UPDATE: Dang, I totally broke it. Well… no time to fix it right now…

So, I think I’m gonna wrap this thing up, stab it, kill it, and bring it back to life again.

I’m finally on a normal schedule, so I might start writing on a regular basis! Oh, my!

So, tomorrow some time I’m wrecking this thing, and building it all back up again. = )

In other news: I’ve recently come across a couple of interesting problems in PHP that I couldn’t find a solution to – therefore causing me to write my own. I’ll be posting the details and code soon.

Oh, and I finally got that shiny new Job I’ve been wanting.

The End.

I know this barely counts as an update. This whole thing is barely my “thought-life”. If it were… I’d probably have died long ago.

This time around it’s not a crazy devotion, or even a message about my day. It’s a quote. Quotes are good. But it’s not cheesy. I’m not going to claim that it’s by some dead president, or even by some president that several of you probably wish were dead.

Nor will I claim to quote a dead man who was once worshipped, or a genious from Germany. I’ll not hype it up and claim that it’s the genious of a small child with severe mental retardation, who just won some medal in a special-olympics.

No, I’ll just go on and on about what it’s not, and expect you to forget all of that once you read it. I’ll just leave it the way it is. Just take the thought and think about it. Clear your mind, pray, meditate, whatever… then read it.

Because it’s cheesy enough that I’m even doing this.

So here goes…

Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?

Think about that. Now.
The End.

You heard me right.

Jesus doesn’t care.

He doesn’t care who you are, and He definitely doesn’t care where you live.

Now that the initial shocking statements are out of the way, I shall proceed.

It really should be unnecessary for me to even bring this up, but I think many people tend to think wrongly about this, and since they think Jesus cares about certain things, that they must also care. I understand to an extent – I mean, doing what Jesus did is what being a “Christian” is all about, right? But some of you (us?) are so silly.

Before I get to the point, I’d like to establish some ground-level, basic, rules. Rules of the Universe. Rules that, without them, this whole Christianity thing is a waste of time. So follow closely, here we go.

A rule: God Cannot Lie.

To say this another way, “God can’t lie”. Not that much different, but just in case you didn’t catch it the first time around.

I don’t have the time, the space, or the brain-power (nor do I really care that much) to get very theological, or philosophical about it. So we’ll use some very simple deduction to get to the point.

The fact that God Can’t Lie is based on…

Another rule: God Cannot Sin.

It’s made pretty clear in the Bible that God can’t sin. If God sinned, He’d have to die, and probably go to Hell. That’s the price you pay for sin. And He can’t *not die*, and therefore send *you* to Hell for something that *He* doesn’t have to die for – that would make Him a hypocrite. Being a hypocrite is wrong (a sin), so He’d also have to die for that.

Hopefully by now you’re thoroughly convinced that the idea of God sinning is *stupid*. Either that or I’ve completely confused you. [If so, I give you permission to take a break. That last paragraph takes a minute to sink in for some folks.]

So, since God can’t sin then we are presented with…

Yet another rule: God Cannot Lie.

Alright, I know that the person who originally said lying was a sin was God. But since God pretty much brought up the whole idea that sin even existed, I’m pretty sure He’s not just trying to get down on us. I’m pretty sure lying really is a sin.

Therefore: Lying is a sin, and God can’t sin, so God can’t lie. That pretty clear?

What that means, then, is that if God can’t lie, then *every single thing He says has to be true.* Everything.

Before we go any further there’s …

One more rule: Jesus is God.

Y’know, the whole Trinity thing. More on that some other time. The point is – Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit are this amazing three-in-one package, and you can’t buy one without the others, although you’re allowed to use them separately once you purchase them. Or something like that.

Last refresher (I think): Jesus is God, and God can’t sin, lying is a sin, so God can’t lie, and since Jesus is God, then Jesus can’t lie. Whew!

Now, here comes the heavy. Some of you are going to hate me for this. I’m sorry, it’s just the way things are.

There’s a popular verse in the Bible. One of the sub-books in there, called ‘John’, chapter three, line/”verse” sixteen. In Christianese Shorthand that would be “John 3:16″. Jesus Himself is talking, I guess telling a bit of His own story, or talking in third person or something. He says (and I paraphrase, as always) “Whoever believes in Him (Jesus) will have eternal life…”

Great, awesome. Did you notice the first part there? “Whoever”. Hmm. Interesting word there – a quick search in a dictionary, thesaurus, or whichever of your favorite scholarly learning tools you use, will show you that the word “whoever” includes ‘all people’. It’s a reference to any and all people, human beings, and anyone to whom you might scream “Who drank my apple-juice?”.

