Change Should We Really Hate It?

Recently where I work we have been going through a lot change, nothing that’s new to me, or anyone else.  We all go through changes, yet it is one of the most hated things.  Most people do not like change they tend to really dislike it, at best most times they hate it.  I find myself in an odd spot to complain about change, since I have at times made changes that have been disliked.  I understand that change is not always fun and sometimes comes at inconvenient times.  I wondered why we hate change so much, after all isn’t change happening all the time.  If we didn’t change we would never grow, think about that for a second. If we were born and stayed a baby and never changed then the simple conclusion is none of us would be around.  At some point in history someone said we should build our houses out of wood instead leaves.  What if when electricity came around everyone said stop right there, we have lived long enough without it so let us not go any further with this crazy notion. We don’t want change.

We all have that friend that changed how they ate and started working out then lost a bunch weight, most of us congratulate them.  Ever think of how much of a challenge it was for the person, around every corner was someone saying, skip working out, you can eat unhealthy it’s ok.  I think, and I may be wrong but, I think we all dislike change because it scares us.  We are afraid of change because it means we have to start doing things differently, we are worried that we might miss out on something big.  We don’t want to start budgeting because then we are going to see what we have to get rid of in order to save money and pay off debt.  We are scared that people are going to talk bad about us if we tell them that we stopped eating out to save money, or worse yet think we are going broke.  We are worried if we change that we are going to lose friends.  What if we began to embrace change, and really look deep into our lives and say what do we need to do to live a better, more satisfying life.

What if instead of fighting change we began to embrace change, I’m not talking about change at work or who gets elected.  I’m talking about taking a good long look at our lives and saying what do I need to do to become the best person I can be.  Maybe you have always wanted to be finically free, but you have been too afraid to make the changes you need to make because you like living life as you have been and you’re afraid of what you might miss if you get rid of cable, vacations, eating out.  Maybe you have been wanting to get in shape but you are afraid to take the steps needed to lose the extra weight, you are afraid everyone is going to stare at you when you walk in gym (trust me they won’t), you’re afraid of starting and not finishing.  Who knows what is holding you back from doing what you want to do.  What if we started living life, embracing change, and saying I was once afraid to do new things and I never realized how much I missed because of it. 

This part is for those who follow God, or those who want to follow God.  I realize that many times the church is extremely anti-change, yet it is unavoidable, everything changes.  I have lived through some of the most interesting times, I have seen more change in music, movies, television shows.  I realize that it’s not all bad, but it is not all good either.  I am going say that we know that God’s love has not changed, God’s law has not changed, God’s perfect Judgment has not changed.  But we as Christians need to be changing, not how we worship God, not the church buildings, I am talking about our relationship with God, we need to begin to take a long hard look at how are we living our lives. Are we truly living our live to bring honor to God?  Are we looking to draw closer to God, are we doing things that are separating us from God and therefore damaging or walk with Him?  What are we as Christians afraid of? Are we afraid of losing friends, being made fun by our peers, what we might be missing out on?  Christ came to change us, to bring light into a dark.  Christ said in John 3:16-20; “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it. “There is no judgment awaiting those who trust him. But those who do not trust him have already been judged for not believing in the only Son of God. Their judgment is based on this fact: The light from heaven came into the world, but they loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. They hate the light because they want to sin in the darkness. They stay away from the light for fear their sins will be exposed and they will be punished. But those who do what is right come to the light gladly, so everyone can see that they are doing what God wants.”

Who Are To Judge?

As I think about what Paul told the Jews in Romans 2:17-3:31, I cannot help but think how does this impact how I live, what about today’s church.  I am by no means perfect I’m still working on being a better husband, friend, co-worker, and pastor.  I say all this because what I am about to say may offend some people and I am ok with that, it most likely won’t offend most though.  But I have a feeling that Paul’s letter to the Romans offended some people but not most.  If we notice as Paul talks to Jews he points out that they are not perfect, that they are indeed hypocrites for not being able to follow the law, yet criticizing others who are not Jews and judging them.  What law is Paul talking about?  He talking about the Law that God gave Moses on Mt. Sanai the code that the Jews were to live, the Ten Commandments are a summary of the God’s Law.  Let us go just a bit further, if you recall there are also ceremonial laws with how the Jews were to worship to God.  These ceremonial laws are no longer needed with the death and resurrection of Christ; we are cleansed from our sins by way of the Blood.  So anytime Paul talks about the law he is talking about the ten commandments.

