You've Got To Fight For Your Rights! ... or should you?

On Sunday we talked about how there are certain areas that God is very clear on what our convictions must be (for example, Acts 15 on gospel beliefs, and 1st Corinthians 5 on moral beliefs). At the same time, there are areas such as how we worship God where we have more freedom in our convictions (Look at Romans 14 for an example).

It probably comes to no surprise to many of you, then, that this final category, where we have more freedom, is the one that often divides many Christians.

So how do we live in the tension of exercising our Christian freedoms while trying not to offend other believers, or worse, make them stumble into sin? What are ways that we can build unity with each other even when our convictions differ?

Be The Blessing

Genesis 12:2-3 (God speaking to Abram)

"I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse,
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you."

We talked in Missio Dei a few weeks ago about how it is our responsibility as Christians to be a blessing to the rest of the world. But what does this look like? Is it all about preaching to people or does it involve our actions somehow too?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this,

-Steve

Good Intentions

This year I am going to eat better, exercise more, spend more time with my family, enjoy life more, get out of debt, learn something new, help more people, get organized, and quit smoking and drinking... and ironically I'm not even in debt nor do I drink or smoke!

Above I've listed some of the top New Year's Resolutions. Does the idea of a New Year's Resolution make you cringe? This time of year everyone is asking what yours is - which makes me wonder where this silly tradition came from.

According to my trusty sources at Wikipedia, the tradition started in 153 B.C. when the Romans instituted the Solar Calendar and made January the first month. January is named after the Roman god Janus who had two faces, one on the back of his head to look at the past and the other on the front to look toward the future - thus he served as a New Year's reminder to learn from the past in order to improve in the coming year (this sounds vaguely familiar from Latin class in High School, so I'll take their word for it).

With or without the Roman god's I think that there's something inherent about the New Year that causes us to consider how we can improve and then resolve to change. A New Year just seems to indicate a fresh start, and really there's nothing wrong with that. There's just something disappointing about it when our resolutions never get beyond good intentions.

For example, take another look at the common resolutions listed above. I might know that I need to get into better shape, but does saying I'm going to exercise more burn calories? Of course not, I need to follow through on what I say.

When it comes to exercise, the only consequence to merely having good intentions is a bigger waistline. When our good intentions are of a spiritual nature, however, the consequences can be much more damaging.

For the next several weeks we'll be studying the life of Paul. We'll start with the story in Acts chapter nine of his conversion, which is a lot like a resolution. Can you imagine if he'd merely had good intentions? We would have missed out on half of the New Testament!

As Christians, we all have conversion stories of our own - we've all resolved to follow Christ. How is that resolution going in your life? Has it resulted in change, or is it merely a good intention?

-Steve