Head or heart?

I have an addictive personality. Just ask Mrs. X. If I like something, no matter what it is, I can really go off the deep end. I'm a grown man, but I entered adulthood in the years when computers and video games were just taking off. I love playing video games. My tastes have changed over the years but I could still play Ms. Pac Man, Donkey Kong, Mario Kart, FIFA 20xx, Zork...you name it, for hours. Literally. Arcade game? Pinball machine? PC? Console? Bring it.

Castle X from the ocean-side...

If not for my addictive personality, how else can you explain that - at my age - I put the time and effort required into building a castle in Minecrack that is three stories tall, surrounded by water, has a rooftop made completely of glass, has a boat dock, and can be seen for miles because of the Netherrack burning eternally atop its battlements? Do you have any idea how long it took me to dig, mine and build that sucker? I won't even discuss the cavernous, multi-level, underground complex I'm currently building that will eventually be connected - over a significant distance - by powered rail to the catacombs of Castle X (see above). Like I said, an addictive personality.

This is an addiction of the head. I would opine that the head is where most addictions reside. The Bible has (roughly) 95 verses that speak of wine or alcohol in one way or another. Many Christian denominations teach that believers should abstain from alcohol completely, others do not. Clearly, overuse of wine or strong drink is discouraged in the Bible. My guiding principle in this regard comes from Romans 14:21 -

It is good not to eat meat or to drink wine, or to do anything by which your brother [and by extension, sister] stumbles.

I've pretty much put aside the drinking thing. As I suspect most folks who have addictive personalities will tell you, if someone likes the taste of alcohol or the effect it brings or the impression of good times it engenders, look out.

I believe there is one overriding principle the Bible teaches that covers just about everything, whether it is mentioned specifically by name or not: If something takes your heart away from God - in effect replaces God with something of this Earth - then that, my friend, is bad.

With all your heart?

Deuteronomy 6:5 and Matthew 22:37, among other verses, tell us that we are to love God with all our hearts. Every time I read those verses I am convicted because I know there are compartments in my heart (and mind, and spirit...) that I have not let God into. I would hazard a guess that even the most devout believers might have a few sections in the picture above that are absent of God. But maybe not, maybe that's just me justifying my own weakness.

I know in my head that I need to allow God into every aspect of my life, but the mirror of my heart doesn't always reflect that. As Ferris Bueller said during his day off, "Life moves pretty fast..."

There are two parts to this heart discussion. There is part one: the belief part and part two: the life part. In order for us to love God with all of our hearts, we need first to believe in His redeeming plan of salvation through Jesus Christ. That is not a head decision but one of the heart. The Apostle Paul illustrates this perfectly in Romans 10:9. Based on the Bible a person cannot arbitrarily decide they are a Christian - a follower of Christ - they have to have a change of heart.

I'm not trying to back anyone into a doctrinal corner, far from it. I've read some Christian blogs recently that discuss the openness - or lack thereof - of today's churches. Our churches should be open and welcoming to all. A few verses on, in Romans 10:14, Paul hits on another truth, "How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard?"

If we expect our churches to be places where people can come and hear the truth of the Bible and places where, once having heard, can confess with their mouths and believe in their hearts, hadn't we better make sure that our church doors are wide open?

Not very welcoming...

If someone has decided in their head to give Christianity a try, they aren't Christians. Even if they are attending church regularly, serving the community, etc. there has not been a change of heart. I can make a head decision not to drink alcohol, but if I'm going to dedicate my life to Jesus and call myself a Christian, that has to come from my heart.

Once I've made that heart decision, I've got a whole bunch of other life decisions to make. And in my short time as a Christian, I've learned that it takes both the head and the heart to make those.

What do you think?

X

Evangelical Hara-Kiri

Hara-kiri is the ritual suicide by disembowelment practiced by the Japanese samurai or formerly decreed by a court in lieu of the death penalty [Merriam-Webster online]

The term has found its way into popular culture as a reference to when someone commits social or organizational suicide. Lately, Evangelical Christians are being led to believe that holding to strict beliefs - biblical inerrancy, the biblical definition of marriage, the wrongness of abortion, to name a few - will kill off any chance we have of connecting with those seeking a higher purpose in life. Frankly, that seems to put faith into the same sphere as fast food or soft drinks or sports apparel.

