December 14th, 2012. Will this be the day that you see and become change?

Hey wonderful internet world. 

I am not going to lie to you, todays blog post is going to be very Christ centred and very well might make you angry if you don't share my views. I will also say that even if you don't share my faith, I would highly recommend that you read it anyways, and leave me a comment with your own thoughts. 

Today. December 14th 2012. Today, everything changed in many lives. Everything. Today hearts broke, and families were ripped apart. Children were killed. Innocent blood was brutally shed. Today was a day that breaks my heart. Today is a day that God is grieving for the state of humanity. 

After waking up and hearing the news today, I updated my status on facebook. This is what I said: 

The question is not 'where is God in this?', The question we should be asking ourselves is 'why are we not following God?' He has already come, he has already won. That is what we are currently celebrating. Jesus' birth, because his birth eventually lead him to the cross. for us. for me. for you. The real question is why are we choosing to follow senseless destruction instead of Jesus, the one who

 conquered evil over 2000 years ago. We need to stand up, and stop giving into the sin and brokenness around us and realise that Jesus is the answer. So I call you to really think about what you are celebrating this christmas. I call you to sit down and read a bible and actually take a minute to think about the implications. I challenge you to be the person that God created you to be.

This status update got some flack from a friend of mine from highschool. She doesn't believe in God, and she got highly offended in the way that it was phrased. Her response to me was this:

So all those children died today because there just wasn't enough Jesus in their hearts? Or maybe it was their parents who didn't have enough faith. Oh well, they best not give into despair from the loss of their babies because that's a sin. Wouldn't want to push God any further away than he already is!

Everyone has a right to their own personal beliefs, but when people shove them in the faces of others and attempt to justify what is sick and twisted in this world by blaming innocent people who simply haven't subscribed to YOUR belief, well that's just lazy. The problems of humanity are that of humanity alone and personal belief should be just that, personal.

Today's blog post is going to respond to what was said in this comment. I think that the way that my friend reacted is a very standard reaction of someone who does not know the gospel and the message that Jesus came to give. I think that societies standard reaction to anything we don't agree with is selifishness and narcissism.  To be fair, I don't think that the person who wrote it is a bad person, on the contrary, I believe her to be a very nice, well educated, polite person. In fact, upon reading her response I got angry and immediately wanted to defend myself and my status. In short, my immediate reaction was to be selfish and narcissistic. 

That, is part of the problem that I outlined in my original status. The status I posted was NOT saying that the children that died or were injured in todays tragedies deserved to die, or deserved to be punished. I said that the sin and brokenness in this world created this problem. The shooter in the states and the man with the knife in China are byproduct of a society were narcissism rules our daily lives. Sin rules us more effectively than anything else. 

The perpetrators of todays crimes were groomed and made to be the way they are today by society. By sin. By brokenness. Because what happened in those schools today was certainly NOT of God's doing. Jesus was born, raised, and then carried the cross to the place where he finally died for our sins. For the sins of you, me, the men in todays crimes, the victims in todays crimes, and for every single other human being who takes a breath on this earth. He gave us a way to turn away from this crap. This senseless violence. He took all of that upon himself so that we could know what love, grace, mercy, peace, happiness, comfort and redemption is. None of those things were shown today. None of those things are shown in my life, in yours, or in anyone elses life on a daily basis. 

So in that status, and right this moment I challenge you to pick up your cross and join me. I challenge you to learn who and what God is and not to let the warped views of society tell you who God is. I challenge you to show grace instead of vengeance today, tomorrow and the next day. I challenge you to join me in the revolution that Christ calls us to. I challenge you to be the body of Christ. To stop this ridiculous violence and instead turn to one another in love.  I challenge you to take what happened to those children today and see that that is NOT what God had for them, for me, or for you. I challenge you. YOU. So what will you do?