Fractured Saints - never beyond mending - a christian blog for the broken ones

Normally I am a little worried about throwing up hard to answer questions or questions that might not have an answer here. There are a couple of reasons for this: 1. I don’t want to cause any of my brothers to stumble, 2. I don’t want anyone who doesn’t know Christ to be mislead or confused, 3. It usually doesn’t lead to a heavy response, in fact in usually leads to no response at all. Throwing all that aside though I think this is a good venue for me to ask those questions, but feel free to let me know if you think I am wrong.

So as some of you know, lately I have been struggling with understanding the character of God and who He is. The latest piece of character that has come into question in my life is this aspect of him being unchanging. I wasn’t really sure what all aspects this unchanging characteristic covered but I assumed that it went so far his decisions. But I don’t understand 3 instances off the top of my head in the Bible (listed below chronologically).

First there’s Job, Satan comes to God and says let me screw with Job and God’s like ok you can mess with everything in his life but don’t touch him. Ignoring that I don’t get why God would allow Satan to have his way with anything, Satan comes back after laying waste to Job’s family, flocks and all that he owns. And even though Job did just as God said, Satan talks God into letting him afflict Job and then tortures him for a while.

Second there’s Moses. when the Israelites were down at the bottom of the mountain God says that He will just wipe them out. Moses pleads with God and God decides to spare them.

Third there’s Jonah, God sent Jonah to Nineveh to let the people know that God was going to destroy them. The people turn from their wicked ways and God forgives them and spares them.

While I am not saying that I am irritated by the last 2, because I think that anytime people are spared from being punished for their stupidity and easily falling into sin (because I am often part of that group) it’s a good thing, I just don’t understand how someone can change God’s mind. I understand that Moses appealed to God’s character and reputation, the people of Nineveh repented and turned from their wicked ways and God is forgiving, but I still can’t get God having a sit down with Satan and being like sure why not you can torture one of the guys on earth whom I consider my own, even one of my best. Can anyone help me out here?

Isn’t this country great, how we threw off the shackles of King George III to establish a government with principles inspired by God, securing God’s blessings and approval!

Is it?

I’ve been wrestling for some time with our revolution from a biblical perspective.  Was it justified?  Should we have rebelled in the first place?

If we look at Romans 13:1-7, maybe not.  It begins:

King George the III was, without a doubt, an authority.  And an authority, therefore, established by God.  So wasn’t our revolution a rebellion against God?

I hear the objection (and I’ve said it myself), “But the king was a tyrant!”

If we accept that he was a tyrant, does that justify our rebellion?  There were tyrannical Roman emperors, weren’t there?  Paul and Peter were martyred under Nero’s reign, a well known tyrant.

And wasn’t there taxation without representation in the Roman empire?  Is that enough of a reason to revolt?

In 1 Peter 2:13-14, we have a little different take on authority:

Interesting, isn’t it?  A distinction is made about governors and their role as an agent of justice.  But no mention is made of how to address an unjust governor.

Can anyone point me to a passage that proscribes our actions when governed unjustly?

The closest I can get is instruction on how to deal with taxation without representation:

Matthew 22:15-22 (New International Version)

So, no call to rebellion there at all, is there?  Quite the opposite.

Why are we special?  Are we special?

Why does God’s word seemingly not apply to our nation?

At what point do we transcend rebellion and enter a state of being established by God?

p.s. And I didn’t even go near the hyperbole that Hitler and the holocaust would’ve introduced.  I find it more interesting to explore the grey.

Any one who knows me knows that I have a huge beef with the Prosperity Gospel. It sickens me to see the Word of God reduced to just another snake-oil self-help scam where you can get anything you want if you just “think positively.” One of the most popular examples of this is The Prayer of Jabez, which misuses a small anecdote found in 1 Chronicles 4:9-11:

Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, “I gave birth to him in pain.” Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request.

Many people interpret this as, “If you ask God to bless you, He’ll shower you with material wealth and whatever else you want.” But as I learned Sunday at my fiancee Amy’s church, that’s not the case.

Did you notice verse 9 when it says Jabez got his name because his mother “gave birth to him in pain?” As the pastor explained, the name Jabez basically means “pain.” Can you imagine being called “Pain” all your life? That’s where verse 10 comes in, where Jabez prays that he would be “free from pain.” He wasn’t asking God for a life free from trouble (which is dumb, because Jesus said in this world we’ll have trouble), but that He would be able to turn Jabez’s curse into a blessing. And He did.

Have you ever had something bad happen to you that you could not control? Did you ever ask, “God, why did this happen to me?” In the past I’ve written about being bullied, growing up without a father, and struggling with anxiety/depression. But out of all that, God gave me the chance to encourage and inspire others with my story. We can’t control what happens to us, but God can turn the worse situation into a positive one.

At one of our last summer youth meetings, I went up to our host and told him thanks for letting us come and over run his house. His response although quick and most likely something he has said multiple times has been poking me in the side since. He simply said, “It’s not my house, it’s God’s”. There is a lot of power in that statement for me. It’s so against everything I feel like the culture is teaching me. It’s all about me, I should do it all for me and put myself first and man that just comes naturally for me.