Things go better with Jesus

Evangelical Christianity has become just one of dozens of religions to go that you can choose from to step up to a more spiritual plane in life. I was reading another interesting blog yesterday that discussed an article published on the CNN Belief Blog. The root of the discussion was Rachel Held Evans' piece on why millennials are leaving the church. This isn't the first time I've come across Mrs. Evans. I read an article discussing Evans' newest book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood, and have perused some of her blogs. Evans is an engaging and witty writer, but I'll admit I don't agree with her on everything, philosophically or theologically speaking.

In her CNN article, after establishing her millennial cred (aged 32, raised analog but living digital, fan of Nirvana and Pearl Jam), Evans made a number of statements which brought me up short. I don't have time to address them all but I'll note a few...

1. In her bio, Evans makes the statement, "I'm often asked to speak to my fellow evangelical leaders about why millennials are leaving the church." This would lead readers who did not know Mrs. Evans to infer that she is, in fact, an evangelical leader. I will leave it up to each individual to research and decide if, in fact, that is a true statement. Merriam-Webster online defines the term evangelical variously as:

- Of, relating to, or being in agreement with the Christian gospel especially as it is presented in the four Gospels.

- Protestant (What? There are no Catholic evangelicals?)

- Emphasizing salvation by faith in the atoning death of Jesus Christ through personal conversion, the authority of Scripture, and the importance of preaching as contrasted with ritual.

In the first real meat of the piece, Evans states, "Armed with the latest surveys, along with personal testimonies from friends and readers, I explain how young adults perceive evangelical Christianity to be too political, too exclusive, old-fashioned, unconcerned with social justice and hostile to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. I point to research that shows young evangelicals often feel they have to choose between their intellectual integrity and their faith, between science and Christianity, between compassion and holiness."

- A number of Bible verses spring to mind in which Jesus is shown as political and concerned with social justice i.e. turning over the tables of the money changers in the Temple [Matthew 21:12]. That was an incredibly political act, even if He did not undertake it for political reasons. Jesus was inclusive. He famously tells the ever-present Pharisees, "It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick." when they confronted him about hanging out with prostitutes, tax collectors and other sinners [Matthew 9:12]. But what was the outcome of Jesus' relationship with these people? Did Matthew remain a Tax Collector? Did the adulteress remain an adulteress [John 8:11]?

As I sought to highlight the article's salient points, I struggled not to copy, paste, and comment on everything. Perhaps that speaks to Mrs. Evans' facility as a writer, if not her status as someone I would always agree with regarding all that is good in/for the church. About midway through she continues, "In fact, I would argue that church-as-performance is just one more thing driving us away from the church, and evangelicalism in particular. Many of us, myself included, are finding ourselves increasingly drawn to high church traditions – Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, the Episcopal Church, etc. – precisely because the ancient forms of liturgy seem so unpretentious, so unconcerned with being “cool,” and we find that refreshingly authentic."

- Unpretentious? I mean, I understand what she is saying but one of the very things that Jesus was most militant about was the pretentiousness of the Pharisees in their behavior, prayer, etc. Jesus taught early and often about believers needing to move away from the established orthodoxy of the day and instead establish a church founded on Immanuel. This new church is described in detail in Acts 2 - which details not only how to join with the new church but also what the church model needed to look like when believers were truly serving God and His people.

Acts 2 doesn't say, "Devote yourselves to the apostle's teaching in a church that makes you feel really good, where the music is just your style and everything is just right." 

I had to laugh when Mrs. Evans relates how, during one of her evangelical presentations, one Pastor will always invariably respond with, "So what you're saying is we need hipper worship bands..."

That's funny, but highlights a key division in evangelical thought lines when it comes to understanding why millennials and others are leaving the church: Do we need a different message or a different way to present the message?

