My own sermon

I have come across an idea lately that I would like to extrapolate. This thought is that most people tend to and like to create an image of God/Christ of their own imagination. This dully leads to being “let down” or disappointed when He does not live up to that standard. Up till just a little while ago, I didn’t realize that even I did this. I tended to see Him as more of an always-forgiving and always-blessing God. Yet, when I looked around me, I saw so many disasters, deaths, sadness, crimes, suicides, poverty, hunger etc. The list just goes on. Every day, when I hear about this kind of stuff happening, it is so difficult not to turn around to God and say, “Why did you let that happen? You are all powerful and all knowing. You *knew* that was going to happen…why did you just sit back and let it happen? You could have stopped it!” He had let me down! You didn’t live up to my standards! After reading that, I dare you to step back and really look at it. What is the first word that comes to mind after rereading what I just said? For me, I’d say that the first word that *should* come to mind, is selfish. Am I right? The chief thing that I see as I look around me and the thing that completely blows me away, is that the fact that Christianity has be come so incredibly selfish! And I mean this. Now that I have come alive to this fact, it is jumping out and showing itself to me every 5 minutes…no joke. Here we are, we live our lives Corum Deo (before the face of God). This in mind, how can we live Corum Deo selfishly?? How can we live with ourselves acting selfishly every day with God right there with us? My pastor, when preaching will often as a question or ask us to fill in a blank. Often, nobody gets it at first until he gives hints. The answer usually tens to be pretty simple and he will say, “See? Pastor doesn’t ask hard questions.” And normally, he’s right! I think that it is us, feeling so self-righteous and thinking so logically about the question, that we often overlook the simple. We over-think it, because we are assured that we being so incredibly smart as we are, could surely get the answer right if we only wrack our brains hard enough. This leads to one 1) getting it wrong or 2) being clueless. It is about me…myself. Self…how unchristian-like it truly is to think about the self. I can only think of a very limited number of times where we should think at all about ourselves. 1) To look at ourselves to see if we are truly living out the Christian life. 2) To take care of our bodies and treat them like temples of God. 3) To see if we are striving in everything to glorify God (this is connected to #1). There are other reasons to look and focus on ones self, but these are the ones I could come up with off the top of my head. It is so “depressing” to think about how selfish I am. It will take so much and be so long, before I can begin on the road of thinking unselfishly. I say “depressing” (in quotations) because I know that at the same time of being depressed about it, God has promised to always be there to help and to heal, He will always forgive me, and He will always love me. So although it will be hard, He will be there every step of the way.

Another point that has really come across to me is that I don’t like to submit. At the wedding I attended the other day, the pastor doing the service talked about the husband/wife roles needed in marriage. A wife is to submit to her husband *in everything* (except when he commands her to go against God or the Bible). Ok, so I don’t like to submit period, let alone in everything. A wife’s submission is not to be dependant upon her husband’s amount of love. So if he doesn’t love her at all, if he is rude, ungentlemanly, gone, etc. she is still to submit to him and love him as God commands. Now, this being said, the husband is not to be a tyrant. He is not to take the wife’s submission and use it as a means to rule over her. He is to be the head of the house, but she is to be his second in command. His advisor and his chief consultant. In essence…his helpmeet. She is to be there always with support and love and respect. She is to back him up on whatever he chooses. He makes the ultimate decision. He is to judge fairly, and with equality in every possible situation. When at this wedding, it really came across to me that if I had to marry tomorrow, I wouldn’t be ready. I couldn’t submit to a man in every instance of every day. I don’t like to admit that I’m wrong, and I am very stubborn. I am so proud that I am so stubborn that I can win any argument. This is wrong. I need to, at this point, truly learn what a young woman’s role in life is to be. Yes, sure, I’ve heard it over and over again, and read so many girly books about what godly young women are to do in the time in which we live, but I think that I really need to begin my journey into the heart of this subject. I have prided myself in knowing lately, that I can run a household well. I can clean, cook, etc. but can I really be a helpmeet? True, I am only 14 (almost 15), and it’s probably going to be a while until I need the helpmeet skills, but that is not a good enough reason to be stubborn and proud of it. It has been said before that submission shows how strong you are. If you are arguing and you don’t want to give up, your pride is too great. To submit in that situation, shows that you are truly strong. A wife is under her husband because God has set it up that way. “To the woman He said: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain you shall bring forth children: Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” Genesis 3:16. A husband is to rule over his wife, because the first woman caused her husband to fall. This was God’s curse for her. God’s curse for him was that he would have to work and work hard. I believe that in this day and age, we are getting so far away from godly man and woman roles. Men are become so much more feminine and women are getting manlier. You are finding more women in the public, working hard, which was for men to do. You see men, who don’t know the meaning of gentleman. We need people, both men and women, to know how to stand up and prove to the world that we can live with men who are manly and women who are feminine. So, this week, I am going to try to 1) think unselfishly and 2) submit especially to my father and brother (fathers and brothers in Christ as well).