Anger

What is accomplished in anger outbursts? I have struggled with a bad temper since I was young. I believe that it is getting better, but I know that I still have my spurts. I was in the airport yesterday in Atlanta and watched a mad chew an airport worker out about another worker standing by. He called the lady a witch as she walked away and then proceeded to rip his tag off his luggage, throw it on the ground, and walk off. Whenever I witness blow ups, I feel like I witness immaturity. Am I wrong? Are there times to blow up? I know Jesus blew up in the temple one day with righteous anger over people using the temple of God wrongly. People may take advantage of you if you never blow up, but it seems that much more gets done with a soft answer that turns away wrath.

Last evening thoughts

Well, tomorrow Sarah and I leave for Brazil. I have had many random thoughts, mixed emotions, busy days, and great conversations these last few days. I have had fun convincing people that we are not dying, just leaving the country for a few years. No, it has not been that bad. I have not cried as much as I thought I would. Maybe it is because I am so excited, or cause I am trying to be strong for Sarah, or it could be the result of being cold-hearted, haha. Well, hopefully not that last one. There are several things that I think of that make me cry on the spot. For some reason, whenever we pray as a group I start to tear up. Tonight we said goodbye to Emma and Luke, our neice and nephew. That was hard for me because I am not going to see them grow up. I love playing with them and they seem to enjoy it too and I cannot bear the thought of them not knowing who we are in a couple years. The last thing that really makes me want to cry is how many people have been there for us, praying, supporting, giving much more than we deserve, and their overall love and care for us. We are undeserving of the many friends and family that we have that care so deeply for us. There are so many that would give us the shirt off their back and then thank me for the opportunity to give it. One cannot ask for better friends than that. So if you are one of those people, know that I am shedding tears here thinking about your love and being so grateful to God for you.

Interpreting the Bible

I have come across so many different interpretations of the Bible lately that I thought I would write about it. I took a class on it in college called hermeneutics. I really enjoyed the class because I learned a lot about the practice of interpreting the Bible, but especially because the teacher told us plenty of examples of times where we use a verse to back up our argument when that is not what the verse means. I have heard that a lot in the Christian ranks.
We need to take a humble approach when studying and understanding the Bible. We all have presuppositions as a result of how we were brought up. And it is easy to say, well this is how I have always known it, so it must be true. We must humbly come to the Scriptures and study to see what passages are really saying. To understand what the author and God are trying to communicate, we must study the background, context, who they are writing to and why, the culture and customs, and also the language. Unfortunately, humans did the translation of the Bible and words change meanings as well.
One must also be careful where resources are found for interpretation. Scholars are humans too, and many disagree, soooo..... someone has to be wrong in their interpretation. That is why it takes much time in study before we become sure of a meaning, and then even still, unless it is a major proven doctrine, we must not be dogmatic about its meaning and label everyone else as liars.
Well, there are other thoughts on my mind for this post, but if it gets too long, I will lose the 3 people that visit my blog.

"Putting Christ back into Christian" article

There is no doubt that the church today has declined in her commitment to Jesus Christ. Members do not show up regularly, Pastors are caught in scandals, and we are caught wondering where the lack of faithfulness is from. Although, there are many reasons for this, three have caught my attention. The first problem starts right at the root, and that is our doctrine of salvation. We have made salvation too easy in that we have handed out a prayer as though God gave out tickets to heaven for us to pass to all those around us. We have not thoroughly explained God’s plan for salvation, but instead have made the entrance exam a no-brainer for the lost. We encourage each other to make wise decisions not based on emotions, but when it comes to salvation, we have found that the easiest way to convert the lost is through the emotions and then wonder why we never see them at church. The second problem is a lack of discipling new believers. The last few decades we have had Sunday School for that, so what need is there for small group (2-4 people) discipling? The problem is not the available teaching, but the lack of ability to integrate discipleship and accountability. Once we utilize a better system for discipling we will not see the fallout rate we see now. Thirdly is an overall deficit of integrity in leadership which flows down to the followers. Between our Christian pride, materialism, bad influence, scarred testimonies, and no desire for personal holiness or understanding of the lost, we have not been effective in displaying Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world. We need Believers who are on a mission to put Christ back into Christian!

Illogical beliefs dealing with the beginning of time

So there is a debate that is highly illogical. The creationism versus evolutionism debate contains arguments that are not within the realms of logic. Creationism teaches that there is a God who created the world in six days using the power of His voice. He creates land and sea, animals, birds and fish and ends with creating man. He breathes into his nostrils the breath of life and man is given a living soul. It takes a lot of faith to believe that all could happen.
Evolution takes much faith too. First of all, there is nothing but some sort of mass and it explodes and there is a universe with a bunch of stars and earth. But there is no life for a long time until all of a sudden, lightning strikes a mud puddle and boom, life is formed. Millions of years pass by and we all of a sudden have hundreds of species of animals that evolved from the first living organism. One species cannot make another species according to science, yet that is how we have so many different animals. Anyway, I could go on and on, but I think the point is made that there is not much logic involved in this argument. Both evolution and creation take much faith. Personally, I believe in creationism, but I do understand that it takes much faith to believe in it.

Joy

Man, I am a slacker sometimes. I let the smallest things rob me of my joy. Rejoice in the Lord always is a pretty clear verse, but one I struggle following. Our sufficiency should be in Christ, not in circumstances. I was bummed the other day when someone said; hey, you should smile back there. I do not know what my face looked like, but it must have been pretty ugly. Life is so much easier when we relax and have a good time and trust in the sovereignty of God.

Even if

When Rack, Shack and Benny were asked by the king to bow down before his image, they refused. They said that they would not disobey God understanding that their consequence would be to go through the fiery furnace. They said that they knew God could deliver them, but EVEN IF not they would still obey God. Faith is trusting in God enough to obey His Word. Sometimes I wonder if I have faith, but really I need to look at my obedience level. Am I obeying God and trusting His Word? If I am, then I am showing faith. And if I am not, then I need to be like the Centurion in the gospels who said, Lord I believe, help my unbelief. Our faith ultimately comes from God and we should never stop asking for it.