Tag: Responsibility

Show Some Respect

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Show Some Respect

As a friend, how do you treat your friends? How respectful are you towards your friends? What kind of person are you? Are you a friend who drops everything when you’re needed? Are you a friend who goes to great lengths to check on your friends when you know they are in need? Are you a friend who helps others financially, spiritually, or emotionally? Are you the type of person that pays forward good deeds? Or, are you the kind of person that accepts those good deeds but never repays them? Are you selfish and you take for granted those people in your life that are always there for you? How do we as a people look to Jesus Christ? Are we appreciative of the sacrifice Christ made for us?

When you have much to offer, people will flock to you in droves. When Christ was healing everyone, handing out free food, lifting everyone up, the people loved him. When he started talking about everyone being sinners, and heaven wasn’t achievable for everyone because of our love of Sin, they turned on him. They threaten to stone him, and ran him out from one town after after. This is the savior and only when it suited us, did the people appreciate the truth, no, they preferred to live happy in a lie, instead of face the bitter truth.

( Spoilers Ahead for The Matrix)

I’m reminded of the first Matrix movie. The Matrix a prison meant to enslave the human race by keeping their minds trapped inside a digital construct, while harvesting a human being to essentially be living batteries. A soldier for the cause for the revolution against the machines Morphious In the first film one of the freed mines, a man named Cypher betrays the crew and causes a lot of problem. When the betrayal is discovered Cypher describes how he’d rather live in ignorance, and the joys of the Matrix, rather then suffer and live with the truth.

Proverbs 10:9 “He that walketh uprightly walketh surely: but he that perverteth his ways shall be known.”

Luke 8:17 “For all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open, and everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all.”

Aren’t we the same way? We look at Jesus as the answer to the problem. We sin, but it’s okay because we are forgiven, so it doesn’t matter what we do, as long as we say we’re sorry once in a while, and we keep living our lives. Yeah, see, that’s not how this works at all. Hebrews 10:26 “For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,” It’s said that when we take the Holy Spirit into our hearts the idea of sin becomes so repulsive we don’t do it intentionally. While we will always have moments where the flesh takes over and we Sin, the guilt we should feel when we do is where the repentance comes into the picture.

We are responsible for our own sins. We are responsible for how we treat others around us. We are responsible for the kindness in our own hearts. We are responsible for the selfishness in our hearts. The taking of Bashiba by King David was a knowing sinner at the time he took her into his bed. He knowingly sinned as he plotted the death of her husband. He knowingly sinned as he attempted to plot and scheme to hide his own sin. How appreciative of someone who picks up our tab at dinner? Now think about it, how appreciative are we now when we think about our eternal salvation? Do we live like someone who has been freed from an eternal death sentence? There’s a price for our sin, there’s a price for our actions, how we treat someone, and “The bill comes due, always” (Dr. Strange)

 

 

 

 

No Strings On Me

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No Strings On Me

A child of sin we fight and fight, bound by our strings of sin the devil pulls us here, and moves us there, but children of sin the strings on me. One sin, the dominoes that fall, one after another, the puppet master controlling, whispering, the temptations draw us down. We clash and brawl but the nature we cannot win, the truth remains the strings hold me down and move me all around. A marionette we move through life, but is it our own? We are blessed with free will, the will to kill, the will to heal, the will to give, the will to take, but always the will is free. So why the strings, why do they control, the gentle or the fool? We have no strings, but then we do, where’s the line, the line in the sand we see and we watch, but do we cross, or do we stay?

The highway’s lonesome, the path is a treacherous one. The thoughts are wondering, and enter the whispers, but who is it I hear, what is it that stalks me in the darkness of my own mind? The Devil takes shapes, moves throughout the shadows, hiding or coming to and fro. The world in chaos, the evil that spreads, a gift from Eve, the sin was born, the victim of ignorance and evil. Her strings were pulled, the desire of man, the first of many, a path was set, forever to walk but a light shines in the distance, what could it be?

Romans 7:21-25 “21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.”

 The spirit is willing, but the flesh falls short. Sin pulls us, sin dwells within us, binds us, sin not unlike the strings of a puppet. When we walk blindly through life our sin nature being pulled and tempted, whispered to by Satan keeps us under control by that sin. Do you want to be a pawn, or some marionette to be used, or be controlled? Most people live their lives in the dark, unaware of the strings on them. The only way to cut those strings is in two words, Jesus Christ.

