Now don’t get me wrong.
I love the USA and all that God is doing here and in the ministry
but Christmas in Australia was just… really groovy.
From beach parties and suntans to shrimp on the BBQ, whole fish done in foil, and fresh tropical fruit.
Posted on Thursday, September 15, 2005. What it means to be Christian in America. An excerpt from this report appeared in August 2005. The complete text appears below. Originally from August 2005. By Bill McKibben.
Only 40 percent of Americans can name more than four of the Ten Commandments, and a scant half can cite any of the four authors of the Gospels. Twelve percent believe Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. This failure to recall the specifics of our Christian heritage may be further evidence of our nation’s educational decline, but it probably doesn’t matter all that much in spiritual or political terms. Here is a statistic that does matter: Three quarters of Americans believe the Bible teaches that “God helps those who help themselves.” That is, three out of four Americans believe that this uber-American idea, a notion at the core of our current individualist politics and culture, which was in fact uttered by Ben Franklin, actually appears in Holy Scripture. The thing is, not only is Franklin’s wisdom not biblical; it’s counter-biblical. Few ideas could be further from the gospel message, with its radical summons to love of neighbor. On this essential matter, most Americans—most American Christians—are simply wrong, as if 75 percent of American scientists believed that Newton proved gravity causes apples to fly up.
Asking Christians what Christ taught isn’t a trick. When we say we are a Christian nation—and, overwhelmingly, we do—it means something. People who go to church absorb lessons there and make real decisions based on those lessons; increasingly, these lessons inform their politics. (One poll found that 11 percent of U.S. churchgoers were urged by their clergy to vote in a particular way in the 2004 election, up from 6 percent in 2000.) When George Bush says that Jesus Christ is his favorite philosopher, he may or may not be sincere, but he is reflecting the sincere beliefs of the vast majority of Americans.
And therein is the paradox. America is simultaneously the most professedly Christian of the developed nations and the least Christian in its behavior. That paradox—more important, perhaps, than the much touted ability of French women to stay thin on a diet of chocolate and cheese—illuminates the hollow at the core of our boastful, careening culture.
* * *
The German author Henryk M. Broder recently told the Dutch newspaper “De
Volkskrant” (12 October) that young Europeans who love freedom, better
emigrate. Europe as we know it will no longer exist 20 years from now.
Whilst sitting on a terrace in Berlin, Broder pointed to the other customers
and the passersby and said melancholically: “We are watching the world of
yesterday.”
Europe is turning Muslim. As Broder is sixty years old he is not going to
emigrate himself. “I am too old,” he said. However, he urged young people to
get out and “move to Australia or New Zealand. That is the only option they
have if they want to avoid the plagues that will turn the old continent
uninhabitable.”
Many Germans and Dutch, apparently, did not wait for Broder’s advice. The
number of emigrants leaving the Netherlands and Germany has already
surpassed the number of immigrants moving in. One does not have to be
prophetic to predict, like Henryk Broder, that Europe is becoming Islamic.
Just consider the demographics. The number of Muslims in contemporary Europe
is estimated to be 50 million. It is expected to double in twenty years. By
2025, one-third of all European children will be born to Muslim families.
Today Mohammed is already the most popular name for newborn boys in
Brussels, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and other major European cities.
Do you see grace as an excuse or as a reason?
Often I have heard people say… Oh it doesn’t really matter if I don’t go to church or if I don’t read my bible or if I just do this once - God still loves me, God will forgive me.
What about this instead… Because God does love me and because Jesus Christ did die for me, I will read my bible regardless of how late it is. I will be in church, regardless of the season, because Jesus is my reason, and I will keep myself from sinful activities because He paid the price for my freedom.
The problem is that most people today have reduced church and their faith to a cultural oddity not a passionate focus. Western Christians have been raised in an atmosphere of Christian complacency not consecrated Christianity.
We think God should celebrate every time we share our faith or call up a brother or encourage a sister or show up to church – when all the time it is our reasonable service. It is the minimum that is required of us.
Friend, I am not talking about the exceptions that happen in the natural course of life, but the excuses we all use at times to justify our behaviour and our INACTION.
Preferences are negotiable, convictions are not.
Preferences can change; convictions do not.
Jesus did not die for your mother’s birthday party, for the office ball game. Jesus was not born for your annual family picnic. Christmas is not a time for a family get together but of the celebration of the birth of our savior. Let’s remember that. It didn’t start a present exchange, but as a holy worship service to commemorate the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ
Failure is the seed of our success.
Rejection is the fuel to our success.
Perserverance ensures our success.
When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
Do you live in a friendly or a hostile universe?
Do you expect things to work out for you or expect things to work against you?
Often we look at things from basis of fear not faith and we reap failure not fruitfullness.
Faith is belief that something you can see will come to pass.
Fear is believing that something you can not see will come to pass.
Some amount of energy is expended in each situation, but the fruit is different.
The situation hasn’t changed, you have.