So, if Jesus (who is part of/is God) said “whoever”, or “anyone”, then it really, truly means *anyone*. No matter what. “No ifs, ands, or buts” as they say.

How nice. So it looks like what Jesus was trying to say is that *anyone* that believes in Him (Jesus) would get this eternal life stuff. More Bible-study will probably reveal to you that He’s talking about who gets to go to Heaven.

This reminds me of a line from a Backstreet Boys song. I think it went something like this:

Don’t care what is written in your history…
I don’t care who you are
Where you’re from
What you did
As long as you love me

Ah, yes. He doesn’t care. Perhaps another song? In a song appropriately titled “Jesus Doesn’t Care”, Point of Grace sings this in the chorus:

Jesus doesn’t care what you’ve done before
How you’ve rebelled or slammed the door
No matter how far you’ve run or how long you’ve been untrue
Jesus doesn’t care

I can’t say I’m a big fan, but this is definitely a good song, and I recommend looking up the rest of the lyrics. But back to where I was…

Jesus doesn’t care! There are two ways to view this, and we’ll hit them one at a time. The first, being that a lot of people reach a point in their lives (sometimes more than once) that they feel they’ve sinned too much, or done something too bad to be forgiven by God, and that for some reason God won’t accept them.

This is where Jesus is telling these people (you people) that He doesn’t care what they’ve (you’ve) done. No matter who you have been, up to this point in your life, Jesus doesn’t care! He loves you (not the gross girly kind, either!) so much that He wants to rescue you, and everyone else, from having to pay the price for sin. From having to go to Hell, basically.

Try to grasp this: He wants you to be ‘right’ with Him *more* than He wants to punish you.

That just means that if you’re scared to go to God because you’ve been “bad” or something… well, you’re being silly! He *doesn’t want to punish you!* He just wants *you*!

Back to the Bible ‘passage’, a couple lines down [Christianese Shorthand: John 3:17] it says that He didn’t come to condemn, judge, or punish the people of the world (anyone), but to save the world.

I think this is where we get the Christianese words “Saved” (and “Salvation” of course). I’m going to assume you know what they mean.

The thing about ‘Salvation’ is that it’s a gift – it’s already there, waiting to be taken. Like a present under a Christmas tree with your name on it – it’s already yours, you just have to open it!

In the next verse [John 3:18], Jesus mentions that the people that are on their way to Hell are the people that “don’t believe” or “trust in” Him – Jesus.

He never mentions people that don’t earn their way into Heaven. Did you catch that? Be sure to read that over and over again. Get it in your brain really good. You either believe, or you don’t. Sorry, it’s just that simple. I know a lot of you hate it that way.

You just can’t earn a free gift. The only problem is if you don’t take it! Maybe you don’t think you’ll like it. Maybe you don’t even believe the free gift exists. Gasp! Maybe you don’t want it because you think it’s not *actually* free. Like maybe you’ve gotten so used to all those lame sweepstakes things where you get the free luggage, but you end up having to buy some space-metal cookware or something in the end.

The thing is, you simply have to believe what Jesus said: That it’s free – *for-real free* – and that, most importantly, He doesn’t care who you are (or have been) – He wants you to have it.

And that’s that.

Now, there’s another side to this, as I mentioned earlier. And this side has to do with all the people that are already busy enjoying their free gift. And it’s a problem. However, I’m only going to address it briefly.

You’ve pushed people out of the way.

That’s right. It’s like you’re at a big ol’ Christmas Morning gathering. There are at least 6 other people headed to the tree for their gifts when you finally catch a glimpse of a tag with your name on it. You rush for it. So excited that you’ve found your gift, you go for it with all you’ve got. You’ve forgotten the rest of the world, and so, with abandon, you race to your shiny little present, knocking over your sister – who in turn falls face-first into Gramma Sue and the rocking chair, to get not only a present on Christmas day, but also a busted lip and a black eye.

Way to go.

Okay, so maybe it’s not that bad. But a lot of people are getting left out.

Are you thanking the person that got you the gift?

Are you sharing your gift? Or are you being a selfish, Play-Doh hog?

