the best compliment I could ever receive

I like getting compliments. Who doesn’t? If you’ve read the book “The Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman, I am an off the chart “words of affirmation” guy so I need to hear it! 🙂

When I started making music years ago, I’d often receive compliments about the music itself – my songwriting, the instrumentation, my playing ability, etc.  And that’s awesome. It always feels good to have someone recognize the effort you’ve put into stewarding your God-given abilities. But without taking away anything from those compliments or the intentions of those who gave them, I’ve always longed for more. I don’t want to be a just good musician or decent songwriter. I want to create connection points between the listener and God that spurs eternal change in the life of the hearer. Man, that’s what really moves me. So when I hear that my music or counsel or teaching has done that for a person, my day is officially made.

These past few weeks I’ve received two of these “best possible” compliments and I’m still floating. The first one came after being part of a city wide worship event when a friend told me that as I began to sing and lead the people in worship she could “feel the presence of God come in the room so strong.” How cool is that?! It’s so much better than hearing that I sounded good or looked cool. As I sang, she had an encounter with the Living God – the Maker of the Universe and the Uncreated Source of Love. Wow. It blows my mind.

Then, one of my friends posted a blog called “How Jamie Nunnally’s CD Helped Save My Marriage.” Go ahead and give it a read. In it she tells the story of how in a moment of decision one of my songs came on and helped spur her on to make the right choice. Its hard to say how that makes me feel – humbled, ecstatic, dumbfounded, overjoyed. One thing it does do, though, is make me want to write, sing and record even more. If one of my songs can bring someone happiness in a moment, then that’s awesome. But if my music can help create lasting, permanent God-change, then wow – I want to be a part of that!

After hearing these two recent compliments I was reminded that a while back I made the decision that if I thought something positive about someone I was going to go ahead and say it. Outloud. To them. While I do chicken out from time to time I know it’s God’s heart that we build each other up as often as possible. The world system is all about tearing us down – we need to be lifted up. We need to talk about people to their faces how we would talk about them if we were at their funeral. Notice that someone got a new hair cut? Just tell them! “Hey you got a new hair cut – nice!” It doesn’t have to be a big deal. The more we build each other up, the more confident we will all be to walk in the calling God has for us.

I pray that as I continue to find my way through life I will engage in every ministry opportunity set before me – whether its leading people in worship or whether its telling someone I barely know that their shirt is cool. Hopefully then when I finally see God face to face I will hear His ultimate compliment – “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

the secret to christianity

Have you ever wondered if there is some secret to Christianity that you haven’t uncovered yet? Maybe you see other Christians hearing from God all the time, confident in their faith and doing great while you feel like you’re barely getting by. Some Christians they feel like they’re on the outside looking in. Everyone else “gets it” while they struggle. Everyone else wears their Christianity like a perfectly sized coat while their spiritual clothes just don’t fit right. So many feel that if they could just uncover that special truth, have that one mountaintop experience, or understand that one eye-opening concept – then they’d finally feel like the rest.

Well, I am here to tell you today that I, Jamie Nunnally, posses that super special secret. Are you ready? Really, ready? Cause this could change your life. You’re sure? OK, here it is:

THERE IS NO SECRET.

Seriously. The secret to Christianity is that there is no secret to Christianity. There’s no bestseller book by the latest Christian author you have to read, no sermon you must hear and no divine revelation you must receive. Being a Christian is done by faith. By sheer definition, faith means you don’t always “get it” but you’re willing to trust anyway. It means you don’t always feel like a Christian but you still believe Jesus is saving you. We are called believers, after all!

So if there is no secret, how come we don’t always feel like its working for us but working for others? Well first off, your walk with God is not based on what you feel – its based on constant interaction with God regardless of how you feel. This is the essence of Christianity: Get up in the morning. Spend some time with God (worship+word). Go to work/school/whatever God has set before you and do it as an act of worship to Him. Love (serve) others as best you can. Call on God when you fail. Share Him when you feel prompted. Enjoy your life. Go to bed. Get up in the morning. Wash, rinse repeat.

