When Push Comes to Shove...

I had a GREAT Christmas and I hope everyone else did as well! I got a TON of iTunes gift-cards so now I can start getting music again (recently deleted 90% of my music). I decided to download all the worship music I like off of 104.7 the fish and from Northpoint/Buckhead Church. Its time I listened to positive music instead of the filth and garbage I've been shoving in my ears since I was a teen. Its been putting me in a much better mood actually, and the funny thing is now that I look back at my old old livejournal I'm noticing that I posted all the songs I was listening to at the time. And no big surprise, its all super depressing, negative, angry, and moody rock. Go figure...Jesus was right about how what goes into your ears and eyes affect your heart. DUH

Anyhow, there was a reason besides the update that I wanted to make this blog. I read something in the Bible that really impacted me recently. I found this verse because I was listening to Francis Chan on YouTube....who is AMAZING by the way. If you haven't heard him go listen to him. I read one of his books for my small group which is how I heard of him in the first place. If you looked up the last guy I mentioned (Doug Batchelor) and compared them, I'd say Doug is an incredible Teacher while Francis is a man COMPLETELY in love with God. Its very refreshing to hear him speak. But anyhow, one of his messages was just so powerful to me. Its about how when we choose Jesus, we die to the world. And that its a great trade, not something we should ever feel sorrowful for or that we got the short end of the stick. And that's what brought me to this verse....

"Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven." (Matthew 10:32-33)

I read this and I asked myself, would I stand before everyone I know and proclaim that Jesus is Lord? Really really, when push comes to shove, would I stand up for him? Well when I get to heaven I want...no I NEED him to stand up for me! I won't be able to speak in the presence of God the Father, his glory will be too much. I need Jesus to stand by me and acknowledge me then. There have been sooo many time in my life where I've 'pulled a Peter" and denied him. I either downplayed my faith, or shut up when I could have stood up for him. Well I felt a burning desire to stand up for him in front of my peers so I decided to post it on my facebook status. Goes to every person I know (for the most part).

But the hard part of doing this is that I knew when it came down to it that I would lose a lot of "worldy credibility" for doing this. I knew I might lose friends. I knew I'd be looked on as a moron. I mean who believes the Bible in this day and age of Ipods and cellphones? With all this science and technology...who actually for real believes the old stuff that the Bible says is actually true? I do.

And then I found this verse....

"If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you." (1 Peter 4:14)

So really every-time I'm put down in this world because of the name of Jesus I'm BLESSED! That's FRICKEN awesome! Because I'm absolutely sure that the overwhelming majority of the world will "insult" me because of my belief. Now this is God promising....and I love God's promises because they are rock solid; that I'll be blessed because of it! Amazing! I hope that many more insults come my way because of Christ so I am even more blessed!

Obey God. Eat Cake.

So I've been listening a lot to a preacher named Doug Batchelor who is probably the BEST bible teacher I've ever heard. He really brings the scripture to life for me...which is great because in the past when I tried to read or understand the bible it was like trying to read a Calculus book or something....not easy.

Anyhow, he really brings it alive in an exciting way. Go to his site www.amazingfacts.org and check it out! But one thing that he teaches and backs up with scripture is that Christians still need to follow the ten commandments and the one commandment that's been forgotten by most people is the fourth one, to "Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy". He claims that the Sabbath was originally made by God as a holy day and it was specifically made on the 7th day. Well my brother and I did the research into history and its pretty clear that the 7th day is Saturday, not Sunday. We looked everyone in the bible and could not find anywhere that it was changed from Saturday to Sunday! In fact, the reason Christians celebrate on Sunday is b/c the day of worship was changed by Constantine of Rome back in like 320AD to accommodate the Pagans! Well we went to a lot of people who know the Bible better than us for an explanation and to our surprise no one could give any biblical evidence that the Sabbath should be Sunday.

So we started observing the Sabbath on Saturday, doing our best to follow it. Not working, but also not doing anything that wasn't focused on God. We even, yes I know this sounds nuts, we even got Georgia Football tickets for free and missed the game one Saturday in order to keep this. Needless to say we were really really devoted to keeping it.

Well, a few days ago I went running and as is my normal routine I prayed while I ran. But this time I specifically prayed that God would explain to me about the confusion of the Sabbath and if it's really Saturday and why if its so important Jesus never spoke of it in the New Testament. Well I felt the Holy Spirit really speaking to me on my run through my thoughts. This is what he said:

God's Law is eternal and will always be so. Not one tiny bit of the least commandment (dietary jewish laws come to my mind) will ever be taken away from it. (Matt 5:18) However, God's Law changed its form through Jesus.

I didn't quite understand this and asked that the Lord use an analogy...since that's kind of how I think. So this analogy came instantly to my mind. The Old Testament Law (including the 10 commandments) are like ingredients for a cake. Each commandment is an ingredient and is perfect. In a way that can be hard to comprehend Jesus IS the law (even before his birth; John 1:14) and when he was born he still is the law but fulfilled the law. (Matt 5:17) He became the cake. So the Law changed form from ingredients into a completed, baked cake. All the original ingredients are in the cake, no one would ever argue that any individual ingredient is missing from the cake, right? Well in the same way, all the original commandments are "baked" into Jesus.

Thus the "new form" of the Law is made through his death and resurrection. But in this argument I am specifically not talking about salvation. All believers know that we are only saved through Jesus death for our sins. Rather,this is more about how to be obedient. Anyone who truly has the Holy Spirit in them and loves God wants to be obedient to him. Well, this shows that obedience does not have to be from the old form of the Law but the new form. "Eating Cake" instead of the old ingredients and the way we "Eat the Cake" is by following Jesus' commands. And Jesus' command was always to Love God and Love others. (Matt 7:12 and John 15:12) So if a Christian wants to be obedient to God, he shouldn't look to the Old Law ( that law is written on the heart anyway; Hebrews 10:15-16) but to the new form of it which is To Love! Here is the proof, read Romans 13:8-10.

So what does this mean? Well to a Christian who wants to obey God this changes EVERYTHING. We don't have to focus on those old ingredients of the Law's original form, but we can have the liberty to focus on the new cake that the ingredients formed. Loving God and Each Other.

My brother and I no longer have to worry about keeping the Sabbath to obey God. (and actually keeping the Sabbath the way it was commanded in the old testament is HARD...trust me on that). Nor do we need to get caught up on focusing on the 10 Commandments. Whoa, did I just say that? Does that mean Christians can go and just break all of them now? No. If you are loving God and loving others you won't be breaking any of them. Who can love someone and lie to him at the same time? What about kill him? Or covet what he has? Can we love God and put idols or others before him? No. While I don't understand on a logical level how this also fulfills the Sabbath rest commandment, I'm confident that it does. So while I do feel that going to church to worship God and setting out a day that we won't work is a great thing, we should be more focused on obedience through loving others than on not breaking a sabbath.

While that sounds easy, I have found it is not. Its hard to love the guy who cuts you off in traffic and gives you the finger. Its hard to love someone who lies about you and slanders you. Its hard to love people who ridicule you, take advantage of you, cheat you, hurt you, and do wrong to you.

So with that being said, just as much tenacity as the Jews tried to keep the old form of the law Christians should keep to the new form. God's Law is eternal and never changes, it wasn't a mistake that God corrected. It always has been and always will be the same, however God changed it's form from the original tough to eat ingredients to the new delicious cake! Same stuff but...I like cake more than flour/salt/yeast/ect on their own.

OBEY GOD!! EAT CAKE!!!


(can also cite Romans 7:4-6 and Romans 10:4)
(The reason I cited so much scripture in my blog is because this can be a controversial subject among Christians so I can only stand on scripture, not my own understanding)