Religion
Haters Gon’ Hate
2I think we’ve all run across the phrase “haters gon’ hate” at one point or another in life. I’ve spent quite a bit of time lately reflecting on the phrase as it applies to the church.
Let me start out with a video from Steven Furtick, pastor of Elevation Church.
Now, I get it, when there are people in the church that all they do is slander, complain, tear down, etc., something needs to be done to address them. Try to find out why they are so negative. They need to be admonished, following the principles outlined in Matthew 18:15-17:
15 “If your brother or sister[b] sins,[c] go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’[d] 17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
However, I’m afraid that sometimes the church / church leaders perceive anyone with anything critical to say as a “hater”. This to me seems like a dangerous position to take. Here’s why.
Let’s agree on a bit of Biblical logic before I explain why this is a dangerous position.
1.) God can use anyone or anything to speak for Him. We see evidence of this in Numbers 22:26-31
Then the angel of the LORD moved on ahead and stood in a narrow place where there was no room to turn, either to the right or to the left. 27 When the donkey saw the angel of the LORD, it lay down under Balaam, and he was angry and beat it with his staff. 28 Then the LORD opened the donkey’s mouth, and it said to Balaam, “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?”
29 Balaam answered the donkey, “You have made a fool of me! If only I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now.”
30 The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?”
“No,” he said.
31 Then the LORD opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road with his sword drawn. So he bowed low and fell facedown.
Clearly, the Lord used the donkey to speak to Balaam. So, it only stands to reason that He could also use another person to speak for Him.
2.) God rebukes those He loves. We see this in Hebrews 12:5-6.
And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,
“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
6 because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”
Clearly, when God rebukes, He does it out of love, but He definitely does rebuke. He used the donkey to rebuke / spare Balaam from the certain danger awaiting him in the form of the angel.
3.) If God can use anyone to speak and God rebukes those who love Him, then it is entirely possible that God can and (more likely than not) WILL use others to speak things into our lives we don’t necessarily want to hear.
Proverbs 27:17 says “as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” It’s clear from the these words, written by Solomon and inspired by God that God uses others to sharpen us. Iron striking iron is a painful metaphor. It’s not like memory foam being gently shaped. It’s a painful process, but it’s a godly process.
If we can agree on all these points, we can see that godly criticism (not the kind simply used for tearing down) can be for our benefit, if we let it. Even Jesus criticized Peter when Peter wanted to set up tents for Him on the Mount of transfiguration. Jesus criticism was to the point of “Get behind me, Satan!” in Matthew 16:23. Harsh words indeed, but they were words Peter needed to hear. They were a part of the process of transforming Peter into the man who would leads thousands to Christ after the Resurrection.
My concern for the church “in general” is that we don’t seem to do too well at receiving constructive criticism. Many times we are quick to label people as “haters” if they don’t share our point of view. By labeling people, we immediately squelch what could be a positive discussion.
We need to do a better job of coming to grips with our imperfections, and taking care of the “plank” in our own eye, as it were. None of us are perfect. We all have a lot we can learn from each other, if we will be open to hear God’s voice speaking to us through imperfect vessels.
What We Can Learn From Glee
1I 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.
The Church and Abortion
0I’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.
Warning
2A lot of things have been happening in my life recently, some of which I can’t talk too much about, other than to say amazing things are happening, and God is moving.
Many of you know that Danielle and I went through a miscarriage in early 2009 – an event that shattered our worlds, something we are still recovering from. Through it all, God has been faithful, and our friends and family have been amazing, and we owe you all such a big thank you for just going through this with us.
But I digress…things are happening. I feel a stirring. I guess that’s the best way to put it. I’m not really sure how to describe it other than a stirring and a reigniting of the passion in my life as it relates to politics and current event-type issues.
Some of this passion has led to quite heated debates on Facebook, but I think that’s a good thing. We shouldn’t just blindly believe whatever it is we believe. We should be able to back it up and to articulate why it is we believe one thing or another. I enjoy a good debate.
Then I re-read Ezekiel 33 where Ezekiel is told to warn the people of the coming danger. A couple of verses in particular really jumped out at me.
“Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. 8 When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways, that wicked man will die for [a] his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. 9 But if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his ways and he does not do so, he will die for his sin, but you will have saved yourself.
And…
Yet your countrymen say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But it is their way that is not just. 18 If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and does evil, he will die for it.19 And if a wicked man turns away from his wickedness and does what is just and right, he will live by doing so. 20 Yet, O house of Israel, you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But I will judge each of you according to his own ways.
Some people that I love dearly have (I believe) accused me of making statements that “judge people.” I see these statements as stating fact, stating the truth in love. God has warned us that we need to tell people when danger is coming. If we don’t, their blood is on our hands.
If we don’t, their blood is on our hands. Let that sink in for however long it needs to.
So, I’m giving fair warning. I’m going to be sharing things, either on my blog, Facebook or both, that you might not agree with. That’s fine. I’m entitled to my opinion and to share what I believe the truth is. Just like you are entitled to your right to agree or disagree with what I say.
This doesn’t make me a racist, judgmental, a homophobe, an Islamaphobe or any other “phobe” you can come up.
I will be exercising my right to free speech, and I encourage you to do the same.