From the journal

With the help of a friend, I realized that my blogs where awful because I was blogging just to blog. When it comes to a journal I keep, I write in the journal only when I have a theme and idea of how it is going to look. Following the suggestion of my friend, I am going to try posting some entries from my journal.

I contemplate spiritual ideas often. Let that be a warning to you. Here goes:


Life After Death

In a lot of Christians conversations, we hear the phrase: "Life after death." To me, this is not the best way to put this idea. This idea being that after our physical death on earth we will enjoy eternal life with our Father.

Allow me pause for you to reflect on the previous paragraph. . . .

It seems that entirely too many people are entertained by the notion that a life with our Heavenly Father begins after death.

Through the life and death of Jesus Christ, we have been washed of sin, which consequence is death. Yet death is a constant fixture in our minds. We say things like: "life is too short," "the only certainty in life are death and taxes."

I started wondering what death and life after it would be life. I was thinking mostly about life after the physical death. The more I thought about it, the more I thought I shouldn't think about it. I should live in the here and now. We are to see that God's will is happening on our earth just as it is happening in heaven. After my physical death, if I have a physical death, my life will just continue. My life will be outside of time and our Father will help me understand even more about Him, but I see it being a lot like it is now. I am madly in love with out Father. I am happy right where I am.

A lot of self-proclaimed Christians profess their belief in their eternal life but are scared to death of death. This fear and belief can't be from the same place (speaking of the mind and the heart). If their fear of death is from the heart and their belief in eternal life is from the mind, then they can never sense the true love of their Father. If the belief is from the heart, there can be no fear in the mind. Truth really sets you free. Truth that Jesus Christ and our heavenly Father are crazy about you gives you unbelievable freedom!

We should not view our eternal life as life after death, but life. We can start having an amazing relationship with our loving and gracious Father now. We don't have to wait until we have, if we have, a physical death. Instead of just thinking about leaving this earth, we should be doing our part, our best part, in seeing out God's will on this earth.

To me, death is nothing. My relationship with our amazing Father will continue to flourish! Death is nothing more than a hiccup in our wonderful relationship with the ultimate Lover.


Acceptance/Accept the Fact

There are certain phrases we often hear from the religious circles and communities. These phrase ares used and heard so often that they lose their meaning and/or are changed to mean something else. Some of these phrases (or ideas) that has been on my mind is: "you need to accept the salvation of God," "you need to accept God's gift of grace." While these statements are fine, I think they have lost a lot of their initial meaning.

I saw a sticker on a matatu that said, "You must t accept God's gift of grace." The vibe I got from the sticker was weird. The sticker shocked me a little. I am human like everyone else, so I must not be the only one who was put off by the message printed on the inside of the matatu.

I was put off because it seemed like it was saying "grace is a gift you can reject." If you don't accept it, God's grace will no longer apply for you. God's grace is a certainty. God's grace is a reality. What I thought the sticker should have read was "accept the reality of God's grace." The grace of God tells me that I am loved and accepted by our Father even though I don't deserve it, and that I could never change the fact that I don't deserve it.

God loves us so much that He wants our lives to be free of burdens. He wants us to not bother ourselves with the task of earning our place with Him. Everything that He teaches us about how we are to live is for our betterment. We may not want to believe this, especially those of us who see religion only as a list of rules. Jesus tell us a lot, ". . . but I tell you the truth . . . " We see this as a new rule, but Jesus' intention was: "Look! If you would just stop what you're doing and do this, you will have so much more freedom. Your burdens will decrease and maybe disappear altogether." We don't view the task of raising children as just a set of rules for the children. We understand that even though the rules may seem meaningless to the child, they have a purpose in their life. When the child matures he will understand and even come to appreciate the rules.

If we could just accept the reality of grace, we would stop worrying about our position with our Father. If we could accept the face that we are sinners, period, and the grace of God is the only road to a place with our Father, we would be free and happier with this knowledge.

Imagine it this way: Let's say you are needing a nail in your wall for a picture frame. I said that I had a hammer and by using it it would save you a lot of pain and trouble. Let's also assume you have no other way of getting the nail in the wall. However, you don't believe me when I said that this hammer could provide so much help. You try and try on your own but you cannot even make any kind of dent in the wall.

Now, whatever you think, this hammer will, in fact, make your job easier and less stressful, especially since you can't do the job without the hammer. To successfully complete your task, you need to first accept the reality that the hammer will truly free you from getting the nail in the wall on your own.

Once we understand and accept the reality of grace, our lives will never be the same again!