In these Verses Paul calls out the Jews about how they condemn the gentiles and yet they too are also sinners (read Romans 2:17-29).  He tells them because they think they know the law it is for you to teach them how wrong they are, then ask them what good is teaching if you don’t follow it yourself.   He says to them; “The Jewish ceremony of circumcision is worth something only if you obey God’s law. But if you don’t obey God’s law, you are no better off than an uncircumcised Gentile. And if the Gentiles obey God’s law, won’t God give them all the rights and honors of being his own people?” (Romans 2:25-26) This is what got to me how many of us are acting like the self-righteous Jews? How many of us are looking down on people saying I’m better than they are because I go to church and I know that what they do is wrong.  Yet we completely ignore what is wrong in our own lives, we ignore the fact that we are to be humbling ourselves in prayer to a Holy God, we ignore that we accept some sins yet others we harp on as if they are worse than others.   What if I told you that we are called to live out God’s love, forgive those who have wronged us, and we are not to judge others, if they are not believer’s.  Christ even warned his followers about this.  “Stop judging others, and you will not be judged.  For others will treat you as you treat them. Whatever measure you use in judging others, it will be used to measure how you are judged.  And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye?  Hypocrite! First get rid of the log from your own eye; then perhaps you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.” (Matthew 7:1-5)

How many times have you judged others, how many times have you said “at least I’m not as bad as”, or just looked down on someone?  How is this living out the commands of God?  We are not called by God to place judgment on this world, we are called by God to seek out God and proclaim His love for others.  I feel that we are going to be much more effective as a Church if we begin to reject sin as being ok, all sin, and stop focusing on just one or two sins.  we as individual’s really need to begin to focus on our relationship with God and live a life that reflects that.  Paul told the people in romans 2:28-29, “For you are not a true Jew just because you were born of Jewish parents or because you have gone through the Jewish ceremony of circumcision. No, a true Jew is one whose heart is right with God. And true circumcision is not a cutting of the body but a change of heart produced by God’s Spirit. Whoever has that kind of change seeks praise from God, not from people.”  How many of us are living to please others, or even living to please ourselves?  We need to realize that we are all sinners, Paul explains in chapter three how the more we understand the Law, the more we realize that we are sinners.  But that there is hope, that Christ took our punishment, we only need to accept the gift.  We did not earn this; we cannot redeem ourselves.  We must stop looking at others and judging them, and start looking and digging into God’s word, seeking out God in prayer, sincerely asking for God to give us understanding of His law, and working toward living out a life that brings glory and praise to God.

Isn't About Time We Start being Adults?

Have we noticed a strange trend in this country, of people not wanting to be adults?  I just heard about a place where adults can go and pretend to be in preschool, no joke they charge a crazy amount of money per week.  We now have gummy vitamins for adults, I am continually hearing wives’ compline about their husbands playing video games.  All off this seems strange to me, I enjoyed certain things when I was a child, but as I grew up and became an adult I begin to enjoy being an adult, I took on responsibilities, a job, home repairs, making sure that we have the money to pay all of our bills.  Knowing how to dress for certain occasions.  Knowing that if I so chose to do so I could stay up past mid-night, which I rarely do unless we go to Drive-In movies or have company over.  I have actually heard grown adults say I don’t really want to be an adult.

What is so wrong with being an adult, is it the fact that we have to become responsible for our own actions?  As an adult there’s no one to blame, we can’t blame mom and dad for not telling us it was time to go to bed.  Do we not enjoy having to go to a job most days so we can pay our bills?  I feel one of the worst things happening in this country is that adults are no longer being adults.  They have decided that they want to stay teenagers, play video games, take gummy/chewable gummies.  The thing they also want is all the benefits of being adults without having any of the responsibilities.   Want a good marriage? You have to work at it.  You have to carve out time to be with your wife, you have to talk to your wife and listen to her, same goes for you wives.  The problem is many people want to be teenagers so instead of actually working at being married they end up living in the same house but grow apart because they don’t want to work it out.   Many people want to move up in their place of work, they don’t want to work hard at it though.  They just think you need to give them the promotion without working all that hard.  You know a lot like how high school worked, you didn’t need to work that hard to keep moving up.

