Spread the good news.

When I first became a christian, I was in love with God. It was very feelings based, and I got disappointed a lot when things weren’t perfect. About 3 weeks ago I realized my heart had hardened a bit, which I can tell you happens very slowly and subtly. I think I was sitting in front of my computer, writing about Him or talking about Him with someone (online) and…it felt empty. I believed these things I was saying, truly — I think I had forgotten why.

I’m taking a course on mythology this semester, and it is correctly challenging me. The teacher, Dr. Sutton, was saying,

“yes, drugs are bad when done in extremity — no one’s arguing that. But drugs done in moderation — alcohol, let’s say — is that bad? If you’re extremely thirsty, and someone gives you an eighth of a cup of water, you want more. What if they told you they have a 60 gallon tank of water with them, but you can only drink that if you drink the whole thing in one sitting. You wouldn’t want to drink it, would you?”

He’s a very smart man. Anyway, that got me thinking about why I think drugs are wrong. I’m also trying to get a mission trip together to go to Bonnaroo next June, a place where drugs are prevalent, so this is an important question: why?

I’ve also been listening to this recording of my pastor talking about Revelation for a 15 week series. On one of the latter weeks he mentioned Billy Graham, and how when asked by Larry King, “who’s going to hell?”, he answered, “I’m not the judge of that. Only God can know what’s in people’s hearts.”

And I’ve heard that before, but I never took anything away from it. “Well, yeah,” is what I’d say. But this time was different; I could feel my mind rearranging to the thought: “I don’t have to judge.”

When I first became a christian, I didn’t judge, I made sure not to because I didn’t want to be like “christians”, and all I ever talked about with people was how much God loved them and, what some call “the flowery parts” of christianity. Soon, though, I started getting angry when people wouldn’t change, inwardly, and even though I’ve matured significantly over the past year, I’ve felt the need to condemn people’s actions, and it’s almost been like a weight around my neck, and it ruins relationships.

This was the love that I had forgotten.

Jesus didn’t come to condemn people, Jesus saves people — not a catch phrase; it’s why He died. For love. The answer is not to fix someone’s problems with drugs; although it is a honorable thing, it is not the goal, so why focus on it? The goal is to get them to know Jesus, and once that’s done, Jesus does the fixing.

All of this, however, relies on the person’s willingness to believe they need saving in the first place, and that’s a very personal thing, a thing that you can’t change; a thing that God can.