Winning the World to Christ One Loving Act at a Time

When I read through the scriptures and see how Christ interacted with the different people of the lands and how accepting he was I often sit back and reflect on how I act with others I come across. He was so open to accepting people no matter what their status or race was in life. One of my favorite stories is of him eating with the tax collectors and how the Pharisee’s were ridiculing him. In that day tax collectors were not nice men and inflicted much pain and grief on the people they collected from.

If a person couldn’t pay they would take their possessions or at times their children as a payment. I love his comment back to the Pharisee’s, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick” (Mathew 9:10-12 NIV). He didn’t come just to hang out with the righteous; he came to hang out with the people who needed to hear from him the most. You see Jesus knew the one personality trait of God that would shine the brightest out of all of them. The one personality trait which all others would revolve around, even discipline: love.

He showed how we should love one another as the Son of God sent from Heaven by God himself knelt down and washed the feet of his apostles as an example of love. I want you to take a moment and think of the power this word holds, and how much of an impact one can have by looking for an opportunity to share it freely. I love Paul’s explanation of love in Romans 12:9-20; I encourage you to read this passage.

I don’t care how busy your life is, there are abundant ways to allow God’s light to shine through you with one loving act at a time. My wife impressed me the other day when she told me how she was trying to show the love of god to others. She has a huge fear of getting in front of other to minister but wanted to show a little God love. Her ministry was every pay day when she treated herself to a little Mickey D’s she would simply ask the cashier if she could pay for the person’s meal behind her in the drive thru. Almost every time she has to repeat herself because the cashiers were always blown away by her simple act of kindness.

My wife only request that when the person asks why their meal was paid for the cashier reply, because God loves you. I myself have experienced a loving act that had an impact on me. We bought a house not to long ago and didn’t have all of the items needed for a house, like a lawn mower. Our grass grew pretty long and one day I came home and it was cut. I thought my wife got fed up and bought a lawn mower. I later learn my neighbor had cut it. He never mentioned anything about it; in fact he cut it again later on that month. I was so touched that when I bought a mower I made sure to pay him back with some good lawn care myself.

This would become contagious and more neighbors began to help others out because of the kindness my neighbor had started with me. My wife and I are always on the lookout for different ways to help bring back the culture of brotherly love to those around us. I encourage you to do the same. If you see a neighbor that could use a hand why not extend yours. If you here of a co-worker going through a hard time, why not lend a shoulder to lean on? If you see family going through a hard time financially and you have some cash to spare, why not leave an envelope in their mail box with a couple bucks to help brighten their day.

Maybe you know of a neighbor whose been laid off, why not bring them over dinner? Mathew sums this up beautifully for us in Chapter 6:1-4

1"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

We all have the capability to show a little love throughout our community and by being consistent, our impact can be great. God Bless

We Are Truly Blessed

It has been a while since my last blog because I have wanted to make sure what I write had a purpose and my blog didn’t turn into another boring religious blog. Recently I had the opportunity to teach an evangelism class at church. The goal of this class was to help people see through the eyes of their demographic and practice the approach Jesus took.

If you follow Jesus foot steps and how he interacted with people, he was very laid back and showed interest in them whole heartily, looking to build relationships with his people. It was through these relationships he was able to show them how God fit into their lives. He ate with tax collectors, talked with prostitutes, walked through towns no Jew of his time would walk through, and talked with people others turned their faces to. His heart was open to anyone who had a listening ear, and he made sure he understood his audience before he spoke.

The class is a four week course and in week four the class goes out and helps out a ministry to put what they learned to the test. We choose to help out City on A Hill, and it was here that I realized how lucky and unworthy I really am. You see City on A Hill is a ministry that helps the homeless and financially hurting on the North Side of Milwaukee. They touch all aspects of helping these individuals from holding medical clinics, handing out food, hosting great meals, clothes, and so much more.

Our job was to sit down at the tables of those eating, chat with them and see where we could pray for them. I was so excited because as most know I’m a yapper, but most of all I love bringing a little light into the lives of those that could use a good laugh. The first thing that hurt my heart was seeing a cafeteria filled to the brim of people without jobs and shelter waiting for the best meal they will have for the month. I choose to sit down at a table with two older gentlemen and asked if I could join them, they agreed.

