Why is it so hard to Blog!?!

Well, it's been six hundred fifty three thousand five hundred and thirty eight years since we've had a post on here....ok, not that long, but close. What is it about blogging that is so hard? Better question...Why is it so hard to come up with something to write about God? I have pulled up this page, clicked "New Post" like fifty times in the last few months and come up dry. Apparently there was nothing worth saying about Christ or my relationship with Him.

I'm going to step out here today and attempt to change that and put pen to paper...err finger to little plastic button with letters on it.

After a nudging from E*rock (or what really amounts to a nice kick in the pants!) I have been reading and listening to Francis Chan. I have been reading his book "Crazy Love" and listening to some of his podcasts from his church. I love the way this guy thinks about God. I think it is similar to how I have thought about God in recent years, or at least how I've tried to think about God. Chan really seems to have a "high view" of God, as he puts it. Meaning, God is much bigger, greater, holier, stronger, more powerful and amazing than one little tiny human brain can fathom.

He takes the typical human reaction to God...being, "God do this, grant this, bless this, protect that," and turns it into, "God, who am I to demand anything of you? Do your will with me and let me be your servant." Regardless of however that may turn out (Chan points out that many times this could have a less than desirable outcome).

I think this is something that I, and many others I'm sure, need to hear more often. We get into these "relationships" with God where we just demand everything from Him and give nothing in return. When in reality we should be offering everything to him and asking for nothing but the love He has already granted us.

It's Been a While

Well, it has been a while since we had a real post on here. Life has been crazy for all of us between trips and moving and everything else. We'll get back at it here soon for anyone who is still paying attention. Thanks.

Happy Anniversary Eric and Heidi Muller!

E*Rock and his wife have been married 1 year today. Congrats guys!

At Just That Point in History

We believe that the death of Christ is just that point in history at which something absolutely unimaginable from outside shows through into our own world. And if we cannot picture even the atoms of which our own world is built, of course we are not going to be able to picture this. Indeed if we found that we could fully understand it, that very fact would show it was not what it professes to be - the inconceivable, the uncreated, the thing from beyond nature, striking down into nature like lightning. You may ask what good it will be to us if we do not understand it. But that is easily answered. A man can eat his dinner without understanding exactly how food nourishes him. A man can accept what Christ has done without knowing how it works: indeed, he certainly would not know how it works until he has accepted it.

We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed.

- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Life in Control

Last Tuesday, I experienced perhaps the worst, craziest, eye opening day of my life. I was in a car accident which not only totaled my car, but also sent me over a median and across 3 lanes of oncoming traffic. For awhile it seemed like life was in slow motion on the point of impact, then miraculously I remember sitting in my crunch car, across 3 lanes of traffic, facing the wrong direction. I was stunned.

It took me a couple days to get over the initial thoughts that go through your head, feelings of disappointment, and I still can't say I've gotten over the feeling of costing our young family financially. However, there is one pressing thought that has impacted me through this experience: how little control I had over that situation.

I keep revisiting the crash, and how I ended up in one piece across traffic. That is nothing short of God's grace and control. And I keep thinking, what could I do differently? How can I avoid a situation like this again? And you know what, I can't. I'm not in control. I consider myself a good driver, but I could be way safer. But even if I'm a good driver, that doesn't prevent car accidents. And who knows what other things could take my life even today. If nothing else, I personally encountered how helpless and not in control I am of my life.

We have no idea when or how we will leave this life. As much as we try to falsely convince ourselves through everything in this world that we are in control of our lives, we aren't, God is. You could have all the money and power in the world, and that still is not going to make you in more control than God. You could be the smartest, wisest, biblical scholar, and that's not going to make you more in control.

And yet, how many of us on a daily basis, actually live our lives with an eternal purpose. I now realize, even more than I ever did before, how short this life is. How quickly it can be snatched up. I can not waste another day to live for Christ. I pray that I never forget this experience, because I don't wanna be in cruise control. I don't want to even pretend to be in control, and most importantly, I want to give ALL I have for the sake of the Kingdom.

Urgency of Faith

What happened to having an urgency in our faith? A sense of "if I don't turn to God now, I may not get another chance." I have been thinking about this after noticing in different churches I've been to throughout my life, as well as people I know showing no urgency in their faith. Churches aren't preaching in a way that shows people that faith is not something that can wait until your deathbed as a "just in case" kind of action. People aren't thinking about what happens if they die tomorrow.

