Have we lost our minds?

My wife and I homeschool our kids, and I have been pondering on doing a philosophy class with them. So I have been studying and reading books on philosophy, right now I am on a trek, reading through "Philosophical Foundations For A Christian Worldview" by J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig. I have been chewing on a statement I read for a couple days now and it has bothered me. Take a look and read the quote and see what you think:

"Our churches are unfortunately overly-populated with people whose minds, as Christians, are going to waste... They may be spiritually regenerate, but their minds have not been converted; they still think like nonbelievers. Despite their Christian commitment, they remain largely empty selves. What is an empty self? An empty self is a person who is passive, sensate, busy and hurried, incapable of developing an interior life. Such a person is inordinately individualistic, infantile and narcissistic.

Imagine now a church filled with such people. What will be the theological understanding, evangelistic courage, and the cultural penetration of such a church? If the interior life does not really matter all that much, why should one spend the time trying to develop an intellectual, spiritually mature life? If someone is basically passive, he will just not make the effort to read, preferring to be entertained. If a person is sensate in orientation, then music, magazines filled with pictures, and visual media in general will be more important than mere words on a page or abstract thoughts. If one is hurried and distracted, one will have little patience for theoretical knowledge and too short an attention span to stay with an idea while it is being carefully developed. And if someone is overly individualistic, infantile and narcissistic, what will that person read, if he reads at all? Books about Christian celebrities, Christian romance novels imitating the worst the world has to offer, Christian self help books filled with slogans, simplistic moralizations, lots of stories and pictures, and inadequate diagnosis of the problems facing the reader. What will not be read are books that equip people to develop a well reasoned, theological understanding of the Christian faith and to assume their role in the broader work in the kingdom of God. Such a church will become impotent to stand against the powerful forces of secularism and misguided scientism. Such a church will be tempted to measure her success largely in terms of numbers--numbers achieved by cultural accomodation to empty selves. In this way the church will become her own grave digger; for her means of short term "success" will turn out in the long run to be the very thing that buries her." (Moreland/Craig pg. 5)

I have been a Christian for over 20 years and served in churches and denominations in different capacities and in my experience, the sad part of the quote is that it is true. Unfortunately we are on a path of self destruction if something doesn't change. If we look at our Christian heritage we will see from the beginnings of the church, it was the church that produced some of the greatest thinkers in the world. These men were unashamed to speak, write and debate in the public arena. They believed in their heart what they knew and understood in their mind.

When Jesus was asked which is the greatest commandment he replied, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ (Mark 12:29-30 ESV) Jesus pointed out that the greatest commandment involves loving God with all that we are, including our minds. For far to long we have checked our minds at the door thinking that church once or twice a week is enough. We have neglected the command of scripture to "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth." (2 Timothy 2:15 ESV) What does one approved look like? that person will be able to rightly handle the Word. One who is on a journey of knowing the what and the why's of the Christian Faith and can teach and defend them. One who is transformed by the Word and is changing and submitting to God's word. Someone that is not ashamed because he can answer the tough questions, if not at that moment he is on the search for the answers.

When I was a child I was involved in a program called the Royal Rangers. They had an emblem; on that emblem are 4 gold points among other things. The four gold points stood for the 4 ways a boy grows mentally, physically, spiritually and socially. The 4 ways a boy grows is taken from Luke 2 a short verse that, in my opinion, gets read over way too fast. It reads "And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man." (Luke 2:52 ESV) Here we read that Jesus, God come in the flesh, the God-Man increased in stature (physically), in favor with God (spiritually), in favor with man (socially), and wisdom (mentally). Jesus, who is the founder and perfecter of our faith (Heb 12:2), who we are to imitate, grew in wisdom. If Jesus did, how much more are we responsible to?We should put our minds to work and study. We should learn how to think like Christ and subject our thoughts to the obedience of Christ (1 Cor. 10:5) We should obey Scripture and be on the journey of loving God with all our MIND.

For the next few weeks this will be my focus, how are we to love God with our mind and why it is of vital importance.

Incline, Come, Hear -- Isaiah 55:3

What is our posture before the Lord? The Lord calls us to "incline". This word gives a picture of some one listening intently to the Word of Life. To have a posture of inclining means that we are in the Word and listening to the voice of the Spirit speaking through that Word. To have an inclining posture means that we do not have a casual attitude concerning God's words, but one of passion and desire to squeeze every single drop out of it that we can.

