Why I am Creepy

I’m walking from Jewel on Grand to home. I get on the south side of Grand behind this girl, but to NOT creep her out (cause I thought I did… crossing the street at no light to walk right behind her?), instead of following her I decide to cut through a parking facility going south and west. I walk two blocks south, cross to the east side of the street… and realize I had to get back on Ohio to buy something from the Sports Authority. Crap! So I walk a block west, get on the west side of.. LaSalle?, and get stopped by a light on Grand. Standing there, I decide to look around, andI SEE THAT SAME GIRL RIGHT BEHIND ME!!!

I could only think of two reasons (not really, but they’re funny) of why she would follow me: My headphones do more than play high-quality music, or my smell brings all the ladies ’round me! Seriously though, do people have nothing better to do than to follow someone? And what are you going to get out of it? Because, let me tell you, when a girl follows me I just get all hot and bothered and have to hit on her. PAH-LEEZE!!!

…She was kinda cute though. WHAT AM I SAYING?! uguuuu… Did you know this happened once when I got lost at UIC before I first started there? I’m driving and see this one girl at the intersection in the left hand-turn lane where I make a right. I get lost and start gallavanting through Taylor and Morgan, losing myself into this cul-de-sac. I finally just park the car to think, and there she pulls in front of me to turn around. It was, like, eight streets ago when I saw her. And that, lads and lassies, is why I am a creep: how else am I gonna get back at the world?

We Detest the Act!!!

Those who practice homosexuality are in the wrong, plain and simple. I don’t care whether it’s two guys are two girls, they are wrong! Some will say that because they’re born that way that it has to be fine. So is it alright for someone who has alcoholism in their family (not someone conditioned to it) to drink?! Sex is not just for pleasure, but it’s also for procreation. Anything more than this is a sin.

To be perfectly honest, I admire them. They were definitely made with thought and care, to be able to overcome obstacles that I will never be able to overcome. What I mean is this: God will never let us go through something we cannot handle. Anyone who has that predisposition are much stronger in that area than I can ever be! It’s a struggle that I cannot comprehend empirically, and thus all I can do is be in awe. Maybe it is wrong, but they are just as human as we are, right? God loves them just as much as He loves us. Of course, though He loves us, in order for us to be in a relationship with Him we must surrender over our entire lives, meaning we must give up all the things He detests. We’re not to lie, steal, kill, or create or let happen any injustice that He deems so. I have to give up my laziness, my pride, love of money, and all other gods that I have and will bring into my life. I mean, if there was an action that gave pain to the one you love that you could give up, wouldn’t you?

Once Saved Always Saved?

If you are of a Calvanistic understanding, then this isn’t such a serious question. What would it matter if someone got saved and then turned? All that matters is the end result, so what would be said was that the person was never saved and God had set this person up for damnation, the wrath of God falling upon him and meant just for this person. The question is actually a bit more troublesome when you think that salvation is a choice of the person. If the Wesleyans have it right, then it ought to mean that you could get saved and then turn it away. That’s not the problem that I’m having.

What if you were saved in a cult? Is that even possible? You profess that Christ is the way, but you feel that He is not even God. Could you actually say that the person was saved? It’s easy to just dismiss that, but what if that happened to you? What if you have a long conversation with the current you and he was telling you all that you really know to this different you who was brought up in what’s being currently known as a cult? “No, your faith is wrong.” “But He saved me! Everything changed after I completely gave up on everything and surrendered to God!”

My memory might be hazy on this, but I think I heard this Muslim guy who was Catholic before giving a prayer of surrender up to God, giving Him complete control, and then he goes Muslim. Understand that the worst parts of Catholicism was being fed to this guy and at the same time a Muslim was convincing him to join their group. The way he talks about it makes anyone think (if they don’t know what happens after the prayer) that this guy gets transformed. He becomes renewed, God comes into his life and snatches all the sin that was currently in him. He is cleansed, it seems, and right after the prayer because of the confusion between the Catholic faith and the Muslim faith, he turns Muslim. I would want to say that, if I was to be the judge, I would say he isn’t saved. But did he get saved? To me it looks like the transformation was there, but during the confusion it stopped. Maybe it didn’t complete. I don’t know… is it possible? What do you think?

