For when the air gets thick...

This is a post I've actually been pretty darn afraid to write up...to be honest it's something deeply personal and something that I struggle with at a level that goes straight down to the core of my being, but as it is, when inspiration strikes, I know it's time to blog. So here goes...

"I give you a warning. Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly: I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down in to Narnia, the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. And the signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look...that is why it is so important that you know them by heart and pay no attention to appearances....nothing else matters. And now, daughter of Eve, farewell..."

Aslan gave this warning to Jill in The Silver Chair just before she embarked on a journey that would reshape her very being. It was part instructional and part warning and in essence, He was telling her that unless she stayed true to His path, she would falter and the "thicker air" of Narnia would confuse her mind and cause her to make bad decisions.

In my mind, there is nothing more appropriate and applicable to the Christian walk than this.

This rings so true in my life because I know what I'm supposed to do. I know the right thing to do and my "instructions" are clear: "love others...love them deeply and love them desperately, let them know that they matter. Stand for those who cannot stand for themselves and above all, be courageous in the power of the Holy Spirit." This, I firmly believe is one of the most important instructions God has given me.

However, so many times in my life, things just...get in the way...I begin to focus so much on other things going around in my life. It could be a new attachment for my AR-15, some new movie is out in theaters, or even just that I'm more tired than normal. But whatever the case is, this is something that distracts me from my Lord's calling and so the air thickens.

As the air thickens, suddenly my focus shifts. My mind suddenly wanders while I'm doing my devotions, my excitement is no longer on Christ but on things that don't matter. My spirit suddenly begins to have an all-too familiar fleshly nature take control...suddenly I start focusing on appearances and forget the signs.

As this takes over, my old sins come back. My old habits come back. My old self comes back. Mostly in the form of two things: Lust and insecurity.

I'll talk about the latter...because lust is pretty simple to be honest. It's bad. Don't do it.

But as for insecurity, it's something that has plagued me for almost my entire life. As you probably know from an earlier post, my childhood wasn't easy friend-wise. Not to over-dramatize it but basically I was bullied and excluded quite a bit. In fact, in middle school I had three friends who I considered to be my best friends. I would do anything for them, I spent my entire summers with them and I always felt like I could be myself around them. When everyone else mocked me for my ethnicity or social awkwardness, they didn't care, I felt safe around them.

But it wasn't to last.

Around 8th grade, for reasons unknown to me, they decided to move on. They stopped talking to me, they all began mocking me and calling me a freak as well...it tore me to pieces. But life went on and I luckily had some other friends that I knew who accepted me into their fold.

But there was another hitch...they were cool. And I was not.

These guys and girls who were to be my new circle of friends were smart, wealthy, athletic, and popular.

In their defense, they tried to accept me but they were in all honesty...normal.

They talked like normal kids, they acted normal, and they lived normal.

Never did they have an awkward moment where their voices cracked, never did they not know what to say in a large group of people, and they never said a random joke...everything was cool, collected, and well...normal. And so when a guy like me acted random or strange or awkward...they either geve me weird looks or refused to talk to me completely.

This taught me a very hard lesson: unless you act cool, no one will like you.

This taught me that affection, friendship and even romance was utterly conditional and there was no such thing as a lasting and real relationship. It was all about how you acted. If you acted good enough, you got accepted, but if you acted weird, then it was all over and you were back to being a freak.

This helped develop a paranoia deep within me that literally made me desperate to please my peers. I felt that as long as I was utterly cool and popular, then I was worth something, but if I wasn't the coolest, or the best, or the most spiritual, or the funniest then I was worth nothing.

So now that we're caught up, I hope you can understand how deep of a struggle this is for me to overcome. I desperately fight it every day but like I said...when the air thickens, my sins come back.

I stop looking at my life through God's eyes. I forget Galatians 2:20 when God reminds me that my old self; the insecure, angry, depressed, addictive, and selfish Jeremy has died and God has put in me a Jeremy that is secure in Christ, loving, joyful, self-controlled, and selfless.

I forget 1 John 3:1 when God calls me His son and how deeply intimate that title is.

And I forget God's challenge in Colossians 2:6-7 when Christ calls me to walk firmly confident in Him.

The air thickens. I forget. Insecurity strikes again.

As that happens, the old lies that haunted me for so long begin to whisper in my ears.

