Definition and Declaration of Faith

I just listened to a pretty amazing sermon by the Reverend Dr. Abraham Waya on the issue of what it means to be a disciple of Christ. As I've never truly discussed this, and as it's a fairly important topic to me, I've decided to post an account of my definition and declaration of faith.

I am a Christian, in the sense that I am a follower of Christ and His teachings. I dislike labels, but I'd rather be called a follower of Christ than a follower of Christian religion. I believe that Jesus Christ died, for my sins and the sins of the world, and was raised back to life. I believe that Jesus was the son of God, and as such, wholly mortal and wholly divine. My life is dedicated to learning, serving, and spreading the Word of God in as much depth and in as many ways possible. This is what I believe and it is who I am.

I am a scholar, in the sense that I am actively interested in learning and exploring God's Word.

I am a follower, in the sense that I willingly submit to and obey my God's commands, directives, and teachings.

I am a teacher in that I believe it is my duty and my calling as a follower of Christ to spread my testimony and the news of God's gifts of salvation and love to the world.

I am a leader, in the sense that I try to the best of my ability to lead and assist others in their walk with God.

I am a musician, in that I attempt to bring others into the presence of God through musical worship.

I am a warrior, because believe it or not, every human being on this planet is knowingly or unknowingly engaged in active spiritual warfare every minute of every day.

I am a servant, in the sense that I serve others out of a love for them and for God.

But more than all these things, I am a man. A simple, fragile human being, easily shaken and easily distracted. My wish and my fervent hope is that this declaration will not only aid me in further strengthening my roots in my own faith, but help bring others to a more complete knowledge of Christ.

If you have questions, I'm always more than ready to share how God has impacted my life, and I'm always up for honest, open dialogue and discussion.

From Pleasure to Pain

In C.S. Lewis' book, "The Problem of Pain" he writes, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." I know, growing up in a Christian school environment, I heard this quote a lot (especially in Mr. Dietrich's class). But it never really hit me until a little while ago. Here are a few thoughts on this topic.

"God whispers to us in our pleasures": God delights in what gives us joy, (within reason. God has designed certain things to give us pleasure, such as music, food, sex, etc. But taken outside of the boundaries of God's law, they become a perversion, and He doesn't enjoy that. But that's a post for another time). When we follow Him and take joy in our world and each other, we can hear a dim echo of God's voice in us.

"(God) ...speaks to us in our conscience": if God is whispering to us when we are pleased and obeying Him, he raises His voice a little when we're not listening very well. When we stray off the path, when we begin to swerve away from what God has planned for us, He uses our conscience, (an inner moral guide) to speak to us and say "This is wrong, don't do that." Yet if we continue off this path, eventually we will encounter pain.

Now, pain is not necessarily a bad thing. It's your body's natural reaction to an intrusion or injury. Physical pain can be helpful in determining what's going wrong with your body. For example, if you accidentally cut yourself, you'll begin to feel pain, telling you that you've hurt a certain part of your body. Yet there are many kinds of pain, physical, emotional, even spiritual anguish. Pain is a reminder that things are not as they should be. An angry break-up, watching a friend destroy their life, even a broken arm: all these different kinds of pain are warnings that something is wrong, that things are out of the natural order of life and need to be put back to the way God desires them to be. God shouts to us in our pain. He's trying to tell us, "Hey! I love you! Come back to me." And we need to listen to that.

Truth, Justice, and the American Way

My apologies, loyal readers. I took a vacation this week and didn't post anything. To make up for it, A Day In The Life Of An Average Guy (henceforth known as ADITLOAAG) will have not one, but two posts today. The first is serious, the second... not so much.

Let's begin.

One of my all-time favorite bands is Coheed and Cambria. They're an extremely interesting and talented group, and I highly recommend them. I enjoy their music for a variety of reasons; the backstory behind it, their distinctive sound, the melodies and rhythms. I was recently listening to a Coheed song called "When Skeletons Live", when one line of the lyrics struck me. It said, "The truth is relevant, but not for long." It really got me thinking a lot about truth, what we see as true, and what actually is true. Think about that statement a little bit. On the one hand, there are certain physical, inherent truths. Take gravity for instance. What comes up, must come down. It is the way that things are. It is true. Yet on the other hand, there are things that people have long believed to be true that turned out to be false (the concept of the Sun revolving around the Earth, for example). Now to bring it closer to home, in this day and age we are surrounded, permeated by, and bombarded with all sorts of "truths". Some are true, some are partly true, some are blatantly false. Think about the world of advertising. If every single ad that you saw on television or in a magazine portrayed the truth, companies would lose a ton of money on their products. Why? Because we as Americans don't want the truth. We'd rather have the "great American Dream". You know what I'm talking about: nice job, fast car, beautiful wife/handsome husband, two and a half kids, suburban house with a white picket fence. It's what everybody wants, right? We deserve it.

Or do we? Let me float a rather radical idea past you. We don't deserve much of anything. Actually, according to Bible, what we do deserve is death. So I think we should be thankful for not getting what we deserve. (but that's a different story).

Back to the main idea: life is not always handed to us on a silver platter. In order to discover what is true and what is false in this world, we have to have a standard to compare it to. Do you know how banks train tellers to find counterfeit money? They have them handle the real thing, over and over, until they can almost instantly tell the difference between a true bill and a false one. I propose that we take the same approach to life. In a world filled with half-truths and even outright lies, it can sometimes be a little hard to tell what is good and pure, and what isn't. Fortunately, we have a standard to compare everything to. God's Word. If you are a Christian, then you believe that every word printed in the Bible is inherently and unfailingly true. If that is correct, then we can take what we learn and read, and apply it to our daily lives. In order to find our way to the truth in this world, we need to spend time in God's Word. Read it. Pray about it. Think about it. Talk to people about it. The more time you spend in the truth, the easier it will become to spot what is false.