“When I was a child I spoke as a child I understood as a child I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things.”
I’m sitting in my $10,000.00 chair at Starbucks. The feeling I have in my mind right now is much different than on that other fateful day. A victory is a victory, unless it’s not a victory. The feeling I have I have in my mind…I ought to remember that one.
One will always think they are more deserving of things than they really are. In all reality, we don’t deserve anything. I used to think each and every one of us deserved Hell fire for simply being born on this planet. I’m not sure I believe that anymore. I wonder if we really deserve anything at all. All we have is what we make of our lives; all we have in our lives are the choices we make; all we have are our choices.
Friend, I have made choices that have made me do some serious thinking. There was a recent situations with an an individual that makes me wonder whether or not I’m in the right or the wrong.
“The meek shall inherit the earth”
During a Tuesday night Bible study, we examined the beatitudes and questioned what type of person these characteristics painted. Christ gives examples of the meek, humble, mild, and temperate. On the whiteboard, we painted these characteristics. To be completely honest, the image of the person we painted, metaphorically, was not somebody that any of us wanted to be like; it was a weak-spined, passive individual that longed for suffering. To ease the minds of all of us in the room, I then asked if King David was somebody that exemplified the characteristics and traits of the beatitudes. Relief! We discovered that our perception of certain scriptures sometimes requires an additional look and investigation.
Christ was not calling for a generation of ankle-grabbers who allowed everybody else to walk all over them. In addition, He was not calling for us to be passive individuals that are too weak to make a decision. Unfortunately, this is not the attitude that I see exemplified in Christian culture today.
The cultural climate of churches I have been to is one that glorifies the idea of delayed gratification and reward, which is quite the opposite of what Christ taught – if you are to look at the bigger picture of things.
Yes, Christ spoke of building up our treasures in Heaven – a notion I 100% agree with. However, he also spoke of making our current lives a better place, while keeping in mind the fact that it is a temporary place for us.
If this earth truly did not matter, we wouldn’t have been commanded to love others, spread the gospel, or live to a higher standard than the internal moral standard we carry.
King David had a lifetime kill count of 22,000+
My challenge to you is to look beyond the traditional norms we’ve been raised to believe, and see what the scriptures are actually saying and how it can apply to our daily lives. Ask yourself how an improper interpretation of a scripture could have a negative impact on you, while also pondering how to properly apply it to your life.
Finally, a tool I use on a regular basis is what I call the “Metaphor – Factual” example. When you take a look at the scriptures, such as the book of Job, examine it both as a factual historical account, but also try and see what you can find in the passage when you look at it as an overall metaphor. What do you find? This is absolutely not to paint the scriptures as something other than fact, but instead to see them in a different light. What was the metaphor behind everything Christ said? His crucifixion?
Dig deep.
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