If you go back to the Merriam-Webster definitions of evangelical, there are some consistent messages there that define who evangelicals are and what they believe in. In one of Mrs. Evans' first statements about herself, she says, "Armed with the latest surveys, along with personal testimonies from friends and readers..."

What she doesn't say is, "Looking in the Bible we can see that..."

If you take away the Bible, you take away the foundation of the Gospel message and God's guidebook for what the church should look like. 

Toward the end of her article, Evans uncovers a nugget of truth that was lacking in her previous statements: Like every generation before ours and every generation after, deep down, we long for Jesus.

What can fill the God-sized hole in our hearts?

Evans urges us at the end of her piece that in order to win millennials back to the church, we need to sit down and really talk with them about what they're looking for and what they would like to contribute to a faith community.

I would add that for any faith community to be authentic, it needs to revolve around Jesus - just like the Acts 2 church. But that's a sometimes unpopular sentiment today. If everyone's faith has to revolve around Jesus that's not inclusive. People get mad about it when you infer that their brand of Christianity isn't a fair representation of the church that Jesus built. But who is different? Who has changed?

Hebrews 13:8 says, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."

So all you Evangelicals out there - and anyone else who might be searching for something to fill the God-sized hole in your heart - the message hasn't changed in 2,000 years. If we change our worship style or open a coffee shop in the basement, it's not because we're trying to be cool. It's because we're searching for ways to reach a generation who have been told from birth that they can have everything their way.

The only One who gets to have it all His way is Jesus. Remember John 14:6 the next time you want to massage the message.

What do you think?

X

Haiti 2013 - Day 2

As noted yesterday, I am putting aside my normal blogging this week and writing about our just-concluded mission trip to Haiti. We left in the wee hours of Saturday morning, July 6th, and returned very close to midnight on Saturday, July 13th. Compressing a week's worth of blessings, struggles, grace, mercy, thought, and anecdote into blog-form may be difficult but I'll give it my best...

I've been to Haiti three times since 2010. Our teams were fortunate to stay in modest hotels in 2010 and 2011 that including in-room air conditioning (when the electricity was working). Mission of Hope (MoH) "guest houses" do not have air conditioning, so last week was a bit more climatically challenging.

Cross ventilation and mosquito netting saves the day!

Sunday morning started out with a breakfast of cereal and peanut butter & jelly. PB&J, we would discover, would come to be a staple for the week. Our food supply was augmented largely by donations that are brought in by the mission teams. It's not unusual to see Captain Crunch, Raisin Bran, or Special K cereals among many others. After petit dejeuner (breakfast, in French), our team went on a tour of the MoH campus. As I wrote in my journal, "The breadth of what MoH has accomplished here is staggering! School, clinic, hospital, prosthetic lab, orphanages, ministry - all while working to put Jesus first - amazing!"

After the tour, it was time for church; I've been to Haitian churches before, having helped with, and participated in, revivals on both of my previous visits. The MoH church is similar to other Haitian churches I've been in: open air (no full walls) and pews made from planks and re-bar; but that was where the similarities ended. The MoH church was huge by Haitian standards...

I wasn't able to get very good photos of the church, but it is built in the shape of a cross, with three seating areas, including from the base of the cross up to an open area in front of the dais, as well as in the left and right portions of the cross-member. The top photo shows the left (north) side of the church with the long portion of the cross to the right and the left-hand side of the cross-member directly in front of me as I took the shot. The bottom photo is the entrance at the base of the cross.

Amazingly, there was a section of wall to the right of the dais where words to the worship songs were projected - in both Creole and English - for each song. A couple of the most powerful songs were unfamiliar to me, "Depoze" (pronounced "dehpo-zay"), which basically means, "Lay it down" and "Pou kase tout Chèn" (pronounced "Poo kah-say toot shen"), which roughly translates, "To break every chain". Unfortunately, I can't find any Creole versions of these songs on the 'net but you can listen to the English versions below...





