Author: pastortoney

As a child I watched a lot of cartoons.  I was like most kids I am sure.  Never would I think that they would have an impact on my life, much less help me understand the Bible.  I watched cartoons like Roadrunner and the Coyote.  I look at that and realize that we will eventually pay for everything that we do.  Nothing goes unanswered for.  My favorite cartoon and the one that has taught me the most was one called Voltron.  It was a cartoon that had five robotic lions.  These lions were super cool and could do all kinds of things by themselves.  Like one could go deep into the ocean, while one could go into volcanoes.  Individually these lions accomplished a lot, but when they worked together they would form a mega robot called Voltron.  You see two would become the arms, while two became the legs and the final one would form the body.  Together Voltron could defeat anyone.  I loved that cartoon.  As I sit back and think about that it reminds me of what the Apostle Paul says about the church.  He called some of us hands, feet, and other parts of the same body with Jesus being the head of that body.  When we come together there is nothing that can stop the body.  It is not to say that problems or swaddles don’t come up, they did in Voltron.  What I remember about them is what we need to remember about our body.  Without all five lions Voltron could not form and accomplish what was needed.  Our body is the same, it takes all parts to make us productive.

All over the world we see crazy things happening.  We all make statements like it is the way people were raised, its the people they hang out with or the place that they live.  There is ways some type of blame that we try to put on others.  Now what I am about to say is going to upset most of you that are reading this.  Some of you will just say that I have completely fallen off my rocker.  Some might say that you knew I would finally show my true colors.  Some others might say who does he think he is or how dare he say that.  Let me say just say that this isn’t my opinion.  But the blame lies squarely on our shoulders.  Whose shoulders you might be saying, the Church.  There I said it, get mad quit reading, call me, email me.  I said it, the Church is who gets the blame for all the crazy stuff going on.  We the believers have sat back and watched the world implode.  The Bible is clear whose fault it is.  The world lives the way a natural man lives.  They are lost and do what lost people do.  It is called sin.  Now I’m not saying that we don’t sin, but what I am saying is that God has left us instructions on how to live and how to behave.  We have just boarded ourselves up in our ivory towers and refused to go out and share the news with the world.  So you see the problems in schools with kids, the problems in the streets with adults, the problem in homes with parents are all the fault of the Church.  As Nehemiah says in the first chapter of his book, It is I and my father’s house that have sinned against you, understand that I am saying that we know how to act and what to do.  If we know how to act or behave and don’t share it with others then we don’t get to sit back and point fingers when they do things that we know they shouldn’t do.  Let’s take responsibility and share what God has taught us.

It is so easy for me to want to look down at people or even accuse people of things.  We all I think have this trait inside us.  We see people who maybe down on their luck and instantly want to make harsh judgements about how or why they are that way.  Maybe you see someone in a store that has tattoos all over or piercings and we tend to drift away from that person because of some preconceived fear.  How in the world can we get better at this?  I didn’t say how do we get to where we won’t ever do that.  We can begin to fix our tendencies when we begin to look at people as what they really are……. God’s creation in a fallen state of sin.  You see the way we do that is we actually spend time looking in the mirror.  When we realize that we are exactly the same as that homeless person or the gothic that was in the store our view of them will change.  I am careful to say that we can begin to work on changing that behavior not rid ourselves of it forever.  We all have a tendency to do the things we don’t want to.  Jesus hung out with the people in his day that would be just like the ones we tend to quickly judge or stay away from.  You see Jesus has the ability to see their hearts where we don’t have the same ability.  For us it has to be that we realize that we are exactly the same as they are, and the difference in our lives now is the Grace of God.  I want us all to know that we have a chance to watch people transformed from the inside out.  You have a special gift that can be shared…….the gift of Jesus, the gift of Hope, the gift of Love.  Let us all this day begin to look at people through the glasses of the Gospel and take the worldly glasses off.

I have watched the videos and see all the posts about the gorilla and the boy incident.  We all know what we believe to be the facts and different opinions have formed.  I came in this afternoon and my son was repeating how sad it was that the gorilla was shot.  He said the four year old made his choice and that was that.  Obviously he was repeating what was heard at school from the adults or children there.  The whole situation is sad I agree.  We have a boy who was curious and fell into a life threatening situation, a mom who will forever blame herself (although accidents happen) and zoo officials who no doubt made a hard call.  The right call might I add.  Let me say to all of those out there that are outraged over the shooting of the gorilla, Your not related to it get over it.  Why don’t we get mad about the unborn babies, or the children that are abused in this country.  There are over 150,000 abortions worldwide daily or if you can’t wrap your mind around that just the 3,000 abortions in America daily.  There were 1,520 kids that died last year to child abuse, but I haven’t seen the protests over that.  Instead we get mad over an animal and act like they shot your uncle.  The Bible says in the Book of Genesis that you were formed in God’s image.(not a monkey or gorilla)  I have heard it said that you might of had relatives hang from their necks but never one from their tale.  When  did we as a country begin to value an animal more than a human life (even an endangered one).Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. Genesis 2:7 ESV.