What makes you angry?  Lots of things in life can irritate all of us, and maybe we get a little annoyed at others.  Then there are things that get under our skin and frustrate us, but if you are like most normal people, there are not a lot of things in life that make you truly angry.  I don't know if you are like me on this, but the one thing that can really make me angry is injustice.

There is something in me that wells up rather quickly when I see it happening to someone else, and when it happens to me I can feel my blood begin to boil within moments.  Things like bullying fall into this category, where one person uses their advantage in size, strength, or position to do to someone else what they would never want done to them.  Injustice takes what I perceive as a balanced world, turns it askew, and makes me feel like I'm somehow walking and looking at everything at a 45 degree angle, and I'm going to just have to live with it this way from now on.  I find it extremely difficult to bear this perception, and everything within me screams out to set things back into balance again.

When I witness injustice, I overwhelmingly feel an obligation to do something about it.  I also know now that when it happens to me, my mind will never let it go until "justice is served" somehow.  If I could, whenever I experience injustice personally, I would reverse the events themselves, or do whatever it took to erase any and all evidence of the existence of the injustice.  In spending time thinking about these things, it gave me a new possible perspective on the motivations of God and salvation.

Typically, when I think about sin and salvation and the redemption Christ offered through the cross, I have always felt I could not comprehend the motivation for the sacrifice made.  Salvation for me has always represented an injustice itself.  The One who was perfectly innocent dying for the perfectly guilty?  How could a just God of perfect judgement ever come to a point where that made any sense at all?  This perspective, however, assumes that sin came first, but that is not the case.

In the beginning, God had a perfect friendship with mankind.  There was no sin on earth.  Everything was as it should be, but then it all changed.  Sin came and ended that close friendship with His creation.  With sin entering the picture, a perfect holy God was forced to separate Himself from a personal relationship with mankind, and God was robbed - an injustice had occurred, if you will, and a just God could not tolerate the injustice.

The perfection of His creation had been purposely broken, stained, bullied, and abused and a just God demanded justice to restore what was lost back to Himself.  However, the justice required in this situation would ultimately destroy what He wanted in the first place.  God wanted justice, and He wanted the relationship restored with mankind, not permanently destroyed.  The only way this could be accomplished was through a Redeemer - One who would accomplish both the payment for sin while simultaneously standing in place of the guilty.  Through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the ultimate justice would be served to overturn the first injustice done against God and still accomplish the desired outcome - the restoration of a connection between the Creator and His creation.

Having experienced the inner turmoil of injustice recently, I can begin to understand the strong desire for the fractured imbalance that had to be set right again.  With this perspective I understand that God's sacrifice for mankind was not motivated by a desire to pay for sins penalty, but God's motivation was the preexisting eternal love for His creation, for me, and for you.

I bought a small chemistry set for my daughter.  What I expected was a batch of small amounts of chemicals that would require strict adult supervision – meaning my wife would probably have to make sure I didn’t blow something up.  As I opened the contents and took inventory, I discovered an important looking vial of white powder with a lid that would close very tightly as if something very volatile and dangerous was inside.  I could not have been more disappointed.  It was about the only thing worth anything, and it turned out to be baking soda.

-Reposted from www.MenRising.com

We decided to proceed with the experiment itself which was actually fascinating for my daughter who, knowing her father quite well, stood looking on curiously from a safe distance some 10 feet away.  With some added vinegar, the baking soda fizzed a bit in the test tube, but that was it.  However, I knew where I could get more baking soda, a lot more in fact, and figured it was time to ramp things up a bit.  I filled a large balloon with baking soda, and then filled a 2 liter bottle about 1/4 of the way full with vinegar.  I fitted the open end of the balloon over the bottle, upended the balloon to spill all of the baking soda into the vinegar, and then ran.  My daughter was already 10 feet away with her hands covering her ears.  The dogs had huddled together in the farthest corner of the yard long ago.

As the balloon grew larger, filled with the gas created from the chemical reaction, there was greater and greater anticipation of some imminent event, which translated into more steps backward for myself and my daughter.  However, there was no big bang of the balloon.  There was now just a hugely overinflated balloon on top of this fizzing bottle of liquid neither of us wanted to go anywhere near.  So, we waited some more and finally just let it be.  "What should we do now, Papa?"  My daughter was still gripping my hand and standing half-behind me watching the balloon.  “It’ll deflate on it’s own,” I assured my daughter, as I turned slowly to walk away, looking over my shoulder as I ushered her into the house.

The thing that is so great about true experimentation is that while you have some vague idea of what is supposed to happen, you never really know what is going to happen until you just go out and try.  In a lot of ways, that is what living the Christian life can be like at times for some people.