In life we are taught a little about what to think about in case we die tomorrow. We are told to have a good Will written up so that our children and family can be taken care of in the event of our untimely death. We are told to keep our finances in order so that our death doesn't leave a mess for our family and friends that might have to take care of our debt when we are gone. What we never really hear or talk about is what happens to US if we die tomorrow.

Now, I'm not a big fan of scare tactics in ministry. We've all seen that guy on the side of the street that has the big sign and is screaming at the top of his lungs, "Repent or burn in Hell!!" That's not what I intend to do here. I am not so much talking to unbelievers here as I am, "quasi-believers". Quasi-Believers being those that believe in God and Christ, but don't let it change their daily lives. They are those people that would say they are a Christian when asked, but don't show any obvious signs of it by the way they live their life.

A way that I have been thinking about this lately is the idea that we should be hoping and praying for the speedy return of Christ in this world. We should be praying daily that Christ do what needs to be done so that he can return and take his people as soon as possible because of what Paul said, "...to die is gain." This is a terrifying thought to me. I am a believer in Christ and I try to live for him daily, but I am not at all sure I am ready for him to come back and take me. As hard as I try to live for him, I fail every day. I'm not sure I value him above my life, and above my time on this earth with my wife and friends and family. It is terrifying to think about giving up all of that for Christ, but it is how we should be living and thinking.

This thought of what would happen to me if Christ came back today and took his people has got me thinking. I can't honestly say that I sit here every day and pray for Christ's return. I hope and pray that I get to that point where I can value an eternity with Christ over anything that I have in this life. I hope and pray that you get to that point as well. I would just challenge myself and all of you to think about that sometime. "What would happen if Christ came back today to take his people?" Would we ready and excited to go with him or would we be caught sleeping? Could we say that we had been doing everything we could to prepare God's people for Christ's return?

"But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works done on it will be exposed." 2 Peter 3:10

"Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him." Matthew 24:42-44

"For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain." Philippians 1:21

Fireproof (Possible Spoiler!!)

Last year a movie called "Fireproof," with Kirk Cameron came out. It is a movie about a firefighter whose marriage is falling apart with a quickness because neither him or his wife believes that the other loves or respects them. To be honest, when I saw Kirk Cameron in this movie I said, "Haha, yeah right!" I mean, lets face it, he's no Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp. It was obviously a poorly acted movie.

Courtney ordered it on Netflix a few weeks ago and it has been sitting around our apartment so we decided last night to watch it. The first twenty minutes I'll admit I was regretting watching it. The acting was awful and the plot seemed so cliche. After it got into the story I was drawn in a little more.

It is the story of a man who realizes that he cannot truly love his wife until he learns what REAL love is and where it comes from. His father puts him up to a "Love Dare" in which he is to, each day for forty days, do a new act for his wife that puts her before himself, even if she never shows any appreciation. Over the course of the forty days he finds Christ, learns what love is, and wins his wife back.

Although it is a pretty low budget, poorly acted movie, it can really be motivating to any of us that are married or thinking about marriage. It shows what different "parasites" can do to a marriage. A parasite being anything that takes away from and eats at the true love in a marriage. In the movie this was pornography, pride, money and a few other things.

Now you don't have to be a porn addict to take something from this. I'd recommend anyone that is married or thinking about marriage to check out this movie. Make yourself watch it, even if some of the serious acting makes you want to laugh a little. It will at least get you thinking about your marriage and what may be a distraction or "parasite" for you as well as what you can do to show your spouse that you love him or her.

Don't Waste Your Life - Lecrae

This is a song by Lecrae.  It is called "Don't Waste Your Life."  Also the title of the John Piper book that I have been reading and mentioned in previous posts.  I just thought it would be cool to post a music video on here.  Check it out and check out his latest album "Rebel."  (We may have borrowed the Rebellion idea from him a little...haha.)  

Hearing Christ in a Modern World

I have been reading a couple of different books lately.  One of them was talking about Paul's conversion to Christ (found in Acts chapter 9).  Saul (Paul's name before coming to Christ) was on his way to Damascus to find followers of the "Way" (Christians) so that he could take them prisoner back to Jerusalem.  While on his way to Damascus Saul saw a bright light from heaven come over him and heard a voice say, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"  Saul questioned who it was that was speaking to him and the voice said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting."

