Ever since I’ve learned the positions taken at my former church, I’ve wrestled between worry and hope. On the one hand, I worry for those who will receive what is taught to them, because it just sounds good. Further, I worry about this type of “Christianity” gaining a foothold not in just one local church, but across the country as well. My eyes have been opened to how pervasive this ideology is. (I’ve promised that I would get into the ideology, and I will!) Jesus talks about how as time goes on, even the elect’s love for Him will grow cold. I worry that this is happening. On the other hand, I’ve also had a sense of belief that truth wins out. While a lie can be compelling, there is something compelling about the truth as well. Yes, I know that people are drawn to what they would like to hear. The serpent did that quite easily with Adam and Eve. But the lie leaves you feeling empty. It doesn’t make good on its promises–except perhaps in the short-term. I have come to see the awesome power of the gospel. It’s not just theology for me. I really can see it. It blows me away. Every time I hear it, it is like spiritual food. I want to hear more. I think this is partly due to the fact of not hearing it for so many years, and so it feels so fresh to hear it. Hence, the title to this blog post. I didn’t make up that title. It comes from a song that is quickly becoming my favorite song. Here’s a link to it. While I could care less for the concert-feel, the message of the song is exactly everything I want to shout out! I could write a blog post about each and every phrase in this song. Take a few minutes to soak in all the simple, yet profound, truths in it! So check it out,...

I had a conversation with a friend this week about being expressive in worship. Like me, he has a problem with people who are expressive when worshiping, but throughout the week, they don’t live for Christ like they present themselves during worship on Sunday mornings. I struggle with this myself. I don’t want to be expressive on Sunday mornings, but then when I’m at my job Monday – Friday, or at the grocery store for that matter, I live as if I’m embarrassed to mention Jesus to co-workers, clients, or the checkout lady. How can I praise God so expressively at church, but refuse to share Christ with my next-door neighbor? How fake is that?! I’ve always felt like we can be so fake at church–we express ourselves one way there, while the rest of the week when we’re “real,” we’re too shy to proclaim Christ. But today it hit me–I’m not being fake at church. That’s really how I feel–that’s really who I am on the inside. I do want to proclaim how awesome Jesus is. It’s the rest of the week where I’m being fake. I’m hiding the real me from non-believers. How I desire to be real with everyone about how much Jesus means to me! I’m real at church–God, help me to be real at home, at work, and at...

One of the comments to my last blog was: While God certainly has the right to dictate His own terms, I think that this argument causes many people to believe that if God exists that He acts way too arbitrarily to be loving. I personally do not believe that God is arbitrary or unloving, but that perspective can be a natural reaction to the argument that God can set whatever terms He wants. Do you have specific thoughts about those who think God arbitrary, capricious, or unloving? I have some responses to that position about God but they are difficult to state clearly and rely heavily on my personal conception of sin, salvation, heaven, and hell. Great question! I want to dive into it! Here are my thoughts for those who would wonder the same thing (I find myself wondering this as well): I think this is where faith in God is needed. Does God know what He is doing? Can He be trusted to do the right thing? Similar to the relationship between a parent and a child, a child does not always understand why the parent does what he/she does, but that’s because a child is simply a child. We are simply humans. Things may not look “fair” at first from our perspective, but maybe when we start to look at the world through God’s perspective, we realize He really is more than fair. So that this answer doesn’t seem like a “cop-out,” I’d like to see if we can try to gain more of God’s perspective on the matter of sin. According to the terms He set forth at the beginning, anyone who sins must die. That might seem unfair/unloving to us, but can we look at it from God’s perspective? He created us to glorify Him and find our enjoyment in Him only. This is essential to God. It’s not about simply breaking a rule set forth from God–breaking the rule screws things up more royally than we really understand. Rebelling actually destroys our relationship with God. It destroys our relationships with one another. It has cascading effects for the entire universe. Trust has now been broken. Heartache and pain enter. Our pure understanding of...

Is humanity lost? Have we walked away from God and gone our own way? Is the world really going to hell? Is that fair? Is there any way to return to God? Is God even willing to welcome us back if we tried? Does God require any terms for salvation? Would it even be fair of God to set up terms? Why not just save everyone if He really does love the world? What do you think? Well, not to be rude, but it doesn’t really matter what you think. It doesn’t even matter what I think. What matters is what God thinks. (No one likes to hear this.) And the only way we can know what God thinks is if God reveals that to us. And if He does, our own opinions/feelings/thoughts matter little if they contradict what God says about himself. John Wesley (the founder of the Methodist movement) wrote a commentary on the New Testament, including the book of Romans. In this commentary, Wesley states (emphasis mine): [The Gospel] is the powerful instrument of salvation…by means of faith… The world greatly needed such a dispensation–the Gentiles being in a most abandoned state, and the Jews (though condemning others) are themselves no better…so that all were under a necessity of seeking justification by this method. Why did John Wesley write this? Because it’s what the book of Romans lays out as the condition of the world. The question is, did Paul just write this out of his own thinking? Or is this divine revelation from God? If it’s just his own opinion, there’s no need to affirm it or live by it. But if this is revelation from God about humanity’s state–it demands our greatest attention. In Wesley’s commentary, he also states (I paraphrase): God has an absolute right to show mercy on what terms he pleases, and to withhold it from those who will not accept it on his own terms. God says, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy – According to the terms I myself have fixed. And I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion – Namely, on those only who submit to my terms, who accept of...

The biggest reason why I left Genesis, my former church, was that I believe that putting one’s faith in Jesus Christ is the only way to God, but I was told that this was narrow-minded, judgmental, and arrogant to believe and teach this. Of course, I had been teaching this to the youth, and was dismayed to learn that the church felt this was unnecessary and not beneficial to do so. Through this experience, my eyes have been opened to realize that churches like this really do exist out there. Sure, I’ve always known that, but I never thought it was so prevalent that I would actually be part of one. In addition, I discovered that the arguments given to me for why I was wrong for my beliefs would be rather persuasive to anyone who doesn’t read their Bible, which is very scary to me. Because statistics show (and people’s understanding of the Bible show) that most people who go to church don’t read their Bibles regularly. In the weeks that have followed my resignation, I’ve been looking hard at Scripture–and what I’ve found has amazed me. Of course, I knew that Scripture preaches that Jesus is the only way, etc. so that didn’t surprise me. But what has surprised and encouraged me is how powerful, alive, and transforming the gospel is. It’s like I’m experiencing it anew all over again. A re-genesis of sorts. But I lose sleep almost every night thinking about the people who remain at Genesis. Some of them have come to the conclusion that this issue is unimportant, and amounts to nothing more than simply parsing doctrinal hairs. They would say, “We can get along with you and your beliefs–why can’t you get along with us?” Then there are others who have no clue that the church feels this way about the gospel, because the gospel is never presented. Like me, they probably have wondered why we don’t talk about it, but assume that it’s because our sermons are more seeker-friendly. Yet they don’t realize the danger of not hearing the gospel on a regular basis. Pretty soon, if you’re not careful, you devalue the gospel in your own life, because it is...