Defeatism vs Idealism

Ok, so recently, I've been feeling a little ... defeatist. 'I'll never meet God's standards, I'll never be as passionate as God wants.' 'I'm too proud for God to love me.' And then this will spur me into an excited, 'No, I'm gonna just stop being proud, I'll never have a proud thought again.' 'I'll get so fired up now.'

The first defeatist attitude is entirely pointless, because God's love is UNCONDITIONAL. God's love isn't affected by my pride, by my stuff ups. No, then how could anyone stand before his throne? What could they say?? NOTHING. 'No one is righteous, not even one.' - Romans 3:10. But thats the great thing about God's love; its unconditional.


And my idealist attitude, as my sister would say 'idealisms are so much harder to live out than to say.' So much harder. How powerless am I in the face of these MASSIVE things I'm promising? I'll never be proud? How will I even achieve that?? Impossible. BUT, 'what is impossible with man is possible with God.'  - Luke 18:27. I can't change my heart, my will power is powerless. But God is powerful, so my idealisms need to be played out with trust in God.


So, in the end, I'm never gonna be perfect, God won't love me less. And God is powerful, I need to trust him wholly to help me live out my plans.


Food for thought: One of my friends said this:- 'I know that I don't need to do anything. God meets me where I'm at.'

Not Alone

This is mainly for my bros and sis' in Christ. But hey, if you're not a Christian, feel free come along for the ride if you want ...

Have you ever thought of your faith as an uphill battle? Like you're struggling upstream? Like you're running up the down escalator? Maybe you've thought that it felt wrong. If God loves us, why would He let us go through hard times? Why can't I just be comfortable? Jesus says; 'take up your cross and follow me.' Mark 8:34. Are crosses comfortable? Do you get on a cross and breath a sigh of relief; 'Oh this feels good, I'm so relaxed.' NO! Crosses are one of the most painful instruments of torture to date. Sometimes God's gonna call on us to crazy radical things that people will probably scoff at, maybe thats gonna be the hard thing, the laughter, the glares, the 'you're an idiot' attitude. And hey, sometimes that is really hard to deal with.

BUT ...  something I find comforting when I'm struggling is to know I'm not alone. I'm not the only one who 'has it tough.' Just think about Noah, he was told, while mid-desert, probably clear skies, to build an ark for this flood coming up. Everyone would have walked past, laughed at him, gave him plenty of 'you're an idiot' looks while he was toiling away, working for God directly. How hard would that have been, even the physical part (137m long, 23m wide, 12m high, thats REALLY big for a man and his family to build.) But he fully realised on God. The entire time, he never lets up. And he ends up being saved from destruction.

SO ... in this upstream struggle know that you're not alone, most other Christians are with you. Heck, Jesus is with you, Jesus went through very extreme circumstances for his king. And God's given us his spirit so we're never alone. Take comfort in your turmoil, this is what Jesus says will happen, and he won't abandon you throughout it.

Some more food for thought: "But God doesn't call us to be comfortable. He calls us to trust Him so completely that we are unafraid to put ourselves in situations where we will be in trouble if He doesn't come through" - Francis Chen.



Most of these thoughts branch off Scott Petty & Francis Chen.

I will not be moved

I was reading a blog today, it said 'every 2 years you look back on your life and say, man I was an idiot, I was so wrong.' I went upstairs lay on my bed and had self-induced spasms, this is a really weird thing I do when I'm frustrated, but the reason for me doing this was that I didn't want to fall away. I never want to look back and say 'man, I was an idiot for being a Christian, so many wasted years.' Never, ever. I was so frustrated, so scared that I would fall away. And then I read a book that completly redefined what it means to have genuine faith (crazy love by Francis Chen, brilliant.) I never want to fall away. Ever.

You know whats super exciting though?? I'm convicted that I don't plan whats going to happen to me.  God does, and he is good, he is perfect. So his plans will be good and perfect. AAAAND, Ephesians tells me I have been 'sealed with the spirit.' So, my conclusion is that for me to fall away, either my faith is not real. Or God has failed. Which is more likely? The dude that created the universe, has never let civilization down before suddenly decides to fail on me, or that my faith was never genuine. That it was just an act. I need to make ABSOLUTELY sure that my faith is 100% genuine. And that I work on it, never let myself drift downstream, or away from my faith, even just a little.

'I will not be moved,
From this rock in,
Which my feet are welded in.

I will not be swayed,
From this truth,
You have persuaded me of.'




