The Real Thing
“According to gallup.com 93% of Americans polled believe in God or a universal spirit. Guess what, the problem is not people, the problem is communication. The problem is removing the preconception, meeting expectations, and finding the language that communicates to peoples needs. The desire is there.”
I love this. I have heard this statistic many times over the last month. It is always met with some sort of negative view. How can people believe in a God and not live like it.
Well, maybe we aren’t showing them the real thing.
thanks for the blog love. I believe in US. US are Christians. US have what it takes. US believe we can change the world. We just have to start talking the language of those who really deep down want to be loved by, US.
brewster´s last blog post…There is no recession of people
“How can people believe in a God and not live like it?”
But what are you really asking Brent? That poll doesn’t say that all these people believe in what Christians call God. And even Christians can’t all agree on what God really is. Native Americans and Hindus believe in ‘god’ as well as do Druids, Pagans and New Age folk. So what does believing in god and living like it look like?
Christian´s last blog post…Atheists Take On U.S. Prayer Warriors
Brewster, agreed.
C, that’s my point. People believe in something. They may call is God, they may not. I believe that most of those are undecided and just believe based on what they know or don’t know. then what I see is a failure on our part to show them who the true God is. And if they see Him through us, they may believe in him as well.
Here’s the problem as i see it Brent…
As a man (woman) trying to live like Christ (that IS what Christian’s are doing isn’t it? or am i missing something major here?) you show someone what God looks like ten times and he sees perhaps ten different things – if he’s paying any attention to you in his very busy world/life.
Say the unbelievable (given available evidence of success rates and probabilities being what they are) happens and he sees God perfectly through you in all 10 of them (wouldn’t that be so fantastic?? )
You only have to be yourself (ie. more human than God) ONCE while that guy is paying attention and looking to you for another piece of God in his life and he writes the last ten things off as you suckering him and he never believes in ‘your’ God again.
That’s the way we are made – Trust can be built up over time and then ruined in a second.
I don’t mean you should stop living through God – who knows which one of those ten times might lead someone to make contact with God personally after all…
But if we are trying to show God to others while we know ourselves to be human and imperfect and living through our flesh more than living 100% in Spirit once in a while… well let’s just say i believe that is the reason we don’t all believe in the same God just yet (or we can’t actually tell (the 93%) that we do).
There’s a LOT of preliminary work we need to be doing on our selves to overcome all of our flesh before we can ever live fully IN Him.
We could try to understand what He meant by this for example…
“If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” Lk 14:26
Hate your WIFE? Hate your Kids?
Probably a good thing more of us don’t try to be His Disciples, huh?
Think on that a while.
i think you are right – few of us are showing anything like the Real Thing to others, because we do not know ourselves well enough – let alone Knowing God or Christ.
And even if we do it is not in them to see it for what it truly is.
<B
love´s last blog post…Maybe those Christians aren’t as nutty as some think?
Love, I am surprised.
I agree with you, to a point. God will shine through even in our failures. “In our weaknesses He is strong”. We have no reason to not start living an example to tohers, regardless of who we are or where we’ve come from. the reality is the worse off we;ve been makes more an example to others of the grace and forgiveness God has to offer.
But, here’s the deal. They will know Him by our love…love
Everyone can offer that.
I still contend that the Church needs to be aware of who it is in Christ and who it needs to be in action. They will know the real God, when we stand for justice, when we help in times of need and when we offer unsolicited grace and support to those around us. That sounds like the God I serve and I can live that way so that others know Him too.
Love & C:
Irony here is people want and need the same things and those are Grace, Hope, and Love. We dont have to be perfect, we dont have to have it all figured out, but we do need to be willing to hurt, grow, feel for people and help them. We can not tell people about it, we have to live it out with them.
As christians we fall into way to many traps. we judge, we exclude, we polarize. Now don’t get me wrong, we have to stand for what we believe but in standing our posture should be a posture of love.
Im ranting way to much, sorry to steal your space B.
brewster´s last blog post…There is no recession of people
brewster, rant on. It’s your thoughts that started this and I appreciate your involvement!
Brent..
Maybe the men in this world aren’t leading the way they should…
Peace
ckroboth´s last blog post…Men…How are you leading?
Brewster- ABSOLUTELY!
CK – undoubtedly not. But did you intend for that statement to be gender specific? Don’t women lead as well?
Love – I have to agree with Brent (and Brewster). That line about Christ coming between family members; I can envision scenarios where some family members have become angry and turned away from others because of their love, because they are more open, more tolerant and not as dogmatic as some would like. Heck, I’ve seen it. And no, it’s a shame that there aren’t more disciples. The church in general seems to put all its focus into conversion and then leave discipleship up to a select few.
Christian´s last blog post…Naked Faith
Christian.. See my latest post… I am talking the Men of the world. Yes women lead also, but God calls out the man in the beginning.
I have also seen faith in Christ drive families apart. I experience it everyday. I grew up Catholic. Me walking away from the Catholic church to follow Christ is a huge divide between my Mom and I.
ckroboth´s last blog post…Men…How are you leading?
Carl, great post brother,
C, what do women have to do with it
AMEN!
Methinks me may nave been just a little ‘misunderstood’
(What else is new?)
By living through God we come to better know God (if we, being imperfect in flesh, can learn to live in Spirit all the time and not part-time) Love is key to this – love of God Love of others and love of self in spirit not flesh.
If we improve and become ‘constant’ then our lives will influence others, not by what we say but by what we do/are, to seek God for themselves.
The words of Luke are His NOT MINE, quoting Jesus Christ, to hate your family (because they are of flesh and your desire for them will kill your spirit’s leading) while loving the Spirit that may or may not reside in them. Jesus was addressing the people whose families were following ‘another’ God, old traditions… unless someone could trun his back on them they could not follow Christ as a disciple of His, to learn how to walk in spirit.
Today – in the US particularly – more people are followers of His and have their families in similar mind, but we still need to understand the desire of the flesh – of family – can pull us away from following Him as a disciple. Should it come to a choice between doing what is right for Him and what is right for our wife, or our daughter, we need not to have any hesitation in doing the right thing of Spirit, of Christ, and not our own ‘flesh’.
Chris – when i said it was a good thing more of us don’t try to be His disciples i was of course speaking ‘tongue-in-cheek’ but the truth is if more read that they have to hate their family to be His disciple it is my belief a lot of people would get that so wrong and be the cause of more hate and less love – and that is so NOT what He had in mind when He said what He said (and i believe).
Have i cleared things up at all – even a little?
One of the reasons God has not been MORE successful in making His message clear is He leaves it up to all our individual understandings to make sense of it.
As seen here – we tend to mistake what is being said by someone else when we think something slightly differently.
Unless we love what is being told us and find reasons to understand it the way it is meant rather than how we THINK it is meant we won’t ever all find accord in Him.
Be of One spirit – One mind, One Heart. Follow His Love not our own.
<B
love´s last blog post…No more whining about YOUR job!
it’s our responsibility to make the goodness of God believable.
i think we fail the world miserably. which means we fail Him miserably.
(and by “we”, i mean “me”)
alece´s last blog post…30 hours