"I've got God."

"I've got God."

No.

Wrong.

God's got YOU! And that is far better than you having God. Think about it. When you say, "I've got God." What are you really implying? You have God, but others don't. Do you own the rights to the Almighty? You don't have God any more than Nickelback has fans. And this is fine because, God has YOU. If you had God you could lose Him, what if you left Him in your pants pocket and went on a trip without those pants? TOO BAD you don't have God with you anymore!  Okay I am just being a smart-ass, but really. When someone says they "have God" it irks me.

God has you.

God has everyone.

No one has God.

Undercover Project!

Hello everyone! It's me, Chris! Obviously seeing as how this IS my blog. 

I wanted to let everyone know about a project that I plan to do! I am very excited to be doing this project, but I am going to need some help. 

Financially, I could use the help in getting some of the necessary gear for the project. Mostly one item in particular. Here is the URL: http://www.deluxecctv.com/catalog/hidden-cameras/1080p-hidden-covert-sophisticated-glasses-dvr-hd-spy-camera-2503.html?gclid=CMKk__Snj78CFYQ-MgodmgEAuw.

I will also be trying to raise money to buy multiple copies of "How To Quit Church Without Quitting God" by Martin Zender, to leave behind at each church for those that God gives ears to hear and eyes to see!

My idea is simple. Wear these camera glasses into a different church every week for at least 6 months. I will interview people that are just attendees or "sheep", and also the pastor/priest/etc or "shepherd". I will be recording answers that I receive to simple questions about the doctrines of "hell", immortality of the soul, the trinity, salvation of all, etc. I will also ask them about verses such as 1 Timothy 4:10, 1 Corinthians 15:22, Romans 5:18,etc. I understand that due to privacy issues and things of that nature, I will need to ask the recorded individual for permission to use the footage or I will have to blur them out in the video. 

Now I know most of you will not be able to help financially and that is okay. Here is what else you can do:

1. Message me a list of some questions that you think I should ask. (If you aren't friends with me on Facebook, feel free to add me!)

2. If you know anything about video editing and software that would be useful for this project I could use your help there! 

3. Message me to encourage me! I know this project will test me, mostly it will test my patience with the silly answers I will be receiving.

If there is anything at all that you guys can think of to help me out in this, it would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Stop Trying To Earn God's Favor

Are you trying to get on God's good side? Do you feel like you need to strive to maintain God's favor or even achieve His favor to begin with? If so, then you are missing the entire point of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. If you think for one second that you need to do ANYTHING at all to achieve favor in the eyes of God, than you are sadly mistaken. Want to know a secret? God ALREADY favors you! You and everyone else that has ever been born! God is at peace with you. God loves you. Your sin's don't separate you from His grace. You have been conciliated to God. Not by anything you have done, or by anything you will do. You need to stop trying to earn God's favor and realize that....are you ready for this? GOD is trying to earn YOUR favor! 

Let me show you a passage. One of my favorites. It is found in 2 Corinthians, verses 5:18-20. It reads, "Yet all is of God, Who conciliates us to Himself through Christ, and is giving us the dispensation of the conciliation, how that God was in Christ, conciliating the world to Himself, not reckoning their offences to them, and placing in us the word of the conciliation. For Christ then, we are ambassadors as of God entreating through us. We are beseeching for Christ's sake, "Be conciliated to God!" How amazing! God is not counting our offences against us! He is already conciliated to us! We just need to realize that. God has no enmity towards us! It is we who have enmity towards HIM! God says, "I have taken care of everything and now I find no fault in you." You don't trust Him when you feel estranged from Him due to your own shortcomings and sins! You cannot out-sin grace! It is impossible! Romans 5:20, "Yet law came in by the way that the offense should be increasing. Yet where sin increases, grace SUPEREXCEEDS!"

I have been accused of condoning and even encouraging sin. I even had one guy say to me, "Well, that settles it who wants to have an orgy?" My response was, "Not with another guy, thanks though!" 

Paul was even accused of condoning sin! Romans 6:1,"What then shall we declare? That we may be persisting in sin that grace may be increasing?" Paul's response? Romans 6:2,"May it not be coming to that!" 

No I am not encouraging sin, I am encouraging you to GIVE UP trying to please God, and know that He is already pleased with you. If you sin, so what! It was taken care of. That is the entire point Christ's sacrifice. Christ freed us, not so we could be religious zealots carrying the weight of our sins and shortcomings on our shoulders, always worrying if you pleased God enough or if He is mad at you for slipping up. No, Christ freed us so we could be free! 

Are You Limiting God?

Sorry it has been quite awhile since I have blogged! I don't like to blog just for the sake of blogging though. I only blog when something is really tugging at me and I feel the need to post about it. 

Today I want to ask, are you limiting God? The Being who created everything, who runs everything, who formed you from dust (which He formed from a spoken word.) Are you LIMITING either His power, or His love? 

If you believe that God is not going to end up with 100% of His creation reconciled back to Him, then I have some humbling news for you. You are LIMITING GOD.

 If you believe that God WILLS everyone to be saved, (1 Timothy 2:4-6) but that because of man's so called 'free will' he will be unable to do so, then you are saying that creation's will is more powerful than The Creator's. You are also ignoring Ephesians 1:11, which states that God is operating ALL in accord with HIS WILL.

On the flipside, if you believe scripture about the absolute Sovereignty of God, that He is operating ALL in accord with HIS will, then you are limiting His very being, which is Love. God IS LOVE. You believe that God chooses some to be saved and go to heaven for eternity, whilst the majority is destined to be damned for all eternity, simply because God didn't choose them. If this isn't a contradiction of God's very being (Love), than I don't know what is. 

Good news though! You can believe that God is Love and also believe that God is Sovereign. If you believe these two scriptural statements then you will escape religion and it's insane legalism and scare tactics! The only way to believe 1 Timothy 2:4-6 without throwing away Ephesians 1:11 (or vice versa) , is to discard religion and use simple logic. You don't have to discard logic to believe the Scriptures. That is what religion does. Escape religion and let the truth set you free.

Final Thought:
-God wills all to be saved.
-God is operating ALL in accord with the counsel of His will.

You do the math.

We Are Not The Potter

By calling out people because they are different than you and even going so far as to shun other because they aren't like you, we are spreading a message of hate and selfishness.

If we ever want to see this world become a better place, we are going to have to learn that not everyone is exactly how you think they should be. We are all unique individuals with different talents and different interests. The world would be a boring place if we were all the same. So why are we shunning those who are different? Why do we treat people as if they deserve less than we do? A human is a human. We are causing people to have MENTAL DISORDERS because we are too STUBBORN to let go of our stereotypes and stigmas, and just see people as they are without trying to change them into how WE think they should be. It isn't OUR job to form someone into what WE think he or she should be. Someone else is taking care of that. Someone else is forming each individual exactly how He sees fit. So why don't we put down our hammers and our chisels and watch what He makes out of us? I promise you that in the end, nobody will be disappointed in His handiwork.

Stop Hating

This world is hurting. It is crying out for hope. Crying out for love. Only to be answered with hate and despair. We are supposed to be bringing good news to people. The GOSPEL. We are supposed to be freeing people from the chains of religion, hate, and rules. Instead we offer a message of "hope" by threatening people with a never ending torment should they refuse God's gift. There is a fake gospel out there. And it is being preached in the name of love. Turn or burn is the "gospel" I am referring to. It goes something like this: God loves you so much that He sent His son Jesus Christ to die for you. However you must choose to believe in this sacrifice otherwise Christ's payment doesn't apply to you, and you will burn forever in a place called hell. God's love is unconditional, however there is one condition. You must CHOOSE to accept His payment. Also, once you accept this "free gift" you must abide by certain rules or at least try your hardest, because if you don't then you either aren't TRULY saved because if you were you would follow the rules, or you are going to LOSE your salvation. It is free but only if you maintain it. Why can't we just learn to preach truly good news? The gospel that Paul, our apostle, taught? Paul never used the word hell in his writings (hades, sheol, gehenna, or tartarus). He even called God the Savior of all mankind. 1 Timothy 4:10. He uses parallel passages such as Romans 5:18 and 1 Corinthians 15:22 to compare Adam's act and effects with Christ's act and FULLY REVERSING effect. If you have faith in Christ's sacrifice you can thank God for that faith. It is not out of you. Ephesians 2:8-9. We as a race will never be able to LOVE like God calls us to love, until we realize that people are just the way God wants them to be and made them to be to fit perfectly in His perfect plan. Yes, that means that Hitler was part of God's plan. Ephesians 1:11 says that God is operating ALL in accord with His own will. That means you can love everybody JUST THE WAY THEY ARE. That heroin addict? That drunkard? That homosexual? That prostitute? (if it is a guy, That prositdude?) EVEN the hypocritical Christians that are mixing hatred with their so called "gospel". God is using them all for His own purpose. So let us stop judging and start loving. You will find that it is much easier to forgive people when you realize that God is in control of it all. Stop threatening homosexuals and drunkards and prostitutes, etc with "hell". Stop following your pastor blindly. Wake up to the TRUE GOSPEL. To TRULY GOOD NEWS. Read 1 Timothy 4:10, Romans 5:18, 1 Corinthians 15:22-28, Romans 11:32, Colossians 1:20, 1 Timothy 2:4-6. Etc. STOP HATING, STOP JUDGING, START LOVING!

Greater Faith

Simple question. Who has greater faith?

 1.The man who has heard of Christ's sacrifice and believes it, then tries the rest of his life to please God and make Him happy in order to maintain his right standing with God. This man goes to a church building every Sunday and Wednesday, gives 10% of his income to the offering plate, doesn't say a naughty word ever, never enjoys a beer, wouldn't dare look at a woman and admire the sight, and if he catches himself starts begging God for forgiveness for he is afraid of what God might do to him. He spends the rest of his life avoiding anything that could potentially be a sin because if he messes up God will not be happy with Him.

2. The man who hasn't even HEARD of God but believes in his heart that God loves everyone just the way they are. He ENJOYS his life not being afraid of what God may do to him if he doesn't live up to a certain expectation. This man LOVES others because he believes that whatever God we all come from loves everyone just the same. This man also happens to get drunk every once in awhile, he may even watch pornography. But he isn't afraid of what God will do to him because he knows that God loves him no matter what he does.

I believe that Man 2 has stronger faith. He BELIEVES that God loves him no matter what. Man 1 believes in a god with conditional love whereas Man 2 sees God's love as unconditional. I don't condone sinful activity but if it came down to two choices, one being to believe that Christ did literally EVERYTHING needed to save you, thereby FREEING you to ENJOY life without worry of condemnation (no matter what you do). The second being to believe that Christ paid for your sins but you must make an effort to stop sinning the rest of your life or His sacrifice was in vain. I would choose to rest in what Christ did and enjoy my life.

Galatians 5

Young's Literal Translation (YLT)

5 In the freedom, then, with which Christ did make you free -- stand ye, and be not held fast again by a yoke of servitude;

2 lo, I Paul do say to you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing;

3 and I testify again to every man circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law;

4 ye were freed from the Christ, ye who in law are declared righteous; from the grace ye fell away;

Christ freed us, not to enslave us under fear of condemnation, no. He freed us to be FREE! So if you must sin, sin boldy. In the words of Martin Luther, "Sin boldy! But let your trust in Christ be bolder."