Sick and thinking

The past 24 hours have not been fun. I won't go into details on what sickness I have, but it does involve my stomach and fluids. Ok, that's enough :).

Over the past several weeks, I've been thinking and praying about what it means to be a Christian. Many churches make Christianity out to be a religion of legalism and rules. Don't get me wrong, as believes it is important that we read scripture and live by it, however many churches preach legalism and have turned the world away.

I've been involved with several churches in my 28 years old this earth, who have turned their backs on those in need. I don't understand why we are commanded to carry out the great commission, yet we don't because we're more concerned about singing hyms than praise songs, or vise versa. We might as well "flick off" the world and tell them to go to hell.

At one of the churches we were at, a lady told me, "if this church ever goes to two services, I'm leaving." How sad is that? When we read the book of Acts, we see that thousands were added to the church in a single day. How sad and depressing is that it is not happening here.

I am tempted to pick on denominations, but it won't do any good. All denominations are guilty of pointing the finger and telling the world to go to hell.

Christianity is about grace. We need to show grace, love, mercy. Yes, we need to preach the truth which involves God's wrath, justice, and discipline, however we need to preach his grace.

My heart aches for the lost. My heart aches whenever I screw up. I just hope the church aches when it screws up.

blab

Ever have a day where you wake up and just want God to end the world? Today was that day for me. I woke up and was just in a mood. I don't want to do anything today, I just want to go to bed early and skip work tomorrow (that won't happen). It's hard to get close to God during days like this.

I've been grumpy, complaining and just down. I'm thankful for God's grace though. Even when I'm in a mood like this he loves me and He still wants the intimate relationship. I think before I crash tonight I'm going to get into the Word a little. It's amazing that when I get into God's word before bedtime I have a good night's worth of sleep.

Rants

I am a big fan of apologetics. I love to read books and listen to men of God defend the Christian faith. Most Christians believe apologetics is a defense of the faith from those outside of the church who wish to attack the historical and theological facts of Christ and the faith. The sad thing is there are many attacks from "within" the church. All we need to do is watch TBN or other Christian television for 30 minutes and we'll see heretics spewing poison. What is wrong with the Christian faith? I don't understand why preaches must preach that Christ died so we must live lives of wealth and prosperity, when in fact the bible states Christ died for us so we would spend eternity with him (John 3:16).

It's a sad thing. I pray the generations that follow will go back to orthodox Christianity. It's a simple Christianity that doesn't make scriputre confusing and full of false hopes.