Murky Waters

I wish I could play the drums. I've decided that is my favorite instrument. I thought it was the piano for a while, but its not. The piano is now second. I want to be a drummer. Don't go and get any ideas and buy me a set of drums, or they'll do exactly what my bass and keyboard is doing right now...collect dust.

I get to be a part of this life group with my church, Midtown, and it is by far the best thing that's happened to me in a long time. These guys are so authentic and genuine, not to mention unbelievably attractive. I think that's why they put us all together, to have the best looking life group ever.

Ok, so here's what I'm thinking about right now. Christianity today is so clouded. I find myself tired of sorting through agendas in order to hear truth. It shouldn't be this way. I'm thinking its like this, there's Jesus and this incredible truth He embodied, this way of living He demonstrated, and then for the past 2000 years we've piled on layer after layer of man made crap. I said crap, could have said something else. The even scarier thing is that we've convinced ourselves that some, and maybe even a lot, of this crap is necessary. I just want to peel back these layers and immerse myself in the raw and original truth of the Gospel, but whats sad is that more often than not when someone starts to do this, peel back the layers of man made religion, they are labeled as a heretic, and that's an ugly word.

Here's whats really scary. I did a bunch of research a while ago about Elijah and why what he did was so important. He's labeled as the greatest prophet ever in the Old Testament, but honestly when you read his story compared to the rest of the prophets, it really doesn't seem like he did as much as the rest of them, but anyway. So Ahab was king while he was a prophet and his wife was Jezebel, major witch. It says that Ahab angered God more than any of the kings before him. Why you might ask...let me tell you. Before Ahab, all the kings allowed, encouraged, and embraced the worshiping of idols. I found out that the worshiping of idols wasn't necessarily replacing God with a different deity, but they were often seen as something that allowed worship God. It was like, hey, here's this golden object...worship it and it will help you reach God. Ahab on the other hand replaced God with Baal, and I mean what jealous one true God wouldn't get peeved about this?

But back to the idol thing. A lot of times they weren't attempts to replace God, but things that were seen as necessary aides in order to reach God...hmmm. Could some of these "layers" we've piled on our faith, that we've made a part of this thing we called Christianity actually be idols? Things that we've labeled as necessities in order to understand Jesus, that actually... aren't? I'm just asking, maybe you should to.

I just want to let Jesus breathe. I know He doesn't need my help, but He's pretty incredible on His own.