Worry, into fear, fear. A step backwards.

To tell someone to never worry doesn't really make sense, we worry it seems to be of human nature. It's how we focus on that worry, we can't live in teh future nor should we live in the past. It's in the now that we find Jesus Christ our Lord, the today is the focus, for today has enough troubles of its own. With that being said our worry shouldn't take precedence over fully experiencing living.

1: John 4:18

That (worry) turns into a fear. Grace get's rid of alot of past discressions even future, our God is not a fearful Lord (can be) but a loving Lord of Grace and Justice. It seems to me we fear less and less as we follow Him. Fear holds back love, it can hold back the crushing of hells gates. Grace has us covered (not as a cruth, we are to strive foward to be like Christ.) It is not by acts we are saved, but by the Lamb. This 2nd exodus of Jesus Christ, by this we are saved. For we cannot save ourselves. Helping our brothers and sisters is great, but it's by grace alone we can even help our brothers and sisters. Being the body is not repayent, but being the love and grace of a broken people who have been saved by Grace.

Fear would be a constant state if our God was all wrate (it would be reguvinating to not follow a wrathful God.) I seek Him not in fear but Love, I hope not to disapoint my Lord. I am a sinner, who is under Grace and we are set 'ritcheous' from the blood of the Lambe. If we pick up the cross and follow Him, we were saved 'for God so loved the world...' thing. He wants us to follow after, gave us the means to be in His presence. Fear shouldn't be something that keeps me from the Kingdom, if our suffering is contemplated and transfigured. If we believe 'it stops at the cross' then we should not fear sin as we sometimes do.

I think,could you imagine being an enemy of God? Isn't that the idea of we are sinner thorugh and through. The body teh enemy of the head? The body is in trouble if it is disconnected from the majority of the senses. Not much of a vision. If it's as bad as hell fire and brimstone as some say, why would Jesus say "Come follow me and become fishers of men." be my student, be like your Rabbi (I say that a lot, ahaha but I think it's important.) He belives in us, so we should believe through Him, through grace, that we can believe in us. Believe that he can guide us, because we are ritcheous in a sense. So there is some presuposition it's possible, possible to be like Christ.

It's possible for us to be like Christ, why be called to an impossible? There has to be some hope for what the Church can become. Fear is a step back, too much worry is a step backwards. Faith itself is scary, it takes faith to step into... faith. A moving of fears into something else. Sometimes it seems we are out of our minds following God. ahaha

A trusting in the Truth, the reality that is God. The truth revealed that is Chrsit. He showed rebirth, suffering doesn't last, God's reality. Hope. Love. We are saved through the blood (love) not our own actions, but by God's love and sacrifice.

I'm out for now, once again from here... still so much to be said and contemplate.

With peace and love,

my brothers and sisters.

contemplating the cross, a bit.

The cross was an end to suffering. A means of saying, 'it stops here.' The way it was doesn't mean it always has to be. Suffering can continue but grace has been provided for transfiguration to occur. Suffering transfigured into beauty and divine knowledge.

Communion is a great symbolism of what Christ did for us. Not only in remembering Him, remembering what He did. What our Rabbi did, who we are supposed to be like and our Rabbi died upon a cross. There is a thing with suffering and divine change. 'Take this in remembrance of me.' There was a lot of, remember this, remember when you were in exile and I brought you into the holy land out of Egypt. The Exodus occurred and then remember the second exodus, on a larger scale of exodus when Christ died on the Cross. Skin broken and blood spilled, a justified graceful action that saved the whole world.

Remembering His suffering while I took communion today I thought more about what we are called to. 'covered by the dust of our Rabbi.' Remember the suffering as Christians we are going to face. Suffering to help others, not always putting yourself out there as a sheep to be slaughtered. "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." Suffering can vary.

But as I took communion today I really focused on that... Christ suffering and trying to really focus on what we are called to and to what extent this calling can be.

"Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings." 1 Corinthians 9:19-something... I forget... it's all good.

I don't want to just focus on Christ's death, don't get me wrong it's a great focus and of major importance for me to be in Shalom with my maker, shalom with my true humanity in which God intended. When He created me... when everything and all we know was started. Christ died but he conquered death and rose again. ahaha but what am I saying? What Christ did when He died was of VAST importance, how He lived was and how it all built up historically was just another one of those VAST important things. ahaha I could continue on for a while... it's so astounding.

I'm off to hang out some more. Please add thoughts and contemplations, it's all for some good discussion.

with peace and love,
my brothers and sisters.

"The Path is narrow."

John 6. People had to leave, this teaching... this yoke is tough.

Shall I preach for people to leave?
not, "GET OUTTA HERE!" type of thing.

"I smoke, drink and do a lot of things that aren't necessarily good... I shouldn't feel on top of the world about myself after church.", I have heard said recently.

The gospel is challenging when taken seriously. Challenging till you just want to leave even.
The journey that is, isn't simple.

A tour guide is used a lot as an example. I'm not bringing Jesus to someone, I'm showing or saying, 'He's here and always been here... for the grass to grow and the sun to shine... the crops to bare fruit and vegetables for the animals to eat. To bring nutrition, even amongst the worst times and He is hard to see.' A tour guide...

