Love is Enough!

I think there is a lot who think that to be completely loved by the Father; we must do things to win his love or approval. We must accomplish things that Christians are supposed to accomplish, like attending a church building, evangelize to add to the Kingdom, and the list goes on… I think if we truly want to know what Father’s love is like, we need to stop trying to ‘do’ anything and learn how to just be content in learning how to live loved without doing anything. I think some may find this to be a little foreign, but once they see this for what it really is, my hope is that the light will go on. I have had some great in depth discussions on facebook about evangelism, and quoting scripture, and the thing that I have mostly heard is if we ‘do’ these things according to how we were taught and according to certain scriptures as they are perceived, then we will be loved. Though it doesn’t seem like love is enough, and it seems that some think there is always something more we have to accomplish in order to be completely loved by the Father. This kind of mentality of thinking I think just becomes more about what we ‘do’ and less about living loved by Father and loving others. If I am not mistaken, I think the greatest commandment was to love the Lord your God with all of your heart soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. The rest is pretty trivial to this… I really believe that if people will stop trying so hard to please God according to their to do lists than I think they will find rest when they put down their efforts and just learn how to live loved that will bring about so much more peace, and fulfillment. Love is enough, if we only have eyes to see that it can and will accomplish way more than our efforts can ever put forth. More thoughts to come in relation to this post…

Resurrection = LIFE

As Resurrection Day is vastly approaching; I thought it would be appropriate to write about what I find to be the most important thing about Resurrection Day weekend. I find it odd that it seems like a lot of believers glorify His death over His life He has given to us. It is easy to get caught up in how He died, and how gruesome His death was. I find why people seem to be attracted to His death over Him coming alive again. It seems that it is another guilt trip to get all bent out of shape over and to feel really horrible because He did not deserve any of which He suffered. I totally see how that can be hard to not give attention to, however, it seems that in every movie, play or anything that I have seen around this time of year is always focused on the death and rarely emphasizes on Him coming back to life, hence the resurrection of Jesus. Like in Passion of the Christ, the entire film was about what happened leading up to Jesus dying on the cross and the biggest scene of the movie was Him dying on the cross, and only showed a brief part of Him rising from the dead at the very end scene! I sense that this focus seems to be a bit off. I am in no way disregarding what Jesus suffered for us; however, I think the entire thought of Him dying would have been for nothing if He wouldn’t have come alive again. He died so that we may live, but that doesn’t mean that He is still dead, He was raised up and for our sake so that we may have a real live relationship with Him. It is something that doesn’t get enough attention in Christian circles today, so it seems. His life is something I thrive on. His life is the reason why I live today. It wasn’t just because he died, but because He lives.

The word, Resurrection means:

1.the act of rising from the dead.

2.(initial capital letter ) the rising of Christ after His death and burial.

3.(initial capital letter ) the rising of the dead on Judgment Day.

4.the state of those risen from the dead.

5.a rising again, as from decay, disuse, etc.; revival.

6.Christian Science. a rising above mortality through the understanding of spiritual life as demonstrated by Jesus Christ.

Found on dictionary.com

Other words that I have found that are in correlation to the word, Resurrection: rebirth, revivification, reappearance, restoration, renewal, resurgence, revitalization. All of these words are about life, not about death… It is the reason why He died is to bring us life in Him. I find that His life is something that needs to be reflected on and I want to take it all in this weekend when I ponder on His life that He has given me, and be eternally grateful and honored that He calls me His.

Christian Evangelism - Is It Really Effective?

In the last couple of days I have been thinking about evangelism and about how its been done for decades. In a recent study, it has been proven that traditional evangelism is short lived and does not effectively work for lasting God-relational results... If people in general are interested in straight forward relationships with people, than why doesn't evangelism stem from cultivating relationships with each other and God then coming from a place where we feel we have to convince people of God and shove guilt down their throats if they aren't convinced, or in the same sense demand that they go to church or Bible study with us... To me, these kind of active evangelism tactics just lead to a dead end from the beginning and does not produce lasting and effective results.

