Blogging to Bless

Funny how it took me awhile to settle on a topic for this week.  My goal was to crank something out before Thanksgiving so I could relax and enjoy the holiday, and my mind was drawing a blank.  It occurred to me that my intent for Thanksgiving was to focus on enjoying my time with my family and delicious food, and I was not leaving a whole lot of room for contemplation of all I have for which to be thankful.  I decided despite it’s cliche-ness, we can all use a reminder to be thankful.

On his way to Samaria, Jesus was approached by ten lepers outside of a village (most likely they were not allowed in the village due to the contagious nature of the disease).  They called out to Jesus to heal them and He told them to show themselves to the priests which was the necessary step for a cured leper to take in order to be allowed back into the community.  Luke 17:14 tells us, “And as they went, they were cleansed.”  One of the ten lepers, upon seeing that He was healed, came back praising God loudly and fell at Jesus’s feet, thanking Him.  “Jesus asked, ‘Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?  Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?'” The leper was a Samaritan, a nation considered to be idolaters.  Then Jesus tells the man that it is his faith that has made him well.

So what about these other nine?  The interesting thing about the way this story plays out is that Jesus instructs the men to go show themselves to the priest before they show any signs of healing, and they start walking.  It is clear that they were all exercising faith at this point and it was this faith that brought their healing for it was “as they went” that they were healed.  We know they were all healed because Jesus said, “Were not all ten cleansed?”  The question is why did only one come back to thank Jesus?  Perhaps they worried if they came back to thank him they would not have completed their directions to show themselves to the priest and could risk a relapse of illness.  Maybe they were just caught up in the moment and forgot.  We could speculate that they were still uncertain that they were fully healed and they were waiting on confirmation from the priest to join in thanksgiving.

I think all of these theories could be very likely, but I wonder about another that is rooted only in my own pattern of ungratefulness.  I wonder if these men in some way felt entitled to the healing they received.  Maybe it’s just my cultured-American attitude reading into it, but I think about all of those times I have forgotten to thank God for my blessings as a result of my feelings of entitlement.  I feel entitled to my home, my children, my husband, my food, my church, my internet access, my car, my relaxation, my health.  I have worked hard for them- are they not deserved?  And if I were to be in a position where I risked losing one of them, would I not pray to God and flaunt my hard work and faithfulness as a reason for Him to give back what I rightly deserve?

Now those feelings of gratefulness are flooding my emotions.  There are many who, by my standards of hard work and faithfulness, deserve what I have and press on without it- the family relocating to an apartment due to job loss, the woman desiring children staring at a negative test again, a wife finding herself alone after tragedy, the man who knows nothing of a hot meal, the nations that can not worship freely a God who offers them the only comfort they may ever know, the single mother riding the bus to the library so she can look for jobs, the caregiver of an elderly parent with dementia, the child dying of cancer.  We are not entitled to any of it.  Our hard work and faithfulness is not a guarantee for “the good things in life.”

What is a guarantee is that our Savior Jesus Christ will carry us through any time of trouble in this life, on to our heavenly home.  He has promised to be our source of strength and comfort when every other thing and person fails us.  That is the guarantee of our faith.  Everything else is a blessing, a little extra bit of grace that we are to be using to bless the hearts and lives of others.  It is what we do with these blessings that shows how grateful we are for them.  So when we gather around the Thanksgiving table this weekend and remind ourselves of what we have to be thankful for, let’s not forget to be the reason that someone else is thankful.

Adventurous has never been a word I would use to describe myself.  I have always been more of the cautious type.  In fact, a lot of my good choices in life were made in the interest of safety rather than it being a good “moral” choice.  As a child, I followed rules because adults were intimidating.  I never dabbled in drinking because there was no appeal to me in losing self-control, much less vomiting.  Cheating in school was never considered because the risk of being caught was… well… risky.  Whenever I moved to a new city, I established my route to work or school and stuck with that, shopping only at the stores along the way.  I use the crosswalk at all times and get anxious when my husband leads me otherwise.  I use my blinker on desolate roads.  You will never catch me in the express lane with 13 items in my shopping cart.  Rules are meant to be followed.

Perhaps that is why the Christian lifestyle has always had its appeal to me.  As the exact middle child of seven children, I have always found myself to be a sufferer of “Middle Child Syndrome.”  At the top of the list of symptoms- the inability to make decisions.  Rules often eliminate the need to make a decision.  The decision has already been made.   So when it came to a lifestyle of following Christ in the sense of moral decisions, I had very little struggle.

Jesus has always been a safe choice.  He gave me purpose, answered my whys, and left no uncertainty for me about where I was heading after this life.  I felt like I had all bases covered.  Jesus was a first aid kit that I carried in my purse and pulled out when faced with the boo-boos of this life.  And He also helped me avoid many “ow-ies” along the way.  Safe.  Just my style.

But lately, He’s been getting really risky.  This word “adventure” keeps coming up in my daily thoughts.  There is this pull toward excitement.  To me, up until very recently, following Christ has always been about leading my life in a moral way that serves others and points them to Him.  There never appeared to be any risk involved.  The problem with my definition is it was still my life and I was not giving up a whole lot.  There was no sacrifice in leaving an old life behind- maybe some of you snicker at my opting for “How Great Thou Art” over Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” as described in my last blog, but that was about as sacrificial as it got.  It was still my life with a future that I had always had mapped out- stay-at-home mom with lots of kids and a little bit of time to write.  A nice, safe future.

