C.S. Lewis said it best...(as usual)

6 of 6 (on Chapter 8 of the book UnChristian)

This is the final post and in summary and reflection I am in thought of C.S. Lewis:

"There is someone I love, even though I don't approve of what he does.
There is someone I accept, though some of his thoughts and actions revolt me.
There is someone I forgive, though he hurts the people I love the most.
That person is me."

If we can do that for ourselves what is the deal? Why do we not treat others the same way?

Remember it is NOT our job to judge, that is God's!

What would it look like if we extended the same grace we extend to ourselves, to others?

The Christian of Grace

Post 5 of 6 in a series about Judgmental Christians.

We looked at how we can reach out in love and respect in the last post.

The key word for today is: Grace.

Think about it are we more concerned about being RIGHT than we are about being RIGHTEOUS?

I hope NOT. When we are like this we are very legalistic...we are like the Pharisees. We forget the true goals of the faith because we are too concerned over something silly.

When we truly understand the Gospel and what it is all about, we should be humbled.
Humbled by the message of Jesus.
And humbled by how we are portraying that message today ( the lack of!!!!)

We need to embrace not abandon the broken, the needy. Imagine yourself, once you were lost and in need of Grace and Mercy.

Where is our heart and perspective for the needy. Where is our evangelistic primer?
Where is our heart?
Is our faith so shallow that we are not sharing Christ's mercy?

Let me leave you with this:
We can not give out something we have not received.

Is our church in a state of so much pride and arrogance that we have forgotten about grace, mercy, forgiveness, and love?

This has got to CHANGE.

Unfortunate guitar playing experience

My cool pick broke! :(

The Christian of love

This post 4 of 6 posts where I have been reflecting on a chapter out of the book UnChristian.
The chapter is about Christians being Judgmental we have really caused a lot of pain and negative image because of our own sinfulness. And in the last three posts we saw the negative. We saw how Christians are wrong to be so judgmental.

But there is hope. There is a way we can be Christians of truth and still reach out to the lost. Key Word from last post was respect: How?

Listen to outsiders.
Don't label.
Don't be so smart. Don't pretend to have all the answers.

Have empathy. imagine yourself in their shoes. Really get to know them, their situation! Understand them!!!

Be genuine and real with everyone. Don't use the relationship to front a "christian agenda." Be yourself. Allow the Holy Spirit to weave in your faith in the conversation but do not be too aggressive about it. Be conversational. Be real.

Be a friend with no other motive. This speaks BIG!

See them as God does.

Let God judge!

What did Darwin really mean?

I think that part of the reason why there is a struggle with Darwinism is pure ignorance.
People do not know what it means to be Darwinist.

It is not the exact same thing as evolution!
Darwin merely provided a mechanism for evolution, that being natural selection.
There are other means by which evolution is thought to have occurred, and these things are still debated today.
Even within Darwinism there are several theories and sub-theories differing in their belief on the mechanics of evolution:

Pure Darwinism argued solely for Natural selection as the mechanism.

Then once you throw the idea of heredity into the picture, you come up with all sorts of theories!

Neo-Darwinist model, which we shall take as the mainstream theory of evolution today, argues that life has evolved through two natural mechanisms: "natural selection" and "mutation".

Some religious groups believe that evolution occurs with the help of a Creator....others believe that evolution occurs with the help of a Creator along with continual help.

Many groups, including Christians, might support ideas of evolution, but not Darwinism.

It depends on what you mean by "evolution."
Do you mean evolution by means of natural selection, by means of God, by other means?

The question is more complex than most people relieve.

Complete Rest in God's Will?

I was reading "My Utmost for His Highest" as I do daily today...and got me thinking:

Here is an excerpt (read the full devo by clicking link above:)

"The child of God is not conscious of the will of God because he is the will of God. When there has been the slightest deviation from the will of God, we begin to ask - What is Thy will? A child of God never prays to be conscious that God answers prayer, he is so restfully certain that God always does answer prayer."

Oswald Chambers makes a good point here...that in God's will we do find rest. We should rest in God and be assured that he answers prayer.....

My thoughts though are this:
Is it so bad to be asking God, 'What is Thy Will?'
Is that really bad when we are conscious of God's will...
aren't we suppose to be on our feet and looking out for God's will everyday?

I think there is an extreme that could take place if you are too "rested" in God's will that you miss the obvious callings of God. What I mean is that there is a certain level of consciousness that we need to have. An active faith.

We need to avoid a lazy faith. And like I said a lazy faith is an EXTREME. You really are not finding rest IN GOD if you are being lazy....(but I am on a rant here.)

The hypocritical Christian

This is post 3 of 6. This post series is based on chapter 8 of the book called UnChristian. Today's post is the last of the bad news. The snowball effect from the first two posts continues to worsen here.

Okay, Christians come across as Judgmental. We are convinced that we are right. We know that sin is bad. We like to be prideful about our lifestyle.

We are seeing though that we can come across as self-righteous, as prideful. We are seeing that our judging outsiders is just as sinful as the action of those outsiders (that we were judging.)

