Heather Cox

If you call yourself a Christian, you’re most likely going to get put into one of 2 basic groups. The side that ignores love and wants to teach people rules of the bible or the side that ignores the rules and wants to just love people. If you really think about how society views Christians, you can clearly see that although these are extreme generalizations, that is how we are divided.You probably will find you fit slightly more into one or the other. In an effort to distance ourselves from the side we disagree with, we fall into the trap of distancing ourselves from a biblical center. I recently realized which side of the line I have fallen on and have been trying to work out which side is correct, if either. How are we to have a united movement in Christ if we can’t seem to agree on these basic points in the bible? Which way do we see Jesus lean in the bible? Does He lean either way? These are all questions I have found myself pondering lately as my worldview has begun to shift.

I have never considered myself an intolerant person. I have always believed in showing Christ's love to everyone, whether or not their moral compasses fall in line with mine. At least that is what I thought I believed for a long time. What I have come to realize is that I am completely intolerant of those who are intolerant. As backwards as that sentence sounds it's true for me. As I began to ponder all of this I found very quickly which group I fell into. I found it easy to love the people who are gay, the people who have had abortions, or any one who felt as though the “Christian” community hated or shunned them. I, however, found it hard to love those on the other side of the line. I couldn't stand the person who would rather hold up a picket sign telling people they're going to Hell instead of talking to them and showing them Christ's love. I couldn't stand people who came off as “preachy” or who wanted to talk about the rules of the bible more than the love in the bible. I can now see I had not only picked my side, but I had fully embraced it. In today's society it's much easier to not love those who we can claim are "intolerant". It's easier to talk about how we would never be so quick to judge another person, asking each other how they could possibly be so intolerant. In doing that we are being just as intolerant as the people we complain about. As difficult as it may be, God calls us to love our neighbors, not just the ones we find it easy to agree with.

Ask my husband, or probably either of our roommates, I am the one in the house who likes to rant about injustice and intolerance. The day after the super bowl I kept seeing all that hate towards the “America the Beautiful” Coke commercial. I ranted for a whole 2 days about how obnoxious intolerant people are. It has taken all my self control to not get sidetracked and write an entire post just about that commercial. I am the first person to talk to people about how God views all sins equally, how He loves us all despite the shortcomings we all have. Are you hearing the irony here? Seeing the pedestal I was standing upon? I've come to realize the things I thought I believed so deeply I only believed towards certain groups of people. I am no better than the picket sign holder I was so quick to judge, I'm just on the other “side”. What if we all actually tried to love and understand one another? What if neither side continued this cycle of intolerance, and instead we just attempted to understand where each side was coming from?

What if we decided to show Christ's love whether we agree with a person or not. For me it was difficult to love people I found "intolerant" because I didn't agree with their worldview. I was finding it hard to relate to people who I perceived to be blinded by legalism. However, they probably found it just as difficult to love me. They could have perceived me as someone who was blinded by a tolerant society to the laws of the bible. Although there can be extremes on either side, in general I would say both of those perceptions are incorrect. Personally I believe you can “love the sinner and hate the sin”, until I had some deep realizations, I thought that was what I was doing. I realize though in the name of loving people I was tolerant of their sin. For the 1 or 2 conversations I had with people about where I stand on issues as a Christian, there were an infinite number of conversations I chose not to have out of fear of rejection. I think society gets overwhelmed when the church calls out sins, I think we are all scared of being labeled as a “bad person”. If we look at the bible we are all born with sinful desires in our hearts, despite the sin you struggle with Jesus did come to redeem you from those desires. On the other side, there are times where Christians can be quick to point out all the ways people are sinning and forget to love them first. Yes there does need to be a shift in a person's worldview for them to realize they need Jesus, but we need to make sure we are pointing them towards Jesus because we love them, not because we want to prove to them how right we are.

If we listened and talked to each other we would probably find that Jesus's life, was really in between the 2 sides. I can easily find biblical examples of Jesus showing love to sinners, eating with them, dying for them! He called us to also love, “ And He said to him ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.’” Matthew 23:10. However, I can just as easily find biblical examples of Jesus teaching right from wrong. He taught the Pharisees and the sinners, He explained the correct biblical way to live. He also called us to teach, “And Jesus came up and spoke to them saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of age’” Matthew 28:18-20. We can't just choose one side, if we believe in Jesus and are striving to live in a way more like Him, we need to realize He called us to love and teach. If you examine these verses closely you see “The whole Law and the Prophets” depend on love. Therefore, we need to love first, then out of love, teach and make disciples of all nations. We shouldn't let love blind us from the Law, as we shouldn't let the Law blind us from love. Jesus clearly says, we need to love and teach, one is not separate from the other. This never ending cycle of intolerance ends with us making the choice to chase after Jesus and His word. We are only going to unite for Christ when we can love and teach one another in a Christ-like way.

