July 2008

Watch the video below, by Steve McVey, Christian Religion Lie #58 “If You Repent Of Your Sins, God Won’t Condemn You“ and then read my amazing (as always!) comments below…

This is bass ackwards thinking!

This LIE is one of those lies that legalists like to espouse because they suppose that the creator of everything… the alpha and omega… the only all powerful and all capable being in existence since before the beginning of time — is OBLIGATED to respond to us if we do something!

You can’t ever lock God into an “if… then…” equation.

Let’s start with, what the Bible plainly states:

There is NO condemnation for those in Christ!

Paul tells us this in Romans 8:1.

No matter what you do, you are not “condemned until your repent” no matter what you’ve heard preached from pulpits… told to you by well meaning parents or Christians… or see some televangelist on TV tell you!

But wait a minute…

“Is Caleb saying you don’t have to repent?”

NOPE!

All I’m saying is, you’re not condemned because of WHO God is. Your “NON-condemnation” has nothing to do with what you do — whether you repent or not. It has EVERYTHING to do with the unconditional love, mercy and grace of God.

So, if you’re not condemned… and your repentance has nothing to do with it… then

What is the role of repentance in the life of a believer?

John 8 gives the example of repentance with God. When Jesus has the adulteress brought before Him. Starts with verse 3-11 (NIV):

3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

11 “No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Did the adulteress repent first? Or did Jesus NOT condemn her first?

The answer of course is that Jesus didn’t condemn her first… and then told her to repent (go and sin no more)… which arguably she obeyed.

So we don’t:

repent >> get no condemnation.

As legalists and popular, modern Christianity would have you believe… NO! Everything that we do is a response to God’s love for us FIRST.

It’s because God first has given NO condemnation that we decide to repent:

no condemnation >> we then repent because we’re overwhelmed by God’s grace, mercy, and Love.

This is the way it REALLY works!

At least that’s the way it should work if you’re looking to live a Great Christian Life! So when you hear this lie, be sure to smack yourself upside the face and say “self! This is a LIE! I repent and turn back to Jesus because of what HE has ALREADY done for me… NOT the other way around!”

With Love

Caleb

Watch the video below by Steve McVey, Christian Religion Lie #57 “You Shouldn’t Express Negative Thoughts And Feelings Toward God” and my comments on this lie follow…

Here is the way you hear this lie being told…

“When you pray you should only speak positive upbeat words to God because you want to show Him you’re having faith in Him…”

“You shouldn’t say negative stuff in prayer, because that means you’re not having faith in God and He doesn’t like that…”

These are all Lies!

How is this lie used by the Devil?

God created us all human. Because of this, we all have emotions and sometimes we get negative emotions.

So if you believe this lie that you shouldn’t express your negative feelings to God, that you shouldn’t tell Him how you’re really feeling in prayer… then you will feel hypocritical and condemned because we all have these negative feelings — you’ll know you’re lying to yourself and God about how you feel.

Plus, believing this lie teaches us to not be honest with God about how we really feel.

God desires to lavish His love on you and enjoy and INTIMATE relationship with you. How can you have that if you’re afraid of telling Him how you simply FEEL in the moment?

The Bible teaches us it’s ok to express ALL our feelings to God.

Take Psalm 62:8 (emphasis mine) for example:

“Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your hearts to him,
for God is our refuge.
Selah”

God, like the perfect lover, isn’t afraid to hear all your feelings… to really get to know the REAL you… you can’t scare Him off!

Feeling negative feelings does NOT mean your faith isn’t strong!

Don’t think you’re not having faith because you’re not always feeling positive. This is a part of this lie that Satan wants you to wholeheartedly believe… but it’s not true.

IT’s ok to be truthful with God.

Don’t say “I know I shouldn’t feel this way“…

… when you approach God and tell Him your feelings because it’s OK to feel that way. You’re human, you’re allowed to have emotions.

Great men in the Bible like David and Paul all wrote that at times they felt like they despaired even of life — they were heavily depressed… but they were honest with God about it and are still considered great men of faith.

God made you, He knows you’re human… You’re not fooling Him anyways and He wants you to be honest with Him, intimate with Him, just like you would with any lover.

He won’t judge you, He’ll just love you unconditionally. That’s who He is.

So don’t believe this lie that you shouldn’t express your negative feelings towards God… instead run into His arms… tell Him how you feel… surrender fully into His will and protection… and allow His unconditional love to comfort you.

With Love

Caleb

I’ll be honest, I don’t watch many sports on TV.

But God is amazing

I was out last night at a local pub, and the home run derby happened to be on T.V… What happened next was incredible.

