Unrealistic billboards are a waste of money

Lord Jesus, thank You for those who still read my blog, even though it’s been almost two months since I last wrote anything. I hope each person reading will be blessed by the message I’m about to share, and that You would use it to help them grow to be stronger, truth-seeking Christians in a world where even the truth of Your Word is often distorted to suit many of the lifestyles You do not approve of. I pray this in Your Name. Amen.

OK, I know it’s been a while since you’ve seen a blog from me. Both the depression, and being away from home for almost a month performing Army duties have left me with little desire to write. I have been writing though, so the blog had to take a backseat for a bit, as I had something else I needed to write, which is almost done. I first wanted to say yesterday I celebrated my 17th birthday as a Christian, in response to the Oklahoma City Bombing, which happened on April 19,1995. Through that event, God began moving in my life to lead me to a truly genuine relationship with Him. Granted, even with those good news, I still don’t have much desire to write this blog, but I did see a billboard on the freeway near where I live today, called “Gay Christian – Yes!”. I don’t know if this billboard appeared elsewhere in the country, but my instincts lead me to believe this isn’t simply a local movement. After doing a google search for the website, I went to the websites www.gaychristianyes.org, and www.gaychurch.org. The first website contained mostly testimonials from people who were looking for “gay friendly churches” after having been told to leave what it seems the writer describes as anti-gay churches full of people who will not welcome gay or lesbian folks. The point of the website is to create an image of God as a non-judgmental, all accepting father figure who only exudes love and not justice. While love is an important attribute of God’s nature, so is justice, and the two must each be kept in their proper place in order to get a full, accurate picture of who God is. Having said that, the key errors in this thought process are that since God is love, we should only focus on that aspect of His nature, because keeping all of God’s laws is impossible, and therefore not worth the effort. To describe the need to desire holiness to those that only believe God is love, is considered works based salvation. What makes these teachings even more dangerous is that these folks claim that Holy Spirit approves of this thinking that focuses only on the nature of God’s love, and totally undermines His judgment. As an example, let’s look at my lifestyle. In James 5:16 James admonishes us to confess our sins to each other, and I’m going to be brutally honest in doing so, so if this offends anyone, then stop reading. Though it is only one of many sins, I myself heavily struggle with masturbation, and have since I was 13 years old. Now some Christians might say that because I am sinning against the Lord, I will end up being condemned to hell. Other Christians would say that because God loves me, it doesn’t matter whether or not I continue to sin, I’m still going to get to heaven anyway because I believe in Jesus. So who am I to believe? From my understanding of Scripture, both sides of the argument are wrong. The problem with the first group of people is that their thinking ignores God’s nature in forgiving us of our sins. The problem with the second group is that they misunderstand the concept of forgiving sin, or worse yet, deny certain sins altogether. If many of the sins we’re guilty of in God’s eyes are not considered sin to many people in the “church” anymore, then why do we need God’s forgiveness? Sadly, questions like this are ones all these folks who only want to worship a God of love will not answer. Try asking someone this question, and see how evasive they get in skirting their way around the question, as if this question instantly turns them into a crooked politician who has to dance around the question and give some answer that sounds good but doesn’t really answer the question. Getting back to my earlier points, as it pertains to my specific sin, I have come to grips with it for what it is, but that does NOT give anyone the right to condemn me for it, AND it also does not give anyone the right to lead me to believe I should ignore it so I can continue in that lifestyle, because God loves me anyway. As I mentioned earlier, both views are wrong. The most dangerous reasoning behind the second point is the misguided premise that “God loves me as I am”, which is the most subtle, dangerous heresy for us to fall into as Christians. The reason for this is that it allows us unlimited license to justify getting away with committing any sin we so desire, naively thinking that God still loves us “as we are” without any need for us to change and grow to be like Jesus Christ. In my case, in order to truly receive God’s forgiveness for my sin, I need to FIRST understand that God does NOT love me “as I am”, particularly those parts of my sin nature. Once I accept that truth, the next thing I need to do is recognize my need to repent of my sin. Simply put in modern terms, I need to follow Jesus’ command to the best of my ability, the one Jesus gave to the adulterer about to be stoned, taken from John 8, when Jesus says to her: “Go and sin no more”. Now those who only focus on God’s love might think it’s ok for me to believe I’m acceptable in God’s eyes, even with my sin. Whether it is the nature of my sin taken from the imperfect, un-Biblical opinions anyone may have about my sin, or any other sin for that matter, the bottom line is that it is still sin, and God will still judge me for it. If I repent, He’ll forgive me, if I don’t, He won’t. That’s also NOT works based salvation, but it IS the common definition of repentance. Some people have the privilege of having Holy Spirit instantly deliver them from their sin, and like me, God expects some of us to overcome it through years of solid discipline. God, and especially Holy Spirit, does NOT allow us to believe that “God accepts us as we are”, and there is nothing Biblical about the premise. I’d be willing to bet that anyone who suddenly accepts this “God accepts me as I am” lie either gave up trying to repent at some point, or was never taught a thing about repentance to begin with. As for me, though I’m still in the self-discipline stage, obediently growing towards full repentance, I recognize the only way to be truly forgiven of my sin is to recognize it for what it is – SIN – and continue to take action to deal with it until I get to the point where I no longer desire to live by its influence in my life, which WILL lead to death if I don’t repent. I’ll also address the misinterpretation of the word “death” when I talk about what I discovered in the second website.
In the second website, I discovered many links which address the Biblical issue of God’s position on the gay lifestyle. While the links were very thorough, after reading them, I realized they also fall into this misinterpretation of what God’s love is really all about. Just like the first website, the folks at gaychurch.org also believe that God is only about love, and ignore His justice regarding the consequences of our sin, as I described above. The Biblical examples of why homosexuality is wrong should be enough, but for many pro-homosexual advocates it isn’t. The biological reality of man having sex with man and woman having sex with woman is also unnatural and wrong (it always has been), but sadly, many people ignore that too. Now as for death, it seems obvious that every single person refers to death as physical death, focusing especially on concepts such as stoning, murdering sinners, and things like that, or so it seems. While those are Biblical examples of death mentioned in response to sin (especially the Old Testament, which most proponents of homosexuality are more than willing to focus on), there is also the natural end result of sin leading to death through natural causes, diseases, illness, injury, natural disasters, weather anomalies, etc. As for the consequences of homosexuality, we can’t overlook those either. AIDS and all other STD’s are mainly a result of homosexuality (and also pre-marital sex, and/or sex with multiple partners, but that’s another issue), so all those diseases alone should also lead us to believe that homosexuality is wrong too, but sadly, many people still don’t accept homosexuality as wrong. It certainly wasn’t people who brought those diseases into existence, so who should we attribute them to? If God is love, He certainly can’t be responsible for all those STD’s, if he’s a God of only love, as many pro-homosexual advocates would have us believe! I also wonder if the pro-homosexual “Christians” are willing to answer these tough issues regarding homosexuality instead of misleading us to overlook them all just to focus on a God who only has one attribute: love. Last, so as to repent of my sin, I need to focus on putting Him first, since repentance comes from my desire to walk in obedience to Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Forgiveness, grace and salvation come as a result of His desire to accept my repentance. That’s not slavery, or earning my salvation, that’s nothing other than trusting in, and living by, His truth. Thanks for reading and God bless.