Again, I am very tired, so this may make minimal sense. But hopefully it does, or hopefully you're smart enough to figure it out for yourself :)

Familiarity

Ever noticed how your name is the most normal thing to you? Or your birthday? We often expect these words to hold meaning to others, and to some it will, but to other its a random jumble of letters. Or a random bunch of numbers. But you've writted it out hundreds, probably thousands of times. You've been called by it, probably thousands of times when you think about it.

I feel as though we, Christians do this alot. Because we've so familiarised ourselves with words like 'sin' or 'predestination' or 'redemption.' You have to use your powers of empathy to put yourselves in their shoes. Imagine walking into a random church service and having those rather meaningless (to you) words thrown at you. You'd be a little confused, get bored & off track very quickly,  potentially repulsed at their lack of empathy for you. I would probably be.

Those of you who don't know Jesus as of yet, don't be turned off by fancy words. The truth is more important then words.

So, my brothers & sisters, try to avoid using words that sound familar to you, but to others are plain old confusing. The truth is more important then words.

Light vs Darkness

Been thinking about light & darkness lately, Christians being the light to the world and all.  figured, seeing as it is my birthday, the analogy of candles was appropriate. So when candles appear in a room, the area around it is exposed to light, and the darkness is gone. But when you walk into a room and switch on the light the darkness is completely ERADICATED.

This should almost be called; today vs some day (random thought.)

Today, I am a flame, a small, flickering candles, soon to be snuffed out, (hopefully) illuminating the dark around me.  The source of my light is not from myself, someone (the match) had to ignite the flame. And someone (the candle) has to sustain my flame. In case you hadn't picked up, Jesus ignited my flame, and God sustains it, unlike the candle analogy though, the two are involved in both the ignition and sustaining.

BUT, there's gonna be one day, when all darkness will be eradicated. All the darkness of my own heart, all the darkness of the world will be eradicated. Like think what would happen if you put floodgates into your room, the darkness is just fleeting. Not like butterflies fleet, slowly, carelessly (butterflies are the first things that come into my mind) but like ... ok, the only thing I can think of is darkness & light. But hey, it works. Not just the space around me will be illuminated like in the candle analogy but the whole world.

But, my analogy is not perfect, especially the candle one, because in fact, many candles are consumed by darkness before they are snuffed. Many candles are shrouded in darkness, in their own flaws.

This will probably not make sense to alot of you, it probably won't make sense to me when I read it later on. Anyway, once again Mr. Scatterbrain signing out.

Broken Servant

Broken, unworthy whatever you like to call it, there's no denying it; I'm a failure of a servant. All the time I stuff up, I mean if I were my master, I would have kicked me out of his house a long time ago. Long, long time ago. I mean, if I made a set of laws and my servant just continually broke them, I would have him fired at the very least.

But this is how it is with God, by all means God should just shove me out on the streets and shake his head at all of humanity. But he shows this unconditional love that just blows me away, he loves me, though he is righteous and cannot stand my failure. He loves me, though he is flawless, and I am a cracked, broken human.

I often feel like the aforementioned broken servant (which I am) but, I've come to the conclusion that my sin cannot make God love me any less (this does sound rather contradictory to my statement that God cannot stand my sin, but if your brother or sister or son or daughter is repeatedly annoying, or likewise would you just stop loving them point blank. Ok, some of you might, but you get the point, although this analogy is by no means perfect, rather rushed to be honest.) And my flaws cannot make me any 'less of a Christian,' if a man is missing a leg, does that make him less of a human? NO. If I am flawed, am I any 'less of a Christian.' No, I am human. All Christians in the history of EVER have been failures to God. If they cannot accept this they are WAY too proud.

Anyway, thats all for now. These thoughts don't make a whole heap of sense, almost a cacophony of ideas, but have fun with them.

Weary

Keep in mind, this was written at just passed midnight. 

People often say that they're affected by the seasons, I have to say this is true. Winter in Australia is coming up. It's time when I go into 'emotional hibernation.' So, from now until 'the sun comes out' I have realised that I pretty much just switch off emotionally, since the clouds have come over I have been feeling strange, and I've felt like this for a couple of years now. In summer I get fully pumped and on fire and passionate. But in winter, I'm cold & I'm mentally slower but deeper.

And on top of winter coming, so feeling emotionally out of it, I'm just weary. Weary is the perfect word, kind of more then exhausted, and not just physically exhausted (from longs days and short nights) but emotionally exhausted, 'educationally drowning,' and socially exhausted (finding it harder to love those who its hard to love, finding it easy to stick to my favourite friends.)

