Having a Rough Time?

Check out these lyrics from Casting Crowns' song Praise You In This Storm...

I was sure by now,God, that You would have reached down
and wiped our tears away,
stepped in and saved the day.
But once again, I say amen
and it's still raining
as the thunder rolls
I barely hear You whisper through the rain,
"I'm with you"
and as Your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise
the God who gives and takes away.

Chorus:
And I'll praise you in this storm
and I will lift my hands
for You are who You are
no matter where I am
and every tear I've cried
You hold in your hand
You never left my side
and though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm

I remember when I stumbled in the wind
You heard my cry to You
and raised me up again
my strength is almost gone how can I carry on
if I can't find You
and as the thunder rolls
I barely hear You whisper through the rain
"I'm with you"
and as Your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise
the God who gives and takes away

Chorus

I lift my eyes onto the hills
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth
I lift my eyes onto the hills
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth 

Prayer

So something I have seen that a lot, if not all Christians struggle with, is prayer. How do I pray? When do I pray? What does praying even mean? Is there a wrong way to pray? All very good questions because prayer is a very personal thing for you and for God. Its not the same for any two people, so thus, we have a lot of differences in what prayer looks like and therefore now set of instructions that tell us EXACTLY how to pray. There is no list of things you have to cover or anything like that.

First off, I feel like the biggest question I hear is "How do I pray?" Or it could be phrased in the statement "I don't know how to pray." Well this is silly. Why is it silly? Well let's first look at what exactly is prayer? Prayer is simply our way of communicating with God. So many times, people look at prayer as our way to just talk AT God rather than to talk WITH God. What I mean is that simply, we talk, but rarely listen. I am sure that we all can relate to this. We pray to God and we tell him our joys and our struggles, we thank him for blessings and ask him for guidance and strength. However, once we say "Amen", that is often the end of it. Prayer is not just when we are talking. Prayer is a conversation, a dialogue, not a monologue. God is not the audience to his creation. He is the director. He is actually like a director AT a dress rehearsal of a play. He watches, but intervenes when necessary and talks to his actors and gives them new direction or tells them about how he likes what they already were doing. Not the best analogy, but I think it works for our understanding of who he is. The point is we can't just talk to him and ask him for things, yet not be listening to his response. Listening for God's response is just as much part of prayer as us talking to him. Prayer then can be just taking time to sit in quiet and just listen for his guidance and his assurance to direct you. Prayer can not be limited anymore to "speaking to God" because prayer ISN'T just when we speak. I can't stress this enough. This I feel is our biggest mistake in prayer as Christians. We complain that we don't feel God's guidance or that he is speaking or calling us, but are we actually even listening??

"Ok, Hunter, I get it! I need to listen. I will work on that, but when I speak to him, how do I do that?" Good question reader. How do you speak to someone you love, lets say your father or a close friend? I will give you a few moments to think about that question first......


OK, speak to God like that. God is your father and he is your close friend. He has your back and he wants to have an ACTUAL relationship with you where you are comfortable with him and you trust him. He doesn't want to be this unapproachable creator and ruler that we feel afraid to talk to. Be respectful, but be friendly and just TALK to him. It doesn't have to be laden with "thee", "thou", "thine/thy", and all of this wordy business that we are conditioned to think. Matthew 6:7 says "And when you pray, do not heap on empty words as the Gentiles do, for they think they will be heard for their many words." Don't be wordy, say what you mean and what you need to say and end it. God doesn't like when we talk in circles any more than other people do.

Well the next issue is when to pray. Always be in a state of prayer. As a Christian, it is important to always be in this "conversation" with our Father. When we are not directly talking to him, we should have an ear open to what he is saying to us and how and where he is guiding us. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says this: "Rejoice always, PRAY WITHOUT CEASING, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for all of you." Notice the capitalized letters. Pray without ceasing. Always be speaking or listening to God.

Why do we need to pray though? This is the easiest question of them all. We need to pray to build that relationship that I mentioned earlier. God wants a real relationship with us. Unlike the relationships or lack of, between people and the deities of other religions. God loves us and wants to be connected with us and have an actual working relationship with us. How many relationships with other people have you had that worked well without ever talking to each other at all. Romantic, friendship, or familial, none of them work without proper communication, both speaking and listening. Prayer is ESSENTIAL to building and maintaining our relationship with the creator of the universe.

