Tag Archives: Christian

How a Christian is Like a Pumpkin

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How a Christian is Like a Pumpkin

My family and I love carving pumpkins every fall. I’m not completely sure if this is just an American tradition or not. If you are one of my international readers you’ll have to enlighten me! I think I read somewhere that this tradition started in Ireland?? Anyhow, in case you’re not familiar with the tradition, in the fall typically around Halloween, we carve pumpkins, put a light inside of them, and then display them as a festive decoration. They are sometimes called jack-o’-lanterns.

I have often heard the analogy of how a Christian is like a pumpkin. My mom even passes out little cards along with candy explaining this analogy to Halloween trick-or-treaters. I thought this same analogy would make a timely post for this fall season!

So here is how a Christian is like a pumpkin….

Like a pumpkin, we have to be chosen

Just like I choose a special pumpkin to carve, God has chosen us. We are chosen and special to God, adopted into his own family.

“Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.” Ephesians 1:4-5 (NLT)

“For you are a holy people, who belong to the LORD your God. Of all the people on earth, the LORD your God has chosen you to be his own special treasure.” Deuteronomy 7:6 (NLT)

“You have been set apart as holy to the LORD your God, and he has chosen you from all the nations of the earth to be his own special treasure.” Deuteronomy 14:2 (NLT)

“You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name.” John 15:16 (NLT)

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” 1 Peter 2:9 (NIV)

Like a pumpkin, we have to be open

Just like I first have to cut an opening in the top of the pumpkin to carve it, I first have to be open to God and to receiving him.

“Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.” Revelation 3:20 (NLT)

“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” John 1:12 (ESV)

Like a pumpkin, we have to clean out the yucky insides

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Being a Christian is More Than Just Going to Church

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Being a Christian is More Than Just Going to Church

I recently received an email from a reader asking a question about going to church and whether or not that affected their salvation. This reader basically wanted to know whether or not they would go to hell if they didn’t attend church. This week I thought I would share my response with you since others out there may have the same or similar questions.

Email from reader

I have a job working at a restaurant on the weekends, and I work almost every Saturday and Sunday. I know it says in the Bible to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Also, I know some people say the Sabbath is Saturday and not Sunday and that some Christians have been confused by this. Will I be going to hell, in your opinion, for not keeping the Sabbath since I work a lot on the weekends?

My response (headings added for easier reading)

It is not my place to say if you will be going to hell because I am not God, and I do not know your heart as He does. However, my initial reaction is that, no, God will not send people to hell if they do not go to church on Sunday (or Saturday). People who say this are operating in what’s called “legalism” (rule-keeping). Jesus, and later Paul through his writings, firmly corrected people in the New Testament for legalistic attitudes and behaviors. Keeping the rules isn’t enough to make us holy or wipe our sins clean. Only Jesus’ sacrifice and resurrection can do that.

“If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved.” Romans 10:9-10 (NLT)

“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6 (ESV)

“Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.” Galatians 2:16 (NLT)

Salvation is about your relationship with God, not going to church

Your salvation, and going to heaven, are about your relationship with God, through Jesus Christ. It’s about truly knowing Him and being known by Him. It’s about making HIM your number one priority over all other things, making Him Lord. This means surrendering and submitting to Him as your “master” as your… leader, ruler, guide, boss, etc. Basically, He needs to be the ultimate authority in your life where you trust and obey him completely. Jesus can’t just be your savior—He needs to be your Lord. You need to have a genuine relationship with Him, and this involves more than just going to church.

“And this is the way to have eternal life—to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth.” John 17:3 (NLT)

True disciples

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Acts of Kindness and Good Deeds

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Acts of Kindness and Good Deeds

We have some new little neighbor kids who just moved here from Phoenix a couple months ago. They’ve been coming to the back of the neighborhood where we live and playing in our creek/ditch. Their mom said it’s their favorite place in the whole neighborhood because of the trees and rocks and creek and such. They come catch tadpoles and frogs and crawfish.

I got an idea for act of kindness that my daughter and I could do for these little ones. I can’t take credit for the idea though. It came from my friend Kim. She and her daughter painted some rocks and put them out on walking paths as a surprise for some little girls in their neighborhood to find on their walks. This was such a great idea that my daughter and I decided to duplicate it for our new neighbors.

