For all the non believers

Dear entire world,

Recently on www.denverstiffs.com (the GREATEST fan blog), someone posted that:

And God's Gift is English for

Imaginary Invisible Friend in the Sky who tortures peoples Gift.

It seems quite popular to make statements such as this that are completely devoid of any kind of factual evidence in order to spur on hateful responses. I responded that I thought the post was entirely insensitive and insulting. Quite frankly, I gave in to his desire. I felt I needed to defend God, which is completely crazy, right? His response was:

Truth is offensive?

If you find the tenets of your religion offensive, your problem is with your religion, not with me.

I didn't reengage after that because it's a sports blog. About the Denver Nuggets. I let him have the first and last punch. You know, turn the other cheek and all. It did get me thinking though, which is a good thing. I broke down his statement mentally and begun thinking about not only how outrageously ridiculous it was, but completely rooted in fallacy. The implication is that the tenets of my faith are correctly identified that God is imaginary, invisible, my friend, who tortures people from the sky and that the reason I am offended is because those are correct and I'm embarrassed that he discovered the truth. Incorrect. I am offended and saddened because the statement and the person making the statement are incorrect. I believe God is REAL, visible, much more than my friend (my Savior), and His entire being can be summed with the Biblical truth that "God is love." Therefore, I was offended by the person making the offensive, inaccurate statement. However, that's the not the point of this post.

A common statement is that I can't see God, therefore, he can't exist. This principle is better put like this:

Can't experience something with the 5 senses = nonexistent

God is in this. So is love, wind, friendship, anger, emotions in general, being tired. So, people who only believe in what they can see, touch, hear, smell, or taste have to disregard a lot of realities in the world. The follow up argument to this ridiculous notion is that we can see and feel the effects of wind and love and such. This is totally true. So how is a belief in God different than a belief in love? Can someone scientifically prove love?

Like love, we see the fingerprints and effects of a loving God everywhere. The fact that we CAN love is evidence of someone creating it, right? Could love evolve from nothing? Also, scientifically, there has to be a creator or eternal energy based upon The Law of Conservation of Mass. Something can't come from nothing. Where did time come from? Did it ever begin? Either way, there has to be faith. Everyone is living a life of faith in an absolute truth based upon their worldview. Everyone. Someone may say that they don't, which is an absolute truth. They are merely defining what they believe by what they are not. They don't believe in God, which implies they believe in something else...but typically cannot formulate a positive identity of what they believe. Some can, and I'd love to have a discussion with them starting there.

Furthermore, I believe that if every person lived the proper Christian life since the history of man began, we would be in a far better place. AND, if everyone alive today converted to REAL Christianity, we would be rid of the following:

Racism

Hatred

Murder

Theft

Abortion

Divorce

Rape

Gossip

Laziness

Debt

STD's eventually

War

Drug and Alcohol abuse

The list could go on

Isn't the real problem that Christians don't really live this way? In fact, we have initiated some of these things in the name of Jesus. Surely it starts with the Church being true representatives of Jesus. I mean, following the 10 commandments and the Greatest Commandment (Love the Lord with all you are and love your neighbor as yourself) alone should cause everyone of these things to go away.

However, most people would agree that most everything on that list is bad (including abortion, I don't know anyone who makes the argument for more abortions, only the freedom of choice). So, if this is what it means to be a follower of Jesus is to oppose these things and seek that change the world to do the same, why is there so much opposition to the movement from Americans and individuals alike? Because, secretly, they don't want to give up sex, hatred of people, racism, drug and alcohol abuse, money/debt, etc. They want to be their own god. The message of Jesus says that we are to turn from the things that bring us pleasure and turn to His way. The way of love, peace, truth, justice, compassion, and REAL joy. To recognize that He came and died and rose again is to also orient yourself to this Way. This takes humility. The toughest thing for someone to say is, I'm not good enough. I suck at being god.

So, you see, it isn't about believing in a God who seeks to punish and hold people back. It isn't about having an imaginary friend in the sky. It isn't about being more right than someone else. It's about the prayer that Jesus said, "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." It's about right now, the whole world saying that they choose to stop bringing Hell to earth and they choose to bring Heaven. It's about eternity and right now.

Finally, consider this question, what if all the Christians are right about heaven and hell? To the non-believer, the consequences eternally are dire indeed. IF there is a Heaven and IF the only way to get there is through an honest relationship with Jesus, then those who don't do so have to receive their due consequences. But, what if there isn't a God and heaven and hell? What if I spent my entire life trying to rid the world of terrible things, raising my kids to be respectful and hard working, traveling to Africa to counsel Genocide orphans, building homes for those who can't, working and living with honesty and integrity, and changing the world through love in the name of a God who doesn't exist? The believer and non-believer end up in the same place, only I think I lived an impactful life because of my belief in my imaginary Friend. Others who don't believe in God do these things also, don't get me wrong. But, our eternity is the same if there is no God regardless of how we chose to live or in whom we believed.

All have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God

The payment for these sins is eternal death

But, the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus

God demonstrates his love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Jesus died for us

If anyone confesses with his mouth, "Jesus Christ is Lord!" and believes in his heart that God raised Him from the dead, they will be saved (from the eternal consequences of imperfection).

