Whenever you think about our country, especially our country, you start to get the feeling that there are a lot of people that have truly broken hearts. Divorced people, kids with no parents, drug addicts that have no one but their drugs to lean on, thousands of relationships break up daily, friendships get tossed in the can, people pass away... Some of this is pretty inevitable and we can't really do anything about it, such as death. But the other things... Why do we do this to each other? I have heard of so many relationships breaking up and marriages falling apart in the past 4 months or so and it just breaks my own heart. My own sister is going through this crap right now and I get to hear about all the good stuff, which just makes me cringe. It's to the point to where I don't even want to start any relationships with anyone because it's hard for me to bear the destroying of a friendship or other relationship.
We as Americans like to push everything under the rug and try to live our lives like nothing is going on. I wonder if we ever thought about the idea that God has given us emotions, such as happiness, anger (righteous anger), sadness, mourning, etc. Even in Ecclesiastes 3 Solomon talks about how there is a time for all of these things. Still, in light of this, it is difficult to sit here and think about all the hurting people. I can understand why there are people that choose not to accept a Supernatural Being that is involved in this world because of all the hurt and pain. But why would we blame this on Him? We are doing it to ourselves. God isn't the one that makes us divorce one another. His Word even says that "what therefore God has joined together, let no man separate." (Mark 10:9). God's Word even talks about how we are not to hold grudges against one another and how we are to forgive one another (Ephesians 4:26, 32; Matt. 6:9-15). But, we are human. We mess up. We will get on each other's nerves because that is our first nature. I am not excusing the hatred and the things we do to one another, but I am rather wanting to say to strive to live by the Spirit and the way that God has called us to live. These verses about forgiving one another speak of people who are following Christ with their lives. Even they have to forgive, which tells me that there will be times that we will have to forgive. But we ought to still strive to live according to what God has said concerning our relationships.
So my biggest question is this: is there hope? Is there any chance of us doing these things and having good, Godly relationships? Of course, the answer should be obvious. As a follower of Jesus, I say absolutely! There is hope in Jesus! He is our hope and through Him we are able to have good, Godly relationships. His Spirit teaches us how to act correctly when we heed to His teaching. I say the Spirit of God because that is how we are continually taught in practical means through our daily lives. We no longer have Jesus here physically, which is why He sent His Spirit to teach us these things. So through the Spirit of Jesus, we are taught how to have the right relationships with each other.
So our job as followers of Christ is to show this with our lives and our words that there is a way to have Godly relationships with one another. Better relationships than this world can offer. Relationships that matter and that were meant to be. One of the ideas behind relationships is that they reflect the image of God. When God said in Genesis 1 that He made humans in His image, He used a plural word "Our". God, the Trinity, made us in His image. When you think about the Trinity making us, you can see the idea that God has created a need for relationships because the Trinity is in constant, loving fellowship. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit are continually showing love to each other and have amazing fellowship. This may seem over your head... it's over my head as well. But this is truth. So when we have good, Godly relationships, we reflect what the Trinity does daily. May our relationships reflect the glory of God to others in this life.
This is a massive lesson that I myself need to learn. Lord, Jesus, please help me with this. I can't do this without You and Your never-ending love. Thank you for everything.
Thursday, January 15
Sunday, January 11
Yahwehist
I would most likely get kicked out of theological school for this because of my stance against the theological debate of calvinism and armenianism. I actually attended a Biblical College and in my introductory theology class we learned about these two sets of systematic theology and the basic beliefs behind them. A lot of the people that were in my class were calvinists and some of them were armenianists and you could sense a tension in the room as the professor was talking. There was something that was said that made me turn my head. The professor made the statement that "if you don't believe in Calvinism or Armenianism, if you don't agree with either of the systematic theologies presented, you are a theological idiot." If you haven't guessed yet, I would be a theological idiot according to my professor. Don't get me wrong, I love the man and he is an amazing man of God and is so knowledgable about the Word of God. But that day kind of shocked me. He is normally a very patient man and doesn't really make dogmatic statements like this one that he made. So, I started thinking about his statement and didn't agree with it.
The main reason that I don't agree with his statement is because John Calvin and Jacob Arminius are both men. Yes, they are great men of God and knew a lot about Jesus' Word and with their lives made huge impacts on people for Jesus. I praise God for them! But I also believe that they tried too hard to put God in a box with their systematic theologies by proclaiming to know exactly how we receive eternal life, if it is predestined for certain people and not others or if we choose it but also have the ability to lose it. Those are the basic points that other Christians argue about when these topics come up: Predestination vs. Free Will and Eternal Security vs. Falling from Grace. I believe that both arguments are moot. Predestination and Free Will are taught in Scripture, but we are too stupid to figure out exactly how to make them work. I also see that people that believe you can lose your salvation once you have it misinterpret Scripture, especially the one about falling from grace in the book of Galatians.