I have often envied those Christians with the powerful testament of that life-changing moment where faith took over and the life of drinking and drugs became history.  Recently I attended a witnessing workshop and heard from people with testimonies like this and I cried at what beautiful works of Christ they were.  They were men that lead these brash lifestyles choking up as they shared what they lived for now and what they left behind.  They were jars of clay with ugly beginnings that Christ was molding into beautiful images of Him.

I know when I tell you I have always been a straight-laced fuddy-duddy, Christianity seems like an easy decision.  It may seem to some blindly-made, lacking intellect, done only out of what was “the right thing to do.”  I hope that my previous blogs have made you think otherwise.  There was definitely a lot of mental struggle for me, and I did a lot of research to come to the convictions I profess.  Still, the life-changing moment never happened for me.  I can tell you moments of growth, but no one would look at the Katie-of-old and the Katie-of-now and proclaim, “My! How you have changed!”

But lately, I have been feeling it coming on.  The risk, the excitement, the adventure.  My heart keeps pounding at the thought of it.  This blog was a start.  Not that it was a bold change, but it was a commitment to start speaking about Him on a regular basis and offering Him up to those who don’t know Him.  I hesitated the first time I went to share it on Facebook.  What if it offends?  What if it begs questions I cannot answer?  Yet, if I wrote only for the edification of those already firm in their belief, what good would it really do?

Then I read the book “How Good is Good Enough?” and I told my husband I wanted to make it available to anyone seeking.  “Offer it on the blog?” I thought.  Risky.  Supply and demand and postage costs would be unpredictable.  But God keeps telling me to do it.  So here I am, joining Him for an adventure to offer to you, whoever wants it, the book “How Good is Good Enough,” and trusting that He will provide for the demand.  If you have ever wondered how good you have to be to get into Heaven, if all religions lead to the same place, if there is anyway to know the answer to life’s biggest question; you need to ask me for this book.  You can email me at bloggingtobless@hotshepherd.org and I will get you a copy.    

I’m leaving behind a life of pew-warming and predictability.  Following Christ is all about handing over your life so that He can mold it into its original design.  I know I am safe in Christ but I am ready to live through Him.  I don’t know what He holds for me in tomorrow, but that is the whole idea of adventure.  Want to join me?

It used to take me an hour to get ready for school every morning.  I used to curl my hair and meticulously apply makeup.  On my drive to school I would elevate my mood by blaring Led Zeppelin.  My highs and lows of the day were measured by whether or not a crush spoke to me.  To close out a stressful day, I would go shopping with my best friend, spending most of my paycheck on something I hoped would make me feel more attractive, wanted, needed by whomever would take notice.  These were the things that defined me.  It was what I loved.

I am lucky if I get to take a shower two days in a row now.  My morning routine consists of finding something that is clean and fits, brushing my hair if I remember and brushing my teeth.  I can’t wear makeup anymore due to sensitive skin, but even so, I don’t think I would take the time to apply it.  Though I can still appreciate the musical talents of Led Zeppelin, I don’t gather the same enjoyment from their music.  Going on a shopping trip now means heading to the grocery store, which I actually love doing, but my fulfillment comes from whittling my receipt down to pennies versus the high I would get from spending $60 on a pair of jeans.  My day consists of making my husband and children feel attractive, wanted, needed, loved.

On my thirtieth birthday my husband asked me if there was anything that I wanted just for me, not for the purposes of serving someone else.  He knows that I tend toward gifts of need for the household.  I never answered him.  I could not come up with something that I really wanted that did not involve providing for someone else.  It scared me.  It sounds silly to me now, but I sat there wondering if I had lost myself somewhere in the midst of motherhood.  What defines me now are the people around me.  And there was a little bit of resentment there.  I think all mothers go through this struggle at some point.  It’s what empty nest syndrome is all about.  Our identity becomes imbedded in our children and our old desires to serve ourself transition to serving our children, so much so that it is hard to find enjoyments that we can call our very own.

I am not trying to say that I don’t have indulgences just for myself anymore.  I can neither confirm nor deny a stash of dark chocolate that no one else knows about.  The truth is I have more of a difficulty serving myself now than serving others.  As a thought would come to mind of something I could splurge on just for me, it would be defeated by a more sensible option.  I struggled with whether this was a bad thing or a good thing.  Certainly the resentment I was feeling about it was bad, but overall I knew I did not want a token of that past lifestyle where I lived for myself.  My joy is in serving my family, in hearing my husband delight in a dinner I made, in watching Colette grow in discipline, in seeing Mary explore new things, in the child that grows inside of me, in taking my time, talents and treasures and blessing others.  These are the things that define me.  It is what I love.

Shortly after one of my friends became a Christian, she cried to me and said, “I don’t know who I am anymore.”  At the time I was so puzzled by the statement.  She had always been very chameleon in nature, taking on the likes and interests of whomever she was dating at the time, but as a Christian she had started making decisions apart from pleasing others.  I was seeing so much growth in her character that I could not understand what she thought she was missing.  To me, she was unveiling the person that was always hiding inside.  Now I understand that for so long her sins had identified who she was, that as she stepped away from them, she felt like she was leaving her self behind too.  I could not understand why she was mourning this because I saw it as the necessary growth of a Christian.  We are called to become a new creation in Christ.

