"Great Civilizations don't get toppled from the outside, they usually crumble from within. The greatest threat to America is not Terrorism, it is the breakdown of the home." -Rabbi Schmuley Boteach
I'm not all that concerned about the fall of America, in fact I beleive it is inevitable, but this Jewish rabbi has a point worthy of some thought.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Friday, January 12, 2007
Self-Centered Christianity
It seems to me that modern-day american Christianity has lost it's way.
Wait, strike that, true Christianity does not lose it's way, but what many of us call Christianity has strayed far from what the early church called Christianity.
We have forgotten the poor and catered to the rich. We have told people that God wants to give them wealth and health, but forgotten that Jesus said "Blessed are you who are poor" and "woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort".
We fight for our rights and our freedoms and forget that Jesus has called us to die to ourselves, to lay down our lives.
We file lawsuits and get our feathers all ruffled when the government takes the ten commandments out of our schools but forget that we are to "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse."
We get angry that Illegal Immigrants are coming into our country and taking "our jobs" when we could be ministering to these people.
We are the biggest advocates for the war in iraq in a blatant contradiction with what Jesus said when he said "love your enemies" and "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you."
How do we reconcile these? We cannot. The plain and simple truth is that we either believe one or the other. You cannot be selfless and dead to self and at the same time fight for your rights and freedoms.
America has adopted a self-centered Christianity, which is no Christianity at all. We have adopted Benjamin Franklin's idea that "God helps those who help themselves", which is not in the bible, by the way.
Biblical Christianity calls for the death of ourselves, the death of our desires, the death of our wants. It tells us to "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves."
It calls for us be radical followers of a radical Christ who denounced the pleasures of this fallen world for the life and light of heaven.
The following scriptures are just a few examples of what I'm talking about.
Luke 6:20-26
"Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
22Blessed are you when men hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.
23"Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your
reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets.
24"But woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort.
25Woe to you who are well fed now,
for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will mourn and weep.
26Woe to you when all men speak well of you,
for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets."
Philippians 2:3
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.
Matthew 5:10
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 19:21
Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
James 2:5
Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?
Revelation 3:17
You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.
James 1:27
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
Ephesians 4:22
You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;
1 Corinthians 13
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Wait, strike that, true Christianity does not lose it's way, but what many of us call Christianity has strayed far from what the early church called Christianity.
We have forgotten the poor and catered to the rich. We have told people that God wants to give them wealth and health, but forgotten that Jesus said "Blessed are you who are poor" and "woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort".
We fight for our rights and our freedoms and forget that Jesus has called us to die to ourselves, to lay down our lives.
We file lawsuits and get our feathers all ruffled when the government takes the ten commandments out of our schools but forget that we are to "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse."
We get angry that Illegal Immigrants are coming into our country and taking "our jobs" when we could be ministering to these people.
We are the biggest advocates for the war in iraq in a blatant contradiction with what Jesus said when he said "love your enemies" and "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you."
How do we reconcile these? We cannot. The plain and simple truth is that we either believe one or the other. You cannot be selfless and dead to self and at the same time fight for your rights and freedoms.
America has adopted a self-centered Christianity, which is no Christianity at all. We have adopted Benjamin Franklin's idea that "God helps those who help themselves", which is not in the bible, by the way.
Biblical Christianity calls for the death of ourselves, the death of our desires, the death of our wants. It tells us to "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves."
It calls for us be radical followers of a radical Christ who denounced the pleasures of this fallen world for the life and light of heaven.
The following scriptures are just a few examples of what I'm talking about.
Luke 6:20-26
"Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
22Blessed are you when men hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.
23"Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your
reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets.
24"But woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort.
25Woe to you who are well fed now,
for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will mourn and weep.
26Woe to you when all men speak well of you,
for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets."
Philippians 2:3
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.
Matthew 5:10
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 19:21
Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
James 2:5
Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?
Revelation 3:17
You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.
James 1:27
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
Ephesians 4:22
You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;
1 Corinthians 13
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
Are We Evangelicals Social Climbing?
This post is a direct quote from A.W. Tozer, out of the book "The Warfare of the Spirit", a compilation of his writings. This post really hit me, and makes a real point, one that we all should examine ourselves in the light of.
Are We Evangelicals Social Climbing?
"Traditionally Christianity has been the religion of the common people. Whenever the upper classes have adopted it in numbers, it has died. Respectability has almost always proved fatal to it.
The reasons back of this are two, one human and the other divine.
