First of all i just freaking out a little bit because i just found out cartel, hit the lights, and set your goals are going to be in atlanta april 14, and oh i will be there. its a saturday so its perfect, but i would go if it was a tuesday wednesday whatever day. ahhh im so excited. 

next, some life advice to myself:

Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body. Smoking causes many diseases and reduces the health of smokers in general. -Center for Disease Control and Prevention

Now that those are outta the way, i can begin with a very messy and thought scattered blob of a paragraph on some interesting stuff i learned tonight at crossroads from the mind blowing Greg Pinker…

He talked about how important repentance is. he used Luke 3:1-9 as a reference it was pretty bad ass just to be perfectly honest. First off, John the baptist, before Jesus was born, was telling people about repentance and to prepare their hearts because their savior was coming soon and they needed to be ready. I’ll come back to this later or I might forget. I’ll try anyways.

You know who when, or if, you’re talking to someone about christianity or just religion in general you just wish you were better equipped with knowledge so you could tell whoever you were talking to the perfect answer so then they could know God? If not, well…that’s exactly how I feel. And I’ve thought for a long time the key to solving that problem was if I went to stuff like crossroads and ruf and church and anything else I could think of so that I could learn more about christianity and then I would have a better understanding of it as a whole and my faith with it, leading me to what I wanted: to be able to talk to people about Jesus and christianity and have a better response to their questions then, uhh maybe you should ask someone else that question. But what Greg was saying tonight is that the error or well not error, but the barrier to knowing and loving Christ is not informational. Rather, it is the fact that people’s heart are crooked towards sin. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. John 3:19 (not the ever so popular John 3:16)

C.S Lewis says in Mere Christianity when he was an atheist…”My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.” He talks more and makes a really cool point but I won’t go into that. Maybe I will later, for future reference to myself its on page 38.

Anyways, our hearts are crooked towards sin, and Jesus said it himself that we are slaves to sin. Another question that Greg addressed one that I think some people use to try to undermine the existence of God, but I’ve never been content with an answer I’ve received. It’s, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” and sad truth is there are no good people. We (I) boost oursleves and others up for being “good” and doing good things for others and being involved in religious activity and so on but the thing that so many people, including me, forget is that we have ALL fallen. We are all fucking awful yet we somehow find good in ourselves. We’re blind to our own sin, another thing that goes along with how our hearts are bent towards sin. We’re so crooked we don’t even realize it most times. We are all stained with sin and we aren’t capable of loving God by ourselves. I mean, how sad is that? We are so bad, we can recognize Who God is and what He’s done for us, yet we still fall back to our worldly beliefs constantly. We need God so that we can love God. it’s pathetic, but it’s how much grace he’s given us. We’re told what to do so often and we just can’t seem to get it stuck in our heads…From then on Jesus began to preach, “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near. Matthew 4:17. 

The point to this is that there is no such thing a repent-less christian. It’s a hugely overlooked aspect that christian culture ignores, maybe not ignores but doesn’t focus on. The typical gospel message these days is something like, you’re messed up, but God saved you, and he wants you to be awesome, and you want you to be awesome, so accept God and be awesome. WRONG. mostly. If someone was to go around campus and ask everyone how they know they’re saved, according to Greg, most of them would say something along the lines of, well I was raised in a christian environment and accepted God at church camp. I prayed a sinner’s prayer and learned about the gospel and believe in Jesus. Obviously, knowing Jesus is not a bad thing, but there is such a depth that people are missing. It’s not just knowing Him. We HAVE to repent and understand that our flesh fucking blows and the spirt is AMAZING. The most miserable people on earth, well what we’re told, are the people who don’t know Jesus. And I’ve always been like, yeah that makes sense, but it really doesn’t. If you don’t know Christ, that sucks, but at the same time, you don’t have any guilt, responsibility, or shame. You’re kinda just along for the ride and not trying to piss people off. In reality, the people who are true christians that screw up and go back to their worldly views and actions are the most miserable. For instance, the people who knew Christ and were “good” in high school come to college and just right off the bat embrace the “college life” would never admit it, but they know how empty they feel. They are openly rebellious, but the thing is they know they’re wrong, and they’re void. Not to say they can’t find their way back, oooh which gives me the oppurtunity to use C.S. Lewis again, actually Georganna used this point on her tumblr post today, i think.Yep. 

“We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be…

…And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”

Just a cool add on…for the win. I don’t know I just feel like if I can ever apply C.S. Lewis my argument is valid.

But once we’re converted, we should be able to see how terrible and repulsive we are and how wonderful God is! I mean, if you ARE truly converted, I wouldn’t think it possible to go back to worldly views. Luke 3: 4-6

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,

‘Prepare the way for the Lord,

   make straight paths for him.

5 Every valley shall be filled in,

   every mountain and hill made low.

The crooked roads shall become straight,

   the rough ways smooth.

6 And all people will see God’s salvation.

I have to reject my thinking of self-rightousness and trying to build myself up to make myself feel better because the FUCKING TRUTH is that it doesn’t matter how fucked up I am, I’m clean. And that makes it all so much more amazing. When I’m in my good spiritual states, it doesn’t matter, it makes me happy yeah but I shouldn’t put any real value in it or give myself any credit for it. Because it’s a gift from God in the first place and that is where glory should be given! Repent! Our external everything is meaningless. However good we think we are, others are, whatever, unless the crookedness is our heart is made straight, it’s all worthless. That is why salvation is not through good works and a high self esteem, but rather seeing how desperate we really are. “The heart is the heart of the matter.” Do not be deceived by religious activity. It’s great and all, but no matter how involved I might be, it won’t matter unless it’s coming from the right place and with the right motives. Do I know that the grace of God has saved me rather than myself? 

Luke 3:9

“The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

Ahh music high…ok, i’ll do my calculus homework.