Straight paths through crooked roads

The power of testimony, the mystery of 12, and the principle of "too late."

The Bible refers at one point to the power of the testimony of Christians.  And, there is something spiritually significant about the number of twelve.  Because there were twelve tribes of Israel, Joshua made a command that the Israelites place twelve stones, representing each tribe at the river of Jordan.  This was a memorial to the miracle that God made the Jordan river stand still as the people crossed over to the other side on the dry river bed.  This same number of twelve was used by Jesus to appoint twelve disciples.  This became a tradition in American law, that we have twelve members of a jury.  The unanimous vote of twelve jurors has the legal power to decide the fate of an accused person.  What if we combine the power of our Christian testimony with the power of 12? 

How?  In a small group meeting with a minimum of twelve seriously born again Christians, each in turn gives a testmony on exactly how they came to give themselves to Jesus Christ in salvation.  Salvation testimonies are powerful because they carry the witness to an actual miracle of the Spirit.  Each testimony then becomes an affirmation of the testimony of each of the others.  Each testimony is evidence of the spiritual, emotional, and even physical changes of believers. 

When each has given their salvation testimony of how they came to Christ, a second step follows.  Each one is challenged to think of as many instances as possible in which Christ has made a difference in their lives that they cannot account for in any other way.  This might include a forgiveness of a wrong suffered that would not have been forgiven except for the motivation of Christ and the Holy Spirit speaking into the spirit of the believer.  Or, it might be a miracle of healing.  It could be any number of things where the Holy Spirit was involved as He revealed the nature of Jesus Christ in a believer's life.  Each of these is a genuine miracle of God.

New believers may not have anything come to mind except their own conversion.  Others will have a whole string of events where God has revealed His divine character.  But, each one is a sort of testimonial stone that can be added up to a monument of personal faith. 

This validation of the faith each believer expresses is a wonderful building block of the confidence we can and need to have when the enemy of our souls, Satan, attacks us with reasons to doubt our salvation. 

One specific weapon we can use with our testimonial stones is the principle of "too late".  We all know that there is such a thing as "too late."  "Too late" is neither good nor bad, it just is a principle that we know works because we have at times been too late or we have seen others be too late. 

You see, we know that reasons to doubt the truth of our relationship with Christ will come.  However, if we have built a monument of testimonial miracles in our life, Satan will be too late. 

We will know in the deepest part of our being that the voice of the Holy Spirit is not our imagination.  We will know in the nearest and farthest part of our mind that our God is not just a spiritual teddy bear but that He is the worker of miracles that we have witnessed.  We will simply know Him, our spirit to His Holy Spirit.  Then, we will walk in confidence in the face of anything.  We will walk in the power of our own testimony of Christ in us, Who is the hope of our glory.  We will walk in the certainty that twelve witnesses bring a conclusive decision to place our trust in the Lover of our souls.  We will walk in the fact that there is such a thing as too late and that Satan is too late to have us. 

Just think.  We will have ruined Satan's plan for our eternity.  He is too late but we are right on time.

The Hippies were too late: the old faithfuls have survived and young faithfuls have arisen.

I'm older than the hippies.  I was already a young adult with a world view before they arrived in the mid to late 1960's.  Hippiedom was much more than style and music. It was a fundamental change in world view philosophy.  Since then the hippies have grown up and become our educators, politicians, business people, and mass media moguls.  They have largely replaced the previous world view with theirs and done this so completely that their perceptions seem to be reality.  But, they were too late to change my world view.  I remember quite clearly what it was like before they came.

Before the advent of American Hippiedom, the prevailing world view of American society was a judeo-christian view. The standards and the principles found in the Bible were the accepted standards by which society operated.  To be certain, there were many exceptions because society had many facets.  There were always a few and sometimes notable scoffers like the athiest Mark Twain.  There were always those who chose to ignore the standards for their own benefit, like greedy businessmen and corrupt politicians or power hungry bureaucrats.  However, society generally saw these as rebels against the established standards. 

