I've been thinking about how powerful and necessary confessing. They bring repentance, freedom, relief, peace, joy, tears, and happiness to the confessor as well as to the ones hearing the confession. Saints from long ago even wrote confessions (i.e. St. Augustine and St. John the Cross) that bring us great comfort still yet today. This in mind, I have decided that I'm going to start posting confessions to you guys on here. My reasoning for doing this is that God will be glorified and that I honestly pray in some small way, it will lead those that I love to do the same. I pray this leads to great conversation as well among all of us and I pray that it leads us all to realize that we are all equal. "Confess your sins to one another..." (James 5:16). So here goes my first confession:

I confess to you all that no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to stop judging people. Whether it's verbally, mentally, emotionally, or with a simple reactive facial expression, judging of people seems to always happen with me. I confess that I do this because I place my personal opinions over those of other people. I also do this because in the back of my mind, my pride still tells me I'm intellectually, physically, and spiritually better than some people. I confess that this is wrong...I'm sorry and I pray that you as well as God will please forgive me.

    I've become a person that loves community.  I love to gather with friends and/or family and just be able to be open with each other about what we're working through, what frustrates us, what brings us joy, and what were learning through the journey that we find ourselves on in life.  I love it so much that I want other people to get on board and do the same.  I do so because I believe that is exactly what Jesus did.  He spent a lot of time with people and I believe that because of spending a lot of time with people, it led to deeper conversations than just the usual crap known as small talk.

    I love community so much that it frustrates me that some people don't really want that.  They don't want to be completely open and honest about who they are.  They want people to know the good things about them, but not the bad things about them.  They love for people to know their good qualities, but have an overwhelming trepidation to people knowing their dark side.  It frustrates me that some people are just okay with the small talk crap.

    Furthermore, it frustrates me how people where I currently live take the word "friend" so lightly. You can talk to a person for a good hour or have gotten to know a person really well over a couple of weeks and you're automatically their friend.  I'll even admit that I almost started falling back into this way of thinking, but I've decided that I am not going back to that.  I'm going to give it some serious thought before I call anybody my friend.  

    Just because we've hung out a handful of times or had a few good talks does not make me your friend.  Just because we've shared a few laughs or had a few good times does not make us friends.  I may respect you and love talking to you, but in order to be my friend, this requires being open on a deep level and for both of us to have the freedom of sharing what's on our minds and hearts without fear of not being accepted.  

    This requires for us to be able to have a calmness in the quiet.  This requires both of us having a trust in one another.  This requires for both of us to know that no matter where we are on this journey called life, we will always be accepting of one another.  This also means that we will have laughs, arguments, hard times and good times but that we stay friends through it all.  Do we have that?  If we don't, maybe it's time for re-evaluation.

    Call this a bit of a confession if you will.  I see myself as a really nice guy that really cares about people.  I'll give up my time alone if I know that a friend of mine is in need or wants to hang out.  I'll even go out of my way for people if I know they need it.  I readily trust people and believe that they have the best intentions in mind even when I may not see it.

    Here's the confession part.  I wish sometimes that I wasn't as nice of a guy as I see myself.  I get taken advantage of, disrespected and forgotten about sometimes.  I also feel as if sometimes, I miss out on a lot of good opportunities because of it.  People always say "nice guys finish last" and I've been finishing last for way too long now so it gets really old, really quick.

   I'm not saying this stuff to look for sympathy or pity.  I'm saying this to be open and honest and real about how I feel.  Nevertheless, I can't bring myself to be a jackass to anybody even no matter how much I want to.

It's been different living back in the United States. I won't go into great detail about how this change has been for me, but let's just say things have been a little more isolated here than it was in Spain. It's easier to be in your home by yourself or to be anywhere by yourself for the whole time. And if you want to go somewhere, it always costs you something. If you want to go to the coffee shop, it costs gas, time and money.