I’m sorry, maybe you have a good reason. Is that other person too dirty to get near you or your gift? Maybe they can’t handle it. It’s just too cool for them. They might stink it up, or break it, or get it dirty.

Maybe you’re just timid. Or scared. What if they don’t like what you got?

Maybe they’ll think what you got was stupid – as they shoot you down and begin bragging about their shiny new BMX bicycle with red tubes, red pads, red tires, and chrome handle-bars.

Maybe you don’t like them. You’re mad at ‘em. You’re not on speaking terms. They don’t deserve to hear about your present and how great it is because they were a big ol’ jerk to you.

Think about that.

The End.

Short and sweet. Right to the point. Here it is: God is not “all you need”. There isn’t much arguing I need to do on this one. No great revelations. (I could sum it all up in one paragraph, actually). If for some reason you feel different, though, check this out:

In one of the many ‘books’ found in the Bible (Genesis in particular, Chapter 2), God has created man. After creating Earth first, of course. “Man” in this case has a name, as it’s very specifically referring to the first person ever created: Adam.

After Adam was formed, and given life, and probably walking around checkin’ the place out, God said (and I paraphrase, as I wasn’t actually there) “Look, if you’re hungry you can eat the fruit from any of the trees here in ‘the garden’, except for that one tree over there… if you eat that crap, you’re gonna start falling apart, get all sorts of nasty rashes and such – and you don’t want that.”

Now, the Bible doesn’t exactly say so, but I’m pretty sure Adam said “Okay, no problem… What’s a rash?”

The Bible does say that Adam was placed in ‘the garden’ to “tend and care for it”. Great. Been here ten minutes and already got a job.

So here comes the good part…

God made Adam. Apparently He (God) talks to him (Adam) on a regular basis. It’s possible that He doesn’t. But He does talk to him. God just outright comes and talks to Adam. Adam didn’t get goose-bumps and a creepy feeling about the fruit on that one particular tree. Nope. God actually came and told him not to eat it.

Has God ever done anything like that in your life? [I'm not going to challenge that, although this is normally the place where I criticize your "walk"].

The good part? Wait… you didn’t catch it already? Well, I’m not covering it again. I’m moving along, and you’ll have to catch up. Re-read this thing if you need to, for crying-out-loud. Now, where was I?

So, God talks to Adam. Audible voice. Great. Now what? Well, apparently that wasn’t good enough for God.

See, all of the sudden the story in Genesis has an interesting development. God says to Himself (again, I paraphrase) “Self: It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a companion who will help him”.

So as usual, after God says He’s going to do something, He gets right on it. He starts making all sorts of animals and stuff. Foxes. Bears. Duck-billed-platypuses (Ornithorhynchus anatinus, for the geeks out there). Yeah, animals. Lots.

What? Oh, you thought this was where God made that first-chick, her honor, Eve? Nope. But don’t get your drawers twisted, that part’s coming.

So, as God made these animals He brought them to Adam “to see what he would name them”. Basically, He was letting Adam sort through all these interesting creatures, check ‘em out, name them all, and so forth. Whew… what a day that would have been.

But – in all of this, the Bible says that there wasn’t anything good enough to keep this Adam dude company. Heck, give me 8 dogs, three Oxen, two Moose and a rabbit, and I’m good to go. Aren’t you? But no, not Adam. Nothing would do. So, God noticed this. He noticed that nothing had a good enough personality fit. Nothing quite made the cut for “friend for life – never to leave your side“. No, not even Dogs (that Man’s Best Friend thing is a myth, by the way).

Yes, you’re right! This is where the chick comes in. To get right to it: God made a girl, Adam was “like whoa!” and that settled it. But I’m getting away from the point. Which was actually quite a few paragraphs upwards.

If you noticed, God said that it wasn’t good for the guy to be alone.

God Himself talks to this guy, and it’s not good? The guy gets to hang out with God! Not good enough for him? I would ask God what He was thinking, but as I’ve been alive after-the-fact, I’ve noticed that He was right, and I won’t question Him on this one.

To round it up (and this is the really, really important part):

If a human companion was so important to have, even though God was talking to this guy in an audible voice: How much more important is it for us to have good, close friends now? Now that the world and our minds are so noisy that I doubt any of us will hear the audible voice of God in our lifetimes?

Y’know, I’m going to write that again, in hopes that you won’t miss it:

If having a human companion was so important, even though God was talking to this guy in an audible voice: How much more important is it for us to have good, close friends, now that it’s so much harder to hear his voice?

