stop eating cookies

Love the Lord with all your heart, mind and soul and all these things will be added unto you. Why is it we try to give a little bit of us for a lot of God's blessings? We can't expect God to give us something. If the phrase “I'll do this for you if exists” if used in a sentence; I’ll stop eating cookies have you help me with my weight. The simplest answer to that prayer would be God saying “stop eating cookies”. Serving God, heart trusting in Christ is more part of asking God what would you want me to do

Just when you think Lutherans can't get any worse, something like this comes along.

The question is in today's world. What is right and pure? Such things in social media I have seen on pages, statements and feedback from followers created such banter that they only lead to man/sin.

Social media pages like Facebook and Twitter allow people to see other people doings without being exposed or having to share themselves directly, making it easy to take statements and bend them in a way that changes the context of the previous postings.

It also allows people to see your true self by assembling a time line, stitching ourselves together much like rings in a tree, allowing others and ourselves to see the good and bad times and how we dealt with the difficult and good times. With this history of growth we lay out who we are and with who our allegiances are.

Christ did not come into this world to empower followers with the Spirit of God only to have them be immersed in the affairs of the world so deeply that one cannot remove the bile from the chaste. Christ did not reflect man's doings and failures as he walked on the earth. Christ himself was truly a new Adam pure man as God intended man to be before the fall, seeing through God's eye, acting through God's heart and moving through God's body on Earth.

In the past 2000 years since his crucifixion. Christ is seen in the world but by us, the believers and followers of Christ. The Bible says in Matthew 22:39 that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. It says nothing about becoming your neighbor or changing your standards or morality to fit your neighbor. 1 John 2:15-17 tells us not to love anything in the world. John 15:19 tells us that as believers we are not in the world, so the world will not love us.

Baptism what good is it?

Early one Sunday morning a drunkard heard a commotion down by the lake he went down to see what was going on there he found a group of people surrounding a man in black dunking people in headfirst bringing them out and asking them if they have found the Lord. The drunkard is curious he goes down to help. The people see that he is still drunk and think they can help, the man in black grabs him and pushes into the water pulls him up and says have you found the Lord the drunkard says no and then he goes again. This time the preacher is holding him down a little bit longer. He pulls him up and yells have you found the Lord? The drunkard says no, a third time he goes in the preacher pulls them out and says have you found the Lord? This time the drunkard grabs him by the shoulders and says no. Are you sure this is where he went in?  Augustine was so obsessed with baptizing that he mentioned he didn't care how much or what was used to baptize, the element meant nothing. He uses an analogy to prove the point. "If you prick your finger your whole body feels it. It doesn't matter how you baptize as long as you are baptized." Luther using this example states that, but in an emergency, if water wasn't available, you could use beer. A lot of time has passed since Augustine and Luther but it seems people are still complaining and arguing about how much water to use the gifts sprinkled, dipped or dunked, warm water or cold. The church and people argue over the little things but fail in the big things. Both Luther and Augustine agreed that one baptism, whether fully immersed or a drop of water. It was still baptism. It doesn't matter if you're using water or beer. It doesn't matter if you baptize the finger of a baby or push a 600 pound man deep into a pool it's not the amount of water or element that is used is that it is done. When is the best time to be baptized? There are no verses in the Bible that say what time is best an infant or an adult. You may try to use versus like Mark 16:16 where it states he who believes and is baptized will be saved, the other side is Acts 16:31-34 where it says everyone in the household was baptized an argument flies babies don't have faith. But when Mary the mother of Jesus was visiting her cousin, who was pregnant with John the Baptist, the Bible says Luke 1:41 he leapt and she was filled with the spirit even before being born this verse proves babies or the unborn can have faith. The baby is told by his parents that he was baptized and he should be happy with that. If he claims that that baptism doesn't count is he thinking his parents are lying to him? How does he know if these people are even his parents? He was too young to understand but how can a person see himself being born. He has to go by the witnesses of the birth. He believes that his parents are his parents and that he was baptized when they said he was. When he picks up faith and believes it's his baptism is just as fresh and new as it was when he was a baby. When an adult is baptized he proclaims to the church his reason for being baptized that it is his wish to be washed of sin through the water of baptism. The infant is told of baptism that he would walk in faith. The adult is baptized because he is walking in faith. Luther trying to settle this same argument, agreeing that there is no proof in the Bible to time or days after birth to be baptized, or that infants could have faith or not he simply states for the past thousand years. The church has prevailed. Why change something with such weak proof. Why has this argument as too age been so important? The devil would have nothing easier to do than to postpone of baptism. He too would state he who believes and is baptized is saved but what's the rush you need to prove your faith before your baptized. As the person ages and grows. failing in faith it would prove that he has no hope of being saved, so why bother being baptized. The devil is winning and people are moving farther and farther away from faith. Christianity has been watered down and is suffering the ravages of time. Christianity is just another religion of fairy tales. Something you remember around Christmas and Easter, but the rest of the time is to prove Christmas is pagan and Easter is pagan. Today people are being challenged in their faith. The true believers are seen as crackpots kooks or something to laugh at and make jokes. To most who go to church it's simply a formality, something to get done. In todays church the baptism or to be baptized means very little. It's over with in no time at all, but to those who truly believe in baptism. It has held you to the faith realizing that you are drowned in sin allowing for a spiritual birth. To realize that our baptism reminds us of our death and floods us with grace it cannot be done until our body dies, then the true baptism is over.