YOU ARE SUCH AN IDIOT!

Today, I was keeping watch out in front of the school when a couple of female students I recognized went walking by. One of them was on the phone talking to the person who was going to give her a ride home. Having seen her picked up by her dad before I assumed that she was speaking to him. Now, I'd seen her be rude to him a time or two before but it was only in passing and it was nothing like the belligerence she put on display today in front of her friend.

As she was approaching, I heard her saying in a steadily harsher voice as the conversation quickly developed, "Where are you?" A moment later she spoke with a vitriolic voice and I could almost taste the poison that dripped from her tongue. Her countenance was wicked, yet gleeful, for the pain she was willingly inflicting upon her dad. She said, "We're going to Taco Bell. Pick us up there" ...short pause... "GOD DANG! YOU ARE SUCH AN IDIOT!" Her phone slammed shut.

I was appalled and barked at her, "Hey, is that your dad you were talking to?" She gave and affirmative response and I quickly said, "That was shameful of you!" She didn't even look at me as she walked away but her friend tried to spit some sort of uncouth words my way before tapering off into a few sour glances.

I was aggravated for the duration of the morning for two reasons. Her father was to blame for setting up such lousy boundaries and she was responsible for her rebelliousness. What led to such a relationship between her and her father? A friend suggested that perhaps it was a powerful sense of guilt or shame on the part of the father. He may have done something terribly wrong to her in the past and, knowing his guilt, allowed her to get away with whatever she wanted. How terrible though. If that is the case, guilt obviously did not motivate him to love his daughter. In fact, by allowing her to live such a shameful life he was hating her.

I realized in my anger that I was not hoping for healing for the two of them so I began to pray that the Lord would reveal His loving-kindness to them. In so praying, I realized that my nature was that of the girl's to her father. I was living as an enemy to God, spitting in his face and defiling his goodness. Yet, he refused to allow me, as a wayward child, to live in such a wicked state. He was not ashamed of His own nature and He knew how to win my heart. He drew a boundary around me and said, "this far shall you fall and no further." Then He caught me in His hands and lifted me up. He taught me honesty to admit to Him my hatreds and misgivings and in so doing I learned how to trust in Him. This trust did not come simply because I could speak to Him, but because I could see His grace poured out into my heart. He did not allow me to continue to hate Him!

He called out my shameful behavior but, more than that, He rectified it. He brought light to my darkness and exposed my need. There was a dark hole in my heart that had sucked all the joy around me into it and dissolved it. In seeing this, I was left to stew in my own guilt and I KNEW that God was going to crush me. Yet, in His mercy as my perfect Father, God reached out His hands of blessing and offered to me gifts of a clear conscience, forgiveness of sin, peace of mind, kindness of heart, eternal life and a relationship with His Son forever. He simply asked me, "Have you learned your lesson?"

With my mouth wide open in astonishment, having expected judgment, I could only say, "Yes, Father. Forgive me." My life started at that point and the story I take with me from this time until Heaven will be one of praise for that gift of grace and forgiveness.

To keep others from His love (part three).

Though I have many disagreements over the church policy given in part two of this series, I will articulated only a few of them for now.

The governmental system of many churches is corrupt and Catholic in conduct. It places burdens of the law upon people and lacks grace. Elders have no authority that Jesus Himself did not use but claim to by their actions. For instance, whereas elders may seek to deny a person communion, Jesus GAVE Judas (the person He said would betray Him) the bread and wine. Jesus SHARED in communion with Judas (the son of perdition)! He did not WITHHOLD the cup from the man who planted the kiss of death on His cheek in the Garden of Gethsemane! The man was allowed by the Lord to eat and drink condemnation upon his own head!

Thus, as I understand it, we "examine ourselves" based upon the scripture and "eat and drink condemnation upon our own heads" if we eat the meal in an unworthy manner (as Judas did). It is a matter of one's own conscience. Nowhere does it say that it is the elders responsibility to determine the sincerity of a person's heart and so approve or deny them the meal. Read the passage from 1 Corinthians 11 for yourself:

The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, ²⁴and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." ²⁵In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." ²⁶For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

²⁷Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. ²⁸A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. ²⁹For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. ³⁰That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. ³¹But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment. ³²When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world.

As for examining others for communion it is important to remember that Satan is called the Father of Lies and his name means "tempter" and "deceiver." Who are we to think that a slave to such a swindler could not easily fake sincerity in his/her oaths of membership and thus penetrate the visible church? That person (a wolf in sheep's clothing) would be allowed to take the Lord's Supper and I would not, though I am a believer who simply, by my conscience, does not agree with membership. Yet, Jesus will build His church and even the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it! He has broken Satan's power.

