Evidence Isn't Everything

Speaking from a scientific and medical perspective, is there any shadow of a doubt that smoking cigarettes is bad for your health? I would dare say that the answer is "no." So why then do people still smoke? Because our decisions are influenced by so much more than just the facts. Not even rock-solid evidence is enough to keep some people from continuing in harmful behavior.

And to be more specific, sometimes that evidence isn't enough to keep me from harmful behavior.

I have driven when I was way too tired. In fact, I've driven while under the influence. I've eaten McDonald's chicken nuggets even after learning about the ghastly pink slime. And I insert Q-Tips all the way inside my ear because the annoyance of a wet ear canal is evidently worth the risk of permanently damaging my hearing. For every single one of these decisions, I knew better at the time.

So what?

Well, I used to believe that *if* Jesus really WAS the Son of God like He claimed (and that was a big, gigantic IF), then surely there would've been compelling evidence of his other-worldliness while He walked the earth, and every single person within thousands of miles would've been His followers by the time He died. (And all the more so if the resurrection was true. Surely that made the cover of first-century newspapers, right?)

Instead, even the Bible tells us that within just a couple days of Him being executed, virtually all of His closest friends and so-called "disciples" had scattered like cockroaches in the light and were doubting what they once believed about Him being God-on-earth (as we plainly see by them saying things like, "We had hoped He would be the one...."). I mean, if Jesus really was God, then wouldn't there be so much proof of it that everyone could easily tell that Jesus "wasn't from around here"?? If He really did create the universe, then surely He could come up with enough proof to convince people. Surely it would take a few hundred years for the awe to wear off and people to stop believing in Him -- instead of the numbers going in the opposite direction.

So doesn't the fact that there weren't thousands upon thousands of die-hard believers in Jesus by the time He died prove that there wasn't very convincing evidence for His claims? In fact, not only did He not have multitudes of loyal followers at that point, but He couldn't even keep His few closest friends around. What kind of God can't even keep a dozen guys convinced?? There must not have been much evidence to back up His claims. Right?

Well, if that logic is true and we hold to it, then there shouldn't be a single cigarette smoker alive. Not a single meth user. No one would ever drive drunk and McDonald's would be out of business in a week. But yet we all continue to make decisions that we know aren't beneficial .... for some reason.

But why?

Because every one of us uses more than "just the facts" to make a decision. We consider what it will cost us and what we would gain. We consider how difficult it would be to change accordingly. (Admit it, quitting cigarette sounds like no fun at all.) The more we have to lose (friends, money, reputation, etc) and the more difficult the change, the less those facts are enough to impact us.

And make no mistake about it, Jesus wants nothing less than everything from you and me.

If we take Jesus at His word, then He wants to be absolutely first in our lives.

So what's the flip side of that coin? Why would I possibly want to hand over my entire life to Jesus? What could I possibly gain from that? Well, nothing less than immortality. Being forgiven of every bad thing you've ever done in your life - to have it all wiped clean. The constant presence of the Spirit of God who will actually make His home inside you, and then an eternity in the presence of Love Incarnate.

But too many of us (myself included, for too many years) chose to let such things as pride and immediate gratification take precedence over the proof and logical "cost/benefit analysis" of the equation. This is exactly why a large crowd could watch Jesus bring a guy that had been dead for many days back to life right in front of them - and yet many of those people never became His followers. They loved the approval of people and their status in society more.

So at the end of the day we each choose freely whether or not we will follow the Son of God, but let none of us say that it is only based on historical evidence.

Losing & Finding My Way - Again (Part Two)

{Continued from "Losing & Finding My Way - Again (Part One)"}

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one {more} traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

But then something slowly changed.

And I didn't notice it changing.

I think most of us have heard the story about the poor little frog and the boiling water; if he's put in lukewarm water and then it's heated to boiling, he won't jump out and it will kill him - but if you try to plop him into water already boiling he'll jump right out and save his life. Isn't that so true in life? 

Just like I didn't realize how weary I had become when I first tasted true healing, I didn't realize just how much things had changed in the years since I'd turned my life to Jesus. Have you ever been carrying a super heavy backpack and then when you set it down, you immediately feel like you're going to float right off the ground? Isn't that the weirdest feeling?! That's as close as I can explain the feeling when you realize that Jesus has taken your load of bricks off your back - your soul floats and soars. (And if you are where I was, believe me - I understand how hokey that sounds.) 

Well, somewhere along the line I never realized that my yoke was no longer easy and my burden was no longer light. But why? It has taken me years to realize why. 

I'm not here to go into the ins and outs of everything that made me realize what I have come to realize, but I would like to share a few things. First, the most important thing I could stress right now is:

If the yoke is not easy and the burden is not light, then it is not from Jesus. 

There are many, many people who are peddling heavy burdens in the name of God that are not from God. Just like when Jesus walked the earth 2,000 years ago, there are an overwhelming number of people who have changed what God has commanded into their own religion. How could Jesus defy so many Jewish laws and yet claim to be of God, when God Himself established the Jewish religion? Because over the centuries, Jews had added their own stipulations on top of what God had given - and yet they claimed it was all a mandatory part of the faith, and they would harshly judge and condemn anyone who did not keep their religion as they had come to define it. [Sound familiar?] For example, when God told the Jews to observe the Sabbath and keep it holy, the Jews added countless laws down to how many steps could be taken on the day. Did you know they even made a law saying you could not heal someone with mud & spittle on the Sabbath?? So, when Jesus came and healed a man born blind on a Sabbath using mud & spittle, was Jesus breaking the law? Yes. And no. He was breaking the law the Jews had created, but not the law of God. 

