Fall of Love and the Rise of Pharisees

Recently we all gathered for a joint service of the two churches my dad has. Once every few months, when there happens to be a fifth Sunday at the end of the month, we join together and have a special service. Last time we watched a video called Indescribable. If you have never heard of it, I highly recommend looking at the bookstores, or online retailers if that is your way, and check it out. It is the first of several talks in Louie Giglio's Passion Series.

Just briefly, the video is filmed at one of Chris Tomlin's concerts, on the Indescribable Tour. Louie talks about astronomy and how simply amazing this universe is that God created us to live in. It talks about light-years, galaxies, and the glory of God. It brings it all together with a bit of salty liquid seeping from your eyes.

We watched the second video, How Great is Our God, and I began to think about things. In it Louie talks about how small we are, by comparing the earth and sun to other stars. Then he goes farther down to the sub-atomic scale. It makes you remember how "fearfully and wonderfully made" we are.

Through Christ, all things are held together. But it is through people that we actively tear them apart. Take for example my guild. There were a small amount of us, who used to be leaders in the guild, but have been pushed aside and new people have taken over. While we were leading, our guild began to grow and grow, until we got to the point that we now had a dozen people wanting to do raids every week. Though these people were nice, they began to push out the small group of us who might not have been really into raiding, putting a divide in the guild until it split.

They were nice people, but instead of loving and supporting like a guild should, they wanted to get rid of the weaker people. Instead of helping the weak get strong, they left the guild. I feel this is a lot like the point where Christians need work, we care and are nice, but we don't really offer love to everyone.

There are many nice people out there, and many of them and many more people as a whole, help each other out, but helping and loving are not the same thing nor is being nice and helping. I am nice to many people, but do I always show them love?  I know I do not. I do want to love people more, but I have a hard time when I see how people act, how they treat others, and even when I see their intelligence level.

From sowhatfaith.com and a study of how people who identify
themselves as Christians are more like the Pharisees than they
are like Christ. I sadly agree with the graph.
Here is a link to the article.

I have seen people be nice to your face, but then hear the whispers behind your back. I see how often they refuse to work together to better each other and the group as a whole. Christians can come together for something bigger than they could do on their own, yet they bicker and fight because it is not how they want it.

I recently joined into a online Christian chat room. I used my screen name that I have used for 15 years. I got on and was greeted quickly by the other people in the room. Then, and I don't know if it was a moderator or just someone else, but they asked me to change my name. I told them I would not, I would rather leave, but thanks for the show of love and promptly left. This is the taste that Christians seem to give. We are friendly, but if you are different, or you have a difference of opinion, we need to pull out our holy than thou card and say you can't do this or that.

I will not join that chat room again, I am sure there are some very nice people in it, but why would I go back in when the first thing I saw was that they cannot accept me for me. Thankfully this is not the case with all Christians. And is most definitely not the way of Christ. Many times we saw Jesus go to the sinners, love the sinners for who they were, accept them, and ask that they love him and follow him. If we should be modeling our lives after Jesus, then we should also be accepting of different people.

I know I am not the most loving person out there, but whatever your sin is, I have one to match it. I am a sinner, yet I am still a saint thanks to the grace and love of Jesus. Someday I hope that the work that I do to try to make me a more loving person, will pay off and I can show people how much Jesus loves them. Because that is what this is all about, share the love of Jesus with as many people that are willing to listen and praise God every hard step of the way.

Maybe this will be the generation that shows the world Christians are loving people, not hateful, bigoted jerks who picket funerals and complain about how bad people are sinning. Maybe this will be the generation that will accept that we are all sinners and love everyone despite the sin and love who the people are. Maybe this will be the generation that moves that big bubble on the graph to the opposite corner.

Clarification

It has come to my attention that some people wonder if I am ok, if I am seeing a counselor and if I am seeking medication. I want to answer these questions. I am doing great most days. If you know anything about depression, there are bad days and good days. I am working hard to make each day a God day. Because that way, whether it is good or bad, I can still sing praises to my Lord. It is a daily struggle, but yes I am OK.

As to seeing a counselor my answer is also a yes. Jesus is the only counselor I need.

Isaiah 9:6 – “For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

I know people think I should be talking to a qualified person, who spent much to many years earning a piece of paper that says they know a thing or two, but I am talking to the only person who created that thing or two in the first place. Does he answer back in a voice I can hear? Not always, sometimes its a video on YouTube, or a random link that somehow made it to my computer screen. Any way you look at it though, Jesus is listening and helping me settle my problems.

From here.

If you have read all the way through any of my posts about depression, you will always see the turn around to Jesus. Depression, for me, grows in the times when I think of myself and my wants instead of the Jesus and his wants. So as I always say, keep Jesus centered in your life and constantly work hard in doing what he wants and even the worst days can become God days.