Lastly, according to Romans 14:23, "everything that does not come from faith is sin." How ironic then, that in the very act of "protecting" those who would take the meal in an unworthy manner, some are encouraged to deny their own conscience! By my faith, I am clean and worthy before God to remember His sacrifice for me and eat the Supper. If you trust in the righteousness of Christ alone to save you from your sins and have a repentant heart then the meal is for you, as well.

To keep others from His love (part one).

I had a watershed moment in my life as a Christian today and what it means to be denied worship. For years I have supported organizations that provide for the persecuted church around the world. My favorite and probably most well known is Voice of the Martyrs. I actually got to visit their U.S. headquarters in Bartlesville, OK and meet their director, Tom White. He's the author of God's Missiles Over Cuba. My aunt who worked there introduced me to the man. It was quite an experience meeting someone who had been tortured in a Cuban prison camp for years simply for dropping Christian literature on the island. It is horrible that he was persecuted by non-Christians for his beliefs. How much worse is it when Christians try to deny the worship of other Christians?


I visited a church today and was told that I should not take the Lord's Supper because I am not a member of any church. I didn't obey the request and simply said that, according to my conscience, it would be wrong not to partake in the Lord's Supper and that regardless of what they believed I would take it anyway. To wit, I was told that I should, "respect the desires of the church" and refrain. What about their respect towards my conscience? Had I bowed to their pressure I would be sinning by doing something I thought to be wrong! I could only reply that I could not obey unbiblical desires of any church. The wine never tasted so sweet!

I'm reminded of the movie "Chariots of Fire" when Eric Liddell (a Christian running in the 1924 Olympics) is told by many of England's most powerful and influential men to run the qualifying heat for the 100 meter dash on a Sunday. He believed that doing so would be against God's law of resting on the Sabbath. When Liddell refuses these men, Lord Cadogen spits, "Don't be impertinent, Liddell," to which Liddell retorts, "The impertinence lies, sir, with those who seek to influence a man to deny his beliefs!"

As the situation is resolved and upon this vein, the Duke of Sutherland says to Lord Birkenhead, "The "lad", as you call him, is a true man of principles and a true athlete. His speed is a mere extension of his life, its force. We sought to sever his running from himself."

"For his country's sake, yes," responds Lord Birkenhead.

The Duke's final response is, "No sake is worth that, least of all a guilty national pride."

I find that, among many churches, the "pride" is not guilty so much as it is arrogant. It is similar to national pride yet infinitely more grotesque. Does it not serve to divide God's universal children? It reveals a gross split from the life of grace that Christ teaches and the life of works that is preached. To tell a man how to worship is to deny the condition of his heart and make him a liar. Christ changes us by writing His law upon the flesh of our own hearts and makes a broken and contrite heart an inward reality for those who love Him. Thus, obeying the law written on stone at Mount Sinai does not save; trusting in Christ who obeyed that law and gives us His obedience by coding it into us does.

It is so important that the gift the founding fathers gave us was the ability to live according to our own conscience in liberty, free from oppression. It is so easy for us to oppress! As for myself, my conscience is directed by the Holy Scriptures and I will spit in the face of any man-made institution that desires to add to or subtract from the principles upon which Christ builds His children.

I was shocked and incredibly angry from all of this but the Lord redeemed the experience and made it very good. I am blessed to be able to worship according to my own conscience as taught in the scriptures. The Lord's Supper is something amazing, for I am able to physically enjoy my relationship with the God of the universe. I have never truly appreciated the gift until today when others tried to strip it from me. Ultimately (learning from those who have been persecuted to the point of death), had they been successful, it would not have mattered. We feed on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God and the Spirit of the Lord is with us wherever we go. As Romans 8:31-38 says:

If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
"For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Good food makes her clothes fall off.

This video is a must watch. A crazy woman discusses why Adam and Eve stopped walking around naked then segues into the transgendered mayor segment and blasts into various other topics such as how Oregon would rather pay to euthanize a woman rather than paying to treat her cancer. I will focus on the crazy woman.



The crazy lady (Rae), says, "Adam and Eve were naked and everything was just fine until they ate bad food and then they got really self-conscious." Perhaps Adam and Eve became farty and bloated when the bad food fermented in their bellies. In light of this, I'm sure that their first clothing was, in fact, a thick diaper woven from fig leaves and animal pelts. Praise Gaia that this woman purged the mysterious "bad food" from her diet and shed her FigSkin Depends.

A friend of mine said to me, "Now I know to keep eating bad food so my clothes don't decide to fall off..." Her hilarious comment reminded me of the country song by Joe Nichols, "Tequila makes her clothes fall off." In place of Tequila, substitute what Rae says about bad food and you'll understand her shining brilliance (PBUH). Oh, how like a laxative it penetrates even the deepest of dark places within diapers to release the flood gates of "truth!" To put it bluntly and with less sarcasm we would say in the Marines, "If it looks like crap and it smells like crap it must be (you guessed it) CRAP!" I mean, at least Joe Nichols gives a probable reason for why a person would disrobe, but bad food? Give me a break!

