Is Forgiveness Fair?

Hey to all!

Well, after many, many, tooooo many cookies over the Christmas celebration, and all the busyness that goes with the season, I am finally sitting down and pulling out another question from the stack.

That's "stack" not SNACK !  

The next question reads.....   

"If a thief asks God for forgiveness, and I ask God for the same forgiveness, how can we both go to Heaven?   How is that fair?"

Well,  a couple of different thoughts come to mind........ but, I think I will start by asking a question in return...........

Is forgiveness fair?

Well, if you are like me, your first response might be....."NO WAY!"

Forgiveness doesn't seem fair because the other person always does something worse than we do!       I mean, after all, I don't do that.   They're the ones that have a problem!   They are a THIEF!.....
or a MURDERER!...
or a LIAR!....
or a RAPIST!...
or a DRUNK!...
or an ADDICT!
or a GOSSIP!

 tsk...tsk....tsk

Well, before we go on, let's stop and take a look at that list again, and this time, make it a little more personal.....

A THIEF.....
- Have I ever took credit for something someone else did?
       (stealing someone's credit for their hard work and effort)
- Have I ever borrowed something from someone, and never returned it?  
       (stealing someone's property) 
- Have I ever said something about someone else that made others think less of them?
       (stealing someone's good reputation)

A MURDERER......
- Have I ever gotten really angry with someone to feel like I hate them?
- Have I ever called someone an "idiot" or other name that is demeaning?  Or felt that someone else was "dumb"?
- Have I ever secretly wished someone didn't exist so that I wouldn't have to deal with them?

A LIAR.....
- Have I ever intentionally given someone half the information they wanted, knowing that I am holding back information that would be helpful to them, or information that would reveal my faults or wrong?
- Have I ever remained silent, knowing that any information I give would reveal my wrong doing?
- Have I ever manipulated the truth or a fact to make it sound like I want it to - whether to make myself look better or to keep myself from looking bad?
- Have I ever exaggerated?

WAIT A MINUTE, MR.G... WHAT ARE YOU SAYING????

"For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, they are guilty of all.   For He who said, 'Do not commit adultery', also said, 'Do not murder'.   Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have broken the law."   James 2:10-11

"You have heard it said, 'You shall not murder', and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.   But I say to you, that whoever is angry with his brother without a just cause, shall be in danger of the judgment.  And whoever says to his brother, 'Empty-headed!' (same as: stupid, idiot, moron, twit, sap, etc.) shall be in danger of the council (judgment of others...see Matt.7:1-2).  And whoever says 'You fool', (referring to someone as good for nothing, or demeaning them, considering them worthless) shall be in danger of hell fire (the judgment of God)."    Matt.5:21-22

"You have heard it said, 'You shall not commit adultery', but I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery in his heart."  Matt.5:27-28

YUP ~ that means even if you haven't stolen a car, physically killed someone, out-rightly told a lie, or had physical relations outside of marriage but have stolen someone's credit, referred to someone as dumb, didn't reveal all the facts, and thought inappropriate intimate and emotional thoughts about someone, you STILL have sinned.                 


Sure, one seems less threatening, or not "as bad", but the reality is, it is still sin in God's eyes.   We like to put "grades" or "levels" on sin to make ourselves look better, or compare, or even make what we did - to be okay.   What's the big deal?   It's only natural!   Everyone else does it!

So then, if God is willing to forgive THEM for their outright stealing, then He is also willing to forgive MY borrowing something that I didn't return...or my not intentionally telling accurate information...or my curious or lustful glance at someone...or my bitter and angry attitude toward someone, etc., etc..

Forgiveness isn't fair on a human level.   Because someone will always do something worse than we have done...in our eyes, and we had a good reason why we did what we did.  (In our eyes.)

Forgiveness isn't fair in God's eyes either!   After all, He made mankind to have a close relationship with and enjoy life the way He designed it in perfection.    But....mankind messed it up by choosing to turn their affections towards other things and themselves, and in turn threw it all back in His face.   So why should've He sent His only Son to die for our sins???   It wasn't His problem, He didn't do anything wrong!

But that's not how God responded.   He responded by offering us forgiveness, and even promised to give us the strength to recover from our sins!

