Genuine

I know this is out of my series and a bit different, but this is just a thought of mine lately.

Anyone who knows me will realize I have an obsession for the truth of things. Authenticity. Genuineness. After you’ve finally warmed me up after hanging out for like about 3 or so months (I’m a bit of an introvert), I will instantly tell you how I honestly think about something and would like to know your honest opinion, nothing more and nothing less.

See for me, with knowing the truth, one has nothing to hide, there are no hidden agendas, no selfish motives, it is but simple truth. And from simple truth is born integrity, honor and character. I can trust in truth because it comes with no surprises. Truth is transparent and genuine. Truth can be painful, but it will always set you free.

I am always seeking the truth in things. Constantly searching. I’ve always been, and at this point, always will. Once I find the truth, I have a need to share it because everyone deserves the truth. I am a rebel and this is my cause.

I came to realize this when I was about ten or eleven. Before I was a hipster and loved all things acoustic and obscure, I was a huge fan of bubblegum pop like every other 10-13 yr old girl.

Now let’s go back about ten years (circa 2001) and look at the music then. Both secular music and Contemporary Christian Music had a lovely group of teen bubblegum pop to select from. My parents were very careful about what lyrics I was singing about (and for which I am very grateful for. Really.), so I listen to mostly to CCM such as…

Plus One (saw them a lot in concert. My favorite was Nate.)

Jaci Velasquez

ZoeGirl

Jump5

Joy Williams (please check out The Civil Wars.)

MaryMary (Shackles anyone???)

Raze

Rachel Lampa

Stacie Orrico

True Vibe

These were my Jams till I was about 12 and I discovered Relient K and Switchfoot. And as much as I would love to ramble about how I still know all the words by heart to Plus One’s Written On My Heart (don’t deny it, I’m sure most of you do too), but I did have a point to this post.

Stacie Orrico. Most of you probably remember having a hit back in 2003, ‘(There’s Gotta Be) More To Life’ which was off of her sophomore album and that was pretty much all you knew.

oh. 2000. lipliner and choker necklaces.

Before that, she had two songs that stuck with me (and still do) off of her first album, ‘Don’t Look at Me’ and ‘Genuine’.

What He has is something genuine
Who He is, is someone real
What He gives is something truthful
Its what He has, its Who he is
Its what He gives
And I need Him too.”

-Genuine

Stacie Orrico

It was this song that made me realize that my hunger for pure and simple truth was really a hunger for God alone.

“Jesus told him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.’”

John 14:6

The only way.

The only truth.

The only life.

We can only cast our eyes toward Jesus, the prize. He is lamp to our feet and the light to our path. When we forget that simple truth, we lose our truth and we get lost. We start wandering into places, following other people down roads we shouldn’t go.

I feel like a lot of us have done exactly that. We get so caught up in the production of Sunday mornings, to make sure we are ‘cool christians’ who are aware of the world, making sure we brand everything in sight, and that we ‘reach’ thousands of people so that we hit this years quota.

With the best of intentions, we’ve somehow lost our way, our truth. Sometimes I wonder what the difference is between ‘the church’ and a non-profit charity.

But I’ll leave you with this.

“Don't look at me if you're looking for perfection
Don't look at me I will only let you down
I'll do my best to point you in the right direction
But don’t look at me
No, no, no
Don't look at me, look at Him…

He's the One who lived a perfect life
He's the One who always gets it right
He's the One and only guiding light, Ohh, yeah
He is everything you want to be
He's the answer to your every need
If you follow Him then you will see He's like no other.”

-Don't Look At Me

Stacie Orrico

I’m 21. I don’t have all the answers.

I’m just a girl who hungrily seeks the Truth.

behavior > 'beliefs'

Definitions Part 2: What is Christianity? What makes something or someone Christian?

“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Ephesians 5:1-2 ESV

My last post was a discussion about Jesus and Religion. I want to continue that with further discussion as to what is Christianity. And to quote C.S. Lewis again, “For God humbled himself to become man, so religion humbled itself to become Christianity.” Now this quote really caught my attention. The idea that religion humbled itself to become Christianity just resonated within me.

One can write many books on this topic, so I will try my best to do it in but a few short paragraphs and still come up with a justifying answer.

So what makes someone or something Christian?

Is it voting Republican?

Is it being prolife?

Is it going to church every Sunday?

Is it reciting a prayer?

Is it a genre of music?

Is it a religion?

Is it a worldview?

Is it a list of rules?

When we think of ‘Christian’ we think of it in two ways, as a religion and as a type of label. And I’ve notice, we love trying to clarify and reform that label.

“I’m not a Christian, I’m a Christ Follower.” (Which is just saying the same exact thing.)

Sometimes we get so fixated on the label, that the label itself will lose all of its meaning. The label becomes dead. My best example of when a label loses its meaning and purpose is with Religion. Then labels become weapons to throw at and divide people.

We are not labels, we are more than just mere words. We are souls.