Defying reason, Rae manages to construct an unholy union between good food and nakedness and becomes, herself, a great, stinking love child of twisted thoughts and lies. My wisdom would be on par with her's if I stripped after drinking grape juice. After all, it could have been wine, right? I would just be looking forward to the promise of fermented liquids in my belly to release my inhibitions... Although, in actuality, the inhibitions I would be releasing (like Rae's) could only be contained in the largest loin cloth of Adam and Eve's invention described above.

Like the king in Hans Christian Andersen's famous fable, "The Emperor's New Clothes," this woman is clothed in shame that she can't even see. She does not wish to appear stupid and so, to avoid the shame of her private fable, she has gone public with her nudity and is laid bare. Though the proverbial child has pointed out her nakedness, she holds her lofty head up high and flaunts her foolishness for all to see.

I write this only to point out the absurd claim of this woman. I mean to judge her words and conduct because it is proper to unmask the lie. To be honest though, it is a perfect mental picture for me of what I am like before God. I have lived in a world that to one degree or another has been contrived by my own lies. I subconsciously live by the famous mantra that "if I repeat a lie often enough it becomes my truth." I am just more skilled than Rae at hiding my heart from those around me.

There is One whose eye has pierced every layer of my clothing and knows even my innermost being. I shall one day stand before His judgment seat and He will demand that I give an account of my life. Will He see that it was built upon the lie of my own desires or, as Rae says, "whatever feels right"? Every one does only what is right in their own eyes. Thus, how worthless my gifts will be to God when I stand before Him naked with my heart fully exposed. As Paul says in Romans 7:24, "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?"

Thus, it was not "bad food" that made Adam and Eve "self-conscious"; it was their disobedience and sin towards God that made them ashamed. However, God, in His love, covered their shame (or nakedness as it were) because He took compassion on them. The covering He provided for them (animal skins) was a sign of Christ's sacrifice which alone could cover all sins perfectly and remove their shame. He was naked on the cross when He suffered the shame of our sins. He was exposed and laid bare so that in a very real way we could approach God without guilt as "naked" ones. He bore the wounds of our iniquities so that we could be healed in truth (unlike Rae's healing lie).

In Christ, we have nothing left to hide and can close with the rest of the thought from Romans 7:25 where Paul writes, "Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

The absolute confusion behind our failures.

"Breaking The Habit" by Linkin Park

This song is probably the world's best answer to what troubles it; namely confusion. Consider the chorus:

I don't know what's worth fighting for
Or why I have to scream
I don't know why I instigate
And say what I don't mean
I don't know how I got this way
I know it's not alright
So I'm breaking the habit
Tonight

The world cannot give a satisfactory answer to the evils surrounding us. In fact, the mere mention of evil determines that the person mentioning it believes in good. But where does goodness and evilness come from since we can comprehend it when we see it? It cannot be ambiguous or morally relative as we are prone to be. Apart from one above us who defines it and holds us accountable to it we cannot give a satisfactory answer. Let's look at it from a personal perspective.

It's easy to view the world and realize how messed up it is without considering our own hearts. We should be asking ourselves whether or not we are living a life that is reflective of Truth. Most of us look at the world and see how evil it is but don't look at our own hearts and see the wickedness that is trapped within. However, we cannot shrug away the piercing eye of that truth or else there would be no place for our feelings of guilt and shame. Such feelings demand that there be a consequence for the actions that led to such emotions. We would not feel guilty of our actions if we did not realize that we deserved judgment for what we have done.

How is your truth reflected in your life? Does what you believe match up with how you live? Who will suffer the consequences of your guilt? Justice demands that it be paid for. Either you will pay the cost of disobedience towards the One who gives Truth or One who lived perfectly according to the Truth will pay the cost for you. To clarify, a segment of Isaiah 53 speaking of that Savior is given below:

¹¹ After the suffering of his soul,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.

¹² Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

As to the world's answer, you have it in its entirety below. The actual video is below the lyrics.

Memories consume
Like opening the wound
I'm picking me apart again
You all assume
I'm safe here in my room
Unless I try to start again

[Bridge:]
I don't want to be the one
The battles always choose
'Cause inside I realize
That I'm the one confused

[Chorus:]
I don't know what's worth fighting for
Or why I have to scream
I don't know why I instigate
And say what I don't mean
I don't know how I got this way
I know it's not alright
So I'm breaking the habit
I'm breaking the habit
Tonight

Clutching my cure
I tightly lock the door
I try to catch my breath again
I hurt much more
Than anytime before
I had no options left again

[Bridge:]
I don't want to be the one
The battles always choose
'Cause inside I realize
That I'm the one confused

[Chorus:]...

[Bridge:]
I'll paint it on the walls
'Cause I'm the one at fault
I'll never fight again
And this is how it ends

[Chorus:]...