God How we met Marriage testimony

Andy

by heather 12:18 PM

Recently I have been writing down my life, going through old journals rereading and rewriting stories from my life. As I was doing this I stumbled upon an entry from 10/19/2007, this was my first journal entry that ever mentioned Andy. Although we weren't dating yet, I think by this point in our friendship we both knew it was going to be happening, we did start dating less then a month later. So I've decided to share the moment when we met and all the times we did not. It was a reminder to me today of how God has a perfect timing for things beyond what we even realize.

I distinctly remember the first time I ever met
Andy, I was about to sit down at a computer in my brand new school my Junior year of high school, when this boy 2 seats down stood up and told me I couldn't sit there. You probably read this with the knowledge that Andy has one of the most sarcastic senses of humor. Having no knowledge of this sense of humor I am pretty sure I looked as though I was going to cry, because he immediately retracted his statement and awkwardly sat down. Not the most smooth introduction. He says he spent the next few weeks trying to convince a mutual classmate that they should switch seats so Andy could sit

next to me. The day he finally did we instantly bonded over the August Burns Red that was playing
through my computer speakers. It wasn't until a few weeks into our friendship that we realized we could have met 3 times before we officially met. The first of these occasions was summer of 2004 I was visiting my Uncle and it just so happened we worked the same Veggie Races at The Washington County Fair. Andy swears he remembers me, however, I only remember meeting his brother Timmy...oops. My opinion is that Andy didn't remember it was me until after I told him I was there, it makes me feel better at least. In 2005 we went to the same Kutless concert. It may not have been super probable that we were going to ever meet that night, but still discovering that later was interesting. It was also probably good we didn't meet then because I went to that concert with another boy. The final time was 1 month before I actually met Andy, I was yet again working the same Veggie Races at the fair, the one where we supposedly met each other 3 years earlier, when I met Andy’s friend. I was going to be transferring into a new school so I decided to introduce myself to anyone that looked remotely my age. I introduced myself to Georgianna she told me she had one friend who was going to also be a Junior that fall. She said they would be back later that evening and I should come back to hang out with her and her friends. For some reason I couldn't go back and they ,apparently, looked around for me for awhile. It is probably a good thing Andy didn't realize I was the girl who ditched them until weeks into knowing me.

When I think of this I almost picture God up in Heaven giggling "Hey Jesus, come look at this, her future Husband is right there." Jesus would obviously respond sarcastically, "This again, seriously Dad You need new hobbies"
Okay that probably didn't happen but God did intend for me to meet Andy. Knowing the spiritual growth I went through before I met Andy, I know God was preparing me to meet him. God knew I was going to need Andy and his family in my life to get through the years that were to come after we first met. He knew the perfect time for us to meet, which is a good reminder to me that Gods timing for things is perfect.
I’ll end this little story with a quote from my 15 year old self “ I think that God wanted me to meet him in such a way where he would know I was a Christian. It’s so nice having a Christian friend. I love it”

Being Content

by heather 7:27 PM

I feel as though being content is one of the hardest challenges in life, at least for myself. How do you focus on where you are today with out focusing on where you will be 5 years from now or even a week from now? I am not sitting here wanting to write about my solution to this, because honestly I don't know the answer. For example, sometimes (most of the time) I love that we moved home, yet there are days I wake up and just want to be done with this move and start the new better adventure I think is in the plan.

Here's some facts:

-I love being home.

-My husband loves being home.

-I don't know what (if there even is one) that new plan is.

-We both feel this is where God wants us.

Yet, despite all these things that I know are true, I feel myself craving the next thing even though I know I haven't accomplished all God wants me to do here. How can I do what God wants me to today if I keep focusing on what I think he wants for me down the road? We get so caught up in thinking about the future we forget to live in the present. We forget to embrace what God has given us today because we are thinking about what He may or may not give us tomorrow.

Sarah and I were talking the other day how this problem boils down to if we are trusting God completely or not. If I am trusting God completely I would not be worried about tomorrow. If you read my last post you saw I quoted Matthew 6:34, a verse everyone has probably read 1000 times, so familiar it gets glazed over and not really processed. If you read 6:25-34 we're clearly told by Jesus that God provides the things we need for us and we are to ^"seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will beadded to you".

God knows us better than we even know ourselves, not being content in where God has you is almost like telling God "I know better than You do about what I should be doing". Trying to take control of a situation that God already has control over.

Now I am not necessarily discrediting planning of any sort, because obviously if tomorrow God called me to China, there would be some necessary plans to be made. What I am saying is that don't just focus on the future your whole life, be joyful in what God has provided for you today, no matter what bigger better plans you think He has for you tomorrow.

I don't say all this to