Family Feuds And The Roll Of The Peacekeeper

I have many things to be thankful for in my life.  I tell myself every day that the life God has handed me is blessed in every way possible. I'm not rich with great wealth nor am I a famous person.  I wish I was at least a little well off just to pay some debts off, but I don't think it's his desire for me. 

I'm thankful for so many different  things right now I couldn't even write them all down.  One thing I am truly blessed with is a family that gets along and truly loves each other.  I've never known my family to be at odds or at the point to where nobody is talking to each other.  It's just not our cup of tea.  I could say it's because we're all Christians and that is the main reason, but even families of the faith have these difficulties at times.  Sometimes each family has at least one or two people that are sensitive people who love to drag out an argument with hate or by shutting themselves completely off from other members of the family.  In most of these situations there is always somebody who believes so strongly in keeping the family together and at peace. I call them the peacemakers because they see deeper than the  blood that runs through each family member.  They believe in great love and they want what Christ wants, true love at all times. 

I love those that are keepers of the peace in battles of family feuds, they are the ones everybody hates because they think they just don't understand the situation.  They want them to side with them or another  side so they can add them to the fight, but they won't join, they stick themselves in the middle and will do anything to stop the fighting and show each side how to love one another. 

Christ did the same thing when he came to this Earth, he stuck himself in the middle of the family feud.  He hung between Heaven and Earth and absorbed the battle of hate and love so both sides would see him become the peacekeeper.  The peacekeeper is a vital part of our world as we feel and visualize the battle between heaven and hell.  Christ won and as the peacekeeper he is both adored and hated.  It's a roll nobody wants to play but somebody has to keep the peace in this crazy world, and that's all of us who are called Christians.  We are the peacekeepers until God sounds the horns and Jesus comes to bless us who followed the peacekeeping job.

Is Your Arrow Bent Or Straight In Life?

Our life here on Earth is not a straight arrow but a crooked one pointing upward to heaven.  I continue to see things about life that really confuse me and really needs some answering.  My answers really get answered easily by going to the Bible or continually reading different Christian authors.  It is through these books that I have really come to see life as a bent arrow instead of a polished and straight arrow with no blemishes.

If your life is not been bent or blemished then you haven't lived life at all. At least in the context of how God describes life for his children.  This life is not meant for us to seek our own comfort, but to seek the comfort of his love.  Heaven is real and it is where we are meant to be, yet some choose against it all day every day.  Many don't believe in a living God because they see him as an evil being who doesn't care for the suffering in the world.  Their thesis for life against God is, " How can a loving God allow all the suffering that goes on in this world?"  Yes, He allows it just like everything thing else that goes on whether it is bad or good.  We have a choice to choose, it's the choice he allows, yet we all live in his grace.  It doesn't matter if I have God in my life and you don't, we shall all suffer in some way.  But I have someone to go to with all my problems and God always responds in some manner, but whatever he chooses I will live with that decision.  A Non- Christian has God also  to go to but they choose another path- their own path not God's!

I see death in a different way now, I don't see it as the end but the beginning.  Another door will open as another one shuts, this new door will be the door I have always seeked and there I will be happy forever. As I watched "The Passion Of The Christ" the other night I was moved as I watched the beating that Christ took for me.  The other criminals weren't as beaten as Christ was.  It shows that this world condemns blasphemy worse than a petty little thief.  Words against this worlds thinking is more powerful and more threatening to our ego's than any other crime. So we continue to bash Christ and other Christian more than anyone else who does the wrong thing.  People today still think were are a bunch of crazy people talking about crazy things.  I think the same of those who don't believe also!

Suffering for God and His Son Jesus is what they want, they see us in this world and see what we Christians are up against and from above they continually send out angels to  be by our side as we proclaim his word to a dying world!  If you pray every day and don't get the answers you want, don't be worried or lose your faith I get the same answers also.  But my faith is increased as I continue to struggle and believe God will answer and that I am being covered always by His loving hand. 

As we go through life make sure your arrow  have as many bends and dents in it as you can, I believe the more your arrow has been damaged the more he will give you in heaven.  A straight arrow means you have lived for yourself and never went the extra mile to live your life. As long as my arrow is bent and beaten is great, but it also needs to be pointing upward toward him also. If it's not pointing to him it doesn't matter how beaten and crooked it is he wants a direction in your arrow also and it needs to pointing right to him!  

Christ's Referees!

Life has its way of confusing us in many ways.  As Christians we live in a way that has to be justified by a higher power.  In the past people lived in a way that every situation had to be answered by going to the Bible.  They looked for many answers in the living gospel.  I don't see that today, even in my own life I don't usually go to the Bible for any answer.  It's more of a conscience decision from battles I have faced in life that I find the answers.  The answers I come up with usually follow God's pattern of life though.

In today's world we have no code for which we live.  Rules are becoming an enemy of our world today.  I have been raised to do the right thing, to do things that are good and live by the rules.  So when people throw me a curve ball question sometimes I  go to the scriptures that I know and it's the answers God wants to be said, but the people of this world just don't want that answer.  I guess it doesn't make sense to accept a biblical answer that doesn't fit the world's answer.  They want a solution that fits with them, they don't want an answer that goes against their decision they have already made. Every time a question arises that is going against biblical principle it's not going to be the answer they want.  Basically, everybody has their mind made up before they ask the question.  So I wonder why they ask the question if they are going to go against the word of God.  I guess they just feel convicted or that we might say that it is ok and move on because God's will doesn't really matter. Wrong!

Legalists are what we call people who follow the rules of God's word.  The Pharisee's were the rule keepers of Jesus' day. They held to the ceremonial part of God's will, by strictly observing the rules of the temple and cleanliness of God's people.  When Jesus appeared he threw them and the world a huge curve ball.  A curve ball the world still can't hit and never will.

The people of that day were expecting to see the King of King's to arrive with a great entrance and blow their socks off.  He didn't arrive in any way shape or form, he arrived as a knuckle ball, not a perfectly thrown fastball.  He turned the world upside down then and continues to be the most controversial person ever to walk upon the Earth.  The rules of the old way of life were thrown out, Christ came to show what love really was to be about. Something the people of this world had forgotten about. The rules of that time became to overbearing for everyone, and the supposed to be appointed leaders of  God became to hostile with their rules and Christ came to give healing for those who had been persecuted by those rules. The refs were controlling the game to much and nobody was having fun playing the game anymore, to put it in a worldly sense.

But Christ didn't abolish the rules completely when he came.  He has a pretty good set of rules that we must follow to the best of our ability.  The Bible is our plan for playing the game the right way now.  If you want to continue to play the game eternally we must follow the rules in some manner.  If we played a football game with no rules the game would become a mess.  There wouldn't be any boundaries, you could put as many players on the field at once.  You could basically bring weapons in the game and take out anybody that got in your way.  It just wouldn't make any sense!  The refs are basically legalists, we boo them and say they need new glasses and that they look like zebra's.  We make so much fun of the refs that I can't believe anybody would want to be one.  That's how the world feels about Christians, we are the refs the rule keepers. 

Nobody likes us because we try to keep the world from going completely nuts.  People get all crazy when we give our opinion to the craziness.   The world does not want our answers to their questions, yet they continue to ask us our opinion.  And when our opinion is stated they rake us over the coals because they don't understand why we are so insane and why we would give such an answer, or to them it becomes a judgemental statement.  We become controversial and they make a mockery of us because what we said was right but not what they think is right. 

The world is a mess and it's becoming more of a mess because the rule keepers have gone to the bench and have let the game get out of control.  Is that what Christ wants us to do, to not stand up and blow our whistle anymore? We as Christians can't join the game as players but only as refs.  We don't have the talent to be a player we are to convicted to do the right thing.  Our lives are completely different but in a good way.  We can't be fans of the game because we are to convicted to sit and watch.  Our hearts have been pierced by a higher power, to see that everyone goes to where we want to be. 

We all dream about being a player, but life as a ref is not a fun one unless we make it fun.  But within the boundaries of the owner in heaven, we must keep our job as peacekeepers and lovers of those who are lost.  We must not be persecutors of those who are going against the boundaries but helpers.  We must not convict those who go outside the lines of life, we must show them where we have gone out of bounds in life also.  We are helpers we don't  throw penalty flags all the time.  We don't punish those who are going against the rules but show respect to those who do because we continue to fall out of the lines also. Our lives were a mess at one time also, but now we have been cleansed and our mistakes will continue to happen.  We are refs who have been penalized and have spent our time in the penalty box and have been fined by the league for as much as we can be fined.  Our dream is one day to be promoted as the owners of the team one day. Until that day comes we will continue as refs who can't find our new glasses and wear uniforms that make us look like convicted felons.  Maybe one day we will get the game ball and all the heavenly beings will sign it. It will be the game ball we have earned!