The Real Pretenders.

Happy New Year!

Sooo, the holidays... they happened.  That's always something.  But now it's 2015.  So, that also happened.

Do you know what my favorite "holiday" is?  And please don't read to much into this, but it's actually Halloween.  You know why?

I love costumes.  It's not the candy, or the "religious" history behind it good, bad, or otherwise.  I just always thought costume parties were super fun.  Getting together with friends and goofing off while pretending you are something else.  Or just dressing up as a walking joke where your costume is both the joke and the punchline.

In that sort of setting, it's all fun and games and good times had by all unless you were the guy who thought he was too cool to play along because "it's dumb and your dumb and costumes are dumb but I came anyway so I could tell you how dumb it is and be hateful."

Him?  He probably should have just stayed home.

But once you get outside of that type of setting and back into "real life", all the pretending becomes problematic.  With your friendships it's a bad idea.  In your marriage?  Definitely not smart.  At your job?  That one will catch up with you as well.  In real life, unless you are an actor, pretending will destroy you or someone else eventually.

Do you know why people hate Christians?  There are tons of great examples of why people hate Christians.  It's not all people, of course.  But of the people who hate Christians, there are tons of stories that illustrate their justified positions.  But the real reason that it boils down to?

Pretending.

Let me explain.

Christians are not the problem that causes people to hate other Christians and, by extension, God.  It's people pretending to be Christians who cause these problems.

Those of you who have experienced this phenomenon might argue that this describes most "Christians".  

Maybe you are right.

But this distinction matters.  Anyone can claim to be a part of something but not actually represent what it is suppose to be.  Christians who claim to be like Jesus, but instead find ways to hate everyone and everything.  They like the club, but not the character.

The problem with Christians is that they aren't all Christian.  This is a truth that needs to be accepted by both Christians themselves and by the people who have been damaged by fake Christians.  Those fake Christians do not represent all of us, even if we all get defined by their unacceptable attitudes and actions.

God is Love.  Therefore a Christian should also be Love.  Love is the very nature of who God is, therefore a Christian's nature should also be that.  Love is patient, kind, merciful, forgiving, and it keeps no record of wrongs.  It hopes, it endures, and it never fails.

People on the other hand... they fail.

A true Christian is one who embodies Love.  Love does not have to agree with someone in order to accept that someone.  Love does not have to agree with another beliefs in order to respect the one who believes them.  Love does not have to agree with another's views in order welcome them with open arms into their lives.

A true Christian would do all those things, and not be threatened by the difference.  If a Christian is threatened by another's beliefs, it's because that Christian isn't very confident in them self or their belief so instead they shift the focus to the other person and convince others that this other person is the real problem so that no one will look back on that particular Christian and find his or her flaws.

These fake Christians have destroyed so many lives for this very reason.  Pretending to be a Christian doesn't make you one anymore than pretending to be a banana makes you one.

You can be a Christian and be friends with someone who is gay.  You can love them, give them hugs, share your home with them, laugh with them, and in general make them a part of your life.  Whether or not you agree with them or their life is completely irrelevant.  If you can't be confident enough in your God and your beliefs to be with someone who is different than you, then it says more about you than it does about them or your God.

Do you think that person who has spent a lifetime confused over their identity needs one more person judging them for their own uncertainties?  Christians are not the judges of the world.  God judges.  Period.  It's not my job.  It's not your job.  Stop doing it.  We are to love.  God will sort out the rest.  We are not the convincers or convictors of the world.  God is.  He will sort that all out.  

You want to show someone God?  Love them.  God is love.  You want them to know God?  Represent a God who cares for them so deeply that they wouldn't want to do anything else BUT know Him.  Because that person who has just finished their gender reassignment surgery has suffered whether or not we wish to recognize it.  They have been judged and ridiculed and have lost friends and family over it.  Whether or not their choice to have surgery was the correct one or not is irrelevant.  We can't change what is.  We can only control our own choice.  That choice is simple.  Will we be a true Christian and show complete and selfless Love without demands or conditions?  Or will we sit in judgment on them proving for certain that we were never Christian to begin with?

May it's not sexual identity.  Maybe it's drugs.  Maybe it's addiction.  Maybe it's gambling addiction.  Maybe it's pornography and sex addiction.  Maybe it's depression.  Maybe it's suicidal tendencies.  Maybe it's any number of other "unacceptable Christian taboos".  But therein lies the issue.  There in lies the lie.  It's not about the taboo.  It's about the people.  And no person is unacceptable.  We don't have to be something we are not in order to accept someone who is.

Hatred and bigotry is a lie.

Love is truth.

God doesn't hate you.  If God hated everyone who had a messed up life, He'd have to hate everyone.  But God doesn't hate everyone.  God is Love.

God has declared all people worthy.

You don't believe me?  I can understand that.  I'll break it down like this.  Perfection does not equal worth.  We are not worthy because we are perfect.  We are all imperfect.  But our perfection or imperfection has zero bearing on our value.

We have value because of Love.  God loves.  He loves us so much He experienced death for us.  He says that He loves us with an everlasting love that has no height, nor depth, nor width that can ever be measured.  It has no end.

God would not sacrifice himself or anything of His for something that has no value.  That which has value has worth.  You have value to God, therefore you have worth to God, therefore you are worthy.