I believe if Jesus were to walk the earth in the flesh today, He would make a lot of Christians very mad. Why? Because He would no doubt break many such laws that we have added over 20 centuries in order to show us what God had intended for us all along. Why else does the Christianity we see all around us today look almost nothing like what we read about in the pages of the New Testament? Today we see a multi-billion dollar industry called "religion"; when Jesus walked the earth, helping the orphan and the widow in their affliction was called "true religion." "Organized religion" in their day might've meant multiple followers of Christ working together to feed those orphans; today a majority of Americans say they hate organized religion (for good reason) - because of what it's come to mean in our vocabulary. The differences are endless between how we see early followers of "the Way" acting with each other and their world, and what we see today.

There is one thing I am not interested in doing:

Giving you my conclusions about what those differences are. 

I am on a journey back to the beginning. Back to when the yoke was easy. Sometimes that means taking a turn off the road most traveled and most popular, and onto a road few understand or agree with. For too long I got caught up majoring in the minors and auditing the majors. I've learned there is a monumental difference between intellectually studying about the history of Jesus, and in pursuing a living, breathing, tangible, change-the-way-you-live-your-life relationship with Jesus, by living through the power of His Spirit. Francis Chan said it well when he said that the majority of lives of believers are indistinguishable - they "make sense" - to unbelievers. In what ways am I living by faith in such a way where if God does not come through, I'm hosed?? For years I have sung - and heard crowds singing - words such as, "Living by faith in Jesus alone" .... "Though none go with me, still I will follow" .... "We place You in the highest place, above all else" ......... and frankly, many of us haven't meant it. The first thing many consider when it comes to following Jesus is how popular that move would be with the church. (And if it's not popular, well then.......). And the fact is, in my life and many others', God has been anything but "above all else."

So here's where I am with all of this now. For the first time in my life I truly understand the old cliché about "the more I know, the more I know I don't know." I'm stripping things down to a living, breathing relationship with Jesus and am pursuing knowing Him - not knowing about Him. To the best of my ability I will help anyone I can to draw close to Him as well, but not to hand them my conclusions. I will help show them what I've learned about how to pursue Him so they can get their conclusions from Him, not my feeble little mind. I believe one of the reasons that His way is described as narrow is because it really is very simple. Seek to know Him, and Him crucified. There's so much else we try to add to the path that are distractions at best, detours at worst. Let's stick to the straight and narrow, my friend, and along the way we can help to remind each other that His way is easy and His burden is light. Let's not accept any counterfeits.

Losing & Finding My Way - Again (Part One)

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

----Robert Frost

Several years ago ... nearly 10, to be exact ... I turned the direction of my life on its tail and nothing has been the same since. I had been confident in my worldview and more than a bit cocky, because I "knew" what few others seemed to grasp - and yet it was so clear to me: All we are is all we are. There is no magical supernatural being over us or in us; the only part of the Bible I agreed with was some part about coming from dust and ending in dust. Period. End of story. 

Although I had this grasp on a "truth" that seemed to escape the masses, there eventually came a point when I was forced to admit that my life was digging itself deeper into a ditch - a ditch that those masses were seemingly avoiding. What was the difference? In my early 20's I finally took to heart the old maxim, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over & over and expecting different results." I had been making decisions the same way over & over and was getting the same downward-spiraling results over & over. It was time for a change. 

But what needed to change? I wasn't sure - so everything was up for reexamination. Turns out that my entire life was put on an anvil by which I was being forged into something completely different - what I believed, how I thought, who I spent time with, what I did for a living, what I did for recreation - all of these things were up for reevaluation. This was the most important thing I ever did in my life, and I hope that I never take any piece out of the "Able To Be Re-Examined" category again.

By that point in my life I was weary. Weary of running so hard and so fast in one direction only to realize, a hundred miles down that road, that it was the wrong road. I was weary of living according to the way that every logical neuron in my brain said was right, and yet it ended in disaster time and time again. I was weary of having no hope; I was weary of thinking that the here & now was the best it would ever be. "But I am a realist," I continued to tell myself. You don't believe in something that's not true just because you want it to be true; just because it makes you all fuzzy inside. That's the 'opiate of the masses,' right? But I was ... so ... weary.

"Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.

Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me - and you will find rest for your souls.

For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

Have you ever heard something that soothed a nerve deep inside your soul that had been rubbed raw? Maybe a raw nerve you didn't even realize you had? This was it for me. I don't know that I realized at the time just how weary I was, until I tasted of this salve for the first time.  Somewhere in my subconscious - that part where you know it, but you won't admit it to yourself - I had been trying to treat my own raw nerves in several ways for a long time. It was as if deep in my soul I had a bundle of raw nerves - like copper wires stripped of their protective coating - and as painful as each one was, they were outright dangerous if one bare wire touched another. So I would wrap each raw nerve in whatever I had in my tool belt (which, as an atheist, wasn't much), so I wrapped each nerve as if in an Ace bandage of alcohol, or partying, or just the constant noise and busy-ness around me so that I would never be left alone in the [sober] quiet company of my own raw nerves. But what I had come to learn was that these bandages of partying and distraction were actually just as conductive as a bare wire; although it might take a delay of a short amount of time for the electric shock to travel, the punch delivered was sometimes worse than it would've been without the delay. 