This Preordained Free Will

The day I was saved I gave up on everything. I put it all on the line, completely surrendering to God that He may be the one who could rescue me, and He did. So how was that act a preordained act? It’s not a question that can be given a satisfactory answer, but nonetheless it’s fair if you’re wanting to convince someone of a preordained order. But then you could use the Bible since it does teach predestination and throw in there too that people who would believe only a free will resides in us go against the Bible. Let’s not do that. Instead, let’s challenge each other on the same side, that of Christ. How does this question get answered beyond the Wesleyan response?

A question my roommate would ask is this: Where is the love? A Wesleyan would claim that there is no love if a god/God were to condemn one He loves to eternal damnation. He loves us all, does He not? But then the Wesleyan has to give a response to how God, by the very definition of God, can put aside some of His power and still be all powerful. The Wesleyan cannot claim that He is all powerful.

I’ve been feeding my roommate this thought I believe in, and he came in with a good analogy: Look at Christ. Before the orthodox thought came into view a philosophical war raged on between whether our Lord and Savior was either human or divine. You get to see both in Him throughout the Gospels, and it actually only (really?) makes sense if He is both human and God. Just as Christ is both, this universe (or as a Calvinist might have it as only concerning salvation) is both. Then you cry, “Treason towards logic! Only someone who doesn’t understand the Calvinist thought could say it’s both!” But then you have to look again towards the nature of Jesus. And I can also throw out there that the Bible teaches both. Do you go against the Bible? Seriously, the question I pose is this: How do we make sense of all this?

Time to Let Go

Sometimes I get pretty nostalgic. I’ll see a name, see a picture, and fall in love all over again. This time was at work, when one of the resident’s friends started asking me a lot of questions about Catholicism pertaining mostly to the Eucharist. I had totally forgotten my deep love for Communion. Did you know I teared up because people were taking it so lightly? And yet… now it’s not even a big role in my life.

The very last thing I said to that guy was that if I could go back to Catholicism (after it had made its changes), I would. And the main reason is that it upholds the idea that when we celebrate the Mass we’re celebrating with Christ in our midst. Not in some feel good way, but in an also metaphysical way, the real reason why everyone attends the service: The bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Christ. It still looks like bread and wine, but the reality of it has become the body and blood of God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Within this year I was saved. Not only having felt the real presence of God, but to know that I was found by Him, to have all of my sins and transgressions washed away has truly changed me. Having not thought about the Eucharist, I can now say why I looked up to and admired this concept and wanted to celebrate the Mass so passionately: I didn’t have Him. Things have changed. Do I release myself from this love now that He’s here with me? I longed for it because I didn’t have it. Must I now learn to let it go?

Like an unrequited love, a part of me says the time for goodbyes are here, while another part says that love never ends. Love has no ending.

Bad fruit looks like love.
Good fruit is love.

I Deserve Much Worse

You know how we’re told to be glad during the rough times? That was another thing I didn’t get until recently. I mean, why would you?

I was at work today, and while working I think I screwed something up in the parking facility real bad. I tried to fix it, but I think I’m gonna get in trouble. Well, the short of the long story, I’m standing thinking about it and very quickly the thought goes through, “If I get in trouble, it’s what I deserve.” Well, it’s not. I sinned, one more time. Ya know what the penalty is? Death. Immortal death ought to be waiting for me, but instead I’m going to heaven.

For that reason, isn’t that why we ought to be thankful towards God even through the worst of times? No matter how bad it gets here, we should’ve gotten a lot worse. And I won’t. I’m making out more than a bandit would! God found me, and I’m glad. I’m on cloud nine, baby! It seems to be such a simple thing to me now, but I wonder why it took nearly 24 years for this to do so. *shrugs* I’ve got it, so who cares?

Bad fruit can look like love.
Good fruit is love.

My Ex-Slave Master, Sin

I don’t know if this is actually four words. That might be considered five, but iono. So I decided to make a Theologian’s Cafe sorta deal, since that’s what I’m really interested in: God. I am hoping to bring some people in to talk about what’s getting them to move the Kingdom further. What has God put in your life to push you toward His Kingdom? What are you doing to please Him? I chose Four Word Instigate, hoping that people will post using four words in their title to bring about change. I think it’d be a cool little spot on the internet for some of us to just bring things out on the table, seeing if we can start a revolution at least by thinking about it, and hopefully in the forward direction leading to the utopia He’s planned out for us. Who’s in?