Why would you NOT want to have a relationship with him? Talk to the guy for crying out loud!!! And listen to what he has to say in return, it is probably going to change your life.

The Little Golden Calf

So maybe we don't necessarily have visible or completely tangible things like a golden statue of a baby cow anymore, but idolatry is not any less true in today's times. The old testament is littered with examples of God's people worshiping things or objects other than God. The main example here, as the title refers to, is the golden calf. The new testament though also warns of putting other things apart from God as the main object of our attention. The first of the ten commandments is to not worship any God other than our God. This in some texts includes a detail saying on Heaven or on earth. This implies something very important, and something I intend to stress in this post.

So the very important thing to note here about idolatry is that the things we can make into idols are more complex than what the stereotypical view of idols are. First off, which I think we all already understand is that idols are not simply statues or objects we can hold in our hands or set on our mantles. They are much more than that. They can be things that are important to us such as getting good grades, getting a promotion, being a good parent, winning the tournament, etc. So you might have noticed, those are all good things. They are not necessarily things we should avoid. There is absolutely nothing wrong with striving for ALL of those things. However, its the amount of importance that we put on these things that matters and what contributes to their "idol" status. So now I realize, we need to define what exactly an idol is.

Idol can be defined a few ways, and I want to show them all to you because they all vary a little and yet all have accuracy to the. Dictionary.com provides us with a few of them. Here is the first: "an image or other material object representing a deity to which religious worship is addressed." So what does this saying? It is saying that an idol, simply put, is something that we worship in place of God. God is supposed to be our number one focus in life and who we put at the top of our priorities. Our relationship with him is supposed to be number 1 on our list. Anything that is above him on that totem pole is by definition an idol.

The next definition we look at says: "a material object, esp a carved image, that is worshiped as a god." This definition implies that the idol or deity is not super-natural or divine, but rather formed or created by man or some other thing. Why is that important? If something is created by something else, it can not be treated as a deity. Something worthy of our worship cannot be created by us. If created by us, it is automatically below us and we shouldn't worship something we make. Do you worship the bench you made for your back yard? What about the anklet that you made for your friend? How about that tie-die shirt you wore yesterday? No? You don't worship those things? Just because it is less valuable monetarily than a shiny cow, doesn't make the cow statue any more worthy of worship. It is still man made, and not divine.

The next definition says this: "a mere image or semblance of something, visible but without substance, as a phantom." We can now take the last two definitions and decide to ourselves that this one definitely makes sense. Something that is often inanimate and man-made can't possibly have substance to it in a worshipful way. Sure, it looks cool, and we can admire the objects beauty or cool appearance, but it has no worship value. In a spiritual sense, it truly is a phantom because these things can not hold up.

Back to how I was saying that idols are not always physical objects though. You might ask, how? Well lets look at some examples. I think money is one that many people struggle with nowadays, whether they realize it or not. We have to look at the first definition here. What is more important to you at any given moment in the day, your relationship with God, or how much is in your bank account, how much your bills are, how much you are making on your paycheck, and how much gas prices have risen? I think if we all answer that question honestly, we care more about our financial situation that our relationship with God. We are far more stressed about finances and we are far more overjoyed when something good happens financially. I struggle with this too, don't get the impression I am calling people out.

Another one that I see a lot in college and saw a lot in high school is getting good grades. "Hunter, there is nothing wrong with striving for good grades and being the best you can." I agree completely. However, are your studies getting in the way of God. What I am about to say might hit home with some of you, just know I am pointing out something that ALL of us struggle with. How often do we not go to church/youth group/campus ministry because we "need to study." Sure, the workload for school is big, I get that, but we need to learn to budget our time better so that God, our supposed number 1 priority, gets the time he deserves and that when it is time to give him his time, we do it. Skipping out on church for homework is saying "I value my school more than I value my time worshiping God and studying his word." That may sound a bit harsh, but maybe its because we realize its true. Just food for thought.