No Strings Attached by NSYNC

Take it from me
It’s a lesson to be learned
Even the good guys get burned
Take it from me
See, I would give you love
The kind of love that you’ve only dreamed of

Jesus is the only way to cut those strings. We may not ever cut sin from our lives, but the Fire of the Holy Spirit can change us. When we know Christ as our one and only Savior we have a weapon to fight the sin nature we are bred with. We are all sinners and sin by nature, but when we accept Christ our hearts undergo a fundamental change, and we see through new eyes. The truth is Christ’s blood freed us from the bonds of eternal death. While we are still sinners we have a choice when our eyes are opened to allow the Devil to pull on us, or not.

I’ve Got No Strings

I’ve got no strings
To hold me down
To make me fret
Or make me frown
I had strings
But now I’m free
There are no strings on me

 Don’t be afraid of the Devil for he holds no strings on you when you realize you’re not alone. Pick up the phone and call for Christ, don’t be afraid of the Devil for he has no power over you. The one who has all the power is Christ. He has allowed us the choice, and freedom is power, we have the power to fight sin, to actively think about it daily. We may not be perfect, but often our sin is a choice we make. Don’t fall trap to the dominoes of sin because once you start with the little sins, the big stuff is only a small stretch. Cut your strings of sin and embrace your freedom. We have freedom and freedom is power, so in the words of a great man “With great power comes great responsibility!” (Uncle Ben, Spiderman) Don’t take our power for granted. Use your freedom to do great good. Don’t be controlled by Satan any longer. Let the light of the Holy Spirit fill you up, and think of that before you make decisions that might lead you down the road of Sin. Sin are weights that hold you down, once you drop the life in the dark, you can live life and unencumbered and with the Holy Spirit as your guide, speed your way through life and don’t like it hold you back.

 

 

Hit The Pavement

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Hit The Pavement

We cannot just stand by and watch as injustice, hardships, or destruction destroys the lives of our neighbors. How can you claim to be a Christian and sit idly by and all you do is shake your head and say, ‘shame’. No longer can we just sit and hope it just passes us by. Christians have a responsibility to do what we are able to bring peace and hope to those who have none, for those who are poor, or for those who have lost everything for reasons they may not be responsible for.

Iridescent By; Linkin Park

 When you were standing in the wake of devastation
When you were waiting on the edge of the unknown
And with the cataclysm raining down, insides crying save me now
You were there impossibly alone

Do you feel cold and lost in desperation
You build up hope but failure’s all you’ve known
Remember all the sadness and frustration

And let it go, let it go

And in the burst of light that blinded every angel
As if the sky had blown the heavens into stars
You felt the gravity of temper grace falling into empty space
No one there to catch you in their arms

No matter the devastation we face we know that as bad as it gets we know that even if we don’t have someone to catch us, or someone to hold us during our time of need, we know that God is always with us. While sometimes that seems like a small piece of consolation, we need to remember that people are fallible and in our sorrow knowing that God, the creator of all is still suffering along side us every day, should grant us comfort. The Angels from above are with us, and protect us from harm. In the wake of the tragedies that have fallen upon the United States in the Hurricanes, the anniversary of 9/11, and so much more. Every day citizens of this great nation experience hardships and tragedy. In those times we must remember it’s so very important to never quit, and to keep pushing forward.

Dealing with hardships and pain isn’t ever easy, but it’s something that takes work. To accomplish anything worthwhile we must put boots on the ground and pound the pavement. We must work because everything we want requires work to obtain it. James 2:14-26 14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good[a] is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! 20 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works;23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.” We must always show our faith, show our gratitude by doing good works in the name of Jesus Christ. We cannot say we are truly living if we don’t do work to make things better. We don’t often get a chance to right a wrong, but when bad things happen in our lives, we are given that chance. It’s never too late to try, and it’s never too late to work on correcting choices from the past.

While the world will continue to beat you down and as relentless as it can be you always have a better way. So make sure you work for what you want. Work for the changes you want to see in your life, and work to make the world around you a better place. Do the good work that God asks for and do it with pride. Be an ambassador for Christ and show the world the meaning of good works and Christ’s love.