But then I started to experience a genuine salve - a true solution for my raw nerves instead of the poor & temporary fixes I'd been attempting. A single drop of hope applied to a raw nerve is more soothing than a hundred bottles of alcohol. The more I sought to learn more about this "easy yoke" and "light burden," the more that one drop of hope turned into a small, steady trickle from a faucet. Each drop peeled back a layer of my own shoddy bandaging and applied a sincere remedy - and unlike my other attempts, this one wasn't wearing off a few hours later to only reveal more corroded wire. Unless I went back in after the salve had been applied and stripped the wire raw again on my own, it stayed healed. I'd never experienced such a thing before -- and it made me crave more of it.

Little by little and day by day I realized that Jesus - yes, this same Jesus whom I had debated endlessly about and whom I had denied my entire life - was standing right in front of me, knocking persistently at my door and imploring that I let Him heal not just one or two of my raw nerves, but every single raw nerve I had. Ones I didn't even know I had. He would gladly take the bag of bricks I'd been accumulating off my back, set them down and forget them, and hand me a yoke that was truly a resting place for my soul. I was finding that Jesus was not some historical event to debate or some overlord desperate to condemn the world -- He was living and breathing and calling me, all in a way I couldn't explain. How could someone who lived 2,000 years ago be active in my life today?? Skeptical, thinking it was too good to be true, I eventually took Him up on His offer. And you know what? Every raw nerve is healing and my soul is at rest. This sure doesn't mean I don't have problems - it simply means that the fountain of hope & living water from which I now freely drink is enough to give me a contentment and a peace that goes well beyond whatever temporal problems I have -- and that, my friends, is rest for my soul.

{But then something changed. Please see Part Two}

Contrary to Popular Opinion

At one time or another we've all been excited to see a movie because of all the hype we've heard about it - only to be dismally disappointed. (I'm still sore about the fact that I lost two hours of my life to watching "Transformers 2.") In fact, it's gotten to the point where the more hype I hear about a movie, the less interested I am in seeing it. Some shows that are known as "classics" just boggle my mind for how they've stood the test of time (all I really remember from "Gone With The Wind" was that a snobby girl made herself a dress out of curtains. And there was a fire. Frankly my dear .....) In one setting or another I think we've all experienced that feeling of total befuddlement when what we were told to expect doesn't match up to the actual scenario -- and I don't think there's a difference when it comes to matters of faith.

If there's one thing I've learned from reading the Bible for myself, it's that it doesn't say 95% of what people say it says.

Put another way, there have been times that I've wondered if I'm even reading the same Bible as other people. I've heard the quotes fly ... I've heard the philosophies explained ... I've seen the examples of what people say are biblical traits .... only to become convinced I must be reading an alien translation.

You know what I think the #1 reason is for this? People don't read the Bible. Christians don't read the Bible. Oh they might read an individual verse or section here and there - maybe they even have it written in an elegant font overlaid on a beautiful sunset photo - but they don't read the Bible. Let me be more specific: People don't read the Bible first, and then come up with conclusions. We have conclusions in our minds and then read the Bible for passages to use for justification. There are few conversations that have ever occurred in which tiny snippets couldn't be extracted from their context, rearranged, and Frankenstein-ed into some conversation foreign to the original meaning. Imagine for a moment that someone went through your sent emails and only pulled individual sentences out and pasted them into a new email. What crazy things could be written in your own words?? I'm not saying that most people intentionally distort the Bible. I'm saying that anything taken out of context could be dangerous - and more often than not, things from the Bible are taken out of context. Most often we hear people talk about individual verses - or worse, parts of individual verses - but rarely do we ever hear people talking about the big picture. We have memory verses* coming out our ears (and mouths), and the shorter they are the better. But how often do we talk about the principles, the situation, the context behind those verses??

Every spring near graduation time I see all kinds of paraphernalia - like picture frames and keychains and coffee mugs - sporting the uplifting "Scriptural promise" to the new grads: "I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord. 'Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." (Jeremiah 29:11) But do we EVER stop to wonder if God was actually talking to the present-day graduates from Yuba City High School when He said that?? Does it even apply to graduates, or newlyweds, or me? Does every verse in the Bible translate and apply directly to my life?

Are you shaking your head 'yes, it does' right now? OK, then try this on for size:

"Curse God and die." Job 2:9
"Continue in sin so that grace may increase." Romans 6:1
"You go, and do likewise." Luke 10:37
"Jesus said to him, 'What you are going to do, do quickly.'" John 13:27
OK OK OK ... so that was obviously an exaggerated example to prove a point. I don't hear many people going around preaching that we should curse God and die ..... but I do hear people seriously teaching all kinds of other things that are found nowhere in Scripture. How many times have we heard someone quote, "Thou shalt not judge" (which I personally think is the world's favorite Scripture), yet they never quote, "Judge with righteous judgment." Why is that?? Because they pick out the verse that suits their agenda and they fail to read the entire context. It's no wonder why some say the Bible is full of confusion and contradictions! A simple reading of the whole context is usually enough to dispel those allegations.  Some of the out-of-context things or matters of pure opinion that are believed/taught make no difference in the big picture of life. Whether or not a person believes that God used 6 literal 24-hour days or periods of time means nothing to my daily life (unless, of course, I make this matter of opinion an issue of fellowship; sadly this is done all too often). But what about the parts of Scripture that are sorely taken out of context and taught as a complete doctrine, when what the Bible teaches is drastically different?

.......

