On the World Race and for most of my life people have asked me a lot of questions about my faith. I’ve never been typically open about some of the things I believe and why I believe them but living a life on mission I feel like its time to start answering those questions and exposing the deeper side of what Christianity looks like for me.
I grew up attending a very conservative christian school but a not super conservative home enviorment and church life. While growing up with both perspectives I began to resent the church because I never really understood why people based faith off the idea of judgement vs love and I really struggled with Gods wrath vs Gods love, condemnation and law based christianity. It was something I really wrestled with in middle school and high school. I couldn’t understand why a faith based on abounding love could involve so much hate and judgment. It took me a long time to appreciate the more traditional side of christianity. Looking back, now I am so thankful for this background of my faith because it not only pushed me to discover my beliefs fully and make them my own but also encouraged me to stand up for what I believe in.
I am so thankful for the World Race opening up a space for all spectrums of faith and discussing the hard topics of what Christianity looks like. It is so easy to call yourself a christian and not fully define your faith and make it your own. I have never been someone to just fall into social norms of what I should and should not do. I like to KNOW and not just know but like really know what I am getting myself into. It is so easy for people to walk into a church environment and just believe whole heartedly in what someone is saying about faith and Gods character. Thats why I really want to challenge you to dive deep in scripture and ask God who He is for yourself.
First off when describing not only my faith but any faith I think everyone should find a bottom line because it is so easy to get caught up in the nitty gritty and become so entangled in the logistics of faith. My bottom line for my life has always been to love everyone and when I became eager to define my own faith my bottom line became to love everyone with the love that God has given me. Over the past 3 years I have learned you can’t fully love anyone without letting the Lord pour into you first, if you just love people fully with your own strength it becomes exhausting and you become burned out extremely quickly. I belive whole heartedly that God loves everyone despite their past, race, gender, sexuality, what clothes they wear, how they talk or live. If God loves everyone then who am I to not love everyone as well? Who am I to say that someones sins are too much for Jesus’ blood? I am not God. You are not God. God is the only one who can judge anyone, not you.
Next I would like to say that God works through culture. I am not sure if you have ever read the old testament so let me just sum it up for you, people were literally crazy back then. The old testament has some really amazing lessons and shows Gods character really well. The old testament is a story of God constantly working through a culture that had absolutely no morals or health code. The old testament is a story of God showing redemption and mercy on people who sin constantly and God lays out these crazy rules because he desperately wants his children to be holy like him. The craziest thing about the old testament is that it doesn’t stop there, it continues to a whole other section called the new testament where God sends his ONLY son to DIE on a cross and save us of all our sins. We were destined to go to Hell but God chose to redeem us. He CHOSE to redeem us. He decided to pursue us before we could even try to fix ourselves up. God literally said that you don’t have to do anything to have eternal life but accept the sacrifice He made for you.
Christianity can be such a beautiful place full of love, redemption, joy, grace, peace but we are sinners and sometimes we mess up and judge others and I think thats something everyone should work on. Its extremely hard for me to find a balance between Gods love for me in the new testament and the logistics of the old testament. I believe they are both extremely important but I also believe Gods love for us is the bottom line for faith and anyone who accepts Gods love is saved despite their sin. Even though these are the principles I base my faith on now I am still learning and growing, God wants us to constantly grow and if we just stay in one place he can’t work on us fully and help us become beautiful flowers. Thanks God for a season of growing and discovering abounding love!