These versions are nice, but honestly, they do not do justice to the power of the Holy Spirit that was present in this Haitian church. American, Canadian, Haitian and other believers were singing in one voice - in English and Creole - praising and worshiping the Creator of the Universe. It didn't matter where we were from, what color our skin was, we were all brothers and sisters on this awesome morning.

We spent the rest of the morning in Bible study and prayer. As a team, we were all reading "Bruschko" during our week in Haiti. Bruschko is a phenomenal story about a 19-year-old man from Minnesota who answered the call to share Jesus with the Motilone tribes in Colombia. So Sunday gave us an opportunity to dig into the book as well. As I read, Malachi chapter 2 really came to my mind in a powerful way. Reading about how Bruce Olson was spurned by the established missionary organizations because - in part - he didn't want to turn the Motilones into North American Christians was a powerful reminder of something we needed to be acutely aware of: we were in Haiti to share Jesus with the people there; and it is possible to share Jesus with people without devaluing or destroying their own culture.

After dinner on Sunday night - a "to-go" supper delivered by Gwo Papa Poul - literally, "Great Father Chicken", we moved to the basketball court and watched the MoH Vision film, which describes the history, present activity, and future vision of Mission of Hope. After the film, we were treated to a discussion with Brad and Vanessa Johnson. Brad is the son of the MoH founders. If I haven't mentioned it before, the genesis of MoH began in 1972 when Sharon Johnson (Brad's mom) traveled to Haiti to direct a choir that was traveling around the country. Each year following, Sharon and her husband Bob returned to Haiti, working to address the pressing needs of the people there. Eventually, that led to establishing what is now known as Mission of Hope in 1983.

Sunday had been a long and rewarding day, but Monday loomed large as we found out that our week would be made up in great part of working construction projects out at Bercy, the MoH North campus. It was time to call it a night and see what God had in store for us as our mission began in earnest...

X

I choose to be...

...a Christian? A politician? An artist? A Buddhist? A teacher? A police officer? A fire fighter? A Muslim? A writer? A soccer player? A business leader? A Deist?

Yesterday's post regarding my reaction to Nancy Pelosi's comments concerning the so-called war on women got me thinking. Actually, I've been thinking about this off and on for a while now; I just haven't felt ready to articulate those thoughts. I'm probably still not ready, but here goes.

Regular visitors who have read any amount of my musings here at the Stream of Consciousness have seen my account - my faith story - my testimony - how I came to be in a personal relationship with God. One thing I've noticed is that there are some differences between Christians who have been Christians for almost as long as they can remember and folks like me. And by that I mean people who lived a significant part of their lives separated from God. I suspect I'll have to go down that rabbit hole in a blog someday - just not today.

It's not that I didn't hear the names God or Jesus during those years; it's more that I did not pay them any attention, and when I did, it wasn't in a way that I am very proud of. So how did I move from not caring about God to caring deeply about Him? In short, there were two different things that contributed to me entering into a saving relationship with Jesus:

1. Seeking: I don't particular care for this term as it relates to looking for God. Contrary to popular opinion, God isn't hiding from us. The seeking I did was more along the lines of me looking for Him because I had lost my way and needed to find Him - but I don't believe He had ever moved. I also don't care for this term when it's coupled with the idea that God is different for everyone; like there are some infinite number of gods that we can choose from and we just have to seek and find the one that is right for us.

Is god red, shiny and really fast?

My official seeking took the form of just living my life and being around people here and there - my wife, my mother-in-law, a colleague at work - who talked about God and Jesus. Sometimes I would just listen; sometimes I would enter into discussion about a particular comment or topic that came up. Other times I would go away, later pondering what was said.

I had the good fortune to live abroad for twelve or thirteen years of my life, both during childhood and as an adult. I have lived in England and in the Middle East. I traveled extensively on the Arabian peninsula and was also able to visit several African countries, Thailand and India. During those years I spoke to many people about their faith or lack thereof. As you might imagine from that life experience, I had a very broad pallet of beliefs I could have chosen from.

