On Sacrament

What is Sacrament? 

     This is a concept that many from non-sacramental Christian traditions often find difficult to understand. Often, they mistake it for a kind of "magic," or as a kind of salvific (referring to justification) work to be done, and as such reject it outright and don't understand why the sacramental traditions put such an emphasis on it. Frequently, this misunderstanding is why those traditions are often accused of salvation by works. It does not help that those within the sacramental traditions themselves frequently don't understand the concept either.

     First, Sacrament is not magic. Magic (and not illusion) can be defined as the control of unseen forces by the manipulation of words, spell components, or incantations by a human being. The power and authority rests within the human being who is doing the incantations.

     Sacraments operate always by the priest or pastor requesting the Holy Spirit to effect them. Quite literally, the priest or pastor is asking for the Holy Spirit to perform a miracle. There is no personal power or authority residing in the person of the priest or pastor except for the Spirit of Christ who has been joined to them through their own baptisms. The priest acts, not from himself or herself, but "In Persona Christi," that is, "in the person of Christ." 

     In the liturgical rites involving Sacraments within the Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican churches and their individual local divisions, there is always a prayer for the Holy Spirit to act and effect change, consecrate, bless, or seal (the Lutheran Church liturgies tend to omit this prayer, something with which I do not agree). The one possible exception to this is the Sacrament of Reconciliation, but even this involves prayer for forgiveness on the part of both the priest and the penitent, and the priest then pronounces a forgiveness and absolution which has already been effected by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

     Theologically, a Sacrament is defined as "a visible expression of an invisible grace." In my humble theological opinion, this is no different from the Christian remaining in Christ and walking in the Spirit as the Christian in submission to Jesus Christ, and asking the Spirit of Christ to act and speak through him or her, becomes the visible manifestation of the invisible Spirit of Christ. They act and speak "In Persona Christi" for all those around them, allowing those around them to interact with and experience Jesus Christ through them. And this is the fundamental practice of genuine Christian discipleship.

     According to the Roman Catholic and Old Catholic Churches, there are seven recognized Sacraments. According to the Anglican and Lutheran churches there are two. But I personally tend towards the Eastern Orthodox view that there is no specific set number of Sacraments, but rather every action done in and by the Spirit of Christ through the Christian is a Sacramental action, and that the Christian life lived as Jesus and Paul taught is a holistically or wholly Sacramental life, asking the Spirit of Christ to act and speak through you, and disengaging from yourself. So, to act by the Spirit of Christ is to act Sacramentally. To speak by the Spirit of Christ is to speak Sacramentally. And to pray by the Spirit of Christ is to pray Sacramentally.

     The Sacramental life then, as I have described it, is not magic, but miracle. It is not superstitious, but empowered by the Holy Spirit. It is the life of Jesus Christ being experienced and being radiated by the disciple of Jesus Christ to all those around them.

Against Legalism

      Legalism and rigid rule following is about as demonic in origin of a doctrine as can be introduced among Christians as is possible. Legalism is all about depending on one's own natural responses and behaviors to be "good." It's about trying to force your own physical, biological, and neurological devices, that is, your flesh to obey a moral code of some kind, which it can't do in the first place and of which Paul writes those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 

     More insidious than this, and more subtle, it disengages us from the Spirit of Christ as it engages our own flesh, and amplifies the sin within us through the moral code until it is rampant and overflowing. It leaves the Christian vulnerable to attacks by their own fear, aggression, jealousies, sexual drives, as well as deceptions by quite literal demons and unclean spirits whispering lies and thoughts into your minds to exacerbate the problem and incite your flesh to riot even more, pushing you to more extreme presentations of sin such as substance abuse, violence, theft, adultery, and murder, and in the worst case scenario, leaves you open to oppression and control by them. Legalism and rule keeping appeals to the flesh, but leads only to one's own destruction. It is the direct opposite, and is in direct opposition to genuine discipleship to Jesus Christ. 

