"Telephone" Gone Wrong

If you have ever played telephone with 10 people or more (or even 5), we can pass down a message from one person to the other with the hope that the last person in line repeated what the first person wanted to say. During this process, we think we might have heard something so we pass on the message to the next person who then thinks they heard what you said and starts to paraphrase or even completely mess up with you wanted to convey. You get "I actually do not own a pair of toms" to "I am not an astronaut that eats Tums" (Okay, maybe that was a horrible example...give me credit.)

We in a sense tell God that he can write the story of our life. The moment God is ready to press His pen onto paper, we in a way push his hand out of the way and assure God something like "I was actually kidding, did you actually think I could live with someone dictating my life without editing the final version? You, instead, can narrate my story." How does this differ?

I'm in the sciences and what we look for mostly consists of cold hard facts on paper, not what someone said. For instance, we would rather believe in Newton and his physics principles that has been written on paper instead of what your local mailman can tell you about when it comes to science.  If you didn't know of their credentials, how on Earth is hearing facts from people reliable? Scientific facts does not become official unless there is research on paper with fancy numbers and data.

What am I getting at? Without asking for discernment, we would rather let God "narrate" our story so that way we could easily switch His words to things we think  He might have said. I'm not saying God is unable to speak to us, but I am saying that it would be best if we just let God write our story. We don't know what's best so why do we try to twist God's plan? I'd rather bank on having a cold, hard truth written by God instead of how I feel a certain day and how I plan to twist on God's word intentionally or by mistake.

- Moises -

Lets Raise Up A Standard!

I'm going to open this up by saying this simple statement: There aren't too many things worse than a half-hearted christian.  A christian that knows Jesus, a christian that believes in Jesus, but for some reason or another doesn't want to follow Jesus.  This christian is forgetting about the '-ian' which literally means "follower."  So if you are a Christ-ian you literally are making the commitment to follow Christ.  Denotations aside, differences aside, the Holy Spirit is Jesus interacting with us.  And when a Christ-follower purposely decides not to continually listen to the Spirit, then there is a huge problem.

The great thing about God's grace is that he is indeed a God of a second, third, fourth, fifth...infinite chances.  That's one of the reasons I'm completely in love with God.  But with those chances do come consequences because the Bible reminds us that the wages of sin is death.  So every time we miss the mark, we are literally killing ourselves even if we don't know it.

Now, if an unbeliever continuously misses the mark, that's one thing because they don't really believe in the mark to begin with.  However, when a professed believer "misses the mark" DESPITE the warning signs that the Holy Ghost gives us, that...that's a WHOLE 'nother issue.

It is clear in the Bible that God treats ignorance and complete disobedience on two separate levels.  On the one hand those that are ignorant of God will indeed suffer his wrath if they never confess Jesus Christ as Lord.  BUT, those that know what they know and DESPITE that still disobey, that's a huge issue.

An example from the Bible is taken from Jeremiah 3:11 where God speaking through the prohpet Jeremiah says: "Faithless Israel has shown herself less guilty than false Judah." (emphasis mine)  Now lets give a little background information.  Israel and Judah used to be one nation (God's chosen people).  However, Israel continuously disobeyed God thus propelling God to weed out his "true" peeps = Judah. So, from that point on Judah was considered God's chosen people.

One of the reasons that God allowed Israel to drift apart (because God could've kept Israel around because..well, he's God) was to show Judah what he was capable of.  God used Israel as an example in hopes that Judah would not falter and if they did, repent.  So time elapsed and Judah started to follow her sister, Israel, down the same path.  By the time this verse in Jeremiah comes along, God is pretty much disgusted with both nations.

But let's point out that God emphasizes that the now ignorant Israel is held to a lower standard than the kept Judah!  What does that tells us, that those who have the Gospel, those who know the Gospel are held to much more esteem.  And with that esteem comes a responsibility   And when that responsibility to taken advantage of, consequences will happen.

I'm here to challenge those of us who profess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.  Will we rise up and set a standard that says that we will not be moved!  Sure, we will fail every once in a while because we are humans, but in the long run, we need to be committed to following Christ's teaching to the best of our abilities.  Lets raise up a standard!

We don't have too much wiggle room because the world already looks at us with suspicious.  Like hungry hyenas, waiting for us to stumble so they can pounce on our mistakes and boast at our failures.  I say, we like the Apostle Paul boast at out own failures.  Acknowledge that we have all screwed up but it's only by the grace of God we are now becoming a new creation!  If we take our standard, our calling seriously, the devil, the prince of the air, will have no way to criticize us.  The Bible reminds us that Satan will flee from us if we attack him with the Full Armor of God!

There aren't too many worse things that a "christian" that is only half in.  When it comes down to it, if you aren't for Jesus; you are against him (Matt 12:30).  When will we take our burden, our responsibility serious enough and go out and be the salt & the light to the world (Matt 5:13-16)

Lets Raise Up & Follow Our Standard!

-MJA