Lastly, I want to look at something that is a little deeper, but something that I know I struggle with, and I am sure many of you do as well. It is the idolizing of relationships. I can be a romantic relationship, relationships with friends, or just the interaction with any people. "What does Hunter mean?" Something that often gets in the way of my relationship with God is my desire to find companionship here on Earth. I get very lonely here and although I have friends, many friends, I long for more. I idolize the idea of having a companion to be with. I am of course speaking of a girlfriend or future wife. I just love the idea of having someone in my life to share my life with and love on and give my affection to. Those are all good things. They are all Christian things as well that are promoted in our religion. However, it can get a hold of us and take over our thinking. Do some people only go to church in order to find "the right kind of woman/man"? Of course they do! Do some people think that the kind of love they are missing is the love between humans? Yes, but they are probably actually searching for the love of the Father that they haven't yet fully accepted. The same is true on the friendship level or on the level of general acceptance of others around them. All of this is idolatry. For me, relationships are an idol, as it is with most people.

To wrap things up I want to look at Timothy Keller and what he has to say about the matter. Keller is the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC and writer of the book The Reason for God. He makes the point that when we have idols, they become our identity because as our deity, they are our reason for being. The point he then makes is this:


"Identity apart from God is inherently unstable. Without God, our sense of worth may seem solid on the surface, but it never is--it can desert you in a moment...If anything threatens your identity you will not just be anxious but paralyzed with fear. If you lose your identity through the failings of someone else you will not just be resentful, but locked into bitterness. If you lose it through your own failings, you will hate or despise yourself as a failure as long as you live. Only if your identity is built on God and his love can you have a self that can venture anything, face anything."

He is making the point that idolatry leads to building our worth on Earthly things, and therefore broken things since our world is broken and sinful. In putting our worth and identity in such things, we will inevitably be let down and it will destroy us spiritually and emotionally. However, when we worship the one true thing worthy of our worship, our identity and worth can not be shaken. We can not be moved. The reason then is obvious why God does not allow us to worship anything else. Not because he is some kind of dictator, but because he knows what will happen to us if we don't solely worship him. He knows what kind of destruction that causes in us and in our hearts. He loves us enough to warn us against this so that we know that he is the only thing worthy of our worship and the only thing that can keep us from the destruction our hearts will face.

I hope that you have found this inspired by God and not in a way where it sounds as though I am judging people. I too struggle with idolatry and that is actually why I wrote this post. I felt it on my heart to write about it and share my thoughts with you and what God had put on my heart. I hope that at least one of you got something out of this. I continue to pray for you as you care enough about this blog to read it and search for God speaking to you through it. 

Camp

So this summer, as some of you may know, I spent 8 weeks being a counselor at a Methodist camp where kids would come for a week to hang out, play, have fun, doing crazy crap, and learn about Jesus all at the same time. I came for 8 summers as a camper myself and this was my second summer on team, so it is like a home away from home for me. I just wanted to take my first posting after the summer to just reflect on the experience and share with you guys how good God was and what kind of growth I experienced.

First off, coming into the summer as returning team has a whole new feeling to it than when I came in as a new team member. I had more experience, I knew more what to expect, and I definitely already had a lot more friends than I did just one year ago. This time it was my turn to be the one to help the new people settle in and I was definitely excited to do so. During O-Week (Orientation Week) I feel like I really was able to embrace kind of a big brother role with my buddy and also with a few of the other new guy counselors and kind of help them find their feet here. It was really awesome and created some great friendships over the summer.

I spent the first 4 weeks straight on the high school age level. That is the age I love working with the most, but it is also the most draining in my opinion. Not only are you getting the least amount of sleep each night, but also it is the most active during the day and also the most emotionally and spiritually challenging and draining because at this point in their lives, they are dealing with the toughest issues USUALLY. Some cases you have the occasional middle school or maybe even elementary camper that has rough crap going on too, but the biggest struggles usually show themselves with the high school campers. This summer, we did something on Thursday night that focused on the brokenness of the individual and the societal pressures put on them and this REALLY brought out the sharing of brokenness. Dealing with all of that was tough, but also very cool because I got to see God use me to reach out to the kids and show them love despite their problems which they probably don't get much of back home.

I had multiple campers tell me how great of a counselor I was in those first four weeks, including campers I had last summer who came back and where really excited to see me. That is another thing that was a big change from last summer. I had campers that knew me each and every week and that was cool, but a challenge too. I struggle with pride sometimes and this summer was a real test of that. I like to hear good things about me and praises in my name, but at the same time, I hate that I like to hear it and I wish I wouldn't hear it because I know how quickly it can get to my head. When the campers are saying it, that's one thing, but its another when other counselors started giving me praise too. I was thankful that I was doing a good enough job to get noticed by other team members, but at the same time, I felt bad because I was just trying to do my job and I was getting praise while others were not. It felt weird to me especially during meetings when we would do something called "shout outs" where we just give praise to other team members in front of the whole team of a certain age group. To me, I feel like its good to give praise to people, but maybe do it privately, rather than in front of everyone. Maybe I am just weird about it because it is a struggle of mine, but I think that I grew in my ability to receive praise this summer and not let it get to my head AS MUCH. Just one of many areas I grew.