A former drug addict named Josh Hamilton (pictured above) who had been in and out of rehab over 8 times before giving his life to Christ was shocking the sports world…

… although he was just a rookie (he’s only been playing for half a season in the big leagues), last night he put on quite a performance.

This former crack addict broke the home run derby record by hitting 28 home runs in the first round!

It was amazing to say the least. You can get the full scoop on the home run derby happenings here.

But I want to talk about another aspect of Josh’s life, his conversion to Christ and his road to recovery…

You can read about Josh Hamilton’s road to recovery here.

And even more amazing is how he describes his old life…

“Not that long ago, there were nights I went to sleep in strange places praying I wouldn’t wake up. After another night of bad decisions, I’d lie down with my heart speeding inside my chest like it was about to burst through the skin. My thinking was clouded, and my talent was one day closer to being totally wasted.

I prayed to be spared another day of guilt and depression and addiction. I couldn’t continue living the life of a crack addict, and I couldn’t stop, either. It was a horrible downward spiral that I had to pull out of, or die. I lay there — in a hot and dirty trailer in the North Carolina countryside, in a stranger’s house, in the cab of my pickup — and prayed the Lord would take me away from the nightmare my life had become.

When I think of those terrible times, there’s one memory that stands out. I was walking down the double-yellow of a two-lane country highway outside Raleigh when I woke up out of a trance.

I was so out of it I had lost consciousness, but my body had kept going, down the middle of the road, cars whizzing by on either side. I had run out of gas on my way to a drug dealer’s house, and from there I left the truck and started walking. I had taken Klonopin, a prescription antianxiety drug, along with whatever else I was using at the time, and the combination had put me over the edge. It’s the perfect example of what I was: a dead man walking.”

Don’t read about his past and feel sorry for Josh.

Why?

Because God allowed Him to go through those ordeals for a very specific reason. None of us is big enough to see the “full picture”… or… even see the “end game” through God’s eyes.

So don’t feel sorry for Josh… and don’t feel sorry for yourself or other people either. You can and should have empathy for them, but understand that every single moment of every day of every single person’s life on this earth is playing a part in God’s greater plan for everything.

Josh Hamilton says this about his past:

“This may sound crazy, but I wouldn’t change a thing about my path to the big leagues. I wouldn’t even change the 26 tattoos that cover so much of my body, even though they’re the most obvious signs of my life temporarily leaving the tracks. You’re probably thinking, Bad decisions and addiction almost cost him his life, and he wouldn’t change anything? But if I hadn’t gone through all the hard times, this whole story would be just about baseball. If I’d made the big leagues at 21 and made my first All-Star team at 23 and done all the things expected of me, I would be a big-time baseball player, and that’s it.

Baseball is third in my life right now, behind my relationship with God and my family. Without the first two, baseball isn’t even in the picture. Believe me, I know.”

The truth is…

God orchestrates everything for a reason!

What may seem like tragedy to you and I is actually a loving God executing his loving plan for the creatures He created soley to lavish love and adoration upon and display His glory through.

It is so important to realize that everyone in every moment of their life is the fullest expression of God’s love, will and power in that moment… whether crack addict or Christian missionary in Africa… they’re all playing a role in God’s big plan.

Crack addiction played a specific role in Josh’s life…

In my book, Christ Through Me, I called this point in a person’s life rock bottom — actually, Josh hadn’t quite hit rock bottom, he was still suffering, because he still wanted to be in control.

Then it happened…

Josh hits rock bottom, gives up, and let’s Christ do it

Are you still struggling?

Is life still sucking for you? It will continue to suck until you give up, surrender to the will of God (which is the person of Christ) and decide to let Christ be all.

Here’s how it happened to Josh Hamilton (emphasis mine):

“Addiction is a humbling experience. Getting it under control is even more humbling. I got better for one reason: I surrendered. Instead of asking to be bailed out, instead of making deals with God by saying, “If you get me out of this mess, I’ll stop doing what I’m doing,” I asked for help. I wouldn’t do that before. I’d been the Devil Rays’ No. 1 pick in the 1999 draft, supposedly a five-tool prospect. I was a big, strong man, and I was supposed to be able to handle my problems myself. That didn’t work out so well.”

You may not be a crack addict, but trying to live the Christian life out of your own power is just as bad!

You may not have to be brought to starving, living in a truck, addicted to crack to surrender to Christ.

You may just be tired of running on the “religious treadmill” of Church service, daily prayer times, bible studying, leading church groups, and all the other things that mainstream Christianity tells you makes God happy.

But stop trying to cope with it. You’re not supposed to.

Jesus said His burden was EASY and LIGHT.

If it doesn’t feel that way, then you’re doing something wrong.

And that something is not surrendering to Christ and allowing Him to live the Christian life for you.

That’s how you live a great Christian life! What are you thoughts on this? Post them in the comments below!

