My loyal reader(s) should already be familiar with the saying “do as I say, not as I do,” which is the hypocrite’s creed. Unfortunately, it’s slowly evolving into the Christian’s creed. Brennan Manning, a Christian author and speaker, famously put it this way:
The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.
We see this happening everywhere. For example, on Facebook, people will write glowing things about Jesus in the “Basic Info” portion of their profiles, but will openly disregard his teachings via their pictures, status updates, and messages on other people’s Walls.
I won’t argue with people for wanting to set their religious views to say “I Love Jesus,” and it’s not my place to condemn everyone who updates their status to boast of having sex after homecoming or prom. But if you have both on your Facebook profile, this post is for you. Pick one or the other—either the religious views or the hints about your current lifestyle—but if you wanna send a message to the world that you are undisciplined and immoral, don’t do it on God’s rep.
If you know that I “got ya” in this post, I have an ultimatum for you. You can change the religious views portion of your profile to “atheism.” Bring down that belief system, not the one that is supposed to be an example to the world (as stated in Matthew 5:16). Or, even better, you can change your life.
If you take option 1, you can continue to live in disgrace as you take advantage of His grace, and I won’t be the one to stop you. But if you take option 2, please know that God will help you every step of the way and that I, too, support you 100%.
One of the biggest problems I see in Christians right now is the inability to walk by faith. Normally, when I see this kind of problem, I try to offer solutions. However, faith isn’t something that can be taught... the only way to learn it is to experience it. But what I can offer to you is an explanation of what it really means to walk by faith. This is a true story I heard from my dad:
When my family lived in Tulsa, we went to church with a man whom we shall call Jimmithy and his wife whom we shall call B’tilda. (Yes, they’re back!) Jimmithy had recently lost his job and couldn’t afford to stay in the house he had been living in. His wife’s parents were on an extended vacation and weren’t using their home, so they opened it up to Jimmithy and his family. But Jimmithy and B’tilda knew that if they didn’t force themselves to move out by a certain date, they would never move out. So they prayed and felt like God was telling them to move out by November twelvtieth (or something). So on November twelvtieth (or something), they invited a bunch of people from the church to come help them load their stuff in a U-Haul truck.
Part of walking by faith is simply a matter of total obedience. Jimmithy and B’tilda had no idea where they would be staying on the night of November twelvtieth (or something), but they did their part by moving out of B’tilda’s parents’ house when they did. And the story doesn’t end there.
Everybody who helped load U-Haul trucks naturally assumed that Jimmithy and B’tilda knew exactly where they were hauling their stuff... until someone decided to ask Jimmithy where they were going. Someone else, who was only in town by fluke, overheard the conversation and heard about Jimmithy not knowing where his family would live while they looked for houses. He told Jimmithy about a house he owned and had been trying to sell for months, and offered free rent until Jimmithy could find a permanent solution.
If Jimmithy hadn’t obeyed God on that one day, he would have never gotten the offer for the temporary house. This is how God works. But, like I said, you can’t truly understand faith until you’ve experienced it first-person. So I want you to be looking for opportunities to act on faith... try it for yourself and see what you think. Join the millions of other satisfied customers today? This is a difficult post to end...
Here I am, making my glorious return to the blogosphere. After being away from it for the last month, I bet you can imagine how inspired I had to be to come back. The inspiration for this post came from a bumper sticker I saw at work recently, which said “Spiritual people inspire me. Religious people frighten me!” True to its purpose, this sticker made me start thinking about the differences between being spiritual and just being religious. Here are a few of the key differences I found:
RELIGIOUS PEOPLE...
SPIRITUAL PEOPLE...
...quote the Bible
...apply the Bible
...talk about God’s love
...demonstrate God’s love
...see Sunday morning as a chance to worship
...see their life as a chance to worship
...give money to God
...give time to God
...believe that their Christian lives can be “good enough”
...constantly look for ways to grow closer to God
Which one are you? Being religious is not enough. God created us to be spiritual. It’s our job. If you follow the job description on the left, you have the wrong idea about Christianity.
For my 15th birthday, my best friend and co-author of this blog, Justin, gave me a shirt that said “I live in my own little world... but it’s okay, they know me here.” I consider this to be one of the best gifts I ever got. As we start shopping for Christmas presents, I want to explain how to give a great gift.
1. Don’t give cash Everyone loves getting cash for Christmas, but that doesn’t make it a great gift. The shirt that Justin gave me probably cost around $10. If he had given me a $10 bill for my birthday, I probably would have put it in my ever-empty lunch account, effectively making my birthday present be M&M’s, a Twix bar, a Gatorade, and a pizza. This is what happens with cash... it gets spent. Granted, in larger amounts, cash has a different effect. For example, I used a lot of money from graduation to buy a nice case for my laptop (though I deposited the rest in a savings account). But I’m aware that the bulk of my audience won’t be able to spend more than $50 on anyone, making cash a no-no.
2. Give something that your friend wouldn’t think of It’s always nice to give someone what they asked for... but since when do people know what they want? The only time I remember staying content for a long time with a gift I specifically asked for was in 2005 when I got my iPod nano. If Justin had asked me what I wanted for my 15th birthday, I would not have asked for a shirt that would forever alter my personality. I’m not saying that Justin knew that the shirt would propel me into becoming a more outgoing person. But the gift still worked perfectly.
3. Give something that feels natural for you to give For my birthday a few years ago, my grandpa gave me a tool kit. I appreciated the tool kit and I still use it frequently. But what if I had gotten it from Justin, and Grandpa had given me a funny t-shirt? Would I be any less grateful for either one? No. But fixin’ stuff is already something I associate with Grandpa, and I already associate Justin with laughter. Even if Justin had given me a tool kit, it would hardly ever remind me of him when I used it. And a shirt would hardly remind me of what a wonderful grandpa I have. So, in a sense, it’s good to be somewhat selfish when you go Christmas shopping... if you know what I mean.
Naturally, the best gift anyone can get is Jesus, and I don’t intend to take away from that fact by writing about how to give material goods. This post is strictly written from a relationship perspective. With that much being said, though, I hope that everyone can now give a gift that says “I love you” rather than simply “I thought of you.”
I recently wrote about my discontentment with Preston Ridge Baptist Church. But today, at a church that I was visiting, I saw a video that caused me to question my motivation for “hopping churches.”
I know that I’m needed at Preston Ridge. For the last three weeks, though, I’ve been visiting different churches. I was right to say in my last post that I was surrounded by poor influences while at Preston Ridge... but maybe God’s intention is for me to influence them. And even though it’s true that I won’t be as spiritually engaged there as I am at Liberty Church in Tulsa, I still have opportunities to grow outside of Sunday morning church. These are the realizations I make when I choose a church based on where God needs me, not what I think I need.
©2005-2009 Ryan T. Wilson and Justin Venezio
