Filed under: Holiness
Titus 1:15 “To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.”
but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure.I’ve struggled a lot lately with the idea that it’s okay to be irreverent, particularly in the pulpit, because I have always been uncomfortable with some of the things I’ve heard are being said in churches. There is a particularly “vulgar” pastor that I’m thinking of, not one that I’ve heard speak in person, but I’ve heard some of what he’s preached and taught, and I have to say that I think it’s not appropriate behavior for a pastor, or even an average believer.
I’ll start with saying that Jesus’ incarnation changed the world forever, and changed our relationship with God as well. Far from being simply servants of God, anyone who draws near to Him is now called “Friend,” which is a great deal, considering the cultural connotation in the first century. But just because we are friends with someone doesn’t mean that we can profane our relationship with them.
As I said before, our relationship with God is not based on rules that we have to follow, but on a change of our hearts. When we fall in love and get married, it changes our behavior toward the person we marry. We usually work on the marriage by being kind to each other, working out our own flaws, etc. This is not some law that we have to abide by, we choose to live this way because it makes our relationship better. There is no prescription for a healthy marriage, it happens when two people work together to be kind, serve one another, love each other, etc.
The same happens when we give our hearts to God. When we ask Jesus to be our Savior, we invite him to change us. And he gives us the Holy Spirit, who does a lot of that changing work. But we cannot resist the change. When we resist, the Holy Spirit stops trying to help us. I’m just giving this as an example of what has happened in my own life. When we struggle with a particular sin, and we ask for God to deliver us, he will, but we have to actually want to sacrifice that sinful part of our lives. And when he takes it, it is freeing.
It’s interesting, because sometimes the same temptation will come back years later, and we will remember the old struggle, but it will be harder to fall into the same pattern, because we have built up a defense against it, citing all the reasons why we know it’s a bad thing for us, why we know that God’s way is better, and we find the temptation leaving us quickly, because it doesn’t have a foothold any longer.
When God enters our lives, we should begin to see change. I am speaking now about how we are supposed to become perfect. I think that what God told the Israelites in the desert and what Jesus told those listening in Matthew 5:48 is the same: Be perfect, be holy.
But what does it mean to be holy? In the context of Israel, God wanted them to be “set apart” from the other nations. He wanted them all to recognize his provision by consecrating their lives to him. Everything in their lives was to be done “to the Lord,” no matter what they did. Imagine a nation of people whose sole goal was to live to serve God. The Levites were in charge of the Temple duties and anything pertaining to the temple, but everyone else was to know the law and teach it to their children. Certainly everyone could have a function in this theocratic society, and any job, big or small, could be seen as a contribution to the society of God.
But we know that such a place never truly existed, nor does it yet. The promised land was only a shadow of what Heaven shall be, when it will be a true, holy theocracy. But what if Christians really did start acting like they were serving God with their jobs, no matter how trivial or important? Would we have pastors swearing in the pulpit? I hope not. Would we have people all over the internet causing rifts between sections of Christianity, creating more and more divisions in the Body, bickering over matters of interpretation?
I should think not. I’m not saying I’m not a sinner just like the worst. I had a really bad day yesterday, I sinned a lot, I was mean to my kids. But I can also go to the cross and repent. I will probably have another bad day again, and another and another. But the thing is, if I don’t care about those bad days, if I just go about acting like I did nothing wrong, and I never ask for forgiveness that I need, I can’t really ever become more perfect.
Back to Titus, what Paul was saying in this verse, in my thoughts, is not that everything is pure, but that those who are pure have no impure thoughts. I like the way it is put in the Jennifer Knapp song: “To the pure, all things are pure, to those who defile unbelieving, nothing is pure.” Anyone who does not understand the holiness of God or does not believe in Him has a defiled mind; impure, depraved, dirty. They cannot be a part of the community of God, because they are not set apart by Him and through Him.
Filed under: Bible reading
I want to start a small series about what I’m learning from my reading, and I didn’t know where to begin, but here’s as good a place as any.
As I begin to read through the books of the exodus and wandering, I am really discovering that God’s people haven’t changed much over the last forty centuries. God does miracles, people obey for a while, then begin to doubt Him, do something stupid, he punishes them, cycle starts all over. The people of Israel were notoriously “adulterous” with other gods, and we are no different. There are very few people whom I know that are good Christian examples all the time, and even they can’t compare with Christ in any real way.