What would Jesus do?

Dear Jesus,

I come before You in prayer asking that the message I share would glorify You, even if it’s another controversial message. I pray that those that read this would fully understand the message itself and respond the way You would, rather than focus on the messenger or his intentions. Please use this to open the minds and hearts of those that read this, for Your glory. I pray these things in Your precious, holy Name, Jesus. Amen.

Upon reading the title. this blog might seem somewhat outdated and not relevant anymore, but the message I write will never be outdated. Now I know it’s late, and based on all I’ve been struggling with lately, in a lot of ways I really don’t feel like there’s even any point to writing anymore. Hardly anyone reads what I have to say, and when I do, the only blog posts that get read are the ones with disclaimers about sharing much of the pain and hurt I go through, as if somehow by doing so, I seem real to the readers, even though it doesn’t even seem real to feel like an emotional sideshow freak of sorts. Like I mentioned last week, though it’s been four years now, I still can’t even arrange for four people to care enough to want to sacrifice an hour or so of their time to guide what the Lord has in store for us. Not only that, neither of my two dearest friends right now don’t even care enough to value me enough to even want to spend any time whatsoever knowing why I’m so spiritually lost, even after three months, left only to remain in what I call the spiritual equivalent of sitting in a car that constantly idles in neutral, but it does lead me to wonder about the bigger picture. Is this what Christianity has really become? Are we all so caught up in trying to survive and pay the bills, that we can’t even honor Him by giving Him more than an hour of our time every week attending a church service? Have we really lost sight of what it truly means to be a doer of the Word, and not a hearer anymore? In my definition of being a doer of the Word, I DO NOT mean serving non- or para-church organizations, for while serving them is helpful to those being served, I have to ask, is the intention of any of those organizations, however well meaning they may be, designed to glorify Christ, and Christ ALONE, 100% of the time? If not, then why are so many led astray by such a subtle, yet strong influence designed to lead us to think Christ would be pleased with doing good for organizations that don’t fully glorify His name? Are you content spending all that time serving those organizations that don’t fully glorify Christ? Also, are we really content to allow ourselves to sit idly by while our government and the elected officials behind it do everything possible to strip all vestiges of Christianity from everywhere BUT inside the walls of our churches? Do we really still think that the government has the desire or the ability to sacrificially love like the church should, but doesn’t? What ever happened to foundational theology issues like forgiveness and repentance? Do we even believe in allowing them anymore? Most of these questions came to mind after watching a solidly Biblical Christian movie, taken from the WWJD movement from a few years back. Though it may not seem obvious at first, the end result of answering all these questions wrong, leads me to hopefully influence each of you to ask yourself the following questions I ask myself as well. Before you do, I want each of you reading this to listen to the YouTube clip I included, performed by Adam Gregory, featured in a recent movie as well, titled “What Would Jesus Do?” Please forgive the skip at the 2:00 point in the clip, hey I didn’t make the clip, but that was the best one I found that was taken directly from the movie itself. (I include the lyrics below, in case you want to sing along and meditate on the words while you listen)