I just erased a big paragraph of examples that I had written. You know why? (a) This post is long enough already; but more importantly, (b) it's not about taking MY word for it. All I'm trying to do here is encourage people to read the Bible for themselves. All of it. Repeatedly. From different perspectives. We need to have the whole picture in mind before we have any business dissecting tiny parts of it. I am absolutely convinced that we - as a society (believers & not) need to take a loooong, hard, fresh look at what we've been convinced the Bible teaches. We need to be much slower to jump to the defense and longer to listen to those who have differing views. Whether or not you are a believer, reading the whole Bible for yourself will be one of the most "wait a minute!!!" moments you've had (and yes, I am also speaking to those who've read it many, many times. I could (and might?) write an entire post on the filters with which we approach the Bible.) The first time I ever read the Bible (before I even believed there was a god), my biggest impression of it all was: This doesn't teach at all what I've always heard that it taught. It's only been in the last couple years that I've been able to take a step back again and look at the Word of God afresh .... only to realize again - and even more so - that what I took in as "fact" was SO much more tradition and our culture than Scripture. I dare you ........ I triple dog dare you ...... to read the Bible for yourself.

And if right now all you are thinking about is all "those people" who have distorted and decontextualized Scripture, you've missed my entire point.

God is not the Author of confusion - yet we end up confused by the tidbits we have pulled out of context. We try to assemble a car while leaving half the pieces on the bench. I believe this is where the wisdom lies in the psalmist's statement, "The sum of Your word is truth." Jesus says that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. It is likely that if you feel weighed down by the demands & commands of Christianity that you have swallowed more tradition & manmade doctrine than you have ingested the pure & simple words of the Lord. I know I did, for several years. Peeling back the layers of tradition from the pure Word of God is the most liberating thing I've ever done! One thing I need to specify though, just in case I have left a wrong impression: I am not claiming to have the monopoly on understanding God's Word. I am only saying that the one thing I do know for sure is that in too many people's minds, we have inextricably woven the laws & opinions of man with the pure Word of God.

*I'm not saying that memorizing parts of Scripture is bad; it can be quite helpful in some situations. I'm saying we have dissected the Word as a whole so much that it is hardly recognizable when we try to reassemble all the bite-sized pieces.

The Faith of an Atheist

"Faith, hope and love...

But the dumbest of these is faith."

(Summarizing a common thought of atheists)

Recently I celebrated nine years of being in Christ. Wow! Where did the time go?? In some ways I look back and it seems like it flew by - like maybe it's only been a year or two. Could my life really be that different now? But other times it feels like my life "B.C." (yes, "Before Christ") was another lifetime ... eons ago ... a vague dream that's hard to remember when waking.

So when I look back, what do I see? I can confidently tell you one thing: I have truly learned the meaning of the saying, "The more I know, the more I realize I don't know." Things that used to be so obvious to me - things I accepted about my faith and Christianity as a whole - that seemed rock-solid in my mind have become anything but solid. Now don't get scared - I'm not doubting my faith or Jesus at all. In fact I can easily say my faith and my confidence in Jesus as the Son of God is firmer now than it has ever been. I'm just talking about the application of that faith. But .... I digress. That's not where I'm going today.

I've already written about some of the things that went into my journey from being an atheist to a follower of Jesus, but of course there's no blog post long enough to describe all of it! Right now I want to dive into a topic that to me - when I was an atheist - was the worst "f" word in the world: faith. <<shudder>> What a horrible thing. What a check your brain at the door kind of trait. Who would want to be known by their faith?? It's practically like boasting about how low your IQ is.

Isn't it??

At the ripe ol' age of 24, I began really questioning my beliefs and worldview. At that point I was a "card-carrying atheist" (well, if there had been a card to carry for being an atheist, I would have carried it. I at least had the obligatory "Darwin fish" on my bumper.) I was as far left as you can imagine ... and probably a tad farther. I was convinced that if everyone in the world just put on their thinking caps for 5 solid minutes and were willing to set aside millennia of Dark Ages lore, they'd quickly realize how absurd it is to believe in some big guy in the sky just talking things into existence or destroying them. (Kinda makes you think of Tim from Monty Python's "Holy Grail" movie, doesn't it?) I mean, that's on par with thinking that I can get to heaven because I've eaten some dead guy's flesh and drank his blood, or that a bunch of strong guys from another world come across a rainbow bridge to help us poor little humans by fighting with a super-tough hammer, or that life began on earth by aliens sending tiny bacteria cells hitchhiking on a rock from space to earth ..... oh wait, that last one really is a belief some atheists (like Steven Dawkins) hold. Never mind that one.

Aren't we supposed to be in the age of science by now? Isn't it time we all give up on these crazy "grown-up Santa Claus" fantasies of God and bite down on the cold, hard truth that there is no meaning to life and that we are just one big cosmic accident?? Wanting something to be true doesn't make it true. If it did, I wouldn't have to be going to the gym to trim my rumpus; because I want it thinner it would be.

But I soon had to come to grips with my own cold, hard truth: The fact that I had come to the point of wanting there to be no God - then I wouldn't be accountable to anything beyond my own selfish agenda - didn't mean that there wasn't a God. I had been living in a way that was consistent with my world view: nothing's wrong if everyone involved consents; survival of the fittest meant I should be concerned with "me and mine" only. But yet ..... in the still, dark quiet of the night .... there was always something eating away at me. Some deep voice inside me kept reminding me that no matter how I justified it, I knew that living like this wasn't right. I knew it. But that doesn't mean I'd admit it. So I tried to drown out that voice - literally. I poured enough alcohol over that voice to drown an elephant - yet it kept whispering. And despite an ever-increasing amount of numbing self-medicating, that voice grew steadily louder. And louder. And louder. It about drove me mad. Finally I came to a breaking point - quite literally. SOMEthing wasn't adding up in my life - but I didn't know what that was. All I knew is that what I rationalized in my mind did not jive with what my heart screamed. Finally, I caved. I decided to reexamine everything. And I mean everything. What I did for a living, where I lived, who I spent my time with, my politics, my worldview, my opinions on life and death and God and afterlife and faith and all that. Everything was on the chopping block. I made a wholehearted decision that I would examine everything with as little bias as I could manage. If after investigation I concluded my previous belief, then so be it. I'd stick with it. But if I came to a different conclusion ..... then everything would change. And I mean everything.

