Keeping Your Balance

Have you ever thought much about a pendulum? They swing all the way to the right, stop for just a moment, only to swing in the opposite direction, all the way to the left, where they stop for another moment, only to swing right again. They only stop at the extreme right or at the extreme left. They never stop anywhere in the middle.

One of my instructors at Heritage Christian University blessed me with a little piece of information. He encouraged me to always aim to stay balanced. He uses the illustration of a pendulum swinging. It seems that when we are raised believing one way, and ultimately study to discover that our beliefs were not entirely correct, we tend to react in a way that we swing the opposite direction. Often, if we are not careful, we can swing too far in the opposite direction.

I've found, as I've learned more about the Bible and how to study it and what I believe, that it is very easy to swing like that pendulum. It takes a lot of effort to try and maintain balance in everything. It's easy to develop a bitter attitude when I realize that something I have always believed is not entirely correct. And I have to work to try and maintain balance. And I have to work to maintain a Christ-like attitude and mindset, as I strive to become who He wants me to be.

In my time at HCU, I feel like everything I have always believed has been questioned and stripped away from me, as I have learned not to just accept everything without studying it. There are a lot of things that have led me to think, "is that really Scriptural?" And as I've studied, I've found that a lot of things I've believed were clear are actually not so clear. I regret that I may have developed some bitter attitudes that were not always what Christ would have me to be. And I am sorry for that. My husband and I have always firmly believed that if people know you love them and if you tell them in the right way, you can tell them anything. And we have seen that proven true in numerous situations. I want to seek to have an attitude so that people know I love them and I want to have the wisdom to approach people in the right ways so that God can, though me, reach more. I pray that God will mold me into that type of person.

I want to encourage you to think about the pendulum as you grow in your walk with Christ. Try not to be like the pendulum, stopping only at the extreme right or at the extreme left. Instead, seek to be in the middle. Strive to be balanced and to be as much like Christ in your approach as you possible can.

I am not an advocate of the "liberal" and "conservative" distinctions that Christians make between themselves and their brothers and sisters in Christ. I think making those distinctions is not Christ-like and I believe it only harms the impact that we can have on the lost. However, I believe that if we were all aware of this pendulum effect, and we all sought to try to control it better, rather than letting ourselves react in an erroneous way, more people would land closer to the middle. And the church would result in being more united. And since God longs for his people to be in unity, that result would bring a smile to His face.

When Dreams Come True

When I read this, I fall to my knees in thankfulness to God. There was a time in my life when I wondered if this statement was true. I didn't have the family that I wanted. My life at home wasn't the "Christian" life that I so desperately desired. I hated my life in a lot of ways, and I loved God so much. And I couldn't understand why God hadn't placed me into a situation where my family lived the same life that I sought-one that led to heaven. I couldn't understand what I had done to "deserve" the punishment I felt like I was dealt. But I held on. I held on when I read this passage. I prayed. I trusted God with every ounce of trust I could muster.

It paid off. My dreams came true! The life that I am living right now is the life that I dreamed of as a young girl. I love everything about it. I love my husband. I love that he is a man of God. I love working so closely with the church. I love attending Heritage Christian University where I can learn more and more about God. I love the future that I dream of. I love the children that I dream of. I love the family that we have and the family I can imagine in the future. I love everything about it, and I have no one to thank for it but God. God has blessed me with this life that I live. I haven't earned it. But I am so thankful for it.

All those years ago, when I was so afraid that things would never change, God's promise held true. He did (does) have a future for me. His plans for me were (are) to give me a future and a hope. And He has blessed me in ways that I can never thank Him enough for.

I fall down in worship is I reminisce, awestruck, about the impact He has had and is having on my life each day that I live and each breath that I take.

Dear God,
Thank you. You have blessed me so richly. You have given me such a wonderful life. Your hand in my life has been so clear, so obvious, and so amazing. I am awestruck by your presence. Please help me to never take this for granted. Please stir in me, daily, a desire to live my life in a way that glorifies and thanks You for all that You have done. And please, God, if we are ever blessed with children, start molding me now. Do what it takes to turn me into the type of woman you would have a mother to be. And if we are blessed with children someday, give us wisdom to show them Your way. Give us wisdom to teach them Your way in a way that sticks, so that they will grow in the faith and be Yours forever. Thank you for giving me a future with a hope already. And I pray that the future with a hope that you've promised will continue to unfold in my life. And I pray that I will continue to recognize Your hand in it and give you every bit of the glory for it.
Amen.

