, I have come to appreciate the simple truth that Life is not fair.

Fairness has sadly become the battle cry of our society. When something isn’t fair, it is viewed as inherently wrong or even evil. We have gone from a culture and society here in the United States which was built on the idea of equal opportunity and “evolved” into a culture that expects an equal outcome. What we fail to understand is that those ideas are mutually exclusive. Kids do not fail, everyone gets a trophy, and I have even heard that people bring presents to a birthday party for the other kids in the family because they don’t want them to feel left out. We live in a culture that demands fairness at all times and in all respects and it’s just out of control.

The problem is – fairness is NOT a biblical concept… let me say that again, Fairness is not a biblical concept. The God we serve is a God of justice, but nowhere in the Bible does it indicate that he is “fair.” Indeed, the idea of fair is a very human concept, the Bible never attributes the idea of fairness to God.

Let me explain…

Jesus didn’t carry any swords or spears, he didn’t have an army behind him. His only weapon was his mouth, and it was His message that got him into trouble. His message was seen not merely as wrong, it was (and is still is) dangerous, even subversive. It threatened to upset the social world of Judaism. What kind of message could make the religious people so angry that they would kill the messenger? One idea that could anger the religious leaders is found in Matthew 9:13: “I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners.” Jesus had a message of good news for sinners, but people who considered themselves good often thought that Jesus preached bad news.

Jesus invited prostitutes and tax collectors into the kingdom of God, and the good people didn’t like that. “That’s not fair,” they may have said. “We have been working hard to be good, and why can they get into the kingdom without working hard? If you don’t keep sinners out, it isn’t fair!”

Jesus was preaching that God is not fair. Most people think that fairness requires equal treatment for everyone, but when it comes to salvation, God simply isn’t fair. Even today, people don’t like to hear that idea. Good Christian people want God to be fair—but He isn’t. God is just…not fair. By definition this means that God is reasonable, faithful, proper, righteous, deserving and lawful. This shows us that God is in fact “Just” which is so much better than fair. His grace is far beyond anything we could deserve. God is generous, full of grace, full of mercy, loving us even though we don’t deserve it.

Let’s be honest this kind of message bothers religious leaders and people who like to say that the harder you work, the more you will get; if you behave better, you will get a better reward. Is that you? Many religious leaders like to have that kind of message, because it makes it easy to motivate people to work hard, to do right, to live right.

But Jesus says, It isn’t so.

If you have dug a really deep pit for yourself, if you have messed up time and time again, if you have been the worst sort of sinner, you don’t have to work your way out of the pit to be given salvation. God simply forgives you for the sake of Jesus. You don’t have to deserve it—God simply does it. You just need to believe it. You just need to trust God, to take Him at his word: Your sin is removed from the record. It seems that some people are distressed at this kind of news. “Look, I’ve been working hard to get out of the pit,” they might say, “and I am almost out. You mean to tell me that ‘those’ people are pulled out of the pit instantly, without having to do any work at all? That’s not fair!”

No, grace is not “fair”—it is grace—it is a gift we did not deserve. God can be generous to whomever he wants to be generous to, and the good news is that he offers his generosity to everyone. It is fair in the sense that it extends to everyone, even though this means that he forgives some people a big debt, and some people a smaller debt—the same arrangement for all even though there are different circumstances.

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in the church or how many sacrifices you have made; those are nothing in comparison to what God is giving us. The Apostle Paul worked harder than any of us; he made more sacrifices for the gospel than we realize, but he counted it all as a loss for Christ. It was nothing.

Honestly, we really do not want what is fair, because fair for us is hell (yes, I said it, I’m one of those people). We do not deserve the gift of grace that God gives us. If God were merely “fair” we would all have to pay for our sin. That payment for our sin would eternal separation from God. I believe that it would mean an eternity in Hell for everyone but Jesus Christ graciously paid the debt of our sin by His death on the cross, and subsequent resurrection. Through this we have the hope of an eternity in Heaven with Him. It is a free gift and nothing you can do will make you worthy of God’s grace.

So is God fair? No, He is not fair… He’s “just” and I am so thankful that He is. What about you?

You have to live for something…

July 4, 2011

He we are the newbies on the parade scene, not prepared for anything. At 10am it was already hot enough to feel like the entrance to Hell and it just kept getting hotter. We rookies are parked almost a mile from the parade route and we’re walking. We have no sunscreen, umbrella, water, chairs to sit on, or cash to buy any of these items, and apparently no common sense. As we walked towards the parade route we realized how unprepared we were and that neither my wife or I could remember the last time we just watched a parade and not participated. Honestly, as a former Boy Scout who had the motto “Always be prepared” driven into him from the beginning I was frankly shamed (but I digress). After walking a mile and finally finding an open spot on the street (with absolutely no shade for our baby and toddler) we settled in and we were in for a surprise.

