God Does Not Need You to be Right

  As long as the church has been around, its members have fought. There are multiple instances in the New Testament where its writers address the quarrels that have sprung up among the believers. In the two thousand years the church has been around, not much has changed. Christians still disagree over many things. Those disagreements lead to arguments. And arguments usually do not lead to the resolution of the disagreement in question. They usually end by infuriating those involved.
  There is, in all men, a deep-seated desire to be right. While it at times springs from a passion for truth or a love of justice, it more often than not stems from pride. In his book Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis says of pride, "There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. The more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others." Pride is ungodly, and it is ugly.
  Christians are allowed to disagree. They are people and so it is bound to happen. However, Christians are supposed to be known by their love for one another. This means, if they must disagree, they have to do so civilly. While there is certainly a fair share of examples of violent disagreement among church members, believer's squabbles tend to be polite.
  With those polite squabbles, there are many times when believers disagree on rather unimportant things. And they walk away from their disagreement believing they are right and the other is "Oh so wrong!" Then they will chalk the other's short-coming up to a lack of good theology, or weak spirituality, or ignorance, because naturally, they are superior. Not through any merit of their own, of course, but because God has seen fit to show them that much more grace. When it boils down to it though, they are right, and the other person is wrong.
  There are times, when I think I need to be right to prove that God is right. And I do not need to be right, because God does not need that from me. He needs me to follow Him. To obey and honor and glorify Him and love Him with every fiber of my being. But He does not need me to prove anything to anyone for Him. If anything, He needs me to open to the possibility that I am wrong a lot of times, and that others might be right. Being a Christian means kicking over my holy cows, loving God with all my heart and loving my neighbor as myself. All at the cost of my pride. And many times at the cost of my being right

What I did this Week: failed baking attempt

  This week did not start out great. The news and social media have been a depressing swirl of the tragedies that struck that week. But I am not writing about the news.

  Sunday, I got to teach Sunday school which was fun. The class was learning about the conversion of Paul, so I made them blindfolds and they got to walk around as blind people. I am pretty sure my brother cheated though.

 

  Monday, was my grandmother's surprise birthday party. It was not really a surprise because she found out about it beforehand, but it was fun. I was in charge of making the birthday cake, which was perhaps, the worst cake I ever made. I tried to modify a cupcake recipe to make a triple layer cake. But the cake was dry, and the frosting would not stick to it. So all my dreams of a pinterest-esque naked cake crumbled to dry pieces. It does not look terrible in the picture, but needless to say, I need to work on my cake-baking skills.

 

  Tuesday, I made nachos after dinner because, "Why not?" And they were good.

 

  Thursday, I thought it would be a good idea to jump into the pool fully clothed. Thus I found pockets are not great to have on when a body is swimming. Fortunately, there are no pictures of this experience.

 

  And so went my week. I did other thing like paint and make cinnamon rolls, but there are plenty of pictures of paint and cinnamon rolls on my blog, so I figured I would not post anymore for now.

because.

The word hurts because it is broken.

Its sharp shards tear at our hearts.

And life feel uncontrollable and big and messy.

Because life is not in our hands.

We do not run the show.

We are interactive spectators.

All our attempts will not make it eternally better.

Because the world is passing away.
That is the comfort.
Just as it is the curse.
The world is passing away.
Because it is followed by a glory much greater.
At the end of it all there is something else.
Something to look to.
Something to hope for.
Because of hope, going forward is possible.

What I did this Week: cooking and not really cleaning.

  This week started with the tail-end of a three day weekend. Three-day-weekends always frustrate me. I am never quite sure what day it is, after Monday passes by in a semblance of idleness. The rest of the week feels weird for lack of better words to describe it.

  So with that ramble out of the way, on Monday my family and I went to our church's Memorial day picnic.

 

   Tuesday I made chimichangas. A dish I dread making nearly as much as I love eating.

 

   Wednesday, I baked bread. For the past few months, it seems, I have not baked much bread. This mostly because one of my younger brothers has taken bread-baking duty upon himself. And since he is good at it, I am by no means going to protest. This week I did bake bread, and I enjoyed the egg polished, poppy-seed sprinkled work of my hands.

 

  Thursday was a rainy day and I made breakfast for dinner.

 

  Friday, my brother, my Dad and I painted our living room.

 

  Today I did not clean my room exactly, but I did organize my bookshelf a little bit. I have a problem when it comes to buying books. Still, I was able to find some in my collection that I can stand to give away, or at least take to Half-Price books so I can get store credit and get more books.

 

And so went my week!

 

But before I go, I leave you with a song.

No One is Going to Hell Just Because They are Gay

  God is perfect and righteous and holy. As the Creator of the universe, His standard is ultimate and inescapable. The fact that He allows us to argue with Him in no way gives us the right to set ourselves up as His equal. What He says is right and wrong is right and wrong.
  There is often a difference between being who God called us to be, and "just being who we are." Mankind is made in the image of God, but mankind is also fundamentally flawed. We are born into sin. All our lives we are plagued with desires that are contrary to God's law. Because we have the ability to choose between right and wrong, we are responsible when we choose to disobey God. As righteous judge, God has the duty to punish us for sinning against Him, and the punishment for sin is death on earth and eternity in hell.
  Sin takes many forms. It comes in all shapes and sizes and has varying levels of impact on our lives. Some sins are small in a worldly sense while other are much larger. Either way, sin is sin and it is an affront to God. God does not send anyone to hell because of any specific sin they committed, God punishes people because they committed a sin,thus rebelling against Him.
  Sin is as varied as people. Lying, lust, selfishness, homosexuality, adultery, anger, murder, pride. God does not see individual sins as being different in their need for punishment. We as people see differences in sins because we see sin's impact on our temporary lives. The prideful Pharisee living his life in denial of his need for God is as deserving of punishment as the unrepentant serial killer.
  In spite of our sin, God loves His broken creation. So much so, that He sent His only son to die in our place to bear the punishment we deserve. Because of Christ's death in our place, we can take on His righteous, so that when God sees us, He does not see our sin: He sees the holiness of His son. We must call on God to show us mercy and cling to the work of Christ as our saving grace.
  Part of being a Christian is trusting Christ's grace to save us. Another is repenting of our sin and striving to live a holy life. It is putting behind that part of us that is "who we are" so we can be who God has called us to be. Living on this earth means we are going to struggle with sin until the end of our lives. Just as sin is varied, struggles are varied. I struggle with pride; a lot. As a Christian, though, I do not have to give into pride. By the grace of God, I get the opportunity to live a life of holiness and humility, and I am forgiven when I do fall short and sin.
  And so does every believer who deals with their own specific sin. Believers who struggle with same-sex attraction are not going to hell because that is their struggle. It is their earthly battle and by the grace of God and with His help they can fight it.
  People go to hell because they decide they do not need God and His saving grace. Because they think it is better to live on their own terms then on His. It is not the specific sin that condemns: it is the rebellion behind it that does.