People also seem to be so disconnected from each other here a lot of times. It seems like people here have a genuine fear of getting close to anyone else, which is something I find really strange. I find it strange because the only logical reason I can think of that people would be fearful of that is because when you let someone close to you, you're giving that person the power to do what they will. They can be a help, encouragement, and blessing. At the same time, they can be hurtful, take advantage of you, and spiteful. I can understand the fear, but at the same time I feel that as a believer, God commands me to not be fearful of anything

The Social Gospel or "The" Gospel

I was shortly engaged in a conversation with a seminary student a while back about the past elections and my choice for president (if you want to know, just ask me).  After a long, in-depth conversation, this person proceeded to insinuate that I was promoting a social gospel and not THE gospel.  By that, I mean he seemed to insinuate that I was promoting more of a need to meet people's physical, mental and emotional needs and not their spiritual needs.  When he confronted me with that part of it, I was honestly confused by what he was saying because this person seemed to insinuate that in a ways, God only cares about our spiritual well-being and not about the whole person.  I am sure he didn't mean to come across this way, but he nevertheless did.

Anyways, it got me thinking about the gospel in and of itself.  Is the gospel really just about caring about souls being saved?  While I can't answer this question, I do believe that he does want us to live our lives the way Christ intended for us to live it and to actively share our faith in the process.  This, to me, means that while sharing our faith, we should fight poverty, abortion, the death penalty, white collar crime, genocide, and other injustices against humanity or things that God frowns upon.  It seems that in the United States, we have people either sharing their faith and not being active in standing up for truth and justice or people standing up for truth and justice and not sharing their faith.

The great thing that I see is that is quickly changing.  We're quickly finding a generation of believers that have character and actively share their faith while standing up for what's right and against injustice.  THAT, to me, IS the gospel.  Call it a social gospel if you want, but that to me is The gospel of Christ.  After all, didn't God turn water into wine to keep the party going?  Didn't he feed the five thousand and preach?  Didn't he break bread and pass the cup in the last supper?  Didn't he heal those that needed healing while teaching them?  Didn't Christ, in a sense, teach, preach, and live what the gospel is?  And isn't the gospel not only the way Christ lived, but also Christ in and of itself?

Your thoughts are appreciated....

Forgive me for this, but since I've been back from Spain, I find that I am not the most patriotic person anymore.  Please don't misunderstand that as I don't like or that I hate America.  I actually think America has a lot of good things about it, but there are many things about American culture I find really odd and even really wrong.

I began to realize this while I was sitting in church this past sunday and I watched a video talking about things that we as believers should stand up for when voting tomorrow.  Instead of raising the cross in the video, they raised the American flag.  Instead of raising God's word, they raised the red, white and blue.

Does anybody else find something wrong with this?  Doesn't it bother anyone else that we almost place Country over Christ?  A president over an everlasting king?  Democracy over the kingdom?  God bless America over "In God We Trust?"

Contextualization

It seems that believers love to read their bibles and that's a good thing.  However, there has been the issue of how to contextualize the gospel, meaning that how should we read the bible or apply it in our daily lives.  Some people tend to think that the way to do that is to go back to what those words really mean in the Greek and Hebrew.  Others believe that you should view in the way it was applied to that culture at the time that book of the Bible was written.  Yet others believe you should just read the words that are on the bible in front of you and apply it that way as well.

While I can't say how I necessarily feel about contextualizing scripture and how to read it, I do not necessarily think that there is only one correct way to read the scriptures.  Please don't think I'm trying to say that every person can necessarily make up their own interpretation of scripture.  I believe that we are fallible human beings and are capable of some grave misconceptions as to what God's word is "really saying."  I also believe that we should all read the scriptures and study it from different angles and with prayer, meditation, meeting in community with other believers, practicing what we learn and walking in the Spirit, God will reveal the true answers in time.  I believe that to say that there's only one way of looking at scripture is putting God in a box and limiting the capability He has of transforming lives through scripture in different ways.

  What do you think of contextualizing scripture?  What do you believe about this topic?