Today as I read about the 138 Muslims who have signed a peace document and sent it to the Vatican, I am once again reminded of what Christianity really is and is not. 

Following Jesus is what Christianity is about and he has been wrecking religion for awhile.

When Solomon was made king, God told him not to intermarry other faiths and traditions, but he ended up doing so anyway. 

King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, "You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods." Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love.  He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been. He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the LORD; he did not follow the LORD completely, as David his father had done.

read more in 1 Kings chapter 11, verses 1-13

Today we face the same kind of problem.  Our faith has been watered down and lukewarm because we feel we have to be tolerant of other religions, not pray in public schools, or display Christian artwork because we may offend other faiths.  Good.  Let them be offended.  In effect, we have aligned ourselves with unbelievers and forsaken God and what He has called us to do.  To follow the Lord completely.

In doing so, we have used God’s name in vain.  We have broken His commandment.  We must repent and believe, truly believe. 

Let us not become like Jonah though.  Jonah was called to Nineveh to preach against it, but he forgot to love the people.  When they believed, Jonah went away frustrated with a God who could give them a chance to believe in Him.

This is our calling.  To stand firm in our faith.  To walk upright in the sight of God and man, and show the way to God is through Jesus Christ, and only through Him.  Sure, it is exclusive, but the invitation isn’t.

I’ve been challenged this evening with the movie “Evan Almighty”. A man gives everything in order to follow God and build an ark. Of course, he doesn’t have much choice. Birds follow Evan around town and to work.

What does it take for God to get our attention?

What does it take for us to truly follow Him?

What kinds of inconveniences does it cause?

Maybe we Christians need to be inconvenienced a little. Maybe we need a Gen 6:14 wake up call. Maybe we just need to get a little crazy?

We could focus on being different but we’ll fail if that is our focus. We could focus on being good Christians, but we’ll fail there too if that is the focus. Anything we try and focus completely on, we will fail at. We destroy our aims. It is part of human nature.

Adam and Eve in the Garden wanted to become like God and so forsake the friendship of God for the sake of a quick fix. Would not the friendship have been closer to becoming like God than eating the fruit?

We forsook the bread of life for fruit. That is so like us. It’s time to take up our swords again and live a little more dangerously. Our God is in the middle of a rescue mission, and we’ve been called to be rescuers in the midst of the coming storm.

I’ve seen more and more pastors turn to the blogging world as they have sought to spread the truth of the gospel.

The side effect is that some have more people visiting their blog than they have coming on a Sunday morning. I will make no secret that this is true for me, though I have intentionally steered clear of talking about my beliefs too much on here. I think that is coming to an end as I learn to open up with who I am. Blogging is more of a discovery process than many realize. In this I am also beginning to understand what categories are for on a personal blog.

One person who has been a great inspiration and friend as I’ve lurked on his blog is David Hayward over at Naked Pastor who has been refreshingly open and “naked” with both his cartoons and his experiences. So it’s with his inspiration that I also begin to slowly try to develop some of my comic work on decloned. I’ve been debating doing this on Artist Hideout for a long while, but I’m so rusty that I think I might need a test group first. So thank you all for putting up with my little experiment here on my personal site.

The second music video for our service tomorrow. Enjoy. I like this one a lot better than the previous one. I think there is a lesson here for bloggers too who like to post things specifically to hurt others. The music is Third Day singing their song: Don’t Say Nothing at All