The judeo-christian standards of the Ten Commandments, of love thy neighbor, of compassion for the needy were easily found in the court system, in the public schools, in the marriage vows.  That is not to say that these standards were kept with consistant integrity.  As a matter of fact, the scoffers grew in number in our colleges, in our legal system, in our mass media to challenge the standards because they were not consistently met. 

In the 1950's there came a number of people known as "Beatniks".  They had an agnostic philosophy contrary to the judeo-christian view that was not simply a negative scoffing but had something of an integrity to it that performed as an alternative way of thinking.  These general ideas were picked up and added to existentialist philosophy in which the person becomes the center of reality rather than God being the center of reality.

This philosophy was incorporated into the general thinking of the young generation during the 1960's.  This was done through literature, music, and theater.  This way of emphasizing the individual's rights to be free from interference went beyond the previously accepted limits of judeo-christian principles.  Now, people were to be free to do harm to themselves in use of drugs, pre-marital sex, etc. because the impacts of these were perceived to be primarily on the individual and not upon others. 

While the use of drugs is now seen to have definite impact upon others, so that drug use is not necessarily accepted, neither is it socially reprehensible.  That is because drug use is not seen as a moral failure but rather as an "illness".  This individual issue is a symptom of a much larger change in how our society views right and wrong.

The change of view from drug use from being a moral imperative to being a health issue indicates a change that reduces guilt while retaining a reason to deal with the problem.  This is one bit of evidence that Hippiedom became shaped into a new world view. 

This new world view attempts to maintain self-esteem above all else while trying to be socially viable.  That is to say, the cultural leaders in the universities, in the media, in politics who were of the Hippie culture, came to the conclusion that they needed institutions guided by the alternative to judeo-christian principles.  This was needed in their view because they no longer wished to be accountable to an almighty Creator God.  They wished to be tbe captian of their own soul, the master of their own fate.  The judeo-christian standards had denied them the right to be such.  Now, they were in positions of authority where they could institute changes in culture.  Now they could establish their own standards, their own "values." 

So, to have a society without guilt, they made the subjective feelings of the individual the center of the philosophy but rationalized how the individual could be responsible to oneself first and then to others.  They erased all obvious evidence of the judeo-christian culture from public schools, from the courts, from marriage vows, etc.  They promoted the view that judeo-christian "values" were obsolete, uneducated, and perhaps quaint. 

The agnostic philosophy has largely been successfully institutionalized by the old hippies.  But, they do have a few problems.  These are the youth that are connecting with the genuine power of God found in the Scriptures.  These young faithfuls are connecting with old faithfuls like myself.  They are finding that the Holy Spirit is ageless and not subject to distruction by people or ideas. 

So, you see, the Hippies were too late to influence us old faithfuls away from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  And we have every intention of passing the presence of the Holy Spirit to the young faithfuls.

I enjoy being a rebel against the god (small g) of this world.

It's fun to be rebellious, especially when you get away with it.  The problem is that if you are rebelling against the God of the Bible, you will be doing genuine evil and evil is self destructive.  But, if you are rebelling against the god of this world (Satan), then you will find reward that is lasting with minimum if any sorrow added to it. 

I have about 160 students, ages 16 and 17, in my history classes.  They enjoy sneaking a look at their portable play stations, listening to their ipods, texting on their cell phones, when they think that I'm not looking.  But, to a large extent, that is self-destructive.  Not only are they cutting back on their achievement in class, they are creating a habit of escape. 

I asked them if they agreed to the following idea. Lots of students are playing with their electronic gadgets rather than doing the assignment well.  They are therefore escaping rather than first achieving and then using their gadgets as a reward for a job well done.  So, what is happening is that kids are not doing for themselves what they need to do.  Often, they ask for help from a friend for the answers.  They become dependent upon their friends rather than indpendent thinkers and achievers.  They then lose confidence in themselves not because they can not do a task, but because they have no proof that they actually do achieve the task.  This is a cause of some anxiety about facing new tasks.  So, they escape once more into their electronic devices, deepening the problem for them.  This creates personal weakness.  My students agreed by a large majority that this is true. 