We painted some rocks in some fun designs and then set them all out in our creek for the kids to find when they come back to play sometime. The anticipation has been so exciting as we’ve been waiting on them to come back to find their surprises. We’ve even talked about expanding our idea to set little decorated rocks out at the base of some of our neighbors mailboxes as an act of kindness for them too so they might have a little fun surprise when they get their mail. Then we discussed even making more to take to some nature trails to lay out for other families and kids to find out some point, and we talked about making some to put in geocaches we find too.

Good deeds rock painting collage

Good deeds painted rocks collage

Expressing an act of kindness is a fun way to pass time

Doing good deeds and seeing the creative ways that others have done good deeds has been a wonderful way to pass the time recently during the COVID-19 pandemic as so many of us are homebound. We love watching clips lately from Some Good News, or following Good News Movement and Global Positive News on Instagram. It’s also fun to get inspiration from those internet or Pinterest posts tagged “faith in humanity restored”. If you’re ever having a bad day these are all good places to focus on the good, pure, lovely and admirable things.

“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” Philippians 4:8 (NLT)

However, these are also some great places to get some good ideas for some good deeds! Jesus tells us to love our neighbor. (I’ve even written before about loving your actual neighbor.)

“The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:31 (NIV)

This commandment is only second in importance to loving God with all of our hearts, souls, minds and strength.  I also personally believe that the second command—to love our neighbor—is one way HOW we go about showing our love for God in a tangible, practical way.  We can do this by doing good deeds, loving people, and showing God’s compassion and kindness toward them.  It really does stand out in today’s narcissistic and self-entitled culture where people rarely go out on a limb for another.

They will know we are Christians by our love

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Overview of Christianity

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Overview of Christianity

I’ve recently put together a resource page for “New to Faith?” on my site, to which I will add this post. I sometimes fancy myself a curator of resources, and I wanted a landing place for people who might need a jumping off point as they start (or restart) their walk with God. As I meet new friends, I’m finding that there is also a need for some very basic biblical literacy information for those who are unfamiliar with Christianity and/or the Bible. Thus, the reason for this post. It’s a very, very abbreviated overview of Christianity (with an even more abbreviated video at the end of this post).

My hope and prayer is that this will serve as a helpful resource for those wishing to learn more as well as a resource for others to save and/or share.

Christianity: One true God, our separation from him, and a way back to him

In Christianity, we believe in only one true God, and that He exists as a Trinity: God the Father, the Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. We believe that God is the author and creator of all things and is all-powerful, all-knowing, completely loving, and eternal.

We believe that we are eternal beings and that our time on earth is only temporary. After death we will still exist eternally—either with God or forever separated from God. Sin separates us from God, yet none of us are without sin (Romans 3:23). We have ALL sinned. Sin is really just following our own path and doing things our own way instead of God’s way. It’s defining right and wrong on our own instead of relying on God’s definition.

So how then can we reconcile this sin that will eternally separate us from God? There is absolutely nothing that we can do in our own effort to earn this reconciliation or to make up for our sins because we are imperfect and will always mess up. In Christianity we believe that all humans are sinners in need of a Savior. The foundation and story of Christianity is just that…a world in need of rescue, and that rescue comes in the form of a savior, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He is the only way to be reconciled back to God (John 14:6).

We can see this story of our faith throughout the pages of scripture. We believe that the Bible is true and that it is God’s Word, inspired directly by him, written by holy men (2 Timothy 3:16-17). The Bible is our guide to know about God and to live a life that is pleasing to him. In the Bible you can find the foundational truths of our faith.

The Story

The Bible Project: Biblical Story

Creation

In the beginning God created EVERYTHING, including humans. Everything God made was good (Genesis 1:31). In fact he made humans in the image of God (Genesis 1:26). The first humans were Adam and Eve. God then put humans in charge of the earth, or gave them “dominion”. However, he gave humans (Adam & Eve) some parameters: Eat from ANYTHING you want…EXCEPT this tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Notice that they had more freedoms than limits.

There was perfect harmony with God, with creation, and with each other. Perfection and peace didn’t last though.

Enter Satan

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Do You Practice “Etsy” Religion…Handcrafted Christianity?

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Do You Practice “Etsy” Religion-Handcrafted Christianity?

Do You Practice “Etsy” Religion…Handcrafted Christianity?

“Yes, the Day is coming when people will notice The One Who Made Them, take a long hard look at The Holy of Israel. They’ll lose interest in all the stuff they’ve made—altars and monuments and rituals, their homemade, handmade religion—however impressive it is.” Isaiah 17:7-8 (MSG)

I read these verses in the Message translation a while back, and immediately what came to mind as I read the words “homemade, handmade religion” was “It’s an “Etsy” religion.” I realized that people still do this…just not in the form of making an actual, physical idol or god to worship.