     The only way to protect yourself against these things, to protect your psyche, your soul, is to disengage from your own natural responses and behaviors, to disengage from your "flesh," and to ask and trust the Spirit of Christ to act and speak through you, producing the "fruit of the Spirit," aside and apart from any moral code the flesh might try to obey. It is the Spirit of Christ within us that such unclean spirits and demons tremble at. 

     It is His love manifest through us that makes rule keeping and legalism unnecessary, because what law or rule would love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, courtesy, and self-control break? Could you see the Spirit of Christ steal, murder, commit adultery, or do drugs through you? God forbid. If your practice consists of trying to keep rules, or God forbid the whole Torah (Paul dealt extensively on this), then you are only trying to do what Scripture says, and what the Apostles themselves recognized, could not be done, but would only lead to death, "For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." 

     Demons and unclean spirits want you to make yourself vulnerable by law keeping and rigidly following rules and moral codes. They want to keep you powerless, because there is only power and protection for us by being under the control and possession of the Spirit of Christ, and it can't be both. Either you are enslaved to your own flesh, or you are enslaved to the Spirit of Christ. Either you are being controlled by your own natural drives, or you are being voluntarily controlled by the Spirit of Christ, and He will not force you to submit to Him. 

     Finally, it is legalism which calls into question someone's salvation through Christ as though breaking a rule or law could damn someone to where Christ's blood won't cover it, which is a complete and utter lie. It is legalism, and not walking in the Spirit or remaining in Him, which says you haven't done enough to earn your salvation. The only thing which damns is willful and knowing rejection of Jesus Christ for one's own perceived benefit. 

     Don't let yourself be deceived. Legalism and law keeping is not a Christian teaching. It is not what Christ taught. It is not what Paul taught. It will make you vulnerable to fleshly temptations and demonic attacks, and ultimately its goal is your death. Only by submission to the Spirit of Christ, and voluntary cooperation with Him, will you be delivered from all of this.

Thoughts on the Necessity of Baptism

 Is Baptism necessary for salvation? 

      I think the problem is that when most Christians say the word "salvation," what they really mean is "justification," that is, the total forgiveness and acquittal of one's sins based solely on the finished work of Jesus Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. This has nothing to do with anything we do or can do. Justification is totally out of our hands, and, I believe, is a blanket forgiveness upon all human beings everywhere which can only be thwarted by deliberately rejecting and blowing off Jesus Christ, knowing for certain who He is and what He's done.

     But baptism is necessary for that aspect of our salvation known as sanctification, that is, rendering our own natural behaviors inert and submitting to the Spirit of Christ acting and speaking through us. Baptism joins us to Jesus Christ and enables us to disengage from our own natural responses and behaviors and to engage with or be engaged by the Spirit of Christ and His responses and behaviors. Baptism enables discipleship as Jesus and Paul taught it, and is the point of no return as one is grafted to and united with Jesus Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. Without baptism, we are stuck with only our natural psychological responses and behaviors, and are cut off from the control of the Spirit of Christ. We cannot truly be disciples of Jesus Christ without the first step, the initiation of baptism into Jesus Christ. No one can be a disciple of Jesus Christ unless they are possessed of the Spirit of Christ, because being a genuine disciple is to follow Jesus Christ in His submission to the Father to where He didn’t say or do anything which the Father didn’t say or do through Him. This requires that we be joined to Him and in submission to the control of the Spirit of Christ in the same way that Christ was joined to the Father and in submission to the control of His Spirit. This is what I believe the Scriptures refer to as entering or inheriting the kingdom of God, as well as walking in the Spirit and remaining in Christ.

     Can one be forgiven or justified without baptism? Absolutely. Can one begin the process of sanctification without it. Not in the slightest. That's like constantly trying to turn on your desktop computer without having it connected to the wall outlet. You can press the power button all you want, but it's not going to turn on.

     All proceeding translations are mine from the Greek text.

