Praying for Tim Lambesis Lead singer of As I Lay Dying

If you haven't heard yet Tim Lambesis, lead singer of Christian metal band As I Lay Dying, was arrested in a murder for higher plot. Apparently, he tried to hire somebody to kill his soon to be ex wife. This is an awful, terrible thing. If it is found that this is true, then Tim sinned, and did something terrible. I'm very, very thankful that God was watching out for everybody involved and that nobody was killed.

Yes, put it all together: Christian artist tried to have his wife killed. That's hard to swallow. I hate to write it and I nearly cried when I read it. First off, I'm sad that somebody could lose sight so much that they felt like they had to kill some one else, and I'm equally as distraught at how I think the Christian community will handle it. As Christians we have a tendency to leave people like Tim out to dry. They sinned horribly and we don't want to look bad or be mocked so we speak out against them.

I for one, will not do it. I am committing to pray for Tim Lambesis and his family. Why? Because it's exactly what Jesus did. Look at John 8:1-11. Jesus didn't say that the woman's sin was okay, she didn't say it wasn't a big deal, but He didn't join the crowd and condemn her. He had the opportunity to impress some important people but instead He honored God and helped the hurting woman.

“But if we don't take a stand against him we will be mocked, and God will look bad!”Guess what folks. People are already mocking us and we already look bad. I for one would rather look bad for doing what Jesus would do then for acting like the World. This is the family of God. We support even when somebody makes a mistake.

Well, at least we should. If for a moment we think we deserve God's love and grace more just because we've never done this shame on us. Do we even Bible? I am just blessed that God has taken a sinner like me and forgiven me. He did the same for you and for Tim. 

So as for me. I will commit to pray for Tim and his family. He needs to repent (if he hasn't yet), and I know that since he's still alive God isn't through with him yet. All I can pray is that Tim seeks God in this and follows Jesus.  

God's Grace, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Getting Beaten to Death

For it is by grace you have been saved,through faith —and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—  not by works, so that no one can boast. -Ephesians 2:8-9

“The beauty of Grace is that it makes life not fair.” -Relient K


We are very quick to make sure everybody gets theirs. We love truth and justice as long as it doesn’t apply to us. Well, of course what we do may be bad but we have reasons. It’s not that we are bad it’s that situations are bad or times were tough or our moms didn’t hug us enough. We never deserve what’s coming to us because we have reasons. However, that other person, well, He deserves to get screwed.
Jeffrey Dahmer was a nasty, nasty serial killer. I won’t go into details about sodomy, necrophilia, and cannibalism just in case you’re eating, but just know that Jeff had a penchant for all that and participated in it roughly seventeen times in a thirteen year period. The dude was totally tweaked and if you are a little off like me, I’d say read the file.
So after he got arrested and sentenced to 15 consecutive life sentences (just in case he reincarnated he couldn’t skip a life) he found Jesus. People didn’t care. They assumed that since he was such a horrid person Jesus wouldn’t do shit for the guy  and his conversion certainly didn’t nullify his crimes. In 1994 Dahmer was beaten to death with a broom handle. The majority of the country was satisfied.
For years afterwards Christians were touting his conversion as the ultimate showing of God’s grace on a human soul while non Christians were using it to show how God is obviously a psycho and couldn’t be trusted if somebody like Dahmer was not rotting in eternal Hell fire. That made sense. Hitler, Stalin, Dahmer, all should have smoldering embers with their names on them.
They should. So should we.
This is where the Gospel gets hairy and people think there is no justice. So all somebody has to do after a life of cannibalism, sodomy rape, and serial killing is say a quick little prayer and then they get access to the Pearly Gates? That doesn’t sound like justice. It’s not justice. It’s Grace. If we ran the show we’d send certain people to Hell and certain people to Heaven. We’d pick the people who aren’t that bad and bring them to Heaven and we’d put all the Dahmers, Hitlers, Bin Ladens, and Stalins into Hell.
That’s not justice either. That’s revenge.
See, God never says in the Bible “Be good enough. Don’t be a serial killer/rapist guy and you can get into Heaven. Go to church, give me money, don’t swear and don’t masturbate and you can get into Heaven”. Nowhere does He say this.
Nowhere.
The standard for God is perfection not “good enough”. Our standard for people is good enough not perfection. Because of this God seems like a huge jerk. Nobody’s perfect and God should know that. Nobody’s perfect so God is not being fair. Well, when God made the world it was perfect and we messed it up. That wasn’t nice. God could’ve just let us wallow in our own crap and then when we finally killed ourselves off He could start over. But He didn’t. He made a way.
I don’t like God’s way. It’s not fair to me. It’s not justice like I see it so God’s horrible.
We aren’t God. We don’t have the last word on justice and truth. He does. The Bible shows us God’s perfect standard not so we look at it and say, “Eff it, I can’t, I’ll just do what I want” but rather, “Crap, I can’t do this, I need a way out of this mess.”
Heaven is not the default. We all want it to be but since we’re in a fallen world it isn’t “We all die and go to a better place,” it’s now, “We die and stand before God and either try to convince Him you were perfect or rely on Jesus’ righteousness.”
But why does Dahmer get off scott free? Why do people like him, Ted Bundy, and Son of Sam get to go to Heaven? They killed people all I ever did was lust, lie, cheat, steal, cuss, fight, fornicate, and hate? Why do they get off without any consequences?
If you call 15 consecutive life terms and getting beaten to death with a broom handle “getting off with no consequences” I’d have to say you’re a raging fundamentalist. .  
Nowhere in the Bible does it say that we don’t answer for our sins both big and small. The dad who ignores his family to work, work, work pays for it by having a crappy relationship with his kids and wife. The guy who steals usually gets caught or at the very least is never happy with the stuff he has. He always has to get more. You cheat you get hosed later when you don’t have somebody to cheat off and you have to try to do it on your own. You fight you’ll get beat eventually. You fornicate you’ll get crabs. You hate you’ll go gray early and die miserable.
Does this sound like “no consequences” to you? If it does then you are a bigger dick than you think God is. And don’t look at these as punishments from God. He isn’t a sadist. The reason God tells us not to sin is twofold: One, He knows the ramifications and two He can’t be around it so it separates us from Him and He hates that. God didn’t create the consequences for our bad living it’s our bad living that creates consequences.

We are broken and we can’t be fixed. God’s Grace comes in the person of Jesus who took our sin and death, died, rose, beat it all then said, “Follow me to Heaven!” We choose to follow or not. How does that make God a jerk?

I don’t totally get it but I know I need it. There are a lot of easier ways to go about life then Christianity. There are a lot of things more fun than living for Jesus. However, I have to say it makes sense when we look at how messed up we’ve made the world, usually while we’re trying to make it better, and how we can’t make it perfect. It’s not about how much we can do or realizing our potential it’s about knowing how much we can’t do and realizing God’s sovereignty.
That’s how you, me, and Jeff can make it.