God Doesn't Have Any Grandchildren

There is a story that has been going around for years, now, about a woman who always cut both ends of the roast off before she cooked it. Her husband asked her why she did it, because he had never seen his mother do that, and it seemed like a real waste of good beef. She replied that her mother had always done it that way. The two of them considered that for a while, and called her mother to ask why she cut the ends off of the roast. Well, because her mother always did it. So they called grandmother: “Why do we cut the ends off of the roast before roasting it?” “Well, I don’t know why you do it, I always did it because the only pan I had was too small for a whole roast.”
I heard a preacher on the radio some time ago saying that God doesn’t have any grandchildren. That puzzled me at first, but he went on to explain: If one’s parents have made a profession of faith, and accepted Jesus as their personal savior, been baptized, done all of the things that are expected of them as Christians, that is only enough for their own salvation. Hopefully, in the process of raising their children, they will instill in them at least a respect for God’s Word, and desire to live right. At least in some instances, the children see the commitment that the parents have towards God, and want no part of it. Some people seem to think that because their parents have a relationship with God, then they are okay with God, too. It can get interesting, but Jesus saves by the each. He doesn’t save whole families; each member of the family must come to God on their own. Your parents may be children of God, but that doesn’t make you His grandchild; you either become a child of God of your own volition, or you are none of His.
I have seen a lot of people lately that attend church where they don’t agree with the doctrine that is being taught. That puzzles me. There are all kinds of churches in this country, why would you attend where you don’t have agreement? I realize that, in some cases, they are attending church where they were raised. In some cases, they were taught growing up that God would only take them to Heaven if they were members of that particular church. Let me ask you a question: If you don’t believe what the church believes, are you really a member of that church, anyway? My suggestion would be to sit down with your pastor, and discuss your differences. Perhaps he can help you understand why the church believes what it believes, and help you to believe it also. If not, then maybe you should find another church. As I said earlier, there are all kinds of churches. Spend some time in prayer; ask God to show you where He would have you to attend church, but be prepared to accept His guidance. If He guides you right back to the church that you’ve been attending, then maybe you need to correct your own beliefs, but God can help you with that, too.

Relationships

There’s an old story about a woman named Sally Vinson, who was faithful woman of God. She was the organist at her church. She also happened to be a very pretty woman, but it was well known in the community that she didn’t date outside her church, which really meant that she didn’t date much at all, because single men at her church were few and far between. On enterprising young man realized that there was a way to take advantage of the situation, all he had to do was to join her church (of course, there were many others that had tried that, and been found out, but he was smarter than they were—at least in his own mind). So he began attending services at Sally’s church, but she didn’t seem to notice. Of course, he was sitting way back in the back, and she was at the organ, so it was hard for her to realize that he was even there. He was absolutely certain that if he could just get her attention, he was home free, but how? Then one Sunday morning, the preacher held an altar call. That’s it! She’s looking at each face as they come up for the altar call; they are standing close to the organ; the situation is perfect! So he went up. The preacher, recognizing that this is a newcomer to church, asked him, “Are you seeking salvation?” Startled by the question, our intrepid hero stammered, “N-n-no s-s-sir, I-I’m seeking Sal Vinson!”
One thing that I have become aware of, there are an awful lot of churches today that have a lot of women, and not many men. In many of these churches, the men are there only because of their wives and/or girlfriends. That seems really sad to me. If the only way I can maintain a relationship with a woman is to attend her church, and the only reason I’m attending her church is so that I can maintain a relationship with her, then I’m not really the man that she wants to maintain a relationship with, anyway, am I? I guess it’s better to attend church for the wrong reason than to not attend church at all, but not much better. At least if you’re in church, you may hear something during your waking moments that may actually make a difference in your life. Something may stir you up to read your Bible, and begin learning about your spouse’s faith…
I have posted before about how long-term relationships are based on commonality. There’s something to be said for the adage that opposite’s attract, but the novelty of that wears off after awhile. If you want to be happy on your fiftieth wedding anniversary, you should marry someone that you have a lot in common with. I think most of us have heard Dr. Neil Clark Warren’s talk about how his method is to match up people with fifty points in common. These are what he believes to be the most important aspects of personality. Even comedian Chris Rock has said that you should be with someone that is like you (“If you’re a crackhead, she should be a crackhead!”). Realistically, your spouse should be your friend, too; someone that you can discuss almost anything with for long periods of time without it turning into an argument.
If you are a Christian (or a Jew or a Muslim, for that matter), then your relationship with God should be the most important thing to you. Your significant other should have the same type of relationship with God that you do. It doesn’t necessarily follow that you both have to go to the same church, but if you are members of different churches together, the two churches should teach the same thing, and somewhere down the road, that should be consolidated. Eventually, you are going to want to attend church together, just make sure that both of you are there for the right reason. Of course, if you are attending church for the wrong reason, then your spouse should also be attending church for the wrong reason, but I’m not quite sure how that would work out.