My goal isn’t to hit them with scripture, or bible beat them, I wanted to get to know them on a personal level and understand what they were going through. The first gentleman had a smile on his face and I asked him what was making him so chipper, His reply was he was blessed. When I asked how he was blessed he said he knows God loves him because he has his health, a place to sleep, a set of clean clothes, and a place to go for a warm meal. He looked at me and whispered, “Do you know there are people in other countries so poor they are forced to eat mud mixed with sugar called mud pies, I haven’t been that poor before”.

Here’s a man who is experiencing greater poverty then I have ever had to go through considering himself blessed and through the simplest items seeing the love of God in his life. I felt so unworthy to even sit down and pray for this man. Here I am driving in my car, going back to my house filled with food and material items with a closet full of clean clothes, with the ability to wash them with my washer and dryer, money in the bank, and food we waste on a daily basis. It was then I realized how much I take for granted in life.

As the day progressed I had the privilege to chat with many awesome people and hear the pains they were facing. The theme to the message put in my heart was never give up on God, he hears your prayers, and feels your pain.

Mathew 6:25-34 – a scripture I live by

25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life[b]?


28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

You may have prayed the same prayer 100 times with no answer, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. I was shocked how none I talked to spoke out against God with their situation and most still believed in the power of prayer, and still had their faith.

I must admit I ended up leaving 20 minutes early, because my heart couldn’t bare seeing all this pain while I was taking for granted how blessed I really was. My whole car ride home I prayed out for the individuals I talked to who needed a job, homes, health coverage, etc…and I ended it by thanking him for what Hannah and I have been blessed with and so unworthy to have.

It was such a humbling experience, and I think I will be back volunteering at City on A Hill next month. I encourage all reading this to think about your life and take an opportunity to thank God for how good you have it, for the food in your stomach, for the roof over your head, for the money you may be receiving, for the job you may have in this hard economy, for the interview you have lined up, for your health you may have, or the car you may be driving, for the family you may be blessed with, or for how far he has taken you from your old self, for the relief of any addictions, or the reuniting of your marriage, what ever God has done in your life don’t take it for granted and don’t be selfish with it either. Give to those who need it the most. God bless

Tests of a Lion, Struggles of a Man

In my last couple of blogs I have touched on my experience as a Christian and what led me to believe in the bible. It has been a little over a year since I decided to buckle down and give it my all. It hasn’t been an easy ride, and on the way I have lost some friends and family.

The hardest part has been biblical accountability. You see it is very easy to pull the wool over the eyes of those around you, and have them think you are a wonderful Christian when in reality you are living a live outside of its creeds. That’s what kind of life I was living for a long time before December 2, 2009. My struggle is knowing that God sees all, and when I purposely go against his word he is watching me, and inside I know it is breaking his heart.

The bible says the devil’s sole purpose on earth is to continuously bombard us with trails, tribulations, temptations, and so on in an effort to cause us to turn back to our old ways, question our beliefs, and in turn become his again. The hard part is he never sleeps, grows tired, and has millenniums of experience through trail and testing on how to stop our walk with God, and knows more about us then we know about ourselves.

1 Peter 5:8 sums this up best, “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” Throughout this year I have had my fair shake of temptations and battles that some may find trivial, but to me they seemed like warfare. One was smoking. I came across a scripture in 1 Corinthians that kind of put me in a battle between my hearts desires and what I knew what was right.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20: 19Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

My body does not belong to me? I am not my own? What does this mean? As I thought back to my prior readings I would think about the person that brought me to God, Jesus Christ. He had given his life in sacrifice so we all could be washed clean from the sin of our ancestors, our sins, and so we could have that one on one relationship with God. This would be the sacrifice of all sacrifices and would be for all of mankind both past present and future.

That sacrifice also sealed us as his children and they very life we have was given to us by God, therefore my body isn’t mine its God’s. By smoking I knew I was slowly destroying it, I could feel the effects of smoking with each puff I took. But I liked to smoke, it was a big part of my life and that’s where my battle stirred. Once again I had biblical accountability, I could fake out others into believing I had quit but I knew God knew the truth. My main concern was my relationship with God, and how could our relationship grow if I was willfully destroying the very body he blessed me with, a body he watched his son Jesus endure torture for?

