revelife's Revelife

No Money, No Honey: Finding Worth in the World's Worthless

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:49:00 GMT

“No money, no honey” shrugged a tired, weathered figure.

Bart’s complaint wasn’t about the lack of romance in his life. Although I’m sure he could have used a female companion, that’s not what was burdening him at the moment. He went on to explain, in his broken English, “have nothing, nobody wants you. Everyone does this...” he swatted as if to shoo away a fly. He continued to describe how because of the complete non-existence of anything valuable in his life, it was hard to win anyone’s respect or companionship. When you have nothing, he reasoned, nobody wants to have anything to do with you, it even seems as though everybody prefers that you were not around.

Quite honestly, had I randomly bumped into Bart on the street not knowing him, I would have brushed him off as a drunken criminal loser. I would have assumed a number of negative things about him, and consequently I would have probably preferred to not be bothered with him had he approached me for any reason. I would likely hope and pray that the language barrier would make it easier to avoid him. In fact, this may very well have happened at some point. I know that sounds pretty awful, especially since I like to portray an image of non-judgmental, compassionate love. But it is the truth. He just wouldn’t have seemed to be worth my time.

Few have the patience to deal with him on any level much less hire him; his English can be a chore to decipher especially through his Ukrainian accent, plus he can barely see. Although he may not be hideous, when you factor in his permanently sun drenched skin, his one peculiar-sometimes grotesque- looking eye, and his over worn clothing, you might see how the average person wouldn’t care to give him the time of day. He walks into the center alone most of the time, and he leaves alone. When I see him on the street he is alone as well.

No money, no honey. More Here...

Why I'm a Happy Calvinist: A Response to "Why We Fear Calvinisim"

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 22:05:00 GMT

My response to Revelife's recent post "Why We Fear Calvinism, the Doctrine of Hope."

Please note: This is written from the perspective of a Christian, one who is saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
God has chosen us. We did nothing to be chosen. We couldn't choose Him. We were dead in our sins. We were bound by our sin nature. We couldn't seek Him. We couldn't move toward Him. Yet God moved toward us. He chose to show mercy to us even though we were totally undeserving and totally unworthy. God set His love on us because He loved us. While our minds were hostile to Him, He had already saved us and called us with a holy calling. He sent Jesus Christ to die for us while we were yet sinners, while we were powerless and helpless and unable to love Him. We were condemned to die and be eternally separated from Him but our Lord shed His blood so our sins might be forgiven. There could be no forgiveness for us apart from Christ. We were dead and He breathed life into us by His Spirit. He drew us to Himself. We were incapable of seeing His Kingdom, much less Him. He gave us the faith to believe in Him. Our salvation is all a gift from Him, He is the author and finisher of our faith. It is all of grace. It is all through Christ. It is all to His glory alone so we might boast only in Him and in the cross of Christ.

We do not understand why God has chosen us and not others. Certainly not on our own merits. We bring nothing to Him but our total depravity. We know we deserve nothing but condemnation, we are no better that those He doesn't choose, yet Jesus drank the cup to the dregs, He took God's full wrath in our place. Why? We don't know. A God who loved us while we were unlovely. All we can do is rejoice in Him and adore Him. We weep for those who do not know Him but we know that all are offered the opportunity to come to Him. It is to the grace and glory of God that He saves any of us. We have all fallen short of His glory and are filled with sin from the top of our head to the tip of our toes. We are sin through and through. He is holiness through and through. Yet He found a way to save us by giving His only begotten Son as a sin offering in our place. More Here...

The Biblical Basis for Giving Graciously

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 18:51:00 GMT

Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?"
"Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments."
"Which ones?" the man inquired.
Jesus replied, " 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,' and 'love your neighbor as yourself.'"
"All these I have kept," the young man said. "What do I still lack?"
Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, "Who then can be saved?"
Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."
Peter answered him, "We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?"
Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.
-- Matthew 19: 16-30

My pastor has been doing a series of sermons called FLIP. We are concentrating on the sermon on the mount and how Jesus vividly turns those things that the world thinks are right and true on their head and shows that the world's ways are wrong and selfish. I have been thinking about some of these issues that come up in the Sermon on the Mount and I have found how our culture likes to rationalize the Words of Christ. We take some of the principles but we put caveats on them, we make them more safe and more comfortable when Christ was none of these. More Here...