There was one thing above everything else that was the nail in the coffin of my atheism. Once I jumped this obstacle, I had to look at everything differently. Nothing was the same. "What's the difference," I asked myself, "between me reading my science textbooks and believing it, and me listening to my biology professors and believing them -- and a Christian who reads their Bible and listens to their preacher and believes them?" At first all the justifications flooded my brain, like "My textbooks are based on fact. There are proofs. There are experiments that prove the conclusions. There's physical evidence. A Bible is just written by a bunch of guys who didn't even know each other over thousands of years. And it's full of contradictions." However, in an effort to be true to my resolve to give everything a fair shake, I kept thinking it out. Soon I realized that my Biology textbook is in its 7th edition. Why do they revise science books? It's not just for updated graphics. It's because they've proven some things and disproven others, and new theories have come out. After all, isn't it called the Theory of Evolution? The plain fact of the matter is that when I read my textbook, I believe that those experiments actually happened as they were reported. I believe that the author wouldn't lie to me and publish bogus stuff. I believe that my professor teaches me what s/he has personally seen proven. But I never saw those things. I never saw that fossil. I take what I read and hear on faith. WHOA!!!!! Did I just say I had FAITH!?!?!! YIKES!!!!! If anyone ever hears me say that, they'll revoke my atheist card!!!!

But it made sense. And I couldn't shake that thought. I walked around all day thinking, "I have faith. I've had to have faith to believe in science. That just doesn't make sense. Yet it makes perfect sense." When it really comes down to it, doesn't everything we believe in take faith? Even what we see with our own eyes and touch with our own fingers takes faith that it is real - that we aren't hallucinating - that we're not out of our minds.

The moment I realized that I've had faith all along, suddenly Christians didn't seem so dumb. (Well ok, they were still pretty dumb but not totally dumb.) After all, isn't it all just a matter of where you place your faith? Not whether or not you have faith?

So at that moment I decided to give the Bible a fair chance. I would read it from cover to cover, without going on a witch hunt or with an agenda to prove it wrong -- simply just to read it and see what all the fuss was about. After all, I'd never read it. I'd made a lifetime of arguing against its validity, yet I'd never read it. The closest I'd come was to hearing the same chapter from the gospel of Luke recited every Christmas Eve service I was forced to go to, and in printing off lists from the internet about all the contradictions. But even that I took on faith, that someone was representing it truthfully. If I read the Bible and it was a bunch of hocus-pocus, then I'd set it back down and have even more ammunition for future debates. But if not ..... if it wasn't a bunch of hooey ...... then everything would change.

And believe me, it has. Oh how it's changed. And it keeps changing .......

"Faith, fact and proof...

But the cornerstone of these is faith."

More on the most important transitions in my life:

Epiphany #1

Epiphany #2

Epiphany #3

My Three Epiphanies - #3

I hope that before you read the rest of this post, you've read Epiphany #1 and Epiphany #2 first. Then this will make a lot more sense. Just to recap, what I am listing in these three posts are the three most important "revelations" in my life. I don't at all mean that these are anything special or unique to me - these truths have been around for thousands of years. Not exactly ground-breaking stuff. But to me, coming to understand these three things have changed everything about my life - and have become much of the foundation upon which everything else in my life is being built.

With my first post, I imagine much of the world agreed with me. The vast majority of this world believes that there is something higher than us - something supernatural going on in the universe. Most people, in fact, probably don't remember a time where they didn't believe that, or where they had to prove that to themselves. Most people have just taken it as a given that there is a god. With my second post I imagine that although many people would agree with me, the number is considerably less than the first post. While most people believe there is some sort of higher power or god, substantially less believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Now, with my third post, I imagine the audience will narrow even more. But here we go anyway.

#3. There is a big difference between a Christian and a Churchan.
As I write this, there is a video going virally around the internet in which a young man explains why he "loves Jesus but hates religion." Frankly, I don't really like the video or agree with it. According to the Bible, you cannot have Jesus without having true religion. That being said, I would wholeheartedly agree that much of what man has turned religion into - even Christianity - does not at all resemble the Christianity that Christ designed. Ironic, huh? So, how do we tell the difference? If it was up to my opinions vs. your opinions, there could and would be endless debate. Thank God we have a definitive source on the topic - the Bible. In the book of James we read, "Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world." We also read that is why Sodom was judged so harshly - because they did not do those things! But alas, I am getting sidetracked a bit. (I do that from time to time.) ;-)

So, what is the difference between a Christian and a Churchan, you ask? How can I tell the two apart? Let me give a couple of examples. Be honest as you answer the questions to yourself. If you, being a believer, are having a conversation with another person, which of the following questions are you more likely to ask?

• "What church do you go to?"  -or-
• "Do you know Jesus?"

If you were going to take the conversation to the next level, would you ask:

• "Would you like to come to church with me?" -or-
• "Can I tell you about how Jesus has changed my life?"

