The Vicious Cycle - Live Dangerously

    When we are young we are taught to go into the world and to win it for Christ and to love as Christ did, but once we become old enough to do so we are ridiculed for doing it.  We go into non-Christian communities and are told that instead of going into the world, we are to be careful who we associate with.  We open ourselves up to the people who we were taught "need God the most" and are told that it is dangerous to do so.  We treat them as people and show them the love of Christ instead of pushing them away because of their sin and we are told that we are speaking blasphemy.  Can anyone tell me what is wrong with this picture?  What I see is that the leaders in the church today are starting to look a lot like the leaders of the church in Jesus' time.  We are being told that we cannot go into "foreign" land.  We are being told that we cannot associate with non-Christians*.  We are being told that we are supposed to point out other's sins rather than showing them love of Christ.  I refuse to conform to the relapse going on in Christianity and if that means I am living dangerously, then I wholeheartedly accept!
    This leads to the question, "What is living dangerously look like?"  Living dangerously is not being afraid to go into the world!  Living dangerously is not being afraid to befriend the people outside Christianity!  Living dangerously is not being afraid to love the world as Christ did!  We are to love people no matter what they have done.  Many people will use the cliche phrase "love the sinner, hate the sin", but they hate the sinner and the sin with their actions.  It doesn't make any sense to accuse people of breaking a law that they don't even believe exists.  Also, if they don't believe in the Bible, then how can we convert them with it?  People outside Christianity don't accept the Bible as truth, so using it to convert people doesn't do anything because to them the Bible is just a group of myths.  So how do we convert people?  We walk out the love of Christ and show them that Jesus is real through our actions!  People can argue with words, but not action.  You cannot argue with what someone did, you can only accept that it happened and discuss whether it should have happened or not.  I leave you with this: How can we convert people to Christ if we avoid them?

     *John 4

The Christian Gospel

     No matter where you go in the United States, it seems that there is always a group of Christians talking about spreading the gospel as it is our duty as Christians.  I have no quarrel with this and I believe in spreading it too, however, I think many Christians have twisted what the gospel is supposed to be.  The gospel or good news of Christ is not that we are sinners and damned to Hell without Him, but it is that Jesus died for our salvation and He loves us no matter who we are or what we believe.  If we really think about the way most Christians present the gospels, they focus on being damned unless you follow what they interpret out of the Bible and that does NOT sound like good news to me.  I would rather suggest that the message be that we are redeemed by the blood of Christ and that we are loved by YHWH who defines Himself as love*!  If God is love, then doesn't that mean that love isn't so much a feeling or an action, but a being?  To love is not to do something, but to be something.  When we offer our hearts to the Father, we are allowing Him to consume us and fill us with His presence.  Therefore, we are to be filled with love and are to allow that love to overflow into others.  You may think of the scriptures that explain that we are to be filled with God's presence and others that explain that God emptied Himself and we are to be the same**.  I believe that this means that we are filled with God's presence (love) in order to empty Him out onto other people and then He will fill us again.
     Does that not sound more like good news than being damned unless you follow a specific code of conduct?  Why are we being told that the gospel of Christ is about damnation instead of redemption?  The answer is that people are more concerned about others lives than their own and not in the selfless way.  The Bible states that we are to deal with ourselves before we deal with others***, yet most Christians believe that what they believe is correct so they tell others that they are wrong because they believe differently.  This is not the gospel, nor is it Christ-like.  Part of dealing with your flaws before you deal with others is putting aside your convictions and assumptions about scripture because there is no guarantee that the way you interpret it is correct.  If you were truly walking in love, then would you not share the love of Christ rather than the condemnation of Hell?  Ask yourself these questions and make changes if needed.

*1 John 4:8 - "But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love." New Living Translation

**2 Corinthians 4:7 - "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us." New King James Version
  Philippians 2:5-7 - "5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness."

***Matthew 7:5 - "Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye."