Bad Neighbors
“Michael! Duck below the window… now!” shouted my mom at the top of her lungs. I was probably the most scared eight-year-old on the planet as I hunched down into a corner of our living room.
She yelled out again, this time to my older sister, “Sarah, get down! Our crazy neighbor across the street is waving a shotgun around on his front porch and he just pointed it at our house!!”
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Construction Zone
Have you ever been forced into a detour only to find you’re heading in a totally different direction, away from the place you actually planned to go? Sometimes on the journey of life, God graciously interrupts our plans with a dramatically unexpected change in direction.
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Two-Faced Faith
Many, many people in North American evangelicalism are living a 2-Faced Faith: we act like we love Jesus Christ more than anything this world has to offer, but as soon as we walk out of the church building we check to see if the next horror movie is in Redbox or who won the VMA awards.
If you find yourself laughing at and enjoying violence among human beings – who are all sacred image-bearers of God – than you need to ask yourself if you really love the God you claim to know.
King David, the Psalmist, wrote, “The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence. (Psalm 11:5)
Violence and immorality always go hand-in-hand, and God hates both. If you have no check in your conscience or tinge of remorse, if you can freely enjoy violence, profanity, horror, and sexual immorality, then you need to question whether your know the God you claim to love.
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Christianity on Steroids
As I approached the door to the basement, the noise grew louder. I heard a “swish” and a boom, then a grunt followed by a deep sigh. Finally I arrived where I found my brother sprawled out on a bench as he pumped hundreds of pounds of solid iron. Through the dim light of one bare light bulb one could easily see he was sweating profusely. His veins bulged from under his torn muscle shirt and his tendons seemed to twitch at every breath. He was the picture of physical strength and fitness.
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Chasing Love
Miley Cyrus tried every move imaginable to mankind in order to get someone to look… and she did. Heads turned. Heads rolled. And most heads shook, at first, with disgust, and then with deep sadness. Gone was the rather innocent girl, Hannah Montana, who drew massive crowds of mimicking pre-teen girls. Gone was the bright, happy smile. Gone was the calm, content, and loving picture of Billy Ray Cyrus with his sprawling family in tow. Gone…
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Fortune Cookie Theology
We all have done it. If you haven’t, you must have been born on Mars or the Moon. This past Sunday afternoon I did it again and I’m sure it will happen yet another time in the not too distant future. As many good Christians (tongue in cheek) do on Sunday afternoon, my wife, Hudson, and I, along with our dear friends from India decided to go to “King Super Buffet.”
Yes, you guessed it: one of those gigantic Chinese buffet restaurants that seems to have every sort of grade B and C and D food product available from Costco and GFS. This place was particularly crammed tight with people because it just so happened to be Father’s Day. After we finished packing ourselves with all the decadent mounds of fried, deep fried, oven fried, and grease bathed chicken, beef, pork, and other items of questionable nature, we all took a deep breath as we got ready to swallow the only healthy item on the table – fortune cookies!