Interfaith Relationships II

I posted on this subject Monday, but I suspect that most people who started to read that post thought they were going to read about dating/marrying outside one's own faith. There was very little, if anything, about that; it was more about friendships. In all fairness, I think that there is a lot of confusion about interfaith relationships in terms of dating and marriage, also.

I'm not going to try to tell you who you should or should not date. Miriam made that mistake (God smote her with leprosy). I will say this, though: The axiom is "opposites attract;" however, lasting relationships are built on common ground. If you really want your relationship to work, you need to sit down and decide what is important to you, and get with somebody who feels that those things are important, also. If your religion is important to you, then you really should be with someone, not only of the same religion, but someone to whom religion is important, also.

A lot of people talk about both interfaith and interracial marriage saying that the Bible forbids both. The only reference I've ever been able to find, as far as interracial marriage, is in Numbers 12, which I referenced above; Moses' sister Miriam was smote with leprosy because she dared to criticise Moses for marrying an Ethiopian woman. Of course, he married Zipporah before God gave Moses the law... As far as interfaith marriage, I think that there is a better Old Testament scripture on that subject, but the only one I can come up with this morning is Exodus 34:17, but I think that makes the point that God didn't want the Israelites marrying outside the faith, because He knew that, at least in some instances, the Israelite men would wind up worshipping the gods of their pagan wives.

Apostle Paul writes a little bit differently in 1 Corinthians 7. He says that if a 'believer' (a Christian) is married to an 'unbeliever,' that is not a good enough reason to divorce. I don't think that Paul is suggesting that it's okay for a Christian to marry someone who is not a Christian, but acknowledging that two people who are married don't always maintain the same priorities. They may get married, and then one get saved, or two Christians may be married, and one backslide. Either way, Paul says that the believer should stay with the unbeliever, unless the unbeliever chooses to depart, in which case, okay, they didn't want to live for God, and they weren't willing to share their life with someone who was living for God, so, let them go. The believer is then free to be single, or to marry someone else.

Just an aside, I hope this doesn't sound like bashing, but I know that the Roman Catholic church in particular is very picky about 'recognizing' marriages. I knew a young Catholic woman who fell 'in love' with a Protestant man; after several months of marriage, that her church would not recognize, these two realized that they were not nearly as much in love as they thought they were. Some time later, she fell in love again, but, this time, with a Roman Catholic man. They both wanted to get married in 'The Church.' The church insisted that before they could get married, she needed to to get the church to annul her first marriage. I'm not clear on how the church can annul a marriage that the church didn't recognize in the first place... They were only to happy to grant the annulment, it was really just a paperwork drill... I also knew a young man that was a born-again Christian that wanted to marry a Roman Catholic woman. She wanted to get married in 'The Church,' so he attended Catechism class and became a Roman Catholic. He told me he didn't understand what all the fuss was about; Christian is Christian, right? Sometimes people just make too much of some things. Jesus talked about choking on a gnat, and swallowing a camel... Of course, He was talking about the religious leaders of the day concentrating on making sure all the little things are right (and the little things should be right) and getting so focused on those things, that major problems slipped right past them. All too often, the religious leaders of today fall into the same traps.

Man, did I get behind! My apologies to the two or three people that read my blog (as if it were that many) for not posting yesterday or the day before. I got really busy. Very unusual for me, since my job is *so* demanding (is using asterisks to indicate sarcasm acceptable?). Anyway, The video stuff is looking good--I was able to synch up the audio from the one DVD to the video from the other. I've tried to synch stuff up before without much success, but it all depends on the medium that the audio was captured on. CD's tend to be slightly faster, even though they are 'real time' (or maybe DVD's are slightly slower? Not sure). Anyway, these were both DVD's, so it's okay. It worked out. Meantime, three day week-end coming up. We're going to be doing 'spring cleaning' at the church. This also includes touching up the paint, deep-cleaning carpets, etc. Not looking forward to the work, but I am looking forward to how much better the building is going to look.
By the way, it occurs to me that the Ford Motor Company should make a car called the "Prefect" with terry-cloth upholstery, so that the driver of a Ford Prefect would always have a towel handy. Just a thought.