Can You Hate Religion and Love Jesus?
Take a look at this video first . . .
Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus
After watching the video myself, all I could think of is how many people I personally know won't have a clue what to do with this video. I read a website where the writer respectfully picked it apart without understanding the perspective I believe Mr. Bethke comes from, which is one of "be" not "do" when it comes to our faith in Christ, and our relationship with God.
To really understand why people do not like the video "for reasons they cannot fully articulate" you need to understand their perspective. They are probably coming from a place in their life where all they have known as church has been a building they go to three times a week, including Sunday school, to learn about God. They are comfortable in the walls of the place they call church, and comfortable with the people they associate with and know as Christians.
For many of these people (not all), a person is only "right with God" when they conform to the standards of the Bible as they interpret them. Anyone who does not conform is "probably not really saved" otherwise they would have been "transformed by God" into someone who will fit in with their group. As well, they believe that you must "do" things to have a right relationship with God. It is a "works first" perspective, whereby we can continue to have a relationship with God after salvation because of what we do.
What I don't understand about their perspective is that many I know personally would admit that we are not saved by our works. That only by God's grace and through faith we are saved, but yet once saved they seem to believe that they can only continue to have a relationship with God based on what they do.
For those people who do not understand why people like the video, here is their perspective. Church is not a building, it is the saved people of God, and they do not understand why vast resources are spent on structures when there is greater need for those resources. The greatest message ever recorded in the Bible was not preached in the synagogue, but on a mount.
A person does not gain a stronger relationship with Christ because of what they do, they simply have a relationship with Christ because of who they are - children of God. As a child of God, they accept that they have a responsibility to be a witness in their actions, but those actions are not what gives them value in Christ. They already have value in Christ. They do not have to "do" anything to have value, however, because they have value and want to "be" a Christian, their actions will flow outward from there.
In the end, for what it is worth, I simply ask you to evaluate both perspectives on their results. Recently I have been witness to churches who are meeting in high school gymnasiums and in small groups in homes, growing enthusiastically, seeing people saved weekly, believers discipled, and reaching their community around them regardless of appearance, age, social class, or color. These churches are the ones coming from the perspective espoused in the video, the one of "be" a Christian.
I have also seen churches who are stagnant in growth. The people who come to church are pretty much the same people every week. They get curious visitors once in a while, but growth is limited to the people who "fit in" with their group. Their people work tirelessly within the walls of the church in great programs for the people who go to that church, but even they sense "something is missing" without understanding why their own church does not grow. These churches are the ones coming from the perspective of "do" in order to attain a "higher standard" of Christianity.
As for the video, I get it. I agree with it. I am a Christian not because of what I do, what I do flows out of who I am.
Dear Heavenly Father
I was only fourteen years old when the man who fathered me walked out the front door of our house, never to return as "dad" again. By the time I was 18 years old I was pretty sure I'd never go to church again, and if I ever did, it would only be to make my kids go because back then I just felt "church is for kids" and there wasn't anything about the Bible anyone could teach me that I didn't already know. Today, I am married with two children, and God is a greater part of my life than He has ever been before, yet still the past haunted me. My father was verbally and physically abusive, and for years I have asked the questions many people ask about how God could allow such things to happen. Sometimes I come across some truth that helps, but for many years I simply held God at a distance without ever even realizing it. God was God - powerful, almighty, and omnipotent - that was it.
Up until recently though, I never could latch onto my part in the relationship I had with God. I had a great head knowledge of who God is, I started my prayers with the words "Dear Heavenly Father" and could even talk about being a child of God without ever understanding the relationship I possessed.
The other day, while reading "When God Whispers Your Name", I came across these words: "You may get your looks from your mother, but you get eternity from your Father, your heavenly Father." The words "heavenly father" struck out at me, challenging me, and my attention focused on the next words. "By the way, he's not blind to your problems. In fact, God is willing to give you what your family didn't. Didn't have a good father? He'll be your Father." The book then quoted Galatians 4:7 "Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ."
I am reminded by the prodigal son, who once he recognized he was not even worthy to be called a son any longer, came back home only desiring to be a servant in his father's house, only to have his father embrace him and reclaim him as a son. Then it dawned on me that for years now, I have been struggling with coming to God as a son, because of my own past.
My own father rejected me and rejected any attempts at reconciliation later in life. His refusal to be a father had spilled into my own perception as a child of God. I could serve God, but I could never seem to accept my relationship as a son of God. To that end, my life had been focused on serving God. Serve God in the choir, out on soul-winning, visitation, teaching a Sunday school class, in missions work, being an usher, working in the Children's ministry, oh I had the title of "servant of God" down pat. The problem is, that is where for so many years I had been taking my value.
As a worker in the secular world, you only have value to your employer if you produce. Stop producing on the job, and soon your boss will stop producing a paycheck. Your value is in your ability to serve the interests of your employer. However, in my family, my daughters' value is not tied up in what they do around the house. In fact, for the first few years of their life, productivity meant either cleaning vomit off of myself or changing a smelly diaper.