So I prayed out to God and asked him to change my heart from desiring cigarettes. I would find myself going a couple of days without cigarettes to buying them, throwing away the pack after a couple out of guilt, to buying some again the next day and totally becoming frustrated. But the whole time I kept praying for strength and finally omitted I couldn’t do it on my own anymore. I literally needed super natural strength not to smoke again. Then one day I woke up and my body didn’t desire a cigarette anymore, poof it was gone. I could be around others who smoked and it didn’t bother me, and for the last six months I have been smoke free.

You see I was learning that my relationship with God had to be pure if I wanted this relationship to grow. I couldn’t pick and choose what I wanted to follow, or try to customize my walk with God according to what fit and what didn’t and that’s hard. It has been a hard year because as I continued my bible reading I would learn that certain lifestyles I was living or partaking of interfered with my walk with God, and with each one I struggled because I knew I had to either change it, or in some cases remove it all together.

But none of these changes or choices no matter how hard are regrettable to me, they have only made my life better in the long run, or helped me become a better person. Sure I have received some ridicule from some friends and family. I have lost some friendships, and at times I feel as if I don’t quite fit in certain circumstances, but the bible tells us that this is something that will happen. My number one concern in this life is my relationship with God. I look at him as my literal father in Heaven who has been there for me and my family more then words could ever explain.

I know some people think that’s a bunch of squat, and I wish I could allow people to experience what I have since I have decided to give God my all. It is an experience no one will ever understand until they themselves go through it. I can honestly say I now feel like I understand life and have found a purpose and I challenge anyone reading this to pick up a bible and start with Mathew and give God a chance. Listen to what you read and try to implement the scriptures into your life and you come across them.

I guarantee by the time you hit Revelation your life will be 180 degree’s different then what it was when you started. Your eyes will have a new purpose and life will mean so much more then it did before. For those reading this that may already be on their journey with God I encourage you to never give up your walk and always put God first in everything you do. Husbands lean on God for an example of how to be a humble and loving leader, parents never tire of training up your children according to God’s word so they to will raise their children accordingly, neighbors always look for an opportunity to let God shine through your loving acts towards one another so people can see how much God loves them through you.

Thanks for reading my blog and please let me know your thoughts, or questions

Why Christianity Part III

Why Christianity Part III – So here I am in the beginning of a journey that has truly changed my life. All my life I had been around God, going to church here and there, being a Sunday Christian. My choices always seemed to lead to pain, and my heart was only focused on me. I knew something had to change and I knew I had to give this God thing a chance.

Instead of looking for a new religion, or a new doctrine that catered to what I was looking for, I decided to start this new adventure at the source by reading the bible. One thing that has always bothered me is how people only base their faith on what they hear from family, friends, or from the pulpit, never looking into the bible to make sure what they were learning was correct. I was guilty of this all my life. I wanted to start from the source and work my way out.

I asked my pastor for any suggestions on a good study bible and he pointed me to the “Life in the Spirit Study Bible”, edited by Donald C Stamps and Wesly Adams, and published by Zondervan. I started with the Book of Mathew since the New Testament relates most to our day today. I would hear sermons from Jerry Brooks Pastor of Oak Creek Assembly of God, as he would always encourage people to do their own personal study of the bible and how God tends to speak to us through his scripture.

As I started to begin my studies I could see this happening in my life. In the beginning my readings seemed boring to me, then they turned into interesting stories, and morphed into poetic words starting to grab a hold of my heart in a way I still can’t put into words today. The story of Jesus started to cause a battle with in my heart, a battle that was starting to consume me on a daily basis. The first battle was over true repentance.

Repentance – The act of a person seeking forgiveness from God because of a sin committed against the word of God. Act’s 17:30 lays this out nicely, “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.” Many religions teach that all you have to do is confess you sins to someone, do some prayers and bam a person is forgiven. That is not the case, true repentance is followed by a sincere desire to never repeat the sin you are seeking forgiveness for.