See what I mean? It’s not that God isn’t the supplier of everything we get. It’s not that we don’t completely need to rely on God for everything. But, God Himself created a companion for the first man. There was something missing. Some void in Adam’s life that only another human could fill.

But remember: God placed that other human there.

Adam couldn’t just sit and wait for the other human to come into his life. Just as well, we can’t just rely on other people. Yes, we need other people. That was the whole point of this. But only God can place those people in our lives. Only God can create those people to begin with. Only He can know them before they are born, and – perhaps – cause their destinies to align with ours.

None-the-less, we need them. But we definitely need Him to give them to us.

The End.

Maybe you’re angry. Maybe it seems like the world has let you down. Maybe someone has done something that hurt you incredibly… maybe they’re still doing it. Maybe you’ve prayed about something, and thought God would fix it, but it keeps coming back up. You might think it’ll never end. (maybe it won’t).

Perhaps the only people you trust in this world (the people that seem like the best friends you have, that seem like they’ve been there for you) are the people that your parents, your pastors (and all those other people that Thou Shalt Obey) are telling you to not be around anymore. To quit being friends with them, to stop talking to them. To find other people to hang out with.

All other questions and arguments aside (“but it’s hard to find new friends!” and “doesn’t God tell us to be friends with everyone?”), as valid as they may be, I’m going to suggest something that will change your life for the better. Your better. Not your parents’ better. Not your Pastors’ better. Your better. But the only way this will happen is if you actually apply what I’m going to tell you. And you probably won’t. But here it is anyway:

Be honest with God.

It’s that simple. And if you’ve already thought for a second that “I am honest with God!”, then I highly doubt you’ve really thought about what that means. Especially if you’re still having anger problems, rejection problems, or any of the above-mentioned problems.

Some of you, unfortunately, have a bad understanding of Being Honest with God. Also a bad understanding of Prayer, and what exactly it was that Jesus did for you.

If you’ve gone to Church for any amount of time, you’re probably already very familiar with the phrase “take your problems to God”. But how do you do that? Because you probably do it wrong.

My challenge for you is to be really honest with God. For example: Imagine that you’ve had the worst day of your life… your parents have been breathing down your neck, you’re grounded for a month for something you didn’t do, you got made fun of in a way that really hurt your feelings, and on, and on… and suddenly your best friend in the world shows up. Are you not going to vent? Are you not going to tell them how bad it is? How lame your parents are? How stupid you feel for not standing up for yourself?

Now imagine it’s later that night and you’re about to fall asleep. Oh yeah! You should probably pray for a minute before you head off to dreamland. (Just in case you die in your sleep or something, I guess).

How do you pray?

Do you start apologizing to God for being so angry, and asking forgiveness for all the insane cussing you were doing in your head (and maybe even out loud)?

If so, then I’m afraid you might be doing something we like to call “being Holier than God”. Which you know is impossible, so why keep trying?

See, God already knows how you feel. But He created you to be His friend – someone to walk and talk with. Check out the first few chapters of the Bible if you don’t believe me (or if anyone’s ever told you different).

You don’t have to be a good person to come to God and talk to Him. That was the whole purpose of Jesus coming to Earth and dying for you: so that you could have all the bad things you’ve done covered up – so that you could walk right up to God and talk with Him. So that you could be friends with God again. You can’t get “clean” and then go to God, because going to God is what makes you “clean”.

I think the problem is that you probably think you have to talk a certain way, or sort out your problems, or be clear-minded to talk to God. That’s completely wrong. God is there to help you with that. Like I just said: Going to God is what makes you clean!

But maybe the problem is worse. Maybe you’re so hurt, or so angry, that you really don’t know if you even believe in God anymore. To be honest, I’ve felt that way before. Yes, I’m that guy in the praise band, I’m a “youth sponsor”. I teach the Jr. High Sunday School Class. But there have been times when I have hurt so bad that I wondered if God was even there.

Feeling that way? I know this sounds stupid, but… Tell Him that.

If you’re angry with God, tell Him. If you’re so spitting mad that every other word out of your mouth (or in your thoughts) is a cuss word: tell God. Cuss to Him about it. Tell Him how sick and tired you are with everything going on in your life.

If you feel like you hate your parents: Tell Him that. If your heart is broken into thousands of tiny pieces, tell Him. If you want to kick and scream because of what someone has done to you – kick and scream right there in front of God. If you’re mad at God, tell Him you are.

