Should Christians Legislate Against Same-Sex Marriage and Abortion?

Should Christians Legislate Against Same-Sex Marriage and Abortion?

Christianity has had a major role in the foundation of our country and continues to prevail as a reckoning force, most notably through the republican party. Basically if you live in America and claim to be an Evangelical Christian the odds are you're a Republican. As a result the Republican party has adopted and heavily promoted legislative actions that fall in line with their biblical convictions, among them being anti-abortion and sanctity of marriage laws.

I believe in the inerrancy of the Bible and so I also agree wholeheartedly that life begins at conception and that God intended marriage to be solely between a man and a woman. So what's a young, Bible believing, boy to do? According to the unending (mostly annoying) posts I see on Facebook and big haired preachers on television I'm supposed to start signing petitions, picketing outside of abortion clinics, protesting at gay soldiers funerals, and supporting my republican representative so that we can finally have laws to do away with all of this sin......

 

Does anyone else feel like we're missing something here? Is this really how God wants us to deal with sin in the world? Through legislation? Didn't we try that already? When God's people were given the Law they tried to become justified through that Law, not realizing that it was never meant to perfect them. A great pastor named Matt Chandler describes the Law as a CAT scan in that it isn't meant to cure you but instead show you just how sick you really are. 

"(for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God." Hebrews 7:19

It's only through Christ that we are justified because only he was perfect enough to fulfill the Law and atone for all of the evil that we've done. Where the Law is the CAT scan revealing the cancer that is sin living and thriving inside of us, Jesus is the cure. 

So since we Christians have been justified by Christ and not by the God given Law...Why are we trying to justify others through man made laws? Could it be because it's so much easier to make a law telling homosexuals that they can't marry than to build a relationship and love someone in the gay community? Could it be that it's so much easier to post a quick tidbit about the evils of abortion rather than showing a young woman in a scary situation Christ-like compassion? To be blunt it's just lazy Christianity.

More than lazy it's cruel. You have received such mercy from Christ and yet you would hoard that love and mercy to yourself? Perhaps we find it so hard to share the truth of Christ with these people because in seeing their brokenness we are reminded of our brokenness. We have a hard time remembering that Christ came to heal the sick not the healthy (Matthew 9:12) but we have a harder time remembering that WE are the sick and that we need him just as much as the ones we condemn. 

I don't think it's bad to support laws that align with our Christian beliefs but we just can't afford to make that our main focus. After all, let's just say every law in support of Christian values passed...Would we really be done with sin? Would homosexuality cease? Would abortions stop? Of course not! The problem isn't the law, it's us! The solution isn't a new law, it's the love and hope of of Christ.

Though Paul was newly admitted to the circle of disciples he couldn't hold his tongue when he saw Peter holding the gentiles to the same law that he had discarded.

¹⁴ When I saw that they were not following the truth of the gospel message, I said to Peter in front of all the others, “Since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions? Galatians 2:14

We've screwed up as the Church. Let's ask forgiveness from God and those we've tried to conform to a law that we don't even follow. Let's repent and start sharing the same grace that saved us with those sinners that need Christ just as much as we do.

Is Faith Apathetic?

Is Faith Apathetic

Is faith in God apathetic? It certainly appears so at times. For this reason many have chosen to reject faith, dismissing it as lazy. The basic tenants of the Christian faith state that we are saved by grace through faith and not by works (Ephesians 2:8).

 Let's really examine that.

 Mankind has a natural tendency to work. This is probably because we are naturally reinforced to do so. When we work we eat. Simple as that. So is this idea of not working but instead simply believing bad psychology? If we are rewarded for doing nothing is God trying to make us spiritual couch potatoes?

 

Before I go on I would like to recognize with you that the bible doesn't teach us this at all. The book of James may be the best example to use. James was specifically challenging those that were using faith as a guise for being spiritual couch potatoes. He states that "faith without works is dead." (James 2:17) I think that we are not called to be just faithful but to be faithful workers. Not that works is our means of salvation but as a car produces fumes from it's fuel source so we too should produce works from our faith. This means taking care of the poor, loving the rejected, and serving others as Christ has served us.

If you want to be apart of a great organization that's doing just that check out  http://www.rescueher.org/

But I contest that sometimes faithful work doesn't take such an obvious form as serving in a soup kitchen. Sometimes faith looks like we're doing absolutely nothing. This can be frustrating and confusing for believers. Not to mention it makes absolutely no sense to those on the outside looking in.

