Journey For A Chance

Disclaimer: This is the hard truth. No sugar coating. Agree or disagree, this is my belief. This blog entry is geared more towards Christians or those that claim to follow Christ. If you do not believe in the bible or in God this blog is probably not going to interest you. It’s a little lengthy so get ready.

Belief is a powerful thing. It can turn a person into the most dogmatic, intolerable, and unbearable person to be around OR it can turn a person into the most flexible, understanding, and humble person to be around. The thing I’ve learned about the differences in people’s beliefs is that most will never admit they’re wrong no matter what fact, proof, or example you give them stating otherwise. I, myself, am a very black and white person. There’s usually not much room for the “gray”. I have a set of beliefs that I was raised to believe in and over the course of my almost 29 years I have tweaked them here and there depending upon my own personal findings, revelations, and research. I don’t normally take things at face value. I always want the facts behind the picture. For example, if I go to the doctor and get a diagnoses I’m going straight home to research it on the Internet, books, or by asking friends. I want several resources to choose from and facts to back it up. I want statics, causes, treatments, probabilities, etc… This is where my husband would consider me a “nerd” and I guess in this particular area, I am indeed. If someone makes a statement and I’m not sure it’s true, I will research it to prove it true or false and then I will correct that person if needed. This may be one of my most annoying character traits and it may be why I don’t have a lot of friends. I question just about everything and everyone.

The one thing I won’t question is the validity of God’s Word. The Bible is such a huge topic of controversy and it’s probably because it “rocks people’s boats”, challenges their thinking, and makes them feel convicted because of the way they choose to live. I’m sure most people throw it out and choose not to believe because they don’t want to try and live up to the standard. Families, friendships, governments, and countries have been divided because of the words in this book. Because people have different sets of beliefs regarding God, his son Jesus, and the Word of God (bible), sadly, there are relationships that have been torn to pieces and will probably never be put back together. In my humble opinion, the reason for most of this is because…People take from the Bible what lines up with their beliefs and what doesn’t appeal to them, they discard it as false or irrelevant. I see it everyday, especially on Facebook. So called “Christians” who, even when you show them bible disproving their belief in something, say the Bible is incorrect in that area. My question is…When did it become ok for a “Christian” to pick and choose what to believe out of the bible? When did it become ok to say one thing that God inspired was wrong but another thing was right? I don’t understand it. Although I could, I probably won’t get into specific scriptures but I will give some topic examples in a bit.

I am a conservative. My parents weren’t anything growing up. We went to church every week and came home. They didn’t vote. They didn’t do jury duty. They were not interested in anything of that nature. This is one thing I tweaked as an adult. I registered to vote as soon as I turned 18 and I’ve voted in every major election since that day. Now, with a mixture of my Christian upbringing, personal convictions, and personality I have a set of beliefs that I live by and rely on daily and with the current trend of this changing world and their tolerance for all things “anti-bible” and “anti-God” it’s been very difficult to live those out without backlash. This is fine to me because I don’t usually care what others think but I believe the difficulty will continue to worsen until Christians, even in the US, start seeing persecution that they’ve only read about in books.

The reason all of this came about as my writing piece is because of the current controversy surrounding SO many issues that the bible clearly talks about.

I am a firm believer that people can believe what they want. I try hard not to judge or criticize anyone for their beliefs. I’m sure I fail, like we all do, but I try to be respectful and see where they are coming from at least. I will give fact or comparison to my views vs their views but in the end you can believe what you wish. My pet peeve is when people start trying to state “facts” and its clear that they have NO clue what they are talking about and they are simply voicing fact-sounding opinions to make themselves sound smart. I’ve seen it so many times and it’s these instances where I usually just shake my head and move along. No sense in arguing with the uneducated…especially about the bible. And you can always tell when someone has pulled something off the Internet to prove a point instead of going straight to the source…the ACTUAL bible. Nowadays, people just want to believe what makes them “feel” good. I have a hard truth to share with everyone, the bible will not always make you “feel” good. It will not always make you comfortable. It is challenging. It goes against MOST of today’s world views. It is not popular. It is not easy. Yes, Jesus loves everyone. I mean Geez, the man died a horrible death on a cross so that we would ALL have a way to spend eternity with him and the Father starting on earth and ending in heaven when we die, IF we follow him. The bible will not change to fit your beliefs. If you’re going to follow Jesus Christ (aka: being a “Christ-ian”) he expects you to follow him in all things. Being a Christian is NOT easy, that’s another reason most people throw out the very idea. It goes against everything in their human nature. They want to sin, be selfish, and do what they want. They don’t want to surrender their life to a God who expects more out of them than what they expect of themselves. Some “Christians” make it look easy breezy because they have not educated themselves on what it means to truly sacrifice and follow Jesus. They give themselves a label but there is no substance behind it. To non-Christians: Some “Christians” are judgmental fools but you can’t base your opinions about the whole lot on those people. However, in saying that, just because a Christian doesn’t agree with your world view doesn’t mean they are “bigots”, “hypocrites”, or any other name you want to call them. That would be like a Christian calling you a “sinner”, “heathen”, etc. That wouldn’t make you very happy, would it? That’s another thing that angers me. Some people preach tolerance to the death but as soon as someone disagrees with them, tolerance flies out the window. That is really the definition of a hypocrite.

I say all of this to lead up to my next statement. If you are a Christian you have to believe the word of God is true. The complete Word of God. If you do not believe the word of God is true, then you do not believe Jesus is true. If you do not believe Jesus is true, you can not call yourself a Christian. I will give 2 scriptures to back this up:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1, 14 NIV)
In other words, the Word of God is Jesus. Do a study of these scripture and you will find it is referring to Jesus as the Word. You can NOT throw out parts of the bible that don’t fit your world views. It is what it is, like it or not. This is not my opinion, this is the bible. If you don’t like it, take it up with God.

Lets face the facts, everyone makes mistakes and everyone sins. I do, you do. Jesus died 1 death to redeem us from all sin, so no sin is bigger than the other but when we start justifying our mistakes and sins to the point of calling them “right”…then there is a major problem.

In closing…God loves everyone and Jesus died for all sin and all people. This does not mean, just because he loves you and me, that he condones the way we choose to live our lives. You can’t follow Jesus and continue to purposefully sin because you feel it’s your right to do what you want and/or feel the way you want. When you’re a Christian, your life is no longer yours, but God’s and the bible is your book to live by. When we sin, we should learn from our mistakes, turn to the Word, and ask God to help us walk away from that sin that is clouding our walk with Jesus. A relationship with Jesus doesn’t normally make sense to a non-Christian because they usually don’t let “faith” play into their daily lives but when you come to the realization that through a relationship with Jesus, God can make you a brand-new person on the inside, not just a better person, you will understand living life any other way just doesn’t make sense.