“But I am an American. I am a Christian. I have a duty to God and Country.”

This is the statement that started the conversation for last Tuesday.  I did not give much background information, just posited a statement that was made on another site.  I also said that it bothered me but not how or why.  Then I gave all of you the opportunity to respond and you gave some excellent thoughts about the whole issue of duty.

Duty, as stated by one of the commentator’s, has a definition that anyone can look up in the dictionary.  I did it and most do.  When we do this we see that out of all the listings it boils down to basically two different things can be meant by the word.

It can mean a duty is something that you have to do or should do because of your job or some role that has been assigned to you.  While in the army of this nation it was my duty to fight because of the job I took and the role I was given, not to mention the oath that I took.  But it is also the duty of the janitor to sweep and mop floors.  It is his duty, in this sense of the word, because it is his job.  We tend to reserve the word duty, in this definition, for people that are a little higher profile than the janitor, but we shouldn’t.

Now the second sense, or definition of the word, is that duty is something we ought to do.  Morally, legally, or spiritually I really ought or owe something to someone.

Read the last statement again and maybe you can “foreknow” or “foresee” what bothered me about the statement.

If duty, as the statement is implying, is something I owe, then it has to be to someone or some group of someone’s.  In my view, the statement we started with has a couple of things wrong with it.  First the implication is there that being an American and being a Christian are somehow equal and can be true.  Before some of you get mad at me, I know we are Americans.  But only in the sense that we live on a certain piece of dirt not in a sense of true identity.  As people, Americans are not anything special.  I am a Christian because the One who made that certain piece of dirt, and even made us out of some of it,   chose to adopt me into His family thereby guaranteeing my eternal citizenship in the Kingdom of God. (Christianity)  And we are special people.

As one of you stated “my allegiance is also to the Lamb” and therefore cannot be to the USA.  This is a recent change in me, by the way.  I can live here, work here, raise a family here, and even fight to protect what I have here, but it is still so very temporary.  And I do not owe anything to America.

“Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.”

This was a moving statement, provoking a sense of duty, possibly at a time when it was needed.  But it is still a load of hogwash.  (What is hogwash?)  I believe you get what I mean.

A nation, especially this supposedly great nation, is supposed to be set up to serve and represent the people in it.  Do I need to capitalize people here?  This would be a time when I could go along with the sense of owing a nation, if it was meant to owe a group of people.  But the United States is not a servant of the people anymore and according to JFK we shouldn’t even expect it to be.  This nation stopped being about people a long time ago and instead is a machine grinding out one new group of self interested parties after another.

I owe it nothing.  This country never made me, it never cared for me, and it never saved me.  This country is an it.  It is a place to live.  It is a piece of dirt.  I am paying monthly for my little piece of dirt so what else do I owe.  The ones I am buying my dirt from bought it from someone before them, who bought it from someone before them,… who stole it from someone before them, who took it from someone before them,… who parked themselves on it and claimed it as their own before them, while the One who truly owns it all just has to be laughing at our ideas about possessions.

I do not believe we owe or have a duty, as implied in the statement starting all of this, to any nation.  I am conservative in most of my values but getting more liberal in my affections every day.  I believe this is what becoming Christ like is all about.  I owe nothing to any entity but do owe all to God and also to you.

So many conservatives lashed out at every compassionate attempt at a solution to the illegal immigrant issue.  (Which has been waylaid again)  There have always been objections, and I think rightly, to any plan that lets someone come and be a citizen here if they are not willing to learn the language and forsake their allegiance to the country they are leaving.  But Christian Americans are hypocritical in this sense.  We just don’t want to forsake our allegiance to America for the Kingdom.

That seems to be because some of us have mistakenly believed America is the Kingdom of God here on earth.  But we have fellow citizens all over the world.  Some are even being blown up by American Christians right now.  America never was a Christian nation and it never will be, unless God annexes it into the New Jerusalem.  It was a nation founded on Judeo Christian values and that is that.  Freedom of religion was a guaranteed right, from the start, no matter how many of the founders were Christians themselves.  They seemed to understand what we sometimes don’t and that is, that this Kingdom we are supposed to be a part of is not a Kingdom advanced by the sword, but instead experiences growth only through loving service to PEOPLE themselves, not to a nation or any piece of dirt.

I am an American by definition based on where I live, but I am a child of the King, a citizen of The Kingdom of God, and an Ambassador for Christ and His Kingdom while he leaves me here on this piece of dirt called America.

To answer my own questions; I don’t like the statement and believe it to be false as stated, I have a duty to the God that saved me and He really only expects that as a loving duty and not coerced, and I don’t owe this nation a thing.  It owes me the protection and service that it was set up for and even that I have to pay for.  So that even proves that in one sense of the word, America has a duty to me.  It is its job.

Love you all

Tags: allegiance, America, Christian Americans, Christians, Compassion, Conservative, God, god and country, Jerusalem, Kingdom, Liberal, Love, Self, Servant, USA, Work

Okay.  It is December.  It is probably the busiest month of the year.  The month when most people try to see family, shop for gifts, throw and attend party after party, decorate the yard, the house and the tree, and so on and so on.  It is an exhausting month of celebration but not often celebration of who it is supposed to be about.

Please don’t forget Christ as you go about the hustle and bustle of this season.

But it is Tuesday so I hope you can spend a few minutes here also.  I have held this topic for a few weeks because it has, I believe, the potential to get controversial.  But then again, I’ve thought that before and was wrong.

I was reading some comments on the internet a few weeks ago and someone made the following statement.

But I am an American. I am a Christian. I have a duty to God and Country.

They went on to expand on this to say what they had to about the topic at hand, which I can’t remember, but I could not forget it so I saved it.  I am referring just to the statement above that is in bold text.  It bothers me on some level.

