Do or do not, there is no try

Ah, the wisdom of Yoda, the ancient Jedi master.

Let's apply the opposite to our understanding of our laws:
1. Try not to speed
2. Try not to cheat on your taxes
3. Try not to steal
4. Try not to commit murder

I think we just solved the prison overcrowding problem! As long as everyone is trying then we can unlock every cell.

What is the problem with attaching a condition to laws? Where is justice if the laws are not absolute? Is justice important for a society?

Now, what about God's laws? God has laid out rigid laws that govern our behavior. Don't we tend to assume that as long as we're trying, that it's OK that we have broken one or many of God's laws? Isn't that kinda weird? Do we think that God's justice is somehow less than man's?

"Well, nobody's perfect", one might say, or "if breaking any of God's laws means that I'm doomed to hell then the whole world is too". I would certainly agree. Every person that lives breaks one or many of God's commands. God calls that sin, and says that the penalty for sin is death. Too harsh you say? Well, it certainly does sound harsh to me too. Unfair? Well, if the problem of sin and penalty is unfair, then fortunately for all of us, the way of escape is unfair too.

The Bible says that the man Jesus of Nazareth was actually the Son of God, that an eternal, divine being took human form, born of a woman, and came to live among his creation. The Bible says that Jesus lived without breaking any of God's commands, and instead actually fulfilled the will of his Father. He was obedient even to the point of death. He died on a cross, an ancient and brutal Roman method of execution. He was buried and three days later rose from the dead, to be seen by many of his followers before returning to his Father. The Bible promises eternal life to all who believe in Jesus Christ.

The shame, beating, and death that Jesus endured was not fair. He hadn't done anything wrong. But it was to defeat the horrible curse upon mankind, to provide an escape from the judgement of a holy God. A God whose own righteousness will not allow Him to overlook the breaking of His laws.

Trying to be a good person is not the answer. "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent." --John 6:29

What is this gospel you speak of?

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. --1 John 5:1

The gospel again

Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
--1 Corinthians 15:1-8

The gospel

"The most terrifying news in the world is that we have fallen under the condemnation of our Creator and that He is bound by His own righteous character to preserve the worth of His glory by pouring out His wrath on the sin of our ingratitude. But there is a fourth great truth that no one can ever learn from nature or from their own consciences, a truth which has to be told to neighbors and preached in churches and carried by missionaries: namely, the good news that God has decreed a way to satisfy the demands of His righteousness without condemning the whole human race. He has taken it upon Himself apart from any merit in us to accomplish our salvation. The wisdom of God has ordained a way for the love of God to deliver us from the wrath of God without compromising the righteousness of God. And what is this wisdom?”

“Jesus Christ, the Son of God crucified, is the Wisdom of God, by which the love of God can save sinners from the wrath of God, and all the while uphold and demonstrate the righteousness of God.”

--John Piper, “Conversion to Christ: The Making of a Christian Hedonist”

Zac's wife

Zac Smith, September 10, 1976 - May 16, 2010

So much for my fog machine business...

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.

--James 4:13-17

Snake on a pole

They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”

Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.

The LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived. -- Numbers 21:4-9

"Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” --John 3:14-15

Comic book guy and the wise man

Comic Book Guy walks along the road 

reading a comic book 

CBG: But Aquaman, you cannot marry a woman without gills, 

you're from two different worlds. 

(CBG sees missile approaching) 

CBG: Oh, I've wasted my life.

7

All man’s efforts are for his mouth,

yet his appetite is never satisfied.

8

What advantage has a wise man

over a fool?

What does a poor man gain

by knowing how to conduct himself before others?

9

Better what the eye sees

than the roving of the appetite.

This too is meaningless,

a chasing after the wind.

10

Whatever exists has already been named,

and what man is has been known;

no man can contend

with one who is stronger than he.

11

The more the words,

the less the meaning,

and how does that profit anyone?

12

For who knows what is good for a man in life, 

during the few and meaningless days he passes 

through like a shadow? Who can tell him what 

will happen under the sun after he is gone?

Ecclesiastes 6:7-12

Unacceptable sacrifice

“A son honors his father, and a slave his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?” says the LORD Almighty.

“It is you priests who show contempt for my name.

“But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’

“By offering defiled food on my altar.

“But you ask, ‘How have we defiled you?’

“By saying that the LORD’s table is contemptible. When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the LORD Almighty.

“Now plead with God to be gracious to us. With such offerings from your hands, will he accept you?”—says the LORD Almighty.

“Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you,” says the LORD Almighty, “and I will accept no offering from your hands. My name will be great among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to me, because my name will be great among the nations,” says the LORD Almighty.

“But you profane it by saying, ‘The Lord’s table is defiled,’ and, ‘Its food is contemptible.’ And you say, ‘What a burden!’ and you sniff at it contemptuously,” says the LORD Almighty.

“When you bring injured, lame or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands?” says the LORD. “Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord. For I am a great king,” says the LORD Almighty, “and my name is to be feared among the nations. --Malachi 1:6-14

Not that we loved God

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. -- 1 John 4:7-12

Rob Bell and Universalism

The Christian types seem to save their finest vitriol for each other, they hate the wrong Christians even more than the atheists, even more than the homos! Yeah, apostasy, the unforgivable sin.

Doesn't that tell you something, about Christianity, about the believers?

So it's a crapshoot basically. You have to hope that you were born in a country that infects its youth with Christianity, instead of islam of hinduism or buddhism or whatever.

Then you have to hope that being a catholic or a protestant or eastern orthodox or coptic or whatever, you have to hope you were born in the right geographical location so that you were infected with the real Christianity - all the other believers are going to hell, including all those 'false Christians'. You have to hope your parents believed in the right Christianity.

This tells us so much about Christians, about believers.

You people are crazy.

--POSTED BY: EEZMAMATA

In case you haven't followed the news in the Christian bio-sphere lately, you may not know that a pastor by the name of Rob Bell has stirred up the hornets nest with a new book that supposedly teaches Universalism. Supposedly, because it's not even out yet.

But comments like the above show what a great job we Christians are doing in how we treat one another when our interpretations of scripture differ.

Love one another

"There is no meaner, more hateful person on Earth than a Christian who suspects you have gotten your theology wrong." --Jason Boyett

The Christian apologizer

I watched a show recently where a Christian guy set up a "confessional booth" at a gay pride day event. He invited people in, and he would apologize to them for what he saw as the failures of the Christian community towards gays, and also for his own actions and prejudices. Some of the people he talked to were very skeptical and rude, and some were genuinely moved.

I read on his blog where he talked about it, and the comments were equally fascinating. Almost half of them were people criticizing him for "making a spectacle", and the other half were criticizing him for "teaching tolerance and acceptance of sin".

What would you expect to find a Christian doing at a gay pride festival? I would probably expect to see people marching with picket signs, or yelling through a megaphone. Aren't we as Christians guilty of the most terrible sins of all? Knowing God's grace shown to us, though sinful and broken, are we then unwilling to show love and compassion to others, if we consider them too sinful? Do we fail to see that the undeserved grace, freely given to us, is not ONLY for us, but for whoever believes on the name of Jesus Christ? Some of the people there that day left knowing, perhaps for the first time, that there was a Christian out there that didn't hate them. Would they look at the Gospel differently if they saw Christians differently?

I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. --John 6:47

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news! --Romans 10:14-15