My friend showed me this band
Quite real.
http://www.facebook.com/theNehemiahBand
I wish that people’s speech wasn’t always so complicated
I wish the vision of my heart wasn’t so near-sighted
I wish that I could discern my passion from my pride
I wish that I was immune to self-motivated lies
I wish that I could be an overcomer in the struggle of
Trying to decipher these holy people. They surround me.
That’s the cancer of our Christianity
Is your labor for the Kingdom or is it for your ministry?
I want to be free from that, I want to be free to laugh
With the people of God who absolve the past
Too many analytical minds always taking notes
Can’t we administer grace instead of throwing stones?
And frankly, they aren’t stupid. Often times, it’s easy to disregard them as ignorant blubbering fools who parade all day long, but if they get one thing about God right, it’s his ability to judge. There will be fags going to hell. And God will hate those fags. But there will also be plenty of straight people going to hell as well. And God will hate those…straights.
The thing that WestBoro gets wrong is the position to judge, as in, if you take every statement God makes about destroying people, out of wrath, then you have the WestBoro church. WestBoro takes it in their hands to dictate who God pours his wrath out on. To make it clear, WestBoro actually believes that God hates everyone who does not follow his law. Which is everyone. And they say that God loves those who pursue him. Which are Christians…I suppose.
I just wanted to say: they know their Bible too. When I look at them, sometimes I wonder how much different I am from them.
And I realize, perhaps not as much as I’d like to believe.
I encourage you guys to look at them. They get a lot of haters (kind of like a lot of Christian tumblrs and formsprings out there), but they also have all their answers prepared. And they answer gently too, they don’t just say HEATHENS GO BURN IN HELL. They say, if you don’t repent (in their method of course) , you are hated by God. And you will go to Hell. And then they proceed in blowing this up.
http://twitter.com/MEGANPHELPS
When I first wrote, or I should say re-wrote, “Joy” I had no idea the
wave it would make. I have received countless emails, questions, and
comments on this one song, several with the similar theme of “she sure
does not sound joyful to me!” I’ve even had people tell me that they
did not…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z7Mjc78LdU
It’s odd. Joy.
The Dedication, I thought, could be useful.
”The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of
Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn.”—Luther
”The devill . . the prowde spirite . . cannot endure to be mocked.”—Thomas More
“No doubt you’ll tell me why, on your view, I was sent [to Hell]. I’m not angry.”
“But don’t you know? You went there because you are an apostate.”
“Are you serious, Dick?”
“Perfectly.”
“This is worse than I expected. Do you really think people are penalised for their honest opinions? Even assuming, for the sake of argument, that those opinions were mistaken.”
“Do you really think there are no sins of intellect?”
“There are indeed, Dick. There is hidebound prejudice, and intellectual dishonesty, and timidity,and stagnation. But honest opinions fearlessly followed-they are not sins.”
….
“I’m far from denying that young men may make mistakes. They may well be influenced by current fashions of thought. But it’s not a question of how the opinions are formed. The point is that they were my honest opinions, sincerely expressed.”
“Of course. Having allowed oneself to drift, unresisting,unpraying , accepting every half-conscious solicitation from our desires, we reached a point where we no longer believed the Faith. Just in the same way, a jealous man, drifting and unresisting, reaches a point at which he believes lies about his best friend: a drunkard reaches a point at which (for the moment) he actually believes that another glass will do him no harm. The beliefs are sincere in the sense that they do occur as psychological events in the man’s mind. If that’s what you mean by sincerity they are sincere, and so were ours. But errors which are sincere in that sense are not innocent.”
-CS Lewis’ The Great Divorce
I’m fake, insincere and, frankly, am not dealing with the issues in my life.
I feel like God is not the God in my life, rather, simply a high priority.
what does it look like to pursue after God? I wish I had a role model, someone to follow.
I wish I had someone perfect.
(The answer is Jesus).
I think I’ve realized how big of a hypocrite I am. I think I’ve realized how pharisee-ish I am. How could I not love?
