Piers Morgan Thinks Pope Francis Is A Religious Bigot (And Mohammed Too)

Thanks to the interview with GQ Magazine, we all know that Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty fame is true to his faith. In the firestorm that has followed his comments; we have discovered some other interesting things along the way. One of those things we have discovered is that Wilson Cruz believes that those of us that believe the Bible is the word of God and obey it are not good Christians while those that disregard it and support the homosexual lifestyle are the good Christians. We have also discovered that CNN anchor, Piers Morgan thinks that Pope Francis is a religious bigot. So probably does the leader of all liberals, President Barack Obama, CNN and all liberals.

When I heard about Piers Morgan’s comments, it got me thinking. When I hear such incendiary comments, I like to think about what the comment means. It occurred to me that what Piers Morgan meant was that, I along with other Christians who shared Phil Robertson’s view that sex and marriage should be between a man and a woman were all religious bigots. When I thought about it some more, it further occurred to me that not only was he calling us all religious bigots, he was also calling Pope Francis, the head of Catholics, a religious bigot. Make no mistake, from Piers’s comments; we can deduce what CNN, TIME Magazine, GLAAD and all liberals really think of the Pope. While some people might say that Phil Robertson could have been subtler or less coarse with his comments or that the Pope would never say such things, the fact remains that the Pope and Phil Robertson literally believe the same thing. While Pope Francis has come out to say that Catholics should focus less on hot button social issues, he has never come out to disavow the Catholics church teachings on the subject, especially on same sex relationships.

At the last Democratic convention before the elections, there were reports that the party wanted to remove all references to God from their constitution. It reportedly took concerted efforts from President Obama to avert that. Not that he believes in God but he realised how that might look during an election year. The fact is that liberals really don’t believe in God. At best, they think that we are crazy to believe in the myth of God. At worst, they think we use the myth of God to spread hate and prejudice. They don’t believe in God but their gods are fame, money, position and power. The liberals say they want equality. That’s a lie. What they want is homogeneity where everyone looks and sounds the same. Which is not possible. Camille Paglia in her recent article in TIME Magazine, liberals are now even denying Biology and the very obvious differences in gender by saying gender is not something that comes naturally with birth but something forced on a child by society. Yet this is the same Biology they have always relied on in their support of the theory of evolution. Now it seems they have decided to pick and choose the parts of Biology they want.

Their denial of the existence of God means that they think that all of us, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus and members of all other faiths in the world are crazy, hateful, religious bigots. That means everyone the world over who doesn't adhere to their secularist view is a hateful, religious bigot. So if Muslims think it doesn't concern them, that’s not true. The last I heard, Prophet Mohammed’s teachings in the Koran prohibit same sex relationships. So in essence, this is bigger than Phil Robertson. To put it bluntly, what CNN, Wilson Cruz, Piers Morgan, Martin Sheen, President Obama and all liberals are saying is that Prophet Mohammed and every devout Muslim who adheres to his teachings are all religious bigots. How do I know President Obama thinks this way? He along with Prime Minister David Cameron has at several times threatened to withdraw aid from sovereign countries that do not do their bidding and decriminalise same sex relationships. Even deeply religious and conservative countries. So if we are to take their word for it, then the US and United Kingdom will cut aid to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and other countries because the leaders of those countries are religious bigots. Now King Abdullah, Mr. Karzai and Muslim leaders, you now know what Piers Morgan, President Obama and CNN think of you.

I am an ardent Anglophile and that might be as a result of the fact that we were colonised by the British. I love their traditions and sense of history. But it pains me to see the depths the country that gave the world Smith Wigglesworth and C. S. Lewis hand sunk to. Martin Bashir, a compatriot of Piers Morgan gave us a glimpse of the general hatred liberals have of people who hold conservative views with his attack on Sarah Palin. Now Piers Morgan along with CNN has just told us what he thinks of the Pope and all of us who don’t agree with him. A few weeks ago, TIME Magazine honoured the Pope with the prestigious TIME Man of The Year Award. Now a sister company to TIME has told us what they really think of him. Make no mistake, an attack on Phil Robertson is an attack on all of us. Even the Pope.

Just because we don’t see eye to eye on issues, does that mean we have to resort to name calling and threatening people’s livelihood? GLAAD, CNN and Piers obviously think so. They talk about tolerance an acceptance and they talk about taking the high moral road. However when someone says something they don’t like, they attack like vipers. We say what we believe and they respond with insults and abuse. And they say their tolerant. They’re only tolerant with those who agree with them. But it’s not something that should surprise us. Jesus said a servant cannot be greater than his master, if the world hated him, it would definitely hate us. I respect the Pope as the head of the Catholic. And neither he nor Phil Robertson nor I or any other person deserves such abuse.  

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers, http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/. You can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal.  

  

Merry Christmas!!!

Hi. I really don't have much to say from now till the beginning of next year. I just want to say a big thank for reading the things I've written. I hope to be back next year and do this all over again. Meanwhile I just want to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a very fulfilling New Year. Stay Blessed. 

Who Is He, This Jesus?

As the year runs to a close, we are presently just a week away from the 25th of December. This is the day when most Christians the world over celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the originator of their faith. As Reinhard Bonnke said, those who complain that the 25th of December is originally the date of a pagan festival miss the point. The birth of Jesus can be celebrated on any day and if we decide to celebrate his birth on the 25th which is a pagan festival, it doesn't matter as long as we know what and who we are celebrating. So my question to you is, do you know whose birth you are celebrating?