Week 5 I had a buddy. A buddy is a camper that is special needs that needs someone to be with them at all times to just make sure they are ok. They could have special needs for mental or physical disabilities. For privacy purposes, I won't share his name. If you were on team with me this summer, you know his name anyways. I just want to start off by saying that I had always wanted a little brother and getting the opportunity to look after this camper 24/7 for a whole week and just hang out him and I was really cool because I felt like I got to have the little brother I have always wanted to have. He grew so much spiritually and emotionally his week here and I am so proud of the man he is becoming and that he is allowing God to work in him. Being at camp was his first time away from his parents and it was a worry that he might not make it all the way through the week, that he might have to go home early. He made it the entire week though and only cried once at the end of the week because he was going to miss me and being at camp! I was so ecstatic that he had such a good week and he told me he could not wait to get back next year and have me as his counselor again. There are so many special moments I could share with you about this boy, but I will limit it to just one. On Friday night in worship, we do communion with the campers. He had never taken communion before and asked me about it. So I got to explain to him what communion is and why we do it and then I got to serve him his first communion and take it with him. I felt God so much in that moment and felt like the most blessed counselor to ever work at WWW. Then, he asked me to pray with him at the alter which was a huge deal because up to this point, he did not like to pray out loud with other people around at all. It was a huge step for him to have the courage to do that and it just blew me away how much God worked in him that week. I will never forget him or the week we had together and I continually pray that I am able to come back next summer and that I can have him as my buddy again.

One last story I wanted to share was about another camper I had last summer who came back this summer. Last summer, he was kind of less into his faith, for lack of a better phrase. He called himself a Christian, but I don't know that he really understood what that meant or lived it out at all. He was in my small group the week he came last summer and I could kind of see a change in him the week he was here, but it was very small. Then he came back this summer and I could see a huge change in him the minute I saw him at worship on Monday night. He was so into the music and the lyrics and just was full on worshiping God! It was awesome! So I sought him out the next day and just asked him what he had been up to since camp last summer. He told me that he had really changed, that he had gotten more involved at church and had accepted Christ into his life and that he was really convicted by God. He had just spent an entire month out of the country ministering to people of another country. It wasn't a typical mission trip, but they just went and spent time with the people and prayed with them and loved them. I could just hear the passion and the love in his voice when he talked about it. He then told me that myself and the other counselor who taught the small group with him, my good friend Morgan, where a HUGE part in his transformation. He said without us, he would not be where he was today. That blew me away. I cried, hard. I was so touched by the fact that God used me and my good friend to reach out to this young man and bring him into the kingdom and do great things not only in his community, but in another country. I found out later from another counselor from this campers church that the camper had been talking about Morgan and I and how much we impacted him at his church for a long time before he even got back to camp. It really showed me how big of an impact we have as counselors and if we truly love the kids and show them genuine love of God, we can literally change the world through the kids. It is still something that just blows me away and shows me how good our God is. To wrap up the story, on Friday night at worship, he was praying with Morgan at the alter. I played bass guitar in the band so I saw this happening right in front of me, so I put my bass down to go pray with them. After Morgan got done praying for him, I got up and went back to playing alter call music. Then he prayed over her and it really touched me. Much to my surprise, he then looked up at me and told me to come back down and he prayed over me as well and I will never forget the things he said to our Lord about me and the genuine thanks he had for me in his life and what I was doing for the camp and for all the kids. I am so blessed to have been a part of this young man's life and I am beyond excited to see how God uses him to bring God's kingdom to earth.

Outside of the campers, the team experience was fantastic this summer. I got to build more on friendships that I already had started last summer as well as start new ones with new people. I am sure that there are at LEAST a few that will be friendships that last a lifetime. I have never felt such a tight community of believers as I have the past two summers here on team. I know that we will all look out for each other and have each others backs for a long time. I would do a couple shout outs, but I would end up just naming all of team. I made a few friends that were closer than others, but there is no need to name you, you know who you are. If you served on team this summer, know that I love you and pray for you every day.

