I just don't get it.

Am I missing something, or do people just not care about God?

Romans 1:28-32 The Message (MSG)

Since they didn’t bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose. And then all hell broke loose: rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing. They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating. Look at them: mean-spirited, venomous, fork-tongued God-bashers. Bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags! They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives. They ditch their parents when they get in the way. Stupid, slimy, cruel, cold-blooded. And it’s not as if they don’t know better. They know perfectly well they’re spitting in God’s face. And they don’t care—worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best!

Does this sound like our world today to you? It does to me. What I don’t get is how people cannot see where all our problems have stemmed from. The Apostle here was not targeting any specific group of people, but was illustrating that Jews and Gentiles (Pagans) alike were all corrupt! Depravity is part of our human software as inherited from Adam and Eve through their spiritual DNA. The only thing I can think of that maybe cause people not to see this is that they just don’t believe it. To me, that is the only logical explanation for people not seeing where the problem lies – not caring about God.

I had a friend tell me one time that perhaps if all of us Christians could get on an airplane and fly to the promise land we would be happy and the rest of the world would too! He was not a Christian and was being sarcastic as we were discussing the issue of abortion. He changed his opinion on abortion after his daughter was born. I think though that statement sums it up as far as the rest of the world goes.

I don’t know what to do about it, do you? We preach, we teach, we testify, we pray, we go into the communities, we try to get others to believe it, but for some reason they just keep “running loose.” Perhaps one day God in His infinite mercy will do something that will cause them to see it before it’s too late. Before the church “flies away” and leaves them here without hope.

Pinches and Punches

Traditions and Religion.

Matthew 15:2  

“Why do your disciples disobey our age-old tradition?”  New Living Translation (NLT)

My wife and I had the opportunity to visit England back in 24 B.K. (before kids). That was in 1990 and 1991. While there visiting my brother, one of his friends lightly pinched me on the shoulder and lightly punched me and said, “A pinch, a punch, for the first of the month; white rabbit!” It was the first day of July that year. It is a traditional thing they do, and saying “white rabbit” means that I could not pinch or punch him back.

I saw a tee shirt in a store the other day that had a slogan on it that read; “I know I’m not wearing green; pinch me and I’ll punch you.” It had a gray graphic of a mean looking Leprechaun, gritting his teeth with his little fists balled up on it as well. I could have used that shirt all through my life when encountering the traditional pinchers on St. Patrick’s Day. One day a year we forget to wear something green and the pinchers seek you out. We should combine St. Patrick’s Day with April Fool’s Day then we could say, “look, your shirt is green; not.” Then we could pinch them.

Many of these old traditional things are harmless. I guess people got bored just living life and came up with something to liven it up a bit. Traditions have a way of taking root in cultures just as religion does. There is not a lot of differences between religion and traditions. For instance, Jesus never made a big deal about washing your hands before eating. He never used hand sanitizers or anything. Germs; that is why we wash our hands; germs. An age old tradition that is supposed to protect us from harm. Wash your hands all you want but eat poison and you die. That is sort of what Jesus was saying about the Jewish hand washing tradition. “It is that which is on the inside that will kill you, not what is on the outside.” Religion attempts to wash us from the outside, in; Jesus washes us from the inside, out!  Get your heart cleansed first and then worry about your hands. Germs kill the body; sin destroys the soul.

Is it just me?

A move toward spirituality, but not toward Christ.

I will meditate on the glorious splendor of Your majesty, And on Your wondrous works. (Psalm 145:5 NKJV)

Is it just me? I sat watching a guy on HLN talk about his new book on meditation. You can Google it, but I am not going to brag on his book. Sit Still he says and get quite for a little while. Of course his advice is to get in touch with your inner-self and calm yourself by being aware of the world around you and sensitive to your surroundings.

I have noticed lots of spiritual stuff lately in the news. When I saw this I thought; Why are they not promoting prayer in schools? This guy wants to promote meditation, quite time, in the schools. Why can’t we just say, “pray quietly?” We both know you cannot really take prayer out of schools; you can pray anywhere you want; just not out loud maybe!

Mediation on God is good; meditation on self is not. Trying to improve ourselves will not work; mankind has tried that for years. Allowing God to improve us works; many of us have found that to be true! The Bible teaches us to meditate on good things, things that are pure and noble, just and lovely. Not to chant some mantra as in order to brainwash ourselves.

Apparently some have never learned that real change comes from a changed heart; a heart that is ruled by Jesus and not by self. That is where we find peace. Be Still, and know that He is God; that works.

Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I am taking this stuff to seriously. Maybe I just need to pray for them. Maybe I should not worry that these people are influencing the children.

Or maybe, I should.

 

 

Made In His Image . . . Really?!

Think you know what it means to made in His image?

 My wife shared a story about a little fellow in her Sunday school class, she teaches the juniors. The little guy came in and the first thing he asked was, “Can I go to the bathroom and see if my hair is still fixed? (Jack) rubbed his hand on it and I think he messed it up?” Of course she let him; you can’t teach a kid with messed up hair. 

I was in a big box store the other morning and observed a young lady that actually had a fuzzy beard growing under her chin. I am in no way making fun of her, it was just an observation; but you have to admit, it sets you back to see something like that. Vanity I have come to understand really is in the eye of the beholder, especially if you are beholding yourself. 

Have you ever stopped to consider what God really meant when He said, “Let us make man in our image?” The Hebrew word used for “man” was: adem (aw-dum). It meant “ruddy” or flush in the face, rosy colored, made possible by blood in the skin. Animals have blood but none of them have “man blood.” The “Hu” man has something else the animals do not have: the “breath” of God that He breathed into their bodies. The word for that breath is “spirit.” Not to be confused with soul (psyche). A God breathed spirit into each human. Animals have life, but humans have “God like life.” Created by Him to live forever as He does. A unique type of flesh, filled with blood, given an intellect, and made eternal by the breath of God. That is how I see “made in His image.” 

Outward appearance and physical attributes were genetically engineered by the Intelligent Designer! When the human’s sinned, the genetics were corrupted; God took His lifeguard off the gene pool! The one original thing that remained as He created us is our spirit; that is why we will always live forever.  

Beards or messed up hair, male or female; we are all human. The one thing we all have in common is our Creator.  You can argue “image” all day but you cannot deny God has no physical image; only the body of Jesus did; and only He alone has seen the Father; and NO ONE really knows what Jesus looked like.