I feel this is even more important for those of us who have decided to follow Christ, we are so excited when we come to follow Christ, but then we decided we love just being young Christians.  They decide that is where they want to stay, they don’t want to grow in Christ because that would mean they might have to change.  The writer of Hebrews scolded his readers for this, “There is so much more we would like to say about this. But you don’t seem to listen, so it’s hard to make you understand. You have been Christians a long time now, and you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things a beginner must learn about the Scriptures. You are like babies who drink only milk and cannot eat solid food. And a person who is living on milk isn’t very far along in the Christian life and doesn’t know much about doing what is right. Solid food is for those who are mature, who have trained themselves to recognize the difference between right and wrong and then do what is right.”^[1]  What if we began to work towards being adults and putting away our childish things and really begin to experience a new and experience in adulthood.

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^[1]Holy Bible : New Living Translation. 1997 (Heb 5:10-6:1). Tyndale House: Wheaton, Ill.

Sunday Thoughts: Self-Centerdness Is It Really that Bad? ( A Study On Romans 1:18-2:16

If we are going to have any type of study or discussion on the book of Romans, we have to take a look at Paul’s introduction.  The problem with the introduction is the fact that Paul gives us a lesson on the topic of sin.  People really don’t like this idea of sin, or that it exists.  We want to go on with our lives and to do what we want to do without any real consequence, the only problem is if we want to proclaim the gospel to be true then we have to admit that sin is real.  In Romans 1:18-2:16 Paul makes the argument that sin is real and gives us a clear definition of sin.  He explains how people from the beginning of time ignored the laws of God.  In Romans 1:28-32 Paul tells us, “When they refused to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their evil minds and let them do things that should never be done. Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, fighting, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They are forever inventing new ways of sinning and are disobedient to their parents.  They refuse to understand, break their promises, and are heartless and unforgiving. They are fully aware of God’s death penalty for those who do these things, yet they go right ahead and do them anyway. And, worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.”^[1]  Take note at how Paul describes the sinful nature the words that he uses, I underlined them for you.  It would seem all of those describe one who is centered on themselves, they care for only doing things that make them feel good.

As we look deeper into what Paul is saying it is that they choose themselves, their own wants, and desires instead of living for God.  After all isn’t that what Satin tempted Adam and Eve with?  “God knows that your eyes will be opened when you eat it. You will become just like God, knowing everything, both good and evil.”^[2]  When we begin to dissect sin we begin to notice something interesting at the center of sin is self-centeredness.  The idea is that we must do what we want, and do things that feel good.  What’s wrong with doing what makes us feel good as long as it doesn’t harm others?  As long as we are good people and know God’s word, isn’t that enough to get into heaven to have eternal life?  Is God really going to punish us for doing things that goes against His own law if doesn’t affect anyone else?  “God will punish the Gentiles when they sin, even though they never had God’s written law. And he will punish the Jews when they sin, for they do have the law.  For it is not merely knowing the law that brings God’s approval. Those who obey the law will be declared right in God’s sight.  Even when Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, instinctively follow what the law says, they show that in their hearts they know right from wrong.  They demonstrate that God’s law is written within them, for their own consciences either accuse them or tell them they are doing what is right.  The day will surely come when God, by Jesus Christ, will judge everyone’s secret life. This is my message.”^[3]