Let me help you a little here. Even though we commemorate the birth of God in the form of a child, he is no longer a child. He is the Lion of the tribe of the tribe of Judah. Referencing the uproar that accompanied Fox anchor Megyn Kelly saying Jesus was white, might I point out to you that he is not some tribal or ethnic warlord. He is the King of Israel and indeed the whole earth. He is the Prince of Peace who told us he has left us peace in this turbulent, ever changing world. He is not some ordinary man who said nice things that sounded good. He is the Word of God. He is the Truth. He is not one of the ways that lead to God. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. He is not a person who would see another hurt or in pain and not do anything. He is the Healer and the Comforter. He is not some man who gave his opinion about how we were to live our lives. He is the Righteous Judge. He is not some man whose words change with any change in Western culture or whose opinion changes with the changes in other men's opinion. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. In fact, he doesn't change. He is constant, unfailing. His love is forevermore. His love for us does not depend on our love for him. He loved us even before we were men. In this sad and dreary world, he is our Joy. He is not some man whose words we take with a pinch of salt. He cannot lie, will not lie. His promises are Yes and Amen.

I could go on and on about the person whose birth we will celebrate in a week's time. But I could go on and on and still not be able to fully exhaust or describe all His attributes or do Him justice. But as we prepare for Christmas, I would like us to remember that the essence of Christmas is not about eating, drinking, shopping or giving gifts but about a God who loved us so much that he didn't want us to continue to wallow in sin. He looked for messengers to send to us but none was worthy or capable. So he came Himself and took on the form of man and was born as a baby. He gave us the best gift anyone could give. He lived amongst us for thirty three and a half years, telling us about the Kingdom of God and giving us an example to follow. When he was going, he told us he would come back for us one day.  All he asks is that we have faith in Him and trust Him. Will we all do that?

It’s The Blood

There is a tendency in us humans to associate ourselves with success whether national, familial or individual. The opposite is true of disappointment as we try to move as far away from it, afraid that it might taint us.  We like to associate ourselves with successful people and we look for a way to establish something of a nexus between ourselves and the originator of the successful exploits. Trying to associate ourselves with a successful person is not really that hard. We can always find something that associates us with them no matter how nebulous. However, trying to disassociate ourselves from a disappointment or someone who has done something terrible can be extremely hard. Or practically impossible. In that regard, no matter how much they want to, the Germans can’t deny that Adolf Hitler was one of them or that the Germans started World War II.

Megyn Kelly, a Fox News anchor recently made a statement on her programme the Kelly File on the Fox News Channel to the effect that Santa Claus and Jesus were both white. She later said the comment was made tongue-in-cheek. However this was not before there was a huge outcry on both the conventional and social media. I have no intention of talking about Santa Claus as delving into the history of mythical creatures or human is not really my thing. My concern is about the person whom billions of people both living and dead call the originator of their faith.

When I read about the comments from Ms. Kelly, I went online and I read several articles and comments made about the colour of undoubtedly the most famous person that ever walked the face of the earth. There were those that postulated he was black, white or some other colour. There were even comments referencing books written on the subject, especially one written by Jeremiah Wright, President Obama’s former pastor. Reading all those articles, the major emotion that coursed through me was not one of anger or humour. All I felt was a sense of overwhelming disappointment.  I felt disappointed that people could try to reduce the impact that Jesus and his teachings had made on the world to the colour of his skin.

I don’t know about the other people who identify themselves as Christian but I can say that I have never put much thought into what colour Jesus was. In fact, it’s never been something that has agitated my mind and I doubt if it was something that agitated the minds of Martin Luther or John Knox. I also do not think it is something that agitates the minds of most Christians.    For people to even try making it a topic of discussion is beyond my understanding. To even start a discussion about what colour Jesus was diminishes and obscures the real reason why he came and what he did. To talk about his skin colour to my mind somehow diminishes the impact of his sacrifice on the cross to redeem us from our sins. I do not follow Jesus or call myself a Christian because of his skin colour. I call myself a Christian and I follow him not because of his skin colour but because I realise I need help with my sins. I follow him because I realise he came as a gift from a loving God who sent him to me to help me find a way back to God. There are several reasons why I follow him and none has to do with his skin colour.

I wonder why people would be fixated about a person’s colour. Would his colour diminish or accentuate a person’s message? Would a person’s colour determine whether or not we would listen to his message or follow him? Would a person’s colour tell us what kind of person they were? Are we so inherently racist that we judge the content of what a person says based on the pigmentation of his skin? Does his skin colour lend greater credence to his message? If we cannot see past a person’s colour to the content of his message, might I suggest that we are definitely prime candidates for washing in his blood.

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers.http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/. You can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal. 

America Doesn't Like God Or Jesus (According To ESPN)

"Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions." - G. K. Chesterton

“There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions.”- G. K. Chesterton

Many people may have heard by now of ESPN's refusal to air a commercial by a St. Louis based children's charity because it contained the word's "God" and "Jesus". The commercial by the SSM Cardinal Glennon Children Medical Center and was in aid of the Center's Tree of Hope Campaign where people are expected to leave messages for the children being cared for at the Center. According to the reports, the network refused to air the advert in it's original state because according to the network, they didn't want to cause offence to anyone. Really?

