Love Letter

Lately, I have been hearing more and more that Christians are not reading their Bible, or don’t see it as a priority in their life.  They don’t see it as something important to do, which is sad because it is the way we get to know our Savior.  It seems today that more and more Christians are becoming Biblically illiterate, and it is heart breaking because they are missing so much blessing from the love letter written to us.  The book that tells us of the love of Christ and how we walk in that love, and how we understand our faith in a deep way, has to be read, as we will not learn all there is just from going to service on Sunday.  It has to be a relationship and that is done through reading the Scriptures, because this is how you get to know The Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Think about your closest relationship right now.  In order to grow in that relationship you had to spend time with that person talking and getting to know them.  If they wrote you a letter then I bet you read it and maybe even more than once because it came from someone that means something to you.  My wife and I have been married for 13 years now and I still have letters she wrote to me while we were dating.  Every once in a while I will pull those letters out and read them because they came from her and they are still important to me almost as much as the day when I first received them.  I have read them many times and they don’t get old because they come from someone I deeply love.

If that is the case with my wife then how much more should I be drinking in the Word of God, because Jesus showed me more love and still does then my wife ever could.  So, why wouldn’t I want to read the letters God has written to me.  It is my way to get to know my Savior, the One who gave His life for me.  If I read my wife’s letters without getting old then how much more should the living Bible be read over and over without getting old.

Christ is our Creator, our Redeemer, the living God who wants a relationship and has given a book for us to be nourished and to grow in our relationship with Him.  Yes, prayer is a way to communicate with God, but He typically answers us through the Word.  How much would my prayer life change if I knew Him deeper?

The Bible should be the most worn out book in our houses, but the truth is that it is the biggest dust collector in many of our homes.  Sad to say, this is true in my home many times and my relationship tends to be hurt because of it.  I start to feel distant, my thoughts begin to change and all of a sudden my relationship with God has changed.  Once I start to read again I start to think more about my Savior and talking to Him more.  I start to see things change in my daily walk because I feed on the Word of God.  This is not some simple book, but a living book that changes our lives just from reading it.  This book will not allow us to be the same; you will either be drawn closer to Christ or you will grow more distant.  This book does not allow us to stay the same.

The Bible is the most important book in the Christian faith, because it comes from God Himself.  It is our way to grow in our relationship with God that will change us forever.  I am so thankful for the Bible, that God thought us special enough to write us and talk to us in such a special and meaningful way.  What a Savior we have that loves us enough to give us a book so we can get to know Him so deeply.  Open the Book and get to know the Savior.

Overtly Concieled

I was listening to the news last week and a statement made caught my attention. They were reporting that Campus Crusade for Christ was taking Christ out of their name because they thought it was too offensive. Being skeptical I decided to look up the truth of this claim myself and found that they are changing their name to Cru and were in fact taking Christ as well as Crusade out of their name, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/20/campus-crusade-for-christ_n_905121.html.

If you read some of the comments you see that some think this is a way to conciel who the group is in order to talk to people that normally would not want to talk to them if they knew who they were. I think this may be a good argument, in particular because they already had Christ in their name. Should we hide who we are in order to reach more people, as this seems to be overtly concealing.

In business we don’t hide what our product is in order to sell more of them. We brag about the product and tell everyone how it will be to their advantage in purchasing it from us. Companies spend thousands if not millions to tell people what their product is. This seems to be the opposite, because they are taking the word “Christ” out so people will not know up front. They believe this will allow them to reach more people, but will it. And what will it do their image in the long term?

This seems a lot like the Porn outreach, but on a larger scale. At one point on the campus I live by there were all these signs that had “Porn” written on them, and then a place, date and time of the event. No other information was given. People showed up to this event, many thinking they were going to see Porn, or at least hear about it and found themselves at an outreach event against pornography. Businesses in the community were upset because they did not know what was going on, as their sidewalks were covered with the world “Porn” plus the location and time, but nothing stating anything else. Had they told the owners or put more info then the owners I talked with would have kept it out there instead of washing it off because it was offensive.

I think the same can be said when we hide Christ from what we are doing and not making it known why we do what we do. The Bible seems to have the exact opposite approach in letting people know they were Christians. They told everyone why they were doing what they were doing and did not try to hide it in order to talk to more people. They were bold with the name of Christ in a time that it was dangerous to be a Christian. It is not dangerous to be a Christian in America, and hiding the name because it might offend seems a little bit of a stretch.

Maybe I am wrong, and the name change is not any big deal, though my issue is not the name change, but the reason given for taking the name of Christ out of it.

