Balance
I was muchos bored @ church on Sunday, so I went on a thought tangent. I was thinking about a lot of the aspects in our lives where we never achieve balance. There are a lot of in-betweens in Christianity. Most people have a drastic tendency to lean only in one direction, completely disregarding the other, and never achieve balance. Here are a few examples:
There is so much to know about God, so much to learn, so much we could never comprehend or understand. God is endless, and there is no way we could possess all His knowledge, or fathom all that He is. And yet, I'm also a firm believer in the theory that one should never blindly believe. I'm sure the average cliché Christian will excuse something they don't understand, or believe for some reason they don't grasp, with the "God is bigger than we could ever percieve" excuse. God is complicated, but He's not impossible. If you're going to believe something, know why you believe it. Know about God, but don't be so haughty as to think that you know it all, because none of us ever will.
We all know that we were nothing without God. Before Him we had no purpose, we were just sinners. We die, we go to hell, sucks to be us, the end. Now we're reborn. We've been made new. But I still hear Christians walking around saying that "I'm weak, I'm nothing, I'm just a sinner, I'm scum." Yes, you are. You're incapable of doing any good, you're insignificant. But God lives in you, you're His now, and when you underestimate what you've become, what nature you've denounced, adn what potential you now have with God working in you, you belittle God and all that He can do through you. Be His vessel, know that you are nothing without Him, but have confidence in the fact that you are now His child, who can do great things in the name of God.
God is our healer. We all know this. I'm a pentecostal. I know that God can heal if we have faith and lay hands on the sick. The Bible commands us to do that. What I don't like is when churches demand the healing, yes we're granted authority in the name of Jesus, whose stripes by which we are healed, but God does have a will and a purpose, He has reasons. In one instance, healing could simply require total surrender and faith that God has the ability to do so, and it is done, and it is miraculous to see. But there are instances in which God doesn't heal. God isn't at the command of our fingertips, His power works through us, but He decides who is healed and who is not. Here's a story for those avid against Christians being sick:
My grandfather (non-Christian) just lost his little brother. His family members have been dropping like flies, to be quite frank. His little brother had a rough upbringing, he was the kid no one could control. A car accident gave him (if I remember correctly) severe burns and loss of limbs. It took that much to wake him up, but he found God that day. He just died, at a young age, and my grandmother (Christian) was talking with other members of the family when one made the comment of how merciful God is. My grandmother was in awe, and inquired how she could have such a view on such recent tragedies. This person then preceeded to explain how the Christians were the ones that were dying, with their hearts in the right place, with faith until the end, and the non-believers are being left here with more time to come to salvation. Chew on that for a bit.
We pray for each other. We pass on requests. What I often find happening, however, is: "Did you hear so-and-so did such-and-such?! Pray for them." It's a gossip chain attached to a prayer subject. Maybe we should let others' lives be "unspoken" requests to those who don't need to know.
I have an accountability partner. It's a good thing to have. We all need someone to hold us accountable. If anyone sees me in error, please, point it out. I'm one who's up for constructive criticism as long as it's done in a polite manner. But what I can't stand is judging people. The whole "Don't judge me" defense gets thrown up in attempts to hide things at times, but more often than not, our assumptions lead us to believe things about people that are highly untrue. Just because things look a certain way, or someone says things are a certain way, doesn't mean that they are. Hold your brothers and sisters accountable, but believe the best about them.
The appearance of evil. I could go on forever about this. I'll keep it simple. If you see a Christian walk out of a bar, big deal. How do you know they weren't just there to witness? Drinking isn't wrong anyway, it's drunkenness that's a sin. I think a lot of people need to lighten up, and seek out the dark places to spread the Word.
We should measure ourselves by righteousness and not by past failures. We all make mistakes, but we aren't that person anymore. This is kind of like the first thing I talked about, but that was more about studies than belief in self. Measure yourself by all that God has changed and improved, and not by what you've failed in or not accomplished. We're all a work in progress.
This might be my most passionate point. We are all sinners and all fall short of the glory of God. It is only by grace and forgiveness that we enter into the Kingdom of God. So, knowing that God will forgive all our tresspasses does not give us the right to continue in a sinful lifestyle. We're supposed to turn from our evil desires and pursue righteousness, purity, God. When we're faced with trials, we're not to purposely do wrong knowing that God is going to forgive us anyway, but deny our nature and be the better man. I know we all have our shortcomings, but there's got to be a conscious effort being made, or we're lukewarm. And we all know that God spews lukewarm Christians from His mouth. So, I don't know about you, but I don't want to be spewed.
I don't know if anyone actually read all that crap. But if you did, or if you skimmed it, I hope you learned something. I think a lot on things like this. I should write a book or something. Oh wait... I think I just did.