• What do you think about the statement?

• Do you believe it is a truthful statement?

• What is this idea of duty and do I have a duty to these two entities?

• Do I have a duty to anything or anyone else?

What do you think?

Love you all.

Tags: America, Believe, celebration, Christ, December, God, Hope, Lie, Love, season, town hall, Truth

That sounds like the beginning of a joke. And it usually is, but not this time. Not unless the joke is on me. Just how low am I willing to go to get you to read this stuff?

I did walk into a bar one night nineteen years ago with nothing more than the intention of having a few beers. I was not looking for anything else, especially company. Little did I know that this seemingly insignificant moment in my life would result in one of the determining factors of my eternal destination.

This was the night that I met my wife, Tammy. Before this I had never met a Pentecostal. And believe me, she was not Pentecostal then. But she had been raised attending the very church we are a part of today. There were various reasons she was where she was at that time but that is not the focus of this post.

It did not take her very long after we settled down into marriage to go into service to Christ and the Kingdom. And that is when the change for me started. I had been an avowed atheist since my mid teens and had already argued with many Christians about the non existence of God. I had did it for fun mostly and just because I liked to argue, if I could win.

Now I realize that all the arguments with Christians were with those Christians of the reformed persuasion. These are the ones that hold to a view of God’s sovereignty and foreknowledge that does not allow for anyone to do anything that is not at His whim or with His permission. When faced with the real questions of how a God could be both loving and good, yet allowed or instigated all the evil that surrounds us and has for all time, according to history, most Christians crumbled or fell back to the mysterious, but still wonderful, ways of a God that was not for us to understand, defense.

Needless to say, they did not convince me that I was wrong or that He was real.

But then I met Tammy, married her, and she got saved. What I did notice, even though I did not care at that time, was that she seemed to have a real relationship with something I did not even believe in. My grandmother did too. And if I had been willing to discuss these things with them, I might have had a change of mind a lot sooner. But I never wanted to argue with them. Or maybe the enemy deceived me into keeping my mouth shut so he would not lose me. It was probably both.

The relational and interpersonal method of worship, the interaction with God as a true Father figure, the open view of His attributes, power, and actions shown by the very ways Pentecostals live for the Kingdom, (even if they won’t admit it and their theological speech implies reformed thought), are the true power of being Pentecostal. God is not some distant, egotistical, tyrant like figure that causes all things to happen, whether good or bad, for His glory. Instead He is a loving Father that wants the best for His children and invites us to come to Him, giving ourselves to Him fully, so He can direct our lives in the best possible way.

This is what meeting Tammy caused me to start seeing. That is not the end of the story of my transformation but it was the beginning. Did God set us up to meet? Did He direct all of this? I seriously doubt it but do admit that I don’t know for sure. But as promised, He does work it all out for good, if we allow Him to. Even if we might be in a bar when we shouldn’t be.

So a guy walked into a bar, that guy being me, and looking back, I am so glad I did.

Back then.

Love you all

Tags: atheist, Christ, Christians, Church, Enemy, Evil, Father, foreknowledge, Kingdom, Knowledge, Lie, Love, Marriage, mission, Pentecostal, Personal, relationship, Service, Sovereignty

There are some questions I have been asking myself lately that are very troublesome?  They come unbidden and seem to be designed to move me or coax me into something new or at least out of the comfortable space I currently exist in.  These questions upset me to my core and I don’t really know what or how to answer. 

The thoughts behind my question from Tuesday, for example, are troublesome also.  I am not going to change churches, to my knowledge anytime soon, yet I want to see my church change to some degree.  I want to see us on the frontlines, carrying out the mission, or commission, of our King.  I want to see real fellowship and community in the people that attend.  I want to see an attitude of love that just has to reach out to the community because the confines of our building cannot contain it. 

Now if you think I am knocking my church or the members, you are wrong.  I see love, I feel the worship, I join the praise, and I grow from the food that is presented. There are some good people, some loving people in my church.  There are some ministries that are reaching out and representing the Kingdom in some wonderful ways. 

But these are some of the questions that bother me. They are personal in nature and do not really apply to my church.  The main one is; what am I really accomplishing for the Kingdom?  And following that is; how can I apply what I am teaching and learning every time I go to church?  And finally; how can I really get out there and do something real and life changing in the real world of the lost and unchurched?   

It seems that I am not the only one wondering about what we are doing.  Shannon’s latest blog post touches on this in another way and is worth reading.  And listen to the video he has on the page.  It is worth those five minutes of your life.  And yes, this is just a shameless plug. 

Is this all there is?  Read and write, listen and learn, discuss and debate, attend and receive.  All of these things are satisfying and filling.  But they are not so fulfilling at times.  I am anxious to “do” something.  Maybe I am getting too fat.

Obesity.  Can the body of Christ be overweight?  We do have some great churches and some outstanding preaching and teaching.  I have heard a lot of people say they come or go to church to be fed.  But if all we do is sit and eat and never exercise, we get fat.  The work, the act of actually getting up and doing something for somebody else that Christ loves, is what keeps us lean and strong.  Instead it seems, we may just be getting fat. 

I know that for me personally, it is past time to get some exercise.  That must be what I am feeling.  Almost bloated from lack of movement and too much to eat.  So I think I need to come up with a program, a method to get up and do something.  This whole post is for me and is just something I wanted to say.

But if you have a few extra spiritual pounds you need to get rid of, why don’t you join me and let’s shed them for the advancement of the Kingdom.  What do you think?

Love you all

Tags: Body of Christ, Church, Fellowship, Kingdom, Knowledge, Love, mission, Obesity, Praise, real world, Self, shameless plug