Convictions
November 6, 2020Mark 10: 2-12 2 Some Pharisees came and tried to trap him with this question: “Should a man be allowed to divorce his wife?”
3 Jesus answered them with a question: “What did Moses say in the law about divorce?”
4 “Well, he permitted it,” they replied. “He said a man can give his wife a written notice of divorce and send her away.”
5 But Jesus responded, “He wrote this commandment only as a concession to your hard hearts. 6 But ‘God made them male and female’ from the beginning of creation. 7 ‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, 8 and the two are united into one.’ Since they are no longer two but one, 9let no one split apart what God has joined together.”
10 Later, when he was alone with his disciples in the house, they brought up the subject again. 11 He told them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery against her. 12 And if a woman divorces her husband and marries someone else, she commits adultery.”
Convictions from God
When the Pharisees tried to trap Christ by asking about divorce, they were trying to trip him up with Man’s logic and laws. Jesus dodged their trap by addressing their laws and God’s higher calling of Man in both his response and the follow-up.
Moses’ laws were based on God’s recognition that Man’s sin is more destructive than God’s desire for Man’s holiness. Jesus says that the only reason Moses was allowed to create laws that allowed divorce is because Man was so corrupt that he would cause more damage than good when expected to be holy.
Old Testament law allows for sin because Man by himself can not redeem himself. God allowed additional sin because He was attempting to protect the innocence of Man from the sin and corruption of Man.
This means that in light of Christ’s love and Man’s redemption, which is only the result of Christ’s sacrifice and crucifixion, and God’s grace, that the Old Testament Laws can’t necessarily be guides or justification for Christian Man’s actions. God’s original design again becomes the standard. Man isn’t meant to be the judge, because even in his redemption, he is incomplete and falls short of the righteousness of God, but he is meant to be the best representative of Christ-Come-Again as humanly possible. That means that our convictions will supersede the old laws because our calling to holiness is a higher standard than the worldly laws of even Moses.
Man’s justifications and logic will never match the original intent of God’s creation because sin has handicapped us on every level, but our redemption through Christ calls us to make every effort to attempt to worship God in our original, unblemished form. That means that any use of scripture to justify our actions and sin is wholly and completely out of scope, and pushes us farther from the holiness God intended for us.
We are sinful, and God has provided us with grace to cover our shortcomings, but anytime Man’s actions and failures are justified through scripture, prayer, or man’s own reasoning, we are furthering the gap between God and ourselves to spite grace.
God created us as relational beings to walk with Him, and as a result, our active walk with Him will stir up convictions that surpass and supersede the Old Law because His holiness can do nothing else but drive out our imperfections and sin, regardless of how we justify it.
2020: The Year of Compassion
August 21, 2020There has been little more apparent this year than the fact that a large majority of US populous is divided. Everywhere you look it appears that battle lines have been drawn. We have the Millennials vs Boomers, the Left vs Right, the Masks vs Rights, Black Lives Matter vs Blue Lives Matter. There are people mentally breaking because of the pull in so many different directions.
It doesn’t help that society itself has so many conflicts falling into place all at the same time. And those emotions and arguments are overflowing into our churches.
I compared the hardships to Moses’ wandering the desert. I’ve also compared the current conflict within the Church to Christ’s role in the spiritual war. As a Christian leaning on God’s directions, nothing is more apparent than the fact that 2020 will either result in Christians learning compassion, or they will break.
“Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Luke 10:33 NLT
The fact that this year is an election year adds to the social turmoil, but the frustrations as a result of the shortcomings of our political leaders from both sides don’t change our calling. The world needs Good Samaritans. The world needs field medics. Field medics are trained as soldiers, and they know how to fight, but their priorities are driven by their oath to serve and nurture the hurt and wounded. Their compassion for others is meant to outweigh their concerns for the battle. Sometimes that service requires fighting, but when it does, it isn’t for themselves, but because the safety of others depends on it.
Christians that are driven by hurt and anger to fight only add to the hurt and anger of the world. Without a compassionate servant’s heart, you are more likely to do more damage than help and heal.
