"Christian" vs. Follower of Christ

Hilarious.

The bottom line

"Life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify..."
-Henry David Thoreau

I hate religion.

That's right, you read right, I hate it.

Religion is what tears churches in two.
Religion is what causes people to fight about how to pour water over someone's head.
Religion is what makes churches argue about how to pray in tongues.
Religion is what makes people say
"I'm gonna clean up my act and go to church, then I'll be saved."


"Then I'll be saved."

"Oh yeah and maybe I'll pray to Jesus or something. His name was Jesus, right? And he like... ah... um... OH YEAH he died on a cross for some reason. Gooot it. That's right. Well that sucks for him."

I have literally heard words similar to these come out of a classmate's mouth.



Religion is no good when Jesus is not in the sentence. I love Jesus. I worship Jesus. I don't worship religion. I don't pray to religion.

"Simplify, simplify, simplify."

When someone believes he can ensure his place in heaven by going to church and singing, I hate to say it, but score 1 for Satan.

God made us because He was lonely.
God wants us to worship Him.
God wants us to obey Him.
God wants us to love Him.

Religion didn't die so you could approach the Father. Our very human and finite minds have turned a beautiful thing the Lord intended for us and warped it to fit our moods. I love my church, and I'm not denying the presence of Jesus in our church family, but just imagine what would happen if every church in the world built their foundations on those four things.

I don't think God intended for His churches' main concerns to be whether or not to sing hymns or modern worship songs.

Religion = Bad
Jesus = Good

Just simplify.

Jesus notices the small stuff!

Wow. I think my week was pretty much just made a few minutes ago.

I'm a stresser. I get stressed. It's just what I do. Because I'm me, I waited 'til tonight to write a news story for the school paper. Oh, and it was due yesterday. Yeah, I wouldn't have it any other way.

So naturally, I get home and I'm stressed; beating myself up because I have hardly 10 quotes to make a 600-word story. I called a guy from the school board for an interview, and he hasn't called back, I'm on a time-crunch and I have an iffy main source.

Ughhhh why do I do this to myself.

So I'm sitting on my bed mulling over how much of an idiot I am for waiting this long, dreading going up to the cold computer room and facing the barren wasteland of an empty Word document.

A hear a still, small voice.
"Give it to Jesus!"
Mmm, this is not important enough, I doubt Jesus'll care.


Wait... WHAT?! I DOUBT JESUS WILL CARE?!!?

So I pray right then and there. I tell the Father the story is in His hands. I'll give my best, but Jesus is officially taking the reins.


So I'm struggling to piece this thing together, and I'm about ready to pull my hair out. Finally, I just lean back in my chair and close my eyes. I had to take a break.

Annnnnd my phone rings.

I pull it out, it says "Anonymous".

I answer it.

"Hi, this is Mr. Griffin, I'm calling back to speak with Matt Kenyon regarding an interview."


I honestly can't describe my heart then. In that moment, I felt as if I had just witnessed someone being raised from the dead... as if I had just single-handedly felt the love of Jesus Christ. Jesus recognized my stress, and he sent an answer.

It got me thinking. When we sing songs like I Surrender All, we give all the important things to Jesus. The sexual sin, the lying to our parents, the temper we so frequently lose. Do we ever think that when Jesus told us to surrender all, he meant the everyday, silly stuff, too? It may seem mundane or unimportant, but Jesus wants you to give it all up -- every last drop.

This world's best kept secret

Let's go on a journey. Picture this. It's mid-2005. A young, scraggly-haired Matt is standing in the back pews of a church service slightly swaying as the music is being played. He's thinking about what he's going to have for lunch, what he has to do for homework or if he's gotten a MySpace comment. The last thing on his mind is serving others, especially Jesus. A mission trip to Mexico? Mmmm, that requires work. CIY? As long as there'll be hot girls from other youth groups, I'll consider it.

Goodness! It pains me to write this. It's the truth though. In utter honesty, I didn't want anything to do with Jesus. It's as plain and simple as that. Scripture and church were boring. "Yeah, I know, Jesus came to die on earth for my sins, covered by his blood, yadda yadda yadda."

But He rescued me.

No honestly. I look back on some of the things I've done and said in the past and I see another person. A lost kid who just can't seem to find something good to be passionate about. Something that will just be everything I need.

What happened to me?!

The Word of God went from a boring, repetitive book to food for my heart -- I read it everyday and still can't get enough. The caliber of the love of Jesus Christ is made so much clearer to me. My eyes have been opened!

Now that I'm a follower of the Lord, it's my job to share the wealth. This love is too important to keep secret. Though it may cost me things I've grasped tight throughout my life, I can't let a dying world live another minute without them experiencing this same connection I've developed with my Father.

It worked for a lost, sad 15-year-old, so why keep the secret?

Some thoughts on time travel

I've ashamed to say I've given this quite a lot of thought, and I've devised a few number of reasons why time travel would be impossible, if not highly inconvenient.

• There is a severe risk of causing time paradoxes (You go back in time and kill yourself, therefore causing yourself and everyone you've affected to change).
  
• Let's say you go back two minutes in time, what happens to your body in this moment? Does it just disappear or just stay there as a clone of you?
• God created time as an ever-moving system to govern us. I don't think He really wants us mucking around in it.

Squidward, after abusing his time
traveling privileges, winds up in
a space/time rift.

Right place, right time, wrong person

*sigh*

Do you guys ever have a day where in the heat of some emotion or fear you do something, or don't do something, that you regret later? A couple years ago I had the opportunity to meet the creators of Homestarrunner.com. They were coming to UCF and my uncle had all the hooks. All I had to do was call him to schedule a time.

I forgot.
And that moment still haunts me to this day. My stomach lurches when I think about what could have been. How much fun and insight I could have gained.

Something similar happened today. At lunch, I sat on a stone bench outside by myself until my buddy finished buying his lunch. I looked around and my eyes caught a girl that sits outside everyday by herself. She was awkward, not the prettiest, and shamelessly outcasted by the majority of people she encountered. In that moment, I felt the whisper of the Holy Spirit creep up my spine into my brain.

"Go sit next to her."

Aghhhh!!

"Go."

There was no mistaking it. I would have never devised such a thought on my own. I hesitated against the will of the Lord, and the girl moved.

Now, I'll never know what might have happened if I would've sat next to her and just said hi. How can I pray for Jesus to work in my life and to possess my every being if I'm too afraid to step out of my comfort zone and just love others? I don't know if this girl was saved or not, but what if she wasn't? This world is dying, and I'm sitting around wondering what people will think of me.

I really do not like high school.

I guess it all comes back to when you build up the courage to lose.
Elaborate, you say?
Surely:

"For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it."

-Mat. 16:25

I try to rationalize with myself.

"It's just an age thing. With time I'll grow in Christ. I can't expect to be a strong witness in Christ at 16."

No.

Something I, and all other Christians, need to realize is that God is calling us. He's beckoning for us to go forth and be fishers of men. It's just a matter of when we're ready to lose ourselves.