     Romans 6:3-14

     “Or are you ignorant that, as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were then buried together with Him through [that] baptism into [His] death, so that just like Christ was raised from the death through the glory of the Father, in the same way we also should walk with a freshness of life. Because if we had become grown together by the likeness of His death [being baptism], on the other hand we will also be of [His] resurrection; recognizing this that our old human being was crucified together with [Him]; so that the malfunctioning body would be rendered inert, for us to not be enslaved any longer to the malfunction; because the person having died had been set right from the malfunction. Yet if we died together with Christ, we trust that will will also be alive together with Him, knowing that Christ having been raised from the dead doesn’t die any longer, death doesn’t own Him any longer. Because the person who died, died to the malfunction once for all; yet the person who is alive, is alive to God. In this same way also you figure yourselves on the one hand to be dead bodies to the malfunction yet living to God by means of Christ Jesus.

     “Don’t then let the malfunction reign within your dying body with the result of obeying its drives, neither  offer the parts of your body to the malfunction weapons of wrong, but offer yourselves to God like alive from the dead and the parts of your bodies to God weapons of a right state of being. Because your malfunction will not have ownership of you; because you are not subject to the Torah, but subject to [the] charity [of God.”

     It’s clear in this passage that baptism is what joins the disciple to Jesus Christ according to Paul. It’s also clear as he continues on in this chapter and through chapters 7 and 8 that this joining to Him is what enables us to not be owned or enslaved by the malfunction present in our bodies.

     Mark 16:16

     “The person having believed and being baptized will be saved, yet the person having disbelieved will be judged against.”

     Here, there’s a clear demarcation it seems. On the one hand, those who believe AND are baptized will be saved (also delivered, rescued), yet those having disbelieved will be judged against. No mention of baptism is found in the second part of the sentence. What happens to those who believe, but haven’t been baptized? There doesn’t seem to be any indication of being judged against, yet no indication that “they will be saved.” Exactly what does Mark mean by “will be saved?”

     John 3:5-6

     “Jesus responded, ‘Amen, Amen I say to you, if someone wasn’t born from water and Spirit, he isn’t capable of entering into the kingdom of God. The thing having been born from the flesh is flesh, and the thing having been born from the Spirit is Spirit. Don’t be shocked that I said to you, it is necessary for you to be born from above.’”

     What does it mean to enter or inherit the kingdom of God? In my opinion, this is the same concept or idea as walking in the Spirit, or as John described it also, remaining in or “making your home in” Christ. According to Jesus, in order for that to happen one must be born from water (baptism or immersion, already a well established Jewish practice for initiating proselytes into Judaism) and Spirit (being possessed of the Spirit of Christ as Paul described in Romans 8:9). Jesus explains that there is a clear line between what is born from flesh and what is born from Spirit. In another place in the Gospels, He is also clear that a good tree can’t produce bad fruit, but a rotten tree can’t produce good fruit. The flesh, our natural physical biology and neurology, can’t produce behaviors of a Spiritual origin, and neither will the Spirit of Christ produce behaviors of a biological or neurological origin. In order for us, being physical and biological beings, to produce behaviors such as the fruit of the Spirit, what produces our own natural behaviors must be rendered inert and our body parts enslaved to the Spirit of Christ.

     Titus 3:5

     “He didn’t save us from achievements which are by means of a right state of being which we did, but down His mercy through the bath of rebirth and renewal of the Holy Spirit.”

Again, Paul connects a bath of water, that is, baptism, with salvation. And like with Jesus statement, he connects one being saved, or entering the kingdom of God, through both water and the Holy Spirit.

     John 2:2

     “And He is a satisfaction about our malfunctioning behaviors, yet not just about ours, but also about the whole world’s.”

     Who is the “our” that John is referring to? In context, it would be the people to whom John is writing. A cursory examination of the text of the letter will reveal that He is clearly writing to fellow disciples. So then, he states that Christ is a satisfaction for not only the malfunctioning behaviors of those who are disciples, but also for the whole world’s malfunctioning behaviors. That is, His sacrifice covers not just those who have committed to be His disciples, that is, Christians, but even every human being who hasn’t. As only His disciples are baptized, it means that He is a satisfaction for all those who aren’t as well.

     The Christian life, the life of Jesus Christ flowing through His disciple, is fundamentally a supernatural life. It is a life not meant to be lived with us left to our own devices as to how. It is a life meant to be lived by the Spirit of Christ through us and in cooperation with us.

