This is not how I saw myself ending my undergraduate time at UA. All semester I thought about the enormous sigh of relief and massive fist pump I would give after finishing my Southern Politics final and being completely done. But I will never get that satisfaction. There is also the strong possibility I may never get to experience walking across a stage, shaking hands with Dr. Witt, and having my name called out as a college graduate at Alabama. That however is nothing compared to what actually matters right now. It is hard to watch and comprehend what has happened to what I have called my home for the past 4 years. Areas which I have frequented on numerous occasions, gone. People I have known, homeless. My heart just breaks for the city. I don't even know how to move on right now. I'm just taking it literally one day at a time and sometimes a few hours at a time. But that doesn't even begin to tell the story...
While this is going on in Tuscaloosa, all of north Alabama was seemingly getting slammed. Sand Mountain and the area around my home were hit hard. I have read the power company which services my house has 100% of its customers without power. I can't go home for at least a week. People I know there are in need. I am just thankful to be safe and with a place to stay here in Tuscaloosa. It seems as if my world has been completely turned upside down. And in a way it has. I trust the Lord and what He is doing. It is just hard to comprehend what I see and what has happened. But I know He will always be there to hold my hand and help me hold others.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
The Gospel of Christ
Yes I know it's been awhile.
This may seem silly but I recently had a dream that left me disheartened but energized when I woke up. In my dream I am in the future and on the run for my life with a group of people for whatever reason. And then for whatever reason I decide the best thing to is to share the gospel with them. But when I do this I am informed that Christianity has been eliminated throughout the world. I then am told that even saying the name "Jesus Christ" will result in punishment. But I decide not to stop. I then wake up somewhat stunned. I'm sad because I realize that the world is only a generation away from this actually happening. It then hit me that we MUST use the gospel to combat the evil forces of the world. We can't become apathetic. We have a responsibility and a commandment to do so. I realized that this is an actual, true story of what my life will look like in the future, using the Gospel to bring others to Him.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Repentance
We are sinners.
We are depraved.
We need the grace of Christ. As a Christian I understand this. I hope others in this world are able to understand this as well. However I feel like I along with many other Christians who live this country often miss the glaring implications of what this means. We are sinners. We sin. This means SIN exists in our lives. The good news is salvation covers these sins. But this, in my opinion, has lead to some dangerous thinking, the abuse of salvation.
Salvation, the redemption of God's people, is the greatest free gift this world will know. But American Christians are prone to twist this gift into something it isn't, something vile.
We are blessed with enormous amounts of material, financial, and emotional comfort. This comfort is prone to causing us to lose focus on our relationship, or to sin. Now the critical thing is how do we respond to this sin? The Word tells us to cut off our hand if it causes us to sin. However, America is to scared to cut off our hand. We cannot part with our comfort.
At the same time, we justify this action by saying that Christ died for these sins and its ok for us to slip up a little bit. After all why does grace exist then? This is completely unbiblical and is extremely dangerous thinking. Romans tells us this, [6:1] "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? [2] By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? [3] Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? [4] We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." We cannot continue to sin if we have been justified by Christ.
Furthermore, we hide this kind of sin and justify it by saying we are better than the world. We judge them for their actions while justifying our own. We have salvation so its ok. Well according to Romans, "[2:1] Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. [2] We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. [3] Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? [4] Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? [5] But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed."
We judge the world while justifying our sin, using the excuse of salvation to prop the argument up. Its ironic that we justify sin with salvation when in reality salvation has justified us from sin. In fact salvation is supposed to lead to, according to verse 4, repentance. Repentance. I'll repeat that. Repentance. We lose sight of that in our comfort. We don't want to seek that out because we will often become uncomfortable.
We have it good in America. Often too good though. Our sin should lead us to repentance and closer to the Father. It shouldn't lead to excuses of blanket coverage from salvation when sin is repeated. Grace is precious. It offers repentance if we will accept it. It's time we opened our eyes, got a little uncomfortable, and became a depraved servant of the Lord.
We are depraved.
We need the grace of Christ. As a Christian I understand this. I hope others in this world are able to understand this as well. However I feel like I along with many other Christians who live this country often miss the glaring implications of what this means. We are sinners. We sin. This means SIN exists in our lives. The good news is salvation covers these sins. But this, in my opinion, has lead to some dangerous thinking, the abuse of salvation.