Because they are my children, they have value. Period. That's it. The only thing they need to do to realize that value is claim their title as my daughters, and accept my unconditional love. They do not need to earn my love. They are my daughters whether their performance is good or bad. I love them because of their relationship to me, not because they are productive or do well. In my mind, they will never lose value.
However, if they ever refuse to accept my unconditional love, because of some personal shame or guilt they feel, then in their own mind they would lose that value. Just like the prodigal son, their only recourse in their own mind may be to try to earn value once again by being a servant. This is where I found myself, and it was at this point I began to realize my value to God is not in being a servant, my value to God is in being a son.
If you have come to a point in your life where God does not feel so much like a heavenly Father anymore, maybe you need to take a step back and ask yourself, are you trying to be His servant or His son?
A Hope-full Future
I heard last night on the news that 2012 brings with it a lot of hope, if only because it isn't 2011. It was a reminder of what the future always seems to represent - hope. Hope for what exactly though? 
Hope for change? Most people don't like change. Hope for something better? We'd do well to be careful in what we wish for. No, the kind of new hope I'm talking about comes from an understanding of who you are as a born again warrior of God.
My wife and I have been having some very serious discussions about some die-hard beliefs we have held to for a long time without any real understanding about why we feel that way. For some of those long-held beliefs, we have discarded them simply because they were not Biblical and more preferential, for other long-held beliefs, we needed more insight either to continue to hold to them, or let them go entirely.
One of those die-hard beliefs comes from an oft repeated verse in the Bible from Fundamental Independent Baptist pulpits. Let me be clear, I have a strong Baptist background, and this post is in no way meant to be derogatory, however, there are a lot of religions, churches and groups out there (including the Fundamental Independent Baptists) who could stand a large dose of intense Bible study by the individuals who claim those titles.
The verse in question comes from Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" The premise taught for so long being we are sinful wicked 
creatures with a heart bent toward evil deeds. Whether saved or unsaved, you are degenerate and only by the grace of God does anything good ever come into or out of your life. This is what I had been taught and believed for pretty much my entire life. Then a book came across my path over the past few months: "Waking the Dead", by John Edlridge, which put forth a counter claim. In the book Edlridge claims that the verse in Jeremiah only holds true to a person who has never accepted Christ as Savior, and that once a person accepts the blood of Jesus for payment for sins, they get a new heart. The process of being "born again" is the awakening of the Holy Spirit of God in you wherby God now lives in you, in your heart, and as such, your heart is no longer "desperately wicked" but rather your heart is good!
I immediately recognized and latched on to the truth of that statement. How can anyone possibly operate from a core that is pure evil and hope to influence anyone in a positive way?! However, if 
my heart is good, then from that central core where Christ lives, I can begin from a positive stance to begin to influence the world around me in a positive way. My wife, however, needed more than a book to tell her this. She needed something from the Bible.
To her credit, during an intense Bible study not related to the heart, she came across another verse in the New Testament. Hebrews 10:22 "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." Here, in this verse she actually stumbled upon while conducting an unrelated Bible study, we see the words and process by which our "desperately wicked" heart is made good.
The whole passage actually starts at verse 19 and goes through verse 25, and having it in its proper context only lends greater strength to the truth she realized. The Old Testament required a process of purification by which the High Priest could enter the presence of God in the Holiest place of the tabernacle or temple. That process included the ritualistic purification by water and the sprinkling of blood upon the horns of the altar - a picture of what was to come.
Verse 22 is the full realization in the life of the believer of that ancient practice, when, as born again believers we are encouraged to "draw near with a true heart." What kind of heart? A heart that is deceitful and desperately
wicked? No, but rather "hearts sprinkled" with the blood of Jesus Christ (see verse 19 of the same passage). Sprinkled to what purpose? The purpose of purification, to have our hearts washed "from an evil conscience" so that we no longer have to bear the guilt and weight of sin. Finally, we are "washed with pure water" so that we can appear unblemished before God.
This verse completely counters the claim made by so many that the verse in Jeremiah is describing the hearts of all men. For the heart of a man who has laid his faith in the blood of Jesus Christ is no longer wicked, his heart is good. Your heart, my fellow warrior in Christ, is good. This is great cause for celebration indeed, for it gives a new hope not just for today, nor only for the next year, but for every future endeavor of your life.
Two Learning Experiences In One Day
In our house, we have slowly begun to raise Alabama fans. We do not sit down and educate our daughters about how important it is to root for Alabama, but they pick it up. They see us watch the football games, see me cheer when one team does something I like, and hear me groan when the other team does something I do not like. "Which team are we cheering for," my daughter will ask, "the red one or the orange one?" She is learning to love what I love not because I am sitting down trying to teach her to love a thing, she naturally tends to gravitate toward areas of my life that occupy my time.
