Hard Things of Faith

  Judgmental, Hateful, Hypocritical These are just some of the things American Christians are known for.  First, can I just tell you that I am sorry? I am sorry for every person that has misrepresented Christ and hurt you. I am sorry to those that I have hurt in the name of Jesus. Some of us have distorted the Good News of the Gospel; we have given a false representation of who the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit really are. We have shown you a God of Judgment and not a God of Love.  I hear a lot of people say that God is all-loving and that is correct, and there is a lot more to God's character that does involve judgment, it is just a matter of how that is presented.  We have given people a bunch of "moral" standards and consequences for failing to meet those standards.    We have not acted like Christ at all.  We are supposed to be people of grace and truth, yet we say some of the most hateful things people have ever heard. We have called out the sins in your life, and the

Jesus. There are so many facets of Jesus, it would take a lifetime to unpack them all.  Here are some of the ways that we know him though. He is the Son of God, the Bridegroom, Savior,  our Advocate, our High Priest.  We know him as the Author and Perfecter of our faith.  The thing I hear more than anything about Jesus is that he is love.  The part people sometimes do not understand is just how sacrificial his love is.  We should know how costly this sacrificial love is.  It is easy to say, "Jesus died for you", but how many people really know what that means and why that was necessary?  This certainly is not going to be one of those "feel good" posts that you are going to share as a way of encouraging others.  This is the smallest glimpse of the hard truth of sacrifice and why it was needed.  We will never understand the love of Christ until we understand the sacrifice of Christ.  Will you step back with me into the Old Testament and take a peek into what is going

       Friends,  As things get darker and harder it is tempting to be consumed with what is happening and how we feel about it.  Whether you express how you feel publicly or keep it to your inner circle, it has been hard to watch what has been happening in our country and around the world.  It doesn't matter if you are like me and have a lot of emotion or you are the person who isn’t about the feelings, this is tough.     We are all so over Covid-19.  We are over having to wear the mask. (The division over the masks is a subject in and of itself!)  To say that we are weary of the social distancing would be a gross understatement.  As if this isn’t enough, we have had a presidential election that has shown our weakened state to every enemy we have. We have a racial division in our country with wounds so deep, I am not sure we will ever heal this side of Heaven.  Depression, abuse, addiction, these are things that just keep getting worse.   We just can’t seem to catch a break or even