That’s it. The life of a Christian is a life of being constantly aware of God in your daily life, asking Him to guide you and obeying the best you can. There’s no secret that all the other “good” Christians have. They’ve either been at it longer than you so they’ve had more practice or they’re faking it. Either way, don’t compare yourself to others. That’s not fair to you since you know all your faults but you only know about others what they let you see.

So that’s the secret: there is no secret. Don’t spend your Christian walk chasing after an unattainable benchmark. Just sync up with your Father, through Jesus, and learn to let the Holy Spirit lead you. Do it consistently, everyday and watch how God begins to move in your life.

now is the time (song)

Just finished a new song called “Now Is the Time.” This is meant to be a fast praise song/opener for a contemporary worship service. I wanted to write something that captured the essence of making a quality decision to follow Jesus. I wanted a no-turning-back-once-and-for-all-I’ve-made-my-decision song where we could declare together “God, I’m done with doing things my way – it’s all about you from here on out.”

The bridge to this song was written by my good friend Jim Courtney. He got the lines “I lift my hands with purpose…” one Sunday morning when the praise team was in prayer before the service. He just handed me the scribbled lyrics and I immediately knew they’d make a great summarizing bridge to this song which, at that time, was about half-written.

Hope you enjoy. Its just a demo, but I think you can get the idea of the song. VFC’ers, you might wanna go ahead and learn this one. 🙂

Now is the Time

I’m ready to answer the call

I’m ready to give my all

I lay aside the weight of sin

I’m pushing on and pressing in

//

Now is the time, today is the day

I’m getting tired of being in the way

Oh Jesus, It’s all about You now

Now is the time for stepping aside

I’m leaving my independence and pride

Oh Jesus, It’s all about You now.

//

I’m ready to run the race

I’m ready to take my place

I lay aside the weight of sin

I’m pushing on and pressing in

//

I lift my hands with purpose

I raise my voice to sing

The life that I’ve been given

Becomes my offering

© Jamie Nunnally 2011

hope remains (song)

I just finished a new song called Hope Remains and I wanted to share it with everyone. Still trying to decide if its congregational and appropriate for Sunday morning worship or not. Feel free to weigh in. Our praise team at VFC was supposed to do it for special music last weekend but it just didn’t work out.

Lyrically, I wanted to focus on hope – that eternal, remaining gift from Heaven that seems to always take a backseat to faith and love (1 Cor. 13:13). I wanted to write an anthem that showed what it looked like when we emptied ourselves – our fears, questions and insecurities and just held on to the hope of our salvation through Jesus. The song ends with what is hopefully a very rousing and effective declaration that no matter what life hands us, we will cling to hope and let it be the anchor of our souls (Hebrews 6:19).

Musically, I tried to keep it simple enough to sing but interesting enough that it didn’t sound like everything else. The turnaround and bridge chords/melody are extremely pop-typical so I tried to make the verse and chorus chords/melody a little more unique. And I love the guitar part on top of the chorus (“All that I am…”) – it just sounds so pretty to me.

Ok, so here are the excuses: I recorded all the instruments in 2 hours and all vocals in 30 minutes so its not like this is gonna be high quality, people! But hey, it didn’t cost anything! 🙂 I hope you enjoy the song and pray that you’re encouraged to hold fast hope!

Hope Remains

Hope is rising up and strengthening my faith

The fear that held me back has now begun to fade

 //

All that I am I give away, ‘til nothing is left, just hope remains

//

Hope is sinking in and keeping me secure

And as I trust and wait, I patiently endure

//

All that I am I give away ‘til nothing is left, just hope remains

I’m confident that God will save and as I believe, my hope remains

//

So when the pressure’s building and I can feel the weight

I know my God still loves me I won’t hold back my praise

When disappointment finds me and things don’t go my way

My joy will not be stolen, no one can take my faith

And I won’t stop pursuing,  no I won’t be afraid

Though I’m not sure what’s coming I know that hope remains

//

Whoa, hope remains

where was god during the japanese earthquake?