With Love

Caleb

Watch the vid below, by my main man Steve McVey, Christian Religion Lie #56 “we need to focus on overcoming our sins” and my comments follow…

For a long time in my Christian life I thought that my ONLY job was to focus on NOT sinning.

Oh what a MISERABLE existence that is!

Perhaps you’ve experienced it?

You wake up each morning and start a mental “Sins VS Good Stuff” scoresheet!

And then you start about your day, ever mindful that you’re just a “sinner saved by grace” and with each step you’re in danger of screwing up and adding another tally to the “sins” side of the scoresheet.

Then when you do screw up, you’re immediately begging God for forgiveness — hoping He will grant it to you.

Then every once in a while, you go a good part of the day without sinning, and think “I’m getting the hang of this Christian thing” — only to be hurled back into condemnation when a pastor or more “mature” Christian tells you that you could be sinning without even knowing it!

It’s a day of constant worry, always looking over your shoulder because you know the “big guy upstairs” is constantly watching your every move ready to tell you how you’re screwing up.

The last prayer of the day

Then right before bed, just to make sure, you say a quick prayer asking forgiveness for anything you might of done that was a sin and you didn’t know it… or you didn’t ask forgiveness for.

The whole time, you’ve TOTALLY ignored God.

Your focus has been on your SELF the entire day — never stopping to communicate with your loving Father, except to grovel at His feet for a few moments begging His forgiveness.

It kind of leaves you thinking “Is this all there is to being a Christian? If so, it SUCKS!”

What do you call being so preoccupied with sin all day?

It’s called “sin consciousness” and it’s ruining your great Christian life!

Does the Bible teach you to focus so much on sin? Or is it just something that you learned from more experienced Christians… and heard preached from the pulpit?

The TRUTH is: The Bible teaches you the opposite, the Bible teaches that Jesus came to put away sin (1 John 3:5)… dealt with sin once and for all on the cross… that it is finished (John 19:30)… and you’re now to focus ONLY on Christ.

The Apostle Paul said it like this in Colossians 3:1-4:

“1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”

Paul says to pay no attention to the things of this world, and in the next verses gives advice not to focus on things of the “flesh” things of sin, things of “self”.

Instead, set your focus on Christ because as a Christian, He truly IS your life now and is ALL that matters!

The best part is, the more you focus on Christ, the less you’ll even be tempted to sin– you’ll be consumed by His love and want nothing to do with anything that isn’t from His hands.

So this is a lie that we need to focus on the sin in our lives, what we REALLY need to focus on is Jesus Christ and sin will cease to be an issue.

Watch the video below by Steve McVey about Christian Religion Lie #55: “It is a sin to be depressed“ and my comments follow…

So is it a sin to be depressed?

Do you think so?

The truth is a resounding “NO!”

Even Jesus got depressed!

In fact, instead of addressing this Lie directly, I’m going to repost here, one of my own articles from the past. It’s called, “We have an emotional Jesus” and it’s about how Jesus Himself was GREATLY depressed before He was taken away to be tried and eventually executed…

(you’ll also get to see how my writing style has changed since this article was first published, way back in 2004)

“We Have An Emotional Jesus”
– by Caleb Osborne

Yes, even in our most trying times we can be sure that our Lord has already triumphed in our particular situation. So we can be comfortable talking to him about our troubles.

This is important and a comforting thing to know. For it’s comforting to know you can talk to someone who has been through your situation. More important than the comforting feelings is that Jesus showed us the way to deal with these emotions.

In the last email Jesus got mad at people disgracing the house of prayer, the temple. So He did the right thing and threw them out and was rightly justified in expressing His anger with them.

Emotions aren’t inherently sinful…

It’s important for me to interject that anger in and of itself is not a sinful emotion, it’s a natural one. It will occur, the important thing is to be in control of the emotion, let it out and recover.

Remember that after Jesus stopped the selling and misuse of the temple grounds He taught them that what they were doing was wrong (Mark 11:17-18).

Sorrow is one of the most painful emotions…

There is another emotion that I want to focus on in this article though. An emotion so powerful it can hurt worse and cripple more severely than physical pain. That emotion is Sorrow. Sorrow can come in many forms, from many places and can hurt tremendously. So much so that death can seem like a welcomed event..and an acceptable alternative to the present circumstances.

Yes, tis true, Sorrow can be the worst emotion. Just look at the suicide rate in this Country (USA) and you’ll see that there are a lot of people that suffer from great sorrow. I’d bet dollars to donuts that you can probably think of someone that you’ve personally known that has given in to sorrow and taken their life. Such a sad fact, but true (I know it’s true for me).

Jesus has experienced horrible sorrow too!

