����� One day I was arguing/conversing with God. As you can imagine it was not much of an argument, it was more like I was pretty sure I was learning something which I didn't want to and God not allowing it. For whatever reason I had the crazy notion this was a good idea. Not believing God never really works out in your favour because He is going to make sure you know He is right eventually and sometimes it hurts a lot more when you make Him prove it. I am so far from Christ I often learn new things every day but not all of them are radical revelations or shocking news. But once in a while I get one which has weight and value for someone other than me. Warning this blog literally started as a bunch of random notes written down then put together with no ties. So if this sounds a little scattered, sorry. I did my best with what I had to work with.
����� Obviously I don't know everything, which God has made clear numerous times. However when God speaks I learn something every time. But, like I said, this was a conversation so obviously God did some talking. As God likes to do, first He proved Himself right, then He gave me something new. In scripture you can read countless stories of screw ups, nut jobs and generally crazy people. Do you know what the crazy part of those stories are? Those were Gods chosen people. God chose people based on character above all other things. Gods idea of character didn't even mean they were always a believer (example – Paul). Other examples – Samson, Judges 13-16, most of the minor prophets, Ezekiel-Malachi and so many others. Even better still is God has never made a mistake in choosing anyone. I mean God has never made a mistake in anything which includes choosing His people.
����� Simple concept – God didn't make you or me on accident. Free will aside God is in control of everything. This thing we tend to do as Christians in a first world culture is we make God a possession. God becomes a tangible item which we think we can access whenever convenient for us. However this is not how God operates. God has this plan for us and made us all to fit His plan perfectly. We can sit back and watch life happen while we continue to allow evil to reign in our world, our cities and our lives or we can be "radicals" according to our society. The world gets really small when we start living within the confines of our comfort and wants. If you notice in most of these stories of the crazies, whom our society considers odd, are still worthy enough to be recorded in THE WORD OF GOD!
����� I believe God gives us all desires. And whether we choose God above all things or not determines which desires our heart pays attention to. Psalm 37:4, "Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you your hearts desires." I used to read this thinking if l choose God, He will give me what I want. Wrong! A better understanding has shown me how this means if I choose God and make Him the center of my life, He will change my heart to desire the things He does. See the biblical description in Ephesians 4:22-23. This change of heart is painful sometimes because it means giving up the things I have been raised to desire by the first world society and the western church. I still don't have anything in my life perfected and even less I don't have God figured out nor do I know how to practically be Christ-like always. But with God at the focal point of my life my heart changes and my desires become the things which please Him. 1 Corinthians 12 describes the spiritual gifts, it's a good read, check it out. Though I may not posses many of these gifts, I believe we all as children of God and believers have the ability to exercise any of these gifts. But one of the gifts I fail at miserably is the one which talks about a message of wisdom of knowledge. But you see the beauty of the rest of this chapter is when it talks about one body. Though I may not be able to present the things I know well, someone else may have this ability. I pray constantly that I might gain the ability of pleasant speech or at least speech which is heard with an understanding of the heart. I pray as well to see ones heart not ones word and it be reciprocated.
����� We have been taught by our society to over analyze nearly everything in every situation but in one small description Gods beauty and our sinful ways can be described. It is to the credit of human nature that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility. We are created in Gods image and are a reflection of Him meaning human nature is the nature of God which is to love before we hate. However we are more eager to love the orphans, homeless, sick, desperate, imprisoned and widowed when it doesn't inconvenience us. For many of us God is the continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility which is pressing against our selfishness to push us outside our comforts to do something about it. Our selfishness gets in the way because we don't want to be uncomfortable to love in the way we are called to. I believe if God saw fit to remove me it would be because of my inability to perform His humblest mission here on earth. I have mastered the art of crazy, the image of nut job and the testimony of screw up yet God has chosen me to be one of His people despite my inability to love the way He loves or speak the way He speaks. God asked me to do something crazy and I bet He is also asking you.
����� Would you rather be known for your radical life/craziness in the record of God and condemned by our society for doing things they don't understand rather than dismissed by society as just another Christian?
As He leads me,
Jason