They stopped sayin’ prayers in school yesterday
There’s a boarded up, run down church, up on 3rd and Main
Mission’s overflowin’
and the crime rate just keeps growin’
and I’m not sure when it’s gonna stop,
but man this world is all we got

What would Jesus do in times like these?
Would He walk among the sinners, fall to His knees?
Heal the sick, save lost souls the way He used to
Would He throw up His hands and just walk away
Cry a tear for a world that had gone astray?
I’m not sure, but God I wish I knew … what would Jesus do?

What if He appeared right where you stand
Could you look Him in the eye, reach out and take his hand?
Show Him how much changing this place,
day by day with His amazing grace
In the Heaven on Earth, oh man it’s tough
So I have to ask, is it really enough?

What would Jesus do in times like these?
Would He walk among the sinners, fall to His knees?
Heal the sick, save lost souls the way He used to
Would He throw up His hands and just walk away
Cry a tear for a world that had gone astray?
I’m not sure, but God I wish I knew … what would Jesus do?

Last, are you more content living the way you are now, knowing that one or more of the answers to the questions I just asked indicate you really don’t spend as much time glorifying God as you might think? I don’t know about you, but to me, the mere thought of answering any of those questions wrong is a really sobering thought, and one that I cry about most every day, knowing I might one day have to look Jesus in the eye knowing I answered a single question wrong. So what about you? Are you going to read this and go on living the way you have been, or are you going to do what Jesus would? If this blog actually touched your heart, mind or soul, write back. If not, this may be the last blog I write. Right now, what little desire I have to continue to write anymore, thanks to the coldness of those closest to me, means little to nothing to me right now. After all, why would I want to continue to write for an audience that doesn’t care to spend any more time glorifying Him by being a doer of the Word and not just a hearer? If you respond, thanks and God bless.

Spiritual fuel for the journey

Dear Jesus,

Thank You for another week of life and prosperous health. As a sinner, I know there’s nothing in me that’s worthy or deserving of any of the gifts You give me, but I thank You for them anyway. I write this week asking You to bless those that read this week’s blog, so that they might be blessed with the wisdom You want me to share. I ask that those that read this might also use the wisdom contained to bless others in their life, all for Your glory. It’s in Your precious Holy Name I pray. Amen.

My favorite Scripture verse is John 15:13, “Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” To me the verse speaks of sacrificial love, which is the topic of this week’s blog. Since this past Tuesday was Valentine’s Day, I am feeling led to write about a subject I know hardly anything about: love. Now some of you may be thinking: If you know so little about the subject why are you writing about it? The best answer I can give is to admit that even though I don’t know much, I still have as much of a need as anyone else to grow in this area. In fact, because of how inexperienced I am in this area, it would be safe to say I need more growth in this area than most others. Since I have never been given much education in the area from anyone – parents, friends, and definitely not girlfriends (since I’ve never had a serious girlfriend), I can only base my understanding on the subject from what I’ve learned through books. Before I share from this book, I want to ask you if you have to drive somewhere, is gas in the tank extremely important? Of course it is, because without gas in the tank, the car won’t go anywhere.

Having said that, I recently found one of my roommate’s books lying around and decided to read it last week.Though I don’t know much on how to effectively apply the wisdom contained in what I read, I wanted to share what it taught me anyway. The book I read was “The Five Love Languages” by Dr. Gary Chapman. Dr. Chapman describes the five languages as being:
1) Words of Affirmation
2) Quality Time
3) Receiving Gifts
4) Acts of Service
5) Physical Touch

Granted, the book is designed for married couples, but the topics are equally applicable to single people like myself too. Dr. Chapman also discusses that for each of the five different languages, there are different dialects for each language. As an example, spending quality time at home and spending quality time away from home are two different dialects of quality time. There are many different dialects for each language, so listing them would take too long, as each has many different dialects, some of which are specifically unique to you. In order to determine which of those five gifts is your primary language, we should ask ourselves the following three questions:

1) What does your significant other / closest friends do or fail to do that hurts you the most? The opposite of what hurts you the most is most likely your primary love language.
2) What have you most often requested of your significant other / closest friends? The thing you most often request is likely the thing that would make you feel most loved.
3) In what way do you regularly express love to your significant other / closest friends? Your method of expressing love may be an indication that that would also make you feel loved.