I recently started a new job and while this job has been an amazing experience thus far it hasn't provided the hours I was hoping for. Long story short rent was due and it wasn't quite clear how me and my wife were going to pay it. I felt like a failure as a husband and provider. My first reaction was to go out and start finding anyway to make money. Suddenly no job was too low for me to take. Unfortunately during this time I was also very sick making it very hard for me to look presentable and near impossible to look hire-able. Never the less I made a game plan on how to go about working and getting paid soon enough to pay our rent late.

I'm not saying that anything I did was wrong in and of itself. After all the bible tells us that if a man won't work then he wont eat. (2 Thes 3:10) But I didn't ask God what He wanted me to do. I didn't even consult Him until much later.

So when I finally pulled my head far enough out of my butt to listen to God, imagine my surprise when He tells me to be still.

What?!

But Lord I'm supposed to be the provider! I'm supposed to sacrifice myself for my wife as you did! How can I just be still? Isn't that just apathetic?

It was around that time I realized how much work faith truly is. It's hard and in the words of my intellectual buddies "Faith ain't for sissies." It may seem backwards but we are told to put on the full armor of God in Ephesians 6:10-19 not that we may then charge the enemy, nor that we should run to take cover. We are told to put on the full armor of God so that we may stand firm!

Faith is not apathy. Faith is hard. Faith is courageous.

Long story short...our rent was paid this month. I'm not exactly sure how. Some forgotten paychecks came in and some random money here and there... Next months rent is coming fast and I'm on the job hunt willing to lay it all down but I'm now a little less foolish in realizing that my role as provider is to be completely dependent on the true Provider.

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth.”

 Psalms 46:10

For more about being a godly man check out my friends blog  http://groundlevelreason.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-call-to-men-part-1.html

How Can A Loving God Be So Hateful?

How Can A Loving God Be So Hateful?

The God of the Bible is said to be love (1John 4:8). Not that He has loving characteristics, not that He is predominately concerned with love, but that He actually is love. This has been a fascinating and inspiring idea for Christians ever since John wrote it in one of his letters, and the effect continues today as evidenced by countless "Religious Preference" sections on Facebook profiles. This spiritual proclamation of faith, while somewhat vague and ambiguous, at it's core is quite respectable. After all it's scriptural, it asserts the belief in a supreme being, and who in their right minds doesn't love love? But how does this bold claim that God is love match up with what the rest of the bible says? Isn't this God of love the same God of wrath, punishment, mass genocide, and eternal hell fire? How can a God of love be so full of hate and wrath? Is this apparent contradiction proof that the God of the Bible is simply a projection of the imaginations of the authors depicting Him?

 

Ahhh now we have some beautiful questions, but asking a question simply for the sake of asking a question is about as good as last year's calendar. The only good questions are those that lead to truth, so truth is exactly what we should aim for! (for more on truth check out this great blog)

Let's point out some of the major stories in the Bible that tend to put us off:

1. God banishes Adam and Eve for eating a fruit (Gen. 3)

2. God floods the world because it was evil, essentially killing all mankind except for Noah and his family (Gen. 7:21-23)

3. God tells Moses and the Levites to kill their fellow Israelites for worshiping a golden calf. Three thousand die. (Ex. 32:27)

Why do these stories make us so squeamish? Most likely it's because most humans have a concept of innocence and righteousness, and when we picture this bully of a God inflicting torment on innocent people it causes our blood to boil or turn cold all together.

You should be irate at such injustice. You should hate it when the innocent suffer and the helpless are oppressed. The world reacted in awe at the Sandy Hook shooting that took place not too long ago, but after the initial shock wore off people were demanding something that they could only express using the word "justice." I cried with my wife as we spent the better part of our day watching the heart wrenching interviews of a community (and world) completely thrown off balance. As humans we have an innate ability to recognize injustice. 

This, I believe, is the same way we look at many of these wrathful stories. This simply couldn't be the God John talks about as being love. In a sense you are right. The God you've built up in your head while being hand fed half truth is much different than the God of the Bible, both Old Testament and New. 

The truth is...

None of the stories within the Bible tell of God punishing the innocent. Every occurrence of God's wrath happens as a result of evil. 

1. Adam and Eve were given everything by God. Everything their souls desired was there, most notably a relationship with their Creator. God gave them one rule which was not to eat of this certain tree. In fact, God said that if they ate of that tree they would die. So what did they do a measly four chapters into Genesis? They eat from the stinkin' tree! God told them exactly what not to do and exactly what the consequences would be and yet they did it anyway. No hint of innocence here.
 

