Is Christianity Simple or Complex?

     A friend asked me today whether Christianity was simple or complex and I have been thinking more about the question throughout the day. I think this is one of those questions that can not be answered in a single word. Christianitiy is not entirely simple or entirely complex. Some parts of the religion are very simple and I'd submit the most important and essential parts are simple enough for a child to fully grasp. The complexity comes in when other things get mixed into Christianity. The primary culprit of the complexity of Christianity is sin and the second culprit is us.
     Let me say that Christianity is first a lifestyle and then it is a belief system. A christian then is one who's lifestyle identifies that person with Christ and in addition to that lifestyle are the various beliefs and dogmas that must be adopted. Now before the fall back in Genesis 3 all man knew was good and Christianity was very simple. What did man know, 1st, that God had created Him. (Genesis 2:7) 2nd, God had created him to do God's work. (Genesis 2:15) All Adam knew was good, he had no concept of evil and so life was very simple. Adam's purpose was to get up and enjoy God's blessings and presence while seeing to the duties God had assigned him such as Eve, the animals, and the garden. I think that really all that's required to be a Christian are those two beliefs. We must recognize that God created us which wil keep us submissive. Then we must find our purpose, in doing God's work this will keep us busy. Sadly the story does get more complex but lets not forget the initial simplicity of what God intended.
     So the fall happens and sin enteres the world and suddenyl following God becomes complex. Now to be a Christian still requires the same simple beliefs but since sin has entered the world a whole host of problems have grown up. As sin grew in the physical world and also in the spiritual world different remedies were required to stem its spread. The most important of these remedies is the life, death and ressurection of Christ which once again opens the gates of heaven that humans might walk with God as Adam did in the garden. So we have now added another core belief to the simplicity of the Christian life. In adition to knowing that God created me and that I am here to do His work I must also accept the mystical rebirth through the ressurection of Jesus Christ. A distinction exists though between understanding and applying. So if I understand that Jesus died that I might very literally have His relationship with God and His rightessness for myself then the way has been opened for me to have those things. However if I do not apply that understanding I merely sit outside the gates and mock the truth by thinking about it but not living it out.
     That was a bit of a ramble, back to my original question. Basically my answer is this, "as sin becomes more prominent in your life or the world around you the more complex your life will become. The essential truths of Christianity remain awesomely simple. It's the relationships between truth and our lives which are complex. Like most relationships the problems are usually all with, "the other person" and so it is in this case. God and His word are simple and we are the problem with the relationship because we are always trying to manipulate God's truth so that we can still get what we want. Rather then go on a whole rant about our human tendency to rationalize sinning b convincing ourselves we're doing God's will, I will end this post here.


"Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust."

II Peter 1:4

Somethings I've been Thinking About

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Oh give us strength to face our day

With Courage as Thy sons of old,

To lift our voices in prophecies

Against the gods of stone and gold;

Give us to see and understand

The heart of man and to forgive,

Give us the faith to touch Thy hand,

Teach us, O living Lord, to live. 

The picture of the book from which this came isn't loading for some reason. You'll just have to imagine an awesome little book from 1932 with a black cover and golden lettering. I got it at my libraries booksale a few weeks ago. I read certain sections each day as part of my morning and evening times of prayer. I'm sure there isn't anything particularly special about the book but God has been using it to help me enjoy prayer more. Which is really cool, because being brought up in a Christian home there is always this pressure of, "oh I need to pray and read my bible" so its actually cool when you realize, doing those things really do help and are preferably to say playing video games and hanging out with friends.

  

This is part of the lists I've been making of the various commands and promises of God found in scripture.  It's not very big yet and I'm only through the gospels. I'm thinking of starting Psalms next but we'll see.

  

This is the book I need to teach the  freshman at my church this year. It's a difficult thing because I don't really like the book. I mean it's a fine book in that it doesn't have much wrong information in it but it's not my style. So teaching it will be difficult. I also wouldn't say the topic is worthy of a whole book. Peace is worthy of a book but how to be a peacemaker is not. Simply because when your a Christian and a slave to God being a peacemaker won't be very difficult. So if your a true Christian who doesn't believe any of this mamby pamby, stuff that, "God will give you everything you want and take nothing from you", junk, then when a person does something wrong to you then you can look to Christ who had it infinity worse than you and learn to forgive by sacrafixing what you want for the sake of Christ who died for you. I don't think being a peacemaker is about having a certain set of methods which you apply to teach situation of conflict. A peacemaker is a person with the mindset of Christ who is utterly selfish and totally sacrificial.

We'll see my first lesson is tomorrow and I'm praying hard that God will be honored by it. Goodnight for now. I'll write again later this week. Have a good evening.

