Life

How do we want to live? DO we want to live according to God's will or according to the world's system?

The thing that bugs me out about the world's system is that a man, a human, maybe even a group of humans, sat down one day and said that we are going to make the laws. As we see these rules can be misinterpreted, they can be changed, they can be over ruled... So many things can be done to these laws that it doesn't make sense. It makes you wonder why is it that the rules apply to some but not to others. Why is it that a cop can shoot somebody and get off, while a regular citizen shoot someone and they have to do time. It makes no sense whatever. I can't even begin to describe how much the world is in chaos because of the laws set forth by man. Don't believe me, think about it. Being shown on TV to children is stuff like lingerie commercials. Why? Why have we gotten to the point where this is considered the norm?

I don't know about you but I want to and I have accepted the idea that I am to live in this world but that I am not to be apart of this world. What are we doing here on this Earth?
Scripture says that we are in the last times.
2 Timothy chapter 3 says:
"¹But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. ²People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, ⁴treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— ⁵having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.

⁶They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, ⁷always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. ⁸Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth—men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. ⁹But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone."

This is everything that is very prevalent right now. How many times have we seen something mentioned in the above passage. You may say it ha been going on for years but it is even worse now and it will get worse. Are you going to be prepared at the end of it all?.... Something to think about.

Undrestanding

Why is it that we don't understand what doesn't fit into our world? What does your experience mean? What ideas of your are fluid? What ideas/understanding of yours have you gotten from previous generations and you've held onto? What have you had to piece together on your own? Would you be willing to make trouble before it happens?

I ask these questions to try and get you to think about what it is that you know. We all fear change, even though some of us welcome it more readily then others. When we look at people, we make our judgements of them based on how they fit into our world. If they don't fit into our world, we're quick to deem them as non-important, or non-existent. How many times a day do we do that? How many time a day do we write people off because they don't fit into our already preconceived notion of what "X" should look like?

In looking at the goings on of the past few days, I have noticed that one of the things that America has passed down from generation to generation is the idea of race. Race basically controls everything in our day to day. Yet if you notice, there are people that don't fit into a certain race. Now I'm not just talking about being of more than one race but what I mean specifically is that they don't fit into the box of what and who that race is supposed to be. They are the "exceptions" to the rule. Does that mean that the idea of race is a fluid concept? Everything that seems to get put in the media is either biased or racial heavy. Just yesterday we got the verdict from the Sean Bell case. The cops had been acquitted. You know what I heard. I heard people saying that just because the guy was black meant that he wasn't getting a fair trial and that the outcome would be swayed in favor of the white man. Why is it that ideas like that even cross people's minds? Why can't it just be that the lawyers defending the young man that was killed, and the people who were injured that had been in the car with him, didn't do their jobs and prove beyond everything that the cops were at fault? Doesn't anybody think about that? And if it is so much about the injustices of race, why do people wait for something like this to happen before speaking up about the injustices....? Knowing that this is something that happens all too often... Would you be willing to stir up things... to start trouble before this even becomes a problem?

Learning New Things

As we go through life, the question constantly comes up... "Why do I need to know this?" Or better yet "When am I ever going to use that?"

I wonder that for 3 out of 4 classes this semester. However I can tell you that, you need to know what you are being taught. Even the most mundane thing you need to know it.. or at least file it away for memory. Today I learned how to make an atomic bomb. I was sitting in my Energy and Resources claa, when the professor starts to break down how to do it. Now I need to nkow this information because you can't teach what you don't know. How could I be an instructor of technology and not know how one of this world's greatest(take it or leave it) invention was made.

I believe God was trying to teach me a lesson in all of this. I equate this to the apostles going out and preaching. They couldn't preach to the Jews without knowing why the Jews didn't believe that Jesus wasn't the messiah. They (the apostles) had grown up Jewish, and knew the customs and teachings. So they could take examples from what they knew and flip it to show that stuff isn't as far removed as they think. Same thing with Paul and the Gentiles. You wouldn't have initially sent one of the apostles to preach to the gentiles. They wouldn't have known how to relate. So I guess me knowing how to make an atomic bomb, I'm going to be able to use that information to relate to someone.

Just keep that in mind the next time you want to ask the questions "Why do I need to know this?" "When am I ever going to use that?"

Today

Lupe Fiasco's song "Superstar" starts off with the lines:
"Wanna' believe my own hype but it's too untrue
The world brought me to my knees, what have you brung you?
Did you improve on the design? Did you do somethin' new?"

It makes you think about the way you move through this life. What is t that you're doing to change things? What is it that you're doing to improve the world?

We like to think that the only way to change the world is to make loads of money, and donate money. What about donating time? What about taking the kid down the block that might be running around with a rough crowd and showing him that there is another way? How about going into a classroom, and letting the children know that ts ok to be smart?

Among other things, there are things we can do to change the world. But we have to start at home first. We can think big, but we got to take care of our own first.

So I want you to think about it:
"The world brought me to my knees, what have you brung you?
Did you improve on the design? Did you do somethin' new?"

Who are you?

I want to ask the question to make you think a bit. Who are you? Are the one who everyone goes too when something needs to be done? Are you the one that sits and just chills? Are you the person who has a list for everything and everything for a list?

How do others see you? How do you see yourself? Sometimes people see us for not who we are because they don't know our history. Have you ever had someone say that you are the worst person in the world because you didn't bother to think about someone else in something? Have you ever had someone look at you and think you must be out of your mind because you followed your heart instead of what they consider to be the "rational" mind? These are things ot think about when figuring out who you are.

The only opinion of you who you should worry about is God's. I know its hard to not take to heart what others say, but, when you hit a point when you're no longer walking in the world, then nothing else matters but doing God's will. Not saying it'll be easier, but it will become second nature to you when all you do is get up in the morning and you're doing what God wants you to do.

New Beginnings

You sit back and think sometimes of what it is to be you. Who are you? Where are you going? And what is your purpose here on this earth?

How do you expect to know the answers to these questions if you don't know who you are to begin with......

What we all have to realize is that for the first 21 years of our lives, we are products of our environments. The schools we go to, the churches we attend, our families. You may be wondering when does their influence on our lives ever stop. It never does, however, in the fabric we have to cut out our own designs. We have to change the pattern to fit what it is that we feel it should be. Yet if we do it without GOD, then we're walking without a map. If you're walking without a map, then you have no direction and what is the point of taking a trip with no direction?

In taking your journey to find out who you are, keep in mind that you didn't create you, so you have to take time to find out from the creator why it was that he created you.Then you'll have a better understanding of who you are. Think about it.