There is trepidation in taking on this new life in Christ for a lot of Christians.  Too often we allowed our sin to define us- I was a self-centered, image-oriented, impatient teenager that delighted in worldly things, whether I would have admitted it at the time or not.  It is how we know ourself to be and who others have come to know.  It is why so many of us struggle with leaving them behind.  It took me a long time to admit that I did not receive the same satisfaction from listening to Led Zeppelin that I once did.  It was hard for me to say that praise music had taken that love’s place.  I am sure it is laughable for some of you to read this, but I felt very elite in my taste of music and even held those who lacked the same appreciation in disdain.  Now I enjoy music that embraces it’s original intent to bring glory to God.  I am moved by songs that sing His praises.  While Led Zeppelin remains arguably one of the most talented bands of all time, they certainly did not seek to bring glory to God.  And I certainly wasn’t seeking to bring glory to Him during the time that they spoke to me most.

God wants to make you a new creation.  He wants to place desires in your heart that will lead you down paths you never imagined going.  He wants to replace those beaten paths of sin with trails that lead to treasures in Him.  He wants to expose those temporary joys for their superficial nature and guide you to the eternal peace and joy that you will only find in His gift of Jesus Christ.

Let Him.

In Romans 12, verse 2 Paul pleads, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is- his good, pleasing and perfect will.”  It is easy to conform to the patterns of this world in cranking up a song that praises promiscuity and vanity, delighting in a tv show that is profane in nature, buying into consumerism, fulfilling gluttoness desires.  As we renew our minds by allowing the desires of God to replace those of our sinful nature, His will, which is good and pleasing and perfect, becomes evident to us.  This is the new creature He makes of us.  What we find joy in, take peace in, seek comfort in defines us.  How much is your sin defining you?
      

Perhaps it is a combination of just turning thirty and being pregnant, but I have had the quivery-lipped, stingy-eyed feeling for the past 24 hours.  If you are female, you probably know what I mean.  It’s that lump that climbs up your throat at the smallest threat to your emotions and despite telling yourself to pull it together, you cannot swallow it down.  Colette kept looking at me like I have a boo-boo; large sympathetic eyes and she would quietly lay her head in my lap.  Re-enter lump and quiver-lip.

Maybe you don’t ever have these kinds of weepy days and I am making the assumption that this is just a feminine quality.   But I am sure all of us have had those days where our emotions run amuck and failure seems to be in stride with our every step.  The dirty laundry, unmade beds, couple extra pounds, overdue blog entry, Colette and Mary’s confused stares- all mocking me this morning.  Everything I was facing was nothing anyone couldn’t trudge through with the right attitude, but I could not even conquer my own attitude this morning.

I have struggled with negativity my whole life.  I admit that I have difficulties around positive attitudes because it does not allow me to indulge my raw emotions about a situation.  Today I realized the actual battle that I was facing was entirely within myself.  Galatians 5:17 states, “For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature.  They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.”  The reality is I am a child of God.  The reality is I am loved by Him.  The reality is He is creating a good work in me and I am pushing through like never before to submit to that, which is exactly why another force battles against me.

There are so many of us that are not willing to admit that there is someone out there working against our gains in Christ.  I have trouble even now pointing my finger and confidently saying that the devil works against us.  Perhaps it is because we just finished up with Halloween and we see how lightly some take his threat to the goodness in this world.  He has become a gimmick to many.  There was a time where I did not admit to his existence.    

The frustration that we experience as Christians is that we continue to sin in a sinful world and provide the devil with fodder to parade out in front of us.  He is constantly building a case against us that we are not worthy of the love God has for us.  On days like this I am all too tempted to hear him out.  But there are such words of hope to follow in that passage of Galatians.  Verse 18- “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.”  Do you know what this means?  It means that despite my faults and my many failures that the devil does not want me to forget, God does not measure me up to the law.  Instead He looks to His Son who died for me and sees the blood that covered those sins and calls me to cling to that!  Christ died while we were still sinners!  God knows my failures.  What is important to Him is how I overcome them.

I told you I could not conquer my attitude this morning.  I did not conquer it, but God did.  He was waiting the whole time for me to come to Him and I didn’t do it until I started typing this blog.  Remember how I told you I like to indulge my emotions?  So often I know that God will not indulge the way I am feeling and so I do not go to Him.  What is evident to me now is that I was not indulging my emotions, but the devil.  He was trying to immobilize me, sink me further into feeling like a failure as a wife and mother and Christian so that he could convince me to stop trying.  But the whole while God was holding out promises to me that I was not accepting.  As a child of God we are entitled to the fruits of His Spirit.  He has promised to us the ability to be filled with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  I am the one who denies myself these treasures because I have allowed the argument that I do not have a right to them.

Galatians 5:1 says, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”  I let myself be burdened by the yoke of slavery by using the law as a measure of how God viewed me.  I became a slave to the law trying to save myself, but Christ already saved me.  I must stand firm in the love that He has for me, so that I do not let the devil gain a foothold in my emotions again.  Not only does Christ love me in spite of my failures, but He has given me the ability to live by His Spirit so that I can be better than I was today.  That promise is for you too!  Live by the fruit of his Spirit and do not be burdened by the yolk of sin.  Christ already took care of that for you.

I have a friend who used to throw sheets over her mirrors.  She had heard of a religion that believed your soul could be stolen if you looked in a mirror at night.  My husband went to law school with some very intellectual individuals who would not take a test without their lucky article of clothing.  I have many faithful Christian friends that forward me emails promising blessings and riches if I pass it on to seven people in the next seven minutes.

Often we are more apt to believe the extravagant rituals and superstitions than the simple call of our God.  The Bible constantly condemns the people of Israel for putting their faith in an idol they had created with their own hands.  It sound ridiculous to us that someone believed that a golden calf could bring rain or offspring, but we put our faith in hopeless things as well.