2020 will be a year where Christians learn compassion, or it will be a year that they are indistinguishable from non-believers, and completely fail at our mission. When our emotions and energies for political conflict are greater than our ability to show God’s grace and love to the world than we lost the war. God’s calling is never based on our status or even our wellbeing, because in Eternity’s priorities, nothing but eternal changes matter.
If 2020 hasn’t taught you compassion, than you aren’t listening. It’s hard to help and hold others up when you can barely stand on your own, but the Good Samaritan helped where he could, he wasn’t called to do it all. Compassion calls you to do what you can, which is often significantly more than the world will do for others. For many, compassion is simply setting aside our personal struggles long enough to learn about the struggles of others around us. We have all been called to compassion and to pray, and both require more outward reflection than inward conflict.
Exodus Moment
June 26, 2020I’ve told several people while reflecting on everything that has occurred in just half a year that I’ve seen these events as more of an Exodus moment rather than a Revelations moment. And the farther we get into the year my feelings have been bolstered by new events and personal experiences.
Moses was sent to Pharoah to ask to release God’s people. God used the plagues as a tool against Pharoah’s hard heart. Pharaoh was considered a god by the Egyptians and had no concern about the requests of the God of Israel, and laughed at Moses’ request for the Israelites to be allowed to go celebrate this other god. Even with all of the demonstrations and plagues Pharaoh’s heart remained hard.
We may not be enslaved by man, but so many hearts are hard right now. And this is why I see this as more of an Exodus moment. The hardened hearts need to break. The man-made gods must fall. For far too many our selfishness has caused us to hold on to our hardened hearts and cry out to our personally made gods, even when God’s heart and reality don’t line up with what we want. The fears of future struggles and the pain of the current one prevent us from progressing out of the current plague and hardship we face.
The Hebrews were not freed into paradise. Their freedom was never promised to be comfortable, even before they messed up and were punished. God has never promised comfort. God will provide peace, but only in His presence and will. God provided for the Hebrew people while they endured their punishment and wandered the desert, but his provision still required discipline and trust.
A life of peace in your freedom within his will is the promise, not the life of comfort without discipline.
Life is a constant struggle because we live in a sinful world. A close relationship with Christ will bring peace and blessing, but never confuse peace and blessing with consistent comfort. An active relationship with your savior will be a state of constant conviction and neverending change when we use Christ as our benchmark and our God-given purpose as our guide.
The Intellectual Introvert's Dilemma, Part 2
January 10, 2016In the previous post, I wrote about what could be a difficult aspect of salvation for an introvert, especially someone that driven by their own understanding and accomplishments. But salvation isn’t the entire story, it’s only the very beginning of what will most likely be a long journey. Until you’re called to Heaven through death or other means, you’ve got to work out this whole relationship thing with God. And that, regardless of your personality, can be a daunting task, especially when it comes to dealing with our guilt and the truckload of other baggage we all travel with every day. Salvation only wipes the slate clean from the perspective of charges against you that prevent you from entering Heaven. Despite the emotional and spiritual high that most of us feel after the event, being saved hardly touches all the mess that we still carry.
Some are lucky and some of that baggage is removed, but for the intellectual introvert, the pain, memory and guilt of our past usually hits us in the face very abruptly shortly after the honeymoon phase is over. While it’s not quite the same as salvation, the introvert’s baggage isn’t going to go away through works or good deeds. If that were a possibility, the baggage wouldn’t be there to begin with.
So… We’re back to this relationship thing.
Luckily for the introvert, the most difficult part about a relationship is usually starting it, and this one is slightly different since an unusual level of trust has been built and established as a result of the salvation process. So, the one-on-one relationship part is a piece of cake for the introvert, creating practically ideal conditions for the only kind of pleasurable social interaction an introvert might experience. But, when you aren’t driven by your emotions or the interaction provided by a relationship, then the relationship is driven by the analytical and mental activities more than outward feeling and expressions. The problem with thoughts running wild more so than wild speech is that it becomes entirely too easy to “talk” your way out of pursuing the relationship because of the very pile of things you need the relationship to fix, all that baggage, guilt, and pain.
