me

so I'm wrestling with how I should deal with other belief systems that don't match up with Christianity, true Christianity. It honestly makes me angry to hear some of the things that people say, and I get riled up and the first thing I want to do is disprove it and prove that I am right and act like I have all the answers. But tonight my good friend Wade Joye said some pretty good stuff: Facts rarely change people... and it's true.

I didn't come to Christ because one of my Christian friends debated evolution to me. Or because they gave me all of the prophecy in the Old Testament, and then put it together with Jesus's life. I came to him because I saw Jesus working in other people's lives and I thought... I want that, NO, I NEED that. I think at this point I'm realizing that maybe all I can do, maybe all that God really wants me to do is tell people what I believe about him and "be" what I believe about him.

So what do I believe? I believe that me as a person before coming to God, I was completely lost, and trying to figure out my own way of life on my own and DEAD in my sin. I could have tried as hard as I wanted and it never would have been good enough. I believe that even though I had chosen to deny God's way, and fell in a path of Sin... he still sought out to make a way for me to get back to him. I believe God HATES sin, and that he is a loving, but JUST God. He hated sin soooo much and loved us sooo much that he let His son Jesus come to connect us to God... he let his son suffer one of the most agonizing deaths in order that maybe one of us would see the sacrifice and simply accept what Jesus did and believe that it works. Once I accepted Christ as my savior, once I confessed my sins to him... he took them off of me and began to allow me to experience life the way it was intended... I'm not perfect, nor do I think that I will be, but I have freedom over sin through the redemption that Christ has given me. I also believe that not only is salvation one of the greatest gifts ever and that it comes from Christ ONLY, but there is this bonus that is often overlooked even though it's freakin crazy. THE HOLY SPIRIT that lives within me and keeps me in tune with God and lets me in on what he thinks, and what he wants for me.

God is working in me through his Spirit, daily, and my prayer is that people out there will see that and eventually get to a point where they say... I need that Jesus thing that Andrew has.