Salvation, the redemption of God's people, is the greatest free gift this world will know. But American Christians are prone to twist this gift into something it isn't, something vile.
We are blessed with enormous amounts of material, financial, and emotional comfort. This comfort is prone to causing us to lose focus on our relationship, or to sin. Now the critical thing is how do we respond to this sin? The Word tells us to cut off our hand if it causes us to sin. However, America is to scared to cut off our hand. We cannot part with our comfort.
At the same time, we justify this action by saying that Christ died for these sins and its ok for us to slip up a little bit. After all why does grace exist then? This is completely unbiblical and is extremely dangerous thinking. Romans tells us this, [6:1] "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? [2] By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? [3] Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? [4] We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." We cannot continue to sin if we have been justified by Christ.
Furthermore, we hide this kind of sin and justify it by saying we are better than the world. We judge them for their actions while justifying our own. We have salvation so its ok. Well according to Romans, "[2:1] Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. [2] We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. [3] Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? [4] Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? [5] But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed."
We judge the world while justifying our sin, using the excuse of salvation to prop the argument up. Its ironic that we justify sin with salvation when in reality salvation has justified us from sin. In fact salvation is supposed to lead to, according to verse 4, repentance. Repentance. I'll repeat that. Repentance. We lose sight of that in our comfort. We don't want to seek that out because we will often become uncomfortable.
We have it good in America. Often too good though. Our sin should lead us to repentance and closer to the Father. It shouldn't lead to excuses of blanket coverage from salvation when sin is repeated. Grace is precious. It offers repentance if we will accept it. It's time we opened our eyes, got a little uncomfortable, and became a depraved servant of the Lord.
Monday, August 30, 2010
The Why and The How
I heard a sermon recently which said if we started to look past the How of our spiritual existence then the Why would be made easier. Alot of time is often dedicated in discussion about the How. Was the fall of man intentionally willed by God or was it ordained by Him by it being allowed to happen. These discussions could be never ending, much like the one I participated in after the sermon. But I feel like we miss the point many times during these discussions, which I feel like happened in this particular discussion. The Why was meant to be the focus.
The How is important in our spiritual understanding of the Lord. It serves as a solid foundation in our relationship with Him. But it doesn't consume it. In the end we will never be able to fully understand the complexity, magnitude, and perfection of the I Am. Just like the sermon emphasized, we must dedicate our lives to the Why. Matthew 28 gives us the Why. We are called to spread the Gospel to all people, with the full confidence that the Lord has ordained us to do so and will be with us while we do it. His Glory is why we exist. His Glory is takes precedent over the how. Up to a certain point the how becomes inferior.
Followers of Christ can spend way too much time debating the how issues. Unfortunately these can and have become divisive among Christians. How can we be a loving community of believers, reaching out to non-believers, if we are neither loving or a community at times. Discussing these issues have their appropriate settings and can be beneficial. And I believe that some issues must be discussed so no misconceptions and poor theology form. But they are not the why. Showing the world the love of Christ is. In the end this is the conclusion we must all reach, even if it means sacrificing the debates many of us love.
The How is important in our spiritual understanding of the Lord. It serves as a solid foundation in our relationship with Him. But it doesn't consume it. In the end we will never be able to fully understand the complexity, magnitude, and perfection of the I Am. Just like the sermon emphasized, we must dedicate our lives to the Why. Matthew 28 gives us the Why. We are called to spread the Gospel to all people, with the full confidence that the Lord has ordained us to do so and will be with us while we do it. His Glory is why we exist. His Glory is takes precedent over the how. Up to a certain point the how becomes inferior.
Followers of Christ can spend way too much time debating the how issues. Unfortunately these can and have become divisive among Christians. How can we be a loving community of believers, reaching out to non-believers, if we are neither loving or a community at times. Discussing these issues have their appropriate settings and can be beneficial. And I believe that some issues must be discussed so no misconceptions and poor theology form. But they are not the why. Showing the world the love of Christ is. In the end this is the conclusion we must all reach, even if it means sacrificing the debates many of us love.
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