Just to spread a little love around today and maybe everyday ! Happy Tuesday Y’all.
P.S we love Coca Cola 
Tourniquet
"He stood between the living and the dead and the plague stopped." Numbers 16:48
Filed under Culture …
Thoughts on Life: Don’t They Know It’s The End Of The World?
I’ve been thinking about some big things. Now, I will be the first to tell you that
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I might be way over my head in these ponderings, and
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I might also be completely wrong ( or at least a little off base
But let me go on and you can add your thoughts and ideas and arguments in the comments, I would love that.
In our current social/political climate I think it’s understandable that I would be asking a lot of questions about the fate of our world, from gun laws and mass shootings to same sex marriage and divorce, I think it’s fair to say the moral compass of our land is in question but my big thoughts are more concerned with the roles of the church and followers of Christ in this present situation.Are we really doing what , based on the Bible, our beliefs command us to do?As a very wise friend of mine said, in a fabulous blog post you should totally read
“ In the Great Commission it says to make disciples of all nations … not disciple the nation.”
If, as the Bible teaches us , we believe that this world will part ways with the way God intended it to be to the point that Jesus returns, what then is our role in this predictable sinking ship, if you will ?
As Galadriel says in The Lord of the Rings ” The time of the elves is over.Do we leave Middle-Earth to this fate? Do we let them stand alone?”
If we look at Jesus in the Gospels we do not see a man concerned with the political arena, a man desperate to change the morals of the people by way of the laws of the land. We see our Saviour in the communities he finds himself, reaching out for connections with the people. We see Him meeting their needs, reaching into their lives through relationship, compassion, kindness.
Right now is a trying and yet wonderful time to be a part of the Body of Christ, Grace is being taught and lived in our churches in a more honest way than it has been in a long time, but at the same time our influence in the world is decreasing.Truthfully I would have to say that we are in the middle of two extremes, on one side we are overly concerned with “ discipling the nation” and on the other we are courting the worlds affection and second guessing every sermon to make sure we aren’t offending anyone. I know this is not an easy road to navigate,it’s right for us to proclaim the Gospel and to be fearless in our desire for holiness, and it’s right for us to challenge ourselves against scripture and check our selves to make sure we are being loving and speaking truth in that love , at the same time Jesus made it very clear that the world would hate us the way they hated Him. (John 15:18) Can we handle that?
In an open letter to the American Church, author Brennan Manning wrote at length about the state of our church today , the whole letter is worth reading but I will only quote a bit of it here, You can read the rest in his book The Signature of Jesus.
“If the apostle (Paul) were to return to the earth today, I believe he would call the entire American church to return to the discipline of the secret. This ancient practice of the apostolic church was implemented to protect the sacred name of Jesus Christ from mockery and the mysteries of the Christian faith from profanation. The ancient church avoided mention of baptism, Eucharist, and the death and resurrection of Christ in the presence of the unbaptized. Why? Because the most persuasive witness was the way one lived, not the words one spoke. Soren Kierkegaard once described two types of Christians: The first group comprises those who imitate Jesus Christ; the second are those who are content to speak about him. “ (emphasis mine)
If we are supposed to leave people with no question of our faith and if the best way to demonstrate and share our faith is through showing real tangible love in the ways that Jesus demonstrated then aren’t we called to be set apart by our unfathomable love for others and extreme acts of grace and mercy ?To truly set ourselves apart by our actions in this world? Perhaps living our faith out loud is not about standing on a street corner yelling about the sins of the world but being a people that act so differently that the world is forced to ask “ what is the hope that is in you?”
Torn: A Review by Christopher Yuan
If you have read this book I hope you will check out this insightful review by Christopher Yuan. If you have not read this book I hope you will because I believe that what Justin shares is an important thing for The Church to hear. We need to hear what it is like to feel misunderstood in your struggle as a member of the Body of Christ. We need to understand that it’s not simple, it’s not easy and sometimes fellow Christians do not make the confusion any easier to navigate. We need to learn to see people that deal with Same Sex Attractions as more than just a person with a solvable problem and we need to acknowledge the ways that we bring shame and more confusion to the table by not taking the time to try and understand. I am very grateful that Justin was willing to share his experiences so that we can start to change the way we respond to those in our midst that are hurting and perhaps with this understanding we can make choices in the future that will save the hurting people around us a lot of unnecessary pain.
That being said, there are some areas in this book that I do not believe are true to Scripture, Christopher Yuan does a great job of helping us to look at the Scriptures and better understand . What ever you believe about the biblical stand on homosexuality I hope you will give both of these a read !
Oh and don’t forget to click on the image to go to Justin’s page where he talks about the book .You can get the links to buy Torn from Justin’s page as well.
The Queen James …book.
Today I want to share with you this fascinating conversation from In The Market with Janet Parshall . Joining Janet is the wonderful Christopher Yuan to talk about Matthew Vines and The Queen James Bible. You may or may not have heard about this book , there’s not much to be known about it other than the 8 passages that the editors have changed . From the website . . .