Get the point yet?

The thing is, He’ll listen. He’ll let you get it out. And it’s the only way.

Sure, telling your best friend about your problems will get them out for now. Crying and sobbing into your pillow at night will help ease the pain. Balling and getting snot all over someone else’s shoulder at Church during an altar call will get it out for a bit.

But if you’re ever paid attention to the patterns in your life, you’ll know that doing that doesn’t work in the long run. The pain will come back up. You’ll feel the same way again. You’ll fall into the same rut. Your friends can’t hold you up forever. That person you trust will let you down some time. Probably some time soon. And even if they don’t: what can they do to solve your problems, other than listen to you talk about them?

I challenge you to take 5 minutes out of your day… Stop reading your Bible for five minutes. Stop listening to Praise and Worship music for 5 minutes. Stop relaxing in your bed for five minutes. Stop “praising God” for 5 minutes… and tell Him what you really think. Tell Him like you’d tell someone even closer to you than your best friend. Scream at Him if you have to. (scream in your head if it’s late at night though – you might freak your parents out, otherwise). Pitch a fit if you have to. But at whatever cost, be totally, completely honest with God, for five whole minutes.

This is a good place to say this again: He’ll listen. He’ll let you get it out. And it’s the only way.

You know – even some of the Super Holy people in the Bible did things like that. Really. Ever heard of Jonah? He was so mad at God, he even said to Him “see? I knew this would happen! I knew you be all forgiving and gracious to these stupid people!”. He was talking about the people that he hoped God would destroy. But God had sent him to preach to them, and when he did they repented of doing wrong, and God forgave them. But Jonah got mad. Jonah thought (knew) that those ignorant people deserved to die. Every last one of them.

The amazing thing is, God didn’t just Zap Jonah with some big bolt of lightening or something. He listened to Jonah. He let him get it out.

When Jonah was done talking (screaming?) to God, God simply had a few questions for Jonah to ponder. Did it all work out? Read Jonah for yourself.

Remember that guy Job? When God finally showed up (as far as Job could see, anyway), Job had some questions for God. God listened. Then, when Job was done, He spoke.

Also, read through some of the Psalms in the Bible. Several chapters in there, mostly between chapters 70 and 100, are really great. No, they’re not like the silly little love-song-to-Jesus type Psalms you normally hear about. These are the good ones. I encourage you to dig around in Psalms – you’d be surprised at what you find.

The whole point of this is to tell you that if you’ll just take some time to get completely honest with God, He’ll be better able to talk to you. Your answer will come. But until you do that, you’re just going to keep praying those same lame, hollow prayers – and nothing is going to change for you.

Remember though – you have to take time out to do this. And you have to wait for God to answer. You can’t just yell at God and walk away.

But, rest assured that when you open up to Him, it’ll get His attention. You have to get serious with God – but when you do, He’ll know you’re serious, and He will come answer you.

Now, you might not like what you hear once He starts talking.

I’m not saying that you can just walk around cussing during all your prayers. And I’m definitely not saying that you’re going to have any excuse not to obey your parents. Nor can you just stay angry, just because… well, because you’re angry. God has certain laws in place, and you just might have broken some of them. (God does say, “Be angry, but don’t sin”).

I’m just trying to tell you that if you’re frustrated: talk to God about it. For real. And be Honest about how you feel. Even if that means telling Him that you’re not sure if He even exists. He’ll understand – I promise.

When you finish, He’s going to start talking to you. This is when you need to listen. He might say that you were actually the person that was in wrong. He might say you were acting stupid. He might not. But He’s going to tell you what you should do about your problem.

He’s probably going to remind you that no matter what you do, what you think, or how you feel – He loves you. And He’s probably going to point out some things that you need to fix in your life.

But if you’ll honestly talk to Him – and Honestly listen to His answer… your life will change. How long it takes to change (for the better) depends.

I’m sure you’re smart enough to know that if you break your leg, it’s going to take longer to heal than a paper-cut. And some emotional damage you have may take longer to heal than others. But if you honestly talk to Him, like He’s a real person – like He really exists, not just in your head – He’ll start working on you immediately.

There are a million more things to say about this, but I’m afraid I’ve already confused you. If you have any questions about what I wrote here – or about life, or the things you are or aren’t allowed to say to God – ask me.

I may not know all the answers – but I know some other really smart people that might.

The End.