This world is turning upside down

Have you ever set back and just looked at everything that is going on around you.  I have and sometimes it is pretty scary.  The problem today is that as Christians we are not allowed to express are true feelings if those feelings may upset someone.  I guess that is why I love to write on this blog because no matter if you read this or not, at least I am expressing what I feel and if this hurts me then I guess I will just have to live with it.

This world is turning upside down.  Twenty years ago, it was really easy to know exactly how to act and what to do or not do in the ministry but today everything has changed.  Churches are so divided in so many ways and honestly, I do not know how Pastors are able to handle it.  Just take the future election that are coming up.  We have a Democratic candidate that is extremely popular but he is extremely liberal.  He believes in gay marriage and abortions.  Just those two issues should make any true christian stray away from him but that is not the case.  

Just this week we had a man come down on one of the mission trips to Honduras who was very very pro Obama.  Of course no one knew this and when my mother mentioned something to him about the elections, he made it very plain to everyone that he was a strong Obama supporter.  What should a person do in a situation like that?  Should we keep quite to keep from offending him or do we have the right to express our opinion?

Politics is not just a problem today.  As we visit churches in the states, we enter every venue not really knowing what to expect.  Years ago, every church was pretty much the same when it came to many aspects but today you never know what to expect.  Their is not much middle ground anymore.  You are either liberal or a legalist in  your beliefs.  I used to think that legalistic meant you followed the law of God but I have found out by experience that most legalistic minded people make up new rules as time passes.  Liberals on the other hand seem to have no rules.  Many have no respect for the house of God anymore and it is overwhelming to see a song leader leading worship in flip flops and in bermuda shorts.  

As a group, we truly try to overlook what we see and focus on our purpose of being there.  Unfortunately, we run into situations that effect us.  One example is that their is now a movement in churches in the U.S. that believe that singing with sound tracks is a sin.  Please dont ask me to quote a scripture for this because I would have to read the Bible from cover to cover and I dont think that their was soundtracks back in the days of Moses.  

At one of our concerts in North Carolina, I actually had a man come to me all excited because he had found the problem for rebellion in the youth today.  SPORTS!  Yes, I am not lying.  He said sports.  I was not planning on hearing to much more of this but he went ahead and explained why SPORTS was the demon that was destroying our youth today.  He said that SPORTS came from the country of Greece and since the Greeks worshiped other gods then anyone who participated in sports was actually bringing honor to other gods not the true God Jehovah.  Here we are in a church, invited to sing, what I am supposed to do.  I just looked at him and said REALLY, and walked away.  

I envy people who are able to find a good church to go to and that is the only church they assist. Unfortunately for missionaries, evangelist, singing groups like ours, we visit all kinds and it is not easy find one you fit in but when we do, it is such a wonderful experience.  

I am not liberal and I am not a legalistic.  I am in the middle and the Holy Spirit guides me in my daily decisions.  I have been thru it in my life because of some stupid decisions that I made when I was much younger but it has done something good for, it has shown me who really love me and does not.  If you want to know who your true friends really are, mess up once and see who sticks around.  Ninety percent of my friends vanished but I thank God for the friends that stuck around.  Guess what, these friends are not legalistic and they are not liberal.  I guess you would just call them christians.  They dont judge, they just love.  Sounds like Jesus to me!!!

Philip

Hate Sin but not the Sinner

Have you ever heard the saying "Hate sin but not the Sinner."  It is harder to say it than to actually do it.  I can talk about this because I have experienced it in my life.  

Back in 1997, my life was as good as it gets.  I was working for the Lord and I was building my sixth radio christian  station in Honduras.  What people did not know is that my home life was a wreck.  To make a long story short, I ended up in divorce and for seven years, I was out of the ministry and miserable.  I had so much guilt inside and I truly believed that God could not forgive me.  It wasn't until 2003 that I fell to my knees and asked God to forgive me.  I felt a peace that I had never felt before.  I was ready to tell the whole world about what God had done for me and I was ready to start serving Him again.

I never imagined what was going to happen next.  You expect that people who do not know Jesus is going to try to hurt you but Christians, NO WAY.  Well, YES WAY.  Even though God has forgiven me, all my Christian friends did not want to have anything to do with me.  I had never done them no harm but I guess all they could see was a big "D" on my forehead.  I made phone calls and I wrote letters asking everyone to forgive me for not living up to the standards that they expected of me but I received no response.

As the years passed, some people started approaching me and we started building relationships once again but many did not.  Even today, after so many years, there are people who I love with all my heart will not talk to me.  I ask myself, "WHY"  There are so many verses in the Bible about redemption and forgiveness but why can't we really forgive like God does?  I wonder what God thinks about the attitudes that we show towards others.  

As Christians, we should hate sin with all our strength but we have to love the sinner.  When a sinner has asked forgiveness from the Lord, this is when we should love them even more because this is the time that they need us to be close to them.  Life is not easy for me and I only blame myself because if I would of not falling in sin, this would of never happened but it has shown me a tremendous lesson.  I am going to show compassion to people who are hurting.  I am not going to judge anyone because I am not a judge, only God is.  Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well when the disciples would not but she ended being the link to Jesus preaching to the whole city.  

I don't have all the answers but what I can tell you is that Christians can hurt you more than the lost people of the world.  The reason for this is because we expect the lost to act the way they do but we do not expect Christians to act like the lost.

Philip Tyson