{"id":2343,"date":"2013-06-29T12:44:32","date_gmt":"2013-06-29T16:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=2343"},"modified":"2013-06-29T12:44:32","modified_gmt":"2013-06-29T16:44:32","slug":"what-following-christ-isnt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=2343","title":{"rendered":"What Following Christ Isn’t"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Lord; Happy Saturday Father!<\/p>\n

I think to a great extent, we\u2019re missing it\u2026 Aren\u2019t we Lord?<\/p>\n

As I sat and enjoyed my morning coffee while perusing the newest status posts on my Facebook News Feed today, I found myself thinking back over the past few weeks\u2019 events and contemplating\u2026<\/p>\n

Are we as Christians Lord, as followers of Christ, truly striving to live by the example and teachings You gave us?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

And as I read through Your Word over and over Lord, it becomes more and more apparent to me what being a follower of Yours isn\u2019t defined by\u2026<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t about what denomination church we attend.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t about which translation of the Bible we read.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t about our political views.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t about our sexual orientation.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t how many \u201cLikes\u201d we get, or how many people follow our status updates.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t about how many church functions we attend.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t about what music we listen to.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t about what we eat, or whether or not we choose to have a drink with our dinner.<\/p>\n

And it certainly isn\u2019t about casting judgment on the perceived failings and sins of others.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.<\/b><\/p>\n

For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God\u2019s glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.\u201d \u2013 Romans 3:22-24 (NLT)<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We all sin\u2026 We all fall far short of Your perfect example Lord.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

And yet, when I look around I see so much judgment\u2026<\/p>\n

So much anger\u2026<\/p>\n

And so much hate.<\/p>\n

And unfortunately Lord,<\/p>\n

I see some of that when I look inside myself as well.<\/p>\n

So this morning Father, my prayer is simple;<\/p>\n

Open our eyes Lord, and open our hearts.<\/p>\n

Help us to recognize that we are in fact, beings crafted of Your infinite Love;<\/p>\n

That Your desire for us is to show and share that Love,<\/p>\n

And in so doing glorify You.<\/p>\n

For it\u2019s in Your precious name I pray Jesus,<\/p>\n

Amen.<\/p>\n

~Phather Phil<\/p>\nPin It<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Lord; Happy Saturday Father! I think to a great extent, we\u2019re missing it\u2026 Aren\u2019t we Lord? As I sat and enjoyed my morning coffee while perusing the newest status posts on my Facebook News Feed today, I found myself thinking back over the past few weeks\u2019 events and contemplating\u2026 Are we as Christians Lord, […]<\/p>\nPin It<\/a>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[762,3106,321,219,3105,1071,3109,1360,2284,966,2817,269,298,257,3107,3108,3110],"class_list":["post-2343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-anger","tag-bible-translation","tag-christ","tag-church","tag-denomination","tag-emails-to-god","tag-facebook-coffee","tag-followers-of-christ","tag-following-christ","tag-god","tag-hate","tag-jesus","tag-judgment","tag-music","tag-political-views","tag-sexual-orientation","tag-sins-of-others"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Jesus-Covering-Face-Statue-1-Cropped.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-BN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2343"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2346,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343\/revisions\/2346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}