There is SOOOOOOO much to say about forgiveness!  But to answer this question alone, is to say that...NO, forgiveness is NOT FAIR!    



Yet, I am soooo glad that it isn't!    I know what I deserve, and if it was fair, I wouldn't have the friends that I have, the family I have, the marriage I have, nor the very breath that I am breathing right now.   Because my sin....no matter how great or small compared to someone else's, deserves my death to pay for it.    And I am  SOOOOO glad that He forgave me!

Aren't YOU glad that forgiveness isn't fair???

New Year's Resolutions

So, yeah, I know Mr. G usually does the serious posts and Ms. Becky usually does the fun picture posts .... so I thought I'd mix it up a little and post something on the more serious side that's been on my mind recently. 

I've heard a lot of talk since the beginning of the new year about resolutions.  You know eat healthier, lose weight, be more generous, keep my school grades up, read my Bible more ~ that kind of stuff.

 

Now ~ I found a bunch of definitions for resolution online ....

 but this is the one I considered most fitting. 

Resolution:  the act of determining

So, I've been thinking about what this means to a Christian.  What am I going to determine to do in this new year?  What makes this year any different than last year or the one before that or 5 years ago or 10 years ago or 20 years ago .... okay, you get the point.   We've been talking about Doing The Hard Things these last two years in Youth.  What does that mean?

As I've been thinking about these things, I boiled it down to two commandments given by Jesus in Matthew 22:36-39:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Simple right? 

I think we could all agree that isn't as easy as it sounds. 

 In order to love God with all we have,

we have to try to understand who He is. 

 

Once we get a  small  glimpse of who God is, we have a choice to make. 

Are we going to choose to love Him with

ALL our heart, soul and mind? 

Choices are never easy ~ one of our "jobs" as Youth Leaders is to encourage you to make good choices.  Well ~ choosing to love God with ALL your heart, soul and mind is more than a good choice .... it is the absolutely positively without a doubt 100% best choice you can make.  Yeah, it won't be easy -- but we can all be here to encourage each other.

 

Give some thought to what you're going to allow God to do in your life in 2011!

Does God Care ~ Part 2

Hello again!    And welcome back to our discussion on "Does God Care?".

I say, "welcome back" because - in this question that someone wrote, there was more than one question on their paper.

The first question was: "Does God really say in the Bible that He really cares about me"?

The second question is:  "If God does care about me, then why do I still feel_______________?"

Now, this person did fill in the blank with something they feel, but you can also fill it in with something you feel.    Such as....depressed, hopeless, doubtful, lonely, fearful, inferior, etc...

This is a VERY common question that many people ask themseleves.

Have you ever heard the saying:  "You can't always trust your feelings"?    Well, there's alot of truth to that.   There is a difference between facts and feelings.

I may feel very fearful about something.  Perhaps I've had a bad experience in the past that creates a fear everytime I think, see, hear something, or I am somewhere in particular.   In most cases, there is likely no real danger at the time, but because of those things reminding me of the past, I begin to fear.  

Fear is the emotion that I have at that moment, but the lack of real danger is the fact.   I could yield to my emotions and allow my fears to drive me to anxiety attacks, or withdrawing from those around me, or be completely overwhelmed and not think straight - saying or doing things that aren't helpful.  

Or, I could gather myself together enough to pray, and begin to think about the facts, and ask God to show me what is reality and what is my feelings.  Then, I can act or respond better to the facts.

It could be loneliness.   I could FEEL lonely, but yet have all kinds of family and friends around me that do care about me.   Feeling lonely is the emotion, yet I would still have to evaluate the facts around me.   Perhaps I'm just having a bad day and I'm having a self-pity party.   Then the feeling is loneliness that I FEEL....not the facts that I have people around me who do care.

Yeah, well Mr.G, that sounds good, but the reality is you don't understand what I'm going through....

True...I may not specifically, but I do understand what it is like.

Oh Yeah ... right ~ NO WAY !!??

WAY!   Awhile back, I struggled with a tough case of depression.   It took me a little over a year to get through it.   What medication did I take???   What therapist did I go to???   The Word of God.

Oh~ get off your religious horse Mr.G!   That sounds like righteous blah, blah, but everybody knows that's not reality!  


BUUUZZZZZZZ ~ wrong answer!

