I do not know when I have had happier times in my soul, than when I have been sitting at work, with nothing before me but a candle and a white cloth and hearing no sound but that of my own breath, with God in my soul and heaven in my eye …

I rejoice in being exactly what I am, a creature capable of loving God, and who, as long as God lives, must be happy. I get up and look for a while out the window, and gaze at the moon and stars, the work of an Almighty hand.

I think of the grandeur of the universe, and then sit down, and think myself one of the happiest beings in it.

By A Poor Methodist Woman, 18th Century

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I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

I recently had Galatians 2:20 tattooed on my side.  It was an extremely painful tattoo by the way but that scripture is very special to me. I find freedom in realizing that the power to love others as much as I love myself comes from God and not me.  I am not naturally a very loving person and tend to seek out what is best for me and those close to me. But to follow Jesus and live out the red letters is to share the love of God with even those who are not very lovable.  But loving God and our neighbor is exactly what being a Christian is all about.

There is nothing else. 

With this new perspective of being dead to the world and Christ living through us we can be free to allow God’s love to express itself.

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I don’t like the “Sinner’s Prayer.” I should clarify that I don’t mean the prayer itself. I mean the way Christians try to encourage or pressure people into saying it.

It is as if Christians in their desire to measure their progress in “saving souls” came up with this as a means to keep score. When someone says the prayer they can mark down another soul saved.

This is crap pure and simple. I have seen it myself. Some Christians are aggressive about pressuring people to say this prayer as if once they do the sinner will be saved.

Over and over again in scripture references Jesus taught that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life. The Amplified Bible translates believes as “who clings to, trusts in, relies on Him.” We also know that “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6:44)

Paul also teaches in Romans that only God can give faith. It is a gift from God and not a decision we can make.

My point is that when a person is convicted of sin and ready to reach out to Jesus their heart will cry out for him whether they say those words we commonly call the Sinner Prayer or not. They will reach out for Jesus and God will fill their heart with faith, love and hope and salvation will take place. This is not to say that we should not preach the Word of God. By all means we should. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God but there is no sense in trying to talk someone into converting and saying a prayer their hear does not believe. It is a waste of time and a lie.

Anyone reading this who was searching for a sinner’s prayer because you are desperate for help from God then know this. He is right there where you are. Call out to Jesus and He will reach down from heaven and love you right now. There is nothing more to it than that.

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I was recently reading  book called Save Me From Myself by Brian “Head” Welch, former lead guitarist of Korn, and was stuck by something he said.  This book is an amazing testimony of the love of Jesus and His power to give life and freedom to the oppressed.

Brian writes,

“ I needed Jesus to  be real. He was my only hope that I had left…. I had so much hope, but it quickly faded away when I thought about being a Christian. “

That statement says a lot about why I have said that I have considered giving up Christianity in order that I might follow Jesus.  Brian was reaching out for Jesus and one of the things holding him back was the picture he had in his mind of what it means to be a Christian.   Brian is now a Christian and his new CD has a song called Die Religion Die. The CD rocks by the way if you are into heavy metal music.

I recently published a post on my blog called “Giving Up Christianity” saying I had decided to give up Christianity to follow Jesus .  Not surprisingly, I had various comments from well meaning Christians “correcting” me on the meaning of the term Christian and how what I really meant was that “religion” gets in the way of people coming to Jesus. Christian of course simply means follower of Christ and so on.

People often like to get hung up on the meaning of words while missing the real meaning of what someone is saying. You see, to all of the world, Christianity is a religion and one of the most self-centered, intolerant, and judgmental religions that has ever existed.

Being a Christian myself I agree with those criticisms. Christianity in this country at least is too focused on itself and the only time it seems to have an interest in those outside the church is to make converts. I once saw a sign on a church that said 24 souls saved this week” and I thought God have mercy.  How pathetic.  As if the church was a sales organization keeping score of how well their marketing and advertising was working.

People see Christianity as a religion of rules and not of love. Ask those outside the church what Christianity is about and I would bet that no one would say “loving God and our fellow man.” Yet, that was what Jesus taught was the essence of true religion – to love God and your neighbor as yourself.  Now without a doubt, I will receive a comment from someone who will say “Oh no, you are incorrect, the Bible says that pure religion undefiled by God is to look after widows and orphans” … (James 1:27).

That is what I am talking about. Lighten up and seek God with a pure heart and then let’s go into the world and look for ways to love Jesus in every person we meet.