Instead of expressing the concerns, and opening up to allow God to work in us, we as introverts get guilt-driven and self-image-driven tunnel vision. Tunnel vision leads to distancing ourselves from God and irrational fears about our value. Justifications for our distance will then have to be made, which lead to one of two things, depression or building up delusionary walls of pride. It’s easy to be proud and ignore our faults, become our own god, as long as we don’t have to face the real God. And on the other end of the spectrum, we ignore the good around us and create a self-pitying echo chamber, devaluing and distancing ourselves more. It’s easy for us to ignore God, and his power, when we’ve made a god out of our problems.
The most difficult part of the post-honeymoon stage for a new Christian is dealing with all their other gods. For a self-empowered introvert, that means trying to kill the other gods off on our own. It usually takes us too long to realize that once the power is given to a god, you can’t overcome it without the power of a God. That’s why the relationship thing is still important. That’s why salvation is only the very beginning of the journey.
It’s real easy for your life to be wrecked when you’re the only one calling all the shots and running all the plays.
The Intellectual Introvert's Dilemma
January 8, 2016I’m an introvert. For those of you that know me, this isn’t a surprise. I also judge others by their abilities and accomplishments. I know, we aren’t supposed to judge others, but every one of us does. Another thing, name dropping doesn’t impress me. I couldn’t care less if you have Bono on speed-dial, had lunch with President Obama on Tuesday, and are on a first name basis with Bill Gates. If I needed one of those individuals ears, I might ask for you to help bring a message I had already sent to their attention, but if that’s how we’re evaluating you, you don’t even register on the dial. You’d probably impress my wife, but in many cases, name dropping does the exact opposite for me.
If you want to impress me, then you have to show me what you’ve done, what you know and what you can do. I want direct results. As a result, I evaluate myself based on my accomplishments and intellectual knowledge and have very little desire to extend my social reaching. Because of that, networking is something that makes me completely shut down. Small talk just makes me think about all the books I could be reading or tasks I could be completing.
Just imagine…
Now, imagine what happens when a person with my personality encounters the gospel. You see, our salvation has absolutely nothing to do with our abilities, our knowledge, our accomplishment, or our work. It has everything to do with who you know. You can’t work your way into God’s grace. You can’t earn your salvation. It was given to you by God as a result of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for us, and our relationship with Him. Your eternity is completely dependent on you spiritual networking. And guess what? You have to schmooze up to boss’ son before you can bridge the gorge-dug-by-sin and reach the big man on campus.
Yes, God can see all those good deeds, and he has heard about you through the grapevine. You might be a hot up-and-comer in the Changing the World department at Life, Corp., but without that relationship with Christ you can’t truly reach your potential no matter how hard you work. The boss’ executive suite will always be out of reach.
My salvation is completely dependent on my faith and relationship with Christ. Now, I’ll admit that it’s now a long standing relationship and is nothing like schmoozing to get ahead in life. But if I hadn’t accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior, and had to today, I’d probably be stuck on a good deeds treadmill.
If you’re someone trying to earn your way into Heaven, please stop what you’re doing for a second and seek out this guy I know. Trust me, you’re only going to work yourself to death otherwise.
It’s entirely too easy to ignore the power of God when you’ve made a god out of your problem.
A Solemn Final Earthly Good-Bye
September 23, 2013My Grandmother passed away this evening. And, while it is a sad affair, especially for my mom, all of my aunts, and my uncle, it’s also a huge release. I guess you can say I’ve been lucky because I haven’t had to deal with any of the struggles over the last several years because I live so far away. She’s suffered from Alzheimer for quite a while now, and as a result, the journey at the end of her life was a chaotically inconsistent one.