Handcrafted Christianity

Current culture makes, customizes, and handcrafts their own religion and faith practices, picking and choosing what they want to believe and practice. It’s custom-made for each individual person. No more black and white. No more absolute truth. Relativity abounds. Most certainly we live in an “Etsy” religion culture full of customized & handcrafted Christianity.

For those not familiar with Etsy, it’s an online marketplace where one can go to purchase things that are handcrafted, vintage, custom and/or unique. Hence why I say “Etsy” religion…to use it as an analogy for how many people handcraft, customize and attempt to mold their own unique religion that works for them.

**Disclaimer: To clarify–This is in no way disparaging to Etsy, just merely an analogy. I’m actually a huge fan of Etsy and many things handcrafted, vintage, custom and unique. However, this is NOT how we should participate in our relationship with God.

“Etsy” Religion is no religion at all, handcrafted gods are no god at all

Scripture is pretty clear on creating our own god and on customizing and handcrafting our own faith…

Jeremiah 1:16 (MSG)

“I’ll pronounce my judgment on the people of Judah for walking out on me—what a terrible thing to do!—And courting other gods with their offerings, worshiping as gods sticks they’d carved, stones they’d painted.”

Jeremiah 2:26-28 (MSG)

“Just as a thief is chagrined, but only when caught, so the people of Israel are chagrined, Caught along with their kings and princes, their priests and prophets. They walk up to a tree and say, ‘My father!’ They pick up a stone and say, ‘My mother! You bore me!’ All I ever see of them is their backsides. They never look me in the face. But when things go badly, they don’t hesitate to come running, calling out, ‘Get a move on! Save us!’ Why not go to your handcrafted gods you’re so fond of? Rouse them. Let them save you from your bad times. You’ve got more gods, Judah, than you know what to do with.” Continue reading →

9 Common Causes of Insecurity

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Most people deal with insecurity in one form or another. Read about the 9 common causes of insecurity and see examples of each in scripture.

9 Common Causes of Insecurity

The last couple of weeks we’ve been talking some about self-worth and self-image (see the posts here and here).  Those of us who have negative pictures of ourselves deal with INSECURITY.  Actually, I would venture to say that most people deal with insecurity in one form or another.  This is also not just an issue that women deal with (notice most of the examples in the scriptures below are from insecure men). 

Insecurity is not a gender-specific issue. #insecurity

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Insecurity is not a gender-specific issue.  I’ve learned that even though men and women may be insecure for different reasons, the root causes and overcoming them are the same.  I’ve also discovered that there are 9 common causes of insecurity (there are definitely more, but these are the most common).

9 Common Causes of Insecurity:

  1. Comparing yourself to others 
  2. Appearances and imperfections (external or internal)
  3. Acceptance by others (i.e. fitting in, other’s opinions, etc.)
  4. Feeling unloved or unwanted
  5. Not measuring up to the standards of others (culture/society, media, etc.)
  6. Fear
  7. Failure (fear of OR previous failures, bad decisions, wrong living, etc.)
  8. Tragic incident or circumstances (death, abuse, infidelity, etc.)
  9. Getting significance in wrong things (job, gifts/talents, spouse, children, appearance, material possessions) 

Examples in scripture: Continue reading →

You Are a Masterpiece

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You Are a Masterpiece! Are you insulting your creator?

You Are a Masterpiece!  Are you insulting your creator?

When we think of some of the most valuable items in the world today, priceless art often comes to mind.  I’m always amazed at what people are willing to pay for masterpieces sold via Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and private sales.  I was reading an article that the Huffington Post did in December of this past year about the most expensive art of 2013 (“18 Unbelievably Expensive Artworks That Sold For Millions This Year”), and I learned that over $1 BILLION was dropped on just 18 works of art!  It’s unsettling what some are willing to fork out for what they deem a “masterpiece”.

Well, you already know you are valuable because last week we talked about realizing your value and your worth, but did you know YOU are a masterpiece?  You are the handiwork of God. 

Did you know YOU are a masterpiece? You are the handiwork of God, the artist of all artists.

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You are His masterpiece.  I think of God as the artist of all artists. 🙂 I mean really, any other artist is just creating art of God’s art.  Continue reading →