"You're a freak"

"No one really likes you...they hate having you around but they're kind enough to tolerate you."

"Unless you do the dance and act the act, no one can possibly like being around you."

"You are quite possibly worst Christian alive...you are the most messed up human on the planet."

And finally...

"You are alone." 

With these lies taunting me, suddenly I begin to over-analyze EVERYTHING. My "feelers" are always feeling around trying to get the "real meaning" of what people say. I refuse to trust that people actually enjoy my company...I refuse to trust that I'm likable.

Then it spirals even further downward where this paranoia forces me to try to "understand" what people "really" say and do.

I then try to "stay a step ahead of them" and anticipate when they will abandon me or hurt me because I so deeply don't want to be surprised again by another betrayal or exclusion.

Do you see why this is hard to write about? This is something that is so deeply personal, I almost don't even believe it myself when I see it in writing.

So if you've been around me lately, you've probably noticed a lot of this coming out...I don't know why and I'd like to tell all of you one thing: I'm sorry.

I'm sorry for not trusting you, I'm sorry for being paranoid about you. I'm sorry for the stress it's caused you.

Whoever is reading this...I hope at least one of you out there is struggling with the same thing I am because I want to tell you the thing that I always long to hear in times of insecurity and that my Father whispers in my ear every day:

"It's going to be okay...because you're pretty okay yourself. Not because of how you act, not because of how you look, and not because of how you dress, but because you are you. And you are pretty spectacular."

Do you hear that? YOU are spectacular. God thinks you're worth dying for, and I think you're worth fighting for.

If there's any point in this post, it's this: Don't let the air "thicken" around you. Pursue God headlong as fast and as fiercely as you can because fighting for that clear Narnian air is worth more than anything else on this planet. The clarity and peace that God gives us when we focus on Him and our identity in Him is beyond words.

So if you feel confused, and the signs are lost, and you may even end up in a giant castle about to be cooked into pies, remember that God is just waiting for you to clear out of that slump and run back to His adventure.

Instead of my usual farewell in which I say "watch some Victorious and sip some green tea" I would like for you to watch this video below and drink in the peace and clarity that Christ desperately longs to bring you.

Until inspiration strikes again,

-Jeremy

Things I Hate About Facebook

So I've noticed the last few posts of mine have been rather heavy handed and dealing with pretty deep stuff. Upon thinking of my next post, the first things that came to mind were again, heavy and deep stuff.

SO I figure I'll sprinkle in a few funnehs around my more serious posts for variety, after all, random is my middle name.

Actually it's not. But I don't care.

But I digress. This is just a list of things that my fellow Facebookers do that annoys the CHIZ out of me and makes me want to rip my voluminous Asian hair right out of my head. Now I know a lot of you may just do these exact things all the time and if that's the case...well...now we know each other a bit better don't we?

But anyways here it is:

Things Jeremy Hates On FaceBook (or any other social networking website)


1. Badly edited mirror selfies
-I've never understood how changing the color of a picture, saturating the pixels and then scribbling all over it with PaintBrush somehow makes the picture look more appealing.
-this is the opposite of attractive, I look at these and think of little girls on MySpace back when MySpace was cool.

2."Truth Is" statuses
-Truth is...these make you look desperate for attention at any cost whatsoever.
-I'll give you a protip here: Facebook is not a good place for cultivating one's personality and social circles. It's like going into Hooters for female attention, yes you'll get it but no, it's in no way sincere or realistic.

3. "Share/like" posts
-Want something to trend? Exploit a well known disaster, death or tragedy and attempt to curry sympathy by saying that liking or sharing the picture somehow means something.
-Let me make it simple: re-posting or liking doesn't mean you care or are praying.

4. Christian "share/like" posts

-if re-posting a guilt-ridden "If youz deny me before teh menzez ah willz deny youz before teh Fatherz heeeeeerrrrrrpppppp uh ddeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrppppp" post means you're going to heaven and not posting it means you somehow hate Jesus...well...I guess I'm going to hell because I refuse to re-post ANY of these and I will continue to do so to the day I die. 

-It's the Facebook version of leaving tracts on restaurant tables after you eat. It's what I like to call a "Jesus hit-and-run".

5. Re-posting stupid quotes made by hair-brained celebrities

-Whenever I see THIS start going around...

...I immediately think of THESE creatures...

