The fifth psalm brings with it some familiar themes from the preceding four: God not answering prayer, lament, crying out to God, and struggle against bloodthirsty adversaries. Whenever Scripture repeats itself, this is a flashing red light to take notice, God is trying to make sure we really understand something. It’s ironic then, how these themes have been lost or minimized in much of modern day Western Christianity. We seem to have crafted a religion around comfort and God making you feel good. Like we are selling a product and we need to convince those in the pew that it works. In order to do so, we have to hide these more uncomfortable truths and only emphasize the happy ones.
Worshiping an Uncool God in a Cool Culture
The USA Today section of my Lansing State Journal has an article in it with the startling title “Multitasking teens pick texting over sleeping.” The article goes on to say how teens spend around 9 hours a day on “entertainment media” which includes social media, music, gaming or online videos, (i.e. time on their smart […]
2 Unexpected Ways Believing in Hell has Reinvigorated my Faith
I grew up in a church tradition that really emphasized hell as a motivation for accepting Christ’s forgiveness of our sins. In fact, my own salvation decision as a young child was highly motivated by this. I no longer see overemphasis on hell (often an exclusive emphasis) as biblical or effective in bringing true heart […]
The Tension
between the Kingdom of God being here, but not yet fully here of being a sinner and a saint of going through trials, knowing the day without trials is not yet here knowing God has power over my trials and could stop them