Schleiermacher has pointed out that at the bottom of all religion there lies a feeling of dependence, a sense of creature helplessness. The simple man who lives close to the earth lives also close to death and knows that he must look for help beyond himself; he knows that there is but a step between him and catastrophe. As he rises in the social and economic scale, he surrounds himself with more and more protective devices and pushes danger (so he thinks) farther and farther from him. Self-confidence displaces the feeling of dependence he once knew and God becomes less necessary to him. Should he stop to think this through he would know better than to place his confidence in things and people; but so badly are we injured by our moral fall that we are capable of deceiving ourselves completely and, if conditions favor it, to keep up the deception for a lifetime.
Along with the feeling of security that wealth and position bring comes an arrogant pride that shuts tightly the door of the heart to the waiting Savior. Our Very Important Man may indeed honor a church by joining it, but there is no life in his act. His religion is external and his faith nominal. Conscious respectability has destroyed him.
The second reason Christianity tends to decline as its devotees move up the social scale is that God will not respect persons nor share His glory with another. Paul sets this forth plainly enough in his First Corinthians epistle:
For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him (1 Corinthians 1:25–29).
When God sent His Son to redeem mankind He sent Him to the home of a working man and He grew up to be what we now call a peasant. When He presented Himself to Israel and launched into His earthly ministry, He was rejected by the respectable religionists and had to look for followers almost exclusively from among the poor, plain people. When the Spirit came and the church was founded, its first members were the socially unacceptable. For generations the church drew her numbers from among the lower classes, individual exceptions occurring now and again, of which Saul of Tarsus was the most noteworthy.
During the centuries since Pentecost the path of true Christianity has paralleled pretty closely the path Jesus walked when He was here on earth: it was to be rejected by the great and accepted by the lowly. The institutionalized church has certainly not been poor, nor has she lacked for great and mighty men to swell her membership. But this great church has had no power. Almost always the approval of God has rested upon small and marginal groups whose members were scorned while they lived and managed to gain acceptance only after they had been safely dead several score years.
Today we evangelicals are showing signs that we are becoming too rich and too prominent for our own good. With a curious disregard for the lessons of history we are busy fighting for recognition by the world and acceptance by society. And we are winning both. The great and the mighty are now looking our way. The world seems about to come over and join us. Of course we must make some concessions, but these have almost all been made already except for a bit of compromising here and there on such matters as verbal inspiration, special creation, separation and religious tolerance.
Evangelical Christianity is fast becoming the religion of the bourgeoisie. The well-to-do, the upper middle classes, the politically prominent, the celebrities are accepting our religion by the thousands and parking their expensive cars outside our church doors, to the uncontrollable glee of our religious leaders who seem completely blind to the fact that the vast majority of these new patrons of the Lord of glory have not altered their moral habits in the slightest nor given any evidence of true conversion that would have been accepted by the saintly fathers who built the churches.
Yes, history is a great teacher, but she cannot teach those who do not want to learn. And apparently we do not."
Are We Evangelicals Social Climbing?
"Traditionally Christianity has been the religion of the common people. Whenever the upper classes have adopted it in numbers, it has died. Respectability has almost always proved fatal to it.
The reasons back of this are two, one human and the other divine.
Schleiermacher has pointed out that at the bottom of all religion there lies a feeling of dependence, a sense of creature helplessness. The simple man who lives close to the earth lives also close to death and knows that he must look for help beyond himself; he knows that there is but a step between him and catastrophe. As he rises in the social and economic scale, he surrounds himself with more and more protective devices and pushes danger (so he thinks) farther and farther from him. Self-confidence displaces the feeling of dependence he once knew and God becomes less necessary to him. Should he stop to think this through he would know better than to place his confidence in things and people; but so badly are we injured by our moral fall that we are capable of deceiving ourselves completely and, if conditions favor it, to keep up the deception for a lifetime.
Along with the feeling of security that wealth and position bring comes an arrogant pride that shuts tightly the door of the heart to the waiting Savior. Our Very Important Man may indeed honor a church by joining it, but there is no life in his act. His religion is external and his faith nominal. Conscious respectability has destroyed him.
The second reason Christianity tends to decline as its devotees move up the social scale is that God will not respect persons nor share His glory with another. Paul sets this forth plainly enough in his First Corinthians epistle:
For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him (1 Corinthians 1:25–29).
When God sent His Son to redeem mankind He sent Him to the home of a working man and He grew up to be what we now call a peasant. When He presented Himself to Israel and launched into His earthly ministry, He was rejected by the respectable religionists and had to look for followers almost exclusively from among the poor, plain people. When the Spirit came and the church was founded, its first members were the socially unacceptable. For generations the church drew her numbers from among the lower classes, individual exceptions occurring now and again, of which Saul of Tarsus was the most noteworthy.