Christians are told that we need to become more tolerant. What they actually mean by that is we should drop all our convictions and live by their own ways. Which we forsook in the first place by becoming Christians. They say that we shouldn't try and force people to live the way we want. But that is what they want to to do. To live the way they want us to live. To think the way they want us to think. They say our doctrines and beliefs are discriminatory and steeped in hate yet the first chance they get they're discriminating against us. Already there are soldiers in the United States being punished and discriminated against by their superiors because of their faith. Teachers are being told they face lawsuits if they show any sign of their faith in the classroom such that they can't even put a Christian themed screensaver on the computers. And they say we should be tolerant. Make no mistake, there is a battle on about how people should think and behave. 

I understand that ESPN is a private station and they have a choice about which commercial they will air. However when the reason given is that the advert mentions Jesus and God, I can't understand it. What does it matter if there is a mention of God or Jesus as long as some good is being done? How can people be offended by the mention of people they say they don't believe in, as long as good can be done and some children can have a happy Christmas? After all, Jesus is the reason why there is Christmas in the first place even though people would like to forget it. I don't get offended when people mention Mohammed, Allah, Krishna, Ram or whatever god other people worship. So what is it about the Christian God that offends people?   

I believe that tolerance is about understanding that we are all different, and that we all have a right to be different. I am ready to be tolerant as long as you do not ask me give up or not say what I believe to be true. However, a situation where people get offended by words such that they don't even want to hear the words in an advert for a good cause is not tolerance. It's hatred. And we should be cool with that. Jesus said the world hated him and a servant cannot be greater than his master. So maybe while we should be outraged and sad that people don't want to hear about God, it's something we should expect. 

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers.http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/. You can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal.  

Musings on Love (Part II)

II Samuel 13:14-15    Howbeit he would not hearken to her voice: but being stronger than she, forced her, and lay with her. Then Amnon hated her exceedingly; so that wherewith he hated her was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her. And Amnon said unto her, Arise, be gone.

Love is a verb so said Dc Talk. I agree. Like I said in my last post, love is all about doing. Love is not something that should be said alone, it must be shown. However, many women seem to be looking for the words alone without taking any thought about whether it is being shown. It’s been said that women react to what they hear and that’s why a lot of men now use those three words, “I Love You” as some sort of magic wand to get their way.

The story is told in the Bible in II Samuel 13 of Amnon, one of King David’s children. He developed this passionate and intense “love” for his half-sister, Tamar. This passion was so great and intense that he developed a ploy to get her to come to his room. He pretended he was sick and got Tamar to come to his room to serve him. He then tried to get her to sleep with him. She protested, asking to instead ask their father David for her hand in marriage. But of course Amnon wasn’t interested in that kind of commitment. All he was interested in was scratching an itch. He proceeded to rape her and after he had slaked his lust, he grew to hate her as passionately as he thought he loved her. In the end, she committed suicide from the ensuing shame and he ended up being killed by Absalom, her brother. The story is a cautionary tale on what love is NOT.

I would really like us to be real here. We’ve all seen one Hollywood film or the other where the young, handsome boy wants to have sex with the beautiful girl. She’s reluctant at first but then he tells her if she loves him, she’ll sleep with him. The girl thinks she is so she agrees. And the audience goes “Awwww” at young love. I think we should back up here. There are so many things wrong there. First of all, love does not demand, nor does it seek to get. Love gives without demanding anything in return. Love expects to be loved in return but will never demand it. God loves us and expects us to love him but he doesn’t demand our love. He gave us Jesus, grace, joy, peace and an awesome life package in the covenant he made with us. Jesus said if we loved him we would keep his commandments but he doesn’t beat on us on the head when we don’t obey. Instead he gives us more grace.

The second thing is that love is not a feeling or an emotion. A feeling or emotion arises based on certain circumstances. A person might feel they are in love when someone pays them attention, makes them laugh, agrees with them, lets them have their way, tells them they’re always right. Any set of circumstances can lead to the “feeling” of love. Love is not a feeling. Its foundation is not a feeling. Love is a decision. God knew each and every one of us before we were born and yet he still loved us and set Jesus ahead to die for us. He told Jeremiah that before he was born, he knew him. That tells me that love is a decision. Love is about knowing what you know about someone and still loving them. If love is a decision, then it follows that love is a choice. If love is a choice, hate is also a choice. As I have said earlier, love is not an emotion. So then, it means that love is a decision, a choice to continue to do the things expected of love. Which is why I do not believe in love at first sight. There might be attraction at first sight but not love. Which is why I also do not believe that love can “die”. I believe that what happens is that people refuse to continue choosing to do the things that love requires of them. In essence, love is work.  

Love is not sex. Today’s culture has made sex synonymous with love. Nothing could be further from the truth. As I stated above, there are certain circumstances that might making a person feel he or she is in love with someone of the opposite sex. When you have those circumstances and then you add sex to it, you get a combustible mixture. God created sex and I believe he did it to engender closeness and feeling of goodwill among married people among other uses. However, outside of marriage, it takes on the feeling of just wanting to scratch an itch that comes along very often. In that case, anybody or anything would do. Love does not use to slake a thirst.

What then is love? I believe that love is a deep, abiding and intense desire that seeks the best of and for the person loved and doing all within our power to make sure that desire comes to pass and is fulfilled. Even when rebuffed or not acknowledged, it continues on. Love is not based on present circumstances, emotion or needs but a vision of what the beloved person can be or become with love. That’s why love builds, edifies, encourages, provides, sustains and ultimately lays down everything for the sake of the beloved if needed. Anything else short of this will not do.

