"Forcing" one's belief...

This may be a useless post, but I have a question. For those who believe that people should not 'force' their beliefs onto others, I must ask:

What if you believed that there was only One true God?
One that was all-mighty and all-powerful and all-righteous, and yet all-loving?
That there was One Truth, and nothing but that Truth could possibly be true?
That God brought glory to himself through the incarnation of Jesus Christ so that all may know Him and serve Him and glorify Him?
Also so that through his death, that we, being sinful, would be reunited with Him and given new life, a life that no longer reflected the patterns of this world, or the sinfulness of this world, but would reflect His glory and honor Him in all things as written in His law?
And what if you believed that any who do not accept the Truth and instead continue to be deceived by the flesh, would perish for eternity?

Would you stay quiet about it?

Forget the fact that the majority of us (yes I am including myself) have misused the name 'Christian' and truly have made fools of ourselves in our 'bigotry' time and time again. Even now I have to ask myself, if I truly believe my reason for this post is to the glory of God or man. Is it because I love Him and want all to come to understand him, or only to somehow boost my 'holy appearance'.

Forget all of that and I still ask, should we be quiet about it?
I strongly believe not, and for those of you who call yourself Christian, I ask, how do we do it then? How do we boast in our Lord without making fools of ourselves? (and I'm not talking about fools that honor God, but fools that are detestable to God)

What is our call?

The True Gospel

If you have not read Radical by David Platt, I highly recommend it. I'm only currently in the second chapter, but it is radically changing my view of the gospel.

Recently the Holy Spirit has been convicting me of Jesus' very words that we never actually take literally in our lives.

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!" -Matthew 7:21-23

Do you see what he says? Platt points out, "Jesus was not speaking here to irreligious people, atheists, or agnostics. He was not speaking to pagans or heretics. He was speaking to devoutly religious people who were deluded into thinking they were on the narrow road that leads to heaven when they were actually on the broad road that leads to hell. According to Jesus, one day not just a few but many will be shocked--eternally shocked--to find that they were not in the kingdom of God after all." (emphasis added)

He goes on to say, "Biblical proclamation of the gospel beckons us to a much different response and leads us down a much different road. Here the gospel demands and enables us to turn from our sin, to take up our cross, to die to ourselves, and to follow Jesus. These are terms and phrases we see in the Bible. And salvation now consists of a deep wrestling in our souls with the sinfulness of our hearts, the depth of our depravity, and the desperation of our need for his grace. Jesus is no longer one to be accepted or invited in but one who is infinitely worthy of our immediate and total surrender.

"You might think this sounds as though we have to earn our way to Jesus through radical obedience, but that is not the case at all. [This was my (Amanda's) wrestle! I felt like I could never actually measure up with this radical obedience! And it felt like another way to earn our salvation] Indeed, "it is by grace you [are] saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast." We are saved from our sins by a free gift of grace, something that only God can do in us and that we cannot manufacture ourselves.

"But that gift of grace involves the gift of a new heart. New desires. New longings. For the first time, we want God. We see our need for him, and we love him. We seek after him, and we find him, and we discover that he is indeed the great reward of our salvation. We realize that we are saved not just to be forgiven of our sins or to be assured of our eternity in heaven, but we are saved to know God. So we yearn for him. We want him so much that we abandon everything else to experience him. This is the only proper response to the revelation of God in the gospel."

Please tell me you're getting this! Please tell me this is changing your life and view of the gospel!

If that doesn't, I have one more thought that David Platt introduced:

"What happened at the cross was not primarily about nails being thrust into Jesus' hands and feet but about the wrath due your sin and my sin being thrust upon his soul. In that holy moment, all the righteous wrath and justice of God due us came rushing down like a torrent on Christ himself. Some say, "God looked down and could not bear to see the suffering that the soldiers were inflicting on Jesus, so he turned away." But this is not true. God turned away because he could not bear to see your sin and my sin on his Son.... This is the gospel. The just and loving Creator of the universe has looked upon hopelessly sinful people and sent his Son, God in the flesh, to bear his wrath against sin on the cross and to show his power over sin in the Resurrection so that all who trust in him will be reconciled to God forever... We have taken the infinitely glorious Son of God, who endured the infinitely terrible wrath of God and who now reigns as the infinitely worthy Lord of all, and we have reduced him to a poor, puny Savior who is begging for us to accept him."

Sinner or Saint?

I've wrestled with this concept for quite a while now, mostly thanks to my wonderful Theology classes taught by Glenn Lorenz. I've wrestled with holiness, entire sanctification, deliverance from sin... are we all sinners saved by grace? Or are we new creatures? And most importantly, is there a difference?

Over this past year I began to strongly believe that through Jesus Christ, because we have been transformed into new creatures, we are no longer sinners but saints. We have freedom from sin and do not HAVE to sin ever again. We may sin, but it is not necessary because we are new creatures.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" 2 Corinthians 5:17

If that's not a convincing enough verse, how about checking out Romans 6?