Here is something from the book, Unchristian, that has really opened my eyes to how traditional evangelism has become more damaging than anything else.

"In asking about how Christians come across to people, we interviewed Steven, a thirty-four-year-old who moved to New York from Phoenix. During the interview, he described his initial excitement when he met a peer in an unfamiliar city. 'A young guy approached me in a subway station once, friendly, full of questions, interested in talking. He seemed really nice, and I couldn't believe that a New Yorker was being so, well, nice! We exchanged numbers and said we'd hang out sometime. Next time I heard from him, he invited me to a Bible study, and that was all he wanted to talk about. When I said, 'No thanks,' I never heard from him again.' Rather than being genuinely interested in people for their friendship, we often seem like spiritual headhunters."

So, the traditional evangelism tactics that we Christians were trained to use on people are obviously not working, and the saddest part about this is many Christians seem to be more concerned in converting people than building lasting relationships.

Holy Spirit Speaks

This post is referring to a comment that was left a couple of posts ago in regards to why I don’t reference scripture. First of all, I have to be completely honest with everyone and anyone who feels welcome to come here and read what my heart has to say! I base my relationship with Father God not strictly on what the bible says… He is more real to me than what the bible says… To me, the bible is just a reference, and of course truth exists in the midst of it, however, life with Father is much more than words to me, or stories from long ago. He is a living being that desires life with me, and I find that to be very real outside of reading or referencing scripture… There are times of course that Father will bring a scripture or verse to mind, but, I depend more on the living nature of God, meaning the Holy Spirits words that are spoken directly to me from Him. Some may find this to be dangerous, but, if I am correct His word and the words in the bible do not and will not contradict each other because they are the same. He is the same today, tomorrow and for eternity! Father has so much to tell each and everyone of us, if we only will wait and listen to what He is telling us... I believe He does and will use the bible to speak to many, but, if we disregard His spiritual voice, than we may be missing a lot of what we can get out of being in relationship with Him! If you listen, He will speak!

Intensive Longing

Pain and love have something extremely in common. They both deal with immense passion. They express longing for who is and who was. This expresses something that deeply identifies passion, an intensive longing for one who is in love and one who is mourning over one that was loved or who was loved in return. This demonstrates intense connections between two beings. Something that can never be understood for something any different than what this represents. It is a longing and expressive passion both in long sufferings and ongoing love that hinder to only those who are involved. I wonder at times if Father could feel so much longing, something so deep and intense that his entire being is wrapped up in longing for who we are to just love him back.

I am reminded when my dad died. He was someone who held a great part of my heart, as a little girl, my only hope was to know how much he loved me, and to express to him that he was someone I looked up to; but to feel like I lost that was a suffering I only grew to understand. Though, it only added to my life in immeasurable ways and I can only know now by how my Heavenly Father has loved me even when I felt I have fallen short or not have come to a perfect place for him to love me completely. However, he still does, he still happens to love me in complete and unconditional ways that can only be experienced to really and truly understand the meaning of this kind of love. Through times of deep mourning and deep passion that I experienced, I grew to understand that my heavenly Father loves me and immeasurably cares for me as my earthly Father did even in the loss that I feel. The loving and overwhelming graceful expression I remember seeing on my dad’s face is something I now see every day from my Heavenly Father.

Oh how deep the pain goes in the sight of loss and intense longing, but just as deep does the love my Father has for me that flows even more profoundly. It reaches where nothing else can. The only difference between loss and having is the present and past connections that exist. I no longer have a physical connection with my earthly daddy, but what I will never lose is a connection that I have with my heavenly Daddy who loves me and that will never cease to exist.