Two things for you readers today.. 

     First and most exciting are dumpling!!!. We have a new person around the house called a Tobster. His real name none of us can pronounce and his family came over for dinner before going back to china. While they were here the grandma just happened to decide to make dumplings. Even though she couldn't speak English and had never been to America before I don't think it was hard for her to figure out how to successfully win over every single Lagan at the house.  Food is a universal language and she new the language by heart..

So here she is teaching her son, the Tobster's father how to make the dumplings.

Here they are just before being fried. We knew she was good when mom asked if she wanted to put broccoli in them and she refused via translator by saying, "only meat"

     Second is something I've been thinking about which some of you might find interesting. Yesterday I was sitting out in the woods with a pot of tea and some books. I leaned back and looked up and started looking around me. It's amazing how reaching a new level of introspection allows you to see the world around you differently too. Anyway, I don't usually notice specific leaves, I usually miss the leaves for the forest and see the beautiful tree without noticing the hundreds of thousands of leaves who sacrifice to make the tree beautiful. As I mused over these things I thought the leaf a fitting analogy for the Christian. The pictures aren't very good but if you look closely, not many of the leaves are perfect, most of them have some sort of blemish some hole or tear. These are things the leaf had no say in. As Christians we also have many things keeping us from being the ideal person because of things we are not responsible for. I can not help being dumber then Blaise Pascal, I can work just as hard as he did and read the same books and study the same bible but his mind was simply more powerful then mine will ever be this side of eternity. He was in essence a bigger leaf not because he made himself bigger but simply because he was made that way. Other leafs have whole pieces torn off. Many Christians have entire portions of their lives torn from them. Many Christians because of poor parenting, or inept church leadership, or any number of other things have had great parts of life destroyed and now they must somehow struggle to harvest the light of the sun with only a portion of their former strength.

      I know the analogy can be broken down and made to look foolish pretty quickly but the point is this. The leaf doesn't stop giving nutrients to the tree because a caterpillar decided to snack on him, or because "that leaf over there is so much bigger then me" Each leaf no matter how small, torn up, disfigured, mistreated or unloved continues to take in as much sunlight as its resources allow without bothering about the other leafs and how they are doing. Basically they don't stop working because they got the short end of the stick. (hehehe see what I did there?)

      As Christians we are leaves attached to the Body of Christ or the Church taking in nutrients and energy from God.. Its often the trouble in church that we bother about what the rest of the church members are doing instead of getting down to business and using what God has given us to give back to the church. We think, if only I was higher up on the tree, or if only I was a bigger leaf, or if only I didn't get covered in frost last night and thus are dissatisfied and rendered useless for godly work. We think this way because we don't realize that God put us where He did for a reason. He wanted you lower on the tree so you could be the beauty that inspires the person walking beneath. He wanted you to be a small leaf because he knows you can only bear so much responsibility and were you bigger He knows you'd fail. He let you get covered in frost to protect all the young leaves behind you.
     It's all a matter of perspective and when were willing to see from God's perspective; when we look at our lives in the light of eternity, the things of this world do in fact grow strangely insignificant and life takes on real meaning and value. To work then, each man to his chores. From the headmaster down to the lowest maid let idleness cease. For the hardworking household is the happiest of groups and proud will its members be when the Master returns and finds His lands well kept.

Thoughts From Under My Willow Tree #1

This is my willow tree.

So I've been spending a fair amount of time underneath my willow tree

either late at night or early in the morning and watching the moon make its journey brings so many mysterious stories, symbolic references and just a general feeling of mystique which I like. I mean I'm hoping the mystique comes more because I'm trying to commune more with God but the moon definitely adds to the atmosphere. Anyway this morning was pretty cool because I had asked God the night before to help me get up early so I could come back out and talk more with Him. Being the good guy that He is, He decided that the best time for that would be 3:55 and so at that blessed hour I awoke, not to an annoying alarm or a sibling slamming a door. I just awoke with a great feeling of God's presence it wasn't something super miraculous or awe inspiring, just a quiet awareness of God as if He was saying, "I'm here and we now have all morning to talk." As an added bonus I got to hear the rooster crow at a nearby farm. I'd never heard a rooster actually welcome the day before so I found that it was super cool. 

Next cool thing, after finishing Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret and Watchmen Nee's The Normal Christian Life I've realized how I'm lacking in practical everyday faith. So starting today I begin compiling a list of all the promises of God made too me as well as a list of the commands God gives to me in the scriptures. My goal is to finish the New Testament this week. By finish I mean read through it and make not of the promises and commands which I understand to apply directly to current Christians. So we'll see how that works out, I'd like to post portions of those lists as I create them but we'll see. An encouraging thing I've noticed just from my reading today from the Gospels was that Jesus has a tendency to pair a command with a promise. 