2. Deciding: Both of these terms are slippery and can mean different things for different folks. When someone says, "I've decided to be a Christian," that sounds a little to me like saying, "I'll have the veal." Deciding is the end result of seeking. If I was looking for a new car and had an unlimited budget, I might very well decide to purchase that Ferrari up there once I had explored all the various automotive options available to me. I've always had a thing for Ferrari, ever since being at Formula 1 race tracks in Europe as a kid.

Don't get me wrong, there is a decision point that occurs when someone becomes a Christian. For me though, it was more of a choice than a decision. I clearly heard God calling me to accept that Jesus did what He did for me, and that I needed to make a choice - a decision - to accept Him as my Savior.

Choose wisely

Or not. At that moment, to coin a cheesy line - a moment frozen in time - I had to receive God's free gift of salvation through the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus. 

So who is God? 

Maybe the reason that people believe in so many gods is that God manifests himself differently depending upon each of our unique situations. Back in the day, the words, "Religion is a crutch," came out of my mouth on more than one occasion. But when you get right down to it, what is the purpose of anyone making a choice to believe in God?

The purpose for buying a car is to have transportation, a means of conveyance to get us from point A to point B to point C and back again. But as humans, we load up the basic need for transportation with all sorts of personal baggage: style, color, performance, roominess, comfort, cost, etc. Buying a car has progressed way beyond meeting a need and has become a matter of personal taste (and budget).

Unfortunately, I think that in our world God has also progressed way beyond meeting a need and become a matter of personal taste. Think about that for a moment. If you have any inkling that there may be an omnipotent, creator-God who loves you, do you believe that He is just going to sit back and let you decide what or who God is?

This is one huge (bankrupt) crutch

I can't choose what you believe. Personally, I think for each and every one of us there is a need for salvation. That need is foundational to my belief in God and the atoning work of Jesus Christ. If there isn't a need for salvation then what Jesus did becomes meaningless. If there isn't a need for salvation then all the religions of the world - all the faith of billions of people - become like so many Ferrari - nice, but ultimately meaningless. 

However, if there is a need for salvation, your faith decision is not something you will want to put off for too long. It's not about republican or democrat, or this church and that church; it's about a personal decision between you and God. No one can make the decision for you. You have to choose.

Choose wisely.

X

I'm not Charlton Heston...

...and contrary to the opinions of people you might refer to as old folks, Charlton Heston isn't God.

                            I think the Hebrews were in trouble...

I've been a Christian for the better part of eleven years. For those of you reading this who aren't Christians let me briefly share how that happened.

I remember going to church as a kid. That involved scratchy suits with constricting collars, clip-on ties, buzz-cuts and a lot of, "Sit still and be quiet!"

Our grandmother, who lived with us, took the kids to church; Mom didn't go - Sunday was her sleep-in day. I vaguely remember Sunday School; and big church, as I alluded to above, was a large, boring place where children were seen and not heard.

There are a lot of different outlooks on faith, God, religion and spirituality. Maybe the Presbyterian church I attended during my elementary school years didn't do a great job of introducing me to God and Jesus. Maybe I just didn't pay attention. But by the time I left Tampa and went to live in England with my father and start junior high school it's safe to say I had no religious convictions. And that lasted until 2001.

Oh sure, I had what passed for meaningful conversations with others about God - usually in bars. I'm not saying that God won't show up in bars; after all, Jesus was known to hang out with some pretty rough folks back in the day. In my experience, if you're looking for God/Jesus, then all I'm saying is that out of all the places on earth where you might find Him, a bar could be pretty far down the list.

Still, Jesus did tell Zachaeus that He had come to seek and save that which is lost, so you never know.

I guess the point of all this is that we all grow up as products of our environment. I loved my grandmother (except for that time I made her chase me around the bed when I had misbehaved) but just her taking me to church didn't help me find God anymore than watching The Ten Commandments on television did.

             Yul Bryner was always cool...