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers.http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/. You can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal

Musings On Love (Part I)

I have recently been ruminating on what love is all about and the present perceptions about love in today’s culture. I intend to spend some time talking about these perceptions and what I believe should be the correct attitude to have. They are my own views based on the Bible and you may agree or disagree with them.

From my meditations on the treatise on love in 1 Corinthians 13, it is quite clear that loving is directly linked with doing. And the feeling in today’s culture is that if you love someone and they do something wrong, you do nothing. There seems to be a general perception that if you say you love someone, then you have to condone everything they do even if you think it’s wrong. Doing otherwise would be “judging”. We live in a society where nothing is wrong or right anymore and there are seemingly no absolutes. There’s nothing like correction or repentance any more. Cheating on a wife or a husband or a boyfriend is nothing to be frowned on anymore as someone will make an excuse for you. In fact cheating is to be praised and encouraged. I recently came across the excerpt of an interview granted by the actor, Ethan Hawke. According to him, we have a childish and naïve attitude to fidelity in a relationship. He rehashed the old argument about how man is not meant to be monogamous. My understanding of what he was on about was that we should be more tolerant and understanding of people who cheat on their spouses and partners. Which leads me to the question, if you know you can’t commit to one person, why be with that person? Especially when you know that that person expects you to be with them alone?

It’s not only fidelity in relationships I’m referring to. Let me ask a question. If your teenage son or daughter came to you, scared and with tears in his or her eyes and told you that something they had done had led to the death of someone else, what would you do? After the initial shock had worn off, would you:

(a)    Hand them over to the police and let them face the fate that their foolishness deserved, or;

(b)   Would you help them cover their tracks, bury the body and if possible help them escape the country so they wouldn’t have to face a trial?

Sometime ago, I read the story of a boy who was under the age of ten who fatally wounded his younger brother. The parents of the boys tried to cover up the injuries, going onto the internet looking for ways to care for the younger son at home. In the end they had to take him to the hospital where he eventually died. The parents tried to cover up for the older brother but the authorities investigating the matter noticed the internet searches on the computers and were able to piece the events that had happened together. There was an outcry when the older brother was charged for the murder of his younger brother. People asked the District Attorney to forgive the boy. Refusing to do so, she said, “It’s not my job to forgive, it’s my job to apply the law.” Today, the statement still resonates with me as on the day I read it.

The average belief of everyone is that we should shield our loved ones from hurt and pain. But the question the DA’s answer throws up is, who then gets to fight for those we hurt? My personal belief is that apart from the fact that it’s illegal, helping your children escape the consequences of their actions shows a lack of love and respect for those hurt by their actions. And we are called to love everyone.

What if there was a third way? A better way? What if I was to say that there was nothing wrong with going to the authorities with your child and then hiring the best legal team to try and get him off? Would that not be showing greater love rather than trying to hide the offence and doing something illegal? Love will force us to confront ugly situations with a view to sorting them out. Condoning only makes us run from the situation in the hope that things will sort themselves out by themselves. And that usually doesn’t happen.

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers.http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/. You can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal

We Are Accepted In The Beloved

From a young age I always wanted to write and be a published and well known author. When I published my first novel, Deceptio with WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson Publishers, I didn't really know anything about things like literary agents, proposals or platforms. That means I really didn't know much about publishing, period. However, publishing Deceptio did not put an end to the dream I had of being paid to publish a novel with a major publishing house. I then wrote another novel, Lost But Found. By this time I knew a little about how things worked. I had bought Michael Hyatt’s book on how to write a winning fiction proposal. I sent out proposals to several literary agents. As you would expect, I got a lot of “No’s”. Some didn't reply. In the end, near the end of last year, I finally found someone who liked what I had written and I was told that my work was going to be presented to the people in charge at the agency. I was so excited. I waited to get feedback but meanwhile I must confess I had a few dreams about how much I was going to get offered and how many copies of the book I was going to sell. When I didn't hear back by February, I sent a mail. I got a reply saying that a mail had been sent to me earlier (which I never received) saying the people in charge wanted to go in another direction. Whatever that means.

I also love the law very much and I love litigating. I love the thought of presenting my arguments in such a way that the judge agrees with my line of thinking. And I love winning. However, I felt I was in a rut at work and I felt there were no opportunities for advancement. So I wrote a few applications and sent them to some of the top law firms in my city. Most of them didn't bother to reply. Those that did sent me a mail telling me that after considering my application they didn't think I would be a fit for them. I would be the first to admit that my grades in my law school exam were not the best. So maybe my grades wouldn't look too good on their website. But I thought that the almost ten years of experience I had garnered should count for something. I guess I was wrong.

I'm not going to lie, the two instances of rejection hurt. Badly. But that is what people do, people reject us. If we let it, the rejection we get from people can hurt us and damage us for life. Rejection can make us feel small and unworthy and unlovable. Rejection can make us give up on our dreams. But you know what? Men may reject us because we don’t fit into a certain mould or we don’t fit into a certain picture they have of how they think we should be. But you know what? That’s okay. That’s life. If we are afraid of rejection and we don’t want to experience it, we will end up not living because life is full of rejection. But you know another thing? I'm thankful there’s a God who loves me and would never reject me. I'm thankful there’s a God who has accepted me warts and all. The Bible says God has accepted me in the beloved. God has accepted me, not because of anything I can or will ever do but because of what Jesus did on the cross of Calvary.  So no matter the rejection I face from men, I know God loves me.

