Christmas

Christmas is about potential.  We celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, who grew up to be the Saviour of all men.  We collect as families and close friends to celebrate what will be.  Maybe I'm not making sense.

Before the world was formed, God had a plan.  His spirit children (us) needed a world to come to and experience life in a body and learn how to master bodies.  He knew we would make many mistakes and needed a way fo us to be able to return to Him.  (He is perfect and imperfect people can't come back to stay.)

Jesus Christ volunteered to come to earth as a mortal, like us, and suffer more than any man had ever suffered.  He would experience the entirety of human experience and atone for all pain, lost, sickness, and sin--all imperfections--so we could return to God and live with Him forever.

We had known Jesus for a long time, and knew He was the only spirit sibling we had who could possibly make good on such a promise.  We supported this and looked forward with faith to His life.

On Christmas day (or what we celebrate as Christmas day), Jesus was born to a virgin mother.  Heaven had such trust in Jesus that angels proclaimed his birth across the world.  A new star appeared, telling everyone the Saviour was born.

It is the beginning of His perfect life we celebrate today.  We celebrate the potential of a tiny baby child; born in the muddy, flea-ridden stable; lain in an animal's feed trough for a bassinet to become the perfect example to all mankind of how to live and how to return to God's presence.

Christmas reminds us of our potential.  Each of us can choose to be like Jesus.  We can live following His example, repenting of our mistakes because He atoned for our sins.  His suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane and on Calvary's Cross allows us to repent and have our sins, though as scarlet blemishes on our souls become white as driven snow (see Isaiah 1:18).

Jesus allows us to fulfill God's plan, to fulfill our potential as children of the Most High.  We can achieve limitless heights because He performed His mission on earth.  We each must do the same.  We must follow all His commandments and help other do the same.  We must find and fulfill our purpose of life.

Then we, too, through Jesus' atonement that rights every wrong, will realize our potential as we stand before God and are ushered into His loving arms once again.

Jesus Logic

At first this may sound a little blasphemous. It's not, I promise. (As an aside, I freaking hate toaster ovens. I can't even toast things properly.)

In Toronto I met a lot of people whose opinions about Jesus varied. "He was a good guy." "He was a fraud." "He taught good things." "He was the Son of God." "He was a charlatan."

While opinions are well and good, we can know Truth. We can know exactly what Jesus was/is/will be. The Spirit will guide us to this knowledge as we are prepared.

However, what helps me is whether things make sense. Regardless of what my mother claims, I feel I am a logical person whose opinions are based in fact and reason. Thus we shall take a lawyer-influenced look at Jesus and His claims.

We know Jesus taught many things taken as truth and as beneficial. However, are they really? Can we really trust a man who claimed he was the Son of God? In a court case, if a witness is proven to have lied on the stand, even once in hours of testimony, the entire testimony is often discounted and the witness is assumed to have lied about everything. This must happen because picking truth from lies is impossible.

Similarly, we can put the testimony of Jesus on trial. Without doubt, the claim that he was the son of a God and a mortal woman is the most questionable he ever made. If someone can disprove that claim, the entirety of his teachings falls apart. Thus the Beatitudes become useless--for they are obviously taught by a liar, His commands to love one another become unnecessary, etc.

Following that track, any teaching that has come since derived from Jesus' words is also false, any teaching from other perceived great men (Ghandi, Confucius, Mohammad, etc) agreeing or citing Jesus must also be taken as false. As you can see, claim Jesus is only a great man and not 100% what He said He was leads to the disruption of much of the moral code the world follows.

However, if He is the perfect Son of God--a knowledge any willing person can gain--all of His teaching (even the ones you don't like) must be true (because He could not lie) and must be followed in order to gain the Eternal Life He promises to His disciples. This is the case because the Son of God would have full authority to speak on any subject, and His words would be eternal law. Thus evaluating Jesus' claim to divine sonship is the crux of most arguments about Christianity.

So the decision comes to you. Will you throw away the morality of the world by believing He is less than what He claimed to be, or will you discover whether He is the Son of God?

My knowledge is that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He died and was resurrected so each person who ever lived may gain Eternal Life by following His teachings. Logic supports it and the confirmation of the Spirit irrefutably confirms it.

Genius

So I was reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey and came across this awesome quote. It's pure genius.

"In the great literature of progressive societies, love is a verb. Reactive people make it a feeling. They're driven by feelings. Hollywood has generally scripted us to believe that we are no responsible that we are a product of our feelings. But the Hollywood script does not describe the reality. If our feelings control our actions, it is because we have abdicated our responsibility and empowered them to do so.

"Proactive people make love a verb. Love is something you do: the sacrifices you make, the giving of self, like a mother bringing a newborn into the world. If you want to study love, study those who sacrifice for others, even for people who offend or do not love in return. If you are a parent, look at the love you have for the children you sacrificed for. Love is a value that is actualized through loving actions. Proactive people subordinate feelings to values. Love, the feeling, can be recaptured." (p. 80)

The End?

I question the sanity of those who think death is the end of existence.  To be sane is to be of a sound mind, not mad, or mentally ill, reasonable.  What reason would there be to life if this were it?  Why would we want to stay in a place full of pain if there was no hope for future existence?  (Of course, on the opposite extreme, why are we afraid of death?)

