get real

I had a horrible feeling following my previous post. my motivations behind posting scriptures recently and commenting on them has been to honor my father. am faking it? it was the feeling of deception. I had the feeling that I'm not being real, and that is a horrible feeling.

it's so easy for me to speak passionately and from the heart. it is a much more difficult thing for me to define what it is that I believe. at any given moment, I think what I believe depends heavily upon how I feel. so in the interest of being real, let me say a few things that I think I believe...at the moment...

I believe God loves me and wants me to be happy.

beyond that, I'm just not sure. I hope that Jesus is the Son of God and that he died for my sins. I don't believe the entire Bible is the inspired word of God. I fear absolutes. anything absolute deprives me of my ability to think for myself and gives you an excuse to not take responsibility for your own will. ironically, that belief in and of itself is an absolute.

I guess I can't really say for sure that I know anything. I don't know that I have faith in anything. I don't know for sure that anything I believe is true.

probably the biggest reason these scriptures and my comments feel fake is it's not something I would do...not anymore anyway.  the scripture tends to revive with in me a religious fundamental sense of Christianity and it's easy for me to ramble on as such.

whatever, I think I'm rambling.

Psalm 143:10

“Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.” -Psalm 143:10 (NIV)

To give up my will, though spiritual as it sounds, I think incredibly dangerous...Maybe to do the will of God I must choose every day, every hour, every moment, not to lose my will but to choose from my will to do His.

Ephesians 3:16-19

16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. -Ephesians 3:16-19 (NIV)

Amen!

Eph 2:10

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.  -Eph 2:10 (NIV)

I am incredibly thankful for the opportunities afforded me to take actions upon which i can be proud.  Lord knows, I'm not proud of everything I've done, but I can be proud of the things I do today, and it's not that hard. I don't have to go looking for the good I am meant to do. It's already been prepared for me.

John 6:29

“Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”” -John 6:29 (NIV)

this one for me is difficult. granted it would be good for me if I an judged on my faith, and not so much on the sins if my past, but I was taught that to believe something is to know it to be true, blind faith, without question. maybe I was taught wrong?

if you tell me something, and I believe you, I don't know it to be true. you could be lying, you could be unsure yourself, but if I believe you it's because I choose to believe you, probably because I've chosen to trust you.

Isaiah 26:3

"You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you." -Isaiah 26:3 (NIV)

Am I steadfast? I'm not there yet, but at least this verse includes a solution...

Trust in you

Romans 12:4-5

“For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” -Romans 12:4-5 (NIV)

I think I'm inspired to know that I don't have to be like everybody else, in fact, I'm not supposed to be. I'm intended to be different, unique, to serve a purpose all my own. You are no more justified to tell me to be a Christian like you than I would be you me.