So, has the fact that literary agents aren't breaking down my door in a bid to represent my work discouraged me? No. It has made me even more determined to succeed and get a book published by a major publisher. That’s why I'm not going to stop writing. There’s a song I love titled “More Than It Seems”. It’s by the group Kutless. There’s a verse that says, “Passing through the darkness into my own world will I, be more than when I left”. That verse has given me an idea for another novel. And when I'm done and I've written the best novel I can write, I'm going to write proposals and send to literary agents again. And I'm not going to stop till I get a 'Yes". Has the fact that some people think I don’t fit into their law firm made me doubt my abilities as a lawyer? No. Because I know that God and I make a good team. Recently, I have even begun to get leadings that maybe it’s time I and a few friends opened our own law firm.

Am I afraid of rejection? Yes. Am I afraid of failing? Yes. Then why am I going to put myself in the position of being hurt or rejected again? Because I know this is what I was born to do. To deal in words. And there’s nothing that is going to stop me fulfilling what I know to be my purpose. Not even fear. Because God loves me, he’s on my side and he’s cheering me on. And I believe like Paul said, that everything works together for our good. Even rejection.

What fear will you surmount?

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers, http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/. You can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal. 

Falling Away

Some months ago I read an article by Ed Stetzer. His article was in response to a report which said that the number of people who described themselves as Christian has fallen dramatically in the United States. More people than ever were now saying they had no religion. In his article, Mr. Stetzer pointed out the most important fact that most Christians do not talk about when wringing their hands at such statistics which they say point to a decline in Christianity in America and the West. The fact that going to church doesn’t really make you a Christian. What makes you a Christian is confessing Christ as your Lord and personal Saviour. Going to a church building, every week for 50 years does not confer honorary Christian status on you. You don’t become a fellow or an associate in Christianity by the number of years you attend church or the number of churches you attend. You must accept Jesus. That is the starting point. Then you have to live as he would have you live as revealed in his Word, not as your conscience dictates.

I must confess that I am mostly amused when a celebrity comes out and tells us how he or she is no longer a Christian and has found a new faith, either Islam or some new faddish new Eastern cult. Some talk about how they rejected Christianity and became atheists. And so they spend their lives fighting and trying to kill a God they say doesn’t exist in the first place. But when you look at their stories, you realise they were never Christians in the first place. They were just going to some church, marking time and thinking that made them Christians. When I was a young Christian, I used to ask myself, how could Jesus say there were only a few who would find and walk the path of salvation? How could he say that when they were billion of “Christians” the world over. As I have grown in the faith, I have realised the answer to that. Not everyone that goes to church knows who Jesus is. Our churches might be full but not everyone knows why they’re there.

Today I saw two Hare Krishna members. They passed me in a bus. I looked at them and it got me thinking. I didn’t know anything about them but there were some assumptions I made. I don’t think they were born into the religion, they were of a certain age which made me doubt their parents were of that religion. Which means that they converted. I made another assumption that they probably thought of themselves as “Christians” before they converted. As so I asked myself, why did they convert? What was promised to them, either about this life or the next? What were they looking for that they couldn’t or didn’t find in church? The book of James said we are drawn away from the faith by our lusts. Were they looking for “power” Or did someone promise them it was a way to escape poverty?

I didn’t speak to them but a thought came to my mind. Maybe they didn’t leave because they were looking for something. Maybe they thought they had found something. Maybe something called to them. They’re not celebrities who didn’t like the truth because it shone a too bright light on their deeds. Maybe they just found something that made them feel like they were something, part of a great plan. One could argue that maybe they if they had truly engaged with Jesus they wouldn’t have converted but I don’t somehow buy that. Unless of course they weren’t going to church.

I understand that for every leader and congregation, there will be a Judas. I also understand that the greater the congregation, the higher the number of Judases to be found. But the interesting thing is that the Judases stay in church and the ones who could be Peter get caught up in the lure presented by some other religion. But the question that I feel we need to ask is, are we doing enough to give people a sense of purpose? Is the church doing enough to help people feel connected to God? Why are people coming to church and not being touched? Are we presenting God accurately? The answers to that might help us show people a more perfect way.  

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers.http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/. You can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal

The Government

God is awesome.

I was recently thinking about how great God is. And how caring he is. In spite of how great and awesome he is, he still cares about the small details of our lives. Here is God, he creates this great world, he creates birds, cattle, the waters, plants, everything. And then he puts us, the zenith of creation into an already created world. We don’t have to worry about anything because everything we need is already provided for.

Even after the fall of Adam and his presence has gone far away, he still looks for a way to get close to us. He looks for a way to get us to look to him for all we need. He couldn’t find anyone capable enough to send to point us back to him. So he came himself in the form of a man. He came and instituted a government where he set himself up as king and based on his work on the cross, we became his heirs to the vast riches of his kingdom. Even though our old enemy has set up a parallel kingdom that sets out to deceive us parading as the truth, causing us grief and pain, the king assures us that if we trust in him and hold on to him to the end, we win. He assures us that there is nothing we can do or so that could make him love us more or less. He tells us that we don’t have to work to earn salvation. In fact, we can’t earn it. We can never deserve it but he has freely given it to us as a gift. He tells us that we shouldn’t work to be saved but we work because we are saved. He then tells us to get moving and go out into the world and bring other people into this kingdom.

Isn’t he awesome? 