Did the understanding of the students help them overcome this habit of escape?  Not at all.  They are as involved with this escape as much as ever.  This is not surprising, however.  The nature of evil is that it creates a taste for self-destruction.  The carnal nature within us humans needs redemption and overcoming only available through Jesus Christ.  We are incapable of overcoming it by ourselves.  We can reform some habits but we cannot overcome our own natures that lead us in a variety of rebellious behaviors.

No, I'm not saying that I am perfect.  I suffer from my own weaknesses just like anyone else.  But, I do have the Holy Spirit to help me.  He leads me to repentence.  He enables me to overcome temptations.  He provides motivation from His nature to replace and overcome the motivations that my own carnal nature would have used to drive my actions.  He is the Friend of my soul.

The Holy Spirit also helps me to enjoy a moment when I have overcome a temptation.  In that moment I have just rebelled against the god of this world, Satan.  The Holy Spirit motivates me to not hold grudges, not try to get even, not throw people away.  Then, I watch over the months of the school year as a  few of my students show changes in attitude from being rebellious against me to becoming cooperative and even supportive of me in the class environment.  Once again, I have evidence of a successful raid on the evil god of this world.  What fun!

How about you?  Do you have a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit?  The only way to have one is by genuinely accepting responsibility for your sins, to ask Jesus Christ to forgive you, to ask Him to be the king of your life, to trust Him with your soul, and to believe that He will do what He has said, that is, send the Holy Spirit to be your companion.  If you do, everything will change. 

What you love will change.  What you want will change.  What seems important will change.  And, everthing bad you have done your whole life long will have been forgiven.  You will find that you somehow actually love God.  You will find a peace when it comes to your eternal future. You will find a source of hope for your future in this life.  You will find a new confidence in facing your tasks.  You wil find an ability to love others with a love that God gives you to share with others. 

When you pursue this new life, you will be ruining the future Satan had for you.  Isn't that a kick in the pants? 

Conversations with a teenage girl

As a high school teacher, I have had a number of conversations with teens.  I especially enjoy talking with girls even though I am now considered elderly.  I am fascinated with how they mature as compared to how boys mature.  Girls sure are more  complicated.  Boys are relatively simple.  (Aren't they, girls?)

I did not understand female humans very well in spite of being related to my mother and having a younger sister.  After all, they weren't really girls, you know? 

Having been married gets you up close and personal with the opposite sex.  As I studied my wife, I fell in love with not just her as an individual, but with her femininity.  When we had a daughter, I felt a special father-daughter bond that I have never lost.  (Amy is 31 years old right now.)

Well, just the other day my history class was about over and three of my female students started asking me about my years as a teenager.  They wanted to know about what decade it was:  the 1970's ?, the 1960's?, the 1950's?, the 1850's?

They wanted to know if I had enjoyed such artists as Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Sex Pistols, etc....I assured them that I knew of all of these but that I was not that familiar with their music.  These girls did not understand how I could be so naive, so culturally unaware, so disconnected with reality. 

In public school I am legally bound to not share my Christian testimony.  I could not tell them that these artists did not share my principles and values.  I could not tell them about the miracles of prayer in Christ's name for the healing of my wife and children, about the saving of our marriage, about the overwhelming fulfillment of a daily life in connection with the Holy Spirit, about the peace of mind about having peace with God.

No, I could not legally express that.  And, I can only hope that I give to my students enough evidence to convict me of being a genuine Christian.

Would our society today choose Barabbas over Christ?

Unfortunately, the world prefers self-destruction due to the consequences of evil choices over the humbling of self before the God Who loves them.