We put more faith in our intelligence, career, family, or money- all which could be gone in a moment of tragedy- than we do in God and His ability to provide us with all that we need.  God asks us to seek first His Kingdom and all else will be given to us.  It really is that simple but we would rather trust our own creations than our Creator.

The Biblical story of Naaman is a perfect depiction of how we often make belief more complicated than it really is.  Naaman had a leprosy, a horrible skin disease that was very contagious and often left the victim disfigured.  Naaman was told that he could find healing through the great prophet Elisha.  Elisha instructs Naaman to wash in the Jordan River seven times and he would be cured.

Naaman goes away angry and says, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy.  Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than any of the waters of Israel?   Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” (2 Kings 5:11-12)  Naaman was expecting some kind of showy affair or at least wash in rivers that were considered cleaner than the Jordan.

Naaman thought the river or the ritual held the healing power, but it would be his belief demonstrated in following the instruction that would cure him.. Elisha could have instructed him to wash in a different river or roll in the mud or do ten jumping jacks and he would have been healed either way.  Naaman doubted God’s capabilities of healing him and was putting his belief in the act of the cleansing.

Naaman’s servant reasoned with him, “If the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it?  How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed!'”  Naaman is convinced and washes in the Jordan and is healed.

Like Naaman, God has given us the same simple commandment: Wash and be cleansed!  We act out our belief in God through Holy Baptism, where we are washed clean of our sins through the belief in the sacrifice of Christ.  Through his cleansing we are cured, but we must believe in order to be cleansed.  And just like Naaman, we often doubt the simplicity of the whole thing.  We say, “I thought surely God would ask me to do good works, to sell all of my possessions, to pay for my sins, and make myself acceptable in His sight first.  Doesn’t that make more sense?”

How often do we overlook and limit the miracles of God because we count it too simple to believe in?  Our life has been tarnished by our sin.  We have separated ourselves from our Creator by placing our trust in the things we have created.  We have covered ourselves in the filth of greed, lust, and hatred.  We are burdened by our actions and our hearts are grieving.  And our God is making a simple call for us to wash and be cleansed.  Have you overlooked His call because you were looking for something more complicated?  

The story of Jonah is one many of us have heard since our youth.  Jonah is told to go preach to the Ninevites, a city practicing wickedness, and Jonah catches the next boat available heading to anywhere but Nineveh.  As a child, I had always assumed that Jonah feared for his own life and that was why he ran.  But the truth of the Book of Jonah is quite different.

Jonah thought he could run away from the task God had asked of him.  He then finds himself on a boat in the midst of a terrible and unexpected storm.  The passengers are terrified and pray to their respective Gods.  Jonah is sleeping when one of the men come to him and asks that he pray to his God.  Jonah confesses that he is the reason for the storm and tells the men to throw him overboard.  The men try to row toward shore instead, but when they find this impossible, they pray that God will not hold them accountable for their actions, and throw Jonah overboard.

The next part is the well-known part of the story where Jonah is swallowed by a giant fish.  He survives for three days in the belly of the fish and then is spit up on land.  He then goes to the Ninevites and warns them of the threatening destruction of their evil ways.  They repent of their sins and God has mercy on them.

What follows I found to be very surprising.  Jonah becomes angry and prays to God, “O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home?  That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish.  I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.  Now, O Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”  Jonah 4:2-3  Jonah leaves the city and sits in a barren place to sulk and, it appears, to die.  A vine grows up over Jonah and provides him shade and he is “very happy about the vine.”  Then a worm chews the vine and it dies and Jonah is left in the blazing sun and a scorching east wind.  Again Jonah is angry with God.

“But God said to Jonah, ‘Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?’

‘I do,’ he said.  ‘I am angry enough to die.’

But the Lord said, ‘You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow.  It sprang up overnight and died overnight.  But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well.  Should I not be concerned with this great city?'”  Jonah 4:9-11

So I discovered that Jonah did not run out of fear, but because he did not want the people of Nineveh to be saved!  I find it so interesting a confession as it is believed that the book of Jonah was written by Jonah himself.  I wonder if Jonah had some personal issues with the Ninevites or if he just saw them to be so rotten that he could not handle them being saved.  I look at myself and think of those I withhold the Gospel from.  There are people whom I have deemed “unsaveable.”  I thought my husband was not capable of becoming a believer.  I thought he was too comfortable with his lifestyle to consider a need for God.  I look at a lot of people that way.

My mom told me the other day that she was going to give my business card for the blog to some old acquaintances of mine.  I said, “Oh, they’re not religious.  I don’t think they would be interested.”  I have wondered why I had said that ever since.  Why not give it to them?  Was I worried it would offend someone I don’t even talk to?  Or did I deem them incapable or unworthy of salvation?  (Not to claim that this blog has the ability to save the lost.)

So often we limit the list of those we want to receive salvation.  Murderers, molesters, cheaters, or someone who hurt us are people we do not want to run into in Heaven.  Usually we draw the line of acceptable, “salvageable” behavior just a few feet past our own poorest actions.  The mentality seems to be if you have done no worse, than I am okay with you “getting in.” Most think they are good enough to be saved.

The story of Jonah shows us that we are all good enough to be saved in the sense that we are all in need of salvation and it is not limited to any one group of people.  Jonah himself was no peach.  He certainly wasn’t the loving-caring-for-others-in-need type.  At least not in this story.  He denied God’s call.  He got angry with God over something that should have lead him to rejoice.  But God had great mercy on him.  God could have allowed him to drown.  He could have allowed the Ninevites to kill him.  He could have allowed him to die as he asked.  Yet God was so patient with him, waiting for Jonah to come to an understanding and showing Jonah how valuable his one life was and then comparing that to all of the lives in Nineveh.