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers.http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/. You can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal

He’s Waiting for You

                                                     

John 4:4 And he must needs go through Samaria

 At the beginning of chapter 4 of the book of John, we are told that Jesus is on his way to Jericho and that he needed to go through Samaria. On getting to Samaria, he sits at a well tired while he sends his disciples off to get food for them to eat. He’s seating there at the well and along comes a Samaritan woman to draw water from the well for her household. Jesus breaks the conversational ice by asking the woman for a drink of water. She expresses her surprise that Jesus as a Jew does not mind speaking to her, a Samaritan. A conversation then ensues between them with Jesus revealing the intimate details of her life, including the ones that were not so salubrious.

By the end of the conversation, Jesus reveals to her that he is the Messiah, the one sent by God to save the world from their sins. In the end, having been set free from her past, she runs into the city as a missionary declaring the Messiah to the men of a city. There is a belief that if you get a man to believe, you have also got his family to believe. In the end, the entire city was saved. By the time his disciples got back, Jesus was no longer hungry or tired. I do not believe that Jesus met the woman by chance. Jesus made it clear that he never did anything arbitrarily. The Bible tells us that he was the one who needed to pass through Samaria. We also know that he sent his disciples away while he sat and waited. He waited patiently for the woman he knew was going to be the first person at the well. He waited because of what he wanted to achieve in and through her life. In spite of the things that potentially disqualified her, Jesus knew what she was capable of achieving.  

God told Jeremiah that before he was formed in his mother’s womb, God had known him and ordained him a prophet to the nations. Isn’t it wonderful to know that there is a Saviour who knows us and what we are capable of, even when we look down on ourselves? Isn’t it great to know that there’s a loving God who even in depths of our sins or despair, is looking on lovingly as he waits patiently for us? He waits patiently for us even as we go about surfeiting and carousing even as he knows that he has so much better in store for us. All he’s asking is that we honestly seek for his help to be able to come through the things that are holding us back from being all he has called us to be.

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers.http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/. You can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal.  

The Internet and Us

Hebrews 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

The “world” referred to is not the Greek word kosmos which refers to the order or arrangement of things or more literally translated to mean the earth. The word “world” there is the Greek word aion which means an age or a period of time. This tells us that the different ages, times and dispensations are all created by the word of God. That tells me that the different times, dispensations and ages and the things we see in these different ages; the internet or the plane for example, were all created or brought into existence by the Word. I believe that God allows those things to exist in the time he wants them to exist.

On August 19, Anne Marie-Miller posted an article on her blog titled “Three Things You Don’t Know About Your Children And Sex (Here’s the link  http://www.annemariemiller.com/2013/08/19/three-things-you-dont-know-about-your-children-and-sex/. Forgive me, I’m not that techie to shorten the link. Hope to learn though). One thing that occurred to me was the danger that the internet posed to children and the Christian faith. Children are going to the internet to find out about things they learnt from their peers which they are too afraid to ask their parents. And Google or the internet does not discriminate. It doesn’t ask whether you’re supposed to be Christian or not. Typing an innocent word like “sex” into the search engine and Google will lead you down paths you never intended to walk. If you start young enough, by the time you’re an adult, it will be a struggle to leave those paths. I know a lot about that. Even when you’re on the straight and narrow, there’s something about the crooked path that calls out to you. There’s a lure about the path that we know we shouldn’t be on.

The internet on its own is like most things in the world, it doesn’t take sides. It’s passive. Forgive the analogy but the internet is like a gun. Michael Moore, the well known and award winning film and documentary maker recently said “Guns don’t kill people, Americans do.” He was referencing the fact that most violent crimes committed with guns leading to someone’s death are committed in America. I agree with Mr. Moore. Guns kill people. But the fact is that someone needs to hold that gun for it to be effective. Therefore I believe that more should be done to stop guns from getting into the hands of those who would use them to commit violent crimes. And the people who say they don’t want to use the guns to commit violent crimes should also be ready to suffer some inconvenience to ensure that it’s hard for the violent ones to lay hold of the guns and not just say it’s their right to bear arms.

I therefore believe that there is a responsibility on every person of the Christian faith to be conversant with the internet and social media to be able to engage with them in a responsible manner. I believe that not only should we engage with them but make use of them and post things on them that are relevant to our faith, especially on the internet. If our children go to the internet on a subject, wouldn’t we feel more comfortable to know that they were going to find something edifying rather than something that would lead to an unwholesome addiction? Addictions do not show on the surface. They simmer underground for years until they show up at the most inopportune times and destroy lives and relationships.

Someone recently pointed out that a lot of Bible verses are short enough to tweet. There’s nothing wrong with posting a chapter of the Bible on our Facebook pages. We are not of this world but we do live in it. I believe we have a responsibility not to run from the bad but to drop our own little bit of goodness and love into the oceans around us for the benefit of those we love.

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers.http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/. You can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal

Come Let Us Praise God

Psalm 150:6 "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord."

The above verse of Scripture which is the last verse of the last book of the Psalms admonishes us to praise God. The scripture enjoins us with something of a sense of urgency to offer praise to God and not to allow anything stop that praise. Interestingly unlike what a lot of people think, the verse of Scripture only gives one criteria for praising God. It has nothing to do with you and being happy or sad. It has nothing to with what God has done for us or what we perceive that he hasn't done. It has nothing do with what people think of God or not. The only criteria for praising God the Bible tells us is that of having breath in our lungs. Therefore it's not about how much money we have or what health issues we are facing that should determine whether we praise God or not. The only thing needed is to be alive. As long as we are alive and we have breath, we should praise God.

