A common misconception of Christianity

• Justice is a Christian with a capital C
• Justice explained what Christianity is by explaining what Christianity isn't

Yes, I know that originally you were promised the next installment of this series would focus on an explanation of "Cat & Dog Theology" but hey, you were also promised the next installment of this series would take place six months ago.  We'll get to cats and dogs  next time, because my pastor had an aside today that really spoke to me and I felt compelled to share it with whomever actually kept reading after they realized that this was another "Justice and the Bible" post.  In the end, it will all tie into "Cat and Dog Theology" anyway and I'm sure at that time half of you will be compelled to ask why a man of my genius, vision and excessive humility chose to go into software consulting rather than becoming a minister at some megachurch somewhere.  Anyway, what better place to get started talking about the Bible than where it all began: in the Garden of Eden and the book of Genesis.  Yes, it's an essay.  You'll live.

For the few of you who are not aware, here's the Coles Notes of the book of Genesis:

1. God creates the world
2. God creates Adam and Eve
3. God gives Adam and Eve some simple instructions
4. Adam and Eve botch that sucker hardcore
5. God kicks them out of the garden, but God rocks and gives them some guidance
6. several more generations of God being awesome

and then we're in Exodus.  And now you know the rest of the story.  John Piper and Steve Harvey have nothing on me.  Seriously, this is as much background as you actually need to know for what I'm going to talk about today, which is:

3.  God gives Adam and Eve some simple instructions

Here are said instructions:

Genesis 2:16 - "And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;"
Genesis 2:17 - "but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

Now, I don't want to understate Genesis 2:17 - I normally don't post spoilers on this blog but Adam and Eve eat from the bad tree.  As a result of this action, you are reading this blog right now rather than lounging around somewhere in paradise eating pineapple or *gasp* something even better than pineapple.

"No way!!"  SERIOUSLY.

That's right, the original sin is what brought us to this point. 

Here's the neat thing about Genesis 2:16 and 2:17.  Both of them are exhortations, one of them focusing on what *to* do and the other on what *not* to do.  Now, Genesis 2:16 at its root is awesome.  Imagine God going to you and saying, "Listen - I have given you these gifts, take them and enjoy them to my glory."  In fact, this is echoed in other instructions through the Bible, such as

Ephesians 2:10 - "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."

and one of my three favorite Bible verses of *all time* from my favorite Bible book of all time - Ecclesiastes 3:12-13:

"I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God."

Lots of focus in Christianity is given to Adam and Eve's failure to listen to God when he said "Don't eat from the tree of life".  Much less focus is given on their failure to listen to God when he said, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden."  This is where many of us go wrong as Christians, where we focus so much on the avoidance of sin that we try to live a life that is exclusively focused on avoidance of sin.  Now, before anyone says, "Awesome, Justice just said it's okay for me to sleep with 3 hookers tonight" sin is bad news.   We do need to flee from it because we are called to examples of Christ in the world.  What I am talking about is the kind of Christian whose entire "walk" with Jesus consists of:

• did I sin today?
• how often did I sin today?
• how "badly" did I sin today?
• how can I avoid sinning tomorrow?

What kind of a life is that?  I put "walk" in quotes because - let's get real - you're not "walking" with Christ if the only place in your life for Christianity is for a sin management ledger with "sins avoided" on one side and "sins committed" on the other.

It's by living this avoidant life that we fall into the *other* trap Adam and Eve fell into - ignoring the blessings and the calling of the Lord in our lives.  What if we stopped avoiding the call of the Lord in our hearts and our minds, and instead of asking ourselves "sin management" questions, we asked ourselves questions like these every day:

• How can I glorify God today in my actions?
• How thankful am I to the Lord for the gifts He has given me?
• How much can I do for the Lord in His name with these gifts?
• How can I ensure my life is a lamppost to reflect the light of Christ?

Now, what kind of life is that?

Next time: Cat and Dog theology, what it is and how it changed my direction as a believer forever! 

Yours in Christ,
Justice

That's right, two posts in only one night, because I am hardcore like that!