One of the biggest challenges in Christianity is consistency. We are, by nature, inconsistent, we are sinful and we are ever-changing. God doesn’t change, though, so he’s really the standard by which we are measured (there’s more to it than that, which I’ll try to get into later). I’ve found that when I am not paying much attention to reading my Bible, but I am reading lots of other stuff that seems to be related, I dry up like a desert. But when I start reading and actually focussing on what I’m reading in the Bible, everything lights up and the river is flowing again. I struggle with this, because we all fall into cycles where we get busy with things and miss our reading, then before we know it it’s been months since we’ve really read our Bibles at all.
I’m not saying that reading the Bible is some kind of command or standard, because I don’t think that God ever intended for us to live by arbitrary rules (or at least, not since Christ). God’s intentions for us are good, and honestly, the only thing he wants is a fully devoted heart.
This, I think, is one of the greatest challenges to Christian faith, because it requires us to give up something that we aren’t really in a position to give up. That is, we have to give up trying. We have to give up making an effort to make ourselves better on our own merit. Once we sacrifice our version of perfection, and decide to give ourselves over to Christ, he will begin to perfect us.
There are two kinds of “good Christians” out there, those who live by lots of rules because they think it will make them better people, and those who don’t live by the rules, because God is making them better people. That’s not to say that the second group are lawless, but that they recognize that rules don’t always make us better people. They do good out of their hearts, rather than out of a sense of legalistic obligation. They realize that we can never be God’s people if we live by the laws of man. We can never fully realize God’s intentions for us if we do not give ourselves wholly to him. We cannot become like Jesus unless we give up everything for the sake of the gospel.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I made a baby carrier in about 2 hours today, and it actually turned out better than I thought it would. I made up the design from a couple of different ones, so it’s a completely 100% original Abby design, which I prefer when I’m making things like this. I don’t know why, but I’m horrible at following other people’s patterns! I look at them and it’s like I can’t read english or something. So I just made up my own pattern, bought the pieces I needed, and tada, I’ve got me a baby carrier. I will probably try to get a few pictures of it for Facebook, with and without baby inside.
The biggest reason I decided to make a new carrier is that the snugli we have is failing, and it’s just not meant for bigger babies. I wanted something strong, but not hot, for Egypt, and this is basically a piece of fabric with some straps. It’s quite sturdy, because I reinforced it, and I used a strong denim, doubled up with batting between.
The best part is, you can wear it forward or backward, and Alex is probably going to be riding piggyback most of the time. This, I’m sure of! That way, we can both see the sites, or at least, I can see them when he goes to sleep.
Filed under: blogging
Hey blogging world. Did you miss me? I didn’t realize it had been over three weeks since I last checked in. It’s not my fault, really. I’ve been really preoccupied.
A lot has happened in the last month. Spiritually, the dry spell changed into something different. I’m learning things and I have really gained a new perspective on faith and the Holiness of God. I guess I just didn’t feel like blogging about it was all that important.
I turned 29 on Monday, and it’s really not all that different from being 28, and honestly, that wasn’t much different from being 27 (and so on), except that I have 2 kids now instead of one.
I heard a sermon that affected me greatly recently, it was about Sabbath rest, and reading the Bible. I don’t know why, but it turned reading the Bible into a blessing rather than a chore, and the things I read were actually what brought me out of the funk I was in. Study Bibles are incredibly helpful, even if they aren’t entirely accurate historically.
The house has gone to the dogs this month, I feel like I’m constantly re-cleaning the same things, particularly in the kitchen. In the spirit of FlyLady, I’m starting to recognize some major “hot spots” that are starting to drive me crazy. The mail piles up on the piano, and the kitchen table is a free-for-all, which is actually starting to get on my nerves. I can clean the table in 5 minutes, but less than 2 hours later it’s like I never touched it. I suppose cleaning it is a good thing, because if I didn’t, it would be piled to the ceiling. The worst place is the office. Nour’s play kitchen is in here, and Alex likes to dump the food on the floor. We’re constantly tripping on it, and I have to pick it up every day in order to keep from breaking my leg. The desks aren’t any better, there is so much random crap on the desk right now that I don’t even know how some of it ended up here or what it has to do with the office (Body spray? Seriously!)
Anyway, I just needed a moment to remind myself that there is other stuff in the world besides my little house, and to let you know that I didn’t fall off the planet (in case you were wondering).
