I, Pharisee

The nights are getting longer. The wind is getting colder. The schoolwork's getting harder. Free time is getting shorter . . . . and blog posts are becoming less. It's like I have one finger stuck in every plate of food out there, and it's crazy!

Tonight, though, when I finally decided to sit down and write a new blog post instead of work on my homework, it took a while to decide one what to write. For a while I just sat here, leaning back in my chair, wrapped in a blanket, and thinking over any ideas that have been repeating themselves in my life lately. Is there something prominent in my day-to-day life that I've been struggling? If so, how am I supposed to put it into words?

I began to drift off into thinking over everything I had to do, every assignment, every task. That led me to thinking about my different classes- the upcoming tests, the dreaded units in the near future, the stress of the fast-paced teaching . . . .

Then I thought with a sickening feeling, the kids I knew who had missed a bunch of school. Even those kids who I knew weren't getting the material as quickly as would be preferred . . . so I thought about them for awhile. The more I thought about them, the more I wondered about them. A few of them, I automatically thought as people who probably didn't care about school. Right away, in my mind, I pictured some other students in my school.

Then my mind clouded with stories- mainly rumours that I've heard travelling around the school about some of those kids. Even some warnings from my parents entered my head.

I imagined what their home life was like. Where did they go after school, anyways? Suddenly, I realized that I had no clue. In fact, do I ever see them outside of school? The only way I hear about what they're up to is from gossiping lips, or principle announcements.

I thought back to all those shocking stories, most of which had never been confirmed nor denied, but simply hung over the person's head like a neon sign saying, "Did you hear what this teen did?!"

At once I was engrossed in these thoughts. How could they do such a thing? What if I was ever like that? I was horrified by the thought that some people could be so "good" in school, but have a completely different lifestyle the moment they left the school grounds. It scared me. I began to think badly of them.

I thought they had changed. I thought they were actually becoming closer to God. By the looks of things, it was all a lie. Why would I want to be with people like that? People always say it's easier for someone to pull you down than it is for you to pull that someone up. I will have nothing to do with them- they're probably a bad influence.

For a while I sat, my eyes glazed over, staring into space. My mind was awhirl with conclusions about those individuals, and my heart was set on staying away from them, and though I didn't recognize it, I was passing judgment on them.

Through random brain connections, I began to ponder over my recent Student Council Leadership Retreat to Camp Caroline. I thought of the great speaker, the lessons I learned, the amazing worship, and sweet fellowship with great friends. I thought of church this morning, and realized that the sermon was similar to what the speaker at the retreat had talked about. I thought back to just two hours ago- youth group. And with growing excitement, found a huge connection. Everything that I had been listening to, just in the past four days, had been totally centered on love! Coincidence? Nah... there are no coincidences.

Okay. So, about love. I was about to prepare for this blog post with renewed vigour, but was stopped short by a glance at my Facebook. I saw a name. It triggered my thoughts from before. I felt contempt and distrust. I was growing annoyed with reading all these things I most certainly didn't agree with. I was so disgusted with these things that were being posted, that I moved to 'block' them from my newsfeed. I've done it before, and it helped alot. Why feed my mind with junk that shouldn't even be mentioned in the first place?

Back to writing about love. Hmm... why did I suddenly feel very hypocritical? I thought I was following what the bible said:

Ephesians 5:11~

Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness

but rather, expose them.

Okay, done. In fact, why don't I just 'unfriend' that person altogether? It's not like they are really trying to be a Godly person, it's not like they are that nice to me anyways . . . . what's the point? They probably wouldn't even notice.

Plus, I hear lots of adults cautioning against following people like that. They're dangerous! Who knows what kinds of things they're doing in secret? Everyone knows they're a bad kid. Might as well stick to people who will encourage me in my faith, not influence me to turn away.