Modesty-->It Goes Back to the Gospel

Modesty. Not that big of a deal, right? I mean, it's just a pair of shorts. It's just a halter top. Sure it's tight, but it flatters my figure. Surely, it's okay for me to wear. Surely it's okay for Christians to wear.

This justification is dangerous. It's wrong. It's sinful. And truly, modesty isn't about the hemline. It's not about some arbitrary set of rules. It's not about shorts being past the fingertips or shirts being high enough or sleeves being a credit card in width. It's about the heart. Modesty isn't something you do. It's something you are. Modesty is a characteristic, a mindset, an attitude, and a way of life. And when one truly is modest, she will not wear things that are questionable or inappropriate (unless it's by accident or out of plain ignorance).

Guess what? MODESTY IS THAT BIG OF A DEAL! It's a huge deal. And it all goes back to the Gospel of Christ. His death. His sacrifice for you. Don't believe me? This video is the best thing I've seen or heard on this topic. I was almost in tears by the end. Before you listen:

"Dear God, I pray that you would open the hearts of those who are about to listen to this. I pray that You will use Your Holy Spirit to convict the hearts of the listeners. Show each one wear she is in the wrong. Show each one where she needs to make life changes in order to become the Proverbs 31 woman that you created her to be. Use those who are changed to make a difference in your name in the lives of all those around her. Use her to spread the modesty trend among women in the Christian community. Help all women to stay strong and to know who they want to appeal to: You. In Christ's Name, Amen."

Dear Immodestly Dressed,

You’ve been there. You know how it feels.

To experience a situation that you hate, and you want so desperately to have the power to change it, but you don’t. Sometimes a situation can seem so chaotic and impossible and you can hurt so much because of it. And you wish so badly you could change it, but you just can’t. Maybe you don’t know how. Maybe you try, and nothing seems to work. Maybe it’s just something so great that you can’t do it alone.

But you’ve been there.

So have I.

How can I express myself right now? I feel so frustrated with how women and young girls are dressing. And the best way I can think of to express the seriousness of it is by writing a letter. This is a letter girls who dress immodestly. It is not directed at any one person, but to all young girls who are in the wrong on this issue. You know who you are.


Dear Immodestly Dressed,

There are a few things that I would like to say to you regarding how you dress. Not only how you dress, but also how you act. And your attitude. And your self-worth. And respecting yourself.

I know why you do it. You’ve seen other girls leave little to the imagination. And you’ve seen the attention they get. You’ve seen that good-looking guy you have a crush on eyeing her. Because he is interested in what she is showing. And that girl who shows her cleavage and wears shorts that cover little more than her panties? She is the one that gets all of the compliments on how “gorgeous” she is. She is the one all of the guys pay attention to. She is the one who gets glamorous treatment. So you think, “maybe if I dress that way, I will get attention. Maybe I will be pretty, too.”

Or maybe you’re not a young girl at school. Maybe you’re older, and you’re dressing this way. Maybe you think you need to because when you go out with your husband, he spends more time looking at half-dressed women than he does looking at you, his own wife. And maybe you feel like you have to dress this way to try and keep your husband’s eyes on you. Maybe you think, “if I dress this way, I’ll be pretty enough for my husband. He won’t look at other women anymore.”

And that’s what we all want, isn’t it? To be pretty.

Immodestly Dressed, I want to take this time to try and express to you how many problems you are causing when you dress this way. First, you should know that there are some really nice boys out there who are struggling a lot. These boys want to be pure. They want their thoughts to be pure. But you need to understand that when you don’t cover your body, boys struggle to do that. It makes the whole process nearly impossible when you are half-naked in front of them.

Immodestly Dressed, I want you to think about this for a moment. Someday, you will be married. And you will have a husband whom you want to have eyes for you, and you alone. But girls who aren’t modest are causing your husband to struggle with his thoughts. Wouldn’t that hurt you? Think about it this way. When you dress immodestly, there are a lot of husbands who see you. There are a lot of husbands who want to be faithful to their wives in action and in thought. And you are the girl who is causing this husband to struggle. You are the girl who is causing this man to hurt his wife deeply. You are the girl that has the potential to destroy this marriage without even knowing you’re doing it. And you are the girl that Satan is using to ruin lives.

This is a serious problem, not just with the secular world, but in the Christian realm as well. There are Christian men who can’t even serve on the Lord ’s Table for fear of having to fight this war as they see women sitting in pews. The church should be the one place where men of God can go and find peace and rest. It shouldn’t be one of the worst places for them to go when struggling with such a battle.

But it’s not just an issue about how you dress. It’s about your attitude. And your body language. The way you act around boys can make his life Hell as well. Even if you’re dressed modestly, there are things you can do and say that make these boys struggle. You need to be cautious about these things as well.