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I think I have decided to give up Christianity so that I can follow Jesus and share his love with everyone I meet. Frankly, I believe Christianity in this country is getting in the way of the world knowing the love of Jesus and being open to Him. I will say more about this in a few days when I have  more time to write.

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A while back a lovely couple, Kory and Cara Fay, spoke at my church. They are missionaries with Lutheran Bible Translators (LBT) and are  currently living in Chambéry, France, studying French, and then from there will be going to Cameroon, West Africa in January ‘11.

I was shocked to learn that while there are 6,912 languages currently spoken in the world there are only 429 languages with a complete Bible and 4,486 languages have no scriptures at all!

Learn more about Kory and Cara Fay how you can help give thousands of people access to the Word of God at Kory and Cara’s blog. Click Here

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“Un-deify the American family, and say bodly that our children are not our cause; they are given to use to train for a cause. They are given to us for a short season so that we can train them for the great causes of truth and mercy and justice in a prejudiced, pain-filled, and perishing world.” (John Piper)

I could go off on a rant here and I have a lot to say about this issue but I will leave it at this. AMEN and AMEN! John could not have said it better in his book, Life As A Vapor.

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Have you ever noticed how simply mentioning the name of Jesus makes people uncomfortable?  You can be talking about God and having a wonderful conversation with someone but if you call Him Jesus they will immediately become very uncomfortable and some will even shut down the conversation almost immediately.  I have seen this phenomenon even among Christians or least supposed Christians.

There is something about the name of Jesus. The name of Jesus is controversial and dividing.  The name of Jesus gives some comfort, healing and joy while stirring up anger and resentment among others.

We should be not surprised I guess. Jesus said it would be this way.

“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. (Matthew 10:34)

He even goes on to say,

“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father,
 a daughter against her mother,   a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law -
a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household. (Matthew 10:34-36)

Wow. I guess that sums it up.  I guess we should not be surprised by the reaction. Even Jesus said it would be this way. Of course we know there is something about the name of Jesus but seeing the controversy and division it causes in our world affirms the Gospel and everything He said. I find it amusing that his name can be said in vain as if cursing by almost anyone anywhere and it rarely causes a fuss but if you speak his name with respect or pray in the Name people get offended.

I guess the reason is that Jesus is a stumbling block as Christian musician Michael Card put it in his song, Living Stones. I believe the Name of Jesus makes people uncomfortable because He demands a decision.

“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”  (Act 4:12)

Although I could be wrong I don’t think any other religion has such a discriminatory position statement.

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The other day my wife and I were driving into downtown Indianapolis on our way to have dinner celebrating our 7^th wedding anniversary.  We had a baby sitter and it was one of those rare occasions for parents of 2 little ones to go out alone and have an adult evening.

As we were pulling off I465 onto Keystone Ave in a fairly upscale part of town a woman stood at stop sigh with her cardboard sign asking for help for her and her hungry children.  There are often beggars at this stop sign but I don’t think I have seen a woman before. 

As we slowly creped forward toward her behind a long line of cars I tried to start some sort of conversation with my wife to take my attention off of her and for God’s sake not make eye contact.  

I remembered the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:42 “Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” but all I had was twenty dollar bills and besides I told myself that she was certainly a scammer who probably makes 50 grand a year doing this.  

I told myself anything it took to make me feel better and you can imagine how relieved I felt to have moved past her and be back on our way to the fancy restaurant to celebrate our marriage. Besides, didn’t Christ say that we would always have the poor with us, we can help them anytime but sometimes there are more important things? Right?

This same episode has happened more than once in my life.  I can justify it all day and actually can think of really good reasons for not giving any cash to the beggars with cardboard signs. May God and that woman forgive me.

I just didn’t feel called. That is a common answer for about anything we do or don’t want to do in the area of following Christ. At least it has often been true for me.  I find it amusing that I so often use that excuse even when the call is already there in the Bible.

Matthew 5:42 “Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”

Maybe we should have  a 6 week intensive Bible study group to ascertain the proper interpretation of these words in red (yes, I am being sarcastic). But that is exactly what we see in most churches and could very well be the response of many Christians. Why can’t we just do what Jesus says. The Bible is very simple and extremely clear here.  We pretend it needs some scholarly study but it doesn’t. I am convinced we only do that because actually living out the commands of Jesus is too uncomfortable. So we make excuses based on Christian living and education.

This is my struggle with the Christian church in our country and more importantly with myself.  May God give me the faith to follow Jesus and be obedient to His Word.

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