Labels...Don't You Just Love 'Em?

Okay, I haven't been posting as I should be, so I must say...get over it. I have a life too and now I'm back. So now that apologies are over with, let us continue with our discussion.

For me, labels are sort of...well let's just say I don't like them. I did one semester of grad-school studying theology. One of the discussions a professor sparked was "What do you feel your title should be; Reverend, Pastor, Preacher, Rector, etc?" At first I figured it was a set-up in that he would later explain that it didn't matter. The problem was, as it would later reveal its ugly head, would be that title's were in fact important...at least to this schmuck. When it was my turn, I just could not help myself.

"My title should be MOST ILLUSTRIOUS GRAND POTENTATE!"

Did I mention I can be a smart___? Some of the other students actually got it and began laughing realizing that this was really an absurd question and coming from a PhD. "Labels ultimately fail(p.86)." Pastors fail. Reverends fail. MOST ILLUSTRIOUS GRAND POTENTATES...fail. Jesus does not. Never has & never will.

Rob Bell speaks about labels. Particularly using the word Christian as an adjective rather than the noun it should be. You see, the truth is limited when categories are created with words that in fact are not true. Something may be labeled as Christian but in fact not be by any loose sense of the term. "Christian is a great noun and a poor adjective(p.84)."

As a Christian(n.), does your life reflect Christ or is it just a facade? As someone that is searching for truth in that you may not be a Christian, what would you rather see - a facade or something that is genuine?

Be careful what you call yourself. I call myself a Christian and yet I'm a complete jerk to my wife in public. I call myself a Christian and have Christian band stickers all over my truck yet when I'm mad I tear through a parking lot at an unsafe speed. I'm not a Christian - I'm a complete train wreck! I'm a guy that's obsessive compulsive. I'm a guy that has anger issues and doesn't know why. A guy that is so completely undeserving of God's grace but is given it with every breath I take. I'm not perfect and neither are you, but Something much much bigger than our finite human minds could ever comprehend loves us and wants to extend His arms and embrace us. He is perfect in that even His clothes are without any kind of blemish yet He wants to embrace me - a guy covered in his own rotting filth. Why? Why does He love me? Why does He love you? I don't know, but what I do know is this - He does! How hard is it to love Him back?

I am a Christian. One that is also a complete wreck trying to become more like the example given us 2000+ years ago. It is a daily struggle and I do not always win the battles and neither will you. But what is important is that once you give your life to Christ, you are victorious...victorious in that you may not win the day-to-day skirmishes, but the war has already been won so fight on. Fight this WAR!

A Technical Difficulty

Okay, so maybe the title isn't entirely true. More like operator error. I wanted to offer others the opportunity to subscribe to my blog and used another HTML code to make it happen. Many of you are probably wondering why you subscribed to a craft-type site called Created by Courtney. Well Courtney is my wife and it was her feedblitz HTML code that I copied. Sorry. The new feedblitz for subscribers is mine and you will subscribe to this blog. Again, minor mishap.

Peace-out, yo!