The Body?

"If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be."
-St. Paul

Something happened recently that caused me to sit down and evaluate the body of Christ. What is the body of Christ? Most Christians would answer, "the Church." I would have to agree with that answer. The problem is I don't think most Christians actually know what they're talking about when they say it.
What is the church? Is it the local congregation I attend? No, it has to be more than that. Is it the denomination's district that my church is in? No, it must be more than that. Is it the denomination's region that my church is in? No, I must be more. Is it my denomination? No, that's just arrogant thinking. Up to this point most would be agreeing with me undoubtedly. Is the Church all protestant churches? Is it? Is that the body of Christ?

It can't be. I mean, after all Episcopalians are going Hell, they allow homosexuals in their churches.

What about those Baptists? We all know they're theology just isn't sound.

What about those Calvinists? They don't believe in the real attributes of God.

What about those Wesleyans? They think you have to be perfect.

What about those Pentecostals? They think they're better than everyone else. They believe in speaking in tongues, when they're most likely possessed.

Is the Church all churches? It can't be.

What about those Catholics? They pray to Marry and think that the communion bread is real flesh. They believe in infant baptism. They believe that you can get drunk on Friday and be forgiven on Sunday. I mean who really believes God will forgive them?

What about Orthodox churches? They light candles and pray to saints. They worship Icons. They can't make it to heaven.

If this is true, if this is how I believe then I'm only left with one answer.

There is no body of Christ.

Read more

by Unknown ~ Friday, September 08, 2006 1 comments

Protestant Penance?

When I was younger I was taught that all sin is equal. Sin is sin, no matter what it is it still leads to Hell. That's how I was raised. Is this right? Is this the way it works? Does any sin cause us to immediately fall from God's grace entirely? Maybe, just maybe, there is more to consider here. Just think this out with me for a moment.

We must understand one thing first. There is a legal aspect to sin. There is an aspect to sin that makes us guilty no matter what. This mainly comes from original sin, but it also comes from any sin we commit. There is also a relational aspect to sin. This is where our discussion must begin. Imagine that I take two dollars from my wife's purse and I try to hide it from her. This could be considered lying or stealing or even both. This could obviously be an issue if my wife discovers that I tried to lie to her. Now imagine I cheat on my wife with another woman. The issues would be much bigger over that situation than the first. Which problem do you think would affect my relationship with my wife more? That's obvious, and I don't think I need to explain why. Now imagine your relationship with God. It is a relationship that needs attention more that any other relationship we have. Imagine if I steal two dollars from my wife, or cheat on her. Each of those would affect my relationship with God in different ways. Each situation would require a different kind of attention.

The Bible tells us that if we draw near to God then He will draw near to us. This implies that there are things that God has left up to us that can strengthen our relationship with Him and draw us closer, or things that can damage the relationship and take us farther from Him (In a relationship way). If this is true than those sins we commit are the very things that can damage that relationship. This means that we must do our part to help mend that relationship.

At this point I want to break to admit that anything we do that strengthens our Relationship with God is by His grace alone, but we must make the choice to act in accordance with that grace and fully accept it. It is a costly grace that costs us our lives and obedience.

Now on with it. If there are things we can do to help mend and strengthen our relationship with God we must do them. I call these acts penance. Penance is a spiritual act of worship, submission and confession. (For those familiar with Catholicism I'm referring to Penance as a virtue, not necessarily Pence as a sacrament unless God leads you to follow it as such). Anyway, we are called to do our part in this relationship. This is more than just going to the altar and asking for forgiveness. Forgiveness covers the legal aspect, but what mends the relationship? Must we do that or leave it up to God. I recently told some teens at my church that we are called to live lifestyles of worship and this requires us to actively serve God. This is also what helps that relationship. Active service to God and to those He loves and calls us to serve. We should love penance, it is a form of disciplining our sinful behavior and the Bible says that without discipline to correct our action we are like illegitimate children. I want to be a child of God; I want to have a strong, close relationship with my Father. I may not enjoy penance, but I need it.

Read more

by Unknown ~ Thursday, July 20, 2006 1 comments

Dissatisfaction

Why can’t we just be satisfied with what we have or where we are?

It seems as if those who have nothing would give anything to have something, and those who have everything would give it all to have more. We live in a dissatisfied world. A world that isn’t content with anything.