6. People who complain about hashtags on Facebook

-Seriously, if this bugs you, then what happens when something REALLY bad happens to you?

-Of all the things to complain about on Facebook this is pretty pathetic.

-You are accusing people of being "so mainstream" when they use hashtags on facebook...think about that for a minute. Facebook is the most mainstream thing on earth next to oxygen and water.

-You look like a whiny hipster

 

7. Posting vaugue passive/aggressive statuses about people you know

-Pretty simple concept here, if you have a problem with someone, go confront them and solve it instead of complaining about it on Facebook.

-No one else cares that "that slut" is flirting with your boyfriend or that you are your own free spirit and "don't need anyone's affirmation"...because if you didn't, you wouldn't be on FaceBook complaining about it.

 

So yeah...that's about it, I'm sure I'll think of a few later and when I do maybe I'll post a Vol. 2 or something. Until then, sip some green tea and watch some Victorious. I hope you got some lulz from this and if I offended you in any way then fill out this form and I'll get back to you okay?

Gentlemen, start your engines! (A plea to my generation's males)

"What does it mean...to be a woman?"

This question was asked in one of the final episodes of Victorious and it never was answered however I'd like to ask that same question but for us Y-Chromosomers out there.

"What does it mean...to be a man?"

What comes to mind? Probably some lumberjack-like dude with a barrel chest and a huge beard. Or if you're in the younger generations, a sparkly vegan vampire that drives eco-friendly cars *shudders in disgust*.

But seriously, who are we as guys?

I don't think my generation or even the subsequent generations after me can honestly answer that completely. Why? Because we were never forced to be one.

For some reason we just haven't gotten' this "male" thing down on lock.

Now who can really blame us, I mean, the media tells us that we are dumb, horny and childish. Our female counterparts say we are dumb, horny and childish. And our culture tells us...well...that we are dumb, horny and childish.

And for the most part, all three parties agree that this is exactly how we are supposed to be.

We're told that to be a man is to be as irresponsible as possible. We're to "take all we can and give nothing back". We're supposed to live the YOLO lifestyle.

And so as good little boys, we do exactly as we're told

Just look around a bit and look at ourselves men, why are so many of us still obsessed with video games, sports and action movies but care very little for things that truly matter?

Because we still are boys.

We haven't grown up because we're told not to. Think about it, in every TV show and sitcom, where is the humor found? In us as guys acting like idiots. We bumble around looking for food, sex, and beer. And yet who is responsible? Who are the ones making decisions? Who are the ones leading?

The women.

Why is this? Well, a good boy would say that it's because of feminists and their efforts to dominate the culture with their views.

And in this I suppose is some truth.

But to be honest, I think that's making excuses.

We are the problem.

We never decided to truly grow up and step out of our childhood. We just are existing in this perpetual boyhood filled with football, Skyrim and our favorite burger joints.

And in my opinion, we're about as useless as a three-legged dog.

Seriously, guys, we aren't made to be this. We aren't made to live like this.
God didn't create us to live like boys. He created us to live like men.

Unfortunately, thanks to our original ancestor Adam, we have it hard-wired into our system to be wimps. As Adam shrank back and refused to be strong and stand for his wife Eve, so are we shrinking back in our culture and letting our "Eves" do the leading. And so, everything falls apart.

Now before I go on I'm sure there's a few of my female counterparts out there flipping their lid thinking that I'm saying that without the uber-man's leadership, the women will inevitably screw everything up.

I'm not saying that in the slightest.

I'm saying this is a team effort.

We as men are responsible for our own actions just as women are for theirs, however for some reason we seem to be okay with letting women shoulder all the responsibility and burdens of this world while we lose ourselves in sex and television.

Now before I continue, let me be clear on another thing: I am NOT in any way condemning my fellow males here, I'm part of the problem. I am the problem. I see it in my lifestyle, I see it in my habits, and I see it in my soul. That's why I'm blogging about it, because I'm not okay with it.

Guys let's be honest here, instead of pursuing Christ with every ounce of our being, we just throw him off to the side. To us, he's another bro to be used when it's convenient.

Instead we turn to drugs, alcohol, sex, porn and money to keep ourselves fulfilled.

Now I'm not going to give that Christianese statement of saying "but none of those will fill us like Jesus! *fist pump*"

Because although true, it doesn't really do anything to make it relevant to us.