The parade began…

tractors, horse drawn carriages, Antique cars and trucks, local Dance studios, Girls scouts and Boy scouts (who pelted us with candy), political representatives, Renaissance Festival people and surprisingly churches (and other religious organizations). The one that left the deepest impression were the Shriners (pictured above). Despite the silliness of a grown man riding in a miniature car in a parade the Shriners actually do a lot of good things.

My daughter was standing right in front of me as they approached performing power slides and figure 8’s, a mesmerizing sight for any child. My wife looked out on the road as they went by and casually said something very profound,

“I guess you have to live for something.”

You see I run into people all of the time who look at Christians and Christianity and simply say “this doesn’t pass the smell test”. I said this when I was 8 years old. Our focus is somewhere else. Most of the people that I see or hear about attending a [Christian] church of any stripe I see them striving to be a good person. Listen, Jesus said that we will be known for our love for each other not for being a good person! Actually, being a good person is not a sign of love and in most cases is a sign of self fulfillment as a person strives to manipulate others for their or ultimate outcome.I’m not saying that what you are focused on is necessarily bad, but I am saying that it takes you and I away from what is suppossed to be the first thing in our lives. Jesus said:

“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” – John 13:35

The love that Jesus is referring to is not casual butterflies toward Him or that special hymn or K-Love song you sings to Him as your boyfriend, but the experiential reality coming to Jesus is desirable above all things. You see to love Jesus from the Bible’s perspective means we experience Jesus as precious and perfectly satisfying in our lives. You see if you are viewing Jesus through the Gospel filter you will treasure Him for who He is, and for what He has done and is doing. That same love, once focused on Jesus, then made to permeate our community and be reflected into the world around us.

In light of this I have a few questions (surprise):

Does your faith pass the smell test?
If I asked those who truly know you what would they say that you are living for?
Is Jesus is desirable above all things in your life?

“I guess you have to live for something.”

Why can’t I see God?

One of the most common questions I get as a pastor/minister is,

“You say you see God in BLANK…or that you hear from God…why don’t I have the same things happen to me?”

My response isn’t always what people want to hear, nonetheless it remains the same,

“Maybe you just aren’t looking for Him.”

I once heard John Maxwell teach a lesson and one of His points was, “We see what we are prepared to see.” The older I get the more I am convinced that is true. In fact, I had an experience with my daughter the other day that illustrated this so clearly.

My little girl LOVES Firetrucks (trains, and all trucks for that matteer)!

So, one day we were in front of our house and I thought I heard something so I quickly glanced up to see if I could find a firetruck…but I didn’t see one. Within a matter of seconds her eyes got huge & she pointed saying emphatically, “Firetruck, Daddy look, Firetruck!”

I smiled at her “imagination” and was about to explain to her that there were no firetrucks around but before doing so I looked at the direction she was pointing and there were literally about 3 of the things with lights and sirens driving
by.

There is a reason I didn’t see them and she did, she was purposefully looking for them and I was not!

It’s the same thing with us and our relationship with God. You see, God is ALWAYS at work (John 5:17), He is ALWAYS speaking. He is ALWAYS obvious–even in the ordinary! (Seriously, the sunsets He paints every evening are AMAZING!). It’s just often times we aren’t really looking for Him, we are merely giving quick glances His way.

Questions for you (if you don’t mind)…

When was the last time you came to church & begged God to reveal Himself to you? Or…is it your goal to get in and get out?
When was the last time you prayed over your food and GENUINELY did so with a thankful heart? Or…are you still using that prayer you memorized 20 years ago? (”Bless us, help us and guide us…”)
When was the last time you prayed before reading the Scriptures and asked God to get personal? Or…do you read the Bible to try and see what is wrong with “those other people?”
When was the last time you allowed God to place HIS passion into you? Or…are you to busy trying to instill your passion into Him?

We see what we are prepared to see! You see God isn’t playing some game of hide & go seek!!! He WANTS us to know HIM (Jeremiah 29:13 is a hint as to how)! He WANTS us to see Him!!! He WANTS us to grow in Him!

Maybe our prayer needs to stop being for Him to reveal Himself and switch to begging Him to let us see what’s He’s already tried to make obvious.

Just a thought…