Speaking Of...  

Posted by Matt

...the members of our body that we'd rather not hear from...

...I'm working and praying and having faith that God will grow me into a man who can help Him undo some of the damage many Christians have done to the faith over the years.

It will happen one person at a time, but if we all work together, we can make a huge difference in the lives of people around us; we can get people to see that a church like the one in Acts 2--one filled with the Holy Spirit, sharing, helping, celebrating, and being excited about Jesus and love--is worth having around; that sort of church is worth investigating and learning about.

Weird. Acts 2 says that the first Christians "enjoyed the favor of all the people." I have to LoL at that. Not an incredulous LoL--a "I have to laugh, else I might cry" sort of LoL.

Enjoy the favor of the people? Not just the "people," but..."all" the people.

Look, we modern dudes can't get all the CHRISTIANS in one freaking building in favor with each other very often--and the people of the city in general favored these dudes.

I really doubt Christians back then had websites where they whigged out about how much God hates fags (He doesn't--He loves them); I don't think they had a horrendously large, politically active association of Christians spending millions of dollars and bickering over bi-laws and internal association-presidential elections (while people starved, froze in the cold, or had no Christmas presents...yes, I know they weren't celebrating Christmas back in Peter's time...work with my hyperbole); I totally don't think the Acts 2 church sent squads of followers out to the funerals of Roman soldiers to cheer on their death, chant, mock the mourners, and hold up placards with hateful, ignorant messages.

God's got a lifetime...check that...an eternity of growing me up to do; at the moment, I really believe that following Him means I'm helpful, friendly, fair, loving, and merciful--meek, even.

Rather than talking of God's anger (yeah, He gets angry, and I don't ignore that), I'll choose to bring the good news Jesus sent me out to provide. The good news is not "God hates idolators, teachers of evolution, liberals, and perverts."

It's more like, "God loves every single person, no matter how ugly and disgusting their lives have been--He wants your affection and praise, no matter what you've done or said. You can't ever go too far. When you walk up to God to ask Him yourself if He loves you, He'll never show you the face of a judgmental, angry, estranged God."

Actually, that last sentence can be untrue quite often...sadly enough. If Christians are the face of God on the Earth, too often non-Christians come asking us (in a variety of ways) if God really does love them--and all too often they are shown a judgmental, angry, estranged face.

We've got to fix our faces, dudes. I'm starting with mine...Psalm 34:5 says that if I look at God, my face will glow...er..."look radiant." How radiant do Christians look these days? How radiant do I look?

Don't answer. I already know. /le sigh

We can do better--check that--we can let Jesus do better through us. I want His name written on my face. On yours. On theirs. If we want these faces to shine for Jesus--to shine so the world may see--we're going to have to look at Him a LOT more than we have been.

0 comments

Post a Comment

Contributors

I'm just a suburban guy. I wish I were hardcore, I wish I were tougher, I wish I listened to cooler music, I wish I weren't a lush, I wish I had big muscles, cooler hair, and some rad tattoos, I wish I were smarter, cooler, and sexier, I wish I knew how to play guitar. Instead, I'm just a band geek, power-nerd wannabe, WoW gamer, 30 year-old dad and husband. I play french horn, I read the Vampire Chronicles as well as the Chronic-WHAT?!-les of Narnia, I like movies, but not all the snobby-artsy ones I'm "supposed" to see, and a good meal to me is Miller Lite with chicken patties topped in barbecue sauce. ...oh...and I have a big mouth.

Archives

My Inter-Web Small Group

I'm totally pumped you stopped by. Please, I urge you to comment on the blog postings here. Obviously, do what you can to be polite to your fellow inter-webbers, but also feel free to be as honest as you can.

Honestly--this is a true statement--I pray for you, my friends/readers. Whether I know your name or not, whether I know you actually read today or not, I talk to Jesus for you.

Subscribe to the "Intemperate RSS" so you can find out what we're talking about here, computer or not.

I'm sharing with you stuff that God's put on my heart and stuff that I know my mom and dad are probably embarrassed to see me write (trust me, they trained me to be farrrrrr better than this!).