That’s what I was battling, some of the actions I knew I need forgiveness for were actions I was having a hard time giving up. But I had a desire in my heart not to repeat this actions again so at night I got on my hands and knees and confessed everything I had done against him and asked him to forgive me and help me to never repeat the actions that were causing me to sin against him. I tell you after I was done I felt like I had 1,000 lbs lifted off of my shoulders.

The problem I was facing as I continued with my readings is I was really starting to feel this new love for God in a way I never had before. It was a feeling that I don’t think anyone can really put in words or appreciate until you feel it for yourself. I would read how God was a loving God whose only desire was to have an Earth full of his children who he could love, and in term love him back. I would read that satan had ruined that for mankind and God had a plan to get us back to where he had us. I would read how God wasn’t this all terrible being who desired to cause destruction upon the world but was in fact quiet the opposite. I began to see God through a different set of eye’s and understand why this world was turning into what it is. I started to understand why there is so much pain, suffering, hatred, poverty, and plain out chaos in this world today. The bible addressed this all.

I knew I had come to a cross roads in my new adventure. At this point I was still one foot in church and one foot in the world. I knew that if I was going to continue reading on that I had a choice to make, a choice…the biggest choice I would ever make.

Some people call this choice the prayer of salvation, or the choice to dedicate your life to God. It’s a serious choice because when you choose this route you are telling God that from this point onward you are going to live life according to his word, your life will be dedicated to him. It almost like asking your girlfriend to marry you. There’s a difference between dating and marriage and a huge difference in the comment level of the two.

I struggled with this because there were some things about this world that I was still attracted to and I didn’t think I could live a life in which I wouldn’t make mistakes, and I….well I didn’t want to fail God. Then I read the book of Romans, my favorite book of the bible, a book that helped me to understand where I stood with God a lot better. Why you may ask, because Paul goes on to show how every person in this world both past, present, and future has and will fall short of the Glory of God. He also went on to show that it is not through our actions that allows us our relationship with God, because in reality we all sin against God everyday most times without even knowing it.

Jesus died for our sins which covered all mankind, and it is through Christ that all mankind is redeemed. What does that mean? First read Romans 5:1-10. That means that we will always mess up in life because were not perfect, and that’s what repentance is for. Because Christ died for you, God now openly forgives those that earnestly seek him in true repentance. Go on to read Romans 6:1-23 compliments this discussion perfectly..

After I realized that my relationship with God was far less stressful then I was torturing myself with I new I had to do the next step. On December 3, 2008 at 7:00pm at church I privately prayed out to God first asking him to forgive me for all the things I have done against him, second I told him I believed Jesus lived and died for our sins, and thirdly I told him that my life was his and from this day onward I would do my best to live according to his scriptures and asked him for the strength to represent him in the best manner I could.

That was a year ago and this last year of my life has been the best ever. I haven’t touched an alcoholic drink since then, God helped me quit smoking, my marriage is the best it ever has been, I was blessed with a baby boy, I was promoted to wonderful job, we bought a house, I watch my mother’s life change dramatically as she not only starting coming to church but three months ago she gave her life to God, I watched my little sister follow in her foot steps, and my other sister go on to get baptized as well.

For all those reading this that are not sure about my testimony, by a good study bible and give God a try. It will be a life altering experience. God bless.

Why Christianity Part 1

As you can tell this blog started off as a journal documenting my thoughts as I began to read the Old Testament, but I thought it would be better to journal my life experiences as a Christian instead. Over the centuries Christianity has gotten a bad wrap and has participated in some of the worst events kown to mankind in the name of God. In fact, my conversations with individuals on religion and the bible have resulted in many painful testimonies as people recounted their experiences with religion.

I myself have my own painful experiences with religion that are still haunting me today. You see I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, and from this point I will refer to them as JW’s. My grandparents, cousins, mother, and other relatives on my mother’s side of the family were all JW’s. I became very active in this organization and was baptized at 16 and Auxiliary Pioneering by 17 (this is like being a part time missionary in your state).