There He is, standing beside Pilate at the top of the steps in the Praetorium.  Christ is bloody from the beating he has recieved at the hands of the Romans.  This scourging is the first step in the sacrifice Jesus makes for you, me, and the rest of the human race.  Pilate wishes to release Christ but offers the crowd before him a choice to either receive Jesus who loves them sacrificially, or to receive Barabbas, one who is a convicted murderer and is most certainly going to harm others if released to them.  The crowd chooses Barabbas.

If we have studied the Biblical account found in Mark chapter 15, we know that the leadership of the Jewish priesthood wanted Christ crucified so as to end His threat to their position in that society.  But, why would the crowd agree with them?  Why would they accept a convicted murderer to be released from captivity into their midst where he is certain to kill again? 

What did the priesthood have to offer the crowd for accepting a killer?  My conclusion is that the crowd chose Barabbas because essentially they agreed with the Jewish priesthood on this principle:  they preferred the consequences of their own self willed decisions to humbling themselves before the God Who loves them. 

The world today still prefers self-destruction from the consequences of their own evil decisions rather than choosing to place their faith in the principles of truth in God's Word that would redeem their lives.  People today say that if they have nothing but a garden of weeds, at least it is still their own weeds.  They choose to be the captian of their own souls, the masters of their own fate, even if it is a garden of weeds and thorns.  If only they would trust the eternal Husbandman who cares for His garden, they would find fulfillment and peace, health and prosperity without such sorrow. 

It is the blessing of our God that He gives benefit to us and He adds no sorrow to it.  His blood that was shed in the scourging and on the cross of Calvary is His supreme blessing to us.  That gift has purchased our salvation from eternal destruction:  redemption of our souls from what should have been the fate of our evil choices.  Instead, He gives us the fellowship of the Holy Spirit to guide us through life to an eternal home of love and peace.

The world may choose Barabbas today.  I choose Christ today.  What is your response?

Is it bigotry or accountability: separating the act from the actor.

In some parts of the U. S. a moral person would be considered a bigot.  That is because sexual conduct is a subject of morality.  If a person believes that the Bible is correct and tries to live by its teachings, then they may be considered moral.  However, if they go to the Castro district of San Francisco, they may be accosted by a resident and told to get off of the streets because they are a "breeder".  Breeder is a term used by some homosexuals in the "Castro" to refer to "straight" people, that is to say, heterosexual people.  The assumption seems to be that "breeders" may look down on "gays" as less human than themselves.  Looking down upon another person that one deems to be less of a person than they are is an act of bigotry.

Biblically moral people in California supported the passage of Proposition 8 in 2008.  There was a great controversy over whether or not homosexual people had the "right" to be "married" in the eyes of the law.  The homosexuals and their supporters said that every person should be treated the same in the eyes of the law and therefore to deny gays the right to be married was unconstitutional.  Biblically moral people held that law related to marriage comes from some moral source and therefore that the laws related to marriage needed to protect the sanctity of a normal heterosexual relationship of one man and one woman.

Homosexuals and their supporters see this thinking as bigotry.  Biblically moral people see it as wholesome normalcy.  How can this controversy be understood? 

If a person assumes that what one does is the very same thing as who a person is, then it would be logical to say that some people think that they are above others in classes among human beings.  This is how you get a caste system in a society.  However, the Bible says that God is no respecter of persons.  That is to say, no one human being is greater than another because of such things as wealth, social position, birth into a certain family, etc.  Jesus Christ did not come to save the superior people, he came to save all people.  Jesus Christ did not come to save sin.  He came to save people out of and from the power of their sinful natures and their sinful acts.

Under Biblical truth, we have all sinned because we are all by nature inclined to sin.  Once a person accepts Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, has been forgiven of sin and been given the gift of the Holy Spirit to overcome the burden of the sinful nature, that person is not a superior person, or a greater human being than another  person who is still caught in sin.  The redeemed person is simply redeemed by the acts of God.  These same acts of Godly redemption are available to the homosexual, to the thief, to the gossip, to the liar, even to a politician.  God separates the sin from the sinner.  He redeems the sinner but condemns the sin, that is if and only if the person is willing to repent from their sin.