The summer is over now and I am still at camp working for people who come on retreats and other things of the like. We have a band camp going on right now as well as a football team staying here and I am just lifeguarding, working in the kitchen, or facilitating the ropes course for them as they need it. It is nice to still be here, but weird too as the rest of team is gone and summer camp is not going on anymore. Its almost like a whole new place here now.

Predestination and Free Will

So the matter of Predestination and free will is something that I have been thinking about a lot as of late and I figured I would share some of my thoughts with whatever readers I may have. The issue of not that either one of them is necessarily true, I think most Christians will agree on the fact that we have free will, but the issue of how does that coincide, if at all, with the doctrine of Predestination.

Predestination is the theological idea of God having chosen his people ahead of time. In other words, there are certain people who have been predestined to go to Heaven. Some people have defined it as God controlling every little detail that ever happens. In a sense, this is true because God is in control, however, the way that it has often been interpreted is not exactly correct. For instance, we look at natural disasters. It is not that God CAUSED it to happen, God did not send a natural disaster to happen, but he is still in control. Its a difficult to really grasp, but there is a difference. He is in control so he is able to fix situations, but he does not cause bad things to happen. Sidenote: scripture does tell us he works out all for good though and we should keep that in mind. We may not always see the good in the situation or even see the good come later, but we know that God is keeping that promise.

ANYWAY, I have been struggling lately with how if God has predestined certain people to go to Heaven and others to go somewhere else, how does free will play into that? And you may say, well why do they have to fit in with each other? Well, I will answer that by saying that I definitely believe that predestination and free will both exist and are true at least to an extent. My reasoning for this is simple: scripture says so. Multiple places for both actually. If you want to know anything about predestination, check out any book in the new testament, especially something written by Paul. Genesis will tell you all about the free will stuff. I will give you a couple verses at the end too.

The problem that I have encountered is mostly with our eternal life, or our life after our flesh passes away. If some of our predestined to go to Heaven, then our choosing to follow Jesus is not really our choice at all. Or is it? I don't really understand that, and I am not afraid to admit that I have no idea how that works, but maybe talking this out will help at least me understand more even if you think I am an idiot. Also, I have been presented with a theological view of something called prevenient grace. This kind of grace, to the best of my understanding is the idea that God's grace is so big that no matter what we choose in life, no matter how we live our lives or what religion we follow, that grace and love is strong enough to let everyone into Heaven still. That is something I struggle with. That is hard for me because Jesus preached that to get to the Father, he is the way, the truth and the life, no one gets to the Father except through him. So how then if people don't go through Jesus, would they still spend eternity in Heaven. I do believe that God is that loving, but in being so loving, I also believe that he is just and keeps ALL of his promises, even the promises of us being rewarded for doing what he has asked. He promises eternal life to those who follow him, not to EVERYONE. He does want everyone to end up in Heaven, but in that, he wants everyone to get to Heaven the way that he intended, by following Jesus and giving our lives to him.

Another thing with this seemingly conflicting set of theologies is this: if we are predestined to go to one or the other, then choosing Jesus isn't really our choice at all, we were destined to choose Christ. The same goes for the opposite. If we have free will, we should be able to choose to NOT have Christ in our lives and therefore choose to not spend eternity in Heaven. Why anyone would choose that, I have no idea, but by definition, free will allows that. Free will by pure definition gives us the choice to choose the alternative apart from God. If prevenient grace is true, then we again don't really have free will. God is forcing us into Heaven. That would not be a bad thing, but again to stress that if prevenient grace is true, then to my understanding, either it or free will are not true. The more likely case is that like most theological things, we can not ever fully understand these things about God. He never will fully make sense. That's ok though, he is still good and we know that he loves us and that if we follow Christ and accept Christ into our hearts, we will be redeemed and given eternal life in Heaven with him.

This is creating quite a conflict within my mind/heart and I am sure that you probably are either frustrated, annoyed, or confused with me now. When it comes down to it though, I think that a preacher I heard this week described it very well. He said that the only sure way to Heaven given to us in scripture is through Christ, but that doesn't mean that God CAN'T allow others in. Maybe there are Buddists or Muslims or Jews in Heaven, but the Bible does not give us any assurance on that. The only thing we know FOR SURE is that people who are in Christ and have Christ in their hearts are definitely going to spend eternity in paradise. As for the rest, that is up to God. We will find out how that works when we get there.

