May Mingle: Michael - Simple Math: The Truth Cannot Be Fractioned

Today's May Mingle guest is someone I have known since he was born. It is safe to say that I didn't like my brother when he first entered the world and maybe not even for a few years after that. But I have grown to love Michael and am so grateful to call him family. He has grown in His faith and challenges me to look beyond what I have been taught and to truly dig into what the Bible says. He is my friend and my brother.

You can find more of his thoughts here.

Simple Math: The Truth Cannot Be Fractioned

“we are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us, we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.” - C.S. Lewis

            The Holy Spirit is not shy concerning the business of revealing the sins of our hearts to us. Over the last four to five years I have discovered one of my deeper struggles is being a cynical a-hole. Another quote from Mr. Clive Staples goes something like this: badness is only spoiled goodness. There is a form of cynicism out there that should be present especially with all of the absolute bull **** being sold by society; i.e. just be yourself and gender neutrality somehow defines equality, oh and my personal favorite, disagreeing means hate. The bible says we need to seek wisdom and have the wherewithal to discern truth. In a very small way, this is the good cynicism. Mine is this, but then my flesh just loves to take it further.

            I am the problem. This is the hardest truth to realize and what’s more, I seem to have to re-realize it on a regular basis. This is just more and more evidence of the grace of God in my life. Without God’s grace I am so worthless. Instead of me complaining about everything (a task that if a paid profession, would make me a millionaire), I should fight and pray for small ways to help. I say small because I am incapable. I should fight and pray that God would increase my faith in increments I can handle and that He would guide me in wisdom. What are real practical ways to fight for the truth? I am not sure. I know that the way I have been going about it is all wrong.  The apostle Paul said to “be angry, and do not sin…” (Eph. 4:26). I struggle with the latter part.

            What God in His grace has shown me in the past couple months or so is that people will not come to Him because of how much I complain about the wrong in the world. Neither will the “blame the church” approach work. Growing up the most popular argument I heard against my faith was, “there are too many hypocrites”. “I mean look at this blog, he said a swear word just two paragraphs up”

            While the church has made it’s slew of mistakes in history (oh wait, it’s because there are people in the church), “they” are not the problem. I am. That’s just it though, my imperfection, my use of a “swear” word, my “hypocrisy”; these things should not make you upset at Christianity or God, they should make you upset with me. Not only this, but it should give you such amounts of hope! If God has grace for me, than surely He has grace for you.

            What is the bottom line? Well, to be honest, when my sister asked me to write this blog I had a slew of ideas of what to write about, whether it be frustrations with family members, or a blog on alcohol, or perhaps my inward struggle with faith concerning my mother’s health battles…

            I guess for me it comes to realizing that we are all hopeless without Christ. Francis Chan said that one of the biggest lies in society right now is that you are a good person. I cannot agree with him enough. Without Christ I would choose evil every single time. Left to my own devices, I would choose evil every time. The bottom line is that it’s all about Jesus. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gets at the fact that our sin is manifest inside before the tangible acts are seen. Stealing a candy bar is only tangible evidence of a sin committed long before leaving the building. I am not using this as a guise to be ok with my sin; more to be honest about the fact that I believe whole heartedly, that I will always need Jesus. This does not mean we embrace our sin, this means we endeavor and endure to fight knowing we cannot win. This sounds backwards but it is all about Jesus. Jesus loves me and forgave me, so I fight to not sin and fail, and in so realize I cannot win without Him.