If you are gay, you are loved by God and are worthy in His eyes.

If you are an atheist, you are loved by God and are worthy in His eyes.

If you are an addict, or a murder, or a cheater, or a thief, or any other frowned upon thing, you are loved by God and are worthy in His eyes.

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, and if they do, they don't know God.  They probably aren't true christians.  They are the pretenders, because whether or not the details of your lives are perfect, and they probably are not, you are Loved by God and are worthy in His eyes.

That is the truth.  That is true Christianity.  That is true Love.  

Don't let the pretenders drive you from God.  They have no power over you.  They are powerless unless you give them power.  Don't hate God because some pretender hated you.  They do not represent Him.  They may have taken His name, but they did not take His Character.

Whoever you are, give God another chance.  I didn't say "church" or "christians" or "prayer meeting", etc.  Just God.  Start there.  Work that part out and then move on from there.  Learn to know who God is.  Figure that out.  Let that lead your path.  Let love lead your path.

Good night.

Hot Dogs and Freedom!

Hello all and Happy Independence Day!

By now, many if not most of you are well on your way to a grilled beef (or acceptable substitute) induced coma, which may or may not have been assisted by some sort of "lubrication liquid".  

Horse shoes, potato salad, and Bocci Ball may well have been involved also.

Later, as the sun sets and inebriation rises, there will be a frighteningly grand use of controlled explosives designed to look pretty in the sky.  

You know, drunk people and explosives.

'Merica!!

I hope this day has been and will continue to be an enjoyable time for you all.

However, in case one or two of you decided to step away from the hot dog for a second to actually read this (actually, you can probably continue to eat the hot dog AND read this at the same time.  if you can't, it's either a quite spectacularly good dog, or you've hit the second case of MGD already and you think this is a website dedicated to Lynard Skynard.  Unrelated, once you figure out this isn't that, I do recommend their song "The Breeze".  It's one of my favorites.), I thought it might be a good time for a short little thought on the topic of "freedom".

I'm not going to bore you about the subtle difference between the concepts of "independence" and "freedom", nor am I going to go on about the state of government and politics.  

I simply want to talk about what it means to be free.

Freedom can mean many things.  Are you free from oppression?  Free from slavery?  Are you free from tyranny?  Are you free from burdens?  Free from hate?  Are you free as opposed to being costly?  Does your "free-ness" or "freedom" come at the expense of someone else's "freedom"?  If so, then was it actually "free"?

Are you free from self-doubt?  Free from debt?  Free from depression?  Free from self delusion?  Free from all illusions?

Are you actually free or do you just think that you are free?

Or, can you be beholden to another but still feel free?  Is true freedom something that happens externally, or does it happen internally?

What does it actually mean to be "free"?

I'm not going to pretend to know the absolute meaning of this.  My words are simply that.  Words.  But I would like to offer at least one thing to consider, not as an absolute definition of truth, but as one thing that might be true in a basket of other true things.

Freedom, is a choice.  Not just the ability to choose, but more importantly, your choice to be free no matter your physical circumstances.  A person can be a prisoner, but be free inside, just as a person can be free from walls and barriers, but be trapped in a prison of their own mental design.

Have you chosen to be free?  In this land of relative freedom, and significant lack of overall oppression compared to many places, have you chosen to be free?  Truly free from the things that truly imprison us?

Things like hatred, bigotry, selfishness, vanity, arrogance, pride, ignorance...?  These things are all choices.  Sure, maybe you were exposed to and raised in environments that programmed certain things into your overall view of reality, but that does not mean you can't choose something better.

All those things, and others, are extensions of one of the greatest prisons.

Lies.

The lies we chose to believe, and even worse, the lies we told ourself.  Lies about who we are and what our significance is or is not.  About why I'm better or worse than you.  About what why I hate you.  About why I'm angry.  About why I'm trapped in life.

Lies that I choose to believe so that I may willfully remain ignorant.

Ignorance.  Another great and evil choice.  I realize that there are some places where this is not necessarily a choice, but here, in our country, in the age of information and the internet and access to almost anything we want to find?  Ignorance is a willful choice.

I meet these people all the time.  People who want life no other way than to be negative and hateful and arrogant and ignorant.  People who have woven great lies and believed them into their soul.

But, there are other people.  Greater people.  People who've chosen to be free.  People who love unreservedly.  Who hate no one even if they disagree with them.  People who don't believe they are better than that other person who lives in a way they don't believe in.  People who seek to understand in spite of the difficulty of bridging the gap between bigotry and brotherhood.

Those people are awesome.  Those are the people who've chosen freedom.  Those are the people who have chosen to make their life one of happiness and fellowship.

Those are people I want to know.  They are the people I call brothers and sisters and kinsman and countrymen.  And I don't care what nation or bloodline they came from.

That's because freedom by it's very nature is about the absence of boundaries.  The absence of confines.  If not in body, then in mind and soul.

I live in a country that is both wonderful and imperfect.  In that sense, it's much like every other country.  With aspects of both wonder and imperfection.  And, we do have it better here than in many places in the world.  It's a country based on the principles of independence and freedom and equality, even if the reality has at times fallen short.  But there is one thing that must be understood very clearly.

This country is not what makes you free.

You are the only one who can make you free.

Now, go blow something up in the name of awesomeness!

'Merica!!