Which of the following have you used to 'advertise' your faith:

• "You should come to my church. We are a really loving group of people and have a very active youth group. Our preacher gives really encouraging sermons and we have good, upbeat music." -or-
• "Man, I sure made a mess out of my life and had really hit rock bottom. I can sure relate with where you're at. But thankfully God loves me so much that He sacrificed His own Son, Jesus, so that I could be reconciled to Him. My life has never been better! I sure don't mean that I don't have any problems - I still have all kinds of things I struggle with - but since I have His Spirit in me, I know that Jesus is helping me to change, and I have a promise of a home in heaven with Him."

Be honest. Which of these two options sounds like your conversations? By and large, Christians today preach the church and not Jesus. So why is that a big deal? Jesus said, "If I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to Myself." Not only was Jesus talking about being lifted off the ground on a cross, He was talking about what the draw would be: Himself. Jesus is supposed to be who we flock to - not something He created. The church is something Jesus built -- it is a by-product of being in Him. What's an analogy I might use? Maybe marriage. Did you get married because you were in love with the idea of being married, or because you were in love with your spouse? Was being married your goal, or was spending the rest of your life with that special person your goal, and so you got married? The church is no different. Obviously I'm not against marriage - I am married. But that's not why I got married. Similarly, I am in the church [ie the kingdom, not a certain denomination] because I am in love with Jesus. Would I talk to a single person about the benefits of tax exemption and cheaper bills because you can split them with someone, therefore you should get married? Of course not. So why do we skip over Jesus and talk about the church? What has become the draw?

There are many scary consequences of lifting up the church instead of Jesus. For one, we would be guilty of worshiping the created thing instead of the Creator - and we know that doesn't go over well with God. We should be like the apostles and early followers of Christ - we should preach Jesus also. Think about Peter's famous sermon on the day of Pentecost after the ascension of Jesus: did Peter preach the church? Did he preach any of the benefits of the church? Did he ever even talk about the church? No. Through Peter, the Holy Spirit convicted the thousands of listening Jews of their sin and where they stood in relation to God because of it. Once their hearts had been cut because of that, it was the hearers that asked, "Brethren, what shall we do?" Can you hear the pleading in their voice? I can - I've been in the same place! It was only then that Peter told them to repent of their sinful life, be baptized for the forgiveness of their sin, and then he promised they would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. That's what should be our draw!! Only after we see the 3,000 people obeying the gospel that day is it mentioned that "God was adding daily to the church those who were being saved." Then we see what the church was busy doing.

Here's my final, probably most important thought on this. When we lift up the church instead of lifting up Jesus, we tend to forget who our Master is. We forget who was given ALL authority on heaven and on earth. We can easily start making spiritual decisions based on the will of the church, and not of the will of Jesus. "Well I would never do that," you think. "My allegiance is to Christ." Let me challenge you to really examine that. When faced with a decision of which path you will take, do you first think, "What about the congregation? - The elders would/n't want me to do that. - That decision might alienate some people. - If I do this, not everyone would understand and I'd be on my own."  To whom do we look for guidance? It is easy to start weighing spiritual decisions based on how many people agree and would also do, instead of simply asking, "Is this what Jesus wants me to do?" What if we see a conflict between what elders teach and what Jesus teaches? When elders, for example, teach that sharing our faith is only for a "select few that have a special calling" yet we hear Jesus saying that the entire reason we were saved is to proclaim Him to the world, with whom do we side? Even if the elders aren't corrupt, do you think the Son of God wants to share His glory and authority with another?? (I'm not trying to undermine the guidance of biblical elders - I'm simply trying to ask whether or not we've looked to them to legislate our spiritual decisions.) What if you're faced with the decision on whether or not you will pursue true, biblical worship instead of calling the traditions of man the doctrine of God, and you know that many (most?) will not agree or understand. Some will even dislike you for it. What do you do?

A true disciple of Jesus never considers the consequences before he/she decides whether or not they will obey Jesus.

Through the Spirit my senses are being trained to discern a Christian from a Churchan, and it has become amazingly easy to do so - it's as if a foreign language is interjected in conversations. Listen closely to the content of your spiritual discussions; do you speak of the immeasurable riches of the grace given to you by Jesus, or do you talk about the activities of your church?

More:

Epiphany #1

Epiphany #2

The Faith of an Atheist

Author's note: I sure pray that I can continually add epiphanies to my list. I by no means consider that I "have arrived" or have figured everything out. Far, far from it!! If you know anything about my life, or have even read a few of my posts, you see that the whole point of me listing these epiphanies is to show that I have - and will - change everything in my life if I become convinced I should do so. I am sure not afraid to admit I've been wrong and change course. I pray that God continues to show His truth to me, and that I grow in His wisdom. :-) 

My Three Epiphanies - #2

Welcome back! First of all, I hope you've read Epiphany #1. If not, then #2 won't make as much sense. As I said in the intro to #1, in my life I have had three major epiphanies - major breakthroughs in my thinking and understanding that have changed everything in my life. And I really do mean everything. My first epiphany at the ripe ol' age of 24 was that there is a god. And then ......

Epiphany #2 - Jesus is the Son of God
For many people, they assume that #1 is the same as #2. But let me assure you, there is a wide chasm of understanding between knowing there is a god - some kind of higher power or something supernatural in the universe - and putting a name and character traits to that God. Billions of people in this world believe #1 without believing #2. Many people believe that there are just vague forces of good and evil, that Allah is their god, or they believe in Buddhism, etc etc etc. without that higher power being the man, Jesus Christ. So how did I get from #1 to #2? A lot of research. And an open, seeking heart.