Besides, watching The 10 Commandments, I always thought Yul Bryner was the coolest - maybe that's because I'd seen him first in The Magnificent Seven.

Note the phrase on the top of the movie poster: The Greatest Event in Motion Picture History

I don't know from movies, but Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt is one of the greatest events in mankind's history. Yet the Israelites, with all the evidence of God's existence playing out in front of them, still chose the way of the world. And kept choosing that way for hundreds and hundreds of years.

Back in Florida for high school, I went to visit my father after he'd moved to Ft. Lauderdale. We went to a theater and watched Godspell.



Sitting in that darkened theater was the first time I can remember crying for a reason that didn't involve me getting a spanking. It was an amazing evening. Yet I still didn't get the connection. Looking back, was I crying because it was a tremendous performance by the cast? There's no doubt that live theater performances can be more emotionally evocative than films. Or was I crying because the message of the Gospel of Matthew is the basis for Godspell?

Life went on.

Over the years I had conversations with all sorts of people that mostly ended with the philosophy of, "As long as I don't hurt anyone and I'm a generally good person, I should be fine getting into heaven...assuming that there is a God."

It's funny (not funny Ha-Ha, but funny peculiar) how we ascribe our human nature onto God's psyche.


                        Billions and billions of stars...

Think about it; let's accept for the moment that a Supreme Being created the universe and everything in it. Is it really conceivable that this Being would think and act like us? The Bible refers several times to the fact that God created us in His image. But that doesn't mean that us and God are the same - He wants us to be, but there is something in the way.

That's where Jesus comes in.

My father-in-law passed away in 2001. For some reason, that was a much more emotional experience than I expected. After the funeral, I began thinking about life and, I suppose, death. My wife's family is large and very close. Perhaps my thoughts and emotions were an offshoot of her deep grief over losing her father. Whatever the reasons, I began talking to God. Driving to work in the morning or driving home at night - I worked long hours so it was frequently dark by the time I was making my way home.

This went on for months. I suppose it's cathartic to have someone upon which to cast your thoughts, your rants, your innermost fears. Some might say I was just working through things myself, or maybe projecting. Others might say I was crazy. But as the weeks and months went on, I felt a growing sense of surety that, yes, there was a God and yes, He is aware of who each of us is.


                                Arthur...stop groveling!

Everything we do can be distilled down to a moment in time. The moment you were born, the moment you decided to disobey your parents, the moment you decided to skip that class, the moment you decided to hand your keys to a friend instead of driving home after the party, the moment you propose marriage or accept a proposal...our lives are stitched together with a million such moments.

One night in 2001, I had a moment, a moment where I clearly heard God asking me to accept Him, to accept that Jesus was His Son and that He had died on the cross for me. I wasn't a bad person but no matter how good I was - or am - it wasn't good enough to get me over the dark chasm yawing between me and God. Only Jesus could do that.

I think I had heard God asking for my heart before that night. And like most humans, I was busy making excuses. Even that night - the most important night of my life - I still was holding God at arm's length. He was asking me to pull over, right there in Bagdad, FL of all places, and accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior. And I was busy being Moses, Jonah, and a host of others I was going to learn about who all said, "Why me, Lord? I'm nothing special. What do I have, what can I do, that you can't?"

I had already made up my mind but that human nature of disobedience kept me in my car seat until I parked in my driveway; then, and only then, did I get out and get down on my knees in my front yard and answer God.

Yes, Lord.

I'm not Charlton Heston. But thank God I don't have to be. I'm just me; and for some reason, God loved me enough to send His son to die for me.

Thank goodness.

X

That's it - you're off!

It's Sunday. No one wants to think about Hell.

Sunday is about Heaven. I'm not going to cast aspersions on anyone's interpretation of Scripture but in my opinion, there are far too many who believe that by going to church on Sunday, they can make up for a multitude of sins committed between Monday and Saturday.

Church becomes the limbo bar that we duck under to avoid paying the penalty for our sin(s). Hell is the inexorable stone door that modern culture has taught us we can avoid with some effort and a little luck.