What cause discontentment, or dissatisfaction. There are 3 main things. Imagine your favorite sports team. This could be baseball, basketball, football or any other sport that you choose. Imagine that during the off-season your team made an amazing trade. They got the best player in the league. They got a player to fill the one spot they needed help with. Now imagine that 3 games into the season he gets hurt. You would be dissatisfied. Why? Because that isn’t the result you expected. The first cause of dissatisfaction is a lack of expected results. What if he played just as well as you imagined, but they still didn’t win the championship? That’s the second cause. Expected results didn’t fix the problem. They aren’t a championship team even with the best player. What if they got this guy but they had to trade away 5 of their best guys to get him. That’s the third one; the cost is too much for the expected results. Theses are the things that cause people to be dissatisfied. 1) Lack of expected results, 2) Expected results don’t solve problem, 3) Cost outweighs benefits of expected results.

St. Paul wrote in Philippians “…for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all things through him who gives me strength.”

There are some questions I have when I hear this. The first is “How do I do something through Christ’s Strength?” God gives us strength to do His will and to live the life that He has called us to live. So doing something through Christ simply means following God’s will. So that brings up another question “How do I know God’s will?” Well there are three ways we can know God’s will. One is to read the Bible that He’s given us because there are instructions in here on how to obey God’s will. Second is to pray. When we pray we don’t only ask God for stuff, but we also listen and if we are truly listening to God He’ll tell us anything we need to know at that time. Third is to seek out advice. The Bible tells us to seek the advice of those who are righteous. In other words get advice from people who you know have a good relationship with God.

Another question that comes to mind is “What does Paul mean by all things?” Does this mean I can be superman? Faster than a bullet, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound? Of course it doesn’t. It means that with Christs strength we can do anything that God calls us to do. We don’t have to be anxious about what’s going to happen to us in the future. We don’t have to be worried about money, food, or clothes. This also means we don’t have to be afraid of failure. The Bible says if God is for us, who can be against us. If we are doing what God calls us to do we don’t need to be afraid of failure.

So how is all of this the secret to being content? We gave the three reason why people are dissatisfied, so lets look back at those. First this guarantees expected results God’s ultimate plan always works out. Second it guarantees to solve the problem. Not only does God’s plan always work out, but it always works. Third is that the cost ultimate cost for these results has already been paid by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. This means that there is no room for not being content. If follow God He will make it happen.

Read more

by Unknown ~ Wednesday, June 14, 2006 2 comments

My Beloved

This is a short and sweet entry. My wife brought it to my attention the other day that I have yet to talk about her at all in this blog so the entry is dedicated to her. For those of you who don't know, I am married. My wife's name is Kim. She is amazingly beautiful. We were married on August 6, 2005. She is such an amazing person. Every character flaw I find in myself she is the exact complement to and I thank God for that. She is a very passionate and caring person who helps me to want to be better everyday. I love her and thought that everyone should know. As Derrek Webb puts it she is the "wife of my youth, and my drug of choice."

Read more

by Unknown ~ Tuesday, June 06, 2006 0 comments

Theology for Culture

It appears to me that there is an increasing amount of 20 somethings converting to Catholicism and Orthodoxy. By 20 something I mean people in there 20’s or younger. Why is this? What is it about electric guitars, catchy worship music, and hip young pastors that is turning people away? Shouldn’t it be the exact opposite? I’ll tell you the answer. People aren’t interested in the style of worship or the catch phrases that the minister says all the time. They aren’t interested in cultural relevance or even pot luck dinners. People are interested in God. This, I’m afraid, is the reason they are leaving the Protestant tradition. The protestant tradition has turned into nothing more than a cookie cutter religion. What popular now, camp meetings? All right lets have twice as many as that other church that just increased their numbers and maybe we’ll get even more. This is faulty logic and faulty theology. The Catholic and Orthodox Church’s haven’t done what’s popular or what works; they’ve done what God wants. That’s the difference. God is the difference. Now, you must read me carefully or you might get that I’m saying that our protestant churches today don’t care about God, but rather numbers. Never mind, that is what I’m saying. I’m saying that protestant churches have given up on God and put their trust in culture and issues. What issues are hot button issues, then that’s what we’re about today. What will we be about tomorrow? Who knows. The Catholic and Orthodox churches have stayed virtually the same for centuries and they’ve always been about God. You can isolate a few places in history where this isn’t the case, but if you study further you’ll find that’s exactly the case. We need to have a hunger for God and for being the body of Christ. Theology has been traded for culture and we need to trade it back.

Read more

by Unknown ~ Friday, May 26, 2006 0 comments

A Bumpy Ride

Right now I am in a most dreadful place. I am in San Antonio, TX. It’s not that there is anything inherently wrong with San Antonio; I simply have a personal prejudice. As I walk to the shoppet down the street I am bombarded with unpleasant sights. I see uniforms dormitories with three levels stretched down the road. I see young “trainee’s” marching from building to building. I see freakishly mutated rabbit that are indigenous to this area of the country. These sights are all reminders of my 7 week stay here at Lackland AFB almost three years ago. This is where I went to Basic Military Training and I’m staying in a lodging facility within walking distance of the Basic Training area of the base. That is the explanation for my prejudice, because Basic Training was not fun and is not something I like to reflect on too often. I can’t say I enjoy reliving those memories as I might others. This is off the topic at hand. I flew here to do two-weeks of training. Many in my unit had the privilege of doing there trainging in Germany, some in Florida, and other nice places. I get sent to the place that every Air Force member has many bad memories form. As you may understand now, I was not the most enthused about going here.