Another posture is "Come". The Lord is calling us to have such a dependence on Him that we do not go days without coming to Him. That we crave an intimacy with God because we recognize that in Him we find satisfaction for our thirst. In him our hunger quenches because He is the Bread of Life. God wants to hear from us daily.

Finally we need to have a posture of "hear". God wants us to have a listening posture. When the Bible talks about listening or hearing it really has a dual meaning. The first is that we are to hear the Words of God. How else would we know them if we do not hear them or read them. The other meaning that is implied is that when we hear the Words of God we are to obey them. To hear God requires us to listen and obey! It is not enough to know the Word of God, we have to obey it and live it out.

In this verse God is saying incline, come and hear. Why? As those who live after Christ we have the benefit of understanding why. God is the Great Promise Keeper. He made a promise to David that someone from his line would rule an everlasting kingdom. That promise is fulfilled in Christ and not only that, God makes an everlasting covenant and invites us to be a part of this covenant. His promise is Incline, Come, and Hear so "that your soul may live".

FAITHWEEK 2012 day 4

Here is some more from faithweek 2012 Isaiah 55:2

Why? Why do we forfeit our blessings in Christ for the pleasures of this world? Why do we spend our time, talent & treasures on things of this world? Too much of the time we focus our resources and spend our time on is on that which doesn't satisfy.

That is the core of idolatry! Trying to satisfy ourselves with the stuff of this world rather than God. That which you seek after to satisfy yourself with is what you become. TV, video games, work, boyfriend/girlfriend, music we listen to. All these things influence our thought patterns. What you spend the most of your time, talent, and treasure with is what you become. God is saying LISTEN TO ME!

LISTEN and COME! Only I can give what satisfies you. Why do you eat with the pigs when you can feast at my Fathers table? Come and eat and be satisfied. Come and eat My Words and be filled with My Spirit and be satisfied.

FAITHWEEK 2012

I have been at youth camp with my kids and Watson Chapel Baptist Church. It has been awesome. God has been speaking to me through Isaiah 55"Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price."

This is a little bit of what He has impressed on my heart.

God's invitation is come! All you who thirst, those exhausted from running your own lives. Come and be renewed Come and drink!

Come all those who are morally and spiritually bankrupt. Those who are poor and have nothing to give. Come all who are poor in spirit for the kingdom of heaven is yours!

Come! Drink my wine and milk. Wine and milk was a sign of riches or prosperity. Come and trade your bankrupt life for the riches of the grace of Christ. What are the riches of Christ. Being chosen by Him in LOVE before the world was created. Being adopted into His family. Redemption from our enslaved lives. Forgiveness of our sin stained souls. Made holy before God. The grace of God lavished on us because it pleases Him, brings Him glory and because He loves us. The mark of God is on and in you through the promised Holy Spirit. The power of the Resurrected Christ in you. Eph 1

Come and drink!

To stay in your bondage, to stay in your thirsty condition because it is hard to overcome, or because "I can't" or because of your friends or philosophy of life. On your own you can't but God says come, He is screaming come and drink. He is screaming i will be your overcomer, He is screaming I CAN, He is proclaiming I will be your friend, and he is saying "let My Word be what runs your life. Freedom is found IN CHRIST and the power that is available to you to overcome ANYTHING, if you come and drink.

Christians+Conflict+Facebook=?

Lately, I have been using Facebook and Twitter more and more. I must admit I was late on the social media scene. I told my wife when Facebook started that it was just a fad, like Myspace, and soon it will be replaced by something else. Boy was I wrong! Now that I am on there I find that all these social media tools can help people connect in ways that were unthinkable 20 years ago. These tools are also being used by churches and ministries to glorify God.