Are you in the belly of a fish?  Is God calling you to share his news with someone you have deemed unworthy?  Could your current circumstances in life be a result of ignoring that call?

Pray that God would help you to share the Gospel unbiasedly as He calls us to do.  Pray that God would cause your heart to love those you struggle to love.  Pray that you could experience joy for every sinner saved.  The greater the sinner, the greater the grace.  Isn’t that what makes our God so great?
  

For some of you who have not been following the dialogue I have been having with an Anonymous reader, this post may seem outside of the spirit of the blog.  I can not email Anonymous or respond in private and so the best way is in a post.  Please understand that I feel compelled to respond to this reader, because I once sat where s/he did.

To Anonymous-  I will do my best to answer your questions, but I have to start out by saying that I can not, nor can anyone else reason someone to faith.  You will not be able to reason yourself to faith.  What I was trying to explain in my blog about reason becoming my God was that I only looked to my own intelligence to determine the “rightness” of God.  Faith is a giving over of reason to God.  I understand that this isn’t easily done, as I have always been of the inquisitive nature.  I still am.  And what you will notice in the Bible is that many of the “greats” questioned God- Job, Solomon, David, Moses, Abraham, Thomas.  I don’t think that questioning God is the equivalent of turning our back on Him.  I am sorry that I gave you that impression!  I do think that if we are not going to God with our questions, we place ourselves in a dangerous position of turning from Him.  I was trying to encourage you to go to Him with your questions.

This is how I view my faith.  I have trusted God to have the answers that I myself don’t have.  He has been faithful in revealing to me His truth in the doubts I have brought to Him.  Please don’t think that I am free of the struggle of doubt, but I have learned that I can not hide from God, but He is merciful when I come to Him with my doubts and sin.  I pray very regularly, “I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief!” Mark 9:24

I want you to know that I am not frightened by the questions you pose, and hope this is not what you said you may not “write here again.”  I am firm in my faith, so you do not have to worry about shaking it or taking it from me.  And I do not think that you are trying to convince me that I am wrong.  I see you as someone who is honestly seeking answers, just like I once did.  I am thankful that you have chosen to engage with me.  I wonder if it would be more easily done through email, only because sometimes the formatting of the blog poses problems in how I would like to line by line answer your questions.  I certainly am not suggesting this to get you to reveal yourself to me or to “hide” your thoughts from my readers.  I think it is healthy for Christians to know the very real struggle that so many have in coming to faith.  I have family members in this same struggle.  I wish I could hand my peace over to you and have it be that simple.  For you to consider, you can email me at bloggingtobless@hotshepherd.org.

I am not sure I will be able to get through all of your questions today.  The girls are napping right now but there is no guarantee how long that will last.  Regarding the Native Americans and any that grow up in a culture different than ours- I want to first say that accepting belief in Jesus Christ does not mean you are condemning them.  I know that this is what it feels like.  I place my trust in a good and gracious God and can only trust in what He tells me.  The rest I leave up to Him.  Do I think that you must believe in Jesus in order to be saved?  Yes.  I think there is a reason that this makes me feel uneasy when I consider those that don’t believe- some my own siblings, relatives, friends.  If I did not feel uneasy about it, I would not be encouraged to tell the gospel to them.  We are continually reminded of the urgency in sharing the Gospel in the Bible.  I believe there is a wrong way and a right way to do this.  We are also told that the Gospel will offend some.  It is not always an easy truth to hear.

I do not support solely the reading of the King James Bible.  I have read that as well as other versions of the Bible.  I am confused when you refer to the “Jesus of the King James Version of the Bible” as though He is different from the other translations of the Bible.  The message from Bible to Bible is Jesus saves.  It is not like the King James was the first copy of the Bible.  It was the first English translation of the Bible, but the Bible was written in Greek and Hebrew originally.  We have many original texts that our current English Bibles have been translated from.  I have to touch on the oral history as well.  I want you to consider how important it was to a culture to properly recite an oral tradition before the age of writing.  It is not like our current culture of telling stories where details get lost or distorted.  They valued that knowledge more than we can understand in our age of media.

Regarding the Sabbath, the early Christians starting gathering on the first day of the week to commemorate the day when Christ rose from the dead, which was Sunday.  The Book of Acts describes this transition.  I don’t think God cares what day we set aside for Him, as long as we are setting aside a particular time to worship Him.  Romans 14:5-6 touches on this.  Galatians 4:8-10 also discusses the difficulties the early Christians faced in following the law in a legalistic sense versus following it in a faithful sense.  I believe that it is good for me to set aside time in my week to worship God and to draw closer to Him, but I do not believe it is necessary for my salvation.  The Law was always a guideline to lead us to faith.  There was never an opportunity where a man could follow the Laws of God to perfection and hence “win” salvation.  That is where Jesus came in.  He is the answer to the sin, the imperfection we all face in our life.

You said you admit you are “ignorant, flawed, selfish, sinful, boastful.”  We all are.  Recognizing that is the first step to rectifying that.  I know that I can not lead my life in a way that will always be pleasing to God.  God can not ignore the sin in my life.  If He were to draw a line and say, “All sinners who have only sinned thus many times under thus many circumstances will be considered righteous, all others condemned,” where would he draw that line?  God’s salvation is not exclusive.  It is offered to everyone sinner, even the worst kind.  Paul was a murderer of Christians.  David murdered so He could have the wife of another man.  But God does not limit His forgiveness.  It is offered to anyone, even those who once denied Him.