The Bible has all sorts of great advice for marriage, raising children, and living life in a way that pleases God and gives Him honor and glory.  In fact, many Christians know what the Bible says to do, they also have a vague head knowledge type of an idea that God is going to take care of them and everything is going to be all right in the end, yet, they have no idea what is really going to happen . . . until they try.

Do you really believe what the Bible says?  Do you really have faith about the passages that teach about family, witnessing to the lost, and living a life for the Lord?  Do you believe Romans 8:28 that says “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”?

Truth be told, none of us really know exactly what will happen.  When life hurts, we can know everything is going to be OK in vague terms because the Bible tells us that everything is going to work out all right, but how that is going to be accomplished specifically is not a done deal in our minds, and so where comfort and security in God should be, anxiety and frustration usually rule the day.  The challenge is to remember God and His promises, and then cast all your care on Him (I Peter 5:7) knowing that while others act selfishly to hurt you, He still cares for you.  You will never really know and understand the power of God working in your life, until you try.

Went to the eye doctor yesterday to get new glasses.  I've been needing new glasses for quite some time now as it's been probably 5 or 6 years since I last had my eyes checked.  The world, it seemed to me, had started growing "a little cloudy" or blurry.  Certain small fields of my vision were perfectly clear, but others it seemed could not be brought into focus.

I sat through the battery of tests where they show you the little farmhouse off in the distance, the "little pufts of air" for each eye, and the dilation drops which turns regular sunshine into something bordering on offensive.  In the end, it turns out my eye glasses were just really scratched up.  There were no changes to my vision, but my perspective had changed because of what my glasses had been through.  I was looking at a perfectly clear world through a bad set of glasses.

As I walked, squinty-eyed, to my car, I began to think of a conversation I had with a friend earlier that week about the whole gay marriage debate.  My friend, who is a Christian, felt that people could be born gay.  Not that he was completely convinced of it, but leaned toward that as he has also held the opinion that not everything in the Bible is true.  It was a very interesting conversation for me, because I like rational discussion with rational people who can explain their position without finger-pointing and name calling.  For my friend, it all seemed to revolve around the concept of a question: How could two people, mutually committed to each other in love, be wrong?

I conceded that I have seen some gay/lesbian couples in relationships that seemed far more loving, healthy, and even "more Christian" than some Christian marriages.  However, I still held the view that it was wrong, simply because the Bible very clearly spells out that homosexuality is wrong.  Where I think my perspective differs from others is that homosexuality is wrong, but it is no more grievous or wrong than the other sins of fornication or adultery.  For that matter, homosexuality is no more wrong than any other sin.

I think there is too much focus on homosexuality being wrong, and not enough focus on simply loving people where they are, regardless of where they are.  This is not in any way a condoning of homosexuality, but it is my view that it is not only useless to condemn people for it, it is also hypocritical.  As abhorrent as the idea of homosexuality is to some people, every single one of us is equally abhorrent in the eyes of a perfect sinless God without Jesus Christ in our lives.  Only by the blood of Christ are we made perfect.  I believe it is enough that the Bible condemns homosexuality (and all sin), there is no need for me to do so.

Because of my acceptance of Christ, I am forgiven, loved, and accepted.  I will not lose my place of relationship with Him, nor will I ever exhaust His love and forgiveness for sins.  I can accept that I will do wrong things, for nothing prevents my sinful flesh from being tempted, and I am still just as human as anyone unsaved.  The difference in my life is an acceptance of forgiveness, a recognition of right and wrong behavior according to the Bible, and a desire to please my Savior through a life that is pleasing to Him.

And what would be pleasing to Him?  Should I then, as a forgiven, loved, and accepted son of God, run around finger-pointing and name-calling?  Or rather, should I be just as accepting and loving of others as Christ was of me?

To my friend, I made it clear that while the Bible may actually speak of some people being born not attracted to the person of the opposite sex (Mt 19:12), the Bible is very clear that homosexuality is wrong.  The greater explanation is that maybe these people were born to serve God unencumbered by marriage (I Cor 7), and that while others may be tempted by sexual sin with someone of the opposite sex, there is no way the devil would leave these people untempted by sexual sin, and so we have the sin of homosexuality.

I wish I could get into all the aspects of the topic we talked about as the discussion was very interesting.  I am convinced that what confuses people on the topic is not what the Bible says, but where we stand on our perspective.  Just like my glasses were scratched up and had affected my vision, if we see this sin-scratched world first and try to align it with what we know about the Bible, our perspective will be skewed.  However, when we look through the clear prism of the Bible first at the world, we then see the world as God sees it.

There is no need to justify the world of sin to relate to it, Jesus justified all who would accept His payment on the cross.  Homosexuality is no less wrong than any other sin just because it is forgiven, the difference is a recognition of what is right and wrong, and a born-again life that seeks to please God.  As God sought you in your sin, to redeem you to Himself, so ought we show the love, forgiveness, and acceptance of God that is available to all regardless of where they are in life.