The Bible taught me ALOT when I went through that....so much, that I began changing the way I viewed life and myself.   I realized that I wasn't alone in dealing with it, and that I had a way out it.
Huh....yeah well.... so.... what did the Bible really teach you?  What do ya mean?

Well, I spent alot of time in Psalm's.   I had a Godly mentor challenge me to observe the life of David, and really pay close attention to how he dealt with things.    So...I did.

Wow!   Did you know that out of the 150 books in Psalm's, David wrote 73 of them?   AND...did you know that out of those 73 he wrote, that in 47 of those, David cried out for help, for mercy, for God to hear his prayers??   That is OVER HALF....and almost 3/4 of the Psalm's he wrote!!!

Yeah, that's nice.....So what???!!!!

That means that David - whom God called a man after his own heart (I Sam.13:14/Acts 13:22) - struggled with fear, anxiety, discontentment, worry, disillusion, and depression!!   And David is one of the most famous men in the Bible!!

Dude!   So that means since David felt that way, it's okay for me to feel that way too!!?

Mmmmm......Noooooo.  David knew that he needed to put his feelings aside and trust in God.   In ALL of those 47 Psalm's where David pleads for help from God, he also makes statements like.....

"My defense is of God.....I will praise the LORD according to His righteousness...."  (Ps.7)
"But I have trusted in Your mercy, my heart will rejoice in Your salvation..."  (Ps.13)
"I trust in You......He will bring my feet out of the snare....."   (Ps.25)
"God is my helper....He has delivered me out of my troubles...."   (Ps.54)
"You are my God....abundant in mercy.....You alone are God...."  (Ps.86)

You see????   David didn't rely on medications and therapy to pull himself out of his troubles....He relied on God....alone!    He put His thoughts toward God...and turned from his own misery.

For me, when I began taking my focus off my fears, concerns, and "woe is me" attitude, and began trusting in God's character and God's promises - it is then, things began to change.   I began to pull out of the depression.

Oh ~ I still have a "wrestling match" with it every once in awhile, but it does not have the control over me anymore.   As a matter of fact, it is getting less and less that I deal with it.    Why?  

"For to be fleshly minded is death, but to be Spiritually minded is life and peace......For if you live according to the the flesh, you will die; but if you live by the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body and you will live.  For as many as are led by the Spirit of God - these are the sons of God.  For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out 'Abba, Father'!"   (Romans 8:6,13-15)

When we live according to our flesh.....whether it's fear, anxiety, self-pity, pride, deceit, lust, covetting....or whatever, we die in our own selves - gaining nothing.   When we submit our minds, body....AND FEELINGS to God and live according to what He desires for us (by His Spirit) then He promises us life and peace!!!

You see, it's not a question of "If God cares for me, why do I still feel......." but instead, a response that says, "God DOES care for me, and doesn't want me to feel _______________ because He is greater, and He can give me the strength to rise above that!"

Soooooo.....the next time you want to say "God must not be near, or hear my prayers, because I feel _____________"......remember, that is emotion speaking.....not fact.   Look in the Bible for some of God's promises and read them a couple of times over.   Accept them, and trust that God will keep His promises.

"...For [Jesus] Himself has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you'; so that we may say boldly: 'The LORD is my helper, I will not fear...."   (Hebrews 13:5b-6a)


Mr.G

Does God Care?

Well, things have been pretty busy here, so I'm finally making it around to the next question on my stack.

The next question one of you asked says.....
"Does God say in the Bible that He cares about me?"

Answer:      ABSOLUTELY!!

Yes, He does!  In Psalm 139:13-18, there is a WONDERFUL account of how much God cares for us.     If you look this passage up in your Bible, take notice of many things that speak of God's care for us!   Such as in ....

Verse 13 - He formed every part of us and watched us develop inside our mothers.

Verse 14 - God made us in reverence (fearfully) and uniqueness (wonderfully)
     (That means He made us different than anyone else, and He did it with care.)

Verse 15 - God watched as we were developing in the womb, and being skillfully made by Him!

Verse 16 - God knew how long we are going to live, even before we were born!

Verse 17 - God thinks about us for we are valuable to Him.  And He doesn't think about us just once or twice, but in ...