Immodestly Dressed, you need to know that you are beautiful the way you are, without revealing your body to everyone around you. You need to know that when you dress that way, you are not attracting the boys you really need to be with anyway. You need to know that the one you really need to look good for is God. And when you dress this way, you look hideous to Him.

You also need to know that just because you are going swimming doesn’t mean that God’s standards no longer apply. So wearing bikinis that cover less than your underwear is never okay. And just because you are in a pageant, participating in a wedding, or going to prom doesn’t mean the rules no longer apply. We are to be modest in everything we do in our lives. The only exception to dressing modestly is when you are married, and that is in the bedroom with your husband ONLY.

Walking around half-naked is nothing short of selling yourself for free. When boys and/or men see you leaving little to the imagination, they begin to visually consume you in their minds. Don’t be that cheap. Have some respect for yourself. Because you are worth more than that. Don’t be a free prostitute. When you dress this way, that’s what you reduce yourself to.

So please. Stop letting Satan use you as an instrument to destroy souls, lives, marriages, and more. Not just for me, but for yourself, and more importantly, for God. You are worth so much more than that.

Hannah Burleson

1% of Churches in America are Growing

In one of the classes I am taking, I heard some statistics that shocked me. Did you know that of the churches in America (denominations included) only 15% are growing? And 14% of those 15% are only swelling? Swelling just means that the growth is from people who are “church-hopping” and from growth in numbers due to births, as opposed to growth due to actual evangelism and saving of lost souls. Only 1% of churches are TRULY growing. Not dying. Not swelling. But growing. Just 1%. I knew that it had to be pretty low. But I just didn’t realize that it was really THAT bad!

I don’t understand it. I am led to ask so many questions by these startling statistics. For one, I wonder, are we REALLY Christians? I mean, if we really were, wouldn’t we be UNABLE to keep from telling other people about Christ? Wouldn’t our lives be changed to such a degree that others wanted to know how they could get what we’ve got?

These statistics are very eye-opening. Christians have become entirely too comfortable. We’ve gotten so comfortable, in fact, that we have fallen into a very deep and dangerous sleep. One that, in too many cases, is becoming a permanent sleep. Christians are, without even realizing it, dying.

If we don’t wake up now, what is going to happen?

It looks to me like the only thing that will wake up Christians in America is going to have to be total loss of religious freedom and is going to require real persecution. Because think about it. Christians have already begun to lose some freedoms. Prayers are not allowed in schools. It’s no longer “politically correct” to say “Merry Christmas,” but instead we should say “Happy Holidays.” And these are only the tip of the iceberg.

Still, Christians are asleep.

What will it take?

When I referred to real persecution a minute ago, I didn't mean that your friends point fingers and laugh. I didn't mean that you don't get invited to a party because you are a Christian. What I meant was torturing and killing of Christians. Will it take the literal killing of Christians? I’m afraid if we don’t wake up soon, that’s exactly where America is heading. And at first, it’s scary. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if that’s not EXACTLY what we need to happen. Maybe then Christianity won’t just be a fad or a social scene anymore. Maybe then, the “nominal Christians” will finally stop destroying the name of Christ and doing more damage than they are good, and the true Christians will finally step up. Maybe persecution is what we need to finally wake us up. And I’m becoming convinced that the church is going to be able to do more at that point than it could even begin to do in the situation we are in now. Because right now, only 1% is actually growing. And while I haven’t done the research to know this for sure, my guess would be that the majority of that 1% probably doesn’t have a “Church of Christ” sign out front. In fact, my guess is that the majority of those are probably community churches.

Come on Christians. Where are you? WAKE UP! Don’t you realize what is happening? Do you even care? Do you really love Christ like you claim to? Going to church 3 hours a week and hearing the Bible doesn’t make you a Christian. And it doesn’t make you an evangelist. It makes you nothing more than a hearer. And James 1:22—25 says “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing."

Stop deceiving yourself into thinking that if you go to a church building for 3 hours a week and listen to someone talk about spiritual things makes you a Christian. And stop deceiving yourself into thinking that inviting someone else to do that same thing is evangelism. If that’s what you think, you are in for a rude awakening.

Just some food for thought. Only 1% of Churches in America are actually growing. Chew on it, and if you are serious about Christianity, maybe you’ll actually begin to do something about it.


(DISCLAIMER: I think I sounded “preachy” at times here. I am not talking only to “you.” I am pointing the finger at myself just as much. Because I absolutely have been guilty of these things as well.)