This is humbling. This is hard to swallow, but this it the truth, it hurts. We need to change!

But here is probably the harshest news yet...it all builds on what was said in the past posts....WE tolerate our own pride! The church has accepted and has done little to excuse our arrogance. It is the sin the church is okay with,has not dealt with, has forgottewn about, has swept under the rug, and let it go by quietly.

This has been a huge problem...think about it: a community of big headed people who are very proud of themselves...they are active in Bible thumping. They are encouraged to point out sin and honor themselves as morally upright. This community is NOT THE church I WANT to be a part of!

This picture scares me...but there is truth in it. :(

So hear is some application:

Key concept: The opposite of sin is not virtue, but grace. (and love.)
God tells us not to judge but to reach out with grace and love.

Key word: Respect

Darwinism imaginative and dangerous...

People are not aware of some of the biggest flaws in Darwinism...
Expelled (movie) only begin to point out some of the issues.

One that continues to bother me is the bad science of pure Darwinism.

But there is more. If you apply Darwinism logically to life, you find that it...

Undermines morality and devalues human life

Darwinism is the main theory taught in High Schools and Universities....
Why are we teaching bad science that has the potential to corrupt society?

People have suggested that an easy solution is not necessarily to eliminate Darwinism
But just change the way it is taught....
While others suggest that it is not the way it is taught, but the real problem is that Darwinism is wrong and it is the ONLY thing being taught in schools today...why not allow for free speech and so all sides not just one way Darwinism.

Doritos

There recently new flavor

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Colbert Report also endorses it!

And I am addicted too

The sinful Christian

This is part two of six blog posts reflecting on a book called UnChristian. The specific topic of this series is judgmentalism and this post in particular, Christians flaws that we do not realize sometimes.

Stereotypes kill relationships! We sometimes harbor assumptions, prejudices, stereotypes, biases, about certain groups of people based on superficial stupid differences that should not make a difference at all! (Such as appearance, tattoos, excessive fat, dirty hair, ragged clothing, a lot of rings all over the body, bad breathe, etc)
These are the people we should be loving and reaching out too! these stereotypes come from misperceptions, misconceptions, misunderstandings, and they are errors on our part.

Can you not see it - it is so obvious to me, by judging these people wwe are just as sinful as those we are condeming.

Have you ever heard hate the sin, and love the sinner....
this is how it should be
but people think that Christians hate the sin and the sinner

We need to change this!

Let us not be so anxious to judge, but rather to LOVE. Even Christians make mistakes, get over it!

What we need to be doing is hanging out with the least desirable people in our culture and loving them as Christ did! Not judging them.

Our error: Pride, arrogance!

We are in conceit. We are in abundance. We are way to convinced that we are right about everything.

Becuase of this error, we are not open to other people's perspectives in life. We are too aggressive and on the edge ready to persuade everyone else that they are wrong and we are right that we forget LOVE. We judge and we do not get to understand where others are coming from!

We so easily forget that God is to judge NOT humans!

We are to love. Wwe are to care for the needy and hurting.

I love ideas

Ideas - I love them !
That is what this blog is about!
It is full of thoughts and ideas that are mine as well as from others.
I like it when people share ideas!

The Judgmental Christian

In a series of six posts (including this one) are inspired by the book UnChristian by Kinnaman and Lyons.

The book has been an eye-opening read. Very humbling and I wish everyone could read it. The book reveals the perspective of "outsiders" to Christianity and acknowledges how these outsides see Christianity. There is a lot the church can work on! A lot to be gleaned from these outside perspectives. And a lot of problems that even the most distant outsider can see about the church and its image. The book is backed not only with outsider opinion but also hard data from Barna Research Group.

Chapter 8 is about how Christians are perceived as being judgmental. This is the main chapter from which I will be blogging about in the next several posts, along with my own perspective.

The jist of the matter is that Christians are perceived (and understandably so!!!) as prideful about their faith, their moral character, their "spiritual superiority." Christians can come across as arrogant and self-righteous. For we are quick to judge, to point out others wrong, and put others down. Some say we sound like we are better than others. That we are too focused on others faults.

You might be saying, "Okay, okay Alex...we are assertive, we know right from wrong!!"

Well my response is that HOW we communicate is just as important as WHAT we communicate. It is an important fact that we are all fallen and sinners in need of a Savior, but we can communicate this with love, grace, and peace. We do not need to be harsh, rash, and judgmental.


What are some of our errors:
Lost track of our main audience: We are trying to please those inside the church and not reach out to those outside of church...and not GOD!

Errors in judgment:
Wrong verdict - we judge becuase we have a lack of understanding a lack of information... instead we should get to know them

Wrong timing :
Yweah we have the right ideas about God's view but sometime we scare people away becuase we are too wquick to give the proper verdict....at hte wrong time.

Wrong moivation:
Are we motived by love and compassion like Jesus or something else?

Playing Favorites:
Are we loving everyone equally? More importantly are we loving those outside the church equally?


I have a lot more to say on these topics and other relavent information, but you are going to have to stay posted on this blog and my upcoming posts on a continual basis!