Theocentric Musings

So many Christians bragging they would die for Christ lately, but yet most do a sub par job of living for Him. Being known by your Love, taking care of the poor, taking care of immigrants, helping the marginalized, being against war, being against death, being against racism, not standing with those who abuse their authority, being against genocide, loving your enemy, promoting non violence, these are all Jesus' message and I see little of American Christians™ actually displaying them. So instead of bragging about dying for Christ, actually intentionally live for Him! This country, and the world, would be a better place for it.

Anyone watch the movie "Escape from New York"? Anyone been to Manhattan Island? Anyone notice how crowded it is? There's about 3 million people on the island during the day Well in the movie I'm speaking of, Manhattan Island was surroun ded by a wall and was used as a prison. I think a lot of people should watch the movie, it would help people understand the logistics of current events a little bit better. If you take Manhattan island and make it a little over twice as long and a little over twice as wide, and get rid of about a million people, down to a little under 2 million people on it, you'd have Gaza. But add the walls from "Escape From New York" only push them up against the island. Oh, and remove all the sky scrapers so the space for living is even more limited and much more cramped. Now imagine that you're in that prison and you didn't do a darn thing. What would your outlook in life be? Would you get a little bit angry? Would you

Excusing the death of innocent children in Gaza with the excuse of "human shields", is like telling a woman who was abused it's her own fault for burning dinner.

People think I'm naive for promoting peace and diplomacy in place of war. Saying that if people walk in peace they will just be killed or abused. You have to fight to live. People can't come together at a table, break bread, drop egos, and make a change.  Maybe you're right, maybe people are hopeless, maybe people are self absorbed, ego driven, prideful, selfish, greedy, war mongering, vindictive , vengeful, wicked, deceptive, and evil. Maybe that's all true. But you know what? War only brings the negative out in people, so what do you think feeds those negative emotions in man? Certainly not peace. Looking at the crime rate and the amount of wars going on across the world right now, and the deaths and abuse in all of those wars, your way doesn't seem to have much of a leg to stand on either. So it's not like shooting for peace can make things any worse. You may be surprised by the results.

My friend Derek Flood with a great observation: Now let's talk about sin and hell: I don't mean the trivial "did you ever tell a lie" nonsense. I mean real harm, real brokenness, real hurt. Do people do really hurtful and horrible things to each other? Yes, they certainly do. Are people hurt and broken? Yes, more than you know. Abuse is real. Rape is real. Starvation is real. War crimes are real. In short, there is a "hell" right here that many ... people are in the middle of, and that matters, and we should care. This idea of hell right now is vital because it means we need to care about people's lives right now, and not just about life after death. I believe in that, too, I hope for heaven with all my heart, I long for eternity. But life here matters. People matter. That's why Jesus spent all his time caring for people and their very real needs. When we have a theology that makes all of that a waste of time then we suck the life right out of

When thinking about the best teachers in my life I notice a common thread, they were patient, they were caring, they believed in me, they never gave up, they never caused me to feel shame no matter how block headed I was at times, they always had a word of positive reinforcement for me, and they would go over things with me, with no complaints, as many times and is took for me to get it and then share in my joy when I had the "aha" moment. They treated me in a way that I wanted to reach my true potential, I wanted to exceed expectations, I wanted to bring them a smile, and I wanted them to know what they invested in me wasn't wasted. An experience like that really sticks with you. I had my share of bad teachers as well. They were impatient, I would feel ashamed when I made a mistake, I felt like I could never do good enough, they were short, very brash about things, made you fearful to mess up, weren't someone you could go and ask questions, no matter how sorry I

I enjoyed this, by way of RefineUs Ministries, http://refineus.org/the-worst-thing-with-your-past/ : Author Brennan Manning says this in his book, Abba’s Child: In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others. What if your past could be leveraged to heal? What if your greatest failures could help others avoid failure? What if the wounds you’ve accumulated could be healing balm to others who are wounded? What if the abuse you’ve experienced could set others free from the pain of their abuse? What if your addiction could be a catalyst to liberate others? What if freedom, true freedom is found not in trying to hide our past; pretending like nothing happened, but in running head first into the darkest parts of our past. It is there that Jesus’ light shines brightest. Fear will tell you to hide. Shame will demand you keep quie

We counsel people to leave relationships that are based on abuse, to not walk in union with those that cause us a true warranted sense of fear and abuse by their very actions, but so many are in exactly that type of relationship with who they perceive their god to be and what they perceive him to be doing in their life. I am glad that I know my God loves me and gave of Himself because He so deeply desired to have a loving relationship with me! He longed for me to love Him out of true love, not because I'm scared of Him. He provides me mercy, grace, blessings, and so much more, and ALL of His actions in my life prove it. John 3:16-17, 2 Corinthians 5:15, 1 John 4:9, Jeremiah 29:11, Romans 8:35

        If you choose, you can play this song as the soundtrack to this post, if it is not your cup of tea, continue on: Many times we walk in unforgiveness, it's such a life-killing emotion. I could spend hours explaining forgiveness, trying to convince why we should forgive, I could list what forgiveness is or isn't, the benefits to me or you, but I thought maybe I'd use a mental picture. I like when people describe things and you can visualize it, so here goes. Picture yourself standing before the cross, Jesus said His last words and breathed His last breath. His head drops and His Spirit is gone. Since we live in the "here and now" we know that He died to change our world, He was victorious over the work of darkness, but we wouldn't of known this that day. You may choke up picturing this, or you've heard and read about it so much that it doesn't have the impact it did when you first met Him and realized what He actually went through for