Verse 18 - God has sooo many thoughts about us that we cannot even begin to count them all!!  Even more than the sand by a seashore!!!

"Yeah, that's nice, Mr.G.  It's only one passage in the Bible that says that though."...... 'cuz  I've got another one for you!!

Psalm 40:5 says the same thing!   That His thoughts about us are uncountable....that means we can't even begin to count them all!!   (Sound familiar??)

And guess what!?!   There are many more Bible passages!

But just think of the mere fact that God not only knew you before you were even born, but then He watched you closely and was skillfully forming you while you were developing in your mother's womb.  He knew how many days you were going to live.   AAAnnnd.....Luke 12:7 says that God knows the very number of hairs that are on your head!    (Yeah, I know, that's only about 32 for me! ... on a good hair-day!) 

Now, get this....God's standard, expectations, and desires are unreachable by our own efforts.   I mean, c'mon, He's God ~ there's NO WAY we can live up to what He wants us to do on our own!   So when He created us, He knew we were going to sin and reject Him, yet, He went ahead and created us anyway.   (If you are saying that you don't sin, you are fooling yourself!)

So, He took great care in creating you, knows EVERYTHING about you....even your thoughts and your motives, and the very number of hairs on your head, PLUS He knew you were going to reject Him and turn to your own way.   Now if we knew someone were going to do that to us, you and I would be tempted to say, "Forget you!"  and  ZZAAAAPPP 'em ~ with a lightning bolt!

But not God.   God reached out to us even in our rebellion against Him and offered to us a way back to Him.   Wow!   Imagine someone totally rejecting you, spit in your face, called you names, used your name like dirt, talked bad about you, did things that really irritated you, did things that intentionally hurt you, and yet would you be willing to reach out to that person and say, "I forgive you .... please won't you come back and be my friend."   I would have a really hard time doing that, but God doesn't even blink an eye.   Now that's caring for someone ALOT !!!

He will not only offer you forgiveness (which is completely self-less, because we do deserve punishment for our wrong!), but He would also LOVE to be involved in your life to help you  ~   to encourage you  ~   to show you which way to live your life to receive His blessings  ~  smooth out some of our rough edges  ~   and even to heal those broken and sore spots we all have!

So, does God really care about you??

ABSOLUTELY!!

Waaayyyy more than we could even understand!

WHO out there believes that???

Mr.G

Red and Yellow, Black and White....they are all precious in His sight.

Hey all!

Someone from the Youth sent me a GREAT question, and I thought you all would like to be a part of the conversation.     So feel free to add your comments to this one too!

Their question.....

hey,
the other day I was thinking about ethnic backrounds and stuff and I was just wondering, if Adam and Eve were PREDICTED to be white, then how did the ethnic and other backrounds come about?  Just a thought.

My answer.....

I think it's sort of "natural"/"normal" for each nationality or ethnic group to think of Adam and Eve, or even Jesus, for that matter,  as the color in which they are.   (IE: White people think they were white, black people think they were black, and so on.)  

We really don't know what color Adam and Eve were.   It may be safe to assume that they were a brownish color since people from the mid-east are that color.   But again, we really don't know for sure.

As far as when the colors of people originated (began), my first thought would be after the tower of Babel.    In Gen.10, we see that Noah's three sons (Ham, Shem, Japheth) have their own families and grow in numbers.   In verse 10, we see that the kingdom of Babel was largely populated by the descendants of Ham.

In Genesis 10, we see that it talks about each of Noah's sons and their descendants having their own languages and lands.    I personally don't believe that this meant that there were different languages before the situation at Babel.    Why?    Because of a clue in vs.25....."in his days, the earth was divided."    I believe this to be the time when God caused the division of the earth by languages, because in chapter 11, it begins with "Now the whole earth had one language and one speech."

To me, this is saying that the tower of Babel happened in the 3rd generation after the flood.   That would be approximately 60-100 years after the flood.   That is plenty of time to establish a sizable population.

Ok, so what am I getting at?   Well, if we understand that there were about 3 descendant generations of each of Noah's sons, the earth was fairly populated in that region.    The Bible then states that a "kingdom" of Babel existed.   And in this place called Babel, people seemed to gather and live, and then decided to work together to build a tower.    Because of the mindset and heart attitude of the people, God confused their languages and the divided and scattered over the earth.  (Gen.11:9)

To me then, this would provide the best opportunity for skin color to change due to the specific region in which each people group would live.    Again, this would take a few generations to accomplish this change, but none the less, it would change.

