"Too often we see the Bible through whatever lens we get from our culture." --- Brian McLaren
There are times we have to get real or authentic and come close to the things that hurt the most. Those are the times that reveal much pain but also reveal who we are and how we are made.
What I am saying is this: be careful not to mold your faith in your version rather than God's truth. The only way we have to understand is through our perception, yet much of the time our perception is flawed by our culture or by what is just wrong thinking and acting. Some people try to pick and choose what parts of the Bible apply at certain times. Yet all along God intends, with loving care, to shape us into new people useful to Him and real to the world.
2 Corinthians 5:16-20 (nlt)
So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ's ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, "Come back to God!" For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ. (emphasis mine)
My heart cries out for authentic living in a world that is fascinated by what is fake and what does not last. To be authentic may be the key to winning the culture to God. Jesus was real. He was authentic from beginning to end.
How do we deal with what is real? We either hold and live by it or kick it aside. Truth is, we either obey what God says or live in mediocrity. God's design for us is authenticity to the core from beginning to end.
"In the spiritual life only one thing produces genuine joy and that is obedience." --- Richard Foster
There are times we have to get real or authentic and come close to the things that hurt the most. Those are the times that reveal much pain but also reveal who we are and how we are made.
What I am saying is this: be careful not to mold your faith in your version rather than God's truth. The only way we have to understand is through our perception, yet much of the time our perception is flawed by our culture or by what is just wrong thinking and acting. Some people try to pick and choose what parts of the Bible apply at certain times. Yet all along God intends, with loving care, to shape us into new people useful to Him and real to the world.
2 Corinthians 5:16-20 (nlt)
So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ's ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, "Come back to God!" For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ. (emphasis mine)
My heart cries out for authentic living in a world that is fascinated by what is fake and what does not last. To be authentic may be the key to winning the culture to God. Jesus was real. He was authentic from beginning to end.
How do we deal with what is real? We either hold and live by it or kick it aside. Truth is, we either obey what God says or live in mediocrity. God's design for us is authenticity to the core from beginning to end.
"In the spiritual life only one thing produces genuine joy and that is obedience." --- Richard Foster
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