Seriously, in all honesty, in our own minds, we see money, sex and an emotional high as more intense than spending time with Christ.

I know because I make this mistake every day. My devotion time generally hovers around 10 minutes to an hour, and yet the rest of my day is spent making myself feel good. I do the bare minimum to keep Christ in my life and somehow I am under the delusion that I am a "good Christian man" when in fact, I'm failing miserably.

When we don't spend intimate and deep time with the Lord, naturally we will find other things that keep our attention and we eventually believe the lie that God cannot fulfill us in the way that our addictions can.

So instead of giving you the good happy reason why we should be serious about Christ. I'm going to discuss the consequences of our failure.

See, we've failed our sisters in Christ. We've failed the women in our lives.

By neglecting our God-given duty to live righteously and lead by Godly example, we have forced the women in our lives to not only strive for their own righteousness, but also ours.

Think it over,

How many times do the girls have to keep a relationship pure?

How many times do girls have to make the decisions?

How many times do girls have to be strong for us?

I'd say about 98% of the time honestly.

How are we okay with this guys? As our sisters stagger under the weight of their own hurt, confusion, and growth, suddenly they have to deal with ours as well.

There is no better example of this than in my own life.

See there once was a girl that I liked...a lot...honestly I thought I loved her. She was "the one" and I knew from the moment I got to know her that we would some day be married.

But there was this slight problem.

She didn't dig my chili.

Upon talking to her about it, she very patiently and lovingly told me that she truly and deeply cared about me as a friend but that she wasn't interested in a relationship.

And what was my reaction?

I denied it. I literally couldn't accept it so I lingered on in her life desperately trying to win her attention by bringing her all my problems and drama in the hope that she would show me compassion and by that extent, attention and affection.

The worst problem is it worked for awhile. And so for about a year I lingered on in her life, dumping all my problems on her and forcing her to bear not only her problems and burdens, but mine as well.

She eventually had enough and sent me on my way, I then healed and got over it.

But all this to say: Guys, we may not be doing this exactly, but we are forcing the women in our lives to be both women and men.

Because we refuse to grow up, they have to do the work of two people: theirs and ours

Are we okay with this? Can we truly as men look at how much damage our inaction has caused and still pick up the Xbox controller?

Because guys, my heart is broken for us, my heart is broken for my sisters in Christ who feel like the men in their lives are out to manipulate and hurt them.

We can't keep doing this brothers.

We have to step up to our God-given mandate.

We have to start looking at others with the intent of winning their soul to Christ.

We have to be the ones who initiate integrity in our fellow men.

We have to be the ones who say "no" to the world and it's addictions.

We have to step up in defending our sisters honor by refusing to use them as an addiction.

That's why I say "gentlemen, start your engines". Because we've idled enough at the starting line doing nothing but revving our engines to get attention. We've wasted enough time talking the talk, now it's time to walk it.

The world tells us to sit back and relax, but we've spent enough time relaxing.

The world tells us that to be a man is to be physically strong and emotionless, but our King was a carpenter who wept.

The world tells us that women are objects to be used and tossed aside when we are done with them, but we know deep down that they are our sisters with their own hopes, dreams, hurts, and pasts.

I'll say it again: Look at the girls in our lives, are they stressed? Tired? Frustrated with us as guys? Well...maybe we deserve it. We can't go along anymore gorging ourselves on what makes us feel good, we can't keep serving only ourselves, and we can't keep using our sisters to make definition of our lives when God is calling for us to live His adventure.

Guys...brothers...Start your engines. It's time to race.

"Christian(ism)" That Nasty Predestination Word

Christian(ism)s are a series that I will be walking through...not like...one after another but sporadically sprinkled amongst my other posts to spice stuff up.

These posts cover things good, bad, and stupid about my faith.

Today's topic: Predestination, or as the high school youth group calls it: "shut up Kevin!! we're not talking about this!!" (inside joke)

Needless to say, predestination is a dilly of a pickle for most Christians and it hits home rather obnoxiously at the church I attend.

So what is predestination? Predestination is defined as God "freely and unchangeably ordaining whatsoever comes to pass and the belief that God appointed the eternal destiny of some to salvation by grace, while leaving the remainder to receive eternal damnation for all their sins, even their original sin." (Calvinistcorner.com)

In other words, God is in control of everything, and as such, He chose some people to come to salvation and others He did not. If you're not of the "elect" (God's chosen people) then you're a member of the "reprobate" and basically just crap outta' luck.