2. Noah lived in a very dark time when every single thought of EVERY single man was evil. Though the Bible does not give specifics about this evil we can assume it was a horrible place of killing, raping, stealing, and who knows what else. So God did away with the evil by means of a flood. Again no hint of innocence here.

3. God told Moses (and Moses told those dedicated to God) to kill their fellow Israelites after they 
worshiped a golden calf. The dead were over 3,000. At first glance this seems a bit like over kill (no pun intended), but we really have to look at the big picture instead of judging by face value. These people had just been saved by God from the Egyptians. They had seen the great miracles done by God through Moses including the parting of the Red Sea! They knew first hand the wonders of their God and owed everything to Him and yet while Moses was away (receiving the Ten Commandments) they lost faith in their God and decided that they needed a God that they could see because after all they never actually saw the God of the Bible, only His miracles (sound familiar?).  Once again no hint of innocence in this story.

Not in any of these stories do we see God act unjustly. On quite the contrary we only see God upholding goodness, doing away with evil, and standing for justice. It seems that we often have trouble connecting wrath with justice but can you really have one without the other?

Many ask "Does the punishment fit the crime for most of these stories?" After all they just ate some fruit, the world was just being the world, and the Israelites were just scared. I don't blame you for having these questions. They were mine as well. But in asking them we reveal our ignorance: our ignorance of the true magnificence of God and the true sacrilege it is to not have faith in Him (the root of all sin).

Were I to willfully break a plate in your house you would be a little upset but not inconsolable. But if I were to break a plate that had been handed down from generation to generation in your family and given to you by your Grandmother the night before she died...we might have had a fight on our hands. So what's the difference? The value of the thing broken! In saying that the punishment doesn't fit the crime you are saying that the the glory of His name just isn't that important. He isn't some deity made by human hands nor is He some genie in a bottle to be summoned whenever it pleases you. He is the God that created the Universe just by speaking! To underestimate the crime is to underestimate His worth.


We demand justice for the shooting at Sandy Hook but what does that really mean? It means that the person responsible for the crime face the appropriate consequences. Were the judge to say to the shooter "That'll be two years community service for you, Sir," we would riot! So why then such indignation when God does exactly what our hearts desire for Him to do? Perhaps because we realize that we are no different than disobedient Adam and Eve, nor are we any different from the unfaithful Israelites who turned to other gods at the first sign of trouble. We recognize an uncanny resemblance between us and those that incurred God's wrath, and that is absolutely terrifying. We cry out for justice, but our cries are empty until we realize that we stand guilty of the very evil which we cry against.

The truth is that the moment we first sin we are worthy of death. In all of the biblical accounts when a person or people group sinned they should have died on the spot, but instead God withheld the fullness of His wrath. He didn't just throw His wrath away because, as mentioned, that would make Him unjust, but though we didn't deserve it He stored it up and placed it on His Son Jesus whom willingly endured the terrifying wrath of God for all that would simply believe in His name.

This is the beauty of the cross! It is where the fullness of God's love and the fullness of God's justice crash head on at full speed. Our debt is paid by the blood of the perfect and holy God-Man, Jesus Christ, and we are afforded the ability of restoration in God's great and unfathomable love! Hopefully you can see a little more clearly that the God of the Bible is indeed love and that His love is not contradicted by His hate for sin and unrighteousness. Indeed within ourselves we find that we truly hate these things too.

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.” 

-Elie Wiesel

Thanks for Reading! Feel free to comment :]

My Love By William Nolan (1990-2012)

My Love

 By William Nolan (1990-2012)

My love come wash the city from you hands

Give it time the sober side will kill you where you stand

The Lord will avenge 

My love come wash the winter from your feet

For I was born for nothing but to break your heart so sweet

The Lord will amend

My love come wash the anger from your bed

Those walks of steel and rosewood through the vineyards of your head

Will fade through the time

Happiness, Despair, and Joy

Happiness, Despair, and Joy

2012 has been the most amazing year of my life while at the same time being the most challenging. It was filled with great happiness, greater despair, and most importantly a new found understanding of joy.

Happiness
As far as happiness goes there are plenty of events to describe my year. I graduated from College, played music with my friends just about every week, proposed to the most amazing person I have ever met and shortly thereafter married her. All of these things brought me great happiness and truly made me feel like a blessed man.

Despair
I can just as easily say, however,  that 2012 was the most grievous year I have ever known. I fought a nasty war within me as I was seeking to become a godly husband and came to the conclusion that I had (and still have) a lot of work to do. I watched a close friend willfully turn away from God and another flat out reject Him. Most notably earth shattering, however, was the death of my great friend and Best Man William Nolan.