I truly believed that I was a part of the only true Christian religion on Earth, and all others were Satan’s attempts to remove us from God’s true religion. As I got older and began to read the bible myself I would start to question the JW’s doctrine. I would start to see their punishments for sin, and how un-loving and opposite from God’s nature they were. As I kept reading the bible I came to a conclusion that God’s number one quality was love and all personality traits evolved around this concept of love, including discipline. Love is a simple word with such a complex meaning behind it, I could literally devote pages to this one word and its true meaning.

As I got older I decided that the JW’s were more like a cult than a religion and used the bible as a means of control in an extreme way, instead of helping one to grow in their personal walk with God. I never doubted that there was a creator to this world, I don’t care how much science there is; in my eyes none of their arguments can answer the question of creation the way the bible does.

Because of my decision not to be a JW my family has decided to outcast me and eventually I was disfellowshipped. In my families eye’s I am dead and they are not to talk to me in any way shape or form, or they themselves could face disfellowshipping. If I was in the hospital dying none would visit, if I was starving none would feed me, if I needed a place to live none would open their door. In fact in their eyes if Armageddon were to happen today I would be destroyed. Like I said God is love and according to his word his son Jesus died so that we could be forgiven unconditionally once we sincerely repented to God, not man, for our sins.

I have been married for three years and have a 10 month old son whose picture is my profile picture. To this day none on my mother’s side has seen either one. So I to know how it feels to have been wronged in the name of God, God never intended families to be separated in his name.

So why….why would I choose to be apart of a religion that has wronged so many people throughout its history? Why would I be a part of a society that is responsible for more deaths then all the wars of the US combined, because I believe in the source of their knowledge, the bible. You see it was Jesus’ apostles in the book of Acts 11:26 that called themselves Christians. According to http://www.merriam-webster.com their definition of Christian is “one who professes belief in the teachings of Jesus”. So you see in Jesus time there was only one Christian teaching (or religion), and that was the apostles of Christ. There was no Catholic, Baptist, Pentecostal, JW’s, Mormons, Evangelical, Unitarianism, Methodism, just students of Christ and the knowledge they just learned from him.

I believe, and once again this is just me, that religion is Satan’s tactic to take the word of God and his image and destroy it. Think about it, every Christian religion thinks theirs is the only way, none really have love for one another even though Paul teaches we are to be like one body under Christ, read Romans chapter 12:4-8. Religions tend to concentrate more on their doctrine and their laws then what the bible teaches. Most of all religion separates everyone from one another, and love and unity we are all suppose to have is gone. This includes all religions such as Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc.

I hate to stop here but there's much more to write.  In "Why Christianity Part II I want to touch on Church and how it is a vital part of being a christian and what lead me to believe in all of this good stuff.  I promise it will be good reading.

 Continued on Why Christianity Part II Coming Soon

Why Christianity Part II

Why Christianity Part II – This discussion is why did I choose to become a Christian. In the past blog I touched on my experiences with religion and how religion has hurt more people in the name of God then anything else. I am not bashing churches, just organized religious concepts. There is a difference between church and religion.

Religion is a structure that cultures, communities, and or person(s) people create. It is their interpretation of the bible and their organizational structure of how its followers should live. Church in Christ time was a place in which individuals would meet to learn about God’s word and the concentration was set around a community of people who would help one another grow in their individual walk with God. It was also a place for people to gather and devote some personal time to worship God and increase their knowledge of the knowledge handed down to them.

There was structure, there was punishment for disobedience. Punishment wasn’t physical harm but more isolation like. For instance in 1 Corinthians 5:1-12 Paul looks at how the church was suppose to deal with those who openly lived against the bible and had no desire to live according to it’s laws. In 2 Corinthians 2:5-11 he expands his thoughts on discipline in the church. Once again we can see the love of God in these verses as he instructs them not to overwhelm the individual who may be at fault but forgive and comfort him so he will not become overwhelmed by excessive sorrow, and they were to reaffirm their love for the individual. Much like how parents would discipline their children.