What we want to teach our children about life is not something they learn, what we actually practice in life is what teaches our children whether we want to or not. This was my first learning experience: If what you do teaches your children, what are you teaching them about God, about the Bible, about a relationship with God?
I really enjoy the tablet PC I received for my birthday last month. The functionality it has for work, reading books, surfing the web, sending and receiving emails, and even the games can really occupy a good bit of time. However, I recently heard a message about how what we do teaches our children, and my mind went to the times when I was playing a game on my tablet PC and how quickly my daughters came to me, peering over my shoulder, watching me . . . and learning.
"This is what I love, this is what is important to me" is the message I was communicating. Whether I like it or not, that message was coming in loud and clear to them. The good thing is, I don't have to communicate that message. I can change that message, simply by changing what they see.
Earlier this week I sat down and brought up a Bible verse on the tablet, and without me calling for them my daughters had quickly settled next to me, watching me, and began asking me what I was doing. I had picked Colossians 4:6 "Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man." I wanted to teach them something about how they talk to each other as sisters, and in an effort to teach them through example, they taught me.
"Right now I would like for you to think of something nice to say." My oldest thought for a moment and said, "I like you because you're cute." To which my youngest replied, "I don't like to be cute," with a small frown. I looked at my oldest, "You just said something kind and nice, but she didn't hear it that way. Like the verse, we need to know to answer every person we meet, which means we need to know how to talk to people so they will understand what we mean. Can you think of another way to say what you mean so she will understand and like what you said?"
After a few moments of back and forth communications between my two daughters, both having found ways to speak kindly to each other, I turned to my youngest and asked, "So, what did she say to you that was kind?" The response came, "Uh, I don't remember." I told the oldest to repeat what she had said, and began to think about the two lessons I had just learned.
Sometimes we speak to our wives, our children, and other people in ways we believe are good and kind, but they don't always hear it that way. When they take offense, the tendency is to get defensive instead of modifying our speech. As well, even when a good message does get across to someone, it is usually quickly forgotten. So, we should all learn to speak more effectively at speaking kind words, and then learn to repeat that message as often as possible.
This was my second learning experience: How would you respond to someone who had learned to speak kindly to you in an effective way, and repeatedly did so over and over again affirming and reaffirming good things about you?
EMERGENCY!!
I had just arrived home from a business trip and pulled up into the driveway. My wife was waiting in the carport outside, when just as I opened my car door my oldest daughter came running . . . with fear on her face. "Mom! Come quick!" My wife went inside and I just let her go handle it as I grabbed my stuff from the car and headed into the house. I could hear some whimpering from the back of the house, and so I followed the sounds.
In the bathroom my wife was pressing a wet wash cloth on the mouth of my youngest daughter while the oldest just stood there looking pale and worried. Whatever had happened, blood was definitely involved, and the oldest was obviously feeling guilty and responsible. Shaking off the exhaustion from hours of travel, I asked calmly, "What happened?"
What ensued was an animated and worried explanation by my oldest daughter of how she accidentally slammed the door to the bathroom into the face of her younger sister who was busy being nosey while my oldest was trying to get some privacy. "Tell her you're sorry." My oldest apologized. "Guess you will leave her alone when she needs to use the bathroom from now on won't you?" My youngest nodded.
I hugged my oldest, telling her that everything will be fine, and that she was not in trouble. I believed her when she told her story, not so much because she is not capable of lying, but that she has a home-grown fear of the consequences of lying that far outweigh any fear of discipline for whatever she has done. I then went to my youngest, picked her up, and just hugged her, too.
Within 30 minutes, it was as if the incident had never happened, and life restarted in our house with our little family. Thing is, such small emergencies are much bigger than most men realize. If I had over-reacted, I very well could have wounded the spirit of my oldest. Ignore it completely, and the youngest would be left to wonder if she mattered at all. I'm not saying I handled the situation perfectly, or even the best way possible, but I handled it keeping both of my daughters in mind.
This was not a medical emergency, it was an emergency of priorities. Your children need to know that they matter to you. No matter how big or small the incident, when things go wrong in their lives they want to know you care enough to take some time out for them. If my children had been boys, I might have handled it differently, but with a household full of females, a slap on the back and a "shake it off" simply would not be good enough here.
Whether it is a broken toy, some hurt feelings, a skinned knee, or a busted lip, your kids will come to you with all sorts of emergencies. Many of them will not require more than a few minutes of your attention, but those moments are so very important.
I think that a lot of kids who grow up starved for attention did not come to that point all at once. Rather, it was the missed moments of small emergencies that accumulated over time, and eventually these kids learn that only the most egregious actions will ever warrant attention, and so they go there.
To keep from having those really big emergencies that are self-inflicted by your children, take advantage of the small emergencies to give them attention and show you really care. What small emergencies, what opportunities to show your children you care are passing you by?
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