This encounter between Saul and Jesus on the road to Damascus got me thinking.  Why does this never happen in our present time?  Why have I never been stopped by a bright light and heard the voice of Jesus Christ?  How can I hear the voice of Christ in my life?

We live in a very modern technological world.  Everything in our lives has something to do with technology.  While at home we constantly have the television on.  While driving to and from work (or wherever) we constantly have the stereo on (some of us louder than others).  When not watching television or listening to music we are surfing the internet to catch up with people we never met on Facebook or texting our friends.  Our lives are cluttered with technological noise.

All of these things serve as static between us and God.  We don't give Christ a chance to speak to us.  We constantly have our attention focussed on something else.  Maybe if we turned all of these things off for a bit each day we could hear the voice of Christ in our lives.

Now I'm not saying Jesus is going to flash a bright light in our eyes and speak to us while driving on Interstate 70 or something.  I do believe that if we take the time to be silent and listen, we can learn a lot about Christ's will for our life.

I am addicted to television.  I have like six or seven shows I watch each week, plus I watch too much Fox News.  I have an iPhone that I play with constantly.  I am on my computer all of the time, often while still watching television or playing with my iPhone.

Challenge to myself and others:

At the beginning of Lent I took the advice of a friend and chose to give up "Not doing my devotions" for lent.  This means that I was going to spend twenty or so minutes each day in the Word and prayer.  I had to turn off the T.V., close my computer, turn off the stereo, and put away the iPhone for twenty minutes.  I read a couple chapters each day from a book of the Bible, beginning and ending each day's reading with prayer.  

I have seen a great change in myself over the last month and a half almost.  Now I admit that I missed a few days, it happens, but the vast majority of the days during Lent I kept up with my commitment.  I now find myself thinking about God much more than I did before Lent when my time with God was lacking.  I find myself thinking about the impact of what I am doing and saying daily might have on the Kingdom.  It has changed how I view my relationships, my work, and my personal time.  

I challenge myself and all of you reading this to do what I did.  It doesn't have to be during Lent, please do not wait another year to do this.  Starting today, right now, spend just the next 30 days spending fifteen to twenty minutes each day in the Word and prayer.  Don't just say you will do it, follow through.  Set some ground rules.  "I will read fifteen minutes each day, before work starting April 21, 2009 until May 21, 2009."  I promise it will change your outlook on life and you will find yourself desiring that time each day after that and continuing this practice.  

It seems so painfully simple.  All of us strive to do this all of the time.  Most of us fail.  We will continue to fail as we are not perfect.  If we take the time to ask Christ to take away all of our distractions for just a few minutes, we can begin to hear his voice.  Think about it.

"The Lord will do what is good in His sight."

This is a quote from 2 Samuel 10:12.  In this passage Joab is about to go up against two armies; the Arameans and Ammonites.  He splits his army.  Joab sends his best Israeli soldiers to fight the Arameans and sends his brother, Abishai, with the rest of the troops to fight the Ammonites.  Joab has no clue how this is going to turn out.  He tells his brother...

"If the Arameans are too strong for me, then you are to come to my rescue; but if the Ammonites are too strong for you, then I will come to rescue you.  Be strong and let us fight bravely for our people and the cities of our God.  The Lord will do what is good in his sight."

Joab was taking a HUGE risk here.  He was heading into a situation where he did not know the outcome.  Frankily, he didn't seem to care.  All he cared about was that the Lord "do what is good in his sight."  If Joab's army won, the Lord would be glorified.  If Joab's army lost, the Lord would be glorified.

We can take a great lesson from this.  Right now my wife and I are in the process of relocating back to Indianapolis from Oxford, OH.  So far I have one job that probably isn't enough money to support us both without serious cuts in our lifestyle (which isn't at all lavish to begin with) and another possibility in waiting.  Courtney is most likely on the verge of getting a job but still does not have anything nailed down.  We have put a down payment on an apartment and hired a moving company.  

We are moving without knowing exactly what God has planned for us.  We have no clear future planned out in detail.  I was reminded of this story while reading John Piper's Don't Waste Your Life.  This story reminds me that it doesn't matter what happens.  We may find great jobs and make a million dollars, or we might tank and have to sell our cars, move into a smaller apartment, and take multiple part time dead end jobs to make ends meet. 