And He has showed us the way to deal with it! The correct manner to deal with situations that are not turning out the way we had hoped, and the future seems so bleak.

Jesus taught us to TRUST. To trust in Father’s perfect will and trust that He knows what’s best for us even when we can’t see it , even when it seems like the hardest thing to do in the world, Jesus taught us to trust and submit to the will of Father.

On the night that Jesus was to be betrayed He knew what had to happen, the horrible suffering that was going to come. I like the way the NIV version translates what Jesus tells His disciples about his feelings, when He was going off to pray:

“My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Mark 14:34)

Wow! How incredibly troubled He must of been! He was so troubled that He did what most of us would do. He prayed that Father could take the trouble from Him. (Mark 14:35-36):

“Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me…”

But! Remember what Jesus did next is what we should pay attention to (as we often forget). In an almost inconceivable act of humble submissiveness and amazing trust, amazing faith in His Father’s will for Him. He prays:

“…Yet not what I will, but what you will.” (Mark 14:36)

Jesus was in such anguish during this prayer that His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground (Luke 22:44). He even went back from praying to find His disciples asleep where He had left them (talk about feeling alone and uncared for–they were sleeping!) and after waking them, went back and repeated his prayer.

3 times Jesus was so depressed He asked for God to save Him…

He did this again. 3 Times He prayed that if it was possible, that His Father could take this burden from Him because He was in such troublesome spirits. But each time He reaffirmed His father’s will for His life to be what He desired most (Mark 14:37-42)

So Take Note Christian! Next time Life’s troubles have you so unhappy and full of sorrow that you don’t think you can stand it. Don’t be afraid to ask God first for deliverance but sincerely, honestly and humbly pray that His will be done, no yours.

Jesus showed us the way to live, relying on the Father and through faith accepting His will even when it seems horribly painful to do so!

[END article]

So there you have it!

It wasn’t a sin for Jesus to be depressed… so it’s not a sin for you to be depressed either. But like Jesus, you can rest, in faith in the One who is faithful — your heavenly Father. You can trust in His will for your life… even if… your emotions are telling you different.

With Love

Caleb

Watch the video by Steve McVey below called, Christian Religion Lie #54 God Only Speaks Today Through The Bible and my comments follow…

This is a BIG, FAT LIE!

Seriously, to think that God, the creator of everything, only speaks through the words He transcribed to saints of old to be written down for us today… is insane.

Now, let me be careful to say this first…

This doesn’t diminish value of the Bible.

And God will never speak in a way through any other medium that would be a contradiction to His word.

So if the Bible says, “Love your neighbor” and the little voice in your head says, “Kill your neighbor” you know for a FACT that it is NOT God telling you to do that

But God can and DOES speak through EVERYTHING in creation…

He speaks through nature, art, music, literature, science (the way He reveals Himself to us), the heavens, skies, women, children, beauty, ugliness, sex, smells, taste, texture, literally everything that is created God speaks through.

Do you have trouble believing God speaks to you through everything, every day?

If you’re having trouble with this, or think it sounds strange, can you ever remember hearing a fellow Christian say (or perhaps you’ve said it yourself):

“Pastor, the Lord spoke to me through you today”

Christians will say this all the time, or they’ll say…

“Wow, the Lord really spoke to me through that song we were singing today, what a blessing”

And yet they have a hard time believing that God is speaking to them like that through EVERYTHING… if… only they’d listen.

God does not JUST speak in Church

I think half the problem is Christians think the only place they can hear the Lord and have a spiritual conversation with Him is in Church.

When in reality, God is initiating conversations with you each and every day… from the moment you wake up… to the last flutter of your eyelids before you drift off into sleep.

How to “Pray without Ceasing”

In 1 Thessalonians 5:17 the Bible says to “Pray without ceasing”

Have you ever wondered how that is possible?

I’ll tell you how, it’s because God is initiating conversations with you all day long through His various creations.

He is trying to show you His love in the cool summer breeze… He wants to shine on your face with the warm rays of the sun… He wants to show you everything is in His hangs when you check your bank account and you could SORELY use an extra decimal point or two.

When you realize this, you’ll realize God is talking to you every single moment of every single day, this is the meaning of “pray without ceasing”.

Listen for Him, He IS talking to you!

God does want to talk with you…

Just like you want to talk with your lover, you want to tell them how much you love them, how much you want to do for them, you want to send them little love notes through email or texts on your phone… and… you want to share that Love with them every moment of every day.

So like a good lover, you only need to respond to God’s messages of love (1 John 4:19)

So, this matter is settled yes? God can and WILL speak to you in HUNDREDS of ways each and every day, you only need to have “ears to hear” to hear Him… so don’t believe this lie any longer!

With Love

Caleb