Hands...

My hands, so cold and stiff.
They can raise the fallen.
Feed the hungry.
House the homeless.
Clothe the naked.
Bring the nations together.
But my hands, know only to slap you Lord.
Can you blame them?
For that is all they has ever known.
They have been brought up in the ways of rebellion.
Help me tame these wild beasts,
That they may do your works, Lord.

My God, My God.

My God, My God.
Why have you created me.
You made us for Your glory,
but we live for our own.
You made us for your purpose,
but you gave us the choice.
We have chosen so wrongly.
but from you we hardly hear a noise.
It's not that you aren't making them.
It's just that we don't care.
Why did You take us from Your mind,
You were better of with us there.
Images of perfection.
We can only hope to be.
But hope, accounts for nothing,
and neither do I.

For You Have Received Your Comfort

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27 NIV

Anyone who sets himself up as "religious" by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world. James 1:26-27 The Message

We have this straightforward command to love the homeless, the widows, the orphans, the unloved, but we still throw ourselves head first into the luxuries of a rich life. We have expensive clothing, large houses, nice cars, computers, Tvs, video games, and we still claim to be doing all we can for the cause.

But how terrible it will be for you who are rich, because you have had your easy life. Luke 6:24 New Century Version

This verse terrifies me, I may be under the worldly impression that I am not that rich, but about 10% of the world owns a car. My family has three pretty nice cars. We live in a good sized house, have multiple computers. But we are not rich by the US standard, in the US standard we are middle class. With 90% percent of the world not owning even one car, and me owning three. That probably puts me in the top 5% or so.

And that isn't upper class? How did we get so desensitized?

People daily die of hunger, of diarrhea, of the flu. These are things that we can cure relatively cheaply. WHY HAVEN'T WE? Because it isn't profitable to us. We use the "if I can't see it, it isn't there" method. When "those" commercials come on TV we flip the channel. We tell ourselves its not that we don't care its that we don't have time, or we've had a rough day and want to see something more positive than starving children.

If you want to see something more positive.

FIX IT.

By Outlawing God, We've Made Love Illegal

How did this get started?

Let's see,
I think it started when Madeline Murray O'Hare complained
she didn't want any prayer in our schools.

And we said, OK.

Then, someone said you better not:

Read the Bible in school;

the Bible that says
"thou shalt not kill,
thou shalt not steal,
and love your neighbors as yourself,"

And we said, OK.

Dr. Benjamin Spock said
we shouldn't spank our children
when they misbehaved
because their little personalities
would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem.

And we said,
an expert should know what he's talking about
so we won't spank them anymore..

Then someone said
teachers and principals better not
discipline our children when they misbehave.
and the school administrators said
no faculty member in this school
better touch a student when they misbehave
because we don't want any bad publicity,
and we surely don't want to be sued.

And we accepted their reasoning.

Then someone said,
let's let our daughters have abortions if they want,
and they won't even have to tell their parents.

And we said, that's a grand idea.

Then some wise school board member said,
since boys will be boys
and they're going to do it anyway,
let's give our sons all the condoms they want,
so they can have all the fun they desire,
and we won't have to tell their parents they got them at school.

And we said, that's another great idea...

Then some of our top elected officials said
It doesn't matter what we do in private as long as we do our jobs.

And we said,

It doesn't matter what anybody, including the President,
does in private as long as we have jobs and the economy is good....

And someone else took that appreciation a step further
and published pictures of nude children
and then stepped further still by
making them available on the Internet.

And we said, everyone's entitled to free speech.

And the entertainment industry said,
let's make TV shows and movies that promote
profanity, violence and illicit sex...
and let's record music that encourages
rape, drugs, murder, suicide, and satanic themes...

And we said,

it's just entertainment
and it has no adverse effect
and nobody takes it seriously anyway,
so go right ahead.

Now we're asking ourselves
why our children have no conscience,
why they don't know right from wrong,
and why it doesn't bother them to
kill strangers, classmates or even themselves.

Undoubtedly,
If we thought about it long and hard enough,
we could figure it out.

I'm sure it has a great deal to do with...

"WE REAP WHAT WE SOW"

Why is it our children can not read a Bible in school, but can in
Prison?

Half-Heart Followers

I'm beginning to hate the church and some of the stuff it has come to stand for, in the early church the people that were the best at something were the ones that took care of that need in the church. Example, the apostle were having to hand out food among the people, but they also needed to preach. They were the best at preaching and felt it there responsibility to do that.

But todays church has become a half-hearted, mediocre, attempt to serve our God, and even that may be giving it to much credit. This isn't a game it's a serious thing and just sliding by is not going to cut it anymore, I really don't think it ever did cut it we just tricked ourselves into believing that it's okay to 50% our way through life, and to God.

I'm tired of hearing the same things from the same people, and seeing the same blank stares on the same blank faces, it's time for a change, and if the church refuse to change I'm going to have to. I think I need to move to try something else somewhere else. But, I'm afraid that it's going to be the same thing everywhere I go which would confirm my fear that all christian are now pathological liars and have fallen into the snare that "making it" is how it's supposed to be. IT'S NOT IT'S NOT IT'S NOT. Open your eyes you blinded people and see that your holding so hard onto the good things that you can't reach out and grab the best things. The things that God intend for us to have.

If you've seen one of the newer Nooma videos, Shells, Rob Bell is talking about how they were at the beach, and his son had all these little broken shells, that in themselves were good things, but then his son saw a starfish out in the water. He would swim out to the starfish and then come back, and Rob would say that starfish is yours go get, and he would come back and finally he came back and Rob Bell was like why can't you get the starfish and his son said, because my hands are filled with shells. He ends by saying " May you set down the good things, so that you can grab hold of the best things". That is what I want for my church and for todays church. We are doing so many good things, but those things are causing us to not be able to put forth our best effort on the big things, on the BEST things. We need to drop the shells, and go get our starfish.

Church As a Snare.

I just noticed that we have adopted this thought that we can not allow a non-christian into the church without "presenting the gospel to them".

What happened to getting to know someone and then showing them God, but no we have to yell in their face and tell them that they are living wrong before we can ask their name.

Direct quote from church this sunday"...don't worry we won't let them leave without presenting the gospel to them." He was talking about a Halloween alternative thing we have called Hallelujah Harvest.

Lure them in with candy, shove the Bible in their face.

Every church does it, and if we didn't they would notice. They would see that something here is different. That we aren't trying to trick them or to capture them, just to captivate them with the love of God.