Fat Jokes About the Bible Aren't So Easy... At Least For Me

So I've had a lot of time to myself... to think... about a lot things... and I feel compelled to share. Not that this any new groundbreaking thinking, but God commands us to talk about his words "when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up..." and when you're killing time on facebook. God said so. And it feels good to get stuff off your chest, ya know?

At any rate I was thinking about life, as all great thinkers and wannabes do, and what it means for us. Actually, I don't think I was really thinking about life, I'm not that advanced yet, but I was reading the good book (that's the Bible NOT the Authoritative Encyclopedia of Crystals and Geodes as the convention is here) and for some reason the Bible seems to relate to life a lot, some kind of theme written into it, and that got me thinking about life.

I like the way God puts it: He's talking to His people and lays it out life as a choice he's given them, "I'm setting before you today a blessing and a curse." The curse, although sounding harsh, is sufficiently described as not obeying God's laws and following other Gods who they don't know. The blessing, living life the way that God originally intended (I heard somebody once say "Man, if it weren't for Eve, we'd all be playing naked volleyball in Eden right now." But that's a different discussion).

From an outside perspective, it seems like a pretty simple choice yeah? Who wants to be cursed? Personally I know from TV that cursings generally involve turning into a reptile or amphibian or coming down with a bad case of pimples... and having endured said curses in my more formidable years of puberty doesn't make me so eager to sign up for that again. Yeah I'd chose God's life! Great! Sign me up! Oh yeah except the friggin rule book is soooo fat...here it comes.... that if you put it on a scale it would say "to be continued." (that was the best I could do on short notice)

Well, unfortunately God's pretty clear on what it takes to live right: to live a blessing is to follow the rules, and hot damn! there's a lot of em! Which is a pretty bum deal cause following a lot of rules is hard, and no fun. What kind of promised life is that? However it's hard to argue that it's not a good way to live. God put the law inside some flesh and bone and lived it out for us (in a very small part becuase we just didn't get it I think) and people saw just how blessed Jesus's life was. But Jesus was about so much more than showing us what a "right life" looked like right? Pshaw!! It sure stinkin was. It was a revolution folks, with HUGE implications.

And looking around today, it seems like a lot of people missed it. Either missed it or forgot about it. Cause now a "right life" isn't about the rule book. It's about being able to grab hold of God's amazingly awesomely spectaularly unbelievalbly unfair grace. yah? And people both inside and outside of the church either missed or forgot that part. Don't get me wrong, the rule book was definitely good for the folks back then, because God said so, but things flipped and now people skip the best part of the story.

And not only do we skip that part but it seems that several people (myself included at times) for some reason or another believe that God has appointed them to keep order here and discount people who don't follow the "code" so to speak. When you step back and think about it, judging people's eternities is hard dirty work and luckily God didn't leave that part for us. We get the lovey dovey job, the grace end of the stick, and we get to show the same to others! That's a pretty good job. At least it beats making sandwiches...

Churches and Christians (and again myself at time) have made it about the rule book. And it hurts because the rule book is all that a lot of non-believers know of Jesus. And they hear it preached on the corners and on the news by radical preachers and judgement rains on them. Yeah I can see how if that's the Jesus presented to me I wouldn't want anythig to do with it. So your average non-Christian would say "Why would I want to go to church, it's full of hypocrites." Hell Yeah it is. The church is chalk full of bad people, we're all hypocrites folks. BUT we can live rightly in spite of it because of God's grace which, unfortunately is a picture seldom offered to the non-Christian.

We can't follow all the rules, they are still good for us (it's not good for one to drink themselves into a stupor, or to sleep with enough people to get an STD named after you), but they aren't the starting point. And even in light of the rules, there only seems to be two that really ticked God off. I don't recall the bible mentioning God's wrath raining down when someone disobeyed "Don't plant your field with two kinds of seed" or "Don't wear garments woven from two different fabrics." We see God PO'd when people either were jerks to each other or participated in some form of turning their backs to Him.

SO? Love God, Love others.... I think I've heard that before somewhere...

I'm no less guilty than anyone I criticize and in need of grace just as much. But that's my thought process and in obedience I'm talking to others. If you made it all the way through this... thanks, that's commitment.