Trends I Don't Get: Letting Directors of Bad Movies Dictate Our Eschatology

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:23:00 GMT

By Justin at Faith and Geekery

You can stop panicking now. Put the sandbags away, drain the tub filled with bleach-purified water, and start eating those MREs you bought from a sketchy-looking online site. NASA’s on the case:

The world won’t end in 2012, NASA argues
2012 is cashing in on a gamut of wild doomsday scenarios revolving around the belief that the Mayan calender purportedly ends on December 21st, 2012. The date is thought to be significant to many besides, and there are even opposing theories swirling around claiming that the world won’t end, but instead shift radically.

“NASA insisted the Mayan calendar in fact does not end on December 21, 2012, as another period begins immediately afterward. And it said there are no planetary alignments on the horizon for the next few decades.”

All better? Good. NASA’s got it under control. Please tell me this answers all of the panic over the end of the world, and nothing more will come of this for the next 3 years.

It won’t? Oh well, those of us who remember getting alarmist emails and forwards from friends about Y2K know what to expect.

The article goes on to tell us that NASA has a whole web page to quell rumors that a new disaster movie made by the man who directed Godzilla is somehow prophetic. Look it up.

My understanding is that the original mock-up of the website was much more direct. More Here...

A Lesson from the Old Testament: Be an Idiot

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 02:39:00 GMT

Joshua was an idiot. Joshua was also a warrior. Having been privileged to know some warriors from fairly close quarters, I can tell you he lead a pack of manly, macho, rough, belching, farting, pink-hating dudes.

Some of them may have even had the refinement to be warrior poets, but I can assure you they didn't compose verse about daisies and moonglow. These were not the kinds of dudes to show up to a battle carrying ribbons and trumpets, of all ridiculous things, but that is exactly what Joshua took to the walls of Jericho. Trumpets! I have an idea what the manly, macho, belching, farting, pink hating dudes at Jericho said to them when they got there. (I have spent enough time around infantry types to know the exact verbage is not printable in polite company. Use your imagination or watch Jarhead if you can't fill in the blanks for yourself.) Joshua marched his army around the walls of that city for an entire week, with no evidence that they were doing anything other than making complete idiots of themselves. (And, honestly, a nation's image is more than just pride. A weak image builds the courage and determination of the enemy; we learned that lesson from Mogadishu. I imagine this crossed Joshua's mind a time or two.) Joshua did it anyway.

Gideon was an idiot, too. Gideon was told to go out and conquer an impossibly strong enemy with way too few men. God told him he had too many and had to eliminate the vast majority of his army before he could win. Made no sense. Gideon did it anyway. Then God told him he still had too many men. I have to think that at least once, this thought went through Gideon's mind: "Ok, not only are we going to be pulverized, but we're going to look like idiots while we do it." I'm pretty sure which of those was more terrifying to macho man, but he did it anyway. More Here...

Stuff Christians Like: Raising Money to Build Kindergartens in Vietnam

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 23:47:00 GMT

The blogosphere is a surprisingly powerful thing. Celebrities are made, rumors are spread, and people are united all in one abstract, digitally existent universe. Revelife is a part of this world, and there are many other more popular Christian blogs out there. One such blog is called Stuff Christians Like.

Written by the young and vibrant Jon Acuff, Stuff Christians Like is a site dedicated to explaining—and sometimes poking fun at—the things that some might consider characteristic of Christians. Here are some of my favorites:

#106. The Side Hug
#129. Chick-Fil-A
#254. Secretly wanting to name your son “Aragorn” or your daughter “Arwen.”
#476. Facebook friend suggesting Jesus.

These examples are all humorous, but Acuff also hits upon some serious issues. Recently, he discussed the plight of starving children in third world countries. After feeling the weight of the issue on his shoulders, he contacted Samaritan's Purse and asked them how he could help. They responded by telling him about a kindergarten that needed to be built in Vietnam.

“It costs $30,000,” Jon wrote in his blog on November 9th. “I’d like to raise it by December 31, 2009.”

It only took 18 hours to raise the money. More Here...

Why We Fear Calvinism, the Doctrine of Hope

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:24:00 GMT

[Note: originally posted on the R8 College Fellowship Blog.]

We grow accustomed to the smallness of things because we dwell in small places: a particular dorm room, a specific job, a well-defined family and a reasonably consistent group of friends. We develop habits and rituals that help to define the borders of such spaces and in that familiarity we find a deep and satisfying comfort.