Looking at the Jewish words that are translated into praise in the Bible like halal, tehilah, barack, shabach and others, I have recently become convinced that it is more the norm to praise God with shouting, singing and dancing than it is to praise him silently. I personally begun to believe that we can't effectively praise God without some outward expression of the praise we are offering up to him. Even when the praise is rising from unmoving lips, the praise coming from our hearts will cause us to lift our hands in adoration. There must be some sort of response in us and from us in praise to God which manifests outwardly in a song, a dance or the raising up of hands. We cannot effectively praise God without an outward expression manifesting itself. Therefore when praising God, someone looking at us shouldn't have to ask what we are doing. It should be obvious. That in itself tells me something. It tells me that when we praise, the fact that we are going through trying times or terrible circumstances should not be obvious. Whether or not things are fine and dandy, our praise should not reflect our position but should reflect the goodness and glory of God and our love for him.

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers.http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/. You can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal.  

  

Saint Know Thyself

3 John 1:1  The elder unto the wellbeloved Gaius, who I love in truth

At first reading, a man calling himself “the elder” seems quite pretentious. However, when I continued to look at this scripture it occurred to me that the words were not those of an ego driven man but those of a man who knew who he was, his position in the scheme of things and the responsibility that came with that position. At the point he wrote the letter, he was probably old and nearer the end of his life than near the beginning of his ministry. He could have called himself an apostle, the one whom Jesus loved the most when he was alive, anything. However he chose to refer to himself as an elder. This doesn’t even begin to describe who he was to the church and what he had done. By this time he and Peter had healed the lame man at the Beautiful Gate. He had done many things by this time although he had not received the revelations detailed in the book of Revelations. He had seen many things, he had experience. He knew the power there is in the name of Jesus.

A man came to Israel and said he was the Son of God. He impacted the life of a dozen men, eleven of whom went on to do great works in his name. People were impacted by the lives of these eleven men such that men in exponential amounts began to follow the Jesus that these men preached. These men made such an impact on the world that in one of the places where they went to, they were described as the people who were turning the world upside down. These were men who were beaten, went to jail, suffered all kinds of deprivation yet they never lost sight of what they were, men and women who had been privileged enough to be called and chosen by God for his purpose. Nothing was too much for them to suffer to bring glory and honour to God. Some of them were killed for the sake of the message they proclaimed.

In today’s era of social media and being concerned about what people think of us, the question I ask of myself is: what am I ready to give up to serve and honour Jesus? What do I think is too much to do for God? What am I ready to suffer for Christ? The apostles of old were totally aware of whom they were in Christ. Paul understood that his identity was to be found not in any thing he had achieved but his identity was to be found in a God who loved him enough to send Christ to die for him. I believe the there was a direct proportional relationship between the revelation  these man had of God to the understanding of who they were in him which was directly proportional to the exploits they did in his name.   

Every day, I have to keep reminding myself that it’s not really about me, it’s about him and his purpose. Until I let go and stop struggling to find relevance for myself and realise that it’s about what he wants me to become, I will never truly find myself in him. I will continually struggle to live this life that he has given me. But like Paul, every day I press on that I may be found in him. Every day, I hope to grow in the knowledge in of God that I might truly fulfil the reason for the call on my life knowing that he who loves me and called me is cheering me on.

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers.http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/. You can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal. 

     

In His Presence

A few hours ago, I was listening to the song “I Am”, a song by Nicole Nordeman from her album, Woven & Spun. A part of the song talks about dying, leaving this world and going home to heaven. We have all heard it before. When a child or parent dies, the person left behind is told that the person who has died has gone to home to heaven. If we were to speak to most Christians, one would discover that most Christians think of heaven as home. That however is only partially right.

When one talks of home, one thinks of a place where one stays with family and loved ones on a permanent basis. One of the tenets of the Christian faith is the belief that Christ will return one day for a church without spot or blemish. A ready church. The book of Revelation tells us that Christ will come again for us and we will be with him where he is. But a careful reading of the book of Revelation however shows that heaven is not our permanent home. Heaven is for God. The White Throne judgment will take place in heaven after which those whose names are found in the Book of Life come back to earth with Christ. We understand that there will be a new heaven and a new earth and that instead of the moon and sun, Christ’s face, his presence will be our sun and our moon. The Apostle Paul said that to be absent from the body to be present with God. That tells me that heaven is something of a place where those that leave this world go to stay before Christ returns.   

All that got me thinking. Why do we like thinking that heaven is home? Simple. Because that’s where God is. We all want to be where God is. While listening to the song, it occurred to me that the thing we most long for (but at times we don’t know it) is the presence of God. While we long for God’s presence and the knowledge that he is with us, our bodies and the circumstances we go through in the flesh living on this earth do not let us realise or know that God is with us. We go through troubles and we ask ourselves, “Where is God in all these things I’m going through?”

But Jesus told us that God would send the Holy Spirit to be with us and we know that the Holy Spirit was sent at Pentecost. We know that God has given us the Holy Spirit as a gift, just as he gave us Christ as a gift. The Apostle Paul tells us that it’s a mystery, God being with us and living in us. We don’t therefore need to die and go to heaven to be in God’s presence. He is already with us, living in us. That is what we need to understand and believe right now. God loves us and his presence is with us. Jesus promised, “I will be with you, till the end of the age.” Take him at his word. 