Some of you were no doubt worried that this series (or Metro Like Me, or What A Cage Fighter Does, etc., etc.) might have ended with merely an introduction each, given the radio silence of the last week.  Rest assured they are *all* continuing!  In fact, I thought about combining them all into one entry this weekend that talked about How to Be A Metrosexual Cage Fighting Christian but I was worried about it diluting the message.  Nonetheless to throw a bone to those people who were hoping to hear how cage fighting relates to Christianity I have attached an image from "The Lord's Gym" promotional T-shirts which are
a) designed to promote and evangelize the Word at gyms everywhere
b) TOTALLY AWESOME.

Two weeks ago we began this series by revealing that I, Justice Gray, am a Christian.  This turned out to be a controversial statement in itself as you can see from the comments thread that erupted, debating everything from my intelligence to who shared Rod Stewart lyrics with who to my proper use of the English language!  Today we will continue on our quest to offend 99% of the readership of this blog by discussing two major misconceptions about what Christianity is and getting them out of the way before we go onto deeper topics in the weeks to come.  That is right - I am going to define Christianity for anyone reading.   Actually, I am not going to be defining anything and instead the Bible will define it for us.  

I'm going to start my first point by telling you about several statements in life that make me cringe involuntarily because they are just plain wrong.  This includes examples like:

• ".NETrosexual"
• "Thanks for coming, here's your free INETA T-shirt"
• "automated build scripts are a waste of time"
• "Sorry, but we're going to have reroute this flight to Winnipeg"

but none of these cause me to clench as much as the statement "Yeah, I'm a Christian, I believe in a lot of different religions, they all lead to God in the end".   I know that this news will be very disappointing to those of you who like to profess to be Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, Kabbalahian, and Pastafarian all at the same time but it is because I care that I am providing this religious reality check.  The very nature of Christianity actually precludes one from being able to be a Christian and simultaneously be a follower of another religion.  I'm not talking about the old-school old testament "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" stuff either, I mean this straight from Jesus' mouth himself in John 14:6.

"Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.""

I have sincerely sat with people who have told me straight-faced that they are a Christian just like me because they believe every religion is correct, and then look like they are about to punch me when I gently ask them how they reconcile John 4:16 with that statement.  On a related note, I think I have *also* sincerely sat with people who apparently believe in every religion out there without reading any of the fundamental text corresponding to the faith they profess to have.

I want to clarify this statement a bit.

First of all, for those people who believe in everything - the only way to include Christianity into a mix of the 18 other faiths you profess to follow is to pretty much ignore both Jesus and Paul in numerous statements throughout the Bible, not to mention that Hinduism considers Jesus just another God while Muslims only consider Jesus an honored prophet - it's pretty tough to reconcile these all together without ignoring something in the Bible.  This is something we'll also get into later which I've heard termed as "salad-bar Christianity", where you pick and choose the pieces of faith you like and leave out the pieces you're just not as comfortable with.

Now, for those of you who are Christians but feel I might be casting judgment on you if you haven't read your Bible cover to cover 17 times in the last week, I am definitely not.  I do believe regular reading and studying the Bible is very important to your life as a believer.  I'll save this discussion for a later post.  For right now, I would like to reiterate from last week that your faith is serious business and a serious choice.  If you profess to be a Christian, I pray that your decision to follow Christ is based on more than a superficial skim of Matthew, Mark, and Luke one time 10 years ago, a desire for a "get out of hell free" card, and the fact that following Christ was the cool thing to do.  I'm not saying this because I am condemning you - I am saying this because I don't want you to shortchange yourself on the wonderful depth and breadth of Christianity.  Like everything I've said today, this is turning into another major sidebar that I'll save for later when we talk about some of the aspects of the life of a Christian.  

The meaning of Christianity is an overloaded one even without this kind of multiple religion confusion.  Some people think that Christianity is merely a guide to how you live your life.  Others think that it's just a list of things you don't do, check off the list and you're A-OK.   This is incorrect; if Christianity was as simple as merely abstaining from sex outside of marriage, 90% of the software development industry would be Christian by default.  The dictionary lists 6 different definitions for the word "Christian"; in some cases "Christian" is said to mean "decent" or "humane".  Yes, being decent and humane is part of being a Christian but you are not a Christian just because you are decent and humane.

