I receive a few emails from organizations that "follow" Christian events ... One recently posted an article about a Tweet sent by a pastor of a large church in the Pacific Northwest on Inauguration Day.
I won't quote the Tweet and I won't name the pastor here; those are not relevant to my thoughts. However, as I read the article and then began to peruse the 732 comments (as of the writing of this post), I couldn't help but open a new tab in my Internet browser to jot down some of my own thoughts about the very few (10 or less) comments I'd read before needing to "vent."
In a world where EVERYTHING is available to EVERYONE almost INSTANTANEOUSLY (and once posted, nearly IMPOSSIBLE to remove ALL traces), I find it amazing how many people simply DON'T CARE what they publish in public forums!
So, what set me off? Nearly immediately, people began to "compare" sins. Abortion was brought up. Homosexuality was brought up. Hitler was brought up. Being a liar was brought up.
And quickly, someone had the audacity to say "I agree sin is sin but hitlers sin will exact a greater penalty than a liar." (lower case not mine)
This statement shows just how much people don't understand God, or His word, the Bible. Through the words of Paul, God made it clear in Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus or Lord."
People, we try to rationalize that Hitler was very bad, so his punishment by God will be very bad. We try to set ourselves apart from others by saying, "but I'm not as bad as (fill in the blank)."
Yet God makes it very clear. If you do not accept the free gift offered through Jesus Christ's sacrifice, your payment for sin (any sin) is death.
While our minds strive to create a sin hierarchy, in God's economy, sin = death. Any sin.
We need to keep that in mind when we are talking about sin. Without Jesus, there is no forgiveness of sins (Ephesians 1:7). That should be our message to a dying, hurting, lost world.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Just Writing It Down Isn't Enough
I've been recording my daily calorie intake in a smart phone app called MyFitnessPal for just over a year now. And when I first started, I saw some great results. In the first six or seven months of 2012, I lost over 40 pounds!
But then something happened. With the application, each time you lose 20 pounds, the program "recalculates" your plan. With more weight lost, you need to make changes to your eating habits if you want to continue to see similar results.
The problem was I had grown accustomed to my daily intake of 2050 calories, so when the plan shifted to just over 1900 calories each day, I continued to record my calories, but wasn't too concerned if I was over.
I'd seen dramatic weight loss to that point, and began to simply "go through the motions" so to speak. In this new paradigm, weight loss was no longer the primary goal, seeing how many consecutive days I could record my caloric intake became my driving force.
And as you can imagine, simply logging my intake of calories each day didn't continue to produce the results I sought when I started the program. In fact, on the 1-year anniversary of my tracking my daily calories, while I had a net weight loss, I was no where near my lowest weight of the year.
Looking back over the log, at the 1-year mark, I was back to where I weighed in April 2012. All of my "work" between May and September of 2012 (the date of my lowest recorded weight), was lost as I steadily began to gain back the pounds.
Today, 385 consecutive days into tracking my daily caloric intake, I am still gaining weight, not losing weight.
It is that way our Christian life too. While reading the Bible daily and praying are great, they are necessary for growth, James 1:22-25 tells us that simply hearing the Word of God isn't enough. We must DO what we've learned.
So, just as recording each thing I eat at every meal every day of the past year hasn't resulted in a continual loss of weight; simply reading the Bible and praying every day isn't enough for my spiritual diet. I must reduce my calories if I want to lose weight. And if I want to grow spiritually, I must also take action and put into practice the things God is teaching me during my time with Him.
Only then will I be "blessed in what I do" according to James 1:25.
But then something happened. With the application, each time you lose 20 pounds, the program "recalculates" your plan. With more weight lost, you need to make changes to your eating habits if you want to continue to see similar results.
The problem was I had grown accustomed to my daily intake of 2050 calories, so when the plan shifted to just over 1900 calories each day, I continued to record my calories, but wasn't too concerned if I was over.
I'd seen dramatic weight loss to that point, and began to simply "go through the motions" so to speak. In this new paradigm, weight loss was no longer the primary goal, seeing how many consecutive days I could record my caloric intake became my driving force.
And as you can imagine, simply logging my intake of calories each day didn't continue to produce the results I sought when I started the program. In fact, on the 1-year anniversary of my tracking my daily calories, while I had a net weight loss, I was no where near my lowest weight of the year.
Looking back over the log, at the 1-year mark, I was back to where I weighed in April 2012. All of my "work" between May and September of 2012 (the date of my lowest recorded weight), was lost as I steadily began to gain back the pounds.
Today, 385 consecutive days into tracking my daily caloric intake, I am still gaining weight, not losing weight.
It is that way our Christian life too. While reading the Bible daily and praying are great, they are necessary for growth, James 1:22-25 tells us that simply hearing the Word of God isn't enough. We must DO what we've learned.
So, just as recording each thing I eat at every meal every day of the past year hasn't resulted in a continual loss of weight; simply reading the Bible and praying every day isn't enough for my spiritual diet. I must reduce my calories if I want to lose weight. And if I want to grow spiritually, I must also take action and put into practice the things God is teaching me during my time with Him.
Only then will I be "blessed in what I do" according to James 1:25.
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