le_meme_chose on Revelife

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Wednesday, 01 December 2010

a bit of a rant...

i've had a lot on my mind lately. i feel like a lot of it is weighing me down. particularly as of late, the thoughts in my mind have revolved around the church as a body of Christ.

the more i learn about God and who God is, the more i see our failures as believers. i'm not sitting here thinking we need to be perfect, but i feel like we need to come pretty darn close. when Jesus died for us, He sacrificed Himself so that we would be set free from sin and broke whatever chains we had attached to the sin in our lives. yet we continue to sin the same way, over and over and say that we are just merely sinners. BUT WE ARE NOT! the bible says we have been made clean and whole by the blood of Christ, so why are we still sinning?! we segregate our churches and say it's for the purpose of language, but didn't babylon fall and separate into different languages because of their idolatry? why are we still holding on to these things when God has called us to a greater purpose? the excuse that, "i am just a sinner and i am human" is such junk! we are, in essence, saying that although we are washed clean by the blood of Christ, we are still a little dirty in our sin. is that not completely contrary to who God has called us to be?

not only that, but we refuse to go out into the world and preach the good news because we are far too comfortable in our own church boxes. one of the speakers at global faith forum said, "we draw lines that become walls that becomes boxes. the only time we leave those boxes is to bring in people from the outside to join our little box." the box never expands! there's a huge problem with this. i wonder, if we were to cancel meeting in the actual church building on sunday's, would people continue to meet for church elsewhere? we are so caught up in church culture and our own ethnic cultures that we fail to realize, God has called us to a higher calling! yet, we stick to our own circle of Christian friends and don't speak about our God to non-believers. we talk about clothes and money and jobs as if those are the gods we worship. we quarrel with other believers on petty things that are schemes by the enemy used to separate the Church.

why do we fail to see these things? perhaps our definitions of "Christian" are so different that we forget the most important thing about our faith: CHRIST. i am willing to bet that more atheists know the word of God than we do. we point fingers at other religions and say, "you're religion is false." yet we know nothing about our religion except for what we hear in the media or what's been indoctrinated in us for so long.

we continue to say that gays cannot believe in Jesus, but claim that homosexuality is like every other sin out there. every other sin that WE continue to practice, yet we are able to call ourselves believers and condemn the gays. are we so caught up in the church culture that we fail to see who this Jesus really was?

Jesus was a radical man and God in one. He loved all and died for the sins of all people, not just people who claimed to follow Him. He died for ALL people who would accept Him. have we forgotten Him?

Wednesday, 28 April 2010

it's been a long time since i've written anything. life's been busy and to be honest, my brain isn't as creative as it used to be.

something that's been on my mind a lot is the way Christians behave and how that behavior affects non-Christians. i grew up around Christians my entire life, and until i married my husband, i thought the way we lived our lives was actually the way God had called us to live. my husband became a Christian about a year or two before we got married and he brought a whole new perspective to what i thought Christianity was supposed to be.

i have "Christian" friends who pray and go to church, but in other aspects of their lives you wouldn't be able to tell whether or not they followed Jesus. of course I often wonder the same about myself and am making more conscious attempts at no longer acting that way.

i have friends who although they pray, will look upon gays with disgust or friends who go to church but gossip like crazy about our classmates and then act like they aren't actually gossiping. it makes me wonder if we really understand what Jesus was about. although i disagree with people's lifestyles, i have no right to look upon them with disgust. i mean, let's be honest, we are all sinners and we all have disgusting sins about ourselves. we would hate it if others looked at us with disgust for some of the things we've done. what gives us the right to do these things? i'm not a liberal in any way, but i don't believe Jesus said for us to look down on others. despite a person's lifestyle choices, i firmly believe Jesus called us to love them through their sin. it's the love of Christ that will change people, not our disapproving looks. i get so tired of Christian hypocrisy. sometimes i don't blame the atheists for disbelieving because Jesus' own followers are often less "Christian" than the atheists are.

if we truly love Jesus, and i mean love Jesus to the point that it's heart-wrenching to hear the gospel, knowing He was crucified for our shortcomings, wouldn't it make sense to pass that on to others who have yet to know what Christ's live is like? why do we call ourselves Christians but say it's ok to gossip, drink and party, etc? we are so good at justifying ourselves that it really disgusts me when i actually pause to think about it long enough. i think Jesus would disapprove of a lot of Christians and the churches we run in His name. all the things we do should be for His namesake and His glory... and yet so much of what we actually do is for our own glory.