Will died on July 3rd which was about a month and a half before my wedding. To say that I was devastated would be a devastating understatement. Never had I lost someone that I loved so deeply and so unexpectedly. The details of Will's life and death are truly miraculous and with permission from his parents I would love to share them in another blog but for now I will simply say that Will was only 22 years old and yet still among the wisest and most genuine of men I think I will ever know. He was a gentleman in a world that has lost the very meaning of the word. He was my friend and man...could he play a mean guitar.

A Coin Toss
If you look at the data numerically in my life (and I would bet yours) it appears that happiness is stacked just about evenly with despair and the only way to tell which is the victor is to flip a coin. So go ahead. No seriously flip a coin and see which defines your year! "Heads" and happiness wins "Tails" and well...may the odds be ever in your favor next year.

Sound ridiculous? That's because letting our experiences and circumstances define us IS ridiculous! There is a power greater than happiness or despair and it triumphs over both of them combined. I'm speaking of joy and though it is often confused with happiness it is so much different. Happiness is fleeting. Here one day and gone the next and is based solely on the circumstances of life. Joy, on the other hand, stands firm, feet planted firmly in the ground. Joy is immovable and immeasurable because it is rooted in an immovable and immeasurable God.


My Joy
In the moment I heard of Will's death I broke down and wept but somehow in the next moment I was led to praise God. With tears flowing down my face, snot running out of my nose, and with a voice that sounded more like a whimper I worshiped my God and told Him that even in the darkest moment of my life...He was still worthy. It wasn't just lip service. I believed and felt it with all of my heart and soul that God was still good. I don't say any of this with delusions of my own self righteousness because it truly wasn't me. It only could have been Christ within me that produced such joy in the lowliest of slums because only the peace of Christ can surpass such a circumstance.

If you believe that Jesus is your Savior and yet are still not familiar with the joy that I've spoken of or perhaps have only seen glimpses of it, you need to first check yourself and figure out if you have a genuine relationship with the Lord or if you're merely a byproduct of cultural circumstance. If you've come to the conclusion that you truly love Jesus, don't let his joy be hidden from you any longer! It is there within you like a tree waiting for you to pick its ripened fruit but too often we cover it up with the weeds of circumstance and sin.

However if you're not a believer...

There are no bypasses to joy without Christ. If you do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that He died for your sins then true joy is not a possibility because it exists within that which you do not accept. Eternal joy much like eternal salvation is reserved for those that believe they have nothing to offer God and yet He paves a way for them anyways. I know it may seem naive and exclusive to some, but God desires all of His creation to turn away from sin and return to Him.

So in 2013 (and for the rest of your life) don't let your joy be determined by the uncertainty of a coin toss or the shifting circumstances of life but rather let it be determined by your Assured Circumstance which is this:  


^"You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:6-8

My Thoughts on Higher Education

Dear Journal,
As I complete my undergrad college education I'd like to showcase the sum of my knowledge attained in the last 4 1/2 years.

 (Ahem)

They're = they are, their = possessive form of they, you're = you  are, your = possessive form of you, youv = not a real word. It takes me a couple times of trial and error but I spell "definitely!" correctly on a pretty consistent basis but of course for the harder vocab words I've got the good ol right click spell check button. Oh and let's not forget that my papers would have had so much less flare without the right click "synonyms" feature where I learned how to masterfully morph rest into cessation, quiescence, somnolence, and siesta.

In all seriousness college has been really good to me. I learned that I'm passionate about helping people, that people will clap for me after I play guitar for them at coffee shops, and that Jiu Jitus is really cool. I married my exquisite wife Rachel and most importantly fell in love with my savior Jesus. All in all...it's been a good.

 Special thanks to all of you in the Facebook/Twitter/Blogger realm for being my go-to public diary. You've made everyday feel like an episode of Doug.

-Cole

Can We Search the Unsearchable (God)?

Can We Search the Unsearchable?

Is it reasonable to believe that we as human beings, limited in our ability to understand and comprehend, could even begin to scratch the surface of such an unlimited and complex being as God? I have a friend who once told me that his reason for not believing in the God of the bible was due to his idea that if there is a God we're just swinging in the dark trying to find him because there is no way we could ever hope to understand something so unreachable. The heck of the thing is...my friend was right. We truly cannot understand who God is no matter how much searching we do because, well, He's God! If you feel differently than I politely suggest that you reevaluate your view on the magnificence of God compared to the meekness of man. So should we call off the search completely and just head home? No way Jose! God desires an intimate relationship with you. That is to say that He wants you to get to know Him and while we cannot on our own power lift the veil that covers His Majesty, He has freely revealed Himself to us!