Am I taking or seeking medication? No. I take a few things that greatly help, with no side effects that I have noticed. I do not need to take something that very often increases the depression symptoms. Instead of treating the symptoms, like Americans so seem to love to do, I am trying to treat the disease. I am trying to go beyond what I am feeling and change the core of it. I am trying to take the depression out and put even more God in. I am not in anyway bashing or criticizing medical help for depression. I have heard some very good results from it, but I do not feel it would help me. If it is working or worked for you, I am so very glad to that it did. I will support anyone who does try it. But for me, and only me, I find my brightest days, days where I find me most alive, are the days that I actively cling onto God keep him in my life, front and center and make him my center piece of all that I do.

It is at the foot of the cross where we find all of our value, worth, meaning and life. It is there we find peace that this world cannot give us. It is at the cross where we can be ourselves, be happy in all we do, and sit with Jesus and have him heal all wounds. The cross was a symbol of horrific torture, but for me, as it should be with all Christians, it is a symbol of all that I am not, and all that he is, and all I want to be through him. It is a symbol of salvation, life and eternity.

So I want people to know, when I post these blogs, I am telling you my feelings and I am telling you at the end of all of them, how important it is for God to be our everything. Jesus is my everything, what else can I want. He gives me rest restoration. Even when I am in the darkest valleys of shadows and death, I will fear nothing, and there is nothing I cannot overcome, for the Lord of everything guides me so that I will not stumble. He is my comfort in a weary world. He is the only cure to my troubled soul. He cares for me even in the midst of my enemies. He gives me all I could need and cares for me. He always makes sure I have enough of everything. He will be with me for the rest of my life, and I will live with him forever in worship and praise.

The Jesus Empire

At work, we are getting a new manager. The old one is leaving for greener pastures of technology and the new one is a returning manager. The returning manager was an assistant manager for years here but transferred out to become a store manager, and now that her home store has that spot opening, she was a logical choice. She has plans to try and bring people back into caring about their job, something that has become a pandemic in our workplace. I suspect it is a problem in many workplaces.

If she can bring back caring back into the store, which I believe she can, our store will grow again. Not only in sales, which is great for the company, but also the relationships that have formed and fallen apart in the store. It will bring about a revival of sorts, and we will all grow stronger and be better for it.

Jesus came much like a new manager to bring caring and relationship back into the world. Over the years before Jesus came, people had adopted many of the pagan ways, worshiping false Gods, idols, money, and other people over the creator. People stopped caring, felt lost, and were unhappy with the current management. The work got sloppy and we fell behind on our work.

Even after Jesus came, the church began to do the same thing, we stopped showing the love of God to the world, began to push our opinions onto a crowd of people who were just looking for someone to lead them. Disinterest in the church grew, and numbers began to fall. Often someone would come along with big dreams of revival just to be brought back down by the people they hoped to strengthen.

My new manager used to work here and she was one of the great ones that brought our group together, to push harder and sell more. She left to work at another store and maybe to prepare for a time when she could come back. Jesus did this, he came to us, and showed us how to run his big business of salvation. He then left after the guidelines were done to prepare his home office for work. He will come back again, this time to take total control of his company. The Jesus Empire.

Jesus in a suit. From this page. It's kinda
interesting too.

A frightening thought arises here, many people who say they work for Jesus, say they are members of the biggest company the universe has ever known, will find out that they were not on the payroll. They will find that all the work they did was not for Jesus but they were doing it for themselves. Jesus will turn from them and say "I don't know you." Even still there will be people who we didn't know worked for the company and will get promotions and awards for their service.

It is a very scary thing to think that when Jesus comes back to take control of his business, that everything will change. Change is always a scary thing. But change is what keeps things fresh and breathing. But if you take up your cross, follow Jesus, keep his Code of Ethics that he set down when he started the company as a carpenter and a priest, the change wont be so bad. Jesus will come and breath new life back into his company, and all will see the glory of God shine.

To fully see this Empire in all its glory, each of us must choose to fully give ourselves under his control. We must become slaves to the only master that could ever truly deserve the name. It is a hard struggle to fully follow Jesus into everywhere, but following him is the only way we can have life. I know that I do not follow him as well as I should, or even as well as I want to. I sin. I fall back into my sin because it is easy. As a human, I prefer what is easy, especially when that easy has much of the same short term rewards as the hard. But we need to look past the short term, we need to think IRA and retirement. We need to think eternally.

So as with my new manager, I am excited for a change that can come and rock this Empire Jesus had made. We should play that corporate game no one likes to play and bring as many new employees to work as possible. In the Jesus Empire, everyone has a job to do. Everyone will get their hopes and dreams fulfilled. Everyone. As long as they are employees and not corporate spies. Welcome to the new empire of the one true and living God, Welcome to the Jesus Empire.