Observations from Translating through John 20-21

 What follows are my thoughts after translating through the Gospel of John and reaching these passages: 

     John 20:19-29: There is in Avengers: Endgame a scene where Black Widow confronts her best friend Hawkeye to tell him there's a viable plan to bring everyone back from Thanos' snap. In the previous movie, half of the planet's population was murdered with a snap of the big bad guy's fingers. Included in that number was Hawkeye's family. For five years, he had operated without hope, without caring if he lived or died, angrily tracking down earthly bad guys as a wrathful, rogue assassin and ending them. When we first meet him in this state after Black Widow finds him, he's lost. He looks lost, his eyes hold nothing but pain, sorrow, and hopelessness. And then Black Widow tells him they have a plan to bring everyone back, and his pained, achingly grieved response is "Don't do that. Don't give me hope."

     This is the substance of where Thomas is at when the other disciples tell him they've seen Jesus. "Unless I see the mark of the nails... I will not believe." How did Thomas know that they had nailed Jesus to the cross? Or for that matter had stabbed His side instead of breaking His legs? This wasn't common practice. He knew because he had watched the whole thing, and like Mary the Magdalene had been devastated by it. Mary's response to the trauma of Jesus' death had been to withdraw in pain to the point where she didn't care if she was caught at His tomb and arrested. Thomas' response was to get angry, lost, and hopeless. Why wasn't he with the other disciples when Jesus first appeared to them? It was the same day Mary saw Him early in the morning, the third day after His crucifixion. Where was Thomas? Why didn't he show up until after the fact? Maybe he was wondering the streets of Jerusalem for three days traumatized by the brutal death of the man he had thrown away everything for and devoted himself to. Maybe he wasn't the only one, but just the last to wander in the door of the upper room.

     Jesus doesn't reveal Himself to Thomas specifically for another eight days, the following Monday. Why? Maybe Thomas wasn't actually ready yet to see Him. Maybe Thomas still needed a little more time to come back from the dark place he found himself in. But He doesn't just abandon Thomas any more than He abandoned Mary, or later Peter. The Scriptures don't record it, but as I read this text, the scene that plays out in my head is Thomas dissolving into tears, maybe even grabbing and clinging to Jesus, maybe falling on his knees in a total breakdown as he says, "My Lord and my God!" Much like Hawkeye reacted upon getting his phone call from his wife when his family returned to life.

     Thing is, Hawkeye wouldn't have been ready to see his family yet either when Black Widow found him. Not in the place he found himself in. He had to be brought back by his friends too before he was ready to hear his wife's voice again. He had to experience the process of recovery, even the loss of his best friend Black Widow, before he was ready to receive his family again.

     Like Mary, Thomas loved Jesus. His doubt wasn't a rational one. It may not have even actually been doubt. It was an emotional response because of the severe trauma he had just gone through of losing a man who had become his whole world, just like Mary. He couldn't bear hoping and then going through that crushing loss again. His mind couldn't take it.

     It's hard for those who haven't experienced similar crushing loss to understand this kind of emotional response. You don't want to hope because you don't want to have that hope stolen from you again. You don't know what you'll do or who you'll be if it is, and so it feels safer to push that hope away, to keep it at a comfortable distance emotionally so that you can't be hurt by it again.

     On a different note, another interesting thing about this passage in Greek is vv. 22-23 which can be translated literally, "And having said this He breathed on, and says to them, 'Take holy spirit; whosever misfires you would let go have been let go to them, whosever you would hold by force have been held by force.'"

     There is no definite article for "holy spirit" in verse 22, and the verb used can and does mean "take" as much as it does "receive" (as it is usually translated). There is also no real justification (other than theological bias) for inserting a definite article here as 'holy spirit' follows the verb 'take' rather than preceding it, which would make a stronger argument for "the Holy Spirit" rather than "holy spirit."

An interesting point too is the verb usually translated as "retain" or "retained" in verse 23 actually means "to hold by force or strength." It's a cognate of the Greek noun "kratos" meaning "force, strength, authority, power, etc." The verb is also frequently translated "arrest" or "seize" when it is used of the temple officers attempting to arrest Jesus.