Before I go any further allow me today that to fully understand God in this life is an impossibility. He is quite simply too complex, and it is entirely too superficial of us to believe that we could wrap our arms  around a being so beautifully profound...With that being said, not for a moment do I believe that we are entitled to ignorance because of our limited capacity. As believers God has provided for us everything that we need to search and seek a deeper relationship with Him. In the remainder of this blog I'd like to show that we truly can know God because he allows us to. Here are some examples of how God has paved the way for our understanding of Him.

Our Hearts

In the book of Romans Paul writes that no one is excused from worshiping God "For what can be known about God is plain to [us] because God has shown it to [us]. For His invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So [we] are without excuse" (Romans 1:19-20) Just by experiencing the world around us, whether that be the sight of a New Mexico sunset, the sound of a string quartet, or the ecstasy experienced during sex...the creations that we experience point towards the nature and characteristics of our Creator. Paul later goes on to say in Romans that difference between right and wrong is written on our hearts and I believe that in the same way the characteristics of the Almighty have been written on our heart by God so that we can know Him more intimately.

Our Brains

 In addition to a heart that points towards the Creator, God has given us a magnificent and undeniably awesome tool that we call the brain. In my 4 and 1/2 years as a psychology major (who needs 4 year degree plans?) I have been astounded by the brain! Purely scientifically speaking the human brain is what sets us apart from all other creatures. I could go on and on about how clever God was in the design of our brain, from comprehension to memory to imagination but my point is that from the get-go we have been given an amazing tool that aids us in our search for an intimate relationship with God

God's Word

Even if you're using your brain to it's maximum potential (which is way more than 10% btw) you are still incapable of understanding more deeply who God is until you get into His word (The Bible). There is an elaborate and continuous story through out the Old Testament and the New Testament, and it's all about who God is. It is an elaborate love story in which He is the Protagonist. Who are we in His story?We are both the antagonist and the love interest. We are the ones who have turned away from a perfect and loving God out of selfishness, and yet we are also the ones that God has sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for.

The coming, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ serves as the climax of God's story. To put it accurately, John Cusack and his boom box ain't got nothin on God's elaborate and dramatic gesture of Jesus on the cross. (If you don't get that reference then watch"Say Anything)

 

The Holy Spirit

Of course Jesus' death and resurrection served as more than just a gesture, it was a powerful move on the part of God that can irrevocably change our hearts. Not too long before the betrayal and arrest of Jesus he told his disciples that he would be leaving them but he also said that it was to their advantage that he leave so that the Helper could come (John 16:5-7). The "Helper" mentioned by Jesus is the Holy Spirit and is the most powerful force we have in understanding who God is because He IS God and He actually dwells within us (take a second to recollect the pieces to your blown mind).

Before the death and resurrection of Christ we were incapable of holding such a magnificent force within us because God, being perfect and holy, could not dwell within sinful creatures. In fact there is a story in the Old Testament about a man who died merely from touching the tabernacle (a box that Israel carried with them through the desert in which God's Spirit dwelt). That same Spirit can now dwell within us when we accept the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. 

Often times I think "Man, it would be awesome if Jesus was physically here so that I could talk to him and ask him questions about the universe!" but Jesus said to his disciples in John 16:13 "When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all truth."  You see Jesus was limited on this earth because he humbly accepted a body of flesh so it would have been impossible for him to  have an intimate and personal relationship with all of us, but through the Holy Spirit we now have unlimited access to Him. Not to be too irreverent but having the The Holy Spirit is kind of  like having a backstage pass to God's concert. It's one thing to enjoy the band from the nosebleeds or even the first row but it's quite another to actually hangout with the band.

In conclusion

I hope that I've shown adequately through out my little blog here that we truly can search an unsearchable God because he allows us to. I would, however, like to add a word of caution to you truth seekers out there because there is certainly danger in presuming too much of the Lord, and we only have to look at Job's life for evidence of that.

 "Dress for action like a man; I will question you and make it known to me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding." (Job38:3-4)

So once again I would like to reiterate that we cannot know God on our own power or insight, but because of His grace he has REVEALED to us who He is and we are invited to join Him in an intimate relationship. It will take all of eternity to truly understand who He is but luckily as believers in the Son of God that's precisely the amount of time we have.