The View

I have had a rather strange day. On any other day the fact that someone uses God's name in vain bothers me but i try to shrug it off. I kind of feel that if they choose to be that way then so be it but they know my stand because I make it known and they are free to do and act as they choose. Today I heard a woman at work use God's name in vain and it hurt. i have never felt that before. i was truly bothered by the fact that she was okay with saying His name in that way. Once I got home I began to search the internet as usual, check email, baseball and basketball and twitter. When I got onto twitter I saw a message from Rainn Willson, he plays Dwight on The Office. his message said "Thought for the weekend:What is God?" and there was a link. I clicked the link thinking it was a picture of a blog of some sort but it was a video. As you watch the video there are people asked "What is God?" and they begin to give their explanation of God. I was very bothered by the responses to the question. Every person on the video said that they didn't believe that there was a God or that God was basically a fantasy. The response that made my stomach turn was by an older looking gentleman that said that everything that exists is God. He said that he was god and that the houses were god and the rocks were god everything that exists is god.

This response made me think. How are we telling people who God is? there were a few people that said that God is a hope that people try to have, while another lady said that she had a hard time answering that question because she wasn't sure because she thought that God had a "very sick sense of humor." Another guy said that God didn't exists that the we needed to get that through our heads. Okay so when did it become okay to disrespect God? I know that for centuries people have disrespected God but why are we as believers standing back allowing them to be miss led? Satan must be laughing, he knows that he has corrupted the view of God so bad that the world is rebelling to the point where it will be very difficult to tell them who God really is. I think that we need to step up. I want to try to gather a group of believers together to study up on different views of God. We will work at being a resource for believers who are having a hard time talking with their friends. I think that we could have a website that would be geared toward people who don't think there is a God. The site will be set up so that they wont feel bombarded with Christianeze, the lingo that we as believers know that a non-believer wouldn't fully understand. I think it would be cool to go out as a group and speak to youth groups and college groups and give them resources to be able to talk with their friends and family. We need to step up as a body and change the name of God, make His name Holy again. The challenge: join in with me, let me know that you are in and lets begin to change the world by changing views. God is big and people need to see that and know that he is alive and working today.

Let's Do This!

Show the Love

I have been really bothered lately by the fact that there are so many people that either don't believe there is a God or that hate God or that don't see there is a point in following God. The reason it bothers me is because those beliefs are because we as a body have represented Christ in the wrong way. I was sitting in Church today and heard a very eye opening sermon. It was about the love of God and how if we really understood how much he loved us then we would be going crazy trying to tell everyone about it (there was more to the sermon then that but I really liked this part). As I listened I began to realize how bad of a job we as believers have done in showing who Christ really is. Part of the sermon talked about how people view God as being angry in the Old Testament but in the New Testament Christ comes and He is about love. When people have this mind set they are believing that God changes but his word says he doesn't. I took this view as the way that believers and humans in general mess things up.

We think that we know it all, that we can do what we want and everything is okay because he call ourselves Christians. I feel that that's were we mess up. People on the outside don't see Christ they see just another person. We are called to be like Christ and yet we gossip, backstab, complain and bicker about every little thing that happens... and that just when we are at church. There are many people that don't want to go to church because they feel that Christians are hypocrites. Well, I personally think that just categorizing Christians as hypocrites is kind of hypocritical because pretty much every person is one in their own way. The problem I see is that we as believers have allowed ourselves to have bad stereotypes as well as allowed ourselves to be so critical of how our fellow believers are at church and away that we have forgot to show the love of Christ.

The Challenge is this, can you figure out a new way of showing Christ to others each day? This means that if today you blessed a person you didn't know with lunch, how can you bless a person tomorrow in a different way. I truly believe that if we as believers make an effort then the view of Christ and church and Christians will change. Try it, let me know what you have done. let's make a change in how we live out Christ's love.

I say these things because I was convicted not because I am better or that I have already mastered this. I write this because I think that we can all help each other, as one body, to make Christ's love known. We can all shout from the roof tops together that Christ is greater then words can describe. We can shout that the love we feeling is to big to hold in. I am making a commitment right now to hold everyone accountable, will you please hold me accountable too?

The Death Penalty

I was listening to a song by Demon Hunter called the Gauntlet. If you haven't heard it go check it out its a great song. As i was listening I began to think about dying for Christ. There are many countries that don't allow people to serve God and if they are found serving God then they are executed. Here in America we are spoiled. We are allowed to worship God as we please, but have you ever thought about what you would do if you were not able to serve?

There are many different stories out there about people who died in the name of Christ but would you be able to? As times get worse I begin to think about what the book of Revelation talks about. What the antichrist will look like, how he will deceive millions of people so that Satan can try to suck as many people down as possible. I believe that it talks about people being persecuted for their faith in Christ. I began to put myself in those shoes, would i be able to stand up to a resistance against Christ and tell them that they were wrong. Life throws many things in our path, obstacles that try to get the best of us. During the raise of the antichrist the obstacles will be bigger, and not only bigger but harder to get through. Right now life seems hard; can't find a job, the job i have is terrible, my family gets sick, money disappears life is difficult. Now if these things are getting the best of us how are we going to stand when there is a gun to our heads, when we are not allowed to eat due to our faith, can we take it?

Think about your life, how cushy it is, all the things you have. Are you preparing for the end? Are your priorities on you rather then Christ? I'm not going to tell you how I think I will handle the persecution but I want you to think about it. Visualize a gun and a man asking if you are a Christ follower, will you say yes or will you back down? How big is your God and how big is your relationship with Him?