Love, Grace, Wrath

Amos 3+4/Matthew 17+18

            Why do I continually get amazed when the World acts like the World? Uh, duh, right? They gossip, they lie, they cheat, they blame, they run after success, they are bitter, they do drugs, they have sex, they think I’m crazy. They are exactly how I am apart from Christ.

            Again, uh, duh? I wouldn't be upset if a guy in a wheelchair didn't stand to pray, so why do I get upset when the people who haven’t been redeemed by Jesus don’t act like people who have been redeemed by Jesus? Apart from Him I can do nothing and neither can they. The only difference is I know that. That pisses them off even more.

           Most of my frustrations (and probably most of a lot of Christian's frustrations) come from forgetting where we've been. After being submersed in Christian culture for so long we forget that at one point none of this God, Jesus, Spirit stuff made any sense to use either. That's when we become condescending religious nuts. That's when we start acting outside of God's love, grace, and wrath. That's when we, ironically, start acting a lot like what God saved us out of. 

         The whole foundation of Christianity is Jesus' redeeming work on the Cross. The whole foundation for that is God's love for us and our inability to fix the problem of our sin. That realization should allow us to show Grace, and only Grace to those who are no different than us. 

            Lord, help me show Grace to those who don’t know You and act accordingly.

                                                                                                            -Amen

Faith in Christ or Locust

Joel/Romans 3+4

            If we don’t live by faith the locust come in and munch all the things we've built. If we don’t live by faith in God but only faith in our own bootstraps then all of this will crumble.

            Yes, faith is action. On top of that it must be incessant prayer and Bible reading so that when our actions turn from faith to self we don’t head that direction very long.

            For me I wonder if the punk thing is an action of faith or an action of self. Like most things I do, the motivation flip-flops. Sometimes it is totally an action of self. Anything we use to define ourselves, other than Christ, is an action of self. The question really is, can what we used as an action of self get redeemed to be an action of faith in Christ?

            Sometimes it starts in faith and moves to self (i.e. helping people, ministry, parenting, marriage,), while other times it starts in self and gets redeemed by faith (i.e. your job, your marriage, desires, hobbies, etc). I truly want to glorify God and watch people come to faith in Christ. I also want to stay punk. The question is, if God told me to toss all the punk stuff and become “cute” would I?

            I don’t know. I want to say I would, but why lie in my journal?