Christianity needs a revolutionary change!

Tuesday, 17 November 2009

i think it's impossible to call yourself a Christian and ignore the injustices going on around the world. sometimes i think we've grown accustomed to this bubble we call "christianity" but fail to remember that God's world exists outside of church on sunday's. i'm trying to convince myself that it's ok that others are not moved by social injustice, but it's getting harder and harder to believe that, when you know that somewhere around the world, a 9 year old is being sold into prostitution or a father has just sold his child to pay off his debt.

i don't believe it is okay to sit idly while there is much work to be done. the commercial christian culture is going to be the demise of the Church as we know it if we don't recognize that there needs to be change today.

Wednesday, 04 November 2009

letting go of the "feel good God"

the problem with Christianity today is that it's all about what God can do for us and not what we can do for God. since when did it matter what God could do for us? i'm honestly really tired of this "feel good God" stuff. i believe it's going to be the downfall of Christianity if people don't recognize it soon and change it. i feel as though we've drifted so far from the bible that the things we teach and/or learn in church now is not very biblical. a lot of it is about being successful, feeling good about yourself and life, and getting the best out of life. so there isn't really anything wrong with these things, but the way they are taught in church is not very biblical.

in 1 peter 2:1, it says, "But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves."

a lot of "preachers" today make thousands and thousands of dollars on feel good seminars and sermons. they hold huge conferences on success and prosperity, but i'd be willing to say that almost, if not all, of it is false prophecy. if you look at their sermons, you should question if they have a biblical basis. when i say this though, i don't just mean whether or not they've thrown in a few bible verses throughout their sermons. it's important to question their motives, the basis of their sermons, and how their message fits in with that of Jesus Christ.

i really fear for God's people if they cannot discern from God's true biblical word and that of false preachers. in our society today especially, we are so caught up in ourselves and what makes us happy and what makes us feel good. it's probably human tendency to drift towards that which makes us feel good, but sometimes those things are not from God and we try to convince ourselves that they are. it's so common for us to interpret the bible to what fits our lives, but that's not the way it should be. our lives should be changed to fit God's call for us: to be His holy people.

i pray that Christians today recognize these false prophets and repent and turn back before Christ's second coming.

Wednesday, 14 October 2009

I've been thinking a lot about my purpose in God's kingdom. Since we've been married, we've spent a lot more time in prayer together, allowing God to change our hearts and the way we view the world. I feel like I've reached the point where it's no longer just a religion I practice, but it must be a way of life. I look at Muslims and Jews and it seems as though they truly live their religions and it's not just something they do on the Sabbath or day of worship and rest. I find that so many of us Christians are just Sunday Christians, but the rest of the week we don't acknowledge God in our lives. It's as if God is a convenience to us and we follow Him when it's the best time for us. The point in my life that I'm at is forcing me to choose - follow God with everything I have and am or separate and live the lukewarm life that I've been living. I've so often feared ridicule from others about my faith. Let's face it, Christianity is not cool and it's NOT the thing to be/do in society right now. However, I still refuse to believe that Jesus Christ died in vain and all of this is nothing but dust once we're gone. I wonder why we aren't out there really living our lives the way the Muslims and Jews are. They immerse themselves in their faith and it dictates their very way of life. This is the clear conviction that I've been hearing from God the past couple of months and I feel that it's a call to all of us; a challenge to no longer just be Christians but let it be our lives - let God be our lives.