We have hope, we have the gospel, and we can put our faith in God, and in the Blood of Christ, but we must turn from our sin and begin to desire the things of God.  The prophet Ezekiel told Israel; “Therefore, I will judge each of you, O people of Israel, according to your actions, says the Sovereign Lord. Turn from your sins! Don’t let them destroy you!  Put all your rebellion behind you, and get for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O people of Israel?  I don’t want you to die, says the Sovereign Lord. Turn back and live!”^[4]  The problem is that our self-centeredness doesn’t want to die, the world around is going to encourage it.  The world does not want to be told that what they are doing is wrong and the world wants to encourage us to live as we want to, do what we want to do.  Christ said; “There is no judgment awaiting those who trust him. But those who do not trust him have already been judged for not believing in the only Son of God. Their judgment is based on this fact: The light from heaven came into the world, but they loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. They hate the light because they want to sin in the darkness. They stay away from the light for fear their sins will be exposed and they will be punished. But those who do what is right come to the light gladly, so everyone can see that they are doing what God wants.”^[5]

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^[1]Holy Bible : New Living Translation. 1997 (Ro 1:28-2:1). Tyndale House: Wheaton, Ill.

^[2]Holy Bible : New Living Translation. 1997 (Ge 3:4-5). Tyndale House: Wheaton, Ill.

^[3]Holy Bible : New Living Translation. 1997 (Ro 2:12-16). Tyndale House: Wheaton, Ill.

^[4]Holy Bible : New Living Translation. 1997 (Eze 18:30-19:1). Tyndale House: Wheaton, Ill.

^[5]Holy Bible : New Living Translation. 1997 (Jn 3:17-21). Tyndale House: Wheaton, Ill.

Can We Really Talk or Have A Discussion?

Can we talk, no really I mean can we as Americans have a discussion with one another?  I come to realize that people can’t have differing thoughts or opinions then others.  If someone disagrees with someone all of sudden name calling starts.  Let us take for example how when Sony released the new Ghostbusters trailer, many people came out and said it looked like a horrible movie. Sony pictures began to trash the naysayers, calling them sexist, nerds who lived in their parent’s basements, and continued to name call anyone who didn’t like the trailers.  The movie critics then came out and praised it saying how great it was, but the people I talked to who went and saw it based on the critics said it was a horrible movie.  All that said to make a point that all of sudden in the last few years we have gone to a strange phase of calling people, racist, sexist, religious fanatics, and so on, if they do not believe the same as us.  It would seem that instead having a discussion to talk about other people’s views and thoughts on things we brand them and scream about how horrible they are.

What if we stopped branding so fast, what if we sat down talked about ideas realized that sometimes we are not always going to agree.  This also means we must not force people to do things that they do not believe in.   It means that we begin to respect other people’s point of view, we are not always going to get them to agree with us and that is ok.  I believe that we beginning to group everyone as extremist, most people are not extremist.  The problem is that the news covers the extremist. Why? Because they are the ones making the most noise.  Most of us are trying to live our lives, sometimes we are afraid to tell people what our viewpoints are because then they are going to say, “oh you are one of them.”   Meaning we are with who the extremists are trying to make us out to be.  I believe that is what happened with the critics for Ghostbusters, they were too afraid to say what they really thought of this movie, they didn’t want Sony pictures coming after them and labeling them.  Being a Christian I can only speak from what I know.  I realize that many are trying to make Christians out to be some radical hate group.  Saying that we are wanting people to do it our way or else, saying that we don’t love certain groups of people.  For some who call themselves Christians this might true, but it a small minority of the church.

I believe this to be true with every group, but the problem is we no longer talk in this country.  We have taken on this idea of not being able to have our own beliefs and if you don’t believe the same things I do then forget you.  Instead of trying to talk and openly discuss ideas on religion and politics we are becoming afraid to say anything because we might offend someone.  So now the smaller parts (extremist) of all the groups are busy trying to lobby for laws forcing people to do things that they may not agree with or believe in.  What if we took a collective step back took a deep breath and said let’s talk, not scream, not hate on, not name call or label each other.  But let us talk and at the end we may not agree with each but we can still be friends and not be ashamed or afraid to speak our beliefs with one another.   We understand that we are people that need love, as a follower of Christ I believe we are made in God’s own image and because of that we need to love one another, respect one another, even those who disrespect us.  After all Christ told this, “^You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ^But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, ^that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. ^For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ^And if you greet your ⁷brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? ^Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”(Mt 5:43-48)