My Grandparents never had much of anything, except a lot of family. I wasn’t very close to my Grandmother, even before we moved to North Dallas, but many of my fondest memories are with all of the family. The last time I saw my Grandmother I wasn’t a child anymore and her state had progressed enough that she couldn’t figure out who I was. I knew from the letters she had sent my sister while she was in the hospital, and the gifts the occasionally accompanied them, that mentally she wouldn’t be able to reconcile the gap between the present and her memories. So, in a way, when I last saw her, at my paternal grandpa’s funeral, I said good-bye to two grandparents. But the reality is, this is the final and real good-bye. And despite having already realized that the woman that was my Grandmother had become more like a child, and having already processed the emotions that accompany loss, the real good-bye is still sad. She is in a much better place, her suffering has finally ended, and everyone can rejoice in that regardless of the level of loss her real passing produces.
But the reality is, this is the final and real good-bye. And despite having already realized that the woman that was my Grandmother had become more like a child, and having already processed the emotions that accompany loss, the real good-bye is still sad. She is in a much better place, her suffering has finally ended, and everyone can rejoice in that regardless of the level of loss her real passing produces.
Her struggle is one that I fear a lot, though. I have the genetic dispossession for early Alzheimer, which for someone that values their mental faculties so much is a truly frightening aspect of growing older. While the possibility of not finishing our final years out on Earth solving the most complex problems is still disappointing, living the final years of our lives with all of our baggage that we refuse to let go and the bitterness that has seeped into our hearts is significantly worse. I don’t wish dementia on anyone, but I realized that some of us might just need a more authoritative reset in our lives before we’re called home. I’m sure many people close to me would enjoy me much more during my final days if I had the innocence of a child and the opportunity to reboot my view of the world.
I don’t believe that Alzheimer patients are cursed by God so that they have to live life again like a child before they die. But, I do believe that God can use those final years to repair those around us and maybe even help us truly enjoy the world again before we depart. It’s an opportunity for those that take life too seriously. I may be a huge advocate for understanding and sharing unconditional love, but if I died today, my jaded and calloused heart would have left scars on others’ hearts without me having the time to help mend their wounds. And that made me realize that many of us need self-inflicted dementia so that we can stop the excuses and the hurting, and start the healing. Christ showed us unconditional love, and as a result, we are expected to share it with others. Loving unconditionally is so much easier with the innocence and mindset of a child.
Stop taking life so seriously and really live. Which means you have to leave your junk behind and let God’s love heal you so you’ll be free to love others.
Unconditional Love
January 28, 2013Introductions can sometimes be an awkward thing. Especially when it comes to trying to set the stage for a mixed bag of emotions and writings on a blog. I came up with the concept for this blog back in 2011 while trying to figure out a decent name and domain for our new family blog, but I haven’t really taken action to set anything up until now.
I don’t know exactly what will happen here, or if I’ll publish all of the things I’ve jotted down and written since the idea started rolling around in my head. Ultimately, I’d love to have this blog as a place where several people can post their experiences, testimonies, and thoughts.
The original intent for the blog was to provide a layman’s discussion about Christ, the love and sacrifice, and the grace extended to us. I’m an introverted, bookwormish person, and love learning and understanding things. As a result, I can sometimes seem like I know what I’m talking about, but when it comes to theology and the in-depth knowledge about Christianity some might feel that my knowledge, understanding, and translation of such is far too shallow to take seriously. My faith isn’t base on understanding. It’s one of the very few areas of my life that I don’t care to be as knowledgable and educated as I possibly can be. Not because I look down on people that want to learn the in-depth dissections of the Greek and Hebrew meanings of scripture and discuss the politics of Luther and Calvin, but because a huge part of my relationship with God, and, therefore, all aspects of my faith, are dependent on unconditional love. And because my mind loves shortcuts, everything else out there seems like a waste of energy.
I say all of this to set the stage for the disclaimer. Don’t take anything I write at face value. Learn what scripture has to say about the topic.
About
January 11, 2012Unconditionally Loved Us was originally conceived after the birth of my first daughter. I’ve always felt a need to help people understand exactly what unconditional love feels and looks like. My personal journey depends completely on God’s love for me since it is the reason I’m still here.
Since my initial experience of that love as a teenager in the depth of depression, I’ve grown to understand so much more about God’s love and purpose for each of us. This blog is meant to allow me a place to share those thoughts, in a hope that others will be able to experience the great depth of God’s love for us all.