Guide Almost A Failure : My Life Without Jesus Christ

Free download. Book file PDF easily for everyone and every device. You can download and read online Almost A Failure : My Life Without Jesus Christ file PDF Book only if you are registered here. And also you can download or read online all Book PDF file that related with Almost A Failure : My Life Without Jesus Christ book. Happy reading Almost A Failure : My Life Without Jesus Christ Bookeveryone. Download file Free Book PDF Almost A Failure : My Life Without Jesus Christ at Complete PDF Library. This Book have some digital formats such us :paperbook, ebook, kindle, epub, fb2 and another formats. Here is The CompletePDF Book Library. It's free to register here to get Book file PDF Almost A Failure : My Life Without Jesus Christ Pocket Guide.
I'm a Christian, but not a very good Christian these days. I'm not even sure I'll Almost absurd in our passion. Yet most of us But Jesus' life-failure presaged a huge reward and, ultimately, a spiritual and historical victory.
Table of contents

Isn't it astonishing, then, how many Christians today have been taught that salvation comes through right believing instead of right practice- a message that is fundamentally contrary to the words of Jesus. And even more to his little brother James who says, "You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. Many modern day Evangelical preachers spend a lot of time talking about the kinds of people that God is opposed to and who he condemns.

They spend time talking about how to transition from a position of condemnation before God to a position of Grace through believing the right things about Jesus. They often talk about those who disagree or live contrary to their understanding of what is "righteous" as those who are under condemnation from God.

Don’t Be Afraid of Failure - Inspirational & Motivational Video

But what's funny is that as one examines the teachings and life of Jesus, we find him not only befriending, loving, and affirming some of his societies most despised and vile people, but chastising the religious leaders who condemned them for their sin. Whether it is Jesus' conversation with Rabbi Niccodemus in John 3 where Christ explains that it is his mission to redeem the world and not to condemn it or the instance where a woman is caught in the act of adultery and is taken outside to be stoned by the religious officials as the law required and Jesus steps in to stop the condemnation and proclaim freedom and forgiveness to the broken woman, it is clear that Jesus is not in the condemning business.

Instead, it seems Christ is in the business of restoring humanity to the most broken and wicked of people. It seems that his passion is to see the weak, sick, and broken become strong, healthy, and whole in his Kingdom. It seems that he spends very little time almost none telling sinners why they're wrong or speaking words of condemnation over them, but rather practically loving and extending grace to the most screwed up of individuals. Maybe we Evangelicals, who are known for our condemnation of entire people groups with whom we disagree, could learn something from Jesus on this point.

You're supposed to sacrifice yourself and speak words of blessings for those you disagree with the most.

Learning from Failure Is Part of the Plan

It seems like every week there is a new major controversy taking place within the Church. Most of the time, the situation revolves around one group of Christians disagreeing with another and then taking to the internet to write slanderous posts about the other. If it's not infighting, then it is Christians engaging in culture wars, working to defeat those whom we disagree with politically and socially by painting them as soul-less monsters.

But that response is absolutely contrary to the way of Jesus. Jesus calls his followers to love the people they disagree with most and to speak blessings over them when all we really want to do is curse them out. No matter what the situation is or what kind of enemy we have, Christians are called to bless the people who hurt us the most. This includes in theological battles, political disagreements, national wars, and personal conflicts. Christians are called to a radical position of nonviolence and forgiveness, grace, and even blessing of our enemies.

Learning from Failure Is Part of the Plan

There is no way around it. And when Christians chose to ignore these clear teachings, our hypocrisy is glaringly obvious to the watching world. Want some proof? Take a couple minutes to watch this clip of the famous Agnostic Comedian, Bill Maher, talk about Christian's refusal to obey the teaching of Jesus. Contains explicit language. The point of this post is to encourage those of us who claim to be followers of Jesus to reexamine how we are living our lives and practicing our faith. It is so easy to get so caught up in the flow that we fail to recognize just how far away from shore we have been carried.