I hope that at least one sentence out of all this made sense to you and that God spoke to you through me in at least one word. Keep in mind that this is only my opinion and my process that I am going through of working out theological issues that don't make sense to me and most other people. Me writing about it is me trying to explain it to myself and also to present to you something that may be a way for God to help you understand it as well. That doesn't necessarily mean I am right, or even that I am dead set in believing that I am right. I could very well be wrong, but this subject is something I struggle with and both sides make sense to me and don't at the same time all the while I believe that both doctrines are true and supplement each other and work together to make God the awesome God that he is as well as making his creation (us) the most beautiful thing in history. I pray that you all find this inspired by God and that he speaks to you in it rather than seeing my brokenness and idiocy in it. Stay safe and keep praying. I love you all.

Community

No, this is not about the hit sit-com. This is about hanging out with other Jesus loving folks.

As you may have noticed, it has been a while since my last post, I have a summer job as a camp counselor at a Christian camp which a 24/5 job (aka Monday afternoon to Saturday morning) so posts will be far less frequent for the next couple months. Sorry about that....

Anyways, just from being here and being with the rest of team and after seeing again the community that the campers also form with each other, I figured I would address the importance of being in community with other people who also love our Lord. You may think, well as long as I believe in Jesus, it doesn't really matter if I have a community or not. Salvation isn't dependent on whether we are in community or not, but it makes the journey and the process of salvation a LOT easier.

What is the point of this community? What does community mean? Well the Christian definition of community I think can be most closely defined as the church. And if that is still foreign to you, or your only view of the church is just a big building you go to on Sunday mornings, another way to put it is, the group of people that you surround yourself with in worship and accountability and to just be a Christian influence with each other.

The biggest example of this, which is something everyone deals with, not just Christians, is the need to have someone there for you when going through hard times in life. We need to have people we can talk to and to encourage us and help us get back on our feet. It goes the other way too. We are built to love. God made us out of love and we were created to love him and love others. How can we love others if the "others" are not around. Our soul needs to have other people around so that we can give that love, encouragement, and support out to others or else we are left longing for something to help and love. I have experienced this firsthand this past week. I dealt with a lot of issues in some campers that I have seen before in other campers, but only like one or two a week. This week, I had at least one different camper a night on my bed crying with me. That is only counting the ones in my cabin at night, not the ones in small group or just around during other camp activities. It really took a toll on me and my spirit is pretty drained after this week. However, the community of Christian friends I have around me here at camp on team with me really picked me up and although I experienced so much brokenness in such great kids, through team and a few of the other campers, I still was able to see the AWESOME things God is still doing in each and everyone of his children. Only through being in a community was I able to see that despite the brokenness, there is still hope. Without this fellowship around me, I would be feeling rather hopeless today because of all the brokenness I experienced. God is good though and continues to show me that.

Accountability is another big one in community. We need to hold each other accountable and make sure that our brothers and sisters are leading a Christ-like life. We are not being very Christ-like if we are not holding them accountable and making sure that they are being faithful and allowing them to be lead astray. This life we live in Christ is not one of looking out for "number 1", but rather one where we strive to all be one with the Creator. The ultimate goal is not to just be you and God chilling in Heaven for eternity, but for ALL of creation to be united with him forever. We need to therefore make sure we are holding each others hands through the process to do our best to make sure that we fulfill that goal of uniting the whole creation in his kingdom. Accountability is tough because it sucks to have to "call out" your friends, but it is something that we must do as brothers and sisters in Christ. We have to continually point each other to the cross and remind each other of who we are striving to be with and who we want to be like. I know that for me at least, I need daily reminders of who I want to be like. Jesus is our role model, and its good to be reminded of that.

This post was kind of random and disorganized and scatter brained, but I am so tired, that is just how I am right now. I hope that some of this made sense and that God spoke through me rather than me just being dumb. Hopefully, God spoke to you in some way here. If not, ignore it and wait and see if the next one has more of an impact. I pray for you all that my words don't distract you from the King, but rather he is using me to reach out to you.

"Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." -Galatians 6:2

No Works Necessary. Faith Only

So recently someone very close to me expressed concern over their destination after they die, or when the rapture happens. Whichever comes first. I asked why they thought they might go to Hell and their response was that they felt as though they were not good enough, not nice enough to other people even. They said that they have mean thoughts about others and just don't feel like they are a very caring individual. Their feeling is that since they struggle with this, that they find it difficult to be caring to others or even keep the negative thoughts out, that they don't see how Jesus can love them and let them into Heaven. This broke my heart so badly. I tried to tell them that how they are viewing Christianity, Heaven, salvation, God,...the whole thing, just isn't right. If you ever feel the same way as this person, please read on. I have good news for you about who Jesus is and what he has ACTUALLY done for us.

Although we as Christians are called to love each other, everyone, even the non-believers, it is not a requirement for Heaven. The checklist to get in is actually very short. A very important thing is on their, but really, there is only one condition. It isn't that we do so many good deeds, or give X amount of money to charity, or attend church Y amount of times per month, or even that we read our Bible Z amount of times. The only thing that we have to do to spend eternity with our Father in Heaven is to accept what he has already done for us. "What is Hunter talking about?" What I am talking about is when God came down to Earth in the flesh and did miraculous things for us simply because he loves us. "Well what did he do?" He came down as a baby, a king, but still, just a little baby boy. He grew up teaching the truth about who God is and how he wants us to live, in the process casting out beliefs and practices that are not what he envisioned for his people (for instance, one of these is that salvation is a works based process aka that we have to earn our way into heaven by doing good deeds or attending church or performing rituals.) In the end, the real purpose for Jesus being here was to be persecuted by everyone, hated even, to be killed on a cross, and then here's the real awesome part, RISE AGAIN! "Why would he do that?" Well he did that because it is what we sinners deserve to happen to us. Because all of us are like the friend I described to start this post, we all suck at being nice, we all fail to love others, we all are jerks to not just our enemies, but our friends at times as well. We are all sinners. Because of our sin, we all deserved to die the death Christ died. Knowing this, out of his love for us Jesus essentially said "I love you too much to let this happen to you and keep you from spending eternity in paradise with me and our Father. So here, let me take it for ALL of you." That is exactly what happened, in his death, he paid for EVERY SINGLE one of our sins. Not just mine, not just yours, not just the really bad ones or just the little ones. EVERY sin has been paid for and forgiven.

However, you have to believe it and accept that he did that for you. Unfortunately for the non-believers, they have a problem with where they are at now since they don't accept the gift we have been given. Their sins are still forgiven, Jesus didn't die in vain, but they just don't receive the reward of eternal life in paradise. But for those of us who do believe it, even when it is hard to do so, we get the prize. And trust me, even for the most rock firm Christians, its hard to understand how this is possible. It doesn't make sense from the mortal sense that we don't have to earn eternal life in paradise. That is not comprehensible from the standpoint of our human minds. Our nature says that anything you get, is something you earned. Prime example is Christmas. We grow up saying, if you are naughty, Santa won't bring you gifts. Gifts by definition though are things we receive without doing anything to earn them. Salvation is a gift from God. We don't earn it. We get it from God because he loves us just as we get gifts on Christmas morning because our parents love us. Even though we are bad, they still love us and want to give us things just because of love.

Now, I am not saying we should forget about doing nice things for other people and serving them and loving them in every way we possibly can. We are called to live as Christ lived too. The point is that, even in trying to be the best we can be, we are going to fail. We are human. We are not Jesus. That's why Jesus rocks. He was like "Hey, its ok you're not perfect, I am and I will cover for you. Come hang out with me in Heaven and I will introduce you to the guy who created the ENTIRE universe and loves you more than you will ever understand."

The love of God is unfair. Fortunately for us, its unfair in a way that benefits us. We gain literally everything out of this unfair thing called "grace." Just remember, even though you should try your best to do good things and be nice to others and love and serve them, if you fail at that, that is not what will keep you from your Father. The mere fact that you recognize your short comings and feel remorse about it is a step in repentance and THAT is what leads you to Heaven. For the person that I talked about at first, if you are reading this, I have told you already, but the fact that you realize that you need to change this about yourself and you want to, that is a step towards Heaven. God loves you, so do I and so many other people. Keep praying and working towards loving others better and I will see you in paradise when our Earthly missions are over. You may think you don't love people well, but you do a much better job at it than you give yourself credit for. I pray for this person, and for all of you, that you find peace with your failures and shortcomings that they are covered, paid for, forgiven and forgotten about by the only one who matters and as long as we accept that gift, we will get to personally thank Him one day.

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is NOT your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." Ephesians 2:8-9