This week I’ve thought a lot about my desire to make people happy. For much of my life my tendency has been to respond with whatever would make the person I’m in relationship the happiest. It’s really not a great way to live. With it comes tons of guilty feelings as well as being stuck in situations and representing positions that I really have no passion or desire for.
It’s a very strange place to be in. Everyday I see more of it in my life and yet I don’t really know what to do to change it.
Strange.
If you’re thinking of throwing around a term like this just remember the implications that it has both on how people view the person you’re calling a heretic and the way people view the person who is brash enough to do so.
There are countless people I do not agree with, whose interpretation of scripture doesn’t line up with mine, whose doctrine is a tad bit shady in my opinion but the last thing I want to do is take whatever platform I have to lead a crusade against such people. I believe that as Christians we are called to preach the Gospel to a lost and dying world not kill those who claim (and probably are) to be our bothers and sisters because of Jesus.
All you have to do is google search some popular Christian leader and you’ll find entire websites devoted to why that person is going to hell and anyone who follows that person is going to hell and that any Christian who isn’t exactly like the person doing the writting is going to hell. Meanwhile there are a whole lot of people walking around outside the very building that person sits in writting who are actually going to end up in hell because instead of getting on with the ministry of reconciliation they are too busy with the ministry of accusation.
I guess we’ve all just forgotten what Jesus said about people knowing we’re his disciples by the way we love one another. Or maybe I’ve just misinterpreted that.
I’m sure I’ll end up on someone’s podcast or website sooner or later as a false teacher or heretic because I’m trying to take Jesus at his word on that one. Oh well.
“Abraham’s righteousness resided in his faith in God’s gracious promise. If righteousness is conceived, as in modern western society, as conformity to an abstract moral code, this equation is indeed hard to understand. However, righteousness in the Bible is not a norm-prescribing etics, but faithfulness to a relationship.” Old Testament Survey, Lasor, Hubbard, Bush
Tonight at 707 we started a new series called Last Place People. We’re doing our best to make this more than just a series and hopefully turn it into a movement centered around the idea that the ultimate goal for followers of Jesus is to put yourself in last place.
We opened up LastPlacePeople.com this week as a place for people to share ideas, have conversations, and get equiped to live in last place. I’ll keep you up to date here about what’s going on over there.
Tonight we posted an interview with my friend Matt Kitchen. Matt’s a school teacher in Maple Heights, Ohio and passionate about following Christ. He’s got such keen insight into what it looks like to live everyday in last place and it’d be well worth your time to go read what he has to say.
So keep up with us over at LastPlacePeople.com and join the movement.
Filed under: Link of the Day
Ok… So it’s not what you think I’m going to say, but check this picture out.
Apparently the monkey was abandoned by his mom and when he was rescued and taken to a shelter the bird and the monkey became BFF. My favorite line from the story is this
Now the unlikely duo are never far from each other’s side, but they aren’t the only ones to strike up an unusual friendship. Earlier this year a pig adopted a tiger cub and raised him along with her piglets because his mother couldn’t feed him.
Um… that’s either really sweet or really weird. Read more HERE.
