A little reading for your pleasure

During the summer I met Melissa, she was at PFO and is going to go to Brasillia if I'm not mistaken. She was like 6'3" tall and so it was fun to play sports with her. She somehow knew that I was into Steven Curtis Chapman and after getting back home to for the summer she sent me Steven Curtis Chapman Chapman. This book has has really had an impact on my life, and I am not even finished with it. But what I'm going to do is share just a little bit of it every now and then...enjoy.

It is easier to be convinced of our unrighteousness than our self-righteousness. Unrighteousness is usually in direct opposition to Sctipture or conscience; it is external, observable, and usually easy to define. But self-righteousness is more subtle. Most self-righteousness people are religious. They have strong passions about certain rules and regulations. When the self-righteous encounter the irreligious or those who "break the rules," they feel good about themselves and condesecending toward the lawbreakers.

The truth is, there is no greater unrighteousness than self-righteousness. Jesus' most scathing remarks were directed not at pagans and "sinners," but at condesending religious people, blind to their own graceless hearts. Jesus singled out the scribes and Pharisees as the worst examples of this evil. They were the religious leaders who taught that God's acceptance of us is based on our scrupulous adherence to the laws of Moses. Typically they were confident of their own righteousness but suspect of everyone else's. Thus, Pharisaism emerged as a term synonymous with self-righteousness.

Self-righteousness is the proud, judgmental attitude born out of a false gospel of legalism. The self-righteous individual puts his confidence in what he has done to earn God's favor. An orphan spirit is the self-centered attitude of a believer who lives either ignorant of or indifferent to the fact that God is his or her Abba, Father.

Really gets us thinking doesn't it...sometimes we as Christians are more concerned with the religion, and what being that certain religion should look like. I have had people, strong in their faith, tell me that you can't get to heaven unless you are a "conservative, republican, Baptist." Christ could care less about that stuff. He wants to know us personally, does that mean you have to be the "conservative, republican, Baptist?" Not a chance. however, can you be? Of course you can. But I think that once we as Christians start putting those types of requirements on our fellow man, we minimize the teachings of Christ. When I read the bible and Christ is on the cross speaking to the thieves, He wasn't trying to get these men to be this or be that, He simply looked into their heart and told them that "Today you will be with me in paradise." Or, the adulterous woman, or the woman that he met at the well. There was no requirement on these individuals to be this or be that. I go to a Nazarene church back home in Kansas City. I teach at a school that has sstrong Baptist roots. I also am not a member of any church. Again this is based squarly on the fact that no where does Christ say..."Go sign a membership card, then come and follow me."

Not trying to preach here, just trying to put some things out there that have been on my heart. God waits to judge us until we are dead, why should we be any different?