But recently as I was  on Facebook just looking at all the updates, I read about someone squabbling with someone else. Leaving subliminal updates on their page about the conflict. Not mentioning by name the person, but if you know them and what is going on you know who they are talking about. I know you have read messages like this too. Normally, i would read it and ignore it or just blow right by it. But when I read it, something just bothered me. I was thinking "this doesn't seem right." The reason I was thinking this is because the squabble was between Christians on Facebook for all their friends to see. As I read this John 13:35 kept repeating in my mind "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35 ESV)


Now at the same time I was reading this stuff on Facebook, I was also writing a paper for class on a passage in Matthew 18. In Mathew 18:15-20 we read the guidelines we are to follow if a fellow Christian wrongs us. Now as all this was going on I was thinking "in our social media world how does this apply to us now?" To be forthright, the same way it applied to the early church, it applies to us. Jesus, knowing that we would offend each other, gave us guidelines to follow as Christians to deal with conflict when it arises. The guidelines are pretty straightforward deal with it one on one, if that doesn't work deal with it with 2 or 3 witnesses, if that doesn't work go before your church elders. I have only seen it go to the last step once! After many attempts the person was removed from church membership. After a couple of years the person repented and was restored to the church fellowship.

I understand that things get sticky when we have people from different churches in a conflict. There is another time and blog for that. But it doesn't benefit anyone to place subliminal messages or in your face messages on Facebook when Jesus clearly outlines how we are to deal with conflicts. More importantly, how are we showing all people that we are His disciples by posting our conflicts for the world to see on Facebook, Twitter or Google +? I am not advocating for Christians to just ignore conflicts, but what I am asking is for Christians to follow the Biblical model that Jesus left for His followers and not to hurt the testimony of Christ with your Facebook, Twitter or Google + postings.

In this age of social media Christians really need to develop a Social Media Theology and follow it. If we wouldn't say it in the presence of Christ then we probably shouldn't hit "post" or "tweet" and I am not sure what they do on Google + but, you get the point. Let us as Christians, with the help of the Holy Spirit, live up to the words of Jesus, "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35 ESV)





 

Strange Place For A King Reloaded

Strange Place for a King

By Joshua Aguilar

I wrote this this past Christmas. Thought I would repost for our Easter season.

A king foretold is coming to our land
A baby born in Bethlehem,
He wasn’t born in a royal home,
But in a manger, not even His own
A Strange Place for a King

This King grew and at his appointed time
He spread His message of the kingdom throughout His land
He came to His own but they received Him not
So He reached out to those who would listen
He sat and ate with the outcast, prostitutes, sinners
He receives them and us for we were His mission
A Strange Place for a King

The time has come for His mission to come to completion
But it wasn’t in a castle or on a Throne His Just position
God and sinners reconciled was His perfect plan
He was nailed to the cross for the redemption of man
A Strange place for a King

2000 years later as we dwell on His birth,
His life, His death, His resurrection and Ascension from earth
This Jesus, this king, the Savior of man
To all who receive Him, in His kingdom they’ll stand
And in this sinner’s heart, His throne will reside
A Strange Place for my King

One day He will come and call us all home
And on that day with an ever grateful heart
I will kneel at His Throne.

The Problem With Christianity

Why do people have such a problem with Christianity? Why does it seem that Christians are the ones that are always under fire? We shouldn't be surprised by this because Jesus told us “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." (John 15:18-19)

People will always have a problem with Christianity for various reasons. But there are 2 big issues that our world has with the claims of Christianity and these two issues always come up.

The first is that Christianity is objective not subjective. You may be asking, "what do you mean?" Well I am glad you asked. Christianity believes that there is truth and falsehood. That there is a right and wrong. In others words sex outside of marriage can't be right for you and wrong for me. It is wrong all the time and people have a problem with that. Christianity cannot be true for me and not for you, everything is not relative to how we feel. There is truth and there is error. There is right and there is wrong.

The second issue is that Christianity is exclusive. When Jesus walked the earth He made certain claims about Himself. Here are His words;

• And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.(John 17:3)

• I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)

• For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. (John 3:16-19)

The Bible is plain, concise, and to the point. They ONLY WAY to heaven, the ONLY WAY to know God and have a personal relationship with Him is through Jesus Christ.

So whats the problem if the Bible is clear about Christianity being objective and exclusive?

Jesus himself told us, people love their sins more than Him, they love the darkness rather than the light. I was there at one point in my life, I loved my sins more than God, but one day God opened my eyes to my sinfulness, to my love for the bad stuff I did and I was broken by His grace. In my brokenness God picked up the pieces and is making a masterpiece. Don't let the love of your sin, whatever it may be, keep you from the grace of God.