Withdraw

Ever since the early church, there has been a group of people, or multiple groups of people even. That decide they must remove themselves from the world around them. Nuns, monks, and we will hear of hermits that shun the world, then there are the people that arn't so withdrawn but wouldn't associate like I used to do. Normally this is done with the very best of intentions in mind. Regardless it is also most often wrong. Finding a quite place an praying, studying alone, taking a brief retreat to rejuvenate, all of these are awesome things. But I think for most of us, at some point in our life it becomes quite tempting to exclude ourselves from the world.

Now most of us wont go so far as moving out into the mountains, away from civilization, but we might fall into the same trap that I fell into. I went to a public school for my high school years, but I was very much not there. Sure I would talk to people, and I was about as social as a timid guy can be, but as soon as I left school that was it. I had zero actual ties with any of those people.

I had friends, they were all Christians, and they went to church, generally with me. But at school I had acquaintances, people I knew, but had no real relationship with. None of them where actually my friends, after all I figured why would I want friends that were headed to hell.

Unfortunately my bad, I have no idea if the people I went to school with saw our "relationship" in quite that light, but that's pretty much how i viewed it. But that's nothing like the picture I see painted in the Bible, and I'm trying to make up for how retarded I was in my zeal for keeping myself holy.

Why? Because the God I know tells me to be in the world, not of it. (On a side note I feel it is worth bringing up, that this exact phrase doesn't appear in the Bible. Yeah I was pretty surprised.) It does say this though

^{John 17:15-17}

¹⁵My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. ¹⁶They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. ¹⁷Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.

We are sorta supposed to participate in things. And the Jesus I know was constantly getting spoken down of because of his pretty constant association with sinners. Just for reference reasons here's one example that I have always liked.

Luke 7: 33-34

³³For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, 'He has a demon.' ³⁴The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners."

Now obviously we know Jesus was nether a glutton or a drunkard, the whole being without sin thing, but I'm pretty sure he counted those sinners as his friends. Matter of fact one of those scumbag tax collectors became one of the twelve. And I believe we are expected to act the same way. Why well because of verses like this
1 Peter 2:11-12
¹¹Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. ¹²Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

Not "if" "though" as in its going to happen, in my opinion meaning we are going to be doing things, and associating with people in ways that will open up opportunity's for people to accuse us of things.

Why did Jesus get chastised for working on the Sabbath, because He did. Why did Jesus get associated with tax collectors, sinners, and other unclean people, because He associated with them. Why did Jesus get questioned on "Lord don't you know what this woman has done?", because yes He did know what she had done but He let her touch Him anyway.

The Jesus I know tells me to be like Him. As I said before I got it wrong, I've been making steps to fix that.

Your right, I'm right

So I was reading Romans 14 the other day and here's what it said for your convince (niv)

¹Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. ²One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables.³The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. ⁴Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

⁵One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. ⁶He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. ⁷For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. ⁸If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. ⁹For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. ¹⁰You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat. ¹¹It is written:

" 'As surely as I live,' says the Lord,
'every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will confess to God.' " ¹²So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.¹³Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way. ¹⁴As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. ¹⁵If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. ¹⁶Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil. ¹⁷For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, ¹⁸because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.
¹⁹Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. ²⁰Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. ²¹It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall.
²²So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. ²³But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.

Now the verse I tend to see get used for this type of point tends to be 1 Corinthians 8, but I think this verse says so much more. Where as 1 Corinthians 8 talks about food sacrificed to idols, this passage talks about food in general, drink, and even theology.

Now don't get me wrong I believe in absolute right, and absolute wrong. However there are somethings where what is right for me is wrong for you, and of course vice versa. Now it says something very important mostly mostly that we shouldn't in these situations tell the others they are wrong. And if its a stumbling block for them to not do it in front of them.

Now on a few things I would consider myself to be the Christian of stronger faith. For this example I will say I think it is ok to eat pork, because I don't actually know any Christians that feel other wise. So I can happily eat my pork, but my brother who is a recent convert from Judaism thinks that this is wrong, guess what we both are right. Which is honestly the part i have the most trouble with. My tendency is to want the weaker Christian to get it through their think skull that ham is ok. And upon finding out I eat ham, his natural tendency is to convince me I'm wrong. Which of course I'm not... but nether is he, because of his conscience.

Next theology. Again I will use another example that doesn't really affect most people. I used to consider crap a bad word. If I were to say it, it would have been a profanity. My friends said it all the time and found nothing wrong, and this is what was weird, I knew at some point I probably wouldn't ether. But at the time I knew I still considered it bad, so it would be a sin to use it, even if I wanted to fit in, but i keep it to myself, and let the others be fine with it. Gradually it became ok for me to say crap. However my mother still thinks of it as a bad word, so out of respect for her I choose not to say it.

I'm sure you can think of many other example, and I know I definitely can, but I wanted to keep away from things that would target actual people I know because as the last point I want to make "²²So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God" To some extent we are to keep our dumb mouths shut. Letting my faith be mine, and letting your faith be yours, without telling each other were wrong, about the petty things. I know its something I have trouble with, maybe not actually attacking them, but wanting to.

