Hell and the grave and the power of His love

I see in myself judgements...

Judgements against people, their actions, what they speak, and heck, even their driving skills(I'm a bus driver if you didn't know).

But the more I spend time with our Creator, the more I realize His priorities. I realize that He has ways of dealing with our stuff, in an order that He Himself decides for what time and purpose.

Take my Ma for example. She is 60 years old, had a stroke 15 years ago, and became a christian about 3 years ago. When she first became a christian she read the bible every day, would always ask "why" about everything that was taught but would always tell me, her son who is "the radical christian", God bless you and keep you. Shortly thereafter the man who led her to Christ was accused of child pornagraphy and was forced to leave the ministry. No evidence was found on him but with a public accusation like that, you can say goodbye to your ministry.

But my ma didn't react and blame God for this whole incident. Don't get me wrong, it broke her heart and she believed the cops in the town she lives in were just looking for something to do. But my ma learned early on that we don't blame others for our mistakes. She still believed God was good and refused to let a public incident shake her faith

To this day, she still professes Christ, goes to church, asks questions and all that stuff.

God took action early on in her born again life teaching her to rely solely upon Him who is faithful as opposed to the man who led her to Christ. My ma still cusses, tells dirty jokes, and throws tantrums when I can't drive down and drive her to the big city but that's all unimportant right now.

God is creating in her a character that is based off of HIS plans. Not ours, so many times in our lives we think we can do a better job of dealing with problems in life and people then He can, whether we realize it or not. But in a culture where we allow mistakes, we have grace for the sins that don't directly affect or harm one another, we allow God control as long as we are open to His spirit to speak to us.

As a youth pastor I deal with kids left and right who are radical christians and do stupid things, or kids who are professed athiests, agnostics, or who quite aren't ready to surrender everything to God. All these kids make mistakes and say things that aren't "Godly". But I realized early on it's not my job to "christianize" these kids then let them come to youth group to be used by christ.

Isaiah himself professed unclean lips and God cleansed them. Jeremiah claimed being a youth and useless and God told him to can it and speak what God would put in his mouth. I have seen barely saved kids pray for the sick and see them healed. I have seen a passion rise out of kids who are 3 weeks old in the Lord that has more fire then most of the adults in my church.

God's priorities for us is foolishness to our minds because we don't see the whole picture. Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for disciplines and reading the bible, and prayer and all the things of christianity that make us firm and solid in the Lord, but the moment we start to run the show is the moment revival stops. It's the moment God lets a bunch of uneducated laborers try to build the eiffel tower or the pyramid of Giza.

God is a God of order but His order for life, the church, and Holiness won't always agree with the theologies that have been spoken by the smartest men in the country. I think God takes more delight in the heart of a 5 year old who tells his mom in the middle of worship "I love Jesus" then the man who does his daily devotions in hebrew and greek.

Much love