Colette is up so I have time to address one more question and the others I will get to shortly.  You asked, “If I agree that a rich man getting into Heaven is easier than a camel passing through the eye of a needle, what should I do about any pursuits of wealth?”  God does not look down upon the wealthy, in fact, He often blessed the faithful with riches.  The intent of these riches are to bless others.  My husband and I tithe (as well as support other charitable organizations) not because we believe it will earn us anything, but because we believe we have been blessed so that we can bless.  I know that God continues to bless us because we continue to be faithful in blessing others.  There was a period of time when I was out of work and my husband was only working one day a week.  We had to decide if we would continue to tithe during that time.  We decided that our faith had taught us that God would provide for us and we continued to tithe.  Faith is about exercising!  It’s not just about what I believe, but how that belief leads me to action.  If I say I have faith and have no works, my faith is useless.  I have found that every time I put my faith into action, God proves Himself to me.  When we decided to tithe, we were scared about our decision, but we went to God with that fear and told Him that we were trusting in Him.  This is what He wants from you.  He wants you to come to Him with your doubts and with your sin and step out in faith.

My friend, you are in my prayers.  I know what a powerful thing that is.

This post is in response to yesterday’s comment on the blog post “He Didn’t Do It For Nothing.”

When I left high school and went off to college I had not been attending church for awhile.  I still claimed the Christian faith and did not see church as a bad thing, but whether confessed or not, I saw it as an unnecessary thing.  I was not reading the Bible either.  I was doing exactly what most of my peers were doing.  I was trying to find success, trying to find happiness, and trying to do good for myself.

During this time, I started struggling with my faith, without even realizing it was a struggle.  I thought I understood my God.  He was loving.  I was always able to accept that.  So then I started reasoning- If God is a loving God, how could He condemn anyone to Hell?  Well, certainly He must not was my resolution.  And if there was no Hell, no need for a Devil then either.  I was on a slippery slope to determining that there must not be a problem of sin, but never seemed to go there.  Maybe it’s because that always seemed to be prevalent and obvious in my own life- my selfish greeds and lusts and laziness.  Yet, I hung on to the belief in the saving grace of Jesus Christ.  I don’t know what I thought He was saving me from at that point because there was no Hell in my mind.  I suppose I thought He was saving me from myself, showing me a better way to live life by serving others.  But I wasn’t even doing that.  I was just looking to serve myself- be comfortable with myself, my beliefs, my happiness.

Slowly, my reason became my God.  Whatever I could not reason with my finite mind, was tossed out as irrelevant or unnecessary to be understood.  No Hell, no devil, no false gods, no wrong beliefs.  I started developing a theology based solely on my reason.  When I did read the Bible on rare occasions, I came across other “issues” that didn’t meld well with my reason.  Noah’s Ark seemed laughable to me.  All of those animals were not fitting on one boat.  Clearly this did not happen.  And then there was the problem of the story of Creation versus Evolution.  Creation could not have taken place in 6 days when science tells us it was millions of years of evolution.  And so the Bible became this odd source of wisdom for me where I would pick and choose what made sense and what didn’t.  If something made sense, I accepted it as truth.  If it didn’t make sense, then clearly it was untrue.

The Bible told me God was a loving God.  I believed that.  The Bible said Jesus healed the sick, the lame, the blind, and raised Lazarus from the dead.  I believed that too.  And as I said, I continued to believe in Jesus as a savior of some sort.  At one point, I started reasoning that maybe death was not the end of life here on Earth.  I wanted to hold on to this belief that Jesus was going to get me into Heaven, but in doing so, I knew that it caused some problems of exclusion for all of those people who didn’t believe.  I had to reason a way for them to get into Heaven so I decided that when we died, if we hadn’t found our way to Jesus yet, we would be reincarnated and given another opportunity.  This fit well for my belief that there was no Hell and no God willing to condemn anyone.  So I guess, though my thought process never specifically lead me there, I would have to believe that Adolf Hitler was wandering around in someone else’s body looking for Jesus.

My theology started to fall apart on me when I had trouble reasoning something.  I would look to the Bible for wisdom, but I had rejected half of the philosophies it held.  I realized this made it an unreliable source.  My theology had been built on the idea of a loving God.  This “fact” that I wanted to accept was in the Bible.  My foundation was crumbling.  Was God a loving god and did He even exist?  I didn’t feel like I could go to the Bible anymore for answers, so I went to God.  I prayed for God to reveal Himself to me.  I prayed that He would help me with my belief in Him and my unbelief in Him.

For the first time ever, I read the Bible straight through.  It was amazing.  I think the turning point for me was when I read the story of Noah’s ark.  What I had skimmed over every other time I had read it was the measurements that God instructs Noah with for building.  Every other time this had seemed unnecessary and boring, but now I realized those measurements were there for me and my doubting mind.  Studies have been done to prove that it was very possible for all of the animals to fit on the boat.  What this spoke to me was that I had been ignoring the signs that God was giving me to come to a solid belief in Him.  I wasn’t going to God for explanation on my doubts; I was depending on my own intelligence which has been proven to falter.

Have you read the Bible cover to cover?  If not, take that journey.

So often we want to reason our way to faith in God, but that is not faith at all.  Faith is trust in the unknown.  What I encourage those lacking in faith to do, is to stop reasoning and step out in faith with a prayer to a God- a God that you are not even certain is there and ask Him to reveal Himself.  Be honest in your unbelief.  Then ask Him to help you with it.