Going Down In Flames

Christians-- we're all afraid of fire.
We prefer to suck on pacifiers. Baby pacifists, we're throwing fits.
We don't shake hands, we shake our fists.We're cannibals.
We watch our brothers fall. We eat our own, the bones and all.
Finally fell asleep on the plane to wake to see we're going down in flames.
We're going down, down, down in flames. We're gonna drown, drown, drown insane.
We see the problem and the risk, but nothing's solved. We just say, Tisk, tisk, tisk, and, Shame, shame, shame. Finally fell asleep on the plane to wake to see we're going down in flames. Let's go!Christians-- we mourn, the thorn is stuck in the side of the body watch it self-destruct. The enemy is much ignored when we fight this Christian civil war. We're cannibals. We watch our brothers fall. We eat our own, the bones and all.Finally fell asleep on the plane to wake to see we're going down in flames.We're going down, down, down in flames. We're gonna drown, drown, drown insane. We see the problem and the risk, but nothing's solved.We just say, Tisk, tisk, tisk, and, Shame, shame, shame. Finally fell asleep on the plane to wake to see we're going down in flames.

Na na na na, na na na na.
Na na na na, na na na na.
Na na na na, na na na na.
Na na na na, na na na na.
Na na na na, na na na na.
Na na na na, na na na na.
Na na na na, na na na na.
Bana na na na, na na na

Let me pause to clarify ('cause I'm sure you're asking, Why?).
I stand before you and proudly claim to belong to what this song complains.
I'm part of the problem, I confess, but I gotta get this off my chest.
Let's extinguish the anguish for which we're to blame, and save the world from going down in flames. Let me pause to clarify ('cause I'm sure you're asking, Why?).
I stand before you and proudly claim to belong to what this song complains.
I'm part of the problem, I confess, But I gotta get this off my chest.
Let's extinguish the anguish for which we're to blame, and save the world from going down in flames.

Relient K, Going Down In Flames

Who Are We Kidding?

I have become dumbfounded by some statistics that are popping up about what I would call a misinterpretation of truth that modern Christianity has presented to the world. The number of church attendance has dropped tremendously in the past five years, and the way Christianity is seen by others is something we would be incredibly stupid if we ignore these facts and go on our merry little ways. The majority, meaning more than half Americans have a bad taste in their mouths about Christianity and Christ himself because of how Christians have represented Him. We have become so incompatible from God that the way we Christians live are opposite from how Jesus lived and represented His Father. We are only kidding ourselves if we think the majority of Christians are making any difference in this world. Here are unbelievers perceptions of who we are as Christians…

Hypocritical
Perception: Christians say one thing, but live something entirely different.

Get Saved
Perception: Christians are insincere and concerned only with converting others.

Anti Homosexual
Perception: Christians show contempt for gays and lesbians.

Sheltered
Perception: Christians are boring, unintelligent, old-fashioned, and out of touch with reality.

Too Political
Perception: Christians are primarily motivated by a political agenda and promote right-wing politics

Judgmental
Perception: Christians are prideful and quick to find faults in others.

I would have to say if these perceptions are true of us, then I think we need to WAKE UP to reality and start living as Christ would and stop making a bad name for Him. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all be known for our relationship with Father and the LOVE we have for one another and every single person than by these perceptions?

Non-Hypocritical
New Perception: Christians are transparent about their flaws and act first, talk second.

Cultivate love and relationships
New Perception: Christians cultivate relationships and environments where others can be deeply transformed by God.

Love Homosexuals
New Perception: Christians show compassion and love to all people, regardless of their lifestyle.

Not Sheltered
New Perception: Christians are engaged, informed, and offer sophisticated responses to the issues people face.

Respecting Any Political View
New Perception: Christians are characterized by respecting people, thinking biblical, and finding solutions to complex issues.

Non-Judgmental
New Perception: Christians show grace by finding the good in others and seeing their potential in being Christ followers


What is it going to take to turn things around? A lot of re-thinking is necessary in order to move forward from the names the world has given us. We were created in God’s image, and are to be known for the love we have for one another…

Let’s do it together… Who’s with me?

To read more statistics and learn more about these perceptions, go to: http://www.unchristian.com/book.asp