Either way we need to rely on God and realize the only thing that matters is that "The Lord will do what is good in His sight."  Whether we have great success quickly, take years to find success, or spend the next thirty years scraping by.  The only thing that matters is that God's will be done and that we take what we can learn from our struggles through that and grow in Christ.  

What Jesus Did for Us

This is an excerpt from A Case for Christ by Lee Strobel in which Strobel interviews Alexander Metherell, M.D. Ph.D.  Metherell describes what Jesus went through prior to his crucifixion.  This is not for those with a weak stomach.  This is what Jesus went through.  He knew this is what he was going to go through.  He was so incredibly stressed about going through this that he actually sweat blood prior to this experience (which actually caused his skin to be more sensitive).

Leading up to the crucifixion...

Roman floggings were known to be terribly brutal.  They usually consisted of thirty-nine lashes but frequently were a lot more than that, depending on the mood of the soldier applying the blows.

The soldier would use a whip of braided leather thongs with metal balls woven into them.  When the whip would strike the flesh, these balls would cause deep bruises or contusions, which would break open with further blows.  And the whip had pieces of sharp bone as well, which would cut the flesh severely.  

The back would be so shredded that part of the spine was sometimes exposed by the deep, deep cuts.  The whipping would have gone all the way from the shoulders down to the back, the buttocks, and the back of the legs.  It was just terrible.

One physician who has studied Roman beatings said, 'As the flogging continued, the lacerations would tear into the underlying skeletal muscles and produce quivering ribbons of bleeding flesh.'  A third-century historian by the name of Eusibius described a flogging by saying, 'The sufferer's veins were laid bare, and the very muscles, sinews, and bowels of the victim were open to exposure.'

We know that many people would die from this kind of beating even before they could be crucified.  At the least, the victim would experience tremendous pain and go into hypovolemic shock [massive loss of blood causing the heart to over work itself to pump blood that isn't there, fainting, shutdown of kidneys etc].

Now the crucifixion...

He [Jesus] would have been laid down , and his hands would have been nailed in the outstretched position to the horizontal beam.  This crossbar was called the patibulum, and at this stage it was separate from the vertical beam, which was permanently set in the ground.  

The Romans used spikes that were five to seven inches long and tapered to a sharp point.  They were driven through the wrists.  Through the wrists, this was a solid position that would lock the hand; if the nails had been driven through the palms, his weight would have caused the skin to tear and he would have fallen off the cross.

And it is important to understand that the nail would go through the place where the median nerve runs.  This is the largest nerve going out to the hand, and it would be crushed by the nail that was being pounded in.  (the same idea with the nail through the feet).

Metherel explains this by telling Strobel to think of taking a pair of pliers and crushing and twisting the nerve in the arm that you hit when you "bump your funny bone."

The pain was absolutely unbearable.  In fact it was literally beyond words to describe; they had to invent a new word:  excruciating [which means 'out of the cross'].

Jesus arms were stretched about six inches in length and immediately ripped from their sockets.

Now you could go into greater detail about what if felt like and what Jesus endured when he was tortured and hung on the cross for our sins.  The things that levels me is that he KNEW BEFOREHAND exactly what pain he was going to be in and how awful this was going to be, but he did it anyway out of love for us.  Which one of you would knowingly go through all of this for anyone else on this planet...I'd love to say I would, but lets face it, 99.9% of us would back out.  Think about it.  

Applebees and Europe

Tuff title, huh! Check out our first video blog!

To Give More Than We Can Spare

We have all heard this verse...

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be  also." (Matthew 6:19-21)

and...

"If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.  Then come, follow me."  (Matthew 19:21)

So as Christians, what do our personal finances look like?  How much of our income do we give away?  Is it 10%?  Is it more?  One friend I know once told me he did a reverse tithe...he gave 90% of his income for a summer to the Church.  That is pretty intense!!  So what are we called to give?

I would like to share with you a few things that I have heard or read on the subject of Christian giving recently.

A few weeks ago I attended a service at Oxford Bible Fellowship here in Oxford, OH with my wife, my parents and brother.  The pastor was speaking that day on giving (the dreaded sermon by all pastors and congregants alike).  He had some pretty interesting things to say.  He gave us many statistics on Christian Giving, our relative place in the world according to our income (see "Poor or Less Rich" below), and what Americans are spending their money on.