If a person says, "No, you Bible beaters are just bigots who are trying to get me to be like you are," then, the person is refusing to acknowledge sin as real to themselves.  They are choosing to believe that they have no such guilt.  They are justifying themselves by claiming that they are not bigots like the Bible beater is.  Therefore, they are superior as human beings to the bigot.  Then, they have themselves become the bigot.  Now, they say, "Get off of the street, you breeder."

By the way, the Bible also offers salvation to a bigot.

How evil is being made to look like good, and good to look like evil.

We know that our society today is really a mess. What was once good is now seen as evil and what was once unthinkable evil has now become accepted as good.  Exactly how is this possible? 

The answer is a perversion of what Christ said in Matthew 23:23.  Satan has taken what Jesus said there and has scrambled it into half truth that becomes powerful deception.

What Christ was saying to the Pharisees in that verse was that they had neglected the "weightier matters of the law."  He directed them to consider "judgment" or wisdom, "mercy" or compassion, and "faith" or faithfulness, depending upon the translation you are studying.  These three elements interact with one another in a balance.  Judgement can mean condemnation but also wisdom to discern.  The law that comes from wisdom is by its very nature meant to be a benefit to those it guides.  Mercy is not meant to excuse people from obeying the laws of God.  Mercy is designed to allow the repentant person to put their mistakes behind them and go forward in the way they should have been going in the first place.  We are faithful to that in which we genuinely place our faith.  This faith is active faith.  This faith causes us to be consistant in acting with wisdom in the framework of mercy. 

Thus, we should not hold back from correcting our child because we did the same kind of thing when we were young.  We need to discard the idea that if we are not perfect we cannot express a problem which we have discerned.  The basis for correction isn't our personal perfection.  It is truth.  If it is truly harmful, then we need to say so.  The older brother who is a heroin addict is perfectly in the right to advise his younger sister to not do what he has done to himself.

The deception of Satan comes, in just one example in this way.  Compassion is lifted high above wisdom.  Therefore, forgiveness is a matter of excusing others who have done the same thing that we have done.  They point to the idea that Christ said that if you see your brother has a speck in his eye you should first remove the beam that is in your own eye.  In other words, we have no right to be critical of others.  This allows people to do things that are self destructive or are mutually destructive under the banner of personal freedom to do so.  How many times have we heard the idea that "It's my life, leave me alone." "What gives you the right to judge others?"

The answer is that judgement in a biblical sense means that we extract a price out of the person we are judging. We have no right to sentence people to jail, or to extract a fine.  Nor should we.  However, we do have an obligation to tell the difference between good and evil and to live by it.  And, in compassion, we need to tell our neighbors about critical issues where they may be saved from great sorrow. 

By the way, Satan has labelled faithfulness as an unneccessary burden.  Sometimes, he labels it a "guilt trip."  The very idea of husbands and wives being faithful to each other is quaint.  Even the idea of making a public commitment to be faithful to each other in the sight of witnesses is so "old school." 

We used to call it a marriage.  However, it is that sense of faithful commitment that reminds married people that deep love is far more than physical attraction, even more than friendship.  Deep love is a choice that comes before the feelings do and must remain constant even though feelings change.  That commitment, that decision to love even when not every loving action seems to be returned, is vital.  That kind of love comes from God.  It is the kind we all need.  It is the kind of love that He has for us.  That kind of love is essential in both a marriage and in a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Well, the process of making good look like evil is to say that wisdom is not compassionate.  That way, we can find reasons why we can be excused if we get a divorce even if the matter is only based on a whim of changed feelings.  To keep the married couple together when they have differences would be jugmental and uncompassionate.  We can find reasons for abortion of an unborn child because to deny the abortion would be a failure to have compassion on the mother.

This process described above results in destruction of bonding between father and mother, between parent and child, between the growing and maturing child and other people.  It is how Satan destroys people:  half truth that distorts what Christ teaches.

The logical justification for choosing to not believe in Christ: reason # 12 to rebel against the faith.

