Been a While

Wow, it has been a while since my last post. I have been slacking but also reading two books about Mother Teresa that are really interesting to me. I will talk about them in another post.

Today a thought ran through my mind that might be a little random and off subject, but I want to share it anyway. Here it is: I wonder if, by the way the church evangelizes people, we create selfish Christians. I mean, think of how we try to "convert" people:

• God loves you
• He has a plan for you
• Jesus is your friend
• God is your father
• Join our church and become part of our church family
• God will forgive your sins
• Accept Jesus and you will be able to go to Heaven

All those things are great and true, but I just wonder if we focus so much on what people can get, how do we teach people the meaning of humility and putting others above themselves. I wonder if this is how all cultures do it.

Of course people want to be loved, to have a place to belong, to have hope for the future. But if that is all they know of God and the faith, is that true faith? Do they also need to know God's wrath and judgement to fully understand?

I have been studying Isaiah in a Bible study this year. There is some tough stuff in there... God wiping out whole groups of people because they turned from Him. He also used ungodly people to punish godly people. I know so much has changed because of Jesus and his sacrifice, but He is the same God now as he was back then.

Maybe all this came about because I need to balance and remedy in my mind the wrath vs. the grace of God. God's wrath is holy and so is his grace. It is just hard sometimes to grasp that for me.