like everyone else...

several posts ago, i typed up the lyrics to a song i really, really love by a group i think is wonderful...the song is "Opposite Way" by Leland...here are those lyrics again if you missed them the first time:

Living in the same town
for all these years
Doing the same old things
hanging with the same crowd
And its starting to get crippling

You've never felt in place
And you tell yourself its all okay
But something is different today
You want to run the opposite way

And it seems like you're locked in a cage
and you need to find a way of escape
When everyone is setting the pace
Its okay to run the opposite way

The Father sent His Son down
The Light of men
and the cross He bore was crippling
Rejected in His own town
And they couldn't see the Son shining

He knelt in the garden, and prayed
Father let this cup pass from me
Its not your will for me to stay
your will for me's the opposite way

It seemed like He was locked in a cage
and He couldn’t find a way of escape
But through the cross He conquered the grave
My Jesus ran the opposite way

And through the cross He conquered the grave
He ran the opposite way

And through the cross He conquered the grave
So you could run the opposite way

there's an inner struggle in me going on, and it started the day i chose to run the opposite way

it's a battle that is always raging...a battle between Spirit and flesh...between heaven and hell...between good and evil...between right and wrong...between the Truth and lies...between what's right, and what's easy

it's the age old question for Christians of how to be in the world, but not of it

it's a battle that all those who seek the face of God in this life should have to fight...but often i find myself completely alone in this battle...going the opposite way, looking around me, and find myself running alone

if we are truly seeking Christ though, the way we live, and the way the world lives, should be in direct opposition to one another...yet more and more, the secular continues to invade the spiritual, and all the while Christians continue to bring the spiritual into the secular...

what i mean is, we try to justify certain behaviors, beliefs, etc... all for the price of what? to be "politically correct"? to fit in? to be popular? to enjoy "the good life"?

i don't know about you, but i want to enjoy "the God life"...and i am tired of compromising God's standards for what the rest of the world thinks is okay...i'm tired of not standing up for what i know His Word says because i am worried that someone else will be offended...

quite often, speaking the Truth, even while speaking with Grace, is confused with arrogance and self-righteousness...yet the Son of God, God himself in the flesh, was neither of those things...

Jesus Christ

those 2 words...that name alone, was and is and always will be offensive to the world...the scary thing is, in His time on earth, those who were stuck in the world's ways, AND those who were stuck in their superior religious mindsets, found him to be offensive...both parties nailed Him to the cross...how often do we in this day and age do the same???

it was the poor in spirit, the humble, the ones who sought after truth and righteousness, and those who were persecuted for what they believed (see Matthew 5) who were called by Christ as His followers...the world hated them the same way they hated Him...they were to be His imitators...to be His reflectors...they were called Christians, because the word Christian means "little Christ"

i am a Christian by choice...not because i was raised that way or because i sit in a pew every Sunday...it's because i have seen what death on a cross and a ressurrection three days later can do...it can change lives...it changed mine

i choose to fight the battle as well...i refuse to lower the standards by which the Lord has called me to live in the face of a world that has denied and continues to deny Him...if i am going to call Him Lord and Savior of my life, then that is who He will be...

so no more of this nonsense of proclaiming God as our Father if we are going to live like orphans...that is exactly what a non-believing world wants to see...and it is exactly what gives fuel to the fire!

no, not everything is black and white...sometimes there are issues that are gray...but anything that separates us from the heart of God is wrong...and anything that looks like the world is not of God either...and we, who have been given the Holy Spirit, the power of God, also have the ability to discern what is and isn't of the Lord:

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." ~ Romans 12:2

when our hearts belong to Christ alone, and our minds are constantly on the things of Him alone, we are transformed into the people who are called by Him...and it is then that we can know how to live...it is then that our desires change, because what we want is no longer what the world offers, but only what God offers

i'm not going to be like everyone else and do as the world tells me to do...i am going to listen to the voice of my Father and follow His will, whether that brings me friendship with everyone around me or persecution from even my closest friends and relatives...because i know, i can testify, that the things of this world fade away, and so we fade with it...

but those who do the will of God, live forever (1 John 2:15-17)


what about you?

a declaration for today...

"As evangelical Christians committed to the Lord Jesus Christ and the full authority of the Word of God, we affirm that God lays total claim upon the lives of His people. We cannot, therefore, separate our lives in Christ from the situation in which God has placed us in the United States and the world.

We confess that we have not acknowledged the complete claims of God on our lives.

We acknowledge that God requires Love. But we have not demonstrated the love of God to those suffering social abuses.

We acknowledge that God requires justice. But we have not proclaimed or demonstrated his justice to an unjust American society. Although the Lord calls us to defend the social and economic rights of the poor and the oppressed, we have mostly remained silent. We deplore the historic involvement of the church in America with racism and the conspicuous responsibility of the evangelical community for perpetuating the personal attitudes and institutional structures that have divided the body of Christ...

We must attack the materialism of our culture and the maldistribution of the nation's wealth and services. We recognize that as a nation we play a crucial role in the imbalance and injustice of international trade and development. Before God, and a billion hungry neighbors, we must rethink our values...

We acknowledge our Christian responsibilities of citizenship. Therefore we must challenge the misplaced trust of the nation in economic might. ...We must resist the temptation to make the nation and its institutions objects of near-religious loyalty. ...

We proclaim no new gospel, but the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, through the power of the Holy Spirit, frees people from all kinds of sin so that they might praise God through works of righteousness.

By this declaration, we endorse no political ideology or party, but call our nation's leaders and people to that righteousness which exalts a nation.

We make this declaration in the Biblical hope that Christ is coming to consumate the Kingdom. And We accept His claim on our total discipleship until He comes."



while reading for one of my seminary classes, specifically Church History, i came across the "Chicago Declaration," stated by a group of evangelical Christian leaders and other individuals that were concerned with the path the United States was taking...in 1973

i believe that this can speak to where we are currently as a "nation of faith"...as we can all see, there are many changes happening around us...Christianity has taken a very different turn from what it used to be...now if someone isn't a Jew or Moslem or athiest, he is automatically deemed "Christian"...we live in a country where those who go to church are automatically labeled followers of Christ (yet we should know by now that sitting in a church pew doesn't make one a Christian any more than sitting in a garage makes one a car)

the other day i saw a lady wearing a t-shirt that said, "i'm not perfect, i'm forgiven"...then she was yelling at and hitting her child who was crying...i wondered if she had ever read the many verses in the Bible that talk about a Christian's standards for living being Higher standards than the rest of the world...forgiveness entails repentence, and repentence means changing one's ways...not perfection, but striving to live holy, to live a life that is worthy of the one we call the King of Forgiveness

if you're a Christian, as i am addressing Christians in this blogpost, where are you at in all of this?

daily life is now uncertain...good families are continually being broken apart, people are struggling financially just to make it, and those who were once feeling secure are not quite so secure now...but in Christ, there is Hope...His is the only true and lasting hope, safety, and security

where are you placing your trust, hope, your security, your future??? are you placing it in material things, money, things that you have one minute and may not have the next? are you placing it in the government, the leadership of others who are still only human? do you know where you will be tomorrow?

none of us know where we will be tomorrow...we are told that life is but a vapor...yet in Christ, there is profound assurance that no matter what may happen, HE is our Mighty Fortress, and our Everlasting Hope