value of religion

i'm trying to wrap my head around this. . . .

"in a pluralistic world, a religion is valued based on the benefits it brings to its nonadherents."

have i always thought that, but it was never said in such that way? i don't know.

such an interesting thought. it takes me back to my foundations of christian thought class. dr sloan showing how God blesses both believers and unbelievers. it also reminds me of God's promise to Abe "I will bless you, and make you a blessing to the world." (yeah, i paraphrased.)

daggum, we are so inwardly focused! i believe that to some degree that God is not blessing us because we do not ask. but i also believe that we've been asking for a while now, courtesy of Jabez, Joel, and a host of others, that we MUST start blessing the rest of the world.

i cannot get past this. we suck. we are so focused on our inward eternal salvation, that we have forgotten the meaning of salvation as it relates to the here and now. while Christ comes to save us for eternity, he also wants to save us for today. save us from lying, gossiping, being unloving towards others. and save others from the effects of those actions.

He also came to save the poor, but not just for eternity, but for the here and now. getting to heaven is great, but i believe He is just as much concerned with his creation right now! that isn't limited to just the poor, but to anyone is sick. physically, emotionally, spiritually. He longs for us to be in a right relationship to Him, so that we don't continue to live like we do, hurt ourselves. because we are his creation. does this make sense???

we are his creation. made in His likeness. i love what C.S. Lewis says, "We do not have a spirit. We are spirit. We have a body." God doesn't want His creation to be damaged. and thats ALL creation. that means not raping the environment for resources.(thats another topic) so when He saves us, in a sense, he is saving us from ourselves. from living in a cycle that just hurts. it empowers us to bless others in a way that we couldn't have without Him.

we cannot, CANNOT, divorce eternal salvation, from the here and now salvation. they are linked.

this is long. be good to one another. look at Christ. peace

Human-ness and God-ness

While Jesus is our Lord and Savior, no question about it, how often do we consider that He dealt with human emotions. We marvel (and rightly so) at the fact that he fed the 5,000. But He had drawn away at the news that His cousin, John the Baptist, had been murdered. The crowd followed Him.

I mean, this is his cousin. I would be in mourning if my cousin died at a young age. Yet Jesus, is a way only He could do, puts that aside to meet the needs of the people. It says he was struck with compassion and healed their sick. It wasn't about Him. In the midst of his human-ness, we see His goodness. His God-ness.

He was always aware that it wasn't about what His flesh wanted to do. His flesh wanted to mourn. To grieve. But He knew that His cousin was in a better place. But perhaps He missed the physical presence of John.

But it WAS about what Him. It was about how He was the light to the world. He was the one that was supposed to heal the sick, to bring glory to the Father. To feed those who were hungry. He put his human-ness aside so that his God-ness could shine through.

I don't know if I could look at the feeding of the 5,000 the same again.

why

i just wrote a whole post. and then i tried to post it, and it screwed up. . . .

now i lost it.

all i'll say right now is that we as christians suck, SUCK, at confrontation.

ugh.

another cool place to check out

check this guy out.

i read about him in one of the statements in relevant mag.

http://reallivepreacher.com

an important lesson . . .

its so important to be yourself. i'm still learning and finding out who i am, and who God made me to be. Check out this article.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=whitlock/050303

what am i doing with my life? part I

its such an interesting question. right now? i'm working in marketing and advertising. i enjoy it. i enjoy the people i work with. i believe in what my company is trying to do to help small businesses, because i believe in small business.

but thats not where my heart is. my heart is in teaching and ministry. my heart is in sharing the love of an Almighty God. but really sharing that love. giving a cup of water to someone who is thirsty, and just doing that. i love the musical form of worship. just playing with a band, and playing with everything i have, play for One, the only One who deserves its.

i'm trying to reconcile the rockstar in me with the worship side in me. its tough. i'm working on it. i love attention. i always have. i grew up doing theatre and drama, so worship is a challenge sometimes that i don't get caught up in that attitude. but i'm working on it.

do i want to go to seminary? yes. do i want to go to seminary? no. i'm thinking about fuller in cali. i'm thinking about eastern in philly. i've heard great things about both. i'm not concerned with "liberal" christianity, and i don't want "conservative" christianity either. because neither one is me. i'm concerned with Christ.

i hate labels. i just hate 'em so effing much. i want people to understand what it means to make faith their own. i have a burning to desire to see the young adults around indy do something of purpose. to live with purpose. we (because i am in this group) are just waiting to be inspired!! we don't want just a place to hang out and maybe hear a testimony. what a damn waste of time. honestly. we can do that anywhere.

we want our friends to experience church. but we don't to bring them to a building that may have such negative connotations assiociated with it. we want them to experience the community, the authenticity, and the revolutionary spirit of the Gospel. if we are the next generation of leaders in the church, its time to get off our asses and do something. honestly. i'm so guilty of it. waiting for someone else to get here to organize it.

i hate the fact that i have to go through the appropriate channels of an organization( read: church) so that i can get something like this going. but i do. my buddy, nic, who is a very entrepreneur minded person said "who cares what they say. if it needs to be done. do it." it was great.

hopefully, something will happen here in the next week or so. some people get together. talk about what we want to happen. what we envision a ministry for us to look like. it'll be interesting.

i'm just trying to learn more. cos thats all this is. pass on the knowledge that has been passed to me. thats my responsibility. teaching people its not about being right. its about a journey.

be good to each other. look at Christ. peace.