Upside Down

 I wanted to start the New Year and post something every day. It's day five and I am struggling with what to post already. Why am I having a problem so soon? I get a lot of ideas about what to write from sermons and books that I read. I try to make the things that stand out to me, to make them mine. To apply these things to my life. I started reading a different book, "UN christian" by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons. I have tried to write three different posts already and am afraid to publish them. It is a very good book and one that I think every Christian should read.  I see the perceptions of the non-Christians about Christians in this book and I even thought the same way many times when I was struggling with my faith. It makes sense to me. When you grew up in a Church that believed in perfection and we saw imperfection all around us, it's not hard to develop a critical attitude. We saw our imperfect earthly father and often thought our heavenly father was the same. We really don't need that type of Christianity.  Somewhere along my spiritual journey I seemed to have caught sight of the real Jesus and the real Heavenly Father and was able to separate my tainted view of my earthly father from looking at God the same way. The problem is our world today is we do not see the loving God as he really is. Often we see other imperfect Christians instead. Its like a worn-out Cliche, Christians aren't perfect just forgiven. How many times have I said that?  It is true but it is almost like making excuses for bad behavior in Christians. How did I growing up the way I did see past the hypocrisy and develop a relationship with my Heavenly Father? Here I am a man that was raised in a Church that taught against the divorce and remarriage evil and has managed to get divorced 4 times and still call myself a Christian. I received Grace and Mercy. I want to write and be transparent about my failures and not sound like I am making excuses for bad behavior. I'll bet I even turn people off when they read my blog description at the top of my blog. This book is turning me upside down.  In a way, I saw a view of what this book is talking about many years ago in my mockup job. One of my co-workers was a young Christian man and he was talking with our supervisor who was not a Christian. I believe the young Christian man had been trying to witness to the supervisor and the supervisor came back with; "to you I am just a heathen", kind of heatedly as I remember it. What do we even call non-Christians that we come in contact with. Unsaved, one pastor likes to call them pre-Christians.  But even there we can offend before we even get started. Many times all they see is us and not the real Jesus that we are supposed to represent. But then Christianity has survived thousands of years already, it has survived the imperfect representatives of Christianity through many centuries already. Somehow many start on this spiritual journey and get to know a loving God and a savior Jesus that died on a cross for our sins. Somehow we have botched the greatest story ever told. We have something very important to say that has eternal consequences and we seem to be losing. Recently I read about Tim Tebow and how 94 million people in this country googled John 3:16 that he wore at a championship game in the shadow under his eyes. I want to be transparent and not excusing my bad behavior as a Christian. Jesus died on a cross for our sins and he is the only way to eternity with God and somehow we are botching the message. Self-righteous, hypocritical, judgmental, how many more bad ways can I list describing  Christians that are supposed to be taught to love even their enemies. In other parts of the world, Christianity is thriving but here in America it is declining. I think of a Christian lady I went to church with one time in Marysville, WA, and a drunk came into the building. He did need a bath and her reaction was what is he doing in here. The sociable nice high-class Christianity that is too nice to stoop to welcome somebody that really needed God's help. We have the greatest message to give to a lost and dying and hurting people and we are not doing a very good job. This book is turning me upside down. I know a God and a savior Jesus that everyone needs to know. They often don't see the loving God I am supposed to represent, they see a Christian like me. I am blest to know this God. How did I make it through all the garbage this world threw at me and still come to know this Jesus? Millions have come to know this Jesus through the centuries, before Bibles were even printed. America was so blessed by God and we are slowly becoming UN Christian.  God bless, LVZ.