Walt is rolling over in his grave (my oppinion of disneys newest princess)

So I went to see "up" the other day, and it was amazing, but that's beside the point. I'm actually planning to talk about the trailers. Namely the trailer for Disney's new movie that's in the works.

Yes folks it seems Disney has found it fit to grace us with another princess movie. Which basically translates into find a story that is so old, its in the public domain now, so we don't have to pay for it.

Which honestly, despite my complaints really doesn't bug me all that much. (It bugs me more that Disney pretty much passes theirs off as the original) Anyway for those of you that don't know the newest princess is going to be the princess from the frog prince story. Now I'm going to sum up the original story real quick.

There is a king and he has several daughters, the youngest of which is a spoiled rotten brat. Shes like twelve or fourteen. One day she was playing with her favorite toy a golden ball, next to a well. She tossed the ball into the air, and instead of catching it dropped it in the well. This made the princess sad. so she cried. So a frog took pity on her. and said princess if i fetch the ball for you will you keep me as your constant companion, sharing the food from your plate, the drink from your cup, and let me sleep on your pillow at night.

Well the princess agreed quickly, because she would do anything to get the ball back. So the frog fetches it for her and comes back. The princess, decides if she runs away the frog wont find her, so she dos. (I'm not even making that up) The frog thinks to himself maybe in her excitement she forgot, so he follows after. and knocks on the castle door. It is now dinner time. The princess answers and slams the door on the frogs face.

The king learns of the princesses promise and makes her honor it, so reluctantly she lets the frog in. The frog follows her to her seat, and says lift me up. the princess wont but the king makes her. then the frog asks for some food, she wont feed him but again the king makes her. Then for something to drink, same thing. Now the frog asks to go to bed, so after being made to she Carry's him off to her room, and puts him on the floor. The frog asks to be put on her pillow. The princess gets mad and throws him at the wall, and he dies. ( I'm serious) Suddenly he turns into a prince, and says thank you princess only you could break that spell. and sense she was so lovely he married her.

So yeah she has well zero redeeming quality's besides her beauty, Personally I would be "hey look at me I'm a handsome prince now, bye." But hey its a German fairy tale they don't make sense. Over time the story has changed obviously and out dropped the golden ball, and the king, and just about everything but a frog asking for a kiss. Which in our version the princess gives him.

So this is the story that Disney is choosing to do, wicked witch check she turns the prince into a frog, beautiful princess check, a victim check the prince is a frog. sounds good, except wait its not the poor little princess that's the victim. I know how about she kisses the frog and turns into a frog herself. and while were at it lets add steamboats, and make the princess African American.

Now Disney has always taken certain liberty's with the story's the adapt into their films, aka the good guys never die, talking animals you know standard Disney stuff. So whats the big deal, they changed the time period, so what really. The princess is black, so we've already had a middle eastern princess whats the big deal. Well for the most part Disney's changes haven't really changed the original story all that much, sure there are some minor tweaks, but the focus of the story is the same. This time its not, the focus of the story rest squarely on the fact she becomes a frog, which is retarded.

Ok I get sticking with the original story, I would be fine with you saying it was true loves first kiss, I would be fine with her having to fall in love with the frog over the course of the movie. But would you turn her into a frog? Now why is this a problem? Well because most people take Disney movies to be the gospel truth on how the story actually went, and Disney encourages that. So now were stuck with a stupid frog princess. ohh and probably 2 or 3 poorly made sequels, blahh.

In God I trust

In the time we live we hear alot about "removing" God from things. The whole people interpreting the separation of God and state the wrong way, like they have been doing for many years now. Things like removing the ten commandments from schools and courts. Taking "under God" out of the national anthem. Taking "In God we trust" off of our currency. And apparently even releasing a new dollar coin with out "In God we trust" emblazoned across the top. 

The blanket response from the church seems to be outrage, protests, or as I've seen many livid emails complaining and arguing for the high importance of keeping God in the center of it all. And after thinking about it, my response is something like: "meh. So what?" Now don't get me wrong, I would consider myself to be a devout Christian. And I think its a shame that less and less people are coming to a relationship with God. But when it comes down to it, I really could care less what the governments official stance on God is, because mine is so much more important. 

Matthew 22:15-22 says:

¹⁵Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. ¹⁶They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. "Teacher," they said, "we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. ¹⁷Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" ¹⁸But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? ¹⁹Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, ²⁰and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?"²¹"Caesar's," they replied. Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's." ²²When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.

Basically its all Caesar's money, give him whatever he asks for. And give God what is His. I mean isn't that the issue with us? It is after all the governments money, who cares what inscription they choose to put on it. In all honestly for most of us the only information we pay any attention to on a bill is that number in the corner. "In God we trust" doesn't magically make the user of the bill a christian, in much the same way the absence of it doesn't make one a pagan.  

So my question to you would be does it say "In God I trust" on your forehead? Can people not help but seeing God when they look at you? Because unfortunately "we" no longer trust in God. And to some extent we have no control over that, but we do have control over "I".