Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee

[The State]

Several classmates of a teen who threatened to blow up his high school have sent him a Bible with messages of forgiveness and support.  Chesterfield High senior Parker Anderson tells WBTW-TV he hopes 18-year-old Ryan Schallenberger will read the messages and the Bible and it will change his life.

The Bible was given to prosecutor Jay Hodge, who will try to get it to Schallenberger in jail. Schallenberger faces several state and federal charges, including attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. A federal agent testified last month that Schallenberger told police he wanted to die, go to heaven and kill Jesus.

Read here.

[From me]

Sounds like we can learn a lot from these teens.

What do you think?

I ran into my friend Gwen Smith @ Starbucks this morning as I often do.  My wife, Cassandra first told me about Gwen last year when she heard her sing at a local conference she went to.  Cass said, you’ve got to hear her.  Then by God’s providence I met her with my friend Mike Landrum @ Starbucks in the Northlake area of Charlotte.  Gwen has a contagious personality and I run into her quite often.  

She has just written a book that will be out this summer called Broken to Beautiful.  The 700 Club just interviewed her and Brad, her husband.  You can watch it below.  They were both Christians and were living double lives.  They were college athletes involved in a campus Bible study and having sex outside of marriage.  Then the unthinkable happened–Gwen got pregnant.  That wasn’t suppose to happen to Christians–right?  They were scared and Gwen decided to have an abortion.  This went against both of their beliefs.  They eventually got married and started a family.  They were both involved in church –then God rocked Gwens world and told her to share her story.  

It is a powerful story of God’s Grace.  I encourage you to watch and buy her book when it comes out.

Sorry I can’t embed the video.  You will have to watch it here.

[Miami Herald]

It was business as usual at the porn convention. 

And then there was Jesus.

Thousands of attendees at this weekend’s Exxxotica in Miami Beach, the largest adult-entertainment event on the East Coast, would go home to find, deep inside their goodie bag, a sizable chunk of the New Testament under the title “Jesus loves porn stars.”

All this courtesy of Craig Gross, a 32-year-old former youth pastor in Southern California who had set up a booth for his XXXChurch — which he started six years ago to fight back against rampant Internet pornography use — deep inside the belly of the beast. Gross and his crew of volunteers, all women in their late teens or early 20s, were passing out the deceptively packaged Bibles to attendees; there was no preaching or judging, only smiles and friendly conversation.

”It’s a little light in a dark room,” said Gross, standing next to a pile of 4,000 Bibles he planned to give away this weekend. “I feel like we’re planting a lot of seeds.”

Gross, who is known to some as the Porn Pastor, is as unconventional in appearance as his methods: Piercing green eyes, jutting cheekbones, day-old stubble and straight dark hair that cascades over his forehead. He wears tattered jeans and a T-shirt, has black studs on both his ears and sports a heart-shaped tattoo on his right forearm.

As way of explaining his work, Gross brings up the story of Zacheus, a crooked tax collector who climbs onto a tree to see Jesus when he comes into town. Jesus calls him down and invites himself to spend the night in Zacheus’ home.

That sort of involvement is what Gross aspires to, and that’s exactly where traditional religion has let him down, he said.

”They’ve never gotten on the field,” said Gross, who was ordained in the non-denominational Eastside Christian Church in Fullerton, Calif. “Shouldn’t we go where the problem’s at?”

Read about it here.

[From me]

I read Craig’s book “The Gutter” a few years ago.  The ministry he and his group are doing is very difficult.  But they are going where the sinners are.  Most of those people at the convention and in that industry would never set foot in a church because they would be judged.  

XXX Church calls porn “the dirty little secret.”  It is so easy to get drawn into this sin.  And no matter what others may believe, I believe that porn always affects other people.  I have seen way too many lives and marriages destroyed because of Porn.  

What do you think?

God has really been teaching me a lot about Grace. I’ve posted before how I believe churches do a good job of offering “Grace” at the moment of conversion but a poor job afterwards. It is like a “bait and switch” tactic.

It is always interesting how God makes me learn from 1st hand experience. Sometimes I wish I could just read a book or go to a conference but it doesn’t work that way. Recently I have been forced into several situations that caused a crisis of belief for me in regards to Grace. Probably as far back as 6 months ago or less I would have reacted differently. But I’m learning that when I show the grace that God has given me to others it softens them up. At first they don’t know how to react because it wasn’t always my way.

