my thoughts, musings, rants and discoveries . . .

Driving around town, it’s not uncommon to finds that mimic popular slogans such as “Got Jesus”. Sometimes they seem kind of cute or clever. But after I consider them a bit, I’m left feeling unsettled as opposed to humored. The reason for this is simple. The church is not intended to identify with the world. We’re not to associate, market, etc. The church is to be the pillar and ground for the truth.

Consider this sign. “I Kissed a Girl” is a popular song by Katie Perry.

While it might seem right to preach against homosexual behavior and to denounce the lesbian lifestyle, the church errs when it takes the low road and takes to identifying with the world’s methods. Where does it all end?

You see, the problem is that rather than trying to elevate the word of God and to teach it, churches today believe they must reach down to people. Hence they continue to lower their standards. But if our churches continue to lower their standards, where will Christians be helped? And if Christians fail to receive proper training, where will people hear truth? It all becomes a slippery slope.

We need to get back to focusing on what is truthful, not chasing every little rabbit we come across. These things are merely diversion tactics, which take away from what is truly important.

I was reading a post over at Tim Challies’ site about Free Will. Tim raises some good points concerning the subject and includes a nice little chart from Augustine of Hippo that describes the various states of man’s condition.

The key point of the post deals with a statement by C.S. Lewis in his book, Mere Christianity:

Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.

Is this truly the case? Is it really free will that makes love possible? Consider this: did we love God first or did he love us first? Did we choose to follow God, or did he first choose us? Now, if you’re a Christian, I expect that you’ll refer to your scriptures to answer these questions.

As I commented on Tim’s site, we are told in 1Cor 2:14 that in our natural state, we are incapable of comprehending the truths or nature of God. They’re utter foolishness unto our natural, depraved state. Now, either this is completely false or it isn’t. And if it is true, then how can we properly choose that which we cannot see, let alone comprehend? And if this is assertion is false, then what’s the point?

My point is this: as Christians, we operate on the notions of faith and grace. We believe what we believe out of faith. But it was grace that gave us the faith to believe in the first place. Take either of these components away and we’re merely religious people, no different than any other religious people. It is the notion of an active God that really separates our religion from the others in the world.

Based on these assumptions, is our free-will really that important when it comes to loving God with any sort of quality? Do we really gain anything by asserting our free will? Let’s suppose I have free will and have an IQ of 70. Am I really going to derive something paramount to Einstein’s theory of relativity just because I desire to? We’re talking, here, about overcoming a deficiency of intelligence. And to a certain extent this is possible. But I have yet to see any person or creature over come its nature. Just because you can here a parrot talk, doesn’t mean it has the nature of a man. And while I like to think my dog, Barkley, is a better “person” than most people I know, doesn’t actually mean he’s human. He’s still a dog.

This concept is pretty important to professing Christians. At what point do you stop insisting on your own rights and start taking God at his word? Just because an unregenerate man cannot turn from his ways and turn to God, in his own power, doesn’t alleviate the responsibility from him. Nor does it make God a tyrant by calling on men and women to do so.

As far as blogging has been concerned, I’ve been absent for the better part of 2 years. Sure, I’ve poked around to various friends’ sites and dropped an occasional comment or two. I’ve even written a post on very rare occasions. But it has been difficult to write much of anything. I basically reached a point where I either didn’t care, felt I had nothing to say, or was annoyed at what I’ve seen and heard. Most of the time, it was this later feeling that contributed to me wanting to stop caring, which caused me to have little to say.

When I started my blog back in 2001 it was with the intention of writing about theological changes being brought into my life. My eyes were in a constant state of being opened to new realities and I tried my best to document the journey. During the course of much changing, I experienced numerous battles which eventually turned me quite sour on our churches in America and on Christians in general.  I had tried numerous times over the years to help people through various means: finances, education, friendship, and so on. What I derived in the end was nothing short of a realization of 2Peter 2:22:

It has happened to them according to the true proverb, ‘a dog returns to its own vomit’, and ‘a sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire’.

No matter the occasion, I can count on one hand the number of times that I saw true change. And, without exception, the ones who didn’t return their mire were non-Christians. Those who professed Christ were typically full of deception. Even the ones who genuinely looked to be struggling against the norm, the ones who appeared to be dealing with deep, personal conviction, seemed to return to the thing or the ones that caused so much unrest in their soul.

It was also during this period, especially 2006 through 2007, that I began meeting and conversing with other Christians online who claimed to have become reformed in their theology. What I found, instead, was lack of desire to sincerely follow the new path they were supposedly embarked upon. Rather, they would cling to their former ways, yet continue to gripe over them.

In the end, I came to some conclusions:

1. My eyes were not opened by my own initiative, but rather against them
2. No matter how hard I tried, I could not change a person’s mind concerning spiritual things
3. Much internal conflict gets confused with conviction, but rarely is it of the effectual, changing nature
4. People would rather live vicariously through others than to endure their own journeys
5. Um… you can lead a horse to water but you definitely can’t make him drink

But you know what? It was Paul who really summarized this more succinctly:

So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

–Phil 2:12-13

So, where am I after all of this? I am doing my thing, not really worried about what others think or do. Rather, I am resolved to do my part in this world, trusting God to place the desires in my heart, and to equip me to actually cary out them out. If I can be used to make an occasional difference, then perhaps my life will not be in vain. But in the end, it is all up to God and his desires and mercies. I am merely an active passenger on this journey.