Only God Can Judge Me

I saw this photo the other day, and I had to stop and reflect on it: how true is this statement?

We often hear people saying, “Only God can judge me.” Oftentimes, we see it tattooed on people’s chest, backs, arms, and all kinds of other places. And more often than not, it is these same people who are drinking alcohol, holding a blunt in their hand, frequent cuss words as part of their vocabulary, and take part in other worldly activities and behaviors. I wonder if they even consider what God must think about their behavior. I have yet to meet a mature, wise and righteous Christian who truly believes only God can judge them.

So I knew when I posted this picture on my instagram, I would probably be stepping on some people’s toes, but I came to realize how crucially true the second part of the statement is.  The truth is that truth is hard to swallow and hard to digest when someone points out to another they aren’t living right. People become defensive and angry because they are comfortable in their sin, and they like it. And when it comes to the truth of God, most people don’t want to hear it anyway. Too often do I meet people who believe in God but want to come to God on their own terms. They want to be worldly and holy.

People often think by being a good person and believing in God, you will get to heaven. So then tell me this: what makes a person “good?” To be nice to other people? To love our friends and our family members? To give to charitable causes? To do our best to be peaceful with other people? Well, even the atheists do these things, and they will not go to heaven. Satan and his agents absolutely know God is real, but they surely will not go to heaven. Even believers who stand in the public eye and testify of God will not all make it to heaven.
Want to know why?

RIGHTEOUSNESS IS A REQUIREMENT.

Sure, God has the final say where your soul ends up, but while we are here on earth, we have the ability (actually, the responsibility) to judge what is righteous and unrighteous by the standard He has given us given that when we do come face to face with God, He will be pleased to send us to heaven. It is through judgment we are able to catch sinful behavior in ourselves and in others so correction can be administered. Sometimes we need others to tell us when we aren’t doing something right, especially when we have been accustomed to doing something for a long time and have never been corrected before. Has my behavior ever been judged by someone in the church before? Yes, absolutely. I was corrected, and after I came down from feeling a little offended, I reflected and realized that I was indeed in the wrong. Did I like the correction? Not at the moment. Was it necessary? Very much so. And because I love the Lord, I didn’t want to continue just doing what I felt like doing because I did it for a long time. My love for God strengthened me to put aside my pride and allow for correction.

Perhaps this post has offended you, but in your patience you endured and read all the way through. Don’t be mad at me. This was in no way to spread hate or condemn anyone. Medicine doesn’t always taste good, but we know that we need it to make us well. Sometimes we don’t even know we are sick, but aren’t we grateful when we are diagnosed and given the proper medication to treat it? I meant this to be medicine for your soul.

Look in the mirror. You see yourself and may think you look fine, but sometimes you may miss the booger hanging from your nose or the salad stuck in between your teeth or your zipper wasn’t zipped all the way. The mirror didn’t lie, you just didn’t see it. Wouldn’t you rather have had someone catch it for you early so that you aren’t walking around only to see it later on after you went about your day smiling at everyone? The embarrassment of having it caught early is better than the embarrassment of knowing why everyone was looking at you a little funny. It is the same when we compare ourselves to the standard of righteousness God has given us, which is our mirror. We may miss a couple of things when we look at ourselves. This is why we need our brothers and sisters to also judge righteously. They will catch the things we have missed and correct us before we continue on thinking we are just fine.

It’s my prayer that if you are one of these who thinks only God can judge you, you will think again. Consider your ways before Christ. Perhaps you really love God and believe in Him, but your outward behavior doesn’t exhibit that love and belief in God. Strive for righteousness. Allow yourself to be corrected. Let your love for God outweigh your love for any worldly habit or pleasure. We are all in this race to the kingdom of God together. This is just a smack in the butt to encourage you to get our of your comfort zone, pick up your cross, and catch up with your brothers and sisters in Christ so we can all get to the finish line.

Questions For Life

As I watched Prophet TB Joshua perform miracles in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ, my heart went out to all those who have fallen away from God, those who just outright reject Him, those who dwindle in their faith in Him, and those who go through the motions of being a Christian but do not live righteously. I began to feel very sad for these people.

I read comments beneath the videos calling God names and criticizing, my brothers and sisters retaliating, and all for what? To prove God sits on His throne either as all-good or as immoral? To prove God is beyond logical thinking or that He is merely a product of our imagination?

I have taken it upon myself to look into the arguments of why God does not exist and why the God of the Christian faith is called “immoral,” “genocidal,” a “terrorist” and such other descriptions people use to formulate their case against God. I cannot be angry at people who say these things, for we all have our reasons why we believe what we do. Thus my studies have become more broad, but with this, my faith in God has also been strengthened, not deterred.

When I first began studying, I wondered, “Could there possibly be an argument strong enough to cause my faith to be swayed?” My motive to study was not on the basis to prove God exists, but to understand why others say He does not, and so I welcomed the challenge. What I have read and heard of the arguments against the existence God, at best, still do not disprove Him and fail to convince that the God of the Christian faith is indeed immoral. But I am not here to challenge anyone’s beliefs. I just like to challenge my own and write down my rationalizations. It is up to my readers what they do with it.

But oh, the great cases that are built against God and for God! How we weave ourselves into a tangled web of restless searching. Yet today, I will say this, even as I’m sure it has been said many times in much more poignancy and elegance. If there is no God, no Satan, no heaven, no hell, no resurrection, then, as the Apostle Paul puts it,” If, in the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it to me? If the dead do not rise, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.'”

Are our debates and debacles merely for entertainment, having no purpose but to win someone to our side of the argument? Do we fight so hard for what we believe in simply to come to terms with the fact that what we fight for will eventually come to nothing? Do we live, breathe, enjoy others (or not), and struggle, simply just….to die? Is it enough to live a life only with a meaning we ourselves have prescribed knowing that deep down the few who ever cared for us and the few lives we ever touched will eventually come to the same meaningless death and that you will eventually be completely forgotten? And does it sit well to believe that a person who has committed heinous crimes without remorse will die the same death as the sweetest, most kind and caring person you know and neither will ever face a greater judgment than that which man has given? Since the Christian and the atheist alike know the end of our world will come (as this is stated as a simple, scientific truth), our legacies, our history, and all we have come to value will pass with the world, and ultimately our lives are rendered insignificant. If all we have ever studied was to point out to us that we live once and die once and have no soul, why do we feel sad for those who have committed suicide? For they simply just escaped the struggles of this life faster than the rest of us. If life has meaning and value because we say it has meaning and value, then by whose standards do we criticize the one who says it doesn’t? Our own? After burial, the person who valued life is no greater than the one who did not value life, for both came to the same ending.

If all of this is what life really boils down to, then what a very sad agnostic and/or atheist I would be….

Why Does the World Hate the Christian?

This weekend, my instagram was invaded by two agnostic atheists who commented some very rude, but also very funny, comments on two of my photos. Rude because I did not invite confrontation, but also funny because their comments carried no meaning to support their agnosticism and were things I could imagine a mischievous 7 year old boy saying. The age of these two agnostic atheists are unknown to me, and I’m sure will forever remain a mystery because 1) there are adults who act like children and children who are more mature than some adults I have come to know, and 2) finding out their age would be a complete waste of time. Their comments did, however, cause me to wonder why Christianity is treated with such contempt. Not that I hadn’t wondered this before, but this time was treated differently since this hatred was directed towards me.

So what’s with the hate towards Christianity? I’m sure there are many reasons, but when I thought about it, it came down to this: Christians have fallen short in approaching humanity with love throughout history even up till now. This is not to include every Christian, but let’s face it, stereotypes go a long way. We know application (i.e. incorrect application) of the Bible was used to support slavery and racism. We have seen in the news the protestors against abortion and homosexuality, among other things, holding up signs with scripture written on it (it is quite difficult to use scripture to support your case when the people who fight against your case don’t even believe in the Bible).

Yes, many people do such things in protest, but Christians are not called to do things the way the world does. Some Christians drag Christianity through the mud simply by what they choose to name their websites and the things they allow in their churches. I get very sad when I see and hear such things because Christianity loses credibility simply by the way we present ourselves to the world. Jesus Christ never went to the Pharisees and Sadducees to prove His case, He never went looking for trouble, but rather they went looking for Him. He did not lead riots and protests as the Jews had hoped the Messiah would, but Christ gained followers by healing people, speaking to them the Word of God and teaching them, remaining humble, and loving others with such a profound and incomprehensible love. You see, Christ did not go tell the whole world of how sinful a person or group of people were. He taught sinners the Way and set a righteous example for them to follow. In other words, Christ set the perfect example for every Christian on how to make disciples of the people before He gave the command to go make disciples of the nations.

People hold their values and beliefs so sacred to them that you cannot win a person over to your way of thinking by arguing with them, telling them how wrong they are, and calling them names. What happens when two people who feel they are correct argue, more often than not, is that both of them walk away having proved nothing to the other but that they are intolerable, foolish, and irrational.

Now you are probably asking, what is my position in all of this? I am a very devoted Christian, I do not support gay marriage or abortion, I study the Word of God, I listen to debates on Christianity versus atheism, I hear the pros and the cons, and I think critically on the questions atheists bring up. If I were to address some questions on my blog, I suppose this post would continue on for weeks. However, I just want to encourage peaceful conversation and debate rather than hateful protest, name-calling and noisy banter. And to my Christian brothers and sisters, the Lord calls you the salt of the earth and the light of the world- you were once sinners in the world and would continue to be if not for the dispensation of grace from God and His calling in your life. Live by the Word of God without compromise, know the Word of God, pray not only for yourself, your family, and your church, but also for this world through love, choose your words wisely, and love others just as Christ also loves you. Open, and FRIENDLY, discussion  and posts are welcomed and encouraged.

You can follow me on instagram @mellyspinelly.

Questions, Questions

Every day after I check my e-mail, Yahoo! shows me a whole list of Yahoo!news. One thing holds true for every day I see the news: there is always something truly disturbing listed amongst the gossip in Hollywood and the next dieting fad. This morning, I came across this article of a young girl, Audrie Pott (wearing the purple dress in photo below), who committed suicide after being humiliated by her peers at a party.

http://news.yahoo.com/3-teens-arrested-assault-girls-suicide-024221519.html.

As I read this, I thought, “where were her friends when all of this was happening?” and “what gave those boys the impression that what they did was okay to do?” What happened to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you?” Are these just values which are learned when we’re young and then quickly forgotten with age? Did this only become tragic when Audrie killed herself? I thought it was already tragic when a girl who isn’t even legal to get a LICENSE to drive was at a party drinking ALCOHOL.

But this is the world we find ourselves in. People rushing to volunteer to hurt other people, scarring each other and robbing each other of the few precious things we have in life and the few precious things that make life beautiful.

Oh yes, and one classic question people like to ask in the midst of tragedy, “Where was God when this happened?” Answer: Well, I know where He wasn’t; He was not in the hearts of those young men, otherwise, they would have taken the advantage to care for her in her vulnerable state rather than take advantage of her in her vulnerable state. If we are pushing God out of our lives and our schools and our upbringing, we cannot hold Him accountable for not being where He was not wanted.

Today, ask yourself, “What if this happened to you?” or even, “What if this had been your daughter?” And if this has happened to you or someone you know, how did you or that person you know get through it?

If we can learn one thing from this heartbreaking story, let us learn and remember that what we do today can easily influence whether someone lives or dies tomorrow.