On March 11, 2011 Japan was hit by a 9.0 earthquake which triggered a massive tsunami that left the east coast of the country decimated. At the time of this post (almost 3 weeks later), the death toll has passed 18,000 and the Japanese government has estimated the cost could reach beyond $300 billion. Whenever something so amazingly catastrophic like this happens, it is normal to ask questions: Where was God during the Japanese earthquake? Did He cause it? If He did, was it to judge Japan?

The way I see it, within the Christian paradigm (excluding aliens and such) there are only three main logical possibilities as to the causation of the Japanese earthquake:

1) God purposely caused the earthquake as a means of communicating with, either teaching or punishing humanity.

2) Satan caused it, in keeping with his general desire of destruction, death and mayhem.

3) It was a natural occurrence due to fault lines in the earth with no spiritual message intended by any supernatural beings.

The Christian must take each of these options and weigh them against what the Bible teaches. I personally think option three is the best choice. In addition to it being the simplest answer, it also seems to be the most biblical. I realize that’s not the most popular interpretation in the Christian evangelical community right now, so let’s go through each option and compare it to what the Bible actually teaches.

OPTION ONE: God has possibly caused this tragedy to punish or communicate with the Japanese. There are two New Testament biblical texts I would reference to build my case that this is not an accurate interpretation of why the earthquake happened. First is Luke 13:1-5 where Jesus brings up two tragedies: one is the murder of people while worshiping and the other is the collapse of a building where 18 people died. Jesus volunteers the question: did these things happen because the people who died were worse sinners than others and were being punished? His answer is no. And in typical Jesus fashion, he doesn’t even answer the “why” question but instead uses the catastrophes to warn them that bad stuff happens in this life and we had better be right with God since we don’t know when we’ll die. Secondly, I’d point to the passage of Jesus calming the storm in Matthew 8:23-26. The Bible doesn’t speak to why the storm existed. It does, though, show Jesus rebuking the storm and causing it to stop. If God was the author of the storm why would Jesus stop it? As Jesus said, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” If God had sent the storm as a message or punishment to the disciples, then Jesus should have allowed it to continue and not interfered, ensuring they got the message in its entirety. In both of these New Testament examples, the scripture shows God as the solution to, not the author of life’s problems (Acts 10:38).

Bottom line: there isn’t a single New Testament verse that would support God actively judging people for their sin by using a natural disaster. So what do most Christians who support this idea do? They hop on over to the Old Testament to justify this thinking. The problem with that is twofold: first, the Old Testament is an incomplete, point-in-time revelation of who God is. Hebrews 1:1-3 says “Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son. God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son he created the universe. The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God” (NLT). Jesus is the best, most recent and fullest description of what God is like. Period. All other illustrations of what God is like are secondary to God as expressed through Jesus. God revealed through Jesus trumps God revealed though the OT. The second problem with using Old Testament text to justify God punishing with natural disasters is all such OT punishments were always accompanied by an explicit nationwide warning by one of God’s prophets. These warnings always contained an opportunity to avoid the ensuing wrath of God. Remember why Jonah got swallowed by the fish? God had sent him to warn Nineveh about their coming destruction and he chickened out. There was no prophetic warning given to Japan by God. The lovers’ quarrel between God and Israel that is recorded in the OT just doesn’t apply to this situation.

Refuting OPTION TWO is rather simple. The Bible does, in fact, teach that Satan is the author of all evil and the whole world is “under the control of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). However, we have to be careful that we not make him more powerful than he is. Satan is just a fallen angel. I don’t see any evidence in scripture where an angel can move tectonic plates at will. I’m sure he enjoyed the earthquake, tsunami and ensuing destruction but I don’t see where he has the power to cause it.

OPTION THREE is the one I choose because it makes the most sense. Look, Japan is an island that was created by tectonic activity to begin with. This may sound cold but its only logical that this type of occurrence would continue throughout the country’s history. Fault lines cause earthquakes. Oceanic earthquakes cause tsunamis. Both cause death. However, even beyond the logical nature of this answer there is biblical evidence as well. Romans 8:20-22 says “Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time” (NLT). So the Bible teaches that just as humans were made sick with sin during the fall of man in the garden, so was creation. These natural disasters we see – hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, etc. are creation’s “groaning” and the natural result of a broken world spinning towards atrophy. They aren’t “acts of God,” they are the symptoms of the sin disease our creation has contracted from fallen humanity.

Now let me say, although I don’t believe God caused the earthquake, that doesn’t mean I believe He is uninvolved. I believe He is working to redeem the situation and His heart breaks for those who have died and are in turmoil because of the disaster. He is leading His worldwide followers to be his hands and feet, to help with the recovery and demonstrate His love to those who were harmed. Also, I’d like to say that on this side of omniscience, for all we know God did intervene significantly. Perhaps the quake/tsunami would have been worse and all of Japan would have been destroyed. Maybe God prevented millions of lives being lost instead of thousands. We just don’t know.

So where was God during the Japanese earthquake? He was there. Grieving for those who died without faith, welcoming those who died that believed and mourning over the destruction. And now He is asking you: if life as you know it was suddenly snatched from you like it was from those in Japan, would you be ready?

i triple dog dare you! – part two

So in part one of this series, we discovered that Romans 12:1 is essentially triple dog dare by the Apostle Paul. He was issuing a strong challenge to Christians that he didn’t want them to ignore. So what was he daring them to do? Let’s look at the rest of the verse after the dare (I’m using the Amplified version):

“…and beg of you in view of [all] the mercies of God…”

Do you keep the mercy of God in view as you move forward? Or do you only use it for your rear view mirror? So many Christians seem to relegate God’s mercy only to their past. Sure, they believe He’s forgiven them for what’s already occurred but while that’s certainly good, its incomplete. Recognizing mercy for your past brings freedom to your personal history but without mercy fueling your hope for the future, you won’t have the confidence to move forward in Him. His mercy is new every morning – not just for yesterday’s sake but for the sake of today! You don’t have to be afraid of mistakes you’ll make today or tomorrow – keep His mercy in view.

“….make a decisive dedication of your bodies….”

Look, you’re not just going to wake up one morning and magically act like Jesus. While you’re here on earth, you have a flesh and your flesh is never going to want to do what’s right.  We say the wrong things, we serve ourselves, we forget our purpose. We Christians have to make the choice everyday – a decisive dedication of our bodies – to walk in the Spirit and not follow the dictates of our flesh. Not saying its easy, but its necessary!

“…a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated)…”

I’ve always heard the word “holy” defined as “set apart.” Thats a good definition. Even better though are the phrases “other than” and “something else.” Holy is the word you use to describe something when all analogies fail. It’s untouched by everything you might compare it to. It stands alone. This is why we tell God He’s holy during worship. He is “other than” anything else. He is “something else.” We are called to be “other than” too: separate from the world and given completely to Him. Have you ever seen on-fire Christians loving others unconditionally, full of faith and changing the environment around them for the better? Now that’s something else!

“…well pleasing to God…”

Wanna make God happy? Impress Him by giving Him all of you. Imagine that you finally saved up enough money to order that brand new car you’ve been dreaming of. You visit the dealership, choose all of your options and make the down payment but weeks later when the car arrives, its missing the steering wheel, the rear bumper and the front right tire. You’d be upset wouldn’t you! Well, God purchased you with the blood of His Son. Imagine how frustrating it is when you hold back and deny access to those parts of you that provide Him with a complete ministry vehicle that He can use. God is not impressed with how loud you sing during worship or how many verses are underlined in your Bible. He is impressed when He gets all that He paid for!

“…which is your reasonable (rational, intelligent)  service/worship”

The Greek word translated here as “reasonable, rational, and intelligent” is logikos where we get the English word “logical.” Not allowing the Amazingly All-Powerful, Incredibly Intelligent King of the Universe full access to your life is just plain illogical. Really, it just makes no sense. What are you afraid of? Be smart – go ahead and go all in!

I encourage you to be 100% totally sold out to Him. Go ahead, try it. What are you waiting for? You’re not gonna get a better deal! He loves you. He wants you. He’s calling you. Answer Him.

I triple dog dare you!

i triple dog dare you!

I was warped at an early age.

But it was the good kind of warping. My parents made my brother and I memorize scripture as young children. There’s a story that has reached legendary status in the Nunnally family that tells of my then four-year-old older brother being asked what his name was by a stranger at the beach. He replied, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” Classic.

One of the verses I memorized as a kid was Romans 12:1. Unfortunately, there weren’t nearly as many Bible translations back then so the New King James was the most modern version around. It started “I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God…” Not exactly kid-friendly vocab, huh? Who the heck says “beseech” anymore?

I was recently reading this verse again and decided to look up all of the different translations for what was originally translated “beseech.” I found that it had been replaced with urge, appeal, beg, and plead in most newer versions. The English definition for the Greek is to “summon, admonish” or “exhort.” Its almost like the translators didn’t quite know how to capture the full depth of what the writer, Paul, was trying to get at. I began thinking about this and was reminded of the “dare scale” used by children on playgrounds and adults who never grow up. As a reminder, if one of your friends wants to dare you to do something, they can employ any of the following dare options:

1. The basic dare. Ex: Dude, there’s that girl you like. I dare you to go talk to her. This is used when the dare-ee would probably do the dare without being dared to begin with. The problem with the basic dare is that it can easily be ignored.

2. The double dare. Ex: You don’t wanna talk to her? Come on, I double dare you, bro. Now we’ve taken this thing up a step. You can’t just ignore a double dare. The dare-er has just given the dare-ee something to think about.

3. The double dog dare. Ex:  You’re such a chicken. Just do it man. I double dog dare you! Ok, this has all of the sudden gotten serious. Not taking a double dog dare will subject you to ridicule for days, even weeks and is fair game for all future proof of wussiness. Game on, baby. Game on. (Note: some less civilized areas of the country use the “double dirty dog” or “double dirty dead dog” dare, but this is not recommended as I think we can all agree its beneath us.)

4. The triple dog dare. Ex: This is so ridiculous! I can’t believe you! You’re such a pansy! Go talk to her! I triple dog dare you! Ok, now we’ve reached critical mass and the triple dog dare has been used. This is essentially a kill-shot by the dare-er where they are pulling rank and demanding the dare be done.  No person in their right mind would ignore a triple dog dare. You just don’t do that. It doesn’t matter how awful the dare is, not performing a triple-dog dare is much worse.

I think the Apostle Paul is handing the Romans a triple dog dare here. He’s essentially saying Look, there’s really no other option here. Quit dragging your feet, just bite the bullet and do it already.

So now that we’ve established the importance of Paul’s triple dog dare, what is he daring us to do? Whats so important that he uses the trump card of all dares? We’ll look at that in the next post…

how to read your bible

The Bible.

It’s 66 books, written by 40 different authors, over the course of 1500 years, in 3 different languages, and written on 3 different continents. We wrap it in leather and inscribe our names in gold on the front. But how in the world does today’s modern Western-minded Christian attempt to understand a book like this? With the help of the Holy Spirit, a deep desire for interpretive honesty and a willingness to study, I believe it can be done.

I recently came across these “ten commandments” of bible interpretation. It contains excellent guidelines to use when reading the Bible that I couldn’t have said better myself. Its by a guy named Skye Jethani and yes, his name is cooler than yours.

_____________________________________________________________________

My simple guidelines for engaging the Bible and avoiding unhelpful controversy.

Nov 9th, 2010 | By Skye Jethani |

I. You shall not make for yourself an idol out of Scripture.

This is a particular temptation among evangelicals who hold a very high view of Scripture. We forget that our highest calling is not to have a relationship with the Bible but with Jesus Christ of whom the Bible testifies. (John 5:39)

II. You shall honor the Scriptures as sufficient.

We have a common temptation to get “behind the text” or discover what “really happened.” While archeology and other disciplines are incredibly important, we must not forget that what God has given in the Scriptures is enough for life and faith.

III. You shall remember the meta-narrative and keep it wholly.

In my experience more Christians can recap the meta-narrative of the Star Wars saga than can recap the biblical meta-narrative. It’s not enough to know the stories and events in the Bible. We must know how they fit together to tell a single story.

IV. You shall honor the Church as the recipient and the guardian of the Scriptures.

The books and letters in the Bible, with a few exceptions, were not written to individuals but to communities of believers. We must be careful not to read everything through the lenses of Western individualism. And we are wise to listen to how Christians in ages past have understood the teachings of Scripture.

V. You shall not neglect the context.

Proof texting (finding verses to make your point), isolating (removing a text from its surrounding material), and synchronizing (taking different gospel accounts of the same event and smashing them together) are all ways of abusing the text and landing on bad interpretations.

VI. You shall not ask questions the text does not want to answer.

Almost every nasty debate about Scripture results from forcing answers from the text it never intended to answer. Debates about creation in Genesis 1 and 2 fall into this category as do most other scientific issues. Avoid a “morbid interest in controversial questions” (1 Tim 6:4).

VII. You shall embrace both the form and content of Scripture as inspired by God.

When teaching the Bible we often retain the content or message but give little attention to the genre or style of the text. We lose something when we teach narrative as didactic truth, or when we ignore the poetic structure and beauty of a Psalm. And there’s a reason God said “You shall not murder” rather than “You will love life.” Do we see that?

VIII. You shall study Scripture for wisdom and not merely knowledge, and never for pride.

I’m really impressed that you’ve memorized 400 verses and took first prize in your Bible Quiz league. Now quit being such a jerk. (1 Cor. 8:1)

IX. You shall exegete your culture and not merely the Scriptures.

The goal is not merely to understand what the Bible said to those who live centuries ago, but hear it anew today. Proper teaching requires that we bring the Word of God into our world and help people feel the gravity and beauty of it for their lives and context.

X. You shall remember that the simplest interpretation is usually, but not always, correct.

There is no Bible Code! And if you have to do all kinds of contortions with Scripture to get it to fit into your theological framework, you’re probably guilty of something bad. Paradoxes abound in Scripture. If your theology doesn’t allow for that kind of ambiguity and mystery I suggest you try Deism.

merry xmas, xtians!

Whats the deal with the word Xmas? Is it just another way to spell Christmas or part of a sinister plot to remove Christ from the holiday?

Several years ago I was quickly typing up the worship set list for our church’s Christmas program. We were doing a Christmas-themed song that shared a name with a regular worship song we also did routinely. So to differentiate between the two, I typed the name of the song and next to it put “Xmas” in parenthesis to alleviate confusion. I brought the list to the praise team and someone (I honestly can’t remember who anymore) with shock said, “Jamie! Are you trying to take Jesus’ name out of Christmas?!” Huh?  No, I am not currently trying to do anything bad to Jesus, I thought to myself. I asked for more clarification. They said, “You used ‘Xmas.’ You took Christ out of Christmas and replaced it with an X. You ‘X’ed’ Him out. That’s what Atheists want to do.” Hmm. Hadn’t really thought about it. The truth is, the word “Christmas” wouldn’t fit on one line and I was trying to save space. I shook it off and went about my merry way, saying something brilliant like “whatever, dude.”

But it stayed with me. I felt bad. I didn’t wanna X-out Jesus (whatever that means). But the more I thought about it, the more it made me mad. So all the time I spent building a relationship with God was nullified because of an abbreviation? I was rejecting him because of my use of a letter? Its seemed so shallow and silly. So I did a little research and found some really cool information:

1) The letter X has been used for centuries by Christians as a symbol to represent Christ. X is used because the Greek word for Christ is Χριστός and starts with an X. Oftentimes, the word “Christian” was written “Xian” and more recently “Xtian” to differentiate between the Chinese city. Many historians report that Christians would put an X symbol above their door to secretly identify themselves to each other during times of persecution. Furthermore, early Christians used the letters X and P (the first two letters of Christ in Greek) to form a symbol for Jesus called the Chi-Rho. This symbol became synonymous with Christianity and was seen as a respectful reference to Jesus, not a way to replace Him.

2) Xmas is not pronounced “ex-mas.” The X is an abbreviation and doesn’t change the pronunciation. You don’t call Dr. Jones “Dee Are Jones.” The Dr. abbreviation is pronounced like the actual word that it is abbreviating.  In the same way, you pronounce “Xmas” just like you would the word “Christmas.”

3) Only recently, in the English language has the letter X held negative replacement connotations, like to “X’ something out. In the past it was used to highlight the importance of something by marking an X next to it. Today, it commonly represents the word “cross.” Ever seen a “Ped Xing” sign?

So whats the conclusion? Xmas is a logical abbreviation with sound Christian history, not a disrespectful way to exclude Christ from a word – or more importantly, Jesus from Christmas. Are there some who purposely and antagonistically use the abbreviation to exclude the word Christ? Sure. But the joke’s on them. They are replacing the word Christ with the sacred symbol for Christ. Sorry folks, you just can’t take Christ out of Christmas no matter how hard you try!

So should Christians use Xmas as an abbreviation when writing? Sure, why not? Do you write out the word Mister or use the Mr. abbreviation? Look, Christians need to quit finding things to get offended at. If you get forwarded an email chain about how those nasty mean ol’ atheists are trying to exclude Jesus by using Xmas, don’t resolve to show them who’s boss by pronouncing it “CHRIST-mas.” Instead, volunteer for a soup kitchen, encourage someone struggling in their faith and make a point to love someone who seems unlovable. The Kingdom of God is advanced, not by making a big deal of the darkness, but by making a big deal of the Light. The world is full of sinners and sinners sin. Big deal. Go be different.

Last week I was once again selecting songs for a Christmas service and I used Xmas on purpose. It felt cool in an ancient, connect-with-those-who-have-gone-before kind of way. Maybe we should consider being more reverent with His sacred name anyway instead of slapping it on everything in site.

So next time you see Xmas used, don’t get offended. Remember those who were persecuted who had to write their faith in symbol. Remember that X doesn’t replace but represents Jesus. And remember that the world is lost and waiting on someone who is not all hung up on abbreviations to demonstrate God’s love to them.

God bless and Merry Xmas!

Merry Xmas from the BFCC (Big Fat Christmas Cat)

the problem of evil

Christians believe God is good and Christians believe that God is all-powerful. But if God is good why is there so much evil in the world? If God is all-powerful and in control, why doesn’t He stop evil from happening? If God is a loving God, why is there so much pain, poverty and injustice in the world? Why would a merciful God send people to hell? Why did God create the devil? Why must we endure so much pain? Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?

Whether in secret or in public, we’ve all asked these tough questions. Unfortunately, the church at-large sometimes does what’s easiest and ignores the frustration and hard questions of those who wonder how God could be loving, yet allow so much pain. I invite you to listen to  “The Problem of Evil” and join our home church, VFC in Thomasville, on the journey to discover 7 Biblical truths about why evil exists in our world. It’s a little long (just under an hour) but feel free to download the sermon notes underneath the audio player so you can follow along and study the scriptures we cover. Comments, questions and criticisms are welcomed!

The Problem of Evil – sermon notes