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers.http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/. You can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal.  

All Of Us Are The Church

The Apostle Paul was quite different from the other Apostles. Unlike the others who had lived with Jesus and had developed a personal relationship with him based on proximity, Paul’s relationship with Jesus was based solely on revelation. Paul’s initial zeal in persecuting the early Christians was turned around and used in serving God. God saw his heart and turned him around because God saw his heart and understood that he did all he initially did out of a zeal for and a desire to please God. Unlike most of the Pharisees in Jesus days who loved themselves and wanted honour from men, Paul loved God. Therefore when God turned him around, he committed to Paul the deep revelations about the nature and structure of the Church and sent him as an Apostle to the Gentiles (that’s you and I).

Paul wrote most of the books of the New Testament. It was Paul that gave the analogy that the Church was like a body where everyone has something to contribute to the development of the Church. He therefore admonished that we should not think that one part of the body was more important than the other or that one part of the body was not needed. Unfortunately we have come to believe in the Church that the pastor is the most important person in the church because he feeds us with the word. I understand that the pastor is the person with the vision and the leader but I do believe that without people to help him achieve his vision, he would be a very frustrated person indeed. No matter how anointed a pastor is, he needs a choir leader and members, ushers, people to serve in the children’s ministry, even people to park cars and people to sit on the pews and listen to his message. In essence, we are all important in the Church of Christ. However, a note of warning. While we are all important, it is not about having a sense of pride in the fact. It’s about doing all that we are called to do with a sense of humility and thanking God for the privilege to serve. Someone recently said that even though God loves us, his investment in us is not solely because of that love. His investment in us is because of the purpose he seeks to achieve from our lives. What we are created for. If we fail to fulfil our purpose, God will find a replacement. Upon his triumphant entry into Jerusalem when the Pharisees were complaining about the people praising him, Jesus told them that if the people failed to praise God would cause the stones to praise.

When I go through a blog, I marvel at the number of people who criticise the Church. They have no church in which they are planted and all they can talk about is how no Church is good enough for their perfect natures. There is always a problem with somebody or everybody else. Either the pastor is wrong or the ushers are rude or the worship is not good enough. They criticise and complain and move from place to place, not setting down roots anywhere because there is just no church that can meet their high standards. Once in a while some go to a church so that it can’t be said they’ve forsaken the gathering of believers. They add nothing to the Church because they feel they’re not getting anything.  

I have come to understand that as long as men live, there will be problems with institutions. The high rate of divorce doesn’t mean there is a problem with marriage. The problem is not with the institution called marriage but with the people who get into it. Good sex cannot be the basis for marriage. Marriages mostly collapse because people do not know the reason for marriage neither do they understand that marriage is about the other person, not you. As long as we live in the flesh, there will be problems in the church. What we need more of is not the spirit of criticism or self-righteousness. We need less of finger pointing. We need more of people speaking in love. We need more of people praying for their leaders and the church.  We need more people led not by the spirit of their own self-importance but by the Holy Spirit who is always ready to help us. We need more of people practising biblical Christianity and not thinking it’s just an opinion we can ignore. We need more people with patience who led by the Holy Spirit are ready to change the things that are wrong.

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers.http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/. You can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal. 

Mix and Match

In the first book of Joshua, God instructs Joshua to meditate on his words and tells him that if he wants to have good success he should continually think on God’s word. Every major religion or faith has its major precepts and one of the major precepts of the faith known as Christianity is the Word of God. Our faith tells us the Holy Bible is God’s word. The Apostle Paul tells us that the word of God is given to us for correction, direction, inspiration. The Bible continually tells us to meditate on God’s word. We understand that Christian meditation involves the internalisation of God’s word by the constant muttering and recitation of the word.

However Christianity is not the only religion that uses meditation. Most, if not all Eastern religions also use meditation. Personally, I believe that meditation no matter the religion in which it is practiced, is all about connecting with something outside of yourself or opening yourself up for something to inhabit you. In essence, I believe that meditation, no matter the way it is practiced is spiritual. You don’t have to be a recognised adherent of a religion or faith to practice it. Therefore I believe you don’t have to be a recognised practicing Buddhist to practice Buddhism. All you need to do is adhere to certain aspects or teachings of the religion. And one of the teachings of Buddhism and most Eastern religions is the use of meditation to find inner balance or peace. Therefore to my mind, when you say you’re a Christian and you’re also meditating the Buddhist way, it means you’re not really sure which religion you’re practising.

Many years ago I listened to a programme where the person with the record for the most days spent without eating was being interviewed. Incidentally, the person was a Buddhist. He had managed to go a hundred days without eating. He had managed to do it by a lot of meditating. Some people would argue that Jesus and a whole host of people in the Bible were able to fast for forty days. Exactly! Which is my point. Jesus and the others had the Holy Spirit. I personally do not believe that a person can voluntarily go that long without food unless he has something or someone aiding him.

David said in the Psalms that God keeps those whose minds are stayed on him in perfect peace. I therefore believe that God’s plan through his word, Spirit and presence is to help people achieve peace and balance in their lives. However he can only help us achieve this when we look to him and not to some New Age mixture of religions. The Bible says that God is peace. Therefore there is really no amount of peace we can search for that we will find outside of him. God is also only a payer away. We don’t need to run to some other god or gods to find him. He lives in us. That’s how close to us he is.

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers.http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/. You can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal.