My Confession

To be honest, blogging was the last thing for my list today and if I had blogged it would have been answering questions that I was asking myself during this morning’s chapel. The questions I asked are relevant questions that need to be addressed, but what I am going to blog about today is my own confession and something that I have been thinking about for quite a few weeks now.

My pastor has been going through the Revelation of John. He hasn’t been going through the whole book, but he has been going through the first few chapters and the letters that were written to the churches. The first church, the church at Ephesus, has been the letter that has been on my mind particularly. John write to the church and tells them how they are doing great because they are doctrinally sound and they can refute and rebuke all the people in the church, but they have lost their first love. What Pastor David brought up was that their first love was love and that they had all this knowledge of the Bible, but had no love for the people they were rebuking or refuting.

In the same way Paul touched on this subject in I Corinthians 13 when he talks about love. He says,

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but I do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I give over my body in order to boast, but do not have love, I receive no benefit.”

This has been such a slap in the face for me. I have grown up studying the Bible, showing people that if they don’t agree with me they don’t know what they are talking about. Making rash decisions and placing myself on a pedestal because I know everything about the Bible and because I know all this you wrong if you disagree. And I may be right on a lot of things, but my point isn’t that, my point is that with that kind of attitude I am not showing my love for other people when I continually argue over stupid things.

The reason this is brought to my attention is that I’ve always talked about how great it would be to die a martyr for Christ. Die in a blaze of glory for my King, but I was sitting at Burger King for lunch today and I was thinking about in the end times how many people are going to reject, blaspheme and even hate God during that time. As I was thinking about this I was looking around and seeing all these people around me and thinking these people are going to die, they are going to go to Hell and they are going to not know about Jesus.

How many people I saw and immediately I was scared. I was scared about what people would think about me if I started sharing the gospel with them. I was scared that if I had bought a homeless guy a meal, sat down to eat with him, what people around me would think of me if they heard me sharing the gospel. I was scared about what the guy would have thought about me. “Did he buy my lunch just so he could tell me how to get saved?”

Why did I think these things? Don’t I know that God, the creator of the universe is in control and that He is the one that draws people to him? Am I that selfish to think that God’s gospel is for me and me alone? How could I even think about being a leader in the church if I won’t share the gospel and be rejected by people that don’t even know God let alone a church congregation that I actually know and don’t want to see be led astray? Why have I made God so small and yet why have I made man so big?

As I think about the answers to my question I come to one conclusion.

My pride.

My pride is what helps me not to share the gospel. My pride is what helps me gain so much knowledge and yet not put it to practical use. My pride is what helps me share the most random facts about the Bible that no one would ever know, but because I have read sooooo much I know it. My pride is what helps me to get into theological discussions and to think things like “if they don’t agree with me then God will deal with them.” It’s all my pride.

That is my confession. In all my pride I have not shared the gospel and it could have been the last chance for that person to ever hear it. Oh to never be selfish. I say that I have so much faith in God and yet I mimic the words of James when he says, “faith without works is dead.”

Relationships

Events recently have called into question the idea of what godly relationships are.  People have written books[1] on this subject and I am going to try and answer what these are in a blog post.  (This note was written after paragraph 4.) As I am writing this I just received a blog update and it was a video from Josh Harris about not “wasting your sexuality” I’ll post it at the end of this post.

To begin with I have three friends. One of them is a guy I go to school with, he’s not Christian, knows that girls are interested in him, and leads all of these girls on. Another guy is one that I used to work with. He’s a Christians, knows girls are interested in him, leads them on and says that he’s “just friends” with these girls. The third guy is a guy I go to church with, one would be totally shocked if a girl was interested in him further than a friendship. Not because of his looks, personality, or mental capabilities because he is courteous to women and treats them like queens, but when it comes to dating they say they would “rather be friends”. As I was thinking about these guys, the first thing that entered my head was, “Wow I have a diverse group of friends!” The second thing I thought was, why is it that the guys that treat women worse, get the girl in the end and the guy that treats women best don’t.

I am reminded of I Corinthians 13 when it comes to relationships. Of course we all know that I Corinthians 13 is the “Love” Chapter in the Bible (Song of Songs being the “Love Book”). The verses that I am specifically speaking of are 4-7 and 11.

To begin with, I have to remind friend 3 that no matter how many women reject him that only makes it sweeter when one says yes. He gets down, especially after asking a girl out and being rejected, he often thinks it’s because of some physical, mental, or personality flaw and I remind him that it is none of those things and that if he thinks about it he’s not ready for a relationship. Most of the time he agrees with me, but I definitely see his side of things. There are very few men that I know that almost deserves a girlfriend and yet, he doesn’t have one because God just hasn’t opened the door. The first thing I Corinthians 4:13 says love is, is “love is patient”. Patience is the first thing that applies to love. Am I saying that it is the main absolutely number on thing that Paul was trying to get across when talking about love? No, but I do think Paul put it there first for a reason. Love shouldn’t be the first woman we see and ask her out. Or the first guy that pays us a little attention. Love waits. Love is Patient. To ask the question why in this instance would be selfish on this instance because it would be selfish. It would be the type of why that would be both demanding and stating that we know better than the almighty God. Instead we will continue to pray for him and ask God to give him peace.

The next instances are my first and second friends. One is a Christian one is not and yet they treat women the same way. For me this doesn’t make any sense. As a Christian we are held to higher standards. Not only are we held to higher standards, but the world looks to us as if to put us on a pedestal and when we do good things they don’t do or say anything, but when we act like the rest of the world they question why they should become a Christian because the Christian they know acts just like them. In the instance of these two friends, both “players” one is a Christian the other isn’t, where is the line crossed. What is the difference? Is there a difference? Should there be a difference? For myself, I would have to say that there should be a difference.

My second friend would say that he and the girl are just friends, but they are too friendly to be just friends. No, he’s not sleeping with her, but they might as well be boyfriend/girlfriend. They aren’t because he is this way with more than just this one girl. He has many friendly girls and he says it’s OK to have girls as better friends than guys. This doesn’t make sense to me. Not until one is married anyway. The way I’ve always thought of things is that there are two types of people that are better friends to girls; other girls and gay men. As much as I do not agree with the second it is definitely true. Either this guy is gay or a player. Both are not looked at as scripturally good. Going back to I Corinthians 13, verse 4 says that love is kind. Is it kind to lead these girls on? Is it kind to play games saying they are close friends? Is it healthy to have them as close friends?

I am asking myself these questions as much as I am the reader. I am trying to figure this out as much as whoever reads this.

Another relationship I would like to mention is the relationships of Jesus. Recently, people have asked me why Jesus didn’t get married. The only answer I can think of is not because he didn’t want to, but because He is engaged. He will one day be married to those of us that are the church. For Jesus to be married here on earth would have done two things. One, it would have singled out one woman above all other women to be His wife. She would have been the wife of God himself and would then have to be perfectly holy, something which no one here on earth is. Second, if He had been married he would have been married to two different people. The first would have been his wife here on earth and the second the church. This would be polygamy and is something that God considers a sin. Because Jesus is perfect he cannot sin, therefore, he could not have been married.

I hope this post has made some sense.  BTW Here is the video I mention earlier:

 

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[1] “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” by Josh Harris, “When God Writes Your Love Story” by Eric Ludy, “Boy Meets Girl” by Josh Harris only to name a few.