Indy loses his whip, but we all know what happens...

Not hardly. I can go to church every Sunday of my life and it won't make a bit of difference as to my eternal place in this universe. From conversations I've been a part of the big stumbling block for most people is: Why would a loving God consign His children to a bottomless pit of fire and misery forever?

I'm not in any way intending to make light of a very serious subject, but in effect, anyone who does not accept Christ as their Savior (read John 14:6 to get started on the need for Jesus), gets shown the eternal red card.

In sports and in life, there's always a ref

From the rule book of FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association):

A player, substitute or substituted player is sent off and shown the red card if he commits any of the following seven offences:

1. Is guilty of serious foul play
2. Is guilty of violent conduct
3. Spits at an opponent or any other person
4. Denies the opposing team a goal or an obvious goal scoring opportunity by deliberately handling the ball (this does not apply to a goalkeeper within his own penalty area)
5. Denies an obvious goal scoring opportunity to an opponent moving towards the player’s goal by an offence punishable by a free kick or a penalty kick
6. Uses offensive or insulting or abusive language and/or gestures
7. Receives a second caution in the same match

In football (the real kind), a caution is also known as a yellow card. So above, you have the immediate sending off offenses and below are the ones you can commit once and get away with it, but do it twice and you're off!

A player is cautioned and shown the yellow card if he commits any of the following seven offences:

1. Is guilty of unsporting behavior
2. Shows dissent by word or action
3. Persistently infringes the Laws of the Game
4. Delays the restart of play
5. Fails to respect the required distance when play is restarted with a corner kick, free kick or throw-in
6. Enters or re-enters the field of play without the referee’s permission
7. Deliberately leaves the field of play without the referee’s permission

Go back and read those again (please)...

Now, think of God as the referee and all of us as the players.

In the caution department, I can't count the number of times I've been guilty of unsporting behavior in life. I have shown dissent, persistently infringed the laws of the game (Ten Commandments) and done many things without the referee's permission. So from that alone, I have earned more than one caution and deserve to be sent off. 

In football, getting a straight red is not helpful to the team. It leaves your mates a man down and at a distinct disadvantage for the remainder of the game. In the realm of bookable offenses, I like to think that I've not been that bad. But in my younger days I was guilty of foul play, violent conduct and abusive language and gestures. I would have had no leg to stand on if God had decided that He'd had enough and showed me the red.

"That's not fair!" you shout. "We have no way of knowing for sure if God is who you say he is. And besides that if I haven't even played the game I don't deserve to be punished!"

All great points. I'm not here to judge anyone. I'm just sharing what I think about this whole Heaven and Hell thing. My understanding is that Hell was not created for us to begin with. Although Revelation 20:15 indicates that anyone who's name is not found in the Book of Life is cast into the Lake of Fire, I don't think that counts as an eternity of torment for those who did not accept Christ in this life. I'm just guessing, but the Lake of Fire sounds like an eternal red card: you're out of the game.

There also seems to be a lot of chatter about how unfair it is that people who don't even know about Jesus can end up getting shown the red through no fault of their own. For that particular point, I typically refer to Matthew 24:14 which indicates that everyone will get the chance to hear and make a decision.

I believe that God is a God of love. He is like our earthly parents. Our parents punish us when we mess up but always give us another chance. We get things that we don't deserve and we don't get things that we do (deserve). Getting things we don't deserve can be called Grace. and not getting things that we do deserve can be called Mercy. 

I'm not a bad guy. I work hard, I do the best I can to support my family and be a good husband and father; I'm like billions of other people on this planet. Nothing about me is special except for one thing:

I have accepted that Jesus was/is the earthly Son of God and that he died on the cross for my sins and then defeated death so that I, too, might defeat death at the end of my days here. In other words, I may be guilty of multiple red card offenses but through Jesus, I've escaped a lifetime ban.

You can believe that I'm crazy or whatever you prefer to think. God can't be defined in a blog. All I can do is share what I think and hope that spurs a dialog about what others believe.

So, what do you think?

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