When the S*** hits the fan

The Raw Truth

A Logicians Guide to the Uncomfortable Truth of Following Christ 

"In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,"
       - 2 Timothy 3:12

Let's talk about logic for a second. (If you absolutely cannot stand math: skip ahead to the big bold words that tell you to read here). I don't know if you're at all familiar with logical expressions, but for the sake of argument, the above verse can be expressed as:

"All people who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted."

Then, if we let

Christian(x) mean x is a person who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus

and

persecuted(x) mean that x will be persecuted,

then we end up with:

"x, Christian(x) ® persecuted(x).


This is now in the form of an implication - or an if/then statement. We'd read it as:

For all x, if x is a Christian (a person who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus), then x will be persecuted. Exciting right? Well, it gets better!

Now that we have it in implication form, we can take the contrapositive (a transformation that keeps the same true-false values). In other words, we can transform the sentence to look different, but still be true.

Check it: the contrapositive of "if p, then q" is "if not q, then not p". So, we'd have:

"x, ~persecuted(x) ® ~Christian(x).

The tilde (~) means "not". In English, this would read (brace yourself): 

"If you're not being persecuted, then you are not wanting to be a Christian (a person who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus)". 

Read that again. That's some challenging stuff.

Side note: I know that the Bible was written in a completely different language and that language had completely different contextual meanings and that this "proof" is no where near concrete enough to show any absolutely indisputable truth, but it still definitely opened my eyes to something.

Here's where you should pick up reading again:

Being persecuted is a part of Christianity - it's a part of life. In fact, truly living a life for Christ means we will be persecuted. So much so, that not being persecuted is a warning sign to reevaluate our life in Christ. Paul isn't even the only one who points it out when he writes to Timothy. Jesus himself said that

"If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you."
     - John 15:18-19

Here are some question that were posed to me around the end of my senior year in high school through a sermon at church: Am I really carrying a cross if there is no suffering and sacrifice? Can I really say that I'm carrying my cross if it hasn't cost me anything?
I want this information to do two things for you.

1) Encourage you:

If you're going through crap, I want you to know that it's completely normal. It's to be expected, but no one said that it was to be desired. We don't have to love the persecution and say things like "I'm so glad that I lost my job because I just know that Christ is doing awesome things!" Maybe He is, but we don't have to fake it for Christ. Hard times suck. We know they suck. God knows they suck, but He didn't make us go through them alone.

Christ is with us, and what's more is that just after He told the disciples to anticipate hatred, He said that He was sending another to guide them. That other - the Holy Spirit - is within us as well. We are not alone. We have the Holy Spirit, and we have each other.

2) Challenge you:

If you think about the last time that you lost something because of the cross, or were mocked because of your faith, or had to sacrifice something because of your beliefs, and you can't think of anything - you may need to reevaluate your relationship with Christ. Now, this isn't to say that we will always be in hardships - in fact I just came out of a low time and I'm feeling amazing! - but, if you can't think of a time that you had to sacrifice for Christ, maybe you need to ask yourself if you're really living for Him.

I can only say this because that's the exact question I had to ask myself earlier today. I hit a point where I was comfortable. Life was going along, things were fine, people were okay, but nothing was exceptional. Then I realized that my relationship with Christ had also grown stagnant. As with everything, it's a process, but I'm slowly getting back on my feet. I want to challenge you to do the same. I pray that God shakes your life in amazing ways!

As always, God Bless and good luck!
~XTopher

KitKat Christ Break

*YAWN AND STRETCH*
*Deep Breath*
Wow. Thanksgiving break was wonderful (and much needed). Not only did I get a break off of homework but really all of responsibilities in life. During the times that I wasn't helping or partaking in some family event, I sat around, watched Hallmark movies, built LEGOs, played video games, and slept. It was marvelous!

There was definitely homework that I could have gotten done and some tasks that I definitely should have done, but I'm very glad for the break that I got. I think it really helped me to reestablish focus and productivity now that I'm back to school.

But with waking up late in the day and lounging around for the rest of the day, came something I should have expected. I got out of my routine, and so I would find myself going days without really praying or reading the Bible like I had been. That's something that I did not want to take a break from.

Now, just like with the breather from homework, the "break" from Spiritual Disciplines (that's the prayer, bible-reading, worship, etc. stuff) has inspired me to jump back into it and I'm very motivated to do so, but the "damage" that was done on my "break" may definitely have outweighed the benefit of added motivation. The way I picture it is like climbing a mountain.

The harder I press into the mountains with my spikes, the more secure I am, and the more frequently I move my hands up or find a new foothold, the faster I move. In the same way, the harder I press into God's word and the more frequently I spend time with Him, my relationship with Christ grows stronger and more rapidly.

However, in mountain climbing there is a force that is constantly acting downward on the mountain climber: gravity. While this may be a slight stretch of reality, the way I picture it is if the climber stops climbing, that gravity begins to slowly pull them down. In other words, if s/he's not moving up, s/he's actually moving down. I don't know if you've heard it said, "If you're not growing, you're dying."

That's definitely how I felt this past week. I wasn't growing. I wasn't climbing. So, I felt myself slipping. I began to lose more ground in one week than I had gained in weeks of spiritual discipline. So, from my own experience, my advice is to not take a break from God. Keep digging in regardless of what your current situation is. But, this is just based off of what works for me. I know that not everyone is the same, and I'm curious to hear what you guys think of this.

What do you think about "taking a break" from Christ? How has it affected your relationship with Him? Have you ever done it? Does the motivation afterward outweigh the cost of the break?

Looking forward to hearing from you!
Best of luck in the real world and God Bless,
-XTopher

#thankful

For all of you United Statesians, it's official. Google has changed their logo to a cornucopia filled with fall foods, Snapchat has a new filter featuring leaves and a turkey, the Macy's Parade has begun, and I smell rolls baking in the morning. It's Thanksgiving.

This is one of my favorite holidays because it's 100% focused on family and coming together. While Christmas is "The Most Wonderful Time of Year" (in my opinion), there are a lot of extra elements that go into the Christmas season like spending money on presents, the politics of separate holidays, Santa, and even Hallmark movies that can distract from the family focus of the holiday season. But Thanksgiving doesn't have those kinds of distractions (except for Black Friday, of course). This allows Thanksgiving's only focus to be on what it was originally intended to represent: being appreciative for the things around you.

It's so wonderful to be able to be surrounded by the people that you love while remembering all of the reasons that you love to be alive. It's really a great way to reset your heart and mind and put the focus back on what we have, rather than on what we don't. After the challenge that I was on this last week, I've really had a change of perspective. (Don't know what I'm talking about? Check out the post here.) It's not that I have more to be thankful for after I did that challenge. It's just that I realize how much more I have always had to be thankful for.

I can be thankful because of the amount of food I have to eat, for sure. As compared to those in poverty, I feast every single day, but especially on a food filled day like this. I can be thankful because, even though the home that I'm in isn't the home I'm used to, I still have a home to live in and family that loves me. I can be thankful for the amazing friends that I have and thankful that the friends I haven't seen in years are doing well. I have so much to be thankful for.

I want to encourage you guys to use today as an opportunity to remember all of the things that you're thankful for, but I always want to remind you to "be thankful in all things" (1 Thessalonians 5:18) and to remember those that have less to be thankful for than we do.

Praying for you and hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving.
Best of luck in the real world and God Bless!
-XTopher