For me, my best attempt at an answer would be:

1) An unwillingness to sacrificially stand by me in my efforts to serve Christ. The most painful words are the repeated attempts to tell me I’m being selfish, or to somehow imply that I am only interested in serving my own best interests, when the reality is I gave up on those desires almost seventeen years ago, and I have no desire to go back to being that kind of person anymore. Even hearing those words spoken completely makes me feel like everything I have done and want to do for Christ is completely and totally worthless. Hearing people attempt to bind me to worldly organizational regulations also hurt me deeply, as I know those words mean little to nothing when compared to Scriptural truth. I also feel a deep sense of hurt when others who could allow me to use my many gifts to serve them willingly choose not to, for reasons I still don’t know. Contrary to what people think, the only Person who deserves ANY of the credit for this transformation inside of me is Jesus Christ.
2) The things I desire most from my closest friends is a desire to share that same willingness to serve Christ and join me in giving Him their all too.
3) I most enjoy the times when I get to bless Jesus by using my gifts and talents to serve others and help others grow in Him.
Having answered those three questions, if any of you who know me well enough to know me, know that the hurt those words cause me, what my heart most longs for, and how I regularly express love (if this is what love is, but then again, I’ve never been given anything resembling absolute certainty) lead me to realize that acts of service done for Jesus Christ are my primary love language.
The problem for me is also addressed in the book. In the book Dr. Chapman discusses how each of us has a tank that can only be filled by love. He then goes on to mention how each of us needs our tank to be filled regularly, and that the two biggest dangers to damaging our love tank is to keep our love tank too full, or to keep our love tank totally empty for too long. I obviously don’t know much about the first hindrance, but as far as having an empty tank, that is something I have had to live with for over fourteen years now. Every time I try to fill it up again, I always manage to do or experience something that drains the tank, sometimes slowly, sometimes right away. Sometimes I also think that maybe my tank got a hundred times smaller over the years and it doesn’t hold as much as it used to, that or it has thousands of spiritual bullet holes in it over the years and now it doesn’t hold love like it used to. Regardless of which tank I have, I have tried to fill it every way imaginable for Him, and nothing has ever worked – EVER. Even though I’ve been a strong Christian for over sixteen years now, emotionally, I’m at the point where deep down, I am seriously questioning whether there is anyone who speaks the same love language and/or the same dialect as I do, as well as doubting whether there’s any other Christian out there who cares to place any value whatsoever in my favorite verse, because from what I’ve seen from what most call “the church” the past twelve years (that’s right, twelve years), I have serious doubts about the importance of that verse anymore. If you value the Bible, then prove me wrong in my thinking – prove to me that John 15:13 is as important to you (and when I say “you” I’m referring to what you call “the church”) as I would like to think it is for me. If you read this, that’s not only an open challenge to you, but also every other person that happens to be there at “church” with you this coming weekend. The only question left to ask is: “Are you all up to the challenge?” Any comments are welcome. Thanks and God bless.

Dan

Super-sized inspiration

Dear Jesus,

I come before You in prayer, asking that you use this week’s blog to remind each reader that they are special in Your eyes, and to fully believe that with all their heart and soul and strength and mind. I pray these things in Your Holy Name. Amen.

I know this coming Tuesday is Valentine’s Day, and you were probably expecting something about that, but I wanted to save that for next week, as I have something inspiring to share. I would have shared this last week, but to predict a game winner is not something I would consider doing, since some may take my advice and use it to gamble on the game, which I do not support. Most of you know I’m one of the more devoted, if not the biggest, fans of the New York Giants football team. In honor of their Super Bowl victory this past Sunday, I felt like sharing an inspiring thought that’s been on my mind (paraphrased from a great Christian movie I enjoy watching) …

When the NY Giants fell to 7-7 and were struggling, they weren’t supposed to win their last two games to win their division and make the playoffs, but they did.

When the Giants played their first playoff game, they weren’t supposed to win their game against Atlanta, but they did. (They even held Atlanta’s offense scoreless)

When they faced the defending Super Bowl champion, the Green Bay Packers, with their 15-1 record this year and top ranked offense (and playing in Green Bay no less), they weren’t supposed to beat a team that good (no 15 win team ever lost their first playoff game before), but they did.

When they faced the 13-3 San Francisco 49ers, and their top ranked defense, in the NFC Championship, they weren’t supposed to beat them either, but they did.

When they faced the 13-3 New England Patriots with their high-powered offense in the Super Bowl, they weren’t supposed to win it all, since no team with a 9-7 regular season record has ever won the Super Bowl before, but they did.