I’ve said all this to help you understand my state of mind as I was on the flight down here. I had many problems that I had been dealing with prior to the flight and many of them were left unresolved and may have had some serious impacts on my stay here. So I was not in the best of moods when suddenly the captain turned on the fasten seat belt sign. I was a bit curious because we hadn’t started our descent yet. He came over the intercom and told us that there was a large storm over San Antonio and we were going to be experiencing turbulence on the way down. I have been on many flights before this and hadn’t experienced any significant amount of turbulence ever. I can say that I have now. There was a lady to my right who began to grip the arm of her seat and tightly shut her eyes. I imagine she was probably praying, which I must confess I said a prayer or two during this event as well. I did have a different attitude though. I kept my eyes wide open the entire time because I was amazed at the complexity of the clouds that surrounded us. They were beautiful. They were thick and full and rippling all over one another. I had never seen clouds that looked like this before. It was amazing. Then it hit me. The lady to my right couldn’t see any of this. She couldn’t be moved by the magnitude of the natural power that literally consumed us. It was an experience that she will explain quite differently than you’re reading now.

I suddenly realized that this is one of those memories that I have to download into my brains hard drive for easy access. This is a perfect sappy sermon illustration. (Warning: now going into sermon mode) You see all of life is like this experience. Different events are explained in different ways by those who experienced them because they have different attitudes. There are those with white knuckles holding on for dear life, and there are those who simply enjoy the ride. I was not, nor should I ever be, the captain of the plane. I had absolutely no control over the events which surrounded me, but I did have control over my attitude. I could do nothing to make the plane ride smoother, but I did know that the captain had instruments that allowed him to see through the clouds. He could see the altitude of the plane, how level it was, how fast it was going and many more things that I had no idea of. I shouldn’t have been in control of the plane because even if I could see the instruments I would have no clue as to how they are read. I trusted the pilot of the plane, and because I allowed myself to trust him, I was able to enjoy everything around me; even those things that made the ride bumpy were amazing to see.

There are many who get tangled up and discouraged by so many things in religion and theology. There are a lot of hard questions with even harder answers. Sometimes we can get so caught up in these issues and trying to make things right and smooth that we miss the joy that is supposed to be at the center of our very beings. We forget Christ. The same thing happens in life. We get so busy and so worried with life’s issues and problems that we forget Christ. I know this to be true because I know so many Christians who have no joy. So to end this I will leave you with a quote from St. Ignatius.

“For let us either fear the wrath to come, or let us love the present joy in the life that now is; and let our present and true joy be only this, to be found in Christ Jesus, that we may truly live. Do not at any time desire so much as even to breathe apart from Him. For He is my hope; He is my boast; He is my never-failing riches…”

Read more

by Unknown ~ Wednesday, May 10, 2006 0 comments

Sanctified???

I've struggled with this issue at some length now and I've just hit a revelation. I think it's more due to the fact that I am learning more about the beliefs of the great spiritual leaders of the past. For instance, John Wesley believed that Sanctification had to do with pure motivation out of love. I agree and this is not where my revelation comes. Wesley believed that at initial salvation one stopped sinning. Willful sin ceases at salvation, not sanctification. That is something that a lot of pastors need to learn. The more I think and pray and read about this, the more I agree with it. If you read Paul and John, they seem to agree with the same thing. So if this is salvation, what is sanctification?
In the past I've heard that this is the definition of Entire Sanctification, or at least the big part of it. IT'S NOT!!! Sanctification has nothing to do with how you don't act. Sanctification has everything to do with what is truly in your heart. It is easy for a "baby Christian" to abstain from things that they know are sinful things to do. It is not as easy for them to consecrate themselves entirely to God and allow Him to work this grace in them. I agree more with Wesley now, than I ever have. We cannot focus on the "absence" of sinful behavior. We have to focus on a heart of pure love. Am I sanctified? By no means can I claim entire Sanctification, but I can claim entire consecration, and claim that God is working in me. Maybe He's preparing me, maybe not. I know that everything must happen in God's timing and according to His plan so I'll wait patiently, and actively.

Read more

by Unknown ~ Friday, April 07, 2006 2 comments

Passing the Time

If you follow or even lightly follow this blog, you may be wondering what has happened to me. Well here it goes. I have started a new job working for a medical transport service that consists of working very long hours. I am still going to school full time. I'm attempting to keep my marriage a happy one by contributing as much time as I can to it. Recently I have changed my major. I changed it from a Christian Ministries major to a Religion/Philosophy. I did this for a few reasons. I have alot of ministry experience for a person in my scholastic standing and most of the classes I've been taking haven't been adressing my situation and therefore have been very poor learning experiences. I also did this due to a hightened serious interest in grad school. The last reason for this is simply beacause I want to graduate as early as possible and this change in degrees will allow me to stop taking classes that teach me how to organize songs in a worship service when I do that at least twice a week. I need to be able to understand the Bible, people, and ideas and then explain this to congregants. I also need to understand this and how to apply it to life, my own specifically. Who cares about organizing songs or playing politics in the church if my life (heart, soul, mind, and strength) is not confronted, consumed, and completely invaded by God and His Word (Christ). I must leave on that note. But now you have some idea of what's going on in my head and in my life.

Read more

by Unknown ~ Wednesday, March 29, 2006 0 comments

...

'Cause nothing is beyond You
You stand beyond the reach
Of our vain imaginations
Our misguided piety
The heavens stretch to hold You
And deep cries out to deep
Singing that nothing is beyond You
Nothing is beyond You
-Rich Mullins

Dear Lord,
I'm sorry. I'm sorry for trying to figure you out with my arogant theology. What you really want for me is just to know you. I'm sorry for my works based faith. No matter how much I preach against it I still let the ways of this world pull me back into going through the motions. I'm sorry for my hollow prayers. I'm sorry for praying for my meals, when it's just a rushed formality so I can further fuel my glutteny. I'm sorry for feeling abandonded by you when I know that nothing can separate me from your love. I'm sorry for being the pharisee in the temple praying loud about my good works when I should be the humble sinner who knows he's worthless. I'm sorry for boasting about anything other than my weakness. I'm sorry for putting you in my box, or at least trying to do so. God please leave my box. Please leave what I've made you in my mind. Be who you are in my life, not who I want you to be. Break my image of you so that I may see who you are... no... break my image of you so I nolonger seek to find who you are, but keep me blinded so I forever will seek to simply know you.

Read more

by Unknown ~ Monday, January 09, 2006 0 comments

You Can't Legalize Morality

Why don't Christians understand this concept. Once and a while I find myself listening to Christian Radio(it's not all bad). On almost every radio show something comes up about changing the way our government works. There are two good examples, abortion and homosexuality. According to these shows we need to vote for the right people, or sign the right petitions, or maybe even write letters to the right congressman, and we can do alot of good for America. I'm not sure if anyone pays much attention or not, but there isn't much good that our government can do period. Look at how badly the government especially on the local level screwed up when it came to saving lives of people caught in Katrina. It failed us. Why are we so convinced that the government won't drop the ball on our spiritual wellbeing (that is if we ever get them to pick the ball up)? Why do we listen to "preachers" on t.v. who tell us who to vote for and why?

I have one simple question that might clear alot of this up. What Would Jesus Do? Would Jesus try to get the lawmakers and government officials to change according to His standards? Would Jesus camp out on the White House lawn? Would Jesus picket clinics with hateful signs? Lets take a look at what Jesus did. He came to help in a time that was extremely screwed up by dirty politics. The local Judean governments were extremely corrupt, but compared to the more powerful Roman government, the Jews looked like saints. What did Jesus do. If I remember currectly he went straight to Rome and went on a hunger strike with nasty signs about the Caesar, because they laid babies in their dumps to die when they decided they didn't want them. (Or maybe that was a story Pat Robinson told). Jesus didn't do that at all. He could've let the zealots in a revolt, but he didn't. Jesus knew what we apparently haven't learned. To change the world peoples hearts must be changed. You can't legalize a change of heart, and yet that's exactly what we try to do. President Bush was voted in by people who hold this ideology. Have we seen a moral shift or change. If we're honest we answer no.

To change this nation and this world, we must show the love of Christ. We must get our hands dirty with sinners and show them that Christ is the only thing that makes us clean. We are obligated to love our neighboor, not shun them as they walk out the doors from having an abortion. This is nopt what Christ did, and this is not what we should do. I will go as far as to say those who picket abortion clinics are sinning in their actions, because they are not doing what God has called us to do and teach love to others and walk in His laws and His love daily. This government was created by man to serve man, that is how every government is established. This is why, like every government before it, ours too will fall. The question is, will the church survive when this happens. It will if we are not bound to this government and if people are Christians because of Christ's love, not man's laws.

Read more

by Unknown ~ Saturday, January 07, 2006 0 comments