No Legalism Required

You see? This makes no sense. Its 7:00 am and I'm posting... I don't expect to make sense to anyone else, but it would be nice if I could make sense to myself at the very least. - sigh -

The thing is, I had some thoughts which were important this morning during breakfast. It seemed worthwhile to put them up here. But, before I begin, it is important you understand that I am a Christian... or better yet, a lover of Christ. Unfortunately, it seems too often that "Christian" elicits negative connotations from people... stereotypes of salvation through weekly attendance at some service or by doing good works. Well... while I don't intend to take away from the merits of either of those, they are not sufficient. Good works and church attendance do not, in my humblest opinion, make you Christian. But, to avoid the ambiguity and stereotypes, I'm a lover of Christ. Its real to me. I do not serve a God of rules or ceremony, but I love and worship the one true God and as a result, my life readily falls into what He defined as right and wrong. No legalism required.

Generally, I really don't like having to tell people I'm a Christian. (If my pastor reads this, hopefully he'll not stop here...) Its important to know this is NOT because I'm ashamed of it, or because I'm in the sciences and the general consensus there is that science has explained away God (far from it, in fact... it blows my mind every day. If you want more on that, Lee Strobel's book "The Case for a Creator" is particularly good.) The reason being I want my life to truly and genuinely reflect Christ's love for me. A better way to put it, is that how I live my life should be a better indicator than any words I can write or anything I can say. I want people to know there is something different about me and when they ask what it is, they will see all the difference Jesus makes.

Great. That wasn't at all what I was planning to write about. It is important though, that you keep all of the above in mind. Chances are some of the things I'll be writing either today, or later on, are going to step on some toes... possibly offend directly (I dunno... maybe you're feeling convicted?). In this I remain completely unrepentant, but nevertheless, I will try to be at least a little sensitive to the fact most people probably aren't looking at things the same way I do.

So... my thoughts (which suddenly seem rather small compared to the above...):

1. I was on the phone last night with one of my friends, who was expressing her desire to get in a self-defense class. My simple response was, well... then do. You might as well live your life. Naturally, she had excuses (don't we all?) why she hadn't been. In this case, she didn't know how to find a place that would teach her (um.... Google search: "self-defense class, Raleigh, NC" answers will follow).

I probably laid into her a little hard, but it frustrates me to hear this. I don't mean to imply I'm perfect (I've always wanted to play the guitar and learn another language), but why do we always seem to know what we want to do to better ourselves, and then make excuses for why we don't? LIVE! WE ONLY GET ONE SHOT AT THIS!

I try to give credit where it is due. The person who may have planted (or at least helped to give words to) this thought was Pastor Benji Kelley of newHope Church in Durham. He gave a fantastic sermon series on this called "The Bucket List." (Available on podcast and his webpage: www.benjikelley.com. If you have a chance, these messages will change how you live your life.)

2. Sorry... this one's going to have to wait. Its probably for the best anyway.

Stay tuned, there's more to come :)