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.  If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin — because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Romans 6:1-7

So from what I thought I had learned this past year I was convinced. It makes sense. The new life Christ offers us is not only for the eternal, but for the here and now! Alright. Theology issue solved!

I recently read Good and Beautiful God by James Bryan Smith. In it he talks about how we are not sinners saved by grace.

When I hear christians say 'I'm just a sinner saved by grace,' I want to say, 'That makes as much sense as a butterfly saying, 'I'm just a worm with wings.''

See where I'm going?  But then... I encounter conflicts with this theology, or so it seems. Time and time again I hear the phrase being used. "We're all sinners". I read Jesus' words in Luke. He talks about the Pharisee and the tax collector, where the tax collector beats his chest and says 'God, have mercy on me a sinner'. And I think about the Jesus Prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner".

I want to combat it all and say, no that's not true! We are new creatures, we have been transformed into saints! But then I have to ask myself whether or not I have found complete transformation and I realize I haven't. Even last night as my pastor talked about how we all sin and need forgiveness and we always need to ask for forgiveness, at first I wanted to say, "Wait, what about transformation?" but I couldn't, cause in that very day I chose disobedience to God and sinned.

All of this to say, I can only come up with this conclusion for the time being, and this being one that I felt God give me peace about:
We ARE all sinners. We each have sinned and only found grace and renewal through Jesus  Christ. There is also freedom from sin in Jesus Christ! We ARE new creatures, even now! However there are times that the habits of who we once were still try to claim us. Without the blood of Christ we would be mere sinners. Without the blood of Christ we are NOT righteous or saints, but we can expect his strength to give us freedom from sin in our lives. Sure none of us may ever figure out how to always rely on his strength so that sin never comes again, but EVEN IF that were to happen, it would only be by the power of Jesus delivered through the Holy Spirit. And if it doesn't happen, if we find ourselves in sin again, we can turn to God knowing that his love surrounds us and Jesus' blood cleanses us and turn to our brothers and sisters knowing they understand us.

We, as Christians, are not just worms with wings, but we are butterflies that know what it means to be a worm and must never forget that it is only by Jesus' blood that we were transformed.

Your thoughts are more than welcome! =)

The role of a Father

I can't stop thinking about the role of fathers in our lives. It keeps hitting me over and over. Yesterday while I was at the neighborhood pool early in the morning there was also a little girl of maybe 5 or 6 and her dad. He was helping her swim. As they got ready to leave I overheard her ask her dad if he had to go to work today and then object when she found out he did. It broke my heart right there on the spot. I almost began crying just thinking about that precious desire she has for her daddy to stay with her and spend time with her. I never got the nerve to say this, but I desperately wanted to tell him that while working is obviously very important to provide for his family, it should never take priority. That I'm sure his family would much rather give up extra things than give up extra time with him.

This began to run through my mind throughout the day... my dad has worked away from home since I was a little kid. I don't remember exactly when it started, but I know it's been the majority of my life. And still today, the amount of time he is gone may vary between months (once I am sure it was around 6 months) to weeks. And the time he has at home may very between months and just a couple days. He came home before for a couple months, but usually it's just a couple week or a weekend. Sometimes maybe even a day.

I know my dad loves us, and I know he loves my mom. He will come home sometimes just for a small weekend to be here and surprise her. I respect my parent's ability to make their marriage work through the large amount of time apart, and I admire my mom for taking care of all of us... but I now realize that I wish my dad had been home all those years. Even now it still hurts that he isn't here. And it scares me most because of my little brother Cody. My mom can't raise him by herself. He desperately needs a father to be HERE.

I driving around and heard this song come on the radio by Sanctus Real called Lead Me, which hit me even harder: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLr6G8Xy5uc

And then I was at a small coffee shop and saw a book called "Fatherhood by George Foreman" ha I know, George Foreman... however it was an incredible little book that spoke so much truth about being a father and husband.

All of that to say, any men who is a father that may be reading this, know that your role is of greatest importance! Your relationship with your kids shapes them! Your daughters will know how men should treat and respect her by the way you love her and delight in her and your sons will know how to be good godly men by the way you discipline them and lead them into the role of a man. And your relationship with your wife will flourish as you pursue and romance her. This also must be done around your children so they know what a loving relationship looks like.

And to any men who are not yet fathers but may one day be, please remember what I've said.

To the women, share this truth with the men in your lives, even if just verbally. Know and understand and support the man's role as father.

Crossing the Line

We live in a culture that says, its ok to cross the line as long as you don't go too far. My favorite example as of late is the good ol' speed limit. My sister, who is learning to drive with her permit, actually believed that it is legal to go 5 miles over the speed limit and illegal to go more than 5 miles under. I'm not saying I haven't and don't still do this. I often find myself setting my speed for about 5 miles over because it's 'ok'. I'm not going 20 miles over, it's no big deal. But is that truth?
Is that attitude not the very same attitude that leads us to say it's ok to cross the line in other areas of our lives?