Now, Christianity is, at its base level:

• a belief that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, he died on the cross for our sins, and that God rose him from the dead three days after his crucifixion.  [Romans 10:9 - "That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."]
• being sorrowful over our sins and confessing them to Christ [2 Corinthians 7:9-10 - "yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death."]
• the pursuing of an active relationship with Jesus, putting him at the center of our lives and the forefront of what we do.

I'm going to leave it at this for this week - next week as my pastor says, we'll "unpack" what it actually means to have Jesus at the center of our lives by

1. talking about the Biblical basis for that statement (though if you're enterprising with Google you won't have much trouble)
2. stealing from *another* sermon I heard years ago and talking about the difference between "cat theology" and "dog theology".  With some luck I'll be able to find the guy's name who first coined these terms to give him some credit (presuming he even wants to be associated with this blog at all, which is probably a bit of a stretch at this point!  ;) )

Yours as always in Christ,
-Justice

Welcome to:

• what could potentially end up as the most controversial weekly series in Gray's Matter history
• the post series that I have been wanting to start for the last several years

Ever look at your blog statistics and think, "Man, I have *way* too many visitors!!  Hopefully I can find some way to offend half of them away from this blog, never to return"?  If you have, watch and learn. Do a post series like this and I'm sure you'll be just as successful at it as I am! 

As long-time readers of this blog know, Justice Gray is definitely many things:

• an unrelenting metrosexual heartthrob
• a survivor of industry discrimination
• a stalking victim
• an unparalleled physical specimen
• a software development savant
• an agent of managerial change
• an undeserving husband of an incredibly beautiful wife

However, one thing that this blog did not make evident until now (and that I am rectifying) is that Justice Gray is a Christian with a capital C.

If this revelation has made you unsubscribe forever, burn your Justice Gray dolls in effigy and spend the rest of your night crying into your pillow, I understand and will not be hurt in the slightest.   There's also probably a group of you that feels this is a pretty odd post to be reading on a blog about software development and management consulting.  To that group of you, I will let you in one of the greatest Gray's Matter secrets in history: this blog has never really been about software development *or* management consulting.   Oh, for sure I do touch on topics like this on occasion but this blog is actually about Justice Gray because, to be frank, you have to write about your passions, and if I am passionate about any one subject it is Justice Gray. 

Now to set a record for the shortest time to contradicting oneself (Guinness, please call me when you get a chance, we'll set up a photo op), the truth is that as much as I love myself, I love Jesus Christ much, much more, and if you know how much I love myself you can understand the enormity of this statement.  Now, before people get frightened for the future of the fields of software development and management consulting, I want you all to know that I am not leaving you all behind to become a televangelist.  This is just a statement of fact and a statement of faith.  This is a serious statement because Christianity and the commitment to follow Christ are serious business.  There are people out there who think that your commitment to Christ starts and ends with getting yourself dunked in a tank of water or praying the sinner's prayer at camp.  That's not quite the case.  Your commitment to Christ can start there, but it doesn't end there.  That's something we'll be exploring a bit as this series goes on, as well as exploring the things I am learning or exploring through my studies of Bible, my communion with believers, and my notes from the sermons at my absolutely amazing church (if there are any of you in the Vancouver area, I definitely encourage you to drop me a line sometime if you're curious about attending, my wife and I would love to go with you!) 

Despite what millions of women (and posts on this blog) state, I am not a perfect human being.  However, even in my imperfect state it is my fervent prayer that this series:

• serves as an encouragement to those of you who are already a Christ-follower
• to those of you who are not believers, almost believers or somewhere elsewhere, that it gives you some food for thought and a respectful place for open discussion
• and of course, that in the end this series will, in its humble way, bring glory to God and to His son Jesus Christ.

Next Sunday, we'll try to whittle away the 20 remaining readers of this blog by exploring what Christianity actually *is* and what it means to be a Christian, based on some relevant Bible verses and totally ripping off pieces of my pastor's latest sermon!    I'm pretty sure anyone who *wasn't* offended by my out and out declaration of love for Christ will *definitely* be offended once we get into this!!  In fact, I'm guessing by the time we hit September the only two people left reading this blog will be myself and my wife, but what a ride we'll have until then, yes?

Yours always in Christ,
-Justice Gray