Random Thoughts and Ramblings

Tag: Christianity

  • Sin

    Who likes talking about sin? No one that I know of actually enjoys talking about sin. Well, no one likes talking about their own sin. We love talking about the sins of other people; maybe we just like talking about other people in general.

    I’m getting ready to preach a sermon on Sunday at Shiloh about our belief in the forgiveness of sins. As i have been pondering that message, I think not so much about what is and isn’t sin but rather I’ve been thinking more about grace. Why you ask? Because, as an old hymn proclaims:

    Grace, grace, God’s grace,
    Grace that will pardon and cleanse within;
    Grace, grace, God’s grace,
    Grace that is greater than all our sin.

    It’s not uncommon for us to talk about all these “sinners” out in the world but we don’t talk enough about grace and forgiveness that God grants to His children through Jesus Christ. One thing that my fast from Facebook has helped me to understand that many posts – many of my own if I’m being honest – are judgmental. We love to point out the shortcomings – real and perceived – of other people. We love to talk about certain people or groups of people who are bound for Hell, all in an attempt to show off our own righteousness. We attempt to show the world that we are such good Christians that we are willing to condemn people who sin. Many of us think that our “fire insurance” (a term I’ve actually seen and heard) gives us a license to condemn.

    In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says that it’s wrong for us to want to remove the speck from someone else’s eye when we have a plank in our own. In other words, we have no right to judge someone for their sin when we have our own skeletons in our closet to deal with. It is not our job to condemn people for their sins when we are sinners ourselves.

    You can’t fight sin with sin.

    Southland Church is a multi-campus congregation in Lexington, KY and they broadcast their services on one of the local TV stations. I decided to record their service out of curiosity and as I have been watching this sermon I have found good food for thought. Basically we have three common responses to sin: One one side we judge; on the other we join; and somewhere in the middle we remain joyful in Christ. The right response to sin is actually pretty simple: We are to be light in the darkness of this world. Light drives away darkness.

    Trying to fight darkness with darkness only brings more darkness.

    I know that some might misunderstand me and think that I’m advocating Christians being weak and “tolerating” sin. On the contrary: I believe we should take action. I don’t believe that action should be in the form of protests, revolts or fire and brimstone sermons on the courthouse steps. Instead, we overcome evil with good by our living. Yes, we take action and instead of proclaiming condemnation for everyone except ourselves we instead proclaim the gospel by loving as Christ loves the world.

    “Don’t be defeated by evil, but defeat evil with good” Romans 12:21 (CEB).

    Just some thoughts on my mind this afternoon. Perhaps this will take shape better by Sunday. 🙂

    Jonathan

  • Persecution: What It Is and What It Isn’t

    PersecutionWhile I am making an effort to “stay out” of the affairs of Mississippi, I am going to write about a situation happening in my home state. However, I’m not going to comment on the situation itself. Rather, I am going to use it as an example of a bigger issue. The term “Christian persecution” gets thrown around a good bit, especially these days. In some instances it is warranted but I have found that often it isn’t. The TL;DR version of my thoughts will be this: We need to stop claiming “persecution” every time something happens that we don’t agree with. When we claim persecution where there isn’t any, we weaken the meaning of real persecution.

    The Mississippi High School Activities Association (MHSAA) is the largest governing body for high school athletics and other activities in the state. They have had a bylaw on their books for quite some time which states that an athlete or participant in a sanctioned activity must be a resident of the state. They have not been enforcing this bylaw until recently. The main body of the MHSAA voted to begin enforcement much to the chagrin of the private schools who are/were part of the MHSAA. Several of the private schools situated along the Mississippi River have students who commute from Louisiana. By stating that they would begin enforcing the residency requirement, the MHSAA declared these out of state athletes ineligible. In other words, the private schools could only allow students who actually reside in Mississippi to participate in sports and other activities such as band, chorus and debate.

    The result of this was that three of those schools – Greenville St. Joseph, St. Aloysius and Cathedral – have left the MHSAA and joined the smaller Mississippi Independent Schools Association (MISA) which does not have such residency requirements in place.  As far as that situation goes, I wish them well. I remember being a student at Philadelphia and hearing about how great these schools were in sports, especially soccer and baseball. I remember a particular time when I was serving as the manager of the Philly High soccer team and we played a game at Greenville St. Joe. Without going into details, I let the referee know that I did not agree with the call he made and I became the first soccer equipment manager in Mississippi to receive a yellow card.

    But I digress…

    When the Clarion-Ledger posted a story about this event, the comments were quick to be posted. And then it happened: Posts making allegations that the MHSAA was out to persecute the private schools because the vast majority are Catholic or otherwise Christian schools (note: I wanted to embed some of these posts, however they seem to have been removed. I can not say if it was the posters who removed them or the newspaper but I did see some comments alleging persecution in the comments section of the C-L’s web posting).