     Another passage which these verses remind me of is in Matthew where Jesus says in no uncertain terms that if a person forgives another's offences, then their Heavenly Father would forgive their offenses, but if someone does not forgive another's offences, neither would their Heavenly Father forgive that person who did not forgive.

     Traditionally, these two verses are used in support of the Sacrament of Reconciliation where one Christian makes confession and receives absolution from another, usually a member of the clergy (as a representative of the Apostles who first received this authority), but in some denominations and traditions another member of the laity (St. Symeon the New Theologian promoted the idea of lay confession and absolution in the Eastern Orthodox Church). Regardless, the implications of these verses coupled with the aforementioned statements by Jesus in Matthew do impose a further, serious responsibility on Christians to forgive and not hold fast the errors and malfunctioning behaviors of others.

     John 21: And now we come to Peter. In the last chapter we saw Jesus tending to two of His disciples who were utterly devastated and beside themselves because they loved Him and were hurt so badly by His crucifixion and death.

     Peter was in the upper room with the other disciples. He was just as devastated as Mary and Thomas, but he didn't abandon his post, so to speak. Not only was he devastated by what happened, but he carried with him the internal guilt of having disowned Jesus when he swore he wouldn't. He stayed with them. He became their rock that didn't move in spite of his own pain and despair. He was there the first time and second when Jesus appeared to them from out of nowhere. Upon hearing that Jesus' tomb was empty, he shot out the door without a second thought, and only John ran faster than he did to the tomb. There is no question really about Peter's love and devotion to Jesus, and his understanding of Who Jesus is.

     What's interesting here in this exchange in 15-19 is that Jesus begins, not just by asking him if he loves Him, but "Do you love me more than these guys?" That is, "Peter, do you love me more than they do?" Referring to the other disciples sitting there. Peter believes so as he responds without hestation, "Yes." What's also interesting here is the Greek word used for "know" (oida) as he says, "You know that I have affection for you." It's used again in verse 17 along with "ginosko" (also 'to know'). Oida means something like to instinctively know, to know by insight, to just know something. “Ginosko” is more to know by experience or to recognize. He says to Jesus effectively, "Lord, you instinctively know everything! You recognize that I have affection for you!" Jesus' omniscience is a fact to Peter. He knows Who Jesus is. He's known it for a long time. He might not know how. He might not know how it fits into the Jewish theology he was taught in the synagogue, but he knows it nonetheless.

     When Jesus talks about how Peter will die, it seems to me that He was reaffirming to Peter that he, in spite of his best effort, wasn't supposed to die that night with Jesus. Jesus didn't want him to die that night. He was supposed to live until he was an old man who had to be dressed by someone else, led around by the hand, and taken places he didn't want to go. Things played out the way they did, because they had to. In some respects perhaps, Jesus was counting on Peter's getting scared in order to protect him from himself and his reckless devotion to Him which he had just demonstrated by swimming three hundred feet to shore before the boat. Peter didn't think before he leaped when it came to Jesus, he just leaped. He didn't care what was over the edge of the cliff. If that was where Jesus was going, that's where he would run headlong.

     And that's why Jesus told him, "Graze My lambs, shepherd My sheep, graze My sheep, follow Me." That's why, of all the disciples, Simon Peter was the first among equals, and led the earliest church. He wouldn't be scared again. Jesus had given him a job to do, and he was going to do it even if he died for it.

     Another point of interest is that Peter got a do over for his disowning Jesus, and it was in front of the High Priest himself. He got a chance to make it right. And when he did, he accused the High Priests of murdering their Messiah by crucifixion in cold blood, daring them to do the same to him.

What does it mean to "be a Christian?"

 What does it actually mean to be a Christian? 

     I’m not talking about “being saved” or whether or not someone is justified before God through Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. That’s dealt with. Done. That was about what He did for us.