Sound unfair? Yeah, we'll get to that too.

Needless to say a TON of people really don't agree with this notion.

At all.

Now when I first heard about it, I flipped out. Seriously I hated the thought of it and I rejected it outright. However it took the patience and reasoning of a youth pastor with a fine head of hair to help me legitimately understand this strange paradox in my faith.

But I'm getting ahead of myself I'll explain my stance on this later.

There are many different schools of thought in modern Christianity, but there are two very prevalent parties responsible for my headaches and they call themselves "Calvinists" and Wesleyans".

Calvinists follow the doctrines of a man named John Calvin.

 

John Calvin

I won't get into his life much beyond the fact that he basically developed an entire doctrine centered on the predestination of the elect.

He (or his followers I don't remember which) created a nifty 5-point list of what was believed true Christianity should be in the form of a nifty little acronym called TULIP and it goes as follows:

Total Depravity (also known as Total Inability and Original Sin)
Unconditional Election
Limited Atonement (also known as Particular Atonement)
Irresistible Grace
Perseverance of the Saints (also known as Once Saved Always Saved)

Now one of his contemporaries later on was a man named John Wesley...for some reason people back then loved naming their kids John I guess.

John Wesley

John Wesley was born well after Calvin had died but he studied Calvin's work and like many others, really disagreed with his views.

Now Wesley was not one for acronyms and apparently his followers weren't either because there are no lists of doctrines to be found from them. So in order to solidify their beliefs I'll just explain it simply:

Everything that Calvin and TULIP preached, Wesleyans believe the opposite.

Fundamentally they believe that humanity is depraved as Calvinists do, but that God calls all humanity to Him and that it is our job to accept His gift of salvation.

So basically they really harp on the free will of man as opposed to the complete control that is advocated by Calvinists.

However this argument branches far far back before these two began squabbling vicariously through their followers.

Let's go way back in time to understand where this entire argument came from.

In the Old Testament of the bible, there were two different schools of thought. These two schools over time took on the names "Pharisees" and "Sadducees".

They agreed on virtually nothing.

However one of the largest disagreements they had was over the topic of specific election of God's people. I.E. they fought over Predestination.

Sound familiar?

Needless to say this has lingered on and somehow managed to split the church in two all the way up to modern Christianity.

So now that I've brought you up to speed I'll lend a machete to this theological thicket.

The reason why both of these arguments have lasted for thousands of years is because both are grounded firmly in different parts of scripture.

Calvinism at its essence is founded on Romans 9:14 when it is stated "“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

There's way more to it than that but for brevity I'll just use that to start.

Other verses in the bible more than support the doctrine of the elect and big favorites to throw out in fights are:

John 6:44 "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day...Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me."

Romans 9:18 "Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden."
 

Romans 8:21-30 " For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified."

So basically by scripture alone it would seem that Calvin was right. I mean, we can't fight with scripture right?

Well...here's where it gets crazy: The bible supports Welsey's claims as well.

Wesley's main argument is based in 1 John 5:1 when John writes:

"Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him."

Others that Wesleyans enjoy using are:

1 Timothy 2:3-6 "This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.  For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. "

Matthew 11:28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

2 Peter 3:9 "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

And of course the token verse John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

So I'm betting you're pretty confused about now huh? Yeah I was too. But I'm sure you see now why both schools of thought have persisted through the years.

But now for my stance.

Whenever anyone asks me "So Jeremy, do you believe in free will or the predestination of the elect?"

My answer:

"Yes"

Yep. That's it! I believe in both.

Now before you flip out and accuse me of copping out, let me explain myself.

The reason why I believe both points is because the Bible says both.

The simple truth of the matter is that both Wesley and Calvin were sinful fallen men. Their doctrines were based on human deductions, human logic, and human reasoning. Therefore it is at its very core: flawed.

Now a good Calvinist will go out of his way to explain that all of the verses used to support free will are to be taken in context to predestination. And a good Wesleyan will go out of his way to explain that all the verses used to support predestination are either mistranslated or to be used in context to God's foreknowledge.

But as I see it...I'm really tired of making excuses for the bible.

Seriously, come on people, why are we so desperate to support a stance built on human reasoning that we are willing to negate the very Word of God that is supposed to transcend human claims?