And then I thought, where is the church? Why have I never loved like this before?
Why is this not apparent in the church?
How can we hope to spread the Gospel without spreading love first?
Jesus himself did not go around saying that He is the Son. He instead loved on others, and, in turn, they responded.
Yet, in the same way, we need to spread the Gospel.
There’s this guy named Alex at USC (super wise)
He described it as the Gospel is as a beautiful woman, and that the love and good actions we perform is like adding jewelry. Without the woman, we just have some cool looking stuff. With just the woman we have some beauty. With both, we have beauty on beauty.
He also said that there was a verse in Phillipians or something that said there is no time where the Gospel goes out and coems back void, as in, it did not do what it was it was supposed to do.
I think it’s a reminder that there is victory regardless. I don’t know why, but this has hit me hard. It’s like God telling me
Joseph, you have done well, my good and faithful servant.
And I’m overcome by it.
Let me give a quick summary of what happened today:
Went to Parish(?) Square. Gave free sandwiches to two world war two veterans. Talked to them for about an hour and a half. Went to Skid Row. Talked to one guy. Just watched people. Went back to USC. Helped my friend pack gifts for Operation Christmas Child. Celebrate my friend’s birthday.
So this overall day have been eyeopening and relieving to finally understand the problem I have with the Church, or, rather, the problem I have with myself.
The Two world war two veterans’ names were George and Terry. They were drafted into the war. George was a marine. He is also an alcoholic. When he grew older, his kids kicked him out of the house for being such an alcoholic. It’s sad, but there must be so much pain and hurt in this man’s life.
George on the other hand. He was jacked up. When I looked into his eyes, for a moment I thought he was blind, or hard of vision. Which could have been true. But I think it was because he saw a lot of crap. Here’s a couple conversations we had:
1)
George: Terry? He’s really smart and intelligent. He teaches me a lot. Right Terry?
Terry:…
George: Say something Terry!
Terry:…I am the Devil.
I have been for 60 years.
Everyone hates me and want to kill me.
I want to kill them.
He kept repeating this 5 or 6 times. He would laugh after everytime he said “I am the Devil.”
2)
Terry: Fuck everyone. Fuck God. Heaven was something your mom made up for you.
George: You’re going to hell man. Don’t say that.
Terry: …
3)
George: Terry’s really smart. He’s really intelligent. Say something Terry!
Terry:…
George: C’mon man. Talk!
Terry:…
George: Talk like a man!
Terry:…*Looks at me and my suitemate Brian* Kill. Kill. Kill.
At that moment, I wasn’t as much afraid as heartbroken. This man was 60+ years old. He has diabetes. I’m pretty sure he also had arthritis. If he attacked me, I’m sure I could run away faster. But his eyes were so sad, rather than angry. His interpretation that, in order to stay a man, you must kill.
3)George: Terry! What did you do in Vietnam? What did you do there?
Terry:…
George: C’mon Man! Tell these people what you did!
Terry: Kill lots of people.
George: (slightly crestfallen) Besides that, man.
Terry: Nothin’.
Dang.
There was a lot of Terry because it was his brokenness that was most communicated to me, but George was also pretty messed up. His daughters and his nephews kicked him out and left him on the street. He has diabetes. He doesn’t have a place to sleep. He barely gets food. He calls himself a Christian. He used to be an alcoholic. He might still be one, who knows? He went to Vietnam, his brother, his friends, his cousins died there before he was enlisted. And then he fought. And then he came back.
George also loved Terry. Cared for him immensely at least. This man has my admiration, yet my pity, yet my hard-heartedness, yet my sorrow.
This is what love is about. This is what God is calling us to do. He doesn’t call us to go to the poor and simply just give out food and water. He calls us to consider them brothers. Jesus would frequently first love on people, then spread the Gospel and the truth of why they were there.
Another interesting instance of my Christianity being challenged was Brian wanted to check out skid row. I joined him. We were walking down the road, obviously out of place. Some man walks to us and says
Hey are you spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ?
Us:…Kind of.