I mean, that's what Jesus would do, isn't it? Look at all the times in the bible that He left those who were evil sinners! It says right there in... chapter... uhhh... does it even say that anywhere? Well, I remember that one story- that cheat Zaccheus. Oh wait, never mind... He hung out at Zach's house for supper . . . . Well that was probably because He felt sorry for the little man. It's not like He actually wanted to be friends with such a liar. Hah! Here! Levi the tax collector. He was no doubt a lying, deceiving, stealing criminal. Surely, Jesus wouldn't have anything to do with his fruitless deeds of darkness . . . oh. Never mind, again. What is this?

Mark 2:13-17 ~

13 Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.

15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Ooooookay, then. So, Jesus, this guy that I'm trying to be like, is a "Friend of Sinners?" What is up with that? Is there any place where He actually tells off someone who is doing wrong? There's gotta be! Oh. Here it is. Hmmm....

Matthew 23:25-28~

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Shoot. That's kinda starting to sound like me. I thought I was the one doing the right thing, having nothing to do with those 'sinful' people by never going near them. But here, it looks like Jesus wasn't pressured to sin, oh no. He wasn't pulled down, He pulled those people up. He was the doctor to those who were sick. And He helped them without having a single thing to do with their fruitless deeds of darkness. He exposed their sin by showing them how to live righteously! Boy, did I ever have it mixed up!

It seems that with so much evil in this fallen, corrupt world, "good" people are becoming fewer and farther between. Along with that, since there is so many dangerous people out there, we are being taught to stay inside, stick with our Christian buddies, and not talk to those who do such detestable things. Then, we assume that we are living a 'righteous and pure life.' We think we are living like Jesus. But do we forget how He lived? His life was perfectly righteous and pure, and He did exactly the opposite of what we're doing!

He went out of His way to hang out with those people. He spent time with them, talked with them, laughed with them, healed them. Unfortunately, that legacy isn't living on very much anymore. We jumbled up that verse. Instead of, "Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness," we changed it to, "Have nothing to do with those people who commit fruitless deeds of darkness." We can help them out of the pit their in without having anything to do with the sin itself!

The more we stay away from those people, the less and less like Jesus we become. We become pharisees. On the outside, we stay away from impurity and sin. On the inside, we judge those we deem worse than us, we feel proud, we feel contempt toward anyone not like us. The weird thing is, Jesus was furious with the Pharisees. They made no attempt to save His lost sheep, they simply paraded around proudly, thinking they were doing the Will of God. Uh-uh.

Our society has it backwards. We weren't meant to ignore the lost- we are commanded to love them! Why have we lost sight of that? What happened to giving a cup of cold water in the Lord's name? Where in the Bible did He tell us to stay in our homes, go to church, stay away from those who are hurting, ignore those who are dying, and block those who need Him?

Didn't we all need Him? And aren't we the ones who profess that no sin is greater than another? So what are we, sinners, doing condemning our fellow sinners? The only difference between them and us, is we have Jesus!

There's supposed to be another difference . . . we should be following Jesus. From the looks of things right now, staying safe and oblivious is keeping us occupied rather than being a loving servant like Jesus told us to be.

If people will know we are Christians by our love... then the Christian population in North America must be labeled an 'endangered religion' by this point.

Time to bring the real Jesus back.

Same Song . . . .

It isn't fair that the people of the Old Testament got to witness God's Almighty Power firsthand. It was all so simple and straightforward for them. Why couldn't I have been born with the Israelites in Egypt? My faith would've been so literal. It would have been so easy to believe in God when He is speaking to you audibly from a massive pillar of cloud right before your eyes, right? Wrong.

Those people in the time of Christ should've had it easy enough. I mean, He was what they had been waiting for, and He was fulfilling the prophesies that those folks had spent time memorizing for when the time came. Why couldn't I have been born when Jesus walked the earth? Seeing Him with my very own eyes, God in the flesh, how could I ever have any doubts at all? Those people's faith must have been so clear cut. Black and white. Obvious, right? Wrong.

Look anywhere in history. Faith has never been crystal clear. People have always, and will always continue to doubt. It doesn't matter how much or how little evidence is put before our eyes, we are human and we are fickle. We believe for a moment, and turn away the second something different catches our eye.