Pastor Jeremy Carr asked us if we had thought about how much to give to the Church this year.  He proposed that the real tragedy is that most of us probably hadn't even thought about how much money we were going to put in the offering plate that morning until it came down our aisle.  We just looked around to see what others were giving so we wouldn't look too cheap, or maybe just crumpled up a dollar bill or two so it might look like a $5 or a $10 bill.  Sadly, he was totally right.

C.S. Lewis said in his book Mere Christianity this...

"I'm afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.  In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little.  If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small.  There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charities expenditure excludes them."

How much money do you make right now?  Do you know someone that makes a similar annual income?  What does their lifestyle look like?  Is yours equal to theirs?  I don't believe that this means we should give to the point where we are living in poverty.  Maybe this means that if we make $50,000/yr we live as though we make $40,000 - $45,000.  Or if we make $1,000,000/yr we live as though we make $800,000 - $900,000.  

Most of us can still give far beyond the standard 10% (although if you look at a church's list of annual giving it probably only adds up to 2-3% of what the congregation actually made that year).  We will not have to live a life of poverty to give a little more than we are comfortable with.

My challenge to you would be to take the time to think about what you are going to give to the Church and worthy charities this year, or even this month.  If you have an income, budget some giving into it.  Even if you are in high school or middle school and only make $50 every now and them when you mow a few lawns.  Think about what you can give to the Church and God's people.  My wife and I are doing the same.

A Thought on Theology

Lately we've been having some discussion on here about religion, truth, love, and their source.  We have debated whether our old theologies and doctrines are stale.  It has gone even a step further in questioning why we need a specific religion, or set of doctrines, at all.  Why can't we just find God and Truth in all places instead of one specific doctrine?

I am one that has thought that theologies can often get in the way of God.  There are so many denominations and doctrines out there, even just within Christianity itself.  How can these small differences in doctrine possibly make a difference in our faith?  I don't really think they can honestly.

I do think, on the other hand, that understanding the different theologies and doctrines in our faith is important.  Last night I was reading a chapter in C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity and he had a good point about theology.

Lewis was considering the fact that many people are put off by theology (theology being the "science of God").  Many people find it is more personal and beneficial to feel God, through whatever means they can.  They feel they can learn more about God through their daily interaction with Him as opposed to studying theology.  

It is true that personal interaction with God is going to be more "real" than any old theology.  Lewis' illustration was that this is similar to standing on the beach of the Atlantic Ocean and seeing it's magnificence, then going and looking at it on a map.  Obviously the map is going to be far less real than the actual Atlantic ocean itself.  The map, however, is necessary in navigating the ocean, should you want to travel that ocean from England to the US (I am paraphrasing Lewis here).  Lewis made the point that theologies are based on the interaction of hundreds and thousands of people with God over thousands of years.  They have written down what they found to be truth about God.  Others have then built on those theologies as the centuries have gone on.  

Take science for example.  Over thousands of years scientists have studied the world and its inner workings.  Each one building on the next and correcting the falsehoods of the last.  What if each time we wanted to learn something of the world we had to reconstruct the Periodic Table, or refigure the E=MC2 equation...we wouldn't get very far.  

In a similar way, the theologies that have been passed down over the centuries can help us better understand the God we worship.  We can learn great things from what others before us found as Truth about God and attempt to build on them.  This seems a far greater way of coming to know God than relying solely on our own feelings and experience.  As long as we study with a certain skepticism.  We still need to constantly question and come to our own conclusions.  

Don't get me wrong, experiences have a huge place in understanding and learning about God.  What I am saying is that it is foolish to negate thousands of years of people, just like you and I, trying to know God, and passing on the truth that they had found.  It is still important to discuss and debate these theologies, none are perfect.  It is impossible for any of us to understand and explain God perfectly...if it were possible, He would be a pretty lame God.  

So let's continue to discuss our theologies and doctrines, whether from Christian faith, or from any other source we believe we can find truth in, and see what we come up with, but let's not forget the great people that came before us that God revealed His truth to as well.  

Why Christ: a question of love

We are loving the feedback, and continued discussion on the "Why Christ" post last week. So much so that I thought it would be cool to highlight a really good question someone asked. There are other questions and comments which were amazing on the "Why Christ" post, and while we can't address all of them in new posts, I encourage all of you to check them out and chime in. CLICK HERE if you would like to check out more comments on "Why Christ".