I'll offer up a reason: pride.

We as humans being the annoying squishy meatbags that we are always strive to be God. We hate the thought of not being in control or perhaps not completely understanding something written in the bible.

For us it's not so much academic as it is us refusing to admit that God is unknowable because He is God and we are human. He is infinite, we are finite. It's really not a stretch to assume that there are things in God's word that we won't understand on this side of eternity.

For example: How is Jesus fully man and fully God? If God made man in His image, how could Adam sin? Did evil create Satan or did Lucifer create it when he rebelled?

All these questions, completely unknowable to our minds.

When I see Calvinists and Wesleyans fighting over this matter, I literally see children fighting over matters far beyond their reasoning. The simple truth that I've come to peace with, is that the bible says both. So I believe both.

As I said a youth pastor with a fine head of hair helped me to come to terms with this by saying a simple phrase:

"Jeremy, this is biblical fact, God predestined the elect and yet we have 100% free will. Does it make sense? No, but that's okay. God doesn't have to make sense to us."

ouch.

Kinda stings the pride doesn't it?

And finally: My opinion on Wesleyans and Calvinists.

This is where it could get ugly because to be honest, I respect neither. I see the damage that both have caused and how these two stances have literally brought entire ministries to a standstill and I find that I have very little patience for those who try to force their stance on others when to be honest, predestination is a very small issue.

For instance, the bible says we will know men by their fruit, so what about their ministries? Shouldn't we hold a ministry to the results of its existence as well?

So let's examine Wesleyanism:

Ultimately Wesleyans try to put the focus on man's free will. However in doing so they refute other parts of scripture and basically undermining the entire bible by focusing more on man than on God.

By removing God's sovereignty, we then remove the legitimacy of His word.

Nowhere was this more apparent than at my previous college where I literally was told by a professor this:

"If there is a Buddhist who devotes his life to living in the mountains, meditating and eating tofu and never hears about the Lord, I believe he is going to heaven."

I.E. There is more than one way to heaven than just Christ.

I'm sorry but to be perfectly honest...that's heresy.

And yet when we examine our Calvinist counterparts, I see blood on their hands as well.

Later on in John Calvin's life, he ended up being in a leadership position of the church in Geneva. He was so utterly obsessed with predestination at this point, that he literally believed that since God preordained certain people to come to Christ, then we as Christians have the right and the obligation to hate those who are not chosen.

So then he started the Geneva Society where a council would meet and decide if members of their city were of the elect or the reprobate. If you were deemed to be of the reprobate, then you were immediately banished from the city.

Men, women, children, infants. It didn't matter, if they decided you weren't "of the elect" you were banished.

Ultimately this lead to something called "double predestination" where you would be chosen by God to know who was chosen and who was not, and by that extent, God has predetermined your entire destiny and so you have no choice in any matter of your life.

In my opinion, this utterly blasphemes the character of God to say that he preordains the evil we perform on our own free will.

So in summary, the scripture is very clear: We are chosen by God and by that extent, predestined to accept Him.

Yet we also know we have complete free will. Seeing this world in the screwed up state that it's in shows our free will everywhere you look.

What matters most is soul winning and showing the love of Christ. Whether you believe that God chose us, we choose God, or both our mandate stays the same:

We are to minister to the lost and be Christ to the world

That's it. Unless our arguments are about Christ, the Trinity, and God being the King of the universe, then it really isn't very important.

Unfortunately, the more things change, the more they stay the same. I look at the church and in my opinion, one of the most destructive and divisive arguments out there today, is about predestination.

So in short, I disagree with both parties, but I also agree with both. They both have biblical merit, and yet they both have human flaws.

So if you're struggling with this, look into it for yourself! Do the research and come to your own conclusion! Like I said, none of us will go to hell for following Calvinism or Wesleyanism.

And finally, if you're a Wesleyan or Calvinist, I hope you realize I'm not here to change you. I'm fine with your views and as long as you're not militantly trying to force others to believe in your doctrine, then I am totally fine with you.

So this has indeed been quite a long comic hasn't it? lol In case you didn't notice, I had a lot to say about it and I've been tossing this around in my head for quite some time.

So in my traditional ending I'll say this: go do your own research, make your own opinions, sip some green tea and watch some Victorious! :)

Jeremy