If God can take a team full of players who no one thought would accomplish much and perform something amazing through them that has never been done before, He can do the same through you. If you’re facing a tough situation in your life and dealing with thoughts / feelings of being second rate or under par in the eyes of the world, throw them out! God can do whatever He wants to do, however He wants to do it. And He chooses to work in our lives because He loves us. He’s good. As 2 Corinthians 9:8-15 states, “God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound in every good work: (As it is written, He hath sparsed abroad and hath given to the poor: his benevolence remaineth for ever. Also he that findeth seed to the sower, will minister likewise bread for food, and multiply your seed, and increase the fruits of your benevolence.) That on all parts ye may be made rich unto all liberality, which causeth through us thanksgiving unto God. For the ministration of this service not only supplieth the necessities of the Saints [side note: though the Saints didn't win the Super Bowl this year, I thought about changing this word to Giants, but unfortunately it does say Saints, and I'm not going to alter or corrupt the Word of God!], but also abundantly causeth many to give thanks to God, (which by the experiment of this ministration praise God for your voluntary submission to the Gospel of Christ, and for your liberal distribution to them, and to all men.) And in their prayer for you, to long after you greatly, for the abundant grace of God in you. Thanks therefore be unto God for his unspeakable gift.”

God did not make you a second rate creation, and I certainly don’t think of any of you that way either. You are all gifts of a marvelous Creator who fashioned you as a special creation in the womb (Jeremiah 1:5). I hope this Super Bowl serves as a reminder of what He can do for the rest of your life if you trust Him, even when times and situations in your life get tough, because I do. Thanks for reading and God bless.

Dan

Portable generator of unity

Dear Jesus,

I come before You in prayer again, asking You to guide those who read this and bless them with the wisdom contained herein. I acknowledge that while the words are written by me, I know they ultimately come from a heart devoted to You, and are written for Your glory. I also ask that the emotions and the tone of the letter would also give glory and honor to You as well, even coming from one who, like Moses’ trust in his speech, is something I don’t trust. I ask these things for Your glory and in Your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.

Before I start this week’s blog, I want to give an update on last week. Nothing has changed since last week, although with MY NY Giants playing in the Super Bowl only two days from now, I am still trying to use that to keep me positively motivated in all other areas of my life. Though some of you may think my comments were too personal or somehow only relevant to me individually, even the most painful moments can be used for God’s glory, as Job so eloquently embodied.

“When first things are not first, second things are not suppressed … but increased.” – C.S. Lewis

I heard this quote from C.S. Lewis in a recent Christian TV show I was watching earlier today, and I thought it would be a good quote to start this week’s blog with. As I mentioned last week, I want to write about unity this week. I use this quote as a brief paraphrase of this week’s Scripture reading – Ephesians 4:1-29, with a special focus on verses 3 and 13. Last night, I also watched Ravi Zacharias explain the Holy Trinity, and he explained it as “unity through diversity”. By that he went on to explain, that though each member of the Trinity: God, Jesus and Holy Spirit were different Entities (I’d call Them people like us, but I won’t assume that about Them) with different roles, They maintain a unity of purpose as One God. By diversity, I thought Zacharias’ intention was to illustrate for us, that though each One has a different role, and different methods by which They accomplish this one purpose, it is those different methods that allow Them more freedom to focus on the end result, and not worry about the approval or criticism of the Other Two. In the same way, for those of us trying to work for His glory here on Earth, we need to have that same unity of purpose in spite of our personal differences. When we reject those differences, whether it’s for any of the personality traits or comments I talked about last week, or the personal feelings we may have towards the methods used by someone else, we as the body of Christ fail to generate the much-needed unity we should have. Because of what we learn and the worldly influences that distract our thinking, we also fail to generate that unity. A good example of preventing unity within a church is racism. As a sports referee, we referees recently heard a comment made by a local school district’s athletic supervisor, where he claimed he was only going to hire black referees since he claimed that this particular school district is a black school district, somehow believing that black referees can do a better job in a “black school district”. I use this as an obvious example, although not every example of preventing unity is as obvious. A good quote on that comes from a recent devotional I read, where the writer states “Personal faith in Christ comes with social obligations. If we believe the He reigns as Lord over history as well as Lord over our individual lives, we dare not focus solely on the ‘world within’ and forget the ‘world without’. Restricting His sovereignty to our personal struggles demeans Him. What do we imply about the Savior when we seek God’s will about moving to another city or marrying someone, but never seek His mind on the plight of the homeless, the rights of the unborn, or racial equality? Cultivating the inner life, vital as that is, without struggling with social issues is too limited and soft. We must [MUST] think about how Christ wants us to respond to the unjust situations in our community and the world at large. On the other hand, to emphasize social concern without stressing devotion to the Lord resembles dancing on one foot. If we are deeply committed to a cause but not deeply committed to Christ, we may trade away the power of God for the power of politics.” This kind of thinking is acceptable for non-believers in the Trinity. But what about us? Will we substitute the power of God’s unity for the world’s? Next week I hope to focus on some of the attributes needed to create that unity within the body. Thanks for reading and God bless.