I know that some well meaning Christians feel that “grace” is a license to sin. That can’t be further from the truth. What God’s grace does is offer us what is already ours. The moment we accept Jesus we are in the family. Family members have don’t have to earn privileges in their family, they receive them because of who they are in their family.

It is the same with God. He offers for us to join his family and when we do we have privileges not because we have performed but just because we are his children! So recently when I was faced with confronting some sinful behaviors I had to remind these people that they were not being true to who they were in Christ. When we are truly God’s we will act like it.

What was interesting when I and others who were in this with me approached it from this perspective, the walls came down and not only did the persons realize that they weren’t acting as if they were God’s the dialogue opened to talk about other areas! Cool!

I guess the saying is true: ”

Boy do I have a lot more to learn.

What do you think?

I thought this opinion by this college student was interesting:

[Spartan Daily]

by Felicia Ann Aguinaldo

My boyfriend thinks I’m going to hell.

 Well, he didn’t actually say it, but he thinks that if you don’t go to church, you won’t get into heaven.

 And since I don’t go to church, I guess I’m not getting into heaven.

 I’m not completely sure whether this bothers me, though, because I’m not even sure if there is a heaven.

Hell, I’m not even sure if there is a God. 

But wait, before you judge me, please understand where I’m coming from.

I was baptized Catholic, and once upon a time, I attended a Catholic church, where my sisters and I ran around the pews chasing each other. But don’t worry, we only attended a few times.

 Then, out of nowhere, my dad and stepmom decided the Catholic Church wasn’t good enough and became born-again Christians, which is when they forced my sisters and me to attend their God-worshipping church. In the end, my sisters and I quit going to their church, but my dad continues to preach to us God’s word.

My other encounters with religion - or lack of it - come from my grandma (a Buddhist), my stepdad (an atheist) and my stepgrandma (a Jew).

With all of these religious views in the mix, it’s no wonder I’m agnostic.

I don’t think there’s any way to tell whether God exists, but I also don’t believe he doesn’t exist.

What I do believe, though, is that any religion that excludes non-believers is not one in which I want to take part.

What kind of religion teaches its followers that people who don’t go to church will go to hell?

What about the people who can’t make it to church every Sunday? What about the people who would rather worship God in their own homes than in a church?

Just because I don’t identify with a religion doesn’t mean I’m not a good person. 

Just because I don’t attend church every Sunday doesn’t mean I don’t live my life according to how a good Christian would live his or her life.

I honor my parents, and I am not a murderer, adulterer or thief.

I appreciate the little and big things in life like the shining sun, the person who holds open the door for others, and the good health of my family and friends.

I pray - every once in a while - to whichever God is listening and ask him to keep all people safe from harm, to protect those who are less fortunate than myself, and to keep everyone warm and not hungry for at least the night.

I have never even tried drugs, I do not drink in excess, and I am not an obsessive gambler.

And just because I don’t attend church every Sunday, this means I am doomed to hell?

 That seems unfair to me.

 What about the people who do attend church but do so only to ensure their places in heaven?

 The man who physically or emotionally abuses his family, the woman who is cheating on her husband, the child goes to church because he or she has to - these are the people who will make it into heaven just because they go to church and say they believe in God?

If God is as selective as Christians make him seem, I don’t think I want to be associated with Christianity. 

So, even if I am categorized as the non-believer who is going to hell, at least I know I lived my life as a good person. 

And who said I wanted to get into the Christian heaven anyway?

Read from the source here.

[From me]

She sounds like a wonderful young lady.  I do agree with one statement she made.  She said it all seems unfair. She is right.  What would be fair is that we would all be sent to hell because we have disobeyed God. If I got what was fair, I would get death.  What some people don’t understand is that Jesus offers eternal life for free.  We can’t earn anything in God’s eyes.  We receive His love, forgiveness and grace as a gift.  When you get a gift, you don’t pay for it or it isn’t a gift.  Gifts can’t be bought.  

This moral young lady lists a nice resume for goodness.  But being good isn’t good enough.  Also, church doesn’t get a person into heaven either.  The thief on the cross next to Jesus probably never set foot in church but Jesus said he would be with Jesus because he believed.  

I’m “Positively Optimistic” that God sent His Son to die for the sins of the entire world.  All we have to do is trust Him and He begins to live in each one of us.

What do you think?

[Sorry, the comments were turned off accidently–I haven’t learned Wordpress 2.5 yet!]

Tags: agnostic, atheist, faith, God, grace, works