It's not easy, more and more questions arise and even by following Jesus more problems come up. He was martyred, I have to remind myself of this. The rabbi that we are supposed to come follow after, be covered in dust by... was killed upon the cross. His disciples (eventually, by eventually... during the worst time. They were pretty terrified, but hey I would be too if I was amogst people who want to kill me.) took that quite seriously.

Let us not forget Hope either. Hope in a new world, hope that this discipleship will lead to a better tomorrow, when taken seriously. Not just a walk in the park.

A tour guide just doesn't show you the beauty and simplicity. He shows you the hardships, the strenuous activity. From that they can show you a beauty, they reveal their journey to you. It's why their a guide in the first place.... this trail, mountain or water way is their journey.
Showing truth is yours, how to look through it and understand the journey. Help guide you along the way until, your are sort of on your own enjoying the trip.

It's tough, few will take up the cross... I question how much I REALLY understand this and how seriously I take picking up the cross.

I'm not sure where we got the idea in the church to be opposite culture, instead of seeing culture and just pointing out God where culture doesn't see Him (truth) Where we as believers miss Him.

At the cross, yes a place most instantly speak of.. but how many times do we... or for that do I, actually really take the time for a, 'contemplation on the cross"?

Transfigurative (definitely not a word or I spelled it atrociously) powers of the cross... a lot stopped there and was renewed or birthed. Our birth from death... dying to being reborn into righteousness.... A justified act of grace. Christ got the pain and suffering for our sins we deserve.

So, my point of thought is, it's tough not always the roughest times. There will be simple times of being a Christian, but not all ways a cake walk. We should let people know that. it isn't the spritual faith that you hear on TV (most the time) that you'll be rich, a rockstar or a movie star if you believe in Christ... the opposite could happen and something amazing could blossom from that. The road is tough and the path is narrow...

There is so much to ponder and reflect on... I'm off to do just that, lates.

God's love is astounding...
Christs compassion is amazing...
The holy spirits guidance is exceptional...

so easy to discuss, so difficult to just do. So hard to let yourself just sit and bask in such... amazing grace and love.

rethinking 'progress'

This is a, well, it's a reply to myself in this post the 'nakedness'. http://krisdenoyer.blogspot.com/2009/03/nakedness.html

The more I've been reading and even seeing during my past travels (hearing and seeing some people talk about MI). I've been seeing certain things that I thought 'progress' was good for. Like my progress forward in faith, intelligence, common sense, love... those things. Progress states you find a meaning, you move forward in your understanding of the meaning at this point inlife or time. Also, the meaning of where technology stands in progress, political progress, economical progress... etc. We make steps to show where progress stands and then you see this boomerang effect. It comes back, statistics show it in the book 'Hope in troubled times' (evidence cited in book).

So gun-ho on progress, perhaps it's our idea of progress in correlation to living (living in society) that's the problem. Instead of just living, we see things in a step form or a graph form (statistical form?).

Charles Chaplin stated, "What do you want a meaning for? Life is a desire, not a meaning." Which has validity to it, maybe life is a set of desires. Desires to help, desires for love, to show love and to be loved, and even the desire to be successful and good at what we do. You have a set progress towards meaning and understanding. We should have a movement forward of desires, healthy desires (who defines healthy?, I ask myself this.). So maybe desires is a bad way to put it, not quite sure a different way to state it at the moment. I'm still working forward through this. As a Christian I have a purpose of living like Christ, not a progress of living like Christ but just plain out seeking, sowing and serving... like Christ and finding the ultimate reality, God (you can tell I've been re-reading velvet elvis).

Back to this boomerang effect of progress, bills are passed politically to help economically. These are passed and even in our boarders we seem some effect years down the line. Trying to help people buy homes during the carter era, opened up changes and manipulation to the credit card companies (during the clintons presidency). Which people bought homes who couldn't afford them (which continued into the bush terms, which we saw more of the repricussion at the end and beginning of obama), which banks were giving out money they wouldn’t be able to get back... by now everyone should know this story. We give out money to correct the economy (it's a 50/50 chance to work or fail. it failed in Japan, could work for us). I'm not gonna argue the decisions economically, just the idea of progress. This will effect car companies (the world, everything really. a breaking point), our idea of progress is kind of odd. To have things, homeless raised after bills were passed to help homeless people (sorry to be vauge... really vauge). At first it could work, but later on things change and progress doesn't change with the times. We had that step taken care of, the times move and the effect comes around needing another progession forward. Another step.

(basically, the boomerang effect... bills are passed to help a country, community. Wherever, it helps for a short time period but after a while, the poverty rate normally jumps in that area.)

Technologically move forward to help, leaves a lacking of understanding besides that machine that isn't working... I need to fix it to continue this progress. Instead of, if that machine breaks I can just continue where it left off myself. Easier said than done. I understand. Maybe I went all over place with this train of thought, perhaps I didn't. I'll come down to one thing. A personal help in hand, one on one or group to group... people to people. Economically, socially... etc. pass the bills, politics can move on. But, people helping people... the church being the church.

The boomerang effect can be more crushing in one huge movement, but one person or group at a time... personally helping one another. It's no longer a progress, it's a movement forward that has the advantage to change with the times.