Who Are You Following?

Tonight I attended a speaking engagement by David Kinnaman, best-selling author of “Unchristian”. He’s promoting his new book, “You Lost Me”, and I picked up a copy. I’m excited for the read, but I wanted to share one thing from David’s talk that stuck out to me most.

David presented research and statistics on why young Christians are leaving the church. The stories are often the same–a kid attends church with his parents, and they do their best to raise him in the right Christian way. He attends youth group as a teen, and loves it. He goes on several missions trips and feels connected with the others at his church. Then a few years later, he finds himself in college, not going to church, and barely having any regard for what he’d been taught as a child.

The stories vary a little bit, but most of them contain this one element: each individual, somewhere along the line, is turned off to Christianity, and usually by other Christians. And that’s the problem. These individuals are looking to other Christians to understand their faith. They need to focus on Jesus Christ, not on other Christians.

The truth is that all of us Christians are seeking God. Some are pretty poor at it, and those people give Christianity a bad name. But those people should have no bearing on someone’s personal relationship with Christ. The facts have not changed: Jesus died on the cross for our sins so that we can have eternal life with God in heaven. If someone can disbelieve that fact because they heard one-too-many fire-and-brimstone preachers, saw too many Westboro campaigns, or watched one of their role models completely botch up, maybe they never believed the gospel to begin with.

Jesus died for all of us. We’re all sinners. Don’t let someone on this earth overshadow your perspective of God and what he’s done for us. Keep your eyes on Christ and let Him guide your journey.

What The Bible Doesn’t Say

God has given us His word by inspiring God-fearing men to write the books we know as the Bible. He filled it with things we can do to obey Him, please Him, and glorify Him. We call it our life manual, because we believe that everything we need to know is laid out in that Book.

But what about the issues the Bible doesn’t address? Some people try to deduce answers by arranging verses in a logical statement that would conclude that _____ is wrong, or that God meant to say that we shouldn’t _____. But that is where you get into dangerous territory, especially when you start broadcasting these conclusions as fact. The fact is, they’re your conclusions, based on your logic and conviction. If you start arranging verses to make the Bible say something it doesn’t say, you really can make the Bible say a lot of things.

The Bible has given us so much to work on already. Look at Micah 6:8: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Personally, I have a difficult time with this one verse alone. Let alone the ten commandments.

If you’re wondering about a certain issue that the Bible does not address, try to focus on what it does address. There are so many grey areas that are not in the Bible explicitly, and there are times when we wonder if something is wrong or alright. But God has given you concrete things that you can do to make Him happy. Focus on those.

Think about it like this. When Moses brought down the ten commandments, imagine the Israelites saying “but it doesn’t say anything about weed!” He probably responded with some frustration, saying “Don’t focus on _____; follow what was actually commanded of you. Stop trying to figure out what these ten commandments haven’t addressed and follow the ten commandments.”

Is This The Finale?

Yesterday I was watching Memorial Day fireworks with my family and some others. I heard someone comment in the middle of the show: “is this the finale?” I smiled and thought to myself, ‘If you have to ask “is this the finale?” then it’s not the finale.’

People have this fascination with the world ending, and they think it’s predictable. It’s not. It’s just going to end, and no one is going to have any idea what’s going on. For example: 9/11. No one had any idea what was going on. Everyone in New York was running around screaming in complete terror. The rest of the country watched and tried to figure out what could possibly be happening. Okay, I’m sure some people knew what was about to happen. But I’m sure they were just as horrified, and there was obviously no way for them to stop it.

1 Thessalonians 5:2 says that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. Matthew 24:36 says no one knows the day or the hour, not even Jesus himself. God will just say “go” and here He’ll come.