When I was in high school, my nickname was Jesus. The nickname was a weird combination of people being aware of what I believed in and my long hair. At first, I couldn’t tell if people were making fun of me, but then I realized it was like a term of endearment and an acknowledged statement of who I was. And having Jesus as my nickname was a pretty good reminder of who and what I represented.

When we describe Christians, oftentimes we are called the Salt of the Earth, the Light of the World, a City on a Hill. We just hear the words but not the meaning anymore or it was never really explained as to what that means.

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that the may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

Matt 5:13-16 ESV

When salt loses its saltiness, it is useless.

When a label loses its purpose, it is useless. Even if that label is Christian.

We are supposed to be a light in this world, to stand up like a light upon a light stand, a city on a hill.

So what is my answer as to what makes someone or something Christian?

It’s a choice. It’s a daily choice to…

To make God bigger in my life. I must decrease so He may increase (John 3:30)

To love God with all my heart, mind and soul, and to love my neighbor (Matt 22:37-40).

To love my enemies (Matthew 5:43-47)

To die to my selfish ambitions and give all my life away. To be a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1-2)

To uphold the law (Romans 3:31)

When this change happens in your heart and in your mind, (Ephesians 4:22) and it will directly change how you live.

“But the aim of our instruction is love the comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith…Now we know that the law is good, if one uses is legitimately.”

1 Timothy 1:5, 8 ESV

If we are to ‘reclaim’ religion, we have to acknowledge the wrongs that have been selfishly committed for the sake of ‘christian religion’. The only we can do that is to humble ourselves, confess our wrongs, be legitimately sorry about it, and do something to change.

But, if I had to pick a ‘label’, I want to go back to the beginning. I think this is the one that best sums up the miracle, the love He has for us and the responsibility we have:

Image Bearer

“So God created humankind in His image, in the image of God He created them.”

Genesis 1:27a ESV

But Here's another label that I hear tossed around a lot: 
HIPSTER CHRISTIANITY. 

I hear it as a positive thing, as an insult but never in the same way. What do you think it means?

need to be really bothered once in a while

“We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?” 

 Ray Bradbury

Definitions Part 1: Jesus vs Religion

Anyone who sets himself up as “religious” by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes and musters before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and the loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.

James 1:26,27 MSG

So this video had taken over my Facebook newsfeed the other week. It went viral. Everyone was reposting. And after watching it myself, I reposted it because I understood and agreed with the poet, Jefferson Bethke. Then the next week, the Christian blogosphere went crazy. Suddenly everyone was freaking out over how illogical, condescending, inaccurate, and unchristian this video was. I watched it again with a more critical eye, and I think many of us are missing Bethke’s point.

When I was in high school and people would find out I was a Christian, the conversation would go something like this:

“Oh, so you’re religious?”

I would say something like this, probably rolling my eyes at this point. “NO. It’s more than that just religion. Its more than just something I do.”

I have always hated that term. Always. To me, it meant two things, (1) doing something superstitiously in hopes of saving my own soul and (2) those who showed off their religion like one who flaunted his knowledge to make you feel stupid, one who overly demonstrates his power just to make you feel worthless, or one who shows his opulence to make you feel poor, to put it simply, religious pride. Either way, ‘religion’ seems to always have man at its center.

Looking at history, religion has a terrible track record with the Crusades, the Inquisition, and even the current war of terrorism. Religion has developed many negative connotations to it, despite the actual definition of it (literal definition). Man using ‘religion’ to accomplish his own personal goals. What a perversion of what we are supposed to be? We can’t keep sweeping this under the rug anymore.

In the video Bethke is referring to the modern day Sadducees and Pharisees. Let me make it a bit more personal, more post-modern for you. When I say religion, I think we can expand that to church pride. The men who pride themselves on how good they were at the law, at church, than what the law/church was supposed to be, and condemning those who could not do it as good as they did. The elite, the self-righteous, the hypocrites.

Religion has become focused on how man can save himself. It has become a selfish thing. There is nothing real, no authentic faith or genuine conviction. It was all about how could I make my own name better, how could use this for my own glory. As Bethke, says it’s become this list of chores, a façade, behavior modification. Religion has become a mask to hide behind and to judge others from. And it’s this type of religion is bondage and makes many into slaves.

Religion could be dressed up so close to the truth, that we sometimes don’t even realize how blind we are to the real truth.

 Before we jump to conclusions about how terrible this video is, take one second and think. Are you upset because you are personally offended and sought to defend yourself? Or can you take your eyes off yourself and realize the point of this video, that maybe we’re losing sight of the humbling, Christ-centered truth?

"Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good- above all, that we are better than someone else- I think we maybe sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil." 

- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

The title of the video is this: that Jesus is GREATER than a religion man created. Instead of you or I trying (and failing Romans 3:23) to save ourselves by being ‘religious’, Jesus saved us already. He abolished the need for man to save himself. Jesus was the fulfillment of the Law. Up until that point, we had to sacrifice animals and perform rituals of cleansing. But when God sent His son as the Ultimate sacrifice. We no longer ‘needed’ the law for that purpose. The curtain was torn. (Matt 27:51)

The rest of the New Testament is spent trying to explain the idea of grace and works go together, hand in hand. Religion, or works, alone does not work and belief alone doesn’t make sense. Both are natural requirements. (James 2:14-26 and Romans 2:12-29, 3:21-26)

“For a God humbled himself to become man, so religion humbled itself to become Christianity.”