And I feel like I have the toughest job, that is making me weary, and other people have it harder, but I want words to speak so that those of you who don't know my Jesus. I love you, I want you to know him, because its the most exciting and most important thing to me, and I want you to be chilling in heaven with me. That would be great, whoever you are, I love you. Let Jesus challenge you. 

'Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.' Matthew 11:28.

You know the only thing that is left to do? Go to him, I need to run to him, I want to fall into his arms. I like the analogy falling into his arms, it means I'm putting complete trust in him and then being in his arms, where I can find rest.

Pride

People like to feel great. We love to feel great about ourselves. Proud is a positive word in our vocabulary. We like to feel like we're good at something. We love to pay other people out so we feel superior. Yet we hate the pride deteriorating pay outs ourselves.We love to feel cool. We love to feel 'in'. We love to feel accepted. We love people telling us what kind, lovable, generous, caring person we are, even if we aren't.

This boils down to man's proud instincts. We are proud by nature, this we know from history, wars because men were to proud to admit their mistakes, millions of deaths because they were too stubborn, too proud to admit defeat. Having kings, queens, chiefs, the 'highest' position so that one person could have the (proud) honor of ruling.

So can you see how proud we are. SO proud. I am one of the worst cases. But there's a greater truth that eclipses our pride. God sent his only child to earth, and then sent him to this instrument of torture to watch him die. For who? For failures, for the proud, for the weak, for the liars, for the jealous, for the cons, for the sexually messed up, for all of the failures. Jesus died for MY pride. Jesus loved me SO much he gave his life for me, even though I am repeatedly too proud to accept him. Thank you Jesus.

'The World is My Stage'

I've acted so well, that I've deceived myself. For SO many years, the world has simply been my stage.

To help you out with this analog, think about this question:
What happens on a stage (or in a play)?
A: A character is created that is different from one self, and then shown to an audience that praises the actor.

This is exactly what has happened for so long. I've played the wise, kind, caring, righteous ministers kid.

Church: has been another stage to play at.
Christian: another character to form.

And I've done it for my audience.

But, I've realised my faith needs to be MORE then just acting. My faith needs to be a complete heart-felt passion. And everything I do needs to be done for God's eyes, I've taken to repeating to myself when doing 'good deeds' (keeping in mind, nothing I do isn't stained by my stuff-ups) 'for you & you alone, for you & you alone.' I need to have HEART-FELT actions for my king. I can have all the wisdom, & kindness in the world, but if I don't have a heart for God, then it counts for nothing. I can act this part so well. But if I have no lasting faith, it means NOTHING.

Abolishing Social Laws #1

There are a few laws in society, not laws put into place by politicians, or enforced by judges. But laws put into place by people, I think most of these are rather subtle rules, that have slowly crept their way into society.

Law #1 is not so much a law, as something thats slowly become accepted by society, I would call it a social norm. 

Law (or norm) #1 probably started off with Sherlock Holmes, mirroring ancient society's  gross infatuation with death. Has nobody else noticed the strange, inexplicable infatuation people have with murder. We'll happily sit on our couches and watch the gruesome, bloody murders on our TV's. Imagine that being thrust in front of your eyes, not on a screen but in real life. How would you feel? Disgusted, right? So WHY are we content to sit and watch it on our screens. Sure, some of them are more about the 'detectives' and their relationships, but the fact remains that you are sitting on your couch, watching the violent, gruesome murder of someone else. When did this become normal.

I want to abolish this social law.

Meaning

I've had a couple of conversations with people where they've talked about saying a word way too many times, so it begins to lose meaning. I've had this experience plenty, and I end up sitting there, feeling like a little bit of a weirdo mouthing the word 'alligator' to myself.

I feel like I've done this with my prayer life, the word Lord has lost all meaning, I've said it SO many times. Seriously a startling amount of times. So, the word has lost all meaning to me, (and I'm sure for many of you who grew up in the church) so I have decided to try and replace the word with King or Ruler, which pretty mean the same thing, and the differences in meaning are irrelevant.

The same has happened with great truths in my life. I constantly need to rebuke (harshly criticize) myself, and point out; Jesus loved you so much that he DIED for you Luke. Jesus was nailed to a cross because you stuffed up over and over. God just spoke and the world was created. Luke, you're a stuff up. These truths should be totally radical to me. All the time.