     In the Scriptures, it calls Jesus’ followers after His ascension, “followers of the Way,” “the brothers,” or just “disciples.” They weren’t even called “Christians” (Grk. christianoi) until later in Antioch closer to 45-6 CE; the word literally meaning “pertaining to Christ,” and it appears to have begun as an epithet. What is clear though is that, from the very beginning, one wasn’t considered a disciple of Christ, or “Christian” unless he or she was living as Jesus taught, not by those within the Church at the very least, and they disavowed those who weren’t regardless of what or whose teachings they professed to follow. It’s pretty clear from Paul’s writing to the Corinthians, and from some of his other writings, that those who stopped living as Christ taught and were engaged in some behavior that clearly wasn’t what Jesus taught were excommunicated and put out of the congregations until they came to their senses and repented so they could be reconciled and brought back into the community.

     Justin Martyr, an apologist who wrote a lengthy and thorough defense of Christians and there manner of life to the Roman emperor, wrote in 160 CE, “Let it be understood that those who are not found living as He taught are not Christian—even though they profess with the lips the teachings of Christ.” Any serious reading of the letters and writings of the late first and early second century Christians, those within the second or third generation from the Apostles, will demonstrate that the emphasis on teaching was on practice, and that it was one’s behavior which defined them as Christian. It was whether or not that they followed the way of life, or the way of death, and much of what they wrote was about the kinds of behaviors one expected to see from those who followed the way of life.

     To be a Christian is to do as Paul wrote repeatedly about in his letters, that is, to walk in the Spirit of Christ, and to not be enslaved to one’s own flesh, that is, one’s own fear, aggression, feeding impulse, or sexual desires. To be a Christian is to produce what Paul called the “fruit of the Spirit” as opposed to the works of the flesh. The fruit of the Spirit is this way of life, and the works of the flesh, the behaviors which result from being enslaved to our own fear, aggression, feeding impulses, and sexual desires is this way of death. As he wrote in his letter to the Romans, “because the mind of the flesh is death, yet the mind of the Spirit is life and peace; because the mind of the flesh is hostile to God, because it isn’t subjugated to the law of God, because neither is it possible; and those being in the flesh aren’t capable of pleasing God. Yet you folks aren’t in the flesh but in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God resides within you, yet if someone doesn’t posses the Spirit of Christ, this person isn’t His.”

     The Apostle John also wrote in his first epistle, “And with this we know that we knew Him, if we should keep His commands. The guy saying that, ‘I knew Him’ and not keeping His commands is a liar and the truth isn’t with this guy; yet whoever should keep His message, the love of God has genuinely been finished within this person, with this we know that we are within Him. The guy saying to make his home in Him is himself obligated to walk in the same way just like that One walked.” He also wrote in the same epistle, “Dear ones, we should love one another, because love is from God, and every person who loves has been birthed from God and knows God. The person who doesn’t love hasn’t known God, because God is love.”

     To be a Christian is to be actively practicing making your home in Him, disengaging from your own flesh born responses and behaviors, and asking Him and trusting Him to act and speak through you. To be a Christian is for people to be able to experience Jesus Christ through what you do and say. To be a Christian is to be following His commands, living as He taught, and imitating Him in His total submission to the Father so that He didn’t say or do anything the Father didn’t say or do through Him.

     To be a Christian has nothing to do with what you say you believe in. Anyone can talk a good line, but can people experience Jesus Christ when they encounter you? Can they say of you, “If you’ve met this guy or girl, you’ve met Jesus Christ”? It has nothing to do with your systematic theology either, or how correct or incorrect it is. As Paul wrote, you can have all wisdom, all faith, and prophesy mystery after mystery, but if you don’t have love you’re nothing, and it’s all worthless. I have met many Christians from virtually every denomination and church I have had contact with, and a great many more who profess His teachings, but follow their own flesh and the way of death.

     Jesus said in the Gospel of Luke, “Yet what are you calling Me, ‘Lord, lord,’ for, and don’t do the things I am saying?” And in Matthew He says, “Every person then who hears these messages of Mine and does them, will be similar to a mindful man, who constructed his house up on the bedrock; and the rain descended and the rivers came and the winds blew and fell towards that house, and it didn’t fall, because it had been founded up on the bedrock. And every person hearing these messages of Mine and not doing them will be similar to a moronic man, who constructed his house on the sand; and the rain descended, and the rivers came and the winds blew and struck against that house, and it fell and its fall was huge.” Jesus also said, “And the guy who doesn’t take his cross and follow behind Me, isn’t worthy of Me.” He would later define not being worthy of Him as not being able to be His disciple.

