Substitute Jesus

So I've spent the bulk of the past 20 days or so in the book of Acts. And it was one of the toughest books in the Bible for me to read through. But that's because there wasn't a whole lot that I felt I could apply to my life. Although it was real interesting to read about the early church and how they lived. There was so much conflict between the early church and the well established religion of Judaism in their time. I can't help but wonder if some of the early Christian folk were like, "Screw this, I want to go back to Judaism. It's easier to follow and I won't be yelled at or beat up or killed for it, and I'm already familiar with it anyways." This is the attitude the pharisees had when Jesus was still alive: familiarity. They weren't ready to give up what they had known to be true, what they had clung onto for so long; they weren't ready for God to rock their world. It makes me wonder, what are we clinging onto instead of God? What are the things in our world that God needs to shake up? God took me back to the point in time just before Jesus' crucifixion where Pontius Pilate allowed the people (some of whom were the chief priests) to decide if they wanted Jesus or Barabbas to be set free. Pilate asked the people if they wanted him to release to them "the king of the Jews" (Jesus). But the chief priests had stirred up the people to ask for Barabbas to be released instead. So Pilate was like, "What do you want me to do with Jesus then?" And do you know what they responded with? "Crucify him!" Pilate asked them, "Why? What has he done wrong?" But they just shouted louder. Did you guys know that Barabbas is not Barabbas's first name? His first name was actually Jesus. The people had a choice between Jesus, "the king of the Jews" and Jesus Barabbas...and instead of choosing the man who was 100% God and 100% man, instead of choosing the person who would later die to save them and the future generations from their sin, they chose a substitute Jesus. They chose a Jesus who was a murderer, a Jesus who was "one of them," a Jesus who didn't cause them to make a choice. So let me ask, what's your substitute Jesus? What or who are you putting your trust in? Are you afraid of what would happen if you started to put even a little trust in the real deal? I want to challenge you. Whether you believe in Jesus or not, whether you are a Christian already or you want nothing to do with any sort of religion. I want to challenge you to have a conversation with God. Lay it all out to him. Tell him how you feel about him. He can handle anything you throw at him. He's big enough. But then I want you to end your conversation with one statement: "But God, if you are there, if you are real, then I want you to rock my world." Then I want you to see what happens.

God and Love

We sing songs about God's love in church but are we really getting it?
Yes we understand that God has a love for the people in starving
countries and a love for people who are victims of natural disasters,
at least we do for a little while. We even understand that God has a
love for the people that we love to love. But I pray that when we
hear about God's love, when we sing about God's love, when we remember
God's love that we will remember also that God has love not only for us
but for the people around us that we don't like, the people that we
love to hate. When we hear about God's love may we remember that God's
love extends to the people that are annoying, to the people who are
awkward, to the people who can't seem to find a bar of soap to save
their life. God loves the unlovable...and if we believe in God and in
his love then we should also love the unlovable.