The Queen James Bible seeks to resolve interpretive ambiguity in the Bible as it pertains to homosexuality: We edited those eight verses in a way that makes homophobic interpretations impossible
Christopher Yuan is an incredible man, I have heard him speak as well as his lovely parents at a few Exodus conferences and their testimony is just so encouraging to hear. If you haven’t heard his story before you can check it out here or grab the book he co-authored with his mother , Out of a Far Country (an amazing story btw) Anyway check out this hour long audio , Christopher shares some wonderful insight into Scripture and will no doubt get you thinking and better yet reading your Bible.
Jesus and The Hunger Games.
Knox McCoy is a blogger, book author , podcaster and a genuinely hilarious dude. I first heard of him when I was directed by a friend to his recaps of The Bachelor (if you don’t watch The Bachelor good for you don’t start and also don’t judge me, but you could read his recaps cause they are seriously funny) , once I started reading those I started reading other stuff on his blog and then got on his mailing list and got his book Jesus and The Bachelorette for my Kindle. I know the names of these books seem to imply stupidity but let me assure you Mr. McCoy has a great way of taking things that may seem stupid or trivial and showing you how even those things can point to God in a really cool and smart way and not just God but our Christian lives and even how we see God. Is it funny ? Yes. Is it a little silly? At times . But it is also a really smart way to take something that millions of people are already reading/ watching and maybe just maybe bring Jesus into the conversation and for me I think even for that maybe it’s worth it. I already got my copy ( Thanks Knox!) Go get yours.
Click the image or this link and you can get Jesus and The Hunger Games for free through Sunday. After that you can buy it (which would be cool of you) on Amazon.
What else can I say to entice you ? OH yeah, he is also part of this wonderful thing called TV Asylum a safe place for the TV obsessed . . . Oh and a very cool thing called the My Bad Project.
Strike the Water.
I think spoken word is a really cool art form, I hope you do too and I hope you check out this video by Elevation Media. I saw this video on Facebook this afternoon, it was posted by our friend Tony Moore who is the pastor of Transformation House church in Greenville SC and while I am on the subject I think you should know Tony is a very cool guy and I recommend you check out his blog as well. You can also go to their Youtube Channel and watch sermons,check out the Hero series and you might recognize the video of our Dad from this post!
Hope you enjoy the video!
Video Tuesday!
To go or Not to go, that is the question
These days it’s pretty common to be invited to the civil union of a same sex couple. It might be a friend or co-worker or someone even closer like a parent brother,sister or other family member but as a Christian that often brings up a hard question. If I go am I compromising my faith? What does my going say , that I approve? When you love these people and you want to know how to best answer that question it can start to feel like a tug of war. I don’t have the answers but at the Exodus Freedom Conference this past summer a couple named Alan and Denise Taylor shared their testimony and touched on that very question and what they shared changed my heart on this issue completely . In this blog post Randy Thomas shares about that and his own thoughts on this question. I hope you find it helpful. I know I did. You can purchase a copy of the couple’s testimony from the conference here, you can also purchase lots of the other testimonies there as well but the Taylor’s is about the 14th one down.
Why we eat at Chick-fil -a .
As you know there have been so many people commenting on this topic and while we I find great value in everyone using their voices and platforms to share what they think, I am pretty ready for this debate to be out of the news. I’ve been wanting to say something for a while but just couldn’t decide how. So here I am finally , just wanting to share Why I eat at chick-fil-a . And that’s the same reason’s I might add that I get my coffee from Starbucks. The reason is they make a good product and I enjoy the atmosphere . Simple. I greatly respect the Cathy family and how they run their businesses (starbucks too ) . I don’t agree with all the words their spokesperson used when he talked about same sex marriage( I will share my thoughts on that in a later post) but I think he had the right to speak them. Anyway I wanted to take this time to share another blog’s opinion that I thought was really great. Matt Chambers shares his thoughts on this situation here .
I totally agree with him and hope that gets people thinking about what really matters and what we should make sure we are really fighting for and I believe that is . . . people.
Since when does silence equal shame?
Anderson Cooper Publicly Admits He’s Gay
Two things immediately bother me about this article…
First…
“I’ve always believed that who a reporter votes for, what religion they are, who they love, should not be something they have to discuss publicly. As long as a journalist shows fairness and honesty in his or her work, their private life shouldn’t matter
It’s become clear to me that by remaining silent on certain aspects of my personal life for so long, I have given some the mistaken impression that I am trying to hide something — something that makes me uncomfortable, ashamed, or even afraid. This is distressing because it is simply not true.”
I appreciate and agree with Anderson Cooper’s first statement. People should have the right to keep their personal life personal and the public should be able to respect that. It is interesting though that if Mr.Cooper is so concerned about omitted information about his personal life causing people to assume he is uncomfortable or ashamed, why is his sexual orientation the only personal information subject to exposure? Isn’t it as easy to make the same assumptions about religion and politics (the other examples he mentioned)? And yet there seems to be no urgent need to relieve the public of their assumptions regarding those two issues.
The second thing is more annoying to me than bothersome, it just strikes me as odd that if this were a women we were talking about it, you would run the risk of being considered sexist for mentioning how hot she is as much as her actual ability/talent in her given field.
Frankly, if it were me I wouldn’t appreciate having my looks and sexual preference out-shine my abilities as a journalist.
