the beginning.

so i have always (secretly) thought blogs were a little silly, but recently started really enjoying reading other peoples' blogs, weird I know.
Since the summer is long, I thought I might as well try it out.
I feel like the experience of expressing myself somewhere will be something new and fresh.

I'm reading one of Steve Brown's books "What Was I Thinking?" which I am loving because he always puts into words the things I am feeling...

"Some of the meanest, most condemning, angriest, and hardest people I know are people who call themselves Christians. Not only that. Some of the kindest, most compassionate, and most loving people I know don't claim to have made any kind of faith commitment. In fact, you'll find both kids of people inside and outside of faith communities.

So what's the difference? The difference is that the Christians have run to Jesus, and he's accepted and loved them. That's it. Are they getting better? Well, at least in that they know what "getting better" is. Sometimes they are better. Sometimes they're not better. And sometimes we don't know that they're better simply because they were so bad in the first place that they had a long way to go before anybody could tell the difference. Some who ran to Jesus are better than unbelievers, and some are worse. Some are so beaten up that all they can do is be still and allow God to love them. And then there are others who've been loved long enough that they can now love others. The difference is Jesus...

Goodness as defined by Jesus is quite difference from what we might suppose. Usually those who are good don't know it, and others don't know it either because 'Goodness' is a thing that takes place inside a person and has more to do with an attitude of love and graciousness than it does with obeying the rules. Sometimes the meanest, least godly people obey the rules. And sometimes the people of whom Jesus seems most fond have the hardest time getting it right. In the Bible, the people who obeyed the rules better than anybody else were, I would remind you, the very ones who ticked Jesus off the most" (119-120).