Katie’s Blog!

I apologize for taking so long to post again, especially after my rant in the last one …

One of my friends was talking to me the other day about Hebrews 11.  She, along with a couple of other people are memorizing the chapter.  Hebrews 11 is “The Faith Chapter.”  It talks about faith, and the heroes of faith, such as Abraham and Joshua. 

“By faith these people overthrew kingdoms, ruled with justice, and received what God had promised them.” (Verse 33)

“But others trusted God and were tortured, preferring to die rather than turn from God and be free.  They placed their hope in the resurrection to a better life.”  (Verse 35)

For me, this refutes the “prosperity message” that a lot of churches are preaching.  Some people have prosperous lives, and some people have hard, sometimes unbearable lives.  It has nothing to do with your spirituality or your FAITH.   If you are not prosperous, it does not mean you are lacking in faith.  If you are prosperous, it also does not mean you are lacking in faith (some people preach the opposite of the prosperity message).   We do not know why good things happen or bad things happen.  Only God knows.  But God is sovereign, and God’s purpose is always at the forefront.  We cannot know the effects of what goes on, but we can know that God is God.  In Exodus 3, when Abraham asked God who he should say sent him, God says, “I will be who I will be.”  

Let me expound:  God has appeared to Abraham in a burning bush.  God told Abraham to deliver the Israelites.  Abraham has to go tell the Israelites what God has told him, and he has to tell them who sent him.  So, Abraham asks God, “Who should I say sent me?”  God replies:  ”I will be who I will be, and thus you should say to the sons of Israel, ‘I will be sent me to you.’”   This passage is often translated, “I am that I am…I am sent me to you.”  However, in my extensive study of the Hebrew language (haha!), I learned that the verb used here is in the imperfect tense, which in Hebrew is best translated as future tense.  Therefore, God is not only saying that He is the “I AM,”  but God is telling the Israelites, the He will be what tomorrow demands, God will be everything that they need.  

This leads me to another thought I had recently.  God is holy, and perfect.  God IS everything that I need.  However, this leads me to recall the people who say that God is merely an ideal being that we imagine to be everything we need or want.  For a brief moment this week, I thought, “Is God just something I believe because it is nice to believe?”  And then I remembered two things:  (1.) I have experienced God, and God’s faithfulness.   (2.)  This is where FAITH comes into play.  What is faith, if not believing what cannot be proven?  

Ok, back to Hebrews.  Chapter 11 is the faith chapter.  It tells me what faith is, and about the faith of the saints.  But chapters 12 and 13 tell me how to live in faith.  

• Strip off everything that hinders you, esp. sin.  (12:1)
• Keep your eyes on Jesus (12:2)
• Think about all the Christ endured – what you are going through doesn’t even compare. (12:3)
• Learn from God’s discipline.  (12:5-11)
• Let your endurance of God’s discipline be an example for others:   “Afterward there will be a quiet harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way” (12:11)
• This quiet harvest means that you will not always be aware of the impact you are having, and you will not get recognition for it (at least not on earth).
• “So take a new grip with your tired hands and stand firm on your shaky leg.  Mark out a straight path for your feet.”  (12:12-13)
• “Try to live in peace with everyone”  (12:14a)
• “Seek to live a clean and holy life”  (12:14b)
• “Look out for each other”  (12:15a)
• “Watch out that no bitter root of unbelief rises up among you”  (12:15b)
• “See to it that you OBEY God” (12:23)
• In order to obey God, you have to first listen to God  
• “Let us be thankful and please God by worshiping him with holy fear and awe.”  (12:28)
• “Love each other with true Christian love” (13:1)
• “Show hospitality to strangers”  (13:2)
• (hospitality to those you know and love should be a given)
• “Share the sorrow of those being mistreated, as though you feel their pain in your own bodies” (13:3)
• “Give honor to marriage” (13:4)
• “Stay away from the love of money; be satisfied with what you have” (13:5)
• Continually offer your sacrifice of praise to God by proclaiming the glory of his name. (13:15)
• “Don’t forget to do good” (13:16a)
• “Share what you have with those in need” (13:16b)
• “Obey your spiritual leaders and do what they say”  (13:17)
• Let me point out, that as spiritual leaders, they are accountable to God – not to you.  ((This is really hard for me sometimes.))
• Also, we are also spiritual leaders and we are also accountable to God.  Let’s take this into consideration when we are judging our leaders.  

How it went down:

So, I was watching some T.V. this morning, and I saw this commercial.  I had never seen this commercial, nor heard the slogan.  Let’s just say I won’t be eating at Taco Bell again.  

“Eat Like A Man,”  is what Adam Carolla told me, through the T.V.  (I had no idea who Adam Carolla was until I got mad and Googled the commercial…)   Why would I want to “eat like a man?”  Why would it be better to eat like a man?  And, what exactly, does that entail?   Apparently, eating like a “man” means eating a Big Bell Box meal at TB.   

Conclusions:

• This commercial is chauvinistic and discriminatory.  
• This commercial encourages eating disorders:

                       a.)  It encourages obesity – but only in men.

                                 –It tells the audience:  Men eat a lot, and if

                                 you don’t eat a lot, you are not truly a

                                 “man”

                       b.) It encourages anorexia — but only in women

                                –It tells the audience:  Women should not

                              buy this meal, as women should be skin and

                              bones, just like the magazines.  

• This commercial has resulted in the loss of my business for ANY Taco Bell.  

Moral of the story:  

Don’t tell me to eat like a man if you want to be my friend, much less if you want me to buy something from you.

Well, here I am!  I am where I never thought I would be:  posting my thoughts for all to see.  Although I will rarely tell you anything personal, you may occasionally get a glimpse of my heart and mind.  So, please be careful with it -and use what you learn wisely  

Why am I joining the world of blogging?  Well, last week I had a lot of somewhat random thoughts that I would have loved to flesh out in writing, but it just did not seem sufficient to write them in my own journal, for my eyes only.  Why shouldn’t I share what I am learning?  

There you have it – my first and not-so-interesting blog.  

Talk to you soon,

Katie