But, as any one who struggles in life understands, such stability is an illusion. The domain of our control only stretches as far as the reach of our hands and it takes but the barest of intrusions to remind us that there is always something more powerful lurking about out there. A friend stabs you in the back. A boss rips into you for poor performance at work. A professor slaps you with a surprisingly awful grade. An accident tears you or someone you love to pieces.

A girl and I broke up once. That was devastating enough in itself, but what sent me spiraling into depression was the moment I knew she had begun dating someone else. Why? It was because that moment demolished any hope that I could do anything to restore the relationship to the way it was. A friend of mine died from leukemia. Despite having fallen out of touch for years, I was shocked and inexplicably bereaved by her unexpected death. Why? Death meant the definitive end to our friendship and the loss of any shared future experiences we might have had. Another friend committed suicide. My grades in medical school were slipping. Friendships I had once counted on suddenly seemed foreign and uncertain. More Here...

Christ: All or Nothing

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:44:00 GMT

One of the most common reasons people give me for not wanting to exclusively embrace the Christian faith is tied to ideas of pluralism.

The argument I encounter usually sounds something like this: if there is a God, and He is in fact loving, forgiving and serious about wanting us to know Him, reach redemption, win His favor, etc, then all(or many) faiths must be true enough to achieve this knowledge, redemption, favor. Furthermore, Christianity may present some good morals, but seeing how other religions value many of the same morals, Christianity can not be the only way. If one embraces Christianity, they should not proclaim it as the one true way, because that blatantly undermines the positive contributions of other faiths. And a truly loving God would not punish well meaning people who really tried to follow good moral teachings of another faith.

The problem is this: it is nonsensical to take seriously the moral teachings of Jesus while dismissing the very premise He claimed gave Him the authority to present such teaching in the first place. That premise is that He is the way, the truth, and the life; He is God in the flesh, faith in His life, death and resurrection as God in the flesh is the only way to achieve redemption and gain God’s favor. Apart from Him-claimed Jesus and His closest, most trustworthy followers- there is no salvation, there is only judgment. These teachings lend absolutely no room for any kind of pluralism. According to Christ’s claims (the very same Christ who taught the morals we like to borrow from) there are those who find life through Him, and there are those who don’t find life- nothing in between, no exceptions. He is not a way, He is the way.

More Here...

Where Is My Trust: A Self-Examination

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:51:00 GMT

By Dave Burchett

I have been doing this church thing for a lot of years. I have sung hundreds of songs over the four decades or so that I have been darkening the church door. Some songs have great meaning to me. Some lyrics moved me to deep worship of God. Some times I really meant what I was singing. Other times I was singing through the motions while thinking about lunch and when the kick-off was going to happen. Gotta think that Satan loves the ADD brain.

One song that has always made me uncomfortable came up on the iPod today. The song was put to music by the legendary George Beverly Shea in 1932. The words were a poem written by Mrs.Rhea Miller in 1922. Shea recalled the moment.

At the age of twenty-three, I was living at home with my parents, continuing to work at Mutual Life Insurance and studying voice. Going to the piano one Sunday morning, I found a poem waiting for me there. I recognized my mother's handwriting. She had copied the words of a poem by Mrs. Rhea F. Miller, knowing that I would read the beautiful message, which speaks of choice. As I read these precious words:

I'd rather have Jesus than men's applause.
I'd rather be faithful to His dear cause.

I found myself singing the words in a melody that expressed the feelings of my heart."

Thanks to Mr.Shea I found myself going through a rather uncomfortable self-examination today. More Here...

Female Chauvinists: The Theological Implications

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:32:00 GMT

By Sharon at She Worships

A couple years ago I came to the conclusion that, on the whole, men are funnier than women. I know a lot of guys that are side-splittingly hilarious, but I don’t know many women who are. In fact, whenever I do meet a woman who I think is genuinely funny, I work as hard as I can to be friends with her and keep her around me.

In sharing this quirk about myself I’m not trying to sound like a jerk. I’m sharing it because this mindset is pretty common among women. While the preference for male friendship may not be as specific as humor, a lot of women prefer male friendships to female. Usually the reasoning is something along the lines of, “I tend to have more guy friends than girl friends. Girls are so catty or dramatic. Guys aren’t like that.” Either you or someone you know has uttered those very words. Am I right?

Having confessed that I myself have shared these sentiments, I believe this logic is a total cop-out and is insulting to women. More specifically, it has two very troubling implications. The first is theological, and the second is relational. In this post I will cover the theological implications of this issue. In my next post I will cover the relational. More Here...