Great Question:
"If love is universal couldn't people of all religions be experiencing the same love 'Christians' do, but just have mis-interpreted the origin?"

My Lowly Response:
Good question, I guess it depends on the premises of your question. What exactly does “universal love” mean or look like? I think that you would get different answers depending on your perspective and religion.

Now, from a “Christian” perspective, I can tell you that I believe God’s love is real, holds no boundaries, transcends culture and race, and, among many other things, is not conditional on works. This love that “Christians” speak of, is the love in which Jesus Christ gave his life up sacrificially for all people.

I am certain that many people have seen acts of Christ’s love through many different kinds of amazing acts, done for many ordinary and different people. But I believe these are acts of love, and not the actual source of love which “Christians” hold onto. (The source of love being a relationship with God)

So to answer your question: sure, many people have experienced acts of love. But I believe that to fully experience God’s love, one must have a relationship with God.

And if you want to know what a relationship with God is all about, or a “Christian” perspective on a relationship with God, I would love to share that with you. Perhaps those of us at R.O.A.R. could even write a post about it?


thoughts, comments, responses, views? please share!

E*Rock's Playlist

So, I was messing around with this music website called imeem (or something like that) and I found out that you can make a music playlist and embed it in a blog or something. Which got me thinking, "why don't I post a playlist of the music that I am listening to right now?" Not that any of you care what's bangin' in my stereo, car, or headphones; but if for some odd reason you did care, now you can know what I'm listening too. And perhaps I can enlighten you on some new songs and artists you haven't heard of; and then maybe you could holla at me some songs you like and I can check out.... ANYWAYZ.... Here is my playlist for now, enjoy! (Yes, I do like more than just rap music, thats just what I'm listening to right now)

E*Rocks Playlist

A Message from God, through Grandpa

I want to share with you a dream I had.  It is a dream I had on the morning that my Grandpa Garrison died, February 4, 2008.  The night before was a great night.  I stayed up with fifty or so other guys on my floor at Taylor University to watch the New York Giants pluck what seemed to be fate, right out of the arms of the New England Patriots.  It was a fantastic evening, after celebrating, and taunting some Patriots fans of the Brotherhood (my floor), I went to bed.  Early the next morning I had a pretty intense dream.  First, a little background.

Late in 2007, around Thanksgiving I think, my Grandpa was diagnosed with terminal cancer.  Over the next few months we watched, as he slowly got worse.  We visited him as often as we could, although being in college it wasn't as often as it should have been I guess.  He always had lots of advice on how to life your life and things he'd learned in his life.  He was also very happy when we visited him over the last few months.  He seemed at peace with going to be with Jesus.

Anyway, after the Super Bowl that night I went back to my dorm room and to bed for the night.  Early that next morning I had a dream.  In the dream I went over to my Grandparent's house to visit Grandpa.  In real life the last couple times I'd visited him he was bed ridden and couldn't talk very well, obviously nearing the end.  In the dream I walked in the garage door and up the stairs to find the hospital bed gone and Grandpa sitting on the couch in the living room reading his Bible.  

I walked in and went over to Grandpa, sat down next to him and asked how he was feeling.  His only response to me was, "Jesus Christ lives Joe!" with a huge smile on his face.  I looked at him and said, I know Grandpa."  At that very moment my cell phone rang and woke me up.  I looked at the caller ID and it said, "Dad."  I think it was sometime between 6am and 7am, I knew what the call was about.  I answered the phone and Dad told me that Grandpa had just passed away.

It took me a second but then I realized the weight of the dream I had just had.  Now I don't know whether you believe in God giving you messages through dreams or not.  I typically don't, as I had never had anything like this happen to me, but I couldn't help but think that this was a message from God.  I mean, what are the chances that at the VERY MOMENT my Grandpa died, that I would have a dream that he was completely healed and professing that Christ lives? 

Coincidence...maybe...maybe not.  You decide.  I know that this is something I will never forget.

Why Christ?

A series of random events and conversation in my life has led me to unorthodoxly address why one should believe in Christ, or for that matter Christianity. Now obviously this is not an easy task, nor a short one, but I hope to address a few of the questions which people might have about Christ or Christianity. Feel free to chime in, argue with, or enlighten us on your views on the subject.