I was chatting with an agnostic friend of mine about faith and logic.  He said something notable.  He spoke of logic and physical evidence as being the justification for what he believed.  People who choose to not believe in Jesus as the Christ and refuse to accept Him as their personal Savior and Lord and refuse to accept the Bible as the Word of God do so using human logic and physical evidence.

However, they do more than that.  They replace belief in God with something else.  They craft in their own way a personal view of the origin and meaning of life.  They select from many available sources their views on the subjects of religion:  ethics, eternity, personal worth and relationships, etc.

We could get lost in the volumes of information and arguments about evolution, socialism, humanistic self-esteem, and so on.  However, the common basis for all of these reasons is the individual person's choice to place personal pride over the choice to be humble before God.  Scripture refers to this personal pride as the "carnal nature" and it will be the subject of a future post. 

Pride shapes a personal god or view of the world as the individual would wish it to be.  This is the very nature of idolotry.  Idols in the ancient world were physical evidence to the idol worshipper of the reality of their beliefs.  Today, athiests and agnostics, and others have shaped a belief system that does not rely on the obvious falacy of physical idols but replaces them with invisible shapes much more difficult to refute.

The end of all these human efforts of logic and physical evidence is the desired result:  "I am not guilty before some God over Whom I have no control."  I seem to recall a statement attributed to Mark Twain, ( real name Samuel Clemens), that the most important two words in the English language were "not guilty".  Mark Twain was an athiest.  The end of the use of Darwin's theory of evolution is more than biology, it is the fundamental logic and physical evidence put forward to justify not believing in the God of the Bible.  It is the means to say that, "I am not guilty for my thoughts, feelings, and actions that run contrary to the Bible"  To Darwin's theory you can add many other religious beliefs and philosophical ways of thinking to use to come again to the same conclusion:  "I am not guilty."

At the end of life we are faced with the stark reality that whatever we have chosen to believe about life and eternity and God is about to be judged right or wrong.  It is a circumstance over which we have absolutely no control.  No logic, no physical evidence available will work to justify us when we face whatever it is that will confront us at the end of life.

It is Christ alone that offers us our "not guilty" plea.  It is not that we were not guilty of all that we had done or had failed to do.  It is that Jesus Christ, His blood sacrifice for us and His resurrection from the dead covers our sin. 

Humility shapes a faith in a God greater than ourselves.  Visit the 5th chapter of Matthew to review the "Beatitudes" to see the steps of faith that bring certain relationship with the real God of the universe. 

Their is no logic against God Who created truth.  There is no physical evidence that can be arranged to deny the existence of its ultimate creator.  There is no way to overcome guilt except by the blood of the Lamb of God.  Therefore, there is no justification for choosing to not believe in Christ.  Christ Himself said, "I am the way, the truth and the life.  No one comes unto the Father but by me."  John 14:6. 

If I ask Christ to be the real Lord of my life, my personality might be erased: reason to rebel against the faith # 10.

One kind of rebellion against God is to simply choose to stop growing in relationship to Him.  We are speaking about a genuine Christian.  Such a person may feel that if they become more and more like Christ, their own personality may become erased.  They may feel that they will become deprived of those things they enjoy most about life.  And, they are not willing to trade what they know pleases them for a growing relationship with Christ because they do not know how to value what that might mean.

 Once a person does become a Christan, life becomes a walk on the straight and narrow way Christ described.  If we choose to follow our own motivations rather than those of the Holy Spirit, we find ourselves wandering off of the straight way.  This brings sorrow.  No matter what the pleasure we might have gained from our own way, we suffer loss in our peace with God, our confidence in prayer, and loss of the overwhelming fulfillment of being in the will of God.

If we choose to allow the Holy Spirit to be our Friend, we choose to find wisdom, compassion, faith and faithfulness in the Word of God, if we bring our thoughts and motivations captive to Christ and walk in an attitude of prayer, then we find the glory of God revealed in our practical everyday life. 