 -C.S. Lewis

Letters to Mary Van Deusen

February 5, 1956

So then what is Christianity? What makes someone or something Christian? I would like to know what you think. 

For my thoughts, check out my next post. 

To never look away, to never forget.

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget."

— Arundhati Roy

Tim Tebow and C.H. Spurgeon

Never in my life did I think I would write about football. Ever. If you know me, I am pretty indifferent and oblivious when it comes to sports. The only time I will sit down is if the Yankees are in the World Series and the Super Bowl (but really, I’m there to watch the commercials and the food) or when my dad feels like scarring me when a player’s arm or leg is in an unnatural position.

The first time I heard about Tebow, I didn’t even realize he was a football player…or a real person for that matter. My family and I were spending a day together last fall and we were just goofing off, taking funny pictures of ourselves. We were doing the usual poses, owling, planking, the X-Men First Class, ect. Then my sister and my dad do something I wasn’t aware of, they were ‘tebowing.’ And that is how I first heard of Tim Tebow. 

This is Becca.

our version of XMen

What is this Tebowing??

Last Sunday night, while the rest of my family was enthusiastically watching the Broncos-Steelers game, I was very intrigued with a documentary on the History channel. My sister Becca comes running in jumping up and down on the couch doing a victory dance screaming something like this:

“KRISTEN HE DID IT. TEBOW DID IT. KRISTEN KRISTEN KRISTENNNN. GOD LOVES TEBOW MORE THAN YOU. I LOVE TEBOW. TEBOW’S AWESOME.”

She then proceeded to Tebow and run off screaming.

Tebow has caught both my 14 yr old sister and America by storm. He is everywhere. Tebowing is the new planking. The sports section of the news is now Tebow and sports. Tim Tebow had nearly 9,500 tweets per second during his touchdown in overtime Sunday night. That’s more than DOUBLE the rate during the Super Bowl at any point last year. That’s more than the death of Bin Laden. That is even more tweets than the Royal Wedding.

Some of this mania is because Time Tebow is an underdog that nobody expected. Some of it is because he doesn’t play the way he’s supposed too. But since I’m not a sports critic or fan, I’m not going to discuss sports. Mostly this ‘Tebowmania’ is about his obvious displays of his Christian faith.

We’re not used to someone recently to be so shamelessly proud about being a Christian, especially a young man, a quarterback in the NFL. He would wear verse references as his eye black. Whenever he is interviewed, his faith is always mentioned. In both the good and the bad, he publicly goes on his knees.

He is so open about God that people, even fellow Christians, think he should tone it down. Even former quarterback and well-known believer Kurt Warner suggested that he should tone it down.

He’s not even a ‘cool’ Christian (something I will definitely write about soon.) His favorite verse is John 3:16. He still sings Lord I Life Your Name on High. He was home schooled. I think some of us Christians are embarrassed by him.

Even though I don’t watch his games, Tim Tebow has earned my respect. That is something I don’t say often, or give freely.

I am ashamed and embarrassed by the Christians who think Tebow should not talk about his love for Jesus as often as he does. He isn’t the type of ‘Christian’ we Christians would pick to have so much media attention because he doesn’t play Jesus or Christianity ‘cool.’

Whenever I see or hear about Tebow, I am reminded of a story I had read a while back. It is about the revered Victorian pastor C.H. Spurgeon critiquing a young pastor after the young pastor gave a very well prepared preaching.

“Will you tell me why you think it a poor sermon?” said the young pastor.

“Because,” said Spurgeon, “There was no Christ in it.”

The young man said, “Well, Christ was not in the text [*cough* football or your life]; we are not to be preaching Christ always, we much preach what is in the text [*cough* football or your life].”

Spurgeon responded, “Don’t you know, young man, that from every town, and every village, and every little hamlet in England, wherever it may be, there is a road to London?”

“Yes.” Said the young man.

“Ah,” said Spurgeon, “and so from every text in Scripture there is a road to the metropolis of Scriptures – and that is Christ. Dear Brother, when you get a text [a God given opportunity] say, ‘Now, what is the road to Christ?’ and then preach a sermon, [play football or live our lives] running along the road towards the great metropolis – Christ.”

-An excerpt from the Simply Youth Conference 2011 Journal and Devotional Booklet.

Tebow is a great example of this. In everything we do, in everything that we are, should lead to Jesus. Our actions, our words, our life. Our purpose is to proudly proclaim who Christ is and give Him glory, not to tone it down, even if God is not directly in the text, in our career, in our school, or a football game.

I probably won’t watch the next football game, but I’ll definitely be proud of Tim Tebow (whether he wins or loses) and keep him in my prayers.