Before we start, I must note that this may be an extensive post. It will be VERY long, and I encourage you to read the entire post, or simply skip over it. I say this because of the continuity of the logic in this post. In basic terms, you wont understand what is being said unless you read the post in its entirity... aka: dont skip around, cause you might get lost... and you may become lost anyways. Sound like fun?! Lets go...

In my life I have experienced many people who take religion to separate, unhealthy extremes. I have met Chritians throughout my life who I would define as "legalistic" in philosophy. When I say legalistic I mean they are too focused on the specific rules of Christianity without regard to the grace and freedom with have in Christ. Many of us have been hurt by Christians who seem to be so consumed with rules that they may forget to see their own downfalls until its too late. Thus many times people label Christians as hypocritical individuals. It is sad, but many times we think of "legalistic" Christians when we hear of christians being cast as hypocrits in the national news. Our perspective on Christianity becomes dark and gloomy, because we have this thought that Christians must be perfect.

The other side of this unhealthy extreme which I would like to talk about, is the growing amount of individuals who believe that all religions point to our true creator, and therefor we need to open our minds to accepting all religions on holding absolute truth. I try not to be stereotypical in my descriptions, but this is the persons who would argue that in many ways Christ was a great man, but nonetheless just a good moral teacher to help us see God; similar to that of Muhutma Ghandi, Muhummand, and others.

Which brings me to the question I intend to provide some sort of clearity to: Why believe in Christ only? If the Jews, Muslims, and Christians all serve the same God, why cant we find some moral ground to serve the same God? Let us focus on that question. We can come back to pantheistic world views later (i.e. Hindu, Buddhism, Greek philosophy), right now lets focus on Allah, God, Jehovah, Yahweh, the God that seems from the outside to be the same in Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.

And I know of no better way to answer this question than to look at a few pages from C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity." I foundationally believe this excerpt is one of the most powerful passeges of apologetics ever written, and my thought is "why re-write something as powerful as this." Keep in mind that this man writting this passage, Lewis, was an athiest for much if not most of his life. I will spare you the exciting details of C.S. Lewis for another time, but here is response to "Why Christ":

"God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on gas, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.

That is the key to history. Terrific energy is expended-civilisations are built up--excellent institutions devised; but each time something goes wrong. Some fatal flaw always brings the selfish and cruel people to the top and it all slides back into misery and ruin. In fact, the machine conks. It seems to start up all right and runs a few yards, and then it breaks down. They are trying to run it on the wrong juice. That is what Satan has done to us humans.

And what did God do? First of all He left us conscience, the sense of right and wrong: and all through history there have been people trying (some of them very hard) to obey it. None of them ever quite succeeded. Secondly, He sent the human race what I call good dreams: I mean those queer stories scattered all through the heathen religions about a god who dies and comes to life again and by his death, has somehow given new life to men. Thirdly, He selected one particular people and spent several centuries hammering into their heads the sort of God He was--that there was only one of Him and that He cared about right conduct. Those people were the Jews, and the Old Testament gives an account of the hammering process.

Then come the real shock. Among these Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. Now let us get this clear. Among Pantheists, like the Hindus, anyone might say that he was a part of God, or one with God: there would be nothing very odd about it. But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. God, in their language, meant the Being outside the world, who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else. And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.

One part of the claim tends to slip past us unnoticed because we have heard it so often that we no longer see what it amounts to. I mean the claim to forgive sins: any sins. Now unless the speaker is God, this is really so preposterous as to be comic. We can all understand how a man forgives offences against himself. You tread on my toe and I forgive you, you steal my money and I forgive you. But what should we make of a man, himself unrobbed and untrodden on, who announced that he forgave you for treading on other men's toes and stealing other men's money? Asinine fatuity is the kindest description we should give of his conduct. Yet this is what Jesus did. He told people that their sins were forgiven, and never waited to consult all the other people whom their sins had undoubtedly injured. He unhesitatingly behaved as if He was the party chiefly concerned, the person chiefly offended in all offences. This makes sense only if He really was the God whose laws are broken and whose love is wounded in every sin. In the mouth of any speaker who is not God, these words would imply what I can only regard as a silliness and conceit unrivalled by any other character in history.

Yet (and this is the strange, significant thing) even His enemies, when they read the Gospels, do not usually get the impression of silliness and conceit. Still less so unprejudiced readers. Christ says that He is 'humble and meek' and we believe Him; not noticing that, if He were merely a man, humility and meekness are the very last characteristics we could attribute to some of His sayings.

