"my mother, she believed in heaven so she's covered"

Ok, so last night I watched the movie Ratatouille (yea, I'm still straight), and I had a couple interesting thoughts about it. One quote toward the beginning of the movie kind of stuck with me the whole time.

Skinner: Ah, yes, Renata. How is she?
Linguini: She's good... well, not good, she's been better. She's, uh... she's -...
Horst: She died.
Skinner: [carelessly] Oh, I'm sorry
Linguini: Oh, no, don't be. She believed in Heaven, so she's covered... after-life speaking. -IMDB

Now, when I heard that, I thought is was -in the words of Linguini later in the movie - "'rat' and 'patootie.' Rat-patootie". So as I went to bed and laid there, such thoughts as the following entered my mind:

I will be the first to tell you God exists, and that He forgives. We see it throughout the Bible, but there is a statement in the movie Ratatouille that epitomizes the modern thought of how that forgiveness is extended. "my mother, she believed in heaven so she's covered." A very typical view of salvation I'd say that comes from our current post-moderned culture.

If baffles me to no end that people believe in God and will call themselves Christians, yet never even know what the bible says about how to be one. It will probably make no sense, but true to follow my logic here

if (F + G) makes P a subset of C,
then how can it be that a P would expect to be a subset of C when they have no F that adds to G?
(Where F=faith, G=grace, P=person, C=Christian)

It's not even about calling yourself a Christian and acting like it.
It's not even about your belief of consubstantiation and transubstantiation.
It's not even about whether you're a regular or a CrEaster.
It's not even about whether you're a priest or a pauper.

I'm drawn more toward the idea everyday that it's not even about how we "stack up" with the "Christian Walk". But I'll tell you. It is about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It's not about saying a prayer. It's not about subscribing to Adrian Rogers podcast (LWF). Using a phrase from Refuge by Darrell Evans, "When the world is shaken and nothing stands", where does your Spirit lie? In the arms of Christ? Under the wing of God? Inside the fold of the Good Shepherd? What's it to you? A simple book? A modern narrative, as has become the crux of many a modern church movement? Just a good idea? Simply one possibility among many others? I venture to say NO. It's Christ. It's the death and resurrection of Christ. It's the loving sacrifice that Christ made 2000 years ago on a hill called Calvary. It's God's Word. It's God's Truth. It's God's Son. It's God's Promise.

But it's your choice. I will say that line from the Ratatouille should be changed from "my mother, she believed in heaven so she's covered" to ""my mother, she believed in heaven so she's dead in her sins and trespasses, spending eternity in Hell". There is no substitute for the True Substitutionary Lamb. Heaven is reserved for those who believe God, and have the faith in who He is and in His promise, which for us, comes through the faithful acceptance of the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ.

Sweet Release

So I have two blog posts I'm working on right now, or at least in my mind. Neither of them are written yet, but I decided to write this one out. It will be the shorter of the two, and I don't have a lot of time, so I figured I'll save the other for later (also considering I have most of the thoughts in my phone, recorded).

I just spent this past weekend up in Pennsylvania visiting Sarah, and I must say that I have had a very interesting thing happen. I will first preface it by saying that not too long ago, after having yet another dream in which I was attempting to run and found myself seemingly moving at a turtle's pace for who knows what reason, I decided to go online and do a search for what causes that in a person's dream. And upon a little bit of research, I came to the conclusion that to run slow in your dreams tends to correspond with your having an emotional issue that has not been dealt with. One phrase describing it was "you are losing control".

Now obviously we can't necessarily take all these ideas at face value, because who really can interpret dreams (besides God)? But either way, I will say this, I have come to my own conclusion that running slow in your dreams has something to do with an issue that is holding you back. It's like going to a carnival or whatever and running on that thing with the bungee cord attached to you. You run as hard as you can, but you don't go anywhere. And that's the kinds of dreams I've been having for a while now. But praise God I've finally come to the point where it's gotten better. I can't really go into all the details, but I'll say this.

There was an issue that I've been dealing with for a while and struggling with as well. It's not something that I'm involved in, and it's not a struggle of commission as much as it is a struggle of omission. But suffice it to say that this weekend, I was able to lift that weight off my shoulders and it felt great to not be carrying such a burden on myself.

But the cool thing I want to get at right now is my dream. I guess I can set up the situation, as odd as it is.

When my dream (what I remember) began, I was walking into the parking garage, first floor, back home at church in Jacksonville, and as I am walking I see this girl running to this old Civic hatchback, and she jumps in the car, and the drive begins to speed away, burning rubber as he cuts 90 degrees toward the left. As he begins to move, there was a car that was watching him and sped towards him in order to cut him off as he tried to speed away. Next thing I see is the Civic spinning around 180 degrees and driving pretty much straight toward me, though he began turning away so that he would be driving parallel to me instead of perpendicularly straight toward me. Now, as the Civic is coming my way, I see, from the other car, a hand protrude from the driver's side window holding a handgun, complete with a silencer attached. My first instinct is to run, which I do, further into the garage, so I wouldn't get hit from the stray bullets, but as I noticed the gunman firing at the Civic and the Civic turning to go the same direction as I was, I quickly cut back and being running in the opposite direction. Now, right here would normally be where this slow motion issue would take place. I know that in my normal dreaming pattern, I would be trying to run from this gunman as quickly as possible but would be getting nowhere. Much to my surprise though, I was actually able to run what I probably would consider normally at this point, which completely shocked me. As I was intersecting with the car's trajectory (sorry, big words :)) and running past it, I'm not sure if I got shot or I made it with no problems.

All I remember is waking up, sweating, and in this fearful state of mind that this dream felt somewhat real. However, I quickly recalled the dream and I realized that I was able to run. The rest of my thoughts turned off as I laid there bed grasping the idea that I was actually not held back the way I have been in so many of my dreams before. I felt refreshed, and even though I can't say what the theme of my dream was about.

Now I just wanted to mention that whole thing in this blog. There is great importance in choosing to do the right thing no matter what the cost. I thought the cost of my weight would be something that would cause me great sadness, but it turns out that choosing to let go of that weight was a great relief to me both emotionally and spiritually. I feel a lot more free at this point, and am glad to have removed such a weight from my shoulders. It really does pay to do the right thing, I can't stress enough. Because omission will make you just as guilty as commission.

Note: Although I can't really make a good interpretation of my entire dream, I guess in my thoughts of the surrounding situation, I would have to speculate that it somehow coincided with what else was going on. As best as I understand what dreams may mean (which is by no means thorough), I would say that the Civic was symbolic of something else in my life. Being a dark color, I suppose it to be a dark memory of some sort, and as it cuts corners and tries to speed away, I may speculate that it is the person of that memory attempting to escape from something in its past. And I would venture to say that the car chasing would be the past haunting that particular person, and the use of a silencer being that shots are made to destroy that person silently, out of the sight of others. And somehow, I guess I was caught in the crossfire because I was somehow involved, and in my turning to run away from that memory, I was caught in the middle of the crossfire and possibly struck by a part of that memory. Of course, all this is speculation and as I am definitely not superstitious, I don't quite even trust my own thoughts in this case. However, there may be something to say for the situations in our dreams, and I know if I don't write it down, I'll forget it. So such is that.


Until next time... which should be entitled "Intentional Christianity"

Matthew 10:28

Enough said:

Matthew 10:28
"And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell."

Identity

Life... What's it all about?
If someone asks me this... what am I to shout?
A name I say, above all others,
The One who pulls us in as brothers.
There is the One who knows just what it's all about
He's the One I look to, to figure all this out.
I know the One who's written it down,
Inspired the men who've written His sound
Like the Spirit of God, descending life a dove,
And all of a sudden, God's voice from above,
Saying the words that bring you to your knees,
"This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
You'll find it in the first few books, with the second half
About the One named Jesus, who then became our calf.
He lived and died and rose again, so that the world would see
The Truth behind the reason why He died upon that tree.
A holy war we're fighting, but this is no jihad.
It's war that's fought for sinner's souls, that each one be turned to God.
A final thought and warning, look at our human state.
Now think about it long and hard... with God, do you relate?

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Synopsis:

There is something that we all have in our lives, whether we like it or not and whether we realize and accept it or not. That is that fact of Identity. There is one think we all have, and that is identity in something. For some it is at the bottom of a bottle. For others, it is at the end of a football field. And for some, it is found in a pew in a church, with an old dusty Bible, sitting by their side.

However, there is one identity that surpasses all others. There is an identity that we can pursue that is outside of ourselves and our abilities. That is, our identity in Christ. I think many times that we (speaking solely to Christians) misunderstand our identity as Christians, which is our identity in Christ. I know that I find myself in this predicament of misunderstanding what it means to have my identity in Christ. So I have thought about it, and come to the conclusion that in order to fully express my identity in Christ I must understand who Christ is. We have been studying in Galatians with our Bible Study, and every week as we go though it, I have come to realize so much more of how so worthless I am in comparison to God. Yet He still loves me, and saved me from what I deserve (Hell). Yet, as I have been in Christ, I don't think I've ever fully understood what it means to be identified with Christ. I think it's such a huge thing to grasp that I can't even wrap my head around it. I must say that the biggest obstacle in my way is the pride of humanity. I am selfish. We as sinful imperfect human beings are selfish. And it is that selfishness that causes us to do our own thing and to misunderstand our identity. So as this Galatians study has progressed, I have begun to realize many things I haven't not thought about before. I simply realize how nothing I can do is going to make me a "better Christian". To be in Christ is to throw the checklist-rulebook out the window and start focusing on God Himself. I have come to this conclusion. "We must do God's will, God's way." As we finished chapter 4 this past Tuesday, we looked back quickly at the story of Abraham and Sarah and Hagar (Genesis 16 & 21, respectively), and the biggest thought that struck me was that with Ishmael (son of Hagar) was born through Abraham attempting to do God's will, Abraham's way. But when we look at Isaac (son of Sarah), we see how Abraham did God's will, God's way. So now God is trying to teach my that my identity in Christ will come with my acceptance of two things. 1) Being identified with Christ, I must seek to become like Christ (to imitate Christ), which means I must 2) Understand how Christ was different than we are as humans... meaning that He always did God's will, God's way. If I am to surrender to my identity, I must live out these two things. No longer can I look to a list of self-made rules in order to "checklist" my Christianity status, but I need to love God and follow Christ, which in turn will lead me to do all those things anyways, only now, for the right reason.

Colossians 2:20-23
20 Therefore,[a] if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations—
21 “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,”
22 which all concern things which perish with the using—according to the commandments and doctrines of men?
23 These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.

The only way I am going to overcome the problem of my pride/selfishness is to "let go and let God" (yes, I know it's cliche).

Remember: "God's will, God's way." Let's see if we as Christians can't spend our lives finding out what that truly means.