You asked, “Can you believe in your God without having to believe anything else is ‘false?’  Is that possible?”  My answer is no.  Because the God that I have come to know through my faith says that there is one way to Him.  I accept the whole Bible as truth.  I can’t cover every reason why in this one blog entry, but there are many reasons.  This blog is the story of my faith.

Your example about the book and the many interpretations that can be derived from the same material being read, leaves something out.  I think that those interpretations can be wrong.  Let’s not forget that there was an author with an intent in mind when the book was written.  As an author, if someone drew a conclusion from one of my writings that I did not intend, it does not make that person’s interpretation true.  I understand that good and captivating creative writings leave open opportunities for the reader’s interpretation.  I do not believe the Bible was written with that intent.  I believe that it was God-breathed, His very word, handed down to man.  I believe that He knows that in it the words of life are contained.  I believe that He gave it to us to lead us to Him.

So what of those that don’t believe?  Yes, I do believe that they need Jesus to be saved.  It makes my heart ache.  You asked, “Once we’ve identified who is wrong, what do we do with them?  My guess is, we start by telling them they are wrong.”  It is not a popular belief, but yes, it is mine.  But we tell them in a loving manner and out of love.  It is offensive to hear we are wrong, but don’t we need to hear it when we are?  In the world of law, we have a duty to protect each other from harm.  This is why we have lawsuits of negligence because someone did not properly inform another of possible harm.  Are you willing to accept any religion as “true” for that person- even ones that are cultish and regarded as crazy by the general public?  If you have to draw the line somewhere, where is that line?  Are you willing to accept that a belief that there is no God will lead that person to the same place of a person that believes in a God?  If you believe that there is a God at all, no matter how undefinable, wouldn’t it be right to help the atheist at least come to belief in that God?  If there is a God, what should He do with those that don’t believe in Him?  Force them to believe?  Give them no opportunity for doubt by revealing Himself?

If there is a God, what would you expect of Him?  Some guidance on who He is?  Would you expect love from Him?  Or is your creation the only thing you gained from Him?  If He exists, what would you have Him do with the people in this world that turn their back on Him?  What would you have Him do with those that are evil?  What would you have Him do with the ones that just don’t care about anything but themselves or the ones that aren’t trying to be a better person but just trying to enjoy life?

This is what I believe- I believe that God created us out of love and He desired us to love Him.  In order for it to be real love, a decision of our own, He had to give us the option to not love Him.  I believe He is deeply saddened when we don’t love Him because He knows the gifts He has to offer us if we would love Him.  I believe that He demonstrated this opportunity of choice to love by placing the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden.  I believe that Adam and Eve chose not to follow God by eating from this tree.  I believe that God still loved them and all of those who fall away from Him.  I believe that I fall away from Him everyday.  I believe that I make decisions that He does not desire for me and that lead to sin and separation from Him.  I believe that I am separated from my God because He is a holy and just God and He can not look at my sin without addressing it.  I believe that the wages of sin is death which is an eternal separation from God.  Yet, I believe that He desires to have me return to a relationship with Him like He had with Adam and Eve in the garden where He walked with them.  I believe He wants me to discover His great love for me and to help others discover it too because it is a sad thing to miss out on it.  I believe that the answer to my sin was in the gift of Jesus Christ who died on the cross as payment for my sin and yours and that if we do not accept His payment for our sins, then we have to pay for it ourself.

Why else would I write this blog?  If I believe that there are other ways to Heaven, who am I writing for?  Why would I care for the Jew, for my brother, for the Christian falling away from faith, for the atheist, for the undecided, for the Muslim?  I write because I care, because I love, because I have this awesome peace in my heart that I want you to have too.  I write because I can not deny what my faith has called me to do, to lead the lost to their Savior.          

 

He did not have to.  There were other options.  He had plenty of time to change his mind.  He knew exactly what I would do; how I would not deserve it.  He knew you would never deserve it either, that none of us ever would, but He did it anyway.  As the Apostle Paul says in Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

This is the beauty of my God.  This is what sets Him apart from all of the false gods of other religions.  He did not ask me to be worthy- He knew I never could be.  He does not require me to work my way to Heaven because I would never get there.  The only perfection He needs from me is through the reflection of His Son; I just have to accept the gift.

God knew there was no way I would ever deserve the sacrifice He made, but He died for me anyway.  Me!  And what did I do but give Him one more reason to suffer?  Christ loved us despite everything He knew we would do that would cause Him suffering, and He gladly took up that cross for us.

Why would Christ have loved us?  Why would He have offered Himself up for those that had rejected Him?  Were we anyone to be loved?  Did we seek to glorify Him in our actions?  Not in the least!  But Christ’s desire is for us to know Him and have an eternal relationship with Him.  He made Himself and His love known to us in His selfless act of dying on the cross to suffer and die for the sins we had committed.  God made the first move and not because we were desirable, but because we needed Him.  It is because Christ first loved us that we love Him.

We were lost without Him, and we were lost because we rejected Him.  We separate ourselves from God when we sin, because we are choosing something other than His Will.  Like Adam and Eve, we are a creation trying to survive without our Creator, and it’s not working.  Why do so many still not recognize what Christ has done for us?  Even some Christians will say that Christ is not the only way to Heaven, as true Christian doctrine teaches.

