by Ambrozjo
A week or two ago my pastor talked about Hope, Joy and Thankfulness. As I prayed over the topic I recalled a simple obstacle to these three great tools to live life. It is at once a great obstacle but also a great tool that helps me LIVE now, and not just survive.
I call them “The Only’s.” Read more…
Ok, this is waaay longer than my average blog post so grab a cup of coffee and get comfortable. This is a continuation from God (read HOPE) in Schools posted 10/25/2011 and part of a longer/larger conversation that started on facebook. A lot of stuff was covered in that conversation but this post is designed to get back to the core point of conention that started the discussion which is the image pictured left. Comments, and disagreements are very much welcome.
Logic tells us that if A + B = C then whenever A and B are together they will yield C. If however, A and B are together and it does not yield C then we must question our original premise.
Example, Ask and you shall receive. Christians in the United States have long been asking for Jesus to invade the schools and yet we continue to see examples of violence and conflict that very clearly indicate that Jesus has not made his presence known. Logic therefore demands that we question our premise by saying “Either God does not exist, God does not answer prayers or God does not hear prayer.” Christians meanwhile, are loathe to accept either of the three explanations as possibilities and insist that the real reason there hasn’t been an outbreak of signs and wonders in the halls of the local junior high school is the result of “evil” secular authorities refusing to advocate or endorse Christianity as the faith of the school.
OK let me be perfectly upfront and honest about this post since I’m supposed to be on sabbatical from blogging. Someone i know made a comment about how God is not allowed in schools. This was followed by someone else delivering a very passionate defense of the secular school system ending with “besides if God allows violence in schools for no better reason than he is not allowed in them, then he/she/it is not worth following.”
Now we (and by we I mean any Christian who has ever made any kind of attempt to share his or her faith with unbelieving friends) have all heard this argument before. This is the “why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?” defense that ends with “what kind of loving God can be so cruel?” Read more…
So I’ve been camping out on Matthew 13:45-46 lately. It’s a really short passage that has been a freaking lighthouse beacon for me. I mean I opened by bible at random this morning to read something and that’s the page I opened up to. I didn’t really want to read it again so I picked up a different bible, opened to a random page and VOILA – the same passage.
Now my first thoughts on the matter were recorded on @pacnwdadof6 ‘s blog HERE. Basically I say that the kingdom is worth much more than my limited hopes and dreams. I mean I’m faced with a God who able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that I can ask or think and all I can dream and hope for is some career stuff? That’s pretty lame when you think about the God of the universe saying “what you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Read more…
My mentor, my pastor, and my good friend challenged me this week with two pieces of scripture. Though whether he meant to challenge me or not is still in question, but he did it either way. The first challenge was to hear God’s heart for the city we live in. My words from yesterday don’t answer that challenge, but they are a step on the journey. The second challenge comes from 1 Peter 3:15 “And always be prepared to answer for the hope you have.”
Honestly I’m a little sad to live in the world in this season. It seems like every time I turn around something horrible is going on. The stock market is plummeting, unemployment is rocketing, poverty is rampant, all creation itself seems to lash out at humanity in violent rages. Then, when you have Christians sharing the love of Christ, when you have men like Dan King, Andrew Marin, and Rob Morris building bridges and healing hearts, all you hear about are Fred Phelps and Pat Robertson (who I will NOT link to). You hear about Christians prophesying the end of the world and how the deaths of hundreds of thousands if not millions are the result of a wrathful God.
And it makes me wonder how I can have a hope for anything beyond my little corner of the world.
“But I know the plans I have for you….plans to prosper and not to harm you, to give you a hope and a future.”
“Put your hope in God who richly provides”
“For in this hope we were saved”
It isn’t the hope of future salvation either. It isn’t the hope that maybe someday, God will decide to make things better or the hope that Jesus is coming back some glorious day in the nebulous future.
It is the hope that comes from “Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we can ask or think.” It is the hope that comes from serving a faithful God who will not leave us or forsake us. It is the hope that comes from knowing that we have been saved for such a time as this.
The hope that comes from knowing Jesus is better than we can imagine, is bigger than we could ever pray for, and more wonderful than we can ever explain.