To see my possessions not as my own and not something I earn, but instead as a gift from God to further his glory and kingdom even when it isn’t convenient for me or what I want to spend my resources on is sobering. I also liked the way Mark Driscoll approached the idea of money “God doesn’t give you more money so you can make yourself more comfortable”. Thanks Q and Mark.

So per the last post in my series ‘Pointing towards Home‘, I want to share another thought relative to the glorious existence that awaits us on the other side of death.

I know that Death is a sincere ache for those who have lost their loved one, but for those who love and follow Christ, there is a joy hidden.  I have been captured by the idea that I am going to be able to tell the family of Christ that I love, “KNOW that I will see you there.  Jesus promises it to us.”  If this is spoken in faith and realizes the scope of eternity, this will give real solace, hope and joy in a time of loss.  This may not quell the painful circumstances that follow here in this life for those that are left, but to know that those who are gone have simply gone ahead is great joy indeed.

I wonder if this will affect others as it affects me.  Thoughts anyone?

There are a lot of sad headlines these days, but this may be the saddest I have been in a long while:

SURVEY: CHURCHGOERS MORE LIKELY TO BACK TORTURE

The link went to this CNN story with a little less reactionary headline:

Survey: Support for terror suspect torture differs among the faithful: Read here

It boils down to this:  I small survey showed that 54% of churchgoers said torture was sometimes or often necessary.

I guess all that “love your enemy” stuff only counts if you are a Roman Centurion.

No wonder we are losing the world.

I think I will just decide that this was a poorly done poll seized on by the media to give us a bad name.  There, that feels better.

You know one of my last post got me thinking about how much other people’s opinions of me effect me and how much the appearance I want to convey effects me. How much their defining me can hurt or help my life. I even do this to myself, defining myself by my strengths, abilities and even by my shortcomings and sins. This can create a really bumpy ride for me, trying to meet expectations and dealing with failed ones, but I need to remember stop and remind myself that I am defined. Not by Satan, the world, the media, my boss, my coworkers, my enemies, my friends, my wife or even myself. I am defined by the one who made me and I am his beloved child.

This is a devotional I received from a friend from At His Feet.

I was really glad to read this since I recently had a conversation with a friend who was struggling with his belief and beating himself up more and more after comparing himself with well known people in the faith today. Even though I tried to comfort him by assuring him that they too struggled and he just never saw it because he wasn’t close to them, I didn’t feel as though what I was saying was comforting for either of us. Neither of us really wanted to believe that God would accept us as broken and tarnished as we are. I thought the devotional above did an awesome job pointing out just how big God’s grace is and how much he wants and loves us even in our brokenness.

i⋅dol
/ˈaɪdl/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ahyd-l] Show IPA
–noun
1. an image or other material object representing a deity to which religious worship is addressed.
2. Bible.
a. an image of a deity other than God.
b. the deity itself.
3. any person or thing regarded with blind admiration, adoration, or devotion: Madame Curie had been her childhood idol.

wor⋅ship
/ˈwɜrʃɪp/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [wur-ship] Show IPA noun, verb, -shiped, -ship⋅ing or (especially British) -shipped, -ship⋅ping.
–noun
1. reverent honor and homage paid to God or a sacred personage, or to any object regarded as sacred.
2. formal or ceremonious rendering of such honor and homage: They attended worship this morning.
3. adoring reverence or regard: excessive worship of business success.
4. the object of adoring reverence or regard.
5. (initial capital letter) British. a title of honor used in addressing or mentioning certain magistrates and others of high rank or station (usually prec. by Your, His, or Her).
–verb (used with object)
6. to render religious reverence and homage to.
7. to feel an adoring reverence or regard for (any person or thing).
–verb (used without object)
8. to render religious reverence and homage, as to a deity.
9. to attend services of divine worship.
10. to feel an adoring reverence or regard.

I have been trying to figure out what some of the things are in my life that I hold higher then God (or idolize).  So I decided it would be good to know what an idol is because my definition of  “something I worship other then God” wasnt really working since I feel like I don’t know what worship is. I mean I know what worship is but I feel as though it incompasses more then I apply to it. So as I trudge through my dark corners, I realized that others might have some better definitions of what an idol is and how to identify it. Thoughts?

After sitting with my wife and catching pieces of The Notebook while I was working, I listened as a woman told a man that she loved him but she couldn’t commit to him exclusively  because she loved another man whom she was cheating on with the first man.  This rubbed me the wrong way and after thinking about how many people who claim to love each other get divorced and end up hating each other I started to wonder, what is our societies view of love?

I have been trying to pay attention to how much I have bought into this view. Now I haven’t bought into the total concept, but certain aspects of what I perceive to be “love” are actually shallow, hollow, worthless shells of what God has called us to. It’s difficult for me to analyze love, there are so many things that are rolled into that one word. So many different aspects to deal with in marriage, family and friend relationships.

I guess I view this as important to me for a couple of reasons: First in relating God’s love to other people we might need to remember to explain what Love is. Second I feel like an actual understanding of true love would allow me so much more compassion and openess in my relationships.