While the gospel of Jesus Christ was important, it was something that we felt that we shouldn’t specifically bring up, or force, or entice. We wanted to love first, preach later.
“We’re here to understand what these people are going through, and, hopefully, to spread the good news of Jesus.”
Me and Brian are Chiense. This man had a notion that many chinese people are wealthy. And that it was simply an insult and a hypocrisy for rich people to walk over from their rich world and help out those in need. It was true. We are hypocrites. We are pharisees. We talk about the good news. We talk about transformation. We talk about all these high and lofty terms, but we don’t love.
The verse that I’ve been thinking about is John’s petition to the church in 1 John 3: 17-18
17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
What are we doing? How can we even think of spreading the Gospel to the projects? What type of hypocrites are we? The worst type: the ones who don’t even know.
It was alleviating to know that someone else understood the issue with the church that I was having. I’ve been annoyed by the fact that people feel an obligation to love, or, they use events like going to skid row or Operation Christmas child or 30 hour famine to hypothetically show love. Rather, it should be totally different. We should love all the time. Events shouldn’t define our love the way it does.
There’s more. But I need to go to church.
I’ve been doing poorly lately.
I’ve doubted Christianity, have I really heard from God? Or if I have, have I heard from him recently?
Is God really a personal God, who dwells with me and is compassionate, and is he really affecting me today?
The thing about faith is that a mustard seed faith is so easy to crush.
I can love others.
I can’t seem to love God.
At the very least, I think I’ve produced the judgment that I am lukewarm.
What does loving others even mean?
I mean, to me love seems like a bunch of ettiquette, of being nice to others, of consider others better than yourself.
I’ve done that. But love is supposed to be more, it’s supposed to be superhuman, beyond what man can accomplish and into the hands of God.
Maybe it’s also a bit frustrating to see people in my fellowship not achieving that love.
I assume it stems from a love towards God, can we really love others.
Then, if we do not love others, do we love God? I can do everything a Christian fellowship can do, without praying. Without God, it seems. It makes me think that any non-Christian can love to how much I do, and much more, if they wanted to.
Then I’m no different. Not just not different, I’m not a Christian. Christians feels like a high and lofty term right now. I know it’s for the weak, for the broken. I’m definitely weak and broken. But the thing is I don’t feel redeemed. I don’t feel like I’m in the hands of a capable God.
I’m still Christian. I think. Or at least, I’ll still call myself Christian. I’m redeemed. I just don’t have the confidence in it.
Does that mean I’m not redeemed?
Sigh. Don’t dump Bible on me please.
Has God trusted you with His silence— a silence that has great meaning? God’s silences are actually His answers. Just think of those days of absolute silence in the home at Bethany! Is there anything comparable to those days in your life? Can God trust you like that, or are you still asking Him for a visible answer? God will give you the very blessings you ask if you refuse to go any further without them, but His silence is the sign that He is bringing you into an even more wonderful understanding of Himself. Are you mourning before God because you have not had an audible response? When you cannot hear God, you will find that He has trusted you in the most intimate way possible— with absolute silence, not a silence of despair, but one of pleasure, because He saw that you could withstand an even bigger revelation. If God has given you a silence, then praise Him— He is bringing you into the mainstream of His purposes. The actual evidence of the answer in time is simply a matter of God’s sovereignty. Time is nothing to God. For a while you may have said, “I asked God to give me bread, but He gave me a stone instead” (see Matthew 7:9). He did not give you a stone, and today you find that He gave you the “bread of life” (John 6:35). A wonderful thing about God’s silence is that His stillness is contagious— it gets into you, causing you to become perfectly confident so that you can honestly say, “I know that God has heard me.” His silence is the very proof that He has. As long as you have the idea that God will always bless you in answer to prayer, He will do it, but He will never give you the grace of His silence. If Jesus Christ is bringing you into the understanding that prayer is for the glorifying of His Father, then He will give you the first sign of His intimacy— silence. -Oswald Chambers, “Daily Devotions”When He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was —John 11:6