Church is supposed to be a place of joy where people of like mind would gather in unified worship of their heavenly father. If it wasn’t for church I wouldn’t be writing this today. I guess in a way you can’t have church without religion, but I think I have found the closest thing to it in my church. So how did I get her, how did I get to a point where I could absolutely believe in the bible to the point of sacrificing my relationship with my own relatives as in the first blog? Why would I choose to live a lifestyle that is so opposite from the society I live in? Why not just live life to the fullest and enjoy all the pleasure available in the world today, besides we only live once right and life is short?

As I mentioned I was always around the bible in some way shape or form my whole life but never took a hold of it. I enjoyed drinking, smoking, partying, sleeping around, basically I enjoyed not being accountable to anything other then my moral conscious. That’s the thing about the bible once you read it you begin to see your accountable to God for your actions. As I got older I met my wife and she was a semi-religious lady at the time who was going through a rebellious phase in her life. We met at a club and started dating. Not the prime area to meet someone.

Our first three year would be on and off partly because we both were to self center and could never look past our own desires. After a while my wife got sick of the life we were living and wanted to go back to the Christian life she lived previously. So I started attending church with her to avoid arguments in our relationship. I wasn’t going because I wanted to; I was going to make her happy. That became a problem because her heart was in it and she wanted to start living a cleaner lifestyle which meant no more partying, having sex before we were married, etc. That’s were the problems began again, because I was still living this life and didn’t want it to change, so eventually we ended up breaking up because my wife wanted to be in a relationship with a person with equal morals. She still loved me tremendously but we would never work out with such different morals.

Before we broke up church was starting to make a dent in my heart and I was agreeing with the messages, but I never took it upon myself to make a one on one relationship with God, I was a Sunday Christian…come Monday I was back to being a non-Christian. But even as we were broken up I still desired to go to church, it was something about that two hour period in which you could close your eye’s and let the songs sink into your heart and hear all this wonderful news out of the bible that I loved.

So I continued to go to church on my own, but I hadn’t made it my own. I was still out there living the same life which was still opposite then what the bible was teaching and I knew it. I started to think I could never be a Christian or live the life that God wanted me to because I loved the sins of the world to much to let them go. Then one day 8 months after being broken up, which from day one my wife never saw or talked to me not once during this time, she showed up out of the blue.

Long story short things got a little better and a couple years later we got married, but during this time I slower went back to my old ways and my wife was miserable. Then something happened, a bad night that changed the rest of my life. It was December of 08 and I was out with some friends of mine clubbing it as I usually do and my wife was at home pregnant with my son. I was drinking and having what I thought was a good ol time as I became plastered.

During this period I believe my friends and I got into a verbal dispute with some other group of guys. As we were leaving the club four deep we were confronted by eight of these guys. One thing led to another and a real messy fight erupted. The only thing I could think is getting my car and grabbing my friends and burning rubber. As I ran to get my car I looked back to see a group of four guys chasing after me and eventually they caught up to me a couple blocks away in one of the nastiest darkest alleys in a neighborhood with a dangerous reputation.

I was face t face with these guy, and drunk as a skunk. What was racing through my heart is there is a chance I am going to be killed and two things rushed through my mind in those hard seconds…..if I die I know I am going to Hell, and my wife will have to raise our son alone with a $12 an hour job. I was eventually over taken by this group and they proceeded to do their best on me. In my mind I prayed out to God and I made a promise to him that I have kept to this day. I promised him that if he saved my life I would never drink again and I would try my best to live a better life for him.

All this was happening for about 10 second in an alley with no lights were no would see us, where they could of taken there time. After I prayed, and I mean the second I was finished something had spooked these guys to the point where they didn’t just stop, they took off like a bat out of hell. They ran so fast that they didn’t even bother to open the gate as they took off. I believe to this day God somehow scared the ba-jesus out of them somehow because when I got up there was no one around us, no cars, no light, nothing to cause these guys to take off the way they did. I ended up walking to a police station because I was pretty beat up and calling my wife. I knew my life would be changing when my wife walked in the police station as the view of her pregnant, scared, and full of tears came across my eyes.

This is where my story really takes place in Why Christianity Part III

The Seperation of The Good and The Not So Good

So we have seen the creation of the Earth and the rise and fall of Adam and Eve. To date Adam and Eve have disobeyed the one command that God gave them, don’t eat the fruit. At this point in Genesis chapter five they have been banished out of the Garden of Eden and have been cursed to work the land, which won’t be an easy task since God cursed the land (read Genesis 3:17-19).

