Cool Beans

OK, so I read the short piece on the Baseball Glove and it got me thinking.

Good.  Thinking is good.

Good.

What were you thinking?

How do I respond to my salvation?  How do I respond to this wonderful gift?

That is asking, what must I do to be a disciple of Jesus?

Yes!  Exactly!  What must I do to follow Jesus?

Realizing that you can’t earn your salvation:  It is 100% a gift from God.

Yes, but wanting with all of my heart to love him back.

That, my friend, is discipleship.  Our very lives constitute our reply of, “Thank you, Lord!”

This is what is meant by work out your salvation…

With fear and trembling.

It is the most important that we do after receiving this fantastic gift of God’s love that we call salvation.

Yes!

But fear and trembling?

Let’s try giving it the consideration of the most important thing you will do today.

So everything that I do with my life from this point forward is important.

It is your response, your thank you, your I love you back to God.

Discipleship?

Yes, discipleship!

Now that’s just, well, cool beans.

Cool beans?  OK, I can see that.  We get a lot of latitude in responding to God’s love that we know in Jesus.   Then cool beans it is.

Cool beans it is.

I have decided to follow Jesus.

That’s cool beans.

Want more like this?  Try The Conversation.

A word in favor of religious extremism

Today if you want to be considered a bona fide American, you must condemn religious extremism.  I say let’s embrace it; especially in the case of Christians.

The Muslims that are bombing innocents are not extremists, not radicals, and not really doing anything on God’s behalf.  They are criminals.  They are outlaws.  They are cowards hiding their cowardice behind religious mantra.

Cowards!

I don’t like cowards.  I don’t keep company with cowards.  If they want to try their cowardice in this part of the country they will be introduced to a quasi-religious sect known as rednecks.  If you are dressed in black with a hood and sporting an AK-47 in these parts, you are likely to end up shot and nailed to a fence post.

Enough about cowards.  This is about religious extremism and why I am for it.  The last command that Jesus gave his disciples before he went to Gethsemane and the cross was to love one another.

In fact he told his disciples that they were to love one another as much as he loved them, and he loved them with his very life—giving it to us all as an atoning sacrifice for our sin.

The old command was to love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.  This new command raised the bar even higher.  We were to love as much as Christ loved us.

That’s a tall order.  That takes commitment.  If we loved one another that much, the world would label us extremists. 

I could live with that label.

If you were accused of following Jesus, would there be enough evidence to convict you?