Well I’m not willing to accept that.  You can not tell me that my Jesus died for nothing.  When we are willing to accept there are other ways to Heaven, we are in essence looking Christ in the face- the face that was spit on, beaten and bloodied- and saying, “Thanks, but no thanks.  I’ll do it my way.”

As a young Lutheran there was a part of our liturgy that always confused me.  During our confession we say, “Oh most merciful God, who has given Thine only-begotten Son to die for us, have mercy upon us and for His sake grant us remission of all our sins.”  I never understood why for “His (Christ’s) sake” my sins should be forgiven.  I knew that it was for my sake and for my sins that Christ died.  I thought we should say, “For my sake, forgive me my sins,” because I knew that without Him and His suffering and death, I would perish.

It was many years before the beauty of those words became clear.  In an age of relativism when everyone picks the religion that “works” for them, where everyone just strives to be a “better” person and that’s good enough, I realized why it was for Christ’s sake that we plead for forgiveness.  Christ died that we might live.  He didn’t do it for some; He did it for all.  He didn’t do it as one means for us to become right with God; He did it because it was the only way.  Christ died for us because His love for us would let Him do no less.

Don’t let what Jesus did be for nothing!  This is what I am pleading to God in confession.  God has given me the power of leverage, because if I call on what Christ did for me on the cross, God will surely not reject me.  Christ did not do it for nothing.  He suffered and died for me, that I might be forgiven.  For the sake of what He has done, for the sake of His sufferings, for the sake of His death, Lord, do not let it be for nothing, but forgive me my sins!

When Christ died on the cross for the sin of the world, He knew He was dying for a world that had rejected Him and would continue to reject Him 2,000 years later.  He died knowing He was dying for a world of sinners, but He did it anyway.  He did it knowing that some would still think that just trying to be good would be good enough.  When we think that being a “good” person is good enough, we make what Christ did worthless.  But it was not worthless.  In fact, it is the only thing that gives us worth.  The Bible tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  Most of us are willing to admit that we aren’t perfect, so what level of imperfection is still “good enough?”  We can’t make it there on our own, but Christ’s death for our sins is the only way we can become pure again in the eyes of God.

Not in this life will I ever fully understand why Christ did what He did for me, a poor miserable sinner, but I know that He didn’t do it for nothing and for His sake, I’m taking Him up on His offer and accepting His gift to me.

As I considered starting this blog, I wanted to choose a name that gave a clear image of my intent.  I want to be a blessing in the hearts and lives of others and felt that my desire to write allowed for this opportunity, so “Blogging to Bless” was an obvious selection to me.  What was not so obvious, was how blessed I would be by this blog in return.

Let me first say thank you to those who have offered their loving encouragement.  I don’t write for self-gratification, though it is one of the most satisfying activities for me.  I truly want my writing to be an encouragement to others to grow in their faith in Christ and to be a testament to those who don’t yet know Him as their Savior.  So to those of you who have offered their thoughts and comments, thank you for reminding me why I am doing this.

This blog has been a blessing to me because it is requiring of me some serious self-examination of why I believe what I believe, how I got here, and how far I have yet to go.  It has helped me hold myself more accountable for my day to day actions and witness.  But the biggest blessing came yesterday from my friend Lisa.  I always share a link to my blog on Facebook after I make a new post.  Yesterday I shared the link to my post “I Am Your Servant.”  Lisa posted on my Facebook page the following:  “I could go on forever, but I will just say how crazy and awesome it is that I googled “servant’s heart” this morning, hoping for guidance and seriously thinking of you and one other person at church who set such an example for me and others.  This is something I am working on, and you hit on so much that I thought and prayed about this morning.  Awesome.”

It is awesome!  God works in such wonderful intricate and intimate ways in our lives.  I didn’t know why I was inspired to post that blog yesterday, but God knew it would be an answer to Lisa’s prayers.  When we start handing our lives over to Him (and believe me, I am still working on that), we start seeing Him revealed to us on a regular basis.  I just can not stop marveling at His good work yesterday.  To some it may seem coincidental, to others a small work, but I just see so much glory in it.  First, that He is faithful to us when we pray.  Second, that His word does not return void.  Third, that serving Him just leads us closer to Him.

I have had my moments of shaken faith and doubt, but I hold fast to my God because He continues to do good work in me.  I feel so blessed that God has revealed Himself to me and His intimate design for my life so many times- in my cousin Matthew, my husband Jonathan, the postcard, my children, and now this.  He knows that we live in a troubled world and that we need a restoration of faith regularly.  We get this through serving Him.  There is no time that I feel closer to Him and know His truths more certainly.

If you are struggling to know God, to feel Him in your life; if you feel like you have sought and not found; if you wonder why He has not revealed Himself to you, serve Him.  Taste and see that the Lord is good!  Try out His love, not by basking in it, but by using what he freely gives to love on others and you will begin to see how great is my God.

I think too often we take credit for the good we do and forget God’s hand in it.  When we do that, we miss His revelations in our life.  We hit the disconnect button and distance ourself from Him.  What happened yesterday wasn’t because of me.  It was because of God.  He heard Lisa faithfully looking to Him for guidance and He didn’t let the prayer go unanswered.  I thank God that He blessed me with the opportunity to be the tool to answer someone’s prayer.  Do you know you have that opportunity too?  Just look around you.  Someone is praying for a sign of love right now.  Do you know who it might be?  Someone is in desperate need of some encouragement.  Are you too hurried to offer a kind word? Someone is in physical need.  Are you passing them by?  Take the time to stop and be the answer to a prayer today.  I tell you it is far greater than having your own prayer answered.

My heart is blessed.