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.