I would say that one of the hardest things when doing any kind of research is to put aside our own preconceived ideas and preferences. At the point in my life where I was between #1 and #2, I was still in much of my old mindset - namely, that religious people had swallowed "the opiate of the masses" and that in order to believe anything as antiquated as the Bible, you had to check all intellect and critical thinking at the door. I mean, that book is a few thousand years old! How in the world could it possibly relate to my life today? And besides, I'd made quite a habit of printing off lists from the internet of "Contradictions in the Bible" and using them to debate people. So don't think for a minute that I had any slant towards the Bible or Christianity! In fact, I think at that point I had given more credence to eastern religions and mysticism. (Which, it's so funny to me what we call an "eastern" religion or a "western" religion. Christianity is seen as a western religion - but why, I have no idea. It was born in Iraq and fulfilled in Israel. Not really what I think of as western society.) Anyway - I at least decided to look into Christianity. While you might hear of people who denounce particular denominations, you very rarely hear of people who turned to Jehovah (the God of the Bible) and regretted it later.

So, I set out to study. I had studied the Book of Mormon (some people very close to me were Mormon). I looked into Buddhism, as well as the native American ideas, etc.. I also decided to read the Bible, just to see what all the fuss was about. While grocery shopping in a superstore, I grabbed a Bible. It was the "So That's Why! Bible" - one that's very textbook-like. I wanted my quest to be intellectual research, and I liked how this particular book tied biblical events and times into "the real world." But, while shopping, I was afraid that people would get the wrong impression of me if they saw me buying a Bible, so I hid it under a case of beer. Every night after work I would crack a beer and crack the Bible. That particular book is laid out chronologically. Soon I would really look forward to my reading time - it was fascinating to me. I would have all my old art history books out, and when I would read about things like the apostle Paul dealing with people who were making shrines to the goddess Artemis, I would flip open my art books and look at photos of the temple of Artemis. Since my background was in art, it helped me make "real-world" correlations, which validated what the Bible was saying. There are other books that claim to be from God that do not have any such validations. The people and places mentioned have never been verified - but not so with the Bible.

The only way I can describe my experience with slowly coming to believe the Bible is that you have to read it to believe it. There's nothing I can say to convince you. And when I say "read it", I mean READ IT. I don't mean to read commentaries on it or summaries of it, or to read bits and portions of it. I mean dedicate to sit down and read it. After all, if it's false, then by reading it you'll only have more ammo against believers, right? (But again, I wholeheartedly believe in "seek and ye shall find" - or in other words, you will find what you look for. If you are only looking for things that don't make sense or things you don't agree with, you'll find plenty. If you are looking objectively at it, you will find an objective truth.) Once I had been reading the Bible for a little while, I easily came to see that the vast majority of so-called contradictions of the Bible were simply misunderstandings or things taken out of context. For example, on many lists of contradictions, you'll see things like "in Genesis 1 it says God was pleased with creation, but in Gen 6 it says He was not pleased. That's a contradiction." Really? First of all, you have to notice that there is quite a difference in the point in time these two comments were made. Most people say over 1,600 years difference. God was pleased with what He had done, but was not pleased with what man had turned His creation into. Big difference. But you'd never get that by reading two verses out of context. When you study the explanations, the contradictions seem trivial at best.

So, now that I had come to believe the Bible, I had to believe what the Bible said about things like the afterlife, the purpose of my life now, what happens to those who follow Christ and those who don't, and whether or not we have an excuse for not believing. I remember as I read the Bible for the first time, I thought, "Well even if I died now I'd be ok, because surely God wouldn't hold me accountable for something I didn't know." Right? Wow, I still remember (almost 9 years later) exactly where I was sitting when I first read, "Since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse." It goes on to talk about no person will ever be able to say that they didn't have enough evidence to believe in God, and we will all be held accountable for that. That's sobering stuff. No wonder I remember that moment 9 years later. We all understand these concepts in ordinary life, but for some reason we won't translate the logic to faith. If I was driving down the freeway doing 90mph and the cop pulled me over, could I get away with telling her that because I didn't read the speed limit sign, I shouldn't get a ticket? Of course not! Yet we act like ignorance of God's Word will somehow be a free pass on the day of judgment.

So where did this all leave me? I now believed there was a higher power at work in the universe. I now knew that higher power was Jehovah, and His Son was Jesus. Not only did Jesus come down from heaven, take the form of a man, live a perfect life to show us the will of God, but he was crucified because of *my* sin and then God raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in heaven. So what? What does that mean for my life? Well, that means everything. Everything changes. My life is no longer under my own control. The only logical thing to do was to submit myself to the God that not only has the power to create everything that has ever been created, but who has the love for me to give His Son as a sacrifice for me. He loved me enough that He would provide a way for me to be forgiven of my sin, be reconciled into a right relationship with Him, and teach me day by day how to live for Him. He would give me His Spirit to dwell inside of me to help me! He knows I am incapable of living holy on my own!! The kindness of God led me to repent of my selfish lifestyle, be baptized for the forgiveness of my sins so that I could be born to a new life full of purpose and hope. Everything changed, and I would never, ever go back to the way things were. Praise God that He has the power - and the love - to change me one day at a time.

to be continued.....

Epiphany #1

Epiphany #3

The Faith of an Atheist

Author's note: I am not trying in one blog entry to convince you that there is a god and that He is Jesus. That's not my job. All I am trying to do is to tell a tiny bit of what happened in my life that led me from being an atheist to where I am now. While I can - and should - give you all the reasons for the hope within me, unless you are willing to seek Him (on His terms), dedicate yourself to the study of His Word and to live whatever is in it, then no little blog entry will change anything. 


Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He exists, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.
Heb 11:6

My Three Epiphanies - #1

In the 33 years that I have been alive, I would say that there have been three "discoveries" in my life that have changed everything. I don't mean discoveries in terms of penicillin, space shuttles or the internet (although Facebook comes close to qualifying) - I mean truths that I have discovered for myself that changed my life. Not only did my beliefs about things change, but my entire way of thinking had to change, as well as every thing about my life. I also don't mean that these truths are special or independent to me - as if I received a revelation unknown to mankind. In fact, these epiphanies are probably millennia old to the world; just new to me. But I don't use the term "epiphany" lightly.  So here they are:

1. There is a god.
More on this transition here: "The Faith of an Atheist"
The majority of people in the world accepted that there was at least some kind of higher power at work in the universe pretty much from the day they were born. But I didn't. This one took me 25 years to get. Although I grew up in a family that believed this, I never did. I was definitely a "5 senses" kind of person - if I couldn't see it, touch it, taste it, hear it or feel it (in the way I had defined), then it didn't exist. Oh now plenty of people would say "What about electricity? You can't see that, yet when you flip a switch the lights come on." -or- "What about the wind? You can't see the wind, you only see the effects of the wind." And frankly, I think those questions were just so cliché that I didn't really pay any attention to them. In fact I've never known of an atheist that was swayed in any way by them - even though they are good questions. I believe my atheism started out for two main reasons - the first was that there was no god standing in front of me face-to-face that I could ask questions of. (I mean really, people doubted Santa Claus, but at least he was at the mall once a year.)

The second was that my kid-brain way of testing the hypothesis of whether there was a god bore no fruit. I remember sitting on my bed at the ripe old age of 7, staring up at the white wood shutters over my window. I remember telling God that I would believe in Him all my life and do whatever He wanted me to do if only He would move my shutters. Just a little. He didn't have to unhinge them and make them float around the room or anything, just wiggle them a little. Then I'd be all His. I mean, surely a god that could create the universe could wiggle a kid's shutters, right? And surely He would want me to believe in Him, right? Well, my shutters never moved (as you might have guessed) and I went to bed disappointed. It wouldn't be until years later ... probably 20 ... that I would read how many people (and Satan) are recorded in the Bible asking God to do the same type things. I would never have guessed how many times people have said, "IF you are the Son of God..... command these stones to be turned to bread .... throw yourself off the temple and let the angels heal you ... take yourself down from the cross." And then what do they say? Then "we will believe in You!" And even while Jesus was on [mock] trial, the Jews again gave Jesus an "if" statement. But Jesus answered, "If I tell you, you won't believe." And guess what? They didn't.

So why do I bring these up? For one, to prove that I'm not the first person in history to tell God to prove Himself to me (and I know I won't be the last). And to prove that I'm not the first one God said no to. But why? Shouldn't He have given me every reason to believe? It's not like I was asking Him to destroy a race of people, and when Satan asked Him to turn those desert stones to bread, it's not like Jesus was taking those rocks out of the mouths of hungry people. So why not? Simply, we don't make the conditions by which God proves Himself. Try to think about this from God's point of view: if His claims are true, then He created the entire universe. He created planets and stars that we haven't even found yet. He created sea monkeys and T-Rex and hydrogen. He gives me life & breath. Yet I'm telling God that none of that is enough for me; that I will determine the evidence I need to believe. (i.e., "Thanks, God, for creating me - you just don't know what makes me tick and how I think.") Frankly I don't blame Him for telling us that creation alone give us every bit of evidence we need to believe in Him. If we choose not to, we can never look to God and say, "I know you created the cosmos for me, but since You didn't move my shutters when I asked, I didn't believe in You. Basically it's Your fault."

But for me, when life was fine and I was healthy and everything was going swimmingly, I really didn't see a need to look for a god. It wasn't until I was knocked flat on my back from the dumb choices I repeatedly made that I came to the conclusion there MUST be another way. That's when I decided to really check into matters of faith - not just from an unbeliever's standpoint (i.e., printing out lists of 'contradictions' in the Bible from the internet to debate with), but I needed to start reading stuff that claimed to be from God. It was only through that process that God opened my heart to see Him. I had to quit setting my own terms and approach Him on His terms. Have you tried that? Or are you still where I was? Frankly it's worth a shot and you have nothing to lose. But I will warn you, you have to be absolutely prepared for whatever you might find. If you go into any research with a slanted view, that's all you'll find (either way - religious or not.) We have to somehow get to the point where we go to the evidence with a mind that says, "If the evidence doesn't prove there is a god, then I won't believe and nothing changes. But if the evidence does point to God, then I have to be prepared for what that means for my life." If we don't plan on at least the possibility of change, then it's useless to research it. I now believe the promise that if we do not have a love of the truth, then we will not find the truth. That's pretty scary, huh?

to be continued.....
Epiphany #2
Epiphany #3
The Faith of an Atheist

Author's note: I hope it's obvious that it would be impossible for me to include everything that went into the process of going from not believing in anything beyond the chemistry of the earth to accepting the supernatural to believing there is a god. There's countless ways I could've talked about this part of my life and thousands of examples. This post just reveals the way my brain wrapped around the topic today. It's quite possible (and likely, even) that this wasn't the best or most understandable way. If you have any other questions or are interested in more of the story, please feel free to contact me. Thank you.