So, what do I believe in? What kind of theological system do I place my beliefs under? Yahweh's. Simply put, I don't follow what another man says about God, but rather take what God says about Himself. Yes, I believe there is great value in what others say and I also believe that there is truth in their arguments, but they are still men. They can mess up. They do not have all knowledge like Yahweh does. The first time I heard this term was in Bible College when one of my professors used it and said that we all ought to strive to be Yahwehists, followers of God and doing the things that God called us to do. What is interesting is to think about when the name Yahweh was first used for God's name. The name literally means "to be". God is ever-existing and is self-existing. He is always here, has always been here, and will be here forever. He is alive and works in this world even today in our messed up world. He is not a "lame-duck Lord". God is the ruler of all and has His hands in the events of this life. People ask "what about all the evil in the world?" First of all, to take a quote from one of Ravi Zacharias' friends when he was talking to his friend's boss, the thing we need to ask is, "what about the evil in ourselves?" Too many people blame God for the evil of this world, when it is really human beings that are messing everything up, just like we started doing since Adam.
Sorry, that was a little tangent. Back to what I was saying about the first time that "Yahweh" was used in Scripture. Yahweh sent Moses back to Egypt to free the nation of Israel. From this, we see that Yahweh is absolutely involved in the salvation of people and desires them to be free. Jesus came to this world to heal the sick and comfort the broken-hearted and to save those who are lost. Jesus and Yahweh are the remedy (to take the idea from David Crowder). As Yahwehists, we are focused on living lives that are pleasing to God and use our time to teach others about Jesus and live like Jesus and tell others about Jesus. We follow Jesus, not John Calvin or Jacob Arminius. They did not die for us and give us eternal life, but Jesus did through Yahweh's will.
With all of this said, I do read about theology and agree with some theologians on their own convictions of God and the way that He may work, but I always take God's Word over their word because they aren't perfect like Yahweh is. There are things in this life that we will never understand, like how Predestination and Free Will (which are both Scriptural doctrines) work together. I hope that I always stay away from arguments with my brothers and sisters in Christ about these issues because all it does is divide the Church. May we as followers of Jesus be much more interested in edifying one another and having uplifting conversations about our Savior. If exhortation needs to be given and the truth needs to be told to someone about their lives, do it in love and truth, but don't completely destory their spirit. May we work together to tell the world about the glorious grace and mercy and forgiveness of Yahweh through the wonderful work of Jesus. Father, help us!
The main reason that I don't agree with his statement is because John Calvin and Jacob Arminius are both men. Yes, they are great men of God and knew a lot about Jesus' Word and with their lives made huge impacts on people for Jesus. I praise God for them! But I also believe that they tried too hard to put God in a box with their systematic theologies by proclaiming to know exactly how we receive eternal life, if it is predestined for certain people and not others or if we choose it but also have the ability to lose it. Those are the basic points that other Christians argue about when these topics come up: Predestination vs. Free Will and Eternal Security vs. Falling from Grace. I believe that both arguments are moot. Predestination and Free Will are taught in Scripture, but we are too stupid to figure out exactly how to make them work. I also see that people that believe you can lose your salvation once you have it misinterpret Scripture, especially the one about falling from grace in the book of Galatians.
So, what do I believe in? What kind of theological system do I place my beliefs under? Yahweh's. Simply put, I don't follow what another man says about God, but rather take what God says about Himself. Yes, I believe there is great value in what others say and I also believe that there is truth in their arguments, but they are still men. They can mess up. They do not have all knowledge like Yahweh does. The first time I heard this term was in Bible College when one of my professors used it and said that we all ought to strive to be Yahwehists, followers of God and doing the things that God called us to do. What is interesting is to think about when the name Yahweh was first used for God's name. The name literally means "to be". God is ever-existing and is self-existing. He is always here, has always been here, and will be here forever. He is alive and works in this world even today in our messed up world. He is not a "lame-duck Lord". God is the ruler of all and has His hands in the events of this life. People ask "what about all the evil in the world?" First of all, to take a quote from one of Ravi Zacharias' friends when he was talking to his friend's boss, the thing we need to ask is, "what about the evil in ourselves?" Too many people blame God for the evil of this world, when it is really human beings that are messing everything up, just like we started doing since Adam.
Sorry, that was a little tangent. Back to what I was saying about the first time that "Yahweh" was used in Scripture. Yahweh sent Moses back to Egypt to free the nation of Israel. From this, we see that Yahweh is absolutely involved in the salvation of people and desires them to be free. Jesus came to this world to heal the sick and comfort the broken-hearted and to save those who are lost. Jesus and Yahweh are the remedy (to take the idea from David Crowder). As Yahwehists, we are focused on living lives that are pleasing to God and use our time to teach others about Jesus and live like Jesus and tell others about Jesus. We follow Jesus, not John Calvin or Jacob Arminius. They did not die for us and give us eternal life, but Jesus did through Yahweh's will.
With all of this said, I do read about theology and agree with some theologians on their own convictions of God and the way that He may work, but I always take God's Word over their word because they aren't perfect like Yahweh is. There are things in this life that we will never understand, like how Predestination and Free Will (which are both Scriptural doctrines) work together. I hope that I always stay away from arguments with my brothers and sisters in Christ about these issues because all it does is divide the Church. May we as followers of Jesus be much more interested in edifying one another and having uplifting conversations about our Savior. If exhortation needs to be given and the truth needs to be told to someone about their lives, do it in love and truth, but don't completely destory their spirit. May we work together to tell the world about the glorious grace and mercy and forgiveness of Yahweh through the wonderful work of Jesus. Father, help us!
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