     No matter what kind of theology he professes, no matter how good of a “testimony” he has, no matter what he says he believes, if a person, man or woman, isn’t producing the fruit of the Spirit which compels them to live as Jesus taught, if they are living in response to the desires of their own flesh, then they aren’t being a Christian but are lying to themselves, and they won’t be a Christian until they confess it, agree with Him, and return to walking His path. 

      The person who continues to profess to be walking in the light while walking in the darkness, who continues to profess Christ with his lips yet is enslaved to the desires of his flesh, and his own hubris, recklessly risks the wrath of God by treating Jesus Christ and His Spirit with whom he was joined, His teachings, and His blood with contempt. He is like the man who showed up for the wedding feast without the wedding garment, and was thrown out into the outer darkness for disrespecting the Father and the Son. Ignorance is forgivable. Deliberately disrespecting the testimony of the Holy Spirit will not be.

     What does it mean to be a Christian? To be a Christian means to be a willing channel for everyone around you to experience Jesus Christ. This is a process. You will make mistakes. But there’s a difference between mistakes and struggling, and deliberately avoiding living as He taught and walking as He walked in submission to His Father. The Father isn’t confused about which is which, and you can’t hide it from Him.

     Quit cowering behind your wall of “correct theology” which you’ve built for yourself. If you’re going to call yourself a Christian, then live as He taught and walk as He walked as everyone who claims to know Him is obligated to do.

When Jesus Says "No"

When Jesus says "no." We read about all the healings in Scripture, but what about the folks He didn't? What about the people who, after being healed wanted to go with Him as His disciples, and He told them "no."

It hurts when Jesus says "no." It feels like a betrayal from the one that you love the most, and He doesn't explain why. Sometimes, we carry a bitterness and a resentment for not being healed, for not receiving what we asked for, for not being allowed to follow in the way we wanted to.

It had nothing to do with our faith. We wouldn't have gone to Him if we didn't believe He could do it. And there's no explanation from Him as to why.

If I have come to learn anything from my experiences with Him over my entire existence, it's that there's a reason for Him saying "no." What we ask for may hurt us in the long run in ways we can't possibly foresee, even if it's a perfectly good and worthy thing. What happens to us, what we know and when, doesn't just affect us, but all those around us. He doesn't explain, because if He did, He would change the outcome by our knowing.

Our expectation or observation of a thing or an event changes the thing or event. This is an understanding from Quantum Mechanics. In His divinity, Jesus knows and understands this concept very, very well. The interactions between people ripple through not just one person or two, but eventually everyone on the planet, changing and shaping outcomes by thoughts, feelings, and words for billions of people. When Jesus says "no" to an otherwise perfectly valid request, it's not just about you even as it is also about what's best for you at that point in time, or any point in time.

What you ask for in your youth, He may say "no" to, only to grant it in your old age because the timing and people are right for it to happen. What ministry or position you ask for, He may say "no" to because you are right where you need to be, and you still can't see how He's working through you to those around you. There are so many variables which we simply can't process as human beings, that He is fully aware of.

He doesn't say "no" to hurt you, and He is keenly aware when it does. He says "no" because granting it in that moment would cause more hurt and harm to you and those around you than you realize, even if it would be appropriate at another point in time and space.

He says "no" because He loves you, and those around you, and those around them. It doesn't feel like love when He says "no," but it never does when a young child hears that from their parent. "Dad, can I drive the car?" Asks the six year old child. "No." Says the Dad who's seeing images of a dead son and a mangled car. "Mom, can I go to this party?" Asks the tween daughter about a high school party. "No." Says the mother, who's well aware of what can happen. Jesus says "no" for much the same reasons, with an omniscience of time and space which tells Him when the best time for granting such a request would be, if at all.

"No" hurts to hear, but it's the best thing He can say to you if He says it.