The importance of being both Mary AND Martha all the time! (Part 3 – Imbalance of the discontent remnant)

Dear Jesus,

Though I don’t have any reason why I have much trust in my own emotions right now, I know You do and can be counted on to lead me into a deeper desire for You, even if I am again forced to question why those I turn to for assistance to be Your hands and feet, always decide to walk away at the most critical times, when things get to be too challenging. Please help those who read this to realize how special they are in Your eyes, even if they have for the most part lost sight of any willingness to sacrificially help others in Your Name. It’s in that holy Name I pray, Lord Jesus. Amen.

Now that I’ve set the stage to effectively explain why I’m so distraught, it’s time to explain why. On the surface I’m ecstatic my Giants are in the Super Bowl again, but if you go beyond the surface, as I’m about to do, you’ll see a totally different story, although my Giants give me a reason to believe in the underdog, that everyone wrote off as not being good or talented enough to get as far as they have, as that’s a lot like my story. Like my blog about my parents eight weeks ago, this blog is also not for the spiritually immature, so if you don’t have an understanding of the deeper things of Christ, this blog is not for you. Though sharing from my heart may get the most readers, I’m much more gifted at sharing from my mind, as you’ll find out in this blog. After all, God does command us to love Him with all our heart and soul and MIND and strength. If you haven’t read my previous two blogs titled Mary and Martha parts 1 & 2, please go back and read those blogs first before continuing with this post. Last, I want to mention that when one person has an imbalance with the Mary and Martha in their life, it has the potential to create a huge ripple effect that can end up affecting thousands of people in ways you never thought possible for years to come.
As those of you may remember, eight weeks ago I had a surprise visit from my parents. While the meeting went ok, it was mostly small talk. Since then, aside from a brief text message regarding not being ready to communicate over the phone, nothing at all has happened between us. See, my relationship with God began with a covenant from God Himself, and for the past sixteen years, with one exception, no one cared within the church, not even my parents. I still pray for the Lord to help me fulfill it every day, as well as fast one day a week for its fulfillment, since the Bible commands us to both fast and pray. It does get hard when you know your prayers aren’t very powerful, when they’re for the most part based on the level of unity within the body of Christ, a unity that’s largely non-existent. I could go into detail about unity here, but I’ll address that issue more in next week’s blog. Now I want to reach out to my parents, but right now I only have my mind to rely on to guide me, and I know that’s not going to be enough. I tried using only my mind eight years ago, and because they don’t understand the deeper things of Christ, my parents tried to have me secretly committed to a mental hospital. As much as I’d like to believe otherwise, my parents are pretty much the same emotional people who don’t care about the spiritual or intellectual things of God, preferring instead a legalist, capitalism based focus to Christianity, partially based on the legal ritual traditions of Catholicism, just like they were eight years ago. For me to approach them again spiritually with only my mind to guide me is the equivalent of trying to kill a mouse with a rocket launcher. I would like to think I could trust my emotions right now to utilize them to bring the much needed compassion to go along with my intellect, but I no longer have any reason to. You see, this one exception I mention above is a dear sister in Christ who for over six and a half years now, we invested much of ourselves in each other, not only to help me learn how to relate to people emotionally, but to teach her to develop a stronger relationship with Christ, and one based on trusting others, following your dreams, giving Him your all, and not living in fear. Until recently I thought she actually understood my situation enough to stand by me, but a little over two years ago she became afflicted with a fatal lung disease, for reasons only God truly knows. Since then, though I’ve done everything possible to try to continue to be there for her, not for myself but to continue to glorify Christ through our friendship, I’ve done my very best to patiently endure the responses I described in part 2. In spite of all this, since I was never given an opportunity to share my heart in person after my parents showed up in my life again, over Christmas I gave my best attempt to share from my heart, a brief video I recorded using a borrowed TV camera from a public access TV station I volunteer for. My intention was to remind her how important we are to each other, given the unique special gifts we each have been blessed with by God through Holy Spirit, as well as express my desire to have her work with God and I to finally move forward in His ministry plans for us all, to help use those gifts to help others grow in Him too. Keep in mind that sharing my emotions is in itself hard enough for me to do given how little guidance I have gotten in this area for the forty years I’ve been on this earth, but relying on Scriptural truth and the words of great prophetic minds within the church make things a little easier for me to do, although having that reduced to “ugliness” raises serious doubts about my ability to even trust my emotions at all. I refer to truth and wisdom such as is found in this article, coming from someone who desires to be part of the discontent remnant referred to in the article, which I hope you’ll click the link to: http://www.elijahlist.com/words/display_word.html?ID=10609 This kind of growth in Christ is something we should ALL seek, and seek every day, regardless of what we’re going through. Her only response was to call my attempt at sharing from my heart “ugliness” and to claim I’m being selfish, when the reality is there isn’t a single possession I own which I wouldn’t freely give, or a single thing I wouldn’t do for someone, if I knew it would help others grow in Christ. Instead, each of those words brings back far too many painful memories, but to have to hear those same lies at the same time leaves my heart totally shattered yet again. If I heard all this from merely an acquaintance, it wouldn’t hurt so bad. To have to hear those words from the closest thing I have to a friend, and one in which we have each invested over six years in helping each other grow in Christ, make the pain a million times worse. See, right now she’s the only person in my life who understands my relationship with God in Christ Jesus, my situation with my parents well enough, has (maybe I should say had, I don’t know anymore) a strong relationship with Christ, and also has similar family issues with her family, to be able to guide me on how to handle my family emotionally. Though I don’t much care for watching them normally, many of you might think me pathetic to say this (not that I really care), but all I have right now in the way of emotional guidance, as a result, are Hallmark movies. Pretty sad, huh? For the past four and a half months, every time I tried to arrange a meeting with this person, all I got were the responses I mentioned in part 2, to go along with three meetings the past nine months, two of which lasted only ten to fifteen minutes, and the third was in a crowded mall two days before Christmas walking around with a service dog that created numerous distractions from people who wanted to pet the dog, take his picture or find out his role. I’m not saying this to sound jealous, for I think having a service dog is great and a worthwhile asset to those that need it. I am also not trying to demean the fact that she has what is considered in the world’s eyes a fatal disease, also claiming to be at peace with dying and with Christ. Her only response to this meeting was to post how disappointed she was that many people said negative things about the dog. I would like to think I should feel slighted by not having had anything good said about the blessing our friendship has been, but given her focus only on her disappointment regarding the reactions to the dog, I have to question that too. In spite of still wanting to sacrifice my resources and myself to help her acquire the financial resources to continue to help counsel those who also have this disease, for the glory of Christ (NOT myself), she isn’t even interested in that lately, preferring instead to push me away so she can handle everything on her own. Which leads me to ask, do the responses in part 2 lead you to see the peace of Christ there? I’m also willing to believe, given her recent change in personality, she’s going to try and use that as a reason not to have much time to meet. My point is it’s not realistic to have an in depth conversation in either situation, as much as it hurts me inside to see her go down this path, not realizing where she’s headed. In our latest conversation online, using her own words, she claims, and I quote: “God knows what’s on your heart. I don’t need to know, other than you’ve had some physical challenges and that I hope the Lord chooses to heal your body.”Focusing on only the physical, not the emotional, or the spiritual. What more proof do I need? Anyway, I appreciate the concern for my physical well being, but what’s the point if I care as little for healing as she does, when this lack of emotional understanding on how to share my situation in a way my parents’ worldly minds would understand will most likely lead me right back to where I was eight years ago? Also, why be concerned for physical healing, when lack of ministry support is the reason I won’t get physical healing. If I can’t get everyone working together to help me do what God wants me to do, I have to continue to referee sports for a living instead of minister to people who need Christ in their life. If I have to continue to referee, my body will never heal, as this is a very physically demanding job. The other comment that bothers me the most (aside from the “ugliness” / ”selfish” comments), not so much for the fact that it isn’t true, but for the blatantly obvious lack of logical and spiritual common sense present in the statement, is the claim that satan would somehow try to distort my understanding. Even satan would never be stupid enough to try and do that, because given my off the chart propensity to intellectualize every sentence, and over-analyze it to the point where I could easily reply with a 100-200 page research paper (which everyone I know fully believes), comparable to a doctoral dissertation, if need be, satan would not even consider attacking my mind or my understanding. It simply involves too much work and it would never accomplish the purpose satan would hope for. In addition, just like streams of water running across the ground, satan also goes after the path of least resistance, which for me is my heart. I just never thought he’d use a dear sister to blindside me, especially around Christmas, with all this, when all I sought after was a greater level of emotional understanding to help me repair the strained relationship with my family, as it is a tremendous hindrance to all God is still trying to do through my story. As a result of all this, I am left with four options: 1) Explain my situation to my parents, with only Hallmark movies as my emotional source of guidance; 2) Explain my situation to my parents, using only my mind to guide me, completely ignoring what’s in my heart as being totally unreliable (although I know this option won’t help me much since my family is still emotionally driven); 3) Believe God can perform a major miracle in the heart and mind of this dying friend through a realization that it’s her understanding that’s distorted; the equally miraculous realization how far away she has gotten from Christ and the heartbreak it causes people like me who still care deeply about her in spite of the numerous outbursts / blow offs; the realization that her recent negativity not only affects me but also others, like the married couple whose marriage is on the rocks, but instead of being able to start the Bible study that he wants so as to save his marriage, I can’t because that is also something that requires an emotional strength I don’t believe I have; and restoring her unbelief in the supernatural (especially as it relates to what she recently dismissed as “ugliness” or her unwillingness to accept His healing if He so desires it); or 4) Keep my family waiting (with no communication) for another 5 to 6 years (or more) while I watch and pray for someone else to explain my covenant relationship from the Lord with, who I truly believe seeks after God’s Heart and Word first and foremost, knows what it feels like to have a strained family relationship, and is selfless enough to want to spend the time to help me start over and grow emotionally, because right now I don’t have any trust in my own heart and no one else with the compassion and especially not the understanding of my pathetic heart to “be the hands and feet of Christ” in this situation. At least I still have hope and faith that someday God will provide that person to come alongside me, and help me in my area of weakness. I also pray that I can again share that same hope, desire for truth and Christ-centered compassion with the people I deeply care about. Unfortunately, today isn’t that day – someday, though, I’ll experience a better tomorrow. Thanks for reading and God bless.