The words of Jesus are pretty darn clear, but oftentimes in our zealousness for our faith, we often get pulled away from the basics and eventually end up living in a way that we believe is honoring to God, but is actually contradictory to everything he has taught us. In this post, I have offered just four examples. There and hundreds of teachings contained in the 4 Gospels of the New Testament, teachings that, if we obeyed, would absolutely flip our lives and world upside-down for the glory of God and the good of all people.

What the Church as a whole and Evangelicals in particular desperately need in this age is a return to the plain teachings of Jesus.

So, Why Am I A Christian?

We need to be willing to set aside out theological debates and meanderings for a season and focus on simply reading, conforming, and obeying the will of Christ, both as revealed in Scripture and as we are led by his Spirit. The world is desperately longing to encounter Jesus through us and for far too long we have been giving them a cheap knock off that we have exported under his name. But it's clear to everyone that what is passing for Christianity today is almost totally divorced from the teachings of Jesus Christ.

My prayer is that we would all turn our faces towards our risen Savior and seek to selflessly follow his commands. I am convinced that the Jesus' way is the only way that will heal our broken world.

The Apostle Paul

I am convinced that the whole earth is groaning as it waits for men and women to take of their crosses and follow in the way of redemption. I am convinced that when those of us who call ourselves "Christian" re-orient ourselves in Jesus, the power of God will flow through us in an unprecedented and miraculous way that will bring salvation to the ends of the earth. Oh how I long for that day. It's that simple. Followers follow, and those who don't follow aren't followers. To follow Jesus means to follow Jesus into a society where justice rules, where love shapes everything. To follow Jesus means to take up his dream and work for it.

The views expressed in this piece are exclusively those of the author and not of any of the organizations that he represents. US Edition U. News U.

4 Teachings of Jesus That His Followers (Almost) Never Take Seriously | HuffPost

HuffPost Personal Video Horoscopes. Newsletters Coupons. Terms Privacy Policy. And never have deep issues. The problem was, every Christian I met sucked at being good. They just happened to be really skilled at covering it up and looking pretty externally. I happened to be the guy that wore my train wreck on his sleeve, so I never fit in. You can get online at any point and read about large mega-church pastors covering up sexual abuse cases. Or rape charges.

Or abuse.

Flabby Christians

Or systemic racism within the four walls of our churches. Us vs. Them mentalities. And the overall view held by Millennials that Christians are judgmental, bigoted, and hypocritical. After all that? When I was 27, I met two men who forever changed the way I viewed Christianity. Both were covered in tattoos, occasionally used swear words, and liked beer. All the things I had been told growing up that got you kicked out of Club God they seemed to be doing. And honestly, it confused me. That would be a stupid reason to join anyway as I could go to the nearest hipster bar and join a tribe like that.

What won me over was the way they loved me and loved people who were hurting and messy. It was the way they shared openly about their hurts and repeated failures. It was the way they loved their wives and spoke so highly about them.

It was the joy they had even in the midst of tears and deep suffering. But what they DID know was contagious. It was big, bold, and beautiful and I was fascinated by it because I had never heard it. Simple enough. But what they told me ended up being insanely complex and challenged if I was really down for this whole Christianity thing. Often there are people out there who can easily live more moral lives than us. In fact, it seemed most non-Christians were helping more people than those in the pews every Sunday.

To them, the cross where Jesus died was a reminder that as good as we try to be, we still need someone to save us from ourselves because at the end of the day we love to compare ourselves to scoundrels.


  • Different Day, Same Conversation.
  • Mystery Men (& Women) Volume Four.
  • The Yellow Fairy Book.
  • 7 Important Biblical People That Messed Up!
  • There's much more to be learned from failure than success..

But Christianity teaches that if anything we realize what a train wreck we are, and so when we see people in this light it humbles us. I know of no other religion that does that. We wait until the next life. Christ teaches his goal is a new heavens and new earth here on earth. That we bring hope to the hopeless. That we help the needy, poor, and oppressed.