    I don’t deny that Christians are persecuted and discriminated against everyday. I have no doubt that such discriminate exists in the United States. However, persecution this is not.

    Webster’s defines persecution as, “The act or practice of persecuting especially those who differ in origin, religion, or social outlook.” Another definition they list is, “the act of continually treating in a cruel and harmful way.” When I think of persecution, I imagine acts that involve some serious harm such as not being able to buy goods, being relegated to a certain place to live, being imprisoned or even being killed. Persecution happens for many reasons: One’s faith, and race are probably the two biggest reasons that I have actually witnessed persecution first hand. When I thin of persecution I think of people who American citizen and pastor Saeed Abedini who is imprisoned in one of Iran’s most notorious prisons. His crime? Being a Christian.

    An organization enforcing a rule that pertains to high school athletics is not persecution. Some may view such decision as not being fair, but such is not persecution. When we refer to such decisions and other events as persecution, we diminish the meaning of what persecution really is. We owe it to those who really do suffer for their faith, their race or because of something else similar  to respect what they have gone through by not claiming “persecution” every time something happens that we don’t agree with or whens someone otherwise disagrees with our views.

    Recently I came across a list of the ways some of the apostles were killed. From what I can tell, the accounts were mostly true according to scripture references, historical accounts and church tradition. For example: Peter was killed because of his faith. Tradition has it that when it was decided by the authorities that he would be crucified, he requested to be nailed upside down so that his death would not be in the same exact manner as Christ’s (he is said to have felt unworthy).  Andrew, Peter’s brother, is said to have been severely beaten and then tied – not nailed – to a cross so that he would suffer longer. As he hung there for for two days, he was still preaching the gospel to anyone who would listen.

    Persecution.

    We need to do better. We certainly need to call out and take action on persecution whenever we find it. We must do everything that we possibly can to ensure that people don’t suffer because of their faith. However, we also need to be careful in what we call persecution. Someone disagreeing with our views or making a decision that causes us no real harm is not persecution. When we claim persecution where there is none we weaken the meaning of the word and marginalize those who really endure harm or even give their lives for their faith.

    We don’t do Christ any favors by claiming persecution where there is none.

    Let’s be salt and light, not squeaky wheels. Let us show grace and mercy, not disdain. And let’s advocate for those who really are enduring persecution.

    Jonathan

  • My Testimony

    The following is a testimony that I’ve typed out. At the request of a couple of my Twitter followers (speaking of Twitter, you can find me here), here it is in blog form. God bless!

    Many of my earliest memories involve church. From as early as they could, my parents had me in church as much as possible. However, this wasn’t always possible because I spent a large percentage of my childhood in a hospital bed. I can remember many instances where my pastor or the hospital chaplain would visit and pray, where other people would pray and of course my parents would pray. I was told about Jesus at an early age so I have a hard time finding a time where I never believed. Jesus was a part of my life from the beginning.

    As I got older and learned more about the faith, I joined my church and became active in the youth group. There were many times where I questioned whether I was really saved or if I was playing church. One evening when I was about 16, my youth group went to a play at a Meridian church. The drama deeply affected me and I wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t spend an eternity in Hell. When the invitation was given, I responded.

    Later on I graduated high school and went to college and I did the things that college kids do but I always knew that I was doing wrong and that Jesus expected more of me. However, much to my detriment, I continued down a bad road. Eventually I moved to Indiana and it became even worse, mainly because for the first time in my life I was truly on my own and thought I could do anything I wanted to without consequence. You name it, I did it.

    One night when I was about 25 I was laying in bed, having problems sleeping because I kept thinking of all the junk in my life. The Holy Spirit had been working on me for quite some time and that night He made Himself known beyond a shadow of a doubt. I heard a voice say “you can’t keep doing this.” Right then I hit my knees, repented of my sin and rededicated myself and my soul to Jesus Christ. Soon after that I became active in a great church, surrounded myself with strong Christians and I was even re-baptized.

    Now that I’m back in Mississippi, here I am: A man who’s still a sinner but who realized the way he was living was wrong, the things I had placed more emphasis on rather than Jesus were wrong and that I was trying to do it all myself. I can’t. No one can. Only Jesus can save us and I thank God that I came to realize that. I married a Godly woman, I am involved in an amazing church and am seeking out God’s will for my life. I’m proud to say that I love Jesus and I want to serve Him in all ways as possible. My road has been a bumpy one but I thank God that I went down it because it helped me learn to rely on Him and that without Him I am nothing.