Dan

The importance of being both Mary AND Martha all the time! (Part 2 – a tough balancing act to follow)

Dear Jesus,
We both know I’m really struggling emotionally right now, and that I don’t know how to make sense of my feelings. You do, and so I pray that through these words that I write, You would ultimately be glorified, even if my words aren’t all sunshine and roses right now. Please use these words to draw all of us closer to You. In Your Name I pray. Amen.

Now I know I mentioned last week how I would explain how the story of Mary and Martha plays into my present distraught state, but since I feel I have more to say before I do that, I will get to the reasons why next week. As for this week’s blog, I watched an episode of a Christian TV show called The Stranger the other day, and if I had someone to show me how I would post the video clip I refer to. Anyway, in this clip Jesus shows up at a diner run by two sisters, Mary and Martha. It is intended to be a reference to Luke 10:38-42 as well. In the clip, Jesus asks Mary and Martha about a memory from their childhood, having to do with a see-saw, involving their father, before he passed on. After relating how they both had to pay attention to the other sister to keep from hurting their backside on the way down, Jesus then asked them what their dad used to do to make playing on the see-saw more interesting. According to the sisters, he would stand in the middle with one foot on each side, and try to keep the see-saw perfectly balanced. Jesus then asked him what each sister had to do in order to make sure that their father remained balanced on the see-saw. Mary’s answer was that each of them had to keep their eyes completely focused on their father. Which brings me to the point of this week’s blog. We too need to keep both the Mary and the Martha in each of us perfectly balanced, and focused solely on Jesus. When we don’t, we end up dishonoring God through examples such as these:

- Completely rejecting those who care about you, mostly over trivial issues
- Justifying worldly anger over trivial issues, when more constructive options better glorify Jesus
- Claiming someone’s understanding could be “distorted by satan” without first applying logical reason to the situation
- Distancing oneself from fellow Christians who depend on each other to develop a deeper relationship with Jesus
- Not using Scripture at all to support their position
- Coldly criticizing someone for standing for the law of God’s grace over the law of man
- The hurt of knowing people believe it’s ok to let others down by not keeping your word to be there for them
- Hearing the pretextual claim of “being selfish” to describe someone who has died to self years ago, for the sake of Jesus, somehow believing there is any desire at all to want to selfishly live for one’s self in any way
- Praying for someone on your own, while not being at all willing to be a part of a prayer group to encourage others to pray more
- Not caring what the gifts of the Holy Spirit are (see I Corinthians 12:1-11 for a list)
- Flippantly using words such as ugliness to describe someone else’s desire to manifest gift(s) of the Holy Spirit without any regard or attempt to take the time to first understand the reasons for their actions or words, and worst of all,
- Not responding with reverence towards the Word of God

Now while this doesn’t fully explain where I stand emotionally right now, I did want to mention these points so as to be better able to explain why these recent reactions hinder all Christ is trying to do, not only through me, but also through others who also have gifts waiting to be used for His glory. I also did this so as not to make any of my blogs too long, instead mentioning these things as a preamble, so to speak, as to why I am distraught, because even though some don’t really care, I’m trying to be more emotionally open and honest with my heart, as hard as it is for this weak heart to make sense of my emotions. Next week, I’m going to finish with one more part to the series (I hope) to explain the rest of the story. It is my hope that doing so will truly open the hearts of those who need more of Christ in their life so that Jesus might bring some good out of it, and that He might receive 100% of the glory through my pain. Thanks for reading and God bless.

Dan