My prayer is that anyone reading this post will have their eyes opened to the reality of who Jesus is and was and will reorient their life to His way. This can begin with a simple, heart felt prayer:

Jesus, I'm not good enough. You were. You took my imperfections upon you and made me perfect in God's sight. I choose to live with you and for you beginning now. It's no longer about me and my desires, it's all about you. Amen.

Till the whole world hears,

Adam

Trust

Been meaning to write this one for awhile now...

My son and I were in a pool in Texas a few weeks ago and I was trying to get him to come swim with me. He's almost 5 and has swum before.

For some reason, he was scared. I'm not sure what spooked him, but he didn't want to come out even with floaties on! I thought this was going to be a cool lesson of overcoming adversity and seeing that we can do anything. I was wrong

He kept freaking out.

And freaking out.

He was screaming at me to not let him go. I knew he'd be fine, I knew the floaties would work. I knew I would rescue him at the first sign of danger.

I started whispering in his ear, "Why don't you trust me?" "You'll be fine" "I'll won't let you drown"

Truth was, in that moment, he only saw the unknown waters and didn't hear my voice. He didn't trust me. He was acting like he would die if I let him go.

You may already be able to see the spiritual implications forming her. How often is this our mentality towards God. We see our own inadequacies. We see the deep waters. We don't hear His voice. We don't feel the floaties. We don't trust. We fear. Perfect love has driven out fear yet we don't believe that either. We do when we are in the kids pool with control and we can feel the ground.

What my son didn't realize is that there was so much more fun to be had! Diving, swimming, splashing, we could have had a ton of joy out there.

Instead fear won, trust lost.

What are you fearing now? Do you realize that God desires pure joy for you. Trust Him.

iPhone 4 vs Mytouch 4G

Crazy life at the end of the year...sorry to the few people who may read this.

Anyways, I have saved the best for first this year. Topic - iPhone vs Android.

Story goes, I started a new job on December 12th and my company generously gave me an iPhone 4 as my work phone. Having had a 2g, 3g, and 3gs, I was excited for the new phone! I was rolling with a Mytouch 4g for awhile and thought I would thoroughly love me new venture back to Apple products. Sadly, I have been very disappointed in it. Here's the comparison:

Functionality:
This has long been the arguement for the iPhone. It just works. What I have found though, is that the iPhone basically gives you the middle finger and says, "I'm an Apple product and you do as I say!" Sure it works well, but it has next to 0 versatility. It's Google integration is sub par, the apps are so-so, and the keyboard...well, we'll get to that. The thing I'm finding I loved about my Android phone was that if something didn't work quite the way I wanted it to, I could change it. A tweak here, widget there and my problem was solved. If I want to change the iPhone, tough luck. You have to adjust to it.

Keyboard:
Until Apple can integrate the Swype technology into their phone, they will be LIGHT YEARS behind Android. I can type almost 50 words a minute on my laptop and can almost type that fast on my swype keyboard. And...I know you're not supposed to text and drive, but when you inevitably do, the Swype keyboard lets you keep your eyes on the road when you do it.

Battery Life:
Neither one is all that great, but I kept hearing how much better the iPhone was. Then I get one, and it's the exact same or worse! Somebody told me I had to close all of my open applications and that would help. Surely there was an app to do this...! Nope, you have to do in manually. Again, on my Android, just put the Juice Defender app and power control widget and you could extend your battery life to 10-12 hours with heavy usage. My iPhone just yesterday lasted me 5 hours with heavy usage from 6-11 am.

Network:
My android was on TMobile and iPhone on AT&T. I'll just say this 4G > 3G. It's not even close. Sure I dropped calls on TMobile, but it's the same thing on AT&T.

Speed:
Once I rooted my Mytouch 4G and removed all the crap that comes preloaded on their, my phone was lightning quick. The iPhone 4 is quick, but the Mytouch had it beat. Mostly because I could put things/widgets where I wanted them.

Screen size:
Again, the Mytouch's size and resolution beat out the iPhone 4 in my opinion. Plus adjusting the screen brightness was a simple widget on my home screen, not 3 steps into the settings.

Camera:
Probably a wash here.

Computer connectivity:
The fact that you can mount the Android phones as disk drives and use them to transport data and drag and drop media files is very nice. I know that there's drop box and air sync and all that, but when you want something from a coworker/friends computer, then those become a bit of a hassle. With my Android, just plug it in, drag, and drop. Simple.

Overall, if you can't tell, I can't really find a single thing that is better on the iPhone than on the Mytouch 4G. My personal opinion is that because of all the flexibility of the Android phones, people get scared. The iPhone is like In and Out (which I do love, btw), you know what you are getting. As much as I love In and Out though, I don't want to eat fast food everyday. The Android phones are like cooking your own food to meet your diet at your house. Is it a bit more work? Absolutely! But is it a better way of life? You bet.

So do yourself a favor, next time you are thinking about getting a new phone, don't be an Apple robot. Expand your horizons a bit and engage in the better technology (unless your company gives you an iPhone, then just grin and bear it and relish the times when your wife asks you to send a text on her Mytouch 4g)