I Love This Guy

Alright, I've always been a snob. I still am, but I slowly work against it. Every few months or years I realize that I've given up another snobbish ideal. In 2003 I admitted my enjoyment of Top Gun. 2004 saw me occasionally buying frozen Red Baron pizzas... Recently, I was loaned a copy of "The Message." For those of you like me a month ago, "The Message" is the Bible translated into contemporary language. I'm not going to accept it over the translations I've always used; it does lack some of the depth and carries a stronger personal view than a norman translation. But, for a different and perhaps needed view that these books were real letters and accounts... I can now accept that and even enjoy it.

I've been through Colossians a couple times and am now looking overe Galations. I've always known Paul to be a strong sort of man. He must have been to take the message where he did. He confronted, denounced, and loved believers of other gods and even took Peter to task a time or two. This was not a wishy washy man. This translation has given me another insight into him. I can now see this character directly in his writings.

I love his beginning in Galations. He is writing to a fairly new church that has started changing its message and adding restrictions back into Christ's freedom.

Partway into chapter one finds Paul saying "I can't believe your fickleness -- how easily you have turned traitor to him who called you by the grace of Christ by embracing a variant message! ... Those who are provoking this agitation among you are turning the Message of Christ on its head. Let me be blunt."

I love that! He calls the church "fickle" a "traitor," accuses them of turning Christ's message upside down, and then warns them that he will now be BLUNT. Yes!!!

"Let me be blunt. If one of us -- even an angel from heaven!-- were to preach something other than what we preached originally, let him be cursed. I said it once; I'll say it again; If anyone, regardless of reputation or credentials, preaches something other than what you received originally, let him be cursed."

Wow. This is what I've always thought in my heart was meant by a Warrior for Christ. My heart has always yearned personally to be something like this, but for some reason, I've never really seen the New Testament characters in this light. Bumbling deciples, yes. Teachers and guides, yes. But not plain spoken, no holds barred for the Truth, lovers of Christ and His people. I have no idea how many of you have already had a realization like this, maybe its a common step that I've just now managed, but this is the type of life that I am pulled to live. Skip the justifications and rationalizations. I do those in my sleep.

"We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less. That's what I'm working so hard at day after day, year after year, doing my best with the energy God so generously gives me." End of Colossions chapter 1.