Have you ever noticed that the greatest defiance is to live. Simply living your life with determination is the greatest way to defy something. The Jewish people, from their beginning, have been hunted, hated, and persecuted. By simply living, they have out lived, achieved more, and are remembered by history. The nations that fought against them are mostly forgotten in the records and memories of men. Christians, in most areas of the world are persecuted. yet Christianity grows in persecuted areas, the harder a people try to extinguish Christianity, the larger the flame grows.

The greatest defiance is to live committed to your principles. As Christians, the greatest defiance to a world that is sinful is to live committed to christ. Human nature is almost always self preservation. people expect people to change when faced with death. when something does not go as planned, people become scared because you are not following the rules of humanity. If you live, if you are committing yourself to any principle, you are defying something. To live and honor your principle, if you life to honor christ, you are defying something at the greatest level. your very life is a defiance to the sinful world we live in.

Instead of asking, " how could god let this happen?" rather, "how could we allow ourselves to become so apathetic and withdrawn?"

Principled people are always controversial. They stand for things; therefore there are things they stand against. To affirm one thing is to deny another. You can’t call one thing into question without standing for another. Even if you don't like it, you stand for something and disagree with something.

For the last 17 years of John Quincy Adams life he fought slavery. There was a gag rule that made slavery legal and opposition was practically silenced. Once a year John Quincy Adams went to the senate and spoke against slavery. Every year he pricked the moral conscience of the senate. Every year, 17 times, John Quincy Adams provoked senators to get out of their seats, walk towards other senators, and fight. In the senate, there were actually fist fights over the morality of slavery.

He believed that the principles of freedom were so sacred that no propriety should stand in the way of denouncing the criminality of slavery. have you every noticed how every generation quickly notices the faults and screwy beliefs of the past generation, but is equally hasty to accept the new beliefs of their generation? From a withdrawn perspective, it is clear that slavery is a detestable practice, but you have to ask yourself, what sinful practice are we openly accepting without even knowing it.

How many times have you given to some charitable cause, your time and your money and then for some reason you have to give more than you originally intended and you become frustrated and bitter? This comes from as if all we have is somehow actually ours. This happens to me. Ours lives are not our own. We are merely stewards of our time and money. yet we cling so hard to what we actually don't own.

I think there is a danger in complimenting theology and doctrine rather than engaging and verifying.

'We are.' Not 'We were.'

Just a disclaimer: I really do not fully understand, or even partially understand, anything I am about to talk about. It is all random coffee shop thoughts.

God is outside of time. So, that means that we are, there is not really a past or future. I may be 4 years sober, but everything I have done still is. Everything I have done is me, in a sense, because I am; not I was or will be. Everything I do is part of a total that is already there. This is what makes grace so great. I am a wretch, not I was, but I am and the sum total of what I am is forgiven and redeemed. If I am, then every I have done is. Because I am and everything I have done is, I am not any better than the person next to me.

Today I went and picked up an application to be a regular volunteerer dude at a soup kitchen, tutoring, mantience, odd job man. I take all the back roads to RIFA ( Regional Inner Faith Association ) I’m driving through the ghetto and the usual run down houses, it was about 3, so, school had just gotten out, masses of kids were walking home, there were a few fights, some rather brutal with people watching in the circle, it’s a depressing thing to watch. I leave my application, and then drive back the same way; some of the fights were still going on, you could tell which kids had fought by the blood on some of their faces and shirts. I drive to the north part of down and sit down in joe mugs with my C.S. Lewis and a cup of coffee. I look around and notice three guys in line, all wearing designer jeans, gold watches, and leather coats. Two business men debating which golf resort to go to, three other men talking about what color to paint their offices, a couple of kids with the local prep school uniform, and I notice that everyone of us have one thing in common: we are all completely self absorbed and we all think we are gracing the earth with our presence.

The gospel is rather radical about taking care of the poor. I do not fulfill the call of the gospel by any means; I am guilty of this as well. Holiness is not judged by what we do not do. What makes us radical as Christians? Grace and sacrificial love. Through grace, we are holy, but it is not just something we receive, it is something that we also give. The giving of grace and love without gain is absurd by any way of life other than Christianity, but without it, there is not Christianity. Christ’s sacrifice, when you look at it, it is absurd. He saved the miserable lot that killed Him. Me of all people, I hated Him.

That last thought while I was in Joe Mugs was this: God makes us lovable. A dog hates training, we are none too different. By making us more like Him through redemption, we are more capable for receiving love. God cannot love our sin, rather he loves our person because that can be changed, which ultimately, since we are created in his image, is like Himself. The easiest thing I have found to love is, sadly enough, myself. I find it is easiest to love and accept people who are like myself. There is a huge problem here. I am shown love by a God greater than myself, who reached down to something very different than He is and I am so hesitant to imitate that.

It seems that the most desieving part of emotion is the belief that it will last forever. depression only turns into despair when you start to think that this emotion will never end.