Eve would be cursed as well and all women today still experience the increased pains of child bearing, I guess child birth was never to be a hurtful experience. Adam and Eve also inherited a new gene in their DNA called “sin”. It was a result of ingesting the fruit from the Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Bad”. Sounds like a roman play up till now, but as we will see their children would go on to manifest sins side effects as we witness the first murder in the bible, and the lineage of Cain vs. Seth.

In chapter five we begin to read about the birth of Cain and Abel. We see that there is a big difference between the two of them. Cain is a farmer who reminded me of the problem child because in verse six we see God asking him why he is angry, and his face down casted. God goes on to tell him

• “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”

Sounds simple but this advice is the theme to the bible, and life on this planet as we know it no matter what country, religion, or culture you live in. If you obey the rules, or live an obedient life, will you not be accepted? Will your life not be better, will you face less hardships, less headaches? YES. It’s what God said afterward that I see applying to our lives today

• "But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”

Even though the bible at this point doesn’t state that it was mandatory for burnt offering in this phase in history we see the two of them brought forth their offering to God. Abel bought the best and FIRST portion of his flock, while Cain brought the left over’s from his field. Cain became ticked when God rejected his offering because it wasn’t an offering of meaning or from the heart.

In this period up until the death of Christ you were to provide a sacrifice of your best fruits (ex: best of your heard, best of your harvest), you were to give God the first of your fruits. Today we can see this in tithing in a way. This is where a person would give the first 10% of their wealth to God, usually in the form of a donation to a church for most people. Tithing doesn’t atone for anyone’s sin, but the theory is close.

You see sin is a contagious disease that causes a person to want to buck the system or become disobedient to their culture. Sin also causes a person to do unthinkable things as Cain soon would kill Abel over jealousy. That’s what God’s advice in verse seven is so important for all of us.

• Sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”

I can tell you from experience that a Christian lifestyle is one of the hardest lifestyles to live. As you will see you choose to live a life outside of what’s considered the norm in our culture. Let’s take a closer look

• It’s normal to hold a grudge to someone, or hate someone you consider an enemy

• It is a norm to go out and drink to the point of intoxication

• It’s a norm for people to have casual sex, in fact it’s so much of a norm it is expected in today’s culture

• It’s becoming more of a norm for individuals in marriage to cheat and have affairs, come on it seems like the number reason why people get divorced

• On that note, it’s a norm for marriages to end in divorce ( over 50% end up failing)

• My sister is 12 years of age, and it’s already a norm for girls her age to have sex, sleep with individuals of the same sex, do drugs, and much much more.

• It’s a norm to include vulgar language in one’s vocabulary

• I could go on for ever

Now I’m not judging anyone who has participated or is participating in any of the above listed activities but all of these go against what God asks us not to do in his book. In fact, most people start out parent hood trying to teach their children not to grow up and live out these acts as well.

You literally have to learn how to master and take control of your body and its desires vs. allowing your body to control you off of what it wants. We see Cain lost that ability and ends up murdering his brother.

At this point in time God was still very active with mankind and dealt with them one on one just like a real father. His punishment for Cain, his trade would never work again. All he knew was how to farm and God would make it so he would never be able to make the ground produce his food, and his wages since he would use his crops to barter.

God would banish Cain from his presence and restore his plan for the birth of Christ through Adam and Eve’s newborn Seth. One thing I have learned through my readings of the bible is many people have tried to stop the will of God, which was to create Earth, create mankind as his children to worship him and give them a world beyond imagination giving them their every desire, including satan.

No matter what God’s will endure on. His will immediately after Adam and Eve sinned was the birth of his son Jesus Christ to redeem mankind from the mistakes of Adam and Eve. As you will notice our time frame and God’s is very different and his plans usually take a llllooooonnngggg time to come to a completion. Please let me know what you think of my writings and how I can make them better. As I have mentioned this is me putting my thoughts and putting them onto paper as I read through the bible and as I continue my walk as a Christian. Next time we look at Chapter five and the flood in chapter six