But for now, Romans has been taking me for a bit of a ride. It’s strange that after so many years of Christianity being rammed down my throat that I’m still learning things, rehashing all those sermons so long ago. I mean, it wasn’t until I became a Christian when I understood Grace as going from my head to my heart, but now also this passage:

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regards to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at the time from the things which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. –Romans 6:20-23

We were slaves to sin, those of us who have put everything on the line and have been blessed for it. So… everything we did we did with sin as our slave master? Wouldn’t that mean that every time I gave to the poor I was serving sin? Every time I prayed to God it was an order being followed by that thing? If, because of the words that I used someone finally understood Christianity and decided to participate, to give themselves to God, in short, be born again, this act was an act of unrighteousness even though righteousness came from it?

I think the answer would be yes. Think about it: why would we do such things? Would it be in order that later we could show this list to God in order that we may get something in return? Would it be so that we can claim these acts as deserving righteous rewards like an easier life, or in my case, heaven? I would not have been doing these things out of pure pleasure being given to God. No, I would have some other motive behind it, and that motive would be wrong. My heart wasn’t in the right place, nor could it ever be even if I had gotten a million people saved. You see, I’m using that term “I”, as though it was through me alone that these people were saved. It’s God’s supreme will they were saved, and I’m sure He derived pleasure from what I did, but it would never be recorded as reason enough to send me to heaven.

I’m going to be with Him even if I never bring one person to Him. I was saved, and now am trying to bring Him as much pleasure as I can, since He gave me eternal life. I want to see Him happy. I want to see Him satisfied. That is (ought to be) the reason for me to do these things. ‘Cause now I don’t ever have to serve Sin again. Now I can actually choose to give Him glory. It was not possible before, and I hope to do so.

Bad fruit can look like love.
Good fruit is love.

Get the Message Across

My roommate Dan Lee is in Seminary and loving it. He’s been giving me the skinny on all the cool things they are into there: pink laptops, bike racks for cars, being confused, and of course God. He’s been reading through like hundreds of pages a day and even asked me to read one of his books so that he can give a better review. I did, and was quite shocked. There is just so much going on that I actually had to sit back and let it soak in, something that not even Philosophy is able to do to me consistently. I’m sure glad that Theology is a passion, for I wouldn’t know how anyone could get through Seminary without it.

There’s just so much information spewing from these books. It’s ridiculous. At the same time, it’s so insightful that I don’t know why this isn’t being taught to the rest of us lay folk. How come things that which can help us better understand Christ not even be mentioned in series of sermons? Is it too much information? Is it a Methodist thing? a Liberal thing? Maybe it’s just so statistical that people would not even want to listen to it, but that would be putting lay folk in a box of ignorance and stupidity. I don’t like that.

So I decided to tell people about it. It may not have been the wisest thing to do, I know, but I’m a man of action. I do before I think. The problem that I came across was that either I spoke too fast, wasn’t clear enough, didn’t make it interesting enough, didn’t have enough questions, or I fail to communicate in a way that people will listen. I really hope it isn’t the last one. Then I thought that maybe there’s a reason why it isn’t being taught at church. But if that’s the case, then why teach it to Seminarians? Wouldn’t it be to get a message across to the rest of the world, of how great and wonderful our God is? Then what’s going on?

The question goes unanswered. So, again without thinking first, I’ll go ahead and write out exactly what I’ve been learning in maybe a more comprehensible way, and that being through words via points.

• 98% of the population in the Palestinian/Roman-ruled area were either just getting by or slowly dying.

• 2% of the population in the Palestinian/Roman-ruled area had the rest of the wealth

• All were taxed by Rome between 15%-20

• Anyone working the land (most of the 98%) had a 15% tax by the land owner

• Because the Torah wasn’t compiled, the Torah was being interpreted constantly

• Pharisees and Priests of the Temple and the like interpreted the Torah as saying tithe 20%

• Those who didn’t tithe were not able to go to the Temple

• If you can’t go into the Temple, you couldn’t receive forgiveness on the Day of Attonement

• The Torah teaches that any who have should give to those who don’t have. No one should be in need.

• The Torah teaches about Sabaticals and Year of Jubilees

1. every 7 years no one is to work on the land, but eat off it (including the poor)
2. every 50 years all debt would be canceled

• Pharisees are part of the “great tradition” (i.e. Sabbath laws, cleansing laws and the like)

• Peasants are part of the “little tradition” (i.e. Justice, mercy, and the like)

• Jesus’ miracles would bring the people back into the community they weren’t apart of

• He stood for the Justice the people were longing for

• Pharisees didn’t work on land, thus didn’t have to pay that other 15%

Bad fruit can look like love.
Good fruit is love.