So there you have my two cents worth.    I did check around some, and it does seem that others think this way too.    If you are interested, you might want to visit this site from Answers in Genesis that talks about this in more detail.      http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v3/i3/human_race.asp

Anybody else have any thoughts???

How many books?

Hey Gang!

Do you all remember the questions I had you write down on paper a few weeks ago during Youth Group?    Well, I've been thinking about what to do with them.    

Then an idea came to mind, and guess what!?    Ms.Becky....just tonight....expressed her thoughts about them.....and they were the exact same thoughts I had!

Soooooo, what I'm going to do is start answering them on the blog one by one.    Now, what I hope you will do is either make comments about the question or answer, or perhaps ask more questions about the original question or the answer.

Okay???

Ok, here we go.  (Oh, there will be no particular order.   I'll be just pulling them off my "stack" one by one.)


First Question:   "How many books are there in the Bible?"

66.............. 39 books in the Old Testament and 27 books in the New Testament.

The Old Testament was written over a period of about 1,000 years (@ 1400-430 BC)...or perhaps longer, and there are over 30 different writers.

Although the first 5 books of the O.T. (Genesis-Deuteronomy) were written by Moses, and describe the beginnings of the world, the oldest book of the O.T. very well could be Job.   There are "clues" within the book of Job that tell us of the culture and history in which Job lived, that would tell us that it may have been sometime between the tower of Babel and Abraham.

The New Testament was written over a period of about 60 years (@ 33-95 AD), by 10 writers - most of which had a direct relationship with Jesus Christ while He was on earth.

What I find interesting about all of this, is that the Bible was written over a period of 1,100+ years by over 40 different writers.    Many writers did not even know each other, and were in totally different time periods of history.    Yet, what each writer wrote in "their" books, ALL cooperate in the SAME MESSAGE.    They don't contradict each other, nor do they speak of different ways to God, nor do they reveal God as changing.      He is absolute, and therefore His Truth remains forever.

"The words of the LORD are pure words - like silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.  You shall keep them, oh LORD, You shall preserve them from this generation forever!"
Psalm12:6-7

Feel free to comment if you have any thoughts to add!

Mr. G

Psalm 139:13-18

 

 

Hey there! 

Everybody staying dry today???

   

Last night we talked about how God always existed and always will.

FOREVER !!!

           

Then, what that tells us about who He is.

Never Changing, Truth,

             Holy,  The Way

Then, we talked about how He is the ultimate of everything,

                  and how He really doesn't need us.....but that

He wanted to create us for a purpose.....

His purpose.

                           We then talked about Psalm 139:13-18 briefly

                           and I challenged you to look it up on your own.

  

Soooooo......if you looked it up, what did  you find interesting, and how does it apply to you?

Look forward to hearing

                                                                 some of your answers!   

                                                                                         Mr.G        

I Timothy 4:12

Okay Gang ~  Mr.G here jumping in with some thought provoking  posts!     Soooooo....I'm looking for some good feedback here!

                                             Hey~ no groaning over there....I heard that!

AS we talked about I Timothy 4:12 last Wednesday night, how can YOU as a youth be an example among the believers in .....
your speech...
your behavior...
your love (self-sacrifice)...
your spirit (of meekness/self-control)...
your faith...
your moral purity...

NO SIMPLE GENERIC ANSWERS HERE!!!    




Think about your own life, or the life of another person you have observed and give an example of each area.

I'll go first....
speech ..... no profanity.

behavior ... being courteous when someone else is talking, not to interrupt.

love ... doing more than what I "should" do to help someone, but going the "extra mile".

spirit ... holding my tongue when tempted to "lash out" at someone.

faith ... instead of wishing about what God can do, be diligent where I'm at ~ trusting that what He has me doing now is all a part of His plan.

moral purity ... pay attention to my thoughts, and take them captive (II Cor.10:4-5) staying away from any thought that would violate myself or someone else.

Well, there ya go.     Let's hear your answers!!!!