I think my mind is overwhelmed by everything that I am learning right now. Most of it is stuff that I have been thinking about for some time now, but it’s trying to put all of it into a form that I can comprehend, grasp and tell to others, that I find difficult. It would have been better if I wrote everything down when I got home Sunday night, but that was kind of difficult considering that I didn’t get home till a little past midnight. I will listen to the MP3 when it comes online, though I wish I could have had a tape recorder with me during the discussion at the coffee house after Plunge. Maybe it wasn’t so silly for me after all to have been carrying a notebook with me all the time like I did in the past—it would have been nice to jot down a few thoughts. If I really wanted to be hardcore, and if I really didn’t care what others would think, I’d probably bring my PowerBook with me to every bible study because that way I could record every thought. Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea anyway since then I would have a written transcript of the study that I can share with everyone.
I read the thought of the week on the Plunge website today and it helped to clarify and summarize everything:
“…people that seem to think that God’s commands are simply a weapon to beat people over the head with. I was lamenting how frustrated and angry I get with people that are so quick to judge others; people that want to use God as a means to put others down and themselves up.”
I was brought up to beat people over the head with Christianity, with that kind of attitude. It’s what my mother tried to teach my brother and I when we were growing up. I was taught to judge people. I was taught that I have good Christian morals. I was taught to look down on others because they drank, smoked, were into drugs, or because they struggled with any other sin that I didn’t struggle with. I was taught to stay away from them.
What changed my heart and my thinking was simply reading about Jesus in the Bible and getting to know him. I saw how he saw people. I saw who he hung out with and talked to; he even spoke to prostitues. And what did he say to them? He said things like: “Your sins are forgiven,” or he was just spellbound by their faith.
I don’t want to live thinking that I am somehow better than others because I am a Christian.
He who humbles himself will exalted, and he who exalts himself with be humbled.
We come to Jesus as sinners and he rescues us from our fallen sinful state. I can feel the love that Jesus has towards sinners, which is all of us. I have a lot more to say about what I’ve been learning, but I think this is a good start for now, and I’ll post more later.
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