define: Jared Barden

The Goo Goo Dolls played at Decker Gym on Sunday, October 24. We were fortunate enough to get tickets and went to the show with our friends Dan, Andrea and Roxanne.

The show was AMAZING! We caught the tail end of the opening act and got decent seats for GGD.

The guys seemed down to earth (as much as you can tell watching someone perform) and even joked about how long they’d been around saying, “most of you were 3 years old when this song came out.”

The following are some videos I was able to capture and get out on YouTube.

How many times have you heard “abstain from all appearance of evil…” in reference to some situation in your life or in the lives of others? This comes from 1 Thessalonians 5:22.

The more I’ve read about this verse recently, the more I’m convinced that we aren’t applying it properly to our lives. Here’s why.

As Christians, we are supposed to be like Christ. Yes, we fail, actually we fail most of the time, if you’re honest with yourself. That doesn’t mean we don’t try, obviously.

Here’s the thing. I’ve tried to make this point before, and I don’t believe it came off correctly. I hope it does this time. Jesus did many things during His time on Earth that were considered “evil” by the religious establishment of His day. Just a few examples:

• He spent time with prostitutes
• He associated and spoke directly with women (which was against the culture of the time)
• He “worked” on the Sabbath by healing people
• He was accused of being demon possessed
• He was accused of being a drunkard (Luke 7:34)

And the list could go on and on.

Let me be clear – Jesus did nothing evil. But it was considered evil by many at the time.

Let’s go back to 1 Thessalonians 5:22. Now, we know that the Word was God and the Word is God, and Jesus was referred to as the Word become flesh. If that’s the case, He can’t contradict Himself.

If that’s true, why do we see Jesus clearly not following the warning of 1 Thessalonians 5:22? I believe it’s because it doesn’t mean what we’ve taken it to mean.

I believe it means actually avoiding things that are evil, or sin. Jesus never sinned. We know that. But he clearly did not “abstain from all appearance of evil.”

Does this mean we go out looking to do things that appear evil? Of course not. But we should be very wary when people warn us not to do things because they appear to be evil.

For example, playing cards has been considered evil, going to the movies has been considered evil, etc. etc.

Let’s not get so wrapped up in avoiding the appearance of evil that we miss out on what God has for us.

I will start this post off with a caveat, I do not agree with everything on the show Glee. In fact there is quite a lot I don’t agree with. If you need to, please re-read this sentence a couple of times, so that the point sticks in.

Now to the good stuff.

Last night’s episode touched on some huge issues that the church needs to know are out there. In a nutshell, one of the main character’s dad had a heart attack and was in a coma, and it wasn’t looking good at all. This young man happens to be a homosexual and an Atheist. His friends tried to reach out to him and let them know they were praying for him.

His response went something like this – I love you guys, but I don’t need or want your prayers. WOW. Let that sink in. He didn’t believe prayer could do anything or that God could do anything to heal his dad.

I can speak from personal experience that prayer / God changes things and heals people. I’ve seen it happen at least twice to people very near and dear to me.

Flash forward further in the episode. The school gym teacher comes against the leader of the glee club due to her stance on the separation of church and state.

Here’s a homework assignment. Find separation of church and state in the Constitution. Go ahead, I’ll wait……………..

Oh that’s right. It’s not there. The Constitution says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

That’s it. The whole notion of separation of church and state came from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to some concerned citizens. This letter has been twisted and mangled into such a crazy mess that now we can’t sing songs that mention Christ at Christmas (although you can’t spell the word without His name) because that would be an “establishment of religion.” Give me a break.

When asked why she’s such a curmudgeon, she states that when she was a little girl she prayed and prayed for her mentally handicapped older sister to be healed. When she wasn’t, she prayed harder and harder and harder.

She finally came to the conclusion that “no one was listening.”

How sad. I believe God always answers prayer. Often times it’s not the answer we want to hear, but that doesn’t mean He doesn’t answer. But how are we, the church, reaching out to people feeling this way? How are we showing God’s love to them? Are we getting our hands dirty and putting ourselves in situations where we find ourselves out of our comfort zone in order to be His hands and feet?

Throughout the episode, this young man’s friends keep loving on him and praying for him until he finally is able to at least accept their prayers and listen to them.

That’s the point. We need to love people regardless of race, creed or religion. Regardless of their looks. Regardless of their speech. Regardless…

We need to love. We need to show God’s love to a world that has serious issues that only God can solve.

“By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:35

“All you need is love…” – The Beatles

I feel like some things I’ve posted recently between my blog and Facebook have been misconstrued as an attack on people who adopt.

Please know this – that could not be further from the truth.

Did I use a wrong choice of words on a couple occasions? Perhaps.

I was simply trying to show another side of an emotional issue – the plight of the unborn and the plight of the uncared for.

It is my feeling that, in my recent experience, more light has been drawn to the plight of the uncared for than the unborn.

I wish to shine light and speak up for the unborn, but I do not condemn those who care for the uncared for.

Please know that my heart is that we all can work together on these extremely important issues.

I’ve recently had many heated discussion on abortion and adoption in the church.

Through those debates people have said that the church is doing its part by voting on abortion, etc.

That is not the case. Let me gives some numbers to back that up.

In the 2008 election season, According to InfoPlease, there were 231,229,580 registered voters in the US. Only 132,618,580 actually voted.

This means only 57% of registered voters voted. That is pathetic.

If we use the number that 76% of people in the US call themselves Christian, then, after crunching the numbers, of the 98,611,000 people who did not vote in the last election, 74,944,360 would identify themselves as Christian.

Let’s be super conservative and say that only 15% of those people were actually born again believers. That leaves us with 11,241,654 Christians that did not vote.

Why is this number a big deal? Good question.

According to this page, the difference in votes between Obama and McCain was 9,522,083.

Do the math. Christians could have prevented the election of Barack Obama, and they did not.

Why is this a big deal? I could get into a whole list of reasons, but check this information out.

To quote:

But Obama’s record on abortion is extreme. He opposed the ban on partial-birth abortion — a practice a fellow Democrat, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once called “too close to infanticide.” Obama strongly criticized the Supreme Court decision upholding the partial-birth ban. In the Illinois state Senate, he opposed a bill similar to the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which prevents the killing of infants mistakenly left alive by abortion. And now Obama has oddly claimed that he would not want his daughters to be “punished with a baby” because of a crisis pregnancy — hardly a welcoming attitude toward new life.

Obama’s actions speak for themselves. He does not value the life of the unborn.

People tell me, “if we do our part for the orphans, then God will help us with abortion.”

I respectfully disagree with them.

Perhaps if we do our part, educate ourselves, and don’t pick a man to lead our country who has no care for the unborn, God would honor that decision, make it easier for people to adopt, and we would solve two problems at once.