IMPLAUSIBLE

Imagine that I tell you a story about a young woman, 5’3” and weighing in at 115lbs, who just was released from a psychiatric ward, was able to lift a picnic table with connecting benches a few feet in the air and throw it off a porch. I explain that she believed her baby was in a house and that the belief was so strong that it gave her strength to lift this picnic table as she was trying to free her child. Would you believe this story? I am not sure that I would. But what if I said there were eye witnesses that you could go and ask about it; that the couple whose porch she threw the picnic table off of were at home at the time and had to call the police. Would you believe the story then? Most people would be more apt to believe this implausible story because there is corraborating evidence. You can go and ask the people whom it happened to.


Can you imagine how many times they had to tell that story? I bet they would be asked at parties, by neighbors and they would also just willingly tell the story time and again because they would not believe it happened. They would remember it for the rest of their days and most likely tell the story so many times that close friends may get tired of hearing it. But what if they made up the whole thing to gain attention or just to pull a prank? How long do you think it would last?

First, one could check the police records in the paper or the local police station to see if the incident actually happened. They could look at newspapers, because if this did happen it is probably going to catch the attention of some local newspaper and maybe a newstation. But, if it is made up, do you think they would enjoy telling the story like they would if it were true? Probably not, and they would probably start to get frustrated by people asking them all the time and regret ever telling the story, especially once it was found out as a fraud. I am betting that once they were interrogated and threatened with a fine, or prison for telling a false story to the police, that they would confess in a hurry. They would not go to prison, or pay a fine for such a story. At least most people would not.

What about a more implausible story, like the resurrection of Christ? Can you imagine someone telling you that this Jesus was on the cross, the most horrific way to die, and three days later was alive? The cross was so bad they made a new word to describe it, which is our English word excrutiating. We are to believe after this that Jesus came back to life and defeated death. Yes, we are, because of all the evidence and transformation of lives. One of the most important is who they referenced as proof. They used Mary, a woman. A woman was not considered a witness in Jesus’ time. They could not even be a witness in court, so to use them was to show they truly believed, because if it was a made up story they would have surely used a man as the first person testimony account.

Secondly, the transformation of people was extraordinary. All the disciples left in dismay when Jesus was buried in the tomb, because they believed he was dead and was not going to rise again. But after Mary reported and the disciples saw with their own eyes they were transformed. They went from being afraid to being out in public to speaking bodly to everyone because they believed the implausible. They believed based on testimony and eyewitness account. They checked the facts. It would have been easy to prove that Jesus did not rise from the dead. Just bring out the body, but instead they tried to fabricate a story that the disciples stole the body.

Why the stolen body theory does not work is because of how the apostles died. Some may try to convince people of a lie when there is no real threat of punishment, but when the punishment threatened is death most will not continue in a lie. The apostles were killed in horrific ways because they believed Jesus raised from the dead. They were crucified, stoned, skinned alive, cooked in an oven, head cut off, and speared. I don’t know about you, but there is no way I am going through anything like that for a lie, and I don’t think anyone who knew they were lying would.

This is one implausible story that checks out. Just look at the facts and testimonies of those involved and it is becomes very apparent that Jesus raised from the dead on the third day. If He did then it changes everything.

Buy Me

There is a virus out there that will infect your computer and then try to get you to purchase your way out of it. You won’t be able to do anything else without purchasing from them. They do this by faking that you have a virus on your computer and they are there to save you from them, but in reality they are the virus. They figure fear will drive you to give them your financial information. Once you do that they will start charging your card on a regular basis. I have labeled this the “buy me” virus.

This is the same thing that many fakes within Christianity will have you believe. Take the recent ‘end of the world’ campaign that just happened a couple of weeks ago. They call themselves a Christian organization, but when you truly look at what they believe they are far from it. They are more like a virus, because they act like they are when in fact they are not.

They try to get you to buy what they are selling, and this particular movement they had some invest their life savings to publicize that the end of the world is near, and these people were from all walks of life (the very successful to the average joe). A virus has no prejudice of who it will attack, just as false religious movements will have no prejudice. They will latch on and suck you dry and make you physically and spiritually sick.

The goal is to not fall for it. Just as I can take my computer to a technician to get rid of a virus, I can go to the Bible and see if what they are teaching is correct. 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Learning to take precautions and to be skeptical will protect us from falling for false ideas.

Faith is not blind, but built upon the evidence of things unseen. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Test everything and make sure what you are hearing, reading and following is true. 1 Thesselonians 5:21, “Test all things; hold fast what is good.” Don’t get caught by a virus in your faith walk, strive to be prepared through study of Scripture and learning how to discern the truth from error before it makes you sick.

2 Timothy 4:3-4, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.”