We imagine that the Israelites had the easy job. Other than remembring all those sacrifices and procedures, I guess. But, I tend to think, wouldn't all those rituals and celebrations keep fresh in your mind the truth that God is real? Wouldn't the constant ceremonies and traditions remind you of the times where you say God with your own eyes? It seems insane that anyone would forget seeing the Sea split open right in front of you, creating a dry path on the Seafloor, doesn't it? Miraculous signs. Amazing wonders. No way would those people ever have a doubt that God was there, and that God was strong. 

It's sad to say that that wasn't the case. Remember the gold calf? That's just one well-known example of the many times that the Israelites forgot God. For some reason, they thought that wimpy golden statues would serve them better than Elohim. They would turn away, but then be brought back. They would repent and promise to never do it again... but that never lasted very long. No matter how much proof God gave them of His Sovereignty, it always seemed to slip their minds. They didn't get it.

I envy those who lived in the time of Jesus. They actually got to meet the man who would save them from their sins! Since the very beginning of the world, people had been awaiting the Messiah. Those people got to touch Him. Listen to Him. Be healed by Him. Follow Him. He taught them the way of God, simply and literally. He loved them to bits, and He was the perfect example. He performed so many miracles for them, you would think that the memory of 5 loaves and 2 fish turning into thousands of each would stick with you, eh?

I guess not. Even they, who walked alongside their Saviour, were the very ones with their fists raised to cry, "Crucify Him!" It shocks me. It angers me. How could they honestly want to kill Him, after He had shown them the light, and the Truth? The answer seems so obvious to us, now. But to them, they did what they thought was right. Their all-too-human minds failed them, yet again. Their sinful ways kicked them for believing Christ. Their weak armour left them vulnerable to Satan's attacks. They forgot, again.

Now, here we are. Two thousand years later, all that hullabaloo seems like ancient history. Oh yeah, that's because it is. It's bordering on myth. Legend. Fable. Fantasy. Sometimes, it feels that way even to us. In some ways, we have more proof than ever that these events have happened, are true, and that what is said in the Bible is right!

We have researchers and archaeologists discovering more and more hard-core evidence for Intelligent Design. We still see God's hand at work in so many lives, in the way people's hearts change. Our common sense cannot deny: How can we honestly say that an explosion created a standard, universal set of morals? It makes no sense! Simply survival of the fittest, even if it applies to the animal kingdom, doesn't work on humans. We have feelings, emotions, moral standards, thoughts, and desires. That doesn't come from random chance and atoms. That comes from being made in the likeness of a wise and loving Creator. We also have something that the people of history did not. A complete set of books. A volume of truth. It's a series written by many different authors, all living at different times, but everything they write lines up with each other. We know it's not false. 

If just one author had testified to Christ's works, we would think it slightly 'iffy.' If, however, we had four or five different witnesses write separate accounts on Christ's works, it is becoming believable, and solid evidence. Add the many, many prophesies in the Old Testament, written 400 years earlier, that line up perfectly with what the more modern witnesses claimed, and you have one infallible history textbook!

Not only does it relay to you the firsthand accounts of what really happened, but it concerns you, too... and on a personal level. No other book works that way. Nothing else has ever been so solidly grounded in hard facts and evidence, and truth.

I wonder if those people from ancient times thought ahead to the future; our generation? Maybe they thought, "When all these prophesies come true, after all this trouble is over, those people will be so blessed, for they will get to know all that has transpassed. They will read recordings of our troubles, of God's wonders, of the prophet's predictions, and of the fulfilments, and there will be no more doubt! Why couldn't I have been born in the future?"

Faith never gets 'easier.' If it was easy, it wouldn't be called faith. 

Hebrews 11:1 ~ Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see.

Sometimes I feel certain of Him who I cannot see.

Other times... it's a real struggle.

But this struggle is just the same as what all those Old and New Testament believers went through. It doesn't matter whether they were following God's visible form, waiting for the prophet's predictions to come true, or listening to the Son of God. Faith never got easy. If anything, it got harder.

Because where it seems the most obvious, that's where Satan claps his hands over our ears, trying to direct our attention away from the Living Proof that the Bible is true.

Ground yourself in Truth.

Stand Firm!