For example Luke 12:22 says, "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat nor about your body, what you will put on." A command, Jesus says, "don't be anxious" a straightforward but very difficult task if that's all He said. Fortunately for us God is not a tyrant who simply demands and does not supply. After His command He gives us perspective in the next verse, Luke12:23 For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. When we adopt this perspective we are ready for what He says in verse 31, "Instead, seek His kingdom and these things will be added to you." Rather than be anxious we are given a replacement task, do not worry and with all the time you have freed up now that your not worrying seek His kingdom and the things you worried about will be taken care of. I have been encouraged as I've read the gospels today how God doesn't command without specific reasons and His promises are never forgotten. 

That's all for now, carry on.

An Update On Life

 

I tried earlier to make a video blogpost but my movie was too long and I wasn't able to upload it. Soon I'd like to have a youtube channel for all sorts of movies but for now I'm going to attempt at reawakening my long slumbering blog. My guess is she will not be too pleased and will fight hard making my posts infrequant but we'll see. For tonight I'm going to try and explain where I hope this blog will go in the future as well as providing a quick summary of where my life has been going in the past months.

 

Previously my goal for this blog was to encourage and teach my fellow believers by creating well thought out blogposts about life, God, the scriptures and other like things. You say, "what? that was your purpose? I never would have guessed" I'l be the first to admit I did not do well in meetin that original goal but I've always been a proponent of setting goals higher then I can reach and in failure I'm still further along then I was before I set the goal meaning I'm ahead. Not that it justifies me failing to meet my goal for this blog, hence my changing of this blogs purpose. I've realized I'm neither smart enough nor adequatly in command of the english language to write well ordered constructive works of didactic worth. Therefore, as the blogs new title indicates, I'm simply going to comment and keep record of God's hands as they move in my life, both dicating my circumstances and molding me into conformatiy with the image of His son. I hope people will still find this blog worth reading as it will continue to bear testimoney to the great God whom we serve but it's purpose will no longer be for you the reader but rather for me the author.

 

That being said I proceed to a list of signifcant things which have happened to me this summer.

 

I graduated highschool.

As of next Thursday I will have earned 66 credits towards my BA in History.

I turned 18 last Saturday

I've found piano, frisbee, and certain relationships to be holding me back as a Christian and I've dropped them, at least temporarily to engage more in prayer, study of the scriptures and the reading of the Saints.

I bought my first tobacco pipe on my birthday and while I still enjoy it my expectations were not met.

I attended a good friends wedding in mid July down in North Carolina which was definitly a highlight of my summer. I got to meet two friends who I haven't seen, ever and I got to see a good friend get married to an awesome guy who I didn't find fault with, which if you know me is not an easy thing to do because I find faults in most everything.

 

 

 

 

A good weekday for me looks like this:

I. Between 5-6 I wake up to study the bible and pray and try not to fall back asleep before 7 when I have breakfast.

II. Between 7:30 and 8 we'll have family quiet time and by 9 I've usually started my college work.

III. By 12:30 I'm sick of college and facebook and I"m hungry so I'll eat.

IV 1:30 will see the end of lunch cleanup and I'll try to find a good book to read and if I haven't already drunk a pot of tea in the morning I'll make some for the afternoon.

V. If I can make it till 4 without falling asleep I'll help with the daily housecleanup and then help with dinner

VI. Dinner usually runs from 5:30ish until 7:00 when we have finished cleaningup and the coffee is brewing.

VII. 7-10 is dedicated to things like blogging, skyping/IMing with friends, prayer, smoking, writing emails and such.

 

 

VIII. Usually by ten I'm in bed unless something cool is happening

 

Note this schedule does not include, unlooked for Star Wars Battlefront II or SuperSmash Brothers Brawl games with siblings, random snacks, unforseen work oppurtunities, familiy or friendship emergencies, mom's "adventures" which are like homeschooler field trips and a host of other unkown things which arise during an average day. I'm so thankful to God for this season of my life which doesn't have me boxed into school or work from 8-5 and I'm excited to see where God leads me as I seek Him. I already feel Him as He works his magic in me as I've read Watchman Nee's The Normal Christian Life and Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret which I hope to blog about soon.

 

Well that is me as of tonight, I know lots of what I say will be misunderstood and misinterpreted because of my poor use of language and because of sin reigning in so many of our hearts. Therefore I entrust myself and this post to God as well as you who read it, may we receive in humility the grace of God which He bestows upon those unashamed of Him both in word and in deed.

 

"1 Peter 2:11-12 "Dear 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."