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg--or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

Thoughts, comments, questions?




*Points of Interest in Scripture:

"Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division." Luke 12:51

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." Matthew 7:13-14

Get Over Ourselves!!!

Myself...Me...someone I struggle with all of the time...the biggest obstacle between me and Jesus Christ.  When I sit down and take stock of my faith, and what is holding me back from being a better follower of Christ, I must say that my biggest hold up is myself.

Much like the rest of you I'm sure, I get in the way of my faith in Christ more than anything or anyone else.  Most of us tend to think about ourselves before we think about others and before we think about Christ.  The things in our lives that hold us back from fully and whole heartedly following Christ are usually situations that we have put into life and not something that Jesus has thrown in there.  

My biggest hold up is the "head trash" (as John Dinwiddie used to always talk about in Sunday school) that I am not worthy to even look at my Bible and too disgusting to even think about speaking to Jesus.

This type of thinking is the complete opposite of what Jesus Christ tells us through His Word.  We read that Jesus came for the broken people, the sinners, the meek, the poor;  the ones who were too down and out and too caught up in sin to believe that they were worthy of even the table scraps of the "religious" people of their day, let alone the one and only Son of God.

This is the same way of thinking that a lot of us, myself included, get caught up in.  We believe that we aren't worthy, or not good enough, to go to church, to read the Bible, to speak to Jesus.  So we avoid Him at all costs, hoping that He doesn't see the mess that we have created for ourselves.  This is when Satan steps in and uses that little voice in our head to whisper in our ear, "You aren't worthy, Jesus could never love you."  But He does!

Jesus does love us!! ESPECIALLY at that very moment, when we are caught up overwhelmingly in sin, believing that he can't possibly love us or have any use for us.  Jesus takes us by the hand and rips us out of that life.

What we need to realize is that it is not about us.  It is about Jesus.  We need to stop thinking about ourselves, get our egos out of our way, and turn to Christ.  I am my own biggest obstacle to a life lived for Jesus Christ, and I am willing to bet that you are your own biggest obstacle as well.

"You see, just at the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  While we were STILL sinners, Christ died for US." ---Romans 5:6,8---

"Jesus is not repelled by us, no matter how messy we are, regardless of how incomplete we are.  When we recognize that Jesus is not discouraged by our humanity, is not turned off by our messiness, and simply doggedly pursues us in the face of it all, what else can we do but give in to his outrageous, indiscriminate love?" ---Mike Yaconelli - Messy Spirituality---

Kings

"I hope he doesn't talk about God again; God's not too popular these days."
"He will talk about God, the king doesn't care if he is popular or not."

Those were the first two lines from NBC's new show, "Kings," a drama based on the story of David, Saul, and Samuel in the bible (1 Samuel). The major twist of the show is that the show is set in present day.

After watching the pilot episode last Sunday, I'm honestly pretty hooked on this show. My expectations were that Kings was going to be a show which very loosely (if not barely) followed scripture. I thought, "well, maybe they'll mention God or something." I was wrong.

The main plot of the story really does follow closely to scripture. Samuel, David, and Saul are all represented in this show by the characters The Reverend, David, and Silas (respectively). There seems to be a battle for the Kingdom, a struggle to follow God, a desire for love, and many deceitful subplots.

While the main plot of the story strongly resembles 1 Samuel, there are many minor aspects of the show which stray far from scripture. For some reason butterflies hold some sort of spiritual symbolism for "God's Anointing." Also, I believe the son of the King is gay and hates David (neither one happened in the bible, in fact him and David were best friends). The King appears to only have one daughter (that we know of), but she is falling in love with David (which does happen with one of the king's daughters and David).

There are also some cool/interesting interpretations to make this story "modern." David slays Goliath, which happens to be an unbeatable tank instead of a giant. David plays the piano instead of the harp. And of course there are the different names of people and countries.

All in all, I am very interested to see where this series takes us. Whether it continues to somewhat follow scripture, or if it will stray completely off. If nothing else I am impressed that a show on primetime tv even allows the talk of God or faith. And more than anything, I am interested to use the tv show as a way to talk about the bible, and where it differs from the show. Who knows, perhaps this show can open up ways of sharing Christ with others.

Let me know what you think about the show, the story of David, or what you think about the article.