When our relationships with others might be enmeshed in conflict, we find His love to be the power to help us to step back from the conflict.  If we ask Him to heal our heart, we can then use the love we feel from Him to express His love to the other person when we have little of our own love to use.  When we find it impossible to forgive others, we can ask God to not hold anything against the other person for our sake and then it becomes easier to ask God to help us to forgive them on our own.  If the other person responds with an unselfish attitude towards us, that may mean that our relationship to the other person could be restored.  Or, we may find His love to be the power to let us know that this relationship is not healthy and that we should find other relationships.  Either way, we find the blessing of peace of mind and heart as a benefit and a release from crushing sorrow.

When we are confused about what we should achieve, it is often because our personal motivations do not match the realities of life that confront us.  What should we do?  We need wisdom.  Feelings, gut reactions, and knowledge of only part of the facts we need to consider all have about the same chance as a roll of the dice to let us know what we should do. 

However, when we check out our motivations against the Word of God and get a positive reaction that our motives are good, then we take the next step.  We check out the facts and do our best to anticipate all of the obsticles in our way and the most like outcomes of our proposed actions.  We check to see if we have the resources to finish our project or goal.  If this seems OK, then we finish with a gut check to see if there is something hidden in our minds or hearts that we have not yet considered.  We check with others who may give us insight.  Is our plan wise, is it compassionate to others who would be affected, is it faithful to God? 

With sound judgement and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we take courage and proceed.  As we go forward in the guidance of the Holy Spirit by the wisdom of God's Word, we find peace beyond the circumstances.  We find His character revealed in us.  We find the fruits of the Spirit becoming the very best part of our personality and character.  Once again, we find benefit added and sorrow relieved.

These are neither instant realities nor unreasonable dreams.  They are the results of the process of walking with God day by day, year by year.  These results are just as true as the Word of God is truthful and the Holy Spirit is faithful.  You can trust your way to Him much more than you can to yourself. 

The Christian who chooses to grow in Christ will find that life is not about the Christian but about the Holy Spirit within the Christian.  That is the glory of God revealed in our everyday life.  It is the blessing to us, to our families, and to all who touch our lives. 

Far from being erased, the Christian is fulfilled in the glory of God.  His or her personality and character find that the Holy Spirit has formed them into being a person they never could have become on their own.  They have become a person whom they themselves would be able to respect and honor if it were someone else. 

Christianity just gets in the way of making money, being popular, and having fun: reason to rebel #8

It was a prisoner at the California Youth Authority who told me that he would like to be a Christian but it would get in the way of his "fun with the ladies".  Actually, other choices he had made were getting in the way of having "fun".  What he did not understand is that you should enjoy the blessings of making money, being popular, and having fun but without adding sorrow to them. 

This goes to the central idea that if I give my life to Christ, I lose control.  But, what is that worth?  If I gain everything I want but lose my own soul, what is that worth?  If I pursue happiness in my own strength I am on my own with nothing greater than I am to help me, to guide me.  There are so many things in life which are beyond my control that even if I gain anything I can also count on some kind of sorrow coming with it.  

However, the life that is in Christ is a source of motivation that leads to blessings with no direct sorrow added as a part of it.  When we become one with Christ, the Holy Spirit takes up residence within us.  He is not about taking away the opportunity to make money but rather He is about making our dollars honest ones.  That way, we do not fear punishment for how we got them.  The Holy Spirit is all about relationship with God and with others who are important to us.  He is not about deception to gain temporary popularity.  He is about truthful relationships that build lasting trust among dear friends.  The Holy Spirit is not about fun that is self destructive, fun that degrades everyone involved in an activity, that evades responsibility.  Rather, the Holy Spirit is about fun that relaxes and refreshes and rewards good achievement and celebrates healthy relationships. 

There will be plenty of sorrow in this life.  Some of it will be hard to explain.  However, our God is not about setting up a list of rules to ruin our lives.  He is about creating a healthy life with blessings for now and eternity.