During the centuries since Pentecost the path of true Christianity has paralleled pretty closely the path Jesus walked when He was here on earth: it was to be rejected by the great and accepted by the lowly. The institutionalized church has certainly not been poor, nor has she lacked for great and mighty men to swell her membership. But this great church has had no power. Almost always the approval of God has rested upon small and marginal groups whose members were scorned while they lived and managed to gain acceptance only after they had been safely dead several score years.
Today we evangelicals are showing signs that we are becoming too rich and too prominent for our own good. With a curious disregard for the lessons of history we are busy fighting for recognition by the world and acceptance by society. And we are winning both. The great and the mighty are now looking our way. The world seems about to come over and join us. Of course we must make some concessions, but these have almost all been made already except for a bit of compromising here and there on such matters as verbal inspiration, special creation, separation and religious tolerance.
Evangelical Christianity is fast becoming the religion of the bourgeoisie. The well-to-do, the upper middle classes, the politically prominent, the celebrities are accepting our religion by the thousands and parking their expensive cars outside our church doors, to the uncontrollable glee of our religious leaders who seem completely blind to the fact that the vast majority of these new patrons of the Lord of glory have not altered their moral habits in the slightest nor given any evidence of true conversion that would have been accepted by the saintly fathers who built the churches.
Yes, history is a great teacher, but she cannot teach those who do not want to learn. And apparently we do not."
Sunday, January 7, 2007
True Salvation: The life and Spirit of God in our Souls
Sin is a hot issue for Christians, what is sin? Or to some, more importantly what isn't sin? It seems that as Christians, many people are simply trying to see what they can get away with without putting the label "sin" on it.
Many teachers and pastors give us lessons in avoiding sin, or try to convict us not to sin. We are constantly told to try hard not to sin. But the bible gives us a different insight into sin and salvation, and what it really is and is not.
Your conviction need not be to not sin, because sin is not something that you can control (I know that's not what most people will tell you, but read on). Your conviction should be to turn to God, who alone can keep you from sin, and will keep you from sin as you walk with Him.
What is sin but the operation of self? What is righteousness but the death of self and life of God within? Our salvation is the death of ourselves and the life of God within us. We cannot claim to be saved and not have the life of God within.
1 John 1:6 (New American Standard Bible)
"If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth;"
1 John 2:3-5 (New American Standard Bible)
"By this we know that we have come to (B)know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, 'I have come to know Him,' and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him:"
How do we know that we are in Him? That we keep his commandments. But doesn't that mean that we should be convicted not to sin? No! How do we keep His commandments then? Only b ythe life and light of God brought to a new birth within our souls! We cannot do it on our own, it must be Christ in us, which is our only hope of glory!
Philippians 2:13 (New American Standard Bible)
"for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure."
So what can possibly be our salvation but the life of God brought forth in our souls?
Many teachers and pastors give us lessons in avoiding sin, or try to convict us not to sin. We are constantly told to try hard not to sin. But the bible gives us a different insight into sin and salvation, and what it really is and is not.
Your conviction need not be to not sin, because sin is not something that you can control (I know that's not what most people will tell you, but read on). Your conviction should be to turn to God, who alone can keep you from sin, and will keep you from sin as you walk with Him.
What is sin but the operation of self? What is righteousness but the death of self and life of God within? Our salvation is the death of ourselves and the life of God within us. We cannot claim to be saved and not have the life of God within.
1 John 1:6 (New American Standard Bible)
"If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth;"
1 John 2:3-5 (New American Standard Bible)
"By this we know that we have come to (B)know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, 'I have come to know Him,' and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him:"
How do we know that we are in Him? That we keep his commandments. But doesn't that mean that we should be convicted not to sin? No! How do we keep His commandments then? Only b ythe life and light of God brought to a new birth within our souls! We cannot do it on our own, it must be Christ in us, which is our only hope of glory!
Philippians 2:13 (New American Standard Bible)
"for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure."
So what can possibly be our salvation but the life of God brought forth in our souls?
First post!!!
Hi,
Thanks for visiting my blog, this is my first post so I'll keep it light! Thank you for visiting, Here you'll find thoughts and insights into the Christian experience, how Christianity relates to our world, our politics and our lives. You may not agree with all of my thoughts posted here, but I'll do my best to explain my views and how I reached them through my study of scripture.
Thanks!
natemorris1
Thanks for visiting my blog, this is my first post so I'll keep it light! Thank you for visiting, Here you'll find thoughts and insights into the Christian experience, how Christianity relates to our world, our politics and our lives. You may not agree with all of my thoughts posted here, but I'll do my best to explain my views and how I reached them through my study of scripture.
Thanks!
natemorris1
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