My thoughts aren't centred on morbidity, really.  Just the insanity it is to think that death really is the end.  If one believes in Christ one believes in live after death--that's why Christ came:  so we can live again.  That's the whole point!  And not only will we live again, but we will live where there is no pain.

Hello!  Purpose brings sanity.  It is reasonable to exist for a purpose.  It is not reasonable to think that somehow life could suddenly pop into being (because no matter how many little evolutionary steps you break it down into, life still has to come; and life doesn't come without God)--scientifically, philosophically, or otherwise.

So to believe that life just appeared with no prior thought on a random chance is insanity.  And to follow that track and use it for the "proving" there is no purpose to life and obviously there cannot be an afterlife, is just ludicrous.

Christ lived.  He died.  He is now living because He was resurrected.  And we will all be resurrected, too.  "For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive."

Use your brain, be sane.

The Bible

My brother, like myself, was a strong proponent for Prop 8 (and as the legal fight continues remains so). On his blog, or facebook, or myspace--something--a friend of his posted the comment 'F... the Bible' in reaction to my brother's defense that the Bible condemns the practice of gay marriage (or gay anything for that matter).

"F... the Bible' is a strong comment. It comes from someone who doesn't recognise the foundation upon which Western society is built. The Bible is more than just the bestselling book of all time, it is the moral foundation upon which our society was laid. And, to all those who look, is what kept the world relatively pure for so many years. As we fall away from discipleship to Christ and, as my brother's friend said, 'F... the Bible,' our society will follow. The fact we even had to vote on Prop 8 shows way too many people are saying 'F... the Bible.'

And sadly too many Churches are saying the same thing. Churches that use the Bible each week during their sermons are saying 'F... the Bible' because they aren't willing to stand up for what it teaches. They piddle away the blunt passages in Exodus, Romans (really blunt in the Greek), and Corinthian as mistranslated, unimportant, or 'hatespeech.'

Funny that this book which has given the moral guidance to our society is being decried as 'hatespeech.' Stranger still that a 20th century word is used to devalue the most important book in Christian history--and it's working.

Now is the time for those who are disciples of Christ to stand for what they believe, what the scriptures teach, and face whatever persecution comes. We only stand for morality, for life, for our Saviour. 

Speaking of the times in which we live, Jesus prophesied:

9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.

10 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.

11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

So where do you stand? Will you endure? or will you succumb? There are only two choices.

Christ's Role in My Life

It's funny at first to think that someone I've never seen could be the central focus of my life. I mean, seriously, I centre my life around Jesus Christ, His atonement for me, and His example.It seems ridiculous looking in with no shared understanding of the effects Christ can have in a life.

I take comfort knowing I have felt His atoning influence in my life. I am grateful to have often felt the ease of the burden of guilt and shame for my actions. We often think of atonement in the terms of sin, but it covers much more than that. I have felt effects of the atonement for sadness, sickness, depression, and hatred. Truthfully, I have felt it in so many different situations I'll bet it covers everything. At least that's what the scriptures teach, and I'm pretty inclined to believe them.

Even when I'm not in the middle of some trauma, I kneel down and seek the love of the Lord. It comes. He gives it that freely.

When I ponder what Christ endured and overcame I am astounded at the amount of love He has for me. (I do not limit that love to just me, but this is about His influence on me.) His atonement wasn't a finite, calculable experience. It involved infinite suffering and strength to perform. To kneel alone in a garden and take--individually--the sins of each person upon Himself shows more love than I can imagine. In some small way, I have suffered pain for others, usually emotional, but never the full extent of what they feel. never physical, spiritual, mental, emotional, and any other way you might think.

I know it's an act of love that I could not perform. But because He was perfect, He could. Only He could. Only He can help us perfect ourselves. It's something I know. And that knowledge supports me in my times of trial.

Why?

Why do we do things? What is our motivation? What makes our society a (usually) low-abiding society? Why do we feel good about being nice to people and helping others?

Simply, because it is Right.

Inherent in each of us is the knowledge of right and wrong. Children understand this concept, especially if they are well-parented. But often we begin to philosophize answers as we 'mature.' I've noticed in myself that this philosophizing usually is justification for doing what we know is wrong. 'It's not that bad,' or 'once won't hurt,' or you would if you really loved me' plague our society and warp the minds of our youth. These youth grow up thinking these things and then pass the same twisted morals on (but more on this another time). The point is we make excuses for our poor actions (things we know to be wrong) and believe our justifications are truth.

But truth couldn't come form man. We are too fallible, we vacillate too much in our beliefs. Not to mention what is 'acceptable' to society changes over time (take the media for example). Truth only comes from one source: GOD. He teaches us through scripture and prophets more about what is right and what is wrong. These former abstract concepts become absolute when we realise our Eternal Father gave them to us. They will never change. They are, by definition, perfect.

It is up to us to be humble enough to follow them, to accept them as God's truth. But it is our choice as individuals. What will you choose? Purpose to life, to be like God by living His truths, or a purposeless life, motivated by the desires and words of those around you?